#I don't have any more interesting tag facts other than that don't expect a timely sequel to this because I have so much stuff to complete

[tswwwit]

Lol omg at your last ask because imagine dippers under some truth spell and ends up spilling a bunch of secrets that Bill already knew and had stashed to use for later

This is no longer 'last ask' relevant because I had this partially written in my drafts for like a million years - but a Truth spell on Dipper would be very interesting!

So I took this prompt and didn't really answer it except in some ways.

Here's a thing!

“You never bring me any souvenirs.” Bill complains. In an all-too-whiny tone, and an all-too-close lean into Dipper's personal space.

Plus, it's a blatant lie. One Dipper shouldn't respond to. 

He does anyway. “I literally brought you harpy feathers last week.” 

“Doesn’t count! That was for a ritual you wanted to pull off!” Bill sounds miffed, though he also plants a palm on Dipper’s head and starts ruffling hair. “Now where's the emerald from last March? Or like, the headdress from that cult with all the rabbit bones? The good stuff."

Dipper grunts. He focuses on navigating back out of the cave, turning the clay tablet over in his hands.

Figures Bill would remember all the times he did get something. His memory is excellent. And he’s greedy, because a new toy every time is a big ask. 

What does Bill expect, anyway. Not every situation Dipper gets into has something to bring back. What could he even offer? An ear taken off every monster he has to fight?

Wait, no. Bill would love that.

Dipper makes a face. “You've just proved that it's not ‘never’. With examples." 

"Sure, but when’s the last time it was cool?” 

Dipper sighs. No point in arguing. Bill could go on forever about how 'unfair' it is that he doesn't get trophies from every trip, or trinkets from conquered lands, or, again, ears from every enemy. When he’s decided to complain, no reasonable argument will shake him out of it.

“Too bad, then. You’re only getting some gifts.” Dipper shakes his head rapidly to dislodge Bill’s hand from his hair. "It’s hardly the worst thing that’s ever happened to you."

“Hey! I could argue that it’s related! In fact -”

Dipper tunes out the rest of Bill’s ramble, rolling his eyes. Listening with half an ear to Bill's ongoing tirade about being a poorly kept man, and unappreciated in his time. 

Despite how much he already has, Bill always wants more. Somehow he sniffed out Dipper’s latest excursion, showing up right at the end and looking for ‘loot’.

Which Dipper, by all rights, should prevent. 

 Anything magical falling into Bill's hands can cause chaos, no matter how innocuous it seems. The flower incident alone is reason not to hand Bill anything, ever, and the fact that Dipper still does sometimes should be appreciated, damn it.

Bill's complaining on and on, but whatever. Eventually he'll get bored.

 In the meantime, Dipper turns the clay tablet around again with a frown. He found something interesting, at least.

Whatever this is, it’s definitely not a language he recognizes. The script is strange, scrawled in different directions. For all he knows he’s holding it upside down. He hopes Bill doesn’t notice until he’s figured out - 

"Whatcha got there?" Just as expected - and right on time. 

Dipper feels the tablet yanked out of his grasp, unfazed. He doesn't break his stride.

"I found it in the lair, after... you know." Charred bones, explosions - Dipper wishes he could use, like water, or something, but mastery over even one element is powerful as is. "Anyway, that monster was collecting a lot of weird magic stuff, and this was the only interesting thing it had." He shrugs. Then, because Bill will like it, adds, "So... to the victor go the spoils?"

“Now that’s the spirit!” Bill gives him a grin, holding the tablet up to squint at it. Thankfully not turning it around. One point for Dipper, on not looking incompetent.

Still, if anyone can read it…

“What language is this?” Dipper not-so-subtly leans over, trying to peek around Bill’s arm.

"Old Draconic," Bill says, without missing a beat. Humming to himself as he apparently reads the text. Perking up a bit, smile widening. "Oh, hey! Iambic pentameter."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing, sapling. I just wish when people did the whole 'ancient poetry curse' thing, they'd get a little more creative. You never see hexameter! Or tetrameter! Not even a tasteful use of spondee.” Bill sticks his tongue out.  "Come to think of it - I don’t think anyone’s done a prose epic that made the reader wanna tear their eyes out since Joyce."

Sometimes with Bill, you have to read between the lines. The long, irrelevant babbling lines.

"Just tell me if I need to get Ford or not." Dipper says, flat. He rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

Among all the other stuff, Bill said ‘curse’. Never, ever a good sign.

Though the monster he just took down wasn’t a dragon, and that wasn’t really a ‘horde’ so much as something resembling the contents of the Mystery Shack, there’s absolutely no good thing about a curse. If Dipper somehow triggered it - 

Great. As if hanging around Bill alone didn’t invite enough bad fortune, he’s picking up parts of his own stupid curiosity.

"Nah, don’t bother with the loser uncle!" Bill waves his concern away, amused. “This is just purple prose! Buncha  ‘oooh, bad things’ll happen if you mess with my stuff.’ Totally boilerplate spellcraft with some flowery wording.” 

With a shrug, Bill dismisses the whole thing. Which includes chucking the tablet over his shoulder, but Dipper manages to snag it before it falls and shatters into a million pieces.

“Typical dragon horde enchantment. All bluster, no burning.” Bill keeps walking without a care in the world. “They’re full of hot air!”

“So I’m not cursed,” Dipper prompts, catching up to him. “Aside from you, I mean.”

“Flatterer,” Bill says, slightly warmer. He continues, shrugging. “No reason you would be! No dragons in the area, and the warning sign there’s too old. By my guess, the original horde was raided centuries ago! Just another piece of random crap that got dragged into that junkyard." And he ruffles Dipper’s hair again, in the second-most annoying way. "You’re stuck with me, though.”

Dipper ducks and twists, thus freeing himself from the minor torment. “I think I can live with that.”

One would think that chatting with a demon - one as cryptic and ominous and aggravating as Bill - would only cause irritation, at best. 

It still does, of course. But when it comes to Dipper, Bill… sometimes lays things out straight. On occasion. Especially when he’s instructing, doubly when it comes to magic. Like he’s trying to pour all the facts he can into Dipper’s brain, overfilling the cup.

If his goal is to overload this one mortal mind, though, he'll have to work a lot harder. 

Dipper gets out his notebook, while Bill looks away, and pretends he didn’t see it. Yet another poorly-veiled lesson, with Bill obviously trying to plant seeds re: actually casting curses. Tough luck managing that. His subtle lean towards chaos might escape the unwary, but to Dipper? Bill’s way too transparent.

The fact is, that Dipper absorbs things fast. Even Bill will admit it, sometimes without being prompted. 

That Includes stuff Bill doesn't even know he's teaching.

Bill’s also rambling on about historical curses, and how often these things backfire, or misfire. It’d almost sound like a series of unconnected, gossipy anecdotes, if it weren’t for the extra technical details. 

And Dipper’s not falling for it. As far as he's concerned, his first curse was his last one.

But then…

Even if he’s not going to use the knowledge, there's no reason not to learn it. Knowledge about making curses can also be used to break them, after all. Taking all the facts Bill smacked a ‘For Evil Purposes Only’ sticker on and using them to shatter an evil plan would be very satisfying.

They’re nearly out of the cave at this point, so Dipper figures it’s fine to let his guard down a bit. The monster's dead, all the traps were cleared out on the way in - everything should be fine.

He clicks his pen a couple times, and asks Bill to repeat that last thing, about the life drain. It gets a snort of amusement, but Bill’s more than happy to elaborate at length. Dipper struggles to keep up with Bill’s rapid-fire speech; he's trying to make this intentionally difficult, damn it.

Bill leads on with careless gestures and an uninterrupted stride. Getting ahead of Dipper by several meters, but Dipper’s got to note down what he says before he has to do something awful, like ask Bill to repeat himself.

Dipper is, in fact, so busy trying to write in shorthand, and walk, and not hit a stalactite with his face, all at the same time, that he sort of loses track of where he is.

And okay, maybe he trips over a rock slightly, and nearly faceplants, bonking against the sudden curve of a wall with a swear.

Dipper takes a step back, rubbing at his forehead. Annoying, but, whatever. There were a few traps around, but he pretty much cleared out the cave on the way in, so it’s probably - oh, hell.

Not fine, he dropped the stupid tablet.

Great. The only really interesting object, shattered into half a dozen pieces. So much from saving it from Bill; Dipper himself fumbled the bag.

He backs up to evaluate the damage -

The stone sinks under his foot, and something goes ‘click’.

With a start, Dipper raises a shield without thinking, arm jerking up as he wills his magic into the gesture. It's solid enough for something done on reflex, but an impact hits hard on his side, with sudden, stinging pain. 

And a pretty hard impact, at that. He didn’t get it solid enough, damn it, wasn’t expecting something physical -  

Dipper wheezes out a breath, slumping to the ground and clutching his stomach. 

Alright. So. He got most of the traps. 

He sits down, and lets his head thump back against the stone, teeth bared in a grimace. Stupid. Should have been paying attention. 

The commotion makes Bill turn his head, blinking at Dipper sitting on the ground. 

Then -  because he’s an asshole - he starts laughing. 

“I know I’m fascinating, sapling, but really?” He tuts, setting fists on his hips. “Not sure if I should be flattered that you’re obsessed with me, or disappointed that you’re dumb enough to walk right into a wall.”

Dipper sucks in a breath, gingerly touching his side. Doesn’t seem like - he glances down. Sure, it stings, and his shirt’s torn, a long, shallow cut on his stomach, just near the old scar. But that’s about it. Over to his side, an arrow rolls against the ground, stone head clicking against the ground.

Over by the cave mouth, Bill’s cackling. God, he’s a jerk sometimes. 

But he must not have seen the trap set off, too wrapped up in his own stupid bullshit, or he’d be less of one. Dipper knows that for a fact. Though he’d really, really prefer he’d never had that experience. 

“C’mon, kid. If you’re not even more brain damaged from your bump, let’s ditch this joint.” Bill jerks his head over his shoulder. 

Dipper hugs himself around the torso, grimacing. Not bothering to respond. His heart is still pounding, or he’d have a retort ready. Adrenaline’s helped him out in a lot of situations, but not with talking. He’ll get up when he’s ready.

“What, you smash your skull open or something?” Bill raises one arch eyebrow. 

Though Dipper knows why Bill’s like this, it’s still deeply annoying. He shakes his head in lieu of a reply. In a second, he’ll be calm enough to tell Bill exactly what he thinks of his incredibly poor bedside - and cave-side - manner. 

“Figures. Can’t leave you alone for five minutes without your guts spilling everywhere.” Bill clicks his tongue, folding his arms and stepping forward. “What’s the damage?”

“It hurts.” Dipper says, through gritted teeth. Then pauses. Wait, he meant to say - He shakes his head rapidly, only for more words to force themselves out, unbidden. “I got cut again.”

Again, not what he intended. Dipper lowers his chin, teeth clenched. What the hell, he shouldn’t have said that. Bill’s mocking aside, maybe he did hit his head a little too hard. Once Bill gets the mockery out of his system, he’s going to be a total pest about it, too.

With a huff, Dipper slumps. Settling in for a sulk, waiting for the next jab - But there’s no insult forthcoming. Or argument. 

In fact, Bill’s gone totally silent. Which is super weird. 

Dipper looks up at the cave entrance, expecting a comment or a question, or at least a huge grin. He tenses up, hunching over.

And meets a frozen, unsmiling face. 

Bill dropped his arms, they hang limp by his sides. His expression’s gone blank.

The next moment, he’s right in front of Dipper, kneeling and tugging at his arms with alarming urgency. 

“Alright, lemme see.” Bill’s face is very close. Though he’s trying to pull his arms away, Dipper resists out of sheer surprise. Bill growls, eye darting around until it lands on the arrow. “Oh for - Really can’t leave you alone for five minutes. Move.” 

Another pull, less hard this time. Like he’s trying to ease Dipper’s arms away.

“Wh- Hey!” Dipper plants a foot against Bill’s chest, but that hardly stops anything. He raises his arms. Holding them up, in fact, like he’s at gunpoint. Where’d this come from. “Don’t get upset, I’m fine.”

“Ha! Good one, sapling. Who’s upset, exactly?” Bill says, teeth bared, and in a deeply upset way. He tugs Dipper’s shirt, up, fingers tracing the cut before pressing into his stomach. “I’m just wondering if I need a replacement mortal this soon into your miserable existence. No big deal!”

Okay, this is too much. 

Dipper struggles up, despite Bill trying to shove him down again. Bracing himself on the cave wall, and glaring. “Calm down already.”

“I’m perfectly calm.” Bill says, through gritted teeth. At best he looks miffed, but he’s at least stopped trying to make Dipper lie down in the recovery position or whatever. With a glare, he tugs up Dipper’s shirt, prodding at the shallow cut. “What the hell, kid. I thought you said it hurt!”

“Ow.” Dipper’s stomach jumps at another poke. He smacks Bill’s hand away. “It does, alright? Quit poking.”

Bill doesn’t seem impressed. His fingers trail over the larger, older scar on Dipper’s left side, then glares at Dipper’s stomach like it’s insulted him. A beat, then - “You don’t usually complain.”

“I-” Okay, true. Dipper glares anyway. “Shut up.” 

He doesn’t complain because it’s the only option. For all that Bill whines and teases and taunts Dipper, all the time, about being some ‘fragile mortal meatsack’, already rotting before his eyes, he really doesn’t like it when it’s brought forcefully to his attention. 

God, he shouldn't have said anything. Ninety-five percent of the time, there isn’t any harm to mention. But when Dipper does ends up showing he is kind of… mortal, and it’s small, he just. Doesn’t bring it up. For all that they bicker all the time, he doesn’t like to make Bill upset.

Bill grunts, mouth turned down at the corners. He stands up quickly, folding his arms. His lip curls up in a sneer. “If you wanted attention, kid, there are way better ways to-”

Oh, fuck that. Dipper flips him off, and starts storming off. 

God, this is stupid. Whenever Dipper ever breaks a bone or something, he gets teased about being so weak and vulnerable. Which he is, but neither of them like the reminder. 

These days, it also comes with some weirdly maybe-sincere ‘kiss it better’ thing that Dipper then has to disinfect. A lot of hovering, and rambling commentary. Sometimes creative descriptions of how much worse it could have been, and Dipper never needed those, at any time. Bill gets oddly fixated on such random little moments, and it’s just -

Dipper doesn’t like it, is all. Bill gets the way he gets, it’s a lot, and it’s easier just to avoid it. If he were a different guy - a human guy, or even mostly-human monster- Dipper might try to talk to him about it.

But Bill’s a demon. Not normal, barely sane even on his best days, and worse, he’s Bill, so. That conversation would go precisely nowhere.

Behind him, he hears said demon approaching, fast. Stupid jerk. He should be as tall as his real form. That’d be fair. More accurate, too, and then Dipper could properly stomp off without Bill catching up so easily.

Already the bastard is by Dipper’s side. A tall, irritating presence. Hovering close without grabbing on, which adds to said irritation. 

Dipper leans away, but Bill catches him around the waist and drags him in.

“Don’t get so grumpy, sapling, you’re fine! A little nick in the outer layer rarely killed anyone since they invented antibiotics.” Though he pinches Dipper’s cheek, he yanks his head away with a grunt. Bill sighs. “Everything’s a-okay here! Looks like I don't have to find a replacement just yet.”

Bill’s an idiot. Dipper scoffs, though an unpleasant feeling crawls in his gut. “Oh yeah? Who would you replace me with?”

“Eh, not like I got anyone specific in mind.” Bill waves that off, nonchalant. “But I have options! Lots of options.” He bumps a hip against Dipper. “Keep that in mind before you go charging off into obvious traps.”

This goddamn liar. Dipper  elbows him in the side, because the asshole deserves it. 

Not that Dipper’s worried, or anything. From what little he’s heard of Bill’s exes in the demonic rumor mill - Bill’s been, as they say, less than successful. Already Dipper’s outstripped his longest by years.. Bill can lie day in and day out about his options, put on a brave face - but they both know he’s not going to find this again. Not easily. 

“Good luck finding another husband, asshole.” Dipper says with appropriate derision. It’s annoying that Bill even brought it up. There’s a good riposte in there, somewhere - but while his brain is coming up with an insult, his mouth runs on automatic. “But I was really worried that you would last week. I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day until you sent a dick pic. It was weirdly comforting.”

Bill turns toward him with genuine surprise. He even blinks a few times, no retort emerging, and Dipper looks back at him with equal surprise. 

Until his mind catches up with what he just said. 

Dipper digs his heels in the ground, slamming to a halt. Clapping both hands to his mouth, eyes wide.

Beside him Bill nearly trips at the sudden stop, flailing for balance with a swear.

Shit, shit shit. Dipper really didn’t mean to say that. He knows Bill’s not looking around, that he’s not interested. Cynically, that he couldn’t manage it if he was. Last week was just a one-off anxiety, like all the others Dipper’s brain comes up with when it gets too much free time. Totally irrational, and really hard to stop fixating on.

Bill keeps staring. Not angry, just confused, for long enough that Dipper wants to shrink into the ground and melt into nothingness. 

Then he asks, “What the hell, Pine Tree?” 

“I don’t know! I don’t know why I thought that. I don’t know why I said that.” Dipper cringes into himself, grimacing and ducking his head. He runs a hand over his slightly sweaty face. “I didn't even want you to know I got hurt.” 

At that, Bill snorts. “Oh, please. I’d have seen that first time I got your shirt off. You can’t keep secrets from me!” 

Dipper folds his arms, internally seething - and his stupid mouth moves to say,  “I’ve done it before.” 

This time, the silence is tense.

Dipper wipes his sweating forehead again, not daring to meet Bill’s eye. God he shouldn't have -

Before he can think, he blurts out, “I think something’s wrong.” 

“Probably!” Bill agrees, with a smile just a little too sharp. He takes Dipper’s face in both hands, eye narrowed. “Hold still a sec.”

As Bill’s eye flickers blue, and the magic between them surges -  Dipper squirms a bit, but. Well. If anything’s wrong with him - magically, anyway - Bill’s the best one to diagnose it..

Bill tilts his head to one side, then the other. After a moment, his mouth twists up into something unpleasant, eye glowing slightly brighter for an instant.

Then he sighs, and lets Dipper go. His expression is neutral, except for the slightest downturn of his mouth. His lips part like he’s about to speak, then twist up into a grimace.

Uh oh.

Whatever Bill saw, he didn’t like it.

“What?” Dipper pats his head, then his chest. If there was something weird, magically about him, he - wouldn’t be able to tell, actually. He’s too close to get a good look. Oh god, what if he did hit his head too hard, and something in his brain is bleeding, or worse. “Wait. Am I dying?”

“Worse! You’re telling the truth.” Bill claps his hands together. Though he’s smiling again, it’s brittle and annoyed. “Don’t suppose you know any curse breakers that aren’t your great-uncle?”

“Not really,” Dipper admits. Bill's words catch up to him, and he bites his lip. Then, because the situation deserves it, “Fuck.”

Protection curse. The tablet.

Damn it.

A part of a horde, from a long time ago. Messed with. It should have been something less awful. Like warts, or sprouting plants from his skin, or a big fireball. Pretty much anything else would be less awful.

Truth curses are rare, they’re difficult as hell - but judging by the words spilling out of Dipper, he’s caught a pretty strong variant.

Of all the curses that could hit him. Why this one.

Hell, maybe it’s intended to be the worst curse possible for the ‘thief’. That would explain how targeted this feels. 

And knowing Dipper’s luck, that part was explained on, like, the back of the tablet.

“Welp! Good thing I’m not short on contacts, kid.” Bill grapes his shoulder, shaking him a bit, before he trails an arm over Dipper’s shoulders. “Who wants some fumbling idiot uncle to fix this kinda spell, anyway?”

Dipper would! If it was feasible. He makes a brief attempt at shrugging Bill’s arm up before letting his shoulders slump.

The idea of Ford hearing about this is….

Dipper sucks in a breath through his teeth.

Ford really would have a way around this. He'd certainly have the best intentions, Dipper’s certain. He'd...

Also not have the best sense of boundaries.

Though he'd be doing it for the right reasons, he'd ask the wrong questions. Out of concern, and arguably valid worry; he's never fully believed that Bill can't influence him. Despite how many times Dipper’s tried to explain it to him, Ford just can’t wrap his mind around certain truths.

With this curse, though. Between poor social sense, the Pines curiosity, and what Dipper might blurt out, while compelled to answer - 

On this, Dipper agrees with Bill. They’ll have to find something else to break this.

In the meantime, he’ll manage, like he has all the other times his life has sucked. Hardly the worst case scenario. If Bill had been cursed - someone who lies like he breathes -  Who knows? Give it a few days, and he might just explode from all the backed up bullshit.

“Wait.” A horrible thought strikes. Dipper reels on his husband, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

“What, me? I’m a perfectly moral human man,” Bill says, resting a hand on his chest, lifting his chin with pride. “A boring sentient mammal who’s never found curses entertaining.” 

Yep, Bill’s fine. As always, it’s Dipper who gets the short end of the stick. 

He breathes in slowly, and lets it out. 

Yeah. Still sucks. He’ll deal. Cursed, but not dead. In danger, but not the worst - and his husband’s being annoying, which means he’s perfectly fine. There’s a solution too - it’s just going to be a huge, annoying process getting to it. 

“So,” Bill says, slowly. Drawing the word out in a long string, while he finger-walks his arm up around Dipper’s shoulder.

Uh oh.

Speaking of annoying…

“Watch it,” Dipper hunches his shoulders, not daring to look his idiot husband in the eye. “You’re this close to sleeping on the couch for a month.” Not a big enough threat, Bill’s still thinking- “Or for a year.”

“Oh, sure,” Bill says, in a distracted tone. His fingers pause on their walk, one ‘leg’ poised on Dipper’s clavicle. They hold the position for a long moment, tapping out a little marching step - and seconds later, his palm slaps down on Dipper’s shoulder. “So, Pine Tree! How do you feel about this ‘Bill Cipher’ guy?”

Though Dipper resists, and he really tries to, the words slip out past his teeth, his lips form the sounds -

“I love you.” God. Damnit. He clenches his fists, as Bill’s sheer smugness radiates from him like heat. “And I’m thinking about shoving you off a cliff right now.”

When Bill paused, Dipper thought he might have fended this off. Wishful thinking, really, Bill’s almost impossible to stop. Dipper used what leverage he had, but all he’s managed to avoid are the worst, most invasive questions.

When it comes to Bill, that’s pretty close to a win.

Not that it’s going to feel like one.

Bill has, in fact, been encouraged. Now that he’s heard something he likes, he leans in like a weird creep. Dipper can practically hear the leer in his voice. “And on a scale of one to ten, how handsome am I?

“Ten point five,” Dipper needs to loosen his jaw or he might break a filling. Being pumped for information is bad enough without pumping up Bill’s already ridiculous ego. “You bastard.” 

Bill’s chest puffs out, there’s a strut in his stride. The grin is so wide now Dipper’s pretty sure it should hurt- and if he dares to pucker up, he’s not getting lips on his awful face.  “And am I the most clever and sexually amazing guy in the universe or what?

This time, Dipper snorts. 

“Definitely not.” He ignores the sharp, indignant sound next to him, tilting his head in thought. “For one, there’s succubi and incubi, so. Sexually, you’re not even on top amongst demons.” He glances over at the offended ‘o’ of Bill’s mouth. “And I know you’re not the most clever, because I win our debates nearly half the time. Maybe you’re up there, but not the most. And that’s just the surface level stuff.”

Dipper doesn’t have a complete cosmological view of the multiverse, but he has learned a lot. Mostly stuff he picked up from his husband, and demonic gossip. It’s absolutely enough to go on a long, long ramble about how Bill most likely doesn’t rank number one in anything. If Dipper avoids the topics where he actually is.

He’s barely fifteen seconds in before Bill starts scowling, with a grumpy hunch to his shoulders - But screw him. 

Dipper starts smiling, just a bit. Then, to be a dick, he adds, 

“The ten and a half is just me, anyway. To the average human, you’re maybe an eight..” Dipper continues, over another spluttered protest. Again, true; not everyone likes the slightly inhuman maniac cyclops look. “Six with your personality.” 

Bill groans. “Ugh, you pedant.” He squeezes Dipper’s shoulder, jostling him slightly. “C’mon, you know what I meant! What’s the real - “

“Don’t ask questions if you can’t handle the answers,” Dipper warns, jabbing Bill in the chest. So far it hasn’t been too much, but it could be. Time to draw a line. “I will suck so much fun out of this for you.” 

Bill Cipher, unintentional teacher once more. Now Dipper knows the curse isn’t about perfect truth. When he can deliberately misinterpret a question’s intent, and can go on tangents  - that means he has loopholes. There might even be more, if he tries.

And if they can’t get this settled soon, he’ll need every one of those he can find.

“Clever brat.” Bill’s frowning, but he can’t disguise the amusement in his voice. His eyebrows wiggle, his arm hauling him close -  "Go ahead, then. Anything else you wanna share?"

"I know two and half ways to kill you, Bill Cipher." Dipper gets right up in his face. He won’t let Bill push this any further. "Don't tempt me to use them."

Being face to face like this, Dipper watches Bill’s eye go wide - ha, didn’t expect that, did he. With that threat, he’ll - 

Start cackling. And weirdly, turn a little pink. Dipper feels all the momentum he had whoosh out of him like sad balloon animal. 

“Boy, you are a saucy one!” Bill whistles, low. He places his hands demurely on his cheeks, fluttering his eye at Dipper with amusement. “Oh, yeah. Talk deadly to me.”

By this time, Dipper figures he should be used to stumbling into demonic flirtation. Only it turns out it’s basically fractal in nature, and he keeps running into new and newer edge cases.

“Fun as this is - we gotta get you cleared up, and no time like the present!” Bill’s calmed down enough to scoop an arm around his waist, leading Dipper onward. “Can’t have you babbling everything to everyone, y’know?”

“What, you don’t want me telling you everything?” Total bullshit. Dipper elbows him in the side. “I thought you wanted to get in my head.”

“Hey! I didn’t ask for our game to be set on ‘beginner’ mode. That’s boring.” Bill flicks his fingers - but he’s got his ‘evading questions’ look on. “You’re lucky I’m so- oof.”

Another elbow, harder this time. Bill grunts, but capitulates. Rubbing at his eye briefly, he sighs.

“So! How many of my secrets would you say you know, Pine Tree?” Bill tightens his grip on Dipper’s waist, tugging him closer. “And I’m talking about the ones that I wouldn’t enjoy getting out in the world.”

“More than I can count.” Dipper says without thinking. Then, with thinking -  “Oh.”

Dipper hadn’t considered how much Bill’s taught him, before this exact moment. How much he’s learned. Even unintentionally. Especially unintentionally. 

Crap, even his threat before was kind of - 

Shit. There’s definitely, absolutely, no way can they go to Ford about this. Total recipe for disaster.

“See? We both got liabilities in play here.” Bill moves easily as Dipper picks up the pace. If anything he’s amused, and not feeling nearly as urgent. Another reason he’s an idiot. “All we gotta do is get you patched up quick, and no more loose lips sinking ships! Easy-peasy.”

“It better be,” Dipper mutters. Nothing ever goes right for him. And by extension, them.

“Trust me, kid! I got this handled!” Bill snaps his fingers - and smacks Dipper’s butt with a wink. “I know some guys!”

[awearywritersworld]

the day of my execution

sukuna x reader summary: gojo, yuuji, and sukuna discuss what happened at the store. sukuna begins to consider your mortality like never before and takes care of you when you're sick. w/c: 2.7k tags/warnings: fluff. mentions of attempted kidnapping. banter. reader has the flu. aged up!yuuji. not canon compliant. fem!reader. no use of y/n. a/n: sorry for disappearing for so long, but here is the long awaited next chapter. i've put a second a/n at the end, so i hope you'll read it. please excuse me talking out of my ass trying to rationalize my application of jujutsu, but if gege does it, so can i. i hope it kind of makes sense though. series masterlist // masterlist

truthfully, yuuji expects his wednesday morning to be as uneventful as any other, but when he stands in front of the bathroom sink to brush his teeth, his eyes are not the only ones staring back at him.

"what d'ya want?" he groans. "it's too early for this."

"we need to talk."

sukuna doesn't give his vessel a chance to respond before he begins recounting the events of the previous night, a story which has yuuji's face cycling between surprise, worry, and dismay. "the man claimed someone sent him?"

"that's what i said," sukuna responds impatiently.

"why would anyone be after her? i don't understand."

"would it kill you to use your brain for once?" sukuna questions, having had the entirety of the night to ponder the situation. "think, idiot. who would be interested in using her in some ploy? against you. against... us."

yuuji's eyes widen. "the higher ups?

"no one else would be so brazen."

it strikes sukuna as ironic that just days after he relayed the cruelness he endured at the hands of jujutsu society's higher ups a millenia ago, you too almost became one of their victims. it's a reality that he despises.

"i should call gojo—"

"that is out of the question."

"do you want to keep her safe or not?"

sukuna scoffs. "this is how we keep her safe. if the higher ups are after her, we can't trust other sorcerers."

yuuji almost seems offended on gojo's behalf. after all, he's known him for the better part of a decade. "i'd trust gojo with my life."

"well this isn't your life we're talking about. this is much more important."

yuuji chuckles. "i know. that's exactly why we need help."

before sukuna can protest, yuuji's dialing his old sensei and asking to meet somewhere they can speak privately.

that's how they end up at a small bakery on the outskirts of tokyo, sukuna relaying the story for the second time that morning.

once he finishes, gojo leans back in his chair and folds his hands behind his head. "well, i don't think you're wrong about the higher ups being involved."

"so what are we supposed to do?" yuuji asks. "they might use her to get to me, but you don't think the higher ups would actually put her life in danger, do you?"

though yuuji's question is directed toward gojo, it isn't him that answers.

"you're as naive as ever," sukuna scoffs. "they'll stop at nothing to achieve their own ends."

gojo grimaces, a silent agreement with the assertion. "i can do some poking around, see who ordered it to be done."

"and what exactly is that going to do? there's no reasoning with them."

"a fact i am well aware of," the white haired man narrows his eyes at the king of curses. "but there is leverage in power, something i happen to have more of than anybody—"

"almost anybody—"

"so as the strongest, i'll take care of this as soon as i can."

"hey, um, so as productive as all the dick measuring is," yuuji interrupts. "it doesn't keep her safe in the meantime."

"i have an idea in that regard," sukuna says. "it's an ancient practice, and while it doesn't offer any protective measures, it will allow me to find her if they make another attempt like last night."

gojo leans forward, clearly interested to hear more.

"i can imbue a talisman with a part of myself and if she wears it, it will act as a beacon for her location."

"with part of yourself? as in, your cursed energy?" yuuji speculates. "wouldn't that do more harm than good? attract cursed spirits and whatever?"

"no, i'm not a fool. it's not cursed energy."

sukuna is hesitant to clarify further. he'd done something similar when creating his fingers, but it was different then. it was a selfish endeavor to preserve his life long after it was his time to die. it was a dark sort of jujutsu, one meant only to bring destruction.

but intention is important in sorcery. it can change the very essence of the practice.

for the first time in his life, sukuna is acting selflessly, concerned only with your protection. it's a pure sort of jujutsu this time around, one that allows him to impart a piece of himself that isn't tainted by cursed energy.

and because of that, that part of him would be unprotected. it'd leave him uniquely vulnerable. it's a steep and dangerous measure. that's why the practice had been forgotten long before the modern age.

"then what could it possibly be?" it's quiet for a moment as yuuji's question hangs in the air.

"it's your soul, isn't it?" the disbelief lacing gojo's voice is quite plain, but he's heard whispers of such techniques. "you'd give her a piece of your soul."

sukuna's never been one for unfinished business, so it's no surprise when he finds himself on the couch, intent on finishing the stranger. besides, it had become clear he'd been focusing on the wrong aspects of the book when he first began reading it.

he's three chapters from the end when he hears a loud shatter from the kitchen, followed by a sharp gasp. the broken glass hasn't even finished sliding across the floor before he's at your side.

"what happened?" the alarm in his voice doesn't go unnoticed by you.

"nothing, nothing," you assure him. "i just dropped my cup."

crouching down, you reach for one of the bigger pieces before your hand is swiftly smacked away. "don't."

"it's fine. it's only a little glass."

when you reach for it again, he grabs your wrist. "you troublesome little thing. do you ever listen?"

"i don't make a habit of it."

"i know. the question was rhetorical."

sukuna's already noticed the shards of glass surrounding your bare feet, so he wastes no time in picking you up and placing you on the countertop.

"don't move." he says it in such a way that, for once, you don't even think about disobeying him.

he all but stomps out of the room, returning moments later with a broom and dust pan. there's a small smile playing on your lips as you watch him gather the larger pieces before sweeping up the rest.

and you know, it's really not fair. sukuna could even call it a cosmic injustice, the way he has to worry about broken glass and fragile fingertips.

but he likes you and he likes the pads of your fingers, particularly the way they feel against his skin and run through his hair, so he swallows his pride.

it's been consuming him lately— the fact that you are just as easily broken as the glass that littered the kitchen tile. he never considered just how many ways there are for a human to die until you were nearly taken from him.

so once he's done, he rests the broom and dustpan against the wall and stands in front of you, his hips situated between your knees.

reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a necklace and your mouth falls open in shock. a delicate chain is threaded around his fingers, while its ruby pendant dangles in the air. "i want you to have this."

"what.. what is it?"

he snorts. "you don't know what a necklace is?"

you let out a breath of a laugh. "of course i do. i'm just surprised."

you hold up your palm and he places the necklace there gently. inspecting the gem, you notice it bears a striking resemblance to the color of his eyes.

strangely, it's almost as if it's heavier than it should be— like it's weighed down by some importance beyond your comprehension.

"it's beautiful," you tell him honestly. "are you sure?"

"sure of what?"

"that i should have it."

he pauses before responding, taking in the way you're so gingerly holding it. he's scared you've realized what he's actually giving you. that you're repulsed by it.

he's hesitant when he asks, "why would you think otherwise?"

"i didn't do anything to deserve something like this."

sukuna breathes a sigh of relief. "you are ever the fool."

his hands find your hips, pulling you off the counter and onto your feet. he plucks the necklace from your hand, then shifts to stand behind you.

moving your hair to the side, his fingers brush lightly against your skin. "the necklace is undeserving of adorning your neck. not the other way around."

and he knows it's the truth. a piece of him, attached to a creature so lovely she should be out of his reach... well, that's just unseemly, isn't it?

"but promise me something anyway."

"anything," you say without delay.

he situates the chain around your neck, the pendant lying in the space where your collarbones meet, and fastens the clasp. when you turn to face him, you're met with an alarmingly grave expression.

"promise you won't ever take it off."

you fiddle with the ruby somewhat nervously, feeling as if you're missing some important piece of the puzzle.

you nod in response to his request, but it isn't enough for him.

"say it."

"i promise."

he can see that you're biting back questions, so he explains, "if you're wearing that, i'll always know where to find you."

it finally dawns on you, for the first time, how much the incident at the store truly affected him. it's not the way he ended those men that clued you in, nor is it the way he pleaded with you to forgive him.

it happens in this moment. it's the gentleness of his voice, despite his underlying desperation. it's the way he's watching you carefully, as if you're likely to disappear. it's the fact he wouldn't let you clean up a mess of your own making, because he can't stand the thought of seeing you bleed.

"i... i don't know what to say."

"well, that's a first."

"shut up," you punch his shoulder. "you're ruining the moment."

"right, my bad," he chuckles and glances down at the gemstone. "do you like it?"

you let out a breath. "of course. i love it."

he smiles at your words— soft and genuine— truly a rare sight. "good."

you notice that he's looking at you. really looking at you. his eyes shift away from yours and over to each of your temples. then down to your nose. your mouth. even your chin.

he takes in every detail and he feels like he's in your debt simply for gazing at your countenance.

you almost regret it when your hands curl around the collar of his shirt and pull his lips to yours. you should have savored his smile, spent time committing it to memory.

although, that's soon forgotten as you feel the curve of his mouth deepen while his lips move against yours.

it isn't until day three of your ceaseless coughing and sneezing that sukuna adds them to his list— broken glass, fragile fingertips, coughs, and sniffles.

his concern is clear from the way he dotes on you. he brings you cold cloths, makes you tea, massages your neck, runs you baths.

now he's on his way to a twenty four hour pharmacy to pick up more medicine to reduce your fever, and while it's only a block away, he's still doing it alone.

but not even for a moment does he consider running off to burn the world's largest city to the ground. the streets are crawling with people, but he finds himself avoiding them more than anything.

he has to get back to you after all.

the only thought on his mind other than you is the ending of the stranger. the main character, while awaiting his beheading from his prison cell, conveys his final words to readers:

for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, i opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. finding it so much like myself— so like a brother, really— i felt that i had been happy and that i was happy again. for everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, i had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators on the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

in sukuna's first life, perhaps this line would have resonated with him. it was a life where he had resolved himself to the idea that nothing really mattered, because the alternative was too painful. it didn't matter that jujutsu society betrayed him. it didn't matter that he stole people's lives out from under them. it didn't matter that he was alone.

and while he would have never surrendered himself to execution, if that had been his fate, he would have preferred to go out surrounded by living reminders of all he had accomplished. surrounded by all the people he had ruined.

however, when he imagines such an occurrence happening in his present life, there is only one face throughout the entire crowd and it belongs to you.

the very thought makes him sick with grief.

looking up, he realizes that there are no stars in tokyo anymore, that there is no feeling of indifference when it comes to you, and that there is no happiness to be had when you are not by his side.

he knows he'll never shed another drop of innocent blood if it means you'll always have that look of adoration in your eyes when your gaze falls on him.

so his trip to the pharmacy is short and hurried.

opening your apartment door, he's careful to be quiet in case you're sleeping, but he finds you peering at him from the couch.

your hair is disheveled. there's a sheen of sweat across your forehead. your eyes are beyond tired. your shirt is wrinkled.

you're still the most pleasing thing he's ever laid eyes on.

"you're back," you rasp.

"i'm back," he affirms, slipping off his shoes.

you sit up and quickly regret it, your hand coming to rest against your stomach. "god, i feel like i'm gonna puke."

"charming."

you use all your strength to throw a pillow at him, which he easily catches before tossing something small in your direction— a ginger chew to help with the nausea.

you unwrap it and pop it in your mouth. "thanks."

he hums in response, settling down in the spot beside you. once he pulls the medicine from the bag, it's followed by two bottles. "got you these, too."

recognizing them as your favorite drink, your exhausted and delirious brain makes your eyes well up with grateful tears. "you're so sweet."

"yeah, whatever. don't get used to it."

"but you are. you're sweet and kind, except i'm the only one who knows it," you pause before continuing, your head falling onto his shoulder. "why is that?"

he contemplates denying that he possesses any such quality, but decides against it. "you're the only one who's ever cared to know."

he can feel the heat of your temple through his shirt, so he opens the box of fever reducers and pops out two tablets before handing them to you. "take these. you're burning up."

you do as he says without protest. standing up and stretching your arms above your head, sukuna's eyes wander to where your shirt rides up and reveals your stomach.

"c'mon, let's go to bed," you yawn.

he follows after you wordlessly, carelessly pulling off his shirt and climbing into bed beside you. curling up against his side, your head comes to rest on his chest and it's quiet for a few passing moments.

"you can't see the stars from tokyo anymore."

"what?" you ask sleepily.

"the stars. there's too much light to see them from here."

"oh, yeah. we can take a trip to the mountains soon. you can see them pretty well from there."

"i'll hold you to that."

and so with the promise of a beautiful night sky, with the company of someone who means the world to him, and with the feeling of your body pressed against his— sukuna feels that he had been happy and that he was happy again.

a/n 2: hey! so i'm sorry again for stopping updates without really saying anything. i think i just needed to step away from tumblr and writing for a while because i was getting a bit overwhelmed. i was also a little unsure about the direction of this chapter. i was struggling to incorporate the necklace part without it seeming cheesy or weird. that being said, thanks as always to everyone for your support of this series. it's really heartwarming and much appreciated. if you have any feedback, i'd love to hear! i'm not sure when the next update will be, but i'll do my best to keep you guys posted. all my love - m<3

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[fallenneziah]

An unexpected spark.

Tag: @heiress-prime

Summary: Your relationship with Optimus is... Complicated. Between the adjustment to life on a new planet and saving your asses from the Decepticons, there was only so much you could handle. And having Optimus' kin had not been on that list for either of you.

Cw: Pregnancy, minor injury, implied sexual encounters, Femme reader. Optimus doesn't have the software update for dadification. Italics for past conversation.

Your relationship with Optimus is... Complicated. Purely for the fact that being sparkmates with a Prime is exactly how you'd expect it to be. 

Yes, Optimus had grown more intimate when you finally decided to stop dancing around each other's afts. Optimus was used to the way of the Prime, so it wasn't in his routine quite yet to acknowledge you romantically. Occasionally when you got some alone time he'd press his helm to yours and remind you how much he appreciated you for sticking by him.

Optimus cares about you, he does. He cares about you to the point that If you didn't contribute so much to the team and were few in numbers he may have yoinked you off the field for good. 

He hates seeing you come back dinged up with scratches glaring in your paint. He hates that exhausted look and he wishes he could keep you safe. 

You knew this, nudging him with your field and smiling softly at him from across the room, excited and lighting up like a puppy when his EM field would brush you back.

You'd sit and have your Energon in the morning together. In the past couple weeks Optimus had noticed the rate at which you had Energon had been increasing. You just found yourself thirsty a lot.

Optimus would tell you to go easy, you only had so much supply after all. It eased the aches you felt after spending the night curled up next to him.

Optimus left you satisfied. You knew it would be a difficult relationship, if not for his duties as Prime, but your survival. 

And you were no stranger to a recon mission, driving down the open Nevada road and taking in the dirt and grime under your tires. Optimus had given you coordinates to an emerging supply with a light squeeze of your shoulder and a loving gaze only he could pull off.

It was nice to spend time away. At least you didn't have to drag one of the kids with you. The children were so interesting. At least, earth children were. 

They were always full of energy, they always asked questions and wanted to be around and play with you. It made you chuckle a little.

Your drive down the road led you to a discarded backroad into the Nevada hills. You shifted your tire and diverted from the pavement off into the trees.

The constant ping from your interior leading the way.

You felt, in a sense, pent up. The way your back struts strained despite being tucked up into the carriage of your car. You could have chalked it up to your latest intimate night with Optimus.

Usually, you shake off the aches in a day or two. Optimus was the kind of 'bot who made up for his less-than-constant intimacy strings with an all-nighter that left you unable to move for the week following.

The weeks prior you had been more sensitive than usual, which Optimus had noticed. It left you both unable to find any time for intimacy because when you got to that point, you just couldn't handle it. But he was gentle. 

"Easy, am I hurting you??"

Your servos gripped onto the plates of his forearm, your expression twisting slightly. "No... I just.." You paused briefly to see if relaxing would ease the unusual pain and sensitivity.

"I don't know..."

"Should I stop?"

"No, no you're fine... I'll be fine."

Optimus' face at the time didn't show he was too convinced. He'd rather be cautious than be sorry later...

"You're coming up on the signal, be careful when you enter." Ratchet's voice broke you from your thoughts, causing you to slow down.

"I'll be careful."

You transformed and shook your pedes along the loose rock of the road. You scanned the area briefly, then continued on foot through the trees. The Energon supply would be right below you soon enough.

You absentmindedly rubbed your abdominal plating to ease the tension in your struts and fuel lines. He must have messed you up good considering the noticeable dent. You'd had it there for a bit, but it was barely noticeable.

The constant beep of the counter led your way through broken foliage and trees barely taller than yourself.

"Coming up on it." You said into your comm. You kept yourself at a good pace as you made it through and found the crater. 

Bingo.

"Get a move on!" A distant voice calls, causing you to duck behind a rock and bushes. 

"Could you useless 'cons work any faster!?"

You shifted and looked through the foliage to see a plateau-heeled Decepticon screeching away.

"Just... Perfect."

You leaned back, "Decepticons got the jump." You whispered into your comm and waited for Ratchet to update.

"How many??"

"Their usual mining crew... I'd say 15- maybe 20?" Your servo pressed against your plating again, feeling the uneasy warmth fill your gut. 

"I'll send Bumblebee and Bulkhead out to you, see if you can get a better idea of who we're up against." Ratchet again replied, giving you something to focus on while waiting for the scout.

You shifted against the rock and ducked back into the foliage. You tread up the small hill. Thankfully the only notable figure among them was Starscream. The rest looked like workers, they wouldn't pose a huge threat. 

You kneeled, your hip plating grinding loudly, making you freeze. The combined sink of your plating and the sound made you cringe. "Fraggin' hell..." 

You grimaced and continued to stay low and wait. It was all you could do. 

You sat there watching them mine the precious Energon that should be for you and the team. That wouldnt be the case if they didn't hurry up and get Bumblebee out here.

Your plating ached. It ached in a way that made you think about Optimus. About his hands on your hips and his denta on your neck cables.

Your plating heated, and the thought of Optimus made your fuel pump thump in your chassis.

"Frag," You whispered.

Your fans kicked on, and your panels clicked.

"Ratchet I- I'm not feeling well..." You swallowed hard.

"Not well?? What are your readings showing?"

You checked your monitor, looking down at the diagnostics on your forearm. You were experiencing intense tightening just above your hip plating. And the rising temperature caused your fuel lines to tangle and a lightheaded feeling to sink in.

"My plating feels... Too tight."

"Is it painful?"

"Yeah."

"Can you make it back?"

"I.. Yeah.." You started to stand.

You paused, and your servo came to your stomach plating. Your Energon levels were down to 40% despite your rationing before you left.

"Bumblebee and Bulkhead are on their way to your coordinates."

Optimus was in the other room, concentrating on some old data pads he skimmed whenever he wasn't on missions.

He heard Ratchet in the other room but tuned him out. A tight warmth grew in his chest which caused him to adjust and shake his shoulders slightly. But as he read the feeling grew more prominent until he couldn't ignore it. His EM field pulsed, feeling that faint pulse of your spark alongside his. It felt uneven. The usual soft pump in rhythm that comforted the Matrix in his chest felt off. 

Optimus pressed his servo to his chassis and tuned in to the feeling. Your spark throbbed against his rhythmically. The tight pulse and pull yearning for him, tugging the Matrix as if new life was growing the strength to stir from your chest.

It made him forget to breathe. He adjusted his optics again and pressed his chassis shut again, unaware it had come slightly ajar.

You leaned up against the rock, listening for anything around you with your servo still pressed against your abdomen. Footsteps softly came up behind you, a servo touching your shoulder. You jumped slightly and looked up to see Bumblebee. He whirred softly and pressed a digit to his helm as he moved toward the 'cons.

Bulkhead was close behind him. You sucked in the minor pain, took a deep breath and got on your feet again. You drew your arm cannon and followed the mechs out into the open.

"Hey, Screamer!" Bulkhead shouted and clanged his fists together. 

Starscream saw the three of you and frowned deeply. "Autobots!" His wings fluttered in a panic. "Get them!" He ordered the 'cons. They abandoned their mining and ran at you three.

You shot at the first wave, taking them down before they could get too close. Bumblebee and Bulkhead worked together to get the bigger bots and leave the smaller ones for you.

As you went to take another shot the ache returned.

You winced, taking down the miner and looking around the area. Starscream was nowhere in sight.

You were about to comm Ratchet, but a sharp pain in your chassis forced you to hunch over and hold yourself.

The energy in your veins is pumps and pulses. Bulkhead noticed you and quickly rushed to your side, defending your flank while you recovered. You recovered and moved toward the Energon reserve. Bumblebee and Bulkhead held their position. You rushed to the middle of the pit, Starscream jumping down in front of you.

"Where are you going?" He grinned and aimed his arm at you, spindly digit threatening to pull the trigger.

"Starscream-" You held a hand up, the other resting against the pain in your plating.

"Oh, you're not getting any mercy today!" He lunged at you and shot a round into your shoulder. You tumbled to the ground, the pain seering your plating. "Frag-" You reached your knee up and kicked him off, deflecting his arm that swung at you, twisting and throwing him off of you. His nimble frame was back on his feet in seconds. Luckily so were you. You raised your fists, blocking his left hook, his sharp arm plating screeching against yours.

His leg swept under your ankle and threw you to the ground again. He stood over you and aimed his arm in your face. "I've been waiting for this... Megatron will praise me." 

You panted and tilted your head back. "I wouldn't be too sure of that..."

A shadow fell over you both. Starscream's wings tucked in defeat as a fist violently shoved him out of the way and threw him against the wall. Starscream yelped, rock falling and landing in his lap.

Optimus stood over you, his servo reached for you and grabbed your arm to pull you up.

You winced and held yourself, feeling your struts and plates shift uncomfortably.

"Thank you."

He nodded firmly, activating his arm cannon and placing a protective arm on your shoulder. He moved you somewhere safer and rejoined the fight. You watched him go and smiled softly. Ratchet split from the group and came over to you. You slowly sat down and looked up at him as he worked. You took a deep breath and looked down. Your spark was warm, and your chest felt like it was going at a million beats per second.

Ratchet checked your diagnostics and nodded. "That was one of my fears... We need to get you out of here." You looked at him. How he looked at you made your spark flutter but for the wrong reasons. "Ratchet it's not..."

"It is. Optimus had a hunch."

You shuddered softly. Ratchet kept you sat down and watched over you protectively until the sound above the reserve grew quiet. Starscream squirmed out from his place and transformed, flying off. 

"We'll get him next time." You said.

"I'd say so." Bulkhead approached.

You tried standing but were met with resistance.

"I can walk," you said stubbornly, moving your hips slightly. Ratchet gave you a firm look and kept you down. Optimus walked over, the other two moving away so he could come close to you.

"It's as you thought, Optimus," Ratchet said and got up. He motioned the others to follow him and they went to look over the Energon.

You looked up at Optimus softly and searched his optics to try and identify any anger in his face. Or, anything. Any emotion would be great right about now. "I... I don't know how I didn't notice sooner... When would we even-"

Optimus gently reached out and took your servo. You looked down and then back up. Optimus fully kneeled to your side, squeezing your servo. "I am not upset. I'm not... anything, right now."

You sighed softly. "I should have known... all the signs were there." You looked down, "I should have known."

Optimus' faceplates softened, "I'm glad you're alright." He let go of your servo and cupped your faceplate, tilting his head down. Your shoulders loosened a little. You reached up to cup his neck when his helm met yours. He welcomed your EM field into his, surrounding you with a mellow warmth that soothed your hydraulics.

You were a nervous wreck. He knew that.

You leaned forward and nuzzled into his neck cables.

"Optimus.."

"I need to get you and the team home." His voice rumbled low in his chassis, soothing you with something fierce. He slowly leaned back and helped you up. Your knees wobbled and crumbled underneath you. Optimus caught you effortlessly, a large hand spreading across your breastplates, helping you lean back up. "Easy.." He kept you close to his body, a comforting weight in your chest that reminded you you were safe.

"I've never had to carry someone so much before."

You smiled up at him. "I wouldn't mind if you did it more often." 

He cracked a small smile at that. He effortlessly pulls you up off your pedes and against his warm chest. The others got the Energon they could, and Ratchet called Arce to open the bridge and bring you back to base. Optimus went first with you in his arms. He held you tightly and protectively as he made his way through the tunnel.

The team followed close behind, Arce shutting the bridge and coming to Ratchet's side.

"What happened out there?"

Ratchet looked up at Optimus, they shared a silent conversation for a moment before Ratchet turned back to his computer. "Mishap, come on, let's get the rest of this, yes?" The others nodded and followed Ratchet's instruction.

Optimus brings you back to your berthroom and slowly sets you down. Now that you were in private you could properly talk.

"I am not mad."

You looked up at him.

"I don't want you to think I am. We are in a dangerous war. I cannot blame you for this, nor am I mad at you for it. You couldn't have predicted this. I couldn't have either." He knew that wasn't entirely the case. You two were sexually reserved, sure. But you could have avoided this.

He gently reached out and touched the side of your helm. You leaned into it and reached up to touch his wrist.

"I am..." He paused. He didn't know what he was. How he felt, it was very mixed emotions. "I don't know what I feel."

You understood.

You leaned forward and nuzzled his wrist. You looked up at him with soft optics, "It doesn't change anything?" 

To that, Optimus shook his helm. "No, not a chance." You looked down, and a smile formed across your derma. "If it means anything... I wouldn't do this with anyone else."

Optimus chuckled softly.

You sat up a bit straighter. 

"I wouldn't feel privileged to raise a sparkling if it weren't with you." He said, his thumb tracing your jaw.

You leaned in and pressed your lips to his. He held you, his hand on your jaw slowly traveling to the back of your helm. His EM field pulsed around you, warming you as it wrapped around your body. He pulled back and pressed his helm to yours.

"I'm glad we're in this together." You whispered. Optimus was quiet in favor of kissing you again. One servo comes down to protectively rest against your abdominal plating.

If Primus brings him a child, then who is he to say no? It may not be the ideal condition, but he wouldn't want to raise a sparkling with someone else.

You gleamed up at him. He returned the soft smile, gently nudging your forehead. "You're going to be a sire," Your smile grew wider, the momentary fear and worry that troubled you replaced by the joyful realization of what was to come.

Optimus couldn't help thinking of the future, of Megatron, of others who would get to hurt you, who surely would try to lay a hand on his child. Megatron wouldn't go that far... Would he?

He didn't fragging care. Not right now. Right now he allowed himself to bring his walls down, to hold you and kiss you all over until you giggled.

"And you, my Cybertronian beauty, the carrier of our sparkling."

A higher honor than anything. And even if sometimes Optimus didn't have it all figured out, he knew that if there was any time to commit to being the best sparkmate he could, it was now. For you, and for your sparkling.

After all... It wouldn't be long. He could feel it in his spark.

[basicinstnct]

if ur taking requests, can we see what happened the time reader denied miguel and he begged? if ur not taking req you can just ignore this <3

word count: 1143

a/n: this got much longer than intended, i don’t think it necessitates explicit tags, but there is dubious consent. I suppose there are slight hints to events in the film as well, but honestly blink and you’ll miss it stuff. referenced fic here.

The date goes alright. The man in general is alright. Reasonably you know you should be satisfied with alright. It's not like you have much going on elsewhere. Except for the fact that you're fucking Spider-Man. One of them, at least.

You don't know much about Miguel other than that, and a couple of other things you've pieced together. Most things you didn't even learn from him. Corporate gossip is the source material for half of his portfolio. It's taken you months to get just those pieces, and you know you're not a girlfriend, but can you be blamed for wanting more?

He certainly expects more from you, you realize, when he shows up at your place an hour after you get home from being out.

“What a coincidence," you laugh. “I had a feeling you might show up, and here you are."

"You look nice," he sidesteps aggressively. It's unlike him to ignore anything resembling an attitude, but he does now. For what reason doesn't even seem important. All you can think is that you want this man out of your apartment, and maybe even your life.

“That's what he said." you reply, wincing at the brightness when you move to hang up your coat. The lights are set to activate when there's a human presence, but he must have hacked the system to turn them off, so he could sit in the dark like a lunatic. “He said, 'you look very nice,’ too. Except he had a lot more enthusiasm."

"So what? You pick him. That's it?"

"I'm not picking you. You aren't even an option.” The rage quietly taking over his features isn't like anything else when it's directed towards you. His brows begin to pinch, and when he opens his mouth you see hints of his fangs.

"Why not?" He starts to step into your bubble. You have less space to retreat before your back is against the way. You can’t see the rest of the room past his broad shoulders, and he’s got his neck craned down so he can see every cute expression you make.

"I know nothing about your past, or even much of your present, to be frank." You say the words monotone secretary style, still trying to have control. "I assume you're busy with things I can't even dream of, and I don't think you want me near any of that either. You have issues, and I don't need you to spill your guts, and we could go on about this forever. It won't be worth it, it's not even interesting.”

“I can make it more interesting." You can see that he intends to fuck you. To use sex to make the problem disappear.

"One for the road," you smile, because at this point why not. He's never been bad at this part, but you have leverage, and if it’s the last time you’ll see Miguel, you might as well blow it. “Sure,” you say, “if you beg me.”

You clench your things when you see him even consider it, and it gets worse when you hear him.

“Please,” he starts, teeth gritted, and you start to think about them in your flesh. “Please, let me fuck you. That’s what you wanna hear? I wanna fuck you. I wanna feel you come on my dick. That good enough for you, baby?”

“Sure, good enough,” you try to downplay, but you think you might want it more than he does.

He's faster to take you than a human man ever could be. You’re pinned to the floor, his fingers in your hair, one hand at your hip and the other at your neck. He just holds his hand there, flexes his fingers, so you can feel the threat of a squeeze. He stares you down. “Nothing like that,” when you cock your head, he doesn’t elaborate.

“Give me a kiss,” Miguel demands. He’s so shy about it that you fall for the bait. He doesn’t waste a minute before trying to shove his tongue in your mouth, like there’s no point in kissing you if he can’t, but the problem is he also drools, because he’s keeping his mouth just a little too wide so he doesn’t cut you with those teeth.

“Just fuck me,” you hiss between kisses, feeling like you’re drowning in him.

“Gonna be nice after being so mean, huh?”

“Maybe,” you groan, “if you stop talking.”

“You sure, baby,” he gives you one last out, “you want me to split you on my dick? Not my fingers first?”

“I don’t care. Do what you want.” You let yourself go limp in his hold, and he does as he threatened. You feel him remove your layers slowly, a small torture, but you’re fit to endure when it leads to the warmth of his hands. They grab you all over, your stomach, your tits and shoulders. Then they make their way down.

Miguel makes a pleased grunt when he finds you wet, and doesn’t waste any time. You feel his cock split you, something you can’t get used to. You used to try and fight it, writhe and squirm. It took you a couple times to realize you’re too weak. In Miguel’s hands all your strength needs nothing. Every time he’s pinned you against him, held you close while inching his cock inside.

He moves his hips till you can feel his balls on your clit, and then sighs. Relief, something you wish you could be granted. You’re whining, all because you can feel him throbbing in your guts, against your cervix.

“Listen to me next time,” he grumbles, sounding strangely fond of you.

Then the sympathy fades away, and he starts to move. He’s not gentle, he’s fucking you to prove something. He’s the only one who can give it to you like this. Who can make you lose your mind on a cock.

“This is what I wanted, fuck.” You can tell it affects him when you wrap your legs around him, dig your feet into his ass to push him in deeper. “Feel so good. Can’t stop clenching all over me, huh. Feels like you’re trying to milk me.” He huffs into your neck. “That it? You want my come, baby?”

He brings his hips down harder, so deep in you breathing feels difficult. You moan and agree to whatever he says, nodding without thinking. Making promises you can’t keep.

He tells you that your cunt’s the best, nobody else can take me this deep, and that’s why you can’t date other guys, need to keep this pussy mine. All while you look into his eyes with a blank stare, almost like you love him while he drills you.

“That’s why you’re gonna be good for me,” he says, “because if not, I’ll just remind you again, just like this.”

[writers-potion]

Don't Fear Criticism

Creating homosexual characters can feel like planting an active grenade in the middle of your story. You start to fear bad reception of your work - even before you start!

But really, there is no need to worry. The fact that you're concerned only proves that you care.

You probably won't get it the first time.

You probably will get some criticism.

Only remember that it's perfectly normal to make mistakes. After you punch out your draft, have beta readers who are part of the community and incorporate their feedback.

No Diversity Shopping

Yes, diversity is important, but it's no checklist where you need to list all possible sexual orientations and have at least one character for each.

First of all, it would be quite impossible.

Second, that is likely to make all of them underdeveloped and stereotypical.

Check if you really need the character in your plot.

If they turn out to be homosexual, let them run their own course and shape their path. If your story's theme is related to the character's sexuality, think about the message you want to convey.

Quality over quantity, always.

Go Beyond Sexuality

Your characters exist, and they happen to be homosexual, not the other way around. This doesn't mean that it won't be an important, or that you should downplay their sexuality.

Strike a balance by showing readers their hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes, relationships with their family and friends, etc. The more holistic they are, readers are going to be convinced that you have an actual character, not a scarecrow holding up the #diversity tag.

How do their sexuality play into their broader narrative?

Develop a Backstory

Every homosexual character must have thought about their orientation and identity, with a process of how they came to recognize their sexuality.

Whether you're character is a confused teenage girl, or a middle-aged gentleman with a stable relationship, think about what brought them here.

Backstories don't have to be tragic. They can have supportive parents and find escapism in online communities who accept them for who they are.

There isn't just one "gay life". Get creative.

Normalization is Important

Sometimes, your story world will not accept homosexual people as normal. That's okay!

However, there is a difference between other character treating them unfairly and you as an author normalizing homophobia in your narrative.

Word choice and tone would play a key role.

When a likeable character is homophobic, avoid normalizing it by making it a flaw. Show that your conservative medieval village is narrow-minded when they treat them as outcasts.

Homophobes may not necessarily be the evil guys.

It's enough to state (clearly) that it's wrong.

Make Use of Tropes

Stereotypes aren't just an issue with gay characters, but when used successfully, have created wonderful retellings and spinoffs that are refreshing.

You can purposefully overplay stereotypes to show how silly they are. Deconstructing stereotypes can add humor to your narrative.

You can also use them to explore the expectations that readers have for those kinds of characters. The Gay Best Friend might be a trope, but you can get them to go deeper than the typical sidekick to realize their true potential as a cast member.

Religion and Homosexuality

In the real world, religion and homosexuality are often presented on far opposites of politics, and that makes me sad. Homosexual characters are free to be religious, find peace, support and mindfulness through any religion of their choice.

Vise versa, deeply religious characters can have wonderful relationships with homosexual characters.

It all comes down to how your characters interpret religion and homosexuality in light of those religious values. Though I'm an atheist, I believe all religions have the ability to embrace diversity at their core.

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[nocturnesmoon]

Your guard dog

Tags: mild dark content(?), gender-neutral reader, random little story of the day that I'll probably never turn into a fledged out fic cuz I have too many projects, but it's on the list-

Simon has always been an honest man.

It's something he prides himself in. He may be tall, dark, terrifying to most around him, but he would rather have something horrible happen to him, than outright lie on purpose, especially to you.

When you first met, it went how it usually goes for people that are unfortunate enough to be in his presence. You were polite, as much as anyone else, not too interested in the big off-putting soldier that lurks in the back of the room.

Simon had never thought that you would stick around, nor did he expect that your tipping point would be an innocent birthday gift. You had been so enamoured by the fact he had actually listened to the things you said, and observed your actions, enough to give you probably the most accurate gift you've received in a long time.

One thing led to another, and years later the two of you find yourselves in a committed relationship.

There are a lot of things you can say about Simon. A common denominator is that he really has never knowingly lied to you. A feat you find impressive, gathered from earlier partners. He has his secrets, things in his past that he wishes to keep buried still, but he never lies to you.

Whenever you ask, he answers.

It's how it's always been.

The fact doesn't change when he then does things in secret. If you ask where he's been, he'll answer you honestly, if you ask what he's been doing he answers honestly, whether you like the answer or not.

He's always been good to you that way. If he ever catches a whiff of jealousy from you, he waits for you to come to him. You'll ask about his doings, he'll answer you accordingly, calmly, and quench whatever feelings pile up in your head. He knows he never has to stress about it, because all his actions are in servitude to you.

Whenever he goes on deployment, he knows how you miss him, how you wish you could be there with him, though it'd be dangerous for you. So he brings you things back, things of his loyalty, things that you would want and cherish, (Ignoring the fact that you'd cherish practically anything he gives you.)

When he's home he's even more devoted to you. Follows you around like a pup in need of attention, a pup that transforms into a fierce guard dog the moment you leave the house. Even if he tells you that his job is dangerous, you never fully get why he's so protective of you, like someone was going to take you away when he looks the other way. In many ways you don't mind it, it pays off having a big threatening soldier at your back to keep creeps away.

As nice as it is to have him though, he's not always there, and despite how you trust him, you don't like the dark look in his eyes whenever you tell him about an encounter you had with some creepy person trying to hit on you.

Once when you were idly cuddling on the couch, one rainy Saturday, you had playfully asked if he would ever kill for you. You hadn't expected a serious answer, maybe you had even expected him to scold you for asking such a question, given his job and having to deal with death in his life in that way. You hadn't expected for him to say yes so determinedly, a little too sure of it.

It's not the first time you've noticed odd behaviour from him. His overprotective nature can get a bit overbearing at times, he doesn't want you near any remotely dangerous object, occasionally he'll even get pissy about you using kitchen knives. God forbid you do accidentally hurt yourself on some object he told you not to use, with a grumpy attitude he'll patch you up, scolding you mildly, and the next time you go to use the same object it's mysteriously vanished or out of reach for you.

He has his own little policy for you as well, any and all problems you face, you come to him with. You found it nice, finally having such a tentative partner that listened so carefully. You hadn't expected that he was going to make most of your problems disappear on top of that. It was simple things at first. The coffee machine broke, he removes it and gifts you a new one. There's a thing at work you find frustrating, well the task is soon gone mysteriously. Even with himself, he does a thing that's your pet peeve, he changes it, makes the problem disappear.

It starts out small, and then it gets a bit weirder. You have an argument with a family member? The next time you see them they apologize profusely, and the matter is dropped, though they seem rattled. You think your neighbour is rude? Well look at that, they're moving out very, very soon.

You don't truly start to question it, before you notice the co-worker you complained about, disappeared without notice.

You try to hint at it to Simon, to subtly ask him if he had a finger in it. His answer is what terrifies you more, "careful what you ask of me, darling." You should be careful what questions you ask him what you tell him, because Simon is an honest man. You ask, he answers.

It makes you revaluate what you let him know, you start keeping minor problems to yourself, things or people that annoy you are reserved for your mind. He notices of course, he understands his darling is nervous of his actions, but he needs you to understand what he is doing, he is doing for you.

He starts figuring out your problems behind your back. You don't even need to tell him anymore, he will always know. There isn't anywhere you could go where he wouldn't reach you, where he wouldn't keep you safe and protected. You're his, just as he's yours.

Your true breaking point comes when the police shows up at your work place. They question you about the co-worker that had left work, not long after having an argument with you. You learn that this person hasn't been seen by anyone for several months.

You stomp home, knowing Simon is the only person that could've had anything to do with it. Your questions are met by a dark chuckle, he isn't even taking his own actions serious, not the way you're framing them. You plead with him to stop, to keep his work and your life completely separate.

His answer leaves you with nothing, "I can't promise you that darling, I'm doing this for you. You're mine."

Your only choice is to adapt, you don't ask the questions because you won't like the answers.

And when he goes out late at night without a word, coming back in the morning with blood on his hands, you wash it off gently, and bite your tongue.

Reminder that requests are open if you've got an idea you want written.

Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated, love ya<3

[astelren]

OP to you being clueless to their flirting/feelings I

ೃ⁀➷ TW/CW: Fluff, Nothing much tbh, A little bit of Teasing, Gender Neutral Reader, let me know if I need to add more TW/Tags ♡ Minors please interact with me only by liking or reblogs. ➳ Characters: Ace D. Portgas, Luffy D. Monkey, Sabo, Zoro Roronoa, Sanji Vinsmoke, Izo, Cavendish, Rayleigh, Trafalgar Law

⤠ Part II ⤟ One Piece Masterlist ⤠ Cbat Song⤟

I wrote this when I wasnt that well so if some stuff sounds/seems weird I'm sorry, I tried my best to correct it HAHAHA I need to write more about one piece sob,,,,

Ace and Luffy are the worst for the mere reason that they are straightforward. A lot. Like they both clearly stated that they like you in a more romantic sense when you stated that you two were friends, but if you somehow still didn't get the hint they would be clueless about what to do other than scream their love. Ace would be a lot more flirty and teasing than Luffy, mostly because the latter isn't interested in it lmfao. Also Luffy is oblivious too, he isn't that interested in having a love relationship, while Ace not at all, and would notice things pretty quickly.

Sabo isn't that bad. But I feel like he could be quite oblivious too, making the situation both funny and annoying to everyone else. You both like each other, flirt even, but still convinced that the other is just being friendly koala is screaming into her pillow please. Luckily Sabo braincells would connect and realize what has been happening for a while, also thanks to Koala, so everything is well. Kind of. He has no idea how to make you realize his feelings without screaming like the other two

Zoro is both oblivious and straightforward. He lives in his own world of training, not noticing it your flirting or his own until it's too late. Drives him a little bit insane how oblivious you are even if he thought it made things pretty clear; he likes you and wants to take your relationship further, but maybe his wording wasn't the best and you misunderstood... Somehow.

You just think that Sanji is being, you know, Sanji. So you don't think too much about it. Expect the fact that he is being much worse when it's about you; he knows your favorite food, drink, book and he is always, always thriving for your attention and praise. Not also very shy about it, will remind you time and time again that he likes you. Without batting an eye. Maybe tearing a little bit considering how you constantly reject his feelings by calling him friends, although you didn't mean it

I like to think that Izo is into a more traditional way of courting, so your misunderstanding of his gestures is pretty normal, considering that they both be seen as platonic and romantic. However, he is gonna make stuff pretty clear soon while slightly teasing you, finding your obliviousness simply adorable. He won't mind it that much, using it mostly to tease just a tiny bit. A tiny bit he says, lying.

My sweet boy Cavendish is so confused and perplexed. He honestly thought it was pretty clear, considering how clearly he favors you over anyone else. Not that he minds it, he finds it as a battle to make you understand his feelings, and it's a good excuse to pamper you with gifts and affection. Like the dude would propose to you to be his partner like he's asking your hand in marriage, he is not subtle by any means. Probably took the word out of his dictionary.

Rayleigh is a fucker. He noticed how completely oblivious you are to his flirting right from the start and he is amused by it, loving to tease you and make you question what his action actually means. He doesn't do it with malice and would clarify pretty quickly his feelings, waiting for you to get embaressed over the situation with a smirk.

Poor Trafalgar has no idea how to work in this situation. You can literally hear the gear in his brain trying to work out, because, in all honesty, he thought his feelings were all over the place. He's glad that it isn't the case, but he has no idea how to confess his feelings without secondhand embarrassment. Especially with how many times you have called him a dear friend in his face, ignoring his groan and grunt.

This work belongs to @/astelren, do not repost, translate, copy, rewrite or share on tiktok without my permission. Reblogs are appreciated and encouraged♡

[skyeslittlecorner]

Guys, we're doing it!

Do you remember this survey? I didn't expect such a great response. If that many of you really want to participate, I guess I'll have to do more than one batch of the draw to choose as much of your MC's as I can.

More info under the cut!

Time for some rules, so we won't get lost

The concept is simple. You give me your precious OCs/MCs, I adopt them for a while, write fanfic (related to WHB, of course) and hand them over to your loving hands.

For now, I plan to choose 3-5 people to write for. This may change if more people apply. If one applies, I will write for one. If 96 apply, I will choose more. We'll figure it out.

You can apply in two ways. One is to reblog this post and describe everything in reply, the second is to create your own post with the hashtag #whbmcshuffle Preferably both at once. I don't want to accidentally lose any application. I also recommend following this tag for the time being because I will post further information under it.

The people I will write for will be drawn randomly. I want it to be fair, and I guess this is the only way I won't be biased when I see mutuals I like or Andrea my favorite demons.

You can apply for one week. Since we may all be in different time zones, submissions will close when this survey ends.

Feed me information. Since I want to write something good, I would like to ask you for some information. Here's the list:

Name and pronouns: Quite obvious. Short bio: Who are they? Any difficult past or traumas? What were they doing on earth? Did they get to hell like in canon? How do they feel in hell? Where they live? Character: What are their main character traits? How do they usually behave? How do they behave in crisis situations? Voice: (Not mandatory, although, very helpful.) What would the narrative look like? More calm or energetic? Confident or not at all? Funny or serious? Calm or nervous? Laid back or distrustful? You can even paste here a song or a link to some story that you think reflect your oc's voice well. Important facts: Free space, you can put whatever you want here and whatever you think is important. Demons to include in the fic: (from 1 to 3) Brief description of relationship with chosen demons: I guess that's obvious. The tone in which it should be written: (i.e. spicy, angst, fluff, funny or other) Narrative type: Second person (addressing as 'you') or third person (addressing with selected pronouns) The script you would like to see: (Not mandatory, although, very helpful) For example, a date on Earth, cooking together, whatever you come up with.

I know it's a lot to ask. This is a minimal list, but the more information you give me, the better I will be able to empathize with your MCs and hopefully imitate their character. If you have already written about them, for example in your other posts, feel free to include links, so I can take a better look at them. Of course, you can add photos, or a song, or memes, anything you want!

I didn't mention the length of the fic, but it depends on how I will feel writing it. But I'll want it to be at least 800 words.

Most important. Have fun! It's mainly about getting to know each other's OCs/MCs. Who knows, if there's a lot of interest, maybe we'll do more draws. 👀

I tried to include everything, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[dearestmui]

Hi! It's anon, so uh this is my first time making a request so I'm sorry if it doesnt make any sense

Anyways it's gonna be muichiro x gn!reader or fem!reader(whatever you prefer) so it can be a short fic or long fic it's your choice, I haven't seen anybody request this but can you do one where muichiro and reader are in a secret relationship? But muichiro forgets no matter how many attempts reader says that the relationship should be kept a secret and at a celebration or birthday muichiro accidentally blurts out that the reader and him are dating? How would everyone react would they be shocked? Neutral? Anyways my request isn't really that interesting so I'm not expecting you to pick this! But if you do thanks<3

SECRET RELATIONSHIP

summary: how would everyone react to muichiro outing your secret relationship? cw: none just fluff and very slight angst pairing: Muichiro x reader adittional tags: manga spoiler free, muichiro before ssv. word count: 1407

When you and Muichiro started dating, you asked to keep the relationship secret. He didn't go against the idea, it's not like he was planning to tell anyone anyway. You were someone who Muichiro could never forget, however what he did forget is that your relationship was supposed to be a secret. It's not like he did care about who knew or not, it was nobody's business. But what he did care about was you, so he wanted to respect your wishes.

There were times where other people would hit on you, and in that moment Muichiro felt compelled to step in. How can people come up to you and flirt shamelessly like that? Don't they know that you're taken? Oh right.

When it was a demon slayer, he'd glare at them until they took the hint, not saying anything.

If it was a local from a village when you two are on a mission, then he'd tell them bluntly. You don't know them, so who cares. When you think he'd go too far, or risk your relationship being revealed, you'd nudge him with your elbow and glare at him. To that he replies with the softening of his features followed by a sigh.

At some point, when he was alone he started to wonder why the relationship had to be kept a secret. Should he not be able to express his love for you despite the public's opinion? He wanted demon slayers to stay away from you, and most importantly he wanted to be able to show simple gestures such as kissing your cheek. The most he could do was hold your hand in public, since you two were young no one thought much of it. For the first time(or so he thinks), he felt pure love and adoration for someone else. Is it wrong for him to want to express his innocent teenage love?

Of course, he forgot all those thoughts the next day.

There was a small celebration held by Mitsuri for her birthday, everyone she knew was invited. And god, she knew a lot of people. Muichiro would've forgot to come if it wasn't for you dragging him.

At the celebration, you wore such a cute outfit, maybe a little too cute. Muichiro felt an unknown flutter in his stomach, though he struggles to identify what he's feeling, he knows that his stomach feels tingly when he sees you. But this time it was more intense than ever. So, he subconsciously got a little too close to you — reaching to rest his hand around your waist. Which, unfortunately for him, you responded by moving away. He frowned at this.

"Muichiro, you shouldn't get too close, remember? People will find out we're dating." You whispered to him.

"....Sorry. You look pretty." He whispered back, making you blush.

Later, you and Muichiro were sitting at table with the hashira and the kamaboko squad. Everyone was having fun talking to eachother. You'd think that Muichiro would feel overwhelmed by the amount of people and loud noise, but he didn't mind it — considering the fact he finds Rengoku's loudness comforting. He wasn't really paying attention to the conversation, until Mitsuri, the Love Hashira, started to ask questions about you and Muichiro.

Of course, being the Lova pillar, Mitsuri has noticed how close you two were. She was a little dense though, not realizing you two were actually in love, she was just curious about it. The conversation snapped Muichiro back to reality.

"Say, you two are really close!! Are you dating?" Mitsuri asked excitedly. The thought of you and Muichiro dating made her heart burst! Young love, so cute!!

However, you who wanted to keep your relationship a secret, was about to decline that claim until-

"Yes, we are." Muichiro muttered on instinct.

Your eyes widened and a blush crept onto your face. While Mitsuri's smile widened.

"Muichiro!" You scream whispered at him, panicking and looking around not knowing what to do.

The others looked at you in shock, well instead of Inosuke who continued eating despite being confused on why everyone went silent.

"What? Oh, right." Muichiro looked at you confused, until he remembered the he just outed your relationship to everyone.

Needless to say, everyone was shocked that Muichiro, the Hashira who basically fuctioned like an emotionless puppet was dating someone. But his colleagues were happy for him, except for Giyuu and Obanai who didn't seem to have a reaction.

Rengoku was beyond happy, he's always been concerned about the younger pillar and took it upon himself to take care of him. He loudly congratulated you both on your relationship, which of course just outed your whole relationship to everyone at the party. Shinobu kept her soft smile and clapped, thinking it was adorable and also happy for you and the young pillar. Tengen was beyond shocked, and offered to give relationship advice to his colleague. Sanemi, also barely showed a reaction. A little shocked, sure. But he also felt a little concerned. Dating as demon slayers could be really hurtful. If one of you died during a mission, then what? He knew this from experience. He didn't say anything. He tried convincing himself he didn't care, but of course, he was too kind so subconsciously he'd start looking out for the both of you more. Someone who already knew about the relationship was Gyomei, who simply let out a smile and congratulated the two of you then let out a prayer for the safety and happiness to the future of your relationship. Mitsuri, who was showing the most reaction, was squirming and jumping the whole time, as if she had been proposed to.

Someone who didn't react so positively though was Zenitsu, his eyes were filled with scorn, almost shedding tears of jealousy towards the newly outted couple. How can someone like Muichiro score before him??? He let his jealousy be known; Tanjiro who was sitting next to him had to knock him out to not make the two of you uncomfortable. Speaking of Tanjiro, he felt relieved about Muichiro finding someone he loved. Yes, he'd definitely buy you and Muichiro a congratulation gift.

If you were to be overwhelmed by everyone's reaction, Muichiro would've taken notice of this and gladly take your hand then take you away to a quieter place. Though the people at the table would be confused seeing Muichiro drag you away.

As for the aftermath, Muichiro was so used to not showing any affection in public that he forgot that your relationship is NOT secret anymore... But, he definitely felt more comfortable to be able to be affectionate towards you.

Do not repost

[hazbin-but-good]

another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

[sweetly-glazelilies]

Seven Minutes With You

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・

Summary: At a party, you participate in playing "Five Minutes In Heaven." You weren't expecting to reach into the hat and pull out HIS item.

Character(s): Wanderer

Tags: Fluff, Friends To Lovers, Seven Minutes in Heaven, accidental confession, not really proofread... (It takes place in teyvat, not a modern world)

"Everyone, I hope you all brought an item — it's time to play seven minutes in heaven!" The host beams brightly as she looks at all of you hopefully. She urges you all to sit down on the couches and chairs in her living room. You decide to sit on the soft red chair in the corner of the room.

"Alright... Make sure to put your items in the hat!" She hands the hat to Childe. He puts in an item and then passes it to the person next to him, this continues until the hat had been passed fully around the room.

Once the hat was filled with different items, the host puts a small pillow case over the hat so no one could see inside.

As the game starts, many people go into the small closet together — some just sit and talk, while others probably had a more interesting experience.

Sometimes, the two people walking out of the closet would look embarrassed with different shades of blush across their face. While other times, they'd come out of the closet laughing. No matter what happened, everyone seemed to be having a fun time. And finally...after a while it's your turn.

Reaching your hand into the hat, you feel around. There was all sorts of different textures; rough, smooth, sharp... Until finally you settle upon something small and soft. You pull it out of the hat and see a small, cute Finch plushie.

​​"Aw, it's adorable...!" You run your fingers over the Finch's soft head and smile. You admired it for a while, stuck in your own world with the plushie in your hands. 

​​​"Hurry up." An annoyed voice sounds near you. It's Scaramouche — he's standing near the closet. "Let's get this over with." He rolls his eyes as he walks through the door. 

You quickly put the Finch back in the hat (giving it a headpat first) before you follow him into the closet. Once you're both in there, the door shuts behind you. 

​​​​​​"We'll be back to get you in seven minutes! Don't have too much fun." Kaeya teased through the door. 

The closet was really small, so small that you and Scaramouche were almost chest to chest. It was... Awkward. 

You could feel yourself blushing, you had the biggest crush on him. It's not that he was particularly a good guy, or the fact that he was really handsome... Honestly you didn't even know yourself why you liked him so much. It'd been quite a while since you first figured out your feelings. You were so confused... 

​​​​With the closet being small, that also meant there weren't many places to look other than the guy in front of you. You tried glancing down, but that just made it feel more awkward for you. Hoping to ease some of your discomfort, you decide to start a conversation. 

"So...um..." You glance at Scaramouche, he was barely visible due to the darknes. Desperately, you try to wrack your brain for any conversation starters... You'd ask absolutely anything to make this uncomfortable atmosphere fade...even something you already knew. 

​​​​​​"Hm?" Though you couldn't see for yourself, you could feel his eyes on you. 

​​​​​​"That plushie... It was really cute. Where did you get it?" After taking a deep breath, you say the first thing that came to mind. At least you weren't nervous enough to ask a stupid question like "What's your favorite color?"

He sighs, "Nahida gave it to me. I don't know where she got it." 

​​​​​​"Well... It suits you very well, you're basically a Finch Magnet you know? They're always surrounding you...and it's unbelievably cute. I'm almost jealous of it." You glance down at the floor, almost as if trying to hide the blush on your face — even if there was no need to, like a force of habit. 

"Jealous? Tsk, why would you be jealous of that? Those creatures follow me almost everywhere. It gets kind of annoying sometimes." Although you couldn't see it, you could practically hear his eyes roll with that tone of voice. 

​​​​​​"Who said I was jealous of you? Honestly I'd much rather be one of the finches surrounding you. They get to look at you so closely. I want that..." And without thinking, you accidentally spill something you never planned on saying — especially to him! It was embarrassing.

The room went silent once again, this time, somehow even more awkward than at the start. You were a bit curious about this game at the beginning, but now...it was more dreadful. 

Having accidentally said your true feelings, you wait for his response... You guessed it was going to be rejection. But to your surprise... 

"...You like me then?" He asked — his voice seemed a bit strained. 

"Yeah, I do." You shyly respond, "Please don't force yourself to give me an answer, I really wasn't planning on confess-" 

​​​​​​Before you could finish your sentence, you felt something on your lips. It was a warm, tingling sensation. It was Scaramouche, he kissed you.

​​​​​​Once he pulled away from you, you could hear him faintly whisper...

​​​​​​"...I like you too, idiot."

​​​.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・

​​​​​A/n: It's been a while since I wrote a fic so its probably not that good but aaaa I love Scara. Hes such an interesting character, its always fun to write him.

.・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・。..・✫・゜・

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[dancing-with-the-madmen]

The Massive Aggression of Calico Jack, redux

Several kind souls have complained brought it to my attention that my failure to use cut tags is, in fact, not optimal. I don't have any good reason that I don't use cuts - mostly I'm just throwing these thoughts out here so they don't endlessly rattle around my brain. Frankly, I'm endlessly astonished anyone but me can be arsed to bother wading through them at all. So, after a truly epic tantrum thoughtful consideration, I've decided to edit my longer posts to add cuts. If you've already read them, (may endless blessings rain down upon you) there's no new content (vile lies and calumny. I'm going to take this opportunity to fix errors and add a line here or there, but nothing major). Just making it more scroll-friendly. You'll know it when you see the word "redux" in the title. So without further ado...

I’ve been trying for a while to put my finger on exactly what it is about Our Flag Means Death's Calico Jack that makes me want to crawl out of my skin and smother him to death with my own abandoned ecdysis.

I mean, I normally love me a spurned admirer/cock-blocking ex. Romantic comedies have their beats, and there’s obviously no serious danger the love interest will end up with anyone other than their intended, so I may as well sit back and enjoy the machinations. After all, the course of true love never did run smooth, and these bitches are here to rough some shit up for sure. I also love Will Arnett. Hands down favorite recurring character on 30 Rock. The second best Batman after TAS (fight me). I can even cheerfully bear his Reese’s commercials if I must bear commercials at all.

Real-life Calico Jack? One of my v. favorite pirates. He wore floral-printed cotton from India as a fuck you to the British tax man. He had an affair with Anne Bonny and offered to purchase her divorce when her husband found out. The two ran away together into piracy when Bonny’s husband refused to quit her and had her whipped for her infidelity. Mary Read was part of Jack and Anne’s crew, and possibly their lover. We love a hopeless romantic, possibly polyamorous king. 

So what is it about OFMD Calico Jack that makes him so acutely punchable?

I’ve rewatched the episode several times (oh my v. dears, I really hope this write-up is worth it. I am SO BRAVE to subject myself to this), and I think I’ve finally got it. It’s not just that he’s a loud, vulgar, hectoring, drunken jackass of a bird-murderer. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have as little patience for his brand of mindless destruction and violence-for-violence-sake as Stede does, but that’s not all.  It’s that he’s also a master of passive aggression.

Jack does the little whisper-y “Sorry! Sorry!” when Stede wants to know what’s with all the cannon fire, but immediately starts grinning like an unrepentant varlet as soon as he drops his hands.

And then accepts Stede’s introductory handshake with clear derision.

When Stede says he wasn’t expecting guests and there’s only two settings at brekkie, Jack doesn’t wait for Stede to sort things out, and he’s already lowering himself into Stede’s chair by the time Stede invites him to take his spot. He then purposefully keeps steering the conversation to topics that exclude Stede from participating, and cuts Stede short when he tries to reign the conversation back.

He insinuates Stede is less of a pirate for being “store bought”

He refuses to get Stede’s name right, even when corrected. Twice.

And is just SO insincere when calling him back.

And, just, the whole pissing contest scene.

But so what? We’ve had other passive aggressive assholes on the show; Badminton with his cracks about Stede’s tiny dick ship, the French captain’s slurs, Gabriel simpering about Jeff the Accountant’s dining manners. I’m not shedding any tears for their respective fates, but none of them made me want to crawl through the screen and sew all their face holes shut. Because Jack isn’t just passive-aggressive (and aggressive-aggressive), he might just be the most savvy reader-of-rooms we see on the show, and purposefully and systematically leverages his passive aggression to manipulate the actions of those around him for the purpose of making Ed and Stede betray their better selves and make them do the work of driving a wedge between themselves.   That was a lot in one sentence.  Let me break it down.

Jack uses passive aggression to achieve one of four goals: to nettle, to undermine, (seemingly paradoxically) to reinforce connections, or to coerce. And, if he can manage to achieve different goals for more than one target with the same attack? So much the better. And he’s frankly just astonishingly good at doing so. Like, I’d admire him for it if it didn’t also make me want to make him swallow all of his own teeth.

The basic gameplan goes thusly (this is not a strictly chronological list, a lot of these tactics take place concurrently and recurrently): Stede is the primary target, so Jack nettles him with passive aggressive comments, which puts him on the back foot and undermines his self-confidence. He reinforces his relationship with Ed in ways that excludes Stede and undermines Stede’s relationship with Ed and Ed’s relationship with Stede. Jack uses coercive tactics with Ed and the crew, which undermines Stede’s relationships with them, isolating and othering Stede, which further tanks his mood, which leads him to self-isolate. When Stede eventually lashes out at Ed for falling for Jack’s bullshit, Ed has no idea what’s got Stede so out-of-sorts; Jack has so carefully lead Ed to making the choices that have alienated Stede that they seem like they were Ed’s ideas in the first place. And if Ed has made the choices to do these things, then they are clearly just a reflection of who he is, which, if Stede is lashing out against them, then Stede is rejecting him. Wedge set and match.

So let’s look at the specifics.

Jack’s interactions with Ed are like a masterclass in neurolinguistic programming for evil. First, he plys Ed with booze from the very start. Just look at the bottle in this shot from right after they blow up the dresser drawer.

That bottle or rum is over half gone, and the sky in the background is the peachy-pink of sunrise. This isn’t the bottle Jack had with him in his dinghy; that one he drained and then threw in the air and tried to shoot before coming aboard the Revenge. Which means that they’ve consumed over half the bottle between just the two of them in a very short amount of time.   Alcohol, of course, is a social lubricant - the physical warmth it produces mimicking the “warm, fuzzy” feeling of true comradery, and, more importantly, decoupling the decision-making process from inhibition (that is to say, Ed isn’t necessarily doing anything he absolutely wouldn’t otherwise do, but he might otherwise think twice).

But it’s more insidious than just having a few drinks with an old friend. Jack specifically gamifies the consumption of alcohol to reinforce the coupling of the feeling of inebriation with the comradery engendered by teamwork and excitement of success in order to encourage Ed to drink more than he necessarily otherwise would. Ed confirms to Stede during his apology that the idea to use the drawers of the armoire for target practice came from Jack, and we saw that a bullseye meant that Jack had to take a drink, but Ed didn’t. Presumably, there would have been some consequence for a “miss”, and it seems likely that it would be Ed has to take a drink and not Jack. In this way, Jack is able to exert a measure of control over how much Ed is drinking (by missing on purpose) while making it look like the responsibility lies with Ed and his skill as a thrower. This pattern of sneakily controlling Ed’s actions while making it seem like Ed is the one who made or is responsible for the decision will pop up again and again during their interactions.

After the apologies for waking Stede, Jack steps into the space where Ed is gesticulating to make himself readily available to be touched, reenforcing the bond between them, but letting Ed be the one to instigate the touching.

At brekkie, he pours rum into Ed’s teacup without asking or being asked while Ed’s attention is diverted by getting food.

Jack’s collaring of the conversation does not just function as a means of making Stede feel excluded, he’s also refreshing and reinforcing the bonds he and Ed forged under adversity. Talking over Stede also demonstrates that what he has to say is more important than anything Stede might contribute.

Note that just before Jack cut him off, Stede had referred to Ed as Blackbeard (“Blackbeard and I met on a ship”). This may be innocently explained away; if you meet a person from a facet of a close friend’s life with which you do not intersect, you might refer to said friend by their given name instead of a nickname that the other person might not know, for the sake of common frame of reference. But this is the opposite of that - referring to a friend by a nickname instead of the given name that you both presumably know. That suggests to me that the seed of the Ed/Blackbeard dichotomy has already been planted in Stede’s mind by the morning’s shenanigans. And when Jack invites Stede back into participating in the conversation by talking about something he knows Stede would find upsetting (the wanton cruelty of Ed purposefully trapping people to be burned alive, couched in what sounds like sincere admiration for his friend’s piratical prowess), Jack has picked up on that distinction and is leaning into it HARD. He WANTS Stede to see Ed as a collection of behaviors he finds palatable, and Blackbeard as a collection of behaviors he finds repulsive, and then coerce Ed into performing those “Blackbeard behaviors” in order to coerce Stede to drive the wedge by rejecting him. Fucking diabolical.

When Jack is calling Stede a “big girl,” or “store-bought,” or purposefully getting his name wrong, he’s not just throwing barbs that play on Stede’s insecurities (and with such harrowing precision, too; calling on the effeminacy for which he was tormented as a child, his body image issues that we’ve also seen him struggle with under the tender mercies of Badminton - both brain-ghost and original flavor - and the authenticity of his claim to piracy, which we’ve seen him confess that he fears he’s ill-qualified to claim to Jim, Oluande, and Ed. I mean,triple bullseye for this fucking guy). He’s also using these public declarations to undermine Stede’s authority in front of his crew, and establish himself as the real authority on things like piracy and masculinity. He further reinforces this idea by withholding the story of how he saved Ed’s life under the guise of false modesty; people never want something more than when they’re told they can’t have it. And what they’re being told they can’t have is the story of how Jack was so amazing that he even managed to save the life of the coolest, most legendary pirate they know. This withholding primes the crew to think even more highly of Jack and hang on his every word.

This puts Jack into a position where he can pressure the crew into things that sound fun at first blush (like diving off the yardarm or having a snowball fight, but with coconuts), but end up hurting more than anything. Of course, within this dynamic, no one wants to admit they aren’t having a good time, or don’t want to do it; to do so would be tantamount to admitting you are less of a man or not a real pirate. So when Stede refuses to participate, or admits his discomfort or disgust with the proceedings, he’s doing Jack’s work for him, and further alienating himself, and solidifying the roles Jack had put into place where Jack is the fun, cool guy, and Stede is the killjoy that no one should listen to.

Stede unwittingly plays right into Jack’s design when he tries to stand up for himself and wrest back a modicum of respect before things get too far out of hand. He’s well-versed in the world of passive aggression, and sees what Jack is doing. He also knows that you can’t call it out because passive aggression comes with a built in cover of plausible deniability gaslighting. So instead, he tries to push back with a little passive aggression of his own, suggesting that a real pirate has a ship and a crew. Sadly, Stede is not nearly so adroit at wielding passive aggression as Jack is. Jack uses the story (and we know that Izzy sent him, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole mutiny thing is just a story; I could even easily read that slight hesitation after Stede asks his question as Jack deciding on what would be the most effective cover story, instead of hesitancy to admit to something shameful) of his crew’s mutiny to casually re-sow the idea of mutiny on the Revenge. It’s played for comedy when the crew starts talking about how they almost mutinied on Stede and probably will again, but you can’t tell me this hasn’t been a major concern for Stede ever since the first episode. So Jack’s not only got the crew trying to buoy his spirits by assuring him that his crew mutinying on his doesn’t mean he’s a bad person; it’s just something that happens! He’s also got them low-key committing to a future mutiny WITHIN EARSHOT OF STEDE.

Additionally, while Stede is well-steeped in the ways of passive aggression, his crew and Ed are not. They are not particularly sophisticated at identifying passive aggression on its own merits as opposed to the reaction it provokes, which can make it look like they don’t care when it’s being leveraged against Stede, undermining his ability to trust they will look out for him. Stede stoically putting up with Jack’s jibes makes them even more difficult to identify as hurtful. Jack’s (fake) emotional reaction to Stede’s sally might make him look momentarily weak, but allows Ed and the crew to unequivocally identify who is in the wrong and react accordingly. By positioning himself as a victim, he villainizes Stede, further undermining Stede’s authority, and placing him in a position where he owes Jack recompense. Thus, Jack is able to manipulate Stede into the trap of Dead Man’s Cove and make it look like it was Stede’s own idea. I mean, the Xanatos Speed Chess of it all.

What’s heartbreaking to me is how Jack’s wedge-driving and othering of Stede is working so well that at this point we start to hear it from other sources. As they approach the island and Stede suggests going for a swim or taking a nature walk, Ed is the one who tells him, “I think with this crowd, I think they want something a little more…” Not Jack would want something more exciting, this crowd. Jack’s exclusionary rhetoric out of Ed’s mouth.

Which is exactly the time Jack decides to up the ante.

I want to take a minute to look at the immediate lead up to yardies, because I think it’s an excellent illustration of how Jack looks like a lumbering boor, but his actions are actually so carefully considered and nuanced. He runs up from behind Stede and Ed and throws his arms around them shouting “Yardies!” literally insinuating himself between them, which interrupts anything that was going on between them, puts them off balance, and focuses the attention on him. Then, when he says “Who’s up for yardies?” he makes eye-contact with Ed - the implicit social expectation being “You, Ed, are up for yardies.” When he turns to Stede, it is to literally laugh in his face. I mean, the absolute cheek.

Until this point, the crew of the Revenge have been passive participants in Jack’s hooliganry. They watched him perform whippies, and got whipped at without encouraging him to do so. They listened to his and Ed’s stories. But now Jack is cashing in on his established expertise of what real pirates do to coerce the crew into taking part in a dangerous stunt. It’s more of the “Blackbeard behavior” dichotomy he started sowing in Stede’s mind at brekkie, but now he’s extending it beyond Ed to the whole crew. He wants Stede to feel like he’s all alone in a sea of idiocy, but he wants him to come to the conclusion on his own by making it seem like Ed and the crew are doing things of which he would disapprove of their own accord.

Once we get to the island, we see the activities take a turn from the careless Jackass-ery of whippies and yardies to the abject cruelty of turtle vs. crab. There’s no saying that Jack organized the fight, but we do see the crew handing him various trinkets to be used in gambling on a winner, which certainly suggests he was the central figure in how the game was established. We also see that, though he has been presenting himself as a drunkard, there’s no bottle in his hand or around him in the sand. There is, however, one in Ed’s hand, who is directly to his side. I can easily see him handing it off so he could handle the gambling stakes, the real intention being to keep Ed readily supplied with booze.

And then we have the pissing contest. Jack’s got Stede literally and metaphorically isolated, and now it’s time to really drive it all home. Every moment of their interaction is designed to drive Stede to distraction; the amount of derision he lays on the phrase “Your good, close buddy,” the insinuation that he and Ed are just alike, and then being as rude and crass as possible. And because he’s read the room - the intimate breakfast for two, Ed’s little touches and the way Stede smiles at them, the way they keep going off together for little chats - of course Jack’s just got to twist the knife and allude to his and Ed’s former sexual history. So now that he’s got Stede primed, it’s time to name the fear: “Maybe you don’t know him at all.”

At this point, Stede is left to wonder: does he? Blackbeard’s reputation preceded him, after all. And he’s been acting so differently since the appearance of one of his oldest friends. It’s not the violence qua violence, per se; Stede is by turns delighted and impressed by the violence he’s seen Ed and his crew employ in the heat of battle in the pursuit of piracy. It’s the cruel and senseless violence that Stede objects to, and that’s exactly the brand that Jack has been peddling, and which Ed has gone along with so enthusiastically. And it’s not JUST the violence; Ed apologizes for Jack when he recognizes Jack has crossed a line in a typically agro way (destroying Stede’s belongings, and insulting Stede to his face), but it never occurs to Stede that his insistence on persevering with quietly aggrieved dignity in the face of Jack’s slights would make it nigh impossible for Ed to identify that Jack has crossed all sorts of other lines, and Stede is hurting because of it. For Stede, it must be frustrating and mystifying why Ed keeps letting his friend get away with his passive aggressive bullshit. Doesn’t he care? 

Is it any wonder that one more failure to notice how Jack has riled him, and one more act of coconut-flavored Jackass-ary is enough to break the dam, and for Stede to spill all that built-up hurt on Ed?  Is it any wonder that Ed is bewildered at where all this is coming from? I’ve talked before about Ed’s tendency to fawn on people, and how, as an emotional chameleon, he would have difficulty identifying when the motivation for his actions is self-directed or externally dictated. Jack has further confounded this distinction by manipulating scenarios to make it seem like participation in all the Jackass-ary he has instigated was voluntary instead of coerced. When Stede says “I don’t like who you are around  this guy” what he means is “I don’t like how this guy is able to manipulate you into acting on your very worst impulses”, but what Ed hears is “I don’t like you”. For who is he, if not the collection of behaviors he chooses to exhibit? And were those choices not entirely his to make? With the rift clearly established, if in its infancy, of course Jack is going to do everything he can to foster its growth. So again, he interrupts Stede, again implicitly signaling that Ed should pay attention to what he says and not Stede. By lobbing the coconut at Ed at that moment, he forestalls any possible clearing of the air between Ed and Stede, and causes Ed to literally turn his back on Stede, in the way Ed feels Stede has emotionally turned his back on him just moments earlier. Jack reinforces this idea of turning his back on Stede again moments later when he says “Don’t go!” and immediately turns Ed around by the shoulders.

I know that I’ve been laying it on a bit thick and prolly sound like the written embodiment of the red string conspiracy meme, but I’m about to get a whole lot worse, and I’m going to ask you to stick with me, oh my v. dears. I think Jack killed Karl on purpose.

I know, I know. It was an accident! He was flailing drunkenly! But was he?

Have we seen him take so much as a single drink since the cannon fire at the beginning of the episode? Even though he’d been drinking earlier, did he not have devastating precision and accuracy when he first demonstrated Whippies - shattering every glass, snapping the cards from the Swede’s fingers, and ball-tapping Ed without permanently maiming him or even splitting the leather of his pants? In fact, while nearly every other crew member on the deck has a bottle in hand, just like on the beach, Jack does not.

Jack knows he has to get Ed off the ship before the British show up, but he can’t just say “Let’s ditch these losers” and expect Ed to agree, especially since he’s spent most of the day roping the crew into his schemes. The most effective way to get Ed to follow is if Jack is rejected for just being himself and doing what he does, just like Ed feels he was earlier by Stede. I think the original plan was to goad Olu into seriously hurting the Swede, the fallout of which would be recriminations that Jack made them do it, and Jack getting aggrieved that he was just trying to show this ungrateful lot how to have a good time, skulking off and leading Ed to follow him and reassure him that he’s really a good guy - how could he have known it would turn out like that? But when Buttons calls a halt to the proceedings and it looks like everyone is going to pack it in, Jack has to think fast. If HE maims a crew mate, that would be a bridge too far, painting him as the bad guy. But Karl? He’s just a bird. And if Jack can get a little revenge on the weird bird guy who made him change his plan, so much the better. AND, as people with far fewer auditory processing issues than I have pointed out, Jack mutters that he expected there to be more feathers. Could the evidence be any more damning?

Of course the whole ship turns on him, and then here’s Stede to order him off, explicitly rejecting him the way he metaphorically rejected Ed. But when even that isn’t enough to get Ed to follow him, Jack pulls out one last, desperate manipulation - the debt of life.

Jack’s tragic flaw is that he can’t turn it off. Once he and Ed are alone, he turns his passive aggressive assault on Ed, pressuring him into drinking the morning away by sarcastically saying he didn’t know he had an audience with the pope when Ed expresses disinterest, and, ultimately, giving up the game when he mentions with casual derision how he’d heard of Ed shaking up with Stede, and then deriding Ed for his failure to spot Jack’s machinations.

Too bad Jack didn’t know that the punishment for passive-aggressive fuckery on this show is death…

[multifandom-worlds]

Loki's Missus and Midnight Whiskey Kisses

Genre: fluff? Frankly, I don't know.

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Alcohol, the reader not liking Thor.

Authors note: Another addition to Life in Asgard! There may be a little bit of Queer-baiting at the end; however, in the series, Lady Laufeyson (us) is Bi, so. Other than that - enjoy!

Tagging:

@simplyholl @holdmytesseract @lokiprompts @dryyoursaltyoceantears @buttercupcookies-blog @ladyofthestayingpower @sarahscribbles

The Avengers compound was filled with laughter and conversation - people mingling and caterers catering. Tony had all of New York’s elites over for a New Year’s Eve celebration - that included you, Loki and the rest of the Avengers. You didn’t exactly want to go, but Loki convinced you by promising a kiss at midnight - that was all you needed. You donned a sexy velvet green dress, complete with a plunging neckline, two thigh slits and sleeves. 

“Do we have to, Loki? I want to be back in Asgard with you, where we can be open about our relationship.” You ask, putting on your jewellery at the vanity, leaving your Asgardian engagement and wedding ring in their box. She looked down at her hand, once adorned with Loki’s rungs, now bare, sighing. “Why can’t we live in Asgard permanently? Tony wouldn’t care as long as I’m safe.”

Loki’s arms snake around your midsection, placing a soft kiss on the exposed part of your shoulder. “I know, my Dove, this is not the most comfortable situation to be in, but I assure you, as soon as our presence is no longer required, we can head back home. I don't myself care about being here for such demonstrations of wealth.”

You cover his hands with yours, resting your head against his shoulder. “Let's go get this over with.” You chuckle slightly, looking up at him. He kisses your cheek before backing away, granting you room to stand. “I’ll go first; you come a few minutes later, so.”

Loki chuckles, “My Queen, I am hardly ready myself.” You turn to face him, only to see he is, in fact, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, the thin material pulled tight over his hips and thighs. Your face burns, seeing him so skimpily clad. Sure, you’ve seen his entire body before, but something about being at your brother’s made it feel like the first time.

“Loki! How can you expect me to leave when you’re half-naked?” You groan, running a manicured finger along the contours of his torso. He only laughs in response before placing his hands on your hips and spinning you towards the door, giving you a gentle push. 

“All in due time, Dove. Now go so I can ready myself, and I will meet you there.” You turn around to give him a quick kiss before you go, only to see he shut the door. You grumble before making your way to the elevator, meeting up with Natasha and Wanda on their way down.

The ride down to the first floor was nothing more than you 3 paying each other compliment after compliment, expressing desires to see what was under the dress, mostly coming from Nat. “That dress would look so much better on my floor.” Nat laughs.

Wanda smacks her arm gently. “You’re not a God, Nat; she’s not interested,” Wanda retorts with a laugh. Wanda, Nat and Tony were the only ones you trusted with the knowledge of your marriage to Loki; they’re the only ones you trusted. You knew the girls wouldn’t say anything, and Tony didn’t want to risk losing his sister again, not like the first time, not like that day in the rain.

Before the elevator door even opened, you three could hear the din of the party. You rub your temples, already anticipating the headache that’s going to come from this as you step out of the elevator. Thor and Tony were there to greet you. “Good evening, Lady Stark,” Thor bows, taking your hand and kissing your knuckles. It takes all your strength not to gag.

As soon as your hand was free of Thor’s grip, Tony immediately put a glass in it, preventing any further awkward encounters. He wraps his arm around your shoulder, leading you deeper into the party, introducing you to the upper echelon of New York - governors, military personnel, you name it, your brother invited them.

While you are busy being paraded around with your brother, Loki finally enters the party, only to be greeted by his brother. “Brother, you must see how beautiful Lady Stark looks this evening. I believe tonight is the night she finally accepts my advances.”

A searing heat burns in Loki’s fist, thinking about Thor trying to woo you, so he offers up a challenge, knowing he cannot resist a challenge. “If you believe so strongly about this, you wouldn’t mind some friendly competition, would you, Brother? The goal of the evening to get the Lady Stark to share a kiss with us at midnight. Do you accept this challenge?”

Thor contemplated for a second before he agreed to the challenge, just as Loki knew he would. Lucky for you, Natasha was within earshot of the whole conversation. She comes up to you, prying you away from Tony before whispering in your ear, “Thor and Loki are going to have a competition this entire party to see which one of them you’re going to kiss at midnight; just a heads up.”

You roll your eyes, annoyed that you’re going to have to tolerate Thor’s pitiful attempts to win you over. “Why would Loki subject me to something like that.” You whine to Nat, taking a nice big drink of your drink. “He really is the worst sometimes. He kicked me out even though he was half-naked? Like he got to watch me dress, why couldn’t I watch him?”

Nat chuckles in response before Thor makes his way over to you, Loki hot on his heels, a mischievous glint in his eye and a smile on his lips. “Lady Stark, you look elegant tonight,” Thor spoke, his hand brushing against your arm. 

“T-thank you, Thor.” you stutter, caught off guard by the fact he touched you. Was this the standard way of courting on Asgard? Loki mouths a quick apology, although you know he is not sorry in the slightest. Loki walks up; this time, it is his turn to pay you a compliment.

In keeping with the theme, Loki arched his eyebrow, “A lady who likes the harder stuff, that’s my kind of woman.” He walks away to refill your drink. Thankfully, Natasha swoops in and steals you away again, giggling the entire way out onto the balcony.

“You look absolutely ravishing tonight, Lady Stark. Might I tempt you with a second drink?” He asks, putting on all the charm he can muster. You hold back your giggles - something about the way he spoke or the exaggerated theatrics of the compliment was funny to you.

“Another whiskey, if you may, sir.” You answer, handing him your glass. 

“That was so dramatic.” She laughs as Loki returns with your drink, shutting the balcony door behind him and hiding in the shadows. “ What made you make this silly competition anyway, Loki?”

Leaning against the wall, Loki smiles mischievously. “My brother has always fancied my wife, even before she was my wife. It's time to show him and the rest of New York who she really belongs to. Make it look like I won her over tonight.”

You roll your eyes again with a faint giggle. “You really are the worst, you know that, Love?” You take the drink from his hand before turning towards the balcony door, sliding it back open. “I’ll see you in there; see if you can win me over by the night’s end.” You wink before stepping back inside.

Thor and Loki spent the rest of the party flirting with you in 2 distinctly opposite ways. 

An “You’re so pretty” from Thor

A “Gods, you are breathtaking; Freyja would be envious.” from Loki. An “I would make love to you all day long” from Thor.

An “I will be having you screaming all night long” from Loki.

By the time 11:55 pm rolls around, you are half drunk and thoroughly exhausted from this entire ordeal. Thor and Loki stand beside each other, ready to hear which one of them won the honour of ringing in the new year on your lips.

However, you decided to make them sweat a little bit, your payback for what they put you through. You slink over to them, running manicured fingers along Thor’s chest before walking over to your husband, grabbing his tie and pulling him in so he was just mere millimetres away from your lips before backing away again. 

“I choose…” You begin, looking between the two of them before looking over at Natasha. “....Nat.” Natasha winks at the boys before fully embracing you, hands in your hair and everything, before pulling you in for a sloppy, exaggerated kiss.

10…

You two break apart in a fit of giggles, this being your plan the entire time. “You should see your face right now, love.” You say, walking over to Loki and placing your arms around his neck. His hands rest on your hips as a faint chuckle falls from his lips.

“That was not the intended end, but I definitely did not mind watching that.” He teases, pulling you tight to his body as the countdown begins. 

9…

8…

6…

“Do I get the honours of having your midnight kiss?”

7…

5…

“Every year, Loki.”

4…

3…

2…

His lips find yours in a heated, desperate kiss, fingers digging into your hips as he deepens the kiss.

1…

One minute, you could hear everyone shouting, “Happy New Year!” the next, the peaceful serenity you learned to associate with Asgard. You pull away from your husband, resting your forehead against his. “Happy New Year, my love. There is no one else I would rather ring it in with.”

“Really? You looked pretty into that kiss with Miss Romanoff.” He teases, kissing your nose. 

“Oh, shut up and just kiss me again.” 

“With pleasure”

[wing-ed-thing]

Levi x Reader x Erwin Love Triangle Headcanons

Tags/Warnings: No Reader Pronouns, Slight Name-Calling (1)

𓆃 Levi having the initiative in a love triangle setting? What is this? An AU?

𓆃 This dynamic is sure to produce your classic love triangle feelings and troupes tenfold. Both are very powerful men with Levi being loyal, reliable, and slightly aloof, while Erwin is charming, calculating, and the definition of aloof.

𓆃 Levi has the advantage in the dynamic (which is a rarity for him, considering his reserved nature) simply because Erwin has basically sworn relationships off already.

𓆃 Although, this doesn't stop Erwin from trying to have his cake and eat it too. While he couldn't allow himself to have a life with Marie, that doesn't mean he's above teasing, flirting, and otherwise courting all time tell himself— and perhaps even telling you— that he's not looking for anything more.

𓆃 Levi also isn't one to jump at the prospect of an intimate relationship either (whatever that looks like for the two of you). He prefers to take things slow to scope you out as a person.

𓆃 Perhaps you'll hear, "Let's go out," or probably more likely, "I need dinner, let's go," but that's about the extent Levi is going.

𓆃 In fact, the only time the word "date" is ever going to be explicitly said is if you ask, "Is this a date?" to which Levi might answer, "Call it whatever you want, idiot" but only if you're particularly oblivious.

𓆃 It's more than Erwin will acknowledge. He'll make any excuse for you to accompany him on things, telling you that he wants to eat out for lunch and tells you to order what you want because he's putting it on the office tab.

𓆃 Don't even bother asking if anything is remotely outside professional because all you'll get back is, "Hm? What gave you that impression?" with a look on his face that makes you wonder if he's being serious or not.

𓆃 It's not that Erwin doesn't want you; it's that he desires something even more. This combined with his expert masking abilities and charm, translates to mixed signals at best.

𓆃 He's content with getting what he wants out of his relationship with you while avoiding placing labels on what you are for as long as possible.

𓆃 Levi, on the other hand, is far too... introspective. He has a lot going on, and he's mostly aware of it all, including his past losing people he cares about.

𓆃 There's not exactly a specific fear. It's more that he's lost tolerance for vulnerability, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Subconsciously, he almost expects good things in his life to be followed by bad things.

𓆃 He'll continue to build a deep friendship with you, displaying deepening feelings through reluctant or secretive acts of service, leaving you with a strong and intimate friendship.

𓆃 Unlike Erwin, Levi's a bit more casual about labels. Ending the love triangle could be as easy as, "Are we a couple?" "If you say so. We've been living together for 8 goddamn months."

𓆃 It'll take quite the catalyst for one of them to make a definitive move. Even if you made your intentions known, it's likely not enough to bypass Erwin's mixed thoughts or Levi's.

𓆃 Erwin doesn't even know what he wants, and Levi is too fixated on what a deeper relationship with you means.

𓆃 So until something big happens that knocks either of them into shape, Erwin is content to play house with you, and Levi will continue to scope you out, overthinking until it's too late.

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed, and supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

If you're interested in more Levi x Reader x Erwin, consider checking out my 17.5k fic Stupid, Stupid, Emotionally Unavailable Erwin Smith or on AO3.

[cilil]

cilil's Halloween special

ʚ𖦹ɞ Author's Note: It's that time of the year, revelers and travelers, and I present to you a little something I made to celebrate the season (and another milestone). This is a fun and silly choose your own adventure story with a couple of options and a tiny bit of romance and innuendo sprinkled in. I hope you enjoy (and that tungle doesn't randomly eat posts or links, fingers crossed)! Happy Halloween!

ʚ𖦹ɞ Featuring: Your top choices - Melkor, Mairon, Námo, Oromë, Nienna, Varda and Yavanna

ʚ𖦹ɞ Warnings: / (Just a tiny bit of spooky and the dork lords being their dork lord selves)

ʚ𖦹ɞ Additional mystery: Out of the seven objects described in the first scene, two are in fact real and in my possession right now. Can you guess which ones? (No, there are no hints in the story itself as it isn't about me, but maybe some of you know me or have a hunch. Happy guessing!)

It is not the first time that your fëa has found itself wandering the Path of Dreams in your sleep, though it looks different today. The sky above the great trees and hedges surrounding you is dark, stars twinkling weakly in the distance, and the only light comes from the full moon peeking through ghostly clouds. The gentle breeze carrying formless whispers from the forest is sharper and colder today, and the voices you hear are distorted and erratic. 

You wonder if this is Irmo's doing as you hasten along your path, if he has twisted the normally peaceful dream realm into one of nightmares. Or are other spirits out there that were roused by your searching thought, displeased by your presence or perhaps even curious? 

Instead of the golden gate and winding paths that would lead you to Lórien, you find a lonely, ancient-looking pavilion. It's overgrown with ivy, nearly covering it in its entirety. You have never heard any tales about such a location existing on the Path of Dreams, but your curiosity compels you to explore. 

There is no one inside, nor anywhere nearby. It seems to you as though this pavilion hasn't seen visitors in a long time, yet it isn't empty: Pillows sit on the floor, their vibrant colours faded, surrounding a small table with various objects on it. 

You examine the objects. Which one catches your interest?

☞ An old book with a rich emerald cover and silver ornaments. Its pages are yellowed and written in an ancient language you don't understand. 

☞ A perfectly cut and polished almond-shaped gem. It seems to be a ruby or opal at first glance, shining with a warm light from the inside. 

☞ A bouquet of flowers in a carved pumpkin. The plants all look as if they were freshly cut and harvested, but upon closer examination you see that they were preserved with wax. 

☞ A bronze letter opener in the shape of a dagger. When you run your finger across it, the edge and tip of the blade are sharper than expected. 

☞ An ancient telescope with strange symbols engraved. It's pointed at the roof of the pavilion, making you wonder what you are supposed to see there.

☞ A simple silver necklace with a pendant shaped like a budding rose. It seems unassuming at first, but the longer you look upon it, the more you feel like it might have been blessed. 

☞ A diadem with countless gems and pearls. Once it has drawn your gaze, you are in awe of the way it sparkles and glitters even in the twilight. 

If you enjoyed, please consider liking and reblogging!

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taglist: @a-contemplation-upon-flowers @asianbutnotjapanese @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @bluezenzennie @edensrose @i-did-not-mean-to @melkors-big-tits @melkors-defense-attorney @singleteapot @wandererindreams

[writingforatwistedworld]

WARNINGS: Slightly hinted Yandere, kidnapping, isolation

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

If you don't know me (Hi, how is it going? Nice to meet you) then you might wonder why I post this under the yandere tag even though there isn't much of that in here (yet). This is a sneak peek of a bigger story which definitely has elements of yandere so I want to make sure that people who don't like reading yandere don't accidentally get on my blog. I respect their choice and boundaries.

Malleus Draconia-Over the rose bush (Sneak peek Pt. I)

You would assume playing an Otome game made you know everything about it was set in, helping its’ people and becoming a hero for them. But who would have thought that there was an entire kingdom ruled by one of the most powerful mages, who was only implied to exist in the game, hiding from the players’ eyes by being mentioned NOT EVEN A SINGLE TIME??! Funny. Interesting. Absolutely maddening. Maddening like the raven that got you into the kingdom in the first place. Yeah, getting over a huge rose bush wasn’t exactly what you would call “easy”.

But who were you to judge? After all, you were only a small individual who was such a huge fan of the game that when you found out who the datable character of Sunset Savanna you almost threw the console out of the window. Huh. This reminded you your friend the raven threw you over an overgrown houseplant surrounding an entire country.

Meeting the young-looking individual whilst hiding in the woods after falling from the sky was something you most certainly had not expected to happen. Heck, you would have rather believed that a pink cloud would fly down on your level and start singing mind-numbing tunes. But you were someone from a world in which swords weren’t exactly “in fashion” in battle so you didn’t expect one of those sharp toothpicks on your throat.

And would you look at that? Apparently, you looked miserable enough that he didn’t just kidna- *ahem* “took you with him” but also took you with him to a cozy cabin in the middle of the woods. After throwing you over a huge fence made out of a rose bush. Did I mention the rose bush before?

Alas, TVs and technology did not exist here so the cabin started to feel… uh… small? Imprisoning? Maybe both? Maybe more than just those two?

This is the point when the smoll rose bush behind your house, not the big one trapping you on an island, became your best friend. No, a brotherhood. The brotherhood of abandoned souls in the middle of the woods. You named them Helga. The narrator of this story says “Hi Helga.”

Something you did not expect though was meeting someone out here (other than Lilia the little annoy-). Deciding to look after Helga you had stepped out of the house only to be met with a breathing wall staring down at Helga. Helga seemed even healthier in his presence. Helga, don’t you dare to turn traitor on the boasitmotw (brotherhood of abandoned souls in the middle of the woods). The stranger had even plucked one of their roses and yet they still bloomed flirtatiously in his direction. You swore to cut your friend a bit shorter after this. IF there was an “after this”.

Turning in your direction the wall casted his gaze upon you and holy shi- (the narrator shakes their head at your choice of words) was that a vibrant green. Helga, you have good taste. You didn’t even notice his horns. Oh don’t get annoyed with me. I am just the narrator. It’s your fault if you get weak at every pretty boy you see.

Standing there like the most foolish statue within any world, yours or this otome one, you continued to stare at him. The man must have taken notice of your mouth that was opening and closing like a fish gasping for air but thankfully he seemed graceful enough not to comment on it. In fact, he seemed surprised to see you as well.

“I was not aware there was another human other than Silver in here.” Silver. Silver… Silver? Who was that? The questions running absolutely amok in your head were soon stopped though, coming to a screeching halt, when he stepped closer to you. God, that wand of his looked like it could impale you… that needle of the spindle looked dangerously sharp.

“Tell me, child of man, how come you are in this place?” How were you supposed to explain that a small man threw you over the bigger cousin of Helga?