#And the conversations in which it's engaged feel closer to present-day conversations

[chicago-geniza]

Tehanu feels, in terms of its "contemporary / companion" ideas + implicitly reflected public discourses, much later than the previous three Earthsea books. This is a post-Reagan, mid-late Sex Wars, early Riot Grrl era book. Don't tell me when it was written I want to finish it first then check to see if my intuition was correct

[leafostuff]

Messes in Distress [Ft. Weeekly Jihan and Zoa]

Tags: BFH, 'Besties'!Zoa&Jihan, No plot all horny, Threesome, Double thigh riding, Double boobjob, Blowjob, Dirty talk, Fingering, Surprise Creampie, Anal, Pussy licking/eating, Mutual orgasm. no beta we die like man

Author's Note: as my august release i have to say: this is the filthiest fic I have ever written, throughout the entire writing process (which only took me two days) I have constantly felt both horny for those two gorgeous girls, but also inspired to keep writing and not stopping at anything.

as its also quite apperant, this is my first ever threesome smut, which I had tons of fun to write, so I do hope you will enjoy reading this fic that I worked very hard on.

PS: yes this was the post that I quickly deleted and responded with "YALL SAW NOTHING", my hand slipped on the post note lol

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This party never looked as colourful and vibrant as it is right now.

Or maybe its just the rave lights Jeonghoon, your best friend installed for his house party. After all of the finals you had to suffer this semester, a proper party is really what you needed, especially in such a big house like his which has more than enough space to party just in the backyard.

But back to what you were saying, there is so much for you to see from you view at the barstool chair. From the football players swimming inside, the cheerleaders eyeing them from the other edge of the pool, probably gossiping about the latest drama or whatnot, some frat boys drinking their 7th shot of the night while dancing to the DJ's (yeah your friend also hired a DJ for the party) music like there is no tommorow, and while some may look at this and call it anarchy, you find it quite enjoyable looking at it.

Then you see them

Two girls, one blondie, the other black haired, neither you have seen before (maybe you seen the blonde one in your 2 am walks back to your dorm, fetching groceries? Eh you don't really know), both of them wearing white tops that expose their bellies and denim blue jeans, both tailored to show their curves from head to toe.

They both look happy, eyes closed while both their bodies sensually move to the rhythm of the music. It's hard not to shift your focus to them, the way their bodies stand closer than usual while they look into each other ,how they lean their faces closer, engaging in a short kiss, or how-

Realize that the black haired girl caught your eyes, the blonde girl joins her, both smiling while their eyes wander downward.

you are a bit puzzled until you look down and realize; your pants now form a visible tent. You try to look away but its too late.

the two girls now exchange a look between each other before leaving the dance floor and heading toward you, their smiles are those of good girls, however you could feel their intentions are anything but.

Eventually they both stand in front of you, meanwhile

"You are Jeonghoon's friend, right?" The blonde asks, her voice softer than you thought.

"Uhhh...yeah? Why?"

"Great" the black haired girl joins the conversation. "We need a favor" she adds, her smile is even brighter than before.

"Sure" you answer, a bit confused "What favor you two need?"

They both grin widely before the blonde speaks again. "A BIG favour..." You could feel her fingers travel upward across your left thigh.

Meanwhile her friend leans her face to your right ear while her fingers mimic her friend's movement but on your right thigh and then her hand finds itself on your currently hard clothed member.

"A favour...only YOU can help us with..." She whispers in your ear.

Take a look at the two girls again, they are even prettier from close as each feature that you saw back then is now presented to you at high definition. From their silky and smooth hair, eyes that look like trouble but you are still in place as if you are frozen and their chests that look a size bigger than what you thought they were.

Their smiles which you could swear you could see them licking their lips.

Their soft, luscious looking red coloured lips that are oh so inviting...

You are not sure if the alcohol is talking right now but honestly, you don't care anymore. "Sure, I don't mind helping you two with your...favor".

The girls' smiles grow wider as you stand up from the barstool, take each one's hand and lead them inside the house and upstairs, thank god everyone else is outside.

"i never really got you two’s name" you said, navigating through the halls of the 2nd floor until eventually you find the door to Jeonghoon's room, but just as your hand gets close to the knob the two girls pin you to the wall, the black haired girl attached her mouth to your neck, alternating between licks, kisses and bites causing you to moan lightly.

Meanwhile the blonde puts her lips on you, engaging in a steamy makeout session while her tongue grazed against your teeth, as if asking for access to your mouth which you humbly accept. It's hypnotic how her sweet lips feel on yours, how her tongue explores inside your mouth, how as soon as she finds your own she initiates a sensual dance of tongues causing both of you to quietly moan.

You both eventually part lips, gasping for air, take a look at one you just kissed, her blonde hair now looks messier than it was when you first met her.

"heh...that was good" she speaks between pants, "anyways, i am Jihyo, and the one who is opening your jeans down there is Hyewon" look down, she already finished popping the last button, leaving you only in briefs.

"Well what are we waiting for, lets get inside" you say, the two girls giggle cutely while you open the room.

in the middle of the room is a king sized bed, big enough to have the three of you on it with pillows on the gar edge of the bed. The two girls lightly push you into the bed before joining you as each one straddles herself on each thigh of yours while their hands work together to take your shirt off your body, throwing it somewhere.

Now the three of you are in a loop.

Starting with Hyewon capturing your lips with hers while her hands rest on the left side on your chest l, admiring both your chest and abs. At the same time Jihyo latches her lips on the right side of your neck, delivering kisses from your shoulder all the way to your earlobe, there eliciting an audible moan directly to your ear before going back to her masterful attack of your neck, meanwhile her left hand wraps around your cock, rubbing it up and down in an attempt to get you harder as fast as possible.

Both of them also start to move their bodies back and forth on each of your thigh, letting you feel their friction getting you closer and closer to your first orgasm.

Suddenly, a switch; now Hyewon does Jihyo's job and vice versa, during those loops, your hands go each one to another girl, appreciating their bodies from their soft bellies all the way to their slander backs, then groping one breast of each girl causing both to gasp in surprise.

Eventually after enough back and forth of them pleasuring you, it gets harder for them to continue rubbing your cock as now they leave your lap, with both of their hands on the hem of your boxers. With perfect timing they pull it down, letting your cock pop out of your cock prison, leaving you the first one being fully naked.

"Wow...unnie, its so big" Hyewon says, looking at your member that is covered with some of your precum with excitement,

"Yes baby...he is so big, and all of it...for us" Jihyo responds, leaning into her friend's lips and pecks her lips lightly.

"I do think its a bit unfair i am the only one naked here" you mention the inequality.

"you are right Oppa" Hyewon replies, "i saw you staring at our tits, when we danced outside" she adds, leaving jihyo with a pretend surprise face.

"Is that so baby..." she questions her best friend before turning her eyes to you "Would you like to fuck them first?" the question might as well be rethoric as without any doubt you say.

"I would gladly want that"

"Then let us get started" Jihyo exclaims, letting you inch your body toward the edge of the bed. Meanwhile she goes behind Hyewon, hands grabbing the hem of her best friend's top, slowly pulling in an attempt to tease you slowly about each part of Hyewon's ample breasts, covered in a lacy purple bra until finally the top is completely off causing her tits to slightly bounce at the recoil, the piece of clothing is thrown at one of the pillows.

Now it's Jihyo's turn to discard her top, this time without any teasing, knowing you can't wait anymore for the show to begin as now she joined her friend being topless, only with a black bra as the wall between your eyes and her nipples.

back at Hyewon, she is now popping each button of her jeans while looking straight at your eyes, biting her lip in arousal and winking to you. Look down and see that her matching purple panties have a wet spot in the middle, making it clear to you that she is excited, and that she is waiting.

And she is not the only one as Jihyo also started quickly working on her own jeans, exposing her black panties and leaving the two girls only with their underwear, both their eyes and panties glistening in what can only be described as excitement.

It's sinful how they are both looking at your cock lustfully like it's their favorite meal waiting to be devoured, how they both kneel down to each side of your thigh while their face get closer to their prized possession.

How they both look at you with innocent eyes one last time before defying it forever.

The scene beneath you is filthy; two girls, both equally as gorgeous and sexy, engaging in a full on makeout session, loudly exchanging saliva with the tip of your cock in between receiving the leftovers. Both of their busts envelop the base, moving up and down, left and right in the rhythm of the kiss, even your balls are not left unsatisfied as both their underboobs take care of that part.

"Fuck...girls..." you mutter, only a minute passed and you are already in a haze, looking at the white ceiling, gripping the sheets of the bed to try and gain some semblance of control. You can't help yourself as you release an audible moan, making sure they know how good they make you feel.

"Unnie...I'm getting wet..." The black haired girl whined, pulling away from Jihyo's lips with an audible 'pop', panting to catch her breath before leaning back into the kiss

"me too baby," she breathily mumbles between kisses. "just a couple more seconds, i can feel him getting close ...".

eventually the first round of the white liquid came out, glazing both of their lips and tongues however they dont stop, even when some of your cum falls inside their mouth they continue, mixing both of their saliva with your cum, making both of their face messier by the second.

More cum erupts from your cock, painting the two girl's faces, some even get on their bras as you can feel yourself relieved with each string you shoot, soon enough the two girls release from their makeout session and rise up to sit on the edge of the bed, finally letting your cock rest, but not for long.

"Oh…you are still hard Oppa..." Hyewon exclaimed, cleaning some of your cum on her face before slightly pushing you closer to the middle of the bed, her previously innocent looking smile now has changed into a slutty grin.

“Let me help you” 

You don't even need words to show you agree as now hyewon hands go behind her back, letting an audible click be heard as her bra falls onto the bed, giving you a front view of her now hardened nipples.

Jihyo, seeing what her bestie is planning, quickly unclasped her bra as well and throwing it somewhere. Then they both, at the same time take their hands to their panties, quickly lowering them down their thighs, to their legs and then out of their bodies, finally joining you in being fully naked

Just the sight of the two girls' boobs being shown to you in their full glory and the way both of their neatly shaven pussies are leaking is enough to get your throat dry, unable to mutter a single word and only stare at them in awe.

Then, their second round of pleasure begins

Hyewon now leans down toward your shaft, letting her slender finger pump you one last time before her luscious lips envelope around the tip of your cock.

Her first slurp is enough to get you to moan loudly and move your head back in pleasure, then she starts moving her lips up and down at a steady pace, making sure every movement is audible with slurps, licks and everything in between. It's even worse when you see how her deer-like eyes stare directly into yours.

You are surprised to see how big her mouth is, as even though a lot of your cock is inside her mouth, she is still able to take more. Eventually your tip reaches the back of her throat, now deepthroating you 

“She is taking you sooo well, isn't she?” You didn't notice when Jihyo snaked behind you, her tits on your back while her hands glide around your pecs. her cloudy lips delivering sweet pecks to your neck and ear as only after processing all of the senses that she delivers you manage to get a small nod and mumble a small “ngh”

She cutely laughs at your attempt at her response. “I bet her lips feel so sweet on your big, thick cock” she whispers directly into your left ear, not expecting a seemingly sweet, adorable girl like her to speak such filth but for some reason, it excites you.

“I can't wait for you to fill both of our good girls holes with your thick, warm and sticky cum, letting you fuck us like your little slu-OH FUCK” but enough is enough as you finally lose your temper, silencing Jihyo by pushing your two left fingers into her wet pussy, your right hand starts groping one of her boobs while your lips connect with her own.

you three are now a mess.

You have Hyewon, her mouth fully coating your hardened shaft with saliva while her hands work diligently to massage your balls and inner thighs. Her eyes aroused by seeing you, fingering and groping her best friend to the points she stop messaging you with her right hand to finger herself to not leave herself out of the pleasure.

You have Jihyo, her eyes closed shut,  lost in the sheer amount of pleasure she receives and gives to you, each time your lips leaves her for attacking her neck she shouts a symphony of moans, but not for long before you continue to kiss her again

And then there’s you, feeling like the star of a porn video with two incredibly hot girls. Which you have never met before and now they are naked, hungry for your cock while you fuck them in various ways.

The only way you can describe this moment the three of you are sharing at the moment is heaven in hell.

“I AM SO CLOSE OPPA,” Jihyo shouts into the air, feeling her climax getting closer with each passing second. Yours is also not so far behind, as the suction of Hyewon's lips is driving you crazy.

However just as you were about to release your load into her throat, Hyewon swiftly lets her mouth out of your cock without any gag, she rises from her prone position and hovering closely above your cock, before quickly saying.

“I'm safe”

“Huh? What are you-OH FUCK” You dont have time to react as the deer-eyed slut impales her slick yet tight pussy directly on your dick, you could swear you see tears in her eyes from the pain she is feeling but its quickly replaced with tears of joy, signaling you that she wants this.

“UGHHH, YES” She curses loudly after the first explosion of cum erupts inside her. Then quickly comes the second, the third and even the forth, each pump gets Hyewon to a level of ecstasy she never felt before as she rolls her eyes backwards and lets her tongue hang out of her mouth while her orgasm flows onto the base of your dick.

At the same time your fingers also get coated by Jihyo's own fluids, moaning unintelligible words but it was clear that she was enjoying every second of her high. Eventually your mutual orgasm comes to an end, as you all fall into the bed, both girls on different sides while you are in between them.

For a moment the surrounding goes silent. No club music from outside the house, no chatter from drunk university students, the only sounds the three of can comprehend are each other’s synced up breathing, attempting to recover from your lust-filled haze. Finally, Hyewon gathers enough strength to talk.

“Oppa…are you…done” a breathy question came from her mouth as for the first time tonight, her eyes looked at yours with pure innocence.

You can't help but giggle at her question and lean forward to peck her lips. “I think with sexy you two are…i dont think i will ever be done” you respond.

“Oh, That's great to hear Oppa…” Jihyo interrupted your small talk with her friend. Take a look at her, her hair messy and ruffled, her entire body filled with a mixture of sweat and cum.

“Because…i haven't got your cum inside me yet…” she adds, her hands now go to her hair, smoothing it from any random strands and then parting it in the middle, creating two symmetrical ponytails from each side of her head.

“But…” another pause as she turns herself face down, letting herself gain control as she raises her body up while keeping her arms and knees on the mattress, her soft and curvy ass pointed up and directly at you before saying.

“I want it in my ass”

And just like that, you could feel yourself getting hard at the view, it's not hard to see how Jihyo's pussy is still wet and is leaking on the sheets, telling you that she is ready for her turn, but before you cave in to her request, her eyes turn toward Hyewon.

“Baby…i want to eat you out, i bet Oppa’s cum tastes as sweet as i think…” She gestures to her best friend, quickly Hyewon shifts in front of her face, sitting in a way that gives easy access to her pussy for Jihyo.

Realize that Jihyo's two ponytails are your handles, you grab each one with your hand, the blonde girl looks back at you one last time with a wide smile and shining eyes, signaling to you that she is ready for you.

And with that out of the way, you begin.

Starting a chain reaction, you pull both of Jihyo's ponytails and slam your cock deep into her asshole. In response, she elicits a moan but quickly she inches her tongue toward Hyewon’s entrance licking out some of your cum that was left over which causes Her to clamp her soft and meaty thighs around her best friend’s head and join Jihyo with her moans.

“Fuck, unnie…it feels so good” The deer-eyed girl moaned, quickly getting aroused again seeing her best friend eat her out while being pounded by you from behind.

“I know ugh baby…he ugh is so deep inside ugh my ass” Jihyo tries to mumble to her friend in between pounds from you and licks from her. Meanwhile, you are silent, lost in the cloudy haze of pleasure from how tight her ass is, only sometimes releasing a groan.

Eventually you start increasing your pace, and it seems that Jihyo’s enjoys it, mostly by the fact that she also starts moving her butt toward your dick, letting you hear breathy moans such ‘yes’ or ‘more’ while still having the energy to pleasure Hyewon, who was holding her best friend's head close to her pussy in order to get eaten out more often.

As you start feeling yourself getting closer to your ends, you mutter loudly. “Shit girls, I am gonna cum”.

“Load it in her ngh ass Oppa” Hyewon managed to respond, struggling to not vocalize her pleasure. “I bet my cock-slut unnie would love getting filled by your thick cum, just like you did to my pussy” she dirty talks, getting you one step closer to where they both want you.

“YES, PLEASE OPPA” Jihyo loudly moans while turning her face back to you. “CUM INSIDE ME, FILL MY SLUTTY ASS WITH YOUR COCK, AS MUCH AS YOU WANT”.

And then, you finally cave in to their requests as for the final time of the night, your cock shoots one last string of cum into Jihyo's ass, one last Lick of Jihyo's tongue into Hyewon’s Cunt and one time where Hyewon clamps her thighs on Jihyo’s head the three of you  moan from the sheer pleasure that overwhelms your bodies and then you all fall into the bed.

Once again the room is quiet, no one dares mutter a word, you all have enough strength to just look at each’s now with tired yet happy eyes.

And in your mind, only one thought pops in your head, and you know that both Hyewon and Jihyo were thinking about the same thing as well.

“Best. Sex. Ever”

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Started writing in 6/8/2024

Finished writing in 7/8/2024

[steveyockey]

“Feel free to share your positive feelings about the film on Twitter after the screening,” said the usher introducing the London press preview screening of Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s Mattel-produced film. The embargo for reviews, however, would not be lifted until two days later, closer to the film’s release. The audience generally didn’t bat an eyelid and it wasn’t the first time my colleagues and I had heard such directives, yet we were left feeling censored: if they won’t allow for our negative reactions, why should they get our positive ones?

The purpose of this strategy barely needs specifying: in addition to the film’s omnipresent marketing campaign, positive reactions on social media were to seal the deal and ensure that the most dubious potential spectators would be persuaded to turn up to the cinema on the opening weekend, the most crucial days for a film’s box office success. The fact that the audience at this preview screening consisted mostly of influencers was another blatant marketing strategy, which would not have been as insulting were it not for the fact that it meant many film critics were unable to see the film before its release. The phenomenon occurred in other cities as well. A few days before the film’s release, Parisian writers were dumbfounded to see some colleagues sharing glowing takes on the film on Twitter, after being told there would be no advance screenings for any of the press. Moreover, what were presented as exclusive interviews with the cast turned out to be prerecorded and pre-approved by the studio. Ahead of its release, the film was to be seen only through pink-tinted glasses.

While it is customary for film studios to try to control the narrative by organising advance screenings if they believe in a film or avoiding them if they don’t, the methods employed for the release of Barbie were more extreme. They are symptomatic of a trend that has been evolving over the past few years and that concerns not only the film criticism profession, but culture at large. If all discussion of a film’s merits before release is left to influencers, whose driving ambition is to receive free merchandise by speaking well of the studio’s products, what can we expect the film landscape to look like? Where will engaging, challenging and, if not completely unbiased then at least impartial conversation about cinema take place, and how is the audience to think critically of what is being sold to it?

[fallingdownhell]

hi!! would it be alright to request cyno and tighnari crushing on kaveh's younger sibling? brother's best friend type of thing ´･ᴗ･`

I hope I understood and did your request correctly. If not, I'm very sorry. Characters Included: Tighnari; Cyno Content: gender neutral reader; fluff; the boys have a huge crush; getting together (kinda) Word count: 1k words Enjoy<3

Tighnari

the way I like to think about it, is that Kaveh and Tighnari have been besties for quite some time already

they met in their Academiya days, got along, and stayed close friends till this day

of course, Tighnari was aware that Kaveh had a younger sibling, though he had never gotten to meet them and to be fair, it wasn't a top priority of his

however, that quickly changed once he saw you for the first time

Tighnari was on his way to pick Kaveh up, knocking on his door and waiting for him to open up. Nothing out of the usual. Except this time, the door was opened by someone he had never seen before

perplexed, he asked to see Kaveh, to which you told him to wait for a second

Kaveh then soon came and the two got going, without Tighnari getting to see you again. Not being able to hold in his curiosity, he questioned Kaveh about it

"What, you mean (Name)? They're my younger sibling. I told you about them, remember?"

He does remember, though he had no recollection of Kaveh telling him just how stunning you really were

over time, it became very obvious that Tighnari has developed a huge crush on you. He comes over to Kaveh's place more often, engaging in conversation with you almost every time he's there, smiling at everything you say... it's so obvious that even Kaveh picks up on the crush his best friend has for his sibling

though he wasn't the biggest fan of it at the start, in his words "It's better if it's you rather than any of these other idiots out there"

so Tighnari at least has the blessing of his best friend to pursue you... though he's not too sure about what to do from here on out

for now, he finds comfort in the fact that he gets to spend time with you and get closer to you over time, without any pressure to it

he begins to invite you to separate hangouts, just the two of you, talking about any and everything you can think of

he brings you small presents, sometimes even flowers that he finds on his patrols through the forests

one time, he invited you to a picnic as he claimed he found a beautiful spot in the forest. There, he made you a flower crown, gently placing it on top of your head

he still remembers that day fondly, the shy smile that you had, the slight blush on your cheeks.. the image is permanently engraved in his mind

one of these days, he wants to ask you on a proper date, to finally ask you to go out with him... maybe then, he can finally get even closer to you, like he always dreams of these days...

Cyno

Cyno isn't exactly best friends with Kaveh like Tighnari is, but they still are friends and hang out regularely

I like to think that those two met each other through Tighnari, and although it was a bit awkward at first, they began to bond over TCG faster than expected

soon enough, they would play together on a regular basis, getting to know each other better and better, with Cyno almost always cracking one of his god awful jokes, but everyone just bares with it

over the course of their developing friendship, they get to know more about each others lifes, which is also how Cyno first learns that Kaveh has a younger sibling, still enrolled in the Academiya

feeling intrigued, Cyno wants to know what kind of person his younger sibling would be, so he sets out on a mini "mission" to find out more about you

he learns pretty quickly that you're one of the top students in your Darshan, adored by teachers and other scholars

and he understands why that is immediately after he first meets you in person. Your kind and easygoing personality just draws people in, promising them a fun time if they were to hang out with you. You did also have a thing to be a bit too dramatic, much like your brother, but it wasn't as intense if compared to him

however, your first interaction with Cyno was stiff and awkward, seeing as you were scared because of his position, thinking that he was conducting some kind of investigation on you

after Cyno cleared up the misunderstanding, you noticably relaxed around him, smiling from time to time, even though you were still a little on edge around him

and somehow, that shy demeanor of yours is what drew him in even more, letting him fall head over heels for you

after that, it seemed like you were running into the General Mahamatra a lot more frequently. You couldn't help but think that all those 'incidental' encounters weren't so random to begin with

but nonetheless, you began to enjoy the interactions you had with Cyno. He was actually a pretty easy person to get along with, if you can ignore the icecold glares he throws at people every now and then

he often tries to lighten the mood with some of his jokes. And even if not all of them were good, you did let out a chuckle every now and then when he told a rather good one. Those small laughs would always make him feel proud on the inside, like he accomplished a great feat by making you laugh with his jokes

Kaveh, on the other hand, seemed to be oblivious about the thing the two of you had going on, until one day, you mentioned Cyno in conversation with him

your brother began questioning you about your interactions, quickly gaining a picture about what was going on

he went to confront Cyno about it the next day. It didn't escalate into a full blown argument, but can you really blame him? He's just a brother, trying to look out for his younger sibling!

it took a bit of time and reassuring, but after confirming that Cyno was indeed serious about you and not just playing with you, Kaveh reluctantly agreed to his friend pursuing a relationship with you

however, he did warn Cyno that if he were to ever hurt you, no matter which way, he would stop at nothing to make him regret the day he was born. And for the first time in his life, Cyno felt some form of fear to the blonde architect...

[anantaru]

˚✧⁎⁺˳ sfw alhaitham boyfriend headcanons

some sweet boyfriend hcs about the scribe since he’s finally getting released, enjoy everyone ૮꒰ྀི ´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა

꒰ a/n ꒱ — some instances in this are inspired by a couple hcs i have written about him in the past!

꒰ genre ꒱ — fluff, gn! reader

+ ˚ matching rings

for alhaitham, having a sense of bond with his significant other aside from an— already exceptional, emotional connection, didn‘t seem like an item he would‘ve spend nor waste any time on.

though a while later, after one day when he had sauntered through the midst of sumeru city, his eyes had suddenly caught a glimpse of a glowing jewel on a small table, being sold by a vendor from another nation.

it wasn‘t until later when he realised that the ring had a little stone embedded into it which held onto your most favorable color, next to it a larger version of the same product, a little different, but still carrying on the same intensity of beauty.

in the end he decided to buy it for you both, there wasn‘t a specific day or a special occasion that alhaitham had waited for to gift you his little present.

in reality he one day, brought the small gift with him to meet you, at last showing it to you in his large hand, the glow of the radiant stone on top of the golden frame had taken in the grand total of your pure attention.

he was well aware that you liked it, it was clearly written all over your sweet expression, how your eyes had widened in mere seconds, fixed with a certain luminosity of being so utterly grateful to him.

slowly, he rolled the ring on its desired destination and it fit you perfectly, of course it did.

after all, it was him who had your love, had fully acquired it and if he would remember and dwell back on it, alhaitham surely didn‘t regret buying the little gold since it was now an element part of his love for you, you who was his priceless possession.

+ ˚ slow, lazy make out sessions and his love

with the freedom he had obtained due to his job as the akademiya‘s scribe, alhaitham could gather enough spare time for you both to share with each other.

the comfort he sought after a long day was forthwith found in your arms with his head snugly leaning into your warm chest, listlessly paying attention to the low thumps of your heart.

although the two of you would engage in conversation at first, carelessly rattling onto numerous topics that just so happened over the past few hours, it'd aways end with you both getting closer.

for some unexplained reason, alhaitham tried to justify the comfort that consumed him whenever his lips would touch yours. It might have to do something with the dopamine releasing in him, with it setting free euphoric sensations in both his body and soul.

you were so sweet, so soft and squishy when your breathing went a tone lower, worldly wise and at a standstill, you were both relaxing under your touches, the romantic atmosphere that gnawed itself into the air, your surroundings adapting a fire as he gently took your chin in between his thumb and pointer finger, drawing you close just a bit more, a little.

there was no doubt that you have greatly helped him improve in the relationship department, not only with you sharing an intimate, romantic connection but as well as when it came to friendships in its complete glory, to illustrate further as indicated with his colleagues of the sumeru akademiya.

in this moment, you do not speak, neither of you.

it's those nanoseconds where alhaitham would be plagued by words or letters he wouldn't be the best person to speak them out loud, though in his mind, they ran freely and in tandem with his feelings.

i need you by my side, all eternity, i am better because of you, i love you unconditionally, all of you.

+ ˚ reading to you while cuddling

alhaitham had always preferred to stay in with you, to keep a low profile, in a finer way dedicating his time to you.

obviously, some of the books he had stored away in his home could become quite difficult for you to read and although sometimes— alhaitham would explain them to you in great detail, you will not understand a single syllable that was escaping that pretty mouth of his.

yet he was still trying for you and archons:

the way his bright eyes would carefully ghost over each page in concentration, or how he deciphered every definition in his brain, individually breaching out one and all meanings to gather the right one or how he was easily deducting the words with his cleverness.

to say he was cute while being surrounded by his thoughts was an understatement.

yes, it was apparent that as a result of some of the topics he'd try to make you understand, you'd end up falling asleep on top of him, more often than you'd actually prefer to do so.

It's not like you wanted to, also you didn't want alhaitham to feel like he was boring you to death because in truth it wasn't him who did— but the overly tedious subjects at hand specific books would display.

at this, he wouldn't fault you, at all.

meanwhile he had already pleasingly tucked a blanket over your resting frame, gently making sure you were extra comfortable while moving his body only as little as possible so he wouldn't accidentally stir you off your precious slumber.

as for how this day would end, well, alhaitham would continue to page through his book before at last, placing it onto the nightstand, dimming the lights before encircling you in his broad arms, compassionately positioning his head on top of yours and drifting off to a silent, secured doze next to you.

+ ˚ conclusion and alhaitham‘s ways of handling arguments

befitting of his character, alhaitham could become quite difficult to deal with when it came to arguments that would occur just as much as in any other relationship.

it was bound to happen and to him, it was mind numbing.

seldomly he would actively engage in an argument, which wasn't always the best route to take because it was important for both parties in a relationship to be open about their corresponding feelings and emotions.

deep trust was what had defined your relationship, since it was one, if not the most important factor. He was a great listener and once the situation had been properly calmed down alhaitham would appear to go through great lengths to make whatever seemed to had happened, right again.

however, he was quite uncomfortable whenever he witnessed you cry, unmistakably it wasn't in a belittling kind of way, rather did it too, push him into a soul destroying current, masticating him from the inside out.

it was a learning process, a wholly overtaxing one at that, but he did not seek perfection of you and neither did you.

to put it into a different perspective, in the end alhaitham— though it may not always seem this way, did whatever it required for you to be happy again.

he belonged to you just as much as you belonged to him and he wanted, more so desired, to keep it that exact way.

to live a peaceful, tranquil life with his soulmate was something he, no matter what, fancied.

on top of that, he'd make it his top priority to be unconditionally transparent with you, not daring to hide any aspects of his life with you in order for this to work out until the very end.

©2023 anantaru do not share, copy, translate any of my work

[faulty-writes]

Could I have some headcanons where Tenya, Tamaki, and Mirio meet their SOs family and discover they're the unfavorite compared to their sister?

Maybe reader's sister even tries to steal their boyfriend by flirting with him (not that it works, but still). Regardless, reader can't help but expect them to fall in love with her.

[ This sounds kind of cute, just enough drama to be spicy. I hope I did your request justice! ]

Despite your insistence not to, Tenya took great pride in meeting your family and ensured that he was dressed in proper attire when the day came. In addition, he thought it best to bring a gift as it was traditional to present a gift to the hosts when visiting their home.

It was immediately apparent that some form of favoritism was present when he finally met your family, more specifically he noticed that your parents seemed to have a lack of attention when it came to you or just ignored you in favor of praising or speaking positively about your sister who they seemed to oddly want him to talk to.

"Pardon, but is this truly the ideal setup?" He questioned, finding it odd as to why your parents were situating you away from him during dinner and closer to your sister who made him visibly uncomfortable when she grazed her hand along his and attempted to engage in what he assumed was flirtatious conversation.

"I am honored to be attending such a prestigious school as Yuuei! Y/n has quite excelled in our training exercises and-" It was apparent that your parents disregarded your accomplishments in contrast with your sister's when they interrupted him and turned the attention on her, explaining how her academic achievements surpassed yours.

"May I ask why there is such favoritism between your children!?" Tenya was normally well-mannered, and he would rarely talk cruelly about another's family. But the hints he had been receiving from the evening with your parents were more than enough for him to speak his mind.

"Apologies, perhaps that was not the best method to address the issues with your family," he stated after having been thrown out the front door of your parent's house, but he simply could not help himself. His heart ached for you, and he wanted to right the injustice he saw. But perhaps familial matters were best left alone.

"W-what if I'm not…g-good enough or…t-they try to separate us a-and…" Tamaki felt a surge of uncertainty and anxiety when you mentioned the idea of him finally meeting your family. Although his concerns of making a good impression on them didn't faze you considering your family was…biased when it came to you.

"Oh h-hello!" It was clear his nerves were still bothering him when face-to-face with your family. They seemed polite but also asked him all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer. He also noticed that they ignored you entirely which he found odd, but he didn't want to assume anything just yet.

"Mm…" he grew increasingly uncomfortable whenever you left the room, and your sister would take your spot, leaning unusually close to him, and touching him which caused him to tremble in disgust. You had expected Tamaki to fall to her advances, but that wasn't the case. Even if he was too shy to say anything, he knew he would be a fool to fall for anyone else but you.

As the day with your family progresses, he begins to pick up more subtle hints that your family prioritizes your sister over you. It was in the way they ignored you, and acted as though you were invisible even when you were standing in front of them. That was a feeling he was familiar with, and he knew he wouldn't stand for people treating you like that for long.

"I-is this how your family always treats you?" He asked when the two of you finally had a moment alone together, and although you didn't want him to worry or think less of your family. You did confide in him that there was always favoritism for your sister and while he didn't like this, he made the choice to remain civil for the remainder of the visit.

He offered you silent comfort and tried to be as supportive as he could. He disagreed with how your family treated you, but he also knew that it was best to get along with them because, at any moment, they could take you away from him. That wasn't something he wanted and as uncomfortable as he was at your family's house, he'd be even more uncomfortable if he didn't have you by his side.

Mirio was enthusiastic to meet your family and entered your parents’ home with a bright smile. Instead of a warm welcome, however, he was greeted with a cold one. Yes, your parents greeted him after a long moment of silence, but he noticed they said nothing to you. Initially, he brushed this off, after all, families were weird.

He picked up the favoritism your parents showed toward your sister quickly, especially when all they talked about seemed to be her. Her accomplishments, her outstanding deeds. "Heh, well you know Y/n's done some pretty cool stuff too!" He said, however, his words were greeted with silence before the conversation yet again turned on your sister.

You knew that Mirio's sense of humor was…subjective, most of the time his jokes fell flat, and your parents were no exception. They didn't find his jokes funny, your sister, however, did. You could tell she was faking it. She'd give an overexaggerated laugh and scoot closer to Mirio before touching his hand or arm, and playfully telling him he was so funny.

You hadn't talked about your family much before he insisted on meeting them, but as the visit progressed, he noticed the uneasy tension between you and them. Regardless, he tried his best to get along with them despite his urges to directly address the issue he could so painfully see.

When your sister once again tried to get close to him and dared to wrap her arm around him, threading her fingers through his hair while whispering sweet nothings into his ear. He caught on quick to what she wanted and gave her a smile while turning her down politely. "Heh, that's super nice of you to try and flirt with me. But Y/n has my heart and I'll make sure I do whatever I can to make it stay that way!"

He wouldn't leave without speaking his mind, and he spoke without fear. "It was super nice meeting you, but just to let you know Y/n has her own accomplishments too and while you don't have to be proud of them, you could at least show a little support but even if you don’t, I'll show them all the support they need!" After which, he dragged you out the door.

[nejiverse]

I REMEMBER

Sae Itoshi [pt. 5 to his amnesiac]

In which the forgotten past turns into the remembered present. Fem! Reader

part 4

cw: none

906 words

Y/n truly felt overwhelmed.

The restaurant was breathtaking to say the least. Stepping inside, Y/n was struck by the grandeur of the space. High ceilings that one could only touch in their dreams, chandeliers casting a golden glow across her surroundings, velvety drapes that didn't dare block the view of distant city lights and tables dressed with white linen along with vases of fresh flowers to add a splash of colour.

"How did we get in with no reservation?", Y/n muttered in awe, but loud enough for Sae to hear.

"It's about who you know these days", Sae retorted, pulling out Y/n's chair for her, the woman smiling appreciatively.

As Sae took a seat, Y/n couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the wide selection of dishes displayed on the menu, but in the best possible way.

Sae rested his elbow on the table, his cheek resting against his fisted hand while he gazed upon the woman opposite him who appeared to be in deep thought. Sae guessed she was pondering which dish to get knowing the foodie that she was.

"It's hard to pick just one!", Y/n narrowed her eyes at the menu in her hands as if it would help her choose a dish.

"Then get two", Sae offered a solution.

Y/n's eyes brightened. "Really?". If only she knew the lengths Sae would go just to make her happy.

————————

The minutes passed quite quickly after they both ordered mainly because they were deep in conversation, Y/n learning much more about both her fiancé and herself, and the multiple conversations in the background were a perfect cover up for the quiet moments between them which neither of them found awkward in the slightest. For Sae, merely being in her presence was enough for him.

Sae shifted slightly, reaching into his pocket. Y/n watched curiously, chin resting against her palm.

Sae paused. "What? You think i've got something for you?", he taunted casually.

Y/n averted her gaze to the side in efforts to appear indifferent. "Of course not", she rolled her eyes at his words.

Sae clicked his tongue. "Well you’re wrong".

Placed in the centre of the table was an open box with held the ring she had taken off her finger in the hospital. Her engagement ring. The sight of it brought about a rush of emotions she hadn't expected.

She switched between looking at the ring then Sae's eyes repeatedly.

"Sae I—", she pursed her lips before speaking again. "Are you sure?".

After all, she had said previously that an engagement ring was a symbol of love and she currently had no idea if she loved Sae or not.

She knew what she felt was stronger than how she would feel about a stranger or a friend but she simply couldn't tell if it was love or not nor if her feelings were deserving of a ring.

"Amnesia or not, I still want you to be my wife".

Sae internally grimaced at his own words. When did he become so sappy? A man who despised those around him and barely tolerated his teammates. He was completely bewildered by the effect the woman sat in front of him had on him.

"You're positive?", she asked again with uncertainty in which Sae replied by taking her hand in his own and sliding the ring onto her finger, never forgetting to leave a kiss on her knuckles.

"Is that a good enough answer?".

Y/n didn't resist the big smile that crept onto her lips, even reaching her eyes.

She felt all giddy both outside and in. Was this feeling love? She believed she was getting closer to her answer.

"One more time for good measure?".

"Don't push your luck", Sae huffed out a laugh before patting her hand.

Y/n chuckled in response and looked at the ring once again and as she did, a wave of familiarity washed over her, like a light bulb switching on. The mixed scents from the food that was being prepared and the flowers on the table, the warm light and the way the e/c ring contrasted the white linen cloth on the table.

She had experienced these sensations before.

She blinked, her breath catching as fragments of a memory surfaced.

It was faint, like a photo slowly coming into focus, but it was there.

Sae was able to catch the slight change in her facial expressions. A mix of shock and relief.

"Hey, you okay?", he asked.

Y/n nodded slowly, still in the midst of processing.

"Sae, is this where you proposed to me initially?".

Sae's reaction was immediate and visceral. His eyes widened in shock, and his usually composed demeanor shattered. He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to find words. For a moment, he simply sat there, utterly stunned.

"Yes Y/n", he squeezed her hand. "It is, you remember".

Sae was ecstatic, more than he let on. His heart was beating at a pace that not even playing soccer couldn't accomplish.

Y/n nodded, tears welling up in her eyes as she saw the depth of his reaction. With a voice barely above a whisper, she parroted his words.

"I remember”.

masterlist :)

[mylarena]

kicks feet. wolf shifter au but its just soap whos a shifter and ghost is a regular human who does not know that the weird wolf who keeps showing up at his little cabin/cottage in the woods is actually john from the repair shop in the nearest village.

either that or soap just isnt present in the village at all and spends a lot of time in the fuckin woods

but like. ghost is tending to his vegetable garden one day and feels keen eyes watching him, so he observes the area around himself subtly and theres a rustle in the brush so he zeroes in on that while he goes through the motions of weeding and watering and such. and eventually he feels the eyes on him leave. so he finishes his work and goes inside (made sure to lock the door that night)

he goes out again the next day to do his tasks and eventually feels the same gaze on him. but he just pretends he doesnt know something (someone) is watching him and continues his work. eventually they leave again, and he continues on.

this happens a few more times, then one day he can actually see the eyes in the bushes. he makes eye contact, holds it until the other pair of eyes blink, then continues with his business (never turning his back to the creature)

and sllloooowly over time, the creature inches its way out of the cover of the bushes. and its the biggest fucking wolf ghost has ever seen in his damn life.

eventually the wolf just sits right outside the fence of his garden. and he starts talking to it. its not often he gets any kind of visitors out in the woods, and hes a bit of a Lone Wolf ™️ type so he doesnt really mind,,, but theres a fuckin wolf. right there. a huge ass wolf. and he starts making comments to it. which turns into full sentences, then one-sided conversations of whatever he thinks of.

then one day the wolf is inside the fence. with no evidence of how it got in. the gate is still latched, theres no holes in the fencing, no marks left from and kind of scrabble over the wood.

but the wolf is just There. Sitting. Waiting for him.

and hes apprehensive at first because theres nothing between him and this wild fucking wolf. but he goes about his day and the wolf just follows him around the garden, somehow managing to not trample a single plant (ghost sees how hes exceedingly careful to not even brush his tail against them. weird.)

by the time the sun is going down, he opens up the gate for the wolf to leave, and he just looks at him for a long moment, before ghost gestures his head for him to leave, and he does.

and the next day hes back in the fuckin garden

whats even weirder about the whole situation is the fact that the wolf engages in the conversations. not speaking words, but replying with barks and growls and whines and gestures, gestures that arent natural for a wolf, gestures that are human.

the wolf slowly inches his way closer and closer every day, eventually daring to sit right up against ghosts leg when hes taking a break. then he sets his head on his knee and looks up at him and pretty much fucking pouts until ghost hesitantly places a hand on his head. his fur is fucking soft. silky smooth, fluffy down his back, and soft as a fuckin cloud.

now that hes up close, ghost can see little scars and features that he couldnt from a distance. hes got nicks in his ears, a scar on his chin, one going over his eye, and one that looks fairly new down his chest.

some days the wolf (ghost just calls him "Wolf" in his head. he's not gonna name the fucker.) doesnt visit. ghost pretends it doesnt strike a bit of concern in him, forces himself to focus on his tasks instead of worrying about the animal.

hes a fucking wolf. he lives in the wild. he can handle himself.

what really concerns him, though, is when a harsh thunderstorm hits. its raining hard, the trees are thrashing violently in the wind, and the rumbling of thunder gets ever closer.

hes stuck inside, knowing better than to try and do jack shit outside when the wind is strong enough to take him off of his feet.

but for once he doesnt worry about his crops or the chair he keeps on his porch- he worries about Wolf.

again, wild fuckin wolf, can handle himself, but the weather is absolutely abysmal.

so ghost cant help but pace around, having forgone his usual reading after he couldnt focus on what the words on the pages were because his thoughts were consumed with worry.

the thunder is louder than ever, the lightning is absolutely blinding, and he can hear how the fence gate outside is swinging madly in the wind, having opened when the weather started growing worse. he cant hear his own breathing, the only thing he can hear is the torrent of rain and howling of the wind and his heart thumping in his chest. its a fucking wonder that he actually manages to catch the scratching at the door.

he freezes in his pacing, listening in silence for the noise to happen again, and when it does he all but rushes to the door and swings it open (the wind did most of the work, quite frankly.), and there. Wolf, soaked to the fucking bone, ears flat to his skull. ghost stares, Wolf stares back, and then theres a blinding flash of light and a deafening clap of thunder, and hes reaching out and dragging Wolf inside.

he struggles with the door for a moment, fighting against the wind, but gets it close and latched. he turns to the wild fucking wolf that stands in his actual fucking house, takes in the sight of his violent shivering and dripping pelt, and swears as he jolts into the motion of getting a towel or two to try and dry him off.

when he kneels in front of the dog, dropping a towel on his back and starting to ruffle his fur dry with it, he starts talking. talking about the shit weather, about the damage thats surely going to come to his garden, about his concern about Wolf himself, how worried he was. as he rambles, he takes note of the scratches and scrapes that hide under Wolf's thick pelt. theyre all small, likely from branches and other debris flying around while he made his way to the cabin.

theyre all small, except for a gash across the flank of his left hind leg. ghost can see the blood mixing with the rain water that pours off of him, but only realizes where the wound is when Wolf yelps when he tries to dry the spot.

he apologizes quietly, and quickly finishes drying him the best he can. he sits back on his haunches and takes in the sight of Wolf- his fur ruffled far more than usual, his blue eyes that are filled with exhaustion and lingering fear, the blood thats already starting to make its way down to the hardwood floor, and the way hes trembling like a leaf. he looks ready to fall down right there in his place. so ghost stands after giving the wolf a scratch behind the ear, and ushers him towards the crackling fire thats keeping the place warm. Wolf staggers over, managing to keep himself upright up until ghost finishes laying out a blanket on the floor for him, then practically collapses on it.

ghost heads to where he keeps his medical supplies, grabbing everything he thinks hes going to need to patch up Wolf (hes never treated an animals wounds before. hopefully it isnt too different from patching up his own). when he steps back into the room, he takes a moment to stare at the bizarre scene in front of him. a massive wolf collapsed right in front of his fireplace, eyes closed and chest nearly heaving, surrounded by ghosts neatly arranged living room furniture and bleeding onto one of his favorite blankets. shit, hes bleeding still.

spurred into action, ghost crosses the room in a few quick strides and kneels next to Wolf again. "hey," he whispers softly, watching Wolf open his eyes to look at him, "im gonna patch up your leg, yeah? might hurt a bit. ill be careful." Wolf simply whines softly, closing his eyes once more. ghost runs a hand down his side, then shifts to take a better look at his leg.

the wound isnt incredibly deep, but as he cleans it ghost can tell that itll need stitches. fuck, how is he meant to give a wolf stitches without getting his fucking face mauled off? Wolf had been docile and friendly ever since they met, but ghost also hadnt tried to poke him with a needle and thread before.

he cant just leave him without them, though. hes not keen on letting Wolf be injured and bleeding any longer than he needs to be.

"hey, Wolf," he reaches over and taps the side of Wolf's neck, "i need to stitch up your leg. are you alright with that?" ...as if a fucking wolf is going to know what that means. but Wolf lets out a whimper at his words and fucking nods at him, eyes still shut. alright then.

he prepares everything he needs, taking a look at Wolf's face and giving him a gentle scratch under his ear. "this is gonna hurt," he shifts back to look at the wound, "please dont maul me."

and Wolf doesnt. he whines and whimpers and growls a bit, baring his teeth and thrashing his head, but he never tries to attack ghost and he even keeps his leg fairly still. the whole process ghost whispers apologies, reassurances and praises. when he finishes, he wraps a bandage around the leg then sits back. "we're done now, its over." ghost looks over Wolf as he lets the tension in his body release, listening to his long, relieved whine as he goes limp. "you did good. thanks for not chewing my face off." Wolf simply huffs at him.

he stares a moment longer, but a loud hit of thunder breaks him out of it. he had fixated so intensely on Wolf that he had entirely tuned out the raging storm that was still going on.

he sighs and collects the leftover medical supplies, standing to put them away. instead of making his way back to Wolf's side, he decides that the wolf is probably hungry as all hell and heads towards his kitchen instead.

he prepares a quick, simple meal for himself and his visitor: reheated venison & vegetable stew, leftover from the night before. he carries two bowls back to his living room, crouching and placing one in front of Wolf. "here." ghost watches his nose twitch as he catches a whiff of the stew. the wolf doesnt open his eyes, though. "dinner, Wolf. i know youre hungry." Wolf opens his eyes and looks up at ghost pleadingly. "whats that look for? i cant exactly feed you myself. you need to sit up." Wolf whines at him imploringly. "no. i cannot feed you by hand, youre gonna have to sit up." Wolf downright groans, bracing himself before pulling himself up until hes propped on his front paws. ghost pushes the bowl closer to him. "eat up."

once Wolf sniffs at the stew, he practically lunges forward and starts devouring it. ghost stares with a raised eyebrow for a second, then turns to his own bowl and begins to eat.

they eat in silence- as silent as it can be with a hell-raising storm outside and the sound of a giant wolf gobbling down a bowl of stew. when Wolf finishes literally licking the bowl clean, he flops back down onto his uninjured side. ghost continues to eat, obviously not half as hungry as him. when he finishes, he picks up both bowls and takes them back to his kitchen. ghost takes a moment to place his hands on the counter and lean on it, running through the events of the past hour. theres a fucking wolf in his livingroom. an injured wolf. a wolf that befriended him over the past few months. a wolf he doesnt feel like he can kick out of his house without proper treatment.

he sighs and runs a hand over his face. hes too fucking tired for this shit. he feels unreasonably exhausted just from the excitement of this whole ordeal. he decides he can deal with the situation in the morning, after hes gotten proper sleep.

when he steps back into the living room, Wolf is asleep, chest rising and falling steadily as he breathes. ghost watches him for a moment before giving a heavy sigh. he grabs another blanket off of his couch and throws it over the wolf, hoping the fire doesnt go out overnight and cause Wolf to get cold. he makes his way to his bedroom, getting ready before throwing himself down onto his mattress and staring at the ceiling for a few moments before passing the fuck out.

he wakes in the morning to sunlight filtering through the window into his eyes. he groans and rolls out of bed, pulling a shirt on and stumbling out of his room. he only remembers that theres a fucking. wolf. in his living room when he steps into it. its a bit jarring to see that said wolf isnt there. its even more jarring to see a full fucking grown man asleep in the wolf's place, haphazardly spread out on the ground, nothing but the goddamn blanket to cover himself. ghost thinks he can see a peek of white bandages wrapped around his thigh. he takes a deep breath to center himself.

"what the fuck."

[darklinsblog]

Lost Kitten | Sandman Imagine

Summary: Morpheus gets wrongfully adopted by human while in his cat form.

Pairing: Morpheus x Human! Reader

Requested: Yes

Author’s note: Merry Christmas my loves! I hope you may take this as a Christmas present. Happy Holidays!!!

Everything was going well in the Dreaming and after days of Lucienne insisting, Morpheus decided to take a few days off.

“I believe you need to clear your head, enjoy yourself”

The librarian was very careful with her words, knowing how apprehensive the king could be, but her choice of words had struck in him all his reflexive thoughts, thinking too of how his sister Death reminded him how important it was for them to keep a close bond with humanity.

Maybe, a few days in the Waking World wouldn't do harm.

So, as he reached the Waking World he opted for his cat form, as he could blend more easily in this world and could observe without engaging beyond what he felt comfortable with.

The king was inherently empathetic but withholding the collective consciousness of humanity itself made it difficult to engage in any conversation when he was overwhelmed with others' emotions.

Honestly, it was peaceful to simply observe, with his cat form he could also interact with other living creatures, cats seemed somewhat more welcoming than humans.

Until that one girl.

It was a rainy day, he remembered looking at the frame of a female with a bright yellow umbrella, it was impossible not to notice her, and not just because of her bright accessory, but everything about her.

Her laid back demeanor, her soft gestures, that ghost of a smile and the lovely shine in her eyes, all as she was walking and Morpheus couldn’t explain why, but he could not help himself to follow her trace as she walked right passed him.

But for a split second, her eyes met his and she backed out quietly, she remained staring as well, there in the pouring rain, almost as if she was aiming to unravel all the universe within his eyes.

Finally, she stepped closer, reaching out her hand out to his nose, allowing him to get familiar with her scent before attempting to touch his soft fur.

He quietly sniffed around her hand, as he was curious to what she smelled like.

Apple and iris… huh.

After a second or two she softly scratched his chin and he involuntarily purred, melting into her expertise touch for a split second, before he regained his composure almost immediately embarrassed which made her laugh.

The mysterious woman then gently grabbed Morpheus, so much so he hadn’t almost realized this until he was too close to her face, and by this time, he had gotten comfortable in the warmth of her embrace.

By the time they reached the woman’s house, it had already stopped raining, Morpheus couldn’t help himself and look around, finding pieces of information here and there.

Her name was Y/N Y/L/N, he confirmed this from the receipt at the table with her name on, she was a florist which he could tell from the apron with the flower shop name on it, which he remembered walking by earlier on the day.

The girl reached her bedroom and she made a small head gesture for him to follow, and out of curiosity he did, he climbed up to the bed and stared at her every move.

Then, she started undressing herself and as tempting and easy it would be to watch her, from the minute she removed her top (completely unaware she was quite technically undressing herself in front of another being that could very much feel aroused), the Endless look away, completely resisting the temptation of having just a glance, out of respect for her privacy.

When she was finally dressed she laid on the bed and watched TV as she pet Morpheus softly, the Endless in cat form laid his head on Y/N’s leg.

The incognito king decided he would return his kingdom in the morning, but for the night remaining, he would simply be a domestic cat with no worries.

When the morning arrived, Morpheus looked around and Y/N was nowhere to be seen so he thought it would be a good opportunity to transform back into his a custom appearance.

But, when he turned around he saw the girl that thought had left for work, standing there completely frozen on the door frame.

“I apologize but how startling this may be to see, but I do thank you for welcoming me into your home” he spoke softly making her blink a few times.

“You’re welcome…” she trailed off giving him space to fill the blank of his name, his eyes softened and he showed a ghost of a smile before responding.

“Morpheus” he replied shortly.

“I assume you have to go back to wherever you come from” she said half-truthfully, half-teasing.

“I do” he said walking alongside her now towards the door.

“You know, you’re welcome to come back whenever you want. I believe you can use the front door or the window”

This time around the Prince of Stories couldn’t help but chuckle softly.

“I would definitely consider your offer in the future, Y/N”

Reaching the Dreaming he could see the librarian smiling, she had her ways of knowing everything somehow.

“Welcome back, my lord… Did anything interesting happened during your stay in the Waking World?” She asked smiling at how relaxed he appeared to be in contrast to when he left.

“Yes, it was interesting as well” he said simply, letting in a little bit into his interest for the woman he met back at the Waking World

Taglist: @emiemiemiii @ladyfairenvale @hungrhay @aurorarevenclaw1927 @adishax @meganmayhem89 @mrs-captainsteverogers @hb8301 @sarahbullet235 @bambooing-shenanigans @queenshelby @characterxreaderimagine @emarich7 @carolcrysis @sister-of-stars @coolsnowker @sandman-33 @jesllianaquilesrolon @supermegapauselouca

[radiation]

Video games talk dont even mind me

Bro video games as a whole are so far behind movies in terms of storytelling and pacing that it’s kind of baffling. Which of course is obvious and makes sense for plenty of reasons but like, just think about it — watching movies a lot can’t help but train a certain muscle that gives you a strong instinct for structure. I find that people who watch movies very casually, without too much artistic consideration, and don’t really know the language associated with it are still very often irked by specific issues with a movie’s pacing, dialogue, etc and are relatively capable of putting it into words. Likewise, for many movies out there, regardless of your opinions on any specific directorial choices, you do feel as if the movie is essentially cohesive and creatives involved reasonably knew what they were doing and were acting very intentionally, and there weren’t any major oversights. This includes independent films as well. Meanwhile I think both players and developers much more commonly lack the instinct for narrative cohesion when it comes to video games. Definitely a fair amount of exceptions to this, but in general I find it’s difficult to find video games that are very narrative heavy & aspire to great artistic heights that don’t suffer from inherent structural problems, pedantic dialogue, tons of dead air, etc in a way that wouldn’t slide as easily in a movie. A lot these flaws certainly have to be due to the presence of gameplay elements and having to balance that with story when the two are almost always, at least in some small respect, inherently at odds. As for the inability for devs and players to pick up on / fix these flaws…is it because gameplay can distract from it and make up for it? With longer games that have runtimes closer to the experience of a television series, is there a similar reaction where if it’s long enough you will sit thru smaller, momentary issues because you enjoy the bigger picture? Yet games are a lot more engaging than a show as a audio, visual, and tactile experience, you can’t multitask and tune the information out as easily as with a boring episode of a show, so you’d think people would be more picky? But maybe because it’s so attention-demanding people are more immersed, and believe in the experience enough to more easily accept the story? Books demand the same kind of active attention to experience though, and the bar for story in books is a lot higher, so what gives? Well a lot of these have kind of obvious answers but still Interesting questions to ask that lead to Damn , That Is Still Crazy How Much This Shit Is In Its Infancy like sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy with how many writing issues are present in games, particularly in indie games that are Trying To Be Good At Writing that feel excessively obvious and yet I often struggle to find my sentiment mirrored by others. IDK. And back to movies the thing is I feel like if the same people trying to write these kind of games had pursued movies instead then they would’ve ended up making well structured movies that avoided all of these pitfalls. WHAT IS IT WITH GAMES? Well we know what it is with games and we could spend all day discussing a million more reasons this is the way it is but no matter what I think we should just be super conscientious of these pitfalls when making narrative focused games and aspire to a greater level of intentionality that is absolutely possible . Build that muscle by really understanding the quality of storytelling long-present in other mediums.Well the other issue with indie devs is that everyone believes they are totally breaking new ground story wise that they don’t take a step back, humble themselves a bit, and cross-reference what they’re doing with the tons of other stories that have already achieved similar things But thats a conversation for another day .

[clever-and-unique-name]

Oh. Something in me is snarling and snapping. Okay.

Sorry, most of you aren't going to have a lot of context for this because it would take far too long to explain and these feelings are melting my brain. The short story is I made a discord server 4 years ago for friends with OSDDID and just left it yesterday.

I still have a couple friends there still. So I've been kept abreast of the conversations that happened in the wake of me leaving. Because nothing can ever be discussed openly, to the face of who it's about, right? That's a big part of why I left in the first place.

So, some things, to recap, mostly for my sanity. Sorry, this is going to get extremely long, because I want to say all I need to say.

Initially, I made the server to foster a small, intimate community of people with OSDDID. One of those people is someone who groomed me as a teenager.

Over time, some of the people there helped me realize I was in a toxic relationship with that person. When things finally came to a head and that person left the server (2? years ago?), I was...very not okay. But I had people there supporting me through it, and we got closer through the fallout. I am genuinely thankful for their support through it. It would have been exponentially more rough without them.

Time passed. I went from being unemployed to working full time. I had less time to spend socializing online, partially due to the strict divide between our work-parts and home-parts. I began to neglect my friendships, and though we tried--god, we really did try--we just couldn't figure out how to talk more than maybe once a week, when the right alignment of parts were out to be Home and Social in the way we felt we needed to be. And it just dwindled from there.

At some point around there, I started talking to B. We bonded over our shared love of art and character creation. She was welcoming to all of my parts, insisted on talking to anyone who was present. A novelty for me, to be individually recognized and not have to hide anyone. She got me on my stressful days and rough nights--vulnerable times I didn't feel I could share with people previously. We have talked every day for two years.

Resentment began to grow from the people I'd previously been close to. Obviously...it hurts to be told that someone doesn't have space for you like they used to, while they're clearly engaging in a close and intimate friendship with another person. I tried to reassure that I still cared about people, and tried to reach out when I could, but it kept cropping up with different people in the server: you don't care about me anymore, we're clearly not friends anymore, well you can make room for her so why not me. It was almost like clockwork for a bit, once a month someone new would step forward and I would try to put out the fire again.

(The thing is, every single one of these people expressed that they completely understood and sympathized/empathized with my limited social ability. They insisted that our level of contact was fine, until it apparently wasn't and they confronted me about it. So as I was having a conversation with one person with them saying "No it's totally okay that we don't talk much, I still love and care about you sooo much!", I was fielding a convo from a different person who had said the same thing to me weeks/months ago, talking about how I had actually been horribly neglecting them and that we weren't friends anymore.)

Then around a year ago, that person I mentioned, the one I knew as a teenager, created a new account to bypass my blocks, and reached out to me again. Trying to "apologize" for something, the subject of which had me questioning if someone I knew was tipping them off to things I was processing semi-privately. Right at the crescendo of all the other social issues.

Lit match. Powder keg. Boom.

I withdrew hard. From absolutely everyone but B. I didn't know who to trust with their reassurances of "we're totally okay, love and care about you!" I didn't know who harbored resentments. I knew, from past experiences, that there were people in the server prone to gossiping with each other, and I had stepped on their toes by pulling away from them. I mean. That's how we had bonded in the first place--by us privately talking about the person I knew, among others. You know what they say about bad karma.

I all but disappeared from the server, owner in name only. I fought the urge to delete it, and instead promoted others to mods so I could further remove myself. Every time I attempted to talk there, I was overwhelmed with anxiety to the point of physical illness. I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head, that I was just having attachment trauma, that I could sit with my discomfort and everything would be fine. More and more, it felt like the only person I could truly trust to be emotionally attached to was B. Out of 20-odd people, 6 had heel-turned and told me I hurt them with my distance. I was just waiting on the rest to do the same. And waiting. And waiting.

And suddenly, a couple days ago, another server "friend" (I hesitate to call anyone that because it was impressed upon me, multiple times, that I was not being a friend to people) blocked me. I found out when I went to send them a meme and discovered I couldn't. I thought I was used to it, I thought I couldn't be blindsided anymore. But it had been a while since it had happened; I thought everyone who had a limit with me had reached it.

I checked our convo history. Yet again: us talking about how much we understood each other, how we're both prone to isolation, how we still cared about each other.

Upset, I told B, who was also friends with them. Who immediately found out she was blocked too.

So we both decided to leave the server. We announced it yesterday afternoon, and hung around to talk a bit, wanting to leave as little confusion as possible without outright calling anyone out. We knew there were people there who didn't know about any of this going on (I'm so sorry for all the drama that's been dumped on your feet, guys.) We also knew there were people there who had been talking about all this behind our backs--we just didn't know how many. Again, the suspicion and speculation and "when will it happen again" was really what was eating us alive.

We left amicably. And then as soon as the doors were closed, of course people stepped forward to talk about how I had just stopped caring about them to focus on B instead. As if it was that simple. As if they had stopped at any point to talk to me about it (and the ones who did vehemently denied that it was an issue of comparing our friendship to mine with B.)

Caring was never the issue. I cared about people until they blocked me, or outright told me I wasn't a friend to them anymore. I kept caring about people, against my fears that it would end like that again, because it's just my nature to care. But caring in silence doesn't feel like much of anything, does it? I know that. I'm sorry for the way I've made people feel from that. But connection is a two-way street--where the hell were you? B has talked to me every day for two years. When someone talks, I respond. If you wanted me there, where the hell were you?

[fancylances]

OC Kiss Week / Day Three / Sunrise

pairing: Wilhelm Atursen (he/him)/ Annika Graywave (she/her)

genre(s): fantasy

Wilhelm had slept fitfully, if at all. And when he wakes, it’s with a sense of urgency set deep in his chest. He sits up, blinking through the sleep haze, to find himself alone. Beyond the normal noise of his inn coming to life outside his door (the twins getting to work—Lysander stoking the fire and getting breakfast on, Lyla singing a low, beautiful tune as she sweeps), the telltale sound of equipment and armaments being packed and slung makes fear flood through his chest. He scrambles out of bed and into his trousers.

It’s well past freezing outside, and tiny flakes of snow drift from the sunrise-streaked clouds. Despite that, Wilhelm finds himself running through the open door of The Sellsword’s Rest in untied boots and a half-open tunic.

Annika looks up from her pack, and so do her three traveling companions. She doesn’t blush, but Wilhelm—forty-five-years-old war veteran Wilhelm Atursen, owner and proprietor of the last inn before the Wastes—certainly does. Which leaves little speculation in the minds of her companions as to what exactly is going on.

“Where are you going?” Wilhelm asks her. Comes to a skidding halt in the snow and mud beside her and tries not to look as panicked as he clearly feels.

“We’re mercenaries,” Annika answers, and her rough fingers (fingers he remembers holding his wrists as she’d ridden him into the mattress) effortlessly knot the last strands of her long yellow hair into their many braids. “We go where the boss tells us. Today, it’s…” she trails off, thought lost, and turns to Ares Starling—their money man—who takes over without a missed beat.

“Ah, there is a fantastic grove just south of here in the Glass Mountains. Quite well hidden from your common adventurer types. There, the water springs hot from the ground and everything grows green amidst the snow—or so they say. Mister Del’Gramm needs the pink petals of a flowering tree that grows there, and he’s paying quite the small fortune for it.” Starling stops and finally looks Wilhelm up and down—clearly there’s one person present who hasn’t got the whole picture. “Are you taller, or have I become shorter?”

“So we’re going to the grove,��� Annika supplies, slings her pack over her shoulder as she turns back to Wilhelm. “If we’re not caught in another snowstorm, we’ll be back in no time.”

“No more than two weeks,” the wizard Rysse adds. And she turns quickly to engage in conversation with Starling, who she deftly maneuvers away from the increasingly private conversation between the fighter and the innkeeper. Erik signs something to Annika—who smirks and nods—then holds up one hand with forefinger and thumb forming a circle to Wilhelm before turning and joining the others.

Wilhelm runs a hand through his thinning blond hair as he watches them go, only to find his free hand trapped by one of Annika’s. She’s much closer than she was a moment ago, looming over him in a way that still makes him weak in the knees.

“Can I call you Wil?” she asks lowly (sweetly).

The breath rushes out of him. His voice shakes, but not from the cold. “I dont… I don’t even know your last name.”

She leans down and takes his mouth with hers. He falls into it so easily.

“Graywave,” she says against his mouth. “South Point, Hyra. We used to sail ships on the Mezzo Sea.” 

She kisses him again. He finds it hard to breathe (breathing isn’t important; not as important as the way her mouth moves with his, the way they melt together). He grips her close, fingers pressing into the freckled flesh of her muscled arms.

This time, though, it’s Wilhelm that pulls back (just an inch, but it feels like miles away from her welcome warmth). She blinks at him.

“What is this, Annika Graywave?” he asks, looking hard into her eyes (eyes he’d seen ripple with electricity the night she’d saved their village now looking into him). “Because I’m not…” He doesn’t know exactly what he’d been going to say—he’s not the type to sleep around, or hop into bed with someone just for a lark? He can’t deny that he’d been loved and left, but he’d also done the leaving once or twice himself. Maybe labeling this, just knowing what she hoped to get from him in return, would make him feel more at ease; calm the unending storm of butterflies in his stomach.

“I don’t know,” she says after a moment. “I like you.”

“I—I like you,” he laughed. Gods, how old is he?

“And I’ll see you soon.”

This time, something hurts deep in his chest when he says: “Is that a promise?”

+++

Wilhelm strides back through the front door of the Rest, trying to quell the hard thrumming of his chest. When he looks up, he finds every one of his employees gathered by the fireplace in the center of the greatroom. Almost as if they’re on a string, Lyla, Lysander, Ivan and Oriana turn in the same movement to stare at him.

It’s not the first time he’d felt younger than he is, but at least Galie has a decade on him when she scolds him like a teenager. Fighting the stares of these four young pups is something else entirely.

“All right,” Wilhelm sighs, and he straightens his back just enough to cross his arms and stare down his nose at them (disapproving father look to battle their inquisitive stares). “Go on, ask.”

“Which one was it?” Ivan, apparently the bravest of them, asks.

“Annika,” Oriana and Lyla say with one voice.

“Got to be Rysse,” Lysander adds, grinding a fist into his palm he’s so sure.

Wilhelm rubs his face, long-suffering and embarrassed to the point of weariness. “Even if I think it’s none of your business—” At least most of them have the grace to look embarrassed. “—I’m going to tell you just to keep you from wagging your mouths.”

“Sorry, Wil,” Lyla is first to apologize. “You don’t have to—”

“We won’t tell anyone,” her brother cuts her off, rising to his feet. “Honest to the gods. You can fire us if we talk.”

“Lysander!” Oriana hisses.

“It’s Annika,” Wilhelm says quietly (as if that will keep them from hearing, somehow, in the empty room). “Now, don’t say—”

“I knew it!” Ivan crows. “Boss, how in all the realms did you…?”

He (and everyone else) immediately cuts their chattering. Wilhelm has his face hidden in one of his hands, and his shoulders shake noiselessly. Lyla rises from her chair, a hand ready to touch a shoulder for comfort.

The shaking turns into loud laughter, and Wilhelm throws his head back, grinning like an absolute fool.

“I have no idea!” Wilhelm laughs, pressing his hand to his forehead in disbelief.

Relief and laughter in answer echo in the main room, and after a few scant minutes of reprieve, Wilhelm orders them all back to work. There’s an inn to run, after all.

[dianapana]

SH Month 2023 Day 3 - A Glance that reveals everything

Day 3 - A glance that reveals everything

Hinata POV

Everyone walking around in a frenzy. The other clan heads are meant to arrive soon enough.

Yet another clan gathering she must attend. Yet another clan gathering in which she will be simply treated as a pretty girl that the old man can ask for drinks despite being the heir of her clan.

Her grandfather, father and cousin are all discussing important clan information while she is in the room over, having her hair brushed, her lips dusted with red and her kimono arranged properly.

It’s infuriating. The way in which she’s not treated fairly.

Often she has good ideas, helpful ideas she wishes to share but the moment she opens her mouth someone cuts her off.

Too scared to talk to her father. Too scared to ask to be treated at least equally with Neji. She isn’t even given the proper education as future head.

“Hinata-sama, you look stunning”

It’s always the same. They praise Neji for his mind and abilities, while they praise her beauty and silence. As a child she basked in any sort of praise, but the older she got the more it bothered her.

“One last detail and you are ready”

They’re placing a beautiful pin into her hair.

“This belonged to your late mother”

The servants start gushing around her, one talking after the other.

“She wore it at her engagement with your father”

“She was just as beautiful as you are today”

“She would have loved to see you my lady”

…What? Alerts going off in her head. Why are they talking this way? What’s going on?

Heart pounding suddenly. But she can’t ask the servants because the door opens and her Father tells her it’s time. That she should come join them.

Her mouth is dry. Something’s wrong. She can feel it now. Their gazes are all weird.

No, no. She’s imagining it. It’s all the same. It’s all the same.

Standing up on unsteady legs. Her father reaches out for her. He never does that. He never holds her hand.

Looking at the extended hand. Why?

“It’s time to go Hinata”

Eyes up onto him. He looks…kinder. He never looks kind. He never interacts with her that way.

Letting out a shaky breath. Her eyes feel teary.

“Daddy?” Trembling voice. She hasn’t called him that since she was 6.

“It’s time to go” he repeats himself.

They’re stuck. In the door. She’s not moving. Not breathing.

There is noise coming from the front door. They’re here.

“Daddy?”

Asking again. Begging him to tell her what’s happening. To say anything.

Sasuke POV

His father is a bit…annoyed. The Hyuuga Elder and Neji have been trying to act like this is how things were meant to go. But the Head isn’t present so that’s an obvious lie. The future bride is not there so that’s an obvious lie once again.

He found out about the engagement 2 weeks ago. But it really doesn’t have much to do with him. It is his brother’s wedding after all.

Itachi smiles politely and is the one keeping the conversation light from the Uchiha side.

“The Wedding should take place at the Uchiha estate. Hinata will after all be welcomed within our clan. So, it just makes sense to do it there.”

There’s a silent fight going on between his father and the Hyuuga elder after that statement. He’s bored. Yawning, not even bothering to hide it.

Looking outside, it’s rainy and gloomy. Very fitting for this meeting too.

Finally, the door opens. The Hyuuga head enters. Alone.

Sasuke takes this opportunity to sit up as well, asking a servant in the room about a bathroom. Asking loud enough for others to hear so they know why he got up, but quiet enough so he appears to be discreet; as if he doesn’t mean to disturb the meeting.

Walking down the halls ‘looking’ for the bathroom. He can hear soft murmurs from one of the rooms. Steps coming closer and closer to the door.

Hinata Hyuuga opening it, glossy eyes. Ruined lipstick, her pretty kimono has a red stain on her sleeves.

Their eyes meet for a second and he can see it. The unwillingness. This is no happy future bride.

The eye contact is cut short by the girl turning away from him, running towards the back door. Holding onto the kimono so she doesn’t trip over it.

Unsure why he follows closely behind her. Watches the girl step barefoot outside in the muddy rain, ruining the expensive fabric even further. He doesn’t know what the girl is trying to achieve. A ruined kimono won’t stop the wedding.

The servants come from the room, a bit too late. They all gasp at the sight of Hinata.

Sasuke follows her still. He did stop to put shoes on, unlike her.

The rain is pouring and it only makes things more difficult for her, the already heavy fabric gets wet and she can barely move. He sees it happening in slow motion, as she trips and falls face first onto the ground.

Almost on instinct he runs to catch her, hand extended gripping the liliac kimono, but it’s wet and it slips through his fingers, Hinata falls with a big splash.

Cringing internally at the thought of having mud all over his face. He crouches next to her and helps her up, wiping her face.

“You ok?”

She can’t be. But still…

Her eyes are closed and he thinks for a second she has mud in them, but they open and they’re just…so defeated.

It feels wrong to see her this way, it’s so intimate and totally not his place.

She clears her throat and lets out a tiny ‘thank you’

He looks away from her face. She’s just so expressive, everything she feels is so easily deduced. For him at least.

Her hands are gripping fist-fulls of mud.

“Maybe we should…go back to the estate?”

But eh feels that was a mistake the moment her breath hitches and her shoulders shake.

Looking up at him. “Is it you?”

He doesn’t understand.

“Is it you? The one he sold me to?”

…

He feels…oddly shaken by her question. By her tone. By the use of the word ‘sold’.

Unsure what possessed him, he nods.

Finally, his brain catches up with what he did. “I mean to my family. Not me, me”

Clearing his throat too, he reaches for her hand, trying to be unbothered by the mud. He’ll wash his hands. It’s fine.

“Let’s go back. Before they see you”

It seems the girl’s flight left her, she simply nods and follows behind. He’s holding the muddy hand of Itachi’s future wife. The rain helps clear away some of it at least…

He walks Hinata back to her room and he leaves the Hyuuga estate to go home. He can hardly sit into the meeting drenched and muddy.

Hinata’s eyes haunt him for days to follow. His father bad mouths the Hyuugas. Itachi tries to calm him down. He’s going on and on about how they can’t appreciate the favour he is doing them letting one of theirs be the wide of the future Uchiha head.

…

“Maybe I should marry her”

He says one random day, over a week since the incident. His father, mother and Itachi all staring at him in shock.

He shrugs.

“Or not…

I’m her age. Maybe she would find that…more comfortable.”

~

@sasuhinamonth

[quiveringdeer]

Reiner's gonna be giving names to all his houseplants. One of them is a cactus named Pock. 🌵

H'okay, SO! Here's the thing Nonnie, I've been sittin on answering this ask cause only one thing has populated my mind since reading it and I was like, Nat pull yourself together girl and stop being a weirdo all the time. But the thing is, Nonnie. That would be burying a very important piece of myself and at the age of 30 I said I wasn't doin that shiz anymore. (also this is a dramatic buildup for no real good reason lol)

What I haven't been able to dislodge from my mind is the image of a cactus my friend has that is a very, particular shape. And It's had me thinking that Reiner just names his plants after friends in general (cause he tries to be friends with Pock now that they're grown but Pock is Pock sooo... yeah) And he's actually not even the one who named it after Porco, Annie of all people suggested it.

Annie: "It pricks, he's a prick. It fits." Uncaring shrug.

Now generally Annie keeps things to herself. But you see, Nonnie. Earlier in the day, she'd had a late start to the morning and gotten to her favorite bakery way past prime pastry buying time. Hang with me, It's coming together, promise. So. She's there, waiting in the exorbitantly long line, this is why she likes to get there super early. And Pieck spots her from up closer to the register. Pieck comes to engage her in convo, which with Annie being in more of a mood than usual, is really just Pieck trying to catch up and Annie giving small grunts here and there in response.

Porco was with Pieck, cause of course he was. He stayed in line and is at the register now. He doesn't even have to call Pieck back up cause he already knows the orders that she prefers. So he orders and also just happens to choose a particular pastry from the display case that is the last of its kind. He's never tried this one before and he's feeling adventurous today.

As the barista opens the case to draw out the delicious confection, Annie's eyes widen. It was the one she'd come for. The thing that could lift her spirits out of the dank, festering, turgid mass of shittiness she'd already endured so early in the day.

The line moved forward. She remained. Eyes trained on Porco as he sauntered over to Pieck's location next to her, still waiting on their drink orders to come up. It took everything in Annie not to snatch the flakey ambrosia from his grimey fingers before he took a huge bite. Buttery crumbs falling against the worn brown leather of his bomber jacket.

And yet, what solidified her ire. The slight that stitched spite so steadfast throughout her spirit to spark such an unanticipaited conversational contribution hours later that day...

After Pieck asked him how the delicacy tasted, Porco had the audacity to mutter that it was alright.

Just, alright?!

Expertly, Annie forced down her boiling indignation. Outwardly, her icy blue eyes narrowed to slits as she turned her attention to finally moving up in line. She'd have to settle for her second favorite danish alongside her vanilla caramel frappé, but this event would long be remembered.

--------------------

Annie's suggestion actually wrings a hearty chuckle from Reiner and he can't deny the truth of her sentiments. So. Porco the cactus--Poctus if you will--is born.

The fact that as it grows it begins to take on a very peculiar shape only adds to it's list of nicknames. And Reiner isn't sure if he's fucked up taking care of it somehow or if the universe decided to bless him with something that sparks instant joy and amusement everytime he sees or thinks about the prickly succulent.

Alright for those that stuck with this unexpected rambling imagine, here is your reward. Hopefully it makes you laugh like it does my friends and I everytime we think of it.

I present to you....

Cocktus!

[darsynia]

Present Imperfect | Ch 5. Day Three - Mourning

TONY STARK MASTERLIST | STORY MASTERLIST | PREV | NEXT

Summary: After losing Pepper to Extremis, Tony decides to get the shrapnel (and thus his arc reactor) removed– but he wakes up as President of the United States.

Tony’s heart surgery is the last thing he remembers, a worst-case amnesia scenario that leaves the country with a leader who doesn’t remember the last year of office, the election, or his marriage to the First Lady, Natasha Romanoff Stark. Length/Warnings: 3,534 words // none

Tags: @sobeautifullyobsessed @chickensarentcheap @karimac

Excerpt: “If this keeps up it’s going to remind me of our honeymoon,” he jokes, turning his head to look at her right as he turns the lamp on. Natasha’s hair is a riot of messy red curls, and it’s the most natural thing in the whole world to reach up with his other hand and bury his fingers in them at the nape of her neck as he steals a kiss for the camera.

There’s something heady about the cling of her lips to his, like maybe she did drug him, but not with an identifiable substance. Instead, she’s rewired his brain to recognize the little noise at the back of her throat when he angles his head and presses closer. She’s rearranged his molecules to find the scent of her hair intoxicating. Somehow Natasha’s converting his exhaustion to lust-- and it’s that thought which finally gets through to his sleep-fuzzed thought centers.

You kissed her for show, Tony. She’s kissing you back for show. Don’t lose your head.

Day Three - Mourning

Tony is insufferable when the two of them emerge from the bedroom. He rationalizes the smug, self-satisfied behavior as something the ‘real,’ unsuspecting Tony Stark would engage in anyway. Anything that makes these fuckers’ lives miserable while he and Natasha set them up for their big fall is worth doing, in his book.

That gives him an idea, as he eats lunch at the sturdy-ass desk and reads about the fake victims of the fake terrorist attack that’s supposedly happening.

“Hey, Cora!” he hollers, instead of using the phone. The resulting silence doesn’t feel empty as much as resentful. Finally, the door swings open.

“Yes, sir?”

If she’d wired her jaw shut, her expression wouldn’t have been more stiff and forbidding.

“Two things. One, I’d like to speak with one of my doctors about this memory thing, see if there’s some way to jog it so I can get access to at least the Presidential years. Two, along that vein-- have I written a book?”

Cora blinks at him like an android assassin faced with unexpected parameters. “No book that I know of, sir, but I’ll look into contacting your physician. I’m not certain the Secret Service can safely set up a secure phone line; the best we can manage is encrypted email.”

Tony nods, unsurprised. Cora turns to leave, and he catches her with her hand on the doorknob. “Can you have a staffer get back to me with some of the articles written during the campaign, the first 100 days, that sort of thing? Thanks.”

His dismissive tone doesn’t allow her to prevaricate before she leaves. The whole conversation is utter bullshit, just like everything else. The President of the United States is traditionally treated at Bethesda Naval Hospital, a place that definitely has access to secure phone lines. Not to mention, if the packet of overdue condolences were really true, there’d be news footage of the events, articles written, demands for accountability.

How has HYDRA been able to stay hidden so long if they’re this sloppy? They have to be expecting him to become unhinged and try to escape. Even with sub-par agents working the fake President detail, that’s the only way any of this makes sense.

Tony leans back in his chair and frowns, looking around the room with new eyes. He should have come to this conclusion sooner, but he’d been lulled by the excitement of a mystery, something to figure out, something to solve. The months since losing Pepper had been so achingly lonely, partly from missing her, partly because he’d felt so guilty to have failed her that he’d pulled away from everyone else.

He’d gone to some dark places, tearing apart one of his labs to make space for what he’d called a Grendel Cluster, a souped-up version of a Beowulf Cluster. It was the fun way to get enough computational power (with JARVIS’s help, of course, though his AI had asked whether that made Tony Beowulf, or Grendel’s Mother) needed to project holograms to simulate the entire confrontation with Killian. It was important to know without a shadow of a doubt whether he’d missed something.

He’d drawn no concrete conclusions, but he had spent hours watching Pepper die over and over, in the process.

Tony looks down at the open folder, his eye catching on the address of one of the fake people who ‘died’ in the Capitol attack. Virginia. Seeing her name doesn’t hurt as badly it would have just weeks ago.

“I need to know you’ll let yourself be happy again.”

Natasha’s face flickers in his mind for a few seconds, and Tony clears his throat. He’s thinking of her because she’s the first friend he’s been in contact with for months. She’s on his mind because of what they’d just done, which had of course just been in the service of the greater cause, finding HYDRA’s weakness and taking it down.

He latches onto that last thought with the desperation of a man drowning in the deep end of sudden possibilities. Her plan is solid, but so is his: he’s going to flood these jerks with documentation requests, hundreds of them. They’re bound to make mistakes, and that gives Natasha plausible deniability. Tony has no doubt that her life is in danger, should they know exactly how far the Black Widow has woven her web around HYDRA’s plans. Inevitably, they’re going to realize Tony’s onto them, and he doesn’t want them to assume it was Nat who gave away their game.

He’ll be damned if another beautiful woman dies because of him.

By the post-dinner meeting, Tony has asked for a massive amount of documentation, including curated clips of news footage from multiple countries to gauge how they’re reacting to the crisis, and a group call with the mayors of the top twenty cities in advance of the attacks spreading to other locations. He’d pointed out how strange it was that he has yet to see a report from both the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate, or a threat assessment from the CIA, Homeland Security, and the FBI. 

Then, to really twist the knife they’re aiming at his back, he demands to speak to the Vice President, because seriously, who is his VP? He’s still holding the ‘amnesia’ trump card in his back pocket. Basically, his philosophy isn’t that he’s trapped in this nonsense with them, they’re trapped with him.

Predictably, the VP thing gets the most resistance, probably because they haven’t picked one.

“Sir,” that Darby guy says, “Having the two of you in the same location is an unacceptable risk.”

“See this? I’ve been studying it all day. I know more about the names of the people who died than how they died, who could have prevented their deaths, how to prevent more deaths in the future, and how the global community is dealing with our utter weakness!” Tony throws the folder down the center of the long table, and the various fake files slide out, cinematically. “Everything that’s happened is an unacceptable risk, but I’m going on little to no data, here! The only conclusion to draw is that I’m being isolated because of my medical condition, and my VP is being groomed to step in. Does anyone want to challenge that conclusion? Hmm?” He spins in place, arms out, struggling to keep the derision from showing on his face.

The whole room is silent.

Amateurs.

“You know what you need? I mean, besides a backbone,” Tony sniffs, changing tacks. He’s all derision, now. “You need a healthy sense of fear. No television sets showing the news, no phones ringing, no fax machines churning out scary headlines, what! Is it the Stark Administration or has there been a coup?” He leans forward and rests his weight on his fists, looking  each person at the table in the eyes. “If you were sitting in your homes hearing about this, wouldn’t you be fired up? Wouldn’t you expect the staff of your elected president to fight back?”

The dismay on everyone’s faces is palpable. Tony pushes back up off the table with a sound of disgust.

“Either you’re with me or you’re part of the scheme. Get me the things I’ve asked for by breakfast tomorrow or find another job.”

With that, he stalks out the door, startling the ‘Secret Service detail’ that lurks on their phones outside each room he inhabits. It’s another confirmation of how absurd this all is, but he can’t risk blowing up at them. He may have spent a generous percentage of the past months working out for the endorphins, but these guys are beefcake goons straight out of central casting.

Once at the Fauxval ante-room, Tony stalks through, saying, “Clear my schedule for the rest of the night. Next person who comes into my office better be my wife or someone with any of the reports I’ve asked for! Enough of this amateur bullshit.”

He only has fifteen minutes before the condolence calls anyway, and Cora is nowhere to be seen. Tony looks at the folder, looks at the door, and then looks at the desk. Natasha had told him she’d hidden his watch prototype in a false bottom of one of the drawers, and it feels like he’s going to need it sooner rather than later.

Fuck it.

Muttering that everything needs a reset, even his desk, Tony starts removing the contents of each drawer. The plan is to shuffle things around just enough to make retrieving that watch a two, maybe three step, swift process.

Everything he’s removing is the kind of filler crap you’d expect to see on a comedy skit, but one of them is a pocketknife whose edge lets Tony find the break in the bottom of the false drawer and lift just enough to see the compartment. To cover what he’s been doing for those assigned to watch the video feed, he scrapes the knife edge along the back of the drawer and pulls the tool out, looking at it with distaste.

“Thought sure Clinton kept pot back there,” he muses aloud, tossing the ‘useless’ knife into the ‘put back’ pile. A check of his watch tells him that something’s up; he’s just strolled two blocks past Condolence Call Avenue, and no one’s bothered to say anything.

As that thought crosses his mind, though, there’s a brief, heavy knock at the door, and it springs open to admit Secretary Alexander Pierce. He’s wearing a surgical mask slung under his chin, and there are sweat droplets around his hairline.

“Tony! I was wrapping up a security meeting at Searchlight when I heard you were having a tough time, wanted to see if I could help,” he says jovially, striding over with his right hand outstretched to shake. “Before you ask, they brought me up to speed on the memory thing.”

Two things occur to him at that moment.

One: Alexander Pierce is meant to be his Vice President. Two: Pierce is HYDRA.

Tony stands slowly and accepts the shake, noting the crushing warning in the strength the other man exerts on Tony’s hand. “Starting to think they’re poised to put you in charge, with the limited data I’ve got access to,” he says.

“Ahh, the Joint Chiefs and Congress are working hard, I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” Pierce gestures goodnaturedly for Tony to sit back down. “The big bill on Separation of Powers at the end of the last guy’s term really fucked with war powers, but that’s what you get when the President tries to jump into a foreign conflict without listening to anybody else’s opinion on it.”

Tony keeps his expression neutral, but inwardly, he’s swearing a blue streak. Pierce is good at this. He’s just put a kibosh on Tony’s whole plan by making up something that ‘legally prevents’ the HYDRA team from having to construct false evidence.

“Nothing an executive order can’t fix, right?” he says, leaning back in his chair. The move was supposed to project confidence, relaxation, but Tony worries it just looks like he wants to put more distance between them.

“Truth is, Tony, we’re past op-eds and news footage, here. We need to get moving on defense, while the rest of the leadership focuses on offense.”

“You’re all starting to sound like a broken record.” If Tony can avoid punching this guy in the face, they might get some incriminating stuff for Fury.

“Well, when there’s only one song worth singing, that’ll happen.” Pierce lets out a weary-sounding sigh. “We’ve clashed about this before. I might even be willing to admit that it was too soon, back then-- it’s not like those weapons would have done much against the Chitauri.”

Tony doesn’t doubt that HYDRA’s lifted the Tessaract weaponry out of the SHIELD database, ready and willing to adapt it to the gem in the scepter. “You want me to okay something worse, and authorize its use on our own citizens!”

“Our own citizens are already dying!” Pierce rockets out of his seat, moving to pace in the middle of the room, rubbing at his temple in distress. “My daughter could have been one of them, and you know it!”

It’s too late to suppress his instinctive look of confusion, but Tony’s figured it out (with a sinking feeling he’s not going to shake any time soon) by the time Pierce clarifies.

“Cora Pierce. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful her position has kept her mostly out of this, but it could have easily gone the other way. All of these people, they’ve got parents, husbands, wives, children. We owe it to them not to expand the victim list.”

“She’s very good at her job,” Tony says, looking up from the folder of fake victims just in time to catch a hint of suspicion in his fake VP’s expression. “Okay, say I listen to you, aren’t there procedures, especially after the Separation of Powers thing you mentioned?” he asks. “You’re all acting like I have the right to just tell you where it is, and that’s it. If that were really true, you, Darby, half the others out there, you’d be hassling Nick Fury about it, not me.” 

Pierce stops behind the chair he’d been sitting on, leaning thoughtfully on it, nodding, and Tony presses his advantage.

“The only thing worse than an amnesiac President lying about a serious medical condition is one that just got impeached, Alex. You want the scepter, you’re going to need to show me what we’re going to do with it, or show me a legal pathway to telling you where it is that doesn’t get my political future strung up by its fingernails.”

“Fair enough,” Pierce says, turning his charm back on with a bright smile. “As always, pleasure doing business with you.” He stretches out a hand to shake again, and Tony smiles back.

“My wife has plans for these fingers, so I’ll forego another shake, if it’s all the same to you.”

Pierce’s grin widens. “You’re a lucky man. Tell her I send my regards?” With his golden hair and penchant for treachery, Pierce makes a perfect Lannister.

“Will do,” Tony says, standing. He watches the statesman exit the room, feeling certain his next stop will be the room Natasha’s so anxious to get a recording device into.

Can they afford to wait until tomorrow?

He isn’t given much time to ponder the question, because one of the secretaries from the ante-room comes in to set up for the condolence calls. Tony had been planning to half-ass them and blame his medical condition, but instead, he asks her to send someone with a strong coffee to fortify him for what’s to come. It seems clear that things are escalating, and he can’t imagine HYDRA has any bigger guns to bring in to persuade him than the former Secretary of Defense.

Halfway through the calls, Tony understands that this is retaliation, escalation. Knowing that the people on the other line-- querulous elderly ‘parents,’ indignant, world-weary adult ‘children,’ heartbroken ‘spouses,’ even one elementary-aged child who answered the phone asking ‘Is my daddy ever coming back?’ --are acting, that their concerns aren’t real… it doesn’t help. Tony’s emotionally wrung out by the time he’s done, and he opens the door to the ante-room to find it empty except for the ever-present ‘Secret Service’ agents.

“Mechanic’s moving,” they say to their nonexistent microphones, but he doesn’t wait for them. Tony runs, uncaring whether this confirms for his captors that they’ve won, they’ve gotten to him. He runs because it’s one of the last acts of rebellion he has, because he didn’t have the guts to do what he wanted to do on those phone calls: call their bluff. “Yes, your daddy isn’t coming home. He’s dead.”

Even knowing it’s not real, he couldn’t do it.

Some superhero he is.

Tony walks into the fake Presidential suite, shuts the door, and falls face first on the bed. It’s all he can do not to flip off the camera he knows is watching.

He wakes up to the feeling of someone tugging his (unbuckled, unbuttoned, and unzipped?!) pants off in the dark.

“And here I thought I usually woke up before the best parts of dreams,” he says aloud.

Natasha immediately stops what she’s doing, and he has to roll over onto his back with his pants down around his ankles. That’s when he notices that his arms are bare. Before starting on his pants, Nat apparently got his suit jacket, tie, and long-sleeved button down dress shirt off. Without waking him up.

“Did you drug me? Maybe I did wake up before the good part,” he says incredulously, kicking off the pants and reaching for the bedside lamp. That involves swinging his legs out over the side of the bed and sitting up, and right as his fingertips touch the switch, Natasha presses up against his back and whispers in his ear.

“Pierce authorized the installation of a microphone and two more cameras to cover the rest of the bed.”

“If this keeps up it’s going to remind me of our honeymoon,” he jokes, turning his head to look at her right as he turns the lamp on. Natasha’s hair is a riot of messy red curls, and it’s the most natural thing in the whole world to reach up with his other hand and bury his fingers in them at the nape of her neck as he steals a kiss for the camera.

There’s something heady about the cling of her lips to his, like maybe she did drug him, but not with an identifiable substance. Instead, she’s rewired his brain to recognize the little noise at the back of her throat when he angles his head and presses closer. She’s rearranged his molecules to find the scent of her hair intoxicating. Somehow Natasha’s converting his exhaustion to lust-- and it’s that thought which finally gets through to his sleep-fuzzed thought centers.

You kissed her for show, Tony. She’s kissing you back for show. Don’t lose your head.

He pulls back and opens his eyes, catching the moment where disappointment crosses her face and her eyes flutter open, revealing those gorgeous green eyes of hers.

“How are you even real?” Tony whispers, without thinking.

Inexplicably, his words seem to crush her; her brows furrow and cheeks flush before her professionalism takes over, and the walls come crashing down in the form of a blank expression.

“Shut up, Tony,” she whispers, quiet enough for that to be only for him, before she scrambles off of the bed to angrily rummage through her drawers. Tony knows he shouldn’t watch but he’s so confused he needs to, needs to understand what just happened. She pulls on a pair of black sweatpants and stomps off into the bathroom with another black thing for mere seconds before emerging with a shapeless black top on. Their eyes meet as she pulls back the blankets, and Nat snaps a “Go to sleep!” at him, ruthlessly pulling back her curls into a ponytail.

“Was it something I said?” he can’t help asking.

Natasha doesn’t answer until she’s walked around the bed to turn off his lamp without asking. “No.”

He’s wearing boxers and an undershirt, but Tony gets in bed and turns on his side (facing away from her, because message received), mind racing.

After many minutes of self-examination, the best he can do is the thought that she was setting up a fake argument to bolster the idea of make-up sex in the office they need to steal the bug from. 

Tony’s almost asleep when another option occurs: she’d thought he wanted to kiss her, wanted to compliment her, and her fury was related to the idea that he’d been faking for the cameras. She’d been disappointed.

He allows himself a few seconds to re-imagine the kiss and compliment from that angle, to inhabit that forbidden space, just to see what it feels like. He can almost smell her hair, can feel the press of her lips against his, can see pleasure cross her face when he draws back and looks at her like she’s so beautiful. 

Oh, he thinks. Then, oh no.

Tony can’t lay still in the aftermath. His mind is racing, a yin/yang of positive and negative reactions. The only thing that takes him out of it is remembering all of the really important things that Alexander Pierce has access to. He runs the cold water for a long time, soaks a washcloth in it and scrubs his face until his cheeks hurt.

Get it together, Tony. Your life’s at stake. HER life’s at stake. Stop acting like a fucking playboy idiot.

It works, but when Tony makes his way back to bed with the tiny flashlight whose battery is so close to dying it hardly makes any light anymore, he sees that Natasha’s rolled over while he was gone.

Her right arm is outstretched, fingers tucked under the edge of his pillow like she’d felt the bed to see if he was still there and fallen asleep waiting for him to come back.

To be continued...

[variousqueerthings]

after 3 straight days of queer movie-watching at the festival (with an interlude to play some football) and my brain being overloaded with Stimulus, feel like I need to compile my thoughts on the experience overall: 

1. lotta DIY work, which is a great reminder that if you want to make, you can + opens up conversation around how institutions do not fund this kind of work (in the UK especially there’s a limit to spaces one can go for funding). the real experimentation/cinematic bravery isn’t happening for half a billion dollars, it’s being done on a shoe-string budget. that being said, one really wishes there was more money to be had in this, simply because it would make people able to live off the work and make much more

2. lot of sports-related stuff, both fiction and documentary, which is funny considering where a lot of my own focus is these days. also got to meet Verity Smith, which was a bit of a hero-moment, and he gave a lot of great info on the state of sports nationally and internationally. and yeah, I got to play football for the first time in 10 years!

3. generally met a lot of great people. I think the idea about “networking” as it’s been presented to me as an artist (including the word itself) is still a big problem, and will always be. it’s got too many concepts baked into it that don’t gel with the kind of work I do in the communities I do it in + my particular flavour of brain, but that being said -- once I realised that there are spaces where meeting/connecting with people in your specific field of work, where this aligns with queer practise of shared needs for what that work represents and is for, then yeah, I kind of got what networking was all about. So I could talk freely about my own work + listen to theirs, and not feel like we were just sussing out how we could use one another to get ahead 

when I was studying, there wasn’t this kind of... idk, discussion of ways that working in an arts industry -- with all of its [waves hands at the microcosm of any and all industries and life that is in the mainstream run by capitalist colonialist patriarchy] many many issues -- can be interacted with from different perspectives, so it’s neat to be able to find ways to do that by simply being in spaces like these

4. watched both wildhood and set it off as my main two fiction features (the others I either couldn’t make it for or missed parts of due to overlapping events). the former feels like a wonderful breath of air + fits into a space of both canadian first nations cinema that I’ve been lucky enough to get to watch, and queer cinema. the movies are getting made and they are good -- one does have to look for them/be active in spaces where they would likely be disseminated, which tbh is also an ethos of artistic engagement + community engagement that I’m very in favour of anyway. in order to get to the deeper stuff, it doesn’t do to simply sit back and wait for it to arrive. it does exist! go find it! 

also the sex scene in it was 👀👀👀 smthinsmthin water as metaphor belongs to the queers

also I’d been wanting to watch set it off for ages, as (only?) the second lesbian crime movie, next to bound. set it off isn’t technically centred on lesbians, but one of the leads is openly shown to be a stud/butch, and she’s respected/liked by her friends. I’m curious about how this film feels to the Black lesbian community and perhaps Black film-goers as a whole, since [spoilers] it’s got a fair bit of police violence and very little in the way of happy endings. 

where I sit with it, is that it’s criminally (ha) underrated and oughta be discussed in the same breath of compelling characters that exist in heat and dog day afternoon -- the bittersweet-at-best tragic ending fits with the general tone of this specific take on the genre (the non-oceans-movies versions tend to have mixed-to-tragic endings), although the violence does hit closer to home/more realistically than in most other heist films. and all the main characters are So So Cool, which is important for a good heist film! 

5. also got to watch two documentaries about older queers, one about the history of the Chicago bar “sidetrack” and the other about older queer people in Ireland. These connections and stories are so vital, and queer-cinema-as-documentation feels like one of the most queer things one can do. We love a documentary, because we’re trying to make sure those connections are built, that we don’t forget our pasts, that we have roots. there are people from whom we have these torches passed, and they’re our elders, even across continents.

also thank you to that lesbian couple acknowledging that young people are really struggling with money in this modern capitalism. definitely feels like it puts the work of the festival I was at into perspective -- with spaces closing and difficulty in renting (especially in cities), we need to find ways to open up spaces for one another

6. also I had a little curated archive piece up there and people said nice things to me about it 😭😭😭