#and then - years later - this. it wasn't there in dark era ! it's a new thing !

[goth-mami-writer]

🩶As Close as Strangers🩶

~ The final part ~

@sorilyae @littlesnorlaxx

~(AU) Leon Kennedy × f!Reader work.

~{Find parts one and two here}

(Infinite Darkness era is exactly how I picture him for this fic 🩶)

~~~

《 “Leon, he's gonna be so upset.” You said into the phone that night somewhat sadly as you tried to keep away from the bottom of the stairs, hoping Ethan wasn't trying to listen in from his room.

The flight to bring him to your city from DC had just been delayed and he wouldn't board for another three hours now. He sighed looking at the flight displays now painted in yellow and shook his head hating that he had told Ethan he'd be home before dinner,

“I know. But I can still be there before he goes to bed. Or try to at least.”

This was your ritual now that Leon was back in your life. And Ethan's. He spent only a few short months in DC, working and keeping in touch and using his small amounts of leave to fly to see you and his son. The visits were small but they were meaningful nonetheless. They visited the park and stayed up on the weekends to play games. It was everything you waited for and it didn't take long to realize.

You looked up the stairs again with a concerned glance and wondered if Ethan might take it better if he talked to his dad on the phone. You'd told him just a few minutes before that you were expecting Leon in a little under an hour. But that quickly changed.

“Can I talk to him?” Leon asked on the phone and you told him to hold on.

You found Ethan in his room, he was crouched in the floor racing a toy car on his plastic track that spanned around his area rug. After a soft smile seeing that there were two toy cars set aside for himself and his playmate, you told him that Leon was on the phone.

The small tyke rose from his playtime rug and ran for the phone in your hand,

“Leon?” He said into the phone that he needed to hold with two hands, his tiny voice ringing with sadness,

“When are you coming to my house?”

Leon's heart sank hearing that tiny voice that leveled his whole world now that Ethan was a part of his life so consistently. Even though his precious boy still had no true grasp that Leon was in fact his father, the bond they'd built with sleepovers and endless hours of play felt just as precious.

But there was something else making this next visit so urgent. Leon had yet to ask you but he wanted more than anything to drive home to see his son instead of flying. There was just no way he could be relocated in the current climate of his federal assignments. And that made only one thing possible. Moving you and Ethan to DC, possibly uprooting everything you two knew and it wasn't easy for him to imagine how that could affect you both.

“Buddy, I'm sorry. I'll be home when you wake up in the morning, okay? I promise.” He said to Ethan on the phone, who frowned at the news of his late arrival.

“I can stay up late and wait for you. It's the weekend.” Ethan said to try and see him before he went to sleep one last time.

Leon smiled, giggling in the thought of his little eyes heavy and droopy by the time he finally arrived at the house,

“No, bud, I don't think your mom would like that. It'll be way past your bedtime. We'll make pancakes in the morning together, okay?”

Ethan finally gave in and made Leon promise again that he would be here and firmly he swore that he'd be there. No matter what. After the phone was returned, you told Ethan to put on his pajamas while you finished talking on the phone, then made your way back down the stairs.

You made sure you closed the boy's door enough to keep him out of earshot and you mentioned quietly into the phone,

“When are we going to sit him down and tell him, Leon? It's going to make his year to find out who you are.”

“No-” Leon replied in the busy airport that felt like nothing than background murmur as the hole in his chest hollowed further when he realized he missed his small son,

“It's going to make mine.”

~~~~

~Later that night

You heard Leon's rental car pull in at quarter past midnight. You'd drifted off to sleep on the sofa in wait to help him with his luggage. You put on a coat, trying to make it to the door, but he was already sneaking into the foyer quietly by the time you stood. You tried to take his suitcase but he brushed you away, shaking his head that it was fine.

He closed the door gently, trying to make sure he didn't shutter the walls as it closed and he smiled before pulling you close. His arms looped around your waist, hugging you into him before turning your chin up for a kiss in the quiet dark. You welcomed him closer but felt as he started to hoist you up onto the back of the sectional sofa.

You felt his hands start to wander, making your heart race as you kissed him for the first time in weeks. But you came back to reality when you remembered who else couldn't wait to see him.

“Hey, hey-” You whispered in his ear in the dark.

“Hm?” Leon asked, kissing your neck warmly and sweet.

“Someone didn't make it too long waiting for you.” You said gesturing over to the loveseat next to the window with a glance.

There, Ethan slept endearingly wrapped in his cartoon blanket with his head rested on the throw pillow. He'd been by the window, waiting for Leon's car, and the sight of his patience was enough to make anyone's heart swell.

“Awh, buddy.”

Leon sighed with a heavy smile as he began towards the window quietly. He wasn't sure if he should move him just yet but he couldn't bear the sight of him sleeping away from his own bed. He crept close to his small son, moving the sandy brown bangs away from his eyes and picking him up slowly under the arms.

He thought of moving upstairs but instead he merely sat down on the love seat, slumping the tired little boy onto his chest. He held his head onto his shoulder, covering him again with his tiny cartoon blanket and finally felt at peace there in a bear hug practically. Your lip quivered at the image of him holding Ethan in a way that he should've the day he was born and you sat beside them both.

You watched as Leon rested his head back as he cradled Ethan close and he said in a whisper between the silence of listening to his son sweetly sleep across his chest,

“D'ya get a chance to think about DC?”

You nodded, having had the conversation before he boarded his flight but you smiled before petting Ethan's back amidst his sleep,

“I'm not sure what there is to think about. You know we would love to come and stay with you.”

“I just don't want to uproot him, baby-”

“You're his home, Leon. He won't know the difference if you're there. He doesn't know you're his father but he knows you're his dad.” You argued with him in the dark softly but there was more. There was something else you saw that was on his mind and you waited for him to take that usual breath he needed to spit it out.

“What do you want to happen after that?” He asked softly, still cupping Ethan's head and you furrowed your brow, wondering what exactly he meant by that and he went on,

“You want to get married?” He asked as if the question was something mindless.

You froze, unsure of how to answer something so changing. You kept looking for him to start laughing or maybe just any indication that he might be joking but he was firm in waiting for your answer.

“You didn't mention that on the phone??” You said breathless and he nodded in telling you that was because he thought of it on the plane. Your heart raced in thinking of becoming Mrs. Kennedy, a name you thought should be worshiped when you understood what it meant.

“Is this…a proposal?” You asked, in dire need for the answer and he half smiled, knowing he shouldn't treat this so lightly. But it just felt too natural to make this exactly how he pictured it in his mind.

“Does it feel like one?” He asked his face softened in the thought of coming home to his wife and son,

“You really think I'll only ask once?”

You laughed quietly, knowing this would probably be a discussion to be divided into bits in pieces for the next few months ahead of you but you couldn't ask for something different. Being his wife could wait a lifetime if it meant the timing being perfect.

He stood with Ethan still sleeping in his arms and carefully made his way to the stairs. Climbing to the second level you watched a tiny arm swinging at Leon's side that he placed back onto his shoulder lovingly before reaching his bedroom. He laid Ethan down to his small twin bed painted with superheroes and placed the blanket over him softly.

Leon petted his head after sitting down on the side of the bed, clearing his mattress of forlorn toys and action figures lost in the sheets from his playtime. He smiled placing each of them back on his bedside shelf and he whispered down after a kiss to his tiny head,

“Your daddy loves you, buddy.”

He stood, making sure all of his night lights were turned on like the way he preferred to keep the dark away and he'd almost crept entirely out of the room in silence when he heard a small voice answer his whisper in the dark,

“I love you too.”

Leon stopped, knowing he shouldn't say anything, but it was hard to stay quiet at the first acknowledgment of being a father instead of merely his mother's friend. He closed the door quietly as his face reddened from the oncoming tears building in his eyes and thanked whoever was listening for the first time that he was able to stumble around drunk in the rain one night.

Because this feeling couldn't be bought twice. 》

~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for all the people asking to be tagged on this story, and thank you again for all the notes and comments. It was a joy to write.✌️🥰

There's more Leon to come 🩶

[monstersqueen]

anyway for the rest of the concurrent soulmates-system bsd au, so kunikida has dazai's scars (and dazai has kunikida's, but that never comes up) and chuuya gets to have every lie of dazai inked on his skin (and dazai has chuuya's, but that's a whole lot less)

(i fucking love the idea that it's very obvious to dazai's soulmates that he's theirs, but they can't be sure they are his unless he lets them know)

anyway the point is that the buraiha trio can't lie to each other (literally unable to lie to each other, not lies revealed via tattoos), but only in bar lupin, only when the three of them are present - which sure has some interesting implications about what went down in dark era ! - and also ? towards the end of the break up scene ? it broke. they could have lied to each other from the end of that scene going forward, but they never got to know that.

Dazai and Ango suspect, though.

the fun part though ? another version of it came back. by which i mean that dazai tried to lie through his heartbeats - something like 'it was your fault' or another cruelty - and he couldn't. Ango doesn't realize, but he wouldn't be able to lie through coded time-stopping messages, either. they can't lie to each other anymore - but only when they're communicating via codes. secret notes that are supposed to be hidden. morse code blinks. whatever communication they use as long as it's private. simply talking to each other, even in private, doesn't count, it needs a level of secrecy.

i kinda need to to dig into it, but it fits.

[animasola86]

Smutmas: Take your anger (and stick it where the sun don't shine!)

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x m!reader

Genre: Angst/Smut // Words: 3.9k // [Read on AO3]

Warnings: NSFW! MDNI! Explicit sexual content! Hate sex, oral, anal, mutual masturbation, double the amount of dicks!

Synopsis: You and Sebastian are both flawed boys and there is only one way to let out that pent-up frustration.

Notes: Beware: I am entering my explicit gay porn era! But hear me out: I, as the author, identify as female (and do not possess any male genitalia), and I believe most of my audience does too, but I wanted to try something new, so here we go. Don't worry, I did my research, yet I hope it was enough to convey what is going on.

Last warning: There's gay smut below! Read at your own risk!

Take your anger (and stick it where the sun don't shine)

“You insufferable little shit!” you could hear Sebastian's voice behind you. As you turned around, you saw him stomping right at you. You recognised his angry stance immediately.

“What did I do?” you asked innocently, putting your hands on your hips as you waited for him to reach you. You wondered how you angered the Slytherin this time (until the memory came back to you), though it didn't really matter either way, because when he stopped right in front of you, he glared at you out of dark eyes, working his jaw, and then grabbed your tie and pulled you unceremoniously after him. “Hey, easy!” you tried again as you stumbled along but to no avail.

Moments later, you found yourself being pushed into an empty classroom, heard the door being closed and enchanted, so no one would disturb you. You should have been more surprised, or even alarmed, but you knew the drill. This wasn't the first time Sebastian Sallow took his anger out on you.

Frankly, you were kind of hoping he would find you after you had convinced Madam Scribner that it had been Sebastian who was responsible for a bookshelf to collapse and burst into flames in the library the other day – when it had been you all along because you were still struggling to control that blasted ancient magic coursing through your veins, and sometimes things just happened, mostly destructive things.

And because it was easier to distract yourself rather than to deal with a problem head-on, a notion you certainly shared with the brunet pinning you to the wall right now, you often found yourself in his presence when you needed to take care of the steam threatening to burst free.

“You landed me a week in detention!” he growled and stared at you.

You raised your eyebrows. “Only a week? She threatened to expel me if I didn't tell --”

“So you admit that you blamed me? For something you did, presumably? You bastard!” Sebastian grunted and grabbed your shoulder to turn you around, pressing your chest against the wall. “You could have just asked to spend time together, you know?” he added in a lower voice as his hand slipped down the front of your breeches, his fingers expertly gliding over the stiff fabric.

He was right of course. You started doing those stunts to see him, meet him in detention, meet him anywhere really, because you couldn't think of anyone else who you could share your anger and frustration with than the boy behind you. You'd been to hell and back together these last years, and somehow when things got really bad, you always found yourself next to him, very, very close to him.

If anyone had ever told you that you would feel the most relaxed with another boy's dick up your arse, then you would have laughed and felt ashamed and frankly would not have believed them. But it was true. Anger sex was your go-to method of calming down again.

So you forced yourself to play along, counter his rage, defy it as best as you could with your cock already throbbing against the tight confines of your trousers. Even though your frustration had been running high these last days, causing the outburst in the library, you felt your own anger deflating the moment you felt Sebastian's hand palming your crotch roughly. Actually you always seemed to ease up the moment you saw his warm eyes on you or heard his voice in your ear.

Yet you'd never tell him how he made you feel, you wanted him to hate you, you wanted the unbridled wrath he could unleash upon you. So you kept pranking him, teasing him, angering him in any way or form. Because deep down you knew he needed it as well. He needed someone to handle the conflicting emotions running through him, chewing on his insides, destroying him slowly from within, ever since things went downhill in your fifth year.

Sebastian had lost everything that year and had found himself in a very dark place that only you had been brave enough to enter. Mainly because you were there too, for different reasons, but you still shared the rage coursing through your veins. The grief, the anger, the disappointment, the feeling of being all alone in the world, trying to shoulder things you were too young and inexperienced to handle.

It had been the end of the year, everyone had been exhilarated to celebrate the House Cup, to leave Hogwarts for the summer holidays, but you had found yourself huddled away, still in disbelief that you had lost your mentor and that everyone else seemed to have forgotten about it rather quickly. The battle of Hogwarts was no longer on the front pages, everyone had moved on. Yet you couldn't, because you still felt the energy pulsing through you of when you had absorbed Isidora's corrupted magic.

While you had tried to figure out what to do next now that the Keepers had abandoned you for defying them, you had met another lost soul in the dimly lit hallway. Sebastian had still been dealing with the loss and abandonment of his sister, the broken friendship with Ominis and the outrage that had killed his uncle, so when you two had met each other in the shadows while everyone else celebrated the end of the year, you had quickly found yourself in a dark corner, with no word spoken between you as he had rammed his cock into your underprepared arse.

The pain had numbed your anger, and quickly you had become addicted to the sensation. And now, two years later, you had made it a habit of completely driving him insane, bring out his rage, to feel it all over again. You both knew why you'd do it also and somehow he still played along, though you knew he was secretly impressed by your creativity of finding new ways to get him to hate you.

“Where's the fun in just asking you out?” you muttered back as he proceeded to grope you through your breeches. “You know I hate being boring...”

“Oh I know you do,” he grunted into your ear as he pressed his groin against your arse. “Can't do anything the normal way...”

“What's normal anyway?” you whispered as your hand moved around to grab at his thigh. “Definitely not this...”

“No, definitely not this,” he repeated and you could feel his hot breath on your neck as he leaned in to bite at your pulse. You couldn't help but wince when his teeth nibbed at your sensitive skin and frankly you were past hiding all those little twitches he was able to coax out of you.

“It wouldn't be the same,” you started, taking another sharp breath as you felt his fingers undoing your buttons before slipping into the newly created opening to tease at your dick. “I can't even imagine doing this normally with you. What would that look like? Would you buy me flowers and treat me to a nice meal? Out on a cosy date in Hogsmeade for everyone to see? Would you --”

“For Merlin's sake, shut up already!” he grunted, pushing you against the wall as he let go of you. You couldn't help the smirk from playing around the corner of your lips. He saw it when he suddenly spun you around by the shoulders once more, glaring at you out of those dark eyes that made you weak in the knees (not that you would have ever admitted to that). “You really like to hear yourself talk, eh?”

You scoffed and merely glared back at him. Shaking his head, he then grabbed your waist and forced your breeches down, your undergarments with it, and when you stood in front of him, literally butt naked, it was his turn to smirk at you. With his hand on your shoulder, he pushed you down until you were on your knees, looking up with your smug expression unfaltering.

“Look at you,” he muttered, tilting his head. “You pathetic little worm, kneeling in front of me with your trousers down like a bloody whore. Use that damn mouth of yours for better things, why don't you!”

Your hands were at the buttons of his breeches before he even stopped talking down at you. Undoing them with nimble fingers, you quickly freed his hardening erection from its confines and grabbed it roughly, causing him to stumble slightly. He shot you an even darker glance, but didn't say anything as he watched you do what you seemed to be doing best, at least in his eyes.

Leaning in with your eyes fixed on his freckled face, you gave his shaft a long skim of your tongue, taking in every single little reaction you caused in him. One hand moved up to cup his balls and give them a tight squeeze before you grabbed his length with the other and stroked it expertly as you focused the movement of your tongue to his tip, circling and lapping at it, sucking and nibbling on his sensitive skin until you heard the first little groan escaping him.

The sound vibrated through your entire body and you leaned back and watched him curiously, licking your lips as you did so. Your hand kept moving, firmly pushing his skin up and down, until you pressed your thumb to his slit and forced the first droplets of precum out of him. A shiver rushed through him and you saw him clenching his fists at his sides.

You leaned back in and closed your lips around the agitated crown of his cock, tasting and smelling that special musk you cherished so much, that would make your own body shudder in excitement. Of course you held back for now, focusing on him while your own dick stood tall and proud, bumping against your lower stomach with every bob of your head as you pushed yourself onto him and took him into your mouth as deep as possible.

As you felt him pressing against the back of your throat, you closed your eyes and held your breath, but you fought your gag reflex for now and pushed further until your nose was buried in his curly hairs. He grunted loudly as you forced his tip into your tight throat and when you leaned back again, you spluttered slightly and wiped a strand of saliva off your lips as you looked up at him.

He watched you darkly as you continued stroking him with a firm grasp, before you dove back in and repeated the same motion over and over again, each time holding him longer and deeper in your throat until you felt your eyes watering and his body shuddering more and more.

“Fuck!” he spat and grabbed your shoulders in support, his fingers digging into your shirt as he jerked his hips against your face.

You relished in his noises and involuntarily reactions as you kept bobbing your head on him, moving with the slight bucking of his hips, feeling him hardening to the point more and more precum leaked out of his tip. You lapped at it hungrily, the wet slurping noises filling the empty classroom.

Suddenly he gripped your hair and pulled you off him, red spots dancing on his cheeks as he stared down at you. “Get up and turn around,” he told you gruffly and you got to your feet and did what he told you, your trousers still pooling around your ankles as he positioned himself behind you.

He pushed his hard erection between your cheeks and leaned around you, grabbing your previously unattended dick with a fierce grip as he started stroking you, his chin resting on your shoulder, his shallow breaths right in your ear. You couldn't help the shivers running down your spine at the sensations and the little moan escaping your slightly aching throat. Closing your eyes, you leaned into his touch, even pushed your rear against him invitingly.

Not that Sebastian Sallow needed a formal invitation to do anything, he always took what he wanted, and right now, it was to drive his cock into your arse. With one hand on your dick, giving you those needed pumps, his other hand moved around your left butt cheek, groping and kneading it until he teased his thumb against the tight ring of muscles. You inhaled sharply when he pushed past the resistance and forced his digit in deeper.

You felt your legs trembling when he poked around until he pressed firmly against your prostate, coaxing a deep grunt out of you that made you stumble against his touch. You almost came right in his hand there, but then he pulled his thumb out and even let go of your dick, before grabbing your hips and guiding you back towards his cock.

Swallowing hard, you realized you were never really prepared for his intrusion and even though he had gotten better at making it less painful over the last years, it would still always take your breath away when he would fill your arse. This time he pushed his tip firmly against your tight hole and you inhaled deeply, trying to relax, before he used a sharp snap of his hips to push his length all the way into you until you felt his balls slapping against your sensitive skin.

A groan escaped you and you had to put your hands on the wall in front of you in support as he dug his fingers into your hips and just rested there for a moment, buried deep in your bum, giving you the chance to adjust to his size. He had gotten softer for sure, you thought, the Sebastian from two years ago wouldn't have given a damn about how much pain he would inflict on you, he might even have opted to make you suffer more than was necessary.

But this version of the boy behind you seemed to listen for your noises, wait for the shudders of your body to subside, before he finally started moving. Slowly retreating, until his tip was gripped by your tight entrance, then pushing back in with a quick jerk of his hips, back and forth, over and over again until you heard yourself moaning louder.

His hands were on your waist as the slapping of skin against skin filled your ears and all you could feel was the relentless rhythm of his cock sliding in and out of your arse and his pelvis slamming against your cheeks. You were groaning and moaning in unison now, a low rumble of noises mixing with the sounds of your bodies pushing together.

You felt light-headed quickly, but even in your haze, you felt the need to lower a hand and grab onto your own dick to release a little bit of that tension. Yet at the same time he had slowed his movements and leaned around to grab it too, your hands touching involuntarily. Despite the rather rough nature of your 'love making', it still sent pleasant shivers down your spine when his fingers would brush against yours, be it in class or the library when you reached for the same book, or in the middle of having him rail you into the wall, it always felt exhilarating.

Instead of withdrawing or slapping your hand away, he slipped his fingers between yours and guided them towards your cock so you started to stroke your throbbing member together. More moans escaped your throat and you couldn't help but lean your head against his shoulder as you felt your balls tightening under the combined ministrations of your hands.

He buried himself deep in your clenching arse and started grinding his hips slowly, pushing his girth against your sensitive muscles and all the right spots. You grunted deeply, biting your lip as all the sensations at once caused your dick to twitch in your combined hold. He seemed to notice your struggle to move on your own, so he kept stroking you fiercely, his own grunts loud in your ear, and when you came with a low growl, he wrapped his arm around your stomach and held you close, keeping you steady as you felt thick ropes of cum spurting out of your tip and dripping down both of your hands.

He let you rest for a small moment, holding you tightly as you leaned against him, his breath hot on your cheek as he turned his head towards you. You watched him out of the corner of your eye, panting badly, and when your eyes met, there seemed to be another one of those unspoken agreements you both had perfected over the last years.

You saw him smirk and then he let go of you and pushed you back against the wall, his hands on your hips, before he continued to move inside you once more, slow at first, but then faster and faster, as he drove himself deeper and deeper into your tight space with reckless abandon. Your noises of quiet whimpers and deep moans mixed with his grunts and the never-ending slapping of skin against skin when he fell into a rapid rhythm of slamming his hips against your cheeks.

There was the power you had needed, the raw emotion, the unbridled rage, as he rammed his cock into you at an impressively fast and deep rhythm, his length and girth stretching and prodding your muscles with each powerful thrust. You fought against the sensation, forcing your legs to stop trembling beneath you, your entire body tense from the experience.

But this was what you had wanted, all of it, and you craved the pain that came when your muscles started contracting around him, working against you instead of with you. You could have relaxed and let him have it, it would have been so easy, but you were too stubborn and frankly quite the masochist, because you needed every aching muscle, every screaming nerve, every burning sensation.

It was the only thing that kept you from losing your mind. And so you gritted your teeth and strained your arms against the wall as he kept rocking your body back and forth, over and over again, his grunts mixing with yours, as his fingers dug painfully into your hips, his balls slapping against you as his cock moved in and out relentlessly, the delicious heat of the friction driving you almost insane with pleasure.

You felt your dick harden all over again, but you couldn't give it any attention at this moment because it was Sebastian's turn to let go. With a loud growl, he gave you one final powerful thrust that rippled through your entire body as he buried himself as deep as possible before you felt his cock throbbing and twitching as he emptied himself inside your tight arse, his hot seed filling you up completely.

He kept grunting as more and more shudders rushed through him, more and more cum spurting out of him and into you, and as you savoured the warm feeling spreading inside you, you lowered a shaking hand and gave your own dick a few much needed squeezes before you came as well again, your body spasming against his as you leaned your sweaty forehead against the wall, unable to stop your legs from shaking beneath you this time.

Inhaling deeply, you tried to catch your breath, while the boy behind you leaned his entire weight on your back, his arms snaking around your stomach as he held onto you, his cock still twitching inside you. You let him have this rather tender moment and closed your eyes, but as soon as you relaxed against him and even raised a hand to put on his arm, a gesture that was usually too intimate for your liking, he retreated again, standing up straight and slowly pulling out of your clenching hole.

You let out another moan and a surprised grunt when he suddenly slapped your butt cheek with his flat hand, the pain rippling through you deliciously. It didn't however mask the emptiness you felt with his cock no longer lodged inside your bum, and without his girth, your muscles worked hard to move back into their original form, causing his seed to pump out of you relentlessly.

You rather enjoyed the warm sensation of being so full, but gravity and whatever other forces worked ruthlessly against you, leaving you to desire this whole spectacle all over again. Sighing deeply, you eventually leaned down to grab your trousers and undergarments, ready to pull them back up, but before you could do anything, you were suddenly spun around, almost stumbling against Sebastian as he pushed your bare backside against the wall, his eyes boring into yours.

Despite the intense gaze, you couldn't help but break eye contact and look down his front. His spent cock was still out, glistening in your combined juices, yet your eyes lingered on his wand in his hand. For a moment you wondered what he wanted to do, and when he grabbed your throat with his free hand you were really concerned for a second, but he only held you in place while he moved his wand over your soiled skin and cleaned your mutual messes.

You watched him intently, despite the tight grip of his fingers this might have been the gentlest gesture you witnessed him express towards you ever. He usually left you a shuddering, defiled mess (and you were there for it), but having him wash you so thoroughly, was certainly something else. When he was done, he pocketed his wand and let go of your throat, only to bend down and grab your breeches before he pulled them back up and helped you get dressed again.

You were more than confused, yet somehow oddly intrigued by this turn of events. As he grabbed your dick and shoved it back behind the confines of your trousers, you raised your hands and did the same to him. He seemed equally surprised and your eyes met for a long, heated moment. Despite sharing the most intimate desires of both of your bodies, you had never indulged in the more romantic kinds of affection, like kissing or hand holding or even hugging, in that order.

Both of you had resorted to the most extreme type of being together and never looked back, but standing before Sebastian now, staring into his dark eyes, you felt the need to take several steps back and redefine your relationship. Might also be the post-nut clarity, you weren't sure. Whatever it was, the moment quickly faded when he took a literal step back from you and tilted his head, looking you over grimly.

“Next time you need to do this, just send me an owl or something,” he told you gruffly and moved a hand through his messy hair. “I really can't have you ruin my reputation any further.”

“What reputation?” you replied with a low chuckle and a smirk. “I'm only adding to the already existing one... You did that to yourself.”

He groaned and gave you a glare, before he turned around and headed to the door. “I mean it...” he called back over his shoulder.

“I know,” you said and watched him leave. “Expect my owl then.”

Sooner than later, you wanted to add, but you didn't want to come across as too desperate. Though he probably already knew that and frankly you couldn't care less. You needed him as much as he needed you. Not just his cock up your bum, the entire package. And perhaps there was even one of those chaste kisses for you in the future, who knew.

End notes: I've always been a yaoi lover and it still took me more than seven months of being in this fandom to actually write something like this, oh well.

I was certainly channeling the snarky boy that is the male mc when writing this, I can just hear his voice taunting Seb.

Again I took inspiration from this Smutmas prompts list, so here we have Day 4: Anal and Hate Sex. As you can see I'm not doing those in order or even consistently, I just write them as they come (out of my brain).

Thank you for reading!

By the way, I have three other oneshots that are not exclusively female oriented, but gender neutral:

The Ghost under the Table (a bj in the library)

Just Breathe (an angsty love confession)

Just another adventure, right? (angsty first kiss)

MASTERLIST - KINKTOBER - AO3

[soapskneebrace]

Do you have any recommendations for longer cod fics with plot?

Yeah, plenty!

A few from @391780 (and their ao3) (if you decide to explore their other fics PLEASE read the tags first, early writes some very dark work that may not suit you):

The Arrangement

The ad reads "Looking for a woman (25-45) to enter a discreet and unusual arrangement, with monetary compensation. Must fill out application and send photo.", and for some reason that you can't even fathom yourself, you apply. AKA John Price, who knows better than anyone what a liability having a spouse or partner is, decides that the only way he's going to find a beautiful soft woman to put up with his absurd schedule and dangerous job is to simply hire them.

the space in between

a shortcut through a construction site at night leads you to a run-in with john price, leader of the local crime family. (or, mafia Price romance with a desk jockey who didn't sign up to be a crime boss' obsession or sole confidant)

Into Your Veins

Ghost is a vampire during a zombie apocalypse, sent on a mission from Price to recruit you to join the little gated community of survivors that he's rounding up. You're a survivor who just wants to be left in peace to tend your garden and occasionally clear out your moat and booby traps of the undead. Neither of you gets what you'd planned on.

Then we have milk0 on ao3

Incompetent People

You share a group chat with your team and you sometimes wish you didn’t. (or, a very fun fic that started as a group chat piece and has evolved into a poly 141 romance. Otherwise known as my favorite fucking trope ever. The reader character has such a fun voice, I adore this fic.)

Next of course is @ceilidho (emphemeron on ao3) (same deal as with early—read their tags if you explore more of their fic, they also write darker work)

take me home, country road

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au

Following up with @alittleposhtoad (smoggyfogbottom on ao3)

"it's gonna get me by the end of the night"

A year after the attack on the Urzikstan embassy, Stacy Davidson struggles to move on. Whumptober Prompt: No. 23: “It’s gonna get me by the end of the night.” Shadows | Stalking | “Who’s there?” Note: I picked Gaz x OC because this ship doesn't exist on ao3, and I wasn't sure how to classify it for searching purposes. Stacy has a minor role in the game!

oh bury me not on the lone prairie

You are a doctor on the frontier, recently widowed and left to fend for yourself. You cope by keeping a strict routine, one that is threatened by the arrival of four strangers one hazy summer night. (141 western AU)

a handsome stranger on a cold autumn day

You work at a small-town library doing the same thing day in and day out, until a handsome captain approaches your desk.

rounding out this list is @lunarvicar who is on hiatus but still fully worth reading. (you can find them here on ao3)

exit row

ghost is that hot guy at the airport you wish you could talk to. good thing your seats are next to each other on the plane and you can fantasize alllll you want. (or, you hook up with Ghost in an airport and meet, months later, after you join the 141. he is not happy about it. or is he?)

to the flame

Moth has barely escaped her first captors, but tumbles headfirst into the care of the 141. She has to decide whether to trust them and their prickly leader, Captain Price - who also happens to be the sexiest motherfucker she's ever met.

a stranger at the table

tudor era AU. John Price is an old friend of your new husband's, come to help on the farm for a season. Your vows are tested in ways you could never have imagined.

All of these I've listed are multichapter fics, but every single author's one-shots are just as good. I highly recommend reading those too!

Now I'm just going to list a few writers who you really should just take the time to go through their masterlists, because you can't go wrong with anything they write.

@yeyinde

@peachesofteal

@moondirti

@charliemwrites (dark fiction, be aware)

@ohbo-ohno (also dark fiction)

honorary mention of @guyfieriii who has removed most of her cod fiction from tumblr due to a frankly disgusting amount of harassment, but I'm sure if you ask her very very nicely she'll send you where you need to go. (seriously. be nice. or you'll see me in your bedroom holding a knife at midnight)

P.S. if you're reading this, and i've expressed love for your work in the past, but you are not on this list, it is NOT intentional exclusion. It is my absolutely horrible memory. I love you and please link your own work if you'd like!

[wardenparker]

Red Lipstick

Dieter Bravo x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

Rating: E for Explicit! 18+ Word Count: 8.8k Warnings: Ghost!reader, drug use (cocaine), mentions of murder, mentions of past adultery, dirty talk, hair pulling, oral sex (f and m receiving), fingering, fingernails/scratching, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, sex while high. Summary: When Dieter moves into a new house, the last thing he expected was to end up with a sultry new roommate. Especially one that died almost a hundred years ago. Notes: Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween everybody! Let's celebrate by having Dieter get both high and nasty.

"I think you're going to be really pleased with how things are set up, Dee." As his personal assistant, Kendra has spent the last month getting her best and only client packed up, moved into his new house, and unpacked again while Dieter Bravo has been overseas filming. He had decided that the mansion he had been living in, in Malibu, just wasn't doing it for him anymore and she had been dispatched to fix the problem.

This art deco colossus in the Hollywood Hills was her answer — supposedly having belonged to some long forgotten starlet back in the silent era. Poor thing was poisoned by her husband's mistress, if the rumors were true. But Dieter didn't need to know that. Instead, Kendra sweeps him inside the door with an encouraging smile on her face and tries to get him to look around. "If you want anything moved around, you just say the word," she promises him.

“It’ll be fine.” For all his bullshit, Dieter isn’t actually as fussy as a lot of people might believe. He just wants a comfortable, vibey place to relax, do drugs and fuck. He looks around and nods, impressed with how quickly they’ve set everything up. “Kinda creepy. I like it.”

"I found some of the original furnishings in the attic and had them cleaned up. Reupholstered as necessary. I thought you'd like them." Extremely pleased with herself, Kendra looks around the large front hall and smiles. "There is food in the fridge with reheat instructions and plenty of things in the pantry if you want to eat without fuss. Your chef will be coming by every other day like usual. Would you like a tour?"

“Sure.” Maybe it’s a little odd that he’s needing a tour for a home he now owns, but he couldn’t be bothered to actually look at the listings that Kendra had sent him. She knew what he liked and what he didn’t, and he had trusted her to pick the best one for him.

The first floor has all the usual rooms, and considering the place was built in 1920 it has some unusual ones, too. A library and a dining room make perfect sense. The sitting room has been transformed into a relatively normal living room. The conservatory with all the plants Kendra could reasonably cram into it has a big table for playing games at and a bunch of places to sit for when he has people over to work but they want something nice to look at. The former ballroom? She left it sparsely decorated so he can decide what he wants to do with it later. Upstairs, the five bedrooms all have walk-in closets and their own bathrooms, and the largest one has been turned into his new bedroom. The giant brass bed in the attic was way nicer than his so she topped it with his mattress and covered the whole thing in his favorite sheets, blankets, and pillows. His other furniture is all set up, and his assistant has set up all the other guest rooms to be ready to go. “What do you think?” Kendra asks, leading him into the room with dark green wallpaper and mahogany wainscoting.

Dieter frowns and tilts his head at the ornate bed. “Did– that’s not my bed, is it?” He asks, pointing at it. “I would remember being tied to it, and I – I’ve not done that yet, I don’t think.”

“I found it in the attic,” Kendra tells him, passing by the comment with just a half-smirk. “I thought you’d like it.”

"It fucking cool." His eyes are positively excited as he rushes towards the bed and caresses the brass scroll work on the bed. "It's mine? It came with the house?" He can't imagine that someone would leave this badass bed, he wouldn't. It's orate and beautiful, drawing him to it in a way he can't describe. Imagining amazing sex in this bed and the flash of a woman. Just a glimpse as his hand wraps around one post.

“It’s yours.” She’s pleased with his reaction and smiles as he inspects the looming piece of furniture. “I know you have a few favorite booty calls in town if you want to try it out tonight.”

He chuckles and almost agrees but he doesn't. Deciding he wants to spend his first night in the house alone. Settle with it and figure out what kind of vibes it's giving him. "Maybe," is all he says.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” She nods when he looks back at her and heads for the stairs, leaving Dieter alone in his new house. He has the keys, he has his bearings, and he has dinner already made. She’ll be back tomorrow to check on him.

"Hello?" He calls out, just for fun even as the door has closed behind his assistant minutes ago. He's a firm believer in spirits, knowing that his aura projects out into the universe. It's why he doesn't like things messing with his brain waves like the bluetooth headphones.

“Hello sweetie.” From the doorway of the bedroom that once was yours, you place your hands on your waist and practically hum at the man standing near your bed. He doesn’t have that slick, smooth, buttoned-up look that men of your era did, but he has an undeniable appeal all his own. Not that he can see you — oh no — but at least you’ll have something nice to look at. The last family to own the house your fortune built was rather…unfortunate looking.

There's something. Dieter's skin tingles and he hums as he looks around the room. Swearing that he had felt something. "I'm– uh, I come in peace." He tells the room.

“Aw, sugar…” Tutting, you saunter into the room and cross your arms over your chest. The dressing robe you’ve worn for the last ninety-five years still gives you the feeling of swishing around as you move even though that’s now impossible. “You can’t see me, handsome. Or hear me. Nobody can.”

"Whoever you are..." Dieter's brows lift and he gives a sympathetic expression. "I feel you. Just know that I'm here to live beside you. And get really high."

“Feel me?” It would be too much to ask for it to be true, and you tilt your head at him curiously. “Sugar, I’d let you feel me in a heartbeat.“

"Can spirits get high?" He asks, mostly to himself and he chuckles. "We can get faded together."

“Guess we’ll have to find out.” You laugh softly to yourself. “Might be fun.”

"I'm hungry." Dieter groans, rubbing his stomach and then scratching it. "Gonna go down to the kitchen and get something to eat." He looks around the room. "Don't like– throw a knife at my head or anything, okay?"

That makes you laugh, a deep sound that is unpretentious and unexpected, and you decide to follow him down to the kitchen. The blandness of the last owners had been absolute, but this one is fun. And at least not a stick in the mud. Maybe his food will be worth smelling as well.

Rambling down the stairs, Dieter starts to hum a little tune. One that he doesn't recognize but he swears it from some old black and white movie.

“Now how do you know that?” The sound of the tune makes you hurry up, floating alongside this new man on feet that no longer touch the ground. You’d know it anywhere. The theme from a movie long gone and long forgotten — but that you’d sung yourself into that big studio microphone to be recorded and played for your first ever ‘talkie’. If only you hadn’t died first, you might’ve made a go of musicals.

"What movie is that from?" Dieter loves to get stoned and watch old movies. Having hundreds of channels that include a lot of classic movies, black and whites and even the great era of silent movies. There was something about that time that just appeals to him, the art of acting without saying a word. It took a lot more skill to portray emotion and your intent when you cannot say anything. "I'll have to look it up."

“Bernice Bobs Her Hair…” The film had been full of dances and a few good songs, all wrapped around that darling story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was supposed to be a breakout. Reignite your star. Instead you were dead on premiere night. “It was called Bernice Bobs Her Hair.”

“B something,” Dieter frowns, cocking his head as he reaches for the fridge. “The chick who was in it died the night it came out.” He snaps his fingers and yanks the door open to see what Kendra had left for him, “Ohhhhh Thai!”

"Thank god I looked good, at least." You huff, crossing your arms again as you try to figure out what he's tying as he takes things out of the icebox.

“Peanut sauce, fuck yes!” He could kiss his assistant, knowing he’s been on a Thai kick lately and she has put all his favorites in there. “I can reheat the samosas in the air fryer. That will be good.” He talks to himself. “Pad Thai, that omelet thing I can never say right. Fuckkkkkkk, she got me the green curry. Imma get fucked up and munch.”

He's got a boyish kind of charm to him as he zips around the kitchen, and if you could you would be leaning back against the counter to watch. As it is, the small sound of your laughter and the smile on your face is private, but you find yourself hoping he might continue to speak to himself out loud from time to time. It's nice to be able to pretend that he is actually talking to you.

Dieter straightens up and looks towards the counter near the fridge. “Oh shit. Forgive me. I don’t know how to live with a – a spirit.” He shrugs. “Do you want to join me? Can ghosts eat? Probably not right? Fuck. That would suck. I’m sorry.”

When he looks right at you, you feel your mouth fall open and your eyes double in size. "You— can you— see me?" It's just a coincidence. It has to be. He can't possibly be looking at you, right? Just...in your general direction...

“I swear to fuck you are right there.” He points at you and sighs. “Or you’re so goddamn lonely you’re inventing ghosts to have someone to talk to, Bravo.” He blows out a breath, wondering when he lost his fucking mind.

"I am right here." Moving away from the counter, you get closer to him and closer, wondering how it's possible at all for him to sense you. If he has any idea who you are. "I'm right in front of you..." you murmur, wondering what would happen if you reached out to try to touch him.

“Right.” Dieter drops his head and reaches up to rub his neck. “Time to do some cocaine.” He grunts, sure that he’s answered his own question. “Or maybe that new shit Kevin brought me.” It amused him to no end that his regular supplier’s name was Kevin. He had him in his phone as ‘Home Alone’ for kicks.

"Ooo, cocaine. How darling and nostalgic of you. I miss cocaine." When he walks away you can't help but sigh. Or you would, if you still drew breath. Instead you occupy yourself in the most entertaining way currently at your disposal: following around the living person in your house.

There's a reason Dieter loves to have ornate or even simple flat mirrors around his home. One, it reflects light and brightens any space up. Two, it's great for setting up a line for coke. Making him think of those 80's parties every time he uses his credit card to line one up to snort, he giggles. "Too bad I don't have one of those fancy rings where you open the little compartment to take a bump." He grunts, knowing he would always have that thing loaded.

“Find my jewelry box in the attic and you’ll find a few beauties.” You hum, setting yourself on the nearby chair to lounge. That’s all you can do these days and it’s terribly annoying.

Once the line is as perfect as he wants it, Dieter rolls up a five dollar bill and bends over the mirror. It's quick, the pain of snorting something up his nose long since faded, and he throws his head back at the rush of pure endorphins. Eyes closed as the feeling settles over him like a warm blanket and he groans, dropping his head back down and opening his eyes.

Only to give a yelp when he spots a woman lounging on one of his living room chairs. "What the fuck!"

“You can see me!” This time there is no mistaking it, and you practically bounce and clap your hands with glee. “Sugar, that magical white powder of yours is a little more magical than you think!”

"Who the fuck are you?" Dieter stumbles back and bumps into a table behind him, rocking the lamp but he doesn't pay it any attention. "How the fuck did you get in. I– look, I don't want a crazy fan in my house. I'll call the police!"

“Call the police all you want, handsome. They won’t be able to see what you’re so worried about.“ It had happened with the last owners — when you had gotten fed up with being ignored and invisible and dead you had gone on a good old fashioned haunting spree that resulted in everything from police being called to exorcisms being performed. The family finally moved out in a rush and the house had been empty for almost ten years. “And darlin’?” You drawl, delighted that he can actually hear you. “You’re the one in my house.”

"Your house?" Dieter shakes his head and blinks again. Swearing that he's on a bad trip, but there is a shimmeriness around you and your hair is very styled. Despite the fact that you are wearing a vintage dressing gown, with the feathered sleeves that seemed to be in every old movie from the classics. He frowns, blinking again and then it clicks. "Oh shit. I know who you are."

“Oh, really?” Practically preening at the idea that he might recognize you since he clearly has seen at least one of your films, you instinctively strike a pose in the chair. “Guess I just have one of those unforgettable faces,” you purr.

"You're dead though." He shakes his head again and throws out a lopsided grin. "But you look really good for a dead broad." He says your name and then pauses. "Right?"

“Right as rain.” You chirp happily. It’s been so long since you’ve even been seen that being recognized again seems like a faraway dream. “But who is this handsome fella that’s in my house with my bed in his room?”

It can't be real. It can't be. You died. A fucking long time ago. Dieter hums, realizing he must be in another one of those hallucinations of his. They are getting more and more vivid the longer he uses. Maybe his agent was right and he needed a stint in rehab. For now, he shrugs and introduces himself. "Dieter Bravo. I'm an actor too. Oscar winner." He adds.

“Oscar winner, huh?” The brag isn’t lost on you, and you bat your eyelashes at him in your old accustomed way. “A big shot.”

"Maybe." Despite his air of arrogance that he wears, Dieter is like most actors. Neurotic and craving validation and love. "To some."

“I would’ve had one,” you toss one hand in the air flippantly, delighted that he can actually see you do it. “But they didn’t start those things until after I died.”

“Really?” He hums and tilts his head. “What year?”

“What year did I die, you mean?” A dramatic sigh from you is an effort since you don’t need breath anymore, but it’s so fun to play. “I died October 27, 1928, sugar. Right here in this house.”

“How?” He asks with a frown. “I mean, you look great. You don’t look dead.”

“Well, aren't you sweet?” A girl does like a compliment now and then. Especially when she hasn’t had one in almost a hundred years. “It was poison, sweet thing. Should’ve known better than to let someone else mix my drinks.”

“You were poisoned?” Dieter looks alarmed, too alarmed for a death that happened nearly 100 years ago, but he’s looking around like the murderer would pop out at any moment.

“Tale as old as time, handsome.” You shrug your shoulders, having had plenty of time to process the betrayal. “My best friend was sleeping with my husband and they wanted me out of the way. Don’t know why he didn’t just ask for a divorce…probably so he could keep my money.”

“Fuck.” He shakes his head and sighs. “I’m sorry. Want a drink?” He asks, feeling comfortable enough to offer a ghost a drink. “Oh shit– no, you wouldn’t want me to pour you a drink. I’m an idiot.”

“If I could have a drink, I’d let you pour me one.” He seems sweet. A little lost. Maybe abandoned. But sweet. Like a puppy that needs to be pet more often.

“I can see you.” He reasons. “Maybe you can. After all…” he shrugs. “Ghosts can’t sit and you're lounging on my chair, sprawled theatrically.”

"Oh sugar, I can assure you that ghosts do sit. We do a hell of a lot of it, in fact. Or else we'd do nothing but float around or stand all day, and variety is the spice of...well...death."

“What else can you do?” Dieter latches onto the conversation with an eagerness that surprises him but it’s not everyday he converses with ghosts.

"I can push things over sometimes." You have managed that early on. Scaring the devil out of your husband and his plaything so frequently that they had abandoned the house and sold it as quickly as possible. "Flicker the lights. Cause breezes. You know...ghostly things."

“Hmmmm.” Dieter moves over to the bar and pours a glass of whiskey. “Come see if you can drink.” He urges you.

"I seriously doubt it, darlin', but why not." Shrugging your shoulders, you lift yourself up from the seat you had been lounging in and saunter over to the bar. It's been a hell of a long time before you were able to do anything at all, and this man – Dieter – is the first person who has been able to do as much as sense you in decades. Why not have a little fun? Once you're standing beside him you reach out, waggling your bejeweled fingers a little before attempting to wrap them around the glass. As hard as you can possibly concentrate, your hand slips right through the glass and the liquid inside, coming up empty.

“What if I hold it for you?” The rational part of his brain is screaming that it won’t work, but there’s this voice that keeps telling him to try.

“Why the hell not?” It won’t work, but it seems to amuse him to try, so you sway closer and tilt your head expectantly.

He's nervous, not because he needs to step closer to you, but because – what if this works?. He might be able to do something no one else has been and thats pretty fucking cool.

You really hate to see him get his hopes up, but indulgently tilt your head back for the liquid to – as expected – pass right through you to a puddle on the floor. “It’s alright, sugar,” you croon softly when he looks disappointed, and ingrained instinct makes you reach like you could somehow pat his face even though you’ve just proven the opposite. Imagine both of your surprise, then, when your cold hand neatly cups his burning hot cheek.

"OH SHIT!" Dieter jumps, nearly pulling away from your touch because of the temperature difference, but then he manages to keep contact. "Oh shit, you're– how? I thought you couldn't– what the fuck?"

“I don’t know— I don’t know!” As panicked as he is, you reel back instantly and stare at your hand, cradling it like it might combust. “I don’t know! That’s never happened before!”

"You touched me! Quick, do it again!" This time Dieter is reaching out for you. Seeing if he can touch a ghost and he yelps again when his fingers connect with you.

“How in the world?” It shouldn’t be possible. It doesn’t make sense. And yet— it’s happened.

"Oh god, are you sure you're a ghost?" Dieter frowns, fingers curling around your jaw, making sure it's not one of those celebrity masks things people sometimes wear. That you aren't tricking him even if he had just watched your drink pass through you. "You feel real."

“You’re the first person to have a feel in ninety-five years, darlin’.” And that in and of itself is why you’re sure this is actually happening. You were there — you remember every single one of those ninety-five years’ worth of days.

“Oh fuck, this is, this is so cool!” Dieter groans out with an ecstatic expression on his face.

“This is unbelievable.” Never in your entire afterlife have you ever tried to touch a living being. When Reggie and his trollop were still in the house you had haunted them right out into the street. The second owners could not have been more oblivious to your otherworldly presence if they had been doing it intentionally. The third had simply bored and annoyed you so deeply that you had spooked them just out of sheer habit. You had lost your zest for haunting for a long, long time. But this? This is utterly remarkable.

“This shouldn’t be happening, right?” Dieter asks, as if being a ghost makes you an expert on them. “What’s different? What’s making this happen?”

“Damned if I have any idea, sugar.” It’s almost too exciting to bear, but you test the thing by flexing your fingers against the rasp of stubble on his face. “But it’s never ever happened before.”

"Is it because I'm high?" He wonders. "My mind is just....in tune with the spirit world?"

“Maybe?” It’s impossible to know for sure, but your hands are making his face with enthusiasm because you’re afraid to touch his clothing and lose this magical ability to touch again.

Dieter reaches out and touches you again. "You feel so soft." He hums. "You've got a hell of a skincare routine."

“Being dead seems to have its advantages.” You joke with a wink. “Can’t wrinkle if you can’t age.”

"So you look like you did when you died?" He asks. "You were fucking sexier than the screen made you look."

“Why, Mr. Bravo, you flatter.” Even though your instinct is to close your eyes against the searing heat of him and how solid he feels against you, you’re fully afraid that if you do, he’ll disappear. And true to form, instead of facing fear, you continue to joke. “But really, gray makeup does no one any favors.”

"It had to be like that, right?" He asks curiously. Remembering the history of cinema classes that he had taken in college. "Because it would show up on film better?"

“Just so.” His hand is so broad it feels like it spans one entire half of your face. “But I always preferred red.”

"Red lips are always sexy." He murmurs, licking his own lips and glancing down at your painted red lips.

“Always?” The question hangs — if he’s going far enough out on that limb to actually be considering what he seems to be considering. And if you’re far enough out on that limb with him to go along.

"Always." He agrees, rubbing his thumb along your bottom lip. "Should I– would it be weird if I kissed you?" He asks. "For science?"

“Depends.” If you still had a heartbeat it would be frantic — excitement and nerves crawling up your spine. “Ever thought of kissing a woman born before 1900?”

"Am now." He admits with a self deprecating shrug. "I don't know if it counts, but I had a crush on Greta Garbo when I was a boy."

“Good taste.” You hum, chuckling from somewhere deep in your chest. “She was a hell of a woman.”

"You knew her?" He asks in surprise.

“Knew her?” You demure, all amusement and sly smile. “She was a remarkable kisser.”

"Really?" Dieter's eyes blow wide and he glances down at your lips again. "Are– were you– uh, lovers?"

“One or two parties that got a little out of hand.” A chuckle grows from your chest and you nudge his chin up to close his mouth, delighting in the not so simple act of touching him. “My husband wasn’t the only one dissatisfied with our marriage, I suppose.”

"So you're bi?" It's a fucking interesting development in the conversation and a fascinating one at that. “Uh, bisexual?” He isn’t sure if that phrase was used back then. “You like both sexes?”

“I used to just say ‘adventurous’.” You have heard the term, though. Through the decades you have learned a whole lot about the world.

"Adventurous." He chuckles quietly and smirks. "Then I guess I'm 'adventurous' too." He admits. "But I want to kiss you."

“We can try.” His hands on your skin feel burning when you didn’t think you could ever feel anything again — so wouldn’t it be foolish not to try?

“Let me know if you– uh, feel anything.” He’s honestly not sure if he’s so high he’s imagining things, or this is real, but it feel like the greatest fucking high of his life. Holding onto the silky waist of the dressing gown and leaning in to press his lips to yours ever so gently.

The last fading memory of a kiss that you have is from the night you died, and it is one of the most melancholy things to have past those lips of yours that you can still remember. This, comparatively, is like being set on fire even when it only lasts a second. The sound of a gasp comes from one of you — likely him, all things considered — but you could swear the world has turned on its axis just a touch, in letting the living and the dead collide like this.

Your lips are cold and yet the reason Dieter shivers isn’t because of that. It’s from the tingling, the way that his hair raises on the back of his neck and his cock starts to harden. He’s kissing a ghost and he likes it.

“Impossible…” Yet it’s undeniable. It happened. You both experienced it. A living man and the ghost of a woman long dead, sharing a kiss.

“Again.” Dieter demands, taking a step closer to you and sliding his hand down to your waist. “I want another kiss.”

There shouldn’t be any way in hell this is possible, especially with him now touching your robe instead of your skin, but you can feel him. The breadth of his hand on your back, his chest presses against yours, hot breath fanning over your face and the hardness against your hip. It’s all real. “Happily.” You hear yourself groan out, diving back into another impossible kiss.

This time there is tongue. Making him groan into your spiritual mouth and tighten his hold on you. Unable to believe this is happening and not another hallucination, he pulls back. “Pinch me.” He demands. “Scratch me, something.”

It should surprise no one that the shade of deep red on your lips matches your nails, and even though your eyebrows pinch with the same disbelief and confusion as his, you rake your nails down his forearm and gasp when they leave behind a trail of equally red marks in their wake. “How?” Is all you can ask, knowing that neither of you has an answer.

“I don’t know, but goddamn that felt good.” Dieter moans quietly. He slides his hand up, cupping a breast and pinching your nipple through the silken material of your dressing gown.

The gasp you let out shouldn’t be possible either, but the fact that you seem to be solid under his touch and him solid to yours is exquisite. Coupling that with an arousal like you haven’t felt in almost a century and you’re dragging him back to you by the fabric of his shirt, willing to live in this miracle for as long as it lasts. To feel alive again.

Making out with a ghost isn’t something that he could have imagined when he arrived at his new house, but he’s enjoying it. Backing you up, he presses you to the wall as he continues to kiss you.

It pulls another gasp from you, shocked when you don't instantly evaporate through the wall like normal. Somehow – some way – in touching and being touched by him, you are solid again. You can swear you almost feel your heart beating. Racing out of time as you start to pull at his clothing and he blindly attempts to untie the sash holding your robe in place.

“What the fuck?” Dieter hisses, breaking away from the kiss to look down at the knot on your robe. “Who the fuck tied this?”

"I did." But now, in retrospect, you huff about it along with him. "To discourage my louse of a husband."

“Fuck.” He grunts, shaking his head. “We need– fuck, the bedroom, we need to go to the bedroom.”

"Afraid to let go–" You admit, fingers still tangled in his shirt as you both pant for breath. To pant is such an exquisite sensation that you cannot possibly describe it and you must look positively ecstatic in the moment.

“Then don’t.” Dieter chuckles, deciding that he will be putting the weight training for his last film to good use when he pulls up your dressing gown and grabs your thighs to lift you up. “Fuck, you feel heavy for a ghost.” He grunts as he picks you up.

"Rude." A single swat at his chest is nothing, and you rope your arms around his shoulders to press hot kisses along the column of his neck while he moves down the hall.

Dieter groans, hands cupping your ass he stumbles towards his new bedroom. Trying to remember the way when half the blood meant for his brain is operating his cock. Realizing that you are no longer cold, but almost scorching hot in his arms.

"Your left! Not my left!" You mumble against his skin, giggling and trying to give him directions when you refuse to detach yourself from kissing any part of him that you can manage.

“Fuck. Fucking new/old house.” He grunts. “Fuck, you’re so sexy. You know that? I bet you had all your co-stars wanting to fuck you.”

"A few of them did." His fingers digging into your ass brush perilously close to your pussy and you moan. "But you've fucked some of yours, too, sugar."

“Yes.” He groans, pulling you against his cock. “Fucked them, ate them out, sucked them off. Whatever we felt like doing.”

"Bet you want to add me to that list right about now, don't you, sugar?" The nickname has stuck, and you've decided you like it. Leaning back in his arms and finding both your body and clothing have returned entirely to the corporeal plane, your eyes find his with the same fire he is feeling now. "I can feel how much you want me."

"Fuck, do I want you." He groans, unable to believe that he's ever wanted someone this bad, but how do you explain the attraction to a 100 year-old ghost? "I'm going to strip you down and bury my tongue and cock in your ghostly cunt. See what filling it with my cum looks like." At least here, he's almost certain there's zero chance of catching something or a pregnancy scandal.

As soon as he sets you down on the bed he’s diving into it after you, covering your body with his and drowning in kisses that make your head spin as you tug at the knot you tied in your robe. It is amazing how your skin has warmed up. Gone from being a muted color to technicolor. Like you are being brought to life by his touch. His mouth drags over your shoulder when the silk slips down and he bites. Chuckling in absolute delight when he leaves behind imprints on your skin.

With your head tossed back on the blankets you revel in a moan, looking up at him with eyes that feel hazy but have not seen this clearly in years. “If we only get tonight, let’s make the most of it. Sound good, sugar?”

“Absolutely.” He moans in agreement, ecstatic that you seem to be on the same wavelength as he is. Maybe that’s why this is happening. Your spirit is touching his. “I’ve never eaten haunted pussy before.” He jokes as he kisses down your body and pulls the gown down over one breast to latch onto it.

“Can’t say that again passed tonight.” You chuckle, gasping at the searing heat and eager grasping of his mouth on your flesh. It is electric in a way you have never been able to describe and adds to the incredible miracle that is tonight. “Good thing about being dead is that the pussy stayed shaved.”

“Very good thing.” He mouths from around your breast, hands pulling open the dressing gown when you finally get the sash untied.

The last time you felt a breeze on your skin was so long ago that you moan at it, back arching into him as he exposes your body to the bright electric lights and air from the open window. The fingers of one hand are in his curly hair and your other is pulling at his shirt, wanting him as bare as you are for everything that is to come.

He’s reluctant to let you go, but he has to. Has to hurry to pull his clothes off so he can have the wildest encounter that he could probably never even talk about.

Soft and strong is always how you’ve liked your men, and the corded muscles in his arms and back — when you catch a glimpse — that give way to a soft middle and full cheeks are just your type. When he’s entirely bare and pushing your silk robe away from your body with every ounce of concentration he has, you instinctively spread your legs wide for him to take his place between them.

“Fuck, I’ve never – fuck.” He groans, knowing that you will understand what he’s meaning. It’s not like you’ve done this either from what you’ve told him. Kissing and nipping down your body, it’s interesting to hear you moan at the sensation. “Here goes.” His eyes flick up to your face before he dives into your cunt.

The moan you let out is deep and unbridled, as earnest as you are eager to watch every single moment. You lean up on one elbow to prop yourself up, raking the fingers of your other hand through his hair to get yourself the best view possible. He’s gloriously messy — enthusiasm over technique — and it makes it all the more hedonistic to moan and sigh at the sensations you know are coming from the deepest depths of desire.

You feel real, you taste real. There’s nothing about this that would indicate that there’s nothing beyond a gorgeous, horny woman in his bed and Dieter is here for it. Moaning into your damp folds as he tries to find which flick of his tongue drives you wild.

Everything feels good, and if you weren’t always a ‘the deeper the better’ kind of girl in life, you certainly are in your afterlife. Simultaneously too much and not enough, the not enough side is winning a little more every second. Dieter pushes your thighs wider with his shoulders and shoves a hand up, desperate to feel himself deep inside you, even if it’s just his fingers. Wanting to see how high pitched your breathy moans can get.

"Fuck–fuck–right there, baby. Oh god–" When he finds that perfect place it has your hips rolling and your back arching off the bed, chasing every pump of his fingers and flick of his tongue. The sensations are divine combined with your own hand pinching and pulling your nipples to add another lick of sharp pleasure to the symphony. Even touching yourself feels amazing after so long with nothing at all.

Dieter groans, soaking up the praise, the moans. Doubling down and flicking his tongue even faster as his jaw works open and closed. Despite being dead, your cunt is dripping for him, coating his fingers in slick that makes it easier to push them deeper, curl them up more as he works you open.

Rambling praise takes over, your mind finding a measure of ecstasy in the ability in the simple fact that he can hear you while he is feasting on your pussy and fucking his fingers as deep inside you as they will go. It's only when your scrambled, breathy monologue starts to stutter and break that he knows how close you are – that, and the tight grip you have on his curls as you start to shake beneath him.

Panting, he grinds his hard cock into the mattress. Moaning as you tug on his hair, making his scalp burn and continuing to affirm that this is not a dream. Curling his fingers up one last time and sucking your clit into his mouth as your body bows up underneath his touch. The moment that snaps the thread of tension in your body is when the fingernails of his free hand bite into your thigh at the same point he curls the fingers of his other hand and barely scrapes his teeth along your swollen clit. The force of all three sensations makes your vision go white, and for the first time since all of this began, your eyes fall blissfully shut while your body shakes with the force of your orgasm.

He feels the way your entire body relaxes, slumping down into the bed. Humming to himself as he slowly works you through that blissful high. Keeping his fingers buried inside you as his tongue licks up every drop of your pleasure.

"Hell in a handbasket." Sighing out, you soothe your fingers against his scalp and grin down at him when he licks the last drop of cum from your cunt. "Get up here, sugar. Let me ride you."

“You want to ride?” His head pops up in surprise. He had expected you to want to be treated after so long, but he can’t deny the idea of a ghost riding his cock is appealing.

“Not very fair to make you do all the work, handsome.” Your smile is lopsided instead of pointed now, lazily drawn across your mouth like the human iteration of a contented house cat. “And I wouldn’t want to be rude to my new house guest.”

“Aren’t you technically my guest?” He lets you pull him up and roll him over onto his back. “Since it’s my house now?”

“Semantics.” Once he is on his back, you pin him down with one knee on either side of his thighs and wrap one hand around his cock to pump his length a few times experimentally. The precum beaded at the top is pearlescent and musky, the scent of sex from your own climax filling your nostrils and giving you the thrill of yet another sense coming back to life.

“Oh shit.” He grunts out, twitching in your hand. “I– fucking hell, please, please, put your mouth on me.”

“Ooo, he begs.” It’s a delightful discovery, and you obligingly bend over to kitten lick the tip of his cock just to see how beautifully he’ll groan.

Dieter is a whiny, spoiled little bastard who is given everything he wants because that’s how you treat celebrities, but he will beg. He will beg for anything and everything in bed. Slightly more submissive than most people expect. He moans your name loudly and closes his eyes as his hips rock up.

“Watch, sugar.” Something about it, the magical quality perhaps or what feels like literal magic, makes you want to keep him in this bubble with you. This state of hyper awareness. Your mouth hovers over the tip of his cock and you give it a long kick to get his attention. “You’re gonna watch me just like I watched you.”

Dieter whimpers, opening his eyes obediently. As soon as he sees the length of his cock disappear down your spectorly throat, he moans, twisting his fingers into the sheets under him. “Fuck, fuck, I’m getting my dick sucked by the hottest fucking ghost I’ve ever seen.” The fact that you’re the only ghost he’s seen is a moot point.

You chuckle low, deep in your throat, and it vibrates around his girthy length as you start to bob your head deliberately. Slowly. Wanting to savor every second of this for as long as it lasts. If you didn’t have a mouth full of him you’d be teasing him about the other ghosts he’s seen to compare you to, but you just don’t care. Not right now. Not with him at your mercy.

"Holy shit." He hisses, moaning loudly. "You're so good. Did you just– fuck, spend the last hundred years practicing on a ghost banana?"

It makes you chuckle again, and instead of answering you take him that much deeper. If he thinks you were showing off before? Just wait.

His toes curl, scrunching his feet up as you apparently have every intent of sucking his soul out through his dick. Could he die from a blowjob? It seems possible. “Fuck, baby doll.”

He wanted your mouth so he’s going to get every benefit of your focus right up until he can’t stand it any longer. He throbs against your swirling tongue, twitching in your mouth and against your fingertips where you are stroking the last few inches of his length that don’t easily fit in your mouth — there’s no way you’re ruining your vacation from ghost-hood by accidentally choking on a cock.

"Fuck, do you swallow?" Dieter moans. "You should swallow, I want– oh fuck." You keep sucking, pulling him closer every heartbeat until his vision blacks out, the hoarse cry ripping out of his throat.

Spurt after spurt of hot cum jettisons down your throat as his body bares down on itself, muscles tightening and extremities curling. The man is a geyser and every time he pumps more cum into your willing, waiting mouth you groan loudly and swallow around him. The feeling of being truly alive is not one that you are going to take for granted tonight and he is making it all the more memorable by just giving in to those most basic of human needs. There is nothing sexier than a person who has completely given themself over to the feeling of pleasure, and by the time you lift your head from Dieter’s cock, he has absolutely done that.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!" Dieter yelps the last curse, feeling like you are sucking so hard it's to the point that it hurts, keeping him hard. He must have snorted that batch of coke that he had mixed viagra in, because he normally is a one and done for at least an hour kind of guy.

When he doesn’t soften at all after cumming your throat in cum, you pull off of him with one raised eyebrow and smirk. “You still alive there, sugar? Can’t have both of us dying in this house.”

He pants out a laugh and manages to lift his head to look down at where you are grinning up at him, your hand still wrapped around his hard cock. "Not dead. More alive than I've ever been."

“That makes two of us.” Giving his cock another few strokes, you shift forward and comb your fingers through his sweat-damp curls. “You want more, handsome?”

“Want everything.” He groans quietly. “You want to ride me, or you want me to fuck you?”

“Want everything.” You echo him with a sly grin and shift forward. “I’m gonna ride you to the edge and then you’re going to fuck me as hard as you can. Got it, sugar?”

"Fuck, I didn't know people were so fucking dirty back then." He groans, twitching against his stomach as you drag your wet cunt over him. "I think I would like it back then."

“The Kama Sutra is hundreds of years old,” you remind him with a throaty chuckle. “So is pornography and promiscuity.” Positioning yourself over his cock, you start to sink down slowly and sigh out in absolute bliss. “Humans have always loved to fuck.”

“Ghosts too, apparently.” He moans, grabbing onto your very solid hips as you settle down on his cock. “Fuuuuuuuuuck.”

“Least ghostly I’ve been in ages.” It’s also the first time since death you’ve experienced something as human as being aroused and it’s entirely liberating. “Maybe this thick cock is magic.”

He starts to giggle out of a groan when you clench around him. "Magic stick." He grunts, rocking his hips up. "It attracts allll the ghostly nymphos." He jokes, sliding his hand down to press against your clit.

“They can line — oh, baby — up.” You let your head drop back but your eyes are still open, arms raised up to let your tits bounce as you start to ride him in earnest.

He's never had someone ride him so fucking enthusiastically. It might be because it's the first time you've been able to feel in a hundred years, but he will take what he can get. Unable to fucking believe that this is happening, although the pressure around his dick and the way the bed creaks and groans proves that it's real.

The slight change in the angle of his hips when he plants his feet on the mattress has you crying out again and nearly growling. “That’s it, sugar.” And “Oh Fuck!” And “More, baby.” Echo through the room with the slap of skin on skin. The volume seems to rise along with the pleasure you’re both receiving, so it is nothing short of a beautiful noise the more you ride him.

Breaking in the new bed in his new house is an experience he could never, ever top. His hands slide from your hips up to the headboard and he wraps his fingers around the scrolled metal. Hanging on and using it as leverage to thrust up into you harder.

He propels you forward, losing your balance slightly so that you end up having to brace yourself with both hands on his chest and your tits bouncing in his face, but you really don't think that either of you minds. Instead, your fingertips instinctively dig into his chest, biting half-moon marks into his skin. Leaning forward changes the angle of his thrusts, letting him strike against entirely different places inside you, and you whimper softly without even realizing it when he scrubs against that perfect spot inside you to make you see stars.

“Right there?” His pants, recognizing the glazed look on your face. “Yeah, fuck, that’s the spot.” Despite the drugs that are pumping through his system, or perhaps because of it, he is attuned to the way you react.

"Right there." It has you breathless, how good it feels and how solid and real the feeling is.

"Holy shit." The feeling of you around him has him rolling his eyes back, your cunt even better than your mouth if possible. "Want to see you cum."

It certainly won't take long, not with the way his cock is shredding up inside you, and your previously loud moans are quickly being replaced with high pitched pants the closer you get to your own climax. Having the breath fucked out of you is such a stark difference from the existence you've been leading for the last many decades and it's such a welcome change. It takes barely another minute – maybe two – before you're sobbing out filthy praise and clenching down on his cock to wrench every last drop of pleasure from the moment that you can.

There's nothing sexier than a woman cumming, but you? You take his breath away. Steal it from his very lungs as your lusty sobs reverberates through him. Taking control and rocking up into you, working you through the most intense orgasm of your existence.

“Fuck.” Breathed out shakily as you let yourself fall down to his chest, your fingers comb through his curls and tug on the strands sharply as you’ve found that he likes.

He moans quietly, twitching inside you and humming as he lets go of the bed to wrap his arms around you to roll you under him. Eager to find his own release again and see how it looks dripping out of your cunt.

“That’s it, sugar.” Sprawled out on your back underneath him, you wrap your legs around his waist and tangle your hands in his sheets. “Take what you need.”

Dieter is normally not aggressive but there is something about your tone, your words, that spurs him on. Setting his jaw, Dieter starts to rock into you, keeping his pace harsh. Thrusting deep and moaning when you roll your hips.

Unconsciously mirroring him from just moments ago, you reach above your head and grasp the bars of your headboard. Every time he thrusts into you he shakes the whole frame, bouncing your tits and his curls and everything around you. The bed creaks and threatens to give but you know it won't – this one single piece of furniture is as sturdy as the whole house. It was made for you to fuck in.

"Fuck baby, fuck." Dieter growls, jack hammering his hips as he fills you again and again. Unable to brace his body above yours any more and dropping down to his elbows. He can't believe that he is still going, but he can't stop. He won't stop.

As much he wants to give or take, you are here for every second of it. With his head buried in your neck and the rhythm of his hips starting to stutter, your moan and whimpers are a symphony mixed with his own.

It flashes through his mind that this is some sort of sick hoax, that you are and have always been real, but he can’t worry about that right this second. The second that his mind goes blank to everything but his body’s needs and he thrusts deep, slamming his hips forward and groaning your name as a prayer.

“That’s it, sugar,” you croon again, this time cradling him close as rope after rope of hot cum fills you to the brim.

“Oh God.” Dieter pants, snuggling deeper and not sure if or when you might disappear, so he holds on tight.

“Hardly.” Your typical, throaty giggle rides through your body and you stroke his back gently. “But I’ll take the praise if that’s the mood you’re in.”

“Hmmmm.” He hums and shifts so he is not weighing you down, rolling to his side and bringing you with him. “I’ll give it.” He murmurs, suddenly sleepy after the vigorous sex and starting to come down from his high. “Stay.” He mumbles quietly, rubbing your back this time.

“You’re in my house, remember?” This time your laugh is a little less indulgent, tinged with worry as you wonder how much longer you’ll be able to feel him. Speak to him. Have him see you. “But I’ll try.”

“That’s right.” He smiles, turning his head and pressing his lips to your sweat damp hair. “But this is a spirit friendly bed.”

“I hope so,” you murmur, watching as he snuggles in next to you and lets his eyes drift close with a sigh. “I truly hope so, sugar.”

******

Dieter opens his eyes, slowly peeling them apart and blinking to try to get rid of the gritty feeling. “Baby doll?” His voice is rough with sleep and he had expected you to be weighing him down. “Where are you?” For a moment, for a split second he had thought he dreamed it. His gaze finding its way to the picture on the wall that he hadn’t noticed last night. A portrait of a woman, of you, gorgeously sprawled on a chaise with a sultry smile and ruby red lips.

He is almost convinced that the best night of his life was a figment of his imagination as he moves. Until it catches his eye. Red. More specifically, red lips. The sight of kisses scattered over his body and down under the sheet. Making him lift them to see lipstick wrapped around his cock, hard this morning and it makes him grin.

It hadn’t been a dream.

______

Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @katheriner1999 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon   @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury

My Masterlist!

[schismusic]

Joy Division, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love New Order, too

Spring is weird as hell because one time you have this glaring sun that powers you up like being plugged into a wall outlet, then not five minutes later clouds begin to gather and you feel like you're going to die if anything goes south. So the most obvious combination to represent two sides of this same coin, emotional and meteorological, is Joy Division and New Order.

Sometimes you need Transmission or Shadowplay for the sunny days — impassioned jolts, sparks flying everywhere. Sometimes The Perfect Kiss hits harder on a cloudy afternoon, coming back home and in need of that extra push to not fall asleep in the train. It's surprising to realize the versatility displayed by both bands, or the same band in two different iterations according to whomever you ask. Peter Hook says, as late as 1993, that the laziest member of New Order is Ian Curtis. Or again this other person, in the comments under the Atmosphere official video on YouTube, who went to see New Order (Hooky-less New Order, which might be a relevant distinction) at the O2 Arena a couple of years ago and they gave an encore, says "Those of us who stayed got the privilege of watching Joy Division perform three of their songs". Interesting outlook on the matter. I personally saw Peter Hook and the Light play both Joy Division records and, I'm pretty sure, an encore comprised of just Love Will Tear Us Apart at the Arti Vive Festival in Soliera, back when it was still free to attend some of the events. I remember being pretty mad that Hooky had stopped to take pics with basically everyone and then left exactly as I was approaching. In retrospect I don't exactly blame the man, it was like midnight anyway. I remember nothing of the back trip home.

My first contact with Joy Division happened when I was thirteen and very much in my prog era. I was in Rome staying at an aunt of mine's place for my fourteenth birthday and she told me I could get a CD, since I had gotten some money saved up over time. Some Facebook page dedicated to Pink Floyd I'd liked (yeah, Facebook at age thirteen — I literally just wanted to play a fucking Flash game, back when Facebook allowed them, and I ended up getting to be terminally online. Crazy how things turn out) used to share a lot of memes and fanart relating to the Unknown Pleasures album cover, and me being a massive Pink Floyd head at the time I thought "I mean, if these guys are pushing this band so hard, that's gotta mean something". The album cover was pretty striking, admittedly: a far cry from the paisley ass paintings that I had grown to accept as the gold standard for the music I liked, but its simplicity struck a chord closer to The Dark Side of the Moon, or perhaps The Wall. Those were records I liked a lot, probably called them "the best records ever made" to more than one person, not like they aren't but that's a very bold statement to make when your listening experience consists exactly of

Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor when I was six;

Daft Punk's complete discography (minus Random Access Memories, which wasn't out yet) when I was twelve;

Pink Floyd's complete discography, courtesy of a CD collection coming out with some Italian newspaper, that same year;

a couple random classic rock records recommended to me by older friends and relatives usually well into their fifties or sixties at the time, random people on Internet forums — which, for clarification, I did not actively attend, preferring to just lurk from time to time — and the OndaRock "milestones" page.

So browsing through the surprisingly expansive CDs section of this electronics shop in Rome, and being mesmerized by a vinyl rack in the days when Music on Vinyl was the final frontier of pretending you could re-analogue the digital ("you mean to tell me these are like CDs, but bigger? Whoever designed these truly lived in the future"), I came across that very same album art that had stricken me so hard. I had listened to the first seconds of the album on YouTube, but that weird drum sound — so echoey, so distant, ultimately not particularly powerful, meaning it didn't really sound like Bonzo: it sounded more like my own band, which at the time didn't even exist yet — I didn't really know what to make of. This store I was in had one of those preview listening machines that would scan the barcode on the CDs and give you a small snippet of the song. I pull the CD up to the scanner, the scanner lights up green, I put on the headphones and the solo from this comes up:

Clearly they had to be kidding me. I had come to know, sneaking into infinitely many rehearsals with the band from my mother's town, what it sounded like when someone tried to play lead without something else filling up the arrangement (even though I didn't really know all that, or at least lacked the vocabulary to properly express it) and, for Christ's sake, didn't these guys notice rehearsing? It sounded empty, weirdly so, and it wasn't my thing, I thought. I put that CD away and picked up a band I knew I'd like — Genesis, specifically. So Nursery Cryme became the first CD I've ever paid with my own money, the very day I turned fourteen. Not a bad pickup. I remember being very impressed with the fast blurring lead guitar on The Musical Box and digging the sweet pastoral atmospheres of For Absent Friends and Harlequin. I still think of that record more often than one would probably assume looking at this blog, or my most played on Spotify. At the time, that was the best move I could take, really: why beat my head against a record that, as your average prog nerd ballbreaker, simply wasn't speaking to me?

Then all of a sudden in August of the same year my friend's dad hands me a 16 gigabyte USB drive, full of random music from all eras of rock. A lot of it remains inscrutable to me for a really long time, most notably Tom Waits (see related post), but I spent the whole month reading random folder names, seeing if something catches my eyes, and at one point I come across the Mars Volta. Open the folder up, read the names of their first three records, and my first thought is "Christ, these guys look incomprehensible. I'm about to have some fun". Long story short: I end up having a lot of fun, the Mars Volta turns into my favourite band at the time and finding out that they had previously been called At the Drive-In makes me gain some measure of respect for punk rockers: if they tried hard enough, I must've thought, they could prog as hard as anyone. In the meantime the ghost of Joy Division remains at the back of my head. I feel like I'm missing something, for the first time in my life: it's not them, it's me. Too bad that same realization didn't occur to me when it came to the people in my life until much, much later, but that's being fourteen for you I suppose. Early King Crimson and the Mars Volta were the pinnacle of violence to me, and not even the very few Metallica songs I'd downloaded just to see what would happen scratched that itch. It felt a bit too cauterized for some reason (I would later find out I had been looking in the wrong direction the whole time: the Black Album "sucked", according to my favourite metalhead of the time, who somehow catalyzed my interest from the very second I saw him in the school's courtyard. Hard to imagine why I would imprint on people like puppies do, but what the fuck, not like I've ever outgrown that anyway, I've just gotten better at managing it). But I felt there was more than violence to this, or different forms of violence. When Christmas came around and my relatives tried to get me presents, my mother asked if there was anything specific I was interested in, and I basically told her "look, if they can get me some CDs off of this list, I'm golden". It had some bangers on it, namely Noctourniquet by the Mars Volta — it's one of their best and I will die on this hill, be warned — and The Downward Spiral, which might as well warrant its own post in an ideal world. But the best of them all I think came from a random purchase, once again with the little money I had lying around at the time.

Closer appears to be, right away, a bit more concrete, and if there's something inexperienced music fans like is a pretty packaging that conjures a strong emotional response before they've even played the record. Compare a color-inverted graph of pulsar emissions to a literal funerary monument. Opening up the booklet I was shocked to see that Genesis was used as a negative point of comparison (bad omen, I thought) by people close to the band, and I came across much more detailed information about Ian Curtis's untimely demise — at that time, something far too removed from my experience to be faced with the delicacy and attention it deserves. Atrocity Exhibition hits like a ten-ton truck, a reference which at the time I wouldn't have been able to make for obvious reasons, and Isolation exposes all the nerve tissue under the skin. Passover comes in and strips everything even barer, and then A Means to an End turns… danceable, for some reason? Big emotional moment with The Eternal and Decades, which I thought actually took them closer to my usual tastes. And yet at the same time I kept looking at Colony, Heart and Soul and Twenty Four Hours as the most compelling cuts. Geometric assault sounding like sheet metal if it were music; rhythmically driven emptiness that serves as a minimal backdrop for depressed poetry, and finally a rocking ebb-and-flow that would probably inform a lot of my interest in GY!BE-like post-rock in the coming years. Very interesting to think that the same guys who'd done Unknown Pleasures could think of this. To this day, when asked, I still do think that Closer is the best Joy Division record, but what does it even mean when the records are exactly two, compilations notwithstanding?

It was around this time that it came to my attention that both Joy Division and another band called New Order had a record called Substance out, both published by the same recording company, both coming out within a year of each other. Looking it up, it turns out it's fully intentional, because New Order is simply Joy Division minus Ian Curtis. It would turn out to be a tad bit more complex than that. Anyway, I look New Order up and kind of have to do a double-take. Synthpop? In my Joy Division? More likely than you'd think, considering Isolation exists. But yeah, that sort of seals it — I wouldn't care about this New Order for a million years. Until all of a sudden a couple of years later David Sylvian bursts like a comet in my face, which of course leads me straight to Japan, the same year as I'd come across Berlin-era Bowie, and you can probably guess where this is going, right?

Well, you'd be wrong. I still don't check out New Order. There's a whole new world open to me — vaporwave and therefore R Plus Seven come to my attention, which leads me to dissect that record like an alien tool of unclear purposes. This of course leads me onto an ambient tangent, taking me back to my Tim Hecker listens of that same year, which has the effect of renewing my interest in "pure" electronic music and the then-rising post-dubstep movement. The sheer experience of sound, the dazzling modernity and innovation, is what's in at the time. I have no time for nostalgia-pandering dimwits: the future awaits. Then all that jazz from the first Godflesh post hits, then God pulls the funniest gag in the history of viral infections to my memory, and I have some time to actually look back, a bit less prejudiced. As it turns out, synthpop is not the devil, as some of you might have surmised by now, and as I relisten to Blue Monday I realized I have never listened to either of the Substance record. I do know some, most perhaps?, of the tracks on the Joy Division one, and I do think the New Order one has the more striking cover art — not to mention I knew, by this time, that this was the one to give Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance its name, and that Your Silent Face soundtracked one of the most memorable moments in Nicolas Winding Refn's Bronson. As the ultimate Hideo Kojima stan, I couldn't let this slide, so I pop the record on and get hit with this:

Way to go, guys. Holy shit. I knew that Ceremony was a Joy Division cut before they could record it, but what the hell — Bernard got it, too. It wasn't a matter of singing ability with songs like these, it's just getting it, finding the right energy. They had that right energy. And then it hit me just as many times these dudes have made Blue Monday over and over again before actually getting it right, and everytime I look into it it's funnier and funnier to realize just how many different attempts it took them to finally be Kraftwerk, but augmented — with the stellar results we all know. Everything's Gone Green, 5 8 6, Temptation potentially, all lead up to this one moment in the history of dance music where somehow three dudes and a girl hailing from Manchester managed to out-gay the Pet Shop Boys (by their own admission, apparently), to shake the whole world's collective booty, to do whatever it is they were supposed to do in this last comparison that would ideally make the previous one a bit less obnoxious but whatever, it's 3am as usual, you know how it goes by now don't you? But then after Blue Monday the record keeps going, and thank god it does, because it's banger after banger. How do these guys keep doing it?

So I spend some time with that record, then it fades down, then it comes back up last month, when the weather calls for it and its parent company. Which is when I find myself watching the Control movie for the first time, surprisingly enough seeing as I already enjoyed the work of Anton Corbijn as a photographer. Looking at all that, it is revealed to me that Joy Division never really having died is not a bug, it's a feature. Everyone is gasping, I get it, but please pick your jaws up and check this out: the band has never learned how to play their respective instruments. One might go so far as to argue they play their own stuff their own way, and that's basically it. Nothing could be further from the truth. These guys jammed, a lot; that's how Joy Division wrote songs, that's how New Order wrote songs, even going as far as having Bernard Sumner fucked up on acid so he could find the chorus to Temptation or the whole band bombed out of their minds on X in Ibiza clubs to write, basically, the entirety of Technique — and even then, not really, there's a couple jangly tracks that the X would most likely render unlistenable but what do I really know? Point being: it might now have been sparked by a music teacher or instructor, it might not have been the product of a process comparable to that within Television, which led them to organically seek out better, more "by the book" musicianship, but New Order were incredibly familiar with their instruments, had formed an element of comfort and understanding that counterbalanced the alien-ness to music terminology.

Peter Hook recently uploaded a Yamaha-sponsored video to his Instagram, which I am pretty sure has a say in running, where he jams on a Yamaha bass and, you know, it sounds like Hooky alright, but it's never a discernible bassline until he kicks into the A major strumming that opens Love Will Tear Us Apart. Before that, he just strolls around the neck, leisurely strumming away at power chords imbued with that thick chorus and reverb combo he became renowned for. I would never, in my wildest dreams, have imagined I'd find myself thinking "okay, awesome, stop talking — I want to hear you jam a bit more" referring to one of the musicians who were part of possibly two of the craziest storiest in the history of contemporary rock'n'roll, also notorious for playing the rockstar whilst carrying the minimum possible baggage of technical knowledge he could. Once again, this is nowhere near a knock to the man — quite the opposite. Ian Curtis asked "persistence, well, what does it matter?", and Hooky (and, of course, the other members of New Order) found a way to constructively answer that question. Moments before Coil, but a bit later than Israel Regardie, they said "persistence is all" and built a brand on finding a way to consistently sound like splendid, eternal, golden children: "like crystal", impassionate, tightly-knit performers with the purity of a child's heart. Ian Curtis had, in certain ways (at least artistically), the purity of a child in his heart, which some might even argue was a distinguishing feature of most of his literary idols — if you think about it, William Burroughs could be your dirty-minded classmate who walked in on his parents sharing an intimate moment in the bedroom (had his parents been gay men, the metaphor would probably fly better, but that most definitely wasn't the case). So the heart of Joy Division remains untouched, if a bit more naked. Heroes of post-punk, sons of the silent age, you can sleep soundly tonight.

[sucantslay]

Little Kanata analysis! Puka Pukaaa

HAHihOhUHI, i'm back at it again!!!

Just kidding, I read like, the first half of the Meteor Impact and am mentally on the edge of insane.

But...ignore it for now...

I wanna talk about our little god Kanata today!!!

Is our boy Kanata silly? Yes!

Is he also smart as hell? Yes!

Is he strong? YES 👏 HE 👏 IS 👏

I think a-lot of people misunderstood Kanata characteristics.

He's not just a happy, friendly-looking, puka puka water god! He's more than that!

I know you're all thinking that, because he has been seen as a god for all his childhood and still slowly making progress about learning the world around him, that means he must be just one kind and cute little fish right?

Haha...

Clearly, that was never the case...

He's smart from the very beginning, and the things he doesn't know or can't understand don't mean he's completely stupid at it.

Kanata can sense things, and sense people's emotions, he's not a god who brought wishes to his people in all though years for nothing!

When Kanata meets Chiaki for the first time, he can sense something wrong with him.

And the next time they meet, Kanata also able to sense it very well!

Chiaki in the old time, once wish Kuro ( who was being beat up badly most of the time when they got a chance to face each other ) to be better. He wish all the one that bullied Kuro to be "serve by justice".

It didn't take Kanata long to find out about it. Heck! He doesn't even need a word from Chiaki to understand Chiaki's wishes.

Did I mention that Kanata at that time was really bad at communicating? He did not know much and only when you speak slowly and use easy words will he be able to talk back.

And yet! He was able to detect Chiaki wishes and did it in under one day!

Chiaki was dumbfounded when Kuro tell him that all the one that hate him is now being beat up so badly, they get scared and apologizes Kuro. ( boy did predict that on time... )

Also, Kanata is really smart, he didn't understand much but that didn't mean he couldn't do a thing with the knowledge he already had in hand.

There were many time when Kanata use the word "God" to describe other things.

And just like Kanata, we'll do the same!

People's brains tend to use the old things, the stuff they already knew to help make up meaning for new things.

With that being said, Kanata is not used to the outside world, so it is normal for him to keep using the word "God" as a base/standard of view.

Later on, his view of mind is a little more open, going as far as taking advantage of his position as a "God" to help Chiaki track down Rinne and Niki.

Rinne is also a smart-ass, but he himself has to admit that Kanata would use a move that he never be able to predicted.

Also, Kanata is really strong:

If you already read the main story, then you'll have to remember the part when Kanata carried both Rinne and Niki in his arms, getting from some ramen shop a far whatsoever place to the DreamFes! WITH JUST HIS TWO ARMS!

Chiaki was with Kanata, yes, but he's busy with driving them from the shop to DreamFes.

In both "Intersecting MotorShow" and "Leap into the Future"

We can see how Kanata was successful capture our Hero Chiaki and corner him right away.

Kanata knew Chiaki well, and by that, he was helping the RYUSEITAI to grow.

Kanata wasn't just a little fish god, he was Chiaki biggest emotional support and the helping hand of RYUSEITAI.

If not for him, Chiaki wouldn't have a chance to dance with RYUSEITAI in the "Intersecting MotorShow"

If not for him, we didn't be able to have the 5* Chiaki card in the "Leap into the Future" event

Because when Chiaki decided to leave Tetora and hoped that Tetora would be able to grow as how he did.

Kanata said that this is not that of a "dark era" anymore, the kids need you.

So Chiaki got on with that advice, joining Tetora and the others to play game, helping Tetora to get some time to relax.

Ah...I think that all is for today.

I'm tired, but I hope that this analysis will help you to understand Kanata more.

I love Kanata a lot, and so does the love for Chiaki, and RYUSEITAI !

Thank you for take for time to read this, hope you'll have a good day.

Send a thank you to @collectorcookie for giving me the inspiration to make this whole-ass post.

[petalstoashes]

Rokudaime Hokage Hatake Kakashi

“The era of peace and growth”

I am sick and tired of people saying, “Kakashi was the weakest Hokage”, “Kakashi was the most useless Hokage” “Kakashi was the laziest Hokage” because it’s JUST NOT TRUE.

To counter these claims, I present to you: The Hokage Kakashi Era.

(This timeline does not respect the anime's timeline as the anime did not respect the novel's timeline. Links to said novels are included below.)

1.

A year had passed since the Fourth not-so-great Great Shinobi War, and Kakashi kept delaying his inauguration because he didn't feel confident in his ability to protect the village at that specific time.

(Kakashi Hiden: Lightning in the Frozen Sky)

I'm not going to go into what happened in the novel, but we know that Kakashi's girlfriend Kahyō was recommended by Kakashi as the new warden for the Blood Prison. This was officially his first job (and accomplishment) as the Hokage.

(Kakashi Hiden: Lightning in the Frozen Sky)

2.

A few months later (as it has been exactly two years since the war), Kakashi's investigating why so many shinobi have been deflecting from their respective villages. He believed that the Land of Silence was the reason for this, so he sent Sai and a bunch of ANBU to further investigate the matter. When Sai never came back, Kakashi started discussing things with Shikamaru. Sensing the inevitability of war, he sent Shikamaru to assassinate the village's leader.

(Shikamaru Hiden: A Cloud Drifting in Silent Darkness)

Kakashi wanted to go himself. Even Shikamaru sensed the darkness in his eyes. But, with him being Hokage, he couldn't risk it.

Okay, I know an assassination mission isn't exactly peaceful, but I'll get to that.

3.

Kakashi called for a 5 Kage Summit to warn the other nations about the impending doom of the moon crashing into the earth. The man was ahead of the times (no pun intended, as they were given timers that counted down to d-day).

(The Last: Naruto the Movie)

All I'm saying is if Kakashi didn't call for this summit, there would be less time on those timers...

4.

After that whole debacle (again literally a few months later), we are told that there had been a steady decline in crime, and peace among the nations was evident as ever. In fact, it was so peaceful that Kakashi decreased the funding for the Military and the ANBU.

(Sakura Hiden: Thoughts of Love, Riding Upon a Spring Breeze)

"we have priorities" YES, KING. YOU TELL EM Now, what were those priorities? Well, the Children's Mental Health Clinic.

(Sakura Hiden: Thoughts of Love, Riding Upon a Spring Breeze)

Kakashi was the one that approached Suna with Sakura's proposal for a Mental Health Clinic. This wasn't just beneficial for the children but for Konoha as well, seeing as this would create a stronger bond between the two nations.

We can't forget that in this novel, Kakashi had to deal with the whole Fake-suke a.k.a. Wannabe-Uchiha Clan Restorer issue. Hence the creation of InoSakuSai (I miss them already, mom).

5.

This beautiful day filled with love, joy, and friendship... woudln't have been as joyfull and filled with friendship without Kakashi.

Kakashi made sure that Naruto and Hinata had the most amazing day possible by pulling some strings. Now, this was a Hokage learning curve for Kakashi. Tsunade had to tell him that it was possible for him not to respect the old rules about shinobi weddings, and that he could do things the way he felt seemed right (we'll get to this again later).

Strings pulled, and all suited up, Kakashi was able to give the couple the perfect wedding they deserved.

6.

Now, this is the part where I talk about Industrialization, innovation... and politics.

Kakashi said BUILD, BUILD, BUILD, BABY!

A lot of people like to associate the expansion and modernization of Konoha to Naruto but that's not entirely true.

Do you see that in the corner of the screen during Naruto's inauguration? Yeah, those are modern buildings. Kakashi already mobilized his build, build, build project way before Naruto was inaugurated.

And if we're talking politics here, this would mean that Naruto continued Kakashi's projects. As Kakashi (the outgoing administration) turned over his inventory of policies and his pending and ongoing projects to Naruto (the Hokage-elect).

7.

To further defend my client against these allegations counter the claims of others, I present to you, Kakashi Retsuden: The Sixth Hokage and the Failure Boy.

(Kakashi Retsuden: The Sixth Hokage and the Failure Boy)

This is why I said Naruto and Hinata's wedding was a Hokage learning curve. Kakashi ignored traditions, just as he decided to ignore the law about shinobi weddings. Kakashi wanted peace, and he wanted it to last forever. (LIKE, COME ON, MAN!!) He didn't just want peace in his era or even Naruto's era; he wanted peace to continue even if the world won't need a Hokage anymore.

Even Naruto acknowledges Kakashi's work as the sixth Hokage.

(Naruto Retsuden: Naruto Uzumaki and the Spiral Destiny)

During Kakashi's era as Hokage he strengthened Konoha not through winning wars, but through peace treaties, through global partnerships, through innovation. He's literally the dream politician of any war-torn, or developing nation (which Konoha was at the time he stepped up).

So no, Kakashi wasn't a "weak Hokage" or a "useless Hokage" or a "lazy Hokage". He was one of the best Hokages Konoha ever had.

Links to the Naruto Hiden series.

Link to Itachi Shinden and Sasuke Shinden

Link to Kakashi Retsuden

I, unfortunately, do not have the link to Naruto Retsuden, but here's a link to an explanation on The Five Pillars of Konoha.

(I just want to state that idk how the transition period between presidents works in other countries. I'm using what I know as a standard an example.)

Naruto Explained inspired me to make this video. They understand me and my pain.

edit: I messed up the timeline by putting The Last before Shikamaru Hiden... so I fixed that. I also added the link to Itachi Shinden and Sasuke Shinden (for funsies) even if I didn't write about it.

[skinslip]

Love & Rockets & Val: A Love Story

I think I've always been Maggie. I think that's why I love her so fucking much. We've both been through some shit and her track record with partners isn't very good. And she is a little squishy and she likes butch girls and I have always been her. This second time reading has really resonated with me deeply.

I first discovered Love & Rockets because it was on a fan page (on probably Geocities or Tripod) of a list of comics featuring wrestling. And at some point earlier I dug Mechanics #1 out of a dollar bin not knowing it was connected for another decade.

I flipped through this issue a dozen times, even read it once. I thought it was boring at 13 because I wanted to see girls with big guns and bigger titties like every other horny comic dork.

It wasn't until I had gone insane that I had rediscovered Love & Rockets.

You see, it was sometime in film school, mid-2000s about, winter break. My long time girlfriend said she wanted to visit her family by herself for the first time in the years we had been together (long story short there I was a jerk), so she went off to San Francisco to visit her family for Christmas/New Years.

This would have be totally fine but a cascade of unfortunate events happened: My grandmother, who I was exceedingly close to, died on the operating room table.

When the phone call came in, I dissociated and the next events were told to me by my roommate Robby. I dropped my cellphone in the kitchen, I walked out of the apartment saying nothing to any of my 3 roommate and leaving the door open. Robby ignores this for several minutes.

Another roommate investigates and they converse about the situation. Then they apparently searched all over for me, called around to classmates and several hours later I returned to the apartment, and at some point here I phase back into being 'conscious'.

I have wheeled a Kohl's shopping cart into our living room. It is full of DVDs. I have apparently purchased them all. And the insanity comes next.

I am crushingly depressed, I have spent all of my travel money on DVDs, being crushingly depressed I say "fuck it" and kept the DVDs, I don't want to go home and deal with my cruel parents anyway. And then everyone leaves for vacation.

When I mean everyone, I mean everyone. And this was the first time I had ever been alone for this long. A few days in, watching my movies, this is gonna be a breeze, no problemo.

Then the power goes out.

For days.

And I get BORED.

And I wander around the apartment.

I start talking to myself.

I haven't worn clothes in a week.

I literally am laying on the couch and I go insane.

I just go absolutely mental.

I start screaming obscenities.

Throwing things.

I at some point had decided it would be cool to punch the sliding glass door until it broken and cut me to shit.

I hallucinate at night in the pitch dark.

I see hideous monsters and body horror gore shows and people I care about torn to pieces or violated. This never happens at any other point in my life.

The power comes back on at some point. I regain my senses at a later point. And while in cleaning the sliding glass door up I uncover Love & Rockets Book One.

I read it voraciously.

I read "Las Mujeres Perdidas" and "Hernandez Satyricon" and then I find Book Two. I read it all out of order, I am confused, I am in love. My heart lives here, it breathes here. it's beautiful and ugly and perfect and I am so in love.

A few years pass and start I working at Seth's Games and Anime in Ventura, which is attached to Ralph's Comic Corner (both of which no longer exist, the true end of an era), and my boss (@mikester) had started stocking the new (still current) collections of Love & Rockets material.

I had drifted away, I always seemed to drift away from these phases in my life, like I was molting the old me and stepping into new wings, but it happened a few times.

Now seeing the new collections reignites my interest, I buy most of them. I read all of the ones I buy. I get divorced and move to Austin, Texas. My aunt punts a gun to my head 9 months later, I move back to Washington with my parents, but in this last move I have to abandon most of my earthly possessions because of the threat of violence.

But fret not, this is a love story. There is a happy ending.

Last year I stumble across some Love & Rockets art and am immediately enamored again. Now my old boss has his own store, so I order up some volumes and I am happy to report I am once again utterly, hopelessly, completely in love with Love & Rockets.

I am Maggie. We've been through some shit, but we're doing alright.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2022

Another pretty decent year for pop music ; a very slow one, with a lot of trash, but the good stuff was so good making a top 10 took me ages, unlike 2021 where it was way easier. Outside of the top 100, some incredible stuff dropped this year too, so yeah - even if the charts don't always reflect it, music as a whole is currently very interesting to follow.

Disclaimers / Rules:

I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these lists. There’s songs that charted in my country way higher than they did in the US, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

No song that I already put on a previous list is elligible.

No old hit song that is re-charting due to a holiday or a trend is elligible either.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible.

I have sound-to-color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. Again, again. How was your 2022??

Still didn't catch covid but I did catch a very nasty cold a month ago. Still drawing and writing a lot, and also spending more and more time customising my clothes with dumb patches and embroidered messages and stuff.

I went to a LOT of concerts this year, and they were all fantastic for completely different reasons! I'm so glad I finally have the budget to do this without feeling guilty or cutting down some more vital stuff. So yeah. I went to see My Chemical Romance, The Soft Moon, Sigur Ros, Placebo and Enter Shikari. Before that the last concert I had attended was VNV Nation all the way back in 2019!

Speaking of which, let’s start with the good or interesting albums that came out in 2022 or in late 2021, and this is going to be pretty long.

Albums

I have to mention that I tried to get into Ghost this year. It's definitely not for me apart from a couple of songs, but also, Impera was pretty bad. Probably wasn't a good idea to start listening to these guys in their current era.

I also have to mention that I've been thoroughly disappointed by Mainstream Sellout, because I'm one of those weirdos who actually liked Tickets to my Downfall by Machine Gun Kelly. But yeah, the guy became self-aware, and that's the worst thing that could possibly happen. Awful. Emo Girl is unintentionally funny, though.

Not sure this counts as an "album" since it's an EP, and a five minutes-long one at that, but Snake Eyes by 100 Gecs made me even more excited for their new album in 2023.

Electric Callboy's Tekkno is dumb and funny in all the right ways and I'm glad they got so much positive attention out of it. That's trolling with actual effort and passion put into it and it's kind of a lost art form at this point. The music videos are amazing too.

Rakshak by Bloodywood is exactly the kind of thing Nu Metal needed to move forward and I love the fact that energy came from India, of all places. A lot of fresh ideas, generally interesting topics and politics ; I'm sold. This is great. More, please.

Muna by uh Muna didn't leave much of an impression on me at first but I kept thinking about it and I eventually came back to it to relisten to it several times later in the year. I'm not sure what it means. Probably something good, though. Maybe it will be one of my faves of the year in retrospect..? Also it's very gay, which never hurts.

I'm somewhat conflicted about Being Funny in a Foreign Language by The 1975. Objectively, it's probably their best album ; it's straightforward, it's very well produced, it has a couple of bangers. Subjectively, I'm not even sure I'd place it above Notes on a Conditional Form, which if you recall was a GIGANTIC MESS, just because the highs of this mess were stratospheric compared to the ones the new album has. Still really good, but I miss the chaos.

Death's Dynamic Shroud's Dark Life has SO MANY different ideas going in so many different directions it's kind of a miracle that the album stays so coherent. The colors and the textures are sometimes so complex and layered that just listening to them to try to pick them apart becomes a stim to me. Beautiful.

I only found this album last month but Dimensional Bleed by Holy Fawn is one of the best post rock things I've ever heard since Sigur Ros stopped releasing new music

Exister by The Soft Moon comes so close to being my album of the year. SO close. Among all the musicians trying to become the new Trent Reznor, this guy's the only credible candidate for me, just because he's not afraid to try really weird shit. When I saw him live in October, the last thing he played had a castanets solo over huge electronic beats. And it went hard as hell! I sincerely hope his future stuff will be even better. I'm sold.

But uh. Guys. I'm sorry.

I'm so predictable. Never Let Me Go, Placebo's comeback album, is my favorite album of the year. Of course, when one of my favorite bands ever decided to release new music after nearly ten years of nothing, I was thrilled, but also worried it would disappoint me. The first singles were amazing, but what if? What if the rest of the album wasn't as good? And yet, by the time it was over, I was trying to determine if it was my third or fourth fave album in their discography. Even now, I'd only put Meds and Sleeping With Ghosts above this one. It's distinctly them, but full of new and interesting ideas. I'm beyond happy things turned out so well.

Unelligible Songs

There's a TON of them! Because that year was very good! This is kind of a non-hits rec list of sorts, but you know the drill.

Should I start with some Gecs? I feel like I should start with some Gecs. So here's Doritos and Fritos, Hey Big Man and Torture Me. You're welcome.

While we're at it, if you've never watched any of the recent Electric Callboy music videos, your day is about to get slightly better. I suggest Pump It and Spaceman. Also both are actually good songs on top of being funny.

I might have trashtalked Ghost's new album earlier but Spillways is like Poison 2.0. That's a compliment by the way

I've not always enjoyed what these guys made post-Hot Fuss, but Boy by the Killers should definitely have been a hit.

What I Want by Muna also has this "should have been a huge hit" aura. I'm feeling every line of this chorus in my bones. Best song about delayed adolescence for queer people

Are we making a list of songs that should have been hits? Let me add Metric with What feels like eternity, then

However, American Teenager by Ethel Cain might still have a slight chance of becoming a hit song in the future. I want to believe

Hey do you want some cringe. Cause here's Slaughterhouse by Motionless In White oops

JEZEBEEEEEEEEEEL IF YOU'RE THE HUNTER THEN I'M THE PREYYYYYY

At this point I'm pretty sure I've listened to Precious Hearts by The Birthday Massacre for about six hours over the course of 2022 but since I'm an old idiot who only listens to music through .mp3 files and doesn't use spotify I have no way to check

My very first contact with Bloodywood was Dana Dan, and what a first impression that was. Turn the subtitles on, by the way.

Go_A dropped an absolute banger called Kalyna at the very start of the Ukraine war and it might just be their best track so far.

I am legally obligated to mention The Foundations of Decay by My Chemical Romance. Is it their best song? Hell no. Is it mixed like shit? Yes. Is it way to long? Absolutely. Do I enjoy it? Immensely. Also it had no music video and no promotion. What a power move

Nurture by Porter Robinson, which I mentioned last year as one of my favorite albums in a year full of incredible ones, was still one of my most listened-to albums of 2022, so it feels right to mention a song he released outside of any album this year (Everything Goes On).

Avantasia is back, with a..... an album I didn't like very much, oops, but damn, The Moonflower Society is one of their best songs ever. Long live ridiculous over-the-top power metal with super-serious poetry as lyrics.

Born Yesterday by Quadeca sounds like Sigur Ros trying to make a radio-friendly song, and it sounds absolutely immaculate. Also it's about someone who killed himself just before his birthday and his ghosts deeply regrets that decision

This is not the end by Gareth Emery might be standard EDM, but it's also genuinely comforting to hear these lyrics

I need to put a break here otherwise Tumblr won't let me post this thing. Are you still there? Ok good.

El Alma Que Te Trajo (Safety Trance ft. Arca). Send tweet

It's kind of funny that emo came back a couple of years ago through 8-o-8's and sad rappers with face tattoos. It's even funnier that I genuinely enjoyed some of their stuff. It's even-even funnier that some of them are straight-up doing pop punk stuff now. All of this to say that I love Girl Next Door by Lil Lotus

If you've followed anything in the metal scene this year you already know that Lorna Shore absolutely killed it in 2022. Hell yeah let's put some melodies in deathcore, I'm all for it. Anyway Sun//Eater is great

I should probably recommend some cool music that cool people like before I humiliate myself further by recommending more edgy shit, so this is the perfect time to say that Judgment Bolt, Neon Memories and Messe de E-102 are now permanently etched somewhere in my brain. Seriously please listen to Darklife by Death's Dynamic Shroud if you have the slightest, smallest interest in electronic music I beg you

Ok back to the cringe. Speaking of neons, here's Neon Grave by Dayseeker. I've never liked a song by these guys before so this was a bit of a surprise for me

Also I've listened to it again and again but I still want to cry every time I hear This is what you wanted by Placebo. Not sure why it's my absolute favorite track on an album full of fantastic tracks. Not sure what it says about me. Not sure I want to know

I think I mentioned an Enter Shikari concert. Not sure I can call myself a fan yet, but I spent an ungodly amount of hours listening to their old and new stuff in 2022. Turns out one of my favorite songs they ever made is one of the newest ones, The Void Stares Back. This is exactly the kind of surreal and borderline apocalyptic lyrics I need in my life. I even bought a t-shirt saying "I'm the child with the telescope eyes" at that concert oops

Oh Caroline is one of the best songs The 1975 ever made and, like all my fave songs from that band, it's deeply awkward and embarrassing. It's a guy begging his ex to come back and it gets humiliating. Perfection. Thank you

Just when you thought this list couldn't get worse I'm about to confess I love The Boy in the Black Dress by Yungblud. Can't get the image of a teenager trying to remove his nail polish with his teeth after a teacher told him he looked girly out of my head now. God I love narrative songs so much

We've reached the terminal velocity of musical cringe so here's sTraNgeRs by Bring Me The Horizon because OF FUCKING COURSE I love sTraNgeRs by Bring Me The Horizon. You must be new here. WE'RE DYING TO LIVE AND WE'RE LIVING TO DIIIIIIIIIIE

Also I'm not going to recommend too many the Soft Moon songs but Become the Lies is now a classic for me only six months after it came out, and I've been obsessed with Him (ft Fish Narc, who kills it as the evil twin of the narrator) to the point of making fanart of the mental amv I have for it. Might even upload it after finishing this post, I'm not sure.

Honorable Mentions

Tití me preguntó (Bad Bunny) - I swear I had this song playing in my brain for days and I'm not even sure I like it.

Jour meilleur (Orelsan) - I'm usually not the biggest fan of the guy, but this one is really nice.

As it was (Harry Styles) - Perfectly serviceable little pop tune.

Where are you now (Lost Frequencies) - A great earworm.

Enemy (Imagine Dragons) - Listen. It's bad. But I can't get over the fact that an overly-hated band made a song where the chorus literally screams "EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY ENEMYYYY", it's so much fun to sing along with it

Shivers (Ed Sheeran) - Do I really like Ed Sheeran now. Is this my life. Is this what growing old feels like

Belly Dancer (Imanbek & BYOR) - I'm going to the gym now and this is on their playlist. It's completely brainless but it had a serious chance to end on my actual top ten at some point. I physically can't listen to it without at the very least tapping my foot on the floor.

One Right Now (Post Malone & The Weeknd) - This WAS on my list at some point but I ended up cutting it. Nobody seems to like this song, and I love it for all the wrong reasons. Namely, the fact that a duet between two male singers talking about someone cheating on them sounds like they cheated on each other. And I think that's unintentional comedy gold.

Bad habit (Steve Lacy) - The very last cut I had to make. It's a wonderful song, and I simply adore its vibe, but I tend to lose some interest after 2:20 for some reason. No idea why.

Pretty sure there's nobody still reading this post. Which might be good because there's one deeply humiliating pick on this top ten. Let's do this

THE ACTUAL TOP TEN LIST

10 - Santé (Stromae)

US: Not on the list / FR: #90

I still can't believe this idiot climbed his way out of depression and burnout just to tell every emergency worker to join a union. What a king. Legends only

Also I seriously considered putting it at the top of this list in very early 2022 if the year turned out to be mediocre. I never expected it to be placed so low in the end. That's a good thing, by the way

9 - Break my soul (Beyoncé)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

So uh. As far as I know there's still no music video for this one, which is kind of a power move in this day and age, not gonna lie. But yeah. You know me. Can't resist a eurodance diva. And Beyoncé as a eurodance diva is all I ever wanted and more. What the hell happened this year, music-wise, seriously

8 - J'la connais, pt. 1 (Emkal)

US: Not on the list / FR: #89

Okay, the autotune is a bit grating. Doesn't matter.

Look, I usually dislike this kind of songs and singers always talking about girls cheating on them and stuff. But no, this dude right there is singing about people telling him his girlfriend is going to cheat on him, and he basically tells them he trusts her more than them ("Cette fille, j'la connais, eh, mais toi, tu es qui ? On se connaît ?" ("I know that girl, eh - but you? who are you again?"). Very refreshing. Well played, sir.

7 - Thunder (Gabry Ponte)

US: Not on the list / FR: #59

BEHOLD. THERE IS NOW A GOOD SONG CALLED "THUNDER" ON THE CHARTS. AND IT'S COMPLETELY BRAINLESS.

So uh, this one also plays at the gym. It's just some very basic and very commercial EDM. For some reason, it kinda sounds like a pirate song to me, the kind of thing you'd drink to on an adventure or something like that. There's not a lot that can be said about it. The colors are especially trippy, though.

Does it look like I'm stalling for time? Uh, maybe I am.

Oh god, here comes the really embarrassing part.

6 - Bad habits (Ed Sheeran ft Bring Me The Horizon)

US: #13 / FR: #53

So uh. This was in my honorable mentions last year:

And it was slowly exiting the charts when this new version dropped all of a sudden in mid-February, with way more guitars and bombast, and of course Oli Sykes screaming his head out at the end. And it climbed up the charts all over again.

And since I'm a major sucker with no taste, of course I loved it.

Doesn't make up for the fact the lyrics are still very vague and Ed Sheeran is still Ed Sheeran, but clearly that wasn't enough to keep this version of the song off my list. It's enough to make me question my choices, though. Steve Lacy should probably be there instead.

Eh. Too late now.

5 - Numb Little Bug (Em Behold)

US: #32 / FR: Not on the list

I initially put this one higher ; I'm not tired of it or anything, it's just that I don't listen to it as often as some things above it. And it got popular through TikTok, too - I'd ask if the kids are okay, but we all know the answer to that question, I think. I can't get over how brutal these lyrics are for what's essentially a cute pop song. And yeah, that's a huge mood. Do you ever get a little bit tired of life? Yes! Quite often actually! Glad we're all on the same page, at least. It's somewhat comforting.

Imagine how bleak and scary that song would be if it was more serious and less upbeat, though.

Oh. Oh shit.

4 - L'Enfer (Stromae)

US: Not on the list / FR: #46

Guess we don't have to imagine. Guess it already exists. Guess it's on the French year-end chart. And it's absolutely terrifying.

Look, I'm glad Stromae is back. I'm glad he feels better. But uh- yeah. This track is genuinely hard to listen to. I'm pretty sure it's objectively better than the three songs I placed above it, but yeah.

J'ai parfois eu des pensées suicidaires, et j'en suis peu fier (I've had suicidal thoughts at times and I'm not proud of it) On croit parfois que c'est la seule manière de les faire taire (Sometimes you think that's the only way to shut them up) Ces pensées qui me font vivre un enfer (These thoughts that make my life hell)

Yeah.

3 - About Damn Time (Lizzo)

US: #12 / FR: Not on the list

I had a hard time deciding where to rank this song between #3 and #2. Maybe I should say it's a tie. It changes day to day with my mood, really.

But yeah, thank you Lizzo for being a combo breaker in this short series of songs about addiction and depression and death! This one is impossible to resist. You hear it and you just have to move or tap your feet and smile. And-

I'm way too fine to be this stressed, yeah Oh, I'm not the girl I was or used to be, uh Bitch, I might be better

Favorite lyrics of the year? I don't know. Maybe. Amazing, in any case. Thank you for this gift, madam.

2 - That's What I Want (Lil Nas X)

US: #14 / FR: Not on the list

Aaaaaaaaand back to the sadness. Well, not really. The song itself is pretty upbeat. In any case, you've probably seen that one coming from a mile away because of my 2021 Unelligible Songs list:

And yeah! It's elligible at last! I'm so, so happy. And I want Lil Nas X to find love and be happy too. Montero was gay as hell, Industry Baby was a victory lap, but this one? This one is the guy bearing his soul and you can feel it even through the impeccable production and pop sensibilities. Cry your heart out to this upbeat tune, my friend, it's gonna be okay. And we love you.

1 - Meet Me At Our Spot (The Anxiety)

US: #74 / FR: Not on the list

I think I've listened to this one more than any other song this year and yet I'm still not entirely sure why I love it so much, especially considering it took literal months to grow on me. I can't even describe its vibe. Is it melancholy? No, it's too happy. Is it happy then? No, it's too tired. But it has energy, too. Is it romantic? Not really. What is it?

One thing's for sure, whichever vibe it is, I got lost in it for hours, to the point of creating entire scenes set to it in my mind. Which led to drawings. Which led to me inventing characters completely disconnected from the song and writing a story where the initial scene I visualised is only a small one in the grand scheme of things.

There's magic in this song's vibe, and I've been on a quest to transcribe it, and I will probably fail. In the meantime, thank you for meeting me at this spot. It's been a wild ride. See you next year!

[lady-of-luthien]

Jedi Survivor is awesome!

So I preordered this game (regular pre-order not pay an extra $20 for cosmetics - c'mon now EA) and started playing it immediately after work on release day. I finished the main storyline three weeks later and have been running around doing side quests. I will definitely play it again - on actual new game plus! (Yes yes I know why that wasn't feasible last game, but still.)

This game is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I loved being able to do more things. There will be random spoilers, so the rest is under the cut.

Pros:

Gorgeous planets: Koboh has so much variety. The "oh space frontier is like the Wild West frontier" is a little wacky, but they leaned into it so it's a little funny. I loved that we got to go to Jedha. There are so many random conversations I missed because I was focused on the storyline in my first playthrough.

More saber stances! I focused mainly on the double saber, blaster stance, and a little bit on the dual saber. Next playthrough I'm going to use more single saber and cross-guard - I want to see what those play styles feel like.

MERRIN MERRIN MERRIN!

Merrin and Cal on Jedha - taking out that massive drill! So amazing!

So many themes of surviving, of trauma (escape pod from the Lucrehulk), moving on, dealing with grief and anger (Cal's dark deeds was scary), etc.

I was not expecting Master Cordova. I thought he died!

FUCK YOU BODE! I was not expecting that at all (I was hard avoiding spoilers while playing the game).

Cere looked awesome. I was so scared when she fought Vader, I did not want her to die.

I'm also afraid that Cal will have to fight Vader in the third game and then he'll die because NO NO NO.

They continued the hilarious random stormtrooper conversations and extended that with the clone-war era droids.

Rick the Door Technician!

The lead-up to the boss fight with Rayvis was legit more terrifying than the actual fight (I also chickened out and played the fight on Story Mode).

The Cantina music playlist is awesome!

My cantina peeps: Skoova Stev, Moran, Caij, and Mosey are so fun!

Cons:

Dagan Gera's storyline was a bit...incomplete? Felt a little lacking. Why was Tanalorr your home? Why are you so focused on Tanalorr? Was it because of Santari Khri (her lightsaber is amazing)? Did you guys have a thing? It felt like you guys had a thing.

There are some bugs. Since I recently built my PC, I didn't have the same performance issues others had. Did it crash? Yes, but only when I went fast traveling from one end of the planet to the other. Other times, it won't let me customize Cal or quit the game. Fix that, please!

Why does the game require so much storage space? It's insane.

It has RPG-elements with the customization, but I wished it was a bit more RPG-like. For example: the conversation options have consequences (oh well, there's Star Wars Outlaws next year).

I want more planets! Or more expanded planets. There was Coruscant, Koboh (which yes is the main base), Koboh's moon, Jedha, the Nova Garon asteroid, and a tiny bit of Tanalorr.

I want more! Can we have a DLC?

[tagthetrekkie]

When the Party is Over

Pairing: Weyoun x reader

Warnings: none

Synopsis: with the war over, Weyoun hoped he could spend the rest of his life with you

AU: Weyoun 6 lives; Sisko is still around

The war is over. The tense atmosphere that hung over the station was replaced by a more welcoming aura. To commemorate the moment, Captain Sisko was convinced by Ezri Dax to hold a party at Quark's.

Weyoun finds the whole ordeal appealing, but you don't. No, you could make it all better. But he doesn't care much to keep talking to others. 

There's Romulan Ale on the counter.

Not their favorite type, but it was real alcohol, not some replicated crap. Weyoun doesn't think would care too much about some stolen alcohol. He's right about that.

This party means the end of dark time, and tomorrow will be a new era. Both have big plans for the year ahead and big plans for the future.

You are laughing and he is smiling. It is a transcendental moment.

***

You know, last night I tried to imagine myself without you. The thing is, I could and I felt so much better.

It is cruel and you know that. No kind words to soothe the stroke, but you couldn't feel bad for it. This was going to hurt his pride later, but now you’re convinced of your choice, just observing how Weyoun slowly processes the words. 

He looks for any feature that could demonstrate it was some kind of human joke, but the Vorta knew it wasn't your style

Eventually, he accepts and being honest with yourself, you were disappointed by his lack of reaction. It wasn't like you wanted to see him hurt, you just thought you had more impact in his life.

There isn't too much explanation beyond that, and Weyoun couldn't decide if it was good or not.

He could have loved you for his whole life and that was what he was planning, but you are out of his life now. Some part inside of him thought he deserved some explanation, but the other one knew there wasn't one.

There were things still stuck in his bones, words Weyoun wished he could say to you. It was not like he was expecting any answer, but maybe, if he had said these things, it would be a relief now.

He just locked himself in his quarter, a very childish action if he may add, but in that moment, Weyoun just wants to be alone. Sitting down in his bed, he just asks himself if he made the right choice. No, he doesn't need to be near anyone now, not when the wound hurts so bad. But being alone feels as bad as being with his Vorta comrades considering he is alone with his thoughts right now.

The ring feels heavy in his pocket, so he takes it and opens the velvet box. It shines under the strong lights coming from the window in an almost mocking way. Who could say a golden ring could make someone feel so much shame and self aversion? As a Vorta, the Founders didn't bother to shape them beyond necessary, meaning they didn’t bother to give their “pets” something as mundane as a ritual involving marriage.

Weyoun put the box in the drawer, he can't even look at it. Knowing that he would have some time of complete privacy, his determination breaks completely. Weyoun was never ashamed to cry, so he knew how broke he was when no tears came out of his eyes. He just sat on his bed and felt numb.

Weyoun was totally disconnected from his surroundings, he didn't hear the buzz from the Quark’s bar nor saw how beautiful the view of the wormhole was. He has been damaged before, but he always finds a way to mend himself. Having five predecessors with the sole purpose of serving, he had never been broken, and as far as he knew, you were the only one who could have made him feel that way.

[tiredassmage]

can we hear more about in dreams, hopes to die... 👉👈 those lines are so tasty..

CHOMPING AT THE BIT, AYE AYE CAPTAIN!!!!

Would you believe me if I reveal that this snippet is from the same piece? It's obviously an overall not very good time kind of piece, so I felt a tiny bit bad about it for once and decided to throw Tyr a bone. Valkorian and Tyr's own conga line of bad times couldn't be the only thing in five years worth of dreams, I figured, lol.

Also, that very scene is where the banger In the dark, it’s easier to hide and easier to tell the truth came from, lol.

Don't get too excited though because that's... very short. And also it's mentally set to Eyelids by PVRIS, so uh. It still punches me in the face.

Eventually I'll hopefully throw him another bone and give him and Theron's time on Rishi or Yavin IV a little pass because I'd like to think Theron's at least a little right and something came up. And stars know Tyr needs a fuckin' break, good gods almighty anlkfdnafldsf. Says she who continues to put that man in Situation after Situation after Situa-

And it was very hard to stop at just the first line for that initial post because the three lines that follow it are the meat and potatoes of what is currently the opening sequence of what I hope will eventually be a coherent fic. Or at least kinda coherent. It's still a very nebulous piece and I kinda like that, so I might not really do much more setup because it seems fitting that there wouldn't be a lot of setup and transition in something like the carbonite dreams era.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly given the nature of the setup of that chapter, but a lot of these scenes flirt with the concept of death. Tyr's dangerous dedication to "finishing the job" isn't anything new to those of us who have been here a while, lol, but this is a good character study piece if you're newer to my favorite blorbo, though it's an undeniably heavy one and obviously a bit fucky and nebulous by nature.

Also, fair warning, yes I'm giving you lines, but also I am going to give you a ramble and a half about Tyr lore because this is the piece I'm stuffing some juicy tick-tock workings into because I realized it was good for that and I love my boy so much, he's so fucked up. I love him though.

Anyway, I teased, so the next three lines of that scene, as foretold beneath the cut:

At first, it’s a firing squad. Mud cakes their boots and the rain pelts heavy on worn, drawn faces.

Tyr pushes to his feet unsteadily. A flash of lighting breaks overhead, glancing off of leveled blasters and hollowed eyes.

It will end as it should: without a soul remembering his name. He’d prefer it that way.

Okay, so... this is also not necessarily a piece I intended to write, but I realized there is... almost no better place to do a deep dive into some of the things that tick inside of Tyr that maybe aren't best portrayed in dialogue alone. This also wasn't meant to be in present tense, but it didn't feel right in past, so I ended up caving and that's... been a theme of the week, I guess, lol.

This is also like. I always chuckle a bit in that scene from Visions in the Dark later where Valkorian threatens you to meet his challenge and grow stronger or die alone and unremembered because wouldn't that just be ideal for a former Cipher. Wasn't that how the story was supposed to end? He didn't ask for your bullshit, grandpa.

There's currently two other scenes I have - they're all relatively short as I try to keep with that sort of drifting feeling. But the other one that might [Large Eyes Emoji] be of... relevant interest...

What’s been done has already been done. It doesn’t matter what it was. Maybe it won’t matter to anyone else.

Because it’s going to end here and now. Such were the decrees of the Sith - of the Empire.

Absolutes.

It matters to him that he tried. This is one of the kinder ways this could go - quietly, without the fanfare of blood on his teeth and a fire in his eyes.

“For what it’s worth, sir?” Nine exhales long and slow as he closes his eyes. “I’ve always admired you… You did your best.”

Finally.

No.

More.

Running.

“But I’m not going back.” The old man’s one of the few he could ever hope to ask this final favor. “Finish this - what we started.”

The Minister of Intelligence pulls the trigger.

It’s over before Tyr feels the ground beneath him.

Also topical given the "are others concerned about their sleep schedule" tag post reblogged earlier today, lol, and the idea of chronic nightmares. That Tyr and I haven't talked about. To each other. Or the world. Possibly not with the people he cares about, either. I'm sure Theron knows nebulously that he can have some troubled sleep - you don't share a bed with someone and not notice how consistently they have trouble falling or staying asleep.

But I think the fuckiest part of the whole Castellan Restraints period for Tyr is how he doesn't want to let the old man down. The Minister is more a father figure in Tyr's eyes than his own father, quite honestly [Tyr has a... kind of non-existant relationship with his entire family, unfortunately - and it's not because he went into Intelligence], and there's absolutely a part of that dynamic that is mentor and protégé.

And it's important to me that he sees this scenario with the Minister and not Shara - at least in Chapter Two, where it first haunts his nightmares with some consistency. Because I made a conscious choice in Shara knowing as Keeper about his Restraints - not because that ever comes up in-game, but because it adds something very crunchy to their already doomed narrative. And the background to that decision is that I decided it's... the kind of silent acknowledgement that the Minister can afford to give of their more intimate relationship. It's damage control, mitigation. With a heavy heart I imagine he tells her this in private, off the record, because Nine was her Cipher. And both of them still hold him in high regard.

Nine's given a possibly unusually loose leash to pursue the SIS investigation because of the Minister and Keeper's word; Watcher Three mentions this in broad strokes when he questions you about the blackout in records.

Anyway, the point to me mentioning this is actually that Tyr makes a very conscious effort to not think about this in the midst of the Restraints causing problems. He's reluctant enough to cede that he should hold the Minister responsible for this gross violation of his privacy and trust, but he's even more reluctant to give that the woman he loves has any knowledge or hand in the process - unwittingly or, especially, wittingly. Ultimately, he stubbornly doesn't hold them responsible. It hurts less to place the blame elsewhere. And he never loses the inescapable nostalgic kick to go home in the sense of the old paradigm - him and Keeper and the Minister.

He gave them everything.

And there's something in here about his regret at not being able to say all of this respect in better words or more directly. There's that acknowledgement that there's one person he trusts to understand why this was his breaking point. And, ultimately, there's the acceptance of the likelihood that none of this is going to end well, that he's living on borrowed time stolen from fate or destiny, or hell, maybe the Force. Tyr doesn't give a whole lot to whatever higher powers might be out there - relying on them hasn't ever saved him and he doesn't expect it to.

It makes it very interesting to watch him knowingly and willingly lie about the Black Codex after he lets Ardun walk with it and promises to double for the SIS. In a way, he's committing the greatest failure and throwing away everything the Minister has fought so hard with him to maintain and keep, especially when both of them have spoken of ideals instead of goals, etc. But it's necessary. It's what's best for Tyr, mentally, at that point. And even one of the figures he loves and respects the most can't override that desperate intrinsic need to fight for himself. The old man is, after all, one of the largest advocates of it throughout his career as Nine.

And, I suppose speaking of the nostalgia for Intelligence, my favorite set of lines from the final scene so far:

She’s sobbing against his shoulder. Dust and blood stain an almost unfamiliar uniform - he hasn’t worn uniform on Dromund Kaas in months, maybe years…

Everything’s been such a blur since Intelligence was disbanded…

so YEAH. I uh. I have a lot of feelings and this is where I'm sniffling and sobbing and word vomiting them into one doc but in story format, I suppose, lol.

Also completely unrelated to this particular fic but I am. Still thinking so intently about Eight x Tyr thoughts. They're now living rent free in my head and all of this.... absolute devotion stuff... hrhrhghghghghghghghrhhg. Brain vibrates because this is obviously all related to it because of the few people who could ever possibly understand any part of this series of events and feelings, it'd be another Cipher.

Tyr really does mourn Intelligence like... ghhghg. I'm unwell about it. He gave everything to it and its success. He doesn't regret it. The SIS investigation and the following fall of Imperial Intelligence were some of the worst fucking years of his life and it's destroyed him, really. He's living in and with the ruins like a bombed out city. It destroyed his everything and he'd almost gladly let it finish the job and destroy him to finally get his retribution. And he'd just as gladly let love destroy it all and rebuild it from the rubble when he has the right person beside him. Something something doesn't realize that he doesn't want or need to continue that destruction, he just needs fucking... idk validation or something. Acceptance. Acknowledgement. And then they can work on what "okay" looks like in the aftermath. He needs to be just as responsible for someone else's "okay" to even begin figuring out what the hell it looks like for him. hOUgh anyway.

I'm fucking normal about Cipher Nine, obviously. Thanks for comin' to my TED Talk.

[expended-sleeper]

Summerfest Day 1: A Werewolf Dreams of Flowers

@tes-summer-fest // Prompt: Dreams & Bees

In an era of turbulent change, the seasonal visit of the pollinators to the Gildergreen was a reliable constant. Even in Vilkas' oldest memories of Whiterun, he could recall the comforting drone of the bees at work: their fuzzy little bodies descending on the colorful flowers of the square to buzz about the tall tree that marked the city as blessed by Kyne. He remembered the solid shape of the Gildergreen's trunk against his small back, and the bee that had landed softly on his hand as Kodlak knelt to tell him Jergen wouldn't be coming back from the war. Vilkas had nodded stiffly, his face a stone mask, until Kodlak relented with a sigh and left him alone. Only the bees saw the tears of a young boy mourning the loss of a man he had dared to love as a father. Part of his heart died that day.

What did bees know? Did they pass down lore from one generation to the next, as Vilkas' new family did? Was there a Vignar Gray-Mane among the insects that spoke of ancient history to a young bee foundling? Years of flowers dying and growing, years of loss and change, and Vilkas grew no closer to understanding the companions that joined him whenever he rested against the Gildergreen. This ritual belonged to him alone. The pollen did not agree with Farkas—not that his brother was the type to sit in brooding silence for long hours on end, anyway. Farkas wasn't stupid, as some of the whelps dared to whisper when they thought the twins' weren't listening. No, he merely possessed the enviable gift of total self-assurance. Few doubts had ever plagued him: wordly burdens rested on Vilkas' teenage shoulders like a mountain, but Farkas moved through life unencumbered.

"Why can't I be like him?" He asked a bee, as it settled on the petals of a flower next to his right foot. "Why must I be the one to worry about everything?"

The creature gave no answer.

Things grew easier, in some ways, when he and Farkas were finally permitted to prove themselves worthy and join the ranks of the whelps of Jorrvaskr. There were people to kill now, and beasts, so Vilkas could distract his foolish mind from its incessant goal to keep him awake thinking of all the world's grim possibilities. Sometimes he drowned his thoughts with mead or ale, but this proved to be a temporary reprieve after a few unwise nights provoked an intervention by Skjor. For weeks, all Vilkas knew of the harder spirits was the smell of them as he scrubbed Hilda's floorboards with abrasive wool. His hands were raw and red for an entire month. It was quite a while before he could hold a tankard again without shuddering.

His visits to the Gildergreen became less frequent, though they did not cease entirely. The priests claimed Kyne and the rest of the gods were always watching. In Vilkas' opinion, they ought to mind their own damned business: the bees in the square knew nothing of the blood he spilled outside the walls of Whiterun, and that was how he preferred it. The bees hadn't seen him washing away his sorrows with drink, or trying to forget about life while tangled in the sheets with some traveling bard. They didn't know how he tried to fill the hole in himself with pouches of gold, in vain.

"I knew your ancestors." Vilkas studied the bee that crawled along his bare arm, between raised hairs. The air was nearly too cold for the bugs: winter was not far off. "Did they tell you about me? Did they speak of a lost child, trying to find his way?"

He'd grown accustomed to the silence of the bees, long ago. Their mere acceptance of him, their ignorance of the darkness he carried inside, was comfort enough.

Vilkas longed for that comfort in later years, during sleepless nights plagued with visions of the hunt.

The blood changed everything. The twin foundlings of Jergen were the youngest ever chosen to join the Circle. A testament to their prowess, claimed Skjor and young Aela. About damned time, growled Arnbjorn. Kodlak only watched in silence as two young men crept into the Underforge to drink the cursed blood of a warrior they had admired all their lives. Vilkas wondered afterwards if things might have ended differently, if he and Farkas had chosen Skjor or Arnbjorn for their sire instead. Had some of Kodlak's cool resolve been passed down, through the curse? Is that what had kept Vilkas from losing himself completely?

Farkas went first, and his change was predictably chaotic. The Bannered Mare was abuzz for days afterward with stories of chicken coops raided in the night and fences trampled by some monstrous beast. One farmer claimed his three dogs had run off to join the pack of a dark creature sent from Oblivion itself. Few believed his story: if werewolves really did exist, would they really spend their time running around the tundra chasing elk with the local hounds?

Kodlak only smiled once when speaking of the blood, as far as Vilkas recalled, and it was when he told the tale of how he and Aela had found Farkas naked in a clearing surrounded by three sleeping dogs. The exhausted canines finally struggled home after a while, their bellies full of meat fit for a Jarl. Kodlak forbid Farkas from repeating the episode. Vilkas laughed nonetheless when he heard that the dogs now howled like clockwork every night at a certain time, calling out to their miraculous feast-giving companion.

"They were actually really good company," Farkas would say, every time the story was told. "Listened better than the whelps do, sometimes."

Gods, how Vilkas loved him. Even Hircine's curse—Hircine's blessing, Skjor would say—could not touch Farkas' core of virtue. One less burden to worry about, anyway. In the days leading up to Farkas' changing, Vilkas had been plagued with nightmares about all that could go wrong: he knew that if his brother hurt anyone, it would be his responsibility to deal with the consequences. He'd had a dark vision of his sword pressed to Farkas' neck. At least the pain would not have lasted long. After bringing Farkas peace, Vilkas would have fallen on his own sword.

This was only one of many intrusive thoughts that visited Vilkas as the fateful day approached. Even the steady presence of the bees did little to allay his fears that the beast blood would doom his twin.

He should have been worried about himself.

The second Kodlak's blood entered his body, Vilkas knew he was lost. His constant darkness, swollen with a sinister new power, manifested into a wolf that craved everything Vilkas had ever taught himself to fear. Instead of eating chickens and running with dogs, Vilkas spent his first night as a werewolf sprinting desperately through the wilds. He would come to learn in the weeks to follow that he'd never be able to outrun the shadow he now carried inside. Kodlak tracked Vilkas to the forests of Falkreath, and brought him home. An unspoken pact was forged between them on the quiet journey back to Whiterun: a pact to resist the blood, whatever the cost.

One final surprise waited for Vilkas upon his return. After receiving a warm welcome from his shield-siblings, he pretended to be well for several hours before stumbling outside to visit the Gildergreen. Perhaps his childhood ritual could bring him some small measure of peace.

But the weight of the tree against his back felt less solid now, somehow. Instead of warmth, Vilkas' heart filled with a growing dread. It was the middle of a sunny day, at the height of Rain's Hand. And yet the bees refused to land near him. He watched them visit distant flowers, but they buzzed away at his approach.

"It's me," he muttered, hating the edge of despair in his voice. "It's still me, you stupid creatures. Don't you remember?"

"You're not like them, anymore."

Vilkas' head jerked to Arnbjorn, who'd been watching from the steps up to Jorrvaskr's terrace.

"You're not prey," he continued, and his cold eyes seemed to be staring deep into the depths of Vilkas' corrupted soul. "Ought to be happy, little pup. In this world, you're either the hunter or the hunted. Skjor understands that. So does my daughter. You're moon-born, now. There's nothing left to fear."

"I'm nothing like you," growled Vilkas, but he felt his wolf's fury enter his words.

Arnbjorn must have heard it, too. His laughter followed Vilkas all the way back to his quarters.

The Gildergreen started to die only a few weeks after that. Nothing to be done, claimed the priests and priestesses of the temple. Vilkas learned to stop looking at the damned tree that had brought him nothing but pain. He closed his ears to the dwindling buzzing of the bees.

His sleeping mind clung to hope, against his own wishes. Vilkas rarely slept well. Most nights he was visited by nightmares of hunting, of slaughter and bloody victory.

But sometimes, when he was most in need of comfort, Vilkas dreamed of his childhood in Whiterun. His mind filled with visions of fuzzy little forms bobbing amidst blooming petals dusted with pollen. How did the haunted foundling of Jergen keep from losing himself, in the long years between his first changing and the restoration of the Circle's purity? The answer: against all reason and certainty, Vilkas dreamed that the bees learned to love him again.

[night-gay]

Into the Anthill pt 48 - The Iron Age

This period of Hank's history starts with a staged battle against Alkhema and ends with Jocasta's apparent murder, but it's the two issues of Iron Age he appeared in that really stood out to me. Tony goes back in time to stop a scientist from resurrecting Dark Phoenix and turns to Hank for help when the Avengers assume he's drunk. There's a brief battle with Ultron before Tony leaves and gets himself stranded in their era. Years later he seeks out Hank for help again when he can't figure out time-travel on his own. They then team up with an odd assortment of other heroes like Dazzler and Iron Fist to fight Jean Grey to the death.

It wasn't what I expected, but it was a great story.

🐜🐜🐜

Avengers: Solo vol 1 #1-5

Hank and Tigra brought the old West Coast Avengers systems back online and caught an alert triggered by Dr. MacLain, the presumed inventor of adamantium and one of the men Ultron forced to help him create Alkhema. Hoping this would be a simple recon mission, he led Striker and Finesse to his old lab in Death Valley to find him. In the heart of the lab they encountered robot duplicates of Hawkeye, Tigra, Iron Man, Mockingbird, and Wonder Man operating under Alkhema’s control. Hank had planned this encounter as a test, but was knocked out at the start of the fight. Striker and Finesse took Alkhema out on their own and Finesse pocketed Alkhema’s CPU for herself.

Iron Age vol 1 #1, Iron Age: Omega vol 1 #1

This story is set about a month after Hank was cleared of his treason charges and quit the Avengers. Iron Man was sent to the past to prevent a new Dark Phoenix event so he sought out the Avengers for aid, but they assumed he’d been drinking and didn’t listen.  He went to Hank for help next and Hank punched him in the face for sleeping with Jan less than a month after his divorce. Tony convinced him to listen by mentioning his eventual discovery of Overspace, which this time’s Hank had only just begun to theorize about. The two of them worked together to build a tracker to locate pieces of Dr. Doom’s Time Platform and then Hank suited up as Ant-Man to help stop Ultron. After the battle Hank insisted that they not tell Jan he was there and to leave this fight out of their records to prevent a paradox. 

Tony was able to complete the Time Platform but Jean Grey destroyed it once she found out what happens in that future, leaving Tony  stranded in this time. He isolated himself for years working on a functional replacement and couldn’t make it work on his own. He eventually reached out to Hank again (likely around the time of Avengers Disassembled) so that they could finish the machine together. The two of them, along with Captain Britain, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Human Torch, Dazzler, and Cyclops, traveled to the future to stop Dr. Birch from unleashing Dark Phoenix once and for all. Hank sent them each back where they came from, but Tony set a time in the future for them to all meet up for dinner as a team once they caught up. 

Avengers Academy vol 1 #21-22

The five original Avengers Academy students feared that they would be ousted now that there were new recruits in the school so they lashed out against Hank and the other Avengers. Jocasta stopped the fighting and urged them to settle things peacefully before leaving to execute her own plan. Hank told them he’d actually intended to give them more attention because they were full-time students and added Lightspeed and White Tiger to their team as full-timers as well. The discussion was cut short when Quicksilver, who’d gone to get Jocasta, reported that she’d been murdered and didn’t back up into her other bodies. Secretly, Reptil had been the culprit. While this time’s Humberto was trapped in a tank in his adult body somewhere in the future, his future self possessed his own. 

Hank’s investigation turned up nothing after a few days of work so he called in Magneto to help him read the energy signatures and Emma Frost to probe the minds of the students if need be. Quicksilver fought with Magneto and Finesse jumped in to help him. Reptil used this opportunity to take Emma out and keep her from discovering his secret. The fighting eventually wound down and Magneto reported that he’d found tachyons among the energy left on Jocasta, meaning their enemy could be a time-traveler.

Minor/Cameo appearances from this period:

FF vol 1 #11

Fantastic Four vol 3 #600

[nerves-nebula]

SO FOLLOW UP TO YOUR QUESTION

the reason my mother continued to believe I had powers because they worked on her apparently (I was tasked with healing her joint pain, arthritis, and also memory problems <- nothing says "hey 9 year old wanna bond?" like your mother pulling you aside in isolation so you can heal "the dementia she can feel forming" after she forgot your birthday lmao

IDK if it actually works or not (all the adults I had access to pretty much either ignored my mother's stuff or went with it, so they'd be like "yeppers this kid has powers :)") HOWEVER I can ""apparently"" heal her injuries, put her to sleep, make her laugh uncontrollably, give her "the power to not need food", and stuff like that.

She's also had (VERY VERY) minor cancer 3 time and partway believes that because ""I am a healer of the stars"" that I was what helped "fix her" and has been bugging me to go fix other people so there's no more cancer. That delusion hasn't been around for a while but BOY those are odd times.

For the clouds, weather and wind honestly it was literally just like. If you look at a cloud long enough it's going to change shape. If you look at a blank spot in the sky there's a chance a cloud will form. I had this whole system set up where I had explanations about "there is [insert thing here] that lowers the possibility of this happening, so the effects take longer and may be harder to tell without special focus" so I could get out of trouble if I wasn't able to stop it from raining because she forgot an umbrella or stuff like that.

(bonus points. I was always blamed for when it snowed and if she heard about any car accidents or whatever that happened in our area she'd tell me and told me I shouldn't do that because I was going to kill people. If I said I liked the rain she told me I was going to influence the world to make that reality and if I did so anyone that died then was because of me. General quirky stuff like that.)

She REALLY wanted me to learn the fire trick but I never managed that, however I supposedly "can raise the temperature of people's bodies to combat the cold". which honestly that was just a way for her to not need to buy more clothes or shoes without holes because "I can warm myself without those things".

If you don't mind me telling a small story, I feel like you'd like to hear about the era where I was "taught how to transmutate liquids into other liquids"! <- (side note: I am not jesus)

it's literally what it sounds like. We were at a Pizza Hut and I was about 13 or 14 and had recently had an argument with her (that she'd forgotten) about how autism is real and not ""humans that are more closely related to our ancestors because their last past lives were of non-human entities and they failed to fully adapt to their new form"" AKA I wanted to get tested for autism because there are signs:tm:

But she completely forgot about that and decided that here, at a busy pizza hut while it was dark out that it was time that I branch out to making drinks taste like other drinks. Now at restaurants I was only allowed lemonade, water, and iced tea. At home I only had water. So my task, in a public space no less, was to "make the water taste like beer" and she would compare it to the beer my father ordered (he's not an alcoholic, he's mostly checked out of reality or agreeing with her).

So for the full length of time we were at the pizza hut I had to turn whatever glass of water they gave me into beer AND APPARENTLY (?????) IT WORKED because she claimed she could taste the beer-ness, but told me I didn't make it taste beer-like enough so they had me drink some of the beer so I could match the flavour. They decided I could work on that later and next my mother tasked me with being able to mimic drug states through the transmutation of water. SO, AGAIN in a public pizza hut where multiple people could and probably were overhearing, I was told to make the water not only taste like beer, but have the effect of alcohol.

My mother is very much a lightweight and after other days of training with this she'd sometimes act kinda drunk, and who knows how real that was. BUT after that I was given the task to ""channel the energy of weed"" to make someone high. I'd test on her because at that point she was sure that the witch hunters would kill me if I spoke to people and also that other people would be so jealous that they'd kidnap me or whatever. she was also very very pushy about the idea that people would kidnap me for a sex ring so. who knows what goes through her head

But anyways after that whole thing I wasn't given medication anymore (not that I ever really was. I've only had antibiotics twice and both times were enforced by CPS) because ""I could connect to the pure essence of the drug and heal myself with that"" because ""I am more connected to the true energetic nature of our reality"" etc etc

As a side note another reason why she thought I was a star child was because I was orphaned when I was pretty young and meant to die but didn't, and yeah she lied to be able to adopt me but viewed it as "destiny" and such. like, when I was 4 I was so strong that I warped our reality into one where I didn't die just because I like, could ig. I try not to think about that too much

TLDR I could tell you many stories about her weirdness and star/crystal/indigo child expectations but the reasons why she thought it worked was either because of coincidences, things just changing because time passed, and through her own beliefs being so powerful she gains the ability to ignore reality ig

good luck with all your busy stuffs and don't worry about never playing pokemon, the new games aren't that good xD

this all sounds SO INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL

if my mother asked me to do impossible things I would probably burst into tears, but I'm glad you had like, a system about it I guess??? the percentages thing is honestly really fuckin smart but I guess you did what you gotta do

also excuse me she lied in order to adopt you???? and called it fate?? and EXCUSE ME she blamed you for various car crashes and natural disasters???!???!??

and I thought I had bad experiences with parents at pizza hut,, damn

also wow twinsssss my dad was ALSO very concerned with me being kidnapped into a sex trafficking ring! we have sooo much in common omg :D

TBH the idea of a person so powerful they warped reality so that they didn't die sounds like a fun story to write. not a fun story to be told about yourself but, wow, what an imagination on that lady!

also im not actually worried about not playing pokemon i just wanna make it clear i cant really continue jokes about it cause i do not know much about it