#except she's way above the level i was lmao

[brighteuphony]

On the way back from Tea Country with Chakra-poisoned Kakashi tryna "casually" fish for some info before Sakura comes in with the one-hit KO on accident.

So she's got some complicated feelings for Kakashi as well, though they're a lot milder than what she feels about Sasuke.

There's a moment in my AU where Sakura goes through a deep reflection ritual, in which she has to face Inner Sakura -who is representative of all the ugly truths her day-to-day self hasn't been able to face- and come to terms with who she is.

During that time, she's got to face the music.

The music:

Sasuke is the last prodigal son of a clan that was brutally butchered. He's a genius with one of the most powerful dojutsu out there (that he has no idea how to use) and is coming in hot with more baggage than an airport terminal.

Naruto is not normal. She doesn't know what he is (as in-canon, she finds out after the time-skip and the Sakura from above is right on the cusp of Shippuden), but there's nothing normal about a kid who can pull wild orange chakra and who can fight Gaara's tailed beast and come out on top. He's got the personal attention of the Hokage, but the entire village has banded against him for some reason. He's special.

Kakashi is a war veteran turned Jounin and an infamous ANBU captain (I headcanon that some ANBU names are leaked specifically to generate a healthy level of fear/caution among other villages- which is why we know of Itachi/Kakashi/Shisui very publically) and is ALSO the last prodigal son of an old noble clan.

(No way a bookworm like Sakura didn't consume every publically available scroll on Konoha clans).

It doesn't take the big brains to figure out that he got team 7 specifically to help deal with Sasuke's trauma/teach him about the Sharingan, and put a leash on Naruto (and in the future, when she finds out that Madara was able to control the Kyuubi with the Sharingan as well as the knowledge that Kakashi was Minato's student it becomes even clearer why he got the Sasuke/Naruto combo.)

And Sakura? Sakura is a civilian. No clan, no dojutsu, nothing to her name except great chakra control. She's the literal meat in the meat-grinder of the military machine of Konoha, the acceptable sacrifice in a group of otherwise invaluable shinobi. She's just a...girl. (And it doesn't help that she was obsessed with Sasuke instead of training, furthering the gulf between her and Kakashi.)

Kakashi was absolutely not built to handle her- in fact, Kakashi has NO idea how to relate who hasn't gone through a mountain's worth of trauma or someone who hasn't been ingrained in the shinobi-as-a-tool lifestyle, and even then, he's not fully equipped to handle people who have (lmao Sasuke). Not to mention the man is a prodigy- he has no idea how to teach people who have to work hard to get somewhere in life. How do you teach someone if you've never had to 'work hard' to get there yourself?

So, Sakura understands that Kakashi was put in one of the most ridiculous situations of his career- a situation he had NO idea how to handle. She can forgive him for that. BUT, she can't forgive him for not trying his best.

Sakura spent a lot of time coming to terms with the fact that she rushed into the Chidori/Rasengan combo without a single idea of what she would do, but...Kakashi was a big reason for that.

She was HIS responsibility, and he fumbled that bag. Whatever his reasoning, whether it was to 'protect' her, or whether he thought she was worthless, whatever: he should have TRIED.

Kakashi was an adult with resources aplenty. He recognized that she had stellar chakra control but never bothered to teach her genjutsu or direct her to teachers who could pick up the slack.

And after the accident, he abandoned her again. Being forgotten in lieu of Sasuke and Naruto hurt...but she could heal. Being abandoned as some kind of martyr to Kakashi's failures as a teacher? It's gonna take a while for Kakashi to make that up to her...if he can muster the courage to face her.

Sakura finally understands why he preferred the memorial stone to the living. He already failed the dead, and it's easier to wallow in self-flagellation than it is to try and step up for the living.

Sakura stopped being a coward some time ago, and when Kakashi finally does the same, she'll forgive him.

Thank you so much for sticking with this wall of text! And thank you so much anon for the question! Once again, I really appreciate all the kind words people have been throwing my way. <3 <3 <3

[ghost-1-y]

trust me - sanemi shinazugawa

Pairing: sanemi x afab!tsuguko!reader

!!PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE CONTINUING!!

TW: major character death (reader), no happy ending (hurt/no comfort), mentions & descriptions of gore & injury, brief thoughts of self-harm (Sanemi - briefly mentioned, doesn’t actually happen), consensual sex (Sanemi and reader are 18+), penetrative sex, unprotected sex, handjob, oral (m! and f! receiving), creampie, Sanemi is pussy drunk in this lmao; spanking (happens once), slight manhandling, praise kink, spitting kink(?) (Sanemi spits in readers mouth), (very) slight olfactophilia, brief mention of vomit (again, doesn’t actually happen), mention of scars (Sanemi and reader) MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DNI - I WILL BLOCK YOU

CW: fluff; general angst; arguments between Sanemi and reader; Sanemi is a bit of a meanie at times :/ (aka Sanemi being Sanemi); mentions of food/eating; descriptions of wound care; love confessions; Sanemi uses the following pet names for reader: “baby”, “pretty”, “beautiful”, and “sweetheart”

Word Count: ~6.2k

A/N: this is my first fic, so I hope that y’all enjoy it! I’m not gonna lie I was superrr nervous to post this lol so please be nice🥲🥲 I’ll probably do a fluffy comfort fic for Sanemi after this to make up for the pain lol; also wanted to let y’all know that this was half-inspired by the song “Fragile” by Laufey, so go give that a listen if you’d like!

Quiet. 

As the dewy drops of the morning mist came into contact with his bare hands, Sanemi noted the silence of the sunrise – one would believe that its light denoted respite, a time of peace – something beautiful to behold as its rays began to gently sweep across the grassy field. He could not yet hear the calls of the mourning dove, for it was too early for the birds to grace anyone’s ears with their softening sounds.

However, as Sanemi continued his way through the tall blades, his hands wet with the remnants of night, respite gave way to apprehension, and the misty air was filled with a sense of malaise.

For the mist that lowly hovered above the grass was red.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

One year ago.

“You can’t expect me to treat you differently from them.” Sanemi pointed his blade to the lower-ranked slayers on the sidelines of the training grounds, those who hadn’t passed out yet being completely keeled over or having nearly drowned themselves in water to stave off the summer heat. “If you want to handle stronger opponents, I need to ensure that you are trained well enough to do so.”

Having been at the point of near-exhaustion herself, Y/N could barely muster a reply. “I know, Shinazugawa-san,” she panted while looking up at him from her not-so-flattering position on the ground. “Why else do you think I’m here? ‘s not like I enjoy being trained half-to-death,” she replied sarcastically.

Sanemi’s glare met her. “You should consider yourself lucky that I was gracious enough to let you train under me. At the rate you’re going, I’d half expect you to move down a rank, rather than up one.” He walked towards her and, despite his cold nature, offered Y/N his scarred hand. “Get up. I’m not lettin’ you go until you can knock me down to my knees.”

A challenge she knew to be nearly impossible with the skill level she was currently at, Y/N wondered if her rank of Hinoto meant anything against the Wind Pillar himself. She took his roughened hand in hers and stood up, and, after a poor attempt at dusting the dirt off of her uniform, steeled herself once more for the upcoming attack from the man glaring across from her. 

Sanemi tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword and started lunging toward her.

–––––

Y/N continued to train under Sanemi’s watch, each day somehow more grueling than the last. She woke up at the god-awful hours of the morning and trained until midnight. This repeated day in and day out for weeks, with seemingly nothing to show for it except a bunch of creative insults that she’d managed to add to her arsenal after receiving them from Sanemi himself.

“You’re not using your sword correctly,” he pointed out. It was always something, she thought – her stance was wrong, her breathing wasn’t efficient enough, and now she apparently couldn’t even hold her sword correctly.

By the time she looked up at Sanemi, frustrated with her apparent inadequacies, he was no longer in front of her, having walked around so that her back faced him. He placed his hand on her forearm, “just– move your arms here…good, and your hands should be like this–” he spoke softly into her ear as he adjusted her grip to what he deemed satisfactory. Y/N was thankful that Sanemi stood behind her as she felt an intense warmth flood across her cheeks. By the time he was finished, Y/N noted the lightest blush on the tips of his ears as he returned to his original spot and took his own offensive stance, clearly not intending nor wanting to address the familiarity of his previous actions. 

“Now you don’t have any excuses to have such a shitty attack pattern,” he quipped, before engaging her in battle once more.

As months passed, the Wind Pillar slowly transitioned from insults to providing Y/N with actual guidance, and she was slowly reminded of why exactly she requested to become his Tsuguko in the first place. One day, while she was taking her thirty-minute lunch break at the wooden chabudai inside of the Wind Pillar’s estate, Sanemi sat next to her and started to eat his own meal. He refused to look at her, but the words he uttered from his mouth sent relief through her veins.

“You’ve gotten stronger.”

Unsure of how to respond, as compliments were rare coming from the usually rather hostile Pillar, Y/N simply nodded and whispered a “thank you,” continuing to pick at her food. Eventually, she looked over at him and noticed that he was frowning at the wooden chabudai before him, an internal conflict seemingly battling out in his mind.

“I have a mission I’ve been assigned to, I’d like you to come with me.”

His words were quiet, almost hesitant.

“You want me to assist you?” she asked, mainly because she didn’t believe Sanemi had trusted her enough to bring her on a mission assigned to a Hashira, much less himself.

Sanemi nodded in response. “Lower-ranked slayers have been going missing in one of the nearby mountains,” he sighed. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have named them slayers in the first place if they’re stupid enough to get caught by some demon.” He paused, and then finally looked at her. “I think that you’re capable enough to help me should things get out of hand,” he added quietly.

A sense of warmth flooded through her, and she smiled at him, grateful that he had finally acknowledged the hard work she’d put into all of her training. “Thank you, Shinazugawa-san. I promise that I will do my best.”

Sanemi thought to himself that he would like to see more of that smile.

“Don’t think that just ‘cause I’ve seen you improve that it means I’m gonna let you take it easy from here on out,” he said as he stood up. “Also, if you get into trouble on this mission, I want you to call for me immediately. Don’t get yourself into some shit you can’t handle,” he added, and his gaze upon her suddenly hardened as the words left his mouth. “Let me deal with it if things get too difficult.”

With that, he left to head back towards the training grounds.

–––––

That night, Y/N followed closely behind as Sanemi hiked up the mountain, with the bitter cold becoming more apparent as patches of snow were slowly augmented by the tiny flakes falling around them. Every once in a while, they’d find some blood splatter or human entrails, with such carnage becoming more frequent as they continued their trek. 

Eventually, Sanemi stopped – Y/N had learned to trust his instinct when he sensed that something was off. Sanemi brushed his hand over the hilt of his sword and gripped it tightly, his muscles tensing with anticipation, which caused Y/N to echo his actions and grab her own sword, holding it so that she was prepared for any possible enemy attack.

Or so she thought.

A blast of icy wind came from her right, forcing Y/N to close her eyes lest her corneas were to freeze from the frigid temperature. Sanemi, however, immediately chased after the source – his speed something frightening to behold. After a futile attempt to follow him, Y/N found herself swarmed by fifteen demons, all of whom were nearly identical to each other, as they all possessed the same pale blue skin and white hair. After a few attacks, Y/N also noted that their blood demon art was the same: one that would allow them to manipulate freezing winds and ice however they pleased.

Y/N was able to hear Sanemi in the distance, easily decapitating what seemed to be a larger swarm than what she was presently dealing with. Just how many of them are there? Y/N thought as she made her way through twelve of the demons, decapitating each one until an attack managed to hit her mid-air – causing a sharp ice fragment to deeply slice open her upper thigh. Gritting through the pain, she finished off the final three demons that she’d been fighting before slowly limping toward a nearby tree to assess the damage of her wound. It seemed as though Sanemi’s battle was also over, as Y/N could hear nothing but the howling of the mountainous winds as he walked back over to where they both had split up.

Once Sanemi caught sight of her, his shoulders seemed to relax. However, such relief was temporary once he eyed her bleeding thigh, and immediately began rushing over to her, pulling out some spare gauze that he had stored on his person and a wave of anger that she couldn’t describe filling the violet hues of his eyes.

“What did I fuckin’ tell you? To stay back and let me handle it, yet you’re so stupid that you can’t even obey direct orders,” Sanemi spat at her as he started bandaging the deep laceration on her thigh, taking careful consideration of the pressure and tightness of the gauze wrap he was using. Each time she winced, he would look up from her injury, and his violet eyes would meet hers. However, there was no malice of the words he spewed at her within his expanded pupils.

Y/N sharply inhaled before responding. “I’m sorry! But you’re the one who went on ahead and left me with them! I had to–”

“No. You didn’t have to, you fuckin’ dumbass. That’s where you’re wrong – you didn’t have to put yourself in danger just because I was off dealing with something else. Fuckin’ think next time and maybe I wouldn’t have to be cleaning you up like this,” he lightly choked on the last few words, yet continued wrapping up her wound, hands gentle and considerate of her pain. Y/N huffed at his impossible reasoning and looked down at him with a hardened stare.

He looked into her eyes once more, his grip on her uninjured leg tightening. “I don’t- I can’t fuckin’ lose someone else,” he stated, a rare glimpse of vulnerability from inside his tortured heart. At that, Y/N dropped her stare and hesitantly placed her hand upon his tensed one.

“I’m sorry, Shinazugawa-san, I promise that next time will be different. I’ll get stronger, so you won’t have to go to such lengths for me.” She gave him a reassuring smile, and his hand relaxed as he continued his work on her wounded leg. With the sun still rising over the horizon, she couldn’t make out the brimming of tears on his waterline before he blinked them away.

It was a side of Sanemi that Y/N hadn’t seen before – but before she could indulge herself to begin examining every crevice of emotion that the Wind Pillar had put on display for her, his attitude changed once again to one of apparent indifference.

“Don’t apologize – just listen to me next time,” he stated as he finished wrapping up her leg. Once a couple of hours passed and the Kakushi had arrived to clean up the aftermath, he stood up and grabbed Y/N’s arm to pull her up from her sitting position. Sanemi then took the same arm and put it around his shoulder, allowing her to use him as a crutch as they both walked to the wagon brought by one of the Kakushi in the aftermath of the battle.

The ride to the Butterfly Mansion was mostly quiet. Sanemi, despite not being injured himself, decided to stay with Y/N as she slept on the floor of the wagon. The cold of the early morning seemed to be permeating Y/N’s skin as she shivered in her sleep. Always aware of his surroundings, Sanemi looked at her with concern and took off his haori, feeling slightly flushed as he placed it on top of her as a makeshift blanket, blaming the warmth of his cheeks on the cold morning air. He sat down next to her, crossing his arms and closing his eyes to alleviate some of his own fatigue.

It didn’t help that in his dreams, his body was keeping her warm instead.

–––––

Once Y/N had woken up, she first noted the sanitary scent of the patient room assigned to her. Having awoken from the gentle knock on the door, she looked to see Aoi entering with some gauze and antibiotics.

Sanemi was nowhere in sight.

“I’m glad you’re awake. I’m here to perform some general wound care for you. I’ll be changing your dressings, alright?” Aoi looked at her, and once she received a nod from Y/N, she proceeded to unwrap the layers of gauze and started to inspect the wound.

“There is some slight inflammation,” she observed as she lightly pressed against the sides of the laceration with her gloved hands, which exhibited some redness and swelling. “I’m going to be prescribing you some antibiotics in order to prevent any potential infections.” She started applying some antibiotic ointment directly to the wound, and Y/N winced at the stinging pain that it caused. Once satisfied, Aoi carefully rewrapped the wound with a new set of gauze. “Your antibiotics will need to be taken orally with food and water once a day. Make sure you complete the entire course that I prescribe so that you don’t face any further complications down the line.” 

All Y/N could do was nod silently, and once Aoi determined that she would follow directions, she left the room.

–––––

Despite wanting to thank him for helping her in the aftermath of the battle, Y/N had not seen Sanemi even once during her recovery process. She wondered if he had gone back to his estate, but it still struck her as odd that he didn’t at least come by to berate her for the lack of judgment she possessed in the midst of the fight.

Maybe he got it all out of his system when he was wrapping up my wound, she thought to herself.

During her stay as a patient, Aoi mentioned to Y/N that due to the cut slicing through the muscle of her leg, it could take weeks or even months to recover. Since Y/N had not yet mastered Total Concentration Breathing: Constant, Aoi explained that it may take longer to heal compared to if a Hashira had such an injury.

Y/N wondered if Sanemi no longer trusted her skills as a slayer.

She wondered if Sanemi ever had any trust in her at all. 

The very thought caused bile to rise in her throat. She wanted him to be proud of her, to trust her – just as she did with him.

Y/N slowly got up from her bed and walked outside to sit on the engawa of the Butterfly Mansion. The moon’s rise was slow, and the soft chirp of crickets could be heard from the nearby trees. Once sat, she admired the garden owned by the Insect Pillar herself – with beautiful azaleas and hydrangea plants shaping pathways throughout the grounds. Y/N closed her eyes and basked in the moonlight rays that shone upon the estate – that is, until her ears heard the softest creak of wood coming from behind her.

“Shinazugawa-san?” She softly whispered once she turned to see who it was, as though the peace of the night would be disturbed should she speak any louder.

Sanemi said nothing, but then moved quietly to sit down next to her – if Y/N hadn’t known any better, she would’ve believed that he was solely there just to admire the moonlit garden as well. His eyes appeared a soft, yet dark hue of indigo in the cool moonlight – they bore none of the usual aggression that they carried when around others.

“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” Y/N asked him quietly, gaze fixed upon him, and he nodded. 

“Would be prettier if it didn’t cause so much needless death.”

She couldn’t argue at all. He was right – and would be until demons had been eradicated off the face of the earth, but that didn’t stop her from wishing that things were different.

Sanemi sighed and finally looked at her, and his eyes screamed ‘loss’. 

He was fragile. He wasn’t the roughened-up, aggressive, insolent slayer that others saw him as. Rather, it was his scars that held him together by threads, and it was his heart that silently called out to her – to “hold me, please.”

And so she did.

Y/N slowly slid her arms around him and had them reach up towards his nape. The sigh he emitted came from his chest, and Sanemi’s grip tightened around her as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. His eyes closed and brows furrowed, focused on nothing but the gentle touch of her skin against his. His mouth was slightly parted, lips pressed softly near her collarbone as he breathed against her.

His touch was warm.

She wished to feel more of it, to let it utterly consume her until all that she could feel was him. 

Once he parted from her, Y/N looked into his eyes and felt the need to speak. “I- uh, I wanted to thank you for helping me with my wound after the battle,” she admitted softly. In response, his eyes hardened again and looked down at her bandaged leg.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied shortly before getting up. Soon after, Y/N found herself alone on the engawa once again, although the peaceful silence of the night had been replaced with a feeling of despondency that she couldn’t quite place.

–––––

By the time she recovered from her injury, it seemed as though Sanemi had done the impossible by making Y/N’s training even more difficult. Not a day went by when she wasn’t completely collapsed on the ground by sunset. It only took a few days before dark shadows under her eyes became visible, and her muscles ached.

Gone too was Sanemi’s softer side. Instead, it seemed as though their relationship was right back where it started, sans the fact that he seemed to slightly tense every single time he caught a glimpse of her scarred leg.

The sun had set, and Sanemi was yelling at Y/N to complete one more series of reps before retiring for the night. The problem, however, was that Y/N’s legs had become gelatinous and were shaking beyond her control, and despite all the willpower that she had sustained within her, it wasn’t enough to pick herself up off the ground.

“Are you really that fuckin’ weak that you can’t even stand up by yourself?” he spat. “You should’ve never become a slayer – this shit is too dangerous for people like you. All you will ever be is demon fodder. Fuckin’ give up and leave the corps if that’s how you’re going to treat the training I give you.” His insults were never-ending, and given how exhausted she was, it took everything within her to not cry at his words.

“I’m fucking trying, Shinazugawa-san!” she choked out. “What the hell did I do for you to treat me this way? Have I not done enough already?” With tears brimming in her eyes, she musters up the courage to ask the question she’s been wondering since that night on the battlefield.

“Do you not have any trust in me at all?” she cried.

Sanemi scoffed and glared at her. “You need to earn my trust, and until you’re able to complete the training I give you without collapsing to the ground like some low-ranked slayer, then you won’t have it.”

Y/N’s stomach dropped and she ignored the tightening sensation in her throat as she resolved to bite back at the cruel man before her.

“Bullshit,” she spat. “You thought I was capable enough to assist you on the last mission. Don’t lie by saying I’ve never earned your trust before.”

Sanemi rolled his eyes. “So what? Maybe I did trust you – before the mission. But you fucking broke it by getting hurt!” he seethed, eyes wide as he looked down at her. 

“Maybe if you were capable enough to not get yourself wounded during the fight, then I might’ve still had some trust in you,” he admitted. “You think that I’m just gonna trust someone who gets their leg nearly sliced off to be able to handle themselves?”

“Is that what this is all about? ‘Cause I got some stupid cut on my leg? You can’t be serious–”

“Shut the fuck up. You know damn well it wasn’t just a cut. What if you had gotten slashed somewhere else? What if it had been more severe? What if you–” he didn’t wish to complete that sentence, lest he spoke the thought into existence.

It was the first time she’d seen Sanemi with tears in his eyes.

“It would’ve been my fault, Y/N! My fucking fault if something happened to you! I already told you, I can’t fucking lose someone else. I’ve already lost so many people, and I–” he watched as Y/N stood up, despite the obvious exhaustion in her legs, and walked towards him. “I can’t lose you, too,” he confessed, his voice softer than the wind that gently breezed through her hair. A tear had found its way down his cheek – just over the scar that was bestowed upon him by his own mother. As if by instinct, Y/N wiped it away with the pad of her thumb, but she did not part from his face. Instead, she proceeded to trace her thumb over the jagged scar, and he surprisingly leaned into the touch of her palm against his cheek, his eyes frantically searching her own. She smiled at him, and his breath caught in his throat.

“You have me, Sanemi.”

The groan that he voiced was soft, yet guttural – as though it came from deep within his chest, and he placed his hands on either side of her face, his eyes looking at her with utmost adoration and care, and his lips brushed softly against hers, and Y/N’s eyes were nearly sent reeling back before he closed the gap.

The pleasurable gasp that she emitted caused him to smile into the kiss, his lips slightly chapped, but gentle and loving with how they caressed hers, as though she would shatter under the slightest touch, or that she was a goddess and he a sinner seeking repentance by worshiping her.

“Fuck…wanted to do this for so long,” he breathed against her and his kisses became more needy – something fully welcomed by Y/N as she wrapped her arms around him and her fingers found purchase in his unruly hair. When he parted from her lips, a string of saliva connected his mouth to hers, which only broke as he went back to kiss her with his then swollen lips. He groaned once more before picking her up and carrying her over his shoulder, causing Y/N to yelp in surprise.

“Not letting you go anywhere, baby,” Sanemi grinned and smacked Y/N’s ass as he took her to his estate’s bedroom, which prompted her to roll her eyes at his antics. Yet, she couldn’t help but smile as he gently placed her on his futon and kissed her once more. “Can’t fuckin’ get enough of you, pretty,” he stated before moving down to her neck, where he licked and sucked until he found her pulse point, at which point Y/N moaned softly. “That’s right…feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked, knowing full well what her answer was even before she tried to nod her head.

“Sa- Sanemi…” she gasped, her hand cradling the back of his head as he left messy kisses up and down her neck.

“Sound so fuckin’ beautiful, keep saying my name like that, hm?” As he continued kissing her, his hands rose towards the top button of her uniform, a question of “Can I?” to which Y/N nodded. He unbuttoned her top, kissing down her chest and stomach until the clothing was fully removed. In return, Y/N helped remove the bindings that covered her breasts, letting them spill out in full view of Sanemi’s greedy irises. Sanemi wasted no time in latching his mouth to one of her tits, where he lavished her with his tongue whilst massaging and kneading the other with his roughened hand, rolling her nipple in between his fingers and playfully biting down on her breasts every so often solely to hear her whine.

“‘Nemi…need…need more please,” Y/N moaned and he chuckled. “Hm? What do you need, pretty?” Y/N only whined in response and he bit her breast again, causing her to jolt. “Need you to tell me what you want, beautiful,” he continued.

“Need your mouth…” she admitted, slightly embarrassed.

“Oh? Where do you need it?” he asked her before sucking her tit once more.

“Nngh… my– my pussy,” Y/N whined pathetically, to which Sanemi released his mouth from her breast with a lewd pop.

“Good girl,” he praised and started working towards her needy cunt, licking down her torso and leaving kisses and bites on her inner thighs. He took his time working towards her wet heat and ghosted his mouth over her panties, his hot breath permeating the cloth as she impatiently writhed underneath him. He selfishly inhaled her scent before pulling the garment to the side, and leaving a soft kiss against her core, leaving her to whimper when he pulled away to remove her panties, only for him to then lick a fat stripe up her slit. Sanemi moaned deeply and proceeded to pull Y/N towards him by her hips, ensuring that her sweetness was as close as possible to his greedy tongue.

“You taste so fucking good,” he groaned before proceeding to stuff his face full of her pussy once more. The tip of his nose nudged her swollen clit as he gathered her wetness into his mouth by licking into her tight hole and fucking her with his tongue, moaning against her pussy in the process. Y/N began bucking her hips in response, only for him to pin them down with one arm as he used his other hand to start fingering her after moving his mouth to suck on her clit. She moaned with abandon as he began curling his fingers inside of her heat, sucking voraciously on her swollen nub.

“F-Fuck, ‘Nemi! I- I’m gonna cum!” Y/N attempted to writhe underneath him, despite being held back by Sanemi’s arm pinning her down. Her admission only turned Sanemi more eager, causing him to rut against the mattress as he began quickening his fingers inside her and sucking harder on her clit. Y/N’s eyes rolled back and her mouth went agape, screaming and shaking uncontrollably as she came into his awaiting mouth. He licked up every drop that she gave him, using his fingers to coax more of her release onto his tongue, not wanting to waste any of her precious gift.

Y/N sat up and clambered onto him as soon as she came down from her orgasm, and kissed him deeply, tasting herself on his lips and tongue. “Wanna return the favor, ‘Nemi,” she whispered and he flushed red at the thought. “Yeah? Show me, pretty.” Standing up, he tilted her chin with one hand so that she was forced to look up at him from her knees. Using his other hand, he unbuckled his belt and removed it along with his hakama. His cock was thick, with pretty veins traveling all across it, making her nearly drool at the sight. Y/N brought one hand up and collected the precum from the tip of his cock with her thumb, before licking it off. Sanemi groaned, encouraging her to begin stroking his fat dick despite her hand being unable to fully reach around it. She took a curious first lick at his pretty, bulbous head, causing him to shudder, before wrapping her lips around it and sucking as she moved her hand along his thick length.

“Fuck, baby,” Sanemi groaned. Y/N moved her hand to fondle his balls and began taking on more of his length into her mouth, bobbing her head back and forth, a combination of saliva and precum coating his dick. “S-shit– you’re so good at that… fuck,” he groaned.

It took everything within Sanemi to not start fucking her throat at that moment – not wanting to hurt her as she pleasured him. He compromised by grabbing her hair and gently guiding her mouth along his cock, so that he could have some semblance of control over her movements and hence, his orgasm. Before he could cum, he removed her from his length and put his hand underneath her chin, tilting her head up towards his face – a wave of arousal shooting straight through his dick as he saw her swollen, spit-covered lips. “Open,” he commanded, and proceeded to spit into Y/N’s mouth before seeking her lips on his, demanding that she swallow. “Such a good girl for me, I’m gonna fill you up and make you feel perfect, baby,” he promised. 

Sanemi pushed her down onto the bed, spreading her legs apart with his. He stroked his cock a few times before lining it up with Y/N’s sopping pussy, selfishly rubbing it up and down her slick folds a few times. He looked into her eyes, seeing her smiling up at him before leaning down and giving a soft kiss to her lips. Y/N moaned softly — unable to wait any longer as she gently wrapped her fingers around his cock, pushing the tip into her tight cunt.

He slowly entered her heat, his shaft stretching open her spongy walls, and he let out a low moan. He lowered himself so that his chest was pressed up against her and his head was in the crook of her neck, and he took Y/N’s hands in his as he started to fuck slowly into her.

“Shit, you’re so perfect for me. You feel so good, baby,” Sanemi moaned and kissed her neck sweetly. Y/N whined as he slowly pulled out just to push his cock back in again – hitting the area that made her see stars. He chuckled, “your pussy just keeps sucking me back in, sweetheart – it’s like she doesn’t want me to leave.” Y/N responded by babbling incoherently, and he looked up at her only to see tears brimming her eyes from the pure pleasure he so graciously gave, and instinctively kissed them away. “Taking my cock so well, such a good girl,” he said before his mouth reached hers, tongue darting between her parted lips before caressing her tongue with his.

His thrusts started to become more desperate, nearly grinding into her – incidentally rubbing against her clit in the process. She moaned against his mouth, her kisses sloppy against his swollen lips. “So good, ‘Nemi…” she whimpered, allowing herself to get lost in the pleasure and heat that he was providing her. He choked on a moan as he continued to rut into her, the squelching sounds of her pussy driving him nearly insane, “gonna cum, pretty. Where– where do you want it?” he asked, surprised he even had the coherency to form words as his mind was half gone from pleasure.

“Inside,” she whined, and his eyes widened, the building tension in his gut rising. “Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded, writhing underneath him. 

“Need it inside…please,” she begged him, and who was he to deny her? His thrusts became sloppier, and he let go of one of her hands to reach down and rub her clit. The pleasure was immense, and Y/N couldn’t think about anything but him as she clenched around his cock as her orgasm flooded through her body – which consequently brought Sanemi over the edge as well, as he all but exploded inside of her hot cunt, groaning deeply as his cum flooded into her womb in thick ropes – causing her to moan and babble incoherently. “Fuck! Fuck– Y/N, I fucking love you,” he confessed in his state of euphoria, and Y/N only fully grasped what he said once he had collapsed on top of her – having just enough energy to pull him up towards her lips to kiss him once more – his lips hot and wet and swollen as they pressed against hers. “I love you too, ‘Nemi. So much,” she confessed, and he looked at her, slightly embarrassed by his own impromptu confession, but beyond elated that she felt the same way. 

He slid off of her, his softening cock slipping out of her pussy and he reached his arms around her – wanting nothing more than to hold her close to him as they both lay there on his futon. She smiled lazily in his arms and he kissed her cheek softly. “Not gonna let you go, baby, I swear. I won’t let anything bad happen to you – not anymore,” he said as he gently brushed his rough fingers against her newly formed scar. 

“I know, ‘Nemi. I promise I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered softly, and he smiled, thinking that he’d finally found someone to share himself with – someone whom he could shatter into should he feel like breaking, someone who could piece him back together so he could remain strong for the sake of others.

“I know, I trust you.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Oh, how wrong he was.

He swore to himself that he was only parted from her for a second as his pace and heart quickened – traversing through the blood-slicked greenery. Sanemi was plagued by loss – his siblings, his mother, his first love – but the feeling that it would happen yet again never lessened the blow nor the curdling acidity that coursed through his gut. 

He frantically searched each corpse along the battlefield, hoping, praying, that he wouldn’t find her among them. Sanemi never considered himself religious – he would rather not believe in any god than believe that an almighty being could allow such devastation to course through his life – through others' lives. However, while mustering the waning strength of his muscles to keep him from collapsing, he called out to the universe – selfishly pleading with it to allow him to keep even a single shred of happiness within his life, swearing that he would give anything to ensure her safety, to secure her life as part of his own.

But the universe turned its back on him once again, as he saw a glimpse of her hair – but it wasn’t her hair. No, Sanemi knew that her hair shined in the morning sunlight, it was beautiful and soft as he would feel it between his fingers – it was never bloodied like it was now. 

As he rushed over to Y/N, he nearly puked upon setting his eyes on her. There was a deep gash that cut through her torso – one that couldn’t have been caused by anything but the claws of a demon. He could see her entrails spewing out of it, and as his eyes traveled up towards her face, it was obvious that he was far too late. Her eyes – the ones he loved to get lost in, were lifeless; her lips – the ones that were so soft and loving when he kissed her, were parted in what seemed to be remnants of fear from the last moments of her life.

Sanemi couldn’t take it – and, as though pushed by an invisible force, he was knocked down to his knees.

A wretched sob escaped him as he reached towards her, uncaring of the blood and gore that stained his clothing, and he held her close to him. He sobbed out her name, wishing this was some horrible trick – some fucked up nightmare that he was subjected to, but the longer Sanemi held Y/N in his arms, the more he realized that this was real and that he had broken his promise once again – the promise to protect those close to him.

He picked her up and carried her to a clearing away from the battlefield – where a sole willow tree stood, and resolved to bury her there. As he placed Y/N into the ground, Sanemi wished to carve her name amongst the many scars on his body, so that maybe the blood spilled in her honor would somehow tether his soul to hers, so that he may permanently have her in a way that life itself could not provide.

Hours passed, and he finally managed to stand up once more, his heart hardened once again, and it took everything within him to not look back as he walked away from her gravesite. And, despite not wishing to look upon her grave again, Sanemi committed himself to continue living and fighting in her memory as Y/N slowly returned to dust underneath the lone willow.

And so he did — until his very last breath.

[spicybylerpolls]

i genuinely think it's the emotional intimacy of a sex scene that makes certain bylers uncomfortable. like, divide sex into two kinds: physical, where its just two naked bodies doing things but with no chemistry or passion. it doesnt inspire much excitement does it, storytelling wise OR as a viewer? but even if you imagine mike and will being intimate together in a way where genitals/naked bodies arent involved, for example dry humping, or just intense eye contact or even conversations where they are both 'into it' but not actually doing or talking about anything sexual... well, it gives you shivers! and thats the frisson creators and writers are hoping to inspire with their intimate stories. after all, a romance or sexual storyline that falls flat is worse than one full of controversy that promotes engagement. they could be talking about a completely unrelated topic but with that frisson present, we feel it as an audience.

heck, this is what s4 was lmao. this is what all innuendo and chemistry is. and it's unresolved right now. it's called sexual tension!

i remember a bit from Sex Education on netflix where a woman was saying she wanted dirty talk from her partner, and in the end it didnt even need to be dirty in content, just in the way they spoke to each other. it was about the tone and the intention, not the act itself.

this is how euphemism has worked in st so far. lucas' 69 sign? objectively, just a spray painted sign above a sleeping teen boy. but subtextually, if you know? well. you know! the same for the hose scene. its a wink and a nod, and its meant to be fun. not shameful.

and arguably its what mike and will have been doing all along, except romantically not yet sexually. crazy together... its so intimate and sweet. AND sweet. because love and sex when together (which is what byler would share, if they did have sex - never JUST sex) often IS sweet, so why would they lose that aspect of it?

let's prepare for plenty of frisson scenes in s5 wherein byler are trying to discuss something normal but keep inserting innuendo by accident or just setting things on fire with their chemistry and eye contact

Yeah! I mean, if there's this much sexual tension just while apologizing, or while talking, or while burying a body, I can't even imagine the level of frisson Byler will have during the apocalypse. Their whole relationship has been a tension-filled dance filled with subtextual allusions and accidental innuendos to their deeper bond/desire, and all of this has to be building to something spicy.

They are really about to be crazy together.

[redwayfarers]

survivor - for the random word generator prompt!

hello! sorry for the wait, real life got the better of me and i didn't write, but i was reading gide and this came to me like an angel, so i had to write it! if it reads like les faux monnayeurs, i'm so sorry lmao, this is why they tell you not to write immediately after reading (affectionate)

a flickering light, or a tale of two survivors

Fandom: FFXIV Ship: Cassander/Stephanivien (implied), Nika/Minfilia Characters: Cassander Inteus (aka a Cass AU), Nika Perseis (WoL), Stephanivien de Haillenarte Rating: Gen Words: 1759 Spoilers: ARR patches, if you squint. dividers by @saradika

Set during early Heavensward.

The Skysteel Manufactory gets stupidly creepy at night. It’s not lit by torches or something, like some parts of the city - Stephanivien saw to that, he’s too avant-garde for torches, how dare the world not use every technological advancement ever! - and there’s a few of the lamps that go on and off, like a broken clock. Stephanivien is too busy to see that of all things, and we’re all far too enthralled by the creepiness to tell him. 

Some of us have weird tastes. 

The workshops on higher levels are a mess of metal parts, wires, cogs, magical devices and whatever the fuck machinists need. There’s a beauty in that too, in a way. It feels lived in, like a childhood bedroom you can’t yet leave even though you’re getting married tomorrow. Except that I was an adult when I first saw this room, and that I’d have no idea what a beloved childhood room would look, let alone feel like. My childhood bedroom - or the room where I spent a large part of what people call a childhood, anyways - is pristine, devoid of personality, rich, opulent. It’s a stage more than anything. Only thing remotely lived in in that whole fucking room - no, the whole shitty house - is the bright, orange pillow with Dzemael sigil sewn on it. 

It was embarrassing, packing your childhood pillow, the first time I left to spend the night in the Manufactory. But maybe I am embarrassing, deep down, so I get to keep my little pillow with me and go freeze in the messy, lived in workshops overnight. The more I got used to that, the less embarrassing it felt. 

One day, I might even go take it to Coerthas and drown in a river there. I’m sure my mother would be happier for it. She found the pillow rather tacky anyways. 

“It was very.. Kind of you to let me in,” I told Stephanivien one night, seated beside him to watch him work. His eyeshadow bore the signs of wearing, a little messy at the edges. His forehead gleamed with sweat. The lamp was dying, but he was too engrossed in his work to notice and I was too engrossed in him to tell him. 

“Kind? Cassander, your mother is an absolute bitch. Even if you weren’t as pretty as you are, I would have taken you in regardless. Between us, darling, you’re wasted in that house.” He smiled, widely. “You look much better with a gun in your hand, I will say.” 

“You will,” I laugh, looking at my hands. My cheeks were burning. “I think I like guns. Long ones in particular. Elegant. You may think I’m referring to something else, but no, I am referring to metal objects you use to shoot things with.”

“You’re funny,” Stephanivien shakes his head. “I can make you one, if you’d like. Golden, to match the pillow.” 

“My future gun has a bed now, who would’ve thought.” I reached out and grasped his gloved hand, dirty from the work. Stephanivien smiled, and it seemed brighter than the dying lamp above our heads. 

Maybe I’m also a little fond of that struggling, dying thing. I go up sometimes, when it’s cold, or rainy, or everyone’s simply too busy for me and my jobless ass, sit beneath it and look at the gun Stephanivien gave me. A nameday gift, engraved with a little dagger. It’s in pristine condition, but I clean it anyway, with all the care you afford a priceless, porcelain vase; the light flickers, on and off, but I don’t need it to see the little dagger engraving, the nooks and the crannies and the long barrel that feels like something my mother would hate. 

That, too, brings me joy. Theokleia de Dzemael hates machinists, on principle. The fact that I not only own a gun, but can shoot with it, is a kind of pleasure I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of some 5 years ago. 

This particular evening, I climb up the stairs to the workshop, coffee in hand, ready to clean it from the last practice from earlier. A curl that the goggles aren’t holding up tickles my temple, but I’ll be damned if I let my coffee spill just because of one stray piece of hair that refuses to sit still. I kick the door open. 

“I like your gun,” someone says before I can fully register them. A pair of mismatched eyes moves from the weapon to me and my coffee. “Did you also drink the last of the coffee?” 

“I’m not a coffee maniac,” I grumble, frowning. “I can’t drink all of it. What kind of question is that, for fuck’s everloving sake?” 

Nika looks at me with an equal furrow. However, that’s his MO, and mine is decidedly not. I have been known to grin maniacally once or twice. “One that needs answering.” 

The light flickers above our heads. It casts a sudden light onto his face, and shines a weak light onto the hazel eye and the scar on his nose and cheek. Ouch. His lips are pulled in a tight line, his short, black hair in disarray, a stark contrast to the finery of the clothes he’s wearing - courtesy of his hosts here in Ishgard. 

For a Warrior of Light, he is very gloomy and dark. An asshole, too. You’d think the Warrior of Light, of all people, would be a hero, but no, we’re stuck with a perpetually frowning asshole. What a joy. 

“What do you want? Move, I need that desk.” I place the overfilled cup down as roughly as I can. “There’s no fucking coffee here except the one on the table, and that’s mine.”

“I paid you a compliment,” he says, unmoving. “You could at least say thank you. You nobles should have manners.” 

“Je suis plein de gratitude. I know you paid me a compliment, but the question later made no sense so that had to be addressed first.” 

Nika looks at the gun again. He taps his fingers against the wood in a rhythm, three taps forward, one tap backward, three strong, one a glide, then in reverse. He then looks at his feet and takes a deep breath. “Minfilia is better at this sort of thing. She knows how to talk to you higher classes.” 

“Minfilia?” Who the fuck is this Minfilia woman? I readjust my goggles, and push the tickling curl away from my skin. Is she his lover, his sister? His friend? I can’t imagine him caring about anyone, including himself. From what little he’s been here in the Manufactory, a stray taken in by Stephanivien’s brightness much like me, all he did is make nonsense sentences and antagonize everyone. 

“Someone very dear to me. But she isn’t here, and neither is Alphinaud, so you’re stuck with me.” 

Alphinaud? Oh yeah, one of the other wards. The elezen kid. Whoever did his braid deserves to be fired because it’s needlessly messy and terrible. “Which would be fine, if you stopped speaking in riddles. Now can I sit, Warrior of Light, or will you clean my likeable gun for me? I’m not making you coffee.”

“In riddles? I’m not–” Nika frowns yet again. “Have your gun, whats-your-face.” 

“Cassander. Cassander de Dzemael.” 

“Cassander,” he says, like he’s testing the name. I look down at him. 

The light flickers. Something crosses his face, and his eyes look painfully vulnerable for a moment, and he’s tapping his fingers in the same rhythm again. 

“Why are you here, Nika?” I ask. I don’t know why my voice becomes so gentle. Maybe because I’m towering over him, and if I kept the hard edge, it would scare him off, not that I care about that. Maybe if I spoke gentler, he’d buck less under every question. Maybe he’d even start making sense. 

Or maybe the images of my mother’s hard voice echo in my head, like a hammer to the anvil. Now it is my turn to grip the table until my nail beds go a little pale. Her shouts and her yells, her derisive comments, her hard eyes and her pointed anger, and her looming, Halone’s ass, the looming! Do I sound like that? Do I sound as rough as she does? 

Nika’s quiet for a while. He keeps looking at his hands, rough and harsh. “That’s none of your business,” he rasps, but moves so that I could sit. “If someone needs me, they don’t know where to look.” 

I sit and take a long sip of my coffee. “Just mind the pillow, then. And try not to interrupt. This is something of a sacred ritual, you see. Halone-ordained. When you go to church, they tell you you must clean your gun or else she will smite you, or something.” 

He huffs. 

“Or so I hear,” I add with a shrug. “I’m not frequently in church.” 

The light flickers. 

“Minfilia would also laugh at that,” Nika says. I still have no idea who this Minfilia is, but she’s welcome to laugh at my jokes, wherever she is. “Will they fix the fucking thing?”

I take a sip of coffee. “Don’t think so. It’s rather cute. On and off. We all like weird things, I think, and my particular weird thing is this broken little lamp. Besides, I’m sure Stephanivien will notice at some point or another. When it dies, probably.”

“He’s the one making these guns, I’d rather he didn’t make me a faulty one,” Nika shrugs. “But if he sees, it’s whatever. It’s just annoying. You asked me earlier why I’m here. I was drawn to the gun. I think it has a nice shot.” He pauses. “I’m sure that the Fortemps family can pay for one of these.”

“Pretty sure they can, yeah. This one’s mine, though.” 

“I’m not in the habit of stealing people’s weapons.” 

I lift a brow. “Never said you were.” 

Nika shakes his head and heads for the door. The light flickers and he looks up. “Someone should really fix the damn thing,” he says, a little less angry than before. He’s then gone, tucking his waistcoat tighter for warmth, and I watch him go before he’s part of the shadows and I can take out my tools. 

We all like weird things. Some of us like long-barreled guns. Some of us like women named Minfilia, and speaking in riddles. And who knows? Maybe this broken little lamp refuses to die because it likes us, too. 

Halone works in weird fucking ways. 

[dumbpuppycatgirl]

how do I tell if I’m trans

(sorry your my only transfem moot (I think))

Short answer:

I know because being a girl(-adjacent being) makes me happy. Moving towards happiness helped me (even though i sabotage myself at every step every day)

See also:

https://amitrans.org/

https://turn-me-into-a-girl.com/

https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en

My full story under the cut:

My story starts in 2020, like so many modern trans stories do, when i was stuck online and found a new community where someone came out as trans. I asked her a lot of questions and she told me to experiment.

So i experimented, i bought skirts and other clothing online; bought like an anime school girl outfit because idk cute?

I started pretending to be a girl on reddit and discord when i joined a large overwatch server under a mew account, trying out several names.

On reddit i also started looking into trans memes and started reading experiences of trans people.

Within a few months i had made a first decision for myswlf really sternly: i do not want to be a guy.

I started talking about it with my therapist and she was very helpful and supportive.

The community i joined at the start of this story i found more friends and more queer friends and we were joking around having fun.

A real life friend bought some make up for me when i talked with her about me questioning, which was very nice but even 3 years later i have barely actually used any of it. I am terrified of make up, and hate seeing my face. Always hated seeing my face.

In my reading and relating to trans stories i stumbled upon the three websites linked above. The genderdysphoria bibke eslecially was extremely helpful.

After making that first decision around december 2020 and getting help from resl life people around early 2021 it still took forever to answer "if not a man, then what?" Im not sure i have the answer now. What i have figured out now that i have tried make up, wear more femme clothing, go by a fem name and changed my legsl gender is that im generally much happier being a woman.

Im not sure im a woman, or at least maybe not always, but "woman" is much much closer to what i 'am' than "man", if that makes sense.

During the second half of my questioning phase, when i read the dysphoria bible, i started realising that mayyyybe there were hints during my childhood... wanting to play a girl character during the one singular open theatre day i attended when i was like 11 or so might have been a clue.

I realised that my obsession with TF-TG comics was not a cis thing lmao. I realised that men generally dont feel "cursed" to have the body they have.

I did make some changes to my body over time, though, as i started living on my own also in 2020 to be a student i had much more freedom to do things secretly. Bought jewelry to wear inside only, and dyed my hair, which was amazing.

During the summer of 2021, my cousin got married, and i had to wear a suit, of course, which felt painful. Cementing my not wanting to be a man feeling. Dead eye smile all the way.

Later that year i had some talks with my brother about feeling so extremely limited in my choices for clothing and expression and what not and that being a man felt like a prison. He was very nice about it and said that clothing is not gendered if youre not a coward. I liked that a lot.

Soon after i came out as trans fem to my close online friends (none of who were surprised). Meer my now boyfriend that winter and everything was great.... except no one irl knew.

Still took me 3 months to come out to my neighbours (student living so i spent a lot of time with them) and my family. Both coming out messages were sent over WhatsApp at like 2 am and turned off my phone and locked the door. Coming out is hard.

Since then, now 2.5 years later, it had not been all roses and sunshine. But it has been better. I started to feel like i was a person, i started being able to think about a future, beyond extremely surface level, "guess, I'll get a job somewhere and get s house idk". My dad remarked that i stood much more upright when wearing my dress than when boymoding.

My parents luckily took it extremely well, they kinda also had to, as since my coming out my 2 brothers have also been fruity lmao. Within 6 months my family went from "good christian family with 3 sons" to having a trans girl, a gay and a femboy. Im still convinced my mom is an egg. I like my queer family.

Anyway, moral of the story is this: experiment and do what makes you happy. I still dont know how to label myself completely but that is also not too important. Im much happier with myself now than before.

[get-rammed]

Can I get an info dump about Rodney?

I know he's a bastard as well as a bit of a soft boy with a praise kink, which really intrigues me.

I will always take opportunities to spew about my silly bug boy. This is Rodney Osmund

He's a character of mine.

This is his true form, and secondary form. The humanoid one above is his tertiary form, and what I usually draw him in.

He's had many names and many lives in his history. Within the universe I've made, he's a Fiend and can die and be reborn any time Trevor dies. Trevor being one of his 3 siblings. Veronica and Caroline being the other two.

He was once a Warlord by the name of Bog Belly. A scourge upon man and Demon (Demons being an alien race by the name of Tymos who eventually just adopted the name Demons as a secondary and or primary name)

Bog Belly slaughtered thousands simply because he was born angry over and over again, and wanted to have everyone under his heels. No truama there. No reasons. Just a dick because that's his true nature. Though he was kind to his cult members, and his breeding stock.

But roughly 200 years ago, his sister Veronica defeated him in battle. Ending his reign of terror. Veronica heads a group called the Hunters. They were formed specifically to track and kill Bog Belly. After that goal was completed, they more or less ended Warlords being a problem, and now are a government body.

Veronica is the bad twin between herself and Caroline. So she saw zero issue with parading around a defeated Bog Belly. Forcing him to be an act of sorts for a few years before making him work with Colton (Trevor) to improve his morality.

When James (Trevor) picks a fight with his sister and gets all of them killed, they're reborn into their new and current lives.

Every one of Rodney's parents have always been cruel and mean to him. Forcing his nature to always be mean spirited. Except things were different this time.

Rodney's mom was endlessly patient with him, and always showed him true compassion and love. No matter what he did. Rodney is her baby boy, and he's an absolute mama's boy.

Being there for him as he spiraled into drug problems, and there when he cleaned up. He loves his mother. The first person he's ever truly loved.

So when he regained his memories and his full personality, he was far more docile than he had ever been. Not to say he's not still a bastard. He would absolutely kill you with zero hesitation and not even flinch as you cry for help.

But he's definitely trying to feel more empathy and understand what it's like to be normal. But it's a struggle for him. But he is trying.

This man needs. A lot of therapy lmao.

- He hates going to Hunter bases because he's been assaulted a number of times in a multitude of ways.

Rodney leveled a Hunter base in Ohio because of this. He's banned from the state of Ohio. Veronica covered this situation up as she understands why he did it.

She doesn't know he's still assaulted at some bases :( and he won't tell her because he doesn't believe anything will be done about it.

- Rodney can open his pupils to freeze in terror whoever looks at them, in place

- Rodney had front horns like his sister Caroline, but Trevor snapped them off in a fit of well deserved rage.

- Rodney overall is a dick (but he's trying to get better), and uses sex, various drugs, and alcohol to try and survive instead of getting therapy.

- He is taught about in schools as a part of history. People recognize him sometimes and point and talk about him. He's used to it and generally just ignores it.

- Even though he's trying to get better. If given the chance to get his power back. He would. With no hesitation.

- Rodney uses humor and acts like a dipstick so people don't expect too much from him. It upsets him a little hit to be labeled as a man whore who has no real thoughts besides memes, but he also knows it's better than the alteratives.

- Fiends have incredibly low fertility rates, but Rodney has eggs. He has roughly 100 kids, but he acknowledges none of them. "You're my son? And? I ain't got shit for you besides some protips. Get away from me or I will kill you."

- Rodney's spit is dual functional. It is both the most caustic venom known to man or Demon kind. But it also a heavy aphrodisiac. It completely depends on his mood. So it's a risk if you kiss him lmao

- He has a motorcycle and often will still ride it around

You can read more about him, his siblings, and the universe overall here. Just as a warning though. It's long lmao

[spacemonkeysalsa]

I got so very baited recently, because I am naïve in the ways of internet trolls. Lmao and all that, but I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that a lot of people really do seem to genuinely believe that God Gale is a good ending, and then I wrote 2300 words about the three reasons it makes me super sad actually. Writing is a compulsive activity for me, I kinda felt like I had to or I wouldn't be able to think about anything else, or sleep.

My bait would be that I do consider ascending Gale to godhood a worse outcome for Gale than ascending Astarion is for Astarion, not because Ascended Astarion is at all okay, but because Astarion has zero good options in the first place. Gale has a whole range, so going with one of his bad endings feels extra tragic to me because there was potential for him to be as alright as possible for any mfer in Toril, whereas everything with the poor vampire is kind of a negotiation of different scenarios of complication and misery.

Anyway, below this cut is 2300 words of me feeling heavy about God Gale.

God Gale is a Bad Ending (in this essay I blah blah blah)

Three umbrella sads (meaning big reasons containing lots of little reasons)

First) DnD gods are all terrible, and Gale will not be an exception:

The themes of power and authority explored in Baldur’s Gate 3 all have fairly similar messaging. To be reductive: power corrupts and those who seek authority over others inevitably abuse them. This is introduced on both high and lower levels within the story, and on the high side of things, it’s with the gods themselves. The writers chose to include Mystra, a pretty universally beloved goddess who is considered “good” by the majority of DnD players. Mystra is then depicted as someone who grooms and callously discards her chosen. We also learn that she seeks some of them out when they are very young, but that's not a requirement for grooming. The power imbalance between any mortal seeking favor and the literal goddess that they worship is great enough that any close relationship would be inherently difficult to navigate. And from what we see Mystra has grown disconnected from the mortal experience, to a pretty alarming degree, in spite of once being mortal herself and keeping many mortal chosen close. She is not handling this relationship well, and is leveraging the power imbalance rather than trying to mitigate its negative qualities. The significance of this might be somewhat lost on people who are new to Toril and the gods of this world, but a lot of veteran DnD players actually found this to be kinda scandalous/”wildly out of character for Mystra” and they completely missed the point that Larian did this on purpose. It’s a very intentional way of making sure you understand, trust no bitch. (in this scenario gods are the bitches)

I don’t really think there’s much of an argument that Mystra did alright by Gale—but people do try to make it. I’m ignoring them for now. Resting on the assumption that we recognize that what Mystra did to Gale (both prior to the events of the game, and within the game’s narrative) was 100% not ok, I think it’s important to remember that there are endings in which Gale goes to Elysium with Mystra, has the orb removed, is even restored back to his original body from being a mindflayer ect. By all appearances, Gale seems pretty happy with this when it happens. But knowing what we know, he shouldn’t be. He deserves better. I actually love this—I mean, it’s awful and upsetting, but it’s perfectly tragic and appropriate for Gale. He’s not above delusion and weakness and mortal failings. He can become a god, and I actually don’t think I need to make much of an argument for why I don’t believe he would be an exception, because there is no exception, to this particular rule. Even Withers, by and large depicted as helpful, is aloof and ultimately responsible for the Dead Three being such menaces in the first place.

But, I’ll make the argument that Gale can’t be an exception anyway. Or, I’ll let Gale make it for me, by just saying that if you let him ascend to godhood and then talk to him about it at the epilogue party, it’s already pretty clear that he’s not an exception at all. He’s making excuses, he’s disconnected, he’s neglectful and unfeeling. I actually think it’s clearer to see when you aren’t in a relationship with him than when you are, which also feels right. His prior experience with serious relationships was with a goddess who made him her chosen so there’s probably some sense of romance to making his partner feel singled out that he might not even realize he’s performing. To the rest of the world he might be just another god with a domain that can be used for good or ill and who doesn’t concern himself with mortal suffering, but you know “the real him” and you know he’s good to you and that’s all you need to know.

Second) He knows now that he wasn’t enough as he was:

Gale’s desire for power seems like it’s something he’s innately had for a long time, but so is his sweetness and his ability to come down hard on himself for his failings. This is really nicely encapsulated in the letter that you get from Elminster at the epilogue party when he ascends, in which Elminster expresses his regrets over the part he played in Gale’s fate. (I’m just going to glide right past the fact that Elminster, Tara and implicitly Gale’s mother all think his ascension is bad, I do think that’s evidence, but I want to focus on my reasons, not theirs). To sum up, the letter describes Elimnster’s first encounter with Gale, featuring the eight year old wizard accidentally destroying flowers with Fireball and being very upset about it. To do a quick and dirty analysis of the coding here:

Flowers = good and beautiful things (also, the natural world and by extension the mortals in it)

Crying = Gale’s better nature showing through (empathy, something gods repeatedly suck at)

Fireball = power/harm he’s capable of, and power and harm are equivalent (supernatural/godly power and its destructive force against mortals)

That better nature is what we’re always trying to get at with Gale, and they make it pretty difficult because he’s the platonic ideal of a true neutral. And a) alignment in DnD can be difficult to understand, plenty of good characters do horribly immoral things without their alignment shifting, because what constitutes evil is relative to their “chaos—-lawful” positioning and b) I think people who believe Gale to be good aligned need to commit to an evil playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3, keep him in the party, keep him close, and talk to him often, because he is so frighteningly good at making excuses for you as you play the role of an edgelord anime monster. He’s desperate and way more comfortable with all this than you might think, because he’s in the trenches now. When I killed Isobel in my embraced durge run, I would rate Gale’s reaction to that as being slightly less upset than Astarion and Minthara. Everyone hates it though, no one is ok with you killing Isobel, most of them straight up tell you’re a fucking idiot for doing it. Gale’s a bit less harsh. He’s “not sure” it was a good idea.

This isn’t related, but I just realize I REALLY want to hear Gale call me an idiot, is that anywhere in the game? Can someone tell me? Oh god, has this awakened something in me? Anyway, his better nature is someone who is both confident and capable, but no longer reaching for the next horizon, and the next one after that, no longer under the impression that he needs to obtain something unobtainable to be considered worthy of love. He’s still connected to the beauty of mortal experience, and still empathetic. He can cherish what he has and who he is, rather than serving ambition over all. The ending where he becomes a god is validation of his beliefs that he is inadequate as he is. You can fanfic a future in which the opportunity to prove otherwise arises (I did) but that’s where the game leaves you with him. There is no more. The Fireball and the power it demonstrated was more important than the flowers.

Three) He is not making you his equal, he’s the god of ambition and you are a mortal consort just like he was to Mystra:

This is probably going to be the “I was with you until” part. Sorry, it involves DnD lore.

I appreciate that most people simply will not be open to the idea that they misinterpreted what happens with Gale at the end of the game if you romance him, ascend him, and then go with him to Elysium. The “I know what I saw” of it all is really hard to overcome, but: 

I don’t actually feel like writing up an eh “academic” explanation of this again and I can’t find the email where I ranted about it to someone in private, so here’s an excerpt from my Wyll/Gale fic (it’s not posted yet, it’s going to be long and I’m editing) where I included the idea in a way that I hope is more entertaining than if I just wrote out an explanation of how DnD gods are made. Please don’t be too weirded out by the fact that it’s a conversation between Minthara and Wyll and that Wyll is in disguise but Minthara knows it’s him, and is implied to have gone to hell with her girlfriend Karlach, I promise all that makes sense in context:

~

“I must admit, I was surprised to learn that when Gale offered to bring you with him to Elysium, you refused him.”

“Who’ve you been talking to?” Wyll had confided in precious few people about that, and Minthara certainly wasn’t one of them, but then he realized the question was foolish. Karlach had been there for him right after, when his heart was broken. No one knew that feeling better than she did.

“Who else?” Minthara challenged, she had a peculiar look on her face and seemed eager to look away quickly. Then he remembered, she probably found the glamour off-putting.

“The two of you really care deeply for each other.” Wyll remarked.

“She cares for me in spite of her better judgment, in spite of her very nature, it seems at times,” Minthara mused, “I will conquer every layer of hell for her, as that is what is required.” Her eyes traveled pointedly over the collection of tents around them. A mere fraction of her company, but a formidable group of handpicked soldiers.

“Is that what this is all about? Gathering an army?” It wasn’t a bad use of the Eltan’s funds either. Wyll hadn’t expected to approve of Minthara’s mercenary endeavors, but here they were.

“It will take a lot more than soldiers—even very disciplined ones—to defeat archdevil legions. But, it is a start. One certainly cannot expect to raze the hells without soldiers.” Minthara took a long drag on her pipe, red eyes alight with the glow of the fire. “But, we were talking about you,” she gave him one of her accusing smiles. “You just and righteous types do so love to hide the subtle manipulation of changing the subject under the guise of genuine interest in others.”

“I am genuinely interested,” Wyll felt the burn of a blush. The drow was half right, after all. “I don’t know if there’s hope for the hells to ever be more than pure despair, but any improvements would have to come by way of a regime change. I wish you both every good fortune in your efforts.” He cleared his throat, “but fine. What did you want to know about it?”

“I believe I already know why you refused Gale. I would like validation, or a correction, if I’m wrong. But I rarely am.”

Wyll’s guts twisted a little. It wasn’t comfortable to imagine Minthara thinking about his ill-fated romance with the god of ambition, let alone having theories about why it had gone so poorly in the end. “Go on then. Out with it.” He steeled himself for what he imagined would be nothing less than agonizing insight into one of his most painful memories.

“You knew he was lying,” said Minthara simply.

Wyll released the breath he’d been holding and began to nod along as she continued.

“To become a god, one needs, at a minimum, extraordinary power, domain and worship. Sponsorship from another god doesn’t hurt, but if the gods were allowed to simply ascend anyone they lay with, the heavens would be chaos. Ao would never make such an exception.” Minthara smacked her pipe against her hand, loosening the remaining contents and letting the dust fall into the fire with a flare.

“My reasoning was more complex and nuanced than that,” Wyll said quietly, “but you are not wrong. I like to think that such a blatant deception would be above Gale, but I cannot say that I would put it past him to perhaps… put more stock into my ambitions than he should. I think if I’d gone with him, we would have had a few blissful days of happy reunion, and then it would be time to plan the process of my true ascension. I would have to approach it with a detailed mapping of how to acquire what I needed and ascend on my own merits. It would have been a pursuit for something I did not want, that would have likely failed, and cost me the remainder of my life. Everything else I held dear, everything I had worked towards, I would have to abandon. I loved Gale, but to ask that of me—I saw in that moment that he was too blinded by his own desires to understand the sacrifice he demanded, and the impossible expectations he was putting on me. On both of us, if I’m honest.” And he hated to even think about the alternative possibility, but if he was ever going to allow himself enough cynicism to voice it outloud, it might as well be in the presence of the exile Minthara. “Or. There’s always the possibility that he’d actually grown arrogant enough to think he could defy Ao and just… get away with it. In which case, he would have condemned us both to a fate of going to war with the gods and dying ignominiously. For what? I don’t want to be a god, and I never needed him to be one either. He was the one who decided it was a prerequisite to our just… being together.”

“To your first set of excuses, I would say you are being too generous,” Minthara narrowed her gaze at him and took a deep breath before she said, “but to your second, darker accusations, I think you are being too harsh. Gale may be arrogant, but he is also highly intelligent. Intentionally defying Ao would be very stupid indeed.”

���Not like defying devils.”

“Not at all,” Minthara grinned wickedly. “Devils live to be defied. That’s why they’re all so tolerant of coups in the hells. But the denizens of the heavens demand obedience, loyalty, deference, and they are not forgiving of defiance.”

Wyll found he felt better. Just having said all that outloud had made the tension between his shoulders loosen. For all her blatant tolerance of every evil, Minthara’s particular brand of judgment certainly left one feeling anything but judged. 

“Karlach was worried for you. As she would be. She saw your pain and wanted to make it better for you. But I was…. Proud of you. For whatever that’s worth. The choice was between pain, or lies. You would not live in a delusion, though it may have been very pleasant for a while.”

~

Yeah, basically that. You can argue he might be encouraging you to become his equal, but it could just as easily be framed as him requiring you to become such, in order to be worthy of being with him, and at no small personal cost.

[kunaigirl]

What are your digital circus headcanons?

Like, in general and/or about the characters? Sure! I headcanon the current story taking place between 1999-2003. The original game was probably in development as early as 1994 or 1995. Pomni - Worked in general C&A company IT (recent hire) who originally got called in to fix some mild hardware issues. Somehow along the way, she got persuaded into play testing the external headset. I also headcanon her as being a lesbian, like me! Ragatha - Company secretary or otherwise a business phone-line operator. She was called in to test a visual demo under mysterious circumstances. I also headcanon her as bisexual!

Jax - I imagine he was a play-tester who answered an ad in the phonebook or something to be a part of a one-man-focus-group for the game in exchange for a quick sum of money and a free copy upon public release. He was pretty down on his luck at the time, probably struggling to pay for college, and agreed. I also headcanon him as pansexual! Gangle - Oh poor sweet Gangle. She's another character I think worked for the company, but "worked for" is a strong set of words. I think she was probably the sad unpaid office intern that everyone picked on and was made to run around like crazy. Like the rest, she was asked to play test some hardware at some point. I also headcanon her as heterosexual!

Zooble - I'm leaning towards the idea of them being something of a shift advisor for one of the company's visual development teams. Their attitude comes from people asking for days off and deadline extensions, which she normally wouldn't mind, except when that makes their boss (step above them) yell at them over it too. They later chose to demo the headset on their own, out of curiosity. I also headcanon them and nonbinary, aromantic, and heterosexual!

Caine - He's a definitely mystery, but I think he's an AI programmed originally for the game who at some point developed full sapience and consciousness, and planned on keeping everyone who play tests the sets for himself. He also (after whatever it was that happened to the actual company) decided to take the game world over and build it to be exactly what he wants it to be. I also headcanon him to be aroace! (aromantic, asexual) Bubble - is bubble

That's what I've come up with so far! If I'm proven wrong/etc later, that's fine lol. Headcanons are just headcanons! If anyone has different ideas/etc, that's fine too! This is just what I think about things in general right now! After all, at the time I write this we've only got one episode to work off of and EVERYTHING is open to various levels of interpretations. (although my sexuality headcanons I'm totally standing by lmao, it's just fun!)

[mermaidsirennikita]

Have you read Kerrigan Byrne's victorian rebels?

Yes. I have issues with some things Kerrigan has written (which I'll get into) and additionally her use of AI art and reaction to (pretty forthright but not impolite) critique of the use of AI art that make it so that, where I was initially in love with the first couple of books I read by her (The Highwayman and Seducing a Stranger) I can't recommend her anymore. My takes on those books:

The Highwayman--honestly great, I'm afraid. Dark and interesting and hot. Love the hero and the heroine. Has one of my favorite sex scenes ever. I own it and I will reread it, but again, I don't feel like I can recommend her in general.

The Hunter--has a lot of good stuff going for it but a) I actually realized later that this has, down to a science, the exact same twist as Darling Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt; I'm not suggesting this was intentional, but where I see people compare The Highwayman to a Kleypas book a lot, that was some general structural stuff, whereas this is THE EXACT same twist b) more importantly, I super hate the hero having a martial arts instructor who gives vague "East Asian" types of platitudes in broken English, it's gross! I also remember this really weird passage about a brown manservant (who is later killed, fwiw) being described as like... really simple... and having "gentle eyes" like a cow or horse or something. It felt gross.

And I will say: obviously, I've read HR authors who've done similarly. It's always bad. What I find adds an extra layer of concern to Kerrigan's work is that it's all relatively recent. You're not picking up a book from the 80s where I wouldn't even expect a (white) critique partner or editor to be likely to call this shit out. I really don't get it.

The Highlander--oh, man. This has the bones of being a sexy Highlander Captain Von Trapp book. And I'll be honest, I loved the leads and their dynamic on a basic level. EXCEPT. AND THIS IS A BIG EXCEPT. For the fact that the hero is a self-admitted war criminal. His angst? Is that he was an officer in the Queen's Army who razed Indian villages to the ground and killed/drove the killings of innocent civilians. And you know what? He feels bad about it, which is why he took a child who was one of the only survivors of one of his massacres and made him his vALET! GREAT! LOVE IT!

I'll be honest, I found so little criticism of this (probably because the book generally isn't popular--I read Seducing a Stranger first, I think, and The Highwayman second, or the other way around, so this was somewhere in the middle of the pack) that I was like "maybe I just exaggerated it in my head" but I reread it and nope, it was uhhhh pretty bad dude. Like, the valet guy then tries to kill the hero and the book is kinda like "well fair" but it's also like lmao? This is the villainous crux of the novel...? And kinda fed into the "untrustworthy sneaky servant of color" thing, which like, YEAH. HE SHOULDN'T BE TRUSTWORTHY BECAUSE IN TURN WHY WOULD HE EVER LIKE THE GUY WHO KILLED HIS FAMILY.

The Duke--I don't remember much of this one tbh

The Scot Beds His Wife--I liked this one a lot back in the day, but I haven't read it in a while so perhaps I missed some horror, can't confirm or deny

The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo--same as the above

Seducing a Stranger--I loved this one; I love Carlton Morley; I really wish there weren't so many things going on with the rest of the series, dude.

The thing is that Kerrigan's issues with race keep cropping up. The Highlander is the biggest example. But I remember there being some weird shit in How to Love a Duke in Ten Days that I honestly, blame is on me here, missed the first go re: fetishized islanders. It's like, throwaway lines where I get the vibe that she's trying to acknowledge that people of color exist in the Victorian era, which good in theory, but it's often patronizing or fetishistic or downright "what the fuck were you thinking" as with The Highlander. They're often servile. It's just not the look, and the thing is that if it happens and an author gets called out and takes that feedback and works on their books... I'm white, it's not on me to say whether or not that's valid. But Kerrigan's work has it repeatedly, and she should know better. Plus, she just seems super bad at taking criticism (I've heard of her responding to critiques of The Highwayman super defensively, in a setting wherein her response was not necessary or wanted) so I doubt she'd work on it.

I think she's honestly a very talented writer, and the two books I say I loved? I loved. I recommended them all the time back in the day. But I did some self analysis and was like "Do you honestly feel good about recommending these books with the concerns you have about the books you're not recommending?" Because there are situations, where one mildly problematic book (say, a book with a slut shaming heroine written 10+ years ago) won't put me off recommending other, ideally later works by the author. But The Highlander WASN'T mild and it wasn't isolated. And after the AI thing happened, it was like--dude, you should know better, you shouldn't be recommending books by someone that gives you vibes this bad.

And I shouldn't have given her the leniency I did after The Highlander. That's really on me.

[softcallofdutyimagines]

In Dreams

Summary: Even a monster dreams of brighter days. It's only the present ones that make him into what he is. In a quiet moment before a horrid act, Makarov reflects on what it is he's fighting for.

Tags: Makarov, drabble, uuuh a little un-reality, idk that's about it tbh, Makarov and his fucked up world view

Tag list: Idk if I even have one lmao, it's been a thousand years. But ik @samatedeansbroccoli and @tolovaj are here for this kind of stuff

Ding...

The path ahead is short and sweet. Dark, tilled soil cradling a long line of well placed cement tiles. Perfect, even if he does say so himself. Vladimir Makarov rolls his shoulder after a long day of work. His arm is tired from carrying this briefcase, but... when he sees those tiny handprints embedded with his in the seventh tile into the walkway, he finds a little more strength yet.

The grass is looking lush today, a beautiful compliment to the garden of flowers beneath the widows beside the porch. His fine dress shoes click on the two short stairs up. Just a ways before him is a solid, neatly painted front door.

His front door.

Pausing just a moment at the head of the stairs, he takes a deep breath. Those flowers truly are wonderful- He'll remember to compliment his wife on them later tonight. Click click click A warm light shines from under the door, golden and welcoming like nothing he's ever seen anywhere else.

He places his briefcase neatly by the little swing and stretches once more. He'll retrieve it later- right now he'll be needing these two strong arms for something far more important. There too wafts a smell just as fragrant as the flowers as he reaches for the ornate door handle. Dinner must be nearly ready- He only hopes he's not too late to help her finish cooking.

The door swings open gently as he takes two steps over the threshold, "I'm home!", he calls.

A trite declaration, but one he never fails to fall back on. And why not? It just feels so... right. Funny, too.

You know, he's said that line so many times and yet... this evening somehow feels like it could be the very, happy first. As though this time, it's really true.

He is home.

Home at long, long last.

Ding...

"Papa!", his son shrieks in joy. Hardly more then a few years old, the boy wobbles up from his toys by the hearth and runs over as best he can on those tiny legs. The world moves so slowly, as though this moment- this feeling could indeed last forever.

Makarov widens his stance and opens his arms, eyes alight to match the giddy excitement in his son. He bends down just enough to the child's level, before the impatience of waiting takes over him- Rushing forward a few steps more, he snatches the boy up in his arms and spins him around.

He lifts him up into the air with a jolt and a playful growl. His son has his father's eyes with the exception of the one warm, brown one he got from his mother. Makarov kisses his son above the odd, brown eye- He'll never forget the flood of pride and joy he felt when those eyes first opened.

The child laughs and flails his arms, oblivious to his father's sentimental reminiscing, only happy to be reunited once more.

"Vova, gentle!", the worried voice of his wife comes from nearby.

Even as he feigns innocence and holds their son close to hide the rough housing, as usual he's soon to find it's not quite fast enough. She strides over and pets the boys head first, checking over him before, after a moment more, leaning in for a kiss from her husband second. She's a fine, beautiful woman, and an even better mother- He knows these things as fact, even if he can't quite make out the details of her face.

Ding...

His son- What was his name again? Calls for his mother and, bored now of dad, reaches over to her with a pitiful flop. Makarov passes him along, earning one more kiss from her- but it's not before he draws her to him, hugging them both tight, does he let her go. She rolls her eyes and laughs at his softness, still just as electric and carefree as when he first met her.

They share a long proper kiss, before at last she pushes him off playfully.

She turns to walk away, a coy smile on her lips and a fire in her eyes as she leaves to go, bouncing their son on her hip. Only for a minute does she look away, finding her path around the smattering of wooden blocks on the ground. Before she turns the too bright corner back into the kitchen, she stops to look over her shoulder, "Dinner is almost ready, Vova"

Ding...

His wife kisses the head of their son lovingly, "Don't keep us waiting", she smiles warmly, before walking into that strange, golden light- so close, yet just out of reach.

Ding...

Not but a minute passes before she calls his name, laughter in her voice, "Vova!"

"I'm coming!", he snaps out of whatever daze he's in and follows after her. Strange, he could've sworn he heard...

Ding

"Vova-"

"Vova!"

Ding

Her voice draws further and further away, a distressing panic rising in it all the the time. No matter how fast he runs. The light of the kitchen and the hallway in the house grows longer and dimmer the harder he tries. The harder he breathes. The more tired he becomes. It always gets furth-

A sharp pain strikes his temple. Like a migraine or the blade of a dagger- He cries out in the middle of the abyss and stops abruptly, wrenching his shoulder to brace his ear.

Ding

"Makarov!"

Vladimir Makarov shakes his head, dropping his shoulder, and opens his eyes once more. The vision is gone- Now, all that remains is the tiny confines of the elevator and the gang of armed men around him. Dressed in black and armed to kill, just as he is- All awaiting his command.

He looks from the source of the voice and over to the control panel numbering the floors they have left to travel. It'll be soon. Then, down to the loaded rifle in his hands and clip after clip of ammunition around his waist.

Ding

Makarov breaths a forceful blast of air through his nostrils. He doesn't want to have to do this, but this fucked up world pushed him to it. For if he doesn't, then how else is he to transform this world- To beat it into submission. To craft it in the way that he sees fit. To make it safe enough for his future? For his family? For his children?

He's tried of waiting. Tired of hoping. No one is coming to save this God forsaken place, and there's no one left to understand things as he does. No one ready to do the things that need to be done. The things he's willing to do. Someone who understands that something like this- That some things, simply must be done.

All in the name of a brighter future. A better day.

Lit with it's own fire, the world must burn and burn with all those sons of bitches in it before it can be reformed. And when, one day soon, he has that kind of power...

Ding

Just one more horrid deed. And then another after that. And another and another and however many it takes to set things right- He'll see to it himself.

Ding

With one resolute nod, Makarov turns over his shoulder. The firing squad behind him load their weapons on his mark. They watch and they wait, until at last he speaks.

"Remember...", with righteous determination, he clicks off the safety and cocks his M4-

Ding!

"No Russian"

[cartelheir]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑  𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 .

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟷    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.

NAME  :    patricia carosella. EYE COLOR  :    dark brown. HAIR STYLE  /  COLOR  :    brown,  waist-length.   it’s often styled into soft,  voluminous curls,  but her natural hair texture has much tighter curls. HEIGHT  :    5'2″ / 157cm. CLOTHING STYLE  :    fancy.   she loves elegant clothing and expensive fabrics,  often with pops of bold patterns of colors.   she also highly prefers her clothes to be tailored to her frame.   think designer dresses,  high heels,  fur coats;  and,  of course,  lots of jewelry always. BEST PHYSICAL FEATURE  :    she’s a 10/10 nobody can deny that.   but i would say her best features are her lips and the beauty marks on her face.   also her boobs.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟸    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.

FEARS  :    helplessness,  being at someone’s mercy.   abandonment.   she’s also been scared of dogs since she was attacked by one as a child. GUILTY PLEASURE  :     junk food,  trashy reality tv. BIGGEST PET PEEVE  :    passive aggressiveness,  being interrupted / talked over,  being given the silent treatment,  people who walk their dogs without a leash or get mad when she’s scared of their dogs  ( specially if it’s a large dog ),  work meetings about things that could’ve easily been solved through an email or a phone call. AMBITIONS FOR THE FUTURE  :    killing the person who’s hurt her the most.   she would love to get away with it unharmed and become a cartel boss afterwards,  but revenge is her priority.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟹    :    𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒.

FIRST THOUGHTS WAKING UP  :    "who the fuck is calling me at 4am”.   otherwise,  probably work. THEY THINK ABOUT MOST  :    work.   benjamín.   lately she thinks about the past a lot,  even when she tries not to. WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT BEFORE BED  :    work again lmao. WHAT THEY THINK THEIR BEST QUALITY IS  :    honestly?   her looks.   there are days pat struggles to see much good in herself except for that.   but if she had to pick her best personality trait,  it would be her boldness.   she’s not afraid of saying and doing what she wants.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟺    :    𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓’𝐒    𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑?

SINGLE OR GROUP DATES  :    she thinks group dates feel more like hanging out with friends than an actual date.   she prefers single ones because they’re more intimate and romantic,  but also because she likes undivided attention. TO BE LOVED OR RESPECTED  :    respected. BEAUTY OR BRAINS  :    both.   pat gravitates a lot towards successful and powerful people,  and you can’t really get to that level if you’re not smart,  so it just kinda goes hand in hand.   but the truth is she won’t look at someone twice if she doesn’t think they’re attractive. DOGS OR CATS  :     as mentioned above she’s scared of dogs.   cats all the way.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟻    :    𝐃𝐎    𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘…

LIE  :    if she has to lie to get what she wants,  yes.   she also tends to lie about her abusive relationship when questioned about it,  like making up stories about the sources of bruises. BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES  :    almost too much.   she thinks she’s invincible sometimes. BELIEVE IN LOVE  :    most of the time,  not really.   but when she does fall in love,  she falls hard,  and tries really hard to make it work.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟼    :    𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄    𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘    𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑…

BEEN ON STAGE  :    yes,  she used to sing in church choir as a child. CHANGED WHO THEY WERE TO FIT IN  :    no.   pat’s unapologetic about who she is,  and doesn’t care about not being liked.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟽    :    𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒.

FAVORITE COLOR  :     definitely red.   she loves gold too. FAVORITE ANIMAL  :     cats and tigers  ( which to her are just cats,  but larger ). FAVORITE BOOK  :     pedro páramo. FAVORITE GAME  :    chess and blackjack.

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟾    :    𝐀𝐆𝐄.

DAY THEIR NEXT BIRTHDAY WILL BE  :    april 15th.   y’all better be thinking of a gift. HOW OLD WILL THEY BE  :    technically 29,  but i don’t usually age her up i just have her turn the same age over and over again.

TAGGED BY:  stolen from @bornfornothin thank u TAGGING:  @newyorksrose,  @dadukos,  @parieur,  @exspiritment,  @mdellin,  @justicism,  @afraidofchange​  if you guys want to!!

[arktaisch]

Terrible OUAT thought of the day

(Of course I should just be writing words that go in the story I’m currently working on, but no, I’m in the “I hate it, it sucks” phase plus the “Why isn’t it done yet? I want to work on something else, preferably not more fanfiction but I’m lying to myself” phase, so here I am, being distracted and not typing in the file I have open in the other tab.)

Rumplestiltskin really is a female-coded character (and it’s only getting worse in my stupid fanfiction, LMAO).

In this case, what I mean is that he invests so much into his one (and later, another one after the first is dead) child. And for that, he has such a risk-averse approach to life (‘cowardice’, ‘paranoia’, ‘over-protectiveness’) — a loss would devastate him utterly (and it did! Damn OUAT!). Fitting that he is a wizard, since that’s the sensible approach to being a wizard (though as the Dark One he could be the tank, I’m sure the powers that be would squash him as quickly as my wizard got killed that one time he had delusions of fighter-hood).

It’s extraordinary how he does NOT cut his losses and abandon Baelfire (except that one crucial moment when he let go), but works for centuries to find him again, when the ‘normal’ thing for a man to do would be to move on (just like Malcolm did and suggested that Rumple do, and Hook’s father did). His dedication really impressed me on a personal level, since at least three men in my family did in fact leave their wives and children and then start new families. None of them made any effort as far as I know to reconnect (to be fair, they might as well have jumped through a portal into another realm considering the circumstances). One set of offspring/father became known to each other again decades later through a bizarre turn of events, another contacted their half-siblings later in a more mundane way. So yay for surprise!cousins, I guess.

Well, but since I am so entrenched in the whole heteronormative/gender binary mindset yadda yadda yadda that must mean I gotta make Belle more male-coded… I suppose I did, in some ways!? And canon already leans that way.  I mean, adding more magic to the Belle ‘yang’/light and Rumple ‘yin’/dark was me, but… Canon has Belle being the one to be more impulsive and daring (she is the one going “do the brave thing” and hero this, hero that, so eh…) and just look at Lacey hitting on everything in sight (and telling Gold to kill that inconvenient kid from the prophecy, the one NOT genetically related to her)… even without a Lacey in my story, she’s still an aspect of Belle. Not to mention the whole Belle/Will Scarlet thing (unlike the Gold/Regina business in s6a, Belle seemed to be into Will sincerely and with no ulterior motives).

And it was Belle who handed over her baby to the Blue Fairy!!! I know it was just to make the idiotic backwards plot with Cloaked!Rumbaby vs Emma work out, but still…!!! It suggests a certain carelessness with her offspring to me (never mind sleeping-cursing herself+baby, or her plan to run away to the Enchanted Forest, not noted for its advanced medical care, even worse after all the Dark Curses), only a few steps above dumping them into the Magic Cyclone Adoption Center.

[theshippingcorner]

Rebecca from Resi headcanons? Any headcanons u can think of

My whole ask box is Resi now the ask about my hyperfixations was a trap lmao there's also barely any easy to find Gifs of Rebecca sjdjfjdkdj

She has a good heart, honestly too good as we see when she releases a convicted criminal because she believes in his innocence. Because of her kindness she's most likely very easy to push around and take advantage of.

Given she's a field medic at only 18 when we first meet her its more than likely she is either incredibly smart or simply somehow got a medical license very young.

Similar to the above she must have been the daughter of someone who worked for the special ops or she was scouted fresh out of school for whatever purpose because she has exceptional combat training for such a young age

There is no reasonable way she isn't horribly traumatized and mentally ill because of the things she's seen so young, and the people she's lost.

Everyone in the series deals with trauma and pain differently but what I know of Rebecca personally I think she wears her trauma well and uses it to lift herself up and stay as positive as ever rather than letting it bring her down to a level of addiction or aggression like her peers.

I would personally think she knows Leon, Jill, and Chris best of all her peers and has probably patched them up more than a few times after missions.

Despite being much younger than her friends I imagine she still mother hens them all the time and dotes on them, especially Leon and Chris since the two can be stubborn and hot-headed.

She may be small but she's strong and tough, she's probably broken up her fair share of fights when her peers get a little too heated in an argument about what to do with a situation.

[dulcewrites]

Happy new year!!! I'm glad you are extending FMO, it's a series I can't live without it. You are one of my favourite Aemond authors and I absolutely lobr with characterisation of Aemond and the Reader.

The biggest criticism I have of HoTD is how rushed it was and how it didn't explore the characters or motivations, stripping more than a few characters of their complexity. So seeing you write the characters to be so complex and making them similataneously good and bad (except Otto, Viserys and Daemon, fuck those guys for real) is seriously refreshing and amazing.

I also love that you are really representing the poc community with this story! It's been one of the few I could just immerse myself in. Not just physically but the relationship between the reader and the mother? INSPIRED. I feel like the reader sought to find some semblance of what she lacked in her mother in Alicent but was reminded that Alicent would ride for her son in the ways Reader might have to ride for her children not just defense of them but trying to defebd them against what the Targaryen ExceptionalismTM tells them about them being above everything. The same exceptionialism that is destroying the realm, their house and themselves as individuals as the go through life believing they are owed and as such don't think about everything that gets trampled along the way.

Happy new year to you as well 🎆🎇

Thank you so much. I have a lot of fun exploring the characters in different way. I think the setting and ground work makes it super easy to take the story in all kinds of directions.

Reader, Alicent, and reader’s mom are super interesting to compare and contrast with each other. I think reader is envious sometimes of the way Alicent, despite all they may do, goes to bat for her kids. Reader has not acted out the way Aegon and Aemond have, did everything she was supposed to and her mother still doesn’t give her that affection. I also think it’s why reader is so fiercely protective over her kids. Paranoia of the worst happening drives Alicent and reader

She wants her kids to be proud of who they are, and understand they honestly they are special. Like being a dragon rider is special. But it can be hard for her to celebrate it 1. Bc dragons scare her lmao and 2. So much of that is wrapped up in the bad things that come with Targaryens. Reader would hate for her kids to grow up with a level of entitlement she sees in a lot of her extended family. She will hear them read the stories of their ancestors and kind of cringe bc like damn… they really just took and took and took

[the-chickenshit-oddity]

B99 Obsessive Rewatch Season Two

rewatching B99 and taking notes. also, sometimes i get ideas of stuff i wanna see played out more, so i post them as prompts and link them here. spoilers for all of season two.

2:1

Jake as an italian mobster kinda

Is this the first holt&jake hug we’ve seen?? Rayray doesnt even flinch so cute

Jake’s rapidfire recap : fixed a boxing match / smoked a whole cigar w/o vomitting / was in a room w/ 10 Sals

Jake lies to amy about liking her

Jake has “lady hands”

Holt says he’s seen MOVIES PLURAL

Awesome begins with an O, JP 2013 probably

“i am feeling trepidation at the prospect of a parentless existence” = baby holt’s parents had a thing when he was 7

Weirdest thing in the whole episode is mobster jake being beaten by a cop on mob turf and none of his mobster buddies helping out

Baby holt snuck into daddy holt’s office to check out his collection of antique globes = daddy holt issues ref above

Proud daddy holt. Forgot to note if it happened in s1 so we’ll consider this the beginning

Jake unlies to amy about liking her

Gina and boyle shag again

2:2

Terry’s getting snipped and gina is way creepy

Boyle has a sister (probs castle girl) that we never mention again?

Wunch appearance and holt is a dramatic shit i love him

Wunch&holt : wunch shot holt, holt tried to get her fired, wunch destroyed holts file while UC, holt embarrassed wunch in front of derrick jeater who??

Amy’s fierce when someone’s fucking with her career we stan

Charles has seen the little mermaid

Holt’s a great amy dad cause both of them are ambitious nerds

2:3

Jimmy jabs est.2008

Jake knows rosa’s friend katie (and s1 amy’s friend kylie – how the fuck)

Lots of parallels to FRIENDS. Accidental sex tape, two guys accidentally nap together, probs other stuff, where’s the downstairs officers brooming the ceiling?

Squad screams like maniacs in the bullpen and random background people literally dont even care – ie this is such a habit people are over it

Bomb suits kinda look like minions or is it just me

Hitchcock is evil – do we think he’s related to gina or what?

Amy wins

2:4

Halloween heist

Holt is a master jake player, all rejoice

Holt says watch from kevdad & kevdad dead

I want ginas jacket

Jake has cousins ie jake has aunties??

2:5

Trust levels off the charts. Leaping at terry, telling holt the truth and asking amy for help. Okay so that’s only jake but still

Wunch is evil

My man holt is sooo tense, how long do we bet till he blows up?

Amy is giving toddler mom vibes rn somebody give her a margarita

>> amy has to babysit some random kid and realises he’s identical to jake in behaviour

Im gonna need baby terry being a disco champion thing

>>Omg!! Holt caught the disco killer, maybe disco killer killed disco nerds, ie holt saved terry’s life!

Lmao kev passive agressive is my life

Holt is a regular holmes wtf

How did jake get guest pjs, im sensing a food/drink related accident which makes twice this episode with amy’s car

Holt&jake teaming up is my fave thing ever

Terry at a soccer game for his kids would be terrifying

2:6

I’m in love with jake’s “why am i an idiot” face

Amy goes to holt screeching “captain” like he’s her dad, i need an amy prequel series, i love her

Rosa’s really backhanded at compliments it’s awesome

So cops hate lawyers and firepeople?? Who are they buddies with? (except for the criminals eh)

Whats a pow wow?

Is this a “season’s main human-mess that needs holt guidance” thing? First was jake, this feels like amy’s

2:7

When did holt get stabbed IN THE NECK??

gina get off on chaos like a demon she’s evil

precinct lockdown ep – all of those people are terrible and i hate them

why does terry’s wife not care about her brother being a dick?

2:8

Terry and amy waterboard themselves for some reason

So cops hate mailpeople too

Forgot holt had a gambling addiction

Coping stuff : holt workouts / terry self torture wtf? / gina meditation

Jake&rosa friendship is great

2:9

Holt wants bland ugly food, like how picky can you get

How is jake inviting teddy to come a proof of teddy being romantic?

Note to self : never go to a themed hotel they’re haunted

“pb&js are so simple a child could make them” makes me see neglected baby holt making himself food as best he could >> tie in with no dad baby holt thingy

Rosa got possessed by the devil

Lessons : CB > RH cooking stuff (epic fail)

Wheres the award for the most awkward double date ever?

2:10

Doug judy’s back

Jake has no ability to hold grudges?

Doug judy’s got real nice teeth

Amy stand up to holt, holt likes

I’m not interested in the whole boyle/linetti storylines :/

2:11

Holt took all night to think of an insult for wunch but burns people left and right no problem >> my boy doesn’t actually hate her?? Omg is this some weird non-sexual game they play? Gross

Amy&rosa in a car for four hours? I need to see it

“uncle ray” talks about work so much even his NEPHEW knows who’s who. 1) was kev not there, because no cop talk policy 2) was he EFFUSIVE??

Most of what i’ve learnt from this watching session today is that i’m real hungry why do they keep eating

You know what’s inconspicuous? Two guys sitting in front of windows with massive cameras. Totes invisible

Jake&charles have a roomie breakdown, gina&amy have an existential crisis, terry is a mom and rosa&holt are ...there

Man i do NOT want to shag in my boss’ house, i mean rosa’s got her own flat, cmon

Kev making bacon smiles on his pancakes totes goes into my kev&holt get baby martin for holidays headcanon (see season one obsessive rewatch)

“this isn’t my first rodeo” jake abt dealing w/ scully >> fits into baby jake shadowing scully for junior cops thingy (also in s1 obsessive rewatch)

“brothers fight but they’re always there for each other” says the only child (fun fact, only jake and gina are only kids (except for maybe terry cause i can’t remember))

2:12

I love the amy drunkenness scale

A fondue stick in a fanny pack sounds like a disaster waiting to happen

Beachhouse w/ the boss episode

Amy&gina&terry get paired up lots

Why didn’t they turn the holt party into a movie night??

Au where boyle is a seduction coach

Gina turned not-evil for a second

2:13

Amy’s def of partner : bounce ideas, eat street meat & stake out, burnt coffee

Jake hasnt been to the dentist in seven years (at this point i’m thinking he was kidnapped and doesnt remember his season one dentist trip)

“it’s payback time” to the drug dealer who killed all of jake’s family

Gina’s got two grandmas

Charles want to have a bowling business

How do terry’s biceps have their own biceps???

Holt likes the name todd, didnt he have an ex called todd?

Isn’t yahooanswers dead? How does jake know stuff now?

2:14

If s1 is parenting Jake and teaching Amy independence, is s2 about parenting Amy and bonding with Rosa through evil humour?

Jake tells terry he loves sofia??

Rosa’s enemy marker-hoarder carla biancci in 2nd grade turned bully till grad

Jake tells sofia he loves her

Gina being a dick after saying something true – a trend?

Charles’ dad was a florist and now i want a classic flower shop romance

Sofia breaks up ouchhh

Eww gross wunch kissed holt i need brainbleach

Charles doesnt think his dad loves him?

2:15

Rosa’s parents are “smiley morons & hug freaks”. Did not seem like it in the coming out episode?

Second massive cop lasertag game thingy

Holt confused face implies he never saw titanic

Note to self try to make a blondie sometime

Holt apologises the next day for trying to disqualify gina from pers.test >> did kevin tell him his type didn’t fit him?

Gina thinks holt flirts with her so she’s a wunch but on their side?

2:16

“if u love s/o u’ll remember what they look like” but KEVIN HAS A PORTRAIT MATE

Oh this is the “i’m sorry you weRE STABBED” episode

I want marvin the geriatric bank robber to be buddies with gina??

Im lowkey upset that kevs buddies with gina tho, he’s not evil enough

Ray talks about jake to random waitresses and his painting teacher

Okay i get it, amy and charles are too simpy, rosa’s too unhinged, we don’t talk about hitchcock and scully, terry’s got his own shit, so that only leaves gina and jake and it cannot be jake, so. Yeah okay gina and kev are buddies

Ray called jake a genius just cause he heard him practice his holt impression, how cute

2:17

Jake’s a creepy girl stalker?? Poor jenny gildenhorn

Rosa has a grandad

Amy plays french horn

Jake answers amy’s proposal with “yes a thousands times yes”

MARCUS DVRs BONES THE HOLTCOZNER BEDROOM WEIRD DVR QUEUE SOLVED EXCEPT WHYS HE IN THEIR ROOM??

2:18

Dickhead peralta shows up, i hate him :(

Holt’s “unsolvable” riddle “There are 12 men on an island. 11 weigh exactly the same amount, but one of them is slightly lighter or heavier. You must figure out which. The island has no escapes, but there is a seesaw. The exciting catch? You can only use it three times.”

Jakes allergic to bees and dickhead knows about it

I’d go on a sudoku cruise too amy

Honestly this riddles fucking easy im so angry

Amy’s right tho, you do 6v6, one side’s heavier, then you divide that one 3v3, one side’s heavier, you do 1v1 and either they’re equal and the last one’s the heaviest or one of them’s already the heaviest

I cannot tell you how infuriated i get everytime im reminded of dickhead peralta’s later character arc.

2:19

s/o framing jake as druggie

spoiler its sofias druggie bossman

holt : “sarcasm the cowards lie” ouch

oh yeah also terry and holt missed ginas dance thing and shes upset

and also charles gotta work with the two giant babies

2:20

Jakes unhealthy obsession with his job episode 40 of 40

Rosa&holt scheming to avoid personal chats, relatable

Rosas dads a teacher, two sisters

2:21

Jake and amy have a crush on the same guy till the guy likes amy and jake likes amy more

Terrys looking into a new job and boyle gina holt get weird about it

2:22

Jakes on a treasure hunt, terry’s looking into a school for his kids again?

Holt v wunch 1946th time

Bingpot

The velvet thunder is probs thor’s more dramatic second cousin

2:23

Wunch got holt transfered sad face

Rosa’s bday

Wunch being incredibly sexual-harrassy again

Rosa likes gilmore girls

Weird sex thing from wunch again geez

Rayray does the robot yay. Dude was there a cancel-scare?

[wtf-amiru]

ah fuck

k so a'miru is largely a walking headcanon because her playthrough was A MESS

she was my first character ever, i made her years ago with bon on ultros to play with him and some other discord server friends. Could not get into the game. Was not really in the right place at the time, wasn't big on online multiplayer games and the walls of text threw me right out of it, i couldn't follow the story because i'm too fucking dyslexic so i fell off pretty fucking quick, like lvl 34ish.

3 years later, mid pandemic Echo says he plays ffxiv with his brother and i'm like oh shit i have a character in that game haha and he's like

👀make a character and play with me. now. this is what dc i'm on. So I do, I go make arannis on coeurl and get him to, again, around lvl 35ish before i fall off again for almost a year when the guilt of not playing with echo like i said i would gets to me and i decide to power through it, dyslexia be damned. I get into heavensward and i'm fucking struggling because it's just so much text and i finally google for screenreaders, there's gotta be something, and i find one and i'm instantly an addict. I finish the entirety of msq through endwalker in no time and i'm so hooked and rambling at bon that he decides to come back too, he'd only quit because everyone else had as well.

Success. more friends in ffxiv. except bon is on a different data center....but it's the data center that a'miru is on! but he's almost 40 levels above me, i need to catch up!

long story short i blitzed through msq to catch up to bon on a'miru without REALLY paying attention things and then retroactively went and made all my headcanons lmao slowing down for ng+ has me rethinking some very specific things. It might actually make more sense this way. I never really knew what to do with stormblood, i think i do now.