#I'm not mad about it I just only had this one idea currently so they'll just sit in gifset purgatory for a while sorry little gifs

[tachiisms]

.

[bogleech]

If you're still taking mortasheen questions - Can you tell us any lore stuff about the ultimate bioconstructs like hestermoan?

Mortasheen's original three "legendaries," Hestermoan, Tormanshee and Mothneaser, all have names that are anagrams of "Mortasheen," which itself is the name of a disease spread by the Nuckelavee in folklore. They were imagined to be three "kaiju" that would be completely frightening and disturbing with none of the whimsy or silliness of other Mortasheen monsters, and also broadly represent their three common categories: a physical attacker, a mental attacker, and a bioweaponry wielder. Hestermoan is the biggest and strongest and basically Mortasheen's "Godzilla," Tormanshee was meant to have a nasty Silent Hill kind of vibe and spreads "madness" while Mothneaser collects your blood and turns it into other monsters. They're so old by now, they conflict with a lot of the "style guide" i have in my head. I know I just said that was kind of their point, but there's other internal guidelines I impose on the setting that I'd like them to follow by the time I introduce them into the RPG, and they might change a bit drastically, but hopefully they'll keep the same vibe.

Tormanshee in particular was based on one of the very oldest Mortasheen monsters, a simple embryo in a floating bubble, which I then brought back as the "tormite" here and tied them together, also giving Tormite one huge open eye so it can also read as a floating eyeball.

Now for the RPG I'm using Tormite again as the lowest-level and most common psychokinetic creature, though I turned it back into a sleeping embryo thing with its eyes closed:

If you liked the "simultaneous eyeball" gimmick, don't worry! I'm doing a thing with that! I don't know what yet, but one idea is that they kind of "wake up" and then they start to evolve various forms from there.

I think Tormanshee will still connect with them somehow, too, like their "termite queen," but my design ideas for it are a whole lot more elaborate. They still have the "silent hill pregnancy demon" vibe but with a whole lot more body, kind of from a "what if this was also an ultraman kaiju or an evangelion angel" angle.

The more current concepts I had for Hestermoan are odd enough I don't want to spoil it, and it was originally going to be included in the first book - sorta - but we're holding off on it for now and may release them as free supplemental monsters. I also kind of like the idea of doing so because it has a similar feeling to Mew and other "secret" legendary Pokemon. Maybe their first release would even be through a really silly and gimmicky exclusive medium, before they get released as free public downloads.

My newer concepts for Mothneaser are all over the place, but it still has nothing whatsoever to do with moths. I just really like the sound of the name. All three still have the lore that they wake up only when the city's existence is threatened. This is monumentally rare because the city is the size of a continent and it's alive enough to regenerate from almost anything.

[vink-spade15]

Some P4 + Clayton and Cheslock incorrect quotes

I'm sorry if they a bit OOC tho-

Edgar: On the count of three, what's your favorite cake? One, two, three-

Edgar and Lawrence, in unison: Chocolate cake peanut butter frosting with chocolate chunks!

Herman: Our turn, Violet! One, two, three- vanilla!

Violet, deadpan: I've never had cake, what is cake.

Edgar: Why are your tongues purple?

Herman: We had slushies.I had a blue one.

Violet: I had a red one.

Edgar: oh

Edgar:

Edgar: OH

Lawrence:

Lawrence: You drank each other's slushies?

Cop: You're receiving a ticket for having three people on one motorcycle.

Lawrence: Shit.

Edgar: Wait, three?

Cop: Yeah?

Violet: OH FUCK HERMAN FELL OFF-

Lawrence: You were stabbed. Do you remember anything?

Edgar: Only the ambulance ride to the hospital.

Lawrence: That wasn't an ambulance, I drove you.

Edgar: But I heard a siren.

Violet: That was Herman.

Herman: Sorry, I got nervous.

Lawrence: You know those things will kill you, right?

Edgar, pouring another glass of whiskey: That's the point.

Violet, smoking a cigarette: We're trying to speed up the process.

Herman: * Nods while eating raw cookie dough*

Lawrence: What do you want then?

Violet: Er… something work related.

Lawrence: What department is this?

Violet: Sorry?

Lawrence: Well, if it's work related you'd obviously know what department this is.What department is this?

Lawrence: * looks at Herman and Edgar* Some sort of homosexual department?

Lawrence: I currently have 7 empty notebooks and I have no idea what to put in them. Any suggestions?

Violet: Put spaghetti in it.

Lawrence: I am currently taking suggestions from everyone but you.

Herman: Put spaghetti in it.

Lawrence: I am currently taking suggestions from everyone but you two.

Edgar: Put spaghetti in it.

Lawrence: I am no longer taking suggestions.

Lawrence: Violet, we're hungry!

Herman: Violet! What's for dinner?

Edgar: We're hungry, Violet!

Violet, frying a bottle of ketchup over the stove: * screams *

*Lawrence's helping Edgar out after he get injured, while the others are watching*

Violet: How does Edgar look?

Herman: A little better than you, actually.

Violet : you little shit-

Lawrence: You guys worried about Edgar?

Violet: Totally!

Herman: Yeah, he called me in the middle of the night and just yelled, "what do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?"

Lawrence: And what'd you say?

Herman: "I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno."

Violet:

Lawrence: he lucky to have you as a friend unfortunately

Lawrence: Isn't it weird that we pay money to see other people?

Edgar: Plane tickets?

Violet: Concert tickets?

Herman: Prostitution?

Lawrence, holding their broken frames: Glasses. And second HERMAN WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-

*Everyone is standing around the broken coffee maker*

Lawrence: So.Who broke it? I'm not mad, I just wanna know.

Everyone:

Edgar: ...I did.I broke it.

Lawrence: No.No you didn't. Herman?

Herman: Don't look at me. Look at Violet.

Violet: What?!I didn't break it.

Herman: Huh, that's weird. How'd you even know it was broken?

Violet: Because it's sitting right in front of us and it's broken.

Herman: Suspicious.

Violet: No, it's not!

Clayton: If it matters, probably not, but Cheslock was the last one to use it.

Cheslock: Liar! I don't even drink that crap!

Clayton: Oh really? Then what were you doing by the coffee cart earlier?

Cheslock: I use the wooden stirrers to push back my cuticles.Everyone knows that, Clayton!

Edgar: Okay let's not fight. I broke it. Let me pay for it, Lawrence.

Lawrence: No! Who broke it!?

Everyone:

Clayton: Lawrence...Herman's been awfully quiet.

Herman: REALLY?!

* Everyone starts arguing*

Lawrence, being interviewed: I broke it.I burned my hand so I punched it.

Lawrence: I predict 10 minutes from now they'll be at each other's throats with warpaint on their faces and a pig head on a stick.

Lawrence:

Lawrence: Good.It was getting a little chummy around here.

Herman: Dumbest scar stories, go!

Lawrence: I burned my tongue once drinking tea.

Clayton: I dropped a hair dryer on my leg once and it burned.

Cheslock: I have a piece of graphite in my leg for accidentally stabbing myself with a pencil in the first grade.

Violet: I was taking a cup of noodles out of the microwave and spilled it in my hand and I got a really bad burn.

Edgar: I have emotional scars.

*Squad reactions to being told "I love you"*

Lawrence: oh no

Edgar: thanks fam!

Herman: * cries * I love you too

Violet: Sounds fake but okay

Clayton: * A flustered mess*

Cheslock: can i get a refund?

Lawrence, rubbing his temples: I am not proud of what I am about to say, but someone get me a cigarrette.

Clayton: But Lawrence, we don't smoke.

Lawrence: Cut the crap, Clayton. I'm not an idiot. I know that one in five people smoke.

Lawrence: *points at Cheslock* One! *points at Edgar* Two! *points at Herman* Three! *points at Violet* Four! *points at Clayton* Five!

Lawrence: Now, I am going to close my eyes, and when I open them, there better be a cigarrette between these two fingers!

Violet: *puts a cigarrette in Lawrence's hand*

Lawrence: Thank you. ...Light?

The Squad: *all simultaneously pull out lighters*

Lawrence: Edgar... How do I begin to explain Edgar?

Herman: Edgar is flawless.

Violet: I hear his hair's insured for $10,000.

Clayton: I hear he do car commercials... in Japan.

Cheslock: One time they punched me in the face...it was awesome.

Lawrence, walking into their house: Hello, people who do not live here.

Edgar: Hey.

Herman: Hi.

Violet: Hello.

Clayton: Hey!

Lawrence: I gave you the key to my place for emergencies only!

Cheslock: We were out of Doritos. And it is an emergency that we out of Doritos.

[tamayakii]

Simonrileyscockring aka Maxim is a liar and claims frogchiro stole their ideas. Here's proof he lied.

@simonrileyscockring Now since you dont wanna acknowledge me or my post calling you out, i decided to make it its own post so more people can see it. I don't like liars. i don't like virtue signalers "dni proshippers" we interacted tons of times, i sent you asks, my own art, we talked in dms, i even checked on you when i worried about you and now you're worried about "proshippers" and realize the term i identify with, which means "anti-harassment, respecting peoples fictional preferences" and not whatever tiktok-brained bullshit you think it is? So convenient you say that AFTER i send you an ask asking if you were gonna acknowledge what the hell you did. edits: the only edits i did was "@/" Konigsblog cause they said they apologized and acknowledged what they did, whether or not the apology is accepted is not up to me.

original call out below: you absolute dunce. i LOVED your writing before but the drama on your page, responding to hate anons rather than just deleting their asks drove me off. I have so many words for you

EVERYONE can see your personal posts, they just don't LIKE them cause who the fuck wants to like a post that's a vent post? it feels wrong, people see it and choose not to react, people see you vagueing about someone stealing "your" concepts (which theyve written BEFORE cod fandom erupted on tumblr and aka before YOUR popularity) they'll want to know  cause stealing writing is very serious!! but oh wait!!! they didn't steal shit!!! They never wrote about a teenager, which btw when you say all this shit and show no proof it fucking sucks!! cause people are so tiktok-brained that they will believe anything!

Because you decided to pull a fuckin mean girl move with @/konigsblog you ruined someone's love for writing and this fandom. "no one got harmed" my fucking ass. You as a writer should know that motivation comes and goes, and that hyperfixtations can be the closest thing to people. So rather than acting like a fucking man, you vague and claim they wrote about a minor as well, btw heres the teenager you claim is well, a teenager

Scaramouche is a puppet made by Raiden Ei, over 500 years ago to the current time in genshin impact. When Raiden Ei's sister had passed and she wanted to make a puppet to be the archon but she left him in a slumbering state, free from her own control cause he came to life crying which puppets aren't supposed to do. He woke up and thought she abandoned him, then OVER 5 HUNDRED YEARS AND THREE BETRYALS LATER. The fandom baby-fies him admittedly, but he's not obsessed with his mother nor does he have a teenager mentality. He's a bitter and aloof character, only getting mad when his creation or betrayals are brought up,



"a teenager physqiue" Okay lets challenge that, In the game this model is called Short_Male, it been used for Cyno, Tighnari, Kazuha, Xiao, Albedo, Mika, Chongyun, Bennet, Xingqiu, Heizou, Gorou, Venti, Razor, and even the male traveller.(I'm gonna use basic terms since you obviously never played the game if you think he's child like) Cyno is basically an officer in the game for the Akademiya, aka an adult. Tighnari is basically like a forest ranger, an adult. Kazuha sails around the sea while being a poet AND a sword expert because of his family line, becoming an expert swordsman takes YEARS even in real life, he's an adult. Xiao is over 5,000 years old and a "deputy" for an Archon. Albedo is a synthetic experiment human made 500 years ago from the current timeline in the game. Heizou is also a cop, an adult. Gorou is a fucking ADMIRAL, an adult. VENTI is literally over 2k years old. an adult. The traveller is AT LEAST over a thousand years old, cause the traveller that you choose slumbers for 500 years.

The rest are hinted to be late teenagers or early twenties depending on who you ask.

I even took pictures of these models in-game compared to a Tall_Male model!

Here's scaramouche, compared to Diluc and Tighnari! who aren't children! Now let's see an actual model of CONFIRMED children, why don't we?

here we have klee, who despite being something like 50 or 75 years old, is still mentally a child!! So she has the child model since she is still physically growing up, unlike Scaramouche AND Albedo.

Scaramouche isn't a child. he doesn't have child-like features. He's not obsessed with his mother, cause he does not have one cause motherfucker is a 500-year-old puppet, he's mentally an adult, physically an adult that was prepared for archon duties.

Sorry, i droned on about this for so long but i just fuckkking hate it when people are wrong. So blindly like you are,

here's proof that you said that, incase you go on a deleting frenzy.

Now let's talk about the point system, point systems are so widespread in real life and in fiction, even i used a point system once before. So to see it, in a COMPETITION(cause they are in the pervy AU) between men isn't weird to see. If you genuinely had a problem with this, Kin would've LOVED to talk it out with you as they're lovely and understanding human being.

the stray cat au? i even remember reading about it on both of your blogs but heres the thing.... the last time they wrote about it was in October.. of last year.

i had to search your blog just in case i was wrong in thinking they wrote it before you did.

as you can see, this is march of this YEAR. checking your archive, you made your blog back in February of this year. To claim they stole your concept of stray cat is beyond fucking insane, as well as bringing up the post with scaramouche in it cause.. that was over at least 10 months ago, cause Kin had went on a hiatus when December came around and came back with a COD hyperfixtation.

Onto the stealing the hubull concept! Searching their blog I can't find any evidence of them even writing a bull-like idea, at all. So you seemed to pull that one straight out of your ass.

So let's go over this real quick! one more time for the people in the back!!!

@simonrileyscockring made a post vagueing that someone stole their concepts and ideas, @/konigsblog replies below asking, hey who is it? maxim responds saying its @frogchiro and claiming that they wrote about a teenager and stole their point system for an au. Publicly. Instead of going to Frogchiro and trying to work it out, like a 23-year-old should. You keep drilling on about it, claiming that people trying to defend them are being your entertainment now

sure some people shouldn't have come in attacking you, i won't defend people who throw cruel words at you. You can claim this to be an attack but all i'm doing is calling you out, cause as you claim "it doesn't affect the way you live your life" you let it go and ruin someone else's way of life, destroying their love for fandom and writing. As a writer yourself that ive SEEN struggle with motivation AND hate anons, you of ALL people should fucking understand that getting your love for writing ruined is a terrible thing to happen especially when its an outlet for stress.

"i wanna talk shit in peace, not have my shit gossiped about." .. that is noooot how the internet works OR how shit-talking works, as the biggest shit-talker in MY family, i understand that when i talk shit, there's another person behind me talking shit. When YOU post vagueing about someone, and then continue talking about them, people will gossip about you. End of story. You should've blocked them in the first place, you also should've messaged Kongisblog PRIVATELY if you really wanted to avoid all of them. The only screenshots that i know that kin was sent, were you confirming that they "stole" your ideas and that they wrote about a teenager. How can they refute your claims without knowing what your claims are. They had to defend themselves from people in their inbox.

So, really in the end here, you fucked up. As a previous fan of your im highly disappointed in you but seeing how you act i doubt that will affect you, i make this post-DEFENDING frogchiro from pointless claims, AND in hopes that anyone who wants to follow you. Will find this post cause you are a fucking asshole to the core. Step back and realize that while it may not affect you, your actions affect others.

[unnervinglyferal]

There's people who just can't fucking comprehend the idea that somebody might understand what they're saying, and still disagree with them. So once they've made it clear what they think, and you tell them that you understand what they're saying, you just don't see how that's a bad thing, they'll go "no, you don't understand", and start repeating themselves like you clearly obviously missed some key component of this, and you keep repeating back to them "yeah, I understood what you said. I just don't see the problem."

Currently enjoying wasting the time of some dipshit trying to explain to me why I should be worried about the prospects of my daughter (who, I would like to stress, is currently two months old) growing up to be a slut. This, I am told, is a terrible outcome that I should fear more than death. This dude froze to process it for a solid minute trying to comprehend the fact that I genuinely did not see why that would be a problem. That would just mean she takes after me.

But what if she sleeps around without getting married and has eight kids with eight different men? I'm failing to see the problem. And this guy keeps repeating. Eight kids with eight men and none of them will marry her because she's a single mother of eight. And?? If I've made sure that she knows how contraceptives work, the only reason she would have eight kids is because she wanted to have eight kids. I am seeing zero problem with having eight fucking grandkids.

Am I missing the part of all of them having a different father? No? I am not failing to acknowledge it, I am failing to see why I should care. They all have the same grandfather. If I've made sure that my daughter is only having kids if and when she wants, and knows how to keep it from happening if she doesn't want them, there is literally no way whatsoever that any part of this is a bad thing. And we just go around in circles with this dipshit failing to understand that I'm not missing his point, I just simply literally fail to see why it should bother me in any way whatsoever.

I don't even feel bad for wasting this guy's time, he's doing that to himself by choosing to continue getting mad at me. With all due respect you brought up "what if you had eight grandchildren one day" and then got mad about failing to convince me that there would be any scenario in which this would be a bad thing.

[wings-of-waffles]

Oh my god, you're THE AUTHOR of that one Mastermind x Chameleon fic on ao3! I'm a huge fan of your work, but I don't have an ao3 account, plus they disabled commenting, but I just wanna say that I'm a huge fan! Keep up the good work! Also, though I've personally never really put relations on the island for Stonemover in my headcanons (makes him more sad lonely British orphan coded to me), I personally am *loving* your idea of Stonemover and Mastermind being brothers. Just a worried older brother faced with so much after they found out about his animus magic and how people on the island whispered of his future madness and how he should be avoided, and the younger, nerdier brother who never fit in due to his nerdiness, and the older just wants to look out for the younger... Though I think I recall Mastermind mentioning in your fic that they grew apart? I'm not sure how you envisioned it, but after reading your fic, I really thought about maybe Stonemover returning to the island, only to see Mastermind gaining some success and he has Farsight and Mastermind claims that they're having a dragonet, while he remains convinced that his own romance can never work out, and then that's when Stonemover decides to leave the island, because he thinks that Mastermind no longer needs him? It'll sure be a doozy if they ever reunite. Maybe they'll figure out how to use the telephone? Maybe Sunny and Starflight will suddenly find out about each other's fathers being related? Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but I think that your ideas are really cool!

FIrstly, thank you thank you thank you!! This ask made me so happy to read, I'm so glad you like my stuff!! And now I'm going to ramble back at you because this stuff has been stuck inside my head for so long and I need to get it out!

And about some of what you said-- yes, Mastermind and Stonemover do grow apart, and some of it is some kind of rivalry, but it's also kind of two sided? Like Stonemover is jealous of his brother being able to do just do all this stuff he was never particularly good at, while Mastermind is a bit jealous of Stonemover not seeming to have to try to do things for the tribe since he just has it in his talons (and also he's a bit salty about his brother breaking the laws of physics and sometimes drives himself a little bonkers trying to come up with scientific explanations for feats of animus magic), and they both don't understand why the other seems to be suffering, even though it's the same reason: ludicrous expectations and severe overwork.

Now, about Farsight and Thorn and all that, although it's definitely an interesting angle, I do personally prefer to sideline it just a bit. Like Stonemover knows his brother has a girlfriend, but not much else, and Mastermind thinks it's a bit funny that Stonemover keeps hanging out in the desert, but hey you can see the sun there, and he's not one to judge. They can freak about them both having children around the same age later when they reunite and feel bad for not paying attention to each other and their struggles more.

Oh yeah their reunion! It is, as you put it, a doozy. Provided nothing changes, it should happen in chapter twenty-one of my current longfic. [(Re)Building Bridges, the one "I had a brother once..." was impatiently spun off from.] It takes that long because Stonemover can't really use a phone from where he's stuck to the floor, and Mastermind never told anybody except for Chameleon about his dead brother, and he doesn't tell anybody else about his dead brother (at least not by name), and so nobody realises they're related until M & C end up down at JMA for plot reasons.

So yeah! Mastermind is horrified by the fact that his brother felt the need to turn himself to stone and feels terrible about it, and then he has to tell him about the RainWing experiments and his intense moral failing and every other terrible thing that happened to him after Stonemover left. Then they have a mutual moment of understanding when Stonemover explains how he was forced to do *something* bad with his animus magic (I haven't decided on what yet) that pushed him over the edge and prompted him to leave, although it's really not the same they can still sympathize. There is lots of screaming, and crying, and Mastermind is kind of mad his brother was practically left to die in a cave after doing this to himself even after others fell out because somebody needs to be, and they find a way to keep in touch and promise they won't ever fall apart or resent each other ever again.

Meanwhile everybody else, who were preoccupied in the plot reasons, is confused as all hell as to why those two (Mastermind especially) are acting that way and Chameleon is like "oh yeah that's his dead brother" and then everybody else freaks out but differently because 1. even though there's no classes right now, they had a bit of a situation going on in their school 2. two of them just got surprise cousin'd 3. oh yeah also this weird green rainwing is here too 4. they still have plot reasons to deal with and finally 5. oh moons there are way too many things going on at once!! It's a whole situation, but the brothers reunite and they stop crying eventually and it's fine. :)

So yeah thanks for the ask, I'm glad you liked my work, and sorry for rambling a poorly formatted essay at you lol. <3

[vampemoqueen]

My thoughts on VTMB2

Yeah, I think we're all thinking the same thing. This isn't the Bloodlines 2 we were originally promised and were looking forward to. This is something entirely different. While the previous version by Hardsuit Labs was never going to be a AAA or even a AA game to begin with, this one by The Chinese Room looks and feels like even more of a budget title. The footage and assets are several years dated now and the gameplay still looks like a WIP. That's not necessarily a bad thing given they only have so much to work with in a limited amount of time. But what makes me feel really "meh" about the title is instead of taking what the old team did (with Mitsoda's writing, Rik's soundtrack, etc) and finishing it up, The Chinese Room had instead chosen to rework it into their own thing, only recycling the old art assets and not much else. I can tell from the recent trailers, their blog posts, and their games portfolio that they're not going to make it faithful to the original Bloodlines. The tone of the game and their ideas don't match up with the gothic punk aesthetic that BL1 went for, instead going for an urban fantasy neo-noir vibe. It's not going to be a true Bloodlines game, rather it's going to be a Vampire the Masquerade V5 game in the style of The Chinese Room. I'm not mad about it. I just wish they'll be honest about it and choose to rename the game to be some other series instead. "VtM: Seattle" or whatever. Nonetheless, I'm disappointed that the studio cares more about juxtaposing their own image and style into this title rather than staying true to the original. Seems weird to say since every artist is entitled to their own expression, but this isn't what we waited years for.

I'm going to play it regardless because I still think there's worth to this game in the franchise. If it conveys the current World of Darkness and isn't not completely broken at launch, I will probably find things to like about it still.

[liberifatalis]

i understand all the older og fans who are annoyed that a lot has been revealed about sephiroth's past. i really do. a mysterious villain, if done well, is super effective, and in the og the hints at a somewhat normal but slightly traumatic past is what made sephiroth very compelling.

and yes, ever crisis may very well be fanservice. but who fucking cares.

but a lot of the claims from angry fans that sephiroth's backstory is unrealistic or it ruins his character is so unfounded imo :/

a traumatic past does not take away from a compelling, mysterious villain. a backstory that lays out the situations that influenced a villain to become 'the bad guy' does not make him less of a villain, nor does it ruin his character. many mainline final fantasy games have shown the backstory of their villains — kuja got one, kefka got one, so why not sephiroth? why not expand on things that we already technically know from existing canon lore?

i don't think this is an attempt to make sephiroth a stereotypical, trope-y 'tragic villain'. i don't think it's an attempt to distract us from the atrocities he's committed. i think it's more to see the human in the monster, and to symbolise just how pervasive and destructive shinra is.

if you've watched the boys, you will see many similarities (and of course differences) between sephiroth and homelander, and shinra and vaught. both sephiroth and homelander were pawns of shinra/vaught from the beginning, literally created to be weapons and objects for their organisations. both are manufactured, sort of humans. both were lied to about their origins, both were 'lab rat kids', both had childhoods devoid of what all childhoods should be. manufactured monsters. they are both results of their environment.

and yet, they both are irredeemable in the end, regardless of the fact they were forced on a path they had no say in. AND fans of the boys weren't fucking foaming at the mouth because homelander got a backstory. none of us thought it ruined his character. we all still see him as a man too far gone. why are ff7 fans like this.

i'm not too sure if square will change things up in rebirth and the final game, maybeeee they'll give sephiroth a redemption arc, i'm not sure, but fans are speculating. i don't think they will. but either way, based on the current canon timeline, he isn't redeemable. he's turned into a monster, and he now has the complete opposite of a normal life which is what he wanted as a child.

i also feel like he encapsulates the sort of madness and entitled viewpoint that only a human being, and male villain could possess. and this isn't to take away from his character and it isn't a diss. it isn't a diss at men either. but i think it's extremely realistic. if we think of current society, how men are socialised, they are socialised to believe they have an inherent uniqueness, something special — an inflated ego. and tbh, i think if we look deeper, i think in a lot of western, individualistic societies, this also transfers to everyone, not just men. sephiroth admitted he always thought he was special ("i knew, ever since i was a child, i was not like the others. i knew mine was a special existence. but this… this was not what i meant") and different from the rest. i think this dialogue, while heartbreaking, really does show an insight into his inflated ego. and i personally believe that his ego, his entitlement, was borne of utter loneliness and isolation. what else could give him comfort, other than believing in this idea that he was of a special existence?

while sephiroth turned into a monster, i feel like he is so incredibly reflective of the human condition (or, at least, a facet of the human condition), which to me, is what makes him such a compelling yet tragic character/villain.

who and what else, but a human being, a man, to think the world owes them something, to think they are entitled to justice in the form of suffering and destruction? to think that everyone is deserving of pain all because he was objected to it? to think they can take and take and take some more? to act in a rage so strong that it is no longer blind, but calculating, intentional, thoughtful and nearly prophetic?

who and what else on this earth could be so utterly consumed by emotion to the point of complete destruction? THAT is a facet of humanity, or maybe it's a facet of a lack of it; of the human condition. sephiroth, the monster, the manufactured monster, the one who was of a special existence, the one who is not like the rest...ends up acting in a way that only a human being would be able to. the irony. he doesn't even see it!

[darlin-collins]

Red paint

We've been talking about parents darlin anf sam and here's my take on it

Sheeesh it's been a year since I've written a redacted fic, tell you what you think (good, bad, advice, ANYTHING, i wanna learn how to write)

Notes: sam&darlin / a little girl oc/some blood and injuries are mentioned, nothing major, just what we had on the second sam audio, hiding an injury, dark past, dead parents, a lil bit traumatized child, fluffy angst if you will, slightly edited and read before being posted, soo yeah, no beta we die like the girls parents

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They opened the apartment's door as quietly as possible for someone in their state, a hand pressed to their side,having limped their way up stairs, and vision blurry from blood loss

They tip-toed to the couch and sat there, breaths leaving their lungs in quiet pants and sighs as the tension built in their legs was somewhat relived and for a moment, and they were tempted to just close their eyes... Only to open them again, wide, as the realization doomed on them, they're currently bleeding,, if they do fall asleep they might not wake up once again, and as much as the idea appealed to them they can't leave, not yet, not if Quinn is still out there, not with the the child sleeping in their room, oblivious to what's happening around her..

With a curse they sat up, reached their phone from their pocket, the screen broke, again, Lily will be mad that her little art pieces won't look good anymore, they need to fix it tomorrow if they wanted to avoid her lecture about being careful with a phone and paying attention when its in their hand

They chuckled at the thought, if only she knew why their screen is always broken like this

With blurred eyes they barely managed to hit the contacts bottom, so they just called most recent number in the list, it's not david, it's certainly not another pack member,so who can it be-Oh.. It's the cowboy from the other night

They sucked in a breath "hey cowboy" damn it hurts to talk, but they kept their voice low

They heard him chuckle on the other side "it's Sam"

"it's whatever" they joked, " ya know any private healers, ones that keep their mouth shut?" they hoped that their words weren't as slurred as they think "why? Are you alright?" he asked "yeah I'm ok, i just got in some fight,pretty banged up though " they whispered "what- well how bad is it, are you alright?? " his voiced raised a little, filled with worry "shhh keep you voice down, i said I'm fine, it just needs a patch job" they answered, covering the bottom of their phone to make less sound "why haven't you gone to a healer yet?" his voice came out muffled, well shit... "they'll ask questions! "

"They'll ask questions!?" he echoed in disbelief, huffed "when the do just tell them to shut up and heal you" his voice was only getting higher "hushhh! " they said, again "keep it low!" "Where are you?" he asked "my place? " it was an answer, but it sounded more like a question "no like- address?" he corrected "the heck you wanna know my address for?" they censored the word "hell" mostly out of habit now "because I'm not having you bleeding out on my conscious when i can do something about it", what?

"now address " "wha-" they started to ask "-address. " he ordered again, they sighed and gave him the address "I'm coming over" what!? What!!??

"wait no-" the line hang up

Well fuck

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He barely got to knock on the apartment's door when it swung open, the wolf appeared, behind it "you look rough" he commented, they leaned away from the door opening it wider so he can enter "just keep it down" they whispered, going back to the couch and sat there, head falling into it, sharp eyes still monitoring his every move, he sat besides them "can i touch? " he asked gently, voice low, they blinked, surprised, and his heart ached at the thought of them never been asked something like that, and once more his gaze trailed down the lines of scars that littered their skin, now covered in blood, and it confirmed his theory "so?" he mumbled again, they unfreezed and nodded, whispering something about him being here to heal them and still asking.

A while into the healing he noticed that the wolf is trying to keep themselves quiet, and whenever his voice would get higher, they tell him to keep it down, and he worried if they had a head injury,

"did you take any hits to the head? " he whispered, "no, why? " they asked him back "well you've been keeping yourself and me quiet, i suspected that your head hurts from noise" he reasoned "no i didn't hit my head, it's... Complicated " they said

They sat in comfortable science after he was done with healing them, that is until he heard a door open, the wolf looked at him, wide eyes, and mouthed "hide" as they stood up

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Tank stood up and went to the back of the couch, making it seem they're just leaning on it, giving speace to the vamp in their living room on the couch to lay on it and be out of sight.

"hey Lily" they smiled as the little girl appeared out of their room

"tank! You're home" she said happily "what where you doing? Why is your clothes all red"

"i was painting using red paint" they lied

"really?! Can i see it" The girl asked

"sure, little radiostar"

Lily is a 10 years old child of two, sonal energetics that died at the hands of quinn before tank met him,he lied to them and told them he saved her when he found her parents dead, she lived with him for a while, him wanting to make her like him, before he and tank fought and he fled and left her behind they had to break into his place so they could take her, but to avoid the pack knowing all of this they didn't tell the department about her, which left them no choice but to take care of her and not traumatize her, not anymore than what quinn did already, she probably woke up from a nightmare and came looking for them.

They croushed under the couch and pulled out a painting, it had red paint on it in different shades and shapes

They tried to be quiet when they strained one of the freshly healed wounds on their body, they stood up and showed it to her

"wow! it's so beautiful!" her eyes shined and sparkled and they wished they weren't laying to her again "i want to help you finish it!"

"yeah? Well i was already planning on coming over and finishing it tomorrow, so how about you go back to the room till i shower and join you? And we'll deal with it in the morning? " they sing-sang to her "ok!" she jumped, turned around and close the door behind her again

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Sam listened in shock and awe to the wolf and the a little girl talking, how they laughed, how they almost were happier because she was around, and then the girl went back to the room, and they turned to look at him over the couch.

They mumbled a thank you let him go on his way

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"So yeah that's what actually happened" tank looked a their 15 year old teen that glared at them, she's taking to call sam dad, which made them go nuts because "you know him for 5 years! You've known me for 11! Why does he get to be called dad and im just 'tank'??" as they put it

"red paint my ass" Lily rollled her eyes

"well it's your fault you thought i was capable of doing any type of art" they responded "expect martial art of course" they added

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Please if you're one of the 6 people that saw this when i saved my draft and it got posted pretend you didn't:)

[aikoiya]

Fear The Man That Fears No God

My mom was watching something on Netflix a bit ago called the "3 Body Problem" about aliens coming to earth to kill us & take over.

You know, the norm.

But she & I both noticed some very antireligious ideas in it.

Something that really stuck out to me was something that this nuts-o physicist lady named Ye Wenjie said.

Turns out, she was the one who first contacted the aliens as a young woman. Her father had just been killed by a group of atheists who were mad that he wouldn't say that there was no God.

Instead, he said the most honest thing from his perspective, that there was no conclusive (secularly accepted) evidence one way or the other.

And they didn't like that answer.

She contacted the aliens & essentially said, "help us, we've messed things up."

Which is what drew them there.

Now, what got me sputtering like an idiot in confused disbelief was this weird, sacrilegious story that I have zero idea where it came from.

---

"So Einstein dies. He finds himself in heaven, and he has his violin. He's overjoyed. He loves his violin more than physics. Even more than women. He's excited to find out how well he can play in heaven. He imagines he'll be pretty damn good. So he starts tuning up, and the angels rush at him.

'What are you doing?' they say.

'I'm getting ready to play.'

'Don't do that. God won't like it. He's a saxophonist.'

So Einstein stops. He doesn't play. But it's difficult. He loves music. And there's actually not much to do in heaven. And sure enough, from high above, he hears the saxophone. He's playing 'Take the 'A' Train', do you know that one? Einstein knows it too. And he thinks, I'm going to do it. I'm going to play with him. We're going to sound great together. So he starts playing 'Take the 'A' Train'. The saxophone stops, and God appears. He marches over to Einstein and kicks him in the balls, which hurts, even in heaven. Then he smashes Einstein's beloved violin to bits. Eternity without music. Heaven has become hell for Einstein. And as he writhes on the ground, holding his smashed balls, an angel comes over and says: 'We warned you: Never play with God.'"

---

Like, I get that it's supposed to be some sort of joke that's supposed to help Saul later, I think.

But this when added with the Sophons, which feels like an attempt to suggest that anything miraculous that happens is just a delusion. (Which is dumb, because miraculous things happened even before Ye made contact with them, so the Sophons weren't behind them at all.)

As well as the portrayal of a handful of religious individuals as following the Sophons despite the fact that they themselves say that they are just microscopic computers the size of a photon. They also say that they are incapable of telling lies, which is their purported reasoning for wishing to get rid of humanity. As they believe it means that they are incapable of co-existing.

Seems to suggest that this was a very antireligious show. Not just anti-Christian. Not just atheistic or areligious. Antireligious.

Which... considering how religion is one of the cornerstones of culture, isn't a great stance to take.

But, I can't help but wonder if the author of the books missed something.

Like, yes, people do terrible things in the name of God, but what I fear most is the sort of things that people would do in the name of no God.

For one, it's speculated that Hilter may have been antireligious, agnostic at best. That the only God he worshipped was the laws of the universe & is quoted as having said that it would be science, not religion, that would pave humanity's way forward. Heck, he used the science known at the time as an excuse for his antisemitism.

And Stalin was an atheist.

In other words, it matters not who they pray to, if someone wishes to do terrible things, then they'll do them regardless of whether they have an excuse or not.

Fear the man who fears no God. Fear those who worship only science, for it is ever-changing & they will use the current understanding of it as an excuse to commit evil. But even more than that, fear he who worships only himself. For they who do will commit terrible acts far beyond any other.

Aikoiya's Writing Tips Masterlist

[lamuradex]

Writeblr Interview Tag

Thanks @sableglass for the tag. Sorry that this took me a while to get to. Time to answer some question.

Short stories, novels, or poems?

Mainly novels but also a collection of short stories. One collection of short stories is potentially becoming a novel.

What genre do you prefer reading?

Fantasy mostly. Magic and mystical creatures and all that.

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

Planner. Super planner. I usually don't write word one of a story until I have at least a skeleton for where it's going. I'll then let ideas emerge as I go, but I still stick to the plan.

What music do you listen to while writing?

I struggle not to get distracted while writing. I tend to properly write without anything to listen to.

Favorite books/movies?

Books: Discworld, The Count of Monte Cristo, Artemis Fowl

Movies: Absolute fave is The Crow. Beyond that, a big fan of stylish animated stuff.

Any current WIPs?

Oh boy, yes. I've got links.

Signs of Light and Shadow

Stitches of the Mind

The Madman and the Princess

Tales of Hero City

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you what would your standard outfit be?

I'd like to say a suit or something, but more likely it would be jeans and a green shirt. It's what I usually wear.

Create a character description of yourself: 

Short brown hair, untanned skin, very light freckles, beard and a moustache. All of which is fairly scruffy and could do with a shave and a haircut.

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

No, seems like a bad idea to me. Once or twice I named characters after friends I had, but it feels weird having stuff happen to them. I don't do it anymore.

Are you kill happy with your characters?

I very rarely kill.

There are worse things to do to your characters than kill them.

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Neither. I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't drink any sort of hot beverage. It's mainly fizzy pop for me.

Slow or fast writer?

I'd say surprisingly fast, honestly. It'll happen in bursts, but once I'm going I can get a few thousand words done in a few hours.

Where/who/what do you draw inspiration from?

TV shows, music I listen to, any media I consume. My process usually starts with "What would I do with this situation?" and follow it from there. And sometimes a story is born from that.

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

A scrivener. I am a writer after all.

Most fav book cliche:

The Unflappable Badass who secretly has a heart. Sam Vimes from Discworld's Guards series, Sgt Jack Jackrum from Monstrous Regiment, The Count of Monte Cristo(sort of), Butler and Root from Artemis Fowl, and likely a heap more. Never gets old really.

Least favorite cliche:

Forced hetero romance. I love a platonic relationship between a boy and a girl in a story, and it infuriates me when they suddenly decide they're really in romantic love. It just feels cheap.

Favorite scene to write?

Honestly, self introspective scenes. Scenes where the character can just rattle around their own head and I don't need to worry about positioning or speech tags. I don't know how interesting they are to read, but I always find them fun to write.

Reason for writing?

Too many stories in my head. If I don't get them down, then they'll only be driving me mad. I need to get them out.

Alright, there we go. So, here come the tags. I'll likely tag the usual people.

@wintherlywords @tryingtowritestuff24 @fayeiswriting @mikathewriter @agirlandherquill

Sorry if you've been tagged before, but enjoy.

[thedreadvampy]

I had a conversation on Friday night that's really got me mad about some stuff but I have tried to gently bring this kind of thing up directly and it never goes well but I am gonna vent it here for when I start feeling like I'm going insane/being a bitch.

this is anarchist infighting babes xoxoxo

Why are people who grew up rich Like That?

Now I to some degree include myself in the category of People Who Grew Up Rich. I had some shit in my youth but one struggle I never had was being a child in a financially precarious home. I never worried about going hungry. I never was at any risk of homelessness. Have I been homeless, hungry and otherwise precarious since then? Yes, but I have a baseline of knowing what security feels like, and I have a network of people who do have money to fall back on. And I have the confidence and education and class-specific social knowledge that comes with that so even if I'm poor I'm still middle class socially.

Both based on observation and statistics, I think it's pretty clear that economic precarity in childhood is one of the most potent single things that impact your lifelong wellbeing. Being precarious as an adult is traumatic and miserable and awful but it isn't the same as having precarity as your baseline state.

However there's a certain ahhhhhh subset of Anarchists From Upper Middle Class Backgrounds who might recognise that intellectually but who act. As if being from a wealthy background is irrelevant to their current life. And it's not.

Like ok this is where I get bitchy. But moving in anarchist and activity circles see how there's often people who seem to be counting up traumas and operations they face specifically as a reason why you should listen to them? and they often seem to count "childhood trauma" and "childhood trauma and precarity" as the same single point? like "oh you had a bad childhood I had a bad childhood we've both been there."

but no! no we haven't both been there! they're not the same experience! childhood poverty is its own enormous and far-reaching trauma, and it not only doesn't lessen the impact of traumas that can happen to anyone (eg CSA, DV, parental addiction, loss of a loved one), it lessens the space people have to deal with those traumas, both emotionally and practically.

And that's not to say If You're Middle Class You Have No Problems because obviously you do. like. I didn't deal with financial precarity in my childhood and adolescence but I did deal with a lot of instability, violence and abuse throughout. and that's significant and worth giving space to. but like many of my friends were dealing with similar stuff at a similar age AND with the far-reaching trauma of poverty (and other systemic traumas like racism and xenophobia)

and like it's not productive or helpful imo to start the Who Suffered Most competition interpersonally. trauma-as-currency is a plague.

buuuut. with the types of person I'm thinking about THEY'LL be the ones implicitly or explicitly bringing it up, either in a "you have to be nice to me bc I've experienced XYZ" way or, even more obnoxiously, an "I own and know the most about X bc I experienced XYZ". Like this sense of ownership and this idea that your experience of X is everyone's experience of X seems to me to most often come from usually white but always upper middle class activists, who are maybe poor now but were very financially stable growing up.

It gives you. A certain confidence. Growing up rich or well-off. And that can be really useful - definitely sometimes the people most able to just bulldoze through beaurocracy and Get It Done in confronting authority are these folks bc a gift and a curse of being raised in classes higher up the ladder is a lessened fear of authority, an assumption of your own rights and knowledge, and a certain self-assurance. even if you're also a neurotic mess personally, idk how to describe it but I'm positive you've seen it - an upper class upbringing brings with it a type of confidence that's almost entirely separate from who you are as a person, it's like an aura, it's baked into you like your accent. it's a specific texture of entitlement and self-assurance and it can be REALLY USEFUL but it can also be. really really really damaging.

When you grow up rich, however bad shit is at home or in your life, you are taught to understand certain things as your right - you expect to be worth listening to (at least by anyone not more powerful than you), you expect to know what you're talking about, and you expect your life to be valued by others (if not by everyone or by yourself, but by strangers).

You can shake it consciously, and it can be knocked around and come into conflict with other trauma, but it sticks with you when you're born into power - when you're raised rich (or white, or a man, or not overtly disabled). It follows you through poverty and trauma - it's baked in early on. and that's not in and of itself a bad thing, it's just a Thing - class affects your behaviour and self-image, like most systemic social constructs. And again it doesn't mean your struggles are less real - your trauma is still traumatic, your anxiety and self-esteem are still fucked up - but it does affect power dynamics.

People who are raised rich are more sure of ourselves, and almost always more immediately able to assert ourselves, our ideas and our wants than we would be if we had grown up poor. And we kind of need to be aware of that because otherwise what happens a lot of the time is a domination of space, and a dismissal of other people's knowledge and experiences because they're less assertive about them than us.

and I'm so fucking sick of it because what it super often looks like is a combination of people going "I have to get what I want because praxis because radical self-care because I'm saaaaaad. You can't tell me no or tell me off because I'm struggling" and going "We have to do what I want because I'm right. Because I have the most knowledge and experience of this thing and I know you've experienced it too but you're wrong about what you experienced."

like (and here's where I've got SURE gone bitchy) there's this really common Type of anarchist who's super involved and super activisty and also their trauma is always the biggest trauma. their ideas are always the only ideas. anything they did that hurt others was justified by their mental illness or stress or lack of knowledge and anything others did that hurt them was twice as bad because of the fact they're So Marginalised. they need people to go easy out of their comfort zone to help them because things are So Hard but they can't offer help that's inconvenient to them because things are So Hard. They're in charge of every protest and they decide who's allowed to protest because they're allowed to Protect Their Boundaries. When someone crosses their unspoken boundaries it is unforgivable but when they repeatedly willfully ignore other people's boundaries it's because they weren't clearly stated enough.

and the thing I'm saying is. the thing I have noticed about this specific type of Anarchist Guy. is in my experience they're literally always from a wealthy background. they may be utterly fucked for cash and homeless now, and that's a real experience they have every right to be scared and vulnerable about and speak to, but they have always had a childhood and adolescence where money wasn't a concern.

poverty is always a traumatic and marginalising experience. but you don't forget the assurance and entitlement you learn if you're raised rich. becoming poor isn't the same as being raised poor. the default assumptions of what's possible and your own importance are different.

and a) I think we need to be really mindful and self-aware about the types of confidence and self-assurance that we might have got from childhood and adolescent privilege, even if we don't have it now. and also b) I fucking hate when people are That Guy and I have like 6 That Guys in my social circle right now and it drives me insane bc it's utterly impossible to get through to them about it bc ppl end up in such denial of the ways being financially stable as a child produces privilege over those who don't.

like I am thinking of a friend (private school, Oxbridge, academia, family own their home, clearly bad but financially well off childhood) who explicitly and repeatedly believes themselves to have meaningfully the same background (or maybe Worse Trauma) as people who were financially supporting their families from 14, people who spent their childhoods seriously housing insecure and spreading food out across the month, and people who grew up in social housing with a disabled single parent. IT'S NOT THE SAME.

I know it's not the same, and while we're both posh I'm WAY less posh than this friend, but that matters a LOT less than that I'm way MORE posh than any of the other people I mentioned and that does affect things! I don't have the experience of precarity! My mum was a very frugal and money-conscious parent but we had the money, even if we weren't spending it, in a crisis it was there! We were never going to become homeless as a family. We were never going to starve. If things were unsurvivable as they were - ceiling falls in, black mould, boiler broken - we could fix it! Our experiences of childhood instability, mine and this friend's, are of relational emotional and physical lack of safety - people around us cause us harm or can't be trusted or need looking after. But the other friends have that plus the emotional, physical and existential lack of safety that is poverty. That's not the same! It's not at all the same background!

and sometimes it's like. the flipside to class reductionism is class erasure. They think we're from the same background as the people who grew up poor bc we're white, we're queer, we're neurodivergent, we're trauma survivors, we're afab, we're whatever else. but stuff like poverty, lack of educational opportunity, social exclusion on the basis of class - those things just don't register. They're unknown knowns - they're the stuff that we take for granted, we tend to assume everyone who's like us in terms of race, gender and ability was basically financially stable in childhood, finished school and went to university, is treated as we're treated by police and authorities, etc.

Writ large, what this looks like is politicians claiming that £82k a year is basically poverty and genuinely making policy on the belief that when people say they're poor it means "can't afford to do everything I want" not "can't afford to live"

But writ small, what this means is that often the loudest voices leading communities of people who've Been Through It - the people who get their way - are people who think that their experience as raised-rich is exactly the same as the experience of the raised-poor. At worst we get Common People cosplayers who you never find out actually have a trust fund and an allowance but even before that. like.

Anarchist spaces, both organising and social spaces, are full of people who are legit struggling, who say at the good words and think all the good things, but who are fundamentally so entirely blind to the power that a middle class upbringing (particularly but not exclusively a white middle class upbringing) has given them that they just plough right through other people bc they assume they're on an even keel. The assumptions we make about people's confidence and assertion based on what's normal for us often takes a really familiar shape where one person's needs consistently take precedence over anyone else's.

and like. All of us deserve to have our needs met. Your needs aren't less important because you're middle class, or white, or straight, or cis, or male, or whatever else. The problem is when it's always one person's needs and never the people around them.

when somebody who's used to having a safety net falls down, people who are used to having to buckle down and do the impossible bc nobody else will pick them up, will pick them up. when somebody else falls down, people who are used to having a safety net see that picking them up is impossible and don't because they haven't got the experience of Having To Do The Impossible. when somebody who's comfortable asserting their needs assumes that all needs are vocally asserted, people who are used to subsuming their needs, not talking about them and dealing with them solo do not get their needs met. and when this carries on consistently across multiple relationships and multiple years, we got a problem.

And specifically part of the problem I think in anarchist circles is that born-wealthy anarchists are a lot more likely to be heavily socialising with born-poor friends, whereas if you buy into the class system you are likely to mostly hang out with other people who ARE actually from a similar economic background and so ARE likely to assert themselves in the same way you assert yourself.

This is why it's so important to not leave abolitionist relationships with power structures at rejecting or refusing them. As much as we should abolish class, racial, gender etc hierarchies, we have to engage with the world as it is. We can't just divest ourselves of hierarchies by wanting to - we have to actually engage and keep engaging with the ways that hierarchy continues to exist inside us. However poor I am, I still was raised middle class. However antiracist I am, I am still white. However aware of gender I am, I am still cis. That's going to affect the relationships I have with people who have different experiences.

but too many middle class anarchists imk talk a big game about class solidarity but ultimately consider themselves working class by choice. but you can't choose how you're raised. and ignoring the privilege of financial stability in childhood leaves you with enormous blind spots on how you treat others and how you recreate those power dynamics.

doesn't mean middle class people can't or shouldn't be anarchists. lots of us are. but for the love of fuck we need to make sure we're aware of the huge and lasting impact that different childhood economic experiences have on who we are as adults. even if we're down and out now, socially we remain middle class. and that gives us power beyond how we're seen - it's a power in how we act and how comfortable we are asserting ourselves over others.

and I'm so fucking sick of seeing it tbh. and I'm so sick of how shitty it makes a lot of friend group dynamics where a few culturally middle class people dominate every decision and take precedence in every discussion of need.

[mcalhenwrites]

I've had a lot of time to think about writing today, too bad I've been sick so even that has been slowed down. :') Anyway, rambles about stories below?

Sometime in Sept/Oct, we want to do a table for Halloween and I'll be selling books at it. I'm thinking maybe I should finish up the whole demon cat pact story and get that published soon. It would be good to have something creepy to go along with the theme of Halloween! I still need to finish those Geckos side stories too, but I'm thinking of making those ebook only. (Unless a lot of people would prefer a physical copy?) (Why did I think it was a good idea to write more Geckos side stories?) I got a new story idea today, sort of. I don't have characters, just a really odd theme that came to mind. One that I feel is fucked up, but... it's fucked up in real life. I keep seeing people get upset that anyone would use physical punishment against a disabled child like it needs to be some kind of exception. I'm like, "WHY SHOULD YOU USE IT AGAINST ANY CHILD?!" So I'm going to write a story where someone has a disabled sibling and dealt with that from their parents. Might be an adult looking back and getting mad or a child character, but either way, I want the main character to seriously think, "That's really fucked up that you were okay hitting me but not my sibling." (Also... yes, they'll hit disabled kids more out of frustration. I'm the sibling of a confirmed autistic kid and you can bet I didn't get hit nearly as often as my brother. Then they abused me further by denying my disabilities and pushing me to be the normal one. It's a whole thing.) I guess I'm never gonna stop yelling about how y'all mistreat kids whose brains are still in development for them not already being developed and meeting your wild ass expectations. UGH! But I'll do it with fiction. Because I can. And it's the only way I'm good at expressing any of my disgust with how things occur in the world, I guess. (Typing up this makes me worse, somehow, like... I'm talking about real people going through things in this post. It's so much easier to just put fictional characters through things and hope they help the real world in any little way than to ever bother fighting a bunch of violent assholes.) Anyway, if you reply, don't derail the topic from my writing to anything else bc it's triggering af for me to talk about IRL child abuse ;A; I'm slowly getting braver mentioning what I went through. But it's a TRIAL Also... I need a new writing laptop sooner than later. ;A; I'm having a hell of a time with my current one, it's 7 years old. I'm sad bc I love this thing, but it's getting worse + falling apart. Bleh. But I like writing on smaller screens and tons of laptops are generally 15" or so for the ones that have what I want. Blehhh. Anyway. I hope I can get some writing done tomorrow despite this, since work will likely be quiet aside from me doing a bit of cleaning. (I dread the bakery case. Those things look cute until you actually gotta fucking deal with cleaning them or rearranging the signs/trays. I'm glad they're just dog treats bc lol just restocking and putting up new signs today was a pain.)

[orbmanson7]

My job wants to conduct a stay interview with me

Whuh oh

It's not necessarily a bad thing, I mean the whole point of these interviews is basically for a company to figure out why you've stayed around and what might convince you to leave so that they can then try to say they'll do things to keep you there

And while that's all well and good, knowing how useless I am in my particular position now, that I'm the lowest paid employee in my program, and that the only other two overnight employees have now chosen to reduce hours to being only on-call workers, which means I'm about to be switched BACK to 7-days a week working my 10-hr shifts...

Like, I'm already at the point where the only reasons I'm staying are 1) I don't want to lose my benefits bc getting a new job will cause a lapse in those benefits and therapy is already expensive enough as it is

And 2) the program is so hands off that if I slack off and do nothing, it has the exact same effect as if I work my ass off all shift. I can do nothing and there is no consequence, so why bother leaving? Plus no one wants to work overnight (clearly) so they'd be completely fucked without me there

So my plan is to try to ask for a raise (especially since I haven't received my annual raise in two years now), and see if they can come up with maybe a way to improve my work tasks, since I've been asking for years and nothing has changed except for me Losing More Tasks

If I could potentially get a better paid position without having to switch hours or given more authority over a specific task like I've had before, like I'm technically the current med manager but no one listens to me nor lets me use my approved med training manuals nor lets me conduct med training specific to the program - they just expect me to fix everything when others mess up or don't know what to do. Or like how I used to conduct billing overviews to make sure we were keeping tabs on our budget and finances, especially now that we actually host two separate programs with two separate funders for those programs within the same residential facility. I also used to conduct facility maintenance alongside second shift, where we ensured we had proper first aid supplies and kept up the easy maintenance like repainting rooms or fixing up tiny dents and dings in walls. I used to conduct record reviews off-site, having travel expenses and got paid to buy a locked attache so I could transport private client files across state lines in order to trade with another program's files and equally audit them together. Now I do everything digitally and internally, making it really easy for shit to go unnoticed bc when I email someone to add a missing file, I just get snarky responses or no response at all, and the file simply remains incomplete. I can't fix it for them bc we don't use a shared drive anymore, even though that's caused so many Goodman problems bc people save files under the wrong name or delete them without realizing they never actually uploaded them in the first place... Ugh, they've just changed things more and more and removed as many tasks from me as possible, but then get mad when I say I Want Something To Do

I literally have a document in my f:/ drive at work just titled "everything wrong with [program name]" and I just kept track of what's wrong, when it was reported, if anything has been done to try to fix it or if it's gotten worse, etc

The list has only gotten longer over the years, as they've never really fixed any of the foundational problems and keep building on top of that, expecting it to hold... It doesn't. This program cannot run itself, no matter how much they want it to.

But hey maybe some more pay and someone willing to say actually yeah let's implement some of your ideas might just change my mind and convince me to stick around

But we'll see

[dom--minnie]

Three’s a Party

Summary: There aren’t supposed to be secrets in relationships. Unfortunately, Felix currently has three. One is let out with no problem. The second creates complications no one could have foreseen. The third, unknown to him, he isn’t the only one that holds the same secret.

Word count: 9.3k

Genre: fluff, smut, angst

Content: non-idol au, established reader and felix, gender-neutral afab reader, felix is nervous, chan is a bit of a dummy, felix wears skirts, threesome, switch! reader, switch! felix, dom! chan, mutual pining, slight lack of communication, threesome arrangement with kink and safeword discussions included, daddy kink, piv, protected sex, unprotected sex, MxM intimacy, (slight) size kink, (slight) strength kink, hand kink, finger sucking, praise kink, pet names, creampie, slight voyeurism and exhibitionism, accidental confessions, polyamory negotiations

Taglist: @solistired @hyunsluvv​

a/n: I only technically lied about the release date. Yes, I said Saturday but I also said the 18th which is today for me still, so it’s fine! I hope I made the wait worth it for anyone interested and for everyone else, voila

Relationships aren't meant to have secrets. Felix technically has several but he keeps them under wraps. The most damning one... one that he would never reveal except under the direst of circumstances. The other ones are far less destructive but are arguably more embarrassing. 

You live in blissful ignorance of all of these, at least for now. Until Felix decides he should tell you something, considering how often he thinks about them. So one day you walk into your shared bedroom with Felix he's wearing a short, blue skirt. Your face is neither positive nor negative and Felix spins, skirt flaring, staring downwards still. 

"And what's the occasion here, darling?" You question. 

Felix makes a confused noise in his throat and looks up to you just a little more. 

"Why have I received such a beautiful gift today? You look amazing, Fe."

Felix leans forward to kiss your nose and giggles when your hands roam under the skirt and squeeze his cheeks. 

"I've wanted to wear a skirt in the bedroom for a while, but wasn't really sure how you'd react." 

"Awwww baby, never be worried about anything like this. I might be confused but I love you so I'll never react badly."

Your comforting words are genuine and Felix wonders how far they truly reach. Would you say the same if he wanted to have a threesome with one of his closest friends? Or said he had a crush on, was practically halfway in love with, said friend? It's not what tonight is about and the thoughts fade when your lips connect.

You're so, so gentle with him and Felix sinks into you. Felix's wandering hands spur your own and suddenly it's like you're horny teenagers again that can't get enough of each other. Your hand slips back under the skirt and the easy access is fun, especially if he plans to wear nothing under it like he is now. Easy access to start jerking him off, and you happily do so, keeping your mouth pressed against his. 

Even with the anxiety Felix must have been imagining a number of situations with how hard he is in your hand. A sigh leaves his mouth as he rests his head on your shoulder. With one bite in your neck and only one sentence all of the power in the situation flows back to him. 

"I want you to sit on my face and then ride me, doll."

Any stress you may have had is gone after that.

Similar situations happen several more times over the next few months. Felix either has a skirt on and is obviously wearing nothing under it. Or he changes into a skirt with nothing under it when it’s clear you’re going farther tonight. Each time you’re caught a little off guard by how truly pretty he is. Lee Felix is sunshine, rainbows, and starlight of course but it’s like the skirt gives him a little extra confidence to shine brighter for you. 

So one hurdle down, only two more to go, great. Felix has never been so glad to have incognito mode with the number of phrases he googles related to 'how to bring up wanting a threesome with your significant other.' 

It's honestly not that useful, as the so-called advice was generic things he could've gotten from anyone. 'Trust them and they'll trust you' or 'do it with someone you both trust' like thanks he knows all of this already. 

Your next take-out dinner and movie night brings some strange behaviour from Felix. He's quiet where normally he'd be commenting on these extraordinarily stupid characters. When one of them completely ignores the obvious thing and Felix doesn't react in the slightest you know he's not paying attention at all. 

He certainly pays attention when you stop the movie and straddle his lap. Your hands cup his face and your forehead rests on his while your eyes meet. 

"What's on your mind, Pixie? Don't try to avoid it either, I know." 

Your gentle compassion almost makes Felix want to spill everything. It all bubbles up to the tip of his tongue but then he thinks of the possible disgust or heartbreak and pushes most of it back down. 

"You know how you said I don't have to be uncomfortable bringing up anything about... bedroom life?" 

You giggle at the euphemism and how adorably shy Felix gets about it when not in the act. Regardless, a hum of assent vibrates your throat. 

"I've been thinking about having a threesome." He blurts then squeezes his eyes shut, not allowing your reaction to reach his eyes. 

The small boop your finger leaves on his nose leads him to open his eyes. Nothing about your expression is negative and you look at him as fondly as ever.

"Do you-"

"Chan." 

A bright, fond laugh bubbles over your lips. 

"Sorry love, you just answered so quickly. Sure, we both trust him. We can talk to him about it and... arrange a day." 

Arrange sounds more formal than you intend but that's what it is. With the weight off of his mind, Felix is able to make fun of the new characters not seeing the plot right in front of them.

Chan knows this is a bad idea, he even cares that it's a bad idea, and yet he agrees. Backing out at any time is always an option, neither of you will be mad. It doesn't matter because he won't. Even if it hurts he will take the one chance he may ever get to screw around with both of his crushes. 

There was no pretense of a normal hangout. You texted Chan that you wanted to talk about something. When you all sit down Felix ends up doing the talking about it since it was his idea in the first place. You both want to have a threesome with him. 

It takes all of Chan's willpower not to coo at the blush that spreads across Felix’s face and ears. Also, a significant amount of brainpower to agree with the right amount of excitement. Not too little that you think he's unsure or doesn't want it wholeheartedly. But not too much that you are suspicious about any underlying feelings or motives he could have. 

Really, you're just thinking about your boyfriend and how cute he is. Not anything against Chan but you love Felix with every cell in your body and it pours out of you often. He can see it from a mile away and doesn’t mind because he’d love to be doing the same thing. Looking at Felix with all the fondness in the world that lets each side know that everything’s going to be ok. But alas, a threesome will have to do for now. Or forever, honestly. 

Then the fun part of it comes: interests. What does Chan have that he likes to do, and would like to do with you. Vice versa, what are you comfortable with and want to do with a sudden, if trusted, third-person present. 

"I'm wearing a skirt," Felix says. 

You smile at how easily he's able to say it, a stark contrast to before. You know that it will give the same confidence on the day of all of this as well. Surprise flits over Chan’s face but he just nods and doesn’t say anything more. 

"I want to dominate both of you." Chan brings it up first, any type of power play and dynamics. 

You and Felix look at each other then back at him and both nod excitedly. Chan already has strong leadership qualities, especially around all of the boys so really this makes sense. It will be very attractive for him to be giving you full orders and expecting them to be followed. Even thinking about it makes your brain work overtime and you have to physically shake yourself out of it.

"Felix and I… we'll just see how it works out. But we’ll both listen to you, for sure. Sound good?" 

You have to check with Chan if he's going to be in charge of both of you. A quick look between both of you and then he nods. 

A moment goes by and you look at Felix with a smirk on your face. He frantically shakes his head before you turn back to a visibly confused Chan. 

"Felix over here has a strength kink. Wants someone to manhandle him a bit." You drawl and Felix doesn't even mock tackle you. 

"Yeah, well you have a size kink! Wanting someone to look down at you and hands fitting around your limbs."

Felix sticks his tongue out at you as you feel your cheeks heat up to the temperature of the sun. Perhaps Chan fits you better than first anticipated. Strength and size in one, not to mention some other interests he slots right into. 

"Any kinks you both have and aren't about to expose to me?"

You and Felix easily speak in unison.

"Praise and hands."

The moment you say that Chan reaches his hands out and lays them vertically so you can see the incredibly veiny backs. Imagining those fingers in any of your wet holes has you readjusting your legs and you can hear Felix do the same next to you.

Felix clears his throat in an obvious attempt to quickly move along from that. 

"Anything you have in mind, Channie?"

The nickname is affectionate and if you didn't know better you'd think the tips of Chan's ears are flushed under his curls. 

"Praise for me is good, no matter who’s giving or receiving it. I like nicknames or pet names, titles as well."

When it becomes clear Chan isn't elaborating you both lean forward in a clear gesture for him to continue. 

"Ok. Baby, bunny, angel, beautiful. For myself? I dunno, choose some. Particular titles especially." 

You all have flushed cheeks as this is becoming a reality, hearing Chan say these things out loud. Hopefully, you'll both be saying some of them as well. One title sticks in your mind and you’ll just have to test whether he’s into that or not. 

"Safewords." You state and both men nod. "We use the colour system generally. Green, yellow, red.”

"Sure," Chan easily agrees. It only slightly surprises you that he knows, and has probably used that exact safeword system before. 

You lean forward to rest your cheek on your palm. 

"I mean... I think that's everything? We can have a phone call or hangout if there's anything else."

Okay but... when? When are we gonna do this?" Felix points out.

It had gotten lost in actually arranging but the goal of this was actually enacting it all so that fact was a bit important. 

"Like 2 weeks from now?" Chan says. 

You consider it, a fair amount of time to go but not too far either. Enough time to mentally prepare but not to freak out fully and leave the country. You look at Chan then Felix who voices his agreement. 

"Alright then, Saturday in 2 weeks. Come over for dinner, Chan. We can ease into it that way."

You stand and Felix follows. Heading to the door you both give Chan a hug, Felix longer and tighter than yours as usual. 

You step out and turn around to face Chan again. 

"See you later, daddy." You wink.

Felix purposefully makes his voice lower and repeats the playful words. It's obvious he tries to hide it but Chan shivers at Felix's voice. You only knew to look because he has the same effect on you.

The two weeks pass entirely as normal. A couple hangouts with various groups of the guys and knowledge of the future threesome doesn't invade your mind. The day before you thought Felix would be visibly stressed already but he seems entirely fine. 

He seems fine to you, but Felix is good at hiding his emotions if need be. And he is freaking the fuck out. There came some point where it really settled in that this was a plan, it was happening, and it was going to be tomorrow. From that point on it had hardly left his head. Hiding his feelings while fucking around with the man? Is that even possible for a Lee Felix? It doesn’t really matter because it’s already happening, so really something is going to happen and he is determined not to ruin it. 

To calm himself down there’s a number of things he can do, yet he chooses the one that wouldn’t make sense to most people. Calling his best friend, the slight hyperactive squirrel man, Han Jisung. Jisung is adept at the two things that can bring Felix out of almost any type of nervous state, whether with genuine comfort, or with chaotic distraction. 

Yet when he calls, Jisung seems to know something is different. 

“Soooooo, what is up my dude? How have you been?” Jisung sings.

“Ah, just a bit nervous for no reason and I know you’re not doing anything.”

Jisung is silent for a couple moments longer than the normal, puzzling. 

“You sure it’s nothing? You’ve been…. extra. The past week, especially.”

Felix goes over the last times they’ve hung out together, especially as a group of 9. There’s nothing out of the ordinary that he thinks Jisung may count as ‘extra’, whatever that even means. 

“Extra what, Ji? What are you even talking about?” Felix laughs, assuming Jisung will too and they can just move on. 

“You’ve been staring at Chan like way more than usual, dude. I thought it was ridiculous before, but now… he’s either denser than a brick or ignores it.”

Felix’s mouth drops open and he’s silent for nearly half a minute. Other people have noticed how often he stares at Chan? Jisung noticed how much he stares at Chan? This is an entire disaster. And if Chan ignores his stares, then what does that mean. Actually, no, if he goes too far down that route then he’s going to chicken out of all of your plans and he wouldn’t dare ruin it. 

“Are you the only one who noticed?” Felix asks hesitantly, mouthing please in hopes that if someone else has noticed as well, that it’ll just go away.

“No… Jeongin and Seungmin are wayyyyy too observant for that, the little demons. Minho, too. I haven’t heard from the others but if I’ve noticed then…” Jisung trails off. He’s not the least observant in the group. That title goes to Felix and Chan themselves. But he and everyone else would put him low on the list, so if he knows then almost everyone else probably does too. Well, shit.

“I’ll only tell you if you promise with your whole heart not to tell anyone else.” 

Felix’s heart is pounding and it thrums loudly in his ears. Is he really about to tell someone else about this? Jisung, no less. 

“I’m concerned but yeah, of course. Unless it’s a crime.”

Felix forces out a laugh, and he knows Jisung can tell but neither of them comment on it.

“So… maybe I have a bit of crush on Chan. It’s fine, it’ll go away eventually and I can just move on, but for now. I have crush feelings.”

Jisung is silent and Felix has to check if he hung up at some point.

“So you stare at your ‘just crush’ like he put the moon up himself? Not believing that or a second. But I understand now, so whatever. You gonna tell them or…?” 

Felix lets out a real laugh this time, then scoffs like Jisung’s proposed robbing a bank tomorrow. 

“And have them break up with me? No thanks, I’ll just live with it.”

This time its Jisung scoffing so hard his throat will be sore.

“You’re an idiot. If they love you, and we both know they do, then it’ll be fine. Be honest about your feelings, it’ll only make you stronger.”

Felix considers it, turning the idea over in his mind. Inevitably, his mind turns to your possible reactions. His dreams come first, the ones where you somehow like Chan as well and Chan likes you both. Or the ones where you’re ok with it. Or any of the ones where Chan even likes him back. But of course, the more likely reality. Where you’re uncomfortable or disgusted. Or want to… nope. 

“I’ll think about it. Thanks Ji.”

“Sure man, anytime. Popcorns going so I’m gonna dip. Good luck.”

Felix is left in the silence of the bedroom to ponder. They both know he won’t do it but the wonderful fantasies make it seem possible. Some wonderful fantasies can come true, somehow.

The stress explodes in the morning. Felix is out of bed when you wake up and when you exit the apartment is practically sparkling. From top to bottom, you’d believe this house had never been lived in if your pictures and souvenirs weren’t everywhere. There's also a wonderful cookie smell coming from the kitchen, and it draws you in. Whenever Felix bakes it floods through your apartment and makes it seem like a home. Cheesy, yes, but it’s really what he does to you. 

Felix's back is to you when you come in the kitchen and you wrap your arms around his stomach. He lets out a small squeak of surprise before giggling, face lighting up at you being awake finally. 

"You do know Chan's been here before right? You didn't have to do this."

Felix sighs and turns to face you, leaving a kiss on your forehead. 

"I know I didn't have to. I'm just nervous and all this kept my mind off of it for a bit."

You coo at your adorable boyfriend and peck his pink, pouting lips. 

"No matter what happens he's just Chan. You're still you, I'm still me. It'll be ok, Fe." 

The sigh Felix lets out has a different meaning to you both. You assume it's clearing his mind and re-centreing himself. Really it’s thoughts of how, at the end of the day Chan is never just Chan for him, but this is reality and not his ideal world. He doesn’t get to have two attractive partners to come home to every day. The timer goes off behind him and the reminder makes the smell of cookies flood your nose and mind again. 

"Join me on the couch when you're done, baby. I'm gonna work on some stuff for a bit." 

The reminder of cookies existing every timer goes off is delightful, and really the only reason timers should exist ever. Most of the way through the batter, Felix dances into the living room and feeds you one, delightful as always. He’s beautiful like this. The lingering stress showing on his face from the morning is entirely gone. The blinds are finally open for a reason and sunlight reflects off your sunshine.

The day passes easily once it begins and Felix is done practically vibrating out of his skin. In the early afternoon, he even falls asleep with his head in your lap for a while. Looking at him is like looking at a sleeping kitten, curled up and peaceful. 

It gets later, a bit darker and you pull up the recipe on your laptop. The kitchen barely fits 2 people but you and Felix work well enough together that there are few problems. It’s nice to just… coexist with someone else so peacefully and naturally. The door rings and you and Felix glance at each other, for just a bit too long before he patters away. 

They both pop their heads around the corner and Chan joins you both, squishing the kitchen space even more. He gives you both soft kisses on your foreheads, smiling and greeting you quietly. As soon as he does you and Felix look at each other and nod, kissing his cheeks at the same time. His cheeks flare bright red and his eyes widen but he quickly recovers. Expression settling and laughing, even if his ears and cheeks don’t stop burning for quite a while. Then you notice the box, probably a dessert that you won't be getting to tonight. Or… you will get to dessert technically, it just won’t be any of the typical sugar. 

It proceeds normally, you may even forget what your plans are for a minute. But as plates start getting emptier Felix is the first to tense up. Chan follows soon after but you manage to stay the calmest, at least on the outside. 

Chan puts his hand on your knee first and you stand. Suddenly, Felix's grasp comes from your other side and tugs you towards him. He looks so… innocent that you just can't help but tangle your fingers together. At the same time, he tilts his head up towards you, waiting for a kiss. Your hands tangle in his hair and press your lips against his. 

You both turn to Chan after and he's sitting up, completely straight and still. You round the table and he puts his hand on your hip. It doesn't escape your notice about how much of you it covers and you resist looking down to see it. 

"Can we kiss you?" You ask, breath fanning across his lips. 

He should say no. Say no, say no, saynosaynosay- 

"Yes." He says with false ease. 

You lean in and he lets you lead it, simply resting his hands on you. Felix comes up behind you and rests his head on your shoulder, watching. 

Chan briefly bites your bottom lip but you pull away before too much happens in the kitchen. Before you can move Felix switches places with you and throws his weight against Chan. It's like he was prepared and his hands go around Felix's back. You take a good long look at them before playing with Felix's hair and taking your own turn to watch them. 

"We should go to your bedroom." Chan pants out, eyes blown wide when he opens them. 

"You heard him, baby boy. Follow him." 

You giggle when Felix whines at the pet name. 

"You're our baby boy tonight, aren't you?" You tease. 

Chan feels something flare inside of him when you use such possessive words, especially "our" anything. In any other situation, he knows it would be "your" and it kills him. He wants so much more, but he cannot either of you entirely in the way he wants so much. It's not a controlling type, simply a statement. Felix is yours as you are his, and neither of you are Chan's. 

The moment you reach the room the door is closed and you are pinned onto it. You watch Felix disappear to change but Chan makes sure your attention is back to him quickly. He kisses you again, but harder this time. 

Felix feels like this is a dream. Maybe he's finally achieved lucid dreaming. Because he's standing in the bathroom changing his skirt and about to have a threesome with his significant other and best friend/crush. That can't be real. So he's ready to wake up and tell you about the totally wild dream he had. But not the feelings, because those are still very real. 

He never wakes up. Instead, he pulls the skirt on and walks out to see you pinned against the door and Chan nipping at your neck. 

When Felix appears your attention is immediately split between them. It goes back to Chan pretty quickly when he starts whispering in your ear. 

"I certainly know what I want to do. First, I'll watch the 2 pretty kittens in front of me for a while. A pretty picture being painted right in front of me. I'll keep the rest to myself for now. Go kiss your pretty boyfriend and give me a show, alright sweetheart?" 

He backs away slowly and you go to Felix, whispering in his ear as well. 

"He's going to watch and wants a good show from us first. So let's give him one, huh?" 

Felix throws his arms over your shoulders and nods. Before you can tug him in he looks at Chan who nods as well before pulling out your desk chair. 

Your kiss with Felix is already heated and messy, the extra thoughts of an audience and pleasing that audience in mind. It moves faster than you normally would when in the bedroom. Though the tension of the whole day, and especially of the dinner may be enough to make up for that. 

Your hands roam furiously around each other and each time your lips break apart you each let out a gasp before diving back in. Felix starts walking you towards the bed with slow steps and flips it around so you fall onto his lap. Before he can do anything you fall to the ground on your knees. 

When you flip up his skirt and see nothing underneath you can hear Chan groan from his spot. Immediately you sink your mouth down, gagging just slightly as he hits the back of your mouth. Taking a second to breathe, you look up at Felix who already has his eyes closed. When you stop his eyes flutter back open and his hands go to your hair, resting there with no intention of pulling. You bob your head slowly, not taking him all the way in every time. A couple times you try to glance at Chan in the corner but he’s moved farther than what you can see. So, your attention is focused on Felix who’s very entertaining and responsive on his own. 

It starts as low moans that tell you he’s feeling good but you’re already looking for the high whines that you know he gives out. You hollow your cheeks and swirl your tongue in that way you know he likes, and the low groans turn into higher moans. They’re quieter than normal and you can tell he’s holding back, which is understandable, but you want him to let go. 

Your head gradually bobs faster and faster, with Felix’s moans getting higher and more frequent. With one particularly deep dip, he hits your throat and a loud whine breaks free. You do it again and again, letting Felix lose control. His hands twist in your hair, still not enough to cause any pain to you, but his hips stay still to let you set the pace. You know Felix is close and you both want it and are both ready to receive it, even so early in the night.

“No, no, little one. He’s not cumming yet.” Chan suddenly speaks, tone firm. 

Felix whines and you make a disappointed noise and slow down, not giving him enough of anything anymore. 

Felix pushes you off of him with a shuddering breath and a poorly concealed whine. After a moment of confusion, you switch places with him. He’s on his knees and starts peeling off your pants, with the noises of Chan shifting in the background. With every inch of skin that is revealed under your pants, he makes sure to kiss it, all the way down to your ankles. He pulls down your underwear after, with less reverence and more impatience this time. 

Before he can dive in, as he so clearly wishes to, Chan clears his throat across the room. 

“Felix.” Said man perks up and turns towards Chan, eager to please. “Turn them towards me and let me have a look, won’t you baby?” 

You obediently don’t move and let Felix turn your body, spreading your legs as well. Even without looking down, you know that you’re soaked already. Chan’s groan confirms it and you shift impatiently. Felix waits though, until Chan nods, before turning you back and getting his mouth on you. 

All things considered, he’s gentle but the build-up and tension makes each bit of pleasure like a shot of electricity through your body. He licks eagerly, tasting you and making you twitch. Your hands go his hair less nicely than his did before. You tug at the strands, which only makes him moan into you which makes your hips buck into his mouth. Each small sound from Chan makes you want to see and feel him but you wait, indulging in Felix as is. 

Felix knows exactly how you want it and with every minute that passes your whines get louder and with each flick of his tongue your brain gets fuzzier. Chan is taking a relatively hands-off approach for now but even with his seemingly infinite patience, he must want more. It’s hard to focus on that when Felix is eagerly slurping at your wetness and making you want to ride his face. You test the waters by rolling your hips once, twice, three times. When neither man stops you, you roll them incessantly. 

With no prior experience, Chan somehow seems to know exactly when to stop you from getting too close.

“Felix, stop.”

Felix eagerly obeys, and you whine loudly in disappointment. One look from Chan cuts you off and you resolve to not protest again when he finally walks over. He stands above both of you but looks down with fondness and not scorn. 

“How should we do this, pretty pets?” 

You don’t even look at Felix before boldly speaking to him, knowing it was mostly a rhetorical question.

“Fuck me! Please?” Your sudden boldness is tempered by the way that Chan looks at you and you dip your head down.

Felix visibly brightens once his fuzzy brain puzzles out that he’ll probably get to be back in your mouth. He’s the first one onto the bed and you follow, Chan coming up behind you. Your kiss with Felix is interrupted by Chan tugging your shirt over your head and shoulders. He pulls it off and you turn around to pull his own clothes off, bringing Felix over as well. 

Chan laughs when you both eagerly tug at his own clothes, trying to pull everything off at once.

“Slow down little ones. You’ll get it all soon.” 

You and Felix stop and stare when his shirt comes off and you are suddenly very aware of him. It isn’t that Chan hides how muscular he is, just that you didn’t pay too much attention to it before. Now, you’re certainly paying a lot of attention. It’s broken when Chan goes to Felix’s shirt and you’re as excited as usual to reveal what’s underneath. 

Just the sight of them alone nearly has you drooling and your hands run over their bodies at the same time, hardly believing they’re both in front of you. There’s hardly a chance to admire them as they both want to see you as well and pull your shirt up, one hand on either side. 

Chan’s hands get on you and dip lower, lower and all the way down to between your thighs. You shiver and watch his face, waiting for his next move. Felix’s hands go up, to your nipples. His warm hands on you makes you shiver but still, you watch Chan who just is not moving. It makes you want to whine and beg but you know, almost for sure, that he’d disapprove. So you wait. The light touches on your nipples makes you whimper and moan occasionally and Chan watches you. 

With a slowness that makes you want to scream, he pushes one finger inside. Even the barest feeling of being full makes you shudder and sigh in relief. After a few thrusts of his fingers where he meets no resistance, he pushes a second one in. You make a high noise in your throat and lean back against Felix’s chest, who takes the easy opportunity to kiss along your neck and shoulder. 

The sensitivity of being so close from Felix’s mouth is still there and it has you moaning louder than you normally would. One of your hands reaches out and grabs Chan’s hand that is laying on his thigh. He doesn’t stop you so you bring it to your mouth and suck on two of his fingers. Felix lifts his head and groans at the sight, Chan’s pretty hands in your beautiful mouth. 

Both men seem to thoroughly enjoy just playing with and teasing you, and it feels so good that you honestly don’t want them to stop. But you’re also craving so much more. With reluctance, you pull Chan’s fingers out of your mouth and whine at him.

“Daddy, please!” 

He raises an eyebrow at your insistent tone and pushes another finger into you. It makes your head fall back onto Felix’s shoulder but also increases the need of being filled by Chan right now. 

“No~ need you to fill me up, please.”

He slams his fingers into you, hard and deep and it makes you gasp. 

“Do these fingers not fill you enough? They just aren’t good enough for you.”

Felix behind you huffs then laughs, clearly caught between finding Chan’s teasing amusing or exasperating on your behalf. 

“Don’t make me say it! You know what I want.”

Felix finally starts sucking marks on your shoulder and it makes you sigh happily, a good distraction for just a moment before Chan speaks again. 

“I wanna hear you say it, sweetheart. I want to hear you beg.”

Chan’s tone makes even Felix gasp, his mouth disconnecting from you and a sudden, hot breath caressing your sensitive skin. You shiver from the many sensations on your body and the sudden addition of his clear order. 

“Want… want your dick, please. Daddy, fuck me!” 

After you’re done speaking Chan puts his fingers back in your mouth, letting you suck on them contentedly. If you’re going to get what you want you have to leave what you have and Chan pulls all of his fingers out of you at once. You know better than to whine so you hold it back, but your eyes screw shut in displeasure. 

“All fours, doll. Come on now.” Chan coaxes, and Felix also sighs when he has to disconnect from you. Chan takes that time to get a condom, and when he turns he just admires you and Felix on the bed. A perfect picture, but one that he’s also involved in tonight. 

You get on your hands and knees then just wait for them to touch you again. Felix knows he’s still a bit sensitive and waits for Chan to start. Chan with infinite patience that is now absolutely killing you. His hands are feeling you up, down your ass and thighs and back up again. When he notices how obviously impatient you both are he finally lines himself up with your entrance and pushes in. 

It makes you sigh. The opening of your mouth prompts you to look up at Felix who smiles down at you. You push your neck out, wanting him in your mouth and he pets your head. His fingers lift your chin and make you look up at him again.

“Be good for us, baby. Make us feel good.”

You eagerly nod and he finally moves closer. Once the tip of his dick is in your mouth, you start swirling your tongue around it. The moment he thrusts in you open your mouth wider and let him use it. It doesn’t take Chan and Felix long, as close and in sync as they are, to set a rhythm where when one of them pushes in the other pulls out. Chan’s thrusts push you towards Felix so much that his cock is nearly always in your mouth fully. 

At some point, you can feel the drool starting to drip down your chin and Felix coos while he wipes it away. 

“So messy, baby! Drooling all down my cock.” 

All you can do is hum in agreement and hope he hears it. Being absolutely ruined with him in your mouth is always a fun experience and having Chan behind you improves it quite a lot. Speaking of Chan. His hand has come around and two of his fingers are feverishly rubbing your clit. It makes the long-awaited pressure build-up and he groans when you clench around him. 

“Such pretty pets in front of me. Wet holes dripping down our dicks and making everybody messy. You just can’t hold it in, can you little one? That’s ok, we know you’re enjoying it.”

Chan’s voice is raspy when he speaks and it bolsters your confidence to know how good he’s feeling, too. It’s not as if you can say or do much about it. Especially not when you can feel an orgasm building and he thrusts so hard to make you dizzy. 

Felix broke back into high whines a minute or two ago. When he speaks, it’s strained and he can barely get more than a few words out at a time if he can think them at all.

“Gonna cum. I want you to- to swallow it. Holy fucking shit, your mouth is so good, honey.”

You open your eyes, when did they even close, to look up at Felix. Attempting to get across how good he feels and how badly you want it. His chest rises and falls with quick, harsh breaths. Chan is so good behind you, rubbing your clit in small circles and long length filling you up better than you dared to hope. Your own peak is building but can barely focus on that for now, no matter how badly you want to. 

Felix hits your throat once then twice more and with a small cry and jerk of his hips he cums. His whole body quivers and trembles as his seed shoots down your throat. You cough on it for a moment but swallow it down. The convulsion of your mouth projects a high-pitched whine from his own. 

The moment Felix leans back, and your mouth is still left open, Chan drives into you roughly. A noise of surprise that you barely recognize comes from you before you start moaning, feeling your own high so presently. With Felix no longer in front of you, Chan holds your hips and pulls you back, slapping against your skin even louder every time he thrusts in. The continued stimulation on your clit is almost overwhelming in its intensity. 

Felix can see the grunts and groans leaving Chan’s mouth but can’t hear them due to your own keening moans. To everyone’s surprise, Chan cums before you do but doesn’t dare stop or slow down his pace, even when it overstimulates him. The movements of his hips are less fluid but it doesn’t make you feel any less pleasure. With each thrust, he had learned to hit nearly any spot you needed him to. 

He’s left panting but is rewarded when you let out a gasp and something that sounded like ‘gonna cum’. Your whole body shivers when it washes over you and even still Chan thrusts which makes shake that much more intense. Eventually, he stops when it becomes far less pleasurable for himself, he has a limit, but still rubs circles on your clit. A distraction shows in the way of Felix who climbs onto his lap. The relief and pleasure are still coursing through you and you flop to your side, curling your legs up and inwards. You watch them kiss through blurry eyes and how Felix submits to him so readily. 

“Lixie~ one more? Inside?” You pout. 

Chan coos and runs a thumb over your puffed-out bottom lip. It’s always a bit of extra fun when you let Felix cum inside. It’s a bit messy which neither of you really wants to deal with afterwards. Tonight’s special so why not add an extra little bit of a reward for him? 

Felix turns to you and gasps. When you don’t laugh it off, he moves in front of you.

“Can you ride me? If you’re not too tired, I mean, of course.” 

The way he nearly spits out the words, like they just can’t come out fast enough is adorable. You prop yourself up on your hands and look at Chan over his shoulder, with wide eyes just barely seen by him.

“Go ahead, pets. I’ll join the show again in a bit.” 

You giggle and nearly tackle Felix down by his shoulders. His hands go to your hips out of instinct but you sit on one of his thighs first. Sitting on his thigh, you nearly want to grind and ride on it, looking at Chan’s thighs makes you fully pout again. Those are some good thick ones that you’d love to sit on. Felix chuckles when sees what you’re staring at but tugs you forward by the hips to try and get you moving. 

You make a noise of recognition and easily sit down fully on his dick. The familiar fullness makes you let out a small mewl. 

“Does he feel good, kitty?” 

“Mmh, yes. Really good, daddy.” Your voice is breathy, different from the fully voiced moans from when Chan was railing you before. 

“Ride him then, doll.” 

The order that you were actually waiting for comes and you bounce, slowly. Chan is intending to let you go at your own pace but when a fair amount of time passes, with a fair few whiny moans from Felix, he tsks. 

“You can do better than that. Faster, harder. Make him feel good.”

You place both palms flat on Felix's chest and spread your fingers wide. Your thighs flex as you ride him and the slide makes you gasp. After you’ve set a steady pace for yourself you take your hand to your clit, starting a bit slowly but going quicker as the stimulation doesn’t quite satisfy you as you need it to. Felix watches you, enraptured. You try to look back whenever your eyes are open but it’s overwhelming and they swiftly screw shut again. 

Felix is back to his low groans that you can nearly feel and it’s nearly unbearably unattractive. Chan thinks the same if the small noises he, unintentionally, lets out are any indication. He tries to mumble praises to you but more often it’s Chan who takes the lead. 

“Such pretty little babies, putting on a good show. Only for daddy to see.” “You both look so cute and small. I’d be able to ruin you both so easily.” 

His words and encouragement make you clench and Felix jerks his hips up into you more than once as well. It’s good and you want to keep going but soon your thighs are a bit sore and tired and you begin to slow down again, whining in disappointment. 

“Looks like kitty can’t quite keep up anymore. Why don’t you do it instead, Lix?” 

The familiar nickname used in such a different context makes Felix suck in a sharp breath and his eyes widen. He’d really like to get used to that but as it is he holds your hips and starts pumping. Felix just manages to hit different spots inside of you when he does it himself and he has you moaning loudly within a minute. 

When you look back over at Chan he’s jerking himself off in time with Felix’s movements. He’s not sitting close enough for either of you to reach but his eyes flick all over both of you, taking it all in. Looking down at Felix, his eyes are completely closed but his mouth is open to let you hear his low moans. They get a bit louder and you can tell he’s getting close so you turn on the begging.

“Lixie, baby. Cum inside me, please. Want you to make it all messy and I wanna see it drip out.”

Felix grunts and starts cursing under his breath. In less than two minutes he spills inside you and the warm spurts of cum fill you up more. Your breath is heavy as you get closer again yourself. Chan finally joins you again, fingers replacing yours. Felix still jerks his hips into you as much as he can, but he’s too sensitive for too much of it. Still, Chan’s hand just works and you roll your hips into his hand to feel more. He barely has to do anything honestly. Still jerking himself off with the other hand you can tell he’s holding back by how tight his voice is.

“Use Lix and my hand to get yourself off, kitten. I’ll do it with you, too.”

Your mouth falls open and a long, loud moan comes out. Your second orgasm feels like an overflow of the senses, so much so that you barely even notice Chan spilling over yours and Felix’s legs. You come down with a shiver and your legs and fingers are left with the most shakiness. 

“Up, sweetheart. We wanna see it drip.” 

Felix’s voice is low and rough but not stern. You nod and slip off of him, laying down and letting them both see. It’s nothing you can see yourself but from both of their low noises, it’s very appreciated.

You’re all left panting, sweaty, and shaky. You stay on your back and throw your legs on top of Felix’s. Chan stands and shuffles off to find towels for you all first. It makes you recognize that you need water and you grumble and sigh before standing. Felix hears you and jumps up to get you on his back. Just as you get onto Felix’s back, Chan returns.

“Why don’t we dry ourselves off first, okay cuties?” 

You both sit back on the bed and look up at Chan with wide eyes. He continues to take care of you both as best he can and it makes you even sleepier, eyes drooping occasionally. Felix keeps you awake with small jabs and pokes. Everything you all need is done and Chan has agreed to stay for the night. All the buses have stopped, Ubers seem sketchy, and any other arguments he may have are shot down. As well as the argument for him just sleeping on the couch. Felix wiggles himself in the middle and shoots a firm ‘cuddle me’ at Chan before snuggling happily down and going to sleep.

You and Chan share small glances of bewilderment before settling in as well. It’s hesitant but you can feel how Chan eventually moves in, centimetres at a time, to do something that could be considered as cuddling Felix, if you really want to stretch it. The bed is full but instead of feeling crowded you feel comforted, knowing two of your favourite people are the ones there with you.

Chan wakes first but doesn't move in a way that would indicate he's in anything but deep sleep. Once he's sure neither of you are awake he sits up and gazes at both peaceful, sleeping faces in front of him. You're both beautiful in the throes of passion but there is something about the peaceful light of day that pangs his heart differently. 

Surreptitiously, under the blankets you and Felix hold hands but lay with eyes closed as you feel Chan looking, observing. He takes a heavy breath in that makes you want to sit up and ask, comfort him, but something about the stillness in the air stops you. 

"Fuck," he curses lowly, but in a different way than the last night. "You're both so beautiful, I wish every morning could be like this." 

You stay quiet, even if thoughts race through your mind, but sensitive Felix gasps, no matter how hard he tries to muffle it. Chan leans back against the wall to create as much distance as possible. 

Felix sits up slowly and you follow a moment after. Chan lets out some nervous, forced chuckles. The confidence of yesterday has melted away, leaving the usual, shyer Chan sitting here instead. 

"Channie?" He shudders. "What did you mean by that?" 

He stutters and fumbles, trying not to lie but also keep feelings intact. Eventually, he just stops and freezes everything for a moment. Then before you can even think, he tries to leap off the large bed towards the door. Felix is fast and grabs one wrist while you rush to stand and grab the other to push him back down.

There is no fight, only an acceptance to sit back down. 

"Channie, please." Felix chokes out the words and when you look at him he's on the verge of tears. 

Why is unknown, but it's clear this is going to be a difficult conversation. 

Chan sighs and runs a hand through his hair, flipping his head to look at both of you. 

"I never thought this was going to happen, any of this. Last night, everything this morning. But whatever happens, don't let my words affect your relationship."

He looks at both of you separately to receive an agreement. 

"I really like you both, romantically. Maybe even love but I've tried to avoid the thoughts. For obvious reasons."

In the silence of anticipation, Felix's tears had dried on his eyes but now they sit, teetering on the edge of his eyelids.

"Lix. Are you ok? You look like you're about to burst." You speak gently to Felix because he looks like a terrified little animal. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I was never going to tell you." 

Your confusion only grows at his vague words and you can't see Chan from the way he's turned his head. 

"I understand if you wanna break up with me. I'd probably want to if the roles were reversed."

A gentle hand on his knee prompts Felix to raise his head and look at you.

"It's ok, love. I'm sure we can work this out. Just tell me the whole story first."

"Chan and I have been best friends for so long, years before I thought about dating anyone. He's seen all my highs and lows. Then you came and changed that a lot and we started dating. But still, somewhere along the way I... I developed feelings for him." 

Felix curls himself so small it seems impossible and leans away from both you and Chan. You sit in stunned shock and try to make sense of everything that just happened. When your eyes focus again Chan's eyes are flicking between you and Felix. Felix. 

You mentally curse and lunge towards him, embracing him in a tight hug. 

"Can you look at me, my love?" You coax gently. 

He sobs harder at the loving, familiar pet name coming from your mouth but obliges. Somehow still the prettiest man you may have ever seen, but that's not important.

"It's ok." You say simply. 

Felix looks at you in confusion, sobs still wracking his body periodically even as he tries to hold them back. 

"Your feelings for Chan, they're ok." 

You can hear the small, confused noise Chan makes from his spot behind you but mostly you hear the loud whimper of Felix in front of you. 

"What? Are you joking? How are you ok with knowing your boyfriend has a crush on someone else. His best friend, as well. One of the people you're both closest to. And you're ok with that?" 

The points Felix is making aren't completely out there. But there's something that flares up in your chest, something amazing, when Chan and Felix interact so tenderly. Their normal banter is what you expect but when it's quieter or later they get softer and so do you when looking at them. 

"I am. I like that you two have an incredible dynamic completely separate with me. Of course, I love talking to you both as well. I can't explain it, but it's there. So yes, it's ok." 

Felix launches himself onto your lap and buries his face in your chest. You focus on him, nuzzling your nose in his hair and rubbing his back. To the point where you almost get lost in your own world completely. Of course, almost is the key word. 

Chan watches in envy as you both drift off into a comfortable affection and closeness. There was just a whole confession but he can’t help but feel like he doesn’t fit perfectly, not yet anyways. He wants to hold you like that, or Felix, or both. Maybe later, not today. Today he needs to go home and let you have a day to yourselves. 

Chan is off the bed before you can even speak and you and Felix look at him, puzzled. 

"Haha, um, I just don't to y'know intrude on your morning routine or anything. You don't need to get up I'll just go, yeah. We can talk more another time." 

Your deadpan look to Chan somehow increases as he says 'intrude' and you're sure Felix has pulled out his sad kitty look. 

"Chan. Bang Chan. Christopher Bang. Sit down." You order.

Felix laughs when he follows your order, almost dazedly, and sits back down to fiddle with his hands. 

"Can I kiss you? For real this time." You ask, Felix moves off your lap in anticipation.

Chan looks up at you with his jaw hanging down. He nods then closes his mouth and clears his throat.

"Yes. Please." 

You're half on his lap with your arms around his neck before he pulls you in. After a dizzying minute or so you pull away. 

Felix would be mad you got to kiss Chan with feelings first if it wasn't so damn attractive. When neither of you moves he whines and does grabby hands in that general direction. 

You move out of the way and watch as Chan goes to Felix without hesitation. Chan is wider and could probably cover Felix up entirely from the right angle. They're so soft. Chan's hands are barely touching Felix's waist and Felix's hands are moving up Chan's arms and shoulders. They’re beautiful. Absolutely stunning. When they pull away from each other your hands go to rest on each of their shoulders’ and you level Chan with a stern look. 

“Just listen until I’m done. No interrupting. Just listen.”

He has the presence of mind to just look slightly sheepish and nod.

“Me and Felix have been dating for a while but that will make you no less of a valued or important member of this relationship. If we’re going to do this then we all need to communicate our feelings to each other. So, Chan. If we ever, ever, make you feel left out in any way, you need to tell one of us. That goes for all of us in any situation.” 

You sit back but Felix catches you and pulls you into his side. Chan follows his lead and moves in front of you, putting his long arms to use and hugging both of you. You all sit in peace and adoration for a bit before stomachs begin to grumble a bit. Chan is the first to disentangle himself and the look of disbelief that crosses his face all over again is almost comical. 

"You're... This is ok?" 

You giggle at his still present disbelief. Hesitantly, you reach one hand towards him and he grabs it and moves toward you. While still making eye contact he gingerly presses his lips to the top of Felix's head. 

"It's real, Channie. I promise." You giggle then whisper.

Chan pulls his hand back and looks at both of his palms in shock. You give him a few moments then he reaches his arms back around both of you as best he can and buries his face in Felix's shoulder. 

"Thank you." He mumbles. 

"Three's a party, not a crowd for us.” You reply, leaning on Felix as well.

Felix is the glue that binds you two together, and the one that got you here in the first place. For not the first time and not the last, you're happy to have met him. 

[naivesilver]

PLEASE can I have Lampwick + Leroy for one of the prompts on the noticing trauma meme 🥺

STAB RIGHT IN THE FEELINGS TIME

Noticing Trauma Prompts

“Hey.” 

Leroy only notices that Lampwick's hurt because the kid won't stop bleeding onto his rope.

The scratch is not the problem, per se. Tending to a boat is rough work; Leroy himself has the scabs and calluses to prove that fact, if anyone were of a mind to question it, which he doubts would ever happen. And honestly, he's not that mad about the bloodstains, either - they'll wash off in a flash, and even if they don't, well, it's not like his precious sea lady was completely shiny and pristine to begin with. It'd survive that, too.

No, the issue is that despite the three or four inches long gash on his arm, Lampwick is still utterly focused on untangling the mess of fishing nets on his lap, sawing at the fraying meshes as though his life depended on it.

"What the hell, kid," Leroy grumbles, putting down his own tools. He marches over to the boy and snatches the knife out of his hands perhaps a tad more gruffly than necessary. "You blind or something?"

"Hey!" Lampwick protests, looking up immediately, but there is something more than the outrage the dwarf had expected in his eyes, a wary reticence that is more than a little surprising. "What was that about?"

In response, Leroy points an accusing finger at the scratch. "That's what it's about. How'd you not notice?"

The realization hits him rights as the words leave his mouth, because the surprised glance Lampwick turns to his own wound is too knowledgeable, too deliberate to be genuine. The boy did notice, that's how it went. He just didn't think it was worth getting up to patch it up, like as not.

"Uh, alright," he says, far too casually, unaware of Leroy's turmoil. "Don't worry, I'll clean up when I'm done here. Maybe it'll lure some sharks in, though. They make soup out of them in some places, did you know that?"

"You think my problem's the damn blood?" The dwarf all but growls, and reaches out to take his hand. "Do you have any idea how much dirty crap I've got lying around here? You've got to clean it up and cover it, before-"

He cuts himself off, stunned, as Lampwick snatches the arm away, an instinctive flinch more than anything else. "I told you, it's fine," he insists, the guarded look even clearer on his face for the split second where he dares to meet Leroy's gaze before he glances to the side. "It's nothing. I can still work. Don't worry about it."

Leroy watches him, really watches him for a few seconds, swallowing the reprimands already on his tongue. His first instinct would be to scold the kid and tell him not to be an idiot, but he doesn't see that route ending anywhere good, if he's honest with himself. This is not one of his brothers, slicing their thumbs because they were too busy fooling around to do anything carefully.

This is...well, a kid, brooding and unpredictable as you please, and not even a normal one at that - a kid who's not Leroy's and yet is the next best thing, and who still won't say how he got half the scars littering his back and flank. A kid who's currently very, very intent on not looking him in the eyes, though it's clear he regrets not having a knife to fidget with, his fingers tense and restless.

Leroy crouches down slowly, almost eye level with the boy, who's too bloody tall even when sitting on the ground. "Hey," he ventures, trying to keep his voice even. "Kid. Look at me."

Lampwick doesn't do so immediately, but after a moment it must seem clear that the dwarf before him isn't going anywhere, so soon enough he's staring up at Leroy hesitantly, somewhat suspiciously. "What?" He mutters, heavy with mistrust.

"You think I'm going to toss you into the bin when you get damaged? Because that's not going to happen. I like having you around. Most days, anyway. You're not getting rid of me anytime soon."

It's almost painfully evident that Lampwick wants to believe what he's hearing, and yet he doesn't relent just yet, his brow still furrowed. "But you said we had to fix these nets today," he objects, lamely.

"Yeah, well, that can wait," Leroy replies, fitting an hand under the boy's arm and hoisting him to his feet, doing his best to ignore the wave of relief he feels when Lampwick stands up without another word of protest.

"I'd rather fix you first, brat. Then, we'll see."