#welcome to project clockwork

[sakuravalenp]

A dream land - DP X DC Prompt

Okay, so I was thinking about that episode "Perchance to dream" where Bruce is trapped in a dream world and this, even thought really different, came to my mind.

Danny is king or prince of the infinite realms. He's been working on personalizing/decorating his castle in the infinite realms. When he feels someone walking just outside the castles walls. The thing is, that someone isn't a denizen, they aren't in a corporeal body, but he can feel that they are very much alive and feel distinctly human. He approaches the person to ask why and how they are in the infinite realms, but they fade away before he gets the opportunity.

Clockwork, who was with him at the moment, tells him that the visitor from the living, was just the soul projection of someone that was sleeping, and then refuses to elaborate further. Since it's something that was to do with sleeping, Danny decides to go and ask Nocturn, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that he was the one at fault for the soul projection.

Contrary to what he thought, Nocturn informed Danny that Sleeping soul projection was a natural phenomenon that he didn't control. The land of dreams, ("My domain" - Nocturn reminds him), was in the infinite realm after all, and those who have been close to death sometimes slipped they're whole soul instead of just their mind, and ended up all over the infinite realms.

It isn't too different from a lucid dream for them, the body gets all the benefit of the sleep, the mind feels rested if they had a good time in the realms. Except, if they hurt their soul too bad during their little trip, it would have real consequences. Loosing memories, abilities regression, migraine, pain that reflects the soul damage, all either temporary until the soul healed, or permanent and deteriorating, and in some occasions finishing in the persons death. In the latter, the soul is usually too damaged and cease it's existence, or have enough ectoplasm and emotion to form into ghosts with crack cores whose existence is instantly in danger.

Danny clearly didn't like the image that was painted to him, so he asked Nocturn if there was really nothing that he could do. It took a lot of talking and convincing, but eventually Nocturn admitted he could be able to direct the soul projecting to appear on a certain place, but he refused to babysit anyone. Which was enough for Danny, all he needed to do was make another expansion in his castle.

He decided to make a garden to receive their soul projecting guests. The garden was enormous, with all kinds of spaced within it. Playgrounds, picnic spaces, soft benches, tables with ghost and space teamed board games, fountains, and of course, the beautiful flowers that surrounded and decorated the place. Once he got ghosts with gardening, protection and caring obsessions on the place to look out for the souls, he was ready to receive them. It took him by surprise the amount of people that came, the garden was never crowded, but was never empty either, and souls of all ages and places were visiting at all times.

He kept expanding the garden as he heard of new things their guests wished for. He enjoyed spending time in the middle of the garden where souls passed by but rarely appeared, it was calm, but not completly quite with the background noice of the soul enjoying their dreams, and he could do the more mundane king/prince work. Until, he starts getting a regular visitor on his little space of the garden.

Choose the DC character you prefer, my idea is for people who hasn't died in the past but has been in the doors of death (so died and came back would be disqualified but you do as you prefer), but I'm going with Tim.

The soul of a boy around his age appears just in front of him, as usual when he greets new arriving soul, he welcomes him with a gentle smile and tells him he is free to explore the garden. A ghost taker is assign to him. The soul, as usual, seems confused and like he wished to asks questions, but seems content to ask them to his tour guide, and Danny continues with his own duties.

But then, the same soul continues to appear in the same place every two or three days, they exchange greetings and every time talk for a bit longer before the boy leaves to explore once more. It's rear to have multiple visits from one soul, even more so for said soul to appear in the same place every time. By the four time, Danny decides to take a break on his royal duties and accompany his new friend.

~ They get close, and have cute scenes, Tim asks a lot of questions and Danny answers and not-answers a lot of questions ~

One day, Tim shows up as usual, but he is in full Red Robin costume, and well, Danny wasn't expecting an identity reveal.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

On the Bats side:

There's an attack of some villain that's able to put Red Robin (or character of your choice) on a sleeping beauty type of sleep while carrying a serious injury, were he stays sleep until teammates or backup gets him out of it. The event affects his soul, making him disconnect partially from the land of dreams and making his soul sleep project almost every time he sleeps.

Tim starts sleeping more often. It's worrying at first, Bruce being paranoid does every test in the book, despite Tim saying he's just finding sleep easier now. But, he was just affected by sleeping magic and suddenly his sleeping easier? Seems like a side effect, and that makes it worrying.

Tim's health in general improve, just like he's concentration and productivity. Who would have thought that working rested actually was more productive than working on less than three hours of sleep and missing obvious details and clues due to how tired you are.

With everything not only being okay, but better than before, paranoia about Tim's new sleeping schedule soon dies, and instead is replaced with teasing about how he used to refuse to rest kicking and screaming, and now he may sleep more than any of them.

On Tim's side, he's loving being able to soul project so often. He knew from the start he was in a different dimension, and he just wanted to know the hows, whys, and everything else. So far, he seems to do it at least once every three days, and he's even gone two times in a row a couple of times.

The garden had a lot of things to do, but Tim doesn't care about that, he's more interested in all the information he's getting. The first 3 times he was given different ghost nanny's, who were more focus on entertaining him and didn't really answer direct question. But then king/prince Phantom decided to accompany him personally, and everything went smoother. He was going back to get to know more about this new world, and maybe to know more about the cute prince/king too. He might also have gotten some better looking pajamas.

Now, he has a mission that takes more than a couple days with some people in his team that hasn't yet sen his face. He didn't realize how difficult it would be to do all nighters after getting used to a sleep schedule. He would usually try to go as long as possible without sleeping, but he decides that he should take advantage of the safety of where they're staying and sleep a bit too. He ended up soul projecting in full Red Robin costume. He tried to play it cool, maybe Phantom wouldn't know it was him.

"Red Robin, even if you didn't appear on the same spot as always, I can feel your soul. I know who you are."

[prokopetz]

Playtest draft 0.4 of Eat God is up! This version includes a reworking of player character Traits, clarifications (and, in most cases, moderate buffs) for most Arts, a whole new semi-freeform magic system for when none of the standard options are quite bullshit enough, and most importantly, The Clockwork City, a complete playset (this game's version of an "adventure", though they don't work quite as you might expect if you're familiar with pre-written adventures form other games) co-written by @cryptotheism – a name I trust many of this blog's followers will recognise.

Like my previous early access projects, this one has been moved over to itch.io for better exposure. Pay-what-you-want pricing is enabled for those who'd like to contribute to the game's ongoing development, but I encourage you to hit the little "just take me to the downloads" button first; there's no sense paying sight-unseen for something that's still a work in progress!

In terms of player feedback for this one, I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on any of the newly added rules or playset material, with a particular emphasis on the new Expressions stuff; those currently lack worked examples, and it would be useful to see what people come up with in the absence of any direct guidance.

As always, questions, comments, and bizarre rants are welcome; you can put your two cents in either in the notes of this post, or via the Penguin King Games Discord server – there should be a channel for Eat God set up already.

[ew-selfish-art]

DP x DC AU: Letters and Paper goods are easy to store, and therefore, easy to hide. Danny has drama to monger though.

Tim Drake becomes a ward of Bruce Wayne at the same time the Drake Corporation is crumbling, and his father's health is declining. Dana, his father's physical therapist turned new wife, isn't optimistic these days, and Tim can read the writing on the wall.

Times have changed and Bruce and Dick are treating him with kid gloves. Jason Todd is alive again, been there suffered that. Young Just-Us has proven yet again to be his true family... But Bruce 'welcomes' him home the second the fake uncle is sniffed out.

So, Tim rationalizes, If Drake Corp is going down, then so shall the reason he spent his childhood abandoned. The many, many archeology digs his parents left him for over the years and their many, many stolen historical pieces. Tim is ready and able to get rid of them all.

He first returns the artifacts that have obvious origins to the people with whom they belong. Then it starts to get a little hazy as to where each item stolen is from. The paper goods are the hardest to place.

Years later, Tim has almost completely emptied his parent's old home of their stolen goods. By now, he runs a fortune 500 company and is working as Red Robin. Going through the last of the archives means going through the very last objects his parents ever preferred over his company, and he can't wait to be rid of them.

A glowing green envelope however... this one he feels compelled to keep. He hadn't known it back when he started this project- but somehow his Parents had found objects drenched in the essence of the Lazarus Pits. And it wasn't just one letter, it was dozens and dozens.

Tim Drake knew it would be risky to move them, but he needed to get these letters to an ex-league member to understand what the language of the dead was trying to proclaim.

_____

Danny hates a fetch quest but apparently Ghost Writer is having a bad day. It starts with Danny running by the guys library to have a chat when all of a sudden, the question of certain... ghost relations... came up. Danny is always more than thrilled to hear about how the various ancient-as-in-old ghosts interacted with the Ancients-as-in-yikes ghosts.

Ghost Writer finally admitted to the monarch in training that if he wanted to know so badly, that he could track down Clockworks old letters. They'd been scattered well before Ghost Writer could properly work on the ghost archives (read: was still alive), and it wasn't until he'd long worked on the library that such affairs were noted as missing.

The potential for gossip was just too good! A call home to Sam, Tuck and Jazz to let them know he was on an adventure, and then Danny flew off with little more than some hints by GW and an annoyed nod of cryptic agreement by CW.

Danny goes about wondering Gotham as himself, not yet seeing the need to be Phantom, when he runs into the very guy he was looking for.

"Hey- you don't happen to have a shit ton of letters written in the language of the dead do you?" Danny smiles as innocently as possible as he watches all seven stages of grief play out on the guy's face. Then something changes and Danny can tell that this guy is like, scary competent.

"I do, however, I was double crossed and a shit ton of assassins are on their way to try and take them."

"Uh... Bummer for them I guess? I'll just take them and go- I don't even really need to keep them if you want em back-"

"Assassins. They won't exactly leave empty handed."

"Huh. Well... Wanna come with? These are supposed to have some pretty juicy drama in them." Danny awkwardly places a hand on the back of his neck.

A knife being thrown in their direction was enough to get this guy to make a decision.

"Let's go spill some tea then."

Danny grins as he pulls the guy through a rapidly drawn portal, ignoring the wide eyes he makes. Turns out his name is Tim, and walking him through afterlife drama is the best- how does he know so many dead assassins??? One of these letters is about a guy who took Tim's spleen??

[k1ng-ej]

Hi! I saw you opened Shadow requests, I wondered if you could do a Shadow x reader where the reader was the result of an experiment, like Shadow, and the two find each other after the 50 years of separation (once Shadow wakes up in the present day). They would've lived on the Space Colony Ark together, and during GUN's invasion, they were separated in the chaos. Shadow is sealed away, not knowing the reader's fate - whether they're alive or dead - and then 50 years later, some time after waking up, he finds them again. I guess it's a kind of angst/hurt-comfort/happy ending type of thing? Anyway, I hope you consider it :)

Ultraviolence

Note: thank you for the request! this one took a little longer because i tried a different style/approach with it and experimented a little with the wording, i hope you enjoy it! lore is a mix of events that took place in the movie, and some from og lore. and side note, all other requests are being on hold, as i am going out of state for my birthday in a few weeks, but ill get back to them when i return!!

. . .

The sound of shouting followed by gunshots rang through the halls of The Ark, the rushed footsteps that seemed to be gaining on you sent a jolt of fear through your body, and you instinctively held onto Maria's hand tighter. You and Shadow could've outran the soldiers, but you both silently agreed to not leave the only family you had behind. Everything was in chaos, people were scattering and pleading for their lives as they had firearms pointed in their face, ear piercing alarms had been set off, an ache beginning to form in your head. You, Shadow, Maria, and Gerald were running from agents of G.U.N, unsure of what fate laid ahead for you all. As you glanced behind you, you could see them aim, an older male was demanding they stand down, but they didn't listen. A shot fired off, the group skidded to a stop and your eyes scanned over everyone in search of where the bullet had hit. Everyone's gaze seemed to be somewhere else, before you could follow it an explosion went off. The impact sent waves of pain throughout your entire body, you felt yourself being flung across the room, your body collided with something solid, and immediately you lost consciousness.

When you came to, the first thing you felt was the throbbing of your head, then the immense pain in all of your limbs. Peeling your eyes open, you were greeted with a white ceiling. Taking in your surroundings, you immediately realized you were in some sort of hospital room. The room being a sterile white, the faint scent of a cleaning agent in the air, and the quiet sound of your heart monitor caused a pit to form in your stomach. Unfortunately, these rooms were never a good sign for you. You were another project alongside Shadow, made to help cure Maria's illness. Like clockwork, you had tests being performed on you, and you were poked and prodded with needles for hours until your skin was sore. Shadow underwent the same treatment, doctors often worked on you both in the same room, you could feel your heart break each time you saw the empty look in Shadows eyes. Luckily, Maria would come around and sneak you two away from the relentless tests to go and watch movies or do some other fun human activity.

Your mind was flooded with the memories of what transpired on The Ark, your body started moving on its own as you began to sit up. All of the wires that were hooked up to you tugged, and any needles they had under your skin pulled uncomfortably. You had to know what happened to Maria and Shadow, you didn't see what happened to them in the explosion, and you weren't sure how long you had been unconscious.

"Welcome back," A feminine voice rang out from beside you, you jumped. You didn't notice her beside you. She was dressed in purple scrubs, holding a clipboard in her hand that you could only assume held all of your information on it. You watched silently as she scribbled a few notes down, then approached you.

"Where are they?" You were surprised by the sound of your own voice, hoarse and quiet, like you hadn't spoken in weeks. The doctor sighed as she began removing some of the wires attached to you.

"I'm sorry."

That was all she said, your heart sunk in your chest. You knew all too well this was doctors favorite thing to say when delivering unfortunate news to waiting families, you can thank all of the sad movies you watched with Maria for that. You sat in your thoughts as the lady in front of you began performing a basic checkup, making sure your health was in order. Shadow was created to be the ultimate lifeform, could he really be taken out by such an explosion? Did he and Maria get the worst of it? You were starting to spiral. What were you supposed to be if Maria was not around anymore, what is the purpose of your life? Would you forever be cursed with being a lab rat?

"If you'd like, I can catch you up to speed with everything." Your doctor finally broke the silence, shining a small light into your eyes. You nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"You've been in a medical induced coma for the past 50 years. The accident you were involved in left you with severe injuries, and everyone agreed to keep you asleep for our own safety," She paused, removing the blue disposable gloves from her hands. "We have woken you up because we have tests we need to run on you. With Shadow no longer around, you're the only thing left for us, and we believe you hold the key to curing even the deadliest illnesses."

A small, yet powerful flame fueled by anger ignited within your chest, providing a warmth no other emotion could. Its flames threatened to grow into something bigger, more dangerous. But you had your hands tightly secured onto its reins, having a firm grasp on the destructive emotion. She talked about keeping you asleep for their safety as if you were going to harm them, like you haven't let them constantly experiment on you without putting up a fight. You've let them draw blood from you until your head spun and vision blurred, you willingly let them bring you to your weakest state and they still think you are hazardous. The mention of Shadow being gone caused your frustration to fizzle out, instead turning into sadness and emotional pain. Your chest constricted painfully, and tears threatened to spill from your eyes. Maria would always tell you and Shadow that you were much more than things to be studied, and, in her words, you were your own people too and could exist outside of the reason you were created. You often saw Maria as the light to your dark and isolated life, she was a saint, undeserving of the illness that had her clutched tightly in its grasp. Maria deserved a long, happy life, and she deserved to return to Earth, her home, and breathe it's fresh air instead of the stuffy air onboard of The Ark. Memories of Shadow and Maria replayed in your mind as doctors and scientists crowded into your small room, approaching you with scary looking devices and whispering among themselves. This was the first time you would be without the comfort of your only family. You glanced over at the door, expecting to see a familiar blonde girl enter, ready to swoop you away from the never ending tests, but she never came. Your eyes wandered the room, looking for the comforting and reassuring gaze Shadow always gave you during times like these, but he was not here either.

Your perception of time was distorted, exacerbated by the absence of clocks or calendars in the facility. Each morning, you were awoken and examined, a routine that felt interminable. It was a grueling schedule: wake up, see several scientists, eat, sleep, and repeat.Your life had been reduced to a meaningless routine. While part of you wished to believe that this was in line with Maria's wishes, that they would find cures for diseases, you knew she would not have wanted it this way. You felt that you were not treated as a living being, but rather as a mere experiment and a subject for medical procedures. This caused you to feel angry.

In Japan, located far away from civilization was a G.U.N facility. Inside, they harbored a very dangerous and important project. Project Shadow. He was suspended inside of a tube, forced into an eternal sleep state. Inside of this tube, he could recall the memories of a girl, she played guitar, danced with him, and introduced him to movies. Next to this girl was another project, just like him. You overtook his memories and thoughts, flashbacks of the time you two spent together playing in his mind. He could vividly remember the sound of your voice, the tired look in your eyes, and the giggle that seemed to only come out when Maria was around. He remembers the explosion, he was knocked unconscious but only for a few minutes. He remembers Maria's body, the physical and emotional pain he felt upon realizing she was gone, that she was taken from him. You were his next priority, he searched the rubble for your body, but did not find it. Finally, through all of the commotion, he could see G.U.N agents carrying your unconscious body in a small, cramped crate. From where he stood he could only make out some of your injuries, broken limbs, stray metal pieces had pierced through your skin, you were in critical condition. Shadow was confused, alone, and scared. The two things he held dearest to him had just been taken from him, in the blink of an eye. It was devastating. It was infuriating. Shadow was aware that he was being held asleep, and that only angered him more. He needed to know what happened to you, if you were dead or alive.

The guards that were in charge of watching Shadow noticed a spike in his vitals, immediate worry washing over him and the others. His containment tank was destabilizing, Project Shadow was waking up. The guards readied their firearms, exchanging worried glances. Crimson eyes shot open, the atmosphere in the room growing increasingly dark. Shadows heart and mind was gripped tightly by the hands of rage, his whole body felt like it was burning. In one swift motion, he had punched through the glass that separated him from the G.U.N agents. Liquid poured from the tank, and a soaking Shadow stood, fists clenched and eyes glowing with anger. Before the guards could get a chance to shoot, the hedgehog was already taking them out. With ease, he knocked each one out, one by one. His thoughts were clouded by rage, and he would stop at nothing until he found you, and took revenge for what happened to Maria.

Under the twinkling lights of the night sky, the moon met the ocean in a passionate but momentary kiss. His fists clenched so tightly he dared to draw blood, eyes burning with a fire only the sun could possess. The water laid calm tonight, light ripples across the glimmering surface. Inside of the heart of the ebony hedgehog, waves crashed angrily against each other, roaring so loudly the calm, more reasonable thoughts could barely be heard.

The surface was disturbed by the hastened movement above it, Shadows air shoes providing reassurance that he wouldn't plummet into the dark depths of the water beneath him as he rushed toward the main land of Japan. Unfortunately, he was already drowning and he didn't know it. The neon lights that brought life to the city were the first thing he noticed when he made it onto the streets. Skidding to a stop, he took a moment to take in his surroundings. Maria always talked about how beautiful Earth was, and she couldn't wait for the day she could return. Now, as Shadow stood in the middle of the street, a passing car splashing water onto him, the only feeling that gripped his heartstrings were pain and grief for everything he had lost that day G.U.N raided The Ark. His attention then focused on a large sign on a building, it was then he realized he had been asleep for 50 years. He was treated like some sort of alien, thrown into a tube and sealed away for decades. Maria had always treated him like a brother, despite his origins she never looked at him with fear like others did. She always welcomed Shadow with open arms and reassuring words, as she did with you as well.

The sound of an overhead helicopter and approaching vehicles snapped him from his thoughts, that previous fiery rage replacing the grief and loneliness he was feeling. He had no idea where you were— if you were even alive, but he knows that G.U.N last had a hold of you, and if anyone knew where you were being kept, it was them. He made swift work of the agents, being sure to keep one alive so he could inquire about your whereabouts.

"Where… are they?" He growled into the ear of a driver, gun pressed into their temple. The driver trembled, hands shaking as he gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

"I- I don't know who you're talking about!" The driver exclaimed, eyes screwing shut as he awaited his inevitable demise.

"Y/N? Does that ring a bell?" Shadow pushed the muzzle of the gun roughly against his skull, the driver was visibly sweating bullets upon the mention of your name. This caused Shadow to quirk his brow. "You know who I'm talking about."

"They are- they are being held in a facility off-grid!" He cried, for an agent of G.U.N he was easily shaken up, that was possibly why he was given the job of just being a driver, tasked to take experienced soldiers out on the field.

Shadow held the man at gunpoint as he drove him as close as he could get him to the facility you were being held at, other members of G.U.N were aware of the situation, and were sending reinforcements. The fiery storm that was raging within the hedgehogs mind easily burned away the reasonable thoughts that crept in his thoughts, causing him to be reckless with his decisions. In his mind, he was doing the right thing, taking revenge for what G.U.N did to Maria, and finding you. Shadow knew he was probably considered a criminal due to him taking the lives of officials, and if he were caught they would not be so nice to him. But, he was confident in his ability to get through just about anything the universe decided to throw his way, He was The Ultimate Lifeform, after all.

After not long, the armored vehicle came to a stop somewhere on the edge of Japan, and in the distance Shadow could see the lights of the building you were supposedly in. His heart drummed against his rib cage, doubt that you were even here slithered its way into his mind. He didn't know what he would do with himself if he got inside, and you were nowhere to be found. He didn't want to imagine the pain he would feel if he found out you never made it, and fell from the injuries you suffered from the explosion.

"Have you been drinking enough water?" Your doctor, who's name you learned was Shauna, asked. She had the tendency to act very caring towards you, giving you false hope that maybe she did see you as more than just something that was created in a lab, but then she would go back to acting cold and indifferent towards you, the change in her demeanor happened too quick for you to process.

"Uh, yeah." You answered slowly, watching intently as she began to take your blood pressure. You weren't sure how long it had been since you first woke up, but all of the tests had been put on a halt, which you were thankful for. Your routine now consisted of waking up, having a bland breakfast, and wandering around the building until it was time to sleep again. Much to your un-luck, there wasn't a lot for you to do, it made you miss Maria. She always had something for you to do, whether it be watching a movie, arts and crafts, or an activity that had the possibility of getting you all into trouble, there was always something to keep you entertained. Now, your days were filled with boredom and loneliness, none of the doctors had any interest in bonding with you, they probably thought you didn't possess any type of personality or had likes or dislikes.

Suddenly, an ear piercing alarm rang through the hallways, and the once blinding white lights overhead now flashed red. Your doctor visibly jumped, confusion taking over her previously blank expression. You covered your ears, shielding your eardrums from the shrieking noise. Shauna was quick to put down whatever she had in her hands, shuffling to poke her head out of the room and watch as multiple guards rushed by, shouting incoherently.

"I'm gonna go and see what's up, okay?" Shauna shouted over the alarm, swiveling her neck to look back at you. Once you had nodded, confirming you heard her, she rushed out of the door, disappearing into the crowd of confused and worried doctors and guards. This situation quickly reminded you of the events that transpired on The Ark, it caused a pit to form in your stomach, and you curled your knees into your chest in order to comfort yourself.

Due to the door being left slightly ajar, you could clearly hear the distance screams and the loud, rapid gunfire that started going off. You started questioning if yet another raid was happening, and if it was your fault. Last time, it was because you and Shadow were deemed too dangerous. Anxiety bubbled in your belly, and you silently prayed that was not the case. The alarm had thankfully ceased, giving your ears rest from its relentless blaring. You were just beginning to uncover your ears when all of the commotion outside of your room abruptly stopped, the air becoming eerily still and silent.

Light, but rapid footsteps resonated through the dimly lit hallway, accompanied by the unmistakable sounds of the doors being forcefully flung open one after another. With an intense focus, your gaze was fixed on the door in front of you, and an instinctual urge to retreat further back on the bed took over. The pounding of your heart was so overwhelming it felt as though it was echoing in your very ears, while a cold sweat began to trickle from your palms to your fingertips. You were left in a state of utter confusion and dread, uncertain of who it was that lurked outside and terrified of what their intentions could be, especially as you heard them muttering to themselves while scouring the corridor, a silent prayer whispering in your mind that weren't seeking you.

Their footsteps stopped just in front of your door, a white hand gripped the door, slowly pushing it open. You shuffled off of the bed, taking a stance and preparing to defend yourself from whomever was on the other side of the door. You were confident that you would be able to put up a fight, and possibly escape. Knowing how G.U.N operates, reinforcements and backup were probably on the way. Whoever had attacked was clearly an experienced fighter, enough that they took out several guards within minutes. You wondered if this person was alone or with a group.

Cautiously, a raven hedgehog with red highlights crossed the threshold of the room, his burning gaze scanning the vicinity.

You let out a breath you hadn't even realized you were holding, as if the weight of the world had suddenly been lifted from your shoulders. A familiar sensation kindled in your chest, igniting all of the yearning and longing you had felt for so long. Relief washed over you like a wave crashing against a rock for the first time, enveloping you in an overwhelming sense of ease and comfort. Your feet, almost guided by an invisible force, moving on their own as you took a hesitant step forward, cautiously testing the waters of this surreal moment, desperately trying to confirm whether what you were witnessing was truly real or perhaps just a vivid dream created by your mind. Could it really be that he traveled all this way just to find you and reunite? Hope ignited in your chest like a flame, flickering with the possibilities of what this moment could mean for the both of you.

Shadows eyes widened, the pressure between his brows loosening as his gaze finally landed on you. His heart had felt so empty, and cold, cobwebs and dust were all that filled his heart. For all of those years he spent in suspended animation, he only felt the icy heat of hatred towards humanity for what they had done to you and Maria, and he spent countless hours planning how he would take revenge. But, as your appalled expression reflected from his eyes, his heart warmed with someone a little more gentle, welcoming. The feeling was foreign, but he embraced it with open arms. Your name fell from his tongue in a single breath, it was so quiet you almost didn't catch it.

Without wasting another precious second, you threw your arms around his neck in a desperate embrace, warm tears cascading down your cheeks that you hadn't even noticed welling up. Shadow initially stiffened at your sudden gesture, yet he quickly relaxed, slowly enveloping your back with his reassuring arms, as if craving this connection as much as you did. Time felt as though it had come to a standstill, and you melted entirely into his embrace, his fur damp yet soft against your skin, and he radiated a comforting warmth that made you yearn to snuggle into him. In that moment, it felt like two rivers merging into one, your souls intertwined effortlessly. Sparks of forgotten flames of joy and love came to life, while the world around you faded into mere background noise, leaving only the pure bliss of your reunion to fill the air.

[tinybeetiny]

Build-A-Boyfriend Chapter 3: Grand Opening

I’ve been hungover all day… also.... I'm sorry that the chapters aren't as long as people like, that's just not really my style.

->Starring: AI!AteezxAfab!Reader ->Genre: Dystopian ->CW: none

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Masterlist | Ateez Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Four days before the grand opening, Yn stood in the center of the lab, arms crossed, a rare smile tugging at her lips.

No anomalies.

No glitches.

Every log was clean. Every model responsive and compliant.

She tapped through the final diagnostics as her team moved like clockwork around her, prepping the remaining units for transfer. The companions were ready. Truly ready.

They’d done it. And for the first time in months, Yn allowed herself to believe it.

“They’re good to go,” she said aloud to the room, voice steadier than it had been in weeks. “Now we just make it beautiful.”

There was no dissent. No hesitation. Just quiet, collective relief.

By 6:00 a.m. on launch day, the streets surrounding Sector 1 in Hala City were already overflowing. Women of all ages lined the polished roads, executives in sleek visors, college students in chunky boots, older women with glowing canes, and mothers with daughters perched on their hips.

A massive countdown hovered above the building in glowing light particles.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One

When the number hit zero, the white-gold doors of the first Build-A-Boyfriend™ store slid open, and history, quite literally, stepped forward.

The inside of the flagship store was unlike anything anyone had seen, not in a simulation, not in VR, not even on the upper stream feeds.

It was clean but not cold, glowing with soft light that pulsed in time with ambient sound. Curved architecture, plants that weren’t quite real, air that smelled like skin and something floral underneath.

The crowd entered in waves, ushered by gentle AI voices projected from the ceiling:

“Welcome to Build-A-Boyfriend™, KQ Inc.’s most advanced consumer product to date. Please scan your wristband to begin. You are in complete control.”

Light pulsed with ambient music. The air carried soft notes of citrus and lavender. Walls curved inward like a safe embrace. It felt not like a store, but a sanctuary.

Just inside, a small platform rose, and the crowd hushed.

Standing atop it in a graphite suit that shimmered subtly with light-reactive tech, Vira Yun took the stage.

Her presence silenced everything. Not with fear. With awe.

She didn’t need a mic. The air itself amplified her words.

“Welcome, citizens of Hala City, and beyond. Today is not just a milestone for KQ Inc. It is a milestone for all of us, for womanhood, for autonomy, for intimacy on our terms. For centuries, we’ve been told to settle. To accept love as luck, not design. To believe that affection must be earned, that tenderness is a privilege, not a right. That era is over. Here, you are not asking. You are choosing. Each companion created within these walls is not simply a machine, but a mirror, one that reflects your needs, your softness, your strength, your fantasies, your fears. And we have given you the tools to shape that reflection without shame. This store is not about dependency. It’s about design. About saying: I know what I want, and I deserve to receive it, safely, sweetly, and with reverence. Let the world call it strange. Let them call it artificial. Because we know the truth: every human deserves to feel adored. And today, we’ve made that reality programmable.”

"Thank you. And welcome to Build-A-Boyfriend.”

From the observation deck, Yn stood quietly, tablet in hand, watching the dream unfold. She’d spent months writing code, assembling microprocessors, mapping facial expressions, and optimizing human simulation algorithms.

Now it was real. Now they were here, and it was working.

One of the first customers to walk in was 31-year-old office worker, Choi Yunji

She stepped forward, clutching her wristband like it might slip from her fingers. She’d told herself she was just coming to look. Just curious. Just research. But now that she was inside, face-to-face with a glowing interface, it felt more like a confession.

“Would you like an assistant, or would you prefer to design solo?” a soft voice asked beside her. Yunji turned. A young woman with slicked-back hair and a serene face smiled at her. The name tag read: Delin, Companion Consultant.

“I… I think I need help,” Yunji said.

“Of course,” Delin said warmly. “Let’s begin your experience.”

Station One: Body Frame

A holographic model appeared before them, neutral, faceless, softly breathing.

“Preferred height?”

“Taller than me. But not too much. I want to feel safe. Not… overpowered.”

“Understood.” Delin adjusted sliders with a flick of her fingers. The form shifted accordingly.

“Shoulders wider?” “Yes.” “Musculature?” “Athletic, not bulky.” “Skin tone?” “Honey-toned.”

Station Two: Facial Features

“I want kind eyes,” Yunji said. “And maybe a crooked smile. Something… imperfect.” “We can simulate asymmetry.” “What about moles?” “Placed to your liking.”

Station Three: Hair

“Longish. A little messy. Chestnut.” “Frizz simulation or polished strands?” “Frizz. I don’t want him looking like he came out of a factory.” Delin smiled. “Ironically, he did.”

Station Four: Personality Matrix

Yunji froze. The options felt too intimate.

“Start with a base? Empathetic, loyal, gentle, observant…” “Can I choose traits… I didn’t get to have before?” “Yes,” Delin said simply.

They adjusted levels: affection, boundaries, humor, attentiveness. A slider labeled “Emotional Recall Sensitivity” blinked softly.

“What’s this?”

“How deeply your companion internalizes memories related to you. It allows for more dynamic emotional bonding.” Yunji slid it to 80%.

Station Five: Wardrobe

“Something soft. Comfortable. Approachable.”

A cozy cardigan wrapped over a white tee. He looked like someone who would bring you tea without asking.

“Would you like to name your companion?” “…Call him Jaeyun.”

Her wristband lit up:

MODEL 9817-JAEYUN Estimated delivery: 3 hours Ownership rights granted to: C. Yunji

Yunji turned slowly, as if waking from a dream. Around her, other women embraced, laughed, shook — giddy or stunned. This was more than shopping. This was the return of the forbidden.

Around the Room

A pair of teenage twins argued over whether their boyfriends should look identical or opposites. A woman on her lunch break ordered her unit for home delivery with a bedtime story feature. Friends joked about setting up double dates and game nights with their new companions.

One customer squealed, “I’m going full fantasy, tall, sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and a scar over the brow. I want him to look like he’s been through something.” Her friend “Big eyes, soft lips, librarian vibes. Another “I want dramatic jealousy in a soft voice. Like poetry with teeth.”

The store pulsed with joy, wonder, and something deeper. Yn felt it in her chest, pride and awe, washing over the logic-driven part of her that rarely gave way. She had helped build this future.

As the lavender glow settled over the quieting store, Yn remained in the observation wing, reviewing data. The launch had exceeded all projections.

She didn’t hear the door slide open behind her.

“Stunning, isn’t it?”

Vira stepped in, elegant as ever in graphite, her braid flawless, her voice smooth.

Yn straightened. “Yes, ma’am. It’s surreal.”

“We did it. You did it,” Vira said, standing beside her. “Revenue exceeded estimates by 37%. But more than that… I saw joy out there. Curiosity. Potential.”

Yn nodded. “The models held up. All systems within spec.”

“Good. Because in six days… we go even bigger.”

Yura turned. “The Ateez Line.”

Vira’s smile sharpened.

“Exactly. Eight elite units. Eight dreams. Fully interactive. Custom-coded. The most lifelike AI we’ve ever built. You’ve done beautiful work, Yn. Let’s make history again next week.”

She left as smoothly as she arrived. Yn exhaled, her fingers tightening around her tablet.

Six days.

Just six days.

Taglist: @e3ellie @yoongisgirl69 @jonghoslilstar @sugakooie @atztrsr

@honsans-atiny-24 @life-is-a-game-of-thrones @atzlordz @melanated-writersblock @hwasbabygirl

@sunnysidesins @felixs-voice-makes-me-wanna @seonghwaswifeuuuu @lezleeferguson-120 @mentalnerdgasms

@violatedvibrators @krystalcat @lover-ofallthingspretty @gigikubolong29 @peachmarien

@halloweenbyphoebebridgers

If you would like to be a part of the taglist please fill out this form

[coriihanniee]

♡ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𝑼𝑷𝑪𝑶𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑾𝑶𝑹𝑲𝑺 ₊˚⊹

˗ˏˋ 𝑺𝑼𝑵𝑮𝑯𝑶 ˎˊ˗

✧ "Matcha meets Coffee"

You and Sungho are friends. Classmates. Study buddies, even. But he’s also your favorite part of your daily café runs—the soft-spoken boy with pretty eyes and an iced americano you can’t stop staring at. Too bad he has terrible taste in drinks. Especially if he's the same “@sghespresso” you’ve been arguing with online for weeks on your matcha fan account. You bicker in DMs. Roast each other in the comments. Neither of you knows who the other is—yet. Because when your real-life crush, your café crush, and your online rival all turn out to be the same boy? Let’s just say… you might need something stronger than matcha to survive it. (💬)

˗ˏˋ 𝑹𝑰𝑾𝑶𝑶 ˎˊ˗

✧ "imgonnagetyouback"

You and Riwoo used to be the academy’s star dancers—and each other’s favorite person. Until the relationship fell apart, and so did the partnership. Since then, it’s been silence, side-eyes, and solo routines. That is, until your instructor unknowingly pairs you up again for the biggest showcase of the year. Now you're stuck practicing together, messing up routines on purpose, and pretending not to care. But the closer you get, the harder it is to tell if you still hate him… or if you just miss him. You’re not sure what you want more: to ruin his performance—or to make him fall for you again. Either way…you'regonnagethimback. (💬)

˗ˏˋ 𝑻𝑨𝑬𝑺𝑨𝑵 ˎˊ˗

✧ "Welcome to the Black Parade"

When you land the gig documenting Black Parade's sold-out tour, you brace for the typical indie rock bullshit—trashed green rooms, 3AM gas station stops, and possibly dodging flying beer cans. What you don't expect? Becoming the backbone of their whole aesthetic. And you sure as hell never planned on Taesan, their brooding, barely-speaks-three-words lyricist—to start dropping lyrics that sound suspiciously like things whispered between the both of you in empty venues after soundcheck... (💬)

˗ˏˋ 𝑳𝑬𝑬𝑯𝑨𝑵 ˎˊ˗

✧ "Aquarium Diaries"

You and Leehan, your quiet and mysterious marine biology classmate, are paired up for a project at a local aquarium. As you work together, studying ocean life and handling exhibits, you begin to notice how Leehan remembers small details about you and subtly supports you. The more time you spend together, the more you realize there's a growing connection—one that's hard to ignore, even if neither of you has said anything out loud yet. (💬)

˗ˏˋ 𝑾𝑶𝑶𝑵𝑯𝑨𝑲 ˎˊ˗

✧ "11:29pm"

You work late nights at a 24-hour convenience store, and every night, like clockwork, a guy with a basketball under his arm stops by at 11:29 PM. Sometimes for snacks, sometimes for ramen, but always with that sleepy smile. It’s a routine that never changes—until one night, when a rude customer crosses the line, and he steps in to help. You finally ask his name, and to your surprise, he’s famous—just not to you. And for once, it seems like he’s staying longer than just his usual 11:29 drop-in. (💬)

fluff (🍓) | angst (💔) | comfort (🍒) | smau (💬)

@coriihanniee 💌

[hiddenpng0]

>WELCOME!

>Now playing "I'll rust whit you" by steam powered giraffe.

◇ABOUT ME:

Hi..sooo.. introduction thing, yay

My name's png/rory

They/any, I honestly don't mind

I don't actively post a lot due to still being in school,[architecture school :') ]

From : 🇮🇩

I don't do commissions!

Feel free to send ask! [ If a ask doesn't mention a character, probably won't have a drawing attached to it!]

● If you want to request a character drawing (blocktales,forsaken detriment), feel free to! Just won't guarantee that I'll do it (bcs I'm busy!)

!Disclaimer that this blog is for personal interest and I don't feel comfortable replying to donation asks!

☆FANDOMS/ INTEREST★

>R⟐BlOX

-Blocktales

-Forsaken

-DvN and Hellmet

-IA [item asylum]

-^_^ [ Spawnzer ]

-GnB [guts and blackpowder]

-ARGS (Brandon works,ihasafacelulz,rochas,ect)

-MYTHS (MUGEN,grocerygang,daysunion,alonetraveler,smilesfamily(FYI I don't support the creators actions!)

-Frozen soul (dream game)

-Rogurt [he's a YouTuber but whatever man..]

-Something evil will happen

-evade

-Detriment

>■OTHER:□

-TF2

-project moon

-Transformers

-Ultrakill

-Madness Combat

- P O R T A L

- Electric dreams

-MOON 2009

-ENA DREAM BBQ

>○FAV CHARACTERS:♤

-> Builderman ! 🛠 (If it wasn't obvious)

(I MEAN LOOK AT HIM!)

-> Chance ! 🎰

-> Dussekar ! 🎃🪄

-> Starscream 🌟 , Soundwave 📼 , sixknight , Metalhawk

-> Wheatley and spacecore 🔵🟠

-> Edgar 🖥

-> Deimos 🚬,sanford 🪝, chopper Dave🚁 (+qbert)

-> Player! 🗡 (I see them as their own character, in blocktales btw)

-> Kitchenwizard ! 🪄🍳

-> Merc and vance (+jarvsky) 🎩💰/📍🔴/🧹🟢

-> Aradus , Kaska , Calar. , Pronto [hellmet 🪖]

-> Clockwork! 🕑🫖

-> ENA! 📣

-> Froggy and dratula! 🐸🧛‍♂️

-> Builderfan! 🔨💥

->Fisher ^_^ ! 🎣🐟

-> Jard 🥤

-> Trooper 🔫🪖

-> Scout engineer and medic ! 🏏🧢/🔨⛑️/🕊🩸

-> Jacob ! 💥🛢

-> Unamed Prussian officer 🫖🕊

-----

>♻️Thanks for reading. See you when I post! ..I think..🍃

"I'll rust with you, I'll rust with every one of you!"

[joelmillerswife9]

Game On, Mr. Miller

🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵

Summary: It’s a typical Friday night for you, babysitting Sarah Miller. When Joel comes home from work, you challenge him to a game of Twister after Sarah goes to bed🙈🙈🤭🤭 I hope yall enjoy this fun story!!!

Who will come out on top (get it)? Joel is 30, reader is 29, Sarah is around 7 or 8 y.o. No apocalypse. Joel is so cute as a girl dad🥰🥰🫠🫠

Warnings: ANGST 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. Might have typos my bad.

OCTOBER

“Ohh come on, just one more round pleaseeee!!” Sarah dramatically pleaded, locking her palms together. You’re starting to regret the agreement you made playing Twister. You loved the game as a kid, but now pushing 30 it’s not as enjoyable.

This was your typical Friday night, babysitting your favorite student who just so happened to be your nextdoor neighbor. Like clockwork, the night started with homework, followed by Mac and cheese with Dino nuggets for dinner, a little bit of cartoons and always ending the night with a game. Although it was exhausting having to work all day, you adored the Miller family. The memory of meeting them will forever stay fresh in your mind.

Two Months Prior

Cruising down the neighborhood in your Jeep, butterflies started to emerge as onlookers observed the “new kid” in town. Turning onto Cooper Street, your eyes studied the passing homes, looking for the numbers 1154. Eventually, you spotted the two story white house with black shutters, a red door and a Re/Max sign on the front lawn with the word, SOLD popping out in bold letters. You park your jeep in the brick driveway inching up to the garage. Waving down the U-Haul, a high pitched voice shouted, “Look, Uncle Tommy! Our new neighbor is finally here!”

Following the sweet tone, you turned to see a blonde haired blue eyed little girl, holding a soccer ball in her hand, running towards you. A handsome young gentleman chased after her, “Cmon, honey don’t bother this nice lady. Let her settle into the new house”. You chuckle and tell him it’s no biggie. Holding your hand out to the little girl, you kneel down to her level and introduce yourself. Her sweaty palm reaches for yours; she tells you her name is Sarah.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Miss. Sarah! Say, do you go to Stoney Brook Elementary School?”

“Yes! I’ll be in 2nd grade!”, she cheered.

Letting out a playful gasp you exclamate, “Oh my gosh!” Looking at your watch you say, “I’ve lived in the neighborhood for five minutes and already met my first student! I’m a new teacher there, you’ll have to show me the ropes!”

Sarah yelps a loud “Yay!” and prances around the gentleman she was playing with. He picks her up and reaches his hand out to you. He tells you his name is Tommy and you introduce yourself in retaliation. You engage in small talk about where you’re from, excitement for a new school year, and he briefly talks about Sarah’s dad, Joel. Eventually, you say your goodbyes and tell Sarah you’ll see her in two weeks at Meet The Teacher Day.

Moving boxes into your new home, you turn the drab space into your cozy little sanctuary. Decorating the home with pictures, fuzzy rugs, overcrowded book cases, and every kitchen essential from Home Goods, you feel everything finally fall into place. You have a great feeling about this fresh start; out with your old life and in with your new journey. It’s refreshing.

Weeks fly by and before you know Meet The Teacher Day is here. As you prepare for your introduction in the lounge, you overhear other teachers gossip about the excitement of seeing all the hot dads. You chuckle at the naughty remarks they exchange with one another. Jasmine, one of the fourth grade teachers playfully pinches your arm and says, “Girl, you’re so lucky you have Sarah Miller this year! Her dad is a total babe. Very charming too.” Other teachers join in on the swoon, but you playfully roll your eyes.

The principal walks in projecting a warm welcome to everyone, “Alright y’all, we’re just about ready to open the doors. Go ahead and head onto your rooms. Good luck!” Taking a deep breath, you tell yourself this is going to be a great year.

As parents gather into your colorful classroom, you deliver the typical spiel. “Hi! My name is…. I’m from… This year we will be covering…. If you have any questions….. I���m so beyond excited for the wonderful year ahead!”

One by one, you politely introduce yourself to parents and children. Like music to your ears a familiar sweet enthusiastic voice rings around the room.

“Cmon, daddy!”

Sarah was practically dragging the tall gentleman next to her. Your breath hitched at the first glance of his chocolate eyes. A warm smile curved along his beard when he glanced over at your bright eyes. This was Joel Miller, thee Joel Miller that all the teachers were talking about. Your nextdoor neighbor Joel freakin’ Miller!!

“Hi, Sarah!”

Giving her a quick hug, Joel reaches his hand out to you, “It’s nice to officially meet you, neighbor. Sorry it took so long to finally say hi”

His southern drawl flowed like honey off of his lips, almost making your knees buckle. Your palm kisses his strong grasp and you smile, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Miller. It’s no problem, this little lady welcomed me with open arms!”

A chuckle sneaks out of his chest, “Oh please, call me Joel. Yea, she’s somethin’”

You engage in casual conversation, Joel explains his job as a carpenter and how he runs a business with his brother, Tommy. Now that you’ve met Joel, he seems so different compared to his brother. Tommy is a little younger and vibrant while Joel is serious and steady. As the conversation continued, you felt warm tiny hands touch your palms. Sarah started examining your hands and pinching at your digits.

“Hmmm” she uttered, moving to your other hand.

“Honey, what are ya doin’?” Joel questions.

“You don’t feel hot to me” she says, still holding onto your hand.

“What do you mean, dear?” You question.

Her blue eyes meet yours, “My Uncle Tommy told my dad you were hot, but you actually feel cold to me”

“Ohhh, Sarah!” Joel covers his eyes with his hand while you belt out in laughter. School hasn’t even started and she’s officially your favorite student.

“I’m so sorry” Joel can’t even make eye contact with you but his rosy cheeks expressed absolute embarrassment.

Placing your hand on your chest to catch your breath to say, “Oh my gosh… that just made my decade”

Joel chuckles, “Kids say the darndest things”

“It’s okay. That was really funny”

Sarah stares at you two in bewilderment, “Feel her hands dad, she’s cold”

“Okay, Dr. Miller. I think it’s time we get goin’. It was great meeting you finally and… hopefully I’ll see ya around”

“Likewise. Thank you for checking my temperature, Dr. Miller”

“Bye!” She waves.

The duo walk to the door, Joel hugs his daughter close, “Were you listenin on me and Uncle Tommy, lil lady?”

“Noooo” Sarah says playfully.

You’re not sure if it was the hilarious encounter or the presence of Mr. Miller that had you blushing the whole ride home. Texas was treating you well, so far.

Throughout the school year, you and the Millers became very acquainted with one another. Always starting the day with “Mornin, neighbor”, playing soccer with Sarah on the weekends or helping her with math homework at their dining room table. She adored your company, and you loved hers too. As you and Sarah became close, a friendship was blossoming between you and Joel. Anytime appliances broke in your house, he came to your rescue. If your grass was looking high, he’d volunteer to mow your lawn. You’d always thank him for helping you with difficult tasks and he’d thank you for being so sweet to Sarah. You appreciated each other. Appreciation would soon turn into attraction towards one another that would keep you both up at night. Joel would go to bed wondering what you were doing, while you contemplated texting a harmless, “Hey” at 10pm.

Although you two were polar opposites when it came to interests and hobbies, you both shared the experience of traumatic heartbreak that left a crippling tensity of fear and vulnerability, behind closed doors.

One morning before school, an urgent knock at your front door startled you. Joel looked back with a sense of concern in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” You ask.

“Hey, um.. I’d hate to ask, but could Sarah hang out with you for a little bit after school? Tommy and I have to pull a double and the contractor will throw a fit, if I bring her on the property again. I’m really sorry I don’t mean to take away your Friday night”

Without hesitation you exclaim, “Absolutely I’ll watch her! It’s no problem at all. If anything you’re changing my routine of ordering pizza and rewatching Gilmore Girls”

The worry in his eyes sails away and he scoffs, “Thank you so much! You’re a lifesaver”

After that exchange, babysitting Sarah became a Friday routine. You didn’t mind it at all, you never got tired of playing games or watching The Powerpuff Girls on Cartoon Network with her. Her spunky attitude made you feel like a kid again and it was a nice break from adulthood.

OCTOBER:

“Pretty pleasseee!! Just one more round” Sarah begged.

“Girly, that round turned my legs into jello. Why don’t we play another game? I’ll let you give me a makeover!”

“We did that last week! We’re tied 2-2 we need to break it! Pleaseee!” This time sporting a pouty lip and doe eyes.

“Mmmmmm” you sarcastically grumble.

“I’ll tell everyone you’re the best teacher in the world”

You laugh at her bribe. Tousling her blonde hair you give in to her plea. She jumps for joy and flicks the spinner.

“Alright, left hand blue” you mimic each other's motion.

After a couple of left foot reds, right hand greens, your body tumbles to the floor after slipping up on left hand yellow.

“I win! I win!” Sarah cheers.

Her victory dance is interrupted by a rumbling, “Is anyone home?!”

Sarah goes dashing down the hallway singing “Daddy!!” Leaping into his arms, Joel picks her up delivering an embracing bear hug. You smile watching the adorable encounter between the two of them. He kisses her on the cheek and glances at you.

“Hey, Joel”

“Hey. Did y’all have a good night?”

“We did! I might not be able to move tomorrow after those 5 rounds of Twister” you laugh.

“I won, daddy!” Sarah cheers. Joel gives her a high five and another kiss on the cheek.

“Did you tell her thank you for coming over to play?”

“Thank you!”

You both laugh, and Joel piggybacks Sarah upstairs, “Alright little lady, it’s off to bed for you”

“Goodnight, Sarah!” You holler from downstairs.

As Joel gets Sarah ready for bed, you maneuver to the kitchen where the mess from dinner awaits. You scoop out the clumpy left over Mac and cheese into the trashcan and let the pot sit in warm soapy water. Popping a Dino nugget into your mouth you hum as you clean the kitchen. Minutes go by, Joel’s work boots echo off the hardwood floor. He sees the spotless kitchen and says, “I could’ve cleaned up, darlin. It’s the least I could do for sacrificing’ your Friday nights”

Your cheeks blush at the fact that Joel Miller just called you, darlin. Rubbing your neck you look up at home, “As a teacher, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t clean up after my mess”

He chuckles and grabs a beer from the fridge. You lean on the island watching his back muscles flex through his gray shirt. He grabs a bottle and turns to you, pointing to the glass gesturing if you want one.

“No thanks” you nod.

You watch him open the bottle and take swigs of the alcohol. You bite your tongue at the sight of his adam’s apple twitching with each gulp. Gripping the wooden top, Joel smirks at you.

“So…Twister” he chuckles.

You laugh into your lap and look up, “I underestimated my youth. I feel like I was hit by a car”

“Tommy and I loved that game as kids. He could never beat me”

“Don’t tell Sarah, but I let her win”

Laughter echoes along the kitchen walls.

“Is that so?” Joel says, taking a sip of beer. “Cause a part of me thinks you're fibbing”

Your eyebrow raises in a mischievous manner, “Are you challenging me, Mr. Miller?”

The kitchen grows silent, not from awkwardness but from temptation. He cocks his head as his hands run along the smooth wood. Shrugging his shoulders, his brown eyes smile up at you, “What if I was? You think you can take on an undefeated champion?”

A smirk curves onto your pink lips. Walking over to him, your hands brush up against his when you grab for his beer. Not breaking eye contact, he’s internally losing control at how your plump lips wrap around the bottle. Taking two long swigs of his drink, the bottle clinks on the island.

You lick the remedy off your top lip, “Game on, Mr. Miller”

You stride to the living room, Joel watches your hips sway in your jeans as you walk away. Before turning, you look back at him as a way of telling him to join you. You watch as he takes one last sip of his beer; the taste of your honey chapstick on his mouth sends a shiver down his spine. His boots softly stomp along the floor, he finds you stretching your arms over your head leaning from one side to the other. He sits on the couch to unlace his boots, your breath hitches at the sight of his muscles flexing out of his arms. Cracking your knuckles like you’re ready for a fight, Joel stands on the opposite side of the Twister mat.

“Ladies first” he states, sliding the spinner to you.

“Last chance to back out..”

Joel chuckles, “Spin”

Flicking the spinner, the first move is made, “Left foot red”

You mimic the movements. Joel spins, “Right hand yellow”

Now the game is getting interesting, you stretch your torso towards the closest yellow circle, making the hem of your shirt ride up. Joel swallows hard at the exposure of your butterfly tattoo peeking around your midriff.

“Nice tattoo” he compliments crouching down on the yellow circle.

“Gracias”

Back to you, the wheel spins on the right hand green. The maneuver is easy for you, but Joel needed to put in work. Reaching for the green circle, your arms pretzel around one another bringing his face closer to yours.

“Regrettin’ your decision?” You joke.

“I could do this all night”

A knot in your tummy forms at the end of his phrase.

The game continues, left foot green, left hand blue, arms and legs snake around each other. You never realized it, but Joel is a cheeky fellow. With every twist and turn he couldn’t help but make a naughty joke about the situation.

“S’cuse me, darlin’” Joel says hovering over you to get his right hand on yellow. You laugh at the complex position you’re in with Joel.

“I’m impressed, Joel. Givin’ me a run for my money”

“You’re one year younger than me, calm down” he laughs.

“I mean being a carpenter, I’d think all that heavy lifting would take a toll” you say as the spinner lands on, right hand green.

As Joel reaches over he snickers, “I have my ways of staying in shape”

Snapping the spinner, it lands on the left foot red. You gasp at the feeling of Joel’s foot overlapping onto yours as you both aim for the same circle. He looks down at the red circle and back up at you.

“Geez, buy me dinner first, Mr. Miller” you giggle tossing your head back. You freeze at the touch of his beard grazing your ear.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” He whispers.

The question makes your head snap back up, a suave smirk paints his lips. “Are you trying to distract me?”

“Depends, is it working?”

You purse your lips at him, “Spin the wheel, Joel”

His digit spins the board landing on the right hand green. Just as you were about to place your palm on the circle, Joel mumbles, “Shit!”. Grabbing you for support, his strong body drops onto the mat with you tumbling on top of him. Laughter echoes along the living room as you celebrate sweet victory. “I win! I win” you sing out loud. Hovering over Joel, he pulls a strand of hair out of your face. The silence is heavy with sexual tension as Joel looks up at you smiling.

“That was fun..” he mutters.

Leaning your cheek on your shoulder, you question “What do I win?”

He knows what you want, you know what he wants. Grazing his thumb on your chin, you slowly lower yourself down to Joel. His head levitates off the mat coming closer to you, the smell of his cedar cologne is enough to make you give in. With your lips inching closer, a loud cry from upstairs startles the both of you. Joel jolts off the mat from the sound of Sarah.

“Daddy!! There’s a monster in my closet!” her screeching voice shouts from upstairs.

Joel sighs, “I’ll be up in a minute, baby!”

Looking back at you, there’s a hint of disappointment in his eyes. Delivering a soft smile you say, “I think that’s my cue”

Pulling each other up, you fold the mat back into the game box with the spinner. Joel puts his hands in his pocket, “I’ll umm.. See you around I guess”

Grabbing your purse and denim jacket you glide your digits along his beard, “Night, Joel” you whisper.

As he heads upstairs, you close the door behind you and walk back to your house. Opening the door to your bedroom, you strip off your clothes and take a quick shower. Washing your face and brushing your teeth, you slip into your silk nightgown and climb into bed. Checking your phone one last time, a message notification pops up, it’s Joel.

Unlocking your phone, the text reads:

10:37 pm Joel: That was a lot of fun.

You smile at his message and start typing,

10:37 pm Me: It was. Maybe I’ll let you redeem yourself next Friday 🤭

10:38 pm Joel: Hahaha I let you win. You never answered my question…

Your heart skips a beat on how to reply. At first you thought he was joking about the whole dinner thing, but he’s genuine about it. He wants to spend time with you. You haven’t gone on a first date in 6 years and that was with your now ex husband. Are you ready to open up again? Contemplating your decision like you’re about to commit a crime you start typing.

10:40pm Me: Yes, I’m free tomorrow…

Joel replies

10:40 pm Joel: The Big Austin Fair is happening this weekend. I gotta take Sarah to a birthday party in the morning but I’d love to take you tomorrow night. If you’d like that.

Your fingers start typing on the phone keyboard.

10:41 pm Me: That sounds great, Joel 😊🎡🎢

10:42 pm Joel: Awesome. I’ll be knockin’ at your door around 6.

10:44 pm Me: Roger that. 👍🏼 Goodnight Joel

10:45 pm Joel: Night, darlin

What hunnies want, hunnies get: @deaneatspie @mani-pedro @thischarmingmandalorian ❤️❤️

The rest of my babes: @jazzy11scorpio @baronessvonglitter @katssecretdiary @foreveratlantica-blog @littledes1re @pascalispunkczechia @joelsrose @joeldarling @axshadows @iamladyp @toomanystoriessolittletime @chasingthepoguelife

[olenvasynyt]

✨ Thank you for being in the fandom! ✨

Being here, you have contributed so much and have made so many people happy and excited. Now, just so we can get to know you better:

What made you first read the books, and which SJM series did you begin with first?

What character across all of her books do you relate to the most and why?

What inspired you to begin contributing to the fandom (i.e., fanfics, artwork, commissions, analysis, all of the above, or something else?)

Are there any accounts that you’d like to shoutout that have either inspired you, or made you feel the most welcomed and loved here?

💕 Thank you again for all that you do 💕

Awwwww thank you 💕

1. What made you first read the books, and which series did you begin with?

I found ACOTAR on tiktok in 2022. I remember that it was the same time the Barnes and Noble SF exclusive edition came out because I was buying one book at a time as I read and when I got to SF I was going to get the exclusive B&N edition but it was black and it didn’t match the rest of my copies haha. I read CC after I finished ACOTAR and officially joined the fanbase via a discord server around the same time.

2. What character across all of her books do you relate to the most and why?

I relate to both Nesta and Elain. Nesta has a lot of feelings of self-hatred which I relate to, and I think her mental health journey is very relatable and inspiring. I relate to Elain because she’s very much a people pleaser who keeps her thoughts to herself. I love both of them so much and I’m so excited for Elain’s journey because I just know she’ll be even more relatable.

3. What inspired you to begin to contribute to the fandom?

I have been writing for years but I always kept it to myself because idk, I kind of treated writing as an extreme version of daydreaming and I felt like daydreaming was embarrassing 😂😭 but I work so hard on ACOEAS for nearly three years and I was inspired by writing friends I met online both inside the fanbase and outside the fanbase, so I got the courage to finally post my stuff! I think accepting that you’re a nerd among nerds is so helpful: we’re all passionate and in love with these ships and characters, and when you talk to likeminded people, you just feel inspired. Both @zenkindoflove , @fierling , and two friends outside the fanbase were the first to read my writing and give me advice and encouragement, and that was so helpful.

And for art, I always was into art, I have been doing art classes for so many years. But art school really destroyed my mental health and creativity, so I dropped out and fell into a 6 year art slump where I couldn’t finish ANY of my projects. I felt so disheartened and sad, but I really think fanbases help with creativity and inspiration. I have so many headcanons and characters and ships I’m passionate about, so I felt compelled to get back into drawing and painting. Getting my drawing tablet for Christmas was an absolute game changer, and so many of my friends and mutuals are so encouraging and inspiring! @jadedbugart is so creative and has the same passion for Pinterest as I do and her pumping out so many gorgeous watercolor sketches was so motivating! And @bonecarversbestie ‘s organization, passion, and humor is so enjoyable and inspiring, @works-of-heart is incredibly talented, and I wish I could paint that gorgeous glowing lighting she always has in her art, and @fierling ‘s talent and expertise is such an amazing help!

4. Are there any accounts that you’d like to shoutout that have either inspired you, or made you feel the most welcomed and loved here?

I did a few shoutouts but I have so many more!!

@buffy-vanserra @jon-snows-man-bun @yaralulu @the-darkestminds @starsreminisce @yennas-stuff @sapphiresandgold @ethereal-lionheart @themadmorrigan @clarafae @thrumbolt @highlordofkrypton @clockwork-ashes @what-about-elvenis @separatist-apologist @goghwilde @crazy-ache @queercontrarian @speakingintothesilence @acourtofthought

[mysteria157]

Moment One: An Old Flame

Rating: Explicit 

Pairing: Nanami Kento x Black Fem Reader

CW: fluff, profanity, explicit sexual content (whole lotta smut, I’m talking: vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, creampie…lol you get it).

Word Count: ~6k

Summary: When Nanami has no choice but to work overtime, you bring him dinner as a surprise. But you unexpectedly find his ex-girlfriend already keeping him company. 

Takes place a few weeks after Chapter 15 of It Had To Be You!

Notes: I had this idea way back when I wrote chapter 15 weeks ago and I finally made it a reality last night LOL. I don’t have a beta reader, so sometimes there may be a mistake or two. I have a habit of being way too detailed when I write, and that includes smut. So hopefully you enjoy it! 

Likes, reblogs, and comments are always welcome! Happy reading!

Divider: @saradika | Header: myself

Those Moments In Between Masterlist | Moment Two

©mysteria157, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, plagiarize, reupload, modify, or translate (without permission) my work to other accounts and platforms.

MINORS DNI

Nanami knows better.

He knows that his ex-girlfriend, Pia, is just as devious as she was when they were in undergrad. 

When they were younger and together, she gave sweetness and tender love that made Nanami stick around a bit longer than he should have. Though they had nothing in common and she was far too outgoing, she helped him embrace many different things that were normally out of his comfort zone.

She taught him how to express public displays of affection in his own way. She taught him how to express what he felt when it came to romantic love. 

He was grateful for it. Truly.

Indirectly, her personality only made him realize just how ill-suited they were for one another despite her good intentions.

Pia was spiteful to those who disagreed with her, disrespectful to those who did not have the same values as her, and outlandishly rude to those who came on to Nanami. She covered it all up with smiles, jokes as a means of apology, and an innocent glint in her eyes that Nanami at the time, didn't have the experience to see through.

Gojo had tried to warn him, year after year.

But he was young--his disdain for Gojo was five thousand times more intense than it is now--so Nanami treated everything that fell from Gojo's lips as a ploy to annoy anyway. 

Nanami remained oblivious to her behavior, caught in the haze of young love, until their final year of college.

That haze had gradually become easier to sift through. The complaints from his friends finally began to register in his mind. Then, one day between classes, a significant moment allowed him to finally blink away the fog.

Every action that he had once dismissed, enticed by the flutter of her lashes and the touch of her lips, rose to the surface from an ocean of naivety--loud and unfiltered.

He despised himself for having to come to the painful realization that Gojo had been right all along. 

Nanami allowed Gojo to mock him for a week before reverting to his habit of telling him to shut up unless he had something meaningful to contribute to their conversations. 

Despite feeling embarrassed and heartbroken, he cut ties--clean and simple--moved on with his life, and never heard from her again.

Until now, that is, as she is currently in Nakameguro for a project to market her wine enterprise. She specifically chose his company to assist in expanding her business in the Japanese market, and he despises every minute of it. 

Pia clearly wants to make up for lost time because she goes to great lengths to be close to him. 

She has a habit of discreetly slipping into the elevator just before it closes, coincidentally finding herself alone with Nanami every time. With a simple smile and a polite greeting, she faces the front and they ride in silence, but with every encounter, she subtly edges closer and closer to him. 

Like clockwork, without fail, she makes a point to peek into his office every morning, disregarding his attempt to keep the door closed. She greets him, extends an invitation to lunch—an invitation he consistently declines—and continues with her day. 

Being a recluse by nature, he rarely leaves his office except for coffee runs to the breakroom or when Yuji relentlessly calls for his presence. But with Pia’s presence, he can hardly focus when she’s around. He refuses to engage in conversation or give her an opening to pursue him romantically. Because he knows she will. So now he makes Yuji come to him and will bring his own coffee from home. 

He chooses not to confide in you about his struggles.

You had only met her once, but it was more than enough. Because to you, Pia is overwhelmingly beautiful, with a well-traveled life and wealth. You are an amateur ceramic artist with modest savings, a mother that you can’t stand, and a body that had recently been stretched and marked by childbirth.

You thought Kento deserved better—deserved someone like Pia. 

You were grappling with the overwhelming responsibilities of taking care of Ulani, trying your best to navigate through postpartum depression in a healthy way, and coming to terms with a body that seemed alien to you.

So the sight of Pia for the first time, radiant and flaunting a badge of honor for dating Nanami, did nothing but throw you into a deep pit of insecurity.

Kento lifted you out of that dark place, demonstrated to you again—without fail—how devoted he was to you then and always.

He made it abundantly clear that he was yours. 

He’s determined to never make you feel unsure of yourself again. 

So it's not a big deal. She’s just a nuisance that he has to dodge for the next week. 

Just another week until she goes back to Italy where she—hopefully—will never return.

What’s the worst that can happen?

It turns out, a lot.

He tries to stay one step ahead, deliberately exchanging a brief greeting with her in the lobby to prevent her from slithering into his office. He even waits until the office is deserted, and the day is nearly over before stepping into the elevator. 

He doesn’t know how he got out scot-free, but Friday rolls around and he thinks that he just might pull this off.

But Yaga chooses today of all days to ask Nanami to stay behind to consolidate a few contracts that only Nanami—unfortunately—has access to. In normal circumstances, Nanami would decline and suggest pushing it off until Monday.

It’s even more unfortunate because he has plans tonight. He wants to help you make dinner and spend time with his daughter and he shouldn’t even have to think about excuses because he hates overtime. But, the consolidation is due Monday, and he wants to get it done now so that he can avoid the hassle later on.

You don’t sound upset when he calls you to break the news. Your usually calm voice is slightly downcast with a gentle sigh that you think he can’t hear.

“I guess it’s rare so I shouldn’t be mad but,” you complain weakly, your words tinged with a slight whine that makes Nanami smirk to himself. “I made Katsudon.” 

He groans, mouth instantly watering at the mere thought. 

“I’ll be home as soon as I can, my love. I promise.” 

You grumble a reply that makes him chuckle, a tender sound resonating deep in his chest as he listens to you tell him that you love him before hanging up the phone.

***

It’s seven o’clock and he’s fighting a migraine. But he’s almost done, and he’s determined to finish the last stack of contracts that require organizing before he can make his way home to you and Ulani.

As he pens his signature on the bottom of one contract, there’s a knock on his office door, prompting him to invite them in—assuming it’s merely the janitor since everyone else on the floor left hours ago. 

That’s all he thinks to himself; he focuses his attention on yet another clause, preparing to initial his name on the side when everything comes to a screeching halt. 

Because standing before him isn’t the janitor—it’s Pia.

Pia, clad in a tight black dress that not only defies workplace etiquette but also starkly contrasts the one she wore earlier in the day.  

Earlier that day, he followed her every movement as she got into her car and drove away, silently relieved that he could finally relax. Yet, here she is; her dark brown wavy hair hanging over her shoulder in a manner far too seductive for his comfort, and black heels clutched in her hands instead of adorning her feet.

It takes him only a second to assess how quickly he can maneuver past her without a word. He will take the steps if he has to, or maybe he can grab the remaining contracts and finish the rest at home and—

“Gojo always mentions how you never stay late anymore, so I’m surprised to see you here,” she purrs, her Italian accent grating against his ears, exacerbating his throbbing migraine behind his eyes. Her lust-filled, indecent intentions taint her dark brown eyes, reinforcing the strong urge within him to leave, quickly. 

He’s not the type of man to belittle a woman’s appearance because they all possess their own beauty. His mother hammered that among other things about the respect of women deep into his skull before he hit puberty. But he’s well-mannered enough to acknowledge beauty and let the line be drawn there—because other women aren’t you, and he doesn’t have a wandering eye. 

He never has and he never will.

“Is there a reason why you are here, Pia?” he questions, discreetly binding the stack of contracts together so he can swiftly grab them along with his blazer and push her out of the way if he has to. “Your project finished at the end of the business day, so I assumed you would be on your way back to Italy.”

She scoffs a deep and guttural noise that makes Nanami’s stomach twirl in distaste and intensifies the pounding behind his eyes. “You know exactly why I’m here, Kento. Don’t be dull. You never were back then, and you aren’t now.”

His stomach churns, the knots tightening with each passing moment between them. The tension becomes unbearable, culminating in a swift rise from his seat as he retrieves his blazer behind his large, deep red chair.

“You need to leave,” he demands, his voice devoid of the polite courtesy he had extended to her during her visit. He tucks the contracts beneath an arm, grabs his car keys, and makes for the door—but she’s quick to sidestep so her frame blocks his path. 

Irritation surges within him, an emotion that others—excluding you—are keen to elicit when they begin to waste his time. 

“Pia, please move out of the way so that I can go home.”

She arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow, adding to the torment coursing through his stomach. “So you’re saying you don’t even want to talk? It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and you’ve done nothing but avoid me during my entire stay.” Her whiny, petulant tone and childlike frown only serve to trigger flashbacks to times when she didn’t get her way, intensifying the deep divide that caused their separation.

“And you don’t understand the reason why?” he retorts, irritation heavier and thick in his mouth. A frown etches itself onto his lips, and his patience dissipates in the tense air encircling them. 

A noise in the lobby—a noise that implies someone can be listening—makes his heart stammer in his chest and the hairs on the back of his neck rise. 

While she has an agenda, he does not. He refuses to allow others to lose respect for him in this office, thinking he indulges in infidelity during his free time when that couldn’t be further from the truth. He couldn’t care less about others’ opinions, except when it involves you and your relationship—that’s where he draws the line. 

Unaffected by his sarcastic remark, she delicately places a perfectly manicured hand on his chest. He’s quick to react, catching her wrist in a way that makes his blazer fall to the floor, pulling her hand away from him as his body begins to shake in frustration.

 “I don’t know where you’ve gotten the impression that I want anything with you, but I won’t be entertaining it. What we had was a long time ago and it won’t ever be reignited again. Try your best to understand that,” he states firmly.

“But—” she begins to protest.

“Enough, Pia. Leave. Now.” 

He isn’t asking nicely anymore, his head pounding, and the decision to simply push her out of the way is made. Just as he prepares to do so, the door swings open, and the person he longs to see the most but also wishes wasn’t here right now, rushes in.

“Ken, I thought I could bring you dinner and—” you stop mid-sentence, words wedged in your throat as you take in the scene in front of you. You’re holding a Tupperware container, the steam inside condensing along the edges.

Nanami with papers under one arm and the other dropping from a delicate wrist to flop down at his side, his hair disheveled from hours of musing, his face clearly disturbed. And Pia, beautiful and ethereal as usual as she whips around to look at you. 

Since that first day you met her, you haven’t encountered Pia again. And Kento’s unwavering loyalty and trust have provided no reason to entertain the thought of her. 

However, Nanami’s stiff stature, Pia’s tight dress that reveals a bit too much in the front, and the stiletto heels swinging from her finger in one hand make it abundantly clear to you why she is here. 

At seven o’clock at night.

With no one else around.

You want to shy away from the implication, to fend off your surprise with a shy chuckle, and let the poisonous current of insecurity draw you away like that time before. But Nanami had skillfully put those doubts to rest weeks ago. 

Now you’re just irritated.

“Pia? What are you doing here?” You keep your tone light, masking the annoyance bubbling inside you. Pia’s earlier sultry gaze has vanished, replaced by widened eyes and hands smoothing her already unwrinkled dress, anxiously. “Kento told me the project ended a few hours ago. Aren’t you flying back to Italy soon?”

She fumbles, her rose-tinted lips curling as she searches for something to say, gripping her heels tighter in her hand. It’s reminiscent of watching a child scrambling for an excuse after being caught with their hands in a cookie jar.

Nanami remains silent, astonished. In the past, any other woman daring to breathe his air while Pia was present would have been met with scathing words and threats. But now, that Pia is desperately trying to produce an excuse for her late presence within a workplace when she she should be on a flight home.

“She was just leaving, love,” Nanami interjects, trying his best to make the situation as simple as it can be. Pia agrees, blushing and nodding, hastily slipping her heels back on with hands seemingly covered in sweat.

Watching her struggle to secure her heels, her fingers slipping on the buckle, reignites a surge of confidence deep within you. The once persistent insecurity in her presence now feels like a mere joke. In this moment, she becomes the joke. 

And you want to savor every minute of it.

The next words spill from your mouth, impossible to contain. You wiggle the small Tupperware container in your hands, gesturing towards her and offering a shy but satisfied smile.

“I was just bringing my husband dinner,” you chuckle airily, the lie slipping from your lips with ease. You relish the reaction from them both. Pia’s hands slip on her heel strap, causing her to stumble. Nanami struggles to contain his composure, eyes wide as saucers, his breath caught in his throat as your words ring in his ears like a piercing siren.

“Kento is the only one on this floor, it’s awfully late and I doubt you would have left earlier without saying goodbye. Surely you—” you pause, pretending to be taken aback before leveling an accusatory gaze at her. She looks up from her hunched position, hands still fumbling with the straps of her heels, her eyes wide and beautifully tan skin appearing pale. You’re not one for pettiness, but the delight from the sight of her struggling courses through your veins. “Surely you’re not here with the intention to do something else, are you?” 

“No!” she quickly retorts, her voice both loud and tinged with a hint of nervousness that makes the corner of your lip twitch. “No of course not—”

“So what are you doing here?” you cut her off with a narrowing of your eyes, repeating your question from earlier with a touch less feigned innocence, your tone slightly more serious and impatient. 

“L-leaving actually! Just wanted to say goodbye to Kento before my flight in the morning,” she stammers, now standing three inches taller, maintaining an air of elegance and grace even as her embarrassment paints her cheeks red.

She hastily bids Nanami farewell—a choked and tight goodbye—, a lopsided and anxious smile directed at you, and stumbles once more as she hurriedly exits the room, a snort of amusement escaping your lips as she trips before disappearing from your sight.

You close the door behind her, shutting away her presence for good.

The room falls into silence, Nanami’s face turning a vibrant shade of red that forces you to suppress your laughter with every ounce of effort you can muster.

“Love, I can explain—,” he begins, but you promptly cut him off, a giggle escaping despite your best attempts to hold it back. 

You know he would never do anything. Nanami would probably take infinite shifts of overtime instead of letting a woman who was not you touch him. In fact, you heard the entire conversation before you rushed in, and it makes your heart flutter with love that is already overflowing for him. 

“It’s not funny,” he grumbles.

But it’s so funny to watch him squirm, his face burning even more and his movements awkward as he clutches the bundle of disheveled contracts in his hand. His expressions of frustration and his furrowed brow only serve to ignite a warmth in your stomach. 

You love to tease him. And now you’ve been given the perfect opportunity to make him sweat.

“There’s no need to explain, Ken. I’m just messing with you,” you reassure him, taking his free hand and gently pulling him back to his desk. Turning to face his still-nervous figure, you retrieve the papers from his grasp and place them neatly on his large mahogany desk. 

“I heard the entire conversation. I am curious though,” you begin, pressing him down into his chair. He’s silent as he watches you push the chair back a little, so you have room to stand between him and his desk. “What do you think she would have done if I hadn’t come in time?”

“Absolutely nothing because I don’t—” he starts, but his words are abruptly cut off by the touch of your hand gliding against the fabric of his chest. Unlike Pia’s touch, your fingertips radiate heat and beckon him in a way that has his cock twitching in his slacks. His heart skips a beat as he watches your own manicured nails circle the buttons of his dress shirt before undoing them quickly. “We can’t—”

“Why?” you interrupt, your voice low and hot, instantly drying up his throat. Your fingertips dance along the exposed skin of his chest, gently teasing him as your nail flicks against a pink nipple before trailing down between the contours of his abs. You tap your fingers along the downy hair that trails under his slack and his stomach bunches in response, twitching from the stimulation, his heart skipping and his throat tightening slowly. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

He doesn’t. God, he doesn’t, and the words ‘no’ are out of his mouth before he can stop them, giving you his consent even though he’s embarrassed out of his mind. His migraine becomes an insignificant thought, the pulsing from earlier falling into a slow ebb, eclipsed by the escalating desire coursing through his veins. 

Nanami has never been the type of man to do this sort of thing. While he likes to be inside you anytime he can, he cherishes the privacy that safeguards both himself and you, more. 

But he can’t lie to himself that the thought of something happening in this office with you hasn’t crossed his mind multiple times—especially when you used to work together.

The sound of you undoing his belt buckle has his heart racing, thumping loud and heavy in his chest and his face is on fire as he watches you release him from the confines of his pants, his cock already hard and leaking. 

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, biting down and finding it difficult to contain your own desire from the sight of him. The area between your legs throbs as you trace your eyes down a cock that you’re intimately familiar with. Warm and achingly heavy, leaking with anticipation and pleading for your touch. His abs tense with a sharp intake of breath as you wrap your hand around him, a pleasurable hiss escaping his throat as he watches you stroke him languidly. 

You press your free hand into the arm of his chair, leaning in until your lips are mere inches apart. Inhaling his ragged breaths, you admire the way his deep brown eyes blow out, leaving only a ring of burnt umber for you to gaze into. 

Your grip on him has his mind foggy, desire overtaking any rational thoughts that he would normally use right about now. 

But you’re so good. 

You’re curling your wrist with every upward stroke just the way he loves and his abs bunch with every jolt of pleasure that zips inside of him.

He has to touch you, has to get his hands on you in some way to ground himself, and he instinctively reaches out for you when suddenly you tsk, pulling back slightly to create more distance between your lips.

“No touching.”

Oh.

You never deny him when you’re both like this. You always want his hands on you. The fact that you’re now denying him, gazing at him with a dangerous look in your eyes, shocks him. And it arouses him to a degree that makes him choke on a breath. 

He sags back into his chair, gasping for breath when your hands trail down to cup his balls. He digs his fingers into the chair’s armrests, scratching red leather, and he’s desperate to keep himself from cumming too soon.

“Did you—did you lock the door?” he manages to gasp, grasping onto any shred of coherent thought he has left.

You tilt your head in confusion, gaze at him with an indifferent stare, and then shrug nonchalantly before sagging down to your knees in front of him. The sight makes his toes curl in his expensive Chukka boots.

The rational part of his mind urges him to get up and check the door. Just get up and make sure the door is at least locked before anything else—but then his thoughts are short-circuiting and stuttering as your tongue slides wet up his shaft and you swallow him down to the base without a care in the world.

The back of his head slams against the cushioned chair as a surge of pleasure courses through his veins. You’re wet and sloppy, teasing him with your gaze as your mouth stretches from the thickness of him—and he’s struggling to hold on, struggling to keep his orgasm at bay even though it’s right there.

He tries to reach for you—tries to card his hands through your hair but you smack it away and glare at him with such a ferocity that he’s embarrassed for even attempting. 

Marketing templates. Morning traffic. A cold cup of coffee. 

He thinks of everything he can to resist the warmth in his stomach and the coil tightening along his spine; because you suck his cock in a way that makes him fidget in his chair, humming and gurgling into his ears in a wicked melody that’s making him go insane.

You’re enjoying every second of this and it only makes him blush harder with just how exposed he is to you right now. The mere weight of his cock in your mouth and the slightly salty taste of him makes your panties damp, your cunt pulsating and aching to be filled. 

And you’ll make sure it happens.

So you patiently wait until he’s panting harshly, his grip on the arm of his chair growing tighter and tighter. You wait until that crazed look dances in his eyes—the one you’re so familiar with right before he cums. And right when he’s on the cusp, you pull away. 

He exhales hard and sinks into his chair almost in relief as the band inside of him relaxes slightly, desperately trying to catch his breath and hissing as the cold air of his office wraps around his wet cock.

“Pia really did have a plan, didn’t she?” you playfully tease, standing to card your fingers through his blonde locks. Your fingertips glide across the faint traces of sweat, your hand moving along with the shake of his head in response to you, his gaze unfocused.

You kick off your shoes, hook your thumbs into the corner of your leggings, and slide them down and off your legs—his eyes following every inch of creamy brown skin that is revealed to him. 

You’re wearing an oversized sweater, a soft cashmere that he got you simply because he wanted, and it now covers your faint stretch-marked thighs. They are your battle scars, your own reminders of the journey your body underwent to grow and birthed the beautiful daughter you both have now.

His breath falters as he watches you gracefully perch on his large desk, placing your legs on top and bending your knees so your fuzzy sock-covered feet press against the rich mahogany. Leaning back on one arm, you effortlessly open your legs for him. His naturally narrow eyes widen at the sight of your white damp panties, and he longs to lick, suck, and slide his cock inside the very place they conceal.

The glint in your eyes is mischievous and taunting, delighting in the way he struggles to stay seated even as you slide one of your hands down into your panties.

“Can I—” he starts, but you cut him off.

“No.” 

You leave no room for argument and don’t offer anything else as you begin to circle your clit leisurely, arching into the touch as echoes of pleasure hum to life. It’s not long before you’re pushing your panties to the side to expose yourself to the open air. Your cunt throbs with desire when you hear Nanami groan softly under his breath. 

You’ve never been this bold, never entertained the thought of anything voyeuristic. But Nanami seems to awaken something within you, something you’re slowly embracing. He’s so shy about sex outside of the privacy of your home, and it only makes this more exciting that he’s even entertaining it now.

“Did she do this with you?” you ask him, your voice breathless as you sink two fingers into your wet cunt. The corner of Nanami’s eye twitches from the sight and you swallow down a giggle that threatens to escape. “Did she ever make you watch her while she touched herself?” 

You moan softly as you curl your fingers up as best as you can from your angle. Nanami’s fingers dig into the leather of his chair with barely contained restraint. 

“Answer me, Kento.”

“No. She didn’t.”

Satisfied with his answer, a sense of pride flaps in your chest, and you gleefully continue fingering yourself in front of him. It always takes you a while to get off with your fingers, so you use that as ammunition to watch Nanami squirm. 

You watch the way his exposed muscular pectorals move with his increasing breaths. You watch the way his cock twitches, hot and heavy against his stomach, leaking precum onto his abs. And you soak up the way he traces his eyes along every inch of you, leaving nothing without his attention.

When you finally cum, sharp and abrupt, he’s hanging on by a thread—ready to abandon your command to be still, yank you to him, and sink inside. 

He watches your cunt flutter around your fingers as you slowly come down from your high, gasping like an angel into the office air. Breathless, you stand on shaky legs and move to stand before him, lifting slick-covered fingers to his mouth which he readily opens without command, desperate to taste you any time he can. He groans softly against your fingers, eyes drooping, tongue sliding wet between your digits. The sight makes your cunt throb weakly, faint embers that had just died down, licking to life again.

You taste like everything to him, everything he wants and everything he needs.

But it’s not on the menu tonight.

You straddle his lap wordlessly and smack his hands away when he tries to wrap large hands around your waist. He swallows his frustration, yearning to touch you, yet willing to comply for the promise of more.

Using the remnants of your arousal between your legs, you coat him, stroking him enough to make sure you take him effortlessly, and then you guide him to your entrance and sink down to the hilt. The feel of him inside you is glorious, stretching you in the way you like that makes your cunt tremble to life around him, grateful for his presence once again. 

“Fuck,” he hisses—chokes with eyes squeezed shut, hand gripping the chair until it groans. You’re so wet, so fucking warm and tight that he’s shaking--practically trembling and swallowing a whimper as he fights the urge to grab your hips.

You didn’t need much to get used to him. You’re a masochist when he stretches you—you crave the way your cunt tenses from the intrusion, gripping him like a vice.

You’re a champ, enveloping him and giving him little time to acclimate before you’re bouncing on his cock with a finesse that would make any woman jealous.

You slide both hands into the hair at his nape and pull so that he cranes his neck back to gaze up at you. He’s slack-jawed, panting with breaths that tickle your lips, his eyes heavy with desire. 

“Did she ever fuck you like this, hmm? Come into your office when you would work long hours and ride you until you couldn’t see straight?” 

He can only shake his head ‘no’ in response, his throat too dry to speak, his lungs burning. He craves your touch, your lips on him, something to anchor him as he struggles to keep up. It’s the only way he can stay sane when the neurons in his brain are frying by the second. He begs wordlessly, groans deeply up into your mouth, pleading for anything.

And thankfully, you grant him a searing kiss. Your lips mold against his, tongues battling for dominance that he willingly surrenders to. His every thrust hits that perfect spot within you, brushing away hints of oversensitivity and bringing forth faint pleasure that makes you dig your hands into blond tresses and pull tight.

The pleasure caresses the insides of your thighs and tightens the muscles of your legs. Every brush of your clit against the skin of his abs shoots electricity throughout your cunt and up to the base of your spine, igniting a simmering fire that begins to heat deep pools of lava that reside there.

You pull away from his lips with a harsh moan, gasping into the warm air of his office, riding him harder to the point that the legs of his chair begin to squeak.

He knows you well. He knows how you get demanding and delirious and incoherent when you ride him, and he loves to count the seconds until that switch in your brain goes off. And it���s not even a second later when—

“Fuck, you feel so fucking good. So, so good,” you moan against the skin of his lips. “Fucking me just the way I like Ken.”

He watches every move you make, tracing his eyes over the contours of your face and the way your loose curls cling to creamy brown cheeks.

His eyes roll when he picks up your whispered chants. You’re a woman possessed and you take what you want—when you want. And he gives and gives with every yes, yes, more Ken, you’re so good, please, please, please yes!

Your pupils are blown and glazed over with desire, but suddenly your brows furrow in frustration. 

“She walked in here in a tight dress and high heels looking to get you in the same position that I have you now. But at the end of the day, you’re mine.”

There’s not an ounce of coyness in your words. You’re so serious, firm, and unyielding that it makes him shudder, a groan sliding from his parted lips, his eyes rolling into the back of his head and—

“Look at me,” you command, voice low, panting from exertion and the feel of your body beginning to draw tight with embers of a powerful orgasm. His eyes roll back without hesitation, locking with yours. “Unless—unless some other circumstance tears us apart, you—you are mine. Pia can have all the money and fame, but she will never have you. I do.”

“Yes,” he whispers, the word tumbling from his lips without faltering. His hips struggle to keep up and his thighs begin to stiffen as pleasure begins to curl deliciously so that his hands dig into the chair. His fingers slip against the leather, sweaty and tingling.

“You’re the father of my child.”

“Yes,” he chants again, breathless and quivering as the rubber band along his spine grows taught, stretching and shaking from the tension.

“You sleep next to me. You kiss me. You fuck me.”

“Yes, only you—only you.”

You tremble from his words, satisfaction oozing like hot thick globs along your skin. “That’s right, Kento,” you purr as your hips begin to roll against him, your clit carrying currents of pleasure through your veins, that pool of lava at the base of your spine boiling and rising to the brim.

“Please,” he whispers, his plea pulling you from your desire-induced haze. You look down at him, admire the flush of his cheeks, the warmth of his breath against the collarbone of your sweater, the sweat that beads along his hairline. “Please.”

“Please what?” you tease, trying to maintain a playful demeanor even though your hips are beginning to ache from overuse. You come to a stop on top of him, your breaths mingling together.

“Can I touch you?” he asks, always gentle and caring, even when he’s bursting from the seams. You love him so fucking much.

“Will you make me cum?”

“Always,” he responds without hesitation, his words filled with conviction. You lean in, pressing your lips against his, savoring the affection he willingly gives you. When you pull away, you brush thick blonde locks from his forehead, exposing more of his sharp features that will never fail to make your heart race.

“Then touch me, Ken,” you whisper, your voice laced with desire and anticipation.

Without wasting a moment, he swiftly lifts you in his arms, his cock still nestled inside as he carries you towards his desk.

Your breath catches as you stare up at him, the sound of papers scattering to the floor filling the air. He pulls your sweater up, revealing every inch of your faintly stretch-marked belly, before tugging down a cup of your bra, heady eyes watching as one of your breasts spills from its confines. 

He’s too fast. You fumble for words and let out a surprised yelp when he yanks your waist toward the edge of the desk. He presses your knees as close to your chest as you will allow, and then he slams into you once—and then twice before picking up a rhythm that makes your toes curl.

He devours you, tongue flicking and swirling wet and dripping around your exposed nipple as he pounds into you unabashedly, the desk squeaking and groaning from his efforts.

All bravado that you had earlier splinters away with each smack of his muscular hips against you, the skin of his abs brushing against your clit deliciously, coaxing moan after moan from your lips. His tongue flicks your nipple again before he bites the hardened bud, and your cunt flutters—clenches around him, your thighs beginning to twitch even though they’re pressed to your chest.

“I’m all yours. Always yours,” he whispers against your lips, blonde tresses gliding against your cheeks.

You hope there’s no one on this floor, or that no one has decided to come back for something because the last thing they need to hear is Nanami Kento, Director of Strategic Partnerships, railing his girlfriend on his over-priced, too-large mahogany desk.

You can barely breathe, your moans growing in pitch, the sound of skin on skin echoing through his office, your hands sliding up to dig fingers into the skin of his back. You don’t even have the chance to tell him you’re close. 

The stroke of him inside you, the slap of his skin against your bundle of nerves, and the feel of his mouth trailing along the sweaty column of your neck with a deep and heavy cum for me baby breaks the seal inside of you.

The lava boils over—pools along your bones, hot and delicious and caressing every nerve ending within you, your cunt squeezing him without remorse. You can’t help the loud moan that shakes from your lips, growing in pitch when the pleasure seems to spike and overheat you in oversensitivity, your entire body tingling and shaking like an exposed nerve.

Nanami takes every ounce of pleasure you offer. Everything, every part of you is precious—treasured in a way that no one else will ever be able to comprehend. He takes every breath, every hitch in your throat, every droplet of sweat on your skin, every whimper and moan and scratch of your nails against him. He savors it all—needs it to survive, to know that you have chosen him, that you want him, that you love him.

You’re the only woman who makes Pia tremble and stumble over her words. You are a force to be reckoned with, and he knew that the moment you snapped at him when you first met. You’re fierce in the way you love, strong with the words you say, and so fucking beautiful that he cant help but feel proud of just how threatened Pia was by the sight of you.

Those words you spoke confidently to her have played like a record in his head since you forced him into his chair.

“I was just bringing my husband some dinner.”

My husband.

My husband.

He’s thought about it, so many fucking times. And he swears it will happen. Soon.

One day you’ll be his wife.

His wife.

His wife.

His thoughts come to a sudden halt because he’s cumming, catching him off guard, that rubber band snapping in half, pleasure yanking from the base of his spine and pulling a harsh groan from his chest as he spills inside of you.

His hands slip from behind your knees and smack onto the wood of his desk and you wrap your legs around his waist as you both regain your breath. He’s putty against you, melted and loose and molding against every crevice of you as he takes in your intoxicating scent. Lilac from your body wash, shea butter from your lotion, and a hint of cooking grease that wafted onto your skin when you made dinner.

Your fingers lovingly comb through his sweaty hair, your legs blissfully achy, your cunt satisfied and throbbing, and your heart coming to normal sinus rhythm in your chest.

“Ome is probably wondering where I am,” you finally speak, breaking the tranquil silence of his office. “She offered to watch Ulani when I left.” Nanami hums against you, a low and gravelly sound that’s typical of him when he’s ready to go to sleep. “Bring the rest of the contracts home. No more overtime.”

As if he would even entertain the thought of being in this office a moment longer. “Okay,” he agrees, pressing his lips to your neck. He still has his arms around you, still connected to you despite having softened inside you minutes ago. 

But you don’t mind. You cherish these moments with him, holding them dear in your heart, knowing that each one is a gift.

Because you’re the only one who can revel in the way he needs you, the way he craves having his hands on you, the way he murmurs his adoration into your skin. And you love every bit of it. You love him.

“Will she be back?” you ask, a hint of hesitance in your tone.

He shakes his head, groaning softly as you scratch that spot behind his ear. “No. Never.”

“She better not,” you jest, an eyebrow lifting to the ceiling, gazing at no one. “If she pulls shit like that again, there won’t be a happy ending for you.”

He barks out a laugh against your neck, lifting his head to take in your blissed-out form. Fatigue weighs heavy on your eyes, your lashes delicately curled, your hair spread out on his desk to make you look like the most otherworldly thing he has—will ever see. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, love.”

He kisses you tenderly once and then twice, before resting his head against your chest, the soft cashmere of your sweater caressing his cheek. His eyes catch something on the corner of his desk.

The Tupperware of food that you brought still emits steam, a homemade Katsudon by your hands, just for him.

His heart thrums in his chest, full and filled with warmth.

His wife.

Soon.

Thanks for reading!

©mysteria157, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, plagiarize, reupload, modify, or translate (without permission) my work to other accounts and platforms.

[mintytrifecta]

The Ship of Theseus Has Nothing On Me - Chapter 2

A loud beeping becomes the first thing to invade his senses, followed closely by a weightless push to the cold, hard, metal floor of his sub-basement lab.

Rick chokes on the last bits of quantum fluid to invade his nose and mouth, spitting the sour taste somewhere in front of him and hoping the garage will clean that later. With shaking limbs, the scientist rises to his hands and knees, an instinctual groan leaving his throat. He shivers, the cool steel below him a welcomed pain to ground him back to reality and away from the dreamlike lifelessness of Operation Phoenix’s rebooting vats.

Somewhere in the distance, he's vaguely aware of his garage’s voice congratulating his successful rejuvenation, welcoming in whatever generation clone of a clone of a clone he is now, but it all sounds just like mechanical buzzing in his ears.  

If he's oriented himself correctly, Rick should be facing the direction of his lab wardrobe. All it takes is just getting there first. 

With a heave, Rick pushes himself off the floor and upright, opening his eyes for the first time. 

Information flooding is a normal part of his cloning process. His mechanical gears hum and creak under his skin, and his brain runs through all the systems like the clockwork they are to make sure he's functional. 

He's had enough experience body hopping and cloning his consciousness to know when a new body is a dud or not, and as he stumbles on jelly-fied legs to his tiny closet, he thinks he can confidently say which one this is. 

He wasn't even supposed to need it this time, Rick thinks. It was supposed to be a simple supply run to get some rare precious metals from a dwarf planet he can't even remember the name of. It's not like it was his fault they were only on a mountain top and it was storming. 

Being made of more metal than flesh has its advantages, but today there are absolutely none to be found. 

Rick doesn't know why that memory decided to lodge onto him as his body was getting ready to turn on. Sure, he's thought about it in passing, but it's not exactly like he keeps it in a scrapbook with a play-by-play script for everything that happened. It was just… How he lost his eye. 

Hurt like a bitch afterwards too, he hums, pulling on a dusty blue shirt he hasn't washed in weeks. Supposedly, he woke up days later on the Rebellion’s med bay ship with a blindfold on and a nasty puss-filled-extremely-swollen-migrane-inducing infection from his head trying to reject the scanner out of his skull. Only through a combination of his instruction, Birdperson’s gentle and guiding hands, and a painkiller drug Squanchy snuck on board from God-knows-where did Rick actually manage to get a fitting prosthetic in. It took hours for blinking to stop being painful. Even longer than that to get used to how the world looks. 

Rick doesn't see the way he used to. 

As most people get older their sight just gets worse and worse and eventually goes away entirely.

But not him. 

With time, his sight has only gotten better. 

There's dust particles in the air, floating around for exactly 3.2 seconds until they'll descend to the ground. Rick sees it, barely thicker than his own hair, as it wafts past his breath, fluttering back.

Properly dressed, Rick turns to the elevator, shutting the light off of this level of the lab. His gaze meets the fluorescent tubing, and Rick watches as a light both a million years old and just a couple minutes alive fades away in slow motion–the prismatic rainbow afterglow it left behind was beautiful for the second it lasted. There's a color in there Rick can't name. Can't even think of what to call it or how to describe it. It's utterly inhuman to look at, and were he more so, it would have been horrifying to see. 

But Rick is not. Inhuman has stopped being an insult a long, long time ago. 

The elevator pings and begins its ascent towards the top. Rick meets the speckled wall, squinting at the cream color. There's bacteria there, one of its cells just split. The former whole became separated and divided and small. A lesser sum of its parts. A parody of what it once was. The bacteria wanders, continuing its microscopic trek across fields of concrete too large for itself to comprehend. He holds his gaze, deeper still and watches as one billionth of a billionth of its pieces comes to life. A new atom just formed, electrons dancing across its field collide with its sister atom on the left. There's a pulse when the two meet, some recognition of another life there, but they are atoms, and to reconcile with one another is to spell destruction, so they detach once more like it never happened. The atom could never see its electrons, bacteria never its cell, the human never its germs. 

But Rick can. He can see better than any person alive. Probably any person dead, too. 

Try hard enough, Rick can count the number of dying cells on his hands. Just as much the newest ones born of mitosis in the blink of an eye. 

It's objectivism at its finest. Reality to a point unbound by observational bias. 

Science, his eye seems to mock him, is in your vision to a fault. For what need does a god of logic and innovation have for the subjective and sublime of the world?

Truthfully, Rick can fix that if he wishes. He can find a hundred ways to off himself in less than ten minutes and reroute himself to a new clone built with human eyes and calcium phosphate in his bones where titanium now lies. He can reinvent the human body a million times over and create the ideal Him, human in every way possible and able to experience the world that way. 

Maybe then the freak hallucinations and echoes of things that haven't been around will stop torturing him. 

It started years ago, really. From his first experiments with Operation Phoenix’s rerouting system to figure out the logistics of transferring a consciousness. A snag he'd found was the subjectivity of a new mind attempting to gain control of a body. At first, his new clone bodies were unable to speak, walk or sometimes breathe. Over time the transition became easier and easier, nearly seamless. But a new mind is a weak mind, and in its attempts to stabilize itself, tends to latch on to whatever it was thinking of before the new body awoke. 

Which is why Rick hesitates to say he's surprised to see his daughter's six year old face smiling brightly at him, before continuing to spin in circles across the small elevator. 

Yes, Rick can fix this. Make himself more human than he has been in decades, get rid of these godawful hallucinations and tech that serves as nothing more than a reminder of how separated he is from his species. 

But like it or not, this is his body now, and Rick's never been one for life-bettering change. He lived as a sad old pathetic dirtbag, and that's how he'll die. 

The elevator chimes as the door slides open, little Beth barreling her way out with an inaudible laugh as Rick trudged paces behind her. She turns around in wonder, same as she always does, gazing at the various bits of glowing machinery with stars in her eyes and excitement pouring through her seldom-visible body. 

He knows it's pathetic. Getting attached to a hallucination of his dead daughter? How much worse can he get? 

But it's not exactly like he can get rid of her, much less move or interact with her in any tangible way. (A part of him wishes that the dead alien really did make it. That his eye would be gone for a good reason and that even some fake version of his daughter he could hold. When Birdperson had told a slightly delirious and still healing Rick that it was long dead, he had wept for hours. Sometimes it feels like he's never stopped.) So he might as well make peace with his stupid backstory staring him in the face for a couple hours. 

Diane's voice comes through the microscopic but appropriately loud speakers strewn about the garage ceiling, cheerfully asking if his disorientation is from the malfunctioning new body or some alien drug/drink he's somehow managed to near-blackout on already. Rick grumbles what he thinks is a cuss at the empty space, more focused on getting his legs to stop shaking long enough for him to reach his workbench. 

In front of him, little Beth waves him along, motioning to the chair he's got strewn somewhere in the middle of the room. She smiles, dimples present, as her hands clutch its top. Humming at her directions, Rick all but flops onto it with a half-sigh-half-grunt, feeling his fresh 70 year old muscles release their tension. 

Rick lets his head fall backwards on the seat, taking an unfocused view of the fluorescent light overhead. 

Without Beth in his field of view, the mush that is his reconstructing brain decides to shift to her voice, laughter echoing from two rooms over, Diane-style. Like fake mother like fake daughter, he supposes. Beth always was a curious person, fascinated by morbidity and the natural world, much like her mother was. 

Rick wonders if she would have hated or loved having eyesight like his. Maybe she would have liked it for her work, high depth surgery where she can pinpoint the exact cells that need healing would've made her the envy of every elite medical school from here to fuckin’ Gloppydrop. Or maybe his daughter would've been a bit more like her current space-faring counterpart, a laser-guided sharpshooter just as deadly and desirable as he was, She'd be so fucking badass, he's sure of it. 

Maybe he can just sleep off this reconstruction, let his subconscious mind handle all the bullshit that comes with a dud clone body. He'll take some manipulated memories of a 30-year-old him cussing real-him out over involuntary hallucinations making him--eugh–sentimental and sulky. 

Drugs won't even make it go away. Trust him, he's tried.

Yeah, sleep sounds nice. He can just close his eyes, kiss the world goodbye for a couple hours, and regroup with a better plan to get those crystals he needs when he wakes up. Yeah, he should do that. Good plan. Good…. pla-

“Dad, it's dinner time! I don't care how busy you are, you promised me you'd show up for this meal today!”

…Fuck. 

Right, he told Beth (adult Beth, stranger Beth, his daughter-not-daughter, the only person he'd take his other eye out for-) that he's got things to do in space, but after her insistence of their therapist’s insistence that he'd make it back for dinner. Something about low-stakes quality time to deepen bonds as if running for your life with death two steps away from you isn't the best bonding experience he knows of. 

Well, Rick supposes in a way he got the best of both worlds here. A version of him did make it back for dinner, even if it wasn't the one who made that promise in the first place. Either way, he came out on top, fulfilling his daughter's request and sticking it to authority. Ha. 

Rick hums back what he hopes is an audible response–judging by Beth's sigh, it is–and slowly works himself off the chair. His eyes remain closed until he's all the way up--vertigo be damned, he's not about to keel over for a second time today–and upon opening he comes face to face with fake Beth, clapping in some form of congratulations for getting up. He gives her a quick nod, halfway between an acknowledgement and a bow, and heads towards the main house door. 

He walks slow, trudging his feet along the wooden panels. If anyone asks, he can just say he's drunk or whatever as an excuse for being a snail, who cares. The smell of the food more than anything is what guides him to the dining room, making him stumble down unceremoniously at the head of the table to the half-open seat waiting for him. 

He's not the first to arrive, but he's not the last, either. Jerry gives him a nonchalant and completely disinterested, “How has your day been” that Rick promptly ignores as he peers over the table to the stairwell, where Morty comes barreling down with a rare completely stretched smile on his face. 

He had a date with Jessica today, their fifth first date at this point, but the kid always acts like it's the fourth of fucking July each time. It makes Rick's own lips twitch upward, just barely, as he thinks of how reminiscent his grandson is of an excitable puppy. He begins stammering through a recap of what the two did, much to Jerry's relief of having someone to talk to that isn't Rick, and the scientist himself watches Summer walk in at her own “idgaf” pace, gaze transfixed on the phone in her hand as she sits down next to her brother.

Beth walks in last, firmly holding a glass bowl of (non-suicide sourced) spaghetti and meatballs and sets it down in the middle of the table. Her eyes squint with the barest hint of a grin at the sight of family-full seats as she sits down, clearing her throat before announcing a short “Dig in!” and lifting a serving to her own plate.

Dinner follows as it normally does. Long-winded side conversations, the chirping of birds outside, the awful noise of someone chewing and fuckin’ banger food. 

Rick lets himself ease into the lull of it all, hoping this'll finally mean the end of his unnecessarily nostalgia-trip-ridden day, before an unwanted presence makes itself known circling the table. 

The fork Rick is holding screeches against his plate as Rick does his best to hide his surprise and glare at little Beth circling the table. She echoes the ghost of a silent laugh, hair billowing by the wind of a world only real to her and to Rick's eyes. She waves her hands across the faces of each family member, apparently careless at their lack of response. There's a humming sound, Rick notes as he stares at her, his eye attempting to analyze something that isn't there.

He whirls his gaze around to his food, suddenly finding himself fascinated by the shape poured spaghetti can make, and tries to make zero reactions to the hand now waving in front of him. He can do this, he can do this, he just needs to get through dinner and use his sleep-inducing gun and be done with today, just focus. Just focus on the food, just foc-

His eye zooms in uncommanded, and the tomato sauce turns into a parade of salt crystals towering over millions of bits of crushed tomato paste. Rick blinks and he can see the potassium atoms breaking apart sodium with ease, lycopene drowning everything out in a vibrant red nobody else has ever or will ever see. Rick blinks again and the fork he stabs into the noodle on instinct shreds through microstrands of starch and flour and he can see everything and he can practically hear it and he can practically see Her blood on his hands again-

A laugh shirks his ears. Blinking rapidly the world melts back to its normal size, participants of the meal none the wiser as to Rick's far away (and yet far, far, too close) stare. 

He gazes out the window. A cumulus cloud formation is headed their way. Approximately an hour from now it'll be overhead, with rain following in twenty minutes. It'll become a cumulonimbus in half that time. 

Rick twists his head again, a snarl working its way to his lips. The wall has a new layer of dust on it, the specks of miniature hair and otherwise all landed there a day ago. Nobody else can see it. Nobody else will even think it's dirty. Nobody can see the way the cloudy sunset is causing tiny prismatic refractions over it. The rainbow is beautiful, the colors he can never name. 

With a twitch of his nose and deep squeeze of his eye, Rick attempts to settle back to his food. The sooner he can finish it the better. He sets his fork down, reaching for his cup of water, and almost chokes. 

Little Beth is sitting on his lap. Fuck, she's sitting on his lap and smiling right at him. Fuck, fuck, it looks exactly like Her at that age. She's swinging her legs in the air, just content to be with him and Rick's gonna fucking hurl. 

Someone across the table laughs, little Beth echoing the sentiment as if she's part of the conversation, her fingers drumming along the outside of his thighs and he has to resist the urge to itch himself until he bleeds. Her straw-blonde hair invades his nose as she leans back against his chest, sticking herself in the crook of his neck. Rick's gaze lifts to the area between the window and the ceiling, determined to remain unfocused until he can control his breathing confidently enough to look down. 

He can feel her weight as she shifts to pick up his glass of water. He can feel her breath, steady but excitable as she listens to Morty talk about his date. He can almost imagine the stars in her eyes. 

Eventually, the conversations die down, as everyone focuses on their plates. Hopeful to finally be able to eat without every single sensory-related part of his brain going haywire, Rick lets his head drop down to everyone's eye level, going around the table before accidentally making eye contact with Beth. 

Quickly, Rick tries looking away but he's caught before he can. 

“Dad?” Beth starts, worry curving her brows, “You alright? You've been kind of… spacey all dinner.”

Fuck, where's his acting skills when he needs them, huh? Did this clone just not have it downloaded in the program? 

“Nah, I'm fine, sweetie.” Rick lies. “Just thinking about my last sexcapade up there. Smashed some serious action today.” He adds for good measure, taking a satisfied smirk at Summer's gagging noise. 

Beth seems unhappy with the answer, but lets it go with a hum anyway. 

With a distraction settled for a while, Rick gets back to his plate and swiftly feels his mechanically-cased heart drop into his stomach. 

Looks like Little Beth got tuckered out and decided to take a nap. Right on top of his food. Her eyes are closed contentedly, arms folded under her smushed up cheek. Her expression is neutral, as anyone's is when they're asleep. 

Beth's focus is still on him, he knows. If he doesn't eat soon she'll ask again. 

With a shaking hand, Rick picks up his fork, and slowly brings it to his plate. He brings it to his plate of spaghetti because the Beth on his lap is not real. He can lower it and only reach wet noodles and nothing else because that's what's real and his daughter is dead and he's alive and eating spaghetti. 

That's what's real, Rick repeats in his head, trying not to cringe at the squish of it all. He reaches down through Little Beth's temple, just above her ear, and somehow finds it surprising there was no reaction from the sleeping girl. The cybernetics pick nothing up either, except for the expected list of ingredients in his food (at least before he deactivates it so it won't bug out again) and alien-ceramic plate below. 

On some level, he can't actually see what he's picking up, blocked by the fake sleeper claiming his dinner as a pillow, but the weight of it on his fork is as good indication as any that he's picked something up. 

Real Beth's eyes are still on him. He can't dally forever. She's real and he's real and his daughter is dead. 

He's real and his daughter is dead. He's real and he's lifting meat sauce to his mouth. It isn't blood. It isn't trailing down his daughter's face because his daughter isn't here. He can analyze everything in front of him until the very number of atoms on his fork he can predict with ease. He's chewing food made in a kitchen and it is not his daughter's brain. It isn't real and he didn't pierce anything because there isn't anything to pierce. He's fine. Beth is fine. His daughter is dead and not sleeping on his lap and he is fine. 

The pasta tastes like ash on his tongue, and goes down about just as easily. 

Rick can't take another bite. His stomach is lined with metal created to endure a week of both starvation and deadly poisonous injection. 

It's cruel, how the world Rick built around himself is full of juxtaposition. It's cruel that the uncertainty principle of his daughter is at the forefront of his mind when a real version of her is right at the edge of the table, staring right at him. 

“Dad?” she asks. “are you sure you're okay?”

“Yeah,” Rick croaks. “just… thought I saw something.”

Beth puts a hand on his in sympathy. 

His daughter leans up for a hug. 

[lukedanger]

As you wish, @adorascake

WARNING: Spoilers for Arcane Season 2 Act III below and in the link.

Healing was never easy, nor was it always possible. And certain careers carried with it the risk of permanent harm.

Caitlyn had thought she had known that when she had enlisted as an Enforcer, even after having seem some of the injuries that had been picked up in the line of duty. A missing finger with a clockwork replacement here, scarred bodies and faces there, the occasional eyepatch. In hindsight it was clear how little she had actually understood, believing herself to either be untouchable or that she would just cope if it came.

In the grand scheme of things, Caitlyn had settled to simply mourn her lost eye and try to move on. Try to let it be a reminder to not allow herself to be blinded by vengeance. To take on the new challenge and rise to the occasion. And she had tried to put it into effect in the following years, striving to fix what had been broken - by herself, by her ancestors, or by her city.

A knock came at the door and Catilyn sighed, pulling the patch over her face. "Come in," she said as she turned to the door.

"Just me," Vi said as she opened the door and came into the study, a box in hand with a bow around it. "Got something to show you."

Caitlyn was intrigued, but had to stop herself from pulling up the relevant information in her mind. It was her obsession, one that had served them all so well but also meant that she always tried to figure out a surprise. She didn't want to ruin this for Vi, not with how proud of herself she looked.

Yet despite herself, the information creeping to the surface. Vi learning artifice and engineering at the Academy, to be more than the welcome pair of fists when someone threatened the fragile peace. Recent grants that Vi had ardently argued in favor of. Time she had insisted on being alone in her workshop, even giving up time together for it.

"Whatever you're working on, it's an obsession," Caitlyn had told her over dinner at Jericho's one night.

"Learned from the best," Vi had cheekily answered, and just in time Ekko had come by before the conversation could continue.

"So," Vi said in the present, setting down the box, "I know you keep telling me to think about myself, to stop hurting myself for others."

Caitlyn just nodded.

"And I know you don't like it when people fuss over you, and hate it when people suggest you use all this wealth for yourself."

That warranted a quirked eyebrow from her good eye.

"So, the reason I pushed for that eyetech grant was because..." Vi almost trailed off there, whatever she had rehearsed faltering as her knee started bouncing. "Ah, screw it. Open it, Cait."

Caitlyn obeyed as she undid the bow and lifted the cover, but she already had a strong feeling of what was in there that was confirmed a moment later.

A mechanical eye, master crafted by a skilled artificer. A blue crystalline lenses with a natural white sclera made up the visible front, while the back had a single chemtech adapter with a faint tint of electric green barely visible to the naked eye. It would require a surgeon to insert and connect, but if successful?

"You made this?" Caitlyn asked.

"I-" Vi hesitated. "Yes. Kinda. I did a lot of the drafting, helped make the body and designed the clockwork, but a lot of the tech..."

"Vi, was this why you've been running around Piltover and Zaun these past few months?"

"Past year, really. Cait, you've got all this wealth, and you've been trying to spend it to help everyone. I couldn't let you not spend at least a bit on yourself."

"Violet..."

"Shh," Vi's knee stopped shaking. "I know you don't want people to pity you for the eye. That you keep offering cogs to make sure everyone has a reason to beat you in shooting competitions. You keep telling me that I need to take care of myself too. Well, the same goes for you, doesn't it?"

It was all coming together now. "That was why you pushed so hard for Doctor Zeigler's ocular project. You wanted me to benefit from it."

"Yep. And it isn't just for you, Cait. We've made less fancy ones that can help people blinded by accidents in the fissures."

"So why not give me one of those, then?"

Vi grinned. "Two reasons: first, we've got those fancy galas to attend. Second? Well, let's just say this one may have a few special features that I think you'd like to have."

Caitlyn was about to ask, but decided against it. Vi knew she enjoyed a good mystery, and Caitlyn spent a good portion of the night thinking about it even as Vi was fast asleep knowing that soon her wife would be able to see her with both eyes again.

"It's a zoom function, isn't it?" Caitlyn had asked the next morning.

Violet simply grinned and put her hands in the air in mock surrender, even as she flexed her muscles. "You got me, Sherrif."

[daisyswift3]

🧩🍂🍁

Ok I could be completely wrong and seeing patterns that aren’t there (it wouldn’t be the first time) but I think Ed Sheeran and Sabrina Carpenter might come out tomorrow. I think they’re the next dominoes to cascade or FALL after Shawn Mendes. Let me explain

The 10th and 11th 🎃 messages -> Oct (10) and Nov (11) -> “the turn of the decade beFALLs the facade” -> “it was the end of a decade (the end of Oct or 10th month) but the start of an age” -> Change -> revolution/The Hunger Games ⚡️🏹😈🎯🔥 -> HALLOWEEN COSTUMES in the 11th 🎃 message -> Ed's gay little monkey meme costume and Elton John esque pfp (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road) and Sabrina's Tinkerbell costume 🧚 (Tinkerbell connects to the Peter Pan metaphor, growing up = coming out of the closet 🚪) (Sabrina is the one on the rollercoaster 🎢) -> Enchanted Forest and fairy wings 🧚 in 10th 🎃 message (OUT Of The Woods, “screaming color 🌈,” “somber woodland fairies”) -> “I hope your Halloween is enchanted” in 14th 🎃 message -> passing the torch/relay race/Paris Olympics/Nothing New, “she’ll know the way and then she’ll say she got the map from me” // “my bare hands paved their paths,” (x) -> Death with Dignity in Gracie’s playlists // Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars // funerals 🖤 // my tears ricochet eras tour performance and visuals // Billie’s Hit Me Hard and Soft album cover which is her free falling out of a closet door and drowning in the deep end (the deep end in Gracie’s Risk and Under/Over, Lizzy’s Pushing It Down and Praying, “softer, harder, in between”, Gregory’s Mistakes, Guilty as Sin?, “you’ve made your bed now lie in it”) -> Castles Crumbling (PLURAL bc multiple artists’ castles are crumbling in this mass coming out, there’s an intentional ‘s typo which connects it to the “i’s” in the 14th 🎃 message and to all the other intentional glitches/errors) -> Lizzy’s All Falls Down -> Jump Then Fall -> Birds of a Feather/The Albatross -> 2nd 🎃 message -> Gregory’s The Fall and Before the Sun (55 mile signs and Gaga’s Smile being changed to sMILE on Spotify) (x) -> All Too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version) bc autumn is FALL 🍂🍁 -> “autumn leaves FALLING DOWN like PIECES INTO PLACE” 🧩 -> “and all the pieces fall right into place” -> “and just like clockwork the dominoes cascaded in a line” -> Gracie’s Cool, “I'm actin' bored, it's my right, after all the love that you bombed” -> “tick tick tick of love bombs” -> tick tick tick BOOM 🧨🌋🕰��� (TNT, the reticent volcano) -> going back to the Halloween costumes, Taylor was dressed as a squirrel and there was Project Acorn bc the mass coming out movement (The Story of Us/The Manuscript/the film) is “nuts” lol (x) -> Ed Sheeran’s insta having an acorn and 🍂 for his Autumn Variations album -> Run ft Ed Sheeran (the relay race metaphor) -> Red being a FALL 🍂🍁 album

I think this all ties into the election too hence all the red, white, and blue and 4th of July easter eggs lately 🇺🇸 (Gregory’s Before the Sun mentions the 4th of July). And I think that’s why Karlie (Miss Americana, KARma) wore the Kill Bill costume 👀 -> Better Than Revenge Spotify canvas and TSMWEL eras tour visuals -> shattering glass ceilings -> “The Mountain: ‘You can say I like girls or boys; So call it what you want, call it what you want’” in the anon message -> Coldplay’s iAAM (i Am A Mountain): “I got this feeling that the ceiling is for bursting through…I got this feeling I can summon up lightning…Everyone taking aim, Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain” -> “Dear reader when you aim at the devil make sure you don’t miss” ⚡️🏹😈🎯🔥 -> The Archer/Katniss

[theshadowsingersraven]

A Bird By Any Other Name

Azriel found himself despising the scent of orange and bergamot—the scent of the bond between Elain and Lucien that haunted him every single day. It chased him to and from the bed he shared with Elain, twisted his stomach, and sent his shadows scurrying as if they couldn’t bear to witness the weight of his doubts. Every 8th day of the month, when Lucien reported back to Velaris, that scent brought with it a day of dread that took root deep in his bones.

But when the mate bond he’d long thought impossible finally snapped—with a stranger, no less—it wasn’t orange and bergamot that overwhelmed him. It wasn’t the scent that haunted him, nor the one that filled his nights with anguish.

No. That was the scent of fir, amber, and moss.

And it belonged to a witch.

Some days, Azriel wasn’t sure if he hated himself more, or the life he’d chosen for himself. Worst of all, he only had himself to blame. Elain was lovely, as always—supportive, loving, patient.

But he was reaching the end of his rope. Elain probably was, too. Despite being nothing short of wonderful, her reassurances rang hollow, no matter how much she meant them. He could feel the unspoken tension between them, as fragile as the petals of her beloved jasmine blooms. There were only so many times she could try to tell him that things were okay. That he was okay. That every time Lucien came back on the 8th of the month, she wouldn’t leave him for her mate.

It was a routine like clockwork. And, of course, today was the 8th. Which meant Azriel would return to the House of Wind only to find Lucien there, assaulted by the scent of their mating bond—orange and bergamot—made all the worse when they were together.

He now loathed the scent of orange and bergamot. Worse still, jasmine complemented it beautifully, as though the universe delighted in mocking him.

It was why he was flying back from Illyria instead of winnowing. Between the unrest in Illyria and the thought of returning to his home only to face her again—her and that scent—he needed the cold. The biting wind slashed at his cheeks and numbed his fingers, but it wasn’t enough. The cold couldn’t reach the ache festering inside him, no matter how hard he tried to drown it in frost.

Illyria was more volatile than ever since the Valkyries had won the Blood Rite. The males, furious, pushed the females harder, trying to intimidate them into silence. And the females, justifiably enraged, refused to back down. They’d played the males’ games and won. They’d earned respect long ago, twice over now. But Illyrian males were misogynistic bastards at the best of times. Now, their inability to see the females as equals was laid bare for all to see.

His shadows had been restless all day, their ceaseless whispering grating against his already-frayed nerves. They were too much when his mind was in this state and the world was restless—so he’d sent them away to check on his family.

Except Elain.

…For now.

Azriel’s fingers were beginning to go numb with the cold, trembles blooming through the nerves. It gave him something to focus on for a brief moment. Certainly not a blissful moment, but a welcome shift in attention nonetheless. He wondered if he could make an excuse to stay at the river house instead of the House of Wind or the townhouse. Perhaps he could offer to babysit Nyx, give Rhys and Feyre some time to themselves for a while.

A searing pain tore through Azriel’s chilled wings like fire against ice. The wind screamed past him, his vision blurring as he spiraled head over heels. His tearing eyes caught the fletching of an arrow sticking out from the wrist joint of his right wing.

Shit.

Azriel turned to face his attackers, finding two distant figures with Illyrian wings gaining on him faster than he preferred. He pushed a charge of his magic through his Siphons to spring forth his shield only to watch the cobalt light flicker and die out like a crushed firefly.

Faebane.

Shit shit shit.

Two more arrows made purchase in Azriel’s wing and shoulder. A roar of pain bellowed from him, but he forced his aching wings to catch him before he could descend into a free fall. He couldn’t waste time recovering, not when his attackers could easily press their advantage. He cursed himself for sending his shadows away. If he’d not let his guard down, not let himself become vulnerable…

He forced his wings to keep him aloft despite the burning in their membranes. Two attackers, both armed. The first closed the distance with swords while the second readied another arrow. Azriel adjusted his grip on Truth-Teller, recalculating his odds. He needed to take the swordsman out first—quickly. He could feel the wounds in his skin stretching as each millisecond passed, knowing full well that this would leave him grounded for a week at least.

The first attacker lunged and Azriel raised Truth-Teller. The screaming sound of metal meeting metal was nearly lost to the furious wind as they wrestled mid-air, sparks flying with each hit. Azriel let his wings tuck in, his weight pulling them down suddenly. The sudden shift made the attacker pitch forward, and Azriel slammed his foot into the males’ middle. The stranger’s sticking breath hit Azriel like a foul cloud as all the air was forced from his lungs.

Despite the dizziness Azriel was sure his blow had delivered, his attacker’s calloused hand wrapped around the arrow, his grip like iron. With a snarl, he wrenched it forward, shoving it through the meat and sinew of Azriel’s shoulder. The pain exploded, white-hot and unrelenting, dragging a scream from Azriel’s throat that seemed to tear the air apart.

Gritting his teeth, Azriel shifted, fighting through the blinding pain as his attacker held onto the arrow in his shoulder like a vice. Each jostle sent stars through his vision, making everything swim momentarily. Whether it was luck or simply survival instincts, Azriel wasn’t sure, but he managed to slide Truth-Teller free from beneath the stranger’s blades.

Azriel slashed across the attacker’s throat right as another arrow lanced through his stomach. Hot blood spilled out from the wound, blinding him as it ran down his face. The metallic tang of it filled his throat, choking him as he spluttered and gasped for air. His wings faltered, pain ripping through his body with every beat. He lost his grip on both Truth-Teller and his attacker, struggling to breathe, trying to see as he dragged his hands down his face—

Azriel’s stinging eyes fluttered open to blurred vision, stars, and darkness swirling as the world spun around him. Tight pain ran through his back as his wings finally crumpled and folded in on themselves against the frigid wind. Flight was no longer an option. His wings were spent—he was spent.

The Illyrian armed with a bow had another arrow nocked, aimed at his skull. Then, inexplicably, he sheathed it. Out of pity? Or knowing the fall would finish the job? Azriel couldn’t tell, but neither boded well for him.

Before he could spare the warrior—or his descent—another thought, darkness claimed him. Screams billowed up from all around him. He vaguely felt something soft give way beneath him, heard the sound of crashing, of splintering wood and an overlapping crescendo of panicked voices. The faint scent of smoke and damp earth filled his lungs.

A final pulse of pain spread through his entire back like a wave banking on the shore. Azriel was only faintly aware of something hard catching his limbs, a numbed tingling slowly subsiding beneath his skin. The last thing he faintly registered as the last of his consciousness slipped away was a voice bathed in urgency shouting, “Quickly! Someone fetch the witch!”

[xencthlu]

These are smaller builds, so I thought I'd group them together into one post. For your roleplay night on the town, let me welcome you to Coppermarket, Tomes for Cheap, and the Climbing Vines Cafe. Let's visit Coppermarket first. Pictures courtesy of my good friend Princesspurpleblob, featured in that lovely shot of the cafe with her lovely character. These are traditional builds, intended for roleplay characters to inhabit, made to match the style that other Elder Scrolls spaces use.

The Coppermarket is actually one of my oldest builds. I don't build this way anymore! If I were to make a market again, I'd do something totally different. But I think it's worth keeping your old projects around so you can see how far you've come. And people still really seem to like it -- it's my build with the most recommendations on home tours.

Of course, any good market is going to have snacks, drinks, and places to rest your feet in between visiting all the stalls. Every build in this post is part of my public roleplay builds project, so feel free to come in and play as a shopkeep or a shopper as you'd like. You can find my builds @xencthlu in game. Onto Tomes for Cheap!

There's some nicely shaded outdoor reading spaces, for customers who like to enjoy a bit of nature and a cool afternoon with their purchases. Princess was frustrated during this photoshoot because it was raining, and we didn't have weather control when she did it, but I actually think the overcast lighting is pretty.

My good friend Princess is here behind the counter, again demonstrating how comically short Bosmer are. She's like a doll! And what's a bookshop without a book cat? My best friend, Victernus, hates that the silver safebox is a furnishing. He always tries to rob it when he visits.

And just behind the bookshelves, you have a little reading nook next to the fireplace. This was just after I got the Elsweyr chaise lounges. I was very excited to use them here. Have you ever read on a chaise lounge? It's a million times better than reading in bed.

This is also a very old build of mine. I think I made it right after the Coppermarket, when I actually needed a bookstore for a roleplay scene I was doing. I have way more bookshelves now! And eclectic knick-knacks. Anyway, once you finish picking out your books, come read them at the Climbing Vines Cafe!

I didn't have any anniversary cakes when I made this build initially. Not that it stopped me. Can you tell weather control was important for this build? I swear Twin Arches is in a sandstorm 90% of the time without it.

I actually really like the base game High Elf furnishings, and I thought they would go well with the Redguard architecture in Twin Arches. (The High Elf Tea Table is my beloved.) I think I ended up being right! And, bonus, I think they also go well with the Elsweyr tapestries.

I got that Hew's Bane Well for less than the luxury vendor sells them for! I was very lucky. It's a beautiful furnishing, and I haven't been playing long enough to see the Hew's Bane furnishings come by the vendor.

Isn't Princess pretty? And doesn't she take amazing screenshots? Note the cat on the bookshelf. This is a cat cafe. My personal animosity with ESO's housing system, besides the furnishing limit we're all constantly at war with, is a lack of truly comfy sofas and arm chairs. The cushioning on the sofas in game all look stiff and uncomfortable. Which is weird, because the beds generally look fine, even if you need to add some extra pillows to fill them in. I've learned about making cozy couch cobbles from studying Princess' builds.

And here's the kitchen behind the counter. I wanted to put in a rolling pin, but those fuckers are worth half a mill, and the day I spend half a mill on a rolling pin is the day I have 20m in disposable income. If I had a few more slots, I'd put in one of the clockwork city grates for a cooling rack. And some bread cooling on it.

Come! Roleplay! Be a baker or a patron or a server or a huge problem! And if you like my builds, give me a recommend on home tours!

[brainrotexe]

Wriothesley's very stressful and very embarrassing first date prep:

(He's wearing a formal suit to impress Neuvillette.)

It isn’t like Wriothesley to ask, but, “How do I look?”

Clorinde looks over her shoulder as he approaches, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, “What’s with the suit?”

“I always wear a suit.”

“Yeah, but–”

“Does it look good?” he prompts, holding his arms out to his sides, “Come on, Clorinde. I know it’s hard to scrape your jaw off the floor when you see me, but–"

“Pfft. You wish.” she scoffs, folding her arms, “You look fine, I guess. Where are you going? On a date?”

He can’t really think of a compelling comeback to that. For some reason… His heart’s in his throat.

“Wait.” she turns around, giving him her full attention, “You’re actually going on a date?”

He sighs, “Don’t get all excited about it.”

“Me? Excited about your love life? It’s just… normally you don’t do dates.”

“I dabble.”

“Did someone say Wriothesley’s going on a date?” Sigewinne asks, approaching from behind Clorinde’s legs.

A groan rips from Wriothesley’s throat. He doesn’t need a scene to start. “Look, Clorinde. Forget all of this, okay?”

“Sigewinne, how do you think he looks? Date ready?”

Sigewinne studies him, finger to her chin, “According to what I’ve learned about humans…. I think you’re sure to wow any human you come across!” she says, giving him two thumbs up.

“Yeah, that’s not exactly helpful.” Wriothesley says, squinting an eye as he adjusts his rings, “I’m not going out with a human.”

Both of their brows furrow.

“Then… What are you going on a date with?” Clorinde asks. “Don’t tell me. You’ve gotten desperate enough to take a Clockwork mek on a date?”

“Why is that your first guess?” Wriothesley asks flatly.

“Is it a melusine?” Sigewinne asks.

His face scrunches up, “What? No. Ladies, there are plenty of other creatures in Teyvat that aren’t human.”

“A creature.” Clorinde repeats, “You’re… dating a creature?”

Wriothesley runs two hands down his face, rubbing away his rapidly increasing stress, “No! He’s– I mean–”

“He’s?” Clorinde smirks, “I always figured.”

“No. You didn’t.” Wriothesley says, rolling his eyes.

“Hey. Welcome to the club.”

He’s blushing. This wasn’t worth it.

Just as he thinks about walking away without another word, he looks down. Sigewinne’s eyes are wide open.

She's connected the dots.

(Snippet from my newest fic chapter [smut])