#and finally i've gotten to take out a chunk of it

[sabraeal]

a heart felled by you, held by you; Part 2

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2024, Day 1: Quadrille

It’s not that Suzu didn’t know Lata’s name or whatever; it’s impossible to forget when it’s stamped right across the office he refuses to use three months out of the academic year— why should I let the university know where to find me? he’d huff, stoking the forge. If they’re going to interrupt my work to harangue me about class numbers and securing grant funding, I have no interest in making it easy for them— and scrawled on every lower right corner of his notes. It’s what every colleague calls across the university atrium before he hurries to out pace the persistence hunter that is professional collaboration; and what Ryuu had tried to stutter through for a whole week when he confused formality for maturity.

But between the towering aisles of his yet-to-be-catalogued accessions, and the number of times Shirayuki— and sometimes even Suzu himself— have been left to make his excuses to professors and professionals far above their pay grade, the idea that’s he’s a noble— a capital ‘F,’ weasel-thing-rampant Forzeno— well, it doesn’t seem quite real.

Not until now, when the doors on this stately manor swing open, and—

“I thought you lived in a shithole,” Suzu blurts out, momentarily blinded by polished marble and gold filigree. He’s no expert on architecture and has only a dubious grasp on history, but even he can tell this place is old. Storied, his mental Kazaha supplies, buzzing through his thoughts like flies over an ungrammatical carcass. “Or at least, that’s what Shidan said when—”

“I said apartment.” Shidan glares at him, like it’s Suzu’s fault he spent ten highly memorable minutes complaining about the stack of specimens that almost toppled onto him that one time he tried to brave Lata’s front parlor.

“It’s a townhouse.” Lata’s all noblesse oblige now that they’re ensconced in his family’s home, acting generous and tolerant, like they’re a good friend’s dogs that he knows are going to piddle on the carpet and he’s determined to be gracious about it. The kind of patience that’s pushed out between a man’s teeth instead of welling up from some internal font of goodness or whatever. “Private land ownership is the only way to receive permission for a forge of that size. And yes, I do.”

“But why not hang out here?” Suzu peeks into one of the fancy urns lining the walkway— disappointingly empty— before letting it rock back onto its pedestal. “It’s big and fancy and there’s a bunch of people whose job is to wait on you hand and foot. I’d never leave.”

“The commute,” Obi offers, sticking his own head down some fancy pot too.  “Or maybe the wallpaper bothers him.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” Lata mutters, steering Obi away from the crockery with a scowl. “This is family land, owned by countless generations of Forzeno since time immemorial—”

“672.” Kazaha strides down the runner with his hands clasped behind his back, like he’s the king of the castle— or like it might convince the man who is that he’s not about to have any sticky fingers. “That’s when Motouji Forzeno ordered a fitting home to be built for him within a day’s ride of the capital, which at that point was still based in Wirant, not in Wistal. That only happened once the Wisteria family inherited the throne from a series of strategic marriages over the previous three generations—”

“And in any case, not mine.” He clears his throat, shoulders pulling straight beneath the heavy wool over his tunic, looking more lordly per inch than he ever has at the university. “At least, not in name.”

For as long as Suzu’s known him, Shidan’s never been a confrontational kind of guy; Lata might duck and dodge and, if cornered, bite and rend any interference from the university’s board, but Shidan chooses the path of least resistance. Or more accurately, the path of least surveillance— he might sit and stay and sign the papers the higher up sent his way, but as soon as they had their back turned cajoling some of the more recalcitrant academics in their department, he’d slip right off the leash, doing what needed doing before the deans were any the wiser. That’s how they’d gotten into this whole orimmallys project anyhow, and that all worked out in the end. Mostly.

So when Shidan hums, all considering— the way he does when he’s about to quibble over wording on a paper, but so nicely Suzu won’t even know he’s gotten the run-around until he’s halfway to the dorms— it’s a sign. A portent, even.

“Your father gave you lease over the entire place, didn’t he?” He’s got his gloves caught in his hand, running fingers along some fancy wainscoting. There’s some gold leaf on it, gilding a few fussy fleur-de-lis, and his fingers run slow enough that there’s got to be some grit. Dust, even. “That’s what Garrack said, at least.”

Lata’s brow sours like samples left too long on the bench. “And of course, Head Pharmacist Gazelt would be the expert on my family’s internal affairs.”

“No,” Ryuu murmurs ponderously, so soft they all hush up to hear him. “But she’d be less invested in avoiding them.”

Big blue eyes blink up at his lordship, and if they were any less guileless— or maybe, if Ryuu was any less fifteen— there’d be some sort of dust up. Some flavor of raised voices and shaking fists, and maybe someone would end up with a cold ass on the big field of snow Lata calls the front lawn. But instead he just sucks in a breath, whistling like a hole in a window when the wind’s got its back up, and says, “I thought I was being quite generous offering you all a place to ready yourselves before the gala, but now I’m quite wondering just why I extended the invitation.”

“Because you’d rather be annoyed with us than risk being left alone with one of those lords?” Suzu barely realizes he’s spoken until five sets of eyes swing his way, goggling like he’s hauled off and said something out of band. Again. “Or ladies?”

A laugh’s dour cousin scrapes out from Lata’s chest as they climb what Suzu assumes is the grand stair, if only because it’s larger than the last three. “Yes,” he agrees, more weary than waggish. “Something like that.”

“Hey.” Obi hangs back, lingering on the landing with one thumb hooked over his shoulder. “Is that you?”

There’s a portrait beside him, larger than he is— or Suzu, or Shidan, or any man he’s seen living; so big that it must have taken a whole crew of footmen to install, if only to keep one of them from being crushed under a lordly boot. He’s got to squint to see above the knee, daubs of oils glistening in the gaslight, making it hard to pick out more than the curve of thick, dark hair, or the stern, squarish set the to jaw, or—

“I gotta say,” Obi hums, arms folding over his coat. “Quail hunter isn’t what comes to mind when I look at you.”

“I’m not.” Lata paces a step back toward them, then two, glowering up at the most detailed bird carcass Suzu’s ever seen outside the ruts of a country road. “That would be my father, in his youth. He had a great love of…working his will on the world, one way or another.”

“Ah…” Kazaha sighs, searching for something properly ingratiating to say. “There’s a certain, hm, strong family resemblance.”

Suzu seizes the opportunity to inform the professor, “He means that you both look grumpy.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Right,” he agrees blithely. “It’s what you meant. Like I said.”

Lata snorts, starting back down the hall. “If you think I am ill-tempered, wait until you meet my sire. Why, I’m practically a ray of sunshine next to that old—”

“Oh, are we gonna?” Obi whips around, determined to be underfoot as he asks, “Will I finally get to meet my Knight Grandpa? Sir Grandpa—?”

“I would thank you not to call him that.  And no.” Lata’s mouth thins to a line as tight as his shoulders. “Besides, if we are to take Knight Grandpa at its most literal, it would not be my father, but instead the man who was my master as a squire.”

“Is he gonna be here? Can I meet him?” It’s not physically possible for Obi to wend himself around Lata’s legs, but by the way he bats his eyes up at him, he’s spiritually there. “I promise I’ll be a good little knight. I’ll even bow and scrape and write poetry about women lying in ponds—”

“No.” After a begrudging pause, Lata adds, “He’s dead, actually.”

Obi pops up, shoulders suddenly soldier-straight beside him. “Oh, well. That’s a pretty good excuse. Did he die from some battle wound or…?”

“The drink,” Lata confirms. “He wasn’t, honestly, a very good master. But he was a friend of my father’s. That seemed to matter more back then.”

A laugh saws out of Obi, rough enough Suzu’s surprised it doesn’t take a bit of throat with it. “Seems to matter just as much now.”

The professor doesn’t do anything so obvious as look at Obi, oh no— he just simply clasps his hands behind his back, favoring the hall in front of him with an approving nod. “Doesn’t it just.”

“You frown the same way.” Both men peer over their shoulders, but Obi makes confusion seem casual, whereas Lata just scowls. Ryuu, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice. “You and your father, I mean.”

“Yes.” Lata surveys the hallway over his shoulder before turning back around. “It runs in the family.”

A beat passes before Suzu dares to venture, “Hey, weren’t the girls supposed to get ready here too?”

“Yes.” The professor isn’t known to smile, and he certainly doesn’t now, giving them all a disapproving glare. “They arrived on time.”

*

“What if” —Shidan’s clever little botanist practically froths over the vanity like a flask left too long on the hob, spilling linen and lace where she leans— “I told him I had something in my eye.”

This is hardly the first volley of hypotheticals Garrack’s fielded from that quarter; oh no, the girls had all been down to chemises when the preliminary speculation began— what if…I said I needed some air?— and now what had already been a serviceable set of natural curves has become a feat of human engineering, bolstered by a bulwark of baleen and batiste. There’d been endless layers added on; bust improvers and corsets and girdles, all requiring additional helpful hands, and it lends a weary edge to Izuru’s, “Oh, it’s a him, now is it?”

Shidan’s long-time assistant hasn’t bothered to batten down her hatches— at least, not as much as the botanist girl’s— with only enough corsetry to turn her posture from academic to appropriate. Another assurance that she’s coming along nicely, just the way Garrack always thought she would so long as Shidan’s quiet perfectionism didn’t infest her work ethic the way his little pet project did the university’s water supply.

“What next?” It has to have been ages since there was a woman in this place— heavens know Lata isn’t bringing any inamorata around here to parade around in front of his mother’s mirror— but the painted wood Izuru slumps over is pristine. Or, well, as much as whale bone lets a body slouch.  “Identifying details? A name?”

“He’s hypothetical,” the botanist snaps, which almost guarantees that he isn’t. Too bad she hasn’t caked on the powder yet; even with the lights dimmed as they are, it’s impossible to miss the flush that creeps up her shoulders, pouring onto that pretty face. “He doesn’t exist. Yet.”

There’s quite a bit Izuru seems to have to say about that; her shoulder straighten, her mouth cants, and—

“Is that supposed to be romantic?” Shirayuki frowns into the mirror, hands swallowed up by the untameable beast that is Izuru’s hair. “Having something in your eye?”

“Well, not usually,” the botanist admits, undaunted by the sharp elbow of reality bursting her dreamy little bubble. “But an eyelash…that’s all right. Delicate even! Demure. And when he bends down, BAM.”

Shirayuki blinks. “You hit him?”

“Kiss him!” The girl slumps into a chair— despite all her scaffolding, she makes a better show of it than Izuru— heaving the most world-weary sigh. “I would kiss him, Shirayuki.”

It’s years since she’s been that diligent apprentice, quietly working under Ryuu’s precise direction, but Shirayuki still flushes as red as her hair at the barest mention of grown adults touching in any way but a professional handshake. Garrack would have thought Zen would handle that— three years is a quite a lot of time, and considering what some of her cohort got up to on these cold Lilias nights, she’d have expected the bar for blushing to be a few sexual acts higher. Under the clothes, at least.

“W-wouldn’t that be an awkward angle?” Shirayuki busies herself with Izuru’s hair, letting it twist around her hands as she pins it in place. “You m-might crash heads! And noses.”

“Fine.” The botanist flops on her chair, thoroughly put upon. “What about dropping my handkerchief? I let it flutter, just like this”— there’s no fabric in her hands, but she sticks out an elegant arm, turning away as her fingers go limp— “and when he bends to retrieve it, I—”

Garrack snorts. Not a soft one either; for as unintended as it is, it draws quite the audience. The pretty botanist included, one of her well-shaped eyebrows raised.

It’s a struggle to keep the laugh in her chest from bubbling out, making this whole situation worse. Or injure this girl’s more tender emotions, at least.“Listen, you really think a lord would stoop? For a botanist?”

“He will if he wants to be kissed!” she huffs, arms crossed. Quite a bit of lace froths out over them, like a puffed-out pigeon’s chest. “Which he will, since I’m going to be the best looking girl at this gala!”

There’s one of these girls in every cohort— a little too pretty for their own good, always thinking about which assistants they might be able to catch alone in the fourth floor stock room. Clever, of course— you don’t end up in Lilias if you’re a slouch in that department— but just a bit silly. Whimsical. Destined to be disappointed when they find out royals don’t marry researchers.

At least most royals with most researchers. It probably doesn’t help that the statistical outlier is in the room right now, sending her a long suffering look. “Yuzuri…”

“That’s no slight on the rest of you, Shirayuki,” the botanist— this Yuzuri— assures her, “I’ve just been planning for this my whole life. Or at least since I found out Wirant throws one of the Solstice things.”

“We’re supposed to be here for professional purposes,” Izuru reminds her, having worked for Shidan too long to believe in mixing work with pleasure.

“Oh, boo, Izuru!” Yuzuri straightens, bustling over to the mirror to fuss with the glossy fall of her hair,  pinning up parts of it with her fingers and frowning at the results. “Don’t be dull.”

“It’s not dull,” Shirayuki protests, placing the last pin in hopes that this time, Izuru’s hair might not simply bend the mess of them to breaking. “It’s what Shidan’s asking us to do. I’m not saying you can’t dance too, but if you’re going to be mingling with the nobles, maybe you should try to talk to some of them about what we’re doing with the Phostyrias. Just a couple of them giving permission for us to plant the bulbs would really be—”

“Oh, fine, fine.” She waves one hand— painstakingly manicured, done up in a pearly sort of polish that wouldn’t last five minutes once she was back in the greenhouse— but undeterred. “I can chat them up a little bit too. For the project.”

Tonight might be the darkest night of the year, celebrated in the coldest, most ass-end part of the whole country, but when Shirayuki smiles, Garrack might well be back in her office at Wistal, enjoying the mild summer breeze winding through her window. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“You better,” Yuzuri huffs, twisting her hair in her hands. “Don’t think I don’t notice that it’s the girl with a guy who’s down to kiss her anytime, any place that’s asking the rest of us to consider this a work party.”

“I…” Shirayuki sputters, and hoh, there’s that blush again, with a vengeance. “Obi wouldn’t…I mean…that’s not…”

Well, well. Looks like she’s been a little behind on current events of the frigid north. And maybe not so wrong about royals and researchers after all.

“What if I asked him off into a side corridor? Or an alcove? Maybe a balcony,” Shidan’s botanist continues, saving Shirayuki a few more stumbles. “Those always have the right ambiance. And then I ask him to check the clasp on my necklace, and—”

“At that point you might as well ask him to kiss you,” Izuru is quick to point out, stepping up to help her hold a swag of hair in place. “You’re not really being subtle.”

Yuzuri groans, pins clattering against painted wood. “But where’s the romance in that? There’s got to be some uncertainty, some risk—”

“You do know,” Garrack hums, crossing her ankles on the convenient hassock in front of her. “Shidan and I are here specifically to help keep down the kissing, don’t you?”

The girl sighs, eyes rolling in her reflection. “But you’re not really going to do anything, are you, Master Gazelt? You know how silly this whole rule is. Aren’t you just going to look the other way?”

Her mouth twitches. It would be funny to see that old goat get twisted up over some twenty-year-olds playing mother-may-I with their tonsils. “Maybe,” she allows, “if I thought it was funny enough.”

*

It hardly seems fair to say Suzu is disheveled when he hardly ever seems, well, sheveled, for lack of a better word. But with his shirt still merely half-buttoned and flyaway wisps of blond escaping their tie with every scrape of his hands over his scalp, Shidan has little else to call him.

“Is the mazurka step-step-clap-turn, or is that the redowa?” His half-coat flaps out around him as he marks out the movements— poorly, but at least recognizable, even if Shidan would be at pains to reproduce them. “Or maybe it’s the waltz? Help me, Obi,” — he seizes the knight as he slips through the door, rumpling the black wool of his coat— “I can’t remember!”

“I’ll run you through the steps before we get out there,” he promises, detaching Suzu from his lapel with more gentleness than Shidan would, under the circumstances. Suzu is a valuable member of his team, a long-time collaborator who will perform any number of demeaning tasks to see a project through, so long as he can avoid a single shred of responsibility and complain about his sorry lot the whole time, but well— even Shidan has his limits. “It’ll all come back to you once you got the band to back you up. These things always make more sense with the music.”

Suzu stares at him, utterly blank, and Obi huffs out a laugh. “Theoretical versus practical knowledge, right?”

“Oh.” Suzu endeavors to smooth back his strays, but they only pop back up in his palm’s wake. “Right. Yeah. Of course. Easy, then.”

“Right.” Obi pats his shoulder with a purposeful sort of confidence, as if he could pass it through flesh and fabric with the ease that footrot does through hoofs. “Easy.”

That is until Ryuu glances up from his book, brow furrowed in the faintest vee, and says, “If that’s the case, then how are you and Shirayuki so bad at it?”

Obi whips around, wide-eyed with betrayal. “H-hey!” he squawks. “We’ve gotten better!”

Ryuu doesn’t reply— not verbally, at least— but the look he turns to Obi is eloquent enough to speak for itself. And what it says is: not appreciably.

“Why are you even concerned about all that?” Kazaha’s costume is so crisp carpenters could use it to cut corners, cape and coat and pants and stymieing haircut all in perfect place. “It’s not as if anyone is going to ask you to dance.”

“Why not? I’m dressed all nice.” Suzu blinks down at himself, taking in the uncuffed sleeves and half-buttoned shirt and the coat canted askew on his shoulders, and adds, “Well, I will be.”

Kazaha may cluck his tongue, may shake his head hopelessly, but even still, he reaches out, straightening Suzu’s cuffs before buttoning them tight. “Because you’re a man, idiot. Girls might inquire if you’d like to take a stroll down Pavilion Street when we’re at the university, but in a ballroom, men do the asking.”

Shidan can’t say Suzu’s ever been popular with the female population, especially among the more established academics who are already well aware of his reputation as a rather acerbic eccentric, more apt to be cozened under tables or smudged with sweat and grit from Lata’s forge than doing the more respectable pastime of benchwork. But there’s always a flush of fluttering young freshmen flouncing outside the lab each year, eager to catch a glimpse of— or even speak a word or two with— the herbology department’s most striking scholar. That is, of course, until they actually talk to him.

“Really?” Spoken like a man who has had invitations hurled at his retreating back for five years running. By Kazaha’s strangled sigh, it’s clear he’s thinking the same. “I’m very pretty, though.”

“That may help with young ladies wanting to dance with you,” Kazaha informs him, pulling his lapel into a shape somewhat approaching acceptable. “But it will be expected that you approach them.”

“Oh.” It’s startling to see that sharp face turn thoughtful. “So I don’t have to do this dancing thing at all.”

“You do.” Shidan’s order scrapes out at the same time Kazaha’s does, creating an odd sort of echo before he presses on, “We’re the guests of honor at this gala. The department is expecting us to socialize with potential donors.”

“Well sure, but that doesn’t mean I gotta—”

“You will,” Shidan promises him wearily. “And you’ll have to at least pretend to like it, if you want to continue our work in the lab.”

“And not in some tiny closet,” Obi adds, brightly. “Where you’ll have to knock elbows with Kazaha just to get a beaker on the burner.”

“Well, yeah.” Suzu slumps, waving off Kazaha’s continued ministrations. It’s too late, however— he already looks respectable. Not enough to pass for a peer, but someone well on his way to professor. “But what if I just hung out along the wall instead. Then I could talk to people, and—”

“It’s rude for young men to be idling when there are eligible young ladies waiting for a partner.” Obi’s words nearly sparkle for all their polish, but he ruins the effect with one of his slant-wise grins. “Don’t worry, I told you I’d show you how to cut a rug. It’s better than getting stuck in a conversation with one of those stuffy old—”

There is a gravitas to the way the doors open in this place, a stately creak that does not imply age so much at maturity; this manor was built long before the sovereigns of Wisteria sunk their roots into Clarines’ throne, and it would last long after they were nothing more than musty portraits in halls long forgot. For as much as Lata might chafe under the weight of that history, might complain about the burden of expectation placed upon a son— the son— of Forzeno, he looks every inch the part as he steps over the threshold, trousers tailored and coast pressed within an inch of their lives, more institution than man.

“The guests are arriving,” he intones with all the cheer of a funeral bell. “Are you through with your preparations?”

“Almost!” Obi sing-songs, helping Kazaha tug the sleeves of Suzu’s jacket straight. “There, done.”

Lata surveys them with the same sharpness as he does his specimens, assessing them as if their flaws were as easily apparent as a gem’s through a loupe. With a long-suffering sigh, one pristine glove pinches at his nose, as if it might be any help at all stemming the incoming headache.

“Passable,” he grates out, stepping aside. “Now if you would follow me, I will ensure that you all make it to the hall.”

Obi’s mouth twitches, threatening a smirk. “Can’t trust us to get there on our own, eh, sir?”

“I have been an academic for nearly as long as you have been alive.” The fit of his coat already has Lata at his full height, but he lifts his chin for good measure, just to give his glare a few more momentum before it meets Obi’s grin. “And there is not a single scholar alive that can travel from one point to another in a straight line.”

Both brows raise now, scrunching the scar right to his hairline. “Not even you?”

Lata clears his throat. “If you would all come this way please. In an orderly fashion,” he adds, when Suzu traipses after him, elbows nearly colliding with Ryuu’s nose as he comes up behind. “I would prefer to avoid any accidents before we even arrive.”

Obi slinks closer, like a cat approaching a precariously placed cup. “But not after?”

A heavy sigh flares out of Lata’s nostrils. “I would prefer you not. But ‘after’ is not part of my purview.”

For all that Obi enjoys dogging the professor’s irritable heels, he makes no move to follow him. Instead, he lingers just inside the door, watching as first Suzu, then Ryuu, then Kazaha pass. Being polite, Shidan assumes at first, but then the moment for him to fall in line comes…and passes, utterly unmarked, save for the amused glance Obi turns his way, gold flaring in the lamplight.

He’s a different man than the one that appeared with the snow, all those years ago. Even more so from the boy that simply manifested in the university’s library, slotting himself between the two royal pharmacists with an ease that had Shidan squinting even then, trying to figure out how such incongruous pieces could fit. Lilias drew all types, it’s true, but even so— he’d never seen one quite like this: a knight with a thug’s scar cut into his brow, swaggering through the stacks like they were old enemies.

Don’t be fooled, Garrack had written him once, loops spiking tight with barely restrained humor. He might look a little rough-and-tumble, but that kid cleans up well.

He sees it now— the strong line of his shoulder accentuated by the cut of his coat, the belt at his waist complementing the taper of his torsi, the loose trousers that only barely obscure the acrobat’s body beneath. There’s no way to cover the scar, not even with a judicious application of pomade, but there’s no need— not when it only makes him look roguish, like a man who might sweep a girl into an alcove and teach her the sort of things proper young ladies only learned from novels. Still dangerous, but not deadly.

Worrying, really, considering. Shidan doesn’t make a habit of listening to scuttlebutt, but, well, he does have eyes of his own. And red is hard to miss. More so than the black he always finds bent beside it. “Obi, if I might have a word?”

That brow of his pitches up, amusement apparent in every angle. “You academics really will do anything to keep from having to go where you’re told.”

Shidan blinks, confused, before shaking his head. “I only thought I might remind you, that er…” There’s no delicate way to put it, not when he’s already wearing a smirk that would set every fine young lady’s fan fluttering. “That this year there is to be no Solstice kissing. By Lata’s request.”

“So I’ve heard.” Obi’s head cocks, curious, though when he takes in the emptiness of the room, the pointedness of the request…the slant his brow takes is clearly…confused. “Is there any reason you’re telling me, specifically?”

It’s a romantic sort of night, he might say, and it’s easy to forget yourself in the moment. Or maybe, you already stand so close I couldn’t fit a paper between the two of you, all it would take to close it is a well-timed trip. Or perhaps more accurately, you’ve been together so long all you need is an excuse. Trust me when I say you should take it.

But Shidan knows better than to speak, not when silence is all the more eloquent. The mind, he finds, often finds the most pressing reasons all on its own. Especially when one's thoughts never strayed too far from them anyway...

“Hey!” Obi presses a hand to the placard of his coat. “I haven’t caused trouble for years.”

It’s a feat worthy of song that Shidan keeps from reminding him of the last time him and Shirayuki rode through these gates. And yet, there’s no graceful way to admit that he hadn’t been talking about that sort of trouble anyway.

“Months, at least,” he relents, grudgingly. With a few moments of thought, he adds, “I’ve been really good this week.”

Shidan, with the patience of a saint, restricts his reply to simply, “If you’re sure.”

Obi does him the courtesy of hesitating. “Well, none of that’s been of the kissing variety, anyway. Not like any of the ladies here are going to be looking to make time with a guy like me tonight.”

He gives him another one of those charming grins, and Shidan sighs, resigning himself to an evening of being pointedly unobservant. “So you say.”

[hotvintagepoll]

What are some screwball comedy pairings you wish had been a thing? Can definitely be gay ones :)

Okay finally!

One of the reasons I made this blog in the first place is that few things bring me as much blinding rage as imagining the movies we could have gotten, if old Hollywood had stopped being racist/homophobic/anti-everyone for ten fucking seconds. There were so many talented hotties working through our tournament era who only got cameo spots or no-budget movies! for no reason beyond white supremacy! there were so many stories that didn't get told because heaven forbid we acknowledge gay people! If this blog has a mission statement, a big chunk of it would be about highlighting all the amazing hotties who never got what they deserved in their heyday.

So! Let's tear Louis B. Mayer a new one and make some better movies.

Diamond Eyes (1946)

Harold Nicholas, the bored but fabulous son of a Manhattan millionaire, decides to take himself off on a transatlantic cruise to recover from the boredoms of socialites, constant martinis, and west side glamor. When working girl Rita Hayworth snags him into a fake dating scheme to throw off a jealous ex (Cesar Romero), he doesn't mean to fall in love with his false fiancé—or to set the ex up with his scheming accountant (Tyrone Power).

To the Tune of Millions (1945)

Ann Miller and Lena Horne are conwomen besties who use a fake dance act to get into casinos, which they then promptly rob. Unfortunately, an over-enthusiastic talent agent (Gene Kelly) sees the act and thinks they're legitimate, hiring them on the spot as the lead number in a newly opened but already failing musicale review. Who can they hustle at a theater that's barely bringing in a dime? The two ex-cons fall in love with show business, Kelly and Horne smooch at the grand finale, and Miller has an intense will-they-or-won't-they sparring relationship with the hot stage manager (Ethel Waters—and they will).

Untitled Three's-a-Crowd Film (1942)

Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman are running interference on a corrupt justice system while trying to keep up the act that they are all simply cohabitating in a shared AirBnB and definitely not falling in love with each other. Wait. This is actually The Talk of the Town. This movie actually exists and does veer this hard into polyamorous romance.

Tomatoes and Toast (1928)

Anna May Wong and Greta Garbo eat sandwiches for three hours. It's riveting.

One Soul, Two Bodies (1948)

Farley Granger and Vincent Price star as Alexander the Great and Hephaestion in this sword-and-sandals period piece. Though clearly made on a studio backlot with a budget of $3, the dashing romance grounds the chariot races and cardboard sword battle sequences.

Grand Central Station (1931)

Interconnected narratives of Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Dolores del Río, and Fredric March all vying for the last seat on the 5:45 train out to Poughkeepsie. When they realize they're jostling to sit next to the same sugar daddy who's been stringing all of them along, the four decide to unionize. Pre-code thrills; the four-in-a-bunk Pullman car scene remains notable for a reason.

I have more but I think I've gone a bit delirious.

[edgeray]

Hi ray

Could write dragon! Arlecchino x hunter! Reader who hunts dragon because she was tasked to even tho she didn't wish to do so but little did the reader know that arlecchino is very strong

So when the reader was tasked she was warned by the villagers but what could the reader do but to only obey the orders when the reader met arlecchino trying to hunt her down she failed to do so

Dragon Hunter Mother

(Arlecchino x Fem! Reader)

A/N - Like always, if you want to request something from me again anon, give yourself a name/emoji ☺️ Also, I love this idea. I don't plan out my requests, plot just kinda comes as I write, so let's see what I do with this. I'm assuming you also want reader to be afab as well. Since you didn't say about arlecchino having a human form, I'm just not going to write it. Don't ask me how this turned to be over the limit I said these requests were gonna be. I got carried away with world building and plot. Sorry 😬 . Hopefully this was okay? Honestly, didn't know how I would make it romantic, but I guess I'll put it under romantic? I tried by best anon, feel free to request again if you want me to write it in a different way 🫶. Sorry for taking so long, but here it is!  Content warnings / info - author doesn't know how to write dragons, semi-graphic violence, if it wasn't obvious, Freminet, Lyney, and Lynette make an appearance, 2.6k words 

Stemming from a long line of dragon hunters, it was no surprise that like the rest of your siblings, you would take up the mantle of also being a dragon hunter. Dragon hunting is a service to the kingdom exclusive to only a few noble families like yours, hence why its hunters are practically revered by the kingdom's citizens. Protecting the kingdom, receiving glory after every slaughter, earning a large chunk of the kingdom's money, it's no doubt that many aggrandize and covet to be in the same position. 

You've never wanted to be a dragon hunter. It's an arduous job in a kingdom known for its dragon outbreaks. The Majesty is prompt in requesting dragon hunters, sending them from one corner of the kingdom to the other unhesitatingly, and frequently underestimate the duration that these kill orders take. When the process of dragon hunting involves tracking the dragon, finding the dragon's sanctum, preparing to combat against a dragon, and finally, killing it, it takes at least a week if it's one of the older dragons. The Majesty has high expectations, and it's a struggle to keep up with them. Kill orders were often piled on top of one another, which means immediately after you complete one, it is off to finishing the next one.

It is a job of ruin. When was the last time you've gotten more than a few hours of sleep? The last time you've had a full meal? The last time you were able to have a relaxing bath? 

Killing dragons is not how you would like to waste away your life, slaving away under a duty that everyone idolizes. As you carry on your role, you begin to learn more and more about these flying reptiles; dragons are fascinating, intelligent creatures. It is a shame that many villagers are so terrified of them, dragons actively avoid humans; though for one reason or another, dragons occasionally seek the nearest human civilization, eating farm animals and destroying any shelter or barricade that stands in their way. Perhaps you're just foolish, but you believe that there is a real reason for this behavior, and that there could be a solution to this. 

Until then, you could do little more but heed each order, slaughtering dragon by dragon. Their dying cries plague your dreams every night, leaving you empty and restless. 

You arrive at a village, the emblem on your chest plate that indicates your occupation glints as you step out of the carriage. The village head greets you quickly, settling you down in front of a cup of tea and some snacks, before cutting straight to the details.

“This dragon… I'd be careful. I've heard of you, a genius among geniuses in terms of dragon hunting, but I warn you right now. This dragon is different. Smarter, more powerful than your typical one, I bet. Its fire… even among other dragons, isn't comparable. It can torch the whole village, and it got damn near close to. Cunning bastard as well, it can pinpoint where our sheeps are and it can evade our traps. It disappeared from our village a few decades… we assumed it died naturally, but then it returned again earlier this season.”

“When was the last time it attacked? Do you know what kind of dragon it is?”

“No. We’ve never seen a dragon like it before. I'm not sure if it follows under the kingdom's classifications. It's black and white with three pairs of wings! And its tail… sharp like, like…like a scythe, can slice houses in half! Its claws are just as dangerous too. Can breathe fire, of course.”

Three pairs of wings… that means this dragon is considerably old. Dragons gain pairs of wings after their first set through molting, which only occurs every fifty or sixty months following reaching maturity, meaning this dragon was at least a century old. You grimace. Older dragons are always harder to get rid of. Most of the dragons that you encounter only have one pair, on the rare occasion, two. This is the first time you've been assigned a three-paired dragon.

Its colorings are also strange; you've never heard of a black and white dragon specifically. The tail description, however, isn't very uncommon; it could be a signifier that this is an incredibly rare hybrid among dragon species. If it's as powerful as it's said, and if you consider its age, then perhaps they come from one of the Dynasty species… but a descendent of that species hasn't been seen in many years. If this is true, then of course it wouldn't follow under the kingdom's ordinary classifications of dragons. Still, a hybrid? Mating between different species almost never happens. This really was a special case. And its disappearance? You couldn't even fathom why.

“Do you know at least where it lives?”

The village head turns to his right, pointing in that direction. “If you continue that direction, you'll come across a forest. That's where it goes. We don't know where it lives, we've been too scared to try and find out ourselves.”

You sigh. Well, this wasn't much to work with. “Is there anywhere I can stay?” 

“Yes, yes. There's a room above the bar that's just for you. Free of charge, of course. The food as well. Just please… eradicate this beast.” 

“I'll do my best.” 

—

No matter how many forests you go to, you never become fonder of them. Traversing them was always annoying. Too much greenery to walk through, too many streams and rivers to cross, and just too many damn trees. This terrain is especially difficult to find traces of dragons in. It'd be better to make your own traces then scour through the forest to search for them, hence why you're at a stream, catching as much fish as you can with a net. Fish makes for good dragon bait, though you don't intend to use it to trap the dragon. You doubt any trap you could make in the little time you have could kill or harm the dragon, but it will lure the dragon to you.

You pause to take a break, glancing at the pile of fish you've collected. The smell is starting to assault your nostrils. Ugh. 

You hear a crunch behind you, and you turn. Your eyes widen and you pick up your sword, raising them towards the three dragons that surround you. Adrenaline pumps through you as you stand up, observing the creatures. 

All of them only have one-pair of wings, with similar features and size; they’re as large as bear cubs, if you subtract their tail length, and you realize that they're baby dragons, yet to reach maturity. They have, notably, distinct colorings, but they all share the same black and gray coloring. Perhaps they come from the same hatch? The one to your right has red, almost maroon, splotches over their scales. This one is wide eyed, but its features are relaxed as if playful and curious. The one in the middle seems to be the smallest, fearful as if it’s cowering with its dipped head and the tail wrapping around itself protectively; this one has almost a marigold accent to it. The one to the right is teal, and passive, like it doesn't see you in the slightest. 

Baby dragons are hardly as aggressive or destructive as their adult counterparts, but that doesn't mean they can't pose a danger. Still, you don't want to harm them, not when they haven't done anything that would warrant you to.

The red one approaches, deliberately, sniffing towards your direction. You brace your sword, and it trudges up to you, nostrils grazing against your armor before it nudges against your hand. It then walks past you, its focus deadset on the pile of fish behind you. The two other dragons follow in the red one's lead, and you sigh in relief, placing your sword back in its sheathes.

Baby dragons, three of them especially, are a rare sight, as they're often sheltered in their father's den, and they don't venture out until they've fully matured. This being because they're quite vulnerable despite the threat they hold once they've matured. Eliminating them is a part of your duty, however, you never feel right killing creatures that have just hatched. They couldn't be more than ten years old; they still had a few more decades before they could pose a danger. If they're out like this, it's likely they've been abandoned. Mother dragons often leave their young after childbirth, and the fathers are left to take care of them; it could be that the father died recently. 

Whatever the case, you think that they deserve to live a little longer. Plus, they're kind of cute… 

Although, the more you observe them, the more you feel you should prevent the fish supply you spent all day getting from declining. They seem less cute now. You groan as they eat until there's no more fish, and they turn back to you, croaking as if requesting more. 

What are you, their mother? Your eye twitches in vexation. 

You spend your evening fishing for baby dragons at the river. Un-fucking-believable. Weren't you wonderful at your job? 

You decide to leave the dragons at the river bank as you search for wood to make a campfire. To your slight annoyance and amusement, the young dragons trail behind you. You get random twigs and branches that scatter the forest floor. One of the dragons, the yellow one, picks up a branch in their mouth, before offering it to you. 

Damn it, why did you have to be a dragon hunter? You take the stick in your hand, hesitantly petting the top of its head. This is something you’ve never done before, but you wouldn't mind doing it again. It leans into your hand. You don't deserve this treatment, you hunt their kind. Oh, how you wish you could tell them what you'd have to do once they grow up. Why did you have to be a dragon hunter? You're holding back tears as you continue the petting action. 

Its other siblings, unbeknownst to your existential crisis, follow its behavior, and you've turned the baby dragons into your personal campfire wood carriers. You think dragon trainor fits you better than a dragon hunter at this point, but that profession doesn't grant an affordable life. 

Seating yourself on a tree stump, you build your campfire and light it. You use it to cook a fish over, while you try to fend off said trout from being eaten by the dragons. By the time it's done cooking, the little creatures are exhausated, curling against you as the three fall asleep against your legs and back. You don't want to admit it, but it's a comfortable weight against you. You didn't even know that dragons snore until now.

Peace at last, you think, finally able to eat your fish alone. 

Too soon, too soon. You hear it before you see it, the whipping of winds that you can only associate with the beating of dragon wings as it flies. The sound grows louder, meaning it's heading straight towards you. You stand up, unsheathing your sword and bracing yourself for an assault. Shit, shit, shit, you're not prepared to fight in this territory whatsoever. What was it attracted to? The campfire? The smell of your fish? Or perhaps… you glance at the still sleeping creatures. 

You don't have much time to ponder as the ground shakes when the beast lands in front of you, right on top of the river, its gargantuan form making you tremble. An earth shattering roar escapes its throat, nearly making you tumble back from the sheer force, and your ears ring painfully. 

You've never seen a larger dragon before. You count the pair of wings through squinted eyes. One, two, three. This is the dragon you've been hired to hunt? 

The hand holding your sword doesn't stop shaking, no matter how much you try to control your muscles. The adult dragon nears, and your heart rate pounds louder and louder with each footstep. Black and white colorings? Check. Sharp tail? Check. You know you have to fight it, but how could you possibly? It dwarfs you in every single way possible. 

It swipes its tail at you, and you duck as fast as possible, just barely missing being sliced in half like the trees behind you. Its tail retracts to lunge at you again, and you block the sharp end with your sword, though it just swats you away easily, throwing you across the bank of the river. You land on the gravel with a pained groan, and you scramble to get up, facing the dragon. 

Piercing red-crossed eyes gaze back at you, and you no longer feel like the hunter. Instead, you feel like the prey, and every fiber of your being is telling you to run. You wield your sword again resolutely. If you die, then you die, but you'll die knowing you tried. The dragon tilts its head back, preparing its fiery breath, and you ready your wrist shield. 

Suddenly, a familiar croak comes from behind the adult dragon, and you see the baby dragons rush into the adult dragon, headbutting its feet. The dragon snaps its head back into its normal position, gazing down at the small dragons at its feet. You're afraid that the larger dragon will crush them, but instead it growls. The young ones chirp back, communicating with it. 

You stand there, bewildered, the pieces coming together in your mind quickly. Is the black and white dragon their father? Are they trying to save you? The tension in your shoulders relaxes the slightest bit. The father dragon whips its head back to you, and you freeze, paralyzed under its predatory gaze. Too swiftly does its tail shoot towards you, but instead of impaling you as you prepared, it merely wraps around your midsection, lifting you effortlessly. You drop your sword out of pure shock from being in mid air, and it brings you face to face with the dragon. 

The dragon snarls, baring its teeth, and you think it's the end once you see its pearly whites. Instead, however, it sniffs you, before pausing, observing you more. You're holding your breath, wondering when you will meet your fate. It opens its mouth wide, displaying a row of teeth in its oral cavern. You squeeze your eyes shut but all you feel is something warm, wet, and slimey. A tongue drags across your face, and you cringe, immediately bringing your hands to wipe away the thick saliva. The tail around you loosens, and you fall on your back, grunting from the impact of hitting the floor. 

Okay. Well, you're alive at least, you think, once you get the liquid out of your eyes but it is unfortunately in your hair. If it hasn't killed you yet, then it must mean that it likes you? 

You open your eyes, and see that the dragon lays in front of you, its snout just a feet away from you. Each huff from the dragon blows your hair back with hot air, but you don't mind it. The smaller dragons prance by your side, chirping and croaking with a high-pitched tone. Bemused but just grateful that you've yet met your end, you pet their heads. By the growl from the father, they approve of your action, and your heart melts. You reach out to pet the snout of the larger dragon, and it closes its eyes, further nudging against you before a grumbly purr escapes its throat.

Seems like you've just been forcibly adopted by a family of dragons. You don't think you'll complain that much. 

[we-stan-cale]

Since I've talked about almost all the other important parts during my reread, I didn't want to forget the sealed god's test.

It's just... So good I'm not even sure where to start. Like, this is a moment where Cale really shines.

Cale. Rok Soo, which we're told means 'to always grow green, even in winter'.

And we see that in this test.

The sealed god throws him into one of the worst moments of his life, expressly to make him despair.

Instead, Cale takes that moment and uses it to rewrite the past, and erase all his regrets.

This is where we really get to see what post-apocalyptic Korea was like. And over and over again we learn how badly things went then, even as Cale makes sure it doesn't happen like that again.

We also see some of his years of experience, and maturity. Especially with how he handles Park Jin Tae, who was a bully and a tyrant - and also died in Cale's first life, fighting to save everyone in the shelter.

You can see what we've seen all along. Cale doesn't judge leaders by the petty stuff. He judges them on how well they take care of their people.

This is also where Cale, Choi Han, and Alberu really become an amazing trio.

Choi Han, who bargains a large chunk of his life away (just the time he'd be alone, as he ties the length of his life to Raons) in order to join Cale in his test.

And Alberu, who the Sun God helps possess a monster called the Dark Tiger when his real body is sleeping.

Those three are so tight knit now, it's beautiful. Real ride or die friends.

Especially when you remember where they all started.

It's also, as always, a time where you have to pay attention to the subtleties. This is Cale's past, and he's focused on making sure everyone survives... But Choi Han and especially Alberu can see the desperation, the struggle, and the near starvation of all the survivors. Alberu has a couple of moments when he's out of the test and giving updates to their friends, and you see him struggling. Because Cale asked him not to overly stress them (the kids especially) and basically say it's fine... And Alberu's like 'how can I tell them that?!?'

And then, naturally, there's Choi Jung Soo and Lee Soo Hyuk.

Younger versions, and not the ones Cale knew. But still, we get to learn more about his earlier found family.

We also see things going on back at home. Since his physical body is still there, his friends have to rescue him.

And we see how they're able to perform, even without Cale to call the shots.

We especially see how well Raon has grown, as he makes important decisions on how to find the monster statues.

Even more importantly, we have this at the end.

– Do you really think that this moment is the end of despair? Cale looked down at the rose gold lights burning in his hands. He opened his mouth to speak. ‘Is this moment the end of despair? No. Absolutely not.’ “This is just the beginning of the despair in this world.” It was just the beginning. Despair would reveal itself in many different forms in this world from now on. “But people have hope now.” After about a year since the world had turned into a mess�� The people who had always lost, struggled, and barely managed to survive will be victorious for the first time. They would destroy this despair known as an unranked monster. The sealed god who had been silent for a moment asked as if he was sneering at Cale. – Do you have hope as well? It seemed to be implying that Cale was someone who could not have hope. That was how it sounded to Cale. Cale slowly shook his head. “No.” He did not have hope. However… “I have certainty.” Cale needed something more certain than hope. Finally, he had gotten it. “This place will draw a different future than my past. I’m certain of it.” He was certain that more people would survive than in his past. He was certain that they would have better lives. That was not speculation. Although it was a future that was yet to come, Cale believed it to be the truth. In fact, Cale wanted to be the one to finish the first step toward that certainty. The burning rose gold thunderbolts moved away from Cale’s hands. He started to speak again. “This is the first time I’m saying this to a god.” Toward the silent sealed god… To the god who had tried to give him despair… Cale said the following. “Thanks.” He really meant it. “My memories didn’t end in despair thanks to you.”

It's not that he defeated despair. That despair will no longer exist.

But there's hope, and he is certain that the future will be better.

And even more so - he is grateful that he had this chance to change his memories.

He took this thing that was supposed to break him, and used it to fix himself instead.

[taesanluv3r]

at the fair.

kim leehan x reader

established relationship, some suggestive comments (? ish), leehan argues with a little girl, very very cuteness. lowercase intended, excuse any spelling mistakes / grammatical errors.

wc: 2,248

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖

"you're gonna love it!"

yn smiles at her boyfriend's happy expression, leehan's eyes had turned into little lines, a grin on his face as he went on and on about this neighbourhood fair he had just been dying to take her to. every year, for one whole month during the summer time, the park just down the street magically transforms into some sort of a theme park. the boy had been going there ever since he were a small child, and after dating for the past five or so months, he had been counting down the days until summer had finally arrived onto his doorstep, just so he could share a little bit of his childhood with her.

and that's how they got here. standing with arms intertwined as they waited for heart-shaped their cotton candy to be twirled onto its stick, their stomachs still turning as a result of the thrilling ride they had just gotten off of. "thank you so much" yn says, retrieving the sugary treat into her hands, pulling out a chunk of the soft candy before turning slightly to pass it over into her boyfriend's opened mouth. "ugh" she winced in disgust when his tongue accidentally came in contact with tips of her fingers. the boy chuckles, pressing a chaste kiss against her cheek. "ferris wheel?" he asked, a single eyebrow cocked up as he did so, head tilted over to the large carnival ride. she nods excitedly, "ferris wheel!"

the pair waits in line once again, finishing up the last off their short-lived treat before tossing it into the large silver trashcan to their left. "you know..." yn starts, staring up at the moving wheel that was beginning to slow down to a stop. "i've always wanted to make-out on a ferris wheel" her eyes wander over to him as she ends her sentence, batting her eyelashes almost annoyingly. leehan rolls his eyes before pulling her into his arms, "i feel like you always want to make-out in unconventional places" the couple shares another light laugh, separating from each other as the guard welcomed them onto one of the worryingly squeaky carts of the fair attraction.

"well that was fun" the boy says, wiping the bits of her lip gloss that stained against the grin on his lips. "yeah, we should definitely do that again" his girlfriend responds, slightly out of breath. the young couple get off the ride, holding hands as they waltzed around the grounds of the park once again. "we should play some games now...i need a new plushie for my collection!" yn's statement makes him giggle, "you are such a child" but his actions contradict his words, pulling the girl slightly as he wordlessly makes his way to the row of playing games on the other side of the fair. "which one do you want to play, love?" she ponders for a moment, eyes moving to scan through each and every one of the stands available. yn was about to speak, finally choosing a game, but she is interrupted by his gasp. before she could even ask him what was wrong, the girl found herself being tugged away and over to a light blue stand in the corner.

"where are we going?" her question answers itself when she is met with a large, light-up sign above her head. a sign that read:

fisherman's paradise! catch some fish, win a prize!

a sea themed game. how fitting for her fish-loving boyfriend. the pair watched as two players went against each other. the whole purpose of the game was to use the magnetic hooks to grab as many robotic fish as possible from the small plastic pool in the middle. whoever got the most fish by the end of the 2 minute mark, was named winner and got to choose a sea-themed toy from the prize wall. yn could see the excited smile that begun to grow on her boyfriend's face, his eyes were shimmering like he had just seen his wildest dreams come true. at the same time, leehan looked focused, as if he were calculating every move he would have to make to win later when it was his turn. finally, after what felt like the longest two minutes in the world, the boy was up. a prideful laugh escaped his lips at the sight of his opponent; a little girl, adorned in a thick, red wig and the worst excuse for a mermaid costume he had ever seen. his smile was washed away however when the child in front of him stuck her little tongue out, stained blue from the artificial colouring of the ice cone she probably just had. "you're going down, loser!" her voice was high-pitched and squeaky, as expected from someone that tiny. yn can't help but laugh from behind him, watching in amusement as her boyfriend shared petty trash-talk with a girl who's height didn't even make it past his long legs.

"the only one going down is you, little girl"

the tired looking teenager who ran the booth waved a flag, signalling that their two minutes had begun. yn watched in disbelief as leehan deprived his tiny opponent of all her robotic fish, a nasty smirk on his face as he had fun doing so. the little girl looked horrified, her eyebrows furrowing as the older boy took her victory far far away. ding! their time was up, leehan lifting his fists up in the air at his obvious win. he looked over at his girlfriend happily before pulling her into a hug, she chuckled lightly as she pressed a kiss onto his jaw. now he had to pick his prize, contemplating all too seriously at his choices. "i want the jellyfish" yn whispers, pointing at the angry looking plush toy that seemed to be calling her name. but the boy just scoffs, "what do you mean you want the jellyfish. it's my prize, and i'll take that one" the girl's mouth drops open, a sigh escaping from it as she watches her boyfriend gleefully accept the catfish shaped doll, his favourite, the corydoras. "and i'm the child" yn complains, rolling her eyes at a very joyful leehan, their arms intertwining again as they began to walk away from the game stand.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" an all too familiarly squeaky voice stops them in their tracks, the couple twirling around to be met with none other than the little girl from earlier. "you, mister! you're a cheater! that prize was supposed to be mine!" her small face was squished into an angry expression, her arms crossed over her chest and her lips puckered out into a dramatic pout. leehan snorts, bending down slightly to be nearer to her. "i won fair and square! so don't be such a sore loser" yn could not believe her ears or her eyes, there was no way her boyfriend who she loved and adored so much was seriously arguing with a five year old! over a fish game! the child's angry face turns into that of a smug look, a spritz of her own spit coming out as she spoke up once again. "you probably don't even like fish as much as me" the girl spat, her eyes closing shut and her tiny head tilting upwards. the tall boy's girlfriend slaps herself in the head, why would she say that? doesn't she know the consequences of her actions? where were her parents at this moment? god, help us all. yn tries to pull her boyfriend away before he could cause any more of a scene, but he just shrugs her arm off, a knowing and cocky look painted over his complexion as he looks the poor child right in the eyes.

"well what's your favourite fish then? since you know so much about them" oh god. the five year old lifts her chubby arms in the air, "obviously flounder from the little mermaid!" her miniature eyes roll to the back of her head, pointing down at her outfit so as to say 'duh!'. leehan is about to burst into tears of laughter, "well what kind of fish is he then?" all of a sudden the chatty child falls silent, and the boy has just about the meanest look on his face. "he's actually, a pterophyllum scalare, also known as an angelfish" in the moment the boy looked like he just won a lottery, smirking proudly with his chest puffed out in glory. his girlfriend let's out another loud sigh, making a mental note to never let her boyfriend around children ever again.

the atmosphere changes however, when a whimper escapes the little girl's lips. the couples' eyes darting straight towards her as she begins to cry real tears. "leehan, you made the poor kid cry!" yn exclaims, finally smacking his upside his head. "why is she crying! i was just telling her a simple fish fact!" the boy yells back in terror, "she's a child?!" amidst the young pair's argument, the red wig wearing girl's wailing gets louder, her cries going from incoherent mumbles to begging for her mommy. the couple is in panic mode, not really understanding what they should do at a situation like this, and not really wanting to get in trouble with the kid's parents. "what do we do?" leehan asks, his hands pressed against the top of his head. "i don't know babe, just give her the doll so she stops crying!" yn responds, her tone getting louder to overpower the sound of the wailing child. "but i won it! fair and square!" the girl rolls her eyes at the stupid frown played against her boyfriend's lips, showing no remorse as she forcefully pulled the fish-shaped plushie out of his hands.

"here, stop crying and take this, okay?" yn's tone became hushed as she bent down to level with the tearful girl, juxtaposing the way she shouted at her partner just a second ago. "don't mind him, he's just a big ol' meanie, right? so stop crying, okay?" the kid takes the doll in her tiny hands, sniffling as her tears came to an end. "mkay" the kid mumbles and yn can't help but smile softly. "i love your mermaid outfit, by the way. you look just like ariel, so pretty" now the little girl was grinning ear to ear, seemingly beginning to forget about the tantrum she just threw. "you're pretty too, lady. but...why are you dating such an asshole?" the wind is knocked out of the girl, and her boyfriend who stood listening closely, at the child's harsh choice of vocabulary. yn stops herself from laughing out loud, sighing as she patted a hand through the smaller one's red wig. "i promise he isn't always like that...he's just...very passionate about sea life, that's all" leehan catches himself smiling unconsciously as he watched his girl make soft conversation with his tiny enemy, but his thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a female voice calling out for their child, it was her mother.

"oh! there you are! you can't just run off like that! oh, i'm so sorry if she troubled you guys" an older, plump woman spoke, her eyes and nose the spitting image of the menacing girl they were just talking to. yn catches a glimpse of her partner's smirk, "oh yeah, she actually just called me an assho-ow!" his words are cut short when his girlfriend's foot is pressed harshly against his toes. "no problem, she wasn't bothering us at all!" yn's tone is sweet, a forceful smile on her lips like she weren't physically hurting the boy beside her right now. "look mommy, the pretty lady gave me a fishy!" the kid cheers as her mother picks her up from the ground. "yeah my fish-ow! stop stepping on my foot!" yn glares at the guy, if looks could kill he'd be six feet under the ground right now. the older lady and her child shoots the couple a perplexed look before thanking them quickly and leaving. the girl smiles, waving goodbye to the costume wearing child as they slowly disappeared into the distance.

"remind me to never let you play games with children ever again!" yn exclaims as they walk towards the exit of the fair. leehan just chuckles, shooting her a cheeky grin as he did so. "but you were kind of hot back there though..." he trails off, stretching an arm out to wrap around her shoulders, pulling her in. "hm?" she asked confused, her cheeks coming in contact with his t-shirt as she looked up at his face. "like you looked so cute comforting that kid...i can't lie it's giving me like extreme baby fever, right now" once again his girlfriend glares at him in disbelief, "after all of that? like hell i'm letting you near my children!" he laughs, partially agreeing with what she was saying. it was silent for a moment, her eyes focused on their surroundings, watching as families, friends and couples alike ran around the park that was starting to get darker. leehan, too, is distracted by the orange tint that began to paint the sky. and then he speaks again, ruining their moment of pure bliss. "can we at least pretend to make a baby" yn rolls her eyes, hiding her blush-y face against his chest as she slaps a hand softly against his arm.

"oh my god leehan, if you're horny just say so!"

the end.

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖

leave the poor kid alone leehan TT idrk what i was going for when i started writing this but i think its so cute nonetheless 🤓 also not leehan getting #𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒚 at the end 🙄 reblogs n feedbacks highly appreciated!! tysm for reading <3

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hello Nicholas!

I hope this isn't a weird question, but I saw in one of your posts that you used to be in a huge amount of debt and now you're living more comfortably- how did you manage to get out of debt? I feel like every time I start even trying to figure out where to start, it's just all too big to ever get out from under. Do you have any advice for me?

Hope you have a great day!

Hey there! Yes, from about 2007-2010 (before I transitioned), I was making less than $10k/year. I defaulted on all my credit cards, exhausted my retirement, and nearly lost my house. It sucked, and in 2024, I'm finally start to feel somewhat secure. What I learned (assuming living in the US, I also did not have student loan debt):

I had to first figure out the sources of my debt. A big chunk of it was because of bad spending habits due to mental illness (hoarding + retail therapy when I was dysphoric/depressed). Another chunk was from being in an abusive friendship. Another, from being unemployed. And the last, was general capitalism (this was during the housing crisis.)

I started working on improving myself to curb behaviors that led to debt. I started working on my hoarding. I started transition to improve my mental health (had to sell some stuff to afford HRT). It took until 2015 to ditch my abuser, alas.

I started working on new job skills. I swallowed my pride and got an office job after a failed 3-year stint at freelancing. It was shitty, but enough to take care of my income emergencies -- keeping my house out of foreclosure. I got a better job 8 months later. It also sucked and I was in it for 7 years, but eventually changed industries and that's when my career took off. Because with each new job, I've gotten better and better pay.

I started using budgeting software. YNAB is my favorite. I try to account for every single dollar I have.

I started spending smarter. Food was the expense I had the most control over. I went to the salvage grocery store (you can find non-expired stuff if you hunt) and bought the "ugly" produce 1 day away from rotting from the local markets. I actually managed to eat well once I found these grocery stores, and my food bill became a fraction of what it'd been at typical grocery stores. I do wish that I had given food pantries a shot, but I was in denial about my poverty at the time.

I sold a ton of useless crap. I got rid of a good chunk of my nerd "collectibles". I only miss a few things over a decade later.

I negotiated with my debt collectors. I managed to set up payment plans with my credit card companies, condo association, and the IRS. I also did a debt consolidation loan once I qualified and was sure I could commit to the monthly payments. It forced me to be super strict about my budget and for about 5 years I didn't buy much for myself. It sucked, but I cleared a bunch of debt that way.

I got help from my family. I was embarrassed to tell my family about my predicament, but it became impossible to hide. I got help cleaning out my hoard and my mother has gracefully given me generous cash gifts every now and then. Never enough to be life-changing, but enough to give me a mental breather.

I played the credit score game. This one seems counter-intuitive, and requires some self-control about not abusing credit cards. Many people recommend the "snowball" method for paying off cards (pay off your lowest debt asap, then go to the next one), but I went with a "credit utilization" method (bring my highest used cards down to the next utilization level, then move to other cards) so I would see immediate changes in my credit score. What is credit card utilization? It's the percentage of how much of your credit card you're using. A card with a $1,000 limit and $100 on it = 10% utilization. Your credit score changes when you cross the following thresholds: 90%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 10%. Once my credit score started going up past 400 (especially as defaults started falling away), I applied for a secured card. As I started using that better, I applied for a few more cards, then for credit line increases every 6 months. My car insurance rates were tied to my credit score, so as soon as that improved, I switched companies and saved money there.

Mistakes I made:

Being in denial that I was poor. I didn't really look for resources on how to live while in poverty. This hurt me a lot because I ended up neglecting myself out of pride, which made my situation even worse.

Payday loans. I got stuck in the payday cycle for about 8 years. I wish I had sold more stuff or asked family for money to have never needed that initial loan. Once you are in the cycle, it becomes very difficult to get out.

Not going to a food bank.

Not asking for help sooner. And not just financial help.

Not getting out of abusive situations sooner. This is hard, and I sympathize with anyone in a similar position. But if you think it's time to move on, trust your gut - don't sacrifice yourself for people who don't care about you.

Ignoring debt collectors, because I was too afraid to negotiate for a plan. The IRS was so patient with me in the end, even after defaulting twice on plans.

Not considering getting a roommate to reduce costs, or not thinking of doing more things like shared meals with my fellow poor friends. Again, denial and pride. Humility is not a bad word and I wished I had learned it sooner.

Not changing jobs sooner. Curbing my hoarding and getting a better job are responsible for about 90% of me being where I am financially today.

Getting out of debt is a marathon. It took over a decade for me, and I am *still* feeling the sting of poverty. I wish you the best of luck. Folks are welcome to tack on specific tricks and strategies -- this is just a general outline of my particular journey.

[steamberrystudio]

02/02/2025

Hallo everyone!  Tumblr devlog time!

Summary Bullets:

The last time I posted an update here was to talk about the Episode 2 public release. And now I am moving on to Episode 3. Let's jump in.

I have worked on some new sprites,

Received some new BGs

Worked on new outfits and variations

Staged sprite positions, entrances, and exits

Coded in the eye colour changes

Written up the recap for Episode 2

Coding the SFX and music cues

Started on Wil's expressions

Made some decisions about the next episode (more below)

Art:

I have been working on some new sprites as there are a couple of new characters that pop up in the next episode.

I've also been working on new sprite variations and outfits for some of the characters (including Wil)

There are a lot of new things that will be showing up in Chapter 5 because the crew goes to a new location which requires a whole new set of backgrounds.

Some of these are game-ready, others have to be cropped, prepped, and/or have variations made, however.

Writing

I haven't worked on any bonus content or anything but I did write up the recap info for Episode 2.

Recap stuff can be weirdly time consuming. I want it to be detailed enough it is informative for people but not a massive summary that takes forever to write up.

But other than that I haven't really done any writing...

Other Stuff:

I have been doing a lot of mostly small coding things - coding in the eye colour changes (which I always do before working on expressions) or adding in transitions for the menus, adding in music and SFX and stuff like that.

Before I get into the heavy coding things like the flowcharts or the expressions, there are all sorts of fiddly things that are nice to get out of the way first.

Then more fiddly things after the heavy things are done...

But for now I've been getting some of the smaller things out of the way so I can tick them off the to-do list.

I have started coding Wil's expressions but haven't gotten too far into that just yet.

I have decided that Episode 3 is going to *just* include chapter 5 instead of including 5 and 6.

I've gone back and forth since the beginning on whether I wanted episodes to include one or two chapters. 

I really like being able to do massive updates with 70-90k words because it gives players a lot of content to go through but in all honesty there are some drawbacks to doing it that way. I don't want to get into all those ins and outs but the point is that I finally decided I need to try doing a single chapter release and see if it works better for me, for all of you, and for the project.

Chapter 5 is still really big. On its own, it's over 60,000 words of content so it's not like it's a teensy li'l thing. It's still got some heft.

But yeah, that's my current stance on episode 3 and afterwards we'll see if I'm content to stick to single chapter updates released at a slightly faster pace. And if it helps my sanity.

Upcoming Weeks:

Mostly focused on sprite expressions and getting some of the BG assets ready for the game I think. 

Expressions, next to the CGs and flowcharts are basically the biggest chunk of STUFF to do so I want to get that out of the way early and then focus on other things before I tackle some of the other big development things.

That's all for now. See ya in a few weeks.

[floralcyanidee]

ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟɪᴘs, ᴍʏ ʟɪᴘs, ᴀᴘᴏᴄᴀʟʏᴘsᴇ - ᴄɪʟʟɪᴀɴ ᴍᴜʀᴘʜʏ

Young!Cillian Murphy x AFAB!Reader (NSFW)

A night over at your best friend, Cillian's, leads to something more than friendship but something less than romance. Will you ever tell him how you feel, or will you always just be friends with benefits?

warnings: smut, nipple play, fingering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, oral sex, cock warming, friends with benefits, friends to lovers, dirty talk, squirting, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, hair pulling, mentions of choking, love confessions

word count: 4409

author’s note: I'm shadowbanned on my main account everyone please clap (not for nsfw, I was flagged for spam yay) so I'll be posting on this shiny new blog, ao3, and wattpad for the time being. (those are both linked on my masterpost) hopefully I'll be unbanned soon because I've had my main tumblr for a decade and it has 2.5k followers on it and I'll fr cry my eyes out if I can't get unbanned!!! anyway please enjoy this!! I wrote a good chunk of this while at work this week. the horny really unleashes in the second part haha. please leave feedback if you enjoy! <3

PLEASE FOLLOW THIS BLOG. BUT ALSO, DO NOT UNFOLLOW MY MAIN BLOG!

main masterlist | cillian murphy masterlist | add yourself to the taglist here

ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ, ʀᴇᴘʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴇ, ᴏʀ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀs ᴏɴ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ, ᴀᴏ3, ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ, ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏ ᴡᴇʙsɪᴛᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴘᴇʀᴍɪssɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ɪɴ ᴀɪ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀᴛᴏʀs ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀʀᴛɪғɪᴄɪᴀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀʏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ᴛᴏ sᴇʟʟ ғᴏʀ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

Cillian’s lips hover over yours, and you can feel his warm breath hitting your face. His eyelashes almost touch your cheeks, and his nose is beside yours, barely brushing against it. 

“I want you so bad,” Cillian whispers, his hands finding your hips.

You have been friends since the 90s when Cillian first arrived in Hollywood, stumbling upon you at a local bar where you worked. Ever since, you’ve both been the best of friends. But tonight, that’s being challenged. The lights in Cillian’s place are dimmed, candles are lit, and wine is flowing through the two of you. Having a bit to drink in a comfortable setting isn’t out of the norm, but for some reason, tensions were high tonight. You could almost cut it with a knife. Everything about him is more mesmerizing tonight- his eyes, his freckles, the way he smiles. You needed him, and apparently, he needed you too. 

“Then have me,” you mutter against Cillian’s lips.

He chuckles humorlessly, shaking his head slightly, “I don’t want to ruin us.”

“You won’t,” you look down at his lips- they’re so close to yours that you can feel them move whenever he speaks.

“Promise?”

“I promise,” you breathe, grabbing hold of Cillian’s face as he finally puts his mouth on yours.

The kiss immediately becomes hungry, your teeth nearly clashing together as Cillian slips his tongue around yours. He’s gripping your hips fiercely, and his sideburns press pleasantly into your palms as you hold his head steady. Cillian pulls you onto his lap from your sitting position on the couch next to him, seating you firmly on his thighs. Your fingers find his hair, tugging it slightly as a small whimper vibrates in Cillian’s throat. The sound spurs you on, and you take over the kiss, dominating his tongue with yours. You explore his mouth and suck on his tongue harshly, pulling away from the embrace to catch your breath.

“Fuck,” Cillian curses, leaning his forehead against yours, “You’re good at this.”

You scoff, putting both your hands on his cheeks as you trace your thumb along his sharp cheekbones, “And to think you would’ve never known.”

“Not necessarily,” Cillian looks you in the eyes, “I would’ve gotten you one way or another.”

“Then why have you waited so long, then? Hmm?” you ask.

“I value our friendship,” Cillian admits.

“I do, too, Cill. But god, if I had known you were so good at kissing, I would’ve done it ages ago,” you smirk, running your finger across his bottom lip.

His eyes follow your movements before they flick up to yours, darkening, “I’m not just good at that.”

His words shoot straight to your lower belly, warmth spreading through you, “Is that right?”

“Mhmm,” Cillian pulls you closer to his chest, your core settling right on his.

“Show me.”

Cillian attacks your lips again, this time biting down on your lower lip and rolling it between his teeth. You watch his face as he does it, his icy eyes becoming a darker shade of blue. His hand moves from your hip to your hair, his fingers sliding through your locks before they tighten, pulling your head backward to expose your neck. Cillian leaves hot, open-mouthed kisses along the column of your neck, licking a stripe up the side before he bites at the skin, leaving a small bruise to form below your jaw. You squirm slightly at the feeling of his teeth pressing into your skin, dangerously close to breaking its surface. Cillian then kisses your collarbones, stopping when he reaches the neck of your shirt, well, his shirt. You always took from his wardrobe, whether it was a beanie, t-shirt, or hoodie that he forgot he had. He slides his hand from your hip to underneath the shirt, pressing his palm to your feverish skin and pushing it up slowly until he reaches your breast. 

“No bra?” Cillian asks, surprised.

“I never wear a bra when I’m over here,” you admit, “I’m surprised you’ve never noticed.”

“I’m glad I never noticed, or else I’d be underneath your shirt constantly,” Cillian pulls his hand from your hair to move it under the shirt along with the other.

“Doesn’t sound too bad to me,” you giggle, but it’s cut off by a quiet moan when Cillian grasps your breasts.

Cillian brushes his thumbs over your nipples, circling the buds as they harden under his touch. You hum, letting your head fall back at the sensation. Cillian pushes the shirt up and over your chest, and you help him pull it all the way off, tossing it somewhere in the living room. Immediately, Cillian latches onto one of your nipples, toying with the other one with his fingers. Electricity shoots to your still-clothed core, and you know that Cillian can feel you beginning to throb through your thin shorts. His playing with your breasts could get you off alone; his touch is like nothing you’ve ever felt before. It’s sometimes sensual and soft and rough and firm when needed. Cillian grazes his teeth over the sensitive bud, pulling it toward him as you let out a yelp. You involuntarily bare down on his lap and feel him growing harder underneath you. He lands a slap to your breast, and you gasp, hands going to grip his biceps to ground yourself. 

“I can feel you getting excited,” Cillian teases, raising his hips a little to let all your weight sit on him momentarily.

“What are you gonna do about it, then?” you stifle a moan at his bulge pressing into your clit harshly.

Cillian pushes you off his lap and onto the couch, where he spreads your legs and yanks your shorts down your thighs, discarding them wherever the shirt also previously went. He pulls your calves onto his shoulders, laying on his chest between your thighs. His breath hits your dampened underwear, sending goosebumps across your skin. You bite your lip as Cillian plays with the edges of your underwear right against where you need him most. He toys with the fabric, letting his fingers barely touch you underneath. 

“I’ve waited so long for this,” Cillian confesses, his intense eyes flickering up to your face.

You feel your cheeks burn, “Me too.”

Cillian smiles his typical beautiful smile, teeth and all, as he pulls your underwear down your legs painfully slow, “I’ve always imagined how wet you’d get just from me teasing you.”

You bite back a whimper as he removes your underwear from your legs, letting them fall to the floor. 

“You’d get soaked from me playing with your pussy, rubbing your clit slowly, and eating you out until you cry,” Cillian lets his filthy words fall from his lips as you shiver from them, wanting to close your legs subconsciously.

But they were perched on Cillian’s shoulders, and he was about to go in for the kill. He kneads your thigh before pushing it to the side, letting it drape off the edge of the couch and opening you up further to him. Cillian’s fingers brush against your hardening clit like it’s the most delicate thing in the world, making you tremble as you grunt from the sensual feeling.

“Please,” you sigh, your hips jerking up when Cillian pulls his hand away.

“Please, what?”

“Touch me, Cill. God, I need you to touch me.”

Cillian strokes your entrance with his index finger, gathering your wetness before dragging it up to your clit. He circles the bundle of nerves slowly, making you whine above him. 

“So wet already,” Cillian moans, “You’re so beautiful.”

You throw your head back against the arm of the couch when Cillian finally replaces his finger with the tip of his tongue, going around and around the sensitive bud, never coming directly in contact with it. He changes his mind about that and starts to lap at your clit, flicking his tongue over it as his fingers travel back to your now-dripping entrance. Cillian hums in satisfaction at the feeling of your arousal seeping out of you at his expense. He flattens his tongue and licks a fat stripe up your slit before swirling his tongue around your clit, his tongue still flat and giving your entire bundle of nerves attention. Cillian probes you with a single finger, pushing it in as you moan his name. He pumps it in and out of you, curling it against your g spot with every thrust. He adds a second finger, and the sound of your wetness grows louder, mixing with your breathy moans and Cillian’s pants. 

“Say my name again,” Cillian bites his lip, watching as his soaked fingers move in and out of you.

“Cillian,” you whine, moving your hips along with his fingers.

“That’s right, fuck yourself on my fingers, darling,” he says, adding a third finger in you.

To say you‘re a mess is an understatement. You need Cillian inside you, as your walls are clenching around his fingers with desperation. You grab his shirt, “Fuck me, please.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Cillian smirks, lifting his shirt off his lean body before standing up to tug his pants and underwear down and off his legs. 

Cillian teases your clit with his leaking head before lining himself up with you. He looks at you with an unsure expression, and you nod in response to the unspoken question. He slowly pushes himself into you, your warmth already fluttering around him. Cillian guides himself all the way to his hilt, letting out a throaty groan when he feels his entire length surrounded by your velvety walls. His hands run up and down your abdomen, stopping when he palms over your breasts. They’re still sensitive from the previous activity and your growing arousal, causing you to wriggle when Cillian’s fingers deftly pinch at both your nipples as he slowly pulls himself almost out of you entirely before slamming back into you. You cry out, your hands flying to where his back meets his shoulders, nails digging softly into his flesh. Cillian moans when you clench harshly around him when he tugs at your nipple particularly hard. 

“You like these pretty titties to be played with, huh?” Cillian runs his tongue along his bottom lip as he watches your face twist in pleasure when he pulls at the sensitive skin.

You nod, but he lets go of your breasts, running his hands over your body before his hand snakes between the two of you, rubbing tight circles on your clit. You let out a throaty moan, and Cillian curses under his breath as his hips snap against yours at a steady rhythm. 

“Fuuuuck,” you drawl, eyes rolling into the back of your head as your body heaves into the couch from the velocity of Cillian’s perfect cock slamming into you without mercy, “You feel so good inside of me.”

You push Cillian up and off you, shoving him onto the couch behind him. You climb on his lap, throwing your legs over his thighs as you line him back up with your aching cunt. Feeling him stretch you out completely while at a different angle makes you moan uncontrollably as you set a pace, riding Cillian as if your life depended on it. Your ass slaps his hips as he guides them up and down, thrusting into you dead-on. Cillian’s tip hits your cervix flawlessly, and you feel that tightness in your belly. 

“Cum inside me, Cillian,” you swivel your hips, “Fill me up and make me yours.”

“Gonna cum around my cock first?” Cillian’s lips are swollen from incessantly biting as he watches you fuck yourself on him.

You decide you’ll milk him for all he’s got and lean down to land a bruising kiss on his lips. Both of you pant into each other’s mouths as you near your peak, reaching underneath you to flick your clit. Cillian grips your ass as you feel yourself unravel, your orgasm ripping through you. Your walls cave in on CIllian’s length, causing him to reach his own orgasm before he’s ready. He squirms underneath you as you continue to bounce on his cock, coaxing every drop of cum out of him. 

“Fuck,” Cillian exhales as he runs a hand through his sweaty hair, looking just as fucked out as you.

You lay down on his chest, him still inside you. He doesn’t bother moving either; the feeling of you still cloaked around him made him dizzy. Cillian is still trying to wrap his head around how this is real. He also is trying to figure out where to go from here. He’s terrified of telling you his true feelings for you, fearing you won’t want to be friends anymore. Obviously, tonight the dynamic has changed from just friendship between the two of you. 

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for that,” you trace shapes into Cillian’s bare chest, peering up at him when he doesn’t answer. 

He appears deep in thought.

“Everything okay?” you ask, furrowing your eyebrows at the man underneath you.

Cillian nods, his hand finding your hair before stroking it softly, “Just thinking.”

“About?” you rest your chest on his collarbone.

“How much I’d like to do this again,” Cillian says, and you chuckle.

“That can be arranged,” you leave a kiss on his neck, his eyes meeting yours through his eyelashes.

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship, though,” Cillian says worriedly.

“You haven’t ruined anything. And I’ve had just as much to do with this as you,” you say, putting your finger under Cillian’s chin to look at him directly, “You’re still my best friend.”

“And you’re fine with whatever this is?”

“It’s the best of both worlds,” you shrug with a smile. 

Cillian moves to sit up against the couch's armrest still sheathed inside you. And as you start yet another make out session and begin to rock your hips with your walls still hugging his cock, you try not to think. The idea that you must hide your feelings for Cillian even more is hard to wrap your mind around.

But little did you know, he was having the same problem. He tries not to think about it as he thrusts into you sloppily, letting you ride him as you please. 

—

“Jesus, shit!”

“God, you’re so fucking drenched. All of this for me?”

“Uh-huh,” you whimper, letting out a pornographic moan as one of Cillian’s hands holds your swollen cunt open while the other rubs at it vigorously.

“Just like that-” Cillian moans at the sounds you’re letting out, “Need you to cum on my face, pretty thing.”

You cry out, rocking your hips against Cillian’s merciless hand as it flies across your pussy with no sign of stopping. He pokes out his middle finger to catch your clit with every swipe of his hand. Your orgasm explodes in your stomach, your core gushing cum as Cillian hurries to dip his face down. He latches his mouth onto your cunt, flicking his tongue over your bundle of nerves, causing you to squirt again. 

“Fuuuck,” you squeal, your hands gripping Cillian’s hair like a vice.

Cillian can’t get enough. He’s not gonna lie, he thinks he’s absolutely obsessed with making you squirt. He could do it all night and still get off at the sight. Cillian laps at your pussy, spreading his tongue around your folds, stimulating the sensitive area further.

“Cill, I’m gonna cum again,” you warn, but Cillian just keeps his eyes closed as he sneaks two fingers inside you.

His fingertips brush against your g spot and send you over the edge a third time, and Cillian’s nipping at your clit causes you to gush again. You were slightly embarrassed but incredibly turned on by it. And you know Cillian is relishing in it, literally and figuratively. He pulls away from you, a little reluctantly, and wipes his mouth and face with the back of his arm. You grab his face and pull him into you as he collapses on your naked, heaving chest. You stare at Cillian, the light from the side table’s lamp shining into his eyes just right. They’re returning to an arctic blue as his heart rate calms, his pupils going back to normal size. Cillian stares back at you, studying your features just as you are his. Freckles sprinkle Cillian’s cheeks and nose, dotting along his forehead and chin as well. His lips are red and swollen, and he’s sporting a lopsided smile as he looks at you. 

“You’re perfect,” you whisper, combing your fingers through his hair, “Literally everything you do, say, and how you look is just flawless. Are you sure you aren’t an angel?” you joke.

A smile spreads upon Cillian’s face as his cheeks tinge pink, the warmth traveling to his ears, “I’m not perfect by any means, and no, I’m not an angel,” he says, his accent thick and raspy from the previous exertion. 

“Mmm, I’m not sure about that,” you say as CIllian softly kisses your neck.

God, I love you, you want to say. Because you do; you love him. You always have, but sharing such intimate moments with Cillian has just strengthened the feeling you already had. You’re honestly exhausted but still blissed out from Cillian going absolutely feral on you. You have never squirted before, and if you could, you’d let him make you squirt all night. You’d watch as your arousal covers his pretty face, delighting him much like it did earlier. Cillian looked like a kid in a candy store as you gushed for him. 

“I’ve never squirted before, so,” you mutter, covering your face with your hands, “Yeah, I’d consider that angelic.”

“Really?” Cillian asks incredulously, “Never? Not even by yourself?”

“Especially not by myself,” you chuckle, uncovering your face to look at Cillian, “You’re better than any vibrator or dildo I own.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Cillian bites your jaw playfully before reaching down and grabbing the duvet, covering the both of you with it.

He rolls off you, much to your dismay. But he immediately pulls you into his chest, holding you tightly with his arms as if you’ll disappear. Cillian slides a leg between yours, his knee pressed against you softly. He rubs his nose against your ear, “Still wet, pretty?”

“Shut up,” you mutter shyly, burying your face in his arms.

“Only if you make me,” Cillian teases you, nipping at your earlobe.

You groan, “Too tired,” you feel Cillian’s hand travel down your navel to gauge how wet you still are, “I don’t think I can move.”

“Who said you had to move?” Cillian asks, pulling your thigh up until your leg is draped over his hip, spreading you open for perfect access.

Before you can ask him to touch you, Cillian lines his length up with your still-needy cunt. You’re surprised you had any remainder of horniness left in you. But there’s something about Cillian that naturally turns you on. You’ve noticed it’s gotten more intense now that he’s your sexual partner. It’s like you can’t get enough of him, and he can’t get enough of you, either. Cillian nudges his tip into you before letting it glide in without a hitch. The way you’re laying makes the angle at which he’s inside of you feel irresistible. You let Cillian play with your still-sensitive clit as his hips snap into your ass. His hot, heavy breath is in your ear as he fucks you slowly. You toss your arm behind you, grabbing the back of Cillian’s neck for leverage as you turn your head around. His lips meet yours hungrily, and he swallows your guttural moans as you fuck yourself on his cock. Cillian’s other hand snakes from underneath you, his fingers wrapping around your throat. He doesn’t press them into your skin but lets them rest there, almost possessively. 

You’ve been exploring each other’s bodies ever since the first night you had sex- trying different angles and positions. But you told Cillian that you didn’t want anything rough. That was reserved for a romantic relationship. Cillian felt a twinge of hurt in his chest when you said that, as if you had meant you weren’t planning on a romantic relationship with him specifically. But he understood and respected your boundaries despite his weird sadness about not being able to do certain things with you. Cillian thought it odd because you were not his, so he had no right to hurt you consensually or mark you as his. So, he shouldn’t be so upset about it. Yet he is because he wants you to trust him with everything you have, and he wants to take care of you after the roughness. Cillian wants you to be taken care of. But he knows his limits and that he can’t break the rules of the friends-with-benefits situation. So Cillian doesn’t choke you during sex, or slap you, or kiss you outside the bedroom- especially in public. He bites his tongue every time you do something that melts his heart. He refrains from saying those three little words every day. Cillian has no idea how much you wished he would break the rules just once or how you wished he’d say he loves you. 

Something comes over you, though. You reach a hand up and cover Cillian’s that is on your neck and press his fingers into the sides of your throat. You sigh contently as your head becomes cloudy from the lack of blood flow to your head. Cillian stops rubbing your clit and takes your hand from over his, slipping his fingers between yours and pinning it in front of you.

You whimper in detest, and Cillian nips at the skin behind your ear, “Naughty thing. Don’t break your own rules, sweetheart.”

You sigh in defeat, but before you can pout, a moan rips through your chest. Cillian pushed your clave up into your thigh, thus making it easier for him to ram his cock against your cervix in a way that sends stars floating across your vision. Your hand squeezes his as you feel your release creeping up.

“I’m gonna cum,” you whisper, watching as Cillian’s length moves in and out of you quickly.

It was erotic yet romantic, him being so close to you and inside you. You and Cillian are now one, but you wish things were different. 

“Good,” Cillian kisses the back of your neck, his nose drawing circles in your skin delicately.

You breathe deeply, feeling your stomach clench. You cry out Cillian’s name as you unravel, his fingers pressing to your clit. Your body trembles and shakes as he continues his assault on the bundle of nerves, still chasing after his own high as he keeps thrusting into you. Your back arches, toes curling as another wave of pleasure hits you. 

“You’re doing so good, angel,” Cillian praises in your ear, “Taking my cock so well. I’m almost there, just hold on.”

The feeling of Cillian exploding inside you sends you over the edge for the third and final time. Stars erupt behind your eyelids, your body convulsing from pleasure. Your pussy clenches around him as he rides out his orgasm, panting in your ear. He almost doesn’t hear you say it. Almost.

“Fuck, I love you,” you whine quietly.

You gasp, immediately realizing what’s slipped from your mouth in a shroud of cloudy pleasure. But you hide your gasp as you catch your breath, inhaling and exhaling sharply. You pray to whatever is out there that Cillian didn’t hear you proclaim your feelings in a vulnerable moment.

Cillian grunts as he pulls out of you, letting your leg go limp and relax back on the bed. He keeps his hand entangled with yours. But you pull your grasp out of his, turning around and facing him. You hurriedly bury your face in his chest so you can’t look at him and see how he’s possibly reacting to your words. Cillian wordlessly wraps his arms around you, pulling you even closer to him. You fight the urge to cry at the silence of the dimly lit room as Cillian tugs the duvet over your sweaty, naked bodies. You try and steady your breath and keep your heart from racing.

“Can you say it again?” Cillian finally asks after several minutes of dead silence.

You lift your head from his chest, looking at him confused, “Say what?”

Cillian looks at you seriously before lifting his hand to touch your face gingerly, “What you said a moment ago.”

“You didn’t hear that, did y-”

“I did. But I want you to say again.”

Tears brim your eyes as you feel heaviness in your chest- will he make fun of you? Did you just ruin everything?

You let out a choked sob, hiding your face in his neck, “I love you. I fucking love you. There, I said it,” you slam your fist against his chest. “Feel free to hate me, but it’s true.”

“I could never hate you, gorgeous,” Cillian pulls away from you, his hands grabbing your cheeks so you’re looking directly at him.

His eyelashes flutter against your cheekbones, much like they did the first time you kissed him weeks ago. You blink away your tears, but Cillian wipes them away with his thumbs.

“I love you too,” Cillian confesses, “I love you so much. You know that?”

Your lips tremble as you nod, but Cillian presses his forehead against yours, and you try to ground yourself. He loves you. Cillian loves you back. Cillian kisses your lips gently as if he’d break you. You grasp his hair, kissing him back passionately.  

“I love you,” you say, pulling away from his lips and kissing his eyelids instead.

“I love everything about you,” you brush your lips across his cheeks, then kiss his nose, “Your angel kisses. Your beautiful eyes. Everything about you. I wasn’t lying when I said you’re perfect.”

Cillian laughs, and you melt at his smile.

“You,” Cillian says, “Are everything to me. Everything that brings me joy, everything that makes me happy.”

You wrap your arms around Cillian’s neck, pulling him close to you as you tuck your face into his neck.

“Never let go,” Cillian says, his arms snaking around your waist and holding you close.

“I won’t,” you say, a heaviness lifting from your chest at last, “I never will.”

taglist:

@baizzhu @aporiasposts @hjmalmed @queenshelby @amanda08319 @naty-1001 @orijanko @raineeace @nela-cutie @cutexlr @flwrs4aust @langdons-slut @shynovelist

[comicaurora]

Congratulations on finishing Arc 1! I've been following this comic since pretty much the beginning (I remember when everyone thought Alinua was a cat girl because of how her ears looked under her hood). This comic has come a long way since then, and it's been a pleasure and inspiration to watch your journey!

So with Arc 1 done, how do you feel? Any thoughts about the early days of the comic, or some lessons you've learned? What are you most looking forward to in Arc 2?

(Side note- thank you for Erin. My brain chews on him regularly and I gave a presentation on him in speech class. He brings me immense joy)

Whoof! I feel like it's slowly sinking in, tbh. I'm pretty bad at appreciating my own accomplishments - I have a tendency to Fire And Forget to avoid getting bogged down by "oh I'd have done this better now" or "eek I don't like how I did that" or "oh no this aged badly" or "what if I just redid it but Better this time" - but I've gotten better at accepting all those things as Not The End Of The World and they do not make me a Bad Artist or Bad Person, and as a result, I'm able to look back and just be happy about this one. It's an odd feeling.

At some point in the last several chapters I decided the ending of Arc 1 needed to feel like a conclusion. Not a full series finale, but a season finale. Character arcs needed to hit points of resolution; setup needed to pay off; cool moves needed to get some airtime. It's not in my nature to end stories, but as I worked on this arc I got comfy with the idea that an ending wasn't mechanically locking in the last part of a story and saying Nothing Past This Point, it was resolving the major elements of the story that cried out for completeness. Stories can have many endings before they're actually done, and in order for Arc 1 to feel like a complete thing, I knew it needed to bring those dangling plot threads home.

The fun thing about resolving chunks of the plot is those resolutions open the door for entirely new problems, and I'm excited to play with those! Part of why I wanted to make sure I had the rest of the year off was so I could take my time and just sit in the new status quo, because freeform creative idea-spinning is my favorite part of the writing process, and it's a rare treat for me to have such a wide-open swath of possibility ahead of me.

[beclight]

hopping along, Sparklecare doodle requests are also open to brighten the mood a little!<3

Huge ass yap under cut tldr fuck you need kittycorn you backstabbed your fans

i am sure everyone has gotten the news, so i wont go too in details here. However, Sparklecare has been outed as being full of incest - more specifically the CometCare AU - and i cannot just say nothing and support that

I know kc is a survivor of those things, and needing to exteriorize i can understand. but hiding it? hiding extreme-lenghs incestuous relationships in the root of a webcomic you allowed minors to read??? (for a year and a half for cc, over 8 for sch)?? while ACTIVELY lying to your fanbase about being grossed out by it?? I am so i so unbelievably upset by the fact my biggest hyperfixation of over two years now was just filled to the brim with incest in the backstage by an undercover proshipper. i was never into cc like i was into Sch (even though i really did like it at first, up until the WWW arc), but some of the characters with the most incest to their names were my faves and now I can't even lay my eyes on sly without having goosebumps (- and haven't been able to for around a month.)

Kittycorn, you built a community of traumatized individuals. you comics were supposed to be emotional outlets where learning how to get out and deal with trauma healthily is the main subject. You have a fandom of pretty young people (14-21 for the most part), which are not only vulnerable due to their ages but also due to the traumatic experiences they may have gone through for sparklecare to resonate with them, and be a comfort to them. You betrayed us. you betrayed all of us. How did you think there was any way this was going to end well?? genuinely. I've seen three people threaten to harm or end themselves in the past 12hours, so please tell me how did you look at your community full of vulnerable low-mentalhealth people, mostly children, who relied on the "comfort" stories you had to tell to get over their traumatic experiences and went "yup. let's fetishize and encourage half my fanbase's traumas in the backstage!"

Overall, as much as i despise kittycorn now and am filled to the gut with rage thinking about all of this, i in all honesty doubt i will stop posting about sparklecare entierely. this hyperfixation is a too much important chunk of my identity now, i am not exaggerating when i say it would take years to undo it's effects on me. i guess this will be one of those msi/omori/okegom situations where the fandom enjoys the final product on their own away from the creator and they all secretly want them off the internet and in therapy forever. Plus its not like i interacted with the main tag a lot anyway. if you don't want to keep on posting about this comic because you feel betrayed, thats fine! best of luck on your next journey <3 if you still want to stay, hell yeah, this is our comic now! ill see y'all over at #sperklacera (damn that offbrand tag has never come more handy lmao) we fans are the only thing we have left for each other, and you guys deserve art of your faves that wasn't made by someone that secretly drools on 70's parent x 10yo child relationships. We've all we got now.

Oh and, most importantly: Fuck you Kittycorn

[angellurgy2]

Hiveship

hii! this is the 1st and 2nd chapter of my new story, as a little show of whats to come when i make it a full-length book.

cw for bug rape but like, its also just an introduction to deeper non/sexual ways the bugs will destroy this girl's soul. you'll see!

i'd appreciate if people checked this out/gassed it up because i've worked reallyyy hard on this for a bit ^-^

CHAPTER 1

A live wire sparks as loretta reaches a gloved claw inside the open electrical box, her digits blunted by her heavily plated and padded, alabaster white cosmonaut suit. she roots around the active electricity, scraping out chunks of the greenish-brown sludge growing in its crevices- the same mysterious viscous slime that’s been popping up in parts across her starship over and over the past few weeks. her theories ranged from an excremetal expulsion of an unidentified space object, to some disgraceful cosmonaut’s trash finding its way into her ship’s vents.

she clicks the button for the analyzing tool of her protective visor, closely examining the fluid. long thin wires splay across all sections of the large junction, leaving burning hot indents in the thick substances that feel like way too much of a fire risk. looking at the wires, spread out in patterned parallels like gigantic spider-webs, an anxious tinge of fear strikes her. don’t fall in, don’t get caught- robots don’t need any more prey. not that you’re prey. you aren’t.

she flicks her visor back off, worried her sweat might fog up the the visor, and continues swiping the rest of the gunk into a bin.

all clean, she fixes the fuses back into place before immediately making her way back over to the equipment corridor to hang up her suit. on the way she passes vibrant posters of mechanical cross-section diagrams, detailed anatomy drawings of every variety of species she could scavenge, and historical propaganda posters. it was a nice splash of existence inside a clinical minimalist coating. 

lounging in the cabin suite on her sofa, she flips her state-provided entertainment console to the galactic news. on-screen a suited, pristine looking woman takes the centre stage behind a stretched out desk. her voice is calm and analytical, with a hint of soft sympathy that can’t be hidden no matter how hard of a professional facade they must put on.

“News from the pandora planets have finally reached the internal core, revealing devastating effects of the latest assault campaign from the exoskeletal hives, multiple colonies’ messengers have reported complete razing of ground and sub-ground infrastructure, with several not appearing for the census at all. the URSS military and all commune bioships have retreated back to pantheon-V for rehabitation before a pandora counter-takeover can be attempted.”

Loretta shudders. the exoskeletals have been advancing deeper into URSS territory much faster than ever before, the fact that the state hasn’t been able to put a stop to it—and that the threat has only gotten more aggressive—makes sweat begin to pour down her head. if she was doing a term with the forces or part of a commune science crew she’d probably be worried for her life right now. thankfully, her ship was currently flying safely in one of the middle systems, relaxing in orbit of an abandoned desert world after recently coming back from a call of excursion to the outer worlds. she always enjoyed the quiet of minimal space travel and the utter lack of civilization when she gazed down upon a world, so this has been her favourite spot to reside for a long while. from the cabin module’s glass wall she can see such stark vistas of sandy mountain ranges, demarcating the most beautiful fields of gigantic outstretching spiny cactus.

with a loud buzz the tv automatically switches to the nightly Sallite news segment, where they broadcast the most important of state propaganda to every television set at 8pm local time. with an exasperated sigh she turns the volume all the way down to 1, takes off her grey tank, and throws herself into her cushioney bed. a switch on the wall next to the alloy headboard turns on the room’s surround sound to a soft pitter of forested rainfall, and she falls asleep in a matter of seconds.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Loretta awakes to the foreign sound of a sloppy wriggling near the floor by the end of her bed. jerking upright, she quickly slides into the suit boots she had laid at the side of her bed, strapping them tight, and moves to examine the intruder. 

a pulsating green slime slides itself across the floor, leaving a small trail of slightly transparent lime goo behind it. loretta kneels to look at it closer. she could swear it’s looking right back at her- though without any obvious eyes or features of its own. it excretes another loud squelching sound and fires off a copper-smelling mist around it, some of which sprays directly into loretta’s face causing her to wince and tear up at the dense cloud of smell. she reflexively slams her booted heel down into the creature, stomping through its gelatinous body.

she attempts to swiftly scrape the thing off her heel,, but the flattened slime spreads to encase her entire boot before she can even look down at it. when she does, she sees sticky lime green half-translucent goo coating the suit metal like adhesive, excreting a slight burning odour. loretta throws her leg around trying to eject the subject, but only manages to trip over herself, tumbling to the thick panelled floor with a resounding thud. 

on her back she watches with wide terrified eyes as the slime continues to slowly expand up her limb. it should be stretching itself out fully by now, but it seems to have an infinite amount of mass to express over her. some kind of anomalous entity from deep space? but how would it have gotten this deep into the middle systems? a new wormhole would’ve been reported immediately, and the nearest systems are all too well-inhabited. the gears turn in her head, clearly rusted over, struggling to think of a potential scientific hypothesis. by the time she breaks out of her clouded monologue and thinks to stop analyzing, the slime has already subsumed her entire left leg, grasping spreading tiny green tendrils grappling for the next part, which is fully uncovered by the comforting protection of the URSS engineer corps. she struggles to force herself away by clawing into the floor, but the slime seems to have extra weight to pin her leg down. such a little creature, overpowering her so easily- it must be alien. she doesn’t stop struggling even if it pins her utterly. if she could just get to the corner and grab her piece she could-

her scrabbling eyes find themselves staring at the cabin’s ceiling vent. a thick bile-like grey sludge seeps down from the cracks, forcing her to hurry. loretta shoves her hand into the green slime against her better judgement, trying to peel it off like one of her mother’s gelatin molds. her hands try to slide underneath it but they find themselves struggling to push against an unmovable solid, far away from the gravyesque consistency it had before. then she feels her legs, or rather, feels the lack of feeling of her legs. when she tries to move them, she cant even muster a shake, lower half pinned to the floor, not even pins or needles remaining. it doesn’t stop her relentless pushing and attempts to pull herself out by her arms, but she might as well be an amputee at this point. like one of those UOA prisoners of war from back in the day, laser neutered to be nothing but working hands for the Authority’s machines.

unable to get away from the oncoming deluge, lorreta realizes it must be relent or die. and so she does, shutting her eyes tight and curling her lips inward together like the anti-parasitites’ studies have taught her. though this wasn’t the typical annalidesque parasite commonly found in the outer cosmos, or a parasite at all for all she knows, it’s the best her dizzy mind can handle. and as she feels the sludge’s drip touch down on her estrogenated skin, it succeeds in helping stop it from flowing inside her eyes. she can feel it coat the skin tight, like a face mask but smelling of wood and suffocating and lively probing at her pores, blocking her vision black with its opaque body.

the sludge now dispensed, loretta senses a chance and attempts to pry the mask off of her. blindly groping for a free spot by her neck and sliding her unkempt nails under it and into the disgusting goo. it feels like a cadaver from anatomy class under her fingers, diving into the fat and peeling away the outer layer. but this corpse has undergone rigor mortis, and loretta’s attempts to peel it off go only slightly better than with the green thing, lifting an inch before it slaps itself back on even tighter. her second attempt goes even worse, her arms starting to feel numb and anaesthetized. she lifts her arms to fight but she cant feel the texture of what she touches anymore, and then the viral limpness travels to the rest of her motor function, and they flop uselessly at her sides. no part of her body responding to her brains frenzied orders to move, the most she can do is flail inside.

she pictures Andromeda-ZE in her mind’s eye, emotionally travelling to the place she spent most her childhood. she’s running through the market, the most well-known place in the capital, excitedly waving at family friends and commune teachers like she’s a kid again, so happy, so free, so ignorant. red and yellow and orange colours shine bright on the market stalls, sand and wood structures stand beautifully tall around her, everything is even more beautiful than it was when she was young. the wind on her cheeks as she runs makes her glow with a safety she doesn’t feel in the atmospheric void in space. not far ahead she spots her unit hut, and ramps up her speed. in a minute of invigorating sprint, she makes it to the large aspen door, knocking 5 times. she hears several light footsteps trot up and bounces with excitement. the door slowly creeps open… 

and a hulking nurse bug towers over her. its mandibles chitter, the egg sack on its back wiggles, and its claws rub together in front of its chest. she looks into the creature’s eyes and sees a thousand mirrors staring back at her. she screams muffled into the slime gag, jolting away from the colour behind her eyelids, and back into the void in front of them. instead of trying to push inside like loretta assumed, the sludge begins to creep into the part of her eye socket above her lids, pushing with prying hair-like digits. her heart cramps, and she can feel her heavy perspiration being immediately absorbed by the material the second it drips.  she doesn’t want to close her eyes, doesn’t want to see the bugs that close again- the spindling inner legs, the slimey chitin, vision of swarms of exoskeletals charging her squad flash through her, all she wants to do is scream but all it does is wear out the last muscles she can work. but she can’t stop, she wails banshily, reverberating in her own skulll. and then she can’t manage to hold her eyes open any longer.

the jointed arthropod returns, fully subsuming her soul. 

“it’s okay, sweet darling Lore, we are here now” it speaks in her mothers voice. sweet and soothing.

CHAPTER 2

loretta wakes up in a stasis vat, her body floating in air like oil. green biofluid drenches her skin, manufactured nutrients flooding her organs, keeping her fed and stable. she smiles, thinking back to her first spacewalk, bounding into the open cosmos with footless steps. she kicks her foot up, sending herself into an airy backflip. her mouth opens on its own and takes in a load of the fluid. it tastes like the earth pineapples her mothers would trade for on her birthdays. she has to figure out what this is when she’s out of here. and by the looks of her motor functions, she’ll be out of this in no time. 

* * *

she awakes groggily inside of another vat. there’s no more fluid, but something similar sticks to every inch of her skin. the walls of steel have turned into a coffinesque cocoon, fleshy and aboreal brown and wriggling with her movements. yet as she attempts to push herself backwards, her hands still find themselves scraping cold metal. she sees how some light manages to seep through the cracks of the chitinous chamber, and prods at the squishy folds where the tiny glowing rays strike, poking through an inch or two of foreign flesh before her fingertips feel air. bio vat? or some sort of.. metamorphosis chamber? she can’t remember how she got here, or when she signed up for such a procedure. she needs to find someone before she gets stuck. she lifts her moist lips to one of the little holes and screams out a plea for help. she manages to fit another finger out, and begins trying to spread open the breach when she’s stopped by someone’s cold fingers pulling hers. one of the scientists, or guards? 

the person outside pulls on loretta’s hand hard and she feels her light body raise up to the roof of her confines. despite her reaching the walls, they keep going, tugging forcing painful friction between her bare limbs and the meaty hide. in a few short, supernatural pulls she is burst through the sac entirely, getting to see chunks of what appears to be sinew and slime splattering the surroundings as she flies through antigravital space and crashes hard into a familiar wall.

HISSSSSSSTHH

innumerous spindly brown limbs bringing fading memories of phasmid anatomy charts stretch out across the polished floor and walls now brutally scattered with keepsake and furniture debris, looking like abstract blobs in loretta’s slime coated vision. blobs which are constantly being absorbed upwards into the air by twitchy movements. loretta grasps at the wall behind her, pulling herself away from the enormous creature. 

slamming into the far wall, she attempts to reach for where her dresser should be, where her trusty sidearm should be awaiting its imminent retrieval. then she remembers the lack of gravity. 

it was a stupid idea to make a grav switch so accessible. she never even uses it, and humans are the only creature out in this abyss who are weak to its pull. stupid stupid stupid. she tries to look for it in the debris but can’t make it out through all the other white and grey blobs. 

in the room, a few brown splotches stand out, utterly foreign to the ship’s shade-based palette. she stares closer, and even more seem to appear. the black space where the open door leads to dark corriders begins spewing them  out en masse until at least two dozen of them scatter across the floors walls and ceiling of the cabin, staring right back into her with beady pinpricked eyes. 

a bug pounces, its thin limbs pinning loretta hard. the hair on its tarsi scrape across her bare arms jolting goosebumps up her entire body. its membranal underside presses up close, making her shake with unease as its squishy segmented body rubs against her and coats her with an inky discharge well familiar to her after multiple campaigns. 

click, click, click, click. clinking mandibles together, like a hungry and petulant child. antennae rub against her ears, just then noticing their dulling by a xenotic wax substance. yet the vile hissing of a group of specially angered freaks still deafens. 

searing pain transports into her flesh. she screams but a sludgey backup in her windpipe stops everything but the vibration. loretta looks down at the thick brown apical claw stuck inches deep in her side. a gaping void begins a slow seeping of crimson.  another of the blobs quickly dashes into her view, bursting into definition as it pops up at the wound’s side. the same black liquid that drapes over her skin begins to leak out of its open mouth-thing, mixing and diluting the blood until the cut is naught but a thick black wall subsuming a portion of her outer thigh. 

she looks forward again as a twinge of neck pain insults her for forgetting herself, and sees the first roach reaching its body upwards. a yonic hole in its abdomen begins to slowly invert, while a large black tendril reaches out of the now-extremity and fluidly twirls itself around loretta’s leg, dripping ichor all the way.

she’d never gotten this close to one of the breeders before, to the point she didn’t even recognize their exotype until now. as far as she knew, they stayed deep inside the tunneled grounds of the hive worlds, fucking like lagomorphs to appease their queens and ever-outbreed the URSS’s onslaughts. and yet, here they are.

the appendage flicks into loretta’s belly, proding at and pushing inside her navel cavity. it feels almost like she’s being licked by a pet dog, or it would if it wasn’t by a fucking bug. the creature tries to push forward past the inch-deep space and is swiftly yanked back in turn, reaching the end of its rope. loretta sighs. if they can’t even reach her then the worst they could probably do is-

the tentacle prods at a lower place before a concept can reach her nerves. a deserted, forgotten plateau, a space too human for her to accept. sliding over a smooth ravine, wet shocks drive up her legs. coiling atrocity digs into her malleable dirt like the hills in pandora. she screams like she imagines it must. though the terror speaks in soft, writhing texture, and not pain. pandora and i, sister bodies- desecrated in twain.

she turns her head to the room’s one window. beyond the hexagonal plasteel frame, one of the last things held up through the chaos, halcyon skies stretch out for infinity- vistas of beautiful achromatic calm broken only by dots of terrestrial colour. an anaerobic dead zone, where nothing except calm would subsume her. devour her. she yearns to feel that cold blanket take her now. she dreams of the window bursting open, space gaining pressure the glass wasn’t ready for, and ripping them all out with it. she dreams of mom bursting through the door gun in hand. she dreams of simply disappearing from all being. 

from above her head slithers another pair of mandible and trio of forceps, digging into her budding chest. a sparse pink miasma sprays across her vision, and she’s stumbled out of her wonder by a furious coughing fit rising in her trachea, and finally taking off some of the adhesive coating her throat alongside it. she tries to look back outside and the claws digging deeper just force her gaze right back. her eyes glaze over with water and, unable to wipe the sleeves away, it drowns her. it fills her mouth until her muscles strain, spread taught like an epithelial fingertrap. she cant help but cough more, painfully clenching on the foreign object sliding deeper inside using her windpipe as a transistor to her weak points.

beige meat squishes up against her face, phantom sensations of a man’s stomach thrusting. it should never have been able to get more evil than that. how did they put human’s cruelty into animals, was it taught? more inches of squishish meat force the thought from her shrouded head. her tears taste like ink. maybe they like it that way.

Lorettas’s hull stretches with fullness and terror. she cant see it, but she can feel it bulging her front extremitously. it feels like the two tendrils will soon meet in the middle. she shudders in fear and feels them swirl inside her as punishment. 

she feels a slight relent, and her thoughts finally losing their haze. the creatures in front of her thrust backwards through the air, and the twisting coiling tentacles whorl their way out like a pullcord. again she has to feel the thing climb her hole, leaving a painful space where there used to be nothing, unable to go back to nothing. it is ashamed and sobbing in it’s own. what a bipolar old lady you are, where is your rage?

his voice forces itself inside of her. look what you’ve done. ruined and irreparable. you must’ve loved it. you and your little bug fascination. maybe if you didn’t spend your time with abominations, you wouldn’t have become one. 

she screams back. it’s not too late, i don’t love them. he’ll never control me again, i’ve carved so much into the world, i won’t let myself be belittled. you’re smart, they’re miniscule- a surprise assault shows their utter lack of strength. i’ll kill them all if i have to. i’ll prove it, i will.

she tries to open her eyes again and sees, stained by pink clouds floating in her sclera, a huge mutated insectoid towering behind the others. a large dynastinaen horn displays ignorant ideas of its strength above its excitedly quivering mandibles. or perhaps the exoskeletals have no need for concepts of pride or egotism. perhaps hive mentality’s destroyal of the individual will always grant them an advantage. no thought of the victim- evil little creatures. no different than the evil of the Authority. no different than-

two blunt black mandibles thrust into her chest. the wind is crushed from her body before she can realize what’s happening. she is too dazed to look at the impact. her deflated cadaver is thrusted into the air, and carried,

her vision bobs up and down as swift twig limbs drag her forth without thought. station windows fly past her, blobs vaguely looking like her favourite posters lay scattered and sliced in pieces, slime staining them irreparable as it coats the floor. does their cruelty know no limits? was the destruction of her ship and her spirit not enough? the destruction of her people? will anything sway their pure evil? she wants to cry, but she’s already using all the tears her body can muster. 

black begins to gorge itself on the halls, the chunky whirring of automatic doors blares in her ears drowning out the chattering sounds of dozens of limbs. the hydraulics were a deeply familiar sound, one she had always cherished hearing. it felt like a reminder of the spacecraft’s life, always interacting to her existence, responding in kind noise whenever loretta’d root around fixing her insides. it was a comforting relationship, wonderful in its unconditionality.

now, her beautiful partner screamed red with anger. they destroyed her entrance too. the airlocks outer seal is burst open with what could fairly be assumed to be anti-ship cannons, if not for the claw marks and acid tainting it all. she looks through the inner seal, into the void where death surely awaits, her body has been so painfully torn and remade, that she can’t make herself put up a single limb to fight at the end. she imagines a blaster in her hand, and clenches its handle tight. then she opens her eyes, and her fingers havent moved an inch. 

then her face meets cold surface, jagged. then the green drapes grab onto her skin again. then her blood mixes with the green and turns the colour to the same rust she smelled in the air at the start. then she feels the perfectly held-at-average air of her beloved spaceship turn into cold freezing anguish of the outside. then she feels her body turn to nothing. then, she feels nothing at all.

[transfemme-shelterdog]

Other anon in the conversation again.

It has at this point been literal years of people fearmongering over transandrophobia believers/non-TRFs en mass becoming reactionary and hateful towards trans women/transfems and in the 5 or so years since this round of discourse started that has not happened and doesn't look like it's going to happen. At least not in the numbers people have been worried about.

The loud minority of people with bad opinions is always overrepresented, regardless of the topic, because a lot of people with more reasonable (and I'm sure some less reasonable) takes don't feel the need to put their thoughts out into the void.

Also most of the conversation I've seen about TRFs on 4chan recently has been in response to a screenshot where someone admitted to weaponizing accusations of transmisogyny against others in order to get away with being transphobic and hateful towards trans men and trans masculine folks more generally (the identity of the poster is implied to be transfem but people can lie on the internet so I'm not assuming when it's not certain and could easily just be someone trying to get people upset at trans women/transfems). I know a lot of people in my circles have had a strong reaction to that, because at this point it has been literal years (at least 5 that I can think of, this discourse has been happening since at least 2020 if not earlier) of accusations of transmisogyny being weaponized against other trans people to shut down conversations where people are trying to address ways in which trans women and/or transfems have been bigoted or caused harm.

Like a good chunk of the reason people aren't necessarily having the most well thought out responses to this because it is an acknowledgement, finally, after all this time, that we weren't actually crazy and TRFs have in fact been weaponizing accusations of transmisogyny to shut down valid critiques and gaslighting us about it the entire time. Like I know so many people who have gotten suicide baiting and death threats and generally harassing messages for supposedly being transmisogynistic, when the transmisogyny in question was them gently trying to inform a white trans woman that she was being racist, or ableist, or transphobic about a different group of trans people, I would not be surprised if some of those people are having bad takes as they're processing the information that at least some of the time the people who put them through so much pain and suffering knew what they were doing and were doing it on purpose. There's a good chance that that post was bait made to make people upset towards trans women/transfems, but it's framed as an acknowledgedment of something people have actually been dealing with and getting gaslit over, and when you've been gaslit you'll cling to any acknowledgment of reality that you can get. It's likely there's more bad takes going around than usual just from people reacting to the acknowledgement of the gaslighting.

Also because I find this helpful, the definition of gaslighting I'm using here is "abuse tactic in which an individual makes their victim/s feel as though they can't trust their own understanding of reality by repeatedly lying to them about reality and refusing to acknowledge reality around their victim/s".

All the more ironic when you realize that a go to insult against trans men is "birthday boy", meanwhile these radfems are doing the same shit they accuse trans men of.

"Oh no, I am just a poor little trans woman, you wouldn't be sexist towards a trans woman would you?"

[cursed-candlehop]

So remember that first meeting emmrook fic snippet from (checks watch) ... yesterday?

I got ~inspired~ so I jumped ahead, switched POV for a second, and wrote a little mishap during that final fight in the bell tower that ends... entirely too softly, lmao.

(bonus context: this is after Emmrich made the mistake of praising Rook's fighting skills earlier whereupon Rook, suddenly distracted by realizing some things about himself and praise, promptly fell down a flight of stairs. Poor guy's leaving a heckuva first impression...)

---

Emmrich could feel the blood drain from his face — there lay Rook, flat on his back with one arm outstretched above his head, his hand vanishing under a toppled statue. Emmrich could only guess how much one of these colossi might weigh, but he knew it was more than enough to turn the young elf's hand into unrecognizable pulp.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Rook hollered over, but his voice sounded strained. "At least I don't think it is. Can't get my hand free, though."

He squirmed, as if to demonstrate, and Emmrich couldn't help but grimace. If he'd broken anything...

"Just hold still, Rook," he shouted back and took off at a jog, "we're on our way."

He could hear Bellara run along slightly behind him.

Moments later, he knelt down on the floor next to Rook, taking stock of the situation. The young elf was breathing fast and trembling slightly, but given the sheen of sweat plastering his thick brown hair to his forehead, Emmrich assumed that was merely due to extertion. Rook's gaze, meanwhile, was calm and lucid, those bright, whiskey-brown eyes mustering Emmrich just as carefully as he was examining the elf.

"I think," Rook said into the tense silence, "the pedestal and shoulder of the thing caught most of its weight and there's just enough on my hand to pin it." A quiet, sharp gasp nestled in between soft, fast breaths.

"You're in pain," Emmrich noted and carefully pulled back Rook's sleeve on his pinned hand, trying to assess the damage as best he could.

"My hand hurts a little," Rook reluctantly volunteered, "and my shoulder's starting to cramp. Definitely been more comfortable in my life, but it's not... bone-crushing pain or anything. Just... real uncomfortable."

"How long have you been stuck like this?" Emmrich asked, extending his examination to the statue, trying to figure out if it was in one piece and safe to move.

"'Bout since I caught the rage demon's attention?" Rook replied. "Thankfully, the bell rang just when things started to get really dicey."

So, at least a minute or two during an active fight, maybe another minute afterward. An eternity, under the circumstances.

"I'm sorry, Rook, one of us should have noticed..."

"That's on me," the elf replied, just a little sheepishly, "I was trying not to draw attention to myself because I couldn't see how you were doing and didn't want to risk the demons taking advantage before you two managed to get here..."

That wasn't a choice Emmrich would've made, personally, but there was a certain logic to it at least.

"Bellara," he said, having judged the statue stable enough to move without losing any major chunks, "can you use your magic to lift the statue slightly? We don't need much, just enough to pull Rook free. And, Rook, don't move your hand until I've had a look at it, yes?"

"Alright," Rook said.

Bellara just hummed affirmatively. "Ready?" she asked.

"Ready," Emmrich and Rook confirmed.

The statue shifted, and Emmrich grabbed Rook and pulled him clear. With some maneuvering, he managed to lean the younger man against the stone banister encircling the central basin of the bell tower, and then reached over and carefully took his slender hand, keeping it steady and safe from further jostling. Somewhere at the edges of his perception, the statue shifted back down, and Bellara flitted over to the other side of the banister, leaning over it so she could observe everything from above.

Rook, meanwhile, had gotten his breathing under control and was now sitting very still, his eyes fixed on his hand like he needed to make sure it was still, in fact, attached. Which it was, and nothing looked obviously broken, but Emmrich's practiced eye could already see a few spots that would surely turn into an impressive collection of quite painful bruises before long. Besides, this didn't yet rule out less obvious fractures.

"I'm going to check if there are any small fractures," he informed Rook. "Tell me if anything hurts."

A quick, searching glance from under thick, long lashes (maker, the man's pretty, Emmrich thought idly before stopping that train of thought right in its tracks), and then Rook nodded quietly and Emmrich set to work — carefully feeling along each of the elf's delicate bones for less obvious misalignments and otherwise painful spots. Rook remained quiet, even as Emmrich could occasionally feel him flinch under his gentle touch.

"I asked you to tell me if something hurt," he gently remarked after a few flinches.

"This is barely discomfort, there's a difference," Rook replied, undaunted. Emmrich didn't try to argue with him — for now, anyway. For all the young elf's cheerful smiles and amicable demeanor, he got the distinct impression that any genuine trust would be a hard-earned, precious thing.

"Well, for what it's worth," he said finally, "so far I haven't found any obvious fractures. Would you mind trying to move your fingers for me?"

Rook did as he'd asked, but he did it without removing his wrist from Emmrich's gently steadying hold, which was a little unexpected. His movements were a little shaky, a little hesitant, but looked fluid and natural otherwise, with a nearly full range of motion. A good sign.

"Doesn't feel great," Rook admitted, "but it also doesn't feel broken."

"Agreed," Emmrich said. "I could work some healing magic, if you'd like."

"You can do that?"

"Within the usual confines of healing magic, yes," he explained. "I'm not a spirit healer —" not supposed to be, anyway "— but I do have some healing spells at my disposal. They're one of my specialties, if I do say so myself. You'd likely still feel sore for a while, but I can do something about the swelling at least."

"I'd appreciate it," Rook said, his tone a quiet admission that, for all his bravado, his hand probably really did hurt.

Emmrich gently covered Rook's hand with his, closed his eyes, focused, and reached for the energies of the fade, gently threaded it through damaged blood vessels and the swelling surrounding them. It took focus and a gentle touch, but he'd always relished in the work, even if his life had never taken him on a healer's path.

Several long, long moments later, he let the energies dissipate, and opened his eyes.

Rook was looking straight at him, his expression strangely unguarded, the slightest of smiles on those graceful lips.

"You really are exceptionally good at this," the elf said softly, gently removing his hand from Emmrich's loose hold and experimentally wiggling his fingers.

"Are you—" Emmrich began, but his voice cracked, genuinely surprising him. He hastily cleared his throat. "I mean, are you... hurt anywhere else?"

The tender moment popped like a soap bubble — gently, almost, but it was gone either way.

"No," Rook said. "No, I'm... I'm fine, thank you."

Given the young elf's earlier mishap, Emmrich seriously doubted that — but there'd been something so vulnerable about that moment just then, and he feared that, if he pushed Rook too far, he'd lose any opportunity to see the elf that unguarded again.

It wasn't his place to want to see Rook like that again.

Maker help him, he really wanted to see him like that again.

[sinning-23]

Glass Chandelier

Warnings; 18+ swearing, some hints at masturbation, buggy is a drama starter, sanji is failing at keeping his hands off your body.

Link to Chapter 3

Enjoy-

Chapter 4

"Wow, you got another one? Already?!" A fourth and more....irritating voice speaks.

You tense again, brows angled down. Firstly, who was speaking, and second what the hell did he mean another one?

"I mean at least she's not ditsy like the rest of you idiots."

You raise a brow at Sanji then the rest of the so-called crew. Zoro sighed heavily, taking the bag you hadn't seen previously off his hip and slamming it rather aggressively onto a barrel.

The reveal was far more interesting than you anticipated, a severed head adorned with a large red nose and a red and white striped bandanna. It beams up at you, the face paint around its lips only accentuating his cheshire grin. You mutter a light 'the fuck...', leaning in a bit to truly try and figure out what the hell you were looking at.

“Not too close sweetheart, I bite.” It wiggles its brows, the innuendo making you scoff.

“Dickless and still talkin'.” You shoot back. The clown head is quicker.

“My mouth can do plenty honey, trust me.” It flicks its tongue and...detaches it?!

Oh wow gross-

“Why are you even speaking right now? Unless you have something useful to say, shut up.” Zoro interrupts.

The clown head rolls its eyes and does an awkward hop/shuffle to turn and look at the map.

“This one knew where to go without me even saying anything. Which meannnss?”

You tense, shuffling back and forth a bit, truly debating if you should punch this thing in the mouth or, better yet square in the nose. That'd shut it up. At this point Zoro has his gaze locked on you, it's somewhat unreadable but serious no less. Next is Luffy, then Usopp, and lastly Sanji. Wow, staring contest of the goddamn century.

"She's obviously been there before and could even be working for the bastard. God you guys are stupid. If I were you I'd ask pretty crucial questions before just throwing any random board my ship."

Luffy is quiet, looking from the map, and then back to you.

"You're already dealing with the aftermath of that as we speak HA! You'll end up doing it again if you keep bringing these random broads. " The clown head speaks, that same grin on his face.

"Yeah well, it's not like the fishy bastard took a chunk out of this 'broads' shoulder. You were stuck in a fuckin bag for that part though, huh Ronald Mcdonald?" Ouhhh the irritation in your voice is wicked.

His jaw drops as he fiends offense. This jackass has been active for no more than 5 minutes and he's already worked his way under your skin. Speaking of which, it's practically melting off as the rest of your 'crew' continue to stare for an answer. The clown had a point, they hadn't asked any questions and you'd just ended up being aboard with Sanji.

"Now's a good time to start talking," Zoro speaks finally, his hand ready at his sword. The last thing you wanted was tension among the people you'd most likely be spending an extended amount of time with. Despite this, your finger itches towards your picks in response.

"Oh yeah 'cause you talk plenty, don't you. I know the way because I've seen Arlong before. I made an assumption if you were even listening that he MIGHT be there still. That'll be the last time I call myself trying to be helpful. Or is 'useful' more of a term you'd like?" You'd hardly realized how close you'd gotten to the man, the sneer ever-present on your lips. Sanjis' at your side, giving a touch over your hips to try and reel you back.

It's quiet again but that clown's laughter rings loud and clear enough to offset the current debacle.

"Ha! Struck a nerve there. Listen, she is right though, you're gonna head in that direction. We get to the island and sing kumbaya, I get my body you get the girl, and everyone's happy!" He jokes, hobbling again to turn his head.

What a fabulous start to the tip. A panic attack and almost a fight. Simply fucking splendid. God, you needed a drrink.

-

It's dark now, and you hadn't left this room since you'd found it hours ago. You needed to reset. Gods know the longer you stay and interact with these strange characters you'd fucking explode. For some odd reason, in your newly adopted quarters you can still feel his phantom touch.

It lingers, something you make note of. The small of your back tingles, as does your waist and shoulder. Your neck and chin tinge and tingle in delight, resulting in a shiver that shimmies its way up your curves spine. Oh right...that's why they so prominent right now. Becaus you were filthy and couldn't help but let your fingers slip past your panties.

The ship rocks and creacks and with each splash of waves against the hull, much like the waters, you drip.

Promiscuous and touch-starved.

How long had it been since someone had been gentle with you, let their hands ghost over your skin. It didn't matter, you'd found ways to satiate the need, even if it was just temporary. You freeze when there's a knock at your door.

You take a breath, notn quite trusting your voice.

"One moment."

Slipping on a spare night dress in a hurry, you open the door.

-

She's beautiful. Her eyes were low and glossy, and her pupils were blown wide. Her chest rises and falls as the ruffles on the nightdress adorn her body so prettily. What is it she reminds me of? I can't seem to put my finger on it.

"I saved you a plate. Luffy was supposed to come tell you but he sid you didn't respond." I speak, seeing her breathe catch for a second.

Her lips part just a pinch and it finally rings in my head.

A doll.

"Thank you. I'm sorry I couldn't join you sooner, bad attitude still."

I smile, my hand clenched in my pocket. Fuck my palms are sweaty. Shaking my head in response, I panic at the silence that follows. It was just like earlier when we first parted. I wanted to ask her if she was okay. If anything I'd know what a panic attack looks like and with the way her face seemed paler than before, and her hands shook, I couldn't be far off. Or maybe it was just sea sickness. Didn't matter, some things just were my place to ask. But I can't catch the question before it's out my mouth and in the air.

"Are you alright?"

She breathes heavily, shoulder slumping in exhale as she avoids my gaze. There it is. Whatever it was she was either gonna tell me a half-truth or a lie.

"Splendid."

Lie

I nod looking down the hall as if it'd help me escape and prevent any further questions I had from prospering. I was wrong.

"Fancy a drink?"

It's simultaneous and we laugh, so natural and her laugh is damn melodic.

-

Sanji was without a doubt one of the most talented chefs you'd ever had the pleasure of eating from. The food in front of you was proof of that. You can't help but melt at every bite of the dish before you, it was just so freaking good. Maybe it's cause you haven't had a proper meal in about a day or two as well. Mix that little fact with the wine he keeps pouring and you're done for.

Conversation flows easily, the two of you letting whatever comes to mind simply pass with each moment.

"So, about what he said earlier.." Sanji begins, inhaling from his cigarette as you swallow down the wine you'd just drank.

"The clown or Zoro? Either way, they were right to be cautious. I'm not a threat that's for sure though." You explain.

He hums in response, leaning against his hair with spread legs. Fuck his thighs look good strained against the fabric of his slacks.

"It's been a long time since I've been on a ship. I... I was on one years ago and I traveled to the exact island were going to. Arlong was stationed there and I guess I just never forgot my way back." You explain, tracing the rim of the glass. Not like you had a choice to forget where it was...

"You don't have to explain to me. We've both got trauma, we grow and we get better. You seem to have gotten better." He admits, gaze unwavering.

"Damn, I should be an actress then cause I'm one traumatic event from falling apart." You spoke as he laughs

Sarcastic humor seemed to be his forte and you couldn't help but feed into it, each giggle that slips past your lips creeping its way closer to a full belly laugh. And when he smiles like that, so pretty it makes your chest squeeze. His piercing peeks out just a little, mouth wide with a smile as he tilts his head back.

You sigh, sipping at the wine again, your both a bottle in, the second one nearing its end.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say you're spoiling me Sanji." You hum, his smile was still present, blue eyes scanning your frame.

He stands, taking your empty plate before approaching the sink and speakng.

"You think so? Pretty girls shouldn't have to eat alone. Thought you'd like company" He admits, washing the dish, awaiting a response.

You finish off your glass and set it in the sink. He pauses for a moment, realising just how close you were, almost pressed against his back.

"Not a girl blondie." You whisper, the wine definitely sinking into your system if it hadn't before.

He swears, squeezing the sponge and plate. Any harder and it'd shatter.

The veins in his forearms are strained and you let yourgaze linger. As if your thought weren't far from ur at the moment this was only making it worse. You reach around him, just barely missing the curve o his hips.

"What're you-"

"A woman."

You shut the water off, stepping away from him with coy smile

"Thank you for the meal and the wine. It was lovely, Sanji."

He swears again, trying to cove it up with a laugh and another smile. Too late, you can see right past the facade.

"Ah, of course. Get some rest, Y/n"

Safe to say you love how Sanji says your name.

-

Morning comes quick and docking is quicker. Sanji is carrying the clown head sack this time and he doesn't seem too thrilled about it. You figured it best not to these him cause you could very well end up carrying the damn thing yourself if you didn't find his body. You manage to slip into some extra clothes, considering the ones you were wearing when this little excursion started were thoroughly torn from the fight.

Your shoes weren't practical but they'd have to do for now. A simple cream-colored blouse with a neckline that dipped almost too far down paired with some pants that were almost too tight was what you sported. Until your next docking point, you'd definitely have to make this last and maybe not have it get fucked up in a fight.

Though you didn't know much about this 'Nami' besides her name, you could feel whatever anxiety from the rest of the crew sink into your skin and turn your tummy. No one really spoke. Well, besides Usopp trying to convince everyone that he should go back to the ship.

You try keeping pace, Luffy and Zoro at the front, Sanji in the middle, Usopp and yourself lagging behind. Since he was the only one really talking, it wouldn't hurt to chat back.

"Soooo Nami, you guys know each other long?" You ask, slowing down so that you're side by side.

"No, but it feels like I have. I know she wouldn't do this to us just because. She's not that kind of person." He speaks, eyes solemn. If you were thinking correctly, each one of these 'crew' members, yourself included was picked up from somewhere else.

"I see. How did you end up on this crew anyway?" You ask, opening a door you had no idea about.

Usopp was about to tell you the story of a lifetime.

Authors note: heyyyy everyone here's chapter 4 a little longer than chapter 3. I'm really trying to like build this up before we get to the super 18+ parts but uhhh we got our first little taste lol. As stated before lmk if you'd like to be added to the taglist :D

Taglist: : @waannty @strangermeats @nymeriiia @noom147

[elvishdemigod]

I just had the BEST cakeverse au idea

Beastars

And pardon if I get some things wrong, I've never gotten any of the mangas and it's been a while since I watched the anime.

Of course you've got Legosi wanting to eat Haru, a part of him wants to taste her, consume her whole. But he actually loves her, he doesn't want to actually kill her.

Then you've got Louis. We all know that infamous scene where he wants Legosi to take a bite of him. And despite being Prey, he for a time was a leader of a group that sold the meat of Prey. He was even originally intended to be sold as livestock. And he offers a part of himself to Legosi to feed on, to give him some strength.

And that final thing only happened because of Riz. Riz, who ate Tem.

Now, to quote @mogamuncher about the Cakeverse, and how cakes may see themselves: Maybe you like being wanted, maybe you enjoy providing something to others, you made them so happy that it doesn't even matter to you that they are taking chunks out of you, you'll gladly let yourself be torn apart if it means someone else is satisfied.

This reminded me of how Riz saw Tem. Of course, Tem didn't want to be eaten. But Riz saw it as a dream come true, his favorite meal, his obsession. He saw Tem wanting to be eaten, giving himself up willingly.

When you think about it, there already isn't much difference between Beastars and the Cakeverse Maybe all carnivores are now Forks, all herbivores are now Cakes, and all omnivores are now Plates. Or maybe herbivores aren't all Cakes, but it's more common than a carnivore becoming a Cake or a herbivore becoming a Fork.

Either way, there's potential here.

[masterqwertster]

Ooh love the Loads of Snuggles and Hugs prompt list, and it does feel like that time of year with winter around! I'd be curious about one of the hair prompts (washing or sniffing) for Ashton and Chetney now that we know Chet chisels/trims Ashton's crystalline hair. I feel like Chetney doesn't get a lot of moments of genuine intimacy on stream or in writing since he's played as a comedic relief a lot, and while I've always enjoyed his and Ashton's bantering dynamic, I wonder what a serious (and nonconfrontational) moment between them might be like. But ofc I'll enjoy any direction you'd like to take the prompt(s)! 💚

Snuggles and Hugs Prompt -washing their hair for them

"Are you sure you wanna do this? I know you get weird about working on anything that isn't wood," Ashton questions, hesitating to lay their head in the waiting little gnomish lap.

"Porcelain is the sister craft, stone the cousin," Chetney ceremoniously replies.

"This is crystal," Ashton deadpans.

"Look, it's close enough," Chetney grumps, taking minor offense at the arguing of semantics. "Besides, you obviously need this."

Poor kid's been worrying pieces of their crystalline hair like a loose tooth since they last got thrown around. Been fluffing their pillows more at night too. And it's not like Chetney hasn't noticed that the crystals look a little longer than is actually comfortable, what with the way they press into Ashton's neck when he tilts his head back.

"Yeah, okay," they huff out. "Just don't stab me."

And the heavy, pokey head finally rests in Chetney's lap (should have gotten a fucking pillow for this with all those little crystal points digging into his thighs. Too late now though).

Crystal is not a medium Chetney is overly familiar with. He's done a few insets for some of his higher paying projects in the past, but that was still carving wood for the fitting and not the gemstones themselves.

Still, it's not an impossible project for master craftsman like Chetney.

He starts with the easy shit, the crystals that are already cracked and on their way to breaking off. Nimble fingers test each point, and when it wiggles, Chetney finds the crack and opens that bad boy up until the tip shears off.

Once everything is solid, Chetney picks up one of the larger chunks and starts experimenting.

"The fuck are you doing?" Ashton asks, rolling their head to get eyes on the crunching of Chetney chipping away at piece of crystal that isn't attached to their head.

"Figuring out the best way to start a cut," Chetney murmurs, attention still held by the amethyst in his hand as he switches chisels.

"Oh."

It's not a care anyone who has cut his hair has taken before. The early days in Bassuras, in the Greymoore Home, they used what was at hand, hacking and chipping away at the too-long crystals on his head. Those who would later be the Nobodies learned, through trial and error upon Ashton's head, where to strike, how to angle the blows, and what tools were best for the job. Milo had cut gems before, mostly little adjustments to fit them into their projects, and so they had only needed a bit of practice to handle Ashton's hair. A bit of practice achieved by simply doing, rather than this testing of an already dislodged chunk.

After a few minutes during which Ashton almost dozes off (the old man's lap is surprisingly comfortable for how small it is), Chetney lets out a satisfied huff, setting shards of amethyst aside.

"So how short do you want this? I'm guessing not basically shaved, but there's some room inbetween that and where it's at now."

"Uh, mostly bring the sides and back down to like, an inch long. Maybe an inch or two off the top," Ashton answers.

"Got it." And Chetney gets to work.

Once the haircut is done, Chetney finds his hands and pants coated in purple flecks. The small chips created in cracking off those crystal tips are also dusted all throughout the amethyst still attached to Ashton's head.

"Sit up a sec and let me get you cleaned up," Chetney instructs, doing his best to dust his hands off (not over Ashton. Isn't that polite of him?) before reaching for a canteen to flush the gem dusting out of their hair.

It's fucking unfair how easily the particles wash off. Or at least, that's what Chetney thinks until he notices how the water, and the collected detritus, pools in deep little nooks and crannies. Fuck, Chetney's pretty sure some of that grime is from before this haircut.

And it's not exactly necessary, but Chetney takes pride in his work, so he pulls out a little bristle brush that normally helps clear the shavings out of small bored holes and sets about getting every nook and cranny clean and clear of debris.

"You don't have to do that," Ashton points out shortly after Chetney starts the deep clean.

"Shut up. When I help clean up something's looks, I clean it the fuck up and make it look fucking stunning," Chetney rebuts, swirling the bristle brush around in a crevice.

Ashton huffs and rolls his eyes, but doesn't protest any further. It's... nice, having someone else care for them like this.