#cw basic bitch problems

[uhnosav]

Plumbing Problems?

pairing: bidet!sukuna x girly girl!reader

synopsis: you just wanted a pink bidet to be a perfect addition to your already girly home. but buying from a sketchy website to get the expensive toilet at a cheaper price does have its consequences… and oh so good benefits in the form of a 6’5 muscular demon that has pink hair, red eyes, and is littered with tattoos.

mdni cw: crack, cursing, sukuna is absolutely a little shit, explicit smut, masturbation (f!), fingering, oral sex (f!receiving), tit worship, overstimulation, degradation. (small toji cameo of him being a pervert)

THIS IS ALL @yenayaps FAULT SO BLAME THEM.

( @angelscriptures ily )

You really are just a girly girl! You can’t help it that you love the color pink. But in turn your brain, in an OCD kind of way, pieces together you need everything else you own to be pink as well. Your home looks similar to a barbie dream house on crack with how much the rosy color permeates the place. You have pink cooking utensils, rugs and blankets in all shades of that beloved color, honestly anything you could find that you needed in pink you owned it, and now you just couldn’t resist buying a bidet that is also pink. Why? Because obviously your ass needs to be sat upon your favorite color instead of some boring white toilet like a basic bitch. The toilet was specially ordered from a website you could hardly understand but you needed it… it was an almost 2k toilet that was only 600 bucks on this site, a steal truly. You figured it was because it was from a foreign country instead of where you live, so you made the purchase as fast as possible, not risking it getting sold out. Since you were not paying for the very fucking real pink tax if you bought it from where it is actually sold.

So two weeks later it arrives and yeah you realize you didn’t fucking think this through. How the fuck are you supposed to put this shit together? You could call up a plumber, but god knows how much they would charge you for installing your stupid pink toilet. So that leaves one option, beg your pervert upstairs neighbor to do it for you, because he's already fixed your sink once... he should definitely not have a problem with putting in your toilet. You hope.

“Tojiii pretty please” you whine batting your eyelashes up at him, with a pout forming on your bottom lip. You wore your tightest tank top and denim booty shorts hoping that will be enough to make him give in, since that was what worked last time.

“You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me doll.” he mutters, eyes flicking over your tits and how well they sit in the tank top. “Can’t you hire a plumber like a normal person. Why do you always have to bother me? I am not your daddy or your boyfriend.” but despite his words his tongue licks over the scar on his lip. You aren’t stupid you knew he already gave in as soon as your perky ass knocked on his apartment door but of course he has to act like the usual asshole he is.

“I can pay you… I promise.” you bite your bottom lip, fidgeting a little as you look up at the unit of a man. Sweatpants hanging low and his always too tight stretched out black compression shirt making his muscles look even bigger as he keeps them folded along his chest. The smirk he sports when you mention paying him doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Fine, goddamn brat.”

Two hours later your toilet is finally all set up and toji leaves your apartment obviously a little pissy that not only did you not pay him like you promised, but you also didn’t at least give him head as compensation like he hoped you would :(. Oh well.

The bidet felt like perfection, honestly you could sit here for hours. It has such a nice heated seat and it wasn't making your ass cramp, which made it become your favorite place to relax. In more ways than one. Fingers dance along your clit as you begin your newly formed nightly routine on the toilet seat. An ongoing pattern for the past week that always made you feel more satisfied than when you would do it laying down in bed. This wasn’t the case before, but you just chalked it up to the bidet's heated seats and how relaxing it felt. Finally you were getting into a steady rhythm of rolling your fingers on your clit almost about to ease a finger inside yourself when. The fuck? Water sprays up against you. I didn’t fucking press the button is all you think to yourself but sigh and go back to it since you were already feeling close. Another spritz of fucking water.

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.” you grimace standing up as once again a spray of water emerges from inside the bidet. “How can you be fucking broken… I just got you, you stupid fucking toilet.” Ah, the words you will come to regret because little did you know, sukuna didn’t like that whatsofuckingever. He is not some ‘stupid fucking toilet’ he is an expensive and very high end japanese bidet, thank you very fucking much. With a huff you slide your panties and pants back on already making your way to the front door so that toji can fix this stupid fucking bidet, when you hear some thrumming noise coming from your bathroom. You disregard it, thinking it's just your broken bidet when suddenly big muscular arms encircle you. A scream begins to leave your lips when a huge thick hand covers it, a man's shushing filling your ears. A stupid desperate attempt to shut you up by whoever the fuck this man is. But then… he speaks.

“I am fucking not some ‘stupid fucking toilet’, you little fucking brat” the gruff yet oh so delicious voice hisses against your ear. You genuinely think you are insane and begin thrashing in this mans arms, when you realize he is fucking naked. What the actual fuck is happening is blaring in your mind as you scream into his palm, wishing your purse was closer so maybe you could tase and get this lunatic off you. “Calm down you fucking brat, it’s not like you haven’t sat on my face before. What's so different now.” his voice and words confuse the fuck out of you. You haven’t fucked anyone in months… sitting on this dude's face? And then it dawns on what he said before, “not some stupid fucking toilet”... no. It can’t fucking be. You stop trashing and trying to scream, which leads to him slowly taking his hand off your mouth.

“A-are… you my bidet… how is that even fucking possible. I must have hit my head. I am dreaming or I am batshit insane.” your words are rushed and slurred together as your thoughts race a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out what is happening.

“Yes I am your bidet. I am a demon, that's how this is possible dumbass. And no you didn’t hit your head or are dreaming. What happened is that I got fucking offended that you called me a broken toilet, when all I was doing was helping your needy ass cum better than what your tiny ass fingers were doing.” his tone bored as he answers your rambling questions like you asked if the sky was fucking blue instead of why your bidet is now a naked man that’s 6’5, with his rock hard cock pressed up against your back.

When he finally fully releases you, assuming that you had calmed down, which news flash you had obviously not, you immediately reach for your bag that is still by the front door. The unsuspecting demon, as he claims to be, is completely unaware of the taser you keep within it at all times. Grabbing it with a quickness of practiced ease you turn it on and tase him directly by his balls… by accident… totally.

“WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU WOMAN.” his voice booms but he remains unflinched, just audibly annoyed, like the 50,000 volts were only an annoying bug buzzing by his ear. “You just tased my fucking balls you psychotic brat. I was being fucking nice to you, and you fucking tased me.” You slump to the ground still shakily holding onto your taser just wide eyed at the huge muscular man with pink hair, red eyes, and tattoos, and begin sobbing. You aren’t even sure why, maybe it's cause the adrenaline wore off or the fact that this 6’5 man is yelling at you but tears flow down your cheeks. The tears make sukuna freeze. “Shit… are you ok, brat?” the octave of his voice becoming softer at the sight of your tears, despite his confusion as to why the fuck you are crying. Especially when not even a minute prior you just basically tased his balls with your taser.

“I don’t even know who the fuck you are or what your name is, other than the fact that you are supposedly my fucking bidet?!” you sob out your chest heaving slightly with your words. “I really am insane… I just wanted to finger myself before I went to sleep and I couldn’t even fucking get to do that.”

“My name is Sukuna, and I was a demon cursed to be a toilet after fucking with the wrong witch.” he huffs out. “I think she was just a bitch cause I wouldn’t fuck her… now you on the other hand, I would in a heartbeat. And show you how much better I am than your fingers.” his voice becoming a purr. You sniffle looking up at him assessing him.

“I guess you do have the hair color of my bidet… this is also so fucking weird to me though… what even broke your curse?” you mumble wiping your lingering tears off your face.

“You pissing me the fuck off gave me enough ability to transform back to my initial form.” he says rather matter of factly. “Which reminds me again brat, I was not some ‘stupid fucking toilet’ especially with you fingering yourself on my seat or should I say my face. Yeah surprise, the toilet seat, was my face.” he barks out a laugh at his own words like the egotistical little shit Sukuna is. He is an asshole and he knows it better than anyone else.

“Your face?” your eyes widen, your thigh shitting nervously and honestly because the thought that you have been sitting on this sexy specimen's face technically every single day the past week, arouses the inner pervert within you.

“Yeah, my face, you dirty perverted girl. Oh fuck, you like that huh.” He smirks watching your thighs squeeze together and how your eyes are glued to him. Sukuna knows that look like the back of his hand, you are eye fucking him with your mind. A chuckle with a growl escapes his smirked mouth as he sees that you are unable to resist gawking at his thick long cock, the reddened tip leaking precum. He watches you like a predator would a prey, and oh how pretty of a prey you are. Naive girl, he thinks, if only you google translated that website you bought, bidet him, off of, you would have known that by buying the bidet you are now tied to him forever. You are never getting rid of him.

In minutes he has your clothes off and you laid in your bed, which is full of plushies, a range of silky and fluffy pink blankets and so many fucking pillows, in your princess style bed, much to his disgust but it’s so very much so you that he will let it slide. Your bare skin is lit up with the pink string lights that are hung up around your room as you look up at him needily. He leans his head down, his mouth latching onto your nipple, his tongue swirling around the sensitive bud.

“Such pretty perfect tits.” he rasps against your breasts pressing kisses on them before he moves to the other nipple, one of his hands gripping your hip possessively, holding you in place. His other gropes the flesh of your tit that isn’t receiving attention with his mouth. His mouth and tongue are working their magic on your breast, sending waves of pleasure coursing through you.

“Oh fuck Sukuna… more.” your voice a needy purrlike moan. He unlatches from your perked nipple to grin like the cheshire cat.

“Needy brat can’t even let me take my time and savor your pretty body.” he murmurs but he is just as impatient as you, even moreso honestly, since he has not properly fucked anything for years. The hand gripping the flesh of your tit trails down your body slowly gliding against your skin. He slowly pushed your legs apart, earning your soft moan as he eyes your glistening cunt.

“Oh you are dripping, look at you.” he growls as his fingers graze against your wet slit. He groaned at how wet you are, his fingers almost immediately getting covered with your honeyed arousal. His fingers slowly circling your clit as he takes in the pleasure on your face, playing with your pussy like an instrument, figuring out what brings you the most pleasure. He smirks, applying the knowledge he has learned from you, fingering yourself on his face (toilet seat) to bring you closer to cumming as quickly as possible, the ego of him oozing out, with everything he does.

“All this just from me toying with your nipples? What a desperate slut you are. Come on, cum for me sweetheart I know you need too. And then I'll eat your sweet pretty pussy before I even determine if you are worthy of my cock.” His words are a mocking coo that pulls you in and threatens to send you over the edge so quickly. His fingers are so skilled and his voice just devours you, honestly how could you resist when this demon commands you to cum for him. Your pretty gasps and moans are like a symphony to his ears and he relishes when you whimper and cum all over his fingers. “There you fucking go. Much better than your tiny ass fingers ever could do. Pathetic honestly.” the mocking yet still sweet purr of his tone has you nodding unable to form proper words, but his words are true, his fingers worked you far better than your own could and you came far faster than you usually do, embarrassingly so.

He spends what feels like hours devouring your pussy much to your whines and protests to bury his cock inside you already. But all he did was mockingly laugh and pull your lower half closer to his face to drink your juices more.

“S’kuna pleaseee just put it in already..” your whines are delirious as he drives you closer to yet another unrelenting orgasm. “This is too much.. ngh..” but your whimpers fall to deaf ears. You can’t even grasp the sheets or his hair anymore as one of his hands holds them in an iron grip. His other hand gripping your hips almost to the point of a delicious bruise to prevent you from squirming or pushing away from him feasting on your cunt.

“Awe poor baby said please..” he scoffs in a mock coo against your pussy before humming against your clit again to make you scream. The vibration from him speaking and humming, sends an overwhelming current of pleasure straight to your core. You immediately nod your head at Sukuna about ready to moan those words out again but he cuts you off with more of his own. “Well maybe you should have thought of that before tasing my balls and calling me a ‘stupid fucking toilet’.”

“I’m sorry I didn't know.. how was I supposed to even know you weren’t a toilet.. pleaseee.” your sobs are combined with loud moans as he absolutely devours you like no one has before.

He lifts his head just a little from your core, breath still fanning on it and making it twitch just to chuckle a little. “Well too fucking bad. I have allll night sweetheart.” he drawls. “And we are just getting fucking started.”

[meowzfordayz]

how they speak up for you — mitsuri, shinobu, kyojuro, sanemi, muichiro

Author’s Note: short and sweet, and hopefully a lil funny too. 😆

how they speak up for you — mitsuri, shinobu, kyojuro, sanemi, muichiro

Kanroji Mitsuri x Reader, Kocho Shinobu x Reader, Rengoku Kyojuro x Reader, Shinazugawa Sanemi x Reader, Tokito Muichiro x Reader

Word Count: ~800

CW: explicit language, mild sexual content

Emergency Request Fulfilled: could you write comfort for when Their S/o like absolutely hates speaking up for themselves, like someone could be walking all over them and they'd be like "Oh, its fine" bc conflict= worst enemy? I would like to request Muichiro (love him sm) and Sanemi if that's okay, and the rest you can decide (-if you want to add more.)

~faqs~

Mitsuri will be all over the situation (in a good way, ofc 😌)

“Baby, didn’t you want your drink hot?” —> she’s already staring daggers at the barista who made your drink 😒

“Hm?”

You do your best to conceal the pinch of your eyebrows, as well as the goosebumps raising on your arms 🥶

“I thought cold drinks made you cold, and you don’t like being cold?”

… “Hm?”

She’s not buying your nonchalance 🙃

“That’s it.” Uh oh. “I’m getting you your drink made right.”

😳🫣🫠

“Nonono, Mitsuri, it’s fiiine.” 😭

Arms crossed, her lips purse, eyes narrowed as you weakly grin and take a big sip 😄

“If you won’t let me get you another one, then at least wear my sweater?”

🤯 “Okay!” 🤭

So maybe she’s wearing a cropped tank top underneath — you’re only a mere mortal after all 

— #oops my thirst made an appearance 😅

Short girlfriend = scary girlfriend

And that’s a compliment 😎

Shinobu doesn’t need height, bulk, or a dick to defend you

Her scathing tongue and unnerving stare are plenty

Not to mention, she’ll go full Karen if need be, but the more eloquent, calculating, deceptively sweet version 😌

She can make anyone feel like a complete idiot in 2-3 sentences, give or take 

Which does include you, but you don’t argue too often 😅

Basically:

It’s highkey hot when she speaks up for you 🤭

But it may or may not make you cry when her sharpness is directed toward you 🥲

Fortunately, you in distress is also one of few things that immediately softens her — at least, when she’s the reason for it 🥺

Kyojuro always tries to solve your problems for you

Not bc he thinks you’re incapable, and not w/o your expressed consent/prior communication

But he just hates seeing you unhappy, uncomfortable, unsafe — really anything that isn’t grinning and laughing

He understands there’s a time and place for more difficult and painful emotions, but why on earth wouldn’t he go out of his way to ensure those times and places are as few and far between as possible????? 🤨

So, obvi, he more than willingly goes out of his way ☺️

“Do you want me to say something?” his quiet breath warms your ear, softening the frustration growing in your chest

“I dunno,” you sigh, gesturing hopelessly at the person who’d just cut you in line, “We’re all going to the same place anyway.”

“True,” he shrugs, “But that was quite rude and noticeable of them.”

“Do you want to say something?” you tease, elbowing his side with amused fondness

“Not if it discomforts you.”

“It wouldn’t discomfort me,” you mumble, cheeks darkening nonetheless, “You’re so cute.”

Albeit, you aren’t sure whether to feel proud or embarrassed when he somehow intimidates the person who cut you into leaving altogether 😅

On one hand, you know Sanemi has your back ☺️

On the other hand, you aren’t 100% positive that that’s a good thing 😬

“I swear, does that bitch even know I exist?!” 😤

… 🫣

“I bet she doesn’t! Otherwise she wouldn’t dare treat you like-” 😤

“And this is why she doesn’t know you exist.” 🥲

“Pardon?” 😐

“Sanemi, I love you, and I so appreciate how ready to go to war you are for me, but-”

“Ooh darling, you have no idea. Go to war? I will be the war for you.” 😤

“So sweet,” your eyes roll, “How about you just let me handle it?”

“And how are you handling it?” he scoffs, “With smiley face emojis?” 🙄

…

“You deserve kindness and honesty. Not her manipulative bitch shit.”

“I’ll block her.”

“You what?!” 😳

“Would that suffice?” 😅

“Actually… yeah.” Sanemi is very surprised. Gushing now, “I’m so fucking proud of you.” 🥰

It’s kind of alarming when Muichiro speaks up for you

Bc you get a faint taste of what he was like before he’d really opened up to love 😕

And that Tokito Muichiro is sharp and cold as steel w/ a -139% tolerance for bullshit

Impossible to impress 😬

But your Muichiro hugs you when you’re feeling low, rests his chin on your shoulder while you do your best to draft a stern, confident text msg to your asshole “friend”, and is more than happy to tell you what he would do were he in your shoes

… you usually ignore his advice 😅

Buuut sometimes he reaches over and hits SEND before you can stop him 🫠

“MUI! I was going to delete some of that!” 😭

“Nah, it’s great as is.” 😎

[pieandflannel]

⋆˙ ｡⋆⭒ soldier boy period headcanons

pairing: soldier boy x fem!reader

summary: soldier boy is a tough, old-school, hyper-masculine guy with outdated views, a short temper, and a lack of emotional intelligence. so of course it takes him a while to comprehend even in the slightest what your periods are about.

cw: fluff-ish.ᐟ comforting.ᐟ menstruation talk.ᐟ period blood mentioned.ᐟ war references.ᐟ misogyny.ᐟ outdated views/behaviours.ᐟ but hey sb tries his best.

julia yaps: hi pookies! haven’t done headcanons in a while! hope you enjoy <333

────────── 🩸 ──────────

ᯓ★˙. at first soldier boy would probably be very dismissive, back in his days periods and anything to do with women’s health was heavily dismissed, so he never even got a chance to learn about how serious periods can be. he’d say something blunt like “what? it’s just a period. what’s the big deal?”

ᯓ★˙. but the moment he realizes you’re actually in a lot of pain– we’re talking like, curled up on the couch, bed or even floor, whining and away to either throw up or pass out from extreme pain, he’d stop being a total jerk, well ..mostly, and try to ‘help’ with the problem the only way he knows how. the old-school style and kind of awkwardly.

ᯓ★˙. he would offer you whiskey, or any strong alcohol he would be drinking, thinking that since it helped him back in the war days while being patched up, it would solve the cramp pains. “here, drink this. that’s what we did back in ’nam.”

ᯓ★˙. he’d try to tough-talk the pain out of you as if talking to his platoon. “you’ve endured through worser pains, doll. you can suck it up no problem”

ᯓ★˙. but if you snap at him or look miserable, he’d give you an eye roll, sit down, and awkwardly pat your leg “alright, alright. you rest up and i’ll–uh… i’ll get you some of that hot water bag thing.. or chocolate, you want chocolate, right? will that help?”

ᯓ★˙. although, despite him being rough around the edges, soldier boy surprisingly had a secretly softer side to him, he would awkwardly try to make you feel better – like heating up a hot pack badly, bring you sweets and junk food, or threaten to beat up you uterus for being a bitch “if your insides were a guy, i’d knock his damn teeth out.”

ᯓ★˙. expect a lot of awkward or inappropriate jokes, a few unexpectedly sweet gestures, him buying the wrong tampons/pads and probably a poorly microwaved heating pad.

ᯓ★˙. basically, soldier boy wouldn’t understand periods at all, apart from the fact there is blood coming from your vagina. but since he cares about you, he’d try– in his own messy, macho, hyper-masculine way.

thank you so much for reading! feedback and reblogs are always deeply appreciated <3

🏷️: @jensino @emeraldcrs @soldiersgirl @jensenacklesballsack @missus-ackles @littlejackles @deanswifeyy @slut4jackles @h8aaz @bruisedfig @figisonline @littlelamy @angelicjackles @losers-clvb @lyarr24 @cowboysandcigarettes @blossomingorchids @bluemerakis @acklesarchives @deanspookiebear @tinas111 @bejeweledinterludes @miss-marmalade @pinksatinpanties @multiversefanfics @cupidzbunny @soldierboysdoll @sunnyteume @mrsanakinwinchesterpoldark @that-stanford-girlie @pwin098 @tendertulip @honeyyxxbee @rerejunebug @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @lunaleah @idontwannabehere78

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[idkfitememate]

Mora is a God’s Best Friend Pt. 1

♡︎ « Next Part ⋙

૮꒰˶ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ˶꒱ა Pairings : GN! Mora Reader x Liyue

૮꒰ྀི∩´ ᵕ `∩꒱ྀིა W.K. : 4.6k

໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১ Tags/CW&TW : Fluff, crack, reader is slightly angry, only slightly tho I promise :)

Now, you wouldn’t say you were a greedy person… which would be a huge lie because holy shit you were compared to a dragon by your friends more times than your own mother said she loved you-

When you got your paycheck - which was a very handsome paycheck mind you - you hoarded that to the best of your abilities, but when you saw something you had to have? Bought. Spent all your cash on it.

… You have to many plushies-

You weren’t exactly an avid believer in the whole “money makes the world go around!” thing, but it certainly helped. Like, have you seen how happy Elon Musk is? That bitch living the life and you want that too.

But despite your adoration to money…

THAT DID NOT MEAN YOU WANTED TO BE IT!!

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🎂🍩🍰୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

When you woke up from a nice nap after a long day of hard labor- I mean work, you couldn’t see. You also couldn’t feel your arms or legs or… well anything in general that one would say when describing their body.

You did have your five core senses though, which is nice. Well… minus sight-

You couldn’t move, and whenever you would scream the people you heard around you - their voices were muffled… were you in a pouch?? - did nothing to help.

You continued for what you assumed to be hours, never once paying mind to the fact that you never got hungry or thirsty or ran out of breath. Then you felt warmth.

Something large and warm wrapped around your form which scared the shit out of you because as far as you were concerned, you were still very human sized. You continued to scream into the darkness as you listened to the… transaction (???) going on above you and-

Wait a minute. You recognized that voice.

A lot of your money went to Genshin Impact in your day, you were what was known in the fandom as a “whale”, did I mention you got payed handsomely?

Yeah it was enough the basically be a sugar parent for all your friends.

So you heavily related to a certain character who was constantly characterized as helping another with his money problems.

Can you guess who it is?

I’ll give you five seconds to guess!

5…

4…

3…

2… fuck it I hate the suspense-

It was Childe!

And hearing his voice above you shattered what you may have thought was happening to you. Yes you may or may not have thought you were being kidnapped-

You then felt yourself get placed on another warm surface and oh god-

“All repairs will be made in a timely manner! Thank you for the patronage!”

You flipped through the air with a small ‘whoosh’ and landed back in the hand.

… WERE YOU FUCKING MORA?????

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍭🍫🍪୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

Being merged to a weapon wasn’t fun.

Well at the very least you weren’t “merged” with a weapon. For some reason the blacksmith couldn’t find a way to use your specific mora body to upgrade Childe’s bow.

So there you sat as a glorified decoration. Right on the front of the bow.

But you did find something out, the second you felt yourself attach to the bow, you could suddenly see! And you could very tell that you were in Liyue, which made sense. And when you coughed on accident, the blacksmith jumped and looked around, before shrugging and turning back to her work, which meant you could now be heard as well!

All five senses back baby!

Only shitty thing was that you couldn’t move on your own, and you now noticed you were no longer hungry nor need to breathe, as well as sleep.

So you were stuck.

For four days.

Unable to speak or move.

I mean, you were still figuring out your existence yourself, no need to get anyone else involved with the process since you were beyond confused.

You’ve read the Isekai stories - and fanfics - but you had never read one personally about being isekaied as money. Yes, you have seen the vending machine one. And the one where he gets turned into a dummy ASMR head mic-

Not the point!

You were just trying to figure out how to… exist (?) like this. Which was pretty hard when coming to terms with the fact that you’d never eat your favorite foods again.

Never again…

“Thank you so much for choosing our services sir! Have a nice day!”

You were suddenly picked up and placed in the gentle care of Childe - ironic sentence I know - and off you both went.

You want to know what a weird sensation is?

Being a bow and feeling someone pluck your string.

Now yeah, that sounds super sensual but it felt more like someone… pulling your hair?? You couldn’t really place it but that was honestly the closest equivalent. Feeling him rub his hands all up and down your… body (?????) was a new experience to. Again, not sensual, just ticklish? And it sucked trying not to giggle-

God this was weird and confusing.

“Well I’m free for some time… I’m sure a little practice won’t hurt…”

Oh good god you could not catch a break.

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍧🍮🍬୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

A new fear had been unlocked within you.

You, a piece of mora crudely attached to a psychopathic killers bow, had just been de-summoned.

And it hurt.

BAD.

No one will ever know what that was like, the feel yourself fading, every atom slowly falling away into nothingness, and then the silence. That cursed silence. Deep dark blackness was what you felt for what appeared to be thousands of years to your still human brain.

Never again would allow yourself to feel that pain.

As you were summoned, you continued to stare off into the distance, coming to terms with what you had just witnessed while ignoring every word that came out of Childe’s mouth.

Something or other about practicing you couldn’t give a shit.

You only watched the changing scenery around you as you and Childe wandered aimlessly through a forest.

Then he dropped to his knees suddenly, which cause you to silently curse and sputter in shock.

Did you mention you got good at that? Being silent? Because you did.

Being that you were placed on the front of the bow, you could see perfectly where he was aiming, that being a small bird that you had to squint - how you squinted? You don’t know - to see.

It was ridiculously far away, covered in leaves. You were also slightly scared because Childe was being silent.

Childe. Silent.

Not two words you ever expected to put into the same sentence - again - but here you were.

You felt the bow string being pulled back, and him lining up the shot.

Then, you felt something course through you.

Obviously it was the Hydro infused arrow he knocked onto the string, but something else flowed through you.

You could feel yourself reaching, trying to connect with something to better control this sudden power flow, and then you found a great source.

His Hydro Vision.

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍰🍡🍪୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

Childe was a seasoned soldier and fighter, literally anyone who met him could tell you that.

He kept that fact near and dear to his heart, that fact being why he fought so hard, to become stronger and finally find that fight that would be the end of him.

He longed for the day where he would be strong enough to fight his mentor, and weak enough to die at someone who he saw worthy enough to end his stories and legacy.

… Legacy was such a funny word to the man as all he could think of when it was spoken was his second, stronger form, Foul Legacy. Ironically, that’s what he though historians would call his stories in the far future - he would never admit how close it was due to the Electro Delusion that sapped away at his life, slower due to his strength but sucking away his soul nonetheless - would call it, a Foul Legacy.

He was self-aware enough to understand that people hated him, yet oblivious enough to leave his family in the hands of The Rooster, a man known for leveling cites before they even had the chance to riot against himself and the Tsaritsa.

He was complex in the same way he was so easy to understand.

Just as how he allowed the world to see his Vision but kept his Delusion hidden.

Just recently he had gotten his bow repaired after a… well not a hard mission more so than it was annoying.

And by the Archons it was beautiful! Any and all scratches and marks had been repaired, a new layer of pain was an added, a stronger string was restrung into it and just… mmm she was beautiful.~

The finishing touch was the little golden emblem stuck directly on the front. So shiny and pretty…

He just had to take it for a test run!

Nothing too big or anything, just a little hunting as he hadn’t indulged himself recently. Just a couple small birds or mammals nothing anyone would notice.

… No that isn’t a human corpse nu uh ya stupid-

Besides that wasn’t with his bow! That was with his blades it doesn’t count!

But anyway, he quickly spotted his first target of the day, a little finch, and aimed.

He noted that his bow, while still heavy, felt much more sturdy and the current string was stronger than his last, most likely due to the whole “new string” thing rather than being better because that old string had weathered a lot.

He quickly knocked his first arrow and took a silent breath in, calming his shaking hands and the butterflies in his stomach. Of course neither were from fear or nervousness rather than they were from excitement and dare I say ecstasy. A smile forceably carved itself into him skin as he watched how easily Hydro infused itself with his arrow.

Though almost immediately after, he felt a sudden surge of power coming from not him nor the arrow, but the bow itself.

Specifically the small golden piece sitting front and center.

This was either an unknown or well known fact depending on who you asked, but the bow was Childe’s worst used weapon. He was much more skilled with a blade - like his duel Hydro blades or the duel-bladed polearm he wielded as Foul Legacy - and he even had some experience with a catalyst, but bows just seemed so.. cowardly. Even with his catalyst he was near to his opponents as its attacks were based on his fighting style, but he personally believed that bows were for the cowardly.

Those who wanted to fight but were too weak to even dare step foot onto a battlefield.

At least that’s what he thought before Capitano shoved a bow into his arms as he complained about needing something more to do. A new challenge.

And it opened his eyes.

Bows were not for the weak rather that they were for the stealthy. Something Childe was not the best at.

He was honestly more of a ‘punch more and talk later’ kind of guy. But the bow was forcing him to learn and grow, which was more than welcome in his book.

But this power was not something he had accessed yet. Hell, he’s barely felt anything like it with any other of his weapons. Closest he has ever gotten to this kind of power would be with Foul Legacy, and even then it’d be a stretch.

He’d even have the gall to say he could never feel this kind of power from his Master.

He watched as the area he sat in was bathed in a blue glow was his Vision and the arrow he still held grew brighter and brighter. With that, a gold shined through as the small golden piece on his bow - which now that he looked closer looked almost exactly like a piece of mora, just with the details buffered out - also glowed.

He couldn’t remember picking up any kind of ‘enchanted’ mora, just one random one he found on the roads right outside of Liyue.

It didn’t seem off in anyway-

His thoughts were cut off as Hydro swirled faster and stronger around him, knocking him off his knees and onto his ass, his grip on the arrow and bow tightening.

All the animals ran - of course including the small finch he was aiming for - from the sounds and lights, and something deep and primal inside of him wanted to run as well.

Something screamed that he wasn’t supposed to see this, to feel this.

Something was wrong.

Soon enough he couldn’t keep his grip on the arrow.

He let go.

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍪🍫🍩୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

Everything was a blur to you.

All you knew was that you had to let go of this build up of power.

You had to.

Something bad would happen if you didn’t and god damn it you weren’t about to find out.

You truly, desperately, just wanted to go home.

The songs of narwhals and whales comforted you.

‘You will be okay’ they sang.

You would be okay.

Just let go.

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍡🍪🍬୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

People in the city watched in shock as a forest not too far from the harbor became a light show of Hydro and golden light.

Small animals and creatures ran towards the city, this including monsters, but nothing stopped to attack. In fact, it seemed like everything was too scared to even consider attacking.

Ningguang and her guards quickly ran outside to asses the situation, meeting up with fellow Vision Holders on the edge of the city.

However, Xingqiu and Yelan seemed… out of it. And on top of that, Childe - though he wasn’t her favorite he was strong and could be of help - was no where to be found.

“Does anyone have a grasp on the situation?” Nigguang asked, only to receive shaken heads and no’s.

“I tried to get close,” started Xiao, “But something knocked me back. I was able to hear the Harbinger’s screams from inside, and from what I could gather, he doesn’t seem to be the… direct cause.” Despite what he said, Xiao seemed a bit upset at the fact that Childe wasn’t the true cause, likely just wanting an excuse to beat him up a little.

The Geo ridden Lady huffed befit finally turning her attention to the two Hydro users who seemed entranced by the lights.

“What are you-“

“They call to us.” Xingqiu cut her off.

“They sing for us.” Yelan finished.

Nigguang looked back to everyone else who simply shrugged, before noticing Zhongli also looked out of it, though before she could get a word out, he also spoke.

“It’s so calming… I have not felt true peace like this in…”

He didn’t even finish his sentence. His eyes, unlike the two Hydro users, were entranced by the golden lights that highlighted the light show.

Nigguang’s face was filled with confusion. Though she shook it off.

And again, before she could give out any orders, she was interrupted.

Though not by anyone, but by the lights themselves.

A flash of blue light blinded the group.

Then, the song of a group of narwhals and whales filled the sky.

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍩🍮🍧୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

Blue and gold light enveloped near all of Liyue, the show being noticeable by all surrounding nations, Mondstadt especially.

And the air filled with the song of Narwhal and Whale alike.

A miracle of All-Devouring Narwhals and All-Encompassing Whales swam into the sky, dancing through the clouds.

They flew gently over Liyue, the nation having been stunned into shock and stillness over the whole situation.

Nigguang watched with bated breath as they sailed by the Jade Palace, only exhaling when they passed with not problem.

Keqing watched from beside Nigguang, mesmerized at the trail of celestial power flowing behind them.

Xiao rushed up buildings in order to get closer, but was knocked back by the sheer force of their power, though he was caught by a worried Ganyu. Both landed by an armed-and-ready Shenhe, who was more than ready to attack if need be.

Xingqiu and Yelan simply stared up at the miracle, their Visions resonating with Hydro energy they released. They felt empowered, and could feel the pure raw and unfiltered strength rolling off them in waves. They wanted to be close to that power. Wanted to feel that power.

Something deep inside them wanted that power.

Everyone in the city watched as the miracle flew just above their homes and businesses, making their presence all the more apparent as they bathed the golden city in royal blue.

This continued until a small bird was dumb enough to try and take flight to get away.

This bird being the one Childe had targeted- not that anyone knew.

The Whales and Narwhals corralled the bird, forcing it to fly higher and higher into the clouds, and it wasn’t long before all ginormous creatures followed behind it.

Then an even brighter flash of blue echoed across the skyline, small star-like glitters falling to Teyvat then fading from existence before they could touch its surface. A small amount of feathers followed after.

Nigguang could feel her jaw drop.

All that… to kill a bird?????

… She was going to need a week off just to comprehend what had just happened.

Keqing pat the woman on the back, sighing in tiredness as well.

She had a sneaking suspicion that Childe may have had something to do with this… event. Gods the paperwork she was about to be loaded with…

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍬🍯🍩୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

Childe had figured out what primal instinct had led him to hide in the cave he was currently tucked in.

Foul Legacy.

He had yet to really tell anyone, but due to his time in the Abyss and its creation, it was safe to say it pretty much had a mind of its own. Which wasn’t bad as it would help him to doge attacks or alert him of presences he may not have noticed himself, but the shrieking and crying he heard from it deep in his soul was enough to tell him that this whole situation was wrong.

Nothing about what just happened should have been… well it shouldn’t have happened to say anything.

He could still hear it, resonating deep inside his soul, Electro cracking out whenever he heard a noise he couldn’t identify.

It was protecting him.

As he would for it.

He didn’t dare draw another arrow from the bow in his grasp, not until he learned what the fuck just happened. Including the fact that for some odd reason, he desperately wanted to just… stare(?) at the Narwhals and Whales until they disappeared, luckily Foul Legacy snapped him right out of that and told him to find shelter.

He did have his Hydro blades out, however, patiently waiting till he - and Foul Legacy - felt safe enough to exit.

A sudden loud caw of a bird made him flinch - not his proudest moment - and kick the bow to the side. What he wasn’t expecting was the loud string of curses that came from… the… bow..?

So now it was pinned to the wall by one blade and a foot, the other blade pointed directly at… it? There were no weak points on a bow..?

…Were there..?

૮꒰づ˶• ༝ •˶꒱づ ˚ʚ ꒰⁐⁐⁐⁐୨🍮🍨🍪୧⁐⁐⁐⁐꒱ ɞ˚

This is not what you wanted.

First, you get isekaied against your will; you didn’t even remember how you supposedly DIED… if you DID die anyway…

Two, you were reincarnated as MONEY. FUCKING MONEY. How does that… who comes up with that??? A fucking high schooler who has nothing better to do than write shitty fanfiction????

And finally, three… HE KICKED YOU!!! WHO GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO THREATEN YOU?!?

You didn’t understand your powers, what the FUCK just happened, why Hydro just… became?? you??? And why on gods green earth you had to be MORA. You’re never gonna get over that you became MORA???? Like??? Really??????? Money????? You mean, you love the stuff but COME ON-

Jesus fuckin’-

Huffing at the man before you, you finally decided speak to this bitch before you because how dare he.

“Listen here-“

You were cut off by the blade moving closer to your body(??????) and Childe growling - yes. Growling - at you.

“No you listen. I don’t know what you are but what in the name of the Tsaritsa was that?”

If only this man could see your eye twitch.

“No how about YOU listen? I don’t know what the fuck that was, but I plan on figuring it out now could you PLEASE MOVE YOUR DAMN BLADES FROM MY FACE?!?!? God…”

The Hydro blades slowly removed themselves from your face, as did the boot. But you were then picked up by the man, held shockingly gently in his grip.

“What… are you?” He asked hesitantly.

“I… I honestly don’t know how to answer that question. But I’m pretty sure I’m that little Mora piece on the front.” You answered. You forced yourself to calm down. This wasn’t his fault, just so happened to be the guy who picked you up… this was going to be a mantra for a while…

“Oh… so your this little thing right here?” You felt his fingers wrap around you - and you mean your real body - and pull. Fear immediately filled your being.

“Wait! WAIT!-“ He tugged you right out, rendering you silent.

When he pulled you out, your body glowed and you reverted back to looking like a regular piece of mora. Engravings and all.

You, meanwhile, were screaming your head off, as you now knew that if removed from a weapon, you’d just be a regular ass piece of money again. Immediately you mind started racing, wondering as to way, and the only thing you could come up with was the Elemental Energy, but lore wasn’t really your strong suit… you just liked the pretty women and men…

You felt yourself gently being pressed into the slot carved for you in his bow, and started talking again.

“NEVER! Do that again, please. Unless absolutely necessary, don’t do that. You know how terrifying it is to be able to see and speak then move a couple inches and no longer be able to see or have others hear you? Fucking horrifying I’ll tell you that…” you watched the man shiver before sighing.

“Noted. Um… anything else I should be made aware of before I ask anymore questions?”

You jumped on the opportunity.

“Whenever I am apart of your weapons. Don’t. De. Summon. Them. Hurts like hell. Ever felt your molecules beings torn apart bit by bit? Not fun, don’t recommend it.” Again, Childe shivered.

“Now… you really don’t know what that was out there?” He asked again, and you sighed.

“I wish I did. I’ll admit, I was thinking of that one move you use as Foul Legacy where you summon a Whale… and a bit of your master…”

You watched as Childe’s eyes lit up.

“You know of Foul Legacy? And of my Master?” Then his eyes darkened.

“How do you know of them..?” You shivered… as well as money can shiver anyway.

“Uhm… magic?” You asked, a noticeable tilt in your voice.

His glare then lightened up.

“Oh! Like… when you attach to a weapon, you suddenly gain a bunch of knowledge on that person?” Holy shit he just gave you a way out!

“Uh… yeah! Yeah that’s exactly what it is! You figured it out! Sorry I was uh… hesitant. Just didn’t want to reveal all my secrets, you know?” Holy shit. Holy fuck. Please work please work-

“That’s really amazing! A magical piece of mora… with the ability to make your attacks beyond that of a God’s… heheheh…”

Oop. Shit. That was not good.

“Listen. I’m not going to do anything for you without my consent, you got that? I’m not even here of my own free will mind you. Just gained sentience in your bag and all of a sudden I’m a bow. This is going to be a symbiotic relationship or I’m finding someone else, alright?” You spoke up, not even hiding the fact that you were… well a little more than concerned with what he just said.

“… What are you going to do if I don’t respect your wishes?” Shit fuck shit fuck-

“… I will scream next time you use me.”

And into a standstill you both sat.

He stared at you and he could feel you glaring into him. It was probably weird feeling a bow glare into him. New feeling he never thought he’d feel before.

“… Alright. Taking someone’s free will isn’t really something I do anyway. So don’t be fearful… comrade?” Was he asking your name..?.. Eh. Comrade is nice and you don’t feel like giving it out so meh.

“Comrade works. And uhm… yeah.” Welp that was awkward. Good job 👍🏾!

The two of you continued to stare at each other in silence for a few moments.

“So… what’s your favorite dish?”

“I can’t eat asshole-“

“Childe!”

The mentioned man whipped his head in the direction of the call, honestly scaring you with how fast it moved - you are a hundred percent sure you heard a crack.

By the covered entrance of the cave stood Nigguang, Keqing, Zhongli and both Hydro Vision users. Nigguang was the one to call him.

“What are enough doing out here? Do you have any idea was caused… whatever that was?? And - as much as I hate to ask - are you alright?” She was firing questions out at an extreme speed, making both you and Childe dizzy.

“Uhm… I was hunting, I… haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about! And yes , I am okay. Thank you for asking?” You knew he sucked ass a lying but like… how did that sound convincing in anyway?? The hesitation just made it worse!-

“You haven’t the foggiest clue, you say…” Keqing asked while glaring at the ginger. Ed She Ran lookin’ headass-

“Yep! No idea, not the slightest idea, definitely wasn’t my bow or the enchanted mora on it! Nope not at all.”

The group looked at him, and he looked at them.

They looked at him, and he looked at them.

They looked at him, and he looked at them.

And this went on for several minutes before this super smart man said:

“Yep, not me at all.”

And before anyone coup ask questions you groaned, forcing all attention into yourself before tearing him a new one.

“You dumb motherfucker! “I haven’t the foggiest idea😢” my ass!”

“How did you say that?-“

“Shut your bitchass up before I sew it shut. I should beat your ass for that. How they fuck you gonna say some shit like that and expect them to just go “Oh okay!😚” like some dumbass?”

“No really how-“

“I will slap the stupid outta you don’t fucking test me ginger bitch. Fatherless. That’s why your father sold you ass off it’s cause you so DAMN stupid, Jesus.”

“Mora?”

“What do you fucking want you cunt.”

“… We’re still in front of people.”

“… I will not hesitate to shoot all of you-“

… Nigguang was going to have so much paperwork tonight.

໒꒰ྀི˶˙Ⱉ˙˶꒱ྀིა Author’s note : MORA!READER MORA!READER MORA!READER MORA!READER MORA!READER LETS GIVE IT UP FOR MORA!READER!!!!! ૮꒰˶ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ˶꒱ა˖⁺‧₊˚

They’re here you guys!!!! Get happy get wild!!!! Holy shit that ending was mild!!! I hate it!!! Anyway-

This is gonna SAGAU because… meh. But that doesn’t matter! Their here! But I’m not done yet, next thing on my checklist is humanizing the animals (Main ones) so I’ll be be radio silent for a bit again lmao (unless I choose to post shit which is very likely-) ໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Mora!Reader! More is, of course, on the way! ૮꒰ྀི∩´ ᵕ `∩꒱ྀིა

Have a magnificent day/night my dears!~

/)/)

( . .)

c( づ♡ Loves you guys!! <3

[smoshyourheadin]

Maybe u could do a Spencer besties to lovers? Like they've known each other a long time yk

Thankssss no pressure if ur busy ofc <3

It’s Always Been You

cw: reader has a boyf who she breaks up w bc he’s an alchaholic!! don’t read if you aren’t comfortable, i’ll catch you another time ml 💛

a/n: EEK IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT ANON 🫶🫶💛💛 also im taking this as smosh spence not cm spence so feel free to re-request if you’d like <33 ps, ive written that he listens to pink floyd here so thats who syd barrett is if you don’t know :))

requests r open!!

///

pairing: spencer agnew x fem!reader

florida, 2002

you and spencer were scurrying around in the freshly mown grass of his backyard, playing tag.

“you didn’t get me, you cheated!” you exclaim, ducking as he reaches out to get you again, tumbling to the floor.

“did too!” spencer retorts, his grazed knees dropping to the floor so he can lean over you. he meets your eyes, pulls a tongue, and hoists himself back up to run to his tyre swing.

all 11 years you’d known, you’d known them with spencer. your moms had been great friends since way before you were born, being in the same book club. or was it an art night? you didn’t exactly know, but you did know that because your moms were best friends, so were you and spencer.

as you sprung back up to your feet, your moms watched your antics through the kitchen window.

“whoever can swing the other the highest gets to have the last red popsicle!” he yelled as you ran over

“oh you’re so on!”

your hands gripped the tyre and you pushed like your life depended on it.

“y’know,” your mom said “one day, they’re going to end up together.”

his mom looked over at yours and smiled,

“i’d be surprised if they didnt honestly.”

los angeles, 2024

you walk through the door of your apartment, and you kick the door closed behind you. your bag slides off your shoulder, and you throw your keys onto the dresser next to the door. you only manage a long groan before flopping onto the couch.

“heya, charlie!” you scrunch your face up as you feel your dog’s cold, wet nose press against your cheek, as he gently wags his tail

“i missed you too boy, work was so tiring today.” you work at smosh with spencer, and have done for the past seven years after you left your job at another channel to join him. it was basically the best decision you’d ever made, every day filled with laughs; practically just a 24/7 hangout. you work with spencer on smosh games, but rarely ever go on camera, even if spencer’s there. you enjoy it anyway though.

you sit up and scratch behind his ears. he wiggles his body contently at your fondness. and then your stomach growls. it made sense, it was currently 6:43pm, and you last ate at noon, so you get up and drag yourself to make some mac n cheese.

as the pasta boils your phone starts ringing.

it’s james.

rubbing your hands over your face, you answer the dreaded call from your boyfriend james.

“heyyy~ sweetheart, y’doin okay? you were hic bein’ a bit of a bitch today, didnt answer my calls, what, you hate me or sumn?” he rambles, most of his words just slurring off.

“james, are you drinking again?” your voice is agitated, hearing the chattering and the low bass of a bar in the background.

you know he has a problem, and you’ve tried to get him to stop so many times. but you just can’t. he just won’t take your help.

“wha- i mean- well- no- but um- well y’r just gonna be mad at me like y’allways are” he stammers, not wanting to tell you the truth.

“no, i’m done with this. you say all this to me when you’re drunk, and then act like everything is fine! i’m sick of it! you spend so much time at the bar, and its the only place we ever go on dates, and i just end up babysitting you! so yeah i am mad! but for the last time! fuck you james.”

you hang up.

you start to tear up, the knot in your chest tight as your emotions come rushing to you, face heating up as tears begin to fall. the hissing of something behind you snaps you out of it.

“shit!” you rush over to to your stove, where the water from your pasta spills over the sides, the flames licking at the bottom of the pan.you take it off the heat and turn it off. it looks done anyway. you add some butter, and, of course, cheese. stirring gently, you sob.

james was so nice to you, always showering you with gifts and praise and love. but it was all for nothing. he just didn’t love you like he loved drinking in the end.

pouring the mac n cheese into a bowl, you call spencer.

“hey lemon! how’s my favourite person this fine evening?” you smile at the nickname.

florida, 2007

“spencer, you’re a boy. why are you so complicated? i mean, its just annoying!” you walk into his bedroom after his mom let you in, clearly pissed off. being 16 isn’t fun, especially when boys you like are rude to you.

“what did he do?” spencer doesn’t look up from his computer, just slightly turn his head.

“he said that i must eat lemons because of how bitter i am. i mean come on!” you lie on his bed and watch him play runescape.

“lemon… hmph” he just smiles and continues whatever he was doing on his game.

“what? nothing to say? ugh! you suuuuuck!”

los angeles, 2024

“yeah, i mean, no. i broke up with james.” you sniffle, and eat a forkfull of your food, elbows resting on the cold marble of the kitchen island.

“i mean- um- yeah thats horrible…” he says

“you’re allowed to celebrate, i know you hated him. and so did everyone. but still. im fragile right now!” you giggle through your gentle tears

“well, i mean, honestly? glad he’s gone. he sucked dude. not sure why you didn’t do it sooner. well, one positive to come of this, your pillows won’t stink of beer next time i nap at yours!” he replies, clearly happy for you.

“yeah,” you chuckle at the memory of spencer falling asleep on your bed, then completing his hair smelt like budweiser “that is true.”

“all seriousness though, are you okay?” his voice is genuine this time, filled with concern.

“no, not really. it’s just… different i guess. but, not much has changed y’know? like, it already felt like he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore…” you begin to ramble for at least 20 minutes, only to be met with the occasional ‘mhmn’ and ‘yeah’ from spencer. mid sentence, there’s a knock at your door.

“oh one sec, someone’s here.” you get up from your table and swing the door open to see a very sympathetic looking spencer, two target bags in his hands.

your jaw is on the floor. you were just crying to him over the phone, and he’d stayed whilst going out to get what you can only assume is things like sour patch kids and vanilla ice cream, which you could see at the top of the bag. your favourites.

“girls night?” he smirked and raised the bags at his sides.

all you can do is smile ear to ear, and wrap him in a tight hug. he leaned into you, basking in your sweet citrusy perfume.

“you’re my favourite, spencie.” you say into his shoulder.

as you both walk inside, charlie comes bounding over to spencer, his favourite person.

“who’s a good boy! charlie is!” spencer was now crouchedby your kitchen island, fussing over your dog as you walked to put on something more comfortable. you slid on some track pants and an old atari hoodie. walking back into your kitchen, spencer has unpacked the bags, and is creating his favourite conconction, The Agnew Sundae. basically the most sickeningly sweet ice cream ever. his dad made it for you both in the summer, and it consisted of:

vanilla ice cream

chocolate syrup

caramel sauce

whipped cream

sprinkles

mini marshmallows

chocolate chips

m&ms

and some crushed oreos to finish.

god, you know you’re going to regret this later, but boy was it a good way to cheer you up.

also strewn on the counter was his switch and copy of animal crossing, a few of his dvd’s for you to watch, and his mom’s chocolate chip cookies.

“spencer, how on earth did you get these? your mom lives across the country!” you hold up the baggie, and raise an eyebrow.

he looks up from his ice cream assembly station, and smirks.

“a magician never- ow!”

you cut him off by lightly jabbing his arm

“okay okay, she visited not to long ago - when she took you to the mall? and she gave me these to freeze and keep for an important event. i think she’d agree this is important.” you cant help but smile at his remark. you missed you moms.

“i’ll have to ring her later to thank her.” you say.

the night goes on, and you and spencer sit on the couch under a blanket watching barbie princess charm school. because what else are you going to watch?

as the movie goes on, and the effects of the agnew sundae kick in; you were dozing off on his shoulder. towards the end of the movie, so does he. he drifts off, comforted by your soft hair occasionally brushing against his face.

you stir awake, the sun beaming into your eyes through your semi-open blinds, and you’re hit by a wave of memory. everything that happened last night comes flooding back.

james’ call.

spencer’s call.

spencer showing up for you.

at the latter, you smile slightly. you prop yourself up on the sofa, and notice the absence of spencer’s warmth by you. frowning slightly, you walk into the kitchen.

“morning sleepyhead” his sweet voice rings through the room

“hey. i thought you’d’ve gone home”

“no, im not that mean! who do you take me for?” he retorts, his attention turning back to the pancakes on the stove.

“pancakes? what time is it?” you come up behind him, putting your chin on his shoulder.

“yeah, and it’s about 10:30.” he leant his head on yours, flipping one. you had to admit, they look pretty good.

“10:30!?” you lift you head in surprise, looking at your phone “shouldn’t we be in work?”

“nope, i called us in sick. said my mom was having surgery. which she is, but i made it sound dramatic so we could stay off.” he looks at you, and smiles slightly.

“well, send her my love! i think i’ll go get dressed now.” he hummed, and you left the room.

opening your closet, you pick out a yellow baggy t-shirt and some grey sweatpants. you pull on some fluffy socks, and slip on a zip up hoodie. walking back out into the living room, spencer walks in with two plates piled high with pancakes, drenched in syrup and strawberries

“so,” you say, a fork full of pancakes in your mouth. “whats the plan for today?”

he looks over at you, and shrugs slightly. “not sure, we could go to the book store you like?”

“ah, you know the way to a girl’s heart“ you put a hand over your chest and giggle a bit.

a few hours later, you walk into the store, door creaking just a bit as a small brass bell chimes overhead. the air is filled with a comforting mix of old paper, leather bindings, and a hint of freshly brewed coffee from the corner cafe that you and spencer like to get tea from. you breathe it in deeply, a sense of calm washing over you. as you walk over the creaky wooden floorboards beneath you, soft warm light filters down from antique lamps, and cast a gentle glow over the rows of books. you ghost your fingertips over the cloth spines while the quiet murmur of whispered conversations and the occasional rustling of pages create a soothing background noise, almost like a lullaby. through spencer’s airpods, syd barrett serenades you both, and his voice blends seamlessly with the ambiance of the store.

“anything good today lemon?” spencer says as he shimmies up next to you in the aisle of towering book shelves, his voice like honey rolling off his tongue. his hair was unruly as always, but he looked so pretty in this light. his face was littered with freckles that you wish you could kiss. he’s smiling at you, and it snaps you back to reality, and reminds you of the fact you’re staring at him

“uh, yeah, i think i’ll get this one” you smile back, holding up a copy of memoirs of a geisha by arthur golden

“cool, shayne likes that one i think. but he likes every book so…” he smiles at his own remark “um, you want me to grab our normal seats in the cafe while you pay for that?”

“yes, please!” you reply eagerly, smiling as he walked off.

you walk up to the cashier, an older lady who always gives you a bookmark.

“thank you m’darlin’, have a lovely day!”

“you too mrs bryson!” you reply, heading over to spencer who’s sat in some plush leather armchairs. as you sit in comfortable silence with him, time seems to slow down, and for a moment, it's just you, spencer, the books, and the comforting atmosphere of this charming bookstore.

“i got you your sweet tea.” he says, handing you a plastic cup filled with your favourite tea.

he remembered.

fuck.

you were in love with spencer agnew, and it took you him handing you your favourite tea to realise it.

“thanks spence.” you say, still grasping the feelings in your chest.

while you read you book and drink your tea, you feel your attention drifting to him. you can't help but glance up from the pages every now and then, watching him as he sits across from you, his focus on his own book. his fingers absently tracing the rim of his coffee mug, his brow furrowing as he reads. the way the sunlight filters through the small window, casting a warm glow across his hair, highlighting the subtle streaks of lighter brown among his dark curls. you find yourself smiling at the sight of him, wondering when these small, mundane moments began to mean so much to you. the bookstore is quiet, aside for the murmur of others reading or talking in hushed tones. yet, with spencer sitting just a few feet away, the world feels like it's faded to the background. it's just you and him, sharing this space, this moment. you watch the way his lips move slightly as he reads, how he occasionally tilts his head in concentration, and the way his eyes light up when he finds something particularly interesting. as he looks up and catches you watching him, you feel a rush of warmth spreading through your chest. he smiles at you, a slow, easy smile that makes your heart skip a beat. he raises an eyebrow, and you quickly look back down at your book, feeling your cheeks flush. but you can't help it; your gaze finds its way back to him, like he's the most interesting story in the room. he seems to notice the shift in the air between you. he closes his book and leans forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees.

“everything okay?” he asks, his voice gentle, his eyes filled with genuine curiosity.

“yeah,” you reply, trying to sound casual, though your heart is racing. “just... glad to be here with you.”

he nods, his smile growing a bit wider. “me too.”

as he settles back into his chair, you realize that this simple exchange has changed something. the air feels lighter, the connection between you stronger. you may have come here to read and relax, but now, sitting across from spencer, you know you've found something else entirely - something you never want to let go of.

as you leave the store, you’re panicking slightly as you realise you don’t know what to do. so instead you make up an excuse.

“i forgot my keys ," you blurt out, looking back at the bookstore. it's a thin excuse, but spencer doesn't seem to notice. he simply nods, a hint of concern in his eyes.

"do you want me to wait for you?" he asks, already reaching for his phone to check the time.

"no, it's fine," you reply quickly. "you can go ahead. i’ll just be a minute."

spencer seems reluctant to leave, but he nods, offering a warm smile before stepping out onto the street. you watch him walk away, his figure blending into the crowd as he heads toward the main crossing. your heart sinks a little as he disappears from view, and you take a deep breath, trying to steady your racing pulse.

the bookstore feels different now. the warm glow and soft murmurs are still there, but without spencer, it's like the color has faded a bit. you stand by the door, uncertain of what to do next. you could go back outside, catch up with him, and just say it. tell him how you feel. but the words seem stuck in your throat, and the thought of laying your feelings bare feels like too much, too soon.

you step back inside, pretending to look for something you might have left behind. the stacks of books seem to stretch endlessly in front of you, a maze of comforting distractions. you wander through the aisles, hoping to calm your racing thoughts, but all you can think about is spencer - his smile, the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs, the warmth of his voice.

eventually, you find a quiet corner and sit down, closing your eyes for a moment. you know you have to do something. you can't just let him walk away without knowing how much he means to you. but the fear of rejection, of changing everything, feels overwhelming.

you realize you need time to sort through your feelings, to figure out the best way to approach this. with a heavy heart, you decide to make your way home, hoping the familiar surroundings will bring clarity. as you step out onto the street, the cool breeze brushes against your skin, and you take a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions raging inside you.

on the journey home, you replay the moments with spencer in your mind, each one a bittersweet reminder of how much he means to you. you know you can't keep hiding your feelings, but you also know you need to approach this with caution. as you unlock the door to your apartment, you make a silent promise to yourself—to take the time you need, to listen to your heart, and to find the courage to follow where it leads, even if it means risking everything for him.

when you get home, spencer tries calling you as he paces around his bedroom, his phone pressed against his ear. the ringing continues, but there's no answer. he frowns, feeling an uneasy twist in his stomach. maybe you're still in the bookstore. maybe your phone is on silent, or maybe you're just busy. he tells himself there's a reasonable explanation, but the doubt lingers.

as he walks to his kitchen, he dials again. this time, the call goes straight to voicemail. his instincts tell him something isn't right. the keys excuse felt odd, and your hurried departure only amplifies his worry. he takes a moment to think, then leaves his apartment, jumps in his car, starts the engine, and drives toward your apartment.

the streets pass in a blur as he navigates through the evening traffic, his mind racing with possibilities. he finds a parking spot near your building and heads to your door. the hallway is quiet, save for the distant sound of a tv from a neighbouring apartment. he takes a deep breath and knocks.

nothing.

he knocks again, this time a little louder. the knot in his stomach tightens. what if something's wrong? what if he's too late? he knocks a third time, and this time, he hears a faint rustling from inside. the door opens slowly, and there you are, standing in the doorway with a look of surprise and confusion.

"spence?" you say, blinking at him as if he's the last person you expected to see.

"i - i was worried," he stammers, rubbing the back of his neck. "you didn't answer your phone, and i - i didn't know if you were okay."

you tilt your head, trying to process why he's here. his eyes search yours, and you can tell he's anxious, almost desperate to explain himself. "i'm fine," you say, "just had some stuff to think about."

he nods, but you can see he's not entirely convinced. there's something else, something deeper. he takes a step back, as if he's about to leave, but then he hesitates. "i - i have to tell you something," he blurts out, his words coming out in a rush. "i like you. like a lot. like i think i love you? and i know it might be weird, and i don't want to mess things up, but I just had to say it - because i couldn't keep it to myself anymore.”

he looks at you, his eyes full of emotions you can't quite decipher yet. you nod, urging him to continue, even though your own heart is racing. there's something in his gaze that makes you realize this isn't just any confession - this is something that's been building for a long time.

"i've liked you since we were kids," he says, almost breathlessly. "i mean, you were always the coolest person I knew. you didn't care what anyone else thought. you were smart and funny and just... so genuinely kind. i remember when we used to ride our bikes around the neighbourhood, and you'd always be the first one to try something new. like, remember when you climbed that huge tree in mr lawson's yard just because you wanted to see the view from the top? i thought you were so brave."

he chuckles softly, his gaze softening as he reminisces. "and then, when we got older, you were always there for me. when my parents split up, and i felt like everything was falling apart, you were the one who came over with a pizza and just listened. you didn't try to fix it; you just let me talk. that's something i've always loved about you. you're a great listener, and you care about people. like, really care."

he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes locking with yours. "it's not just that, though. It's the little things, too. the way you laugh at the dumbest of angela’s jokes, the way you get excited about your favorite books, and how you always know the right thing to say when I'm feeling down. you make everything feel... lighter, you know? like, even when things are tough, you find a way to make it better."

spencer pauses, his voice growing more earnest. "so yeah, i've um, been holding onto this for a while, and i just, couldn't keep pretending that i didn't feel this way. i like you - a lot. and i don't know if you feel the same way, but i just couldn't not tell you anymore."

he takes a step back, the tension in his shoulders indicating that he's prepared to leave if needed. "i don't want to make things weird between us. if you don't feel the same, that's okay. i just had to say it, because you're the best thing in my life, and i can't keep acting like you aren't."

his confession takes you by surprise, but as he speaks, you feel a surge of warmth in your chest. the words you were struggling to say are suddenly so clear, so obvious. you watch as he starts to turn away, his shoulders slumping in resignation. before he can take another step, you grab his arm and pull him back, your lips pressing against his in a gentle, yet desperate kiss.

he freezes for a moment, stunned by your sudden action, then his arms wrap around you, pulling you close. when you finally break the kiss, you look into his eyes, and there's no doubt, no hesitation.

"it's always been you," you whisper, your voice soft but sure. "you're my person, spencer."

he hugs you tightly, his grip firm and comforting, as if he's afraid you'll disappear if he lets go. you rest your head on his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of his heart against your cheek. it's a perfect moment, one that feels like the beginning of something new, something beautiful.

and as you stand there in each other's embrace, you know that everything's going to be okay, because you have each other. and that's all that matters.

[diorchids]

exes attract, luke castellan.

cw: oral (m receiving), swearing, exes, cheating & more

“i’d rather just fuck on my ex again,” - open arms by sza ft. travis scott.

it plays in the back of your head while you sloppily suck luke’s cock, softly squeezing the base of it. his fingers instinctively tighten in your hair and he pushes your lips farther onto him.

his hair sticks to his forehead perfectly, ironically resembling that of a god.

his toned arm flexes each time he pulls your head back and forth on him, and you only run your warm tongue over a vein to get a whimper out of him.

he hisses softly when you swirl your tongue around his puffy tip to show your appreciation for his fat cock taking up your throat.

“keep goin’, just like that—don’t stop,” he groaned out, nodding and running his clammy thumb over your cheek. you look so beautiful like this. puffy lips swaddling his—almost suffocating—cock.

you two had dated years back, the breakup was mostly pertaining to your own life and problems. it ended in a fight. a dramatic one.

you two stayed away from each other, finding other filler people to soothe the ache of being separated. you both were fine though, right? (loud incorrect buzzer.)

the bonfire was loud, with campers chatting and running around. his eyes met with yours, your sultry gaze running all over him for a split second. 

he looked away. 

his pants tightened at the mere sight of you. your smile was almost intoxicating. your lips wrapped around that cherry sucker perfectly, while he pathetically tried to hide the slight bulge in his jeans. 

your boyfriend tapped your leg to let you know he was off to the lake. 

wasn’t too long before luke bumped into you. 

his moans grew louder and more frequent, matching the rhythm of your sucking, “almost done with you, gonna give you all of m-my cum. gonna take it real g-good, aren’t you?” he taunted you while you sputtered and gagged around him. it’s like he hated you but didn’t, like he was putting on a tough front for you.

you made sure to nod, though, not wanting him to push himself deeper down your throat.

“so pretty like this. not fuckin’ yelling and bitching all the time,” he loved the way his cock could shut you up so fast. 

his voice cracked, and his body trembled under the intense feeling of your soft mouth. his hands didn’t move from your hair, gripping more and more as he straightened his back, pushing himself deeper into your mouth. 

he groaned at the sight of you, his hands tightening in your hair. his hips jerked forward, his cock sliding in and out of your mouth as he lost control. He couldn't believe how good it felt and how much he was enjoying this. 

it was disgusting. you both had your respective partners, yet you felt zero remorse. 

“tastes so good, lukey,” your muffled moans only reminded him of how much he missed you. 

luke gasped, his hands gripping your head as he held onto the last remaining bit of control over his body. he couldn't believe how much he was enjoying this and how good it felt to be touched like this. 

“i know, i know, baby. pretty baby.” your puffy lips provided him with the warmth he longed for since you’d broken up. he’s trying so hard to be complacent, like he hadn’t been stalking your socials since the breakup; it was pathetic. 

his breathing was ragged, and his fat cock was throbbing in your mouth. his hips began to buck wildly, pushing deeper into your throat. 

“i-i can't... i'm c-cumming…” his grip on your hair tightened as his front slowly vanished. 

you kept stroking, though. why would you stop? his pretty eyes stuck on the way you basically swallowed his pretty cock whole, which made your cunt flutter. 

“cum for me, luke. cum down my throat if you missed me.” you nodded and taunted him while his glossy eyes could only roll back.

his entire body tensed, his cock pulsing violently in your mouth as he released his seed. hot, thick cum filled your mouth, causing you to gag slightly. he groaned loudly, his hips finally stilling after what felt like hours of him bucking and pushing his cock into your mouth.

you almost immediately swallow, occasionally gagging while cum drips down your chin. tears just roll down your face as he cradles your chin carefully.

 

it wasn’t cheating, just a reconciliation.

[thewadapan]

School Days review

Yeah, School Days is actually pretty good after all.

When you google "School Days", on the first page of results there's a reddit thread asking "hey, why do people hate this show?" OP gives a succinct summary of the show's themes and praises it for its tight focus and psychological depth.

The comments in that thread are fucking crazy. The top-voted comment includes this absolute gem: "Sekai is an emotionally manipulative bitch". Some users gesture towards a faint understanding that School Days is a deconstruction of harem anime, but almost to a one they claim the character writing is unrealistic. Nobody seems able to look past the show's metatextual meaning to just look at it on a straightup subtextual level—that is to say, it's not just being different to other anime for the sake of contrarianism, it's making a serious point about misogyny and toxic masculinity. Describing Makoto as a "character" at all is almost missing the point; he's practically a force of nature, and the vast majority of the show is concerned with the psychological manoeuvring of the girls in his class trying to manage and shape his behaviour.

I only know about School Days because @weaselandfriends is constantly banging a drum about it being a secret masterpiece. Gee, I wonder who the OP of that thread was! Cannot imagine being on a "School Days slaps" grindset for eight fucking years now.

(CW: discussion of underage sex, full spoilers follow)

I'm going to take a cowardly centrist route and say that School Days does in fact slap on a conceptual level, but that the execution in many places leaves a bit to be desired. It often feels repetitive. I watched the thing on 1.5x speed because, as someone who reads fast, watching subbed anime is like watching paint dry. The dialogue often feels awkward (unintentionally so, as in), which I'm willing to partially chalk up to the translation; maybe some of the clunkier lines feel more natural in the original Japanese. The imagery is often kind of laughably blunt: in some cases it works, like Kotonoha's red yarn like she's pulling her own fucking arteries out of her body, and in other cases it feels derivative and hackneyed, like the whistling kettle in the final episode. Maybe that was more original in 2007, I don't know—I would've seen the same thing in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire two years prior.

School Days does set out to pull the wool over the eyes of its presumably-mostly-young-men audience, by putting them in Makoto's POV. The show is adapted from an eroge, where the player literally would have inhabited Makoto and made his choices for him, and the "objective" of the game would have been to unlock sex scenes with all the schoolgirls. The trick with the anime is that it removes the possibility of choice, creating an impactful dissonance as Makoto's actions become increasingly alien and harmful. Inversely, as Makoto's sexual exploits escalate, we see less and less of them; by the end, the whole thing is routine, not eroticised in the slightest, we see people putting clothes on afterwards, sneaking around darkened rooms.

At the start, though, it's all panty shots and boobs. And like, how do you depict the objectification of women, from an internal perspective, without just... objectifying women? This has basically always been the classic problem with satire. If there is a way of doing it, School Days hasn't figured it out, so it just rolls up its sleeves and gets on with it. Where School Days stumbles, in my opinion, is that the fanservice shots leak out of Makoto's POV and into the scenes where it's just the girls on their own. Nevertheless, I think that even pretty early on School Days is unmistakably saying, "this is a bad thing". There's a discordant note to everything, a threat of another shoe waiting to drop. At the start, it takes the form of these innocuous remarks as the characters try to interact in good faith: Sekai is constantly like, "There's nothing wrong with feeling attracted to a girl! But maybe she doesn't feel comfortable with it! Have you thought about how she might feel?"

That's the great tension of Sekai, and indeed of much of the show's conflict: there is a world where Makoto and Sekai are just friends, and where Makoto is faithful to Kotonoha, and everyone lives happily ever after. Maybe Sekai really is earnestly trying to cross this gulf between genders, and wants to just make Makoto understand, so everyone can be happy. But from the start, there's a question of Sekai's motives; embodied by Sekai's friend Setsuna, who trails after her constantly asking, "But do you like him really?"

Setsuna is an interesting character with her own motives. There's a reading where she has a crush on Sekai, but can't pursue it because of her family's impending emigration; she ends up hanging around Makoto and desperately attempting to protect him from the consequences of his actions to preserve his relationship with Sekai, expressly stating that she wants Makoto to be a proxy for her after she's gone (though leaving any romantic feelings unspoken, that's just my interpretation). This escalates to the point of her having sex with Makoto on the condition that he breaks off another engagement with Otome, which is such a self-defeatingly doomed gambit that it becomes tragically clear Setsuna has lost all control over the situation. I got the impression that Setsuna somewhat envied the other girls' entanglements with Makoto: the bit where she kisses him while he's asleep, in an attempt to create a personal memory before she leaves forever, is haunting. Like Sekai, Setsuna ends up manufacturing a romance between herself and Makoto as a way to be with him "by proxy", without earnestly confronting her own feelings.

Anyway, my point is that early on, everyone is treating Makoto like a person, which is sort of their mistake. They're like, oh, a boy with a crush, how cute! What's the worst that could come of this? He's a bit clumsy, but I'm sure he means well! And progressively, mercilessly, the show is like: no, he does not mean well. This dude has absolutely nothing in his life except sex. Girls only exist to him as people to have sex with. Guys practically don't exist, as he can't have sex with them. And for these teenagers who are discovering their sexuality, the very fact that Makoto soon starts having these rumours circulating around him is what gives him some allure: he's a sexual entity, he can be thought of in that way, there must be some reason all these girls are acting so crazy over him. Even a character like Hikari, who early on was crushing heavily on the anime's one (1) other male character, Taisuke, ends up taking her turn with Makoto; whatever feelings she had for Taisuke are forgotten, the anime doesn't even bother establishing how that romance works, because it doesn't need to, we've already seen Makoto use his exact same wiles on like three girls already.

School Days has aged well not just because the years since have yielded a better cultural understanding of its subject matter, but for its "production design": what would have been a timely present-day setting at the point of its release ends up turning the whole thing into an early-2000s period-piece. The fashion and environments are distinctly noughties. Perhaps the most consistent bit of visual symbolism in the whole thing is the flip-phone: whenever a character is holding their phone, you can think of them holding their heart in their hands. They're like the fucking soul gems from Madoka Magica. Sometimes, people leave their hearts in the other room, or block each others' hearts, or search their hearts for good memories. The "cell phone charm" from the first episode is brought up towards the very end, seeming bitterly quaint in retrospect. Right before she kills him, Sekai sends Makoto a text which just reads "sorry" copied and pasted hundreds of times. And of course, the ED shows a propped-open cellphone with a slideshow of photos of the girls.

I think in terms of its place in history, School Days speaks to this information age where young girls are being bombarded with cultural messaging that the best way to get ahead is to sexualise oneself while simultaneously slamming everyone else for their sexuality. Girls aren't just competing with one another for the attention of boys; now, they're competing with online pornography. Sekai works as a waitress at a maid cafe (?), and sometimes wears the outfit for Makoto when they have sex. During the School Festival, the girls theme their class as a maid cafe (drawing on Sekai's experience, I think?), and are shown using "absolute territory" as a last-ditch resort to steal people from the other classes. As part of the festival, they have a secluded area curtained off with a bed, encouraging couples to go there for sex acts—but later, it turns out some of the girls have set up a camcorder, and they use the footage to reveal how everyone is cheating on everyone else. While the exact events are obviously taken to an extreme, subtextually everything in School Days tracks 100% with my own experience growing up in a Bri'ish high school, and it feels like things have only gotten worse since social media really tightened its grip on our society.

The most common talking point I see regarding this show is that the characters are "stupid". And it's like, no, they're not stupid, what planet are you on, they're fucking children! (They're children, fucking!) Most of them have probably never been in a relationship before! Everyone in the show is pursuing their own interests; it's just that often, they're in denial about the reality of the situation, because to acknowledge the reality would run against those interests. It's funny, Makoto hardly changes his behaviour throughout the whole show—it just becomes more extreme—but the only thing that affects whether or not his behaviour with Sekai is good or not is whether or not Kotonoha is his girlfriend. The use of "girlfriend" as a role is weaponised by both Kotonoha and Sekai against the other constantly; like declaring "you're It!" At once point while cooking for the school festival, Makoto starts groping Sekai's ass, and she goes, "Geez, stop it! Stop it I said! What'll you do if someone sees us?", only for Makoto to reply, "Then it's okay if no-one sees us?"; this motif of a private sin recurs with Setsuna's character, particularly in the masked play that crops up a couple of times. In what context is an act of desire okay, or not okay?

Halfway through the show, I remembered Emily is Away, a short Western indie visual novel. Released in 2015, Emily is Away is very consciously an early-2000s period piece, wearing the whole time period as an affectation. The whole game is a series of text conversations on an IM client with a girl; after key choices, you are told "emily will remember that".

I fucking hated Emily is Away when I played it. It made me so, so cross. Because after I finished my first playthrough, and got a miserable, unsatisfying end, I naturally started the whole thing over and tried again. I picked different favourite bands. I acted completely differently. And yet, no matter what I picked, during the timeskips between sections, my viewpoint character would do the exact same shit and the relationship fell apart in exactly the same way. The second playthrough was a complete waste of time. It seemed like I, the player, was being railroaded, that the writer simply hadn't the imagination to conceive of a truly interactive narrative with a wildly diverging chain of events.

But of course, that's the whole point, obviously. Emily is Away plays a mean trick on the player, where it outright lies that "you" are making meaningful choices, when in fact "you" are merely spectating the actions of the viewpoint character, a specific guy who is, by nature, a certain way. It posits that all this shit on the computer just doesn't fucking matter, it has nothing to do with how we feel about each other, that it's only our actions in the real world that matter. The thesis of Emily is Away is that sometimes, for some immutable reason, shit just doesn't work out between two people, and there's nothing you could have done differently that would have changed that.

In the timeline where you go the party, you regret going to the party. In the timeline where you don't go, you regret not going. So, the game says, what's the point in regretting at all?

I totally understood this, after finishing the game. But, fuck, I was still pissed about it. The game lied to my face. It put me in the position of being a shitty person, and I didn't like that. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm still not sure if Emily is Away is actually any good; I think I like it conceptually, but maybe the writing sucks, I played it eight years ago. My point is that I think School Days is trying to pull the same trick as this one game, but in a much more mean-spirited way, to much more devastating effect, and I suppose I can't be too surprised that it pissed off a lot of people. If I hadn't known upfront what to expect- well, I wouldn't be watching ecchi anime in the first place, but you get the point, maybe I would've been pissed too.

If you break out of the "anime" mindset for even a second, and allow yourself to think that what you're watching is a frank portrayal of events, rather than some hyperreal cartoon, then Makoto is obviously just a little sexual predator. He's constantly pushing the girls past their limits, groping tits, going in for kisses, often against their express wishes. He initiates all the sex we see, and while in a certain sense it's all consensual, everyone involved is under the age of consent, and the show is making a very strong case for why underaged sex is a problem. When Sekai gets pregnant, Makoto wants nothing to do with her—"It's not my fault!"—but it's made clear he wasn't using any contraception, so, c'mon.

School Days is very deliberate in omitting adult characters entirely. Teachers mostly exist in the form of textbooks being read offscreen. I think we get a line of dialogue from Sekai's mom, if I remember right? It presents this world where Makoto basically has free reign to do whatever he wants to the girls, and everybody knows about it, but nobody is doing anything about it. When Sekai murders Makoto, there isn't a scene where anyone notices his absence, finds out. Kotonoha carries his severed head across town without anyone noticing, kills Sekai, and makes it onto the boat without getting caught. The show ends on a montage of idyllic school scenes, as if to say, "nobody noticed, everything just carried on". And again, to a certain kind of guy, I think this would stretch plausibility to the point of causing offence. For me, I think it's speaking to something very real.

Makoto's bedroom is barren except for his computer and magazines: porn, and porn. In the back half of the show, the void left by the absence of adults is filled by Makoto, Sekai, and Kotonoha, who are thrust into this horrible domestic drama, as everyone else in their class blocks Makoto. Makoto relays Kotonoha's recommendation for an abortion clinic to Sekai. He and Sekai sit diagonally across a table in a living room, and suddenly Makoto's school uniform looks like a salaryman's suit, a size too big for him, like he's walking around in his dad's clothes. Sekai tries to prepare a big meal for him, in a fucked-up parody of domesticity, but ends up destroying the whole thing after Makoto spits in her face yet again; later, she sees the remnants in the trash, an uneaten chicken leg poking out, and sees a little of herself in there, and that's basically when she decides to take the knife and kill Makoto. She stabs him in the belly, which is what Kotonoha will later do to her; both are imitating the original sin of the pregnancy.

Kotonoha explicitly chooses to kill Sekai this way because she believes Sekai is lying about the pregnancy—which we can pretty safely say isn't true, based on the scenes where Sekai is on her own. There's this horrible, horrible shot where the camera is looking out at Kotonoha from inside the gut wound, and she observes, "Just as I thought. There's no-one in there." And it's like, is she talking about this baby, still so early in the gestation that it's scarcely even an idea? Is she talking about Sekai, or Makoto, these two people who turned out not to care about her at all? Or is she peering straight through the screen at the viewer, complicit in this atrocity? The shot mirrors the bag containing Makoto's head earlier in the same scene; when Sekai unzips it, the inside is just a black void, and we aren't shown the contents. It's honestly more unsettling to infer it—that bag's not big enough for all of Makoto—and have it "made real" by that final shot of Kotonoha pressing the severed head into her chest on the boat. The memes were more right than they knew: "Nice boat."

Overall, I think School Days extends a lot of empathy towards its female characters. Or, if nothing else, it takes care to give them complex and distinctive internality, which is more than I can say for a lot of anime. Kotonoha initially represses her feelings for Makoto, and then when she feels pressured into reciprocating his intimacy, she soon gets turned into a social pariah for it. Early on, there's this eye-roll-inducing scene where Kotonoha is like "the other girls used to make fun of me because of my huge boobs", and from Makoto's perspective it's like "great, you've got huge boobs!", but then from Kotonoha's perspective, she spends the whole show getting slut-shamed, doesn't she? As a coping mechanism, she builds up elaborate delusions around Makoto—Makoto wouldn't let this happen to her, would he!?—which make it impossible for her to see how he's harming Sekai at the same time, culminating in the "I think you've made up your pregnancy for attention" beat. Their own internalised misogyny prevents the girls from identifying their common enemy.

If I'm being totally blunt, I feel like I can pretty safely put most of the comments regarding School Days I've seen online into a big bucket labelled "HAS NEVER HAD MORE THAN ONE GIRL INTERESTED IN HIM AT ONCE". Like, "I can't believe this Makoto guy! Why doesn't he just dump Kotonoha and date Sekai, who he's obviously more compatible with?" Bucket. "Makoto is so spineless and needs to stop letting these girls manipulate him!" Bucket. "There's no way the teachers would let him get away with this!" Bucket. "What do these girls see in Makoto anyway?" Bucket. "Sekai is such a bitch!" A new, bigger bucket labelled "NO BITCHES".

What I'm interested in is takes from School Days haters who aren't brainpoisoned anime fans, who might even nod along to all my analysis of the show's themes here, but who nevertheless think it's a bad show that deserves to be reviled. What part didn't you like? Is it the part in the OP where you see every female character naked one after the other? Yeah that part's pretty bad. Is it that windowpane-shattering digital transition that gets used once or twice? Is it the utter self-seriousness with which it tackles its ludicrous melodrama? I can see how, if you don't let yourself start to think "oh, those poor girls!", if you don't have that emotional buy-in, the whole thing might just feel comically edgy, sophomoric. I don't think there's any level on which School Days is fun to watch, and I'm not saying it's a secret masterpiece either, but I guess it more-or-less landed for me.

[feelthesturmanddrangintheair]

On Nosferatu and Dracula, Mina & Ellen

I loved Nosferatu but I hate the online discourse about it. It’s literally making me crazy. This is a pic of all of you bitches right now:

I have a huge problem with literal readings of this movie at all. It’s obviously not the point of the damned thing. But, Ellen/Thomas shippers, I'm coming for you now.

I’ve noticed people online, on tiktok, tumblr etc, shipping Ellen/Thomas the exact same way I’ve seen Mina/Jonathan since Dracula Daily. And the Mina thing already frustrated me, but the Ellen one makes me crazy.

(they’re not the same character)

But I guess I understand the instinct?

Modern vampire media is obsessed with the male vampire as the sexual/romance object. Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Buffy. (Interview with a vampire doesn’t count (lol count) cause it’s all from Vamp perspective. Also it's profoundly gay). (However Anne Rice does get enormous kudos for basically dragging the vampire from hammer horror into boyfriend material, so it is relevant i guess?).

The modern approach is that the subtext has become text “Yes we do like dracula and we do want to fuck him thank you very much”.

It’s always been the subtext of Victorian vampire stories - which were riffing off the already dark, brooding male figures in literature before that (Rochester, Byronic heroes, also Byron) and combining them with Eastern folk tales. In the original Dracula Mina and her plucky group of fuckbois slay the vampire. He is defeated and good Christian morals are preserved.

However, Dracula is that bitch - he’s an object of fascination for everyone in the book, especially Mina. The title of the book is “Dracula” not “Jonathan Harker is a good husband actually”. 

In the late 19th century gothic literature, the vampire and the monster was The Other. They were feared but also hypnotic - a beguiling, seductive other. Some women gave in to such temptation (Lucy) and some stood stoic in the face of it (Mina). But the temptation was still there. That is why it is powerful to triumph over it.

The Text: Dracula is scary and we shall defeat him The Subtext: But also don’t you think Dracula is kinda sexy?

That is and remains the subtext in all good gothic horror novels of the 19th century: you don’t literally want to fuck death or a monster but also, maybe in your subconscious, you kinda want to fuck death. You might want to fuck the monster. Maybe you want to be bad.

So when movies began making vampire stories - Dracula, Nosferatu - this theme became stronger in the visual medium. The monster was sexual, and the tension of the film was always the push and pull of attraction and horror between it and the fair maiden.

Later in the 20th century, it became more explicit, like everything else. Sexy vampire movies and exploitation movies in the 70s give way to Francis Ford Coppola’s ridiculous, fantastic, opulent “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in the 1990s. A film that labors with every breath to faithfully adapt the novel, then throws that labour away to turn Mina into Dracula’s reincarnated soul mate. I find this movie perplexing but fabulous. I have watched it probably 6 times in the past 3 years.

And then the 2000s teen vampire obsession. You have Buffy obviously, with her litany of vampire boyfriends (I’m a Spike fan - Angel is BORING). Hilariously for this discussion, Buffy is a slayer who dates vampires, so it’s less Mina/Dracula and more Van Helsing/Dracula. 

(huh there is a market for that)

But where Buffy took what Anne Rice did and turned it into a weekly fun drama for teens (and tweens who probably should not have been watching), Stephanie Meyer evolves the vampire again. Twilight exploded the Vampire Boyfriend into the mainstream. In the early 2010s you couldn’t escape YA vampire and monster boyfriend fiction. You even had the CW jumping on board with The Vampire Diaries ffs

So after Twilight, wanting to fuck a vampire or monster became somewhat mainstream.

In the 2020s, vampires being the main love interest has fully transcended the subtext from the original stories. The monster has become a protective puppy in our beds. Say it with me “We have defanged the vampire”. And like all big, crazy trends, eventually they run out of steam and become unfashionable. There is nothing particularly shocking left to milk from this archetype. Vampires became dull, untrendy, old news. They were supplanted by dystopias and fairy courts.

(I think ACOTAR is more honest about what readers actually want - most people aren’t monster fuckers. Most people’s interest in vampire erotica is rooted in a powerful, sexy, somewhat feminine man magicking you away from your hum-drum life. Twilight is the dishonest version of ACOTAR. ACOTAR says “Yeah we just wanna fuck Howl from Howls Moving Castle leave me alone”)

I digress.

Dracula Daily started in 2021. A simple idea: using substack, send the text of Dracula out, on the timeline that matches the epistolary novel’s dates. Tumblr being tumblr, we latch on and from 2022, the yearly run of Dracula Daily is an integral part of the tumblr experience. 

Like a book club with thousands of members, Tumblr has basically conducted a multi-year close reading and textual analysis of Dracula.

What has been most surprising is the volume of readers who have discovered the incredible character of Mina, and her sweet and strong relationship with Jonathan.

I think, in comparison to the often milquetoast relationship between these two on screen (I'll call it the cuckification of Jonathan) and the reduction often of Mina to a swooning maiden, Stoker’s original text is a revelation. 

In the book, Mina is a headstrong, intelligent and resourceful operator. Without her, the group would have failed and Dracula would have England in his thrall. The men around her respect her. She works tirelessly to save Jonathan in the first place, then England.

Jonathan and Mina make an excellent team - once reunited, her determination to extinguish the thing that killed Lucy, and his first-hand knowledge combines to help defeat him. A now oft-quoted section shows that when Mina has been bitten and is in Dracula’s thrall Jonathan writes:

“To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.”

Very sweet stuff. Very wife-guy. Isn’t Mina lucky?

So we now have so much fandom for Mina and Jonathan.

And it’s very sweet and interesting - it’s presented often as a radical, subversive take “I think Dracula sucks and is abusive. Mina and Jonathan belong together!”. It’s a classic “only on tumblr would this be considered a radical take”. But also “Only in the 21st century is this a radical take”.

It’s like Christine/Raoul shippers in the POTO fandom (I am one but however it’s because I truly do not think Christine is right for Erik. Read the masterwork “A Stroll on Sunday” that’s what I want for poor Erik). There’s nothing wrong with thinking the canonical breeding pair are well-suited; however the fixation on them and vilification of the interloping monster is perhaps missing the point of the entire text.

I’m so sorry Tumblr, thinking Mina should be with her Good Christian Husband Jonathan is not a life-altering take. Tumblr has subverted too close to the sun and started reinforcing Victorian values. We/Tumblr should be studied in a lab I stg. The brain gymnastics involved in this one is too insane.

And now we’re seeing this bleed into the Nosferatu discussion. I really liked and agreed with a lot of what Princess said in her video about Nosferatu & the Gothic Appetite:

But to bring this shipping focus to Nosferatu, is even more insane. Eggers' Nosferatu is far more focused on Ellen’s connection to Orlok than Dracula/Mina in the original Dracula text. I really liked what Eggers' said in this interview:

“In the novel, Stoker’s Dracula is seemingly moving to London, to England, for world domination. And, but this is all a demon-lover story. Ya know, Orlok is going to Wisborg for Ellen and no other reason. And that, that’s more interesting to me as a storyteller”

Nosferatu is different to Dracula in that it strips the vampire-hunting gang out of the text. It takes a lot of the unnecessary excess of the text and pairs it down to a fairy tale. One town, cut down the plot, remove excess characters, keep it simple. For me, I feel the result is way more focused than the original plot (and the Coppola movie).

Instead of Quincy, Seward and Arthur you just have Friederich. And Friederich is not a valiant hero like our noble trio. Instead of friendship and brother’s in arms saving the day, Friederich abandons Ellen and Thomas and succumbs to the monster. There is so much more darkness and despair in Ellen’s story because of this change. 

Those changes centralize the relationship between Ellen and Orlok in a way Dracula never did. It also does it in a less shit way then the Coppola film with its terrible reincarnation storyline.  

With Ellen and Orlok central, the Ellen/Thomas argument makes even less sense. Ellen cares about Thomas of course, she doesn’t want any harm to come to him.

But she also says to him “You could never please me as he could”. 

Thomas symbolises the status quo - a husband who leaves you to go to work, to ignore your strangeness and potentially also flatten it. Ellen says “It all ended when I first met my Thomas”. She grew up abnormal, supernatural and sexual - she alienated her father and family, and had a connection to a supernatural ancient demon during her teenage years. But the presence of Thomas removed that.

Some may see that as a saving grace - symbolising Thomas’ love as healing and protecting Ellen from the forces of darkness. That is a fairly simple, Christian reading - the healing love of matrimony and gender norms. However, you can also see this as a squashing of her powers and uniqueness. As Von Franz says:

“In heathen times you might have been a Great Priestess of Isis. Yet, in this strange and modern world your purpose is of greater worth.”

He does not view Ellen’s powers as an affliction but as matter-of-fact and part of who she is. He reframes those powers as something different - not a curse or possession. He compares her to the respected priestesses of an old world. 

Ellen chafes against the role of the good, noble wife. She does not want to be an angel in the house, and she does not want to be left at home while Thomas works. She clearly enjoys the honeymoon part of the marriage. The first scene we have between them Thomas gets ready to leave for work, leaving Ellen in bed crying: “The honeymoon was yet too short!”

It’s a Romeo and Juliet style scene - Thomas trying to leave the bedchamber as he must, and Ellen trying to convince him to stay and enjoy their married life. Thomas, like Romeo, does not realise the horrors that await him.

When he returns and tells her he must go away on a business trip, her reaction is less romantic and more frantic: she throws down the lilacs he bought her and eventually shrieks “Can’t you see that it doesn’t matter? If you leave nothing will matter!”

Throughout the movie Ellen fights Thomas leaving with everything she has. She has premonitions, she knows nothing good will come of his trip. She does not want to be a little wife and does not want to be left behind in domesticity. 

(this is in contrast to Anna and Friederich, who are blissfully happy in a traditional marriage. He talks of his sexual appetite, she produces babies for him. He runs a shipping business, she stays at home with their children. He is brash, masculine and doesn’t listen. She is sweetness and light, hosts their guests and never causes trouble. And they both die. Their goodness, their adherence to Christian values does not save them)

Ellen however plays the part of the hysterical woman. She does not remain quiet, she does not remain sweetness and light. She has fits, she is hypersexual, she speaks her mind and speaks about death.

If you watch Nosferatu and think Ellen would be happy as Thomas’ little wife at any point, I think you have missed the point. Thomas’ personality or qualities are besides the point - he is part of patriarchy, part of status-quo living, part of her subjugation and squashing her into a role she could never fit into. She says as much when he returns and they have their infamous fight by the fire:

“Well, where is it? Your money? Your promotion? Your house? Where is that which is so precious to you? Have you paid back kind Harding your debt? Have you repaid him with this plague that infects his wife?”

She is furious that she warned him not to leave her, that he did and the bad thing happened. That he seemingly sacrificed their love for a sack of gold. Women, in parts of culture and history, blocked from seeking work and income of their own, were therefore subjected to their spouses ambition and therefore neglect. If she was happy with having less materially, and more in her marriage, that was not a decision for her to make. Her husband made it, and the consequence was being left to her loneliness with an increasing brood of children to take care of.

Ellen does not want this. She spends the entire movie telling Thomas this. And at no point does he get it.

I think this is why it's so important that Orlok says:

“It is not me. It is your own nature… Love is inferior to you. I told you, you are not of Human kind… I am an appetite, nothing more”

Orlok is a symbol of all of Ellen that is not able to be seen, heard or appreciated in her world. She has an appetite of her own, love is inferior to power and control. In her marriage, unlike Anna’s, she is the one with the sexual appetite. She wants, she asks and calls. 

There is no future of Ellen and Thomas happily together. There is only death - either the way that played out in the film, or Orlok killing Thomas. But if Ellen and Thomas somehow defeated Orlok with both surviving, like Mina and Jonathan, I doubt they’d happily go on to have a child and name him Friederich. Ellen would leave, one way or another.

Ellen is a woman trapped in a society that does not want her, or at least wants to cut her down, contort her to the right size and shape. Reduce her expression, shut her up and leave her at home while the real men do the real work, including hunting vampires.

And this is why I find Stoker’s ending to Dracula so fucking frustrating. Mina is kept outside of the plans (for good reason - she has a channel to Dracula’s thoughts and worries he can see what she sees, but this is created by the author and so I get to critique it) and bears witness to the destruction of Dracula. While I don’t need a girlboss in every story, Mina is somewhat side-lined in this process and I don’t love it. She follows this by becoming the normal and good house wife to Jonathan and producing some progeny to name after their slain heroes.

(sidebar I think it would be more meaningful if Mina had a daughter and named her Lucy, the name of her dearest friend who was horrifically killed but don’t mind me)

Ellen is very different from Mina here. Her connection to Orlok is not the reason to keep her distance - it’s the reason she must get closer than anyone else. She takes control, speaking to Von Franz and getting what information she must to help her plan Orlok’s destruction.

Like many people, I see the final scene as both a sacred bond (a matrimony) and a heroic sacrifice. It can be both. Ellen can both know what she needs to do to save her love and the innocents around her (kill Orlok), she also knows she is the reason for their suffering (girl clean up your mess!) and knows that luckily, this is also what her dark heart has longed for.

It’s not often the thing you must do is also the thing you desperately, secretly want.

Ellen knows there’s no life after this. There’s no world where she becomes the happy mother and wife Mina Harker. There is only darkness and despair.

Eggers Nosferatu is a fairy tale that warns about the prospect for unusual, modern, sexual women. I read the ending of Dracula, of Jonathan saying “My wife is so happy now” and I think of Betty Draper shooting pigeons in the backyard. You’re telling me that educated, brilliant Mina Harker is happy being relegated to the home? There will always be something that rubs me the wrong way about Mina’s ending in Dracula, and the way the fandom has decided to blindly celebrate it. Ellen is an amazing antidote to that feeling.

Nosferatu is brilliant because it is honest about women and their status in this world. It allows room for Ellen and her own foibles. And it allows the darkness and the monstrous to coexist with the feminine. The ending is not a girlboss ending, it does not leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. It makes me uncomfortable - it is a gothic horror. The status quo is not maintained at the end of the movie - Orlok has disrupted their world, and it cannot be undone.

Ellen and Thomas are not a love story, and to pretend they are is to take the piss out of the entire thing.

[sholena4life]

Toya and (Name)

Shoto Todoroki x Reader, One Shot/Drabble

Based on a submission by an Anon that you can find from earlier on my page (I don’t think I stayed true to it, sorry nonny)

CW: basically a fix-it fic, multiple scenarios rather than one specific plot, Toya lives and avoids long-term prison time, barely suggestive implication in one scenario, gender neutral reader, (Name) and Toya have a platonic love-hate situation, Endeavor defenders DNI, (Name) is a bit reactive in this, sfw

Divider from @bronzewasp

Life is good. That is something Shoto has become accustomed to.

No wars, no abuse, and more of his family. And (Name). His wonderful (Name), who’s currently sitting right up against him, counting off of their fingers as they try to recall if the two of them really finished all of their homework.

He listens attentively to (Name)’s mutters, watching their brow slightly furrow as they contemplate before the two head off to school. It doesn’t take long before the two are collecting their things, and going to his front door after wishing his mother goodbye. On the two’s way to their door, Shoto is forced to listen to their hushed ramblings about how nice his home and family are.

“I mean, they’re so… good? I think? I don’t know. Things are good, and your family is so nice.” (Name) whispers to him as they try check their bags at the front door, nearly beaming at him as they glance upwards. The look on their face makes something in Shoto feel awkward and hot, and he impulsively goes to offer for them to join his family, before a voice down the entry hall thankfully interrupts as it passes by.

“Well, you suck.” Comes Toya’s provoking, dry voice from down the hall, not even bothering to glance at the two as he pads past, loose clothes hanging loosely off of his burnt figure. Shoto can hardly brace himself for how he knows his partner will respond.

“Well, I hate you, bitch!” (Name) snaps, turning towards the other end of the hall in a blaze, jutting out a nearly accusatory finger at the man. Toya freezes up, scoffing as he turns toward the two of them, eyeing them both. His voice comes out quieter in response. “Please reiterate that.”

In a moment, Shoto is dragging (Name) out of the door, pulling their struggling form with him. Shoto doesn’t particularly enjoy the cat fights his partner and brother seem to regularly engage in- especially when it means he’ll be late for class.

-

(Name) has found themself a comfortable spot on the tatami flooring of the living room, perched in front of the T.V. Now, they’ve found some peace and quiet to await Shoto’s return from a friend’s house. They’re not particularly worried about him, more content with devouring the bag of chips they “randomly” acquired than with fretting. Even though the way the room feels larger, and colder is eating them alive just the littlest bit.

Toya, in passing, peeks into the room, spying a vulnerable (Name). And whats better than torturing your baby brother’s partner? Few things in life, including the untouched bag of chips waiting for him in the back of the pantry. But this opportunity takes priority.

He creeps up behind them as stealthily as his raw skin allows, careful not to make his movement anymore obvious. His plan to spook them is going so well, so efficiently, so- “Hey, aren’t those my chips?”

It’s Toya’s turn to cast an accusatory finger, pointing at the back of (Name)’s head as they jump at his voice, spinning around to find his fingertip directly in front of their stuffed face.

Only adding kindling to the fire of rivalry.

“I just got those.” He hisses, leaning down to snatch the bag out of their grubby hands, half-tempted to smack them upside the head for this stunt. He barely refrains, deterred only by how their cheeks are puffed out with food, silently promising to spill if he strikes them.

Toya brandishes the nearly empty bag in front of their rounded face, gesturing at them as he raves about such a small problem. A tiny part of him can’t help but find it funny. One year, he’s worried about things like ending society as it’s known and recreating it, and fighting a war, and the next he’s huffing and puffing because (Name) ate something he intended on eating. Such a small problem.

But that doesn’t mean he’s willing to drop it.

He yanks the bag out of their sight again, staring down at their silent form in disdain, his thin fingers clutching around the bag. Toya wants to wait until they’re done drawing out their time spent chewing, but….

“(Name), you dumb-fuck, now I have to get more of these, all over again, and apparently find a better hiding spot for them. Far away from you.” He mutters disapprovingly. What an absolutely ridiculous scenario. He watches them chew, slowly, laboriously, waiting for some level of response. All he gets staring. Then, finally, quiet, under-breath murmuring. “With what car, parolee?”

“Fuck you!”

-

The three noblest knights in the land (Shoto. Toya, and (Name)) have found themselves crossing paths with The Creature (Endeavor). Though usually resolved quickly, The Creature won’t stop raving about its hoard (his agency) being defaced (spray painted).

“It’s completely ridiculous. I issued a formal apology. I’ve done repeated press conferences. I’m not saying people have to forgive me, but can’t they just put it aside?” He mutters and bitches, picking at the meal he’s brought to the table. Not that he was invited by the people already seated at it, but it is, of course, his house.

Shoto glances around the table, eyeing his partner and eldest brother as he sips from a glass of water. The offhand glance becomes more suspicious as he watches their oddly still forms, and how their eyes seem to watch the old man with a weird amount of enthusiasm.

Suspicious.

Shoto watches Toya painstakingly clear his throat, hands folded under the table almost piously as he stares at their father. Shoto’s suspicion only doubles as he realizes how stiff his brother’s face is, desperately keeping his expression blank. His voice comes out rough with restraint, almost calm. Almost. But not quite. “Sounds ridiculous. Not a clue why a random person would do that.”

Shoto’s eyes snap towards his partner, and their similarly stiff face. (Name) looks like they’re about to bite their own tongue off. He watches them slowly tilt their eyes up to Toya’s expression- a fatal mistake. As soon as they see the look plastered across his stiff face, the dam cracks, and they nearly slam their face against the table trying to put their head down. Shoto has to calm his own breathing at the infectious tremble in their shoulders and stunted, shivering breathing.

Endeavor’s frown is palpable around the room now, finally taking in the scene. His stiff son. His silent one, and the partner shaking with humor. Enji doesn’t understand why (Name) always has to be here- it’s like they don’t have a home of their own.

“There’s nothing to laugh at. What’s so funny about this situation?” His deep voice shatters the silence, inspecting his eldest son and his youngest son’s partner. Embarrassment and offense creeps into his veins, though he can’t fully understand why, yet.

“…N- Nothing… big boss.” (Name) responds almost inaudibly, their voice trembling. That might be the hardest thing they’ve ever had to say- but it’s certainly the hardest thing Toya’s ever had to hear. A strangled sound, almost like a whimper, escapes him as he snacks their shoulder abruptly, suddenly unable to look at anyone in the room. And it all becomes too much for Endeavor.

Shoto watches his father stand and leave in humiliation, nearly storming out as he mutters about how “utterly disrespectful” (Name) is, how they poison his children’s minds. It’s a painstaking few seconds, watching him go to the door and pause, glancing back pissily before slamming the door behind him.

The moment it’s shut, the sound of laughter nearly deafens Shoto.

-

I had another part planned, but this is keeping me up a little late, so I’m gonna stop here!! I might revisit this later, but I fear it’s pretty obvious that I rushed it. Good night!!!

[vergess]

For the ask meme: Hildibrand Helidor Maximilian Manderville

The one singular flaw in this ask meme is that I wildly over estimated how many ships I actually have for most of these characters.

Also, fun fact: I have a condition called "narcolepsy" which causes me to fall asleep at random intervals, about 1-2 times a day. For me, I'm lucky in that my episodes have a fairly hard to stumble upon emotional trigger: confused humour. Regular laughter doesn't mess me up, but the specific cobination of confusion and laughter? Out like a light.

It takes me weeks to play any Hildi quests. They literally knock me out.

And yet, we persist!!!!

My Favourite Ship

I'm a basic bitch at heart, I think he and Briardien should bang it out. This will not solve any of their problems, but it would be extremely funny. Hildibrand already has so many heart-eyes and Briardien already has so much despairing loathing.

Let's! Make! Them! Worse!!!!

My Most Hated Ship

Have you ever seen a heterosexual, cisgender player talk about Hildi/Nashu? I have.

It's horrific.

Nothing against shipping the characters as presented! I think that's a valid approach!

But oh my goodness, Straight people are a nightmare about them.

Anyway, if Nashu and Hildi want to fuck that's their business but I need Straight people to stay out of it.

My Unusual Ship

I actually don't have anything to put here. My only other Hildi ship is him and Gilgamesh, which is another basic bitch opinion.

My Crossover Ship

Okay, I'm about to open your eyes to something majestic and absurd.

Gladiolus Amicitia vs Hildibrand Manderville Workout Partners Turned Fuck Buddies.

Congenial masculinity levels off the fucking charts.

Nashu and Ignis in the background trying to focus on Nashu's bombs (probably literally on fire somehow) and both Very Confused by how entranced she is by the athletic bullshittery on display.

My Favourite Headcanon

VIVI IS FINE ACTUALLY S/HE AND HILDIBRAND AND NASHU ARE A VERY HAPPY LITTLE FAMILY UNIT OH GOD VIVI MY DARLING BABY

A gif that reflects how I feel about the character!

CW for flashing and rapid movement

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[isawritesshit]

I ACCIDENTALLY WROTE SOMETHING AND NOW I WANNA CONTINUE IT PLEASE HELP

Okay, so now that I have your attention, remember how I said I was gonna continue my Gojo series over the weekend?

(Btw, if you want, prologue and first chapter are up on that story so you can go read it and then come back to harrass me about not continuing it for forever because I have writer's block)

Well... I may or may not have come up with another Gojo series...

It's kinda an AU of the series I have already started. Basically, our lovely and sexy reader is actually a daughter of the Kamo Clan leader and had been betrothed to Gojo from a young age (yes, this is gonna be one of those arranged marriage things). Reader is basically trained to become the perfect wife for him, essentially mental abuse and being told her whole life that the best way to serve her family was to become an object for him.

So, when Reader goes home with Gojo after their wedding, she expects him to basically be what she was trained for him to be (demanding, a bitch, etc.). However, what Reader doesn't know, is that Gojo has been in love with Reader since he first saw her when they were children, and basically, he teaches the reader to love herself. Plus, there's going to be plot involved.

I'm gonna put what I have for the prologue under the cut. Tell me if y'all wanna see more of this because I low-key just might write it anyways :)

cw: obv themes of force/arranged marriage, hints of mental abuse, mentions of sex, but overall mostly fluffy.

People would say that if there was one thing that Gojo Satoru was not, it would be committed. Not in all ways, however. Satoru was very committed to his sorcery, to the protection of ordinary people and the balance of the their world and the jujutsu one. It was relationships that he struggled with. Yes, he had always had an authority problem, both growing up and even now, so his relationships with jujutsu elders and other clan leaders were never good to begin with, especially when he became a clan leader himself and took up the title as “The World’s Strongest Sorcerer”. However, his friends? Sure he cared deeply for them, but he could never show them that, lest he risk the possibility of them getting hurt for that same reason. Lovers? Absolutely not. They would last a week at best, hence why his friends would say he had commitment issues. 

But not many people knew that Gojo was betrothed to be married, and if there was one thing that he could say that he was committed to, it was that. 

And not just because he knew that the responsibility of upholding the Gojo Clan’s honor and survival was on his shoulders, but also for a reason no one could have predicted. 

The first time Satoru had seen his future bride, they were both young, too young to understand why each of their parents were sitting across from one another, why the most important members of the Kamo clan were staring him down when he was barely five years old. But then his parents asked to see you, and that’s when everything changed. 

You were brought into the room by a caregiver and left in between the two families like you were some kind of meal. A veil-like mask covered the front of your face from the nose down. Your wide eyes looked about. First at your caregiver, who stepped out of the room with a bow, then to your parents, who didn’t even look back at you, then to his parents, and then, finally, to him, the only other child in the room. 

Gojo Satoru didn’t know it at the time, but it was at that moment that he had fallen in love with you. That same day, it was agreed upon that the two of you would wed when he was 25 and shortly after you turned 24. That seemed like such a long time, but… Satoru decided that maybe he would try to get to know you when he saw you next. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. Both of your families kept each of you on a tight leash, and neither were inclined to meet with one another just because the Gojo heir wanted to see his bride. They were rival clans after all, with a long history of vendettas and alliances. 

However, just because Satoru saw you once didn’t mean he stopped thinking of you. Even as a pre-teen, he sounded your name in his head, sometimes aloud when he was alone. Kamo (Y/N). It was one of the few things he knew about you, other than what your eyes looked like. He knew that those eyes had likely changed over the years since the first time he saw you, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t think about them. About you. 

There were a few other things Satoru knew about you. You were the only daughter of Arao Kamo, the Kamo Clan head. Not only that, you were the youngest child and had three older brothers, all of whom he had never met before. He would take in what his parents would tell him about you, though it wasn’t much. Only that you had a different cursed technique from the blood manipulation that ran strong in the Kamo line, and that you were naturally beautiful for your age. 

But Satoru wanted to know more. He wanted to know what your interests were and if they were similar to his. He wanted to know more about your cursed technique and what kind of training you had received. He knew that you would receive some kinds of etiquette and liberal arts education, as was normal for daughters of the clans to do, but did you like any of those things? What foods do you like? How have you grown? 

What did the rest of your face look like? That was the question that replayed constantly in his head after Satoru was notified that him and his parents were to meet with you again to make some further updates to the arrangement. Maybe this would be his chance for him to finally speak with you, to get to know you. 

But it was just the same as before, only this time, the both of you were 13. There was no caregiver to bring you in, and no other Kamo representatives other than your mother and father, whom you sat beside. 

Satoru remembered staring at you the whole time, taking you in. His parents didn’t lie. You were beautiful and he hadn’t even seen all of you, and you also carried yourself maturely for a young girl. Your eyes had changed, of course, more grown but still just as wide and lively as he remembered. Your face was no longer obscured by a mask, and instead, you held a delicate fan that matched the kimono you wore, covering your face as you listened intently while your parents spoke, but never speaking yourself. 

You never once looked in his direction.

The meeting concluded before he knew it had begun. His parents had needed confirmation of your fertility, since they were to be among the first to be notified when you started your cycle. However, in an offer that was a bit unexpected, your father had requested that the marriage date be moved up five years, to which his parents agreed. That part made Satoru ecstatic. Instead of waiting 12 years, he now would only have to wait seven. 

And with that, you bowed and departed behind your parents, swift and silent. Satoru tried not to look like he was running as he tried to catch another glimpse at you when his parents excused him, but when he peered out the nearest window that overlooked the front lawn where you had arrived, you were already gone. 

And so, Satoru would go another seven years. Another seven years of thinking of you, dreaming of you, wondering what you looked like behind your fan and cosmetics. He had hoped to see you enrolled in the same class as him at Jujutsu Tech, though he knew for a fact that you most likely would not be. Your parents, more so your father, he realized, protected and sheltered you more than ever after that second meeting. He had expected you not to show up to that first day of school, but when that first day was over and you actually didn’t, a small part of his heart still sank. 

Satoru did take some females to bed during the next seven years you spent apart, mostly out of curiosity as to what sex felt like, but also by persuasion of his friends. However, his friends would get confused as to why he would never allow those girls to stay the next morning, or why he would insist on wearing a condom even when they gave him permission to finish inside. He would give the excuse (thought it really was the truth) that he actually wasn’t that interested, or that he also wanted to protect against STDs (the latter was a great insult that had women storming out on him, to his relief). In reality, he wanted his first real time, his first enjoyable time, to be with you. Even if he was allowed to take on any amounts of lovers he wanted both in marriage and out of it, he felt guilty knowing that you had to save yourself for him. So, in a way, he was saving himself for you too. 

As the years came closer and closer, he began to think of you more, trying to subtly gather more information on you, to little avail. He knew that this pining and longing could be considered childish, but he didn’t care. Was it wrong to want to come to love, to already be in love, with the person he was to spend the rest of his life and create a family with? Satoru certainly didn’t think so. However, that didn’t mean he was without restraint. After his parents had passed and the mantle of the Gojo Clan leader was given to him, he didn’t try or demand to see you. After all, the two of you could still be considered strangers. Hell that is what you were, he had to remind himself. He figured it would be best to keep you with your family and not disturb your current life, especially since you would be seeing your family less once you came to live with him (but also because he didn’t want you to see him as some obsessed maniac). He decided he would be patient and wait, which would make your first real meeting with him all the more sweeter. 

Those seven years passed by too fast, he realized as he stood in the center of a magnificent shrine in what could have been the most spectacular and slightly uncomfortable outfit he had ever worn. Your family surrounded him on almost all sides as they awaited your arrival at sunset. Your parents and brothers sat off to one side of the room, and he could feel their eyes on him the entire hour that he stood there. After what seemed like an eternity, your headpiece peaked slowly over the hill as you ascended the path to the shrine. He held his breath. 

He noticed your eyes again first. 

They were downcast, melancholy, almost near lifeless. Not the lively pools of color he remembered and saw so often in his dreams. Your blank expression was such a contrast to the splendor of your being. Indeed, he thought that he was being pledged to a goddess, with the way your updone hair and headpiece played in the golden sunlight, the way the whites, golds, and reds of your wedding kimono and wraps made you look like a princess, and the way your face, your whole face, looked like it was extracted from a star. To put simply, you were the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. 

Finally, you found your place beside him, your hands clasped in the folds of your long sleeves. It took you standing this close to realize how much smaller you were than him, though he immediately recognized how your face and demeanor had shaped into womanhood since he last saw you. He would catch glimpses of you when he could throughout the ceremony, taking in more of the newest features that you had laid out for him. His heart was beating rapidly, hoping that you would look back at him at least once. 

But you never did, even when you presented one another with ceremonial wine or when you took his arm to leave the shrine for the reception dinner that was filled to the brim with Kamo Clan members and other officials. As soon as you both entered that reception, your fan was over your face. You didn’t say a word to him the whole time, so he never said anything to you. 

A cold sweat had laid itself over Satoru as you said goodbye to your family members. It wasn’t the type of goodbye that he would expect a family to give to their only daughter. There was no affection, no emotion shown, as if leaving your family was merely another ceremony. And then you turned back to him, eyes still looking down of course, and got into his car without a word. 

Satoru could tell that something was wrong and off about you. Sure, you had carried yourself gracefully throughout the entire evening. Every movement you had made between walking and eating and sitting was done to absolute perfection. Maybe it was those monotone movements that were his first sign. No, it wasn’t that. It had to be your eyes. Why were they always so emotionless? Why did you never look up at him? What had happened to you since the last time he saw you?

At least your fan wasn’t up. That he could be thankful for. Satoru sighed. He couldn’t help but feel like the happiest day of his life, the one where he finally got to be with the girl he had loved for 15 years, was the saddest day of your own. He wanted to ask about it so bad, now that he had you alone, but he didn’t. He would just look at you ever so often as you watched the scenery pass by through the car window. Maybe this was your way of taking everything in, and he didn't want to disrupt that. He trusted that you would talk when you were ready.

He waited for you to say something, but you remained silent as the car stopped and he walked you up the stairs to the front door of his home estate. Your new home. In a perfect world, in what he had imagined previously, you would have been smiling and excited as he picked you up to walk you through the doorway. In that world, you would have hugged and kissed him as he twirled you around and around in your own private celebration. The door closing behind him brought him back to reality. You stood in the center of his grand foyer, taking in dark polished wood and rich splendor of your new dwelling place. The space was only illuminated by shaded lamps and a dim glass chandelier. A new couch, your couch, was against one wall, one of the many of your belongings that had been moved in a week ago. Satoru decided to sit on that couch while you stood in the center of the room, looking down, not moving. 

He couldn’t take this anymore. It was like you treated the floor as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. As if he, your new husband, wasn’t sitting ten feet away from you. He even considered the possibility of you being deaf or mute for a moment. No, he didn’t know what to do, other than speak to you. But what to say? Are you feeling okay? Are you happy? Sad? Were your clothes uncomfortable? How come you didn’t speak or look at him? At anyone? Was it something you were afraid of? Were you afraid of…

That had to be it. 

“Are you afraid of me?”

(please lmk what you guys think)

[missexiled]

Just Gotta Be Patient

An Adam x Reader fic

A.N. - Okay, so my favorite blog just asked for College! Adam so I’m going to make College! Adam. I’m going to stay with their Asshole™️ characterization because he really is a dick but we love him for it.

Cw - Suggestive content (and my first time writing it so I apologize in advance), I used undergarments as a general word for bra and panties cuz yep

Adam isn’t the best at math or studying. But a reward is a good incentive to try.

“You just gotta be patient,” you rolled your eyes.

Adam groaned as he clicked his pen over and over again, “Look, babe, we can do this all night but you know-”

“No sex.”

He froze, “What?”

You shrugged as you finished up the equation, “No sex until you finish, but if you get something right I’ll take something off. Get something wrong, you get undressed.”

After a short pause of him thinking he wasn’t made to think he grumbled, “Do I get to pick?”

“Sure,” he pumped his fist with a ‘yes’ as he continued on with his worksheet. You laughed at his response, his childish antics always made you smile when they didn’t annoy the crap out of you.

However, after a while you started to realize that anyone can accomplish anything they put their mind to. With the right motivation, of course. And, as always, Adam was motivated by sex and by you.

“C’mon, sugartits, I’m basically finished,” he stood behind you, his hands running up your sides, sending shivers down your spine. He kissed along your neck which really didn’t help your resolve as you pushed him off.

“I told you,” you sighed, trying to not stick your tongue down his throat, “not until you finish.”

He whined as you pushed him into his seat, “But you’re so damn hot when you’re bossy,” he smirked, “It’s a cute change from you begging me to-”

You threw an eraser at him as he laughed, “Alright, I get it. Do your damn work.”

With that stupid grin you already knew that he finished another problem already, “I checked it, too.”

You flushed impossibly further as you were just in your undergarments, “How come you’re suddenly a mathematician?”

“Your bra, babe,” he slung an arm behind him, trying to look hot. He did, annoyingly so, as he had nearly gotten undressed from the first 30 minutes. God, why did you make this asshole that damn hot?

You rolled your eyes as you unhooked your bra, “Fuck me…”

“I will in a bit,” he had that sexy annoying smug look, “just gotta be patient, right?”

Asshole.

A.N. - I made AN cuz I wanted to say a few things. @sprainedwriting had asked for College Adam and damn it bitch, I tried. Hopefully I’ll get better as I start writing more, maybe I’ll come back to this, but I hope this tides you over 🫡

[urproblematicfav-ao3]

I want to do one of those "omggggggggg val is so abusive!!!!!!!!!! Alastor would totally save Vox after he was abused." Except its more like, "right. Al's gonna help. Right? Right? He's... He's helping...?? He is going to help isn't he???

Cw: abuse, SA elements

Ok so, concept:

Alastor yoinks Vox up after a particularly bad fight ends in his face getting shattered. Al is one of like, maybe 4 people in Hell who understands his biology and can actually help swap out his head. Thing is, the only kind of TV set that Al owns are all 60s era, so Vox is back to having a fat fucking head. (Not for long, Vox quickly orders himself a flat screen because fuck that.)

Charlie offers to let him sign into the Hotel, just as a temp thing until he feels ready to go home. He has to follow the basic rules(try and be nice, don't cause problems in the common area, snitch on Alastor IMMEDIATELY if he's being a cunt, no fighting etc etc), and if he wants to he can join in on group therapy or hang out during sleepover pillow fort night.

Vox agrees, but its mostly because he just doesn't wanna deal with the fallout with Val yet. He initially spends almost all of his time in his room, being a fucking stalker weirdo freak guy.

Alastor is REALLY pushy. Like so fucking pushy and weird. He really wants to take advantage of this rift between voxval to squeeze himself in and obtain Vox's affection for himself. So he's extra...nice? Nice isn't the right word. He's extra charming, and so fucking physically pushy. Husk is kinda jealous about it.

Charlie catches on basically immediately. Vox is depressed, and has already tried to fuck her to feel better about himself, which she rejected because thats a inappropriate power imbalance and she's genuinely trying to help him get at least a little better. She tries to convince Al that he needs to be gentle and avoid trying to push for a sexual/"romantic" dynamic with Vox, especially considering their personal shared history. Its messy. And will end in Vox getting his feeling hurt. It's not a "no". Al can eventually try to ask Vox out later, but right then it's a bad idea.

Alastor, immediately, interprets this as a "challenge". He doesn't ever like being told what to do in the first place. And Charlie point blank saying "Do not do this." Uhhhhhhhh doesn't go over well.

So, Alastor, pushy pushy Alastor, goes and fucks Vox almost immediately after.

Vox briefly feels better. He likes that Alastor explicitly shows him affection, especially sexual affection. He's very insecure about his body, and sex was often a way to make himself feel valuable, especially with Val who has his pick of the litter when it comes to fuckable bitches.

Charlie finds out. She is unbelievably pissed off. She'll be okay, because she loves him and will work through their issues together. But she's very fucking mad.

(This is actually what this wip was about)

Specifically the problem is, The Hotel is Charlie's, and everything under it is her responsibility and her property. Alastor directly disobeying her is not only horrifically cruel to Vox, but a baffling amount of disrespect to her. He knew that. He did it anyway. He doesn't like that he can't have his cake and eat it too, and can't really deal with whatever vaguely guilt shaped thing keeps crushing his chest is doing to him.

Alastor gets distant. Vox is hurt and confused. Charlie confesses after some prodding that she really doesn't want to admit that Al was only using him for sex, and to get back at her.

Vox ends up crying and gets incredibly upset about this. Like, the guy you used to be in love with saves you from you horrific domestic violence situation, brings you home, and then uses and abuses you the same way everyone else in Hell has. Charlie tries to comfort him but it just doesn't work out.

I think eventually this would end in a proper reconciliation. Alastor apologizing. Vox being horrifically triggered by it because the last time The Radio Demon said "You're right, I'm sorry" was the same night he got thrown out a window to die. Charlie giving Val the fucking shovel talk and telling him he needs to get his shit together and not treat his husband like that. Val very awkwardly trying to get better, at least a little bit. But we'd get somewhere. Even if its messy.

Also def cute pillow fort and board game trust exercises. Vox deserves to be in a softer environment and get to do stupid shit for awhile. I think Vel would stop by and visit, just for updates from the polycule and to check on him. Also she definitely immediately swaps teams to kick Vox's ass at any of the games.

Anyway. A thing I think about excessively but am bad at actually writing so like.

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Jane Crocker (Homestuck) vs. Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars)

Y'all Hate Kids: Screwed By The Writers

Propaganda below the cut

-

Jane Crocker (Homestuck)

(cw: brief mentions of assault)

The fandom blames her for the melodrama and problems in Act 6 and shit even though it was ALL the alpha kids who were terrible communicators and having relationship drama. She encouraged Jake to try having a relationship with Dirk even though she liked him too, she wants her friends to be happy even if she isn't. The fandom basically makes her the Stupid Bitch Who Gets In The Way Of Yaoi even though she quite literally made the yaoi happen. She's a victim of Act 6 being messy and written badly. Then we get to the epilogues/sequel. While she's an adult there, it's clear the writers just kinda hate her. She could definitely be a villain but they completely misunderstand her character in order to make her flat and completely in the wrong- even though some of the things she's saying in regards to Troll and Human society intertwining. It isn't looked at with nuance, Jane is just wrong and everyone else has to kill her. Like... hello??? If you're going to make her a villain do it right. Misogyny my nemesis. 

-

"Jane Crocker is initially introduced when, in order to win the game they have been sucked into, the original four kids travel to a universe where their grand/parents have been swapped with them and selected to play it instead.  She is the grandmother, now granddaughter of John Egbert, the first introduced character, and her hobbies include detective fiction, baking, wondering how to tell one of her best friends that she's in love with him, and avoiding frequent attempts on her life.

To explain that last one, she is the heiress to the Betty Crocker company and national monopoly, aka. Crockercorp, and has big plans about the good she can do when she finally takes power.  As she finds out in the game, the company is a front ruled by the Condesce, an alien queen from another universe who was gathering power on Earth so that she could leap into the game and thus take over the world it would create.  And she's happy to let Jane rule with her, so long as she puts on this computer and OBEYs.

After she is mind-controlled by the Condesce, Jane has little role in the rest of the story -- she is put to sleep and cured offscreen, and only shows up as a bit player in the final fight with no dialogue whatsoever to resolve her arc.  However, she does have one scene with her crush, Jake, while she is not herself that colours a lot of the audience reaction to her.  

Some context: During the game, she had chickened out during her confession to Jake, and he then proceeded to use her for relationship advice when their other friend, Dirk, succeeded in becoming his boyfriend.  After one of these chats where Jake reveals he forgot her birthday, she blows up at him for using her, which is the last normal conversation they have in the comic.

By the time she is being controlled, Jake is being held prisoner, and so with her inhibitions removed and priorities redirected towards Crockercorp, she tells him all about the future he'll have as her consort and repeatedly harasses and threatens him.  Because there is never any closure for this moment as both characters are shoved to the background, this is the fandom's last impression of Jane, which is used as evidence of her true nature whenever anyone needs to justify their hate for or demonization of her.

Although Jane has plenty of casual conversations with her friends early on that demonstrate her true character -- she is supportive of her friends to a fault, and is initially given the role of team leader but ultimately is too passive to fill it, one of the many reasons for her friends' frayed unity.  However, absolutely none of her traits and decisions are important to the plot, and her arc is dropped with her potential left unfulfilled, leaving it easy for her to be overshadowed by a single dramatic moment she had while explicitly out of character.

And that should be the end of the story, but it gets worse.  In 2019, Hussie released the Homestuck Epilogues, an explicitly ""dubiously canonical"" prose novel with two routes that many fans found so damaging and distasteful that they left the fandom entirely.  Between the book itself and the ensuing flame wars, the fandom was reduced to merely a fraction of its size, and most of the people now remaining belong to the camp that liked the Epilogues, or at least saw it as part of canon.

In both routes of the Epilogue, Jane, now an adult, becomes the authoritarian president of Earth C and coerces Jake into an abusive relationship.  This is worse in the Candy Route, where she is described as a fascist, declares a policy of genocide against trolls, regularly drugs Jake to have sex with him, and uses their kid to blackmail him into staying with her.  All of this ultimately causes her to be cast as a central antagonist in the HS team's ongoing comic ""Homestuck^2"" that continues off of the Epilogues.

All of this follows from an extrapolation of her behaviour while mind-controlled, which is somehow still applicable to her character once she is back to normal.   Now, the popular excuse for her mischaracterization is the backbone of current official Homestuck content.  And because her being an antagonist is key to the story, most fans of the sequel (which is now the majority of online Homestuck fans) have to buy into the justification for her actions in order to properly suspend disbelief and keep reading.  Thus, it is nigh impossible to find anyone who will engage with the canon -- and I mean /actually/ canon, not postcanon -- version of Jane.

Addendum: Although canon Jane is a teenager, I have to discuss how her adult postcanon self affects her perception and basically erases the original character.  Nonetheless, since postcanon Jane can hardly be called the same character, I don't think this affects Jane's eligibility."

Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars)

So poorly written for such an insane fandom that the actual child actor, Jake Lloyd, received enough hate mail to make him quit acting.

[zaebeecee]

To Sever a Loveless Bond

••RadioDust Soulmate AU••

Part 6/?

First chapter | Previous chapter | Next chapter

Read on AO3

Chapter 6 art by @fletchingbrilliant here

•••

Mild CW for sexist/abusive language and general Vee interpersonal bullshit.

•••

“Vox.”

Fuck off.

“Vox, I know you can hear me.”

Yes. I can. I’m busy, Val, go away.

“Vox!”

With the smallest mechanical whir, the screen on Vox’s head lit up. It displayed the VoxTek logo and the little jingle that went with their commercials, with the word ‘Initializing…’ displayed beneath it. The logo vanished and was replaced with a simple, solid blue background, on which two black lines appeared. Those lines split, and Vox opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times before he managed to bring the room into focus.

He was still in his office, on the opposite side of the room from his desk, stretched out on his black chaise and hooked up to a thick black cable that ran down into a socket on the floor. Vox looked up at the form of Valentino hovering over him, his face furious, and consulted his internal clock with a sigh.

“Val,” he began in the most measured voice he could, “I am currently updating my local information, which you know I do every morning. It is not even nine yet, and most of my day relies on the fact that you sleep until two. With both of these things in mind, whatever you want had better be good.”

“It’s Velvette,” Val snarled, stomping away now that he had Vox’s attention and beginning to pace back and forth like a caged animal.

Vox sighed, paused his update, and unplugged the cable. “Really,” he said, uninterested. He released the cable and it retracted into the floor with the whir of nylon quickly pulled along metal. “That’s new.”

His sarcasm was lost on the angry moth. “She sent me this,” Valentino spat, doing something on his phone with one hand. Vox’s phone vibrated, and he withdrew it, opening the message to see a screenshot of Val and Velvette’s texts. The last one, which he presumed was the most relevant, just had the following words:

< You don’t keep a very good leash on your little boy toy. Bet you wish you knew what I know. Can’t even train a subby little whore who’s begging for it? >

“…uh-huh,” Vox said, eyebrow arching. He looked at Val again. “…and…? What did Angel Dust do this time?”

“I don’t fucking know! He won’t answer my calls, again, and Velvette won’t text me back!”

Vox clenched his jaw against the headache threatening to form, willing it away before he spoke. “It’s basically the middle of the night for him, of course he isn’t answering your calls. And Velvette is working.”

Valentino wasn’t listening. “If that bitch doesn’t give me an answer in the next ten minutes I’m going to rip her fucking hair out!”

“No, you’re not,” Vox said firmly, getting to his feet and intercepting Val’s pacing. “What, precisely, did you come to me for?”

“I want you to get it out of her!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vox groaned.

Val threw his hands up. “She’s trying to piss me off! I don’t see why it’s only a problem if it works!”

“Val,” Vox snapped, reaching up and grabbing the other overlord by the chin to force him to look down. The moment their skin made contact, Vox felt the same little twinge on the back of his calf that he always did, like the mutilated little moth on his flesh was fluttering in a plea for Vox to tell Valentino, or anyone else, that it was there.

Just as Vox had since the first time he and Valentino had shaken hands, he ignored it.

Vox took a slow breath, but didn’t release Valentino. “Do you want me to bring her up for a meeting?”

Val, much more calmly and with wide eyes behind his heart-shaped glasses, nodded once. “That would be fine.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Vox stepped away and sat on the chaise again, tapping his phone and dialing Velvette. Her contact briefly flashed across his face before his features returned, and he waited.

She picked up on the third ring. “Whatcha want? I’m busy.”

To her credit, that sounded true. “Velvette! So sorry to interrupt you, but we need to have a meeting.”

“Not a chance,” Velvette answered instantly. “I know that this is about your boy toy, and he can wait until I’ve got a free mo’ in my schedule. Let it eat at him.”

“He is currently in my office making it my problem,” Vox said; he didn’t look at Val, but he could feel the blind moth staring daggers at him. “Get up here. Now.”

“No can do, sorry! Gotta go, kisses, bye luv.” She made kissy noises at her phone, then hung up.

Vox sighed. “Why do I put up with this?”

“Did she hang up on you?!” Val demanded.

“Shut up. I’ll handle this.” Vox went to his desk and picked up the cable for the intercom system, hooking it into one of his audio jacks and activating only the speakers in areas not accessible to the public. Vox took a breath and then put on his game show announcer voice. “Attention, VoxTek! Contest time! The first employee to find Velvette and break both of her kneecaps before she can make it to my office will be given two weeks paid vacation!”

He unplugged the cable as Valentino cackled. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Happy now?” Vox asked dryly.

“Delirious, mi amor.”

Minutes later, the door of the office slammed open and Velvette stomped in, her hair and clothes more than slightly out of sorts. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” she screamed, getting in Vox’s face. “I had Killjoy’s lighting crew come at me with spotlight housing!”

Vox smiled at her. “It was as motivational as I hoped it would be! So good you found time to join us, Velvette.”

“Fuck you, Vox,” she said, then spun on Valentino. “And double fuck you because I know this is your fault!”

“Me?!” Valentino leaned down to get eye level with her, probably so he could see her. “What the hell did I do?”

“Don’t think I don’t know you ran off to get your master to solve your problems like the little bitch you are!”

“You filthy little cunt—”

“SHUT UP!” Vox bellowed over both of them, his left eye spasming uncontrollably for a split second until he forced it to calm down. It did the trick, however, as both of his compatriots spun their heads to stare at him. Vox drew a breath. “You, sit there,” he said, pointing to Velvette and a nearby chair. “You, there,” he added, pointing to Valentino and the couch. Once they were settled, he stood at an angle to both of them to permit him to observe them simultaneously while keeping them far enough apart that they wouldn’t attempt to claw each other’s eyes out. “Now. Velvette. Valentino informed me of your… correspondence this morning.”

“Of course he did,” Velvette said with a dramatic roll of her eyes, one that carried her entire head in a slow roll with them. “It isn’t ready to be posted yet. I thought he would appreciate a little taste of what was going to be running in celebrity gossip soon.”

“If it’s about Angel Dust, it’s my business,” Val countered sharply. “He is my property and whatever concerns him also concerns me!”

Vox held his hand up to silence Valentino, looking at Velvette. “I wasn’t aware there was anything of particular interest that had happened lately.”

“Well, that’s because it came in late last night and the proofs aren’t ready for you yet,” Velvette said, like it was obvious.

Vox took a moment to keep his calm, because he really couldn’t argue with either point. It wasn’t unusual for him to be temporarily out of the loop where lowbrow gossip was concerned, and truth be told, he didn’t pay all that much attention when he was told.

Velvette took advantage of his quiet to add, “Besides, I knew it would make you mad.”

Vox’s eyes snapped to her. “Mad?” He pulled himself together and put his smile back on. “What in the world has Angel Dust done this time that could make me mad?”

“Alright, alright, fuck’s sake,” Velvette muttered under her breath as she pulled something up on her phone. Vox received her request to connect to the projector, and the moment he granted it, the stretch of wall that bore no art or other decor lit up with a crisp image of Velvette’s files. “I’m still trying to get eye witness statements from the location last night. Lots of people are too scared to talk.”

Vox frowned, watching her navigate through folders. “Well, you have my attention, at least.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Velvette said, just before she opened an image file. Immediately, the wall was filled with the image of a jazz club interior. The photograph had been taken straight across the aisle from the table that was the obvious subject, centered and framed quite well.

Angel Dust sat on one side, dressed in rather tasteful nightlife attire that blended feminine and masculine with no care for how he was perceived. He was laughing, one of his hands holding a noxiously pink martini, another hand gesturing animatedly. And his companion on the other side of the table… was Alastor.

Alastor was smiling as well, but Vox knew the Radio Demon too well to believe that this was one of his usual smiles. No, this one appeared to reach his eyes, the entirety of his attention on Angel Dust as he cradled a glass of rye and appeared to be listening quite raptly. There was no evidence that anyone else was with them.

“Took a while to get all of these through the compositor,” Velvette was saying, but Vox barely heard her, watching unblinkingly as she flipped through images. There was one of Alastor reluctantly accepting Angel Dust’s martini, followed by Alastor on his feet, offering his hand to Angel, and Angel taking it.

The two of them on the dance floor, Alastor holding Angel Dust, cradling the spider in his arms as he supported Angel’s head with his hand, Angel’s leg kicked up into the air.

Another of them dancing, Angel’s arms around Alastor’s shoulders and one knee hooked up to press against his waist, both of them laughing.

Alastor lighting a cigarette for Angel.

“…where was this?” Vox finally asked, his voice low, as he focused on the way Alastor was looking at that… at that whore.

“Eternal Triangle. Some shitty jazz dive,” Velvette said. “From what I’ve gathered, they showed up together, drank, danced, and left together. Didn’t meet anyone else.”

Vox placed his hand on the side table next to him and slowly clenched his fist, dragging his nails through the table top and pulling up ribbons of shredded wood. “Do you expect me to believe that the Radio Demon was on a date with that prostitute?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything, babes,” Velvette shrugged. “These are just the pictures. Not my fault.”

“…this is fucking insanity,” Vox said, a slightly hysterical laugh bubbling up in his throat as he spoke. “I don’t fucking believe it. The Radio Demon, cavorting around in jazz clubs with a hooker like some teenager. Oh, this is…”

infuriating

insulting

baffling

unbelievable

“…fucking hilarious,” Vox finally said, his laughter turning into a full blown cackle. “Oh, shit, if we get enough dirt on this we could ruin him.”

“You having some kind of moment here, luv?” Velvette asked with a raised eyebrow.

Vox managed to get his laughter under control, but he could barely begin to tame the mania in his smile. “Oh, I’m just reveling, darling. I can’t believe this. It’s too funny. It’s fucking guaranteed gangbusters. Alastor, showing even a modicum of softness to that…” He didn’t finish, instead shifting his gaze to Valentino. He meant to ask something, but whatever it was flew right out of his head.

He realized, suddenly, that Valentino hadn’t said a damn thing for a while. Normally he would have completely flown off the handle by now, but he still sat on the couch, squinting at the images in his effort to make out as many details as he could. But he could see them. Vox knew he could, because his fists were clenched so tightly that all of his knuckles were turning white and little beads of black blood were leaking out between his fingers.

The sick mirth, and whatever else Vox was feeling, bled out of him quickly. “…Val?”

Immediately, the moth stood up to his full height, towering over everything else in the room. “I have business to tend to,” he said, his voice as cold and furious as Vox had ever heard it. Valentino didn’t wait for a response, storming out of the office and slamming the door so hard the walls shook.

The other two Vees watched him go, Velvette clearly as puzzled as Vox was himself. “…I at least expected some good Spanish ranting for a few minutes,” she said, blinking twice.

“Yeah. So did I,” Vox admitted. Val knew something, which was obvious; the fact that he hadn’t elected to share it with them told Vox that it was probably something he wasn’t going to like. “Whatever. We’ll worry about Val later.” He looked at Velvette. “How far do you think you can take this story?”

“Depends,” she said with a shrug. “Unless they did something particularly scandalous last night, nothing much. But if they go out together again…” She grinned. “Now that’s a story.”

Vox nodded. “Get our paparazzo department to put someone good but expendable on it. If either of them catch that they’re being watched, they’ll obliterate whoever’s doing it. But I want to know everything the two of them do outside this hotel. Until we have something good, sit on this. We can’t do anything about gossip, but I don’t want the story leaking before we really have something.”

“You got it,” Velvette said, hopping to her feet. “Anything else?”

“Just keep me in the loop.” Once she was gone, Vox looked up at the wall, where the image of Alastor lighting Angel Dust’s cigarette still lit the room. Angel’s eyes were half open, and he was smiling in a quite intoxicated manner as he leaned across the table. Alastor looked a little far gone himself, and his coldness was slipping into something a little more… fond.

Vox closed his eyes and withdrew Velvette’s sharing permissions, and immediately, the wall went blank. The office seemed darker when his eyes opened again, and he stared at the blank wall. It felt like the image was burned into the wood.

Calmly, Vox turned on his heel, walked to the other side of his office, wrenched one of his televisions off the wall, and flung it through the window.

•••

Angel Dust woke late the next morning feeling terribly hung over. He winced as he tried to turn his head, mostly because it made the room spin, and he abruptly stopped doing that and took stock of his situation while he waited for the room to calm its tits.

He was still dressed, so that was just great. He’d at least managed to kick his shoes off, but he definitely hadn’t cleaned his makeup or put his jewelry anywhere. His mouth tasted terrible, the ghost of alcohol mixing with the remnants of an unfamiliar smoke, and he was stiff like he’d done a lot of physical activity he wasn’t used to.

Unbidden, the memory of Alastor kissing his hand returned to him, and with it the rest of the night came flooding back. Angel sat up in bed immediately, his eyes wide and staring at nothing, Fat Nuggets oinking in tired concern next to him. “…holy shit,” he rasped, looking at his pig. “I wasn’t dreaming.”

Nuggets blinked soft, warm eyes at him.

“You don’t have a single thought in that round little body of yours, do ya, baby?”

Blink, blink.

“Thought so. Fuck, I’m gonna die,” Angel groaned, nearly throwing himself back into his bed. If he did that, though, he would spend all day feeling like shit. Reluctantly, he dragged himself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, cleaning his face of smudged eye liner and mascara, checking to make sure he didn’t look too awful outside of that. Muttering to himself, he dragged his Walk of Shame outfit off and threw it haphazardly into his hamper as he went to his closet to find something that wouldn’t feel like it was suffocating him.

He opted for a slouchy off-the-shoulder black and pink sweater with thin, white linen pants, pulling on a pair of bulky black socks and scooping Fat Nuggets up to hold him in his lower set of arms. He didn’t have anywhere to be today, what was the harm of looking less like he was ready to make a buck for sucking a dick?

Angel was almost to the door when he remembered his phone, and he swore, heading back to his side table. His phone was almost dead (because of course his dumb drunk ass hadn’t plugger it in), and he had twenty missed calls from Valentino. Twenty missed calls… and no voice mails.

“Fuck.”

Angel quickly found Val’s contact and called him back, raising his phone and doing his best not to squeeze Fat Nuggets too tightly. It rang… and it rang… and it rang…

“You know who it is.”

Angel frowned and hung up. Valentino always answered his calls when there was something wrong. He tried again, but the result was the same, ringing a few times before kicking over. There was something wrong, Angel was positive of it, but short of trying to contact Vox or actually going to VoxTek, there wasn’t a lot Angel could do about it. He hesitated, then plugged his phone in and turned it off, laying it on the table. If anything happened, he couldn’t pretend his phone died, and Val couldn’t say he hadn’t tried to call him back.

Angel plodded downstairs and found his target pretty easily. Husk was sitting in the lounge with Niffty, the two of them playing cards, Husk leaning over in a chair he’d pulled up to the coffee table and Niffty sitting up on her knees on the floor; by the look on their respective faces, Niffty was making up rules again. Angel approached and slouched onto the floor next to the low table roughly between the two, Nuggets settling into his lap.

“Morning,” Husk said unenthusiastically, picking a card out of his hand and tossing it down.

“Is it still morning?” Angel asked.

“Technically, for another ten minutes or so.”

“Angel had a fun night,” Niffty said with her particular brand of crazed enthusiasm, picking up Husk’s discarded card and then discarding two of her own. Angel noticed their hands varied wildly in number of cards, because Niffty looked like she had half the deck and Husk had, like, four.

“Did I?”

Niffty grinned at him. “You came back long past curfew and you look hung over, and you could have cleaned up the blood. That’s a fun night.”

Angel laughed weakly. “Surprisingly, no blood, but… yeah. I did.” He turned his head. “Husk. Husky. Huskarino. Huskatorium. My pal. My buddy. My bro. My—”

“The fuck do you want, Angel?” Husk grumbled with no anger, staring at his cards.

“I will trade you an entire week of absolutely zero comments or speculation on your appearance, demeanor, sensitive areas of your anatomy, or vocal timbre whatsoever for one of your hangover cures.”

Husk actually smirked at that. “I thought you said it tastes the way you imagine Mammon smells.”

“Oh, it’s fuckin’ awful, that’s how you know I’m serious.” He raised Nuggets up next to his face so that they could both stare at Husk with big eyes. “Pleeeaaase?”

“Better not throw it up this time,” Husk said, almost putting his cards down before glancing at Niffty, thinking better of it, and tucking them into his vest pocket as he got up and headed to the bar.

“Hey, hey, Angel,” Niffty said in a conspiratorial voice, tugging on his sleeve. Angel looked down at her and placed Nuggets in his lap, where he immediately rolled off and waddled two steps over to the little maid. Niffty wrapped her arms around him, but he was too big to sit in her lap, so she just leaned on him. “Did you and Alastor hang out last night?”

Angel smirked at her. “Where’d you hear that, Niff?”

“Charlie.” Niffty’s one eye was wide and unblinking as she stared up at him. “She said that Alastor offered to chaperone you. And I know you didn’t get home until late, and I know he didn’t get home until late, because I was cleaning the chandeliers and heard him come down the hall.”

“…why were you cleanin’ the chandeliers in the middle of the night?”

“It had to be done. So did you?”

Angel smiled just a bit at her. “Yeah. S’that a problem?”

Niffty actually squinted at him. “…did he have fun?”

“I dunno,” Angel said honestly. “I think so. Hard to tell with him. Still got all my limbs, tho.”

At that, Niffty perked up again. “Good! I hoped he would. He doesn’t have enough fun anymore, except when people to eat show up at the hotel.”

“Well, he didn’t eat anyone, but I think he had fun anyway.”

Husk set a glass on the table in front of Angel, full of a foul-looking concoction that he couldn’t look at too long without his stomach clenching. “Drink it,” Husk said as he sank back into his chair with a classic older man grunt. He gestured at the glass with one claw, retrieving his cards from his pocket. “Won’t keep its potency long. And stop grilling him, Niff.”

“Yeah, that’s your job,” Niffty giggled.

“Shut up.”

Angel picked up the glass, frowned at it, then drew a deep breath and downed it. It burned like hell, just like it did every time, and the moment he managed to swallow all of it he was pretty sure it was desperate to come back up. Like it was alive or something. He leaned forward, focusing on not throwing up, as Niffty patted his back with cheerful sympathy.

“Well, well, well! Looks like quite the little party you’re having here!”

Angel raised his head when he heard Alastor’s voice, turning to look over his shoulder. The Radio Demon looked as though he had been standing there for several minutes, but he had definitely just arrived. Angel noted that he was, once again, five feet from all of them.

“Hey, Smiles,” he greeted in a weak voice. “Husk is tryin’ to kill me.”

“You quite literally requested it,” Husk said, drawing four cards from the remaining deck and discarding two.

Alastor laughed. “I’m sure you’ve been through worse than whatever Husker can dole out.”

“Look!” Niffty said happily, holding her hand up for Alastor to see. “I’m winning!”

“Is that so, my dear?” Alastor leaned forward dramatically at the waist, his head just as upright as when he had been standing straight. “I will take your word for it. Congratulations!” A tinny and invisible crowd of radio people gave Niffty an enthusiastic but polite round of applause.

“She cheats,” Husk said, as Niffty drew a random card from the middle of the deck.

“Even better! I’m so proud of you, Niffty darling.” Alastor straightened again and turned his head strangely to look at Angel. “Now, please do expound on this attempt on your life. I’m always looking for new inspiration.”

Angel picked up the glass and held it to Alastor. “This.”

Alastor took the glass from him, and apparently the smell that remained hit him the next moment, judging by the curl of his lip. “Oh, Husker, this is cruel even by my standards.”

“You’d think he’d learn to stop drinking so much, then,” Husk said, his eyes narrowed.

Angel looked between the two of them before he turned his whole attention to Alastor, leaning back on one hand. “It’s fine, Al. It’s a hangover cure, and it works real good.”

“I see,” Alastor said, delicately passing the glass back. “You did imbibe rather a lot last night.”

Angel shrugged. “It was a good martini, what can I say?”

Alastor chuckled softly, but he didn’t answer. He looked a bit like he was trying to work up to something. “…Angel Dust, may I speak with you for a moment?”

Husk froze, and Niffty made a tiny squeak, but other than that there was no reaction. “Uh, yeah, sure,” Angel said. “Niff, watch the lil’ orb for me, huh?”

“On it,” Niffty said, returning to her usual manic sort of intensity. “Husk, look, I’ve become a mother.”

“I see the resemblance.”

Angel got to his feet and looked at Alastor expectantly; he nodded once, then turned on his heel, walking off with all the confidence of someone who knew Angel would follow him. Arrogant prick, he thought, lips quirking into a tiny smile before he hurried to catch up.

Alastor opened the door to the private lounge with a wave of his hand and stepped aside. Angel went in first, growing more curious as he heard the door shut. What could Alastor have to talk to him about that needed this level of privacy?

He turned and clasped all four of his hands behind his back. “Okay, I’m your captive audience. What’s up, Al?”

“It’s nothing serious,” Alastor said, hands on his staff. He had only taken a couple of steps into the room, and was almost hovering near the door. Angel was reminded of an animal preparing to bolt.

“…alright,” Angel said, before he flopped backwards onto the couch and draped his upper set of arms across the back. With a third hand, he gestured to Alastor’s usual chair. “If it ain’t serious, then siddown, I don’t wanna feel like I’m gettin’ some kinda talkin’ to.”

Alastor chuckled. “Yes. Of course.” Just as he had a few nights prior, he vanished into his shadows, reappearing in the chair. Angel rolled his eyes, which made Alastor’s grin widen, but Angel couldn’t help noticing that the other sinner was sitting much closer to the edge of his seat than he usually did. He really was ready to bolt, Angel was sure of it now, which made him wonder what could put him so on edge that he would still say wasn’t serious. “I… forgive how dramatic this may seem. I had something I wanted to ask you, and I was… disinclined… to do so in front of others.”

Angel gave him an exasperated smile. “Al, it’s fine. Really.”

Alastor nodded. “I wondered— hm. Are you busy tonight? Or, if you are, tomorrow night?”

Angel blinked twice. “Uh… nope,” he said. “Not due back at work for a couplea days. You wanna do somethin’?”

“I thought, if you were free, you might want to come to my room and have dinner. I think I would like to cook for you.”

Of all the things Angel might have anticipated, this was not one of them. “Oh,” he said, surprised, and immediately took note of the way Alastor twitched a little. “Yeah, sure, Smiles. That sounds great.”

“It does?” Alastor asked with what seemed to be genuine curiosity and no small amount of surprise. “Well, then, excellent! Shall we say eight?”

“Eight’s fine with me,” Angel said. “Should I… I dunno, bring somethin’?”

“Your rapier wit will be enough,” Alastor said. “However, if you were to bring a bottle of pinot noir, it would hardly be refused.”

“Noted,” Angel said, grinning. “I know my way around wine well enough, don’t worry.”

Alastor clapped his hands together. “Very well, then! I must prepare. I only ask that you keep an open mind, sha.”

“That’s a nervewrackin’ sentence, comin’ from you.”

“It is, isn’t it?” With a grin that was almost manic and a voice already growing distorted by his shadows, he said, “See you tonight.” The darkness swallowed him up, and he was gone.

It was only then that Angel realized… Alastor had been nervous. And not just nervous in general, but nervous about asking Angel to spend time with him. That meant he actually cared whether or not Angel wanted to, which meant that he wanted to, which meant—

Oh holy fucking shitballs Alastor just asked me out on a date and I don’t think he even realizes he did it.

Angel didn’t return to the table immediately. Niffty was always happy to look after Fat Nuggets, and as long as he made sure to ask, he was positive that wouldn’t change. Instead, he went back upstairs and turned his phone on, his heartbeat quickening while it booted up.

The VoxTek logo lit up the black screen—Trust us with your communication!—and then his lock screen with the selfie he, Cherri, and Niffty had taken after their last mani pedi lit up.

Zero notifications loaded. Val hadn’t called him back.

Angel felt a horrible sinking feeling in his gut as he sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his phone screen. Never, in all the years since he had sold his soul, had Val not responded to Angel within the hour. That used to scare him. Now, he realized that the lack of communication was much, much worse.

He had nearly eight hours before dinner. Angel unlocked his phone and quickly dialed a number, and only had to wait through two rings before he heard the click.

“Hey, slut!”

Angel grinned. “Hey Cherri. Good, I caught you awake. I wanna get lunch. Come with me.”

“Oh, I know that tone. You got shit to talk about,” Cherri said, and he could hear the grin in her voice. “Fun gossip, icky gossip, both?”

“Maybe both,” Angel said. “Guillermo’s in twenty?”

“See you there.”

Cherri hung up, and Angel lowered his phone before hurrying to change clothes. He needed to talk to someone, someone who wasn’t in the hotel or a friend of Alastor’s, and he needed to do it now. Before he saw the Radio Demon again.

He needed perspective, because he was positive he was losing his.

•••

[simmer-rhi]

BACC - Newman Household

The Newman household are new additions to the BACC. Tammy's just your average teenage girl, living with her ghost parents. But, shh, it's a secret.

The Newman parents are your stereotypical traditional homemakers (but in ghost form) and really lean into their gender roles. They are tied to the cottage, but do what they can gardening and making woodwork, or cooking and knitting (trying to unlock plopsy!). I haven't got the life and death pack yet so for now they're just your basic bitch ghosts.

As the face of the family, Tammy has gotten very good at putting herself out there - and what better way for an attention seeking sim to earn some simoleans than by becoming a simfluencer? She's destined to become an internet sensation, and she doesn't care who she has to step on to reach the top.

This round Tammy has been networking making friends with other teens, and even earned herself a smooch with a hunky classmate.

The family history is below the cut - CW death and starvation

It's a sad story, Tammy's parents got separated from their people as they came up to the surface to scavenge, and in the end couldn't find their way back to the bunker. They lasted until Tammy was a child, but eventually all the days they went hungry to make sure Tammy was fed caught up to them - back then the air wasn't so clean and crops usually died. But the force of their love for her meant that they couldn't just go and leave her to fend for herself. And here they are still.

The benefit of their death of course is the random food and produce that appears in their inventory!! I don't know how I'll get rid of them in the end since I haven't got a grave, but I guess that's a problem for future me.