#but there are inherent paths that are already open to me

[sluttyten]

The Devil in Me

Kinktober Day 9 | Haechan Masterlist | Member Masterlist

tags: loss of virginity, first time, oral sex, marking, biting, possessive/protective Haechan, mentions of human sacrifice, demons, a lot softer/romantic than it sounds

length: 8293

Maybe you should have heeded the warnings of your friends and family, but you’d thought it was all just a bit of small-mindedness and prejudice. 

When you started seeing a guy who was a loud and proud satanist, your friends and family had all told you that he would be bad news. But you’d done some research into the belief system of satanists, and it wasn’t inherently evil, as they all seemed to believe. And you liked this guy, he was charming and handsome and he spoke to you like you were his everything, that you were someone special to him. 

And now, in your present position, you can see that you were in fact someone special to him. 

You were his virgin sacrifice. 

It had been a mistake to tell him that you were a virgin. You could’ve fed him some other excuse for why you didn’t want to have sex, but you’d gone with the truth. And now look where it got you. 

He’d brought you out into the woods on the premise of a night hike, stargazing, camping and keeping each other warm beside a campfire. But now you were strapped to a wooden table in the middle of a circle of fire in the woods, and he was pacing in circles around you, chanting words and drawing symbols on his bare chest in either red paint or some kind of blood. 

He’d already given you the evil villain speech. This was a ritual to summon a demon he’d read about — a chaos demon who could grant him wealth and talent by stealing it from others. He was going to sacrifice you and blah blah blah. You’d stopped listening after a while. The straps on your wrists were so tight that you were losing feeling in your fingertips. Your ankles were tied down too, and you could see no way out of this, resigned to your fate. 

All you know is that if he kills you, you’re going to haunt the shit out of him. 

When he stops his pacing, when the chanting slows, you close your eyes and send a prayer out to anyone listening to save you. 

The asshole teases you with your own death. He trails his hunting knife from your neck down between your breasts, slicing apart your shirt as he goes. 

Your shirt falls open, and he returns the blade to your throat. You refuse to make a sound, you refuse to give him the satisfaction of hearing you cry out. 

“Look at me!” He yells, his hand gripping your chin. “I want you to watch.”

Your eyes fly open, and you stare this asshole in the eye, putting as much hatred and vitriol in your gaze as you can. 

He grins, trailing the knife lower, and with a flick of his wrist, he gives you a shallow cut just above your left breast. You can see the first drops of your blood well up to the surface. His eyes light up, the chant falling from his lips again as he lifts his hand and the blade, drawing them up into the air over the center of your chest. 

He’s going to plunge it into your heart, that’s something he said during his monologue. 

You suck in a breath, watching his hand, watching the moonlight glint off the blade. 

He swings. 

And a tan hand curls around his wrist, halting the movement. 

“I don’t think so,” a smooth voice says. 

You watch the hand on your would-be murderer’s wrist. The hand guides his, redirecting the path of his blade, and you squeeze your eyes shut as the blade draws across his throat. You try to tune out the wet choking sound as your would-be murderer collapses, as he pulls himself away through the grass and the brush, as he dies the ugly death he would have given to you. 

You open your eyes when you can no longer hear him struggling to survive, and you see before you a beautiful, beautiful demon. 

His eyes glow a deep red. Two black horns stick out from his black hair. Ragged black wings jut out from his shoulders. And he’s beautiful. Devastatingly handsome. 

The summoning ritual worked. 

The fight for survival comes racing back through you, and you jerk against your bonds, crying out, screaming for help. You’ll not have your soul taken by a demon. That’s not happening tonight!

“Don’t be afraid,” he says calmly, “I’m not here to hurt you.”

With a wave of his hand, the bonds on your wrists snap, your ankles suddenly are freed as well. You sit up, clutching at the sides of your shirt to pull them together over your chest. The demon looks at you, and then turns his head to the side towards where you last heard that bastard's dying breaths fade away. 

“Some humans are real assholes, yknow?” The demon says, still not looking at you. “They think we all want sacrifices, which, don’t get me wrong, they can be nice from time to time, but we don’t demand the murder of virgins. We certainly don’t demand unwilling pretty women be murdered in the woods.”

He spits towards what you can only assume is the dead body of your would-be murderer. And then the demon looks back at you, eyes aglow. 

“I’m Haechan,” he introduces himself, holding his hand out to you. “But you can call me Donghyeok.” 

You hesitate for a moment, uncertain if you should give him your name or shake his hand. You feel like you’ve heard stories about how bad doing either of those things could be. But in the end, it’s the way that the corner of his mouth tilts up as he watches you that convinces you. 

You put your hand in his, and you give him your name. 

Donghyeok lifts your hand, brushing his lips across your knuckles. “Pleased to have saved you.” 

Your pulse throbs in your veins, pounding in your ears. 

An actual demon is holding your hand, standing before you smelling like sea air and citrus rather than the burning brimstone stories would have you believe. Donghyeok lowers your hand, and you pull it back into your lap. 

“That guy seemed like a dick.” Donghyeok turns away, shaking his wings as he walks over to the nearest flickering ground torch. He continues talking while he extinguishes that torch, saying, “Very bossy in his summoning chant. I probably would’ve ended up killing him even if he wasn’t trying to murder you. How did you end up here, anyway?”

“I was stupid.” You droop forward, hanging your head as you look down at your knees. “I let him trick me into thinking he was a good guy despite all the warnings from everyone around me. I thought they were just prejudiced since he was a Satanist, but they were right.” You risk a glance in Donghyeok’s direction. “I shouldn’t have ever told him I’m a virgin, I was basically just asking to get sacrificed in a demonic ritual.”

Donghyeok’s wings flare as he turns to look at you. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever blame yourself for the actions of a stupid man. He is the one that did this, not you.” 

He extinguishes two more torches before either of you speak again. 

“Virgin sacrifices don’t actually mean, like sexual virginity, yknow?” Donghyeok says, his back facing you while he puts out another torch. Now only four of them remain lit in the circle. “It’s virgin blood. Blood that’s never been used for a ritual before. As soon as he cut you, I felt the call, and I saw what he was going to do to you. I’m tired of men killing women with the excuse of summoning me. I just require a few drops of blood to be spilled, not a life taken.”

Donghyeok waves his wings, and three more torches flicker out, leaving just one glowing right in front of you, providing just enough light to see by as Donghyeok strides back to you. His bloody red eyes sweep over you from head to toe. 

“What are you going to do to me?” You can tell your voice is small, nearly lost in the whisper of wind through the trees. But Donghyeok hears, and he cocks his head slightly to the side to watch you. 

“Haven’t you been listening?” He reaches up, snapping his fingers together and drawing a handkerchief out of thin air. “I’m not here to do anything to you. I came to rescue you from that asshole, and now you’re free.” He holds the handkerchief out to you. 

“So you’re just going to leave me here?” You accept the silky white cloth, and you find one corner of it embroidered with flowy script — LDH, it says, and you run your thumb over the fine threads making up the letters. 

“I didn’t say I was leaving you.” He smiles, and again, your pulse thunders. “We can go, or we can stay here and have sex.”

A squawk of surprise and indignation leaves you, which makes Donghyeok laugh. And fuck, you thought he was beautiful before, the sight and sound of his genuine laughter makes him even more beautiful. 

“I’m joking!” He keeps laughing, his shoulders shaking as he tries to hold it in while he speaks, “But I can get you out of here in a snap so you don’t have to hike back through these woods in the dark.” 

“Please!” You reach out, grabbing both of his hands, holding them between yours. “Please, get me out of here.”

Donghyeok’s expression goes serious. “I will, I promise. And what about him?” 

You begin to turn your head to look, but you change your mind, keeping your gaze fixed on this beautiful demon. You shake your head. “Leave him. The police can deal with him, I’ll report the crime when I get back to town.”

Donghyeok watches you for a moment, contemplating something. Then he shrugs, holds tighter to your hands, and you feel a tug behind your navel. 

The scenery around you has changed.

You’re still in the woods, but just at the edge of it. You can see the lights of town just ahead through the trunks. 

“Here, let’s at least make it look like you’ve run back here.” Donghyeok crouches down, filling his hand with soft dirt. “May I?”

You’re not entirely sure what you’re agreeing to, but you nod. Immediately, Donghyeok is touching you, spreading dirt over your clothes, a smear of mud along the torn open edge of your shirt. He runs his fingers through your hair (which shouldn’t feel as good as it does). He plucks some twigs and leaves, sticking them haphazardly in your hair, dangling from a new rip at the bottom of your shirt. 

He takes a step back to appreciate his handiwork, then nods, satisfied. 

You both stand there looking at each other for a moment, and finally you say, “Thank you.”

Donghyeok nods. “You didn’t deserve what that asshole was going to do to you. None of them ever do deserve it. He, however, deserved everything he got, and everything he’s going to get when I get back to Hell.”

“Thank you,” you repeat because you mean it, and there are no words more genuine that you can think to say. “Really, Donghyeok, thank you.”

You turn towards the lights of town. You’re going to the police, filing a report, making sure they know that that bastard tried to kill you, and he's the reason he’s dead. 

“One thing before you go!” Donghyeok steps in front of you. You look up at him just as he reaches out and puts his hand on your right shoulder. His hand burns hot and then hotter through your shirt, and you hiss in pain, trying to draw away, but Donghyeok holds on, only releasing you once the pain begins to fade into a tingle. 

“That’s all. See you around.”

And then the demon disappears into a shadowy mist. 

You stand there for a moment before you pull yourself back together, and you walk into town, straight for the police station. 

They believe the story, which is good since most of it is true. Only part of it is fictionalized: when you say that you managed to slip the bonds he’d had on your wrists, the part where you wrestled the knife from him, where you’d cut him across the throat and then run miles back to town through the woods. But the story is believable because the facts and evidence are all there — the police trek through the woods and find the site of the ritual, find his body, find a blade that somehow has your fingerprints; they find plans in his apartment, records of messages between him and others, of his search history on how to summon a demon and how to perform a virgin sacrifice. 

When you finally leave the police station, returning home under the care of your family and friends, you finally get a moment to yourself in the shower. 

You peel off your pants and socks, drag your shirt over your head, slip off your panties and bra, and then you look at yourself in the mirror. 

Black inky lines that weren’t there before these events are there now. You twist, angling better towards the mirror to be able to see what appears to be a whole tattoo that you never got. 

A sunflower curves from front to back over your shoulder and down onto your arm. 

You brush your fingers over the petals, feeling your skin tingle in a not unpleasant way. It sends a curl of warmth into your belly, makes your heart pound. 

It’s Donghyeok, you know it is. 

This is his mark, left on you. 

The next time you see him, it’s too brief for your liking. 

There’s a street festival, sort of like a carnival in town, and you spend hours down there one day as afternoon turns to evening turns to night. It brings all the weirdos out, from your town and those surrounding. You stick close to your friends, you have fun, you spend too much money on greasy food and rigged carnival games, you flirt with a cute carnie to get the big stuffed teddy bear prize. 

Your friends decide to ride the Ferris wheel, but your mild fear of heights and the lure of a big pink cloud of cotton candy call to you instead. You’ll stay here feet firmly on the ground, enjoying your cotton candy, and watching them take a turn on the giant wheel. 

But first you have to find the cotton candy booth. 

You’re carrying your teddy prize like it’s a toddler, hoisted up to sit on your hip. You’re still rather pleased with yourself for having flirted it out of the carnie, even though you’re not quite sure what you’re going to do with it, and carrying it around for the rest of the night is possibly going to become a bit of a hindrance. 

You cut between two game booths, slipping into the shadowed path that runs along the backs of the games, like an alley between the ring toss games facing one way and the basketball and shooting games facing the other. The cotton candy booth is visible at the end. 

You have to step over wires, bags of vacuum-sealed prizes, a crate that’s surrounded by cigarette butts. The dings and chimes, alarm sounds and cries of joy all sound muffled, leaving you feeling a bit apart from the carnival despite being right in the heart of it. 

A figure melts out of the shadows, suddenly keeping perfect stride with you. 

You gasp, twisting around with the bear between you and this shadow-born devil. 

“Me again,” Donghyeok laughs. 

He’s got his hands tucked into his pockets. The devil horns are concealed by a hood. He’s wearing a leather jacket that has black wings stitched into the back panel. He could pass for normal, you think as your heart settles back into a more normal rhythm, if only his eyes weren’t still a deep red with his pupils reflecting light like an animal’s eyes at night. 

“Donghyeok.” You almost collapse against the back of one of the game tents. 

His lips curl around the sound of your name. You like the sound of that — his voice, your name. 

You just stand there staring at him for a moment, amazed that he’s actually here. In the days after your near-sacrifice, you’d almost convinced yourself that Donghyeok had been nothing more than a figment of your imagination used to soften the trauma of that night a little. But here he is again. Real. In the flesh. 

“Are you keeping out of trouble?” He asks, and when you nod, he scoffs. “But you’re back here walking by yourself? Do you know what kinds of people are drawn to work these carnivals? The transient lifestyle calls to some pretty awful people.” He turns to look back along the path you’ve been walking in this makeshift alleyway. 

Several feet back, there’s a slumped over figure where there hadn’t been before. And the longer you look, the more you realize it’s that cute carnie that had given you the bear.

“Don’t worry, baby, I’ve got your back.” Donghyeok pats your right shoulder, his skin hot against yours. “You should get back to your friends before they start worrying. Here, this is for you.” 

Out of thin air, he draws a large fluffy pink cotton candy, holding it out to you. 

Donghyeok escorts you back towards your friends, and he blends in with the crowd, looking perfectly human except for his eyes. His shoulder bumps against yours. He chatters and laughs with you. You find it so curious the way that your heart skips each time you look at him. 

Hours later, once you’re safely ensconced at home, you notice that the center of your sunflower marking on your shoulder is darker than it used to be, almost like you’d gotten it shaded in. 

Donghyeok again, you’re sure. 

You recall his hand on your shoulder, the gentle but pleasant burn of his skin on yours. 

You turn your head, resting your cheek against your shoulder. The center of the sunflower is warm against your cheek. 

A few weeks later, you’re certain your family thinks you’re crazy. You’ve not seen Donghyeok again since that night at the carnival, and honestly, you’re beginning to feel very Bella Swan in New Moon about the situation. You’re about to start throwing yourself into harm’s way just to see if Donghyeok will make an appearance to save you; although, you have a strong suspicion that if he knew you were doing dangerous things intentionally, he would make a point of not showing up. 

So, instead of trying to cross paths with dangerous men (again), you decide to go to the library and local bookstores and pull any books you can find on how to summon a demon. You do research online, printing out pages and pages of summoning rituals. You’ve got a whole wall of your bedroom dedicated to the stuff.

“There is something very wrong with you,” your dad says one afternoon when he sees it all. “You survived that satanist dick. Why would you put yourself through this?”

You’re pretty sure your family and friends think you’re doing this to torture yourself. You can tell they’re all worried for you, all of them concerned about what path you’re taking.

But you’re not diving headfirst into satanism or anything like that really. You just want to summon one demon in particular – a chaos demon named Haechan who has asked you personally to call him Donghyeok.

You seek out a different ritual than the one performed when you first met him. You don’t want to have to sacrifice a virgin even if it only means a few drops of voluntary blood; that veers too close to the sacrifice you’d almost found yourself to be in the woods. 

Eventually, you find a source online that suggests a few specific crystals, certain herbs, fire and chalk and a spell in a language that you’ll have to teach yourself. But it seems doable. You just have to find a shop for all of those things, and then you’ll summon Donghyeok. You just want to see him again. You’re drawn to him, and maybe it’s because he saved you so you’ve got some weird type of twist on Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe it’s this sunflower he marked on your shoulder, the roots it’s put down inside you making you want to see him more and more, thirsting for him like a desert plant in a drought. 

You find a shop perfectly suited to your needs. The woman running the place seems quirky enough that you don’t have any qualms about telling her everything — what you’re looking for, how you’re going to use it, why you’re using it — and you’re obsessed with the gleeful twinkle in her eye as she dances around the shop, gathering the items you’ve listed, plucking them from dark corners, from a bay of windows, from bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling. 

“I do have to warn you,” she says as she carefully packs it all into a bag for you, her voice dipping towards a serious tone to say, “Some demons are always listening for a call, even if it’s not for them, especially when it’s a pretty girl like you calling with almost no taint in your blood. Just know, dear, that when you call for your demon, someone else might try reaching through. So be careful when you speak the spell. Clear pronunciation, clear focus and determination.”

She pats your hand tenderly before you leave, and she wishes you well. 

You set up the ritual in your bedroom. You push all the furniture out of the center of the room, roll back the rug that usually covers the floor beneath your bed. You sketch out the symbols in chalk on the hardwood floor, you set up the crystals exactly according to the diagram on the website, placing candles exactly right too. You scatter herbs across the pentagram, sprinkle a few in a bowl set in the center of the ritual space, and finally you kneel beside it. 

You clear your mind except for thoughts of Donghyeok, your wish to have him in front of you, and you begin speaking the words you’ve been practicing since you found them. 

Before, they’ve felt like hollow words, but now as they fall from your lips there’s a new weight to them. 

You continue, keeping your mind set, and you strike a match, watch the flame flicker and wave as you continue speaking the spell, the foreign words feeling strange on your lips and tongue, creating a tingle that makes you feel that this must be working, that you’ll be able to see Donghyeok again. 

You drop the match into the bowl of crushed herbs in the center of the pentagram. The bowl is instantly engulfed in flame, the heat kissing your cheeks, and the final words of the spell incinerate in the air, the flames crackling and flashing a solid purple for a moment. 

You feel the air from the room disappear as the fire swirls and sparks, as the candle flames around the circle shoot up elongated and casting shadows. The crystals crack and shimmer.

And when it all falls away, when the flame in the bowl extinguishes and the candles resume their normal flame size, you look up at the demon standing above you. 

It’s not him. 

You gasp, falling back on your hands. 

The demon is fearsome, brutish. He reaches for you, gnarled red fingers clawed with filthy talons. You scramble backwards as he grabs for your sleeve, tearing the fabric when you jerk backwards. 

Suddenly the demon releases you and stands straight within the pentagram. 

“Haechan’s mark?” He utters in a garbled, deep voice straight from the pits of Hell. “You are under Haechan’s protection?”

A sharp whistle from across your bedroom draws your attention and that of the hideous demon in front of you. 

Donghyeok sits on your bed, looking relaxed as ever. He cocks his head to the side, staring down this other demon. “That’s right. She’s under my protection, so get the fuck out.”

Donghyeok flicks his fingers, and the other demon vanishes in a wave of smoke and embers. 

You can’t look away from Donghyeok lounging on your bed like it’s his throne. He’s wearing that leather jacket again, though right now his devil horns are visible poking through his dark hair. You’ve missed looking at him. 

He looks at you now too. “You called?”

“I wanted to see you,” you tell truthfully. 

“Why?” Donghyeok asks, not moving from the bed, just sitting there and watching you. 

“Well why did you mark me?” You lift your fingers to the flower on your shoulder, brushing your fingers over the petals. 

Across the room, Donghyeok’s eyelids flutter, and he rolls his head on his neck a little as if to relieve tension. “I marked you because I want you to be safe. I knew if any other demons saw my mark on you, they would leave you alone, as just evidenced.” He gestures at the pentagram. “And because I wanted you to have something to remember me by. And I like the thought of you wearing a memory of me.”

You stroke the petals of the flower again, and Donghyeok sits up on the edge of your bed, sitting forward. 

“The flower changed the last time I saw you.” You draw your finger up to the center, darker now than it had been when Donghyeok first marked you the night you met. “The center has color now.”

“I know.” He leans forward, but doesn’t leave your bed, though he seems to just be hanging onto the very edge of it. He doesn’t explain more, just looks at you as if waiting for more. 

You climb to your feet, picking your way through the candles and crystals and herbs, and you come to stand just in front of Donghyeok. He raises his gaze to your face, his hands are planted on either side of his thighs, and he doesn’t say a word as you reach out a hand, as you first touch his cheek with just your fingertips, and then you move them along his jaw, up into his hair. 

Donghyeok’s eyes flutter shut, a sigh falls from his lips. 

Your fingers find his horns, and gently you run your fingers along them both. 

His hands fly to your hips, a breath catching audibly in his throat. “What are you doing?” He asks, voice tight but not in a way like he wants you to stop. 

“You’re beautiful, Donghyeok,” you can’t resist saying, “And you’ve marked me, so maybe I want to return the favor.”

Donghyeok’s lips draw into a smirk. “Mark me how? Who are you trying to show that I’m yours?”

Your heart thunders, heat racing through your body at the sound of that. I’m yours, he said. “Say it again,” you demand. 

“Say what?” Donghyeok’s eyes open at last, flicking open and lifting to meet your gaze. “That marking me would show others that I’m yours? That I belong to you in some way?” His hands tighten in your hips pleasantly, and you shuffle a little more forward into the V of his open thighs. Donghyeok smiles up at you, saying, “Baby, you’re mine. And you have been since the night we met, since I put my mark on your shoulder. It’s only fair that you put a claim on me too. Do your worst.”

Challenge burns in his red eyes, and heat flows through you, rivers of fire that all lead to one point, settling low in your belly — a pool of burning need that you’ve never felt with anyone else before. 

With your fingers still in Donghyeok’s hair, you tip his head back. His lips pull into a wider grin, a soft sound of amusement, and then, “I forgot, baby, you’re a virgin. Are you intimidated by the thought of marking me?”

“No,” you groan. “Shut up.” 

You push Donghyeok’s shoulders, and he flops onto his back in your bed. 

God, he just looks like a guy, any normal guy that you might have found and invited back to your bed. And you’ve had a man in your bed before. You’ve had make out sessions, had heated heavy petting that never led anywhere. You’ve had hickeys, and given out your fair share of them too. 

But Donghyeok is Donghyeok. There’s definitely something intimidating about the confident way he’s looking at you, the sexy look in his eye as he watches you — not just a look that says that he knows he’s sexy, but even more arousing is that the look in his eyes tells you that he finds you incredibly sexy. 

You sink onto your bed on your knees, straddling the demon’s lap. Donghyeok lifts his hands up, interlacing his fingers behind his head as he watches you, and the expression on his face is just stoking that fire inside of you. 

“Can you sit up?” You ask. “Take your jacket off?”

“Mm,” Donghyeok hums. “I like when you tell me what to do.”

Your belly swoops, and his grin widens. 

He sits up, and you find his smile just inches in front of you. He shrugs out of his jacket, pushing it off the bed, and then he’s sitting here beneath you in a plain white tee, the denim of his jeans rubs against your thighs. And he’s right here. Right here. Lips just in front of you, and your hands drift back to touch him, to feel the warmth and breadth of his shoulders, and then your thumbs are sweeping in to trace over his Adam’s apple, which bobs when he swallows and breathes in sharply. Your fingers slide around to the nape of his neck, just pushing into his hair, and Donghyeok makes a noise so quiet yet so filled with desire. 

You’ve been sitting here watching the path of your hands, but now you look at his lips so full and moist in front of you. And then you look just a bit higher to his eyes. 

Perhaps the demonic bloody red of them should scare you, but they don’t. They stare into yours and you can’t bring yourself to give a damn about the fact that Donghyeok is a demon and not just a man. 

That doesn’t matter to you one bit when you finally press your lips to his. 

Donghyeok immediately kisses you back, opening up to your kiss, but he lets you take the lead, lets you do what you want with him. He moans when you push your hands higher into his hair at the back of his head, moans when you suck on his tongue, moans when you press your chest against his. 

You moan when his hands finally find your hips again. Donghyeok drags your hips across the front of his pants, and you break the kiss to let out a shuddery moan. 

“Okay?” He murmurs, lips falling down to your jaw, leaving butterfly kisses along the underside. 

“Yes,” you sigh, “Do it again.”

Donghyeok drags you over his crotch again, rolling his hips up too, and you can feel him then, his erection beginning to press against the front of his jeans. He does it again and again, and after a few moments, you pick up the rhythm, taking over as you simulate riding him, and you bring his mouth back onto yours. 

Again, Donghyeok is happy to let you lead, to control what’s happening. 

He just touches you without pushing you, kisses you at the pace you set, although that doesn’t mean he’s a passive participant in all of this. He’s reacting and vocal, occasionally nipping at your bottom lip, occasionally bucking his hips out of rhythm with your moves. It’s like he’s giving you little peeks into his desire for you, moments when his cool demon facade slips. 

Donghyeok moans when you leave his mouth behind to instead kiss his neck. His hands come to rest on your ass while you keep rolling and grinding down on his straining erection, and you’re feeling the tightening in your belly, you know if you don’t stop soon you’re going to cum like this. But it wouldn’t be the first time. You’ve had boyfriends and casual relationships before that respected your virginity, that had been content with things like this, found it hot to cum when fully clothed. 

Donghyeok seems to be in the same mindset. 

His golden skin beneath your lips is hot, and he moans your name again and again, rolling his hips up to meet each downward push of yours. You rock your hips more frantically, losing control as your orgasm rises. You bite at his throat as you cum, and Donghyeok’s hands on your ass keep you moving, keeping up with the push and pull of your pussy grinding over his erection. 

Your body is still tingling as you roll off of him, as you lie down in your bed and pull him over you. “More,” you demand, “I want more.”

“Are you sure?” The demon above you asks. 

You crave more from him. Donghyeok has you hotter than any man ever has before. 

He kisses you without warning, jolting forward and sweeping you into a dramatic, hungry kiss. You want him, and you pour that desire into the kiss, impatient and horny for him to give you more. 

You don’t wait for Donghyeok to start undressing you, you reach down and unfasten your shorts, maneuvering them off your hips and down your legs. The shirt’s a bit more difficult to rid yourself of, but Donghyeok obligingly breaks the kiss to let you pull it over your head, and while you’re in this position with space between you, you reach for the hem of his shirt. 

“Can I?” You ask, tucking your fingers beneath the hem. “I want to have all of you.”

Donghyeok’s eyes flash flaming red. His voice is rough with emotion when he says simply, “Yes.”

You drag his shirt over his head without another moment wasted. And then your hands are back in his hair, stroking the curve of his horns as Donghyeok crushes his mouth to yours again. 

Donghyeok grinds against your thigh while the two of you make out, and you have to pull one of your hands from his hair, seeking out one of his hands to pull down between your legs. 

You’ve been touched like this before too. Over the panties, an ex rubbing your clit and stroking along your slit with the thin fabric between you and him. You’d managed a weak, unsatisfactory orgasm from it after a drawn out attempt, and decided to end things with him a few days later citing that you just didn’t feel the chemistry. 

But presently, the moment Donghyeok’s fingers make contact with your clit over your panties, your brain is buzzing. Every nerve ending in your body is alert. 

Donghyeok kisses you through every gasp and sigh. He smiles when you whine and buck your hips, when you circle your hips and grab at his wrist to guide his fingers towards your wet entrance, to the spot where your panties are absolutely soaked through. He kisses the corner of your mouth, and teases, “Do you want me to continue?”

You push away your panties, almost tearing them in your rush to be rid of them. 

This much you’ve never done before. Never done penetration even with a man’s fingers. 

Whether Donghyeok can read that in you, or if he sees the slight anxious anticipation in your gaze, he tenderly kisses your lips, sufficiently distracting you as he slicks his fingers against your bare pussy. This is a first for you too. Bare fingers and bare pussy, slick wetness making the glide so much easier and more pleasant. 

Donghyeok kisses you and touches you until you’re whimpering, reaching for his wrist. “Inside me, put them inside me,” you beg, urging his hand lower. 

It doesn’t make sense for a demon to be so gentle, but he is. Donghyeok eases first a single finger inside you, then another. He leaves your lips to kiss down your throat and chest, kissing lower and lower, drawing down your body until his mouth is right there and he licks your clit. 

You’re not sure if it’s just the experience of oral sex or if it’s because it’s Donghyeok, but your entire body lights up as he licks your clit, as he thrusts his fingers into you again. He takes his time with you, filling you with his fingers, curling them inside you and brushing a spot that makes you gasp, body jerking at the incredible sensation. 

Donghyeok laughs, delighted by how you’re reacting. He kisses your hips and your belly, slowly works his way back up, and you swear it feels like he kisses every part of you. His fingers press inside your pussy, slow thrusts until you’re begging for more, raking your fingers through his hair while he’s kissing your belly. Your fingers find his horns, and you use them like handles to guide his head back down. 

He’s laughing still, thoroughly enjoying you taking control, guiding him to where you want him. 

You arch your back, rolling your hips down against his face as Donghyeok sucks your clit between his lips, his fingers suddenly fucking into you at a faster speed, skilled at touching you exactly right. 

A second orgasm sweeps through you, and you ride it out on his face and fingers. 

When you push at Donghyeok’s devil horns, he backs off, kneeling up between your legs, and he gazes down at you while he licks his lips, and brings his fingers up to his mouth. You can’t look away, completely enraptured as he licks between his fingers, as he sucks them into his mouth. His eyes are hot, raking over your body. 

You want him bad. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Donghyeok asks, pulling his fingers out of his mouth. His hand drifts down to the front of his pants, and you watch him give himself a squeeze. “Looking like you want to eat me, baby.”

You want to take a bite out of him. Well, you at least can’t fight the urge to bite him, to leave the imprint of your teeth in the curve of his shoulder, to bite his neck again since he’d seemed to like that earlier. You don’t want to eat him, but you sure want to take all of him, to have this devil inside you. 

Donghyeok slides the heel of his palm along his clothed erection, and you decide right then in that moment that you’ve had enough of waiting. 

“I’m ready,” you tell him. 

Donghyeok blinks, and again he looks more human than demon. “Ready? Like for… for sex?”

You nod. 

“You want to lose your virginity with me?” Donghyeok clarifies. You nod, but that’s still not enough for him. “I need to hear you say it.”

“Donghyeok, please will you have sex with me. I’m ready to let go of the idea of my virginity. I’m ready to have sex, and I want it to be with you.” Can you be more clear?

Yes, you’ve waited a long time for this. You’ve picked and chosen, selecting this actual demon over some normal men. But despite Donghyeok’s demonhood, he’s treated you better and been more considerate than any of the men you’ve come close to considering doing this with before. You’ve just been waiting for the right man to come along, and the right man in this case just happens to be a horny, red-eyed demon. 

Donghyeok kisses you once again, and then he waits, holding just above you until you reach up and pull him back in. He’s smiling when you kiss him, and again, he lets you take over, lets you touch him and do what you want. So when you run your hands along his ribs, when your fingertips reach the waistband of his jeans, Donghyeok just moans happily. 

His hands join yours in the effort to push his pants down, and the demon above you laughs delightfully, kissing you thoroughly making you forget the slight nerves you feel at the prospect of finally doing this, finally having sex, instead you’re just excited, just laughing and moaning along with him. 

As soon as Donghyeok’s pants are slid down and kicked off, you reach for his dick, touching him the way an ex-boyfriend of yours had liked. He’d always told you to make it all about him, taught you to do things the way that he liked. 

“Wait,” Donghyeok says, “You don’t have to do all that. I’m already worked up for you, baby. You may think being a demon comes with supernatural endurance or something, but in this I’m no better than a human man. You’re gorgeous, and that makes me want to just…” He cuts himself off by kissing you, but you think you get what he means. 

He finds you beautiful, and not only that, but beautiful enough that he feels at risk of cumming too fast if you keep touching him before he’s inside you. 

“Then fuck me.” You whisper the words to his lips. “Take me as a virgin sacrifice, Donghyeok. Like I was meant to be.”

Donghyeok scoffs, kissing you again and then he’s moving. His hand brushes yours away from his dick, and he rolls his hips forward, pressing the tip against your entrance without actually entering you. 

“Are you sure?”

“I find it beyond charming that you’re a polite, gentlemanly chaos demon, Donghyeok. Yes, I’m sure.” You shift your hips, circling them down, and Donghyeok’s dick sinks in. 

He keeps going, pressing in deeper. He’s watching your face, and you hold his gaze while you adjust to the full feeling, the different feeling of having something this thick and deep inside you. Not a bad feeling, just a different kind. 

“Don’t stop!” You gasp when Donghyeok just goes still inside you. 

He holds himself above you, just looking down at you with this expression and all of these emotions in his red eyes. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You ask, lifting a hand up to cover his eyes, but it does nothing to block his radiant smile. “Are you gonna move or just dock yourself in me?”

Donghyeok laughs again, and you’re quickly realizing that’s your favorite sound. “Maybe I’m taking in your virgin sacrifice,” he teases, “Doing my demon thing.”

“Right, sure. But can you hurry up with your demon thing?” You move your hand from his eyes, pushing your fingers into his hair to find his horns again. Donghyeok shudders with pleasure as you stroke your fingers over the ridges on one horn and then the other. “You’re not acting very demonic, you know. Treating me all gently and tenderly.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You’d rather I bend you into strange shapes and fuck you hard and rough for your first time?” Donghyeok pulls his hips back and pushes back in roughly. It stings a bit, but you don’t mind all that much. And then he does it again. “Like this?”

“Sure,” you whimper, “Fuck me like you’ve done to all the other girls you’ve ever fucked.”

Donghyeok simply kisses you, getting you to melt beneath his lips, and then he moves again, thrusting into you. You gasp into the kiss, and Donghyeok takes advantage of that to deepen the kiss, making out with you as he fucks you, his dick reaching places that you didn’t even realize existed. He’s got your legs spread wide, his hips crashing against you repeatedly, drawing pretty moans from you with each thrust against your sweet spot. 

And once you get used to this new sensation of having a dick inside you, you really enjoy it. Donghyeok’s tongue being down your throat helps a bit too, his skill with kissing is definitely distracting you from the less pleasant sensations. 

Your whole body tingles each time that Donghyeok buries himself to the hilt in you. He grinds forward, stimulating your clit, externally and internally. He touches your boobs, but that doesn’t do a whole lot for you. You keep your hands in his hair, on his horns, and that seems to drive him mad with lust; each time you’ve got your fingers on his black devil horns, Donghyeok jerks, fucking into you a little harder, a little out of control. 

It’s one of those times that you’ve got a hand curled around one of his horns, your other hand cradling the back of his neck as Donghyeok kisses your collarbones, that he moans so beautifully for you. “Fuck,” he moans, “I want to give you everything, baby. Everything I’ve got, all for you.”

You want it, whatever that means. Whatever Donghyeok has, you’ll take it. 

A moment later, he cums, heat flooding your belly, sticky and slick as he pulls out, streaking it across your inner thighs and your pussy. 

“Everything, baby,” he murmurs, kissing along your collarbone to your right shoulder. He rolls his hips forward, filling you with his dick once more right as he kisses the sunflower mark he gave you that first night. 

Fire ignited throughout your body, pleasure and desire tangling together, ramping up higher and higher. Your climax tears through you like a wildfire, and Donghyeok fucks you through it, hips driving against yours; his teeth dig against your shoulder, his tongue following to soothe the bitemark. You can only hold onto him, hold tighter, keep moving your body with his to keep the waves of pleasure coming. 

Even once you’re coming down from your orgasm, your whole body is still tingling and warm. Donghyeok is all but stuck to you, both of you are all sweaty so your skin sticks together. His lips press to the sunflower mark he left on you, his hands slide against your ribs, leaving a hot tingle deep under your skin, and you have a feeling he’s leaving another mark, another claim or protection. 

You can’t get a good look at the marks he’s left on you, but you can feel them all – the warmth of the sunflower on your shoulder, which you’re pretty sure looks a bit more yellow in the petals now than it did earlier; there are the hickeys and bitemarks Donghyeok left on you; now these new marks on your ribs, which look like a swirl of small inky spots that are resolving into anything familiar, and on the other side you swear it’s a fine-line rendition of the sun. 

You wish you could do the same and leave a mark on him, more than the sparse hickeys you left on his throat earlier. 

For right now, you settle for just holding him. You wrap your arms around him, and Donghyeok tucks his face into your shoulder, moaning softly as he rolls onto his side, bringing you with him. Your legs are still tangled, bodies pressed together, his dick still inside you though he’s gone soft. 

“Call me crazy,” Donghyeok whispers to you, “I know we’ve only met twice before tonight, but I feel like we have a really good connection. I like you.”

Your heart races at the confession. “I like you too.”

You feel his lips curve into a smile against your skin. “Good. I’d hate for you to have just given up your virginity on a guy you don’t even like. A demon, at that.”

“It doesn’t bother me that you’re a demon yknow. You’re more decent than most of the guys I’ve known.” You trace your fingers down Donghyeok’s back, feeling two long angled scars by his shoulder blades, like that’s where his wings come and go from. “If anything, I don’t understand why a demon is interested in me.”

Donghyeok lifts his head, and he looks you in the eye as he says, “I told you earlier. You’re gorgeous, and the moment that asshole tried to sacrifice you to me, I caught a glimpse of your soul. You’re a pure soul, so utterly good that it pains me to look at you with all the layers peeled back, but not in a bad way. It hurts me the way it hurts to look at something you aspire toward; looking at you is like looking at the stars and knowing that you’ll never be able to hold one in your hand.”

But his hands are on you now. 

His fingers trace over your ribs, and you can tell by the tingle now that he’s definitely left a new mark on you. 

You take up his hand, pulling it up to your lips, and you place a kiss in the center of his palm. And when you look at his face, you see right there on his cheek that maybe. He’s closer to holding the stars than he thinks. You trace the constellation of moles on his cheek and down his throat, so similar to one that you see in the night sky. 

Donghyeok leans his cheek into your hand, and he holds you a little closer. He presses his forehead to yours. 

The candles behind you on the floor have burned down to nothing but puddles of cooling wax. The herbs and crystals and chalk symbols can be picked up and wiped away in the morning. But for tonight, you hold a demon in your arms, completely at ease in his warm embrace.

a/n: I'm sorry for the long wait on this one! Day 9 is finally being posted on Day 11, which has definitely put me behind, and is making me reconsider my decision to do this for this month. But I really liked writing this one! I've been very Haechan-biased since The Dream Show 3, so I needed to write this tbh.

If you notice any errors or if you feel I should include some more tags/content warnings, please let me know!

I hope you enjoyed! Reblogs are deserving of my eternal gratitude, likes are greatly appreciated, and your thoughts and comments are always welcome !

[shuavez]

litany 𓄧 k.mg

i. tie a cherry.

summary 𓄧 every oath has a cost. every touch has a consequence. sent deep undercover into one of the city’s most illicit vampire clubs, two detectives must navigate the delicate balance between duty and desire — and survive the consequences when pretending stops feeling like pretending.

and some hungers, once fed, are impossible to starve.

tags 𓄧 detective!au, vampire!mingyu x human!reader. slow-ish burn. fake dating. friends/coworkers to lovers. various svt members/idols.

warnings 𓄧 mentions of blood, death, feeding. 

wc. 5.3k.

You’re not entirely sure when this case became your case. One minute it was a ghost rumor, something passed down through precinct whispers—Velvet Eden, the kind of place that exists on the fringe of the city and the law. The next, a body turned up in Sector 6, hollowed out and discarded like trash. And suddenly, the case had a heartbeat.

Organized Crime called in Homicide. Your name was already circled in red ink. You barely blinked. That’s the job, after all. Blood, bodies, and bad decisions. Cases involving vampires usually landed in V-CAD, the Vampire Crimes & Affairs Division, but this one bled into too many departments.

You’ve worked vampire cases before—civil disputes, rogue feeders, one or two cold-body cleanups. But Velvet Eden isn’t that. It’s something older. More indulgent. Less law, more religion.

Still, you weren’t expecting this.

You weren’t expecting a private, invitation-only vampire sex club with a feeding floor and velvet-lined red rooms. You weren’t expecting to slip into the role of arm candy for a six-foot-two vampire with a face like sin and a bite to match. And you definitely weren’t expecting him—Kim Mingyu. Calm. Commanding. All lean lines and quiet power. The kind of man who could make a room stop breathing just by walking into it.

He doesn’t feel like a stranger. You’ve crossed paths on enough cases for that. He’s always been kind, grounded, smart. The kind of vampire who makes you forget to be afraid.

But none of that changes the fact that in ten minutes, you’ll be walking into a club full of predators, pretending to be his prey.

And he’ll have to feed from you.

Your stomach flips, but you keep your face neutral as street lights streak gold across the windshield. Mingyu’s driving—one hand on the wheel, the other resting lazily on the gearshift. He’s dressed in all black, shirt unbuttoned just enough to get one thinking. The silk catches the light. His scent—smoke, earth, and something inherently warm—bleeds into the leather interior of the car. You’re hyper aware of every inch between you. It feels deliberate. Loaded.

You glance out the window and try not to think about the heat climbing the back of your neck. The dress you’re in—deep wine, cut high on the thigh, open at the back—was chosen for how it clings, how it tempts. You’re not used to dressing for hunger.

“—you hearing me?” Jeonghan’s voice slices through the quiet, speakerphone crackling from the center console. You jump, just slightly.

“Loud and clear,” you answer smoothly, though you hadn’t caught half of what he said.

“You’re about to enter a location with zero backup,” he says. “But this isn’t a takedown. You’re gathering intel, building rapport, and staying alive. Right now, as fresh meat, you’re not to leave Mingyu’s side and he’s not to leave yours. Understood?”

“Understood,” you mutter.

“Hey.” Jeonghan’s voice softens. “If anything feels off, pull out. No hesitation. No pride. Just say the word.”

Beside you, Mingyu shifts slightly, glancing over at you. “You won’t be alone in there,” he says, voice low. Steady. Reassuring in a way you feel in your chest. You meet his eyes for a half-second longer than you mean to.

You nod. “I know.”

And the thing is—you do. You’re not afraid of him.

“We’ll mingle for a little, suss out the vibe and you can get a feel of the place. I’m warning you, it’s fucking weird, dude. You’re pretty good at commanding a room, but even I get on edge here. You’re probably gonna see a lot of things you’d rather not, but you have to keep your cool or they’ll smell it on you.” Mingyu fixes you with a quick, firm look before returning his attention to the road, jaw tense.

Then Jeonghan chimes in again through the phone, voice crackling slightly, “Head to a Red Room when you’re both ready, and do your thing.” There’s a beat of silence, and then he stutters. “Just do whatever you have to do to pass off that you’re a real couple. Don’t be shy.”

The line clicks off. Silence floods the car for a moment before Mingyu speaks again, quieter this time.

“Hey, uh…” he clears his throat, fingers tightening around the wheel, “I know this is kinda personal, and I swear I wouldn’t ask unless it was important, but…” He glances at you again, expression serious now, if not a little sheepish. “When was your last cycle?”

Your head tilts. “What?”

“Your period. I just need to know if it’s close. Not to be weird. It’s just—” he exhales sharply, embarrassed but pushing through, “Fresh blood, especially menstrual, it hits different to some of them. Like sharks in water. And your baseline scent’s already gonna be… kind of a problem.”

You frown. “Kind of a problem?”

Mingyu hesitates. You see it in the way his jaw flexes, in the pause before he answers.

“Nothing to worry about right now. You’re just… you smell different, that’s all. Good different,” he adds quickly, then curses under his breath. “Not good like that—I mean, objectively. Biologically. I’ll handle it. Just… I need to know if I should be ready to get a little more aggressive with anyone who gets too close.”

You sit back against the seat, arms crossed loosely over your chest. “I’m about a week out. Why?”

“That’s good,” he murmurs, nodding. “Less likely to trigger any, uh… complications.” Another beat. “And I won’t let anyone touch you. No matter what.”

There’s something about the way he says it that sends a little pulse through your stomach. Something protective. Something possessive. But it’s quiet between you again, save for the hum of tires on the asphalt and the low rhythm of your heart starting to thrum harder in your ears.

Velvet Eden doesn’t look like the kind of place that would house everything you’ve been warned about. On the outside, it’s sleek and minimalist — black marble facade, no signage, just a long awning and two impossibly tall bouncers standing like gargoyles at the doors. You can’t hear any music from the street, but the air smells faintly metallic and sweet, like someone poured sugar into rust.

Mingyu circles the car into a private lot tucked to the side, a space clearly reserved for regulars or VIPs. He glances at you once more before he cuts the engine, his jaw tense again, unreadable in the low amber wash of the dashboard lights.

“You good?”

You nod, but your fingers curl tighter around one another in your lap.

“You look good,” he says then, more gently. He doesn’t say it like a compliment. He says it like a reassurance. Like armor.

Your dress is a deep, wine red — sleek, skin-hugging. It dips low at the back, a single strap across your shoulders like a whisper. Mingyu had said something about blending in, about being convincing, and you figured that looking like the kind of girl a vampire would die to touch wouldn’t hurt.

Your perfume clings to your skin in layers — burning cherry and palo santo — warm, smoky, almost edible. Mingyu had commented on it in the car earlier, murmuring, “You got a thing for cherries or something? The dress, the perfume…” and you’d laughed it off, heart thrumming like a live wire.

Inside, the club is thick with it. The heat. The scent. The sound.

Everything is dim and red — not in the trashy, cheap kind of way, but in that disorienting, luxe way that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into another world entirely. Smoke coils in thin tendrils from incense trays tucked into shadowed alcoves. There’s velvet everywhere — couches, walls, the bodies of dancers. A pulse of low music hums from the speakers, winding, slow, heavy with bass. Something deep and sensual is playing. It moves like honey — like hips swaying under silk.

And the smell… Blood. Sex. Sweat. Clove smoke. Burned sugar. You can taste it on your tongue before anyone even speaks to you.

Mingyu’s hand finds the small of your back as he guides you through the crowd. His palm is warm and heavy, protective, but not possessive. You know he’s playing the part — the tall, slow-moving, effortlessly dominant boyfriend — but the way he hovers at your shoulder, the way he watches everyone who even glances at you for a second too long… that’s not acting.

You’re not the only human in here, but you might be the only one who isn’t visibly owned. Others are draped over laps, bent at the neck for easy access, some seated dazed and blissed out on silk cushions while their partners — vampires, all of them — sip at their throats or wrists like they’re nursing a fine wine. And the vampires — gods, they’re beautiful. Ethereal. Almost unreal. Pale or dark-skinned, pierced or painted, wrapped in leather or lace or nothing at all. All sleek limbs and fanged smiles, eyes glowing faintly in the shadows.

You realize, slowly, that you are being watched.

The kind of watching that makes the hairs on your arms rise. The kind that pins you open like a butterfly.

Mingyu leans down, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Keep walking. Keep your chin up. Let them think you belong to me.”

You do. And with that thought comes a sharp, unexpected heat curling low in your belly.

The bar glows a sultry amber, lit from beneath so that every bottle looks like it’s filled with gold, or blood. You lean lightly against it, hyper-aware of the press of Mingyu’s presence just behind your right shoulder. His stance is casual — one hand resting on the edge of the bar, the other just barely brushing the side of your waist — but you can feel the unspoken claim in it. Like he’s drawing a line in the sand with his body alone.

Two menus slide across the bar top.

One is printed in gold foil — cocktails, wine, flavored syrups, things with whimsical names like Sunset on Rue and Liquid Kink. The other menu is black — matte, velvet-touch paper, with minimalist script and coded language: A-negative, fresh. AB+, altered. RH-null, euphoric. You don’t let yourself look at that one too long.

“I’ll have a zero amaretto sour,” you say when the bartender — a tall vampire with golden irises and a scar over his top lip — raises a brow in question.

Mingyu hums low behind you, a small sound, almost lost beneath the beat of the music. “Cherries again,” he murmurs, voice teasing. “You’ve got a type.”

You glance at him. “Or a brand.”

He smiles, and it’s too soft for this place. Something about the crescent curve of his eyes when he looks at you makes your pulse do something stupid. Play the part, you remind yourself. Girlfriend. Established. Not nervous.

The bartender glides your drink over, and Mingyu steps in a fraction closer — not crowding, but enough that you can feel the warmth of his chest brushing your back when you move. Enough that no one would dare slip in between you.

He leans in, not speaking, just watching the room over your shoulder. His lips are close enough to brush your temple. “You’re doing good,” he says quietly. “Natural.”

You sip the cocktail. Sweet, tart, a little sharp on the back of your tongue — a distraction, but only just.

You feel Mingyu’s presence behind you, steady and warm, his breath grazing the curve of your jaw as he surveys the crowd.

Then, on impulse — maybe it’s the drink, or the heat in your blood, or the need to take the edge off this place — you reach for the maraschino cherry skewered on your garnish pick.

“Watch this,” you murmur, just loud enough for him to hear.

He blinks, the corner of his mouth twitching. “What?”

You pop the cherry into your mouth, chewing slowly, then slide the stem between your lips.

Mingyu goes quiet.

You don’t say anything—just meet his eyes for a long beat as your tongue works quietly, the stem moving behind your teeth with practiced ease. He leans in slightly, brow furrowing, and it takes him a few seconds too long to realize what you’re doing.

When the stem reappears, it’s knotted. Perfectly. Sitting balanced on the tip of your tongue like a challenge.

You flash him a quick smile and set it on your napkin with delicate precision.

Mingyu huffs a breath through his nose — surprised, impressed, something darker curling behind his eyes.

“That’s a dangerous skill to have,” he murmurs.

You shrug, casual. “Crowd pleaser.”

And that’s when a new voice slips in — smooth, low, and edged in silk.

“So this is her.”

The woman standing beside you is tall, statuesque in midnight-blue velvet. Her skin is flawless, eyes the color of aged wine.

She doesn’t address Mingyu first. She addresses you.

“That was clever,” she purrs, her voice dripping with amusement. “Not many humans know how to use their tongues quite so… effectively.”

Mingyu doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. “Alba,” he says with a polite nod. “Didn’t think you worked Fridays.”

“I don’t. I heard your girl would be here.” Alba’s eyes don’t leave yours. She offers a hand — fingers tipped in glossy black. “Welcome. It’s always nice to see someone… unspoiled.” The words drip with double meaning.

You take her hand. Her grip is cool, elegant, a touch too long. You can feel her evaluating you — scenting you, even — something primal and calculated behind the pleasantries. “She’s got good taste,” Alba continues, eyes flicking down to your dress, your drink. “Sweet with a little bite. Fitting.”

Mingyu lets out a soft huff, amused, but you feel the way his stance subtly shifts, tightening around you. A human might miss it — the way his pupils dilate, the faint flex of his jaw — but you’ve been trained to read detail. He doesn’t like this.

“She’s mine,” he says lightly, but there’s steel beneath the velvet.

Alba smiles. “So you say.” Then she winks at you. “Be careful in here, sweetness. Pretty girls like you don’t always leave with the ones they came in with.”

And just like that, she’s gone — gliding back into the crowd, swallowed by smoke and velvet and music.

You exhale slowly, glass still half-raised to your lips.

“She’s a friend,” Mingyu mutters, and then, quieter: “Sort of. Also one of the club’s top-tier feeders. If she took a liking to you, it’s ‘cause she’s sizing you up.”

You nod once, but your throat is dry.

Mingyu’s fingers find your wrist briefly, grounding. “We’ll stay here a little longer. Then we go to the Red Room.”

Your tongue flicks over your bottom lip, catching the last of the amaretto, and his gaze catches there for half a beat before he looks away again. A group of vampires has entered, sharp suits and hungrier eyes, and you feel the way Mingyu subtly repositions — just enough to block you from view.

Then, casually, he slides a folded twenty across the bar.

The bartender — still all cool disinterest — takes it without a word, disappears beneath the counter, and returns with a small black key. It gleams in the low light, matte and ominous.

Mingyu palms it smoothly, slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

He leans close, his voice pitched low enough that only you can hear it. “Red Room three. It’s the farthest from the stage. Less eyes.”

A ripple runs down your spine — equal parts anticipation and nerves. This is it. Showtime.

You drain the rest of your drink and set the glass down gently.

Mingyu’s hand rests at the small of your back, guiding, anchoring. “You ready?”

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you glance at him — at the subtle edge of restraint in his posture, the flicker of something darker in his eyes, like he’s been holding his breath since you walked in.

Then you say, evenly, “Lead the way, boyfriend.”

The walk from the bar to the Red Room feels like it stretches on forever. Music thumps low and thick, bass vibrating up through your heels and into your spine. The hallway is bathed in red light, the kind that plays tricks with your eyes—every shadow, every silhouette, a temptation or a threat. Velvet-lined walls soak up the sound like insulation, but the air still hums with sex and something darker. The scent is overwhelming: sweat, perfume, blood. Cherry and palo santo clings to your own skin, warm and sweet in your nose.

Mingyu keeps a hand at the small of your back as you walk. Not quite possessive, not quite casual. Protective. His fingertips are firm through the satin of your dress, guiding you gently but insistently. You feel the weight of his body heat even without touch. You’re not sure if the butterflies in your stomach are nerves or anticipation.

The door to the Red Room clicks open when the key slides home.

Inside, it’s plush and dim—more boudoir than interrogation chamber, but the camera in the corner ruins any illusion of privacy. A velvet bed, dark as blood, is the centerpiece. There’s a chaise in the corner, a bar cart with cut crystal glasses, and heavy curtains hanging like stage drapes over a wall-sized mirror. The air is cooler than the club floor, but heavier somehow. You can feel it sitting on your skin like humidity.

Mingyu steps in first, eyes scanning the corners instinctively. He’s done this before. You can tell by the way he moves, unhurried but deliberate. He sits on the edge of the bed, arms propping him up behind him. His dark eyes flick up to the camera, then back to you.

He mouths something. Cameras.

You nod. Barely. So small it could be a blink.

He pats his thigh, an invitation—brief and respectful. “Is this okay?” he asks aloud, like it’s just part of the role, but you hear the softness underneath.

You step toward him and straddle his lap. His hands settle lightly on your hips, anchoring you there without pressure. The warmth of his body is ridiculous, like standing too close to a fire. You’re already keyed up and you haven’t even done anything yet.

You can feel your pulse in your fingertips, even though it’s faint. His hands are splayed across your lower back now, his body taut like a bow under you. He’s still pretending to lounge, but there’s nothing relaxed about the way he watches you—eyes heavy-lidded, mouth parted, chest rising and falling like it costs him effort to breathe.

He leans in, mouth brushing just under your jaw, murmuring into the soft skin there. “We’ve got audio,” he breathes. “How hard do we want to sell it?”

You know the answer.

“Hard.”

You lift a hand slowly, brushing your fingers along his cheek. It’s warm there. Solid. Strangely human. He looks up at you like he’s trying to memorize your face. Curiosity catches in your throat. “Can I see them?” you ask quietly. “Your fangs.”

Mingyu huffs a laugh under his breath, low and amused, and parts his lips. It’s not theatrical—no giant vampire daggers—but the twin points are sharper, longer than a human’s. Elegant. Clean.

You brush a thumb across one. He shivers slightly.

You don’t know why you ask. Maybe it’s the tension. Maybe it’s the camera. Maybe it’s the fact that if he’s going to drink from you, you want to offer something that’s yours to give.

“Can I kiss you?”

He nods. “Please.”

It starts gentle. Tentative. Curious. But you lean in again and it’s like a switch flips. His hands slip up your back and yours tangle in his hair. Your mouths move together like you’ve done this a hundred times. The kiss turns deeper, hungrier—less about performance, more about something that feels too real.

He kisses like he was made for it. Like he’s trying to memorize you in pieces. The way your lip catches on his. The sweet citrus of your drink. The scent of cherries lingering between your neck and shoulder.

His hands slide over your thighs, your hips, your spine—firm, reverent. You thread your fingers into his hair, tug just a little, and he gasps against your mouth like it’s the first breath he’s taken in years.

And then he pulls back just enough to look at you.

“Can I feed off you?” You nod. 

“No,” he says, voice rough now, unsteady. “I need to hear it.”

Your lips part, your throat working around the heat curling low in your belly. You feel flushed, dizzy, his presence overwhelming every nerve. “Feed off me,” you say, voice barely audible but clear.

He watches you for a moment longer, then shifts his mouth to your neck. He keeps eye contact as long as he can, nose brushing your pulse point. His fangs pierce you with the precision of a surgeon—just a second of pain—and then—

Bliss.

It’s like heat unfurls in your veins. A deep, low-burning euphoria pulses through your limbs, wrapping you in cotton. You’re not sure what noise leaves your mouth but it’s a moan, helpless and heady. Mingyu groans against your throat, low and reverent, like he wasn’t expecting you to taste like this.

Your hands fist in his shirt, dragging him closer as he drinks. You feel his body tense under yours, like he’s trying to keep from shaking. He only feeds for a minute or two, but when he pulls away, he looks absolutely wrecked. Blood on his lips, lips parted. Eyes dark. You slump against him, dizzy and high and somehow… warm.

You slump against him. Dazed. High on him. He wraps his arm around your waist and lets his weight fall back onto the bed, taking you with him.

Neither of you speak for a while. You’re not sure either of you can.

“You okay?” he whispers.

You don’t answer right away. Just lay a hand across his chest and stare at the ceiling, your body buzzing with the aftershock.

“I think,” you finally say, voice hoarse and half-drunk on whatever the hell just happened, “I just saw God.”

Mingyu huffs a laugh, more breath than sound, the warm vibration of it rumbling against your cheek. He wraps his arm tighter around your waist, drawing you closer like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“That tends to be the case,” he murmurs. You don’t think you can move. It takes a concerning amount of brainpower just to keep breathing. To remember that you’re supposed to be undercover. That you’re not supposed to actually melt into your partner’s body like you were sculpted to fit there.

You peel your face off the crook of his neck after a minute, blinking blearily at the ceiling. Your voice is rough around the edges when you manage to push out, “You… do this a lot?” It’s not really jealousy. It’s curiosity. Maybe the tiniest sliver of something sharper under your tongue.

Mingyu stiffens almost imperceptibly under you, just for a second. Then his thumb moves in a slow, soothing arc along the small of your back.

“No,” he says simply. “Not like this.”

You shift slightly to look at him. His face is open, honest.

“I’m careful about who I feed off,” he continues, voice low and even. “Consenting donors. Only when I need it. Never like—” he cuts himself off, like the words are too heavy. “Never like this. Velvet Eden isn’t somewhere I would have chosen to set foot in, if not for….” He trails off, eyes flickering briefly to where the camera watches over the moment.

You realize, as the words sink in, that this isn’t normal for him either. That he’s feeling the same rawness buzzing under his skin.

He keeps talking, maybe to fill the charged silence.

“I don’t like the way most vampires treat feeding.” His jaw ticks, a tiny sign of frustration. “It’s supposed to be… mutual. Respected.”

Your chest tightens a little at the way he says it, like it’s something sacred to him. Not just biology. Not just hunger.

You’re silent for a moment, absorbing it, feeling his heart beat steady against your palm. It’s slower, duller than yours. Just barely there. “I’m glad it’s you,” you whisper before you can second-guess yourself.

Mingyu smiles then, soft and crooked, and it’s devastating. His hand finds yours where it rests over his heart, intertwining your fingers like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Me too,” he says.

You lie there a little longer, both of you pretending you’re just resting. Both pretending you didn’t just tear a seam in something vital.

The ride back is… quiet. Not awkward. Just different. Like you’re both holding something fragile between you and neither of you wants to drop it.

You sit with your head leaned slightly against the window. The city passes by in soft golds and blues, headlights flickering across your skin. Mingyu’s hand rests on the steering wheel, the other flexing on his thigh like he’s thinking about something but won’t say it.

You speak first.

“We’re going to have to go back soon.”

“Yeah,” he replies, glancing over. “Not for a few days, though. It’ll look too eager if we come back too quick.”

You nod.

When he pulls up in front of your building, he doesn’t even hesitate. Parks the car. Gets out. Walks you to the front. You fish your keys out of your coat pocket, hesitating at the lobby door.

“I’m fine,” you tell him.

“I know,” he says, but doesn’t move.

Then, after a pause: “Can I come up? Just to make sure you’re okay. No weird shit, I swear.” He grins, trying to soften it. “Scout’s honor.” You laugh, and it sounds more real than anything has all night.

Inside, you flick on the light in your small but warm apartment. Mingyu lingers by the door. Doesn’t sit. Just looks around like he’s cataloging every detail. Like knowing this part of your world is another way to protect it.

You toe off your shoes. Toss your coat over the arm of the couch. Mingyu’s still standing, hands in his pockets, watching you gently like he’s trying not to spook a deer.

“You can sit,” you tell him. He does. Perches on the edge of the armchair like a man not sure how long he’s staying. “I meant it earlier,” you say, voice quieter now. “I’m glad it’s you.”

Mingyu meets your gaze. For once, he doesn’t deflect with a joke. Doesn’t tease. “Me too.”

The silence stretches. Comfortable. Dangerous.

When he gets up to leave, his fingers graze yours when he hands you the coat you forgot to hang. And the look in his eyes—heavy, unreadable—sticks with you even after the door clicks shut behind him.

He doesn’t start the car right away.

Just sits there, fingers curled loosely around the wheel, the engine off, the streetlamp casting gold slats across the dash. Your building looms to his right. He watches your window for a moment, but the blinds are drawn.

The taste of you still lingers in his mouth.

Not just the blood—though God, that alone was enough to scramble something vital in him—but you. The way you looked at him. Touched him. Said his name like it meant something. The way you curled into him after, without fear.

He shuts his eyes and breathes in deep through his nose, trying to clear his head. It doesn’t work.

You’re still there.

Not just on his tongue. Not just on his skin. But somewhere deeper. Under the sternum. Behind the ribs. Burrowed into a place he didn’t realize was vulnerable.

This was supposed to be routine. Strategic. Controlled. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Mingyu opens his eyes again. Stares out at the empty street. Taps his thumb against the wheel once, twice, like he’s weighing something he doesn’t even want to name.

Then he finally exhales. Just once. Quiet and shaky. And starts the car.

You wake up warm. Heavy-limbed and a little tangled in the sheets, like you’ve been caught mid-dream. The echoes of it cling to you — soft touches, parted mouths, someone whispering your name against your skin.

Mingyu.

You drag in a breath, sharp and sudden, and shove yourself upright just as your phone vibrates violently against the nightstand.

Jeonghan’s name flashes across the screen.

Then again. And again.

By the third call, you fumble to answer, croaking out something close to human.

“There’s been another body,” Jeonghan says without preamble. You can hear the scrape of tires on wet asphalt, the low mutter of radios in the background. “Get up. Get dressed. Mingyu’s on his way to pick you up.”

He hangs up before you can even curse him out.

You throw yourself into clothes on autopilot — slacks, a thick knitted sweater, the softest thing you own that still passes for professional. Your whole body feels wrung out and hazy, muscles sore in places you didn’t know you had. Not painful, exactly. Just… different.

By the time you’re pulling on your jacket, headlights cut across the front of your building.

Mingyu’s SUV idles at the curb, a faint halo of condensation blooming from the exhaust. He climbs out as you approach, tall and solid against the pale wash of streetlamps, and holds out a coffee cup.

“Dirty chai,” he says. His voice is quiet, like he’s not sure how loud the world should be around you yet. “Jeonghan said it’s your favorite.”

You take it, fingers brushing his. He’s not cold. Somehow you thought he would be — vampire and all — but the warmth of him seeps into your skin like secondhand sunlight.

“And these,” he adds, pressing a couple of small sachets into your other hand. Liquid iron. “They’ll help.”

You manage a half-smile. “You’re good at this,” you murmur.

He shrugs, almost shy. “You did the hard part.”

The drive to the scene is short, cut with the soft shuffle of the radio and the occasional tap of Mingyu’s thumb against the steering wheel. Neither of you says much. The air feels weighted, taut with things unspoken.

It’s still dark when you arrive, the city trapped in that brittle pre-dawn chill that bites through every seam of your clothes. You huddle deeper into your sweater as you approach the perimeter, where yellow crime scene tape flutters weakly in the breeze.

Jeonghan is already waiting, gloved up and scowling into his clipboard.

Mingyu falls naturally into step just behind your shoulder, close enough that you feel him there without needing to look.

“Female victim, mid-twenties, no ID yet,” Jeonghan says as you join him. He barely glances up. “ME’s still working on the preliminary cause of death but… it looks familiar.”

You duck under the tape, shoes crunching on damp leaves. The alley is narrow, hemmed in by aging brick and chain link fencing, and the body is slumped against a dumpster.

You glove up quickly and move closer.

Her skin is bloodless. Sickly pale. Clothes torn and stained. But it’s the marks at her throat that stop you cold — two perfect punctures, just above the collarbone.

Your stomach twists sharply.

You glance sideways at Mingyu — and find him already there, studying the scene with an intensity that borders on feral. His mouth is a thin line. His shoulders rigid.

He steps in carefully between the forensic photographer and the ME, crouching low. You watch as he scans, gloved fingers deftly poking through the victim’s scattered personal effects. It’s methodical, clinical — but there’s something under it too, something sharper, heavier.

The crease in Mingyu’s brown deepens as he pulls a wallet out of her left coat pocket, flipping it open.

“Name’s Min Seo-yeon,” he says, voice tight. He hesitates — just a fraction — before pulling a small slip of glossy card from the wallet’s inner pocket.

Velvet Eden.

Membership card.

The blood in your veins goes ice-cold.

next chapter ↝ ii. evidence of absence.

click here for tag list submission / removal.

[wildestdreamsblog]

Latibule Season 2: I

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Reader (Mafia/Detective AU)

Summary: In which he lost his latibule.

Warnings: Secret Identity, Yandere behavior, Obsessiveness, Possessiveness, Manipulative behavior, Violence, Mention of death, Disability, Sexual themes, If you’re not 18+ please, PLEASE, do not interact. Be mindful of the warnings. Let me know if I miss anything.

A/N: In the spirit of Christmas hehe

Masterlist, Prologue

He didn’t believe that you were gone no matter what anyone said.

Everyone was saying the same thing. You were gone and there was nothing anyone could do to bring you back. However, Min Yoongi didn’t like their answer and anyone who said that you had already passed on from this earth was met with his wrath that was communicated through his fists and weapons. No one could even tell him that he now couldn’t physically follow where you were. In his twisted mind, he thought that he could follow you because you never left this earth. Of course, he could follow. You did promise, after all, that you would never go somewhere where he couldn’t fucking follow. His angel would never lie to him, he thought. But your absence was saying otherwise. Your absence was too loud.

The days following the moment he opened his eyes and learned of your demise were bloody and dark. Everyone was on edge, and the traitors went to hell here on earth. They did wish they had died instead, but death was never quick when it came to them, nor was it painless. Min Yoongi made sure that they felt every ounce of pain he felt when you were taken away from him. His brothers could not even reason with the man. They didn’t know how to handle this Min Yoongi. It was as though he died there with you, and what was left of him was only his darkness. Agustd was already ruthless, but now he was just outright cruel, burning everything and everyone that crossed his path.

No one could even say their piece to him-well, all except Kim Seokjin. Despite Jin choosing the less violent life and despite him spending his days treating people in the hospital, no one could deny the power he naturally excluded. It was the power that was inherent to him when he was unfortunate enough to be born to a father that was the previous mafia king. Kim Seokjin may possessed the face of an angel, but he was the most dangerous of them all. It was just that he had a patience of a saint, and everyone fret the day someone snapped his patience. He was a dangerous, eccentric man. And he was a ticking time bomb in comparison to Taehyung who just kept on exploding without an end in sight. Min Yoongi, though, was known to be a reasonable man, his calm nature was never broken. It took losing you to break the calmness in him. The days after he woke up, he was seen back where he was the happiest. Day after day, Yoongi could be found there, leaning against the tree with cigarette in between his lips as he looked at the ruins of your house. The fire took everything from him. It was angry as it smoldered what once was his latibule to the ground, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. Yoongi thought that the world was simply too cruel to him to strip away the only place he had of you. He couldn’t even smell you anymore, couldn’t even go to the place that was full of your presence.

How cruel was it to have you once and never again? How cruel was it for him to finally have found the warmth, to finally have basked in it for a moment too short, only for him to live in a winter forever after you? He would never admit to anyone that each time he closed his eyes, the only thing he saw was the moment you fell as the bullet pierced your skin. So, he had not been sleeping well. If you were here, he thought, you would chase away all the demons in his head. If you were here, you would put your arms around him, rub your hands on his shoulder in a soothing way only you knew how, and you would silently tell him that everything would be okay, that he wasn’t as bad as he thought he was. Yoongi couldn’t do anything. All he did was to go to the place where he found and lost you.

He was always there, Jimin noted. He made this place your temple, mural and shrine. However, never once did he visit where you were finally laid to rest. Never once did he even acknowledge your death. It was like not seeing it would make your death untrue. And so, day after day, hour after hour, the man could be found there as though he was waiting on a miracle, as though if he waited long enough then you would return, as though if he stayed long enough, you would walk back and smile at him, all while calling him a fool for looking too sad.

But you never did.  

And after a whole year, Min Yoongi never uttered your name again.

---

“Y-you’re supposed to be the good one! W-what is the Chief of Police doing here?!”

Yoongi watched in boredom as Jungkook pushed a man to kneel in front of him. The warehouse was quiet, well, save for the screaming of the traitors. The other brothers were busy with torturing the remaining traitors they kept alive. And today, he was faced with the last remaining traitor they had yet to kill. See, this asshole was so below the rank that he didn’t know that the Chief of Police was also the same Agustd, the leader of the mafia.

He was nothing, Yoongi thought. And yet, he was the one who blew up your house. He could almost laugh if he still knew how.  “T-the public will know! I’ll tell them that you’re the d-devil!”

Yoongi blew the smoke on his face emotionlessly, a strand of his dark hair falling on his face. “You’re not an intelligent man, are you?” he asked evenly before pulling the cigarette in between his lips and onto the idiot’s eyelid. He heeded his screams no mind as he removed his jacket with his badge on it. Someone from his right stepped in to carefully fold his jacket. Yoongi folded his sleeves to his elbows and without any warning, punched the man on his face.

The man proved to be an even greater fool as he laughed in false bravado, blood a stark contrast against his crooked teeth, “Is that all you can do? You don’t have it in you to kill. You’re a civil servant!”

“Is that so?” he asked in a conversational tone as he picked up a knife, putting it up over the light to inspect it before turning to the buffoon. “Which hand burned the house?”

“What?”

Yoongi looked at Jungkook and the latter manhandled the man near the table, flatting both his hand on it. “Which hand should I cut?” He walked nearer to them as though he had all the time in the world. “This one,” he stabbed the table, missing the man’s hand by a centimeter. “Or this one?” he repeated the action for the right hand, except that this time he intentionally stabbed the knife through his thumb, severely cutting it. “Oh no,” he said in a deadpanned voice before looking directly at him. “Guess my aim got bad.”

“W-who are y-you?!”

He smiled at him; his eyes remained emotionless. “Hi, I’m Agustd. Nice to meet you. So which hand?”

“N-No! No, please! I’ll give you what you want-“

Yoongi sighed, already losing his patience. “You do have to choose. We won’t stop until you only have one hand. Or do you want me to choose?”

“L-lef-“

Before the traitor could even finish sputtering what Yoongi deemed was bullshit, he buried the hilt of the knife into his hand. He didn’t even blink when he felt resistance from his bones, Yoongi merely kept on pushing, uncaring of the wailing man. He never stopped until he the knife finally touched the surface of the table.

And after that, he stabbed his hand again. He never ceased, not until the hand was completely mutilated. He never stopped, not even when the blood kept sputtering on his face from the man’s open wound, a stark contrast on his pale white complexion. He never stopped even when the man lost consciousness.

“He’s going to die, Yoongi,” Seokjin noted lightly from his seat. From outside looking in, he looked like a perfect image of peace, yet the hold he had on his phone was a telltale sign that he was far from pleased. He was not even phased by the violence around him, his focus merely on the whereabouts of his runaway sunshine. “I do not have the patience required to revive a dying man tonight.”

Yoongi paused, leering at the man who was slipping in and out of consciousness, before heeding his hyung’s statement. He did not want to test Jin’s patience tonight when it was apparent that he was barely holding on to his control.

He didn’t want to kill this man tonight. No. He planned on keeping him alive for years and years to come. He planned to give him hope, only for him to squash it away like he did his. As long as Yoongi shall live, then he shall suffer with him. As long as he was living in this fucked-up nightmare where you weren’t by his side, then so should he lived his very own crafted nightmare.

If he wasn’t happy, then why should anyone be?

---

“That phone looks like it wants to rest,” Jimin observed lightly as he and his hyung visited another crime scene that was definitely not because of them. It was three hours away from Seoul, the travel time giving him headache, similar to what Jimin was giving him. He watched as Yoongi ended the call before glaring at him.

“What about my phone, Jimin?”

“It looks like it wants to retire. Please, for the love of all that’s good, let me buy you a phone.”

“No.” It was the only thing he had of you.

“Whyyyyy do you love that phone so much, hyung? Our enemies would think our business is not doing good that you cannot even buy yourself a phone!”

Yoongi just shrugged his broad shoulders before walking out of the police line and through the busy market. He nodded at the policemen as they acknowledged him. His watchful eyes observed the chipper attitude of the marketgoers, chatting among themselves. He wondered how people could wake up this early and yet looked so alive. He hadn’t felt alive since that night. However, he thought that had you been here, it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would. He would wake up at an ungodly hour for you.

He could hear Jimin chatter beside him as they navigated their way out of the busy street when it happened. Until it all turned into a white noise when it happened.

When he saw you.

He halted his brisk walk, his eyes following as you walked away yet again from him.

 For a brief moment, he believed your eyes met. For a brief moment, he felt his heart beat again. Yet, your eyes seemed to hold no recognition for him as it only passed through him. You didn’t even stop. It was as though he was merely a stranger.

On the other hand, he thought that you looked different, but he knew in his dead heart that it was you.

Or was it his mind finally crumbling on him, reveling on his insanity?

He blinked once and you were gone.

Jimin, suffice to say, was shocked as his hyung ran back. He never saw him moved that fast, uncaring of the people who he would runover from his haste. His dark coat trailed behind him as he moved, a touch of desperation evident, compelling Jimin to reluctantly trail after him. Yoongi forcefully cleared a path, parting the crowd with determined strides. His singular focus was on reaching you, leaving his mind devoid of any other thoughts.

It was you, he was sure. It was his angel.

He was almost sure.

But when he reached where he saw you last, you weren’t there.

Jimin was breathless when he finally reached his hyung who was looking around the crowd like a lost child. His hands were on his waist as his desperate eyes searched for…who, exactly?

“What happened, hyu-“

“It was her, Jimin-ah. I saw her.”

He blinked, following his hyung’s shifting gaze. “Who?”

“My angel. She’s alive."

Latibule 2.II

[doumadono]

An absolution - priest!Dabi x Reader

Warnings: smut w/o plot, fingering, fem!Reader Synopsis: seeking absolution from a new priest in your parish proves to be a more challenging endeavor than anticipated

MY HERO ACADEMIA MASTERLIST

Priest!Dabi is notorious for exploiting the sacred confessional as a means of extracting the deepest, darkest secrets from you. His malicious intent thrives on the vulnerability of those who seek redemption, turning their confessions into a twisted game.

Priest!Dabi, simply asking you within a soft, casual tone, "Are you engaging in self-pleasure, dear child?"

Your eyes expand as his inquiry settles into your thoughts. Stammering, you attempt to respond, "I… I…"

A gentle chuckle resonates from within the concealed darkness of the confessional. "There's no need to be bashful. Vulnerability is inherent in human nature, and everyone grapples with it, sooner or later. Confess," he urges, his encouragement echoing through the shadowed enclosure.

With a flush on your cheeks and your heart racing, you hesitantly admit to every self-inflicted act, burdened by the weight of vocalizing the myriad things you've done to yourself. The weight of guilt persists, exacerbated by the contemplation that had your family been privy to the depths you've explored, they would have cast their curses upon you ages ago.

Priest!Dabi whose words are laced with a malevolent charm. He preaches salvation with a wicked glint in his eyes, enticing you with promises of absolution, all while harboring his own sinister agenda.

Unbeknownst to you, priest!Dabi discreetly palms himself through the fabric of his dark trousers. The sound of your soft voice uttering those explicit phrases has a palpable effect on him, stirring desires he can't deny.

"What shall be my atonement?" you inquire, your voice trembling. "I repent for my actions, Father."

Dabi grins to himself. "You'll accompany me, my child."

As he exits the confessional, he motions for you to follow him to the vestry. You feel a sense of confusion but obediently trail behind him.

Priest!Dabi, a recent addition to your community, is already infamous for his unconventional methods. Despite the unsettling rumors, you choose to remain open-minded.

In the vestry, priest!Dabi firmly shuts the door behind you. You instinctively fold your hands in front of you, a subtle tremor coursing through you as you hesitate to meet his intimidating gaze.

He motions for you to occupy the seat beside him on a modest couch, and you comply, the unease palpable as you settle into the space next to him.

"You've sinned," priest!Dabi intones, his words a chilling whisper that reverberates through the sacred space. "You've strayed from the path of righteousness," he continues, each syllable enunciated with a deliberate gravity. "Now, my child," he says with measured solemnity, "I shall grant you a shrift."

Priest!Dabi who casually rests his hand on your knee, softly rubbing it with his thumb, gradually sliding his hand upward.

"Father Touya," you whisper, cheeks flushed, your gaze fixed on him without a blink. Your heart races, pounding within your chest like a captive creature yearning for escape.

Priest!Dabi who whispers, "Shhhh, shhhh, it's fine, my child. I'm not going to hurt you."

You attempt to close your legs, but his firm hand prevents any movement. "The only way to absolve your sins is to allow my consecrated hands to touch you," priest!Dabi declares, his voice unwavering.

You glance up at his scarred face but quickly avert your eyes as his unwavering gaze intersects with yours.

Before you fully grasp the situation, his rough palm cups you through your panties. A small whimper escapes you as the cold, sharp edges of staples on his hand graze against your tender skin as the fabric is pushed aside in the process.

"Hush now, no need to be shy, little Y/N," he soothes, his surprisingly gentle voice accompanied by slender fingers daringly exploring your soft folds.

A soft sigh escapes your parted lips.

"Look at me," he commands, his tone a touch rougher this time. His thumb and forefinger lift your chin, compelling you to meet his piercing turquoise gaze.

Despite the inner awareness that this shouldn't be unfolding, you reluctantly acquiesce. Your gaze meets his, a silent glare, as you breathe heavily. The trust you hold in him, the priestly figure, reassures you that he wouldn't guide you toward forbidden desires, or so you hope.

Priest!Dabi who skillfully massages your clitoris with his thumb while two of his fingers slowly slip inside you. He grins a little, attempting to keep a serious face. "You see, my child, there's nothing wrong with what I'm doing here. Just look how your body reacts."

"Father Touya, this is wrong…" you whisper, yet a part of you decides to spread your legs a little wider to grant him a better access.

In a short span of time, his long fingers explore your pussy with finesse, leaving you breathless in close proximity to his awaiting lips. "Father Touya..." you pant.

He quickens his pace, his fingers moving with nimble urgency, the heel of his palm exerting firm pressure against your mound. The painful graze of the staples against the delicate flesh adds an edgy sensation to the entire thing, making you whine quietly. An instinctual whisper urges you to engage in the rhythmic motion of rolling your hips. It is an intuitive response, driven by an innate craving for the friction that promises a profound sense of satisfaction. Yielding to this urge, you find yourself succumbing to the compelling dance of desire, raising and lowering your hips slightly in the rhythm of his thrusts.

Priest!Dabi gently grazes the tip of his tongue across your lips, his fingers curling within your pussy with an unspoken intensity, massaging your spongy walls. "You're excelling, my dear child. There's no need for shame - you can come."

His resonant and alluring voice resonates, casting a spell that ignites a fervent response within you. The culmination manifests as a visceral release as you cum all over his long fingers, coating them with your slick, runny essence. "Father..." you whine, your tone quivering.

He murmurs, "There, there," gently caressing the back of your neck with his long digits. Withdrawing his fingers, he theatrically brings them to his lips, delicately licking them clean, all the while maintaining an unwavering gaze locked onto yours. He delivers a few spanks to your slick pussy, and then with a subtle finesse, Dabi enhances the arrangement of your undergarments, veiling your exposed folds beneath the soft fabric once more.

Your face is still tinged with red as you instinctively close your legs, folding your hands in your lap, feeling a twisted, pulsating sensation growing inside you. "Will I… Will I get forgiveness, father?"

He smiles at you, slowly nodding his head as he adjusts himself in his crotch; the material of his black pants is visibly tented. "My dear Y/N, your sins weigh heavily, and you'll need to make amends for absolution," he says, a mischievous glint in his eyes darkened by pure lust. "Come see me tomorrow, and I'll consider what actions can help cleanse your past sins."

tagging some wonderful folks who might enjoy this one: @shonen-brainrot @bakugoscunny @viburnt @dabis-vigilnate-girl @dabismoon @dabislittlemouse @indignant-alpaca

[luveline]

baby blurb of sirius looking after sick shy!reader pleaseeee. I miss him and my throat is killing me today :((

thank u for ur request! feel better soon<3 fem!reader

"Let me see," Sirius says. 

You stare at him. 

"Open up. I wanna see if you have ulcers." 

"Sirius," you say, your voice shaking with the hoarseness that accompanies a bad throat intertwined with the nervousness of having someone so handsome this close to your face, "we both know I'm not going to let you look in my mouth." 

"But you'd let me put my tongue in there?" 

You flush with a heat that has nothing to do with your flu. "We all make mistakes." 

Sirius smirks at you. It's a very charming expression on him, as is the quirk of a slender brow as he pulls his legs onto the bed and crosses them. 

Elbows on his knees, face in his palms, he looks out of place on your white sheets. Black jeans, black t-shirt with a tasteful rip from shoulder to pec, black hair a glossy, messy siren call, and all his dull black piercings. He has a stray wave splayed against his cheek that you want to push behind his ear. His stubble would scratch your thumb. 

"If that's how you feel," he murmurs, though he makes no effort to move. 

"Do you think I'll be ill forever?" you ask. 

"Likely. Don't worry, gorgeous. I'll take care of you forever." 

You bite your tongue where it's pushed against the inside of your bottom lip, your eyes softening at his promise. He's joking, sure, but he leans forward to rub your knee and inner thigh, startling you despite the layers of blankets between your bare skin and his. 

His head remains in his palm, propped up casually, so your shock swiftly fades. This is just Sirius being Sirius.

"What will I do with you?" he asks sympathetically. 

"Not much." 

He scratches a hand through his hair. "Now, why are you talking about my girl like that? Being poorly is no excuse." 

You're laying back in a mountain of Sirius-sanctioned pillows and cushions, Sirius to your left, a box of things he'd brought for you to your right. The necessities: super soft aloe vera tissues, decongestants, paracetamol and ibuprofen (an ultimate combination). The treats: new fluffy socks, chocolates you can't yet eat, a blanket one thousand times softer than the tissues, and a teddy bear that 'looks like you', apparently. 

"You're probably too good to me," you say softly. 

"Or I'm the right amount." Sirius straightens, groans, and drops into the cushions beside you. "You're very, very lovely, even when you're as sick as a dog. I think you should know that," he says, his tone ringing with a sincerity that makes your eyes ache worse than they already do. "And you're like, insane levels of gorgeous. I'm not kidding when I say–" 

He pauses as you raise your hand. You settle it sluggishly over his pretty mouth, feeling it curl upward. "Sh," you say, too tired to fluster at his praises. 

"You're beautiful," he says quietly into your hand. 

Sirius' fingertips trace the slopes of your body. Not sexual but inherently intimate, he draws a path from the fat of your upper thigh to your ribs where your blankets end. He pulls them higher. 

"You really won't let me look at your throat?" he asks. 

"No, but… maybe you can make us a cup of tea?" you suggest shyly. 

Sirius leans forward, pressing a short, firm kiss to your chapped lips. "For you? A-ny-thing." Two more quick kisses. "Don't go anywhere." 

Sirius is jogging down the stairs by the time you find the energy to call, albeit weakly, "I can't stand up!" 

"I was joking! Christ, it's worse than I thought. I havta get you to a doctor." 

That time, you catch the sarcasm. 

[bluecanvasshoe]

Runaway

Part two of Arthur Morgan & teen!reader

Warnings: BIGGGGG Rdr2 spoilers, mentions of racism, after the gang gets split up, big time jump, no beta reader, i tried to be historically accurate!!!, descriptions of a panic attack

Summary: It's been a few years since the gang split up. You don't know anyones whereabouts, nor do you know if they're alive or not. But in your new, mundane life, you find a lead to your past. (PS: the most of the story is snippets of the gang splitting.)

AN: sorry this took so long.......... stuff is happening in my life and i found this in my drafts while looking for a distraction. i also didnt know if this was good or not, and idk if u guys would like the big change in the story but i hope u guys like this!!!

word count: 1.9k

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

------

Beaver Hollow sucks. Everything sucks. Honestly, maybe this entire gang sucks.

Dutch sent you two out, acting as messengers for Eagle flies and his father. Neither of you agreed that what Dutch was doing would benefit their tribe, but Eagle Flies was determined. His courage, although strong, blinded him.

After you and Arthur had gone on that fishing trip not long ago, you’ve found yourself hanging around him more often; not that he minded. Naturally, you two started talking. You opened up about your past before the gang, and he told stories of his youth that hadn’t already been shared around the campfire.

However, this came with some downsides.

You and Arthur had an argument the other day. Well, you tried to have an argument, and Arthur listened.

You and Arthur went hunting this time. The sun was setting, and crickets emerged along with god-awful amounts of mosquitoes. After countless tries at Arthur’s bow and arrow you grew more and more frustrated. Turns out, it’s not as easy as pull and release. Because of the added factors of your now seemingly constant anger and the frustration of each failed attempt, you blew up at Arthur.

This included the usual, “people are worried; Dutch is insane; do something,” pleas coming from you, and Arthur’s “i know, kid; kid, I know; we’re trying our best; keep it down the camp’s gonna hear,” replies.

You went to bed that night fuming. ’We’re doing our best’? Come on! After all that’s happened, the best is far from the current situation of the gang. He’s just lying through his teeth, and for what? 

You can take the truth.

The path below you two crunched as gravel dug deeper into the earth, your horses occasionally huffing as they walked along the trail. Tall, top-heavy trees were scattered amongst pine, birds chirping and singing on sturdy branches. Wildflowers that sprouted in vibrant shades of orange and purple were scattered along the sides of the path, mingling with short grass that wasn’t entirely green, yellowing as the year grew old. 

Critters, mainly squirrels or chipmunks, ran across the beaten path. It gave both of you quite the scare as you rode along, not wishing to kill the poor creatures for no inherent reason. The air was chilly, but not cold. It wasn’t warm, but it was stuffy. From the ridge, you could see more trees separated by a shimmering lake in the distance, which was surrounded by… more trees.

“It’s been a weird few days,” Arthur spoke up, his voice gravelly, rough. He sounded hesitant and almost awkward, like he was trying to talk, but couldn’t find a good starter. 

You cleared your throat, “Yeah. Do you… is Dutch… Does this sorta thing happen often?” you asked vaguely, glancing at Arthur in your peripheral vision. 

“What do you mean?

“...This. Y’know the runnin’ east, and… people dyin’. It’s makin’ me worried, Arthur.” 

Arthur fell into a short, thoughtful silence, disrupted by a harsh cough to the side. He cleared his throat and looked forward again, reaching ahead to pat his horse on the neck. “This ain’t happened before. Lots of folks are worried, but… We’ll do what we can, kid, just try to stay strong.” He replied, using the same excuse he’d use for every other person at camp.

You hesitated. The gang had been doing what they could. They had for a long time, but it only seemed to kill people. Dutch lead the gang with determination, mowing down anyone standing between him and his unachievable goals. These decisions, however, came with sacrifices. Sacrifices that stood behind him, praised his actions and followed his lead like a lamb, because they wouldn’t be able to do such a thing if it weren’t for him. Sacrifices that never stood in his way. Sacrifices that were lucky to have a grave, to be spoken of afterwards.

What if you became one of them?

“But Dutch, he- he made these choices, and… I don’t… he’s not right in the mind,” You reasoned in the nicest way possible, praying that the man beside you wouldn’t be ticked off by your remark. Judging by his opinions on the gang’s recent affairs, though, you don’t think he will.

Arthur, again, was silent. You took this as an opportunity to continue.

“I’m scared, Arthur. I’m really scared.” God, that’s not how you wanted to sound. Saying those words sounded like a plea, like you were a child. But what you said was partly how you felt, and maybe honesty was what was needed at the moment. Anxiousness and anger bubbled under your skin, the seeds of upcoming dread sprouting from when they were sown at the Blackwater robbery. “It- this ain’t normal. This is bad, Arthur, there must be somethin’ we can do.”

“I know, trust me, and I wish there was,” Arthur sighed, adjusting his gambler hat. “I’d be lyin’ if I said I weren’t scared, too. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. It ain’t fair to you; you’re just a kid.” He finished, neither agreeing or disagreeing with your previous statements. “But I’m… look, we’re all doin’ our best.”

Now, you know that’s true. You’re not stupid; but really? I mean, the gang had been on the run for months. So many people have died, and now Arthur’s saying that’s the best that they could do? Bullshit. Frustration simmered in your chest, like an urge that needed to be quelled. It itched and burned, your jaw tensing as he spoke.

“I know, but that’s- we wouldn’t be here if we were doin’ our best, I mean, God, come on, so many folks are dead, and it ain’t gettin’ better-” “Kid, please-” “and people are worried! People have died, Arthur, and Dutch won’t give up. Please, Arthur, just listen-” “I am listenin’, but-” “nothin’s getting better, people are scared, and- and what’s wrong with you? You ain’t been actin’ like you usually do, people are worried-” “That’s enough. We’ve already discussed this,” Arthur interrupted, his voice serious and hardened. It cut through the sound of birds chirping, the sound blurring into the background as your stomach practically dropped. Arthur never spoke to you in that way, meaning you likely crossed a line; with the tensions and questions coming from the members of the gang, it’s not surprising he was a little fed up.

You took a deep breath, glancing at him before looking forward once again. “I just- Arthur, we’re worried. We wanna know what’s wrong.”

The two of you fell into silence once more. This time, though, the sound of birds, leaves, or wind didn’t fill it.

“Kid, look, this isn’t your business. You shouldn’t be the one worried about this stuff, this ain’t what you should be spendin’ your time on.”

“Arthur, please-” “No, and I ain’t gonna say it again.”

So that was that.

In the back of your mind, something screamed that you had to do something, anything. But Dutch was so on edge, and after Micah did who knows what with the dog, Cain? You’re a little scared to step out of line.

But when Molly was shot by Ms. Grimshaw, you screamed at her. Then, when everyone chose sides, you went with Arthur. 

Dutch stood at one side of the camp, shouting at Arthur with Micah by his side. With him stood Micah and Javier, though the latter was aiming his gun towards the hazy, darkening sky. You, despite the fact that the others told you to go, stood with Arthur, Sadie, John and Charles. Without a gun to aim at the others, you simply stayed to show who your loyalty lay with. 

And then the men came.

The law.

You ran, and you ran hard. But horses were no match for a scrawny teenager's legs, and you didn’t get far before a lawman tackled you down. 

At the moment, the only thing running through your head is that this has got to be a nightmare. No, this is a nightmare. Your vision almost seemed to darken, everything around you growing suffocatingly close. The lawman’s shouting drowned in the dark abyss of tree shadows and your cotton filled ears. Your heart beat out of your chest, and in the back of your mind, you knew that this was happening. That this isn’t a nightmare. 

They dragged you away kicking and screaming, away to the shit filled streets and swampy air of Saint Denis. You could’ve sworn you’d seen John before you were taken away from the gang’s campgrounds.

Now, your life lay in the biassed hands of the law, and not a mentally ill middle aged man and the snake in his ear. You thought that you would’ve been sent to the gallows without another thought, but despite being an ‘outlaw’, you never truly committed crimes. At least, no one saw you commit your crimes. Therefore, the law deemed you a kidnapped child in need of a ‘civil’ way of life.

So, you were taken to what they called the “orphan trains”. An ominous thing that you were not thrilled for. They were trains that’d take orphaned kids from big cities to the lonely midwest, a place you were so unfortunately familiar with.

-----

It had been years.

Years of helping the woman you were supposed to find maternal collect eggs, of tilling crops, of scrubbing dishes with rowdy, annoying kids you were meant to call your siblings. Of birthdays past without the gang; and now, you were almost an adult.

But one day, your foster dad left his newspaper on the dining table, a mistake he would regret later. The newspaper said something that, after months of mundane and domestic boredom, piqued your interest.

Morning light streamed through the lacy curtains of the kitchen’s windows, the wood of the house creaking under the pressure of the wind. 

Your foster dad, David, was reading the daily news, an ankle on his knee as he went about his morning routine while you were sitting at the dining table quietly. Your foster mother, Anne, was washing dishes from breakfast when one of the boys you’d been living with barged through the door of the house.

The woman startled, dropping a dish into the water. “Jeremy!” Anne scolded, looking at the boy.

“I think one of the horses is having a baby!” he shouted, two of the other kids following him and saying things along the lines of ‘hurry up, come on!’ at the man and woman. David shot up from his seat and Anne dropped what she was doing, telling you amongst the chaos to finish up the dishes as she left the house.

You stood from your seat, watching everyone rush out with slight annoyance. When the door shut, you pushed out your chair, the wood making a screeching sound as it slid across the hardwood floors. Standing up, you walked over the creaky wood to David’s newspaper that sat on the dining table. 

It was full of boring deals and uninteresting stories, but one stuck out. It was about an underground fighting ring, which wouldn’t have caught your eye if it weren’t for the witness statements.

One in particular said some very distasteful things about a man of mixed race, but the summary was that he was Indigenous and African-American.

Indigenous and African-American.

You only know one man who is of those two ethnicities. Granted, you don’t know many people; but still, Indigenous, African American, and an outlaw? Come on.

The second after you read that passage, you made a plan. You’d leave at the dead of night, as soon as possible. Maybe it’s not solid, nor is it well thought through, but there’s no time for that. That night, you pack your things as light as possible.

And then, you finally start your journey back to Saint Denis.

[zillanovikov]

My opinion of Ellipsus vs Google Docs as a (very unprofessional) author after about six weeks of using it:

The default font is much prettier than Google Docs which shouldn't matter to me enough to be point number one but it does

It's not stealing my data to train an AI, hands down better than fucking Google

It worked perfectly when I was under 15,000 words but I'm writing a novel and it's a bit slower to load now I'm well over the 20k mark, this is net neutral because Google Docs does the same thing, no one understands how verbose I am

When I contacted customer about this and another glitch a REAL LIVE HUMAN BEING NAMED KATE ACTUALLY ANSWERED ME TO HELP remember this is a FREE SERVICE but I would put absolute money down that Kate is not a bot what the fuck in the year of our lord 2k24 human customer service does not exist Kate is a fucking GIFT

Kate told me that Ellipsus would run faster if In tried a browser other than Firefox and I was like "but the whole point is to avoid Google products stealing my data" and Kate told me about the Brave browser which has watered my crops and cured my acne, thank you Kate

Network effects suck, aka none of my beta readers use Ellipsus so I have to copy and paste into Google Docs for feedback, but that's the price of being a cool early adopter

the login stuff is really cool and makes it really easy to swap devices which I do a lot (that's 50% of why I don't use scrivener, I do most of my writing on my phone but then I mostly edit on my computer so I want my wip to live on the cloud)

it sometimes works offline--if it's already open and I lose connection I can keep writing but if I try to open my web browser and start writing offline it doesn't work? But I bet if I asked Kate or the community forums there is a way

Yes you can get a link to halfway through the document so my novel after this one which is a chooseable path adventure will work to write in Ellipsus, I found this out from the community forums which include a lot of helpful and sexy early adopters (early adopters are inherently sexy)

I don't like how commenting works, you can only leave comments on drafts (I think with the assumption that my beta readers are the ones commenting but this is incorrect, I am usually leaving comments for myself so I don't forget plot points), this would be okay if I had a draft version that automatically updated as the main version updated but I think the drafts are static when you make them. I don't want to manually copy new chapters over into a draft so I can leave comments on it. As I type this I realize I could just do all my writing on a "draft" version instead of the "main" version and this would solve my problem huh thanks for being my rubber duck Tumblr

If you have questions about my experience I can answer them?

Tl;dr Ellipsus is about equal to Google Docs with some benefits and some downsides. Big ups to Ellipsus on customer service and on not stealing my data to train their AI, but downside that since none of my friends use Ellipsus I'm basically forced to use Google Docs anyway to share my WIP.

[tirfpikachu]

so you say you're not a terf, bc terfs don't exist... radical feminism was always inclusive of transmasc-identified people, anyways, right? so "tirf" as a term doesn't make sense. you were always open to all female folks, including dysphoric "females" of radblr...

but are you actually inclusive of ALL female people?

often, non-trans/dysphoric radfems will say they are, but show an insane amount of trans stigma in their rhetoric, and their gnc activism will have limits; if you choose to modify your body in certain ways, no matter if it's smth the heteropatriarchy hates, you're still some kind of frankenstein monster. you will regret it everytime and someone needs to stop you from mangling yourself. it cannot be done not just for dysphoric reasons but with feminist intent - after all, transmasc-identified people are inherently weaker feminists. they're weak for being dysphoric and giving into it. they're brainwashed. they shouldn't get tattoos, piercings, or total changes in lifestyles like passing as the opposite sex through body modifications. it will always be bad for you and to help you, radfems need to mock it out of you and use language you hate until you know better. and even if you recognize you're female and are proud of it while also being proud of being transmasc, of being gnc in that way, that's still a personal failure on your part as a feminist and it's a slippery slope; you need to stop asap or you'll only hurt yourself, hun. don't you know that you can't please the patriarchy that way? because of course, the heteropatriarchy fucking loves when female ppl take things to make themselves hairier, speak lower, and no longer have big breasts to stare at. all the creepy males sure are cheering for a new transmasc dudebro to hangout with! they definitely aren't pressuring transmasc ppl to keep their og bodies. except yeah, they are, they really, really are, and so are misogynistic transfems who date transmascs too. they still demand for female ppl to look a certain way for them too. it's not a simple 1:1 case of transmascs only ever doing it to please The Patriarchy.

and look, i get it, i myself lived as trans for ALL the wrong reasons - i did 1000% want to please the new modern gay norms. i did think me being a soft cute little trans boyfriend was inherently more lovable than being a dorky butch gf, i really did think that it was a more feminist thing to do since it meant being the Most Gnc Possible and that the gnc female cool kids were all doing it so i should too so i could get their affection by doing it. i really did think that cis/non-trans gender nonconformity was less badass and attractive than trans-identified gender nonconformity. i thought they/them pronouns made me more attractive (though not to the patriarchy - to fellow lgbtq ppl) and that if i passed as male i could finally be a cute transmasc yaoi couple with a fellow transmasc, which was an inherently better thing to be than a gross, boring cis butch4butch couple. gender was my playground in terms of pronouns, names and presentation, but i got in over my head. i came SOOOO close to transitioning despite not truly thinking realistically abt what passing as male would actually look and feel like. i really truly did feel peer pressure in lgbtq spaces. i was already so deep i thought it had to be this way. everybody was so excited for me, after all... i was getting so much attention and affection. i also felt like i was never good enough as a butch, i was always a weak twinky barely-masc girl no matter what i did, so i thought testosterone and surgery could fix me. i wanted to be cooler. i wanted to be handsome so badly. i still do, but i learned another path for me. i want to save gyns from regret and i want to prevent painful detransitions; i'm not saying that trans identity hasn't hurt anyone. it has hurt me. same as how bisexual identity harmed me, back when i was extremely repressed and used it since i was into both transmasc & cis/bio women and thought lesbianism couldn't encompass both. turns out it can. knowledge is what's missing in this. gyns need to know everything, not just what benefits the tra movement. but taking ppl's identities away, mocking their dysphoria by using terminology that viscerally upsets them and overall being ableist and gncphobia as fuck to transitioning people is NOT the way to go. not letting transmasc ppl feel pride despite their often debilitating and dangerous struggles is harmful. it DOES mean you are what well-meaning tras really do mean with the word terf.

if you don't accept ALL female folks, you aren't a real radfem. your sisterhood is conditional and you look down on people with dysphoria whether you like to admit it or not. i know it's easier to wish it all away, to not be inclusive to transmasc folks, it very much does make our jobs easier as feminists and female advocates. but as someone who has suffered living as trans, facing trans stigma and struggling with chronic dysphoria, i refuse to leave transmasc people behind. they still need the sisterhood. they are still my siblings.

i also, controversially i know, welcome ANYONE who risks actual misogyny in their day-to-day lives. including transfems who pass as female, which shockingly enough is a reality now. not all transitioned transfems face it ofc, most in my experience don't, but even those who don't still face horrible gncphobia and i'm fascinated in hearing their unique experiences, as it can help us get a better picture of the patriarchy in order to dismantle it. unlike a lot of radfems, i really do view non-bigoted/predatory gnc people as my allies, male/omab ppl included. gnc male gays/bisexuals and non-bigoted bio women have ALWAYS had a powerful relationship. very rocky at times ofc, and they still do not face female-specific disprivileges and can 100% weaponize that against us, but it's still incredibly meaningful imo. patriarchy-defying male/omab folks have always had a special place in my heart - i can be wary, ofc, since i have faced misogyny from both cis gay/bi men and transfems, but i also find solace in knowing that male/omab folks are willing to go against gender norms, whether they use the trans label or not, and i view dysphoria as a serious condition. i care about dysphoric ppl the way that i care about disabled people in that regard, and that includes protecting disabled bio men and transfems from ableists. if that makes me a naive traitor, so be it. my dysphoric experiences changed me forever.

what we 100% need to do is demand of them to show real allyship with female folks, with bio women and transmascs. not the weak bullshit they have been giving us this far. they have been harming us very deeply as a group, i know. but i don't believe they're all creeps or misogynists, or that them being gnc or transfem-identified makes them more likely to be creepy or misogynistic; when they are, they are in a way that is very unique to transfem identity, so it always ofc stands out. it has attracted a considerable group of creeps and bigots, i won't deny that. transmasc identity also brought in a wide array of internalized misogynists and homophobes, after all. but i don't think it's fair to say that no transfem faces misogyny, or that anti-transfem/gnc omab bigotry isn't horrific, or that they can't be wonderful allies to the radical feminist movement.

terf has become code for all kind of nonsense. but its original meaning still stands: a transphobic feminist. and some of y'all really are proud trans stigma enjoyers. and as a detrans feminist, i refuse to allow that in my own personal politics. dysphoria isn't a joke. being gnc in a way that you find cringe isn't a crime. transition isn't always some nightmare scenario, and trans AND detrans bodies aren't "ruined" or always caused by internalized bs and predatory doctors. i don't want the affirmation-only model. i don't want more painful detransitions like mine. i don't want tras to get away with all the harm they have caused, and i want there to be proper education on what cis/bio gnc womanhood is actually like. especially non-trans lesbian experiences. but i don't want to take away trans identity if it helps people make sense of their dysphoric struggles, or is a fun way for them to play around with pronouns, names, presentation, etc. we need to include grey areas in these discussions. otherwise we really are furthering harm as feminists. sometimes - outside of the usual bs reasons - "terf" is just a plea from tras to stop being so fucking dismissive of dysphoric struggles and stop being genuinely gncphobic to normie trans-identified people who are just enjoying life and saying fuck you to gender norms.

i get that including trans identity in feminism can complicate conversations, i get it. but this is work. activism is supposed to take work. and we need to examine heteropatriarchal things from ALL angles. and now that transition is a solid thing, and trans identity is smth that's not going anywhere in the lgbtq community, tirfs need to exist to deal with these complex topics and interact with them in a non-inflammatory way. you as a radfem don't need to be a tirf, or a nuancefem. your work still matters. just help feminism however you can. but stop assuming tirfs & nuancefems are there to add chaos and be stupid and we're all naive for daring to tell transmasc people, hey! you don't need to let those transfem activists walk all over you! you don't need to listen to transmascphobic rhetoric! you being ofab/female is an axis of oppression worth acknowledging! us doing that with the word tirf, with a play on the term terf, we're not hurting you or the movement. and yeah, we tirfs include transfems who face misogyny, and we're generally more open to male/omab allies, but we're not watered down libfems. libfems HATE OUR GUTS right now. we are still 100% considered transphobic whiny bitches. we do work you may not understand, and that's fine. just leave us be.

and for the love of all goddesses in the universe, please learn to show actual allyship to transmasc people. if you claim to welcome all "females" you better be showing that courtesy to female/ofab trans people. i know ableism and trans stigma (which imo often falls under ableism) is rampant on radblr, but if you're going to claim to care about detrans and soon-to-be-detrans people, you need to care about currently dysphoric female people too. they deserve sisterhood, they deserve female siblinghood. otherwise, don't be surprised if those transmasc feminists call you terfs and stick with tirfs & nuancefems instead. don't assume i'm like you just because i'm detrans and moved away from trans identity. i care about my female siblings, my female/ofab brothers. them waking tf up and embracing their female feminism is a GOOD THING and we need to be there for them once they peak. they don't deserve the mockery and disdain y'all have been showing them. they deserve so much better. don't be mad that radblr is being "invaded" by tirfs. look inwards. why is there a need for tirfs? why is it in demand rn? it's because radblr is failing its transmasc members. radblr is brushing off dysphoric struggles and harassing transmasc radfems off the platform. it's being purposefully cruel and adding to dysphoric stigma, and often being extremely gncphobic too.

if you are transmasc orbiting radblr, you're not alone.

if you are transfem and willing to fight equally for transmasc rights, transfem rights and bio/cis female rights, you're welcome here.

if you are a cis bio male and agree, we can make use of your time and your energy as an ally too. just don't be a dick, or we'll shoot it off.

tirfism is here to stay, and it's a response to how radblr is currently failing its dysphoric gyns. it is making more progress in actually addressing tra issues meaningfully than inflammatory self-described terfs and anti-trans radfems ever have. get used to it!⚡

[aiscapades]

ts m5 as cinderella's castle songs!

🐸 come along with me to bog's hollow for a side quest ♡

leander — facade, neon vere — step on your grave, watch ais — last forever, ash to ash mhin — castle on a hill, cursed crazy kuras — ever after, trappings of starlight

explanations:

leander

facade: this is the MOST LEANDER song EVER. and it's a fucking BANGER!! i am screaming this at you. this is THE song of this whole musical. it's the evil stepmother SERVING CUNT on a silver platter talking about how she skins humans in order to wear their flesh as disguises for her & her daughters. did you know that's the plot of this muscial?? do you see why it's so leander??? i'm shaking you by the shoulders way too hard. the line "i don't forget my roots / i just pluck them out of the shit" is leander turning away from his wealthy upbringing to rebuild from the ground up in lowtown. "i look good in this / my facade won't let down / no one notices that my soul is inside out" LEANDERRR YOU ARE A SICK TWISTED MAN. "my truth is skin-deep and oblique" HE'S FULL OF SECRETS DO YOU KNOW THIS "i'm good to play the part / until i break your heart" HE'S GOING TO USE YOU. HE'S ALREADY USING YOU. YOU DONT EVEN HAVE TO BE INTO HIM HE'S ALREADY PUPPETING YOU. YOU'RE ALREADY PLAYING INTO HIS LONG CON. YOU'RE ALREADY FUCKED MAN YOU SHOULDNT HAVE LOOKED IN HIS DIRECTION. "i'll try it on / i'll take it for a spin" he will play whatever role he needs to in order to get what he wants. this whole song is his villain monologue if he was a contestant on rupaul's drag race. does that make sense (??) neon: this song is soo leander seeing mc across the bar and being enraptured at first sight. i had assigned it to ais at first, which still works, but i moved it to leander bc 1. the actual imagery reminds me of leander presenting mc with the magic lily :) and 2. well it kinda has sub vibes if you really read into the lyrics. for example: "radiate my life / burn me with your fire / bend my space and time / let me be your martyr" leander's got ulterior motives for sure, but he'll let you use him a lil bit too if you know what i mean.. "you know i will not ever sleep at night" firstly, leander doesn't sleep, he's chugging monster and sucking the life essence out of orphans. or something. the second part "you walk in lookin' like a neon light / no sense in turning you off" read to me like leander sitting back and observing mc in order to further plot and plan.. there's no need to directly make mc do anything. he's not gonna outright force mc to stop seeing the other LIs. but he will always be watching from the sidelines to see if you take his advice, heed his warnings. y'know the old adage about how abusive men want a submissive woman but they always go after those who are independent in order to break them down. it's giving me that. leander is fascinated by mc and is absolutely gonna pull some strings, but he's also content just keeping an eye on them for now. controlling them in subtle ways. seeing how this plays out. i should probably mention this song is the prince singing about being bewitched by ella's magical disguise, but he's just a gross pervert and isn't actually looking for love. so there's inherently ulterior motives in the song due to the narrative; it's not a genuine love song, and i think that's why i ultimately decided to assign this to leander instead of ais (THAT'S NOT A DISS OK)

vere

step on your grave: rebellious teenage girl vere makes a comeback :) this is a "i want that bitch dead" song that i think fits vere's relationship with his handlers and the senobium. it opens with ella talking about how her life was meant to go as the daughter of a respected family: "i was raised to be appraised / path was paved, dress was made" which parallels how vere was once revered as a god. he was once looked up to, feared, worshipped. he was once something, but now he's reduced to a mere hunting dog. in the song, ella is preparing food for her stepmother & sisters, but given they are trolls, the ingredients are pretty nasty, from frog guts to entire cats to maggot soup. she's disgusted and sick of this routine, which i think is a bit like vere getting sick of having to consume all these low-quality, tasteless souls... i can't imagine what he's hunting gives him much satisfaction at this point. mc was probably the yummiest yet. anyway, ella goes on to fantasize about putting her stepmother in a grave. "'cause i wish you nothin' but defeat / and i want nothin' for you but the least / and i know you're wishing i'd be sweet and behave / i want to step on your grave" AMENNN vere deserves to stomp his handlers imo watch: maybe i'm too presumptious when it comes to these things, but i only know so much about these characters and my mind definitely assigns certain tropes to them. vere gets rebellious teenage girl and :) girlboss sadism <3. if it's cunty and freaky and dark, it's vere to me. this song is all those things. it's stepmother severing ella's foot (à la the grimm cinderella tale) while she's forced to watch and feel alllll the pain & fear. very reminiscent of vere hunting and consuming mc alive <3 the song opens "my god, you're so lucky / for me to appear in your life / you were itching for a thrill / something to catch your eye" which reminds me of how vere seduces(?) people? i'm thinking of the trailer scene with all the hands grabbing at him. either way, he certainly uses his good looks and charming wit to take down people's guard, and he pities easy prey. "i want you to watch / watch what happens / ... i want you to watch what i'm doing / the gore is half the thrill / the searing pain within you / won't go away until / you watch." idk i think vere should stomp his handlers lmaooo. i would love to see him break free from his chains and become a venerated god once again. "pain will come before pleasure / and the pleasure will be mine" i hope so pookie <3

ais

last forever: WALK WITH ME WALK WITH ME this song is right after ella learns her childhood friends will be visiting in order to attend the upcoming ball, and for the first time in so long, ella will be able to feel like a normal person again. she can sing and dance and chitchat and wear her pretty dresses and not have to worry about being the servant of monstrous trolls. she sings about how she hopes this feeling lasts forever. "i've been thinking about this day as long as i remember / and i've been dreaming about how i can make it last / if i close my eyes i can see the best in front of me / ... this day will last forever" now i'm putting emphasis on that last line because, unfortunately, her two childhood friends do come to stay.. as skinsuits for her stepsisters. she wanted so badly to pretend everything is okay when it just never was and never could be. to me, this is like ais, burdened by loneliess, entering the pact with ocudeus thinking he'll never have to be alone again, but instead entering his own living nightmare. the faces of ella's childhood best friends twisted over the form of bloodthirsty trolls = the dozens of mangled voices echoing in ais's head at all times. ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME HERE?? you still got what you wanted! your expectations for it were just too high. ash to ash: ok so this is my favorite song. no it's not bc it has my name. no im not emotionally attached to cinderella she's not my favorite princess bc of the ash/cinder thing. why are you accusing me of such things im trying to MAKE A MUSICAL ANALYSIS TUMBLR POST FOR TOUCHSTARVED THE GAME. anyway this song is fucking awesome and i first associated it with kuras bc it's sung by a goddess and has lots of fire/starlight imagery which imo is biblical. but honestly? i thought abt it more and i changed my mind. it's for ais. at this point in the musical, ella accidentally summons the fairy queen of sweet dreams through the blood of her fallen friends and the righteous fury in her heart. the god asks ella what she desires, and ella tamely responds that she wishes for the world to be a good place. the goddess is offended by this lie and tells ella to share her true feelings. ella responds that she actually wants revenge, and the goddess is pleased to hear this, singing "it all turns to ash and ash / and dust to dust / there's nothing left but a vengeful lust / ... when the light goes out / only fire is just." she uses her power to bestow gifts and blessings upon ella in order for her to achieve this desire, much like how ocudeus bestows ais with power to serve a greater purpose. the fairy queen isn't afraid to give ella all she needs to destroy her enemies. she wants ella to achieve her deepest desire, no matter how much bloodshed that may cost. she almost seems to revel in the thought of bloodshed. she tells ella, "i forge you these three gifts / for your just intention / against your opposition / use them." ella asks "wisely?" and the fairy queen corrects, "hardly." this just reminded me of ocudeus wanting ais to know he's allowed to hurt others, recruit others, do whatever he wants for the greater purpose. these eldritch gods are gifting them power and they want it to be used. "a god will see that your enemies run."

mhin

castle on a hill: this opening song of the muscial is representative of the senobium's perception to outsiders and those desperate for the secrets within, like mhin or even mc. "there's a castle on the hill as the story goes / and it watches over us from across the moat / there are tales in those halls / are they true or are they tall?" the ivory tower senobium lords over its citizens with secrecy, much like the eponymous castle on the hill; with this power and secrecy comes speculation on what goes on behind the walls. this song is the townsfolk recounting theories and stories while wondering if the castle would ever let them in to see for themselves. "it watches us from its looming tower... i worship its sheer size / oh, the ballads it must hide / i need to know, will i ever know?" the first mc sees of mhin (in the demo) is them trying to scale the walls and enter the senobium. we know they want inside but we can only guess what for (a cure? answers? revolution?) and, similar to mc or other unknowing outsiders, they seem to idealize whatever the senobium holds. maybe they know something we don't, or maybe they're just holding out hope that the senobium will live up to its mythologized reputation. cursed crazy: i have a lot of sympathy for mhin's curse situation, which is why i love any kind of angst for them. sorry <3 this song is all the townsfolk ostracizing ella for having gone mad after the death of her parents. nobody believes what ella claims, and she seems batshit crazy with all the talk of murder plots and trolls in skinsuits. "cursed or crazy? / ... the guilt she's got, she's overwrought / that paranoid look, like the town is talking behind her back / lock her away! / destined to join her mother at the stake / weird and eccentric / completely estranged!" mhin is overly cautious about getting close to other people and prefers to keep solo, probably for a lot of reasons, but most notably i think they fear hurting innocent people above all else. they would already be ostracized because of their monstrosity but they choose it for themself anyway, so they're doubly alone. in the demo, you get the sense others almost blame mhin for being such a recluse (like leander trying to get them to open up, or vere teasing them) but we know there are definitely underlying reasons why mhin would rather keep to themself. i think this dynamic reflects ella's perspective in the song with all the townsfolk looking down on her, oblivious to the horrorific reasoning. there are also the lines "when fighting your demons alone / you know you're fucked or fated / destiny couldn't be sicker / whether you want it or not" which gives the doomed by the narartive vibes i associate with mhin.

kuras

ever after: he who is laden with guilt and must repent,, i bestow upon him this song about not knowing if you will achieve (or even deserve) a happy ending. "just as the rain might fall / i've been bracing for years / has living with pain / eroded the last of my fears? / am i ready?" if a beautiful angel lived centuries on earth in order to make up for mistakes in heaven,, would he no longer fear his demise? would he acquiesce just as humans do to mortality? would he accept his punishment and finally free himself of all the guilt just so he may die in peace? "kings rise, kings fall / ... is it my time, or was it long ago? / will it ever after happily? / or will it all turn to dust?" or will he get to live, free of penance, finally? orrrrr will the harbiger of chaos and ruin make a return as the world succumbs to biblical destruction? you tell me (also a bunch of lyrics from other songs make a reappearance, which to me is fitting for kuras since he seems to be a pretty neutral touchstone for all the Lis in one way or another) trappings of starlight: strangely fitting how we're ending on the last full song of the musical ... well trappings of starlight is a "we won!" song with an heavy, underlying sadness for those that couldn't make it to the end. it also has some symbolism from ash to ash that fits well for kuras if you recall what i said about that in ais's section. "in trappings of starlight / all of the people / will get back together now / sunset and sunrise / fearsome and regal / ashes belie a crown" i think sunset & sunrise, fearsome & regal are apt descriptions for an angel, and even more than that, ashes belie a crown is soooo holy hellfire to me. the trappings of starlight is ella's dress crafted from the last flickering light in the eternal dark, infused with magic (and very irradiated glass coded) and due to this, when the prince tries to remember her face after the ball, he can only see fire and starlight. much like if you happened to encounter an angel! "i know you're worthy / for what we've been through / an unforgiving journey / but we've arrived at the truth" doesn't kuras just want to be worthy? of love, of forgiveness, of hope? i think he feels very removed from these rather ordinary things, whether bc of his extraordinary nature or because he was deemed unworthy of them in the past. whatever the case may be, i think this song fits him well. "gracious and lethal / lifting the heavy crown" like that's just kuras. "my love will be fierce! / and your love will be missed" is because mc will perish long before kuras ever will, just as all the others that preceeded them... but he won't love mc with any less conviction, with any less heart.

[saiikavon]

You know what it is about Solas, that makes him simultaneously my favorite character and also just so annoying to me because I think I've got it

I consider myself a curious person, wanting to learn all I can and surround myself with people who are also curious and love to learn. And I think, when you are a curious person, you can really open yourself up to lots of different perspectives and experiences

BUT

When you are a person who Learns, you also run the risk, I think, of becoming attached to your own intellect and the things you have learned. You can become as obsessed with the Knowing as you are with the Learning, and when you do that...you can easily convince yourself that you know more and are wiser than pople who may not share your inherent curiosity

Which is a long-winded way of saying that sometimes very learned and experienced people can become pompous, know-it-all assholes

Solas, I believe, has convinced himself that what he knows and what he has learned is worlds above what other people know, and the frustrating thing is, he sort of does. He has truths that people have long forgotten, histories that he witnessed first hand that have become twisted over time. Furthermore, he has presumably had time to reflect on all he's done and all that came of his actions, so he can operate based on information only HE has

I know people like this. I have fallen victim to it myself at times. Thinking that the act of reflection itself means you will ultimately come to the best overall conclusion, since you are, indeed, giving something its due consideration before acting, where others would jump in without thinking at all or gaining all the information. The problem is that just thinking things over does not automatically make one correct. You may have taken every new point of information without checking your biases, or with even an unconcious interest in confirming them. You may let a specific emotion guide your research. You may forget to actually listen to what's been told to you or to consider the feelings of those around you - the facts may not care about feelings, but feelings can and do shape certain facts.

Solas' folly is that he has lived through so much and ultimately applies all of that experience to things he learns about the new world without actually considering the people who live in it. Oh, he wants to save them, this lost flock, as he did the slaves bound by the Evanuris. He thinks that because they do not know better, he must decide for them what to do.

What I adore about him is this compassion, this curiosity, the way he paints his picture of history. The way he feels for his people and the way he learns about the world.

What I cannot stand is how he holds this learning over everyone's head, even people he claims to respect. It drives me absolutely bananas when I see someone I genuinely love spend so much time talking themselves into a corner that they now think anyone who presents a new perspective must automatically be wrong. I hate when I catch myself doing it. I understand the burning need to defend the position I've spent so long cultivating because someone has tried to tell me I'm wrong.

You can't argue with a person like this in one debate. They've already argued with themselves and, intentionally or not, developed a counterpoint for each and every point you can make against their stance. Even if they convince themselves they don't want to go down this path...well, they've thought about it for so long, they now feel they have no other choice.

I adore Solas. I hope, hope, HOPE, that in Veilguard, we can give him an argument he will finally consider. I hope we can tell him he's being a stubborn fucking dipshit and he will listen. I hope we can provide him a new way to learn and that he will try to move on. I hope he will leave his past to rest and try to make reparations to those that live in the present.

I hope my Inquistor Wren Lavellan can go to him, smile as she kisses him and calls him a fool, then take his hand and find home.

[ardentcuttle]

"Death's a silent brigade, a solemn march,

It's the only way the weary find their peace.

To escape from this hell, this echoing cage."

"If we can't decide, if our hands are tied,

We can only cry, our voices lost to the wind.

Let's greet the other side... and find what silence brings."

Chapter 1: The Summons

London, 2002.

A rain so punctual it felt less like weather and more like a liturgical ritual, each drop a chime.

8:04 a.m.

Every single day, the city held its breath.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The droplets struck the academy's ancient, leaded glass like a clock counting down – always preceded by a soft static in the air, the ghost of a frequency fading, like a cassette reel rewinding a little too far, catching a phantom echo.

The usual cacophony of students – whispers, sudden bursts of laughter, the annoying scrape of soles on polished stone as classes ended – seemed to swirl around, deliberately clouding the sharp edges of one particular mind.

Lloyd had his head buried in his arms, his voice a low hum, a current beneath the surface noise. A poem? Perhaps, or a private incantation one couldn't quite decipher.

"Lloyd!"

A feminine voice, sharp as cut glass, sliced through the air. Lloyd stopped his recitation abruptly, his head snapping up.

"You've been summoned. Would you please come with me?"

A sudden hush fell over the room, the collective breath of dozens of teenagers held. Lloyd looked around, the quiet itself a heavy weight. His gaze landed on the girl standing at the hallway door. Her hair was pulled into a neat bun, bangs framing a face that was both composed and watchful. Her uniform, while adhering to the school's black and red, had a subtle flair of Victorian elegance – a hint of a bygone era in the crisp lines of her collar, the slight puff of her sleeves.

A flicker of something – recognition, resignation – passed through Lloyd's otherwise monotonous eyes, his face, already stark, becoming almost entirely blank. How was that possible? How could he feel so little, yet know this was bad?

"It seems like you enjoy disturbing my beauty sleep, bloody Marceline."

"I'd appreciate you refrain from placing my name in one of your swear words, Lloyd."

The girl, Marceline, replied to Lloyd's sharp tongue, the two students walking down the hallway, a path clearing before them as other students gave way. Lloyd grew conscious; the whispers from the students became more noticeable now, a low hum of curiosity and fear.

"Is it that bad?" Lloyd whispered.

Marceline didn't reply, her pace steady and unwavering.

Climbing the grand, winding staircase down to the courtyard, Lloyd was struck again by the sheer scale of the school grounds, a sprawling gothic beast of stone and history.

The eerie atmosphere wasn't just melodramatic; it hummed with an undercurrent of something deeply unsettling, clashing beautifully with the thematic feel of a classic 1980s prep school film – all polished brass and whispered secrets. Hazy rays of sun, thin as stretched silk, peeled through the perpetual London clouds, the patter of raindrops on the ground a strangely reassuring whisper, a steady pulse beneath the growing tension.

Lloyd shivered, not just from the inherent chill of the London air, but from a prickle of unease. He tugged his black blazer tighter, seeking comfort from the damp cold.

Marceline, however, seemed entirely unfazed, her movements precise as she opened the umbrella she held close, its dark canopy blooming like a morbid flower.

"Care to join me?" she offered, her tone flat.

"What if people think we're a coupl–" Lloyd started, a nervous habit of deflection.

Marceline merely arched an eyebrow, her expression utterly devoid of amusement or interest.

"I guess not," Lloyd muttered, shrinking into his own space.

Navigating their way through the main district of the Third Sanctuary – a moniker that now felt less quaint and more ominous – they were met by a thick cordon of police personnel. Every officer was armed and tensed, their state of alert palpable, like a stretched wire about to snap.

The perimeter covered Los Duos Park, typically a vibrant hub for school activities and clubs. Now, it was a forbidden zone, a silent testament to something profoundly amiss. Lloyd gulped, a knot tightening in his stomach. He glanced at Marceline, whose face remained a mask of practiced indifference, as she continued her deliberate stroll towards the grim sight. Lloyd, legs heavy, reluctantly followed, his fingers absently scratching his thigh.

One of the officers, a burly figure hunched beneath a standard-issue umbrella, squinted at them.

"You young'uns shouldn't be here," he rumbled, his hand instinctively hovering near his belt buckle.

"Yes, I'm aware," Marceline replied, her voice cool and composed. "But we are part of the Students' Council. I've been asked to bring him over."

The surrounding officers looked to their superior, who, after a moment of wary hesitation, nodded. "This way," he conceded, ushering them through a gap in the tape.

Lloyd dragged his feet across the damp grass of the park, each step feeling heavier than the last. "Well, that was easy," he mumbled, half to himself.

"You'd be surprised by the power this school holds," Marceline stated, without inflection. "The Students' Council included."

Marceline and the officer stopped at the entrance to the taped-off area, the air suddenly thick with a metallic tang. This wasn't just a crime scene; it felt like a sacred, violated space. But how bad could it be?

Lloyd's question was answered the moment he saw it. A grotesque tableau of his fellow students, arrayed in a precise, chilling circle, gathered not around a victim, but what could only be described as a ritual.

"What in the bloody—" Lloyd began, his murmur cut short, his scratching turning into a frantic, unconscious clawing at his thigh.

"Stand back," Marceline ordered, her tone sharper now. "Martha, I've brought him."

Lloyd's pupils dilated, his eyes widening to impossible saucers. "Martha? As in the Martha?" The name was a whispered legend, a force to be reckoned with even among the elite of the academy.

The girl in question stood at the center, motionless, two students holding an umbrella for her, shielding her from the relentless drizzle.

Her pale blonde hair, almost translucent, blended with the depressing atmosphere, reflecting the dull light of the day. Lloyd had never met her in person, but the aura she exuded, even from a distance, confirmed every unsettling rumor: she was something else entirely.

Her uniform was drastically different from Marceline's – a pure, unblemished black, with only the subtlest lining of deep red, a composition so stark it evoked the image of a creature from a gothic tale, a Dracula-esque figure. It covered every inch of her skin, including her neck, adding to the illusion. Yet, the flush of her visible ears betrayed a human pallor beneath the severe fabric.

Lloyd instinctively recoiled a step, a primal instinct against an unknown threat. Her voice, when it came, was a calm, almost musical whisper that cut through the silence.

"Good morning, Lloyd."

She turned, slowly, with a smile that was not warm but utterly eerie, her eyes, like shards of ice, calmly, unsettlingly, fixing on him.

Lloyd stood frozen, his lips barely parting, his voice a strangled wheeze.

[bite-the-bloody-hand]

There was a fun conversation happening in the Owlcat discord a while back where someone just could not understand why Iomedae is so against any mythic path that isn't Legend or Angel.

The two factions were Team 'Stupid Lawful Iomedae' and Team 'Stupid Writing' and unfortunately both of them are wrong. Trust me, my cousin's a lawyer.

It's not that being Lawful makes Iomedae stupid, it's that being Lawful means that she has to do some pretty heinous, backhanded shit to secure the legitimacy of her worship - and this is because that's what her church wants.

Throughout the game's narrative it's made abundantly clear that the Crusade isn't about preventing loss of life or retaking the blighted lands or even just saving people from horrible demise: it's about 'restoring order' and 'returning to the status quo,' for the purpose of insinuating Cheliaxian law on that region of Golarion. It's always been about expansion and conquest "done by the right people." It was convenient to sit for years letting the indigenous Kellids and Sarkorian population die out when the Wound first opened, so a Cheliax-backed conquering force could move in from their already established bases and annex all of that land for themselves.

That's why Lady Konomi is always pushing for the Knight Commander to kowtow to the Capital and the Capital's Allies in Cheliax. Mendev is excellently positioned to become an "ally" (read: vassal state) to Cheliax and secure their holdings in that central region - something that had already been in motion.

If you played Kingmaker, it was heavily implied (if not outright stated) that Pitax was the Chelaxian wedge in the River Kingdoms; losing that land to the suddenly extraordinarily successful barony-to-kingdom would have been a HUGE blow. Pushing even harder to have Mendev pick up the slack - especially with them being neighbors - would have been a major priority. It has never been about saving people.

Yes, by Gods, the Angel path does a lot of lip service towards the cause of the righteous, the inherent horror and sympathy of Galfrey's position, and the relative powerlessness of the Angelic Host to do much of anything without a mortal champion at the tip of the spear. But that mortal champion must also be aligned with the wants of the church, which are the wants of Cheliax. That mortal champion cannot be tainted by, say, a personal belief that slavery is wrong even if it is the law. Even if the Angel by their side also carries that belief*.

Demons are chaotic, and their hierarchy is lawless, therefore it MUST be Iomedae and her Crusade that heals the worldwound because that proves the rule of law. It doesn't matter to Iomedae and her followers that the Azata are often THE guys to go to for stopping demon incursions** - it's about proving that their method is superior, righteous, and good. Even if that means allowing slavery, standing by as an indigenous population gets wiped out, and outright stalling the war effort if it gets in the way of political landgrabbing.

@thedosianexplorer also makes a good point about how the Crusade in-game reflects the real-world historical attitude of 'Crusading as an Act Of Love:' "if the good townsfolk die while we're not stopping this demon incursion, as long as they already loved and followed Iomedae, so they're saved, so it's fine."

All this to say, I don't think this is a case of Stupid Character or Stupid Writing - it's very deliberate. I also personally theorize that the other reason Iomedae('s Church) is so obsessed with proving her legitimacy is because Iomedae personally took out Aroden to 'prevent him from falling to darkness.' Iomedae and her church are very 'if you have bad thoughts you are a bad person' so I feel as though presuming that starts with her icing Aroden because he was having Dark Thoughts isn't totally out of line here. Iomedae needed to kill Aroden because what else would she be if her God turned out to be corrupt?

*The Hand of the Inheritor's downfall during Act 4 is my favorite ingredient of this whole fucked-up recipe: He left the service of an angel that had risen from being a devil only to find himself in the service of a mortal-turned-god from the Slavery Is Good And We're Bros With Asmodeus Country. No wonder he freaks out so bad.

**I find it deeply compelling that even in our own real world cosmology, it's essentially Yazatas vs Demons and Angels vs Devils. So having the Angel faction come in and say 'actually we're way better for this job than you, and we're going to prove it and then everyone will see that the real righteousness is the righteousness of law' is a WILD narrative choice that I really jive with.

[raptorific]

Okay but I was just saying today how bad I want a spinoff about how Tigress Snow become who she became. Which is why I'm offering an open question to you: I'd love to hear any theories you have on the trajectory of her life that lead her where it did.

I can always count on you for good stuff like this--

So, the fun thing about Tigris is that when I first read Songbirds, they mention she's Snow's cousin on the very first page, and I literally had to put the book down and go paw through my copy of Mockingjay to see if they'd ever actually referenced that before. It didn't feel like a reveal, because it just made so much sense that she'd be his cousin that I assumed I must've already known it.

So, the thing that's clear to me after Songbirds is that Tigris and Coriolanus have very different priorities with regards to the games. Tigris thinks they're monstrous and over-the-line, and feels for the tributes, Coriolanus thinks they're necessary and that the tributes (and in fact all human beings) are inherently brutal and need dramatic examples like the games to keep them in line

I think this is reflected in their diverging, parallel paths in their participation in the games. Tigris is a stylist, a role which allows her to work directly with the Tributes, maybe even give them more of a fighting chance to survive, while Snow worked as a mentor and gamemaker, and orchestrated ways to make the brutality of the games even more effective

You also see, towards the end of the book and movie, that Tigris has begun to feel fear and disgust towards her cousin, but she is still effectively dependent on him financially, and doesn't want to alienate him entirely. This was a reversal of their positions at the beginning of the book, when Coriolanus was entirely dependent on Tigris' pawn shop savvy, arts and crafts skills, and implied sex work to keep afloat, and she put almost every resource she had towards making sure he could succeed so their family could regain its old prestige

So at the end of the book, Snow is back on top, they've got the fortune back, the people standing in the way of his return to high society are eliminated, and he's been taken under the wing of one of the most powerful people in the Capitol. Of course he used his connections to get Tigris a job, in his mind that's only fair, he did for her what she'd always done for him.

The crucial thing, for me, is that eventually, Coriolanus screwed her over the same way he screwed over Sejanus and Lucy Gray and everyone else who ever got close to him who became an obstacle or liability to his ascendancy. When her furry-ism got to be embarrassing to the family name, she was canned from that job and shoved out of the way somewhere she couldn't get in the way of his political prospects

The thing is, based on Songbirds, I don't think Tigris was necessarily surprised by this. I think she took the job while it was an option for her, because she'd seen her cousin's true colors through the Tenth Games and his time in District 12, and knew eventually she'd be cast aside as well. She was dependent on him, and that wouldn't last forever, and so she needed to take advantage of it while she could.

I think her body modifications were probably similar in motivation to the rest of the Capitol's insane cosmetic procedures, but I also think they come from a place of desperately wanting control over her own life. She spent her whole adolescence serving the needs of her cousin, and then she ended up entirely dependent on her cousin and unable to do anything that would embarrass his standing in high society. I think transforming herself into a human cat was an attempt at feeling like she was, in some small way, in control of herself.

I hope there was a solid answer somewhere in all that rambling! I find Tigris to be such a fascinating character

[ixiot-ghostrebel]

Another idea for prophet of chaos reader interaction with characters

Yanqing I tought that he was a girl so the reader thinks In Thier first meeting he is a girl to and for now just to mess with ice boi reader calls him baby girl in most sweet voice when ther is many pepole around them

Herta for some reasons the data about khanos and the patch of chaos canot properly loaded and alwyase glitching reader explains becose of nature of universe and chaos itself no amout of computer power will nevere fully simulate the universe and tells how in nature the power of chaos inherently can't be fully comprehended

Stelle (I use her as my trailblazer becose I like her) well the only thing I can call how they interact will be Dan heng reaction to all of this "there are two of them!?!" But for real reader and stelle never shodul be in one place alone tougheter becose the chaos they will bring will be to much even for other wosipers of khanos.

I SEE...A PART 2 INDEED!! @Zardas75 be aware that this post will not be including Yanqing, mainly because I'm not shipping him. I have mentioned on my info page that all minors are strictly platonic, and I feel uncomfortable readung the first paragraph regarding Yanqing—so I'm afraid he won't be added to this post. Sorry!

Click me for Part 1!

Stelle & Herta (Seperate) With a Prophet of Chaos!Reader

(Warning: Might be OOC!)

Stelle

Bro, you match her energy so much the entire Astral Express is trembling between the chaos you both will and can create anywhere and any place. March 7th is scared, Dan Heng is solely relying on Himeko's coffee to keep his brain cells alive, and the adults are growing imaginary grey hairs. (/j)

You and Stelle are like two peas in a pod. You are like a duo that cannot go anywhere without the other. You two match each other's vibe so much it sometimes comes off as scary. One time, you even finished each other's lines.

So when you tell Stelle that you were a Prophet of Chaos under the Aeon of Chaos themself, she isn't too surprised. After all—she met the gazes of like—two different Aeons already.

"Oh, that's cool—wanna go hunt through trash cans in Belebog with me now?" Is probably the most relaxed person you'll ever meet when it comes to the aeons.

Safe to say, your duties for Chaos will be hyped and amplified greatly with the Amazing Trailblazer Stelle by your side~

Herta

This woman, at first, found you as an annoying little twerp that just loves to wreck havoc and cause chaos in her work.

What makes it even more complicated is that, somehow, you got into the good graces of almost everyone on the Space Station despite that nuisance of a personality you have.

You piqued her interest from there, and so she decides to invite you to her office.

Safe to say, you guys along pretty well. The Stimulated Universe also helps, in a way, for you both to bond. With you as a constant player with a chaotic attitude to everything, Herta's also managed to get information about Khaos, the Aeon of Chaos.

When you tell her that your the Prophet of Chaos, her curiosity gets AMPLIFIED. She has to know as much about Khaos and the other Aeons now.

"So what is the Path of Chaos truly like? Surely, you know better than anyone. I'm curious—does Khaos ever look upon mortals when they align with their Principles of Chaos?" Though she asks many questions, your answers were as hard to compute as they were easy to understand.

You were an enigma to Herta, and she loves that about you.

And we're done! Sorry if this isn't to your standards, but I hope this will be good enough for you all :)

Ghost Rebel Creator Notes: Sorry that this post took longer than usual to post—I got caught up with a lot of IRL stuff that it got postponed lol- But safe to say that I'm back and rolling now :)

✦ Check out The Ghost Rebel’s Blog Description & Info Page to See if Their Mailbox is Open! ✦

[bladiesbunny]

note ; pt is in alt - ramble under cut ; i 'd appreciate discussing it a lot i love yapping please ask me to yap i 'll hug you

1

" the first demigod arrived at the mountain peaks , listening to the counsel of destiny . "

terminus !

potentially aha if you draw the connection between mountain peaks and how they ascended

potentially qili / ix / hooh due to all being contenders for first aeon

2

" the final meteor pierced through evernight , becoming the sword that defies calamity . "

nanook has many star /space related things in their blessings n equations iirc , additionally they are the most recent aeon and could be considered the " final " . aeons can alst be tl -ed to " star god " and meteors can frequently be mistaken for stars

calamity could be tazzy if we go w nanook but i also think this is terminus - they 're finality /destiny they would be a calamity

3

" at that time , they were still waiting :

or perhaps a chess piece biding its time , "

only aeon who could be connected to chess would be hooh - personally i think this be more emanator specifically lord ravager chess player so nanook again

4

" an after echo of a wave , "

going to say ororborus

" a hem of a skirt not yet sewn "

idrila with crossover into terminus

" a gold coin with different faces on each side . "

aha , no doubt

5

" or a butterfly perched on a branch "

butterflies have common association with death , terminus - perhaps also yaoshi due to the nature theme ; an argument Could be made for idrila

6

" a paradoxical retort "

either aha or mythus - personally think it 's mythus

" a gentle warm ray of light , "

nanook , their artwork has a rather Sun like motif behind their head - the sun is most commonly associated with rays of light

7

" a migrating lion , "

tayzzyronth , due to the mention of migration

" an unnamed sword . "

Akivili , the name of the express group is literally nameless

8

" the chrysos heir who opens the " path " "

janus as a titan seems to be a parallel to akivili - much like nikador & nanook are presented

9

" your soul shall be sundered by divergent paths "

hear me out ;

this is nanook - the swarm disaster + emperors war + path of finality connections + destruction

that 's four paths

10

" — but dawn will arrive . "

nanook again , going off the sun motif nanook already has - dawn is the first appearance of the sun in the mornings but also as a verb can mean " become evident to the mind ; be perceived or understood "

" but truth will arrive " nanook 's " truth " is that humanity as a species is violent and must be extinguished . the events of the game indirectly prove that imo ;

the chrysos heirs are Human - and they do kill the aeon parallels in the titans : they even kill nanook 's perceived parallel in nikador - additionally the events causing the swarm disaster and emperors war were started by humanity .

additionally the ipc killed thousands trying to exterminate parts of the legion - nanook 's " truth " is constantly being proven to them by the game 's setting

" dawn " is constantly re - arriving for nanook because their truth of humanity being inherently evil is constantly being proven

okay yapfest Overr !!

if you read this far ily /p

[cannibalovers]

Hannibal song of the day: song no. 13

a bit about the song:

"The Lovers" (2017) is a song by Nine Inch Nails, appearing in the EP "Add Violence". It was written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, two members of the group. It has a very anxious, almost threatening, but calming sound to it due to the amount of reverb, deep electronic bass, Trent's muffled vocals, and the instrumental which features a sound manipulator, "Luminist Garden", which is supposed to sound like finger-tapping to connote anxiety, inherent in addiciton. It fits alternative genres like alternative electronic rock and experimental. The lyrics of the song began as a poem by Trent, exploring the “inevitability of addiction and seduction” and a possible path his life could have taken if he didn't end up recovering from his drug addiction. The title can also tie to tarot, the 6th card in the major arcana being "The Lovers" - this card represents love, but also two oppositional forces coming together, in balance, as well as in a more personal light, becoming whole as an individual, coming to terms with ones flaws, strenghts, beliefs and accepting one's self. Overall, the songs meaning is about seduction and succumbing to what one shouldn't succumb to, feeling contempt and complete - whatever that may be.

i've never realised just how vulnerable and dark this song is, it took me a while to appreciate its beauty

i've had this song in my playlist since the beginning, not thinking that much of it until i finished the show, especially after the wrath of the lamb. looking back at the lyrics it reminds me of Will SO much its insane. the succumbing and the serenity the protagonist feels, GOD. in my eyes it describes Will's thoughts perfectly.

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Verse 1

"I can hear you breathing I’ve slipped out of time again Leaving all of you behind And I’m free"

The protagonist is losing himself, succumbing to the drug. He is losing his sense of timeas it can often be with substances, leaving everything behind - most likely the reality, people who care for him and normality as he feels enlightened. He even personifies the drug or perhaps the feeling he's experiencing, as he can feel it breathing, growing. It all feels so empowering, yet disturbing.

The opening lines summarise what I personally believe went through Will's head as he layed his head on Hannibal's chest SO well. He can feel him breathing, they're finally so close, all the boundaries have been crossed, it feels so surreal. He left everything behind, his perfectly crafted life, his wife and kid, something he cared for so much, his life as a criminal profiler, everything before that, leaving all of his whole old life behind - He doesn't care anymore and has never felt more alive and free before this.

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"To return to the place where I already am And have always been If I just really looked and allowed myself To see"

The protagonist realises that he has been repressing and ignoring what he now believes is his true purpose, he now believes that this state and feeling are what he was born for, what he was made for. He feels like he's on the "right path" once again.

Will has also been repressing and ignoring. He recognizes his ferocious nature and didn't want to accept it - Yet Hannibal did everything he could to drive him to it, to kill, do what he was made for. They caused so much destruction together around themselves. That's why he separated himself from Hannibal in the first place - they were perfect and the worst for each other simultaneously.

But season 3, the longing for Hannibal has never left him, it only was easier to ignore now that Hannibal was out of the picture - but just one visit, just one look was all it took to change his mind, exactly what Will was afraid of when coming back. He has returned and started to regret leaving, again. He knew that his true purpose was with Hannibal and that he wanted to be with him, he has always been there, longing for it. He couldn't ignore it again. Finally, murdering Dolarhyde together with Hannibal has made him see it and accept it, finally allowing himself to see what Hannibal was trying to show him all these years. No hiding anymore.

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"The confusion is seducing me warm perfect flowing Wide his eyes Summer Hypnotize they see inside of me Hot swollen skin want me take me perfect embrace Black and bloody Rotten and perfect The center has moved on and all that’s left is free Finally Finally Everyone seems to be asleep but me"

These lines are supposed to represent the setting of the song itself - New Orleans, hot summer, the protagonist describing his current state; eyes blown, hypnotised, seen, accepted, sick, rotten. So horrible yet perfect, it felt so right. A paradox. The "everyone seem to be asleep but me" line is also a reoccuring imagery in the "Not The Actual Events" EP and the rest of the "Add Violence" EP, with "I can't seem to wake up" lyrics in "Not Anymore". The repeating theme in my eyes talks about the blindness and subconsciously ignoring a feeling, maybe even an intuition, a bewildered state of mind. The protagonist seems to go between feeling like they are alive and the only one seeing the reality amongst all the blinded people and like they can't wake up, realising something is wrong but cannot pinpoint what is it. Here, they feel on top of the world, like they have gone through an awakening and are the only ones to realise just how free they can be and now, are. The center could refer to stability and morals, now moving on, lost and thrown away.

This summarises the show perfectly, especially Will's side as he now realises and accepts how beautiful this all is, monstrous, sickening, but so very beautiful. A paradox that he is finally willing to accept as it is and relish. The confusion he feels, comforting instead of frightening now,

This sounds like Will's point of view of the whole thing so accurately it drives me INSANE. The confusion he feels, unusually comforting instead of frightening. Catching Hannibal's eyes, so hypnotising and warm as he tries to hold himself up and stagger to him, Hannibal's touch burning his skin so delectably. Finally, he achieved content. The feeling he has been longing to experience for his whole life.

------------------------------

Chorus

"Take me Into the arms of the lovers Free Take me Into the arms of the lovers"

the progatonist is finally accepting what he now sees as something that cares for him, accepts him for who he is and makes him feel satisfied and at peace, an equivalent of a lover. The embrace representing acceptance and the two opposite forces coming together, back to the possible interpretation from the tarot card "The Lovers".

just Will wanting to cuddle and hug, cmon. but also indeed the embrace both showed his acceptance of Hannibal and himself, as well as accepting how safe and accepted Hannibal made him feel, how content he feels now that he has accepted his nature thanks to Hannibal.

------------------------------

Verse 2

"Oh I see you floating there How could I ever hope to forget Always rearranging, this is Those words are a lie a mirror reflecting in a mirror of a lie A light shines still always Shadows in every wordBeneath black eaves Please don’t leave me here I could stop it Maybe I could stop it (if I wanted to)But I’m not the one driving anymore I know who I am But I know who I am Right?(Please don't leave me here with them)"

The last verse is very desperate, again admitting to ignoring their past, trying to grow and move away from the addiction but not being able to. Everything felt like a lie, but the truth always comes out - the protagonist loses control to what has been tempting him, realising it yet still trying to convince himself that he is himself, he is his own he let this happen because he wanted it to. The protagonist seems to be constatly on the hunt for connection, anything, anywhere where he won't feel alone. Maybe that's why they succumbed.

For Will, this reminds me of the lingering effect that Hannibal had on him. How could he ever forget what Hannibal did to him, how he changed him? Even he himself said that his life splits into two chapters; "Before you, and after you". Hannibal always haunted him and he couldn't escape him - not like Hannibal would let him. He always found a way to get to Will. But now, Will accepts it, even wants it. He realises just how lonely and dreadful life was without Hannibal, even if he chose to walk away. After all, how do you recover from cutting off someone who has made you feel so accepted and known?

Hannibal's manipulations and acts to try and win Will's heart has made Will feel at a loss of control, constantly messing with Will's sense of identity in season 1, making him question who he is. He tried to regain control, what he made sense of, at least - leaving Hannibal, striving to achieve the normalicy and perfection that he always wanted as he thought that that's what would make him happy and normal, cure whatever he has been longing for, thinking it was just loneliness and a need for someone caring - but Hannibal showed him what it was exactly that he was missing - acceptance and understanding, even of his darkest and most flawed parts. This feeling and realisation he could never forget. He longed and longed, hoping that he could regain this kind of connection he has with Hannibal with someone else, but to no use. He was the only person that he couldn't hide himself from and be fully seen. I think in wrath of the lamb he finally accepted that, and after that, he would never want Hannibal to leave his side or to leave Hannibal, no matter how lost and confused he feels around him. Before the fight with Dolarhyde, Will says that he doesn't think he can save himself anymore, and that might be just fine. Instead of questioning the right and wrong once again, he listens lets Hannibal lead, show him what he wanted to show all along to him instead of stopping him like he did before. Finally accepting what everyone else would see as his "downfall".

------------------------------

these two make me insane and unwell and this song combined with with them and me being unable to fucking express my views and thoughts cohesively drives me even more insane.

anyway thank u, hope u enjoyed<3

------------------------------

additional notes:

the pun in the last sentence of v2 was actually not intended i didn't realise that LMAOOOO

ffs i reedited this for like 50 minutes straight and tumblr went oopsies smth went wrong couldnt save. i left it in drafts for a few says thinking maybe i will find motivation and will to reedit it but all i feel is irritability and the urge to delete the post so yall getting the unchecked version sorry WHY ARE U SO DIFFICULT TUMBLR

my playlist post