#i want to scan a bunch of stuff from them but some of the pieces i was hoping for aren't in ANY of these which is wild bc. where are they

[bishonenspit]

autism levels CATASTROPHIC

[thewritermj]

Favors (2)

pre-outbreak!Joel Miller x fem! reader part 2 (part 1 here)

summary: where you repay Joel for his favors. warnings: MDNI smut, drinking, petnames, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v (please, use protection), slight daddy kink, a hint of daddy issues, and I think that's all a/n: english is not my first language, so go easy on me. it's my first time writing smut that's why it took so long for me to post it, sorry. hope you enjoy, I didn't, but who knows.

It was Friday night and Joel’s house was full of teenagers girls screaming and laughing in the living room with a bunch of snacks in front of them. A pack of magazines, make up, pink pillows and 2000’s movies were placed all over the place. The girls had put on some make up with lots of glitter to take photos. And Joel was having a hard time finding peace in the middle of it all. It was like he was caught in the middle of a war zone where the weapons were made of rainbows and unicorn and everything sounded like those fairy noises from Disney movies.

But Sarah had the brightest smiled on her face and she was almost out of breath with laughter, all the girly stuff was worth it.

Tommy had taken off to let the girls have some privacy, and he was on his way too, Sarah was big enough to prevent the house from getting on fire –or so he hoped-, and he wasn’t going far anyway, just the neighbour’s for some beer.

He was about to say goodbye when the doorbell rang. He frowned and walked over to see who it was. As he opened the door, he was met with a pair of big eyes staring at him.

“Hi” you said. “I just came by to give Sarah her-“ but you were interrupted by the girls hands pushing you inside.

“I didn’t know you’d come! Come meet everyone!” She hurried.

You smiled and greeted her friends, trying to process what all the seven girls were saying at once. Trying to catch your breath you seated on the couch and stared at Sarah wile she rambled some old histories about the time you were her babysitter. But all you could do was scan the house and mentally try to list everything that had changed since your last visit.

Like the new armchair, the matching curtains, the new TV, some more photos and little pieces of decoration. The kitchen had changed also, it used to have a door and now it was no longer separated from the living room. You liked, you could see the backyard from where you were sitting.

“Anyways…What are you doing here, y/n?” She widened her eye and glanced over to her dad who was watching the scene from the kitchen counter. “Are you and my dad going out?”

“W-what? No…I am…I just came by to give you this, Little S.” you explained in a blush, the girls giggling in front of you “Happy birthday.”

You handed her the blue box from inside your purse. Sarah sat next to you and almost ripped it out to get her to her present.

“Wow…” She said lifting the golden chain with an S attached to it. “It’s beautiful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” and then she buried herself in your arms in a warm hug, you giggled and hugged her back.

She showed the chain to her friends and you took this as an opportunity to slip out of the circle and came to meet Joel in the kitchen.

“Hey” you said with a smile “Seems like your handling them just fine”

“Yeah” he chuckled “Unless you want your old job back, I don’t mind letting those little glitter bombs under your watch.”

You laughed “Gonna charge you more than just ten dollars an hour then.” You both laughed.

“Thanks for being so attentive over Sarah.” He said in a more serious tone, “She really looks up to you.”

You glanced back to where the girls were chatting in whispers.

“She means a lot to me.” You said “And I really miss seeing her every weekend.” You added.

“ Like I said, fell free to have your old job back.” I miss having you around. He almost added.

You laughed.

“So…where’s Tommy? Did the girls scared him away?”

“No, actually, Sarah wanted the house just for herself and her friends tonight. So Tommy headed off already, I was just leaving too.”

Your smiled faded for a second.

“Oh, I’m sorry if I’m holding you here, I have to go too, it’s getting pretty late”

“I can give you a ride, if you want”. He didn’t know why he said that, he wasn’t going to take the car out, but there was a strange need inside of him to just be useful to you, to being able to provide something, to take care of you.

You were about to answer him when a glimpse of the girls catch your eyes and you turned to see what they were doing. The bunch of girls were all cramped in the sofa, watching you and Joel closely with a big smile on their faces and giggling sounds.

Oh. My. God.

You knew exactly what they were doing. You used to do the same thing with your friends, it was what you called “Lover’s Spy”. Where you’d watch a couple chatting or kissing as if it was a real life romance movie. You did it to your parents, to your friend’s older brother and his girlfriend, and now, Sarah and her friends were doing it to Joel and you.

You must be so red, because you can actually feel the blood rising to your cheeks and you refused to look back at Joel.

“It’s fine…Uhm. I can walk.”

You gather your purse from the sofa and Sarah held you wrist.

“No. Dad can drive you! It’s dangerous at night” She said.

“It’s eight o’clock, Sarah.” You chuckled. “I’ll be fine”

You kissed her cheek and said goodbye to her friends, but before you could move another inch closer to the door, you heard Joel’s picking up his wallet and the car keys.

“Hold on, sweets, I’ll drive you. Was going to take the car anyway. Sarah,” he turned to her with both hands on his hips, a typically dad pose. “lock the door, don’t let anyone in or out. Watch for the pizza, the money is on the counter. If anything happens you call me or Tommy. I’ll be back whitin’ a few hours.” She nodded. “You guys have fun, good night”

“Good night, dad!”

“Good night, Mr. Miller!” The girls said all together.

You smiled and waved at them, following Joel outside his house.

He opened the front door for you to get in, entering the car soon after.

“So, your place?”

“Yeah. I was at my dad’s.” You said adjusting your seatbelt. “So, where are you going to do while the glitter bombs destroy your house?”

He laughed pulling out to the road.

“I was gonna meet Tommy and a friend for some beers. What about you? Nothing better to do on a Friday night then crash at a teenagers sleepover?”

You shake your head.

“Nope. I’ve been so tired I can’t even think about going our right now.”

Joel chuckled. “Wait to see how’s that on my age.” He let it slip, regretting it right after. In case you haven’t notice the age gap between the two of you.

The car went silent for a moment before you opened your mouth.

“You’re not that old” She said quietly. “Like, you’re not old enough to be my dad”.

What the fuck did you just said?! Why were you trying to justify the age gap and why, why the fuck did you have to use that example? You wanted to open the door and throw yourself on the road.

Joel hummed as he stopped at a red light. He was about to say something, but your phone started to ring –thanks, god-. But you cringed at the person that was calling you.

“Hey, dad” You said awkwardly and Joel turned to you with a weird expression. “Yeah, I’m going home right now.” He asked if you had called a taxi. “No. Joel’s driving me” “Who?” “Joel Miller…Sarah’s dad.” “Oh of course, say hi to him” “He said hi” you repeated and Joel smiled a little. “I’m gonna hang up, dad. Love you” “Love you too, honey”

“How’s your old man, doing?”

“He’s good.” You answered quickly, wanting to move on from the “father” topic.

The silence danced around the two of you in such a comic way. You were playing nervously with the hem of your black skirt, trying to remember if your apartment always were this far.

Joel kept his eyes on you through the mirror, trying to figure out why you seemed so nervous. He felt that weird sensation to your words and the awkward feeling it left in the car, put he wanted to put all that behind because sooner than he expected you’d be home and would say goodbye. And he wanted to cling to that warm feeling that spread across his chest every time you’d smile at him.

Joel took a moment to realize that you were cold. You were bracing yourself with the bare skin of your arms and your bare legs were shaking slightly.

“You want me to turn down the air?” He asked.

“No…Well, yes” You said shyly.

“No problem, sweets” He said turning it off for you.

Your top did nothing to cover you from the cold, and neither did your leather skirt. You could lie and say you picked it up for no exact reason, but the truth was that you picked that outfit for Joel. The white top crop accentuated your cleavage and gave him a pretty good view of your breast –not that he did look, always a gentleman- and the leather skirt was short, exposing more of the flesh of your thighs and made them look prettier. You felt hot in that outfit, and you knew you’d see Joel tonight. So, two plus two equals four.

“Okay, so you’re just gonna be all by yourself tonight?” Joel asked after a while.

“Yeah. Kinda used to it now” You watched as he parked in front of your place. “Unless…”

You didn’t finished it. Just tug off your seatbelt.

“What?”

“I was just wondering if you didn’t want to come in, but, Tommy and your friend are waiting for you. I just thought it would be nice having someone to talk to.” You paused, waiting for Joel to say something. “I enjoy talking to you.” You added.

“I enjoy talking to you too, pretty thing” He responded. “Guess I can stay for a while, they won’t mind.”

You cracked a smiled and both of you got out of the car, going upstairs to your apartment.

You opened the door for Joel for the second time that week and he took his shoes off going to seat in the couch while you turned on the dim lights.

“I don’t have beers but…I think I have a bottle of wine.” You said with a smirk.

Joel lifted his eyebrow in a suggestive way and nodded.

“Which one?”

“The cheapest one” You joked going to the kitchen.

You closed the door behind you to hid from him. You were about to drink wine with the most attractive man you’ve ever met. It felt like a dream, you had to shook yourself out of it to go look for the bottle and the glasses.

Before going out, you took a deep breath and tried to control all of your insecurities and thoughts.

You went back to the living room to find Joel sitting comfortably in you couth. Back relaxed against the cushions, left foot hanging loosely over the right knee and a soft smirk.

“Want me to open it?”

“Yeah” you admitted in a chuckle.

You handed him the bottle and the opener and in a blink of an eye, your glass was full with the red drink. You gave his glass a little toast before sipping yours and you settled by his side.

After a while and a few glasses, you were kinda tipsy and you head had a funny ache, but you didn’t mind as long as Joel kept talking.

“Consider this a ‘thank you’ for all your help, ‘round here.” You said smiling and Joel shook his head.

“No need to thank me, sweets.”

You both had talked for hours. About work, people, politics, everything. He was such an easy person to talk to, he could express himself just right, joking when he felt like it, using his hands to articulate his thoughts and the voice, that damn low voice he was using to talk to you, as if it was a secret no one could listen to. You were sure he was doing it on purpose, he had to be. There’s no way he didn’t know about the effect his voice had on you.

Or maybe, maybe, he was just as tipsy as you were. Joel was the one filling the glasses once they were empty and he was so careful to never leave it empty he might be getting a little bit drunk. Not with the wine, but with the way your eyes danced around his face and how you were paying full attention to what he was saying, the red in your cheeks he didn’t know if came from the drink or the hot temperature of the night. He could never grow tired of hearing your sweet voice talk about something he wouldn’t remember the next morning, but the sound of your voice was ethereal, it could drive him insane with just the thought of how you’d sound moaning for him.

“Oh…” You pouted. “The second bottle’s empty”

“Do you have another one?” He asked.

“Uhum, I’ll be back in a minute.” You said getting up.

Joel watched at the sight of your frame walking away from him, your hips swaying into the kitchen and he sighed.

You came back to find Joel in a different position. He had an arm resting along the arm of the sofa, almost inviting you into his side, closer. His legs were parted, showing off his thick thighs and he looked so godamn good like that, his lap looked so comfortable. The only place you’d like to sit.

And yet, you sat back in the couch, with both of your legs beneath you, so you were completely turned to Joel, his hand ghosting your shoulder as you shifted closer to his body.

“There we go” You said filling both glasses.

“Thanks, pretty thing”

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your lips. Joe smirked wickedly.

“Do you like that?”

“Yeah”

He nodded and took a sip of his wine. You rested your head on his strong biceps and sighed.

“So, tell me. How come there was never a Mrs. Miller?” You asked. “There must be a lot of women waiting on that line”

“I guess, yeah, back in the day there could be but, after Sarah…Everything just seemed least important, you know?”

You smiled softly at his confession. Joel really was a hell of a good father, and you were sure he would never choose some lame ass women to be Sarah’s new mom or something, you just wish your dad would have had the same ideal after the divorce.

“That’s sweet.” You said softly, still resting against his arm.

“But what about you, uh? I bet there’s a lot of guys giving your old man a headache.” He smirked.

You bit your lip shaking your head.

“No, not really. I don’t think I ever found the right guy. Or a guy that could give me what I want, anyways. It seems I have this thing about always going for the idiots.” You said in a chuckled.

For a second, the memories of your ex boyfriend filled your mind and all you could think about was all the bad things he had done. The lies, the fights, the cheating, the break ups, the ‘I swear I’m gonna change’ promises, all of that.

“And what are you looking for, pretty thing?” Joel asked, brining you back from the dark memories.

“Someone to take care of me.”

You didn’t know if it was the wine, or the fact that you could feel like telling Joel everything, the urge to open yourself to him. You had no idea why you had been so sincere about it.

Joel let the hand on your shoulder fall to your waist, holding you a little closer and you felt the heat run across your chest and face, looking at him with a puzzled face and big eyes. His free hand rest the glass in the wooden table and came to run his thumb through your cheek in such a sweet way that had you melting at his touch.

“Joel…” You said breathless.

“Yes, pretty thing?”

“What are you doing?”

He smirked.

“I knew I was bad at flirting with you, but I didn’t know it was that bad.” He chuckled.

“You…What?!”

Him…What?

He was flirting with you?

Joel Miller was flirting with you?

Did he find you attractive? Pretty? Interesting?         

Was this a dream? If it was, you’d prey you’d never wake up.

“I was flirting with you, y/n. Maybe I should’ve just being more open about it”

“But…I thought…” You were having a hard time focusing with his face so close to yours and…when did you get so close? “Fixing my things and going to the my shop once a week was you flirting?” You laughed a little.

He didn’t find it funny you calling out on his tactics, he just play along whit it.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“ Yeah, I guess it worked, pops”

“Pops? Thought I wasn’t old enough to be your dad.” He strengthen the grip in your waist.

You bate your eyelashes in an innocent way ant lifted a finger to run a vein upon his bicep.

“Dad? No. Daddy, in the other hand…” You said normally.

His jaw clenched and he readjusted himself on his seat.

“What did you just said, pretty girl?”

You giggled leaning into his ear to whisper “Daddy”.

“Fuck, baby, come closer.”

And the next thing you remember it’s Joel’s strong hands coming to pull you onto his lap, with your legs on each side of his sides, and you finally sited in the most comfortable place in your whole house.

“Hi.” You said giggling.

He shook his head with an amused grin and then his lips were crashing into yours with an insatiable hunger. Joel kissed like it was the end of the world, like anything else didn’t mattered, but your lips, his hands were everywhere. At you waist, pulling you closer, at your neck, hair, tights, every little inch he could reach. He licked slightly your bottom lip and immediately you opened yourself for him leaning in closer to run a hand along his broad shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer, pressing your chests together.

But eventually, both of you had to gasp for air. And you were sure Joel was about to say something, but as soon as his mouth left yours, you pulled him by his collar back to your grip.

You wanted more.

 You let out a moan at the smirk he gave you. You wanted to feel every little movement of Joel’s tongue around yours, every breath he let into your face, every surface of your skin his hands would palm. Brining your own hands to his hair, you massage his scalp and tugged on his black locks, earning a low groan that didn’t nothing to help the slick that were gathering inside your panties.

“Why so desperate, baby? I’m right here.” Joel said when you broke the kiss.

He tugged some locks of your hair behind your ear and ran a finger across you cheek.

“So pretty” He hummed.

“Joel…” You mewled, “I need you.”

“I know, baby. I’m gonna take care of you, I promise.” He said in a smirk. “I need you too.”

And with that, Joel guided your hips so the rolled over his growing erection and you closed your eyes at the felling of his cock against you heat.

“I wanted you for so long, y/n.”

“You could had just asked, you know.” You said.

“I didn’t wanted to be a creepy old man.” He said in a chuckle.

You leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek and Joel’s heart flipped inside.

“You’re not, Joel. You’re the most respectful guy I’ve ever met. I put on a sexy top for you and you didn’t stare at my boobs for once in the entire night!”

He looked down to where your chest were moving up and down with your heavy breathing.

“I’m looking now.” He said lifting a hand to grope your right tit. “Nice tits, baby.”

You laughed and pressed a kiss to his lips again, as you rocked your hips against his, trying to find relief in the friction it brought to your core.

Before you cold register, Joel was carrying you around your house, your legs wrapped around his waist as his strong arms secured you to his body. He found the door to your room very quickly, swinging it open with a foot and closing it right behind the both of you.

He sat on your bed with you on his lap as he kissed his way along your jaw, founding that one spot under your ear that had you arching your back into him.

You felt like you were on fire. All your brain could think about was Joel, was how good he was making you feel even without landing a finger to your heat. He was burning you alive and you’d die a happy woman in his hold.

You whined at Joel’s hands coming under your top, leaving a hot trail on it’s awaken. He tugged the soft material and you nodded. Joel lifted the top above your head to find out that you weren’t using a bra.

“Fucking hell…” He whispered, lowering himself to press a wet kiss between your breasts. “You’re such a pretty little girl, baby.”

You moaned at the touch of Joel lips on you nipple. He smirked against your skin as he licked, sucked, bit, marked one of your tits, while his hand came to play with the other nipple, swiping it between his skilful fingers. You turned into a whimpering mess as his mouth abused your breasts and you tugged at his hair to prevent him from choking between the valley of your breasts when he buried his face in it.

“You’re wearing too much, daddy.” You complained.

He smiled devilish while looking up to you before taking of his shirt and throwing it somewhere in the bedroom floor. You smiled happy and pushed himself away from your skin to wonder around his torso, circling his abdomen with your nails and going to ran along his spine.

You bit your bottom lip and stared depply into his eyes in a silent request.

“Beg for it.”

“Please.” You said with a half smirk.

“You can do better than that, can’t you, baby? Come on, beg for daddy”

You left out a whimper at the sound of the name coming out of his mouth like that.

“Please, Joel, please. I need you so bad, need you inside me. Please, fuck me, Joel.” You said breathless.

He smirked and in one single motion, had you lying in your back for him, your legs swinging in the edge of the bed.

“Damn it, sweets, begs for it so easy.” He said slipping you skirt out of your body, leaving you in your pair of pink-laced panties. “Look at you” he cooed.

You felt your cheeks burn in embarrassment and a certain urge to hide suddenly tool over and you tried to close your legs, but Joel stopped you, holding your knees.

“Don’t hide away from me now, baby. Isn’t this what you wanted?” He asked concern in his voice and he let your knees go.

“Yes! It’s just what I wanted, Joel…I guess I felt a little shy”

“Shy? About what?” He leaned in to press a kiss to your lips, “You’re so goddamn pretty.” He said against your lips before cup your clothed pussy.

You whines and opened your leg for him once again, Joel smirk before lowering himself to level to the middle of your tights, staring at the wet patch that was showing in your –no ruined- panties. Joel pulled the last piece of cloth out of your body. You could deny and say you did not see him putting the pink pantie in his pant’s pocket, but you had to let go a giggle.

Joel moaned at the sigh of your wet cunt, he hummed and ran a finger in your slick.

“All that for me?” You nodded.

He smirked before licking a stripe of your slick and you let out a strangled moan.

“I know you’d be sweet, baby.” He said before diving in.

Joel’s hungry mouth devoured your pussy. He licked and sucked at your clit in a rough and skilled way, making your hips buckle against his face and your eyes to shut close.

You were a moaning mess, whining and calling his name over and over. Your hands were gripping the sheets with all the strength you had. Joel’s tongue was flickering into your folds, your wetness was pooling in his chin…and the roughness of his beard against your skin was driving you feral. Every muscle of your legs were screaming for you to close them, to keep Joel between then forever –and he might stay, if you let him.

You squirm when one of Joel’s fingers traced it way down your tights to your entrance. He looked up at you through lustful eyes before filling you in. You arched your back in the mattress, pushing yourself into his head and hand.

Joel groaned.

“Fuck, babe, you’re tight even for a finger…How do you plan on taking my cock, uh?” He said curling his finger inside you.

“Oh, Joel!” You almost screamed.

Joel chuckled and continued to fuck you with his finger, his tongue making perfect eights on your clit. The pressure in your stomach started to build, the familiar tickle inside your core.

Slowly, Joel added a second finger, laying still for a moment when you hissed, and then he stared to mimic a scissor inside your cunt, making you see stars. Of course, you had guys fingering you before, but none of them did it like Joel. He was touching you as if he had done that for ages, as if he already knew all your spots and as if your body was his own.

You were, right. Joel’s hands were as capable at sex as they were at work.

Joel Miller was fucking you open, Preparing you to take his cock. It was too good to be true, it had to be a dream.

With every move of his fingers, the pressure was amplified, his glorious mouth altering between sucking and licking at your clit.

You gasped for air and a strong grip landed in Joel’s hair as you came, trembling, shaking for him in a loud moan.

Joel moaned at the feeling, trying to catch everything you could give him, collecting your juice in his mouth. Big hands came to caress your shaking legs in a comforting way, Joel rested his head on your tight, waiting for you to come down your high.

“Kiss me” You asked.

Joel came up from the middle of your legs and leaned in to your face. You cupped his jaw with your hands, admiring the way you were glistening on his tanned skin.

Before giving him your lips, you stuck your tongue out to lick a long stripe of the wetness from his cheek.

“Tastes good, doesn’t it?” He asked before giving you a hunger kiss.

When Joel shifted closer, you could feel his hard erection against your inner thighs and you mewled into his mouth.

“Joel…” You stared.

“Yeah, I know, sweets, I know” He responded with a smirk. “Do you have a condom?”

You groaned in frustration. “No…But I’m good if your are?”

Joel smirked and pressed a kiss to your lips.

He then got off of you. Pouting with the loss of proximity, you clench your legs together.

Joel took of his heavy pants too slowly for your licking, but to your surprise, he was bare beneath his jeans, a line of hair was leading to his painful hard cock, the pre-cum liking from the tip.

Your eyes flicked to his in a wicked way, but before you could say anything about him going commando, he was on top of you again.

“Wait” You said, putting a hand on his chest and pushing him slightly. “Let me look at you, daddy.”

Joel smirked. “You can look as long as you want to, pretty thing.”

Joel sat back on the bed and you ran your hands along his heavy chest. You admire his length. He was big, he probably knew it, but goddamn there was no way he would fit inside you. He was thick to, with bulging veins across him. It made your mouth water and you hooked your fingers around it, they barely held him whole. Joel gasped as you slowly jerked him off.

When you lowered yourself, Joel stopped you.

“If I have your mouth now, I’ll come down your throat, baby, and believe me”, he stared to push you onto the mattress again “I rather do that somewhere else. Maybe next time, what do you say, sweets?”

Next time.

Next time.

Next time.

You just nodded and let Joel manhandle you. He let you in the pillow and pressed a kiss to your lips before settling between your legs, opening them wide for him do fit better. Joel stopped for a moment to take the view in; you spread for him, just for him. He had dreamed of this, of how you’d look, but now, you looked like a Michelangelo panting. Red cheeks, thin layer of sweet, doe eyes and the dim light making you glow.

“Can I?” He asked holding his cock with one hand, adjusting to the front of your entrance.

“Yes. Please, Joel” You plead.

Joel pushed in just a bit, watching as you closed your eyes and tightened around his tip.

“It w-wont fit” You said in a soft gasp.

“We’ll make it fit. I’ll make you feel good, I promise.” He leaned in to press a kiss to your forehead. Joel stopped a moment to look at you, concerned that it was hurting you, that was the last thing he wanted to. “Do you wanna stop? We can stop”

He pulled out and you immediately missed him.

“No! No. I don’t want to stop, I just need to adjust…Put it back in, Joel, please” You hushed, grabbing his hand to interlock with yours as he started to push in again.

You closed your eyes shut as you feel the stretch of Joel’s cock inside your pussy. He moaned at the feeling of you wrapping around him so deliciously. However, he gathered everything in him to stay still until you tell him otherwise. Joel watched as you shivered under him and how tears stared to peek under your closed eyelashes, he presses soft kisses around your face and whispered sweet nothings in your ears.

You opened your eyes, feeling his length deep inside your womb. You were stuffed with him, being one. The pain slowly melted into pleasure and you couldn’t tell where you ended and where he begun. You tried to move your hips forward, you hissed but it felt so good, the tip of Joel’s manhood peaking at your sweet spot just a little.

Joel’s hot breath in your neck, and the tickling of his beard in your skin gave you a shiver and a wave of determination went pass your body.

Joel Miller was on top of you, what the fuck were you waiting for?

“Move.” You said.

Joel pulled halfway and slowly came back in, earning a moan from both of you.

“Fuck, baby, such a tight pussy.” Joel groaned as he picked up a slow and gentle pace.

You whimpered and squeezes the hand that was in yours, Joel squeezed back.

“Tell me how you want it, sweets” He demanded.

“Hard” You panted.

Joel smirked. A devilish grin in his features.

He let go of your hand to grip at your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, making you slam against his cock as he readjust himself on his knees.

Joel started thrusting into you in a brutal pace. His cock going in and out of you making you gasp for air. The room was filled with the sound of you. Skin on skin. The wetness of your core, your moans and whimpers, Joel’s heavy breathing and pants.

You carved your nails into his shoulder, knowing it’d leave a bruise, but you didn’t care, he didn’t seemed to care either. You were saying his name like a prayer, over and over again like you were thanking him, it rolled so easily off your tongue Joel didn’t want to hear it any other way.

He readjusted his angle, leaning in to try to find that one spot he knew would be your last straw. That one single spot that would have you never forgetting what he fells like. And he did, with so much ease. The tip of his length hit it hard and you left out a silent scream as your hands gripped his flesh.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He asked rutting his hips harder. “I know it is, baby.” You nodded.

You rand your hands through his torso, feeling his hot skin and his muscles unearth your finger, you pushed him down so you could press a sloppy kiss to his lips, all teeth and tongue. Joel had you moaning inside his mouth as his skilled fingers danced around your clit, adding so much pleasure you felt like you could explode.

He smirked at your fucked up state as he sucked a bruise in between your breasts, knowing it would go for days until it disappeared, knowing you’d look at it and remember who gave it to you.

“Joel….F-fuck. I’m close” You panted, heart racing like a thousand horses.

“I know. This fuckin’ pussy’s clenching ‘round me so good.” He lifted a hand to caress your hair “You’re taking me so good, pretty thing. Such a good girl.”

The praise made your eyes roll back as your orgasm came crashing in a hard thrust of Joel’s cock. Your eyes closed ad you repeated his name “Joel, Joel, Joel…” Until it became a bumbling mess in your lips as he rode you through your high. He never left your heat for once, he kept whispering sweet nothing into your skin as you shake and squirm under his strong body.

“Fuck, baby, gonna cum. Where do you wan-“

“Inside” You said breathless.

Joel moaned your name, no “baby”, no “sweets”,  no “pretty thing”, your name as he came inside of you, painting your walls with his cum. Whitin’ a few low thrusts, he finally collapsed on top of you, resting his head between your breasts as both of your try to caught your breaths.

Your fingers interlaced his hair as you smoothed him.

You don’t really know how much time had passed as the both of you stayed in that position, in silence, with his soften cock inside your cunt, preventing you from leaking.

“You gonna stay there forever?” You asked in a giggle.

“It’s my new favourite place to be.” He said.

But he pulled out soon after, taking his time to watch as his cum ran out of your abused hole, wetting your sheets and the inside of your thighs. Joel looked up to find you already staring at him.

“Don’t give me those eyes, I just fucked you” He warned with a smirk.

You laughed and collect some of the white load in your fingers, bringing them towards your lips.

Joel stared as you licked and sucked them clean, tasting yours and his juices, his cock twitched in interest ad you let your fingers go with a ‘pop’ sound.

“You’re wicked” He said covering your body with his to pepper kisses in your face and you giggled.

You were about to switch position with him when a suddenly buzz came from the floor and Joel turned his head to look at it.

“Shit. ‘S my phone” He got out of bed to pick it from his trousers back pocket. “Hey, Tommy”

You sat on the bed to watch him. Joel listened to Tommy complaining about his lateness to get to theirs friends, he murmured some excuse and reached to pack his clothes from the floor.

“You still there?” You could hear Tommy saying a ‘yes’ in a tipsy voice “So…The girls are all alone until now?” “Yeah! I was waiting for you, thought you were…Wait, you’re not home right now?”

Joel stopped for a second before answering with a grin.

“No. I had to drive y/n home.” “Y/n? Are you…Are you with her right now?”  “Yeah”  “Oh. Do you want me to stop talking?”  “Hell, I do”  “Sorry. Tell her I said hi.”

Joel sighed. “Tommy says ‘hi’”. You smiled and laid back in the mattress, slowly opening your tights in a promiscuous way.  “Sorry, sweets, looks like I’ll have to get back home.”

“Now?”

“The girls are wall alone. I have to check on them”.

You pouted. Joel chuckled and started getting dresses. You watched as he slipped his jeans back on and tugged himself in, his arms flexed as he put on his shirt.

Suddenly you felt insecure. What if this was just it? Just one night stand and then you and Joel would never talk again, and you’ll feel uncomfortable in his presence? You’d have to stop seeing Sarah too. You couldn’t handle it. You didn’t want to be just another woman that had passed in Joel’s hands for a night of pleasure. Was it selfish of you to want more? Greedy? You had dreamed of it, of someone like Joel, someone who made you feel the exact same way he makes you feel. But you wouldn’t say anything, you didn’t want to pressure him, so you stayed quiet as Joel finished buckling his belt.

 You pushed the blanked to cover yourself and hide from Joel’s eyes, but he noticed.

“Hey, what is it?” He asked in a soft tone, sitting in the bed next to you.

“Nothing.” You lied. “I’m just tired.”

He didn’t seemed to buy it, but he nodded and placed his hand over your knee.

“I wish I could stay here with you” He said. “But I can’t leave them alone.”

“It’s okay, Joel, you don’t have to.”

“I wanted to, tough.” He sighed and leaned in.

Joel was coming to your lips, but at the last second, you turned your head and he kissed your cheek. He stared down at you for a moment.

“Y/n? Are you…Are we…Did I do something wrong?”

Joel tiled his head and gave you a puzzled look, trying to understand your twist on behaviour.

“No” You were perfect, Joel. It’s just, well, I…I wanted to see you again, you know. I don’t want you to avoid me as soon as you regret it.”

Before he could even say something, you spoke again.

“It’s okay that you don’t want to. I understand.”

“Who said I didn’t? And who said I regret it?”

Joel held your face in his hands.

“You better get ready, baby, I won’t be able to take my hand off of you for some good time yet”

You giggled.

“Is that so, old man?”

“I’ll show you who’s old” Joel said before taking you by your waist to put you on your feet in front of him. “Get dressed”

“Why?”

“I’m taking you home” He said handing you your top.

“I am home, Joel”

“My home” He explained. “Now, hurry up. I’m gonna call Sarah to make sure everything’s ok”

You smiled widely as you started to get dressed again.

Joel Miller was going to be the death of you.

[zeltqz]

mind games— ran haitani

pairing. ran x fem!reader

length. 4.1k words

synopsis. ran finally finds out your name and takes you out for a ride in his car.

content. nsfw content. minors do not interact. implied drinking/alcohol usage, marijuana; reader and ran smoke in his car, because i want to smoke weed with ran lol; minor smut; just making out and stuff, more shion slander bc i find it funny, still love him tho

author's note. part two to mind games. Tag list : @sleeplessreader @rinrinfoxy @kazuubaby @iyuichiro08 @anamalfoy666 @mjsnightmares

“Am I crazy or is Ran staring at you?” There’s a sharp nudge to your ribs, almost knocking the wind out of your lungs. You take a moment, sucking on your teeth and hesitate to look over the direction your friend is facing. Worried that once you meet his gaze you’ll be sucked into his whirlpool like last week. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” At your awkward tone, your friend peeks over her shoulder to stare at you.

“...Did you hook up?” 

You look down at your fingernails, trying to peel off the chipped corners while blatantly ignoring your friend’s stare. 

“No way! When, (y/n)?! When was this? Was it when you left the sleepover that one day and came back at 12AM? Or was it during school like at lunch or—”

“No! It was last week, at that party you dragged me to when you were too busy with Shion to notice anything around you.” You nudge her back with your shoulder, choosing to ignore her ‘I wasn’t that distracted ’ statement . 

You make the grave mistake of falling into temptation, looking over to the couch he was by. Luckily, he wasn’t looking at you, too focused on playing with a piece of red string between his fingers as he listened to his friends loud chatter.

His brother, you assume because they both look alike, whispers something in his ear before reaching inside his pocket and pulling out a set of keys, clasping it between Ran’s hands before he’s getting off the couch.

You watch as he twirls the keys in his hands for a moment, vaguely nodding over at what his friend is saying and you can’t help but wonder how good he is with his hands. The way his fingers loop through the keyhole, how much precision is needed to keep the keys attached to his finger as he’s spinning them.

“Are you going to talk to him or not?” Your friend’s voice is suddenly right beside your ear so suddenly you flinch and knock her away from you.

“What am I even going to say to him? He makes me feel awkward.” You admit, gripping your lollipop tighter in your hand, “besides, didn’t you set me up for today? The blind date?”

Your friend makes a thinking face for a moment before exclaiming. “Oh yeah! He should be on his way soon—” Her voice trails off and she scans the crowd, searching for said date. “Ah, there he is!” She’s calling his name out to grab his attention and you watch as his brown eyes find yours, eyebrows raising in surprise for a moment before he’s pushing past a bunch of people to stand before you.

“(Y/n), this is Jojo. Jojo, (y/n).” Your friend beams at the both of you for a moment before she’s standing up from her spot on the couch so Jojo could sit. “You two have fun, but not too much fun.” She winks before disappearing into the crowd of people.

“Hi, Jojo.” You shift to give him some room, gripping onto your lollipop even tighter and he slumps down next to you on the couch.

“Wow.” He blinks while staring at your face with such intensity it has your stomach doing backflips. 

“Wow…what?”

“Nothin’, you’re just—you—” He stumbles over his words like an idiot before he’s clearing his throat to restart his sentence. “You’re just prettier than I thought you’d be.”

“Thank you.” The smile on your face is inevitable and your eyes dart around the room out of reflex, searching for anything but his own gaze. “You’re pretty handsome too.”

The smile on his face is blinding. “Great.” He sits up a little, eyes dropping down to your lollipop. “What flavour is it?”

“Cola.” You lift it back up to put in your mouth and he nods his head, trying not to focus on the way your lips wrap around the sweet treat. 

Oh god. He’s one of them. You think as you watch his eyes travel down to your lips, lingering there long enough to make you shift uncomfortably on the couch. “I’m gonna grab a drink.” You stand up abruptly. He follows suit.

“I can come with you.”

“No, it’s alright. I can get it myself.” 

“Okay.” He’s about to ask you to grab him something from the kitchen but you’re already gone. You groan against the fridge door before you’re opening it, searching for something, preferably non-alcoholic. 

“Hey.” A deep voice comes from behind you. The coolness of his voice sent goosebumps over your arms and down your spine.

“Hi.” You respond, still searching the fridge to look busy despite not being interested in anything inside. Ran steps away when you close the fridge, resting your back against it as you stare up at him. 

“What are you looking for? The good stuff is downstairs by the way.” 

You don’t mean to be a hypocrite, but the way you’re currently eyeing him up and down is shameless and not in any way discreet at all. He looks so good tonight, and smells even stronger than last week. Definitely showered himself in cologne before this.

“Hello? Earth to—” He stops a moment before scoffing, “I just realised I don’t know your name. Still.” He adds that last part, reaffirming you with the fact you denied him your name twice before. 

“Why do you want to know my name so badly?” Your question had no malice tainted in it, a genuine question you needed an answer to. It’s not like you plan on spending more time with him as is, so knowing your name is pretty pointless.

It’s clear you both have two different objectives tonight. 

“Can I not know the names of the people I’m talking to? Is that such a crime? You know my name, don’t you?” 

That’s only because everyone won’t shut the fuck up about. 

“I don’t know your name by choice, it was by force.” The lollipop is back in your mouth as you stare at him. His eyebrows raise up for a moment, before dropping down to their default position. 

“You really won’t tell me your name?” He watches you consider it, watches you slowly remove the lollipop from your mouth while staring intently in his eyes. 

“Fine. It’s (y/n). Do with that information as you please, but if you excuse me, I have a date to get to.” You’re about to walk away when his arm is coming up to cage you in front of the fridge, limiting your movements.

“Date?”

Despite feeling slightly intimidated—and turned on— you nod your head towards the guy on the couch who looks like he’s getting pretty cosy with a blonde girl that happened to take your seat the moment you left.

Her legs swung over his lap as she looked up at him through her lashes, nodding her head at everything that’s coming out of her mouth.

“Oh.” You feel slightly embarrassed when Ran looks over at the so-called date. The sight is humiliating, yes, but Ran doesn’t care.

“So is it an open date or—?” You shove at his chest when he tries to make a joke at the situation; the hidden implications go right over your head. 

“Shut up. Fuck, this is so embarassing.” You hide your face in your hands, wondering why you got dressed up to meet this Joshua dude only for him to flirt with the next girl that enters his sight. 

At least it’s an excuse to go home. 

“Can I take you somewhere? This party is pretty dead and I’d rather spend it out with a pretty girl than listen to my friends drunkenly rant about his mental state.” 

You stopped listening to everything the moment you heard the words pretty leaving his lips. He found you pretty? The thought alone had a slight smile forming. “Where are you going to take me?”

You let him wrap an arm around your shoulder, watch as he pulls a set of keys out from his jeans pocket, the same keys his brother handed him earlier. “I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

Your stomach happened to grumble, loud enough for you to hear but not loud enough to overpower the bass blasting from the speakers plastered around the house. 

“Could we get some food?”

That’s how you found yourself inside his car, parked inside the empty local Mcdonald’s parking lot at 10 in the evening. “Hows your nuggets?” Ran asks, in the middle of sprinkling the dark green substance—you don’t want to know what it’s called—between the brown sheet of rolling paper. 

“They taste oily.” You frown, deeply unencouraged to finish the last of the batch he’d bought you. “I should’ve listented to you. Mcdonald’s at night tastes really bad.”

“’Cause the workers tired as hell. Don’t blame them.” He says before he darts his tongue past his lips, slowly dragging it along one side of the paper. “What about your ice-cream?”

You tear your eyes away from the sight to grab your milkshake from the cup holder, using the straw to stir it a couple times before you’re tasting it. “It’s…okay.” You lie, hating the warm temperature and watery texture.

Your hesitation doesn’t go unnoticed. He looks up at you and smiles. “It’s horrible, aint it?”

“Try it.” You reach your hand out to hand it to him, hands brushing his soft ones for a moment before he’s retreating with the cup in hand.

You reach forward to grab at the freshly rolled blunt, twisting it around in your grip as you examine it. It’s the first time you’ve seen one in person before. 

Ran notices you inspecting it like it’s an extra terrestrial being and wonders if you’ve ever smoked before. He asks you just that and he’s not surprised when you shake your head.

“Wanna try it..?” He leads on with precaution when you slowly shake your head and pass the blunt back over to him. “C’mon.” It’s his turn to eye you up and down, the action eliciting a shiver down your spine as his wandering eyes wander down a little to far for your liking, before they’re hitchhiking back up to your face. “Please?”

You want to make a move so badly. But you’re not used to doing so. You’re not sure what to say, what to do…maybe being a little bit high could boost your confidence.

“Okay.” You sit up in the seat and watch him pass you the lighter along with the blunt. 

“Just light the tip and inhale it—yeah, like that.” He grabs the lighter from you once you’ve taken your first puff from it, fighting back the cough pooling in your throat. “Blow it out, don’t swallow it—” It’s cute seeing the way your cheeks puffed out slightly, trying your hardest to swallow the smoke but you’re blowing it out and trying to ignore the burn running down your oesophagus. 

You’re coughing a little bit as you pass it back to him, hand wafting the air around your face to get rid of the smell. “My throat hurts now.” Your voice is sort of hoarse from hoarding the smoke in your throat for that long; it makes Ran wonder if that’s how you’ll sound after he’s shoving his cock deep down your throat, hoping you’re the crying type, wants to see your mascara dripping down your face as you struggle to take him all the way.

The weed is really starting to get to him; all these unprovoked thoughts happening all at once. “Here.” Ran digs through the glove compartment, pulling out a lukewarm water bottle he’s  stored in there. “It’s a bit warm, sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” You wave off his concern and try to unscrew the bottle cap, applying a bit too much pressure that it spills all over your t-shirt. Your movement is a little limited, the marijuana already getting to you and it’s obvious as Ran watches you struggle to remove your shirt, the top getting stuck by your neck. 

“Do you need any help?” He’s asking but despite your answer already leaning forward, lifting a firm hand to tug the shirt up and over your head. 

You sit there, topless, readjusting your bra strap and lift a leg onto your chair to untie your sneakers. Ran can’t help but stare at your exposed breasts being pushed up by both of your arms as you struggle to remove your shoes. 

His gaze wanders down to your waist, down to the curve of your ass. He takes another shameless look at your figure before he’s muttering, “I wanna fuck you so bad.”

You freeze, hands in the middle of untying your second shoe before you’re turning to look up at him. You allow your gaze to wander lower, down to his pants, the forming bulge is so prominent. “What?”

“I said—” he’s leaning forward past the centre console to get closer to you, “—I wanna fuck you so bad.”

“Y-you mean like…sex?” You ask just to make sure you weren’t imagining this. When his gaze doesn’t falter, you realise he’s being totally serious. “Oh.”

“Come here, I wanna try something.”

“Try what?” You’re asking as you lift yourself off the seat, allowing yourself to straddle yourself on his lap. You try to keep your hips up, not wanting to come into contact with his cock, but he’s lifting his hips up to readjust himself in his seat and brushes his cock against your cunt in the process.

Your hands fly up to his shoulders as he rearragnes his seat, pulling the chair back to give you some room. You watch him cup your jaw, leaning in ever so slightly.

Oh. You mentally prepare yourself, closing your eyes and parting your lips. Without even giving you the chance to breath, he’s kissing you, slotting his lips against yours with no hesitation. Similar to last week, his hands run down your waist, tugging on the waistband of your pants, asking permission to slip his hands inside.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer to you as a response, groaning into the kiss when he’s sliding his hands down your ass, gripping onto the flesh and kneading it with a firm grip.

“You’re s’fuckin’ hot.” He breathed, lips still slotted against yours. You hum, leaning back in for another kiss, gasping when a single hand flys out from your pants to palm your breast.

Breaking the kiss partially, you reach behind you and unfasten your bra, briefly looking around the parking lot for any signs of people. It’s totally empty, minus the couple employees inside the store working the nightshift.

His eyes drop from your face, down to the hand covering your breasts from him. “You gonna let me see?” He asks, voice low as he tries to coax you into removing your hands. 

When you nod your head slowly, he peels your hands away, keeping his gaze on your face as he’s palming your breast in his big hands. “Kiss me again.” You whisper, watching his eyes grow wide with want. 

He’s leaning forward moments later, his warm tongue dragging across your bottom lip before slotting it inside your mouth. You cup his cheeks, holding the sides of his face and biting down on his lip when he tweaks your nipple, rolling the peaked bud between two fingers.

As you sat atop him, your hips started rolling against him, trying to match the beat of the soft music playing from his speakers. His hand drops down from your breast, gripping your hips to drag you along his crotch, creating more friction for the both of you.

“Keep doing that—” He mutters, throwing his head back onto the car seat, looking down at your hips grinding down, his bulge getting more prominent by the second. “Faster.” He whispers and you’re biting your bottom lip, rolling your hips at a quicker pace. Your breasts slowly bounce with each roll.

He felt so fucking big. You were scared yet excited, wondering how he would feel inside you, between your legs. Closing your eyes, you feel his lips latch onto your neck, kissing up the column of your throat and lingering onto your jawline just above your pulse. His tongue darted out to lick a wet stripe along your skin. 

Your movements are getting faster, soft whimpers leaving your mouth as you get yourself off on his lap, dry humping him like a horny teenager but you don’t care. Not when you get shivers everytime your clit brushes up against his clothed cock. “Ran—”

You kiss him again, hands twisting his shirt into wrinkles as you feel a warm feeling stirring by your stomach, your pending orgasm. He has an iron grip on your hips, rocking you back and forth across his thickening cock, fingers squeezing your skin tight with each breathy gasp that escapes your soft lips.

“T-take this off.” You tug at his shirt and he’s obliging, letting his hands go from your hips to whip his shirt off. The second it’s off, you’re back to kissing him, using both hands to tilt his head to the side so your nose could brush against his own. 

The two of you were about to go further, but your phone rang in your back pocket. Briefly pausing your makeout session and the grinding of your hips to check your notifications.

“Everything okay?” Ran asks, hands returning back to your hips as he draws circles into your skin.

“Nope. There was a fight at the party. My friend’s scared and wants me to pick her up.” You’re pouting, leaning in to kiss him once more, pulling away before he could deepen the kiss. “I’m sorry we keep getting interrupted.”

“It’s okay.” He’s surging you down for one last kiss, fingers hooking onto your chin to keep you there for a little bit longer before you’re pulling back to put your clothes on. “Want me to drive you back?”

“Yes please.” You climb back into the passenger seat, tugging on your seatbelt and putting your shoes back on. 

The car ride is silent the rest of the way, but a comfortable one. The two of you refusing to discuss how you were literally about to fuck each other in an empty parking lot. 

By the time Ran pulls up into the street, there’s people all over the road trying to get away from the scene. Your friend is waiting by a wall, tapping her phone against her hand as she looks around for you. 

As Ran’s driving past, you wind the window down and wave her over, calling out her name. She looks up at the driving car before sprinting towards it. Ran’s fingers move to unlock the car to allow her to get inside.

“Duuuuuuude! You guys missed the craziest shit ever!” She leans forward to grab at your chair, leaning her face between the seats to get a better view of your face. 

“What happened? You said there was a fight, right?” Ran asks as he reverses the car out from the street.

“Yeah! This guy was like walking and he was drunk and he slipped, bumping into this dude right and spilt his drink on his clothes. So the drunk guy was like: “oops my bad bro.” And the other dude was like: “nah.” Then everyone was like: “calm down it’s not that deep” but the other dude said: “he’s the bitch that slept with my girl.” So everyone exclaimed like : “WHAT?!”

And the drunk dude got backed into a corner and was asked to apologise. But snce he was drunk he was like: “im not fucking sorry, your girl had the tightest pussy ever—” but before he could finish his sentence the other guy started punching him, like tackling him to the floor and stuff.

People recorded it and then other people started fighting and it was so crazy! Then someone got a knife and tried to stab someone which was when I decided to run out here and text you guys.” 

Your friend was panting out of breath by the time she finished her story and you and Ran looked at each other with looks of incredulity. “Who won the fight though?” Ran asks, intrigued to find out.

“I dunno. I think the drunk dude got his ass whooped though. His name was Madarame I think.”

“Shion!?” Ran exclaims before he’s falling into laughter. “Of course he got his ass beat.”

A part of you smiles after hearing that information. You never really liked Shion, infact, you hated him more when you found out he cheated on your friend a couple days ago; the one that begged you to accompany her last week to meet him. 

She’s been a wreck ever since, so you’re happy he got that beating. 

“Yeah…he was surprisingly weak.” Your friends eyes fall down Ran’s car seat, just noticing how pulled far back it really is, the faint smell of cannibis in the air; she puts one and two together, the fact you both were in a car…alone…and the smell of weed…

She bites back a smile. Not wanting to embarrass you, she’s picking her phone up and running to your messages.

Kiyo: DID YOU SLEEP WITH RAN

You look at your friend through the rear view mirror, her eyes already on yours trying to search somewhere deep inside your soul for the answer. 

Your eyes travel towards Ran. He’s drumming his fingers against the wheel, propping one elbow up by the window and leaning his cheek into his palm as he focuses on the road; totally oblivious to the situation.

You: what?

Kiyo: don’t play dumb. I can smell the weed and his car seat is pulled back. 

I’ve hooked up before, you can’t phase me 

DID YOU?

You: maybe…

Now leave me alone. I don’t wanna talk about it.

Kiyo: okay 👍( ͡≖ ͜ʖ ͡≖)👉

“Thanks for the ride home, Ran. I owe you one.” She lifts her hand, meeting his own in the air for a high five. “(Y/n), I’ll see you inside .” She winks at you again before she’s sliding out of the car.

You shift around in the seat a little,  wiping your hands against your pants as you look around the car. “Are—” You pause for a moment, wondering if you should make the first move, but by the time you look up you’ve already caught his attention. Lazy purple eyes staring at you, waiting. 

You clear your throat. “Are you…busy tomorrow?”

He smiles a little. “No.”

“Do you maybe want to hang out?” Your breath catches in your throat when you hear him unbuckle his seatbelt. The worlds moving in slow motion when he cups your chin with two fingers to tug you closer towards him.

You let him kiss you, the deep satisfied sigh he lets out when you relax into the kiss, moving a hand to his thigh to stablise yourself. When he draws away, you stop him, fisting a hand in his shirt tighter when he says, “Hang out and do what?”

You look down and shrug your shoulders. “Anything you wanna do…”

He presses a kiss to your forehead before he’s pulling back, reaching for his phone in his pocket. You watch as he unlocks it and passes it to you, the contacts app splayed on his screen. 

You bite back a smile and press New Contact; adding in your details and putting a small heart by the end, but before you’re giving his phone back, you scroll through his list of contacts to see if you’re about to become a side piece or if this is a real deal. 

You see no other names that look suspicious to you, no extra hearts or emojis added to indicate that they might be ‘more than a friend’.

“Text me tonight.” You say while handing your phone back to him. 

“I will.” He says as he watches you exit the car, but not before you give him one last wave before disappearing into your friends house. He waits until the door shuts before he’s driving off.

[sashi-ya]

𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 [+18] 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐟! 𝐩𝐫𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫! 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 [chapter one] ʚ masterlist

ʚ synopsis ɞ reader enjoys cosplaying, slowly but surely she became more and more noticed by the community. However, from exposure also comes dangers. Thankfully, a modern knight will be there to protect a modern princess. Will they protegonize a cute fairy tale? or will be a tale full of dragons to defeat?

ʚ tw ɞ MDNI. not the sweetest story (yet). SEXUAL ABUSE INTENT (she is fine and safe). usage of drugs. medical terminology and treatment. I wanted to have the opportunity to spread some awarness about certain topics; being in danger is -unfortunatelly- something common nowadays when you are a woman or part of any minority, therefore having information to avoid those dangers seems absolutely necessary. So you will find some bits and pieces of information inside the story. If you need any type of support regarding these topics, please contact with someone who can help you. I am here to help you as a nurse and a woman.

ʚ masterlist: part 2, part 3 part 4; part 5; final

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧

He wasn’t very fond of conventions. Since Sora the Warrior of the Sea had ended, he didn’t enjoy the crowded space of geeky events. But his friends, did.

“You owe me one” Law grunts, as he clenches his tattooed hands to the steering wheel. They are absolutely stuck in traffic, the line to get to the convention centre parking seems endless.

“Captain!! Don’t get mad at us!” Penguin, one of his best friends, chime. The rest of the “crew” echoes him, giggling and full of good vibes.

“Do not call me captain, Pen… I- we were kids!” Law grunts feeling his cheeks turn red; he cringes every time he is called “captain”. Yet, deep inside his heart, the word reminds him of whenever there were no worries, and they would pass their free days playing “pirates”.

Half an hour later, and having listened to Uta’s song thrice, they finally find a spot to park. Soon, as they do, Bepo jumps off Law’s yellow SUV urging Shachi to help him fix his cosplay.

Bepo, the man of pristine white spiky hair and everlasting blushed cheeks, has taken a liking into dressing up as his favourite characters from books and anime. And so, his friends, are there to support him no matter what.

As they walk towards the entrance of the biggest hotel they ever been to, they hear some commotion approaching them. Like a violent gust of wind, a bunch of photographers and fans pass, pushing them to the side, completely unaware of their presence.

“What the fuck?” Law grunts, annoyed. -even more. “SHE- LOOK…!” Penguin and Shachi gawk at the beautiful angel walking through the entrance of the conference room. “It’s Princess Uta!!”

Law rolls his eyes. He seems to be over with those new idols, and, not to mention those who also cosplay. He considers that they are a bunch of “kids”, immature and annoying. Truth is, that deep inside of him, things weren’t like this that much.

“Come on, I don’t care who she is we should get going. Bepo, you will be missing the cosplayers alley… didn’t you tell us you wanted to meet someone in particular?”

The white-haired boy, with the cute expression of a polar bear, widens his eyes. His friend is right, he wanted to meet some beautiful cosplayers there.

The four friends begin to walk inside, avoiding a bunch of screaming teenagers -and not so young ones-. It’s hard to breathe, the place is packed with people buying stuff, taking pictures, or simply hanging out.

“Tch… all these people…” Law grunts; the more people around, the more he feels overstimulated. He hates loud noises, and the crowd around isn’t helping. However, despite his annoyed countenance, some merch catches his attention here and there. Deep inside, Law is still a nerd.

Many people pass by, scanning his façade that hides beneath a white dotted cap. His icy eyes couldn’t care a less; no woman receives a reciprocated smile, nor even a look. Law is above all things; he is not interested in finding love in a place like this.

In between many heads and fake swords made of cardboard, the banner that announces the start of the “cosplay alley” stands out. Law, who has noticed it before than anybody else, sighs. “Bepo… there” he points out, with his E inked index.

Desperate squeaks from Penguin and Shachi accompanies the excitement Bepo shows. The first two, run towards the place. Yet Bepo, stays right by Law’s side. They walk calmly; or at least that’s just Law, because his snowy haired friend seems to be consumed by the flame of anxiety.

“It’s just some guys dressed in weird clothes, Bepo. You are as great as them” Law spits, as if he didn’t understand the meaning of social anxiety.

“I know, Captain… but- you know…” Bepo fidgets his furred gloved hands; the character that he is cosplaying is some kind of hybrid in between a human and a polar bear.

Law looks at him, and reassures him with a soft smirk that’s barely noticeable for the rest of the world… but for his brother? It’s enough to feel encouraged.

The tables where many girls and boys are sitting, are all packed with people taking pictures with them, buying prints of their cosplay photos and some -like Penguin and Shachi- are simping. Some of the women are wearing pretty revealing costumes; other, show amazing props like their proudest treasures.

And the one that Bepo went to meet, was calmly taking some pictures with a red-haired little girl. She was dressed as a princess, or perhaps it was a warrior… no, she must be an angel…

“Captain, there she is! I wanted to take a picture with her since forever!” Bepo fans over the kind looking woman, smiling so sweetly to not so many people around like the rest of the cosplayers.

Law stands right there, getting pushed by many people as they pass and want to take pictures. He is just blinking slowly; never, in a million of years he has lost contact with reality just by looking at a woman… but it was happening, and soon the approaching rest of the “crew” noticed…

…

“Hi! A photo? Of course!” you chimed, happy to be reached by young kids willing to follow your steps in the cosplay career.

As you fleet goodbye the last kid, you notice some young men staring at you. One of them, particularly handsome, covered in tattoos, has a soft pinkish blush taking over his cheeks and seems to be frozen in time with no signs of even blinking whatsoever.

You think if he is ok. But soon you roll your eyes; surely he is watching at any other cosplayer looking bomb as all of them… he is probably another pervert.

Yet, you couldn’t be more wrong.

The white-haired guy by his side gets pushed to your booth by the other friends. He is wearing a cosplay that coincidentally share anime with yours. You smile, he is just timid.

“Hi… (Name). I’m- I am a fan of your work!” he shily says, when reaches your table. You smile, sweetly. This guy has never done anything wrong in his entire life.

You bow your head in gratefulness, standing up to get ready for yet another photo. “Thank you so much! What’s your name?” you ask, chiming and inspecting the amazing details of his costume. It seems made entirely by hand, and it couldn’t be more pretty.

“I’m Bepo!” he kinda screams, taking his hand to his forehead as if he was some kind of military or marine.

It makes you giggle, but soon the moment gets interrupted when the other two of them pull the frozen handsome guy with them to meet you.

“Hi! He is Penguin. And he is Law. Forgive him, I don’t know exactly what happened to his brain, but he wants to take a picture with you” a red-haired man with a funny looking hat says, pointing at the tattooed one.

That might have been the needed slap to wake him up. “NO!” he awkwardly screams, making you laugh.

He takes a look at you from the side, with sharp eyes that are pretty scary to look at. And it is enough to make you stop giggling. “I’m sorry ~” you whisper, looking down almost immediately.

“Captain!” the one that was introduced as Penguin scolds them, and the smile returns to your face. Why are they calling him captain?

“I’m sorry… I- I didn’t mean to scream at you” he stutters, looking now with that same hateful stare at his friend who takes two steps back.

You bite the insides of your mouth. He is way more handsome when he speaks, a raspier voice, low and sensual, that makes you kinda weak.

“Don’t worry. I get I look a little bit intimidating with this costume on!” you joke, taking a huge replica of a sword from the table and showing it to him. It’s almost as tall as he is, with a furry tsuba and golden details on its tsuka.

The man covered in tattoos look at the sword, and then at your eyes. You spend what feels like eternal seconds getting lost in them. He is something special.

Handing him the prop, your fingers delicately graze, and you discover how soft are his. He either never worked in his life or is some kind of surgeon.

He inspects the sword, amazed at the details. Bepo, while he does so, finally takes the picture he wanted to with you. And soon, the encounter has to inevitably come to an end.

All of them wave goodbye to you, but, you aren’t willing to let the man of frozen eyes go without learning his name.

“Bepo! If you post the picture we took together, please, tag me! I will love to follow your Instagram account” you chime, waving back at them. “You are an amazing cosplayer, we should team up someday!”

The white-haired boy has almost a stroke from your words; and you can only hope for his friend to also have an account…

You sit back for some minutes while more people come to your booth, and while you curl a lock of your wig you can stop thinking about him. “What a handsome guy…” you giggle, noticing your cheeks get hot as hell itself.

Sometimes, throughout the day, you take a look around. You wish you could see him again, but unfortunately you can’t get a glimpse of him.

Your thoughts, however, right an hour before the day of the con is over, get interrupted by a guy asking you something.

“Excuse me, I’m a photographer. You can see my portfolio if you scan my QR code. I would like to offer you a photoshoot for free” he kindly says, looking like the respectful man you’ve ever met. Besides, he has something attached to his cheek, something like a sweet? Did he seriously not noticed?

You aren’t fully trustful of him; you know some men, specially in your ambience aren’t exactly the best so you proceed with care.

“I… I really appreciate the offering. I would love to collab with you, but you see it’s been a long day” you try to decline, respectfully. It’s true that you are a little bit tired, but it was the fact that you had went alone to the event this time. Nobody could keep you company during the first day of the convention.

The man insists; he shows the pictures of his work, and they look awesome. “We wont go any further, I think right there will be enough for the pics to look amazing!” he chimes. You think twice, but since he didn’t request for you to go outside or far away you finally accept.

As you start packing up your staff, the photographer offers himself to help you. You are really happy someone is giving you a hand, and you kind of feel guilty for mistrusting him before.

When you crunch to pick up your bag you notice a little charm on the floor; a polar bear plushie lays almost forgotten under the table’s booth. “Oh… someone might have lost it! I will keep it and see if anyone comes back and asks for it” you think, clasping it to your bag.

 And soon when you are set to fleet, off both of you go.

Walking through the now almost empty halls, you get some chills running through your spine. Is not the first time you see the con’s alley deserted, but you usually end your day now and go back to your hotel. You shake the feeling and get distracted with the man by your side offering you a something.  

“(Name), bet you haven’t got anything to drink in many hours. Please, drink some water. You gotta stay hydrated” he says, with a smile that’s difficult to read. The bottle is closed, so you thankfully accept it.

Once you have finally reached the now solitaire photo set, specially adapted for the convention, you take a big gulp of water. It feels refreshing; you honestly needed it. You were taught to never accept anything edible nor drinkable from the people that come to see you at events, but since it the bottle was clearly new, you didn’t give much importance to the dangers.

When the camera is set, the man calls you to stand and pose in front of him. At first, things went smoothly. But then, everything changed…

“You should lower the cleavage a little” he suggested.

“I…” you stutter, fixing the collar of your dress. Perhaps it was too high and it wasn’t looking good.

“More, honey! You should show a little bit more skin. That will attract more followers!” he insists, pointing the camera towards your chest.

“No. I don’t feel comfortable!” you straightforwardly deny. You want to stop, but you begin to feel your ears buzzing, and the flashing lights of the camera become almost unbearable to look at. You try to look at your sides for help, discovering there is nobody around and the guy coming closer and closer.

The bastard laughs, grabbing your arms and whispering things you can barely understand. “Don’t get all worked up, honey… you shouldn’t drink stuff people give you… now, cooperate with me…”

You try to let go of him, scared of what he could do to you, unable to scream or even kick him away. Yet, there is always a glimpse of hope in everything...

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ“Get the fuck away from her!”

continues in ➡ chapter 2

[jadetheblade4]

Are They Stupid?

A Dog Man Fanfic by Swirly Twirly

☆☆☆

Summary: Petey escapes Cat Jail, but the local guard that checks up on him is the one on his tail!! Will the shennanigans ever cease... (Takes place somewhere before A Tale Of Two Kitties) (Not a ship thing sorry weirdos but this gal wants to write for the silly of it ^_^)

☆☆☆

Part 1:

It was yet another normal day at Cat Jail, Collardale. The guard was doing his normal everyday rounds, albeit with a positive demeanor. He had been having a great day so far, thinking that nothing much could ruin it. He went to Petey's cell with a skip in his step.

"Gooooooood morning, Petey!" proclaimed the Guard, banging onto the cold metal bars of the cell. Petey, startled by this sudden noise, lifted his head up from his piles of papers and blueprints of escape. His face contorted into an annoyed glance once he saw who it was, his ears turned downward in disinterest.

"Aaaaaand goodbye to you, Guard..." Petey retorts, waving him off and continuing to work on his plans.

The guard chuckled. "Aw, cheer up, buddy! Big Jim and a bunch of other cats are planning on taking a sewing class today. You should join them!"

"Don't call me buddy! Besides, why would I want to be with any of those nut jobs? They're all stupid goofballs that don't have anything better to do with their life!" Petey took great offense in that chuckle, even slightly hissing his words to subconciously tell him to back off.

The guard tilts his head slightly, frowning a bit. "Then...what are you doing with your time?" he questioned, leaning onto the bars of Petey's cell. 

Petey's sneer immediately dissapears the moment he realizes how suspicious he looks. "I- um...Well..." he stutters, trying to find something to pass off as an excuse. Suddenly, his ears perk up, a quick idea passing through his genius mind.

He picked up a piece of paper that was a shopping list of some sort but for evil machinery. The contents didn't matter, though. He turned it over and quickly doodled a crude-looking drawing of the guard and himself holding hands, trying to make it as nice as possible with his ratty artstyle.

"Well, for your information... I'm...drawing a picture!! Of us!! Hanging out or whatever, just come see it!" proclaimed the orange cat, waving the drawing above his head.

The guard's face lights up in glee. "Really, Petey? You drew a picture for me??" he squealed in excitement. He never would've thought that Petey would do something nice for him for a change!

Petey nods convincingly. "Uh huh, just open the cell door and come inside to see it!!"

Unlocking the door to petey's cell, the guard steps inside gleefully. "What does it look like? Oh, I hope you capture my likeness onto it!!"

"Yeah, yeah, here ya go, I made it with care and whatnot, blah blah blah sappy stuff..." Petey shoves the drawing onto the guard, who happily accepted it.  The guard's eyes go wide as he scans the picture. A huge grin spreads across his face. "Aw, Petey, I love it!!! It looks so nice!!! C'mere you!!" He goes over to him and pulls him into a tight and loving hug.

"Oof!" Petey's breath slips out of him as he's trapped in the guard's iron grip. "Ok, man, hands off the merchandise!!" He squirms, trying to get away, but the guy has no plans of letting him go at the moment.

"This is the most thoughtful gift i have ever recieved in my whole entire life!!!! the guard proclaimed, continuing to cuddle him more. He comically spins him around and even kisses his cheek a couple of times, the gift really meaning a lot to him somehow.

"EUGH!! Alright ALRIGHT I GET IT I'm such a great pal now GET OFF!!!" Petey wriggled around his grasp until he popped off. He let out a "hmph!" as he tidied himself up from his sudden invasion of privacy. The guard jumped off to the side, a bit hurt by Petey's sudden cold nature. The orange cat notices his sudden deflate and feels a certain pull in his heart. "I mean, uh, no problem... figured I'd repay you for dealing with my, uh, schemes and stuff..." Petey stuttered, shifting his feet.

The guard's face lights back up again as he looks back at the picture. "Aww, it's nothing, Petey!! Just doing my duty!!" he said. Petey let out a smile, strangely happy about his half-assed drawing. He then shakes his head and tries to focus on the task at hand.

"I was thinking about hanging it up over there on the right side corner of my cell, can ya be a dear and put it there for me?" he bats his eyes innocently and points to said corner. The guard happily agreed. "Of course, dear pal!" He gives him one final hug and rushes to the wall to hang it up.

With a devious smile on his face, he tiptoes out of the cell. "Heheh, what a doofus..." the cat giggled. A few moments later, he escapes from the jail once more. "Ahh, finally! I can get back to doing what i usually do..." He walks back to his lab and breathes a sigh of relief. "The life...OF CRIME!!! HAW HAW HAW!!!!" he announces. The large building echoed his words, alerting the butler from the staircase.

"Heya Petey! Been a while since I've seen you around!!" he quickly steps down and joins him as Petey parades around his home. "Breaking out this time was a bit difficult," Petey went on, "but now things can finally get back on tra-"

A tv at the corner of the supposed room they're in suddenly announces its lovely presence by blaring breaking news from its LD screen. Petey and Butler turn their attention to the tv. It shows none other than Sarah Hatoff,  greatest reporter, in front of the very Cat Jail Petey just escaped from moments ago.

"BREAKING NEWS, FELLOW CITIZENS OF COLLARDALE!!!" Sarah declared. "We are currently receiving reports of a runaway warden of sorts from the Cat Jail looking for a certain fiendish feline...PETEY!!!" A mugshot of his face is shown on the screen right next to a goofy-looking photo of the guard, to which Petey frowns upon. "He informs us that if we see the cat anywhere to report to him...and...only him." Sarah scratched her head in confusion. "Huh. Guess the police aren't needed. This is Sarah Hatoff, signing out."

The butler turned to Petey. "Huh, I guess you don't need to, after all!" he said with a dumbass smile on his face. Petey grimaces and pinches the middle of his forehead in frustration. "AAUGH....Why is there always SOMETHING to ruin the mood..." he groaned, marching up the steps to the lab's roof with the butler following right behind. 

Up above, Petey and the butler scan their surroundings. The day-to-day hustle and bustle of the city rings out from below, showing no sign of anything unusual. The butler tilts his head. "Nobody here yet..." he muttered.

The orange cat crossed his shoulders and shook his head. "...Hmph! What am I even worried about anyways?!?" He laughed at how absurd he was acting at the moment to save face as he started walking back towards the stairs. "This lab is one of the most discrete and perfectly hidden buildings in all of the city of Collardale! It'll take a while before-"

A loud buzz-like sound suddenly calls out and the pair jumped in suprise. Petey rushed back and leaned over the roof once more to see a tiny guard waiting patiently at the door, pressing the goddamn buzzer.

"HOW DID HE FIND MY LAB!?!" Petey screamed. He quickly covered his mouth and dragged Butler down to the ground before Guard could see up above. He grabbed his butler by the shirt and whispered, "How did he find my lab?!?!?!"

The butler shrugged. "Gee, Petey, I don't have a clue how the guy could think of coming here."

"Hmm...strange." Petey let him go and scratched his head. He peered over the roof to look at his big fat-ass "PETEY'S SECRET LAB" sign. "Oh, by the way, I think you need to change a few of the lightbulbs on my lab's sign this weekend. A few of them are starting to fade out."

The butler rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'll buy lightbulbs later this evening, I guess..." he muttered again, peering over and looking at the sign with him.

Petey raised his eyebrow. "Also, quit muttering and mumbling so much, it's starting to irritate me >:( ."

The guard pressed the buzzer again. His hand contained a small piece of paper. "Helloooo?"  he called out. "I'm an authority from the local Cat Jail! Is anyone home?" He looked up at the tall building, to which Petey noticed just in time and ducked. Unfortunately, the butler ducked a bit too late, therefore leading the guard to only catch sight of him and not Petey.

"Oh, hey there! I just wanted to ask a couple of questions, if ya don't mind!!" he shouted from below to up above. The butler pops out again and gives a thumbs up, then goes down again.

Petey facepalms himself and groans annoyingly. He then faces the butler, who smiled sheepishly.

"You better not tell him im here. In fact, make him regret coming here in the first place!! I don't wanna be involved with the guy any further!!" he yelled, grudgingly going downstairs.

The butler shifted uneasily in place. "Uh, sure, Petey... I'll see what I can do, I guess..." he mumbled once more as he followed the grumpy cat.

[olympeline]

FrUK FACE family Parent Trap AU, part 9! Part 1

Last time: shock! Horror! Alfred, and by extension the whole scheme, just got rumbled! By Uncle Gil of all people! Who could have seen it coming? Not Alfred. But then he hasn’t known Gilbert long. Under that nutty exterior tick-tick-ticks a surprisingly sharp mind. Gilbert had been suspicious almost from the start. He didn’t say anything because that’s not his way. But now things have gone on long enough that even Gilbert has to step in. If for no other reason than he needs some news of Mattie.

So, under threat of an immediate call to Francis, Alfred is forced to confess all. They sit down over delicious and nutritious frosting sandwiches and Alfred tearfully confessses all that’s gone down since the twins were reunited. Everything from their chance meeting to their time living the other’s identity. Gilbert doesn’t let him off the hook, prodding for details and making Al show him his phone so he can confirm what’s been said. Alfred burns with embarrassment when Gilbert scans some of his early descriptions of him (the words “freaky” “weird” and “totally batshit” may or may not have been used) but Gil doesn’t comment. The let up in the grilling (gilling?) is when Gilbert sees a picture of Arthur in his conservative dad clothes.

“HA!! Mein gott, that’s precious! Old punkass, slutbag Kirkland turned into a right old tory, huh kid?”

“What’s a tory?”

“Ask your dad. He dresses like one of their rentboys.”

“What’s a rentboy?”

Gilbert changed the subject after that. To what the two of them intented to do now. How long were they planning to keep this up? What were they hoping to achieve? Alfred just shrugs helplessly. They weren’t really hoping anything. He tells Gilbert they just wanted to get to know the other half of their family. Finding the missing piece that’s always been there for both of them. Gilbert listens, takes another look at Alfred’s phone, then gives it back. Alfred sees it’s open on a selfie of Mattie and Arthur. Matthew has an Alfred-style big, sunny beam. Even after playing his brother for weeks, Mattie isn’t a good enough actor to fake it to such an extent. Gilbert knows him well enough to see that.

Alfred haltingly asks what Gilbert’s going to do now. Gilbert is quiet for a long time. Then he shakes his head, grins, and ruffles Alfred’s hair.

“I’m no snitch, kaulquappe, and I always thought what your dads did was moronic. I can’t imagine doing nothing after finding out what you did. Hell, if it were me and Lud I would have done the same. So don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Really?!” Alfred’s heart leaps and so he does too. Right off the couch. “YAHOO! Thanks, Uncle Gil! I-”

The rest is cut off when Gilbert stuffs a sandwich in his mouth.

“Cool your jets, yanketito. I wasn’t done! Remember I told you about my lil bro’s wedding?”

Alfred nods through a mouthful of frosting.

“Mmhm.”

“Gut. Obviously I’m going down to liberty land to be his best man. Ha! As if he’d dare choose anyone else! I’ll put Honda over my damn knee and spank him with his own bodypillow if he even thinks of muscling in on my territory!”

Alfred has no idea who this Honda is but pities him anyway. He nods as that seems the safest option.

“Mmhm.”

“So! I’ll be going down to NYC. And you’ll be coming with me.”

Gilbert gives him that rust-coloured stare again and Alfred, for one of the few times in his life, knows it would be futile to argue. Uncle Gil is like a force of demented nature.

“Like I said, I won’t snitch but this can’t go on forever. So enjoy your time up here, kid. It just got a curtain call, ja?”

Alfred swallows the sandwich and nods. What else can he do? Gilbert holds all the cards and they both know it.

“…Ja.”

“YEAH! Good choice! Now, call Mattie. Tell him to get his maple-print panties in a bunch because Uncle Gil knows and Uncle Gil wants to talk.”

(Have a small update! I’ve been very busy lately and I will be for a while so I can’t promise when there’ll be more. Just when I can snatch a few minutes. Until then, please enjoy and stay tuned for part 10! (´ε｀ )♡)

[saltydumplings]

hi, bunny anon here! upon pain of death please write another bunny piece 🔫/j maybe hero and villain are at a costume party and villain's henchman or hero's sidekick could only get a pair of bunny ears or something at short notice? <3

Request #25

Gods, I haven't written properly in a hot second.

Cw: a lil suggestive.

"Y-You're kidding me."

"I know - it was all they had," the sidekick said.

The hero eyed the bunny ears skeptically, already fearing their imminent humiliation. "That can't be right. Th-they must have had something else it- it can't have just been this!"

"Well yeah, there was a bunch of masks and stuff but--"

"BUT?!" the hero screeched, cutting the other off short before they could even finish.

In return the sidekick merely quirked their brow at the sudden outburst, the hero flushing within seconds and telling them to go on.

"But," the sidekick continued, somewhat sassilly, "it was the only one on discount."

As soon as the hero heard that explanation their humility left them once more and they scowled. A discount? The reason they were stuck with these stupid ears was because the sidekick wanted to save a goddamn pound?

They opened their mouth to say as much but that was quickly put a stop to as well, the sidekick cutting them off before they'd even taken a breath:

"And obviously I know you're not going to have a problem with that when I went out of my way to get you a costume that you should have gotten yourself two months ago with my own money...right?"

Huh.

Well...when they put it like that...

As the sidekick turned to stare at them, the hero was quick to shut their mouth - giving a simple nod and thank you as the other tossed them their outfit for the night. They watched as their partner left the room then, a low huff and grumble of words that the hero didn't quite catch the last thing to fill the silence between them.

Alone now, the hero looked down at the costume in their hands.

On second thought, the ears weren't that bad. No, they - they weren't that bad at all...

They were that bad.

The ears and the costume were terrible, so much so that the hero was half tempted to swipe the cloth from the table, cut two holes in it and throw it over themself - say that they were a ghost or something. Unfortunately, the table was covered with food and drinks, and a lot of other things that looked like they could be very easily broken. While the hero looked like they might have been pulled from a magician's hat, they regrettably didn't trust themself to pull off such a magical feat.

A small snicker to the left of them pulled their attention away - the hero catching the sidekick laughing at them again. They had known what they were doing when they brought this outfit, the hero was sure of it. The second this mission was over they were going to give them a piece of their--

The sidekick's smile suddenly vanished, replaced by a small frown as their gaze hitched upwards, staring at something behind them. It was the only warning the hero got before they felt a warm body pressing up against their back - a puff of hot breath hitting the exposed skin of their neck as someone leaned in close.

"Are you lost, little bunny?"

The hero gulped, recognising the voice immediately.

So much for blending in...

They turned around slowly, trying to prepare some snarky comeback only to freeze - the words dying on their tongue within an instant as a fresh blush dusted their cheeks.

Of course. Of course the villain had come dressed as a wolf.

The hero gulped before squaring their shoulders, determined to meet the villain's gaze. "If anyone's lost here, it's you," they said. "This is a private venue, one that--"

"Villain's don't get invited to?" The other pulled out an invitation, the hero gaping as they read the villain's name written on it neatly.

They snatched it from them, eyes scanning over it in disbelief. "You faked this. You must have!"

"Or," the villain said, plucking the item back and pocketing it, "unlike you and angry eyes over there, I actually have friends outside of work."

Against their better judgement, the hero sputtered, face flushing red as they defended themself. "I have friends, we - we both have friends, it's-- th-that assumption is wrong and stupid and you are so full of it if you actually think that I... Why are you smiling?"

As if on cue, the villain grinned wider - their teeth looking suspiciously sharper than usual. They stepped forward and the hero stepped back, hating the way the villain's eyes lit up at the movement. The other practically purred, snatching the hero's chin into their hand before they could think to retreat any further.

"You're cute when you're mad," the villain said.

"I--" The hero stopped. "Wh-what?"

They were practically chest to chest then - the villain's free hand moving down to catch their waist and hold them close. They leaned in, the hero shuddering as their eyes locked.

"You know," the villain began, voice lower than before, "if you did want someone to spend your off hours with, I'm sure I could find a space for you in my schedule."

The hero blinked, hardly believing what they were hearing. "A-As a friend?" they asked.

The villain hummed. "Sure, as a friend...or," their thumb stroked over the hero's bottom lip, touch lingering, "something more. If you want, that is."

A beat.

"You..." The hero swallowed - wet their lips. "Y-You would, um..."

"Yes," the villain said. "Yes, I would. Again: if you want. Not to mention," they tilted the hero's face up the second the other went to look away - their plan to hide the blush that was spreading across their cheeks quickly being foiled, "a little bunny like you could benefit from befriending a wolf like me."

The hero actually thought about that for a second. They knew they shouldn't - knew that it was probably another trap that the villain was laying down with just a few words...It still intrigued them though. Tempted them.

"Don't wolves eat rabbits?" they asked eventually, schooling their expression into what they hoped was a glare.

They'd taken too long to answer though. They knew that.

And so did the villain.

Somehow, the other's smile seemed to grow even sharper. They leaned forward - the hero contemplating stepping back only to freeze when they felt lips pressing against their neck, the villain's teeth scraping slowly against their skin before returning up to nip at the shell of their ear.

The hero's heart pounded in their chest - their breath suddenly shallow and their blush practically burning as the villain whispered their answer, three little words that were slowly threatening to drive the hero insane.

"If you want," the villain said. Their thumb brushed over the hero's lips once more. "Whatever you want~"

[ilooklikeaburntchickenugget]

INKling

A/N: Okay so a while ago I saw a post made by the__ria on Instagram where she drew Gerard as a tattoo artist with a bunch of tattoos and piercings and it's so INCREDIBLE (the post is from April 2023 on her Instagram page if you wanna see my direct inspo!). So here's a cutesy little story about who I think tattoo artist Gerard would be, and him doing/walking the reader through her first tattoo. Pairing: tattoo!artist!Gerard x F!Reader Warnings: Swearing, needles? (idk if that's one but putting it down) Word count: ~2,900

You were finally doing it.

After over a year of wanting to, lots of thought and contemplation about it, you were finally forcing yourself to overcome the fear of potential pain and just get the tattoo you had wanted. You figured now was not only the perfect time to get some important art with significant value to you on your body but also to face your fear of pain and commitment. Call it killing two birds with one stone, you were calling it a whirlwind of anxiety.

Your favorite co-worker, Lianna, had promptly suggested her tattoo/piercing artist as soon as you told her you were gonna do it. Her face was sparkling with various pieces of metal through her skin, her arms lined with sleeves of small tattoos, and you knew she had some other places too. So why not? She clearly knew what she was doing, and you had no one else to rely on for this.

So this Saturday morning you entered the small parlor tucked in-between a couple of larger shops on the grungey side of town. You preferred it here anyways, where coffee shops and cocktail places were oddly experimental and regular clothing stores were silenced by the absurd amount of thrift stores. “You ready?” She asked with a big smile as you two walked in.

You tightly smiled, “Yeah, but nervous.”

“Don’t worry, Gerard is amazing. He makes everything so comfortable and is such a talented artist. He’ll take great care of you.”

“Did I hear my name?” You heard a male voice shout from a hallway somewhere.

“Yeah Gee, it’s Lianna.”

“Again? Dude, I will always thank you for your business but you were here like three weeks ago-" He stepped around the corner and into the back part of the counter, stopping briefly when he saw you.

“I’m here for her.” She clarified nodding her head in your direction.

Of course Lianna had to bring you to not only a vibey, comfortable tattoo shop, but one where the owner, and soon to be your artist, was extremely hot. You really tried to control your dilating pupils, but then again, no one could do that. There was no hope for you at this point. His lightly shaggy but short black hair that fell just below the tip top of his ear. The piercings that looked like they were made for his face included a septum, angel fangs on the top of his lips, a bridge piercing, and a small one on the center of his bottom lip (you weren't sure what those were called). And the tattoos that surrounded the skin all over him and up his neck just past the cut of the top of his shirt. You wanted to trace your finger over every inch of ink on his body.

“And who is this?” He smirked which you quickly picked up on, going to sit at his computer briefly.

“Um, I’m Y/N.” You said with a small smile, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too, sugar.” He looked up at you a bit, “What’re you here for?”

“A tattoo-“

“Her first.” Lianna quickly jumped in.

“Oh? A newbie.” He smiled, “We all gotta start somewhere. It looks like you’re in luck too because I’m free this morning so you won’t have to deal with Frank. He gets a little needle happy and likes the bigger harder stuff, and I’m assuming you wanna start simple.” You nodded, “What’re you thinkin’?”

“I want a sunflower on my forearm,” You said as he lightly nodded.

“Sounds easy enough, got any ideas I can see?” You nodded and pulled up your Pinterest board of ideas you liked while he quickly scanned through them, clearly taking many mental notes. “Perfect, mind if I take a few minutes in the back to draw up some ideas?” You nodded as he shot you a quick smile and went to the back.

“So, what do you think of him?” Lianna turned to you and asked.

“Why did you take me to a hot tattoo artist?” You groaned under your breath and through your teeth, hoping the walls here were thick. “Out of everyone and you chose the one that’s my type, and manages to make every single tattoo and piercing he has look like they were literally made for him.” She shrugged.

“Hey babe, remember I’m into women. Been dating the same one for five years, I don’t notice that shit about men.” You rolled your eyes, “If you really wanna go for it though, Gerard is most definitely single.”

“Yeah because someone who looks like him is gonna go out with me.”

“Judging by how incredibly flirty he was and the amount of times I counted his eyes looking you slowly up and down, I think the feeling is mutual.” You rolled your eyes. “For someone as genuinely beautiful as you are, we need to work on your self-confidence around men. It’s borderline sad how poorly you are at dealing with any man who is into you.”

“Because they’re not into me. They’re being nice.”

“I’ve known Gerard for years. That’s an overly nice, flirty, ‘I want to fuck this women’ Gerard.”

“I’m not looking for just a fuck.” You clarified, though you definitely wouldn’t mind doing that with him.

“Alright, I’m back. Thanks for waiting.” Your trance was broken by Gerard rounding the corner with an iPad in his hands. He walked over to you, standing next to you, and glancing the screen in your direction. It took your brain a few seconds of recalibration to stop focusing on his body heat, proximity, and damn smell that reeked in some sort of addicting way of cigarettes, coffee, and some musky pine situation.

Your eyes zeroed in on the design, realizing it was everything you wanted and more. Your face broke out into a huge smile. “It’s perfect. Like legitimately perfect.” He smiled back down at you.

“I’m glad you like it.” He responded. “Let me run back and print this out real quick, then get you to my station so we can talk placement.”

It only took him two or three minutes to get a variety of his designs printed out, coming back out and leading both you and Lianna to his station.

“You’ve eaten and drank water today, right?” He asked and you nodded.

“I wouldn’t have let he come here without that.” Lianna was quick to speak up.

“Right.” Gerard curtly nodded with a tight smile. “Just double checking. You would be surprised by the number of people that say they do that and then pass out or have issues afterward.” Your eyes went wide in concern. He saw your face and immediately retracted what he had said. “That’s not gonna happen to you. It only happens to people that don’t and just say they did.” He politely smiled. You nodded.

He spent a few minutes working with you on placement before finding the right area, and then carefully positioning it on your arm to make it easier for him to work. Even with his gloves on, your mind wandered with curiosity about how his hands felt, what they could do, and where they could go. It was subconscious, as you internally kicked yourself for thinking such things.

“Alright sweetheart, if you need to take a break or for me to stop because of the pain let me know.” You nodded, biting your bottom lip as you grew even more nervous. Your mind felt like it was spinning a bit, your face heating up at the prospect of the pain. “Do you wanna take another minute?” He asked, clearly sensing your nervousness.

“No, I’m okay.” You replied. “Just rip the band-aid off.” He softly smiled and nodded, grabbing his small tattoo gun.

“If it makes you feel any better,” He mentioned, loading what you assumed to be the ink inside. “Women’s pain tolerances are amazing when it comes to tattoos compared to men. I’ve had way more grown-ass men tap out after a few minutes on easy tattoo spots then I’ve had women after hours on more painful areas.” “Really?” You asked, partially amazed. He nodded with a “mhm”.

“I swear,” He smiled softly. You didn’t even notice until now that he had placed the needle on and began tracing the outline.

It was way better than you had anticipated. If anything, it didn’t even feel fully like a scratch, just like a very very small burning and tingling sensation.

“You doing okay?” He asked, his eyes still zeroed in and focusing on the lines he traced.

“Yeah, actually. This doesn’t really feel like much.”

“See.” You could see his cheeks push up from where his head was tilted in what you assumed to be a smile. “Tattoos are generally not bad, but especially on women.”

He continued on for a few minutes, Lianna filling the air with her random ranting about one thing or another, before Gerard spoke up again.

“Why did you decide on this tattoo, if you don’t mind me asking?” He spoke.

You softly smiled. “It’s for my grandmother. She passed away just over a year ago, loved sunflowers, so I wanted to get it for her.” Gerard hummed in appreciation.

“I’m assuming you were close with her?” He asked next, to which you hummed a quick “mhm”.

“I was very close with my grandmother too.” He smiled to himself, now tracing some the of the leaves. “She was the one who convinced me to continue with art from when I was a kid into my teen years, and then wanted me to go into it professionally.” He said.

“That’s really sweet.” You replied. “Do you have any tattoos for her?”

“I’ve only got one, shockingly.” He chuckled. “I got it right after she passed, five years ago-ish. It’s just her name in her handwriting on my inner forearm.” You glance down to where his arms laid, working on your own, but couldn’t find it.

“What was her name?”

“Helena.” He stated. “I can show it to you after.” You nodded, not even sure if he could see your face, but also not sure how to respond fully. “Are you ready for shading? This is probably gonna hurt a bit more.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” You replied. He looked up at you for the first time during the session to give you a comforting smile.

“If you need to tap out just say so. No shame in it.”

Shading dis hurt notably more. You closed your eyes for a small portion of it when the pain became a lot, the repetition of the needles over and over again on the same part of your skin. “You okay?” He asked.

“Yeah, I’m good.” You sighed out, letting your mind take you to other places but the pain on your arm.

“Good girl.” He muttered. That phrase made you tense, and you prayed no one in the room noticed your legs move slightly closer together. Damn praises.

Your eyes opened, working their way up to Lianna who was smirking between the two of you. Had you not been preoccupied with one of your arms being temporarily out of commission, you would’ve hit her.

Less than 20 minutes later he was done. You heard the gun turn off, and his gloves come off.

“You wanna see it?” He asked and you nodded, standing up and letting him guide you to the full body mirror in the shop. As soon as you turned your arm to see it, you gasped out loud not even intending to.

It was more than perfect. You weren’t sure you could have pictured it turning out any better, the way it cascaded up your arm and the perfect detailing.

“It’s literally perfect.” You stated in disbelief and excitement, turning to Gerard who had a huge smile plastered on his face. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course.” He replied, “I’m glad you really like it.”

“More than really like. I absolutely love it.” He nodded in appreciation.

You quickly glanced down to his inner forearm, noticing the delicate cursive tracing of the name "Helena". He quickly noticed, moving his arm up and to his side to allow you better access to see it more fully.

"That's really beautiful. And sentimental." He nodded.

"It keeps me grounded. Reminds me of her and all the principles she gave me." He softly smiled. "Grandma's are pretty damn special, aren't they." You giggled under your breath.

"They sure are."

It didn’t take long for him to ring you up, handing you over the total and waiting for you to pull out your right card.

“Wait-“ You began at the front desk, he stood behind it his head perking up at your confusion. “This is less than it’s supposed to be, right?” He shrugged it off.

“Lianna comes in here so often, I added a friend's discount.”

“Gerard, you really don’t have to do that. You worked really hard and I-“

“It’s okay, really.” He softly smiled. “Just come into me for the rest of your tattoos.” You nodded with a smile.

“Of course.” There was no need to argue and try to say you weren’t sure if you were getting more. As soon as you realized the pain was much less than anticipated, and how much you loved the new piece of art on your arm, you knew deep down you would be back for many more.

“Thank you, again.” You said, giving your signature on the receipt.

“Anytime.” He cheekily smiled at you. “I’ll see you around.”

“For sure-“

“Before we leave,” Lianna spoke up, now standing beside you and leaning on the counter. You assumed she was going to either request an appointment with Gerard or ask a tattoo-related question. “Gerard I’ve known you for four years.” He gave her a quizzical look, clearly just as unsure as you were as to where this conversation was heading. “You’ve never once flirted with a client, until Y/N.” He tried to interject with a quick opening of his mouth as his face turned bright red. “And Y/N is shit at talking to men. So just give her your number so we can all walk out of here happy and knowing the sexual tension over the last hour and a half does exist, and will be dealt with.”

Both you and Gerard stared at her with wide eyes unsure of what to do. For the first time that day, Gerard seemed flustered.

“Oh, um- yeah, sure.” He said, fiddling around the desk and finding a post-it note. He hastily wrote down his number, handing it to you. “No pressure or anything at all.”

“Thanks.” You softly smiled, still too embarrassed by Lianna to muster up anything more. “I’ll uh- I’ll text you.”

“That would be great.” He replied. “You like coffee?” You nodded. “Perfect, we’ll set up a date.” Your eyes went wide with nervousness. You looked like a deer in the headlights. “Again, no pressure.”

“Right.” You said, “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, it was nice meeting you Y/N.”

“You too, Gerard.”

As you walked out of the tattoo shop, you felt your cheeks heating up into a bright red of embarrassment from Lianna. “Why the fuck would you do that?” You asked/yelled at her as soon as you were a solid two blocks away.

“What? The tension between you two was insane.” She explained with a sigh. “And he wasn’t going to ask, because Gerard’s professional and takes pride in that. And you sure as hell weren’t going to ask, because you lose every ounce of your confidence around men.”

“That’s-" You knew she was right but the principle of the matter still made you mad at her.

“It’s the truth. And you should be thanking me! You now have a date with a hot as hell tattoo artist.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t judge men by how they look.” You fired back.

“I am a true and proud lesbian at heart… but you do have a point. I could see his attractiveness from a ‘I’m into guys’ perspective. It took a lot of imagining.” You groaned.

“What if he doesn’t actually wanna go out with me and you just made him feel pressured?”

“Gerard Way doesn’t feel pressured.” She explained with a scoff. “If there’s any man in the world who is confident bordering cocky, but thankfully stays a few steps away from cocky, it’s Gerard. He would have come up with an excuse, or better, told me off if he didn’t want to give you his number.”

“Whatever.” You sighed. “Now I have a date to set up and a new stressor and-"

“Gerard is chill.” She softly smiled at you. “He’s literally just gonna ask you to get coffee with him, he’s gonna pay no doubt, and just chill in the corner of a coffee shop with you and talk.”

“I’m not good at talking to men.”

“You’re great at it when you feel comfortable.” She sighed. “Just- trust me, he’s a great guy. If you’re nervous, tell him and he will completely understand.”

“Okay.” You said in a final defeat. “If this all goes to shit though, I’m blaming you.”

“If it all goes to shit, which it won’t,” She confidently fired back. “I’ll pay for your next tattoo.”

“It won’t be from Gerard if it all goes to shit.”

“Eh, so be it. A revenge tattoo arc would be fun for you!”

[ceruleanwhore]

As someone who has never liked Jin since I first started ikepri, I recently was convinced to attempt to make my way through his romantic route after reading @randonauticrap’s wonderful and very compelling fanfic about him and now, as I finish his story, I wanted to take a very long minute to talk about it. I’d like to start with a bit of context before really getting into things, though. (Major spoilers for Luke and Jin’s routes below the cut.)

A few months ago, I saw a post somewhere on here that mentioned what, for me at the time, was a massive spoiler, that Jin killed Luke’s sister. At the time, I was in the middle of another route so I immediately took to YouTube to find a playlist of Jin’s route because my thought at the time was that I wanted to read it. However, I very quickly decided that I hated it, and then I kind of just flipped through some of the following chapters, kind of scanning for the stuff with Luke’s sister and not finding it, so then I just ended up skipping to the last 8 chapters and slogging through those. It is also worth mentioning that the only ending on YouTube was his dramatic ending.

Now, that whole experience sucked beyond belief and I came out of it deeply, passionately hating Jin because really all I saw was his awful, disrespectful behavior at the very beginning and that horrid shit he pulls both in ch 19 and then in the actual ending. A while after this whole ordeal, I did get around to reading Luke’s route, which made me hate Jin even more because, in the part where Jin is finally explaining what happened on Bloodstained Rose Day and we get his own flashback, there’s no dialogue, like he pulls this injured little girl from the rubble and then just slices her throat without her ever saying anything. Between that and what sure seemed like sexism from what bits and pieces of Jin’s route I’d seen, it gave me this idea that Leyla was straight up unconscious and he just decided to slice her throat like that because, in truth, he just wanted her out of the way and didn’t want to have to deal with her during the fighting but obviously he’d tell himself that it was for her sake or some shit. There’s still a bunch I’m missing with that but I’m about to get way more into this shit so I’m not concerned, but tldr I fucking hated this guy and I thought he was the worst kind of scum coming out of Luke’s route, especially since so many other people in the fandom have talked about how much he gives them the ick.

So now, at the end of his romantic route, I still don’t like him and I really think I was just bewitched by the beautiful things that @randonauticrap has written about him, but I don’t truly hate him anymore. I think I’m going to just list off my issues with his character as quickly as possible to just really show how much there is that I take issue with here without going on about it for an eternity.

First is the way he talks about women (i.e. comments about how he’s never seen such an impressive “rack” before.) More importantly, there’s how he’s sexualizing women in totally inappropriate contexts where there really aren’t any women present, like when he’s training his troops or when he goes to deal with that issue on the border and is addressing those kids from Obsidian. This particularly is disturbing to me because there’s already a longstanding history of men conflating sexual violence with the violence of war and for Jin to, however unintentionally, draw that direct of a connection between fighting in war and having sex with women is something I cannot abide by.

Also with his lack of respect of women is how he demands and abuses Emma’s time at the start of his route. It’s bad enough to put her in that god-awful position in the first place with Sariel and all that, but to then drag her away from the hard work she has to put in because of him just to make her spend an entire day watching him go around hitting on other women is beyond disrespectful. The other thing that really irks me is how he continues to hit on Emma after she’s made it super clear that, unlike the women he has relations with, she truly believes that such relations exclusively accompany real feelings. He acknowledges that she’s a true romantic and then is out here like “where’s my hug” and it makes me feel violent. I originally wasn’t totally against how he talks to women, since in canon all those faceless nameless side characters he fucks seem to be into it and I thought he was a consent king who stops if the woman clearly isn’t interested and only ever pursues women who are really into what he’s offering but apparently not.

Then there’s everything with Clause 99. First off, him putting in the clause basically reflects that his biggest fear is history repeating itself with his parents’ relationship and Clause 99 puts ALL of that responsibility on the women who will serve as Belle in the future. Secondly, this is backed by his hypocritical behavior throughout the different routes. In Luke’s route, he outright encourages Luke to pursue Emma in spite of making this clause and he easily yields to his other brothers when, in their own routes, they decide they want to revoke the clause, and yet Emma herself gets Clause 99 looming over her head throughout all of the routes. The conclusion which I believe is actually meant to be canon with this is that women are fragile little flowers who need extra special protection from the big, bad men and they need a fucking man to provide that protection. Rather than putting in any amount of effort at all whatsoever to make himself and his brothers and future generations of their family better, he’s putting all this serious, overwhelming pressure on the women. Also, the clause does jack shit to help mitigate the development of such emotions, so it literally just serves to put pressure and responsibility on women about things beyond their control while accomplishing nothing other than turning them into scapegoats.

Okay so then I really need to talk about Luke’s sister. So, as I started to talk about before, I now know that the flashback in Luke’s route was incomplete and that Leyla did actually beg for death, but even with that being the case there are still some major ethical issues here. For example, can a ~8 year old child have the bodily autonomy to actually request assisted suicide and should they? Does said child have enough knowledge of pain and injury to know when they’re actually about to die or not? Should a grown ass man actually heed a child’s request for death without even so much as having a doctor spare said child a glance first? But then after he killed her, he went and stole her body to go bury her in the woods, clearly just deciding that her dead body should go to him to use to try and make himself feel better. Those graves that are hidden where only he can find them do nothing for Leyla or for Luke; they exclusively exist for Jin. They are there solely for him to use to try and alleviate his guilt over time, like props. 

Then, there’s the part in Luke’s route where he discovers the truth about Jin, so Jin takes him on a walk to those graves and tells the story of how he killed Leyla before he then tries to get Luke to kill him. Once again, this has nothing at all to do with trying to give Luke justice or closure and it has everything to do with Jin making everything about himself. There’s even a bit in there where Jin basically phrases it like he’s asking Luke to do him a favor and hear him out, making it clear that this is not at all for Luke’s benefit. Likewise, if he really cared about Luke getting real, meaningful justice and closure, he wouldn’t be trying to get Luke to murder him, putting all that blood directly on his hands, giving him further pain and trauma, and also ensuring that Chevalier would then kill Luke because of course he would.

Another thing I want to add, going off of that, is how very badly Jin sucks at conflict resolution, which we see multiple times between his route and Luke’s, whether it’s his conflict with Luke or how he handles shit so utterly fucking terribly with Emma or even that bullshit at the border with Obsidian at the end of his route. This man isn’t just shit at conflict resolution, he’s thoroughly proven that all attempts he makes at it are just variations of the same shit: self sacrifice fueled by ego dressed up to look like it’s heroic and really meant for the benefit of others that only actually harms those it’s supposedly meant to protect.

So I think my final takeaway with his character is that he is inherently very selfish but he has no self awareness about that selfishness and genuinely believes everything he’s doing is for other people. Another thing I want to talk about is that I saw a video the other day that also has softened my overall feelings about Jin, and that video was talking about the lack of self awareness of male feminists. This video talke about how some of these men who are out here making online content around ‘educating’ other men about feminism and respecting women will sometimes share this sentiment like “women have all been traumatized by the bad men out there so you just need to be patient with them” and how condescending it is. The issue here is that, when men say this, they are refusing to acknowledge that even as a good ol feminist ally, their own behavior can come across as sexist and they themselves can give us the ick or make us feel unsafe. 

I bring this up because, with Jin, I originally thought he was a sexist dick hiding behind a very thin facade of “but I love women,” but now I think it really is just a complete lack of self awareness where, like the men that video talked about, he sees himself as a feminist who loves women, so he doesn’t see how his words and actions can make it seem as though he’s violently sexist. So, to sum everything up, when I first found @randonauticrap’s stuff and then subsequently decided to read Jin’s story, I genuinely hated him because I saw him as dangerously sexist and selfish but now, as I finish his route, I don’t like him but I no longer hate him the way I did. Now I see him as capable of change and I think that like after the end of the story, a good person like the one he’s in a relationship with could successfully help him grow and change into a better person.

[poupeesdecirque]

Posting by Queue, or: why I need some distance from my crafts

It has been some time since my last hobby meta blog entry, it had different reasons and one is that I need distance. Like, yes I of course enjoy crafting and sometimes I am like a little child that runs everywhere to show off things.

But it got ... less intense. And I learned I do better when I keep projects or at least details to myself to sit on them for longer. That the first euphoria is purely mine and not to be shared.

Like for my photos I have a buffer of several weeks now. Yes, I know past-me would have kind of hated that. But I learned I do better when I have a time buffer. I do take photos weekly but sometimes they don't feel special enough to get the weekly photo feature?

Friday & yesterday I went out for photos and while I like the ones from yesterday way more than the ones from friday I am not sure if the set from yesterday will get the feature or not as it's only a hand full of photos giving me that certain spark.

Other than that I am a very emotional artist, I sometimes really fuck up my art and hate it at the moment I worked on it, but then, sometimes, after a few days or weeks I can look at it and just wonder about what was my problem the day I made it.

Another thing is that I, myself, enjoy my art. The process of it. And I like to see my blog updating, sometimes I forget what post will go online and then I check the blog and think "ah yes, this was that thing!", and it reminds me why I made the blog overall, to show myself I had progress and that every tiny step counts.

Which leads to another reason why I hold back in regards of posting. Yes, I do share some snippets in my stories over on insta but not always and not all. I sit on over 300 drawings from the last two years alone nobody ever will see, I enjoyed drawing but it's nothing for the public eye. I will maybe go back and redraw some and share the redraws then, who knows?

But wait, there is actually more reasons.

The biggest or main reason is ... i sometimes go really wild on projects. In January I finished so many dolls it was insane, I worked on Cosplays and other crafts in an incredible speed, I have literally no idea where I found the time but I somehow did and doll parts arriving every week did the rest.

I keep the blog running with partially 2 month old stuff but .... to be honest I don't have doll stuff aside photos to do anymore. All I can do is wait for bodies to be shipped (or dolls even) and arrive. There has been no movement since January. Aside Iza getting the shipping notice for our Split, might take a while until its at her place and I can't really start on the Akuma until I got the body (which I at least have finally ordered this month) as colors need to be matched and mods to be made.

I am truly itchy to do something else than sewing all the time, I do enjoy cosplay but you know how much I like sewing (hint: not at all). So to remind myself of the fun I had in the past weeks I have mixed my blog to bless me with some progress I had which was maybe not sewing all the time. And well, the Cosplays have deadlines and I do get some ideas aside purely sewing while doing them, so that keeps me going for now.

Yes, I could start redoing dolls like Alastor or Erwin. But you know what? IT'S ALMOST ALL SEWING. Urgh.

Aside that real life is pretty good at eating me up and I just want to enjoy crafting. Right now drawing feels like stress relief but I hate the results and just scan the pieces and put them away to never look at them again, I have a bunch of posts queued up without any captions, a wip entry of a current project only has two photos but I lack the spoons to actually get them done. But since those posts are so far back it's fine (yes I know drafts are a thing).

In general I enjoy having my art to myself to get used to it before I put it out into the wild as I just recently got reminded I do bad with direct comparisons still and it hits some triggerpoints from the past and makes everything harder, I don't need that.

I literally have no idea if this blog makes sense even, lol. I just am tired of sewing and stopped working on my current project around lunch time and have drawn so much today and I walked way too much the whole week my friends urged me to stay the ef home and at least try to relax. But I'm restless as my body is too stressed (I know it all I'm a certified relaxation trainer so eh), so, have an over the place blog entry.

[lyriquette]

Old RWBY AU description from Frosen Steel chat server - 3/31/2021

lilac — 03/31/2021 12:43 AM

--- After an hour or so of tossing and turning in bed to no avail, I suddenly have an idea for an AU. 8)

---

Searching through Atlas's archives, a young impressionable Penny discovers a digital scan of an ancient translated version of the Tale of Two Brothers within. The previous owner of the book had written notes.... well, rants....in the margins about how the God of Darkness deserved to have no worshippers and that both gods were pieces of shit.

Still, the tale fascinated her about how the gods had actually created Remnant and humanity, sorta like how her dad created her from nothing. And it was also kinda sad cause it sounded like the God of Light got all the credit for making humanity if the lack of worshippers for the God of Darkness meant anything.

He kinda reminded her of her dad. Because before Dad made her, people was always taking credit for his work, even though he did 99% of it. But her dad was too nice to make a fuss.

You know what. I'm gonna worship the God of Darkness now and no one can stop me!

----

Her dad had been pretty cool about the entire thing after she explained it, even bought some books about prayer rituals and worship. (He assumed Penny was just going through a phase.)

And so one day, Penny got all the stuff she needed and began praying to the God of Darkness every day.

------

lilac — 03/31/2021 1:44 AM

In a galaxy far far away, the God of Darkness just stared in dismay as another bunch of his worshipers got exterminated again. By the Church of Light no less.

He really wanted to toss an energy beam down there, just to let the stupid ants know that 'hey these are my worshippers', but that'd break the rules he and his brother made.

To be honest, if he actually liked them, he might even done so anyway.. but really, he knew they had it coming. He liked destruction and mayhem as much as the next God, but there's a line between destruction and intentionally torturing and making people suffer - a line his worshippers regularly crossed with the whole skinning and dismemberment alive thing. The sad thing was they literally were all he had.

eriously, why did he get stuck with all the crazy cultists? He wasn't like that. Sure, he had a bit of a temper problem like most gods did when it came to pride, but he hadn't genocided anything since he left that stupid planet wi-

Oh. That human. That Salem. It still made his horns quake just remembering it. He thought he was going to get his very first genuine worshipper, intelligent and sane and wishing for favor. And he granted her the favor, even paid the horrendous price of pulling a soul from the world and encasing it into a mortal shell. And for what? She was just using him.. only came to him cause his older brother wouldn't give her what she wanted,, and he got played like a fool.

And when she got all those greedy humans to rise up against them - to try and demand immortality from them - okay yeah, genocide probably wasn't the brightest solution, but he was what- like a million years old at the time and going through a phase- he's easily ten times that by now.

"Oh, and there goes your worshippers again," said a very unwelcome voice in a tone that didn't seem smug but really was meant to be smug.

"I have a moon and I'm not afraid to drop it," the God of Darkness sourly replied to his brother as he turned his attention back on the last of worshippers getting cleaned up by his brother's.

Wait, that'd probably kill everything in the planet - damn it.

Eh?

Did they miss a spot? Why was he still receiving faith?

"That's the last of them," the God of Light remarked, "Hopefully it won't take another dozen millenia for people to discover your existence again."

...Ignoring his brother's gloating, he directed his attention towards the source of the thin stream of faith.

...Was that Remnant?

He glanced at his brother. He was going to ask if his brother had sensed something from the world they abandoned. But you know what? Fuck him.

"Ugh. Shut up. I'm going to destroy a couple uninhabited planets. See you in a couple millennia or something." he pretended to grumble as he transformed into his dragon form and flew off.

"Sure, brother. Come back soon," the God of Light replied before directing the entirety of his attention back on the world they currently lived in.

The God of Darkness could only roll his eyes as he flew off towards the world they abandoned: Remnant.

---

lilac — 03/31/2021 2:42 AM

Creates an avatar of himself as a Grimm squirrel... human girls like cute things right. This should be an acceptable disguise, right?

It takes him months to create a squirrel that didnt look monstrous enough to get shot on sight by Atlasian security. And since he didn't actually know if his worshipper actually cared about these humans, he can't just go on a murder spree to get through.

Penny gets to learn that though gods, though very powerful and already born fairly intelligent, gain insight and learn very very slowly. Even GoD will admit humans are incredibly fast in that regard.

[seeminglyseph]

listening to a podcast discuss The Orphanage and it keeps bringing up like. "It's sad enough that they're dead orphans, why are they also disabled??"

And I keep feeling like. I get. technically. that the film being a weird tragic horror film where like everyone dies basically and there's a bunch of like. dead disabled orphan children. which is really like both sad and off-putting in multiple ways in the film like. it prompts the question of 'why?'

but like. part of the point is like 'who are the most vulnerable people in society?' as well as 'who is most frequently villainized in horror movies?' because like. initially in the movie it impression of the disfigured and disabled ghost children is 'these ghosts are evil' because on top of being ghosts, one of them wears a mask to hide a disfigurement. And then the rest of them were murdered because they were very vulnerable and left in the care of someone who actively hated them and wanted to do them harm, and could because of how little disabled orphans like. matter? that sounds callous but like. it's not my perspective I very much mean it in the like. "Less Dead" kind of way. Like how much investigation and stuff gets prioritized. At some point people start feeling like 'they didn't have *that much* of a future anyway, so it's not like the murder is *that much* of a tragedy' and ultimately if you don't have a family to fight on your behalf then like... sucks to suck.

Something that's really terrifying about being disabled is like. if you don't have a community or no one really knows or likes you? like. you're kind of fucked. it's kinda been exemplified by the GoFundMe Healthcare Situation, but like. if you're not popular enough, if you don't have a family to advocate for you or support you, if you don't have people to give you advice, sometimes you just don't get help and you don't get acceptance and you don't get treatment and you don't get safety. But being disabled can also be extremely isolating because people really quickly lose patience for your limitations and for the idea of making accommodations.

I'm not gonna pretend it's always easy to be friends with someone, disabilities are as varied as the days are long and I can only speak from my perspective and I have more comorbidities than I technically even know currently. It makes things difficult for me, let alone people trying to work around me, and not everyone is willing to do that. Some of them suck eggs and some of them just have their own lives they have to prioritize. It's complicated, but it does leave me (and I will assume many other people in similar situations) in a complicated situation where our support network is very small but our need for support is very large.

And many people, through ignorance rather than malice, assume that there are already systems in place that care for people. The argument against larger social care networks aren't necessarily that they think people like me shouldn't have our needs met, they just have always assumed that these systems already exist. They think their taxes already pay for it and everyone is already being cared for and expanding the system is about a desire for overindulgence because they simply do not know what the reality is. They have been taught that if you work hard enough you can stay healthy, and if something happens you will be taken care of because there is some sort of social safety net that will catch you, and only the very few fall through because they failed in some way. That's why advocacy is so important, it's important to know that many disabilities can affect *anyone* at *any time* and the holes in the safety net are much larger than people have been led to believe, and are much easier to fall through. You can do *everything right* and still fall through. Your body can destroy you no matter how "healthy" you are. You can follow every piece of advice your doctor gives you, and be failed because you 'looked too healthy' to get sent in for scans on time. Sometimes working too hard will literally destroy your whole future and there's no one there to help when that happens. But it's important not to treat ignorance like malice because people will shut their ears to hard truth delivered with anger. So sometimes a message has to be tailored to an audience.

This has gotten away from me a bit.. but like. I think what I mean to say is like. sometimes I feel very frustrated. and this is my blog so often this is a place of venting and anger and ranting and stuff. But I do understand like. a majority of people are speaking out of ignorance rather than malice, and have their own troubles they feel overwhelmed by. I often try to tailor conversations personally to where people are at, rather than where I'm at because like. I can't expect everyone to prioritize my problems over theirs, especially if I don't even bother to learn what theirs are. And that's been a problem with some of modern political debate as far as I've seen it, a lot of 'your problems don't matter as much as mine' and everyone immediately gets angry if they're told that. like. universally. No one wants to be told their problems don't matter...

anyway. idk. the point of The Orphanage is that disabled kids without people to protect them are especially vulnerable and often the people who are supposed to protect them fail, and the people who need the most support have the least. And people assume those supports are in place and normal and far more sufficient than they are, and will lash out when that failure is pointed out to them. It's a difficult dance and exhausting, and so many people are lost to it because they don't do it well enough or fit in or fake the dance to a sufficient degree. and it's important to try and become aware of that with grace.

[johannestevans]

Hey there, long time listener first time caller,

One of the things I’ve loved for ages about your stories is how you’re able to impart a huge amount of characterisation very quickly through character voice and fun, effective shorthand. Within two paragraphs I have a strong sense of what one of your characters is about, even if there is naturally more depth to come. I’m able to buy into the basic nuts and bolts of how they think and who they are, and want to follow them through whatever they’re up to.

I’m trying my first stab at original fiction after writing fanfic for a good few years, and I’m finding a bit of trouble. While I’ve gotten alright (from what I’ve been told) at doing (ostensibly) engaging stuff with characters whose traits and characterisation is known by readers who are already up to speed on who XYZ is and who they broadly are, I’m finding that I’m having trouble introducing the lead characters effectively. What I’m doing either comes across as 1) didactic and heavy-handed, meaning the moment I’m using to demonstrate character feels out of place or 2) weak, meaning there’s not a strong sense of character as I’m launching into their adventure.

You always have such a strong characterisation in all of your stuff, whether long form or short, how do you do it?

Hey there, Anon!

I'm a strong believer in dialogue as one of the biggest things that establishes a character, and part of crafting good dialogue is creating unique and individual - especially contrasting and/or complementary - voices among your characters.

I've done a big in-depth guide to crafting unique dialogue that's about 8.5k that I think you might find useful - it's basically in the format of explanation, and then a bunch of questions to ask yourself to help you craft this stuff from scratch, so definitely don't feel you have to adhere or use the whole thing!

Have a scan through and see whatever is most useful to you:

(And as ever if you can't sub on Medium and you're out of free articles, just use an Incognito window.)

I'll repeat this rec list of good studies for dialogue from the article because these are all pieces that do great individual characters from the immediate intro:

I have a few absolute favourite media which I consider to have some extremely tight screenwriting and/or extremely strong character-led dialogue, and specifically very unique individual character voices, which are:

Cabin Pressure (Radio comedy. Comedy, 4 seasons between 2008 and 2012. Written by John Finnemore.)

The Great White Hype (Movie, 1996, dir. Richard Hudlin. Sports comedy.)

Deep Cover (Movie, 1992, dir. Bill Duke. Action thriller.)

Hustlers (Movie, 2019, dir. Lorene Scafaria. Comedy/drama.)

The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett, particularly The Truth, Going Postal, and Lords and Ladies.

Jeeves and Wooster (TV Series, 4 series from 1990–1993, but I only really recommend S1 and S2, as S3–4 are much weaker. With that said, the whole series is very directly adapted from the Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse, so I would recommend those).

A lot of this is practice-based, though, and it sounds like you're on a really good track!

I know it doesn't feel like it, but when you're reading back through and you can immediately identify the problems in your own work and where it's not hitting in the way you want, that's a sign that you've already got the skills to analyse this stuff and see what does work!

Many artists have a keen sense of what makes good art in their field, and that means we have a good critical eye in other people's work to see what works and what doesn't - when we can turn it on our own work and immediately see the problem and what we want to change, that's half the battle.

If you're coming at this from a fanfic perspective, an exercise I might advise is to pick a few favourite characters that you've written in fandom, and basically strip them down to their absolute brass tacks.

Not their whole backstory or biography, but like... Take a character you've written again and again and again. Say you're transplanting them into a different AU to their base universe - so if they're normally characters from a cop show, but you were theoretically going to write them into a sci-fi universe on a space station, or a fantasy universe with dragons, or a historical AU set in the 1860s.

For that character, what traits are most important that they keep, and will have to be adapted to the new universe to keep them "the same" character? Aspects of their appearance, their voice, their class, their parents, their upbringing, their job, their style, their personality? What stays the same, and what will change?

And then think about how you'd introduce that character to the reader within that new universe - this is someone they know and love, but they're different now in many ways. When we put a character in an AU, in many ways when we bring them to the reader's gaze, we're reintroducing them - it's the same person they know and love, but it's also a stranger.

Crafting new and individual charcters and introducing them to a reader is the next step on from that!

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #1

TO REITERATE: I'm planning to produce a 30-min documentary film.

Hello, I'm finally here to update my blog! I meant to do this last week, but didn't... I was struggling to wrap my head around this project and what I'll be doing this semester.

I think I'm a little crazy for taking this on. Sometimes it feels like too much, but I certainly won't be quitting.

My first reality check was trying to populate the workback plan. It was a necessary step, but so difficult. I had to come back to it a few times to get it sorted out. I always feel like I'm overlooking something when I'm planning out a project, and I've never tried to produce something of this magnitude before. But I sat down with my workback plan again tonight and finally have it in good shape. Coming back to it has helped me process what I'll need to do, and I feel pretty certain now that I'm not forgetting anything. I also recreated my workback plan in Notion, because I don't think I'll be able to stay on track if I only look at it on Google Sheets. (The formatting... the lack of color-coding and other viewing modes... Nah, homie, I can't. TwT) I also gave myself dates to complete things by. I know I can work to a deadline, and now I have a ton of them. Isn't that fantastic!

Anyway, I'm really happy with my organization on this project now that I have all my tasks thought out, written down, and with dates. The tricky part now will be keeping the Google Sheet updated according to the Notion.

Right now I have a bunch of tasks marked as "in progress." There's so much I need to do in the next two weeks, mostly making lists of people and Instagram accounts to reach out to. I already follow a lot of accounts but I have not created a master list for myself to keep track of them all. Once I have my list, I can start drafting up messages to send to them, asking if they might want to participate in my doc, or could put me in connection with people who would. I'm kind of worried that I don't have much to show for myself, a presence, or a reason why they should trust me, that kind of thing. But I'll try it anyway.

I also need to draft emails/ send texts/ make phone calls to people I know, who said in one way or another that they might be able to lend a voice to my project. Cast out a bunch of lines and see if I get any bites. 🎣

Another thing is, I want to find videos on YouTube and Vimeo of the ʻOnipaʻa Peace March that happened a couple weeks ago. I wasn't able to go myself, but I'd really like to incorporate footage of it into my film. Maybe someone would be willing to let me use a few of their shots. If not a person, maybe one of the local news outlets. I also need to do some research. I have a playlist of some news clips about the Red Hill water crisis from when I made my 5-minute piece about it in Fall '22. But there have been updates since then, and I need to collect even more. I'm not 100% sure what or how much I'll do with it yet. But my creative process is 'collect all the stuff, look at and absorb it all, ???, get vision, create the vision'... so step one is gathering more things. :)

Also want to find more PDFs. Last semester, I found some studies and national news articles about Red Hill, pollution by the Navy/ issues similar to what's happening here, but my research topic was persuasion, so I spent the vast majority of my time on that. There's definitely more out there, and I want to find it because I'm thinking of using scans/ screenshots in my film.

Oh, and I'm planning to request titles from ʻUluʻulu by 2.16. Gonna try my absolute best to stay on top of the deadlines I've set for myself. LONG POST: FINITO!!!

[scorpiongrassfield]

Conspiracy Board Time 

Start | Prev

Concrete enters the room and roams around, eventually settling near Pat’s feet as they enjoy their second cup of coffee for the day. 

Once Pat is satisfied that you and Theo have eaten enough, they set their cup down on the side table and say, “Okay, now we can get to work.” 

Theo stands to collect everyone’s trash and takes it into the kitchen for disposal. 

“What will we be doing, exactly?” he asks when he returns. 

“We’re gonna make a murder board,” Pat says, gesturing to the cork board. 

“Oh… has someone been killed?” Theo asks, not matching Pat’s enthusiasm. 

You can see realization dawn on Pat’s face. If you had to guess you’d think they were reassessing whether or not it’s appropriate to call it a murder board while talking to an actual murder victim. 

“Uh. No. I guess no one else has been killed as far as we know,” they say eventually. 

“Ah. Okay then,” Theo says. 

“Anyway!” Pat sing-songs in a manner that implies they want to move on without addressing anything that just happened, “We brought the board, pins, yarn, and a bunch of stuff to pin up. We were hoping you could help us piece everything together.” 

Theo hesitates. “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I’ll try my best,” he says after a few beats. 

“That’s the spirit,” Pat says cheerfully. 

They move to start getting the materials out of the bag and onto the coffee table. Concrete steals their seat in the meantime. 

You help by spreading out some of the drawings and cards out so they’re easier to look through. 

“What mystery are we solving, again?” Theo asks as he stoops a bit to read the cards. 

“The sun is missing,” you say. 

“We’ve seen it a few times, it isn’t completely missing,” Pat corrects. 

“That’s… not reassuring,” Theo says, brow furrowed. 

“Plus our mystery is really like 8 stacked in trench coats like gnomes on a dinner date,” Pat says. 

Theo looks more confused than ever. 

“Our overall question for our mystery board is ‘What’s Going On’,” Pat says, pausing to pin a card with each of those three words up on the board. 

“That's not very specific,” you chime in. 

“It’s not! But it covers all our bases for now. We can get more specific if we have any more questions after we answer this one,” Pat explains. 

“First let’s get our dramatis personae up,” Pat says. 

You find the drawings you made last night and tear them from the sketchbook. 

Pat pins up a portrait they drew once you’ve gotten yours on the board. 

Ametrine stares out from the page, sadder than you’ve ever seen her. Pat’s drawing style favors bold lines and heavy shadows. 

“She’s not wearing sunglasses,” you note. 

“No? She doesn’t really wear them,” Pat says, sounding perplexed. 

“She’s always wearing them when I see her,” you counter. 

“Huh…” Pat takes a card and writes something down on it. 

“There’s no picture of you?” Theo asks, looking your way. 

You drew Theo, Pat, and the shadow, and Pat drew Ametrine… Theo is right. There isn’t one for you. 

“Uh… No. Guess we forgot.” 

“May I?” Theo asks, gesturing for the sketchbook. 

“Sure,” you say, offering it to him. 

He thanks you and settles back down into a chair to start drawing. He looks up every now and again, scanning your features before returning to the task. 

You aren’t sure how you feel about having your portrait drawn like this, but you did just agree to it, so you won’t back out now. 

“Now we connect everyone with yarn. Pink is for a connection to me, obviously. Black for you Sylv, we’ll put your portrait here when Theo’s done. T-Ametrine gets yellow…” 

“Why do you do that?” you ask. “Do What?” 

“You trip over Ametrine’s name often enough to be noticeable,” Theo chimes in. 

Pat huffs a laugh. “Can’t get anything past you two, can I?” 

They don’t elaborate. 

“Well?” you prompt. 

“I’m thinking. It’s not like it’s a big secret or her dead name or anything. It’s just. We used to be… close… Me and Ametrine. I used to call her Trina. Now we aren’t close. The habit remains. You two don’t know her by that name, so I’m trying to just call her by the one. That’s all,” they say. 

“How close were you?” you prod. 

“That’s none of your business,” Pat says. 

You give them a look. 

“Close enough that we were planning to run away together at some point. We didn’t though. She wasn’t… no, she couldn’t give up on what she thought was right, and I have a different idea of what’s right, so we went separate ways,” they say. 

“Thank you,” you say. 

Pat mutters something under their breath, but you don’t catch it. You’ll let them be grumpy as long as they give you the information you want. 

“Who is she, though? How is she relevant to,” Theo gestures to the board with his pencil, “That?” 

“Not you too,” Pat complains. 

“We can’t make a conspiracy board if we don’t have any information,” you point out. 

“It’s true,” Theo agrees. 

“Oh this whole trip was a bad idea,” Pat whines, but you can tell they’re playing it up for laughs. 

“No dodging the question,” Theo says without looking up from the portrait. 

Pat laughs. “Absolutely relentless…” they shake their head. “Ametrine is an exorcist and psychic. She’s… Not fond of ghosts and will do just about anything to get rid of them, including murder,” Pat explains. 

“Oh, I see. I should perhaps steer clear of her then,” Theo says. 

“Yeah. She’s got it out for Sylv here,” Pat says, connecting Ametrine’s portrait to your space with black and yellow yarn.

“And we thought she was after him because of this guy.” They connect the shadow to you. 

“How are you two connected?” 

“Actually, I think the shadow might be more connected to Pat than me,” you say. 

“What makes you say that?” Pat asks head cocked to the side. 

“Last time I talked to it, it mentioned that you were the one that asked it to protect me, but that you’d forgotten you’d done so,”  you explain. 

“And you’re just telling me this now?” 

You shrug. You can’t tell them everything about that conversation anyway, and it never really came up. 

Pat gives you a look, but says. “Okay, well. We’re gonna put a pin in that for now.” 

They write down “The shadow allegedly knows Pat” on a piece of paper and pin it on the board. 

“The shadow is currently playing guardian for you, though its true motives are unknown,” Pat says firmly. 

Well, you can argue about that later. 

“How am I connected to all of this?” Theo asks. 

“We were hired to investigate your... situation,” Pat says. 

“Why?” 

“It’s complicated,” Pat says, trying to sidestep the question. 

“Oh. Okay,” Theo accepts. 

Pat is clearly trying not to remind Theo that his own parents covered up his death. 

“So our only connection to you that we know of is that we’re psychics and you’re a ghost,” you say. 

Except… 

“But you’re also connected to the shadow somehow,” you add. 

Theo’s face scrunches in confusion. “How?” 

“Are you sure you want to tell him?” Pat asks, their face expressing disapproval. 

Theo has a right to know that he might have been possessed. But on the other hand it might scare him and there’s nothing he can do to avoid future possessions. 

Will you tell him?

Next

[xerox-candybar]

Anyway, here’s the monologue I wrote for homework (about the Human Resource manager employed by a cursed Chuck E Cheese).

The teacher wanted to know where I got my ideas, I answered that I keep a running list of ideas that should not be combined, and then I combine them.

Cast: Lacey, who works in middle management

Setting: Pizza Rat’s Jamboree, a family-oriented pizza franchise.

LACEY

Alright... the gang’s all here, so let’s get started. Happy first day, everyone—you survived! I saw lots of nice work today, but I did want to circle back with some observations…

Some of the arcade games were on the fritz earlier. Tyrell, good job rebooting them—most folks don’t get that on the first try. Just some advice, though: now that you’ve met the creepy girl with the weird hair, you’re gonna wanna avoid screens for a bit. So when you get home, just take a bunch of blankets and just cover ‘em all up. Mirrors, too, maybe even spoons... Just until she stops following you. Shouldn’t be too long. Couple weeks, at most. She’ll get bored.

Alright. A note for the cleaning crew: that red stuff dripping down the break room wall is not pizza sauce, so please use bleach, okay? A lotta bleach, and some Holy Water. Don’t be shy. And two sets of gloves, if you can.

On to a more serious piece of feedback, and this goes for everyone: the tentacles in the ball-pit are not an accident. They are supposed to be there, please leave them. That is how we stop kids from peeing, okay? Ask anybody who’s ever worked in fast-food, tentacles are not the worst thing to find in a play-place. Our senior staff have seen more dead bodies than you can count on eight fingers, almost always in the ball-pit.

I saw some people going after the tentacles with wiffle-ball bats. Big yikes, okay? Big yikes. Cthulhu Junior is employed directly by the franchise, which makes them your coworker. So it’s not just workplace bludgeoning, it is workplace bullying, which is worse.

(Lacey reacts to crowd murmurs.)

Lacey, CONT'D

No, the kids have not been ‘abducted,’ they are just in time-out. Their parents will get them back by the end of the day. That’s just what you get when you try to pee in the corpse-pit: Management takes workplace hygiene very seriously.

…Did I say corpse-pit? I meant ball-pit. Heh heh.

(Lacey reacts to the doubtful crowd.)

Lacey, CONT'D

For the last time, guys, they do not become blood sacrifices to the Eldritch demons bound within Pizza Rat’s Jamboree Band, that is a nasty rumor spread by a competitor. Who do you think we are, Disneyland? We don’t have the legal department to feed them whole children.

I know you have more questions, but we gotta move on. Let’s talk about Feeding Duty. Who was on Feeding Duty? Nobody? I somehow doubt that.

(A moment of tense silence.)

Lacey, CONT'D

C’mon guys, this is the most important part of your shift, okay? It is imperative that we feed the Jamboree Band every 12 hours. We cannot have enchanted, animatronic rats walking the earth again, you guys. They are bloodthirsty, they have no natural predators, and they have opposable thumbs–which makes them a triple threat.

Since it’s after sunset, they’re gonna need a blood sacrifice. Not just the severed fingers from the ticket-counting machine, something fresh.

You know, when I first started here, if you forgot to do the feeding, you’d have to cut off your own fingers... but apparently that contributes to a “hostile working environment,” so we had to find an alternative.

(Lacey pinches the bridge of their nose).

Lacey, CONT'D

Anyway. Somebody please tell Cthulhu Junior that we will need to keep one of the kids after all--

(Lacey scans the clipboard as employees file out).

Lacey, CONT'D

Huh. Looks like I was on Feeding Duty.

(Lacey tucks the clipboard under their arm, chuckling.)

Lacey, CONT'D

Well fancy that.