#because hopefully they can remove the threads now

[cherrysnip]

sincerely yours - choi seungcheol

pairing: seungcheol x afab!reader

content: married life, dad!seungcheol's reaction when your daughter received a love letter.

(spoiler alert: he freaked out😭)

word count: 1.5k

Tuesday nights have always been Seungcheol's turn to wash the dishes. In retrospect, no one can even make him do a single household chore when he was younger. He grew up surrounded by helpers who were paid to do the job so he didn't try as much to learn them.

However, that changed when he married you. Probably it was because of how you were raised differently from him but you’re not comfortable of having other people hovering around your house to "do things you can do on your own". And unwilling as he was at first, Seungcheol just obeyed what you wanted because well, that's how whipped he is. (He'd undoubtedly say yes had you even declared the sky green.)

So here he is, seven years later, a "master" on the craft of washing the dishes. It's silly how such a simple thing could make him so happy but really, it wasn't easy for him to reach this point. He broke plates after plates that he swore at one point he saw you gritting your teeth like you were one thread away from strangling him.

But he said that every time you would smile at him and utter a soft thank you, hell, everything's worth it.

"Why are you smiling like a fool?"

He turned to see you leaning on the counter watching him with suspicion. A sheepish smile escaped from Seungcheol's lips as he reached out for a dry towel to wipe his hands.

"You don't have to know," he teased.

Your brows furrowed, "You better not be thinking of another woman or else..."

Seungcheol chuckled and walked towards you. He leaned, placing his hands on your sides, caging you on the counter. The action was so sudden it caught you off guard.

"How would I do that when you're everything I think about every waking day of my life? Hmm?" He planted a kiss on your shoulder which made you gasp. Years into your marriage but this little things your husband does still makes you giddy like a teenager. And of course, the blush spreading all over your face didn't escape Seungcheol, causing him to grin wider. Your reaction to his touch will always be his favorite drug.

"Now, you're just flattering me..." 

"I'm being sincere," Seungcheol insisted and met your eyes. "I still can't believe that after all these years, I'm actually married to you. How can I be so damn lucky?"

After he said that, your pouting lips turned into a wide smile. He is such a dork, you thought. You can't resist it anymore so you cupped his cheeks to kiss the tip of his nose. Being the competitive guy that he is, he did the same to you while chuckling. 

"I'm luckier to have married you, Cheollie. You're everything I've dreamed of a husband."

"Are you sure? I remember six years ago, you said you'll divorce me because I forgot to clean our room."

"Well, you already learned your lesson, didn't you?"

Seungcheol nodded, "I most certainly did."

"Oh by the way, I have something to tell you," you said a little bit later. Your arms were already wrapped around Seungcheol's waist with your chin on his broad chest.

"Baby no. 3?" Seungcheol asked hopefully and he only received a pinch on his side. "Aw! I'm just kidding sweetheart!"

"Tss," You removed yourself from Seungcheol but you still didn't let go of his arm while you gently dragged him to your living room. You picked up something from your coffee table and even though he was basically towering over you, he still wasn't able to have a clear sight of what it was because you were quick to hide it on your back.

"What is it?” He curiously asked but instead of answering him immediately, you slightly squeezed his arm."Promise me you won't have a heart attack?"

"How can I promise that sweetheart? Come on."

"Well, okay. Just please don't pass out."

"You're just making me nervous."

You pursed your lips and handed him the familiar heart-shaped paper. The last time he got a hold of something similar to this was during Valentine's Day and he almost lashed out. Good thing, you were able to prevent him from doing so. 

"W-what's the meaning of this?"

You clicked your tongue trying to supress your laughter. Knowing your husband, you kind of expected this reaction from him already. 

"Found that in your daughter's workbook. I was helping her with her assignment and that fell."

"Damn it! Seriously?" Seungcheol dramatically gasped and stared at the piece of paper again. "Sweetheart, you've already read this haven't you?"

"I did."

"And you're not bothered?"

"No, I'm not. Actually, I find it cute," you replied.

"It isn't." Seungcheol almost shouted but tried hard not to make it too loud because he was well aware the twins were already sleeping. "Look here sweet, whoever this kid was, confessed he has a crush on Chaewon and even wrote I LOVE YOU! He wrote I LOVE YOU to our daughter!"

You finally burst into fits of laughter, "What's wrong with that?"

Seungcheol was starting to get annoyed now but it immediately dissipated when you touched his arm and guided him to sit on the couch.

"Calm down Cheollie. It's just a simple note. No need to fret so much about it," you tried to ease him and Seungcheol sighed. He reached for your hand and pressed it as if he's trying to summon his lost composure.

"I mean...that kid wrote those words for our daughter. To our princess. And he's only what? Six years old? Does he even know what it means?"

"Don't insult the feelings of that kid, Cheollie. You yourself even proposed to someone when you were just what? Three?"

Shock passed through Seungcheol's face. He was just going to defend himself when you waved your free hand. "Don't even try to deny it. It was your mom who told me about it."

"Fine. But that's beside the point...last time it was Jungwon. Our little prince received a similar letter with three red roses on Valentine's Day and now it's Chaewon...and an I love you? God! The moment we received the result of your pregnancy test even felt like it just happened yesterday and now, they're receiving these...things. It's too fast. They're growing up too fast."

"Cheollie. It's not as if they're already marrying--"

Seungcheol was quick to cut off what you were supposed to say. "God no sweetheart! They're just six-year olds!"

"Exactly my point," You calmly said and closed the gap between you by hugging him and burying your face on the crook of Seungcheol's neck. "So loosen up, okay?"

"I'm sorry. It's just that... I know that after several years they'll grow up and will meet a lot of people. And then eventually, both of our kids will each meet the person they will love...but right now, I really just want them to enjoy their childhood first...is that too much to ask?" Seungcheol immediately stopped talking when he heard you sniffing. "Are you crying?"

You lifted your head and hurriedly wiped your tears without looking at him. "This is your fault."

"What did I do?" Seungcheol asked teasingly and helped dry your cheeks. "Okay, I'll stop being irrational now so you should stop crying too."

You immediately shook your head, "You're not being irrational. You're just being a good, scratch that, the best father you have always been. You're loving and responsible."

"And?"

"Fine. Handsome too. Very," you both chuckled. "Jungwon and Chaewon are sure lucky to have you as a father."

“And you as their mother," Seungcheol kissed your forehead.

"Seriously though," You suddenly said and peeked at the paper your husband was holding. "The kid is undeniably sweet writing a letter like that."

"Sweetheart..." He groaned and his plump red lips automatically turning into a pout like that of a kid sulking. 

"Sorry," you giggled. "I won't bring it up again."

You both just stayed on the couch for a long time hugging each other. And even with just that, everything felt perfect.

"Cheollie?" You called in a whisper.

"Hmm?"

"I just realized something after reading that kid's letter."

"Uhuh?" Seungcheol responded expectantly.

"That I don't say those words a lot to you," Your voice wavered. "Even if you very much deserved to hear it everyday."

Seungcheol can't help but smile because he is completely aware that you're not the most expressive when it comes to your feelings (which is a complete opposite of him) but he also knew that you have so much love to give and you just have a different way to express it. 

"Even if you don't say it everyday sweetheart, I can always feel your love for me and for the twins. And that, " Seungcheol hugged you tighter, "...is more than enough.

"But still, I feel like you want to hear it."

"I do but--"

"I love you, Cheollie." You said rather abruptly and buried your face on Seungcheol's chest. He could only laugh at your cuteness.

"Are you seriously acting shy now?"

Shame was definitely already creeping on your system so you slapped his chest and whined in a low voice, "Stop teasing me!"

With a contented smile, he whispered too.

"I love you more sweetheart."

—♡—

[ozzgin]

Does the asylum spider have a name by any chance and will his story have any romance in it?

The first part was very much intended as a budding romance, but I always seem to get caught up in the story and leave out a lot of interaction. Sorry about that 😭

I initially wanted to keep this ask for some extra, longer headcanons, but as I started writing today I realized a lot of the details would be covered in part 2. So instead I’ll just tell you a little bit about spider boy. I guess it still counts as headcanons, but less ample.

Yandere! Asylum Spider Character Info

Get to know the strange creature you found in the sewers.

[Main Story]

He does not have a name, and even if he did, it’s been too long for him to remember. He will gladly take any name you give him, so please do consider it. He hasn’t been spoken to in many, many years, so the idea of being called again - with a name you picked for him specifically - is enough to get him to drool in excitement.

Speaking of, the drooling is sadly unavoidable. He is very much aware it’s improper, but his muscles have atrophied enough that it is now out of his control. Additionally, the teeth curve outwards and so he can’t close his mouth fully. Hopefully you don’t find him disgusting.

The blindfold can be removed and he’s not entirely blind as you expected, but his eyes are no longer used to intense light. The pale orbs are quickly overstimulated if he tries to gaze outside. Therefore, he will keep it on most of the time. The darkness also makes him feel more secure. The only thing he does enjoy glancing at every now and then is, well, you. He was suspecting you’d be pretty and he certainly wasn’t wrong, so he is indeed very grateful to have been able to take in your face.

You can also loosen up the straight jacket and, with a little bit of exercise, he will be able to move his arms. It’s probably the thing he’s most enthusiastic about, because he can finally touch you. It will start terribly clumsy; you have to understand, he’s been deprived of most senses for an eternity. His bony fingers might accidentally pull too hard or suddenly twitch into your skin, but he’s doing his best to refine his motor skills. He can also return any hug you offer him, and you should expect him to demand it extremely often. He’s now addicted to the warmth of your body.

Unfortunately the legs can’t be saved. They always drag along, crooked and weak. He relies entirely on his spider appendages. (I know there’s some of you out there probably wondering about it and no, the lower body is not completely paralyzed. You know very well why it matters.)

Lastly, as you will see, he can practice his speech and will eventually be able to use words and short sentences. Saves you a lot of time, especially upstairs where his knowledge is vital for survival. On the other hand, he doesn’t have much to say. He doesn’t remember much from his past, and what he does remember he’d rather forget. So he prefers to listen to you and loves it when you tell him stories from your life.

While he is terrified of the upstairs, he will do his best to protect you and he definitely has the means to do so. He has a gland that allows his saliva to turn acidic, his bite is venomous and he can regurgitate a thick thread of web.

You might be able to tell, he is terribly clingy. To think someone would have pulled him out of his misery. He is forever indebted to you and will never, ever leave your side again.

[easy-there-leftovers]

I See You, Darling (3)

[Astarion x reader] As I mentioned in a previous post, this came along surprisingly easier than the last one. The same can’t be said about the quality though maybe– sorry for that. :,DDD|Word count: 2.6k.| 

Content Warnings: Mentions of cooking, handling knives, blood, one sex joke (lol), the normal warnings that you’d associate with the game

Part 2 here!!

Next Part here!!

As an outsider to most of everyone’s problems, you find your place by helping in whatever way you can. Even if that may be at the expense of your own comfort, but at least it’s been fun so far.

Alternatively: Reader can't catch a break from anything, can they?

————━─━────༺༻────━─━————

Being resident camp caretaker was surprising, for lack of a better term. You were away from the stresses of technology, corporate assholes, and disappointing family with your choice to pursue unpractical careers. Instead living the “cottagecore lifestyle” of foraging for food and cooking with a cauldron that those from the digital world claimed to be the best. What they failed to mention were the incessant pests coming in to nibble through rucksacks if you were not careful, and the occasional swarms of ants or flies coming in to nip at your flesh.

The experience was a mixed bag, so it would seem. But the tired smiles that the group would give you when you greet them with a warm and filling meal was always a comfort that you would have.

And it would seem they needed it now more especially than ever.

Your band of misfits planned to venture out and defeat the goblins at their camp in order to aid the tieflings’ journey to Baulder’s Gate. Per your instruction, you convinced the more solipsistic members of the benefits of eradicating the sect. Namely, they wouldn’t hinder you as much in the future if they were taken care of. Hence your plan to slightly increase the amount of portions for supper tonight.

By twilight, you had a good broth steeping in your cauldron. The camp having returned just a few moments prior from an earlier excursion. You were making a pottage that the others have expressed their enjoyment for. A stew of sorts that you had made when you had quite the number of items that would have spoiled before consumption had you not done anything about it. A mixture of fruits and meat, stewed in a consomme of a pig’s head and various mushroom caps. 

This time around, you’ll be using fresher ingredients to hopefully lift their spirits.

As you’re chopping up fruits, you think about all that’s happened to you and possible explanations for why your character suddenly ceased to exist in order to make room for you.  What’s more is that no matter how many nights pass, you never end up waking from your dream. Which you fear is lasting longer than your usual ones.

Your working theory is that whatever force, be it magic or fate, tethering you to this world is also responsible for removing Tav. Astarion claimed that he couldn’t remember the finer details when you had confronted  him. And so you settled with that hypothesis. That like how a thread that unravels opens a seam in a garment, a new thread must be used to darn the cloth together again.

You laugh at the disgustingly poetic analogy you created in your head. You fear that you’re becoming more and more deranged as—

“My, aren’t you busy?” The intrusive voice causes the knife to slip out of your hand a bit, thankfully only cutting off a portion of your index finger’s nail. Your shoulders, that were raised in alarm, release their tension after feeling the sudden chill leave your body.

“Astarion,”  Exasperated, you put the knife down on the cutting board to catch your breath for a while. 

“I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped sneaking up on me when I’m doing something dangerous.”

The high-elf offers a mischievous smile in response. “Very sorry, pet. But it’s hardly my fault when you’ve barely been paying attention to me.” There’s regret in his words, but not in his tone.

Because while perhaps it’s an odd interest, he enjoys hearing the quickened pace of your heart. The pulse getting louder, as it stays that way for longer.

“I’d feel sorry for doing so if you were too, but you’re not.”

You laugh out, breath still shaky but steadying slowly, as you pick up your knife again.

 “I heard you’re part of the encampment that’s finishing off the goblins by midmorn.” Chopping the rest of the fruits, you feel his presence move from behind you to off to your side so you can see him from your peripherals.

“Hm? Yes. Although I would have preferred if we didn’t do this at all. It’s too much work, and the goblins could be entertaining! Killing useful spoils seems like an awful waste.” 

This must be the reason why he approached you, to persuade you to call off the hunt. And his unfading smile supports that thought. When you voice said thought, it earns you a playful scoff.

“Don’t you have anything else on your mind other than the parasite lounging in it?”

The mood is light as you say this, the banter welcomed by you both. 

And as you continue to converse, a few eyes begin to follow the two of you. They’ve never really seen Astarion interact with you for this long, at least not away from your private spaces. And even less without hushed voices. The interlocution is definitely a welcome spectacle to them. 

“On my honor, the only thing on my mind is depraved, carnal lust.” He says, proudly. Gesturing to himself with one hand, and the other held high like he was swearing an oath. 

Your closed mouth drops into frown, eyes wide, and your eyebrows skew upwards. A very undignified, but small, squeak coming from the back of your throat. You swore you heard someone groan in disappointment from far away too.

You know full well that the look of shock that you were sporting was by no means attractive, but the flagrant revelation, though not at all out of character, was shocking to have directed towards you. You’ve been trying to romance the elven vampire with your character, only to end up nowhere. Therefore you are completely unsure if the dialogue he was spewing was completely a figment of your imagination, or is, indeed, canon.

The elf in question has seen this expression of yours before. Quite often, too. And while he doesn’t think it a, “pleasant sight,” it is rather… charming to him. 

Whether it be on purpose or not, people have the tendency to be on guard around him, preserving any twitch and sound that could give them away to themselves. Not that much had ever evaded him before with his naturally cunning behavior. But this clearly unscripted response, with the blatant confusion swimming in your eyes, is a rather refreshing sight to see.

“I see–” you clear your throat to lower your voice back to its normal octave. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to uh, bring those thoughts into fruition! Uh–,” You slide the rest of the cut fruits off of your cutting board and into the stew. 

“Is there anything else you wanted to tell me? Something I should know?” You turn to face him. He laughs at first, but then his brows furrow in question, as if he did have something to say and forgot about it or thinks it is no longer an appropriate time to ask. He shakes his head and says something along the lines of, “letting you do all the hard work” and returns to his tent.

But you are not left alone for long as another member of your little ragtag team joins you to ask about dinner. To which you ask them for which meat would be better to toss into it. 

—————————

After dinner, your little rapport concerning the plan and new findings with everyone is adjourned. Some thanked you before they left, and others simply walked away. From what you have learned from them, the Archdruid that was taken prisoner by the goblins was named, “Halsin.” He was a topic of interest as they said he might be able to aid you in your search for moonrise and understanding the Mindflayer worms.

Wyll had also approached you alone after dinner and offhandedly mentioned a dead boar being on the road. He had planned to return to camp with it if it could have been useful, but he had claimed that the animal had been unnervingly light. As if half of its weight was no longer there despite seemingly just keeling over for no reason.

You take note of that in one of your many journals, including additional information about the Archdruid and their kind in general. The book appearing more and more like the game’s quest booklet, with the exception of a few crossouts and colored ink to emphasize each quest’s urgency and relevance to finding a cure. When you successfully rescue the druid of the grove, it seems you will have to move out quite soon after, so you fixed up your pack just a bit to make it easier later on.

You look around, everyone seems to be in their respective areas. Doing whatever it is they usually do  with the exception of Astarion. Though he has been known to either sneak off or hide away from time to time in his tent, so you think nothing of it.

You return to the communal chest, tallying up the remaining supplies and inspecting the wares. You sort the tradeable objects in one rucksack and appraise its worth. The chest also has pieces of gold, some that others have placed, and others you picked up and added. You prefer to let the others keep what they think is valuable to them, and only place what they want to share in the vessel. 

If the party’s gold ever runs out, you think that the rucksack is worth a few nights of food when you travel out again. Assured by this knowledge, you placed your writing materials back in, closed the chest, and turned in for the night.

Maybe this time, you’ll wake up. But you also don’t really want to. Not just yet. 

—————————————

As you slept, you wondered about the longevity of your knowledge of the media. You hadn’t finished the game, and although you’ve accomplished a fair bit of it, you worry about how you will face the events to come. One of the only reasons why you haven’t flinched so much at the terrors that occurred was because you had anticipated them. Braced yourself for the dangers ahead.

You fear what might happen when you no longer have that power at your disposal.

Perhaps it's the worry, perhaps it's the stiff, compact ground that you have yet to be accustomed to sleep on despite the bedroll, or perhaps it's the presence of something suddenly cool that stirs you awake. 

But what you did not expect was Astarion’s face hovering over yours to be the reason. Fangs bared, and ready to bite. Your eyes go wide and you let out a small gasp, hands moving up in a gesture akin to clawing at yourself. 

The elf realizes that you’re awake now and he curses. Moving away as you scramble upright just like you did all those nights ago. The look of genuine fear at the prospect of being bitten is apparent on your face, and he feels almost guilty to be greeted with it.

“Please, I wasn’t going to hurt you— I just needed, well, blood.” He says it in a panic. Worried that you might run off, losing his only sure chance, and possibly enraging the rest of the camp.

In this moment, you realized the error in your ways. Astarion had been hunting nearly every other night in the same area. And if you were progressing through the events like how the game did, he couldn’t have had the time nor energy to venture too far after feeding from most of the creatures in the vicinity.

‘The exsanguinated boar…’ You remember.

“You’ve been feeding on animals for the past few nights, haven’t you?”

“It seems like word got around then.” Although unknowingly, he’s referencing what Wyll delivered to you earlier in the night.

“I’m not some monster, I feed on boars, deer, kobolds– whatever I can get. I’m just too slow right now. And with the damned excursion,” He stops himself, complaining is only doing worse for his condition.

“It’s not enough. I feel so…weak. If I just had a little blood, I could think clearer. Fight better.” You’re conflicted. You had no problem offering yourself as your character for him to feed on, but even witnessing that through a disconnected screen was enough to make you feel uncomfortable imagining it. You care about him, want to give him what he deserves, but this…

What’s more is that you know what he’s saying is necessary, not at all overstating how dire his need to satiate his hunger is, making it all the more difficult.

He needs to convince you, if he wants to continue on, that is. Without the presence of the illithid, he resorts to more practical means of doing so. Similar to what he did to many.

Noticing the slight tremor of your hands, he takes the chance to slowly kneel down on your bedroll. Closing the distance between you. He takes your hand, now rougher from the work you do, and meets your shaken gaze with his dark eyes.

“Please. I only need a taste, I swear.” He had meant to tell you before dinner, had he not felt the eyes of the others on the two of you. This discovery is not lost on you. He needs you specifically. And you realize it's out of convenience because you’re an expendable resource. If you pass, the group can venture on, but he also still needs you alive for whatever reason. He can’t have the others finding out, not until they trust him. 

He needs you to trust him. And this is the only way you can help him in this moment.

With that, you strengthen your resolve. 

“I…I trust you, Astarion. But no more than what you need.” A dangerous bet, but you hope it would be worth it.

“Really? I–”

 “Can I trust you on that?” The shock on his face fades, and he agrees.

“Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?” You lay down, preparing yourself to faint during the process and allowing your blood to flow throughout your body. He observes the rapid movement of your eyes as he drapes himself above you. Your sight flitting from anywhere but him and then returning all the same. No doubt that you fear being at his mercy.

He feels almost sorry that you have to do this for him.

So he graces you with what mercy he can give.

The bite is quick. You would have felt the flesh of your neck parting for him, had he not done so. You feel tears prick at your eyes and start to feel the area from your neck and upwards go cold.

A momentary, sharp pain, that lulls to a chilling numbness in what seems like a matter of seconds.

You feel his body start to grow warmer at your expense and you feel satisfied knowing that you could help him.

When he doesn't stop, you start to worry.

Your breath catches in staccato beats, pulse quickening in tandem. You try to stop him, hands coming up to push or tug, but the heavy sensation that washes over you only permits them to find purchase on his form.

You try to speak, but it seems as if the common tongue does not reach him.

Your mind goes into overdrive, all of a sudden it doesn’t feel like a dream anymore and genuine fear courses through your veins.

You need him to stop, and you try to think of more efficient ways of doing so.

But your mind starts slowing as well. The pain has certainly faded, but the presence of the vampire at your throat reminds you in case you’ve forgotten.

As a last ditch effort, you try to use whatever might appeal to him, to break him out of the trance that he was in from finally replenishing himself. 

“Isalhal–” One of the few Elvish words you recalled.

The effort thankfully makes him pull back in shock, stopping him. Your eyes finally close, thankful for the reprieve you're finally granted. You hear a distant, “thank you,” and a more distant “shit” before rest takes over.

You worry about waking up tomorrow.

But for now, you’re thankful that Astarion will be able to fight well.

For himself and for everyone else’s sake.

━─━────༺༻────━─━

Thank you to @rey26, @shyminnie07, @lynnloveshobi, @iggee-rose, @automnepoet, @tiannamortis, @aoirohi, @sarkara211, @jane-3043, @h3110-dar1in9, @h3ll0k1ttyl0ver333, @mimziethealien, @squichymochi, @sharabay, @furblrwurblr, @dork-of-the-universe, @thedevilssinner, @fuckalrighty, @queenofthespacesquids, @perseny, @goldenplutus, @h4nluv, @awkward-d3rs3-dr3amer, and @auszimbo for asking to be tagged!!

[oleander-nin]

Valen-Time 01: Hand Sewn(Rise! Raph x Reader)

A/N, not important: Guess who's writing for 29 days straight again! Or, I'm attempting to at least. This is what I needed lots of luck on lol, mostly because February is a bit busy for me, but I really wanted to do this again for Valentine's day. Any criticism is welcome, constructive or not. This is supposed to be a gender neutral reader, so if I screwed up somewhere, please tell me.

-Ollie

CW: needles(sewing), stitching, teddy bear, fluff(hopefully)

Words: 1039

Summary: Raph tore his stuffed animal and you agree to help fix it.

Tag list(I didn't actually know if I should add it or not, but I'm going with yes for now. Tell me if you want your name off): @f1oricide @itsyagurlchip @lordfreg @acutiewithagun @rottmnttmnt2012 @lixnininotnay @lexiechr @ssak-i

The ruined stuffie in your hands made you frown, it’s torn stitching letting the stuffing that once shaped it fall out. Raph sat next to you, a tight-lipped frown on his face as his fingers twitched on his led. He watches you inspect the bear in silence, his shoulders brought forwards and touching his jaw. You don’t comment on the stench of nervous sweat filling the air, not wanting to bring down his mood even more. This was the bear you gave to him when you confessed, and now it sat ruined in your hands. While the sentimental value of it wasn’t huge to you, Raph was practically attached to this bear by the hip, which would eventually be the poor stuffies' downfall.

“I can just get you a new one, it’s not a big deal.” You assure him, trying to help bring up the large terrapin’s mood. Raph shook his head, his snaggle tooth biting into his lip as he frown deepens.

“Raph doesn’t want a new one.” He says, a tone of distress lingering in his tone. you watch as his eyes linger on the ripped stitches and protruding filling, knowing he felt bad for breaking his stuffed animal. You purse your lips, trying to decide how to move forwards. You flip the stuffed animal over, inspecting it from top to bottom. You weren’t new to fixing broken stuffies, many of your own having been patched over the years, but his spikes really did a number to the one in your hand. 

“If I were to try and sew it,” You start hesitantly, your hand caressing the black buttons the small teddy had for eyes. “I think we could patch it back up. It would look a bit messy because I don’t have extra fabric on me, but he would be fixed.”

Raph visibly brightens at the idea, his arms wrapping around your shoulder and pulling you into a tight hug. “Thank you. Dad has a sewing kit in his room, we could ask him for it.”

You fondly roll your eyes and pat his forearm twice before starting to ease the stuffing back into the bear to try and fatten it out. Your hands twitched at the scratchy feeling of the cotton, Raph’s weight on your shoulders making it harder to move your arms than you wanted. You don’t say a word though, letting Raph continue to lean on you as he watches you remove whatever stuffing refused to back down. Although his eyes hold worry for the removed stuffing, he doesn’t say a word about it. 

“Raph will go get the sewing kit.” He remarks, finally letting you go as he stands up. His chasm deepens as he glances back at the stuffed animal in your hands, but he says nothing. With no more words exchanged, Raph disappears from your room and presumably heads off to where Splinter keeps the sewing kit, leaving you alone with the bear.

You softly rub it’s torn stitching, pulling loose thread to make it easier to sew back up. Its bright eyes reflected the light above you, making the inanimate object seem as if it had life breathed into it. It's limp arm stubs laid on your knees, asking for a hug. You chuckle lightly to yourself at the thought of the bear wanting affection, as being hugged was what destroyed it in the first place. 

You continue messing with the stuffing as Raph re-enters, a small dingy shoebox so full of thread and needles and spare fabric, the lid couldn’t close. The bed dips to the side as Raph settles next to you once more, head peeking over your shoulder and hands tucked into his chest. You don’t say a word about the feeling of his breath on your neck, merely turning slightly so you wouldn’t have to deal with it as much.

“Was your dad a seamstress?” You easily tease, the bear left to lay in your lap as you start to dig through the extensive yet scattered supplies. Raph gently shoves your shoulder as he grins.

“Nope, we just kept tearing everything he gave us. Some of the baby clothes he has stashed away are basically patchwork at this point.”

You smile fondly at the thought of a younger Raph and his brothers with their clothes that were a medley of colors, having seen some of them yourself. You finally pull out brown thread and a thin needle, sticking the chosen needle into the thread of the spool so it would stay put. “Have you ever sewn before then?”

Raph shakes his head, his lower lip jutting out in a slight pout. “Nope. There wasn’t much of a need, and Dad fixed everything we ripped anyways.”

“Would you like to learn?” You offer, gesturing to the stuffie's open stomach. Raph tilts his head as he looks down at the teddy bear, considering your offer for just a moment. 

“Yeah,” He nods, looking both determined and excited. “I would.”

You beam at him, quickly shuffling around until you’re facing Raph so you could show him what to do. The bear is soon found in Raph’s lap instead of yours, the fallen stuffing in between his thighs to keep it safe. You thread the needle and wax it for him while describing to him what he was going to do, assuring him he couldn’t really mess it up even if he tried. You hand him his needle, gently guiding his hands through the first few stitches. As he continues to sew the rest on his own, you start to add the rest of the stuffing into the bear so it wouldn’t flatten.

The final stitch is soon placed, and you easily instruct Raph on how to secure it, only having to help him once before he got it. The stitch job down its stomach was sloppy, but secure, no more stuffing leaking onto the floor. You return the needle and thread and set the box onto the floor, watching fondly as Raph admires his stuffed animal. It doesn’t surprise you when Raph pulls you close, whispering his thanks into your ear. You simply smile, kissing his jaw and praising his needlework.

[lowkeychenle]

See My Sea [ZCL] (M) Teaser

Description: You never expected your lab partner to be the captain of the basketball team...or a decent human being, but you get proved wrong twice. Despite a rocky past of your own, you find yourself falling for him faster than you thought. Maybe, with his help, you can finally find your way home and see your sea.

A/N: this is inspired by Marine Turtle sort of ??? it just gave me these vibes oops.

Genre: Fluff/Smut/Angst (there is no smut in the teaser) (College AU where Chenle is captain of the basketball team like he DESERVES)

Content Warnings: SLOW BURN! Drinking, alcohol, intoxication, some instances of friends being shitty, verbally abusive ex-boyfriend appearances, mentions/instances of anxiety and insecurity, a panic attack Smut warnings: This might be some of my mildest smut omg, usage of pet names 'baby' and 'sunshine,' oral (f receiving), slight dirty talk? there's not much rip

Expected Word Count: 15-20k

Release Date: 6pm EST 2023.12.31

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x fem!Reader (feat. Mark & Jisung, a male OC named Woojin, and three female OCs, Soobin, Jiyoon, & Heewon)

Juliet's Masterlist | Tell me what you think? :)

When Chenle makes it out on the court, the wide smile on his face takes you off-guard. There’s no denying the truth—he’s attractive. That’s the extent of what you know about him at this point, but you see plenty of attractive men every day. It’s not like they’ve ever garnered your attention in a way that made you want to watch them.

Unlike earlier, his hair is part down the middle now, probably from running around in practice and preparing for the game. He runs his fingers through it as he walks up to Jisung. The taller man was already standing with their other friend, who you can only assume is Mark. Chenle’s jersey has his last name printed in big letters on the back, along with the number 30.

You try not to study him, but somehow he’s like a damn magnet. No wonder he said he was used to people staring at him.

Jisung glances once in your direction, and then he nudges Chenle and gives him a nearly non-existent nod. He turns, and the second he sees you, his brows jump up in some sort of surprise. Then he grins at you.

“You’re being weird,” Jiyoon mentions, breaking you out of your trance.

“Huh? How am I being weird? He looked at me.”

“Yeah…because he invited you. And you’re here.” She snorts, running her fingers through her hair. “Speaking of which, I think he’s coming over here.”

Your eyes widen, and your head shoots up just in time to see Chenle jogging over to you. You have to crane your neck upward to look at him when he’s right in front of you, and you’re sure the shock on your face is what causes laughter to drop past his lips.

He pulls a simple bracelet off his wrist—one made with blue and gold thread—and holds it out to you. “Wear this for me?”

You blink up at him. “Why?”

“If you wear it and we win, you’re our good luck charm,” he states simply.

Your cheeks burn (hopefully unnoticeably) as you gently take it out of his palm. Your fingertips brush against his skin despite how hard you tried to avoid touching him, and once it’s completely in your hand, he backs away from you as Jiyoon helps you tighten it around your wrist.

“Are we gonna—” Jiyoon starts.

“Say nothing,” you cut her off. “Not a single word about that.”

She giggles to herself. When the game is about to begin, Jiyoon leans forward, hyperfocused on Jisung and the way he carries himself. You want to make fun of her for it, but you know she’ll come back tenfold with jokes about Chenle.

“Also,” Jiyoon whispers, getting closer to you without removing her gaze from the court. “He was totally fucking with you. He just wanted you to wear it. They haven’t lost a game this entire season, so.”

“Why would he do that?” you ask.

This time, she does look at you. She clasps her hands together and stares expectantly.

[askinkiskarma]

Illicit Affairs | Chapter X: Invisible String

Pairing: Neteyam x Human/Avatar!Reader

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX

Synopsis: Back from the dead, you have to heal in order to be able to move on and be forever part of the people. You and Neteyam finally find each other, giving in to desires you've both had for years.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ minors DNI!!!), some angst, fluff, all the feels, so many feels, the end

Word Count: 14,7k words (i need to be stopped)

A/N: The last chapter of Ilicit Affairs is finally here!! It took me a lot longer than I thought to finish this, but that's because this chapter is longer than my first like 5 chapters combined. I don't know what happened hahahah. I'm so excited to share this with you, the conclusion and culmination of this whole story. I hope you find it a satisfying pay-off, and I'd love to hear allll of your thoughts. Honestly, replies and asks make my life and I cry a little bit every time someone interacts with my content. I hope you have enjoyed this journey, and make sure you read til the end for a (hopefully pleasant) surprise ;)

As always, thank you to everyone who asked to be tagged, I love you all sm!! Ok enjoy byeee x

“Isn't it just so pretty to think all along there was some invisible string tying you to me? A string that pulled me out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire Chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons One single thread of gold tied me to you”

Neteyam stood in the room that he knew so well now, he had memorised its cracks in the white walls, and he was holding your hand, slowly tracing the now-fading yellow bruises along your arm. He looked at the tube that was going into the nook of your elbow and followed his eyes along it, until it reached a little clear pouch with a liquid that was dripping slowly all the way into your body. You were talking animatedly with Kiri, Norm and Max, looking over a bunch of plants displayed on a table in front you. It was incredible to see you, you looked like a completely different person than you were a few days ago. As soon as you woke up, you asked for the treatment you worked on and got working, and your symptoms improved massively. You were still sick, and the virus was still there, not to mention the damage it had already done couldn’t be reversed, it had to be treated on day at a time. Norm said your lungs were getting better and your heart was too, but your kidneys, he thought they were called, still not cleared your blood properly, so you were still stuck in bed with a big tube coming out of your neck where it removed your blood and another tube where it returned it back to your body. Neteyam did not understand how any of this worked, but whatever science it took, he was grateful for. He did not leave your sight in this time, refusing to be parted with you for even more than a few minutes at a time. Jake helped Max and Norm bring in an extra large bed, like the ones made for Avatars and add it to the room next to your own bed, and he slept there, reaching over to hold you hand at all times. 

There was so much between you that was still unsolved, still eating at his insides, but he did not want to overwhelm you or pain you in any way while in this state, so he was satisfied to just be near you and listen to your heavy breathing while you slept, and be comforted by the sound of the ECG machine letting him know you were still there, that your heart was still beating and it wasn’t stopping anytime soon. 

“Ok, I think we need to start with how will we extract the proteins from these plants. I’ve not done protein extraction on plants, but I assume we can do some sort of chloroform or methanol precipitation? You and Grace used to work with plants a lot more than Max or I, so I think you would be the best at figuring it this out, no?” Neteyam looked at you with wide eyes, so perpetually impressed with your intelligence and drive, with how good you seemed to be at tackling any challenge. You were barely breathing properly, but here you were, trying to find a cure for this illness that almost took your life. The first full sentence you said after coming back to life was to Kiri, and he was a little jealous, but overall incredibly proud of you and your strength that felt like it could move mountains if you put all your might into it. Knowing you, he was sure this virus will be dead meat soon.

“Right, I can take care of the protein extraction, you can then run mass spectrometry on it and see what we’re working with. It’s going to be a lot of work, are you sure you don’t want us to take care of it? Until we figure out exactly which active ingredient in which one of these plants gets results, it’s nonstop. I don’t think you’re ready to be back to work yet.” 

“I can’t sit back and do nothing. We’ll see how I feel, worst case scenario I do all the analysis from the comfort of this bed, deal?” 

Norm was happy to hear that you weren’t being stubborn for once. Whatever happened to you when you died, you definitely seemed changed. As if death brought forth epiphanies that made you want to live, to heal. Neteyam was definitely not complaining. 

After a while, everyone cleared, and you and Neteyam were left by yourselves. You turned around to watch him, giving him a little grin. 

“You know you don’t have to stay here every minute of the day, right?”

“I disagree.” 

You laughed heartily, your breath getting caught in your throat when the action made your lungs hurt, and the laughter turned to wincing, much to Neteyam’s dismay. Eventually, the wincing turned to sighing, and you didn’t look at him as you spoke again.

“Shouldn’t you be with your mate?”

It was his turn to wince, and he realised you probably couldn’t avoid talking about your issues forever. 

“Do you really want to talk about this right now?”

“Neteyam… I won’t be the other woman. And I’m also not going to be the woman who steals a man from another, or who endorses whatever the hell this is. I need to make sure you are serious about this, about us. I might still not make the consciousness transfer. I need you to think about this, and if you do and you decide that it is me after all, then you need to talk to her. She deserves that, she deserves better than what she’s been getting. And I don’t want to be part of this until I know she is not being deceived or led on.”

“You are right. I will talk to her today, alright? But I’m not leaving you right now.” 

“Do you want to watch a movie?”

You could feel yourself getting stronger by the day. It was a struggle still, your lungs feeling like they were going to explode any time you took a deep breath in and your heart oscillating between going a million miles a minute to barely functioning in the span of a day, but you were getting there. The combination treatment was definitely doing its job, and your body was no longer on the brink of collapse. Some colour returned to your cheeks in time, and since you have been eating about 15 meals a day because of how worried everyone was, you were gaining weight back, which was further increasing your day-to-day quality of life. You got a lot of sleep in the last few days, probably more combined than in the past few months, and you felt rested, for the first time in a really long time. 

The first two days were the hardest, your body reeling from withdrawal on top of everything else you were experiencing. But you were feeling good today, and were trying to remain optimistic so as to not fall into old patterns. Having Neteyam next to you helped, your light in all the darkness, he refused to leave your sight, even in the face of more pressing matters.

The humans were closing in, you were told. The ships will be landing any day now, which only contributed to your slow recovery, as the anxiety was manifesting itself physically and hurting your progress. You felt stressed at the situation and more so at the thought that Neteyam wasn’t there, in the meetings and in practice, missing it all so he could stay with you. You hated it, worrying constantly and he wouldn’t hear it. 

“It’s only a couple of days, Atan. Stop worrying.” 

Today was the day they were going to remove the dialysis machine, which you were extremely excited about. You felt the need to walk, to stretch out your legs, to be back in the lab. You had a lot to do, a lot you had riding on this. You were trying not to think too hard on how you were doing everything in your power to further procrastinate healing, knowing that at some point you were going to have to deal with the trauma head on and open that damned drawer, that held all of your darkest memories, all of the things you spent your whole life pushing away. If you were going to be ready to heal, ready to move on, you had to do so with a clear conscience and a clean slate. You were adamant that you were going to find the cure for the virus and use it on yourself before you made a decision about the consciousness transfer. You had to be 100% sure of your choice, of your decision to leave this life behind forever, and you couldn’t do that if you viewed it as an escape from your current weak and disease-ridden body.

It took a while to be disconnected to the machine and get the tube out of your neck. From now on til you decide whether to go through with the transfer, you will have to do this for a few hours a day, which was a pain, but better than being bed ridden all day. 

You put your feet on the ground for the first time in days, and you forced yourself to stand slowly, and quickly realised it was a bad idea, and your knees immediately buckled under you. Neteyam caught you with both his hands under your arms, and effortlessly raised you until your feet were a few inches above ground. 

“Put me down! This is so embarrassing.” You groaned at your own impairment, and refused to give up, slowly starting to walk with shaky feeble steps. You felt both Norm and Neteyam hover over you, and although you were grateful for them, you wanted to scream at how upsetting it was making you having to be looked after like you were a baby taking her first steps. You guess, in some ways, you were. 

You eventually got to your room, which looked untouched, if a little dusty. You were happy to see it again, happy to take it all in. It was a bit surreal, the whole experience. You didn’t realise how much it was all going to matter, all the little things, until you were dead on a hospital bed, begging Eywa for another chance. Every wall, every creak on the floor, every book, it all hit you suddenly, and you had to sit down on the ground, your back against the bed frame, so as to not collapse under the weight of this whole endeavour. 

“Atan, are you alright?” Neteyam’s voice was laced with concern, and you tried to stop panting long enough to answer him.

“I’m fine, it’s just a lot.” 

He slowly sat down next to you, struggling to squeeze in the tight space between the bed and the desk. His knee was brushing up against the side of the thigh, and you felt heat spread from the touch through your entire body. He gently raised one hand to the side of your face, removing strands of hair that were falling on it and tucking them behind your ear. 

“Talk to me, Atan. I want to know, I want to help.”

You felt tears pool in your eyes, and you couldn’t look at him, couldn’t look anywhere but the ground as the words got lodged in your throat. This was going to be much harder than you thought. 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Neteyam. I’m sorry that I almost died, that I did die, and that you had to witness it. I’m sorry for not telling you, I am sorry for not fighting harder, I am sorry for so many things.” Hot tears were falling on your arm laying in your lap and you struggled to find the words to speak. “I am still so mad at you, so mad that you left, so mad that you lied, so mad that you never told me how you felt about me, so mad about so many things,  but I shouldn’t have kept this from you. We’ve been inseparable since birth, and no matter what happened, you deserved to know, you all deserved to know. You deserved to say goodbye. I am sorry I took that from you.” 

You were both crying now, and he picked you up and placed in his lap with little visible effort, it was probably easier for him than carrying Tuk. You wrapped your arms around his neck and slid your legs around him to wrap around his back and you stood there, crying in the crook of his neck while he held you tightly, trying not to hurt you.

“I am sorry for leaving. Sorry for not talking to you about how I felt, sorry about giving up on you. I should have stayed and helped you heal, I should have been there for you to rely on instead of being yet another thing you had to deal with in this life. I am sorry about lying about Tiongli, I am sorry for not telling them all no from the beginning. Even without the Avatar, there was only one woman in this whole world I would ever belong to, and I would have been happy spending my whole life in this lab, if it meant doing it with you. I was scared, and I am sorry.” 

He removed your head slowly from the crook of his neck, and grasped the side of you face with one of his hands, thumb trailing over your lips, tracing them from your cupid’s bow to your lower lips, and you shuddered at the touch, deep desire pooling within you. 

“I love you so much. I have loved you my whole life, from the moment I was born, and I will love you until the moment I die. I am so sorry it took me so long to grow, but I am ready now. Whatever it is, I will brave it with you, and for you. You will never have to do this alone again.” 

You were sobbing now, unmoored at his confession that you have waited for your entire life. You were so overwhelmed by the love and affection you felt for this man, for the appreciation of knowing he was willing to hear the deepest, darkest parts of your soul and share in that pain willingly.

“I love you too. I missed you so much.”  

After crying it out on the crook of his neck, letting your human hands caress the soft blue skin of his back and chest while he held you, fingers running up and down your spine in a comforting motion, you eventually got up from his lap slowly, and crawled on all your fours to your messy old desk. You took a key that was taped to the underside of your chair, and, with a deep sigh and tired eyes, unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk. You took out just one thing. A bracelet. You smiled at the sight, and tightened it around your arm multiple times so it fit on your human form. You looked at Neteyam coyly, giving him a soft smile, and you saw his hand reaching for his own bracelet, with a gummy smile and tears in his eyes. 

Maybe you could do this after all. 

You eventually started working in the lab again, being a lot more careful about striking a balance between work and everything else in your life. You were still struggling to sleep, especially now that Norm and Max flushed every pill you had down the toilet, but you were trying your best. The best was when Neteyam slept over, and you just fell asleep flush against his bare body, whose warmth melted away all your nightmares and replaced them with much better, much lewder ones. You weren’t getting anywhere with your research, as Kiri found a lot of plants in the forest, and to do mass spectrometry and proteomics on so many proteins, and analysing them all was an impossible task in the time you had left. So in an afternoon, as you were hanging out with her, Lo’ak, Spider and Neteyam in the hub, guitar strumming in your hands, you had a lightbulb moment.

“Kiri, if you had to save one plant, just one on this whole planet, which one would it be?” Kiri was special. Whenever the rest of the kids argued over her heritage, making crude jokes about Grace and Norm, trying to figure out who her dad is, you always had a different hypothesis, that you never said out loud. Kiri was Eywa’s child, as much as Grace’s. She was the key to everything. Eywa was flowing through her, guiding her, and you believed she had a lot more up her sleeve than any of you knew, than even she knew. 

“Hmmm, that is a hard question.” She looked deep in thought for a long time, and eventually it’s like a huge epiphany was released from her mind. “Pamtseowll!!”

“The Cat Ear plant? Are you sure?” 

“I think so! I don’t know why that one, but that’s the only thing that came to mind, and when I thought about it, I just knew it was the right one! Why do you ask?”

You raised from the ground, placed the guitar on a bench next to you, and ran (more like walked at slightly increased velocity than normal) to her, kissing her forehead in a loud smooch. 

“I’ll let you know!! Wait here!!” 

You talked to Norm, telling him your hunch and asking him to treat a vial of the infected blood with the liquid extracted from the plant in question, that you already had in stock thanks to Kiri. It would take a while, but you were buzzing in excitement, feeling extremely positively about your idea and your new odds. You made it back to the hub where they were all waiting for you, and sat back on the ground, mischievously ignoring their curious glares. 

“Are you going to tell us what this was all about?” Spider said, rolling your eyes at your antics. 

“Nope.” 

They eventually dropped it, and you sat together, talking about everything and nothing, trying to ignore the looming doom of the ships slowly making their way to Pandora’s atmosphere, and the deadly consequences that would follow them.

You picked up the guitar again, deep in thought. Before you could help yourself, you found yourself speaking.

“I saw my mum.”

Everybody stopped and stared at you in shock. None of them said anything, and you swore you could hear a hairpin drop for sure in this big hall, or your heart pounding in your ears. 

“When I died…” you started cautiously, not even knowing why you started talking in the first place, but knowing it was too late to back off now. “…I woke up in this new place I have never seen before. Eventually, I realised I was on Earth, in my mum’s childhood home. There were pictures of her on the wall, with her parents, she looked young, and happy… and alive.” 

“Her house overlooked the ocean, and I went and sat on the beach and she came. Like it was nothing, she just came to me, and sat me down, and watched me cry on her shoulder until I thought I was running out of tears.”

This bit was easy enough to speak about, now came the real problem. You swallowed the big lump in your throat and continued. “She told me she did the same things I did. That she had been sad, so very sad, ever since my father died, the kind of sad that never goes away, the kind of sad I am.” You couldn’t look at them, preferring the look of your guitar that you were holding on to dear life as you spoke, and saw small tears crashing into the strings, splattering everywhere. “She said she didn’t try… to stay alive, to heal. Just like I didn’t. She said she had a choice, and she chose to die, because the hurt was too much for her to bear. She left me, orphaned me, put me through so much pain I’m still dealing with a decade later.”

You heard small gasps and sharp breath intakes and the new information, but couldn’t stop to acknowledge it, needing it out of your soul as soon as possible. “I was so hurt, so mad at her. That she left, that she didn’t fight harder to be in my life, that she left me with so many scars because of her selfishness. And then it dawned on me… that was me. I did that to you. To all of you. And I am sorry. I am so sorry.” 

They all slowly sat up from where they sat and gathered around you in a circle, and hugged you. 

“We forgive you. We’re just happy you’re still here. We love you, we want you to know that you’ll always be able to talk to us. You’ll always have us. We’re a family. Sullys stick together.” 

You felt each of these words deep within you, the forgiveness something you craved like air, and you realised how much it must have meant to your mum. You were happy you could do that for her. You were happy something good came out of all the misery. 

Later that day, all the Sully kids left, and you went to your room, carrying your guitar in your hands, and found yourself again, sitting on the ground, reaching for the bottom drawer key and unlocking it with shaky hands and muffled cries. It was time. You reached inside it for a photo album, with old school printed photos on it, and opened it. Your heart was hurting so badly you needed to place your hand on your hand to try to settle it, settle the pain and agony you felt. The first photo was a photo of you and your mum in the medical ward, holding you tightly against her chest, looking really tired with the caption “you had just been born a couple hours ago, how crazy is that?”. The second one -  a photo of you, as a tiny baby, only a few days old by the scribbling on it. Countless photos of you, in various stages of growth, in various positions, all captioned by your mother, who loved you more than anything else in this world and whose love was loud and clear in every one of these images. The tears kept falling off the laminated pages and onto your legs, and your anguished cries took over the music playing in the background. An image of you and Neteyam, in a crib, his body much larger than yours even as tiny infants, but you were holding hands, sleeping peacefully next to each other. An image of your mum with Neytiri and Jake, smiling widely for the camera. A photo of your mum in her Avatar body with all the Sully kids, her holding Tuk in her arms when she was just born. An image of her in the lab, mid laugh with a pipette gun in her hand - no one would ever have been able to tell how much hurt she was hiding underneath, how close she was to death. Finally, an image of her and your dad, taken by your dad, of them looking into each other’s eyes lovingly. The caption, blurred and blotched from dried tear stains, read “the love of my life, the light in all the darkness”. You closed the album panting, and brought it close to your heart, just holding on to it while you cried. 

You were spent by the end, but wanted to push through, needing to get this done all in one go. You removed another thing from the drawer, a camera, the gift Jake have you for your birthday. You eventually sat on your desk chair, and plugged it into your laptop. You clicked on the only file on it, and gasped at your mum’s face appearing on the screen, smiling while adjusting the camera to centre her face. She started speaking, and you clung to every word, making sure her voice and words will forever be imprinted on your mind.

“My child,

I know it’s been a while since you have since my face.” she says with a small laugh. 

“I’m making this tape for your 18th birthday, as this should be around the time when your Avatar is ready for you to use. I gave Norm and the rest of them notes and doodles and research and I think they can do it, my love. I think they can build you the ramps new life, one amongst the Na’vi. I am so excited for you, you have no idea. 

Happy birthday, bunny. You will forever be the best and brightest thing I will have ever achieved. I am more sorry than you will ever know that I don’t get to see you grow up, see the beautiful, intelligent, caring and loving person you already are blossom into so much more, but I want you to know, more than anything, that I have no regrets. 

I have lived my life exactly the way I wanted to. I have explored new worlds, I have contributed something good to the world, I have lived and I have loved deeply and unconditionally. I just hope you do, too. I hope this world doesn’t break you, my love. I hope it doesn’t snuff out your light, because in that case, I will have failed you, and I am so sorry. 

I know you are sad, and I know you have probably been sad for a while, and I know this life is emotionally abusive, and it takes and takes and takes until there’s nothing left. But it’s also worth living. Because you can learn to take from it, too. You can learn to heal, and love and live, and replace whatever it took in time with even better fitted pieces. But in order to do that, you have to live, my love. 

Even at 10, you have a tendency to keep sadness in, and don’t let it out. That’s something you got from me, and I’m sorry for that. I love that you got my eyes, and my addiction to music and my love for science and literature, but baby, I don’t want you to be like me in every way. You also have a tendency to isolate, and that, you also got from me. I’m hoping that will change in time, I’m hoping Neteyam, and Spider, and Lo’ak and Kiri, and eventually Tuk will be able to break through and allow their light to shine on the dark walls of this lab. But if not, I’m hoping this Avatar will. 

I want you to know that it’s alright to hurt, and it’s alright to be scared and wonder if the path you’ve taken is the correct one. We all wonder through this life scared and confused and a little alone. But it’s up to us to want to make a change and it’s worth it, baby. I know opening yourself up to hurt is scary and hard, but it will also allow to love, to love fully and deeply, to give yourself to others and have them give themselves to you. There’s beauty in this world and this life, but you need to be brave to experience it. 

Your dad and I love you very much. Enjoy this Avatar, and enjoy all that it can bring to your life. You are the brightest light of my life, and now it’s time for you to become another’s.”

You replayed the video until you were so spent, your eyes were closing painfully from the tiredness and hurt and tears. After that, you went to your bed, still clinging to the photo album, and fell asleep, to a song you hoped one day you’ll be strong enough to play yourself, but for now had to settle for the original. 

I should've asked you questions, I should've asked you how to be Asked you to write it down for me, should've kept every grocery store receipt Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me Watched as you signed your name Marjorie All your closets of backlogged dreams, and how you left them all to me...

Norm came bursting through the door of your bedroom, waking you up in a panic. “What the fuck, Norm??”

“We did it.” He came to your bedroom and took you by the shoulders, shaking you. He screamed and jumped in the air.

“WE FUCKING DID IT, ACE!” 

You jumped from the bed onto your knees, so you were almost face to face.

“WHAT? ARE YOU FOR REAL?” 

“YES, OH MY GOD, YES!” 

You jumped on him and he caught you, and you just spun around in your tiny room, laughing and screaming at the beginning of your new life. 

Thank you, mum. For looking after me even after you’ve gone. Thank you.

You had to toil a bit with details, but by midday, you were ready to get the substance, now purified and diluted in appropriate medium for being inserted in a human body. You watched as Norm prepared, and held your breath as he injected it into your now healed veins. You didn’t know whether it would work, or how many doses you would need, this was all so new, it was kind of crazy you were willing to inject it in your body with so little information, but you trusted your mum, and you trusted Kiri, and you trusted Eywa. 

You felt good. So good, in fact, you knew exactly what you wanted to do. 

Neteyam was in the village, in a deep strategy meeting about how they were going to approach the upcoming threat looming over everybody. His mind was only half listening, the other half too busy with musings of you. What were you doing? Have you eaten? Did you take your treatment? He was worried about you after yesterday, and felt guilty he didn’t stick around for the night in case you needed him. He is pulled out of his train of thought when he hears a loud banshee scream, and everyone’s attention turns to the entrance of the tent, to which everyone rushes. When Neteyam makes his way outside, his mouth drops at the sight of you, beautiful and wild, free on top of your golden white ikran.

You were radiant, smiling widely at him while you removed your queue and your visors and brought your hand to your forehead and greeted everyone at the meeting. 

“Hey, kid.” The Sully patriarch came over and gave you a big hug, a conflicted look on his face. “Are you sure it’s ok for you to use your Avatar?” 

“We did it, Jake. We found the cure.”

His mother and father both gasped loudly at the news and hugged you tightly, and you held on to them with all your might, pouring all of your love and apologies into it. Neteyam was too stunned to say anything, pure bliss escaping his body in the form of silent tears, that he wiped immediately from his face - he was in a meeting with all the warriors, there couldn’t be tears. 

“I’m actually here to steal the future Olo’eyktan, if that’s ok with everyone. I will bring him back in one piece, I promise.”

“Fine, but don’t be too late. I don’t want to have to use the radio, am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.” 

Neteyam saw you click your tongue towards where you were standing, and felt a ping of arousal at your sight, at your confident demeanour. You used to be such a wild girl before life got too much for you to bear. He hoped he’d get to see that in you again, just like he was now. His hands made their way to his mouth and formed a circle around it, and he screamed loudly for his ikran, which appeared quickly and landed next to yours. He connected the queue and both of you took flight at the same time. 

You flew like that for a while, and he was mystified at the experience. He has spent so much of his time riding with other people, flying as much a chore as a delight, but nothing that will ever be able to top this. You were screaming, fiercely and ferociously, doing barrel rolls in midair on your beautiful banshee, laughing loudly and urging her to almost bump into him, to which he gasped in mock annoyance and returned the favour. He followed you to the Hallelujah mountains, all the way to a cave on one of the floating rocks. It was beautiful, and he thought it would probably be breathtaking at night. You both landed, panting from the adventure, and made your ways to each other after petting your ikrans affectionately. 

His hands immediately found your face, holding you tightly to look deep into your eyes. Your eyes softened looking at him, and he could see himself in them, looking intense and troubled. 

“Did you really do it?” 

You raised you own hand and brushed an unwieldy braid from his face, gently tugging it behind his ear. He saw your tail swish enthusiastically. 

“We really did it.” 

Neteyam’s mouth immediately found yours, desperate for your touch, the feeling of relief washing over him and it was so intense this is the only way it could be manifested. He needed you, craved your touch, craved the closeness, craved to make up for all the time you two lost. You moaned into the kiss and deepened it, opening your mouth, inviting his tongue to meet yours and dance in the way that made you both weak in the knees. You put your hand on his chest and pushed him and it caught him off guard, because he tipped backwards and hit the ground with a painful thud. You smirked and raised an eyebrow, and he moaned at the sight. You immediately got on top of him, straddling his lap and pulling him by his chest piece until your lips met his again. Your hands went into his hair and his did the same, and you let out a wail when he pulled on it, making your head tilt backwards, giving him access to your neck that he attacked mercilessly, leaving trails of his presence all over you. You felt him, hard against your core that was dripping in arousal, and you thoughtlessly starting grinding against him, feeling your mind flooded with sensations you never wanted to let go of. 

“Neteyam, we can’t.” It hurt you saying these words, it was taking every ounce of self discipline you had, which at the moment was almost none. 

“Yes, we can. In fact, I think it would be irresponsible of us not to.” 

You laughed, smacking his chest playfully at his words. You brought your hand to his face and caressed it softly, and he closed his eyes in bliss. 

“I want to do this properly. I will be one of you soon, for the rest of my life. I want to do this your way. I want to be mated to you the Na’vi way. Then we can do whatever you want, however you want. Deal?” You raised an eyebrow at him, smiling mischievously.

“Only if you stop raising your eyebrow at me, otherwise I make no promises.” 

You laughed again, and laid next to him with your head on his chest, hoping this moment could last forever. 

“Hey, I have to do something, and it won’t be pleasant. I was going to go alone, but I’ve made a promise to not go about everything alone. So if your offer still stands, would you like to come with me?” 

You felt Neteyam’s hand stop caressing your hair like it had been for a while. He starts getting up, pushing your head off his chest slowly in the process. He looked serious, concerned, but he had a calming smile on, and when he took your hands in his and held them tightly, you knew you were gonna be ok. 

“Let’s go.” 

You got on your ikrans and flew back to the forest, feeling comforted by the knowledge he was there, next to you. You didn’t have to do this alone. You landed in the clearing next to the exo suit that belonged to you dad. Your heart was picking up pace from the sight, but it was time. It was time to work through it. 

You slid off Neyn’s back and made your way to the suit, running your hands over it to remove some of the vines and eventually reaching for the dash cam. It was probably long dead, but you had to try, especially after what your mum said. You fiddled with the screen for a while, and eventually, it turned on, making you jump out of your skin. 

In the view of the camera stood a man, tall and bald, wearing military clothing and reloading the guns that came with the suit. You’ve seen him before, in a photo in one of the jackets you found rummaging for clothes to wear. His name was Lyle Weinfleet. 

“Captain, I think if we go through this clearing, we should be closing in on the tree of souls in about 3 clicks.” 

“You’re right. But I don’t think we should do it.”

Lyle looked stunned, and he stopped whatever he was doing to turn around and look and your dad. “Barlowe, what are you talking about?” 

“This is wrong, Lyle. You know it, I know it, everyone here fucking knows it. And if you don’t, you’re even a bigger psychopath than I thought you were. We have to go back.”

“I’m not fucking going anywhere, Captain. These freaks are going to kill all of us if they get their way. Someone has to stop them.”

Your dad picked up his gun and pointed it at him. “Are you disobeying direct orders, lieutenant?” 

“You’re not my squad leader, Captain. And I have orders from above.” 

A fight ensued which eventually resulted in the destruction of both the exo suits. Your dad got out of the suit, and the last time the camera picked up was Weinfleet running at him with a knife. 

You lowered the screen and sat in silence for a long time. Neteyam’s hands were rubbing up and down your arms, and you felt his chest radiating heat on your back. You were happy to have him here, as the new influx of information was overwhelming enough to make you dizzy. Your dad didn’t attack on that fateful night 19 years ago. Everything you believed your entire life was false. 

“My dad was not a horrible person.” Neteyam said nothing and just stood by your side, allowing you to process everything at your own pace. 

“I hated him my whole life. I felt so much guilt at his actions, the murders I thought he committed plagued my mind for years and years. I was too scared to come to the village because I thought he was responsible for the decimation of your people.” 

“You came from him, you share his blood. There was no way he could have been that bad. Not with you as his daughter.” 

You scoffed lightly at his comment, but were so happy he was here. You took him by the hand and walked him to the body that was now only a pile of bones. You looked further in the clearing, and realised another set of bones was settled in the ground a few meters from your dad’s. Good, you thought. 

“I’d like to bury him, if that’s alright with you?” 

You gathered all the bones and walked to a tree whose roots were hanging partially above the ground, creating a little cove. Rays of light were hitting it, and you knew then it would be the perfect place. You placed his remains there, and gathered flowers and ornate twigs that had fallen on the ground, and decorated the little space as well as you could. 

“Thank you, dad.” You were comforted at the thought that, although he died on this foreign planet alone, he was loved, and now, he will be mourned. 

You made it back to the village together, walking and holding hands, trying to get your mind off all the epiphanies you have had to undergo in the past few days. Healing was hard work, you snickered to yourself. You made it to the tent you knew Jake and the rest of the warriors would be. 

“There you are. Was starting to get worried.”

“Ah, there’s nothing to be worried about, pops.” You laughed at Jake’s shocked expression and the way his eyes softened immediately as a response to your new nickname. 

He had to wipe that expression off his face. He was Olo’eyktan. He was Toruk Makto, this was not inspiring leadership. 

“Right. The humans will be here any day now. I think we will have to move our base of operations in the Hallelujah mountains, somewhere they can’t find us, where the flux is too strong for their equipment. It’s going to be a big ask, and a big adjustment, but it is necessary. You know the first place they will look is at the hub. And it won’t take long for them to find the village either.” 

What he was saying made sense, but it filled you with a sense of grief. This forest, that hub, those labs, this village, is all you’ve ever known. To have to leave it for an undetermined amount of time, maybe forever, was hurting your heart. You knew Neteyam felt the same, you knew they all felt the same. Jake was a marine, strong and adaptable, he was an incredible person to have around in a crisis. But he didn’t quite understand what it means to belong to only one place, to only know one reality that was going to be uprooted and taken from you. That takes time, time you didn’t have. 

“I think we should do the ceremony tonight. You have completed the Iknimaya, you are to be one of us now. It’s time, if you want it.” 

You peered up at him, in shock, but the beating of your heart was so loud because it was excited, it was happy. It’s time. You knew it in your heart it was right, this time. You belonged here. Your mum worked so hard for you to get to do this, she foresaw this 18 years ago. Your dad gave his life for yours, even without knowing it. You owed them this, owed them your life and this new one you were about to get.

“And tomorrow, we can do the transfer, if you are ready.”

By nightfall, you were ready. Your hair was freshly braided, in a pattern different to what the Na’vi wear, but you wanted it to be a mix of Na’vi and human braiding. You had all new clothes, and Kiri was in your tent, painting your body in white lines, as was the tradition. She looked radiant, happy and beautiful, like she always was.

“How are you feeling?

“Nervous.” 

“There’s nothing to be nervous about. You belong here, you always have, even when you were human. This is just formality at this point.”

“Kiri… I want to thank you. You saved my life. Your plants, your mind saved my life. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t for you.”

“You saved your life. You asked me, you did the work, you found the cure. The Na’vi will be forever grateful to you, and Max and Norm, I hope you know that.”

“How about we say it was a team effort?” You laughed together and you kissed her forehead. You loved her so much, your sister for life.

Neteyam saw your body, adorning all new garbs, a golden frilly loincloth and green, violet and gold beaded top that hung from your neck to reveal a bare back that made Neteyam’s body beam with desire. Your left arm was decorated with a bracelet, the same bracelet he was wearing, the one that he gave to you when he was ten, that was now proudly shining on your person rather than hiding in a drawer, masking pain. You had bracelets around your ankles as well, that were softly clinking every time you took a step. Your hair was soft and braided in a pattern that was unlike the Na’vi ways, and it was fitting, Neteyam thought. You would never be only Na’vi - you were more, not quite human, not quite one of them, you were the most beautiful aspects of both and Neteyam felt his heart skip a beat at the sight, one which will never cease to take his breath away. You were his, forever. How did he get so lucky?

Almost as if you could hear him, you slowly turned around and he saw your eyes searching the crowd until they found him, and your face immediately broke out into a beaming smile, that slowly changed into a gaze filled with yearning and love….and lust. Neteyam gulped audibly at your expression, so intense it was making him crazed enough to almost consider taking you away right now, ceremony be damned, and coax screams out of you he would be sure anyone else would cower in shame at. But not you. You were his match, his twin flame, and he knew whatever he wanted to take from you, the screams, the pleasured pains, the moans and panted breaths, you would give willingly, and would take his in return, until you were both so spent you collapsed in aching bliss. 

He waited though, despite his progressively harder to ignore twitch, knowing he wouldn’t, couldn’t rob you of this moment, knowing the waiting and anticipation would be worth it in the end.

The ceremony was ethereal, magical, and he couldn’t help reminisce about his own, years and years ago. The people all stood around you, waiting for the Olo’eyktan to say the words that will make it official. Neteyam saw his father approach you, wearing all the garbs worthy of a chief of the Omatikaya, and placed both his arms on your shoulders, smiling proudly. You were a Sully now, for all intents and purposes, and his father looked at you the same way he looked at all his children. Neteyam’s heart swelled at the sight, taking in the familial interaction.

“Ngenga 'ite Omatikayaä luyu set. Na'viyä luyu hapxì. (You are now a daughter of the Omaticaya. You are part of The People.)”

Neteyam made his way by your side, and he watched as the rest of his family did the same. He placed both of his hands on your body, one over your heart, and the other on your back. His family did the same, and he noticed tears in everyone’s eyes, including yours and his own. This was a moment none of them thought they’d get to see, that you never expected to experience, and Neteyam said a silent prayer to Eywa, thanking her for bringing the love of his life back to him, and into the clan. 

After the celebration, you excused yourself from everyone, tired and dazed, as well as too impatient to wait for what you have wanted, needed for days, months, years. You found Neteyam casually talking to some friends, and you touched his back lightly, so lightly it was barely there. He shuddered minutely, and turned his body to face you. He took your breath away, always, but particularly today, in this light, under these circumstances, wearing his ornate clothes and that bracelet, the one that you would both wear for the rest of your lives. That one that meant forever. 

“Come.” He said, and he looked at you like you were a meal that he’s been starved from, that he was going to devour. You bit your lip in excitement and followed him.

You went for a swim in a tiny lake not too far from the village. You swam together like that for hours, kissing and touching each other under the water, just feeling him. The anticipation was building strongly, and as the last of the paint on your body dissipated, you left, with hurried steps, quickly making your way towards the Tree of Souls. 

Your entire body stalled at the sight. You have seen images of it, areal videos taken from drones and helicopters, you saw it all, and yet nothing could have prepared you for the beauty of this place, for its magnitude and significance. The air felt thick, charged with energy, and you could hear whispers all around you, soft, almost imperceptible, but they were there. Eywa was here, just like she was all around you, but here, you felt her stronger, almost palpably so. You made your way through the willow-like branches, seeing the purple hue illuminate your skin, and you just walked, taking it all in, touching it, experiencing it fully. You were so happy, it made you anxious. You’ve never felt happiness like this, and you were scared it wasn’t going to last, scared of knowing that the fall from such a high would break all of your bones, crush you forever. You felt Neteyam’s gaze on you, electrifying every inch of your body its gaze was touching. You could feel him, in your bones, you knew what he was feeling, what he was thinking. You shared a soul, you always have. “He is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” 

You looked at him and your breath hitched in your throat at the sight; he was the most gorgeous human you have ever seen. He was beautiful and angelic and looking at you like you were prey that he wanted to exert complete control over - and you didn’t mind. You wanted him so badly and you have waited for this for what feels like lifetimes. You knew looking at this man in front of you that you would allow him to ruin you, you would beg him to kill you softly, slowly drive out any ounce of sanity from your body orgasm by orgasm until there was nothing left of you but the echoes of moans you couldn’t help exhale. It was almost desperate, your need for him, and you heard your breath become laboured, panting with craving and ache. You saw him make his way towards you slowly, and stopped only when he was towering over you, and you had to bring your chin up to be able to look into his eyes. His hands immediately found your jaw, that he gripped tightly, making sure you weren’t going to look away from him, from that gaze that drove you mad and made you throb in pain, begging to be filled, craving sweet release. 

“You’re mine. I can’t believe you’re mine. I have waited for so long, I have dreamt about this for years. The one thing I have wanted more than life itself and you are here. You’re mine. Forever.” 

You were fully panting now, not even an ounce of shame on your features. You wanted him, you wanted him to know what he was doing to you. Wanted him to control you, to possess you, to take what was his, what has been his and will be his forever. 

“Say it. I need to hear you say it, Atan.” 

His grip on your jaw tightened, and you moaned, unable to stop yourself, not wanting to stop yourself. 

“I am yours, Neteyam. I have always been yours. I will always be yours. It’s you and me, forever.” 

It was his turn to moan, gaze turning animalistic now, in a way that you felt within you, deep within you, and you knew you were dripping wet now, knew he was going to love it, was going to revel in it, and you smirked at the thought. 

You saw him stop and reach back for his queue. You gasped silently at the sight, but smiled at the thought he wanted this, that after this, you would be his for life. You reached back for yours, and you both held them close to each other, just out of reach, looking deeply in each other’s eyes. 

“Do you trust me?” 

“You know I do. I trust you, Neteyam, do whatever you want to me. I’m yours to take, I’m yours.” 

“Forever?”

“Forever.” You joined the queues and nothing in the world could have ever prepared you for the overwhelming sensations and feelings, for the intense intimacy of feeling Neteyam’s deepest desires and emotions, for how deep his love and care for you actually ran, for how desperate he was to own you, to make you his. You felt his breathing and his heartbeat, and he felt yours and the desire you both felt exploded all around you. 

He aggressively smashed his lips into yours, both of you moaning at the contact, at the need that enveloped both your beings like the rushing water of the river you loved swimming in together. Your fingers immediately made their way into his hair, his beautiful hair that seemed to sometimes have a life of its own, and thinking of how hot you found it made you only more enthusiastic, gripping at it tightly and pulling on it. He smirked in the kiss, parting your lips enough to look at you with a mischievous grin that you loved more than you could put into words. You loved this man - you loved his kindness and compassion and sacrificial streak and patience, but you loved this side of him more, the side only you ever got to experience, that no one else knew about. How passionate and adventurous he was, how masculine and possessive of what was his he was, how wild and untamed a streak he hid under the well-behaved and poised demeanour. How well he matched you. Your twin flame. He placed both of his hands on you thighs, just underneath your ass, and lifted you effortlessly, and you instantly wrapped both your legs around him, never breaking the kiss, that was now just a mess of panted moans, lips and intertwined tongues. You felt your back hit a tree bark and you gasped, breaking the kiss and watching as the action left a trail of spit in between you. His mouth moved to your neck, that he sucked and licked until it was hurting, and he pushed you into the tree, trying to remove whatever space there still was in between you two. As he did so, you felt his chest and pelvis push aggressively into you, and you whined when you felt his dick brush up against you core, hard as a rock and hitting a spot that was making you lose your ability to see around you. He started moving his hips into yours, drawing circles into your pelvis and you matched him, desperate for release, desperate to want to give him your first of many orgasms of the night. You weren’t going to be satisfied until he made you cry in pain, in pleasure, until the line between them was blurred.

Neteyam saw your breathing quickened and he smirked in a way that only made further pleasure pool in your depths. “Coming already, my love? You wanted me that badly, huh?” 

“Dick.”

“You’ll get that later, too.” 

You wanted to laugh, but couldn’t do anything but mewl in agonising ecstasy as he hit a spot that immediately made you see stars and you rode out your first orgasm, crying into the crook of his neck. 

“Good girl.” He didn’t let you come down from you high, as he removed your body from the tree and placed you on the mossy, comfortable ground, and both his hands went on your knees, making sure you were keeping them apart, as soon as he could feel you wanting to close them to accommodate for your post-orgasm sensitivity. 

“No, Atan. You wanted this, remember? You have to keep your pretty legs spread for me.”

The entire world was spinning around you, a mess of purple, pink and white, as he traced his hands slowly, too slowly, painfully slowly up your thighs, until he reached your hips, where you loincloth was tightened, and you felt him make quick work of the knot, inhaling deeply as he took it off from you and saw you for the first time. 

“Fuck, Atan. I feel like I could come just from looking at you. Look at you, a fucking writhing mess and I haven’t done anything yet. Look at this,” he said as he place a hand in between your folds, removing the slick that was so abundant it was now dripping down your ass, “Look at how wet you are for me, and I haven’t even touched you yet. The shit I want to do to you, Atan, will make Eywa regret ever making this tree part of the mating ritual.” 

You saw him slowly lowering his head towards you legs, kissing and biting roughly up your thigh until you were screaming in pain. “Shh, Atan.” He drew circles in your thighs as he continued his onslaught to comfort you to some extent, except it was only lighting your skin on fire, only strengthening your need for that second release. 

“Fuck, Neteyam, please.” 

“Begging so soon, my love? What do you need?” 

“You. Your tongue, your fingers, anything. Fuck, please!” 

“Well, since you said please.” 

He smirked again, the asshole, and you felt him licking your pussy from your entrance to your clit, and at the moan he released as he did so, you convulsed so violently you needed a while to settle, still trying desperately to close your thighs to make the sensation more bearable. 

“Stop that, or I’ll stop. Do you want me to stop, my love?” He looked at you through hooded eyes and giving you a wild look that made you clench around nothing, and your hands found his head and you pushed him back into you, annoyed that he stopped, already upset at the thought that he wasn’t going to be doing this every minute for the rest of your life. If you had your way, he would. That’s all you would do. He laughed, but obliged, and continued his attack on your lips, messily kissing and licking, pushing his tongue deep within you, like your pussy held the potion for eternal life and he wanted to live in you forever.

“Fuck, Atan, you taste so good. So good, how am I ever supposed to stop, huh?” You started grinding your hips around him, moaning loudly and you saw him dry humping the ground, trying to get some of his own release. The primal animalistic action was enough to push you over the edge again, coming all over his tongue, that was still lapping at your insides, without any intention to stop. 

You tried to push him away, the feeling so overwhelming it was bordering painful, your clit so red and sensitive now it was glaring and obvious, but he didn’t relent. 

“Fuck, you are intoxicating. Come on, baby, I’m not nearly done. We’re not nearly done.” He pushed two fingers in you, which was incredibly easy with the amount of slick and cum you were continuously releasing. Although so sensitive, you immediately clenched around him, taking him in, and felt the familiar ache slowly building in you again. He pushed his fingers deeper, until his knuckles made contact with your folds, and you felt his thumb slowly, gently rubbing your throbbing clit as his fingers were hitting your g spot mercilessly. The stimulation was too much, and you felt yourself seeking yet another orgasm, bucking your hips wildly against his fingers. 

“That’s right, Atan. Let me see you come all over my fingers.” That’s all you needed to hear, and almost on command, you felt yourself coating his long digits with your cum. He removed his fingers from inside you and you cried out at the loss, but he didn’t care, too busy staring at his fingers, covered in the clear viscous liquid enveloping them. He brought both fingers to his mouth and he took them both in and sucked on them, and immediately kissed you, messily and forcefully, and you moaned at the vulgarity of it, and the taste of your own orgasms on his tongue, which was exploring your mouth like he had your folds earlier. You loved it, loved all of it, drunk on the feeling, on the connection you felt to this man that knew you, so well, so deeply, knew your body instinctually, like he touched you and had you all his life, and you squirmed when you realised that now you had a whole life to do this, every day, you would never have to live without this feeling again. 

“Do you feel how good you taste, Atan? Fuck. I will never get enough of this.”

With one swift motion, he removed your top from around your neck and took its place, squeezing your throat until you couldn’t breathe anymore, slowly choking you. You threw your head back and arched your back, eyes fluttering shut, just taking in this feeling, of being completely owned, completely in someone else’s control. It was exhilarating. 

“Look at you. Look at how you give in to me, it makes me fucking crazy.” He squeezed harder. “You drive me fucking crazy. I have dreamt about fucking you for so long. So many nights, having to stroke my cock imagining it was your mouth instead, you have no idea how badly I need you. How entirely and completely yours I am. You own me. My soul and my mind. It’s only fair I own your body.”

The hand that wasn’t around your throat went to his loincloth, that he removed skilfully, letting it drop to the ground around him. Your eyes fluttered open to take him in, his glorious body and that magnificent cock, that was even bigger that you ever dreamt, and you struggled to gulp in the position you were currently in. Your pussy clenched fully at the sight, and you were drooling now, saliva pooling around your mouth that you licked off like a kitty looking at her favourite meal. His fist wrapped around the girth of his cock and he started pumping himself, and you were close to being done again just at the sight, never in your life seeing anything more sensual, more erotic. You needed him inside of you now. 

“Fuck, please, Neteyam. I need you in me.”

“I know, Atan. I need to be in you. I need to feel you milking me, like the good girl I know you are.”

With a couple more strokes, he lined himself at your entrance and slowly, deliberately, agonisingly pushing in, one inch at a time, stretching you deliciously, fully until he bottommed out, and you could feel him hitting your cervix, you could see his bulge in your lower abdomen. It drove you to the point of madness. 

Your hand went to his ass, trying to push him even further in, despite not thinking it was actually possible for him to go anywhere else, but it was still not enough, never enough. 

He removed your hand and gathered both of them and pushed them above your head, pining them to the ground with enough force that you couldn’t move them anymore. 

“No, Atan. You don’t get to dictate this. We go at my speed.” And with those words, he started rutting into you brutally, giving you no time to adjust to him or to the pace. It was rough and wild and out of control, everything you have ever desired in your darkest, best fantasies. It was so dirty, so wrong it made your insides squirm in pleasure, in uninhibited bliss. 

He maintained his pace for so long it was enough to steal two more orgasms from you. You were on the verge of tears, now, so overstimulated you didn’t know if you were feeling pleasure or pain anymore, but you didn’t care, you wanted more, always more of this, more of him. 

“Fuck, Atan, I can feel you squeezing me again. You think you can give me one more?” You nodded weekly, trying to match his ruthless pace.

“I want to come in this pretty pussy. You want me to fill you up, Atan?” You could only moan at the words, unable to formulate any coherent thoughts or sentences, anymore. You were way past that. Your breath quickened rapidly and you knew you were really close, and he could feel you too.

“Yeah, that’s right baby, come all over my cock. I want to feel you come undone.” Those words were enough to rip another explosive orgasm out of you, and your clenching milked his cock dry, feeling thick spurts of cum fill you up, painting your pink walls white. 

He collapsed on top of you with a thud, still buried deep in you, and you couldn’t help laugh exhilaratingly at his reaction, at what just happened, at the fact his was all real, not just an out-of-reach fantasy. 

Eventually, he rolled from on top of you and stretched out an arm for you to cuddle up to him, which you did, feeling grateful for every moment, grateful for the intimacy. 

You were both still panting, still recuperating and you lay in his arms in peaceful bliss, trying to catch your breath. 

“Thank you.” You said playfully, drawing circles on his chest. 

“What for?”

“For being an even better lay than I always imagined you to be in my dreams. Although I’ll find it hard ever being a productive member of this clan again going forward.” 

He threw his head back and laughed, and the sound filled the forest and your heart, so relieved to be able to hear it again, so immensely grateful to get to experience these feelings in your life, that didn’t end prematurely no matter how many bad decisions you have made.

“You’re very welcome, Atan.” 

You peered up at him bashfully, and you knew then you did at least one thing right in this life. 

You fell asleep in his arms, and woke up in the link room, wide smile on your face. Max was waiting for you, and he returned your smile when he saw how happy you were.

“You look happy.” 

“It’s just been a good day.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” He looked at you playfully. “Do me and Norm have to give you the talk?”

“Shut up, Max. In a completely unrelated subject, though, can I have some birth control from the medical ward, please?” 

Your body was weak, and you needed a while to adjust to being back here after a whole day in your other body, soon to be your only body. You felt weightless, despite the pain, so happy and so in love. Your knees were weak from the memories, and you felt a bit empty at the lack of touch, craving him again, even though he’s taken so many orgasms from you, you knew you were going to be sore walking back to the village. 

You went looking for Norm, who was already waiting for you in the medical ward, ready to give you a new dose of the injection and take some blood to see how everything is looking. 

“It was a beautiful ceremony last night. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yeah, definitely did. It was incredible, I have never felt anything like it before.”

“Are you ready for tonight?”

“I think I am. I opened the drawer, little by little, Norm. I think it’s time. I am ready to take my place amongst the people, I am ready for my body to belong, I am ready to not have to worry that this virus will turn around and kill me at any point. My mum and dad both sacrificed so much for me to have a chance at a better life. You guys sacrificed so much. You’re like my guardian angels. I owe you so much, and I am so sorry about how I acted. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Will you still come by and hang out once in a while when you’re not busy riding your ikrans and being an overall badass?”

“Always, Norm. I am still me, I am still a scientist at heart, and I am still human. Maybe my body won’t be, but I will also have my mum and dad, you and Max, a whole history and heritage that I don’t want to rid myself of.” 

“Good. Then all’s forgiven, Ace. I am sorry too, for not telling you about Neteyam. It just didn’t feel like my secret to share.” 

“I understand.” You got up after he injected you with the treatment and hugged him tightly, grateful for this man who is your family just as much as your mum and the Sullys are. 

After resting, eating and taking a nap, you did your dialysis session for the day, and although loopy, you hopped in your Avatar body, still a couple of things you wanted to take care of before the transfer. 

To your surprise, you woke up in your tent, a small blanket covering you. You smiled, realising Neteyam must have carried you back in the morning. He even put your clothes back on. You blushed at the need that immediately overwhelmed your body, and tried to calm yourself as there were more pressing matters at hand. 

You made your way to the Sully tent, and heard Neytiri and Mo’at talking. Good, two of the people you were looking for. 

“Mai’te! How are you feeling?”

“I feel great, sa’nok (mother). Thank you for last night, it was beautiful.” Neytiri brought her hand to her mouth in slight shock at your new name for her. She was so happy, it all felt complete now, after all this time. 

You took her free hand in yours as well as one of Mo’at’s, and looked at them seriously, intently. 

“I want to ask for your permission for the transfer. I realise a lot of talk has happened, done when I was a human, when I was sick. But I am not sick anymore. I don’t want you to do it because you are worried I will die. I want to be sure, I want you to be sure, that you want me as a Na’vi forever. That you are comfortable with me becoming my Avatar for life. I will not do it, if you aren’t. This means so much for me, and I know I have been a coward, for so long, but I am ready now. I am standing here in front of you, and I am finally ready, to be one of the people, to be in this body, to be your daughter. I just hope I’m not too late.” 

They both looked at each other, and smiled, and looked back at you lovingly.

“Mai’te, we have waited for you all of our lives. You are the missing piece in this world, in our world. You brought forth a cure for an illness that has plagued the Na’vi for years and years. There is nothing we would love more than for you to be Na’vi. And there will be no better future Tsa’hik.” 

Your eyes widened at Mo’at’s words, at the consent not only to join the clan, this family, but to do so as Neteyam’s mate, as the future spiritual leader of the Omaticaya. 

“I won’t let you down.” You hugged both of them, tears in your eyes. 

You eventually made your way out of the tent and looked for the only other person you had to talk to before this was all done. Neytiri told you where he could be, so you looked there first. Sure enough, you found Lo’ak deep in thought up a tree, above everyone else, and you climbed easily and joined him. He was startled by you, but he composed himself quickly and gave you a look that you couldn’t quite place. You could tell he had conflicting feelings, happy on one hand to not have lost you in one way, sad that he did lose you in others. 

“Hey.” He was curt, and didn’t look at you, and a twinge of hurt settled in your chest. You had to make this right. 

“Hey, you. Scooch.” He moved slightly so you could fit with him on the branch, which was more than wide enough to accommodate both of you. 

“Lo’ak… please talk to me? I can’t stand the thought that you hate me. You’re my best friend. Please?” 

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?” 

“I saw you leaving with Neteyam last night, after the ceremony.”

You cringed a little, the thought of having this particular conversation with him close to unbearable.

“Yes, it’s true.” 

Pain flashed across his face and you saw a tear, just one small tear, fall down his face. You reached to wipe it off, but he beat you to it, so you awkwardly let your hand drop. 

“I’m sorry, Lo’ak. I’m so so sorry. But I have loved your brother my whole life. My whole life, ever since I was born, he was there. And I love you too, I love you so so much, but we wouldn’t be right together. You are the best guy in the world, and I am not even close to being worthy of you. Neteyam gets me. He gets the darkest side of me, he knows my darkest, worst secrets, he has been with me through some of my most traumatic moments. It’s never been that it’s not you. It’s just that it can’t be anyone else. My whole life, it was always going to be just him.”

“You are my best friend, and I will always be here for you. You will never lose me. You will never get rid of me. I found a season of Friends on my mum’s directory that I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen. I can’t do that with anyone else.”

“I know you are scared, and I think that’s why you asked me. Not because you think I’m the woman you want to grow old with, but because you’re scared that no one else will see you the way I do. And you’re wrong, Lo’ak. Everyone will see in time that you are the best person in the world. You are incredible. And so many girls will be falling at your feet soon, you will be angry at yourself for ever pining over someone like me. I know you are scared, but I am not going anywhere. Can you please forgive me?” 

He turned and looked at you for a long time, intensely searching your face, maybe for a sign that you were lying, or exaggerating, but he couldn’t find any, as he eventually dropped his gaze and smirked playfully. 

“Do you really think girls will be falling at my feet?” 

“Yes, I really really do. You are a catch, mister.” 

He rolled his eyes dramatically and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Well then, I have to forgive you.” You both laughed and your back pressed against the bark of the tree and you stretched your legs to sit in his lap. 

“Now, about that season of Friends…” 

You returned to your human form in the afternoon, and slowly started packing your life away, ready to relinquish this room, once your mothers, with deep sadness in your heart. You will all have to relocate from tomorrow, so you will probably not be back here except to help everyone else evacuate and move all the equipment. You’ll never be back here, you realised with a deep sigh. So many memories, so many bad ones, but so many good ones too, this place was your safe place, your little piece of heaven, despite all the hell you went through in it. As you packed all of your books and trinkets you collected in time, you found yourself tracing your fingers over every surface, trying to commit it to memory. The coffee stain on your desk that was made when Neteyam spilled your mug with his tail without meaning to. The scratches on one of the drawers from all the times you pulled on it with your finger, since the latch was a little broken and hard to open. The wear and tear from your ass print on the chair that you spent inordinate amounts of hours in, be it analysing data or watching shows, or reading with your feet carelessly stretched on the desk. You moved on to your bed, that you sat on, and you sighed at the thought of never being able to sleep on a bed again. You will miss the comfort of the mattress and the sheets, and the space to really spread out however much you wanted, looking like a little starfish every time Norm woke you up in the mornings and his subsequent laughter at your ridiculous poses. 

It took a while, but you were done about an hour before eclipse. Neteyam knocked on your door, with eyes slightly widened at the state of the now empty room. 

“I’ve never seen this place like this. It looks so barren without your touch.” 

You sighed and tugged at the insides of your mouth with your teeth. “Yeah, it does.”

“Any regrets?” You turned around to face him, giving him a small reassuring smile and taking his hand in yours, the size difference always a stark contrast compared to your Avatar body. 

“Never.” You eyed the bed playfully and raised an eyebrow, feigning timidity. “We still have some time… what could we possibly do to fill it, huh?” 

He looked at you, and you could tell he was turned on out of his mind, but also gave you a reserved look. “We can’t… not like this, I will hurt you.”

“I don’t think you realise you’re not making the point you think you are.”

He closed the door behind him with his tail and stalked towards you. “Fuck, you will be the death of me, Atan.” 

You made your way to the village a little after eclipse, and everyone was following you. All the humans, Norm and the other Avatars and Neteyam, who was carrying you on his back like you were his little backpack. You were flushed and a little disheveled from earlier, purple marks all over your body, but it didn’t matter. Your hours in this body were limited. In your back pocket of your shorts you had a box of birth control pills that Norm gave to you as you and Neteyam made it out of the room. You laughed at his reaction and yours, both of you awkward and embarrassed to have to address it whatsoever. You placed your head on Neteyam’s shoulder, peering up at the sky, like you used to do when you were little. The village was busy and roaring, everyone packing their lives up for the move tomorrow. People looked at you as you passed by, unfamiliar with your human form clinging to the future Olo’eyktan’s back. Jake and the rest of the family met you at the big bonfire. 

“Heads up, everyone. It’s time!” You smiled, and looked next to him on the ground, where your Avatar body lay motionless and you had to take a second to take this all thing in, the weight of what you were about to do hitting you full force. You started breathing in deep, shallow breaths, and you felt Neteyam’s hands running up and down your thigh in a calming motion. 

“You’ve got this. We’re all here for you.” You reached over and pecked his neck, in gratitude. 

Everybody in the village, all the Na’vi were making their ways through the forest towards Vitraya Ramunong - they would all partake in the ritual. Neteyam was nervous, out of his mind with worry and fear, although he didn’t want to impart that to you, so he carried you gently, trying to be strong, as he was sure your mind was also laced with concerns. What if you didn’t come back? Neteyam quickly pushed the thought out of his mind and cursed it for making him think about such things, making his heart constrict in his chest in pain at the mere thought. Of course you would make it. A part of him was also excited about the ritual. It would be the first time anyone under 19 would get to see it, to experience it, it was only the third time it would have ever been performed. It was a powerful ritual, hence why they needed everyone. 

The tree was as breathtaking as it always has been, and Neteyam had to inhale deeper to accommodate for the deep charge of the atmosphere, for the thickness of the air. He heard the ancestor’s voices, buzzing quietly all around him. As soon as you reached the natural platform on which the tree resided, Neteyam put you down next to his family and tried to not think of all the images flashing across his mind’s eye of all the unholy things you two did last night right in this spot. His grandma was giving out orders about where to place your Avatar. 

“Are you ready?” Said Mo’at, in her usual no-nonsense fashion.You gulped loudly, and Neteyam couldn’t help wince. Everybody was on the edge. 

“Yes, I think I am.” He saw you turn around to face him and the rest of the family, as well as Spider, Norm and Max. 

“This is it, I guess.” You grabbed his mother and youngest sister’s hands in yours, and squeezed, a small tear falling down your face. 

“I love you, guys. Thank you for everything all of you have done for me. I am so excited to join this clan and your family, forever.”

Neteyam watched as you lay on the ground, naked except for some leaves covering you. He was going to miss you, he realises. This body is the only one he’s known you as for 18 years. He’s spent so may days and nights with you, with this small person who had so much in her, so much beauty and intelligence, so much hurt and pain, so much personality, so much fierceness and grit and so much care and empathy, he didn’t know where it could all fit in such a tiny body. You’ve grown up together, a human and a Na’vi, learning so much from each other, adapting together to the world around you and to each other’s mind and soul. He was going to miss this body, the body he fell in love with, the toothy grin and wild eyes so unlike anything he’s ever seen, your beauty marks that he used to trace with his finger and eyes.. and mouth, as of a few hours ago. You were everything, and have always been regardless of your difference in species, and colour, and height. He mourned a little, he realised, for the you you’re leaving behind, but was also incredibly thrilled to have you as one of the people, as his mate, mother of his children, Tsa’hik, for the rest of his life. 

He hovered over you the whole ritual, unnerved at the way the tendrils were emerging from the ground and slowly enveloping you, until there was almost no bare skin left to see. His skin was covered in goosebumps at the experience, as the chorus of people asking Eywa to grant you life in a new body, undulating their bodies in unison, and his grandma’s words. It was unlike anything he’s every experienced. 

Tìng mikyun ayoheru rutxe, ma Nawma Sa'nok. (Hear us please, Great Mother)

Pori tireati, munge mì nga (Take this spirit into you)

Srung si poeru, ma Eywa (Eywa, help her)

Ulte tìng ayoer nì'eyng hu ngeyä ya (And breathe her back to us)

Srung si poeru, ma Eywa (Eywa, help her)

Tivìran po ayoekip (Let her walk among us)

Na Na'viyä hapxì! (As one of The People!)

Srung si poeru, ma Eywa (Eywa, help her)

Eventually, the ritual came to an end when Mo’at screamed for everybody to stop. Neteyam reached over to your face, and removed your mask, kissing your cheeks and your hands, and saying a quiet “I love you” before he moved on, anxiously waiting to see if you would open your eyes. He let out a panted breath as you did, smiling tiredly at the family who was now jumping on you, making you choke slightly. 

You laughed and his eyes found yours in the manic scene unfolding in front of him. You smiled lovingly and reached out a hand for him to grab. 

“Hi.” 

“Hi, Atan. It’s good to see you.”

You were sad as you were carrying your body, you tiny human body in your arms, and lowering it in the ground next to the Home Tree. You saw your family place a flower each in the little cove where you now lay, and you carefully redirected an Atokirina towards it, and watched as it landed on you, making its home in the little gap made by your foetal position. 

You will miss this body, and all the memories you made in it. You will miss looking in the mirror and seeing your mother’s eyes and hair, you will miss being able to play her guitar. This body, however tiny and weak, was your home for 18 years, and it has stood by you no matter how many times you treated it badly or betrayed it. It kept you alive in a world that could kill you in an instant, and you were sorry to have to leave it behind. 

“Thank you. Thank you, mum and dad, for giving me life and gifting me this body. Thank you for taking care of me, I know it wasn’t easy to keep up with this messy mind. Thank you.” 

You turned around and fixed your gaze on your mate, the love of your life, the one that made it all bearable, and when met with his dazzling warm smile and his touch that set your soul ablaze, you couldn’t help be excited at the adventures that lay ahead of you, that you will always brave together. 

-the end-

EPILOGUE

The man felt weak and dizzy, the entire room spinning and making him well nauseous. He didn’t know what was happening, what any of this was. He saw a bright light flashing across his eyes and he groaned in pain and annoyance at the way it was making his vision spotty. He grasped the hand of whoever it was that was doing this to him, and he was relieved when it stopped. It took him a long time to adjust to his surroundings, and was met with shock when realising he was in some sort of medical ward, surrounded by people in white coats. His gaze fixated on his hand, that was still wrapped around someone’s wrist, and couldn’t understand what he was seeing in front of him. Blue. A blue striped hand, that supposedly belonged to him. 

“Captain, Captain Barlowe, can you hear me? You’re ok, you’re just disorientated. It’s gonna take a while to settle your mind, so take you time.” 

He raised assertively from the bed he was laying on and made his way to the reflective windows all around him. He stood there, still, just taking it all in, finding it hard to understand, to process what was clearly displayed in front of the mirror. His body, in an Avatar. 

“Captain Barlowe, due to your outstanding military record and previous acquiescence with this project, you have been chosen as one of the select few to carry out a special op on Pandora. You will be briefed shortly, but right now we have to make sure everything is in order.” 

“I’ll be damned.” 

For everyone who’s made it this far, I am so excited to announce the sequel series, The Archer, that will tackle all of the events of the Way of Water x coming to you soon 💕💕

Tag list (thank you thank you thank you x): @nuhteyam @eywas-heir @fanboyluvr @mashiromochi @puffb4ll @sassy-persona @simp4ff @mommyneytiri @inomoikawa @jackiehollanderr @jaysarchiv3 @meivap @dakotali @hlhl99 @eskamybeloved @erenjaegerwifee @winchestertitties @mommyneytiri @ultimatebluff @elizarikaallen @yeosxxx @ssc7514 @lolcaca @jackiehollanderr @bunnyrose01 @therealbloom @neteyams-queue @r1dd1kulus @whore4neteyam

@kikookii @iliyoo @velvetskies @rebeccao03 @im-in-a-pansexual-panik

[sunarinss]

IYNTBM, BMTM || S.GOJO

A/N: So i haven’t written on tumblr (or written anything of substance) for years but the one thing i can hopefully still convey is angst about my sad little loverboys, so hopefully somebody who reads this enjoys me picking at gojos little fucked up brain … cont at the end

inspired by ‘I don’t smoke’ -Mitski

The bed was always cold when you woke up.

No matter how many layers covered you as you slept, each time he would creep away when the sun-rays coated the land in their golden haze, he would steal the warmth out of your bed.

Satoru Gojo was a taker.

He was a thief in the night as he stole into your room, the way he stole the warmth cultivated by the two of you whilst you slept in your bed, the way he sucked your heart out of your chest and hid it behind saccharine kisses. Pressed against you in the darkest hours of the night he felt so real, his hands on your body, his lips on your neck, his arms around your waist, he felt so real and vivid, so corporal in the darkness of your room but in the daylight he was so far removed from yourself that you had rush to the nearest bathroom and gaze at the memories of him that littered your skin.

You had to force yourself sometimes to recall when he wasn’t like this.

When he was the same boy you knew in highschool, carefree, young, unbothered. He was brash and boastful and his laughter was truely carefree. When he used to dangle things above your head and throw himself over your shoulders like a cat begging for attention, days when he would beat you at the arcade and jokingly flaunt his prizes in front of you only for them to end up in your arms before you reached the school under the guise of them being “too heavy for him”.

Those who knew him were subjected to arrogant remarks, vain declarations and overdramatic charm, to others he was playful, unserious, without an anchoring belief but tucked into your room, tangled between your sheets as his mouth kissed trails below your waistline, you knew he believed in something. You knew because how could he infuse such reverence into his touches? how could he be so well versed in the worship he showed to your form if he wasn’t devoted to something?

But the devotion he gave you through his nimble fingers and hallowed touch was never meant for you, it was only the spillage of what crossed over from the daylight, the extra overflow from the hours when the sun stood high in the sky and he was ‘The Honoured One’. It was fine, something you had made peace with long ago when your skin was unmarred by the passing of time, in the light he belonged to the world, a god amongst men for them to revere but when the moon greeted the stars and he crawled to you to find his escape, you were his until the moonlight faded and your skin could no longer feel the heat pour though his body entwined with yours.

You were his but he was never yours.

From the moment he stole into your covers all those years ago, after Suguru had severed their bond like a loose thread, you had let him into your room, let him undress you like a deer being skinned, let him steal your kisses and strip you of your breath. Perhaps that was where you first went wrong, letting him burrow his way into you and imprint himself into your soul and mind, letting him run to you for an escape from himself and draw immeasurable distance from you when the sun lit up the sky.

Even now as his warm arms wrapped around your waist, as his breaths became steady and slowed, even now as his eyes fluttered shut as his head rested on your chest and he angled his body onto yours, even as his body heat soaked into your bones and his breaths warmed your skin, slowly you reach for the extra blanket on the side of your bed and spread it over the both of you, he would probably overheat with it on but you didn’t give that much thought as you settled into your pillows, it was the only time you allowed yourself to be selfish, after all:

The bed was always cold when you woke up.

© to @/cafekitsune for the beautiful dividers

A/N cont: Ahhhh i love pouty, loving Toru but i’m also such a freak that i psycho analyse this man whenever i get the chance, love picking at his fucked up little brain and his past relationships (romantic or otherwise) and the effects that’d have on him and how he treats his new and current relationships.

[mychlapci]

Rodimus giving birth painfully at the worst time possible and with no help whatsoever.

Its in the middle of battle and he’s in too much pain to move, his tank is painfully stiff and swollen and he’s in so much pain but his fluids haven’t even broken yet and there is so much pressure all he can do is vent heavy and huddle under the shelter hoping the wrong bot doesn’t find him.

Best part about it?

He wasn’t even in this battle.

He was on a civi huddle trying to get to safety because he left after finding out he was sparked.

Sires?

Deadlock and Ratchet who don’t even know.

He’s literally got the worst luck because bombs are falling and soldiers are offlining and bullets are flying in the space he’s in and crawling only did so much his tanks are too heavy on his frame and half his spoilers been blown off while the other half is leaking energon hanging by a thread.

This mech is in serious trouble because he feels his sparklings moving and its making everything worse and the siren for clearing the battlefield sounds and he knows he’s really fragged because that means they send out a large bomb and what do they do?

Drop the largest bomb that caves in his shelter and guess who just so happened to fall in protecting each other?

Deadlock and Ratchet who have no idea he’s behind them as they check each other over and talk quietly so relieved they survived as they mention it’ll take at least two days to remove the rubble so they can escape.

And guess whose frame wracks with pain as their sparkling readjusts and kicks them too hard and makes him fail at stifling an agonized scream thats muffled from him biting into his arm?

Deadlock and Ratchet have the most distressed, out of frame mind zapping shock of their life cycles seeing Rodimus like that.

Your thoughts/the rest?

Ooh poor Rodimus (Hot Rod?)... but he was lucky that a bickering Deadlock and Ratchet ended up in the rubble with him. For a moment they’re too busy fighting and pointing out whose fault it was that they ended up here and how long it’s gonna take them to get out thar they don’t notice that there’s someone still alive in the mess. Hot Rod squealing out as his forge clenches alerts them to his presence very quickly…

When they realize it’s Hot Rod, their shared… friend, they rush to him and no matter how hard he tries to hide his pregnant belly from them, his water finally breaking tips them off. I don’t think they realize they’re the sires at first, but when Ratchet scolds him for not coming to him when he got sparked and Hot Rod tells him he didn’t want to hang a sparkling on his shoulders it clicks.

Deadlock is more stunted. Ratchet knows what to do, but Deadlock does not. I think he only jumps to action once Ratchet orders him to help him get Hot Rod out of the rubble and onto a more comfortable surface. Hot Rod was very lucky to have been found by them. Ratchet can patch him up and help coach him through the birth. He can already see that Roddy’s been straining himself, forcing himself to push when he does not need to. Thankfully his water finally broke and it’s gonna be significantly easier from now… Hot Rod clings to Deadlock as Ratchet helps him coax out the sparkling, scolding him for not telling them, for keeping this to himself, for trying to move through an active war-zone when he knew he’s that far along. Because of all the stress and the fighting still going on outside, Hot Rod has a very hard time giving birth, but at least he can scream into Deadlock’s chest this time around <3

if it’s going to take at least a couple days to clear out the rubble they know they’re in hot water. Hot Rod’s sparkling comes out alive but barely holding on and they don’t have enough fuel for the four of them… Everyone has to pitch in to keep the little one fed, which slows down the progress. Hot Rod’s injuries and the fact that he’s only recently birthed a sparkling mean they have to drag him out and help him walk across the empty battlefield… Hopefully, they can reconnect with an autobot squadron soon, and as for Deadlock… he’s going to stay with his sparkling for as long as he can, for now.

[agirlandherquill]

the troublesome typewriter

introducing rust bucket!

she’s an olympia sm2, and also my summer project, i got her mid-july and ive been working on her for about three hours nearly every day ever since

now when i got her, she was a mess, and i mean a mess - what im assuming is decades worth of grime, dust, rust, and i dread to think what else came off of her - hot soapy water was a life saver in terms of cleaning, then pure white vinegar (not the distilled kind, ive been using the elbow grease brand since that’s all i could find in my local supermarket) to get rid of the rust,

waging a war with rust, im fairly certain its surface rust, has been a nightmare - ive removed as much as i can, it takes a long time with pure white vinegar since its not the strongest thing in the world but since it doesn’t seem to harm the machine itself i don’t mind, its a bit of a trade off rather than risking using harsher chemicals, but of course rust adds character (is that my way of excusing the little bits of rust here and there that i can’t quite get off? yes, yes it is) so i decided to call her rust bucket,

she’s not completely good to go yet, she’s had a bit of an oil and a clean to free up the keys and the carriage because let me tell you, when i first got her, those did not want to move one bit,

then i had to spend a few hours tinkering with the drawband, working out how to adjust the tension and use a wire with a makeshift hook to thread it back to where it’s supposed to be and attach it to the carriage to make it move while typing - which before i sorted it out, it did not do, at all - and i finally managed to sort that issue today!

it’s around 85% working, perfectly fine writing a5 wise since that’s about halfway through the ruled scale, but going past halfway for a4 seems to require me pressing the shift button to give it a bit of a wiggle so to speak so that the carriage shifts on and i can type the next letter, so doing that between letters is the only slightly annoying part, but given the fact that it didn’t even move at all before i started working on it I’m more than happy with how it is,

all i have left to do is give her a final scrub, a bit more sanding down (might do that before the scrub im not too sure), then painting!

i know it’s not the usual stuff i post on writeblr, not at all, but i figured if i’m going to try and write on this thing when it’s all sorted out then it’s worth sharing,

and it’s also a way for me to remember that i actually made this decades old machine work again, and it’s the first time ive ever tried anything like that, so im super happy with how its gone so far!

and considering ive only spent about £20, including the machine itself then with supplies, it’s really going to pay off for future me and future writing (i hope!),

so hopefully in a couple of weeks i’ll be able to show you all rust bucket when she’s all finished!

[l3x01d]

these pics are from after i already did this a couple times so yours is gonna look a bit different. Ok so first undo these^^^^ four screws. take out the little half circle with teeth. it holds in a lot of the fur thats attached to an elastic band. theoretically you could use it to hold it back inplace after putting it back together but ive never actually gotten it to go in with the fur. you dont need to undo this one:

i recommend keeping it inplace tbh. then youre gonna get to the six clips. theyre extremely hard to get out. i ended up cutting all of them along the bottom. it sucks. ive seen people say you can push them out with a screwdriver but i never got that to work. hopefully you can do it better. this is my first custom. ive also heard people say you can cut a thread or two and then theyre easier to get out but i didnt want to cut any threads so i cut the clips instead.

then pull the fur up as high as itll go and undo all six housing screws. the top two are really far up almost ontop of their head. then undo the two clips on the side:

then you can just lift the back housing cover completely off. this next picture already has one ear removed. ignore that sorry. unscrew the two screws with washers on the pink plastic. these are holding the ears inplace.

using a flathead screwdriver you should be able to leverage out one side of the ear posts. after that you can just pull them out fairly easily. do this on both sides.

^^^then you should be able to flip the front housing cover up just enough to push out the clips holding the front fur on. then remove the front housing and faceplate. this picture already has the faceplate removed. its held in by three screws. i took it off to paint it.then you want to unplug the ears from their little square connector dudes and remove them from the fur. try not to pull too hard on the wires. theres a small hole they go through the fur thats lined with plastic. its kinda tricky but doable. dont be afraid of this part just be careful of the wires.

if you want to paint the eyes youre gonna have to scrape or sand off the current design and the white parts. its too slick to paint directly. it helps to prop them up with something while painting because theyre on a spring for when they open/close. i used the cover for my scrapey tool. dont forget to sand the lids if you want to paint them too! i forgot and my paint was kinda thick and now they dont always close all the way. most of all be careful not to get any of the dust in the internals.

this is the fun part now you can paint whatever you like!! clear spray paint makes a good sealant ive found.

the rest of this post is gonna be things to be mindful of when putting them back together that i wish i had thought of before i learned it the hard way. if you have to really force anything its probably not right. this long part in the back is gonna get in the way!! took me forever to figure it out. lay it flat in your hand as you put the housing on and make sure it lines up right.

before trying to get the back housing back on make sure the silver top button is lined up correctly! it should fit in the two groves on the very top of their head. when screwing the housing toegther BE CAREFUL OF THE EAR WIRES. BE CAREFUL OF THE EAR WIRES!! i caught mine and accidentily shredded most of them the first time i put them back togeher and ended up having to resolder a bunch of it together and it was doable but a pain so just be careful when you put the holes into their notches that theres no wires in the way. the wires are right next to the pegs/holes that get screwed together. the four wires in the back are for the ears:

i think everything else has already been documented better than i could do. i also carved a bit off of the ear poles to help but i did too much on one end and now that side doesnt move so thats probably not the best idea! i also highly recommend reading furbinthewoods' post on doing this i wish i had been able to find it when i was doing mine. ive reblogged it and put it under the "furby teardown" tag.

heres Feral my first custom ever and first furby since the 90s (I Love Them):

have fun and dont be afraid to fail!!

[taybatwo2]

Vampire Heart Draculaura Review Part 3

Wait Draculaura, come back this way, we need to take a closer look and review your clothes! They’re all removable and separate pieces (a wonder for current day Mattel). And surprisingly fairly easy to undress and redress.

Her whole outfit looks lightly inspired by Elissabat’s movie persona: Veronica Von Vamp and Draculaura’s flashback version of herself in “Why do Ghoul’s Fall in Love?” More close ups of all the individual clothing pieces under the cut, as these reviews are long suckers.

She has small satin ribbons on both wrists and black lace (the same that is used for her neck and hems of both her dress and skirt). Out of curiosity I checked Haunte Couture Draculaura, and it is different.

The rose on her chest is also made of metal (it doesn’t feel like plastic), another surprise from Mattel, and is a very light pink/lavender.

Now let’s get a closer look at large bow that also works as a shawl (I love that idea).

It’s so long and elegant, and like a longer version of Dawn of the Dance’s bow.

Here is the bow off of her. It was very easy to remove.

And here she is without her shawl/bow on:

Another really cute look for her. She just looks so cohesive and well designed!! Let’s now take some closer looks at her large skirt.

A close up of one of the panels to her skirt. The pearl beads are also the lightest of pale pink as well. I’m very glad to see their not glued on, but instead sewn. The panels really don’t feel like pleather, more of a rubbery plastic (hopefully they will not rot and peel). And there are two layers. It’s attached over this thicker plastic (vinyl?) that feels like one of those old blow up beach balls….or a pool toy. Hopefully it will not get sticky over time.

There you can see the two separate layers.

A better look at the scalloped edges and the ruffles layer over the edge (which is also a nicely hemmed, multi fabric piece).

And the patterned ruffle laying back down, more cute bat designs. You can see how the nylon(?) pieces seems already kinda rough at the ends; like it was cut with a dull pair of scissors.

It is connected to the “mini dress” in two spots with a little bit of thread that is easily cut. And has velcro in the back.

The bell skirt off the doll. The vinyl is nice in that it helps the dress keep its full shape. Even if an actual fabric bell skirt would have been great to see as well.

A picture from above and underneath the skirt. The pattern closest around the doll looks like a bunch of bats, and I love that detail.

Without the bell-skirt, you get Monster High’s more traditional mini dress silhouette. But even just these two pieces look so nice together.

Another photo of her lovely face and a better look at her lightly puffed sleeves, and the black lace around her throat.

She’s also giving me some Duchess Swan vibes from Ever After High. Must be all the black and white.

Okay, now just the lace jumpsuit. I love the extra details of black thread along the front. Such a lovely addition! Also, I am surprised at how quickly I have gotten used to Draculaura on her shorter, chubbier body in G3 because she almost looks out of proportion here. But, I do miss the more delicate hand molds used in G1 over G3….anyways back to her outfit…

Just the mini dress and the bow together also don’t make a bad combination. I also didn’t want to keep removing her hands, so have a handless Draculaura in some of these photos.

I literally couldn’t stop taking photos of her……

Okay, and here are all of her fabric clothing pieces lined up:

In my fourth and final part of this long review, I’ll be comparing her to some other dolls in my collection, including some of her other collector dolls, and the actual Queen of the Vampires.

[wordsandrobots]

For the writer ask meme: 3, 7, 14, 16, 20, 27, 34, 35, 40, 44, 61, 74 (❛ں❛ )✧

From the 'Get to know your fic writer!' ask game.

3) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Typically, I'll start with the overall structure. Where the section breaks go, short summaries (maybe just a couple of phrases) of the contents of each section, placing any scenes I've already started in their proper context, and establishing where I'll swap to a different character, if I'm doing that. Then I'll most likely start at the top and write it through to the end. I can write chapters out of order but find it easiest to take each individual chapter in narrative order. Sometimes I'll have pieces I'm joining up, though, so it's not always a strictly linear process.

And then when I'm done, I'll go over it again and again until I'm happy, cutting the text down to what is absolutely necessary to get my point across: I overwrite a lot on first draft, so there'll always be pruning to do!

7) How do you choose which POV to write from?

Switching character point of view is usually a structural conceit: I'll use it to guide the reader through the different angles of a situation, slowly filling in their understanding of what is going on. It's a great method for creating cliffhangers and sudden twists without being cheap (there will always be an explanation, but POV management allows me to keep it in reserve until the correct moment).

But sometimes there are parts of the story or emotional beats that only make sense from a particular character's perspective. Which is not always the one who is experiencing the beat directly, mind you. When I decided to have show what the new Ryusei-Go was capable of in Fata Morgana, it was because I thought that would be most impactful from an outside POV. Yeah, that's a really intense moment for the pilots, but by showing it at a remove, I was able to focus on how preternaturally effective the combination of developed skill and fine-tuned machine really was -- underscoring the thread throughout Wishing on Space Hardware of how damn scary Tekkadan's legacy is for everyone outside their bubble.

14) how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

I don't exactly feel what the characters feel. They're not really feeling anything, they're words on a page. What I'm generally doing instead is looking for the right words and tempo to hit the pitch of an emotion. It's almost like music, I think, in that emotions have a rhythm to them that alters the character voice, and it's a question of tuning the scene until it conveys the right quality. Even something as simple as how the sentences are laid out can have an impact on that.

So for me, it's an exercise in finding the best combination of tricks and description to hit the note I want to convey. And yeah, a part of that is always going to be drawing on my own experiences and trying to capture what those feelings were like. But that's not always as helpful as you'd think. I happen to know exactly what cold fury feels like, for example, but I'm not sure I could describe it beyond simply saying 'cold fury'. That being said, sometimes that's OK. We have these common turns of phrase for a reason, and coupled to the right cues, they can be very powerful.

16) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Lots of ideas, always, but functionally I am currently working on two things. One is just -- all the Yamagi/Shino/+ smut I can think of and think is worth actually attempting to write. Currently a prospective six chapters of various lengths, a variety of situations and additional factors. It'll hopefully be a good time!

The second is, surprisingly, not the mooted Wishing on Space Hardware future-fic. That's still percolating as I try to draw together my ideas on it into something concrete. No, I got hit by the urge to invent some entirely new OCs and have them do a heist story.

The basic concept is a twin brother and sister who join a military company some years before everything kicks off with Tekkadan. They have the Alaya-Vijnana surgery and while it works for the sister, the brother is left paralysed from the waist down ala Bilth. Their dynamic follows from this with them swearing to do absolutely everything to stay together (this group isn't the CGS and doesn't throw out the 'failures' but they are not expected to survive long), with the brother, Kais, eventually becoming a strategist while the sister, Inas, being the obligatory a mobile suit pilot. Fast-forward to three or four years after Tekkadan's final stand and they're planning to rob Gjallarhorn on the eve of Martian independence.

I think it'll fun to explore* and ease me back into writing for characters the reader won't automatically know everything about, after several years of just doing fanfic.

*Bear in mind that 'fun' here involves me looking up the Bolivian Army Ending trope, so pitch your expectations accordingly.

20) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

I'm quite fond of a smile that isn't a smile, or isn't quite a smile. I have a thing for performative characters, and the act of shaping oneself to a particular end in general, which leads to toying with what an expression mechanically is and what it is actually conveying. Smiles are just the lowest-hanging branch there, since they are very easy to turn unsettling.

Themes . . . well, I'm not not making a habit of poking at the wider political implications of settings, either to jab at what they're saying or just to find the potential plot-hooks that fall out of events, that the original piece of media didn't find time to explore. It wouldn't be accurate to say I set out to produce political fics: I like the aesthetic of political manoeuvring more than I care to write tracts. But I do enjoy thinking through the hows and whys of a fictional society, and contrasting different levels within it.

And if it can be called a common setting, then I will be found writing exclusively in the one from canon. I just don't really do AUs, certainly not the kind that transpose characters somewhere vastly different. If I like something, I will generally like it on its own terms. I think it's an admirable skill to be able to pull off setting or genre transposition in a way that makes sense, but I'm not interested in trying it myself.

27) What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

I'm not sure how to answer that.

For least, it's less any one task and more reaching the point of having done it so often that I get fed up with it. I will edit until I'm sick of the sight of my own words, or wear myself out of writing for spells at a time. But neither of them are tasks I find onerous in their own right.

For most . . . I think I just like being in the flow of writing, whatever particular task I'm working on at the time.

34) Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?

Not a damn clue. Better than I am now, hopefully. That's all I can wish for.

35) What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain? 

That they're people too.

Proper villains, those who deserve the title and aren't merely antagonistic forces, should act with the same level of interiority and depth as protagonists. They should have desires and motivations, aims they want to achieve and personalities that shape their actions.

They can absolutely be shallow, vain and cruel, but those are all things real people can be and it's always worth asking, as you would of any other character, 'how did they get to be this way?'

Nobody wakes up one day deciding to be evil. There's always a yesterday that made it seem like the best option.

40) If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

Aye aye. Coming from the person who's done the most (i.e. any) art influenced by my writing, I can't help feel this is a loaded question! :)

Honestly, there's a whole bunch of characters I'd love to be able to draw myself, or failing that, get commissioned one day. Almiria's gang in particular -- I know Almiria's costume looks like a mix of McGillis-as-general and Relena from Gundam Wing in her Sanc Kingdom outfit, and that Almiria grown-up takes after Gaelio, but it'd be nice to be able to render that in something like IBO's actual style. Similarly with things like post-everything Shino (purple jacket and all), Yamagi in the pilot-suit with short hair, or the Goibniu pilots. I think I just want to be able to draw anime stuff at all, honestly!

Scenes though . . . hmm. For the purposes of structuring my thoughts, I'm going to take liberties and go through all of WoSH in order to see if I can work out which scenes I'd like to see the most.

A Handful of Rusted Petals: Almiria and Bael.

The Grandmaster: This doesn't actually have any non-canon scenes per se, but I'd be interested in what someone might draw based off it, as a concept.

To Catch a Falling Star: Any (all?) of the reunion scenes.

Fragments of You/Pieces of Me: The end scene in bed, where Shino is asking if Yamagi just made a dick joke (he 100% did).

Let Sleeping Angels Lie: Eugene walking in on Shino while Shino is topless and showing Sri his arm.

Between Family: Again, the final scene, mostly for grumpy!Yamagi puncturing the heartfelt conversation.

The Ares Affair: The moment Ride shows up.

The Haunting of Takaki Uno: Takaki confronting Elion, specifically when he asks directly about Galan Mossa.

Frozen Sunlight: The Turbines' games-night.

Of Obsessions and Erotemes: Iverson in cold storage, looking at the bodies.

Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses: The training scene with Trow, Ride and Hirume. (There's obviously a bunch of stuff in this, but I think that's the one I'd enjoy seeing.)

Under a Crescent Moon: Just anything with Ordsley struggling with everything.

Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure: Oh, the moment everyone has to run away from an avalanche of Haros, absolutely.

Hope Against Hope: The scene with the mirror, I think.

Love, Death and Cannoli: Probably Shino being dumbstruck by Yamagi in the pilot-suit (though I am very fond of Shino getting bullied by the Turbine kids, too).

Fata Morgana: Argi dealing with a drunk Kim.

We Three Kings: Oooo. I can't choose for this one. At a certain point, this is all a series of really big important moments. Probably the fight in the office or the confrontation in the council chamber, if we have to narrow it down, though there's also Lin and Almiria.

History of a Catastrophe: Embi and Asher in the garden, definitely.

Ragnarök in G Minor: Oh, you, specifically, will absolutely know it when we get there. (But also this one is chock full of climactic confrontations so there's dozens I'd love to see in image form!)

Day in the Light: Not posted it yet, but the penultimate scene of WoSH is a very fun one that I'd love to see drawn.

44) What mistakes do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?

Most often cludging a sentence in the edit. I have a bad habit of missing words, or otherwise reading what I think is one the page, so it's nice to have someone to catch those!

61) Why do you continue writing fics?

You can . . . stop writing them?

74) You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

I think it'd basically include all the answers to question 20. Bonus points for extended exposition scenes that double as character interactions, doppelgangers of some description, and being a post-canon continuation.

-----

Phew! Thanks for asking and asking so many!

[malvenor]

alright, i'll give you benefit of the doubt. i'd like to hear exactly what's wrong with my breakdown if you dont mind! i say this with genuine interest in what you have to say, and curiosity, no malice at all. but i do think that if you're gonna say "everything in this is wrong," you'd do well to explain just what is so wrong, or at least just one example. just saying something is wrong without providing explanation also serves to make one look silly! ...hopefully i dont sound pretentious saying that.

i knooooooow i said i didnt wanna argue. i still don't, honestly. but well, debate is ok.

i do also want to give myself just a little defense and say that my post is a casual person's criticisms, rather than a huge big one meant to be taken seriously. emotions are in there, dyeing my commentary unsightly colors at times. not the biggest defense, but hey, its there.

so yeah, all that wordy preamble to say: yes, i'm probably wrong. in the interest of self-improvement, i'd like to know why!

I expected no response and got a genuinely respectful one! Sorry if I sounded snippy - plenty of things I like get a lot of odd and unfounded criticism, and it's very easy for little things to get under my skin. I can give a bit-by-bit breakdown, for sure! And I get that it's from a casual perspective, but such a lengthy review even from a casual perspective should have a tad more than the first third of the release version of a game completed, y'know?

Ahem, anyways! Preamble out of the way, and with all due respect (which is a fair amount thanks to your stellar attitude!), here are my nits and my picks:

Less a correction and more a tip for anyone who read that post: You can re-access the tutorial at any time by going back to Selva Oscura, the game's prologue chapter, under the same menu where you access the Cantos. I recommend everyone do this anyways because you can collect some Lunacy just for visiting the map.

Next bit, I actually half-agree with. Yes, Limbus Company has a stubborn and poorly-explained learning curve, and it is less immediately intuitive than Library of Ruina. It is, however, also an intrinsically less complicated game than Library of Ruina. Having a base understanding of "when my side's numbers are higher, I win more often" will be learned quickly, and the fight against Ebony Queen's Apple will tell you the rest you need to know (since I believe this to be the game's only halfway decent tutorial). However, I will also point out that the intuitiveness is the only part of the previous two game's learning experiences that were actually good: LC and LoR also had pretty fuckin' bad tutorials.

From a casual perspective, the ins and outs of exactly how clash values are calculated are wholly unnecessary, but the basics are pretty plainly laid out, I find. It gives you a big number that will always be the starting number, a smaller number with a plus sign, and 1~5 little symbols that the game calls coins next to those. I feel like most people pretty easily grasp that when the coins flip heads, signified by the glow, they add their value to the big number. Even if this isn't understood by the player immediately as that, it becomes more obvious once you get to, again, Ebony Queen. I'll admit, this is more subjective, but it still stuck out as something people tend to grasp pretty quickly, especially former Ruina players.

aha okay yeah that's fair. the game does not, in fact, inform you how to upgrade your units.

However! It does not take two cantos to unlock Luxcavations. Now I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you dropped the game before that update, but a few weeks after launch they removed thread and exp from the Mirror Dungeons and added grindable micro-stages for them instead. EXP Lux is unlocked I believe around stage 1-10, an upgraded version around 2-18 (?), and Thread Lux after clearing Canto 2, where you also unlock Mirror Dungeons, which is where you get Lunacy and BP Exp. So, while that may have very briefly been true, this has been cleared up and fixed!

Defense skills are probably the only truly well-explained thing in the Prologue tutorial, so I'm sorry to say that this one was purely a personal issue on your part. While the circumstances of their use are not made immediately clear, that's less an issue of the explanation and more an issue of the game's balance, a discussion to be had that is far outside the scope of this post.

Nitpick among nitpicks, dungeons do not have a different combat system! Normal battles still occur within them, and starting in Canto 4 the Focus Battle system (reminiscent of Ruina's battle system) will also occur on overworld stages on occasion! Just a matter of "not quite as cut and dry as immediately laid out"

Ah, the classic victim of the tutorial and it's vague misrepresentation of the purpose of Resonance. This will have multiple parts, so starting off with the most understandable misunderstanding: Resonance does not, in fact, increase the damage you deal. Weird, right? It increases the Offense Level of skills in the chain, which is a small but extremely important distinction, since Offense Level can also affect Clash Power. Is this ever explained? Fuck no. Not your fault, just a bad tutorialization moment again.

While this is not made immediately obvious to the player, Sin does carry more weight to the battle system than you may think! First and foremost, adding a second layer of resistance really highlights how powerful the game's multiplicative damage scaling can really be, and allows some units to still be useful even if their primary damage type is resisted by the enemies.

It's not just that, though! Even on release, the sins did sort of have their own little niches like you described in your post, but you didn't quite make it far enough or get a large enough roster to really notice the patterns. The most obvious example of this is the difference between Envy (purple) and Gluttony (green). Envy is basically the plain and simple damage color, associated with multiple "nuke" skills, as well as being the primary color for Charge, which is Damage: The Archetype. Gluttony, on the other hand, lacks "nukes" altogether and is often used as a technical, status and self-healing type Sin, and also has a fair bit of Paralyze for some reason? Regardless, there's identity with each Sin, which I think is cool!

There is, because Limbus sort of fails at gacha-ing, still an odd sense of progression in Limbus! Not only are the LCB Sinners automatically upgraded as you finish the initial batch of Cantos, but the feeling of getting bigger, better, stronger options comes from not only expanding your roster, but the feeling of more complex teambuilding and additional gameplay mechanics through gameplay-story integration. Eventually we even get new story-locked toys to play with! There's also the micro-progression in Dungeons (including Mirror Dungeons, arguably especially so) but even on a grander scale, there is a nice sense of it. Less so than Ruina, of course, no denying that, but they go out of their way to make it still feel good to play through.

I will not be touching upon the story comment because you already included that edit. Yes, anon is right, it does give you the tools you need to understand what is present.

Some more subjective things, but I tried to tackle them in as objective a manner as possible. But as we are all experiencing art here, there will inevitably be these subjective matters to discuss! Many of these things weren't your fault either as they were added later in updates to the game, but such things are to be expected in live service titles.

To circle back to the original point, sometimes you just have to sit back and wonder if what you're saying will hold water, and if you happen to know enough to speak at length. I'm sorry you had a negative experience with the game to start, and I am morally obligated to not recommend gachas to people in general if they don't wish to play them, so I'll not be asking for your return. I just like clearing things up!

I hope this was informative, and I thank you for reading!

[transandersrights]

happy friday! :3 for dadwc, some song lyrics! maybe they'll spark an idea for you. "You settle down, where you runnin' to? / What else can you prove? / How many, many more until you lose?" from Carbon Leaf's Desperation Song

(I take prompts! See info here)

Ty for the prompt!! 1k of post-DA2 Anders & Fenris for @dadrunkwriting, based on this song (which is a BANGER, Carbon Leaf is so good). Rated T, content warnings for: references to slavery and injury.

“You’re here again.” And oh, for fuck’s sake. Anders knew that voice, and how had this happened again?

Anders gave himself a second to collect himself, another to suppress the sigh, and a third to thread the needle for today’s third patient who’d refused magical treatment. Then, without looking up from his work, he replied. “You’re here again too, Fenris.”

Fenris’ chuckle was as dark as usual. “I suppose I am,” he said. “Yet one of us has half a continent out for our arrest, and the other does not. I thought Varric was moving you to somewhere safe again?”

“I did move again,” Anders answered. He didn’t shrug — his hands needed to be steady — but he was sure Fenris could hear the gesture in his voice. “Varric knows better than to ask me to stay idle.”

“He moved you under the supervision of someone he could bribe again,” Fenris surmised. And sure, that was fair. True, probably, but the healing set of hands helped — that was why they kept meeting, after all.

“What kind of injury did you get fighting someone outrageous this time?” Anders asked. Last time they met, Fenris had taken off his armour miles out of the town, removed his shirt, and stemmed the flow of the bleeding with that. He’d stumbled into Anders’ infirmary shaky, probably only alive because of the force of his will.

Fenris hadn’t moved to sit down yet, though, so it probably wasn’t so bad this time. Hopefully.

“It’s not me this time.” And that was a surprise, at least, but a concerning one. Because when Fenris wasn’t just out there killing people…

“How many?” Anders pulled the last stitch through, tied the thread, and cut the last of it. His half-grateful patient didn’t smile, but he did seem to be paying attention when Anders rattled off his usual instructions (take care, don’t remove them without the approval of a healer, don’t put too much weight on it, keep it clean, come back if anything at all seems wrong).

“Four,” Fenris replied, voice tight. “None on death’s door, but they need attention. I think one or two are just very hungry, but I didn’t have enough water for them, let alone food. Safer to give them all a check-up.”

“On your own again?” People did these operations in teams for a reason, damn it. Fenris was the only one Anders had seen actually follow through on the threat that he ‘worked better alone’.

“They’re back safe.” Fenris was bristling. In his defence, in all the times they’d encountered each other in various Tevinter border towns, Anders had never known Fenris to lose someone he was protecting; even if it meant he had to let one of their pursuers live. “They need your attention, if you’re done.”

“I am.” Anders ignored the twinge in his knees as he stood; he’d been working since dawn, and it was nearly dusk now. But there were still people who needed him, so he’d keep going. “Take me to them.”

Recent arrivals rarely came straight to his clinic, preferring to stay in guarded safe houses. Staying put was a skill Fenris — and Hawke, and Varric — would rather Anders learn too, but he preferred it like this. Eventually, he’d have to move on if someone with a little too much curiosity and far too much loyalty to the Chantry decided to look too closely, and this would begin again.

For now, though, there were four people who needed his help in a house a district away, and nothing was going to stop him. Definitely not Fenris, who was eyeing him with his usual mix of exasperation and barely-concealed concern.

“I hear things are getting tense down south,” he commented. Anders didn’t know if it was an accusation or not, but it was something.

“We get our news from the same people,” Anders pointed out. Fenris huffed out a laugh.

“We do. So?”

“So what?”

“Will you be joining them?”

Anders paused. He’d been thinking about it for weeks — months, even. From the moment he learned that news was spreading outside Kirkwall. News of the truth. He still didn’t have an answer. “It depends on how things play out. I don’t think they’d want me.”

Fenris scoffed. “You are rather a liability,” he said. They were unkind words, but not said in an unkind tone. He held an arm in front of Anders when he checked the street they were about to enter, then let him proceed. “You have skills they will need.”

“They need those skills here, too.” Healing skills were needed everywhere. If there was someone who decided who was rich and who was poor, there was always another someone who didn’t get what they needed. Someone who worked too hard. Someone who got hurt and couldn't get help.

Anders was needed in all of those places — and here, it didn’t matter if an escaped slave associated with the man who blew up a Chantry. They were already facing down desperate conditions with unthinkable consequences if they got caught; what was one more crime?

“The mages are your people.” And he said it when no one was around, just as Anders always insisted he did in Kirkwall — even though half the people in this district had the name he was using these days, and magic couldn’t get him hauled anywhere around here.

“Justice has no people,” Anders reminded him. “Just those who suffer and are in need of aid I can provide.”

Fenris sighed. They were nearly there, and in the low light of evening, Anders noticed that he looked tired, too. He was running himself ragged out here, in the hopes he’d save just one more person.

They’d never been all that dissimilar. Now, there was more that joined than separated them.

“I see I cannot help you make up your mind,” Fenris said. “I think they will be desperate enough to take you, but you are your own man. Run yourself into the ground wherever you please.”

Anders laughed loud enough that someone looked over, seemingly concerned. “And the same to you, my friend. It’s good to see you again.”

[rinhaler]

Hey, I wanted to ask about that plagiarism. I went on ao3 and commented under that chapter that this is a plagiarism. When I was doing that the work was already changed and tho the fragments that previously were nearly identical (basing on your screens) were gone, it was not hard to find other that were also similar, just formated differently.

The author of that work replied (harshly) not adressing any of the accusations, rather they got ironical and at the end asked me to leave their space. Like, the internet is public...anyway.

In my comment I added that it might get deleted and it did. The whole thread got.

I know that it was your work that got plagiarised but I got involved because the matter was simply infuriating from the perspective of a reader. I was thinking about going back and commenting again but if I will get deleted once again there is no point in pouring my energy into it.

I just feel that it's unfair to anyone who reads that ao3 author. They did something wrong but they keep resolving the matters behind the public's eyes as to not damage their image and narrative. Is it really okay? There is also no proof they did not plaiarise in other works and that they will not do it in the future.

Sorry for bringing it out again. I just wanted to share those thoughts and ask about yours.

Hi love thank you for contacting me. Obviously plagiarism is terrible and I'm really upset that this has happened again and my heart goes out to anyone else who's had their work stolen too. It's really stressful and unfair and it's even worse if the person in question is hostile or straight up denies their wrong doing.

I didn't read their entire series, obviously it's a huge multichap and I just don't have the time or energy to spend on doing something like that right now. So if there is more of my own work or anyone else's in that series I'd of course like to know about it.

The way it has resolved for me is a positive outcome. I'm really giving the benefit of the doubt that the rest of the writing is this particular authors work and they just had a lapse in judgement. As I said, I don't have the energy to read this entire story to check otherwise. If there's evidence of more plagiarism, I would like to see it so that I can address it once again.

But as it stands this instance is currently over. And I'm grateful it hasn't dragged out for ages like last time I had to deal with plagiarism.

I do appreciate wholeheartedly that people are willing to fight my corner and help me with these matters, to make sure the right thing comes to fruition. I will always be grateful for that because without that support it would be so much harder to get anywhere.

I'm only aware of the poster stealing from me, I've not seen or heard otherwise. And I honestly don't love drama or getting into huge arguments or public disputes, I don't have the mental capacity for it. I wholeheartedly just want to move on and forget about it for now. If things change and come to light that more of my work has been stolen, I'm prepared to fight for what's right again. But for now, I just want to forget about it.

We talked it out, she apologised profusely. The writing has been changed and the wattpad version has been removed entirely. So for now, and hopefully forever, the matter is closed 💕

[nobilismare]

Hi hi ♡ It's been a while! I'm sort of back but my activity can be sporadic because I still have nerve pain after 7 weeks T_T I'm going to see my third therapist on Friday who's well known with more complex cases so hopefully she can help me out.

I've deleted all asks and threads that were in my drafts to give me a fresh start and I've removed some muses. Now I'm left with the ones I'm more comfortable writing with and have been with me for a lot longer. No more Engage muses for now but maybe I'll bring them back in the future.

I look forward to writing with you guys again! ❤