#Some Thought for those who want to think through complicated problems

[lady-of-endless]

Risotto Nero romantic headcanons (sfw+nsfw)

Author's Note: Sorry for being an old-school romantic and writing headcanons like these, don't come at me. I wanted to take my time with Risotto as he is so complex. I really hope that those are not too far-fetched. I hope you'll enjoy it! The lovely gif is not mine, I'm thanking the owners for it.

P.S. Prosciutto will be next. I just have to calm down from the feels I have for the husband, I mean Prosciutto.

SFW

- The most beneficial context for your relationship is for it to start off as a partnership, a team. This way, you go through many critical and dramatic experiences together and that will only bring you closer and strengthen your connection. Even after confessing, this dynamic remains, you are still a team, watching for each other.

- Everything about him indicates a slow burn. From obtaining his trust first and then his heart. Even after those two are won, he's still reluctant to the new dynamic. He will never deny those feelings even if he thinks that someone in his position should. Risotto is not just rationally intelligent but also emotionally intelligent so he knows that such desires of the heart cannot be stopped. He doesn't deny the feelings but he suppresses them. He knows how complex those emotions are and that's the problem, it complicates everything around him and you. But little by little, he starts giving in and surrendering to his love.

- At first, he analyzed you only from a strategic point of view (regarding your abilities and how you can work with his team) and in time, it escalated into a deeper and more emotional point of view. Because of this and because Risotto values other opinions and perspectives from his teammates, he seeks advice. No, he won't ask directly but he'll be more attentive when the others talk about you. However, the only one who Risotto might ask for an opinion is Prosciutto because he shares some morals and principles with him. Surprisingly, Prosciutto will put his rational arguments aside a little bit because more than the respect and admiration he holds for Risotto, he wants him to experience this sort of happiness.

- Risotto will not know how to react when receiving your affection, at first. There are many thoughts and morals that don't let him receive affection right. Many of those thoughts are regarding his line of work. He has made peace with the fact that he's not a good man, that he doesn't deserve good things. He's okay with it now, he did what he had to do.

- His preferred love language is acts of service. He's used to doing things for others (but even so he doesn't see how selfless he is) so acts of service are his way to show his feelings. He would do anything for his close ones so for you, his loved one, he would die for you, kill for you, protect you, anything, you name it. Plus, Risotto is always very observant and because his interest is your well-being, he pays extra attention to your needs. About receiving, it can be anything. Again, he doesn't see himself worthy of love.

- He rarely smiles so when you finally catch a glimpse of this rare occasion and compliment him, Risotto is lost. Any sort of comment like this will have him feel things he never felt before, in a good way. As a result, he starts smiling softly more at you in privacy.

- If you get severely injured on a mission, he still keeps his composure in your presence while helping you, patching you up, and even trying to heal you with Metallica. He's serious while doing it but it will be the only time in which his hands start trembling. After helping you, while you rest, he's still there watching over you fully neglecting his need for rest. As you sleep and he looks at your injuries, that's when his composure breaks. The guilt he's feeling is heavy in his heart, thinking how this way of life is not what you deserve and it's his fault.

- He's capable of many things, he's also a strategist but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have moments in which it all gets too much to process. That's where you come to the rescue. He doesn't want to pass his difficulties to you so it will take a lot for him to let himself tell you what's wrong.

- Secrecy and subtility are a must. But he'll get you (he'll make it), a dainty and thin silver bracelet with a charm that resembles some sort of blade. Whenever he's thinking of you and wants to let you know it, you'll feel that bracelet move a bit from his magnetism, as a reminder.

- As subtle as he thought he was, in time, every member of La Squadra will know what his feelings are towards you. Melone was the first to notice the way Risotto looked at you. Since his discovery, Melone couldn't keep it for himself and since then, they all started behaving suspiciously. They smirk every time you talk to Risotto about missions and other formal details, they try to let the two of you alone more, and so on.

NSFW

- Contrary to popular belief, he's not rough (not every time at least) or freaky behind closed doors. His usual and favorite approach is slow and deep. He likes to take his time with it as he sees sex as not just a way to get pleasure but a moment of deepening the connection you have already.

- He never wants to use sex as an outlet for his pent-up frustrations and stress but if you give him the green light, he might give into it when things get too much to bear. But he still holds back a little bit, worried about how rough he can easily get. If you're into this rough approach as well and it's noticeable, he'll feel less guilty but still careful.

- He can go on with the foreplay for hours. Risotto likes to feel the tension build. Enjoying the reactions and the growing desire gives him the most pleasure, more than the act itself. Because of this, he might sometimes slip into trying orgasm denial with you.

- At first, he doesn't see the point of experimenting with kinks because he's so touch-starved. He only needs you. However, gradually he will start asking you for consent about some ideas he has. Watch out for your hands. If you get them close to the metal bars of the bed, your wrists will get caught in metal bindings in the blink of an eye.

- Quiet in the beginning but soon you'll see him losing his composure and start grunting and growling close to your ear as he buries his face in the crook of your neck. Not only that but you'll hear sweet words of affirmation, unheard before as he gets lost in the feeling of you.

- Aftercare is obligatory. It always gets intense, sometimes even rough, and he's aware of his size too so calming you down and taking care of you is both a way of showing his gratitude and also a duty (don't get this one wrong, he sees the act of aftercare as important as the rest of his duties, that's it). The aftercare always ends with him holding your hand and kissing it as another silent expression of his gratefulness and adoration for you. It's his unbreakable habit.

- He has to admit, he likes to mark you. Not in a possessive way, that's why those marks will only be on parts that are not usually visible. But because he loves the image and concept of your skin reacting to his affection. You can leave marks on him as long as they're not visible, again, it's about secrecy and subtility. He might feel a bit proud, just a bit, when he looks in the mirror at the scratches you left on his back.

- Doesn't get bored of being on top. After all of that slow burn and build-up of your deep connection, of course, he wants to look into your eyes when you both let yourselves be engulfed in the pleasure. Might even get a little mischievous with it when he's in a good mood. "If you look away, I'll stop."

The only situations in which you are the one on top are when you simply ask for it or when you tell him you want to help him relax. Hearing those words coming from you while you start touching him with care and warmth is going to be the death of him.

- Not a fan of quickies. He needs the whole thing. As mentioned before, he needs to feel the tension built and loves taking his time with it. But also, above all, he wants to treat you right so a quickie will never be enough for this.

[pshaven]

how would jay express his jealously when he noticed you with another guy?

jay needs more love on my blog so i'm here to deliver!! (mdni)

jay thinks he has such a good pokerface when he sees other guys and girls flirting with you. he imagines that he has such a stoic expression, only occasionally sparing you glances to make sure that the person isn't crossing any lines.

but he's the exact opposite.

his jaw is clenched, brows knitting together as his lips are pressed into a tight line. he's clearly angry to anyone in the room, and they know exactly why he is with the way his eyes are only focusing on you and the guy that's starting to get a little too touchy with you.

that's his last straw, pushing himself off the table that he's leaned against to go over to you, a hand placed firmly on your lower waist. he gives the guy an awkward chuckle, the jealousy starting to cloud his thoughts. he doesn't even properly introduce himself as your boyfriend, he just pinches the side of your hip and you yelp, meeting his cold-stoned, narrow eyes.

you think he's kinda cute like this. it's not like jay has any problem or issue expressing his emotion and love for you, but it's rare to see him get to worked up around you since you're often his safe place to relax. you grin and giggle at him, looking at the guy that was previously flirting with you.

you reach to cup jay's face, pulling him down for a heated kiss that clears up jay's cloudy and jealous mind, melting into your lips. the both of you open your eyes mid-kiss, looking at the guy and he scurries off awkwardly, shaking his head as he walks away.

safe to say that when the both of you get back home, you show him that you belong to him, and only him<3.

"mmph!" you moan into the pillow, arching your back further as jay slides into your slick cunt, a groan escaping his lips. he relishes in the warmth of your pussy sucking him in, his hips starting to move on their own.

"promise you won't entertain those guys anymore?" he hums tauntingly, his chest meeting the arch of your back and you nod into the pillow enthusiastically.

"yes! yes, i promise, promise, jay!" you squeal out as his hips begin to pick up its force and pace, his pelvic bone meeting the flesh of your ass.

but you both know that you'll do it again, if it meant you'd get a good fuck like this again.

or ...

close family childhood bestfriend jay who immediately stands up straighter when you come home and bring someone with you who he's never seen before. you introduce him as your boyfriend, but jay doesn't miss the way the guy next to you give you a weird look when you say that.

he confronts you when the two of you are alone, and you say that he's really just a boy you're talking to, no official labels but you said boyfriend to make things seem less complicated.

and jay doesn't like it one bit. how can someone not commit to you? you are a treasure to behold, and anyone would be blessed to be able to call themselves your partner.

you can already see the thoughts running through jay's head, knowing that he already disapprove of this guy. you sigh, placing a hand comfortingly on his knee, "don't worry about me."

how can he not worry about you? he doesn't want to see his favorite girl get heartbroken by some loser guy who doesn't deserve to make you cry in the long run.

he's immediately possessive of you, claiming the only seat next to you when it comes to dinner time. the boy you brought with you gives you a look, but jay smiles pridefully and engages in conversation with your mother, ignoring your so-called boyfriend.

the two of you get into a fight that same night in your room, your situationship saying that he felt left out of your family and that jay is obviously crushing on you. you both exchange shouts and accusations, and jay is on the other side in the hallway, listening in.

he hears your door click open, the guy walking out and spotting jay standing right in front. jay gives him another grin, waving a little goodbye before saying, "you didn't deserve her, anyway."

[shy-writer-999]

Slow Burn (Part 1): Sexually frustrated Zoro touches himself at night while thinking about you.

Warnings: MDNI AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT. THIS IS NSFW CONTENT.

Author’s note: This three part story is a slow, slow burn. There’s more plot than porn. Reader’s character is a woman and Zoro is lowkey a freak, but only lets himself fantasize about you at night. I feel like he wears black boxer briefs for some reason. Also, I love em-dashes. This is mildly edited, but please excuse any typos. Enjoy!

Slow Burn, pt. 1: Sexually frustrated Zoro touches himself at night while thinking about you.

Zoro couldn't help how much attention he paid to you. He tried to shrug it off and talk himself out of what was quickly becoming a problem for him—his growing crush on you. He couldn't help but notice how you giggled the loudest when Sanji called him mosshead, how you would go out of your way to spend a few moments chatting and smiling with him every day, and how your peculiarly intense gaze seemed to linger just a second too long when you locked eyes. No matter how much he tried to deny it or rationalize it away, those split seconds of eye contact made his stomach flip, in other words, you gave him butterflies. He would tell himself that inter-crew romance was wrong, that he shouldn't waste his time pining after women, that the only reason he was feeling these things was because he hadn't been with someone in ages. He told himself that he only felt this way because he was basically forced to be around you and that it was only natural for a man like him to find you attractive, therefore he could ignore those butterflies and write the feelings off as a harmless fancy, unimportant and meaningless.

But the issue was that no matter how much rationalizing he attempted, his feelings for you had far surpassed these natural impulses and made-up excuses. That's just what he had—feelings. Complicated feelings that made themselves apparent when he watched you, out of the corner of his eye, put your hair up in a ponytail. He would notice the feminine and soft curve of your neck, the wisps of hair that you gathered up with your pretty fingers, and a thought would jump out at him: I bet the back of her neck smells good. Then he would pause and self-reprimand: Where the fuck did that come from? Get a grip man. And he would shift his eyes away.

One day you brushed arms. The hallways of the ship got crowded if more than a couple people were trying pass through, and in this instance, you were exiting the kitchen after dinner when Luffy barreled past you with Zoro close behind him. Luffy practically shoved you out of the way, shouting something about meat, and his shove past you pushed you towards Zoro. Your skin met for maybe a second or less as you bumped into each other. He muttered out a "sorry about that" and then immediately he walked away, shouting at Luffy to pay more attention to where he was going.

Zoro tried to be nonchalant and play it off to himself that he was not feeling any sort of way about touching your skin (even if it was only your arm). But he was lying to himself. His stomach flipped and as he followed Luffy into the kitchen all he could think about was your skin and how warm and soft it was. His mind trailed off… would other parts of your body feel like that too?  He shook his head attempting to get the thoughts out. If you're going to think about it, at least save it for later dumbass, he said to himself.

He knew he was screwed when he started musing about you yourself, not your body, but who you actually are. It was as basic as him wondering what is her favorite food? What is her favorite sort of music? and yet these musings could get as complicated as What does she dream about at night? What does she want from her life? and most importantly, What does she think of me?

He would only let himself get this deep in thought as he settled in for bed. These were nighttime thoughts and became completely irrelevant during the day (or so he told himself). He also told himself it was just normal to wonder these things about his shipmates—after all, you were all close friends and spent lots of time together. But at his core he knew this wasn't the case. How he felt towards you was different. Little did you know, but he was actually in agony any time you were around. He started inadvertently blushing, hyper-vigilantly watching you from his peripherals, and he even would go so far as to smile at you with a bit more sweetness than was normal for him. No one else could tell that he smiled at you different, but he knew it and so did you. You could see it in the way his lips curled ever so slightly more, and you could see a special softness in his eyes that you had quickly learned to recognize. Little did he know, you felt the same way.

The night you brushed arms he was so pent up he had to get out of bed and spend some time alone in the bathroom. This was becoming a habit for him. When he indulged in his fantasies and finally let that part of him run wild, he imagined the dirtiest scenarios. So dirty that he felt guilty about them the next day. It started out pretty tame, though. First, he thought about how he wanted to fuck you everywhere on the ship. Missionary in the crow's nest, doggy style in the galley with you bent over the counter, reverse cowgirl on the deck in the middle of the day, you straddling him in the tub—you name it.

He would start his sessions in the bathroom by breathing deeply and palming his painfully hard cock in his boxer briefs, running his other hand over his taught chest and arm muscles. He would grind his cock harder and harder with his palm, thinking about how you would look straddling him, pulling your top off and leaning over him so your hair cascaded down on his face and your eyes and lips were centimeters apart. He imagined how it would feel to take handfuls of your breasts, massaging and sucking on them, how you would let out a little whine when he played with your nipples, how you would yelp when he smacked your ass so hard it would leave a bruise.

At this point he would fully take his cock out of his briefs and start shamelessly stroking himself, trying to contain the groans and grunts that slipped from his lips. The precum leaked out when he imagined how good you would feel grinding his cock inside of you, how he would grip the soft skin on your hips so roughly, how you would use him to get off. That's one of the thoughts that got him riled up the most—the idea of you feeling good with his cock. Even more, he loved the idea of you feeling so good that you would cream on his cock, your walls constricting as you let out your own moans of pleasure. And of course, he loved the idea of cumming inside you, too. He would imagine the sight of his cum leaking out of you, and if he wasn't lucky enough to cum inside you, he would be happy to cum anywhere you'd let him, like your pretty mouth. He would start to moan your name as quietly as he could, throwing his head back and shaking with pleasure.

The really dirty thoughts happened when he got closer to orgasm. As he got more desperate and more feral at the thought of you, touch starved and drunk off of the pleasure of fisting his own cock furiously, he would start to think of pulling your hair, sloppily spitting in your mouth, finger fucking you almost to completion then making you beg for it, he would even think of calling you names like "pretty girl" or "good girl," depending on the day. On really thirsty days he would imagine you calling him daddy, telling him to stop (role play, of course, with a safe word), he would imagine calling you "bad girl" or "nasty girl" and he would spank you then top it all off by fucking you in the ass as "punishment". Some days he would imagine you calling him a “good boy” and giving him praise, or the opposite. The nastier and, honestly, weirder it got, he stroked himself harder and faster. "Fuck," he would hiss out between his teeth, shaking. He would moan as quietly as he could, mouthing your name, finally cumming hot white ropes all over his hand. He would let out a deep sigh, clean himself up, and go to bed finally. The next day he would go about his business like nothing happened, and indeed, he would be fine without his nightly bathroom session as long as he stayed away from you.

During the day, Zoro would get back to rationalizing and compartmentalizing his feelings about you, anything to stop falling for you. He simply ignored the guilt he felt inside from thinking such nasty sexual thoughts about you. But Zoro got to a point where that just wasn't possible anymore. Between his almost-nightly bathroom sessions, feeling depraved and crazy, and your lingering smiles and occasional bouts of intense eye contact, he could feel himself crumbling. But of course, Zoro was prideful to a fault and even more than that, he was shy. No one would expect it from the swordsman, but he really was awkward, sensitive, and shy under all those layers of strength and stoicism. So he could never bring himself to confess to you, and he kept navigating life on the ship in close proximity to you, balancing your friendship and company with how insanely horny and needy he was for no one else but you. Zoro could only keep up this balancing act for so long. He would reach a breaking point eventually. His self-control was being exerted to the absolute maximum, and he spent so much time pining after you that it was actually starting to get in the way of his training. But he told himself it would be fine, that these thoughts would settle down eventually, and that he had to pay them no mind. He started to think of new ways to handle all his pent-up energy, and he landed on the idea of simply distancing himself from you ever so slightly. Less time in your presence would mean less time that his brain would be disposed to go wild with fantasies. He decided that that was his only option, and slowly started shifting how he moved near you. It was initially a minuscule change, but you noticed immediately that something was off.

Stay tuned for part two: Zoro's been acting pretty weird and rude. What's his problem?

See part 3 for more smut!

[babacontainsmultitudes]

🤔 Admittedly I was a little disappointed by the reveal (but certainly not surprised the foreshadowing was heavy in this episode lol), but not actually against how Beth (and Will) seem to be playing with it thus far- which is to say that I do think it has a lot of potential, and I suspect there's more to what we're seeing).

;) Big ol' ramble below

Mostly the theory has turned me off until now (at least insofar as I've witnessed it transpire in the fandom at large) because it struck me as so painfully ironic to see Trudy, a 1950s housewife, struggle to exist under the system that she's in, fail to fit the mold assigned to her, and be denied her personhood very literally for it (this being ironic insofar as how it mimics how she would have been treated back then). This and because frankly I just think she's a lot less interesting if she's fully a robot LOL, but I'll hopefully get to that in a bit.

Not that the hints at her mechanical nature and the relevance of Tucker's background were lost on me; I can appreciate why those would contribute to a plausible, fun and I think still mostly harmless theory (now fact). However, minus one or two specific posts I've seen on the matter (namely a recent one suggesting that if Trudy is a robot Beth is probably taking inspiration from The Stepford Wives, :( sorry person who made that post I couldn't find it I wanted to credit yoouuu), I've seen the theory just about exclusively presented in a manner that, rather than explore the metaphorical and political significance of Trudy being partially or fully mechanical, at best disregards the parts of her narrative that are at their core about sexism (among other related things), and at worst negates them entirely (i.e. Trudy only thinking and acting how she does because she's a robot malfunctioning and not because the world itself is causing harm and she rightfully wants something more than the role she was forced into, Trudy not even having any real thoughts and feelings of her own, etc.). I just think it kind of sucks to shove all those important things about her aside and say "actually, there's no person suffering here, she's just a robot" and perhaps worse yet to imply that she does have thoughts and feelings but because they result in Weird™ behavior it must be a problem with her code and not at all relate to what women were subjugated to during this point in American history.

CONVERSELY I don't think Trudy being a robot (or at least partially one) at least from what Beth and Will have presented us thus far, inherently suffers from any of these issues? First and foremost because Trudy definitely appears to possess sentience, thoughts, and emotions of her own, matters which immediately complicate her degree of personhood and don't inherently box her behavior in as a bug in her programming rather than an issue with the world she's been put in, quite the opposite in fact! I think they have a very solid groundwork laid out here to make a strong statement with Trudy's narrative (and perhaps ask the question of what is really malfunctioning here), all the more so since [I pull out a Rebecca Swallows-style conspiracy board] I don't think she's entirely robotic in nature? Actually you should just read Mack's tags in this post cause he has great thoughts on the matter (of which those are just some of them), but if I can direct your attention to one thing in particular, it would be Beth's fact (I *believe* from episode 2) about Trudy never graduating high school because of her essay where she suggested that "perhaps women could one day domesticate themselves", a statement that could of course be interpreted a number of ways but ultimately threatened the patriarchal status quo enough (in suggesting women's independence) to cost Trudy her diploma. Taken on its own this fact appears to contradict the theory that Trudy has always been robotic in nature, because it doesn't really make sense that Trudy would have been set up to go through high school (or school at all really) when Tucker's intention was/is for her to be the perfect housewife. You may then suggest that Trudy's memories of this are fabricated and not actually her lived experiences, in which case firstly perhaps you should reread my earlier point on the robot theory being used to actively negate and otherwise disregard the portions of Trudy's narrative that pertain to sexism and feminism, and secondly it really doesn't make any sense to me that Tucker would implant those kind of memories into Trudy's brain? To be completely honest if she's been a robot from the very beginning (rather than someone who became a cyborg, which is what I'm trying to suggest here), then I don't see why Tucker would program her with actual sentience in the first place (suspending my disbelief here with regards to the possibility of programming sentience to begin with). It seems much more likely to me then that Trudy was not always a robot, and instead altered by Tucker to force her into a role of subordination and remedy her """imperfections""". This option is significantly more interesting to me one, because it implies that Trudy has actually lived a life up until the present, full of its own complexities and strife (and dreams, and real actual memories worth exploring, etc.), and hence is not by any means "just a robot", and second because it amplifies the hypothetical statement being made on the lives of the real living women of the era and how they were treated and seen as being "in need of fixing" for not conforming to gender roles or otherwise acting "out of line" with what was expected of them.

OKAY THIS GOT OUT OF HAND SO I'M CUTTING MYSELF OFF HERE but I wanted to my share my current thoughts what with this ending and where I'm at so hopefully that was at least interesting to whoever has chosen to read through this one okay thank you byyyyyyyyye~

[tarotwithavi]

Your future spouse: personality

Positive and challenging sides

How to choose a pile?

Take a deep breath and gently close your eyes. Politely request your spirit guides to reveal the appropriate pile meant for you, then open your eyes. Whichever pile captures your attention is the one meant for you.

Masterlist

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Pile 1

Positive side : hello pile 1! Your future spouse is one smart cookie. They've got an insatiable curiosity that makes them a total brainiac. You'll often find them diving deep into complex ideas and theories, always hungry for knowledge. They've got this knack for seeing patterns and connections that others don't even notice. When you're stuck on a problem, just turn to them for some mind-blowing insights. Creativity runs through their veins. They've got a knack for coming up with innovative, out-of-the-box ideas. No boring solutions here! They're the kind of person who can turn the simplest of conversations into an exciting adventure of thoughts and possibilities. Their independent spirit is pretty inspiring too. They're comfortable doing their own thing, which gives them a unique sense of self-reliance. Fairness and objectivity are their jams. Emotions don't cloud their judgment; they rely on cool, logical thinking to make decisions. And when it comes to tackling tough problems, they're like Sherlock Holmes with a touch of MacGyver – they'll find a solution, no matter how tricky the puzzle. They seem to have more air energy, especially Gemini and Aquarius. They may have their Mercury in the 11th house.

Challenging side : Okay, so your future spouse might be a bit of an introvert. Social interactions aren't always their strong suit, especially when it comes to small talk. They're more like deep-thought conversations rather than chit-chat about the weather. And speaking of deep thoughts, they tend to overthink stuff. Simple decisions can turn into complicated quandaries in their minds. Practicality isn't their strong suit either. They've got a knack for brilliant ideas, but sometimes turning those ideas into reality can be a bit of a challenge. Routine? Yeah, not their thing. They get bored quickly with repetitive tasks and might struggle with focusing on the same thing for too long. Oh, and sometimes they can be like Mr. Spock – super logical, but not always the most sensitive. Emotions might not be their strong suit, and they might come across as a tad insensitive from time to time. And when they've made up their mind, it's like they've superglued their opinion in place. Changing their perspective? Good luck with that.

Pile 2

Positive side : welcome pile 2! I'm getting that Your future spouse is the kind of person who's always dreaming big and aiming for the stars. They have this incredible ability to come up with the most creative and imaginative ideas that you've ever heard. Whether it's art, music, or just day-to-day conversations, they infuse everything with their unique touch of creativity. You can count on them to be that empathetic and understanding partner you've always wanted. They really get you, and their genuine care and compassion make you feel truly seen and loved. Their open-mindedness is a breath of fresh air, and you can talk to them about anything without fearing judgment. Their unwavering commitment to their values is truly inspiring; you'll never find them compromising on what they hold dear. And when it comes to those times when you need a friend to lean on, they'll be there, providing unwavering support and a listening ear. Their flexibility and adaptability make navigating life's twists and turns an exciting adventure. They have heavy water energy especially cancer and Pisces. They may have personal planets in 4th, 8th or 12th house.

Challenging side : But, you know, your future spouse does have their moments. Their idealism, as charming as it is, sometimes takes them to places that feel a bit too far from reality. There might be times when their sensitivity comes across as a bit of an overreaction, leaving you wondering how to tread carefully. They're not the biggest fans of confrontation, which can be a good thing most of the time, but it also means that addressing certain issues directly might not be their strong suit. Oh, and the decision-making process? Well, let's just say it's not the quickest. Sometimes you'll be caught in a loop of considering pros and cons, which can be a tad frustrating when you just want a clear answer. And criticism? Yeah, that's a tough one. Your future spouse might struggle a bit with handling negative feedback; it's like they take it to heart a bit too much. There could be moments when they retreat into their own world, leaving you feeling a bit disconnected. But hey, remember, nobody's perfect, right? All these quirks just make them who they are.

Pile 3

Positive side : Alright, so your future spouse is a pretty cool cat. They're like a master strategist, always thinking five steps ahead in whatever they do. You can bet on them to come up with some seriously genius plans that nobody else saw coming. They've got this natural gift for analyzing stuff – they can see the big picture and all the tiny details, which makes them freakishly good at problem-solving. They are really smart. They have this insatiable thirst for knowledge, and they're not afraid to dive deep into topics that fascinate them. And trust me, their ability to think critically is off the charts. They're not just about book smarts, though. They've got this quirky sense of humor that might catch you off guard, and you'll find yourself laughing at their witty remarks. They're super independent and have this unshakeable confidence. They won't hesitate to tackle challenges head-on, even if it means going against the crowd. Their determination is downright inspiring. Plus, when they decide to share their thoughts and ideas with you, it's like getting a VIP pass to their brilliant mind. You'll never be short of engaging conversations with these guys. Your future spouse has more earthly vibes. I'm getting heavy Capricorn and Virgo vibes. They may have their Venus in earth or vice versa.

Challenging side : Alright, I'm getting that Your future spouse's brain is like a constant whirlwind of ideas, which sometimes means they can come across as a tad distant. They're so deep in thought that they might unintentionally tune out the world around them. You might need to remind them that Earth still exists lol. Their analytical nature can be a double-edged sword. Sure, they're great at solving problems, but sometimes they overthink things to the point where it feels like they're dissecting the meaning of life. Patience might be your ally when they go into full-on ponder mode. Another thing is their high standards. They have this vision of how things should be, and they won't settle for anything less. It's awesome that they strive for excellence, but it could lead to some frustration if things don't meet their expectations. And while they're great at giving advice, they might not always be the best at dealing with emotional situations. They tend to approach things with logic, even when emotions are in play.

[eamour]

Hi i don't know if you'll reply/repost this ask but i really believe what i have to say is needed to help people in the manifestation community i am only sending this to you because you are one of the few active ones with a decent following that can get the word out..

The amount of complications people in this community have brought upon themselves is just infuriating and annoying the amount of creators/blog writers that come up with something new every week are just deceiving and preying on people who want to have a better life if you care i hope you'll post this.

Lies and overcomplications like;

'You shouldn't feel lack' 'don't focus on the 3d' 'know that you have it and go on with your life' 'this is the only way you can manifest' 'don't try to affirm or visualize it won't work its just endlessly affirming' 'feel it know' the amount of 3d and 4d 'live in imagination' is all a bunch of bs what Neville said is not the final! And you all seem to forget that

You can do all that and still get what you want sure! you can manifest this way too but why overcomplicate it?

(Yes there is a possibility that spreading this misinformation may not be necessarily intended to cause harm and might be just a misunderstanding from bloggers as well but it still causes to harm to those who are vulnerable and are just wanting to better their life and learn about manifesting)

None of this matters you are the only one who makes yourself manifest and there are many ways and you can use any way/method the problem on tumblr is people push only one way no you don't need to be fulfilled in imagination or 'know you have it and shut up in order to manifest sure Neville found a good way but its not the only way but the amount of people here who push this as if it's the only way and say if you don't do this you will never manifest are fcking playing with people's time and energy! i'm here to root for how far visualization affirming and robotic affirming goes,just for the average person its just such a quick and easy and 'failproof' way to 'get you desires' you don't need to hate the word 'get it' or something like that you don't have chase after knowledge or understanding to 'finaly manifest', when i went back to watching sammy and just affirming with no care about believe the thoughts no care about things like 3d or 4d no care about fulfilment or doing it to get it or anything like that...I've been carefree i don't worry at all...we are always learning about life and spirituality but you don't need an awakening or some sacred knowledge to manifest

You can read these posts that helped me but please no more,thats it no need to scroll and scroll and search for an answer

You don't need to read it all throughly just get the main idea you're good (most of them are short)

https://www.tumblr.com/imperfect777/744087420843245568/stop-scrolling-on-tumblr-twitter-pinterest-etc?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/miracledarling/715265433528320001/the-key-to-manifesting?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/sp0iledprincess55/744703729957257216/100-proof?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/dreamsintoreality111/672119540555153408/hey-do-you-prefer-to-change-appearance-through?source=share

My tips and experience..

All this time after being kinda obsessed with the void state (don't even get why people renamed the i am state by Neville lol) trying all things but just being lazy giving up restarting and going back to the old way of thinking, thinking 'why i fail' but now looking back and realizing i just got distracted and stopped never persisted .... now i realize how easy it is but what tumblr was doing was just discouraging me all along so many people lied or were misguided and said 'don't endlessly affirm just decide' implying if you try affirming you'll do it endlessly and never have what u want.. and so i listened....i used to watch sammy after a few videos last year i joined tumblr for a few 6 months at some point i was just reading things which have already been said and read..so i quit and decided to delete tumblr to just actually apply because reading the same thing over and over is no use...i'm now watching sammy ingram again so this is what i vouch for, affirming and thoughts watching sammy ingram (if just deciding or knowing seems like its not for you sammy ingram is great and in my opinion if i also just know or decide its mine then by affirming aren't i just reminding myself..'knowing' & 'deciding' in a way too?) again sammy joe dispenza is more helpful compared to tumblr over 6 months... i have logged back after a month typing this rn to help people and will delete my acc today even the creators i used to follow haven't posted in weeks and i urge people to leave tumblr after a certain point please live your life.

posting this for everyone who is currently overcomplicating the law and beating themselves up for not "doing it right". ♡

i want to add something: you can believe in all of these things (such as "feeling it real" instead of "affirming to get") and if it works for you, that’s good! that’s quite literally the law. but if it’s the opposite for you, if you think that it’s too much work and you would rather robotically affirm to get your desire, then do that.

i have seen both sides on tumblr and twitter, and they are both successful. it’s up to you what you want to make work for yourself!!

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! Because I just saw the post on ao3 and donations, and a different post about ao3s updated statement regarding chatgpt/ai generated fiction, and you generally have a good read on things like this - what's your opinion on it, and how its meant to be interpreted?

(I want to good faith believe, and its a complicated/ongoing topic, but wanted to hear your thoughts)

I don't know which post about the update you mean, Anon, but I assume the update referenced is the one the OTW posted on 5/13 about AI scraping and ChatGPT. I do have some thoughts but I want to go through the post a little because I don't think I'm actually needed to interpret this one -- I think with some critical thought anyone can, but a lot of people don't get critical thinking training in school, so I want to do a little demo of it.

Pre-emptively, this is a list of things I'm not an expert on: copyright law, data scraping, AI, website design, and the legality of certain forms of freedom of expression. But honestly for this you don't need to be.

First and foremost, we really have no reason to disbelieve OTW when they speak on this subject. While there's debate and discussion about AO3 and certainly it's imperfect in a number of directions, they are pretty transparent, generally speaking. I don't believe there is a reason to approach AO3 with an assumption of disingenuity in a general sense. However, the organization is run by humans, who are imperfect and can sometimes be deceitful, so it's good to always approach public statements with a critical eye.

So the post is talking about two separate but related issues: preventing AIs from scraping AO3, and policy on AI-generated works being posted. What we are looking for, from both, is a combination of things: we want what they're saying to make sense both in the world, and within the statement -- no contradictions, nothing that seems illogical, nothing that seems like baseless assumption or generalization. We want simple prose, and we want a look at the reasoning behind the actions they're taking.

When talking about AI scraping, they start with what they've done to counteract scraping, speaking in relatively simple terms but with enough specificity that if you wanted you could look up anything you didn't understand. They list what they've done to prevent scraping, and they also discuss the issues with the kinds of measures that would need to be implemented to fully prevent it. They mention specific examples that people were concerned about, and they talk about what they'll be doing going forward.

In terms of the text, this all makes sense to me -- here's what we've done, here's the problem with doing more, here's what we plan to do next. Internally, no matter what the topic is, this section is logical, there are no contradictions and no particular evasions. Critically it passes muster. Additionally, with the knowledge I do have of website design and data management, I can tell that they're doing all they reasonably can. From a standpoint of ignorance, the statement makes internal sense; from a standpoint of knowledge, they're doing what I would do in their place.

When talking about AI-generated works, likewise, they're pretty open about their process and reasoning. They say look, this isn't against TOS as it stands, and here's a reminder of why, followed by a mission statement. The bolded text of that statement is very clear, and correlates with what I said in an earlier post: their policy is maximum inclusivity of fanworks. This statement is consistent with policy AO3 has held for years, which is well-known to the community.

They go on to discuss how AI-generated work could violate spam policies, but those spam policies apply to everyone everywhere, and they remind us that we can always have the Policy & Abuse team examine a work we're skeptical of. (Inside baseball, I know some people who have beef with Policy & Abuse for being unresponsive, particularly in certain cases where harassment is involved. However, within this document, they are saying both "here's why we do this" and "if you have a problem, here's the first step.")

Again, after saying what's happening and what's being done about it, they move on to say that these are only current policies, and may change depending on future developments, and that those changes will be made available for public discussion. This is once more internally logical, and with the benefit of outside knowledge, perfectly rational.

Because I agree with them -- when I saw there was an "updated" statement from OTW on AI-generated prose I was frankly alarmed because I think banning AI-generated prose from AO3 causes way more problems than it solves. It's pretty restrained of them not to bring up the issue in more detail, but it's not difficult for those of us familiar with the community to project outwards as to why banning AI prose might be a bad thing.

So, think about what happens if an AI prose ban goes into effect and you read a fic you think was AI generated. How can you tell? Have you read some of the human-generated prose on AO3? Some of it's not great. So really in that case, what you're banning is someone saying they AI-generated the fic, which means AI-generated fic would still show up, it just couldn't be tagged as such. It's like Prohibition -- they banned alcohol and people still drank. They poisoned the alcohol and people drank the poisoned alcohol (check out paragraph five for specifics). If you ban something off the archive it'll still show up there, it just won't be tagged, so instead of a bag labeled "dead dove, do not eat" you just step on a land mine in your kitchen. AI prose is not content in the way that say incest or underage sex is; I'm against banning those as well, but at least with those you can pretty clearly say "yes this is" or "no this isn't" based on objective criteria. You can't do that with "was this made by a human or a machine" when it comes to prose.

Which leads to the second issue: if a text is reported as AI-generated and the author says "No, I wrote that," how do you prove otherwise? If you report an author for uploading AI-generated prose, all that will happen is either they just say "No, I wrote that" or someone on AO3's abuse team unilaterally decides that yes, this is AI prose, and punts someone off the website who might just be kind of a crap writer, which is not a sin or a crime. Either way it's a waste of time. So introducing a ban on AI prose is really just introducing either a useless show-law that will still cause AI prose to be posted there, just without proper tagging, or a tool to harass people with. Harassment is already an issue on the archive.

And we can reason all this out for ourselves simply by asking "What is the good-faith reason for not banning AI prose?" Assuming good faith isn't just for blindly trusting, after all; it's also for reasoning out other peoples' motivations for things.

And frankly fandom gets a little weird about assuming bad faith when it comes to anyone who has the least bit of power within the community. It's something I've encountered personally, as someone with some clout in fandom who is occasionally assumed to have weirdly malevolent intent. I'm not malicious. I'm just an awkward dumbass. But this is just something fandom does, so it's also good to check oneself and go, "Hey, is this person being genuinely malevolent or am I just assuming wickedness because it's easier to be mad at a villain than to explore the complexities of these acts?"

It's why I deliberately didn't speculate about the person who uploaded an AI fanfic and didn't respond to others doing so in comments. That person is right there. You don't have to assume any intent at all, you can just ask them. And it's so much more educational to do so!

So yeah, actually real props to whoever wrote that post by the OTW -- it's internally logical, reasonably transparent, simply written, and avoids a lot of prose pitfalls that I would absolutely fall into (did fall into, in this very post). I think within this area, they are doing what they can to prevent scraping and making the correct decisions, for now, regarding AI content on the archive.

[throneofsapphics]

let our bodies talk

Rowan x Reader x Ruhn

summary: Rowan and Ruhn help you deal with your guilt around sex, and take your virginity

warnings: virgin!reader, raw p in v (wrap it up everyone), religious guilt/shame, light hair pulling

word count: 3426

a/n: based on this request!

“Do you want us?” Ruhn finally asked, running a hand through his hair, the other toying with his lip ring. He pointedly ignored the silver-haired male staring at him like he wanted to chop him into bits and either sell them at the Meat Market or feed them to the creatures at the bottom of the Istros. 

Rowan had more patience and experience with immortality than he did. If you wanted him to wait another hundred years, he would, gladly, but he wanted to know what page you were on and he was ... well, he was used to having rather forward partners, he supposed. 

It started with him as an emissary to your world, and ended with this relationship he never could have expected, but would never change for a thing. You were everything he’d ever wanted and more. 

Your mouth parted, skin flushed, and eyes widened slightly. One of his favorite looks on you. “Of course,” the words came out quickly. Adorable. Everything about you was adorable. Cthona, he really was obsessed with you. “We’re together, aren't we?” You gained back a little bit of that attitude he loved. His mouth curved into a smirk. 

“Yes, love, we are.” 

“Ruhn is asking if you want to have sex with us,” Rowan grunted from behind you. You whirled around, not having seen him apparently. He shot you a slightly apologetic look. You were the only one who got those kinds of looks out of him, and it made Ruhn respect you even more. The male would bend over backwards for you. 

“I m- I mean yes, I do, I just ...” you trailed off uncharacteristically. 

Ruhn leaned forward in his chair, forearms bracing his thighs, Rowan rounded the couch to sit next to you, leaving a careful foot or so between the two of you. This conversation didn’t need touch, not right now at least. Ruhn stayed in his seat. Just talking about this, the idea of it, was making all sorts of unproductive changes to his blood flow. 

-

You sighed, glancing between the two of them. You wouldn’t get out of this conversation right now, at least not without them getting an acceptable answer. How do you even begin to explain your relationship with sex? When it's so complicated you barely feel like you understand it yourself? 

“Just listen to me, please,” you half pleaded, half ordered. They glanced at each other before turning to you and nodding. “I grew up with a lot of ... shame surrounding sex,” you could tell Ruhn was ready to interrupt and say fuck that, but Rowan fixed him with a look and although the male glared back he kept his mouth shut. Another time you might have laughed. “So as much as I fucking crave both of you, those thoughts are still trained into me. That its dirty, bad, against the gods wishes.” 

Rowan pressed his lips together at the last one, you knew it was ridiculous too - some of the gods were notoriously horny, after all. 

“So I'm a little ... behind because I avoided everything for so long.” 

“Are you a virgin?” Rowan asked, tone carefully neutral. If they cared either way ... well, then they wouldn’t be the males for you. 

“Yes,” you lifted your chin just a tad higher, trying to imbue yourself with some sort of confidence. 

“That’s not a problem for me,” Ruhn said, almost soothingly. 

“It shouldn’t be,” Rowan sent a warning look your way at the snip in your tone, and you glared right back at him. He held both hands up placatingly, almost in a ‘not policing you, I'm just trying to keep the peace,’ way. 

Ruhn caught your gaze, and you both burst into laughter, eyes lighting with mirth. Rowan snorted. Basically a roaring laugh coming from him. 

“Come here,” the unintentional dominance in Rowan’s voice bent your knees before you could think better of it. Not that you wanted to, not really. He patted the area next to him, giving you the option to close the distance. You did. 

You felt more than heard Ruhn move, as the couch dipped on your other side. You liked it here, pressed between them, your legs lining up from thigh to hip, just a few layers between your skin and theirs. The desire to remove the layers was there, but that old guilt crept in and tainted it. Your hand brushed the back of your neck, head tilting down, eyes trained on the floor. 

Ruhn caught your hand, bringing it down to rest on his thigh. You flexed your fingers, exploring the feel of the corded muscle beneath those jeans. His leg tensed, keeping hand settling over yours, keeping you still. 

“However long it takes,” he kissed the exposed side of your neck, “I'll teach you to not be ashamed of what your body wants.” 

“Of what you want,” Rowan added, running his thumb over your knee, his hand cupping your leg. 

“I want both of you,” you said the words quickly, as if they might never come out if you didn’t say them as fast as possible. 

“You’ll need to be a bit more specific than that,” Rowan’s eyes trailed you from head to toe, taking in every inch of your body. A hunger that you either hadn’t seen or noticed before flared. Tightness coiled in your stomach, you could arouse those kinds of feelings in them. You found you liked that power. 

“Relax, Rowan,” Ruhn drawled. The other male tensed. You smiled. “I think we can ask some questions, can’t we?” 

A muscle in Rowan’s jaw flexed, but he gave a short nod. 

Sometimes you wondered if you were the glue bonding them together, but they had a bond of their own outside of the one the three of you shared. Not sexual, but almost ... you couldn’t quite find a term to describe it. Maybe you’d invent one later. For now, they were capturing all of your attention. Questions. You knew what kind of questions they’d ask, but it didn’t leave you feeling any more prepared for it. 

“Has anyone touched this beautiful body before?” Ruhn breathed against your neck, his hand running down your thigh indolently. 

“You,” you said, a touch of something like defiance in your tone. One of them pinched your thighs lightly. Rowan. 

“It doesn’t work if you don’t answer our questions, love,” he said. 

“Not very well,” you sighed, throwing your head back to look up at the ceiling. Why did this have to feel so ... 

“These conversations aren’t meant to be smooth,” Ruhn reminded you. It gave you a bit of much-needed courage and you gave yourself a reminder. You loved these males, trusted them, and knew they’d never do anything to intentionally hurt you or make you feel upset. In fact, they’d usually do their best to make sure the opposite happened. 

“Did you like anything about their touch?” Rowan’s large hand covered part of your thigh, tips of his fingers digging in light enough to add a pleasurable pressure but avoid that edge of pain. Regardless, each of their touches felt like fire in your current wound up state and you doubted anything could douse it right now. 

“When it was over,” you said, honestly, and drew a laugh from each of them. 

“I promise you won’t want this to end,” Ruhn said. Tilting your head, blue eyes peered intently at you, full of heat and passion and desire. “I think we can figure out how to ask these questions without speaking,” he brushed the top of your thigh, playing with your hemline, “hm?” 

You arched towards him, hands reached out to grasp at his arms, tugging him closer, closer, closer, however you could get any contact with him. Something about his tone and words awoke a new desperation in you. The time for talking, for thinking, was over. 

Ruhn caught your hands. You frowned. He switched them to one of his and used the other to tilt your chin up. “If you want this to stop at any time, just say the word. Or tap a few times if you can’t speak.” 

“We won’t be angry or upset,” Rowan added. 

“If you were, I'd kick your asses. Before leaving them,” you grumbled.

Ruhn held his hands up. “I’m terrified,” he deadpanned. 

The pause gave space for ugly emotions to rear and infiltrate, invading your headspace. 

You heard the words of the priests and priestesses from your childhood, of your mother and father wondering what the hell you were doing before damning and cursing you. Doubt had no place in this room, but it found its way inside anyway. 

“I don’t think she wants this,” you heard Ruhn say, and your head snapped up. 

-

Ruhn hoped his gamble paid off and Rowan played along, that they could draw out your competitive side. 

Green eyes narrowed, but he said, “I’m afraid you may be right.” Rowan Whitethorn wasn’t afraid of a damn thing, but that wasn’t the point. 

“Yes I do,” you spluttered indignantly. That was the point.

“Show us,” Rowan challenged you. 

“I don’t know how,” your voice dropped to a furious whisper, and he wondered if you might call everything off. 

“Ask for help,” Rowan countered. 

“I thought we would do this without speaking,” Ruhn interjected. 

In unison, both you and Rowan replied, “that’s what you said,” and he bit back a grin. 

“One question then,” Rowan continued, “do you want us to fuck you tonight?” 

“Yes,” there was no hesitation, in fact eagerness in your tone. Bringing out your competitive side did work, and he noted that for later. 

“We’ll be gentle,” Rowan told you. 

You huffed. Ruhn titled his head, Rowan raised a brow at you. 

“I want you, not some watered down version of you - both of you.” 

“As you wish, my love,” Rowan murmured. 

“Your funeral,” Ruhn joked. 

“But I have one rule,” he sat up a little straighter at your words. 

“What is that?” 

“No magic,” you glanced between both males. “I just want you. Both of you.” 

-

“Very well,” Rowan acquiesced, not sounding too put out. “Come here,” he patted his thighs. After checking for Ruhn’s agreement to your ‘rule,’ you did. 

This part, this first step, you knew how to do. You’d kissed both of them before. Straddling him, you balanced yourself on the middle of his thighs. His fingers trailed up and down your sides, front, back, everywhere he could reach, brushing sensitive areas over your clothing. Brushing too lightly for how drastically your body seemed to react. Or maybe that was the point, less is more. 

‘Let go, stop thinking,’ you reminded and reprimanded yourself. 

It took you a minute or two to realize Rowan was waiting for something. For you to initiate. 

Leaning forward, you brushed your lips against his, mimicking the featherlight touches he was leaving on your body. Rowan wasn’t having it, and gripped the back of your head, winding his fingers through your hair before bringing you together. 

He stood, mouth still on yours, and you tightened your legs around his waist, locking your ankles, he wrapped one arm around your lower back, and snapped at Ruhn with his spare hand. 

The other male, understandably, snarled in return and you broke away from Rowan to hide your giggles into his shoulder. 

It broke the tension, and after a few strides from Rowan you were bouncing back on your bed, thrown there by him. Catching yourself against the headboard, it was your turn to glare. 

“That’s what you get for laughing,” Ruhn shrugged out of his shirt, and fuck your mouth watered. “My eyes are up here,” he teased you. 

“I thought we weren’t talking,” you snapped back. 

Not Ruhn, you could see all of him, but you felt another hand on the back of your neck. Rowan. Lips brushed against your ear, “I should just bend you over our bed and fuck you, but I think we can make it a little more enjoyable than that.” 

That sounded very enjoyable to you, and maybe scared you just a tad but not in an unpleasant way. Involuntarily, your thighs clenched. Ruhn’s chuckle told you he noticed. Heat seared your cheeks, the back of your neck, your chest. 

Half-naked, he climbed on the bed after you. Rowan stood next to the footboard, seemingly content to watch just for the moment. 

They seemed too coordinated and organized, in your opinion, and alarm bells flared in your mind and you scrambled with your hands to sit up. 

“Are you speaking to him?” You couldn’t fight the hint of accusation in your tone as you asked Ruhn.

“We’re making this enjoyable,” he pushed down lightly on your shoulders, “let us.” 

“Let go, love,” Rowan encouraged. 

You pursed your lips together in a frown, but nodded. You could let go, for tonight. Letting your hands slide out, your back hit the soft duvet cover again, the fabric silky against your skin. Relax. You were entirely capable of letting go. 

Ruhn’s lips hit your shoulder first, a soft and gentle kiss, before trailing down over your chest. The longer he went on, the firmer, you wouldn’t exactly call it rough, he got. Each touch grew more intense, his hands on your ribcage, pushing you down into the mattress as his lip ring flicked over your nipple. Teeth lightly grabbing the now swollen peak, tugging it up, drawing a gasp, before releasing. Testing how each part of your body reacted to different pressures and sensations. Learning you. 

He was good at this, you realized, with a hint of jealousy you quickly tamped down. Here and now, you reminded yourself. Focus. Capable. 

Lost in his touch, you didn’t notice the other male sliding in behind you until you were rising, your back pressed against his chest. Ruhn made a noise of discontent, like a kid with his candy taken away from him. 

“Ruhn’s going to fuck you first,” Rowan murmured in your ear, stroking down the side of your arm. “And when he’s done, I'll get to fuck that pretty little pussy, how does that sound?” 

“Great,” you barely managed to say. 

Then he was gone, out from behind you, and you were lowered onto the duvet again, head propped up on a pillow, Ruhn’s head between your - fuck. You lost all train of thought, all capability of thought as his tongue flicked your clit. Your voice left you as his lip ring, that beautiful thing, slid across your clit, a finger slipping inside and curling, putting just the right amount of pressure - and throwing you over the edge. 

Ruhn slowly worked you through your orgasm, adding another finger and twisting. You winced slightly at the stretching sensation. He stopped. 

“Just a little,” you panted, “uncomfortable. Keep going.” At the uncertain look on his face you added a, “please,” and that did the trick. 

He kept watching you intently, looking for every little change that might tell him something is wrong. But ... you didn’t feel the need to put on a performance. Instead, you found you liked the intensity he looked at you with. It made you feel wanted and desired in ways you never had before. It was bringing you to new highs. With another scream, your body melted into the mattress, legs falling limply to your sides. 

“I think she’s ready,” you heard Rowan. You nodded your agreement. Just a taste and you’d grown greedy, wanting more, more, more. All they would give you, all you could take. 

A belt clicked, clothes rustled, and you sat up on your elbows, impressed that even with the slight shake in your arms you could still hold yourself up. Maybe it was sheer determination to see Ruhn getting undressed that did it. It was certainly worth it. 

Licking your lips subconsciously at the sight of him, you realized he was pretty everywhere, including his cock. Near the same color as his skin, but with a glistening pink tip and a bulging vein running down the side, you wanted him in you. Now. 

“Get over here,” you breathed. 

“Bossy,” he said, raising his brows, but didn’t fucking move. 

Pressing your lips together, you saw a few avenues in front of you, and picked the one you figured would light a fire under him the best. 

“I guess I have to do it myself,” you sighed and let one arm slide out, snaking its way towards your center. 

It didn’t make it, not as Ruhn was there, catching your hand. “Not this time, princess.” 

His hand splayed against the backs of your thighs, pressing them up and to the sides as he knelt between your legs. 

“Breathe,” he ordered, and you’re glad you listened as he first pushed past your walls. Sharp pain hit your abdomen, catching your breath in your throat. 

An icy wind found its way down your throat, and you decided you’d thank Rowan, mentally, now and yell, verbally, at him later. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Keep going,” you hissed through clenched teeth. You might’ve had a lot of ... conflicting feelings surrounding sex, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t educated yourself. All the bodice rippers told you that the pleasure would kick in soon, that before you knew it you’d be overwhelmed by the “feel good” hormones. Gods you hoped they were real. 

He moved, but slowly. Lifting your hips to switch the angle, you gasped as he hit somewhere deep inside of you. That felt good. 

“That’s the spot, then,” he murmured, more to himself. 

“Fuck you feel good,” you moaned, nails clawing at his shoulders, searching for some kind of grip or anything to hold on to. He chuckled and lowered himself just enough you could grab them, before his hands spread against your sides, gripping you firmly. 

“Remember what you said earlier,” he paused inside of you. You wanted to scream at him. Instead you were left looking at his dumbly, eyes blinking. “About not wanting a watered down version of us. You’re still sure?” 

“Yes I’m sure, just fuck me or I'll-”

You didn’t get a chance to finish your words as he moved again, tilting your hips to that perfect angle before driving into you, over and over again. 

Not quite rough, but certainly not gentle, whatever he was doing was absolutely perfect, and as his fingers found your clit, you had your third - or was it fourth? - orgasm of the night. 

You actually whined as he pulled out, his eyes still open and fixed on you. He hadn’t finished. A pout started forming. 

As if he read the words in your eyes, he said, “someone else has been waiting for their turn, I’m sharing you tonight princess,” and jerked his head to the side. You followed the motion, and Rowan stood there, looking at you with pure hunger in his eyes. 

You swallowed. Louder than you intended to. Ruhn moved off you. 

“On your knees,” Rowan said roughly, but didn’t give you a chance before he gripped your hips and flipped you. Squeaking, your hands scrambled and slid before you landed on your elbows. His hand twisted around your hair, not pulling but gripping and tilting your head to look at him. “I still want to see your face, but it’ll be easier for you this way.” 

Easier? Just then, you realized you hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but based on how Ruhn went first you could put together a few things. 

“Alright,” you breathed. 

There was no hesitation from either side as Rowan slid in you, your body both welcoming and protesting him, your hips and thighs already beginning to ache, but you wanted more. A greedy little monster had begun to bloom in you. 

Both of them just felt right, in different ways, and you - 

“Eyes on me,” Rowan snapped. Your eyes flew to him, and his mouth indented at one corner in the way the stoic smile. “I said I wanted to see your face, love.” 

His hands gripped your hips. 

“See your pretty little face as you take my cock so well.” 

The words drew a moan from you, sending pleasure from the tips of your fingers to the bottom of your toes, making you push yourself back on him. Green stared at you, unrelenting as each slow, hard thrust nearly bounced you off him 

“Look how perfectly you’ve opened up for me,” he sounded almost teasing, “just like you were made for me.” 

Maybe you were, made for both of them as they were for you. 

-

taglists:

general: @rowaelinsdaughter @bookishbroadwaybish @nestaismommy @erencvlt @book-obsessed124 @callsigns-haze

throne of glass: @I-am-a-lost-girl16

crescent city: @I-am-a-lost-girl16

let me know if you'd like to hop on the tag list!

[littlemoondarlingarts]

Did an artstyle study of the gorgeous art of @iliothermia and I genuinely learned alot so I'm very thankful that he gave me permission to do this 🙏🏻🙏🏻

As usual, rambles and process pics under the cut, be warned that I talk alot because this drawing was a true labor of love both for his art and Rouge

I wanted to use elements from his art but at the same time i know how deeply personal his art is to his own life and struggles and culture so i tried to be as respectful as possible (and if I failed at that please tell me I have no problem in deleting this) and tried to minimize my use of direct elements from his art to keep it to the skull which was heavily inspired by a drawing he has done, the waves which are such a beautiful staple of his art that I just couldn't not put it and the use of candles and small floral patterns and the style of the mold, but I tried to keep the rest to things that are symbolic to the character.

While he may have restraint to not explain everything, I'm not famous for that lol, so I will be explaining the symbolism behind my choices.

Part 1: the symbolism:

The red rose is Rouge's flower and it is heavily associated with him. The meaning of it being romantic desire and passion mixed with the thorns of it perfectly sum up his position as a beautiful black widow.

Voyeurism is a big part of this drawing and it is first noticed with the eyes motif on the roses' leaves, this symbolises his response to his trauma which left him feeling like an unwanted pervert on his own self. I can talk about this aspect of his story for hours but I'll spare you lol.

The X-ray cutouts are his complicated relationship with his own body and death, it is a thing that is constantly on his mind as he suffers from suicidal thoughts but at the same time he is always running away from it in fear, but he knows that eventually, he will have to stop running.

The candles melting represent him being only wanted when he is useful, when he is giving parts of himself up for others to use and abuse, when he is lighting their lives by slowly draining his own.

The piano is one of the rare things that bring him happiness and peace, but he needs to be heavily dissociated to be able to enjoy it which is represented by the hands being disconnected from the rest of the drawing and just floating in their own reality.

The snake represents two things, one is him being venomous to those around him, the mistakes he's made, the promises he's broken, the pain he's caused etc. But it also represents those who slowly wrap themselves around him in a warm embrace, presenting themselves as a saviour in his most dire times only to end up being the ones who will hurt him the most.

The book is about his obsession with keeping track of everything and of studying people, accidentally turning himself into an unwanted voyeur on their lives to the point where he has written the life stories of many people who would never want to be remembered through his eyes in his little books.

The butterflies are him, both in the way they are seen as "the good insects" and the beautiful delicate ones despite the fact that they eat flesh sometimes, it is also related to the way his simple presence for a few minutes in someone's life can create a whirlwind of change that will leave it unrecognizable, or he can simply be another body in their bed.

The hair turning into waves is meant to reflect the way he is always drowning in his own thoughts, a hand crafted constant state of misery.

The beta fish are some of the most beautiful and colourful fish out there, yet they are seen as cheap and easy first pets, leading to them being neglected and given environments that are too small and crammed, making their beautifully slow death the only thing they can offer to their owner. I don't think I need to explain more..

The skull is probably someone he's loved, or someone he's killed, or both.

The heart is his, it is rotten and covered in mold, any love he offers is tainted by his inability to heal and it is spreading to infect every aspect of his life.

Part 2: the inspirations:

The roses are a homage to the way Rachamim always places flowers in his art, either in the background or as a focal point of the illustration, most of the flowers he uses are cultural in nature, so I opted to not reuse any of them and changed it to a flower related to my oc.

Eyes are a repeated theme in his art, whether it be angel eyes, the evil eye or anything else, and as you can tell both of these are cultural and religious and while the evil eye exists in my culture, it does not in my oc's so I didn't use it. Instead I opted to pay homage to one of his beautiful merman drawings in which he used the plants to make an eye-like shape that stares at the viewer.

I thought I was being real smart in turning the hair into waves but yesterday I saw an illustration where he did the same so rip to me thinking i was being original lol.

The snake and butterflies are my way of replicating his use of animals while trying to not directly copy any animals that have a connection to himself or his culture/religion.

The beta fish is just to reference the ever present fishies in his art. I know he uses them because they represent friendship for him and they are the only animals safe from the evil eye (thanks for the fun fact) so I uh... I don't really know if this was disrespectful or not to be honest but I tried to use a different type of fish, idk this might still be slightly problematic and again I'm always ready to delete this if it makes anyone uncomfortable.

The waves are a direct copy of how he draws the gorgeous waves in his art, another case of something I fear may be crossing the line because the waves are drawn in the style of cultural jewelry 😭

The tiny flowers are an obvious reference to his own tiny flowers that decorate his art and characters.

The skull with the candles is heavily inspired by a specific drawing of his.

The cutouts are my way of paying my respects to my absolute favourite piece of art he's done without directly copying its concept because as far as I can tell, it is a very personal and emotional piece.

The mold style is a reference to his mold man (I forgot his name I'm sorry).

And the candles are another repeated motif in his art as well as the pillars and the pant style.

And ouf I sure do talk alot don't I? I just really love the amount of things I was able to cram into this piece and I haven't even mentioned everything😭😭 I will NOT be doing this again because I'm simply not as patient as he is and as proud as I am of the result, this was torture. I hope I didn't disrespect him, his art or his culture and I genuinely tried my best to be as respectful as possible but I might have some blind spots due to our experiences being so vastly different so again, please don't hesitate to inform me if you want this deleted!

[itsmarsss]

Scandalous (Blitzø x Fem!Succubus!Reader x Stolas) [Helluva Boss] pt. 5 - Monster

How the mighty do fall. (Getting into a weird three-way situation with an imp and a succubus isn't exactly considered classy, Stolas)

If they’re only with him as prisoners, what kind of monster does that make him? 

pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3 | pt. 4 | 1st bonus | pt. 6 | pt. 7 | pt. 8 | pt. 9

Warnings: mentions of sex as usual, some depressing thoughts, slight mention of an abusive relationship (stella), you guys ready for a time jump? this happens after the season 1 finale. don't worry we'll find out what happens during that in a later chapter! a lot of the dialogue here comes straight from the show. this is all solely in stolas' pov!!

Word count: 6,005

Stolas almost wishes he’d have the guts to kick the two demons out after they were done with the… activities agreed upon.  

He almost wishes they’d see themselves out immediately after, not leaving him a single, mere second to get used to their presence. He almost wishes their talk of not staying the night weren’t so empty, the promise broken by a simple plea for them to stay. He almost wishes he’d have the willpower to refrain himself from pleading. He almost wishes they had never let him have a taste of feeling their weight on his mattress next to his own body or to their body heat keeping him warm under his fancy bedsheets, to begin with. He almost wishes they’d never let him have an insight into how a life as their lover could be like, waking up to their half-dressed bodies still lazily holding onto his in some way in the morning. 

Then again, Stolas is a hypocrite. A self-aware one at that, too. 

Because he could intervene and he could stop all of these things from happening. He could tell them they had to go. He could not ask them to stay. He could never see them again. Because he’d been the one to propose they start this complicated situation they all found themselves in and he was the only one, really, who could realistically put an end to it, given they still needed their part of the deal. Because he could have done it a long while ago, cut the problem at its roots, stopped himself from falling, never have pushed them into this, and he’s well aware of it. He never really did, though. 

He should have. 

As the months went by, the more Stolas’ feelings- real, scary, romantic feelings- grew. And, with it, the more he started to see their arrangement in a different light. Back when he didn’t care all that much, he didn’t really think it through. They wanted something of his, he wanted something from them. It seemed fair and simple in his mind at the time. 

But he cares now. And at times it makes him feel disgusting. What was he thinking, anyway, tying them to himself against their will? Sure, they agreed when they could have denied it. But then again, he held the power in all of this. He had the book and they needed it badly. They’d probably do whatever he wanted for it. 

The thought had started to make him sick.

If they’re only with him as prisoners, what kind of monster does that make him? 

He buries those thoughts and conceals those feelings whenever he sees the two, making place for the momentary happiness that comes with their visits, but it eats him alive. 

He hadn’t seen either of them in a while, ever since… what happened at Ozzie's. He’d texted both Blitzo and y/n the day after that, and, upon receiving a disappointing one-letter text in reply from the imp and a nicer, but still dry and impersonal one from the succubus, he didn’t know why he still expected more than that. 

Then again, he’d never really looked at the situation through a lens other than his own. Why should he expect anything? It wasn’t their fault that he cared about them beyond the sexual nature of their relationship when their agreement ended at that. 

The whole divorce ordeal was coming close to making him lose his mind. When he announced he wanted a divorce, he thought that would be enough. He’d even felt bad about how he did all of that in front of Stella’s friends, how he embarrassed her.

But the aftermath of it reminded him of how that’s all she used to do to him, over and over again, and now she wasn’t accepting the idea all that well, seen as she still stayed around the palace, as if nothing had changed. 

It annoyed him to no end. 

“I cannot do this anymore, I want you out. Now.”

“What do you mean… ‘out’?”

“I mean out! Out of this palace. Out of my life. We are getting the divorce.”

“How dare you? What do you think the rest of the Goetia family will think? And Andrealphus-” Stella raised her hand, surely to slap him the face. It wasn’t something she did often, but Stolas couldn’t say it had never happened before. He’d allowed it, then, deeming himself deserving of it. 

He wouldn’t allow it this time. Never again. 

Stopping her made him realize how easily he could have done it all those other times, had he had the courage to. Announcing the divorce had unknowingly been the first step he needed to find the guts to begin standing up for himself. It was scary, but it was thrilling, at the same time. “I don’t care what your arrogant brother thinks!And the only thing the Goetia family wanted from our marriage is already seventeen, so it’s over. I’m done.”

Stolas knew what he did, and he knew Stella wouldn’t forgive him for it. He could only ever hope Via could, someday, understand. Still, he supposed what was in his power now that he had done it was to not let things fall into what they were before. He couldn’t have gotten things so messy for nothing. 

He didn’t even know what to think of the fact that he just couldn’t feel bad for what he’d done. Things were falling apart, and as much as he wished all of this didn’t affect Via, he didn’t regret it, now that it was done. In fact, he was relieved. Because he couldn’t go back now.

And he was fine with not wanting to.

So no more pretending to be fine, no more putting everyone else’s wishes before his own.  

… It’s easier said than done when that’s all you’ve ever known. 

[. . .]

Stolas woke up with a headache. Fuck, it was moving day. 

Well, for Stella, that is. And she wasn’t moving, per se. She had moved out the same night he demanded that she did, but every single day after that she’d come over to the palace again, claiming to have forgotten something she so desperately needed. 

The night before, he’d had enough of it, making sure to pull whatever strings he could to have all of her things out of his home by the end of the next day. 

So he woke up early, with a pounding headache, put on his robes, and walked himself straight to the front door, not stopping to get himself breakfast as he usually did. He could already hear some commotion. Good, at least people were already there to start on getting her absurd amount of belongings. Maybe they’d be done early enough that he could enjoy the rest of the day. Honestly, all Stolas had been longing for was a peaceful day. 

It was quickly proven to him that this wasn’t going to be one of those. 

As soon as he laid his foot on the first floor, the phone started ringing, and a servant ran over to bring it to him. He let out a sigh. Stella, surely. 

He was right. 

[. . .]

The phone call was going on half an hour with no signs of ending any time soon, when Via walked in.

It was hard to properly talk to her when Stella was whining on the other side of the call, so he deemed it better to dismiss her and have a conversation when he and her mother were done yelling at each other. “Darling, can we not talk about this now? Your mother is being a real B-I-T-C-H.”

Stella yelled incoherent insults at him for that. “Well how was I supposed to know you can spell? I’ve never seen you read!”

About an hour later, only a couple minutes after finally being able to hang up the phone, it rang again. He let out a groan in annoyance. Did she ever, ever shut up? 

He picked the phone up again, ready to curse at her when a voice came through first- one that wasn’t hers.

“Heyyy, Stolas, so, your daughter came by, took your book and teleported off to who-the-fuck-knows-where and we have no way of getting either of them back. Okay? Okay, good talk. Byyee!” Blitzø blurted it all out at once before hanging up abruptly. 

What. The actual. Fuck. 

In an instant, Stolas was there, in his full demon form without having even noticed he’d changed into it, angry beyond he’s ever been at the imp. 

“BLITZ!”

“Heeeyy, Stolas,” Blitzo tried (and failed miserably) to act nonchalant, earning angry looks from his employees.

Stolas turned back into his normal self, now worried more than anything, pacing back and forth on the reception floor as he tried to assimilate the situation. “How could this happen? Do you just let anyone waltz into your office and grab infinitely powerful artifacts?” He shouted. “Why would she do this? How are we supposed to find her? Where would she go?”

Blitzo’s daughter, Loona, tried sniffing around. Was it even possible that she’d be able to smell that? Apparently, she was successful, as she announced… “Well, it reeks of urine and desperation, so-”

“L.A.?” y/n asked, interrupting her. She seemed to be hoping she was wrong.

Loona confirmed with a nod. ‘L.A.”

Stolas didn’t understand exactly how she’d managed to do that, or even why y/n knew immediately where she was talking about just from those disgusting things she’d said about the place- that place must be awful. The thought only got him more worried, come to think of it. How was Via going to deal with a place that seemed to be so terrible in a realm she’d never visited? 

Stolas tilted his head to the side. “What is this ‘L.A.’ place like?”

“It’s not that different from here. She’ll be fine, I’m sure,” y/n tried to reassure him. It didn’t work all that much. 

He grimaced in preoccupation as he conjured a portal.

Blitzø was the last to walk through it. “Alright, Loona, let’s make this quick. In and out before anyone notices we’re here.” He looked around, taking the view in. “Oh, this doesn’t look much different from Hell.”

“I told ya,” y/n tells him. 

“Alright, well, let’s get to work. Loony, sniff!”

“How am I supposed to smell anything in this city?”

“Can’t you even do one thing right?” Moxxie complained, annoyed.

“Can't you finally do something about how fat you are?” The hellhound retorted.

“I’m not!”

Blitzø joined the conversation. “You know, it wouldn't kill ya to put a salad in your body every now and then.”

“What? But I'm not fat! I’m not!”

Great. He had no idea where Via was and the people supposed to help him find her were arguing about… whatever that was.

Blitzø climbed on top of a dumpster, grabbing a megaphone from satan-knows-where and talking into it. “Now! First things first, if we’re gonna do this the old-fashioned way, we’re gonna need disguises.”

Okay, now that Stolas could do. In an instant, he morphed into his human form, as did Loona and y/n, making Millie clap, amused at their abilities. He still couldn’t fathom the fact that the other three imps didn’t have real human disguises, and apparently just walked around the human realm as they were. 

Stolas could almost swear Blitzø looked amused as well, but it only lasted a second. Maybe he’d imagined it. He didn’t dwell on it- there was no time for anything other than finding his baby. 

“No chance you could conjure us a couple of those… can ya?” Blitzø asked him.

“Sadly, no. I’m afraid without my Grimoire my powers are just a tad limited in the human world,” Stolas explained. 

Blitzø scoffed. “What, you can’t memorize your fucking spells?”

“Oh, your memory’s so great? What’s his phone number?” Stolas motioned at Moxxie.

“Fuck you.”

Stolas smiled, content that he’d gotten his point across. “Eeeeexactly.”

As they all walk out of the alley they were in, Stolas grabs himself a pair of red-tinted sunglasses that he puts on his head, where his second pair of eyes would be. Yeah, that feels better. He watches as y/n grabs a pair too- purple heart-shaped ones- and pays for both. Where she’d gotten human money he didn’t know, but he found it endearing that she would spend it on their glasses when she could have just walked out with them. 

They continue on their way- which Stolas admittedly didn't know exactly to where, when y/n stops walking, asking them to wait. She’s turned around now, talking to Millie while Moxxie talked to a funny-looking human man. 

“What’s he doing?”

Moxxie hisses at Millie as she tries to take whatever it was he was holding from him. She sighs. “Look we’ll find ya, alright? I’ll just stick around so he doesn't do anything stupid.” 

“You sure?”

“Yeah, we can handle ourselves. Right?”

“Right.” Y/n turns back around, cueing for everyone to keep walking.

“You worry too much,” Blitzø remarks.

“Oh shut the fuck up. Let’s find you something to wear.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

Stolas shared a look with her. “Blitz, you’re not exactly… passing as a human right now.”

“And whose fault is that?” He jabs at Stolas. 

Y/n rolls her eyes at the comment, grabbing both demons by the hand and dragging them around until they found a shop she deemed useful. 

She grabbed some cash and gave it to Blitzø , sending him on his way inside the store, opting to wait outside. Stolas decided it would be best if he did the same. He tapped his foot nervously on the sidewalk as they waited and tilted his head to the side when Blitzø walked out the door with human clothes and gigantic costume ears to conceal his horns. Perhaps not changing would’ve brought less attention to him. 

“Now that’s disturbing,” Stolas pointed out. 

Blitzo looked like he was about to say something in return, but wasn’t able to- someone started yelling beside them. “Ahh! Look everyone! It’s Hollywood star, Brannon Ragers!”

“What?” Y/n asked no one in particular. 

“The fuck is a Brandon Rager- ohh,” Blitzø looked up behind himself, and the two demons did the same. Ohh, indeed. There it was, a billboard, huge as can be, with a guy’s- well, apparently Brannon Ragers’ face on it. The similarity between that guy and whatever was going on with Blitzo’s appearance right now was uncanny.

Stolas’ eyes widened. “Oh, dear.” If they didn’t want attention then, now things were getting so, so much worse.

A hoard of fans quickly surrounded Blitzø, to the point of almost suffocating him, as they asked for selfies or autographs or simply smothered him to the ground trying to hug him. “Millie! Where the fuck are you and your whorebag husband?” Stolas could hear him scream, but couldn’t for the life of him see him in the middle of so many people.

“Can you do something about this?” He asked y/n, unsure if either of them should even do anything. 

“I mean, technically I could wipe ‘em out but I don't think we want that, do we?”

No, definitely not. 

As the three of them tried to push their way into the crowd to get to Blitzø, someone blew a whistle, which made Loona’s ears hurt and caused everyone else to pay attention to whoever had done it- apparently, some guy with ugly glasses brandishing a diploma from ‘cinephile university’, whatever that meant. 

Satan, this place was so much more chaotic than Hell was.

It worked, though- the crowd dispersed, and Blitzø was released from someone’s grip, getting dropped face-first onto the sidewalk. Some other guy made his way over to him. “Mr. Ragers, we’ve been looking for you everywhere! You were supposed to be on set an hour ago!” As he spoke, two other guys, assumedly bodyguards, grabbed Blitzø up from the ground, holding him by his arms. 

“The fuck are you talking about?” Blitzø questioned.

“Shit, they think he’s that weirdo from the billboard,” Stolas heard y/n tell Loona.

“Your guest spot on ‘Sweetie, I’m in The House”! We’re taping tonight. Now, hurry up and get in the car.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I’m not going anywhere with you, jizz biscuit,” Blitzø flipped him off. 

The guy didn’t seem bothered at all. “Very funny, Mr. Ragers. Now get in the car-” was he- was he making cat noises at him? “Come on, boy, come on,” he kept on, apparently trying to bribe him with fruit snacks, which only made everything so much more confusing. Was this Brannon Ragers guy flat-out stupid?

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Blitzø tried to release himself from the two bodyguards’ grip, but was unsuccessful, only making things worse for himself. “Loona, Stolas, y/n, a little help here?” He called out, now being forcefully dragged. His fake ears came off, but it didn't even faze anyone there. Humans are weird.

“Oh, shit,” y/n muttered. Apparently, like Stolas, she’d imagined Blitzø would have been able to get himself out of that situation, but things were going out of control now.

Stolas had to think, and fast. The crowd was going wild again, so he used his height as an advantage, the only one out of the three who could actually see over people. “Excuse me, sir, uhhhh” Shit, if they left Blitzø alone, who knew where they would take him? “I’m…. Mr. Ragers’ agent!” He found himself exclaiming. “I don’t believe you can just-” Yet another bodyguard simply grabbed him off the floor, taking him with them with no effort. That got him distracted for a second. “Oh, you are strong!” 

“No! What the fuck are you doing?” Y/n yelled after him, which was fair. He hadn’t really put much thought into what he’d done. No use thinking about it now that he and Blitzø were getting aggressively thown into the back of a van.

It only took a couple seconds for Stolas to realize what that meant- how was he going to look for Octavia from there?

“Blitz, we don’t have time for this. Via could be anywhere… She could be in danger.”

For a second, Blitzø looked worried too, until it seemed he’d had an idea. “Don’t worry, I’m on it.” He punched the window so he could stick his head out of it, looking for Loona and y/n. “You two! Go find Via! We’ll catch up soon!”

He was met with a middle finger from both of them. 

“Yeah! Way to be a team!” He yelled out, getting himself back into the van. “She’s in great hands.”

Stolas let himself smile weakly. He didn’t know if that was true, but he wanted to believe it- after all, Loona had been able to track Via up here, and y/n was sure to do the best she could. 

[. . .]

As they got to what apparently was their destination- Starstruck Studios, as it read- Blitzø was dragged around the set, barely able to keep up to what they were doing to him. They styled his fake hair, poked his eyes with something, applied heavy makeup on him- which, for some reason, did nothing to conceal his obvious red skin, and gave him a pat on the back, telling him he was ready and would be on in five. At some point during all of that, Stolas was handed what could be anywhere between 10 and 600 water bottles. 

“What? Five what? I can’t be in a sitcom.”

“Should’ve had an ego crisis before signing the contract,” the producer guy mocked him. 

Stolas took a good look at him. He looked nervous. He killed people for a living, was on the brink of getting killed every single day, and this was making him nervous. 

“I- I- I- I- I don’t even know the fucking lines, idiot!”

“Well, that’s why god invented teleprompters.” 

Stolas hardly believed teleprompter could ever be described as a creation of god’s, but sure. Blitzø looked like he was on the verge of collapsing. Stolas tried to help out. “Shouldn't he rehearse or something?”

“No can do, we’re live in 10… 9…-” They guy started counting out, and with each second that passed Blitzø seemed to spiral even more.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I- I- I can’t do this! No, not again.” He began pacing back and forth around the room. “I- I haven’t performed since-”

Alright, time to be the level-headed one. 

Stolas walked towards him. “Blitz, if your performance on stage is half as good as it is in bed, you’ll leave them… breathless,” he cooed, satisfied at the gulp he could see the imp take when he whispered the last word, free hand running over his throat. 

But no more time for that. He pushed Blitzø towards the stage. “Now hurry up and wow them so we can get back to finding Via!” Blitzø stopped at the door in front of him, and Stolas opened it, pushing him again, this time right onto the stage. “Break a leg, darling!” 

Suddenly, the lights were on. The crowd wasn’t huge, but there was a considerable amount of people there to watch the live recording. The actor who was already sitting on the couch delivered the first line. “Well if it isn’t our neighbor, Ronney! You feel that earthquake earlier?”

Blitzø looked terrified. Oh, no. “Say something,” Stolas urged him in a whisper from behind the camera.

Someone thankfully got him the teleprompter. He looked like he was barely present as he read his line from the screen. “Oh, yeah. Yeah! That was just… my wife… rolling out of bed.”

Stolas looked at the audience, worried no one would laugh at the joke. If no one laughed at his joke Blitzø might as well collapse. He was relieved when they started laughing. Blitzø, in turn, was beyond relieved- his eyes were almost sparkling with joy. He’d made people laugh!

Granted, they might have only done so because of the big signs telling them to, but Blitzø didn’t need to know that. Whatever was going on, it seemed to put him in a much better place, as he no longer looked like he was halfway through spiraling. It granted him the courage to keep on and even improvise. 

“Yeah! Yeah, and then that bitch hit her head on the way down and shattered her skull!”

Stolas didn’t even register the crowd’s reaction this time. He’d forgotten Blitzø is a performer. He couldn’t contain a laugh. 

Blitzø went on. “There was blood everywhere. Peed her pants,” Stolas was full on giggling now, though it took him a second to realize people had only now started laughing along. How did they not find this funny? No matter. 

Why did Blitzø even kill people anyway when this is what he’s supposed to do? He’s funny and- and… Blitzø winked at him, and immediately Stolas could feel his cheeks burn, downing some of the many water bottles he was holding to cool himself down. 

Where was he? Oh, right. He was funny and interesting and charming. Why had he given up performing? Perhaps Stolas could ask him about it at a later time.

The material of the show certainly wasn’t helping much. After a while, things were getting repetitive and, frankly, boring. And Stolas could see he was definitely not the only one who thought so, as the guy on his right had left the place altogether and the one on his left had literally fallen asleep.

Was this shoot ever going to end?

Blitzø’s character was rambling to the ugly tiny dog they’d brought in about it being the fifth couch he’d ruined that year.  “You know, maybe it's time I find you a new home, one that can put up with your attitude.”

A little girl walked into the set for the first time since the scene had started. “I can take him, Mr. Ronney! I’d be happy to adopt old Ugie and give him all the attention he needs!”

The crowd let out an ‘aw’ at the scene, everyone a little more interested now. Okay, good, it sounded like the episode was coming to an end, finally.

Blitzø held on to the dog’s collar, kneeling on the floor in front of it. “Yeah… yeah, maybe you should adopt.”

Oh, no, what was going on? Blitzø looked lost in thought, an unreadable look taking over his features. It didn’t look like a good sign at all. 

 “No. No, no, no, you can’t have her!” Her? “She’s mine and I love her!” Now that didn’t seem like acting. His expression was that of worry. 

He was right back to spiraling. 

“But Mr. Ronney, you gotta let me have the puppy. You’ve just gotta!” The kid tried salvaging the scene. 

Blitzø full-on hissed at her, shoving her away. “Don’t you touch her, you little anal fissure!”

Yep, he was definitely not doing well, whatever it was that suddenly caused this. Stolas found himself stuck, debating whether he should go there and do something.

The crowd laughed at what Blitzø said, which had been good before, but it was terrible timing now. “Oh, you think this is funny, assholes? She’s not fit to be a mother! I saw her doing lines of coke in her dressing room!”

“Hey, maybe-” Stolas tried talking to the cameraman, but was interrupted by the commotion of the bodyguards from earlier trying to get to Blitzø and contain him. 

Bad idea for them, but they didn’t know that yet. 

Another actress tried, once again, to salvage the scene, which was bonkers. What was there to even salvage after this? “Now, uh, Ronney, I think maybe you should-” she tried taking the dog from him, which was clearly the wrong move here. He pushed her onto the ground, her wig even falling off in the process. 

“No! You can’t have my baby, bitch! I’ll never get rid of her!”  Oh. This was about Loona. He took out his gun, swinging it around. One of the bodyguards tried tackling him to the ground- wrong move again. Without a second to think, Blitzø shot him in the head, still holding the dog as he did so.

And then it was chaos.

 In a couple seconds, Blitzø had already shot at least four people, and many more were coming to try to stop him. 

Yeah, time to do something, Stolas. “I’m coming, Bliiitzz-” he exclaimed, tripping over himself on the way to the commotion. He tried making his way into it, excusing himself, but to no use. Grabbing the last water bottle left on him, he threw it on someone as a last attempt. 

For… some reason… it worked. He didn’t even want to know what was in this place’s water, because the moment it touched the producer guy’s skin, it started burning its way right off, which was disturbing, but also wildly convenient at the moment. In an instant, the entire set was engulfed by fire, chaos running free as people screamed and ran around aimlessly. One guy almost tripped Stolas, and the prince would certainly have fallen if Blitzø didn’t grab him by the hand, pulling him up to stand again. 

“Alright, let’s go find our daughters,” Blitzø announced. The sight was one for the books, in Stolas’ humble opinion- he stood, holding him in place, shirt quite literally ripped open and gun in his hand, looking fiercely into the distance. The fake hair was a little distracting, but oh was this working for him.

Focus, Stolas! He snapped himself right out of it as they walked out.

“So, what happened back there… it was about Loona, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh, that’s fine.” They both stayed in silence for a couple minutes, as Blitzø dragged Stolas around the streets. “Where are we going?”

“Well, where do goth teenage daughters go?” Blitzø showed him his phone screen as he tried to look for Not Topic on his maps app, but it kept suggesting to him this place called Hot Topic, which was a stupid knock-off name for a store. “If we could just find where-”

A portal appeared right in front of them, startling them both. Loona walked through it first. 

“Oh, Loona, my sweet baby girl! I’m so sorry! I’ll never replace you no matter what you-” Blitzø ran up to Loona, meaning to hug her. She wasn’t having it, literally kicking him off of her. Stolas was startled by that, not used to this kind of… affection. “You’re good,” was all she said.

“Dad, I’m so sorry,” Octavia started, looking at the ground as if embarrassed at herself. 

Stolas threw himself onto her immediately, shifting out of his human form and interrupting her with a hug. “I’m just relieved you’re okay! But what could possess you to do such a thing? You know I haven’t taught you spells like this yet.”

“I just wanted to see the stars you promised.”

“The stars?” Stolas looked around, confused. He gasped when he realized what Via meant. “Anathoths’s tears! Oh, no, my dear, sweet Via, I am so-”

Octavia was the one to interrupt him with a hug this time, holding him tight. “I know, dad. It’s okay. You’re here now.”

He smiled, holding her closer to his chest, relieved. 

“Thank you,” he told y/n, holding a hand of hers in his for a brief second, to show his gratitude was sincere. “For finding her. And keeping her safe.”

Blitzø turned to face her too. “S´ppose I should say thank you too or whatever.” He eyed the two holding hands with a weird expression, and it made them withdraw them in an instant.

“Where would the two of you be without me?” Y/n quipped, trying to lessen the awkwardness of whatever had just happened. 

“Okay, don’t flatter yourself too much now,” Blitzø feigned annoyance, but clearly tried to fight a smile. He tried to hug Loona again, but she slapped him across the face with the Grimoire. She didn’t look irritated though. Stolas realized it really was her weird way of showing affection. 

Some sort of colorful shooting stars appeared in their sight but it was as if they were coming from the ground and going through some sort of explosion when they hit the night sky. Weird. Stolas had never seen those in his books. 

It was pretty, nonetheless. 

“What the fuck is that?” Loona questioned, seemingly also enamored by them.

“My acting career,” Blitzø replied bitterly. 

“They’re called fireworks,” y/n explained to them. 

“Fireworks?” Stolas questioned, intrigued. He kept forgetting how much she knew about this realm, and he almost felt inadequate when he was reminded of it. But he’d ask more about them later. 

Now, he was watching the stars with his daughter. 

“Ooh, Look at that one! Did you see that one?” Via asked, excited, and his heart swelled. He’d live in this moment forever if he could. 

“Now, where the fuck are M&M?” Blitzø questioned, which disturbed the moment a bit, but he supposed it was a fair question. Where were the other imps all day?

“Last Mills told me they were…” y/n took out her phone, re-reading the texts sent between them, “‘singing a love-song duet for money’,” she paraphrased.

“Well that makes no sense. Hold on.” Blitzø took out his own phone, texting Millie. She replied within the second.“They’re… still at the alley, apparently.”

“I’ll conjure them a different portal,” Stolas tells them all, waving his hand and conjuring one of his own. “We should return now.”

[. . .]

Back at the palace, Stolas tried to make things seem normal. “So, was your visit to the human realm eventful, at least, sweetheart?”

“Oh, not that much. I spent the whole day trying to find some place where I could see the stars. Turns out you can't really see the stars from there.”

Stolas’ mood deflated. Via noticed. “It’s fine though. I took some cool pictures and we got to see the fireworks!”

“I am really sorry I missed Anathoth’s tears, my sweet Via. I really am.”

“I know you are. I talked to Loona. And Y/n.”

“Whatever about?”

“Well they said you’re not perfect. And you fuck up sometimes. Which is true. But they also said you’re trying, and you’re making an effort. And I can see that now. That’s good for me.”

Stolas couldn’t find his words for a couple of seconds. “...I’m glad it is, darling.”

“I like her.”

“Who?”

“Y/n. As much as I don't like that you… you know. She’s not that bad, I guess.”

“And Blitzø?”

“Don’t push it, dad. That’s all you’re getting from me. I’m gonna go to bed now, alright?” She walked over to him, kissing his cheek. “G´night, dad!”

“Goodnight, Octavia.”

As soon as she was out of sight, he broke down. 

How awful of him, to be so absorbed in his own chaotic life that he didn’t remember, didn’t notice. 

What kind of father was he? 

Was he really the kind to let his daughter think that him fucking up all the time was okay? That it was enough because he was trying? 

Stolas wished to be a father who was there. Who didn’t fuck up. A father who remembered important things and didn’t dismiss his own daughter when she was trying to talk to him about them. A father who didn’t ever have to worry about her being in danger because he paid attention, and prevented her from getting herself into dangerous situations. 

Amidst his own drama, he’d forgotten to be a father altogether. 

How selfish. How awful. How disgusting.

Perhaps whatever it is he had with the two demons did have to end, he reflected. At least in the way it currently stood. 

He had obligations more important than spending his time worrying about whether his feelings were requited, analyzing their behavior for a sliver of hope, tending to their times of need. 

He’d had the time to think of himself, but it seemed he couldn’t trust himself to do so without forgetting to think of others all around. 

And now it was time to think about Octavia. 

He had to be a parent, and if he was unable to do it right while his life was a mess, then he was solving that mess altogether.

He’d deal with the consequences later, and if it shattered him, then so be it. 

[. . .]

Stolas tapped his foot on the floor as he waited, catching himself inspecting the feathers in his forearm and trying to resist the urge to  try and pluck some, more to not make a mess out of the room than to stop the harm of it. For better or for worse, the bandage around his unhealed arm made it impossible to do it without causing excruciating pain. 

The huge door was pulled open in front of him, and he stood up from the couch in the waiting room. 

“Stolas!” Amodeus called, opening his arms to greet him. “Hey there, birdy babe. Haven’t seen you since you crashed my club.” Stolas grimaced at the memory, following the Sin into his office. “How you been?” Ozzie closed the door behind them, leading him inside. He let out a laugh. “Still getting your kink on with my girl and that feisty imp?” 

This was going to be uncomfortable. Stolas let out a nervous laugh, trying to calm himself down before he can get to what he wants to say. 

But he’s doing this. He’s giving them the crystal and setting them free. Free to make a choice, whatever that choice ends up being. 

Stolas almost hopes they will choose him. No, he fully does.

But that’s not his call to make.

Yeah, he’s doing this.

“Well, um, that’s actually what I’m here about.”

A/N:  first bonus chapter comes tomorrow or the day after that! look out for it it has a little hint of something we'll find out in a later chapter <3 i hope you guys like this one, i'm a little self-conscious abt it but it's exactly what i intended it to be so.

[inbarfink]

"Just move forwards, Simon! Well, maybe I don't want to move forwards!"

Okay, so it’s pretty damn obvious that Simon’s whole rant here is not just about the physical act of moving forwards through the Time Room. Like, I don’t need to explain what ‘moving forwards’ means in this case, right? But… the thing I’ve been thinking of is that the metaphor here might actually extend more than just this one line.

Because, yeah, Simon does need to move forwards. Metaphorically because embracing change and accepting you can’t actually go back to some idealized past where things were Better is the only way he can actually be happier. And literally because there is an Angry Beetle Cop out to murder his head off for the crime of being chosen by God as a sapient hard-drive. 

But moving on is hard, and you know why?

Because it is hard to move forwards in this silly little mumu.  

And again, this is both metaphorical and literal. Simon is fully aware that he should move forwards with his life, but this robe is yet another painful reminder of the trauma he’s trying to move on from. Yet another example of people treating him like he’s Ice King. Yet another symbol that him being Simon again is seen as some sort of a mistake.

And also, it’s just obviously physically, literally uncomfortable for him to move in this thing.

Simon was forced into a fit designed for a Wizard who could Fly. He’s constantly lifting it up and being so careful about his steps as to not stumble on it, and also trying so hard to not flash his genitalia to God and God’s two OCs that he shoved in his brain. Not to mention he’s running around the Time Room barefoot. And, like, at least when Ice King wore this he still had underpants.

But the thing is.... like, okay, the thing about the Shorts Scene is that it is kinda unfair Fionna got her outfit upgraded into a more comfortable variant while Simon still has to wear the Trauma Robes. But the important thing to remember is that Fionna got those lovely shorts because she explicitly complained about the skirt.

You can say that Simon’s problems should’ve been Obvious and maybe that’s true… but it’s still notable that unlike Fionna, who immediately complained when she started to find her outfit kinda uncomfortable - Simon lets out one sarcastic grumble when he first gets the robe and then just keeps his mouth shut and quietly wallows in his misery until he reached his breaking point. 

That seems notable especially with what we see of Simon in “Simon Petrikov” and how hard it is for him to be honest with his loved ones about his problems. 

I’ve seen some people express some anger at the way Finn and Marceline acted towards Simon during that episode. Saying they didn’t care about Simon enough. But Simon was deliberately hiding his struggles from them - and especially from Marcy. You know, he opened up to Finn and Finn was honestly doing what he thought was best. The problem being that Finn is pretty-messed-up himself and not good at therapy.

And Simon decided the best solution was just to drop the whole thing and pretend that Finn’s adventure did help as a way to end that nightmare without directly confronting him about Actually Making Things Worse. As far as Finn is concerned, Simon was doing badly and is now doing well. And as far as Marcy is concerned Simon is doing just fine! And this situation is not likely to change unless Simon actually speaks up!

Of course, this is easier said than done. I mean, like I said, he was TRYING to open up to Finn and from his perspective, got punished for even trying out for help.

And with the mumu, the situation is a even more complicated. Yes, Simon didn’t speak up when he had the chance to say ‘hey, actually it’s also pretty hard to run around barefoot in a robe! I would like some Pants please!” But also… where Finn and Marceline have both expressed nothing but genuine concern for Simon and take his issues very seriously in their own way - Prismo, Fionna and Cake have all been kinda callous about Simon’s situation and his mental well-being so far. 

So maybe it wasn’t totally unreasonable for Simon to assume that any attempt to assert what would make it easier for him to actually move forwards will fail. Or at least would be far too emotionally grueling to actually be worth it. I'm not saying that's for-sure what would've happened. I mean those three aren't just jerks for the sake of being jerks - it's just that Prismo is kinda occupied with his own grief-induced-depression-spiral and Fionna and Cake don't really get Simon yet. And we're surely going to get to a point in this narrative where these two genuinely care about him too sooner or later. But I can see in that moment why he would think that.

And so he keeps wallowing in the misery and resentment as it gets increasingly harder and harder to keep going forwards. Until he breaks and decide that maybe, what he actually wants is to just stop.  

[anonymousewrites]

A Not-So-Disastrous Romance (Book 1) Prologue

Kusuo Saiki x Reader

Prologue: Troublesome "Friends"

Summary: Saiki gives everyone the rundown on his "bothers," including (L/N) (Y/N).

Mouse Note: Welcome to A Not-So-Disastrous Romance! I am very excited to share this story with everyone, even if this fandom is very old. Truth be told, I wrote 11 chapters like three years ago, so the first few chapters don't have the level of writing I have now, but I ended up finishing this story and wanted to share it. For another point, I know that people view Saiki as asexual and sometimes aromantic, but I feel an affinity for him being asexual but demi-romantic, so I play it slow-burn. That being said, terrible beginning writing aside, I really hope everyone enjoys. Let me know what you think, commenting helps me keep writing, and I love interacting with people! Welcome to the story!

Quick Key: "Hello" -Saiki speaking telepathically Hello -Saiki thinking "Hello" -regular people talking out loud Hello -regular people thinking

            Saiki teleported to the roof to avoid Teruhashi and Nendou. One was troublesome enough. Two was insupportable.

            “Where’s Saiki? Huh? What’s going?” wondered Teruhashi, confused.

            I teleported without thinking. Saiki looked down at the crowd below him. People around me didn’t seem to notice me, but naturally, Teruhashi thinks something is strange. Well, Teruhashi, just think I was an illusion and forget about it.

            “Nendou!” remarked the pretty blue-haired girl upon seeing him.

            “Oh, wow, Teruhashi!” squeaked Nendou, blushing.

            “Have you seen Saiki?” asked Teruhashi.

            “What? My pal? No, I haven’t.” Nendou was too startled to think.

            N-no way…did he disappear? thought Teruhashi, Is it possible that I was the one seeing an illusion? She recalled what she had assumed of Saiki: “You’re so much in love with me that you see illusions of me, huh?” A light blush spread across her face. Don’t tell me I’m…No! I can’t be… She clutched her heart. Oh, no…What’re these feelings? Is it possible…that I fell in love…with Saiki?

            Oh, wow, thought Saiki as he deadpanned. This is not how he wanted things to go.

            He sighed and teleported to a nearby, empty alleyway. Sighing, he decided to go for a coffee jelly. With the new problem he had just acquired, Saiki decided he might as well enjoy a little bit of peace. He walked quickly in the opposite direction of Nendou and Teruhashi, even if it took him on a long route to Café Mami. For once in his life, he was lucky and didn’t bump into anyone on the way there. His luck ran out, however, as soon as he entered.

            “Saiki!” called a teenager with (H/C) hair and (E/C) eyes. They were grinning and waving.

            He couldn’t avoid them now; it would draw attention to him for being rude. He sighed and sat down across from them.

            This is (Y/N) (L/N). They’re another troublesome person who complicates my life. They even call me their friend and insist I use their first name. The worst part is I can’t read their mind. They aren’t dumb like Nendou, though. Do you see those earrings?

            (Y/N) had simple, metallic studs in their ears.

            They’re made of germanium, which apparently keeps me from seeing through them with my X-ray vision or hearing their thoughts with my telepathy.

            He had only realized this after he saw them during school and on the weekends and the only thing that was the same between the outfits was their earrings. Saiki wished he could get his hands on some germanium. Hearing everybody’s thoughts was tiring. That being said, (Y/N) being unreadable was…disconcerting.

            “Nice to see you, Saiki. Are you here for your usual coffee jelly?” asked (Y/N) cheerfully.

            The pink-haired psychic nodded. Yare yare…Why do I hang out with you?

            “Oh!” They brightened. “I guess since you’re kind of like my guest right now, I should treat you!”

            Saiki’s eyes widened in excitement. Ah, I remember now. (Y/N) treated him to, well, treats. That made them more tolerable than other people.

            Seeing his expression, (Y/N) laughed. They knew what he was excited for. “You’re more excited to see the coffee jelly than to see your friend.” They didn’t mind, though. They knew Saiki wasn’t one for being open or friendly, but they’d spent enough time with him to know he’d just leave if he really didn’t like him.

            He wanted to say that they weren’t friends, but even he had to admit, he thought they were pretty tolerable compared to most of the people who crowded around him. Sure, their bright optimism was sometimes exhausting to Saiki, but for the most part, they were pretty low-maintenance and understood he was an extreme introvert and liked time to himself. Plus, although they were energetic at times, but they understood when things were too much for Saiki. And, to be completely honest, he didn’t mind getting to be around someone he couldn’t hear the thoughts of. He could act like a relatively normal person.

            Saiki would never say all that, though. No way. No, the only thing he’d say was, “Coffee jelly is really good.”

            “Can’t argue with that,” admitted (Y/N).

            Their server, who coincidentally was Mera (probably trying to make money as usual), approached their table. She took their orders and headed to the kitchen to alert the chefs.

            “You look more annoyed than usual, what happened?” asked (Y/N).

            Saiki sighed. They unfortunately pay attention to me and can read parts of my emotions. It’s weird. Maybe they’re an empath. “I ran into Teruhashi.”

            (Y/N) laughed. “The only guy immune to her charms.”

            “She brings too much attention.”

            “You’re friends with Nendou and Kaidou. A bit of attention is inevitable,” teased (Y/N), leaning on their hand and grinning.

            “They’re not my friends.”

            “Uhuh, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night,” chirped (Y/N).

            Mera brought their orders. Luckily, she hadn’t stolen a bite from either of the coffee jellies.

            “Mmmm,” hummed (Y/N) and Saiki contentedly at the taste.

            Peaceful relaxation with (Y/N). Just the way I like it. Saiki sighed happily.

Taglist:

@elaemae

@painstakingly-juno

@characterreaderwriter

@melovepurple

@sleep-7372

@w0mank1sser

@geminigengar

@noodleryworld

[morphean42]

Rewatching Falsettos I was suddenly struck by an epiphany that I’m sure someone else has had at some point, but I needed to write out. This ending scene from “March of the Falsettos” jumped out at me from the first watching, but even though I recognised the nod to the “See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil (and lesser known do no evil)”, I didn’t know what it meant. Today, I tried to piece it together, and I think I’ve gotten it. These poses represent core attributes of the characters, as well as Trina’s view of them, so click the read more to hear the ravings of a mad man wayyyyyy too obsessed with this show

The idea of ‘evil’ to me is very loose. It can represent a lot of things for these characters; their actions towards each other, their character flaws, etc. But, for this analysis, one can replace ‘evil’ with ‘truth’. Each of the characters refuses to see, speak, hear, or ‘do’ the truth (please excuse the lack of grammar for that last one), and that is where the ‘evil’ stems from. Taking into account this is mostly based on Trina’s view of the men, I think ‘truth’ fits in well.

Let’s start with the one who fits in least— Jason. “March of the Falsettos” is a physical manifestation of how Trina views the men in her life (as childish and immature), but some slack is given to her son. He doesn’t sing his lines in falsetto, because we acknowledge he is in fact a child, and has more of an excuse to act as such. So, take his analysis with a grain of salt. The boy has every right to be a little selfish— he’s 10.

So, Jason has his hands over his eyes, representing ‘See No Evil’. This is a direct nod to his character flaw; his view of the world with him at the center. Although his parents are less than good to him, he still sees them through unfair lenses— ‘My mother’s no wife/My father’s no man’. He sings ‘everybody’s yelling and everybody’s ruining it’ in “Everyone Hates His Parents” because he is unhappy with how his Bar Mitzvah is turning out and wants to simply cancel it. He doesn’t have a concept of doing things for other people (again, he’s a child, I’m not blaming him per se), so he is blind to the will of others and refuses to see their side. In addition to this, even when Mendel tells him Whizzer will most likely die, Jason pleads with G-d to save him. He still views himself as the center of his world, thus Mendel’s line ‘Life’s not all about him’.

In addition to this, his ‘See No Evil’ means something when thought about from Trina’s perspective. She thinks her son is blind to the truth of the world, this son who stays inside playing chess alone, this son who ‘seems like an idiot to [Trina]’. She worries Jason will turn out like these other men in her world, blind to everyone but himself.

Now we come to Mendel, who has his hand over his mouth in ‘Speak No Evil’. Mendel’s flaw throughout the show is his refusal to accept the truth of any situation. He tells Jason to ‘feel alright for the rest of your life’ instead of actually trying to help, he is ‘frightened of questions’, he repeats over and over ‘I’ll make you well’ to Whizzer in the hospital. He will never say anything negative, nor will he allow others to do so. Even in the end of the show, he tells Jason they don’t know ‘when or if’ Whizzer will get better— he is still not accepting that it’s a definite thing. He believes that if he and those around him just don’t speak about the real problems, they’ll go away.

Trina’s view on Mendel is complicated here. In the next song she agrees to marry him, of course, and we know she at least likes him (the most of all three adults she knows). She says that Mendel ‘decides the role to assume’. She looks down on the fact that he can’t speak the truth to her, that he’s expecting this happy wife, this perfect new family. He wants her to play along with him and make their home together, even if she sings ‘liking our lives’ instead of loving. Even if he’s better than Marvin ever was, there’s still an element of control here. Mendel wants this family, and he wants them to all pretend nothing is ever wrong again.

Marvin, our titular character, is in the ‘Hear No Evil’ position. This one is fairly straight forward— he wants control and will never listen to the needs of those around him. He can’t hear what they actually need, he simply does what he wants. He also struggles with his masculinity throughout Act 1, his outward misogyny and need for the nuclear family (his treatment of Trina and Whizzer), so he imagines himself at the top of his family system. He will never take any other opinions, or counsel, in his decisions, seeing that as weakness. He’s similar to Jason in this regard, as he only hears what he wants to (like Jason only sees what he wants). He ignores the pain around him to pursue his own desires, he covers his ears and moves on.

Trina, of course, despises Marvin at this point in the show. Her subconscious showing Marvin in ‘Hear No Evil’ can tell us a lot about their relationship, how she was never seen as equal in decisions. Marvin always put her to the side, not listening to her needs, acting without thinking of her.

Whizzer is complicated. I’ve seen people laugh at his pose before, saying we’ve got ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, and Gay’, but I think he represents the ‘Do No Evil’. This final character is not often seen with the other three, and can be depicted with arms over the chest or covering the genitals. It wouldn’t make sense to have Whizzer be the outlier (especially because the fourth depiction of evil does exist), so I’m assuming he is supposed to be ‘Do No Evil’.

This fits in well with Whizzer’s flaws throughout the show. He doesn’t accept responsibility for his relationship with Marvin; seen in the lines ‘I’m not responsible’ during “Late For Dinner” or ‘I will not accept blame’ in “Games I Play”. He sleeps around, despite Marvin wanting monogamy, and clearly did not have an issue hooking up with a married man. Whizzer fundamentally doesn’t think his actions have consequences, he believes he has done nothing wrong (he has done no evil). Whizzer also has a hard time admitting to his love for Marvin. He says it ‘depends on the day’, he flat out says ‘no’ when asked if he loves him. He doesn’t want to show his love for fear of being too vulnerable, so he hides and doesn’t do anything about it.

To take this even further, him being ‘Do No Evil’ can represent his later question of ‘why me of all men’ when he is dying. He hasn’t done anything to deserve his death, and ‘all men get what they deserve’, right?

Moving on to how Trina sees Whizzer. He’s come into her life and ruined her marriage, though she ‘wants to hate him’ she can’t. She views him as the cause of her recent hardships, his actions being to blame. He is ‘Do No Evil’ to her because he has done evil in taking Marvin away (though it is obvious Trina is better off because of it). He has upset the careful balance of her world by breaking down the lies of her marriage and exposing the truth— Marvin never loved her, could never love her. She puts him in ‘Do No Evil’ because what he has done is what the rest of the men won’t— see, hear, speak the truth even at the detriment of her family.

Another way to view this is, of course, the fact that ‘Do No Evil’ is rarely seen with the others. Trina is separating Whizzer from the other men, not putting him in the same category as the rest of the ‘family’. He views himself as an outsider as well, yes he’s part of the group, but only as a technicality. Only as Marvin’s lover. Once he leaves Marvin, he is easily taken out of the equation and the remaining three do not feel the loss.

My conclusion is such: Each of the poses our men do represents the character flaw they must overcome throughout the show, as well as how Trina views them in her mind. I really hope this made any sort of sense, and if someone has already said all of this well… I guess it can’t hurt to be thorough.

I’m way too tired to read through this again so if there are spelling mistakes please print out this post, correct it in red pen, and send it to me by carrier pigeon.

[scientia-rex]

Long ask. I didn't see that you had answered anything similar.

How do I do activism? Yes, I could Google it, but I would rather learn from a stranger with claimed yet unverifiable experience on Tumblr than from a stranger with claimed yet unverifiable experience anywhere else, and I'm here and so are you and we can talk and have a [para]social interaction. I won't bore you with a condensed autobiography, but I have a lot of experience fixing mistakes, not unlike being a physician, but far less noble, what David Graber would call a "duct-taper". It's partly what led me to socialism. I fixed mistakes but could not fix the root causes and, when I investigated those causes, I ran into structure. I couldn't explain the human behavior I witnessed as human nature, because it wasn't my nature and, as far as I know, I'm human, so the only explanation I could come up with was that the structure of the company I worked for created the problems I was trying to solve, and I had no power to change that structure, and no desire to join the psychopaths failing up the corporate ladder. I expanded my thinking outward and saw the problem inherent in capitalism and all the associated -isms and -archies, all the while trying to figure out what I could do that could possibly change any of it. I dove into progressive politics, read theory, consumed all the lefty content I could find, and thought, and keep running into the same problems. But even if the root causes cannot be addressed, the effects still need to be, because the effects are people, hence activism.

How do I talk to congresspeople? I email them about issues, but am frankly afraid to call them. Shall I get voice mail, or does a person pick up? If the latter, I'm assuming it will be a secretary. I don't want to be mean to a person answering phones. I've been one of those people getting yelled at or threatened because of events I did not cause and could not possibly prevent or change and, maybe I'm oversensitive or have PTSD or just a hyperactive amygdala, but I cannot overstate the damage those negative experiences cause. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, the lives that can be saved or improved outweigh a few people's hurt feelings or possible psychological trauma, but I would prefer not to turn this into a trolley problem if at all possible. Maybe it's a stupid question. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I can be charming and I have no lack of empathy; I can politely disagree. Shall I have to argue with anyone? Or is it a thank-you-for-your-participation-I-will-tell-the-congressperson-have-a-nice-day situation?

How do I get a job doing good things for people? This is somewhat pressing as I quit my corporate job five years ago, to have what turned out to be a midlife crisis, and have been living off savings (that are running out) ever since. I want to help and don't want to be ashamed of what I do for a living. I've always been able to do anything I've ever tried to do, but I'm 45 with little formal education or qualifications, and am thinking it's maybe too late to go back to school. Most of the non-profits I see seem like little more than scams. And perhaps the most serious complication: I'm a loner, more out of habit than inclination. I'll spare you the background, but I have no connections and no idea how to make them, and I don't believe I have any particular skills so valuable that should confer an immediate advantage or demand for my labor, but then again I don't know what is in demand.

It's OK if you can't answer some of these things. I simply have no one to talk to about them who can give any actual advice and figured you might. Thanks.

How to do activism: The first thing you need to know is your axe to grind. It was easy for me. I've been out since I was 13, nobody ever believes a girl is bisexual, it's always "you want attention" or "you're secretly a lesbian." That was in 1997. I went through hell and I'm bitter about it. So when I realized I liked medicine, I realized I could turn my life into an extended revenge arc by moving home and telling everybody it's OK to be gay. Two birds, one stone. I work with a woman who didn't get her axe to grind until about three years ago. She realized she was fed up with people abandoning dogs. She's one of the most active volunteers at the local shelter now. She's saved a lot of dogs' lives. She didn't start out knowing anything about it, but she told the shelter she wanted to volunteer, and they've helped her grow through the rest of it. My husband works with the local food bank, because his mom's neighbor (who is a family friend and sweetheart) wrangled him in to serving on the board, so now in addition to board meetings once a month he goes in sometimes to do things like help his mom's friend unload trucks. Sometimes the cause picks you, sometimes you pick the cause, sometimes you are the cause. And no matter what the cause is, someone else is already working on it. Someone else already cares deeply and if you show up ready to be hands on and help out, with humility because you know that you don't know everything, they will help you learn how to be effective. I started out in medicine by volunteering at the emergency room near where I lived. I pushed a linen cart around and restocked gowns in rooms, and when I couldn't fit any more washcloths into drawers I cleaned doorknobs. One of the nurses once told me she really appreciated that I cleaned all the doorknobs, because it wasn't getting regularly done. I am in medicine now because of many, many people I asked for help and who helped me because they wanted to contribute to justice and equity in medicine, whether for queers or rural people or women. This is, and has always been, a combined effort. Alone we beg, together we bargain.

Calling elected representatives: Oh god I know, me too, calling strangers is the LITERAL WORST. I'm 40 and I'd rather pepper-spray myself than argue with a human on the phone. Wait until after hours and you'll get a voicemail. I like to leave voicemails that start with "My name is Dr. Rex, I'm a constituent of yours, and I VOTE, and I'm calling about ____." That's honestly about all it takes--when I was hanging out with the lobbyist she told me they keep lists with tick-marks for how many calls, emails, etc., they get on a topic. Calls count for more. The more effort you have to put in, the more engaged they know you are. So call, but if people scare you (and the people who pick up are almost always nice, if you do get a person, and they will 99/100 times say "thank you for your call, we will pass your concerns along to so-and-so"), call at night.

Going back to school is probably unnecessary. Spin your past experience aggressively and start applying to nonprofits. (You "took time off from the working world in order to sharpen your focus on what matters most to you," which will be whatever this particular group does.) It's OK if you pick a bad one to start with; most of them are shit-shows, and lots of them still accomplish good things. Nonprofits are a bloodbath when it comes to actually being an employee--they know that part of the compensation is the sense of living ethically and they will use your altruism against you--so keep your resume updated and be prepared to bail if grant funding doesn't come through, but most areas have food banks and pet shelters and human shelters and jails and medical clinics and hospitals (for every doctor who works at the local hospital there are at least 10 support staff by the numbers, and they are utterly critical and always under-staffed). Sometimes if you start by volunteering somewhere, once they realize you're dependable, you can get a job there. I am zero percent kidding about working for a hospital, clinic, or jail, by the way. Those are places I know well, and there are always civilian jobs available. You want to make a patient's day better? Be the front desk, front line staff who use the right pronouns and cheer them up.

I think it's completely reasonable to have procedural questions about how all of this works, and I am grateful to you for giving me a chance to talk about it a bit. Please feel free to ask any follow-up questions. And for reference, when I was just starting out in research at a time when the market for research-trained people frankly sucked, I applied well over 300 times and got well over 300 rejections (I was counting) before I ended up with a job that I loved (even though it was hellishly stressful and I made just barely more than minimum wage for working well over my alleged, salaried "hours") and felt like I was making a positive difference for the world with. And from there, I kept making changes as I realized what I wanted and needed. Just keep doing it. You don't have to feel good about every step, you don't have to know what you're doing, just keep putting one foot in front of the other as you try to figure out what will make you happy. Because nothing else is a good proxy for happiness, and happiness, for a whole lot of humans, means finding something meaningful to do in life. Helping others. Be okay with changing, be okay with sacrificing who you are right now for the sake of who you can become. You've survived four decades on this bizarre and cruel planet, and you have inherent, intrinsic worth as a human being. You deserve your own kindness.

[umitsy]

Yandere college nerd pt. 3 | pt. 2 | pt. 1

warnings: kidnapped reader, love obsession, threatening, food and water deprivement, mentions of murdering, accuse falsely

reader's g/n

A day with Claude, could go on many types of ways—here I'll list some of them.

➻ He would firstly feed you breakfast, sometimes letting you by yourself 'cause he has to attend some urgent matters as soon as possible if he hadn't get rid of those the night before already.

➻ When he returns to the house those days though, expect him to get really clingy. He sometimes gives you space if you really do not like physical contact, but more often than not, he'll hug you while he feeds you whatever food he's brought for the afternoon.

➻ However, once his lessons have started, he'll get particularly strict and serious with you. It really reminds you of when he'd answer a complicated problem at the class and the teacher would ask him to explain it to everyone.

➻ He ends up mixing almost all topics into one class of his. Starting off with Maths—he'd go on about the scientific behind those equations to their importance in History, and so on. Don't even think about asking him when is it going to end because he'll add more time as punishment.

➻ When he can stay with you in the mornings though, he'll first ask what you want to eat, anything really, he'll even learn right on the spot if it's something he doesn't even know the name about.

➻ When you struggle to eat, wether on the morning, evening, or nights—he'll definitely not be pleased. He knows you know how important it is for your body to it, so he might ask you nicely two or three times to eat, but if you still refuse, he'll start eating in front of you. Not necesarilly making exaggerated noises but the way he cooks each plate so deliciously looking it makes it impossible for you to resist too much.

➻ Does not let you have any devices at all-anything that needs internet connection goes out of your life right then and there. You'll only need a lamp, a projector (that only he is allowed to use) and a clock—that's it. He does not like all the lies internet spreads nor the facility people has gained of believing them. He does not want you to fall for any of it.

➻ When he unties you, he thinks you'll know better than to leave him, so the thought of chaining you back on the bed never crosses his mind ever again. However, if you do start trying to escape, he'll remorsefully lock you in your room for sometime. No food, no water—nothing but silence. Maybe after a couple of times suffering the lonely time you'll finally learn the most important lesson he wants to teach you—there's no one else for you than him, you'll only need him.

➻ If you get bored you'll always have a shelf full of educational books in his room. Yes, his. He has a rule of those books never leaving his room and has made very clear he can and watches you at all times, so you really didn't have much option. He likes when he arrives and sees you comfortably reading through a classic piece of Literature—or History, Human Body, Maths, whatever had caught your eye that day-sitting on the rocking chair he set up for you or on the bed.

➻ He gets that you might still be afraid of him, having read lots of sources about how a human may react to kidnapping—but with all this little actions of his, he tries to redeem and show his soft side. Just don't push it that much 'cause it's easier to break than to fix.

➻ What those urgent matters are about? Of course he didn't like that teacher to begin with and the school can surely get someone better, so who's gonna end with all his crap? He could easily kill him as he's studied the human body perfectly or—his least favorite—creating a huge rumour about him. Whatever that'll make him suffer the most without missing his daily lesson with you.

➹ "My favorite natural phenomenon? It’s the sparkle in your eyes."

I was thinking next chapter could be a scenario of reader trying to escape from him?

All writings' rights reserved © 2024 umitsy. (Credit to the respective owners of the pictures.)

[alexandraisyes]

What would happen if you were a writer for TSAMS?

I mean we'll never know unless we try, however-

God the temptation to make jokes about shipping ajfsdkg;ljfasd;l

In all seriousness I'm good at finding and fixing plot holes and writing consistent storylines. I've been writing solo for years, and recently I've been co-writing fics for this fandom. And stars I'll say it now, obviously I wouldn't drag fan ships into the canon lore, that would be stupid considering most of them just wouldn't work with canon.

If I had the chance to write for TSAMS I would definitely try to influence the way certain things (specifically things like mental disorders) are portrayed, because I understand being part of the audience and the frustration of only seeing part of the story and missing an entire important perspective. I personally find so much enjoyment in that because I get to tear everything apart, dissect it, and put it back together so the fandom can understand what the story is portraying, but the fact that someone is required to tear it apart to get what should have been an obvious message most of the time is an issue, in my opinion.

A consistent problem I've noticed with TSAMS is that it's overly omnipotent on some things while being too closed about others. This is a narrative problem that stems from not having enough time to figure out the best approach for new situations they want to incorporate. This is because the writers/VAs are so bogged down by personal projects, stream schedules, their servers, life, etc that they just don't have time to figure these things out. Especially when the company is pushing for more content/lore episodes and they're just a team of four. Four very very busy individuals that have to write AND voice act the entire cast of characters. I feel like having someone who is just a writer would help with a lot of the inconsistency and unresolved plot holes.

There's a lot of strong potential for things that would stem back as far as two years that would be so interesting to see incorporated, but they just don't have the time to work through those and it's easier to keep jumping on new boats and abandoning the ones they have to sink because of unresolved tears in the plot letting more inconsistencies trickle in like so much water. So I would absolutely work to correct those and clean up the holes and resolve unanswered questions.

I'd also push for more consistent characterization, or rather better worded, deeper characterization. Not that they don't have good characterization now, overall I think they do a decent job, but there are just some things that I wish they'd touch on more. Likes, dislikes, disorders, complications, relationships, etc. What really makes up these characters; I'd probably end up with a complicated character web for the main cast at the very least to help with consistent storytelling. I do this with my own AUs to keep characters consistent, including quirks (For example Solar Flare always refers to people by their full name in my writing). It would also be interesting to dig deeper into what makes the characters them. Their personalities, beliefs, interests, morality/standards (for those without morals), and what they did and didn't find traumatic (as well as what level of trauma).

God even just the thought of how I could potentially fix the dumpster fire (/affectionate /positive) of TSAMS and co is a little exciting because there's just so much potential lying around untampered with that I would happily dig my grubby little claws into.