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atrwriting · 5 months

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future problems (pt. 2) -- coriolanus snow x fem!wife!reader

me, after posting a one-shot: “ok i won't do a part two”

me, a few days later: *posts a part two*

howdy y'all ;) back with everyone's favorite toxic white man of the month

this part is based on this anonymous request -- love you anon :) xox

find part one here

summary: reader finds out she's pregnant and has to tell the scariest man in panem -- her husband, president snow

as always, warnings: smut!, pregnancy sex, coriolanus snow is a fucking warning in himself, he’s a dick here, fem!reader, p in v sex, mommy and daddy kink just trust me ok)

barely edited we die like men

anyways... here is future problems (pt. 2):

......

he was told by a servant a month before you told him.

he couldn't believe it.

you had not bled last month.

it's not that he was mad... but he wanted to be told by you. he wanted you to be the first one to tell him. it was important to him — trust and loyalty, especially from you. he had allowed you to get close to him, physically and emotionally, and he deserved that same respect.

he couldn't believe you had kept it from him.

you. of all people. you.

how fucking could you?

it had been a total of six weeks since he had been told by the servant.

it wracked his brain like it was the fever that debilitated him for weeks. it gnawed at him, it scratched at him, and it fucking demanded every ounce of energy from him that he possessed. that sort of pain, betrayal — it insisted on being felt and dealt with immediately, no matter what needed to be taken care of first. corio coriolanus couldn't believe he had honestly trusted you, or even thought you were worthy of some amount of trust... and he couldn't believe he, for even a second, allowed either of you to live in that facade.

never again, he reasoned. never again.

on the day after the six week marker, there was a knock on his office door.

his lips fell into a grimace before he forced it to remain even — calm. no emotion shown. not anymore.

“come in,” he spoke.

his eyes fell to the papers on his desk, where he continued to write and edit his memorandum. his eyes traced the words he wrote, but he was barely focused on what he was writing. the only thing he could hear was the sound of your footsteps entering his office.

“corio?” you asked quietly, smiling, as you stepped through his door.

inside, he flinched at his nickname. coriolanus, he wanted to correct.

he did not raise his head. “…yes?”

he could not see you — but he knew that you noticed his flat demeanor.

it affected your own.

he couldn’t see that — but he knew. he fucking knew.

it wasn’t the first time he had been cold to you, but enough time had past where he reasoned that this would be the solidifying moment of your opinion of him. he knew that you knew he was upset about something. what else could have changed his demeanor?

“i-i wanted to… tell you something,” you replied, voice wavering.

he could tell you were working hard to ignore the obvious signs that something had shifted between the two of you. he knew, he knew, and he knew — but he didn’t care. he couldn’t care. why should he, when you didn’t?

“yes..?” he replied once more, this time sighing.

his eyes met yours.

your resolve immediately fell. though slight, he could see that whatever confidence you had possessed had faded from your face. it was gone… and coriolanus didn’t have the resolve to replenish it. neither did you have the strength to fake it.

he saw you begin to pick at your fingernails — another nervous habit of yours he had noticed.

however, this was a new one. once the pair of you shared a kiss — you were rarely seen pulling at the skin of your lips and your usage of lip moisturizer had increased. he appreciated it, at the time — but now? now it was a reminder of what once was. with new bad habits came the alert of the passage of time — and the alert of bonds breaking.

he couldn’t deal. he just couldn’t.

“what is it?” coriolanus demanded, eyes blinking.

your lips parted in confusion, and your brows scrunched right with them. there was hurt in your eyes, and splattered across your cheeks in a pink hue. your cheeks were usually flushed with graciousness or from alcohol — but this was embarrassment. hurt. rejection.

he didn’t care anymore, especially not when he admitted to himself that a part of him loved seeing your face and confidence fall. if he was going to fall, you were going straight down with him.

down, down, down.

“i’m with child,” you responded, appearing to struggle to catch your breath.

there it was. the admission.

he clenched his jaw. his eyes focused on your face — and how the tears began to collect in your eyes. the rejection he was sending towards you was even being felt by him — and he almost felt bad. to see a woman he so blindly trusted, who thought she could outsmart him — play the part of a hurt and broken hearted woman so well.

he did not smile. he did not laugh. he did not even get up. he simply stared at her — silently.

“i take it you are not happy at this announcement,” she responded, voice barely wavering. “i-i would’ve thought…”

coriolanus watched as you placed a gentle hand over your stomach — almost in a protective manner.

“how long have you known?” he asked.

“i took the pregnancy test today,” you responded.

coriolanus’ jaw tightened. he was not expecting that, especially not after the news he was given. “…but you’ve known for some time. you must have — given how you chose today to take the test, and don’t seem as surprised as you thought i would be.”

you narrowed your eyes at him. “…no, coriolanus. i didn’t. i had hopes, yes, but… i took the test as soon as i thought reasonable. you’re the first person i’ve told.”

confusion and hurt. that was all you felt. it encased your body like it was trying its best to cast you from the room — placing a heavy boundary between you and your husband. husband… if you could even call him that. your lips began to twist in a grimace as emotions began to well up inside you.

“tell me why i have displeased you,” you spoke, voice threatening to break. you took a step towards his desk and kept one hand firmly on your belly. your eyes, red and wet, bore into his and refused to leave him. “i thought you would be overjoyed. i-i thought…”

“you claim i was the first person you told,” he spat, holding your glare. “but i was not the first person to assume.”

you scrunched your eyebrows at him… but then you realized. it hit you like a ton of bricks. you bit the inside of your cheek, drawing blood, before stating, “your spies.”

coriolanus narrowed his eyes. it was not an issue that she knew… but he didn’t understand how she could know, nor for how long. spies were useful when their identity and presence was not apparent, and therefore he considered his current spies failures — to be dealt with later. at the moment… he had other matters.

“you might want to elaborate on that statement if you’re going to act like it’s something profound,” he spat, standing and snapping his journal closed.

coriolanus stood behind his desk and pushed in his chair. you watched him as he struggled to keep everything together, neat and tidy.

your face was red and hot, and you weren’t sure if it was due to the pregnancy or the betrayal. how could he? how could he?! there you stood, trying to remain collected — but it proved useless. through your tears, you spat, “a woman is supposed to wait before telling everyone she’s pregnant — god forbid she loses the baby before it’s viable. i waited the standard amount of time most women are practically born knowing to wait. if your spy is going to make my cycle their business, they should at least understand basic fucking female biology, coriolanus, or your spies and their intel are fucking useless!”

you didn’t wait to hear his response. you left the room.

he stared at the oak door out of entitlement — it should open once more, and reveal his wife.

the mother of his child…

he had never considered… things of that nature. tests. waiting periods. hormones.

incompetence. that of his spies — nor his own.

he didn’t understand any of it.

however, he did understand one thing…

he had to deal with the useless spy.

…and that would happen before he approached you.

that approach occurred approximately an hour and a half later. he would have found you sooner, but the spy had… taken more time than anticipated. afterwards — there he stood, at your door, with a tray of food in his hands for the both of you.

his knuckles wrapped on the door.

there were no footsteps.

they wrapped again.

still, no footsteps.

once more.

…and, still, nothing.

he couldn’t believe this.

he went to knock a fourth time, but before he could — the door swung open.

to reveal you in the doorway.

your eyes were blown wide with anger, but the rest of your face did not show emotion. you glared at the man before you, which unsettled your husband,

he picked you because you were unproblematic — but had gotten lucky with the fact that your company was so pleasant. you were not loud, annoying, mean, bold, disrespectful, disobedient, or anything of the sort — but he did not expect this.

he did not expect you… to hold a grudge against him, much less stand up for yourself.

he stood there silently — dumbstruck.

“i would slam this door in your face if you weren’t the president,” you spat lowly. “please do not make me forget formalities.”

“i brought you dinner,” he spoke, ignoring you. “please… join me.”

you raised an eyebrow, scoffing. “you’ve been ignoring me for weeks, when i tried to convince myself you were just busy. you can handle another night of dining alone.”

you went to shut the door, but he stopped it with his foot. your eyes lowered to where his toe was in the doorway, and traveled up to where his eyes were. as per usual, his facial expressions were flat, save for determined. he always had a goal in mind… and refused to change it until he succeeded.

you sighed. you had had enough.

“i’m not doing this tonight,” you bit. “i show you every ounce of respect that i know you expect of me. i have been patient, kind, gentle — but i can’t meet you halfway right now. not after that. leave. please.”

there coriolanus went. searching your eyes once more, like he had done long ago. his jaw clenched once, twice, three times before it finally settled. he did not remove his foot before he spoke once more.

“why didn’t you tell me immediately?” he imposed.

there was a hint of pleading in his voice. your breath began to quicken with anxiety. out of exhaustion and frustration, completely forgetting your station, you rolled your eyes at your husband before responding.

“what if i was wrong, coriolanus?” you spat, your eyes were narrowed. “why would i tell the most powerful and scary man that runs panem — that i am pregnant with his child, if i am not one hundred percent sure? to get your hopes up for nothing, if, god forbid, i lose it?”

he didn’t respond.

you threw your hands up in exasperation. a silent cry left your lips in the form of a broken inhale. your hormones were running rabid — coursing through your veins and filling you with frustration.

you locked your teary eyes with him once more. trying to keep your voice quiet, you hissed, “your spies aren’t exactly discreet. i’ve known about them since my first day here. your spies — they’ve never reported i’ve done anything wrong because i have never done anything wrong. it’s not like i can hide anything here, either — they’re everywhere. nothing is a secret — even a private moment between husband and wife, like a wife finally being able to tell her husband that she’s sure she’s pregnant with his child. i have given you everything you’ve ever requested of a wife, yet there you sat — throwing silent insults in my face.”

there went the boundary.

up and sturdy.

layer after layer of brick and cement. your trust and love for him crumbled with each new layer, until you couldn’t see the man you once adore beyond the wall. the man before you frustrated you so much that you forgot what it was like to look upon his face and feel nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing him smile. you wanted to slam the door in his face, placing two boundaries up — a real one, and an emotional one.

one that would prevent you from ever being so stupid again — from ever letting him close to you, for ever thinking this could work.

stupid, you thought. stupid, stupid, stupid.

but coriolanus corio would have none of that.

he was a man of formalities and manners, but your husband actually pushed his way through.

you stumbled backwards in surprise. your husband had guards for doing his dirty work — not the shoulder of his new and crisp suit.

he shoved the tray of food on a nearby table, ratting the walls and the contents on each surface. you placed a protective hand over your stomach and watched him — waiting for his next move.

“i said get out, coriolanus!” you spat. your gaze was fiery red, and now there were angry tears in your eyes. corio could see the hormones flowing from every opening in your skin they could find — even smell them. “i refuse to speak to you!”

“the father of your child?” he spoke evenly, walking towards you. “your husband?”

you took a step back for every step he took forward. “you were more concerned with the secret kept than the actual chance of life!”

“i thought you were keeping the chance of being happy about a child from me,” he spoke, bitterness instinctually falling from his perfect lips. “you can’t forget — we barely know each other —“

“and who’s fault is that?!”

he stopped. his jaw tightened. he stared down at you and wondered where all of this fury had come from.

him. it came from him. the realization struck him similar to how other pieces of information had been striking him later. in the chest or face, whichever hurt more — and forcing his breath to catch in his lungs. never to reach his throat, let alone his lips.

he couldn’t keep going on like this — watching and waiting. watching others for their mistakes, and waiting for the correct moment to… correct them. at the very least… he couldn’t with you — not with you.

“i committed a wrong against you,” he spat before he could think about it.

you scrunched your eyebrows in disbelief. apologies were rare in the capital, and admissions of guilt were almost as scarce. you stared at him, still consumed with rage — but now confusion began to creep upon you. and where there is confusion… there is always curiosity.

you didn’t respond. you clenched your jaw at his words, but that was the only response he received.

“i did,” he reaffirmed, stepping closer to you. you drew back a step — not far, but still a step. he continued, “when i had heard what my spy had relayed to me — i should have asked you.”

you had three options. ignore him, yell at him, or hear him out. did he deserve the first two? yes. did you have every right to do either of the two, or both? yes, of course. however… were they worth it in the long run?

that was the question that now ate at you.

you had every right to put up the same emotional barrier you had worked so hard to tear down with coriolanus. his? who knows why he insisted on making his hurt everyone else’s problem. yours? he was an elite asshole, but… you were married to him. he was the president of panem. he was the most ruthless man in all of panem.

and you loved him.

you really, really did.

that was why his distrust for you hurt so bad.

it wasn’t about seeking approval anymore — because you thought you had it, or at least had come to close to it. once given that, you felt safe enough, well… to feel safe. to feel safety, trust, respect, reliability… and love. love.

the fucking bastard made you love him.

with reluctance, you took a step forward. “you should have, coriolanus.”

his jaw tightened as he also took a step forward. “corio — please, my love.”

you scoffed out of reflex and threw your stare to the side. you began to rub at your stomach, hoping to quell your own anxiety. there were a million insults waiting to leap from your tongue and latch onto his face, chest, throat — anything to hurt him or get him to fuck off. however, you swallowed them.

“i would do anything for you,” you stammered, trying to keep emotion out of your voice. “i have proved that time and time again.”

he took a step closer. “i know.”

“i know better than to keep something substantial from you,” you replied. “god forbid it was a fluke…”

another step closer. “i know.”

“i have done everything i can to prove that i am loyal to you, and only you,” you spoke, your voice wavering. “in the future, i ask that you approach me first — yell at me, fuck, i couldn’t care less — just as long as you don’t ignore me. anything, corio — just don’t push me away.

he laughed then, only a foot away from you now. the tears in your eyelids hadn’t hit your cheeks yet, but they threatened to. he reached forward and cupped your face in both of his hands. he leaned down due to your height difference and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“i know,” he repeated. “and i promise — i will try my best to not push you away.”

“okay,” you nodded, sniffling.

“never heard such coarse words from my perfect wife,” corio attempted to break the tension.

you chuckled then, wiping away any moisture from your eyes. “there were more — trust me.”

“i would have deserved them.”

your eyes flickered up to his them, searching his irises for answers like he did to you. you weren’t sure how he did it — but he could find every lie or fact inside someone’s eyes. that trait had not found its way to you.

but maybe it would to your child.

“i want to hear you say it again,” you whispered, now meeting his eyes. “i want to hear you say that you promise you will try your best to never push me away again.”

“i promise,” he spoke, nodding.

you refused to stare into his eyes at his admission. if he wasn’t a good liar, you didn’t want to know — not in that moment.

"am i allowed to kiss the mother of my child now?" he asked with a smirk.

you glared at him. "you would've —"

"shhh," he cooed, before leaning down and pressing his lips to yours.

one of his hands slid to the back of your head and cradled the bottom of your skull. he wrapped his free arm around your back, pulling you into him. the kiss, you couldn't explain it — it — it...

it was like he swallowed you.

there was no place for you to move, but then again — why would you want to? you body was perfectly molded to fit his, in every way he wanted you to bend to him. his warmth, his scent, his taste — it all coaxed your senses into such a feeling of satisfaction that you weren't sure where it started or ended. it held your consciousness in warmth and safety — something rare in the capital. the only thing that mattered to you was that you were in your husband's arms and the kiss did not stop.

"so pleased with you," he mumbled against your mouth. "a child..."

warmth bubbled within the lower half of your body. praise, from a man like corio... any woman's weakness.

you hummed into the kiss, rubbing your hands up and down his chest. "going to be so proud of their father, the president."

the groan that emitted from his chest was deep and guttural — so masculine. it made every hair on the back of your neck stand at attention, waiting for a direction from the man before you. you began to finger his top button, hoping... hinting...

"sweetheart," he spoke, pulling away. "as much as i want to, i am not sure whether —"

"i think i'm fine," you gushed, only realizing after how desperate you might have sounded. "we might as well — especially before i become too big to breathe."

he stiffened as he held you. you immediately grew worried.

"what's wrong?" you softly asked, rubbing his chest.

he shook his head. "nothing —" he stopped for a moment, appearing to contemplate something. "it's just — i was imagining —"

you looked up at him curiously, hoping he would elaborate. his eyes immediately flew to your lips — perfect and plump, a match for his. you smirked.

you had him. “what were you imagining, husband?”

his jaw clenched again as his eyes widened. “my pretty wife has become so much more bold since i met her.”

you smiled up at him, hoping that he found it amusing more than disreepctful. one of his hands found your cheek as his thumb caressed the skin. your eyes were big as they gazed up at your husband, keening into his silent praise.

“i disagree with you, wife,” he spoke. “too big to bed —“ he scoffed before leaning down to your ear, your words rolling with disgust off his tongue. his lips brushed against the skin of your lobe before he spoke, “i’ll have a hard time keeping my hands to myself when the mother of my children will swell with me inside of her.”

your eyes, still wide, were frozen on corio’s. mischief danced in his irises, like a snake coiling around its prey. air left his nostrils in a small, sudden gush — amusement. the look that played on his face depicted the power imbalance — but, then again, how stupid could you be to ever think you would have control over your husband for a substantial amount of time?

he grasped your chin in his fingers before your lips parted. you were at his mercy — to be bent to his will. his head bent towards you before he spoke.

“you think you’ll repulse me — when my seed takes inside you, and it shows?” he asked. his eyes searched yours — but what yours reveal that he didn’t already know? he had you. he had you, and there was nothing you could do about it. “my naive, little wife… i don’t expect i’ll allow you to leave the bedroom much when that time comes.”

christ, you thought. your breath began to quicken as his words settled upon you. in a soft voice, you replied, “you leave me speechless, husband.”

he wickedly smiled then. “get on the bed, sweetheart. making up for lost time is in order, wouldn’t you agree?”

you couldn’t help yourself. you should’ve listened to him — but how could you, when he smelled so good, spoke so nicely, and was so close? you rolled onto your toes just enough to be able to press a kiss to your husband’s lips, and wrap your arms around his neck.

the angle was annoying for corio, who thought pulling you into his arms would be better use of his strength — especially if you weren’t going to listen. his large hands held your ass, supporting your weight as you leaned into his touch. your breasts, arched into his chest, were the only barrier that kept you two apart. there was nothing like a kiss from corio — heat, lips, teeth, spit. all of it melted into one.

“you missed me… didn’t you, sweetheart?”

“yes,” you spoke, breathlessly. “so much, corio.”

“i was so mean —“ he replied, in between kisses. “wasn’t i? neglecting my perfect wife. a good husband would have to make up for that.”

you hummed in agreement, almost breaking into a whine. “kiss me, corio. missed you so much…“

it was like he swallowed you. body, lips, breath, emotions — all of it. once yours, but now his. all his. your body temperature increased with every fold of his lips against yours. heat pricked at the tips of your cheeks, the back of your neck, and your lower back. your fingertips, tingling, made quick work of his buttons to strip him of his clothing.

he couldn’t deal with how slow and gentle your fingers were. he loved you and how gentle you were — but when his cock was straining against his pants? the head of his cock, so red it was almost purple, leaking at the sight of his redeemed, perfect, pregnant wife? begging for him?

you were fucked. so fucked.

he should've been disgusted at the thought of fucking his wife while the babe sat protected inside your womb. however, nothing could stop corio from rejoicing at the fact that you had never done him wrong when you had actually presented him with a gift, also showing the utmost protection for it.

you fell back against the bed, your back awkwardly landing on the edge. you couldn't stand or lay back perfectly balanced, therefore relying on your husband to hold you upright and your grip of his clothes.

"my perfect wife —" he moaned into your neck, mouthing at your clammy skin. he had shoved his hand into your panties, finding you already soaked. "glowing as a mother —"

it was like you were both succumbing to the heat and haze of all-consuming lust. your hot breaths added to the humidity in the air, making your embrace with corio feel like a sauna. he couldn't rip your lace stockings off fast enough as you struggled to hold your balance.

your husband loomed over you as one large hand cupped the back of your head. his long, talented fingers on his other hand drew rough circles on your sensitive bud and you couldn't contain your cries. it had been so long. so, so long. the feeling of loneliness and lust had dissipated and was replaced by satiation. you need corio's hot, and husky breath groaning against your ear and all of your muscles holding you up and in place, forced to take everything he could give you. tears began to well up in your eyes at the thought of not only having your corio back, but for the lonely need for intimacy to also leave you.

he laughed darkly. "you're so close already, aren't you?"

you whined, struggling to regain your composure as you fought through embarrassment. "it's just been — so long —"

"how would you feel if i took it away, little dove?" he asked, eyes taunting. "how helpless would you feel? — how much of a mess would you make?"

"don't take it away from me, corio, please —" frustration was eating at you as you held onto him. he was so far away, then so close, and he was threatening to pull away as if it was a game. your feelings, your safety, you — all a game to him.

the hand on the back of your head left you to grasp at your chin as tears rolled down your face. your teeth were firmly planted in your bottom lip as you struggled against his touch. the rope in your womb was being wrapped so tightly that you felt the strands would snap at any moment, but you knew he would pull away. his eyes, dark and boring into yours, spoke for him — you were right. it was a game, and he was loving it.

"tell me it was worth it — for this," he rasped, eyes still locked on you. "tell me all of the pain i caused you was worth it — for this."

you were writhing against his hold at this point, grinding your hips down onto his hand as you whined against his lips. you were pulling at the fabric adorning his shoulders, hoping to rip it from him — hoping to make him feel as strung out as you felt.

"it was all worth it," you croaked. "all worth it for how good this feels."

"i'll never leave you again," he promised, his movements now becoming more rough on your core. "tell me you love it. tell me you love me."

"i love you, corio — !" you cried, pressing the sides of your noses together so your lips were barely touching. "i love it so much — please, don't stop —"

"that's it, doll —" he groaned. "cry for me. do it — cry."

something snapped inside of you.

your eyes closed, and your vision went black.

your throat went hoarse from the sob that left your mouth.

your lips were ragged with how your teeth ripped into them.

but you? oh, god — you felt so full.

corio's palm rubbed against your clit as his fingers entered you, pressing into that deep spot only he could find. you rode his hand like satisfaction was the only thing that mattered to you. greed and gluttony — want and need. none of it mattered.

"mommy feels so good now, doesn't she?" corio whispered into your ear. "just needed what only daddy could give her. — s'all right — just keep cumming, darling."

"fuck, corio —" you whined, buzzing with overstimulation.

he clicked his tongue at you. "such a naughty mouth on you. i'll teach you."

and he meant it.

he immediately withdrew from you — letting you fall onto the floor with both hands on the sheets, facing the bed. you almost scrambled to get back up, until you heard corio's pants drop from behind you. he kicked open your knees, and found himself with your perfect round ass pressing into his cock. he pressed the front of you into the bed, and snaked a arm around your throat.

you felt the tip of his cock prod at your wet and swollen lips before he slipped his length inside of you. you tried to lean forward into his thrust, but corio didn't like that. with a hand wrapped around your throat, he pulled you backwards against him.

the angle made your shiver. the tip of his cock began to hit the wall right behind your clit, making your head go dizzy. his finger found the corner of your lips, dipping inside your mouth. he pulled at the corner, forcing you to look up at him.

"so helpless — so perfect —" he groaned, rutting into you. his head held you perfectly in place for his total control. "can't believe i let myself miss out on the chance to breed my perfect wife. so perfect, aren't you?"

you didn't know what to say. your head was swimming. you were barely down from your first orgasm and now corio was forcing another onn you. hormones, emotions, and sensations were running wild inside your body and you weren't sure how to make sense of the fever. coupled with his own frenzy, you were a mess. a rubber band, for him to snap and play with whenever he liked.

"i asked you a question," he snapped. "you're perfect, aren't you?"

you hesitated, working through insecurity as lust overtook your mind. mumbling, due to the finger in your mouth, you spoke, "perfect."

corio stared down at you in awe. your hair was a mess, as was the rest of you. your face was flushed, your lips were swollen, but your eyes... oh, your eyes... corio was a sick bastard. the look of any sight of wetness in your eyes during sex made his cock so hard he could explode. crying with need was a feeling corio would never let himself feel, no matter how much he wanted to let it overtake him. he wouldn't let himself feel it, but he couldn't hide the fact that he loved the vulnerability you showed when you wanted him. needed him. craved him. his thrusts weren't rough because he hated you, but because he knew that need all too well.

"keep crying for me," he rasped, letting his tongue fall past your ragged lips. "so pretty when you're a mess."

there was nothing like it — being held so tightly you couldn't move and being forced to accept the pleasure and satisfaction only corio could give you. draining you of every negative emotion you had ever felt to replace all of it with animalistic give and take. his own throaty groans were being swallowed by you, as his hips snapped relentlessly against yours.

"make me a mommy, corio," you whispered. "wan' it so badly."

his grip tightened around you as he shook with pleasure. with three thrusts and a heavy groan, he let all of his spend leak inside of you and paint your walls. you felt his rough voice against your ear, mouth obscenities as satisfaction overtook him. you hadn't came again, but you didn't care — not when the air still felt so warm and soft.

that was until you felt a hand find your clit with his softening cock still inside you.

you knew how sensitive he was, and you should've care — but you didn't. all you could think about was giving into how good his fingers felt against you, still feeling so full. the thought of him also being so sensitive while you rode his cock pricked at your senses, relishing in the fact that you were giving him a taste of his own medicine as you came around his cock.

"greedy fucking wife — !" he seethed, anger spewing from his lips as he struggled to fuck you back with his oversensitive cock. you knew it was so red that it was purple and swollen, hating you but loving every bit of you at the same time. you should've cared, but you didn't. not when you knew it felt so good for the both of you, his whines in your ear telling you everything. with one final groan against you, he spoke, "you're never leaving this fucking bedroom — i'll tie you to the bed if i have to, do you fucking understand?!"

all you could do was stare up at him with awe and tears in your eyes.

his mouth parted at the sight. with his cock still inside you, you still riding his softening cock as you rode out your orgasm, nothing was prettier. nothing fulfilled your corio more. with one last kiss, he spoke, "just as evil as me, aren't you?"

you giggled. "i love you, too."

---

if you're wondering if i went batshit insane i did HAHA hope you enjoyed

L xox

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too-much-tma-stuff · 1 year

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Mutually Assured Disaster

How I imagine the first meeting from @the-b1ah AU here. I plan to write Danny’s first patrol with Jason and maybe the training as well.

This isn’t edited so if you see any errors please let me know.

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Danny skidded around a corner, his shoulder slamming into the brick wall but there was no time to worry about that bruise and it did stop him faster. He took off again down this ally, a energy blast slammed into the wall just behind him and he gritted his teeth, flinching but not making any noise or slowing down, he needed all the air he had to run. He was already so weak from what the GIW had already done to him but this was his only chance, the transfer to their facility in Gotham. He could sense that the city was a never-born in its own way and it was closing ranks to protect him, walls shifting in perceptible ways to open up passages for him, guiding him towards something and slowing the agents down.

He was so weak and the cuffs still on his wrists stopped him from phasing through anything, all he could do was run, feeling the blood and ecto pumping through his veins quicker with each step. It stained the white pants and scrub shirt they had given him, he was getting dizzy, his quick breathing rasping over a dry throat and his legs burning but he couldn’t stop. Not when he had just now started to sense what Gotham was sending him towards.

It was a signature like his own! Another undead, someone who could help him and hopefully would. Gotham felt to warm to be sending him to someone who would hurt him or be taken too, he trusted her as one of the never-born ancients, she wanted what was best for the city that was hers. He tried to turn another corner, fell, rolled and managed to stagger back to his feet though it sapped his momentum and tore open a few more old wounds. His eyes landed on a tall, broad man wearing a red helmet that completely covered his face. That was him!

“Help me,” Danny gasped desperately, “Please.” He hadn’t even noticed there was a gun trained on him until it snapped to the opening of the ally. Danny scrambled behind the strange man, making himself small as the guys and white came sprinting around the corner as well, blasters pointed at them.

“Return the fugitive!” They demanded as Danny’s abused legs finally gave out and he sunk to his knees with a soft whine, praying that this man would be enough to keep them both safe.

“Fugitive? That’s a whole ass child, why are you chasing a child with guns?” Red Hood demanded furiously, his own guns trained on the two agents.

“They might look like a child but their an extremely dangerous meta. We know Batman doesn’t like metas in Gotham, so we’ll just take him and go.” The agent said starting to approach only for hood to fire a warning shot at his feet making the man step back.

“Fuck what batman wants, this is my territory and I don’t let anyone hurt kids. Meta or not,” He snarled.

Danny heard the sound of one of the blasters charging up and gasped, looking up frantically. “Look out,” He yelled, lunging forward just in time to accidentally take the blast to the side instead, well he had meant to push hood out of the way but this worked too he supposed. He didn’t even have enough air to scream, whining through gritted teeth as he collapsed to the ground, curling in on himself and shielding his head as the air around him was filled with the sound of gun shots. It felt like forever that he lay there curled in on himself defensively as his head swam and blood and ectoplasm seeped out the new hole in his side, joining the dozens of other injuries he had.

Then it was quiet, and after another second there was a hand on his shoulder, Danny flinched violently away from the touch. “Hey kid, it’s just me,” the robotic voice assured and in that moment Danny had never found anything more comforting. He looked up and around, seeing that he and the man in the red hood were the only things left alive in that alley.

Danny gasped and nearly threw himself into the older man’s arms, he gave a startled sound but caught Danny as he trembled and clung, tears running down his cheeks as he struggled to catch his breath. “It’s alright kid, I’ve got you,” Red assured, shifting his hold on Danny so he could pick up the teenager when he stood. “Let’s get you to a hospital huh?” He asked, only for Danny to choke and frantically shake his head. “Alright, no hospital, will you let me patch you up then?” He asked, nodding firmly when Danny sniffled and nodded as well.

“Alright, I have a safe house near here,” He said, turning away from the small pile of bodies he’d left in the alley and carrying Danny towards, hopefully somewhere safe. The way that Gotham curled protectively around them seemed to say it would be. “I’m Red Hood, what’re you called kid?”

“Danny Phantom,” The kid whispered against Jason’s chest.

“That’s an odd name,” Hood said blandly and Danny might have laughed if he had the breath, if it wouldn’t have hurt to much to do so.

“So is Red Hood. I had another name, but I can’t use it anymore,” he murmured brokenly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason asked, and only received a little shrug in return. “Alright fair enough,” Jason said with a shrug, shifting to hold Danny with one arm so he could jump up and drag down the fire escape, climbing up so he could duck through the window of one of his many apartments scattered through his territory.

He carried Danny through into the bathroom, putting him down on the edge of the tub carefully before flipping on the light. “You up to having a shower before I look after your wounds, just to rinse off the blood? I’ll grab you some clean clothes, my little brother left some stuff here that should fit you.”

“Sure,” Danny agreed softly. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I’m pretty damn tough. But, before that could you.. try and take these off please?” He asked, holding out his arms to show Hood the cuffs still around his wrists, the suppressors. There had been a chain between them but it was broken, he’d managed to snap it during the chase.

“You’re not going to cause any problems for me or my city are you? I know suppressors when I see them,” Jason asked, low and dangerous. Danny’s eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously, slowly pulling his arms back and hugging himself.

“No, I know what they said, but I’m not actually dangerous I promise. I mean I probably could be dangerous if I wanted to be, but I don’t, I’ve only ever wanted to protect people but they-, they just didn’t see that.”

Shit the kid was crying again, Jason hadn’t meant to do that, but he had needed to know and Danny’s answer was obviously true, kid wore his heart on his sleeve. Jason sighed and dug in his pocket for his lockpicks before holding out his hand for Danny’s. “Alright, I believe you, let me get those off for you,” He agreed.

Danny reluctantly let Jason take one of his wrists, watching as Jason struggled a little with the cuff, muttering a little about paranoid people. The second one was faster, Danny rubbed his wrist and murmured thanks. “No worries,” Jason said as he stood. “Now you shower, I’m going to grab you some clean clothes.

Danny watched Hood leave, taking the cuffs with him before quickly stripping off the bloody clothes and getting into the shower. He flushed out the worst wounds before icing them over and scrubbing the blood and filth off of him from weeks of imprisonment. Jason knocked to make sure he was alright a couple of times before Danny finished and got out, wrapping a towel around his waist and sitting back down on the edge of the tub. “Alright, you can come in. You don’t have to worry about the cuts really though, I’ll heal.”

Jason let himself in, pausing for a moment when he saw the ice, or maybe the extent of Danny’s wounds which were… well they were pretty damn bad. At least they hadn’t gotten around to fully vivisecting him yet. “Whether you’ll heal or not you’ll heal faster and with less scarring with some proper stitches. Can you melt the ice as well?” Hood asked and Danny nodded. “Good, you can melt it as we deal with them then. Do you want a painkiller first?”

“No point, they don’t work properly on me,” Danny said with a shrug making Jason wince.

“That must suck,” He sympathized as he got out the first aid kit and set up what he’d need to clean and suture the wounds. Danny shrugged again, he didn’t seem talkative but he was very cooperative as Jason asked him to melt the ice on various wounds to let him check them.

“So did those guys do all this to you?” Jason asked and Danny blinked at him.

“You don’t know about them?” He asked, already knowing the answer when Red hood gave him a pointed look Danny could sense even through that helmet.

“Nooo,” he drawled, “Should I?”

“They’re a government agency called the Ghost Investigation Ward,” Danny told him softly. Jason snorted only to realize Danny was completely serious. “They’ve been hunting anything with a high enough ecto-signiture for years, so you need to be careful Red. Gotham is hiding you, but especially after they see how they helped me they’ll be after you too.”

“Ecto-signiture?” Jason asked blankly, what the Fuck was that?

“Anything like us. People who died, and didn’t come back, or came back wrong,” Danny explained and Jason let out a soft startled sound.

“How the fuck did you know that?!” he asked, defensive on instinct, only calming down a little when Danny lifted his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Like often recognizes like,” Danny said with a little shrug again.

“Fine,” Jason grumbled, letting it go for now rather then thinking anymore about his own death, or Danny’s for that matter, the kid didn’t look any older then Jason had been when he had died, younger maybe. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” Danny said, sounding relieved. Grabbing the clothes that Jason had brought for him since they were done looking after his wounds now. “Those idiots wouldn’t believe I actually needed to eat no matter how many times I told them I did. They just punished me for pretending to be human,” Danny said making Jason freeze as rage flared inside him, breathing through the green flickering on the edges of his vision as he thought about how Danny had been treated. “Hood,” Danny said softly, and Jason felt a hand on the vigilantes arm.

Danny started to hum, an odd purring sound that didn’t sound particularly human, and to Jason’s surprise after a moment something within Jason started to resonate to the sound. Jason calmed quickly as the place reverberating inside him sent waves of calm the way the pit usually radiated rage. “Okay now?” Danny asked with a smile and Jason nodded, blinking out of the slight daze before he cleared his throat and turned away abruptly, heading to the kitchen to start cooking, Danny following him like a silent shadow, his feet not making any sound on the floor.

“You just lay down on the couch and rest, any allergies?” Jason glanced over and Danny shook his head, Jason nodded, made a choice and took off his helmet, glad he’d warn a mask under it tonight. He wouldn’t exactly be able to taste the food or eat with the mask on after all, and he had a feeling that he was going to be spending more time with Danny, at least until he was healed.

“Do you have anywhere else to go?” He asked, just to confirm his thoughts. He decided to make omelettes since they were quick and it was fun to have breakfast for dinner sometimes.

“No, my sister doesn’t have a place of her own, and my parents would either sell me back to the GIW or dissect me themselves. I can look after myself though, now that you’ve got the cuffs off and the GIW off my tail I can avoid them from here. Something to eat and a little sleep and I can be gone by morning,” he said with a determined set to his jaw.

“Absolutely not!” Jason said, pointing the spatula at Danny and lowering it quickly when the boy flinched. “I’m not leaving a kid alone on the streets, let along one who’s not from Gotham! You’ll stay with me till we find you somewhere else safe to go,” Jason said firmly and Danny hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“Okay, but once I’m healed I can help! You’re one of Gotham’s vigilantes right? I’ll fight with you.”

“Also no, I’m a vigilante but I’m no Batman, I don’t do kid-heroes, you’re to young for this life,” Hood insisted, flipping the eggs.

“You’re about two years to late for that,” Danny snorted and Jason nearly dropped the food, cursing softly when he messed up the omelette. Oh well it would still taste good it just looked a bit more ugly.

“Excuse me? How old are you?”

“I’ll be 16 in a bit more then a month,” Danny said sounding sulky. “And I’m not going to stop helping people no matter what you think. I have these powers, I want to use it for something good.”

“You’ve been acting as a hero on your own since 14!?” Jason demanded, and the look of shame on Danny’s face was all the answer Jason needed. “Fine, you can come with me. But you have to hang back, stay safe, and fucking listen to me. Got it? I’m not having your death on my conscious!” Jason insisted and tried not to be pleased by how Danny immediately brightened and grinned at him.

“Thank you! It’s going to be so nice not to have to do all this alone! To have a proper mentor, maybe?” He asked, getting softer and more uncertain at the end.

“Sure, sure. The bats are gonna have a heart attack when they find out. They’re probably going to try to steal you,” Jason joked and Danny snorted.

“I don’t want that, they’re too goody goody for me thanks. Besides, you’re like me and I was able to calm you down wasn’t I? I can help you more,” Danny said, and Jason decided not to suggest Danny might be better off with the bats. Maybe it was selfish, but he did want the help Danny offered, and he was already attached to the kid.

“Fine, but you’re not going anywhere until you’re completely healed, and you’ve showed me what you can do. We’ll practice together and once I think we’re a good enough team then you can come out with me. And I want to know everything you know about the GIW and whatever laws enable them to get away with this bullshit, because we’re going to have to do something about that too.”

“Of course!” Danny agreed and Jason could see him practically vibrating with excitement, he had to suppress a smile so Danny wouldn’t catch on to how cute Jason found that. He really shouldn’t, but it was to late now.

“Good. Now come eat,” Jason grumbled, transferring the first omelet onto a plate and handing it to Danny.

Part 2: here

#jason todd #danny phantom #Jason becomes a dad #dc x dp #the GIW #Red Hood #Danny Fenton #tw violence #this isn't edited #might edit and post on AO3 later

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frodothefair · 9 months

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As I sent my dad chapter 3 of my story and looked back at the early chapters of Flowers of Mordor, I realized something. My writing style has ever so slightly changed as I've been working on this story since... June now? My editing process has become more exacting, and my standards for myself as a writer have changed. So what did I end up doing on this Tuesday night? I went and re-edited Chapters 1-3. There isn't much change in substance, but I've fixed some issues with flow and word choice, made certain passages clearer, and now I am happier with it. Some passages changed more (case in point below), some very little.

This is, perhaps, understandable, as before FoM, I had not written anything for years, and there were some cobwebs that needed to be knocked off my writing voice. But then, that begs the question, how do I keep this from becoming a sisyphean effort when the goalposts seem to shift?... I think... I want to say that I made my editing process more exacting around chapter 4, and, skimming random passages, I want to say that I really came into my groove somewhere between chapters 4 and 10, but who's to say. I has happy with everything I posted in September (chapters 1-9) at that time...

Examples of a passage from Ch 3 before and after under the cut. What do you think?

(@konartiste, thought you might be curious to see this.)

Before:

“Alright, that’s sounds wonderful, Marigold,” Frodo said, standing up hurriedly and backing away towards the door. “I very much look forward to trying it.”

The tea he had come to make had long since been drunk, and he placed the cup and the saucer in the sink.

“I have to ask Sam if he has any other requests for dinner, though, before it’s too late. I’m sorry…”

If Marigold felt slighted by the fact that her brother might not like her food, or that his actions were in direct contradiction to his words, she said nothing, and Frodo did not stay long enough to witness any further reaction.

He rushed out, for the hissing – though not quite as high-pitched and piercing as the Nazgul-kettle – was nonetheless starting to make his hair stand on end. He sighed in relief once he was out of earshot.

Poor girl. That was not very polite – and she was trying so hard. Hobbits were not generally fond of innovation, preferring what was tried and true, but he, the odd one out and from Buckland besides, had always taken it upon himself to oppose the general trend.

He figured he would have to make it up to her another time. For now, he had to find Sam and tell him about the tea-making customs he had supposedly learned of in his travels, and hope Sam wouldn’t ask too many questions about why he had not done the same.

After:

“I – I very much look forward to trying it, but…” He glanced around, and swallowed drily. “But I – I have to go – I’m sorry… I have to ask Sam if he has any other requests for dinner…”

Marigold did not turn around, so if she felt slighted by the fact that her brother might not like her food – or that her employer's actions were in direct contradiction to his words – Frodo could not tell.

She said nothing, and he could not bear to stay any longer to find out.

He rushed out, for the hissing – though not quite as high-pitched and piercing as the Nazgul-kettle – was nonetheless the reason why his heart was now fluttering like a frantic bird, and his hair was standing on end. He sighed in relief once he was out of earshot.

Poor girl. That was not very polite – and she had been trying so hard, too. Hobbits were generally not fond of innovation, preferring what was tried and true, but he, the odd one out and from Buckland besides, had always taken it upon himself to be the opposition.

He sighed, and lowered himself onto the nearest chair, and buried his face in hands.

He figured he would have to make it up to her another time. For now, however, it was imperative to find Sam and tell him of the tea-making customs he had supposedly picked up in his travels, and hope that Sam wouldn’t ask too many questions about why he himself had not done the same.

#flowers of mordor au #fanfiction #writing #my writing #wrtblr

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miloscat · 6 months

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[Review] Avatar The Last Airbender: Bobble Battles (PC)

A budget licensed RTS, it's about what you'd expect.

Frima Studio is a successful French Canadian developer: over the years they've done lots of casual, Flash, and mobile games, as well as some console stuff. I just found out they're working on a Risk of Rain spinoff currently. But one of their first jobs was making a tie-in Avatar strategy game in 2007, and they did it competently enough.

Based on Books 1 and 2 of the show, Bobble Battles takes its name from the "bobblehead" art style, better known as chibi or super deformed, which was employed in a few other spinoff projects like animated shorts, comics, and video games. It's an appealing look and helps a bit with readability of the characters when you're zoomed out (although character design could have differentiated common unit types a lot more), but you can't appreciate the look too well unless you're zoomed in, in which case the game is much less playable.

As a real-time strategy game in the vein of your Warcrafts and Dune 2s, it's been simplified and streamlined to the nth degree. There's only one resource, no upgrading, a handful of unit types that act identically between factions, and a basic control scheme. The limited nature of the controls hurt it as moving between the arrow keys to shift your view and the numbers for control groups is uncomfortable. Those are pretty much your only functions by the way; there's no attack-move or other specialised move commands, although hero units do have more flashy attacks.

I'm no RTS die-hard but even having played a bit of Starcraft and Age of Empires back in the day I couldn't help but find Bobble Battles wanting in gameplay. There's no rally points, few hotkeys, and just getting your units to do anything is a hassle. Selecting control groups instantly shifts the camera over to them, there's always a pause before they execute your commands, and they need to be heavily micromanaged to attack targets. Pathfinding in narrow spaces can be atrocious, with your guys often milling around or getting stuck on walls when you're on a city-based level. On the whole there's a lot of pain points in the micro scale, and little need for macromanagement at all. I understand the desire to create a game in this genre for younger audiences, but it's not just dumbed down, it feels shonky and shallow.

The game is structured in three campaigns. The first two more or less cover the heroes' journey through the first two seasons of the show, while the third has you playing as the Fire Nation trying to stop them. After completing these you unlock the Timeline mode, which rearranges the scenarios into chronological order... this seems superfluous. The missions do try to have some variety between small-scale hero exploration and production maps and to give you different kinds of objectives. They do a decent job at this, although the scope never gets very big. The most that will ever be demanded of you is juggling three control groups to defend three settlements that are pretty close together, but again this is baby's first RTS so I don't knock it for lacking difficulty.

As an Avatar game, it's kind of cool seeing events from the show reinterpreted into a new genre. You rarely had squads of people running around battling in the series, so there's some novelty to that. The characters having unique abilities is fun, and I got a kick out of seeing the designs of building and units between the nations. There's even one unique creature here, the goat-like mount that Water Tribe riders use. [EDIT: This beast does actually appear briefly in the North Pole episodes.] Only covering two-thirds of the show is a bit of a letdown, although to be fair it's an unavoidable consequence of the passage of time and when the game was commissioned. Can't argue with the immutable laws of time and space.

Bobble Battles is essentially fine. It works. There's even some creativity in how it's interpreting the source material and in the scenarios, but by attempting to simplify what is generally a complex genre, I think they went too far and actually hurt the playability. And that's before mentioning the dodgy behaviour of your units. It gets points for its uniqueness within the sphere of Avatar games, but it's hard to recommend except for completionists like me, and they would just play it anyway so it doesn't matter what I say about it!

#avatar #avatar the last airbender #avatar the last airbender bobble battles #frima studio #review #pc

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jorjawdesign · 1 year

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Week 9

Learning InDesign

The goal of this lesson was to introduce us to InDesign and to learn some basic tool/methods and processes that can help us when making our Book Design in both Fundamentals and DT1.

We’ve been learning how to use Photoshop and Illustrator which help us create and edit images, InDesign on the other hand is used to assemble elements together on a large document like cookbooks, magazines, newspapers, etc.

We started off with learning how to use text in InDesign and specifically paragraph and character styles. Using the type tool (T) we created a text box and filled it with placeholder text (with text box selected, right click and select ‘Fill with Placeholder Text’).

In InDesign, a paragraph is any text that is separated by two carriage returns. A carriage return is just hitting the return key after creating a title, bullet point, list item, or passage of text. To create a paragraph style, select the text you want to use as a paragraph style, then apply the necessary settings (bold, italic, size up/down, underline, etc). After opening the styles window (Window – Styles - Paragraph Styles), a window should come up and just by clicking the + button a style is added. The same process is used for creating character styles, but these are limited to characters or words.

A specific paragraph style that we explored was bullets and numbering which is interesting quite complicated to add to an InDesign document. I did find the process of creating this style quite hard but overall, the paragraph/character style process was easy to understand and will be helpful when creating my book design in DT1. I did find this tool quite boring especially because it becomes somewhat obsolete when you aren’t creating complicated paragraphs although I do see how it can help make this process more efficient.

The next part we learnt about was using images in InDesign. InDesign uses linked images which means all the images used in a document are linked to an image on the computer, this makes having a designated folder for these images really important and allows images on an InDesign document to be updated in real time if edited. A key part of using images in InDesign is how to resize them, unlike Photoshop and Illustrator, images in InDesign can’t just be resized as is, by doing that it crops the image, so you have hold Cmd/Ctrl when resizing and shift to resize it proportionally.

A cool tool that can be used in InDesign is the text wrap, which as the name implies, wraps the text around an object (usually an image), you edit the text wrap setting more by going to Windows – Text Wrap. I really like this tool as it creates some interesting effects with the text, and I think would be good to use in my book design for DT1.

To add to the text wrap, we also were shown how to paste an image into a shape (Copy Image - Draw the shape – Right Click – Paste Into) and with the text wrap we were able to make the text wrap around the object shape.

Overall, it was good to learn about these different tools and methods in InDesign, which would be helpful in other classes. I enjoyed learning about the text wrap tool and playing around with linked images by editing them in Photoshop and seeing them update in InDesign.

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heartofspells · 2 years

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15, 18,32, and 37?

Oooookay. This is now my second time trying to answer this. Thank you, tumblr, for eating my answer alkjfajfk

Hello, sweet!

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

I sometimes write in the margins, but I'm more of an occasional underliner/highlighter. Mostly I write whatever notes I want from a book somewhere else, mainly because there might be thoughts I don't want anyone else to see or read, or have them guessing WHY this particular part is important to me. And I never dog-ear. That should be criminal.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

"Sorry," he repeats. "How about we start again, Mr Black?"

Sirius realizes belatedly that he's gaping. He snaps his mouth closed and nods. The man's smile grows.

"I've looked over your file," he says, "along with your scans. I think I've put together a regimen that will be very beneficial if you'll allow me to try?"

Sirius is surprised by the question in the man's tone. Isn't he supposed to be told what he's meant to do? Ordered around until his stubbornness takes over and he eventually searches out someone new? He already feels off kilter, like he's landed on the wrong foot, kicked the ball too early and sent it shooting out of bounds.

"All right," he says slowly. "I'll give it a go, yeah."

The man beams at him happily. "Fantastic," he chirps. His energy is infectious to Sirius, bubbling up something warm inside him. "Well, Mr Black – actually, hang on a tic. I hate the formalities, I'll admit. Care if I call you Sirius instead?"

Sirius blinks again, once more thrown off his footing. "Er…'course, yeah. Hate the Black name, anyhow. I'd ditch it if I could."

"Brilliant!" the man says, grinning brightly, a small, deep chuckle emerging from his throat. "I'm Remus Lupin." He steps forward until he's in front of Sirius, stretching his hand out in offering. "Remus, if you please."

The thing about my writing is that not much changes in the editing phase other than a few minor shifts or adjustments. For the most part, what comes out the first time is what sticks, but I put a lot of thought into important parts before they're even written, which helps. But this scene from Healing Edge is one of the few scenes that I've ever completely changed. In the beginning, when I first had the idea for the fic and started writing, I had this entirely different scene written, a totally different vision for the entire fic. It was meant to be an enemies to lovers tale, but that very clearly changed and it all came down to this one scene.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

My dragonfly, my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw, and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me tight, it's getting cold.

This is from Snow and Dirty Rain by Richard Siken and I love it, every single word. It even inspired a fic.

37. If you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you?

Probably terrible things. They'd likely label me as miserable and insanely depressed and suffering from some sort of deep psychosis which is hilarious to me for a lot of different reasons. But really, I'd hope they'd at least look at what I've written and consider me insightful to some extent, firmly tapped into emotions and how people's heads work, and hopefully they'd mildly commend me for talking about those darker aspects of life others try to shy away from and hide in dark corners. Or maybe they'd just think I'm insane.

Send me weird questions if you'd like!

#weird writer questions #ask game #anon asks #ask #answer #lovely anons

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damienthepious · 2 years

Text

wahhhhh wehhhhh wahhhhhhh soft.

Flowers Pick Themselves

[ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Rilla, Sir Damien, The Keep, The Swamp of Titan’s Blooms

Additional Tags: (the swamp is basically a character in this one. somehow.), Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Established Relationship, Love, Ficlet, accidental magic, Romantic Inexperience, (just... love. idk how to. aughghhg)

Summary: Lord Arum exists in a symbiosis with his swamp. When he falls in love, it reacts in ways the monster does not expect.

Notes: Title from the poem Who Knows If The Moon’s, by E. E. Cummings, and honestly? I read that line and the idea for this fic sprung fully formed into my brain, so. Title from, inspired by, emotions kicked by. Thank you E. E. Cummings. this also was not edited as thoroughly as my stuff usually is, but i've had an extremely weird day and i unfortunately do not have... time. i'll try to come back to it and tighten it up when i can, but honestly i'm kinda fine with it as is, i think? Iunno, let me know if u like it maybe..... 👉👈

Lord Arum is the ruler of the Swamp of Titan's Blooms, for a set definition of the word ruler.

Most days, he feels like a gardener: tending land, coaxing growth, pruning when necessary, planning proper irrigation. Simple work with simple needs. Occasionally he feels like a shepherd, managing his flock of ridiculous, doting creatures. More complex, that role, but rewarding in its own way. Frequently he feels like a long-suffering assistant, attempting to argue and nudge his batty, meddling, chronologically-confused Keep into behaving reasonably, into remembering when it is, and what is needed now. And sometimes-

Sometimes, Arum feels more like the beating heart of his ecosystem. Feels like the accidental conductor of the orchestra that is his swamp, his smallest gestures and barest whims guiding the life balanced in this delicate web, with himself and his Keep at its center.

He did not truly notice the way his swamp bends around him, before. Why would he? If the paths he chose to walk were eased, opened wider between branches, smoothed roots down for better passage, how would he know any different? If the canopy opened wider to show him the moon when he turned his face upwards, it only felt natural. His swamp, his home, him, all part of the same whole-

("You are such a spoiled brat sometimes," Amaryllis gripes, her eyes fond above her scowl, and Arum huffs and looks away but does not argue.)

Arum never considered it a problem, before, that the ecosystem surrounding and connected would shift to his desires. That is how magic works, after all. Desire and will. And it is not a problem, not precisely, but it is... embarrassing. At times.

He sits with Damien on an evening, Arum's cape a blanket between them and dampness of the grass, Arum cutting plums for them as Damien watches the geese on the pond. His eyes flicker as the leaves shift, dappling light across the poet's face and kindling the brown of his eyes to intermittent amber, like flickering flame.

Arum's fingers slow, still, his eyes tracing the way the speckled light dances across Damien's skin, and-

The leaves shift, open, pour the rays of low light through like a cascade, painting Damien's features with the heavy richness of honey, his eyes closing against the light even as he upturns his face towards it, mellow sunset warming his skin so terribly gently as Damien tips his body sideways to rest against Arum's shoulder with a sigh.

("Just behave," he hiss-whispers to the geese, discouraging them yet again from following Damien's footsteps like devoted goslings. "I know how I feel about him but you don't need to make it so- so- obvious-")

Amaryllis wishes for a closer look at the enormous purple blooms for which the swamp is named, wants to see the way they glow in the night, and when Arum escorts her out at dusk she is so beautiful in her fascination, she is so brilliant and bright and clever and-

And the moths surround her as if she were truly a spirit of flame, the pulse of Arum's affection bleeding out, Lepidoptera fluttering against her cheeks with Arum's own desire to be close and closer still beside her.

She laughs, brilliant peal of sound, and the leaves all shiver without wind at the way Arum's heart skips a beat. The moths crowd even closer, alighting on her hand when she raises it in invitation, the corners of her eyes crinkling with her smile as she leans in to better observe their wings, antennae, delicate claws.

And when she glances over the fluttering cloud of wings, when she meets Arum's eyes through the mellow dimness, starlight catching on the fondness of her smile, Arum's heart booms in his chest, and every single insect takes flight.

It feels, always, as if his own emotions are on display, the swamp around him buzzing and glowing and blooming with his love, as obvious as a clanging bell, as impossible to ignore as a peacock with its feathers flared, and Arum-

Arum is unpracticed, in love. In loving like this, fierce and full and overwhelming. It feels raw, vulnerable, bloody like a wound and just as dangerous, and still he cannot stop the way it flows from him, resounding into his home. He loves them; his home loves them in fervent echo.

Or perhaps-

He finds the pair of them, hand in hand in the greenhouse, surrounded by new blooms that Arum is certain he did not intentionally summon, fragrant petals and trailing vines reaching to caress their shoulders, their hands, straining towards them as if they were the sun, blooms accelerating into fruit in months compressed to moments, and-

They notice him, brightening further, smiles and bouncing heels and breaths of laughter, and they run to him with an overflowing bounty in their hands, Amaryllis tapping his lips with a night-dark grape until he laughs as well, and gently bites the fruit out from between her fingers.

Perhaps Arum's home loves them, not in echo of his own feelings, but because it can see them precisely as he does.

Arum loves his home as itself, as a part of his Keep, as a part of his own soul.

Perhaps Arum's home loves them as he does, because it can see how they have grown to be a part of his soul, too.

#elle's fanfic #second citadel #lizard kissin' tuesday #ficlet #lord arum #sir damien #amaryllis of exile #the keep #the swamp of titan's blooms #im. ough. T.T

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writing-on-the-wahl · 3 years

Text

Writing Snippet #10

O Positive

Part 2

Ok so @im-a-wonderling had a FANTASTIC idea for a snippet, but I’m putting the ask below to not cause spoilers lol:)

Special thanks to @im-a-wonderling as well for the beta read, edits, suggestions, and expert medical knowledge to help make this way more realistic than my original draft! You’re amazing!!!

—————————————————

Hero shifted from side to side as she stood in line, fingers clutching a bottle of orange juice.

“Well you’re prepared.” Hero’s head shot up as the attendant waved her forward. “Normally people wait until after to go for the juice.”

She chuckled nervously. “That’s me... prepared.”

“ID?” She scrambled through her wallet, making sure she didn’t grab either of the two aliases she’d already used at different locations that morning.

She would have used the same ID, but last time she’d tried to explain that she healed super fast- a result of her powers- and could donate more, the resulting argument had lasted nearly an hour, with nurses questioning whether her “magic blood” could even be used at all (it was perfectly normal blood thank you very much), and they’d still only let her donate the normal amount.

She handed him the correct ID, and he shoved a clipboard full of paperwork at her. A phlebotomist led her to a reclining chair. Even though she’d filled out the information twice that morning, it still took approximately twelve years to finish the stack of forms. The phlebotomist returned, and began asking her an equally long list of questions. She only half paid attention to the stream of questions.

Have you received any blood transfusions?

No.

Have you traveled in the last 6 months?

No.

Are you free of HIV or any other blood diseases?

Yes.

Have you ever been pregnant?

Yes.

Wait! No!

The phlebotomist chuckled as she snapped on a pair of gloves. “Ok let’s see that arm.” Hero held out her mark-free arm. After the first donation that morning, the needle mark and resulting bruise had been gone in a matter of minutes. After the second, she’d had to wait over thirty minutes before the signs of her deception to fade. The phlebotomist wrapped a tourniquet above her elbow before consulting her paperwork.

“It says here you’d like to do a double donation?”

“Yes.”

“You have to be 150lbs in order to donate that much sweetie.” The older woman eyed Hero dubiously.

Her throat went dry. “I know. I am.”

“I’m just going to take one bag today; you’re looking a little pale, honey.”

“But the other phlebotomist let me—”She cut off and cleared her throat. “I mean, last time I donated. It was fine.”

The phlebotomist shook her head as she felt the inside of Hero’s arm for the vein.

Hero forced a cheery smile. “This is important. I’ll be fine.”

By tomorrow, she added silently. Or the day after that...

Last time she’d only been able to get in one regular and one double donation before she’d gotten called into help with a work emergency. She’d spent the rest of the day in bed, but had woken up fine the next morning. Of course, that was only half the amount of blood...

The woman narrowed her eyes before shaking her head.

“The shortage is the worst it’s been in years, but I’m only going to take one bag today.”

“But—”

“Unless you’d like to go stand on that scale over there?”

Hero blanched, then mutely shook her head.

The woman muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘I thought not,’ before raising her voice to a normal volume. “And make sure to take it easy and drink that orange juice you’ve got there.” She nodded at the bottle in Hero’s hand as she swabbed her arm with an alcohol wipe and picked up a needle.

“I will.”

————— 30 minutes (or so) later —————

Hero made it ten steps out of the building before she collapsed against the wall, head swimming. She peeled the tape and cotton ball off her arm. Blood immediately began to trickle down her forearm.

She struggled to unscrew the cap of her juice, hands shaking. Finally, she succeeded, the cap slipping through her fingers and bouncing against the sidewalk. She brought the bottle to her lips, but only managed a few sips before her stomach revolted. She clamped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, willing herself not to throw up.

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall, ignoring the curious stares from pedestrians on the crowded downtown street.

She needed to get home.

A quaking boom shook the ground, and Hero cracked open her eyes to see a plume of smoke a few blocks over.

Most likely the bank on main. Or the diamond store next door.

She took a step towards the plume of smoke, but the ground was still rocking, and she had a feeling it wasn’t from the explosion. She closed her eyes as panicked civilians began running to and fro.

Her phone rang out in a pealing tone, sending her a foot into the air, her orange juice falling to the ground with a sticky splash.

The emergency line.

Groaning, she accepted the call.

“Hero! Villain just set off a bomb on Main Street.”

“Diamonds or bank vault?”

“BOTH! You need to get over there now!”

Hero covered her eyes. She wanted to, she really did. If only the ground would stop moving.

“It’s my day off. Send Other Hero.” She cringed at her seemingly callous words, but she didn’t think the Hero Agency would exactly condone what she’d just done.

Even if she was just trying to save lives.

“Other Hero is undercover spying on Supervillain. Your phone shows you are six blocks away. That will take you 12 seconds to get your speedy butt over there.”

A second explosion rocked the ground.

Oh he didn’t. Hero growled, pushing off the wall and taking a hesitant step forward.

The ground was finally still. Much better. She pulled out the spare mask she always kept in her purse and fitted it across her eyes.

12 seconds, she scoffed.

————— 9 (and a half) seconds later————

Hero skidded to a halt in front of the shattered front windows of Pristine Diamonds.

The windows of the bank next door were in a similar condition. She rested a hand against the ash stained wall, gasping as the world spun.

She forced her head up, scanning the scene. A gaping hole had been blown in the wall connecting the two businesses, and smoke was still pouring out of both buildings. She darted into the diamond store, moving without her super speed through the black air. She made it to the back of the store, where the massive safe stood empty, the door hanging drunkenly off one hinge.

She cursed and made her way to the jagged hole. She was halfway across the bank lobby when a figure leapt from the smoke and she was thrown to the side.

She scrambled to her feet as Villain faded back into the smoke. His laughter echoed around her as she spun in desperate circles. The smoke thickened until it was nearly solid around her.

“You’re slow today, Hero.” The voice rang out behind her, and she whirled around, but there was nothing but smoke.

Her vision was truly swimming now. She swiped at her eyes. “And you’re extravagant. You can create smoke from nothing, you didn’t actually need to set off a bomb.”

“I was creating a passage between the businesses. They should thank me.” The voice was to her right, and she spun again. There was no point in super speed if she couldn’t see. Her head was starting to pound.

“And that outfit.” The whisper brushed against her neck, and she whirled around again, only to see the smoke curling in around the place where Villain had just stood.

She glanced down self-consciously at her pink shorts and baggy tie-dye T-shirt.

“You already ruined my day off. There’s no need to mock my clothes as well.” She huffed, taking determined strides in the direction she hoped was the door.

“Who said I was mocking?”

She sensed him behind her the instant before he attacked. She spun. He hit. She flew. Across the room. To the floor. Over chunks of rubble. And into a brick wall.

Her back cracked against the wall, knocking the air from her lungs.

Smoke swirled through the air as Villain emerged, the dark tendrils receding to lap at his heels.

He looked surprised; he’d never actually managed to land a blow that direct before.

Hero forced herself off the ground. It was time to retreat. She summoned her powers, but between her swimming head and the sharp pain in her leg, she made it only a few feet before sinking back to the ground with a quiet whimper of pain.

She forced her blurry gaze up to Villain, who was regarding her with a strange expression on his face.

“I thought you healed as fast as you can run.”

She blinked, and realized he wasn’t looking at her, but at her leg.

She looked down. Blood seeped from a long shallow gash on the outside of her calf, no doubt from a sharp piece of rubble.

Smaller cuts and bruises covered the rest of her body, and none of them were healing.

“That’s strange.” She wiped clumsily at the cut.

Villain’s eyes narrowed. “You seem oddly off your game, Hero. You haven’t lost that much blood.”

She mustered the energy to glare at Villain. “I did tell you this was my day off.”

“I wonder if it’s from the blood earlier.” She mused, floating on a hazy cloud.

The tendrils of smoke scattered as Villain knelt down beside her.

“What blood? You came to fight me when you were already injured?”

His voice sounded as though he was speaking through a tunnel.

“There’s a national blood shortage. Worst it’s been in years.”

“So?”

“So, I donated.”

Villain scoffed as he produced a cloth from somewhere and began wrapping it around her leg. “You have regenerative healing powers, a pint of blood wouldn’t have made you this weak.”

Hero shook her head and weakly held up five fingers.

Villain froze. “FIVE PINTS OF BLOOD!” He roared, smoke dancing angrily around them. “ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY INSANE!? YOU SHOULD BE DEAD RIGHT NOW!”

Her head throbbed with every word, and she flinched away.

“I heal fast.” It was barely a whisper, but his fiery eyes met hers.

“I don’t care how fast you heal. No one can survive losing half their blood.” At least now his rage was contained to a low snarl. He grabbed Hero’s hands and pulled her to her feet.

“Your hands are freezing! What were you thinking!? Why would you face me after donating that much blood?!? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

He continued to seethe as he swept Hero into his arms and strode through the bank. He paused only to swing a bulging duffle bag onto one shoulder before he swept out through a second gaping hole into a back alley. A dark SUV was waiting in the shadows. He tossed the bag into the back and slid Hero into the passenger seat.

She curled against the warm leather.

“I was just trying to help.” She mumbled, her voice muffled as she spoke into the headrest.

“I know.” A hand ran down her hair. “Close your eyes. Sleep.”

She forced her eyes wider, remembering. “I can’t. I have a job to do.”

Villain shut her door and rounded the car to the driver’s side. Slipping into place, he started the engine.

“Not today.” He managed a small smile even as his eyes crinkled in concern.

“It’s your day off, remember?”

Original request from @im-a-wonderling:

“I started thinking about a story where the hero donates blood and then the villain does something that the hero has to go and face them. The villain notices the hero is off their game, but assumes they’re just tired or something. Then, the hero gets injured. The injury is really minor in terms of blood loss, but the hero is pale and sickly and can’t stand up and the villain gets all protective like “WHY would you come and FACE ME if you DONATED BLOOD today?!” And the hero mumbles “They’re having a blood shortage.” And the villain is ready to wring the hero’s neck for not taking care of themselves. So they just scoop the hero up in their arms and brings them back to their lair to feed them and let them sleep.”

Again thanks so much for the request!! I hope I did it justice:)

#hero x villain #heroes and villains #hero and villain #hero #villain #snippet #my writing #write #writeblr #ive donated blood exactly once #thanks again for the medical expertise #don’t lie on medical forms pls ppl #chaotic good heroes #protective villain

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the-writers-bookshelf · 3 years

Note

Throughout school, I'd read hundreds of articles on writing advice, and collected beat sheets and outline checklists like some people collect stamps. But now, every time I try to write, all those "rules" get stuck in my head, even if I tell my inner editor that rules don't matter in the first draft. I judge every word so harshly I can't even get down a sentence. What can I do to combat my perfectionism so I can get something down?

Hi dearest anon!

Here's the catch-22 about writing:

There are "rules" and there are no rules at the same time.

The best way to get better at writing is to write and to read. Write to practice storytelling and read to learn how to tell a story.

Yes, certain rules are required to make storytelling satisfying, i.e. characters need arcs for development, and don't leave that plot dangling with an ending too vague to comprehend.

No, you don't have to follow every rule in the book. In fact, breaking some rules will probably be beneficial to you.

Battling perfectionism is never easy. It's going to be a process and it's going to be challenging.

But at this point: you are completely mired in the technical jargon of creative writing.

Ditch it.

Set it all aside and write something. If you have to write by hand in order to stop yourself from editing as you go, do that.

You're used to writing for school so there will be a mental shift, switching to creative writing for yourself. That mental shift will take time. And you will have to push for it, every day, by putting words down. Even if it feels like grinding teeth.

Sometimes writing comes easily. Those are the good days.

Sometimes writing does not come easily and days like this can come after you've had a writing success, after you've had a writing failure, after you've had a stressful week and you can't even think straight, after you've had a rough critique, after you've had friends and family ignore your finished work.

Writing won't come easily many, many times more often than the good days. So when you learn to keep writing, despite the days where it feels impossible, you're already developing a good writing habit.

You've spent plenty of time on the nuts and bolts of writing. Now it's time to cultivate your writing practice FOR YOU ALONE.

That doesn't involve any rulebook. All it takes is sitting down with your writing and putting words on the page. Something. Anything.

There's a time and place for those tools you've learned. But when you're getting the rough idea down on paper, it's a messy process and it's SUPPOSED to be that way.

When you say, "I judge every word so harshly", it sounds like you want everything to fit in neat boxes. Whether you've studied every technical element of writing or not, I think it probably runs deeper than just jargon overload.

You will have to continually remind yourself that perfection is NOT the key.

"Having written it down" is the key.

A couple methods you can use:

Word sprints

Write for a set period of time, i.e. 10 minutes, and see how many words you can write in that timeframe. Sometimes doing this with other writers inspires you to push for more words so you can "compete".

Be positive

Purposefully look for passages you like in your writing.

Read what you hate

Reading books/authors you hate in order to recognize that you CAN write better than that.

Daily word count

Sometimes setting an achievable daily word count goal is helpful to push past perfectionism.

Journaling

This might help you get the words flowing without worrying about a finished product.

In "The Artist's Way", by Cameron, she talks about cultivating a creative practice without expectations. She suggests writing three pages in your journal without stopping, without revising, without re-reading it, every day.

I've been doing this for years now and I wouldn't change it for the world.

It's going to take a lot of elbow grease to push back against the perfectionism. It will feel like a mountain of impossible.

But you CAN do it. It's just a matter of giving yourself permission again and again and again to create!

#asks #anonymous #pep talks from aub

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thegryffindorprincess · 4 years

Text

Too Hasty//Draco Malfoy x Reader

A/N: OKAY I’M SO SORRY I JUST LEFT THE WHOLE PLATFORM FOR LIKE A MONTH! Basically, I caught covid-19 (lmao) and have been dying for a few weeks, but today was my first day out of my uni halls and first day back in lessons so I’m back for now. Here’s a cute ass little story for you all, I will be back x

Word Count: 1,818

Set: Post War

Warnings: Literally none, just cute

Harry Potter stood in the door way of the dining room at the back of Grimmauld Place fondly, looking at the people sitting around the table. Hermione and Ron were sat together reading, him noticing her grinning slightly when Ron needed to read a passage of text out loud to understand what it was he was reading. His eyes shifted to George, Luna and Neville who were attempting to balance as many goblets on top of each other as possible, erupting into a fit of giggles when it fell, Luna casually flicking her wand before they made a large bang on the table. He also watched his fiance, Ginny coo at Teddy Tonks who was babbling away in his high chair, using the few words he knew to communicate that he was demanding more pumpkin juice. And finally, Harry smiled as Draco Malfoy attempted to spoon feed Teddy some very odd looking green paste that he’d read encourages toddlers motor skills. When their eyes met they shared a very understanding glance. Teddy giggled as the goop touched his nose, spraying some of it onto Draco, causing the blonde man to grimace slightly but smile at the small boy instead. Harry moved towards the table and began to stack the plates onto one another, moving them into the kitchen.

“Hey Harry, let me help you.” Draco said, wiping Teddy’s dribbling mouth, going to stand, starting to pick up a few of the plates. Harry smiled at him thankfully and the two of them began to wash up the dishes in the kitchen. Harry Potter liked this Draco Malfoy and was amazed at the man he had grown up to be. Since the war- and since Harry had saved him from a stint in Azkaban, Draco had devoted himself to things that brought the world good. He’d trained long and hard to become a Healer, helping to care for vunerable people who were affected by the war, he’d taken on Teddy as his own son, moving in with the Order of the Pheonix to not only care for his second cousin every day but to help his new found friends with their fight against dark magic. Everything about his new life appeared to be perfect, except one thing. As Draco and Harry finished off drying Teddy’s “Chudley Cannon’s” bowl, brought for him by Ron, the shrill sound of the door bell sounded throughout the hall. Harry jumped a little, excusing himself from the others and walked towards the door, right hand resting on his wand that was stuck out of his pocket. He flung the door open. The cool air from the evening night hit his face and a figure that had been waiting patiently away from the door turned to face him.

“Harry!” She exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air before wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in. Y/N Y/L/N was stood in the weak evening sunlight, her skin glowing. Her features were so gentle that they seemed painted, her hair was done up, wand stuck through it. She was grinning from ear to ear, skin tanned.

“Y/N! Come in, come in. You must tell us where you’ve been!” Harry helped her in, taking her suitcases and resting them by the staircase. Y/N entered Grimmauld Place, taking in how much it had brightened up and changed since the last time she’d visited. She wondered into the dining room, exchanging hugs and greetings with her friends, all of them exclaiming how amazing she looked and how much they’d missed her. She smiled back at them all, thanking them for their kindness.

“Oh it’s been amazing! Paris was just beautiful I am so glad I went. I feel like I’ve finally got over-” Y/N stopped suddenly, looking over to the figure who’d just emerged from the kitchen. Draco had been hiding in the darkness of the kitchen, but now was stood awkwardly in the dining room’s light. “Draco.” She breathed, finishing her sentence. He waved a little, throwing her a tiny smile. She didn’t respond. Pretending she hadn’t seen it, she continued with her anecdote, animatedly telling the group about her world traveling, her visit to most of the wizarding Ministries of Magic and her new career editing the Daily Prophet. The group listened intensely, hanging on her every word, Hermione keeping her eye on Draco as he stared nervously at his feet, remaining at the door. Y/N also told Teddy about the creatures she’d met from other countries, taking pride in the way he glowed. The conversation came to an end.

“Will you be staying Y/N?” Ginny asked grinning, “please say you’re staying!” Y/N laughed at her best friend.

“If it’s not any trouble, I can always go to the Leaky Caul-”

“No way.” Hermione said firmly, “you must stay here.” With that, Hermione took Y/N’s hand and led her up the stairs, Ginny and Luna following behind. Hermione took them into one of the spare bedrooms, where Luna’s bed was already set up and waved her wand, creating a new blow-up style bed on the floor. Y/N thanked her gently, throwing her heavy bags down by the dresser. The girls stayed for a while, making themselves comfortable in the room. They sat in silence.

“I didn’t know Draco was living with you now.” Y/N said quietly, making sure her face remained neutral.

“Yeah,” Hermione said, fidgiting with her sleeves, “he’s lived with us ever since his charges were dropped.” Y/N nodded quickly, going back to unpacking her bags.

“I’m sure Y/N doesn’t want to be bored by chat of her ex fiance.” Ginny slightly snapped, pulling Hermione with her, nearing the door. “We’ll let you sleep now, goodnight girls.”

Once they left, Y/N and Luna got ready for bed, exchanging slight chat as they did so, Luna very interested in Y/N’s travels.

“You know,” said Luna quietly as they both snuggled up into the covers, “Draco really is quite different now.” Before turning over and closing her eyes dreamily. Y/N huffed a little, turning over herself.

“Let’s not be too hasty.” Y/N mumbled, huffing again before going to sleep.

XXXX

The morning came quickly for Y/N who’d spent most of the night awake. At five in the morning, she slipped out of bed, putting on her dressing gown and gently plopping down the stairs. She wandered into the kitchen quietly, trying not to disturb the sleeping house. As she went towards the kettle, a figure moved out into the light, causing her to jump slightly.

“Draco!” She whispered, clutching her chest. He smiled at her softly, a small baby bottle in his hand, which he was shaking.

“How are you?” Draco asked, running a pale hand through his platinum hair, letting it hang messily in front of his eyes. “I feel like yesterday was a bit of a um shock for us both.” Y/N looked awkwardly, filling the kettle up with water, tapping it with her wand.

“Yeah it was a little odd, I mean last time I saw you you were a death eater and now you’re some kind of fucking saint.” As the words left her mouth, she watched his face fall. Her hands shot up to her mouth. “I’m sorry....I-”

“I can hear Teddy crying for his bottle,” Draco whispered horsely, pushing past her as he left the kitchen, “I’ll see you later.” Y/N watched him leave, unsure of what to say. She continued to make her tea, eyes threatening to spill tears as she sat at the table. Her owl flew in through the window, dropping the Daily Prophet onto the table top. She thanked it, before settling down to read in the morning sunlight.

XXXX

When the rest of the house arose, they were rushing around getting ready for work. Knowing Draco would be staying home all day with Teddy, some of the gangs attempted to haul her to work with them, George explaining how much he’d love to have her at the shop, Ginny saying that Y/N would be more than welcome to help referee, but she politely rejected all of them. They left one after another, all looking very important and busy. As Ron shut the door behind him, the last one to leave, the house fell into a sudden silence. Y/N watched from the dining room as Draco played with Teddy, teaching him letters from a small leather bound book. His face was painted in a gentle happiness as he watched the small boy fondly, running his hands through his dark locks. She watched closely as Teddy’s eyes began to flutter close, Draco hauling him up onto the sofa and covering him in a blanket from the chest on the floor. As Draco placed a small kiss on his forehead, Y/N entered, settling on the living room floor and tidying some of Teddy’s toys away.

“Leave that,” Draco said, swatting her away, “I’ve got it.” Y/N shuffled awkwardly from him, letting him squish past to grab the toys.

“I wanted to say sorry.” Y/N began, looking Draco in the eyes for the first time since last night, “You didn’t deserve that. I shouldn’t have spoken to you in that way.” Draco nodded, continuing to tidy up the floor.

“I’ve not stopped thinking about you.” He slightly whispered. Y/N felt like she’d stopped breathing for a moment. “Not dated, not kissed, not,” he lowered his voice, looking over to Teddy to ensure he was asleep, “fucked anybody else.”

“Really?” She asked. “Neither have I for the record I couldn’t.” Draco swallowed, looking down at her, where she sat on the floor.

“I kept my promise to you.” Y/N cocked her head a little confused. He rolled up his sleeve, showing her the nearly faded dark mark that still lay in his skin. “I will counter act my evil until my mark disappears for you.” Her mouth fell open as she watched how he flinched at the sight of his arm. She leant up, Draco allowing her gentle fingers to stroke the mark.

“For me?” She repeated.

“You.” Draco watched her carefully as she stood from where she was standing, moving closer to him. He automatically pulled her into him, just like he always had.

“Kiss me idiot.” She said grinning, allowing him to grab her jaw softly, pulling her into a glowing kiss. She felt her skin heat up as her pressed closer to her bringing her closer and closer.

“Uncle Dray?” A tiny voice squeaked from the sofa. The two shot round just in time to watch Teddy looking confused at them.

“Yes Ted?” Draco quickly said, regaining his composure.

“Is that your new wife?” Teddy asked innocently, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Y/N began to giggle a little, covering her mouth with her hand. Draco began to laugh to, walking over to Teddy and pulling him into a cuddle.

“Let’s not be too hasty hey Ted.”

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monstersandmaw · 4 years

Text

Male drider x reader - Part Four (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

I think the previous parts have had a female reader, but I left it ambiguous/gender neutral in this one, even in the nsfw bits, mostly out of habit.

It's 8000 words, with a bit of angst, a good dose of fluff, some recognition of unhealthy attitudes, and a slightly messy nsfw scene at the end...

Hope you enjoy!

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Gilvas waited until you’d closed the matching panel at the other end of the secret passage, and then turned away.

While you worked on the catalogue, you couldn’t shake the vulnerable look on his face as he’d told you about his late wife and as you’d stared at her vivacious features in the portrait. In the nine years since her death, he’d become a shadow, haunting this creepy old mansion and drifting from one day to the next, and it broke your heart. Gilvas was clearly a gentle soul, though his fuse was short at times, but you had begun to suspect that it was more of a defence mechanism than a character trait.

As evening billowed around the stone walls of the enormous house at the end of the day, with an awful lot still swirling around your mind, you nearly walked straight into Naril who was loading his last pile of autumn leaves into a wheelbarrow by the back door. He called your name just in time and you sidestepped with a bashful grin.

“So is it true?” he asked almost immediately.

“Is what true?”

His ears waggled and he laughed as he dumped the leaves into the barrow with a little flourish. “You and the master…?”

“Me and the master what?” you snorted, crossing your arms. “You make it sound like we’re school kids caught snogging behind the bike sheds! He showed me the portrait of his wife and told me a bit about her, that’s all.”

Naril shook his head expressively. “We’ve had people here on the estate before, you know? None of them ended up strolling the corridors with him.”

“How’d you know about it anyway?” you asked instead, resisting the urge to flick him in fond reprimand on his large ear.

“Chiara came in and started talking to my dad about it. I couldn’t believe it, and neither could they. The master doesn’t ‘chat’ with anyone…”

You shrugged. “Well, if he’s happy talking to me, I’m happy enough to listen. He seems nice, once you get past the way he likes to bark at you.”

Two days later, while you were stooped over the working version of the catalogue, scribbling something down in the margins of your cataloguing notes, the shadows moved in the recesses of the library, and Gilvas emerged. You looked up and smiled. “Hi,” you offered.

He nodded curtly at you and began to pace.

Setting your pencil down a minute or two later, you asked, “Everything… alright?”

Gilvas turned, apparently on the point of snapping something acerbic and defensive at you, but he caught himself in time and paused, throat working. The dark red birthmark on his neck moved and shifted like ink in water. If asked, you’d have said he was nervous. “I… I was wondering if you would take tea with me on the terrace today.”

You froze. Of all the things you’d been expecting from him, that had not been it. “Uh…” you began artlessly.

“Or not. You don’t have to,” he blurted, turning away. “Stupid idea anyway.”

“Wait,” you laughed, relief washing through you. “Wait. I’d love to. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

If you’d been surprised, it was nothing to the expression on Chiara’s face when he summoned her to the library with a little bell pull that you’d not spotted before.

“You… You want to take tea… You want to take tea outside…?” the harpy repeated, looking unsteady on her clawed feet.

As if he’d just realised how unusual it was, his expression went blank, his four ruby eyes going dull, and he seemed to deflate. Gone was the intimidating, sharp-edged lord of the manor, and in his place you saw a vulnerable, shattered widower, with no one to talk to and rusty social skills.

Reading her master well enough, Chiara schooled her features into something resembling their usual sternness, and she nodded. “Of course. I will have it set up for you and…” she looked at you with her golden eyes and you tried not to shrink away. “For the both of you.”

“Thank you,” you said, and she nodded, departing.

“I think I gave her quite the shock,” he muttered, half smirking.

With a snort, you said, “We’re just going to have to find more ways to surprise them.”

“Them?”

“Your staff,” you said. “It’s clear that they all respect you, and they enjoy working here - well, obviously I can’t speak for all of them, but I have supper with Mr. Ambleside and his son almost every night. I don’t get the impression that they’d object to seeing a bit more of their mysterious master from time to time.”

“It’s been so long,” he croaked. “I… I’ve hidden myself away up here. I… I don’t remember — I mean…” he broke off and you noticed how glassy his eyes were.

Cautiously, you approached him and laid your hand on his foremost right leg. It was smooth like glass, and cold. It felt extremely brittle, though you knew the chitin was pretty tough. Your eyes nearly drifted to the empty stump on his right side though, and you suppressed a shiver. It wasn’t that tough. He shuddered and you nearly retracted your touch. “Sounds like you could use a friend to take tea with every now and again…” you said gently.

“I’d like that,” he said. “If… If you could bear it.”

“Bear it?” you repeated. “Please. I wouldn’t have accepted if it wasn’t something I didn’t already want to do.”

Gilvas fixed you with a piercing red gaze, making the blood-dark streak of his hair and the swirling birthmark stand out in vivid detail. “No,” he mused slowly, his legs and spider body relaxing a little into your touch like a great machine coming to rest. “I don’t suppose you would.”

Tea on the terrace became a daily fixture, weather permitting, and on the first day it was rained off, he asked you into a small drawing room on the ground floor that you’d never been in before.

Four and a half months into your stay, he leaned over the table and poured you another cup with shaking hands. He always shook, you realised, though the tremors worsened when he grew agitated or emotional. If Naril was right, he was about ten years older than you, and while at times he seemed youthful and almost playful when you got him talking about one of his interests - mathematics was a particular favourite of his - there were times when he seemed stiff and tired, and much, much older than you; and older than he truly was. He carried the weight of his grief around with him everywhere, dragging at him like chains, rattling in the quiet corridors of his mind and reminding him of his heartache. He never went too long with a smile on his face, the expression often shattering or sliding off his face to leave a brittle mask behind.

“Gilvas?” you asked as he set the teapot down on the tray with a rattle. “Everything alright?”

“You’re too perceptive by half,” he grumbled. “I wanted to ask you to dine with me tonight.”

“Oh,” you breathed, taken off-guard.

“You sound disappointed,” he said a slight huff to his tone.

Conflicted, you said, “It’s Naril’s birthday. He’s celebrating with the rest of the staff and some of his friends tonight, and he asked me to join him…”

“Then you must go, obviously,” he said. After a pause he added, “Naril is the one who tends to the gardens, is he not?”

“Mmm. He’s a firbolg.”

“My father always hired firbolgs for their way with nature. I’d forgotten that Ambleside has a child. How old is he?”

“About my age, I suppose?”

Whether or not he was aware of it, Gilvas’ face shuttered at that. With a sigh, he shifted his already vague gaze to the huge patio windows beside you and stared out at the gardens beyond. It had been raining earlier, but it had cleared up now to leave broad puddles flashing in the sunlight on the terrace. “I think I will go for a walk through the gardens this evening before sunset…”

“You want some company?” you asked, but he shook his head.

“No. Thank you.”

Naril’s party was just rowdy enough to be fun without straying too far into unruliness, and you stayed up late in the kitchens, laughing and joking with him and his father, who, it turned out, had quite the sense of humour with a few glasses of wine in him. Eloise, the maid, also joined you, and a few friends of Naril’s who lived in Starfall Springs. The laughter continued long into the night, until his friends from town announced that it was time to head back just shy of one in the morning.

Waving them off at the end of the night, still buzzing with the unusually vibrant evening, you and Naril turned from the upper gates and walked back to the house. In the dark, the firbolg could see much better than you, so he let you loop your arm amicably through his to stop yourself stumbling on the uneven driveway.

Just as you stepped back into the kitchen, he cracked a good-natured joke at your expense, recalling a moment from earlier in the evening, and you nearly fell about laughing. “Oh my gods,” you wheezed as you clung to his arm to stop yourself tripping up the step. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the plosive consonant with a chuckle. “You’re far too easy to tease. I —” he cut off suddenly, expression falling. His eyes were wide and he was staring at a point on the far side of the kitchen.

You looked up and found the hulking shape of a drider standing silhouetted in the dark doorway. “Forgive me,” Gilvas said stiffly, jaw working. “I came for a brandy. I thought you’d all turned in for the night.”

You blurted, “Gilvas?” at the same time as Naril whispered, “My lord?”

“Forget it,” he said, turning abruptly in the wide doorway. “I hope you enjoyed your evening together.”

Even after the door slammed behind him - the gesture leaving a sour taste in your mouth - neither you nor Naril spoke.

Finally it was Naril who broke the silence. “I’ve never seen him before…” he murmured, awestruck at the encounter. “He looks dreadful. Perhaps he is sick after all?”

“He doesn’t look as dreadful as he looked three months ago,” Chiara’s unexpected voice said tartly from the pantry to your left where she’d apparently been occupied, stowing away the remnants of the uneaten food.

You swallowed. “Well… I… uh… I guess I’d better head back. Thanks for tonight,” you said, hugging Naril briefly. “Happy birthday. I’m sorry I didn’t have anything to give you… It’s not as if I can go into town or anything from here…”

“Couldn’t you ask your friend to pick you up,” he said. “You know, the one you phone every Friday?”

Despite having phoned Damien every week since arriving, you’d never even thought of asking him to drive all the way out here and pick you up for the weekend. He’d probably do it though if you asked. “I guess I could…”

The idea took root in your mind, and as you took your break the next day, you used the house’s landline to call Damien’s shop since he’d be at work too.

“Hey!” he chuckled. “You don’t normally phone today. How’s things at the Spookville Court?”

“Don't call it that,” you scoffed. “It’s fine. Listen, I haven’t got long, but I was wondering if maybe you’d be free this weekend…? I know it’s not exactly a short drive, but I’d kind of like to get out of here for the weekend…”

There was a pause while he checked his calendar. “Sure,” he said. “I can pick you up on Friday night if you like?”

“You don't have plans?”

“I was gonna grab a beer with Sarrigan since he’s in town,” he admitted, “But maybe if you can get away early, we could go together?”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t…” you said. No one was monitoring your hours after all, and it wasn’t as if you hadn’t made huge inroads into the project already.

You grinned and practically flung yourself at him when Damien’s truck drew up outside your cottage on the far side of the courtyard. The wide expanse of gravel sat on the side of the house with the servants’ entrance, and was overlooked by the back of the mansion.

“I missed you!” you laughed, letting the colossal orc spin you easily in a circle. “You still smell like chocolate,” you said as his immensely long, black plait caught you in the face.

“Just proves I’m sweet,” he joked, and you groaned, smacking him in the chest with the back of your hand as he set you down.

“That was a bad pun, even for you.”

“You ready?” he asked.

“You don’t want to stretch your legs first? You’ve literally just got here.” He shook his head, but did nip inside your apartment for a drink of water and a bathroom break. While he was gone, you leaned against his truck and looked up at the trees above you. The height of summer was fading to the bronze of autumn now, and a few coppery leaves rained down around you like confetti, spiralling through the air that promised a change of season soon.

“Ready?” he asked, swinging your overnight bag easily into the truck and helping you up the enormous step into the cab.

As you drove away, you glanced up at the house and caught the glint of sun on a window as it closed on one of the upper storeys, but you soon forgot about the house as Damien began to regale you with stories of your friends’ antics.

With Widowsweb Court in the rear view mirror, you sighed and settled into the comfy seat, letting Damien talk as the house dwindled to nothing behind you. It felt good to be away from the limited confines of the estate, but as you looked forward to a weekend in Starfall Springs with your friends, something nagged at the back of your mind, like a caught thread pulling in the sleeve of a favourite sweater…

Your whole weekend in Starfall Springs was like the first breath of fresh garden air after a day spent in the dusty library of Widowsweb Court.

Damien had taken you to the Inglenook Inn that first night, where he, Sarrigan, their respective partners, plus a mothman named Merritt whom you’d met a few times before, and a couple of your other friends were gathered, and the lot of you talked late into the night. There were a lot of questions about Widowsweb Court, but you mostly focused on the work and describing the house and gardens to them. Somehow it felt disrespectful - an invasion of his privacy - to talk about Gilvas much.

As you left the pub to walk back to your modest apartment at the north end of the town, Sarrigan caught up with you. As he scuttled up to you, you were struck suddenly by the difference between him and Gilvas. Sarrigan Silkfoot’s silver-banded fur rippled in the moonlight, ruffled by the night breezes, where Gilvas’ spider body was black, hard, and shiny as black lacquer, and where Gilvas’ legs moved like articulated, curved daggers, Sarrigan’s were chunky and muscular and unbelievably fuzzy, ending in a little hooked and almost dainty talon. Gilvas’ legs ended in wicked points, sharp and slender as paring knives, and his fangs probably carried a deadly venom, where Sarrigan’s smile held only jollity. Gilvas also had no mandibles, where Sarrigan’s hardware clicked and chittered with his emotions.

“Listen,” he said as he fell into a near-silent step beside you. “I know you’ve not got any reception up there at Widowsweb, so I haven’t been able to get in touch by text or whatever, but I just wanted to ask you - away from the others - how it’s going. With my family’s history with theirs, I did some digging into the Widowsweb estate and the family…”

“You did?” You weren’t sure whether to be offended or curious, but in the end, the latter won out. “What did you find?”

“Just tragedy. Lately anyway. Earlier generations seem to have done ok, but… you should look him up.”

“Who, Gilvas?”

He nodded.

“You mean the fire?”

Again, he nodded, shuffling nervously. “The police think he started it, but they could never prove it.”

You scowled, horrified and hurt. “Sarrigan, I’ve met him. He doesn't seem like the type to murder his family - and his unhatched children too?” You shook your head, appalled, stomach roiling. “He’s devastated… rarely talks about them, and when he does… he’s close to tears. I think he lost a leg in the fire too.”

Sarrigan’s handsome face remained harsh and he clicked his mandibles pensively. Finally, he sighed. “Just… be careful, ok? The articles I found all said he had a nasty temper, and that since his wife’s death, he fired all the staff and turned into some kind of recluse…”

“They’ve got the last bit right,” you said, “But not the first.” He did have a short fuse though. “Thanks for looking out for me, Sarrigan, but I’m not worried.”

He nodded once. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

You shook your head and parted from him with a warm hug. “I appreciate it, but trust me… Gilvas isn’t some cruel, violent lunatic. He’s an isolated widower who’s never learned how to move past his grief.”

To your relief, Sarrigan seemed to take you at your word, and left you at your door looking happier for having aired his anxieties, and in turn having had them laid to rest.

The remainder of your weekend passed without incident, but you couldn’t get Sarrigan’s words out of your head. If he’d been painted by the press at the time as some kind of violent monster, it was no wonder that Gilvas had hidden himself away on his estate and never spoke to anyone.

On the Sunday of your weekend away, you met up with a few friends at Damien’s cafe for breakfast, and spent the better part of the day while the sun was out browsing the marketplace. As you passed a carpenter’s stall, your eye was drawn by a number of carved, wooden puzzle boxes. The satyr who had made them was demonstrating how one of them worked to a small crowed of fascinated onlookers, and when he finished, finally sliding the last section of wood free, the lid sprang open to reveal the empty chamber inside, and everyone applauded.

Fascinated, you realised what a tactile thing the boxes were, and suddenly thought of Gilvas. With his reduced sight, he relied a lot on his sense of touch. On a whim, you bought one and had it wrapped neatly in brown paper by the satyr. Thanking him, you headed home and packed up, bringing with you a few new clothes and a few more things to occupy your evenings.

Bouncing back up the driveway in Damien’s truck that evening, you couldn’t miss the looks the orc tossed you sidelong, and as you drew to a halt in the courtyard again, he stayed put in his seat and asked, “Are you really alright here? It’s so remote…”

“It’s fine,” you said. “I love the work, and the people are kind. I promise I’ll ring you the moment I’m unhappy, but for now, I’m honestly loving it. I’ve never had a better or more fulfilling job, Damien. I can’t believe I’ve got so little time left really…” You paused and sighed. “I almost don’t want to leave.”

He bowed his head and backed off, though not without pulling you half into his lap for a bone-crushing hug first. “Take care, OK?” he grunted before releasing you.

“You sure you won’t stay for some supper?” you asked as you slithered out of your side of the cab and landed on the gravel. “I bet you’d love Naril.”

“I can’t,” he said with a regretful grimace. “I need to get back to prep the shop for next week. Another time?”

You nodded. “Drive safely.”

For the entire week following your return to Widowsweb Court, you didn’t see even the slightest glimpse of Gilvas.

There was no trace of his having been in the library at all, and the secret panel at the rear of the room stayed firmly shut. You didn’t think it was your place to go wandering the corridors again, and although you continued to take a mug of tea out onto the terrace every afternoon, it was hardly the spread of High Tea that you had shared with him every day for months. The whole place seemed empty without his presence now, reminding you of your very first week there, when every shadow and doorway had loomed ominously large before you.

Finally, at the end of the week, you ran in to Chiara on your way back down and you paused to let her past with an armful of linen. “Chiara, is… is Gilvas around? Is he alright?”

She narrowed her eyes and tutted softly at you. “None of your concern,” she snipped at you before bustling off.

You stood there, mute and surprised.

It definitely didn’t sound like he was alright, but what were you to him, really? You thought of the box stowed away in your room, waiting for the right time to be brought out and given to him, and suddenly felt foolish. You’d known him for a matter of months. He was a lord, with land and a title; he had a whole household full of things already, and you were just there to reorganise his library. He’d probably already forgotten about you.

You worked solidly through the morning again the next day, but didn’t feel hungry enough to go down to lunch. You continued on through the day, pausing only to sip from your water bottle before heading back up the ladders time and time again with armfuls of books. It was exhausting. There was no trace of the webbing he’d used to catch you, and since there was also no sign of him, you made sure to take extra care going up and down.

With a sigh you finally set down the last of the hagiographies at eight o’clock that night, and put your hands to the small of your back, grunting. Dusty, tired, stiff, and still oddly demoralised, you thought you heard the creak of a door from the back of the library, but you’d barely dared to hope before the main doors opened and Naril stumped in, looking terribly out of place and awkward in his gardening overalls. He had mud on his trousers, but his boots had been scraped clean.

He sighed your name in obvious relief when he spotted you. “You ok?” he asked.

“Fine, why?” you frowned as you turned to face him, still with your palms pressed to the small of your back.

“You didn’t come to lunch, and you missed supper as well. I was worried about you.”

You smiled and dropped your hands to your sides. “I’m fine. I just… haven’t felt like myself lately. Thank you though.”

An awkward silence hung between you, and he scratched the back of his head. “Right. Well, there’s… uh… stuff in the larder and fridge if… if you get hungry. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t been crushed by a ton of books or something.”

With a chuckle, you said, “This isn’t The Mummy you know? People do actually secure their bookshelves…”

He laughed briefly and headed for the doors again. “Seriously though… Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked, ears waggling.

“I’ve… I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Ok,” he said, green eyes wide and glassy. “Well, you can always talk to me. What are friends for, right?”

“Right. Thank you, Naril.”

He nodded, and left.

In the silent stillness of the library, you sank with a heavy sigh into one of the nearby chairs and let your palm cradle your chin, with your elbow planted on the wood of the table. When had this place started to feel so sad again? It was as if the gloom was seeping back into the fabric of the place like a sponge soaking up ink.

About a minute later, a familiar movement caught your attention and you looked up to find Gilvas standing beside a bookshelf. He was tilting his head in that way that meant he couldn’t see you in the dim light, but he knew you were still there.

“I’m here,” you said quietly, hardly daring to move in case he scuttled away.

Locking onto your voice, he moved with expert familiarity round the library and came to a halt near your table. The only light now came from a lamp one shelf over. “I… I overheard…” he began stiffly. His red gaze sailed right over your head, so it was clear that he couldn’t see you, even this close up. “Is… I mean… Are you alright?”

“Could ask the same of you,” you said wryly, eyeing the dark shadows under his eyes and the tightness around his mouth. “I haven’t seen you in ages.” He looked dreadful again, as if he’d hardly eaten anything in the interim.

“Been better, I suppose,” he said. “The firbolg said you haven’t eaten today… is that right?”

“Mmm.”

“Should we raid the kitchen together?”

You smiled. “You haven’t eaten either I take it…”

He shook his head.

Standing, you swayed as a head rush washed over you and you let out a tiny grunt of surprise, grabbing the back of the chair.

With a scowl, he stepped closer. “Alright?” He steadied you, his hand finding your waist and lingering there.

“I missed you,” you breathed unthinkingly as you stared up at him.

Gilvas froze and then let out a rough exhale, withdrawing a few paces. “You did?”

“Mmm. I have something for you too, from Starfall, but it’s back in my room. I… I’d started to think I wasn’t going to see you again…”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers curling briefly into fists at his side. “I… I rather let the melancholy take over again.”

“Why?” you asked, stepping closer to him. His ear followed you and he narrowed his eyes. You got the impression that you’d just stepped into his limited field of vision and he could now make out your silhouette in the shadowy library.

The lord of Widowsweb Court gave a bitter, brittle laugh and turned away, legs moving in sequence like a windup toy. “I think I misled myself,” he said eventually.

Your brows knitted and you closed the distance between you, laying your hand boldly on his cool, obsidian foreleg again. As before, he shivered, but he didn't pull away. “What do you mean?”

“I suppose I got carried away - this past month in particular,” he said in his rough baritone.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said, that cut-glass edge returning to his voice. “You don’t know what it was like before you came here; before you —” he stopped himself but then took a breath and continued in barely a whisper, the consonants softly articulated. You had to lean in closer to hear him. “Before you brought the light back to this place.” His voice cracked as he added, “And you took it with you.”

“Gilvas…” you gasped, shocked by his tone.

“I know,” he growled. “It’s inappropriate of me, and melodramatic. You were only gone for two days. But it’s the truth. I got so swept up in spending time with someone again — in… in enjoying myself — that I somehow forgot that you have a whole life outside of our brief interactions here, beyond these walls…”

“Naril's birthday…” you breathed and he nodded. He’d stumbled upon you and Naril sharing a laugh and a close touch at his birthday and had assumed from the physical closeness that there was something more than friendship between you. That had been the last time you’d seen him.

Then he shook his head in disgust and sneered self-deprecatingly, “It’s as though I became a teenager again - spoilt and sour and… everything I loathe about myself.”

He backed away out of your grip until his huge carapace nudged against the shelf behind him and he went still again. Trapped between you and the books, he breathed heavily for a moment through his aquiline nose. Your heart was beating in your throat but you kept quiet.

“I have a nasty, possessive side,” he said, scowling. “I’d almost forgotten about it, but as — I hesitate to call it a friendship… I’m not sure what we had between us — but whatever it was grew, I came to think of you as… mine. And then I saw you laughing with him and… I remembered that you’re not mine at all. I have no right to make those kinds of disgusting demands or claims. You’re not mine — you’re not anyone’s but your own person. I forgot myself, and I hated myself for it.”

He was jealous.

Gilvas was jealous that you’d been laughing with Naril that night. Despite the anguish on his face, you had to smile. When he heard you chuckle softly, he growled at you again, deep and rich and animalistic. Defensive. That was all it was; defensive bluster.

“It’s true that Naril has come to be my friend here,” you said, moving carefully closer to him now that he couldn’t back away any more. “But I thought about you all weekend while I was away. I couldn’t get you out of my head. When my friend Sarrigan —”

“— Silkfoot?” he interrupted with a sneer. “‘Sarrigan’ is an old Silkfoot name…”

“Yes. Sarrigan Silkfoot is a friend of mine,” you said carefully, noting the lingering displeasure in his features. “He’s currently dating a human, and my best friend, Damien, is also very much in love with a human. If you’re worried about what previous generations of Silkfoots thought about relationships between species, you needn’t worry. The current heir to the family - Sarrigan’s older brother - has even recently married a human. Things have moved on since the founding of Widowsweb…”

His chest heaved and he sank lower so that his pendulous spider’s body was only a few inches above the ground, and his torso and head were almost on a level with yours. “I’ve hidden myself away too long,” he whispered, more to himself than to you.

Taking a final step over to him, you stood in the space between his deadly front legs. It felt suddenly intimate in the extreme, and you reached your palm out and laid it on his chest. He flinched, but let you talk.

“Sarrigan told me a bit more about the papers said… about the circumstances of the fire… about what people believed at the time…” you said carefully, and Gilvas’ face darkened dangerously. “But I got to know you before I’d heard that, and I can’t believe you would have started it. I can’t believe anyone thought that of you.” You placed your left palm to mirror your right and felt the way his chest heaved with emotion as he listened. “You’re a good person, Gilvas. I told my friends that, and they believed me. And I think you’ve suffered alone for long enough.”

Gilvas’ expression shattered and he leaned forwards and drew you into his arms. “I don't want you to leave…” he whispered into your hair as he held you close. He smelled like books and sandalwood, warm and comforting, and you let your arms snake around his waist.

“I don't have anything else lined up for after I finish here,” you said without letting go. He was gently inhaling the scent of you, you realised, and you let him hold you, drawing comfort from the warmth of your body. “And I told you there’s a lifetime’s worth of work to do on this library…”

“I could renew your contract,” he said. “Or… Or you could… No. I don't want you to feel… obliged…” he said, swallowing thickly and drawing sharply back from your embrace as if you’d burned him. “If I’m paying you —” his face buckled into a sour grimace and he lurched slightly further away from you. “I don’t want to pay you to stay here…” he spat as if the idea thoroughly disgusted him.

You laughed. “I own my apartment in Starfall. I could rent it out for some income, and come and live here with you. That way… there’s no imbalance…”

“Yes,” he nodded breathlessly, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing. “Yes, that’s… that’s good. And if you still have your apartment, you can… I mean… there will be somewhere for you… if… if you decide…”

“Stop,” you said. “Don’t push me away again.”

The drider took a huge inhale and nodded. Then he licked his lips nervously and said, “You know, we were going to raid the kitchen before we went down this path. You shouldn’t make any rash decisions on an empty stomach.”

“An excellent point,” you said with mock seriousness. “Let’s go.”

Over a rather strange and cobbled-together supper of leftovers scrounged from the pantry, eaten at the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen, Gilvas stayed almost completely silent. At first, you thought he was just concentrating on eating, being particularly careful about his movements since he didn’t see as clearly as you did, but after a while, you discovered the crinkle in his brow and noticed the tremor in his fingers again.

“Wait here,” you said, pushing back from the table and touching the back of his hand briefly. He was always so cold.

“Where are you going?” he barked, tense.

With a giggle, you said, “Trust me. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, you vanished out of the back door and scuttled over the gravel to the little apartment above the old stable block where you’d been staying for the past few months. Minutes later, you returned to find him exactly where you’d left him, scowling at his food.

He looked up sharply as you reentered, and you watched his shoulders drop with relief a split second later when he figured out that it was you.

“Here,” you said, holding out the brown paper parcel to him, touching it to the back of his fingers in case he couldn’t see it.

In moments, it was obvious to you that he couldn’t, because his fingertips trailed along the edges, looking for a way into the parcel. “What is it?” he asked warily, shifting his head from side to side.

“You’ll find out. I saw them being made in the marketplace, and I think with your sense of touch you’ll probably have an advantage over someone with sharper vision…”

At that, his frown deepened, though not from discomfort. He was openly curious now, and he got to work on the wrappings, abandoning them to one side. “A box?” he murmured when he’d run his fingers all the way around it. Watching him, you suddenly felt a thrum of desire go right through you. You wanted him to do that to your body, to explore you by touch, and you barely bit back a moan as the force of it swept through you.

He paused and turned his face towards you expectantly.

“Yeah,” you croaked. “It’s a puzzle box. It’s all inlaid with different types of wood, and there are a few panels and sections that you have to slide in the right order to open it.”

At that, his face cracked into a gorgeous, open, delighted grin and your heart slipped sideways in your chest at the youthfulness it lent to his features. “I used to love these as a child,” he said. “Thank you.”

He moved then, obviously not having been sitting on a chair like you, and found his way faultlessly around the kitchen to where you were seated opposite him. The little inlaid box lay to one side on the table while he took your hands in his and squeezed your knuckles fondly, earnestly.

“Thank you,” he rasped again.

You raised your chin and he let go of you with his right hand and brought it up to cup your left cheek in his cool palm. His thumb traced an arc across your skin and you shivered, exhaling and breathing hard. “Gilvas…” you whispered, want burning inside you inside you like a flare. You didn’t want to push him or rush him, but if he didn’t kiss you in the next three seconds, you thought you might just wither up and die on the spot.

Mercifully, he leaned down, tilting your chin upwards to meet his lips. His kiss was soft, his lips cool and hesitant, but the moment you let a little moan of pleasure escape you, he deepened the kiss. His long fingers scrunched in your hair and he closed his red eyes with a flutter of long lashes. His two forelegs rose up slightly for balance as his body rocked downwards and he pulled back with a gasp, chest heaving again. “I want you,” he whispered hoarsely, looking suddenly shy.

You grinned and stood. “I want you too…”

Gilvas led you through the house, pausing with endearing frequency to kiss you breathless against almost every spare surface that wasn’t covered by paintings or suits of armour or priceless vases on precarious pedestals, and finally he backed you up against the double doors to a bedroom on the fourth floor, and picked you up so that you had to latch your legs around his waist at the point where his humanoid torso met his spider’s body. You ground yourself against him as he kissed you over and over, his long hair falling around your face in a black and red curtain.

With one foreleg, he delicately pushed the handle down and nudged the doors open. Still holding you, he drew your top off over your head, discarding it to one side as he carried you across the room and deposited you onto a massive bed. It bounced and flexed beneath you, and as you looked around you discovered that it was not a bed, but a thick and intricately woven web slung between the two perpendicular walls of the far corner of the room. You leaned back into it, feeling the soft silken strands flex slightly beneath you, and looked up to see Gilvas’ silhouette in the darkness of the room.

The moon shone through an open window to your right, painting fine silver highlights to the gleaming lacquer of his carapace and needle-like legs, and in the moonlight, you saw that he was dripping webbing onto the floor from the gland at the tip of his spider’s abdomen. You knew enough about driders to know that when they got really aroused, they often leaked webbing like this. Male driders did not mate the way many other beings did, but that didn't put you off. You wanted him - his pleasure, his ecstasy, his noises, his joy…

It did make him suddenly nervous though, as if he’d only just realised that you might be expecting him to penetrate you, and with his anatomy, he couldn’t.

“Gilvas?” you asked, reaching up for him where he still loomed hesitantly above you. “Come here… let me take care of you…”

“I…” he began, but he let you draw him down onto the soft, smooth webbing. His legs ended in those dazzlingly sharp points, and he seemed to dance across the webs like a circus performer on a high wire. He lowered himself down atop you and you kissed him again. His hands skated over your hips and he drew the rest of your clothes off to abandon them beside his bed.

Seeking friction, he carefully slid his slick abdomen against your legs and shivered, moaning. “You’re so warm,” he whispered, head bowing forwards as he rested on his elbows, one on either side of your body. “I can’t believe how warm you are… it’s… it…”

“Does it feel good?” you asked, raking your fingers through his long hair and he nodded wordlessly. “Can you roll over?” you asked.

“Oh gods,” he gasped, clearly aroused by the idea, and nodded.

It wasn’t the most elegant manoeuvres, but once he was on his back with his legs curled upwards like a black, clawed hand, you sat in the gap where his one missing leg should have been, and ran your hand over the smoothness of his underbelly. In no time you discovered the slit in his lower body that was leaking slick, pearlescent fluid all over himself.

“Oh!” he yelled, spine curling and legs twitching as you traced your fingertips around the softer inner walls of the slit. Where the rest of his body was cool and hard, there he was almost searingly hot, the inner walls silky and slick. “Oh gods, oh gods… oh gods…” he chanted in time with your motions, his whole body twitching and making the webbing rock beneath him.

The tendons of his neck stood out in glorious contrast beneath the watercolour birthmark as he clenched his jaw and rammed his eyes shut, lost in the sensations. His fingers scrabbled at the web of his bed and he rocked and shivered and arched into your touch as you worked him closer and closer. You knew he was going to make a mess when he came, and you felt your whole body flush hot at the thought of finally getting him to let go of all his tight control and insecurities, to give himself over to the simple, honest pleasure you were offering to give him.

The thought of that was almost enough to make you come yourself, but you focused on him until he growled softly.

“I want…” he began but cut off as you grazed a spot inside him unexpectedly with a fingertip that made him bellow wordlessly. “Fuck…” he hissed when he’d recovered, head lolling back again, and you grinned at the curse on his aristocratic tongue. “Wait…” he panted. “I want… I want to touch you… before I… before you make me…” he growled again in frustration. “I’ll only be able to… to… come once… please… let me…” Hearing him lose control of his words like that in the face of his arousal only made it all the more endearing.

“You can touch me,” you said coyly without changing anything, but when he genuinely snarled, sounding more like a werewolf than a drider, you laughed and leaned closer to him.

His cool fingers dug into your arms as he tugged you tight against his body, pulling you down to lie atop him along the length of his belly and humanoid stomach, and you ground yourself against him for a little relief. His hand slid down your body, down your side, and before you could think, he was pleasuring you. “Let me,” he hissed when you tensed a little, revealing his venomous fangs as a flash of white in the dimness when you tried to pull back to finish him.

“But I wanted to make you come,” you pouted, and he actually laughed at that, four red eyes closing and crinkling softly in the corners with genuine amusement at your disgruntlement.

“Too bad,” he groused. “I want to watch you first.”

“Fair enough,” you grunted as he caught you just so and you rocked against him. “I’m so close…” and you really were. His touch was relentless, demanding your pleasure in return for the sensations you’d just given him.

“I know,” he snarled right in your ear, teeth - the non-venomous ones you hoped - just grazing the shell of your ear. “I can smell it on you.”

And with that, you came unexpectedly hard, crashing into your release and clinging to him. He eased you through it and when you lay panting and spent on his chest, he moved his hand to his mouth and cleaned himself luxuriantly, obviously enjoying the taste of you on his skin.

After that, he seemed softer and more relaxed, and when you’d recovered enough to get your legs back under you and return your attentions to his body, he finally seemed to have allowed himself this connection to another person. His body heaved and rocked rhythmically, his legs knocking nonchalantly against each other as he spasmed and moaned, and as he grew wetter and slicker around your hand, and his inner walls began to clench and shiver in a distinct cadence, you knew he was getting close. He was also giving you the most delicious sounds; gasping and cursing, grunting and even wailing softly at times when you slowed your touches to a barely-there whisper against him.

Eventually though, he began to rock against you in earnest, and you felt his release coming as a rapidly-building wave, gathering momentum until it finally ripped through him like a wildfire. White release gushed from his entrance and covered your hand, rolling down the sleek, shiny carapace to soak into the webbing while his body heaved and convulsed with pleasure. He made no sound, his face contorted in a rictus of pleasure as he gave everything he had to you, his hands gripping the webbing as he released in messy waves all over himself and you.

Finally as the pleasure faded to something gentler and less intense, he lay back, motionless on his bed, muscles completely slack, face soft, breathing quiet.

“Gilvas?”

“Mmm?” he hummed without moving.

“You alright?”

“Mmm.”

Weak and completely spent, he lay there unmoving for a long time while you gently trailed your fingers around his still clenching slit as aftershocks of pleasure rippled through him. Eventually, you wiped your hand clean on the webs beside him and shuffled up to lie beside him. He still looked absolutely exhausted and drained, and you sat there a long time just watching him.

After a very long time, he mustered the energy to open one arm to you and you nuzzled in against his bare shoulder. His breath hissed softly through his slack jaw and he pressed a shy kiss to the top of your head. “See why I wanted… to make you… to make you come first?” he whispered, words heavily slurred and indistinct.

You nodded and shifted to drape your arm across his chest and draw idle patterns over the bare skin of his white torso.

His skin was starkly pale in the moonlight, and as you stared at him, you realised he’d probably relied solely on touch for the whole time you’d been in the room. You smiled and pressed a kiss to his jutting collarbone, making him inhale sharply.

He was still too thin, still obviously not taking care of himself properly, but, you thought, if he’d trusted you and let you in to this extent, perhaps you could both take care of each other now.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he whispered after another long while of silence and closeness in the dark.

“Just thinking how good this feels,” you said honestly. “And how I could lie like this forever… Or at least… until you’re ready to go again.”

He snorted, taken off-guard. “Won’t be for a very long while,” he said bashfully. “Driders don’t recover quickly. Not the male ones, anyway.”

“I’m in no rush,” you said, laying your cheek back down on his cool skin and shivering as goosebumps rippled up your body.

He fumbled around on his other side and drew a large blanket up and over his body, careful to avoid the mess on his carapace, and let you snuggle up beneath it.

You’d have to wait for the dawn to go again though, because you were asleep in his arms in minutes.

___

Maybe we'll get to see more of them in the future, but for now, this four-part story is over. Thanks for your comments and enthusiasm for the cranky spooder boy!

___

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

#drider #exophilia #male drider #male drider x reader #drider x reader #monster boyfriend #drider boyfriend #male monster #gender neutral reader #female reader #(technically - although the reader in this part is gn)

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zedecksiew · 3 years

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Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

+++

( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

#reviews #kriegsmesser #gregor vuga #warhammer #writing #rants #overthinking #rpgs #wfrp

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duskholland · 4 years

Note

OK I HAVE A MOB!TOM REQUEST...what about like reader is really innocent in bed & he's always on top but he asks her to be for once? & she's like really blushy & nervous but helps her out & it's hot but also sweet & passionate...ahh I am soft & hot for mob!Tom

-- clearing out the askbox: mob!tom edition --

mmm soft!mob!Tom...? yes please || 18+ !!!

“Do you want to change things up tonight, darling?”

Tom’s above you, one hand on your cheek, the other at your waist. Your lips feel puffy and inflamed, your chest heaving as you recover from a series of very intense kisses.

“What do you mean?” You ask, whimpering a little as Tom’s hand slips over your bare waist. It’s evening, and as soon as you’d stepped from the shower, Tom had taken the opportunity to pull you down into bed with him. You’re in only a pair of panties, wearing nothing else but his kisses.

“Well.” The hand on your side slowly strokes up your front, and Tom kisses your jaw. “How about you ride me tonight, love?” He husks into your ear, lips catching your lobe. “Hm?”

You feel your eyes widen, and your grip on his hair falls a little looser. “You want me to… Ride you?” You repeat, stammering over the words.

Tom pulls away from your neck, gazing down at you curiously. He hums in affirmation and then kisses your nose, lips lingering there for a moment. “Yeah. Nothing I want more than to watch my stunning girlfriend ride me.” When your lips quirk into a smile, Tom kisses your cheek, eyes glinting like jewels. “I can help you, if you’re nervous.”

It’s been a lot of firsts, with Tom. Your first long-term partner, your first sexual experiences. He is the first man that you’ve fallen in love with, and as you gaze up at his face, flooded with adoration and concern for you, you know that you couldn’t have chosen better.

“Okay,” you agree, exhaling a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

Tom’s careful to turn you over, and he sits up against the headboard. He’d shed his clothes long ago, and waits as you shyly pull off your panties and clamber up into his lap. His hands roll over your hips, warm and assuring, and he peppers your neck with kisses as you giggle.

“You’re the most beautiful goddamn woman in the world,” he coos, punctuating each word with a kiss. Your lips curl into a smile, and you card your fingers through his hair as Tom pulls back. He leans to the side, stretching out a muscled arm to rummage through the bedside table before procuring a condom. Tom offers it to you, one of his hands skirting down to cup your heat. As you whine and buck down to meet the pressure, he presses the foil into your palm. “You do me, and I’ll do you?”

You nod, fingers tearing the foil packet. “Sounds good to me,” you reply. Your breath hitches as Tom nudges your thighs further apart and drags two fingers through your slit. As you roll the slippery condom down his firm length, Tom slips two of his slender fingers into you wet cunt, working you open in preparation.

“Are you okay with this?” Tom asks, wide-eyed when you reach down and pull his hand away from your entrance. As much as you’d love to roll over the edge on his fingers, you have different plans.

“Yeah,” you reply. You shift closer, Tom’s arms encircling your torso as you brush up against his cock. He’s hard, and you moan softly as you feel the pressure to your clit. “Gotta learn someday, hm?” You kiss the spot behind his ear, smiling against his neck as Tom grunts. “Anyway, you’ll help me, right?”

Tom nods his head. “Of course, darling.” He reaches down, and you sit up a little straighter, looking as he positions his member, aligning it with your entrance. You bite your lip as you feel the pressure to your pulsing hole, already desiring the stretch that comes with taking him. “Love you,” Tom reminds you, lips falling briefly against your shoulder. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark, rippling with unbridled lust.

Taking the lead, you reach up and rest your palms over his stocky shoulders, holding on as you slowly, slowly sit on his cock. You whimper quietly, breath hitching as your passage opens, welcoming him into your tight heat as you moan. As you settle over him, Tom’s hands move away from his length and go to your hips, guiding you down, aiding you when get lost in the dizzying sensations of him pressing your walls apart.

“There you go,” he murmurs, voice raspy. You fall to a stop, fully settled on his cock, and your forehead drops to rest against his shoulder as you pant. “Perfect, sweetheart. So perfect.”

You smile against him, thanking your lucky stars for landing you in the lap of such a gentleman.

“You’re so big,” you murmur, kissing his shoulder. Tom’s hands are moving over your back, rubbing soothing circles over your skin. After a final breath, you pull back to look at him, meeting his eyes. “‘M gonna move now.”

“Okay.” Tom squeezes your waist. “Just… Do whatever feels right, darling.”

You’re slow to start moving, and as you first drum up a rhythm, it’s a little clunky. The feeling is unfamiliar - the position rigid and unyielding - but Tom’s patient with you. As his hands help to angle your hips, his lips are on your face, ghosting your cheeks with kisses, speaking words of gentle encouragement into your ears until you’re melting into his arms. After a few attempts, you finally settle into it, moving over his cock in a way that feels good for both of you.

“Fuck,” you curse, dropping your forehead to Tom’s shoulder. Your face is dislodged each time you come down over his member, but you like it. Like how rough it feels, your forehead bouncing against his skin as Tom’s hands grab at you. You enjoy picking up the pace and feeling him quiver in response, his voice twisting higher into more desperate pants. “Feels so good.”

“Mmm.” Tom’s rutting up to meet you, and after a few further moments of this, you pull away and toss your head back, the new angle opening you up and welcoming him in deeper. Tom grunts, eyes skimming your bare front, watching the lines of your body as you fuck down over his length. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He’s panting, hot hands slipping over your sides. “Darling, you- you look like an angel.”

You bite your lip, managing a fucked-out smile as you take in his cheeks, flushed red. His reactions to you only spur you on. A loud moan falls past your lips as Tom shifts one hand away from your hip and knocks two fingers against your clit, stimulating your bud.

“Keep doing that,” you beg, feeling your high building, “Tom, oh my god, keep doing that.”

Tom nods, and the hand on your waist tightens. You fall nearer him, continuing your slick movements over his cock, feeling every ridge with each entry into your hot cunt. You’re close - you’re so close you’re biting onto his shoulder, body shaking.

“Cum for me, angel,” he rasps, “Let me see you fall apart.”

You unravel a few moments later, grabbing at Tom’s shoulders for dear life as his hand on your waist guides you through it, helping you out when you almost stutter to a halt. The action of your walls pulsing around him seems to push him over the edge, and just a few moments later you feel Tom judder to rest, his moans like sweet symphonies to your ears as they rain through the air. You ride it out together, your breathing in sync, deep, rattling pants igniting the space between you with passion and love.

“Darling.” Both of his hands are on your waist now, and Tom gently coaxes you out from where you’ve made home in his neck. You sigh blissfully as you pull away, looking up to him with a lazy, content smile on your face. “How was that?”

You nuzzle into his palm as Tom cups your cheek. “So good,” you mutter, grinning at him. “I liked it a lot.”

“Yeah?” Tom peppers your face with kisses until you laugh. “Me too. Maybe we could try it again sometime, eh?”

You lean in to kiss him, finding love in his lips. “I think that could be arranged.”

#this is a need not a want #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland smut #tom holland #myblurbs #tomblurbs #mob!tomfic #if anyone follows mob monday: this doesn't fit in my mob!tom cinematic universe #this is separate to that #new reader new tom #my y/n is more experienced #that being said this was a lot of fun to write thanks chlo #chloecreatesfictions #tom.filth #smut

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fanficwritersinterviewed · 3 years

Text

ITWW, antheiasilva

<<This post is a part of a longer conversation about fanfic writers, how they view fanfic, and their writing process. All views are the fanfic writers’ own, and whatever fanfic they choose to write is entirely their own decision. No judgment value will be placed on fic content. These conversations are meant to provide insight for other fanfic writers in whatever stage they are at in their writing life>>

In the Weeds Wednesday (with antheiasilva, @antheiasilva)

What’s your writing schedule like? Fits and spurts, when I can. There's no schedule, it happens when I'm up for it and have time.

When it comes to writing, what are some things that challenge you, and how are you working through it? Dialogue comes easiest to me, and blocking out a scene, but the environment and background, exposition, that stuff is harder for me. So now I write in layers. I go with what's coming to me - usually dialogue - and fill in what I have, and then add more afterwards. Like printing in different layers of colour. I sometimes get frustrated with fics sounding too much the same - and for that I have to set the tone of a specific fic by reading earlier chapters- and having a wonderful beta read through things to check that it matches. Hint hint…

Haha! Yes, that’s true, you DO have a remarkably cool beta [reader: on occasion, it’s me]. Could you talk for a bit about beta readers, what you look for, how they support you/your work? It does depend a bit on the fic. Sometimes I just want an enthusiastic screamer or someone to read it over to see if there's anything glaringly off or awkward. Other times, I do want someone to push me a bit–whether it's on prose and style, or depth or type of characterization. I do want things to feel in character, even in the most outrageous premises. And sometimes what I want to happen bumps up against the character and I want my beta to be able to tell me that. I've found betas mostly through vibing online about similar stuff. I always try to work with writers I admire. I want to learn from my betas and talk about craft with them.

What’s the hardest thing you've ever attempted with a fic, and why was it difficult? I think the hardest thing was the structure and style with “After the War.” The different reveals that involved flashbacks were more complex than the single progressive timeline that happens in most of my fics. I had to know what happened but hold things back so we could see Obi-Wan figuring things out as his memory returned. And shifting from the minimalistic style to a more fleshed out style as Obi-Wan woke up and healed, while keeping the same tone - that was really hard.

But beautifully done, and effective. Where does reading fanfic fit into your process? I am always blown away by the level of writing in my fandom (Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, but also Star Wars prequel and Clone Wars). I do admire eloquence and precision, as well as a fully realized world - little details that bring the fic to life. I want to experience fic like I'm stepping onto a holodeck from Star Trek. I want fic to make me feel things. I often pick what I'm reading based on what I am experiencing or want to experience. And that definitely influences how I write.

Show don't tell is something that I struggle with, so I do enjoy it, but I am sometimes frustrated by it and long for more interiority. I do want a balance of that. Because show don't tell is often held up as the gold standard but it is one style. It's not everything and it has its own history and lineage and politics.

Oh absolutely, I feel that. I feel like all writing advice, show don't tell included, should be taken as trying to find a balance in how you write. Not as the one and only truth and answer and way. Exactly.

So, after saying that, lololol... What advice have you heard/gotten that has had a meaningful impact on the way you write or your relationship with your writing? One that I say to myself is "the best chapter is a done chapter" - which is to say, sometimes you just need to finish and post and move on because you could be endlessly editing.

Do you kill your darlings? I do kill them when they are redundant. Or when they scatter focus or get a scene away from itself. I try to remember that words are a renewable resource- I can always make more, there will be more. I don't need to cling to little phrases or even passages as if I won't ever have something like that again. Listening to audiobooks really helped me with this one. I love “Wild Space” by Karen Miller, but she does a triplicate descriptor sentence structure thing ALL the time. And it just annoyed the crap out of me after a while listening to it. I don't need the same action described in three different ways in apposition. Pick one.

Oh man. well. I've been called out, haha! I mean, I do it too! Everyone does. But not constantly and for mundane actions. It showed me, though, that I should probably read my stuff out loud to myself more for editing. I do do that sometimes and realize I've used "still" like four times in a paragraph.

That’s a great one I always think I’ll do and then… don’t. Lolol! Okay, say something nice about your own writing. Hmm..... I think I'm good at using language to depict and evoke feelings. My characters have depth and emotional realism. Sometimes my prose can be awfully pretty. And I think my stories can really hit readers in the feels, so to speak.

So, tell me. Why do you write fanfiction? Because I love it. I love the characters, I love the world, I love the millions of different scenarios. I don't get bored with these characters. I want to see them over and over and over again. I want to get to know them and their motivations and their history. I want to see them through different eyes, as I change and as I experience them in new ways through other people's writing.

It's personal healing and development - because it's expressive, and I get to work through things - as we talked about earlier - and make sense of myself as I make sense of the characters. It's fun. It's so fun. It's an adventure in your brain. I have aphantasia, so I can't just imagine and watch scenarios in my head - I have to depict them, build them, touch them. Fic is the way to do that.

Also, my readers are pretty awesome. And there is this magical feeling of posting a chapter being like giving a present. But it's a present to myself too. There's just a lot of joy to be had and circulated. And I think that's pretty radical stuff these days.

#in the weeds wednesday #antheiasilva #fanfic writers interviewed #fanfic #fanfic writing

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lightsonparkave · 3 years

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HAPPY TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO LIGHTS ON PARK AVE! 🎂🎉 In celebration of LoPA’s birthday (August 22, to be exact), all of the prompts from the previous year are up for grabs.

Round 24 will end on August 31, 11:59 PM ET (what time is that for me?).

As always, you’re free to jump in whenever you’d like during the round, a wide variety of work types is accepted, and there are no minimum work requirements. Unfinished works and works for other fandom events are allowed. You can find more information about Lights on Park Ave and the participation guidelines here.

Here are all 149 prompts. Go crazy and have fun! 🎈

ROUND 13: TIME

A quote about being infinite in the present moment from The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Vellichor,” the the strange wistfulness of used bookstores

“How long is forever?” dialogue from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

“Time” - Hans Zimmer (Inception OST)

A quote and gifset from Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) about the nonlinear structure of time

Agnès Varda’s portraits when she was 20, 36, and 80 years old

A John Irving quote about what time does to the people who matter to us

Ten traveling back to see Rose on New Year’s Day in 2005 before he dies and reincarnates in Doctor Who

Future inventions in 2015 as seen in Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future Part II (1989)

A quote about what time does for wounds

ROUND 14: LIMINALITY

A photoset of various liminal spaces

Illustration of a black cat in front of a red-lit house with the caption, “They say no one is living here—but the lights come on, once every year”

A photoset of Victorian-era spirit photography, an art form that attempted to capture the ghost of a deceased loved one

Information on the famous Mojave phone booth, a lone telephone booth in the middle of the desert that received calls from all over the world

Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits Third Edition’s definition of “witching hour”

Illustration of a ghost train on an abandoned trestle bridge in the Pacific Northwest

A quote by Isabel Allende about spirits coming out at night in the library

Gifset of the spirit world in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001)

Illustration of a neon roadside sign of a motel that only appears at night by a long-forgotten highway

“Pacific Coast Highway” - Kavinsky

A gifset quote from The Twilight Zone (1959)

Scenery from Twin Peaks season 1 (1990)

A quote about something shifting into a strange, new place inside of a person from Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

ROUND 15: LOSS

A quote about being lost and found by someone special by Sue Zhao

A photo of the Mildred, wrecked off Gurnard’s Head, Cornwall in 1912

A quote about ephemerality and the beauty of it from Troy (2004)

Two paintings of people visiting ruins by Caspar David Friedrich

A quote about desire and loss by Lara Mimosa Montes

A photo of an overgrown, abandoned conservatory

A passage about what disappears and what remains in ruins from Suicide by Édouard Levé

Dialogue about gratitude for people who aren’t meant to stay in your life but shape who you are from BoJack Horseman

A scene from Fleabag where the Priest chooses God over Fleabag and gently tells Fleabag that her love for him will pass before they part ways

A prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things, people, and souls

Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, covered in lipstick kisses from admirers

Photos of a cemetery statue in Austria, wrapped in branches and dead leaves, holding a single flower

ROUND 16: DEVOTION/SERVICE

A gifset of Kevin on the phone, telling Chiron he’ll cook food for him from Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight (2016)

Buttercup’s monologue to Westley about how she would do anything for him from The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Gifs of Merlin saying that he was born to serve Arthur from BBC’s Merlin

An excerpt about giving all of oneself to someone despite what it costs from House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

A gifset of various times Jaime and Brienne demonstrate their loyalty to and love for each other in Game of Thrones

A gifset of all the different ways Cliff is there for Rick in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

A gifset of Nadia deciding to be by Alan’s side no matter what in Russian Doll

“Devotion” - Ocean Vuong

A gifset of Bond comforting a traumatized Vesper in the shower in Casino Royale (2006)

A gifset of Sookhee refusing to leave Hideko, saying her job is to look after her in Park Chanwook’s The Handmaiden (2016)

ROUND 17: DREAMS

A dreamscape gifset and quote about repressed thoughts in dreams and the Internet from Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (2006)

A gifset of Mitsuha and Taki finally meeting in their own bodies in a dream from Shinkai Makoto’s Kimi no Na wa (Your Name) (2016)

A quote by Tinker Bell telling Peter Pan where he can find her and where she’ll always love him in Steven Spielberg’s Hook (1991)

The scene where Keating tells his students that poetry, beauty, romance, and love give life meaning in Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society (1989)

An animated illustration of a storefront called “Hauntings” with a flickering “99¢ dreams” neon sign

Various dreamscape scenes and a quote about ideas being the most resilient parasite from Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010)

A quote about how all living beings must dream to survive reality from The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

A comic about people we love taking turns to visit us in dreams every night

Lovers and Sleeping Couple, two drawings by Egon Schiele

A quote about belief in a better world by Robert Frobisher to his lover, Rufus Sixsmith, in Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

A quote about the feeling of falling in love lingering when you wake up from a dream in Alexis Dos Santos’s Unmade Beds (2009)

A photo of subway graffiti by an unknown author insisting that they’ll never give up making the world a better place to live in

ROUND 18: PHYSICAL TOUCH

A scene about how to return a stolen kiss from Daniel Ribeiro’s The Way He Looks (2014)

A line about kissing someone the way a flower opens from “I Know Someone” by Mary Oliver

A gifset focusing on showing affection and care through hands from Park Chanwook’s The Handmaiden (2016)

A passage about two people leaving invisible marks on each other through the accumulation of touches over the years from A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

Two conversations about never being touched before and only being touched by one person from Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016)

Going from yearning to touch someone but stopping oneself to being allowed to touch them from Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy

Moving art of two bodies made of stars and the cosmos embracing

A quote about maintaining sanity by touching someone but being separated despite proximity from The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

A line about proving that one still exists and is real through touch from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Different touches between Villanelle and Eve expressing violence, threat, sexual tension, comfort, and companionship in Killing Eve

A juxtaposition of two scenes from Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) of Su Li-zhen rejecting and accepting Chow Mo-wan’s hand

A compilation of marble sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Syd (Chris Evans) trailing kisses down London’s back in London (2005)

ROUND 19: IMMORTALITY

James Baldwin talking about how art helps you discover that people before you have experienced the same thing as you and you are not alone

Dr. Brand saying that love transcends time and space in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014)

Nadia and Alan meeting for the first time as they’re about to die and relive the same day again in Russian Doll

The loneliness of losing everyone by having a long life as expressed by Ten in Doctor Who

The doomed eternal time loop romance of Simon and Alisha from Misfits

A quote by Edvard Munch about becoming eternal through the flowers that grow from his body after death

Nagai Kei recalling the traffic accident that killed him and triggered his immortality, making him one of the rare persecuted humans to possess the power, in Ajin

A collection of moments from Jay Russell’s Tuck Everlasting (2002)

A quote by Mary Wollstonecraft hoping for something that lasts inside the heart

Various scenes with Jack Harkness from Doctor Who

Aya telling Asou-kun to live on and live forever as she nears the end of her life in 1 Litre of Tears

An excerpt about the immortalization of the self through love from “Love of the Wolf” in Hélène Cixous’s Stigmata

A collection of scenes from the Black Mirror episode “San Junipero”

Naoko telling Toru to always remember her and remember that she existed in Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Dom explaining to Ariadne that he uses the PASIV to dream as it’s the only way that he can be with his wife and children in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010)

ROUND 20: POETRY

“I’m Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense” - Danez Smith

A line about wanting to forget how much you loved someone and then actually forgetting from Bluets by Maggie Nelson

“Perhaps the World Ends Here” - Joy Harjo

“In Time” - W. S. Merwin

“By Small and Small: Midnight to Four A.M.” - Jack Gilbert

“Magdalene: The Addict” - Marie Howe

“Wild Geese” - Mary Oliver

“Morphology 2″ - CJ Scruton

“20″ from Moscow in the Plague Year by Marina Tsvetaeva

“To Hold” - Li-Young Lee

ROUND 21: LONGING

“I Loved You Before I Was Born” - Li-Young Lee

A poem about longing for someone through worlds by Izumi Shikibu

A gifset of Marianne and Héloïse falling in love from Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

“Make Me Feel” - Janelle Monáe

A quote about living in longing being better than realizing that longing from 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

“I Want You” - Mitski

Orpheus and Eurydice in Hades - Friedrich Heinrich Füger

Long definition of the word “saudade”

Definition of the word “hiraeth”

“Something About Us” - Daft Punk

Two lines about burning quietly from the poem “The Pillowcase” by Annelyse Gelman

A conversation about wanting each other after decades of separation from Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory (2019)

A Hanahaki disease mood board

“Shrike” - Hozier

Two lines about wanting someone to return from Herakles by Euripides

“Love of My Life” - Queen

“Eyes, Nose, Lips” - Taeyang

A screenshot of Kathy and Tommy holding onto each other desperately from Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (2010) and a quote from Kazuo Ishiguro’s eponymous novel

ROUND 22: YOUTH

“Perfect Places” - Lorde

A piece about realizing you’ll never be this young again, but it’s the first time you’re this old by Kalyn Roseanne Livernois

A conversation between Neil and Mr. Keating about Neil feeling trapped and unable to live the life he wants because of his father from Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society (1989)

An excerpt about being too young to know how to love properly from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” - Arctic Monkeys

Elio’s father telling Elio not to try to rid himself of his sorrow and pain—and with that joy—which he feels so strongly because he’s so young from Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

A quote about how everything feels final to young people because they’re experiencing it for the first time from Middlemarch by George Eliot

Lara Jean telling Peter that she had to make it seem like she liked him to deal with her love letter fiasco in Susan Johnson’s To All the Boys I Loved Before (2018)

Rue and Jules dancing together and partying it up in Euphoria

“Le Plongeoir” by Laurent Roch

A quote about being pushed into adulthood and not being ready from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

A photo of a roller rink illuminated by pink and purple lights

Pastel photo series of Coney Island by Mijoo Kim and Minjin Kang

“Hips Don’t Lie” - Shakira feat. Wyclef Jean

“Young Dumb & Broke” - Khalid

Different moments accompanied by the letter to Mr. Vernon at the end of detention from John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club (1985)

Various scenes and a quote about growing up and realizing life isn’t like a fairy tale from Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Stills of the young lesbian couple in love from the music video of “You Know” - Jaurim

Lines by Effy about her emotional and mental struggles from Skins

Nathan chiding the group for not taking advantage of their superpowers as young offenders from Misfits

ROUND 23: HEDONISM

A passage about giving into passion and losing control from The Secret History by Donna Tartt

“Thot Shit” - Megan Thee Stallion

An aesthetic photoset of the Greek god Dionysus

A quote about living for ecstasy rather than balance from From a Journal of Love by Anaïs Nin

A photo of an anonymous person in nothing but a silk robe and lingerie

A photo of Donatella Versace lounging in a chair, surrounded by shirtless, muscular men sunbathing around her in Capri, Italy in 1994

An aesthetic photoset based on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The music video for “Heartless” by The Weeknd

A plea for summer to never end from Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

“Plastic Love” - Mariya Takeuchi

A gifset from the music video of “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, a continuation of the “Heartless” music video

“XS” - Rina Sawayama

A gifset from the music video of “Body” by Mino

Photos of people dancing at the legendary Studio 54

Photos and a description of the party scene at Studio 54

Chris Evans and Evan Rachel Wood hooking up in a car in the “Gucci Guilty Black” commercial

#stevetony #steve/tony #superhusbands #stony #stevetony prompts #stony prompts #lightsonparkave #round 24

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