#[[ or allowing my Morty to be a little (a lot) more forward ]]

[countlessrealities]

Kisses under the mistletoe

@advnterccs sent: 😍 : my muse places a mistletoe above your muse’s head { To your Morty from my Morty }

While he would have denied it even under torture because it would have made him sound lame, Morty had been planning this since the start of the month. The previous Christmas had been a very important moment for him and his counterpart, even if they hadn't officially gotten together until New Year's Eve, and he meant to make the day somewhat special this year too.

That was why he had offered, for once, to help his Dad decorating the house. Useless to say, Jerry had been surprised and overjoyed by it, oblivious to the fact that he would be just a mean to an end. The teen wanted to know exactly where every piece of decoration would be, especially the mistletoe bundles, so that he could choose the best place where to share a romantic kiss with his boyfriend.

He had also stolen one of thee bundles while his father wasn't watching, just in case none of the spots would work for them.

Oddly enough, Rick had let him do what he wanted without much of a fuss. Morty had been a little puzzled and a little worried at first, because he was expecting his grandfather to be planning something nasty to get back at him for having chosen to spend most of the day with Jerry instead of adventuring with him. However, his concerns had been quickly dissipated when he had caught the scientist smirking at him from above a glass of liquor right when he had embezzled the extra bundle of mistletoe.

He really should have been expected would have Rick had guessed what he was up to. What had been even more surprising was that the man had chosen to enable him, even if it meant taking time away from their adventures. It had filled Morty with gratitude and warmth, even if he hadn't dared to show it, knowing that he would have been dismissed, if not straight out mocked.

Once the gathering of the two families had started, Morty had waited for the right moment. He had quickly given up on using one of the mistletoes that had been hung in the doorways, because there was always someone else around. He wanted it to be a moment just between the two of them, without an audience or interferences of any kind.

So, as soon as he saw a chance for them both to sneak out unseen, he took his other self by the hand, tugging at his arm to coax him into following.

"C-Come with me for a minute?" He asked quietly, so that no one else could hear him. Despite his efforts to look calm, his shy nervousness still showed in the light trembling of his voice. "I-I want...Uh, t-there's something I want to..."

He cut himself off, realising that he didn't know how to word his request without revealing what he had in mind. It didn't necessarily have to be a surprise, but in his eyes it would have been more romantic if he had managed to keep it such. Was it worth making a fool of himself, though? He wasn't so sure about it.

"Y-You'll see!" He settled on saying, pulling his counterpart a little more firmly. The less he talked and the more he acted, the better would be.

He led them out of the living room, perhaps a little too rushedly, and then past the the dining room and into the hallway. Instead of heading for the stairs as one would think, however, he took another turn, not stopping until they were standing in the corridor between Rick's room and Jerry's man cave.

Only then he allowed himself to turn to face his boyfriend once again, not before having taken a deep breath in and out. It was now or never. He wanted to be smooth, to be as charming as his other self saw him at times. No matter how hard and fast his heart was beating in his chest and throat.

Swallowing quietly, he fished the bunch of mistletoe out of his pocket, and held it up above their heads, forcing the most flirtatious smile he could master on his face.

"Y-You know, since we've been together for a while," almost a year, but he would deal with that on New Year's Eve, "an-and things between us have been going well," or at least he truly hope so, "I-I thought that we deserved some time alone for this."

He glanced up at the mistletoe, both to back up his words and to have a moment to steady himself for what he was about to say next.

"An-And, if you're up for it, to get a little...naughty too."

[apoptoses]

☕️ + what method of hunting do you think Armand and Daniel used when they first reunited in PL? It was obviously meant to be a very meaningful and intimate moment for them given that not long after they officially got back together so I’m curious to know what you think! Did Daniel follow Armand’s lead and they feasted upon wrongdoers together? Shared a couple of certified sons of bitches in some backstreet alley? Or did Armand allow Daniel to take him to a club and where they took little sips from innocent mortals as they danced? Or the secret third option where the method didn’t matter at all and it was just about finally spending time together? They have such different approaches that it makes me think that from now on, they’ll have to compromise more often than not when they go out together. Though one could also argue that Daniel was simply copying what Marius had been doing and taught him to do and now he’ll just effortlessly switch to Armand’s method.

Okay so deal with this I have to get some head canons/meta of my own out of the way first:

We know a couple canon things about Daniel hunting.

He got upset at the first girl he ever killed, but what was done with the body is unknown

He enjoyed killing the squatters with Armand but then cried when dealing with the bodies afterward

'Delirious' Daniel had to be reminded to bury the bodies at the end of QotD

Marius teaches him to survive off the little drink and only kill evil doers

Now Lestat also has to be reminded to hide his bodies, but he was just woken up from spending ~200 years in a world where bodies in the streets was normal and finding a victim wouldn't have been a big deal.

Daniel on the other hand, grew up in a world where death was largely sanitized. Seeing a dead body in the US would have been an extremely rare event for the average person born in the 1950s- the most Daniel might have ever seen was an open casket funeral. So due to this little handful of facts I've always had the thought that he had some persistent issues with dealing with corpses.

Which- fair. To someone with newly heightened senses that would be a lot to take in. Bodies evacuate all of their inner solids and liquids once they die, decomposition begins immediately. Rigor mortis sets in within two hours. The dead cannot hold their eyelids closed naturally and the mouth opens. If you pick up a dead body that has sat for a little while it's likely to expel gas. By the time even an immortal dug a hole deep enough and long enough to bury a victim, the smells would be overwhelming and the feel of the body would have entirely changed.

For Daniel, who likely had never dealt with the dead, this would be overwhelming and potentially something he never really gets numb to. Hence Marius teaching him the little drink and how to identify evil doers for when he needs something more.

So to your question:

I always imagined their first hunt back together in Prince Lestat to have a little tension. Armand knows this about Daniel, and while he knows for a fact that Daniel can pull off the little drink and, when necessary, kill the evil doer, I think he'd be somewhat apprehensive deep down about how all of this will go down. It is, in a lot of ways, a test- one to see how Daniel is doing as a vampire now, and one to see what they can and cannot do together from this point forward.

But at the same time, Armand remembers the first kill, and Daniel's reaction to having a sedated girl thrust upon him to take. He's not going to repeat that experience and push him into the deep end again.

So it starts with a walk, some quiet catching up until Daniel suggests they slip into a club together. For once Armand lets him completely take the wheel and guide the night. Picks up on Daniel's wordless nod when he spies two handsome young men for them to dance with and drink upon. As they sink their teeth into their willing victims and take their little drink they lock eyes, and oh yeah- this is something Armand can do. This is a powerful and confident version of Daniel he likes to see.

They find a pretty woman, take another sip. Head out of the club hand in hand until they're walking past an alley and Armand picks up on the thoughts of a man planning a violent mugging. He can tell Daniel has picked them up too when he stops, drops Armand's hand, and gestures for him to follow.

Killing him together is the biggest thrill Armand has experienced in years and afterward he forgets himself, if only briefly, and takes Daniel in his arms.

But there's still the matter of the body.

It's only a short argument but they have a little fight about it anyways. Armand insists Daniel go home and let him deal with it, he will meet him there. Daniel rolls his eyes and tells him he refuses to be coddled, treated like some nutjob who can't take care of himself. Armand tries to blow him off and tell him to go, just as Daniel heaves the guy over his shoulder and takes off.

In the end it's a shared job. Daniel digs the grave. Armand places the man in. Together they cover him with the dirt, dust themselves off and head for Trinity Gate.

Armand doesn't often apologize but this feels important, so he says that he's sorry if he made Daniel feel patronized. Daniel just puts his arm around him and tells him it's alright, he gets it. It's nice to know that even after all these years Armand cares enough to worry over him.

(And when they get into Armand's bedroom at Trinity Gate? Total carnage. Now that all the feelings are out of the way they both realize fuck, that was actually really hot, and they're both pumped full of blood and ready to make up for lost time. Daniel has never seen sheets so filthy with blood in his life after that.)

Once Daniel moves in they don't feed together all the time. Armand still prefers calling out to those who wish to die, Daniel would rather find some sadistic sack of shit to take out. But it's a special pleasure on the nights they do go out into a thick crowd, find someone lovely, and relive their old threesome days by sharing a drink together off them.

[dragon-appreciator-fray]

Finally watching new Witch from Mercury. You have been warned.

Editing this Sophie Pulone appreciation post as we go.

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Sophie Pulone is UNHINGED. Love her soooooo much.

Love the collateral damage. It is something we always appreciate in Mech stories.

Lesbians should be allowed to do war crimes. We will never stop saying this.

Sophie's got a big heart. This is why she is a better mech pilot then the men.

(As an aside, love the no physical ammunition, it pollutes space line)

(Also this is a really fun boarding action.)

Okay. This is an actual spoiler. Double warning.

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(Inhales) Revealing yourself to be a spy to save your friends and a bunch of kids. That's good. That is an unambiguous good. Other peeps have fessed up to being here on behalf of external interests. A lot of work was done with other characters that fed into this, one of many little nonverbal moments of betrayal. But this one feels good.

This is now a Nika appreciation post.

"You've pierced right through my heart!"

~ Sophie Pulone

I... am not remotely bothered by the ending of that episode. That's something Miorine has to overcome I think. And I don't even think it is all that hard to overcome.

Being 170 chapters into Vigor Mortis, I MIGHT have unreasonable expectations for writers getting characters to overcome trauma tho.

Last edit: You are creating technology to enable people to have more autonomy. Someone can always use that technology to hurt people. This example is someone who likes and trusts you committing violence to protect you. The bar of circumstances for your first confrontation of this quandary has been set low for you Miorine. But no one can force you to take the next step forward.

[advnterccs-archive]

@countlessrealities sent; The perk of having so many people in the house was that no one noticed if you sneaked off for a little while. And, since they weren't allowed to hide away without their Moms coming to force them back, Morty jumped on the first moment when everybody was looking elsewhere to grab his counterpart by the hand and pull him out of the living room and up the stairs.

Going that far wasn't strictly necessary, but he wanted to make sure that no one would walk on them. Not because they would be doing something they shouldn't, but considering what had happened during their Halloween date...He wanted to have the privacy. He wasn't expecting more of it to happen that day, but...just in case.

"Uh, he-hey, I...I just wanted to give you...y-you know. Your present," he spoke up once they were in the corridor, hidden away from whoever might have stepped in the hall. "I-I know how much you like plants, s-so I did some researches an-and I got these for you during my trips w-with Rick. An-And I might have sneaked on the Citadel to buy a few more."

The package he handed over was small, but neatly wrapped. He wasn't usually the best at wrapping presents, but he had put in an extra effort for this one. The paper he had picked was yellow with a snowflake pattern and it came with a dark blue ribbon. Inside there was a box, carefully partitioned in little cells, each other them holding seeds of different forms and colours. On the back there was a table holding the names of the flower that would grow from each seed, all not native of Earth.

"I-I made sure that they can be grow here an-and there's a, uh, little chip with instructions. S-So you can see what each plant needs an-and when to water them and...all that."

His cheeks flushed pink as he bowed his head a little, peering at his counterpart. "I-I hope you like it."

[[ My Morty for your Morty || He's still thinking about that kiss X3 So shy, look at him xD Looking forward to New Year's >:) ]]

Being whisked away from everyone was both nerve wrecking and a relieve, Morty could feel his palms start to sweat as he made his way up the stairs, being pulled along by his counterpart. His heart beat fast. Just being alone, especially with how things happened during Halloween, it sent all of his nerves into to spark.

For a moment, he couldn't help to just gaze into those hazel eyes in front of him. He could feel himself freeze on the spot. So mesmerized. It reminded him of that date. How they were so close and closer and closer. Until...

When the gift was handed over, he snapped out of his thoughts. He smiled as he took it, taking in the prettily decorated paper. He didn't want to ruin how neat it looked or destroy the paper.

Carefully, he began to search for the edges of the tape. His fingernails scratching up to lift it off the paper. Slowly he would peel it away until each piece of tape was undone -- with some minor damage, but that's it. Unfolding the paper and letting it fall to the floor, it revealed the box.

Soft brown eyes bounced between the divided sections of the seeds. The gift was so thoughtful and he knew exactly where to plant them (and perhaps he could use this as an excuse to invite his counterpart over a lot more.)

"Th-This is -- I --," He felt his throat constrict, unable to say any words. Too nervous, too stunned to say anything.

Instead, he lifted his head. His heart raced a lot faster as he took a few steps closer. Eyes widened when he realized what his own mind and body decided on doing.

Before he could second guess himself, or even stop himself, he reached his hand out to cup the other's cheek. His eyes closed as lips were pressed against the ones before him. In a lingering, short kiss. If it were up to him, he would've allowed it for a lot longer. Yet, he wasn't sure. Everything was still confusing and he didn't know if this would even be reciprocated.

When he pulled away from the kiss, he blinked his eyes open. Pink hues appearing on his cheeks. "We, uh, w-we should go back downstairs," He let out a small laugh, trying to ease the tension. "Uh, th-thanks for this, I-I like it a lot."

[cinnamonest]

//fucked up, gore, npc torture, eye/finger stuff, kinda necro mention but it's not really necro there's just a dead body involved to the side, asphyxiation, fem reader, fearplay I guess?

I really liked the violent Razor post so now you get violent Childe post. I'm gonna start making more violence/gore posts bc I have a lot saved in my notes so block the tw: violence if you need to!

Childe does genuinely get off to killing.

Like, that's usually said as a joke but in all seriousness, murder sprees and acts of violence are a sex thing to him in some capacity. The psychology is not complicated: it makes him feel powerful, and feeling powerful makes him hard. Simple as that.

He's definitely jerked off over dead bodies before, the just-slain and still warm ones whenever the mission was one he completed alone. It feels like a fitting end to all that exertion. Not that he likes the bodies or anything, no, he's not *that* fucked up, it's more like he just likes the rush.

But anything he had before from regular mission work pales in comparison to once he has someone he loves. It feels a hundred, no, a thousand times better if he thinks of it as for your sake. Even if it *is* normal mission work, in his head he pretends he's killing for you, killing people that are in the way, he projects the faces of the ones in his life that he hates - the people he sees you talk to, your significant other if you have one - onto the insignificant faces of victims.

And, consequently, he starts getting far more brutal. Work is work, and usually the goal is to get in and out as fast as possible - direct shots to the vitals, slit throats and guts split open down the middle. You find the fastest way to get it done and hurry to the next task.

But now he's got a lot more anger than usual stored up. A lot more frustration. He thinks about you, he thinks about all the people who interact with you that he doesn't like. His brain is clouded with hatred and lust and it can only be alleviated with excess violence. Imagines it's all for love. Gives him that same rush, soothes the burning inside.

It becomes slower, messier, he ends up with a lot more blood on him than usual. There's no need for limbs to come off, chests to be split open, bones to be snapped and crushed, heads to be caved in, organs to spill on the floor, but he likes it that way.

It's a lot like sex, when you think about it. Repeated motions over and over, stabbing the other party -- well, with different... Instruments, but a sort of "stabbing" in both cases nonetheless. Sliding in and out of their body, like he'd like to do yours, but just replace the knife in his hand with his dick and tongue and fingers and their torso with your cunt. Over and over. They squeal and scream, noises he'd like to hear from you. It's all leading up to that moment of climax - they convulse, jolt, spasm, and finally collapse... and he likes to imagine it's you instead, making those motions for a very different reason.

Sometimes he gets blood on his skin. He likes to take his gloves off, scoop some of it onto his fingers, rub the fluid between his thumb and fingers - it's warm, wet, viscous, and if he closes his eyes and ignores the coppery smell he can pretend it's clear grool slicking out of your tight little pussy when you cum on his fingers.

The littlest things make him think of you. Organs and entrails spilled out on the ground sparks the word "insides" in his brain and he can't help but think of your insides - in a much different sense of course, but something so unrelated can keep his mind distracted for an entire day.

Sometimes he has to interrogate people, and by "interrogate", perhaps "torture" is a better word - do what's necessary for information. The parts make him think of you.

Dismembered fingers or hands cleaved off - they're from some dude's gross sweaty calloused hands. Not like yours, so fragile and soft. Makes him think of you holding his hand, how warm it would feel. A gouged eye in his hand. When he closes his fist, it mashes with ease, the gelatinous tissue dribbling down onto the floor from between his fingers. The eye is - well, was - a different color from yours, not nearly as pretty. It makes him think of how much he likes your eyes, and when you look at him. This one was dull and empty, but yours sparkle, full of light.

They scream so loudly, it's unpleasant, the shrill shrieks and deep bellowing hurts his ears. Your voice would sound so much prettier shrieking like that. Not that he'd ever do this to you, but, maybe scaring you would make you squeal. Maybe you're a screamer in bed. Who knows. He hopes so.

Sometimes people don't give in too easily, and he ends up with a corpse on his hands. Most of the time he just throws it onto the ground, rolls it off a cliffside with a kick. But sometimes, when the body is smaller and still warm, he likes to princess-carry it to the edge, picture in his head it's you, wrapping your arms around his neck while he carries you. Unfortunately, rigor mortis has already set in, so he can't exactly move the body's arms to mimic that, and half the time the arms are severed from the interrogation anyway.

And admittedly, you're cute when you're afraid, when you're horrified, so maybe he was subconsciously aiming for this, even if he didn't realize it. Going about it when you were close by. Hoping you'd hear. Hoping you'd walk in on it. You freeze up, you can't move even if you tried, your body won't listen. Your eyes go wide and fill with tears. You tremble, you retch and cover your mouth and grab your stomach as your body finally allows you to take a step backwards, and you stumble and fall flat on your back, scrambling back up on shaking hands.

And you definitely hear him say wait, but, well, you'd definitely rather not, so you bolt out the door anyway, screaming at the top of your lungs. Dumbass. You were dragged all the way out to this abandoned place for a reason. No one's gonna hear you, and you won't be able to reach civilization before he can catch up. He finds it funny, really cute to be honest, you're crying and squealing even though he promises you he's not gonna hurt you or anything. Feeling the warm fluid on his hands when he grabs your arms, watching it create dark stains on your clothes even visible in the nighttime darkness, it only makes you panic more, thrashing and crying, but it doesn't do you any good.

And as tempting as just fucking you out here is, he realizes that deep down, he's wanted this for a long time, so dragging you all the way back is worth it. He can restrain you with one hand, use the other to undo the bindings on the now-cold limbs of the unfortunate bastard on the table and slide his body - well, what's left of it - off, letting it crash down onto the floor. Slamming you down on the table in it's place. The room is cold, the outside is cold, but your body and your insides are so warm, and the panic and terror makes you so tight. You're not screaming so much, letting out little sobs mixed with some lewd little mewls you can't keep back. Your wide, terrified eyes keep flicking to the side, staring down at the body. Even when he grabs your jaw to keep your head from turning, your eyes still move, and it's actually really annoying. He already told you he's not gonna hurt you. So instead he just grabs your throat. The more you look away, the more tight his grip gets, and likewise the more you look at him, the more oxygen you can take in.

The cum and squirt mixes with the blood that's already on the table, and once you're sitting back up, some of your tears get added to the mix. You tremble, you go numb and still and you lean forward into the warmth. It's all you can do to just bury your face in his chest so you don't have to look at it anymore. It's nice, really, he likes it when you cling to him for comfort. You two will have to do this again sometime.

[robininthelabyrinth]

I'd like to see more of the Jiang Cheng has spider venom fic. Mostly because I want to see him bite someone else. How about a Jin?

Normal For the Spider - Extra: 5 People Jiang Cheng Bit, Some of Whom Deserved It

ao3

1 – Wei Wuxian

“So I’ve been exchanging letters with shijie on account of the whole theoretically banished business,” Wei Wuxian said as they strolled down the Qiongqi Path together, Wen Ning behind them making shy stuttering friends with the handful of Jiang sect disciples Jiang Cheng had brought along with him – he’d deliberately picked the friendliest and most social of the lot, the ones that acted like overgrown puppies and wanted to adopt everyone they met, and sure enough they’d mobbed Wen Ning like a bunch of crows intent on raising the poor little sparrow they found into a proper bird. It was no more than Wen Ning deserved, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion. Someone needed to socialize him, and clearly neither his sister nor Wei Wuxian were doing crap about it.

“That’s nice,” Jiang Cheng said. “If by nice you mean extremely suspicious. What about in particular?”

“Your family inheritance.”

“Is this about the summer house we have near that mountain lake? I told you, it’s been deserted for years and may possibly be haunted by something resistant to the usual liberation techniques, but if you really want to go there, you’re of course allowed…”

“That’s not the inheritance I meant and you know it.”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He did know it. “What questions do you have now?” he asked. “More medical stuff from Wen Qing?”

She’d recovered from the venom very well and immediately started wanting to know everything. Recovered a little too well, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion.

“No, this one’s for me,” Wei Wuxian said. “We’re going to Lanling City in order to let Jin Ling bite me as a way to establish familial ties and let him ‘absorb’ good aspects from my personality, right?”

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“So in some cases, biting is an act of affection?”

Jiang Cheng nodded, a little more warily.

“Then how come you’ve never bitten me?”

“It’s only affectionate when you’re a baby,” Jiang Cheng said. “Once you grow into your childhood venom, it starts being dangerous, even to family; you don’t do affection-bites after that point. And when you’re an adult…well, you saw Wen Qing!”

“Eh, she’s fine now,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. “I feel like I missed out! It’s not fair, Jiang Cheng. I deserve a bite! I’m practically your brother! We share essential bodily organs!”

“Wei Wuxian! Don’t talk about that!”

“Bite me and I’ll stop.”

“I’m not biting you just to make you stop being annoying –”

2 – Jin Zixun

“What are you doing here?!” Jiang Cheng demanded. “This is an ambush! Is the Jin sect considering waging an act of war against the Jiang sect?”

Jin Zixun scowled at him. “Not against the Jiang sect,” he said haughtily. “Against the Yiling Patriarch.”

“He’s my head disciple!”

That got a confused sort of frown. “But you banished him…?”

“Rumor,” Jiang Cheng said, with dignity, the way they’d always planned. “Baseless rumor, that’s all.”

Rumor he’d never denied, and had instead implicitly encouraged so that people would leave his Jiang sect alone for a little while as he gathered up strength and resources to tell them to fuck off.

“But…” Jin Zixun hesitated. “You just – attacked him?”

Jiang Cheng glared at Wei Wuxian, still lying prone on the ground with his head in Wen Ning’s lap to elevate it and his neck bandaged but still a little red – surely the paralytic had worn off by now?

Wei Wuxian noticed him staring and gave a jaunty little wave, grinning and very clearly regretting nothing, which meant that the paralytic had worn off and he was just lying there to be comfortable while watching the fun.

Typical.

“A friendly exchange,” he said, trying to maintain his dignity. “Also? Not the Jin sect’s business. What about you? What did you want with him?”

“I want him to remove the curse he cast on me,” Jin Zixun said, and he strode forward before Jiang Cheng could stop him and kicked Wei Wuxian in the side. “You hear me, you bastard?! I want the damn thing gone this instant or else –”

3 – Wen Ning

“So this is going to be a little awkward to explain,” Jin Zixuan said, rubbing his face. He looked tired, but that was possibly a side-effect of having Jin Zixun as a cousin. “Tell me, why are my cousin’s flunkies – er, I mean, my cousin’s friends convinced that it was Wen Ning that poisoned him?”

Jiang Cheng scowled.

“No offense meant,” Jin Zixuan added, nodding politely to Wen Ning. “It’s just, you know, you’re very much not a Yu, or even a Jiang.”

“No offense taken,” Wen Ning mumbled, though to Jiang Cheng’s eyes he looked a little pleased, even if his stiff wooden face still didn’t do emotions all that well. “It’s nice not to be automatically feared.”

“It’s because Wen Ning punched Jin Zixun in the face at the same moment that I bit him,” Jiang Cheng interjected, because someone needed to answer the actual question. “And then Jin Zixun fell over and someone started shouting about corpse poison – even though he’s obviously turned purple! Purple venom, purple spider, purple lightning…what part of this thematic color scheme is not obvious?!”

“Technically, the livor mortis spots generated by corpse poison are also purple,” Wei Wuxian said, completely unhelpfully. “According to Wen Qing, it’s the lack of oxygen in the blood pooling under the skin or something, which is the same thing your mom’s poison does.”

“Do you think you’re helping?” Jiang Cheng demanded.

“No, not at all. Did I sound like I was helping? I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m going to bite you again, you little…”

“My father isn’t going to want to let Wen Ning through the door if he’s considered a possible threat,” Jin Zixuan said, wisely deciding to carry on with the conversation despite their bickering. “You know he’s been saying all those things about how dangerous the Yiling Patriarch is – this’ll just feed into that.”

“I’m not going to Lanling City without Wen Ning!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “Wen Qing made me promise! It’s his first time visiting such a big place, too!”

“I’m pretty sure Wen Qing made you promise not to leave him behind because she was worried about your well-being, not Wen Ning’s ability to be a tourist,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Doesn’t matter! I’m not leaving him, and I’m definitely not going to not attend the party, so you have to fix this!”

“I don’t know how to fix this –”

Wen Ning coughed lightly. “Uh,” he said. “Jin-gongzi…would your father let me in if I wasn’t a threat? Say, if I was unconscious?”

A moment of silence.

“…does venom work even on fierce corpses?”

“Of course it does,” Jiang Cheng said irritably. “It wouldn’t be much of a defense mechanism for a cultivator if it didn’t.”

4 – Jin Guangshan

“I didn’t mean to!” Jiang Cheng said, his hands over his mouth. “I really didn’t mean to! It’s Wei Wuxian’s fault!”

“How is this my fault?!” Wei Wuxian asked. He looked amused, which was never a good sign, and even less so given the extreme crisis of the situation. “I wasn’t even in the room.”

“You encouraged me to keep biting people as a solution to everything!” Jiang Cheng hissed. “It got me in the mood. I wasn’t thinking!”

He looked down at the unconscious (and swiftly purpling) Jin Guangshan and grimaced. There was no convenient Wen Ning to put the blame on this time: it had been just the two of them, Jin Guangshan and Jiang Cheng, alone in a room together. Jin Guangshan had wanted to have words with him, sect leader to sect leader, which mostly meant that he wanted to throw his weight and seniority around to try to brow-beat Jiang Cheng into doing what he wanted, except that wasn’t going to work because Jiang Cheng was prepared, okay, he’d worked so long and so hard to try to build up the Jiang sect until it could resist Jin sect pressure.

And he’d probably just ruined everything.

“He has legitimate grounds to declare war against us now,” Jiang Cheng said miserably. “Or maybe to demand that we hand over that stupid Tiger Seal he keeps bugging you about as reparations, or in order to keep him from declaring war…”

“We can’t let him have it,” Wei Wuxian said at once. “It’s far too dangerous. I’d destroy it, first.”

“But then he’d still have a reason to strike against us…”

There was the soft sound of someone clearing their throat, and at first Jiang Cheng thought it was Wen Ning but when he looked up it was Jin Guangyao, instead. He looked the same as always, gentle and personable and smiling, which struck Jiang Cheng as being unaccountably weird for some reason that he couldn’t figure out until he remembered that the man’s father was currently lying on the ground being poisoned and maybe Jin Guangyao shouldn’t be smiling so much.

“If you don’t mind,” Jin Guangyao said, “I might have a suggestion that would get rid of that problem…”

5 – Wen Qing

“…and long story short, Jin Guangyao is going to run Lanling Jin until Jin Zixuan is done having kids, which may be never based on the soppy looks he and my shijie keep exchanging, and we all have the Jin sect’s blessing to move back into the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian concluded. “All’s well that ends well, right, Jiang Cheng?”

Jiang Cheng crossed his arms and glared, admitting nothing.

“I’ll be happy to move anywhere that has decent food,” Wen Qing remarked. “This damn place won’t even grow radishes properly, and it’s Yiling; the radishes should be practically growing themselves.”

“I’ve arranged for some farmland for your people,” Jiang Cheng said, because practicalities he could do. “There’s still lots left over from before the war, lying fallow, and some of the places are medicinal herb fields – we need people with cultivation to tend to those, so I figured that might work for you. You’d have half regular farmland, to make sure you can grow whatever food you feel you need to be comfortable, and the other half, the herbs, can be sold to the Jiang sect at profit.”

“That sounds good,” Wen Qing said.

“Especially since they’re medicinal herb plants,” Wei Wuxian chimed in. “You could stock up on medicines you need!”

“A lot of medicines have to be obtained through trade, you utter nincompoop! I can’t make medicine just using what a single medicinal herb field will generate!”

Jiang Cheng nodded approvingly, thinking to himself that at least there was someone else in the world who understood exactly how aggravating it was to have to deal with Wei Wuxian’s unbridled and illogical optimism on a regular basis.

“And as for you,” Wen Qing said, turning to Jiang Cheng, who blinked owlishly at her. “Don’t think I missed the part of that story about how biting people is a sign of affection!”

“It’s – what?! No, you don’t – that’s when we’re children– it’s –”

Wei Wuxian started cackling.

[here4theheartbreak]

Afternoon Naps (myg + pjm)

AO3 Link Here!

Relationships: Jimin x Yoongi Genre: smut Rating: Explicit Word Count: ~5.5k

Tags: Smut, Consensual Somnophilia, Vampires, Dirty Talk, Multiple Orgasms, Coming Untouched, Established Relationship, Vampire Sex, Vampire Biting/Blood Drinking, Sleeping Medication, Consensual Necrophilia (Technically), Temporary Character Death, Vampire Min Yoongi, Human Park Jimin, Bottom Park Jimin

Summary: Jimin finds out his boyfriend's biggest secret, and reveals his own biggest kink. They realize that this can benefit both of them.

A/N: Fifth Kinktober fic, day 7: somnophlia; this fic is also filling a request from ages ago. @sujigguk requested a fic with “you’re not human”

A/N 2: The fic contains technically necrophilia -- vampire lore in this fic has the vampire "dying" (i.e. heart/breathing stops, body goes cold, rigor mortis sets in) while resting in their coffins. All sexual acts are discussed and consented to by both parties prior to this.

“Jimin!” Yoongi’s voice was sharp… And not all that happy when he opened the door of his apartment. Jimin smiled sheepishly. 

“Surprise?” He said softly. 

“What are you doing here?”

Yoongi looked tense as he stood in the doorway. From what Jimin could see over his shoulder, his blinds were drawn, and his apartment was still mostly dark. Strange, given it was nearly ten in the morning.

“Did I wake you?”

Yoongi hesitated. “No.”

Jimin’s smile faded a little. “I wanted to come by… It’s been a week.”

“We’ve been texting.” 

Jimin’s smile disappeared completely. “I disturbed you. I’m sorry.” He backed up, ready to head down the hall.

“Wait, no, Jimin. Don’t go. You just surprised me, I’m not used to visitors coming by unexpectedly.”

Jimin looked at him, trying to gauge if he was being sincere. Jimin and Yoongi had been dating for nearly six months. It was great. Yoongi was always there for him, their dates were fun, and they never ran out of things to talk about. The sex was mind blowing. Sure, they fought a little, but never a big thing. The one oddity in all their time together… Was that Jimin was never invited to sleep over at Yoongi’s. Yoongi had stayed at Jimin’s a few times, and Jimin had come over once or twice, but never for more than a few minutes. 

The last time they were together in person, Jimin had hinted at wanting to stay over at Yoongi’s one night. Yoongi had seemed okay with the idea, but also a bit stiff about it. 

“I should have texted,” Jimin finally said.

“Yes,” Yoongi agreed. “But… You’re here, I can spare a few minutes.” He sighed heavily and stepped aside, letting Jimin in. 

“Dark,” Jimin commented as he entered. “Are you feeling okay? You look a little pale.” He reached out for Yoongi’s head, only to have Yoongi jerk away.

“I’m fine.”

Jimin scowled then, crossing his arms. “What’s wrong with you?”

Yoongi blinked at him. 

“You’re acting weird. I’ve been with you half a year, I know when you’re not yourself. What’s wrong?”

“It…” Yoongi’s shoulders sagged. “It’s very hard to explain.”

“Well try. I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark. Literally or figuratively.” Jimin went to flip on a light. 

Yoongi grabbed his wrist. His hand was frigid, and his grip was tight. Jimin gasped. 

“Don’t.” Yoongi’s voice was sharp.

“Wh… What’s going on? You’re kinda starting to scare me.”

“I don’t mean to.” Yoongi let go of Jimin’s wrist.

“Why are you so cold?” Jimin went forward. Yoongi backed away but Jimin ignored him, grabbing his face. “Jesus, you’re freezing. Are you sick?”

“Not exactly,” Yoongi mumbled.

“Why won’t you look at me?”

“Jimin, please…” Yoongi leaned into his touch, his eyes screwed shut. “Please just go home… I promise, I’ll explain everything tonight.”

“No. You can explain right now, Min Yoongi.” Jimin crossed his arms and stood in front of the door, facing Yoongi. 

“It’s not easy,” Yoongi muttered. Jimin remained silent. He sighed. “Fine. I… I really wanted us to last.”

Jimin narrowed his eyes, not liking how this was sounding. Yoongi stuffed his hands into his pockets. 

“I’m a monster.”

“What makes you a monster?” Jimin pressed.

“Fangs? Death? Drinking blood?” Yoongi shrugged. “Any number of things. I mean a literal monster.”

Jimin laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, come on, don’t be silly. Yoongi, what is it really?” He asked. He flicked on the light. Yoongi winced visibly, raising his hand to shield from the indoor light.

Jimin’s entire body went cold. Yoongi was standing in front of him. His Yoongi – lean muscle and a sweet, round face, gentle eyes and guitar callused fingers… But not his Yoongi at the same time. The person in front of him was paler than Yoongi – his face almost grey it was so pale. His eyes were dark. Not just dark, but the pupils seemed to have expanded, filling the whites of his eyes and giving him a demonic gaze. 

Yoongi let his hand fall, his expression timid despite the horror his features implied. 

“You’re not human,” Jimin whispered.

“I’m a monster,” Yoongi agreed. “A vampire… Specifically.” He looked down. “Are you going to run away screaming now?”

“Make me, you troll,” Jimin grumbled. He let his arms fall and took a cautious step forward. 

“I’m a vampire, not a troll.”

Jimin grinned at that, seeing the curve of a smile on Yoongi’s lips. “I’ll get it right eventually… Am I in danger? Standing here like this?”

“No. I have excellent control over my feeding… Why aren’t you scared?” Yoongi looked up, meeting Jimin’s gaze.

“I am.”

“You aren’t showing it… Aside from a fast heartbeat… I can’t see any fear on your pretty face. And your heart beats fast around me all the time.”

Jimin smiled. “Flirting isn’t gonna get you out of the doghouse… Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You’re right.” Yoongi snapped his fingers. “I always forget. When is the right date to tell your new boyfriend you died and came back as a bloodsucking creature of the night? That once a week you have to spend a day in a coffin literally dead or you get wildly sick? Isn’t it the third? Or no, the seventh?”

Jimin slapped Yoongi’s shoulder with some force, smirking when he cried out, rubbing it. “Weak for a vampire.”

“I’m immortal, not immune to my boyfriend’s abuse,” Yoongi grumbled.

“Do you drink blood?”

“Of course I do.”

“Human?”

“When I can.”

“From live people?”

“Is that jealousy I hear in your tone, Mr. Park?”

Jimin glared. “You lied to me for six months, I’m allowed to interrogate you.”

Yoongi smiled softly. “I’m frankly just… In amazement that you’re still standing here. And no… Not live humans, not for a very long time. You may proceed with the interrogation – but I insist on us moving out of my hallway and to an actual sitting location.” He pointed to the couch.

“Do you have anything to drink? If I open your fridge… Will I find bags of blood?”

Yoongi made a noise of offense and crossed his arms. “Of course not, I’m not some barbarian. You’ll find a recyclable bottle of that’s filled with blood. But my sodas are in the door.”

Jimin went over to the fridge and opened it. Sure enough, there were three large water bottles filled with a very suspicious reddish liquid. He grabbed a soda from the door and went over to the couch, sitting next to Yoongi.

“How old are you? I’m guessing that twenty-seven was a lie.”

“I was twenty-seven when I died. Thirty-one years ago.”

“Oooh, I bagged myself a silver fox, huh?”

Yoongi huffed once more. “I died at twenty-seven.”

“Mhm… And now you’re fifty-eight.” 

“Jimin, I’m gonna…” 

Jimin giggled. “I guess I shouldn’t tease you… You might bite me… Would you?”

“Bite you? Not unless you asked.”

“Would it turn me into a vampire?”

“No. There’s a very specific ritual for that.”

Jimin nodded. “Cool. So, what does a vampire do? Aside from drinking blood… What’s special about you? I’ve seen you in the day. You complain a whole lot, but you don’t sparkle or ignite like a firework. We’ve taken plenty of pictures together… And you eat way too much garlic. You also sleep at night, and probably too long… And you aren’t any stronger than I am.”

“You’re making me feel real great here, Jimin,” Yoongi joked, smiling as he spoke.

Jimin laughed. “Sorry—I just mean… You seem human. I’ve never… Really assumed anything was off about you.”

“The great thing about humans, is that you all really like to assume everyone is like you. You avoid the things that support the opposite. Inhuman behavior, to some degree, so long as it’s not shocking or jarring, you can brush off as an odd quirk, a funny trait. I’m close to human, yes, but I am not human. I complain in the sun because my skin is sensitive. Bursting into flames is a myth, but I do burn far easier than most humans. My skin’s melanin has decayed over the years without cellular growth.”

“Which is why you’re so pale too.”

Yoongi grunted an affirmative. “Garlic is a myth, as is the no reflection thing. I’m sure hundreds of years ago, maybe? There might have been some truth to it, but modern technology and modern mirrors work different, so I can see myself the same as you. I am stronger than you, but I do well at hiding it most of the time. Any displays of it, you either don’t see, or brush aside. I do also sleep at night, yes – because I’ve put myself on a human schedule. I do this so I can live among you all without problems. Once a week though, I must sleep during the day. Sleeping at night is akin to a human living on a series of short naps at mid-afternoon. It’s not fully restful and it’s dangerous to do long term. I compensate by sleeping through the day one day per week, in the appropriate resting place.”

“R… Resting place?”

“My coffin.”

Jimin’s eyes bulged. “Coffin?”

“Yes, I am dead. I have a coffin.”

“That you sleep in?”

“Once a week. Otherwise, I sleep in the bed.” 

Jimin nodded, his brows furrowed. 

“Gonna run yet?” Yoongi asked.

“No… Is there anything else different?”

“Well… We’re excellent in bed,” Yoongi joked. Jimin glanced up. “I mean it. We have a… Special thing about us. You’ve had sex with other men before me, right?”

“Yeah, a few.”

“Haven’t you ever noticed that when we have sex… I’m much—”

“Harder.”

Yoongi nodded. 

Jimin pouted. “I assumed it was because I just really turned you on. It’s because you’re a vampire?”

“Well, no, you really do turn me on... A lot. But a few days after I do my daytime sleep, I get naturally more rigid. I’m not sure why – I think it has something do with… Ah, well it’s gross. But it just happens.”

Jimin sat back, sighing softly. “You’re immortal.”

“Yes.”

“Honestly… I think that’s the thing that bothers me most about this. Not that you’re undead or drink blood or… But that you’re gonna never grow old. And I’m…”

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi whispered.

“If we work out…” Jimin began. “And stay together… You’ll turn me, right? You’d have to – for us to… Be together.”

“Not necessarily. While I wouldn’t hate the idea of someone’s company in my life… I know that a limited existence is so valued and important. It’s something that I would be willing to discuss… If we work out, and when you are older.”

Jimin nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Yoongi pressed. “That’s it?”

Jimin shrugged. “We all have secrets, Yoongi.”

“I doubt you have a secret as big as this, Jimin.”

“No… But I have one that… People have left for.”

Yoongi seemed to perk up a little at that, his brows furrowed. Despite the difference in his eyes, the sleek black, Jimin found his expression endearing and sweet. 

“I like your eyes like this… Can you change them at will?” He asked.

“No. They’re like this because I’ve not fed for a while. I have to keep myself fed and rested or they shift; they’ll be back to normal after I wake up and drink… What secret could you have that’s so big, Jimin?” 

“Well… I…” Jimin winced. “God, it’s weird as hell, I’m so sorry.”

“I won’t run,” Yoongi promised. “You’re sitting here next to me after finding out I’m a living dead monster. The least I can do is listen to your secret and try to understand.”

Jimin smiled softly at that. He nodded. “I like… Sleep sex.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I like the idea of… Having sex with someone while they sleep or are unconscious. With their consent! I mean… I’d never… Do something nonconsensual.”

Yoongi remained silent a moment, thinking. “Do you want someone to have sex with you while you sleep? Or do you want to have sex with someone while they sleep?”

“Both, I guess. I like the idea of both. I’ve never done it. Most people stop talking to me after I tell them.”

“Why would they?” Yoongi pressed. “We all have kinks and fantasies.”

“Yeah, but a lot of them see it as a form of rape. And I get it, it’s a super grey area. You can’t change your mind while you’re asleep, so like… If you say it’s okay, and then as you drift off to sleep decide you don’t want it… Then it becomes nonconsent.”

Yoongi nodded in understanding. “Well I think that can be resolved just by open communication,” he said, touching his hand to his chin in thought. “If you trust your partner and they trust you, you two should be able to communicate what is and isn’t okay. I don’t think a kink like this is unsafe or unhealthy, as long as – like you said – it’s done with full consent.”

Jimin smiled cautiously, his heart skipping a beat. “You mean… You don’t find it gross?”

“Not at all.” Yoongi smiled. “I’m glad you shared it with me. I still don’t think it’s worse than me being a blood sucking monster… But I know it’s a secret you hold close, so I appreciate your trust. But… Would you want to try this with me someday?”

“Would I ever?” Jimin asked. He chuckled a little. “I fantasize about it a lot.” 

Yoongi smirked. He moved little closer, pulling Jimin to him. “Would you want to try it today?” He asked softly.

Jimin’s eyes widened. Yoongi continued. “Look… When I sleep… In my coffin. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t breathe. I don’t move. I am… For all intents and purposes… Dead. I don’t decay, obviously. But my body goes very cold, my lungs and heart go still… And my body stiffens, as a corpse would. That includes… My dick.”

Jimin remained quiet, processing what Yoongi was suggesting. Yoongi slid his hands over Jimin’s shoulders slowly as he spoke. “So, if someone… Say my very curious, very human boyfriend… Happened to get horny while I was sleeping in my coffin… He could climb in and use my body… Ride me… And I’d remain fully unconscious no matter what.”

“Because you’re dead…” Jimin clarified. 

Yoongi nodded. “Temporarily. I wouldn’t wake for anything, unless you shined sunlight on my body. So… If you want to do this…”

“Would you fuck me when you wake?” Jimin said quickly. “If I was sleeping, would you… Return the favor?”

“I wake in the late afternoon usually. You’d likely still be up.”

“Not if I took a sleeping pill,” Jimin suggested. “I have some, I used to get nightmares and they help. I don’t use them often, but I bring them just in case. I could take one after… And you could… Help get rid of your afternoon wood with my body.”

Yoongi shifted visibly on the couch. His tongue darted out, swiping over his lips. Jimin smirked. He leaned forward, sliding his hands up Yoongi’s thighs. “Does that idea sound good? You like it.”

Yoongi nodded. “I do,” he breathed. 

“We can do it today?”

“Yes but… Jimin… You understand what I mean. When I lay in my coffin… You will be looking at the equivalent of a corpse.”

“I understand. But you’re still you. You say you’ll only be still and cold… You won’t be decaying or rotting or anything you associate with a dead body. And you’ll be waking up and… We’ll be together.”

“Of course.”

“Would it turn you on? Knowing I used you while you… Rested?”

Yoongi smiled softly, lowering his gaze. “Frankly? That’s… An incredibly sexy thought. The thought of you climbing into my coffin with me alone is enough to… Well… I’ve thought of it more than once. I never even imagined you’d be willing to… Let alone wanting to… Do more.”

“Should I stay in the coffin with you? After I finish?”

“I’m afraid not.” Yoongi shook his head. “Waking from my rest is a very jarring thing. I fear I might accidentally hurt you. I have a bed in my room next to the coffin, you can sleep there.”

Jimin nodded. “I do want this as long as you do. And I do want you to… Do the same.”

Yoongi leaned forward, kissing Jimin gently. 

“Hey… You’re a vampire… Don’t you have fangs?”

“They retract. When I’m resting they will come out, so don’t kiss me – you could get poked. But when I’m awake I can pull them in and out as needed.”

“Can I see them?” Jimin whispered. 

Yoongi seemed to be thinking about it. He grinned then. His wide, gummy grin suddenly became something much more frightening… And sexier, when Jimin realized his canines had lengthened and transformed into sharp, deadly points. Jimin’s breath left in a rush. 

“Oh wow…”

Yoongi’s smile dropped again to a relaxed expression. “Satisfied?” He asked, his tone slightly breathier with the fangs in the way. 

Jimin nodded. “I think you need to go to bed soon,” he murmured.

Yoongi smirked, one fang peeking out of his lip. “Horny bastard.”

“Not my fault.” Jimin squeezed Yoongi’s thighs. “Should I wait out here?”

“Please. Though it’s not disturbing I do like going to sleep alone. You’re free to come in in about fifteen minutes… I’ll be resting by then. The lube is in the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom. 

“See you in the evening,” Jimin said. Yoongi rose and leaned forward, pecking Jimin’s mouth gently. 

Fifteen minutes had never been so damn slow. Jimin finished his drink and paced around the apartment, trying to distract from the ticking clock. He took the time to explore Yoongi’s place; he’d never had a chance to before. He had quite a number of interesting trinkets that Jimin wanted to ask about when he woke up. He pulled off his coat and tugged on one of Yoongi’s hoodies, hugging himself in it as Yoongi’s scent drifted into his nostrils from the warm fabric. 

Finally. Fifteen minutes had passed. Jimin entered the bedroom carefully, letting his eyes adjust to the room, even darker than the living room. He found a lamp near a comfy looking bed and flicked it on, looking around. The light was soft, diffused by the heavy shade. In the center of the room was a large, dark coffin. Jimin approached it carefully, his heart in his throat. Inside was Yoongi, looking much paler than usual. He was entirely still, arms resting across his bare belly. He was in his boxers, his cock comically rigid, tenting the front up obscenely. He was stunning. 

Jimin hurried over to the dresser and opened the drawer, finding the lube easily. He shucked his jeans and boxers, crawling onto the bed. He set his sleeping medication on the bedside stand and relaxed into the pillow. It smelled richly of Yoongi’s scent, his cock thickening against his thigh. He moaned softly, stroking himself. He looked over at the coffin, his stomach clenching. This was really happening. He poured some of the lube on his fingers and spread it over his hole, sighing contentedly as he pushed a finger in to prep himself. 

When he was ready, Jimin rose, sliding the lube and his phone into his pocket. He went over to the coffin, taking a moment to gaze down at his beautiful lover. A vampire… He knew he’d likely have a moment of realization down the line – the understanding that this simple confession had flipped his life upside down. But he’d never been one to shy away from the macabre or bizarre, and he always wondered if supernatural creatures existed. Yoongi’s confirmation of that was… Unexpected, but not unwanted. 

Jimin carefully straddled Yoongi’s lap. He knew he couldn’t wake him, but the fear was half the fun. Yoongi was still hard, his position entirely unchanged from the first moment Jimin saw him. Jimin pulled his boxers down just under his balls, smirking when he saw the tip was a deep purple red. He wrapped his hand around it and stroked gently, surprised to find it cool to the touch. Yoongi really was a living dead person. 

A surprising twinge of arousal spiked through Jimin, making him shudder. He wondered if Yoongi could still come in this state. Only one way to find out.

He shifted over, taking the lube from his hoodie with shaking hands and adding some to Yoongi’s cock, and more to his own stretched hole. He moved over and began to settle into Yoongi’s cock, muffling his quiet gasps in his other hand. Yoongi’s cock was so hard it was almost painful. There was none of the give he was used to, forcing his ass open wide to take the tip, and sliding deep into him. He whimpered, shuddering hard when he took his entire length. 

“Yoongi,” he whined softly. Curious, he reached out, touching Yoongi’s pale, cool face. He held his hand by his nose for a moment. Nothing. No movement of air, no shift, nothing. He moaned again, reality slowly sinking in. There was nothing normal or right about this. But God, it felt good. He dropped his hand down, pulling Yoongi’s top lip back. As promised, there they were, sharp fangs, glinting dangerously. Jimin touched one, ever so tempted to prick his finger on it, let Yoongi taste him… But no. Jimin pulled his hand back. That could be discussed at a later time. He settled back on Yoongi’s stiff cock and whimpered. There was no give. He was gonna lose it fast at this rate.

Jimin began to ride him, moaning openly as Yoongi’s cock slid over his prostate. He reached into his hoodie and removed his phone, holding it up. He found his camera app and angled it to show his face first, his cheeks mottled red with arousal. He moaned openly as he pressed record, not bothering to shy away from looking and sounding obscene. 

“Your cock is so hard, Yoongi. You’re gonna break my ass in half, oh!” He shuddered, biting his lip and twisting his hips down. “Fuck, I’ve never had something this hard up my asshole, Yoongi… I’m gonna gape for hours after I’m done with you.”

He whined, his throat clicking as he struggled to swallow. He turned the camera, filming Yoongi’s body before turning it and balancing it behind him, so he could film himself riding Yoongi. He glanced back, smirking when he realized the camera was catching each long stroke, Yoongi’s cock sinking back into his ass. He spread himself and leaned forward, giving more light for the camera. He fucked himself hard and fast onto Yoongi’s cock, moaning and begging for more, not hiding the pleasure he was getting. He reached back and grabbed the phone, holding it up again.

“I’m gonna come, Yoongi,” he whined. “I’m gonna come from using your thick, hard cock, right here in your coffin. Wanna see?”

He turned the camera and lifted the front of the hoodie. His cock was bouncing with each thrust of his body, slapping gently off Yoongi’s still stomach. 

“I’m so glad you slept shirtless,” Jimin panted. “Make me come, Yoongi… Oh God, please… Fuck my ass harder…” He moved faster, whining high in his throat. It shifted to a shout when his cock began to spurt, shooting ropes of come over Yoongi’s hands and belly. He stroked himself, still riding Yoongi’s cock as he milked the last come from himself. He shuddered and giggled, moving the camera behind him as he pulled off Yoongi. He held his ass open, feeling the cool air tickle him far more intimately than it should.

“Look at that gape,” he mumbled. “Too bad it’s not dripping with your come.” He pulled the camera back as he crawled out of the coffin.

“I think I’m gonna leave you like this… Covered in my come, boxers down… Just so you wake up and know what I did to you.” 

He walked back over to the bed in the corner. “Now, Yoongi… I’m gonna leave the lube right there.” He angled the camera to show himself setting it on the nightstand and picking up the sleeping pill. “And I’m gonna take my sleeping medicine.” He angled the camera back to his face to show him swallowing it. 

“Now I’m going to sleep just like this… No shorts… And I would love it, if you want to… To repay the favor and use my ass while I sleep.” He smirked. “I wonder… Is your come as cold your body was when you first come back? You should let me know… I wonder how that feels inside me…” He shook his head. “Sleep well… See you soon.” He ended the video and sent it to Yoongi, forcing himself to stay awake long enough to hear the buzz of Yoongi’s phone in his coffin. He let himself drift off to sleep, dreams full of sexy, arousing thoughts. 

Jimin’s ass was on fire. He moaned softly, opening his eyes blearily. The first thing he saw was the coffin. He turned his head, spotting the clock… Nearly seven hours since he’d gone to sleep. 

“Morning Sunshine,” Yoongi murmured. Jimin turned, spotting him at his desk. A cup of deep red liquid sat next to him as he worked on something. “How’s your ass?”

“Sore,” Jimin mumbled, reaching back. He was met with a gush of body temperature fluids, pouring from his gaped hole. He whined. “Fuck…” His cock throbbed against the mattress. “What did you do?”

“Me? I simply did as you asked in your video… Very sexy, by the way. Would you like to watch?”

Jimin rolled over, groaning weakly. His cock was hard despite the pain in his ass. It was perfect. “Show me,” he whispered.

Yoongi rose and grabbed his phone. He went over to the bed and sat on it with Jimin, passing him the device. 

Yoongi did far less teasing and talking in his video. He set up the phone at an angle on the nightstand, allowing it to capture most of Jimin’s sleeping body. Yoongi slicked his cock, looking into the camera as he sank into Jimin with a moan. He began to thrust into him quickly, holding Jimin’s ass open as he did. He maintained looking at the camera most of the time, his eyes the same black they were when he went to sleep.

As Jimin watched himself get used on the phone, Yoongi pulled him onto his lap. He’d withdrawn his cock, Jimin could feel. He hissed and whined softly when Yoongi dragged him over and slid back into his come lubed hole.

“It’s sore,” he whined.

“You can get off then, I don’t mind,” Yoongi said, letting his hips go. Jimin smirked. He shifted to get a better angle to watch the video and began to bounce lazily on Yoongi’s cock.

On the video, Yoongi had picked up speed, grunting as he fucked Jimin’s sleeping body. He tossed his head back, shouting and baring his teeth.

Jimin moaned, catching sight of Yoongi’s fangs. He touched his own neck, a little disappointed at the lack of bite marks. Yoongi on video shuddered, his hips going still. He leaned forward, kissing Jimin’s shoulder.

“There’s my first load, Jimin. It was as cold as ice… I’ve never felt your hole squeeze me so tight. Next time I’ll do it when you’re awake… I bet you’ll squeal so pretty when it fills you…” 

Jimin moaned, leaning back against Yoongi. “I wanna feel,” he confessed.

“I’ll make sure you’re awake next time,” Yoongi promised. “Wanna see the rest?”

Jimin nodded, riding Yoongi a little faster.

On video, Yoongi picked up the pace, fucking Jimin’s ass harder than before. He used him for nearly forty minutes, filling his hole three times. Finally, he sagged his shoulders, kissing over Jimin’s back. 

“You’re so fucking sloppy, baby,” he grumbled. He grabbed the phone and angled it down. Jimin’s ass was red, his hole swollen around Yoongi’s cock. He pulled out slowly and come bubbled out, obscene sounds filling the air. Yoongi chuckled. “I’ll leave you like this. When you wake up I’ll give you one more, if you want it.”

The video went black. Jimin leaned forward, his ass aching at the new angle. “I want it,” he whispered.

Yoongi shifted, pulling out only long enough to get onto his knees. He sank back into Jimin’s  already filled ass, and they both moaned at the sloppy noises. Jimin leaned up, wrapping his arms back around Yoongi.

“Bite me when you come,” he whispered.

“You sure?” Yoongi was fucking him hard, his cock twitching.

“Yes,” Jimin promised. He reached down, stroking his cock in time with Yoongi’s thrusts. 

Yoongi was huffing erratically, holding tight to his middle. His fangs grazed Jimin’s shoulder. 

“Are you mine?” Yoongi panted in his ear.

“Yes—“

“Give yourself to me.” Yoongi grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand off his cock. “All the way. Are you mine, Jimin?”

“Yes, yes!” Jimin moaned. 

“I’m yours as well, Park Jimin,” Yoongi whispered. He slammed his cock deep. It began to throb, spilling inside Jimin. At the same time, Jimin felt a sharp pain and then a pressure on his shoulder. Pure pleasure washed over him. His cock began to spurt ropes of come, jerking hard enough to make them land on the floor in front of him. He shouted Yoongi’s name, reaching back and holding his neck as Yoongi drank from him. 

The two collapsed on the bed as their orgasms faded. Yoongi kissed and licked at the wound on Jimin’s shoulder until the blood clotted, sliding his softening cock carefully from Jimin’s aching ass.

“You okay?” Yoongi asked, nudging Jimin’s shoulder with his nose as they cuddled back to chest on the bed.

“I’m great,” Jimin whispered.

“No regrets? Still okay with it?”

“Fully… You?”

“It was so exciting,” Yoongi admitted. “When I woke and felt your come on me… And then saw you sleeping… And that video was stunning. You were so beautiful.”

Jimin smiled shyly. “We’ll have to go easy the next few nights… I’m really sore.”

“Of course. I’ll be gentle for a while, let you heal up.” Yoongi kissed over his shoulder. “Did the bite hurt?”

“No. It felt good… How often can you drink from me?”

“I’d prefer not to often. Living human blood, not bagged, it’s… Very rich and sweet, almost like candy. It can become addictive. I’m honored you let me, but I’ll save it as a treat for myself, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course.” Jimin turned as well as he could. His gaze searched Yoongi’s face, finally dropping down to his mouth, lips pink and cheeks mottled. “It was so interesting. Seeing you in your coffin.”

“I know it can be frightening.”

“No…” Jimin shook his head. “I think it sank in… That I was looking at someone who wasn’t alive. But knowing you’d be awake soon after, it was… This bizarre sort of… Taboo but sexy thing? I’m a freak, aren’t I?” Jimin’s shoulders sagged. 

“No more than I.” Yoongi nudged him again. “We can be freaks together.”

Jimin grinned. “Yoongi?” He said softly.

“Hm?”

“I feel gross.”

“Because of what we did?”

“No, silly.” Jimin laughed. “Because your come is gluing my ass and legs together. I need a shower.”

Yoongi laughed brightly, nodding. “Agreed. Let’s get one... It’s almost dinner, you’re probably starved.”

“You aren’t,” Jimin teased, rising slowly. “No, but I could eat. I’ll take you out after the shower.”

They walked together to the bathroom. “How does eating human food work with being a vampire?”

“Same as it works being alive,” Yoongi said, turning on the water. “It’s just empty calories for me – Which is why I never eat much.”

“There’s so much I feel like I have to learn about what you are… How life is for you.” Jimin crossed his arms as he waited for the water to warm. Yoongi straightened up and wrapped his arms around him. Now that Jimin was aware, he could feel that Yoongi was a few degrees cooler, his skin just a bit paler than human. 

“You can ask anything you need. We have time, and I’ll tell you all you want to know.”

“Yoongi…” Jimin leaned against him, hugging him tightly. He could hear Yoongi’s heart, glugging along at a lethargic pace. He smiled softly. “Can I confess something to you?”

“Hm?” Yoongi asked, resting his chin on Jimin’s shoulder. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” Jimin whispered. 

Yoongi went still, his heart skipping a little faster. “Jimin… Say that again,” he said.

“I… I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Jimin could feel Yoongi’s lips curve up into a smile against his shoulder. “In nearly sixty years of existence… I have never heard more beautiful words,” Yoongi admitted. “I love you too, Jimin… I feel like I’ll love you forever.”

Jimin pulled back, meeting Yoongi’s gaze. His eyes were back to their normal soft brown. He smiled. “Coming from someone who is immortal… That’s the most beautiful thing I could hear.”

Yoongi leaned forward, kissing Jimin deeply. He pulled him close, and Jimin melted into the touch. Yoongi may have cold skin, may drink blood and die once a week – but Jimin had never felt safer or warmer than he did at that very moment in Yoongi’s arms. 

[lokitvsource]

You came into the show with the idea of Loki clashing with the TVA already in place. How exactly does this kind of arrangement work at Marvel? Michael Waldron: There was a creative brief that was 20 pages or so that basically said: “We want to do something about Loki running up against the TVA. Here’s some different avenues that might be cool to explore.” It was really serving it up for writers as a jumping off point for us to put together our pitches. Then I went off and really worked on the idea of Loki being brought in to hunt another Loki, and that becoming the heart of the show, and the Loki/Sylvie relationship. The big thing that I did in my pitch — even as early as pitching it to Kevin [Feige] — I really walked through the six episodes, kind of similar to what they were. I knew I wanted Episode 3, for instance, to be a little bit of a Before Sunrise, with Loki and this character walking across this apocalyptic moon. But Marvel had the initial, probably the most important spark of genius, which was just Loki and the TVA.

Where did the idea of the variant being a female Loki come from? That was one of my ideas, that we then confirmed in the writers room. Yeah, we knew from the get-go that it was going to be Loki falling for another version of himself.

Why was that appealing to you? I love writing any romance; it’s fun. Especially, it hasn’t been done a ton in the MCU. There’s an obviously self-reflective quality to it. And a show that’s quite literally about self-love; it is Loki getting to see parts of himself. At the start of the show, he kind of hates himself. He assesses himself to Mobius as a villain. And then he meets Sylvie, and he sees her as someone on a heroic crusade. He sees the good in her, and is able to see the good in himself.

Mobius suggests that, of course, Loki fell in love with his own variant, because he’s a narcissist. Do you think he’d be capable of falling in love with someone who is not a version of himself? [Laughs] I don’t know if he didn’t fall in love with himself first. Maybe after that, but the first time he falls, maybe this is what it had to be.

What’s the key to telling a time travel story that takes advantage of the concept without confusing the audience? I think it’s doing a lot of work that the audience never sees. It’s really understanding the logic of this thing, building out the TVA as a real organization that actually exists in our minds. Our writers room, we had a TVA handbook, encyclopedia, what they do and why they do it, a glossary of terms. And then you want to only give the audience the absolute bare minimum to understand the story, and to just get swept up in the emotional stakes of everything. If the sci-fi of it all, if the time travel logic of this show did not hold up week to week, then that would have distracted from the emotional journeys of the characters. So I’m glad that even though everyone had to take their medicine a little bit, along with Loki, in episode one, I’m glad it didn’t distract from the story we were telling. And we had the benefit of Loki being the audience’s eyes in. The audience is learning as he is.

There’s a funny scene in Avengers: Endgame where the Avengers start arguing about exactly how time travel works in the MCU. How much did you have to study what other Marvel movies had done with the idea to make sure your rules were consistent? Fortunately, Endgame was the main one, and that’s how they understand it. The TVA is an organization that understands time travel on a deeper level, probably more comprehensively than the Avengers do in Endgame. We wanted to make sure we were staying true to any rules that they laid out, but sort of establishing our own rules. It’s a time travel show. What was I thinking? A movie’s one thing, but a show is hard.

How many Loki variants did you have on the writers room whiteboard at various points? Hundreds. So many different Lokis. There was one Loki, actually maybe it was a version of Mobius that took off his glasses, and he just had really tiny eagle eyes, like he could see everything. There was stuff like that all over the white board. Tom Kauffman, who wrote that fifth episode, he’s an amazing comedy writer, and was on the first three seasons of Rick and Morty. His first draft of that episode was just bananas.

Was there a variant, or a crazy idea in general, that you really loved but couldn’t ultimately do? There was so much different stuff that we wanted to do in the Void. But the truth is, I don’t want to say any of it, because you never know. The ideas that I want to do the most may pop up elsewhere.

Okay, so let’s stick with a variant we did see. Was Alligator Loki actually a Loki, or just an alligator that happened to be wearing a Loki’s crown? A magician can’t reveal his tricks, man. That’s the great debate. Let it rage.

What was Alligator Loki‘s origin story on your side of things? Who pitched him and how was that initially received? That was maybe my very first meeting with the producers at Marvel, Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, talking about the show, and me saying, “When we’re doing this, you can encounter lots of different Lokis. You could have an alligator Loki. Why? Cause he’s green.” And us all laughing about how stupid that was. I think I made the point that it’s that energy of what we can do with the show. We can have something like that, but let’s play it straight. Alligator Loki, you get a laugh out of it, but by and large you try and play it straight. That was the fun tonal balance that we tried to strike in the show.

There’s been some conflicting information out there about whether the big bad was originally just going to be He Who Remains, who’s a different comics character altogether from Kang, and whether the casting of Jonathan Majors changed the plan. From your point of view, what happened? The character was always written as a version of Kang, as early as the first draft of the script, we knew in the writers room, relatively early on. He Who Remains, that’s the guy behind the curtain with the TVA, and we saw an opportunity to fuse that mythology with the Immortus mythology. And that was just really compelling. It was a way to elevate, it just felt right for Loki, because Loki was there in the first Avengers, he’s the one who brought the Avengers together, and here is directly related to the exploding of the multiverse, this event that will drive the events of Phase Four. Certainly, when Jonathan came in, it allowed us to step on the gas of just how eccentric and charismatic this character could be. I was inspired in the writing of He Who Remains by Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia, trying to give it that Frank TJ Mackey energy a little bit. He captures that and then elevates it to something else that’s different and weird.

You just said how important the multiverse is going to be to Phase Four of the MCU. How challenging is it to have to set up this big thing for the larger Marvel endeavor while also serving the needs of the particular story you’re telling on this show? It’s a challenge in the sense that it’s all a relay race, and you’ve got the baton on this thing, and you want to do a great job. The name of the game over at Marvel is with each movie or TV show, make it the best it can possibly be. And they’re really supportive of that, and trust that it will organically fit into the larger blueprint of everything. We were excited about introducing a version of Kang, because yeah, to introduce this new big bad was cool for our show. I was aware, and cautious, of the thing I read in your review, that it might not be the most sound storytelling to introduce a new character at the very end that we’ve never seen before as the big bad of this thing. Obviously, we had the benefit that people know who Kang is, and there’s a meta thing where a portion of the audience knows Jonathan Majors is going to be playing Kang in Phase Four. But the finale was only ever going to work if He Who Remains, in a compelling way, serviced the Loki and Sylvie emotional story. That was the most important job that that character did in the finale: he laid out a very compelling conflict that ultimately drove the two of them apart.

There has also been some confusion as to exactly when you knew that there would be a second season, as opposed to you just making a limited series. Initially, in the writers room, we were not operating as though there would be a second season. And the whole way through was, this should be a story that should stand on its own. I referenced The Leftovers and Mad Men all the time. I think about those seasons, they pushed the overall stories forward, but you can pull any one of those seasons and look at it on its own as an individual story. I wanted that to be the case here, whether we did a second season or not. I think we always felt that we would want to propel Loki forward into the MCU after the conclusion of our season. The only question was, would that be in an appearance in a movie, or would that be in a second season. And it was only over the course of development that the stars aligned to make a second season.

But that end scene, where Mobius no longer recognizes Loki and the TVA is filled with Kang statues, wouldn’t have been a satisfying conclusion to a limited series. That is an ending that only works if there’s going to be a second season. So there is another conclusion to the story that I wrote that exists out there, that I guess is just for me. My own little play, that I perform with my action figures.

What was Sylvie’s original plan, before Loki hijacked her to that dying moon? It was to empty out the TVA. The entire bombing of the Sacred Timeline was to create a diversion. She’s not going to be able to create a multiverse from doing that. Ultimately, the TVA has the manpower to get out and take care of these events, but they’re going to have to scramble a lot of their minutemen teams, and it leaves the Time-Keepers significantly less guarded than they would have been otherwise. That was her plan.

You didn’t come into this as a big comic book nerd. So was there someone on staff who could tell you, “Well, there’s this giant cloud called Alioth that eats time,” or, “Well, one time Thanos had a helicopter,” or maybe someone assigned to you by Marvel? I’m constantly reading the comics but trying to not be so beholden to the and do our own thing. I charged our writers assistant, Ryan Kohler, with, “You’ve got to become the authority on all things TVA, all things Kang, and all that.” So he and my assistant, Sophie Miller, became a support staff who read a ton of these comics and became a wealth of knowledge for the writers to turn to. And then the Marvel producers, obviously are very well versed in the comics. It was Kevin Wright who came in one day and was like somebody throwing down a blueprint in an asteroid movie, going, “Alioth! Look at this!” And we were like, “Ohmigod, this is perfect!” The best thing about working on these comic book shows is that if it’s from the comics, it doesn’t matter how much of a deus ex machina it is, it’s just cool, like, “I can’t believe you pulled that from the comics.” Alioth, that was a big breakthrough that unlocked the last two episodes for us.

That is not a famous comic book that introduces Alioth. It’s an obscure Nineties miniseries, with really ugly art. But you look at it and see what it could be. You say, “If we do this, and it feels like Twister, it’s going to be really cool.”

Was Mobius’ love of jet skis there simply to illustrate his character, or did you have a grander idea in mind? I will come clean: I’m a jet ski guy. I’ve spent a good amount of time on jet skis in my day. I used to tow a jet ski to a lake and ride it in college. So it probably was me. Loki, I was just becoming a steward of that character. Mobius was a character I really felt I got to create from nothing. There’s not really anything to that character in the comics. So bits and pieces of me found their way in. I just think there’s something so poignant — here Mobius is, a guy who is literally fighting to preserve all of time in the multiverse, and yet his interests are maybe the most humble, human, terrestrial, unremarkable thing you can think of. Just a jet ski. And when you’ve got Owen Wilson playing him and it’s just that much better.

Will you be back in some capacity for Season Two? [long pause] Time will tell.

‘Loki’ Head Writer Michael Waldron — and ‘Rick and Morty’ Alum — on MCU, ‘Heels’ and More

[gffa]

Here’s the thing about Qui-Gon:  His view of Anakin is very much influenced by how he sees him as the Chosen One.  That this doesn’t negate that Qui-Gon is genuinely warm and kind towards Anakin, but that when push comes to shove, when Qui-Gon feels the need to object or ask a promise of someone, it’s not, “This boy needs our help.” but instead, “He is the Chosen One, you must see it.” and “Promise me you’ll train the boy.  He is the Chosen One.” It’s even how he broaches the topic with the Council--he tries to demure about how he doesn’t presume to assume that Anakin actually is the Chosen One, but Yoda calls his bluff, oh, you totally do think that, and even Qui-Gon has to simmer down because, yeah, Yoda’s got him.  He does think that and that is why he’s pushing for Anakin to be trained as a Jedi, despite he knows it’s going to be a hard sell. One thing I think gets overlooked a lot is that Qui-Gon is reasonably emphatic that Anakin be trained as a Jedi, I think it’s easy to assume that, because he argues with the Council, that he’s ready to turn his back on them, but honestly Qui-Gon seems to really, really love the Jedi. His friendship with Yoda in The Clone Wars and the Revenge of the Sith novelization (Legends, but I’m willing to allow it because George line-edited it) and From a Certain Point of View and the Age of Republic comics are all wonderfully touching.  Qui-Gon loves the Jedi and he wants to help them.  He wants Anakin to be trained as a Jedi.  Qui-Gon may have disagreements with his family, but he is absolutely loyal to them, that’s why he works so hard to reach out to Yoda and Obi-Wan after his death, that’s why he works so hard to get Anakin to be a Jedi when we see that he could have just said, “Fine, I’ll take him and train him on my own then.” because that’s what Obi-Wan said he would do. But that also comes with how Qui-Gon very much saw Anakin as the Chosen One and that was his argument.  That’s what it came down to for Qui-Gon, when everything else was peeled away.  “He is the Chosen One, you must see it.” It’s particularly interesting because the narrative of the prequels movies and even The Clone Wars, aside from the Mortis arc, seem incredibly unconcerned with Anakin as the Chosen One, that none of the other Jedi ever say it to his face (until after he turns to the dark side) and express a lot of doubt.  Their concern about him is wrapped up in who he is as Anakin Skywalker, not as the Chosen One.  It’s barely even brought up the other movies and never to Anakin’s face.  Qui-Gon, on the other hand, has many scenes that revolve around his belief that Anakin is the Chosen One and that’s pretty much the heart of why he’s so gung-ho about this. If you get into supplementary material, Qui-Gon is borderline obsessed with prophecies, they legitimately haunt him from the time he was 12 to even when he’s adult, he lets them go, but they always come back, which fits with his 100mph belief that Anakin must be the Chosen One.  And it’s not that he’s wrong, because Anakin absolutely is the Chosen One, but that I feel like Qui-Gon was destined to find Anakin, but not necessarily the one who was best to train him.  Because of Qui-Gon seeing him as the Chosen One rather than a kid who needed help and because their personalities were not great at meshing together. Even George Lucas says:   “So here we’re having Qui-Gon wanting to skip the early training and jump right to taking him on as his Padawan learner, which is controversial, and ultimately, the source of much of the problems that develop later on.”  –George Lucas, The Phantom Menace commentary Not “the Jedi didn’t want to help him” or “the Jedi didn’t love him enough”, etc.  But “Qui-Gon wanted to skip the early training and jump ahead, which is ultimately the source of much of the problems that develop later on”, which fits with what George has said in other commentary: “If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.”  --George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary The problem is that Anakin needed to go through the proper Jedi training, not skip through it on fast forward--which is why I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Anakin wanting to be made a Master is in Revenge of the Sith, every movie somehow connects to how Anakin needed more time to devote himself to the Jedi Path, not that it was doing him dirty. Qui-Gon got wrapped up in the prophecy of the Chosen One and pushed things too fast, which left everyone else scrambling in his wake.  And I can believe that this is entirely understandable, that Qui-Gon felt some great push for this and, honestly, I’m not sure he thought that he himself should be the one to train Anakin at first, because it’s not until the Jedi say no that he says, well, then I’ll train him, like he initially expected that someone else would. So, why did the Jedi make Anakin a Padawan so early, even after Qui-Gon died?  We don’t know that, we never see that part of the story, we can make some guesses and we know that Obi-Wan was doing his best and that he had support from the community around him, but the specific details we aren’t sure of, only that George sources the problem back to Qui-Gon trying to push Anakin forward too quickly.  (Which I maintain can be taken in a sympathetic light!) And that ties together with Qui-Gon’s view of him being the Chosen One, and he does try to balance it with Anakin being a young kid who is being thrown into these wild circumstances, he’s very warm with him, but we see so many Jedi being warm with younglings--look at Plo when he first picks up Ahsoka, look at Mace with the little Twi’lek girl who needed help, look at Yoda with the younglings in AOTC and “The Gathering”, so it’s not like Qui-Gon was the only one.  And he does look at Anakin and see The Chosen One more than anyone else because, when everything else falls away, when he only has a few moments left to live, that’s what he says for his final words.  He touches Obi-Wan’s face gently and says, “Train the boy.  He is the Chosen One, he will bring balance.” And when he’s being denied training Anakin, it’s not about Anakin himself or what Anakin as a person needs.  It’s about, “He is the Chosen One!  You must see it!”  Which isn’t at all what Anakin needed, imo. Rather, I think Qui-Gon would have been a much better grand-master to Anakin, the one who could spoil him when he came around, the one Anakin could commiserate with when he was mad at Obi-Wan, who would be able to temper Anakin’s need for someone to crab with versus that Qui-Gon would care about being kind to Obi-Wan at the same time.  And it’d be nice for Anakin to feel like he could “gang up on” Obi-Wan with someone, since other Jedi were available, but I’m not sure Anakin would have had that kind of relationship with them. Ultimately, Anakin’s choices were his own more than they were anyone else’s, it can’t be about “if this or this had happened around him, he would have chosen differently!” because that strips Anakin of agency as a character.  But this is why I don’t think Qui-Gon was some magic answer because, honestly, if it had been that easy to prevent Anakin from going dark side, of course Obi-Wan would have stepped into whatever role he felt Anakin needed.  But the truth was that Anakin needed more self-reflection, not some external force that was missing in his life.  Anakin’s choices were his own, based on his own inability to confront the fears within himself because he never really wanted to, and I don’t see the evidence where Qui-Gon would have succeeded in that, versus where others couldn’t convince Anakin to do it.

[ask-the-riders]

Mother’s Day for Conquest

I know I’m super late with this, but eh. I wanted to write something for Mother’s Day that was centered around Connie, so ye XP

There’s some cuteness with Mortem, where he gives her a special gift. He tells her that he bought it all by himself, but that’s just a coverup; What Connie doesn’t know was that while she wasn’t paying attention, some of her teammates worked together to make the gift for her

You’ll also see some of the riders kinda bonding a little, and then as a bonus, Retribution’s inner Nootmare begins to show a little

"Mom?"

Conquest shifted her attention to her son, smiling tiredly, "Yes, Sweetheart?" Mortem stepped closer to her, holding out a box, "I got you something." The rider tilted her head, carefully accepting the box from him, "Oh, thank you, Morty. What's this for?" Her son raised a brow bone at her and gave her a clear look of confusion, "...Did you forget what day it is, Mom? It's Mother's Day." Her cheekbones flushed a soft shade of orange in vague embarrassment and her tired smile became sheepish, "Ah, yeah. I guess I did forget what day it is, whoopsy daisy." Mortem sat beside her on their sofa, lightly laying his head on her shoulder and fidgeting, "Uh huh. Hurry up and open your gift, though! It's really special!"

Able to sense his growing excitement, Connie smiled to herself again and began to carefully unwrap the gift. Once the wrapping paper was removed and placed on the floor by her feet, she popped off the lid of the decorative box and paused, her breath hitching and her sockets momentarily widening; In the box before her was a beautiful necklace, its pendant comprised of blue gemstones that were shaped to resemble an echo flower. Mortem fidgeted again, pointing at the middle of the flower, "There's a button here for you to push, too." Conquest nodded, gingerly pressing the button he'd gestured to, and a recording switched on, playing a single line in the voice of her son: "I love you, mom!"

For a moment, Conquest was at a loss for words; She really hadn't been expecting such a nice gift from anyone today. By the looks of it, this wasn't a cheap one, either. Wrapping an arm around the child, she offered him a warm smile, "Oh my goodness, it's beautiful! Thank you, Morty, I love it a lot." Mortem beamed at her, puffing up with pride, "You're welcome!" She couldn't help but laugh softly at how proud he looked, shaking her head; He was such a good kid... She really couldn't have asked for a better child.

Lightly nudging him with her shoulder, she hummed, "How in the world were you able to get this for me? It looks like it'd cost quite a bit of money." Her son mimicked her, humming and nudging her back with his own shoulder, "I saved up the money Glo gave me for doing my chores, and then I had Uncle Ret take me shopping. He even let me pick it out all by myself." Conquest's expression softened and she sighed, still smiling, "Well color me shocked. Usually you get antsy and spend your allowance pretty fast, Mister. I'm surprised you saved it up for this long." He grinned at her, "I know. I had Glo help me, though! She helped me save my money."

Connie's smile widened slightly, "Awe, well that was really nice of her! Did you tell her thank you for all the help?" Mortem nodded his head, "Uh huh!" The rider leaned closer to press a kiss to her child's forehead, lifting a hand to gently caress his skull as she pulled away, "Good, I'm really glad. You always do such a good job remembering to use your manners, you know that?" Mortem smiled again, almost looking bashful all of a sudden, "Thank you, Mom." Conquest continued to gently caress Mortem's skull for a few more seconds before she tapped his forehead, causing him to draw back a bit and giggle.

The gesture, although small and likely somewhat strange to others that'd seen it, was a habit she'd adopted, and whenever she'd done it, it was always meant to convey affection. It was light-hearted and oftentimes made Mortem laugh, but thankfully, he understood what it meant.

Setting the box down on her lap, she lifted a hand to delicately touch her scarf. Her thumb trailed over a name on the underside that'd been stitched into the fabric and she smiled again to herself. Very gingerly removing her scarf and setting it on her lap beside the box, she adjusted the collar of her dress and then proceeded to scoop up her new necklace. Mortem watched as she undid the clasp and slid both ends of the chain around her neck, and sensing his gaze on her, she offered him a sideways glance, accompanied by a tiny smile, "Do you think you could help me, Sweetheart?... I can't see where the clasp is, so that makes things a little tricky."

The child eagerly nodded, more than happy to help his mother. Turning slightly, she paid no mind as he scooted closer, his hands darting up to carefully take the ends of the chain from her, "Now Morty, just make sure not to make it too tight, ok?" He nodded again, "Ok, Mom... Should I just put the clasp thing in the first hole then?" Connie hummed softly in confirmation, "Mmhm. If that's what you wanna do, then go for it." After a moment of fumbling with the clasp, he managed to get it clipped into the first link, idly toying with the chain, "Is that ok?" Conquest made a sound in consideration, testing the tightness of the necklace before glancing back at him and offering him another warm smile, "Yep, it's perfect. Thank you for your help!"

Again, Mortem beamed, his chest puffed out with pride. Conquest sighed, feeling completely content as she pressed the button on her echo flower pendant again, listening to the recorded message from her son. Suddenly perking up, Mortem made a sound, as if remembering something, and before Connie could question him, he'd already dashed out of the room.

Entering his bedroom and carefully closing the door behind himself, he glanced around, and then crossed the room and began to rifle through one of his desk drawers. He withdrew two things; The first being a simple white envelope that contained a letter he'd written for his mom, and the second being an orange envelope that had some surprisingly elegant writing on one side. He wasn't sure what it contained, but despite his curiosity, he resisted the urge to peek. The lady that had delivered it that morning had been very polite when she asked him to be patient and wait for his mom to open it herself, so he told himself he'd listen to her and respect her wishes.

As he gathered up the envelopes, a voice softly called to him from within the shadows of the room, "Psst, Morty! Over here!" Attention immediately snapping to the patch of shadows the voice had come from, Mortem nearly dropped the envelopes, a grin stretching across his face. He trotted over to the shadows, excitedly screeching, and the upper half of Retribution's body emerged from the darkness. Pressing a finger over his teeth, he softly shushed his nephew, and the younger of the two mimicked him, repeating the motion and freezing in place. Once the easily excitable skeleton child settled down, the former prince murmured lowly, "So what'd she think of the necklace? Did she like it?"

Mortem immediately nodded, also lowering his voice, "Uh huh! It made her really happy, and she already put it on!" Ret offered Mortem a slight smile, "That's great, Buddy! I'm glad to hear it. Did she say anything about how pricey it was, or ask how you were able to get it for her?" The child nodded again, "Uh huh." "And what did you tell her?" Mortem hugged the envelopes close to his chest, "I said that I saved up my money from chores, and that you took me shopping." Retribution arched a brow bone, "You didn't say anything about how I paid for most of it?" The child shook his head, "Nope." The former prince let out a soft breath in relief, reaching out to pat his nephew's shoulder, "Good, good. Just like we discussed. Well done, Mortem."

In response to the praise, Morty smiled brightly, his cheekbones flushing a faint shade of orange. Without warning, he put the envelopes down and approached Retribution, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him tightly. Ret's body twitched in surprise at the unexpected contact, and after he'd calmed himself, he returned the hug. Although his voice was muffled by the fabric of Ret's cloak, the former prince heard his nephew murmur, "I love you, Uncle Ret... You're the best." Retribution's expression softened and his smile became genuine as he lowly murmured back, "I love you too, Morty. You should probably get going now though, before your mom gets curious about what's taking you so long."

The child made a sound in agreement, "Ok, I will... Are you sure you can't stay longer?" Ret sighed, "I'm sure. I wish I could, but I have work to do today. If you'd like to visit me sometime though, I'm sure your mom would be more than happy to bring you." His nephew reluctantly pulled away from the hug and smiled at him again, "Ok, I'll ask her then if I can come see you soon." Ret lightly poked at Mortem's side, grinning to himself as the child squirmed and attempted to refrain from giggling, "Cool, that sounds like a plan, then. Seeya later, Kid." Mortem offered him a tiny wave, "Seeya, Uncle Ret." Retribution offered him a softer smile in return, before he sank back into the shadows and vanished completely from sight. Quickly gathering up the pair of envelopes, Mortem slipped out of his room, making his way back to the living room where his mom was waiting.

Warping out of the shadows in the hallway of his home, the former prince let out a soft breath as a realization dawned on him; For giving him her assistance, there was someone that he owed his thanks. Admitting that perhaps she'd managed to do something right for a change was doable, albeit a bit awkward for him. It was that awkwardness that he really wasn't looking forward to, but oh well.

Some things just have to be done.

Retribution began his journey toward the ex-pirate's room, trying to figure out how he would even word his appreciation in the first place. He and Abrael weren't exactly on the best of terms, and ever since she'd first arrived and been introduced as a member of the group, there'd been something about her that didn't sit well with him. He wasn't sure yet what it was, but the longer he went without knowing, the more it grew to bother him.

Arriving at his destination, he gave her closed bedroom door a few knocks, and then he stepped back, folding his arms behind his back. He could do this. He just needed to focus, and even though it'd probably make things a bit bothersome later on down the road, he would have to put his pride on the back burner. He drew in a deep breath, making an attempt to mentally and emotionally prepare for what he was about to do. The door opened, and Abrael immediately donned a look of confusion, clearly dumbfounded, "Uh... Ahoy, Ret. What are you doing here?" Retribution glanced around, looking anywhere other than directly at her, "Can I come in? Please? I would like to speak to you in private."

Abrael nodded, stepping aside to gesture into the room, "Be my guest." The former prince slipped into the room, still not looking at her, and once she was sure he was far enough away from the door that it wouldn't get caught on his cloak, she shut it behind him. Turning to face him and doing her best to ignore the impending sense of doom that'd begun to creep up on her. When he finally looked at her, it was with such intensity that she nearly flinched backward, and he furrowed his brow bones, "...Apologies for the awkward silence. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how exactly I'd like to word everything I have to say to you." The former pirate made a face, beginning to shrink under his stare, "...It's fine. Am I in trouble for something, or?..." She paused, lifting both hands in a gesture of surrender, "If this is about that missing bottle of wine, I can replace it. Just give me a little time."

All awkwardness Retribution felt melted away and he stared at her, his sockets narrowing in a mix of confusion and suspicion, "Wait, wait, wait. Missing bottle of wine? You broke into my stash? How did you even find it?" Abrael offered him an only mildly guilty grin, her shoulders tensing up, "...I'm very dedicated to things I'm really truly interested in, is all I can say. Because truth be told, I wasn't even purposely searching for it at the time." Ret groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, "It doesn't matter. I'm not sure that I really want an honest answer to any of that, anyway." Abrael seemed to perk up, "So that bottle was a freebie then?" The former prince rolled his eye lights, "Yeah, sure, whatever. That's not why I’m here, though. I had other things to talk to you about."

The ex-pirate cocked her head to the side, staring at him in confusion, "...That wasn't it? What else was there?" Doing his best to swallow his pride, he glanced away from her, "Those gemstones you gave me. Topaz and Zircon, I believe. I... Wanted to thank you for allowing me to take them. The different shades of blue complimented each other very well, and the necklace turned out beautifully." Abrael blinked, silent for a moment as she processed his words; He was actually... He was thanking her for something, and there wasn't a single insult anywhere in sight. Huh.

She smiled awkwardly, giving a half shrug and absentmindedly picking at part of her sleeve, "Oh, that. Don't mention it. 'M a pirate, remember?" She allowed her accent to slip through and thicken, still grinning awkwardly, "It's in me nature t' keep loot. Thar's more where that came from too, if ye ever needs it." Hearing her speaking in the way that he found really suited her best, Retribution snorted in amusement, "Oh come on, Abrael. You were never the modest type before, so why the sudden change in attitude?" The former pirate shrugged again, her accent vanishing as quickly as it'd first arrived, "I dunno. I wasn't expecting this meeting to go down this particular path, so I think my usual eccentric persona is still in sleep mode right now."

Retribution shook his head and sighed, attempting to hide the smallest of smiles, "You know... You confuse me sometimes. As someone who typically comes across as being greedy, I didn't think you'd be so willing to trade in some of those gems. I figured I'd have to steal them from you or something." Abrael hummed, "Yeah, well... I had a good reason to cooperate this time, I guess." The former prince arched a brow bone curiously, "You mean a reason other than thinking I'd go and beat you senseless for saying no?" Her cheekbones flushed a soft shade of lemon yellow and she lowered her head, "I, uh... There was another reason too, if I'm being honest."

Ret tilted his head and hummed, "And might I ask what that reason is? I can feel your nervousness and uncertainty, so I'm unsure if I should be concerned or not right now." Abrael hesitated, and Ret's stare seemed to gain intensity again as he felt a small pulse of embarrassment come from her, "...Abrael, I have a feeling your answer isn't going to sit well with me. Now that I know you have another reason for cooperating that has nothing to do with being afraid of me, I would like you to tell me what it is. I won't promise not to get upset, but I'll try my best to stay rational and calm." The former pirate snuck a glance at him and hesitated for another moment, "...Your sister. Connie."

Retribution's stare hardened as he heard his sister's name leave Abrael's mouth, "What about Connie?" The ex-pirate nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other, "She's a good teacher, with all this magic stuff. I know I'm not always the easiest person to work with, but despite that, she's been good to me. Not once has she shown me anything that could be interpreted as rude or uncaring." Beginning to understand, Retribution made a soft sound in acknowledgment, "I've noticed. Because of that, your other reason for cooperating involves her somehow. If you want your head to stay attached to your body, I'd suggest you hurry up and spit it out already."

Abrael drew in a breath and ran her hands over her head, "I wanted to help do something nice for her. She's always good to me, she's patient with me when I start my shenanigans, and I... She's... She's quite pretty, too." The former prince continued to stare at her as he spoke, "Your other reason for cooperating was because you think my sister is pretty, and because you wanted to do something nice for her in return for how nice she is to you?" Abrael made a sound in confirmation, her yellow blush becoming just a smidge brighter, and Retribution took a deep breath, "...You've taken an interest in her. I see. I don't care what you do, as far as your relationship with her goes, but let me be perfectly clear," he paused, the atmosphere suddenly becoming tense and nearly suffocating.

The former pirate watched him with wide eyes as his cyan eye lights flickered, very briefly becoming a brilliant shade of violet, "If any harm should come to her, whether it be mental, emotional, or physical, I'll pay you a visit in the dreamscape while you sleep and make you relive your final moments as a vile, audacious, no-good pirate again and again, and again. You'll feel the pain of a broken neck and cracked skull as many times as it takes to teach you how to be a halfway decent person, and you can even quote me on that. I genuinely don't care." Abrael shrunk under his stare again and began to tremble, but before she could speak, another voice interrupted the rather tense moment, "Scarin' the new girl again, are ya?"

Ret's attention immediately refocused on his partner, who was currently loitering in the doorway, and he narrowed his eyes, "What are you doing here, Famine? I thought you were too busy to socialize today." Famine shrugged, leaning against the door frame, "Nah. 'M busy, yeah, but I know how ta make time for my teammates. I'm only here because my gut told me ya were runnin' around gettin' into trouble again." The taller of the two glanced at Abrael, registering the terrified look she wore, "And by the looks a' things, my gut was right." Retribution let out a deep sigh, the atmosphere gradually beginning to return to normal again, "Hey, I didn't physically do anything to her. She's fine, Fam. I'm still in control of myself, ok? I don't want you doubting that."

Famine arched a single brow bone, crossing his arms over his chest, "Ya sure about that, Firefly? You've been pretty tense as a' lately... How about ya go and start runnin' a bath or somethin'? I can join ya in just a minute." Ret's eye lights remained their normal shade of cyan, and at his partner's words, his cheekbones flushed a shade of cyan that matched them. When Retribution didn't move from his spot, Famine hummed again, "Hey, Small, Dark, and Lovecraftian, ya still with me?" Ret made a sound in confirmation and Famine donned a lazy smirk, "Good ta know. Now, about that bath. I want ya soakin' in the tub, five minutes from now. I got a few words for the lady, then I'll come and join ya." Deciding not to reply, Ret nodded, sheepishly glancing away from Famine and using a shortcut, teleporting out of the room.

Once he was gone, Famine's demeanor became more relaxed and he sighed, slipping into Abrael's room. Before she had the chance to panic and run, he placed a hand on her head, stuffing the other in one of his pockets. Soothing pulses of his magic began to ripple through her and she drew in a shaky breath, slowly shifting her gaze upward and looking at him. Seeing that her attention was on him now, he spoke, "...Sorry 'bout him. He's a bit touchy when it comes ta family, and he can be a little over protective of 'em. He won't do anythin' to ya though, promise." The former pirate nodded slowly, "...You're sure?" He lightly squeezed her head, "I'm positive. Don't worry about him, ok? You'll be fine."

[countlessrealities]

Kisses under the mistletoe

@shctupmeg sent: 👀 : my muse finds your muse under a mistletoe (for Morty)

The party had been going well, all considered. Meg's new home was huge and, even if Morty had been there quite a few times already, he still hadn't fully learnt his way around it. That was why he had tried to stick either around his sister or his boyfriend, but then he had lost track of them both while he had gone to grab a drink.

The teen looked around, trying to spot a familiar and friendly face in the crowd. He had seen most of the presents at least once, since they attended his high school, but that was also the reason why there was no one he could call his friend.

There was also the detail that this wasn't his timeline, but that hardly mattered. It was still his dimension, technically speaking.

The party had been mostly his sister(s)'s idea. Now that Meg had so much space and resources, the Summers had agreed that she needed to use them. And what could be better than throwing a sick party for Christmas Eve? They had even handled the invitations, deciding who should come, with just a little help from the younger girl's part.

Of course, that meant that a lot of people have been asked to join, to rub in Meg's old bullies' faces just how popular and welcome her friend was now. One big middle finger shoved right down their throat.

Morty did appreciate the sentiment, but big crowds were hardly his comfort zone, especially when said crowds were made of his peers. It was hard to stay anonymous when by now everyone knew what he and Rick got up to.

Finally, his gaze landed on Meg, finding her alone for the very first time since she had greeted him and Summer upon their arrival. His almost girlfriend had been busy playing the role of the graceful host, so he had chosen not to bother her. This whole party was her triumph and she should be allowed to handle it as she wanted to. Besides, the two of them and their boyfriend had already planned to spend some time together, just the three of them, later, once everyone else would have left. He was really looking forward to it, but he was also ready to wait for their alone time to come.

Still, he wasn't going to waste that opportunity to talk to Meg one on one for a little while, before she had to go back entertaining her other guests. So, without second thoughts, he hurried to join her towards one of the corners of the room, a few steps away from the rest of the crowd.

"H-Hey, uh, hi," he greeted, trying and failing not to stumble on his words as per usual. "I-I haven't had the chance so say it, b-but I think you did a great job. W-With the food an-and the decorations. I-It's all really...you know. C-Christmas-y? The colours an-and the, uh, symbols and stuff..."

Damn, he was rambling already, wasn't he?

To distract himself, he made a show of looking around, also in an attempt to remark and give more ground to his words. It was only then, by chance, that he noticed it. A mistletoe, hanging almost directly over their heads.

Morty's cheeks turned pink, but then, in a rush of boldness, he grabbed the girl's hand, guiding her forward as he stepped backwards, so that they could be directly under the mistletoe.

"An-And speaking of Christmas things, i-it's tradition, so, you know..." He added with a small smile that was both shy and a little daring.

And that was the only warning he gave before he leant forward, pulling her closer at the same time by wrapping a hand around her side.

The kiss was not too different from the one they had exchanged on their first date, if not for the fact that this time Morty was the one to take it forward, without hesitation. He started off with having their lips meet, gently and softly, but he didn't stop there, not that night.

After having given Meg a moment to understand what was happening, he pressed his mouth against her harder, more purposefully. His lips moved with the steadiness of someone who knew what he was doing and so did the rest of his body, pulling the girl closer and closer, until her soft curves were pressed against his chest, one of his arms wrapped around his waist, while his other hand cradled the back of her neck.

He wasn't sure of how long he kept the two of them laced together, probably a few minutes, but to him it felt at the same time like years and mere seconds. It felt like time had melted away, fading inside the warmth they were sharing.

He eventually broke away, once he felt his lungs started to ask for more air, but not before having grazed her bottom lip with his teeth, taking one last, fuller taste of her strawberry-flavoured lipgloss.

A heavier breath escaped his lips once he had put some distance between their faces and all his boldness seemed to melt away with it, once again replaced by the usual shy awkwardness.

"Uh, t-that...I think...you...I mean..." He stuttered, his face getting hot as all the things he wanted to say clogged his throat.

That was great. I hope you enjoyed it too. I like kissing you. I want to do it again. The sooner, the better.

"H-Happy holidays?"

[kaioken16]

L.O.R.A.S

Mallek Week 2021 Day 6

Day 6: Sburbland Word count: 1187 Character(s): Mallek Adalov, MSPA Reader

AO3 Link

AN: LORAS ‘the Land of Relics and Season’ is Mallek’s planet that I thought of, and was inspired by elements of the planet Mortis from Clone Wars, and Hidden Land/Temporal Tower from PKMD Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky.

Summary: The Rogue of Time arrives on his planet: Land of Relics and Season to rest and recharge after a long series of missions.

The setting is a strange planet, the sky was an unnatural vision, vibrant blue energy almost fire-like burns across the sky, like waves racing around the entire planet, from the view of space it appears like a current of water that swirls around the atmosphere. The landmass was a vivid looking scene, truly something out of a dream. On one side A series of vast lush fields, dense forest and green mountains, with stunning vistas. To the other side was a desert that seemed to cover half of the planet, the sands were a dark golden shade, littered by many several stone pillars, some still standing and others crumbling or in ruin.

And in between the two regions was a series of floating masses of land, mountains, they had been suspended in the air, frozen in time. And within the epicentre of the floating mountains was a structure, a tower, the stone tiling was identical to the pillars scattered throughout the desert, and had vines and plants from the forests growing in between them. Each stone in this tower was glowing a symbol that was the same blue as the energy looping around the world. Engraved over the tower’s entrance was the gear symbol.

Just then the symbol begins to glow, but rather than the calming blue, a blood red glow fills the symbol. Suddenly the great stone doors slowly opened outwards, someone was exiting the tower.

Mallek steps outside, he is dressed in his god tier robes, the red complimenting his usual blue features. Clinging to his shoulder was a slightly large gecko, its scales were a purple hue, with yellow stripes running the top of his body from its head to the end of its tail.

Along with them as a few fireflies slowly hover out the darkness of the tower they lazily fly around Mallek before flying off in various directions. The troll leaves out a short sigh, before releasing his dark blue wings, he then takes a few steps forward before stepping off the edge and taking flight.

He felt re-energized after making it back to his planet, the Land of Relics and Seasons. The tower had a healing effect on his body, like the safe point in a video game. His powers as a Rogue of Time were stronger than normal on this planet, the ability to steal time and manipulate it. He would often come here to check on the status of its consorts and after he ascended it was a way for him to recharge.

When he first arrived on his planet it was all so surreal to him, between the strange dream-like setting, that the seasons seemed to go by the time of day, during the day it beautiful green forests on the side and scorching deserts on the other, and by nightfall, those vibrant forests would be blanketed by what he can to learn as frozen water otherwise known as ‘snow’ according to his human friend. And the desert would also be a frigid wasteland, below sub-zero temperature.

The tower was the only area here on LORAS that was unaffected by the strange weather pattern. Though finding a way via the floating rocks was rather difficult pre-god tier without the convenient method of flight, with help from the lizards and fireflies he managed to find a way to safely navigate to the ancient structure.

He arrives at the forest region, zooming over the area until he comes across a structure in a large clearing. At the four corners of the building were a series of robots that were designed in Mallek’s likeness, they seem to be patrolling the area, a tall pylon that was storing electricity, which was connected to the building, which was responsible for giving it power, and of course hovering above the building was a red gate linked to the other gate located at the top of the atmosphere.

This was his hive, it had been transported here when he began his session, the exterior was a little damaged, with vines that were beginning to overgrow, despite the short time of his session LORAS’s time moves much quicker though it only affected the land rather than the living beings.

Immediately when he touches the ground, his robots’ attention is alerted to him, their blue eyes blink various colours before stopping on green and then returning to blue. An indication that they recognized him, any intruders would be met with severe punishment as he had programmed them to guard his hive against unwanted visitors. And of course, the consorts were deemed as non-threatening so they could come and go as they pleased when Mallek was off-world.

Mallek retracts his wings back and enters his hive. It was the usual mess, the same smell that he had been used to, entering his home, the gecko consort hops off Mallek’s shoulder and begins exploring, it makes several clicking noises and then several more gecko appear to have been hiding among the clutter and computer parts, they then gather forming a circle, each is a different colour, they march in a circle making noises, as they appeared to be communicating with each other.

Mallek smiles faintly at the creatures, which then spreads further when he hears a hissing noise. Slithering through a stack of clothes is a pure white snake, with blue slit eyes, Mallek crouches down and holds his arm out to his lusus, allowing to coil up his arm and wrap around his neck and shoulder. After getting more comfortable, he gets his laptop and sits on his couch. Opening his trollian, and begins to type…

-- snakeBytes [SB] began trolling AlienInvasionofOne [AIOO] --

SB: hey AIOO: Hey bro, what’s up? SB: nothing, i'm on loras right now; SB: i was feeling a little drained; SB: used too much energy during that last battle; AIOO: I can imagine… AIOO: Diemen said that you were on fire. AIOO: Metahropically I mean. AIOO: It was like you were in the zone when you’re coding or hacking. SB:ha! SB: = that so huh; SB: to be honest, yeah; SB: i guess i went a little overboard; AIOO: Yeah… You did. AIOO: You should really take it easy you know. AIOO: You’ve been god tier for a few months now but still… AIOO: It is a lot to take in, your powers are much stronger now. AIOO: Still it’s not like you to be careless. SB: yeah; SB: time != always on my side;;; SB: despite being a time player; AIOO: That was clever! AIOO: But yeah, don’t overexert yourself too much. SB: my thoughts exactly; SB: so i'm gonna take a few hours to just rest; AIOO: Okay. No worries we can talk later, try and rest up!

-- snakeBytes [SB] ceased trolling AlienInvasionofOne [AIOO] --

Mallek checks a few more things on his laptop, running a quick diagnostic before logging off. He finds his phone and lays back on his couch, playing some game on his device, checking his messages. Ignoring the noises of the consorts as they began their regular ritual, making a rhythmic noise, while his lusus curled up on his chest.

[escxpedes]

loopholes

I haven’t written anything for a fictional couple in a very long time, much less obsessed over them. That being said, the show can only give me so much. I could write a thesis paper on why Angus Macgyver and Riley Davis belong with each other, but that’s for another time. I have this idea about writing macriley drabbles, oneshots, etc every day until they become canon. It’s a bit crazy, but let know if that’s something you’d be interested in. I have so many ideas, and my fingers are itching to write every single one. I’d like to thank @refinedbuffoonery because even though I don’t know you personally, your work inspired me to write and I couldn’t bring myself to even touch a word document (unless it was for class) until now. Please go easy on me, I’m a little rusty. I hope you guys like it! x

~

loop·hole noun | A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system

~

Riley finally moves into her new apartment, but struggles to adjust after the events of Codex and the realization of her feelings for Mac. When Mac finds her passed out over her keyboard after a late night of coding at Phoenix, he decides a talk is long overdue. Just some slightly angsty soft!macriley to help you cope with this season 5 hiatus. 

~

there is a love I reminisce, (like a seed i’ve never sown.)

There's a lot about Los Angeles that makes it home for Riley, but her new apartment doesn't exactly fall under the list. It's a quaint place, just big enough for her to live comfortably. It's only ten minutes from Phoenix Homebase, a couple of blocks from her favorite late-night pick me up, and she was able to negotiate the rent to a livable wage—always ask for more than you want, as Jack would have told her if he was there.

Although, she's pretty sure the negotiating tip is common knowledge.

Despite this, there’s something about the way the place feels that she can’t place. It’s not enough of a reason to stop her, though, so she takes a leap of faith and gives the grouchy landlord the required security deposit. 

Of course, when she finally gets around to mentioning it to the team, they insist on helping. She doesn't even try to dissuade them, already knowing they'll show up on moving day with extra boxes and a case of beer.

It takes several trips with Mac's truck and most of the day, but eventually, the echoing, empty rooms of her new abode are filled with boxes packed with belongings that probably aren’t labeled correctly. 

Everyone is hard at work before she can even put the last box down, and it fills Riley's heart with so much appreciation, it nearly knocks the air out of her. 

For the first time since she signed the lease, the apartment comes to life.

She watches as Matty scolds Russ for not reading the directions before putting together the desk she recently picked up from IKEA. She notices Bozer checking out the fridge, ranting to nobody in particular about good ventilation. She helps Desi unpack the kitchen, cracking open the beer and passing them out to everyone. 

Riley lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and for a moment, it almost feels like everything will be okay.

Then, she notices Mac scouring every inch of the place: checking the light fixtures, fiddling with all the faucets, making sure her locks work, always preoccupied with her and their team's safety.

It's such a familiar sight, something so undeniably Angus Macgyver, that it makes her heart both swell and clench at the same time.

Before Mac has the chance to ask where her air conditioner and heater are, just to make sure it has all the working components, Matty gathers everyone in the kitchen and proposes a toast.

It's endearing, and among all the excitement, Riley almost forgets why she dreaded moving out of Mac's house in the first place.

Almost.

It still lingers in the back of her mind, showing in the faltering smiles that she struggles to hold when the attention isn't on her.

She knows she should be grateful for her new place, grateful for an escape from the near-constant pressure building up since she recognized her feelings for Mac. 

This is an opportunity to move forward, to forget the way Mac's hand curled around hers in the presence of danger and instantly tamed her racing mind.

So far, she hasn't had any luck.

Before Riley knows it, and maybe before she's ready, the night is over, and slowly, everyone packs up their things and clears out. After all, they had to be up early in the morning, and the world isn't going to save itself.

Mac is the last to leave, prattling on about an untrustworthy screw in one of her ceiling fans and urging her to call him if something needs fixing.

She knows he's serious about it, knows that he'd answer in a heartbeat, no matter the time, place, or situation. His selfless nature is something some might consider a weakness, but to Riley, it's one of the many things she loves about him.

On the outside, she's the epitome of ease, full of soft smiles and effortless wit. On the inside, she wonders why it hurts more than it did before.

She knows why, but she's afraid to admit it.

When he pulls her into a hug, it feels like something inside her is breaking. Her lungs constrict, it's hard to breathe, but she refuses to let go. Instead, she buries her face into his neck and tries to commit the warmth and comfort she feels in his embrace to memory.

When she finally pulls away, because some things are just too much to bear, she swears she can feel the smallest reluctance in his movements.

When the door shuts behind him, the silence is deafening. It fills the room with the feeling of regret, and things left unsaid. Without the laughter and silly conversation as a consistent distraction, her mind goes into overdrive.

Although she can't stand the absence of sound, things like music and the pointless jargon of shitty late-night television only remind her of what she can no longer enjoy.

Or, moreover, what she can't enjoy with the people she wants to.

Glimpses of the past couple weeks surge forward before she can stop them; the feeling of being completely comfortable next to Mac while they watch the most recent episode of Rick and Morty, their shoulders brushing as they discuss possible endings and conspiracies.

Or when they ordered takeout after a failed attempt at something as simple as stir fry, although she can't help but admit that it was cute that he tried, her knees brushing his under the small dining table due to his tall frame.

Even annoying memories like being woken up at the crack of dawn to the sound of Mac building complicated machinery or adjusting something on his motorbike fill her with so much longing.

Living with Mac had felt so effortlessly right, but Riley couldn't fool herself anymore.

Of course, she knows that they could easily replicate the activities at either of their homes, and nobody would think anything of it. Something inside her thinks it's wrong somehow, that she's betraying Desi, or rather, the respect she has for her.

Not to mention, Mac is her best friend.

She would sooner go back to Supermax before entertaining the idea of ruining their friendship over something as silly as her feelings.

It's easier to remove herself from the equation, to add distance, and allow herself to heal and move on with her life. Unfortunately, moving on is easier said than done, but knowing that certainly doesn't make it hurt any less.

So, instead of turning in and spending the next several hours staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how she got into this mess, Riley plugs in her old coffee machine and double strains the coffee grounds for an extra-strong helping of caffeine.

Matty talked to her recently about upgrading the Phoenix’s firewall, and there's no time like the present to get started.

She sets up her new monitors, pushing the unwelcome reminder that throwing herself into her work is an unhealthy coping mechanism to the back of her mind.

Pouring herself a large cup of coffee and grabbing a warm blanket, she settles into her chair and stares at the bright screen of her desktop

It's going to be a long night. 

[steamedlem0ns]

Adventures in Goth Sitting Chapter 2: Getting to know your goths dark side.

Part one:

Pairing Bucky x Chubby Powered Female Original Character (Morticia)

Word Count: ~1900

Summary: A glimpse of power has Bucky taking things into his own hands, with a little bit of help.

Warnings: NSFW, Explicit sexual content, dubcon (to be safe), fingering, kinda Dark!Bucky, angst, cursing, drinking, fighting, under the influence of power

Two weeks had passed since the Jumping as I liked to refer to it. Things had, unfortunately and predictably, slipped back to normal. Bucky and I were floating on opposite sides of the universe.

He was sent for a mission three days after and Steve made a point to tell me about his lack of nightmares. ‘Hasn’t happened for more than a night in years, Morty.’

It has nothing to do with me. And that was a hill I’d happily die on.

I sat on the communal couch, legs propped up on Loki as we watched another episode of Goosebumps. Nostalgia was like heroin to the God of Mischief and he was loving this show so far. He’d prodded about my outing with the Soldier but after I smashed a purple tendril into the side of his face he shut up. We’d just fallen into another episode when the sudden silence of our room was shattered.

The doors to the elevator hissed open and out stepped three drunk, loud men. Bucky and Steve had unbuttoned their shirts and Sam had simply shed his. A flask hung off of Buckys belt loop and I laughed.

Turning to Loki, I questioned, “Did you give them that?” He smirked and shrugged,

“The good Capitan said they needed a “boys night” and he said liquor would help. I was simply, helping a friend.”

I smacked his arm and laughed. Mischief, always.

“Morticiaaaaaa!” Sang Steve. The bumbling blonde ran over to the couch and draped himself over the back leaning his head to the side to look at me.

“Show em your pets.” He said. My eyes went wide. Pets. No. He didn’t tell them.

“Yeah, show us your pets, living dead girl.” Sam joined. He hiccuped and gripped onto Buckys side for balance.

“No. Steve, they aren’t pets. They’re a part of me and they’re dangerous. I’m not whipping them out to entertain a bunch of sloshed old men.”

He pouted. Steve Rogers stuck his plump, pink bottom lip out and pouted like a child.

“Please? Well stay back. I told them how cool it looks. Like scary fireworks.”

I relented after several moments of staring at him all big eyes and sweet cheeks.

Loki grabbed my arm as I stood and shot me a look, making sure I was okay with this. I brushed him off gently and he begrudgingly let me go.

“Everyone has to step back and stay back. Steve was wrong,” I walked to the edge of the room near the windows, “they aren’t pets. They’re me.” I glanced at Loki, “Keep them back, please.” He nodded and went to stand, gathering Steve and pulling the other two back toward the other side of the space.

It was like riding a bike, truthfully. Calling my tendrils was just muscle memory, but their impact and power consumption was nothing to joke about. It comes from my chest, deep from within. A cold fire that burns through my very soul, then they come out to play. Long whisps of neon purple dance from my fingertips as they seek to feed.

“They aren’t pets. They feed on impurity, deviousness, and evil. They feed my power without taking a soul. But, arguably their impact is worse.” I let them sing and crawl through the air for a moment, not paying attention to the awestruck group watching. And then I killed them, closed my hands and shut it off. My body crumbled. I fell hard to the marble floor and heaved in as much air as I could. Bringing them out without feeding was too much.

Before I could think again I felt hands wrap around my jaw, tenderly. I looked up to see Loki and Bucky crouched by me, obvious concern etched onto their features.

“I’m okay. It’s just a lot.” I assured them. Bucky braced me against him as he helped me up. They both steadied me as I ambled to the couch.

“Are sure you’re okay, sweets?” Loki asked. He bent, pressing a kiss to my forehead and smoothing my hair. I nodded with a half smile.

“I am. Let me explain, though.” I readjusted on the cushions and pulled a pillow into my lap. Steve and Sam joined us, everyone taking a seat. Loki staying on the floor nearest to me, Bucky on the couch beside me as well.

“I call them tendrils or chicken tenders. They help me when I need it most. They protect me and my abilities and allow me to coax what I need from who I need it. I don’t use them often as they leave the person, empty of all joy and hope. All goodness. I suck out and power their darkest depths at the same time. The tendrils turn them into living buffets of dark energy. Conscience be damned.”

“Do they take a lot out of you?” Sam asked.

“Only if I don’t feed them when they’re pulled out. Like, just now.”

I could see regret and embarrassment cross Steve’s face and he immediately stuttered an apology.

I shook my head, “Its okay. I won’t do it again but at least now if I have to use them in the field you know what they are. I don’t wanna see any of you get hurt because of me.”

I woke the next morning later than usual, having sent a notification to Natasha i would miss our morning session. It was mid afternoon before I emerged from my cave. Dressed in black skinny jeans and a Blackcraft crop top, paired with my black and white converse, I felt confident and cute. I always took the extra time for self care after energy drains, otherwise I’d be a complete bitch. The sun was bright through the windows in the common area, Sam sat at the bar talking to his sister on FaceTime. Scott and Natasha were battling it out on Mario Kart for the last piece of coffee cake and Bucky, Bucky snuck up on me.

He grabbed my hips from behind and yelled my name and I screamed, loud. A burst of purple flared out of my body and I made myself as small as possible. The room clattered to a halt. Natasha booked it to me and pushed Bucky away.

Bucky was just as startled. His chest heaved as the purple mist seeped into his skin. He cold feel cold begin to work it’s way up his spine and he shivered.

“Nat, get Bucky out of here.” I growled. She nodded and began to push the solider from the room. He relented, planting his feet with a horrifying grin.

“I want her.” He snarled. Buckys eyes bore straight through me. The normal glassy seas were tormented by black and purple pulses as the poison sunk into him fully and worked its way through his body.

Natasha shook her head, “Not a chance, big boy. Time to go to your room.” She shoved at him again and Bucky chuckled. He grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm, Natasha grunted.

He muttered to her in Russian and threw her down. Bucky began to stride towards me. My heart raced in my chest as I scrambled backwards. This stride was so much like the one I saw that day when we jumped. My pussy clinched at the thought. He snatched a fistful of my hair and drug me up, pain shot through my skull as I struggled, “Walk.” Bucky shoved me forward and I moved. I wasn’t fighting him. Something in me was screaming at me not to. He marched me to his room, ignoring the screaming of Natasha for Steve to “come get his guard dog before he’s out down.”

His bedroom doors opened much too slowly and he shoved me inside. My palms were sweaty with anticipation and I felt the ache between my legs only grow.

“What. Did. You. Do. To. Me?” Bucky rasped.

“You really scared me. It was an accident. I swear. I would nev…”

“I said, what did you do to me? I won’t ask a third time, doll.”

“It’s like my tendrils but it’s way toned down. It’s like a sparkler compared to a full firework. It uh…enhances darker ambitions and lowers inhibitions.”

Buckys fists clenched tightly at his sides and he huffed.

“Are you okay, Bucky?” I asked timidly. I took a step towards him only for him to step back abruptly.

“Do you wanna know why I stay the fuck away from you?” He asked, not looking up, “it’s because if I don’t, I’m going to fuck that soft body through my mattress and yours. I’m going to ruin you and break you and fucking demolish every single piece of you. And then, I’m gonna stitch you back together and do it again. Forever. Like, my own little toy.”

Holy shit. My breath stopped. Bucky turned to me and tilted his head,

“Oh, doll…you want that don’t you?” He mocked me. Bucky stepped closer and snatched me, flipping me around crushing my back to his body. His metal fingertips bruised at my sides as he ground me into his crotch. His flesh hand wrapped around my throat and tightened. I felt his hard cock beneath his jeans and moaned.

Fuck. I was gonna cave. So hard.

He smirked against my neck and tightened his grip on my hip.

“My little, dirty girl. You want this. You’ve wanted this. Haven’t you?”

I nodded as best as I could beneath his hand.

“Ya know, we didn’t have girls like you back in the day. Not often. And I find, that all you cute, big tittied goth girls -learned that phrase recently - have these lovely Daddy issues. That’s my favorite. I like the little clothes, the black lips, the attitude. But, most of all, I love how fucking wrecked you look when someone finally puts you in your place.”

His metal hand creeped to my jeans button and popped it open, sliding down my zipper. Buckys fingers dug beneath my panties and he cupped my pussy. He growled, squeezing just a bit.

“And chubby girls, god, your pussies are so soft and always so wet. Fuck. I’m mad at myself for shooting down a couple of dames when I was in the army now. If I had known about this,” his fingers slid through my obscene wetness, “I would have said yes. Plus, you’re the best cuddling partners.”

I could be mad at him for half fetishizing my body type and telling me he had a “no fat chicks” rule previously, but people grow. And with his fingers circling my clit edging me closer to orgasm, I could certainly say he was growing on me. Bucky drug his fingers from between my trembling thighs and stuffed them in my mouth roughly. He loosened his grip off my neck and groaned. I felt his cock twitch against my ass.

“God, such a good girl.” He praised.

“Time to be a bad girl though, you think you can do that?”

Bucky asked, kissing my neck and sucking a mark onto the skin.

“Yes, Sir.” I replied, with a dazed smile.

[sally-mun]

I was about to ask a different question but then realized it would PROBABLY encroach on Brotherhood Spoilers (was going to ask how Chaos Knuckles would be handled but we'd need to see Dmitri first!), so instead of that, how is Time Travel handled in your setting? Is it all a straight line, or is it the split paths kinda thing where Silver's future and the Present Times aren't 100% guaranteed to be the same timeline, ala Future Trunks from DBZ?

(Honestly the Doctor's description there isn't far off.)

So I briefly touched on this in my post that explains the different kinds of chaos in general (which, if you haven't read that and are interested in how chaos energy functions in my stories, I definitely recommend), but I actually don't have too much more information to offer than what I originally wrote because we haven't utilized time travel so far in my RP. Currently the only times we've used white chaos has been to speed up/slow down/pause time, and Silver isn't a character we've included at this point. Basically what I'm getting at is, everything I'm about to say is more in-theory than actually established, because we've not had a story that forced me to do so.

ANYWAY, according to my current model, time travel can both be used in a linear, single timeline sense and (supposedly) a parallel/alternate timeline sense. The "singular timeline" would be how time travel functions in Sonic '06, wherein there is a single path to the past and a single path to the future and there are no splinters along the way, you either move forward or backwards, the end. However, I'm not confident it's that simple, either. Basically I'm a fan of both Back to the Future and The Infinity Saga and they each have arguments for how time travel works and both sound very logical to me and it's a lot for my tiny little mortal brain to handle.

This is probably among the reasons why I've never planned a storyline that actually uses it (minus a very silly little AU i used to intermittently engage in), because a story of this nature would require a LOT of pre-planning and you can only do that so much in a story that has open variables (aka an RP). Anyway the point I'm laboring towards is, I'm not sure if going into the past to change things will affect the future as the time traveler knows it; my days of DBZ and LoZ:OoT fandom train me to believe it moreso splits the timeline rather than necessarily rewriting it a la BttF, but even if that's the case I don't really know what determines WHICH future the time traveler then returns to or why. All I can say is that white chaos is a bitch and I haven't even approached having fully explored everything it can and can't do.

One other thing I mentioned in passing in the original chaos types post was that particular expertise with white chaos can allow the user to jump between timelines, but now that I'm neck-deep in this rabbit hole I'm wondering if I still mean what I originally meant back then. I think when I first wrote it I was thinking of "alternate timelines" the way Rick & Morty addresses it, but upon further reflection, the Sonicverse would translate that more as alternate zones. Maybe traveling "between timelines," then, is moreso the ability to aim for a specific branch of a zone's single timeline. I'M SORRY THIS IS PROBABLY GETTING CONFUSING BECAUSE I'M FIGURING THIS OUT AS I WRITE IT. Just bear with me here for a minute.

Okay, so here's the skinny: Typical usage of white chaos affects the pace at which time flows forward, aka the ability to speed up/slow down/pause, which is what we already see in canon and how it gets used in the RP presently. Advanced usage of white chaos is what allows for not only massive jumps forward in time, but also the ability to jump backwards as well. However, this can be very risky because it also requires you to be able to STEER. Think of time the way we think of the "tree of life" where every variation is simply another branch, and some of them will be small splinters aside with minor differences and some will be major deviations hosting a whole subset of changes of its own. So being ABLE to travel through time isn't enough; you also have to know where you're going, particularly if you're moving forward. Going backwards is easy because it'll necessarily drive you toward points in time that directly lead to the present you know, but trying to go forward again? There might be a whole mess of alternate futures that AREN'T the world you came from, so if you can't steer, you're going to get hella lost. Navigating forward properly, I imagine, requires an unfathomable level of precision and skill, with HUGE consequences if you fail.

This is most likely the reason why even well-learned chaos practitioners, even on the scale of characters like Mogul or the Ancient Walkers, DON'T fuck around with time travel. In the vast majority of situations, it's just simply not at all worth the risks. You don't really see people attempting a stunt like that unless the situation is as dire as Silver's, aka where the present is SO bad that pretty much ANY alternative would surely be better. But then, that's probably the real irony here: I don't think for a second that Silver was fully educated on how white chaos works before he started using it (I'm sure because there's nothing for him to learn FROM), because now that I've worked this out in more detail, the idea of trying to "change the past" sounds silly to me. You don't want to change the past so much as you want to navigate to an alternate future. No matter what you do in the past, your present is still going to exist as a branch on the time tree. The real trick would be to travel backwards in time, then forwards again using a different route. In that sense, I guess the Rick & Morty comparison from earlier still works; you can still get some vast differences within a single zone by viewing different outcomes of constantly branching time.

Of course, that then begs the question of what timeline you end up in anytime you do hop between zones, BUT that's another completely different rabbit hole and I am not at all prepared to fuck around with that today. I TOLD YOU WHITE CHAOS IS A BITCH. At this point I'm pretty much starting to talk myself into circles anyway, so it's probably more important that I stop. I hope that this, at some point, managed to answer your question, considering that I didn't really go back and edit this as my ideas kept changing. I mean yeah I could have, but eh, I figure maybe people will think it's interesting to see how I ended up here. If not... too late, you already read it, haha I win.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-5th Place

Up until now, I’ve been pretty iffy on which show went where on this list. However, from here on out, there is no doubt in my mind the ranking is almost perfect (or, at least, to me it is). 

Just keep in mind, this next pick isn’t as cute and innocent as it might look.

#5-Camp Camp (2016-)

The Plot: Camp Campbell is a place where kids can go to do anything! Like space camp, theater camp, art camp, magic camp, and also other magic camp! It’s a dream come true...except for a little rapscallion named Max, who was forced to go there by his crappy parents. With the help of his two new friends, Neil and Nikki, the three of them will make it their life's mission to make life a living hell for their two camp counselors. Or, at least, it’s their life’s mission until the end of the summer.

This is the first and only web series on this list, and it is made by the (in)famous production company called Rooster Teeth. And trust me when I say that Camp Camp is the best show Rooster Teeth created ever since they started working on Red vs. Blue. And I can think of a couple reasons why.

Reason number one is the show’s comedy. Just like Rick and Morty, Camp Camp relies on being absurd and dark to get a laugh out of audiences. However, there is one thing Camp Camp has that gives it an advantage: The fact that it’s a show on the internet. There’s a lot of jokes that writers are not allowed to get away with on television. But on the internet, it’s all free game, baby! You want to make jokes about Hitler and the holocaust? Go ahead. You want a young cis boy to ask when he’s going to get his period? Go ahead. You want four kids to get scarred for life after catching old people having sex? Go right the f**k ahead. Because this is the internet. A place that is impossible to make kid-friendly, no matter how hard certain websites try! (And in case you’re wondering: Yes, all of those examples I just listed are actual jokes within the show. So have fun.)

With the benefit of having little to no filter, Camp Camp’s sense of humor allows it to go further with its jokes while having competent enough writers knowing the definition of “too far.” Because believe it or not, there is a limit that this show has with how far it’ll take its humor, and rarely does it feel like it crosses it (and it’s usually Kerry Shawcross’ episodes that crosses the line, oddly enough). Now, as I’ve established in my Rick and Morty review, not everyone is going to find these types of jokes funny. But for the most part, I personally think Camp Camp is hilarious. In fact, out of a fifty-nine episode line up, there is a total of ONE episode that I felt was low on the laughs. And like most good comedies, the best jokes come from who’s saying them and not what's being said. People need to remember that humor comes from the characters. Otherwise, when the gag goes to the wrong cast member, you’ll end up having people respond with, “but that’s not what this character would do or say.” In fact, the only time when a joke falls short in the show is when the wrong character says what is already a funny line that’s just misplaced.

And seeing as how we’re already talking about the cast, now might be a great time to mention that Camp Camp has the best group of characters Rooster Teeth made since the first thirteen seasons of Red vs. Blue. Like I said with Rick and Morty, I prefer to have a series with a moderately large cast of characters, as it offers writers enough room to work with so the series doesn’t become stale. And boy, does this show have a lot to work with. Everybody starts off with a personality that’s simple and serves the purpose of making a joke. But as the Camp Camp goes on, the more that these personalities grow and the audience gets to learn more about them. Even characters who seem like they’re only useful for the same comedic bit eventually become more complex as the series progresses. The best example is Dolph, who starts off as a source for Hitler jokes. But in the episode “The Candy Kingpin," we see that he’s also a little kid who’s just lonely and naive...while also still being the source of Hilter jokes. Now, at a glance, it might seem like there are too many characters, and it can certainly feel like it at times. Luckily the writers are smart enough to know which characters need more focus and which ones can be used for comedy. For instance, Space Kid doesn’t seem that complex in the slightest, but he’s a source for comedy, so he doesn’t need to be. Besides, the writers can develop any characters it wants whenever they want to. Because if Max and David are of any indication, this show has the best character development in any Rooster Teeth series.

I’m not kidding when I say that the relationship between Max and David is the best thing about the series. They start off with a simple dynamic: David is the happy go lucky optimist who gets in the way of Max’s pessimistic schemes. There’s nothing too noteworthy at first, and the majority of the episodes are just Max screwing over David and David keeping Max in check. However, the showrunners found a way to make their relationship more intriguing with each season. (Kinda spoilers ahead) Not only does Max learn that David understands how rough life can be, but, realizes why David has the determination to stay optimistic in the first place. And once David learns why Max is so jaded, he begins to work with Max through a new angle. In fact, the second they’re both on even ground, the two of them stop working against each other and learn how to work with each other (kinda spoilers over). Now don’t get me wrong. David still gets on Max’s nerves and vice versa, but there’s still a small amount of respect shared between the two. This is what I loved about their dynamic: Their development isn't blatant, but it still exists. In Red vs. Blue, it feels like Tucker’s development seems to take a step backward and forwards with every other season. And in RWBY, it feels like Yang is a different character after experiencing a traumatic event. This is understandable given what happened to her. But seeing how her having a sense of humor, which is everything likable about her personality, left after this one moment, it can be a bit disappointing (especially since Yang seemed like a person who hid her trauma through comedy). As for Max and David, everything that is likable about their personalities is still there, only now seen through a different light. This may not seem that impressive, but considering how Rooster Teeth has handled character development in the past, it’s pretty great.

Here’s another thing that may not seem as impressive as it really is: The show’s animation. I am amazed at how this series manages to have a television-quality of effort. Now, that may not sound like a compliment, but considering that this is a web series, it’s pretty darn impressive. Most online animated shows barely stick to a weekly schedule and the ones that do only manage to have episodes lasting for 3-5 minutes. So, seeing as how Camp Camp can have 12-24 minute long episodes once a week AND still managing to look good is a testament to how far internet animation has come. There’s also a surprisingly large amount of detail added into the show. I’m not talking about the characters themselves, as they have pretty simple designs. What I am talking about are the little things that the animators added in. If you pay attention to the props, backgrounds, and even things they wrote in, you’ll notice a whole lot of things that would have flown over your head otherwise, such as great jokes, continuity nods, and even sublime foreshadowing when it comes to season three.

So as you can tell, there’s a lot to like about this series. So you’re wondering why it’s only #5. Well, my reasons are more pitiful if I’m being honest. You see, Camp Camp is aimed at adults, but it doesn’t feel like that at times. Like I said with my Final Space review, most writers think that for a series to be considered for adults, you have to use sex, drugs, violence, and cursing. Now, in all fairness, those aren’t really meant for kids. And understandably so. However, if you take all of that stuff out, then what’s stopping this show from becoming kid-friendly? Not a whole lot, especially since there’s a handful of episodes that have plots I’ve seen in other kids' shows (“Jermey Fartz,” “Eggs Benefits,” and “Night of the Living Ill,” to name a few). Personally, I believe that for a show to be for adults, it requires two things. One is to have writing that may seem boring to kids but interesting for adults. It's also important to have stories/plots that kids are not ready to fully understand yet. If you fail to do both, then there’s nothing stopping a twelve-year-old from watching your show and enjoying it just the same. And I should know because I was twelve when I started watching Rooster Teeth’s content in the first place.

Also (and this next complaint is less pitiful and more problematic), it's not good with how whitewashed the voice cast is. I get it. A voice is a voice, and the color of the actor's skin shouldn't matter...except that it does. Because if you're going to go the route of having a diverse cast of characters, then you might as well go all the way by having their voice actors be people of color as well. And don't get me wrong, these actors do a perfect job for their respective roles, both for the dramatic and comedic moments. But, as this series started coming out in 2016, long before current events, it still bothered me that a character like Nerris--

--was voiced by a woman like Barbara Dunkleman:

Yeah...That’s a big yikes.

So while it may not exactly be the best example of an adult series and definitely needs some recasting, Camp Camp is still one of the best shows in the 2010s. It has impressive animation for an online series, has hilarious comedy, and even better characters to enjoy. And seeing as how this is only #5, that can only mean that the shows can only get better from here.

(Side note, is it bad that two seasons of this show made me connect to the characters much better than the first six seasons of RWBY? Because I certainly think so.)