#Gout-Free

[kansasjustgotgayer]

I reallly need to say no more often

[dare-g]

[hans-wh0re]

A.N: this is a drabble that m thinking of expanding as a fic

"Fuck, that's it baby..." Hyunjin rasped out in a low, filthy growl that made you shudder. His scorching gaze raked over your lewd display through the phone's lens - spine in a debauched arch, mouth fallen slack with blissed-out moans as you eagerly speared yourself on his thick length again and again.

The harsh smacking of skin on skin reverberated through the room in tandem with your desperate, cloying whimpers. Each time you ground your asscheeks flush against his pelvis, Hyunjin's cock would split you apart with that soul-shattering *stretch* that had stars bursting behind your screwed-shut eyelids.

"Nnghh...that slutty little cunt just can't get enough, huh?" he rasped out, voice gone rough with lust. "Taking my cock like you were made for it."

Hyunjin shifted positions then, grabbing a fistful of your sweat-damp locks to wrench your head back at a punishing angle. You gurgled out a pitchy whine past your spit-slick lips as he brought the phone up unbearably close, the lens zeroing in on your ruined, slack-jawed expression with sadistic focus.

"Look at you..." he sneered in dark gratification, studying your glazed, vacant features. "Such a desperate cum-hungry slut. Is this what you wanted? To be my personal fuck-puppet while i records just how much of a messy little whore you are?"

Despite his cruel vitriol, you could only keen out a shuddering, mewling whimper of bliss. Lost in a hedonistic vortex of sensation, you mindlessly shoved your hips back to impale yourself in one long, shuddering grind on the punishing density of his cock.

Hyunjin hissed out a harsh breath through gritted teeth at the feeling of your abused, sloppy hole fluttering and clenching around him in spasming milks. That iron-hard length somehow managed to split you open even wider as he surged in with a vicious snap of his hips. Thick ropes of your essence immediately started to dribble free in vulgar gouts, trickling down over your puffy folds to soak the bedsheets beneath you both.

"That's right you little whore..." he growled, nostrils flaring. Using his grip in your hair, Hyunjin pulled your face up and forced you to meet the camera's gaze while he treated you like a twisted little pocket pussy.

"Give the people what they want. Drool all over yourself while i utterly ruins this messy fuckhole..."

He punctuated the threat with a series of harsh, pounding jackhammer thrusts that instantly punched a shrill, gurgling wail past your swollen lips. Drool collected obscenely at the corners of your mouth as your eyes rolled back in delirious rapture - you were completely gone, nerves thrumming from the onslaught of sensation.

Everything became a spiraling vortex of feral rutting, filthy squalor, and erotic bliss. Hyunjin's physique glistened with a sweat-sheened sheen as he plowed into your squelching, convulsing cunt with relentless, animalistic fervor. The room filled with a cacophony of your pitchy howls, his rough grunts, and the lewd wet sounds of your essence being messily reamed.

The camera (and subsequently Hyunjin's burning stare) didn't miss a single degrading second - greedily capturing every graphic detail of your debauched defilement. And still you craved more, grinding back to meet his brutal thrusts with wanton keening whines.

Stars exploded across your vision as Hyunjin buried himself in one last cruel, obliterating grind that had you choking out a ragged, open-mouthed sob. He held you there impaled on the swollen, pulsating crest of his cock as rich, viscous ropes of seed immediately began pumping into your abused, fluttering hole.

"That's it, sweetheart...fucking milk me..." he snarled against the sweaty nape of your neck, voice utterly guttural with possession. "Take every fucking drop like the filthy cumdump you are..."

[see-arcane]

I have been possessed by a stronger than average craving for tinkering with Jonathan Harker's genders (Jonders). Jonathan Harker is undeniably and forever my favorite gothic heroine. But, being that there is so much to chew on regarding his potential fluidity when it comes to gender roles within the story--the classic damsel, the willingly submissive half of the couple, the vengeful berserker, etc--it's got me thinking.

Let's take the metaphor out. What would happen to the Dracula narrative if Jonathan Harker was...

First thing's first--she almost definitely gets shouldered out of the Important Solicitor's position due to reasons of Being Girl. But she still has to get to Transylvania to be menaced by Count Bat Bastard. How?

Hawkins! Johanna is working at the firm as a secretary and personal assistant to a still very paternally mushy old Peter Hawkins. When Dracula's request comes around, he can't give up such a lucrative client over his gout and there's no one he trusts to pass it to. He has to go. And it'd only be right to treat his surrogate daughter to a paid scenic vacation have his aide along on the business trip. Especially when she hunted down Carfax Abbey herself! What a lovely outing they'll have.

...or not.

True to form, Count Dracula is very much not to be trusted around pretty young things of any kind. Considering his canon habits, things aren't about to go any easier for Miss Harker. But at least she has Hawkins watching out for her in-person! It all makes for some very tense talk when discussing anything other than the estate purchase; which Hawkins seems as keen to rush as Dracula is to dawdle over. But at least they'll be out of here soon. What's a couple of awkward nights, right?

One in particular has Johanna nervous as she goes to bed. Hawkins had taken Dracula aside with a hard smile, insisting there was a 'delicate matter' he wished to speak with the Count about. The last time a 'delicate matter' was brought up was when he nearly lobbed a typewriter at one of his ex-solicitor's heads for some distinctly unseemly behavior in her direction. She hopes there isn't a storm brewing under their host's roof. She hopes harder that tomorrow they'll be heading back to the Borgo Pass.

Instead:

Oh.

Oh no.

Between this and one requisite nightmare-week in which the joys of womanhood come and go--let's leave it unspoken whether her set of bloodstained cloths stay in her possession or not--Johanna gets put through the wringer. Per usual. But eventually..!

Yeah. No shock there. Deep calming breaths, Jack. Don't let the wonderful diary concuss you.

Part of being one of two (gasp) G I R L S in the Scooby Gang, Van Helsing and company vote Johanna and Mina out of the dirt hunt. Except. Well. Johanna is still necessary to have on the ground here. She's the only one with the location intel--and a surprise willed gift of inheritance and the firm from poor Hawkins, who the Transylvanian locals all vouch for as being 'slain by wolves,' leaving Johanna free of blame--so she's still running around for the crew.

Even so, odds are high that she initially gets sidelined with Mina. Which isn't overly awful. It is good to be side-by-side in this timeline! No needless sequestering from each other! Johanna is already planning to see Mina back to their new house before they have to sleep another night in an asylum.

And then comes the 3rd of October.

Van Helsing: "Madam Harker, is it not somewhat attention-catching to wear trousers in public? We are meant to be unremarkable while we wait on th--"

Johanna, has already smoked through two cigars, kukri in her lap, playing a game of chicken with God: "Do you think I scaled a mountain in three layers of skirts, Professor? No? Then I will not do the same if the rancid bastard tries to escape out the window."

Van Helsing, aside: "Friend John, can you speak sense to her?"

Jack, melting off the side of the bench: "I think I hauve consumption"

Anyway. She very much does get to the Dracula head chopping. And there will be much rejoicing. BUT all that grimdarkness aside, there are other, more hijinks-flavored opportunities to think of with this particular set up. If only because I genuinely believe that Lucy and Art, having two spare best friends on hand and a general vibe that radiates 'ooooh what if triple wedding???', would come up with the following master plan. Some truly Shakespearean folly kind of shit:

Thankfully, Johanna and Mina nix the idea pretty quick. Case in point:

And, last but not least, my final word on the range of Jonders that exist within my very best gothic heroine friend:

ha ha I do that

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall-free version

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, what began as a fringe experiment has quickly become central to the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness. To Justin Tyler Jr., it is home.

Mr. Tyler, 41, lives in Community First! Village, which aims to be a model of permanent affordable housing for people who are chronically homeless. In the fall of 2022, he joined nearly 400 residents of the village, moving into one of its typical digs: a 200-square-foot, one-room tiny house furnished with a kitchenette, a bed and a recliner.

The village is a self-contained, 51-acre community in a sparsely populated area just outside Austin. Stepping onto its grounds feels like entering another realm.

Eclectic tiny homes are clustered around shared outdoor kitchens, and neat rows of recreational vehicles and manufactured homes line looping cul-de-sacs.

There are chicken coops, two vegetable gardens, a convenience store, art and jewelry studios, a medical clinic and a chapel.

Roads run throughout, but residents mainly get around on foot or on an eight-passenger golf cart that makes regular stops around the property.

Mr. Tyler chose a home with a cobalt-blue door and a small patio in the oldest part of the village, where residents’ cactus and rock gardens created a “funky, hippie vibe” that appealed to him. He arrived in rough shape, struggling with alcoholism, his feet inflamed by gout, with severe back pain from nearly 10 years of sleeping in public parks, in vehicles and on street benches.

At first, he kept to himself. He locked his door and slept. He visited the clinic and started taking medication. After a month or so, he ventured out to meet his neighbors.

“For a while there, I just didn’t want to be seen and known,” he said. “Now I prefer it.”

Between communal meals and movie screenings, Mr. Tyler also works at the village, preparing homes for the dozen or more people who move there each month.

In the next few years, Community First is poised to grow to nearly 2,000 homes across three locations, which would make it by far the nation’s largest project of this kind, big enough to permanently house about half of Austin’s chronically homeless population.

Tiny-home villages for people who have been homeless have existed on a small scale for several decades, but have recently become a popular approach to addressing surging homelessness. Since 2019, the number of these villages across the country has nearly quadrupled, to 124 from 34, with dozens more coming, according to a census by Yetimoni Kpeebi, a researcher at Missouri State University.

Mandy Chapman Semple, a consultant who has helped cities like Houston transform their homelessness systems, said the growth of these villages reflects a need to replace inexpensive housing that was once widely available in the form of mobile home parks and single room occupancy units, and is rapidly being lost. But she said they are a highly imperfect solution.

“I think where we’re challenged is that ‘tiny home’ has taken on a spectrum of definitions,” said Chapman Semple. Many of those definitions fall short of housing standards, often lacking basic amenities like heat and indoor plumbing, which she said limits their ability to meet the needs of the population they intend to serve.

But Community First is pushing the tiny home model to a much larger scale. While most of its homes lack bathrooms and kitchens, its leaders see that as a necessary trade-off to be able to creatively and affordably house the growing number of people living on Austin’s streets. And unlike most other villages, many of which provide temporary emergency shelter in structures that can resemble tool sheds, Community First has been thoughtfully designed with homey spaces where people with some of the highest needs can stay for good. No other tiny home village has attempted to permanently house as many people.

Austin’s homelessness rate has been rapidly worsening, and the city’s response has whipped back and forth... In October [2023], the official estimate put the number of people living without shelter at 5,530, a 125 percent increase from two years earlier. Some of that rise is the result of better outreach, but officials acknowledged that more people have become homeless. City leaders vowed to build more housing, but that effort has been slowed by construction delays and resistance from residents.

Meanwhile, outside the city limits, Community First has been building fast. [Note from below the read more: It's outside city limits because the lack of zoning laws keeps more well-off Austin residents from blocking the project, as they did earlier attempts to build inside the city.] In a mere eight years, this once-modest project has grown into a sprawling community that the city is turning to as a desperately needed source of affordable housing. The village has now drawn hundreds of millions of dollars from public and private sources and given rise to similar initiatives across the country.

This rapid growth has come despite significant challenges. And some question whether a community on the outskirts of town with relaxed housing standards is a suitable way to meet the needs of people coming out of chronic homelessness. The next few years will be a test of whether these issues will be addressed or amplified as the village expands to five times its current size.

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024. Article continues below (at length!)

The community versus Community First

For Alan Graham, the expansion of Community First is just the latest stage in a long-evolving project. In the late 1990s, Mr. Graham, then a real estate developer, attended a Catholic men’s retreat that deepened his faith and inspired him to get more involved with his church. Soon after, he began delivering meals as a church volunteer to people living on Austin’s streets.

In 1998, Mr. Graham, now 67, became a founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit that has since amassed a fleet of vehicles that make daily rounds to deliver food and clothing to Austin’s homeless...

Talking to people like Mr. Johnston [a homeless Austin resident who Graham had befriended], Mr. Graham came to feel that housing alone was not enough for people who had been chronically homeless, the official term for those who have been homeless for years or repeatedly and have physical or mental disabilities, including substance-use disorders. About a third of the homeless population fits this description, and they are often estranged from family and other networks.

In 2006, Mr. Graham pitched an idea to Austin’s mayor: Create an R.V. park for people coming out of chronic homelessness. It would have about 150 homes, supportive services and easy access to public transportation. Most importantly, it would help to replace the “profound, catastrophic loss of family” he believed was at the root of the problem with a close-knit and supportive community.

The City Council voted unanimously in 2008 to lease Mr. Graham a 17-acre plot of city-owned land to make his vision a reality. Getting the council members on board, he said, turned out to be the easy part.

When residents near the intended site learned of the plan, they were outraged. They feared the development would reduce their property values and invite crime. One meeting to discuss the plan with the neighborhood grew so heated that Mr. Graham was escorted to his car by the police. Not a single one of the 52 community members in attendance voted in favor of the project.

After plans for the city-owned lot fell apart and other proposed locations faced similar resistance, Mr. Graham gave up on trying to build the development within city limits.

In 2012, he instead acquired a plot of land in a part of Travis County just northeast of Austin. It was far from public transportation and other services, but it had one big advantage: The county’s lack of zoning laws limited the power of neighbors to stop it.

Mr. Graham raised $20 million and began to build. In late 2015, Mr. Johnston left the R.V. park he had been living in and became the second person to move into the new village. It grew rapidly. In just two years, Mr. Graham bought an adjacent property, nearly doubling the village’s size to 51 acres and making room for hundreds more residents.

And then in the fall of 2022, he broke ground on the largest expansion yet: Adding two more sites to the village, expanding it by 127 acres to include nearly 2,000 homes.

“No one ever really did what they first did, and no one’s ever done what they’re about to do,” said Mark Hilbelink, the director of Sunrise Navigation Center, Austin’s largest homeless-services provider. “So there’s a little bit of excitement but also probably a little bit of trepidation about, ‘How do we do this right?’”

What it takes to make a village

Since he moved into Community First eight years ago, Mr. Johnston has found the stability that eluded him for so long. Most mornings, he wakes up early in his R.V., feeds his scruffy adopted terrier, Amos, and walks a few minutes down a quiet road to the village garden, where neat rows of carrots, leeks, beets and arugula await his attention.

Mr. Johnston worked in fast-food restaurants for most of his life, but he learned how to garden at the village. He now works full time cultivating produce for a weekly market that is free to residents.

“Once I got here, I said, This is where I’m going to spend pretty much my entire life now,” Mr. Johnston said.

Everyone at the village pays rent, which averages about $385 a month. The tiny homes that make up two-thirds of the dwellings go for slightly lower, but have no indoor plumbing; their residents use communal bathhouses and kitchens. The rest of the units are R.V.s and manufactured homes with their own bathrooms and kitchens.

Like Mr. Johnston, many residents have jobs in the village, created to offer residents flexible opportunities to earn some income. Last year, they earned a combined $1.5 million working as gardeners, landscapers, custodians, artists, jewelry makers and more, paid out by Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Ute Dittemer, 66, faced a daily struggle for survival during a decade on the streets before moving into Community First five years ago with her husband. Now she supports herself by painting and molding figures out of clay at the village art house, augmented by her husband’s $800 monthly retirement income. A few years ago, a clay chess set she made sold for $10,000 at an auction. She used the money to buy her first car.

“I’m glad that we are not in a low-income-housing apartment complex,” she said. “We’ve got all this green out here, air to breathe.”

A small number of residents have jobs off-site, and a city bus makes hourly stops at the village 13 times a day to help people commute into town.

But about four out of five residents live on government benefits like disability or Social Security. Their incomes average $900 a month, making even tiny homes impossible to afford without help, Mr. Graham said.

“Essentially 100 percent of the people that move into this village will have to be subsidized for the rest of their lives,” he said.

For about $25,000 a year, Mr. Graham’s organization subsidizes one person’s housing at the village. (Services like primary health care and addiction counseling are provided by other organizations.) So far, that has been paid for entirely by private donations and in small part from collecting rent.

This would not be possible, Mr. Graham said, without a highly successful fund-raising operation that taps big Austin philanthropists. To build the next two expansions, Mr. Graham set a $225 million fund-raising goal, about $150 million of which has already been obtained from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the founder of the Patrón Spirits Company, Hill Country Bible Church and others.

Support goes beyond monetary donations. A large land grant came from the philanthropic arm of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Alamo Drafthouse, an Austin-based cinema chain, donated an outdoor amphitheater for movie screenings. Top architectural firms competed for the chance to design energy-efficient tiny homes free of charge. And every week, hundreds of volunteers come to help with landscaping and gardening or to serve free meals.

Around 55 residents, including 15 children, live in the village as “missionals” — unpaid neighbors generally motivated by their Christian faith to be part of the community.

All missionals undergo a monthslong “discernment process” before they can move in. They pay to live in R.V.s and manufactured homes distinguished by an “M” in the front window. Their presence in the community is meant to guard against the pitfalls of concentrated poverty and trauma.

“Missionals are our guardian angels,” said Blair Racine, a 69-year-old resident with a white beard that hangs to his chest. “They’re people we can always call. They’re always there for us.”

After moving into the village in 2018, Mr. Racine spent two years isolated in his R.V. because of a painful eye condition. But after an effective treatment, he became so social that he was nicknamed the Mayor. Missional residents drive him to get his medication once a week, he said. To their children he is Uncle Blair.

Though the village is open to people of any religious background, it is run by Christians, and public spaces are adorned with paintings of Jesus on the cross and other biblical scenes. The application to live in the community outlines a set of “core values” that refer to God and the Bible. But Mr. Graham said there is no proselytizing and people do not have to be sober or seek treatment to live there.

Mr. Graham lives in a 399-square-foot manufactured home in the middle of the village with his wife, Tricia Graham, who works as the community’s “head of neighbor care.” He said they do not have any illusions about solving the underlying mental-health and substance-use problems many residents live with, and that is not their goal.

“This is absolutely not nirvana,” Mr. Graham said. “And we want people to understand the beauty and the complexity of what we do. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the face of the planet than right here in the middle of this, but you’re not fixing these things.” ...

From an experiment to a model

Community First has already inspired spinoffs, with some tweaks. In 2018, Nate Schlueter, who previously worked with the village’s jobs program, opened Eden Village in his hometown, Springfield, Mo. Unlike in Community First, every home in Eden Village is identical and has its own bathroom and kitchen. Mr. Schlueter’s model has spread to 12 different cities with every village limited to 50 homes or fewer.

“Not every city is Austin, Texas,” Mr. Schlueter said. “We don’t want to build a large-scale village. And if the root cause of homelessness is a loss of family, and community is something that can duplicate that safety net to some extent, to have smaller villages to me seemed like a stronger community safety net. Everybody would know each other.”

The rapid growth of Community First has challenged that ideal. In recent years, some of the original missional residents and staff members have left, finding it harder to support the number of people moving into the village. Steven Hebbard, who lived and worked at the village since its inception, left in 2019 when he said it shifted from a “tiny-town dynamic” where he knew everyone’s name to something that felt more like a city, straining the supportive culture that helped people succeed.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes said more staff members had recently been hired to help new residents adjust, but Mr. Graham noted that there was a limit to what any housing provider could do without violating people’s privacy and autonomy.

Despite these concerns, the organization, which had been run entirely on private money, has recently drawn public support. In January 2023, Travis County gave Mobile Loaves and Fishes $35 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to build 640 units as part of its expansion.

Then four months later came a significant surprise: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the use of federal housing vouchers, which subsidize part or all of a low-income resident’s rent, for the village’s tiny homes. This will make running the village much more financially sustainable, Mr. Graham said, and may make it a more replicable blueprint for other places.

“That’s a big deal for us, and it’s a big deal on a national basis,” Mr. Graham said. “It’s a recognition that this model, managed the way that this model is, has a role in the system.”

Usually, the government considers homes without indoor plumbing to be substandard, but, in this case, it made an exception by applying the housing standards it uses for single-room-occupancy units. The village still did not meet the required ratio of bathrooms per person, but at the request of Travis County and the City of Austin’s housing officials, who cited Austin’s “severe lack of affordable housing” that made it impossible for some homeless people with vouchers to find anywhere else to live, HUD waived its usual requirements.

In the waiver, a HUD staffer wrote that Mr. Graham told HUD officials over the phone that the proportion of in-unit bathrooms “has not been an issue.” But in conversations with The Times, other homeless-service providers in Austin and some village residents said the lack of in-unit bathrooms is one of the biggest problems people have with living there. It also makes the villages less accessible to people with certain disabilities and health issues that are relatively common among the chronically homeless....

Mr. Graham said that with a doctor’s note, people could secure an R.V. or manufactured home at the village, although those are in short supply and have a long waiting list. He said the village’s use of tiny homes allowed them to build at a fraction of the usual cost when few other options existed, and helps ensure residents aren’t isolated in their units, reinforcing the village’s communal ethos.

“If somebody wants to live in a tiny home they ought to have the choice,” Mr. Graham said, “and if they are poor we ought to respect their civil right to live in that place and be subsidized to live there.” But he conceded that for some people, “this might not be the model.”

“Nobody can be everything for everyone,” he said.

By the spring of 2025, Mr. Graham hopes to begin moving people into the next phase of the village, across the street from the current property. The darker visions some once predicted of an impoverished community on the outskirts of town overtaken by drugs and violence have not come to pass. Instead, the village has permanently housed hundreds of people and earned the approval and financial backing of the city, the county and the federal government. But for the model to truly meet the scale of the challenge in Austin and beyond, Chapman Semple said, the compromises that led to Community First in its current incarnation will have to be reckoned with.

“We can build smaller villages that can be fully integrated into the community, that can have access to amenities within the community that we all need to live, including jobs and groceries,” Chapman Semple said. “If it’s a wonderful model then we should be embracing and fighting for its inclusion within our community.”

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024

[swagging-back-to]

ways to actually save money

stop buying animal products ($10 for a single meal vs $10 for months worth of beans) + benefit of saving planet

use wash cloths for wiping urine + benefit of saving planet.

get a menstrual cup or panties. yes, even if you have a heavy flow.. the chemicals in tampons and pads leads to heavier, more painful, and smellier periods. +benefit of saving planet.

shampoo bars, lasts way longer + benefit of saving planet.

stop buying name brand

stop buying makeup + benefit of saving planet

stop buying nail polish + benefit of saving planet

stop buying synthetic clothes. + benefit of saving planet

reuse (soap free) tub and shower water for plants, laundry. + benefit of saving planet.

hang clothes to dry, even if you don't have an outdoor area. hang in the windows, by fireplaces, by heaters and ac units. + benefit of saving planet

stop buying niche chemical products. for almost every single cleaning situation you only need soap, baking soda, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, and bleach. this goes for gout removal, rust removal, urine removal, window cleaner, sanitizing wipes, literally every single thing. + benefit of saving planet

repurpose old clothes and towels by making them into wash cloths and oven mitts.

stop buying from shein, temu, amazon, and using afterpay. (im not demonizing pay later. i utilize it all the time. I've just found a lot of people who do use these payment methods treat it like a 'buy now, pay NEVER' option and are surprised when it fucks them over)

remember this any time someone tries to tell you being eco friendly isn't affordable.

know what really isnt affordable? buying disposable products every week.

[wsknbfanaccnt]

GOM Relationship with Akashi

Characters: Kuroko, Midorima, Aomine, Kise, Murasakibara

he really likes Akashi of course

and he's natually very empathetic, secretly knowing what Akashi is going through and always making sure to include him and make him feel welcomed as much as possible

and Akashi is always looking out for Kuroko (like its so obvious)

BUT Kuroko and Akashi as a pair are michievous little shits

its canon that they often mess with their friends as a pair

like the rock paper scissors thing i dont remember what it was about but i know they tricked their opponent

there was once (canon) that the first string was supposed to come up with announcements for joining the basketball team and no one helped

so Akashi had an idea

Kuroko announced it at lunch and no one heard it (obviously)

one of the only ones i remember is that Kuroko said that Kise was givin gout free signed photos i think and Kise was bombarded with paparazzi lol

as we know, Midorima and Akashi are besties

they used to play Shogi after school a lot

and I feel like Midorima feels as though he could have done more to help Akashi since he was the closest to him

and I think he was one of the first ones that noticed that Akashi had a second personality

Midorima is one of Akashi's closest friends and that never faltered

I feel like they would bond over a lot of things like classical music and piano and stuff since theyre both kinda traditional

Midorima's little sister LOVES him

I like to think that Akashi thinks of Midorima's family as his second family

Mr and Mrs Midorima always make sure that Akashi feels welcome in their home cuz I think they know the jist of what Masaomi is making Akashi go through

since I would think that Midorima's dad works with Masaomi

(i dont remember if thats canon or not cuz the canons and fanons are getting mixed up in my brain)

it did say that Akashi gets along with Aomine the least

but I like to think that Aomine brings out Akashi's more modern side

(@active-mind-15 im getting my ideas from your rage room fic <3)

(GUYS READ THE FIC PLEASE ITS ACTUALLY SO MF GOOD)

Aomine and Akashi hang out at times and Aomine is the one introducing him to like video games, shopping on his own, modern action movies and stuff

Aomine tried to introduce him to porn mags and stuff but Akashi was just shoving him away

(he doesnt need Aomine's help he already has his own little collection

but he wouldnt admit that ofc)

its also evident in the manga that Aomine looks up to Akashi a lot and is one of the people that believes in him the most

like aside from Aomine being rowdy and not following whatever Akashi wants him to do, they get along on other things

(like a rage room for example)

i dont have much for kise cuz canonically he doesnt really interact with Akashi much

hes more obsessed with Kuroko obviously

but I would think that Akashi relies on Kise to find the bright side in things

Akashi seeing Aomine and Kise bicker and fight honestly warms his heart

like a proud mom

ofc he has to break it up but he finds it funny and he gets like a glimpse of what normal boys his age should be like lmfao

he is SPOILED to Akashi

SPOILED I TELL YOU

in their school festival (canon) Akashi won a bunch of sweets and candy and stuff because he keeps going door to door and beating all the chess masters (not just chess, but checkers and go and everyone even blind chess this man wtf)

and he ended up giving all of it to Murasakibara

like theyre so cute omfg

I think that sometimes Murasakibara feels responsible for Akashi's 2nd personality awakening because of that game

he tries to dig that feeling deep down inside him

but seeing Akachin with his normal personality again makes him happy and he does what he can to like

make it up to him

or like spend time with him

cuz baby feels guilty :(

Akashi appreciates it of course

and I feel like Akashi sees Murasakibara as like a baby

which he is an oversized baby

[thedreamerwithaheavyheart]

Pick a Jungkook!

What would a relationship with your bias look like??

Pile 1 (The Emperor, 9 of Pentacles, The tower Reversed) (you: strength, bias: 3 of Swords, the energy between: Queen of Cups)

Oh! This is actually quite amazing! The Emperor flew out soooo fast! There are set boundaries in this relationship. It’s stable and your bias makes you feel super secure. There will be a lot of abundance between you two! It may be from their end, your end or both. I will say there seems to be some delay or resistance to change. I sense that they may be apprehensive about you at first. But regardless you guys love to enjoy the luxuries of life! Just make sure you maintain your financial independence. Or you guys may both be financially stable and independent. It may be why you guys are so solid!

When you guys are together you feel confident! You are very sure of yourself in this relationship. At the very least you are confident in your companionship and your ability to work through any troubles that may come your way. For your bias on the other hand they may feel insecure regarding finances. They may have been taken advantage of, monetarily speaking. But the energy between you two is the Queen of Cups, so you guys may have come to an understanding about it. You two are very healing for each other, and you especially heal whatever previous trauma they may have had regarding that aspect of life. You guys give each other the freedom to just BE. The spicy time between you guys may be just as wild, care free, & PRIMAL. Oooooooo.

Pile 2(The Moon,The Hanged Man , the Hermit Reversed ) (you:2 of Swords , bias:5 of Pentacles , the energy between:7 of Swords)

Oh dear! Just based on your energy it’s giving you might have to choose between your career and personal life and honestly…I don’t think it would be worth it. I’m getting projection his struggles on to you. There will be manipulation and deceit in this connection. And that’s just from your energies towards each other.

For the actual cards I pulled… the moon came out sooooo. Lies, deception etc. the hermit reversed is not taking the time to really analyze… and the hanged man symbolizes the breaking of patterns.

I’m gonna hold your hand when I say this…. Ur bias is toxic. And that may be your type OR you tend to attract a lot of those. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look into what people present to you. It’s okay to question the integrity of things/people sometimes. ESPECIALLY when you notice habits. I’m hearing “stay vigilant”. Don’t take what lovers say at face value.

During spicy time your bias may be super dominant…but combined with your reading…I wouldn’t 😬

Pile 3(Page of Pentacles Reversed,4 of Swords,5 of Swords ) (you:8 of Pentacles , bias:The World , the energy between: 10 of Wands)

To be honest…it seems like work takes the front seat in your relationship. However, despite this, you gout try really hard to make it work. It will definitely be draining though. So please take care of yourself.

Regardless, you are committed to your bias. You guys reallllllyyyyy go out of your way to make sure you’re there for each other. Very diligent. Your bias believes you are everything they’ve ever wanted in a person. They are DOWN BADDDD. So it’s really not that there are no feelings. There are a ton of feelings. However, it may not work out in the long run due to the outside pressure and strain out on the relationship.

As for the spicy time…your bias makes sure it’s fair. It’s a mutual ordeal for them to make sure it’s a comfortable environment so there's room for you both to explore everything. You both want to discover all the different parts of yourselves and each other.

Okkkk. Well please send in future requests please & Thank you so much for reading!!!❤️❤️❤️

[wingedjellyfishflight]

Twins

Visiting a military plane demonstration, you wait in line to see inside the planes parked on the runway. You get jostled hard by a rude man and almost fall down from the steps. A nearby military officer in a black balaclava catches you. He is clearly irritated to be here, but you try to flirt a little anyway, asking him if he saves many damsels in distress.

Before he can respond, you hear a scream, then quickly following the sound, more screams. You see a handful of people start attacking bystanders. Springing into action, you help usher many to safety, yelling commands at them to get them moving toward a nearby gate. You don't notice the masked man doing the same thing until you see a woman running past you with a knife in her hand, aiming at him. Acting on pure instinct, you tackle her, knocking it out of her hands. Suddenly, you are in a fierce fight to keep her from grabbing it again. She strikes at you where she can, hitting you fiercely as her desire to continue her attack takes priority over all else. She carves deep gouges in your face with her fingernails, making you panic slightly. You grab her ear and yank, tearing part of it free, releasing a gout of blood. She stops attacking momentarily, and the masked man is there helping you. He zip ties her hands behind her back and tells you to sit on her while grumbling about civilians getting involved. You jokingly tell him you couldn't stand owing a favor and wink up at him before waving him off to go help others.

As you sit, she screams and curses and fights, trying to get free. Finally, irritated beyond belief by her antics, you threaten to Vincent Van Gogh her ear and cut it the rest of the way off. It takes some time, but things finally calm down, and medics make the rounds, triaging and helping everyone who was injured in the attack. A medic and a few military personnel take charge of the woman before your turn for a medic finally comes. He takes one look at you, and he immediately sends you to the line to wait for the hospital. You are a lower priority than most despite needing stitches for your still bleeding wounds, so you wait quietly. A man with a mohawk wanders over with the masked man, asking for your statement. He introduces himself as Soap and the masked man as Ghost, who remains silent. You tell Soap what you saw and did, then joke quietly, "I couldn't seize the day, so I seized an ear." He chuckles, and you glance at Ghost. "I hope to see you around," you say with a bloody smile, but you can't manage a wink past the swelling of your face as they load you into an ambulance. At the hospital, you are treated for a broken clavicle, two broken fingers, and the gouges on your face, which need stitches.

On Monday, you report to your new commanding officer. It takes extra time to get on base because the gate guards are on high alert and very suspicious of your bandaged face. When you finally get to his office, Captain Price is surprised at the injuries you are sporting. You explain what happened, and he smirks at your mention of Ghost but doesn't say anything. He gives you a quick tour, showing you the med bay, mess hall, and your quarters before continuing on with the rest of his day.

You slowly carry your things from your vehicle to your quarters, having packed everything in small boxes so they aren't too heavy, determined not to need help. You are on the last load when Soap nearly runs into you in the hall. He recognizes you despite your bandages and quickly takes the box out of your hands despite your protests, carrying it to your room for you.

"So, what are ye movin in here for, lass? Fall in love with someone at the airshow," he asks, waggling his eyebrows at you.

You laugh, "No, just the new doctor for the team."

He looks dubiously at your injuries, and you roll your eyes, "Can't a girl save a man without it coming back to bite her?"

He laughs and takes his leave late for a meeting. When you go to lunch, he waves you over to sit, knowing how much it sucks to be the new guy. Ghost sits across from you without looking and strikes up a conversation with Soap about some upcoming training. When you laugh at a joke that Soap makes, he finally looks up and does a double-take.

"Damsel, what are you doing here?"

"New doc," Soap choruses.

"Doc, we need to get you trained in grappling," Ghost grumbles, looking over your injuries.

"Sure, in about 3 months when I can lose the sling," you quip.

"I'll reserve the room," he says flatly, undeterred by your current state.

"That's an estimate, not a guarantee, Ghost."

"Yes, that is why you will bulk up on protein and heal faster." He picks up his tray and shoves the meat off it and onto yours.

You stare at him for a long moment before saying, "No thanks... I'll just eat MY food." His glare leaves no room for argument, so you turn away, but you can still feel his eyes on you. You grumble as you eat a bite, and he smirks before turning back to his own tray. The moment he looks away, you shove the meat back on his plate and stand to leave. His "Oi!" calling after you makes you want to grin, though the stitches prevent it as you hurry off.

At the end of the week, you are glad to be able to remove the stitches. You wait until after hours, setting yourself in front of a mirror, snipping, and pulling them out. A boot scuff tells you that you're not alone. "Clinic is closed. If it's an emergency, I can treat you, but otherwise, you'll have to wait until tomorrow." There is no answer, and you look around seeing no one. But you know what you heard. You go back to pulling stitches, but shift your position a bit, protecting the arm in a sling in case someone decides to attack you again.

"You know you can have someone else pull those, right?" Ghost's voice floats to you.

"Damn place is haunted. I'm hearing ghosts talk to me," you say, chuckling to yourself.

He huffs and walks out of the darkness to stand behind you. "I'm just saying you don't have anything to prove."

"I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just working to minimize the scarring." You say it flippantly, but he can see the slight frown on your face as you look at the injuries.

"All I see is a hero, but I do understand. You could always mask up like me." He says it jokingly, but you consider it.

"Not the worst idea. But a bally isn't my style. Wouldn't want to copy your thing." You finish pulling stitches after a few more minutes of silence and turn to face him, but he has disappeared into the shadows again. "See if I invite you over for tea, then." You hear a chuckle fading off in the distance and smile despite yourself.

The next day, you have a grimace on your face the entire day, seeing others stare at your now stitch-less but still injured face. Ghost conspicuously doesn't look, and Soap tries to joke about others being jealous, but it falls flat. You've never been a vain person. You can't help being self-conscious, though. Your frustration peaks when a nurse stares slack jawed at you for nearly ten straight minutes, prompting you to put on a surgical mask. It helps slightly, but the gouges are still visible on the rest of your face. You think about it all day and come up with a solution.

That night, you furiously stitch a flower printed bamboo t-shirt into a mask, carefully cutting and sewing it to drape across your face. You make a square block for your eyes, making sure it is smooth and not going to irritate your healing skin. Donning it, you make a few adjustments, stitching the arms shut except for a slit near your ears to fit a surgical mask as needed, and you stitch the neck of the shirt closed. The end result is a cute, breathable mask that hides all of the scarring except a line near your eyes. It's perfect even if it covers almost your entire face.

The stares you get the next week are still nerve-wracking, but they lessen as the time goes on. Ghost simply throws a smirk your way while Soap laments the loss of another friend with a wink at you, not able to stop himself from teasing. You shut down your staff when they try to bring it up. Captain Price shoots you a sad look and a nod. He would clearly prefer you didn't hide, but he understands. Your work maintains its same level of quality, so he simply marks the preference to hide your face in your file and moves on. The first person to complain about your supposed lack of professionalism to him is told to "fuck off right to hell, you daft prick," professionally... in those exact words.

A few months in, your sling is finally off, and you spend several hours a week grappling with Soap and Ghost as promised. Ghost even trains you in using a knife in combat, quipping that you can switch to your scalpel when the lessons are finished. The scars on your face are growing darker, becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. The mask will stay. When the Captain tries to discuss it gently, you lift the bottom, showing him the edges of the scars. The dark purple and red lines against your pale skin couldn't be anymore obvious. He nods with a quiet, "Understood, Major."

After Ghost shows you many techniques and hones your skills, he brings you into the recruit class one day a week. The goal is to help you maintain those skills and learn against different opponents who are less skilled than him. The first time you begin to win a fight, the recruit yanks off your mask despite specific instructions not to do so, hoping to stun you. Instead, you get angry and knock him over onto his stomach, one arm pinned under him and the other under your left foot with your right knee on his back. Calmly, you pull your mask from his hand and work to drape it back over your face. Glancing up, you see that Ghost is standing over you, blocking the other recruits from staring and absolutely furious on your behalf. You climb off the recruit, and the young man gets the tongue lashing of a lifetime and is then smoked in front of the rest of the recruits. The dirty trick doesn't happen again.

It's nine months after you first started working on base when a new man joins the team. You meet him at lunch, looking up and giggling when you realize you have very similar masks on. Soap makes a joke about the two of you being twins, but Ghost just stares at both of you.

König, as he is called, is immediately infatuated with you. He begins wooing you immediately, his eyes never straying to anyone else. He wants to see you wear his mask, watch your eyes roll up in your mask as you cum on him. He wants to see the face beneath the mask fall apart. It doesn't take long for every fantasy of his to come true... and a few of your own. You never feel self-conscious of your scarring around him. He worships you and your scars every chance he gets. But you still wear the mask every day for the rest of your life and sometimes his if you want to rile him up.

[alexanderwales]

Pitchposting: Generation Ship

(Pitchposting is a way of giving away ideas that threaten to grow in my mind until they become draft documents. They are free to a good home, though there's no guarantee that I won't try to write them at some point.)

Alright, hear me out: it's a generation ship, one expected to reach its destination with an entirely new generation of people who never knew the homeland, except instead of being a scifi concept, we're doing it as mundane as possible.

I think this is one of those ideas that only appeals to me because I immediately start thinking about the logistics of it all, and there's something in the mundane, gritty realism that really appeals to me. Mostly I'm worldbuilding and problem solving, trying to get at what it would actually be like for people to have been at sea their entire lives, to have a ship that either needs to endure the waves or be rebuilt as it goes.

I was going to say that this needs to be fantasy, but I guess technically it can be an Alderson Disk or something. An Alderson Disk has a habitable circumference of approximately a billion kilometers, a sailing ship can go maybe eighty miles a day, that's a ballpark of 12.5 million days to circumnavigate the disk, which is 34,000 years. That's a hell of a lot of generations, twice as long as we've had agriculture. (But you could also just have it be a fantasy world that's larger than our own, with a generation ship that was only trying to flee to greener pastures that are a hundred years away.)

The purest version of this story is a world that's just water, to match the void of space. The ship sails, repairs are made from flotsam and jetsam and driftwood from unspecified places, rainwater is caught and put into barrels, pitch is used for patching, fish and kelp are hauled up from the ocean, birds are captured from the sky, and the ship must necessarily endure storms and swells.

I've always felt there was something compelling about constrained living situations, places where everyone knows everyone and you have to make it work because there's absolutely no way out — where you're on a knife's edge because there's only so much preparation you can do. A generation ship needs to think about absolutely all of its needs and how it will deal with the deterioration of all things over time, along with problems that might only crop up once every hundred years, or problems that won't become apparent until long after the ship has left the dock.

Let's say you have a sailing ship the size of one of the largest sailing vessels of the 19th century, a thousand people all told. The families are carefully braided to prevent accidental incest, everyone has their position in life, every master has at least one apprentice but probably more so gout or cancer don't eliminate the last person who knew how to make more pitch.

This is clearly an Idea story, one that starts with a ridiculous premise and then explores it, but one of my favorite things about idea stories is finding the characters and the conflicts within them. For a generation ship, the biggest, most obvious conflict is the conflict between generations: the old people who once knew dry land, the middle generation who will likely die before the destination is reached, and the children who will be the beneficiaries of all this travel.

We have a woman who was born to the sea, who loves the sea, who loves the travel and takes great joy in knowing that she's probably not going to see the end of it until she's ancient. We have the grizzled sailor who's nearly risen to the rank of captain and sees the whole mission as utter foolishness. A boy of thirteen who is obsessed with writing stories about the land they've set off toward and keeps his telescope on the horizon, hoping that the predictions were off, that they're somehow two decades early. A girl of sixteen who doesn't feel suited to the marriage that's planned for her, who is secretly in love with her best friend. A scientist who has been quietly advancing the state of knowledge with every new fish brought up from the deeps.

And then there's the plot, which there are so, so many options for. I would start the novel with simple sailing, a few chapters of the daily routine, the personalities, their petty fights with each other, and the stress of being in the middle of unfathomably deep waters whose depths are only glimpsed when the nets bring up something new. Then ... an island, another ship, sea creatures that have a glimmer of intelligence, a storm that makes the ship limp, spoilage that threatens starvation unless drastic action is taken, a political squabble that might bring all the plans crashing down.

Maybe it's a book about being trapped by the past, or about hanging on by what feels like a delicate thread, or about how systems are fragile and careful thinking and brave leadership are the only things that will get us through.

Mostly I think I want to be a geek about a ship that needs to survive in the ocean for a hundred years, and I do not have the time to write this novel, not when there are so many other novels to write.

[aurgenius]

Free Rand from the 'Cage' (Lord of Chaos) Snatching his axe free, Perrin hacked down a Shaido in his way and leaped over the man as he fell. They had to reach Rand; everything rested on that. Beside him Loial’s great axe rose and fell and swung, carving a path. Aram seemed to dance with his sword, laughing as he cut down everyone in his way. There was no time to think of anyone else. Perrin worked his axe methodically; he was hewing wood, not flesh; he tried not to see the blood that spurted, even when crimson sprayed his face. He had to reach Rand. He was slashing a path through brambles. Free Faile from the 'Cage' (Knife of Dreams)

The Shaido tried to stop it with his buckler, but he altered the swing slightly, and heard the bones in the man's forearm snap under ten pounds of steel swung by a blacksmith's arm. He was inside the spear, now, and without slowing, he slashed across the man's throat with his knife. Blood gouted, and he was running again while the man was falling. He had to reach Faile. Fire in his blood, fire in his heart. Fire in his head. No one and nothing would keep him from Faile.

[explosionshark]

hyped that you're writing again!

Fuffy (Faith/Buffy) + scrape, rain, dame

(maybe a noir vibe?)

okay lmao i know you've been wanting this for a minute, I hope it satisfies

-

Faith's never seen rain like this, not in the entire time she's been in California. And she might be a recent transplant but she's not stupid — this is no regular summer storm. No, this has to be something else. Driving winds, great freezing wet gouts of water gushing from midnight black clouds, like God himself opened a vein. An arterial baptism for the City of Angels, a place so choked in sin that the blood of lamb wasn't cutting it anymore and the Father, despairing, had no choice but to offer his own.

That or Buffy was right and there's a powerful coven at work and they're running out of time to stop them.

Speaking of Buffy—

She's got her hand clamped tight— bruising tight— around Faith's wrist, heels that couldn't be worse for this weather for if they were trying splashing noisily through filthy puddles in the sidewalk as she ran ahead, tugging Faith along behind her.

“Come on, Faith, come on,” Buffy's saying and Faith wonders, dazedly, why she sounds so scared until she feels herself falter on the slippery pavement, shoots a hand out to steady herself on a glass storefront beside her and sees, even through the dark and dim, the bright red streak of blood her palms leave behind.

Oh, yeah. She's shot.

It's a struggle to tear her mind free of the gauzy haze that surrounds it, but when Faith's ears pick up the distant sound of a motor getting less distant by the second, she manages it.

“They're coming back around,” she wheezes, sure that her voice is too pained and weak for Buffy to hear over the weather.

But she does, judging by the quiet curse she lets out, the way she squeezes Faith's hand. “Okay, okay. I know a place. Hang on, okay? Just a little farther.”

Faith would be the first to admit, if anyone would bother to stop and ask her, that in her current circumstances she is probably not the person best qualified to judge her condition. She's biased, in her own way, and being down a few pints of blood is probably not helping. But she's a detective, or at least Buffy has asked her to play the part, so she can do what detectives seem to do in those dime novels she reads from time to time: look at the evidence, draw a conclusion.

Faith + shot + the goons in that old beater coming back around to take another shot at putting the chill on her and it all adds up to one thing: she doesn't have much of a choice about whether to trust Buffy or not or if she wants to keep running after her through all these dark, filthy allies. 

All her life, Faith has been sure that she'd kick off this way someday: running. Running a con, or from the cops or after some dame with a face too sweet and a mouth too pink and inviting for Faith’s own good. Faith knows enough to know she doesn't know exactly what kind of scheme she's let herself get drawn into, but she figures whatever it is, her chances are still better with Buffy than with those hoods and their irons.

So she goes.

And within a few minutes, Buffy is tugging her to a stop in front of a nondescript door in the alleyway of some big brick building Faith doesn't recognize, someplace downtown. Faith, no stranger to running for her life, is a little disappointed that she'd failed to memorize how they'd ended up here, but she figures she can afford to cut herself a little slack tonight, given the circumstances.

She sags, exhausted, knees shaking, against Buffy, no doubt getting blood all over that smart dove gray coat she'd shown up wearing, that Faith had, a few happier hours ago, fantasized about peeling off her. Ruined now, no doubt.

“Sorry,” Faith mumbles, or tries to, because what comes out of her mouth is more like “Shrrrgghh.”

“Shh, it's okay, hang on,” Buffy says, voice a little too frantic to be comforting. She pounds on the door again, again until she finally lets loose an aggrieved sigh and puts her shoulder through it. She makes it look effortless but Faith hears the wood splinter, sees the metal of the steel lock bend like putty.

Everything else happens in a blur. Buffy hauls her through the doorway, down a dark hall until a man… a green man? With little red horns? Intercepts them. He's wearing a plush royal blue smoking jacket and a look of perfect terror but he does as Buffy bids him and ushers them into a sparsely furnished room with a mattress on a metal frame and not much else.

Buffy settles Faith down on the bed, saying over her shoulder to the man, “Sorry about the blood. And your door.”

He waves her off and rushes back out of the room, returning moments later with what looks like a doctor's bag.

“Now, let's see the damage,” he says, sounding far too cheerful for a man peeling her bloodstained shirt up from her skin. “Sorry, darling,” he at least has the good grace to say. “I know this is terribly ungentlemanly of me, but please bear with me now.”

At this Buffy stumbles back knocking into a dresser and toppling a small mirror onto the floor, where it shatters into bits. As if we needed any more bad luck, Faith thinks.

Aloud, she says, “Where y’goin’?”

Buffy shakes her head, voice quavering. “I'm squeamish. I can't watch.”

And then trips her way out of the room, falling all over herself to leave.

“She'll be okay,” the man says, kindly, warm hands easing her back onto the bed. He produces a bottle, something home brewed but strong that he urges her to sip. “So will you. I'm Lorne, by the way. I promise you're in good hands.”

Faith doesn't doubt him. Life has seen fit to instill in Faith certain skills for survival, one of these being discerning quickly and with good accuracy how much a man with intent to touch her wants to cause pain. There's nothing in Lorne’s hands that reads malice or danger.

No, that thrum of simple minded fear, that prey animal feeling pulsing through Faith's body isn't because of Lorne at all.

It lingers as she watches the door Buffy disappeared from with all the intensity of a rabbit struck still in the brush, waiting for the hawk to pass.

To distract from the pain in her side as Lorne goes to work with his tweezers and alcohol and gauze, Faith recalls Buffy's face. They've had their moments in the weeks since Buffy approached her, asked for her help. Long hot glances and lingering touches, loaded silences and innuendo both. Nothing has come of it, but one of Faith’s other survival skills, honed over the years, has been learning how to tell when a broad wants what she has to offer. And she’s felt that want from Buffy, choked as it is by what Faith had assumed this whole time was an abundance of caution. Maybe she had a secret beau, maybe she’d been burned before, maybe she just didn’t think Faith was worth the risk. But Faith had felt the want in her, before. 

And that was nothing compared to the hunger she saw in Buffy tonight, when they’d finally stopped running and Lorne had exposed the sick oozing wound in her side and she had lurched forward, helpless as a drunk. Oh, she’d caught herself right away, pulled back, a little too far, but Faith had seen it. Had seen the way her mouth went slack before she tightened it to a pained grimace, had seen her nostrils flare, her hands shake, the way her pupils had gone big and black, like a gowed-up dope fiend.

Faith had seen. And so now, she thinks about it like a detective, lining up the evidence. How they always met at night, how Buffy had knocked that door in like it was nothing, the way she was able to lug Faith around like she was made of cotton and air.

By the time Lorne is finished, Faith is exhausted, and slips into a deep, dreamless sleep. She wakes up in the daylight, for Lorne to change her bandages.

“Buffy had to go home,” Lorne lies as easily as he stitches her up. “She’ll be back in the evening.”

They talk a little, before she falls back asleep. “Weren’t you green last night?” she asks.

“Guilty,” he says and explains.

“Demon was my second guess,” Faith says amicably, squinting and tilting her head to try to see past the glamour. No such luck, it's solid work. “First was that I was hallucinating from blood loss.”

She drinks some broth, has a few more nips of whisky, and falls back asleep.

It is indeed evening when Buffy comes back. She’s cleaned up, looking sober and genuinely concerned as she hovers in the doorway.

Faith wonders, for one terrifying moment, how much she still smells like blood. If she’s in danger from Buffy losing it.

Then she thinks, if all Buffy wanted out of her was a quick meal, she could have had it weeks ago. 

“You might as well come on in,” Faith offers, eventually, sick of the silent staring. “You’re lettin’ in a draft.”

Hesitantly, Buffy steps into the room. She shuts the door behind her and pauses until Faith gestures to the chair at her bedside.

Settling down, Buffy asks, “How are you feeling? Lorne says the wound looks good. He doesn’t think it’ll get infected.”

Faith shrugs, regretting it immediately but hoping the pain doesn’t show on her face. “S’alright. Basically a scrape.”

“The bullet went all the way through you and out the other side.”

“A deep scrape,” Faith amends. 

Buffy shakes her head and Faith, goddamn her, feels her breath catch in her throat, despite everything.

“Where you been?” Faith asks, trying to sound casual. “Catching up with the mugs that tried to give me lead poisoning?” 

“No. I couldn’t find any sign of them when I left here last night.” 

“Grabbing a bite?” Faith tries, watching carefully for—

Buffy freezes.

Faith waits.

“Yes,” Buffy answers slowly. “I had something to eat.”

“I could tell,” Faith says. “You look steadier than last night.”

She waits another beat while Buffy looks at the floor.

“So, who was he?” Faith asks.

There it is. Buffy’s gaze snaps up to meet hers. “The man who tried to shoot you? I told you I didn’t find any trace of him.”

“Not him.” Faith says, then, despite the pain, she leans forward, holding catching Buffy’s eye and holding it. “Who’d you eat?”

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Buffy says in a rush. “On the square. I didn’t.”

“C’mon, drop the veil,” Faith says. “I know what you are. A vamp, in both senses of the word.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Buffy insists.

Faith frowns. “So, what? Thralls? Heard about a guy back east who paid hookers for it. That your bag?”

“I… There’s this butcher shop—”

Faith rolls her eyes, “Don’t give me that—”

“I mean it!” Buffy practically shouts. “I don’t feed from humans. I swear.”

Faith wants to believe it. She wants it so badly she’s not sure she trusts the feeling. 

“If you don’t, you’re the first bloodsucker I’ve ever met who doesn’t hunt.” Faith says. “So, what’s different about you?”

“I have a soul.” Faith rolls her eyes and Buffy, affronted, cuts her off before she can speak. “I do. Look, it’s a long story and I’ll tell it to you later, but for right now I need you to trust me. This shouldn’t change anything about our deal. You keep helping me, I’ll pay you what you’re owed, and together we save this city from a whole heap of trouble.”

“You expect me to trust you?” Faiths asks, head aching, wound aching, heart aching, and a special new kind of exhausted she's never been before. She wishes she knew how to stop the way her heart still speeds up when Buffy looked at her just like this — big eyed and sincere. “After lying to me?”

“No.” Buffy reaches out, tentatively and lays her hand over Faith’s. “I expect you to trust me after saving your life last night.”

Warmth flows up Faith’s body, from her belly all the way to the roots of her hair. Just like that.

Dizzy over a dame, she thinks, exasperated. A vampire dame. Ain’t I the world’s biggest chump.

“You said it was a long story,” Faith says, finally. “You ending up with a soul…”

“Yes.”

“Well,” leaning back into bed, Faith is careful to let her hand continue to rest under Buffy’s grip. She jerks her chin down toward the patched wound in her side. “As you can see, I got nothing but time.”

Buffy waits a beat, then nods. “Okay. It all started with a man. His name was Angel…”

[ducks-and-teapots]

The Great Wave Chapter 15 Review!

This is my review of the new chapter(i've never done a review before so dont expect much lol)

Spoilers under the cut!

Well, this chapter was great! from the art and all of the little details in each panel to the suspense that had me in the edge of my seat, truly amazing

I'm not really familiar with the Dofus lore(I havent finished Aux Tresors or seen the movie yet) but i have a general idea of what happens

So when i tell you that I ALMOST EXPLODED WHEN LILOTTE APPEARED I mean it

If you haven't read the chapter and/or dont know who Lilotte is, allow me to explain;

This chapter beggins in the city of Bonta, showing the crowded streets, until Kerubim's Bazaar(i wonder if its still called that?) appears, showing Kerubim and Atcham napping in the front.

I think its something curious how these two ended up being a rather lazy version of their former selves(again, i havent finished Aux Tresors so what im saying probably doesnt make sense but idk), in fact even Joris points it out in season 4 and in this chapter, which takes me back to the baazar.

A costumer appears and asks Kerubim if they are opened, and he responds that yes, she can enter and his "little salesman" will assist her, before he can finish, Joris can be heard(he actually can't be heard because its a webtoon, but for the purposes of this little review he can) shouting, calling both Atcham and Kerub.

Inside of the bazaar, Joris can be seen hilariously, although not unjustifiably, panicking over the many clients and questions he's being asked at the same time.

Which leads him to calling his "sons", and seeing that they didn't come, having to go outside and suggesting them(or rather yelling) that they come to help him(their dinamic is so funny

kind of doomed tho)

Atcham and Kerubim, instead, tell him that its the rheumatism, which, quoting Atcham, "hurts a lot". Joris, unbothered(or amused??? idk you tell me what this expression is

At least he wasnt possesed lmao) asks them the rheumatism??? yesterday it was the gout, the day before yesterday arthritis and when it isnt digestion problems, its the motivation(damn, they rlly dont want to help 😭)

THEN, A HOODED FIGURE EXITS THE BAZAAR FAST, JORIS NOTICES IT AND GRABS THEM BY THE ARM, AND TELLS THEM THAT HE DOESNT REMEMBER THEM IN THE CHECKOUT SO I GUESS YOURE A THIEF, AND TAKES OUT OF THEIR HAND A RING(? idk it was a round small thing) AND TAKES OUT THEIR HOOD, AND ITS LILOTTE????????

BUT THAT CANT BE BECAUSE SHE DIED??????? WHAT IS HAPPENING????(btw, Lilotte is Joris' childhood friend, she was there when all the stuff with Julith happened, but i haven't seen the movie so thats what i know[feel free to put info about her in the comments/reblogs!], and the reason bc she's dead is because all of this happened in the Dofus era, meaning before Ogrest flooded the world and CENTURIES AGO)

SO SHE SHOUTS LET GO OF ME AND POOR JORIS IS SO SURPRISED THAT HE ALMOST DOES SO, BECAUSE IMAGINE THAT ONE OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS, THAT YOU THOUGHT WERE DEAD UNTIL TODAY, APPEARS IN YOUR HOME, TO ROB YOU??? WHICH OBVIOUSLY IS IMPOSSIBLE BC SHE EVEN HAS DESCENDANTS??? AND ALL OF THESE THINGS MUST HAVE PASSED THROUGH JORIS' MIND SO QUICKLY, AND MAYBE HE REMEMBERS OTHER FRIENDS HE HAD, AND ALL OF IT AND AHHHHHHH

SO OBVIOUSLY HE IS CONFUSED AND SHE TAKES THE OPPORTUNITY AND TAKES THE RING-THING AND RUNS AWAY[Though, now that im thinking abt it, Louis(the house/bazaar which is a shushu) must have recognized her too :( ]

AND JORIS IS THERE STANDING WITH THE HOOD SHE HAD AND LOOKS ALMOST SCARED, BUT THEN KERUB AND ATCHAM ASK HIM IF HES OKAY, AND THEN THERES A CLOSE UP OF JORIS AND HE LOOKS SO SADDD

BUT HE QUICKLY CHANGES HIS EXPRESSION(or tries to) AND TELLS THEM ITS OKAY KIDS I JUST GOT THE IMPRESSION OF GOING CENTURIES BACK... ATTEND THE CLIENTS I WILL RETURN WHEN I CAN, HE SAYS, WHILE HE LOOKS AT THE HOOD IN HIS HANDSSS!!!!

AND THEN HE LEAVES RUNNING!!!!!!

AND THEN WE SEE LILOTTE RUNNING THROUGH THE STREETS UNTIL SHE GOES TO THE SEWERS AND SHE ARRIVES TO A UNDERGROUND ECAFLIP SHELTER???(or something like that) AND SHE GOES TO THIS FIGURE WHO I GUESS LIKES SHINY STUFF BECAUSE THEY HAVE A LOT OF SHINY STUFF AROUND THEM!!!!

AND THEN THE CHAPTER ENDS!!!! IM GOING CRAZY!!!!!

Sorry for writing most of it in all-caps but i wanted to convey the suspense lol

Here are the theories I made so far!

1- Lilotte is not Lilotte(obviously) its actually Julith or

2- She is that ecaflip/ouginak from the thumbnail of chapter 17, who apparently can change form???

3- Or maybe she is just a random ouginak who looks a lot like Lilotte(a descendant?)

4- The guy that likes shiny stuff is a dragon(bonus points if its one of the primordials)

They are all BAD theories but oh well

Overall, this is the chapter that enjoyed the most(though last chapter was really pretty visually, and it showed the relationship between Dathura and Amalia greatly)

And i think thats all! I hope that you liked it, and maybe i will write another one for the next chapter :)

[silvercap]

24. Bedridden or 66. Bedside Manner, with comfort/caretaking from the team? Leon's gonna need it... (can be a continuation of something else, or a standalone, up to you)

He definitely does 😭 (For this prompt list)

Bedridden/Bedside Manner

"Fuck," Leon hisses weakly, arching backwards into Piers' arms as Jill tears yet another of the barbed spikes free of his thigh, the sound coming out closer to a sob. His breaths come harsh in his chest, one hand squeezing Chris's meaty palm in a death grip where he's decided to lean into Leon's space from the edge of the dusty bed, the other clawing into Piers' arm where it's been wrapped securely over Leon's chest. He shudders, sweat dripping down a temple.

"One more," Jill says grimly, to which Piers subtly tightens his hold. She doesn't give Leon a chance to prepare himself, cutting deep into his leg and yanking the final spike out in a gout of fresh blood. Leon can only gasp, spasming.

"Got--got anything for the poison, yet?" he slurs, feeling the burn of it through his veins now that the overwhelming source of pain has dulled. He thinks someone responds, but then Jill clamps down hard on his leg to provide pressure and Leon can't stop himself from passing out entirely.

He comes to with a cough, blinking blearily at the sensation of a cool cloth against his forehead, a callused thumb so large it can only belong to Chris sliding gently beneath his eye to collect the tears that have fallen there. He's still slumped against Piers' solid body, shivering weakly despite the warmth his fiancé provides. Leon moans.

"Shh," Chris soothes from Leon's left, Piers' hand smoothing over his hair as he shudders involuntarily. "We've got you."

Another, smaller hand is propped under his knee to hold it up, white gauze and bloodstained bandages visible in his blurry vision when he glances down. He winces as Jill pulls the top layer tight, bare thigh pale where it sticks out from beneath the thin blanket thrown haphazardly over his legs. He's still wearing his jacket, the distant growl of BOWs audible outside of the shack they've crawled into for shelter.

"Piers," Leon croaks as Jill finishes what she'd been doing and gently tucks his injured leg under the blanket, pulling it up until the top edge is aligned with the neckline of his t-shirt. "P-Piers--"

"It's okay. I'm here," Piers murmurs in a low voice, holding Leon tightly when his body spasms for what feels like the hundredth time.

"Piers..."

He can't remember what he'd been about to say. Chris's hand slides back into his, squeezing as Leon's eyelids flutter. He stays like that for a moment, trembling--until Piers is helping him slightly more upright, the metal edge of a canteen meeting his lips. The water is cool and soothing enough that Leon can reopen his eyes, Jill's solemn face meeting his where she holds the canteen on its side. Chris is beside her, looking worried, but Leon doesn't have the strength to comfort either of them. He's starting to feel a little sick, if he's honest, the full weight of whatever had been in those spikes wreaking havoc on his system.

"Thanks, nurse Valentine," he rasps when Jill pulls away, mainly in an attempt to lighten the mood. If anything, it makes the lines on Chris's forehead even more pronounced, voice lacking in enough conviction to play off his condition. He sighs. "We should--keep moving."

"Absolutely not." Piers is firm, then softens. "There's no way you can stand without help, and we have no idea what the toxin might do to you. Just rest."

"He's right," Chris says softly, voice too gentle. His brown eyes are wide and watery when Leon manages to look, a forced smile on his face like he's trying to convince himself that it's real. Jill pats Leon's uninjured shin.

"Sleep it off, Kennedy," she says roughly but not unkindly as she sits down in a chair near his feet, in typical Jill fashion. As if following the order, Leon's muscles suddenly relax, the cottony haze in his mind becoming more pronounced as he sags into Piers' arms. He whimpers. Spasms.

"It's okay," Piers whispers, voice cracking. Leon doesn't have the energy to ask why. He reaches up blindly, hand getting caught in the blanket until he can free it to brush his fingers against Piers' jaw.

Unconsciousness takes him.

[hermitslibrary]

on magic in the ancient greek world

"individuals in antiquity turned to such rituals in the hope of bettering their fortunes in a natural world that seemed hostile and unpredictable, in a society that competed fiercely for the use and control of limited resources and advantages... indeed a close reading of the extant sources for daily life in the ancient world reveals many such common fears and persistent uncertainties that daily beset all men and women, rich and poor, slave or free. unrequited love, sterility, impotence, gout, eye disease, bad luck at the races, or an unexpected setback in a legal case—all these and a multitude of other distresses are revealed in the texts of the magical inscriptions and papyri."

the preface of magika hiera: ancient greek magic & religion (pdf pg. 6)

[fulgurbugs]

NOOOOO THE BACON COUPON ENDED BEFOFE I GOUT GET ALL MY FREE BACON NOOOOOO