#Sick as hell. Wonder how hard it'd be to make

[kakusu-shipping]

I feel like some of you guys aren't properly seeing the Zygarde-Sensei vision. So I drew it out for you.

[bogleech]

People really liking my speculative animal wishlists and seem to enjoy that I keep doing vampire versions of non-vampire animals, which is of course because vampire bats are adorable and wonderful. They are adorable and wonderful BECAUSE they are vampires. They are technically completely harmless but there's still a chance they will drink your blood while you're asleep and we as a species hate that SO much it inspires horror and superstition of all sorts. So I think there should be more like that but I already have some that are fish and some that are bugs, so here's just my Top Ten Land Vertebrates That Should Have Vampire Versions:

Tarsier. How great would it be if that thing was also a creeping ghoul. Vampire version would be goth colors. I guess it'd be aesthetically like between a tarsier and an aye-aye actually.

Gecko. I don't know how it would obtain the blood, maybe its tongue would have evolved to have a super sharp tip? Maybe the tip of its little gecko nose would be like a sharp hook?

Tree frog. Same issue as the gecko. I'm gonna say the gecko has a sharp tongue and the frog has a sharp nose. A frog with a beak. Let's also make it see through like a glass frog. Just a ghostly little frog that will cut you.

Kiwi bird, using a needly-fine beak tip and excellent climbing skills, much tinier than the New Zealand one and found on every continent. Then the New Zealand kiwi can still be special. Nature specials can be ike "did you know!? The New Zealand Giant Kiwi is the only kiwi that isn't a sick freak"

Pangolin and this one unlike the rest of these would maybe actually be dangerous, like still pretty large for a blood feeder, if you fall asleep unprotected in vampangolin territory you aren't gonna wake up. I just think pangolins deserve to take a little something back, you know. I guess it might be hard for them to sustain themselves on just blood but maybe these would live where there's a whole lot of big juicy animals for them, like they follow herds of buffalo around.

Flying squirrel and I would put this in my own state of Oregon so like a real Fearsome Critter.

Turtle, because to successfully live like a vampire bat you need to be able to detect a blood source, get to it quickly, drink your fill and get out of there just as quickly, so we'd be talking the fastest and lightest little turtle in the world, a long legged scurrying beetle of a turtle, really long neck with a nasty ass beak. Shell could also be covered in wicked as hell thorns for when a rude host wakes up and tries to be mean to it.

Snake and I would also make it the shortest fattest snake so I guess I'm saying a leech tsuchinoko. Like the vampire bat its fangs would have evolved into two short but sharp little vampire buckteeth. It would be too chubby to coil up the way regular snakes do so instead it would have to roll up the way a pillbug or an armadillo does, into a ball.

Pachyderm with a sharp spur on its trunk. Maybe around pug size, a wrinkly hairy wretched looking micro elephant that would probably live off the blood of things like giraffes and zebras and regular elephants while they sleep. Actually like the pangolin this could probably kill you. Every now and then we could hear about how a big game hunter left his tent open and got completely exsanguinated by an adorable hideous vamphant.

[laboratory-for-peace]

HIHIIYA!! do you have any crack hcs, or serious hcs of the MADS members?

Oh man, I think I have a thousand little ideas for about every One Piece character I've spent 2 seconds thinking about, be it villains or not.

It's one of those cases where it's nothing concrete or big, and a lot of it verges on "character analysis" rather than headcanon, so I have a hard time listing specific things. But talking about all the big theory stuff or deep character analysis would probably be not what you're asking for + I'm not focused enough to do that right now, so let me think of some funny inconsequential stuff.

I don't know. Fuck. It's like I forgot every thought I've had about these science jerks. Idk. Caesar can't smell anything anymore due to all the toxic gas and chemicals burning his nostrils for years. Judge has severe back pain due to being 270-something cm tall and also in his 50s (and he deserves every second of it). Queen didn't loose his arm in an accident, he chopped it off on purpose to give himself a sick robot arm. All of them would have the most severe presbyopia right now were they not some of the few people on the Blue Planet with access to corrective eye surgery. Screw it, Stella didn't make the Satellites' consciousness via Brain-Brain fruit he was simply plural already, he just used the fruit to add a sense of concreteness to them and help with the android body inhabitation. Ms. Buckin' has a serious gambling addiction and got scammed by whatever the OP universe version of crypto is.

Joke headcanons aside.... let me think of more interesting stuff. Long post so it goes under the cut. You've been warned.

I''m fully convinced Queen made the Marys. Was that ever confirmed or touched upon? It's insane to me that canon never like, explained their existence. That makes total sense, right? Are all of them like, robots/artificial lifeforms, or are they cyborgs like Queen himself, and were once living beings? I think if he made them, either way, he has a funny uncle-niece relationship with Bao Huang. He's metaphorically giving her a gun and going "hell yeah go do crime little dudette". Also I like to think whoever the mother of his abandoned son was, was probably another member of the Beast Pirates. Also a big part of his rivalry with King definitely comes from the fact that King doesn't Trust Scientists after what happened in his childhood, and Queen knows that and tries to intentionally make him uneasy because he finds it entertaining.

I'm convinced of the "Caesar has some sheep/goat Mink ancestry" thing, it makes full sense. Even in a post-"horns in humans tend to signify Ancient Giant ancestry"-reveal world, I think the design of them looks too much like sheep/goat horns, rather than the more bovine design we've seen from everyone else. I know this is boring "everyone has this headcanon at this point" territory, but it just makes full sense to me. As a character in general, I think he's very easy to read, so I don't know if I have anything more unique to say about him. In my head, the reason he got hired at like, a very young age to join MADS, is because he gained a name for himself in the Underworld by doing some sort of horrific bio-terrorism type experiment that left a bunch of like, Marines dead or something, when he was a kid, and that put his name on Lu Feld's ears.

As for Judge, that piece of shit and his stupid little family have enough juice from being featured heavily in an entire arc that it's super easy to come up with a lot of things about them. I think for starters, his marriage with Sora was most likely arranged, mirroring WCI. It seems to be how royalty does things. I do wonder who Sora's family was before that, though, and how she ended up there.... Too many questions without answers until we get like an SBS or something. It'd be really poetic if she was from a royal East Blue family or something, considering Sanji ended up there... Also, I think that him being allowed to fuck off from whatever his royal duties might have been, at a very young age, and join MADS is interesting. So in my head, whoever the previous king / his father was, he was probably one of the funders of MADS. Both as a desire to invest in weapons for Germa, and to feel that he had a sense of control over whatever his (presumably only) son was doing. Also I think Judge and Queen had a Sanji vs Zoro type rivalry, obviously. He got called "twirly-brows" (derogatory) at LEAST once by him. I also like to think a lot of his horrific hypocrisy comes from a place of disgusting projection and insecurity. This man definitely grew up being a weak crybaby until his horrid ideology and pampered upbringing forced him out of it.

Ms. Buckingham is a VERY interesting one, because I feel like we already know a lot about her and also absolutely nothing. The Rocks Pirates are for sure a group we'll get more flashbacks on, eventually. Looking at the timeline, I like to think that after she saw her own clone (being the first ever successful human clone), she immediately started attempting to create Weevil. I like to think this was somehow her way of getting "revenge" on Newgate for "dumping her" or some petty motivation like that, on top of desiring his strength. That boy is a (not-so-successful) clone for sure. The Rocks Pirates had recently been dismantled at that point. I don't think it's a coincidence that Weevil is 35 and Stussy (clone) is 36 lol. It looks like she saw, she immediately tried to copy, she failed.

And for Stella.... now that's a man who's entire history we kind of already know of. There's so many good meta and analysis posts around Tumblr, even stuff I've written, so I'm not sure what to add. The plurality thing wasn't a joke. But other than that, I think that -to combine this with a Stussy (clone) headcanon, he was forced by the WG to hand her off as a Cipher Pol agent. 26 years ago, as an exchange for Not Getting Arrested and instead Being Hired by them. She would have been exactly 10 years old at the time (temporally; with her being a clone, we don't know what physical and mental age she would have been). He must have been raising her until that point, right? He was her creator. I think that the WG made a demand that she's taken as an agent, and like any father, I like to think Stella was reluctant to hand her over at first, but eventually decided it'd be safer for her too. He'd been Underworld so far, he was going to comply to most demands the WG made for him in order to keep his new position. But of course, seeing Stussy's faith to him in Egghead, she definitely kept contact with her father throughout the years, even while in Cipher Pol, even if it was in secret.

Those are my very cool MADS headcanons thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

[varilien]

(character uses they/it) i keep wanting to start posting my ocs over here again and then Just Not Doing It so uhhhh !!! some stuff from february, had a dream about knives that made me think of a plant oc with a constant power output so extreme that it generates a deadly radiation field around them. because of that they've been living alone this whole time, avoiding contact with other living things, and over the years they've learned how to suppress that output for short spans of time or "safely" pour out the excess in order to be safe to be around, though they ultimately prefer their solitude due to a history of bad experiences with humans. they're very blunt, spiteful, and curious

@whatever-you-can-give-me suggested lr would make good friends for them since they are 🤝 about being extremely hard to hurt lol

also! wrote like 2k about they and razlo's first meeting below the cut if anyone's interested in some good ol violence + gore :3

that was a fr content warning btw read at ur own discretion:

Chance encounters with violent strangers out in the open desert are nothing new to LR, even when Livio purposefully had tried to find the quietest possible route to travel.  It’s not even necessarily surprising to run into someone a little to the left of human, someone a bit bigger or stronger or more durable than they really have any right to be.  The Eye aren’t the only ones designing freaks on this planet, that much is obvious, evidenced sufficiently by the odder fights LR have ever gotten in.  

And this one is shaping up to be one of their oddest fights yet.

Livio hadn’t seen the fucker coming, occupied as he was with the slow realization of why this stretch of road doesn’t see much use anymore: a creeping heat across his nerve endings unrelated to the overcast, evening suns, the taste of metal in his mouth, and a deep-rooted nausea twisting up his guts.  Radiation sickness.  He’s dealt with it before, and as unpleasant as it is, it’s hardly enough to slow him down too bad.  

It’s damn distracting, though.  A good enough excuse for not noticing them hiding up along the rockface above his head.  Not a good enough excuse to keep Razlo from tagging in, especially after something’s pierced straight through the back of his neck, nearly taking his head clean off.  

Razlo rolls for cover with a strangled sound, blood gushing from his forced-out throat and foaming at his lips.  Even with his senses jarred and his vision blurred, it'd take more than a near-decapitation for his instincts to be overridden.  He's slinging out a Punisher before he even knows what he's up against.  

There's a blur of motion to his right as soon as his sights are raised.  They're probably surprised Razlo's still standing, but so was everyone else who's gotten a lucky shot at him.

He can track their motion by sound alone.  They're sloppy.  Feet hitting the cracked earth in hard thumps, every one a warning that Razlo can aim a spray of bullets at.  And by now Razlo's healed enough to notice and wonder why the hell his head is still so fucked up.

At least now he can mostly see them when he turns, hanging back a ways, out of Razlo's reach.  Shorter than him by a head and a half, covered toe to tip in layers of sun-bleached rags, save for their face.  That's hidden behind a tall, curved mask, shaped in a way that looks an awful lot like a tomas' crest, with the false eye markings to match.  Even the glass for the lenses is opaque.  The only part of them that’s exposed is their left hand, extended delicately aside to keep Razlo’s blood dripping off it from getting on their clothes.

Razlo physically tries to shake out the buzzing in his skull that only gets worse by the second, only to notice the foul smell of burning meat and risk an instinctive glance down at his arm, where his flesh has started to bubble and steam seemingly on its own.  He looks between his arm and his opponent, the way their body tenses and head begins to tip, shaking hard, simultaneous with his skin boiling that much more fiercely.  

Something clicks in his brain.  There’s no way.

And no time to find out.  This time when they dart in he’s expecting it; he takes a swing at their head, and they dodge right into his follow-through, slamming his Punisher into their skull with a crunch and a wet sound from their throat.  They drop, like he’d expect them to, like anyone would.  And like no one does, they just roll out of the way and onto their back, braced to spring back up again.  Razlo puts his boot through their ribcage before they get the chance to.  That should be the end of it, too, but the fucker just keeps kicking, trying to get away, the only sound they make being the gurgle of their lungs filling with blood, and they keep kicking.

At this point Razlo doesn’t even have a plan anymore.  Needless to say, he doesn’t go up against an awful lot of guys who match him in the department of being a pain in the ass to take down.  Razlo's just starting to come up with a new idea when those long arms swing up, claws digging into and making ribbons of his right leg.

Razlo curses and tries to pull away, which only makes them hold on even tighter.  He's staring that four-eyed glare down when that burning feeling across his whole body raises in pitch again, and it's the sight of his flesh starting to disintegrate around their fingers that finally makes him back off.

Razlo rather gracelessly falls on his ass in trying to take a step back, not expecting his right leg to simply break off halfway down his thigh.  He scrambles back a ways, ready to keep going, missing limb or no, but— they aren't following him.  They're collapsed in the sand, limbs akimbo as they fight to draw a full breath.  Razlo watches with morbid curiosity as his severed leg dissolves into nothing more than an off-colored patch of sand beside them.

All that angry tension has gone out of their body, leaving them limp and motionless except for the stutter of their chest, and Razlo can hear the damp gasps muffled behind their mask.  By all rights, it should look like more of a struggle.  They should be dead, really, but from where Razlo is sitting, it looks a lot more like they’re just taking a rest.  He feels more sure of that when they roll their shoulders back a bit, arms braced in the dirt as they delicately arch their spine.  There’s some sharp popping sounds, and a little exhale from them; setting their ribs, Razlo figures.  He’s had to do the same thing before.  Once they can move their arms more effectively, they start to gather themself up into a seated position, bones and joints still crackling like popcorn here and there as they go, til they’re all the way up, with their hands resting in their lap, looking far too fucking comfortable for the fight they’d just had.

"You're not dead."

Their voice startles Razlo despite being as soft as it is, and his gaze flicks up to that mask, just slightly tilted to the side, orange lenses glinting in the harsh sunlight.  They don't move at all that Razlo can see.  Even their breathing has evened out enough to have become imperceptible under their heavy shroud; if they're in any pain still, Razlo sure can't tell.

"Nope," is all he says, or can manage to say.

He scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand, blinking hard a couple times to scrunch up his face in the hopes his nerves might start feeling right again soon.

Another wave of nausea hits him, but his stomach was empty before the fight even started, so he leans forward to put his head between his knees and dry heave for a while.

The whole time, he's aware of his little opponent continuing to sit in silence, watching and eerily unmoving, even when Razlo manages to sit up again and wipe his mouth with his wrist.

"The fuck's yer deal, anyways?"  Razlo asks.

"'Deal'...?"  They echo.

"Couldn't exactly kill you, either."

He wasn't expecting them to spill their life story or something, but he was thinking he'd get something more of a response than their head tilting back the opposite way.  There's not a lot to work with here in trying to get a read on them, but Razlo feels it's safe to hazard they're probably just pretty damn confused, the same as him.

"You kinda smell like a Plant.  M'not an expert, but I've met two others."

Now that gets something out of them.  A tiny wiggle of their head that makes the pieces in their mask rattle.

"I wouldn't know.  I've only met me."

“Huh.”  

Whether it’s a confirmation or rebuttal hardly matters at this point.  He’s feeling sure enough that his assumption was correct, now, anyways.

"You, uh…"  Razlo has to pause for breath.  Unlike the thing across from him, he's having a hell of a time getting his back.  "You're the one making this radiation field?"

"Yes."

"Any way you could turn it down?"

They say nothing, though Razlo feels suddenly that he's being studied very intently.  And shortly after, slowly, slowly the fire in his cells begins to go out, and he can spit the worst of the sourness off his tongue.  Eventually he can't feel any radiation left at all, though his body's had a rough enough time from the dose he got, he'll be getting the sickness out of his system for a while yet.

Regardless, Razlo’s fingers twitch against the triggers when he hears that mask rattle again, and his eyes are on it in an instant.

"You didn't answer my first question," Razlo reminds, cautiously.

More silence, for a while.

"You wanted to hurt me."

There's no malice in the statement, at least that Razlo can tell.  Just the simple facts.  Still, he narrows his eyes.

"You started it.  Figured it was mutual."

"That's true."

Razlo grins.

"So, what now?  Regrow my leg, and get back to not killing each other?"

"If you'd like to."

That gets a laugh out of him.

"Nah, I think I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It is.”

That much is obvious.  They stay put, seeming transfixed on watching Razlo’s leg grow back, only a little more slowly than any of his other injuries, now that he doesn’t have the radiation to slow him down.  It leaves him feeling itchy and achy all over, and he’s got a bad hunch that right ankle doesn’t have the best chances of coming back right.  Once there’s enough of it to fuss about, he gets his foot in his hands and starts experimentally rolling it on its hinge, checking that the range of motion is right.

And still, those orange lenses glint at him curiously.  They don’t flinch or look away when Razlo considers them in return; he guesses they don’t know it’s not polite to stare.

“What's yer name?"  Razlo asks.

"My name?"

"Don't tell me you ain't got one."

The silence that follows is pretty self-explanatory.

“I’m Razlo.”

He can just make out the sound of them mumbling his name under their breath, like they’re not sure how it’s going to come out.  Almost warmly, almost shyly, they manage to say: “hello, Razlo.”

[ramblesbiab]

sometimes all I need is to be a small town girl in 1960s pennsylvania who's worried about not being attracted to any of the boys in town. All the other gals are startin' to get hitched, after all, and mama's startin' to get on my back about not bein' able to find my special someone.

Things all change, though, when we take a trip out to Kennywood - money's tight on the ol' farm, but daddy wanted to surprise us after a good season. There's so many people in one place it nearly makes my head spin. It's not long before I'm split off from my parents, what with all my siblings tearing them every which way.

As if my nerves aren't on end enough, my body freezes right in place as I catch notice of a group of city gals. Hard to even tell they're gals - they're dressed in black, with short hair and tall boots. I gulp when one looks at me. She's - she's pretty. Not a type of pretty I ever seen before, but it's hard to call her anythin' else.

"Need something, doll?" she calls out of nowhere. Her group snickers as she kicks off the wall she was leanin' against and walks closer. My eyes whip up and down her obnoxious outfit. It's so - shiny. I wonder how it feels. "My eyes are up here, doll."

"I wasn't...," I start, but the issue is, I was. My cheeks go hot. I'd run but my feet are still stuck. "Sorry," I squeak.

"Never said it was a problem," she whispers. Her voice low and sweet like fresh honey, drippin' from her deep black lips. She steps even closer. Her group isn't laughin' anymore, but she is, right in my face.

"What do you want?" I cross my arms and puff my chest the best I can. Mama always tells me to be more confident in myself, otherwise the world will step all over me. Hard not to feel like I'm already bein' stepped on, though, as the gal throws her head back from laughin' even harder. "Rude."

"It's more rude to stare, doll."

"Well I think it's more rude to laugh in a stranger's face," I counter. Her eyes glimmer, and she reaches a hand up. Two fingers liftin' my chin. I gulp again.

"Oh yeah?" she asks. "So it'd be better if I wasn't a stranger, then?" My mouth hangs open a bit. Her jawline is so sharp. She nods, and once my head catches on to that fact, I find myself lookin' at the Old Mill.

I know gossip's a sin, but I've heard plenty a rumor about the Old Mill. Especially with gals like this. Gals who look like they've never worn a proper dress in their life and got their hair caught in a tornado. There's not one good reason for me to go with her. I should go find one of my younger siblings and take 'em on the carousel.

"I've never been on that," I whisper instead, my teeth tuggin' at my lower lip. I've never been this nervous. It's a fluffy kind of nervous, the kind other gals talk about feelin' around boys. Butterflies floatin' around my stomach and all that.

"Wanna change that?" She starts walking before I answer. I follow. Her group trails us, looking between each other and snickerin' to themselves. I could still run. Get the - pardon me - hell out of here, maybe even tell mama I'm sick.

For reasons I can't for the life of me figure out, I stay by the pretty gal's side. "What's your name?" I whisper.

"Call me Jackie," she grins. "Yours?"

"Lily," I answer. We're quiet for the rest of the line. Jackie loads into the boat first, rocking it slightly as her long legs try to fit in place. She nods me in.

We're - close. Real close. My seat's damp but I hardly notice as we're lurched forward. "Hey, easy now," she teases. "It's a bit of a rough ride. You better get used to it."

"Yeah." My thighs squeeze together. Darkness covers us both. The trickling of water is almost calming, but it's interrupted as she reaches out of the boat and starts holding at the wall. "You're not supposed to be out of the boat."

"I'll be back in a second, doll. Don't have to be so needy," she coos. I don't know what that means. I don't need anythin' from a gal like her. This is just - her showin' me a ride I hadn't been on. Then it sets in what she's doing, as our boat slows a crawl. "There we go."

I have no clue what to say. That's one half of the rumor true. My teeth find my lip again. I'm not thinkin' straight right now, not at all. This is a mistake. It has to be.

Not much I can do about it now. I turn to her. "So."

"So," she repeats. Her hand moves to my thigh. Before I can stop myself, a whimper leaves my throat. Oh lord. This isn't right. Mama raised me better then this, then to fall for a damn temptress. "You nervous?"

"I've never been on this," I breathe out. My body leans into hers. I look up into her eyes, inky but still glowing. "I've... I've never cared much for other rides here. Maybe this'll be the one I like."

Jackie laughs, kinder this time. "It better be." Her hand drifts up to the back of my neck, and she pulls me closer. Her breath on my lips. It's heavenly. "Do you want this, Lily?"

"I might." I touch her arm, teasin' up it slowly with a few fingers. "You think you can help me be sure?"

"Gladly," she smirks. Then it happens. Her lips on mine, warm and pillowy. My body tenses up all at once, then relaxes. This is beyond anythin' I've ever felt before. Her hand dives into my hair and I melt against it. "You like that, doll?"

"Uh huh," is all I can get out. Her other hand gets on me too. I know it's wrong, but goddamn does it feel right. I kiss her deeply, so deep our teeth clack and she laughs into my mouth.

I don't know what happens when the ride ends, but that doesn't matter now. The next few minutes belong to the darkness, and to the woman holding me tightly.

ahem

but anyway yeah, that would be cool.

[rottenstrawberrymilk]

13. THERES SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU

HATCHET

13/16

4k words

  Just because you had the astronomically worst night of your life doesn't mean you can all out of work, unfortunately. And to be fair, you thought you'd already had the worst night of your life. Over and over again. But this one certainly takes the cake. Lucky you for getting put so frequently on the schedule this week. Either way, not an excuse to call out. What are you supposed to say? What are you supposed to do? You could play sick, perhaps? 

        No. What's the point in that? It just means you'll be forced to stay in this room all alone with nothing to do but worry and stress. It's better that you just try to go about the little boring, grey, mundane life you've crafted for yourself. A routine. The routine will save you. It'll make you feel not crazy and empty and hollow. Just for a little bit. 

        It seems like the universe is trying to balance out the bout of awful luck with yet more good luck -- you work alone today. Which means you don't have to pretend to be okay and you don't have to pretend like you care about all this stupid fucking small talk. And it also means no one's gonna get up your ass about why you look so...so spooked and disheveled. You'd gotten that question before after your weeks of being kept up by night terrors. It'd been too hard and painful to answer and had just lead to an uncomfortable, awkward silence between you and the co-worker. 

        "Are you okay?"

        Such an unreasonably hard question to answer. Better that it isn't asked at all. And if it is, better you never hear it.

        You'd tried so many times to look presentable in the mirror this morning before leaving. It doesn't work. Nothing ever works. It's just something in your face you've learned that you can't get rid of, no matter how hard you try. No amount of makeup or styling or trying something new works. Because you can still see it--that haunted, faraway, gaunt look. You've come to just accept it. People just assume you're tired. They're right in a way. 

        As you walk, there's no sight of Him.

        That is not a relief. You imagined you'd at least catch a glimpse of Toby through the window. Maybe a flash of his jacket or hair disappearing around a corner. The lack of his usual antics makes you more and more nervous. He's unpredictable still. The suspense of not knowing where exactly he was could be thought as considerably worse than being cornered in a room with him. 

        Did he leave town?  you'd wondered.

        Once you got off of your shift, your question was answered. 

        Toby's standing off to the side of the cafe, on the sidewalk, slouched near an alley wall with his hands in his jacket pockets. You notice you can't see the hatchet handles protruding from beneath the parka. Toby? Without his hatchets? Like a forest with no trees. Or a night sky without stars. You'd never seen him without at least one. His head lifted as he caught a glimpse of you. He raised a twitchy hand in a quick wave. He doesn't seem nearly as...violent today. 

        Against your better judgement, you walk over to him.

        "Uhm. Hi?" you greet him, more as a question than anything else.        

        "Hey," he replied awkwardly. "W-we should talk. I think. I-if you want to. I wo-won't make you." 

        Why's he being so nice to you all the sudden? It almost reminds you of the times before he went utterly fucking batshit. Almost. Now it just comes across as suspicious. Like he's trying to get you to lower your guard for some reason. You still don't trust him all the way. Why the hell would you? Also, HE BURNED DOWN YOUR HOUSE.

        You bite the inside of your cheek before heaving an exasperated sigh. "Fine. Walk with me though. I wanna get home before it gets dark out." 

        He can barely contain the joy rising in his chest. Obviously, he stays stone-faced to the best of his ability on the outside, instead giving you a curt nod. Yeah, that's appropriate. As he positions himself at your side, pulling away from the alley wall, his mind wanders, just a little. Are you scared of the dark? Maybe he should have brought his hatchets...he can't protect you from the dark but he can certainly do away with anything that might be lurking in it. He hopes you know that. 

        Based on the grim look on your face now is not the time to give you a reminder.

        Toby follows quietly alongside of you. Lucky for you, no one in this town seems to notice you walking with the strange man with the glasses and mask. The town was mostly dead today anyways. It's a little cold out too. A perfectly dreary little evening. A breeze passes by you and you grip your bag harder, lips tightening slightly. Toby notices. His eyes have been fixated on you the entire time. Almost unblinking. You hadn't talked yet. Maybe you still feel scared of him? He tries to be more friendly.

        "D-do you want my ja-jacket? It's chilly-"

        "Shut up."

        He does, continuing to walk quietly alongside of you as you navigate your way over cracked, neglected sidewalks and roads with fading lane markers. Kinda counterproductive to the whole "walk and talk" thing you'd proposed earlier. You instantly felt bad after snapping at him. Wait, why do you feel bad? He terrorized you for weeks! And burned your house down! Do you just not remember? It'd been so easy to think of all the ways you'd scream at him. All the shit you wanted to throw at him--all the things you'd do in self defense, biting, scratching, stabbing, hitting, whatever it took to protect yourself. You thought of all those things you'd do if he ever showed his fucking face to you ever again.

        But now he's really here in front of you--well next to you...and you suddenly don't feel like doing any of those things. 

        He just makes you...sad. Like he's a constant reminder of how you're just a failure. Of how you can't even make friends with someone without them being a psycho ax murderer. There's something wrong with you isn't there? Deep down inside there's something very wrong. Why else would this keep happening to you? Why else would fate tangle you so horribly with someone like him? What did you do to deserve that kind of punishment? 

        "Sorry," you say, sounding a bit strained as your arm goes to wrap around yourself. Damn wind. "Just...just talk. I don't understand. I don't understand anything. So...try to make me. Tell me everything. From the beginning. So I can make up my mind at least." 

        Make up your mind about him. 

        The stakes are high, he quickly realizes.

        "Well..." Toby starts to shift his jacket off, "It all started when my m-mom me-met my dad. And when t-two people luh-love each other ve-" He cuts himself off, stopping when he sees how suddenly tired you look. You didn't react to his stupid little attempt at a joke at all. He'd just been trying to lighten the mood. He feels awful.

        And realizes that maybe not everything deserves to be handled with a light mood. And that maybe what you want from him is the truth, no matter how hard it is for him to say. And how dark and terrible and awful it might be. 

        "S-sorry." He apologizes as quickly as he can. "I'm-I'm trying to be seri-serious about thi-is now, honest. I..." Toby trails off again. Where the hell is he supposed to begin? While he thinks for a moment, Toby goes to put his jacket over your shoulders. You flinch a little when he gets near you, which makes him feel way, way worse. When he speaks up again, his voice is smaller, even more muffled behind the mask. 

        "I just wanna se-see you smile again. I miss-uh-missed it." His neck jerks to the side a little, into his shoulder. His jaw clenches, tearing off the last parts of his sentence. He fought momentarily to straighten his head again. 

        It takes a second to get used to him again. To get used to his mannerisms. And you hate to admit it, but they feel so oddly familiar. You'd mistake them as "comforting" if you were stupid and sentimental. Which you aren't. At all. 

        You don't immediately take off the jacket and throw it back at him like he imagined you would.

        That makes Toby feel a teensy weensy less fucking awful. Like there's a weight being slowly lifted off his heart. A soft sigh comes from him. You won't talk back. You won't feed in or engage. And you won't leave him a choice to wiggle out of this. He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to tell another soul about how he can't seem to get back inside of his own brain and body anymore. About how he can't control himself sometimes and how it feels like he's drifting farther and farther away. Like an astronaut from the ship, reaching out, line cut and floating in black space. No way back.

        It's scary. Even to him.

        What if it scares you off? He's not stupid. Toby knows something's wrong with him. He always has. But now it's getting worse than ever before. And there's absolutely nothing he can do to fucking stop it. But he can do one thing, he realizes, as his dark eyes meet your own. He can confide in you. You'd invited him to.

        Under you expectant gaze, he caves. Through stammers, Toby told you that he couldn't remember much. The years fade the already deteriorating memories worse than usual. He says he remembers the smell of gasoline. He remembers the glow of flames. He knows he did it--he burned your house down. You already know that, obviously. He says he thinks he was looking for you. Appropriately so, you'd asked him why he'd have to burn the house down with you potentially inside to do it.

        What a terrifying thought.

        Toby's voice grew smaller and harder to completely understand.

        He admitted he was probably trying to smoke you out. But you never actually did come out.

        "I th-think I thou-ought I killed y-y-yu-y-" Toby stops himself, clasping a hand over his mouth. A sharp breath sucks in through his gloved fingers. He couldn't get the word out. Not even if he tried his damned hardest. It's a simple one syllable word. But it's one he doesn't want to say. Like speaking it into existence would make it reality. Like he was delivering his own prophecy to be fulfilled. 

        You just look puzzled now. "Then why were you-how did you find me? I mean, why bother looking? If...if you thought I was dead? That doesn't line up at all." 

        You're not trying to catch him in a lie or anything. You're just genuinely confused. His lack of coherency, or at least the way he tried to explain the lack of coherency to his thoughts and memories, gave you a better idea of how bad his condition had been. And for him to have been going through what you could only describe as being an episode of acute psychosis, all alone...for that long? You know he's never quite been right in the head. Even when you'd first met him he wasn't right. But he'd held a decent degree of clarity--he'd been "okay", for a lack of better word. And he'd been doing well with you around. Improving even. 

        Suddenly, you feel very guilty. And you fucking hate that. You're not sure where you want to place that hatred yet.

        For what it's worth, Toby seems confused too. Not knowing what else to do, he continues on.

        "I. I don't know. I wi-wish I did. But I was telling myself-telling myself that you went on a...on a business trip. I-I think. Or a se-semester abroad may-aybe? The story was ne-eh-ever the same. I waited for a few years." His eyes suddenly light up, in extreme contrast to his dark confession. "Oh! I made y-you a welcome home gift too, I think!"

        Toby reached into the jacket pocket on your right side and pulls out what you can only describe as being a bundle of sticks loosely tied together with rope frays to resemble what you think was supposed to be you. There's a narrow, little etched face on it. Four grooves. Two shorter ones for the eyes, one for the nose, and the bottom one for a little smiling mouth. It is quite possibly one of the most terrifying things you have ever seen in your life. 

        Eventually, you speak. "I...I don't have the words." 

        "Awww, you can ke-keep it. Don't worry." Toby offers it to you. Upon seeing the look of abject horror on your face, he pulls it back with a slight tilt of his head. "I'm kidding. I know i-it's fucking weird. I dunno why I bro-brought it along." Toby stuffed it back into the jacket pocket. He does not throw it away. You're not sure how to feel about it being on your person at the moment.

        The stupid doll means something to him. Even if he can't remember making it. 

        You cleared your throat. "What after? How'd you know where to find me?" you press on. 

        His delusions are...well, just that. Delusions. Unexplainable, irrational, beyond all rhyme and reason. There's no use pestering him about them. And it does match up with his babbling from before about you being on a business trip. Not that there's much consistency to the lies that have ensnared his mind. But you still have unanswered questions. This town was miles away from the other one. He couldn't have just randomly guessed and gotten here by lucky chance alone. There was another player involved--there had to be. And you want to know who, or what it is. 

        At your pushing you see him chew the inside of his cheek. You see his mouth shift slightly--he's going to bite at his lips again. Your hand cautiously grabs at his forearm. Toby stops. A soft exhale comes from him. His voice is suddenly much more hushed behind the fitted gaiter. 

        "Not out here. I-in there." He gestures his head gently in the direction of your motel, more towards the door of your room as the two of you cross the run down parking lot. 

        "I don't know if I want you in my room again with me, Toby," you say cautiously.

        Toby shakes his head. "I-I ca-can't ssuh...say it ou-out..." He swallows hard, with difficulty, like something is physically gagging him and barring him from speaking. "Not. Here. Please." 

        You look up at him for a long, terrified moment. The two of you come to a stop outside your door. You haven't made your decision yet. The lock is still broken. If Toby really wanted to he could just bust inside after you. But he seems like he has no intention to. He's not even looking in the general direction of the doorknob. His eyes are just desperately trained on you through cracked orange lenses. When you don't respond or move for another few more agonizing seconds, he suddenly takes your arm in his hand with a sort of urgency.

        Toby leans in closer, voice dropping to a whisper as his eyes dart away momentarily to scan the tree lines behind you. "I think It-He's lis-lis...listen..." He's really struggling now. Worse than before. You remember how his speech worsens when he's stressed out. But it's never been this bad before. 

        Listening. "He's listening." That's what Toby's trying to tell me...who is? 

        A dark, horrible fear washes over your heart and squeezes. Suddenly it's hard to breathe again. You can't think of anyone in particular who he could be referring to. Toby had already taken out your ex. So was it someone who wanted to hurt him instead? Were you in danger now too?! Again?! Your heart starts to race. No time to think. You need four walls around you and a door between you and the outside right fucking now.

        You reach to open the door. "Come on then."

        Toby ducks in quickly, hand still at your arm. Even though you opened the door, he's the one who drags you in. And he's the one to close the door as well. Quickly, Toby puts his back up to it. Shakily, you go to sit down on the edge of the bed, wrapping your arms around yourself. You pull the jacket tighter around your body. You can't get rid of the chill. And on top of it all, you're sore from standing and working all day. 

        "Doors do-don't stop Hi-him. But i-it makes me-e feel bet-bet-better." Toby says, voice still dropped low. He's staring at nothing in particular. 

        Is he really that scared of whoever's he's talking about?? If he's afraid, you need to be afraid too. 

        "Can you...can you try to talk about it? I know it's harder for you right now, but-"

        Toby instantly shakes his head. You feel a flash of frustration momentarily overcome you. He told you he'd talk. Right after he got his hatchets back. Before you can say anything, he opens the door again and leaves. Your fingers grip even tighter into the jacket, as you glance around all sides of the room. It seems like he'd had them stashed nearby the whole times (near your motel room, to your extreme irritation), as his return is very quick. Your eyes train on him as he reenters, securing one of the hatchets better in the holsters strapped to the side of his legs. His fingers don't leave the holster. 

        Before you can speak again, Toby simply tells you he'll talk, without looking up at you. Tentatively, you'd suggested that he should just write everything down. He says his handwriting is too shitty and he 'doesn't feel like it'. He'd rather just struggle through a sentence than leave paper evidence of what can only be described as the highest level of insanity. This is a hard topic for him. Your fingers bury themselves into the comforter nervously as he begins, still not looking at you. Like he's too ashamed to. 

        For as long as he could remember, since he was young, he'd always seen a man. Not his father--who he'd seemingly lived with alone (he doesn't talk about his mom). The man is tall. Distinguished. And off-putting. And he has no face. It almost sounds like a lie to you, like some boogeyman he made up to excuse his actions. An imaginary friend to blame all his bullshit on. Or a joke to mess with you again. But Toby's dead serious. He's not smiling. He's staring at the wall blankly as he continues to struggle through every sentence. The stammers are ever worsening. But he told you everything. How he couldn't feel things anymore--physical things, like pain. How he suddenly couldn't stay focused in his classes. He couldn't make friends. And the one he did seemed to all turn their backs on him as his conditions worsened. He'd always had Tourette's, he'd told you, but seeing the man almost...amplified his issues. His father tried to get him on medication. For the various things that Mr. Doctor had diagnosed him with. 

        He said it just made him all feel worse. So he stopped taking them. 

         "The man. He sa-said I shu-shouldn't t-take them...them anymore. That they we-were bad. I tho-thought he was right. So I sto-So I stopped."

        The man was the only thing that "talked" to him. You asked Toby how "the man" could talk without a mouth a bit cautiously. Toby simple shrugged.

        "I-I-I dunno. I ju-just heard. Heard his voice. In my he-head. It wawas-it is-isn't mine."

        He said something happened one day. He can't remember it. Just that it 'happened'. It was very similar to what happened with you, he'd noted, to your discomfort. It bothers him. Bad. To this day that he can't remember why he did it or how. But all of the sudden his childhood home was in flames and there'd been blood on his hands.

         He said he planned on killing himself when he gained back competence and saw his shaking stained hands. Just an overpowering urge to take his own life. Heavy guilt for something he doesn't remember doing, but he knows it's fucking bad. His heart was not blind like his eyes were. 

        Obviously, he didn't go through with it, based on how he was here with you now. But you didn't want to pry at those details any longer. 

        "How old were you?" you asked softly. 

        Toby was quiet for a moment. "I'm 26 now. I th-think. I lose track." He looked down at his hands, held up his fingers and started to bring them down, muttering under his breath. He had trouble with his pointer, which kept jerking back up a little. "16. Or 17. I dunno. I was wo-worried for a second I wouldn't ha-have enough fin-fingers." 

        Out of everything he's told you, he's worried about not having enough fingers to do first grade addition? You can't help but crack just the lightest of amused smiles. That makes him happy for a few seconds. But then the crinkles under his own eyes fade. And he looks sad all over again. He realized something very disheartening. Something that he always knew but never delved into completely. 

        "10 years," Toby says softly. "Feels like a lit-little but. But also ah-alot." He looked up at you, wistfully. "You're...22 now? Right? Guess that means you-you don't need m-me to buy you cheap 6-packs from 7/11 anymore, huh? You don't look that mu-much different." 

        He stared at you for a long moment, as if confirming his own words. Your skin crawls a little instinctually. 

        It's your turn to be quiet for an awkward moment. 

        "I...don't want to be insensitive..." That's literally so ridiculous, he literally ruined your life more than it already was and you're worried about his fucking feelings? "But you haven't actually answered my question yet." 

        Toby's scarred brows furrow and he gives you a bewildered look. He's gone so off track he doesn't even remember what you'd originally asked him. And he'd been too distracted by the rare achievement of being able to make you smile again. He'd totally forgotten. He feels bad until you remind him, in which case he wished you'd both forgotten the original question.

        "Who is listening?" 

        Toby stays silent again, heart dropping. Can he even say it? He'll try. For you he can try. He opened his mouth to reply, gaiter shifting with the movement. Then, suddenly, the doorknob turns. His attention snaps to it and he turns around completely, his back to you. He's in front of the door, shielding you from it.

        His hands race to his hatchets. Like it was second nature.

         Like it's what they were made for. 

[ophanimkei]

Goodbye My Love

warning for mental illness

​Hey! Ommatophilia is out and released! Imagine telling past me I'd be horrible sick releasing Ommatophilia, then right after I'd get the flu then a killer sinus infection. Pretty awesome. And cool. Right? Right. Yeah. Haha.

I guess I'm pretty happy with how Ommatophilia turned out. Part of me wants to do more to it and the other part of me never wants to look at it again. Spending such a long amount of time on a game is pretty exhausting haha, then getting sick and being unable to advertise the way you want to sucks as well. It is unfortunate but what can you do really? It feels weird now that it's done. I don't know if this will sound normal, but.. Ommatophilia for the past 4 years has honestly been my… everything? When I had my shitty roommates, I was still working on Omma. When I had my shitty job at PF Chang's, I doodled the characters' in my notebook and wrote down notes for the story while I worked. I'd stay up late after my shift getting game dev done because I knew I needed to make some progress or the story would never be done.

I took breaks from it, sure, but it never really left my mind. I was always rotating it around- talking about it with friends, writing about it in my notebook, thinking about things I didn't like in it, problems I'd fix, if I'd ever finish, if I'd abandon it.. The fact that I couldn't allow myself to commit suicide until Ommatophilia was finished. Honestly that's the really big one.

I've finished Ommatophilia, and like, I had all of these projects I told myself I'd tackle afterwards, but I just feel weird. It's like I can't start any of them. Usually I view smaller projects as a break from Ommatophilia or some random thing I may not finish- then I go back to Ommatophilia to fill my time, but now I'm just floating in space.

I know I can still make projects. It's fine. Meat Girl released and it's the most successful thing I've released in probably ever? I'm kinda sitting here wondering if it'll be the most successful thing I ever release? I mean, it doesn't matter, I'm so happy people resonated with Meat Girl! I literally just made that because I was miserable and needed to take a break from Ommatophilia and just had some concepts kicking around in my head.

I actually had a feeling it'd garner popularity because of the aesthetics and game jams it was in though it still exceeded my expectations. I thought I was hyping myself up a bit. It's hard having one thing be popular because you're just kinda tempted to keep doing the same stuff over and over, but logically I know that wouldn't work and also I'd rather die than let the other stories in my head die in hopes of holding on to the smallest bit of popularity Meat Girl had.. It would be shameful, and if I did that, I hope I'd wake up in some kind of hell where my characters torture me forever.

That is to say I never really expected Ommatophilia to have a fraction of the popularity of Meat Girl and the fact that I got any feedback at all is shocking. I'm very happy I could make a few people cry. That's really all I wanted. For some reason though, I think about my time with Ommatophilia and I find myself crying too.

I'm crying now actually. I hadn't realized it. When I was 17 or 18 I think.. I don't know, sometime during Covid, Adventure Time ended, and I cried so much. I didn't even like the finale that much, but I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Like I'm sobbing now. I don't know.

I'm listening to the Ommatophilia playlist and there's a song my abuser put on it for me. And this song is really important to me despite the worst person in my life showing it to me. It's the Reeling by Passion Pit. I don't know. I never really told anyone who showed it to me. I just always told people I really liked the song. Listening to it while writing Ommatophilia's post mortem hurts. It really feels like I'm leaving so much in my life behind you know.

And I mean like, I know these characters can appear in my stories forever and they will. It's just.. Ommatophilia itself.. With its character sheets I always felt frustrated with, my constant anxieties about the writing, waking up at night feeling so anxious and thinking “I guess I'll develop Ommatophilia since I can't sleep..”

What do I do now? I mean I know what I do? But. This was it. All my childhood dogs have died. My childhood best friends aren't in my life anymore. Music doesn't sound the same. Food doesn't taste the same. Adventure Time is over. I always had Omma. I could always go back to it. But now it's over. I didn't realize what Ommatophilia being over would be like. I always knew relief would come but.. I've just been lying in bed. I crave to open my laptop and write the characters interacting. I want to see Black and Mercy banter. I want to watch Blue struggle to speak. I want to think about Angel's inner thoughts. I want to think about the snow and the decaying small town.

It's like my old home that I can't go back to.

I have new stories. I'll be making new things forever. It just feels weird. I miss everyone. I miss the past. I miss when everything was easier. It'll be fine. The future will be fun. It's just hard right now. I didn't really realize how I felt.

But we're good. We keep going. It's fine. We've got milfs, murderers, dykes, and various other women to write now. I mean I made a story about a meat fungus in October and Ommatophilia was basically finished by then, so clearly my brain still has stuff going on. The pity part has to end. We roll.

I love everyone who plays Ommatophilia, even if you dislike it. I love Ommatophilia, and I'm happy I spent my last four years working on it, even with all of its jank. It's dear to me. I'll miss everyone. I'm so happy I could tell the story I wanted to tell, no matter how badly it hurts. I've never finished a story and had it hurt this bad. It must've really been worth it in the end.

I love you! I love you! You were my everything! Goodbye!

[butchsophiewalten]

Findjackwalten 07/14/23 Update Walkthrough

Last night Findjackwalten updated! We've got one page update and two new pages. Let's start:

Findjackwalten.com

Our main page has updated! Jack and Rose's pictures are gone, and the whole page is greyed out now as opposed to being red. The shutdown text has changed to read "You just couldn't stay home, could you?". The play button here still works, with all new audio. It's a car radio, first it's an afternoon weather report, then just some talk radio intermission, and then it's music. There's also car noise, tires on asphalt, chair squeaks, turn signal, and general Car Creaking.

I've already seen some people theorize that this is audio from Felix's drive home after the crash, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me since that's already what Guilty is. Feels redundant, as much as I love the idea of Felix driving home listening to Yummy Yummy Yummy by Ohio Express.

Findjackwalten.com/martinguaridasecretanoentrar

This page's URL and title is in Spanish. It just means "Martin secret lair do not enter" and the title "q pasa tia" in this context is like, "whats up, girl?". Kinda gossipy. Meant to invoke a vibe that you're being let in on a secret.

The top of this page reads "92%", referring probably to the percentage of TWF4 that is completed. The rest of the page contains "3 funny walten facts" Which are:

"Bon the rabbit was originally called Bon the Dancing Hare by Jack, ultimately Felix vouched against that because Rabbit sounds friendlier."

This is so fun to me! I did always think Bon was pretty hare-like. Funny that Jack wanted Bon to be a Jackrabbit. Also I can't believe "Bon The Dancing Rabbit" is still real. It's been so long since I've heard anybody call him that I kinda figured it was retconned.

"During the late 70s, BSI expanded further than restaurant chains, the showstoppers became famous for way different products such as random merch, plushies, furniture, toys, watches, bed sheets, lanterns, masks, lamps, toilet seats. BSI most succesful product was "Showstopper's Comedy Extravaganza", a 1977 animated TV show that ran for 3 seasons and was cancelled in the 1979's to make room for a "bigger project". it is unknown what was the cause for BSI to milk the showstopper franchise to that extent, what was the money for?"

This is something we sorta already knew? Relocate Project implied this sort of thing But I guess we didn't really know how successful their merch ventures were until now. Turns out, they were pretty successful! The "Showstopper's Comedy Extravaganza" thing is crazy to me though, three seasons? That 'what was the money for?' comment is also very ominous. It makes me think of the planned relaunch of Bon's Burgers but considering how vague the comment is and how the Bon's Burgers relaunch was something we already knew about, I'm wondering if it's something else.

"Sophie lived on the back of a meat store for the better part of 3 years, she managed."

How do I even comment on this. This is just so fucked. It makes me sick to my stomach. She was homeless for three years? Homeless? For three years? As a teenager? I feel like i'm undergoing hitherto unexperienced Sophie Emotions. What the hell do I even say.

Findjackwalten.com/btscene

Just a whole page of behind the scenes stuff! This is also hard to comment on, really. It'd be easiest if you just went and looked at everything yourself.

There's a little play button here with Anything Goes by Cole Porter, but I think it's been edited to sound more echo-y. Like it's being played in a big empty room, but also like the next room over? I've listened to a few versions of this song before but none that sound quite like this. This is also the song that's referenced lyrically in the new years 2022 version of /investigation1, with this bit of writing:

A decent bit of the stuff on this page is from the old Patreon, but not all of it, or even like, half of it. And some stuff (like the blue and purple Felix drawing) is old concept art that had been shared in the Discord server before.

[sketchfanda]

A Little Moxxie Love:Stella's Hubris

Now call her a shallow, sadistic, vapid self absorbed harpy bitch (which she certainly was but few if any would have either the spine or the balls to say that to her face) but if Stella was chocolate, she'd certainly eat herself. Case being the absolute sadist glee and pride she felt in this little master plan of hers, as she sat lounging in the room of the hotel she'd booked tonight for herself and a very special guest. One she would very much take satisfaction and sheer glee in dominating and destroying. Dare she think, she might've been actually getting aroused (not horny, that's the commoner way).

Now why you might be wondering, well I'll try and keep this short, plenty of you are more than familiar and acquainted enough with the ongoing soap opera strife involving Stella, her husband and said husband's Imp boytoy. Suffice to say, and this is an understatement, she was pissed, not to mention sick and tired of the fact that the damn owl, if he had to go cheat, had to do it with an imp of all hell's natives!! Now sure she could just divorce his ass or hell just have him killed but then she had a stroke of genius, so she thought. She'd get payback by finding and banging some Imp's little brains out, thus ensuring the best lay of his measly little life and of course proving herself the more desirable Goetian.

Hey don't look at me like that, you expect me to make any sense of this swan's logic? It made about as much sense as the fact that for some reason their parents thought it'd be a good idea to arrange a marriage between the 2 despite the fact it clearly wasn't working out and that Stolas maybe might have been a closet case? But the point is she that she had gone and made these arrangements to have some imp brought to her at this little secret exclusive hotel for a night of passion. Which she was going to have filmed and photographed for her personal pleasure of course.

Hearing the sounds of the door opening, footsteps and a muffled voice, the fowl woman (pun intended) grinned as she got up from her lounging, looking herself in the mirror with a little narcissistic affection and admiration at the lingerie she got for this occasion. Just because she was going to bang some rando imp didn't mean she couldn't look fabulous after all, stepping into the boudoir as she beheld her lucky prey. Tied up with a burlap sack over his head as she pulled it off revealing it to be Moxxie of all people. Now I know what you're thinking but doubtful she even cared to know which imp Stolas was seeing so it was purely coincidence she got Moxxie snagged because that's how his luck is going here.

The gagged imp was clearly none too pleased, his muffled ranting pausing soon as he laid eyes on her. Going stiff as a board as he began to put the mental gymnastics together as to who she was but not so much the why he was here. Not helping the fact that for as much of an evil bitch energy she was giving off, Stella still did radiate quite a sexual charisma which wasn't helped by the ensemble she was wearing that just screamed made to get a dick hard. Or the rather sadistic twinkling gleam in her eyes as she sensually laughed at his reaction, leaning in close to caress one talon under his chin.

Stella:"Well I do have to rather admit, far as imps go? You're certainly not too hard on the eyes, rather dashing and handsome in way, cute even. Consider yourself a very lucky and blessed little one then because tonight, you have the luxury of sharing my sexual company this evening. We are going, and honestly, why play it polite, fuck and it's going to be fun....for me, I assure you."*The demon swan bitch queen all but reassured her captive beau for the evening, making it clear to him what her intentions were. Undoing her outfit enough to expose some of the more intimate, down right naughty sexy portions of her body before him. Taking delight in his reaction especially when she could the distinct bulge forming in the crotch of his pants. The mere idea she was enticing enough to coax Moxxie into getting an erection a very fine boost to her ego, as well as fuel to her own libido of course.*

With that said of course, the Goetian deviant woman decided she'd had done enough stalling and set to sate her carnal appetite, a nice cold dish of sweet revenge in the form of fucking her own imp boi toy. Running her talon down along to undo his bowtie and unbutton his shirt, licking her beak at the sight of quite a nice body for such a runty imp before she came to stop at the fly of his pants. Undoing it as she knelt down to have herself a better look see at the toy she would be playing with before she found herself getting quite a shock. Eyes shocked wide, beaked mouth agape as before it sprung out and stood quite the impressive length and girth she'd ever witnessed given whaetever prior sexual experience she had before and during her marriage to Stolas.

Stella:"W-well....certainly not a runt where it counts hmm?"*Trying and failing to sound nonchalant and unimpressed and really how could she? Thinking what the absolute fuck, was it possible for any imp to be so big or was Moxxie just some sort of mutant?!!*"W-well let's see if you're experienced enough with it to please someone like me, little man...."*Her bravado clear as day as she nervously grasped and stroked his shaft in her hand, feeling it twitch and pulse with every massage of her feathery palm and fingers. Uusing her free hand to undo the binds and restaints on Moxxie, after all it wouldn't do to not least let her gentleman for the night please her to the best of his abilities if he was tied up.*

If her hubris hadn't already been coming to bite her in her feathered and sexy avian ass, the moment she'd let him loose was pretty much it. She wasn't sure how or why it'd managed to come to play out like this but Moxxie was pretty much dominating her and she found herself loving it. Her brain and body alike becoming hit and overwhelmed with such unreal sensations of mind numbing sexual pleasrure she never thought imaginable and yet she was feeling it. Gripping and biting the sheets for her infernal life as the imp had her currently her pinned down, taking her from behind in the prone bone position.

Their bodies naked and contrasting one another as the imp's crimson red compact form flexed its quite surprisingly built muscles, his pelvis a blur as he thrust and pumped his cock away into the sloppy wet pussy of the snow white swan noblewoman like a jackhammer. His massive golfball sized nutsack smacking her clit as the bed creaked and shook from the intense force of his rutting as Stella could only make what could be described as some bizarre blend of the cries of birds in mating mixed with a porn star as she got railed by a well endowed co-star. The vindictive spiteful bird losing all sense of pride and arrogance, even forgetting what reasons she had for arranging this liaison or the fact she knows she shouldn't be enjoying this. To think a mere imp could give her so much pleasure, someone of her stature and pedigree in high society and what's more, she was loving each and every single damn second of it.

To think her parents could've gone and maybe gotten her this, this absolute unit stallion of an imp as her persona pleasure butler or something instead of marrying her off to a closet case!! She could've been getting laid around the clock and forgotten all about that nonsense about image, class and sophistication!! Fuck it she would gladly forgo trying to get all of Stolas' assets and fortune just to be a sex slave for this stud!! Wait was she really thinking that?

Of course she damn well was as she cried and howled for Moxxie to not stop, to use her as he saw fit and reduce her to his personal sexual plaything!! Make her his pretty little erotic songbird as he continued to fuck her relentlessly, no doubt the imp hitman was driven to try and meet whatever high standards the Goetian woman had unaware that he'd pretty much exceeded them the moment he penetrated her and took control. Her cries of calling him master and daddy in between her whorish, wanton moans as he put her body through a variety of positions she'd likely never experienced past the vanilla basics or whatever sort of sexual education her parents had provided her. Which knowing some nobles was basic as fuck which was pretty ironic given the rumours some extremely rich types were said to get up to behind closed doors according to movies like eyes wide shut but hey Stanley Kubrick was a weird fuck like that.

The Swan demon woman had especially found she rather relished the sort of positions that made her feel degraded, the sort fitting for the bitch in heat that she had been reduced to such as the mating press or doggy style. Even during the shifts where she was on top, such as cowgirl, she felt more like she was simply showing off for her new imp Daddy as she posed erotically for him and flashed her sensual assets before him. Making it known to him that he had her absolute devotion and belonged to him, mind body and soul as the pair went at it with their scandalous rur long into the night. By sunrise Moxxie had made his leave, the lady killing charmer limping slightly, exhuasted yet proud at the job well done at an unexpected mission being accomplished while Stella liad in the remains the demolished bed, smiling in a sexual coma made possible only by such an alpha male.

Some days after this secret liaison, Stolas was pleasantly surprised to find Stella had mailed him the divorce papers with her signature, much to the confusion of him and his brother in law as she didn't even include any terms granting her the majority of assets per the prenup agreement in their marriage. Just 5050 with equal custody shared between them in regards to visitation and parental supervision of Octavia and that was that. Millie meanwhile was quite surprised herself when she answered a knock on her door to find the swan herself on the other side with suitcases in hand. Of course one explanation later of course and the kinky shortstack wife of Moxxie knew her man's natural sexual charisma went and worked its magic once more.

[driftwithme]

THIS KINDAAA ENDED UP BECOMING RANT(?) ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BOTH MAKO AND CHUCK IN MY CHALEIGH INTERPRETATION, AND HOW CAN BOTH THEIR DYNAMICS WITH RALEIGH CAN BE PROPERLY PORTRAYED WITHOUT REPRESENTING A THREAT TO THE OTHER.

ENJOY?

The relationship of Mako and Raleigh in my Chaleigh interpretations is very specific on its dynamic.

You know those stories where the hero has a wife and a brother-in-arms that he would go to hell and war for and spend the rest of his life loving closely, without it meaning he does not love his wife dearly and with all his heart?

That is Mako to Raleigh.

She is the other half of his soul. Mako knows him in a way Chuck can't, not more or less in intensity, just different. The same way Chuck knows Raleigh differently.

Mako knows Raleigh like they were the same. Maybe they are the same, the overlapping in their existence a constant reminder that they are not alone and never would be. It's Yancy-Raleigh-Mako in the spot, three persons so knitted together the universe would had to work hard to separate their essences.

She knows his muscles in battle by heart, his breathing, his mind. If he hided, she'd be the one to find him. If he ever lied feverly sick, her blood would be the one to cure him. She is the one of a kind connection of legends, of myths. The sister, beloved, friend and many other tags, because it feels like she's a million things in one. She is what the Greeks sang about in their hymns and what the knights of the round table were after.

Their bond is so special, it'd be an insult to suggest they can't live separate lives or love others in any way. It'd suggest their bond is fragile and can be threatened or replaced by others, which is not true.

This is when I have to be careful explaining that Chuck is kinda the wife of my exmaple ONLY in the sense of being the romantic love of Raleigh's life. I don't want you to think I'm using the female role as a stereotype of the wife who stays at home waiting for the two warriors to done waging war. When I say that Chuck would wait as the wife, I refer to the tender wait of the heart, the type it's done when the lover is having a nightmare and you have to wait for them to come to their senses or when you wait for someone to always be back at home, always return to you. It's the wait of a lighthouse for a boat, the gestures. It reads "We both have our dark stories and troubled pasts, but you taught me with your example the waiting of lovers and so I'll do for you what you did for me: I'll wait for you to come around".

Chuck knows Raleigh by practice. Instead of learning because they were in each other's heads, Chuck knew him by days and minutes and moments spend together. Painfully and slowly, they agonized to the awkward and worked through the ugly, an exercise in love. For Raleigh it is line building and tending to the Wall in the sense he has to to there and do his job daily to build something new and make sure to repair the old achievements. For Chuck it is like rehabilitation: in order to walk and run and dance and live his life with a smile on his face, he needs to do the same exercises every day, as boring as they can be or even if he thinks is not necessary.

I think the wonderful thing about Mako and Raleigh is that they are like magic (which it's not a quality of the drift but of themselves). We saw each other and we knew us, instant connection. I was waiting for you all my life, even before I knew you existed. It's easy as breathing, second nature, The Movie Type.

With Chuck and Raleigh, it is so human and real it cannot be other thint but love, both pure and raw. Hand-made, their live is the craft that hurts and brings them extreme joy, hard enough to make you cry, mad enough to got you doing things you never thought you would. It's so real and so painfully human that it sounds like a joke. It's life. There's no magic or influence they are under, nothing to put them together, not destiny or big plan or mission. They choose each other. Even if it could be easier with someone else, they do want it like that with each other.

I love the idea of Raleigh representing both of those things to Mako and Chuck. He's the magic for Mako and the mundane for Chuck. I think Mako had enough of the harsh reality of life and she deserves to live like in a movie; that Chuck has enough of being trapped on a narrative and he deserves someone who's capable of bringing him down, show him the blood on his veins runs red, he is not a hero or a martyr but a man, flawed, lovable, real.

Maybe is the aspect side of me, but it is so easy to see. I don't like when writers protrait Chuck like he's just a male object for Raleigh to have sex with or just an object of love. Or when they write Mako as the Boss Bitch TM stereotype or the sidekick or the actual real girlfriend and Chuck's the sidepiece.

Raleigh is better at feelings than that.

[01131974]

Hey yo, I really like your hc and they look like mine like two drops of water! And I have a juicy question... What was their first time like?

gonna mash these two asks together cuz they're similar in nature!

it's hard to say how it would start. i think it would take a while for lee to warm up to dale as a constant presence in her life, let alone feel sexual feelings towards him. though maybe it wouldn't take that long. maybe those feelings were in lee all along, just sitting dormant in her until she's actually fully alone with dale, then all that repressed sexual frustration bubbles up in her.

the shame would eat her alive first, before anything else. how could she ever forgive herself if she let him do something like that do her? after all he's done? the guilt would swarm within her until it becomes curdled into want, the humiliation of it all contorting itself into a sick taboo desire.

it starts off slow. she starts reciprocating the little bits of affections he gives her, leaning in to his hugs and letting him play with her hair without putting up the usual fuss. then she's actively seeking him out, going down into the basement to ask if he needs anything and ending up hanging out with him on his bed, watching him play guitar and tell stories about his brief time on stage.

as soon as dale finds out dirty things fluster her, oh, that's all he ever talks about after that. he loves slipping in something obscene in the middle of a casual conversation, turning every little thing lee could say into a foul innuendo. if she keeps up her stoic nature, he just goes further and further; eventually he's groping himself and moaning like a pornstar if the other stuff doesn't get lee to crack. seeing her face turn white to crimson is everything to dale. it's hell for lee, though. it doesn't make her feelings towards him any better. especially when his dirtiness go from jokes to actively flirting with her.

dale had already resigned himself to a lonely fate. he would've never expected lee to actually respond to his dirty talk... his sweet little angel, being fond of someone like him? he'd be floored! what would he do with himself if lee said something filthy back to him? responding to one of his quips with something equally as sinful... ooh, how could he ever control himself around her when she acts like that! when she leans into his touch and looks up at him with those dirtsy flirtsy ol' angel bitch eyes, with her perfect little mouth muttering something lewd.

he doesn't deserve her. he could never ever do anything to her without her say-so, but lee is so awkward and passive that she can't muster the courage to actually initiate anything, so for a while it's this playful back and forth. the sexual tension between them during this time was so thick you could cut it with a knife. eventually something actually comes of their little game...

either way, it'd be slow, and wordless, they already understand eachother so well they don't need to speak outloud about what they're doing. little touches here, and there, gently peeling the other's clothing off. i like to think that it would take them a while to actually have sex. the most they do for now is french kiss in dales bed and grinding against each other to completion. sooner than later one of them is gonna break the kiss and ask the other if they're ready... i have to wonder which one it would be!

[juuheizou]

hey! ^^ i really love hearing your thoughts on suzumutsu bc i feel like you understand their characters & dynamic so well, so i thought i'd ask a few random questions i've been thinking about, if u feel like sharing your thoughts on them. for one i've been wondering if animals would like/trust them bc honestly i can see both sides lol. juuzou clearly likes them and in the anime there was that cat in the zoo that liked him too but i can also see him constantly chasing after spooked stray cats... as for tooru i guess it'd depend on what we actually consider canon from whatever the hell his arc was💀 i've also been thinking about how they'd do with kids, like if they had to babysit or something lol. just awkward? terrible? surprisingly good? and finally, what do you think tooru's hobby would be? i can imagine juuzou with a bunch of different hobbies but i couldn't really think of anything for tooru... i think his character is a lot harder for me to understand than juuzou, maybe bc i'm autistic so i relate to juuzou way more lol😅 anyways sorry for this long ramble and hope u have a good day<3

NEVER apologize for sending me a long ramble about suzumutsu! I'm so flattered by the fact that you would want to hear (read? it just doesn't sound the same) me ramble about these things, and to say I do their characters and dynamic justice is probably the nicest, highest praise you could tell me about my suzumutsu ramblings, so thank you! My heart is exploding right now, and I hope I continue to do them justice with this rambling haha.

for one i've been wondering if animals would like/trust them bc honestly i can see both sides lol. juuzou clearly likes them and in the anime there was that cat in the zoo that liked him too but i can also see him constantly chasing after spooked stray cats...

That's a super valid point to bring up-- as someone who interacts with a critical mass of people who often like animals but don't know how to do right by them as my actual job, I have to admit I never even considered Suzuya being one of those people. That being said, maybe there is some bias involved because, like you, I relate really strongly to him myself, but part of why I never thought of it that way is he very easily clicks in my head as a fellow cat whisperer. Meaning someone who can even befriend the mean ones and soothe them when they're scared or hurt, with a strong intuition for when something isn't right. And I think being as blunt as he is at times, he would be the one telling people to stop chasing after spooked stray cats, probably with some vulgar word choices and his glare that can unsettle a Washuu into giving him what he wants. I do think that even though being perceptive of their subtle body language and understanding them enough for strays to let him pet them-- which he does habitually enough in :RE that some of Hanbee's last words to him in that omake where he gets sick are to please wash his hands after petting them, is intuitive, he took some trial and error to nail down the practical side of caring for animals. I have no doubt that he would have wanted a pet of his own from the day he learned that humans could not just be pets, but have them. His first was probably a stray he found and smuggled into his dorm as a teenager one day and he figured that having been one himself, he was an expert on what pets needed and how to care for them. He can't bring himself to hurt this precious little creature like Mama did with him, even as a reward, but he has the other things covered. Except he doesn't. He sneaks bits of his school meals back to it because he thinks that since that's what Mama sustained him on, all pets eat their owner's scraps. He's 16 with no job and only lunch money he pickpockets off of day students, so this cat is unvaccinated and has no veterinary care. He tries really hard to make it a warm, safe nest under his bed and the nicest collar he can make out of that he has around, but animals need more than that. It's just not a great situation, and he can tell his newly adopted stray isn't doing well but he doesn't want to let it go because he knows what no one else knows/believes yet about Tokage and for some reason he really doesn't want that fate for this cat. Within a couple of days, he finally confesses to Shinohara that he smuggled a cat into his room and now something really bad is happening with it, what does he do? He does end up having to relinquish the cat to a shelter-- he didn't fully grasp it at the time, but he never would have been able to offer it any quality of life under his bed at the Academy even if he did know how. Shinohara is there as his ride, for emotional support, and to make sure he actually does relinquish the cat. Frankly, he's shocked that Suzuya would care so much about a living thing. It break's Shinohara's heart seeing how devastated Suzuya is over losing the cat, but it also gives him an idea. He is an advocate for rehabilitating Suzuya after all, and now he's found something that can live and die and suffer and Suzuya isn't indifferent to it. It's pretty rare, since Suzuya can only leave the Academy with supervision and Shinohara is a busy investigator/teacher (my excuse for it only being a thing in my head and not in the series haha) but whenever the pieces fall into place, Suzuya gets to spend some time cleaning up after, feeding, grooming, and giving some human affection to the shelter cats, which also teaches him how to take care of them when he can one day get his own. As an adult, with that experience and his natural affinity for his feline friends, he is extremely good with them, and while I see them being his specialty, I think he's good with other animals too.

as for tooru i guess it'd depend on what we actually consider canon from whatever the hell his arc was?

OKAY everyone but anon and I, I promise I did not write this ask to myself, because anon, it is absolutely sending me how much this sounds like something I would say haha. I think the “we've known Tokage was killing animals since the original series, but what if it was Tokage AND Mutsuki now? not that it makes any pieces of anyone's story click into place or anything” thing doesn't make much sense and nothing makes me happier than compartmentalizing it straight into the garbage. Although you might think he is good at gaining their trust with how gentle and patient he is, I don't think Mutsuki is an animal lover per se and his nervousness around them makes them wary of him. I see him as a blank slate. He didn't grow up with any pets even before he became a ward of the CCG. He doesn't know much about animals, and he has a kind of respectful fear for what he doesn't know. He feels sad about and wants to help the poor animals in commercials and news stories suffering in bad conditions, and if he did have any idea about Tokage as a child (which, for this reason, I doubt) he would probably do something as reckless as getting into Torso's cab to try and help just one because that's just how he is about helping others. However, had he ever gotten the opportunity to be a good samaritan with an animal, he would have no idea how to handle the creature itself and probably be nervous to even touch it for fear that he will hurt it or it will just bite him without warning. However, once they grow close and Mutsuki starts hanging out at Suzuya's apartment, he does slowly come to like Suzuya's cats. It terrifies him when Suzuya teaches him that animals probably don't come up to him or let him pet them because they pick up on his fear. Once he realizes that he is the reason these little beasts that Suzuya adores don't like him, however, he gets really dedicated to learning as much as he can about how to win over a cat. It's actually good practice in controlling his reaction to fear, trying everything his research leads him to until finally, finally, the cats start coming to him for affection too. He's not as bad as he was before he met Suzuya, but to this day, though, he usually doesn't approach unfamiliar animals out of concern that he will bother them.

i've also been thinking about how they'd do with kids, like if they had to babysit or something lol. just awkward? terrible? surprisingly good?

Complete reversal of roles compared to animals. There are a lot of things that are great about Suzuya Juuzou, but patience, empathy, and discretion are not among those things. And those are pretty important when interacting with children. Plus, in a babysitting-type arrangement, he has a hard enough time taking care of himself on his own and believes sometimes to a fault in letting people of any age learn from making their own mistakes, so something will probably catch on fire. As if the experience wasn't already infernal enough without literal fire surrounding him and the hapless child he's been left in charge of. On the bright side, he is calm and competent in an emergency, so while his limited child-handling skills probably contributed to something being on fire or the kid getting a big scary gash across its head, he's in his element once the disaster is already happening. He'll control that bleeding head like a professional and probably distract the kid enough to get a laugh while they wait to be seen at urgent care. He'll put out that fire and teach himself how to repair the damage enough that it at least looks like it never happened. If you've ever seen the live action movie of “The Cat in the Hat,” that sums up Suzuya's skill set with kids pretty well. I also just don't see him liking or wanting to hang out with kids when he could be doing literally anything else. If someone was desperate enough to guilt and beg and annoy him into watching theirs, which if they did enough to sway Suzuya of all people, they probably deserve a hard time, I wouldn't put it past him to let the children watch a very age-inappropriate scary movie or just go through his most recent case file right before the parents came home. Not that he wants to harm the kids or blames them for the fact that he's stuck with them, but their psyche is acceptable collateral damage to him if it means their parents will never even consider him as a last resort again. Mutsuki, on the other hand, is both good with children and likes children, and he really cares about making every one he meets feel safe and loved and everything he wasn't at their age. Honestly, whenever I start scheming an AU that doesn't revolve around a certain vocation already and I need to give him a job other than ghoul investigator, teaching, counseling, and childcare are up there with my top choices for him because we know he cares deeply about helping and protecting others. Helping professions have their own unique rewards and challenges and while I think he would at least try helping anywhere he could, working with human(oid) children would have the challenges he could handle the best and the rewards that would keep him wanting to come back the most. In canonverse, if/when he has friends with kids, in addition to being good with them, we know he can be a bit of a pushover, so he would often get suckered into babysitting. Sometimes it goes so well he even questions if he really doesn't want his own kids. That said, as soon as an emergency goes down or his squeamish self ends up splattered in any bodily fluid or child-related mess, he immediately stops questioning it, and the first person he calls (second only if he has to call actual emergency services) is Suzuya. Although the latter might not be as good with children, he at least fills in the few but important strengths Mutsuki doesn't have mastered.

and finally, what do you think tooru's hobby would be? i can imagine juuzou with a bunch of different hobbies but i couldn't really think of anything for tooru... i think his character is a lot harder for me to understand than juuzou, maybe bc i'm autistic so i relate to juuzou way more lol?

It is hard, and in addition to some characters just clicking and being more relatable to certain people, I think it's also hard because he canonically gives so much time and energy and even puts himself in danger for others. I can actually see him neglecting to carve out nice things for himself, such as hobbies, in the manga. It's not just us, it's him! This is also the reason why these headcanons are, frankly, much more based on vibes than any panel, illustration, or omake I could even loosely tie them to. I think to keep from giving up on life as a whole, he needs an activity that makes him feel a glimmer of confidence, like he is good at something. Also, as much as he shies away from any eyes on him, appreciation for something he did secretly lights him up inside. Training with Suzuya is one thing that fills this need, but something that he does by himself that isn't career-related is cooking. We know from Shirazu that he can cook, but I think he also likes to. It's less about what he's cooking or who for, so much as it is that feeling of executing something with competence and having the people around him enjoy something he made so he knows it's good. Plus, it's hard to ruminate on your worries and frustrations and secrets when you're concentrating so hard on not burning something. He definitely strikes me as the type to stress-cook or stress-bake. He also strikes me as a journaler. I couldn't even begin to try justifying why with logic, but he just seems like the type. Trying to make beautiful aesthetic doodles would probably just make him think about how he's not good at drawing, but he would have a guilty pleasure for cute sticky notes, motivating stickers, nice pens, stuff like that to decorate and organize his cathartic writing about his day. Probably no one whose opinion matters would judge him for liking to make his journal look nice or thinking some little frog stickers are cute, but he feels paranoid about it and carefully hiding his journal with all his stationery and supplies and moving it to a new hiding place when he gets anxious that someone is going to find it is its own entirely separate hobby. Another reason why I think it's hard to see him with the same amount and variety of hobbies as Suzuya is I think he would find a couple of things to give him that sliver of “me time” and stick with them. Suzuya's reasons for doing a lot of what he does for fun are different from Mutsuki's, so for him, bouncing around between several things helps him keep it exciting and avoid boredom. Those things don't matter as much to Mutsuki, and what does matter to him is having something that makes him feel competent and/or helps him feel at ease, so actually diving into something new on the regular would do the opposite of fulfilling some of the things he needs in a hobby.

[48610]

i wonder if you talked about me, as you went home, or thought of me when the moon rose.

250320 — 10:24

i didn't think i'd be writing this. it's been over a week since our last conversation. well, you messaged me a few days ago and have been doing so daily but i haven't been responding — i probably won't be for a little longer, unfortunately. initially, i'd thought of doing it for two weeks, then i reduced it to ten days after missing you and once again, i've changed my mind to even lower. why am i deliberately avoiding you? it might come off silly but i've accepted that it's a reason that's hard to grasp unless we treaded the same path. regardless, i should try to explain.

you asked me whether i'm mad at you. i can't say that i wasn't but it was only for a short time and i also knew that your absence wasn't without reason, so whenever i felt the frustration, there'd also be that part of me that sided with you distinguishing that flame. does that make sense? it doesn't sound like it but it's a pretty good improvement. ah, the question was why i'm not responding. well... i just really thought that i wanted to do it. i think if there was a time that i did it - trying to get even - i can recall only lasting a day or two before i caved in. sometimes i gave up within minutes.

i don't have that purpose in mind this time. i'm not trying to get even with you. i'm not even mad at you. i realized that all my life, i'd always been the one waiting. i was available whenever my partners needed me, hence why they presumably decided to stop putting in effort. why would they when they could have my love whenever it was convenient for them? for once, i want to see what it's like to be on the other end and have someone wait for me, miss me so much that their heart feels heavy, wonder how i'm doing day to day. it sounds a bit cruel put into words, doesn't it? but i want to experience that. i'd tell you ahead but i feel like it'd defeat the purpose.

i recall that even when i was younger, i used to wait on people who i liked that i'd even stay up. if i wasn't staying up, i'd have the volume on the loudest while i slept so i'd immediately wake up from the notifications to talk to them, even if it was late into the night and i only had so little time left (which should be used for rest) until i had to leave for schedules. thinking about any memories of others waiting for me, nothing comes to mind except those moments i tried to be away to make people miss me, though i never lasted long. the trick would work but it made me feel worse that they'd miss me and text me only during my absence. it felt like it wasn't me who was missed but the attention. if i was replaced by someone else who could give the same attention, then it'd be fine, won't it?

the advice that i always ran into whenever i was sick of waiting for people was that i should be busy too. so i've tried it a few times. but it's funny, no matter what is it that i was doing — working, exercising, doing groceries, talking to other people, my mind always wandered back to my partner. in this case, you. i still wonder what you're doing and how you're doing. hell, i was at the store last night and the mini croissant that i picked reminded me of you. then, i bought a box of cherry tea because i've never tried it before. while i was holding it, i thought of you and i was like "ah, i'm thinking of park chanyeol again." i also thought of you whenever i looked at the moon, you already know that. not that you ever left my mind in the first place.

i don't see myself doing this again in the future, of course. it'll be this once and that's it. i mean — it's only day four and i miss you so much already. actually, by day two i was thinking that. it's so hard when i just want to talk to you, but i have to hold back because this is the only time i can and will do it, which is why i wanted to go for at least two weeks. ha. that was wishful thinking. you may be fine without me for two weeks, as you've done it before, but i won't be. every single day feels like it's passing slowly. i keep counting down the days until i get to talk to you.

i'm not sure what i'll achieve at the end of this. i guess i won't feel as pathetic since someone's waited for me once in my life. it's also taught me that i don't have it in me to purposely ignore my partner. in general, i mean. i'm not saying that you ignored me. because shouldn't it feel good or indifferent? i'd assume that's how it felt to those who did it to me. instead it feels like a piece of myself is missing, being apart from you. i do feel apologetic that i'm potentially hurting you through this. but i hope that somehow, you'd understand this odd wish of mine, even a little bit. call it a desire to be wanted, needed. i'm aware that you'd always missed me, wanted me and needed me on the regular anyway, but i feel like it's different. to me at least, it's different to not hear from your partner for days, feeling the longing grow and not being able to do anything about it.

i also don't want to say 'it's okay' again this time. i hope that that's all right with you. anyway, wherever you are and whatever you're doing right now, i hope that you're well and that you're taking care of yourself. i do miss you if that wasn't obvious already throughout this letter (which i'm still unsure if i should show you... but at the same time you'd be questioning why i was away) and i'm looking forward to the day where i can have you in my arms again. you're allowed to hit me on the shoulder when we meet for leaving you. i guess this is my version of christmas chanyeol. thank you for waiting for me and missing me for the past week.

i love you. i always have and always will.

[unemployed-cadaver]

There's something appealing, too, about the idea of her despising me. I never want her to fear me, but I know I can't be gentle with anyone, and I wonder what it'd feel like to face the consequences of that in a way that actually hurts for once.

I picture how it'd happen. I'd bite her a bit too hard, maybe, and she'd pull me down by my collar and slap me hard across the face. She'd demand to know what the hell is wrong with me, and I'd still be too worked up to respond, and she'd push me off the bed.

She'd look down at me with nothing but disgust, and she'd say she didn't know what she was expecting. That after all, I really am just a violent mutt that should be put down for everyone else's safety. That I'm incapable of touching her the way she wants to be touched, but she'll still keep me around, because I keep her safe.

She'd make me sleep on the floor, even if I told her about my joint pain, which I wouldn't. I wouldn't say anything. I wouldn't be allowed to, not after hurting her like that.

Then she'd promise to teach me, maybe, slowly teach me how to not make the same mistake again. The next time we'd fuck, she'd bring a knife. She'd cut me every time I got a bit too rough, a bit too carried away. By the end, I'd be covered in blood and in too much pain to even register the pleasure of fucking her, but she'd make me keep going, even though I'd be clearly exhausted. She wouldn't let me stop until I learned my lesson, or until she got sick of me and would push me off the bed once more.

We'd do that almost every night, and when I'd do particularly bad, when I'd be particularly rough with her, she wouldn't let me eat for the next 24 hours, and she'd talk at me about how violent I was, how ruined, how I always smelled like sweat and blood and my eyes looked dead and my scars were ugly. That I was a monster, but she was kind enough to try and fix me anyways.

She'd be so proud of herself when I'd eventually cry, she would never stop bragging about it.

[exspesiudicium]

It took a moment for the realization to settle in.

The gestures. The way he talked. The little things. It all felt so familiar, and it wasn't hard to guess why - Shank was rocking back and forth slightly behind him, idly toying with one of his gloves while he listened, full attention on the explanation being given. Oh. No wonder they already got on like a house on fire. Hant mentally kicked himself for being so rude - ordinarily he wouldn't be like this, but he'd been too on edge, he had to say something. Now he saw it, though, and funnily enough, it helped him relax a little. Maybe it wasn't so bad, finding a friend who got his brother in a way even he struggled with sometimes. He had the long-winded explanations down, no problem, and he could tell he was picking apart the details better than his brother, but there was that other spark he just didn't have.

The same one that caused Shank to get up and pace a bit, thinking about it with the same intensity that he put into everything else. It'd take him a moment to process, so Hant saw little issue with responding first. 'you've got a network, huh? i guess that makes sense. sorry if that came off as rude, i just wasn't sure what to make of it, y'know? and even if shank's comfortable with this i'm not so sure just yet.' he said, toying with one of his sleeves - hell, now he felt a bit awkward. All three of them were their own kind of mess, weren't they? Still, he continued. 'i get the whole not trusting people thing, though. i mean, you can see how that worked out for me, heh, i was dead wrong about a lot of stuff.'

As soon as the scowl on his brother's face registered, he realized that was one pun he probably shouldn't be making. But Shank didn't comment, he was still parsing the whole multiverse thing. Some explanations had been given by other friends, but a lot of it went right over his head. He just didn't quite get it, and it frustrated him that there was a puzzle he couldn't piece together. To be fair, his brother was the more scientifically inclined one, not him. "FROM WHAT OUR FRIENDS TOLD US, THERE'S HUNDREDS, IF NOT THOUSANDS, OF VARIATIONS OF THESE TIMELINES." Shank finally spoke up, shrugging. That was something he never could fully comprehend. How many iterations of himself and his brother were there, and how different were all of them? Even seeing it himself had been overwhelming - one of the worlds they'd visited had people from all over, all colors, all types, all very different personalities and backstories.

And all of them had been refugees from dead timelines. That had made him feel sick. It made him angry, too. How many times had things gone just like they had here?

It was that last thing that broke them both out of their respective thoughts, though, and they had very different reactions - Shank's face twisted a bit in disgust, while Hant actually started laughing. Not the quiet laughter from earlier, a full on belly laugh of the likes he rarely had anymore. One hand swiped under his eye, as if brushing away tears, but before he could comment - "BROTHER. DON'T YOU DARE." It didn't stop him, though.

'not a very a-peeling mental image, pal, maybe you should keep that to yourself.'

“Well” he hesitated. “Part of me ii2. Thii2 ii2nt liike,, not me. IIm not remotiing iin, IIm a node iin the old Fex network” he knocked himself on the head lightly with a fist. “II u2ed two do remotiing but iit over taxed my miind two keep everythiing iin a central node iinstead of a network. Thii2 ii2,, frankly more me than my fle2h puppet ii2, II made that thiing out of magiic 2o IId have one….but you know.” He shrugged. “IIm a liittle protectiive of iit, II uh. IIve been hurt pretty badly goiing two new place2 IIve never been before tryiing two help 2omeone, 2o that piiece of me get2 two 2tay wiith the kiid2. “

“IIm half dead, 2o IIm a little weiird over all.” He added after a brief pause and took a breath, running his fingers through his hair. “Even for a godtiier. Though II thiink you miight be alot liike me, half dead II mean. Whiich ii2 fuckiing neat, II never meet half dead guy2 who arent alt2 of miind you know?.. IIm happy two an2wer que2tiion2, II tends two iinfodump a lot and glaze over 2ome 2hiit wiithout really meaniing two becau2e II dont know now much any one per2on know2 about the multiiver2e iin general” oh dear he was flapping his hands and waving them as he talked.

“Whiich II mean IIve giiven the talk on 2triing theory and 2pliit iinfiiniity before and debated the nature of the multiver2e two death wiith 2ome pretty 2mart people.. 2ome people thiink iit2 iinfiinate but II dont thiink 2mall choiice2 2pliit the uniiver2e2 and that iit actually ha2 two be 2omethiing major whiich mean2 iit2 va2t but fiiniite, there are only 2o many choiice2 that are actually liikely two be made, or even unliikely, there ii2nt goiing two be a choiice where ab2olutely any optiion ii2 equally a2 valiid..” he took a breath.

“..2orry what were we talkiing about? Riight me not beiing here, no thii2 ii2 me, II ju2t dont have any fle2h on, a peeled ver2iion iif you will.” He loved describing it that way because it bothered the hell out of a multitude of people and got a giggle out of him. He blinked s little owlishly at both of them.

[submitforher]

anyway, i didn't want to undermine what you previously said by sending that, i just wanted you to know i'm here and thinking about how much i miss you and wanted you.

i just wanted to say i'm sorry my poor angel that you've been having such a hard time. i wish there was more i could do for you to help you. but i am here for you i promise and any time you need me i will be here. i hope that things have eased up on you and if not, then i hope it does soon. you are doing so well to get through everything and you should be proud of yourself.

i'm feeling a lot better now i think. but i was pretty sick for a few days. i wish you could've been there to take care of me like you said. what a good boy you'd be. i was just on a trip with my sister in a city! it was really fun (and it was worth getting sick after.) i had such a wonderful time even though it was tiring :')

i want you to be weak in the knees for me always. i want to hear every single detail of when you feel that way. you make me feel so crazy but knowing that i have some sort of power is what does it i think. i feel greedy for details whenever you say things like that, sorry. :')

maybe along with your other audios, you should post a keyboard audio. i'm (mostly) kidding, but honestly i love the sound of keyboards even if i don't know anything about it.

really though i hope you're doing okay and im so glad you were here just recently. thinking of each other. like there's some kind of connection in our brains. ^^

- 🐻

not to undermine it myself, what's been going on in my own life has been nothing but hell and it's gotten more concerning after i had last mentioned it. i'm not going to open up too much about it on here because it's a rather sensitive topic for me but in short: i feel like i'm losing my father to drugs and addiction. it's rotting his fucking brain and it's been fucking tearing me apart inside to see a man who i no longer recognize as my father. that's, uh... heartbreaking the more i think about it. to have you in my life and to be here for me is more than enough to get me through what has to be the hardest time in my life so far. i'd be lost without you. if you're ever sick again and i'm there, i'd go out of my way to take care of you and pamper you. i'd get you the prettiest flowers to put by your bedside to remind you of me whenever i'm not there to give you your medicine or see if you have a fever or steal a kiss from your lips even if it means i'd get sick. it'd be like you said, worth it. i'm glad though that my baby bear is no longer sick and that you had the time of your life with your sister!!

i think for me, when i get weak in the knees for you, it's like i'm going to faint and that's whenever i think about you or whenever you message me. it's like i'm utterly helpless and at your mercy from your presence or your words. as i'm typing this, my heart's racing like i'm running a marathon. that's the kind of control that you have over me and if it wasn't obvious before, i like it when you're in control.

if i ever record a keyboard asmr audio, that'd be all for you!!

i'm sorry for passing out before i got either of your messages or i would've replied back after. i was thinking of you before i fell asleep and when i woke up, the first thing i did was check to see if you messaged me, heh. my heart grew when i saw these messages from my one and only baby bear.