#conclusion: this is going to kill her. and she's absolutely going to hell for it.

[autism-swagger]

Y'know I really really love that super long FitzSkimmons fic I wrote and posted, but it's a real shame it's only from Simmons perspective, solely because you don't get the joy of reading Fitz's internal monologue go from I should die for what I did to what happened was awful, but ultimately out of my control, and I need to start to try to forgive myself as he slowly begins to heal.

Or Daisy's, which is pretty much just I'M GOING TO HELL I'M GOING TO HELL OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO HELL.

[sunny-knight]

THE INTERMISSION

Analysis - i need to yap about this or im gonna explode

This is by far my absolute favorite moment of this newest episode, Hell- OF THE ENTIRE SHOW. I need every frame of this beautiful feat of animation in my blood stream NOW!!!!!

I KNOW there has got to be at least a little bit of symbolism buried in this sequence that either alludes to things we already know, or foreshadows things to come, and THAT IS WHAT I LIVE FOR.

Disclaimer!

Trigger warnings of the show apply here!

Also keep in mind that I understand a lot of this may be “over-analyzing”, but I really like finding meaning in art even if it wasn’t intentional! So to avoid justifying every claim over and over with that- I'm just gonna say it here and be done with it. I like analyzing media and personally getting something out of it :3

Set Up!

Before analyzing the scene itself, I want to go through and see what it represents as a whole, in reference to the shows format, and for THAT we need to look at episodes 1-4. Every one so far has had a dialogue-less/dialogue minimum scene where some sort of character development takes place.

Examples of that are…

Episode 1: to the track “Your New Home”, we see Pomni accept her new circumstances, its not a dream/nightmare, and she will “never” get out of here. (which is debatable, but still).

Episode 2: to the track “Not Alone” we see Pomni, (again). instead of just accepting her new circumstances, she more comes to an understanding of it. She will not be forgotten, and her life still has meaning.

Episode 3: in the track (Unnamed 😔) with Pomni, (AGAIN) we see she comes to an understanding of the very nature of this world. It’s hard to believe she wont end up abstracted in the end, even if she knows she wont be forgotten. Eventually though, she comes to the conclusion that she can get through this.

Episode 4: to the track “Still Going” we get Gangle! In how she smiles without her happy mask, marking an arc completed to her happy mask breaking troubles. The interpretation that she kills herself at the end still exists- which… isn’t great- and honestly idk how to interpret that in this case. But my point still stands about character growth ☝️

In all of these, the musical sequences mark a sort of resolution to the arc that the entire episode had built up to. Not all of them are entirely positive, but they still show that some sort of lesson has been learned, and a new chapter of their characters development has begun.

…

But then. Episode 5. The musical sequence thats very clearly focused on Caines character…is just. Utter nonsense. It even gets interrupted- it’s in the middle of the episode, he freezes/has some sort of malfunction afterwards, he ends it in the very same place he was before.

That, I find incredibly interesting. Instead of the episode building up to some spesific problem of Caines that he will end the episode improving on, it feels as if the entire show has been leading up to this one MASSIVE issue. (With Gangle and Pomni, we see pieces of their character improve, not one MAIN issue thats the source of every single one of their problems).

But we’re only halfway through the show, so of course, the sequence happens halfway through the episode. It acts more as a checking in with Caine and getting confirmation that aaahhaaaa- HE IS NOT DOING GOOD.

THE INTERMISSION!!!

(Most of the notes will be coming chronologically)

The text “Intermission Time.” , feels like one of the adventure introduction thingies, and while I don't have much to say on the text itself besides it being a lot colder than usual, (possibly more examples of Caine losing his joy and whimsy,) that's just a cool detail I wanted to note. Treating this like an adventure, since this is a sequence all about Caine losing his mind, its only fitting him going insane is it’s own adventure as its quite literally all he knows.

Everyone’s faces in the beginning seem to be their reaction to suddenly being transported from a calming star gazing scene.. to...this. Thats just sort of a fact instead of speculation, BUT IT WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER when considering certain things in other scenes, because the fact that everyone is conscious while unwillingly participating in this “adventure” makes the entire scene feel very unnerving. But that’ll be a repeating factor that will come up later. For now- just keep that in mind.

The part with Caines teeth eating itself makes me immediately think of metaphors involving self destruction, even the A.I. that we deal with in real life, how it eats itself when copying off of things its made that were never correct to begin with.

The neon colors + black and white motif are really pretty stylistically, but since this is entirely Caine point of view/his creation with no one else's influence, it feels like an example of how he sees these people/the world. Black and white, simple, 0 depth. We can already pretty easily infer that from how he handles Zoobles problem in ep 3, I just like how this adds to that.

Before continuing with the visuals- I need to address “the lyrics" here. I like the line "welcome to the digital circus!" turning into "come to the digital circus.”, plus noting the lack of "amazing". They add to Caines forceful nature and insecurities that have been incredibly emphasized lately/in this episode. Lastly, the effect the words have, (how they keep skipping over themselves) is another stylistic choice that has really cool layers to it. It’s fitting for the aesthetic, yes, but it also sounds as if Caine is glitching, like in the “I am such a good b̶̘̮̟̙͋͑̔ō̴̢̹̞̣̽͠s̸͔̳̍̓͐̂s̷̺͚̜̺̑” scene.

Bubble being mixed in with Caines eyes in the dice part…Bubble being as involved as much he is, is odd- and I cant tell what kind of character he’s supposed to be. My current theory is he’s just someone Caine made to not feel as lonely, and in some ways, reflects Caines own emotions/thoughts. Bubble being with Caines eyes somewhat supports that I feel, I just like that it turns into a die though. Symbolizing how random and just- by chance Caines thought process is currently. He’s the very opposite of “calculated”.

(Jax falling into the void followed by Zooble and Gangle is something I feel has more depth that I cant think of… I try to question what they all have in common that Ragatha, Kinger, and Pomni dont…) (Like Gangle and Zooble hate Jax, yeah, but so does Ragatha so why isn’t she involved in that?)

Caine being surrounded by eyes- THIS SHOT MAKES ME FEEL SO MANY EMOTIONS. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY. First lets get the biblical angel imagery out of the way- plus the spotlight bringing up some “going in the cellar” imagery. The multiple eyes being related to the abstractions…Possible abstraction symbolism?? But that isnt the part that gets me. Its’s the fact that if you look REALLLY closely you can see Caine is breathing. This. THIS- Its so hard to catch, and such a subtle detail- BUT THATS THE THING. One of the golden rules of animation is “living things dont remain perfectly still.” He’s A.I…. But he sure as hell acts alive a lot of the time. If you look at Caine from far away, you’ll see nothing but a mindless A.I, but if you look really closely, you’ll see he’s got a lot more too him. He’s alive, just like Gummigoo and the other “intelligent A.I’s”.

(Something about that line by the way. The way Caine uses the word “OTHER” makes me question….What is he talking about? Bubble is said to be a MUCH simpler A.I. than Caine, but the way he says that makes it sound like he and Bubble both are “intelligent A.I.s”… I don’t even know what that means though- intelligent artificial intelligence? Bubble seems far from intelligent- IDK. WE’RE GETTING SIDE TRACKED.)

Pomni and Jax get hit by bowling balls, Ragatha and Gangle get hit by cakes, and Kinger holds up the bowling ball before being THROWN OFF by a black chess piece. I think this all gives some light onto how the others first handled joining the circus. Since all we have for reference so far is Pomni, I can totally see Jax reacting in a similar explosive way. Meanwhile the cake may show how Gangle and Ragatha, (while I can’t imagine they took it WELL) didn’t get hit by the realization like a TRUCK. More like a slow burn (therefore not getting as quickly acclimated to the situation as Pomni has, and Jax is assumed to have.) But then for Kinger…he actually did REALLY WELL! since he came in with his wife! ….and then she abstracted and instead of getting crushed- he just completely fell off. Also this scene is another good example of how aware and- not willing the cast is in this part of the episode, telling from their expressions.

( I debated this also maybe being an example of how Caine views the members? Zooble is excluded because he’s like really mad at them right now? But if thats the case, then I don’t know what Kinger being hit by a black chess piece means.)

The next part has to sort of be digested all at once- Bubble about to bite Pomni, Caine stopping that, holding everyone over his head, then Bubble biting them ALL, and leaving a red trail. The Intermission sequence as a whole is telling us about Caines current mental state of pure decay and insanity, while also reminding us how much power he has over the cast. The scene with him holding them over his head gives a sort of play-things vibe. These 2 purposes/vibes of insanity vs power go hand in hand, where the scary part of them being at the mercy of this guy, is the fact that they're at the mercy of THIS GUY. But where Bubble tries to eat Pomni, Caine stopping that, before Bubble eats them all makes me think its saying that “no matter how much power Caine has, he isn’t immune to the effects of the situation.” Like this is taking a toll on ALL of them and they’ll all be consumed by it if things keep going the way they are. Kinger is the human thats been here the longest and is- crazy- but how is the guy who’s been here since the BEGINNING doing?

The hand scene is SO GREAT. We have 4 hands, before 2 of them squash the other pair, and create 4 more, then descending further into the madness. I feel this could point to the fact that creation and making things out of what Caines already familar with is driving him insane- plus that varsity jacket merch showing the hands being angel wings…something something Caine savior complex

Pomni, Zooble, and Jax all posing feels really off. THIS is the part that throws me for a loop in terms of- bodily atonamy and…morals. They’ve all been worried and confused so far, so posing like their in a music video doesn’t make as much sense. This way, we can easily assume that UHHH Caine is posing them like dolls. Jesus. The point of him having complete and utter control over them just gets worse and worse-

(The mannequin dance just looks cool I have no notes on that)

FINALLY! WOW! We get the scene from the wacky watch website! the “SOS CQD I AM LOSING MY MIND, ALSO HI”. That text always got me because it showed a very uncharacteristic amount of- self awareness from Caine. He is calling for help, is he LOSING his mind. Thats not what we got from him in this episode though, it makes me think that maybe…His situation is similar to Kingers? In the way that there is SOME consciousness buried deep within him that we can maybe reach later in the show? please? I just want him to be happy…

Caine ominously snapping, before showing a clip of Jax’ trauma, then being interrupted MAKES ME THINK HE WOULD HAVE KEPT GOING WITH EVERYONE ELSE IF THAT DIDNT HAPPEN 😭 Thats complete speculation on my part, but thats the first time we ever saw a scene like that in a moment entirely revolving around Caine- where we explore TRAUMA! (especially fucked up because we’ve already established he is fully aware during this part)

(The snap having a cartoon bonk effect is really amusing though, paired with the generic circus/carnival music fills me with so much joy)

…

OVERALL.

The animation is TO DIE FOR. The music SLAPS. IM IN LOVE WITH THE SEQUENCE EVEN WITHOUT ALL THE POTENTIAL HIDDEN MEANING

[hello-nichya-here]

I honestly find it hilarious how people treat Julia like she’s some kind of saint. “Julia is so perfect, Andrew doesn’t deserve her! Poor thing, she’s just a victim! I’m gonna create my ideal OC to replace it and make Andrew suffer!” when in reality, Julia is far from mentally stable.

Let’s be real: she ignored every possible red flag from Andrew when it came to Ashley, only to later act all shocked and start crying. “I hope you and your sister rot in hell” oh, please. 🙄

“But Andrew hid who he really was!” sure, but Julia turned a blind eye to a ton of signs that were right in front of her face. And there were plenty. She absolutely knew. Don’t even try to argue that she didn’t, because she 100% did. Lack of warnings wasn’t the problem.

And to top it off, Julia is way more like Andrew than people like to admit. She’s basically just a slightly more “normal” version of him, but deep down, she pulls the exact same stunt. She ignores the ugly truths when it’s convenient, then turns around and plays the victim card when it suits her.

Me and @dragomer reached that exact conclusion during one of our absurdly long talks about this game. Julia is sympathetic and has plenty of reason to be angry at Andrew and Ashley for, but she's not "innocent."

What she genuinely didn't know: how completely fucking insane and violent both Andrew and Ashley are, and that jealousy has already pushed them to murder, and thus that she'd be putting herself in harms way by dating him. If Ashley had killed her and Andrew either helped or at least allowed it, Julia would not be to blame.

What she absolutely fucking knew because EVERYBODY knew: Her boyfriend was only going out with her because he couldn't screw his sister without being shamed for it publically. If everyone was suddenly cool with incest and Andrew dumped her for Ashley, Julia would have no one to blame but herself, because that part of the situation was basically this meme

[saytrrose]

A post that Freakshow Au + Sm-Baby Fans NEED TO HEAR. READ IT.

—————

I cannot stand the people on tumblr in Mushys comments accusing her of so many horrible things. People have been stating that Mushy has been drawing “non-con” and supporting “abuse”. I will not go into too much detail on how it is affecting her and why but it is incredibly overwhelming for her, and she is not comfortable posting for the time being- and you people are making it hard for her to enjoy it anymore.

Mushy is portraying the au and characters how they would canonly work and that does not make her a bad person. The large amount of people trying to say that she has been drawing non-con of the late absolutely SICKENS me. You clearly do not have any understanding for that terminology and should not be throwing it around. Maybe if people paid attention to the au, the lore and how they are characterized you would come to the conclusion that NO ONE WANTS TO BE IN THE FREAKSHOW AU.

If you need a reminder of the definition, The TADC Freakshow Au is an Au where a horrible virus infects the Ai and twists their reality into a horror mindscape. THIS IS NOT CAINE OR ABLES FAULT. Caine and Able ARE AI. They are corrupted by the virus unwillingly and what Able puts Pomni through in the Able-Owned Pomni Au is yes, considered psychological abuse. HOWEVER why in gods name would you assume she supports that shit? Do you people just assume whenever someone draws a death scene they support murder?? or when someone depicts a scene of an animal getting hurt in a fanfic or movie that director/writer supports animal abuse?? Does that seriously go through your head?

EVERYONE in the Freakshow au in under some sort of psychological abuse- HELL in the original show they are. Like did you even watch it? And back to Freakshow, it’s a HORROR AU. People are killed left and right and no one seems to have a problem with that hm? THIS IS FICTION. PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY BECAUSE WHEN YOU DO NOT DO SO YOU HURT PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE. Not the people producing fictional content, YOU.

People are quite literally, harassing Mushy right now and it is heartbreaking to see my friend experience this. If you do not like certain content that Mushy creates, BLOCK her or BLOCK her tags. People asking for her to tag her art with “abuse” makes her highly uncomfortable. If you do not like this, simply take responsibility for your own viewing and stop interacting.

People need to stop assuming that Mushy is also not trying to find comfort in drawing certain topics. You people need to stop assuming that Mushy lives some sort of cheery happy go lucky life. She experiences a lot, she is going through A LOT right now and you people dog piling these accusations onto her is not only just disrespectful as a person in general, but as her follower. It is truly just disappointing to see just how rude people can be when they are supposed to be your biggest supporters.

A tag MIGHT be arranged, something as simple as “Able-Owned Au” and if this is done then block it. It is that easy. It is so so easy and simple to take initiative for yourself and what you see and how you feel about it by limiting it on your own end than going out of your way to make someone feel horrible about themselves.

Mushys blog is HER blog. She can draw whatever she would like to and if anyone has an issue with this you can very kindly, FUCK OFF. The block button exists, use it. The block tags method exists, use it.

Stop harassing creators.

[houseofripley]

Her Party Girl

Rhea Ripley X Fem!Reader

SUMMARY: Rhea has her way with you after you misbehaved at the club.

WARNINGS: 18+, SMUT, Aggressive Language, Slapping, Spanking, Orgasm Denial. Edging, Brief mention of implied Choking, Strap-On, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Mommy Kink, and a teensy bit of fluff as a treat.

WORD COUNT: 3,230 A/N: Just a little something I threw together last night. This is literally my first fic please don't kill me if it's dogshit!!!

Everyone knew you had a reputation. Headlines seemingly popped up nearly every week about what sort of trouble you got caught up in the night before. You didn’t care about whatever the news said, they didn’t matter to you. You had convinced yourself Rhea didn’t care either, she hadn’t brought it up so you figured you were in the clear. 

Rhea began getting fed up with your behavior about a month prior. She was sick of the near-daily drunk calls in the middle of the night while she was away. It killed her not knowing exactly where you were and who you were with. One thing about Rhea is that she is a possessive mother fucker.

Rhea came to the conclusion she needed to keep her eye on you as much as possible to calm her worries. She was currently on a WWE Live tour and had you flown into the city she was in.

For weeks Rhea kept you under a lock and key but recently she had been more lenient. She didn’t care for the bars and party scene but the constant begging got to her, she had to give in at some point.

The two of you made a deal, you were allowed to party only if Rhea was with you and only if she could have her way with you right after. 

Tonight Rhea had just lost a match with Becky, and she was fuming. As soon as she left the ring she bolted backstage shoving past fellow wrestlers and crew to get to her tiny locker room. You were there waiting for her but as soon as you saw Rhea slam the door open you knew something was wrong.

“Jesus Christ, Rhea baby, what's wrong?” You questioned as you stood up from the couch, examining the woman's demeanor.

“She fucking pinned me!” Rhea shouted at you. You knew not to touch her when she was pissed but you couldn’t help yourself. You draped your arms over Rhea’s neck as you told her “Hey hey it's okay…it’s not a serious deal, it’s just one little show. I need you to calm down baby.” 

“Rhea Ripley doesn’t fucking lose, especially not to goddamn Becky Lynch!” Rhea yelled at you while grabbing both of your arms with a painful grip. You knew she couldn’t help it… she was naturally aggressive. Ignoring the pain she was causing you, you sat her down on the couch and removed your arms from her neck. Rhea slowly let go of the hold she had on your arm.

You let Rhea compose herself before handing her the pile of her streetwear. Rhea slipped into her jeans and threw on an unbuttoned tee over her sports bra before slouching back into the couch. 

“How about we go out and take all that stress off your shoulders,” You offered whilst packing up Rhea’s bags.

Of course, you wanted Rhea to let loose by getting a few drinks in her but you selfishly needed an excuse to go get plastered. 

“Absolutely not. I’m not dealing with that nonsense tonight.” She scorned as you found your way onto her lap. “I got all dolled up for you, are you really gonna make me sit in a hotel room all night?.” You pouted in return.

“I said no.” Rhea sternly raised her voice at you. She gave you a toughened stare trying to pick apart your thoughts.

 You figured out Rhea’s kryptonite, one simple word. Over the past several months of your relationship, you took note of Rhea’s behavior shift after using one particular word. Tonight you wanted to abuse the hell out of that word.

“Oh, but Mami I know you’ll have so much fun…” You whined in her ear, her hands gripping at your sides the moment you let that word out of your mouth.

Rhea shot a look at you, letting out a heavy breath. She had caved and you knew it. “I guess I can make some time for you baby…tonight only.” Rhea hummed out. She was pissed about going out…but that damn word…it did things to her. You pecked her lips innocently knowing you got exactly what you wanted. 

After the two of you dropped Rhea’s bag off at the hotel you dragged her to a nearby club down the street. You had wasted no time ordering a shot of tequila as well as Rhea’s go-to, a neat whiskey. You ushered Rhea to a small booth right near the dance floor. Rhea kept quiet and stayed in her seat trying to enjoy her whiskey while you made multiple trips to the bar ordering an array of drinks over the span of forty minutes. 

You pulled out your phone, snapping a picture of Rhea as she examined the club around her. “Oh c’mon,” She grouched. “You look like you want to kill everyone in here, it's a little sexy,” You joked before adding “I’ll be right back.”

 “Alright that’s enough you don’t need anymore.” She snapped at you as you came back to the table with two shots of vodka. You pouted as you handed her one of the shots “Are you gonna come dance with me Mr. Grumpy Pants?” Rhea shot you a glare and shook her head as she shooed you away. “Your loss, Mami.” You teased before downing your shot and walking out to the dance floor. 

You knew Rhea was eye fucking you while you were out dancing so you made sure to put on a show for her. You “accidentally” lifted your skirt to show the bottom half of your ass knowing no matter how pissed the woman acted she was going insane for you. 

Just several minutes later a man approached you asking if you’d like to take a shot with him and his buddies. You knew Rhea would put you through hell if she saw you drinking anymore but she was occupied closing your tab. It was a free shot of course you had to take it. You went up to the end of the bar and had one last shot. But the second your shot glass hit the table you knew you had fucked up. 

Rhea was storming towards you looking more furious than ever. She stole your hand and started dragging you out of the club, making sure to shove her shoulder into the guy who had offered you a drink. “Oh c’mon! You expect me to say no to a free drink?! I was saving you money!! ” You blurted out once you got to the street. You were practically running as you tried to keep up with the woman as she led you back to your hotel without saying one word.

The second the door to your room had latched, Rhea drove you against the nearest wall leaving virtually no space between the two of you. “You think you're so cute whoring yourself out for drinks from strangers don't you?” She snarled inches from your lips. You kept your mouth shut as you dozed off staring into Rhea’s deep blue eyes.

“Answer me you fucking slut.” She demanded as she delivered a slap across your left cheek. In return, you just smirked making sure to not make a sound. That smile of yours drove Rhea insane, she lost all control as she shoved her lips onto yours whilst backing you up to the edge of the bed.

Rhea had shoved you down onto the bed before immediately connecting your lips again. You matched every sloppy movement the buff woman made. “I’m gonna ruin you whether you like it or not you little brat.” She whispered, trailing her lips down to your neck. Her lips attacked your neck as she left multiple bites causing you to let out a series of whines. 

While Rhea spent her sweet time focusing on your neck her hands found themselves tugging off your shirt and discarding it on the floor. Once she had discovered you weren't wearing a bra she pulled away. “What a slut…couldn’t even cover yourself up this morning.” She commented as she admired your top half.

 Rhea lowered herself to your chest, licking right across your nipple as a moan escaped your mouth. She knew she was driving you insane as she lapped her tongue in circles around your nipples. As you squirmed underneath her touch she managed to yank your skirt off.

A whiny moan left your mouth once Rhea’s thumb began making circles over your clit, the fabric of your flooded panties adding even more pleasure. “So soaked for me already hm, you’ve been wanting Mami all night haven’t you,” Rhea snarled, leaving you speechless. You knew you were in deep shit and you were paying for the actions that happened just twenty-five minutes ago. 

As soon as Rhea knew she had you folding under her touch she pulled away. She stood up between your legs as she tore off her unbuttoned shirt. “Too bad naughty girls don’t get to be touched,” Rhea fake pouted.  She wasn’t going to touch you until you were begging. She needed to hear your pleading.

Rhea’s full frame stood at the edge of the bed stalking your every move. Your right hand snaked down your stomach before being swatted away by Rhea. A whimpered “Please” broke your silent streak. Rhea bent over your face, her warm breaths melting your skin “Oh baby I’m nowhere even near started and I already have you so worked up. Poor thing…it’s gonna take a lot more than a pathetic please before I touch you.” She whispered before standing upright again.

“Please! I need you to touch me!” You crashed out. Rhea gave you a look of pity mixed with anger, you knew she wanted more. “I’ll be such a good girl for you!! I just need your touch!” You earned a simple smirk from Rhea. 

“Mami!” You cried out in frustration. There it was, exactly what she was looking for. “I’ll do anything Mami! Please!!! Touch me Mami!” You whined.

The grin on Rhea’s face grew larger. “Mmm what a naughty girl you are.” Rhea huffed out

“Now tell me what you want from Mami,” She said, kneeling down right in front of your core that was near the edge of the bed. “Your mouth Mami!” You begged. 

Rhea looked up at you as she planted a kiss on your clothed clit. “You want Mami’s mouth right here don’t you?” She teased, causing you to let out a pathetic whimper. “Right there!” You cried before Rhea pulled your panties off in a swift motion causing you to let out a gasp at the sensation of the cold air against your wetness.

Rhea needed to taste you as much as you needed her tongue in between your folds. But Rhea wasn’t done teasing you, not yet. She enjoyed hearing your whimpers as she kissed and licked stripes over your inner thighs. “Please Mami, I need your mouth. I’ll be such a good girl for you!” You pleaded as she drove you insane. 

“Pathetic little girl.” Rhea taunted under her breath before finally diving her tongue between your folds. She kept her eyes looking up at you, she loved seeing how much she satisfied you.

Rhea’s tongue slipped right into your entrance as her nose rested on your clit. All you could spit out were yelps and moans. Rhea had gone back to tracking her tongue up and down your center. 

She slipped her middle finger into you causing you to let out a string of moans. Once you had gotten a feel for her finger, Rhea knew you would want more and that's exactly why she pulled her finger out. You cried out her name begging to be touched again. 

She hadn't forgotten the little stunt you pulled earlier and she wasn't gonna let you forget either. She pulled herself up off the floor and hovered her face over yours, placing her clothed leg right against your core. “I need you,” You cried out. “You were being such a naughty girl earlier. Mami thinks you need to be punished for that.” She menacingly said before flipping you onto your stomach.

You pushed your ass up in the air knowing exactly what you were in for. Rhea delivered a slap to your ass just before you sharply gasped. You heard the sound of Rhea’s belt being slipped out of her jeans. “No no no!!! Mami please no! It won’t happen again I swear!!” You wailed.

The woman just ignored you as she slashed her belt down on your soft skin causing you to scream out. “Count.” She demanded. Rhea made you count all ten lashings she gave you. She had you braindead between each lashing she gave you.

“Such a good girl for Mami, now let me see your pretty little pussy.” Rhea declared while flipping you over and spreading your legs. The large woman kneeled back down before attacking your clit with her tongue, sending shock waves through your spine.

You covered your mouth to quiet the moans coming from you as she devoured you. Rhea slipped two of her fingers into you while using her other hand to pull your hand away from your mouth. “I want this whole floor to hear how good I’m treating you baby.” She hummed against your clit whilst curling her fingers inside you. 

Rhea knew all of your weak spots and she made sure they didn't go unnoticed. As her tongue piercing rocked over your clit back and forth you were about to come undone. “Mami I’m gonna cum!” You howled before Rhea growled out, “No you’re not angel, you’re gonna be a good girl and wait until you get permission.” Rhea slipped her fingers out of your hole as she stood up. 

“Please Mami I need you, you make me feel so go-” You were interrupted by Rhea's lips crashing onto yours as her fingers found their way back into you. You took a hold of her midnight hair tugging at her roots, in return Rhea let out muffled groans into your mouth. It drove her crazy whenever you pulled on her hair, she would never admit it but it was obvious by her responses.

Rhea felt your walls tighten around her curling her two fingers, she pulled her thumb up to your clit beginning to drag circles around your bud. You were a drunk mess under her, your breath getting heavier. 

As you were nearly unable to control your orgasm you were hit with that same feeling of defeat you felt moments ago as Rhea had yet again pulled away from your touch. All you could was cry out praying for her to touch you again. You knew you pissed her off but this was borderline tortuous. 

“You poor thing,” Rhea fake pouted, chuckling as she walked towards your suitcase. Rhea knew you would bring her strap, she shoved her way around your suitcase for a moment before pulling it out. Rhea made her way towards you before removing her jeans and boyshorts.

You bucked your hips up into the air watching her put her strap on. “So needy,” She smirked, “You want to cum all over my cock don’t you baby…” 

“I need to cum on your cock!! Mami please let me cum on your cock!” You pleaded.

Rhea just had to tease you one last time as she repeatedly put her tip in, pulling it out right after.

Once the buff woman was satisfied with your series of cries and whimpers she slowly filled you up. You let out a string of moans and cusses as Rhea took a firm grip of your thighs and began thrusting slowly. “Mhm-taking Mami’s cock so good baby.” She hummed, taking in your view.

As you started rocking your hips against her thrusts she began to pick up her speed. Rhea knew you liked it when she fucked you hard but she would always make sure you were fully ready for her cock. Your moans and Rhea’s coos echoed in the bare hotel room. 

She took hold of your hips as she was thrusting to a speed the both of you clearly went crazy for. Rhea’s main focus was always pleasuring you but tonight the pressure Rhea felt on her core with every thrust was sending her over the edge. She wanted to cum with you.

“Mami,” You whimpered, rocking your hips up and down as her hands trailed around your neck and chest.

“Shhhh…soon baby.” She reassured, lowering her chest to yours, you tugged at her sports bra signaling you wanted her to remove it.

 Rhea threw her bra across the room as her thrusts were becoming faster and more sloppy. The two of you were a moaning and groaning mess.

Rhea wrapped her hand around the base of your throat. Hovering over you she muffled out “Now are you gonna be a good girl for me from now on.” Her words were more of a demand rather than a question and you knew if you didn’t answer you wouldn’t be able to cum for the next month.

“Oh fuck! I’m gonna be such a good girl for you!” You squealed out moaning. “Please Please Please Mami!” You begged once again.. You both couldn’t hang on much longer as each thrust grew sloppier. 

“Go ahead baby, I want you to cum all over Mami’s cock.” Rhea urged you to finally let go. 

The two of you slurred out profanities as the both of you let go of all your built up tension. Sloppy kisses were exchanged as the both of you rode out your orgasms. ”Such a pretty girl,” Rhea whispered right in your ear sending shivers down your spine. 

A final wail left our mouth as Rhea pulled out of you. Rhea swiped her finger across the strap stealing a sample of your cum before licking her finger clean. She helped you sit up at the edge of the bed before getting another pile of your sweetness on the pad of her thumb.

“Open up sweet girl” She requested, you obeyed opening your mouth before sucking Rhea's finger clean. Rhea stood over you as she licked her teeth. “God baby you’re making me want to fuck you all over again.” She teased leaving you giggling. Rhea got a warm rag and began carefully cleaning you up then began cleaning herself up. 

Rhea plopped herself onto the bed pulling you to lay on her chest. Your aftercare was one of the most important things to Rhea, she knew she was rough on you so she always made time to hold you close to her never wanting you to feel like just a toy for her. The two of you silently admiring each other's faces from inches away, admiring the intricacies of eyes, combing fingers through hair, tracing invisible shapes on arms. Little kisses were littered across each other's faces. It was just the two of you, no clothes, no music, no distractions, maybe some smeared makeup but hey you can’t deny how attractive her in-ring makeup was all smeared. 

“You’re gonna be so hungover in the morning,” Rhea broke the silence with her sly comment. “And you’re gonna be the one taking care of me so I guess I’m the winner here!” You nudged her arm leaving her sarcastically rolling her eyes.

The both of you fell back into your comfortable silence. You could stay in her arms forever. No matter what wringer she put you through she was your home.

[raguonmynieceandnephew]

"It's so unfair to the Rat Grinders that they are killed instantly and the Bad Kids get to roll death saves." SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUP

THIS IS LONG, AND HONESTLY FOR MYSELF, SO YEAH READ IF YOU WANT

I swear to god, this discourse is going to fucking be the end of me. Idk what kind of mind boggling spell Brennan Lee Mulligan wove into the fabric of the universe that spread through the data center of Dropout in order to absolutely hijack y'all's brains when it comes to Cocklord Assgape and her ragtag of character foils but whatever it was has made you Rat Grinder stans INSUFFERABLE in this site.

The levels of treating fictional characters as if they were real people have reached a level I honestly have never anticipated, to the point of y'all actually being mad AT THE CAST for "mistreating" them and ACTUALLY QUESTION BRENNAN'S CAPACITY TO DM. Do you not get how fucking insane that is?

We can't make fun of Copperkettle, one of the most pathetic, petty and incompetent villains in D20 history anymore (even though she is masterfully written and developed to generate this reaction from us) anymore because it's bullying apparently. I saw an account flip the fuck out because someone compared her rivalry with Kristen to Drake and Kendrick's beef. KIPPERLILY IS NOT A REAL GIRL. SHE IS A MAKE BELIEVE CHARACTER IN AN IMPROV SHOW SPAWNED FROM THE BRAIN OF A 36 YEAR OLD MAN

And then what truly pissed me off the MOST about this whole hell is the fact that, being chronically online avid consumers of this goddamn show, I would think you would have but a grasp of the main cast of characters' characterization.

Why the uproar about Riz saying they should chop Oisin's head off? The same Riz who tortured that pixie from Freshman year by shooting off their finger one by one? The same Riz who murked a disarmed and unconscious Coach Daybreak without battin an eye? The same Riz who ATE THE CORPSE OF KALVAXUS?

And the whole Fabian vs Ivy debacle MY GOD, THE GIRL WAS RACIST TO HIS GIRLFRIEND AND USED HER LAST BREATH TO CALL MAZEY "OBJECTIVELY UGLY". And the funniest thing is that is not even the most unhinged shit he has ever said.

And finally, Death Save Gate: THE RAT GRINDERS ARE NOT PLAYER CHARACTERS. THEY ARE NPCS! THE RULES FOR EACH WORK DIFFERENTLY, ESPECIALLY THEM BEING BOSS ENCOUNTERS. Imagine having to still hit Ivy or Oisin 2 more times to kill them when there is 14 foot tall Porter throwing legendary actions left and right, with Jace, and other 3 spell casters + Mary Ann and KLCK up and running. It's called balancing the fucking game. Also, game masters are entitled to break, mold and make up any rules they want if they find necessary in order to service themselves and their players. IF YOU PLAY WITH ALL THESE RULES AS THEY COME, GOOD FOR YOU AND YOUR TABLE. THIS IS NOT YOUR TABLE.

Not only is Brennan DMing for his CLOSEST FRIENDS EVER, he is also shooting and producing an ENTIRE TV SHOW. So yeah, i think he knows wtf he is doing.

"But the Ratgrinders had no real development": True. But it wasn't for lack of trying from the players. Everytime they tried to know more, the dice didn't let them, so they decided to focus on the mystery. It simply do be like that sometimes.

"But they are just kids!": And so were Penelope, Dayne, Ragh, Zayn, the Bloodrush Players, Aelwyn and Biz. Why wasn't it a problem then? Because most of them were evil to some extent and were about to bring the fucking apocalypse to the world? Yeah, sounds familiar right? And the ones who were manipulated or had any sort of redemption worked their way into earning it, right? Yeah.

In conclusion, I fucking love the Rat Grinders, I truly do, and not unlike 90% of this website, i'm still holding on to hope that they have any sort of development and redemption in the last episode, because I agree, they ARE children and they WERE manipulated by Porter and Jace, but like, can we also agree that they are fucking assholes and had it fucking coming? Also, the BKs are children too y'know. SO STOP BEING FUCKING ANNOYING.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Why the Dragon King Sucks: an Exploration of What Makes a Good Villain and a satisfying Story Conclusion

Dragon Age as a franchise has some of my favourite villains, and also villains I think kinda suck. DATV is not immune to this; Ghilan'nain joins the ranks as one of my favourite villains of the series but there is one villain I can't stand. I get mad just thinking about him. And so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

So firstly, before we can unpack why a villian sucks, we must first unpack what makes a good villain. Contrary to popular belief I don't think a villain needs to be a fully dimensional person to be compelling, but I do think good villains generally fall into one of three categories:

Interesting because of the relationship to the hero/protagonist

Interesting because we understand their point, or because of moral complexity/ambiguity

Interesting because they're scary as all hell

Dragon age has dabbled in all of these types of villians.

The example of a villian who is interesting because of their relationship to the hero/protagonist is Danarius. Danarius is flat out evil with 0 redeeming qualities. His main motivation is to a) experiment on his slaves and b) recapture his favourite escaped slave. We know he regularly tortures and kills people. We don't even meet him until act 3! BUT his relationship to Fenris makes him work. He is everywhere in Fenris's narrative; from the house Fenris lives in, to the actions Fenris takes (he won't even be with you until hes dealt with Danarius), to the feeling that Fenris is being constantly hunted. Danarius is terrifying to Fenris, the things Fenris did FOR Danarius is terrifying to Fenris (killing the Fog Warriors), all of this makes both us AND Fenris angry. When he shows up he's menancing because he's been built up the WHOLE game. He works because of his relationship to Fenris.

Let's move onto a villian who is interesting due to their moral complexity. There were a few to pick from here, but I think ultimately I'm going to go with the Arishock (but shout outs in particular to Calpurnia, Zathrian, Illario and Isseya). The Arishock undoubtedly does some pretty evil stuff, and yet we UNDERSTAND him. He does not want to be in Kirkwall, yet he cannot leave until he gets what he needs. He wants to be peaceful, but is being pushed by the constant way that his people are being agitated; stolen from, blamed, tricked and manipulated by chantry zealots. He doesn't understand why kirkwall is allowed to function as it does when it leads to such misery/pain for everyone. He's very reasonable with a Hawke who is reasonable back and respects them. The thing that tips him over the edge is the fact that he's unwilling to hand over elves that the guards refused to bring justice for, and most people agree that the guards were in the wrong there. Nobody thinks the Arishock should have tried to take over Kirkwall, killing the Viscount and trying to take Isabela. But we UNDERSTAND why he might be doing what he's doing and THAT makes him compelling.

Final category; when a villain is scary. I think writers sometimes confuse this for the villain having a lot of power (*cough* Elganarn *cough*) but that's not what scary is. Scary is usually invoked by feeling that the hero/protagonist is under genuine threat if they were caught or feeling that this person will do fucked up things and has no line; even about people they care about. Absolute main dragon age villian to sit here is Branka who went so mad in her pursuit of the anvil she was willing to let her house be turned into Brood Mothers so they could pump out darkspawn who could test the traps. Ghilan'nain is also in this category.

To make an EXCELLENT villain you probably want to take a few strands from each collum; Loghain stands out here as someone who has a connection to our of our heros (Alistair's revenge quest) but also is morally understandable/interesting.

So now I've laid all that out...tell me. Where does the dragon king fit?

The dragon king doesn't really have a connection to Taash. They want Taashs blood sure but they only make two plays for Taash the whole game and Taash never seems scared of them. We don't find out why or what they want to do to Taash. Taash just. Doesn't know this guy. Like until the very end when he kills their mum, they don't have a reason to hate him.

The dragon king is not morally complex either. He is just. An evil guy working for an evil god who wants power. He's not got a particular point; he's not even like the red templars who at least had the motivation that the chantry had abandoned them and led them to be addicts for no reason. Theres no talk of that being the case with the antam. There is just. Nothing. He's some evil guy.

And finally, he's not scary. He's in fact so un-scary that our protagonists never ever get to fight him because he'd make a shit boss. I think this is a WILD choice. what I think happened was the Devs realised that as the other Taash quests had involved fighting dragons that should be their boss fight but like. What? I literally was so confused when this happened; I wondered if the dragon king could turn into a dragon for a moment or was riding the dragon but it's not that. We kill a dragon and don't even throw so much as a single spell or punch at the dragon king.

AND to make matters worse, we don't meet him until the very end and Taash doesn't really talk about him until then either. Varric narrator style mentions him and that's it. If you're not going to introduce your villian until late in the game you NEED to have build up like what we get for Denarias or Branka or Meredith. That's the whole issue with Corphyeus that everyone bangs on about; he's just not in the narrative enough to carry the feeling that he's an undefeatable big bad.

The dragon king is so boring. There's just. Nothing there. There's no relationship, there's no complexity. Just an evil guy.

And that makes me so annoyed considering that I love Taash and also that the voice acting when Taash's mum dies is so stunning. Taash deserved better than most of the plotlines they got, they deserved a better villian and they deserved choices beyond those that demonised multiculturalism. They don't even need a villain if you do their story right; many dragon age characters have no central villain and are still incredibly interesting: Sera, Blackwall, Vivienne, Cole, Wynne, Bull, Bethany, Carver, Sten to name just a few.

Tblr; the dragon king SUCKS

[fillinforlater]

Phone Part 10: Return of the Angel +3

Male Reader x Kim Minju, Yeh Shuhua, Jung Eunbi (Eunha), Hwang Eunbi (SinB)

Length: 1550 words

Tags: strap-ons, lesbian sex, spitroasting, double penetration, overstimulation, loveless sex, voyeurism, watching, fingering thigh riding

TW: messy crazy bs

(A/N: this series randomly returns because I just needed to get this idea out of my system for good. This might be the conclusion to it, but probably not... well, maybe you send me some ideas to where this could lead up to.)

"I'll get going."

Bomi kisses your cheek, that sore cheek, sore like every patch of your skin, every bone in your body and every damn muscle, some of them you didn't even know could hurt before today. Hell, you don't even have the strength to give Bomi a proper goodbye, a weak wave is all you can muster up.

She'll not be mad at you. For what might have been either 15 or 150 minutes, you have taken turns on her and Shuhua's pussy—licking, fingering, fucking them until those tight caverns each got a big load in them. In the meantime, Minju has been their plaything. Especially Shuhua has this cruelty towards her "friend", edging her with fingers, reddening her thighs with extremely hard slaps and always promising that she'll get your cock—just to claim you with her pussy again.

You turn around when Bomi closes the door. Shuhua and Minju wrestle on the couch, the latter clearly outmatched when Shuhua puts her in a headlock with her thunder thighs. Minju tries to escape with licks on Shuhua's clit but can't find it—the nightmare of so many guys.

"Cut it out, you two," you groan, fingers on your temple. 

"N-no," Minju whines. "Minju still needs cock, wants cum in her tummy!"

"I can't." Point at your limp dick, absolutely spent. "And I have a headache. At this point, I’ll start to hate sex. Fucking hell, I'll make myself tea."

"Oh, I have an idea," Shuhua smirks and reaches for her phone while you leave for the kitchen. Whatever it is, you don’t want to deal with it. You need something relaxing, something herbal, to heal all the soreness in your body. It’s incredible to think that there is something like too much sex. You’re really close to giving up on it, even though two nymphomaniacs have turned your house into sex hub.

“No, no, stay down. You’ll get cock soon,” you hear Shuhua belittle Minju, who just whines in her usual tone. She seems to not be a bit tired after all this.

“Well, it won’t be mine,” you shout back, watching the hot water fill your cup and turn the leaves into something magical.

“Yeah, I know, you’re basically useless at this point.” Ouch, that stings. “That’s why I called back up.”

“You what?!”

“They should be here any minute now.”

Shuhua is spot on. Before your tea is finished steeping, your door bursts open. But instead of a hung man, two rather petite women enter your house. Both have a bored look on their face and immediately get to undressing. Overcoats seem to be the shit right now, and no matter who comes through your front door, they always drop it on the floor. 

“Uhm, hello?” you carefully greet them before remembering that this is your home, your kingdom! You can’t let strangers just walk in like they own the place. “This is kinda rude, you know?”

“Don’t care,” says the taller one with long, raven hair, dressed only in jeans. “We have business to do. Also, it’s rude to just stand there, naked, while two ladies walk in.” You blush and hide your crotch with the tea cup.

“We aren’t ladies, stop kidding yourself,” the other snarks back, while climbing out of her skirt. “I bet he is a good fuck, you shouldn’t kill your chances already.”

“Eh, I’ll think about it, but first—” Both girls suddenly pull out two strap-ons from God-knows-where and put them on with the casualness one would wear a fricking hat. The taller one hasn’t even removed her jeans, wearing the harness over it, while the other is fully naked and flaunts her butt at you.

“Yeah, I know, we got shit to do.” The short haired girl slaps her butt and you almost drop the cup when she walks past you with a wink. “Shuhua, where is this needy bitch? Or are you the needy bitch?”

“Oh, it’s so nice to see you, Eunbi and Eunbi,” Shuhua greets them and points at Minju, still trapped in between her fat thighs. “Look who I found.”

“She is insatiable. Incredible that he can still stand,” the shorter Eunbi says.

“Hm, maybe he is a good fuck. Anyways, we’ll try our best to keep her down,” the taller Eunbi says. The three conspirators try to agree on a strategy on how to fuck the angelic girl. You’ve become invisible in your own house, your entry to the living room goes largely unnoticed. Except for Minju who pouts at you when the two Eunbis lift her up and put her in a doggy position. The shorter one is below her, the other is ready to press the plastic cock into Minju’s puckered hole.

"Should we do it at the—nevermind, you're already in." The small Eunbi groans in annoyance, the other looks unapologetic and starts to rut slowly against Minju's butt. The long shaft forcing open Minju’s hole, paired with the denim on her sore, pink buttocks, must feel incredible and incredibly painful at the same time. Who knows which of the two makes Minju wail and moan more.

"Come on, Eunha, shove it in her sex," Shuhua urges on the Eunbi below as she excitedly stares at the unholy sight of fake cocks on ready holes. Her eyes mimic the camera lens for a porn shoot, while you're the director, watching the scene play out. Either way, it's good content.

"Minju's pussy, Minju's ass, so full!" Minju is loud, louder than before. Shuhua is having none of it.

"Shut up. SinB, make her stay quiet. And don't let her cum."

Two hands move to cover Minju's mouth, two cocks move in and out at a rapid pace, two sets of eyes watch on in awe. Satisfied with what crazy madness she has come up with, Shuhua sits down next to you and lazily jerks your cock with two fingers. Oh, that victorious smile, glassy, lewd eyes, you'd love to wipe it off her face.

"You like what you see? Now you don't have to do anything anymore."

"What was that about me being useless?" Grab her by the throat and spit in her face. She looks pissed, you love it. "I came in you, even when Minju was willing to do anything to get my load and now you're still cruel to her? Seems mildly unfair."

"And what are you gonna do about it? Fuck her, if you can."

Shuhua is bratty, but just as much as she is bratty, she is also light. You easily place her nude frame on your thigh, her still dripping, creaming heat right on your skin. She hisses and you tighten your grip on her throat.

"I'm going to make you cum—you know I can, it's super easy—but only if you tell those two friends of yours to make Minju cum until she passes out.”

“Fuck, bastard,” Shuhua hisses. With your thumb on her clit, this is easily the quietest and tamest she has been for hours. Her body twitches, an honest reaction to how much she is addicted to the mind-blowing orgasms you can get out of her. Such a small finger, yet she is squirming, contemplating, faltering.

“Those two are so cruel,” you tell Shuhua, nose deep in her greasy hair. “They fuck her so hard, just to pull out at the last moment. Why do you want to torture Minju so bad?”

“Be-because she needs to get to the-the point.”

“What point?”

“The point where sex is no fun. She can go forever. She will never stop, your—fuck—plan to make her p-pass out, useless.”

This explains a lot. The Angel is insatiable, her lust seems infinite, but Shuhua’s plan—won’t it make things worse? At some point, SinB and Eunha will have to stop and Minju will be more desperate than ever. She will wobble through the house, tackle you the second she sees you and will force your cock in her pussy no matter what. A true tragedy.

“Well, I don’t care,” you say and tug at one of Shuhua’s nipples, she bites her fingers. “You’ve been too greedy, time for her to—”

“Fuck, fine.

“SinB, don’t hold back. Eunha, suck her tits, overstimulate this bitch!”

“What?” the two ask in unison and disbelief.

“Do-don’t ask questions, please, just do it!”

The way the two purple plastic cocks move in and out of Minju with the sole goal of too much pleasure has you satisfied and in a new heat, your cock hardening slowly but surely. With an ever increasing rhythm, you move your thigh up and down and Shuhua starts to ride, her loudness increasing again. She is as close as Minju and it only takes SinB pulling those messed up oak strands, you to rub Shuhua’s clit, for them both to explode. 

You focus not on Shuhua shuddering, shaking on you, but at Minju’s expression. Her eyes jump wide, then tears shoot out and flow down, just to be blocked by SinB’s hands on her mouth. She’d be so loud, words messier than her hair would fill the room. After this peak, both collapse. Shuhua meets the floor, Minju falls on top of Eunha, who still thrusts, even spanks the Angel’s ass. 

You’re hard again. Where is this going to end?

[aro-in-danyl]

S1E9 TimeTravel AU - Jayce enlists Jinx to blow up the HexGates. Cait and Vi bond over their siblings going crazy. Silco is tired.

Ekko arrives a bit earlier just as Jayce is shooting Viktor in the chest. Jayce gets sent back in time somehow from the combined power of the Z-Drive and the Commune's collective death.

Jayce's consciousness rockets back in time and splices with his younger self just as he's finished 'negotiating' with Silco. Still reeling from his Arcane induced-trauma and killing his partner as well as who knows how many people by proxy, he arrives half feral and about 99.7% convinced he's either hallucinating or in Runeterra's version of Hell.

Jayce, canonically suicidal, Talis comes to the conclusion that he needs to blow up the Hex Gates and that the resulting explosions will either jar him out of his hallucination or finally put him out his misery and let him join Viktor.

Unfortunately, after months spent in isolation in an apocalyptic future, Jayce has gained an unfortunate habit of talking to himself as he figures out problems.

And Silco has been standing there the whole time.

Silco reiterates that he's not going to give up Jinx and Jayce just goes 'I don't give a fuck about her anymore' and attempts to leave.

Silco is absolutely befuddled by Jayce's complete personality change, but refuses to show it. After raising Jinx, he's learned a few methods for bringing people back from the edge. And considering his investment in getting access to the Hex Gates, he is very unwilling to let Jayce just walk away.

Especially when Jayce mentions he's supposed to be dead.

----

Silco convinces Jayce he'll need an explosions expert and that he'd never be able to blow up all the Hex Gates by himself. Jayce holds resentment for Jinx blowing up his partner and pseudo-sister's mom but had calmed down enough to realize that if he was in the past, it would be better to be close to Jinx and prevent history from repeating itself.

Cue Silco and Sevika having to wrangle Arcane-ified Jayce and Shimmered Jinx and prevent them both from causing Hexplosions.

Jayce, dis-illusioned with the Council, decides it would be faster to just pull a Viktor and 'not ask for permission' before destroying Hextech. He tells Silco that if he's willing to help destroy the Hex Gates, he'll give him his nation of Zaun -- and pardon Jinx.

---

Elsewhere, in Piltover, Viktor has collapsed in the lab and entered a coma. There's a strange pattern on his chest and back. Almost as if he'd been shot with a very powerful energy blast from a very large hammer. But no injury, it was as if it had already been healed.

---

When Jinx kidnaps Cait and Vi, Jayce is the one to ask her to spare Cait and let her leave. But also, the one to stop Cait from shooting Jinx.

"Stand down, Sprout."

"What are you doing! She's killed people Jayce."

"So have I. And I need her." Jayce is still suffering hallucinations and time-travel-induced jetlag, so in the tense moment he forget when he is and admits to killing Salo and blowing a hole through Viktor's chest.

Caitlyn is more shocked by the latter, "You-you killed Viktor?" She liked Viktor as a friend, they got along despite their differences. "Why? Why would you do that!"

Jayce, dissociating and in complete sincerity, "Because I needed to save him."

Following that insane response, Jayce slowly walks toward Cait with a pleading look in his eye, "Jinx is going to help me destroy HexTech and then we can save everyone. And then I can focus on curing Viktor!"

Cait looks into Jayce's -her brother's- eyes and understands Vi a little bit more, her desperation to see the good in Jinx.

Caitlyn can see her brother in this stranger's eyes, but he feels miles away. She has no idea how she's going to reach him.

[zaebeecee]

The Radio Angel

by @fletchingbrilliant and ZaeBeeCee

In the immediate aftermath of an Extermination, Adam returns to Hell at the behest of the archangel Gabriel in order to retrieve one single human soul: the Radio Demon. All those in the Hazbin Hotel know is that Alastor is dead, unaware that the head of the exorcists had any agenda... or even that he was ever there. Ten years later, Angel Dust is nearly killed during another Extermination, only to be saved by an angel bearing almost every one of Alastor's features except his smile and, apparently, his memory. Determined to save Alastor, Angel Dust--and the rest of the Hotel residents--find themselves ready to challenge the highest ranks of Heaven. It's definitely not a good idea, but when has that ever stopped any of them?

Next Chapter Read on AO3

Chapter 01 •

“That was fuckin’ awful.”

Angel Dust leaned forward on the bar, one set of arms folded on the polished wood while a third hand held a glass of straight whiskey and a fourth hand held his head up. Everything hurt, and he knew he wasn’t the only one feeling it; even Vaggie was limping when she walked, and she would sooner kiss a Vee on television (with tongue) than show any level of physical weakness.

Exterminations had never been great. When they came, the option was to hide and hope a divine didn’t find you, and then pray to whatever would listen that you would be able to fight if they did. This was the first year that Angel Dust had ever actually stood ground anywhere during an extermination, and he had come to a conclusion: it was fucking stupid.

But they were alive. That was what mattered. And the hotel was still standing, which was a plus. Despite her overall mood being so down, Charlie was clearly feeling bolstered that part of her plan had been successful. She was so bolstered, as a matter of fact, that she had lifted Angel’s drink limit for the rest of the night (but she’d given Husk instructions to cut him off, so it could have been better).

Everyone was still gathered in the lobby, with the exception of Alastor, who had gone up to his radio tower to give his annual and suspiciously upbeat Extermination Recap. Charlie had turned the broadcast on in the lobby, and for once, nobody was terribly put off by the Radio Demon’s choice of entertainment material.

As was his ritual even before his seven-year sabbatical, Alastor made note of any notable Sinners who were slain, highlighted particularly amusing murders, and now, offered a shout out to anyone who had at least managed to make an angel’s life more difficult. The sound was eternally backed by the chorus of the damned the Radio Demon had collected over the years, howling behind his voice and impossible to completely ignore.

“The golden blood had better be raining from the sky next year, or maybe I'll have to join them in wiping out all you hot little gongoozlers myself! And that's a fact!”

Angel glanced to his side, where Cherri had her head laid down on the bar top, pillowed on folded arms. He couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not, and he didn’t want to bother her if she was. “How you feelin’?” he asked Husk instead, who was (for some fucking reason) actually on his feet and doing his job, instead of doing something sensible like sitting down.

Husk barely looked up from whatever he was doing, maybe cleaning the pour tops for his bottles. “Doin’ how I'm doing,” the old cat demon growled. But then he glanced Angel’s way. “You holding it together, bud?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah,” Angel said, hopefully dismissively. He reached up and put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing through the sharp pain of a bite wound that he absolutely hadn’t gotten in battle. “Just glad that shit’s done for another year. Eager to go to bed and sleep for a week.”

“Husk,” Cherri whined into the bar top, apparently still awake. She made a grabby hand in the direction of his voice. “Lime meeee.”

Husk dropped a whole, uncut lime into Cherri’s hand with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Stupid cockwomble, thinks he’s so funny, I’m not here to fuck spiders,” Cherri grumbled as she withdrew the lime anyway.

Angel could hear her ripping it open and the sound of her biting into it. “Good, because I’m so not into you.”

“Like you’d be so lucky, fucknuckle,” Cherri said in the same dispassionate voice, flicking a chunk of rind that she’d stripped bare onto the bar top.

Angel looked at Husk and jerked one thumb at Cherri, theatrically whispering, “She’s in a great mood.”

“I was right next to him,” Cherri said, sitting up and snapping her head to look at Angel. “I have a short list of things I never want to see, but the Radio Demon unhinging his jaw and biting an entire head off is on that list. He didn’t even change his height. I see it when I close my eye.” Angel cackled, only laughing harder when she picked up the stripped lime rind and threw it at his face.

“Cool it, Jack,” Husk chided, messing around with something Angel couldn't see. In a couple of moments, he turned around and slid a small tray to Cherri. On it was a mixer where the rest of a drink was stored, some of it already poured into a highball glass with lime on the rim. And on a plate beside it, a pile of neatly sliced limes. “Nobody needs to see that shit. And nobody's as numb to it as you are, Angel. Maybe try to keep that in mind, huh?”

Cherri grumbled a cross, but sincere, thank you as she picked up the glass and took a measured sip of it. It was odd, Angel thought; Cherri pounded even complicated alcoholic drinks like it was going out of style when they went out together, but unless Husk gave her a shot, she never did the same thing here.

Weird and not worth thinking about right now, he decided.

“I dunno how anybody has a choice not to be numb to it,” Angel Dust said, looking at Husk again. “I mean, we kinda live with the guy, and we see him almost every day. If you don’t adjust, you’ll end up with a heart attack, at best.”

“Adjusting to his… vibe is one thing,” Husk said, glancing to Cherri to… make sure she was enjoying her drink, probably. “What he does when he's in a mood… there ain't no adjusting to that.”

From the middle of the lobby, Angel heard Vaggie, who had been sitting with Charlie nearby in relative silence.

“Hey, Alastor just signed off.”

Sure enough, when Angel shifted his focus, the radio was suddenly only sending out static.

“…what…?” Angel muttered, mostly to himself. That was odd. Alastor had been very excited about his post-extermination broadcast. “…why?”

“That was remarkably short,” Sir Pentious said as he lifted an Egg Boi off the radio before it could try to ‘fix the problem’. “I am sure we are all accustomed to him being far more long-winded than that.”

Charlie shook her head. She was staring at the radio, her frown slowly growing deeper. “He signed off too quickly for it to be normal,” she said, her quiet voice carrying through the now silent lobby. “I wonder if something happened…”

Their answer, strange and startling as it was, came with the renewed silence that followed Charlie's words. The space around them grew suddenly darker, and Angel was all too familiar with the type of power that settled in the air. But it wasn't the same one he knew. It was deeper. Darker. And the smell that twisted around them wasn't that horrible heady pink sour-sweet smoke he was used to.

It was rich and meaty, almost. Smoky… swampy… and he caught the faint whiff of cloves.

His breath was foul, but intoxicating, and Angel didn't want to take in any other scent for as long as he existed. The stench was paired with the rich spice of cloves, and he could see the black cigarette that carried it poised between his wicked grinning lips.

No one had any time to react. The moment after the air shifted, the darkness was pierced by a shocking green light.

Husk and Niffty both let out startled cries, and Angel could only stare in horror at the green chains trailing from their throats, heavy collars clasped around their necks. The chains were extending across the lobby, through the wall, angled far upwards, Angel knowing where they both must end. But then the chains began to shake, wobbling in that unreal sort of way something extremely heavy did when placed under extreme tension. They grew taut, vibrated under a crushing unseen force.

And then they shattered.

Husk and Niffty both fell to their knees. It was only Husk who collapsed completely, trying futilely to catch his own fall. Niffty was breathing fast and hard, consumed by panic. Both of them were grasping at their necks. The green glow faded completely, the chains gone, the darkness lifting. Even the scent faded away, leaving them alone with an empty feeling.

The silence only lasted for a few seconds. “Husk!!” Cherri shouted, shattering the emptiness too as she vaulted over the bar, knocking the little tray to the ground, glass shattering against the wood floor.

“…Alastor…” Angel knew what those chains meant. And he recognized the color, as well. And the direction the chains had been going… his mind flooded with dread as he shoved away from the bar and vaulted to his feet, running for the front door. “ALASTOR!!”

“Angel! Wait!!” Charlie cried, but he completely ignored her as he slammed through the door and skidded on the pavement before he managed to change direction and ran for the left side of the building. He jumped, reaching the first balcony, then jumped again to the third floor exterior, before he began scrambling his way up the side of the building.

No. No, this isn’t happening. You’re fine. Nothing happened. The extermination is over. You’re okay. I know you are. You always are. You promised we could…

Angel grabbed the underside of the vertical hotel sign and felt pain shoot through the bite on his shoulder. Immediately, he could feel the teeth in his flesh, the warmth of a thin and strong body pressed against his back, blood on his sheets, words growled in his ear…

“Are you ready, sha?”

So many months, Angel had wondered where he stood with Alastor. From flirting and dismissal or threats, to talking in the lounge over a shared interest in jazz, to occasionally cooking together… to the night before the extermination, when Alastor’s smile had been enraged and confused and desperate as he slammed Angel into the wall and promised him a pain so sweet that the extermination would be nothing but an inconvenience.

And he had delivered.

Alastor was guilty of many things, but he had never once broken a promise to Angel. He wasn’t about to let him start now.

He had never been in the radio tower before. He didn’t think anyone had except Alastor and Kee Kee, whose presence was a mystery to the Radio Demon but seemed persistent because she liked to sleep on the equipment. It took Angel a few seconds to even see the door, more of a hatch on the underside of the tower past the metal arm holding it aloft. Too panicked to be careful, Angel ran across the metal beams, slamming his palm up into the trap door.

“ALASTOR!” he yelled, hitting the door three more times. It didn’t budge. “FUCK YOU, ALASTOR, LET ME IN!!”

The latch clicked on its own, and Angel felt cold for half a second, but the sensation left as the spider shoved the door open and crawled into the tower. Pushing himself to his feet, Angel began running again, but stopped short after a few steps, looking around the room.

He could see what felt like the entire Pride ring through the windows past Alastor’s equipment. He saw his chair, his ‘Oh Deer’ mug, his collection of jazz records, all of the old equipment that Alastor refused to update… nothing was disturbed. Even the papers he had been reading from were stacked neatly, like they had just been tapped into a pile.

Alastor wasn’t anywhere.

“…Alastor…?” Angel called tentatively, stepping closer to the equipment. “This ain’t funny, Smiles, where are you?” His foot knocked something, and Angel looked down. He immediately stopped cold.

Alastor’s microphone was laying on the ground at his feet.

Angel’s breath shook as he stared at it. Alastor would never, never, go anywhere without his microphone close by. Not unless he had no choice. And if he had no choice, that meant—

No.

Trembling, Angel knelt and carefully wrapped two of his hands around the microphone staff. He straightened up, staring at it, and felt tears welling in his eyes.

The static in the microphone was gone. It wasn’t warm, it wasn’t cold; it felt like everything else in the room. He couldn’t feel power anymore. It was just… an object.

Angel’s breath caught in his throat, and his vision blurred as he clenched his jaw so hard he heard the hinge creak. He tightened his grip on the microphone stand, his mind blank. He barely heard the distant sound of groaning metal and snapping wires; it all meant nothing to him until a rumble shook the floor that sent him to his knees.

The radio tower was collapsing with him in it, and he couldn’t make himself care.

•

It was gone

It was gone

A terrible emptiness was clinging at his neck, so shocking it nearly burned. Husk grasped at empty space, his eyes unable to focus anywhere at all. He was on the ground, his stomach feeling the cold floor through his fur. He managed to slowly turn his head and was aware of Niffty, on her knees at his side. Her hands were on her thighs, palms upward, her mouth hanging open in shock.

He had longed for this. He wanted the end to the worst mistake he had ever made, and now it was here.

It was here and he felt… he felt…

He couldn't feel anything but pain.

“Husk!!” Warm hands grabbed onto one of his shoulders, firm enough that he couldn’t yank himself away. “C’mon, Husk, snap out of it!”

In fact they were really warm. And he could smell… nitrate.

His head bobbed, turning it vaguely. “The chain… my… my soul…”

He heard Niffty choke out what sounded like a sob.

One of the hands left his shoulders, and he heard a snap, accompanied by a sharp pop, like one of those bang snaps human children insisted on playing with. “Husk, come on, look at me!”

His ears, then his head turned and his eyes tried to focus. What he was met with was one large staring eye, a bright pinkish red X focused on him.

“...hey Bomb Pop,” he managed to whisper.

“Hey Korerehu,” Cherri answered with a similar softness, her hands now rubbing his shoulders. “I dunno what’s going on, but I need you to stay with us, ay?”

As Husk focused, his surroundings were quickly coming to him. From what sounded like outside, he could hear Charlie yelling. “Angel! Come back!!”

“What–” Husk looked past Cherri, but of course could see nothing. Her warmth, the movement, it was making it easier to think. “What's happening? Where’s…”

“Where's Alastor??!” Niffty wailed.

“C'mon,” Husk said to Cherri, letting her help him to his feet. “Let's get after the kid.”

“I dunno, Niff, let’s go see.” Cherri reached down and picked her up, then took Husk’s hand to steady him and ran out of the hotel after the others.

It didn’t take long to find them. They hadn’t gone far from the door, all gathered in front of the hotel’s eastern wing. Vaggie and Sir Pentious were both looking towards Alastor’s radio tower, and several of the Egg Bois were running around, miraculously staying out of the way even as they apparently tried to find something to do.

Charlie turned towards them as soon as she heard them approach, but she didn’t let go of Vaggie’s hand. “Angel went into the radio tower,” she said without preamble.

“Something is wrong,” Pentious said. “With the radio tower, I mean. I don’t remember it being tilted at that much of a downward angle before.”

That was all Husk registered hearing before unfurling his wings and launching himself up into the air. He felt his feathers rush past Cherri and Niffty but he had no time to care. Pentious was right. The tower was sagging. And as Husk flew to one tier of the hotel, scaling up to the next, and the next, he heard the deep groan of bending metal beams and the sharp splintering of wooden boards. Gritting his teeth, Husk kicked off the side of the building, his wings flapping and tucking in to propel himself faster. He raised his forearms in front of his face, feeling his hat fly off as he crashed through the huge glass window. He rolled to his feet, feeling the floor tilting beneath his paws.

“Angel! Kid!!”

Angel was kneeling on the floor, unmoving. He looked like he was in some sort of shock. It was delayed, but he started, then looked up at Husk with eyes entirely glossed over with tears.

Alastor’s microphone was held in two of his hands across his lap.

For an instant, Husk froze. The sight of the abandoned microphone, with Alastor’s domain crumbling around them… the somehow painful emptiness around his throat… it was all making everything way too real. And Angel Dust… he was… crying? The tower gave a huge lurch that snapped him back to real space, and Husk rushed the other Sinner and scooped him into his arms.

“We’re getting the fuck out of here. Hang on, kid!”

Angel Dust didn’t resist. He was like a rag doll, focused on nothing but holding onto that microphone as Husk launched them back out into the open air. The moment he touched down on the edge of the roof, a horrific, cracking groan filled the air, and below them… the metal supports of the radio tower finally began snapping under the force of some unseen and massive power.

As soon as it began to fall—almost that very instant—Angel Dust became animated again. “No,” he whispered, staring over the edge of the roof. “No, no, NO, NO!!” He tried to launch himself out of Husk’s hold, his sudden desperation so intense that the bartender had no choice but to seize onto the spider with his claws to keep him in place. Angel didn’t even seem to notice. “ALASTOR!!”

“Kid, kid stop it!!” Husk dug in deeper, some wild emotion bubbling up inside of him that came out as a scream. “HE’S GONE, DAMMIT! He’s DEAD!”

Angel froze, his hand clinging to the side of the roof like he wanted to propel himself off of it. His labored breath began changing in tone, a distressed and high-pitched whirring noise hissing through his clenched teeth, before he threw his head back. The noise he made was somewhere between a heartbroken scream and the wailing howl of a wounded animal, continuing as he doubled over and hugged the microphone to his chest. As he lost air in his lungs, the sound tapered off into a weak vocalized exhale, just before he collapsed into Husk, sobbing openly and almost hysterically.

Husk went to his knees, falling back to let Angel fall fully into his lap. He felt helpless, hollow, utterly ill equipped to help Angel with whatever horrifically incomprehensible agony he was going through. There was no way he could bring himself to desire any understanding, not for Alastor. For anyone at all but for the Radio Demon. Yet as Angel cried, the sick feeling within Husk only grew, the pressure in his throat and behind his eyes burning and pressing into him from the inside and threatening to burst and tear him apart.

Dully, he was aware of the others’ voices down below, panicked and confused, calling their names… and Alastor’s. Niffty was crying again. But Husk didn’t move. Angel clearly was in no position to go anywhere or do anything, and he wasn’t about to disrupt that. Caring for the spider was all he had to keep him from actually addressing the growing pit that his freedom had left him with. He stroked Angel’s back in slow and gentle movements, uncertain if the kid even felt it.

How did this happen? The extermination was over. The angels were gone, the portal closed. And yet, Alastor knew something had happened. He ended his broadcast in order to face it.

And then it killed him.

Alastor, the Radio Demon, the most perplexing and terrifying Overlord to ever menace the streets of Hell, was dead.

Husk, the disgraced gambler who knew better than anyone just how despicable the creature truly was… he was free.

And with that knowledge, he leaned over Angel Dust, and he cried.

•

There was one spot on the red wooden bartop that never liked to take polish well. For a structure conjured out of apparent nowhere this imperfection was confounding, and irritating. Husk once wondered if it was there intentionally, crafted by its creator explicitly to fuck with him, to annoy him when he had to wipe down this bar day after day after day. He had never chosen to go into slinging booze. Drinking was a favorite vice of his for many years, and Husk knew his home was on the other side of the bar. But that was how Alastor was. He loved his little ironies. In the last hour Husk had polished that impossible spot on the counter so many times, so thoroughly and with so much product that it was now so shiny that it would forever stand out from the rest of the bartop for a completely different reason. But Husk wasn’t thinking about that. Was he thinking about anything? His hand moved in circles, over and over and over, dabbing the cloth with the polish, applying it to the same spot, then circles. Circles. Circles.

Niffty was with him, treating stains and sweeping, stabbing bugs with her giant needle with no real enthusiasm. She was even working on the most stubborn blood stains, the ones she had named long ago, causing the edges to fade, the warped ‘faces’ becoming less discernible. She had stopped crying hours ago, and now the two of them were numb. Neither knew how to process what happened, and neither was in any shape to reach out to the other. So they merely existed in the same space together, going through the motions, doing what they had always done since Alastor first dragged them into the Hazbin Hotel. What else could they do?

They were both so deep in their own pits of thought and feeling and aching emptiness that neither of them heard anyone else enter the room until Charlie stepped onto the wooden floor of the bar area with her bare, cloven-hoofed feet. Her hair was still tied completely up, jacket and tie gone, shirt untucked and sleeves rolled past her elbows; by her physical state, going through the wreckage outside was taking a while.

Charlie looked between the two of them, flexing her hands at her sides and looking like she was about to offer them an apology… or worse, sympathy. Instead, she looked at Husk, and spoke in a roughened voice. “Angel’s finally asleep,” she said. “Pen gave him something to knock him out, make him get some rest. …thought you’d want to know.”

He nodded dully. “Yeah. Thanks.” His own voice was raw, and he realized it was the first time he’d spoken since finding Angel Dust in the tower. “The others. They good?”

“Uh. They’re…” Charlie rubbed her arm, looking towards the front doors. “…Vaggie’s still outside, looking for anything that might tell us… …in the…” She bit down on her lip. “…Pen’s trying to find the door to his bedroom. It… it disappeared. Cherri was with Angel but I think she’s in the kitchen now.” She raised her hand and rubbed it across her mouth, now just staring at the entrance hall. “…I’m gonna call my dad in a bit. See if… maybe he knows anything. Or if he can come and check things out.”

The princess’s mood was heavy. Serious. She hadn’t seemed to be doing great after the extermination, but now… subdued was too mild a word for it.

“…Husk. Niffty.” Charlie finally looked at them again. “You two… don’t have to stay, if you don’t want to.”

“What?” Husk just stared at her, and Niffty dropped the soap bucket she'd been carrying.

Charlie’s expression was sad, heavy, but perfectly serious. “I know you came here because he compelled you,” she said. “And I know neither of you were given a choice in the matter. You don’t… have to leave. I know I speak for everyone when I say we care about you, and we want both of you to stay. If you want your rooms, if you want your jobs, they’re yours, and we can discuss your pay tomorrow. But if staying here is…” Her expression faltered slightly. “…if you choose to leave, I understand.”

Husk let the rag he’d been using fall over the spot he had overpolished. “You’ve put together just what happened there… The nature of our… relationship.”

She nodded.

He nodded back, and saw Niffty approaching, slowly clambering up onto a barstool and then hopping onto the bar to sit on the edge as she always had. Husk couldn’t handle the expression on her face so he focused back on Charlie. “It’s been a long time. For both of us. Hard to imagine what’s next.”

“No it’s not,” Niffty said in a sad little voice.

“Niff?”

She looked at him, but he still couldn’t meet her eye, so instead he merely felt her somber gaze. “We’re gonna stay here, right Husk? I mean, there’s still so much cleaning left to do. We all know we can’t trust any of you guys to handle it.”

Husk closed his eyes. How am I gonna say this?

Charlie made a soft noise like a sad chuckle. “You’re right about that, Niffty. We all know what happens when the Egg Bois try to do the windows.” Husk heard her approach the bar. He could feel her hand touch the bar top near one of his, but she didn’t make contact; it was simply the unmistakable aura of power the princess didn’t seem to realize she always had wrapped around her. “I don’t need an answer right now, Husk,” she said, her voice softer. “I wanted to give you your options. You can take as long as you need to consider it. …even if you need to think about it somewhere else.” Her hand moved again. “Niffty, I know it’s late, but Vaggie wanted to ask you something. Would you mind coming with me for a minute? You can come right back after.”

When Husk opened his eyes he saw Niffty smile warmly at Charlie, accepting the Princess' hand in helping her hop down off of the bar. The little demon cast Husk a look. He didn't say anything.

Charlie gave Husk a nod, her face full of an alien sort of understanding that he wasn’t equipped to deal with right at that moment. Maybe not at all. She then returned Niffty’s smile, keeping a hold of her hand and walking out of the hotel with her. Husk couldn’t pick out the words, but he heard Charlie speaking softly just before they disappeared through the doors.

The silence left behind was heavy. Deafening, almost. It had been bad enough when he and Niffty had been simply going through the motions together, but without even her small presence, the hotel lobby felt too huge. It was like it could swallow him whole.

Before Husk could decide what he was going to do—before he had a chance to really establish what his options were—another door opened. The kitchen door. Cherri Bomb wandered into the lobby, looking a little bit lost, her hair down and her arms hugging her torso. She gazed around the room for a moment, only stopping when her eye landed on Husk. Then, she just looked at him.

He watched her for a few moments, trying to parse her expression, feeling perhaps as lost as she did. Unable to come up with anything else he just said, “You need a drink.”

“…yeah.”

Cherri came over, only releasing her hold on her own abdomen when she slid onto a stool and folded her arms on the bar top. She watched him mix the drink; Husk couldn’t tell if she really wanted a drink, or if she could somehow tell that he needed something to do.

“…I made food,” Cherri said. “Wanted to lay a hāngī but that… so, it’s just roasted veg and some fish. …doubt anybody’s gonna be hungry, but it’s there.”

He was working without thinking, starting with a lime in hand. She likes lime. But it was a cocktail he hadn't had in a long time, and wasn't sure he'd ever actually made one on his own. His memory was almost too good though, and with white rum, triple sec, maraschino, and a squirt of simple syrup, all blended with ice, he soon presented Cherri and himself a pair of large and full martini glasses of an opaque drink the color of honeysuckle.

“It's called a beachcomber,” he said, twisting a half of a lime over each of them. “Maybe we can pretend it's not so cold.”

“Thanks,” Cherri said quietly, pulling her drink closer once he was done. Her eye was fixed on the glass as she traced her index finger slowly around the rim. She made a strange noise in the back of her throat, then cleared it. “…fuck,” she whispered, her voice shaking with weak laughter and some other emotion. “I didn’t even like the fucker. I didn’t like the way he made… …why… why am I sad…?”

Husk stared at her, that pit gnawing at him a little more. “He was a bastard. A complete monster, a manipulative and cruel sack of shit… We should be glad. Fuck, we should be relieved.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” He could see that Cherri was smiling, a sardonic curve of her mouth that almost looked painful. “…wanted to hate him because he made Angie cry.”

Angel Dust. Husk had been trying not to think about that. About sitting on the roof… that sound…

“That monster’s controlled my life for years… I knew him better than maybe anybody. But… what the fuck is Angel thinking? Why… What did Alastor do to him to make him feel that way?”

There had been something nagging at the back of his mind in the last few weeks, watching the two of them together, seeming almost to start joking together, Alastor showing more willingness to be near Angel Dust and being more playful toward his lewd commentary. Just another thing he didn't want to entertain thinking about.

“Angie wouldn’t tell me,” Cherri said, addressing her drink. “…I think he was in love. …is. Dunno why.” She finally picked the glass up and took a slow sip of it, much slower than she usually did. “…s’good.”

Angel’s in love…? With him? How is that even possible…? He watched Cherri drink. Her look was still so distant and strange. Seeing her so subdued, her fire so dim, it made him want to… do… something. “Good gin can fix just about anything.” He downed half of his in one go, immediately cursing himself when the slush hit his soft palate and shot pain straight into his skull.

Cherri glanced up at him and smirked a little, her amusement at his amateur mistake sparking for a second. She finished her own drink, apparently impervious to brain freeze, and placed it back on the bar top. She then placed her index finger on the base of her empty martini glass and rotated it back and forth slowly. “…hey. Husk.” She glanced up at him again, her face serious. “D’you wanna fuck?”

He met her gaze, warmth slowly gathering back in his head. For a moment he had to make sure he’d heard her correctly. “I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

She shrugged at him. “It’s just a yes or a no. I can handle rejection, I’m not that psycho.”

“That’s not the answer I’m talking about.” He finished his drink, careful to swallow it right this time. All the while, he didn’t drop eye contact with the explosive Sinner.

Her lip quirked a little, almost humorously. “Y’think I asked and hoped you wouldn’t say yes?”

Husk couldn’t stop his own smile. It felt like a shadow of the past. Abandoning everything uncleaned at the bar he stepped out from behind it, closing the space between himself and Cherri. He took her bare waist and tilted his face to look down at her. “Figured I’d give you a chance to think better of it.”

Cherri’s hands were warm on his upper arms when she placed them there, her fingers threading through black fur. “I’m not out to think right now,” she said, but there was no hesitation or regret when she pulled him forward and kissed him.

He fell in almost too easily. His arms finished encircling her, and he tugged her body against his. She really was warm, and heavy with a vaguely sharp and bitter scent.

The moment he pulled her closer, she wrapped her own arms around his neck, encouraging the kiss to deepen. She caught his tongue and sucked on it, biting just hard enough to give him a brief spark of pain, before she broke it and spoke against his lips in a gently panting voice. “Where?”

“My room,” he murmured back, his nose brushing her cheek. For just a little while, maybe they could both forget what just happened.

•

“The golden blood had better be raining from the sky next year, or maybe I'll have to join them in wiping out all you hot little gongoozlers myself! And that's a fact!”

Alastor reclined further in his seat, tilting his head back with a self-satisfied purr deep in his chest.

“I'm happy to report that I made quite the haul myself this year! Anyone feeling brave enough to traipse over to Cannibal Town tomorrow will be treated to the most fantastic feast you can imagine! Did you know that angel blood makes the most marvelous base for a binding agent in sausage filling? Not only is it succulent, but it sparkles at you while you eat it!”

He chuckled, letting the sound ring clear and bright through his microphone and across the airwaves. This development in Hell’s relationship with Heaven had managed to make his radio empire grow even faster than he’d anticipated since his return, and he was milking it for all it was worth. He could feel the pulse of both Sinners and hellborn alike tuning in to what had become the most comprehensive coverage of the extermination, without coating everything in a digestible sheen, ready to market to the latest in crowd. Idly he pressed into his left shoulder with his fingertips, biting his lip at the sting of a special pain that had been left there the night before. But he didn't allow himself to think about the context.

“And while you’re at it, be sure to come down and–” Alastor paused, cutting the mic as his ears turned toward a muffled sound coming from somewhere behind and above him. He turned his head while he switched the mic back on. “–and see what delights are on offer at Rosie’s Emporium! Remember, that’s Rosie’s Emporium! Where Rosie’s Guarantee is: Whether by Bread or Brocade, You’ll be Dressed for Dinner!”

Something was trying to get in. But it wasn’t on the roof, nor was it clinging to the scaffolding outside. He switched the mic off again and set an interstitial piece to play. In the next thirty seconds Alastor rose from his seat, cast a couple of intricate signs with his hands and when he projected his power out towards the disturbance in his ceiling, he was immediately sent backward into his desk by a ripple of equal power sent back at him. He pushed himself up with his fallen chair, materializing his staff in his hand.

At a corner of his studio, where two walls met the ceiling, there was a tear. A tear in the fabric of space, which was lined with a sickeningly bright aura of white and a gentle pale blue. It widened as Alastor rose, and his stomach twisted when he felt the force of energy that was now descending into his sanctuary.

He didn’t take his eyes from the portal as he raised his microphone staff to his lips, using it to finish the broadcast.

“I do hope you’ve enjoyed the broadcast, my cats, chicks, and chumps! Make sure you tilt one back for the sweet little saps who didn’t make it. Remember, next time, it could be you! And even if the angels don’t get you… the Radio Demon surely will.”

The signal cut off, and Alastor watched a pair of feet descending from the portal.

“To what do I owe this dubious little visitation?” he said, not moving from where he stood with his back to the desk and his mountain of equipment. The figure was growing more clear, long and flowing white robes covering an unreadable shape, a dark helm with long horns and a brutish artificial face.

The leader of the Exorcists, and an all around grotesque little irritant, Adam, was now standing in Alastor’s most sacred space.

“WASSUUUP BITCH!” the eloquent gentleman said, brandishing his unwieldy and ridiculous weapon. “Looks like you’re feelin’ pretty fuckin’ good about yourself right about now, huh? Extermination done, so you're feelin’ cushy and vibing out? Yeah, makes sense. So fuckin’ slow you don’t have any idea how fucked you are!”

“Do I need to leave so you can be alone with yourself?” Alastor asked, crossing his arms and cocking one hip. “I’m clearly not needed for this stimulating conversation.”

Adam sneered, wagging one finger at Alastor. “Nuh-uh. Stupid. Shut up. I’m the one who gets to feel awesome now.”

“And why is that?”

“Because now I get to fucking kill you.” The angel looked so pleased his face was starting to glitch, his grin turning manic.

Alastor laughed, throwing his head back and tossing his staff from one hand to the other. “You’re a little late, aren’t you, pal? Even the big cheese himself isn’t immune to the agreement that allows your little harvests to go down in the first place!”

But Adam laughed in return, fully raising his musical axe. “Sorry, creepazoid. This isn’t an extermination…”

Faster than Alastor thought he would (or could), the Exorcist swept towards him, slinging his axe in a wide arc. The demon had hardly any time to react, launching himself backward over his desk and landing on the floor just in time to be missed by the weaponized guitar. His desk, however, was hewn in two, splinters flying everywhere, cables cut and soundboards splitting open. Sparks flew around them both, and Adam laughed.

“...this is a reclamation.”

Alastor called on the shadows to coalesce around his feet, and he felt his body pulse and warp. His vision grew more distorted than it already was, the sight of his prey sharper and sicker. Awareness of Hell’s sweet and foul darkness blossomed into his mind and slid needles through gray matter, barbed and envenomed. Tenebrous limbs rose up and encircled him, acting through his intentions, the willpower planted inside them giving him physical sensation in turn.

“Oh, did I take something from you?” Alastor asked, casting a protective shell about himself while he started working up an eldritch flame. “I wish I’d known, I probably would have cared a little!”

Adam wasted no more time. Still grinning like a maniac, he merely flicked his fingers in the direction of Alastor’s shield, and it withered away in an instant.

“You must really like being wrong, bruh,” Adam said, Alastor suddenly having the feeling that this could actually be a very bad thing.

Alastor unleashed his flames in a huge ball, immediately following the flames with a spray of black tendrils, the tentacles whipping and grabbing at their prey. The Radio Demon gritted his teeth, his body stretching out, antlers creaking and growing. When the flames dissipated, Alastor looked… and saw nothing. His tendrils were grabbing at each other, and Adam was nowhere to be seen.

But how?

“Actually, fuckstick, you're the thing I’m taking back,” he heard from behind him. Alastor turned, raised his staff, and gasped.

A strange sort of pain bubbled up inside him. Like cold air at first, then a rush of heat, a dull ache turned into burning, then started to feel cold again. From his left collarbone to his right hip, Alastor’s body was both here and not. A void had been carved out of him, and in that horrible moment all he had to look upon were the dull gold features of a sadistic grin, the one that alone called into question everything naive souls thought they knew about Heaven and Hell. Passively, Alastor was aware that his body had been destroyed beyond repair. Passively, he was aware that he was dying.

Actively, quite actively, he became aware that the axe had cut straight through the deep spider’s bite marking his shoulder.

A final curse welled up in his mouth and was silenced, drowned by a bubbling globule of blood. It was a sensation he’d known in another time, years ago on the crossroads, when he’d made the choice that rewrote his fate.

Angel my dear… I’m afraid I’m going to have to break my promise to you.

Adam said something else, probably some other inane jeer of mocking victory, but Alastor couldn’t hear him. His vision was growing dim, reds fading to gray.

It is a shame. I was so eager to see you really dance.

Something strange settled over his awareness while he sank, blackness of an unfamiliar sort beginning to envelop him.

There is still so much more I’m curious about.

He heard something finally, but it didn’t come from Adam, nor anything else in the room. It was in the space between spaces, everywhere and nowhere, hidden just out of view and bathed in green light.

“There is snow on the ground, and the valleys are cold, and a midnight profound blackly squats o'er the wold; but a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings unhallowed and old. There is death in the clouds, there is fear in the night, for the dead in their shrouds hail the sun's turning flight and chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule-altar, fungous and white.

“To no gale of Earth's kind sways the forest of oak, where the thick boughs entwined by mad mistletoes choke, for these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk. And mayst thou to such deeds be an abbot and priest, singing cannibal greeds at each devil-wrought feast, and to all the incredulous world shewing dimly the sign of the beast.

“I to my prison, and you to yours. Greet my dear brother for me, ahnah ehye, and wish him all the ill you hold, for now your task is transformed.”

Alastor’s head was on the ground… no… on something soft and white. Fluffy and soft, rising and falling in a slow, contented cycle. He reached out his hand, expecting to feel small and delicate fingers wrap around his own. But they didn’t.

Because Alastor was dead.

[doriansquest]

dragon prince season 7 refuses to be good and I'm so disappointed

i've been putting off finishing the season since it came out and i watched the first three episodes and absolutely hated it, but i finally decided to pull off the bandaid and wow was it so much more worse than i expected. like, i didn't really expect it to be good or anything, since everything has just been going downhill since season 4, but at the very least expected a proper conclusion, but nope, they couldn't even end the show in the finale.

this show just refuses to take the least logical path to the conclusion all the fucking time. like did there need to be so much subversion? follow through on your obvious foreshadowing. let callum be possessed by aaravos after he uses dark magic. that was set up all the way back in season 4. is he good? is he any different than as viren and claudia now, if he's willing to do the wrong thing for the greater good ("however dangerous, however vile")? hell, force rayla to reckon with that difficult choice. put her in the same situation she was in the pilot; is she willing to kill for the greater good, especially now when the stakes are so much higher and the victim is the love of her life?

let claudia kill terry and/or soren. that was bound to happen, she's far past the point of redemption now, she revived aaravos. stop tiptoeing around it. ("i'm still nice! i'm still me" what the fuck, no you're not. you made that decision ages ago, hell when you chose viren over soren all the way back in season 3). arguably, terry, as much as i love him, should have died all the way back in season 5, when viren was revived. it would have cemented claudia's conversion completed to aaravos if there was absolutely no one who loved her around anymore.

and for god's sake, don't try to make your main villain with absolutely no redeeming qualities sympathetic. don't give him a fucking daughter. not every villain is made to be redeemable, they can be just be evil! that's what i loved about aaravos. viren was morally grey from the start, but aaravos was always the dark voice whispering in his ear. he was conniving, manipulative, a force of pure evil! there was absolutely no reason to reduce him to this stupid thing that's so easy to defeat. why was it the dragons that killed him? why not the protagonists of the series instead of some side characters who haven't been in the story for multiple seasons?

like, there is no reason to constantly be adding new plot points? you can take a predictable solution. hell, it should be done in a final season. a story can still be interesting even if it's not the most twisty turvy thing in the world. it would have been so satisfying if the finale went exactly as expected: callum uses dark magic, gets possessed by aaravos and has to fight him out of his head while the other characters have to decide whether to hurt callum or risk aaravos escaping or whatever. we did not need the unicorns, nor the new archdragons, nor the fucking godforsaken sun elf plotline that never connected back to the main plot (and absolutely wasted amaya as a character). and we did not need evyrkind, nor bird harrow who never bothered to contact his sons, nor the seven fucking years. it was so easy to make a satisfying conclusion. why the fuck did the writers decide to take this route?

i don't know, i feel like i've put so much of my investment into this show for the past six years and somehow they manage to fumble it over and over again since season 4, and i keep telling myself that it's going to improve, that they're setting up something good, and they just don't, over and over for seasons. if you somehow enjoyed this season, please explain to me why. i want something good out of the time i spent.

[eyeheartboobiez]

-> 𝗃𝖺𝗌𝗈𝗇 𝗍𝗈𝖽𝖽 𝗑 𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗋!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋

-> 𝗌𝗈𝖼𝗂𝖺𝗅 𝗆𝖾𝖽𝗂𝖺 𝖺𝗎!

-> 𝖺/𝗇: 𝗈𝗄𝖺𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗂𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖫𝖠𝖲𝖳 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾 𝗂𝗆𝗆𝖺 𝗎𝗌𝖾 𝗏𝗂𝗇𝗇𝗂𝖾 𝗁𝖺𝖼𝗄𝖾𝗋 𝖺𝗌 𝖺 𝗃𝖺𝗌𝗈𝗇 𝖿𝖺𝖼𝖾 𝖼𝗅𝖺𝗂𝗆 𝗂 𝗌𝗐𝖾𝖺𝗋😭

Jason Todd and ex girlfriend, Artemis Grace, spotted outside a club together just hours ago! May this old flame be finding its spark again? (8/20/2022 3:14 AM PT)

For months now, people have been buzzing after Gotham elite Jason Todd and singer Y/N Y/LN hinted at being in a relationship. Ever since this past March when they were initially spotted together, fans have done nothing short of obsessing over the two.

Artemis Grace, former girlfriend of Jason, had gotten into some hot water recently when insiders claimed that the singer had something to do with leaking Y/N’s unreleased track, Fantasize.

As mentioned in former articles, TMZ investigators came to the conclusion that Artemis was involved in publishing the song as a way of “getting her lick back”. Time logs show that the dubbed “rival” singer entered the same studio as Y/N not too long after she left for the night.

Many people online have been more than vocal about their love for the song, despite the fact that it was released without the artist’s consent.

While Artemis has yet issue a statement regarding the accusations, she seems to have plenty of time to be out partying with her ex.

Fast forward to last night, when just hours ago, Jason and Artemis were seen leaving a nightclub together and looking very close for comfort. Onlookers were not only shocked, but absolutely gagged when they saw the two hugging each other goodbye.

With their late night rendezvous breaking headlines, some fans are starting to question if Jason may have also played a part in helping Artemis, or if they ever really broke up at all!

The exes, who were romantically involved for almost two years, have a long history of being toxic towards each other. Their on-again-off-again relationship was notorious for its dysfunctionality, making it hard to keep up most of the time.

It wasn't until late last year when both Jason and Artemis officially called it quits by posting an announcement on their respective Instagram accounts (although many were skeptical to believe it).

Despite the initial shock of the situation, it begs the question: Where does Y/N stand in all of this?

Fans of the singer songwriter were quick to come to her support, majority of whom expressing their clear disappointment in Jason.

“I was really betting on these two,” says Twitter user @y/n’scoochiehairs. “I feel like a child of divorce…”. The fan account, while only just a few months old, grew exponentially due to their constant posts about the alleged couple.

Many sentiments like this have been circulating the internet once the pictures from last night began to surface. Y/N is notorious for putting her emotions into her songs, so at least we know she’ll be releasing new music soon, right?

— replies —

user1: oh she really aint playing...

user2: COOK HIM GOOD SIS!!

user3: girl this is a whole bar put this energy into a song or sumn😭

user4: sooo what im hearing is that ur single🤔

⤷ user5: ntm on my wife now..

user6: this next album bouta be BIBLICAL

user7: genuinely hope youre doing okay🥺🫶

user8: ily queen🩷

people you may know!

liked by b_zarro and 613,189 others

@artemisofmighdall: last night was a dream✨

View all 25,846 comments

user1: first you mess with her music then you mess with her man.. if bold was a person…

user2: the hell is she smiling so damn big for?? ain’t shit funny😐

user3: girl you betta PRAY i don’t catch you in these streets…

user4: “last night was a dream” yeah and you in for a rude awakening cuz wth💀

user5: these comments killing me😭

user6: you already going to hell for being a ginger now you just making it worse for yourself🤦‍♀️

— creator has turned off comments—

end notes: is jason involved or is he just being framed👀 lmk what you think!!

[blue-eye-samurai-analysis]

Revenge is not always easy

What if Skeffington and Routley have families? What if one of them is a bad person turned good person, trying to atone for his sins?

When Mizu first mentions the Four White Devils she envisions them as demonic shadows and she probably doesn't expect any of them to have human emotions.

But we (the audience) already know that at least one of them has a compassionate side. And that's Fowler.

Remember how he mentioned his sister and famine in Ireland? Yes, even someone as evil as him had a loved one at some point of life. He loved his sister to the point of feeding her with his own blood to keep her alive. Actually, if you listen carefully to everything he said in episode seven, you may even reach the conclusion that his current devilish personality is not (entirely) his fault.

Which of course is NO excuse for what he does NOW (just like Taigen's dad drinking is no excuse for Taigen to act like shit - it helps us understand his behavior, but it's no excuse, not until he apologizes properly).

Anyway, whatever his motivation might be, Fowler is clearly a bad person and it makes Mizu's revenge easy in season one (from a moral point of view).

But for season two I’d like to see something different. Fowler called Skeffington and Routley “the absolute worst” and I’m on board with the idea to make them even WORSE psychos than what we’ve already seen… but it doesn’t mean their situation cannot become complicated.

Have you seen Kill Bill? If so, you might remember Vernita – that dark skinned chick the Bride murdered. Her case was really interesting, because she had a family and a KID. That didn’t earn her ANY mercy from the Bride, but from the audience’s point of view getting the bloody business done in front of the little girl was pretty savage.

Go to your room, honey! Mommy and her friend are busy trying to kill each other!

I think it would be interesting to watch in Mizu doing something simiar. And it makes perfect sense, because Fowler suggests that Skeffington and Routley are the discreet kind. You know what discreet criminals do? They blend in. And the best way to do it is to get yourself a proper wife and if you add cute kids to the formula, you’re on the highway to become the sweetheart of the society.

That would… well, maybe not STOP Mizu, but it could become the source of huge mental struggles for her. Because, yeah, destroying her maybe father, COULD result in robbing a completely innocent family of a bread provider, potentially even making them end up in the streets.

We know perfectly well that Mizu doesn’t like hurting innocent people. And she’s already had an opportunity to learn that revenge is not always easy – like in episode four, when Madame Kaji explained to her, that she cannot simply murder a powerful mob boss, because his lackeys will come and do the retaliation in form of a mass murder.

(But hey, if you are Mizu, you can always slaughter the dude’s entire army, so no worries).

So, the situation in which Skeffington or/and Routley would have a family (perhaps even Mizu’s half sibling!) could complicate things A LOT for our murderous protagonist.

And it would be even MORE interesting If one of the White Devils met her after having some sort of atonement arc. Remember: Fowler haven’t seen those dudes in ten years. At least that’s what the plot implies – though he might be in some contact with them, because someone GOT him the guns from England, and he seems convinced that they are both in London. But anyway, there is a chance, he doesn’t know them THAT well anymore.

Sooo… one of the devils could become good, perhaps even become a part of the English church (imagine Mizu murdering a Christian monk! – that would be sooo cool). He could have become a good person, take care of the orphans or help poor people in general. Hell, he could even decide to come back to Japan to atone for some stuff he had done. That’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing and I think it would make the plot (and Mizu’s character development) very interesting.

[moog-rt]

GO TO HELL [ch. 4]

[Lucifer Morningstar x Fem!Reader]

Previous: Chapter Three

➨ Chapter Four

Next: Chapter Five

Premise:

You love your friends. You really do. But sometimes it needs reminding when one of them accidentally sends you to Hell.

Despite falling into the hands of Hell’s loveliest princess, finding a way back to the world of the living proves difficult as you tiptoe around its king.

A/N: shout out to my very own "power bottom at rock bottom" (aka my roommate) for harnessing her inner Angel Dust and feeding into some of his dialogue.

If you'd prefer to read on Ao3, here is the link:

Otherwise, enjoy!

♡ ♡ ♡

CHAPTER FOUR

The car ride home was mostly silent and incredibly tense.

You also couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. When you looked around to sate your paranoia, you found nothing suspicious and whittled it down to the anxiety having your face plastered across every news channel in hell.

On your way out of her father’s manor, you decided to fill Charlie in about your hands and cheek. She said it was a gamble whether her dad would react well to your being human or not. Being neutral to it, however, was something she would not have imagined. She was just relieved that you were alright. 

She theorized that he may have assumed you were just wearing face paint for ‘shits and giggles’ (your words, not hers). There were some demons in Hell that did have skin tones similar to when they were human, so it wouldn’t be too outrageous for you to, as well.

Though it would be no surprise if he jumped to the conclusion that you were human due to your being televised all over Hell the day prior.

Not knowing where his head was at was going to kill you.

But worrying about that wasn’t going to get you anywhere. Charlie believed you two had searched everywhere in her old place that was likely to hold the key to you getting home. To your relief, the likelihood of returning was slim to none.

There was no need to stress over her father figuring you out since you wouldn’t have to risk running into him again.

The only thing you needed to focus on was getting those godforsaken cobwebs off the chandelier in the hotel foyer.

Vaggie was able to get the place mostly cleaned up in the time you were gone, but there were still a few things left that you were able to help with. After all they had done for you, this was the least you could do for them in return.

As you climbed back down the ladder, you saw Charlie pacing and muttering to herself. Even though you only met her recently, you knew how much the hotel and her plan to redeem sinners meant to her.

If this didn’t go well, she would absolutely take it to heart. She seemed like the type to barricade herself in a room to sulk for weeks on end. Or maybe bawl her eyes out whilst shoveling heaping spoonfuls of ice cream down her own throat.

Probably both.

“You know, this place is really coming together,” you said as you walked up to her.

She paused to face you.

“You think so?” she asked, glancing around the foyer in search of anything in need of tending. “Gosh, what if he doesn’t like the color scheme, or—or the motifs? What if he decides he isn’t interested in redemption at all?”

“Hey,” you said to get her attention as you leaned back into her view. “If he weren’t interested in what you’re offering, he wouldn’t be coming by to check things out. And I really don’t think your choice in décor will be what turns him away.”

You chuckled a bit as you glanced at the odd horse statues and slightly tattered wallpaper. It wasn’t modern or trendy, but it did have character. That was for sure.

She nodded with a far-off gaze, ruminating on your words.

“Even if he does decide that this isn’t for him—though I don’t think that will happen—there are so many people down here! I find it hard to believe that you won’t find some who are interested,” you continued. “Think about all the souls that believed they’d be going to Heaven but ended up here instead. They’d probably give up an arm and a leg to be redeemed.”

Her shoulders slacked, and her back loosened as she released a deep breath. Looking back at you, her face appeared more relaxed.

“Yeah…you’re totally right,” she said with a soft smile. “We just need to be patient.”

“I think this guy would be stupid not to accept your offer.” You bumped her arm playfully as you went to continue tidying up.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw her smile and walk off, presumably to do the same.

Everyone was putting the final touches on everything when there was a knock on the front door. You paused in the middle of sliding the sofa across the room so you could get a look at whoever was there.

Charlie and Vaggie looked at each other in surprise.

“I told him to text or call before showing up,” Vaggie grumbled, running a hand through her bangs as she went to answer the door.

He was quite…tall.

You had forgotten their appearances could vary so much. Charlie, her father, and Vaggie were relatively similar to a regular person, despite some slight cosmetic differences. This guy, however, had an extra set of limbs and was covered head to toe in what looked like fur. 

Upon closer inspection, he also had what appeared to be three additional pairs of eyes underneath his primary ones.

Was he supposed to be a bug?

You shuffled forward as Charlie introduced herself. She had fixed up your makeup once you returned, so there was nothing to worry about regarding your own appearance. You had double and even triple-checked beforehand.

“This is it?”

“Uh…yes?” Charlie said meekly with her hands clasped in front of her chest.

He gave the foyer a hard once-over.

“Eh, anything’s betta’ than my current digs,” he said with a shrug and started walking around. “You got drinks?”

“No? The point of redemption is to stop engaging in sin,” Vaggie stated, crossing her arms. “Which means cutting out drugs?”

“You’re kiddin’ me,” he said as his body slumped. “What the hell am I supposed to do then? Play checkers?”

“Ooh, Checkers would be a fun way to break the ice!” Charlie sang, clapping her hands together.

This earned her a blank look from the new guest.

“Aha…” she laughed awkwardly at the bland response, then turned to gesture at you. “Well, this is our current resident! We have faith that she will be redeemed very soon.”

You gave a wide smile as you were being shown off. Should you strike a pose? Put your hands on your hips and puff your chest out in pride?

You didn’t mind being a fake example of a sinner-gone-good to help her out. It was the least you could do at this point. Plus, when you finally got the hell out of there, you could all play it off as you being ‘redeemed’.

“Yup, yup. Sin-free life has been pretty great,” you said, crossing your arms.

The guy already seemed exasperated. Vaggie was right when she said he was more interested in free rent than redemption itself.

“What did you say your name was again?” you asked in an attempt to keep the conversation from dying out before it had even started.

He perked a bit and plastered on a sultry smirk.

“Angel Dust,” he said as he swiped a hand through his hair(?) (head fluff?). “If you’re interested in gettin’ to know me betta’, I’ve got a nice collection of videos I can refer ya to.”

“No,” Vaggie groaned. “He’s a pornstar.”

Your eyebrows shot up.

“I mean, more power to you,” you shrugged, and he snickered.

“Wasn’t expectin’ that sorta career choice to fly with someone aspirin’ to cross through them pearly gates.” He tilted his head as he eyed you carefully, leaning down slightly to be more at your eye level. 

“What makes you think that?” you asked, raising your chin. “In my opinion, a redeemable gal like myself should be respectful of other’s bodily autonomy.”

“Last I checked, the pious types weren’t so down with cock-suckin’ hoes. I mean,” he paused and smirked, “some of ‘em were down with us cock-suckin’ hoes, but they did their darndest to pray that shit away afterward. The guilts part of the kink.”

Vaggie’s stance tensed more and more with each word that came out of his mouth. You were pretty sure her eye was twitching.

“Good people are accepting people!” Charlie exclaimed, throwing her arms out.

“You ain’t ever have to deal with the living, sugar-tits,” Angel said, draping himself over the couch in a way you were sure would be put on the front cover of a Playboy magazine. “But sure.”

You all began a short tour of the hotel much like the one you got when you first arrived. This time, however, Charlie was really trying to sell her redemption plan to him. She explained the terms of their deal. He would refrain from acts of sin, such as violence, drugs, yada-yada, and he could stay there for free.

As you began filing out of one of the available, move-in-ready rooms, you noticed Angel pause. He was looking at the ground with a blank expression, clearly contemplating something. You assumed he was weighing the pros and cons of Charlie’s offer, but you were no mind reader.

After showing off most of the relevant parts of the hotel, you gathered back in the entryway. Charlie stared Angel down expectantly, waiting in suspense for his decision.

She was overjoyed when he finally agreed.

“There’s no harm in tryin’, I guess.” He shrugged shooting a half-lidded smirk. “But I ain’t makin’ no promises that I’ll be the paragon of redeemability. I ain’t that type of model.”

When he left, he said he had to clear some things with his boss first and then he would start this whole ‘redemption thing’.

The three of you had a miniature celebration—juice, soda, and popcorn to go along with eager chatter—before you decided to address the stack of books you had hauled back to the hotel.

The evening was going swimmingly thus far, and you hoped that good luck would carry on to the very end of the night. Somewhere in that pile was your key to getting home. Your fingers were crossed that you would be sleeping in your own cozy bed that night.

You could finally take up your own offer on a nice hot bubble bath and let it soak away all the stress that had stockpiled within your body.

Sitting in a circle around the books, you began sifting through them.

Your hope dwindled bit by bit with every one you flipped through and set aside. They had everything to do with the living world except for the means of getting there.

Once the last book was deemed useless, you sat in sullen silence. A sort of emptiness settled within your chest.

If that was your best shot at returning, what else was there?

“Okay…that’s okay!” Charlie said in an attempt to lighten the mood. “We just have to try something else. Vaggie, you said you knew people who had access to Earth, right?”

“I said I knew of people,” she corrected. “But I did do a little bit of digging while you were out, and I might have a few leads?”

“Oh, perfect!” Charlie chirped, sitting straight up with her hands on her knees. “How about we look into those tomorrow then?”

You and Vaggie both nodded because what else were you supposed to do? You didn’t really have the option of giving up in this situation. Your life wasn’t going to wait on hold forever. It probably wasn’t waiting at all.

At this point, two full days would have passed since you ‘disappeared,’ but living alone makes it harder for people to notice that sort of thing. You doubted Devon would have reported it since that would likely result in them getting into even deeper shit (in addition to the can of whoop-ass you’d release onto them once you made it back).

And you knew better than to put any amount of faith into Jack. You were sure he noticed your absence. You had the texts to prove it. But he seemed to be convinced you were giving him the cold shoulder, which would most likely result in him pretending he didn’t give two flying fucks about you.

Fuck that bitch.

♡

You wouldn’t say you slept like a baby that night, but you sure did sleep. You slept with the weight of despair threatening to overtake you with each failed attempt of finding a way back home.

And you know what?

It wasn’t half bad. Would you recommend it to someone else? No, not really. But you couldn’t tell them it was terrible.

Wiping the sleep from your eyes, you padded your way down the grand staircase. It was nice not having to wake up early to get all done up, but you still felt groggy. Possibly from sleeping too much.

You also appreciated being able to spend more time in the pajamas you were given, because good lord were they comfy.

Charlie and Vaggie let you know last night that they’d be leaving earlier in the morning to talk to the folks Vaggie believed might be able to access the living world. You stayed behind because you all agreed that dragging you through public in a not-so-durable disguise was a disaster waiting to happen.

However, they planned to be back in time for Charlie’s father to visit.

He had called her the previous night—just before you were all about to go your separate ways—to let her know he wanted to stop by. She told him he could drop by in the afternoon, and that was that.

You planned to coup yourself up in your room for the duration of his visit. You would rather die than address what had happened with the paint. If he had any questions regarding that, he could direct them towards his daughter. Thank you and goodnight (love you, Charlie! Muah!).

There was nothing to do until Charlie and Vaggie returned, but you still wanted caffeine or anything that could clear your brain fog.

They had stocked up the fridge and ‘pantry’ a bit more since you arrived, and Angel would likely move in any day now so there was also that to consider. Yet it was still a gamble on whether or not you could find something appealing.

You kneeled down in front of the fridge and began rummaging through your options.

Mysterious leftovers?

No.

Artichoke Hearts?

Eh…for breakfast? Probably not.

Coconut Milk?

No… You were surprised they even had coconuts in Hell. Unless, of course, they had sinners that manifested as coconuts, then you reckon they could milk—

No, absolutely not.

You were thinking about settling on a popsicle when you heard a knock at the front door.

Nobody should have been stopping by yet. Charlie’s dad wouldn’t be there until later, and you guys weren’t expecting anyone else. It could possibly be Angel, but you doubted he already spoke to his boss considering it was still morning.

The stained-glass doors didn’t disclose much about your surprise visitor. They were merely a shadowy figure, distorted by the odd shapes and colors.

Regardless of who it could be, you needed to hide or at least find a way to get back upstairs without being seen.

Slowly rising to your feet, you locked onto a rather large crate near the edge of the entryway.

You wouldn’t have to cross in front of the door to get there, which was ideal. Even though you knew the person on the other side couldn’t see you clearly, you preferred they not know you were there at all. Once you were at the crate, you could easily make your way around the room undetected.

Just as you were about to slip around it, you heard the front door creak open.

“Hello~” sang a familiar voice.

You hastily dodged behind the crate, your feet sliding slightly underneath you due to the new socks you had been gifted by your hosts. Thankfully, you were able to stabilize yourself before falling into anything.

Your heart was pounding away in your chest.

What was he doing here so early?

You pressed your back against the crate as you carefully sat down to wait for him to pass. Listening to his footsteps crossing the room was doing nothing to soothe your nerves. It was clear that he was in no rush to move on through the hotel. You could hear him as he sauntered around the foyer, pausing every once in a while before continuing on.

If he was taking in the sights, it was only a matter of time before he got to your side of the foyer.

You had to get out.

Taking a deep breath, you hesitantly peeked around your hiding spot to see where he was and whether he was looking your way.

To your relief, Charlie’s father was investigating a portrait on the wall opposite of you.

You wasted no time creeping across the floor to take cover behind the tattered old reception area. There was a body-length mirror resting against the wall just a few feet away that would give you a relatively good view of where he was.

As you were about to lean close enough to see through the mirror’s reflection, you heard him begin to hum just a few feet away. You scrambled to get beneath the desk.

How did he get so close so fast?

You understood the guy wasn’t human, but still. You were able to hear his footsteps clear as day up until that point. He shouldn’t know you were there; you were being so quiet…

Holding your breath, you waited for him to put some distance between the two of you. When you felt he was far enough away, you slowly scooted to the other side of the desk where you could hopefully get a view of the mirror.

Hearing him tampering with something, so you took the opportunity to glance at the mirror’s reflection.

He was prodding at one of the broken columns, testing its stability, it seemed. And his back was facing you. Perfect.

Glancing around the edge of the reception desk, you could see that the stairs weren’t too far away. It was a pretty open area, however, so you wondered if it would be better to beeline it down the adjacent hall instead.

Figuring that was likely the safer option, you checked the mirror once more to make sure his back was still turned.

You met his gaze in the reflection, and your eyes went wide as his lips curled into a wicked grin.

Fuck.

In a panic, you threw yourself out of view and knocked your head into the desk’s edge. The collision was certainly loud enough for him to hear, but you kept your pained whine quiet as you cradled your temple.

Your train of thought was quickly growing fuzzy, unsure of what to do or where to go.

Was it best to run?

What if he was faster?

Would your chances be better if you found another place to hide?

Probably not… He already knew where you were, and you weren’t sure where else you could even go.

All you knew was that you couldn’t stay where you were. If his eyes were still trained on the mirror, you would probably be better off going back the way you came. Maybe there was a gap in the crate that you could worm through to hide. It would be like you disappeared.

You turned back in that direction, and as you were about to dart back to the safety of your original hiding spot, two legs stepped in front of you.

You gasped, sliding to a halt just before you could crash into him.

Charlie’s father slowly crouched down to your level as you tilted your head to look up at him, eyes as wide as saucers. His smile was wide, showing off his large, pointed teeth.

“What do we have here?”

Next Chapter

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[whiteladyofithilien]

Okay here to talk Eowyn and how the slights and disrespect she gets are more annoying than listening to Gollum talk to himself all day...

People who act like Aragorn dislikes/disdains her just because he doesn't return her romantic feelings are living in that incel mindset that women can only be admired as matrons or sexual objects. Aragorn the king of wholesome masculinity admires the heck out of Eowyn. Refers to her as the fairest thing in Rohan. He values her friendship and her place as a fundamental bullwark of her people.

People who act like she's somehow pathetic because she falls for someone who doesn't return her affection are not living in reality. They're lost in some Hollywood/porn centric view of romance where women are always sexually desired and if they aren't well then something is wrong with them. Faramir very clearly lays out what happened. She who had been treated rather like a utility in her household meets the last and greatest of the men of Numenor. Truly a man above all others. And of course she's bedazzled. Then there's the fact that he seems to truly see her (albeit on his side just platonic admiration and desire for friendship) and she matters and of course for someone who has been sidelined to tending to her aging uncle this draws her in. There's no fault on Aragorn but as any girl whose femininity and/or personhood has gone largely ignored will tell you it can be quite heady when someone actually notices you as a whole person, femininity included.

And finally her moment with the Witch-King being stolen from her like she did nothing. Ignores all these facts

1. Merry wouldn't have been there to stab him if not for her

2. It's very clearly a dual credit thing both in the passage and in the appendix footnotes

3. Nothing explicitly says that without Merry and his barrow-blade that she couldn't kill the witch-king. She's not a man while Merry is not a Man. The whole thing was based off of an elven prophecy which prophecies seldom are straightforward in their wording and don't even always come true (ask Treebeard) so there's nothing conclusive to say that her jamming a sword in his face wouldn't have done the trick with or without Merry. His role is certainly important because if nothing else prophecy or no he did distract the Witch-King with his blow allowing Eowyn to press an advantage but absolutely nothing there discredits her accomplishment in slaying the Witch-King of Angmar and people trying to act like Merry "made it easy for her" need to shove a barrow-blade where the sun don't shine

Small note here too. People who want to criticize her cooking are wrong in multiple aspects.

A. That's only in the films and a deleted scene at that.

B. It's sexist as hell to base a woman's merit off of her cooking skills. You go hamstring an oliphant and make a souffle then anonymous dudebro hating on Eowyn

C. If you think Eowyn's only accomplishments are "masculine" she does have a great talent with "feminine arts" as in she's a healer and gardener in Ithilien and by virtue of her spouse she's a freaking princess given Faramir is the Prince of Ithilien

So in conclusion if you want to diss Eowyn for any of the above mentioned off base arguments you can kiss Gollum's scrawny arse

[cursed-byesexual]

I'm such a sucker for fics from the pov of some NormalPerson™ who tries to understand what the actual fuck is going on with your fave. For example;

- Hermione's parents sort of got used to their daughter talking about dragons and curses and she makes it sound like its no big deal so they just go along with their strange kid. Except now there's a man at the door who says he's the minister of magic and he would like to personally invite you and your daughter to the first memorial of the final battle as she is a war hero of the highest order. What do you mean there was a war? Hermione, get down here this instant!

-Or a true crime podcast about the crimes of Sam and Dean Winchester through the eyes of someone who went to college with Sam. He hosts podcast nights and everytime one of Sams alleged kills is described he tells the friends who are listening with them about that time Sam went vegetarian for a month after watching a nature channel docu.

-Or Percy Jackson returns to a mortal high school after one of his adventures and one of his teachers has to try and decipher the transcripts from his old schools. How the fuck did this little skater boy blow up his last school? Why isn't he in prison??? Or dead??? The parent-teacher conference night that follows is one for the ages as Sally Jackson lies her ass off, but with skill.

-Or John Watson decides to go to a class reunion against better knowledge and Sherlock tags along to learn more about John out of boredom. His former classmates don't understand what the hell Sherlock Holmes is doing at their party if there hasn't been a murder and absolutely come to the conclusion that the two are together. They have to be, right?

Basically anything that puts these unhinged adventures and relationships into perspective I guess, sorry if these don't make sense,,, tag me if you know any fics of this sort! For any fandom! Or comment you own hc!!!