#(...oh who am I kidding I already knew that to some degree)

[knightyoomyoui]

[SMUT] TWICE x Male Reader - "One Of The Girls"

The final one-shot of my TWICE smut anthology book is here. I think this might disappoint for some readers here because yall might be expecting it to be long, but I made it as simpler and unique as I can be because I don’t think I’ll be able to write a Part 2 of this anymore due to my lack of interest of writing smuts. Thank you once again for atleast giving a try on reading my smut one-shots even though I’m not really expert at writing mature stuffs. Still, I hope this might come into your liking. WARNING: contains smut, R+18, mature and sexual content TAGS: fuckfest, friends with benefits, eighteensome (with a bit of threesome and foursome), harem, pairing, messy sex, anal, rough sex, blowjob, lots of sex positions, futuristic, clones, advanced technology etc. WORD COUNT: 5,500

You are currently hosting your own celebratory party with your only circle of friends in college. There’s a total of 10 people present around your house, which is the preferred location that was voted for by the majority since yours is the most spacious among them. Around your living room are Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu, and you as the only guy in your squad.

Table occupied with bunches of snacks and empty cans of beer, some of the girls are nearing passing out from their drunken state, except the others, like Nayeon, Jeongyeon, and Jihyo, who have a high alcohol tolerance, went on to continue chatting with you since they wanted to cherish this moment being complete together.

It’s been months since you’ve last seen them after getting graduated from college. Each went on to grab the degree of the profession they have chosen, and that brought them to achieve their dream job that effectively supports them even more in their personal life.

You were the one who initiated to invite all of them when few days ago, you unexpectedly encountered Jihyo in the grocery store and sulked about when will be there a time where all 10 of you will go hangout together again just like good old times. Since Jihyo is the one that all of you have been calling the “mother” of the group, you took note of her suggestion.

As you went home, chat app open, revisit your group chat with them, and send the invitation, which led you all in this predicament.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.” Jihyo said as she looked at your window, waterdrops scattering as it disperses down through its surface. 

“We should’ve went home already after they passed out.” Jeongyeon said as she emptied her can of beer and peek at Momo and Chaeyoung sleeping both on her sides.

“Yeah, we got caught now by the rain outside. Nice.” Nayeon slumped her back on the couch. “Ahhh I hate it when I go home wet.” 

“Should we wake everyone up?” Jeongyeon asked.

Jihyo shook her head. “Maybe not yet, I don’t want to disturb their sleep just to get haggard going outside.” She said while stroking the wavy hair of sleeping Mina on her right.

“I think it’s much better if you guys should stay here.” You suggested. “You guys still have work, I don’t want to risk you all getting sick and take an absence.”

“Are you sure about it, YN?” Jeongyeon asked, lifting her brows in surprise. “Are we not gonna be a hindrance here around your house, I mean… we did put a mess already here but-”

“Nah, I’m positive. And I knew where you’re going at your words, Jeong. I’ll help you clean the place up tomorrow.” You smiled at her.

“Nice. Thanks for this, YN!” Jeongyeon high fives with you.

“Well that’s even better. I’m starting to like your place too anyway.” Jihyo joked as she looked around the interior of the house. “I mean, what do expect from our architect, am I right.” She smirked as you chuckled at her teasing.

“Aww, as expected, such a caring and thoughtful deed from our daddy~” Nayeon quickly cuddled your arm, much to your shock. You froze at your place, and Jeongyeon and Jihyo stopped laughing as their smile fades away with their eyes slowly stared towards the already drunk bunny that they thought was still with them.

“Uhm…” 

“Did we heard it right?”

“N-Nayeon, what did you just call YN here?”

“My daddy YN~” Nayeon said as she rubs her face in your biceps. “He’s the only man in our group and he takes care of us, does that make her our daddy?” She raised her head and smiled at you with her and shiny teeth.

“How did you… just end up randomly calling him like that?” Jeongyeon stiffles her laugh while perturbedly questioning Nayeon’s weird behavior.

“I mean, she has a point though, you are the patriarch, the one who formed our group anyway. You found us, YN.” Jihyo shrugged her shoulders. “But cmon, unnie. There’s no need to call him like that.”

“I don’t care. I love to call him that always, besides…” Nayeon’s stare went strangely different, eyeing you with an unspeakable aura clouding through her pupils. Her hand planted on your chest and rubbed it gently, smelling your scent from your shirt. “Daddy’s has been looking such a very hottie these days compared back then, that’s why he’s just simply deserves to be called with it. Besides, you love to hear that too from one of your girls, right~?”

“N-Nayeon…” 

Her movements are like a choke hold on you, making it difficult for you to talk normally. You are stammering when you speak. Gazing at Jeongyeon and Jihyo, you saw that they were merely observing Nayeon as she moved her hands around you. Their gaze shifted to you, and all of a sudden, even theirs felt a little awkward.

To your astonishment, Nayeon gently caressed your face and turned it toward her, planting a soft kiss on your lips. When you felt Nayeon's lips start to move more around your mouth and extend an invitation for a passionate duel, your eyes opened and your body gradually melted.

Hearing some gulps from nearby, it was coming from Jeongyeon and Jihyo drinking more beer that was left from the table. Their breaths became heavy as they continued to observe Nayeon doing these things to you.

You never crossed your mind that Nayeon would do this to you someday, just like right now, but it is undoubtedly true that she is deadly gorgeous, and to share this kind of intimacy with someone like her, consider yourself to be the luckiest guy in the world.

Speaking of being lucky, it looks like you’re about to experience another once-in-a lifetime moment and something that will forever change your relationship with the girls when you hear Jeongyeon moan as Jihyo starts to grope her breast. 

Your hand rest on Nayeon’s hand and continued to mash your lips against her, syncing her movements along to make your kiss even more sultry. As you remove first from her face, you stared at her and looked at Jeongyeon who is now also massaging her other breast to join Jihyo playing on her body.

“Are you girls sure wanna do this?”

“I’d like to give it a try. We haven’t done this before, and it pretty much looks very interesting, especially looking at our r Jeongie here enjoying my touch here like never before.” Jihyo smirks.

“How about you, Jeong?”

“Quit asking, let’s stay here for the night and have more fun.” Jeongyeon said, huffing one more time before she tilts her head and captures Jihyo’s face for a kiss of her own too.

“I knew they will follow us.” Nayeon said as she satisfyingly watched her friends going out at each other. “I pretty much knew how their hormones can get intense, and now that you are our only man around here, will you like to accompany us to it?”

“Oh whenever you want, Nayeon.”

You pulled the hem of Nayeon’s shirt upward, revealing her baby blue silk bra that perfectly hugs her average-sized boobs. You gnawed at the crook of her neck; she gasped at how ticklish and warm your breath hit her sensitive spot. While doing so, your hand squeezed along the soft skin of her arms, feeling its smoothness.

Locating the lock on her bra from her back, you unhooked it and removed the garment from her. Setting yourself apart from Nayeon, you have found the first glimpse of Nayeon’s bare top, her breasts proudly presented to you and ready to be devoured.

You placed your palms on top of her tits, squishing them as Nayeon invited you again for another kiss. Jeongyeon and Jihyo are still colliding in each other's bodies. As you checked on them, you have found that Jeongyeon is now stripping off Jihyo’s skirt as she also gets rid of her shirt, exposing her black bra that traces the width of her wide, flawless back.

Lifting Nayeon off the couch and leaving Dahyun and Tzuyu on your spot, you gently placed Nayeon on your carpet. Now being on top of her, you undid her jeans and saw her matching pants tucked securely on her rosy petals. Running your hands through her legs, you found her waistband, taking them off and giving her pants a lustful inhale before looking at the now fully naked Nayeon laying for you.

You kissed her again, with one hand caressing her cheek and another returning to nuzzle with her left breast. You heard a loud whimper coming from Jihyo, who is now being eaten by Jeongyeon as her head is between her legs, sitting on the carpet in front of her.

With your clothes and jogging pants now gone too, all 3 women went on to watch you loosen your boxers, and there they had to see your erected cock for the first time, increasing their sexual desires that had them craving the taste of your meat.

Jihyo’s moans went constantly seductive the more she stares at your cock while her pussy is getting pleasured by Jeongyeon who is now fingering her own pussy also. Nayeon who is even more aroused, gripped your cock to give it a pump, eliciting a gasp on your mouth.

“My god, YN. After all these years, I couldn’t believe we were almost impossible to release this beast begging to be let out and gain some attention. We could’ve helped you with it after all these years.” Nayeon said as she watched her huge hands exquisitely covering the length of your cock.

“You girls never asked though. Well now, you girls can have it anytime you want. Atleast unlike before, every single one of you has a chance to take this all for yourselves.” You said confidently.

“And I will enjoy every single bit of it.” Nayeon bit her lip before she gave you a trusting nod, signaling you to enter her virgin cavern. She flinched and rolled her eyes back as she felt every inch of you entering her pussycat.

Now buried deep inside of her, you subtly fucked Nayeon into a missionary position. Your arms rested on each side of Nayeon’s head to give you stability. She was holding onto it at first until she decided to support you in continuing to fuck her harder by roving her hands around your toned torso and back and licking your nipples.

Meanwhile, Jihyo has just finished squirting on Jeongyeon’s face, licking off the juices that she caught before scooping some and letting Jihyo have a taste of it, sucking Jeongyeon’s fingers lewdly. After that, they changed positions, wherein Jihyo is now paying attention to Jeongyeon’s fat pussy while groping her heaving tits.

Back to your state, your pace went faster, creating loud claps of your crotch and her ass contacting with each pound. Nayeon’s moan and frantic noises go fast as she watches you pour your efforts into dominating her. 

"Ughhh, yesss, keep it like that, Daddy. Fuck me, fuck your one and only bunnyhop with your gigantic carrot.”

Your groans intensified until you felt a sudden surge of tightness in your stomach. Unleashing the last remaining forces you need to snatch that climax, you finally pushed into her very deep, and Nayeon felt some gooey substance flowing inside her walls.

As you remove yourself from her, you observe Nayeon breathing erratically with her pussy overflowing with your cum. You wiped the cream off your cock through her thigh before moving on to Jihyo and Jeongyeon who are still having their own fun together.

But just as you were about to reach them, you were prevented by a grip from someone on your back, holding your wrist, stopping you in your tracks that made you to only watch Jeongyeon squirt into Jihyo. You rotated your body and found Tzuyu looking up at you mischievously. 

Additionally, you discovered Dahyun slowly opening her eyes as Chaeyoung, Momo, Sana, and Mina all find themselves staring at your cock with fascination as they watch the embarrassed pair perform an amorous act.

“Do you guys really think we would let ourselves be left alone?” Sana said as her action encouraged the rest of the girls to strip off their clothes, presenting their bodies only in their ravishing set of bra and panties with different colors, tempting you to get hornier at the sight of their sexy bodies all prepared to be claimed by yours.

They formed a devious smirk and lick from their lips as they saw your hardened cock twitch. “Aww looks like our YN here is liking what he’s seeing right now.” Momo said as she knelt beside you and stared at your thick shaft all fired up to invade their pussies one by one…

… but you have thought of an idea to make things faster, easier…and unique.

“Wait, girls. Alright, I know all of you want to join but… I can’t do this for now with just only me taking you all each turn.” You said to them.

“So… lemme grab something from my room  real quick and come back here to show it.” You ran away from them and dug through your items until you have found what you are looking for.

Returning to the living room, you even adore the view more as you noticed that all of them are now naked, presenting you the contrast of their sizes and shape of their wonders but that doesn’t matter to you. You knew that all of them has one similarity and that is they all look breathtaking and fuckable tonight.

“What’s that, YN?” Chaeyoung asked as she looks at your hand holding a circular device.

“It’s a cloning device made by my brother who is an expert in robotics. He gave me this as a gift because I once shared to him that I feel bad sometimes that Alpha, my pet dog… I always left him here in the house alone.” You said as you looked around at its design, juggling it in your hands. 

“So he gave me this as a solution. Well basically as like what I’ve said… it’s a cloning device, which means I can create an artificial clone version of myself. He instructed me to use it as my replacement whenever I left the house for work, so that Alpha can still have me… but the other and fake “me” to still be his guardian. I can even use it to do some other errands while I’m away.”

They all are impressed at its purpose and quality. “Can I ask, YN? Is the clone you produce can touch something? I’m thinking that it may just be a hologram, so what if you have to feed your dog or bathe him while you’re out?”

“Oh, don’t worry. My clones can have a contact with anything around here. I’m not that much of an expert that’s why I can’t explain why but my brother probably inputted some system in this advance technology that doesn’t only shape my clones into a complete holographic-illusion type of figure.”

“A question also, uhm… does it only have a limited time to use?” asked Mina.

“Yup, it can only be set for a day if I’m only using it for one clone… but for multiple…”

“Wait, so you can also switch it to any number of clones of your choosing?”

“Yeah, but it’s only up to ten. So probably I can use it for like an hour and half or something since like I said, the more I activate a clone, the shorter the time I can only use it.” You said, until your lips form a sly smirk as you gave them a glance. “Which is why I want to use this for tonight…”

They all looked at each other until Jeongyeon understood what you are talking about, her cheeks blushed and eyes largened at the idea you have in your mind. “Oh this night just got even more chaotic.”

“... and make eight clones of myself so that instead of having you girls by turn, I can have all of you AT THE SAME TIME. Sounds good?” 

“Actually, that is brilliant. Atleast, we don’t have to wait for YN and… we can have him as our partner by pair.” Tzuyu applauded your idea.

“Wait, is it gonna work like… this is the first time you’re gonna use it on having sex, do you think it’s gonna function the same thing as what a real human like you can do?” Dahyun asked. “Like… can it even cum as you?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” You shrugged. Pressing the button of the device, you laid it on the floor and stood straight in front of it. The device scanned you from head to toe and set the number of clones to 8. It beeped repeatedly until to all of your amazement, you witnessed the device spawn a naked clone of you one by one until it reaches the necessary number.

The clones all look at you as if they are asking for your command. You felt something strange in your head, as if there’s a bunch of signals awaiting for your memory core to generate a thought that will be transported into the other end.

“Let’s continue where we left off.” You tried to use the ability you have just unveiled. You looked at your clones and then at the girls except Jeongyeon, and developed a thought in your head that commands them to have sex with the girls of their choosing.

All of your clones went on to approach the girls they have chosen. Since you don’t have any names to call them, you labeled them rather as your clone number based from the age order of the girls in which they partnered theirselves together. 

“Hi Jeong, looks like its you and I now.” You said to Jeongyeon who was left standing alone as the girls are now intimately engaging with your clones.

“Oh, so that’s why I was wondering why I didn’t get picked.” She scratched the back of her head, feeling embarassed at her dumbness. “Well, I like it much better that I get to have the real package right here.” 

She reached for your limp cock and gave it a few introductory pumps with her reversed hand. You kissed her while squeezing her ass from behind. Teasing her asshole, you inserted your index finger in it and fucked her slowly.

Her gasp enabled you to invade her mouth and swirl your tongue around inside. After licking her taste buds, you let Jeongyeon kneel before you and worship your cock in her own initiation.

As you looked around you, you were astounded that the girls also copied Jeongyeon; they knelt under your clones and checked if they could have contact with their artificial cock. Momo woah-ed aloud as she, along with the girls, confirmed that they can even touch their dicks too.

Jeongyeon chuckled and shook her head as she saw her friends enjoying your clones’ cocks for themselves. She slapped your abs to lure your attention back to her, and there she eyed you lustfully as she wiggled your now reawakened cock on her fist, slapping it on her cheeks before licking the underside of your shaft.

She ran her tongue through your length and traced the veins of your cock before slurping your mushroom head. She lifted your cock away to gain access at your hanging balls, not wanting them to be left out. She coated them with her saliva as she massaged the other one with care.

Back at your cock, she then proceeded to suck and gave you another blowjob of greatness that you will ever be thankful for your life. You patted Jeongyeon’s head as she dugs her face deep until she reaches your abdomen, giving you a deepthroat that is even par from her limit, but she still did her best to make you feel good as possible. “So big and thick… hope you don’t mind that I will always beg for this from now on, YN”, she said as she jerked it while grinning devilishly at you. “Good, because I don’t even know if I’ll get enough of your body too, Jeong.” You said as you grab a bundle of her hair and use it as your handle while she blows you hard once more. “Yes, continue to move that little mouth of yours. Show me how much you love my cock.”

The girls were now giving your clones their own style and direction of blowjob in which also lets out the satisfied feeling from them. Getting more aroused at the work Jeongyeon has been doing at your meat, you humped your hips and facefucked Jeongyeon until you blew your load, filling her mouth with your warm cum before you slip away.

Jeongyeon swallowed it all like a good girl and wiped off the remnants around her lips. After she presented her empty and clean tongue without any signs of your seed, you also found out that the girls each had the surprise on their face when they also felt some cum poured through their mouth and staining their face.

“Wait, so they can also feel what you feel?” Jeongyeon commented the same thing as you have discovered.

“Same as what I’m thinking.” 

“Heh, you’re the best, YN.” Jeongyeon shook her head and kissed you on the cheek before she pulled your arm to set yourselves up for a sex position. You also mentally commanded your clones to fuck the girls in any position they want.

She went close to Jihyo who is now being fucked by your clone in a sitting faceoff at the side of the couch. Jeongyeon spreaded her leg for you and invited you to come closer, standing between her and stick your cock at her pussy, which was very tight that sent chills in your skin. You savored banging Jeongyeon very deep that had her moaning uncontrollably at your massive length poking her womb.

Being too noisy, Jihyo teased her bestfriend by voluntarily stretching her body aside so that she can pull Jeongyeon’s head and forcefully have her suck her right tits with your clone who is playing on her left one. Jeongyeon continued to hum around Jihyo’s nipple as you went back and forth faster through her pussy.

You peppered kisses through Jeongyeon’s thick thighs and some sneaky squeezes on her butt until you felt your climax about to greet you again. Rapidly drilling her walls, you sent Jeongyeon into her world of ecstasy by filling her insides with your cum which led also to your clone to fire stream of its own load to Jihyo including the rest of the girls.

While you were busy with indulging Jeongyeon, Momo was being fucked by your second clone in a cowgirl, taking one of your couches all by themselves.

Sana and your third cousin are doing 69 beside the table. Her face has been painted white after she pointed the tip into her to empty the remaining area for some facials. Your clone also received the same treatment; his face got flooded with Sana’s love juices.

Mina is being ravaged by your fifth clone in a doggy-style way at the kitchen counter, her ass being roughly pounded with a thick cock while her pussycat is being sucked by Nayeon, who is being taken by her own clone of yours on the floor.

Dahyun is on the edge of the couch, getting piledrivered by your sixth clone as her body is positioned upside down, her feet being used as a handle while the back of your clone leans at the end of the couch for additional support.

Chaeyoung is on the front of the TV with her clone of yours, watching her reflection on the screen as she gets manhandled from behind, her body submitting from the full nelson demolition that is being applied on her own session of sensation.

Tzuyu is doing the same thing as Chaeyoung, but it's not her reflection she’s watching. She’s viewing the rainy atmosphere outside the streets of Seoul just to distract herself from getting penetrated by your clone in a one-legged standing. Her body is paralled with his body, and she kisses him to let your clone know that he’s doing a good job, filling her up to the brim.

As they all received your warm present oozing underneath between their legs, they decided with you to go on for one last round before wrapping up this party that became a sex-filled, erotic occasion.

You went on to find Jihyo, who has now abandoned by your clone on the couch, after you mentally commanded him to go after Jeongyeon next. Jihyo looked up at you and gave you a soft smile, to which you also returned the gesture.

To ride off her exhaustion, you sat beside her and took her tits all by yourself. You were definitely pretending to yourself if you were denying that Jihyo’s enormous mommy milkers aren’t distracting you whenever they look very evident and alluring at her clothes that felt too tight or revealing. 

It’s not because you are simply a pervert; being quite an introvert, you just don’t know exactly what to do to completely avoid it.

Now that you have her nice pair of bosoms resting neatly below her chest, it would be disrespectful of you to just continue ignoring such a pretty and sexy lady like her, especially if you are now free to have her for your own satisfaction as much as she has for you.

Without any further ado, you feasted a lot with her tits, kneading each of their softness and weighing them on your palm before you dipped your salivating mouth into her caramelized nipples and areolas.

Jihyo is just there, whimpering and sighing heavily at your mouth, marking her precious assets. She combs your hair like a good baby boy sucking off her mommy’s milk.

As you removed your face from her breasts, you stood in front of her and went on with another idea you had in store for her.

Presenting your engorged cock once again, you used her breasts to place it between them and sandwich it around your shaft before allowing you to titfuck Jihyo.

Jihyo lowered her head and spit on your cock as she attempted to catch your head with her tongue, giving it a few licks while you went forward. You didn’t go on for too long on going after her breasts because it's not only that who has to be recognized on. Her entire body should be praised for a goddess like her.

Now contented with the feeling of your cock passing through the deep valley of her cleavage, you pulled Jihyo with you and replaced her on the couch. You instructed her to climb on your lap, in which she sat down, gripping your cock and tucking it to her pussy.

“Ahh! Fuck me, augh yes just like what I imagined when I first had a look at your cock.” Jihyo said as she slightly twerked her plump ass.

You catched her waist and suddenly slammed her down as you made her furiously bouncing on your lap. “Shit, fuck you like that huh? You like getting hammered by my big cock don’t you, Jihyo?”

“Yes yes! YN go faster please!”

“Scream for me! Let everyone in this room know that no one can match my cock for your tight pussy!” You slapped Jihyo in the face and spanked her ass as you roared at her.

“G-GIRLS! O-OH GOD… OH MY GOD UGH YESSSSS!! FUCK, H-HE’S THE BEST AT THIS… I WON’T FIND ANYONE THAN YOU, YN! I JUST WANT YOUR COCK, NOT EVERYONE ELSES”  You pushed her closer to you and mashed your face at her tits as you rammed her like a madman.

You are fucking Jihyo so intensely that your groans of pleasure isn’t enough yet to let Jihyo know that she and the rest of the girls will get to experience whatever limits of sex they can reach just so they can feel like they’re locked up in heaven.

Sliding her ass out more, Jihyo became confused on why did you paused after the horrific speed you just gave on her. Her answer came shortly as she felt another cock getting inserted in her another hole.

Jihyo screamed in both pain and pleasure as she is now getting double penetrated by you and your clone. While you continued to suck her bouncing tits, Jihyo looks around to check what the other girls are also receiving at the moment.

On her front view, there’s Nayeon and her clone having tabletop sex at the kitchen counter. Sana is giggling and and moaning at the same time with her shaky voice as she is bouncing up and down beneath your clone’s cock at the stairs in a reverse cowgirl. Mina is having her pussy being eaten by Dahyun whose front frame and breasts are pressed on the floor while her ass is being fucked in a flatiron position.

On her back there goes the scene where Jeongyeon is bent in half like a seashell by your clone while having her tits sucked, Momo getting some spooning treatment, her tits swaying at every thrusts she receives, Chaeyoung moaning for mercy as she gets hogged by your clone in an upstanding citizen, carrying her small frame while having her limbs floating in the air due to getting hooked around in her legs.

Lastly, Tzuyu continues to admire the night view of Seoul through the windows while his clone is pistoning her pussy in a stand and deliver.

“I- I can’t take it anymore, I- I’m going to let it out, YN!”

“I’m getting close too, Jihyo…”

“Perfect fucking timing. Let’s end together.” Jihyo said as is staring dangerously at you before she reached your face for one more kiss. 

You and your clone plowed Jihyo to the brink of fulfillment as a few more strokes and rough collisions of your skin slapping together took yourselves into orgasm. Jihyo shouts lewdly as she feels streams of her slimy nectar squirt around your cock while it pulsates the last set of your pearly cum straight through her cunt.

The room resonated with synchronized screams, moans, and curses as everybody embraced their climax. You quickly grabbed your device and switched it off, making your clones disappear in an instant.

You sat beside Jihyo, who is now knocked off after having her energy spent just like the rest of the girls with you. The room smells like sex, with cum overflowing from their gaping holes and puddles of crystal liquid all over the floor. Bodies slumped and scattered everywhere around the house.

But then in some of their surprise, they noticed that the cum that came out from your clones disappeared next, making their snatch feel a bit lighter now than earlier, except for the trio Nayeon, Jeongyeon, and Jihyo.

“I guess those are also artificial and temporary just like them.” Jeongyeon said as she looked at the  evidences that gone missing.

“But not for us.” Nayeon smiled proudly and scooped some of your cum flowing on her thigh with her fingers, tasting it again.

“Ehhh that’s unfair!” Sana pouted as she looked at Nayeon, Jeongyeon and Jihyo with jealousy.

“You better give us next time, YN.” Momo challenged you.

“Yeah… I will, because for now I can’t do it anymore.” You laid down on the couch, and Jihyo helped you get some pillow. “I’m so goddamn exhausted.”

“Maybe that’s why the clones can feel what you feel and think what you think, because they are connected on your brain.” Jihyo said. “And since you mutiplied them, that goes the same with its effects to you.” 

“How ironic. I still felt like I had sex with you guys all by myself.” You panted. “You girls can sleep on my bed. Jeongyeon, remember to clean with me okay?”

“Yup. I know. Goodnight, girls.” Jeongyeon stood up on the floor. She also helped the girls to get up before they went towards you and sent a kiss to your cheek.

“Thanks for a hell of a time, YN. Goodnight.” Jihyo gave the last kiss and patted your chest before she left you sleeping on the couch. Few days later, you lived up to your words, You invited again the second batch consisting of MISAMO: Mina, Sana, and Momo and the School Meal Club trio Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu to finish what you started, a hot, wild, and exhausting hours of sex with all six of them. Thankfully, with the help of some expensive and strong viagra that Nayeon recommended for you to use, you were able to survive servicing these beauties, thrusting and spurting each one with a large amount of your irreplaceable cum within the depths of their pussy from dusk ‘til dawn.

[georgeclarkewifey]

Inconvenience | g. clarke

Chapter 5 - The Bach and Arthur Podcast

Summary: Noa spills all in an eventful episode of her favourite podcast

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: swearing (I think that’s all of them? lmk if you think there should be more xxx)

noamurphy

liked by arthurtv, italianbach and 18,938 others

noamurphy Issac wouldn’t smile for the photo :(

but hey, catch me on the Bach and Arthur podcast where I talk about literally anything and everything (sorry Chris)

Comments open

italianbach i look so cool

chrismd10 what do you mean sorry Chris??

⮑ noamurphy guess you’ll have to watch and find out ;)

⮑ chrismd10 Noa…

⮑ noamurphy Christopher…

arthurtv best episode yet id say

⮑ noamurphy yeah bc I was there

⮑ maxbalegde useless hotline when??

⮑ noamurphy 👀

⮑ fan NOA WHAT DOES THIS MEAN????

fan1 the silence from George is LOUD

⮑ fan2 yes!!! Bc why is the entire uk yt scene following her except for him???

⮑ fan3 speculation 👏 means 👏 nothing 👏

⮑ noamurphy fan3 speaking facts

gkbarry_ everyone prepared to get jealous bc I’m meeting her tomorrow

⮑ noamurphy giggling and kicking my feet like a child

⮑ arthurhill can confirm this

⮑ taliamar can I come 🥺👉👈

⮑ gkbarry_ noamurphy odds on making it a London girlies meet up?

⮑ noamurphy let’s do it x

⮑ gkbarry_ freyanightingale consider yourself invited

⮑fan4 this meet up is going to be legendary

“Welcome back to the Bach and Arthur Podcast, where we have a very special guest, please welcome the very cool Noa Murphy!” Arthur introduced, grinning as Noa moved onto the set.

She sat opposite Arthur and Issac, relaxing into the plush sofa. “Hello hello, thanks for having me.”

“You’re very welcome, to be honest I’ve wanted you to come on ever since you moved.” Arthur said.

“What can I say, I’ve got some great stories to tell of our childhood in Jersey.”

“Please tell me you have embarrassing child Arthur stories.” Isaac begged, adjusting the microphone in front of him.

“Oh of course I do.” She replied, grinning mischievously at Arthur, who closed his eyes.

“How am I regretting having you on already?” Arthur asked.

“Maybe you should give yourself a small introduction, so those who are watching who may not know who you are?” Isaac suggested.

Noa nodded, and waved at the camera. “Hi! I’m Noa, I grew up in Jersey with Arthur, and the even more famous Chrismd, and I’m currently working as an architect.”

“God you’re instantly cooler than all of us.” Isaac replied, glancing at Arthur and shaking his head.

“I mean I’ve got a law degree-“

“But you’re not an actual lawyer.”

“But I trained-“

“But you quit two months in.”

Arthur sighed. “Fine.”

“So, growing up in Jersey? What was it like?”

Noa smiled fondly, leaning back in the chair. “Even though it was small, I did really enjoy my childhood ya know? There’s been times where I’ve thought I was a bit hard done by, like missing out on being near London, and all the cool stuff there, but at the same time, as a kid who was fond of the outdoors, being able to run around in fields for hours on end was really good for me.”

“All fine until you encounter a bull.” Arthur added, grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

“I’m sensing a story…” Isaac said, leaning closer to the mic with a smile.

Noa rolled her eyes playfully and looked at Arthur. “Shall I tell the story or do you want to?”

“You’re the guest, all yours.”

Swiping a few stray hairs away from her eyes, Noa smiled fondly and set about telling the story. “So, next to the roads where Arthur, Chris and I lived, there were loads of farmers fields - some had crops in, but the majority of them were grazing pastures for cows.”

“Jersey cows, one of the main things we’re known for.”

“Exactly. And so as kids, we’d run around these fields whenever they were empty, which would be a couple of weeks to a month on rotation. The farmer knew we did this, he didn’t really care so long as we weren’t in with the cows.” Noa said, exchanging knowing smiles with Arthur.

“So one summer, I think I was about 12? So Arthur and Chris were 15,16 maybe, and we’re running around these as we do, with the other kids in the neighbourhood. And it’s getting late, so before we go home, what we would do is we’d go up to the fence within the field, to try and feed the cows, Arthur even had a favourite.”

“He what?”

“Oh my god, Moovis! How could I forget about her!”

“You named a cow, Moovis?” Isaac asked, slowly turning to look at Arthur.

He shrugged. “She was cute, and she liked me, so I thought why not?”

“So we went up to this fence as usual, but for some reason the herd wasn’t in the adjacent field, which we all thought was weird, so we decided to investigate.”

“Hindsight shows that we should never have done that.”

“So we all climb over into this field, and start exploring. I think we got about halfway across when we realised why there weren’t any cows in that field.”

“I’m really scared about what’s going to happen next.”

“There were bulls. No cows because there were about five bulls in the field.”

“Honestly, it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.” Arthur insisted, nodding furiously. “The fear that went through me was insane. I think I’m still apprehensive to go in fields with cows now after this.”

“So we then have to get out, but we’re trying to creep backwards in the hope that they haven’t seen us, and that we can escape without dying.”

“I’m guessing that something went wrong?” Isaac asked.

“So as we’re backing it towards the fence, this fucking massive bull spots Chris, who’s wearing his bright red Arsenal shirt, and does the normal thing and starts charging. Which prompts the rest of them to start charging us. So, we are all scared to death, sprinting for our lives - I’m pretty sure Kelly, Chris’ sister and Chris were both holding my hands and dragging me along, because eleven year old me could hardly keep up.”

“That sounds deeply traumatic.”

“Trust me, it was.” Arthur said, looking a little pale.

“Then as we get to the fence, I reckon they were about ten metres behind, so we throw ourselves over, and as we tumble over, poor Chris landed headfirst into a cowpat.”

Isaac’s jaw dropped, and slowly formed into a grin as he looked between Noa and Arthur. “You’re kidding.”

“She isn’t.” Arthur confirmed, biting his lip in an attempt to grin too much. “He then started screaming about how he had cow shit in his hair and all over his face.”

“So we did the sympathetic thing and laughed at him, because we were all so high on adrenaline and were just happy to be alive.”

“That might just be the best story that’s been told on the podcast yet.”

“I think I have to agree, poor little ChrisMD.”

“He complained the entire way back, and then to make it even better, we had to hose him down, because his mum didn’t want him coming inside with shit covered hair.” Noa added, grinning. “He stank for a couple of days though, he had to play Sunday league smelling like a cow’s arse.”

————————————•————————————

“So, Noa - the question everyone wants us to ask, are you ever going to do content creation?” Isaac asked, glancing over to Noa, who was happily curled up in the chair, cupping a fresh mug of hot chocolate.

She sighed. “It’s a complicated thing - I’ve obviously got my regular job, to which I am very happy in - my project is going well, which is always a plus.”

“For those who don’t know Noa is a really cool architect.”

“Arthur is exaggerating, I’ve just started at my dream firm and this is my first proper project.”

“But you’ve got a Masters degree, yeah?”

Noa nodded, rolling her eyes at Arthur. “Yes. Distinction in Modern Architecture with a Special Specialisation in Greco-Roman Architecture, is the full title I believe.”

“And it’s from Cambridge.”

“And that.”

“So, vlogging, TikTok? Are we going to see you there in the future?” Isaac questioned, trying to steer the conversation back onto the right track.”

“Right, yeah. I have considered it definitely, seeing as nearly everyone I know is a creator. But I’ve really considered the pros and cons, the biggest factor being that I don’t know how to edit, and I don’t really have it in my budget right now to pay an editor.”

“But if you found something that you were good at would you?” Arthur pressed, exchanging a glance with Isaac. “Because we must admit, we both think you’d make really good kinda micro-vlogs, or just really minimalistic ones.”

“Yeah, like they’re only like, ten, fifteen minutes long and it’s just your entire week, and it’s just you doing your normal routine.”

Noa raised her eyebrows. “You guys genuinely think that people would watch that?”

“Hell yeah! Even if there’s hardly any voice over, and you kinda just have some gentle music over your soft footage almost?” Arthur suggested.

“I mean, I’ll consider it. If people would genuinely watch it then yeah, I would probably start doing something like that.”

“You’d want it to be manageable.”

“Oh for sure, because it’s got to come after my job, and I’d also feel a bit weird if I become that one coworker that does YouTube or TikTok.”

“I mean, that was me. And I was working at a law firm.” Arthur added, trying to convince Noa more.

“Well on that subject, how did you get into architecture? Was it something you were always into?”

Arthur gave Isaac a slightly panicked look - this wasn’t something they had planned to talk about. He glanced at Noa, who didn’t seem too phased about the question.

“I mean, kind of? It was my special interest as a kid, aside from other things, and it was always fostered whenever we’d go on family trips to literally anywhere, because I’d just be walking round a city staring at all the buildings. That’s also how I was nearly run over by a bike as a child.”

“Stepped into the road without looking?”

“Indeed I did. Always look where you’re going kids.” Noa said, pointing down the camera lens that was focused on her. “So yeah, when I was applying for uni I knew that it was what I wanted to do.”

“That’s pretty cool. Would you ever design a house for one of us? You know, if we paid you enough?” Isaac questioned jokingly, raising an eyebrow at her.

Noa huffed, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “Maybe? It would have to fit the style of what I enjoy designing, but maybe.”

“You hear that Sidemen? You want a new house, get Noa to design it.”

author speaks: hello! I’m back! Sorry for the break in updates, moving out of uni took a lot of my time, therefore hardly any time to write :(

but I’m back now, so we vibin 😎

[applejuicefruit]

Can you write about being pregnant with Kylian’s baby and him telling you that you couldn’t have this kid right now because he was focused on his career? Like some angst please ❤️❤️❤️

angst with some fluff i think, reader and kylian are both wrong in this one!

thank you for requesting this one!

kylian mbappe x reader

tw: pregnancy

Bad mistakes

You had no idea on how to break the news to Kylian. This wasn’t definitely supposed to happen, not now at least. You were still in college, studying for your law degree while your boyfriend was focusing mostly on his football career. He had time only for football and you. Nothing else. But here you were, sitting on your bed with a positive pregnancy test in your hands. You knew Kylian wanted to have a family, he always talked about how he loved kids and how he was very good with them but a kid of your own? Now? You didn’t exactly talked about that.

You heard the front door opening and Kylian calling your name.

“I’m in the bedroom” you shouted, waiting for him to appear on the door. That’s how it went.

“Hey you!” he said laughing but became more serious when he noticed your look “what’s going on?” he asked, taking a few steps toward you. You remained silent.

“Baby?” he asked again sitting next you on the bed. He couldn’t see what you were holding but he knew it was something serious by the way you were squeezing it.

“We have to talk…” you said not being able to look at him in the eyes, your voice cracking a bit.

“Okay?” he sounder worried. You had no idea how to tell him about the pregnancy so you simply showed him.

“Is that-?” he asked, already knowing what that was.

“Yes…” you said, a few tears falling from your eyes

“Oh-okay…” he said, taking a few breaths, definitely not the news he was expecting “how, what do we do?” he asked looking at you.

“I don’t know…this is so…how did it happen? I mean we’ve always been careful…” you wondered and he simply shook his head.

“I don’t know…” he said “you know that a baby now would be a lot…I mean with my career…” he said but you stopped him. Was he being serious?

“Your career? What it has to do with your career? From what I see I am the one pregnant, not you!” you said, slightly mad. Hormones already?

“I mean that taking care of a baby would take away a lot of time from me…” he said trying to justify himself but truth was he was only shocked and had no idea on how to react.

“I can’t believe you’re saying this…” you stood up shaking your head.

“What?” he asked getting irritated.

“The only thing you can think about is your career! Did you forget I’m the one who has to sacrifice everything from now on for at least the next three or four years? I’m the one who’s pregnant, not you! Stop revolving everything around you! Your career would continue as always!” you shouted.

“It took me a lot to get where I am now and I don’t want to lose everything! Not now!” he screamed back, definitely not understanding your point of view.

“Here we go again…I can’t believe you’re so self centred you can’t think about someone else for once! What about me? What about my studies? My career? Kylian, you don’t get it do you? I’m the one who’s gonna sacrifice everything for this baby!” you said trying to calm yourself down a bit, tears streaming down your face.

“Y/n…I’m not ready to have a kid. Not now…I’m sorry…but I can’t have a kid now, and as I can see you can’t either…” he said.

“What are you saying?” you asked a bit confused about his behaviour.

“I’m saying I don’t want this now! Why this had to happen?” he asked, almost blaming you for getting pregnant.

“You know it takes two to tango! You did your part too in this!” you screamed “but if you don’t to be a part of this I get it, your career over everything else, but I’m keeping the baby and this is the end of the discussion…and the end of us” you said with a stern look on your face.

“I-I think this is the only right decision…I can help you with support and money but at the time I’m not…” he said but you stopped him again.

“I get it! You’re not ready to be a father!” you said back “plus…I don’t want your money, I don’t need it” you lied, you needed his money to help you raising a kid, especially now that you wouldn’t be able to work due to your pregnancy “if you’re out of this, you’re out completely and that’s final” you said and he nodded. You couldn’t believe he let you go like this, not even fighting for you.

You moved out of his apartment a few days later and went back to staying with your mother. Your mother raised you all by herself so she knew what you were feeling. You were so lucky to have someone like her by your side, she gave you back your room and set the guest bedroom as the new nursery. She enjoyed painting and buying mini clothes for the mini you. Yes, you found out only in the fourth month that you were expecting a baby girl. You already imagined here looking completely like Kylian. He never tried to reach you or to even see if you were doing okay.

His family tried to contact you so many times you had to block them, and that hurt you. His family always treated you like you were one of them, his brother Ethan loved you and always pulled pranks on Kylian with your help.

You missed them but you couldn’t let them in.

Neymar tried to reach you too. You became very close friends but you blocked everyone that you had in common with Kylian. You were alone in this, just you and your baby. And your mom of course. And your only best friend who already planned your baby’s first birthday.

You were now seven months pregnant and you were always so tired that you slept almost everyday. Your mom usually massaging your back and feet, your best friend reminding you that you needed to keep your body in movement so she always helped you taking daily walks in your neighbourhood.

One day you were currently on the couch watching some TV and eating some cherries when you heard the door bell ring. You were only wearing one oversized t-shirt and your underwear because even if it was December you were feeling hot. You lazily got up from the couch and went straight to open the door, cursing your mother to leaving you home alone.

You didn’t even look of who it was and you simply opened the door.

Kylian was there, looking worse than ever. You kinda enjoyed when Argentina won the world cup, you thought “Karma’s a bitch”.

“Hi…” he shyly said.

You didn’t even reply, still mad at him for how he treated you seven months ago.

“Can we talk please?” he asked you.

“No.” you said with no emotions.

“Please…aren’t you cold?” he said when he looked at what you were wearing.

“No it’s the hormones, you would know it if you were here” you said back.

“I know…I’m so sorry…” he said looking guilty.

“For what?” you asked.

“For everything. For the way I treated you. For the way I let you go. For the way I wasn’t here when you needed me…I just, I’m a completely idiot!” he explained

“Yes..you are” you agreed with him.

“Please…let me make it up to you…I was a completely idiot, I gave up the most important thing in my life…” he said.

“What? Football?” you asked ironically.

“You…you are the most important thing in my life…please, let me in…” he said.

In that moment you started thinking about how much you missed having a father during your childhood and it didn’t matter how much good your mom was, always making sure you were safe and healthy, you always missed having a paternal figure in your life and you couldn’t put your baby through the same pain you’ve been through.

“Fine…you can be in her life, but don’t think I have forgiven you, it would take time…you hurt me, fuck, you hurt me so much Kylian! You left me, here, twenty two and pregnant! Did you think it was going to be easy for me? You left me…because oh my gosh your career was more important than your daughter! You can be in her life if you don’t deserve it, but she needs a father but don’t think I’ll let you in back so easily…I won’t be moving back to your place…not every after the baby’s born, I’ll stay here where I feel I belong…” you said, never leaving Kylian’s face.

“Okay…wait her? She’s a she?” he asked and you nodded. Kylian feeling his eyes getting glossy “I can’t believe it…I missed so many things…how are we gonna raise a baby if we’re not living together? At least come back home, you don’t have to sleep with me but having you there would be easier and” you stopped him.

“No. I’m still mad at you and it will take a lot before I’m okay again…we’ll co-parent…a lot of couples do that…” you said.

“But I” he started talking again but once again you interrupted him again.

“We’ll do co-parenting and that’s final, if you’re okay your in, it you don’t that’s the door” you said.

“Okay, it’s okay” he said and you nodded, letting him in the home, showing him the nursery, the pictures you took while pregnant, the first ultrasound you did. He was getting very emotional and you loved seeing that side of him.

You knew that even if you weren’t a couple anymore he would always be there for you and your baby.

[lemon-natalia]

Gideon the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 31

what with this and chapter 20 Harrow is getting undressed a lot more frequently than i would have predicted at the start

wait is this the infamous pool scene i've heard about?? 

yeahh Harrow’s general attitude of paying more attention to the other Houses rather than Everything else going on really backfired w/ sending Gid & the Fourth back to the facility. but to be fair i don’t think anyone could have predicted just how badly it would go

interesting to get an insight to Harrow’s parents other than Gideon’s in this chapter. the fact that they were fully willing to kill the other Ninth children to have Harrow be such a powerful necromancer, their fear of Gideon - but also Harrow continuing her mother’s tradition of the salt water pool, their kindness to Harrow as they were preparing to kill themselves and her. it paints a quite nuanced picture of two very ruthless but cowardly people who do seem to have loved their daughter to some degree, even if they were terrible people.

and i was right in my suspicion that there’s something up with Gideon herself! what with surviving nerve gas and being fine after the whole soul-siphoning thing, she just physically seems more resistant to dying. maybe her mysterious origins will be coming back into play soon

guess in a roundabout way i wasn’t wrong in chapter 2 that Harrow’s both prideful and vulnerable, she has just as much self-loathing as Gideon and her superiority was an outlet for it. she’s more comfortable being drowned than hugged!! this chapter in general recontextualizes so much of Harrow’s character and motivations and i feel like i’m gonna have to go back and reread this book at some point with that in mind

so i already knew about the reveal Harrow’s parents killed off the other kids so this chapter isn’t as impactful as it might have otherwise been, but it is still a very good chapter in that it gives such an insight into Harrow’s psyche growing up knowing something like that from such a young age. the entire chapter is pretty much just exposition but it’s worked into the characters and their dynamics very well

oh also she doesn’t actually blame Gideon for her parents dying apparently! this is why we communicate people

ok i wasn’t expecting to actually find out what was in the Locked Tomb in this book but here we go i guess. Harrow talks about the ‘beast’ the emperor defeated at the resurrection being in the locked tomb, but actually in there is a … preserved dead girl? hm, there feels like a lot more to this than the emperor is actually telling. the mention of the tomb being surrounded by salt water as well feels significant somehow, especially since Harrow mentioned it in this chapter as ceremonial.  

ooh it occurred to me that, based on absolutely no evidence other than i know a character called ‘Nona’ is the title of the third book, is the girl in the tomb Nona??

“I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you” i am not normal about these two

also gahhhh Gideon moved to the cavalier bed. i have absolutely nothing coherent to say except i love them your honour

[agerebatman]

Hypothesis

ficlet • Regressor Harvey Dent, Caregiver Victor Fries

So I ended up writing the one with the least votes because it was already halfway done, lol. I prommy I have a Harley and Ivy one in the works though! For now, enjoy my fave rare team up.

It was a bad day in Arkham asylum. Not that any day was particularly good, but this day was one of the worst. February 2nd. 2/2. The day Harvey Dent’s life changed forever. Harvey was not a person you wanted to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. He was grouchy, quick tempered, and loud about it. Today he was in rare form.

“Does anyone in this god-forsaken place know how to make real food?!” He yelled, and the sea of inmates expertly parted as he threw his food across the room. They were unperturbed, as most of them had been here for at least three 2/2s.

“Harvey, please, control yourself,” Penguin sighed from across the table. 

Harvey’s fiery glare found its mark on the bird, who shriveled under it. The Riddler was quick to come to his defense.

“What is shorter than a yard stick but holds grown adults hostage?”

“Not in the mood, Eddie.”

“A toddler. Now, will you stop acting like one?”

A loud crash rang through the cafeteria as Harvey tackled Ed to the ground.

“This is what happens when you antagonize him!” Oswald chided over the tussle.

“I wasn’t antagonizing anyone - guard!”

A hulking guard picked Harvey up by the back of his uniform.

“Dent got in another fight,” he said to his radio, “take him to the cold wing?”

“Affirmative,” crackled through the speaker.

Harvey was dragged out of the cafeteria and through the dusty corridors of Arkham. Harvey knew very well where he was going. The floor he was being dragged across became colder and colder as they traveled. Soon enough, Harvey could see his breath. Clang. He was thrown into a cell, much like his own, but about 50 degrees colder. In it was a heavy blanket - and nothing else.

“You rat bastard! Get me outta here this instant!” Two Face growled as the door was closed.

He kicked and yelled until his voice was horse and his legs were sore. Next door, there was a rustling.

“Harvey…” A rumbling voice called. 

“Rise and shine, Jack Frost, you’ve got company.”

Harvey could hear the deep sigh from the cell next to him. 

“Dent. Another fight?”

“Yeah. The pleasure of your company is the next best thing to solitary confinement.”

A dark chuckle.

“What was it about this time?” Victor asked.

“Pff,” Harvey scoffed, “Eddie accused me of acting like a toddler.”

Victor barked out a laugh.

“What's so funny?” Harvey snapped.

“Well, you do have a certain boyish temperament.”

“You callin’ me a kid?”

“Generously. It would be more accurate to say Edward was right, for once.”

Harvey growled.

“See? Just another one of your temper tantrums.”

“Why I oughta - you don’t know nothin’ about- I- I-”

Harvey sighed.

Victor heard him slump down against the wall, defeated.

“I really am a kid, aren’t I?”

The rough voice had disappeared, replaced by a smoother one, small and confused. Something had switched. Big Bad Harv had retreated.

“... there are worse things to be,” Victor offered.

Harvey hummed in agreement, shrugging.

“I have a proposal for you,”

“A break out?” Two face made a brief return,

“Not tonight,” Victor chuckled.

“Oh…”

“An experiment,” Victor said. Harvey perked up in intrigue.

“Oh?”

“Let’s see if Edward’s hypothesis holds any water.”

Harvey slumped again, scoffing.

“No need to taunt me, Fries. It’s not like I could feel any worse.”

“That is my point,”

“Care to enlighten me?”

“You’ve… had a long, hard day Harvey.”

“You said it.”

“I think, perhaps… you’re tired.”

Harvey said nothing.

“You just need to get some rest, that’s all.”

“...alright, I’ll buy that for a dollar. What do you want me to do?”

“Take that blanket, make sure you’re wrapped up.”

“I’m already there, trust me.”

“Now lay down.”

Victor could hear the shuffling. 

“Now, just… relax. Close your eyes.”

There was a moment of silence, barely a minute.

“This isn’t working for me, Victor.”

“I have another idea.”

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got, doc,” Harvey’s voice was weak.

Victor sighed.

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Clara.”

He expected a laugh, honestly. A jeer. A snarl. But nothing came. Just silence - contemplative, listening, silence.

“She had a mysterious uncle, who came baring gifts…”

Victor continued his story, the Nutcracker. As he recounted it, he pictured his wife on the stage. She always made a lovely Sugar Plum Fairy. Harvey, for once, didn’t talk but listened. Victor could hear his steady breath, slowing down until it was calm. He finished his story, and looked at Harvey’s reflection in the glass cell across the way. He lay sleeping, wrapped in the blanket.

“Good boy, Harvey. Sweet dreams.”

[goddevouringserpent]

WOTR Companions First and Final Impressions

taking the open tag @the-raging-tempest left over at Discord cause I really really wanted to do this hehehehe :3 it was very very fun, even if time-consuming, so I am open tagging anyone who wants to do it! (& please do feel free to tag me in it because I very much want to see 👀)

the first impressions match the first actual interaction my KCs had with the companions, for which I am using the first real dialogue they ever had; so, for example, although they both technically met Camellia at the Kenabres festival, I am counting the first meeting as being in the caves under Kenabres.

First impressions

Seelah

Irenni: "A spot of hope in the middle of so much destruction! You lighten my heart with your presence, lady knight."

Kaija: "Paladin of Iomedae, huh? Well, you don't seem as stuck-up as the rest of your kin, at least. Mind your own business, I'll mind mine, and we should get along fine."

Camellia

Irenni: "So poised and elegant... I'm surprised by how nonplussed you seem, but in all fairness, you look high-born, and I suppose nobles are taught to conceal their emotions."

Kaija: "Ugh. Do we really have to babysit this spoiled brat? Hope you actually know how to use that rapier of yours, pretty girl, 'cause I'm not sticking my neck out for you."

Lann

Irenni: "A valiant warrior with a noble heart, I can tell. 'Tis a pity you downplay your own worth with such ferocity."

Kaija: "I know your type. You hate who you are, don't you, underground crusader? Tale as old as time. Shed those chains already—they'll never see you like you want them to see you. We're all just horned freaks to the respectable folks."

Wenduag

Irenni: "You are so angry... We mean no harm to you or yours. Let us help, please. We can only save each other if we stick together!"

Kaija: "There's a shrewdness in you, isn't there? You're a clever one. A survivor. Dangerous. It's fine, I can work with that. You're nothing new to me, huntress."

Woljif

Irenni: "I hope I'm not making a mistake by helping you. You seem harmless enough, but that shadow... There's something wrong about it. Do you even know the nature of the magic you wield?"

Kaija: "A kindred spirit. You're the only one here who understands. I see it in your eyes. We have the same look, you and I, the same kind of dirt under our fingernails, the same bloodied teeth. I've got your back, for as long as this arrangement lasts—way things are, turning my back on you would be like turning my back on myself."

Ember

Irenni: "Oh, you sweet soul... 'tis fortunate Andoletta watches over you, but still—you should be somewhere safe, enjoying your childhood, not bearing witness to the horrors of war."

Kaija: "I can tell there's some sort of strength in you, but you've gotta toughen up, kid, or the world will chew you up and spit you out."

Daeran

Irenni: "You behave as though you knew exactly what to say in order to vex me, Count Arendae. I ought to chastise you for being so irresponsible and inconsiderate, but you would not care at all. And... truth be told, you are fascinating, in your own way. A weakness in me, perhaps. We shall see. In the meantime—make yourself useful."

Kaija: "Hello there, yet-another-noble-prick in the endless assortment of Mendevian noble pricks! At least you're fun to be around, I'll give you that. Maybe someday I'll crash one of your parties. You might even thank me for it."

Nenio

Irenni: "A fellow scholar! Oh, this is so exciting. I cannot even blame you for your... peculiarities; truly, all of us who share an interest for the academic can sympathize, to one degree or another. I do so look forward to trading theories with you."

Kaija: "Heard about people like you, here and there. Strange stories. Sad, often. Leave it to a genius to lose her mind—there's a certain irony in it. But I think we'll work well together, long as you follow my lead."

Galfrey

Irenni: "Everlight, I feel so inadequate. The Queen of Mendev! Here! Sitting at my table! It is a pleasure and an honour, Your Majesty, although I wish the circumstances were different... and I wish I were a bit more put-together for the occasion..."

Kaija: "Bah. Mendev's golden figurehead. Must feel good, to come marching in and have everyone prostrate themselves at your feet, even though you did absolutely jack shit. Don't expect any special treatment from me, Your Majesty. Far as I'm concerned, you're just some freeloader at our table."

Sosiel

Irenni: "A servant of the Eternal Rose is always welcome! I see a sincere kindness in your eyes that puts me at ease... and Sarenrae knows that is exactly what I need right now."

Kaija: "Nice to have another artist nearby. Not many of us here. And there's a steel in you, a fire. It burns low, more a simmer than anything else, but I can tell. I've been there. No wonder, after the losses you've experienced. You'll do fine. Channel that fire."

Regill

Irenni: "Hellknight, is it? Hmph. I guarantee you will disagree with my methods, Paralictor; I hope, for both our sakes, that you are still willing to obey my orders."

Kaija: "Credit where it's due, you're one hell of a fighter. Don't really mind the stick up your ass if we can use it in our favour. 'Sides, a little spot of pragmatism might do us some good in the long run. Tired of all the crusaders with their heads in the clouds."

Arueshalae

Irenni: "My heart reaches out to you, as yours does to mine. I am aware it is ill-advised to trust a succubus, but, as servants of good, ought we not embrace any demons who choose to leave behind the stain of evil and embark upon a different path? Is it not our duty to aid them in this difficult journey? I open my arms for you, Arueshalae, even if it means the death of me."

Kaija: "I should be suspicious, and yet... I heard you. I saw you. In the temple of Desna, and in the shrine. That... that can't just be a demonic trick, right? There are some things the Abyss can't touch. But an ascending succubus... Demons aren't capable of redemption. It isn't in their nature. It's what everyone says, isn't it? But... but maybe... Maybe there's a chance... Maybe, if you..."

Greybor

Irenni: "Why in the world would you refuse to address the demon invasion going on, but take on an assassination contract? I am astounded by the greed and selfishness involved in your thought process, but, most of all, I am baffled by your short-sightedness. There will be no gold to reclaim should the armies of the Abyss prevail, good sir."

Kaija: "'Go and get reinforcements from the Defender's Heart,' heh... You don't know who you're talking to, master assassin. Don't need help to kill these demons. Go ahead and take care of your mark—just don't get in my way. Wouldn't want ya to have your limbs cleaved off."

Parting thoughts

Seelah

Irenni: "What a joy, to have shared this fight with you. You have kept me steady, grounded in hope, and I am so glad to have done the same for you. Do not let anyone extinguish your spark. It is people like you that give our struggles meaning."

Kaija: "You've proven me wrong, time and time again. Never thought I'd be happy about that, but I guess there's always a first time for everything. It's been an honour fighting at your side, Seelah... And an even bigger honour drinking at your side!"

Camellia

Irenni: "I... I tried, Camellia. I really did. I would have helped you, if only you had been truthful. But in the end, I... I did what I had to do. I am not proud of it, but you forced my hand."

Kaija: "I keep telling myself it was for the best, and maybe one day I'll believe it. We would've ruined each other, beloved, you know that as well as I do. Better to stop when... when we still could. But that doesn't mean I've stopped loving you. I never will. You'll always have a part of me. Wherever you go, whatever you do... be safe. Think of me, from time to time. I'll think of you."

Lann

Irenni: "It is so good to see you happy, at long last. You deserve it—you always have. You have performed all your duties admirably, Lann, both towards the crusade and towards your people. Find comfort, now. Live the life you want. May your aim be ever true and steady, my friend."

Kaija: "You've got to let go, at some point. Move on. Bury it or it'll bury you."

Wenduag

Irenni: "I bear you no ill will. You were deeply wounded, I can tell that now, and my only regret is being unable to heal you. May you find peace in the afterlife."

Kaija: "Hasn't always been easy, because I'll be fucked if you don't like to make everything as hard as possible, but... Here we are. Looking at us from where we stand at the end, I can say I'm glad to have met you. Glad to know you. You've found your own power, your own strength, and—I respect you, for that. See myself in you a little bit. Who would've thought, huh?"*

Woljif

Irenni: "I am so, so proud of you, and deeply ashamed I ever doubted you. So many would have fallen prey to the temptation of demonic power, but you... I know it was what you had wanted all your life, and yet you found strength enough in yourself to refuse it! I am humbled by you, Woljif."

Kaija: "The light of my life. That's what you are. Can't say I believe in soulmates or none of that, but I do believe in choosing someone over and over, with your whole heart, every day of your life, and... Well, I'll keep choosing you, over and over, for as long as I draw breath. You've changed me, deep to my core, and once upon a time I would've fought against that—you would've had me kicking and screaming to get out, heh—but now I wouldn't have it any other way. Wouldn't have you any other way. I'm with you, dearest, 'til the end, through thick and thin. It's you and me."

Ember

Irenni: "Your kindness is brilliant, Ember. Blinding. I hardly understand it myself, and I have felt the touch of Heaven! I know you do not believe in divine intervention, but... I cannot, in good faith, claim our meeting to be a coincidence. Both of us, devoted to mercy and redemption and salvation... We are the company we keep, I suppose, but we are altogether too similar in ideals for it to not mean something. I shall be pleased to accompany you further, should our paths meet again."

Kaija: "First time in my life I've ever been so thankful for someone getting their thoughts in order. You were heading down a bad road, kid. Putting yourself in danger. And—d'you think I could've lived with myself if I'd let you and you'd gotten killed because of it? I know it feels bad to have to temper your expectations, but you'll thank me later."

Daeran

Irenni: "Ah, my love, what I wouldn't do for you. We have not had an easy time of it, have we? A rocky beginning, a middle fraught with difficulties and obstacles... We have been our own worst enemies, in truth. But there is not a single thing that I would change. I am honoured to love you and to have you love me; to know you and to have you know me. I am so fortunate that you have chosen to trust me with your life, your heart, your freedom, even. I will keep you safe, no matter what it takes. You can rest lightly in my hands—I promise. You will never regret letting me love you."

Kaija: "Not too proud to admit I misjudged you. I mean, in a sense I had your measure as soon as I met you, knew exactly what kinda person I was dealing with, but in another sense, you've surprised me. Never thought I'd find a real friend in you. My best friend, even. Life's full of little jokes and twists, isn't it? I think we can both drink to that, and not just because we'll take any excuse to drink. So—here's to your health, Count."

Nenio

Irenni: "I... I don't understand. Why would you ever want... What led you to... to make the choices you made? You are worth more than that, Nenio. I pray it is not too late for you."

Kaija: "Somehow what's going on with you is less outlandish than what I thought was going on with you. It's fine. Seems like a lot, but you'll pull through, if you really want to. I believe you can."

Galfrey

Irenni: "You carry your burdens, and I carry mine. I neither envy nor resent you. Let us part in peace. I wish you well, Galfrey of Mendev."

Kaija: "Fool. If you keep holding your chin up, your neck'll snap. We're not on even footing anymore—I've long since surpassed ya, and you know it. Write a letter to your goddess if you're so mad about it."

Sosiel

Irenni: "It is good to see you have healed. You were teetering on the edge of something so grim, far from the light of Shelyn, and although I had faith in your ability to remain steadfast, I worried for you, Sosiel. Yet you have so gracefully recovered from the blows life dealt you. A soul as gentle and good as yours deserves nothing but that, my friend."

Kaija: "I know it wasn't what you expected, but did good. Kept your spine straight when it counted. Didn't back down. Opened your eyes. So that closure you got, Sosiel, those answers—that was all you, in the end. It was your actions that saved both of you. Take pride in that."

Regill

Irenni: "We have not always seen eye to eye... quite the opposite, in fact... but in the end, I am glad to have fought alongside you, Regill Derenge. I think, in better times, we could have been friends, but war can make strangers of us all."

Kaija: "Surprised at how well we work together. Or maybe not. It's all in the fighting mettle, after all—we're warriors through and through, and I guess even through our differences we could recognise that in each other. Steel calls to steel. I respect you, Regill, and I'm pretty sure the feeling's mutual. Wouldn't be where you are now if it weren't, yeah?"

Arueshalae

Irenni: "There are too many things I should have told you, too many things I should tell you... but now is not the time. Later, once we are free. Then I will... Everlight's mercy, I just need you to know how deeply I care for you, how much I treasure and cherish and admire you, how badly I want to—augh, later, Irenni, later!"**

Kaija: "You say that I saved you, that you owe me so much, but c'mon, Arue, don't sell yourself short: you saved me every bit as much as I saved you. A mutual thing, yeah? Pulled each other outta the Abyss. I'm so proud of you, sister, and so grateful for everything you've done."

Greybor

Irenni: "Truthfully, I was not expecting you to take my advice to heart, and I am pleasantly surprised you have chosen to do so. I wish you an uneventful life, Greybor. Enjoy every moment."

Kaija: "A professional, through and through. We did some good work together. You've a... productive future ahead of you, I'm sure—who knows, maybe I'll require your services sometime, hah."

*Kaija's parting answer for Wenduag is largely a placeholder because this is my first time recruiting Wendu (I'd wanted to before, but I couldn't rationalise how/why Kai would, until now) & I am still figuring out their dynamic. however, I feel there might be... Something there. as in, the inklings of a very interesting ship dynamic. and I can never say no to toxic yuri, it's my kryptonite, soooo I am just kinda leaving that reply there for now lol

**Irenni romances Arueshalae, but only after the game ends. during the events of the game itself she's too busy dealing with her feelings towards Daeran to even try and address her feelings towards Arue. they are very much present, Irenni just... sets them aside, for the time being, because she already has enough on her plate emotions-wise as-is LOL but after everything is done, they become an item :3

[dirtytransmasc]

In ITSV Miles looked his age, and no matter how he tried to mask them, his mannerisms gave his youth away too.

Even in ATSV people think that Spiderman is young and not an adult, showing that even fully masked and suited, Miles still comes off as a kid to some degree.

A person who's familiar with Miles' age group, like...an uncle, would easily recognize the signs that point to Miles' age.

So Aaron had to have known, or the very least suspected, that the "Spiderman" he was going after was a kid - he just didn't care.

Aaron Davis was fully ready to kill a kid. It was only when he realized it was his kid - his nephew - did he stop.

And I think after whatever happens on Earth 42, Miles is going to realize this fact and that will fuck with his perception of Aaron.

yeah, I think we saw a glimpse of Miles having that sort of understanding in that moment right after he sees uncle Aaron, even if it doesn't sink all the way in. he was terrified, for various reasons, but the way he looks at Aaron for those first few seconds, the way his face melted into this expression of barely concealed horror, made me feel like I was suffocating myself.

but this is so true. Miles was teeny tiny and in that sad little spider suit, he was just a baby in every way, from his voice (cause even if he didn't speak to Aaron until the very end, he definitely made many exclamations of pain/fear, which actually make him sound even younger), his body, his size, his movements. even to someone who isn't around kids all the time, would know, instantly, that Miles was a child... and Aaron didn't even show a drop of mercy, regardless of if he was going to follow through, he chased Miles just like he had chase Peter Parker (1610) and the other spiders later on.

and if that fact hits Miles, it would break him. his worldview of his uncle is already, in a lot of ways, distorted and fucked up, but it would be shattered after that.

like I need Aaron 42 to make some sort of offhand comment of just how young he looks and for something to just settle in Miles's mind, that, "oh shit, my uncle, who tried to kill me, knew I was that young just looking at me, and didn't even hesitate until I revealed myself" and to then proceed to have a breakdown.

cause I think Miles has just shoved all that down and slapped his uncles dying words onto like some sort of door, as if to use it to block everything else out. just a constant loop of "your the best of all of us", "he saved me", "keep going Miles" over and and over and over again, keeping him from thinking about the rest of it all.

Personally, seeing Miles take any more mental damage at this point might kill me, but goddammit I am weak for angst.

[theboywithburninghands]

It’s time. The sequel to my first fic set in @rottentricks’ Murder Mystery Universe. First chapter is a go. Enjoy!

T/W: Blood and gore, mentions of suicide, mentions of drugs and alcohol, profanity

Beasts Ch. 1: Knock Knock

I am the beast that cuts the meat!

Now that they’re dead, you can sink in your teeth!

———

“Hello and good evening to all you listeners out there in Autumnvale! It is currently 7:15 PM on this dark and snowy February night, a brisk 19 degrees and 8 minutes before sundown, which means you should be home and your doors should be shut tight. I’m Matthew Laney and joining me as always is my partner in crime, Arnold Zorelli…”

The radio continued playing on the dash of a silver Jaguar S-Type, the driver a gray haired fellow with square, amber-rimmed glasses and a $350 black suit jacket. He reached for the volume control knob, but paused and looked at his passenger.

“You mind if I turn it up?” he asked.

His passenger, a beautiful brunette woman perhaps 15 years younger than he was, turned her gaze away from the treeline rushing past them. In the light of the headlamps, the trunks were dim and gray and mausoleum-like. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black in the low light.

“No, go ahead,” she answered, turning to look back out the window. The driver increased the radio’s volume a few notches.

“…coming up on the one month anniversary of the bugnuts insane Wren case. If you’ve been living under a rock, first of all, how cheap is the rent? But secondly, our town’s own shrink Dr. Cole Wren got busted for tampering with a patient’s antidepressants until he killed himself, then framed the butcher Jax Kingston when the patient took his own life, so he could take to the streets and protest against racial discrimination.” The jock, Laney, recounted.

“I don’t think Batman could have pulled off something like that,” the color commentator said.

The jock laughed. “And Wren couldn’t either! Because he got busted by a grad student on live TV!”

“Oh yeah, I remember, ‘You’re not a hero, you’re a freak!’”

“I want that on a t-shirt,” Laney said. “But we here at WVRT hopefully will have the grad student, uh, her name is Pomni Freeman, on the show for the anniversary to discuss her experience.”

“Pomni? Never heard a name like that,” Zorelli said.

“Uh, it’s Russian I think. I kinda like it, it’s elegant,” Laney replied.

“Beats what people used to name their kids in the 60’s,” Zorelli chuckled.

“Oh, what, like ‘Starlight’ or ‘Coast’ or ‘Zephyr?’”

“I knew a girl named Zephyr.”

“Man shut up, you did not!” Laney exclaimed.

“No, hand to God, there was a girl in my 4th grade class named Zephyr Tomlinson,” Zorelli declared.

The Jaguar pulled into the driveway of one of the new McMansions that had been built on the edge of town, one of three at the end of Roche St.’s cul-de-sac. An eccentric architect from another country, who had already made millions building “mansions” quickly and cheaply throughout the state, approached Mayor Caine Mason with plans to turn some of the disused housing on the edge of the woods into a high-end neighborhood. These “mansions,” built with outsourced construction crews and supplies, were considered a way for more middle class folk to break the barrier into high society.

Most in Autumnvale agreed that those who bought the McMansions were either rich already, needed more space for their families, or were incredibly insecure about their already upper-middle class status and wanted to look even more well-to-do. Even Mayor Mason, who allowed the architect to build the “mansions,” hated the way they looked. Blocky and uneven like a four year old’s Duplo building.

“Tammy, you’re doing that thing. What’s the matter?” the man asked.

“Nothing,” Tammy replied.

The man pulled his Jaguar into the garage, closing the door behind it. Tammy exited the car as soon as the engine was cut off. The man walked after her, locking the Jaguar with his key fob and unlocking the deadbolt to the back door. The door was mahogany, or at least a reasonable imitation of mahogany, with one of those ornate floral patterned oval windows of frosted glass in the middle of the door. The back door opened into the kitchen, Tammy hanging her brown lambswool peacoat on one of the clothes hooks.

“Can I make you a drink?” the man asked. He went into the kitchen, where a small bar had been set up on the island. Black Thistle, Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, The Glenlivet, Gray Goose and Rémy Martin XO, with the appropriate lowball and highball glasses, wobble snifters and shot glasses on a silver tray, next to an ice bucket and a few bottles of Schweppes Tonic Water.

“I’m fine,” Tammy said, removing her high heels and putting them on the shoe rack, rather than in the closet. “I’m just tired after all that.”

“After all what? Standing in a corner staring at your nails?” the man said, pouring some Black Thistle into a lowball.

“Amos, I don’t know anyone at those ‘mixers,’ okay? What am I supposed to talk about, anyway? I don’t know shit about international trade. All those guys look like they want to slip something in my drink, anyway…”

The man, Amos, added a few ice cubes to the gin in his glass.

“Just about all ‘those guys’ are business partners who I’ve known for decades. They’re married or gay,” he said, completing his drink with tonic water. “I took you out because I figured you would appreciate a bit of fresh air, not just sitting around the house all day watching Desperate Housewives.”

Tammy, heading up the stairs, glared down at Amos. “If you want to hang out with a girl, try dinner or a movie somewhere. Frankly, I’d rather stay home and watch tv than stand around like a bimbo while your rich friends ogle at me.”

Tammy went up the white carpeted stairs, walking by the balcony overlooking the sitting room on the ground floor. The full grain black leather couch faced a 42” plasma screen television on the brown particleboard console.

Amos looked down at his drink, tempted to throw the lowball at the wall. He instead tipped the contents into the sink, ice clanging on the bottom of the basin, rinsed the lowball glass and dried it, placing it with the rest of the set on the black granite counter. He took out a small present, wrapped in pink paper with a fuschia bow, and set it on the counter.

“Happy three month anniversary to you too. Cold bitch.”

The security lights flicked on at 7:30 on the dot.

—

Tammy entered the master bedroom, the walls a pleasant mustard yellow and the carpet creamy white. The powder room door stood shut on the left wall. Amos always got on her case for leaving it open since it blocked the bedroom door from opening. That was the fault of the stupid architect that built this place. Corners cut everywhere.

She stripped to her underwear. Black lingerie Amos got her that was worth about $400. It made her look good, but it was itchy. Designer clothes were a waste of her money, but if she wasn’t the one paying for it, she’d wear it. She unhooked her bra and tossed it into the laundry basket. She opened the walk-in closet door and took a moment to look in the mirror hanging on the opposite side. She checked the alarm clock on the nightstand. Its dim red LED lights said 7:32.

She pulled on one of her sleep shirts from the walk-in closet, a plain white T made of some sort of cotton blend that was soft on the skin. She would have checked what kind on the collar tag, but it got torn off a while ago. She itched the red impressions that her bra left behind on her skin.

The bathroom door opened, just a crack.

Tammy went to the California King Bed, its black medallion-patterned sheets and plush gray comforter neatly made. The housekeeper must have stopped by. What was her name? …She didn’t care all that much.

She laid on her side of the bed, checking the clock again. 7:34. She grabbed the stereo remote from the nightstand and pressed play. The big black machine on Amos’s dresser whirred as it spun the CD in its tray. A song by Lou Reed began to softly play over the surround sound speakers set up in each corner of the ceiling.

“Just a perfect day…

Drink sangria in the park…”

She cranked the volume up a few notches. A single wild eye watched her from the crack in the bathroom door. Amos called out from downstairs.

“Tamika! That’s a bit loud, doll!”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t touch the remote. The music continued:

“Just a perfect day…

Feed animals in the zoo…

And then later a movie too,

And then home…”

The bathroom door crashed open. A heavy black combat boot kicked it hard enough for the prong knob to dent the adjacent wall. Tammy sprung up on the bed. A hulking figure in a red hoodie and a featureless chrome mask like the back of a spoon stomped towards her, clutching something in their

right, latex gloved hand.

“Oh it’s such a perfect day!” Lou Reed sang.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re not- GET OFF! GET OFF! AMOS!”

The figure grabbed Tammy by the neck with their off hand and slammed her back onto the bed. They raised the object in their dominant hand over their head, a handaxe glinting in the lamplight.

“Tammy?!” Amos called out from the sitting room, rocketing up the stairs. Even at this dead sprint, there was no way he could reach her in time.

“I’m glad I spent it with you!” Lou Reed continued.

The figure swung their handaxe with barbaric force, Tammy raising her left arm to defend herself. The first strike cut a red and white fissure through flesh and bone, the second swapt her arm off at the elbow. The appendage tumbled off the bed with a heavy thud, the stump spouting. Tammy let out a scream more beast than human.

“Oh just a perfect day, you just keep me hangin’ on…”

Amos twisted the bedroom doorknob and barged the door with his shoulder, only to be met with a dull thunk. The bathroom door was open. The bathroom door that he had told her a million BILLION TIMES NOT TO LEAVE OPEN AND SHE WAS GETTING KILLED OH GOD-

“Hey,” came a voice behind him.

Amos turned to see a figure in a chrome mask and black hoodie behind him. They stood with a wooden baseball bat, and swung it at Amos’s head like a delinquent kid swinging at mailboxes. Amos managed to block the swing with both hands, stumbling backwards over the railing. He plummeted fifteen feet straight down into his own sitting room. He smashed into the leather couch, breaking off the front legs and snapping a spring with an almost musical TOINGGG. The chrome-faced assailant peered over the railing at him, almost childlike in their curiosity. Gee, mister, that sure was a nasty fall…

“You just keep me hangin’ on…” Lou Reed continued.

Amos, dazed but unharmed, lurched to his feet off the now cracked leather couch, making for the front door. He heard rapid footfalls on the stairs behind him, unlocking the front door and sprinting out onto the tiny lawn, leaving Prada shoe prints in the new fallen powder snow. He thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t taken his shoes or coat off. He looked over his shoulder to see the intruder watching him from the doorway, bat held in both hands. He must have known he couldn’t catch him, or else-

Something cold and heavy collided with him, knocking him to the street. His glasses skittered across the pavement and his head bounced off the cement. Before the tiny synaptic fireworks had a chance to stop flashing in his vision, a set of teeth sank into his neck, puncturing his larynx like a knife through Saran Wrap and rendering him unable to scream. He could only rasp as another set of teeth clamped down on his right leg, thrashing it about the way a dog would play tug of war.

The intruder watched the two Nightwalkers devour the man, two others emerging from the dark of the woods, eager and silent, hungry for good meat. The Nightwalker that had a hold of Amos’s leg ripped a bloody wedge of flesh free, walking a few paces away and then laying in the road, tearing at its keep like a sirloin steak. The other Nightwalkers chose their cut of meat with no hesitation, one biting into Amos’s right elbow and the other his stomach. The first Nightwalker that had a hold of his neck continued to chew, determined to sever his head.

The intruder in red came downstairs, sticky with blood and carrying their blood-soaked handaxe, their jacket pockets crammed with jewelry and wads of hundred dollar bills.

“Fuckin’ hell, did you make her into a smoothie?! Ugh.” The intruder in black said. “I told you to try not to kill her, you stupid asshole. We just needed her to get the safe open. Ugh, whatever. You got it open?”

The intruder in red nodded, patting their lumpy pockets.

“Good. Nightwalkers took care of Gramps. Let’s wrap it up before those things finish their food.” the intruder in black said, slamming the door shut.

“Just a perfect day…

You made me forget myself…” Lou Reed sang.

The two of them grabbed whatever valuables they could find, Tammy’s purse, Amos’s wallet, the anniversary gift, and a laptop from the office. They emptied their spoils into a pillowcase and tied it off.

“Where’s the important thing?” The intruder in black said.

The intruder in red pointed up the stairs.

The duo hurried to the master bedroom, the intruder in black groaning upon seeing what was left of Tammy on the bed and the floor and the wall.

“God, you fuckin’ animal… come on.” The intruder in black scolded.

“Oh it’s such a perfect day…” Lou Reed repeated.

The pair of assailants went into the closet, the one in red pulling an ornate wooden box from the floating shelf on the back wall, tucked away inconspicuously with other shoeboxes.

“You’re sure that’s it?” the intruder in black asked.

The intruder in red opened the box and showed their partner the contents.

“Looks real enough to me. Let’s go.”

“You’re going to reap just what you sow…” Lou Reed warned.

He repeated this warning several times as the men went outside, hurrying across the cul-de-sac and tossing the pillowcase into the back seat of their nearby pickup truck. The box was set down carefully on the seat and secured with the seatbelts.

The Nightwalkers, now six in number, watched them with mild interest as they ate, having torn Amos into multiple pieces of varying size and shape. A specimen with boar-like tusks approached, clutching a fibula in its teeth with a few strings of muscle still attached. It almost looked friendly. The intruder in red knew better and took a swipe at it with their handaxe, the Nightwalker skirting backwards a ways with the bloody leg bone still in its maw. It stepped off, laying in the road and tugging the last bits of meat off the fibula.

The two intruders climbed into the truck, the one in black gunning the engine without turning on the lights. The intruder in red rolled their window down and tossed the handaxe out beside the Nightwalkers with a clatter, and the truck sped off into the night. One Nightwalker, a single, cyclopean eye on its skull, walked over, sniffed the blade of the handaxe and licked it clean.

The door to the McMansion having been left open, a Nightwalker with six legs and an elongated, aardvark-like muzzle went into the house. Lou Reed’s song had ended and another song by Great White began. Nightwalkers generally abhorred light, but Amos and Tammy had only managed to turn on a few lights before their ends, so it was tolerable for this intrepid beast. The Nightwalker sniffed, loping carefully up the staircase. It tripped and fell onto its belly a few times, having never encountered steps before in the woods. Once at the top, panting, it nosed the bedroom door open, and found a delectable feast lying unclaimed inside. It laid down by the arm on the floor and tore into it without hesitation.

“My, my, my!

Once bitten twice shy, babe!”

—

Pomni Freeman, seated in her studio apartment, added the finishing touches to a tree on her landscape. She used her smallest brush to add some shading to the leaves, leaning back to see how it looked from a distance.

“Hmm… that looks…” she said, closing one eye and chewing the end of her paintbrush. She shrugged. “It’ll work.”

She set her small brush down on her collapsible work table, picked up her larger brush and swirled it in the milky blue paint on her pallet. Her painting was almost done, about 80%, only the top right corner being blank white canvas, the rest a (if she said so herself) gorgeous mountain landscape with a river running through it. This painting was due the first of February, but due to… extenuating circumstances, she was given as long as she needed to finish it. It’s difficult to paint if you can’t raise your arm too high, after all.

Her wounds healed up well after the stitches were removed. It took a week or so, but she could eventually reach up and down without the risk of tearing anything. Then it was back to the grind as usual.

Well, no. Not quite. She did have something else new.

Jax Kingston. 22, butcher by trade. Her boyfriend. She and him had only been dating for a little less than a month now, but she was pretty certain she loved the big lug. Not only did he save her life, he was everything she wanted in a partner. Soft-spoken, funny, strong in every way… hot. Sure, he was rough around the edges. He could be kinda gross sometimes. Pomni had seen him put a claw to his nose and shoot a snot rocket into the snow, and some of his jokes were so dark they were horror stories… But he loved her, and she loved him. So, there wasn’t much to complain about.

They had gone on a few dates since she had her stitches out. Autumnvale was a small burg, so there weren’t a tremendous number of destinations to go to. They had been for walks around town, had breakfast at Ragatha’s café, they even went to the premiere of A Winter’s Tale at Gangle’s playhouse. Jax had a very difficult time understanding the elevated language, but enjoyed it regardless.

“It was kinda like watching a movie in another language. You could sorta tell what was going on just by watching their faces, you know?” he had said.

Pomni was always impressed at how clever he could be, despite him never graduating high school. She knew that was incredibly elitist of her to even think about, since plenty of people didn’t do well in school and later turned out to be geniuses. Einstein threw a chair at his teacher for God’s sake.

She had also spent a few nights over at his house. And as much as she loved Ragatha’s cooking, Jax was an artisan with meat. He made her pork chops with mint sauce one night, the pig cut just right so there was plenty of meat on the bone and cooked until perfectly thick and juicy. Another night, he slow-roasted some ribs that were so tender the meat was falling off the bone, combined with a tangy, sweet homemade barbeque sauce that his mom taught him how to make. And another night, he made her some smash burgers, the beef seasoned to perfection with just a hint of Worcestershire sauce, topped with cheddar cheese, relish, sautéed onions and sliced Beefstake tomato, all on a lightly toasted Kaiser roll.

Pomni was used to being just a little bit hungry most of the time due to mostly eating peanut butter sandwiches and Nature Valley bars rather than an actual proper meal. But she always felt like she was gonna pop after dinner with Jax, and it was such an enormous relief to not feel the gnaw of hunger for once.

They watched movies on Jax’s VCR. Jax’s collection was an odd assortment of horror or sci-fi films and older romance films. Films like Lake Placid and Tremors right next to Harold and Maude and Casablanca. Apparently his parents let him have all of their tapes since their VCR broke ages ago and they didn’t feel much need to replace it. Pomni sat in the rabbit-wolf’s lap, both of them wrapped in a thick flannel blanket, watching a movie while the bitter winter wind howled outside, rattling the window panes and slightly stirring the fire in the hearth.

It was one night, when they were watching Men in Black, that Pomni looked up in the middle of the film and looked her boyfriend in the eyes.

“Hey, you don’t have to sleep on the loveseat tonight.”

Jax looked down at her, lupine eyes inquisitive. “What do you mean? I don’t mind the couch. You’re not hogging my space or anything…”

“I didn’t say I wanted to sleep on the couch, did I?” Pomni said. In the firelight, her pale skin shined and dusted with pink.

“Oh,” Jax said, his ears sticking up straighter. “Uh. Well, sure. Yeah. We can do that.”

Jax didn’t sleep on the loveseat again. His rather bulky frame took up most of the mattress space, but Pomni hardly noticed. She spent her nights in bed with Jax nestled against his side or in the crook of his arm. Cuddling up with him was a surefire way to keep warm on those frigid nights, sometimes even too warm, as she had woken up with sweat-dampened clothes on a few occasions, but that was a minuscule price to pay if it meant being close with him.

Jax was a good bedfellow, although he had woken Pomni up a few times with some quaking snores. She could fall back asleep fairly easily, but on nights where he was particularly congested, she had prodded him awake and asked him politely to try blowing his nose. He always did, and Pomni was usually sound asleep by the time the groggy rabbit-wolf climbed back into bed.

Pomni was filling in the single blank corner of her landscape with cyan-white paint when her phone rang.

“Gaaah…” she grumbled, setting down her brush on her pallet and wiping the her hands on a washcloth while the phone rang again. Probably her parents calling for the squintillionth time. The caller ID’s robotic voice blurted out a name;

“CALL FROM— KINGSTON, K.”

Oh shit. Jax’s dad. She hurried over to the phone before it finished its final ring and picked it up.

“He-Hello?” Pomni asked.

“Hey, Pomni, it’s Jax.” replied a familiar growly voice. He always used the same phone greeting.

“Hey, babe! What’s up, are you with your dad?” Pomni asked, her tone brightening immediately.

“Uh yeah, how did-? Oh, caller ID. Right. Uh, ahem, yeah, I’m with dad. I was wondering if you wanted to come over and visit?” Jax asked.

“Now?” Pomni asked. She looked at her painting.

“Uhhhhh yeah. We’ll make you breakfast. Mom’s gonna be getting back from vacation today and I was hoping she could meet you.”

Pomni hesitated. …She couldn’t say no to breakfast.

“Okay, sounds good.” Pomni answered.

“Cool. Uh, the address is 2927 Dover St. It’s about a half mile walk from Ragatha’s place, from the main intersection? Just follow Dover St. and it’ll be on your right. You’re gonna be warm enough, right?”

“Yeah. I can be there in about… half an hour, give or take. I can’t stay too long though, since I have a painting I gotta finish, okay?”

“That’s fine. You want to come over tonight?” Jax asked.

Pomni smiled. His enthusiasm was so cute.

“We’ll see, okay? I really want to get this finished, and it might be dark out by then. But if I do, I’ll let you know. Did you get your phone set up yet?”

“Oh sh- crap… No, I haven’t, the phone people haven’t been out yet.”

“Jax, the whole reason we got you that thing is so I can call you at home. It’s getting kinda frustrating.” Pomni put a hand on her hip.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Jax apologized. “The landline people just haven’t gotten out here yet, honest. They have to dig a trench for it and everything.”

“Look, hun, if I can come over tonight, I will, but if I’m not there by sundown, just assume I had to stay behind, okay? That doesn’t hurt your feelings, does it?” Pomni asked.

“Oh, totally, I’ll dump you on the spot.” Jax drawled. “‘Course it doesn’t. I get it, you’re busy. I work for a living too. We got other nights if this one doesn’t work out.”

“Thanks for understanding… I love you, see you in a bit, okay?” Pomni said, her cheeks warming a bit.

“…I love you too. Dress warm.” Jax said, a smile in his voice.

“I will. Bye-bye.” she replied, pressing the End Call button. She put the phone back on its charging dock and stretched, popping her elbows and back, before untying the old apron she had repurposed into a smock and hanging it on her easel. She took off her pajamas, taking a moment to look down at her scars.

Two deep crescents on the right side of her belly, the taut scar tissue having turned reddish-brown over last month. They looked kinda cool, sort of like a tattoo. Two moons… Hm, that gave her an idea for a drawing. A vast, starry expanse with two moons, big and all encompassing like twin planets… Wasn’t there some crackpot theory about there being two moons at one point?

She ran the tip of her finger on one of the scars and felt an echo of that night’s numbing terror. Agonizing pain and hot, sticky blood and frigid concrete… The night she should have died. She hadn’t uncovered any damning clues, but… she did meet the person she loved. And, to credit herself a bit, she helped catch the guy who tried to frame him the very next day.

She slipped on some fresh underwear and began to dress in her new snow clothes. Her parents bought her two outfits “just in case.” In case of another Nightwalker attack? Yeah. When monkeys flew out of her ass. She wasn’t letting that happen ever again.

She put on the red outfit. Nothing against the blue one, but red was her favorite lately. It looked neat, a rose-red puffer over a black fleece and black snow pants with a red beanie. Her gray university beanie went flying off her head when she took her tumble down the steps, and it was gone when she finally made it back to her apartment. Someone might have taken or thrown it out. No big deal, it would’ve been snowed over and soaking wet anyway. She also didn’t enjoy being pegged as a “city girl” whenever she wore it.

She pulled on her black wool gloves, black scarf, and brown galoshes, double checked to make sure her radiator was on (she wasn’t about to let her painting freeze), and grabbed her purse.

She opened the door out onto the balcony, the cold February air ghosting over her as she shut her apartment door and locked it. Her keys went into her front pocket, and only her front pocket from now on. It seemed that winter still had some air left in its lungs, as it showed no signs of slowing. It had snowed another half an inch last night. She looked at the stairs.

Pomni’s mother had gotten in contact with the landlord and given him a piece of her mind for a good half an hour. She told him, in no uncertain terms, the only way to avoid litigation was to make sure the steps were ice-free every time it snowed. Period. No asterisk.

So they were ice free, sprinkled with little beads of rock salt. Even as she took them, she took care to grab the railing anyway. That was part of the reason why she fell down the stupid things in the first place.

As she maneuvered her way down the steps, the high pitched whine of a siren rang through the air. Cops. The station wasn’t that far from her apartment (although, nothing was too far from anything in a town this small), so she heard them whenever they were called out to stop a bar fight or domestic dispute. Seemed like they were really in a rush this morning, as she soon saw two cruisers, red and blue lights flashing, turn onto the road her apartment was on. Pomni instinctively ducked under the stairs as the APD flew past her. Her opinion of the cops hadn’t improved much at all since January…

Once they were gone, she expelled a plume of steam and continued down the road into town. Autumnvale had been awake for a while, little communities like this got started around the asscrack of dawn, or, at the first sign or reliable sunlight, when the Nightwalkers fled to whatever pit they came from to avoid the sun. She waved to a farmer, a bull-man, passing by on his green and yellow tractor. He doffed his baseball cap.

“Mornin’, Nancy Drew.” he called over the engine.

“Morning,” Pomni replied. She cringed a bit at the nickname. Sure, she had helped solve a mystery, but that didn’t make her a detective. She wasn’t even much of an artist, the trade she was actually good at. Still, it was nice to see the townsfolk actually smile and wave at her now.

As she turned left onto Main Street, she saw a few unfamiliar faces looking around town for what was clearly their first time. They had to be tourists. No locals would be out right now, they had jobs to do, not to mention it was too damn cold to just putz around.

Autumnvale had seen a small spike in true crime tourism ever since the Wren case made the national news. While this was good for local businesses, Pomni hated it. Nothing against the people, but, come on. They had to have known better than to approach her while she was just trying to get home and bombard her with a million questions. Why yes, complete stranger, she did almost die a month ago. Oh of course, she would love to go into graphic detail about how a wild animal almost pulled her guts out of her belly like hot spaghetti. No issue reliving those experiences, no sir.

She pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth and hurried over to the opposite side of the street from this crowd of strangers. If they tried to get her attention, she would just answer back in the paltry amount of Russian that her grandpa Nikolai taught her. Hopefully “Где продуктовый магазин?” would sound convincing enough to get them to back off. Luckily, they seemed preoccupied looking at the now vacant property that was once Dr. Wren’s office. The sign above the door that had previously said “Dr. Cole Wren, Licensed Practitioner” had been removed after someone threw cow shit on it, and the burgundy front door had been taken off the hinges and replaced with a plywood board after someone, possibly the previous offender, spray painted “MURDERE” across it in silver. They probably would have added the second “R” had they not been spooked by a passing car and ran off into the alleys.

Pomni found Dover St. and began to follow the sidewalk. It led past a few apartment buildings into a more suburban area on the edge of town. The houses were a good deal further apart than most suburbs one might see around the country, and the houses were cute. Usually simple little cottages big enough for two or three people at most, the occasional two story house looking as though it was built back in the eighties, yet still standing tall despite two decades going by thanks to skilled craftsmanship and a sturdy skeleton. It made her happy that all these places weren’t getting torn down and replaced by those stupid Mcmansions that were popping up in the southern outskirts of town. No charm or character to those things, just a focus-grouped blueprint that looked just like hundreds of other focused-grouped blueprint. They were ugly to boot.

Eventually she reached 2927. She checked her watch. 10:08 AM. Not too shabby for an on-foot trek. The house itself was quite cute, a simple but functional one story house that must’ve come right out of the 70’s. It had been kept clean and orderly despite its age, a relic from the past that bravely refused to go anywhere. The backyard brushed up against Lake Sausalito, the 71 square mile freshwater lake where most of the cold winter air came from. That was Pomni’s theory at least, she was no meteorologist. Apparently the lake was great for bass fishing in early summer, and if you could stomach the chilly water, a good place to cool off. But in the winter, it was a black, rippling mirror, probably frigid enough to render an active volcano extinct if you could somehow dump all that water into it.

Pomni approached the front door. She pressed the doorbell and rubbed away any wetness that had accumulated on her pink nose. There was a brief exchange of voices, and the door opened.

“Pomni, hello!” Kinger exclaimed. He had on a blue t-shirt, depicting an obese cartoon fellow sitting in a rowboat with a small pyramid of beer cans next to him, a line cast out of sight on the opposite side of the boat, reading “Gone Fishin’” in black beneath it. Without his usual bucket hat, Kinger’s little cross on the top of his head was on full display.

“Hi Mr. Kingston, thanks for inviting me over.” Pomni replied with a smile, taking off her galoshes.

She quite liked Kinger. He was the definition of a good ol’ boy, he worked his ass off and had a story for every occasion, and he got along with pretty much anybody. He and Pomni’s parents had gotten breakfast together the day before they left town, and they had nothing but good things to say on their (second) goodbye phone call. He was the perfect guy to raise someone like Jax, a poor little kid abandoned in the wilderness…

Pomni stepped into the house and was met with the warm, rich aroma of eggs with the faint zest of sausage. Her stomach immediately jumped for joy. She followed Kinger through their sitting room, a cozy, wood-paneled place reminiscent of a log cabin, complete with a brick fireplace and a deer’s head hanging on the mantle. Jax stood in the kitchen at the end of the main room, in his usual white dress shirt, suspenders and black tie. He turned from his griddle of sausages and smiled his razor-toothed smile.

“Good morning, Pomni.” he said, offering a salute with his free hand.

“Hey babe,” Pomni replied. She put a gloved hand to her mouth, the term of endearment just slipping out. She wasn’t sure if Kinger was alright with that…

“Aw, look at that! She’s already using pet names! You’re moving up in the world, aren’t you, my boy?” Kinger chortled, patting his son on the back as he opened the cabinets to get out some plates. Jax rolled his eyes but maintained a small smile.

Pomni was made to sit at the table after she took off her layers, Kinger serving her a plate of eggs with two smoked apple and turkey sausages. She went for the sausage first, and it was heavenly. The skin broke with a satisfying pop and the meat within was tender, hot and perfectly seasoned. The sweetness of the apple balanced out the savory flavor of the turkey perfectly. She finished both sausages before even touching her eggs.

“Shit, Pomni, don’t forget to breathe.” Jax snorted.

“Jax, you better clean up that mouth. Your mother will be home any minute now.” Kinger scolded, brandishing a fork at him.

Jax rumbled and put his ears down. “…Right. Sorry, dad.”

Pomni looked up from her plate. “Oh yeah, your mom! I was going to ask, Mr. Kingston, where has your wife been? You said she was on vacation, right?”

Kinger nodded. “That’s right. Every year, right before winter, Queenie goes on a week-long trip with her girlfriends to Pelican Point.”

“Pelican-?” Pomni almost choked on her mouthful of egg, swallowing it and coughing. “Pelican Point? You guys can afford that? I mean, no offense, but…”

Pelican Point was a beach resort town on the West Coast, known for being the retreat for many politicians, media moguls and trust fund babies. It was a common joke among blue collar workers that they would one day steal all the cash from their boss’s safe and run off to Pelican Point. Multiple gossip magazines told stories about the debauchery that went on there as well. A tv star had once been found wandering the beach tripping on datura, frothing at the mouth and mumbling about plastic men and cables plugged into the Earth’s core. A star tennis player was caught with a prostitute, but in his rum and cocaine-induced fervor, mistook the private detective sent to expose him for a burglar and chased him down the hall with a shower rod,

naked as the day he was born.

“That’s right! Pelican Point.” Kinger said proudly. “I covered her airline tickets and she and her friends covered the hotel fees. We’ve been saving for a good vacation somewhere sunny for a while now.”

“What about you? Don’t you want to go?” Pomni asked.

“HA! Are you kidding? Nothing for me to do but dodder around the beach and drink Mai Thais at the bar. There’s not even any good spots for ocean fishing. It’s so heavily regulated, you have to sign paperwork to blow your nose.” Kinger shook his head and had a sip of coffee.

Jax smirked. “Kinger likes to keep busy. I guess I get that from him. I’d hate it there too.”

A thought popped into Pomni’s head. Jax, all six feet three inches of him, lounging on a folding beach chair in a hibiscus-print shirt and sunglasses, sipping a tropical beverage out of a coconut shell with a crazy straw. She bit her lip to keep from giggling.

The sound of tires grumbling across snow made the three of them look towards the window, Jax’s ears pricking up. A pair of headlights winked from the window for a moment before pulling up beside Kinger’s pickup.

“Ah, that’ll be her! Let me go help her with her bags!” Kinger pulled on his red and black flannel jacket that hung over the back of the chair, grabbing his bucket-shaped fishing hat from a hook on the wall.

“Here dad, I can help,” Jax got to his feet, the table shifting outward a bit from his bulk.

“The heck you will, son. You sit and enjoy your food. Your old man may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but I can still manage heavy lifting.” Kinger said, pressing a thumb to his chest. He then opened the door and headed outside.

“…So what’s your mom like?” Pomni asked. She finished the last bites of her eggs.

“Uh…” Jax scratched behind his ears. “She’s nice? She looks out for me and… does mom stuff. I don’t know, I’m not really a great introduce-r.”

“Well, she raised you, and you’re amazing, so I’m sure she’s great.” Pomni smiled and held Jax’s paw. The rabbit-wolf squeezed it delicately, his paw large enough to completely encase her petite hand in a fist.

“Thanks… uh, did you want the rest of my food?” asked Jax, offering Pomni his plate of half-finished eggs.

The door flew open just as Pomni accepted the offer, nearly making her drop the eggs. Another chess-piece shaped person, this one a darker brown than Kinger and with a head-shape resembling a queen, stomped into the room. She had on a violet mink coat and a pair of matching earmuffs. She just about threw her keys onto the counter and balled her fists, letting out a growl that would make any pitbulls nearby tip their hats.

“Oh that fucking QUACK! If he wasn’t behind bars I’d choke the life out of him myself!”

Kinger followed behind her with a rolling suitcase, also violet.

“Jax! Oh, my baby, come here…” Queenie hurried over to Jax and threw her hands around him.

“Hi mom…” Jax hugged the chess-piece woman right back.

“Honeybunny, are you okay? You’re not hurt? I swear to God if that weasel hurt even one hair on your body I’ll burn the station down!” Queenie declared.

Kinger hurriedly stepped into an adjoining room to put her suitcase away, but Queenie called after him, still hugging Jax. “Kinger, don’t think I’m done with you! Why didn’t you call me?! I would have been on the first flight back to The East Coast if you told me what was going on.

As Kinger shouted back a muffled excuse, Queenie looked over at Pomni. She blinked and let go of her son.

“Oh. Hello. Jax, who is this young lady?” she asked.

Pomni stared with large eyes, holding up an open palm. “Hi.”

“This is Pomni Freeman, mom. She’s a grad student from the big city. She’s… my girlfriend.”

Queenie looked rapidly from Jax to Pomni for a moment.

“You… have a girlfriend?” Queenie whispered.

“…It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.” Pomni said, managing a tentative smile.

Queenie held up one finger at Jax. “Alright, I know you were framed and put behind bars, so you get a pass this time. Your dumbass dad not communicating with me is another pretty good excuse. But oh my God Jax, you have a girlfriend?!”

Queenie practically squealed this last bit of her sentence, going over to Pomni and shaking her hand. Her grip was feverish but not too hard, thank goodness.

“Hi, honey! I’m Queenie Kingston, I’m Jax’s mother! Oh, give me just a second to get out of my coat and we can chat!”

She went into her and Kinger’s bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Pomni listened to the muffled arguing behind the door for just a moment before looking at Jax, a small smile on her lips with an eyebrow arched.

“You didn’t tell her anything?” she asked.

“Ehhh… it was dad’s idea, really,” Jax shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “He kept saying he wanted her to have a good time and not worry about home. Pelican Point ain’t cheap, she might not ever get an opportunity like that again, you know?”

“I’m not mad or anything, babe. Don’t sweat it.”

Pomni scooted forward on her chair and smooched the rabbit-wolf on the lips. He returned the kiss timidly. Pomni finished up her boyfriend’s leftover eggs, and soon Queenie exited the bedroom with Kinger. She had dressed herself in a pastel yellow concert tee for a pretty okay country-western group that was big in the nineties. She took a seat across from Pomni as Kinger strategically went to the kitchen to work on making her some breakfast.

“So, Pomni, you’re a grad student. That means you probably got that scholarship the Mayor created a few years ago, hm?” Queenie asked.

“That’s right ma’am, uh, I got selected by The Fine Arts department for my high grades…”

Pomni told Queenie just about everything. How she got her scholarship, how she met Jax, her encounter with the Nightwalker and Jax’s rescue, everything with Dr. Wren… It must have taken almost an hour to explain everything, but it flew by so quickly. So much happened in just three days.

Queenie, who was pretty much finished with her breakfast at this point, shook her head in disgust at Dr. Wren’s crimes. She swallowed her last bite of food and waggled her fork between her thumb and forefinger.

“I know Hindsight’s 20/20, but I never liked Dr. Wren. Doesn’t surprise me he’d do something so scummy. He was no help at all for Jax when he was a boy. Just slapped him with a “hyperactive” diagnosis and put him on pills that turned him into a robot. It broke my heart seeing him just sit and stare at nothing.”

“Yeah… I feel like shrinks are always quick to give a kid adderall or concerta or something…” Pomni said grimly. “It’s why I’m glad I only have to call my shrink once every three months.”

Jax huffed. “I remember how it felt. My stomach hurt so bad I wanted to puke, and I just… didn’t feel anything. It was creepy. I wanted to laugh or smile but I would, like, have to force my body to do it.”

“Oh, bless your heart, you poor thing…” Queenie cooed.

Kinger, who had been listening tacitly, finished his cup of coffee and placed it in the dishwasher. He went over to the television, sat on a sturdy wooden table painted shades of aqua and cerulean, with different colored fish whittled into the side. Purple, seafoam green, salmon pink (appropriately) and cyan. He sat himself on a brown leather recliner, turning on the boxy CRT tv, hitting the mute button so as not to interrupt the conversation in the kitchen. However, what he saw when the screen warmed up to full brightness made him break his silence.

“Ho-ly smoke!” he exclaimed, sitting up and pressing both hands onto the recliner’s armrests.

“Kinger, what’s the matter?” Queenie asked as she rinsed her plate off in the sink.

“Come look at this! The Cyclones made it to the playoffs!” Kinger unmuted the television, a deep-voiced narrator discussing an upcoming showdown.

Queenie rolled her eyes. “Since when do you care about sports?”

“If they’ve made it to the playoffs, they’re gonna start up the betting pool at the pub again! Ha!” he clapped his hands together. “If I play my cards right I can probably send you back to Pelican Point this time next year!”

“Dad, didn’t you lose like, 2K last time you tried betting on games?” Jax asked with a smirk.

“Aw, I just got greedy is all, Jax. This year I’ll be more careful, for sure.”

“Yeah, you’ll be careful, alright. You aren’t putting a damn penny in that betting pool.” Queenie said, one hand on her hip and the other pointed at Kinger. “It’s too risky! I’d like to be able to keep the gas on for the rest of the winter.”

The channel finished playing ads and played a quick screen wipe transition for ADC News. It then cut to some live footage of the police pulled up outside of the McMansions on the south side of town. The voice of Robert Watts spoke over it.

“Welcome back to ADC News, if you’re just now joining us, a grisly scene discovered just two hours ago at this Autumnvale residence. A neighbor out for an early morning walk discovered what she described as a ‘bloodbath’ on the road outside 51-year-old foreign investor Amos Halloran’s countryside home, the door wide open and snow having drifted into the house. Police arrived moments later to discover bloody animal tracks leading away from another body in the upstairs bedroom.”

Pomni leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. Queenie set aside the kitchen sponge and rapidly dried her hands on a washcloth so she could come watch as well. Jax cleaned his dagger-sharp teeth with a plastic toothpick, leaning forward ever so slightly to watch as well.

The tv cut back to the cougarman sitting in the newsroom. “Police have identified the body out front as Mr. Halloran, as well as his 32-year-old girlfriend Tamika Pryce upstairs. Both bodies show heavy signs of a Nightwalker attack, but Autumnvale’s police are now questioning whether this was a simple fatality, or something more calculated. Misty Reynolds is on the scene now with more details, Misty?”

The picture cut to the same on-site news anchor that ADC always used, that thirty-something brunette woman. Pomni always thought she was cute. She stood center frame in her trademark white parka with the hood drawn up, wearing a red scarf, about a house away from the crime scene. Her nose was slightly pink from the cold. A few cops could be seen milling around out of focus in the background, and a black van that could only belong to the coroner had arrived.

“Thanks Rob, this quiet neighborhood was shocked to find what was initially thought to be the aftermath of a fatal Nightwalker attack, but upon the police investigating the house behind me-” Misty pointed with her thumb. “-they found signs of a robbery.”

The picture cut to a police officer that Pomni faintly recognized from around town, an older guy. He always looked sort of droopy, like the years working as a cop had gradually tugged his face downward. The text scroll on the bottom identified him as Deputy Sterling Hunt.

“A personal safe was opened and emptied of its contents, and there were signs of a violent struggle in the house.” he said.

“Oh my god…” Queenie said, shaking her head.

The footage cut back to Misty.

“Police have yet to discern if these were merely opportunists looking to take advantage of an empty house, or if this was a more calculated effort. All Autumnvale residents have been implored by the mayor to be absolutely, positively certain that their houses and apartments are locked up tight.”

It cut to the mayor, Caine Mason, at his desk. Same impeccably pressed red suit, same serious as a heart attack expression on his face.

“Winter is already our most dangerous season. We can’t allow any unnecessary bloodshed for the sake of our citizens.” he said.

“No shit…” Jax mumbled. Queenie shot him a look.

“Did you know them..?” Pomni asked Queenie.

“I only met the husband a few times at church.” she said. “I never liked him. He’s… He was the type to look down on you if you didn’t have some suit-and-tie job. Didn’t mean he had to die though. No one deserves to die.”

“Not even Dr. Wren?” asked Jax with a tiny smile.

“One person deserves to die,” Queenie said without looking away from the tv.

Jax put a paw on Pomni’s shoulder.

“Y’okay?” he asked.

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine I-I didn’t know them.” Pomni replied.

“I know, but…” Jax trailed off, scratching the back of his head.

“I’m a big girl, Jax,” Pomni said with a faint smirk. She motioned him closer and whispered in his ear. “If you’re worried, I’ll stay over with you tonight, okay?”

Jax smiled, but it vanished quickly. “Wh-What about your painting?” he asked.

“You’re more important than some painting, hun. I got the rest of the afternoon anyway.” Pomni whispered. “It’ll be fun.”

Pomni gave Jax another discreet kiss on his furry cheek. She then got up from the table and began putting on her layers.

“You heading out?” Jax asked.

“Yeah, I better mosey on. Thank you so much for having me over, Mr. and Mrs. Kingston.” Pomni smiled.

Queenie came over and gave Pomni a quick hug. Pomni normally would have flinched, but she had been quietly expecting a hug from this jovial woman, so she took it in stride. It wasn’t too bad, maybe a little heavy on perfume.

“You be safe now, pumpkin. You’ve got our number if you need anything, okay?” Queenie said.

“Yes ma’am. You be safe too,” Pomni said. She pulled her gloves out of her coat pockets and tugged them on, wiggling her fingers, then zipped herself up.

“Pleasure to have you over, Miss Freeman. Don’t work too hard, okay?” Kinger said with a good natured chortle.

“I’ll do my best,” giving her best laugh back.

Queenie gently but deliberately swatted Jax on the arm, who was still seated at the table.

“What are you doing? Go see your girlfriend to the door like a gentleman.” she chided.

Jax got to his feet a bit too quickly, jostling the table with his lap. He walked Pomni to the door, tied on her scarf for her as she put on her hat, then unlatched the door.

“Call when you get home, okay? I’ll still be around here, I gotta help dad with some furnace stuff…” Jax said.

“Sure thing,” Pomni said as she pulled on her boots.

Jax opened the door for her, then leaned down hesitantly. He clearly felt a bit awkward about PDA in front of his parents, especially since both of them were pretending not to watch. Pomni slung her purse over her shoulder, then stood on her tiptoes and pressed a smooch to his lips.

“I love you,” she said. “Bye.”

Queenie put a hand over her heart.

“…I love you too, see you soon.” Jax said, his ears sticking straight up and a bashful smile on his wolfish face. Pomni waved to him and stepped out onto the porch, walking carefully out onto the road. Jax watched her for a little while longer before closing the door.

Pomni took a deep breath of the cold and crinkly air before expelling it in a cloud of steam. She felt full and warm. She set out on her trek back to her apartment.

A crow croaked on a nearby branch, preening its oil-black feathers. It shook its head and watched the girl on the road, jostling a small dusting of snow from the branch it perched on.

[yellowocaballero]

milagro!!! i LOVE GL!milagro stuff. is guy still the first GL she meets? i am v curious what his story (and john’s) ends up looking like in this au in general, but my first exposure to him was in jaime’s bb run so i’m hoping that pseudo mentorship still exists here somehow

IS!! THAT!! A GIANT!! GREEN!! FIST!!

Green Lantern Milagro is the most god-tier take and we need to return to it. My "Kyle rebuilds the GLC to be woke and Milagro is the most feral Lantern" idea is actually super old - I think it's in the Reverse Robins Universe, in some unpublished stories - but it's still good. Let the furries make the judicial system. Do it. Let them free.

Let's say:

Guy Gardner was the second Green Lantern on Earth. Everything that Hal was, Guy is not. He's a hothead, meathead, go-getting action hero wannabe who has to be the biggest, the best, and the strongest. He's abrasive, selfish, mean, and short-sighted.

Guy Gardner is exactly like Hal Jordan: an All-American hero, angry and rude in a way that his colleague John Stewart could never get away with. He's part of the NRA and thinks Trump has some points. Too wimpy to make a good President, though. Give him a President who can last five minutes in the ring with Guy Gardner!

Despite his differences with the more professional and cool-headed Hal, he was shocked and horrified at Coast City's destruction. Where other heroes expressed sympathies and turned away in discomfort with his overwhelming pain, Guy stayed with him. He doesn't like to spread it around, but he's a registered school councilor - doubled with his middle school gym teacher thing - and he stayed at Hal's side through his grief as long as Hal let him.

When Hal disappeared, Guy was the one who knew in his heart that he had killed himself. He had been expecting it.

He had not been expecting his ring to break.

Guy loses it all. His power, his respect. He can't go back to who he used to be. He's not a gym teacher or school counselor anymore. He's Guy Gardner. You can't ask Guy Gardner to be a civvie.

The only thing he keeps is his Justice League International membership. He wanted to quit, but his friends (family, but none of them would admit it) needed him to stay. They had already lost the second Blue Beetle so recently, and they can't lose anybody else. Booster Gold's grieving his husband too. In that way, in some way, Guy's still needed. Guy has to be needed. But Guy has to be a hero too, and he feels like he's dying slowly by degrees in powerlessness.

Then Booster calls the JLI, drunk as a skunk and deep in a panic, saying that there's this kid in El Paso running around with Dan Garret's scarab in his SPINE, how did this even HAPPEN, how did he get it WORKING, where the hell is TED - Ted's dead, he's still dead, what the FUCK do we do, he's a baby he's gonna DIE TOO, everyone's gonna DIE -

A gym teacher and licensed counselor knocks on he door of a house in El Paso.

Booster was right. Jaime Reyes is a snot-nosed kid who's getting his ass kicked up and down to Sunday in every fight, and either he's gonna get himself killed or he's gonna blow up the city. Nobody else but the JLI ever gave a shit about Ted, and nobody's gonna give a shit about this kid with an orphaned legacy. He needs a personal trainer and mentor and he needs one right now. Jaime Reyes needs a hero, even a washed up old asshole like Guy Gardner.

And his little sister throws a heck of a punch. Oh, Guy is keeping Milagro. She's learning boxing!

An asshole, shallow kid enters the scene. A new ring appears. The last Green Lantern disappears to find the truth. Guy leads his own life. It's not like his old one, but it's good. That kid Jaime's become a good hero, and his little sister is the coolest kid on the planet. A Trumper on the street says something shitty to Jaime and Milagro about illegals and Guy lands on him the signature Guy Gardner punch. Trump's an asshole idiot, anyway. Next time, Milagro lands the signature punch. She has learned well.

A young man returns. A truth is told. A fucked up orange ring is on Guy's finger. And now he'll have to learn how to be a hero all over again.

The orange ring isn't powered by bravery and willpower. It's powered by greed. It's a greedy, cruel ring. It's mean. But Guy's pretty greedy too. And Guy's a mean son of a bitch.

Guy Gardner is the first Orange Lantern. And he's everything Hal Jordan is not: a man with a voracious need to protect and help. A man with an endless appetite for love, and to give love. A school counselor, and a mentor to some pretty nifty kids. Guy can never get enough of being a hero. He'll never stop. And he'll always help.

Because he's Guy fucking Gardner!

[the-iron-shoulder]

so I’m 37, I’ve lived in the US my whole life, and I just got a car for the first time six months ago. Until then, for my entire adult life (my parents had cars and drove us everywhere when i was a kid, like most suburban families) I’d relied on my bicycle, friends with cars, and a passable but not great public transit system (my city has okay public transit but definitely not anywhere near top tier even by US standards).

My reasons for not getting a car for that long were complex (partly a combination of cost/environmental idealism, partly some psychological stuff that I don’t feel like unpacking in public), and my reasons for finally getting a car were also a little complex but also in large part because I really just wanted to be able to go over to my bf’s place on equal terms.

Regardless of the backstory, I got a car six months ago after decades of living without one. Now I can go so many places, do errands so much more efficiently, spend so much less time getting to the places I already want to go…

I hate it.

I hate how immediately dependent I became on it. I hate the sheer degree to which it makes everything just so much easier.

like I knew that the US is an extremely car-centric society in so many ways, but oh my GOD is it SO apparent to me now in ways that just ironically didn’t stand out when you’re deeply entrenched in the “I am not a person with a car” mindset. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

and like. It’s not “I hate it and I want to go back to biking everywhere.” Absolutely not. I hate that the difference in quality of life, the difference in convenience for people with cars and people without cars is SO HUGE. My life is just so much easier now and that’s deeply fucked up, this should not be a prerequisite

I am just so much more capable of doing things than I was before I bought the car, and it’s INCREDIBLY frustrating that this is the case. It shouldn’t be like this! Like, I lived for nearly two adult decades without one of these fucking things, I know it’s (for someone in my location and my physical condition) technically a luxury and not a necessity, but good GOD the sheer degree to which my entire fucking society assumes that anyone and everyone will always have trivial access to a car is just DISGUSTING

ugggggh I know I’m not saying anything new, “car culture sucks and the US needs radically different urban planning and also some fucking public transit options” is what I believed already and is not exactly a new and unique take or anything, but omg it’s just so wild to actually see HOW MUCH privilege is locked away like this, it’s unconscionable

I was able to live without a car for years and years, but i was also able to choose to get one. How are we failing all the people who can’t choose to get one? Or who simply continue to choose not to have one? It’s! Just so frustrating!

[cricketcampbell]

eavesdrop + chauncey paddington montgomery campbell iii!

"You need to come get your son."

(An unusual greeting for a 1 AM FaceTime call, mostly because Cricket and Mack didn't share any actual children together, unless you counted their joint custody over Aiden.)

"What do you mean, who? Your son, Mack."

The camera flipped from the extreme close up on Cricket's face to her view from the safety of her bedroom doorway. It looked about the same as it always did, some varying degree of mess, but with all the lights turned on despite the time of night and her bed hastily unmade from when she'd clearly just thrown herself from it moments before.

She doesn't dare inch closer inside the room, instead making sure that the small brown bear holding a heart perched on the fluffy pink chair at her vanity is in clear line of sight of her camera.

"Stop laughing! I'm like being so fucking serious right now. I swear Chauncey moved."

Chauncey Paddington Montgomery Campbell III (despite only being the first of his name as far as they knew) was a Valentine's Day present from their first and only year of dating, and who unfortunately just happened to share a first name with the murderous imaginary friend from the movie she and Lori had watched just a few hours before.

"Stop, you're so not funny. I already made sure that Sola could see him too." hey quick q can u see the bear in my chair rn? an equally confusing text to have received at 1 AM, she's sure, and yet probably still not their weirdest. "But I'm not even kidding, Mack. He moved! Do you think he's pissed that he's our son but was also, like, our criminally underpaid butler? Like isn't that so kinda fucked up when you think about it?"

And now she was going to get dragged into the Never Ever or murdered in her sleep over it while Mack, who was equally if not more so to blame, got off scot-free.

Fathers.

"Please come get him. Like I seriously don't think I can sleep--" From the corner of her eye, Cricket catches sudden movement from inside the room, and any attempt to remain mindful of her sleeping roommates is rendered useless with her shriek as she darts out of the doorway and further into the hall. "Oh my God, see? Did you see? He--"

Was actually only Caesar. The cat pauses in her doorway completely unbothered, head tilted curiously up at Cricket and her theatrics, unimpressed.

"Stop laughing. That wasn't even funny, Mack! I literally thought I was about to die!" And she still might, though whether that was at the hands of Chauncey or her abruptly awoken roommates remained to be seen. "Just come down here, please. But, like...still stay on the phone with me until you're at the door, obviously."

She wasn't taking any chances.

@mackmontgomery

send me “eavesdrop” and my muse will describe your muse like they’re talking to a third party.

[imsparky2002]

Ghouls and Monsters - The Vampire

(Draculeka is jamming on her guitar when she feels a dark ominous shadow looming over her, as she turns around, there is nothing there. She turns back to get her guitar, before Jubella appears in a flash. She raises her cape above her head and shows off her fangs in a grin.)

Jubella: I vant to suck your blood! Mwahahaha! (She hisses dramatically, as Draculeka remains unfazed.)

Draculeka: You do realize I'm a vampire, right?

(Of course Jubella knew, but she had hoped that her counterpart would’ve been too shy and scared, and would’ve screamed out of surprise. She decides to improvise.)

Jubella: Y-yes. But zhat just shows how eeevilll I am!

(Draculeka just exposes her neck calmly.)

Draculeka: Then do it.

(Jubella pouts and covers herself in her cloak.)

Jubella: You could at least pretend to be scared! Be a good sport!

Draculeka: I would, except you're me. So I know that you're not some bloodsucking villain. You're a mischevious goth kid who likes the creepy side of vampirism. Lemme guess, you drink blood packs?

Jubella: Animal blood, actually. Allows me to feel zhe joy of sinking my teeth into somezhing vhile not hurting anyone.

Draculeka: Fair enough. Ok, so, other me. What do you like to do?

(Jubella chuckles once more, showing off her gothic dress as she lets go of the cloak.)

Jubella: I love to give people a fright vhenever I can, as is natural for a creature of zhe night such as myself! I also protect zhe people of Paris alongside my dear sisters! As you said, I am scary, not evil!

(Draculeka can’t help but smile sadly. She envied this version of herself.)

Draculeka: Wow, you're lucky. In my world, monsters wouldn't dare frighten humans. We don't exactly get along. In fact, most humans are just itching for an excuse to get rid of us "freaks" once and for all.

Jubella: (Frowns) I-I’m so sorry. Believe me, humans aren’t alvays friendly to us either. Hunters and mobs have given us trouble, but I can’t imagine vhat it’s like to have to live in fear to such a massive degree.

Draculeka: Not your fault, you're from another universe. And like you said, I'm sure you have to deal with idiot hunters in your place. It's not all bad. I have my friends, Rose, my parents, Luka. 

(At the mention of "parents" and "Luka", Jubella freezes. She can't help but begin to tear up.)

Jubella: Could you…tell me about zem? Mine…died vhen I was young…

(Draculeka is not really able to process the fact that her family is gone in another universe. She hugs Jubella, and tries to give as comforting a response as she can.)

Draculeka: Oh... I'm sorry. U-um. Well, Mom and Dad can be embarassing, but they're really cool and protect me and Luka from any real danger. Luka teases me sometimes, but he's really sweet and good with a guitar.

Jubella: (Smiles weakly) That sounds lovely! I’m sorry for getting so emotional, it’s just…zhey vere killed by vampire hunters vhen I vas eight. All of our families died on zhat horrible day. 

Draculeka: I can’t begin to imagine what that’s like. All I can say is that I hope you and your siblings have somewhere to live, someone to watch over you.

Jubella: Vell, after zhat, the Vitches of Visdom raised me, along vith my sisters! Zhey had practically been our babysitters all our lives, so ve accepted zhem right avay.

Draculeka: Got any pictures? Of them, I should add. I already know about the whole "no reflection thing".

Jubella: (Smiles, and takes out her phone) Here zhey are.

Draculeka: Wow, it’s weird to see Mylene without vines! Or Alya with real flesh and Alix without sunglasses and moving hair! Speaking of which, do you and Alix get along well? You being a vampire and her a werewolf?

Jubella: (Giggles) Of course! Although ve rib on each other all zhe time! Vhy, ve hiss and howl at eachother, just for a laugh! 

Draculeka: Our werewolf is called Kim, and we do the same thing! (Looks back at the photo.) Oh! And there’s Rose! She’s got skin! And she’s green! Wait... is she your sister too? I hope you and the other Ghoul Squad aren't actually related.

Jubella: Oh, no! Ve just see each other as family. (Smiles) Ve vere all born days apart, and have been raised together since birth. I don’t know vhat I vould do vithout zhem.

Draculeka: My Rose's a real jewel. She's a skeleton, but a flower in my eyes. We jam out together, and she makes my heart scream. What about yours? 

(Jubella blushes and dramatically gushes about her darling Rose Frankenteen.)

Jubella: She’s a ray of light in my life, her brilliant mind and enormous heart make my spirit soar! She’s as ghoulish as she is sveet, and I couldn’t love her more if I tried!

Draculeka: Well I can see why she likes you. You know, I always had a love for Dracula, and it's cool to know my alternate self has such an elegant style. The dress and cloak match perfectly with the top hat. 

(She's a goth fashion nerd. Jubella chuckles and does a dramatic flourish with her cloak, swooping it around. She smiles as she sees Draculeka’s onyx bat clips and layered chain belt.)

Jubella: Vhy, thank you! And I have say, I adore your hair clips and that fabulous belt!

Draculeka: Yeah, I found myself going for more of a gothic lolita vibe. And you gotta show appreciation for bats.

(Jubella hums in agreement.)

Jubella: Ah yes. Children of zhe night. Vhat music zhey make.

(Draculeka squeals in delight. Jubella looks confused, unaware that she just made a reference.)

Jubella: Vhat did I say?

Draculeka: Do you guys not have Dracula in your universe?

(Jubella shakes her head.)

Draculeka: Pity. Well, anyway, I have an idea. How about we go for a flyby? It's the perfect weather for such an occassion.

Jubella: Sounds delightful! (Grins, showing off her fangs) Shall ve? (The two shift into their bat forms)

Draculeka: Loser has to watch all the Twilight films in one sitting.

Jubella: You monster!

Draculeka: Oh God! You have Twilight but not Dracula. Girl, I feel sorry for you.

Jubella: Vell, you won’t feel so sad vhen you’re forced to vatch zhem after I leave you in zhe dust!

Draculeka: We’ll see about that.

(They zoom off into the night.)

Here’s the third crossover, and my favorite so far. The difference between how these two present themselves is night and day, but I love them both so much, as Juleka’s one of my favorite characters. Thanks to Weeby for helping as always with the dialogue, and check out their Monstrous AU, it’s top tier stuff! As always, reply, reblog, post and ask. Oh, and send them questions about their Monster AU and their Class of Heroes AU as well. @artzychic27 @msweebyness 

[marshmallowprotection]

so it IS surprising that the twins know when their birthday is--what if it's more that, like their age, they took an educated guess (like they had something vague like "it's in June" and just picked a day) after leaving home and when they reunite they realize they've been using different days. I'm just imagining like

MC: so when is your guys' birthday?

saeyoung: june 11th

saeran: the 11th? I've been using the 9th

saeyoung: it could be the 9th. oh! then that would make you the older twin! haha

MC thinking like "i probably shouldn't be surprised by this"

It's quite possible Saeran and Saeyoung had to take a swing on their birthday. The only reason we know it's their birthday is that we've got information outside of the fourth wall that tells us so. But, what is in their life that could tell them that for sure? The only chance they may be aware of their true birthday comes from a simple hypothesis that Mother Choi hated that day more than anything, so that's how those boys knew it was their birthday.

I don't think she'd care enough to keep track of their real ages but certainly, she would make sure that day was a living hell for them. After all, they were supposed to be her meal ticket to a better life and it didn't work out that way. Now, she has to live in a way she never wanted for herself with children she never wanted. The only thing she ever wanted was the ability to spoil herself rotten with a rich partner. She didn't care about kids or anything else.

We can only assume she was okay with having children as long as it came with the implication that she would be set for life. She wanted to coast. 

At least, that's the way I imagine her to be. She was a young person in her mid to late twenties who was naive enough to believe she could manipulate a man well older than she was. I imagine Saejoong was in his mid to late thirties since he was on the cusp of finding his way into the status of Prime Minister, or at the very least, throwing his hat into the ring for the first time.

She was a calculated person who had worked her way through all kinds of men with money in their pockets, but she seems like the kind of person that would constantly crave much more. It would never be enough. She would keep reaching higher and higher until she found somebody at the tippy top. Too bad for her, she didn't have the know-how to navigate that herself. 

She could con her way through any man, but not one who had already been through this time and time again. 

Her goal was to get into his life to such a degree that she could become his wife and be spoiled for the rest of her life. Since he prides himself as a man who wants to protect the values of family, of course, he would want a beautiful wife and children. It makes sense in her head. Where it gets complicated is the information we don't have. We don't know if he was already in a relationship.

We don't know if he had a wife or children he considered his own at the time Mother Choi met him. All we know is they had a tumultuous fling and her last ditch effort to try and control him was through having the twins. I feel as though she took care of them enough when they were babies since the money he spared her was decent enough for the time. 

The hush money was good enough and she could dilute herself on the thought that he might actually turn around at some point. It would be after the money started to dwindle that she would treat the twins more and more like a nuisance. Once the threats and hardships began, her hatred of the twins would grow to a fever pitch and she would drink to cope with the situation. That would more or less lead us up to where we know the boys and their childhood before they managed to meet V and Rika. 

I am ultimately confident that the day is correct. I don't think the date is wrong and they know that day very well because of their mother. However, I do think that the year they were born may not be correct. They have no way of knowing and their mother wouldn't care to tell them enough about themselves.

The only chance they have over knowing a possible year would be if she screamed at them that they ruined her life “X” years ago. The boys can only take that with a grain of salt since the further she loses herself to her alcoholism, the less likely she is to be accurate on dates and times. 

So, that's something we have to think about with the boys. They don't know who is truly the older brother or the younger brother. They don't know how old they truly are and they might never be. All they have is the date. Since I doubt they were born in a hospital, there's no way to figure that one out.

It's a sad reality but it's something they have to deal with every day. Instead of worrying about that, they use the labels that they figured out a long time ago and leave them at that. Even if they have to guess for the rest of their lives, they use what they know and they stick with it. But, can you imagine if they did have the ability to figure it out? If they knew for certain who they were and how it happened?

What would happen if it turned out that Saeran was the oldest? If Saeyoung was the youngest? It wouldn't change anything but it would turn their worlds on its head.

[pbandjesse]

I am absolutely shattered today. More exhausted then I have been in a while. I am super glad my workshop tomorrow is not happening anymore because I don't think I could handle it. I am just. So tired.

I didn't sleep amazing again. My ears hurt again. I have had go take out all of my piercing. Which seems to have helped a little bit. But I also absolutely slept through my alarm because I was asleep on top of my phone. Thankfully James woke me up at 715.

I was in a horrible mood though. And I was very snippy. I was in my head telling myself to knock it off but I was having a bad time. I was to hot. I would be okay but it did not start well.

James left for work before me. And I took a few extra minutes to sit and watch my new fish because I read that it can help your blood pressure and I do think it helped a little bit. I was out the door by 755.

I got over to creative alliance and loaded up my wagon. As I walked from the corner where I parked t Creative Alliance Parker pulled up and I was like. Oh hi! And I really tried to put on all my energy. But I was for sure more low energy then normal. I tried but I was struggling.

The classroom was 72 degrees. Which was wild. Parker would realize and fix it pretty quick but it did not help how warm I already was. But it would be okay.

I started setting up my program and slowly the kids started coming in. Including some I knew! One from the nursery I subbed at before and one form puhtok. And everyone was really great.

James had given me a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes from soap being sold at the gift shop. So as the kids came in, some went to draw, and some came to help me assemble the boxes. And it was fun. A nice little way to get to know each other and jump right into making stuff.

They were all really excited about the Rubbermaid tubs of stuff I brought. And I gave them plastic bins to start putting things to the side in case they might want to use them for their dioramas. But we would be breaking into two groups later on so it was no rush.

The kids were really funny. And by the end of the day they had developed their own religion, with one of the older boys, Andrew, becoming the cult leader. It was all around an egg that did not shatter with the others. And then at lunch they went to the park and saw a dead bird and I think there is a chicken and the egg conversation to be had but they just kept chanting. And making art about the egg. Children are so wonderfully weird.

Parker took the kids on a tour of the two buildings first. Which gave me a few minutes to eat my breakfast. But soon they were back and we jumped right in.

We started with taking about what a dioramas was. I wrote things in the board and we discussed what it is, what it's made of, why someone might make one. And they had really great answers. Next we filled out the worksheet I made up with information for thinking about how your diorama will function. Who's in it? What's the environment? What are the materials? We then sketched it and then we made paper models of the ideas. Not everyone did all of these steps, and they really didn't have to. But it was good to work through the ideas.

We had approximately 2 and a half hours for each group. And I found that about half of each group spent the entire time making, while the other half finished in about an hour. So I had to push for adding things. And I would find some books and Legos to entertain the littler ones. But overall I think we did great.

I did struggle when I realized I forgot my hot glue sticks at home. So the first group only had 5 sticks. But they really made it work. Like it wasn't perfect but it was still good. Even if I was stressed. And I would cut my finger in my pocket knife when I was helping cut windows out of boxes. Ouch. It was bleeding pretty bad and I was mad at myself.

But the kids did great. Only a few little finger burns on the hot glue guns. No one seriously injured. And they all worked really hard. It was nice to see.

They had a snack break half way through the morning. I would have my little lunch then since I was planning on quickly driving home to get the hot glue during their lunch half hour.

After their snack some of them finished quickly. Some took the rest of the hour. Other started drawing. I had music going. It was a little tough for me to find music without cursing so we ended up listening to Mitski and Julien Baker all day. Which I enjoyed and I think kept the space calm.

We finished the morning session and Parker collected the other class and my class and I headed to the car.

I quickly drove home. Washed my face and tried to shake off the tired feeling. My feet hurt and it would only get worse. But it was okay. I grabbed the hot glue. Pet Sweetp. And quickly drove back. Got the same parking space even!

They were still at the park for lunch so I enjoyed sitting on the stairs outside. I was out there for like ten minutes when I heard the entire group of children chanting "all hail the dead bird!" Over and over. Children are hilarious.

I did have to ban chanting though because half of my second group was getting very frustrated by the boys repeating and being loud about eggs and I was getting frustrated too. You may worship the egg quietly in your head. I just don't want to hear it anymore.

The afternoon felt long. But I know it was mostly because I was very tired. I still had fun. And really enjoyed seeing what everyone was making. Some of the kids really were great at this project and I was so proud of them. This is for sure a 3rd/4th grade project. But what else it new, that's the age I work best with.

Around 330 we started cleaning up. Some were still working. Some were done. I was slowly cleaning up around them. Teaching some how to properly wash paint brushes. Giving others the job of sweeping. And soon parents were showing up.

As they were getting picked up I thanked them all for coming. One of the kids showed me a magic trick. I got to meet the other teachers who were teaching the kids to do magic tricks which was very neat. And after packing my wagon I was ready to go.

I checked in with Parker before I left. And he just said how awesome he thinks I am and how he loves how I know so many things. To be fair I know a little about a lot of things, and it's hurt me in the past. I remember when I applied for Penland to try and get a residency after college and they said I had to many directions in my portfolio. That I needed to focus. But that was never going to be me I guess. I think I like it better that way.

I held it together until I got home. But I was exhausted. My feet hurt so much. I desperately wanted to lay down.

And that's just what I did. I got home and took my shoes off and got on the couch. And that's where James found me not long after. I was very upset and very tired.

I just kept closing my eyes. But James asked me what I wanted for dinner and I wanted brass tap. It took me a while to get to that answer but I did get there. And it was hard to get up. But James pulled me off the couch and we headed to Towson.

James took us a fun back roads way. And I talked to them about some frustrations I am having and that helped me feel a little better.

We parked in the parking garage at the mall and went to the restaurant. And it wasn't amazing and I felt horrible. But I was happy to be with my James. Even if it was to loud. Ah well.

I still appreciated James trying to make me feel better. The food was fine and I saved the salad for tomorrow. We walked through the mall to go to the car because it had started to rain. And it was nice window shopping but I was very much ready to go home.

When we got back here I got changed and got in the couch. James did some painting for the stairwell. And me and Sweetp have just been resting.

And I am very very much ready for bed now. Thankfully the only plans I have this weekend is to have brunch with Callie tomorrow. She's coming to get me in the morning and we have reservations so I'm hoping it's pretty low stress. And I'm just really looking forward to seeing her. Hopefully I will sleep good and be able to feel amazing tomorrow.

I hope you all feel amazing too. I love you all very much. Goodnight everyone.

[souridealist]

okay so apparently this is the year I get fully and properly into Final Fantasy VII, a phrase which currently means the original + the remake (so those are the only things i’m really analyzing in this post, ftr), and oh boy this is a wild ride huh and I have a LOT OF THOUGHTS on a LOT OF THINGS, including the little glimpse of Sephiroth we get before he snapped (raise your hands if you’re suprised... anyone? yeah that’s what I thought) and on how thoroughly I love Aerith and how much I would like to join the long line of Aerith fans who have Some Notes for her portrayal in certain spinoffs, but

instead I am making a post about a very specific thing that I am INSANE ABOUT

which is that throughout the backstory of the game, Sephiroth and Aerith were one degree of separation from each other four separate times over, and not in minor ‘passed each other in the grocery store’ ways either.

First: Zack! Aerith was dating Sephiroth’s friend; Sephiroth was friends with her first real love. (And Sephiroth does not exactly scream ‘had a lot of friends’ either.) Given that the single most clearly established facet of Zack’s personality is that he could talk the ears off a stone statue, he probably talked about them to each other, or at least, chatted to Aerith about Sephiroth -- the flashback implies that Zack was pretty cagey about Aerith, given the whole fugitive thing. But he might have mentioned her, if not by name. And it seems really likely that Aerith would’ve heard Sephiroth stories once in a while.

Second: as best as I can tell, the time that they were under Hojo’s extremely dubious overlapped for several years. Given that they were both tied to Shinra’s studies of the Cetra, I almost wonder more why they weren’t raised near each other. Maybe Hojo didn’t want them influencing each other, especially given he’d learned that Jenova wasn’t really a Cetra? Maybe he was just being a controlling bastard? Or, you know, maybe he didn’t keep them entirely separate after all. I spent a while turning this one over but ultimately I do think Aerith would have said something if she’d known Sephiroth, in Kalm if at no other time, but she was pretty young when she escaped. She just might just, in very ordinary ways, not really remember. I wonder what it would have been like for her to have someone to talk to who already knew what her childhood was like; to share that with someone. Even Nanaki/Red didn’t grow up under Hojo.

Third: Professor Gast. Aerith never got to know her father, but Sephiroth did and remembers him fondly enough to bring him up multiple times over the course of the Nibelheim flashback! Which: going by Aerith’s age on the wiki, Professor Gast had been dead for seventeen years at that point; the last time Sephiroth saw him would have been when Sephiroth was a little kid. And yet he’s clearly someone Sephiroth thinks about often; this is someone who was important to him. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to say that if some circumstance had led to him meeting Aerith as Professor Gast’s daughter, that would have mattered a lot to him; he might very well have been honored to be able to tell her about her father. And it makes a lot of sense that that would have meant a lot to Aerith too, but that’s only a guess, because instead Sephiroth - or what’s left of him, but that’s another post - kills her before we make it to Icicle Inn, and we never get a chance to talk to her about her father.

And last - and, okay, maybe this one is a little tenous, but it fucks me up regardless: Sephiroth isn’t part Cetra, but at Nibelheim he believed he was, and at that point he’s identifying with them pretty intensely. He’s angry on their behalf; he frames himself as their agent; he even makes a point of using their own term rather than Shinra’s. Considering that the last time we saw him he was pretty violently afraid of being a monster in a very literal biological sense, and he was pretty implicitly afraid that was why he felt separated from other people (“Am I the same as all these monsters? [...] I’ve always felt like I was different from the others. Special, in some way. But... not like this...”) well, to me it looks a lot like he’s grasping for an alternate explanation, and for a connection to something. See also the, you know, Mother thing. If somehow, somewhere in there, someone had said “oh, there’s another Cetra you can talk to” - what might that have derailed?

Just - I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But for me, at least, it’s... really, really easy to imagine a world where Sephiroth would have jumped in front of a sword for Aerith instead of killing her. And that’s haunting.

[theallenshorefangirl]

    After the Tapes Chapter 4

((TW burns,panic attacks, it's a sad chapter)) I wrote this at 3 am due to inspiration strike so sorry if it's bad @voidwritesstuff it was i kid you not 3am when I sped wrote this eo yeah again sorry if it's bad chapter I'll make up for it with chapter 5 and chapter 9 of Agent Rainbow's Daycare but this chapter is a mini focus on Zoe so......

As a storm rolled in,every few weeks they have trash to burn.And every time someone is tasked to take it out and burn it.Due to they didn't want Mayer finding them through their trash,since they had names on the letters or junk mail they throw out.And that night it was Zoe's night to burn trash.

She took a deep breath as she pulled her hair up,a wave of fear of the storm coming. It didn't look pretty."Come on burn faster,I don't want to get struck by lightning!?" As thunder rolled and a surprise close to her lightning bolt far away startled her to fall backwards right into the still burning trash pile."Fuck it burns!? 

…..DESMOND,JERICO LUCAS, ANYONE HELP!?" Her shirt was caught on a metal spike that was caught in the back near the collar of her shirt.

Lucas and Jerico both came running outside as fast as they could with a bucket of water.Lucas quickly grabs Zoe out as Jerico tossed the bucket of water on Z and the trash pile."What happened?" Lucas carefully picked her up and carefully took her into the house and into a tub of cold water,causing Z to fling her head back crying and sobbing."I was burning the trash and..and I heard the thunder and the lightning struck a few good feet away and ... .I slipped backwards and I couldn't get up due to something caught my shirt.`` Zoe hugged her knees tightly."Jerico, do you think you can help her? I'll be back,I need to find that bottle of Aloe for the burns." Jerico nods."At least we came before it got worse, let's see." Jerico gets the medical book and looks til they find the section on burns."Oh a second degree,not good,stay here I'll get you pjs.Just carefully take a cold shower and don't use soap on your back,you need to get the soot and smoke smell off,Alright.I'll be quick." Jerico left and shut the door."Lucas, did you find the Aloe,I'm getting Z some clothes,she got holes in her favorite clothes." 

Jerico picked out from Zoe's closet a gray t-shirt with a pair of soft dark purple pj pants."Allen, where is the aloe? We need it." Allen carefully standing on the makeshift crutches pointed to the drawer on his nightstand."I keep it there in case I get a sore burn from tossing and turning on my bed." Lucas nodded and handed the bottle to Jerico."Here, use the bandages to wrap up all the spots. It may be weird but it will help her." 

He placed his hand on their shoulder trying to comfort Jerico.After knocking on the door and handing her the clothes,Jerico waited and came in to help Z place the Aloe on the burns and slowly and to carefully wrap them up.Jerico escorted Zoe to bed."Here you rest up and when dinner is ready I'll let you know ok.Don't worry the storm is just a small one you will be ok." 

Zoe nodded as she drifted off to sleep on the floor on the bed in the corner of Allen's room.Allen came in for his nap as well,and crashed on the bed already asleep.

Zoe's nightmare:it was around the time of the accident but it felt all so different but it felt so real.She was back at the lighthouse but she could hear a person behind her that wasn't there before."Reliving the thought that you could have gotten hurt along with your friend is so cute." The man's voice was rough like sandpaper and something dripped on her shoulder that made her turn back to see the figure.It was Agent Rainbow."You….I saw you,you're the asshole who was in my consciousness when I was my shadow self! You're the one I kept seeing during the night of the accident when those men in black paced outside the place.I knew I wasn't crazy." Zoe glared at the government spook."Rainbow laughed and stood with his arms out."Oh guess what dear look at your surroundings now,watch your back,oh I'm sorry did I hurt your feelings." Rainbow gave her an uncomfortable glare that gave her a pit in her stomach."What are you doing?" She fell backwards as she noticed where she was at."Oh you know I want to see what you would have done in his position…in a burning building." Rainbow had the flare in his hand,She quickly got up to grab it but,the dream quickly changed to something else,something darker.It was a auditorium and other shadow forms was there and she was not herself but was the Sorrow.The projector in the back was playing a memory of hers of why she ran off.It looked like they all judged her with a look of disappointment on there's faces. And Rainbow spoke loud and clearly.

"Give her a round of applause for being so dramatic over something so little,she ran away,oh boo hoo,and then you pulled in your unwanted attention to your friends and well some even died because of you.tsk tsk tsk,how sad it's your fault." Rainbow made the guilt rise in Sorrow she stumbled backwards but they all surrounded her,they all said things back that was like bitter chocolate causing her to cry,causing her to stutter."but I didn't do anything wrong ... .it's not my fault it's the chemical you got to believe in me,I didn't cause anything." Sorrow pleaded but they all yelled louder at her."Then let's repay her for what she has done." Rainbow dragged her to a replica house that looked like Allen and he lit the place ablaze with a flare,and Sorrow tried to escape but there were no windows and they all watched."No please…..Someone please!" She pleaded.

As Zoe started to cry in her sleep Allen heard her cry and pleaded for help. It was one of those nightmares.He carefully got up and sat next to the bed on the floor,trying to wake her up."Zoe wake up,it's not real." He carefully shook her but,she started to heavily breath and her hands started to shake rapidly."Zoe wake up,please wake up your getting overwhelmed please wake up." Allen began to worry,til Zoe shot up with tears and looked around."B..but the place it was on fire and your Shade form hated me and everyone else and I seen Agent Rainbow and he did mean things and…and it was horrible." Zoe sobs as Allen pulled her in carefully for a hug."None of that is real. I'm still here and I care about you,you're like my little sister,and I'll do everything that I can to help you,I promise." Allen gave her a reassuring and caring smile"What wrong what happened." The half away Desmond popped in wearing his full cat onesie."She had a nightmare about that Agent Rainbow person, whoever that is?" Desmond looked at him with a look of terror."Zoe…..You saw Agent Rainbow." Zoe nodded with tears flowing from her face."Yeah he was mean and said mean things that made me feel horrible." She clutched her chest as she looked pale as a ghost."Rainbow is not a nice person, he's a 100% grade A asshole I tell you,don't believe anything he says to you he's trying to get to you.Don't let him." Desmond gave a look of concern before heading back to rest.The smell of food from the kitchen got bot of their attention but Allen decided to stay by and let Zoe rest on his shoulder than get up.She went back to sleep but she felt safer clutching Allen's arm to make sure he was there."It's ok I got you." Jerico popped in and gave him a bowl of spicy chicken and some kinda cheese sauce which was surprisingly good.It was around 11 pm when Zoe woke up.Allen kindly made her some chicken noodle soup and some grilled cheese,which made her smile."Eat up and we can watch the rain.It should sooth us." Zoe did just that and Allen got the large blanket from his bed and lays one side of the blanket on Zoe's shoulder,and the other on his shoulder and they watched the rain fall for hours.It was around morning and Lucas found them both asleep upright at the window."They must have watched the storm and dozed off." Lucas said he went to cook breakfast as the crack of dawn showed through the window.

To Be Continued