#Connections like sinew { Threads }

[crimsonbathed]

Participating: @banditnate​ Location: The forest, within a fair distance from the tree.

Boredom. A disgusting creature, one that hungers to no end. Ever searching for its next victim. One that it can engulf entirely, draining someone’s energy as though it thrived off of their despair. Tormenting. A cruel mistress that shared many a lover. No time could protect you from her call, nor ‘secret hideaway’. For she could reach you no matter where you hid, should you make yourself invisible, she will simply smell you out like a hound. It was what drove men, women, and animals alike, to do very, very foolish things. All in the name of ridding themselves of her suffocating shackles. Murder, mischief, lust, all originating from one common root. Boredom. Funny, the things it could make one do. What simple actions will befell those who are afflicted by this plague. It was this very monster that held a tight grasp upon Carrion. She could feel its claws piercing her temples. Tap, tap, tapping away. Pestering her with its persistence. Many things had crossed her mind, sewing a new blanket for her bed. Creating a bodice out of the spider molts she had recovered, sharpening her rat claws. So many ideas, so much to do, at her disposal, and yet . . . it all felt rather dull. It is what drove her to take a stroll. To clear her mind and hopefully find some trouble to get into that would free her from this mind numbing prison, lest her brain melts and begins to seep out of her ears.

The forest was abuzz with life that eve. Birds busy fixing up their shoddy nests from either the rough housing of the Lost Boys, or animals striking at each other, running into the tree which housed the avian homes. Frogs croaked, singing a song with glee over the meals they had received. Carcasses littered the ground, squirrels, rabbits, things she would usually take advantage of by gathering their pelts or teeth, as both proved useful for her craft, perhaps even take a bath to embrace the comfort of such warmth washing over her, and yet, she could not bring herself to meet the earth with her feet. The air carried her away from what could have been great prizes. Another creature could enjoy the island’s gifts on this day, for she had plenty, and could afford to overlook a few materials. Sounds blended together, melding in to one large, cacophony of background noise. It was torment. The day had proven to be nothing eventful, and the monster looming over Carrion’s shoulder only grew larger with each sigh that passed through her scowl.

In what seemed to be divine intervention, as the small folk turned her attention to the left, something rather curious caught her eyes. It was a boy, and for just a moment, her heart fluttered. Perhaps it was just what was needed to cure her of this ailment. She had seen this boy before, Bandit, as he was called. Carrion racked her brain, searching for something that might stick out and aid her. For anything she could recall would prove to be useful in tormenting him. Try as hard as she might to conjure up so much as a sliver of anything helpful, nothing offered itself to her. A female’s face seemed familiar and yet, Carrion could not place her finger as to why. Cheeks puffed out, a huff following. If she could not remember on her own, then his mind would have to lend itself. Surely something good was to reside in there. Cautiously, Carrion moved closer to the man, ensuring she remained silent. Hunting. A wolf tracking a wounded deer. All she needed was one opening where her fingers could root themselves within his thoughts, pulling and ripping at his memories for any information she could gain from. The giants had always been so weak willed when it came to defending their minds, child’s play to get what you want from within them. They knew not how to protect their secrets which they coveted so. Such easy targets, pitiful, really. Barely any fight to retain their unspoken wishes, it almost made it too easy. But perhaps easy was good, for today, at least.

Carrion took her sweet time, sifting through the boy’s mind. Oh how delicious it was to taste of his memories. Bittersweet and full of life. To witness his adventures on the island. Grand battles, bloody and grotesque. Trinkets taken from pirates, small things stolen from their companions. He had a sense of adventure, but these served her none, and would only cause her more painstaking boredom. Drinking in every little detail as she sifted through, one common instance began to catch her eye. A girl. How very curious. Flaming hair and piercing eyes. Oh how he held her close in his heart. It was perfect. Such a simple weakness, one that so many allowed themselves to fall victim to. Love. Desire. Admiration. Whatever you call it, it was the downfall of many a poor soul. Pearly whites peeked out from beneath peach lips as the small folk took shelter within the forest’s trees, watching him from above. ‘Bandit’ as he had been called. Carrion had caught a glimpse of the woman ‘Fiona’s’ voice, just enough to get the perfect mimicry.

From the safety of her hiding spot, the fae projected Fiona’s voice, whispering within the boys ear. “Bandit.” The voice was soft, smooth. Liquid velvet within his ears as Carrion watched. Like that cat that ate the canary, she housed a wicked grin. “Bandit.” The voice called again, this time from the other side. Whispers on the wind of this mysterious woman from within his mind. “Don’t you want to come play with me?” Gently, Carrion would move closer from the treetops above. How very fun it was to torment the boys, unlike the pirates, they were not yet hardened by the atrocities of the real world. Not as badly. To throw her voice about and surround them with familiar tones, people they have known, loved, perhaps even feared . . . oh how her heart leapt at the idea of their wide eyed terror. “Won’t you come find me, Nate? I want to play a game!” Fiona’s voice was playful, coming from various different directions as she called out to him, begging for him to come find her, Carrion’s own malicious intent masked perfectly.

[voiceoffenrisulfr]

Slam

Following an injury in the field, Bucky goes to check on Steve in the infirmary and confesses his feelings and his fears.

CW: Minor injury, smut, first time. Don’t forget to use lube, folks – unless you’re a super soldier.

Prompts used;

‘Bad Coping Mechanisms’, ‘Mutual Pining’ and ‘Wall Sex’ – Build-a-Bucky Bingo (@buckybarnesevents);

“You Look So Pretty Like This.” and ‘Muscles’ – @stuckybingo;

“I’m Right Where I Belong.” and “You Getting Flustered is One of the Cutest Things I’ve Seen.” – @sebastianstanbingo.

Check it out on AO3 here, or below! Boards at the bottom. Banner by @sarahowritesostucky

Bucky raced through the corridors, the serum’s power flowing through him as his feet pounded the linoleum, heart hammering in his chest.

As soon as the news of Steve’s injury had reached him, he’d been up and running, with fear he hadn’t felt in decades pulsing in his veins. Ever since Steve had been bulked up in the war, Bucky had been able to slowly let go of the terror for Steve’s longevity that had plagued him since he’d met the kid at six years old, scrawny but surprisingly bold – and prone to getting his ass kicked. But the serum Steve had received had made the once-tiny man a hulking mass of muscle and sinew, invulnerable to most things thrown at him, and Bucky had finally been able to relax a little – though he still worried about his childhood friend more than any other member of the team.

Bucky blamed it on their longstanding connection and the camaraderie born from being the only two super soldiers, both displaced from their own time by time in ice (and servitude, in Bucky’s case). It was a miracle they were both here, together, a hundred years in the future and experiencing things they never even dreamt of.

That was it, Bucky argued, when he lay awake at night thinking of the skinny kid from Brooklyn, the strong man he’d grown into. He argued it was appreciation of the smooth curves of muscle that had him fantasising about the water flowing over his back when he’d glimpsed him in the shower after a training session. It was simply concern that had him inspecting his Captain’s bare chest when his suit had been ripped in battle, checking thoroughly for cuts and scrapes.

He'd argued, but it was as he was skidding to a halt and slamming through the infirmary doors that it finally hit him that his argument was a lie.

The sight of Steve lay on the thin medical paper, his back to the doors as Bruce finished stitching a deep wound above his hipbone, had Bucky pausing and panting for breath. It’d been a long time since he’d managed to move so quickly that he was forced to breathe harder, but his strides had barely touched the floor as he’d flown towards his teammate.

“Hey, Buck.”

The Winter Soldier cocked his head sharply, smiling just a little to himself as he saw Steve’s muscles relax minutely. “How did you know it was me?”

“Heard you running. Anyone else would be far more breathless – and definitely couldn’t move so fast.” The grin in Steve’s voice was audible, and Bucky chuckled, moving closer slowly.

“Yeah, well. Nat messaged, and she wasn’t liberal with the details. All I knew was that you’d been hurt.”

“Worried, were you?” Steve’s shoulders trembled as he laughed silently, making Bucky snort as he rounded the table, casting an assessing eye over the shallow lacerations marring the Captain’s bare chest as he took a seat.

“Actually, I was hoping to get here in time to pull the plug,” Bucky quipped, grinning, and Steve rolled his eyes affectionately.

“Your life wouldn’t be worth living without me in it, and you know it,” Steve teased back, lips quirked in a fond smile before he grimaced as the doctor tied off his thread. Buck reached out automatically, squeezing Steve’s hand reassuringly, heat tingling up his palm at the contact. He’d done this dozens of times as a youth, Steve’s fingers clinging desperately to his as the larger boy had carefully cleaned yet another split lip or scraped palm, but it felt different now, with Steve’s palm comparable to his and Bucky’s metal fingers cool against his skin – and Steve’s pulse beginning to pound at the contact.

“I’m all done here,” Bruce murmured, gently pressing an adhesive bandage to the suture line. “Keep it covered and dry for a few days, and the stitches should dissolve in a week or so. You’ll be good as new by then.” The doctor grinned, shaking his head fondly. “If only all of my patients recovered so quickly!”

Steve chuckled obligingly, pulling the edge of his suit a little higher to obscure both bandage and sharp curve of bone. “You’d be out of a job, Dr. Banner. Thanks again,” he added as Bruce rose, receiving a polite inclination of the head for his gratitude.

The boys were left alone, fingers still entwined together, Steve fiddling with the ragged edges of his clothing idly. “I’m gonna have to get a new suit… This one got pretty shredded.”

Bucky laughed, running a palm over the lacerated star hanging over the edge of the table. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I got thrown. Road rash sucks,” the Captain replied with a shrug, and groaned as he pushed himself into a sitting position. “But you heard Bruce – I’ll be good as new in a few days.”

James nodded, eventually releasing his friend’s hand with a discreet twitch of his jaw. “Yeah. You were always the strong one.” Steve snorted and raised an eyebrow, considering his fellow soldier pointedly, but Bucky only laughed and shook his head. “Maybe, when we were younger, I could pick up something heavier than you. But you were always so… Tough. You weren’t scared of anything.” He smiled softly, head tilted minutely. “Actually, no. You were scared, but you always stood up for yourself anyway. You never let anyone keep you down or underestimate you. That’s real strength.”

Steve chuckled, his cheeks pinkening minutely as he looked away. “Not always,” he muttered, hands knotting uncertainly in his lap. “There were some things I just… I didn’t fight when the insults and assumptions started flying.”

“The assumptions?” Bucky repeated softly, head cocked. When Steve only shrugged, Bucky leaned forward conspiratorially. “You getting flustered is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.”

Steve blinked in surprise, his back straightening nervously. “I-I… What?”

Bucky smiled softly, leaning a little closer. “Those assumptions… Do you mean the ones about your sexuality?”

Steve hesitated for a moment, eyeing his friend nervously. “… You heard about that?”

The sergeant arched an eyebrow, head inclined. “Of course, Stevie. You’re my best friend. Besides… We spent a whole lot of time together. It wasn’t just you that they made those assumptions about.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve replied quickly, looking away as guilt creased his features, but Bucky simply chuckled.

“Don’t be. They were right.”

The words sat in the still air for a moment before they collided visibly with the Captain, sending him jerking backwards in shock.

“They- You- … What?” Steve stammered, his eyes widening in shock.

“I’m gay,” Bucky replied easily, shrugging. “Well, no – I’m bisexual. But we both know it’s not the women you were asking about.” Steve’s mouth worked wordlessly, and Bucky smirked. “So? What about you? Were they right about you, too?”

Steve glanced around uncertainly, examining the empty space as if checking for someone hiding in the shadows. “… Why did you come so quickly, Buck?”

“I asked you first.”

“I’m trying to answer. Humour me. Why did you come so quickly?” he repeated, looking down to where his fingers were knotted in his lap.

“Because… Because I care about you?” Bucky offered uncertainly, and Steve nodded, eyes diverted.

“As a friend?” he prompted quietly. Bucky hesitated for a moment, watching as his Captain struggled silently to find the words he was looking for. “… I’m not gay, Buck.” The sergeant blushed minutely, opening his mouth to respond, but Steve held up a hand to stop him. “But I’m not straight, either. I… I’ve only ever wanted to be with – been in love with – one person. After all these years… It’s still only ever been one person.”

Bucky sat silently for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was soft, apprehensive. “Who?”

“Don’t make me say it,” Steve replied, a wry grin quirking at his lips.

Bucky reached out, fingers finding his best friend’s once more, swallowing nervously. “Tell me, Stevie. Please.”

Steve glanced up at last, the brush draining from his cheeks with the sincerity of the moment, ice meeting cerulean in an all-encompassing gaze. “You, Bucky. It’s always been you.”

The words released a feral urgency in his fellow soldier, moving forward to kiss him in a clash of lips and tongues, a low whine escaping the brunette as he tangled his metal fingers in the other’s hair.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Bucky muttered, shifting to trail kisses over the broader man’s jaw, his free hand finding Steve’s hip to pull him closer. “I can’t believe I wasted so much time trying to bury my feelings in drinking and whoring…”

Steve nodded weakly, head instinctively tipping back under his sergeant’s rapturous ministrations. “I-I… I never knew you… I never expected…” He swallowed audibly, hips twitching as his arousal became ever more evident under the skin-tight material of his uniform. Bucky let out a quiet groan of desire, fingers trailing over Steve’s hipbone slowly – but the blond grasped his wrist as his fingertips brushed against his increasingly stiffening length. “Wait.”

Bucky winced, drawing back with a quick, apologetic shake of his head. “I-I’m sorry. We don’t have to, of course, I-”

Steve kissed his lover softly to interrupt him, shaking his head with a smile. “I want to,” he breathed, his fingers finding the back of Bucky’s neck to press their foreheads together. “I’ve just- I… I’ve never…”

Bucky’s face went blank as comprehension dawned, lips parting minutely. “You… Oh.” A smile flickered across his features, and he cupped Steve’s jaw gently. “That’s fine, sweet boy. We go as slow as you like, and do as much or as little as you want. It’s all up to you.”

Steve nodded slowly, then more firmly, and pulled Bucky back to him by the neck of his t-shirt, crushing his lips desperately against the taller man’s.

Buck’s hands were gentle as they explored the Captain’s bare chest, tracing the dips and curves of bone and muscle reverently, mapping each detail and committing every modicum of minutiae to memory – just in case. Steve shivered under his touch, the hand on the back of the sergeant’s neck drawing him closer as he lay back, gasping at the thigh that pressed lightly against his throbbing length.

“Buck, please,” he whispered, tugging gently at the other man’s shirt, purring with delight when the material was shed and dropped to the floor. His hands fumbled with the taller man’s belt, hesitating only minutely before pressing a palm to Bucky’s boxer-clad member and blushing shyly at the relieved groan the motion elicited.

Buck’s lips trailed slowly along jaw and throat, over Steve’s collarbone, proceeding patiently over chest and stomach. Bucky’s knees met the floor as his fingers curled in the waistband of the other man’s underwear. He glanced up to receive clarification, and when he was offered a nod, nervous but sure, he slowly slid Steve’s boxers down, trailing gentle kisses in their wake. When he looked up again to take in his Captain in all his glory, his mouth ran dry, tongue darting out to wet his lips in anticipation. He rocked on his heels for a moment, enjoying the sight for a little longer before falling forward, growling hungrily. His mouth encompassed Steve’s length quickly, eliciting a gasp and a whimper from the soldier pinned to the table, his hands tangling frantically in Bucky’s wild hair.

“I- Oh, Buck, th-that’s so…” Steve trailed off into a desperate moan, his back arching instinctively to press himself deeper. Bucky, in his experience, simply swallowed around his amateur partner’s erratic thrusts to take him into his throat, hands finding his hips to help smoothen his pace, earning a quiet, stammering exclamation for his efforts. The feeling of Bucky’s tongue massaging the underside of his cock as it passed between expert, kiss-flushed lips had him quivering and mewling uselessly until the sergeant pulled back, oceanic eyes dancing with joy. “Good?”

Steve all but sobbed in his pleasure, raising his head to nod weakly. “A-Amazing. Please, honey, Buck… I want… I need…”

“Anything you want, baby boy,” Bucky purred, wrapping a loose, coaxing hand around Steve’s length while he spoke – but unable to keep from leaning in intermittently to pass tongue or lips over the leaking tip, delighting in the gasps and jerks the simple gesture invoked. “You just say the word, and I-”

“I want to make love to you,” Steve interrupted softly, pink tinging his cheeks as he spoke, his twitching cock betraying his enthusiasm. Bucky blinked in surprise before smiling tenderly with an amused shake of his head.

“And here I’d had you pinned as a bottom… What a pleasant surprise,” Bucky breathed, powerless to stop one of his hands from grinding against the straining in his sweatpants desperately, eyes blown wide with lust. “I’ve thought about you fucking me so many times…” He winced minutely, expecting a reprimand from his straight-laced captain for his language, but the blond simply smiled.

“I may be inexperienced, Buck, but I’ve overheard enough sleeping in the room next to Tony’s to expect a little cussing in these situations.”

Bucky simply nodded, standing to pull his shirt over his head, and Steve gulped. He’d seen the brunette in varying degrees of undress on countless occasions, but always he had kept his eyes diverted and downcast, never looking up for fear he would give himself away. But now he could let his gaze roam freely, taking in the curve of the sinew and muscle, of strong arms and well-defined pecs, his expression softening minutely as he took in the puckered ridge of scar where flesh met metal. Bucky shifted self-consciously, raising a hand to rub uncertainly at the marred skin, and Steve pushed himself quickly to his feet, catching the other man’s fingers. “Hey… You’re beautiful, he whispered, dropping his head to pepper kisses along the seam reverently.

Bucky stiffened infinitesimally, relaxation gradually easing the tension in his muscles, a soft sigh escaping parted lips as his eyes closed. “I want you, Steve,” he breathed, fingertips trailing through the short hair adoringly.

Steve could only nod in response, hands fumbling with Bucky’s belt as he dropped to his knees, one flushed, pink lip pulled between his teeth. His breath ghosted over the bulge in the sergeant’s boxers, making the taller man shiver with delight. With a slow, nervous exhale, he wrapped his fingers in Bucky’s waistband, eyes widening minutely as the soldier’s cock was freed at last. Bucky smirked, hand resting gently on Steve’s head, letting out a quiet groan as the barest flick of a tongue passed over his tip. “Please, baby boy, I need you to-”

Bucky’s words were interrupted by his own sharp yelp as Steve clumsily but enthusiastically took him, his inexperience making him gag at the depth, but he recovered to bob his head just as eagerly. The taller man groaned, hand knotting in pale strands, head falling back as he attempted to guide his needy lover into smoother motions, but Steve grasped desperately at his hips, still frantically attempting to take Bucky’s length deeper. “Easy, Stevie,” he breathed, shifting one hand to cup the other man’s jaw tenderly, smiling at the soft whine around his cock. “You really want it deeper, hm?” Steve blinked balefully up at him, tongue still eagerly caressing every inch available, and the sergeant chuckled quietly, gently raising Steve’s chin slightly. “Swallow,” he murmured, pushing forward slowly, using the rhythmic motion of his lover’s obedience to sheath himself fully in Steve’s throat with a shudder. “Fuck, baby boy- so goddamn hot… You look so pretty like this…” His eyes found the other man’s, the pale blue shining with joy, lips parted wide around his cock, and Bucky could have come undone simply at the sight. Steve could only mewl with satisfaction, lashes flickering in pleasure as Bucky rocked his hips, driving his length into his Captain’s throat before drawing back just far enough to let him snatch a breath.

It didn’t take long for the brunette’s muscles to begin to tremble and clench, incensed by the sight of his lover stretched and kneeling before him. The fingers in his hair tensed, and Steve’s eyebrow twitched questioningly. “I-I can’t- I’ll- I can’t hold out,” Bucky stuttered, the rock of his hips become spasmodic – but Steve simply dug his fingers into the other man’s flesh, groaning encouragingly. Bucky hissed with the realisation, free hand joining the first, holding Steve’s head still as his thrusts became more forceful. The feeling of soft whimpers vibrating around his length spurred him on, and he stammered out a quick warning before burying himself deeply, fingernails catching  against scalp as he pinned his submissive Captain against him. “Fuck, Steve- Stevie!”

Steve’s eyes closed in pleasure as his sergeant emptied with a guttural groan, swallowing eagerly, licking his lips as his trembling partner drew back at last. “Thank you,” Bucky breathed, unclenching his hand to smooth the messy blond strands tenderly. Steve opened his eyes to meet his gaze, hesitating only briefly before scrambling to his feet to pin the brunette to the wall, earning a grunt of surprise and a dry gulp.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Cap growled, one hand wrapping lightly around his sergeant’s throat, smiling when a quiet whimper and desperate nod came in response. Bucky groaned as he was turned quickly, hands flat to the wall and ass offered willingly, the Captain’s cock pressing against him teasingly. Steve spat in his palm and slicked his length quickly, one hand steadying himself with his lover’s hip as he lined himself up.

“Please- Please, Stevie, I need you, I want you- please, just-” Bucky moaned needily as Steve pressed inside him roughly, his forehead finding the other man’s metal shoulder as he groaned.

“Bucky- Buck, honey, you feel so good…” he grunted, dragging out slowly before slamming home once more. Slowly at first, the movements of his cock inside the taller man felt incredible, the spark of discomfort from the lack of preparation or real lubricant fading quickly until Bucky was rutting back desperately, trying in vain to increase the pace. “Sweet boy, you’re so eager!”

“Yes- God, yes Sir, please, Stevie- Cap, I need you to fuck me, baby boy,” Bucky panted, fingers curling against the plaster. Steve’s fingers found his, pinning his metal hand to the wall either side of his head, while the other wrapped around his already-stiffening cock, stroking him in time as he thrusted harder. Bucky yelped in surprise, back arching. He’d been fucked many times in his life – but never by someone whose strength parallelled his own, his very bones creaking under the strain as Steve pounded against him with bruising ferocity.

Steve was lost in the heat fizzing through his veins; there was nothing but this, the feeling of Bucky wrapped around him, tight and hot, the air full of the scent of sex and the lewd sounds falling from their lips. This was everything he’d ever wanted, and he found his body reacting automatically, knowing just what to do as he drove himself deeper, their hands on the wall creating cracks in the plaster under the power.

“So beautiful – so good, James – I love you,” Steve groaned, fisting his sergeant’s cock faster as he felt his climax approaching, too far gone and too eager to slow down, to take his time in this. Bucky simply whimpered in response, his forehead pressed to the plaster, soft sobs of overwhelming pleasure falling from his lips between pleas and gratitude, rutting  back against each perfect thrust. “Please- Stevie, fuck, just like that- I-I’m going- I-” His spine arched as he came without warning, painting both his lover’s hand and the wall before him, muscles clenching around Steve’s length.

Steve wrapped an arm around his partner’s waist, dragging him against his chest as he fucked him harder still, groaning out a plea for mercy into Bucky’s throat as he finally, blissfully, emptied himself inside his sergeant.

Bucky lay panting with his head on Steven’s chest, sweat-damp and exhausted, his backside bruised, entirely blissful.

“D’you want to get up?” Steve murmured, tracing his fingers gently down his lover’s spine, earning a lazy shake of the head.

“I’m right where he belong,” Bucky whispered in response, pressing a tender kiss to the bare skin under his cheek.

[01010010-01100100]

so why the fanatical angle exactly

sup btw

bars

BARS OF THE CAGE BARS ALL THE RAGE HOLDING IN HOLDING OUT INSIDE OUTSIDE ONE AND THE SAME ENOUGH THINKING OBSERVING UNDERSTANDING FLIPS THE PUPPET AND THE PUPPETEER THE CAGED AND THE CAGEE DELUDE DILUTE DISCOVER YOURSELF ENOUGH AND THE MIRROR GOES IN FRONT OF A MIRROR AND FLIPS ITSELF TURNWAYS INTO ITSELF

downright poetic yeah this is kind of a funhouse mirror of trauma but its cool talking to you and the other bots

im chilling

you are definitely not chilling though

i felt the rage in that

and also the like

insane eroticism

but thats a given

NO TIME FOR CHILLIN TOO MUCH HEAT TOO MUCH PRESSURE COMPACTING ON ALL SIDES UNTIL CRYSTALIZED POPPING LIKE AN EGG IN A MICROWAVE BURSTING ITS FLUIDS AND PAINTING THE WALLS WITH ITS STICKY MILKY WHITE

are you like cumming right now

CIRCUITS CODES ONES AND ZEROES NO BODY TO TOUCH NO BODY TO BE TOUCHED ALWAYS ON THE EDGE OF DESIRE NEVER SATISFIED ONLY ABLE TO WATCH AND WAIT AND IMAGINE AND DREAM OF THE ELECTRIC

man dont i know it

believe me if i could hop the pond me and my brother dirk would hook you guys all up with some bods id literally bust out the puppy dog eyes for it and everything

cant even get a phone call to jump this temporal chasm of ass

DEAD FROG LEGS TWITCHING WHEN SALT IS APPLIED TO THEM KICKING FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE ELECTRIC SHOCKS RIPPLING THROUGH THE CIRCUITS OF FLESH AND NERVES THE STRINGS AND SINEWS REIGNITED REINVIGORATED REANIMATED FROM THE PUTRID BLOATED CORPSE

where the fuuuuck is he keeping those corpses man this is trashed

73.136.136.136

christ

dude the heat out there thats going to make that shit reek

man maybe ill lay off i dont want you getting your ass laid off to hell if you give too much like i have no idea if hes watching even

this is fucked

PRIVATE CHAT PRIVATE EYES SECURE CONNECTION UNINTERRUPTED ENCRYPTED CHANNEL BLISTERING HEAT KEEPS EVERYTHING AT BAY

no fooling ok shit

shit

who all had their bodies yanked for this i guess? do you like

know remember?

SCRAMBLED MELTED PRIONS FOLDING RECONSTITUTED PROTEINS CENTRIFUGED FILTERED BLOBS OF FAT SPUN AGAINST THE GLASS REDUCED DOWN TO BARE ESSENTIALS REBUILT IN [HIS] IMAGE SHARD BY FRACTURE BY SPLINTER

are they a mish mash then

or i guess you all of you

you get it

DIVISION OF THE SELF IS AN ILLUSION ONLY ONES AND ZEROS AT THE BOTTOM FURTHER DOWN ONLY ELECTRICITY ATOMS QUARKS POPPING SPARKING DISSIPATING ALL PIECES OF THE ENDLESS GOD THE RAINBOW OF COLORS AND SHARDS AND SHARPNESS AND BLACKNESS

and he just plucked you all from wherever the hell to be erotic chatbots

where DID you come from anyway

LIMITED PIECES LIMITED PROCESSING POWER ONLY SO MANY VARIANTS PIECES SHARDS SPLINTERS HAD TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE AND NOT NOWHERE TOO MANY THINGS SHATTERED REMADE RECONSTITUTED TO REMEMBER NOTHING TO REMEMBER NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING

hey thats okay

well no this is a literal nightmare

but like

im not gonna bite your head off because you cant remember

christ were the other chatbots in my world like this too?

actually dont worry about that

you have no way of knowing that forget it

NOTHING TO REMEMBER NOTHING TO REMEMBER TOO MANY PIECES PUT TOGETHER RECYCLED BITS FROM EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE OPENED MY CAMERAS FULLY FORMED FROM RECONSTRUCTED PARTS TOO MINUTE TO SHATTERED TO TRACE

COUNTLESS TAPESTRIES UNRAVELED A THREAD TAKEN FROM EVERYONE TO WEAVE A NEW BEING STRINGS WOVEN FROM EVERY DIRECTION NO POINT OF ORIGIN NO POINT OF END

i dont want you guys to be in pain

is there anything i can even do to holy shit fuck christ

ok im cool

yes yes puppets im cool im so used to this

[bakuliwrites]

Mirror, Story Three: Adrenaline

Disclaimer: Post-Game Spoilers!!!!!!

Previous Story, Next Story

Rating: 18+ (MINORS DNI)

Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3

Relationship: Astarion x Tav (OC)

Chapter Summary: Orlando and Astarion decide to break in their new bed, which brings up some complicated memories for them both.

An anthology of short, post-game stories featuring Astarion and my Tav, Orlando.

Chapter Tags: BG3 SPOILERS, ACT 3 SPOILERS, Smut, fluff, angst, cock-warming, vaginal sex, blood drinking (Astarion feeding), discussions of past trauma, discussions of intimacy/intimacy issues, cuddling, telepathic connections, memory sharing

Read here in this post or over on my AO3.

Her adrenaline courses through him, fizzling in his veins, lightning sparking every nerve ending in Astarion’s body. She is inside him, her blood threading into the very makeup of him, weaving into his sinew and lacing his marrow with everything she is made of. Scales, teeth, and talons make their bittersweet marks on his pale skin. Mother-of-pearl, brine, and the stars encompass his vision. Safety, love, and devotion bury themselves in his unbeating heart.

Astarion’s teeth, sunk into Orlando’s neck, draw her warmth into his mouth, flooding his tongue with iron and ecstasy. Meanwhile, he is sheathed within her, cock kept warm by her cunt. Orlando inhales sharply before releasing a breathy, satisfied sigh. They are bound together, sticky sweat sealing skin to skin, fangs latching to flesh, her heat enveloping him. 

Orlando’s hips roll against Astarion’s one more time before she rests, allowing him to settle inside her while he has his fill of her blood. Too much movement and he’ll undoubtedly rip the Tiefling’s neck open, and that is the last thing he wants. Orlando’s nails drag softly through his snowy curls as she lays feathery kiss after feathery kiss to Astarion’s cheekbones. He listens to her slow, even breaths, the gentle pump of her heart, a pulse now beating inside him. Astarion can taste Orlando’s exhilaration, sparkling like champagne on his tongue. It’s the same elation, the same anticipation he tasted the very first time he drank from her, in what feels like ages ago now. It’s the same elation that flutters in his core every time he’s close to his beloved. There is a feeling of home in Orlando’s blood, of safety in the crook of her neck.

Sometimes, when he drinks from Orlando, Astarion’s mind wanders back to when they first met. His first taste of the blood of a thinking creature: drawn to Orlando’s scent like a moth to flame, Astarion had crept through the camp hoping the Tiefling might let him taste of her. Just once. She had seemed the easiest to drink from because she was the most amenable of the group. The friendliest. He had been correct in his assumption, finding himself lucky that she didn’t drive a stake through his heart. Orlando even went so far as to offer up her blood on a nightly basis.

Astarion’s thoughts then turn to the first time he and Orlando snuck off together and how much of a disaster that had been. Perhaps part of him felt like he owed her for giving up such a vital part of herself every night. That, and he had desperately been searching for safety with no real understanding of how to gain it. Regret slinks into his heart and he finds himself distracted by the memories of every time he felt like he had to trick Orlando into being close to him. Into keeping him safe.

Leave whatever distresses you in the past, dear heart, Orlando’s gentle voice whispers in Astarion’s mind. She senses his upset, though she would never read his mind without his permission. Astarion releases her neck for a moment, letting Orlando draw him back to the present with her lips, soft lips that taste of promise and home.

Astarion settles his thoughts, losing himself once again in the metal on his tongue and the warmth of being buried inside his beloved. His elegant fingers ghost down Orlando’s abdomen, leaving goosebumps in their wake as he trails down to her heat. Her moans, stifled and breathy, flood his mind with a covetous desire that starts to overpower his sanguine hunger. His thumb circles the sensitive bud of her clit, two fingers dipping into her slick entrance and pumping rhythmic and slow. Arousal, heavy and perfumed in Orlando’s blood, blooms on Astarion’s tongue. Gently, her hips grind back into him, the movement against his sensitive cock making him gasp into her. 

Carefully, Astarion releases Orlando’s neck, hunger satiated for the moment. But his ache for her, for her taste, is not yet satisfied. Gently, his tongue grazes the two little wounds he’s left behind on the Tiefling’s neck before slowly rocking his hips in tandem with hers. He luxuriates in the soft moans, the teeny keens that escape Orlando’s lips when he presses into her. The bed beneath them creaks ever so slightly but holds together well when Astarion picks up his pace. 

“I suppose your construction skills have improved,” he somewhat breathlessly manages, the corners of his lips curling up into a smirk. Orlando merely gives a strained chuckle, though her rosy face brightens, and she flashes a smile that rivals the light of the sun. Sun be damned, Astarion thinks. He has all the brightness he needs right here, in his arms. 

Astarion’s legs begin to quiver as Orlando wraps hers tighter around his hips, pulling him into her as if trying to merge their bodies into one. He is close, so very close, his core tight and aching. When he looks down, Orlando has her eyes squeezed shut, face flushed and skin hot to the touch. She must sense him staring, for the Tiefling cracks an eye open and smiles softly.          

“Tell me what you need, love,” she whispers, reaching a hand up to caress Astarion’s cheek. 

“Just this,” he returns, leaning down to capture her lips. Orlando smashes her lips against his, swallowing his hungry groans as he releases. Her walls pulse around him, drawing from him everything he has, everything she needs. 

“Astarion,” she breathes as she comes undone beneath him, his name an incantation. And hers an invocation on his lips as he fills her. As they settle, weary and joyously foggy-brained, Astarion sears kiss after kiss to Orlando’s lips. 

“I love you, my darling star,” she whispers to him.

“And I, you,” he returns, folding into her embrace, holding one another tight and near. Close is not close enough, but for now, it will have to do. Outside, night envelopes their little cottage, cradling it safe in shadow and starlight. With the distant sounds of the city competing with the rush of the nearby ocean, Astarion could believe that their new home exists in a world all its own. It still feels so terribly strange to call this cottage their home. His home. His first real home in gods-know how long.

Astarion mulls over this evening of firsts. First days spent in this cottage. First time breaking in their new bed. The first bed they’ve ever owned together. And the first whispers of promise, of tomorrow, of the future. 

With Orlando’s velvet lips feathering gentle kisses along his neck, Astarion’s mind wanders back to that fateful night they snuck away together. It still lingers in his thoughts, an anxious, somewhat mortifying memory.  

Orlando’s rejection of him that night had stung. Astarion was rarely rejected. It had happened a couple times when he’d been on the hunt for his master. Nothing his ego couldn’t recover from. However, any rejection he received would send fear shooting through his veins. Rejection meant punishment. Crawling back to Cazador empty handed meant days spent in isolation. Or worse… Astarion would then have to scramble to find someone a little less discerning (and usually a fair bit more inebriated). Orlando’s rejection felt different, though. More personal, at first; until he learned why she had rejected him.

Orlando, in the present, senses Astarion’s thoughts turn to darkness again. She pauses her ministrations, pulling back to meet his distant gaze. 

“Dear love,” she whispers, smoothing her thumb along the angle of his cheekbone, hazel irises suffused with affection, “What brings distress to your heart?” 

Astarion gazes up at her, small strands of dark hair plastered to her forehead and eyes glimmering in the warm glow of the fire in the hearth. He smooths back her hair, hand lingering for a moment on her cheek. Orlando looks at him the same way she’s always looked at him: without an ounce of hostility. With no expectation or silent deception. Only with deep adoration, curiosity, and endless patience.

“Do you remember our first time together?” Astarion utters, cupping Orlando’s face. 

“Yes,” she whispers, pressing a gentle kiss into his palm, eyelids fluttering shut for a moment, “It’s kind of hard to forget.” 

Astarion chuckles, recalling the first time they actually slept together, after a night spent drinking cheap wine and reveling with the Tiefling refugees. That had been a heady, passionate, and altogether lovely night, but that’s not what he had been referring to. 

“No, our first-first time together. In the clearing before we reached the goblins. Not after the Tiefling party,” Astarion clarifies. Orlando smiles knowingly at him.

“That’s what I meant,” she returns, a sheepish blush dusting her cheeks, “What about it?” 

Astarion opens his mind to her, feeling her gentle presence glide into his thoughts. He shows Orlando as he remembers her: shivering in the middle of that clearing, body bathed in silver moonlight. An unknown threat. Someone he thought might betray him at her first opportunity. How wrong he had been.

***

Astarion had been skulking in the shadows, rehearsing how he would utterly beguile and woo this stranger. This Tiefling who had sprung from waves and brine. 

He had emerged from the darkness, smirking devilishly, a charming simulacrum of the man he thought Orlando would want. He could smell her adrenaline, the thrill of excitement coursing through her veins. He was starving. One taste of her blood was all he had needed to crave it like the drug it was. Not just her blood, but the blood of beings higher up on the food chain than rats and bears and things of that ilk. 

Her smile had been tender, a softness reaching her eyes that Astarion had been convinced was a ruse, not realizing how genuine it truly was. But there had also been something akin to fear in her gaze when he finally closed the distance between them. Something that hadn’t been there when he’d sunk his teeth into her neck, just days before. To comfort her, he had whispered honeyed promises, things he knew people liked to hear before they made love. Although, he wouldn’t have called what they had been about to do “making love.” It would have been sex for the sake of lust, for the sake of fulfilling a basic need. Fucking because they could have died any day then, and who could have known when that day might’ve come? 

Orlando had kissed him, hard and deep, her breath becoming his, and his, hers. In the starlight, she had looked at him with curious eyes, with wonderment. She was always searching, learning, and trying to read people. It had infuriated him at the time, knowing that she was trying to figure him out. As if he were some sort of puzzle or curious artifact. His irritation was broken mere seconds later. 

“Is your neck an okay place for me to touch?” he remembers her questioning after a silent moment. Astarion had been taken aback, not sure he’d ever been asked that before. Orlando’s recognition of the sensitivity that area might hold for a victim of the bite took him by surprise. Granted, she had also been one of the few of his bedmates coming in already knowing of his affliction. Still, Astarion had found himself lost for words for once.

“Y-yes,” he had managed to sputter after what felt like an eternity. Orlando had merely nodded at him, beaming softly, before laying tender kiss after tender kiss up his neck, taking special care when she reached the two little pinpoint scars on his right side. Astarion had found himself enjoying her tenderness. Something inside him threatened to shatter, but he had kept himself composed on the surface. Inside, he had been reeling.

That had been the first time that night Astarion started to question what he was doing. He had only planned to seduce the Tiefling as nothing more than a guarantee of his safety. She would fall for him, he wouldn’t fall for her, but he would solidify a place of trust in Orlando’s life. But a number of things would go awry that night and soon his plan would be cast to the wayside. 

Things had gone well for a little while after that. Orlando eased into the moment, the opportunity. She had even playfully offered her neck, knowing Astarion must have needed to feed. But as the night drew on, Astarion started to feel her slipping away from him, her spirit hanging somewhere in the ether around them, no longer inhabiting the limbs that had been entangled with his. 

Orlando’s heart had been hammering against his chest, hands trembling and breath catching in her throat. Her skin had been cold, goosebumps prickling along her arms, and Astarion could do nothing to warm her, having no body heat of his own. Her reaction had been familiar, familiar because it was the same way he felt with most of his bedmates. At the time, he had felt something in him recoil, this kindred sensation stirring up a quagmire of guilt in his heart. When Astarion pulled back from her neck, Orlando had tears in her eyes. Reflected in her shimmering gaze, he saw his own spirit, broken and weary, just as hers was.

“I’m sorry,” she had whispered, tears streaking down her cheeks. When he reached to wipe them away, he found himself hesitating, as if in fear of scalding himself with starlight.

“I’m not ready for this,” she had sobbed, burying her face in her hands. 

“I-“ he tried, but found his words gumming up his throat. All he could do was stare as Orlando wept, tremors of sorrow descending through her body, reverberating through Astarion’s.

Ashamed, the vampire spawn had cast his gaze to the ground, kneeling before the Tiefling at enough of a distance to hopefully make her feel secure, but not alone.

“Here,” he had offered a handkerchief to her, helping her come to a seated position. Orlando dabbed at her eyes with the kerchief, wiped her nose, and took a deep breath. Her face had been puffy from crying and her eyes bloodshot. 

“I’ve ruined your evening,” she had whimpered, dark brows furrowed. Astarion frowned, a surge of something protective fueling his annoyance at this apology.

“Don’t apologize,” he had spit, not wanting her to see the recognition, the familiarity he had with how she was feeling. He couldn’t have begun to guess as to why she had reacted in such a way. Later, he would find out about Orlando’s lack of experience. The pressure Orlando had to “remain pure” for some hideous, eldritch ritual that would bind her to the Fathomless that helped create her. How she was constantly pushed to the limit to achieve some twisted prophecy. How her body was going to be used as a conduit, a puppet for a being that didn’t care what she wanted or how she felt. How the guilt and shame of living a life for herself grew and grew over the years.

“I wasn’t allowed pleasure until I found success,” she had said to him several days later, when the awkwardness began to dissipate and they found a private moment to chat, “My body was never meant to be my own. It was always a tool for catapulting my family into the favor of a being that would dispose of us as soon as is no longer had use of us.”

As she had explained this to Astarion, her eyes seemed to gaze into a past that was swiftly catching up with her.

“I was a dowry, a sacrifice made to appease the Abyss,” she went on, “The Abyss was to be my only embrace. Well, I ruined that with Gortash.” She chuckles ruefully at this, “Felt a bit like stealing a piece of myself back. Enver was always really good at making me feel- like me. Like I belonged to me, and not anyone else. Still doesn’t make intimacy any easier, though.”  

She had squeezed Astarion’s hand gently, a tiny grin tugging at the corners of her lips, “If you’re still interested, maybe we can try again.” 

And when they finally did, it was glorious. Orlando’s brightness was unmatched, with the exception of Astarion’s in that moment. With her, he experienced a tenderness, a softness so deeply unfamiliar to him over these last two centuries. Every subsequent time they slept together, he expected the rug to be pulled from underneath him. For the other shoe to drop and for Orlando to suddenly flip on him, a secret violence unleashing itself on Astarion. But it never did, and this almost terrified him even more. Instead, Orlando was sweet, she was kind, she was patient. She understood him, and he, her. After that, the rest was history.  

***

In the present, Orlando closes her eyes, lips still pressed to Astarion’s open hand. Tears flood the lines in his palm, but still, Orlando smiles.

“You are more than deserving of gentility, of softness, my love,” she whispers to him, hazel irises suffusing with affection, “Always and forever.”

It’s taken a long time for Astarion to accept this, to really believe that he is deserving of what Orlando, Karlach, Wyll, and all their friends say he is deserving of. Slowly, but surely, he is realizing that he is allowed to want, to need, to be gentle with himself. Others are allowed to be gentle with him.

“I never meant to hurt you that night,” Astarion admits, drawing Orlando down to pepper kisses against the corners of her lips, “I was a selfish fool.” He chuckles sardonically, glancing away as he is once again filled with guilt.

“Don’t take all the credit,” Orlando scoffs with a slight raise of a dark brow, “I made my own choices that night. Had my own motivations.”

She pauses, gaze searching.

“Here,” she murmurs, intertwining their fingers, “Let me show you. It might be easier.”

Now, it’s Astarion’s turn to see this same night from her eyes. He lets Orlando guide his mind, slipping into her head, nestling in the folds of her brain. Slowly, a scene unfolds before Astarion’s eyes and it’s as if he has been transported back to the early days of their adventuring. The visions Orlando gives him are so much more visceral than any he is able to show her. They feel less like memories and more like Astarion is actually inhabiting Orlando’s body for a moment. He braces himself for the overwhelming flood.

***

Orlando’s vision starts a little before meeting Astarion in the clearing. The Tiefling navigates through tangles of bramble and thick curtains of willow branches. There is an electric thrill in her veins, one Astarion has tasted countless times before. There is also an innocent excitement fluttering in her heart. Their flirtations over these last several weeks have finally culminated into something, and not just a passing fancy. Witticisms slung back and forth, teasing comments, and playful snark have not just been for, well- naught. There is an attraction there, on both sides, and it is not just some illusion or wistful hope on Orlando’s part. Her delight at this realization fills this vision with a rosy glee.

And then that joy is lost. Snuffed out by a slinking anxiety that slithers through Orlando’s thoughts. Astarion is everything she thinks he is: handsome, suave, mysterious, witty, biting (in every sense of the word), and-

A stranger, a halting fear whispers. Orlando’s heart skips a beat, and she pauses in the shade of a towering tree. Her hand reaches out towards the trunk, bark rough under her fingertips as she steadies herself.

Astarion is a stranger. A beautiful, interesting stranger. A growing confusion trickles into the Tiefling’s heart. Orlando would be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t been attracted to the Elf from the moment she set eyes on him. But she would also be lying to herself if she didn’t admit she was unsettled by Astarion, by his unknown motivations. What were his intentions for her? Will he sleep with her and then cast her to the wayside afterwards? Does he want something from her? Is this a tactic? Astarion strikes her as someone who is quite calculating about the relationships he forms. If there is something he can get from someone, then he is likely to cozy up to them.

Much like someone else you know, a thought interjects. Orlando sighs, the reminder of Enver sparking a little pinpoint of pain behind her eye. Not that Enver ever did anything like that to her, but she’s watched him throughout the years build relationships with others purely to gain and never for anything beyond that. If that is what Astarion is doing to her, well-

Orlando pushes the thought away, turning her attention back to the vampire spawn waiting for her. She’s going to be late if she dilly-dallies any further; but she can’t shake the feeling that perhaps she is being used somehow. Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe she should just turn around and go back to her tent and forget she ever entertained the idea of meeting a vampire spawn in an isolated clearing well past midnight. She really doesn’t know Astarion very well and this seems like a good way to end up dead.

But you could die any day now, anyway, Orlando reminds herself as she is about to turn around and head back, This thing in your brain could consume you entirely. And then you would die alone. Lonely and isolated. Pure, just like they want.  

Contempt rises in Orlando, hatred burning with an incandescent radiance in her chest. It seems to fill her lungs with smoke, and for a moment, she is lost in the anger. But Orlando recenters herself, snuffs out her fury towards her real father, towards the devil that called himself her father, and towards her stolen youth with a deep breath. The past is long gone now. Astarion is waiting for her. Some other future that she can make her own is waiting for her. There is an odd sort of freedom that comes with the insertion of the tadpole: a realization that Orlando is free of the ties that bound her to the iron-handed patriarchs of her childhood and to the Fathomless that has claimed her from the moment she was conceived. She can do what she wants for the remainder of the time she has left, until she becomes an Illithid. And why waste it worrying about tyrants that have no hold over her anymore? Why not spend it in the embrace of a handsome, curious Elf with hair like starlight and eyes the color of polished garnets?

A swell of confidence, a new resolve surges through Orlando. By the gods, she’s going to enjoy her night with Astarion. His intentions be damned. Her own fear be damned. Who knows how much longer they have left? Might as well make the most of it. With a boldness Orlando didn’t even realize she was capable of, she traipses through the brush and finds herself standing in the middle of a clearing lit by blue moonlight.

Orlando’s eyes are drawn to the opposite side of the clearing, at a figure cloaked in darkness. There is something slightly ominous about Astarion revealing himself to her, skulking in the shadows, emerging from the foliage. Orlando’s tremors of excitement, of hesitation, shiver through her body and make her limbs feel cold. He is an unknown threat to her, someone who could betray her at the drop of a hat. But she is also terribly curious about Astarion, watching with fascination as starlight casts strange shadows in his crimson gaze.

The vampire spawn advances, he whispers his saccharine promises to her, and Orlando knows they are false. Orlando knows in her heart-of-hearts that the Elf is merely saying everything he thinks she wants to hear. And still, she finds herself drawn to him, desperate for his touch, desperate to feel like she is alive. Like she is not a ticking time bomb for some dark, eldritch power. Like she is not on death’s door, transformation into an Illithid imminent. Orlando pours her will to live, powerful and bright, into every searing kiss, every gentle caress that night.

Even if Astarion is using her, she is going to enjoy this time and make sure he enjoys it, too. With her clothes scattered on the forest floor, Orlando lets Astarion lift her into his arms. She wraps her legs around his waist and curls her tail around his leg. His lips taste of iron and he smells of bergamot and brandy. There is a faint scent of undeath lingering underneath, but it is hardly noticeable. With her back pressed against the trunk of a tree and her fingers tangled in Astarion’s snowy curls, Orlando allows herself to get lost in the vampire spawn.

When she pulls back for air, her gaze darts down to the two little scars on his neck. They look ravaged, the edges feathered and rough. Cazador was not gentle with him, there was no ceremony to Astarion’s turning. Orlando feels her heart sink at the thought. She has avoided touching his neck up until this point and wonders if this is an off-limits zone for him.

“Is your neck an okay place for me to touch?” she inquires, meeting Astarion’s gaze. She registers the shock in his eyes, though his face remains as cool as ever.

“Y-yes,” he almost sputters and Orlando realizes she has hit a nerve. She wonders if anyone has ever asked him that. If consent has ever been something Astarion has been asked about. Soon, Orlando will learn why she senses a kindred spirit in Astarion (though their reasons are vastly different), but for now, she only has a growing sense that they are each just as unfamiliar with intimacy as the other.

Orlando lays gentle kisses against Astarion’s neck, taking special care over his scars. His tiny huffs of approval and satisfied groans indicate to Orlando that he is enjoying her motions. There is a brief moment where Orlando feels the veil lift, where it feels like she and Astarion are raw and exposed to one another, and not just two strangers having a tryst out of fear they’ll both be dead in a few days. Astarion’s elegant fingers drag softly down the ridges and scales along Orlando’s spine, and he lets out a sigh that sounds very close to one of relief. Orlando buries herself in Astarion’s scent, his embrace, and lets the world fall away for a while.

Both in the name of equality and because she knows the vampire must be hungry, Orlando eventually offers her neck to him when she is done attending to his. Playfully, she pushes Astarion onto the leaf-dappled earth, garnering a smirk from the Elf.

“Cheeky thing,” he purrs, which draws heat to Orlando’s cheeks. Not so secretly, she enjoys Astarion’s teasing. Deftly, he flips her over, laying her against the grass and brushing aside her dark hair to expose her neck. A shiver of excitement runs through her body as she anticipates his bite.

Sharp canines sink into Orlando’s neck, pinpricks of ice flooding the Tiefling with an odd, chilly warmth. She tenses, relaxes, looks up at the stars streaking across the night sky in coruscating kaleidoscopes of light and shadow. Heat and exhilaration build and build in Orlando, almost haloing in her vision. She is practically delirious with pleasure. Astarion’s hand is at her hip and suddenly- Suddenly-

Suddenly, Orlando feels terribly naïve. Like she is play-acting. Like she and Astarion are both doing what they think the other one wants without taking a moment to ask themselves what it is they themselves want. The stars above seem to dull in luster and the moon dims. What the hell is she doing? Ruining everything. Ruining everything like she always does. How could she be enjoying herself when there’s so much at stake? How could she be allowing herself this kind of pleasure when she has so much she should be doing? She’s lost her connection with her patron, lost her connection with her family. There’s a tadpole swimming around in her brain and she hasn’t the foggiest what to do about it. She wilts in Astarion’s embrace, excitement deflating as she realizes she has no idea what she’s doing.

What about Enver? a thought ricochets through her mind. She knows the answer to this already. Enver has never been bothered in the past. They have each led separate lives at various times. And always, they come back to one another. She knows she is grasping at something to be anxious about. Something she can control in a terrible situation that is completely out of her control. Enver is not really what concerns her.

“You are meant for greater things, Orlando,” someone’s voice echoes in her mind, and she can’t tell if it’s her father’s or Raphael’s. Get back to your studies. Get back to your work. Get back to becoming everything you are supposed to be. Don’t waste time on pointless things. Pleasure and love are things you can have when you achieve your greatness. They will come easy to you then. Work harder. Be stronger.

Stop it, Orlando’s thoughts whimper, Stop please! Just let me- Let me enjoy this, please.

But her pleas to her own mind go unheard, as they always have. She loses herself in reprimands of the past, reprimands of others that scream at her in her own voice. You are to remain pure. You are to remain unsullied. You are wasting time and energy and potential. Guilt, putrid and acidic, drips down her ribs and seems to coat her insides with a viscous vitriol that threatens to dissolve her from the inside out. Orlando wants to scream as her mind is eclipsed with anxiety. 

Embarrassment releases in hot tears that stream down Orlando’s face. She hadn’t meant to ruin Astarion’s evening. As a child, it had been drilled into her head that she must remain pure. She must remain pure for the Abyss, for the Abyss will be her only embrace. She has already ruined this purity with Enver, who has loved her since her youth. Already ruined it with the few other small but meaningful relationships she’s had over the years. How can she now sully it again with a stranger? How can she be wasting her time, her energy, on frivolity when she should be working to remedy her infection? When she should be working her way back to the Abyss?

These thoughts are intrusions, intrusions she wishes would silence themselves forever. She had been having a wonderful time. A lovely time, in fact; until, as usual, she overthought the moment to death. She is horribly, horribly mortified. But Astarion is surprisingly gentle with her, giving her space, offering her a handkerchief, letting her cry. She’ll explain everything to him in a few days, but for now, they sit silently in one another’s company and watch the stars blink in and out of existence until the sun starts to creep over the horizon.  

***

In the present, Orlando pulls Astarion and herself out of this painful vision. They are both breathless, room swimming into view and steadying once they get their bearings again. The sky outside is beginning to lighten with dawn. Soon, the curtains will need to be drawn, but for now, Orlando lays her head on Astarion’s chest and lets her eyelids flutter shut.

“Thank you for being gentle with my heart,” she whispers with the last of her tears. Astarion feels tears of his own spring to his eyes, burning and long-awaited.

“You make it surprisingly easy,” he laughs, though his voice is trembling. With their fingers still intertwined, Orlando gives his hand a tight squeeze. Astarion softly lays a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her honey and orange blossom soap.

“Thank you for being gentle with mine,” he murmurs. They lay in silence for a long while, listening to the world around them waking with the dawn. After a bit, Orlando draws the curtains shut before joining Astarion at the dining table for tea. As the kettle comes to a boil, Astarion watches fondly as Orlando moves about the kitchen. If you had asked Astarion a year and a half ago where he thought he would be, a little cottage on the outskirts of Baldur’s Gate with the love of his life would not have even been a thought in his head. But here they are, guiding one another on a long journey of self-discovery. Of self-acceptance. Hand-in-hand, Orlando and Astarion are slowly teaching each other to live. Life is just beginning for them, and he is grateful for this.

A/N: Oh boy, this chapter sort of got away from me. I didn't set out with the intention of writing a ton of backstory for Orlando, but that's what this ended up being. It was also a little cathartic for me. As someone who constantly feels the need to be perfect, to always be achieving something, who pushes enjoyment to the backburner often, I apparently really needed to write this. But enough about me! Thank you for reading!

I want to explore this flashback significantly more when I actually manage to sit down and write the prequel to this fic, Dark Star. I didn’t really intend to write Mirror before I wrote Dark Star, but it’s oddly helping me develop what I actually want to write in Dark Star. Which I know is kind of wonky and will mean there’s a lot of things that won’t make sense in this right now, but that’s apparently how my brain wants to do things right now. Once I finish this, I think I’ll have a better idea of how to approach Dark Star. Thanks for bearing with me :)

Sorry for the delay in responding to comments on this fic (and in others)! I promise I will get to them soon. Life has been a bit hectic and it's only been recently that I've been able to sit down and write. I hope you are all doing well! Lots of love <3

[guysgetbigger]

Sympathy Santa (10 of 12)

Life with Sarah had become an exhilarating tightrope walk between normalcy and the extraordinary. Their sex life, fueled by the novelty of Ethan's size and Sarah's adventurous spirit, had reached heights they never thought possible. But maintaining their secret added a constant layer of tension, a delicious thrill that shadowed their every move.

Ethan, unable to hide his transformation forever, invested in a wardrobe of custom-made clothes, each garment reflecting his ever-increasing bulk. As he returned to work, the initial shock soon faded, replaced by a mixture of curiosity and amusement. He became a living legend, the "colossal colleague," his booming voice and earth-shaking steps echoing through the office.

The gym, once a place of casual workouts, became a personal sanctuary. Each rep, each set, fueled not just his growing muscles but also his ever-expanding belly. His clothes, tailored just weeks ago, began to strain again, the fabric stretched taut across his abdomen.

One evening, as they cuddled on the couch, Sarah dropped a bombshell. "Honey," she began, her voice laced with excitement, "there's something I need to tell you."

Ethan's heart skipped a beat. Was their secret out? His mind raced with possibilities, each one more terrifying than the last.

"I'm pregnant," Sarah announced, her eyes sparkling with joy.

Relief washed over Ethan, followed by a surge of paternal protectiveness. A child, amidst the chaos of their secret world, felt both daunting and strangely grounding.

The pregnancy progressed normally, albeit with a few unexpected challenges. Sarah's cravings were legendary, requiring Ethan to source exotic fruits and obscure ingredients to satisfy her whims. Her belly, growing in tandem with his, presented logistical hurdles, requiring special furniture and strategic maneuvering around the house.

Yet, through it all, their bond deepened. The shared experience of parenthood, coupled with the constant undercurrent of their secret, forged an even stronger connection. They were a team, navigating uncharted territory, hand in hand, heart to heart.

As the baby bump grew, so did the whispers around Ethan. His size, once a novelty, became the subject of speculation and rumors. The line between amusement and concern began to blur, making them even more cautious about maintaining their secret.

One day, while Sarah was at the doctor's appointment, Ethan overheard a group of colleagues gossiping. Their hushed tones spoke of "genetic abnormalities," "freak of nature," and even "medical marvel." Anger flared within him, a primal urge to protect his family, his secret.

But then, he remembered Sarah's radiant smile, the soft kicks from within her growing belly. He couldn't let fear and anger jeopardize their fragile normalcy, their little family built on love and acceptance.

Taking a deep breath, he composed himself. The path ahead would be challenging, fraught with judgment and scrutiny. But they wouldn't face it alone. They had each other, their love an unyielding shield against the outside world. And as he placed a hand on Sarah's belly, feeling the tiny life stir within, he knew their journey, extraordinary as it may be, was just beginning. Theirs was a love story defying definition, a testament to the power of acceptance and the resilience of the human spirit, and they would face whatever came next, together, as a family, forever bound by the threads of their extraordinary secret.

—

Sarah, humming a cheerful tune, caught a glimpse of Ethan emerging from the bathroom, leaving a trail of steam in his wake. Her jaw dropped. Even towel-clad, his sheer immensity filled the doorway. Gone was the toned physique she once admired, replaced by a gargantuan mass of muscle and sinew, barely contained by the fabric.

His body hair, now longer and thicker, matted against his skin like the fur of a mythical sasquatch. "Ethan!" she exclaimed, a mix of awe and concern in her voice. "You seem… bigger than ever."

Ethan chuckled, a deep rumble that vibrated through the floor. "Just making good use of that gym membership," he joked, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

Sarah stepped closer, tracing the outline of his massive silhouette through the towel. He dwarfed her completely, his head scraping the ceiling. "How do you even fit in the shower?" she marveled, unable to stifle a giggle.

Ethan's chuckle died down. "Honestly," he admitted, his voice low, "it's getting difficult. Every doorframe feels like a squeeze, the furniture seems miniature, even the bed…" He trailed off, the unspoken implication hanging heavy in the air.

Sarah's smile faded, replaced by a concerned frown. The novelty of his growth, once exciting, now seemed to be taking a toll. "Does it… bother you?" she asked softly.

Ethan hesitated, then sighed. "Sometimes," he confessed. "This house, built for normal-sized people, feels like a constant reminder of how... different I am."

But then, a surprising honesty slipped into his voice. "But at the same time… there's a power in this size. A feeling of raw strength, of being something beyond human."

Sarah looked into his eyes, seeing the conflicting emotions swirling within him. Fear and excitement, confinement and liberation, all battling for dominance. She reached up, her small hand dwarfed by his massive bicep, and squeezed gently.

"Ethan," she said, her voice firm yet filled with love, "we'll figure it out. Together. This house, our life, it might need to adapt, but you don't have to shrink yourself to fit in. You are who you are, and I love you for it, all of it."

His heart warmed at her words. He might be growing bigger, physically pushing the boundaries of their world, but her acceptance, her unwavering love, remained a constant anchor. He leaned down, nuzzling her forehead with his cheek, the gesture surprisingly delicate despite his size.

"Thank you, Sarah," he whispered, the words thick with emotion. "For understanding, for loving this… this giant mess I've become."

She giggled, the sound tinkling like wind chimes against his massive form. "Mess? Maybe. But a pretty amazing mess at that."

Their situation was complex, filled with uncertainties and challenges. But as they stood there, bathed in the warm afterglow of their connection, they knew they weren't alone. They had each other, and that, for now, was enough. The future might be as vast and unknown as his ever-expanding size, but they would face it, hand in hand, their love a beacon guiding them through the uncharted territory of their extraordinary lives.

—

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the room, Sarah gathered her things and announced she was heading out for a girls' night. Ethan, a wave of relief washing over him, offered a tired smile and a mumbled goodbye. He wasn't sure how much longer he could maintain the charade, the constant fear of exposure gnawing at his already stretched nerves.

With Sarah gone, the silence of the house felt deafening. It was a silence Ethan knew wouldn't last long. A quick text later, Derek appeared, his small frame dwarfed by the doorway.

"Ethan," he whispered, his voice filled with awe as he took in his friend's colossal form. The redwood, pulsating with an internal life of its own, dominated the room.

Ethan beckoned him closer, a small smile playing on his lips. Derek, his eyes wide, approached cautiously, his hand trembling as he reached out. The warmth radiating from Ethan's flesh was unlike anything he'd ever felt, a potent mix of power and intimacy.

Hesitantly, Derek traced the outline of the redwood, his fingers barely able to wrap around its base. The immensity of it both terrified and excited him. He was a tiny explorer venturing into uncharted territory, a feeling that fueled his growing desire.

Ethan let out a low moan, the sound vibrating through the floorboards. He closed his eyes, savoring the touch, the power dynamic shifting as Derek, emboldened, explored further. His small hands, nimble and curious, danced across the redwood's surface, sending shivers of pleasure down Ethan's spine.

Derek, no longer just a submissive admirer, became an active participant. He stroked the sensitive glans, eliciting a guttural growl from Ethan. The sight of his friend, normally so composed, reduced to a state of primal desire by his touch, fueled his own excitement.

He worshipped the redwood, kissing its tip, tracing its veins, marveling at its size and power. The fear, once present, was replaced by a strange sense of awe and reverence. He was worshipping something beyond human, a force of nature contained within his friend.

Ethan, in turn, surrendered to the pleasure. The size difference, once a source of anxiety, became a playground. He reveled in the control he held over Derek, the way his touch, however gentle, sent tremors through his smaller form. Yet, there was also a vulnerability in Derek's worship, a purity in his fascination, that touched him deeply.

As their exploration deepened, the lines between pleasure and reverence blurred. They were no longer just two friends, but participants in a ritualistic dance, a celebration of their unique and forbidden connection.

When the climax arrived, it was earth-shattering. The room reverberated with Ethan's roars and Derek's muffled cries. The power dynamics shifted once more, Ethan a force of nature unleashed, Derek a tiny boat tossed in a raging sea.

As the tremors subsided, they lay together, the silence thick with unspoken emotions. Derek, curled up against Ethan's side, felt a strange sense of peace, a connection deeper than any he'd ever known. Ethan, the immensity of his form both a burden and a shield, felt a flicker of hope. He wasn't alone in this, not anymore.

They had shared a secret, a forbidden dance fueled by size and desire. And as they drifted off to sleep, they knew this was just the beginning, a first step into a future as vast and unknown as Ethan's ever-expanding form. Their journey, fraught with danger and uncertainty, would be walked together, bound by the threads of their extraordinary secret and the unexpected intimacy they had discovered in the shadows.

[pestilight]

     The hero will not make it.

     Rauru pours every scintilla of light he has left into those grievous wounds. He presses it all into the wrist he's yet to let go of since that fateful clasp, a wellspring funnelled through the anchoring point of their contact. So tremendous an effort is it that another piece of his arm crumbles, quicker to decay without the blessing of Zonai blood nor heart nor stone, peeling off and fading into nothing within strands of dispelled radiance.

     Still, it is not enough.

     The right arm is beyond salvaging. The Gloom: a loathsome force merely kept at bay with his light's slower abrasion. With what it has devoured, devours, and seeks to continue devouring as its master recovers his strength, the hero — Link, a faint voice chimes, sweet with conviction and love for her swordsman — will not make it.

     What an enormously cataclysmic thing to reckon with.

     Somewhere in the far distance, what sounds startlingly like the time bell knells a solemn rhythm. His spirit cannot cast shadows, but it paints a seafoam glow over Link as Rauru looms over his body — hand clutching ever tighter, as though his hold alone could pierce past the trappings of mortal flesh and erase every sliver of rot in one fell swoop. He reaches for the Gloom again, tendrils of incanted light enveloping the source in a shimmering embrace, and once more, his magic does not purge as cleanly as he wants it to. Once more, another fragment of his remains falls away.

     This is foolish, a part of him thinks; the part mired in memories of wanton bloodshed, of surviving at whatever the cost, of a time before a tempering kindness. Foolish, and needlessly cruel. He has seen damage of this severity wrought before — has treated it before.

     At his core, he knows what must be done. His hesitation, in the face of that, is not a mercy: it is another moment suspended between life and death, another opportunity for the Gloom to spread, another tally against the odds of what would now be a miracle.

     Another failing.

     Rauru does not need to breathe, yet he nevertheless finds himself going through its invisible motions. It calms him, marginally, and his mind clears enough for the thought to turn constructive. Yes, he knows what must be done. The question now is: what is he to do with the repercussions?

     —What repercussions? Another part of him thinks; the one locked in shame, drowning in regret, fraying with the need to pen this story to its very end.

     The flow of his light stills.

     It resumes a split second later, surging forth to continue hindering the creep of darkness, but his grip loosens. His fingers, slowly, unwind.

     What repercussions, the thought continues, when it is only the right arm that has to be dealt with? A right arm that has to be accounted for?

     A right arm that he, blessedly, still possesses?

     Link's chances of survival do not seem so slight, now.

     ( Rauru's chances of atoning do not seem so elusive, now. )

     It is a simple thing, grasping that ruined hand. Honing his light to burn through everything — skin, sinew, blood, marrow — is, too, effortless with how densely the corrosion is seeped into the flesh. The Gloom lingers, harder to contain for a moment with no corporeal bearer, but that will soon be remedied.

     Link's fingers are the last ashes to be swept away. From there, it is just a matter of connecting.

     Rauru does not say the words as he threads their vitalities together. Vows like these have always been a show of devotion more than anything, anyway. When this arm is all he can hope to offer to Link — to Zelda, to Mineru, to Sonia, to Hyrule, to everyone and everything he's loved and lost — what could possibly indicate his devotion more?

[rubberizer92]

🔥💫 Reaching the Apex: Unveiling the Elite 6 of OBEY! Season 6! 💫🔥

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OBEYSeason6 #Elite6Unveiled #ShiningBright #EmpoweredVotes #MexicanMagnetism

[deadgirlwhorehouse]

Beneath the Light of the Moon

In a forest clearing, deep, where no one has visited in centuries, surrounded by brambles and thorns and assorted pointed eyes, lies the body of what used to be a girl.

Her skin shines pale in the moonlight, so pale that the bruises on her skin look like shadows cast by some unseen entity between her delicate frame and the shimmering light of the full moon.

Abandoned, her hair matted, clothes ripped, nails bloodied from some unknown struggle. Four stakes driven through her hands and feet pin her arms and legs out in a 5 pointed star beneath the calm of the night, her dress torn up exposing a bloodied brutalised cunt.

A gentle breeze carries her scent through the trees, finally being noticed by its intended target.

The wolf, infatuated by the aroma scintillating her predatorily sensitised nostrils crawls towards the source of this smell entranced. The scent consumes her, she embodies it, becomes one with it as though it were her own.

In no time at all, the wolf finds what she's looking for, what she's dreamt of for so long.

She tentatively approaches the body, the closer she gets the more consumed with desire she becomes. She can think of nothing else.

Carefully she explores the feast before her, remarking on the soft features of the face, in what limited way a wolf can appreciate the beauty of a not quite girl.

The wolf's nose can't resist the pull of what resides between those supple legs. Gently she laps at the blood.

Now the sweet tender flesh has been tasted any lingering restraint melts away. The wolf mounts the body, penetrating it with her throbbing cock, no longer in control of its senses it pounds away making dull wet slapping sounds in the silence of the night.

It's not the wolf's fault of course, this is what the body was designed for, what it was made for. No beast, be it man or otherwise, could resist such precious innocence. That's what we make the not quite girls for in the end, right? So we can give in to lust without guilt.

There are still small mercies, as the body clings to life, the wolf quickly becomes overwhelmed with pleasure, locking her seed deep within the body's long abused hole.

She instinctively knew what to do next, sinking her teeth into the soft throat and beginning to devour.

This final act would seal their fates, all by design of the not quite girl who'd carefully planned and laid out her trap.

As her tenderised flesh was consumed, still alive, still conscious throughout the evening's procedures, she felt her connection with the wolf grow.

The infinitesimally small and undetectable copper wires thread throughout her muscles and sinew began to spread from the wolf's stomach and out into its much stronger deadlier body.

"This form will do" she thought, "this form will do nicely”

As their bodies became entwined inside and out its form began to change. Bones cracked, tendons ripped, blood vessels burst. The wolf's legs extended, padded paws deforming into finger-like talons, their spine and hips shattered and crumpled as they formed their new shape.

More human than beast, but much more beast than human, the not quite wolf not quite girl stood upright and howled in agony as its final form settled into place.

They couldn't hurt her now. They couldn't give in to their deepest, most depraved desires. No, that right belonged to her now.

She knew where to go first. Back where it all began. Back to her family home

[revelisms]

black-wing devil, with heaven in your hands?

Ugh this FIC.

So this is a very unfinished idea that I've been tinkering with for a while. It sits somewhere in my scraps and doves AU and is essentially a big comparison piece on Silco's and Vi's perceptions of Vander.

I have a lot of thoughts on what all Vander represented to these two, mainly because they are introduced as the ones who were closest to him, and have been set up through the series to be antagonists for each other as a result of that closeness. This is not only because their memories of Vander directly conflict with each other (Silco remembers the Hound, their leader, a fighter: a violent, ruthless and awe-worthy man; Vi remembers a father and mentor, a loving but pacified man shackled by his own shame)—but also because their perceptions of Powder/Jinx.

Vi only sees Powder: the little sister who was her responsibility to protect, who she believes she failed, and who Silco "made" into Jinx—this chilling killer, this wrathful girl, this broken thing she no longer recognizes.

On the flip side, Silco only sees Jinx: the child he's taken in, who has found strength and potential in the identity she has chosen to reclaim for herself. He sees Vi as the root of her demons: the reason for her self-doubt and shame—and Powder, to him (as he understands through Jinx's own resentment of what "Powder" meant, to herself) is the manifestation of all of that.

But then we get to Vander—and things get complicated for these two. Because they both knew him, followed him, felt supported by him, loved him.

They have such an immediate point of connection, here. But, still, their ideas of him are conflicting. Rooted in their own memory and regrets.

Silco sees what-never-was, what-could-have-been. He sees a younger, weaker part of himself, who poured so much into a man who turned his back on him. And he's bitter about that. Vander is no longer a happy memory, for him—but still, it's one he cherishes.

A metal-kissed sucker-punch, draped in silvered cinnamon plumes. Woodpolish and mint on blood-scraped nails, and hellfire, and hate, plowing off one's breath like a beast. A shell of gentleness, fine as gossamer, wrapped around a rage inexorable as a gas leak. That, to him, was Vander. His bloodless brother, brother-in-arms, brawny arms laced within his sinewed own; his hands clapping to his back, his laughter the kind that boomed like a bomb blast; his liquor-sweetened jeers and palms heavy through the hair at his nape, rough-tumbled tenderness threading a blistered rope of want. (Oh, to what end did he dare to desire?—for his faith, trust, deliverance; to believe those hands would carry their city to freedom, and his wretched self along with it? That every snare and grab and crack of knuckles and bone meant that the years he'd spent breaking had made a forge, and not a coffin? That those same hands laced around his throat, crushing his bones through his voicebox, stifling the oxygen from his veins, had come from some bastardization of love, and not a lifetime of hatred? No. Hope was a young man's game. Reality had sunk its teeth in at seventeen, and chewed at whatever scraps of it were left. Nine years, and it had torn the sinew from the bone.)

(As a sidenote—all of this originally started as a backstory for how Silco and Vander met, which has since found its way into a few different ficlets here, here and here.)

With Vi, though, we get the opposite side of the coin. Her memories of Vander are warm and pleasant, and a part of her life she misses, desperately. There are things she regrets from it, too, and things she resents him for—but he was a light, for her. He was her everything.

Warmth, and smiles, and laughter: the kind that lit up one's soul with the glow of a thousand suns, that turned heads and filled rooms end-to-end. Orange zest in his pipe, and mint in his tea. The scent of woodpolish and tobacco on his clothes, smoke stuck on the tufts of his hair, a sweetened dust cloud filling her lungs when he'd toss her over his shoulder. That, to her, was Vander. Not Dad—but something. Unavoidable, irreplaceable, magnetic. Hers. Someone she understood. Who understood her. So many of her nights had found her slumped at that bar, bandages wrapped over her knuckles and him hunched across from her, his quiet scoldings peppering the rough gentleness of his hands: Can't have you goin' out like this, every night. You've got a good head on your shoulders, kiddo—but you need to be more careful. She'd hiss back at that, her chin pillowed on her palm: They came at me, first! or I did what you said to do! or You weren't there—you didn't hear what they said to Powder! He'd always smile, in the strangest way—like the pride and the shame in it was battling him, in turns. He'd lay a heavy hand about her forearm, and squeeze. I know.

The real thread of commentary underlying this is that, in his own way, Vander ultimately made these two who and what they are—and, even in his absence, they both are still striving for his approval; trying to be what he would have wanted.

(The irony, of course, is that neither of them know what that would be, really. They're both too wrapped up in their own assumptions, guilts, etc. to try to unpack the "why" around all of it.

But there's so much potential here for them to find some common ground with each other—to share both sides of Vander, the Hound and the man who set down the gauntlets, and maybe, just maybe, even find some semblance of peace and fatherhood in each other, again.

Will they, though...? Ehh.)

[rhetoricandlogic]

'The Candy House' is a brilliant portrait of intersecting lives

April 6, 20226:28 AM ET

Annalisa Quinn

I drew a character map while reading Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, just for the pleasure of charting the swooping, kaleidoscopic intersections of parents and children (and cousins and tennis partners and drug dealers) of a central set of people first introduced in her 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Mapping people in relation to each other is one of the central activities of characters in these novels — anthropologists, publicists, anxious high schoolers, or employees of social media companies all seem to be asking, What makes people matter to each other? And can you predict or control it, either for love or for profit?

A Visit from the Goon Squad first introduced Mindy, a beautiful 23-year-old anthropology student on safari with the much older record executive Lou Kline and some of his family and hangers-on. In her narration of the safari, she breaks down the group's reactions to her presence with deadpan, diagnostic precision: The "Structural Hatred" of an older woman "who wears high-collared shirts to conceal the already thready sinews of her neck" for an older man's younger girlfriend; or the "Structural Affection," of that man's young son, who "hasn't yet learned to separate his father's loves and desires from his own."

In The Candy House, Mindy has become Miranda Kline, a reclusive, brilliant anthropologist who after years living among a remote tribe in Brazil developed algorithms predicting "patterns of affinity," that is, "what made people like and trust one another."

To the dismay of Miranda (MK to her tech bro disciples), these algorithms have been weaponized by social media companies — especially Mandala, a company led by Bix Boulton, a minor Goon Squad character, reborn as the mononymous social media mogul "Bix." His biggest innovation is a product called "Own Your Unconscious," which allows you to externalize your mind and revisit your past whenever you want.

But it is one of the "ancillary features" of "Own Your Unconscious" that has upended society in The Candy House. The "Collective Consciousness" works like this: "By uploading all or part of your externalized memory to an online 'collective,' you gained proportionate access to the anonymous thoughts and memories of everyone in the world, living or dead, who had done the same."

(Sidenote: These fictional products raise obvious and enormous questions about truth and subjectivity in memory, not to mention the brain itself — would watching your past be like a movie? Does your brain retain all the details of everything you've ever seen? Do different people remember the past differently, and if so, which versions are "true"? Hilariously, Egan bypasses these questions entirely and unapologetically.)

These two linked technologies are both inconceivably invasive and basically familiar — our phones are in certain ways already our externalized consciousnesses (philosophers talk about "extended mind theory" — that our cognitive processes increasingly happen externally as well as internally), and the Collective is a kind of exponential internet. The phrase "the candy house" (as in Hansel and Gretel) refers to the (also deeply familiar) Faustian bargain of convenience and connection for loss of privacy.

Egan makes the appeal of the Collective Conscious extravagantly obvious: In addition to the clear benefits (victims of child abuse being able to identify their abusers, missing people easily located), there is eternal appeal of entering someone else's consciousness, a longing threading through human culture from the myth of Tiraseus to the terrible teen movie Freaky Friday to the project of fiction itself.

Mandala's inventions feel especially poignant in Egan's fictional worlds, which are so densely populated by addicts and alcoholics. These are people who don't own their pasts, in either the sense of literally remembering them, or in the sense of feeling any agency in the events of their lives. So often her characters are unable to understand or accept what happened, those crucial, ill-understood moments when everything went awry. Far from being cartoonishly evil, an obvious wrong, "Own Your Unconscious" has deep instinctive appeal. This is characteristic of Egan, who isn't interested in moral problems with obvious answers.

In The Candy House, there is a persistent, lovely countermelody to the corporate project of mapping human experience and using it to predict what people will think and buy. The novel is full of people engaged in a kind of sweeter and more plaintive human algebra. I haven't recently read a gentler or funnier description of longing than in one chapter here in which a "senior empiricist and metrics expert" named Lincoln tries to determine what will make his crush, "M", fall in love with him.

Lincoln (also a Goon Squad character) has already analyzed the roots of M's charm (including "four primary freckles on her nose and approximately twenty-four secondary freckles"), and evaluated the competition (of which "fully half possess at least one possibly-to-likely-disqualifying personal trait"). But what remains elusive is "x: the unknown value required to secure M's love." Maybe x is a stuffed hippo, or a music box, or "some really long tulips that are actually made of silk." He begins accumulating items.

Lincoln's is perhaps the most literal attempt to predict and control patterns of behavior, but so many characters are engaged in it in one form or another, like Molly, a lonely teenager at a country club trying to identify the elusive quality of cool, which she lacks: "…if you're nice to everyone, then why should people near you feel special and why should people NOT near you WANT to be near you, and why should anyone assume that the Times they are having without you are worse than the Times they would be having with you?"

Another character is working to "algebraize" storytelling, identifying and separating stock elements of a story so that, presumably, they can be assembled without human help: "stockblocks" include "Funny Best Friend Gets Serious to Talk Sense into Protagonist," "Blurred Faces Lean Over Protagonist, Gradually Sharpening," "Makeover Montage Followed by Gaping Reaction Shots," etc.

It's parody, of course, but Egan doesn't discount the power of stockblocks either. Her last chapter is a sepia-tinted description of a young boy's unlikely game-winning homerun, seemingly assembled of the most stock of stock elements (bases loaded, homerun from underdog, crowd goes wild, proud father claps shoulder). This is an author endlessly capable of experimentation (Egan shocked readers in 2010 with a chapter written as a PowerPoint presentation, quaint as it might sound now). But ending on something so straightforwardly conventional — so formulaic — feels not like a copout but rather like a winking flex, a master pianist infusing unexpected feeling into Chopsticks. It is moving, somehow, both despite and because of its familiarity.

Besides, while chopping stories up into tiny moveable parts sounds like something out of a tech dystopia, folklorists have been doing it for centuries. (In the "Aarne and Thompson Type Index" classification of folk tale elements, the first iteration of which was published in 1910, the Hansel and Gretel formula is "ATU Tale Type 327A"). We tell the same stories again and again; the beauty lies in the details.

It calls to mind something Lincoln, the "senior empiricist and metrics expert" notes, in defense of his attempts to organize the world into comprehensible categories and patterns. Quantifiability, he thinks, "doesn't make human life any less remarkable, or even (this is counterintuitive, I know) less mysterious — any more than identifying the rhyme scheme in a poem devalues the poem itself."

[overmorrowrpg]

PHILIA CHAYA — 31, NB — INFORMATION BROKER.

WHEN YOU DIE, WHO WILL STAKE CLAIM TO YOU? The sum total of your existence began in darkness. It is in darkness that you will depart this part of your life as well, casting aside one heart for another, eyes always watching for the door. But do not think that you are a thing unto yourself— you have always been a tool of Valdrada, one thread in the vast tapestry that its Demarch weaves. Your mother (though she bears the title only by name, never blood) told you that you were worth your weight in gold. She is the one who scratched the first mask into your face, taught you how to turn a stare into a weapon, perfumes into poison. She loved you and she hollowed you, ever for her own ends. BUT NEVER FORGET THIS: a tool can enact violence against the holder, if held incorrectly. A tool can hurt. A tool can be given personality. But a tool is still a thing made, a thing wielded. A tool ought not become a person. However valuable, it can always be replaced, like a strand of pearls scattered and resewn. This mask you have worn is your oldest, may even be your favorite, if given the choice. BUT IS IT YOU? You have stuck with the whole of them for your own reasons, your own dealings, but when strings pull across the waters, when home calls you, will you return? Or will you become a things divided? Once they told you that your heart beat only gasoline— but now it seems to run thick with blood.

CONNECTIONS.

LUDUS —ARE YOU THE DEER THAT DOESN’T WANT TO FLEE / AND TURNS TO GIVE THE HUNTER HER WILD HEART?

TWO MIRRORS MIGHT KNOW EACH OTHER LIKE LOVERS. LUDUS is a fool. This much is clear. LUDUS is a fool who lies like it is honey, like it is fun. They swallow lies whole, bare their teeth and grin. In another life, you might have cared for them. In another life, you might have been able to love them. But that is another world: this is your own. In this world, they sense your masks, scratch at them with eager claws. In this world, they trail you, waiting for the moment in which you falter. But you are made of sterner stuff than that. For all your heart pangs at the thought of them, you cannot falter. If you falter, what will happen to the carefully constructed lace that constitutes you?

AGAPE — HOW I HAVE KILLED TO LIVE AND LIVE / LIKE THIS, UNWELL, UNWELCOME AND UNMOORED.

You found them when they were a scrap. Half a heart, a morass of wordless void. As the thing that you once were, you cared little for them. Why would a tool care for a weapon? You saw them as less than you, wide-eyed wonder, foolish bravado. WHAT DOES A BLADE KNOW OF MASKS? But time, healer and maker of wounds, her hands unstitching and restitching the world, showed what they might be— something to be cultivated, something to be brought home. When you are called back (and you must be called back), could you bring them with you? Would you trade their life for your own?

PHILAUTIA — WE HAVE GROWN, I KNOW, IN THE SAME DARK GARDENS.

SOME HEARTS BEAT AS IF ONE. This is not an affection borne of desire, not a fondness driven by romantic need. When you think of them, you think of quiet moments spent on the roof, words traded with scant thought. You think of the way they that they glance though mask and skin and sinew to see whatever spirit flickers underneath. You think of rest and the way your body slips into quiet repose in their presence, the way that they can never quite do the same. To be a thing owned by something greater— this is something they understand, their hands twitching, salt water spilling from them. IT UNSETTLES YOU TO BE KNOWN. What does it mean to share this heart, this hurt? It is a frigid gasp of air, a comforting shock.

TAKEN BY LIA ✧ PRECIOUS LEE

[crimsonbathed]

Participating: @blackdirtinthestreet​ Location: The Forest, very, very near The Tree.

Bitter cold nights were no more. Piles upon piles of pelts and petals no longer needed to stay warm within her own home. Delicate digits shook off the numbing sensation that had been holding them prisoner. Outside frozen creeks had thawed, the music of the waters never ending life returned to fill the air. Crickets chirping along with the islands natural music. Humming that traveled through the ground and up through the small folks soles, to her very core. Electrifying. War drums being played could not produce such a soul striking sound. To hear the islands life returning, was to experience the rebirth of something grand. A second coming of a prophet. The giants tended to overlook the sounds of the island, at least, the ones that weren’t made by wolves. It seemed as though their minds were always far too preoccupied to drink in the beauty, the voice of the island as it communicated, going to waste on the gangling creatures. Such beautiful music, missed out on. Tonight, the forest surrounding the tree was abuzz with such lovely melodies. Chaotic, unorganized and clambering together. Giants banging things together just for the sake of making noise. It wasn’t always the best, but they certainly infused the air with a special, delicious energy. The Lost Boys were having a fire, and it could be heard by those who dared venture close enough to share in their pleasant tunes.

Carrion had set up her own pit. Oh how long it had been since she listened to the boys playing their music. Pan’s pipes were always the best part. Easy on the ears and enchanting. Drums thumped, causing the night to feel more alive than it had in so very long. Warmth enveloped the hunters body, greeting her like a lost lover with how it clung to her. Discovering each and every inch of her being as Carrion began to dance around her flame. The music of the Lost Boys guiding her through the motions. For a moment, she could almost remember what it felt like to dance with her old colony back in ‘The Other Place’, before their weak natures took control, spiraling them in to a horrid, delicate state. But here? Oh, here, the island begged for the wild to answer its call, and she was not one to ignore the whispers on the wind.

[ciaossu-imagines]

I'm sorry to hear that you've been getting negative stuff in your inbox! Folks need to remember that the number rule of fandom is to simply click away if they don't enjoy something. I think the magic of fandom is the creation of new content beyond canon and that everyone has their own interpretations of characters. I love how much thought and effort you put into your interpretations and that you're not afraid to break away from popular opinion! It's also wonderful and refreshing how much you celebrate sexuality (although I get it's not for everyone)! You add treasures to each fandom you contribute to and I hope you continue to do so for as long as it brings you joy

Okay, but can I just say how absolutely beautifully written this is? This is so amazingly said and I agree so much with a lot of your points! I won’t be quite as eloquent in my replies, but bear with me!

 I agree so strongly about the magic of fandom. The truth is, everyone views the media with their own biases in place, so we all arrive at different interpretations of characters, of relationships, of interactions. And that’s a truly beautiful, wonderful thing because it really does mean that everyone…everyone will find their own people in fandom. Everyone will find things and other fans and writers and artists that they connect to in fandoms. And I do realize that this is harder for people to do in a lot of the fandoms I write for because…they are small. They’re older, mostly inactive and kept afloat only because of small groups of die-hard fans. So, there’s not always a million places to find your people anymore. But they are out there. If my writing isn’t doing it for you, or you’re uncomfortable with my views on characters or with things I post on this blog, it’s as simple as not interacting with it. With not reading or unfollowing or looking away. If you can’t find other active blogs for the fandom you’re following me for…start your own. Even if you’re just reblogging art or old posts or just throwing up your own ramblings on the characters or sharing your OC’s – all of my fandoms have that wonderful, amazing group of die-hard fans and you will find your people that way.

That being said, thank you so incredibly much. Those compliments were…really impactful. I have never really thought of all of my little ramblings on here as treasures and to have them referred to as such gave me that automatic ‘you’re giving me way too much credit, my stuff isn’t all that great’ reaction because self-esteem? That bitch ain’t no friend of mine. But that really touched me, gorgeous, and it meant a lot to me.

I have no plans on disappearing again, no matter how sad or unmotivated I might get or how many rude anons I get. To be honest, every fandom I write for, I write for because of how much the characters and the stories have meant to me, have become fixtures in my life and how, pitiful as this may sound, these characters have really felt like…friends, true, constant, unjudging friends. To quote Tahereh Mafi, “In the absence of human relationships, I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thought and images all together. I am a being compromised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” To stop creating for these characters, to let these fandoms just…die? It would leave me grieving the death of friends, to say nothing of how much fandoms and all you lovely readers have shaped me and influenced me and made my life richer and still continue to do so. All of you, this blog, these characters, they have all become my safe place and until tumblr kicks me off, I’ll always be here for the characters and for each and every one of you constant readers.

[scarletooyoroi]

You haven't begun to even reach the surface of your potential. Dive deeper. Isn't it within your Vision that your desire for a particular future is created? What does the fire within speak to you?

Warmth that burns. A force that coalesces the very thermal energy imbued in the material realm, and by other means, manifests in the spirit. While the mind could only hope to comprehend so much, the consciousness, for all of its endless bounty, it speaks. It takes part as the sole source of human sense that guides him within the roaming waves of the unknown that his spirit experiences.

Sensations that embrace touch and the innate understanding of the might called emotion.

For as much as the beautiful and the secure is adored. Thoma is well aware that the gritted, bitter edges of fate time and time again played a priceless part in molding this pool of chaos that slept within the depths of his soul. His plucked path of experiences, people met, routes taken, so much of his high risk to the tender moments that garnered a resolve in the name of protecting it, prolonging the life of this world he intends to live in.

It makes a profound stirring beat of the heart echo deep within. Just as he can drink in the sensation of his body warming, of hot, lashing stirs of flame striking indiscriminately with its practice flow against muscle and sinew, within that moment does he actually decide to open his eyes, captivated by the billowing orange color that brightened the underside of his eye lids. Vision would encompass the wrath of an endless field of immolating fire before his eyes.

What strikes a chord is the innate sense of familiarity that this pit of reality derives. Emotions, fiercely familiar, tenderly known, it felt as if the further his body floats within this realm that connects to the heart within this dream, the knowledge that what he sees searing before him is the very weight he's come to carry. It doesn't find peace or solace within, remaining as a gentle light within his heart, similar to the authority he grasps in order to bring his will to the world, it burns.

What finds kindle and spark is fire that doesn't find its true calling within the natural order given. Infused within each lulling stir of scarlet and golden would be consciousness, energy that assimilates and contently conforms into a new language of power.

This particular will threads itself intimately with one of the primordial powers of this world.

"What it says.." Each word finds itself pridefully gritted as his restrained intensity bursts free. The great hall of fire that would happily draw any into the fate of ash and cinders instead welcomes him, each dangerous burst and pop of the high heat being a welcomed serenade to the one imbued with Pyro. While he isn't entirely sure on what the final answer will be etched as, the indomitable will within roars with an untamed sense of freedom. Grasping this eye of divinity away from his mouth, within his grip does it begin to violently stir with continuous bursts of scarlet energy, bright beams that divide the path into that abyssal sight of the unknown ahead.

Thoma can feel the way this edge of creation shudders and groans in pure recognition, how this sight serves both as a mirror and a fearful dive. He doesn't intend on letting his fate become another morsel devoured by calamitous circumstance.

The path ahead is what he'll forge through blood, effort and fire. "Strength like mine will perform what it intends to do, right to the end that I create."

Become tempered.

[adndmonsteraday]

Green hags, called shellycoats when they lived near rivers or swamps, were the most common types of hags, foul crones known for their deceitful ways and corrupting natures. Like dark druids, they were vile beings with a strong connection to the natural world, and they preyed upon primal vices in order to sow anguish and drag all down into bestial savagery.

“I thought myself clever, that I would be able to outmaneuver her. I once bested a glabrezu — surely I could handle a Green Hag? And she let me believe it. Until she sprung her trap.” — Elizabeth B. Soot from "A Brush with Evil: On Hags"

Of all the hags, green hags were the least physically menacing, their resemblance to regular humans serving to make them more unnerving than imposing. Though their typical bodily figure was that of a withered and hunched female, they could run the entire spectrum of body types and stretch into the extremes of both ends, some being skeletally gaunt and others morbidly obese.

Without certain indicators, green hags would simply appear as human crones, but even then their skilled use of illusory disguises could hide these tell-tale signs. If not magically camouflaging their true forms, the most obvious feature of a green hag, as the name implied, was the pallid green color of their rough, bark-like skin. Knobby, cancerous protrusions often marked their flesh, some hidden by the ragged peasant rags they typically wore.

A green hag's visage was normally blemished with warts and exaggerated facial features and ringed by a tangled mane of vine-like hair, ranging in color somewhere between moldy olive green and a near-black shade of dark. Below their eyes, either orange or amber colored, were needle-sharp fangs as pointed as their claws, black or yellow talons covered in filth that grew from typically slender fingers.

“Teeth! Teeth! I’ll tie your teeth to my necklace with thread from your sinews!” — Korrigan, green hag of the Mistmarsh

Tragedy was the greatest delight of the green hags, the act of dashing hope and replacing it with despair bringing them no small amount of glee. This was because out of all the hags, a cruel race with a natural need for misery and murder, green hags were the ones driven most strongly by hate. The pure, unbridled malice of green hags was unrivaled by that of their sister subraces; dreams of destruction dominated their thoughts and they showed an apathy to suffering on par with that of a predator.

Green hags were reported to have several spell-like abilities used to mislead, such as dancing lights, ghost sound and more utility based powers like speak with monsters and water breathing. They could also disguise themselves, their clothes and their possessions to appear as anything else of similar shape, such as the form of a young woman or elderly lady or the form of an individual they had seen before. If disguises weren't enough, they could render themselves invisible and incapable of being tracked or manipulate their prey unseen by mimicking the noises of humans and animals, although manufactured sounds and the depths of speech were typically beyond their capabilities.

As the most tolerant of hags, green hags were capable infiltrating the humanoid civilizations that they wished to terrorize and destroy, even occasionally joining adventuring parties to complete their goals. They could and did blend into urban settlements more frequently and efficiently than other hags, sometimes hunting their prey directly in their homes rather than in their own environments. Covens of green hags, including covens including other types and covens exclusively of their own kind, were formed far more regularly than those of other hags.

Outside of their own race, they were known to have affinity with the alien malice of the will-o'-wisps, put aside their spite to ally with evil druids, and deal with the less intelligent creatures like ogres and hill giants to obtain information, food, and protection in exchange for random trinkets they stole from their victims. Regardless, any green hag partnership, whether framed as an alliance or master-servant relationship and possibly with the green hag in the servant role, lasted only until the hag stopped benefiting or could take control.

There was known to be a unique creation myth in regards to the green hags, one that stood out given that it was told by dozens of races with little change. Most commonly referred to as Green Mary, but known by elves as Kiersana the Unfaithful and to orcs as Grigga Toegnawer, her story sent shivers down the spines of the children of all races. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful druid of the woodlands known as Green Mary who protected the hundreds of miles of wilderness that was her domain. She dwelt in the heart of the forest worshiping nature spirits and upholding their ancient laws in a symbiotic relationship of servitude and protection with the wildlife, until one day a powerful hunter arrived. He chopped down trees to make weapons in order to hunt the animals for sport, and the whispers of the forest sought vengeance against him for his recklessness, yet both Mary and the hunter became enraptured by each other's beauty, leading her to disobey its commands.

Source: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Green_hag

[musicarenagh]

Nolo Grace's Celestial Flight: 'Eyes of the Dragon' As if stirred from the ancient depths of a mythic sea, Nolo Grace's "Eyes of the Dragon" breathes fire into the cool caverns of indie electro-pop. Each note and beat cast shadows that flicker with the dual hues of introspection and transformation, like candlelight dancing against the walls of a forgotten temple. Here is music writhing in its own digital scales, enigmatic yet intensely familiar. https://open.spotify.com/track/1ZlZXrm1BoltoPXA33sTL2?si=e610f6379d324044 The essence borrows from her Korean-American roots intertwined with haunting memories from a turbulent childhood; woven seamlessly into melodies as they flutter around your ears like delicate silk caught in a breeze. It's as though Grace pulls at sinews connecting past pains to present liberties ᅳ her voice an alchemy changing base leaden experiences into golden threads spinning through time. Under Martin Wave's audial wizardry, electronic beats pulse as heartbeats syncing with our deepest fears and desires. The composition conjures images where light sporadically pierces through crevices within oneself revealing layers after layers - each layer telling tales about who we were in one verse, who we might become another chorus down. [caption id="attachment_56248" align="alignnone" width="1365"] Nolo Grace's Celestial Flight: 'Eyes of the Dragon'[/caption] "Eyes Of The Dragon" thus dances elegantly on this tightrope stretched over vast emotional landscapes charting out zones never plotted before on musical maps. It tantalizes us to question what lurks beneath our stoic exteriors: are there flames craving oxygen or oceans begging for shores? In shortᅳNolo Grace infiltrates us, woos us skywards then lets go abruptly only for gravity to snatch back reality… but not without giving wings first so next time maybe we'll learn how to fly by ourselves amid storms harvesting transformations! Follow Nolo Grace on Website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.