#(again haven't seen much of them to be fair)

[icereader12]

I would say that neither are good sources, but to be fair there really aren't any fully credible, unbiased sources on I/P. It's a real point of concern for international relations scholars (like me!), because you need so many sources just to get a glimpse. That being said, there are better and worse. Al Jazeera is a pretty bad one - because, as prev pointed out, they're Qatari state media. They're going to say what Qatar wants them to. There's a post that floats around jumblr about how AJ coverage gets more fake and antisemitic (we're talking full-on Holocaust denial here) as you move from AJ+ to AJ Arabic.

I would also not rate Haaretz as particularly credible either. They regularly get into trouble for, again, as prev indicated, sensationalized headlines and sources being random people talking as if they are much more representative than they are - and, omitting biases and refusing to fact check people who are obviously biased. Three examples I can think of off the top of my head - said the IDF participated in October 7 (found false, flimsy evidence), the "IDF uses human shields" thing (not retracted, source was like, 3 soldiers who were part of an anti-Israel organization), and this most recent one, which, again, sources are a few random people who aren't representative and have their biases omitted. They aren't all bad, though. They do catch a lot that no one else does, such as misconduct, and when it comes to domestic politics, they're okay as a source.

Jpost is very much slanted right, but I haven't seen lies, mistruths, or much sensationalism outside of their opinions section, which is heavily biased and I do suggest mostly avoiding if you don't want to filter for bias every paragraph or so. They're pretty good for I/P news specifically, but I wouldn't rely on them for good judgement, or unbiased coverage of domestic politics, specifically anything to do with Bibi.

ToI is center-left, but I agree with prev on their mostly-unbiased nature.

Is Haaretz a "good" source to learn about I/P issues? What about Al Jazeera or the Times of Israel?

[meta question] How did you figure out how to answer the two above questions? I know that newspapers do make mistakes, but I'm willing to forgive them if they make mistakes in good-faith and not because their reporters and/or editorial have an ideology of hatred and bias (either towards or against Israel / Jews / Palestine / Muslims). And I know every news source has bias, I'm just trying to think for myself and ask questions.

This is a bigger question than I'm ready to tackle right now, Anon, but I may be able to offer a couple thoughts.

The first rule of reading the news is to trust no one source, read broadly.

I think Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye can teach you a lot about what Qatar wants Western leftists to think. Not at all reliable for factual reporting.

I have been reading and watching a little from Al Arabiya (Saudi) lately and have mostly been impressed, but I haven't delved into it deeply.

I think The Jerusalem Post can show you what the Israeli right wants the anglophonic world to believe. On any given day, you can see its biases clearly by browsing its headlines. As for newsgathering and reporting...? Mostly factual, but always slanted to the right.

I think that The Times of Israel does the best (imperfect) job in English of avoiding blatant biases. It seems pretty centrist to me, but I'm told others view it as center-left. Look through the headlines and you'll notice those headlines are not generally emotionally charged. The editors are making an effort to report the news in a value-neutral manner without loaded language. I really like that. I haven't had any serious complaints about factual reporting. I recommend you avoid The Blogs.

Haaretz can teach you a lot about what highly educated leftist ashkenaz elites in Israel think will gain the attention of Western progressives/leftists, and also sometimes has important information and actual journalism.

But instead of having me (an American who can only read any of these outfits in English) attempt to describe the cultural placement and significance of Haaretz, give Israeli analyst (for The Times of Israel) Haviv Rettig Gur six minutes and he'll do a much better job:

If you see the value in this, watch the whole podcast (below) to see Haviv delve into this week's big piece from Haaretz to explain the infuriating way it manages to lie with misleading, loaded headlines...while also doing important reporting:

The next obvious question should be: What about Haviv's biases?

He has 'em, of course. Everybody does.

I like how Haviv puts his biases out on the table in full view. He's a bleeding heart liberal on social issues, he's hawkish on defense, he's the son of a Rabbi and a proud Zionist who understands the insanity of the West well enough to explain to us what we're blind to. He does not flinch from criticizing the Israeli government or the IDF (as you'll see in this podcast episode).

I have not yet seen him attempt to dissemble. He's comfortable saying "I don't lnow." I have seen him in dialogue with others where he'll readily concede someone else's good point even when he doesn't like it...or extend enormous amounts of patience because he appreciates sincerity and intellectual honesty...especially from people with whom he disagrees.

Haviv isn't always right, but he's always knowledgeable, intellectually honest, and open about his biases.

That's about as good as it gets in today's media landscape.

[taliesinman]

everytime someone fetishizes rochu instead of making it the most dramatic thing of all time an angel loses its wings. how can you talk about rochu without talking about first contact during the imperial era. how can you talk about them and not go through how their dynamic during the century of humiliation suddenly changed in the 1920s. how can you talk about them without talking about comintern business and switching support between the kmt and the cpc. how can you talk about them without talking ww2. how can you talk about them without the short honeymoon phase after liberation in 1949. HOW CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THEM WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT THE SINO-SOVIET SPLIT. the drama. the politics. the historical intrigue. and you're telling me people ship rochu because "small delicate asian boy x big strong slavic man uwu" ? come on

[floralovebot]

MADE EDITS i couldn't stop thinking about their outfits and like,, the aspects i liked and thought felt very winx and in line with the individual characters and the aspects i Hated and thought sucked dookie SO i made some edits :)

biggest changes are to musa, aisha, and stella! actually changed the clothes there. flora and tecna i just adjusted the colors (in flora's case to further unwhitewash her and saturate her clothing more and in tecna's case to bring back her pink hair and green and cyan).

explanations on changes below!

I'll start with the simpler edits!

For Tecna, I just wanted to play around with her og colors lol I actually LOVE her new look and I would love to see this be the final design!! It's SO tecna and fits in with the rest of the winx i love it soo much :') I do think they should bring back her pinker hair though! And again, would love to see the green and cyan make an appearance. I feel like neon green is just very classy techy character. And while it is cliche, I do love it akjgd plus I think it looks good on her and makes the other colors stand out more imo! (but maybe this new, pinker look will make people like her more idk :') justice for tecna my beloved :'))

For Flora, I darkened her skin more for obvious reasons. And then I added more saturation to the colors and added back the warmer tones they took out. Imo, the darker, desaturated, and cooler toned look for Flora only works in very specific circumstances. Color theory rainbow!! Bring back the brightness! The color!! The warmth!!

Which brings me to Stella ohmygod,,, please,,,, please stop desaturating her she looks so pale and sick and lifeless STOP please :') Anyway lol, obviously brought back the brighter orange! I also took away the random sleeve. It's cute but it just didn't feel very Stella at the time? The tube top look is Very Classic Stella (very much giving s3 casual but in orange). Tbh, I don't love the dress itself, but I do think it looks better once you add more of Stella's colors. I also tanned her skin more and made her hair more yellow + brighter! Just like with Flora, color theory is important for media!! This Stella design just does Not give sunny, optimistic character. It's giving the gap (aka BORING aljdhg)

Aisha's design stumped me for a bit, I won't lie. I couldn't figure out exactly what I didn't like. But I got it!! One, way too symmetrical imo. Yes, Aisha does have some very symmetrical looks, but like 80% of her looks are very asymmetrical. I also didn't love that it didn't incorporate more of Aisha's powers. It really just went for *vaguely sporty* and didn't try to bring anything else to the table. And some people might say that Aisha's og looks were like that too, but I disagree! They told a story! She's a brave adventurer, a dancer, a princess, etcetc!! This tells me "oh yeah this girl might like to do yoga. cool."

Anyway! So I made Aisha's pants baggier because let's be fucking real for a sec. Changed the design on the pants slightly to make it asymmetrical and incorporated a wave design. Took away that bottom shiny fabric of her shirt. I tried to keep it but it just wasn't looking great with the pants changes tbh. Added small waves to the bottom and made it one shoulder! Also added her classic little circle wave design 1. because it's cute and 2. so Musa wouldn't feel so out of place with a design. Tbh, I still don't love the pants... I think maybe that hem could be higher?

For Musa! I've spoken about this before but I do not like the bodysuit. I liked the concept and the vibe it brings, but it looks So uncomfortable and s1 Musa was alllll about being comfortable. It's why so many people think she hates wearing dresses (even though she doesn't). So I kept the vibe, but changed it to the same mesh that's on her right arm! Which like!! I didn't even see that until I started the edit!! It's so,,, unnoticeable which like,, isn't a bad thing? But also? I think the mesh being on her stomach too makes the design as a whole a little more balanced (and it's a nice callback to her og magic winx!). As for the color changes, really just wanted to go back to her reds and dark blues. I don't Hate the color scheme, but I also don't love it. And I think this feels a lot more like Musa yknow? Also darkened her hair cause fuck that dude

Anyway lol it's not the best edit so don't look too hard :') I just wanted to explore what I liked about the designs and what I didn't. We did get to see a little bit of Bloom's casual, but I want to wait until we get a closer look to speak on it/make edits. Also tbh, I don't really love Flora's outfit but I didn't want to completely redesign her and I concede that this is something she would wear (although it feels more like s4 cowgirl time/s5 casual and not s1 new student time but Fine). For now, I'm gonna pretend the trailer showed us my edit of Stella and not what it really showed. I can't get pale pinterest stella out of my head,,, aggghhhh

[skeletalheartattack]

was playing the new TF2 halloween event, and someone noticed that my avatar was a flamingo and complimented me on it. things are perhaps good, i think.

[thatgayunoriginalbastard]

[look man you just handed this to me, a porn with excessive plot writer, so...i hope you don't mind me changing the formatting a bit]

.

For once, Peisistratus didn't care hesitate as he let his lips crash against Telemachus' once again. He had been waiting for so long and, apparently, so had Telemachus. He had already hurt him enough that evening; hesitating was the last thing he, or Telemachus, needed.

And it was absolutely the last thing that they wanted.

Peisistratus soon found his lips trailing down to Telemachus' neck, pulling the fabric out of the way to access his shoulders before starting to bite and suck at the skin. Telemachus sharply gasped and started to roll his hips up into Peisistratus who only wished he hadn't been such an idiot. If he had been smarter, then maybe he would have gotten to have Telemachus beneath him all the sooner. But at least he was getting to have it at all.

"Fuck, Istra." Telemachus groaned, grabbing at Peisistratus' back like he was trying to rip away his clothes.

Once Peisistratus was sure he left a mark, moved his head back just enough to look at his handiwork. He was instantly very clad that he was smart enough to go down to a spot that would be easy enough to cover up as he could tell that it was going to leave a much larger mark than he had intended. While the idea of covering Telemachus' neck with bruises from his lips was very appealing and only fueled the growing warmth in his core, he also knew that his father-in-law might kill him for doing that. Sure the king clearly wanted them to be together, but to be so brazen about things might be pushing it.

"So, do you believe that I mean it?" Peisistratus asked teasingly, mildly amused by just how dilated his dear husband's pupils were.

"I don't know, maybe I need a little more than that." Telemachus shot back, though his voice was slightly shaky and it was clear from his bright red face that he was having to force himself to play difficult.

"Oh yeah? What do you need?" Peisistratus purred, slowly removing the pins of Telemachus' chiton.

"You know exactly what I need."

"Maybe, but I'd rather hear you say it. You're the son of Odysseus, the man with the silver tongue. Surely I haven't already rendered you unable to use it to simply say what you want."

Telemachus smirked at Peisistratus and, in the blink of an eye, the son of Nestor found himself on his back, Telemachus straddling his hips and pinning him down by his wrists. He let out a soft impressed chuckle that turned into a moan as Telemachus started to grind against him, the top of the Ithacan's chiton having slid down to be polling around his waist. Even if it still covered what Peisistratus wanted to see, it was still a gift to see so much of his breathtaking husband. He had seen him in various levels of undress before --even before they were married they had seen each other naked and thought nothing of it-- but never in such a context. And with how they were positioned, Peisistratus was able to take his time taking in every little bit of skin, every scar and mark, all the signs of a fascinating life, all the ways his muscles moved and flexed as their hips rocked against each other. It was a view he wouldn't trade for the world.

"Like what you see, my jellyfish?"

"Jellyfish?" Peisistratus laughed.

"Think of it as a way to thank the earthshaker in the dumbest way possible for getting involved in this. I think it's only fair since you based my nickname on Athena. You don't have a godly mentor as far as I'm aware of, so it's the best I can do. Plus I think it's fitting."

"Really? How so?"

"I'll tell you later. Unless you want me to stop and explain the intricacies of my mind."

Peisistratus managed to pull his hands from Telemachus' grip --it took an embarrassing amount of effort to do so but it still worked-- and grabbed Telemachus' waist, squeezing tightly and making the prince on top of him whine, his hips stuttering from the sudden surprising act.

"Don't you dare stop now, dove." Peisistratus said, almost growling, "Not when I've just gotten a taste of you after a year of waiting."

"My- my mother waited for twenty years for my father." Telemachus stammered, starting to struggle to stay so cocky.

"Well I'm not nearly that patient. Don't think just because you can get on top of me that means you're calling all the shots. I've heard the kinds of things you say when you think I'm not around to overhear you pleasuring yourself. So either get back to moving or be a good puppy and lay down so I can take care of you myself. After all, I've got a lot to make up for, don't I?"

"Oh, gods." Telemachus whimpered.

"I see no gods here, prince Telemachus. Only you and I. So who do you really want to be calling to?"

"You."

"Then say my name, dove."

"Peisistratus."

"Good boy."

Okay okay okay. Wait. Wait wait wait. The Telestratus marriage of convenience thing. Omg that… that tickled something in my brain. Marriage of convenience to restrengthen trade for Ithaca after distrust spreads from the suitor slaughtering fiasco or something along those lines maybe, they were friends before from Tele’s travels back before Odysseus returned so the two of them figure “why the hell not he’s a cool guy and it’s not like I have anyone else” cue years of playing it up like they’re OdyPen levels of in love to make it look good and then suddenly realizing “oh… OH… oh NO…” now NEITHER of them are acting but BOTH of them think the other still is and they both joke about it behind closed doors but they’re really NOT joking because they’re down so bad ahhhhhhhh I LOVE this!!

@theshroud-thechallenge-thearrow (dang side blog curse)

Odysseus: Hey so I know you're friends with Nestor's kid Peisistratus. Do you think you could like, I don't know, try dating one of his sisters? Getting a connection between Ithaca and Pylos would be helpful for both of us. Only if you want to, of course. And if you end up falling in love with someone else we can work something out.

Telemachus: ...or I could just get with Peisistratus himself? You know, since he and I are friends then that'll make things easier. We'll get married platonically, help both of our kingdoms, and then when we find people we actually love we'll just have them as "lovers" on the side. That'll take care of the whole heirs thing too.

Odysseus: Yeah, sure, that works.

~A while later~

*"chilling" in their shared bedroom post-marriage*

Telemachus, internally: oh shit oh fuck of shit I actually fell in love with him oh gods this can't be happening I'm the one who told him this idea he thinks that he has such an easy out with this with the whole lovers thing so it's not like I can tell him that I'm actually in love with him...

Peisistratus, internally: oh no I actually fell in love with him oh dear gods he created this plan as just a practical thing he's literally a student of Athena I can't fuck this up by actually falling in love with him I was his first real friend I can't ruin our friendship and what was supposed to be an amicable way to help our kingdoms without any attachment

~Meanwhile~

Odysseus: Man, our son sure is able to sell being in love really well

Penelope: He sure is.

Odysseus: ...

Penelope: ...

Odysseus: So they absolutely caught feelings, right?

Penelope: Obviously.

[abyssembraced]

Where did Ghost really go before returning to Hallownest ?

Frankly, the question that was asked of them was one that Ghost wouldn't mind knowing the answer to themself.

Their memories... Even their early ones from when they first returned to Hallownest were hazy and fragmented. The more challenging fights they'd faced in the Crossroads and their first encounters with the bugs they'd come to call their friends still existed in their mind, yet lay scattered and untethered from each other with unknowable gaps in between, with no certainties as to even the order in which any of the events occurred.

Before that? They knew hardly anything of their past.

What did they do in the vast, endless wasteland outside Hallownest? What caused them to return to the fallen kingdom? Why did they even leave it in the first place?

They didn't know.

They typically didn't care to think on those questions much, either—it made more sense to focus on the present, and the things they knew now, rather than dwell on an unrecoverable past. Yet, here they were, being asked to recount those lost memories.

They... Could at least make an attempt?

Grasping at those memories was hard. Though they knew for a fact that they had spent much of their life outside the kingdom's bounds, it was as though the memories of that time had never existed in the first place.

But... They could fight. Even before coming back to Hallownest, they already knew how to wield a nail. So, then... They must have met someone out there. Travellers, perhaps. Someone who taught them how to fight—or at least the basics of it, anyway. Perhaps they were even the one to gift them the nail that had since carried them through many battles, or maybe that was a different Someone.

But who? Ghost couldn't picture them. They didn't even know for sure that such a person had even existed, but it only made sense, right?

...

There was only one time that they had ever managed to recover a long thought lost memory, and that was with the Dream Nail. If they were to enter their own dream once more, unlock the hidden secrets within their own mind... Would that give them answers? Would it do anything at all?

Although... Did it even matter? The stranger's curiosities aside, they... Didn't particularly care about discovering their past. It wasn't as though whatever it was that had happened back then could be changed. Nor did they think that learning anything new about it would affect their present life. They were happy where they were right now, with their family and friends in the recovering Hallownest.

Yes.

They didn't remember what they did before their return to Hallownest, but that was okay.

[thistaleisabloodyone]

I think I mentally have a matrix for LDH artists that's like 'Edgy to Cutesy' as the X-axis and 'Playful to Serious' as the Y-axis (specifically regarding their music vibes) and LIL was predominantly high Playful high Cutesy until Lollipop, which moved them to high Playful high Edgy and that's why I'm being thrown so hard by the vibe change 😂

[rene-darling]

WHEN- you store things inside your boobies

...very obviously fem reader lmao, you store things in the middle of your chest...

...lyney...xiao...itto...wanderer...

Lyney

You're showing lyney a card trick that learned.

But no matter how much he tries to figure out where you hid the card he just can't get it.

He never usually does this but he's just too curious!!

So he's been asking- no, begging for you to tell him how you did it and where you hid the card!

After much pleading and you repeating "a magician never reveals her secrets" you finally spill.

You tell him to watch carefully and he nods.

His eyes widen and his mouth drops open as he burns red.

You reach down your shirt and pull out a card from in between your boobes

"I- you uh..ah.." he's stuttering, not sure what would be an appropriate response to this.

You just laugh "see, this is why I said you can't do this trick, your tits are too small darlin"

"h-hey- making you blush is my job! Not the other way around!"

he's used to making snarky remarks or dirty jokes he can't believe he fell for this!

Xiao

Xiao recently gifted you some adeptus beads

They were meant to ward away evil spirits and demons and keep you safe when he's not around

However, he's noticed that he can't seem to find you wearing them around your neck, so he decided to ask you about it

"y/n where are you keeping the beads I gave you? I didn't give them to you just for you to leave them somewhere to collect dust."

He huffed offended you wouldn't keep the charm on you.

You already insisted on not calling his name when in trouble so you should at least keep the beads on you!

You just looked at him amused telling him you had them on you but he insisted you showed them to him, so you did.

Pulling down the neckline of your shirt you reached your hand in to grab said beaded necklace.

His mouth dropped once you showed it to him and his face bloomed "i- y-you..you have no respect for the adepti!" he vanished after yelling that likely to hide his blushing face, and his boner

Itto

Recently you've hid one of ittos little purple bugs right before his little match with some kid

He's frantically searching for said bug, insisting that he has to take that one or he won't win! Not that he will either way

"y/nnnnn! Are you sure you haven't seen my little bugger! I really need it!" he's whining like a little baby!

Feeling bad for him you finally relent telling him you might have an idea of where his beetle could be

"REALLYYYY!!! You're the best babe-" you tell him to watch carefully as you pull your shirt down and from in-between your valleys crawled out the purple beetle you had hidden

His mouth dropped his eyes looked like they would pop out of their sockets (imagine gojo when he looked at megumi)

"not fair y/n! Why does the beetle get to stay there and not me!" he's thinking about it being unfair,

Then the next second he wants to see if the beetle would fit in between his tits,

Of course, they do. I mean have you seen his tits? He's very proud of that fact

Wanderer

Nahida recently sent the both of you on an expedition together

He acts like he's not happy but deep down he's happy to be traveling alone with his beloved

Recently you both stopped at a shop to buy something but he had forgotten his mora back at camp.

He looked towards you waiting for you to pay, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at you when you looked at him amused and asked "you sure"

"just pay." well, he insisted, so why would you deny?

As soon as you reached down your shirt his mind short-circuited

You pulled out a mora pouch and handed some mora to the shop keeper like it was nothing and then again stuffed the pouch down your tits.

Grabbing the things you started walking away as wanderer stood there just blushing violently

Looking back you yelled "are you coming or not darling?" he snapped out of it following after you

"did you really have to do that in fucking public?" he huffed in embarrassment, walking back home with a boner is annoying

[14dayswithyou]

As a humble admirer of Everything Yandere and of the inner workings of the sick and twisted minds of loving, lovesick maniacs and of their warped and muddled perceptions of love and intimacy, I pose you the question: What type, kind, flavor, species of Yandere is Ren/Redacted? I've gone through the asks on the blog answering what lovesick and yearning behaviors he goes through, why he does them, what they mean to him — but can we go deeper? What disturbing things does Ren do, be it for his own twisted satisfaction and perception of "love", be it to those he sees as threats to his Angel? What are his limits, where does he draw the line, how far is he willing to go to get what he wants, and who is he willing to hurt and how? Where does he draw the line when it comes to Angel? I know he would never physically hurt them, but what kind of mental warfare would he inflict on them to get them where he wants? Are we talking isolation, manipulation, gaslighting, brainwashing? And if so, how does that happen?

I'd be very very happy if you'd be okay with going into this analysis — and would it be possible to answer the Yandere Alphabet for Ren? Thank you for blessing me with this mess of a boy and sowwy for the ramble ♡ ♡ Tell Ren to clean up the bloodstains he left earlier ♡

⌞♥⌝ Because I get this question a lot, I personally feel like I've answered it to the fullest possible extent that I can gdkfgjdj ^^; So if you haven't already seen them, I reccomend going through these asks: one, two, three, four, and five!

As for your other questions:

I've highlighted them in pink to make it easier to reference/link it back to the questions above

The "disturbing" things Ren would do to his victims have been answered more or less in a few of the asks mentioned above.

Ren honestly doesn't have any major limits aside from physically harming or forcing himself onto Angel in any way. He doesn't find any pleasure in doing so, nor would he ever want to turn out like his father — much less subject the only person he genuinely cares about to the same things he had to endure as a child.

Ren also doesn't really draw the line anywhere — again, aside from upsetting Angel in any way — so anything is fair game when it comes to everyone else. But speaking as his creator for a moment, I will say that Ren is not the type to harm babies, animals, abandon his own/Angel's children, force himself onto anyone, or coerce anyone into sexual activities in order to get what he wants. That's icky af and I'm not rocking with it /gen /lh

On a slightly lighter topic, Ren is willing to go as far as necessary if it means having Angel rely on him and him only... So long as it keeps them happy at the same time. As much as he'd love to "remove" Angel's friends and family permanently, he won't entertain that thought if it'll make them upset. At most, he'd likely try non-lethal ways to get rid of them in hopes of keeping Angel happy (and oblivious).

One of Ren's major characteristics is that he's willing to change himself to suit Angel's needs, no matter how drastic it may be. If they find any sort of reliability or comfort in him by doing so, then he'll latch onto that notion and feed into it. By becoming someone Angel can trust and confide in, Ren would (potentially) be able to manipulate them and sway their thoughts... Almost like a metaphorical devil on their shoulder, in a sense lmao

I've said this a few times on this blog before, but Ren is the CEO of gaslighting and manipulation. He's down to try a bit of isolation if it's somehow possible to keep Angel happy while doing so, though I don't think Ren would be into mindwashing since he idolises, honours, and blindly trusts Angel's original thoughts more than his own. He wants them to genuinely develop feelings for him, not because he forced them to.

I've actually been asked to do the Yandere Alphabet by a few other people recently, so I'll get around to doing it sometime!! ^^

[ckret2]

It's fic time. The Axolotl tries to persuade Bill to face what happened to his dimension while Bill tries to avoid that literally any way possible.

This is part 8 of a 9 part plot about the Axolotl meeting this friendly harmless innocent little triangle in the wake of the Euclidean Massacre and gradually learning he's literally the worst person ever. If you want to read and/or look at the pretty art on the other parts, here's one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.

(WARNING in this one for nonspecific but pretty obvious suicidal ideation)

####

The triangle whirled around as a milky white void closed in around him. "Whoa whoa hey! What is this? How'd I get here?"

"Welcome to my office. You're in a time and space outside time and space," the Axolotl said. "Take a seat. I have a very comfortable bean bag chair."

The triangle did not take a seat. He pointed at the Axolotl like an angry arrow. "What did you do! If you don't put me back now—"

"Don't worry. When we leave this space, you will be where and when you were. Think of this like a dream."

Furiously, the triangle burst into a ball of bright blue flame. It reeked of burning hydrogen—the stench of the fabric of reality itself burning away to nothing. But he, himself, didn't burn. What was fueling his flames? "Yeah?! Well, dreams are my business!" A wave of blue flames surged toward the Axolotl.

And dissipated without touching him. The Axolotl's eyes glowed white. "THIS IS MY DREAM, TRIANGLE—NOT YOURS!"

The triangle shrank down. He squeaked, "Got it." He quietly perched one edge on the Axolotl's bean bag chair. He didn't look at the Axolotl. He was staring up around them at the Axolotl's tank.

The Axolotl's eyes dimmed again to black voids. He settled back, trying to look unthreatening now that the triangle wasn't fighting him. "Do you see something?"

The triangle laughed uneasily. "Not aside from a whole lot of white."

"You keep looking up," the Axolotl said.

"Up?" the triangle said, confused; then apparently figured out what the Axolotl meant and snapped his gaze down to meet his again. "I never—haven't been able to see the stars before," he said, trying not to sound self-conscious even as he slowly tinted red again. "I've never seen anything that could block them. Except you."

Except him. The guy who passed the wall every day on his way to work; the eclipse that blocked out the sun once a year. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize." The walls of the tank seemingly dissolved, letting the triangle see the scene beyond: the glittery cotton candy celestial clouds of his home.

"Hey, I wasn't complaining! You're the one who asked." But the triangle had already visibly relaxed. He still wasn't looking at the Axolotl; but now, he was staring around at the unfamiliar new constellations with wonder.

It was the most unguarded the Axolotl had ever seen him. They didn't have much spare time; but the Axolotl couldn't bring himself to interrupt this brief peace.

After a moment, the triangle gestured toward the sky and said, "So, you—call that direction 'up.'"

"Yes?" the Axolotl said. "Is that strange?"

"No! Nooo no no. Just seems like it might be confusing, trying to tell apart north-up from star-up."

How odd. "We don't usually call north 'up'."

"Oh," the triangle said, voice small and sheepish.

"Some planetbound mortals do. But usually only when they're—" Oh. "... looking at maps." The world printed on a paper 2D plane. Like the plane the triangle had come from.

For all his power, his charisma, his bravado—the triangle was still just a lost little refugee from a flat little world. He held a whole universe in his hand, and he didn't even know up from down. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to him.

"Listen to me," the Axolotl said. "You're in a lot of trouble. I'm sure you know that."

The triangle scoffed. "Tell me something new."

"How much of our discussion did you hear?"

"Just something about rebuilding the higher dimensions' foundations. Which is exactly what I told you to do! You mind your business, I'll mind mine!"

He suspected the triangle had heard more than that. "It's not that simple. They can't rebuild the foundation until the fires are out. So, as long as your actions keep setting new ones..."

"A-ha. So that's why you're here," the triangle said. "They sent you to intimidate me into letting 'em condemn my dimension."

"No." It was true enough that they had sent the Axolotl to try to talk the triangle down. And yes, he would if he could—he certainly didn't want to see all of reality destroyed—but he wasn't primarily here to help the other gods. "I'm here to help you."

The Axolotl had watched how this triangle puppeted corpses and terrified the barely-living into dancing along to his tune. He had seen the dying and dead melted together into oversized composite corpses at the triangle's party; and he'd seen how the triangle's unhappy victims tumbled down into his hell. He'd seen how blue flames flared around the triangle in his anger, and how his lines of fire warped, melted, and consumed whole universes, and how he burned mortals down to the soul with his mere gaze. He'd felt how all of Dimension Zero moved when the triangle moved.

This triangle, this poor child, was a monster.

The Axolotl wore many faces. He'd been a psychopomp, a god of death. He'd changed roles so he could help the dead he escorted reach better futures—now he was a god of rebirth, a god of second chances, a god of justice.

And in his capacity as a god of justice, he'd proudly defended the villains that no one else would defend. He did not believe in punishment. It was too late to save the villains' victims, and no amount of punishment would ever change that; but it was not too late to save the villains.

He was god of death, god of rebirth, god of second chances, god of justice—and also a god of monsters. And he'd decided this monster was under his protection.

Dubiously, the triangle said, "So they sent you as my legal counsel."

Oh, for— "No. I'm just trying to give you advice."

"Even better—pro bono legal counsel!" 

"You're not my client," the Axolotl said. "But I'll advise you as a friend. I can tell you your options as I see them. We can discuss them if you'd like. You may ask me one question, and no more."

"What? Why—" The triangle caught himself and struggled to rephrase. "That's a—stupid rule—that I want an explanation for!"

"Because I'm the Axolotl."

"What does that have t— I don't know what that has to do with anything!"

"I'm the only one who gets to ax a lotl questions."

The triangle stared at him. He burst out laughing. "I think I hate you!"

The Axolotl gave him a wide, gummy grin.

"St—stop that! It makes you even more ugly, ugh. I thought you were here to give me advice, not bad jokes." The triangle made a show of leaning back as though getting comfortable, although it was clear he was uneasy touching the bean bag chair. "So advise me, pink stuff."

"I preferred 'frills.'" Gently, the Axolotl said, "I think it's in your best interests to give yourself up to the divine authorities."

The triangle laughed in disbelief. "You're kidding. Hey, I heard your pals talking about how they can't fight me without knocking the multiverse down—"

"And once they've put up a fireproof foundation you can't burn your way through, there will no longer be any risk to the multiverse if they come after you."

"Sounds to me like a good reason to make sure they don't get that foundation in place!"

"For you to do enough damage to ensure they can't construct a foundation, you'd probably knock the multiverse down yourself," the Axolotl said. "And if that's the case, they'll have nothing to lose by trying to stop you anyway, and everything to lose by not trying."

The belligerence leeched out of the triangle's face by the word. "Oh. Yeah. I guess that's... yeah," he said.  "Okay." His expression was faraway for a moment, as he tried to wrap his mind around the magnitude of the situation. "Okay. That's okay, it's fine, it's fine." Could he feel the walls closing in on him? Did he see the stars being blocked out? "I've... got a way out of this."

"What?"

He didn't meet the Axolotl's gaze. He pulled off his hat to worry at it in his hands. "I have a way."

Bluffing. Or wishful thinking. "No. This is trouble you can't get out of. There's no greater crime against reality than the destruction of an entire dimension," the Axolotl said. "Right now, the gods think you're an active, divine threat to all of existence. That's what this is about. They're not after you because you broke a couple of rules—they're afraid of you." (The triangle lit up at that. Not quite the reaction the Axolotl had been going for, but at least he had his attention.) "And that means they won't stop until they're sure you're no longer a threat. As long as they're pursuing you, your best case scenario is getting buried alive beneath the multiverse's foundation where they can forget about you until your dream realm unravels."

"So what g—I don't see what good giving myself up would do! My best move is putting off the inevitable as long as possible! Just let 'em try to bury me!"

"But it's not inevitable," the Axolotl said. "They fear you as a divine threat. If you prove you're neither divine nor a threat—"

"No."

"Mortals can't be charged the same way as gods can. If we convince the court that you didn't have your current powers at the time of the inferno—"

"I don't know why you're so convinced I didn't have powers at the time!"

"I'm not. That doesn't mean I can't convince a judge," the Axolotl said, which surprised the triangle enough that he actually shut up for a moment. "If you're charged as a god, you face eternal imprisonment or oblivion. If you're charged as a mortal, you'll be sentenced to a regular afterlife. If you give up your power—I'm not sure where yours come from, but there are ways it can be done—" (the triangle was already raising a finger to protest) "—and it can be temporary! But if you don't have divine power when you're taken in, it will be that much easier to convince the judge that you didn't have any when your wall burned. On top of that, if you surrender yourself willingly and admit that destroying Dimension 2 Delta was an accident, that alone can knock off half your charges."

"Next you'll ask me to give up my eye! No!" He was clenching his fist around his hat so tightly that it shook; but that was the only sign of anxiety he betrayed. His gaze was as intense as the stare of a sun. "I told you: me, my power, and my people are a package deal. We stay together. We're staying right here. I don't care how much it inconveniences you."

"It's not about how much it inconveniences us," the Axolotl said. "I'm here for you—you and your people."

"They don't need you or any of your stupid 'gods.' I can take care of them!"

"Then take care of them," the Axolotl said. "You understand that, no matter how this ends, your dream realm will be destroyed and you'll have to leave or perish—don't you?"

"No." That stubborn little glitter fleck. "I can patch up this dump and repair the wall by myself. Once the wall's back, you don't have to worry about your stupid multiverse destabilizing, right?! I'll stabilize my realm before you get your stupid impenetrable foundation in place! Maybe I'll put a roof on top of it that you can't get through!"

"You haven't done it yet! What do you think you can do that you haven't already done?"

"You don't need to know," the triangle snarled.

He had to be mad, bluffing, or in denial. But he didn't look it—eye narrowed in determination, flames smoldering around his edges, fist clenched around his hat—

And then it clicked.

He hadn't said he would replace his wall. He said he'd repair it. 

The Time Giant had said there was no way the little speck of matter that the triangle kept in his hat could be all the matter from his universe; no mortal could handle it without its gravity crushing them, nor would they have the energy to move it.

But she'd also said that gravity was turned off in Dimension Zero. And the triangle had proven he did have the power to move an entire universe—so why should a universe the size of a grain of sand be any more difficult?

And anyway—what did restrictions like that mean in a place where dreams and reality overlap?

"The Time Giant was wrong, wasn't she," the Axolotl said. "You don't have a dark matter problem. You're carrying around the rubble of your universe. All of it. All the matter she sensed but couldn't find."

The triangle gave him a resentful look; but then sighed in defeat. He loosened his fist, reached into his hat, and plucked up the speck of what remained of his universe. The black pinprick of white light. "You're not as dumb as you look," he said wryly. "Yep. The whole thing's right here—all but a city or two. I figured out how to catch it pretty fast."

Catch it? "What... happened to your dimension?"

A faint uneasiness itched at the back of his mind; a sound, right at the edge of his hearing, that he couldn't quite identify but knew shouldn't be here.

"It doesn't matter," the triangle said. "It's about to un-happen."

"You're thinking about setting off a big bang, aren't you?"

The triangle said nothing. He just rolled his universe between his thumb and forefinger contemplatively. 

"You are," the Axolotl said. "You want to replace your universe."

Coolly, the triangle said, "You're sounding kinda scared, frills."

"I am," the Axolotl admitted. "Of all your options, that's the most dangerous thing you could possibly do."

"Hey, the dangerous choices have turned out pretty well for me so far!"

The Axolotl really didn't think they had. "You know you can't get your old universe back, don't you? It will only make a new universe."

The triangle didn't say anything—but he went still, holding the tiny glowing pearl between his fingers rather than rolling it back and forth.

"It will have similar physical properties—it will be 2D, gravity and light will probably work the same way, all the laws of physics will be what you expect... but it will be a new universe. New stars and worlds will form. New species will evolve. Your people will never return."

The triangle squeezed the pearl in his hand. "You don't know that," he said harshly. "Everything that ever existed is right in here." He shook his fist at the Axolotl. He could see the light shining out between the triangle's fingers. "It has to have some sort of memory! There's gotta be traces of it left in there!"

"It can't remember. It doesn't have a soul to remember with."

"I'm a soul!" The triangle pointed at himself with a hundred arms. "Me! I remember! The whole dimension remembers!"

There was the hiss. The ever-present hiss that the Axolotl heard any time he was inside Dimension Zero, the static in the speakers, the last gasp of a dying big bang, the whisper murmur scream battering against the walls. Fear shivered up his spine. How was it audible from within his tank?

He tried to push down his fear. "You're not the whole dimension."

The triangle laughed. It was a chilling sound.

"Just—consider how much more you'd lose if it doesn't work the way you want it to. What will you do if you can't fix your dimension?"

"I can," he said. "If I can't fix it, no one can."

Why did he think he was more capable than gods who'd maintained the multiverse for trillions of years? "What if you're wrong?"

"I will fix it," the triangle said stubbornly.

"TELL ME WHAT YOU'LL DO IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT!"

The triangle literally shrank back, growing smaller as he sank into the Axolotl's beanbag. "Keep doing what I'm doing now! Partying!" He let out a half hysterical giggle. "I'll party til I die!"

"Set off a big bang in an unstable pseudo-dimension, and you will die! The kind of death no one comes back from!"

"Great!"

They both froze. Neither one of them had expected him to say that.

"Kidding," the triangle croaked. "I just—I just—I'm trying to get under your skin, pinky, that's all. Is it working? Don't answer that, that wasn't my question, that was—rhetorical. I'm assuming that stuff you've got is skin, anyway." The prattle was hollow and meaningless. "The point is, I'm the dream realm's eternal party host, and I'm not stopping this party for anything, no matter what you say, and—and that's it. That's all there is to it!"

He must have witnessed so many horrors, in so little time—his universe incinerating, his people dying, Dimension Zero constantly collapsing even as he attempted to prop it up, the dimensions above him twisting and warping as their people fell into his nightmarish realm...

The Axolotl slowly flew closer to the triangle.

"Oh, come on— don't," the triangle whined. "Whatever little speech you're about to make, don't, I don't wanna hear it—"

Gently, the Axolotl said, "I know you've lost your home."

The word "home" struck a note with the triangle. He didn't flinch, his expression didn't change; but he went still. He looked down at the compacted ruin of what used to be his whole universe.

"But it's not too late for you to find a new home," the Axolotl said. "You can still move on and rebuild. There's a future for you. If you come out, I'll help you navigate the afterlife system. If you're stuck in this dimension, we'll find a way to free you."

The triangle's face darkened.

"You can be reincarnated, or resurrected, or—just set free to be an energy being if you want. You can settle down in a neighboring dimension, join a new people—"

"No. I'm not about to be a couch surfer in someone else's universe." He glowered up at the Axolotl. "Those people will join me. Everyone can either join me, or—or get out of my way! I finally made my kingdom, I'm not giving up my crown now!"

"If you keep your crown, you'll kill your kingdom! You know that if you stay here you'll destroy everything, I know you know it!"

"It's the best option I have! Better than your plan, anyway! Surrender to the cops and let my world fall apart?" He laughed harshly. "No way, Buster! I told my people I'd liberate them from our flat, oppressive little world and take them to a party paradise, and that's exactly what I'm gonna make for them!" He held out his little pearl of a universe again, the paradise-to-be.

Before, he'd said that the dream realm was his paradise. He'd also said that he'd remake his destroyed universe exactly as it had been. How could the "oppressive" world they'd left be their paradise? Nevermind the fact that none of "his people" were from his world. Which of the stories he'd invented was the truth? Which did the triangle think was the truth? Did he even know?

"If all of this is for your people—would you risk them? If trying to build a paradise kills the very people you made it for—"

"They'd never know."

The Axolotl's blood ran cold. It took a moment for him to find his voice. "What?"

"I can keep the party going until the end. They'd never find out what's coming. If the dream realm collapses, it'll be too fast for them to tell what's happening," the triangle said. "In their final moments, they'll still remember me as a hero."

The Axolotl hadn't realized until that moment just how cold the triangle's expression was.

His mind flashed to seeing VENDOR earlier that day, hustling the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force to clean up this mess faster because THEY didn't want the journalists to claim THEY had mishandled the situation during an election season.

Was that all the triangle was?

Another politician more concerned with how his constituents saw him than with what he could do for them?

"But," the Axolotl said weakly, "I've watched how you rescue the mortals from the fires. I've seen how you're struggling to keep this dimension from collapsing on them. I've seen how much you're suffering. You're running yourself ragged to protect them. You want so badly for them to be safe."

The triangle seemed to brighten at the Axolotl's words, as though he was soaking in the high praise. "Well, sure! And they love me for it! Would any god do less for his worshipers? Would you?" His voice took on a bitter tone. "But I don't know of any god who'd stick his corner out for a nonbeliever—and that's what they'll be if I don't deliver on the paradise I promised. I take my party hosting seriously. I'll give them their paradise if it kills me. Or them. Or everyone, if that's what it takes."

He was no hero. He never had been. He didn't care about the countless souls he'd collected, only their worship.

He didn't want his people to be safe; he just wanted to be his people's savior.

If I can't fix it, no one can. The triangle hadn't meant no one else was able to. He'd meant no one else was allowed to. He'd rather die than let someone else fix his mistakes.

And he would. This was a mass suicide.

No. Worse than that—it was a mass murder-suicide.

"You already lost your world once," the Axolotl said desperately, "don't you remember what that was like?"

The triangle flinched back like the Axolotl had slapped him. The tank rumbled around them; the hissing whispers grew louder. "That's... none of your business! Stop talking about my world, you don't know the first thing about it—"

"I know how much you must miss it. I know how deeply losing your people must hurt." It must have hurt, why would he have clung to what was left of his world if it didn't, why would he be so determined to rebuild it exactly as it had been?

"My—my people are fine." His voice was choked. He squeezed his eye shut. "They're... all out at the party. Waiting for me. Don't talk about—"

"The people at the party are shapes you kidnapped from other dimensions." He was so stubbornly loyal to his chosen delusions. "Your people are dead. You know they are!"

"No!"

His scream was answered by howls outside the Axolotl's tank. Through the static, the Axolotl could pick up a sound repeated over and over. A word. Murderer, murderer, murderer.

"No! They aren't dead! I saved them!" He curled in on himself, hands pressed to his sides like it could block out the sounds. "I liberated them from their shallow lives! I gave them their freedom—"

"Then give them their freedom now!"

The triangle's breath hitched.

"If you want to die, you can die. There are ways to break a soul. I can help. But do it alone," the Axolotl pled. "I know you care about these people!" He had to believe it, he had to believe it, he had to. In spite of the evidence to the contrary, he had to. "If you won't let us help you, at least let us help them go home. Please. You need to let them go."

He clenched his tiny hands into fists; he looked so pained the Axolotl thought he might shatter.

In another timeline, a better timeline, he whispered, "How?" The word he should have said echoed around them, blending into the static whispers. It would be so easy to say.

But in this timeline, he asked, "You're some kind of lawyer or something, right?"

The Axolotl paused uneasily. "By... way of metaphor," he said. "We have trials and courts, but not the way mortals understand—"

"There are no laws in my kingdom," the king growled. "Get out of here. Now."

"But—"

"I said OUT!"

A force crashed into the time and space between time and space, shattering the Axolotl's tank, the glittery cotton candy nebulas' pinks and blues disrupted by a twisted geyser of colors—raw frothing stuff somewhere between matter and energy—and it flung the Axolotl away from the triangle like a wave flinging a fish from the ocean. The anxious background static whispers grew to a buzzing roar, 1000 decibel white noise. He spun dizzily through the cosmic miasma.

The first time he'd come in here—the first time the triangle had chased him out—he'd felt instinctively that he'd been in danger. He'd felt flames licking at his heels.

He knew now that that had been a mere warning.

"I might be in your dream, but your dream is in MY dream realm!" The triangle seemed to get larger without his size changing. Maybe it was the universe around him that was contracting. "And you've overstayed your welcome, Axolotl!"

The Axolotl had tumbled into the nightmarish eternal dance party. Shrieking overlapping music drowned out the buzzing whispers. Thousands of eyes stared at him in horror and thousands of voices gasped in disgust; and he realized that as many times as he'd seen them, he had never been in their two-dimensional field of view.

For all the thousands that stared at him, millions of corpses never stopped dancing.

One last time, the Axolotl turned to the triangle and pled, "Just give the hostages the option to leave if they want!"

"My people aren't hostages!"

"Then give them a choice!" He could feel dead hands grabbing at his skin and fins. He wasn't sure if they were trying to restrain him for their Magister Mentium, or cling to him for escape. He wasn't even sure whether they were the dead who still had their own souls, or the triangle's corpse puppets. "Anyone who wants to stay with you can!"

"Shut up!" The triangle boomed louder and louder and he grew larger and larger, until his voice and his eye seemed to fill the universe. He was shuddering with rage (with regret?)—it threatened to shake him apart, and the universe with him. "All of this is your fault! I'm—sick because of you!" In another reality he said insane; but the realities where he didn't closed up around the word and crushed it into silence. "You made me like this! You infected me!"

"With what?" He'd only spoken to the triangle once before today. He hadn't even entered his dimension.

"This—idea!" He didn't say what idea, not in this reality; but the words echoed in from another reality where he did. He screamed to drown the echoes out. "I was fine until I met you and you ruined everything!" Regret spilled out of his eye so thick it was almost palpable, energy like a river. It threatened to fill the interdimensional in-between space and drown them all. The Axolotl could taste the idea that had poisoned the triangle: the idea that everyone mattered. That everyone was worthy of a god's attention. And now, everyone was gone.

Bewildered, the Axolotl said, "You're not 'sick' to think that. It's the sanest idea you could have—"

"Get out!" The shriek echoed through infinity. "Get out! The dream realm is my domain and I am its king! I told you last time, I won't let you threaten my people!"

"I would never—"

"GET OUT!" Blue flames exploded out of the triangle; some of his nearest prisoners were incinerated as easily as tissue paper.

The Axolotl tried to shield himself; the flames consumed one of his forelegs and ate away at his dorsal fin.

He tore himself free of the desperate grasping shapes and swam from the triangle as fast as he could.

The triangle chased him; and, to the Axolotl's despair, as the center of Dimension Zero followed the triangle, the edge of reality pulled ever further away.

His flames licked at the Axolotl's tail, consuming the fin; he swam slower and slower.

As the triangle pursued the Axolotl, his attacks further destabilized the volatile dimension; wormholes formed where the fabric of reality folded and bunched in on itself and was pierced through. Light shot through the holes like a million disembodied sunbeams. 

He saw one that led straight to the edge of Dimension Zero. He wriggled through.

"Where did you—?! HEY!" The dimension whirled dizzyingly as the triangle refocused on his evasive prey. "You think you can get away from me in my own realm?" 

"Do you want me to get out or not?!"

"I want you DEAD!"

The Axolotl shouldn't have asked.

With a roar, the triangle clawed at him. A thick, sucking wave of gravity as dense as a black hole tore through the unstable miasma toward him. The triangle laughed sadistically.

With one last surge of energy, he paddled his tail hard enough to outpace the triangle and burst free of the dimension.

The ragged edges of Dimension Zero ripped further under the triangle's attack, but it dissipated in the third dimension.

The Axolotl sighed in relief—then flinched when the triangle crashed into the invisible barrier holding the cosmic foam in the space-between-space where Dimension Zero should have been. Like a piece of glitter sticking to a bubble, if glitter sticking to a bubble were the most violent force in the universe. "Get back here! I'll skin your freakish hide and make a tent outta it—!" He strained toward the Axolotl, threatening to drag the bubble along with him, like a particularly determined sled dog trying to pull a trailer home.

The Axolotl hastily backed out of range as nauseating plumes of color stretched outside their bounds again. Blue fire danced over the thin membrane between dimensions like a burning oil spill on an ocean. The plumes twisted into shapes almost like arms, hundreds of them, reaching toward him—

And froze. The triangle was staring past the Axolotl.

The Axolotl turned to look.

It was the most sublimely awful sight he'd ever seen. An impenetrable wall made up of gods, angels, sentient forces of nature—there were things here so transcendentally powerful that the Axolotl couldn't even see them; he only knew they were present by the perimeters of the space he couldn't bring his eyes to gaze upon and the terrifying awe he felt when he tried.

They were all armed.

All their weapons were pointed at the triangle.

Apparently, the ATTF had called in reinforcements.

A god that looked like a hologram projection, the light of its projector shining down on it from a higher dimension like a halo, thundered, "ADVANCE ANY FURTHER INTO REALITY, AND WE WILL BE FORCED TO SUBDUE YOU."

"You can't afford to!" the triangle crowed. "You'll knock your own universes down!"

"NOT ANYMORE."

The triangle's eye widened. The thousand arms of raw reality seized the jagged edges of the dimensions bordering the hole left when Dimension 2 Delta burned down, trying to crush them—and nothing happened. He slammed Dimension Zero against the bordering dimension, trying to crack open a larger opening, and then trying to simply shove the bordering dimensions aside—and nothing happened. Dimension Zero burned; but the surrounding first and second dimensions remained still. There was no creak and crack of snapping lines and shattering planes as the triangle tried to squeeze his bloated universe free. There was no glowing line of fire on the distant horizon.

The neighboring dimensions burned and blackened under the thousand hands; but they didn't dissolve to ash. The cinders got caught between the layers together as the dimensions splintered into layers, then multiplied—splintered and multiplied—splintered and multiplied—thicker and denser and harder—

Parallel universes. Every time the triangle touched them, they split into more timelines, reinforcing themselves. The Time Giant already reformatted the universes most closely adjacent to Dimension Zero. Not every universe—but just enough to form a cage.

The triangle gave up with a grunt of pain. He laughed in disbelief—and then anger. "You were the distraction?"

"No! I was supposed to talk you into cooperating with building the fireproof foundation! We agreed to only call in reinforcements if I couldn't persuade you!" He looked around for the Time Giant, but couldn't find her—nor any of the other gods he'd spoken to while dealing with this mess. Everyone, apparently, had been cleared out of the vicinity to make way for the god militia.

The only civilian left on the 3D side of the missing wall was the Axolotl—once again, stuck in the middle of a situation he had no business being involved in.

The triangle's eye widened further, further, white hot with fury. "Nothing's ever your fault, is it, frills?! Every time you ruin my life, it's all a big misunderstanding! You just keep talking your way out of trouble!" His eye opened wider and wider still. His eyelid unhinged. His mandibles split open and at the back of his eye socket was an infinitely dark esophagus. Sprouting in a ring around the triangle's eye like the petals of a grisly flower, piercing the membrane between the zeroth dimension and the third, were millions and millions of—

—teeth. Teeth longer than the spaces between stars and sharp enough to split an atom.

The Axolotl only barely managed to paddle back out of their range before they snapped at where he had been. A couple of the higher gods caught him, holding his sides protectively. His skin sizzled with holy electricity.

The god militia drew back from the gnashing fangs, then readied their own weapons: spears, guns, swords, a wider array of divine and holy weaponry than the Axolotl had ever seen. The projection leading the militia called, "DON'T LET HIM MAKE IT PAST THE FIREPROOF BARRIER."

"Afraid I'll start breaking things again?" The fangs snapped tauntingly. "Hey—how fast do you think I can find the load-bearing dimensions?"

The Axolotl shook off the gods and swam back toward Dimension Zero. "Stop!"

"HOLD FIRE!" The projected god commanded, "OUT OF THE WAY, AXOLOTL. THE MULTIVERSE'S SAFETY IS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR LIFE."

He knew it was. The leader of the militia was so powerful that resisting a direct order made the Axolotl dizzy—but he did resist. He shouted at the triangle, "You can't fight off every god in the multiverse! This is suicide!" He realized too late that that probably wasn't as discouraging as he'd intended it to be.

"So what?! There's no way for me to win! Get executed for god crimes or get erased when the dimension collapses—"

"Those aren't your only choices!" The Axolotl could see the fangs slowly, slowly curling up in his peripheral vision, and pretended he didn't. "It's not too late for you to stand down—!"

"I can't!" A wave of fire blazed up the teeth of the Dream Realm. He held up a fist, and it was far too small for any of the gods, so mighty and large, to see what he held; but the Axolotl knew. "If I don't get a happy ending, why shouldn't I burn the rest of you down with me?! At least I'll accomplish one thing before I go!" His hand began glowing as energy began gathering around the tiny seed of a big bang.

"Do you want your worshipers to remember you as a monster in their last moments?!"

"Better a monster than a LOSER!" His laugh was a strained subsonic roar. "Are fame and infamy really that different?! At least they'll be thinking about me at the end!"

"It would make you a terrible party host!"

The Axolotl didn't know what had possessed him to say that. Apparently the triangle didn't know what to make of it either, because he froze, giving the Axolotl a wide-eyed blank stare.

But it worked. He snapped out of his rage. The light gathering around the remains of Dimension 2 Delta went dark. For a moment, he was frozen, giving the Axolotl a wide-eyed blank stare; and then he laughed again, just as strained, much weaker. The borders of Dimension Zero shuddered with his laughter. "Fair enough!" The appendages stretching out into the third dimension lost definition. "Fair enough." He glowered tiredly at the god militia—but raised his hands in surrender. Both his palms were empty.

The trembling fangs dissolved as they retracted. The whole paradoxical mass sagged sluggishly back into the crawlspace underneath reality.

One by one, the god militia slowly lowered their weapons.

The Axolotl's heart was still hammering in his chest; and only then did it register that he'd nearly been eaten by an entire dimension.

Where had his power come from? How had the triangle done all this—made his whole dimension vanish without a trace, shoved an entire plane inside a point, gained complete control over it all...

He really did have complete control over the entire universe that had formed inside Dimension Zero—didn't he?

And to control an entire universe, he needed to have an entire universe's worth of energy.

Dimension 2 Delta had been an entire universe. And now—all of its energy was in Dimension Zero.

With the triangle.

As he watched the triangle wincing in pain as the Dream Realm sank back into place, as though the triangle could feel the way the edges of the neighboring dimensions dug into the frothing chaos, the Axolotl whispered, "Oh, no. What have you done?"

His power had come from his own universe. He had devoured it. He'd made it part of him.

All that energy wasn't stored inside the triangle's body—but the Axolotl had been wrong to think that the triangle was the body in the first place. The triangle was only the face: the eye, the mouth, the mind. The part of the Dream Realm that could speak.

The Dream Realm was the anglerfish—and the triangle was its pretty golden glowing lure. They were all one monster.

The triangle was slumped in defeat, but still he shot the Axolotl a tired glare. The hissing static whispers rose up around him again, spilling out of the Dream Realm. (The whispers, too, were a part of the triangle.) "Who are you to judge," he muttered. "You weren't there."

No, he wasn't. He'd gotten here too late.

Behind the Axolotl, the god projection said curtly, "APPREHEND THE TRIANGLE WHILE HE'S COMPLIANT."

The Axolotl whirled around, eyes glowing with rage. "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!" The gods who had started moving toward Dimension Zero froze again.

"HE'S A THREAT TO THE MULTIVERSE!"

"He stood down!" 

"HE'S PROVEN WILLING TO DESTROY REALITY. HE COULD EASILY CHOOSE TO AGAIN." The higher dimensional projector turned to project straight at the Axolotl, dazzling him even through his shut eyes, shining straight into his brain. "STAND. ASIDE."

"No." The Axolotl tensed his muscles against the compulsion to obey. "He was a threat to the multiverse. Once the last walls are closed over the crawlspace, he won't be anymore. If he doesn't make a move between now and then, you have no grounds to pursue him." It was a little easier the second time to resist the higher god's command. "So if you do follow him out of the third dimension to capture him, you're trespassing in a new god's sovereign territory to make an illegal arrest outside your jurisdiction!"

"HE'S MASSACRED TEN DIMENSIONS AND TRIED TO DESTROY MORE. THERE ISN'T A COURT IN REALITY THAT WOULD CONSIDER PURSUING HIM UNJUSTIFIED."

"I know a few."

"YOU'RE DEFENDING A DIVINE MENACE. WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

He quietly kissed his career prospects goodbye as he watched himself do the stupidest thing he'd ever done. "I'm the Axolotl," said the Axolotl, "and I'm his lawyer!"

####

(Thanks for reading!! If the art lured you in and this is the first chapter you read, this is part 8 of a 9 part fic about the Axolotl in the immediate aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. I'll be posting the last chapter next week, Fridays 5pm CST, so stick around if you wanna watch the Axolotl deal with having gotten his heart broken by this sweet little triangle who actually isn't sweet.

It's ALSO chapter 68 of an ongoing post-canon post-TBOB very-reluctantly-human Bill fic. So if you wanna read more of me writing Bill, check it out. If you're not sold on the idea of a human Bill fic, I've also got a one-shot about normal triangle Bill escaping the Theraprism if you wanna read that.

If this is NOT your first time here and you already knew all of the above: this was The Big One, gang. And now I expect for the next several months I'm gonna get comments from y'all rereading earlier chapters going HOLD ON WAS THIS LINE FORESHADOWING THAT LITERALLY THE ENTIRE NIGHTMARE REALM IS PART OF BILL? And the answer is: yes. yes it was. Looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts!! 💕

also this was THE absolute hardest chapter to write, goddamn.)

[eufezco]

BUCKY'S SECOND FIRST TIME

bucky x fem!reader (smut with plot) no use of y/n

All of this... Bucky hadn't had time to think about when it would happen again, he didn't even think it would ever happen again. He didn't even think deserve to have that kind of intimacy with anyone, didn't think that anyone would want to be in that situation with him.

It's been decades and now his head was full of bizarre thoughts. He had nightmares every time he tried to get some sleep, so the idea of spending the night with somebody was completely out of the table. He was witnessing a complete stranger take over his friend's shield and identity. He had not crossed a name off his list of amends for weeks, he had not answered any of Sam's messages and his psychologist was putting more and more pressure on him.

But in all that chaos there was you who always showed him a kind smile, who always asked him how his day was when you saw him come into the bar, exhausted. You who had his favorite drink ready before he arrived and who looked at him with hearty eyes. You thought you were being too obvious but it had been so long since anyone had looked at him that way that he didn't even notice it.

The day he took Sam to your bar was when he realized, and not even on his own. You were thrilled that he finally introduced you to one of his friends (his only friend in fact) and Sam was so funny and he was always picking on Bucky which made their dynamic even more fun to watch. They arrived almost at closing time so it was just the three of you. That night you ended up closing two hours later, inviting them for a few beers and being walked home by the two of them since it was already very late at night.

—Dude, she's so into you —. Sam huffed a laugh while they walked back from your house.

Bucky arched his eyebrows in surprise and then frowned. —What?

—Oh come on, you gonna tell me you haven't noticed?

Bucky was getting more and more confused. —Noticed what?

Sam stopped on his feet and looked at Bucky in surprise. —Steve told me you used to be a heartthrob back in the day.

—Yeah, back in the day. When I was seventy years younger.

Sam rolled his eyes. —Two things. First, as much as I hate to admit it, you don't look a hundred and seven, and second, I can assure you that this girl is head over heels for you. —Bucky was silent, thinking, so Sam spoke again. —Ask her on a date.

So yes, he asked you out on a date. Well, if inviting you to his house for a drink could be considered a date. He didn't like to be seen in public places too much and fancy restaurants didn't go with him, so while he thought of something better for the second date, his house would work for this time. Bucky shook his head as he found himself thinking about a second date.

Bucky always tried to keep everything tidy, clutter annoyed him and made him even grumpier. But now as he let you walk into his house first he realized how empty it was. He barely had any furniture, only one chair, a small sofa, and a TV. He hadn't even bothered to buy a bed because he slept on the floor. He wondered what was going through your head when you saw his home.

—This is nice —. You stated. At first, you didn't realize how empty his apartment was, you were just appreciating that he had trusted you enough to take you to a place as private and intimate as his home. Then you did notice that some things were missing but you assumed that's all he needed.

Bucky was relieved when he heard those three words come out of your mouth.

You noticed how he kept his jacket and gloves on while he took out two glasses to pour you a drink. Whenever he came home the first thing he did was to take those two things off but with you there, it was different yet when he thought about it, he realized that it was fair that you knew and ran away if you wanted to. So when he caught you looking curious, he first got rid of his gloves, and you could already see the metallic fingers of his hand. Then he took off his jacket, revealing how the metal shaped his left arm.

—You're not going to ask about it? —Bucky thought he was getting ahead of you, saving you from the awkward moment of asking about what happened to him. He poured some liquor in the glasses.

—Do you want to be asked about it?

Bucky looked at you and shook his head. You nodded, understanding his decission. You figured he wouldn't want to talk about it, much less on a first date. Your question caught him off guard yet his answer came almost automatically. He didn't want to talk about it and it was the first time he had been given the option of not doing so.

The rest of the night went great. Bucky was very interested in everything you said. He didn't talk much yet you managed to get some information about him. He had a sister, his favorite fruit was plums, he enjoyed 40s music, and he was a cat person. Every time he told you something about himself, no matter how irrelevant it seemed, you found it fascinating.

You noticed that he was very observant, his icy blue eyes never stopped looking at you for a second. You found it cute, intimidating at times not knowing what thoughts went with those long, intense stares. His eyes were beautiful, captivating, so you could tell every time he broke eye contact to divert his gaze to your lips and then back to your eyes.

Each was on one side of his kitchen island, that way you could look at each other's faces while talking. You were leaning more and more on the table that separated you, taking advantage of the moments of laughter to get closer to each other until that way you kissed him.

At first, you felt him a little stiff even though the sigh that he had let out when you had finally kissed his lips told you otherwise. You parted ways. —Is this okay?

Bucky nodded and immediately after, he leaned in and pressed his lips against yours again. It had been so long since he had kissed anyone that he didn't know if his lip movements were being too clumsy, if the clash of his teeth with yours was bothering you, or if his tongue slipping past your lips was okay. He did not know how to control his breathing that's why he let out little moans against your mouth, trying to catch his breath without having to leave your lips.

He felt like a teenager again. The tingling sensation in his lower abdomen made him want to run away and hide but at the same time did not want to part from your lips for anything in the world. He was afraid of the way you made him feel but at the same time he didn't want that feeling to ever go away.

Didn't know how or when but he ended up sitting on his couch with you on his lap. Your lips and his had come into perfect synchrony and the kiss was getting deeper and wetter. Oh God and he wasn't gonna complain. Your hands were pulling from the root of his hair, your hips rolled subtly against his crotch, his right hand was resting on your hips. Bucky felt how his jeans tightened right where you were sitting.

Bucky tried to keep his left arm away from you, holding your body on top of his just using his right one. He was aware that the touch of the metal was not the most pleasant in the world. It wasn't soft, it wasn't warm, it was nothing like a flesh-and-blood hand.

—It's okay. You can touch me, James —. You moaned against his mouth. Yet he was still a bit reluctant to do so.

In the end, you would have to be the one to gently grab his metal arm and guide his hand to your waist. You kept your hand on top of his metal one while pressing down so he could hold you as tight as he was doing with his other hand, also to assure him that it was okay. You moved your hand from him once you felt his metallic fingers carefully close and grip your body. You smiled in the middle of the kiss, the firm grip of both of his hands encouraged you to grind harder against his crotch.

You pulled his t-shirt over his head and allowed your fingers to travel down his abs until you reached the button and zipper on his jeans. Bucky hissed at the sudden contact and held your hips tighter.

—Wait —. Bucky said against your lips. He pulled away and you were afraid that you had done something wrong. All you had to do was pull down the zipper, but your hands immediately stopped what they were doing when he spoke. You ran your tongue over your lower lip, already missing Bucky's, and you noticed how pink and swollen his were. —It's been a long time since I —. He confessed.

—Oh. —You said in a sigh. —We can't stop if you—

—No. I just— I just wanted you to know. —Bucky groaned. —I'm sorry. I've ruined it. —He let his head fall on your shoulder.

You giggled and you brought your hands to his cheeks so that he would raise his head and look at you. —It's okay, James. You've not ruined anything. I'm glad you've told me. —You gave a quick peck to his lips. —I was just saying that if you want to stop or need to slow down I'm okay with that.

—I don't want to stop.

—Good. Me neither.

And Bucky crashed his lips against yours again. You finished what you started and unzipped his jeans while he pulled from the hem of your shirt and threw it away. Bucky cursed and brought his mouth to the skin of your breasts, using his lips to suck and kiss on it and his teeth for small bites. You moaned and pulled harder from his hair, making him groan. His hands wasted no time and right after they were unbuttoning and unzipping your jeans while his mouth left a trail of kisses from your boobs to your neck and collarbone until he reached your mouth again.

Your lifted your hips from his lap so your hand could sneak inside his underwear. Bucky did the same with your panties. Your fingers wrapped around his hard dick and Bucky's found their way to your clit. You moaned and closed your eyes shut when he started rubbing your bundle of nerves and Bucky's lips parted and let out all the air that he had in his lungs when your hand moved painfully slow from the tip of his cock to the base of it.

You pressed your foreheads together. Your thighs closed around his hand but he continued drawing circles on your clit and his mouth reached for your lips again. Bucky's hips thrust into your fist while some of his moans died in your mouth. He felt a wave of heat running through his body and that sweet knot formed in his lower belly.

—I need you inside, please —You whined.

You didn't have to beg anymore. You moved from his lap so you both could get rid of your jeans and underwear. You straddled him again, using your hands on his shoulders for stability when your fingers brushed the scarred skin that connected with the metal of his arm.

You noticed the worried expression on his face. He was looking at you with his eyebrows raised as if he was waiting for a reaction from you. A reaction of disgust. He could feel his chest rise and fall slowly because of his deep breathing and he was wondering what was going on in your head at the time.

You pressed your lips against his one more time, your hands moved to cup both of his cheeks. —It's okay. Just focus on me —. You mumbled into his mouth and he hummed in response.

Without stopping kissing him, your hands began to travel down. First his neck, then his broad shoulders, feeling again those scars he was so insecure about, and then his arms. His right one was strong, with perfectly defined muscles and the softest skin. His left one was cold and hard, not at all unpleasant to the touch. Your lips moving on his kept Bucky from overthinking.

He gasped when you reached his well-defined abdomen. You would have spent the whole night caressing and feeling his body under your fingertips but you were getting impatient. Your fingers wrapped around the base of his cock to line it up at your entrance and gently lowered yourself. Bucky's mouth opened in a perfect "O" form as he gripped your waist tightly. You had to wait a few seconds to get used to the sensation before you started moving, he needed those seconds as well to get used to your tight walls squeezing him.

You started by rolling your hips against his, it was the best way to adjust to his size. Despite how wet you were you could feel that sweet sting caused by his width. You rested your forehead against his, you both were panting when you began to lift your hips and drop them back onto his cock. The sounds that came out of his mouth were music to your ears, the grunts coming directly from his chest made you vibrate.

You hugged him to feel him even closer. Bucky tried to hold on as hard as he could, he kissed your shoulder and softly sank his teeth into your skin there, getting a whine from you, but it was too much. Every time he felt his dick going fully inside you, the knot on his stomach became tighter, every time he heard you moaning his name in his ear he did his best to last a little bit longer but in the end, he found it impossible.

Bucky emptied himself inside you while he dropped his forehead on your shoulder and apologized for coming so quickly. —Don't worry. We have all night —. You played with the hair on the back of his head and allowed him to come back from his high.

And you spent the whole night until you heard the birds chirping. The stamina he had thanks to the super soldier serum was truly something else and he made it up to you until you felt completely disconnected from your own body and Bucky had to snuggle you next to him on the couch to let you sleep.

Bucky didn't sleep that night. He was afraid that if he did, he'd hurt you or scare you with his nightmares so he stayed awake all night, but he didn't mind either. He had his right arm around you and he held you against his body, your head was on his chest as well as one of your hands. He felt the warmth of your naked body against his under the blanket.

[mcflymemes]

AS SAID BY ASTARION ANCUNÍN *  assorted dialogue from baldur's gate 3

you are mine. no one can change that.

i wish... to drink. and be drunk.

you haven't earned the right to stare at me like that.

you could scream bloody murder out here and no one would ever know.

we should find a tavern and celebrate.

do my eyes deceive me? the gang really is all here.

i'd rather be the only dark power inside your body, if it's all the same to you.

you're cute, you know. in another life we might have been friends.

i don't hate you. because this is not you.

we just have to be vigilant. keep our wits about us.

you can try, but i will stop you.

do what you like. it's none of my concern.

i simply do not care.

we could do it, you know. we could rule the world.

i... i don't know what to say. thank you.

well that's just disgusting.

listen to me, damn it! i'm trying to save you, even if you're too stupid to see it.

believe what you want. i'm done with you.

you have no idea what i can do.

sounds like a delightful dinner plan. perhaps i'll join you.

forgiveness? you've never forgiven anything.

i don't need anyone to speak for me.

i don't owe you a damn thing.

don't worry. i'll keep watch tonight.

just don't ask me again.

is there anything else? any new and interesting ways you can waste my time?

i'll come to you tonight, when you're snugly wrapped in your bedroll and we can have a little privacy.

this time i'll make sure i'm quiet.

you're lucky i'm such an open-minded person.

why send anyone after me? i'm hardly a threat out here.

what are you waiting for? help me!

"you can do whatever you want" sounds terrifying, and it is, but there's opportunity in it, too.

i am so much more than what you made me.

hold very, very still.

i'm sorry, but could you excuse us a moment?

get out of my way. i'm in no mood to talk.

you didn't think i could do it? i'm hurt.

i appreciate your loyalty, darling, but i don't think you understand.

fair? nothing about this is fair.

i don't know who they are, but i have plenty of questions.

i'm glad to hear it.

i do believe you. i know you only did what you thought was best for me.

i just need some time to let it sink in.

you're so good to me.

safe? how can i ever be safe now?

well, hello. looking for a cuddle?

now that you're back with us, we need to have a talk.

how flattering. and disturbing.

please tell me this is important.

there's also gold, sex, revenge... quite the list, really. but failing any of those, i will always settle for shallow praise.

now just tell me i'm beautiful and we can call it a day.

i want to thank you.

you're a vision. and you're so much more than that.

this is all a game to you, isn't it?

for as long as i can remember, i've been used by others.

of course i was attracted to you. look at you, for goodness' sake!

i will forever remember what you did for me today.

that's what you've been waiting to hear, isn't it? that's what you want?

i have been waiting so long for you.

come, give yourself to me.

i'll take care of everything.

it's time to try living again.

i feel safe with you. seen.

we don't have to rush into anything tonight.

would it kill you to dispense a compliment?

looking for something?

honestly, you have no sense of fun.

i do appreciate your enthusiasm, but let's try to restrain ourselves a little.

would you like a tour? we can start with my tent, if you like.

everything was taken from me, too.

well, that could have gone better.

i don't know what you mean.

were you actually worried i was angry?

so what was it like? tell me everything.

i hope i'm not interrupting.

some day that soft heart of yours is going to be torn out of your chest.

what a party. we should do this again.

there you are. i've been waiting. waiting since the moment i set eyes on you. waiting to have you.

you've seen enough already.

i didn't want to lose control.

oh, don't be like that. not every problem has to be beaten to death, my dear.

wait! don't interrupt them!

let's not make trouble for some stranger.

my, this place is fun.

my past isn't exactly a happy story.

that was amazing.

it won't happen again. you have my word.

so many people need killing.

remember who saved you.

don't worry. i'm here.

[27spoons]

Abandoned Souls | Natalie Scatorccio

pairing: natalie scatorccio/gn!reader

request: just a short and sweet fic, you x natalie, my idea was that the whole sacrifice thing happens again, but you are chosen, so you get chased by everybody, but find some sort of hiding spot (up a tree? dunno), natalie finds you, but feeling terrible about javi and the past, chooses just to stay and comfort you until the night, cuddlefucking, fall asleep, undeterminate ending!! (anon)

wc: 3560

warnings: canon-typical violence/trauma, smut, bottom!nat, tribbing, fingering(nat!r), apology(?) sex, nat cannot catch a fucking break, it's really just angst with smut sprinkled on top, not proof-read we die like shauna's baby

a/n: post cabin fire, pre s3e1. like during the rebuilding phase ykwim

"We should draw cards," Misty's voice cuts through the sound of trees moving from the rough winds of deep winter, causing you to look up from the point of ground you've been staring at. "It's the best choice. Most fair."

"We aren't doing another fucking hunt, Misty," Nat replies sharply, warming her hands up in what remains of the cabin fire. "We aren't… eating someone else." Every word is laced with absolute disdain at the idea, but the clawing hunger that had shown itself in early winter is only getting louder. She already knows there won't be much choice soon, especially if no game is found, and the loss of the cabin only made everything more urgent. 

Taissa looks up from where she's seated next to Van, her face impassive. "So our two options are dying of exposure, or dying of hunger." She deadpans with a roll of her eyes. "Great options, Nat. Really." 

Nat's eyes snap to Tai, glaring daggers. "We aren't fucking killing anyone else."

"Misty is right," Lottie murmurs, barely audible. "It wants us to. The cards will decide."

"Majority vote? All those for drawing cards, raise your hands." Misty immediately raises her hand, looking around at the others.

Lottie is the first to follow. Close behind is Shauna, whom Melissa immediately follows. 

"You guys can't be serious!" Nat tries, her voice cracking as she glances around the group. "We can't just—"

"Let them vote, Nat!" Shauna snaps, cutting the Antler Queen off. "We were voting." Her gaze darts back around to those who haven't raised their hands, and speaks again. "All those for drawing cards so we can finally fucking eat, raise your hands."

For a second, no one moves. You hear Nat whisper something under her breath, maybe a curse or a prayer to a God she never believed loved her, but she doesn't argue further with Shauna. Then Tai lifts her hand, Van raises their hand, a very reluctant Akilah, and Mari seals the group's fate when she joins them. 

You watch a tear roll down Nat's cheek, her jaw clenching in an attempt to hold back genuine sobs.

"That's more than half the group." Shauna glares at Nat. "We draw cards."

"I know," Nat murmurs after a long, tense moment of silence. Her eyes flash between people, trying to come up with the right words for the situation. When her gaze lands on you, you see flashes of a terrified girl thrust into a position of power she never asked for. But when she looks down at her feet for a second, you already know she's resigned herself to following the will of the group. 

Shauna doesn't wait for Nat to respond. She just gets up, brushing her hands on her pants, and moves towards what's left of their supplies.

"Van. The deck."

There's no ceremony to it. No chanting or prayer. Just a silence that feels too big to speak through.

Van hesitantly pulls the battered card deck from the inside of her coat. The edges are warped from moisture, some cards curling at the corners. You've seen them before. Sometimes for card games, but recently? Recently, they've been an omen of something no one wants to name.

One by one, everyone gathers. A tight circle forms beside the flickering flames that still bleed from the cabin.

A few separate people shuffle the deck, as if to make sure no one's rigged the draw against anyone. When it's sufficiently scrambled, Van squeezes the deck a few times nervously before moving to stand next to Tai in the circle. "Should I..?" Van mumbles, unable to look at the emaciated teens who stand barely upright, fingers twitching like the nerves are misfiring. 

Shauna's eyes are glassy, distant. You're not sure she's actually heard a single word since the vote started. She turns to Van, but it's not focus—it's vacancy, like she's seeing a ghost, or nothing at all. "Yes. You can start."

So, they do.

Van draws the first card. Ten of spades.

Tai follows. Nine of diamonds.

Gen. Three of hearts.

Robin. Seven of spades.

You. The queen of hearts—

Time stops. Your pulse pounds in your ears, bile threatening to destroy what's left of your already damaged esophagus. You display the doomed card to the group, hands shaking from more than just the freezing cold.

No one speaks or sobs. No shocked gasps or anguished cries pierce the air.

Nat steps forward, steps laced with heavy reluctance, and removes Jackie's necklace from around her neck and loops it around yours. The golden heart settles solemnly against your chest, condemning you to a fate that may have been avoided at some point.

For a second, your eyes meet.

You see her jaw clench. You see the thousand words she wants to say die behind her teeth.

And then you speak.

"I'm not going to lie there and let you butcher me."

You step back. The pendant shifts against your sternum with the motion.

Lottie's voice is hauntingly devoid of emotion as she speaks. "I'll count to thirty."

You don't wait for one.

You turn and run.

The trees blur past you. Pine needles catch on your letterman as you nearly trip over a stray root peeking up from the snowy forest floor. The only noises you can make out are the vague sounds of girls howling and your panting breaths. 

You aren't sure how long you run for. It feels like hours—although it could very well be seconds—but your perception of time feels foggy on a good day, and this is far from a good day.

You don't recognize this part of the woods, and you gradually slow as you realise that you are helplessly lost. You no longer hear the animalistic cries of girls who have long since lost their sanity to the howling winds, and you're left with a crushing feeling of loneliness that you've never felt before.

Being out here was already isolating. Knowing you're completely alone, and that the only people you have left are the ones hunting you for sport, amplifies that tenfold. You subconsciously scratch dead skin flakes from your knuckles, a nervous habit you had before the crash that worsened once the hunger started to set in.

Your feet slowly resume their movements, carrying you in a random direction… hopefully away from the people actively tracking you.

Eventually, you stumble across a narrow gap in a moss-covered rock wall—no more than two feet wide, maybe less. Wide enough to slip through sideways or crawl, but you already know that your clothes are going to snag on the jagged edges.

It takes some maneuvering, but you manage to climb in through the opening, sacrificing a small scrap of fabric from your jacket on the way in.

It's already night outside, but the inside of the cave might as well be pitch black. Your hands guide you through the darkness, running along the walls until you reach a point you think is the far corner, and you shuffle down the rock until you're seated on the cold floor.

You aren't quite sure what your plan is, because either way, the ending doesn't look positive, but you decide to shelter in place temporarily. Maybe until morning, maybe until you're forced out, but you remain seated all the same.

An attempt at self-soothing is made, humming a song you barely remember from before your entire world got turned on its head. 

That's when you hear the quiet crunching of snow from outside your hideout, and your hand flies over your mouth in an attempt to muffle any and all sounds you can emit. You notice the flicker of firelight seeping in through the opening, and that's when you see a familiar ring-adorned hand clutching a torch.

When hazel-coloured eyes peer in, your heart drops into your stomach. She doesn't speak at first, watching you as though you were a cornered animal, and right now it sure as hell feels like you are. 

You inch closer to the wall, as though it could save you from an inevitable fate, and try pleading with whatever Gods exist in this long-forsaken forest.

Nat doesn't speak as she inches her way through the opening, but she does hiss when she accidentally hits her head on a protruding piece of rock. The flame from the torch flickers across the walls, revealing a far smaller cave than you originally thought, and you clutch the sleeves of your jacket in fear. 

She slings the rifle you didn't even realise she had from off her shoulder, but rather than pointing it at you like you thought she would, she tosses it to the ground. The sound reverberates in the confined space, and you can see the tears brimming in her eyes when you look up at her.

She's shaking like a leaf in high winds. She sits down opposite you, next to the crevice, and rests the piece of lit wood against a rock like a makeshift holder. Once her hands are free, she immediately presses her palms into her eyes in what appears to be an attempt to ground or comfort herself.

"I can't do it again," she finally mumbles, hands still covering her face as though she can't bear to look at you. "I can't… we can't…" 

The first sob slips out before she can stop it. The second tears through her chest. It's raw. Heartbreaking.

You want to comfort her, just like you want to be comforted, but the look on her face makes it feel all backwards. She's just as young as you. Just as fucked-up. Just as much as a high school kid pulled into something no one was meant to survive.

"Nat…" you whisper, inching a little closer. "It's… I know. I know you don't want this. I know you'd never want to hurt anyone. I know."

She looks up then, eyes rimmed red and tears streaking down her cheeks.

"I should." Her voice is flat. Cracked. "I should turn myself in. Or… I don't know. Something. But I—" Her breath hitches. "God, I'd rather die than have it be you. I can't watch that again."

Her body folds inward with the words, desperate attempts for air clawing their way from her chest, like the words physically hurt to say out loud.

And you're still scared. Of course you are. But underneath the fear is something else—something that says Nat would sooner freeze to death in knee-deep snow than lay a hand on you.

At some point, you realise you're crying too. It's pathetic. Gross, even.

You don't know who reaches out first, but it doesn't matter. You collapse into each other like gravity has given up trying to keep you apart. Her hands fist in your jacket, your face presses into her neck. The cave disappears. The cold fades. All that's left is the way she clings to you, like letting go might kill either one of you.

You curl into her because the cold hurts more than the fear does right now. The same girl you spent an entire childhood playing stupid games with, now comforting you after watching you be sentenced to death. 

For a long time, you just hold each other. Shivering. Breathing. Existing in the same collapsing silence.

Then her hand moves—slow, unsure—resting just above your hip. Not bold or groping, just there, like she needs the anchor as badly as you do.

You don't speak. You just shift closer and let her touch you.

When her fingers slip beneath your shirt, you gasp against the skin of her neck. She flinches, almost pulls away—but you kiss her instead.

It's clumsy. You don't know who moved first—just that it felt easier than talking. Cold mouths and chapped lips desperately meeting in the dim light the fire provides as it gradually dies out. You tell yourself it's just to swap body heat, maybe provide some semblance of comfort in a place that has none, but you know it's a lie when you tangle your fingers in her hair and pull her towards you.

She's trembling—or maybe you are. Whether it's the cold, the events of the night, or being in each other's arms that causes the shakes is left unsaid, but you aren't sure any answer would satisfy the deep-seated ache in your gut, regardless. 

You feel it before you see it: the hesitation in her hands, the way her breath hitches against your throat as she drags her lips up your pulse, and the quiet motion of her climbing into your lap like it's something she shouldn't ask for out loud.

She never used to have to ask, anyway. That spot was always hers.

Nat's knees press into the cold floor on either side of your hips. The weight of her settles across your thighs, warm and shaking, and for a moment neither of you moves. Her arms come up around your shoulders again, clinging tighter than before.

You brace her by the waist without thinking, fingers slipping under the multiple layers she's wearing to rest on the small of her back. Her skin's clammy, and you swear you can feel her heart thumping as if it belonged to a rabbit, and not a woman leading a group of girls. 

She leans back in, pressing her forehead to yours, and for a second, it feels like she might say something. But she doesn't. Just exhales.

Then her hips shift. Barely, but it's enough.

Your breath catches. Her lashes flutter. And then she does it again—slow, uneven, like she's not sure this is happening but knows she can't stop.

You don't stop her, either. Not when she shifts to straddle one of your thighs, and especially not when she bites on your lower lip, drawing it into her mouth and moaning at the taste. 

"Is this okay?" you tentatively ask between kisses, one of your hands sliding under the waistband of her jeans. "Are we—" You don't get a chance to finish the thought before she's pulling your head back in to slot her lips against yours once more, and you take that in place of a verbal answer.

Nat whines when your hand palms the rapidly dampening fabric of her boxers and eagerly presses her hips down in an attempt to find any form of friction. It's far from the first time the two of you have been together, but it feels like the first time—desperate hands and wanting bodies finding one another in the safety of night. Unlike your first time, neither of you makes an effort to discard anything that provides you with protection from the elements.

Hips frantically grinding against each other through layers upon layers of cloth, cold denim and rough seams scraping against each other as the final flame from the torch flickers out, leaving you and Nat in complete obscurity. 

"God, I fucking hate you," Nat whispers against your lips, somewhere between her hands sliding under your shirt and rolling her hips in a bid to find friction. "Why did you have to fucking…" A sob tears loose from her chest as she crashes into you again—mouth, hips, everything at once. It's a fleeting attempt to distract herself from the static that eats at her mind every time she's left alone too long.

"I'm sorry," you say in return, burying your face in the crook of her neck as your fingers start to circle her clit through her boxers. "God, I'm so fucking sorry." You aren't quite sure what you're apologising for, or why you're doing it so desperately, but the words keep spilling from you as you work her.

She sobs against your hair, nails digging into the skin of your back. You don't flinch. You just let her hold on, let her shake against you as your hand keeps moving in slow, uneven circles through the damp fabric of her boxers. 

"I hate you," she gasps again, but it doesn't sound like hate. It sounds like please don't stop.

Your mouth moves without thinking, pressing hot kisses across her throat and anywhere else you can reach. "I know. I know," you whisper, nudging her jaw with the tip of your nose. 

Tears continue to spill down her cheeks, soft sobs mingling with broken moans. She's desperate, just as eager as you are for some salvation in this forlorn forest—something to hold onto, even if it's only each other. Her thighs tremble where the straddle your leg, muscles twitching with every slow grind of your palm against her throbbing clit. 

You pull your hand back just enough to push it underneath the waistband of her underwear, fingers brushing through the thick curls at her center. There's no hesitation as you move lower, just the steady need to make her feel something other than fear.

Fingers slide through her folds, and you both groan as your middle finger starts circling her entrance. She clenches instinctively, breath catching in your ear, hips grinding down in an attempt to force your digits deeper. Maybe, if the situation were better, you'd make her wait. Tease her, draw it out… not tonight. You ease a finger into her, slow but steady, and feel her exhale like she's been holding her breath since the cards were drawn.

She's tight. Warm. Her cunt flutters around your finger, and you let her pull you deeper. Take what she needs. Her mouth finds your shoulder, canines digging into the wool body of your letterman as you push your index finger into her heat alongside your middle. Another sob escapes her, but this one is quieter, less afraid.

Muscle memory takes over any other course of action you had initially planned, finding those spots inside her like it's instinct.. It isn't long until you curve your fingers towards her belly button, finding that ridged patch on her inner walls. 

You settle into a steady rhythm, curling your fingers with every thrust, each movement rewarded with a breathy moan against your shoulder. It's messy and frantic, the kind of touch that's born not from lust but starvation—emotional, physical, and spiritual. Nat grinds down against your hand, chasing every ounce of friction you can offer, even as her body trembles from the cold and her mind tries to outrun the things it's seen.

Her mouth finds your neck, but she doesn't kiss you. She just breathes you in like she's trying to remember something—anything—good.

You press your cheek to hers, closing your eyes because you're unsure you could handle seeing her right now as she is—wrecked, falling apart at the seams, and trying not to cry again.

"I got you," you murmur as your fingers shift into a familiar rhythm that's brought her to orgasm a thousand times before. You keep going, stroking her from the inside with a practiced precision, feeling her slick streak down your wrist and further ruining her boxers.

Then her breath catches. 

Her whole body goes taut, a low sound slipping from her throat as her nails dig into your back. Her hips lock into place as her cunt clenches around you so tight it's almost painful. 

You don't stop, easing her through the orgasm that rakes her frame, each thrust of your fingers slower than the last, letting her ride the wave as it breaks over her in shudders and gasps. Her forehead presses to yours again, damp with cold sweat, and she lets out a trembling breath that sounds like it could tip into a sob if you weren't already holding her this close.

The last time you held her like this, it was the night her dad died.

That feels like a lifetime ago, now.

"I've got you," you repeat, brushing your lips against the corner of her mouth. 

She doesn't answer, just curls around you tighter as your hand eases out of her pants and comes to rest on her hip, rubbing small circles into the flesh as she attempts to make herself as small as possible, just a ghost of the girl she once was.

You aren't quite sure what time you wake up—or when you fall asleep—but when you do, you're still holding Nat in your arms, gripping her like a lifeline. You're freezing, but from what you can remember… you're still shivering, so it can't be that bad. 

Nat shifts in your arms when you begin to stir, turning to face you, her expression as numb as she probably feels.

"Hey," she murmurs, eyes meeting yours in the dim light. "You sleep like shit, too?" She tries to laugh, as if the past ten months had been nothing more than a cruel joke, but it falls flat when you both remember the events that transpired less than eight hours ago.

"What're we gonna do, Nat?" you whisper, running your digits through her matted hair. "We… they're still looking for us, aren't they? I… what if they—"

The crack of someone—or something—stepping on a branch outside yanks you from the conversation you had just started, and Nat slaps her hand over your mouth to cut you off. Her eyes bore into yours, and as footsteps and voices grow closer, you can only hope that they keep walking.

The torn shred of your letterman still attached to a jagged piece of rock on the crevice wall tells you they won't.

a/n: trying something new with the headers and shit we'll see if it sticks or not

[httpiastri]

18+ content, minors dni

‎‎ ‎ ‎

it's as if out of habit that one of your hands reaches down between your legs, pointer finger meeting your clit drawing out a low sigh from you. lando's too slow, you think – he's been working on undoing his belt and jeans for far too long now, so it's his own fault anyway. plus, he's been edging you on for what feels like years, fingering you and lapping you up but pulling away just before can come undone. you deserve some kind of release.

you knew you shouldn't have teased him tonight. you know how insecure he is when it comes to you flirting with his friends, especially oscar, and you know how jealous it makes him. and still, you just couldn't help it. the look on lando's face when oscar's hand grazed your thigh was almost too good to be true. but when you do something like this, you also have to take your punishment like a big girl.

do you understand it? yes. will you do it willingly without any complaints? most certainly not.

your boyfriend's eyes land on you when he has discarded his pants, and his hand immediately swoops down to grab your wrist, pulling it away from you. a dismissive 'nuh-uh' sound vibrates from the back of his throat, and he cocks an eyebrow at you. "patience, love."

you whine, the desperate look on your face making lando grin. "you're so mean to me," you mutter, shutting your eyes as if not seeing him will make time pass quicker and help you feel less needy.

but his trademark laughter meets your ears, and it doesn't make things any easier for you. it's a reminder of him, of everything you love about him, and of how much you want him – how much you need him. "oh, you think this is being mean?" he scoffs, a hand reaching for your bare side. "sweetheart, you haven't seen anything yet."

your breath hitches in your throat when his bulge presses against you, boxers already wet with his precum leaking onto them. he grinds up and down your cunt, your slick staining the fabric even further. it's too much already; you're far too sensitive to deal with this. "p-please-" you whine, buckling your hips to get more friction.

"what do you want, love?" a new, incoherent whine slips past your lips, and lando answers with a chuckle. "use your words."

"take... take them off..."

he leans back, and you instantly miss the contact. but then you hear him shuffle around a little and feel the mattress dipping. "as you wish."

you suck in a breath when you feel his touch again, the anticipation in your stomach growing as his tip drags along your folds. and when he pushes the tip right past your entrance, relief washes over you – finally, after so much teasing, you'll get what you wanted.

or, that's what you thought.

lando doesn't go any further. he pushes just a few centimeters into you before sliding right out again. then he repeats his actions yet again.

he's not being fair.

"lando," you cry out, throwing your head back and arching your chest off the mattress. he doesn't answer, too absorbed in the view before him. and to think that he's the only one who gets to see you like this: whiny, needy, helpless. he thinks he's the luckiest man in the world.

he takes the opportunity right as he's presented with it; with the way your neck is exposed like that, how could he not lean down and press his lips to it?

his kisses are sloppy and slow, traveling down your throat and along your collarbones, leaving little lovebites in their wake. you hook an arm around his neck to keep him close and you begin to grind down on him, hoping he'll give in. but he just pulls his own hips back, pulling away from you instead of meeting your thrusts.

"i know i was wrong," you finally get out. "i shouldn't have flirted with him. but don't you think i've been punished enough already?"

he laughs yet again, and the sweet sound irritates you just as much as it turns you on. "hey," he says, pressing one last kiss to the side of your neck. "i want you to look into my eyes as i thrust into you, okay?" he pauses for a second, his breath warm against your throat. "can you be a good girl and do that for me?"

it takes all of the energy in your body for you to nod, before letting your eyes flutter open slowly. your gaze meets his instantly, and it satisfies him completely. you batting your innocent eyes up at him has always worked; you always get what you want.

[obscurevideogames]

Tumblr’s Core Prodct Stratgy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on trying to keep our sinking ship afloat for as long as possible. This means desperately trying to copy every new fly-by-night social media app that some multi-billionaire sh*t out during their daily Peloton routine. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. If you find the things we say here worrisome, please understand that is our exact intention. You've outgrown our target demographic. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The Diagnosis

It's lookin' pretty bad y'all!

After somehow losing hundreds of thousands of users during the great pr0n purge of 2018, we started to wonder if anything could be done to get back to where we were. We even brought in a management consultant who charged us a ridiculous amount of money. It would make you sick if you knew how much, but we got a few nice meals out of it at least. Anyhow, we handed this guy the app, and HE HAD NO IDEA HOW TO USE IT! It was f*cking hilarious! But suddenly it all clicked -- our users are a bunch of stupid idiots who can't even do basic arithmetic. I mean, they spend all day looking at their phones, so what do you expect?

Tumblr’s best feature is its unique content and vibrant communities. But who cares, right? We're just as happy getting traffic from people sh*t-posting memes, vague-booking, giving out-of-context hot takes to news events, and spewing whatever random thought is in their head at the moment. Plus that stuff doesn't p*ss off Apple.

To keep this thing going we need new people. And by "people" we mean teenagers, like we used to have back in the good ol' days. Unfortunately we're all in our 40s now, so we have no idea what they want. But teenagers are so cool! Imagine if they talked to us like we're one of them? We're getting hard just thinking about it.

Our Guidng Principls

To make Tumblr cool again, we must address these huge glaring issues.

People can look at a blog without logging in. How is that fair to all the poor schlubs who had to fill out forms to get an account? Also we haven't figured out a way to force ads onto the personalized pages yet. But we swear that's not the main reason.

People can see content they are looking for or linked to. People can keep up with blogs they follow. But the problem with this is, people don't know what they want. We know what they want! We're smart. We wrote this damn site, remember?

Promote posts that incite pointless conversations. Posts that are guaranteed to bait every troll into responding. Isn't that why all your Magat relatives love Facebook so much? We can do that!

P*ss off your content creators in every way possible (see #2).

Create algorithms that throw an unending barrage of irrelevant content in your face. Have you seen Instagram lately? We could do that so easy!!!

The app is slow. The website is slow. Obviously this is because of GIFs. Facebook and Instagram don't allow them, so why should we?

Conclusion

Our mission changes on a day-to-day basis. Right now we're super jealous of all the attention that new Threads thing is getting. We're still not sure what it is, but we're gonna download it after work.

[starconstruction]

Designated Ride

Yena x Male Reader (smut)

smut tags: pussy licking, blowjob, public sex, bathroom sex, throatpie, riding.

word count: 3312

Plans rarely make it out of the group chat between you four.

So it was a miracle you guys were here right now, in the glorious shining sun shining radiantly amongst your group. The skies were clean and crisp, shining a nice blue as all clouds decided to go on holiday which is certainly unusual here.

Its a shame that you were alone again.

Turns out being for lack of a better words (or more realistically Yuri's words) a "pathetic bitch loser" means you ended up here alone while they sat in a 2 and a half hour queue for a 30 second ride they swear is "worth it".

You don't necessarily believe them, but if they desire to do so there is no point in shooting down their excitement.

Besides its not all bad.

You get to waltz around the park entirely uninterrupted joyfully and do some rides that they stuck their noses up at.

Different tastes and all, it just so happens to be that you are the odd and obviously right one out.

You walked through the hundreds of people that walked in the way opposite. The full package deal so to speak; annoying children whining at their parents, teenagers randomly mantling each other's backs, the elderly who definitely didn't want to be here. You weaseled through them all just about, only pushing into like... 15 people.

You got to the ride that Minju called the worst, a simple blue water-slide. Sure it was made for children, probably those who haven't formed as much as an independent thought. But there's nothing wrong with enjoying the more simplistic pleasures in life. Climbing up the rickety staircase that almost certainly did not pass health standards, peering towards the ride those three went on. In their defense it certainly looked impressive, making everything its vicinity look miniature in comparison, considering how much they scream at the littlest things it did seem like an odd choice.

You let the minutes pass you by, waiting for the queue of children to slowly funnel down the slide. In your sightseeing you saw a blob of pink hair that looked almost familiar, she was looking down and you couldn't see much more than that.

"Sir how many?" The employee asked, holding the chain in his hand.

"One." You said quickly, getting nothing more than a curt nod before being allowed through. Mantling the orange raft and laying back. It only took a few seconds for everyone else to get into position before you were hurling down the slide, fingers grabbing onto the supports far tighter than the speed demanded. It only took a few seconds before you were at the bottom again, hitting a stylish jump (at least in your opinion) out onto the soft ground.

You would never fathom why Minju hated that ride with every fiber of her being.

"Hey!" A voice squealed to your left, a voice you'd recognize anywhere, Yena. Confirming your earlier suspicions.

You took a glance at her, wearing a cyan shirt with fabric far too thick for this weather. She almost certainly agreed, jumper wrapped around her waist, just not done particularly well by the arms dangling against her bare thighs. She gave you a quick smile and waved you over towards her.

"Oh hey Yena, you work here now?" You walked closer.

"Yep! Got the summer gig I wanted! I've loved this place since I was a kid." That was true, she didn't shut up about it, not that you minded. You've never seen joy quite as contagious as she talked about this place, probably why you ultimately came here in the first place.

"Sweet, does that not mean you have like... a ride to attend to?" Yena flashed a face of feigned offense, pulling her phone out from her pocket.

"Already trying to get rid of me?" She pouted. "But no, I haven't been assigned anything in particular right now. I guess I just get to walk around?"

"Fair enough, well I guess I can keep you company..." You rolled your eyes.

"How generous, anyways... Why have you came here alone? Do you not have friends?" She asked, stepping a bit too close as she intruded on your personal space carelessly.

"I'm not, they just wanted to sit in a queue for 2 and a half fucking hours." You grumbled.

Yena smirked, you knew what that look meant. It just surprised you it came so quickly, she moved you two slightly out of earshot.

"So what I'm hearing is we have some time to kill right?" The scent of her perfume intertwined itself with the scent of summer sweat and new clothes.

"I guess we do, would you happen to have anything in mind?" You murmured, playing innocent.

"I say we break this job in, you remember the last time right?" Oh god you did.

It was her first job, a number of years back. At the gas station not too far from the two of yours houses. She messaged you to keep her company in the middle of the night, expecting her to just want you to listen to her yap for a few hours.

That was certainly not what happened, Yena had black hair back then. You remembered it so vividly, probably because she backed you into the staff toilet and made you grab a handful of it. Pushing your far too erect cock into her ever divine mouth, there were very few words shared. Just the sweet gags of Yena taking your cock in as delightfully as possible, you didn't last long that night. Giving her the load she desperately craved, swallowing it all in one gulp.

You two made a bit of a habit after that, every night shift ended up with some form of messing around. Its honestly a miracle she didn't get fired from the job.

"Yeah, but this is a lot busier than that dingy ass gas station." She giggled.

"Yeah, but I'm staff silly! They so graciously offered me a hotel room since my commute is far too long. We just need to discretely make it that way" She pointed south, "If anyone asks I'm showing you where to go, got it?" You nodded.

Yena lead the charge, moving at a moderate pace. Evidently already enjoying herself in her head; legs not separating quite far as they normally do, her hand finding any opportunity to discretely brush against your thighs when nobody is looking.

The walk is also far too long for your own sanity, giving you chances to imagine all the things you could do to her in a personal hotel room. All depending on how much time she gives you. Maybe you could reunite your cock with her blissful mouth or possibly you could ram her against the wall, or the bed, or the floor, she'd look good in any. You knew first hand of course.

"Quick right here." You followed, the hotel coming into view, it was in the shape of a scrap fish. You chuckled at its sight. Yena was less impressed than you, possibly numb to the sheer absurdity of it.

You two had finally made it to the ocean blue door, Yena scanning her keycard in a rush. Her hastiness resulted in you basically being shoved into the metallic wall of the elevator. "Ow Yena, relax a bit."

She hit the buttons, taking you to the top floor. "I'm impatient, okay?? Is that what you want to hear, we don't have long." Truthfully neither of you knew how much time the two of you had, but she's right.

The elevator opened with a satisfying ding! Yena skipping straight ahead to the door in front of her, 832. It'd probably help to remember that just in case.

She slammed the door behind you, giving you no time to prepare before her hands were on you, fingers grabbing onto the fabric of your shirt hungrily. Tugging you forward, roughly catching your lips in a needy kiss. The agonizing walk must have only furthered her desperation, her tongue sliding into your mouth as you struggled to keep up.

You grabbed at Yena's clothed ass, fondling the firm flesh that you've enjoyed many times before. With your hands, your fingers and even your tongue. Another idea perhaps, but you turn your focus onto kissing Yena passionately. Her tongue resigning its control in exchange of you blissfully tongue fucking her mouth.

It only took a few moments for the two of you to run out of breath, Yena gasping for oxygen which you capitalized on. Lifting her up in your arms to which she yelped "Oh!".

You dropped her gently against the bed, Yena shuddered as she made contact. Looking up at your towering frame. "Fuck its been far too long Y/N" She gasped.

Oh god you agreed.

You definitely planned to make up for lost time, climbing over her. Getting rid of that bothersome shirt that dared to cover Yena's chest, giving it sloppy kisses on her exposed abs. The salty taste of her sweat gathering on your tongue, unashamedly licking on every crevice of her chest from her underboob that exposed itself under her maroon bra to her belly button.

She mewled out her words, "Mmh your tongue always feels good, but it'd feel better somewhere else..."

You smirked, continuing your tongue's long strokes against her chest "Yeah? Where would that be Yena?" You knew her so well and one of the things she loved the most was being fucking teased.

"Hm, just a bit lower than where you are now." She was purposefully vague.

"Oh? Here?" You asked, kissing just above the waist of her shorts.

"Psh– You know what I mean..!"

You pushed your hand between her legs, doing no more than just that. Watching her whine.

"Do I? For someone who was so desperate to rush you are oh. so. slow. in telling me what you want."

Yena finally relented, accepting the loss this time because she knows it'll only lead to greater victories. "Fine, I need you to eat me out, is that what you want to hear?"

You reveled in her confession, hands ripping off her shirt leaving her nearly bare. Saved for her underwear and shoes, you didn't fucking care for the rest of it, she wasn't wearing matching underwear, panties a shade of blue made only darker in the middle by her dripping arousal.

"Of course Yena." Your fingers rubbed the damp fabric, getting the desired affirmations you wanted in the form of a broken whimper.

You tugged her underwear down, revealing her wet pussy, wet could be understatement of the century. For she was drenched with little touch at all. The shoes acting as a barrier you did not care enough to overcome. Binding Yena's feet together -not that she had any intention or want to move- "Fuck you are so wet–"

You got closer, climbing onto the bed. The lack of being able to properly spread her legs made things a bit more difficult in terms of position, hands perching comfortably on her right thigh, blowing hot air on her entrance. She shivered, "F-fuck, come on... Stop teasing me already!"

Your breath hitched, only complying because you were equally as desperate. From the first lick you were quick, careless, demanding. sliding your tongue all over her folds, gathering Yena's ever plentiful juices. Her sweet taste being all you needed to keep going but the way her thighs twitched and shook were all the more reason to continue.

"Oh fuck! It's been so long!" Yena gasped at the first contact, you kept licking, twirling your tongue around her pussy, covering her in your spit.

"Far too long." You replied, you could discuss meeting later another day. For now you craved more.

Your lone finger pushed inside, then out, then inside, then out. Slower than your tongue, the two different speeds making Yena lose her mind. "Fuck– that, fuck–" far too stunned to speak, not that you could blame her.

You looked up at her as you licked, her hands didn't remain idle, far from it. Pinching her pink nipples firmly, her bra neatly fallen into the impromptu pile that formed somehow.

Her eyes were closed, scrunched. Mouth wide open just enough to let the sinful gasps and pleads come out, her face was flushed a deep red like she had been burnt by pleasure.

You could sense she was getting close, but it wouldn't be your tongue to finish the job. So you pulled away.

"Ah!– Why'd you stop?!" She groaned at the sudden edging, instinctively freezing her hands movement.

You moved suddenly, Yena suddenly being met with a clothed cock pitching a tent right in front of her eyes. She knew what you wanted, looking up with those fucking eyes that made you weak, giving a small kitten kiss to the straining fabric.

"You want me to suck this dick? So hard and you haven't even been touched..." Hypocrisy certainly was lost on Yena.

"Of fucking course, take every inch for me." Was all you needed to say and Yena gave her hands a new objective, pulling down the two obstructions in one fell swoop. Leaving you to be the one to finish the job.

Yena was still laying there, tongue out. Like she wanted you to claim the ultimate prize or at least the second ultimate prize. Such things are entirely trivial and semantic, you readjusted her. Tangled feet now placed at the pillow as she was given her the perfect access to your cock, to which she took happily. Hand gripping the base firmly.

"Such a good cock, you always were my favorite." You ignored any possible implication because your brain went numb at the sight of her slapping your cock against her tongue.

"Always tasting so good." She sampled it like a divine meal, giving it a barrage of kisses, making out with your tip. Beginning to take you inside her mouth, that made you weak in the knees, just barely avoiding falling backwards onto the bed.

"Fuck, Yena I've missed this..." You gasped, she responded with taking half way. Bobbing her head up and down as a frantic swirl of pink hair, "Like that." Her hands pumped what she couldn't fit inside her silky mouth.

She hungrily swallowed every inch that she could muster, cheeks hollowing out, mouth somehow even tighter than before. Yena relinquished her hand, moving them to your thighs. You knew the look she just gave you, its the please fuck my mouth look.

You grabbed the back of her head, grabbing onto enough of her hair to move her. Yena closed her eyes as you pulled her down to your base, taking you straight to the hilt. Gagging all over your length as she crammed it into her mouth, nose pushing against your crotch in satisfaction.

"Fucking hell Yena, always so good at this..." You pulled her up and down on your cock, letting your tip slam against the back of her vibrating throat as she deepthroated your cock sinfully.

She couldn't really respond, but made her presence known with as many mewls and guttural sounds she could. You bobbed her head quickly, using her mouth as a sleeve for the both of yours pleasure.

The sight of Yena choking herself on your cock was filthy; obscene, the only words that came to mind at this point. The sheer lust in your head drowning out any coherency you once had.

Yena drooled all down her chin, certainly not fit for work in how she looks currently. "Shit...."

ring

ring

Nemonemo nemonemo sign

Well thats certainly not your ringtone.

"Shit." You said more firmly now, getting Yena off your cock.

"Damn buzzkills, hold on." She brought the phone to her ear. "Yep, i'll be over in just a second. On the other side of the park. K thanks, bye."

"I take it we are being interrupted?" You sighed, solemnly missing the feeling of Yena's mouth on yours.

"Yep, guess our luck ran out... You can jerk off if you want? Or something? I don't know to be honest." Yena quickly got to work, reclipping her bra around her breasts, tugging her panties upwards, grabbing her perfume from her bag and quickly making herself as presentable as possible. The event's that transpired here chalkable as just being slightly unkempt.

"Nah, I'll go on some more rides while I wait for the others. Fucking stupid job." You groaned as you put your trousers back on.

"Fuck I wanted to cum! I still do... I'll text you if i get a free minute!" She promised, the two of you discreetly getting out of there.

-

The opportunity presented itself a few hours later, just an hour before closing.

They wanted to go on another ride.

Yena texted you that she was free for the next 10 minutes.

The hotel was a luxury you didn't have time to reach.

This would have to do.

You were sat on the toilet seat, down to your shoes, cock pointing towards Yena's entrance. She sank down, taking every inch of you inside.

"Fuck... This is my favourite ride of them all." You ignored her cheesy comment, she was squeezing the life out of your shaft, bouncing up and down vigorously, slamming against your crotch as she rode the stolen high from earlier.

"Bounce on my cock for me Yena!" You moaned against her ear, hoping that there wasn't people this close to the stool. She was snug around you, your praise making her squeeze even tighter.

"Ah!" That was far too loud.

"Quiet... Don't want people to hear how well you are taking this cock do you?"

Yena nodded and kept bouncing up and down, she was fast, rolling her hips as she rode. "Fuck your throbbing..." You kneaded her ass in between thrusts, groping the soft flesh with pure desperation, want, need.

"We don't have very long, cum for me Yena." You cooed. Yena gasped in your ear, you couldn't expect her to do all the work, swapping positions as you pushed her against the stool door. Thrusting into her needy cunt with all the strength you had left, holding your hand against her mouth, muffling her sweet moans that nobody else deserved to hear.

Her legs trembled in the air, her face was beet red and sweaty, she was getting closer for you.

You could feel her get somehow even more tighter than before, she was getting close. Desperate to hit that high, the clock was ticking. Yena seizes in your embrace, gushing her girlcum all over your shaft, some dripping on the floor, her explosive orgasm nearly making you blow your load right inside her.

You had to act quick, pulling out of her warmth and descending her onto the filthy floor, pushing your cock into her warm mouth, fucking her hole with reckless abandon as there was no time to waste. She gagged up saliva as the new position made you go down her throat.

Your orgasm crept up inside of you, shooting the biggest load you've had ever down her throat, rope after rope filled Yena's throat as she took it all.

You were honestly impressed with how she endured all of that, pulling your cock out of her warm mouth as you fell backwards, "Shit... I'm gonna be late! That took 15 minutes... Help me quickly!" She gasped, you helped her dress herself, spray the perfume for the second time and hope she didn't get in too much trouble.

"If I don't get fired maybe you should come to this park alone... Perhaps you could spend the night."

"Sure thing, they are going to be out of queue soon so I've also gotta run, nice to see you again." You laughed.

"See ya! Hope I was up to customer satisfaction guarantee!" She blew you a kiss and left the stool, you secretly sneaking out a few minutes later when the coast was clear.