#I think I might even have to call this crack

[wandaslovey]

𝒽𝒾𝒹𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝑒𝑒𝓀

➺ mommy!wanda x reader

not my gif

wc ~ 1.9k

cw: fluff that turns into smut, mommy kink, cunnilingus (r receiving)

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you have your hand clasped over your mouth to try and silence your breathing. you inhale slowly through your nose, willing yourself to get a grip on yourself.

“5…”

“4…”

“3…”

“2…”

“…1”

you hear wanda reach the end of her countdown, her voice raising half an octave as she calls out the number one.

“alright little dove, here i come..” she calls out in a sing song voice. her tone was tantalizing and teasing, only heightening your excitement and adrenaline as you hide in the big cabinet built into the kitchen island.

“now where, oh where, is my little one hiding…”

you can barely hear her footsteps as she walks through the first floor of the house, her voice sounding a little muffled and far away from where she was currently standing.

“are you going to make it harder for mommy this time? you know it’s never very fun when you just let me win,” she taunts, her voice sounding a little bit closer than before. you hear her throw open the pantry door, her first guess as to where you might be hiding. she makes a small noise that sounds like approval. “oh good, not here in the pantry. looks like you learned your lesson from last time… although, i think you wanted me to catch you in there.. you didn’t even struggle, not even a little.” her voice was wicked and teasing. she loved to taunt you. you hear her walk closer to your hiding spot. you hug your knees tighter against your chest, your heart running a hundred miles per hour.

“are you in.. here?” she calls, opening the door to the supply closet adjacent to the kitchen. “hmm..crafty little dove. i swore i heard you here rustling around.” she shuts the closet door. you breath out a small sigh of relief, thinking maybe you really did outsmart her this time. you lean your head back, miscalculating your position inside the already small space, the sound of your head hitting the wood resounding through the otherwise quiet kitchen.

you hear wanda make a mock gasp of surprise and you instantly straighten up in your hiding spot, your arms wrapped so tightly around your legs as if you hugged them tight enough, it would protect you from being found.

she walks around the kitchen island, chuckling to herself as she kneels in front of the cabinet you were hiding inside. “malen’kaya ptichka…nowhere to run, my darling.” she pauses and then all at once, throws the cabinet doors open, a victorious grin on her face. “aha! there you are.. how did you fit inside here malyshka?” she marvels, looking around the enclosed space that normally houses the pots and pans. you look at her, your expression that of a bashful child who just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“i..i moved them..” you stutter out in a small voice. your were a bit breathless, your cheeks a little flushed from the adrenaline currently coursing through your body.

“oh? before we even started playing? you sneaky little thing… you planned this didn’t you?”

your cheeks blush a deeper shade of pink as you nod your head, a cheeky little smile threatening to crack across your face at your own innovativeness.

“hmm, very clever little dove.. but it’s time to come out now. mommy’s found you, and now she wants to claim her prize…” her voice is alluring and for a second you contemplate obeying, but figure it would be more fun if she forcibly removed you from your hiding place. you make a show of resting your back against the wall of the cabinet, settling yourself as if to get comfortable in your spot. “don’t want to..” you say stubbornly, your chin jutting out.

“what do you mean ‘you don’t want to’? .. you’re really going to make mommy pull you out?” her eyes glaze over with a mixture of amusement and sternness. she always did find your cheeky attitude endearing, but she also had to keep you in line. she wouldn’t ever let you forget your place. you nod your head in silent response to her question, your face fixed in faux determination (it was really just stubbornness).

“oh really? you’re not going to like it if i do..” she warns, scooting her kneeling form closer to the opening of the cabinet. even though it was futile, you try your best to worm your way back into the corner, scooting away from her small advance.

“did you just scoot away from me? you’re such a brat. come…here,” she grunts gently as she reaches in and pulls you out of your corner mid sentence. as she drags you out, she picks you up, intent on setting you on the countertop. you fight against her hold half-heartedly, not really trying as you wanted to get caught in the first place. “it was a clever spot, i’ll admit. but don’t think you won’t have to put all that kitchenware back after i’m done with you.” she ignores your protests and sets you on top of the counter nudging your thighs open so she can stand between your legs.

“mommy wants easier access,” she offers as a brief explanation. “access to what?” you ask meekly, feigning ignorance as you easily slip into your roll as her innocent little girl. “to what?” she echoes, her voice dropping an octave. “do you even need to ask, milaya?” she then leans in, capturing your lips with hers as she plants not one or two, but three chaste kisses on your lips, humming against them as she does so. her hands resting just above your bent knees slide up your naked thighs, pushing your already short dress even higher. you squirm under wanda’s attention, which doesn’t go unnoticed by her.

“mm, someone’s getting a little squirmy.” she pulls back briefly, admiring the sight of you already slowly unraveling. she leans back in, kissing you again. “fuck, you taste good,” she moans softly into your mouth, one of her hands squeezing your soft thighs. you whimper, your panties quickly becoming wet with her ministrations. she tuts and pulls away.

“awwh, what’s the matter sweetheart?” you whine at her feigned ignorance, your legs kicking out petulantly. “you’re being mean..” her face twists into a fake sympathetic frown. “mean? i have no idea what you’re talking about. you like mommy’s kisses, don’t you?” her hand then slips under the very bottom of your dress, her fingers grazing over your panties. you frown, wriggling backwards away from her as she continues to tease you. she chuckles at your silly little attempt to escape her, her hands already hooking under the backs of your knees to pull you closer to the edge of the countertop. “come back here..” her eyes were darkening, flecks of green only visible here and there between the blackness. you can feel your own slickness now dripping onto your thighs, your panties already soaked through. with your legs open around wanda’s frame, you could both smell a hint of your arousal.

“don’t think you’re going anywhere.. mommy played your little game and found you, and now.. mommy’s..going..to..devour you…” she speaks slowly, emphasizing each word as she leans down until your lips are pressed together. she kisses you passionately, her desire for you evident in the kiss. her tongue slips into your mouth, forcing it open as she dominates the kiss. her teeth then bite into your bottom lip, her fingers hooking onto your panties. you moan, feeling her teeth tug on your bottom lip before releasing it. she fights with the material of your panties for a moment, your position on the counter making it difficult to take them off. she groans in frustration before bunching the material together at one side and ripping them off forcefully. you gasp in surprise, her sudden roughness catching you a little off guard. she quickly discards the soiled material, tossing it to the side. your legs press against her sides, your cunt dripping and aching for her touch. she mashes her lips against yours once more, her fingers dragging along your inner thigh before sliding to your core to feel your wetness. she hums her approval, the vibrations lightly tickling your lips. her thumb swirls around your clit a few times as two more of her fingers tease your entrance, gliding up and down your opening. she pulls away from your lips panting, hardly taking a second to breathe before she’s leaning down and her mouth is on your cunt. she licks a firm stripe up your dripping slit, her mouth closing around your clit as she sucks it into her mouth. you moan, your body arching into her face as your hands desperately grasp at the edges of the countertop. your legs threaten to close at the sudden intense stimulation. “nuh uh, you be a good girl and keep these legs open for me, hm?” her tongue swirls and prods at your pussy, never letting up for a second no matter the volume of your squeaks and whimpers. she then thrusts her tongue into your hole, effectively fucking you with it. she occasionally abandons the motion but only to swipe her tongue back up to your sensitive little nub. she shakes her head back and forth, all but moaning into you as she, well… devours you.

you feel that familiar coil in your belly, your hips steadily rutting against her face. her hands hold your hips firmly, her fingernails sure to leave crescent shaped marks once she finally lets you go. “ahh- mommy! i’m gonna cum! fuck- i wanna cum! please!” you whine, your hips bucking more wildly as you chase your high. she chuckles darkly against you, the sound muffled with her head stuffed between your legs. you can hear the embarrassingly wet sloshing sounds as she laps at your drenched pussy. she ignores your pleas, knowing you won’t cum until given permission. “mommy- mommy please! let me cum!” you could feel the coil about to snap and you knew that unless she stopped, you were going to cum without her permission. “cum for me, pretty girl. cum for mommy.” she encourages, her hands still squeezing your hips to try and still your erratic movements. at last, you allow yourself to fly over the edge, the coil finally snapping as you cum all over her pretty face. her hands hold you firmly, her tongue not letting up until she was sure she dragged out every possible morsel of pleasure from you. you whimper and whine, her tongue slowly licking up your now overstimulated cunt. “too much mama…too sensitive,” you mewl, your hands gently pushing against her head.

she hums, placing one final kiss on your clit before taking your hands in hers and kissing them both. she straightens up, standing before you with a satisfied smile on her face. she places a quick kiss against your lips before helping maneuver your body so you dress was back over your bum, now covering your unclothed center. “thank you mommy..” you murmur gently as you wrap your arms around her neck, pulling her close. “for what, honey?” she tilts her head, unsure what you were thanking her for. “for loving me like you do..” you smile cutely at her, your head slightly bowed as you peak up at her through your lashes.

“oh detka, we’re just getting started…”

[evanbi-ckley]

Buck walks through the automatic doors on autopilot and freezes. It hits him then that the last time he stood here, he was meeting Tommy for Maddie and Chim’s wedding. He had stood almost in this very spot and kissed his boyfriend who was covered in soot after fighting a wildfire all night and most of the day.

Now his boyfriend is somewhere else in the hospital, and Buck can’t kiss him or touch him, and his hands are shaking, and he thinks he’s going to be sick.

He turns toward the nearest bathroom and makes it into the stall just in time. He hasn’t eaten yet today, so he’s only throwing up bile mixed with panic and regret, but it’s just as bad.

It’s Hen who finds him, which -

“Why are you in the men’s room?” he asks, his voice weak and still creaky.

“I thought you might need a medical professional.” When Buck just looks at her, she continues with a sigh, “We could hear you in the waiting room. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh.” That’s a little embarrassing. “Sorry. And thanks.”

He gratefully accepts the wet paper towel she hands him to wipe his face.

“Any news yet?”

“Not yet. They took him back for surgery, and it’ll probably be a few more hours before we hear. Bobby and Eddie are in the waiting room if there’s an update. Chim went to pick up Jee from daycare, but he’ll be back later with Maddie.”

Then she produces a water bottle from somewhere behind her.

“How long have I been in here?” Buck asks. Hen seems way too prepared for it to have been just a few minutes.

“About half an hour,” she says. “Actually closer to 45 minutes now.”

“Right.”

So time is still moving awkwardly. He can’t get his bearings. He feels untethered, like he’ll never be on solid ground again.

“Why don’t we get you up and out to a chair?” Hen asks gently. She’s not treating him with kid gloves, but she is being more careful than necessary.

He decides to accept it for the time being. Maybe he does need the softness in her voice and the kindness in her eyes right now.

“Yeah - yeah, that’s a good idea. Thanks, Hen.”

She smiles with something like relief and then stands, offering Buck a hand up.

The waiting room is blessedly empty save for their morose party. Buck tries to sit down, but before he can, Hen is pulling at his turnout coat, trying to yank it off his shoulders. She manhandles the coat off and tosses it to Eddie who adds it to the growing pile of coats on an unused chair in the corner. He’s too tired to fight it or question it, plus it was getting heavy with all of the rain still soaked into the fabric. 

After that, Hen leaves to call Karen, and Ravi goes to get food for them all at a little cafe just up the road that they’ve come to know well. 

Buck sits between Bobby and Eddie, almost a mockery of them standing at the crash site, holding him up. Best not to think about it.

Eddie holds a phone in his hands that Buck recognizes, but it’s not Eddie’s phone. The screen is cracked at the upper corner, spider-webbing its way diagonally down the length of the glass.

“Is that -?” He can’t even bring himself to ask.

“It’s Tommy’s, yeah. A nurse brought out the personal items he had on him a while ago. I was going to see if he has any family in his contacts, but I don’t know his passcode.”

“Oh,” Buck swallows roughly, “it’s um - it’s my birthday. But,” he continues before Eddie types the digits, “he doesn’t have any family in his contacts. At least, not anyone he would want here.”

“Ah,” is all Eddie says before handing the phone over to Buck. He pockets it and tries to think about anything other than his boyfriend a few rooms away getting his arm put back together.

He spends the next few minutes staring off into space thinking of nothing other than his boyfriend a few rooms away getting his arm put back together.

“He’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Eddie says into the heavy silence.

“Eddie’s right,” Bobby adds. “His arm will be fine, and the cuts and scrapes will heal. He’ll be back up in the sky before you know it.”

Buck feels his stomach churn threateningly at the thought, but he does his best to nod and smile. 

When Ravi returns with food, Buck can’t handle the smell, let alone eating anything. But he tries. He can hear Tommy’s low voice in his head warning, “Evan, you need to eat something,” and that convinces him more than Eddie’s prodding.

When Karen shows up along with Chimney and Maddie, Buck feels the need to pull her and his sister off to the side.

He tries to keep his voice steady as he says, “I didn’t get it. Before, I mean. I didn’t get what it felt like to be on this side.” He’s oddly proud his voice only cracked once.

Maddie grabs his hand. “Buck, you’ve been on this side a lot of times. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the 118 isn’t very good at staying out of the hospital.”

He lets out a wet laugh.

“I think he means on the worried partner side of things,” Karen says. “You’ve never had someone you’re in a relationship with get injured like this before. Is that right?”

“Y-yeah.” He chuckles sardonically. “When I saw the helicopter - and his - his hand hanging out the window - I thought - he wasn’t moving, y’know? It took us so long to find him. We were too late. I thought -”

“You thought you’d lost him,” Maddie supplies. He can only nod. “Yep, welcome to the Worried Partners Club.”

“It sucks, but it’s worth it,” Karen adds.

Later, when Athena gets off shift, she arrives at the hospital bearing coffee for everyone. Buck nods gratefully when she hands him one, and the understanding look in her eyes nearly sets him off again. Although, he thinks he might be too dehydrated for tears by now.

“Family of Thomas Kinard?” a voice calls from the doors leading to the OR.

Everyone looks up, but Buck is on his feet before the nurse finishes saying Tommy’s name. He feels people behind him, and the nurse’s eyes widen a bit at everyone gathering around, but Buck’s glad for them.

“He’s out of surgery. Everything went well. He’ll be in recovery for about an hour, but as soon as we get him in a room, you can see him.” 

The last part is directed toward Buck. Maybe he now looks like he’s part of the Worried Partners Club, but that’s fine. He’ll see Tommy soon. That’s what matters.

He catches the end of the nurse’s spiel as he says, “...still be under some sedation, so don’t expect much conversation.”

Buck nods, and the nurse leaves, and then Maddie is dragging him back to their chairs, handing him his coffee, and plopping down next to him to wait until they can see Tommy.

“He’s going to be insufferable,” Eddie says suddenly. He looks at Buck and says, “Remember that time he sprained his ankle while we were sparring? God, he was the worst patient.”

Buck genuinely laughs for the first time since they got the call. “He’s so stubborn, he wouldn’t even let me open doors for him. He just struggled to balance on his crutches so he could do it himself. He almost fell into the bushes twice outside the physical therapist’s office.”

Then everyone is laughing, a sense of lightness settling over Buck. He still doesn’t feel grounded or right necessarily, but laughing with his family helps.

They keep telling stories after that. Most of them are about Tommy, but some are stories or updates about kids or parents or a new recipe gone wrong. They all avoid the topic of work.

“Family of Thomas Kinard?” It’s a different nurse this time, but she doesn’t blink an eye at the number of family Tommy has. “He’s resting in his room. You can go back to see him, but we ask that you keep it to 4 or 5 people at a time. He’s still pretty groggy and probably won’t remember what happened right away, so keep conversation simple.” Then she turns and starts walking down the hallway, not waiting or looking back to see if anyone follows.

Buck grabs Chim and Eddie and gestures at Bobby to come, too. At the last second he grabs Hen’s hand, and the five of them hurry to catch up with the nurse together.

“Breathe, Buck,” Hen whispers.

He can’t. Not yet.

part 1

part 2

part 4

[rosenclaws]

Logan Howlett x gn!reader who’s not a mutant, but has a very high precognitive sense (in which they can sense when a ball might hit someone and catch it without looking / or anything similar to the matter heh)

warnings: gn!reader, the reader is crazy flirty with logan, some drunk assholes being dicks, it gets a little suggestive idk how I keep doing this.

a/n: Okay i can’t lie i was struggling a little bit coming up with an idea but i did my best. Shout out to @huffle-punk for helping me ily bitch

Logan was no stranger to seedy bars. In fact he might call them his home away from home. He just needed an out. A place that actually served alcohol for once. The mansion was nice and all but sometimes the man needed a drink. So he hopped on his motorcycle and rode for a while until he stumbled upon some hole in the wall.

He scoped out the bar as soon as he walked in. Taking note of everyone who was there. It was mostly dead. Some loud assholes by the darts and a few people sitting in the booths but that's about it. He was naturally alert. His kind weren’t always welcome in places like these.

“What can I get for you?" The bartender nods towards him as he sits on one of the bar stools. Logan takes out a 20 and hands it to the guy.

"You got Molson Ex?" The guy nods and cracks one open for him.

"Whiskey sour please." A voice next to him says.

He glances over to see you standing at the bar. Now that peeks his interest. You look too good to be here in a place like this. You catch his glance and smirk.

"Never seen you here before." You take the seat next to him. He was a stranger for sure but a very good looking one. Logan cocks an eyebrow before taking another sip of his beer.

"Not a talker huh handsome?"

"You always this forward with strangers?" Logan asks, slightly amused by your flirting.

"Only when they're hot. You should be flattered."

The bartender comes back with your drink and before you can pay Logan gestures to put it on his tab. You take a sip of your drink and set it down close to his beer. Logan turns his body towards you, letting you see just how built this man was. You bite your lip as you shamelessly look him up and down.

"You got somewhere to be?" Logan asks a playful smirk on his lips.

"Nope."

You don't know how much time has passed since you started talking to Logan. He was one of those mysterious brooding guys, not even a last name as you flirt up a storm. That's okay, you don't need to know his last name. The space between you two got smaller and smaller as the night went on. Moving away from the barstools to the back of the room. More hidden, more private. His hands have found their way to your back. Holding you close as he leans in close.

"Logan..." You hum as you trail your hand up his chest. Gently grabbing onto his shirt. You roll your eyes as the group of guys by the darts start to get rowdier. The more alcohol they have in them the more obnoxious they get.

"We should get out of here." He hums, he registers your words but he doesn't move. Instead leaning closer, his lips ghosting your jaw as he gently nips below your ear.

You body tenses as your hand shoots out before you can even think, catching the dart that was heading directly for Logan's neck. Logan looks at you in slight confusion. How you managed to react so quickly.

"Hey assholes!" You slip out from Logan's arms and march over to them.

"Watch where you're fucking throwing these things." You throw the dart on the table.

"Or what?" One them gets up, he's not as intimidating as he thinks but he's clearly drunk. You roll your eyes and turn to leave. A hand grabs your wrist harshly and pulls you back. In a flash Logan is by your side. Practically ripping the guys hand off you and pushing him into the table.

"Don't fucking touch 'em bub." Logan growls.

Your eyes widen as you see metal peek out from his knuckles. He's a mutant. The drunk guys scramble away from him. You tug on Logan's arm. Noticing stares from the rest of the people, fear in their eyes. "Come on," He sheathes his claws and looks around. Wordlessly he storms out of the bar with you hot on his heels. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a cigar, letting out a small groan as he lights it.

"You alright?" Logan asks, noticing that you've followed him out.

"Yeah I'm okay. Are you?" He takes another puff of his cigar and nods.

"Those are some crazy reflexes."

"Yeah, I don't know I've just always had them but I'm not a..." You trail off as you become unsure if you should say anything.

"A mutant?" He finishes for you. He laughs, shaking his head as he gets on his motorcycle.

"Wait Logan! I, I like you and I'm sorry those assholes ruined our night but I don't want it to end." You place your hand on top of his.

It's been flirty, fun, casual up until now but there's a clear attraction that you can't ignore, you don't want to ignore it.

"You sure you can handle a mutant?" Your hand jerks away as his claws come out. Oh that's how he wants to play it.

"I can handle some kitty claws Logan," You tease, running your fingers along his claws.

"The real question is, can you handle me?"

[itneverendshere]

pogue reader getting sick but she can’t call out, but rafes fr mad at you about it

don't want less, don't want more - r.c

pairing: rafe x pogue!reader (bartender!reader universe)

changed it a bit just bc i want to show reader's progress regarding her hyper-independence, they're already dating and past the "i love you" phase, i felt like some progress had to be made by this point, especially bc this is after their big fight in this. hope you enjoy <3

The floor beneath you feels like it's tilting, moving under your feet like a boat rocking on rough water. You blink a couple of times, hoping that’ll shake the haze taking over your vision, but it doesn’t do much. 

The bar lights over your head are too bright, and the music thumping from the speakers makes your head feel like it’s trapped in a vice. The clink of glass, every laugh, every order shouted at you feels like a hammer driving nails straight into your skull.

You swallow hard, trying not to gag. Your throat’s raw, and your chest feels tight, but you’re powering through it because you don’t have much of a choice. Not a choice at all.

"Whiskey sour, extra sour!" some country club douchebag yells from the other side of the bar.

His voice is like nails on a chalkboard. You force a smile and nod, reaching for the bottle, but your hands are shaky. You catch yourself on the edge of the bar before you can drop it.

This morning, you could barely get out of bed. Fever burning through you like you were standing too close to a bonfire, throat too sore to talk, and your head pounding so hard you thought you were going to pass out just brushing your teeth. 

You tried calling in. Tried. Told your manager, Greg, that you were sick as hell, couldn’t make it, but the guy just grunted like he always does. "Can’t afford anyone calling out today," he said. Like the world was going to end if you didn’t show up to sling drinks for a bunch of rich assholes.

So here you are.

You rub the back of your neck, trying to loosen up some of the tension building there, but it doesn’t help. Nothing really does at this point.

"Hey!" The guy who ordered the whiskey sour snaps his fingers in your face. "You deaf or something? Whiskey. Sour."

"Got it," You mutter, trying not to let your voice crack as you finally pour his drink. 

Your vision swims a little as you set it down in front of him, and for a second, you think you might actually faint right here at the bar.

That’d be something. Faceplant into a bunch of overpriced cocktails in front of half of the Kooks on this island. Greg would probably just step over you and ask you to get back to work.

You lean against the bar for a second. Your stomach rolls, threatening to revolt, but you choke it back. You can’t afford to be sick here. Not when you’re already in trouble with your manager for barely making it on time. You think back to the half-assed breakfast you tried to eat—if you can call a slice of toast breakfast—and how your stomach rejected it like poison.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot Rafe coming in. And suddenly, you’re even more aware of how wrecked you are.

You know he still struggles with how independent you are sometimes. You’ve always been the kind of girl who handles things on her own, and Rafe has this tendency to think that means you don’t need him.

Today, though? You need him more than ever, but you couldn’t bring yourself to call for help.

You immediately know it’s gonna be a thing.

His eyes lock onto you from across the bar, and even through the fog in your head, you can see that look on his face. He’s pissed. Of course, he’s pissed. His jaw’s clenched like he’s biting back whatever rant he’s about to drop on you, and you can already feel the tension creeping up your neck.

Great, as if you didn’t feel bad enough already.

You try to stand a little straighter, look a little less like you're one second from collapsing, but your legs are jelly, and the room’s still spinning like you’re on some messed-up carnival ride.

You don’t want him to see how bad you’re hurting right now. But today? You’re too out of it to even try and explain.

He strides up to the bar, looking sharp, as usual. Meanwhile, you probably look like death warmed over. His eyes are scanning you, taking in the pale face, the way you’re gripping the edge of the bar like you’re about to keel over. You see his lips tighten, and yeah, he’s definitely about to lay into you.

“You didn’t call,” he says, voice low but definitely annoyed. He leans in, trying to keep this between just the two of you, but with how loud the bar is, it still feels like a confrontation.

“I’m fine,” you lie, forcing a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. 

Rafe’s eyes narrow. He’s not buying it. “You look like you’re about to pass out. Why didn’t you call me?”

You hate that you feel guilty.

“Because I’m handling it,” you say, voice softer now. But even you can hear how weak you sound.

It’s not convincing. Hell, you’re not even convinced.

He crosses his arms, looking down at you like you’re a puzzle he can’t figure out. “Handling it? Baby, you can barely stand.”

You let out a sigh, trying not to let it turn into a cough.

"I’m fine," you repeat, but even you know it sounds pathetic at this point. Your head feels like it's full of cotton, you’re not sure if you’ll make it through the next few minutes, let alone your entire shift.

But pride’s a bitch.

Rafe just stands there, arms crossed, staring at you like he’s waiting for you to come clean. You can feel his frustration, but there’s something else, too. Worry. It’s in the way his eyes keep flicking over your face, how his fingers are tapping against his arm like he’s holding himself back from just scooping you up and carrying you out of here.

"I heard from Topper," he finally says, like he’s been holding that card in his back pocket. You blink, trying to keep up. "He saw you at the club earlier, said you didn’t look right."

Great. Freaking Topper. Of course, idiot couldn’t mind his own business. You can almost picture him, all dressed up in some preppy golf outfit, spotting you from across the course and making a note to text Rafe the second he saw something off.

Rafe’s still watching you, waiting for a reaction.

You open your mouth, trying to come up with some excuse, some way to brush it off, but your brain’s too foggy, and all you manage is a weak, "I was fine then."

He raises an eyebrow. "Yeah? 'Cause Top said you looked like you were about to hurl on the 9th hole." He’s trying to keep his voice low, but you can tell he’s annoyed. Not at Topper, not even really at you—just at the whole situation.

You want to snap back, tell him you’re fine, that you’ve got it under control. But instead, all that comes out is another tired sigh. “Greg wouldn’t let me call out. Said they needed me.”

“You serious?”

“Dead-serious.”

Rafe’s jaw clenches so tight you think you hear his teeth grind. His hands come out of his pockets, flexing like he’s about to hit something—or someone. He runs a hand through his hair like he’s trying to calm himself down before he says something he’ll regret.

But you know him—he’s never been great at holding back when he’s pissed. And right now? He’s definitely pissed.

“Greg said that?” His voice is low, but there’s this dangerous edge to it, like he’s two seconds away from losing it, “You should’ve called me. I would’ve come down here, I would’ve—”

“I know.” You cut him off because you do know.

He would’ve dropped everything and come running. That’s exactly why you didn’t call. You didn’t want to be the a burden again. Like you said, you’re still working on yourself.

Rafe leans against the bar, his whole body radiating this intensity that makes you feel both comforted and nervous.

“So, let me get this straight,” he says, voice louder now, not even bothering to keep it low-key anymore. “You’re sick as hell, and that asshole wouldn’t let you stay home?”

You wince. He’s drawing attention now, people at the bar starting to glance over. You hate seeing him like this, but you don’t have the energy to smooth things over.

“Rafe, please—” you start, but he cuts you off.

“No, seriously. What kind of fucking manager forces someone to come in when they’re this sick?” His voice carries, and a couple of the other bartenders are giving you looks, like they can’t decide if they’re more surprised or impressed by Rafe’s audacity, "You’re killing yourself for this job, and he doesn’t give a fuck.”

You glance toward the back, hoping Greg’s still in the office and not witnessing this meltdown. The last thing you need right now is more heat from him. But of course, your luck sucks, because just as Rafe’s ramping up, Greg strides out from the back, clipboard in hand, that same stupid scowl on his face like he’s already annoyed at everything.

Rafe spots him instantly, and if you thought he was mad before, now he’s on a whole other level.

"Greg!" Rafe calls out, loud enough that half the bar turns to look. Your stomach sinks. This is about to get ugly.

Greg stops dead in his tracks, his eyes flicking to Rafe and then back to you. He knows. He knows exactly what’s about to happen, and he’s already losing the upper hand.

“Yeah, Rafe?” Greg’s voice is weak, almost shaky. Like he’s trying to keep it together, but he knows he’s got no chance. Rafe’s family literally owns half the island—Greg’s just some middle manager with too much attitude.

Your boyfriend steps forward, slow and deliberate, closing the space between them like he’s already won this thing.

“You made her come in today?” His voice is calm, but it’s that scary kind of calm that’s worse than yelling. The kind that makes your stomach drop because you know the person holding it together is barely holding back.

Greg opens his mouth to respond, but all that comes out is this pathetic mumble. “We… we were short-staffed.”

Rafe raises an eyebrow, his lips pulling into this cold, humorless smile. “Short-staffed?” He glances at you, and you feel the heat rising in your cheeks. You really didn’t want this to turn into a scene, but here you are. “You see how she looks right now? You made her come in like this?”

Greg’s eyes flick back and forth between you and Rafe, and you can see the panic starting to set in. He’s sweating now, probably realizing that this little power trip he’s on is about to bite him in the ass. “She didn’t… uh… say she couldn’t work…”

“She told you she was sick,” Rafe cuts him off, voice like steel. “You’re the manager, right? Thought that meant taking care of your staff. Guess I was wrong.”

Greg’s mouth opens and closes like he’s trying to think of something to say, but nothing’s coming. He looks like a deer caught in headlights, knowing any move he makes right now could get him fired. Hell, maybe even blacklisted from every job on the island. The Cameron’s have that kind of pull.

“I-I didn’t realize how bad it was,” Greg finally stammers, but even he doesn’t sound convinced by his own excuse.

Rafe takes another step forward, practically towering over Greg now. “You didn’t realize?” He laughs, but there’s no warmth in it. “Look at her, man. How could you not realize?”

You wince as the room seems to get quieter, everyone watching this power struggle unfold. You’d rather be anywhere but here right now, but you also know that Rafe’s not letting this slide.

Greg takes a step back, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. 

“I-I was just trying to keep things running. We… we were slammed.”

Rafe’s smile drops, and now it’s just pure ice. “You think that’s a good enough reason to put my girlfriend’s health at risk?”

Greg looks like he’s about to pass out himself at this point, but he manages to mutter, “No… no, I—I didn’t mean…”

“Here’s the deal, Greg,” Rafe says, voice low but dangerous. “You’re gonna back off. Let her finish this shift if she wants. If she doesn’t? She’s out, no questions asked. And next time, when she says she’s sick, you listen.”

Greg nods so fast it’s like his head’s on a swivel. “Of course, of course, Rafe. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I just—”

“Good,” Rafe interrupts, already turning away like he’s done with this conversation. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

Greg just stands there, wide-eyed and frozen, clearly too scared to even argue. He stammers some half-hearted apology, but Rafe’s already turning back to you, brushing the whole thing off like it was nothing.

You look up at him, still in shock at how quickly Greg folded. “You really didn’t need to do that.”

He shrugs, leaning back against the bar with that easy confidence he always has. “Yeah, I did,” he says, his tone softening now that it’s just the two of you. “I’m not gonna let some nobody push you around like that.”

You sigh, feeling both relieved and slightly embarrassed. “You know he’s probably gonna hate me even more now.”

Rafe smirks, like that’s the least of his concerns. “Who cares? He won’t say a fuckin’ thing. Trust me.”

“Everyone’s going to say a thing, baby. They’re gonna think I have some kind of privilege because I’m dating you.”

Rafe’s smirk softens. He steps a little closer, lowering his voice so only you can hear him over the dull roar of the bar.

“Let them think whatever they want,” he says, his hand brushing against yours. “You’ve been busting your ass here long before I ever stepped in. Nobody can take that from you.”

You bite your lip, feeling everyone’s eyes on you, judgment and curiosity. He’s right in a way—you’ve been working extra hard. But still, it’s hard to ignore the feeling that now, everyone’s going to assume you’ve got some special treatment just because of Rafe’s name.

“It’s not about that,” you murmur, “I just—don’t want people thinking I can’t stand on my own. I don’t want to be the girl who hides behind her boyfriend’s power.”

Rafe tilts his head, studying you with that look he always gives when he knows you're holding back.

“You think that’s what this is?” His voice is steady, his tone a little softer now. “This wasn’t about power, baby. This was about someone treating you like you didn’t matter. And I’m not letting anyone—anyone—do that to you.”

He’s not wrong.

Greg didn’t give a damn about how sick you were, only about keeping the bar running, like you were replaceable. And you hate how right Rafe is, how much you needed someone to step in, even if it makes you feel a little helpless. You swallow hard, the tightness in your chest easing slightly, though your body still feels like it’s been run over by a truck.

“And you’re not working anymore today, or the next week for that matter. You’re gonna get your ass in my car and we’re going to the doctor.”

You nod, knowing there’s no arguing with Rafe when he’s like this, but part of you still feels guilty.

Not for needing help exactly, but for not being able to handle it all on your own. You've always been the girl who grits her teeth and gets through it, but today? Your body is screaming at you that you just can’t. Not anymore.

Rafe’s watching you closely, like he’s waiting for you to argue, but you don’t. You’re too drained. The adrenaline from the confrontation with Greg is wearing off, and now all you feel is this bone-deep exhaustion.

“I’m not going to a doctor,” you say, even though you know you probably should. “Just home. I just need to sleep.”

He narrows his eyes like he’s trying to read between the lines of what you’re saying, but then he just nods. “Fine. But if you’re not better by tomorrow, I’m dragging you to urgent care. No arguments.”

You give him a weak smile, trying to show you appreciate it even though you feel like crap.

“Deal.”

Without another word, he moves around the bar, ignoring Greg’s gawking and the way everyone’s still sneaking glances at you two. He gently takes the towel out of your hand, sets it on the counter, and slips an arm around your waist.

It’s the first time you’ve felt stable all day, leaning into him like you might actually make it to the car without collapsing.

“I don’t think I can afford an appointment.”

He looks at you like you’ve just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. His arm tightens around your waist, steadying you as you start to sway a little on your feet.

"Not worried about the money.”

You try to shake your head, but the movement makes you dizzy, and you stop, letting out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

"I just don’t want to be that person, you know? Relying on you for everything."

He gives you a side glance, eyebrows raised.

"Baby, you’re not relying on me for everything. You’re literally sick, and I’m not about to let you tough it out just because you’re too stubborn to ask for help. We’ve talked about this a million times.”

"I guess," you mumble, letting your head rest against his shoulder as you walk towards the door.

"No guessing about it," he says, softer now, his fingers brushing your arm in a way that makes you feel more grounded. "You’ve been holding down the fort for too long. Let me take care of you for once."

The air outside hits you like a slap, but Rafe keeps you close, leading you toward his car. Your legs are weak, the fever still simmering under your skin, but his body warmth keeps you upright.

"Thanks," you whisper, even though it feels weird to say. You’re not used to thanking people for basic care, but with Rafe, it feels different.

He pauses, opening the passenger door for you.

"You don’t gotta thank me, okay? I’m just doing what anyone who loves you would do."

Your heart skips at that. You’re still not used to how easily he says stuff like that, like it’s no big deal. But he’s rubbing off on you, because you can say it just as easily now.

“I love you too, sorry for being a pain in your ass.”

Rafe chuckles as he helps you into the car, leaning down to make sure you’re settled before he shuts the door. He bends down and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

"You're always a pain in my ass," he murmurs against your skin, grinning as he pulls back just enough to look at you. "But you’re my pain in the ass, and that’s what matters."

You can’t help but roll your eyes, but there’s a smile tugging at your lips despite how wrecked you feel. The fever, the headache, the exhaustion—it all takes a backseat, at least for a moment. 

Knowing Rafe’s always got your back? That makes it a little easier to breathe.

[bookwormjust]

Unable to sleep when Rhys is away (established relationship with Rhysand)

The nights without him have been endless. The absence of Rhysand, your mate, has left an unbearable emptiness in the bed you once shared. You’ve tried to sleep, but every time you close your eyes, you feel the cold void where his warmth should be. The bond between you thrums weakly, a faint thread of comfort, but it’s not enough to quell the longing, the ache that only his presence can soothe.

Rhysand had been called away on some sort of meeting/mission with others High Lords that stretched into weeks, leaving you alone in the Night Court’s palace. You had known this would happen—missions for the Court were dangerous and necessary—but nothing had prepared you for how deeply his absence would affect you. 

The first few nights had been the worst, tossing and turning, your heart pounding every time you woke in the middle of the night, reaching for him only to find empty sheets. Eventually, you gave up on sleep altogether, diving headfirst into your work to distract yourself from the gnawing loneliness. You buried yourself in documents, meetings, and Court matters, doing everything in your power to keep your mind from spiraling.

But it wasn’t enough.

Days passed in a blur, and you became a ghost in your own palace, surviving on little more than coffee, fading daylight, and sheer willpower. You avoided mirrors, knowing the reflection staring back would be nothing but dark circles under dull eyes, your skin pale from lack of rest. Even Mor had tried to help, suggesting you take breaks or get some sleep, but you just couldn’t. The bed was too empty, the silence too loud.

---

One night, deep into the hours when the palace was quiet, you sit hunched over your desk in your study, papers scattered everywhere. Your eyes burn from staring at the documents too long, and your hand trembles as you try to focus on the lines of text in front of you. You don’t even know what you’re reading anymore, the words blurring together as exhaustion claws at you.

A small part of you knows you should stop, that you’re pushing yourself too far, but you can’t help it. If you stop, the silence returns. And with it, the weight of missing him crashes down again.

You don’t even realize you’ve drifted off, your head slumping forward against the desk, when a sudden, familiar warmth fills the room. A heartbeat later, the soft thud of boots on the floor makes your heart skip a beat.

“*Y/N darling, you’re going to work yourself to death if you keep this up.*”

Rhysand’s voice. Your heart stutters, disbelief flooding through your veins. You sit up, blinking through your exhaustion, and there he is, standing in the doorway, his dark wings casting shadows against the soft moonlight filtering through the window. His violet eyes are locked onto yours, concern etched into his features.

For a moment, you think you’re dreaming, that exhaustion has finally gotten the best of you and your mind is playing cruel tricks. But then he steps forward, closing the distance between you in a heartbeat, his hand cupping your cheek with such tenderness that it brings tears to your eyes.

“Rhys?” you whisper, your voice hoarse from disuse, your fingers trembling as they reach for him, needing to know he’s real.

“I’m here, love,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead against yours. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

You let out a shaky breath, leaning into his touch, your hands gripping the front of his jacket as if he might vanish again. “I couldn’t sleep without you,” you admit, your voice cracking under the weight of all the sleepless nights. “I couldn’t...”

Rhysand’s eyes darken with guilt as he wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his chest, his wings folding around the both of you in a cocoon of warmth. “You should’ve sent for me sooner,” he says softly, his hand running through your hair. “I could feel your exhaustion, but I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

“I didn’t want to distract you,” you say, your words muffled against his chest. “You had enough to deal with.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, his thumb brushing tenderly over the dark circles under your eyes. “You are *never* a distraction, my love. You are my priority. Always.”

The emotion in his voice, the depth of his concern, nearly undoes you. Tears prick at your eyes, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck, letting his scent, his presence, fill the empty spaces that had been haunting you for weeks.

“You’re exhausted,” Rhysand whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “Let me take care of you.”

You nod, too tired to protest. He lifts you effortlessly into his arms, carrying you toward the bed, his wings brushing against your skin as he moves. The bed feels softer than you remember, and with Rhysand lowering you gently onto the mattress, the weight of your exhaustion finally catches up to you.

He slides in beside you, pulling you close against his chest, his hand rubbing soothing circles on your back. “Rest, darling,” he murmurs, his voice low and filled with love. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.”

With his arms around you, his presence so tangible and real, the tension in your body begins to unravel. The bond between you thrums warmly, a comforting melody that lulls you into a peaceful state. You close your eyes, your body finally relaxing for the first time in weeks. Sleep takes you quickly, but not before you hear him whisper against your hair, “I love you my mate.”

And with him beside you, everything feels right again.

[anqelfries]

(please/don't) call me baby

soundtrack <3

pairing: tetsurou kuroo x f. reader

content: fluff, crack humor, kuroo acts like a loser virgin LOL, way too many pet names, it girl energy reader !!!

warnings: swearing, like one sexual joke, ooc

word count: 1k

for the lovely @chososcamgirl <33 i've had sm fun in your w this idea !!!

you call everyone pet names. it's kind of your thing now, really. everyone, from yaku (darling!), to kenma (sweetheart!) to lev (angel!). that is, everyone except kuroo. to you, kuroo is kuroo. occasionally tetsurou, if he's lucky, but mostly he is just kuroo.

he doesn't mind it, he swears. he doesn't even care! or he wouldn't, but he also unfortunately happens to be head-over-heels in love with you. how embarrassing. and he's totally not jealous of the other guys.

which leads him to his current situation. his head tips back over the back of his chair as he runs one hand through his hair. "y/n, do you hate me?"

"no, why?" your answer is sharp and fast from the desk next to his.

oh, shit. now it's awkward.

"because, like... you don't call me any of your stupid cute names or anything," he explains sheepishly.

you sit up straight, lips curving up into a beautiful, evil smile. "you wanna be called pet names, kuroo?"

he flushes, shakes his head. "naaah, just asking."

you don't seem to believe him, head tilted to one side as you regard him curiously. and then you're getting up and making your way towards him, bending down to get on his level, and he thinks he might spontaneously combust in his pants. your fingers dance across the broad expanse of his chest, and your eyes are like a predator's, stalking its prey. his breath hitches as he waits for you to speak; when you finally do, he thinks he might have be going insane.

"whatever you say, baby," you purr, and holy fuck, kuroo is so ready to get down on his knees for you or bark like a dog or do whatever the fuck you want right now. he is pathetically down bad for you — it's embarrassing, and like you can read his mind, you just have to go and make it worse.

you twirl his tie around your fingers, careful and calculated, and for a split second, he imagines being pulled up by it, letting you kiss him in this empty classroom, just like that. and oh, apparently you're satisfied with how much you've messed him up right now, because suddenly you're back at your desk, and he's watching you fix your skirt with a beet red face and even redder ears.

today, for whatever reason, you're taking longer than usual to pack up when class ends, so he takes the opportunity to extricate himself from this terrible, terrible situation that he's created for himself. but when he's finally halfway out the door, someone calls his name.

"kuroo," you call after him, sickeningly sweet voice pulling him back to you. "baby, don't say you're leaving without me!"

his knees give way.

"you haven't forgotten my offer, though, right?" what a perfect gentleman, walking you home like this. he's even limiting his strides so you can keep up with ease.

"what offer, baby?" you hum distractedly, eyes glued to your phone. manicured fingers fly across it as you text someone, and you only look up when he chokes unceremoniously.

"you okay—"

"yes! i'm fine!" he yelps before you can say another word — or rather, one very specific word — and looks away to hide his reddening face. "as i was saying—"

"yes, b—"

"stop talking! i mean, let me speak!"

you frown, surprised at the way he won't let you get in a word edgewise. "okay, weirdo. go on?"

"the manager position is still open," he huffs. he's still embarrassingly red; his heart has not yet calmed down. “if you want.”

"mm, i don't know, baby, i'll have to think about it."

he will die. or he will run into oncoming traffic and die. this is so unfair, it's torture—

"thanks for walking me back, baby, i'll see ya."

he trips and falls on his face. "fuck— i mean, see you later!"

"you seem awfully happy today," kenma observes. "did something happen?"

"what? no, why?" he splutters. splotches of red begin to appear on his face, and kenma smirks.

"sure."

"say, kenma."

"what?" he sounds annoyed even though he's the one who started this conversation.

"how do you deal with y/n's nicknames?"

"what d'you mean? they're okay."

silence. kuroo rolls this new piece of information over in his mind. "so... you don't feel like exploding or dying every time she calls you, like, baby or something?"

kenma looks confused. "no? i think that's called a crush, kuro. also you know she said she thinks that's too romantic for her friends, so no, 'cause she doesn't even call any of us that— are you okay?"

"kenma."

"what?"

"shut up."

kuroo is pretty. it's not an unknown fact, and you, having known him for several years at this point, are no stranger to it either. with sly honey-brown eyes and bedhead that he manages to make look good in a way that you just cannot fathom, he is — in short — just your type. this is also where you shamefully admit that yes, even his derisive remarks and general air of disdain when it comes to his opponents is very attractive indeed. not to mention his biceps— actually, let's not go there.

but biceps or not, he has been driving you insane as of late. and now, it's apparent that you're finally getting to return the favour. you're not stupid; you've been noticing his reactions to the nickname from the start. and it's almost satisfying to be able to toy with him the way he's — unintentionally — been doing with you. maybe he'll even catch the hints you've been dropping if he's lucky.

meanwhile, it's taken kuroo exactly one hour and twenty-three minutes to desensitize himself to (the thought) of your voice. anyways, it's not like he'll see you any time soon, so it's okay. first there's volleyball practice, then he'll go straight to bed.

kuroo hates himself — it's like everything he does comes back to bite him in the ass. or rather, in the lungs this time, question mark. because as he struggles to breathe properly, you're waving at him from across the gymnasium in a very oversized NEKOMA jacket.

"i thought about it it!" you yell. "i'll be temporarily managing the team!"

maybe he should quit.

author's note :: whenever i'm describing kuroo i swear i start typing w one hand😭😭 reader's pov was NAWT necessary to the story i just wanted to salivate over him ok.

also this is going to be a series so like :) that's why there's nothing major here really

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #92: Percy/Apollo, but make it The Trojan War

Into every fandom, a time travel fic must fall - or in this case a second one, because I somehow got to thinking about the delightful PJO trope of Percy being thrown back in time to The Trojan War and realized that doing so misses out on a fantastic opportunity.

Or: What if post-TOA Percy Jackson and Apollo time travel to shortly before The Trojan War?

Just imagine it:

Everything follows canon through TOA, with one exception: rather than struggle to catch up in the mortal world following the Second Gigantomachy, Percy elects to stay at Camp Half-Blood. There he can homeschool at his own place with programs tailored towards ADHD children and still visit his family on the weekends - and not get into any more ridiculous situations in the mortal world when one of the gods kidnaps him or sends him on a quest to find their sneakers.

This, naturally, stresses his relationship with Annabeth - who, now that she's no longer living at camp full time, calls it the easy way out. But Percy is tired and struggling in mortal high school where everyone thinks he's a delinquent idiot when another option exists seems foolish. Percy and Annabeth break up and drift apart.

Enter Apollo, fresh from his latest stint as a mortal. He's trying to do his best by his children, which includes popping by camp as often as he can get away with - which in turn means spending a lot of time with Percy, who at this point is unofficially running CHB because it's not like Dionysus or even Chiron have done a brilliant job of it in recent times.

(First aid, strategy, and mythology classes are made mandatory. Percy personally ensures every demigod knows enough about self-defense to be able to survive long enough to run away or for help to arrive. Bullying is cracked down on so hard that it's this, not Percy's generally parental nature, that has people calling him Camp Mom.)

Percy and Apollo become friendly. Enough so that some of Apollo's kids assume they're dating and keeping it on the down-low so as not to draw Zeus' ire. Or Poseidon's. Or anyone else's. It's on one of their not-dates that they're yeeted into the past, without warning or explanation.

And so 19-year-old Percy Jackson and post-TOA Apollo find themselves in Ancient Greece c. 1220 BCE, roughly thirty-five years before the destruction of Troy.

The time travel is immediately obvious, as Apollo becomes the closest thing a god might experience to being high the moment they land in the past - being a powerful god in modern times is nothing like being a powerful god at the height of his power in ancient times. It's overwhelming (and somewhat alarming from Percy's POV, but kind of funny in retrospect.)

The specific date is harder to determine, but made clear when Hermes shows up and starts going on about you'll never believe what father's done now: he seduced the Spartan queen as a swan and she's laid an egg. Hera is furious - especially as they're saying the girl that hatched from it is the most beautiful in the world, even though she's only a few days old. It's nuts. By the way, where have you been? You missed the last two council meetings. Do you want Dad to punish you?

Apollo at this stage is very high. He's also been USTing over Percy for quite some time and is worried what the gods of this era might do to Percy without divine protection (smiting or seduction, it's all on the table). But mostly he's very high, and so to keep Percy close and safe he declares he's been off having the dirtiest of dirty weekends with his latest lover and that Hermes' presence is ruining the mood. So if he would kindly leave, please and thank you, he'd really rather get back to it without an audience.

This, naturally, is a surprise to Percy, but he rolls with it because 1) he doesn't have any better ideas on how to get rid of Ancient Greek Hermes so they can figure out what the hades is going on and 2) he's been USTing over Apollo ever since he recovered enough from Tartarus to start feeling attraction again.

Fueled by mutual UST, they put together a cover story that should hold the next time a god with too much prurient interest shows: Percy is now Prince Persē of Gadir - a Phoenician colony that will grow into the future Cadiz - well past the edge of the Greek world at this stage but not beyond belief for Poseidon to have visited, as it's obvious who his father is. They claim his mother is the King of Gadir's youngest sister and as such Persē had a royal upbringing, but was far enough down the line of succession that he was free to chose to sail east and explore his father's homeland. Apollo caught sight of him on his journey, one thing led to another, and here they are.

(Are there easier, more sensible cover stories? Possibly. But the UST refuses to let them consider any of them now that a fake relationship is on the table.)

Deciding what to do about The Trojan War is much harder. On the one hand, it's a lot of senseless death and destruction. On the other, without it we don't get The Iliad and The Odyssey - two of the most influential works of literature in western civilization - and Aeneas doesn't go off to Italy (leading to the founding of Rome, which would change the history of western civilization a lot). In the end, they decide to let the war happen but do their best to mitigate the worst parts of it.

And so Percy goes off and becomes a hero of Ancient Greece while pretending to be in a relationship with Apollo.

This stage of things is filed with angst from both parties, as both Percy and Apollo want a real relationship with each other but think they're abusing the other's trust by eagerly faking their relationship. There's a lot of PDA, a lot of feelings, and limited communication. It goes on for quite a while and would probably exasperate quite a few people if everyone in the know didn't think they were already in a relationship.

It's also filled with modern day Percy being confronted by realties of life in Ancient Greece. It's not just mortals knowing about - and interacting with - the gods: it's everything. It's food and clothes and language and culture and housing and travel. He can play a lot off it as being a traveler from the edge of the known world, but some of it has him asking Apollo if he's being rick rolled.

Apollo, meanwhile, is having troubles of his own. He is not the god he used to be and it's hard pretending otherwise. He tries to walk the line of doing enough to be believable and holding back enough not to despise himself, but it's a fine line, he fails often, and he spends a not insignificant amount of time worried he's backsliding.

And so it goes until 7-year-old Helen of Troy is kidnapped by Theseus to be his wife.

This, naturally, does not fly with Percy, who by this time has built up something of a reputation as a hero. He teams up with the Dioscuri to rescue Helen.

One would think this would earn him Zeus' favor. It doesn't. Instead, Zeus sends monsters to harry him for refusing to let Castor and Pollux take Helen's captors' loved ones captive and raze Aphidna for Theseus' crime. Percy manages to hold his own for quite a while but eventually, exhausted from the near-constant fighting, is gored and left for dead by the reformed Minotaur.

...and when Apollo arrives, frantic, to heal him, Percy ascends instead, becoming the greek version of Saint Sebastian - a minor god of heroes, strength in the face of adversity, and athleticism; sort of halfway between Hercules and Chiron.

Then and only then do Percy and Apollo finally get their act together, confessing to each other how much they care for the other and how much they don't want this to be fake any longer.

History proceeds apace - albeit with Persē being a second immortal trainer of heroes.

24 years after their arrival in the past, 16 years after Percy's ascension, The Trojan War begins. Despite their best efforts, there's only so much they can do - war is war and gods are gods. They are able to stop some of the worst excesses on both sides, but in the end Apollo still sends the plague that causes Agamemnon to take Briseis for his own, which caused Achilles' departure from the field, Patroclus' death, &c - not because Apollo was trying to maintain the timeline, but because in the instant he sent it he was angry and reverted to his old ways.

Troy falls...

...but when Zeus tries to use this as an excuse to ban gods from interacting with their demigod children, Apollo is able to say that's a bit extreme isn't it? with enough backing from the rest of the council that Zeus is forced to amend his ruling so that the gods are only allowed to freely visit their children on the "cross quarter days" that fall between each solstice and equinox (1 February, 1 May, 1 August, and 1 November).

This changes everything and nothing.

Time continues its inevitable march. Greece has its golden age before being conquered by Rome, which splits apart under its own weight and forms several smaller countries, which eventually spread their cultures around the world...

Apollo and Percy are there for it all. Persē is a minor figure in mythology, but never forgotten. He is ever-present in Apollo's temples - though the Church will later try to rewrite their myth so that they were merely sworn fighting partners, rather than lovers who eventually had a quite lovely wedding on Olympus (and then, at Poseidon's insistence, an even bigger ceremony on Atlantis). Percy takes over day-to-day operations of CHB from practically the moment the Trojan War ends.

...and so Persē is there the day Sally Jackson tries to get her son to camp, and is able to intervene when the Minotaur attacks on their border. He's able to meet her and her young son, Perseus ("Mom named me after you and the guy that killed Medusa since you're the only two heroes to have happy endings!"), and guide him through the trials that come with being a child of prophecy.

One day that Percy will hand Luke - who was never happy with the limited attention the gods were allowed to give their children - a cursed dagger so that Kronos can be defeated. That child will be offered godhood, turn it down, and go on to have a happy life with his eventual wife, Annabeth. He will never have his memories erased and be sent to Camp Jupiter. Gaia will not rise until long after that Percy's grandchildren are dead, and Zeus will not be quite so bullheaded when the proof of it is brought before him. That Second Gigantomachy is swift, well-coordinated, and fought without another Greek/Roman war brewing in the background.

And when they finally arrive at the day Apollo and Percy were originally sent back in time, Percy admits that while he is happy some version of him was better prepared for the war he was asked to fight in and allowed his peace afterward, he would change nothing about his own life, for it brought him to Apollo. The sunrise the next morning - on the first morning of the rest of their lives - is particularly spectacular.

Bonuses include:

Gaslighting Poseidon into believing that he's met Percy before the first time they're introduced. ("What do you mean you don't remember me, Father? You were present when I came of age! You gifted me this trident! Have I displeased you in some way?") It's an absolute masterclass that eventually manages to convince Poseidon that, yes, of course he knows Percy - and, maybe, he should check in on all his other demigod children to make sure he's not missed someone. (Two. He lost track of two of the others. Maybe he should be more careful about siring children in the future.) Apollo practically has to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.

As much historical accuracy as can be crammed into the Percy trying to make sense of Ancient Greece chapters as possible. Think Of a Linear Circle - Part III by flamethrower levels of historical research. As much as can be shoehorned in without bogging down the plot.

Percy and Dionysus bonding over their mutual dislike of Theseus, though Percy generally gets along with his other half-siblings, especially the ones who come to camp young enough to keep from getting big heads over being the children of Poseidon.

Though Percy adores all the children in Cabin 7 (most of whom are born via blessing this time around), he and Apollo have at least one child of their own - maybe a demigod born before Percy's ascension to sell their fake relationship? Maybe a minor god who's later attributed a different parentage by mortals? Dealer's choice on details.

It never being made clear who, or what, or how, Percy and Apollo were sent into the past. All of Percy's oddities are attributed to him being foreign or formerly mortal, all of Apollo's to the fact that he's in love with someone who didn't die before their first anniversary, and no one ever guesses time travel is responsible for their eccentricities. Or that time travel was ever an option.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you ever decide to do anything with it.

More PJO Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas

[elysiaheaven]

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐈 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫..?-𝟐𝟗-(The Fox's Wedding)

TW: There's a medical report about the wounds/mental state for y/n, it's slightly..Don't read it if you're uncomfy about the last two chapters of her wounds.

Feixiao strides over to you, her face lighting up with rare joy. "The Warhead has been defeated and slain. The Wolftroopers are no longer a threat, completely overwhelmed by the Cloud Knights." Her excitement is contagious, and for a moment, you find yourself smiling despite the weight on your shoulders.

Moze called her, Apparently

Moze rush into the place, and they bear Jiaoqiu's limp form between them. Feixiao’s smile falters as she notices Jiaoqiu at death's door. Her voice cracks slightly, but she looks at you with a glimmer of hope. "They found Jiaoqiu. He’s… he’s alive, but barely."

You try to hold on to that sliver of hope, but suddenly, a sharp pain erupts in your neck. Your smile fades as you cry out, clutching at your throat. Panic grips you, and through the haze of agony, you manage to rasp, “I… I can’t live…”

Feixiao rushes to you, alarmed. “What’s happening? What do you mean?”

With shaking hands, you manage to get out, “Moze… Ask him… Ask him if Jiaoqiu can see anything.”

Feixiao’s eyes widen, but she quickly sends a message to Moze. Time seems to stretch on endlessly before a reply comes through.

She reads it aloud, her voice heavy. “Moze tried… but Jiaoqiu kept whispering… he can’t see.”

Your heart sinks into your stomach, and you grip your head in frustration, tears spilling down your face. “No… no, this can’t be happening…”

Suddenly, a wild idea bursts into your mind. Desperation pushes you to your knees in front of Feixiao. “Feixiao, you have to kill me!”

Feixiao takes a step back, shock and sorrow flashing in her eyes. “What are you saying?!”

You look up at her, your tear-streaked face filled with raw pain. “My soul… it can heal someone. That’s why Jiaoqiu kept dealing with me. He was trying to save me, but… now he needs to be saved. If I die, my soul could heal him. If not, he’ll stay blind.”

Feixiao’s hand shakes, and for a moment, you think she might consider it. But instead, she takes a deep breath and then slaps you, the sharp sting of her palm snapping you out of your spiraling thoughts. "How can you say that?" Her voice trembles with both anger and compassion. "Jiaoqiu cares about you more than you realize. How could you think of dying without even asking him? You are not some cure, some sacrifice to be thrown away. You are worth more than your past and your pain!"

You clutch your stinging cheek, shocked into silence as Feixiao continues. “Stop dooming yourself. Your past was sad, I know, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep letting it control your future. Do you think Jiaoqiu would want this for you? Do you think he saved you just for you to throw your life away like this?”

Tears pour down your face as you cry out in confusion and pain, your voice breaking. "I don’t even know what I am anymore! What kind of creature am I supposed to be? I want to live, but I want to be useful!" The words spill out in a desperate torrent, torn between your need to be needed and the crushing weight of your self-doubt.

Feixiao’s face twists with a mix of sympathy and frustration, and without warning, she slaps you again, harder this time. "Stop this!" Her voice is sharp, commanding. "You want to die, but have you even spoken to Jiaoqiu? Do you know what he wants before you decide to leave him alone like this? How can you make a choice like that without asking him first?!"

Your body shakes from the slap, but before you can respond, Yunli and Yanqing rush into the room. Yunli, wide-eyed with panic, immediately bursts into tears, her small hands gripping your bloodstained kimono as she sobs. "Don’t die! Don’t leave us! Uncle Jiao will be so sad if you go!"

Yanqing kneels next to you, his young face full of worry, but he remains steady as he speaks. " you’re hurt. Please, you need to see a doctor."

You try to push them away, your voice cracking as you scream, "No! Don’t look at me! I’m broken!" Your tears blur your vision, and your voice is choked with grief. "I don’t deserve your kindness. I’m a mess!"

But despite your protests, Yunli throws her arms around you, refusing to let go. "We don’t care! ! Please, you can’t go like this. You need help. You need to heal."

Yanqing nods in agreement, his grip on your hand firm but gentle. "We’ll get you to a doctor. Your wounds… they’re too much to bear alone."

Their warmth, their unwavering love, breaks down the walls you've tried so hard to keep up. You sob even harder, collapsing into their embrace, your body trembling with the force of your anguish. In that moment, their arms around you are the only thing keeping you from falling apart completely.

Feixiao watches the scene unfold, her expression softening as she steps forward. "You're not alone, Y/N. Don’t make decisions you can’t take back without knowing how much you mean to the people who love you. You have helped...a lot..." She kneels down beside you, placing a hand on your shoulder. "We’ll get through this. Together."

Kindness.

It does feel like that..

it felt...

It felt like you didn't worth it.....

Your consciousness slipped away, everything became a blur. Faint images flickered in your mind—a blur of faces, soft voices, and the sterile smell of a medical room. You saw glimpses of Jiaoqiu, lying in a bed beside yours, his body covered in bandages, his face peaceful but pale. The small dragon lady, Bailu, moved around, her tiny hands glowing with healing light. You felt her magic working on you, mending the delicate stitches on your neck, the place where your head had once been reattached. But the rest of your body was weak, fragile, barely holding on.

Jiaoqiu's report arrived fast, Yours was a bit late.

The report came in the form of a thick stack of papers, detailing every brutal reality of your physical and mental condition. Feixiao sat with it for hours, her eyes tracing over the words, her heart sinking with every line. The medical description of your body was enough to send shivers down her spine, but she read it through, refusing to look away from the horror of it.

"Patient: Y/N L/N" Status: Severely Weakened

The first section was the hardest to read. Your body, once resilient and powerful, was now described as "extremely weak in strength." There were "multiple cuts," deep gashes, and bruises, but it was the description of your beheading that struck Feixiao the hardest. "The neck wound, where the head was severed, is slowly healing itself… but the process is delayed, likely due to the patient’s extreme physical and mental exhaustion."

Wounds:

Severe lacerations across the torso and limbs, consistent with multiple slashes from sharp objects.

Beheading wound, poorly healed and still prone to reopening under stress.

Feet: multiple strain wounds, cuts, and punctures, possibly from stepping on something sharp. "Walking is strongly advised against for several months."

Deep lacerations across the arms, as though the patient had been held down violently, struggling against restraints.

Feixiao paused, her fingers gripping the paper tighter. "Restrained…?" she whispered under her breath, horrified at the idea of you being forced down, helpless.

The report continued, detailing the internal damage.

Internal Condition:

Organs: Extensive internal strain. Multiple signs of poison consumption over time. "The patient has ingested various poisons, which are slowly destroying internal tissues. Fortunately, due to their non-human nature, full destruction has not occurred, but their transition to becoming human is accelerating the damage."

Severe dehydration and malnutrition. The patient cannot consume savory foods or most sweets due to their body's extreme sensitivity, leading to involuntary twitching, convulsions, and pain.

The report detailed how your body reacted violently to food. Anything spicy, savory, or overly sweet triggered uncontrollable spasms and vomiting. Your stomach was fragile, torn apart from within by the poisons you had consumed. The mention of it made Feixiao’s chest tighten—how long had you been poisoning yourself? Why?

But worse than all of this was your mental state:

Mental Condition:

"The patient’s mind is in a critical state. We advise keeping the patient away from any reflective surfaces, especially mirrors. The patient should also be kept far from any sharp objects or weapons."

Extreme psychological trauma. Frequent dissociation from reality. Paranoid tendencies.

Self-hatred manifests in compulsive behaviors. Unpredictable outbursts of emotion, alternating between hysteria and deep melancholy.

Feixiao stared at this section for a long time, feeling a knot form in her throat. You were broken, physically and mentally shattered. You had been slipping away from yourself, from reality. She felt her heart break at the thought of you, wandering alone, not knowing if you even wanted to live.

A final note from Bailu, written in hurried handwriting, stood out:

"This person, condition is...hard to say. But there is a hope if her in-human things could cure her faster, I advice she should be in constant company."

Feixiao set the report down, her hands trembling. She couldn’t imagine the pain you were in, both in your body and your mind. You were losing yourself, trapped between life and death, between the human and the spirit world.

Feixiao sighed, resting her head in her hands....

.........

She shouldn't have slapped you, she thought......

[spockandawe]

Oh, this is interesting. To me. I'm not sure it's interesting to anyone else! But I'm on my computer for once and FULL of words again, and I'm delighted to talk to myself given half an excuse.

So, I made a post about Long Live Evil! Because I cracked open the book and was absolutely taken aback by how transparently it seemed to be an SVSSS reskin. I wrote up a goodreads thing (it's whatever, I'm going to rehash the main points here too), because I was also full of words and beans after finishing the book yesterday, and after polling online friends, I was surprised to see that the comparison didn't seem to have organically occurred to anyone else, when it was so naked to me. I know there’s a TON of transmigration and isekai stories out in the universe, and pointing at one single book was a big claim, so I just had to assemble all my thoughts! I find this so interesting! And I reblogged my initial one-off post with a little more elaboration about some of the things that jumped out at me, then got on with live and went back to chipping at ORV and GHG, and shotgunned MADK this afternoon.

This is a subtle nod and a wink to my passionate love for these kind of... morally grey main characters! Calling them villains might be a bit much, I don't think there are many true villain protagonists out there (LLE included), and even Devil Venerable has a demonic cultivator who's doing demonic shit and killing loads of people... but with the ultimate balance of the heavens and earth as his priority. This kind of story is my jam. I was recced this book on the basis of transmigration and sketchy protagonists being my thing. I can't rightfully call SVSSS the best cnovel I've ever read, but it is my favorite. And I've probably reread it more times than any other cnovel.

So, that SRB post, huh? I put Long Live Evil behind me, and honestly even following up on the sequel is mmmmmdoubtful, but THIS snagged my attention again. First, the comparisons she's calling out as incorrect are wild to me. Draco and Harry? What? Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian?? (I had to ponder that one for a hot minute, but I bet you anything it's about 'the golden cobra' and 'the last hope' and that's just silly, they're not wangxian, they're MOSHANG)

I was recced LLE in one friend group, but I had an anti-rec from my book club friend group. My book club friend hadn't been at all impressed by it! And she's cool, and I talk up svsss and mxtx to that crowd every so often, without really expecting them to read it. I talk about transmigration as a plot device that I love, and the things that can be done with it! But with that connection in mind between the books, as I started LLE, I was jokingly defending the honor of SVSSS to this crowd, so I admit I was primed to recognize similarities.

I really truly did not make it far in the book before locking it down. I was getting vibes basically from the moment Rae started gushing about her problematic fictional fave, I referenced 95% certainty shortly after she makes the jump to the fictional universe, the golden cobra was 98%, Lia Mingyan's, I mean Liu Mingyan's lack of sex scenes was 99%, and the first pov section for Marius-jun was where I gave up and called it as a sure thing.

It'll be very funny if I'm wrong! I don't think I'm wrong.

Plenty of spoilers to follow, because I identified this inspiration early, I guessed basically every plot twist early, I don't have the patience to dance around spoilers while explaining how it all lines up.

Now, I said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: I don't think this is plagiarism. I think it's tasteless to accuse an author of stealing and repurposing characters to her face. But I think it's also tasteless to repurpose characters as nakedly as happened here! Again? If I'm wrong? That's why I'm talking to myself on my blog and not messaging her directly (?????? who even does that). What are the stakes for me being wrong here? I look like a clown online? That would be terrible, I've never done that before! It's not a crime to write in ways I find distasteful. It's not a crime to write a book I think is not good, even apart from the use of fictional influences. But I like talking about my feelings online, and I can't be stopped!

But there's two aspects of this that make me somewhat uncomfortable in a less fun way. Both are contingent on the big IF. If this is inspired by svsss, I think it's not a classy move to take a Chinese story in a Chinese setting, inspired by the modern Chinese literary scene and classical Chinese fantasy, and just dump the characters into a generic western setting. Fanfic? Have fun and try to be respectful. Profic, making money off it? Ehhhhh. The question of how much change is necessary is a tricky one! It's not one I'm equipped to answer, this is not my wheelhouse or my place to speak. But it doesn't make me feel good!

However, here's where I have more personal stake:

Again, if this is inspired by svsss. It really doesn't feel great to see a queer story (a smash hit in more than one country!) stripped down for parts and made into a heterosexual story. It's not all heterosexual, we get side lesbians, we get men with homoerotic tension. But the central ship is now a guy and a girl. And it... stings a little extra, because in the story of svsss, the idea of assumptions about default (hetero)sexuality are such a central theme. A queer man has written a trashy, oversexed stallion novel where the hottest guy in the universe collects the hottest women like pokemon, and it sells so much better than the more personal stories he tried to write. He has to write this pandering trash to make money to live, he can't live on the more authentic stories he tried to tell before. The protagonist is the projection of his own insecurities and self-hate, and the protagonist's right hand man is his projection of his own ideal man. Another man transmigrates into the book, assuming that he himself is straight, assuming the protagonist is straight, and the force of their love changes the course of the entire narrative. In retrospect, it's upsetting to see those load-bearing themes casually carved out of the story and the hollowed-out remains used like this.

Anyways, in their place, now we've got running gags about how the heroine's tits are BIGHUGE now and she can't keep her balance because her GIANT HONKERS keep tipping her over.

I'm a little more bothered than I was yesterday! On the other hand, since I saw SRB's post, I've been chewing on that central ship. Full disclosure, it was one of my favorite aspects of the novel! My other favorite aspect is the dynamic between the golden cobra and the last hope (the moshang, which I think some people misdiagnosed as wangxian).

I know that the central ship here is the thing that's LEAST comparable to svsss, and the biggest roadblock in the way of my theory. On the other hand, I think it was the thing that HAD to change if this story was going to repurpose svsss without getting called out for being a classic 'bro can i copy your homework' adventure.

For this section, let's assume that I'm right and let's roleplay an author trying to figure out how to change Bingqiu into something not-obviously-Bingqiu. How do we need to differentiate Rae and Key from Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe.

First, we eliminate the martial sect thing. Easy peasy! That's a wuxia concept, and this book goes full nondescript western fantasy. She's not his teacher, he's not her student. And if she's not his teacher and he's not her student, why does this woman have power over this man, to build up the resentment that inspires him to turn the tables on her later? Well, in nondescript western fantasy, she's a noblewoman of some kind, and he's a servant of some kind. Noble lady treats servant like garbage, servant resents her. Doing great.

And to loop back around to the beginning of this a little, I think it really is key to this reskinning that Rae is a SHE. If the central ship remained queer, it would be so, so hard to pull away from the most identifiable thematic aspects of svsss. And pieces of what remain are... kind of bizarre for a normie heterosexual ship where our protagonist is aware that she's transmigrated into an impossibly desirable sexpot character!

Shen Qingqiu never considers that Luo Binghe might be interested in him because Luo Binghe is about to have a HAREM of beautiful women, he's the most heterosexual man of all time, and Shen Qingqiu is straight too! Besides, Shen Qingqiu is his teacher! He half-raised Luo Binghe! Even if Luo Binghe was bent, he wouldn't be interested in an old man like Shen Qingqiu!

Rae is 20, occupying a 24-year-old body. Her character's sexiness is relentlessly remarked upon from start to finish. Key is 18. Why is Rae so sure that he looks up to her as... a mentor, as an older woman? He almost goes down on her! He makes out with her! And she's like 'ah yes, it means nothing. lol. so funny how these things happen.' Bruh, at least after Luo Binghe kissed Shen Qingqiu, Shen Qingqiu finally got hit with the clue stick. Binghe didn't try to blow him only for Shen Qingqiu to keep noodling on about how Binghe definitely isn't into him in any sense, even the most oblivious man in the universe managed to catch on.

Why doesn’t Rae think there’s any chance of genuine attraction here? Yeah, I get that she's coming back from terminal cancer. She's doing great. She knows that the fictional character she occupies is one of the most desirable ladies in the land. He’s a teenager. He’s not expressing disinterest. A lack of horny for sexy lady ought to be more surprising for her. But I guess she’s slightly older than him and that small age gap has been magnified by the transmigration, so she conceptualizes herself only as his teacher, I mean mentor.

I’m not even mad at this dynamic. I love their chemistry, the ‘boss’ thing is cute, but lordt, I have to wonder if it’s meant to substitute for ‘shizun.’ But you know where this comparison really falls apart? Key isn’t really THAT much Luo Binghe.

At least, he isn’t in terms of personality. I mean, we’ve got the mysterious magical heritage, the healing factor, the unbeatable fighting skills, being beaten repeatedly because of the protagonist (tbh it’s sexier when she’s responsible, rather than just being a bystander), being yeeted into the abyss, I mean the ravine, to rise again and assume power as the merciless ruler of all the land. Oh, and he comes back from the dead still bearing the scar that represents her betrayal. In the original novel, he turned on her the moment he got his opening and was responsible for coming up with her gruesome torment.

(Also, Shen Qingqiu being terminally ill isn’t canon, but it’s very popular fanon, and it’s hard to ignore that with how hard the narrative lingers over Rae’s terminal illness as her gateway into this fictional world)

But! But the things that are different! Luo Binghe is a smart and sweet teenager, who had a rough start on the streets and has a tragically deceased single adoptive parent, but that’s their only backstory parallel, he doesn’t blacken until he’s thrown into the abyss. Not like Key, Key is a murder-happy sociopath, a former street kid who fought the odds and made good, and who’s a lot sharper and cleverer than the upper classes think someone like him should be. He utterly destroyed a righteous cultivator clan, I mean glassblowing guild, for the sake of revenge. Once our heroine scores a number of trust points with him, we unlock secret backstory about how as a small child, he experienced deeply formative hand trauma.

He’s Xue Yang.

It took me a moment to process the wangxian allegations SRB mentions in her post, because I was trying to figure out how someone would be aware of wangxian, and read that backstory, and somehow miss it. But it’s fine, I’m pretty sure they were actually talking about the golden cobra and the last hope! So LET’S TALK MOSHANG.

It was so funny. I was liveblogging the book to friends, because honestly, I do not jive with the buffy-esque joss whedon relentless quip-quip-quip writing style. I was struggling to stay engaged when the narrative never took a moment to breathe. And I perked up at the introduction of this new character! He seemed kind of fun, kind of meta, Key came over to share Secret Info with him, and I messaged the friend who recced this to me (also an svsss appreciator) ‘lol, what if he’s shang qinghua. just straight from svsss shang qinghua.'

Reader, a second transmigrator has hit the narrative.

Now, in some ways, he’s a disappointment to me. He’s not nearly as interesting as Shang Qinghua. Adding the author to their own narrative is way more fascinating to me than just dropping a rando into the story. But I’ll take what I can get, I think multiple transmigrators are almost always a fun decision. And for the queer reasons I mentioned above, I think Shang Qinghua ties into the themes of his novel a lot more strongly than Eric does here. I don’t want to call him ‘the golden cobra’ every time, I get more self-conscious every time I write it. And honestly, the reveal of Eric’s full Eric Whatever name feels a little awkward and… pointed compared to the sheer opacity of Shang Qinghua’s existence. Never mind what his name was in the real world, we don’t even know his name before he was a Peak Lord. I’m not upset we got a name or anything, it would make certain fannish activities a lot easier if Shang Qinghua had additional canon names, but it was an interesting detail in light of how parallel the characters are.

Okay! He’s not the author! He’s still a super-fan. He transmigrated into the book years before the LLE main character, and has settled in pretty well. According to canon as Rae knows it, he’s fated to be killed by his own favorite character. He’s fast-thinking and fast-talking, and scattered and all over the place, but dangerous when cornered and more competent than he looks. He deals in information and manages a network of spies. He’s a creative! He and the main character banter relentlessly and get along like a house on fire. He and the king’s trusted ice-cold right hand man share a weird codependent dynamic that’s part hostile, part homoerotic.

Marius has complicated feelings about not-shang-qinghua. Eric is a coward, he’d rather talk fast and lie than stand up for anything, he cowers and cringes and isn’t honorable. He and Mobei-jun also shared a deeply formative experience in their youth, where as a teenager in distress, Eric/Shang Qinghua appeared before them and announced their devotion. In Shang Qinghua’s case, it was offering to serve him (and saving him from huan hua injuries), and in Eric’s case, it was declaring him to be his favorite character (and saving him from sad teenaged isolation), but man. And in the end, after a long, fraught relationship, Marius/Mobei-jun is furious and strangely distraught when Eric/Shang Qinghua abandons him.

Guys, it’s not wangxian.

I think it hits less hard when Marius’s themes of family violence aren’t allowed to sit directly in the narrative, and when it seems like some vague berserker rage thing rather than Linguang-jun just bluntly wanting to murder him for practical reasons, but hey! This was still, genuinely, one of my favorite parts of the story. I wanted more more more of them, I would read this moshang au any day.

After that, the parallels get a little more nebulous! The comparisons between the abyss and the ravine are pretty obvious. I’m not sure why we decided to build our city and palace right on top of the pit of people-eating ghouls rather than literally anywhere else, but it means we don’t need to take a special field trip to Jue Di Gorge, which means we can do the bait and switch where it turns out Key was a heavenly demon all along. The temperamental King Octavian, the young master of the palace, one might even say the xiao gongzhu if they were feeling spicy, jealously tries to romantically monopolize half our main ship and has the other half flogged with a magic whip.

I already mentioned that Rae brings up that Liu Mingyan — wait, I said I’d change some answers so it wasn’t obvious I copied — Lia doesn’t get a sex scene in the books even though loads of other people did, just like Shen Qingqiu praises Liu Mingyan for her untouchable image in such an oversexed, gratuitous book. I don’t think it would be right to call Liu Mingyan a white lotus heroine in either SVSSS or PIDW, but her archetype is in that wheelhouse, and Lia is just a white lotus rival played straight (and played deliberately, another touch I liked). We don’t have made up animals like black moon rhinoceros pythons in LLE, but we do have leucrotas, which are like a lion and a hyena and serve no narrative purpose.

Oh, you know what else I forgot to mention? Rae gives Key one of her red ruby earrings, and he refuses to sell it, and stubbornly holds onto it until the bitter end. Is this Xue Yang holding onto the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, or is it Hua Cheng determinedly keeping Xie Lian’s red coral earring with him even through his own death? Por que no los dos?

There are things that are original in here. I know that this presentation undersells how much of the book is original. The trouble is, almost everything I thought was good is something that either was lifted from another person’s creative endeavors, or is being tainted by association with all the other naked lifts. Some of the noble ladies have an archery contest! That’s pretty new and fresh, huh? We didn’t have any archery contests in SVSSS!

Yeah, but we sure did in MDZS. And MDZS is already in play, because we’ve already got one character who’s just copy and paste Xue Yang.

There’s a thermocline of trust in this book that fell off for me sharply, and it turned a lot of this into a guessing game of ‘wait NOW what the refrance? owo'

I’m probably on a hair trigger by now, but I’ve also probably missed some things. And I’m sure this is a synthesis of multiple influences, because most stories are. But this feels like cooking and trying to season your dish with a little salt and then the container lid just falls off.

Emer isn’t a clear parallel to an existing character! Love that for her! Love a lady with an axe, especially if she gets a nice girlfriend! On the other hand, in terms of backstory? Wow, she’s been raised with our protagonist since early childhood, as not-quite-foster-siblings, but she was always the clear unfavorite and harbors a lot of resentment over that. Oh, and once Rae entered the story, Rae started trying to speedrun an enemies to 'hello hiiii we should bestiessss' arc with her. I think she had to have an axe, because a whip or a sword would make the Jiang Cheng and/or Liu Qingge vibes a little uncomfortably strong. She doesn’t follow their character arcs! But the disappointing thing is that it felt like she was just there to facilitate pasting the frankenstein patchwork of the narrative together rather than having an arc of her own.

(why did Marius stop to give her a sword lesson? Why did she immediately sneak onto the roof to eavesdrop on the king?? It’s hard to give her credit for being an original character when none of her original actions make sense in the greater universe)

Oh, I almost forgot, we’ve even got magic plot macguffin plants. While Binghe is in the abyss, Shen Qingqiu needs to get the Sun And Moon Dew Flower Seed so he can build an escape hatch for himself before Binghe wrecks his shit. Rae, on the other hand, needs to secure the Flower of Life and Death by an arbitrary deadline as an escape hatch so she can go back to her original life rather than being trapped here forever. Very different! There’s even little side tangents about how these plants can be so beneficial to others, Zhuzhi-lang is desperately trying to secure a seed to build a new body for Tianlang-jun (which Shen Qingqiu enables him to do, despite not knowing what he wants it for), and Rae thinks about how the flower could “save someone on the very doorstep of death,” and gives it away for that exact purpose. So different!

I need to cut myself off, otherwise I’ll keep going. Truly, there is original content in here. It was just all the stuff I didn’t like. The character quipping was. God. There sure was a lot of it! By sheer volume, that’s a lot of original content. Some of the extended cast was interesting, I enjoyed the Horrors and their brothers, I liked Valencia. Now, I didn’t like how basically every girl ADULT WOMAN in this cast was in shitty teen mean girl mode. I didn’t like how immature every character interaction period was. I lost track of how many times Rae was going around in sexy clothes and rando servants were like “HARLOT,” out loud about a favored noblewoman, you know, as you do. Especially when her bodyguard is pulling against his choke chain just waiting for an excuse to do a murder. I don’t need Rae to be the picture of flawless maturity. But nobody is mature, full stop, not even the set dressing servants.

For a less loaded example, the cumplane friendship dynamic is here, practically intact. Shen Qingqiu can't snipe about authorial choices, because Eric isn't the author, so instead Rae and Eric squabble about favorite scenes and favorite ships and such. But it isn't nearly as charming when we don't see these two characters dropping their dignified Peak Lord cultivator roleplay to talk shit with each other. Rae and Eric never have a filter once in this book. They are always Like This, it isn't a secret face that gets unlocked when they're bouncing off each other, they are never circumspect, never have a filter, never have any idea they shouldn't be speaking their full thoughts at full volume 24/7. Even after this starts to have material consequences when they're inevitably overheard! It's an immersion-breaking level of immaturity, which is terribly frustrating when the original dynamic that I loved is only changed in such minor ways.

And another thing that actually tastes way more sour than it did on first reading – Valencia is probably the least mean girl of all the women in the cast. She’s delightful. Too bad that in every scene but her last one, Rae, who repeatedly references her own experiences having her body and appearance ravaged by cancer, cannot for love or money stop talking about how uggo Valencia is.

I know this is an adult novel. The characters are, by age, adults. There’s almost an oral scene. God, I wish we’d gotten the oral scene. But by every other metric, the characters are all high schoolers and I’m an exhausted adult muttering to myself ‘they’ll grow out of it, please GOD let them grow out of it.’

Again, none of this is a crime! Nobody forced me to finish the book! And I did enjoy the book. Parts of it! But that very distinct partial enjoyment experience almost forced me to dissect my own emotional response. And truly, other than a few flashes like Valencia, almost everything I enjoyed about the book was something I could trace directly back to one author, and mostly to one book by that one author. I… enjoyed half of the book. And if I can track most of that half back to mxtx and svsss, I really think that says something about how much wasn’t done to make the inspiration behind this book the author’s own.

It's disappointing! I read this book because I like svsss, I read it because I want more books like svsss, I read it because I trawl the novelupdates tags looking for more books that will hit me the way svsss did. It doesn’t taste good to be served reheated svsss with expired buffy sauce drizzled on top. It tastes even less good once I have a minute to think about what turning an m/m meditation on sexuality and self-image and assumptions about others into a m/f snooze does to the themes I loved so much. It stings to see an author rehash a book that was/is so important to me, and see what they kept and what they threw out, and be like ‘oh, so… these were the elements that mattered to you?’

Again, I hate to be redundant with this, but. I think calling this book plagiarism would be overdoing it. I think it’s tasteless. I don’t think being tasteless is a crime. It remains wild to me that she’s getting messages calling out her supposed inspiration, even if I’m simultaneously criticizing the judgment of the people making those specific comparisons. And I ABSOLUTELY understand why she’s reluctant to own up to the specific inspirations behind this book, because good lord. If it was me, I’d be professionally embarrassed too.

It’s not my job to be the book quality police, but I think someone as experienced as this should be able to do a better job of synthesizing inspirations into something original. I dropped ‘can’t afford to offend my scheming disciple’ earlier this year, because that narrative couldn’t shake the taste of stale svsss fanfic, and it was much more subtle than this is. Once again, if I’m wrong, this post will be retroactively VERY funny and I’ll be all ears to see what her inspirations actually were. I don’t think I’m wrong.

[nuwildcat]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: KinnPorsche: The Series (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Big/Tae Taechin Lerttravinont Characters: Big (KinnPorsche: The Series), Tae Taechin Lerttravinont, Porsche Pachara Kittisawat, Kinn Anakinn Theerapanyakun, Time Thaweewat Ratanapakorn Additional Tags: Minor Porsche Pachara Kittisawat/Kinn Anakinn Theerapanyakun, Non-Mafia AU, They met in college!, Meet-Cute, except it's a meet ugly, Terrible First Dates, Or Is It?, Porsche & Big friendship, I will make that happen dammit, Kinn the 'investment' banker, cocktails, what are you fucking surprised? with me?, This is mostly just a lot of cute with a bit of sex, Dom/sub Undertones, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Dirty Talk, Praise Kink, In every universe Big will have a praise kink, Face-Fucking, Kinda Crack, crack adjacent you might say Summary:

A night out with friends going disastrously wrong isn’t exactly unusual for Big when Porsche is involved. They’ve ended up in more than one sticky situation together, but he’s never managed to score a date out of a fuck up before.

There’s a first time for everything.

art by: shubaka

Hey party people! I come with my contribution to @kinnporschebigbang! This is a brand new Big/Tay fic, cause I am still paddling along in my tiny tiny ship and would like to have more people rowing with me. I was lucky enough to work with @shubaka on this fic and there is some gorgeous fan art embedded in that fic for your viewing pleasure. Even better, there is a podfic to come too!

[little-pondhead]

The Curse Of Hope

_

Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.

The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.

“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”

That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.

Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.

“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.

The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.

“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”

Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.

The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”

Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.

-Or-

Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.

Luckily, Danny can provide that help.

But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.

[sukugo]

everytime sukugo gets called a crack ship i suffer +10 damage

[anqelbean]

I love love love reading fics from older fandoms because WOW these fandom elders knew their shit!! Weird shit, fun shit, crack shit, disgusting shit, yum yum yum, you guys were fed so well

[dullahandyke]

life is so good and awesome peace and love on planet earth

[orcelito]

i miss akechi goro so much. maybe even enough to finally finish that ladue chapter 3

[whumpy-wyrms]

basement is flooding 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥 :(((