#if ANYTHING the machine should be called that since that’s actually doing something

[beardedhandstoadshark]

So AI art is trending on number 1 right now. They’re tagging their stuff as "artists on tumblr“ and "my artwork“. The very first tag that comes up when writing "ai art“ is "ai artist“. Actual artists are getting cyberbullied for asking not to have their real art stolen. Dead people are having their life’s‘ work stolen mere days after they’re gone. AI generatees (because you will never, never get to rightfully claim you’re an artist) are saying it’s okay because it was shared publicly so it’s free to take and intellectual properly doesn’t really exist anyways. A post is circulating about how the entire translation industry was destroyed by programs like google translate even though we all know they several suck at translating anything more than two words, let alone entire texts.

Why even bother drawing at this point?

[inkskinned]

in the time loop the only way out is to leave her there but you don't ever leave her there, never in the roughly one thousand years you have been in the same day. it is probably like "50 first dates" but you haven't stooped so low as to watch "50 first dates" yet. (but who is to say what another thousand years of the same media will bring to you, maybe you will develop a new taste).

you spent about 200 of these years sulking in a bathtub or on the couch or staring at the seaside. 300 of them have been spent slowly mapping the geographical distance you can actually get before the time loop restarts. you have a list of favorite places: one library in Western Massachusetts called "The Bookmill", which has weird hours and has never raised an eyebrow to you arriving out-of-breath and panting, asking to see a specific book on a specific shelf. There is one beach without a name in North Carolina; it is an accident of geography and ownership title disputes - and it is pristine, untouched, warm and cozy. you've taken her on a lot of picnics there. Acadia National Park. One specific birdhouse in the mountains.

you were stuck in the time loop with the money you entered it with: not enough to rent a private jet. you've robbed a bank a few times, you don't like the way it ends. maybe next century you'll get the hang of it. you don't like the look on her face when you say hang on i have to stop at the bank.

you just have to leave her, and you can go back to being a person again. you took 5 years just catching a flight and sitting in the Grand Canyon. if there's one thing you regret more than anything, it's that you hadn't gotten your passport renewed before this fucking time loop. maybe you should spend some time learning forgery - but also, like, you look like an english teacher. nobody is going to be cool about you asking to see their paper printing machines.

the world is very big. that is one of the things groundhog day gets wrong. there are no consequences, so you have literally all the time (or none of the time?) in the world. in groundhog day, he does a lot of very cool things, but in reality - your muscle memory never gets better. you can't necessarily learn how to play piano or sculpt ice, because your hands never remember the practice. but hey - maybe you'll try violin next. drums. synth.

you can open any door and walk into any conversation. money isn't really an object. you can try every meal off every menu, forever. take her on helicopter tours and into every museum and on every event that is happening right-now at-this-moment. parades and funerals and calligraphy classes.

but you are somewhat trapped by the limitations of your body. if you were reading a book, you still need to get up and go back to the library and find that book again when the day resets. (thank god for the internet). it still takes like 2 hours to board a plane, and then takeoff and landing and traffic. you've gotten off to run around on the freeway. one of the little thankful things: since your brain isn't actually developing (it's a muscle too), the days thankfully don't feel shorter to you. that would be agony.

all you have to do to leave the timeloop is let that man get away with it. that's all. in every version of yourself - forever - you have stopped him.

the problem is that this experience has convinced you of the existence of the human soul. after all, how else are you forming memories? your very cells reset. information has to be transferred somehow. and if timeloops are real, you can convince yourself other magic exists. so you have two choices here: this hell, or the next. there might be a millennia where you have been worn down to the point you can accept fate's decision. this is just not one of them. ironically - she is the one thing you have left.

and besides! if you can't always find something new in your partner, aren't you failing them? there is something new about her, every day with the same morning. every brutal day with the same orange sunset.

after all, you wanted to live with her in heaven, in eternity, and, well - isn't this second-best.

[milkpup]

✧ ns/fw alphabet: choso ✧

@ puffer1111 on twitter

ʚ ao3 ɞ / ʚ kofi ɞ / ʚ fic masterlist ɞ

›› choso x 18+f!reader

‹𝟹 tags: switch!choso, switch!reader, choso is a perv tbh

‹𝟹 notes: thought i'd make a lil smthn smthn while it's still valentine's day <3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

›› still sticky from the mess both of you made, choso prefers to cuddle you for a long time, skin to skin. he likes to feel your warmth when he spoons you (although he does like to be little spoon sometimes too!)

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

›› he likes his hands the most. he definitely knows how to maneuver his fingers with precise motions. he knows what he's doing

›› he thinks it'd be cruel to pick just one part of your body that is his favorite, when everything about you is his favorite. so he would say all. but if you kept bugging him about it, he'd confess it's ur thighs. he definitely likes laying his head in ur lap and taking naps, or just squishing them <33

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

›› he thinks cum swapping is hot tbh. sometimes he tells you to not swallow all of it so he can kiss you after. (bonus: just likes fluids like cum + spit teehee). also loves cumming inside you

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

›› he has stolen your used panties before and used them. multiple times. in multiple ways. you thought the washing machine just magically ate them, but no, choso is a little pervert

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

›› although he's always been a lil freaky, he doesn't actually have much experience outside of your relationship. you kind of woke something in him tho. at first you had to teach him, but they always say the student surpasses the teacher :3

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

›› mating press.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

›› he can be both. sometimes you can see the super concentrated look on his face, but usually he's really laid back and in tune with yours and his emotions / feelings. if something funny happens (like a queef) he will laugh. but so do you

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

›› he does what you like tbh. (this is not a cop out answer he just thinks since ur the one down there that u should tell him what to do)

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

›› he's so fkn cute fr. he loves holding your hand in whatever position you're in, intertwining his fingers with yours. he definitely whimpers and says "i love you" like a million times in a session

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

›› aside from the used panties stuff, he tries to limit the solo stuff. he'd rather save his loads for you than waste it in his hands. but on the off chance he does feel the urge, he's either using something of yours or watching the many videos you two made together

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

›› mommy kink frfr. he loves calling you mommy. and although he is a switch and does like to dom, nothing beats being taken care of by his mommy <3

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

›› literally anywhere. he will do it anywhere he doesn't even care. choso thinks semi public stuff is fun, like the forest or beach.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

›› anything to do with you. looking at you, hearing your voice, smelling you, thinking about you, literally anything.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

›› he couldn't do any pain towards you or even that much from you. choso would be fine w/ a light slap or spank, but nothing too rough ><

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

›› absolutely loves eating you out. he is a certified munch every day of the week. he could do only that and still feel satisfied. (he definitely jerks himself during that or dry humps the bed)

›› he loves you throat fucking him, but not as much as your cunt. he'd rather use that

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

›› both :3 starts out pretty slow and rhythmic but as he feels himself approach his orgasm he starts erratically and frantically fucking into you

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

›› it's alright, but he prefers longer sessions and would rather wait until you have a few hours alone

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

›› he will try anything you suggest to him. anything you are curious about he's instantly the #1 fan of

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

›› multiple rounds, an hour at least. he likes to switch up positions and take breaks with foreplay and toys to extend the fun time tbh

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

›› loves being leashed and collared by you. but also the same to him. he uses whatever you want, vibrators, dildos, plugs, etc on you. he sees it as a great way to have more fun

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

›› he prefers being teased more. he likes you bullying him

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

›› this man WHIMPERS a lot. such a slutty yet angelic sound tho tbh. he's loud, vocal, and likes to talk

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

›› too scared to ask you to wear thigh highs and let him thigh fuck you but he drools thinking abt it

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

›› 5 in soft, 7.5 in hard. cut, slightly curved, pale base like #FFF1E4, gradient towards the tip which is much redder like #FFD3CA, fluid #FEFEFE, slightly salty

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

›› as much as he can do it. he's a horndog fr. multiple times a day at least. but he always respects when you tell him no ^_^

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

›› near instantly. the post-sex cuddling almost always ends with him snoring within minutes :3

‹𝟹 notifs: @vvxxccaa @arylaa @navi-n0 @starshipxoxo @comicalgrievance

ʚ join my notifs ��

(･ω･)つ divider creds to @/cafekitsune and @/eloquentreverie

[cinnbar-bun]

first off— I LOVE UR WORK!! i think i just went thru and read everything you have for one piece LOL. second!!! i saw hc / drabble request open !! i have a silly idea that i feel like you can make come into reality.

recently i’ve been watching isekai’s so…imagine. reader getting isekai-d into the one piece world!!! (more specifically, interactions with the cross guild!!!)

A/n: Thank you very much nonnie!! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my stuff. Please enjoy this <3

Getting Isekai'd Into Cross Guild!

Rating: SFW

Relationship: Cross Guild x Reader

Notes: GN!Reader, a bit crack, short and sweet. No relationship is defined so you can assume it to be platonic or romantic <3.

The wonderful Truck-kun granted your wish of getting isekai’d by sending you straight to the One Piece world! How wonderful! 

Except, you quite literally fell on top of Buggy just as he was trying to argue his case to Crocodile and Mihawk. 

Now, they have no clue what the hell just happened but Mihawk already agrees with whatever that just was. 

Buggy is about to scream over the fact you just fell on top of him and Crocodile is wondering how you managed to get here. 

Crocodile assumes a Devil Fruit, Mihawk assumes you snuck in, and Buggy assumes you’re the devil. 

It takes a moment for things to settle down as they demand you tell them what you’re doing here. You explain that well… uh… you’re not really from here. 

Crocodile almost plans to kill you right away because he doesn’t have time for stupidity like that, but you show whatever you have on hand to prove otherwise. 

They’re all immediately entranced by your phone, but they have something they’re also interested in too. 

Crocodile: Your credit cards and money. When you explain how a credit/debit card functions he’s amazed. Tempted to start a bank and overhaul the current financial system. Also loves the excel spreadsheets. The fact this “machine” will calculate all of this for you and put it in a neat list… well… mark him down as interested. 

Buggy: The shiny games on your phone that are colorful and fun. The fact he can “Google” anything and look up new material. 

Mihawk: EReaders and, this will sound hilarious, but text messaging. He doesn’t care to talk, but he thinks that sending texts would be so much more effective and efficient than having to haul himself around the sea or, god forbid, answer a phone call. 

Okay so you did manage to prove you’re not from this world (or that perhaps you were an alien freak but that’s okay) and Crocodile and Mihawk are pretty much entertained. That’s it. You can go. Bother someone else. 

Buggy however, holds you close and pouts. “Can we keep them? Can we keep them pleeeeeeeease???” He begs as if you’re a little puppy. 

Crocodile is against this but Mihawk shrugs and agrees. Whatever. This could be interesting. 

Buggy still doesn’t understand you’re not some circus animal and rambles about what he should have you wear and perform for his show while Crocodile cuts him off. 

Frankly, if you’re telling the truth and have nowhere else to go, you gotta earn your keep. Crocodile just makes a new position for you that shouldn’t be too hard after you said you have 0 combat skills or training. 

You’re basically just their assistant and do menial work that no one else really wants to do. For now at least. 

Buggy is actually… kinda happy you’re so nice to him? He’s used to either worship from his crewmates or abuse from Mihawk and Crocodile, so you quickly become his new favorite person. He’s pretty shocked you’re as nice as you are considering how crappy this situation is, but he’s grateful. Softens up to you right away and loves having your attention. 

Buggy likes to do silly tricks to make you laugh whenever he can, mostly as a way to be the “flashiest” guy in your eyes. He really doesn’t like when others try to take you or away or interrupt his time with you, since he’s a brat and finds you entertaining. 

Crocodile and Mihawk are tougher nuts to crack. Neither of them trust people, but they find you interesting, even though you are incredibly weak compared to others. 

Crocodile always tries to see what you may/may not know about him since you made a few offhand comments that were a bit too… knowledgeable… so he often tries to get you to slip up more or confess to something. He hopes to see if you know something useful that can be used (but also deep down is afraid you know too much). 

Mihawk on the other hand finds you amusing. Plenty of things are similar to your world, but it’s quite clear you’re not used to many aspects of this one. He forms a habit of just watching you or actively messing with you to see your reaction. It’s a bit funny to him, admittedly. 

Of the two, Mihawk is the first to somewhat let his guard down and be a bit protective of you. He figures even if you were hypothetically “dangerous”, he could easily kill you so what does he care? You do your job, you’re entertaining, and you don’t give him a headache. 

Crocodile only lets up when you “prove” time and time again that you are reliable and not trying to go after them or sabotage them. He does think it’s a bit weird you’re eager to help them, considering what they do and what you know, but hey, who is he to complain? 

To sum it up: Crocodile cares the most about you being isekai’d, Buggy cares the least (except when it comes to his perception. He wonders if he’s also got a following there).

Buggy likes showing off his new tricks or discussing silly hypotheticals with you. 

Crocodile likes when your eyes grow wide whenever he drops an expensive item on your desk as a token of his appreciation to you. 

Mihawk likes when you talk him to normally and share deep discussions with him. 

It is a bit strange that there’s some “normal” person with these three villains, but you’ve become important to them. You’re unique and special, practically one of a kind in this zany world. They show their feelings towards you in different ways, but the way they’ve grown attached to you and try to protect you show that you’re valued in their life.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Hangover 1

Warnings: dubcon, noncon, other possible triggers. Proceed with caution.

Note: can't stop, won't stop. Please leave any and all feedback! 💚💚💚💚💚💚

Part of The Club AU

“Boris, I need that big breakfast,” you call through the window.

“Yeah, yeah,” the cook gristles back as he clinks a plate onto the metal, “you don't wait.”

“It's been twenty minutes,” you rebuff as you take the hot dish and veer around Monica at the counter.

You come around and carry it over to the only customer at a table. The officer came in looking underslept and worse for wear. A bruise is faded to yellow under his eyes and his stubble is just shorter than an actual beard.

“Here you are, honey,” you put on your customer service voice, “more coffee?”

“Yeah,” he puts his phone face down and unwraps the cutlery.

You go to the machine and grab a pot. You return and fill his cup as he jabs at the scrambled eggs.

“There ya go, honey, anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah, stop calling me honey,” he snarls.

“Oh, sorry… sir.”

You back away and retreat back to the counter, offering more top ups as you burn with embarrassment. You suppose you can come on strong when you're looking for tips. Besides, you can't blame him for being grumpy. He seems to have a good reason for it.

You put on a fresh pot as you replace the urn on the burner. You dip behind the counter as Monica brings Vi her tea and egg whites. The old lady is one of the mainstays of the place.

“So,” Monica turns her back to the customers and lowers her voice, “how's Will?”

“I think he's liking college… must be having fun since I never hear from him,” you shrug, “only asks when he can come get his laundry done.”

“Typical, I'm not looking forward to Brandon being that age.”

“Yes, enjoy them while they're young and sweet,” you cluck.

“Waitress!” The cop booms from his table.

“Chipper guy,” Monica mutters under her breath as you turn on your heel.

You go back to the table. You notice the wrinkles in his uniform, the buttons aren't lined up properly either. He has his hand on his forehead. He leans over his plate as his shoulders tense and you see his boy racking.

Oh god, no! You've seen this before. Will would get like this when he brought home the flu.

“Oh no, just…”

You put your hand on his back and urge him over the plate as he pukes. You smell the alcohol then. You rub between his shoulder blades as he retches, not bringing up much more than the few bites he took.

“I'll get ya something,” you pull the towel from your apron and offer him that.

You try not to wrinkle your nose as you pick up his plate and carry it behind the counter. You dump it in the bin as Monica lets out a blech. You agree but you don't want to bring too much attention to the situation.

You go into the kitchen and wash your hands. You find a bucket and bring it out to the cop. He's bent over the table, head on his arms.

“Hon– sir,” you put the bucket on the table, “you want some water?”

He doesn't react. You go and get water for him, setting it by his elbow. He breathes heavily but doesn't move.

“You gonna be sick again?”

“No,” he grumbles, “I'm fine.”

You open your mouth but think better of it. You almost wonder if he's actually a cop. Maybe you should call the real ones.

You leave him and go to hide behind the counter. You have enough to worry about between tuition and your mortgage.

“Guy's a mess,” Monica whispers.

“Just a bit,” you agree.

“It's not even noon…”

“Shhhh, he's having a rough one,” you say, “he'll go eventually.”

“As long as he pays his bill,” she tuts.

“Yeah, let's hope,” you frown and peek over your shoulder. So much for a decent tip.

🍽

The cop leaves about an hour after he got there. You forget quickly with the lunch rush. You spend your last few hours running yourself ragged.

You exchange your apron for your coat and leave through the side door. As you come into the alley, you notice the cruiser parked beside the dumpsters. You sidle by, stopping as you see the figure strewn over the back seat.

It's the same cop that was in the diner. You're content to keep going but your shoe hits a shape that jingles. You look down, a set of keys that can be for nothing other than the car in front of you. Those doors only open from the outside… wow. You won't call the guy a disaster, you can't exactly say you're any better.

You bend and pick up the keys. You unlock the door and open it, the edge hitting the dumpster. You don't know what to do so you just grab the cops ankle and shake his leg.

“Sir,” you raise your voice.

He throws his arm off his head and props himself up on his elbow, “what?”

“Um, you dropped these,” you place the keys by his shoe. “Sorry.”

He grunts but doesn't respond. You back up, leaving the door open. He slowly slides to the edge of the seat and hands his legs out of the car, bracing the door as he wipes the sleep from his eyes.

“Was sleepin’ good,” he growls.

“I… I was just checking on you… are you okay?”

“Does it matter?” He pulls himself up, snatching up the keys and slamming the back door. “Doing just fucking fine.”

“Alright, I wasn't…” you show your palms defensively, “have a good day officer.”

“Thanks, waitress,” he scoffs.

You bite down on his tone. It's not the first time you've been spoken to like that. In your line of work, it's all too common, and as you get more years under you, it's just how it is.

You turn and head towards the street. The engine rolls over behind you and as you near the end, you hear the tires crunching on pebbles. You barely manage to move out of the way as the officer steers into the street. You just stand back and watch him veer off. As bad as your day might be, his seems worse.

[cursedvida]

SAD EYES, BROKEN SMILE III (Buggy x F!Reader)

PART II // PART IV

WARNINGS: violence, swearing, Buggy being angry.

N/A: thirth part of this series, it's not gonna be so much longer. I hope you enjoy!

After revealing your ability to knock a guy down with just a couple of blows, your pretensions of going unnoticed within the crew have become quite impossible. You have caught the attention of Buggy, who on the one hand seems quite interested in your skills, but on the other is somewhat suspicious of you. And no wonder, in his eyes you have gone from being a helpless young girl to a killing machine, that has to confuse anyone. 

The day after what happened in the tavern he calls you to his cabin. It's the first time you've been alone with him since you found him that night in the ship's hold. You are very nervous, not because he might blow your cover but because he is so close to you. Buggy is not an overly muscular man but he is very tall, at least two feet taller than you. It was something you hadn't paid much attention to until now. Having him so close to you makes your chest tighten, making you feel ridiculous. 

"So tell me, Y/N.... why hadn't it occurred to you to tell me that you can finish a man off in half a minute?"

Buggy's voice sounds soft, almost seductive. He's using a patronizing tone. You've been watching him long enough over the past few months to know it's his way of hiding an impending anger.

"Do you think i'm an idiot?" There he is, he's just pulled out the genie. He abruptly turns to you and approaches, positioning himself dangerously close. "Tell me, do i look like a joke to you?"

You should be nervous about having to come up with some excuse but actually all you can think about is that you see him as a very kissable person. Obviously, you can't say that. 

"Did you really think I'm gonna believe the story of you not minding important to tell me about your fighting skills?"

"I..."

"Tell me the truth, Y/N. Now."

Buggy comes dangerously close to your face, his nose almost brushing against yours. He must think your nervousness is because he's caught you, but the truth is your heart is going so fast because you're holding him so close and it feels like a sin not to eat his mouth. Every day that passes your desire for him grows and at times like this you find it hard to control yourself.

"Well?" he insists, getting impatient. 

You snap back to reality, you must answer something. You sigh, perhaps the best thing to do is to tell the truth.

"Okay..." you nod, pulling away from him a little. You can't center your head holding him so close, his scent clouding your sense. "I had foster parents, they were Marines. They were working as undercover agents, but they ended up in prison for treason or something. When they were arrested my sister and I escaped, but we ended up as slaves and were bought by a horrible guy who was in the business of training children to sell them as mercenaries in the future. I was one of the best, escaped from there, got my own life and blah, blah, blah..."

You were not good at telling stories but that time you have excelled, you have told it with such reluctance that anyone would say that you are summarizing a very boring novel. Buggy stares at you for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. You don't understand what's so funny, maybe you don't like to make a big deal out of it because your personal traumas have turned you into a kind of emotional robot, but it's not to make fun of other people's misfortunes either. 

"Do you really expect me to believe something like that?" 

Wow, so that's what it is, the truth has seemed too far-fetched for him. Well, good for you. 

"I have to admit, you're a good storyteller. You could use that talent for some show." You stifle a smile, one of the things you like most about that fool is how sometimes he doesn't know anything. "But I want the truth, Y/N, or we'll have a problem."

You sigh. Fuck, that's lazy, now you'll have to make something up. 

"My father was a former marine" you lie "I was trained by him." 

Buggy grimaces.

"Yes, of course the earlier story was much more interesting, it had more drama."

"I thought if I told that my father had been in the Navy you wouldn't want me in your crew" you shrug. Well, in the end a boring, simple excuse was the most convincing. 

Buggy stares at you, weighing whether to buy your excuses or not. 

"Okay, I believe you" he nods. He folds his arms and leans slightly towards you, speaking menacingly "But I hate it when people try to make a fool out of me." 

"I never have ever intended anything like that" Actually at first you did. 

"Are you sure?"

"Fuck, of course yes!" You exclaim, exasperated, stepping completely out of your role. 

Buggy pulls back, confused by your reaction. 

"What, you're offended?" he asks, incredulous "I'm the one who has the right to be angry here!"

"For God's sake, Buggy, stop thinking the whole fucking world wants to fucking laugh at you."

You've never said swear words in front of him before, nor spoken in such a rude manner. It's the first time you show him your true personality and he seems quite surprised. And a bit angry, to be honest. 

"You're obsessed with what fucking people think. Fuck it, people are bullshit." 

"How dare you talk to me like that, don't you know who I am?"

"Of course I know, everyone knows. You love make everyone know" you reply, a bit fed up now "I'm just telling you the truth."

"You don't seem very enthusiastic, maybe you don't like being on this crew anymore."

You fold your arms, he's not the only one who can be proud and stubborn, you've always been known for that too. 

"Maybe not."

Buggy's gaze seems to be on fire with rage. He's really furious. 

"Well, get the hell out then."

"No!"

That really knocks him off his feet.

"No?"

Your tone has dropped considerably, regaining your composure. 

"I'm not leaving." 

"May I ask what the hell is wrong with you?"

At this point in the conversation, and considering that you've already discovered too many cards to give up the game, perhaps it's time to tell the truth. But the one that matters. The stuff about you working as a bounty hunter or that your goal was to kidnap him is not something that seems relevant to you.

You take a breath, take a deep breath and stare at him. 

"I like you" you reply matter-of-factly.

Buggy stares at you as if he has just seen a ghost. He's speechless, that's quite a feat coming from someone who is incapable of shutting his mouth for more than two minutes. He opens his mouth slightly to say something but he can't, he gets stuck. Your confession has completely thrown him off, right now so many things are going through his head that he is unable to manage. 

"I don't care about being a pirate" since you confess, you decide to confess completely "but I like you and I don't want to leave the ship. So stop accusing me like that, it doesn't sit well with me."

Not that it feels too good to your self-esteem to see the horrified look on Buggy's face at this point, but it feels genuinely good. You've finally let it out, you've been holding it inside for so long that it's been a lump in your throat.

"Your .... Eh.... Me?" It's the only thing Buggy finds himself able to utter. 

The idea being liked by someone is not something that crosses his mind often. Buggy can brag about all his exploits and constantly bravado about his abilities, but he has always felt considerably inferior than many of his peers. He knows he inspires fear, terror even, that some of his disciples look up to him but... liking him? Why would you like him? You're quite a bit younger and very pretty. In fact you don't know it, but more than one member of the crew has commented to him once or twice that they finds you very attractive. He's sure it's a ruse or something to confuse him, there's no way you really could like him. 

"Look, I'm not going waste more time, this is a childish conversation" You tell him, once you've made your confession it's like all the nerves and fear have disappeared. You are you again. "When you calm down you look for me"

And then you make the decision to do something you've been wanting to do for weeks. You were taught that if you decide something you have to go all the way, that has always been your character. So you approach Buggy, stand on tiptoe and give him a light kiss on the lips. He stands still, motionless, like a statue. You look into those eyes that enchant you and say:

"I really wanted to do that, I'm sorry." 

And with that said you leave, returning to the deck. Buggy stares at you, static, unable to react. 

What the hell just happened?

[captain-mj]

Just thought of something. Immortal Deity Ghost x Regular human Soap? Like, Soap is literally just a guy and Ghost is smitten.

Smut please, my monster-fucker heart needs this please

Got it, don't even worry my guy

Ghost loved Soap. He thought of him nearly constantly. Something about him had enraptured him.

Soap was currently doing the dishes, scrubbing them carefully. His smile was perfect. It lit up the entire room.

Ghost purposely made the plants around him bloom and turn greener. He loved Soap dearly.

Soap started to cook. Ever since he found out about the... thing in his house, he always made a bit extra. He'd put it on a plate near by and leave it on the table or by the window. It was a funny sense of worship, one Ghost was familiar with in some ways. People usually buried or burned offerings for him. They didn't offer it on a plate.

Ghost took them regardless. He still wasn't sure how Soap noticed him. Maybe it was the plants or changing the weather around Soap's house when he mentioned he'd prefer something else. Or Soap could just sense him.

Regardless, Soap was great. He called him Ghost because he thought he was a ghost which was a little funny.

Ghost found himself liking the name. A lot actually. Currently, he was very happily tangled around the apartment. His form could change on a whim, but for right now, he was more of an idea. A thought.

And Soap thought about him a lot.

Right now, he was going over the events of his day and how he wished Ghost had been at his work as he could've used the help. Apparently, the coffee never tasted right, unlike when Ghost made it.

Ghost really just made the best rated coffee in the area appear in the coffee pot. He did it on purpose, liking that Soap found him useful for things.

Soap laid back and really relaxed in his bed. "Ghost, are you watching me?"

Always.

"No. I give you privacy in your bedroom. You know that." His voice came from all around him. It was partially true. He never watched Soap doing anything private. Like undressing or showering. But he did gaze upon Soap as if he were a shiny object in his possession.

Soap nodded and started to unzip his pants.

Ghost noted that Soap had been doing this more lately. When he did, Ghost always blocked out that room entirely so he had no clue what Soap was thinking about or feeling. Sometimes, it was tempting.

For the first time ever, Ghost did not turn away. He watched him.

Everything Soap did was so alluring. He'd do funky things. One of Ghost's favorite things was watching Soap load the washing machine.

Soap started to stroke himself, biting his lip. He groaned and his back arched a little. His thoughts were so easy to read.

Him.

Ghost's voice.

The mock Ghost in his head was a little off, wrong in the way all human memories are. It told him to keep stroking himself or pushing his finger deeper before telling him to stop right as he got close. Soap continued to edge himself, pretending it was Ghost's orders to do so.

"Johnny." Ghost spoke softly, adding a little power to it so the glass in the room would shake. "What are you doing? I can sense your mounting frustration."

Soap stared at the ceiling, frozen. "I... um..."

"I should've corrected you much sooner." Ghost said softly. "May I enter your room?"

Soap, cock still in hand, flushed and quickly covered himself up. "Yeah."

The door opened and smoke filled the doorway until Ghost was there. His hands were on the doorframe with his body leaning in. "You think about me?"

"You can hear my thoughts?"

"I can hear your thoughts about me. I'm not actually a ghost, ya know. A ghost couldn't make your plants bloom or brew coffee for you. They'd be too busy screaming about their woes."

Soap couldn't focus on Ghost. It was hard to when he looked like nothing but dozens of shifting overlapping shadows.

Ghost became more solid, though slightly less human. Long claws and a skull over where his face should be. One thing was alarmingly, horribly human, was his eyes.

Soap panted softly and started to scramble back. A little late for that. Ghost had been feeding off so many offerings and so many thoughts. He had more than enough power to squash Soap like an insect.

That would never happen though.

Especially when his most devoted follower currently had a leaking, hard problem between his legs.

"Why stay here if you're not a ghost?"

"And leave my devotee? How cruel of a god I would be." Ghost loved Soap. He loved him so dearly. And the idea of pleasing him... "I could help you. Won't even make you pray for it."

Soap stared at him, almost shaking. But his legs slowly relaxed and then spread. "Please."

Ghost shifted. He put his hand next to Soap's head. "You've prepped yourself so lovingly for me too. You're gorgeous."

Soap panted softly and his skin broke out in goosebumps when Ghost's body touched his. Shivers wracked through his body.

Ghost yanked him around and pulled Soap's hips higher up. Soap's clothing burned away where Ghost's flesh pressed against him. He finally got a good look at him.

Soap closed his eyes and just relaxed and felt everything. The hands against him. Cold and unrelenting and promising everything Soap wanted.

Then Ghost held him close and lined up. Soap dug his nails into the hard flesh of his... shoulders? and shifted so he was more open. He made an error and he realized that quickly when he realized how big Ghost was. A little whimper came out of his throat.

Ghost pressed against his chest, cheek to cheek. His lips were right next to Soap's ear. "I've seen your toys ya know. I know you can take me."

Soap whimpered more, feeling Ghost stretch him out with the slow way he pushed in. The burn was perfect. Somehow, he knew Ghost did that on purpose. He wasn't sure how Ghost could know. It hurt so much but it was exactly how Soap liked it. Pleasure racing through him.

As soon as it didn't feel like Soap would tear in half, Ghost started to speed up until he was pounding into him. Something extremely exact and in an exact rhythm. His tummy had a small dent in it from how big Ghost was and watching it disappear and reappear made Soap's head spin.

After so long being edged, he came all over himself. Sobbing as he desperately grabbed his headboard.

Ghost didn't even stall. Though he clearly enjoyed the way Soap spasmed with his orgasm, the way his back arched and that his muscles tightened, it didn't affect him at all.

Sharp claws dug into Soap's hips until blood flowed.

He opened his mouth and felt Ghost's tongue lick into his mouth. Blood filled Soap's mouth but he couldn't figure out where he had gotten cut.

Soap felt himself getting close again and Ghost stopped, leaving him stuttering.

"Do you enjoy denial?" Ghost asked curiously. "It's so strange. Usually humans are all about gratification. Wanting things then and now." He ignored Soap's desperate, sobbing face as he tried to fuck himself back on Ghost's cock. He twisted wrong and groaned as he missed his prostate and just went deep. HIs eyes fluttered.

"Control."

"Denial seems to be the opposite of control."

"Exactly. Want someone else to control everything."

Ghost grinned. "I can do that. I can definitely do that. I can control it all."

Soap couldn't look at him. His smile hurt his head.

It started again and Soap moaned and prayed.

"Yes, please keep going. Keep going. I need it. Need you."

Ghost lifted Soap's leg to deepen the angle and continued to fuck him hard. Soap felt what he was pretty sure was Ghost coming inside him. As he kept fucking him with no abandon, he could feel it coming out and running down his thighs. So much.

"Let me finish, let me come, come on, I'll be good. Let you do this whenever you want I promise, just please." Soap wouldn't dare touch himself. He looked at Ghost, managing to make eye contact.

Ghost hummed and this time didn't stop. He let Soap finally finish, enjoying the ecstasy that they shared.

Soap screamed when Ghost melted all over him. A blink of an eye later and Ghost was quickly solid again.

"Sorry, didn't think about how scary that would be for you." Ghost laughed and pulled out, watching the way Soap's ruined hole gushed with cum. "Any time I want huh?"

Soap nodded and Ghost felt a burst of love. "Any time."

"It's a good thing you have so much stamina then."

[spitdrunken]

Cream and Ice (Candy Queen x Reader / Winter King x Reader)

wordcount: 13k, NSFW. summary: As the ruler of an entire kingdom, the Winter King is a busy man. You'll spend the rest of your life being thankful to him for rescuing you from the freezing cold as he did. Still, it does get lonely, sometimes. The Candy Queen is even more eager for company than you, and at least twice as lonely. You've been 'kidnapped' by her more times than you can count, and have grown to appreciate her company. All of the Winter King's warnings you've long since disregarded, since you've never actually gotten hurt. When, one day, you bite off more than you can chew—or, rather, swallow,—the Winter King is the only one who can save you. See the full tags on ao3, here!

The snow crunches underneath your feet, the cold wind penetrating even through the many clothes the Winter King has provided you with. The cold had never been a factor he had to consider for himself, or his subjects, but you are a different story. It’s fine, you know you’ll be leaving this place soon, even if just for a little bit. As you walk the streets of the Winter Kingdom, you feel the inhabitants’ gazes follow your forms, and hushed whispers trail in your wake. 

It’s fine if they see. You can never be quiet here, and you need the Winter King to hear about your departure eventually. Otherwise, he’ll never come to pick you up. And you’ve never actually returned from Candy’s, as she’s told you to call her, home on your own. 

You don’t know exactly when being kidnapped by Candy turned into something else, but it has. There’s no need for her to put you in a cage anymore, and the two of you actually chat. Sure, you have the Winter King, but he gets busy, and the rest of his subjects are… You don’t know how to put it. There is a hollowness behind many of their eyes. It’s nice to have someone else to talk to, even if her ways are rather eccentric. But, really, who are you to judge in this situation? You are not from this world, and your definition from sanity might not align with the one the Land of Ooo. Even then, the many warnings you’d received from the Winter King would suggest otherwise.

He can warn you about her obsession and unpredictability, but he never seems particularly concerned about her. Maybe you should be, as a human without magic, but being ‘rescued’ has grown into such a nonchalant affair that you can’t be bothered. She doesn’t seem much interested in anything besides the Winter King, so you don’t think she really cares about hurting you. Her mood often swings, yes, but it also isn’t hard to flip her back around. 

This is what you think about, as you wait underneath the pine-scented trees. The smell is pervasive, practically too strong, when you are standing underneath clumps of them. You have to walk to the edge of the kingdom, otherwise the alarms would go off, and that would create too much of a fuss for your liking. The Winter King is busy right now. You guess he’s fiddling with something in his laboratory, or ‘fixing’ something about his kingdom that no one but him had ever seen issue with. 

You hear Candy before you see her, as you do every time. Her presence is accompanied by the pounding of her legs on the thread mill, the groaning of the subjects that carry her, and bouts of laughter that ring through the air. The same time you see the contraption she calls an aircraft soar through the air, she yells out your name while waving both of her arms at you. 

“Hiiii!” She says as she lowers her contraption. “C’mere, we’ve gotta go quick!” 

As soon as you approach, your own greeting ready on your tongue, the arm on her machine snags you up the floor, and chucks you into the air. The yell you let out only makes her laugh harder, but she catches you in her arms without effort, and puts you on the floor, your back resting against one of the candy canes that decorate the side of the ship. She is a lot stronger than she looks.  Your heart is still busy trying to escape your ribcage, and you wheeze out a breath. 

“Please never do that again,” you tell her. One of your hands is firmly wrapped around the candy cane for support.

She winks at you and sticks her tongue out. “No promises, sorry! Need to get home, quick!” As she starts to run again, she keeps her gaze focused on you. You don’t know how she manages to keep an eye on you and steer the machine at the same time, but you don’t try to think too hard about it. Just as you try not to think about the fact this whole thing is made up out of living creatures. When you’d asked her about it, Candy had told you that they definitely agreed to this, they always wanna do everything for her! 

“Did you get the gooooods?” She drawls out the last word as if she’s drunk, bouncing on the balls of her feet, learning over towards you. From experience, you know that she’ll start patting you down if you don’t hand them over soon enough. As she stops running, the machine stutters and loses altitude, only rising again when she lets out a ‘whoops!’ and starts running again. That’s the second time today you’ve felt the ground fall away underneath your feet, and you’d like it to be the last. Perhaps you should really start reconsidering whether these visits or worth it. 

But Candy smiles wide at you, giving you her undivided attention, and even though you know she cares more about your usual company than you, you’ve still become a little fond of her. She doesn’t have anyone, it seems. If things had gone differently for you, you would have been just as alone as her. 

You take a moment to catch your breath. “I’ll give them once we’re at your place, okay?” Your nails scratch at the smooth surface of your one lifeline on this ship. “You know flying makes me a bit nervous.” The wind whips past your face. Even as you are higher off the ground than you were before, it’s warmer than the one blowing through the Winter Kingdom. 

Though she doesn’t agree one way or the other, Candy’s legs moving even faster are a clear indication she understands the program. “You say you’re scared or whatever, but you get on every time anyway! They say I’m the crazy one, but you should make up your mind, too!” With the back of her hand, she wipes the sweat off of her brow. 

You can’t say it’s ever the smoothest ride, but it’s always a fast one. The machine lurches left and right as you land, and you cling on for dear life, as it crashes into the ground. As the groans of the banana-people, whatever their name may be, ring out, you know you’ve made a safe landing. Without fail, Candy clambers down her servants without sparing a glance or a thought towards them, digging her heel into their faces and mushing them up. You’d jump down if it weren’t too high. You’re forced to do the same, but you at least think you’re a bit more polite about it, since you apologise. 

Candy waits for you in front of her door. “So? So?” Candy leans in close towards you, standing on the tips of her toes. Her eyes are blown wide and twinkle with excitement, her nose almost poking yours. It’s endearing, despite knowing the reason for her delight. 

You dig around in your pockets, and her a few pictures you made from the Winter King. They are better than the ones she has adorning your walls, as those were made in secret. These weren’t. The Winter King is always more than happy to pose for a picture, and he’ll even ask you to take some if he’s made himself a new outfit, to most accurately judge himself from every angle. Perhaps it’s not the most moral thing to do, feeding into her obsession like this, but it’d continue regardless of what you did. 

“Here you go,” you say, handing her the little stack. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She squeals, hugging the pictures to her chest and twirling around on the tips of her toes. A few pieces of candy shoot out from the tips of her fingers. They clatter to the floor, completely unnoticed by her. “You always get such good ones! I loooove it! Gotta put them up right now!”

She skips like a schoolgirl all the way towards her room, and you have to keep up at a brisk walking pace. Every time you enter, you try to ignore the giant cage in the corner of the room, but you never quite succeed. 

“Put them in your diary, and not on the wall, okay?” She practically has a shrine dedicated to the Winter King on her wall, but you don’t need your pictures to be added to that. You have no interest in answering his questions about how she got her hands on them. 

“Yeah, yeah, mom.” You can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “’S not like you gotta tell me that every time.” 

You huff out a breath of air through your nose. “If he sees them, that’s the end of it. You’ll have to start taking them yourself again.”

As she walks past her keyboard, her back turned to you, she flings her fist on it. The discordant noise clangs together, loud, but harmless. “Fiiiiine. Yours aren’t big enough for posters, anyway. They’d look bad next to mine.”

Candy flops down on her bed, landing on her stomach. She reaches underneath her pillow for a diary that has become a familiar sigh to you. Pictures stick from the borders of the pages from every side, and multiple of them are stuck together with pink gum. The front has something scrawled on it that you’ve never been able to make out. You watch as she shifts through your pictures, sighing longingly at every single one of them, while kicking her feet in the air. To stick them to the paper, she pulls a piece of gum out of her hair. It’d surprised you the first time you saw it, but it’s clear it doesn’t hurt her whatsoever. 

“Do you like them?” You ask, and she hums loudly in response. It really is surprising she doesn’t try to maul you over how much time you spend with her ‘love’, but you’ve come to terms with the fact you’ll never be able to follow her line of thought. 

As you watch her like this, so hopelessly head over heels for someone who sees her as nothing more than a nuisance, your heart clenches. The Winter King describes her as the Kingdom’s sole and greatest enemy. He derides her unpredictability, her madness, as he calls it, and her twisted affection. But as you’ve spend time here in the Candy Kingdom, you’ve come to think that her behaviour is simply part of her species. You’ve never met a subject of hers, servant or otherwise, that acted unlike her. If that simply is the way she was born, the way she’s supposed to be, you can’t bring yourself to blame her for it. The Winter King always seems to leave her clutches unscathed, the same as you have. 

You sit down on the floor next to her bed, leaning the back of your head against her mattress. The cover sticks a little your hair. You stare at the wall opposite of her bed, plastered with images of the Winter King. The sea of blue stands in harsh contrast with pinks of the rest of her decor. Without thinking, you sigh. 

Wouldn’t it be so much better if she had an interest in someone else, if she pursued someone had a chance of returning her feelings? There has to be a perfect match out there for her, in this whole wide world. You just know that it isn’t the Winter King. He won’t care about her, not ever. He’s spelled it out for her so many times. But time and time again, she pursues him in her own way, and time and time again, she is rejected. You can’t grasp how she can cope with it, given her feelings are so all-consuming. 

“Candy?” You crane your head upwards, and you can just barely see her legs still swishing in the air. 

“Wait. I’m having a moment.” She lets out a scream that she muffles with her pillow. The whole bed bounces up and down behind as she kicks strongly into the mattress, squealing the whole time. One of her feet whizzes just over your head as she rolls from left to right. She must have found a picture she particularly likes. You’re curious which one it is, but she doesn’t let you look at them once she’s glued them to her diary. She exhales loudly, and the bed gives a final creak. 

“Okay. Moment over.”

You know you are treading onto uneven ground here. One of the first lessons the Winter King taught you upon taking you in, was the look of a frozen lake that might give away underneath your feet. Now, it feels like you are jumping onto one of the exact spots he told you to avoid. To the right of your head, you see the tip of her boot peeking over the side of her bed. It bobs up and down, up and down. 

“What do you like so much about the Winter King, anyway?”

Her foot stops moving. The entire bed goes still. In tandem, you start to think of escapes out of this conversation. Candy, however, only hums in response. First in thought and, after a few seconds, she makes a silly little tune out of it. She must be working on a new original. Whenever she does, she can’t get it out of her head for days, or so she’s told you. 

“I dunno! That’s a mean question, ‘cause I can’t just pick one thing. I like… Everything! I think. I need us to be together, forever!” She sucks on her bottom lip, and releases it with a pop. “He’s stuck in my brain, like… A stick inside a lollipop! Part of the same thing.”  

You can feel her moving, but you still jump as Candy hangs over you, all at once. Her hair is almost like a wall with the way it hangs past your sides, caging you in between her and the bed. “But why do you wanna know so bad, hmmm?” She’s still smiling, and that’s a good thing. You think. With her being upside down, it’s difficult to tell if she’s really smiling in the first place, or baring her fangs. She squints at you. “What are you trying to do? You can’t have him. He’s mine, you ding dong!” 

Despite yourself, you freeze up. Those teeth of hers always look so much sharper up close. The familiar warnings, the ones that you could recite by heart at this point, ring out in your ear. Unlike the Winter King however, you’ve actually tried to hold a conversation with Candy before. You know how to handle her, in a sense, without the situation escalating any further.

Without hesitation, you stick out your finger, and press the tip of it to her nose. “Boop.”

There is a beat of silence. Then, she dissolves into a fit of giggles, her whole chest rising and falling with her laughter. You smile back at her. As she laughs harder, her whole physical form melts away into glowing, pink goo. You shudder as Candy drips down your shoulders and over the front of your shirt. Thankfully, that form of hers never leaves any residue. You’d have no clue how to explain those stains. All of her gathers up on the floor, in between your knees. You spread your legs wider, just as Candy forms back into her usual appearance.

“Boop!” The tip of her fingers finds your nose, just as you’d done moments prior. Her knees bump against the insides of your thighs, and her nose nearly pokes your cheek. With every inhale, all you can smell is cotton candy. You don’t mind the closeness. She is always clingy, albeit in her own way. “You’re so silly. I like that about you.” Candy tilts her head to the side, her smile and eyes widening. “But I was being serious.”

“I know you were,” you tell her. A packaged piece of candy dangles out of her hair, almost falling out, and you carefully push it back in. She doesn’t even blink. “I didn’t walk to talk about him, though. I wanted to talk about you, Candy.”

She blinks owlishly at you. The corners of her mouth droop, but she doesn’t quite loser her smile. She shakes her head, then opens her mouth, and starts to pick something out from between her teeth with her fingernail. Candy must have not been listening at all.

“Go on,” she says, proving you wrong. The words come out distorted, as she doesn’t bother to take her finger out of her mouth as she speaks. 

“I get that you really, really like the Winter King. Like, a lot. But don’t you think you could try and get over him, to find someone who’s better for you?”

Candy throws her head backs, and laughs. And laughs, and laughs. At the sudden jerk of her head, she cut an indent into her finger. She doesn’t bleed, however. Right in front of your eyes, her ‘skin’ merely closes shut again. Her laughter continues on, and its loud enough to make your ears ring. Every breath of hers is a desperate wheeze. With how much she’s shaking, you can only pity her ribs and guts. …If she has them, that is.

She sighs loudly as she sits upright again, and wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “That’s the hardest I’ve laughed in years! Better?! Lemme know when you find one!” She rests her elbow on her knee, then leans her cheek on her hand. “He’s the one I need.”

“But that doesn’t it hurt, always getting rejected?” You cannot stop the hint of desperation entering your voice. There has to be a better life for her out there, better than whatever this is. “You’re pretty, Candy. And sweet, too, obviously. I’m sure there’s someone out there, who can really appreciate you, and who is more like you. I think you deserve that. I… I want you to be happy.” With Candy, you’ve learned to spell out what you’re trying to say as literally as possible, lest she misunderstand. 

You pity her, this girl, alone in her kingdom, with no one but her servants for company, endlessly chasing a man who will never give her the time of day. She deserves understanding. It has to be a lonely existence, going without it.     Candy’s expression shifts, her face going entirely blank. “I can’t be. Not until I have him.” As soon as the moment comes, it’s over, and you have no time to process it. She bursts into high-pitched giggles and slings an arm around the back of your neck before throwing herself firmly into your lap. 

“Candy!” You sputter, trying to turn your head away from her. As soon as you try though, she places a hand on your cheek, and forces you to look her in the eye again. Your face heats up underneath her touch. She pinches your skin between two of her fingers, and pulls on it. She ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’s at the consistency and texture of your skin. You swallow. Do you hate this? …No, you hesitantly admit to yourself. It’s definitely not the kind of message you were trying to get across, though!

Her eyes slide half-shut, her smile lopsided and soft around the edges. “Hehe. I thought you wanted to talk about me, but what you really wanted was me, huuh?” She puts both of her hands on your face, and squishes. “I’m prettyyyy, I’m sweeeeeet! You said so!” She repeats after you, before bursting into giggles again. “I’m sorry, sugar, but my heart has already been stolen!” One of her hands slowly slides down your cheek. 

“Um… Well, what I was trying to say was— Mrph!” She slaps her palm over your mouth, cutting off the rest of your sentence.

“No need to say anything more, baby!” Candy laughs again. She leans forward, burying her nose in the crook of her neck, and inhaling deeply. “Hmmm, but I do like you. You’re a lot warmer. But you smell a little like him… Like chocolate milk, and pine trees— But still different.”

So many conflicting thoughts and feelings are rushing through you. Your face is burning up, and your stomach’s tied in knots. Wherever she touches you, her skin sticks to yours. Even as you squirm underneath her, Candy doesn’t budge in the slightest. You’re trapped. You gasp as you feel one of her fangs brush against your throat, and you can feel her grinning against your skin. 

“Candy, you’re a bit too close…!” You squeak as you wheeze out the air in your lungs. She sticks her tongue out, and licks a stripe up the side of your neck, slow and deliberate. 

Of course, it’s this exact moment that the Winter King makes his dramatic entrance, with a bang and a flourish. It’s nothing different from what you expect during your bi-weekly rescue. He throws his hair back as little pieces of ice sparkle in the air around him. His eyes are closed, one leg in front of the other. One hand is firmly closed around the hilt of his blade. All of this you can just barely make out in between Candy’s gravity-defying hair. 

“Fair maiden, I have come to…” As the Winter King opens his eyes, the rest of his sentence dies in his throat. You’ve never seen him caught quite this off-guard before. The tip of his blade, that he’d just pulled from its sheath, droops and points to the floor. His mouth is hanging open. You’d spend more time burning the image into your mind, if 90% of your brain wasn’t busy wishing you could melt into a puddle on the floor like Candy could. He shakes his head, in a jerky, twitchy fashion, like he’s forcefully pulling himself back to reality.  

Candy dislodges herself from your throat, smiling up at you. “It’s always a good idea to take you first! My baby always stops by, and then I get to see the both of you… If I just take him, you’d never show up!” You have to admit that she’s completely right about that observation. 

“Unhand her, you fiend!” However much he’d been rattled before, the Winter King easily slips back into his character. His pose is, once again, as poised as ever. His eyes drift from yours to Candy, and back up again. “What’s the meaning of this?” He continues, his voice a lot more softer. It lacks his usual flair or dramatics and, for that exact reason, you swallow.

Candy detaches herself from your neck, and winks at you. “One moment, sugar.” She folds herself backward, landing on her hands, and looking at the Winter King while upside down. You watch with a mixture of horror and fascination. Whatever is inside her body, it can’t be a spine. She’s found the one way to look her ‘beloved’ in the eye, while continuing to straddle you. 

“No meaning! She just told me I’m pretty, heehee! And sweet, too. It was really, really nice!” You can practically hear the pout in her voice as she continues to speak. “You could be a bit nicer to me, too, baby! Really, your little snowflake is a lot sweeter than you— And, since you’re my husband, that’s just plain wrong!”

“Ah. Is she, now?” The Winter King smiles and tilts his head a little to the left. He takes a step forward, and then another. His sword he lowers back down to his side. Goosebumps rush up your arms and legs from the sudden shift in the room’s temperature. When you let out a shuddering sigh, your breath forms a puff of white smoke in the air. 

Right now, the Winter King unnerves you far more than Candy ever has. 

Candy allows him to approach, making grabby hands at his ankles as he gets near. He remains just barely outside of her reach. Rather than pay her any mind, his focus is centered solely on you. You’re pinned down underneath his gaze. You’re not actually scared, you chastise yourself, you shouldn’t be! The knots in your stomach, and the rising of the hair on your arms, all of it is from something else. It doesn’t make any sense. You’re guilty about losing the approval of the one who has done so much for you, who took you in when you had nowhere else to go, in this world that is so unfamiliar to you. That’s all there is to it.

“I don’t know what kind of cotton candy nonsense she’s been spinning inside your head, dear, but I’d say it’s time we head home. Don’t you agree?”

Your tongue is tied. Candy’s eyes are unfocused, one of her eyeballs rolled up to focus on the Winter King, while the other looks at you. She starts to giggle, grin widening far enough to show off all of her fangs. You don’t trust the look on her face. Being around him always brings out the worst in her, without fail. Her legs tighten around your waist, the fingers that had been resting on your thighs dig into the skin. In a single, fluid motion, Candy shoots back up, and slams her mouth against yours. 

“Mpphrph!” You cry out, eyes wide. Despite the unmistakable pressure of her lips against yours, it doesn’t feel like a kiss, exactly. She practically hit your lips with hers, and you feel like the skin is going to bruise. Even now, the pressure that she’s applying is far too strong to resemble anything intimate. Her aim hadn’t been quite right, either. Only about half of her mouth is actually over yours, and her fangs nick your bottom lip. She smiles against your mouth. 

Taking advantage of your surprise, she shoves her tongue in between your parted lips. It’s long and smooth, without any of the ridges or bumps of a human tongue. The flavour of it is saccharine, the kind of sweetness that makes you think of rotting teeth. It goes in deep, so deep that it has your gag reflex protesting around her. Before the situation goes dire, however, the intrusion dissolves. It’s so contrary to your expectations, that your whole body shudders. Some of the thick substance, whatever it is, immediately slides down your throat. The tip of her tongue had been poking around down there, after all. You feel her smile against your mouth. 

The Winter King rips Candy away from you by the back of her clothes, and tosses her to the side like she weighs nothing. She bounces twice on the floor, before lying still. She’s still laughing, so she’s fine, you think. You shiver from the cold. The floor cracks underneath the Winter King’s feet, pieces of eyes shaped like crystals sprouting from the floor like flowers. His glasses sit slightly askew on the tip of his nose. 

You speak, before he has the chance to say anything. “I feel… A little weird…” You say, head lolling to one side as if you’d lost control over your own muscles. Your head feels light and loose, connected to reality only by the thinnest of threads, while your skin feels alight and sensitive. All at once, it is purely and utterly overwhelming. A drop of drool slides down your chin, though you swore you had your mouth closed.

A muscle at the corner of his mouth twitches. Still, his smile does not fade. “Snowflake, dear. Please open your mouth for me.” Your head feels woozier by the second. Where you were cold moments prior, a thrumming heat has settled underneath your skin. You giggle. Without thinking, you open your mouth wide. He kneels in front of you. 

The Winter King drags the tip of his pointer finger over your tongue. It’s so cool, it’s such a relief. You sigh out at the touch, your eyes sliding shut. When you open them again, though your eyes are still half-lidded, he is staring at his finger, brow furrowed. There’s a light pink sheen over the blue of his skin, shimmering in the light. You have no idea what it is. 

He sighs, heavily and dramatically. “Diagnosis: This is bad.” He places two of his hands on your face, and you shiver with delight. You let your head hang to the side, leaning into his side. For a moment, a flicker of a smile returns to his face. “You’re burning up. Okay, I know it’s going to be a little difficult, but you have to try for me, okay?” You nod. You have no idea what he’s asking for. “Okay. You’re going to try and think: Did you swallow any of it?” His fingers press hard into your cheeks. 

“Um… Maybe? I think so…” A thick fog is blanketing your every thought. Pushing your way through it is like trudging through mud, or running on sand. “She kissed me pretty deeply. I remember that. I think I was about to gag.” As soon as you can, you give up your efforts on trying to be coherent, and just nuzzle into his hands. 

The Winter King gives you a little pat on the cheek before letting go. “Thank you.” 

He straightens up, and any calm on his expression immediately melts away. The set of his face temporarily jolts you back to reality. His lips are pressed into a thin line, and mist wafts from his fingers. Instinctively, you scramble backwards, but your back is already against the bed. There is nowhere else you can go. But none of his anger is directed at you. 

Every step towards Candy Queen is a stomp. Frost forms underneath each one of his footsteps, showing exactly where he has walked. You clamber onto Candy Queen’s bed. The whole thing is a sticky mess. It’s worth it to see what’s going on. The urge to keep your eyes on the Winter King is unbearable. You feel like you fall apart the further he is away from you. Your skin itches. 

“Candy Queen,” he practically hisses out her name. “I do not care how much of a nuisance you are to me. I know you will remain that way for as long as the both of us are alive. I can tolerate her being taken, as long as I can pick her up safe and sound. But this… Feeding a mere, poor human Candy essence? Making her swallow it?” He takes another loud step, and the floor cracks underneath his feet. “Do you want her dead? Is that it? The corruption levels on someone with little to no magic exposure are far too high…!” With every word, the pitch of his voice rises. 

Candy lies on her back, lazily rotating her legs in the air. “You like her more than me. I thought I’d make her more like myself!”

The Winter King runs his fingers through his hair, almost tugging, and then groans. “I don’t even know why I’m saying any of this. Why I even bother with the likes of you.” 

Candy laughs once again. “You’re talking to me, because you likeee—” 

“Stop laughing!” His voice thunders around the room, and you shrink back. For a moment, his teeth sharpen, and his hair lifts up and moves around as if blown by an invisible wind. In the blink of an eye, Candy’s entire body is encased in ice. He breathes heavily, then laughs. “I know you’ll survive that. It wouldn’t be the first time. Your servants will thaw you out, eventually.”

Your fingers are digging into the fabric of your clothes. You feel like a block of ice has settled in your stomach. You might be out of it, you might be feeling a bit sick, but this is too intense to pass in front of your eyes without your notice. It feels like a bucket full of ice-cold water got dumped over you while you were fast asleep, a rude awakening to reality.

The Winter King takes a stumbling step back, and grabs at his face with both hands, patting down both of his cheeks. You shuffle back. For the first time, you are scared of the power that flows through his veins. It’s not something that can only create. That, in front of you, the Winter King only makes sparkles in the air, and paths for his subjects to walk on, doesn’t mean that it can’t be turned against others, too. It’s much more than the flurries of snowflakes he amuses you with when you’re bored or homesick. The further you scramble back from him, the further the feeling inside you solidifies. 

He turns on his heel and strides towards you, placing both of his hands on the foot-end of the bed, leaning forward. His eyes have always fascinated you. He has an iris and pupils like you, but they are always covered in a sheen of white. Like cataract. Still, always, you could see his eyes moving beneath this troubled layer. Now, his eyeballs are empty. There is nothing there for you to see. You tuck your legs towards you, as close as you can. 

“Princess!” He calls out, and even his voice sounds unlike his own. The Winter King tilts his head to the side, almost like he is hearing something far, far away. Then, he shakes his head, and blinks. Some of the light returns to his eyes. “No… What am I saying? I…” He visibly swallows. His fingers bunch up the bedsheets underneath his touch. He doesn’t advance any further towards you, and you are thankful for it.

“I’m sorry you’ve seen me in such a state today, snowflake. It’s unbecoming. But, please, don’t look at me like that, with such fear in your eyes. Wasn’t it I, who took you in, when you had nowhere else to go? Who gave you food, shelter, and company? My home is yours. If it weren’t for me…” He inhales, long and deep. “You can trust me. I’ve shown you that you can depend on me! What have I done for you to look at me so?”

“But… But you killed her.” You say, your voice trembling. Already, you can feel the adrenaline wearing off again. Your tongue growing sluggish, the ants moving underneath your skin. Barely, you suppress the urge to whimper.

“Pah!” He laughs, loud and short. “As if that could kill her. No, no— If it could, she’d be dead a long time ago. You wouldn’t be so eager to defend her, if you knew what kind of war is being waged inside your body right now, dear!” His voice goes up in pitch, desperation clinging to the words. Then, he seems to recompose himself, yet his words are more serious than you’ve ever heard him. 

In between the two of you, a shimmering illusion takes form in the air, one that you have seen so many times before. Usually, it pains quaint little images, from pine trees swishing gently in the trees, or his recreation from the supposed creatures around the Land of Ooo that he won’t let you see on your own. 

“As we speak, your own body is fighting itself. You can feel it, can’t you? Your skin hurts, and your thoughts are getting more and more difficult… It’ll only grow worse. That menace will turn you into a smiling, dimwitted wreck. The longer we wait, the more of yourself you’ll lose, dear. Believe me, I had every right to get upset for your sake.”

“I-is that an accurate depiction?!” You nearly squeak. 

The Winter King waves his hand. “Oh, I would call it more of an artistic one! Your situation is rather unique indeed, I had to take some liberties. But, yes, close enough.” 

Your head is swimming, your pulse quick, and your breaths even quicker. “Will I… Be okay?” But now that he has mentioned them, your symptoms only seem to grow worse by the second. Your skull is too heavy for your neck, your lips to heavy to keep closed. (And, somewhere inside you, the urge for him grows. You need to be near him. You need him to touch you. You need to be one with him.) 

   The Winter King lifts one arm into the air and flicks his wrist, almost as if he’s trying to flick your worries away. “Shh, of course you will!” He says with a sudden air of nonchalance that has your already muddled brain even more confused. “I have a laboratory for a reason! We will need to get there, though. Like, right now.” 

He walks over to the side of the bed. You no longer have any urge to turn away from him as he approaches. With every passing moment, you can feel the symptoms of the illness he described to you intensifying. It’s living, breathing proof that he’s telling the truth. You can’t forget the sight of Candy, frozen in a block of ice, on the ground. Still, he really has been the only one to ever come to your rescue. Today has thrown you off-balance, but you’re more scared of whatever parasite is wrecking its way through your body, than the man who has saved you countless times over.  

The Winter King reaches out to you, but seems to change his mind at the last moment. He turns around, going on one knee besides the bed, but with his back turned towards you. “Climb on,” he says, looking over his shoulder at you. “I know carrying you in my arms would be far more romantic and fitting, but I need to focus to get us home quickly.” 

You shuffle over, and as your arms wrap around his neck, and your legs around his waist, you feel worse and better at the same time. Physically, you are less uncomfortable. It’s like you have found the exact spot where your itch is, with the Winter King’s natural body temperature cooling down the flames lapping at your skin. At the same time, thinking clearly becomes so, so much harder. The scent of chocolate milk and pine trees, exactly as Candy had described him, fills your nose, and makes you melt. Involuntarily, you let out a whimper. 

“Poor thing,” the Winter King says as he gets up. With ease, despite the weight of you on his back. “Let’s get you home.”

You rest your head on his shoulder. Instead of walking, a pathway of ice forms right underneath the Winter King’s feet, and he skates over it with ease. Deftly, he maneuvers his way around the Candy Queen’s subjects, guards, and the machine still waiting at her entrance. As the ground underneath your feet gives away, your special path of ice doesn’t. The quickly shrinking logical part of your brain recognises that is the time for your fear of heights to kick in, but it doesn’t. Your head is just fuzzy. He is steady as ever underneath you, never losing his balance. At the same time, he has never been this quiet. You glance over your shoulder. Behind you, the ice he left behind is dissolving. 

As the quiet stretches on, it becomes harder and harder to ground yourself. Your body starts to heat up once again despite the icy wind whipping around you, and the icy man you are pressed up against. Your neck loses all its strength. In the end, your head rests sideways on his shoulder, your ear pressed against him. His hair keeps brushing, or almost touching, your face. Without shame, the concept of that seems to have left you entirely, you take a deep inhale. You’re resting so close to his ear that he has no choice except to hear it. He lets out a breathy, short laugh. 

Past his shoulder, you can see one of his fists closed, the other hand is open, with its palm opened towards the sky. Through half-open eyes, you stare. His hands are aglow with a faint blue light, the evidence of his powers. His powers… The thought catches in your brain, and doesn’t loosens. There’s something about his magic, something that you have forgotten but that your body remembers. Your gaze shifts without you prompting it to.

His crown sits in the middle of its head, as it always does. Its yellow colour seems blinding to you now, sparkling bright like starlight. The rubies on it gleam, reflecting non-existent beams of sun. You have to touch it. Just a little. Or maybe a bit more. 

The movement of your arm as you reach out is heavy and slow. It feels as if the air is made out of molten caramel, and you are slowly wading your way through it. But with the end goal so clear in sight, and so beautiful, you cannot give up. Just as your fingers are a mere hair’s length away, the Winter King’s fist closes around your wrist. For the first time, he stumbles, the walkway underneath his feet having to veer off-course to make up for it. 

“Ah, ah, ah,” the Winter King tuts. He keeps his hand firmly locked around you. “No touching that, snowflake. I’m aware that every single part of me is simply irresistible, but, please, keep your hands to yourself for now.” The rest of his sentence is mumbled, most of the words lost to the wind. “…hers, alright…” 

You feebly try to wriggle your way out of his hold, though it has little effect. “’S important.” You say in return, your tongue catching on the ‘s’ and drawing it out. You clench your legs around his waist tighter, shifting your weight around. 

“It’s important for you not to touch it,” he tells you in response. Tears spring to your eyes, though you aren’t sure why. They feel cold as they drip down your cheeks. As soon as they hit the Winter King’s skin, they turn into tiny, frozen pebbles. 

The Winter Kingdom looms up in front of you, all at once. You hadn’t realised you’d gotten so close to it. When the sun shines on the castle of ice just right, it’s blinding to the eyes. For a moment, a memory bubbles up to the surface of your mind: How you’d wandered here in the utter freezing temperatures, looking at cute little homes with no smoke coming from their chimneys, and how the castle had awed you enough to temporarily distract you from the cold seeping into your very bones. Now, you feel warm enough that you might never be cold again. 

What clues you in to your actual arrival is the crunching of snow underneath the Winter King’s shoes as he jumps down, and the smell of pine trees that hangs pervasive in the air, blanketing the whole kingdom.

“Home…” You mumble. Your face is so close to the Winter King’s ear however, that he hears anything you say, no matter how softly it may be spoken. 

“Yes, dearest,” he responds, giving your wrist a final squeeze. He lets go of your hand. It’s a hesitant, slow departure, like he has to pry each finger loose with effort. As if his hand was frozen to yours, and it takes time to thaw. “We’re home, now. I expect you’ll think twice before heading off on some silly trip again, won’t you?”

 You don’t respond. You hardly register what he’s saying, really. You are caught up in breathing in the cold air, filling your lungs to the brim with it, and hoping the relief will spread throughout your entire body. The layer of sweat that has settled on your skin underneath your clothes, all in different, albeit matching, shades of blue, is starting to cool off. It’s like being wrapped in a cooling blanket, and you smile. Before, all that was preventing you from clawing at your skin was the necessity of holding on to the Winter King, but now you feel no urge to scratch. 

Suddenly, the Ice Scouts’ voices burst from left and right. 

“Is she alright?”

“Should we carry her?” 

Their voices are jarring, and louder than they usually are. They are all grace and fluidity always, and you don’t notice their approach at the best of times. Now is not one of those times. Your head pounds. You bury your face further against him, in an attempt to escape it.

“She will be alright. Yes, yes,” The Winter King says, with enough casualty to make your recovery sound assured and unquestionable. (You know that you will recover, you know that you will get better, and all that you have to do is be one with him. And never let go again, forever, and ever, and ever.) “You may take her from me, but do not venture far. I must make some preparations in the lab, and search… Ahem, find the necessary instruments.”

Though the full reality of his words should have been immediately clear to you, you only start to whimper when the slender, freezing hands of an Ice Scout come into contact with your back. You cling to him like a lifeline, nails clawing at him like a cat clawing at a scratching post. Despite this, you are still smiling, wide enough for your eyes to be nearly squeezed shut. The muscles in your cheek spasm under the strain, yet you cannot stop. 

The Winter King hisses, and as he exhales, you watch the steam of his breath rise up into the air. “I hear you— Well, more like feel you, hah!” He continues, lowering his voice. “You poor thing. You must be uncomfortable enough as it is, and I would be a poor king to exacerbate it.” 

With a flick of his wrist, and a rise of his chin, he dismisses his servants. “Nevermind, you two! Can’t you see the lady herself has spoken? Off with you, now.”

You blink, and an uncertain amount of time has passed. The Winter King has looped one of his arms over yours, keeping you extra steady as he maneuvers his way through his castle. The sound of his movements is sharp. A muted thought pops into your head. For once, he’s not moving around on his shoes, but he must’ve put blades underneath them instead. He’s cutting corners. It’s funny. You laugh, and you laugh, and you laugh, and even your tears are cold against your skin. 

The deeper you go into his castle, the colder it gets. His laboratory is tucked away far from where the occasional wandering visitor or servant might find it. By now, your lips are stretched high enough, and your muscles are twitching enough, for your vision to be nothing more than a blur. Still, you recognise the sound of the sliding door entrance. He had taken you here when you had first arrived, poked and prodded at you for a bit, before proclaiming you a human. Your addled brain knows what to expect here. You will be put down and left alone, the last thing you want. 

You whine. Rather than just your nose, you press your twitchy, stretched thin mouth against his skin. You are overwhelmed with the urge to lap and suck, your mouth latching on to the flesh of his throat. The Winter King lets out a shuddering sigh in response, before placing a hand against the side of your head, and pushing you away. Your mouth releases from his skin with a pop, leaving a darker mark in it's wake. 

"Dear, you are going to make me do something very unethical, if you keep that up." He laughs, and it’s an airy, weightless sound. You find yourself laughing along. 

The Winter King places his hand around your fingers, and you expect a kind, grounding gesture. One by one, he removes your fingers from the fabric of his vest. Despite protesting as much as you can, he bends your digits as easily as one does straw. He plops you down on a chair which, by the feel of it, he just manifested out of ice. 

“I stand by my earlier diagnosis, as of now. This is pretty bad.” The Winter King says, the blue blur on your vision suggesting he’s hanging over you. His heel squeaks on the floor as he turns around. “Muscle relaxant, muscle relaxant…” His muttering echoes in the room made entirely of ice. 

Your sutures have been removed too early. Feverish, sickening heat washes over you in waves. The current is too strong, and you don’t stand a chance. You press your face against the freezing back of the chair, but it’s not enough. It’s not what you need, not even close to it. You shift your weight around, rubbing your arms and legs against the sides. 

 When, on shaky legs, you attempt to get up, icy shackles click in place around your ankles with a clear snap of his fingers. You sniffle. A pitiful noise is wrenched from your throat, any words currently lots to you.

“It’s for your own safety, snowflake, I promise.” The Winter King’s voice sounds from across the room. He’s digging through drawers, shelves, and whatever else is in that corner of the room— You’ve never looked, and you can’t hold a string of thought long enough to consider what might be. Spit dribbles from the corner of your mouth. The itching has grown unbearable, and your nails find their way to your arms. Through the fabric of your clothes, you scratch, hissing in the cold air through grit teeth. 

You think the whole world is falling apart you, when a cooling palm presses against your forehead. Everything’s alright again, it’s okay, it’s all fine. Your fingers slow down with each new scratch, before halting entirely. 

“This will burn a little,” the Winter King warns you. He pushes your head back a couple of degrees, and then sprays something into both of your nostrils in quick succession. Your entire face scrunches up. The warning hadn’t been unwarranted, you can feel the substance burn its way through your system. It doesn’t hurt more than your exhausted muscles, however. Tears slide down your cheeks as you try to swallow a mouthful of saliva. Your chest shakes and contracts, though you can’t tell whether they are sobs or bouts of laughter.  

“Shh, shhhh.” The Winter King attempts to shush you, kneeling in front of you as he wipes away your tears with a handkerchief. “It’s only going to get better from here on out.” As the seconds pass, some much-needed relaxation washes over your face. It cannot wipe the smile off of your face entirely. It remains, lopsided and unsteady. Still, you can see again. 

The Winter King is sitting on a tiny stool in front of you, pen in hand and taking notes. His face is uncharacteristically serious, the deep lines in his face indicating his concentration. It’s like you’re looking at a different man. 

“Dilated pupils. Unnatural facial movement, appearing as a smile…” He places one of his hands on your forehead once again, the other continuing to write. “Extremely high body heat.” Then, he moves on to place a thumb over your pulse. “Heightened heart rate.” As soon as he pulls his hand back, you reach out your arm, in an attempt to guide him back. “…And an uncontrollable urge to be close to me, it seems.” He huffs. The Winter King leans his head back, and clicks his tongue, multiple times in a row. “Well, it’s her essence, alright.” His eyes glide up and down your body. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The words are audible, but they find nowhere to hold onto inside your brain. All of the words, individually, make sense. That is where your understanding ends. There’s no way for you to string their meaning together. 

“I suspected as much.” As he cups one of your cheeks in his hand, you lean into the touch as much as you can, rubbing your nose against his palm. By now, your symptoms have worsened to the point that not even his touch can cool you down. If it weren’t for the relaxant he’d given you, you’d be straining against your cuffs in order to get to him. Your brain is focused on a single pinpoint: him. 

You no longer have a concept of shame. Both of your hands reach for his, grabbing onto his wrist, and dragging his palm over your face. It’s easy, there is no resistance from his side. When they come closer to your mouth, you lean forward, and take one of his fingers in between your lips, sucking on it. You try to appeal to him further, the only way you know how, the smile on your face widening. Your head is filled to the brim and light at the same time, stuffed full of cotton candy. 

“Winterrr…” You slur out his name, tongue caressing his finger as you do so. The world is garbled nearly beyond recognition. Both because of the intrusion, and the fact your tongue doesn’t listen to all of your unconscious commands. Your brain feels like it’s leaking out of your ears. You are hardly in control of yourself anymore. It would have been terrifying, had you had the ability to remember you were ever in control in the first place. All you know is this moment, this exact time and place. “Pleaaase…”

Drool is pooling onto your lap. The Winter King stares at you for a good few seconds, gaze intense. He doesn’t pull away, but neither does he lean in. A droplet of water slides over his forehead. For a moment, it hangs off of the tip of his nose, before dripping down, like from the point of an icicle. 

“Me? It’s me you need, snowflake? It’s me you want?” There is a breathless in his voice, an anticipation in his tone that set your nerves impossible more alight. You’re nodding. All you can recognise in his voice is a kind of desire, and you’re nodding. There’s nothing you’ve ever wanted more. 

“Aaaah, can I really do this…?” The Winter King says, smiling creeping onto his face. At the same time, he’s stuffing multiple of his digits into your mouth, practically fingering you as he runs the pads of them over your teeth and tongue. His other hand finds your wrist again, and he presses down with his thumb. “It seems to calm you down.” 

He takes your tongue in between two of his fingers, and rubs both sides of it at once. Your eyes grow hazy, your head lolls to the side. Full-body shivers wreck your body, goosebumps spreading absolutely everywhere. Your core throbs. 

The Winter King laughs, clear and pretty as bells. “Well, now isn’t the time to suddenly grow a moral compass, is it? It’s clear what you want. What you need.” He pulls away from your mouth. Holding his fingers in front of his face, he looks at the strings of saliva connecting them, slowly pulling them further apart, and bringing them back together. “I don’t know anything else that might make you feel better, dear— And I’m only saying that, because I know you won’t remember a thing. Not with that pretty, little head of yours being as empty as it is right now.” 

He shakes his head. “Haaah, I don’t even know why I’m saying any of this, anymore. But it feels nice to fill the silence, doesn’t it? I do have a lovely voice. I’m sure you’d agree, if you could.” 

You squirm in your seat. Any moment without the Winter King is a moment too long, in your mind. Once again, you reach out for his hand, but he keeps it just outside of your reach. Your heart clenches. 

“Don’t worry, dear. I’ll give you something much, much better.”

Your knees bump against his. You spread your legs as wide as they can possibly go, and he rests his knees on the inside of them, moving the stool closer. His smile is graceful and steady, not flush on his cheeks to be seen. With two fingers, he grabs his glasses off of the bridge of his nose, folds the legs up, and puts it on a table a little to the side. It would be a great show of self-restraint. Would be, because his hands are trembling. His every breath is a puff of smoke. You might be a total mess, but he is cracking at the seams himself. 

He holds your face in both of his hands, one of his fingers rubbing circles on your cheek. The Winter King leans in, angling his face just right, so his nose doesn’t end up anywhere you wouldn’t want it to be. It’s all you’ve ever read or heard about. Descriptions of kisses that feel like fireworks going off, or butterflies eating away at your insides— It’s more overwhelming than any of that. Your whole body feels as if it’s been alight at once. His lips are silky smooth, and merely cool to the touch, rather than cold.

One of his hand moves to rest on top of your hair, adjusting the position of your head just a tad. Your mouth is already hanging open. Frankly, your entire jaw is slack. You couldn’t even close it if you had tried, so little control over your muscles do you have left. His tongue slips inside you without any effort or resistance. It brushes against yours, and…

He breaks the moment. The Winter King jerks his head back, smacking his lips together. His face is ever so slightly scrunched up. You lean forward as best as you can, trying to follow the kiss and recapture it, to no avail. Instead, you settle for what you can. You lick the remainder of his touch from your lips. 

“Sorry about that, snowflake,” he says, voice low. “You still taste like her. It surprised me, that’s all. It’s not your fault.” He hums, leaning in close again, and a more teasing smile plays around his lips. “Let’s change that together, shall we?”

The Winter King kisses you with renewed energy. It’s like he sets out to reclaim crevice over your mouth, his tongue running over both your tongue and palate. Tears burn at the corners of your eyes once again, and your entire body is shaking. With what limited power you have, you suck his tongue further into your mouth, as hard as you can. For the first time, Winter’s control wavers, and he lets out a muffled little noise. 

This is it, this is exactly it, and as soon as you think that, it’s not enough anymore. You need him further inside you, you need infinitely more of him. Merely his spit mixing with yours isn’t deep enough of a connection. 

With a bit of effort, the Winter King detaches his mouth from yours. A thick string of drool connects your mouths. He catches it on his finger, and stuffs it back inside your mouth. His eyes are half-lidded and his smile is as lopsided of your own, a dark blue hue tinting the space underneath his eyes. 

“Heehee,” he laughs, out of breath. His cobalt tongue peeks past his lips for just a moment. “Oh, dear, you’re not trying to eat me, are you?” 

Your head grows a little clearer, the more and more he touches you. Not enough to speak, but enough to understand what he’s saying again. You shake your head. The whole world spins around you at the motion, swirling with seasickness. Eating is not quite right. 

His eyes light up at the evidence of your understanding, little stars twinkling in his eyes as he claps his hands together. He has such silly ways to show his excitement. It’s really, really cute. 

As soon as the thought forms in your head, it quickly slips back out of your fingers. Your arms itch. Every time you feel release, it never lasts. It hurts. Once again, your tears threaten to spill over, and your fingers claw at the armrests of your impromptu, icy chair. They find nothing to hold on to. 

“It’s not enough, hm? Of course it isn’t. You greedy little thing,” he says with nothing except for affection in his tone. “I think I know what you want snowflake. Allow me to help.”

The Winter King lowers his hands, one of them tapping in a steady rhythm on the inside of your thigh, while the other pressed against your clothed crotch. Your legs were already spread wide open for him. The coldness of his fingers radiates even through the fabric of your clothes. As he starts to rub, teasingly pulling at your waistband, before letting the fabric hit your skin again, your whole body seizes. This… Isn’t it. This isn’t making the heat any better, it’s only making it worse.

Your ankles push up against your restraints. You try to wriggle away, and put both of your hands on his arm. The Winter King immediately relents. He holds both of his hands in front of his chest, turned toward you in a sign of surrender. You close your thighs, chewing on your bottom lip. 

“Well, that’s a ‘no’. Clearly. You didn’t need your voice to tell me that much.” His gaze drifts down to his hands, then back to your face. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, snowflake. I simply assumed… It’d be a lot easier if you could talk to me, but I know that’s not an option right now. Alas.”

He stands up, and pushes the stool backward with his foot. “You can understand what I’m saying, so let’s do it like this. I ask you now: What do you want?” The Winter King runs a hand through his hair, flipping it over his shoulder. “I know I love to make things about myself, but in this situation… Let’s not. Maybe try to point at what you want, hm?” 

Slowly, you nod. Without really thinking about it, you reach out and press your hand against the obvious bulge in his pants, before pointing at your mouth with your other hand. All the while, you’re smiling up at him. 

The Winter King lets out a sound somewhere in between a cough and a laugh, before genuinely cracking up. “Ha— Hahaha, oh, snowflake… Really, I know I should be worried about your life right now, and trust me, I am, but… Ohhh, you’re even flustering me at this rate,” He winks at you, a blue flush having spread over most of his face. “And that’s an achievement, you can trust me on that. Though I should have expected that kind of response, shouldn’t I?” He drags a finger quickly past the corner of his eye, like wiping away a single tear. 

He places his hand over his chest. “Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll let you suck my cock, dear…! Kidding. I’d let you do that any day.” Even in your current state, you can tell he’s finding himself far too hilarious, as usual. You groan, contemplating hitting him, before your addled brain comes up with a much better idea. 

You massage him through his pants, cupping and squeezing him. Immediately the majority of the smile melts off of his face, and he hisses in a breath. 

“Yes, yes, dearest. I understand. Your wish is my command. Let go for a moment now, will you?” 

He pulls his pants and underwear down the minimal amount, entirely dressed excepted the hard cock a little way away from your face. Underneath you, the chair made out of ice molds and changes, presenting you at the perfect height to suck him off. 

All of this floats right by you. You go nearly cross-eyed while staring at his cock. It’s pretty and thick, with a bead of precum on the top. Though, at this point, you don’t care what it looks like. Your entire body is wound tight, full of anticipation for this exact, specific moment. You feel like your mouth is dry from how much you’ve been drooling, trails of saliva turning to near-frost on your skin. 

His fingers lace themselves through your hair, most of his hand at the back of your head. “That’s a delicious look on you, snowflake. You should reserve it just for me, yes?” His nails tickle as he presses his dick against your lips, smearing himself over them. With no hesitation, you open your mouth and take his head in. Immediately, he lets out a sigh, his eyes rolling up. 

“I’d forgotten how warm a human mouth is… I love it.” He moans, loud and unapologetic as you suck on him, tongue still too relaxed to move much. The taste of him, especially his precum, flits through your mind for just a moment. It doesn’t taste like much of anything, almost like water. “You’re doing wonderful, sweetheart. 

You try to lean forward, wanting to take as much of him in at once in your feverish haze. The Winter King, however, keeps a steady hold on you, and keeps your head firmly against the back of your seat. He shushes you as you protest around him. 

(Somewhere, in the very back of your mind, underneath the layers of magic you’ve been put under, there is shame. You must look like a mess right now. Unlike yourself, smiling creepily around his cock, and forward in a way you wouldn’t have been otherwise. Whatever you’re doing to him can be described as sloppy as best. You would have preferred your first time with him to be anything except for this, something stained with urgency beyond simple desire. Yet, he looks at you like there is nothing ugly about you.)

“I’m going to help you take as much of as me as possible, sweetheart. But not like that.” He pets the top of your head. “Deep breaths, deep breaths. Or…” He hums, lost in thought for a moment. His cock twitches inside your mouth. “I wonder, would that spray have relaxed your gag reflex as well?”

You don’t notice his scientific curiosity. All you can tell is that he’s given you exactly what you’d been fantasizing about, and you hum in pleasure around his dick. You’re right where you’re supposed to be, you’re one. You can’t be much more than a cocksleeve wrapped around him, but the Winter King doesn’t seem too mind. He breathes heavily, starting out with shallow thrusts in your mouth, that push beyond what your body should be able to handle without any issue. You have no urge to gag, and you smile wider. 

“Ohhh, that’s so hot,” he gasps out. “You’ve given me some wonderful ideas for the future, snowflake,” he babbles to no one except himself. “I wasn’t even planning on getting myself off during this, dear, but this is what you wanted, wasn’t it?” He lets out a long groan as he bottoms out inside your mouth, simply reveling in the warm, wet heat of you. 

“Mm, next time, I’ll truly make this all about you, promise.” He rubs your hair in an affectionate, soothing manner. “I don’t want this to end just yet,” he admits, laughter breathy. “But that would be awfully selfish of me, wouldn’t it?”

You stare up at him through hazy eyes that are glossy with tears. This is good, it’s beautiful, it’s wonderful, but you need him to cum right down your throat. The inside of your mouth is so cold, cold enough that you feel like your tongue might freeze to the bottom of your mouth. That he won’t be able to pull out by the time he’s done with you, and be stuck inside you for the next couple of hours. You shudder with nothing but pleasure. 

Yet, this prospect is not enough to drive out the immediate need inside you, and you look at the Winter King which as must pleading as you think you can muster. You hum around his cock, running your tongue along the underside of him the best he can.  

“I know, snowflake, I know,” he says and, then, starts to move once again, always keeping more than half of his cock inside your mouth. “I can tell you I usually last longer than this,” he says, starting to ramble again. “But for you, for you, I will—”

He lets out a guttural moan, pulled from the depths of his throat as his fingers twitch against your scalp. It’s your name he whines out as he cums right down your throat, his hips jerking forwards a few more times as he releases every last drop inside of you. You don’t even have to swallow to take all of it in. Without thinking about it at all, you try to speak yourself, though the words are obviously lost to him, nothing more than gurgles. (You love, him, you love him, you love him.)

Resting his hand on the back of the chair, he looms over you, breathing heavily. Droplets of water run down his face, and drip down his nose. His shoulder are slumped in bliss, his face entirely relaxed, and without pretense. Mindlessly, you continue to suck on his cock, though some of the fog inside your head is already starting to clear. The Winter King hisses and pulls out.

“A bit too soon for that, my snowflake.” 

He pets your head for a few seconds longer, and with slightly shaky hands wipes the area around your mouth clean. The fact it doesn’t freeze on your skin is a testament to his amount of self-control. You rest your head against the, honestly, uncomfortable chair, and close your eyes.

You breathe deeply, in and out. The itching underneath your skin is the first thing that disappears. It’s like your whole body has been cleansed, rinsed from all of the filth. Instead of feeling warm, a complete and utter chill is wrapping itself around your body. Your teeth start to clatter together with an audible clicking sound, and you wrap your arms around yourself.

You groan as you blink, time and time again. You feel like garbage. Utter garbage, in fact. You’re shivering with the kind of cold-heat only found in illness, and it feels as if there’s ice in your mouth. Like your teeth are frozen against each other, completely stuck. That’s not even mentioning your eyelids, which are as heavy as rocks. 

It’s only when you feel something wrapping around you, multiple times, in fact, that you become aware of more than your bodily discomfort. You try to move your arms and legs, but find it nearly impossible to do so. You manage to crack open your eyes. The sight of the Winter King, carrying another blanket in his arms, becomes obvious to you. You’re already swaddled in the things.

“N-no. That’s enough.” You nearly flinch from how poorly your own voice sounds. “Did you really need to use that many blankets…?” You ask, your throat sore and voice hoarse. Your memories are hazy at best. You remember going to Candy’s place to hang out, and then… Wait, uh, are you remembering wrong, or did she kiss you? You don’t have much time to ponder it, as the Winter King is immediately all over you. 

“Oh, dearest!” He drops to his knees in front of you, shaking you around. “I thought you were done for, truly! All at once, you became freezing…! I really didn’t have a clue what to do, as you know, my specialty doesn’t lie in heating things up,” he continues, rambling. He’s speaking enough that you know he’s been genuinely worried. “I’m glad you’re okay, well, you seem fine enough to me! Believe me, I was about to chuck you into the hot springs.”

“Hot springs?” You ask, frowning. Since when do you have hot springs?

“Forget I said that.” He says, incredibly quickly, within a single breath. You snort, cracking up a little. Laughing, for whatever reason, is hurting your chest. “Nooo, none of that, snowflake! You’re being awfully cruel to me. I told you to forget about it, didn’t I?” But as you laugh more, his own smile widens, soft around the edges as it is. 

“Tell me about the hot springs,” you say. He sighs loudly, and scoops you off of your seat and into his arms, making you sputter. As bundled up as you are however, you can’t protest at all. You must look very silly to an outside observer. It’s only then that you notice that you are in his laboratory. You really have to ask what happened exactly later.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he says, punctuating his sentence with a groan.

“Well, it’s clearly not anymore, so you should just tell me already.” The offended look on his face only makes you chuckle again. 

“It’s what I’ve been working on, on and off for the past few weeks,” he says, relenting to your wishes as he exits the room. Maybe you shouldn’t be as used to being carried around like this, but you hardly think about it anymore. “I figured that you needed to have a place to warm up, for once! It’s near the mountains. I had to dig it up, all on my own! None of my subjects want to get anywhere close to hot water, can you imagine?”

You totally can, but you digress. 

“So, well… That’s the reason I haven’t been around as much lately, dearest. And I guess that’s exactly what sent you off running into her arms, hm?” You pinches your cheek, a little too hard to be merely affectionate.

“Well, I wouldn’t really call it—” You protest.

“You must have been awfully lonely indeed!” He loudly continues, rubbing his thumb over the spot he’d just pinched. “But I will be honest with you, dear, you were in a dangerous situation today. Do you truly think I warned you so, so many times, merely for the sake of it? You could have died, all because of a whim of hers!”

“Is that what happened?” You ask, voice soft, nearly a whisper.

“Oh? You can’t remember?” You shake your head. “Yes, that is exactly what happened. She corrupted you, a human, with her essence, something no creature is made to handle, but especially not you. You are lucky to make out with some mere soreness, I can promise you that.” He smiles, but you can tell there’s no humour in him. For once, he is walking instead of skating, each step placed with purpose. “I think it would be better for you if you didn’t try to be kidnapped by her anymore, hm? If you enjoy near-death experiences that much, I can arrange one for you.”

You laugh awkwardly, because you are assuming it’s a joke. What else could it possibly be? “I… Yeah, I won’t go there anymore. Sorry for worrying you. I didn’t mean to, honestly.” That seals off your route to the last place you could go outside of the kingdom. He’s never let you wander far, and you can only guess he’ll be even more protective from now on.

For a few moments, he holds your gaze, and then he leans down to give you a kiss on your forehead. “I forgive you.” You feel a little less cold than before, despite his lips being far from warm. “Really though, that wasn’t your smartest decision. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” you tell him. He clicks his tongue, and you move to defend yourself. “Look, okay, my mouth feels really weird, and I have no idea why! I’ve never felt anything like it. My teeth keep sticking to each other.” 

He goes quiet for a few seconds, playing with the edge of one of the blankets wrapped around you. “It must be a leftover symptom from your corruption. The phenomenon is not well-documented, especially not in humans.”

Even through all of the thick blankets wrapped around you, you are starting to shiver. Winter feels it, and hugs you closer to his chest.

“It’s a good thing I was going to show you those hot springs!” He chirps, tone suddenly shifting to his usual cadence. You are happy to chalk all of your strange feelings up to the corruption you’d suffered. Of course, the reason you woke up in his lab was because he was monitoring your health. “Both of us could use a little warming up, I would say.”

There are things you have left behind. Somewhere, out there in this vast, vast multiverse, there is a home waiting for you. Perhaps with family and friends searching for you, worrying themselves sick. But if that is the case, you remember none of it. You are happy here, in the Winter Kingdom, at the side of its king. If you are happy here, and you are, you don’t think anyone could blame you for wanting to stay, could they?

The world outside of here is so, so dangerous. He has warned you about it all an infinite number of times. You really do think you would like to stay here, for the rest of the life that stretches ahead of you. 

“Winter…?” You say softly, your tone bordering on questioning. He hums in response, milky white eyes meeting your own. “Thank you. For everything.”

He hugs you close to his chest, and does a little spin on the tips of his toes. You laugh. By this point, you are used to his theatrics, and know that he won’t let you fall. Little hearts made from his ice powers drift in the air next to his head, before dissolving into powder snow. 

“I love you too, snowflake.” His voice is a singsong whisper, and your heart melts.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Hi! I realize I should've requested this earlier, but honestly I'm not in any rush; but I happen to share a birthday with Ran (still processing that I can't believe I actually do) and would like one where we celebrate our birthday together. Can be SFW or NSFW, doesn't really matter honestly

Here you go! Happy belated birthday!

Twinning: Ran Haitani x Fem!Reader

wc: 986

tw: NSFW

masterlist

"Y/n, he's been staring at you all night."

"You should go over there and tell him to buy you a drink since it's your birthday!" You try to ignore your friends' voices over the music, but when you glance back at the bar, you see the short-haired man looking your way and raising a glass at you. He tosses it back, but you try to keep your smile hidden.

"Just go over there already," your best friend urges you, pushing you out of the booth and toward the bar. You make your way over there, looking as casual as possible.

The short-haired man turns to you, his purple eyes roaming over your physique before he murmurs, "Finally."

"You know," you begin, leaning on the bar beside him. "It's my birthday."

"Oh?"

"You should buy me a drink." The man places his cup down on the bar and smiles widely, showing a mouth full of perfect teeth.

"I should buy you more than a drink, then. So, we can celebrate together."

"Oh, really?" You smirk and bite your lower lip. "What're you thinking?"

"A bottle... or two." He chuckles and leans over to brush a strand of hair away from your face. "What's your name?"

"Y/n," you murmur. "And yours?"

"Ran Haitani. But most people just call me Ran." And so the night begins with a champagne bottle and light conversation, just you and the man who kept buying you drinks. Ran Haitani.

You're not sure when you knew you were drunk, but by the time you stumble out of the club on Ran's arm, you know the night is coming to its inevitable close.

"We should hang out more often," you giggle, looking at the suave man who seems to still be sober. He raises his brows at you, then mutters,

"You want to go home so soon?" For a moment, you can hear the promise of something more in his voice. But you dismiss it as machinations of your addled mind.

"I should get back home," you reply sheepishly. "Friends might be worried and all that."

"Oh." Ran nods, shrugging his shoulders. "Did you drive here, or...?"

"Uber."

"Then let me call you an Uber." Before you can protest, he's on his phone, hailing one almost immediately.

"You really don't have to..." You urge him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Ran shakes his head, brushing his hair away from his face while clearing his throat.

"It would be the best way to treat such a wonderful companion on her birthday. I would like for you to get home safe so we can have another thrilling evening." You blush at his compliment, trying not to think anything too inappropriate about the man who was just being kind to you on your birthday.

When the Uber arrives (which doesn't take long), Ran opens the door for you, and you slide into the vehicle. You're about to say goodbye and bid him goodnight, but something takes over you, and you grab his hand.

"Maybe a nightcap would be okay?" Ran's face morphs into a lazy grin, and he gets into the car with you, accepting your offer without a word. The ride isn't too extensive, but you consider fooling around with Ran a little to get things going in the right direction. It would be scandalous in front of a person you don't know, though, so you wait impatiently.

But when you get to your front door, you can't seem to put the key in the door fast enough. You shake a little, giggling as Ran kisses down your neck after the Uber driver drives off. When his hand reaches down to steady yours, though, you feel the rush of the moment overwhelm you.

"You're going to make me melt," you breathe just as the door to your condo opens.

"Hopefully not before I get you out of these clothes." You both hurry inside, exchanging feverish kisses as the door shuts. Expensive wine and whiskey mingle on your tongues as you kiss, and every inhale of Ran is like breathing in the aroma of confidence. You nip at his lower lip, and he groans, pressing a hand against the wall to steady himself.

"Where's your bedroom?"

"Not far," you whisper, leading him there while he tosses his jacket off and slings it over the back of the couch. The bedroom is clean - thank God - and Ran gently pushes your stomach down onto the bed before rolling your mini skirt down your legs.

"Birthday sex is the best sex," he mutters, helping you step out of the item before pushing your underwear to the side. You whimper as his fingers run up and down your slit, mingling with the slick already there. "And you're so wet already."

"Fuck me," you chant, angling your hips higher. "Do it, Ran."

"Anything for the birthday girl," he replies, and you look back just as he parts your asscheeks. His cock is thick and long, just enough for you to wonder if your back would be giving out within the first three minutes. "And anything for me since I'm the birthday boy, too."

"It's your birthday?" you gasp, but it turns into a moan as Ran rocks his hips back and forth leisurely. "Why didn't you say something?"

Ran snorts, running his hands through your hair. "Didn't want to make the evening all about me."

"But--" Ran speeds up his strokes, gripping your ass in both hands.

"Shh..." You whine a little, parting your legs even more. "I'll get mine. You'll get yours, too, princess. We'll just exchange gifts right here, okay?" You can't even reply, but Ran doesn't mind. His lisp ghost over your neck, and he sucks harshly on your beautiful skin. "One hickey for each year," Ran murmurs in your ear. "Then I'll give you as many orgasms as you can take for good measure."

[fenricken]

You Keep Slipping From My Grasp 4/7

AO3

Ship: Spirit Halloween

first

prev

The rain fell heavily, washing the blood on the ground away as he stepped toward the woman. She was hunched over, sobbing, clutching her dead son to her chest. She glanced up at him as he approached, mouthing silent prayers.

“What happened here?” he asked, carefully ignoring the dead bodies around.

“They came… for a box my family has guarded for a long time. They killed my husband and my son, and they’ve taken my Catherine… They’ll torture her to make her speak its secrets. Please! Please, help her!”

She reached out a hand to him, imploringly. He crouched down to take it.

“I will.”

————

Danny stood before Clockwork, adjusting his new cowboy hat. Maddie and Jack stood behind Clockwork tinkering on the Fenton Omega Siphoner, and arguing over the aesthetics of the machine.

“I have already sent Dani out to help the Justice League locate Batman’s cape. Hopefully we should receive word on her success soon.” Clockwork began, “In the meantime, we do still need someone to make sure Batman doesn’t rush forward too quickly, lest he build up too much energy before we can stop him. Are you ready?”

“Always ready for bat-sitting duty. I’d hope he’s doing something  a bit calmer this time, but I suppose there’s no chance of that happening.” Danny responded, pointing to his hat.

Clockwork just gave his usual cryptic smile before opening a portal for Danny to step through.

————

“Roooooobin. Rooooooooobin.”

Tim whirled around, searching for the source of the noise.

“Oooh, new fit?” Poltergeist asked, stepping out of the shadows. “Ugly cowl, but I like the rest of it.”

Tim lowered his bo staff at her, readying himself for whatever chaotic ‘game’ she tried to rope him into this time.

“Your city’s on fire. You bats trying out some new defense mechanism or something? Like, you think no rogue would want to take over Gotham if it’s a pile of rubble and ash?” She turned in a circle, surveying the chaos Gotham was under.

“What do you want, Poltergeist?”

“Well, so like, Batman’s stuck in time, right? And-”

“How do you know that?!” Red Robin cut in. He had been struggling to convince everyone that Batman was still alive ever since he found those paintings on the walls of the Batcave. Suddenly, here was Poltergeist who seemed to know something about it, but he couldn’t trust her. She was unpredictable, and running into her could mean leaving with anything as benign yet uncomfortable as soaked socks or as irritating and hindering as being cursed to only speak dead languages for the next 3 days.

And things only got worse if she was tagging along with Klarion. Fortunately, he wasn’t in sight, so it's unlikely he was here with her.

“What do you want?”

She smiled slightly at him. “Oh! I want to get Batman back where he belongs before he dies or explodes everything.”

Explodes everything?

“I mean, Gotham’s got a grumpy quota and since you’re his mini-me I figured you’d start trying to take it on and that’d be so boring.” She raised her pointer fingers to the side of her head, imitating Batman’s cowl and adopted a nasally voice. “I don’t have time to play, Poltergeist. Gotham needs me. I have to go stalk Penguin, and then I need to go brood on my favorite gargoyle.”

“So you want to help me find Batman so that I will… be able to play with you?”

“Well, that, but also if he makes his way to the present day on his own, he’ll have built up enough of something called Omega Energy to make all of reality go ka-blooey, and I actually really like this universe. Top 10, easily.”

Tim held up his hand to stop the oncoming ramble while he compartmentalized.

First, Poltergeist knew Bruce was lost in the time stream and seemed to want to help.

Second, Bruce was making his way back to the present, and by doing so was becoming a living bomb

Third, Poltergeist is a multiversal being???

That last one can probably be ignored for now.

“If I were to let you help me find Batman, where do you suggest we start? I’ve been tracking down artifacts I think he’s left behind  to try and convince the Justice League to help us-”

“Psh. Justice League Shmustice League. My dad and my Nana and Pops are already working on it. We just need to find the cape he was sent back in time with for them. Besides, I can probably convince Wonder Woman to help us get the Justice Dorks to help out once we get the cape if we really need to.”

What.

“What?”

“My grandparents are building a thingy-thing to suck all the Omega Energy out of Batman so he’s not a bomb. My dad’s hanging out with him to keep him from dying or something, and we’re supposed to find his cape so we can safely yoink him out of the time stream.”

“I didn’t know you had parents??? What do they do while you’re here breaking things???”

Poltergeist shrugged “King things I guess. And I only have a dad.”

“King things???”

She rolled her eyes, “Anyway, Dad said he last saw Batman’s cape in the Batcave.”

“You didn’t answer my question, and I’m not taking you to the Batcave.”

Poltergeist landed on her feet, and stared at him with wide eyes. He stared back, caught in her gaze for what felt like an eternity, as he felt invisible fingers trickle up his spine. Whispers started low in his ears, building to a crescendo. It was getting too much to bear, until he broke eye contact and looked away. All of a sudden, it stopped. Tim heaved a big sigh.

“I’m… kinda fighting with the current Batman, so we’ll have to sneak in.”

She punched both arms into the air, “YES!”

Tim turned, flicking his cape and walking off, not waiting to see if she’d follow.

“Poltergeist, when this is over you are going to be answering my questions.”

He heard her blow a raspberry at his back, but kept walking.

————

He followed their trail easily enough, the rain trailing after him. As he reached his destination, men came out to fight him, readying pistols, but he made short work of them easily enough.

With his memory having returned in bits and pieces, it had been easy to fashion metal into bat shapes aerodynamic enough to hit true when thrown, and it was these he’d used to disarm the men.

These memories were useful. The ones of children with blurry faces less so, haunting him as they stayed just out of his complete grasp. A constant reminder of how lost and alone he was.

He steadily made his way to the headquarters, where he figured they were keeping Catherine. He whirled around, sensing someone approaching from behind. It was the man with white hair, again.

“Seems you’ve got this well enough in hand, but I hope you don’t mind if I’d tag along all the same.”

“Why?”

The white haired man smiled slightly. “Will you not believe that I just want to help you?”

He stared, unblinking and quiet. Memories from before had proven this a good method to get more information.

His target stared back, also quiet and unblinking. It wasn’t long before he started shifting, and not much longer before he finally spoke again. Under his breath, almost too quiet to hear, he muttered “Just like Dani, I swear…”

Louder, the man said, “I’ve not known you to be the kind of man to ever be on the wrong side of a cause. Whatever you’re up to, I just want to help.”

He squinted at the man, trying to find any evidence of a lie, but the man just appeared open and honest.

“No guns,” he says, before turning back around and leading the white haired man on towards the headquarters.

As they got closer, they noticed two men standing guard. He deployed smoke bombs to cover their approach, sneaking closer with his companion close behind. They were spotted, but the smoke did its work, scaring the two guards and allowing him and his companion to disappear from view again.

“How you gonna tell me there’s no such things as ghosts now???” One of them whimpered, apparently to his white-haired friend’s delight, as he broke out in giggles.

As the smoke continued to grow, he and his friend snuck around the two, tricking them into fighting each other.

He broke through into the offices in the back. They were unfortunately empty.

“Already gone!” He said, slamming a hand on the desk. His companion stood at the window.

“Not long though, look!”

When he spotted their carriage speeding away through the window, he knew he had to act quickly. He launched himself out of the window, and onto the tarp covering the wagon.

An explosion sounded behind him, but he focused on the task ahead of him. His friend always seemed to find his way back, so he’d have to trust he’d do it again.

The ensuing fight was nothing pretty, little more than mad scrambling as he fought to hold his balance, dodge bullets, and wrestle the men actually in the cart so he could get away with the Catherine and her family’s box.

Looking ahead, he saw they were quickly approaching the dock, and a man who was walking down it. Thinking quickly, he swung his body-weight around, tipping the wagon over and sending everyone sprawling. 

The man who had been at the dock had acted quickly, grabbing the young woman and holding her protectively behind him. He stood up, adding to the obstacles that stood protecting Catherine from her kidnappers. Only 3 men remained. From the snippets he heard as two of them fought, he figures the two fighting must’ve been the masterminds behind the plot and the third still in the distance was a gun-for-hire. Taking out his weapons of choice, he quickly dispatched the two men.

Catherine tugged on his cloak. He turned to face her, seeing that she had opened up the box, and was showing him what was inside.

It was Jack Valor’s journal.

He wanted to reach out–to see what Jack had added since they parted, but the gun-for-hire had caught up to them by then.

“My employers may have been dealt with, but I still have a reputation to uphold. Draw.”

He stood up straight, reaching for more of his weapon of choice. Over the shoulder of the gun-for-hire, he saw another man approaching quickly, white-haired. His friend.

A loud bang echoed, and he felt pain in his side. He stumbled, too close to the edge of the dock, and as he fell over he heard one last cry of ‘BAT–’.

And everything went dark.

————

Shit.

Shit. Shit. SHIT.

As if Batman stumbling towards the present through who-knows-when wasn’t bad enough, now he’s SHOT???

Danny quickly ripped a portal back to Clockwork’s lair.

“Please tell me you’ve almost got the machine ready.” Danny said after confirming his parents were in the room.

“Almost! Just one problem, sweetie…” His mom said, looking over at her husband so he’d finish.

“Batman needs to die. Or at least be very close to death!” Jack said, ending with a laugh.

“Basically, we can get this machine to suck out the Omega Energy, but it’s tightly bonded with Batman’s life energy, so it’s extremely risky unless we can find a way to diminish his life energy.”

Danny groaned, putting his face in his hands. “It’s just one thing after another! He’s just been shot. Would that bring him close enough?”

His dad tilted his head back and forth, considering. “Likely not, unless he was in a pretty bad way. In any case, we asked Sam and Tucker to take a look into it!”

“We’ve already found something, actually.” Sam said, having entered the room. Tucker followed behind her.

“There’s an herb that I was able to locate, which should slow his heart down to extreme levels, to the point his heartbeat would be pretty undetectable. Only problem is that his heart would have to be jump-started afterward by a great shock.”

“Clockwork let me take a closer look at his monitors into Batman’s original time and place, and I was able to determine that they have defibrillator technology that can administer an electrical shock needed to get his heart pumping again, as well as adrenaline injections in case we’d need the extra boost.” Tucker continued.

Maddie clapped her hands together. “Excellent! If we can get the Justice League to set up the anchor point on the Watchtower, we can pull Batman to that point and perform everything there! It’d probably work best to do it in his original time as well, to avoid any potential effects that could crop up from being in the wrong time when we remove the Omega Energy and try to stabilize his system.”

“Great, some good news.” Danny said, tension leaving his body. He turned to Clockwork, who had been quiet thus far. “How’s Dani’s work coming along? Will we be ready to proceed soon?”

“Dani and Red Robin have recovered Batman’s cape, and have moved it to the Watchtower. I believe Dani was able to recruit Wonder Woman’s help into getting the rest of the Justice League in line to receive Batman.”

 ————

“Red Robin! Did you seriously bring Poltergeist into the cave??? What were you thinking?”

Before Tim could reply, Poltergeist raised a hand to point at Dick-as-Batman.

“AAH! It’s the cops! Run!”

Poltergeist placed her hand on Tim’s shoulder, pulling him and the cape through the ceiling of the batcave and up in the open air of Gotham. As Tim caught sight of Wayne Manor his head whipped towards Poltergeist, hoping she wouldn’t make any connections.

She was staring at him, lips pressed together, looking a bit like a frog.

He was quiet, waiting for her to say something.

She blew a breath of air out, letting her lips buzz.

“Listen, you keep my secret, and I won’t tell anyone Batman’s secret id is some rich fruitloop.”

“...What secret?”

She pivoted them somewhere Southeast.

“That sometimes I can be responsible. Let’s go see Wonder Woman.”

AN:

It's definitely been longer than I had planned since the last update, rip.

Not going to lie, this is like my second ever fic and I definitely thought it'd be a bit easier to get back into the habit of writing. Thought I was making it easier on my self by strongly sticking to the plot of an existing story, but I think that's been an obstacle in and of itself.

Always a little worried that the language is a bit stuffy or things aren't being clear.

[thosewildcharms]

Ugh the comparisons are so annoying. You’ll still find people insisting Shane was just ahead of Rick in terms of adapting to a brutal world. When it’s clear the ZA broke Shane, he never really measured his choices and didn’t wanted to help anyone at all. He was a coward and acted first as a coping mechanism not because he was an efficient leader.

say that anon! it's honestly not only annoying but a little troubling to me when people compare rick to shane or worse, n*gan because what do you mean shane was right and rick needed to be more like him? what do you mean if we watched the show from negan's pov we'd be on his side and see rick as the villain? no the fuck he wasn't and no the fuck i would not!

the show establishes very early that yes, violence is necessary. and since that's the case, to differentiate between the rick/the people we're supposed to love and the actual villains we have to look at their motivation. rick has been incredibly violent, but his motivation is always to protect, not only his immediately family, but anyone who becomes part of his community. the group flocked to rick instead of shane from the very beginning because he cared about everybody's welfare, unlike shane whose motivations were ultimately selfish. i always think about his last scene with rick, how shane says he's better for lori and carl, like he wants to possess what is rick's - hence why he sexually assaults lori in the CDC. he didn't love her, he felt he was owed her. the way shane so quickly and easily abandoned all sense of right and wrong and adjusted to brutality was a red flag, not something to emulate. to reiterate the parallel they drew between shane and beale in the towl finale, shane was willing to sacrifice other people (his own people!) for his own survival. we should see this as a bad thing. by contrast we know, empirically, that rick would sooner sacrifice himself than anyone he considered himself responsible for (see: the bridge). the argument that rick needed to learn to be more like shane just doesn't track for me: we saw in nebraska when he killed those two men in the bar without blinking that he was perfectly capable of doing what needed to be done. we saw it when he was the one to step up and kill sophia when she came out of the barn while shane just looked at his feet. if anything, killing shane taught rick just how far rick was willing to go. as he said in his dream sequence in 9x05, it had to be him. he had to stay alive to keep protecting the people he loved no matter what, even if it meant killing his best friend. that's his motivation.

as for n*egan. well. i can't believe in the year 2024 people are still not understanding that rick fucking grimes would never have subordinates, let alone force them to refer to themselves by using his own name. he'd never kill a child to prove a point and force submission, and would never, ever force women to become his wives and have sex with him whenever he wants via coercion because rick grimes would never sexually assault someone. do you honestly think daryl, glenn, maggie, carol, hershel, anyone in team family would have stayed with rick if he was capable of any of that? do you think michonne would have let him within fifty feet of her, let alone put an entire baby in her if that was the type of person he was? the same michonne who arguably has the best instincts of anyone on the show? who sniffed out the governer's bullshit immediately? no. when shown an alternate reality where she became a savior instead of part of team family, michonne called it hell. she only feels safe when she's with rick.

n*gan's whole thing reeks of egotism and a need for power - seeing his people as cogs in a machine meant to be put to work and terrorized and abused only to be told it's all for their own benefit. the saviors are a cult, whereas rick genuinely sees and treats his people as his family. rick's people not only love him, they're not afraid of him. they know that when he does go too far they are safe to tell him so, and that he will listen (even if it takes him a minute). rick admits he deserved it when michonne knocked him out at alexandria, and being a farmer at the prison was basically the apocalyptic equivalent of wearing the grippy socks and he did it without complaint. he lets himself be guided. as hershel said, he gets to come back, and he always does, because for rick ego and power have nothing to do with why he does the things he does. he doesn't enjoy it - it traumatizes him and he has to recover from it. this is not a person on a power trip who needs to be eliminated, but a person who is respected and as a result cared for because he does what needs to be done - things other people might not be capable of doing - but for the right reasons.

all of this is why the towl finale had to happen that way btw. not just because it was set up from the very first episode from a writing/narrative standpoint (and i'll let the much more qualified @starfruit-green speak on the socio-political aspects) but because there's no way rick and michonne grimes would ever hear the words coming out of beale's mouth and not immediately lunge. that finale painstakingly spelled out, slowly while using small words so people could understand, that rick and michonne's sword, their violence, is the necessary kind that protects, that eliminates the real threat. beale, shane, n*gan? they are the threat.

anyway. thank you to @starfruit-green and @redding for the encouragement <3

[iraprince]

Hello! long time silent fan here 💝

i came across an older post referring to you leaving the Guns Blazing project... i did back that kickstarter, and now im kinda worried about just who i gave my money to :/

are you able to share any details about why you left, or if theres anything i should know about the creators? it's too late for me to not give them money, but id like to know before i recommend the game to anyone

the main issue shared in the post you reference is pretty much it: a prominent ttrpg award was given to an active duty military strategist. a lot of people in the community, myself included, were obviously horrified by this and many spoke up about what kind of grotesque and deeply unjust message this sends about what we're allowing (more than allowing, CELEBRATING????) in the space; bafflingly, a bunch of other people in the community all crowded around to congratulate and asspat and defend and gas up this grinning servant of the imperial american death machine. it was horrifying to see that the dev of guns blazing, which the entire time it was funding had constantly and loudly advertised itself as a "decolonial" and "anti-imperialist" game, was one of the people celebrating his win.

when i confronted the dev one-on-one about this, i was told "the man's a personal friend who's helped me out in the past and helped out other marginalized people in the space." that is not a sufficient excuse for me when the issue is what this man was doing to marginalized people, FOR MONEY, FOR HIS CAREER, outside of the space. (it's murder. what a military strategist does is facilitate murder as needed by the state.) u cannot buy back lives you've destroyed globally by getting other poc jobs in roleplaying games or whatever the fuck.

i couldn't handle this. i'm not going to judge other artists who stayed in — i don't know if everyone even saw, the turmoil over the award was something that from what i saw was mostly contained to twitter and the dev kept his head down about it aside from his initial congratulations. there was a moment before i confronted the dev where honestly i thought to myself "maybe i can just pretend i didn't see it," but i knew in my heart that wasn't true and i wouldn't be able to be proud of myself if i did that. so that's why i pulled out.

my tone is heated here bc obviously this is a really appalling subject — it's the reason my commerical work contracts have a fucking ethics clause in them now, lmao — but at the same time i'm honestly not interested in like, "calling out" the dev over this. he let me leave the project immediately and without any issues, and i haven't kept up with anything he's doing since this incident. maybe he's changed his mind or like, one would hope all of the absolute horror we're constantly submerged in from witnessing the us government's eager support of the genocide in palestine has opened his eyes to No, Agents Of The Military Are Not Our Fucking Friends, Actually. i don't know. i don't care to go looking to find out. my interest is not in saying "i think this dev is a bad person and everyone should be wary of them!!!!", it's just to say "this dev did something that was so shocking to me and so misaligned from my own morals that i had to distance myself immediately." i don't know how far that reflects on anything else he believes or does, i just know it was a dealbreaker for me personally. the story ends there for me, and other people will have to make their own judgements based on what they observe now.

[wolfsrainrules]

Me, Staring into the Night: Oh No

Discussed with @deepwithintheabyss on discord, and as a result:

I'm just Saying. I have been contemplating a Jurassic World in DC verse (with the understanding that I have not actually READ nor SEEN much DC content and am working off fandom.)

Jurassic World, as in, a JW that has done the work to hide and defend their island from super villains and various heroes poking their heads in. The full nine yards, everything they could possibly stop- and all that focus on "outside" threats? It's what allows the internal issues that result in the mess that is JW.

The thing though? Jurassic World still needs sponsors and Batfam has still been trying to get a look into that- because it should not be left unchecked. Legally they can't send a hero in. But Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of WE and potential sponsor and good word on JW? That they would allow. So if he gets a VIP access tour to 'tempt him into sponsoring Jurassic World" that's supposed to last a week or two...

They've already got the park operating on front of house, and they have a camp with six kids who got sent in. What's one more VIP who could get them a ton of money, and may sponsor their work and expand what they're doing? Thing is- VIP access means that technically, Tim isn't supposed to have any tech that operates inside without proper access. He knows it CAN be gotten, because there's a kid here- Brooklyn?- that is a very popular vlogger who is allowed to record and post things. He's also not here as a Bat, but as Timothy Drake-Wayne and that comes with some handicaps to what he's able to do int he open.

So he has to look like he doesn't have access to anything, can't be caught snooping around, and also is instinctively keeping an eye on the kids when he's in the same areas they are.

And then. And then the park goes down. Assets are out of containment. And we have this really shitty time, where Tim has to figure out how the hell to get them all off, when the protections from outside 'interference' mean that the heroes cannot set foot on Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, or anything within without causing a hell of an issue. Interference also means Tim can't get the emergency signal out. The only thing allowed out of JW is what's done on it's own network. He needs to find a way to hook into it, when the power is shot. Would it stop them? No. Especially not when people are dying, and definitely not the BatFam when Tim is on the island.

Problem? By all rights, the island was evacuated of all survivors. So far as anyone can determine, the others are dead, and the island is overrun with assets that got loose.

Tim didn't make it off.

And Tim doesn't have a functioning access to internet OR signal to get a call out, the white noise machines and everything else are blocking him from just yelling for evac. He technically doesn't have any BAT- grade tech or supplies for himself- this was Timothy Drake-Wayne that went in after all. He didn't bring anything big while he snooped. He had some things, yes, but not for this level of FUBAR.

The BatFam are losing their minds. The world is saying Tim died on the island, since he didn't get off. Tim is struggling to find a way to get a message out. BatFam refuses to accept that Tim is dead until it can be confirmed.

And then.

And then the kids and Tim get the generators back on. And everything has gone to hell, but the power means Tim has a way to get something out. A way to hook into the network finally

It's not perfect. It involves him making trips to the faculty, and a LOT of tech-work so he can get these things routed properly, that he's not even sure are WORKING. And he can't leave the kids either- this island has tried to kill them all over and over again, he's not willing to let them wander around alone.

So he sends something like video diaries out, careful to maintain that he is a civilian trying to reach his dad, with six other kids surviving with him.

Bruce absolutely FLIPS when he gets the first video. Tim is front and center, looking like literal hell, blood smeared on his face, dirt and mud, a ruined set of dress pants, a stolen set of boots (because Timothy would have been in dress shoes for something like this, so he hadn't had his good shoes with him) an absolutely stained, ripped, and ruined dress shirt, smeared face, just- looking like he's survived dinos, and kept kids alive doing it.

Bruce cries. That's his boy. He's not dead. He's not dead. Oh God.

So Bruce gets an update, Tim talking about what happened, that he's not dead, he's surviving with six kids- who all pop into frame and frantically try to cram as much "NOT DEAD HI MOM AND DAD AND SIBLINGS" into the video while Tim is still trying to update everything.

And then the video ends with Tim's head- and six children's as well- all snapping to the side while there's a large echoing clank and the shadow of a dino. And the last image is Tim reaching forward to send the video out, hoping it gets through.

He takes a tablet hooked intot he system, and uses that to film various updates around the park while surviving. A sneaky update on what exactly the park has done, as well as continuous updates on their survival for their families. He has to trek back to the generator room to actually post these out but he's sending them.

The systems aren't great. Sometimes the videos go through a little glitchy, sometimes they get sent out of order. The uploading speed is shit, and occasionally corrupted videos go out due to a sudden need to stop or a flicker in power or any other number of factors.

But Bruce recognizing the chance to use the videos as proof that his kid is still alive- as are six other family's children, and he can bring this forward to get to the island quicker and by leagal means.

It's a huge thing in Gotham, Bruce Wayne's kid on this island surviving, These six kids he's helping. Their families all coming to Gotham to back Bruce on their crusade to get their kids out. Public pressure building as more and more videos go out, more and more people watch what they're going through.

They don't have to get themselves off the island. Bruce Wayne, their families, and public pressure all combine to get a rescue sent out to them. And sure it takes a little bit to get put together, but Bruce Wayne is funding it, and he will not rest until his son is home, until all of these kids are home.

The families all bond over the trauma of their children being on a death trap of an island. And the work to get them off of it. The relief they're ALIVE. The horror of what they'd gone through. The terror of not knowing if they're STILL alive. The fear-terror-hope of waiting for the next video update, hoping it's one that actually WORKS, that isn't corrupted or cut off cause of some disaster. The trauma of seeing their children on these videos, seeing the changes, and the rough surviving, of thinking your kids were dead only to find out NOPE they're in a historical horror of predator species that would eat them instead.

And Bruce knows Tim is capable. He knows he is. He also knows Tim would do whatever was necessary to get the kids home alive and whole.

And that? That's terrifying for Bruce. Because he knows Tim would jump in front of those kids to save them. His mind is running every worse case scenario through. He knows the (official) list of dinos that are in the park. He can imagine exactly how wrong an encounter could go. And then he gets the video updates of Tim and the kids explaining hybrids and the horror of THAT. So he's not even sure what the hell the kids are running into, and THEY don't even know, because they're could absolutely be more, so many more and-

And then you have Tim's brothers. His brothers who get the news he's presumed dead after the park goes wild and there's late videos and all kinds of things going live as survivors get off the island and into range of posting again, without access to JW's network. His brothers who all wait, all scared, all worried, for him to step off a ferry. Only he doesnt. Only he's one of many names presumed dead. And oh they aren't willing to leave it at that. The hero community is pushing for their ability to look into the park and what went wrong, but by all accounts- Tim is supposed to be dead.

And while they keep hoping, thinking, not without a body, and even still- there's every chance there ISNT one on an island full of dinosaurs. There's plenty of videos from those who escaped of paradactyls flying off with people, of various dinosaurs outside containment and the chaos and panic of it. Of deaths caught on camera and everything else. They're trying. But they're not even sure if-

And then Bruce gets the video. And they are right there with him in using the proof to get to the island faster, to save him, and the kids he's with, and just-

And there's HOPE and horror. Because he's alive! He is. But he's lost weight, and he's so obviously working to keep these six other children alive, and surviving and all the horror of that, and just-

It's such a mess.

But they are all there, every family, when they go and get the survivors.

There's tears and fierce hugs. And every kid has to introduce themselves to everyone's families. And every parent has to thank Tim for being there for their kids, for saving them, for not abandoning them for FIGHTING for them- because they all have stories.

And Tim did his level best to be there for these kids, to lead, to save, to keep safe. His very, very best. And the parents are so so thankful for it.

And if Tim meets each of his kids parents from the arms of a different family member (Alfred, Bruce, Dick, Damian, Jason, Cass, Duke, Steph, Babs...) the kids are happy to see Tim getting the support they couldn't give him, no matter how much they tried.

[sophieinwonderland]

An Anti-Endo's Playbook

Hello! Are you an anti-endo looking to convert people to your cause? Well you're in luck because I have the guide for you!

As more studies come out supporting endogenic systems, arguing against pro-endos is becoming harder every day. But let me tell you a secret, people aren't perfectly logical machines. We're emotional and irrational. You don't need science or logic on your side. Instead, your job is to exploit that irrationality.

Let's start with something simple.

Argument by Assertion "Endos Aren't Scientifically Possible."

This is your opening and is possibly the most effective tool in your toolbox. Just say something and repeat it ad nauseum.

See, you don't need to be right. You just need to be confident and state what you want people to believe as a fact. Then repeat it again and again.

Propaganda experts might also call this The Big Lie.

People are social creatures and naturally trusting, so if you say something bold and confidently, they're going to be inclined to believe you. You don't actually need to provide any scientific evidence to support your case, or quotes from doctors, or anything else. Just keep repeating that endos aren't scientifically possible over and over again.

This might not sound effective, but there's a reason a third of the United States still thinks the 2020 election was rigged. If you're confident and don't waver for a moment, and keep repeating the lie, people will believe you.

But... what about the people that don't? What if an endo starts citing actual sources that contradict your claims. Normally, I might suggest finding sources of your own, but given the complete lack of support anti-endos have in academic papers, this may prove impossible. Luckily, we have more tricks up our sleeves.

Appeal to the Masses "Everyone Agrees That Endos Aren't Real."

As we all know, science isn't determined by scientists. Science is a democracy where anyone can vote. That's why even though scientists say we use all of our brains, we can know that the truth is that we only use 10% of our brains, because that's what most people believe and there have even been movies about it and stuff.

This is an the appeal to the masses.

Likewise, most people don't believe in endos. Or at least, that's what you say. See, you probably don't have any reliable polls on hand to back up that assertion, so we're kind of combining techniques here. We're appealing to the masses, but without evidence the masses agree with us, we just kind of have to assert it. As long as it sounds true, then people will believe it.

Like how I bet most people believed me when I said "most" people think we only use 10% of our brain. It SOUNDS like it could be true, and confirms our pre-existing biases that humans are kind of stupid, and that's really good enough isn't it?

What if this still doesn't work though? What if the endos keep demanding evidence?

Well, you can just give them too much of it.

The Gish Gallop: Source Overload

You may be wondering, since I mentioned that there aren't any sources that support anti-endos, how this will work.

First, let's take a moment to understand the Gish Gallop. This debating tactic is most commonly associated with live debates where you throw out a bunch of nonsense claims that your opponent doesn't have time to answer because refuting them would take more time than you're allotted. Then when your claims go unanswered, it tricks spectators into thinking the claims are true.

This isn't generally as effective online where people can take hours to compose a response if they want... except...

The online equivalent of this is to overload your opponent with too many junk sources so that they can't debunk them all.

These do not need to support your point in any way. And you should NEVER screenshot them. Remember, your goal isn't to make the information accessible to your opponent. It's to keep the pro-endo occupied reading a 30-page document to try to figure out what it means and how it relates to what you're saying.

If the pro-endo does debunk your first paper, call them out for not addressing your other 20 articles too. Make them out to be ignoring evidence.

If they do call out this tactic and ask for a screenshot or quote of specific lines that back up your argument, respond by self-righteously telling the endo that it's not your job to educate them.

Speaking of education, what do we do about the endo sources?

Ad Hominems: Attacking the Researchers

Ad hominems are great for combating sources.

At the most basic level, you can get a lot of mileage out of throwing around the word "quack" a lot without finding any dirt on the researchers.

You might want to also claim the research is biased in some way. Say for example that a researcher has a hypothesis and they conducted an experiment to test that hypothesis. You can say that this makes the whole experiment biased and therefore should be dismissed because the research already had an expected outcome. Someone might counter and say that most scientists start with a hypothesis. But luckily, a lot of lay people won't realize that.

Let's say, for instance, that someone cites this paper on Vineyard Evangelicals who hear the voice of God as an example of non-traumagenic plural-like experiences.

Instead of addressing the merits of this paper or discussing whether hearing an autonomous and seemingly self-conscious voice identifying itself as God is plural or plural-like, you can look up to see if any of the 200,000 members of the Vineyard Church have ever reported negative experiences. Get one article with people calling it cult-like, and then accuse the endo of using "abusive sources."

Other Strategies For Dismissing Papers: Just Make Up Reasons Why Studies Are Invalid

For these, we're going to rely again on our argument by assertion, and assert some qualifiers for why a study should be dismissed.

First, accuse a study of being outdated.

Now, science doesn't actually have an expiration date. There is some research out there that may be outdated in the way that newer research comes out that disproves it. But in the absence of further research, old papers are generally considered useful, and it's not uncommon to see professionals today still cite sources dating back to the 80s or earlier.

But if you just throw out a number of years for research to expire, you can be sure that many people will take it at face value. But be careful with this. People might believe that 20-year-old research is too old. But it will be harder to sell them on something like "any research older than 5 years is outdated." That's going to be a problem when a lot of endogenic research is actually pretty recent, coming out within the last decade.

Another tactic you can try is to Attack the Domain.

As we're all taught in middle school in the US, only .gov and .edu sources are valid.

This is an oversimplification and is no longer applicable in higher education. But luckily, you're not targeting educated individuals. If you're making this argument, the ones you're probably trying to convince will be traumatized children between the ages of 14 and 17. And for this demographic, this argument is perfect. Not only have they never been to college themselves but neither have anyone in their friendgroup.

They have no concept of what counts as valid source in academic settings, and it's your job to keep it that way. Indoctrinate them young, and they'll stay yours forever.

Demonizing The Enemy: "Endos are Harming Real Systems"

This can take many forms.

At the basic level, you can do the anecdotal "endos are bad because they said mean things about me once." (Be sure to remove any context of things you may have said or did to them first.) There are plenty of endogenic systems out there in the world, and some are going to be cruel and abusive. Just like any other group.

These people are useful to your cause. If you ever had contact with abusive endos or pro-endos before, make sure that you write in detail about your bad experiences and specifically make it clear that they weren't an endogenic system who happened to be bad, but they're bad because they're endogenic. Also, if they're a traumagenic pro-endo, be sure that in your post you just refer to them as an "endo." The goal is smearing the entire endogenic community, and differentiating between abusive endos and traumagenic pro-endos will detract from that goal.

A well known example is the term "traumascum." Despite the fact that its coiner is traumagenic and most of the endogenic community dislikes it, it's important that when you make your emotional arguments to show why endos are bad, you only refer to it as being created and used by "endos."

If you really want to go all-in on this, something else you can do is...

Blame Endos For All Ableism

For this part, you want to try to convince people that any fakeclaiming or ableism they've ever experienced is because of this small niche group of systems on the internet.

In actuality, fakeclaiming DID systems has happened for a long time. The Imitated DID narrative was heavily pushed in all the way back in the 90s. And many of the people fakeclaimed today are TikTokers who are IDing as traumagenic DID systems.

Don't let these facts stop you though.

For the first part, the good thing is that, as I said before, many of the people you're trying to convince are children. If you tell them that fakeclaiming is worse today than ever before, who are they to argue? They have no frame of reference. They're usually younger systems who have only known that they're systems for a few years.

For the second, you can just ignore it. Or better yet, just label all the "cringe" systems as endos, regardless of whether they are or not.

Is calling traumagenic systems "endos" fakeclaiming their trauma? Sure.

But really, you fakeclaiming their trauma is really the endos' fault. If they didn't exist, then you wouldn't be able to call people endos, now would you?

See how smoothly that works?

All Anecdotes of People Who Thought They Were Endogenic Are Proof Endos Don't Exist

Anecdotes are your best friend. If you can find a small handful of people who previously thought they were endogenic and turned out to be wrong, you can weaponize this against all endos.

You can use these anecdotes as both proof that endos don't exist AND that they're harmful to real systems at the same time.

This particular tactic has also been used to great effect by anti-transgender groups, using a small handful of detrans people as proof that transitioning doesn't work and as a means of limiting trans rights. The success of these groups at spinning that narrative is how you can know that this tactic is effective!

More Ad Hominems: Attacking the Opposition

Yup. We're bringing in more ad hominems. This is one of the most important tools in your belt. If you feel like you're losing an argument, you can just attack the person you're arguing with. Actually, you should do this before the argument even starts.

Discrediting your enemy right at the beginning, making people see them as a bad person, will immediately make people not want to associate with them and even make them inclined to disagree with whatever they say.

So try to dredge up anything you can on them to weaponize. Or just casually accuse them of being something-phobic or something-ist.

Calling them ableist is easy. You can shout out ableism accusations right from the start just on the merits of being pro-endo.

If they're a spiritual plural, you can call them racist. This works easiest with tulpamancers since tulpa has a Tibetan etymology. (And don't worry; you won't need to pretend to care about appropriation outside of this context, such as the tulpa appearing in creepypastas or media like Supernatural or X-Files, or Genshin Impact's Hydro Tulpa boss. This is about winning an argument, not being morally consistent.) But it can work with any sort of spiritual system. If you're feeling particularly bold, you can actually claim that all possession states around the world are closed practices and anyone who claims spiritual plurality is appropriating these cultures.

Also, if they use the word "sysmed," because this is derived from transmed, be sure to call them transphobic because they're appropriating trans words. Pay no mind to if they're transgender themselves, or how little sense it would make to appropriate their own language.

Bully into Submission

If simple ad hominems don't work, dogpile and bully them into silence. Invite your friends to join in. Bombard them with constant hate posts and harassment.

The goal here is not to convert people to your side, but to remove them from the conversation. Keep the accusations going. Make up rumors about them. Try to falsely report them to get them banned. You want to make them suffer so much that they never want to post again. To ensure, one way or another, that there is one less pro-endo in the world.

This will work best on people who themselves are traumatized and vulnerable. Luckily, there are a lot of people like that in the pro-endo community you can silence this way.

Be warned though of the emotional tank.

These people have personalities that can tank a shocking amount of abuse and emotional damage, and even turn abuse they receive around and use it as a talking point against your side. They take the old adage of "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" to heart.

If you try to harass an emotional tank, rather than silencing them, you're likely to only make them stronger and more determined.

Speaking of traumatized people...

Try To Make People Associate Endos With Trauma

Remember to know your audience. And your audience is a group of trauma survivors.

If you really, really want to ensnare them, play on that.

Use it to your advantage. One super simple way to do this is to throw around cult accusations. Just saying endos are a cult will immediately trigger cult survivors and make them want to avoid the pro-endo community.

A more complicated version of this can be done if an endo mentions that we don't have proof that DID or OSDD forms from trauma 100% of the time.

What you want to say in this situation is that "to prove all cases of DID come from trauma, you would need to traumatize children."

You can add a line specifically accusing the endo of wanting to traumatize children, or just let the implication hang in the air.

Now, someone paying attention might recognize that such a study couldn't prove what it claims to. Just like if you did a study where you hit a bunch of people in the arm with a hammer and broke their arms, you couldn't prove that 'all broken arms are caused by hammers.'

But you aren't saying this because you think it's logical. You're saying this because you're trying to get your audience of survivors of childhood trauma to think of endos as people who want to traumatize children.

If you can properly trigger them, then that rational part of their brain will just shutoff and they won't question your premise or logic too much.

How to Keep People Once Indoctrinated

Remember, the conversion process is only the beginning. After that, you want to make sure that they stay anti-endo. A good place to start is to...

Make Sure Friendship is Contingent on Them Being Anti-Endo

Pull people into anti-endo servers that have strict rules against pro-endos and even neutrals. Post "pro-endos" in your DNI to make it known that you don't ever want to interact with any pro-endos.

At the same time, encourage them to cutoff pro-endo friends and avoid pro-endo spaces. Ideally, you want the convert isolated from anyone who might be able to change their minds in the future.

Once you've cut them off from all pro-endos, their only system friends will be in the anti-endo community. And if they ever step outside of that box, they'll be instantly banned from their anti-endo servers and blocked by their anti-endo "friends."

With this, not only have you converted them, but you can reliably keep them on your side forever. Or at least, until they're willing to destroy all their relationships with other systems online in order to get out.

Just Let The Endos Do It For You

Endos thesmelves will actually be your secret weapon in this endeavor.

It's a well-known fact that hate breeds more hate. If you fakeclaim someone, they're going to be angry, and will likely resort to personal attacks. Once your newly-converted anti-endo has been successfully indoctrinated, get them to make some public anti-endo posts. The more hateful and invalidating, the better. Preferably where pro-endos can see.

When endos respond respond to the convert's hate post by sending hate of their own, it will only confirm that endos are actually hateful. It doesn't matter who started it. It only matters that you get an angry reaction out of the endos.

And the more the endos react to hate with more hate, the more the convert will double down.

The absolute worst thing for you as an anti-endo would be if endos stopped responding to hate with more hate of their own, and took a moment to consider if how they're reacting is actually in the best interest of their cause, of if they're just being baited into lashing out from hurt and anger themselves.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Mr. Chicken

Debut: Rhythm Heaven Megamix

The year is unknown. The world as we know it is unrecognizable. Ocean now covers nearly all of the planet's surface, and the remaining landmasses jut sharply upward, connected only by brittle stone bridges, if anything. And yet, despite all this...

This chicken bought himself an electric car, and he's ready to take it for a ride!

Mr. Chicken is the star of Charging Chicken, which is a game of chicken! You know, like, trying to get as close as possible to something without going over? I don't actually know why that's called chicken. Hold on, I have to look something up.

Ah! It is called that because the original game of chicken involved two drivers driving right toward each other, where one or both must swerve away, or risk crashing. If only one swerves, that driver is the Chicken, in the "coward" sense of the word. I would not call avoiding a car crash cowardly, but I cannot speak for people who would intentionally drive toward each other in cars! This does not help the reputation of the humble chicken.

Thankfully, Mr. Chicken is not driving into head-on traffic. Unfortunately, he is driving toward a landmass only a few feet wide, with a drop straight down into the ocean on the other side. Why is he doing this? Is he stupid? Yeah, I think so.

I don't know if Mr. Chicken is a terrible driver, his car is terribly designed, or both! The moment it finishes charging, it immediately zooms straight at full speed, so either it drives recklessly on its own until it runs out of fuel, or this chicken has the gas pedal slammed down to the floor at ALL times. I would not put it past him.

All this is bad enough, and that's without even mentioning that chickens barely have any depth perception! That's why they (and other prey birds) bob their heads while they walk- the things that they see will appear to move at different speeds depending on how far from the eyes they are! Delightfully, Mr. Chicken DOES indeed bob his head rapidly while driving, so at least he's trying, I guess. But if there is anything you take from this post, I hope it is that a chicken would not be good at driving a car.

Nevertheless, THIS chicken has his driver's license, somehow. And we get to hear his own thoughts about it!

"I've been driving for almost three years now. I get pulled over all the time, and I keep expecting a police officer to comment on my license picture--I look so good!"

I am happy he is proud of his photo. I'm sure it looks great, I always love looking at a photo of a chicken. I even included one in this post! They are so fun to look at. But getting pulled over all the time? I am disappointed in him! I don't feel comfortable with such a reckless driver on the road! If only he would change his ways, but that is surely too much to expect...

"When my safe driving record got me the gold driver's license, I asked if I could keep my same picture. It's such a cute picture of me!"

Wow! He changed his ways, despite me not having faith in him! It turns out even a digital chicken has the capacity to change. I am proud of him! This is now a chicken who all drivers should aspire to be like, in terms of both safety and self-love!

The non-Japanese versions of the game feature this, quite frankly, sick mural of Mr. Chicken and his car at the end of Machine Remix! I don't think this is his own garage, since there is a whole Car Guy character that this stage is hosted by, so maybe he's a beloved customer, and became a sort of mascot. He probably crashes enough cars to keep a repair shop in business!

There is even more to Mr. Chicken but I don't feel like writing anymore! Check out this official comic if you want to see some rooster heterosexuality.

[pupmkincake2000]

I wish people understood that shipping hankcon is in no way related to our fathers or daddy issues or anything else that refers to the relationship between fathers and children. Because it's all bullshit. For some reason, people exclude the fact that you can ship them just because of their incredible, interesting dynamics. It's just so simple, isn't it? The incredible chemistry we see throughout the game, no matter whether Connor goes the machine path or the deviant path. Their chemistry is still incredible, beautiful and amazing. Hank is a hot, incredible man who deserves love more than anyone. I will never get tired of saying over and over again that their relationship is more than friendship, their relationship is more than the love that people are used to. Their relationship is a bridge between humans and androids' world. Literally. And since when do people actually need reasons to ship someone? This fandom is perfect proof of that. Fuck, people literally ignore any logic to ship some characters, yet we have to explain the reason of our love for the ship?

Or should we say “thank you” to the pseudo-psychologists who came up with the theory about the “father figure in relationships” and other crap, and which all the inadequate people began to actively force, calling a relationship with an older person as something not normal, but considering abuse and gaslighting in a relationship to be true love?

It's okay if someone doesn't like this ship, but stop saying nonsense about the reasons why we ship them. We don’t have to be the children of bad fathers, or love our fathers too much, or have some kind of daddy ishshus (well, maybe this applies to someone, I don’t know) to love these two with all our hearts.

I've said it once, I'll say it once again.

I fell in love with them because I saw two people who needed each other badly. One of them was damaged and needed reason to live, who deserved to be loved and adored, and another one needed to find his own soul. And this is why they are so perfect together. Hank is the reason Connor became a deviant, Hank is the reason why Connor found his own soul and a heart, and Connor is a reason why Hank was able to hope the world can be a better place, Connor is a reason why Hank is loved again and knows he can be loved and adored. They are each others world, they are each others souls, they are each others everything. They are extremely strong together and basically die if they are apart, it is more than soulmates, it is love the world's never seen before, it is love the world will never see again, they are a bridge between humans and androids' worlds, a bridge the world would never have again. They are two people who are in love, deeply and inevitably. They can be dorky, they can be passionate, they can be strong, weak, sexy with each other. To me, the whole story was a blossoming romance between two lonely souls who found each other and even death won't do them apart.