#it was easier to believe he was a bad person than to believe so many bad things had happened to him

[tearsofthedrag0n]

This moment says more about Tony’s character than any other scene in NCIS. Argue with the wall.

[ketchuppee]

During the 2008 recession, my aunt lost her job. Her, her partner, and my three cousins moved across the country to stay with us while they got back on their feet. My house turned from a family of four to a family of nine overnight, complete with three dogs and five cats between us.

It took a few years for them to get a place of their own, but after a few rentals and apartments, they now own a split level ranch in a town nearby. I’ve lost track of how many coworkers and friends have stayed with them when they were in a tight spot. A mother and son getting out of an abusive relationship, a divorcee trying to stay local for his kids while they work out a custody agreement, you name it. My aunt and uncle knew first hand what that kindness meant, and always find space for someone who needed it, the way my parents had for them.

That same aunt and uncle visited me in [redacted] city last year. They are prolific drinkers, so we spent most of the day bar hopping. As we wandered the city, any time we passed a homeless person, my uncle would pull out a fresh cigarette and ask them if they had a light. Regardless of if they had a lighter on hand or not, he offered them a few bucks in exchange, which he explained to me after was because he felt it would be easier for them to accept in exchange for a service, no matter how small.

I work for a company that produces a lot of fabric waste. Every few weeks, I bring two big black trash bags full of discarded material over to a woman who works down the hall. She distributes them to local churches, quilting clubs, and teachers who can use them for crafts. She’s currently in the process of working with our building to set up a recycling program for the smaller pieces of fabric that are harder to find use for.

One of my best friends gives monthly donations to four or five local organizations. She’s fortunate enough to have a tech job that gives her a good salary, and she knows that a recurring donation is more valuable to a non-profit because they can rely on that money month after month, and can plan ways to stretch that dollar for maximum impact. One of those organizations is a native plant trust, and once she’s out of her apartment complex and in a home with a yard, she has plans to convert it into a haven of local flora.

My partner works for a company that is working to help regulate crypto and hold the current bad actors in the space accountable for their actions. We unfortunately live in a time where technology develops far too fast for bureaucracy to keep up with, but just because people use a technology for ill gain doesn’t mean the technology itself is bad. The blockchain is something that she finds fascinating and powerful, and she is using her degree and her expertise to turn it into a tool for good.

I knew someone who always had a bag of treats in their purse, on the odd chance they came across a stray cat or dog, they had something to offer them.

I follow artists who post about every local election they know of, because they know their platform gives them more reach than the average person, and that they can leverage that platform to encourage people to vote in elections that get less attention, but in many ways have more impact on the direction our country is going to go.

All of this to say, there’s more than one way to do good in the world. Social media leads us to believe that the loudest, the most vocal, the most prolific poster is the most virtuous, but they are only a piece of the puzzle. (And if virtue for virtues sake is your end goal, you’ve already lost, but that’s a different post). Community is built of people leveraging their privileges to help those without them. We need people doing all of those things and more, because no individual can or should do all of it. You would be stretched too thin, your efforts valiant, but less effective in your ambition.

None of this is to encourage inaction. Identify your unique strengths, skills, and privileges, and put them to use. Determine what causes are important to you, and commit to doing what you can to help them. Collective action is how change is made, but don’t forget that we need diversity in actions taken.

[infin1ty-garden]

MEMORIES MAKE EVERYTHING SO DIFFICULT

⋆｡°✩ summary: where you fake amnesia to get out of a fight with your enemy and he lies and tells you'd been dating for a year ⋆｡°✩ character(s): draco malfoy, theodore nott, mattheo riddle, enzo berkshire and blaise zabini ⋆｡°✩ warnings: meantion of injury ⋆｡°✩ word count: 644 ⋆｡°✩ author note: this is my first time writing for the harry potter fandom. so, sorry if the characters are ooc

masterlist.

DRACO MALFOY

⋆｡°✩ Draco found out through a friend you'd gotten amnesia, he immediately went to find you. Stating he was so worried you'd gotting injured by a gryffindor no less.

⋆｡°✩ When you expressed confusion over who he was, the lie slipped out. "Your boyfriend."

⋆｡°✩ You dismissed his suggestion of visiting the hospital wing. He decided to patch you up himself.

⋆｡°✩ This act went on for a while. He didn't know why. He wasn't in love with you. Was he?

⋆｡°✩ He told you he lied about being your boyfriend and understood if you never wanted to speak to him. You made an admission of your own. How you don't have amnesia and remember everything.

⋆｡°✩ "The love I have for you is real."

THEODORE NOTT

⋆｡°✩ The hole time you talking about how you don't remember him, he was just smirking at you. That's when he proclaimed you were dating him.

⋆｡°✩ Since forever he'd been in love with you but you'd always treated him like a enemy. When the opportunity presented itself, he wasn't gonna waste it.

⋆｡°✩ He didn't make a big show of dating you. Wanting to make the gestures more intimate and personal but also easier for him when it blows up in his face.

⋆｡°✩ When you finally told him you'd lied about the amnesia, he didn't speak to you for a while. You thought that was it but he'd cornered you asking if everything you'd said was a lie as well.

⋆｡°✩ He'd falled deeper in love then he ever has and the thought of you not reciprocating those feelings crushes him.

MATTHEO RIDDLE

⋆｡°✩ Mattheo didn't believe you as soon as the words left your mouth. He decided to fuck around to see how far you'll take it

⋆｡°✩ Saying how you'd been together for the better part of the year and "How could you not remember me?" bullshit

⋆｡°✩ You both went along with it. At the same time, Mattheo stopped flirting and sleeping around. What a weird turn of events? Why would he do that?

⋆｡°✩ You played along for a time but decided to tell him the truth. "I know. You're not as good at lying as you think."

ENZO BERKSHIRE

⋆｡°✩ As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt horrible. Why did he feel so bad? He was supposed to hate you.

⋆｡°✩ Still he never corrected himself and proceeded to take you on many many dates

⋆｡°✩ Pretending to be your boyfriend was a lot more enjoyable than he thought it would be. Was he falling in love with you? No way!

⋆｡°✩ Enzo knew he was lying to himself but it was better than admitting what he already knew

⋆｡°✩ You went on all kinds of dates. His friends noticed the change as he was a lot more happy and made fun of him for it.

⋆｡°✩ One of your friends accidentally mentioned you had lied to him. At first he was furious but he'd lied to you as well.

BLAISE ZABINI

⋆｡°✩ Blaise is not some one who makes fun of medical conditions but...

⋆｡°✩ He introduced himself as your boyfriend and for the last few months his feelings of hate had turned into love

⋆｡°✩ He was going show you how good of a boyfriend can he be and maybe just maybe you'll fall for him as he had for you

⋆｡°✩ It doesn't take him long to realise that you'd lied but he goes along with it. Ignoring obvious signs of you actually retaining your memory.

⋆｡°✩ He was his happiest when hanging out with you and he knew his feelings were real. He hoped you'd realise yours were too.

⋆｡°✩ Unable to lie to him anymore you told him the truth. How you lied and love him. His answer? Kissing you.

Thanks for reading!

[catopoliscat]

next time / kento nanami/fem!reader.

who would have thought that kento nanami was a virgin? not you. not after this long. perhaps he was saving himself for someone. perhaps he was waiting for you.

tags: nsfw. 18+. fem!reader. afab reader. penetrative sex. alcohol. dry humping. virgin!nanami. mutual pining. friends to lovers. creampie (wrap it kids). unprotected sex. touch-starved!nanami. canon!verse. you've known nanami since school. tinges of angst. nanami wanted you bad lmao. it's love babey. reader has experience. no use of y/n or any other placeholders. ever. wc: 7.7k. a/n: i kind of fear nanami's a little ooc here lmao, but i've spent too long on this so fuck it we ball he deserves this

also how mad would you be if i said this was set a week before shibuya arc be honest

mdni.

You’re a bottle and half of zinfandel deep when Nanami tells you. 

Although you’re both a little warm, tipsy perhaps, you didn’t think either of you were quite drunk enough for this conversation just yet. It was a regular occurrence for the two of you to share a drink on a Friday, or a bottle in more pressing times. 

There were more bottles than glasses, lately. 

It was just two old friends, catching up. Talking. Complaining--usually about Satoru. Often you’d reminisce on easier times. Warm summers in the Jujutsu High courtyard, the cold tin of a soda in your hands, a bottle of water in his. Quiet talks of dreams and eventualities. Ignoring the gaping absence of a third at between you. 

Tonight though, you’re not sure when the topic had changed. Somewhere between the last dregs of the first bottle and the beginning of the second, the conversation had grown more sombre than usual. Talk of love and relationships always seemed to make the air heavier around the two of you, for different reasons. A stark air of loneliness that not even the most tart of white wine could overpower.

You had offhandedly mentioned turning down one of the windows you had met on your last mission. He had been younger than you, still full of life where the holes in yourself had long since emptied it out. You had shaken your head, flattered, but tired. There were better options for a man like him, still full of hope and vitality, a whole life ahead of him… when you knew any day yours could be cut deftly short. 

You had told yourself it had little to do with the fact that the man’s bright smile had reminded you of another, so many years ago.  

In the quiet of Nanami’s living room, swirling the last drops of your wine in your glass, you had mentioned that you had no real desire for relationships anymore. Other than sex, of course, but only sexual. A temporary release, one of the few you had left. Nameless faces and hurried touches. Sometimes clinical, sometimes primal. Always quick, and never the same person twice. 

You know?

To which Nanami had replied, “No.” 

Misunderstanding the gravity of what he was saying, you had raised an eyebrow, a curious smile playing at your lips. “Not one for one-night stands?” 

It occurs to you distantly that you don’t know a lot about Nanami’s romantic life. Close as you two were, or so you liked to believe, he had never really mentioned it. And you had never asked. 

Nanami had shook his head in response to your question, and you had nodded. It aligned with his character, you thought. As cold and stoic as he liked to act, you couldn’t imagine a world where he would use and discard someone. He felt too much, cared too much. He would love too much too, if given the chance. If he gave himself the chance. 

In your musings, you had almost missed what he had murmured next. 

“I’ve never had sex at all.” 

Kento Nanami. A virgin.

The confession has your lips parting, your eyes blinking. Once, then twice, akin to an owl. You glance down at your wine glass for a moment, as if it had been the slightly smeared glass that had been speaking to you instead, and not the esteemed stoic sorcerer you had known for the better part of ten years. 

You look over at Nanami on the couch, but he’s staring at the carpet, his expression contemplative, almost pensive. His brows are drawn taut, a small knit on his forehead. His lips are drawn into a thin line, a slight crease in his chin. There was a specific emotion dancing in his eyes. You almost dared to use the word vulnerable.

It seems… ridiculous. Nanami? Attractive as he was? Kind, considerate, hard-working, to a degree. A woman’s dream. In another life, perhaps your dream too.

Had it not been for Nanami’s serious demeanour, and the fact that ‘joke’ and ‘Nanami’ rarely went together in the same sentence, you might have thought he was pulling your leg. A joke between friends. 

But he wasn’t. He very clearly wasn’t. 

“That’s… fine,” you finally say after a small moment, fearing you had let the silence linger too long. “There’s no rush for these things.” 

Nanami’s hum is short and clipped. Gruff, almost. He still refuses to meet your eye for now, and you make no move to change that. You get the distinct feeling that this newfound vulnerability doesn’t stem from him never having sex, but rather, the reason why he’s denied himself - because you know for a fact it has little to do with opportunity. 

You had lost track of how many women you had watched Nanami turn down, clipped and short, yet always polite. 

The silence is heavy between you. In the other room, you can hear the hum of his refrigerator, the buzz of the bulbs in the lights. Nanami’s apartment has always been quiet, but this silence feels suffocating. Paired with the wine, your head feels thick, your tongue thicker. 

A few moments pass, and as the revelation of his virginity settles into your stomach like seltzer water, you realise… it makes sense. Nanami wasn’t the type to use someone for sex, even if eager. He’d only have sex with someone he was in love with. Someone he trusted at the very least. 

And Nanami, as he had told you and a few others before, refused to entertain the thought of love whilst he was a sorcerer. No one with two working brain cells needed to ask why. He wasn’t alone in that choice, either. 

You toy with the stem of your wineglass whilst you toy with a reoccurring thought in your mind, one that you entertained often, but had yet to voice aloud. 

“You shouldn’t keep depriving yourself, Kento,” you say quietly. The use of his first name, rarely used in your adulthood, garners you a glance from him. It’s a small sign that you’re taking this seriously. 

“I’m not deprived of anything.” 

You scoff at that, small and quiet. “You deprive yourself of a lot, apart from pain,” you drawl, setting your wine glass down on the coffee table. Like always, the wine and Nanami’s masochistic tendencies have your tongue loosening more than it should. “I understand not wanting to have sex with anyone you’re not in a committed relationship with. It’s kind of… admirable, and definitely you.” You fold your arms across your chest, fixing him with a stare that he still refuses to meet head-on. “But why deny yourself the chance of love?” 

In the back of your mind somewhere is a voice chanting ‘hypocrite’, but you ignore it. Nanami, however, does not. 

He finally turns his head to face you, the lines underneath his eyes seemingly heavier in the dim light of his apartment. An eyebrow arches. “And meaningless sex is different?”

You scoff again, louder this time. “It’s not meaningless just because I don’t love my partner.” 

“Or even know their name?” 

You raise a sharp eyebrow, your own lips now pressing into a thin line. A part of you wants to retort, to snap, but you remember the vulnerability in his face from a few moments ago, and you just about hold your tongue.

With an exhale, you grab the half-empty wine bottle off of the coffee table instead and gesture for Nanami to hold out his glass. He does, and the glug of the wine fills the space between you.

“You ever thought about it?” You ask, filling up your own glass. In your peripheral, you see him sit quietly for a moment before he nods his head. 

“I’m only human.” 

You hum. “You should experience it,” you add. You swirl the wine in your glass once before bringing it up to your lips. “Even once. Even if it means nothing.”  

With one glance, you can tell immediately that the idea doesn’t sit right with him. It was easy to forget sometimes how rigid and traditional he could be. Formalities that few seemed to care about these days. Always on the things you least expected. 

“I couldn’t,” Nanami replies, shaking his head. 

Oddly, you feel the desire to insist. Days of a sorcerer were short, and getting shorter every year. Younger than yourself and Nanami had already died long before they would ever have the opportunity to touch another, kiss another; to feel the warmth of a body against your own. They would never know what that distinct pleasure was like, even if they desperately wanted to. Time was infinite to the young, until it wasn’t.  

It occurs to you quickly that you’re thinking of Haibara, and everything you and Nanami had experienced that he never would. 

Something must show in your expression because Nanami raises an eyebrow at you. You swallow, before setting your glass back down on the coffee table with a dull clink. You look at him, your face surprisingly collected and casual for what you’re about to ask. 

“What about me?” 

Nanami’s questioning look only deepens for a moment, before something passes by his eyes. His lips part, his version of a falter. You know he knows what you’re implying, but still, he asks, “…what about you?” 

“What if we had sex?” You say without hesitation. “You know me. You trust me.” 

Nanami falters further. He straightens in his seat, his glass resting on his thigh, the thick muscle straining against his slacks. His whole body is thick with a tension you usually only see before a fight with a particularly highly graded curse. A vein protrudes from his neck.

His eyes flick between your face and your own glass, clearly wondering if it is time to call this night done, but you rise from your seat before he can, taking a small step toward the couch he’s sitting on. 

You sit down next to him, a little closer than you usually might. He doesn’t move away. Your thigh brushes against his, and this close, you can hear his breath hitch in response. 

“I’m not going to push this any further, Kento,” you say quietly, “but I’m letting you know it’s an option.” 

Although you and Kento were hardly affectionate with one another like most friends, you decided to take a chance tonight. You had already taken several, what was one more?

Reaching out, you take his glass from his hand and set it next to yours on the coffee table. Hesitating only a moment, you place your hand on top of his, your fingers curling around until your fingertips touch his palm.

His hand is stiff and warm underneath your own. The bones and knuckles press against your skin.

Something in the back of your mind is wondering why you’re pushing this at all. Would it matter if Nanami died without experiencing the pleasures of the body, really? Would the world stop turning for either of you? You know if Nanami really wanted to, if he felt the want, the desire - then he could leave this apartment right now and find someone willing, someone other than you. He could have done so years ago, during those few years he had masqueraded as a normal human being with a nine-to-five. 

You were risking a friendship over… what? The implied hopes and dreams of a dead fifteen-year-old? Haibara was dead. It didn’t matter to him whether Nanami experienced the things he never could. 

Nanami’s gaze flickers between your eyes for a moment, and this close, you can see the faint traces of the wine staining his lips. Your gaze must linger for a touch too long because his tongue swipes across his bottom lip. The pink skin glistens with the faint glimmer of his saliva.

When you look up, you see his eyes trained on your own lips, before they quickly flick back up to meet your eyes. 

“We’re friends,” he murmurs, his voice low, slightly thick. 

“And we always will be,” you reply.

He glances down at your hands. Somewhere between your own thoughts and Nanami’s reiteration of your friendship, your hands had interlocked, fingers intertwined like vines. He was gripping your hand a little too tightly to be comfortable, but you didn’t flinch. 

You’re not sure whether it had been your subconscious doing, or his. 

“I… can’t,” Nanami mutters finally, closing his eyes for a moment. “Not like this. Not… now.” 

Something clenches in your heart at his rejection, although you had expected it. You’re not sure if it’s because he’s denying you, or himself. 

You smile softly nonetheless and nod. “If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me,” you say quietly, going to pull your hand from his grip and give him some space. 

Only he doesn’t let go. If anything, his grip tightens slightly. 

Your eyes flick between his hand and his eyes, still trained on your face. You raise an eyebrow, your lips parting to speak, but he beats you to it. 

“But I’d like to kiss you.” 

Something resembling a very quiet ‘uh’ pushes past your lips in a long exhale.

You’re not sure why the idea of kissing him felt more… intimate than the fact that you had offered your body to him only seconds prior. You’re not sure why there’s a prickle of heat at the back of your neck or your lips burn with a sudden need.

“Nanam-“

As if remembering himself, he shakes his head slightly, blinking away whatever stupor had just possessed him. He looks away, his grip on your hand loosening, but not quite pulling away. 

“I… don’t know why I said that,” he mumbles. “You should go-“

Your free hand is already gripping his chin, turning his face toward yours a little too sharply. A subtle grunt leaves his throat as he looks at you, his gaze foggier than usual. From the wine, you, or the whole situation? Who knows. 

Fingers against his neck, feeling the quickened thrum of his pulse, your thumb brushes against his chin, pulling the skin until his lips naturally part. You feel Nanami’s shaky exhale against your lips as you lean forward, warmth breath mingling with yours, the scent of wine heavy on the air. 

You close the distance slowly, giving him time to stop this, to pull or push away. To draw an end to this nonsense before it went any further. 

Instead of pulling back or pushing you away, he closes the gap so quickly your noses almost bump together. 

The first press of his lips against you feels hurried and unsure. It’s off-center slightly, barely hitting the corner of your mouth, but Nanami is quick to correct it. He slots his lips against yours more firmly the second time, his lips parting to capture yours fully. You feel a rush of air against your cheek as he exhales through his nose. 

The kiss is unhurried, curious almost, yet there’s a subtle urgency in it that surprises you. Your free hand moves from his chin to his jaw, fingertips softly caressing the sharp curve of it. The sound and feel of his sigh against your lips makes you shiver, and you become enamoured with it. 

Enamoured with him.

You part your lips further, your tongue swiping against his bottom lip, finally tasting the remnants of the wine that you had spotted earlier. An odd sound builds at the back of his throat before his mouth parts too, his tongue brushing against yours. 

Something changes quickly then. His hand, larger than you ever really noticed, cups the back of your neck, his calloused thumb pressing against your jaw, drawing you closer. Your other hands, still intertwined, seem to tighten around one another like a snake's coils. The wet smacks of your lips grow louder in the quiet of his apartment, just about overriding the sound of increasingly ragged breaths, borderline panting. 

Your head feels thick. Dizzy. The kiss is indulgent, almost sloppy now. Nanami’s tongue is in your mouth, exploring every crevice, tasting you with an eagerness you hadn’t thought he was capable of. Every time you brush your tongue against his, your taste buds wetly sliding against his own, a small sound rumbles in the back of his throat, somewhere between a groan and grumble. 

After a moment that feels like an eternity too short, you pull back slightly, just enough to see his eyes as you open yours. Nanami denies you this, however, because when you open your eyes, his are still closed, almost scrunched. A faint frown tugs at his brow. 

He leans forward until his forehead rests against yours. The heat of his skin against yours feels searing, your noses softly brushing against one another’s. He sighs deeply, as if pulled from the back of his chest. It almost sounds like defeat. 

“Kento-“

“I want you,” he breathes out, and your voice almost hitches as you feel rather than hear his voice. It’s a deep, husky sound, more rumble than syllable. But there’s a crack in his tone belying a raw vulnerability that you weren’t familiar with. Not from him.

His eyes finally open, looking up at you from underneath his brow. His hazel eyes are almost black, you realise, the familiar colour you’ve always admired swallowed up by a sea of coal. You wonder if yours are the same. 

He’s trembling too. You can feel his fingertips shake where they press against the nape of your neck. 

“I thought you didn’t want… this,” you murmur. ‘Sex’ suddenly feels too…

“I changed my mind,” he replies, a touch too quickly for you to believe that he was thinking clearly. 

But God, did you want him too. You want him so fucking bad it almost makes you ache. Your feelings toward Nanami had always been friendly, respectful. He had been your closest friend, your ally, your confidant. You had been through so much together. You liked him, every part. 

And somewhere along the way, between the four years apart as he pursued a different life and the first time you had hugged him when he finally returned, Gojo grinning over his shoulder… you think, that like had changed to love.

It quickly occurs to you that you weren’t pushing Nanami to experience sex for fear of him missing out. That was you. You were scared of missing out on him.

It’s that revelation that makes you pull back slightly, and Nanami’s eyes widen a little, some of the hazy fog clearing. His hand slides from the back of your neck, falling limply against the couch next to your thigh. 

“I… I shouldn’t have put you in this position,” you mutter, glancing away, staring at the two wine glasses on the coffee table before looking back at him. “It’s your choice. Your first time should be on your terms, not because I think you’re missing out or depriving yourself.”

You go to remove your hand from his, but once again, his grip tightens, but there’s a tenderness to it this time. A gentle squeeze, almost begging you not to go. Not yet. 

He looks serious now, staring at you squarely, as if about to deliver a mission report, and its the first familiar expression you’ve seen on his face thus far. He swallows thickly, the only thing belying his hesitation. 

“I said I couldn’t have a one-night stand.” 

You frown. “And th-“

“I don’t want this to be a one-night stand.” 

Some of the breath flees your lungs as you look at him. His lips are still pink and slightly swollen from kissing, his cheeks still slightly flushed from the wine and your touch. You become distinctly aware of the scent of his cologne, faded but warm from his skin. It’s soft, smoky almost. You have the urge to bury his nose in the crook of his neck and breathe.

You know what he’s trying to say, what he’s trying to ask. You know what he wants because you want it too. You realise you’ve wanted it for a long damn time. 

Words fail you. They feel… inadequate to describe what you’re feeling, what you desire, what you’ve always desired buried down underneath the guilt and trauma. 

But you still can’t bring yourself to say it out loud. Not here. Not yet. 

And neither can he.

You’re not sure who makes the first move, all you know is that your lips are pressed against his and he moans into your mouth as if something had finally let go. It’s like a cork had finally been released, a lifetime of pent-up feelings pouring out in one gush. 

His hand is back at the nape of your neck, holding you tightly this time, unwilling to let go. His lips part more readily with every press, his tongue seeking yours with a pinpoint determination. You skip his jaw this time altogether, aiming straight for his hair that you’ve been dying to touch since… you don’t know when. 

The hand that had been holding yours hostage finally releases, only so his fingers can brush against your waist. His fingers brush against your ribs through your clothes, tugging you closer until you’re rising up onto your knees on the couch just to oblige. He’s tilting back, his broad shoulders bumping against the couch cushions behind him - and it’s only distantly you register it’s because you’re pushing him back against it. 

Something shouts at you in the back of your mind to take your time, to savour this, to savour him. You may want each other badly, but this is Nanami’s first time. It should be done carefully, respectfully, the way he would treat you if this position had been reversed. 

But then Nanami’s hand has moved from your waist to your thigh, blindly grabbing it as he pulls it over his lap. Before you know it, you’re straddling his hips with a huff against his lips, and something like a sharp, pained groan leaves his lips. 

You pull away from his lips with a ragged breath, concern knitting your brow until you realise what the cause of his groan was. 

Straddling him, you can feel the pulse of his desire underneath you, the hard ridge of the bulge in his pants pressing insistently against your core through your own clothes. One hand is grabbing your hip tightly, almost too tight, as his forehead rests against your shoulder. The other hand is on your thigh, his thumb digging into the plush flesh there. 

His breathing is ragged, extremely so. Hot puffs fall against your skin. You weave your fingers through his hair softly, and you watch with reverence as a strong shudder rolls down his spine in response.

“We can stop, if you’d like,” you murmur against his ear, going to rise up on your knees to give him a little breathing room.

“Don’t,” he grunts, the grip on your hip and thigh quickly stopping you. He exhales again, a shaky sound as he keeps his forehead stamped against your shoulder. His voice emerges again, barely audible, slightly pained. “...I’ve wanted this for so long.”

Your grip in his hair tightens in response. In a flood, memories of him rush through your mind. A thousand different glances, subtle touches, small clues. Even in school, the way he would linger, a touch closer every time Suguru or Satoru would appear. The hand at the bottom of your back in a restaurant. The way he would lean in to hear you in a crowded place. 

The way his arms had tightened around you when he had returned after four years away. I missed you too, almost inaudible against your ear. 

Nanami didn’t want a one-night stand. What was the point of sex at all, if it wasn’t with you? 

The thought has you rolling your hips down against his before you can stop yourself, feeling the firm length of his cock grind against your core. A moan leaves your lips, and something guttural leaves his. 

The hand on your thigh moves up to your other hip, pulling you down tighter against him as if he could slide inside you right now. “Don’t tease,” he hisses between clenched teeth. He turns his head slightly, his lips brushing against your neck. He leaves a searing, open-mouthed kiss against your pulse point. “Not now, not after this long.” 

“You think you’re the only one who waited?” You pant as you grind again, firmer this time. His hips buck against yours in response, a muffled groan leaving his lips, imprinted against your neck. You can feel his cock throb against you, twitching against the fabric that separates you. 

“…you wanted this too?” He breathes out after a moment. 

You nod, though you doubt he can see it from the way his face is buried against the crook of your neck. “Since you came back. Since you hugged me back and said you missed me.” 

His hands move from your hips to wrap tightly around your waist as if he couldn’t bear for a single slither of space to be left between you two. His hips jut up against you once again, a ragged breath leaving his lips. It seems the idea of you wanting him for so long the same as he had the same effect on him as it had on you. If not more. 

He holds you a little tighter, running the sharp point of his nose along your throat as he tilts his head up. Finally, finally, he breaks free of your neck to look up at you, lips parted, eyes almost desperate. 

With a thick swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing, he goes to say something but falters, and murmurs your name instead. His dark eyes flick between your eyes and your lips. His cock twitches underneath you. 

“Please,” is all he can croak out, and the moan that almost leaves your lips would have been primal. 

You nod your head, giving his shoulders a small squeeze, pushing him back slightly. He seems reluctant to let go, but finally relents after a little insistence, reclining back against the couch. His arms unwind and his hands drop to your hips. He looks up at you, clearly waiting for your lead. 

You sit back slightly on his parted thighs, the muscles firm and supportive underneath you. Letting your hands fall from his shoulders, you drag your fingertips slowly down over the expanse of his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through his wrinkled shirt. As your fingers skate over his abdomen, you feel the muscles flex and roll. Nanami looks at you readily. 

“We should do this properly,” you murmur, your eyes trained on the lower buttons of his shirt, near the waistband of his slacks. “In a bed.” 

Nanami, to your surprise, shakes his head quickly, giving your hips a small squeeze. “We’ve waited long enough.” 

You raise an eyebrow but don’t disagree. Despite the need, the ache, the pulse of your own core, you can’t help but think of if the positions were reversed. The image of candles, roses and soft music fills your mind, Nanami’s guiding hands and murmured praises. It would be slow and romantic. Perfect. 

“Nanami,” you breathe out, almost chastising. With the way his cock is pressing against you, you have no doubt he’s not thinking clearly right now; the thought of having what he had wanted for so long within his grasp clouding rational thought. 

He shakes his head again, a lock of his mussed hair tickling his brow. “Next time.” He shifts, sliding down the couch a little more and spreading his thighs - and in turn, spreading yours. He grips your hips tighter, pulling you a little closer until you’re seated right on top of him. “Next time,” he repeats in a groan. “We’ll go slow. I’ll explore every inch of you, taste you. Now, I just want…” He exhales an unsteady breath, sounding like your name. “I just want you.” 

Your fingers linger near his shirt's lower button, and one of Nanami’s hands unclasps itself from your hip to gently grasp your wrist. He guides your fingertips to the belt buckle, the metal cool against your hot fingers. 

You meet his eyes once more, and his gaze is a paradox of firmness and vulnerability. He’s nervous, you think, but ready. Almost desperately so. 

Without another word, your other hand reaches down to join your other one, and your fingers are surprisingly deft as you slide the leather through the metal. Nanami watches your hands with rapt attention until the belt is loose. Your fingers slide over the metal button of his slacks, and you don’t check in this time. You pop it open before sliding his zipper down, the crackle of the metal teeth as loud as a gunshot between you.

A small sigh of what you think is relief leaves his lips as the fabric parts, giving you a small glimpse of the dark boxers underneath, straining over his cock. A small wet patch blooms at the top, wear his tip would be, and a shudder runs through you. 

Your fingers tuck into the waistband of his underwear, lingering for a moment. You look up at him at the same time he looks up at you. Without a sound, Nanami lifts his hips and you rise up to your knees. 

With a few firm tugs, you manage to inch his slacks and boxers down enough to free him. A small huff leaves his lips as the cooler air of the apartment hits his overheated flesh, and you watch in rapt attention as his cock twitches, the flushed tip glistening already.

It’s longer than you expected. Thicker too. Uncut. A prominent vein runs up the underside of it, and you have the sudden urge to follow it with your finger, or your tongue. 

Nanami shifts underneath you, and you realise you’ve been staring a touch too long.

You pull your eyes away from his cock to meet his eyes, and his breathing seemed to have quickened. Anticipation is making him stiff, almost antsy, a rare sight on a man you’ve rarely ever seen anything of other than composed. 

It’s endearing. 

Reaching down, you satisfy your own urge and run your fingertip up his shaft, following the vein, feeling it pulse steadily to the rhythm of his heart. Nanami’s hips twitch, his eyelids fluttering. Dark eyelashes tickle his cheeks.

When you curl your fingers around him, gripping him firmly at the base, his eyes shoot open, snapping to the sight of him in your palm. You give him one pull upwards, and a bead of pre-cum wells in the divot of his slit. 

“Fuck,” comes out in a very quiet, gruff choke. Your eyebrows rise in surprise, a small smile on your lips. Nanami didn’t always curse, and especially not like that. 

“Language, Nanami,” you tease, and his eyes flick up to you, something indignant and impatient in his eyes. You usually weren’t one to tease, and he wasn’t one to be teased. 

You continue to stroke him slowly for a moment, rubbing your thumb against the sensitive tip. You fingers quickly become tacky, the glide of your hand more fluid, until the lewd wet noise starts to rise to the same level as Nanami’s breathing. He grunts with every upward stroke, his hips twitching underneath you. Had it not been for your weight on top of him, you get the distinct feeling he’d be bucking up into your palm a little more eagerly. His head falls back against the couch, lips parted, his eyes fluttering closed once more as he relaxes more into the sensation. 

It occurs to you that you’ve seldom seen Nanami this relaxed. 

“Are you sure you want to do this here?” you ask, “with me on top?” 

He nods but doesn’t open his eyes. His hands run up from your hips to your waist, a soft caress. “It’ll be… easier for me- hah-“ Another choked groan leaves his lips as you give the head of his cock a small squeeze, and Nanami’s hand flies to your wrist in a blink, stopping you from making another move. 

You feel his cock throbbing in your grasp, and Nanami’s straight-up panting now, his eyes slightly wild as he tilts his head up to look at you. It’s an arousing reality to know that you had just pushed Nanami dangerously close to the edge without even meaning to. 

“I won’t last,” he murmurs, looking up at you, his eyes shining.

 You realise quickly that he’s actually asking a question. Are you sure? 

“This time,” you reply with a small smile. With his hand still around your wrist, you give his cock another squeeze, and he grits his teeth, that vein in his neck protruding once more. You can see the taut muscles in his abdomen flexing from where his shirt has bunched up. 

As much as the idea of making Nanami cum, right here, right now, appeals to you, you relent for now. You’d love nothing more than to watch him spill into your palm, to see the euphoria and bliss play out on his face… but that was for another time. The next time, perhaps. 

You release his cock, letting it fall back against his lower stomach with a dull smack, making him hiss through his teeth. Leaning forward, you brush your lips against his throat, nipping at the skin softly. 

You guide his hands to the waistband of your own bottoms, and he wastes little time in following your unspoken order. The press of your lips against his throat clearly distracts him, but he manages to pull down your clothes enough to leave you in your underwear. You kick them off the sofa haphazardly, not leaving his neck for a single moment. 

He catches you off guard when his hand immediately dives for your sex, cupping your heat through the dampened fabric. You stutter against his neck, gripping onto his shoulders for support in response. 

Your eyelids close, goosebumps erupting across your skin as you feel just how wet you are. “Nanami,” you gasp.

“Kento,” he whispers quickly. Once, then twice, he rubs his palm along your clothed pussy, something guttural building in the back of his throat as you buck down into his touch. “You’re… so wet.” 

The wet spot on the fabric clings tightly to your folds, doing very little to dampen the sensation of his touch. His fingers are exploratory, a tentativeness that belies his lack of experience with this, but his touch, the fact it’s him, here and now, makes up for it all. 

You can’t remember the last time you enjoyed a touch such as this. Not like this. 

Despite toying with Nanami’s cock until he almost burst, hypocritical impatience gets the better of you, and you remove your hand from his shoulders to tug down your own underwear, kicking it off to join the growing pile on the floor. Bare from the waist down, Nanami’s eyes roam over the exposed skin almost hungrily. 

Both calloused hands run up your thighs, pressing into the soft flesh slightly. You see his hand move for your pussy once more, but your fingers are curling back around his cock again before he can distract you. 

Next time, keep parroting in your mind. Next time you can both endure hours of foreplay; touching, kissing, tasting, the whole nine yards. You promise to make him cry out before he even sinks inside you, to run your tongue along every inch of his skin until you’re sick of the taste of him. You’d know he’d do the same. 

But you two had waited long enough. 

Gripping the base of his cock again, you brush it up against your heat, your own slick smearing across him. Nanami’s eyes almost roll back into his head, but he closes his lids before you witness it. You’re faring little better, the mere sensation of having him against you like this, the tip of his cock rubbing up against your clit sending you dizzy. You angle your hips, and just feeling the thick head press against the tight, slick ring of muscle is enough for a moan to already tumble past your lips. 

Something flickers in Nanami’s gaze as he opens his eyes again, honing in on the sight of you braced above him like this. He grips your hips, his touch light, merely supporting you for now. You look back once into his eyes, and go to check in just once more, but he leans forward, capturing your lips in a kiss that’s little more than teeth and raw need. 

His lips pressed against yours, you sink down, the wider head of his cock slipping inside you. Your lips part in a soundless gasp against his mouth, swallowing the ragged groan that leaves his throat. The stretch is slightly more than you’re prepared for. Distantly, you think, skipping foreplay wasn’t the wisest idea, but desperation, need, pushes you forward regardless. 

So you sink down further, inch by inch, and as he slides deeper and deeper, his grip on your hips grows tighter and tighter, until the force of his fingers dulls the ache of his cock kissing your cervix. 

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp as you finally bottom out, hips sitting on top of his. You realise you’re breathless, and that cowgirl might not have been the best position for taking someone of his size. Certainly not in one go, like you just had. 

Nanami is fairing no better. His mouth is agape, his biceps trembling where he clings to you. He seems dazed, winded, panting into your mouth as his arms wind against you. He pulls you forward, and you both moan as his cock seems to slide just that little bit deeper. 

You’re dizzy, strained, stretched out far more than you can ever remember being before. Your eyes are scrunched closed, your forehead knocking against his. Everything feels distant and muffled. It takes you a moment to realise Nanami’s muttering something repeatedly in fragmented gasps.

When you open your eyes, he’s looking at you almost panicked, his eyebrows knitted upward. His teeth are bared, gritted - and it’s now you notice that you’re clenching around him so tight that you’re not sure if you’re causing him more discomfort than pleasure.

You swallow thickly, trying to catch your breath. You’re flushed, prickly heat blooming across your chest and neck. You shift a little, and something pained rumbles from the back of Nanami’s chest in response.  

“Do you want me to stop or-“

“Don’t,” he grunts, his fingers shaking against your back. “Don’t move.” 

The throb of his cock inside you is insistent, and it takes everything in you not to clench tighter around him in response. You know he’s close, dangerously close, and as much as you want to rise up on your knees and slam yourself down on his cock until he’s begging you to stop, you clench your jaw and relax. 

You bury your face in the crook of his neck, kissing his skin softly; small pecks and affectionate touches. He shivers, and his cock still pulses, but slowly, muscle by muscle, he relaxes too, ragged pants dissolving into hot, muted breaths. His arms around you loosen, holding now, not gripping. 

“Tell me when you want me to move,” you whisper against his ear, pressing a small kiss to the lobe. 

He nods, brushing his cheek against yours with a soft sigh. His hand moves from your back upward, until he cups the back of your head, drawing your lips back to his. It’s a soft kiss, loving; slow and sensual slides of wet skin mingling with gentle exhales. Before you know it, and before he says, you’re rolling your hips greedily, just grinding against him for now. 

A guttural sound leaves his lips. His forehead feels hot and sticky pressed against yours like this, a strand of his hair tickling your cheek. 

You feel his thighs shift, widening as far as the slacks still around his thighs can allow, feet planted more firmly into the carpet. The first roll of his hips is disjointed, off rhythm with your own, but the slight drag of his cock against your walls has you moaning brokenly. The second roll, a little more confident, has you pressing your hips down to meet it, and your back arches like a cat.

“Fuck yes,” you moan, your voice thick and throaty. You moan his name, wait for the third shallow thrust, and meet it. “You feel so fucking good.” 

He looks up at you like you hung the stars, his eyes widening at the sound of his name tumbling past your lips like a fractured halo. He loses his rhythm, but you soon pick it back up for him, starting to use your thighs to slide more eagerly down his cock. It’s still shallow, Nanami’s arms around your waist preventing you from really going for it, but you’re unwilling to part from the closeness for now. 

You bounce a few inches at a time, the dull clap of your hips and the lewd squelch of your hot cunt wrapped tight around him filling the air of the apartment. With each bounce, a grunt pushes out from his chest, hot breath fanning across your face. 

Nanami, though inexperienced, starts to let his body guide him. His hips buck up to meet you more confidently, and the growing force of his movements has you keening, fingernails biting into his shoulders. 

You look square into his hooded eyes, breath mingling, and see the flush across his skin, his lips glistening with saliva. You moan again, higher pitched this time, and Nanami’s next thrust has you jolting up a little, nose bumping against his. You clench around him again, and his brow knits together. 

“S-Shit,” he pants, his hips starting to jolt more readily, pushing a little too forcefully into you, quickly losing his rhythm. “I’m not… I’m not going to last…” His movements quicken, grow more erratic, and you’re not even sure he realises. “… you’re so fucking… tight.” 

The last part is little more than a throaty whisper, his voice cracking. You stop meeting his thrusts and instead, widen your stance, tighten your core, and let him take what he needs. The movement, though small, isn’t lost on him, and he looks up at you, emotion swimming heavily in his dark gaze. 

He thrusts up grow more erratic, sloppier, something like a grunt leaving his mouth with every dull thwap of his hips against your ass. His arms tighten around you, fingertips pressing into your skin. A groan, a hiss, and a swallow. The couch creaks and strains. 

“N-Next time - hah - next time… I want t-to feel you cum around me,” he pants, his arms starting to shake. “I’ll give you everything, anything, fuck, I-I’ll keep going until… until… God-“ 

He’s barely pulling out now, a mere inch is all he’s moving, the head of his cock bullying against the soft spot right next to your cervix. Choked, high-pitch moans are the only sounds you can make, and you distantly note you’ve never sounded like before. Not ever. 

You’re getting there, you realise. Not quite close, and definitely not as close as him, but the way his cock fits inside you, the slap of his hips against you, the way he’s looking at you… it’s pushing you there fast. 

But it’s not quite enough. 

“I’m close,” he gasps. “I… where…” 

“Inside,” you reply without hesitation. Something passes by his eyes, a small flicker of concern, perhaps, swimming in the sea of lust and arousal. You try to find your bearings enough to tell him it’s okay, you wouldn’t have taken him inside if you weren’t protected-

-but then his cock is twitching inside you, and Nanami is shaking, shaking underneath you, his thighs jolting, nearly bucking you off his lap altogether. 

With one last slam of his hips against you, buried as deep as he could possibly ago, a long, primal groan leaves him. It’s deep, visceral, easily mistaken for something pained - and it might be the most divine fucking sound you’ve ever heard in your life. 

He buries his face against your throat as his hips buck involuntarily a few times, and you shiver as you feel that familiar warmth bloom inside you. He’s giving you everything, or what feels like it. Your pussy flutters around him, and his fingertips press into you so tight you wouldn’t be surprised to see bruises. 

His heart is hammering against your chest, the thump pounding even in your own chest. Ragged pants and a heavy quiet settles over the living room. His cock continues to twitch inside you, growing weaker with every thud of his heart. 

Nanami doesn’t pull his head from your throat for a long while, his nose pressing into your skin as he pants against you. 

After a moment, he finally swallows. “… I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I… I should have made you-“ 

“Shut up,” you murmur against his warm hair, breathing in the faint scent of sweat and his shampoo. He seems to get the picture, of what you were trying to say. He always did. “Next time,” you add anyway, just to be sure. 

He lifts his head from your skin, looking up at you blearily. You smile fondly as you see his face again, the harsh lines on his brow and his eyes smoother now, no longer creased as they always seemed to be. He looks… so much younger, you think, like this. Relaxed. Sated. 

You brush some of his sweaty hair out of his face, and his eyelids flutter at the brief contact. He seems exhausted, you think.

“I meant what I said,” he murmurs as he looks up at you. “I don’t want this to…” His palm moves against your back, sliding down your spine. “I want you. Properly. I always have.” He swallows. “Always.” 

Your eyes soften. He looks at you expectantly, almost vulnerably. 

“You have me,” you murmur in reply, finally. “Properly.” 

A small smile tugs at his lips, and it’s warmer than you’ve ever seen before. Genuine. Light. It’s as if a decade of weight lifts from his broad shoulders, if only briefly. 

He pulls you close once more, his lips pressing against yours softly, lovingly, and the world seems to fade away. 

For now, of course. 

masterlist.

[sugurism]

FLAGS EVERYWHERE. ୨ৎ are jjk men green, beige or red flags?ㅤheadcanons

featuring ♰ㅤmultiple. (choso, higuruma, megumi, nanami, gojo, geto, sukuna, toge, toji, yuji, yuta)

warning(s)! ♰ㅤNO PRONOUNS AND ANATOMY FOR READER. SFW (?) — toxic behavior ! cheating ! breaking-up mentions ! very much made based on personal opinions + i tried to write the characters off as canon as possible, but my favoritism will probably show ! sukuna is a warning of his own tbh ! violence + blood + death (mentions) ! cannibalism (mentions) ! angst (mostly) ! some are implied yandere ! not really dark content but i will tag as so just to be sure, some of them are dc vibes ! mentions about marriage + having kids (biologically and not) !

୨୧ CHOSO KAMO — beige flag.

not the reddest flag of the list. although, still has some fails. . .

this may come as a surprise to many, but choso is not a green flag. he’s perfectly in the middle, i think. not nearly as bad as others on the list, but his track record isn't perfect, either.

BIGGEST RED FLAG? he's family-centered.

choso is, as is well known, a man completely focused on his family. the joy of his brothers and relatives is his priority, and he will always be more focused on others than on himself (this could also be a red flag, he is quite selfless). he carries the burden and honor of being a big brother. of course because of his love for you, you are as much a part of the family as his siblings are.

however, if you don’t get along with his siblings for any reason, it’s very likely that the relationship won't be able to continue. it would be troublesome if you can’t take his true nature ── as a half-curse ── well, too. it would really upset him, because love is about acceptance and care.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

the answer is: no, but it is preferable that you are. being a sorcerer, you would have a much easier time understanding the abnormal aspects of his life (him and his family). if you’re not a sorcerer, it makes things a little chaotic. choso wouldn't want to lie to you about who he really is, his origins, and obviously, he would be prevented from introducing his (monstrous) brothers to you in that circumstance.

this would make him reflect for a long time, which ends either with a breakup, or with him showing you everything about jujutsu. living under a false identity and with a life built on lies is not how he wants the relationship to be.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

absolutely not. choso is aware of how heartbroken you would feel if he ever did that — besides, it's not like he feels desire or romantic love for anyone else. he has no reasons to cheat on you, and he never will have.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

choso has good intentions, but romantic love is a new and unknown field for him. this makes him inexperienced and often irrational towards romance. the information about relationships is too fresh and unprocessed for him, and it's all from the dead brain of the vessel he inhabits. he is not completely unaware about all of it, but his lack of experience shows.

he is very hasty and believes that the status of “boyfriend” is not bad, just that “husband” would be much better. if you don’t see a future, why would you be with him? he doesn’t understand when you correct him you are just dating and not married (you've been together for barely two months).

choso is not the type to let fights happen without reason, and he tries hard to make things work out, but he’s constantly overprotective and his affection can quickly become suffocating.

choso loves family. he wishes to expand it someday. and who would be better to help him besides you, his true love? besides taking care of his brothers, he would like to be a father himself one day (at least, a better one than his own father was), and there is this underexpectation — not exactly spoken out loud until he is confronted about it. choso wouldn't want to pressure you, and he would understand your choices and respect your decisions perfectly if you don’t want to have children, however, he gets a little sad over it nonetheless and always wonders if you would change your mind if he asked more nicely.

of course, we can’t forget the amount of people he killed (in and out of shibuya). this is a factor that is rarely talked about and choso doesn’t even think about it anymore, honestly. if you can ignore that, good! if not? well. . .

୨୧ HIROMI HIGURUMA — green / beige flag.

objection! he did nothing wrong (except for, at least, 22 murders, i guess).

BIGGEST RED FLAG? married to his work.

this is a completely personal view, but it’s hard to date someone so busy and married to their work. pre-culling game, the grueling overtime and mountains of paperwork would constantly keep him away from you ── from dates, from nights together, from romantic trips. furthermore, his ideal of justice is always dangerously close to failure in practically every situation hiromi faces, and this is a source of stress for him. he wouldn’t take it out on you, there’s no reason, but of course. it’s difficult to balance so many hours of work and such an important goal with personal relationships.

it’s not that he forgets commemorative dates, he merely doesn’t have time to celebrate them themselves. when he can’t be there for whatever the occasion is, he’ll send some expensive gift and an apology card, or call you and start a conversation for eight minutes to explain why he forgot your second anniversary. it’s common for him to come home, and you’re already asleep. you simply don’t have time.

in the culling game situation, it’s not so much work that keeps you apart, but training, focus and purpose. he focuses more on your protection and his than on romanticism, which can end up creating emotional barriers that are very difficult to break ── on both sides. hiromi is accidentally cold quite often. and that’s if you ignore the number of people he had to kill.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

honestly: yes and no. is a simple question with a difficult answer. hiromi prefers someone who can understand him completely: his feelings, his work, what he wants the justice system to become, and his vision of justice. so when he finally receives this new power that not only matches all of this but can make it possible, it’s very complicated to have a partner who doesn’t understand this new part of your life. he’s another person who wouldn’t lie to you about his nature. he swore to tell the truth, always the truth, and only the truth.

if you are a sorcerer, things get easier and harder. a relationship with hiromi has certain nuances, such as his constant concern for your safety, regardless of what you are (sorcerer or not). he believes in your own strength, but would like to stick around just to make sure you’re going to be okay. his change between coldness and sudden closeness can make feelings very raw and difficult to deal with.

if you’re not a sorcerer, his protection gets even worse. he’s not suffocating because he takes care not to be, but he would genuinely go crazy if something happened to you because he was careless. anyone who touches you won’t come out alive and brag about it. he just wants you to be okay.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

no. hiromi is loyal to all his oaths, whether they are about protecting justice or being by your side even in sickness and in health.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

he is very open and honest. it might be bad in certain situations, but it’s great for the bigger picture. he doesn’t hide his opinions from you and is willing to talk about almost any topic peacefully. fights with him are actually quite rare, because hiromi thinks it’s fair to listen to his side, then speak his own, and think together to see if you can resolve this peacefully. depending on the angle, this is another problem, in a way he tends to rationalize feelings very often.

despite all the negatives, he has a surprisingly good memory. he doesn’t forget special occasions, he simply didn’t have time to be there in person (which is still a con). but he remembers everything else about you. hiromi is the type to look at you with a slight smile on his face, looking like his words are going in one ear and out the other. but when you stop talking, he gets confused. “why did you stop? i want to know what happens next.”

୨୧ MEGUMI FUSHIGURO — green / beige flag.

honestly, a good option. if you’re able to catch up.

megumi is a better boyfriend than people would think, honestly. the issue, with him, is more about himself and his view of himself than you ──, but it still affects the relationship and your experiences together as a couple.

BIGGEST RED FLAG? no respect for his own safety.

as a jujutsu sorcerer, it’s perfectly common for megumi to get into situations that risk his neck. it’s as much a part of the job as anything else. the problem is his willingness to put himself in danger for the sake of a greater good, or greater goal that he needs / wants to achieve. he is bold and reckless, and can be very harmful to both him and you.

other than that, he’ not necessarily a very bad boyfriend. megumi doesn’t have as many communication problems as expected, although he can put up fights — especially on this specific subject, trying to justify his lack of care with “doing what was necessary”.

dying to win is not an idea he is opposed to, until someone (like you or gojo) puts some sense into him.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

not really. megumi would love you regardless of your ability and strength ── and would find qualities to admire anyway. he doesn’t think you’re incapable of protecting yourself, and a part of him is tempted not to introduce you to jujutsu if you’re not a sorcerer. it would be a fully, normal thing in his life, but he wouldn’t want to lie to you in any way.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

definitely not. megumi has way too much respect, admiration, and above all, love for you to do something atrocious like that.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

megumi is reckless, but at the same time he listens to what you say and can slowly learn to take care of himself in a more efficient way through your words and worry. he doesn’t forget precedents or dates, and he takes good care of anything you’ve given him. his shikigami love you, sincerely, so he would be happy if you could see them and interact with them ── because they are a reflection of their owner and end up showing all the affection he feels for you and doesn’t have the courage to show it.

he’s not cold or distant, just more reserved, but he could be more vocal about his feelings instead of dropping hints and hoping you understand what he means. everything about megumi is soft, even when it shouldn't be.

his inclination is indoor dates and having alone time with you that doesn’t involve his friends in any way. he has nothing against any of them ── they are dear people to both him and you, megumi is just inclined towards privacy and doesn’t want your time together to be interrupted. especially if you are a busy person who doesn’t have much opportunity to spend time with him.

despite being quiet, he is a little jealous often. not on a controlling level or anything like that, but he could easily end up making greater gestures to reinforce his dominance over your heart ── a treasure more precious than any cursed jewel. grabbing your waist gently and pulling you closer when he notices someone staring is not an uncommon occurrence.

୨୧ KENTO NANAMI — green flag.

i have nothing to say besides: you’re lucky — really. this man is a blessing.

nanami is honestly the ideal kind of guy no matter what life you want to lead. He honestly tries to balance his personal life with the work he so fervently hates, and he understands and helps you doing the same.

BIGGEST RED FLAG — emotional walls (eventually lets them down).

one of the few things that are not respectable about this man is that he really takes a long time before showing himself vulnerable in any way, shape, or form. nanami's experience makes him a very cold and harsh guy on the outside, but with well-defined morals and a heart of gold. he's also inclined towards privacy, just like megumi, and would prefer if you didn't get too involved in his circle of friends (more because of gojo than anything else, really).

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

no. not really. nanami appreciates the normality and calmness that can come from a life with you. he genuinely doesn't care if you're a sorcerer or if you're the head of the marketing department.

impressively, he's not as protective as others on the list. of course, he worries about your safety, but he doesn't doubt his own ability to be there to protect you if needed.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

no, never. nanami is very adamant and loyal to you in all situations — he can't be tempted by someone else, because all he desires is you.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

as already mentioned, nanami prefers that you not get involved in his social circle, especially if you are a non-sorcerer. this is due to the fact that his senpai is clueless and could often create very uncomfortable situations. furthermore, he is afraid that you will be interested in more of his acquaintances and end up discovering/getting more involved with jujutsu.

he's very supportive of pretty much every decision you make ── as long as it doesn't hurt you and doesn't seem rushed without thought. he makes a point of looking for you for conversations that he considers necessary and punctuating whatever is needed.

nanami is very analytical too. if the two of you set a goal, agree on its repercussions and after a long time, decide on it ── like, for example, having a family ── he works hard to make it happen. it is not uncommon for him to agree to work overtime to receive a salary bonus to prepare a surprise for you, or support you better. he doesn't doubt your independence in the slightest, but he would like to constantly give you gifts as thanks for your divine presence in his life.

kento is very kind and basically the height of chivalry. for those who say that romanticism is dead, it's because they've never seen your boyfriend tying your shoelaces, carrying you on his lap, taking you to romantic dinners and making dinner for the two of you.

୨୧ SATORU GOJO — beige flag.

strongest sorcerer, a charming man, and good at flirting. although, an actual relationship? oh, boy. . .

satoru isn't necessarily a bad boyfriend per se. he's far from the worst option on the list, but he genuinely has a lot of problems that would make a relationship fall apart.

BIGGEST RED FLAG? emotionally unavailable.

satoru's personal experience has made him carry the burden of being the strongest sorcerer during his entire life. it's his identity to nearly everyone else — the satoru gojo, and not just satoru. it feels set in stone.

he doesn't have close friends or a support group that he feels he can genuinely trust fully since suguru's betrayal. this rubs off on you and makes him avoid really emotional conversations or directly saying what he's feeling — even when it's necessary. it's almost impossible to make his emotional walls come down, and if they do, he'll probably act a little sour for a while ── a kind of reflex, where he's wary of the idea of being betrayed once again.

being vulnerable is not his strong suit.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

no, but it's preferable that you are. not only because you would understand him and his capabilities much better, but because as a sorcerer you would have your own worryingly long workload, and wouldn't make such a big deal about him almost never being home. at least, he thinks so, but he wouldn't avoid a relationship with you if you weren't a sorcerer.

also, he gets worried about you constantly — he has lots of enemies that could try to hurt you to get to him. if you're a sorcerer, at least he can believe more easily that you can defend yourself.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

personally, i don't think he would. as already mentioned, gojo's inability to be with just one woman is, in my view, his inability to be vulnerable and honest.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

personally, i interpret “satoru is the type of man who cannot be faithful to a woman” precisely because of the emotional problem. he can't be vulnerable and that only gets the relationship to a certain point before it stops working completely. it's very, very difficult to get past the defenses he's created for himself, and there's always the chance he'll get scared and decide to leave.

the gojo clan isn't really a hindrance ── what are they actually going to do, argue with their only relevant member? ── but they can be quite uncomfortable. the person with the strongest sorcerer needs, in their view, to be “proper.” this includes: being a sorcerer and having many strong children for a new generation.

if you do not meet these requirements for any reason (not wanting or not being able to have children), the clan is unfriendly towards you. this doesn't stop the relationship in any way, or it doesn't stop you and satoru from getting married one day, however, it is quite awkward.

regardless of whether you are a sorcerer or not, there is a gulf of difference between satoru's lifestyle and yours. while he doesn't have difficulties with money or power ── and maybe you do ── this means he can't quite understand what it's like to be in your shoes. he's not unfriendly, but his arrogant and defensive nature can really lead to a silly fight or two that escalates depending on the situation.

୨୧ SUGURU GETO — red flag.

i love suguru, but he’s undeniably not an ideal partner.

i don't think there's much doubt about whether geto would be a red flag. he is. even if you consider his nature in the relationship more than his personality itself, it's still the case.

BIGGEST RED FLAG (besides the genocide nature)? — manipulative.

as a very skilled cult leader and orator, suguru has an indescribable charisma and a well-directed charm ── be it to convert those he calls monkeys or to enlist sorcerers to his cause. however, this charm can also be used on you and your relationship.

intentionally or not, he ends up trying to convince you of the same things he does. either his own distorted belief ── or his apologies become attempts at manipulation. he's not beyond gaslighting you, either. he learns what type of action provokes a specific reaction from you and ends up acting very artificially sometimes.

the benevolent cult leader persona he uses on non-sorcerers mixes with the real suguru geto, and that's definitely something scary to have in a relationship.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

yes. there's just no other way. sorry, it's geto.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

not really. capturing geto's attention isn't really an easy thing, and maintaining your position as his partner is just as hard a task. i don't see him having eyes for anyone else, because i feel that if you were in a relationship, he would need to have some kind of attachment to you and wouldn't want to hurt you on purpose.

despite this, in those ridiculously impossible situations — if he could achieve the world he wants by sleeping with someone else, would he do it? then the answer is yes. but i don't know if that counts.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

he is more married to his cause than he would ever be to you. he will not change for you, nor he will abandon his dream. that's a thought you can't let go of your mind when you're with him. no matter your own actions and beliefs, the new world must be created using any and all means necessary. no price is too high, no one is too innocent to be sacrificed.

being around someone like that would not only be exhausting but terrifying. there is always the uncertainty of what he would do if you left him. on the one hand, suguru doesn't want to hurt you. on the other hand, as his partner, you would know too many valuable things to just leave. he would never let you go like that.

it's very important not to forget that suguru definitely suffers from delusions of grandeur and high expectations of himself and everything around him. whether it's about the new world, his role in it, or about you. he faces some frustration when this expectations are not met, but he does his best not to take it out on you.

he might even "forgive" the fact that you don't actively fight to kill non-sorcerers, like he does, but he wouldn't want you to interact with them other than when it's absolutely necessary. furthermore, suguru would require absolute hygiene. don't touch him if you've been too close to a non-sorcerer. in cases where you have shaken someone's hand or hugged someone, he will refuse to talk to you until you wash your hands or take a shower.

and if you see non-sorcerers as people, as lives who matter, it will be absolutely worse. it would certainly be a very frequent topic of discussion between the two of you, so opposing views would make the relationship unsustainable. but staying silently by his side makes you accomplice — the blood of all these people will be on your hands, because you knew.

you knew and you did nothing to stop him, nonetheless.

୨୧ SUKUNA RYOMEN — red flag.

do i have to say anything? nevermind. i’ll pray for your soul instead. lord have mercy on you — because sukuna won’t.

if you were so unfortunate as to capture the king of curses' attention in this way, i can only be so sorry.

BIGGEST RED FLAG? he's sukuna.

it's hard to know where to start when naming his worst red flag. would it be his violent nature? his overall behavior? the sadistic desire for death and the total lack of morals? sukuna knows nothing but power, and has no respect for anything other than himself or equivalent strength. it makes your relationship with him less of a romantic thing — and more like an owner-pet relationship.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

i'm inclined to say yes, because it's difficult to see where sukuna would be interested in a non-sorcerer. regardless, i guess it doesn't really matter as long as you fit his twisted and bizarre criteria, somehow.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

no, but not for the reasons you think. love is an unknown and irrelevant concept to him, so what really stops him from cheating on you is not moral. it's desire, or rather, the lack of it. no one is as interesting as you in that sense.

he wouldn't cheat on you simply because there is no one else he wants like that. but not in a romantic sense, like nanami. it's like someone who is so engrossed in one thing in particular that in comparison, everything is gray and rotten.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

there's very little i can describe without being extremely dark compared to other reviews. sukuna would play with you until he got tired, and when he did, he would send you to the pot and enjoy a nice dinner.

i think the closest thing that can be called showing affection from him is when he asks uraume to be extra careful with the meat this time. he had, somehow, a strange feeling for you that he didn't understand. even tired, he wouldn't forget a human who fascinated him so deeply. furthermore, it would be agonizing for other sorcerers and humans. sukuna would not be actively looking for replacements, but sincerely. if he was, he would be disappointed. sometimes he turns to bark a mean comment, just to not see you there, and murmur oh, right, knowing very well he is the reason.

despite this, he may feel some kind of affection for you. sort of. the kind of pity you would feel for a beggar on the street, or the feeling you have for a pet, in some way. he would never see you as an equal. an interesting creature, but beneath him, as it is your place.

none of this would ever stop him from killing you if you became a nuisance, though.

୨୧ TOGE INUMAKI — green flag.

few words, but a lot of action and gentleness.

after a horror show committed by our favorite cannibal, a good look at our favorite ingredient talker should cool us down nicely. toge is actually the type to act instead of talk, because, well. . . salmon?

BIGGEST RED FLAG? bad communication.

even if you are a great sign language interpreter, there will be communication problems in your relationship. sometimes you may not understand what he is saying, or the other way around.

this is not a fatal defect, but it certainly exists, and needs to be addressed accordingly. furthermore, it is difficult to have serious conversations or argue. it's very annoying not being able to have a serious dialogue without hearing an onigiri ingredient in response. but it becomes a bit habitual for you and it doesn't make that much of a difference — it's the way he needs to communicate and you understand. toge understands how difficult it can be to communicate with him and does his best to help the process.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

i'm tempted to say absolutely not, but if you're not a sorcerer there's no chance of you having a relationship without you at least knowing about jujutsu. in any case, you will be inserted into this world and this context, but honestly it doesn't matter to him. as long as it is you.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

no, not at all. man can barely speak to his friends, how could he even chat with someone else and cheat behind your back? despite all the jokes, it's not really toge's thing.

sure, he can't directly tell someone else he's rejecting them — again, communication —, but he just needs to show his ring and they'll leave him alone. usually. he does not entertain flirtation from anyone who's not you, though.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

loving toge is as calming an experience as it is chaotic. he wants to do everything that “more normal people” would do too. for example, going on dates in big, crowded places — even if a part of him screams internally when not being able to talk to you like these people do. and honestly, even when he merely wishes for the simple, he just wants you to be happy and enjoy. your relationship is something very important to him, and there would certainly be a doubt if he can be a sorcerer and be your boyfriend at the same time. inumaki's lifestyle is not really something anyone wishes for their significant other, after all, but he was willing to try.

despite not being able to speak, he always has a cell phone and a notepad at hand. it's common for you to find small notes and loving notes, or his messages. love messages, messages asking how your day was, messages telling you that you forgot your lunch — giving him the perfect opportunity to just slip away and personally hand it over to you. he turns down the collar of his coat to return your smile when doing so.

toge also has a habit of sending you pictures like cute cats and a small love poem. he never wants you to feel appreciated — and everytime his friends tease him for smiling like a fool to the phone, he murmurs an affectionate “okaka”.

୨୧ TOJI FUSHIGURO — beige / red flag.

already experienced with love, a hurt heart can literally end everything.

the experience of being in a relationship with toji can be the happiest thing in your life or the most toxic addiction possible. it really depends on a single factor: is he able to love you truly, even after mamaguro? he'll be the only character in this list with two “separated” versions.

BIGGEST RED FLAG? emotionally distant / inconsiderate.

in a world where he can love you just like he loved megumi's mother, toji has a lot of emotional baggage that is difficult to deal with. his job is dangerous, he had an extensive past with another woman and an abandoned son, it's a lot for both him and you. it's very difficult to get close to him at first, but he slowly opens up and is willing to change and improve his life, getting a new start with you. one he won't lose.

in a world where he can't love you, he just doesn't care. you're just another partner he hooks up with occasionally, and he makes that clear. he's not interested in anything serious, not marriage, not anything. you are not the love of his life and you will not be. and if you feel bad about these words? well. you're out of luck.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

definitely not. he couldn't care less in any case.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

again, that depends. if he loves you truly, hell no. anyone who comes to flirt with him while he is in a relationship with you will be ignored and likely humiliated if he persists. if you managed to capture this man's heart, congratulations, he's all yours.

if he doesn't love you — yeah. pretty much. then it's more about if he wants someone else than your feelings.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

there's not much to say about toji's part and his role in a relationship, except that it won't be easy in any case. the past is the ghost that haunts every man, conscious or not. and his is full of blood, guts, tears and lost love. being willing to deal with this is not only necessary but something he won't forget. it's very difficult to win his loyalty permanently, but if you do, you simply have to worry about it anymore.

if he does not love you, it's very likely that he will eventually leave you for someone richer. money is mainly what would keep him in a relationship — sex is just a bonus. when some of those ends up being too difficult to get (or when these things are missing), his lack of emotional attachment makes him easily turn around and leave, to never returning again.

୨୧ YUJI ITADORI — green flag.

a very good option! the problem is that it is not long-lasting.

yuji is a sweetheart, really. definitely not a bad choice (one of the best ones in this list!). although, he has a very unfortunate destiny in front of him.

BIGGEST RED FLAG? he's way too selfless.

being selfless is a great quality, but in cases like yuji's, things go overboard very easily. he doesn't have as much respect or admiration for himself as he does for other people, and this can definitely be very damaging to his mental health and, consequently, your relationship.

he takes risks for his friends and strangers, he swallows cursed objects, he does his best to save lives — and he blames himself under fail, despite it not being his fault. he's the kind of man who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and doesn't want you to exhaust yourself trying to share it with him.

DO YOU HAVE TO BE A SORCERER?

not really, but if you're not, the relationship ends very quickly and suddenly. yuji wouldn't allow himself to tell you about jujutsu, being the vessel of sukuna, and anything that puts you under risk. this includes staying close to him.

he wouldn't break up with you just because you're not a sorcerer, he just values your safety too much and is afraid of what could happen. if you are one, he feels slightly relieved you won't separate, but still tense. you can still die.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

he would never. never, ever. you're his love and he could never betray your trust like that. in one occasion, he said he wouldn't cheat on you even if it were with jennifer lawrence.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

the most important point to make is that yuji will undeniably die. he would be executed, and he thinks he should be, and that was the order given since he made a mistake that day. one day, and his life changed forever. having a relationship with you is one of the few lasting joys in his life, but when it ends for whatever reason, it will hurt more. maybe he'll try to break up with you sooner and move away so you don't feel so upset about losing him.

yuji is also the guy who was thrown into the context of the jujutsu world in a very unfortunate situation — he can be very slow to understand some things and, if you are a sorcerer, fearful. he understands that many sorcerers have important reputations to maintain. maybe you have too. in that case, wouldn't it be better not to have a relationship with sukuna's vessel in your past? what if the higher-ups antagonize you for that, and your career can't succeed? he doesn't want to make you uncomfortable about the topic, and he often doesn't say what he's feeling directly. yuji doesn't lie, but he omits.

he is very anxious despite his constant positive attitude. sukuna likes to mess with yuji's mental health, and he knows how much you mean to him. yuji would purposely turn away from you very often, terrified that somehow, the king of curses would kill you simply to laugh at his expense. he can't lose you — the ironic thing is that maybe he would lose, distancing himself so much.

୨୧ YUTA OKKOTSU — green / beige flag.

not bad, but. . . very questionable, nonetheless.

last, but not least! the implicitly yandere yuta okkotsu — not by far the worst option we have out of all of them here, but. he has almost unforgivable habits.

BIGGEST RED FLAG — rika (?)

everyone agrees that seeing your boyfriend's first love as a bloody, inhuman ghost is a pretty uncomfortable experience. in your case, it is an uncomfortable and constant experience, happening practically on a daily basis. although rika is much more controlled nowadays, and she is more a manifestation of technique than a soul in itself — it's not the kind of thing that anyone just finds normal. even sorcerers.

unfortunately, your boyfriend's late first love is kind of always there anyway. he still wears the ring he needs to connect with her, even if he gave you a different one. it's strange and sometimes it gives the impression that either you are a replacement, or that you will never reach that level of affection. you're the other woman in your own relationship.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A SORCERER?

again, no. but it's preferable that you are. all the difficult issues of being a sorcerer would be better understood if you were one yourself. it would also avoid him lying to you / hiding jujutsu from you. furthermore, yuta is a paranoid mess.

he always imagines that the second he's not around, you're going to get hurt. he cannot stand even the weakest curses near you, crushing them like repulsive insects.

WOULD HE CHEAT ON YOU?

no, unless you consider rika and his “relationship” with her.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS.

honestly, the time you have with yuta always seems to be under the influence of an hourglass, limited. ready to end at any second, where his work will be a constant interruption. he tries and tries very hard not to let this undermine his relationship, but it can become an occasional problem. he had to spend long periods of time in other countries, and it hurts for him to be so far away.

yuta is strangely clingy. you can't expect anything less. he's the kind of boyfriend who can easily become overprotective in a way that's not cute. always guiding you to one side on the sidewalk, one hand around your waist, staring deathly at any man who gets too close. it doesn't matter if it's his friend or a mutual friend of yours, there is a certain distance that everyone must respect when it comes to you. except him.

besides being like a cat (very skittish with some people, invades your personal space very frequently), yuta is very demanding in some aspects. he really hates it if someone flirts with you, even though he wouldn't take that frustration out on you. after all, it's not your fault and it would be unfair. but he's very adamant about not having any secrets or personal things he doesn't know about. secrets kill people, and he can't bear to lose you.

despite all the lessons he learned with rika, sometimes you end up wondering if he will curse you too, if you end up dying. you ask him about it. if he would. yuta doesn't answer.

ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE. I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY MISTAKES. thank you for reading! <3

[autumn-hiraeth]

Can I request Hobie on patrol finding his love beaten bloody in the streets but they don't know he's spiderpunk and in the chaos of him trying to figure out what happened their just "I'll be ok, but could I get an autograph for my boyfriend? You both have the same vibe and I think he'd like it"

ofc anon! 🧃 Hope you like it! <3

Hobie brown x reader

fluff and slight angst. Headcanons

a/n: you can find more here “ Hobie's masterlist”

You know it was a bad idea to go to that political protest without Hobie. But he didn't show up so you went anyway. Your bad. Three hours later you're wailing because the pigs showed up and they weren't very nice, so that's why your lip is busted, your nose is bleeding and your face is bruised - like the rest of your body-.

But you can't even feel the pain from all the adrenaline running through your veins.

Maybe it's the adrenaline from the fight you got into with a cop or because the amazing Spider-Punk is carrying you while he asks you a lot of questions; " Who did this to you?" " what happened?" “How many fingers can ya' see?”

Hobie wants nothing more than to take you to safety as he holds you in his arms, his heart breaking when he sees you all beaten up. Once again he shouldn't have left you alone. Everything would be easier if you knew his secret identity. Right? He's blaming himself that he doesn't even realize how happy you seem to be in his arms. Your arms around his neck make him feel warm.

"Hey Spiderman" “don't talk luv, you're too weak” you frown, Jesus, he and hobie are so dramatic. "Nah, I'm fine, promise" but he doesn't believe you and you roll your eyes before saying: ""I'll be ok, but could I get an autograph for my boyfriend? You both have the same vibe and I think he'd like it"

Then he stops his walk and looks at you, your pretty face bruised, and his mouth opens in indignation at your request. "You're almost dying in my arms and you're seriously asking me that?!" your grip tightens on his neck feeling him tense.

“hey! I'm not dying, you're being so dramatic!" you sneer and he gasps indignantly " Even that's how you and my boyfriend are similar .. You two are drama queens” you point out, your head is aching, maybe that's why you can't find out on your own that your boyfriend and spider-man are the same person. Hobie laughs "luv, just lie against my chest" he asks before moving on, but you are stubborn and Hobie loves that about you (especially when you and he are in bed, it doesn't matter rn).

“I really need your autograph, Hobie is going to love it” you murmur and Spider-punk smiles.

oh, he can't wait for you to find out his secret identity.

[talaok]

Hi!

I have a joel request

Ok so reader is with Joel from Boston, maybe Tess introduced them, but they’re end up taking a liking to each other and don’t tell Tess.

Reader ends up pregnant (remains a secret between Joel and her) but she joins them on the quest with Ellie and to Tommy.

They meet Haney and Sam and Joel is extra overprotective of reader all the time, maybe she’s around forth month and just slightly showing, enough for Henry to catch on

Pt. 2

You didn't know exactly how or when it had started, it kind of just... had.

The Boston QZ wasn't an easy place to wander alone, so when Tess had offered you some company, you hadn't refused.

Since you were both smugglers, after some time she had introduced you to who you believed to be her partner, to work together for a job. As it turns out, Joel Miller wasn't her boyfriend, what he was, however, was a man of few words.

It wasn't easy at first, you kept asking him questions and he kept answering with no more than a grunt or a mumbled yes or no.

You were sure he despised you or was just unnervingly indifferent to you.

But then one day, something changed.

He had asked you to help him out with a job, and of course, you had agreed, completely conscient of having just condemned yourself to hours of endless silence.

But that's not how it went, not at all.

He had spent the night asking you questions, and thanks to some kind of miracle, even answering yours.

You had talked and talked for hours, and that night, the man who up until that point you believed to be just a ruthless survivor, turned into a kind, fun man.

You had asked him about that night months later, and after a bit of pressuring he eventually confessed:

"I don't know, I guess I finally decided that I had spent enough time punishing myself... and I was tired of seeing your pretty face frown each time I pushed you away"

Things after that night changed, you started spending more and more time together, until well... that's all you wanted to do.

He showed you part of himself he kept hidden, and you did the same until you both knew every good and bad and sad of each other. Until there was nothing to hide anymore.

It's weird... finding love at the end of the world, and yet, you'd done it.

And as happy as you were, you were both terrified too.

In the world you lived in, love wasn't just love anymore, it was weakness,

it was the possibility of losing everything again.

And the fear only grew stronger when you found out you were pregnant.

There were so many things to be scared of, the practical part, having to deliver a child in a world where zombies roamed the streets, having to be a good mother, not knowing how to be a good mother, and then finally... having to tell Joel.

You saw the fear in him too, when you finally told him, you saw the paralyzing fear flash before his eyes, and then, like magic, you saw it all melt away.

He had hugged you for what felt like an hour, feeling so many things at once he had no idea what to say.

Until, finally, leaning away, he had made you a simple promise:

"I love you. And I'll protect you, if it's the last thing I do I'll protect you, both of you"

You chose not to say anyone, not even Tess. It was safer and easier. When the time would have come, you would have said something, but then Ellie came along.

Joel had begged you with everything he had to stay in Boston, to not follow him and Tess, and to forget about him if he was to never come back.

But you had fought back with the same intensity. You had told him the truth. That you couldn't do it without him, that he was the only person you trusted.

"fine" he had sighed, after you had given him a headache "but don't do anything stupid"

And at that, you had smiled "When have I ever?"

Now everything had changed once again, Tess was dead.

You would expect it to get easier, loss... but it doesn't.

you never told her, she never knew, and now she'll never know.

You were four months pregnant, shirts had just started getting tighter, and your brain fuzzier.

you still hadn't told Ellie. For some reason it felt like the moment you did, everything would become real, and your luck would run out.

You had "met" Henry and Sam along the way, Joel wasn't a big fan, but you liked them, especially Sam, he was a smart boy.

You had walked in the tunnels all day until you stumbled across an underground settlement.

"Can we rest here for a while?" Ellie asked after she and Sam found one of the awful comics they apparently both loved "There's like- actual shit to do here"

"wouldn't be so bad to wait the light out a bit" Henry intervened, feeling the need to explain himself better when Joel shot him a look "safer in shadows when we pop back out on the other side"

He wasn't convinced, you could see it, and your feet were killing you, so...

"please Joel" was all you needed to say to change his mind.

"fine" he sighed "Just for a while," he said, before walking to you.

"Are you all right?" he asked, worry evident in his tone

"I'm fine, I'm just tired"

"did you eat enough?"

You smiled "I did"

His eyes fell to your belly for a moment "Here" he said, reaching in his pocket for some food he had in a napkin "Eat this"

"Joel..."

"I don't need to eat tonight, don't worry"

"you do need to" you protested, trying to give it back

"no" he shook his head "what I need is for you to be healthy"

You bit down a smile as you put the food in your backpack "Y'know... I miss kissing you"

"I kissed you this morning"

"yeah well..." you pouted

"I know," he said, as his thumb stroked your arm "I miss it too"

Ellie's laugh brought you both back to reality.

You grinned, watching as she talked to Sam.

"I better go see what she's up to," you said "wouldn't want her to teach the poor kid all the bad words she knows"

Joel's lips twitched into a small smile "We'd be here for hours" he joked, making you laugh "Try to rest, ok?" he said, more seriously now.

"Yes sir" you mocked "you too"

Something traveled between your eyes before you went your way.

Joel watched as you sat with the kids, and decided to sit next to Henry, he owed him some sort of apology.

"If you were collaboratin' to take care of him, I shouldn't have said what I said. I don't know your situation. And I'm not saying they should let it go, but... all things considered, seems kinda cruel to send a whole army after you for that" Joel spoke, his eyes not leaving you. He knew damn well he too, would do anything for you or the baby.

"You know, I wasn't exactly telling you the truth before, about me not killing anyone," Henry said after some time, as he started telling Joel everything, about Kathleen's brother, about Sam's sickness... everything.

"I am the bad guy because I did a bad guy thing," Henry said, pain and frustration tracing his words "but you get it though. you might not be her father, but you were someone's... and you're gonna be someone's"

Joel's jaw twitched, and he tightened his fists as he stared at the man.

How does he know?

"I see the way you glance at her whenever you hear a noise, I see how you always get her behind you," he explained, without needing to be told to "The first thing you said when we woke you up with guns pointing at you was, - don't point it at her-" Henry recalled "plus" he smiled "she's the only one you listen to"

"don't worry" Henry said, noticing Joel's look "I won't tell"

They both turned in your direction, as they heard you reading the comic aloud.

Both the kids were looking at you, completely hypnotized.

"she'll be a great mother"

"I know," Joel said "I know she will"

— —

Pt. 2

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Spooky season needs spooky stuff.. >:3

So can I request the digital circus cast (minus Caine)meeting a Child Spirit Y/n headcanons,who like Kinda possesed/went inside the game to find they’re killer for some reason? They are eerily quiet and like to stare but if talked to very sweet but quick to snap in distrust because..well trust is what got them killed in the first place? They’re a bit bloody..and a eyeball sometimes hangs out?? Like vhs horror stuff

Sorry I’m being so descriptive,I hope you are a nice day!

OOOoo yes time for more spooks!

Also I am having a nice night, thanks! (and I hope you are having a nice day/night too!)

......

Pomni

To make a long story short, you got murdered while wearing the headset, and that tethered your spirit to TADC.

As expected, you lost memories of who you were--except for the knowledge that someone killed you because you trusted them too much, and you believed the answers were inside this very game.

Your character ends up looking like a child's ghost costume: a white bedsheet stained in blood and one of your eyeballs occasionally wanting to pop from its socket.

Caine (who was very much bewildered at your arrival) declares that you're part of an "exclusive Halloween update" and changes up the tent and grounds to have more spooky flair.

But Pomni clearly wants no part of it, and she can tell you don't either.

You're clearly a kid who is (somehow) handling the situation of being stuck in this game better than her, yet when she tries asking you about it....all you do is stare back.

She swears she can hear static noises and whispers she can't decipher--all in all getting a...very creepy vibe from you.

Initially she decides to keep her distance, afraid you were secretly some virus or Abstraction underneath that sheet.

But that changes when you're walking by the rooms one night, and you pass by Pomni's door, hearing her quietly crying.

Although you weren't inclined to get close to anybody here, you were concerned. And since you weren't actually coded into the game, you didn't have to follow any of its rules--and that allowed you to enter her room without a key.

At first you scared the shit out of her, but after realizing it's you, she lets you sit beside her, eventually venting about how badly she missed her real home.

"Everyone keeps telling me "oh this place is so much better" or "get used to it"...but what if I don't wanna do that? I don't care if my old life was bad...I-I can't take anymore of this.." Her sobs grow louder. "I wanna wake up in my own bed knowing my real name!!"

"...I miss home, too," is all you say in response. Yet it's more than enough to calm her down.

For once, you're not trying to brush her off or force her to "cheer up" and accept her reality. You made her feel heard.

"Yeah..me, too....sh-should I thank you for agreeing..?" She sniffles, seeing your subtle nod, before you leave her be, not wanting to get too attached.

Ironically, she was able to sleep a little easier after talking to you.

Jax

From the get-go, he's gonna be real nosy and curious.

Since not even Caine himself expected your arrival and found out that you don't follow the "rules" like everyone else...Jax is gonna try his damnedest to understand you and see what makes you tick.

But he's gonna be disappointed quickly since you don't respond much to him (or anybody in general).

"So...ya like Halloween?"

"........"

"....thought so. Good talk, new kid."

You definitely act like a legit ghost--doing nothing but stare, move things around, and pop up unexpectedly.

Eventually, his curiosity leads to him visiting your room (which has no key), and he discovers many drawings on the walls.

Most depicting a dead person wearing a headset.

What he found most disturbing was a journal that contained his and the others' names..

From what he's gathering...you're suspecting one of them of murdering your real world-self.

But he doesn't get much time to ponder this as you show up, angry at him for intruding.

You make yourself look even bloodier and scarier, with both of your eyeballs hanging from their sockets and staring at him.

"Get out."

Those two simple words put the fear of god in him.

Jax runs out faster than a jackrabbit, colliding with Gangle in the process. Her comedy mask falls off again, but he catches it and looks at her.

"J-Jax..?" She realizes his fur is standing up on all ends, and he looks terrified....even more than he did after realizing the circus was his forever home.

But he just shoves the mask back into her hands and leaves without saying a word.

He never speaks of what he found in your room that day.

Kinger

He thought his eyes were weird...until you came along and periodically had to put your own eyeball back into its socket.

"It's good to know I'm not alone!" He nervously chuckles, only to be met with your eerie silence.

Sometime later, he suggests showing you his insect collection, and it does pique your interest.

You did love all things "creepy" and "crawly".

Yet you're adamant about going to his pillow fortress after he invites you.

It reminds you of the ones you used to build all the time, up until...

Fortunately, Kinger recognizes your reluctance and just brings one of his bug boxes to you so you can look at it.

He could infodump about the various critters for hours, with nothing but nods and quiet "mhms" from you, and he's happy.

In general, he doesn't mind your quiet personality.

Although you still sometimes jumpscare him unintentionally like Gangle often does.

Tbh he's a good father figure and recognizes that you're just a kid who got trapped in this game unfairly.

Even so, you try to keep your distance and looks at him suspiciously if he starts acting too nice.

He was quiet aloof, and you weren't sure how he would act on any given day.

Gangle

After accidentally spooking her (by simply existing in the same room as her), she breaks her comedy mask off.

But immediately she feels guilty for screaming and tries scrambling to fix it, hoping you weren't mad at her.

Yet all you do is stare, not looking angry or anything at all (it's hard for any of the performers to see your expression in general, aside from your hanging eye, but still).

Poor Gangle is just afraid you'd turn into a scarier version of yourself.

When she keeps cutting her ribbon fingers(?) on the ceramic pieces, you come over and clean it up for her, taking it away despite your own hands bleeding.

The implications that you were able to shed blood and nobody else were a little disturbing to her..but she's glad you're not offended by her screaming.

Although she wonders where you're going with her mask..

Later on, you knock on her door and present it fully fixed.

Except...it looks more Halloweenish with an evil smile painted on it, messily glued together.

'Oh god I hope this doesn't turn me evil or anything..' She thinks, putting on a smile as she takes it anyways.

Yet you remain where you are, staring and clearly waiting for her to try it on.

And so she does, and it turns her into a very chaotic Halloween lover, acting even more mischievous than Jax and allowing her to finally get her revenge for all his pranks.

In the end, you gain a decent friendship with her, subtly protecting her from Jax's bullying.

Ragatha

Seeing that you're so distant from the rest of the gang has her worried.

Some of them might consider your loose eyeball creepy, but she's not gonna judge you on that (besides, she's missing an eye altogether so she can't say much anyways).

Howeve,r she's the first to find out how strong your distrust of everyone is.

"[Y/n]? I don't think it's good to be isolating yourself like this. I know you hate being here and Caine's a weirdo..but...we're all in this together. You can trust us-"

"Don't." You warn, putting on a frightening display of anger that sends her tumbling to the ground, sending chills up her spine.

"Trust" became something you didn't take lightly, as the last time you put your trust in someone....you ended up dead, turning into a literal ghost in the machine (that was your gaming system).

Despite this, Ragatha doesn't run away.

Like Pomni, she understands that you're just a kid who's confused and lost.....and clearly had serious trust issues.

But she's determined to help you through that, even if you keep scaring everybody away.

She's got motherly instincts, and she hopes that in due time you'll learn to warm up to her.

Zooble

"A bedsheet worn as a costume? That's a classic."

She's seen weirder things during their time in the circus, so you don't faze her too much.

Only when you snap at Ragatha or somebody who was trying to be nice to you does she raise an eyebrow.

Honestly, they 100% understand that you just wanted to be alone sometimes, and she respects that.

It's suffocating trying to act all cheery and go along with every damn activity Caine tries to get everyone involved in (but lucky for you, he can't make you follow along).

Especially since she believes he made up that stupid "Halloween update" as lazy way to explain your sudden arrival.

The only time you do interact with Zooble is after she yanks Jax by his ears, and they hear this eerie-sounding giggle behind them.

When she turns around, you're just standing there motionless, staring at her.

Somehow, they just know you were smiling underneath that costume, which makes her smile, too.

"Maybe I should pull him out a hat next time, huh?" She jokes after letting him go, and you giggle once more as he hits the ground.

[nyx-lyris]

my encanto analysis/headcanon that no one asked for

so, i was just looking through some encanto fanart and headcanons and came across this piece (artist: https://mobile.twitter.com/ye_enc): 

abuela had triplets - julieta, pepa, and bruno. both julieta and pepa had three kids - isabella, luisa, and mirabel for julieta, and dolores, camilo, and antonio for pepa. 

what i noticed is that for each batch of three, each individual falls under a certain category, and it seems to follow by age. 

julieta was, as this lovely fanart shows, likely depended on quite frequently for her ability to heal via her cooking. her gift would have been the most useful and therefore she likely would have been praised the most as “the perfect one”. 

this, of course, next falls to isabella, who we see this with the most frequently. abuela very clearly is living the life she wished she could have lived through isabella, and is viewed as the perfect golden child by everyone around her. 

dolores is a little different, but i believe she still fits the trope. she is basically the physical embodiment of “seen but not heard.” she keeps quiet on the things she knows would upset her family and doesn’t make herself heard, even when she is in pain, whether physical or emotional. she doesn’t tell anyone that she knows bruno has been living in the walls for the ten years he’s been missing; she doesn’t tell anyone about her feelings for mariano, because she knows that will upset abuela and her cousin’s “perfect for the encanto” arrangement; and one can only imagine how loud certain things are to her, that are endurable for us (fireworks, for example). 

next are the middle children: pepa, luisa, and camilo. all of them have some kind of pressure on their shoulders. (and - just a fun thing i noticed - while luisa’s literal pressure is the many things she carries, pepa’s pressure is atmospheric pressure, because she controls the weather. but anyway, lol). 

all three of these characters are told in one way or another to bottle up their emotions and keep them buried inside. with pepa, we see this very directly as she is constantly told by the other characters (especially abuela) to, as the fanart above shows, calm down and essentially turn off her emotions because of the damage she can cause with her weather powers. this kind of reminds me of the “conceal, don’t feel” thing that elsa had with her gloves. both pepa and elsa demonstrate the same growth throughout their movies, too - learning to accept themselves and their abilities and thus being able to control them instead of being controlled by them - but, i digress. 

luisa, by contrast, is indirectly told to keep her emotions at bay. she is treated as something of a useful tool, both by the town and by abuela, and seen in a very masculine light despite her relatively feminine personality. because of this treatment and the expectation that she will always be strong that comes with it, she falls into the same category as pepa. 

camilo, like dolores, is a little different, but still fits. we don’t see much of him in the movie, but i imagine he is depended on as being the funny one. if anyone reading this is into k-pop or bts, think of camilo as like the j-hope or the jin of the group. he’s always expected to be funny and smiling, lifting everyone else’s spirits - but who lifts his spirits? 

and lastly, we have the youngest siblings - bruno, mirabel, and antonio. they fit into the roll, of course, of the scapegoat, of family disappointments. 

bruno was rejected by the town and by his family, seen as a harbinger of chaos and horror, a bad omen - all because he can see the future, something that he obviously cannot control. but, of course, it’s easier to simply blame someone else than accept the truth or take responsibility for your own actions. 

mirabel, of course, is treated in much the same way. she is seen as a bad omen, as well, and is quite literally feared to be the one who will destroy the family and the encanto, because of bruno’s vision. 

antonio does not quite fit into this category, but i think if he had not gotten a gift, he would have been shunned in much the same way as bruno or mirabel. it can also be argued that his gift isn’t really very useful, and we can see abuela struggle for a moment to think of how they could put his gift to use at the breakfast at the beginning of the movie (”i told them to warm up your seat”). 

anyway - this is all to say that each of the siblings in each of the batches of three appears to fill (or almost fill) the same rolls. i’m sure someone else has already noticed this and i’m just late to the party - but i thought it was cool. 

[idesofrevolution]

Never Sleep with Your Phone On

Throughout recorded history, humans have been terrified of the dark. They created stories of sordid creatures of the night that would creep out from beneath your bed and drag you to some subterranean lair to languish in your final moments; or slither out of your mirror if you left it uncovered when your lights were extinguished to steal your soul from your snoring lips. The tales and cryptids across all cultures were all effective in terrifying their communities once the sun set on the horizon. Though that is not necessarily to say that every tale was crafted from pure imagination.

When technology bloomed, humans believed that the horrifying superstitions of yore were long behind them. They had evolved past the primitive fears of what lurks in the shadows, where in reality they had become complacent, arrogant, and lulled. Certainly some of the eldritch creatures had subsided, as all creatures do eventually. Though for every dead legend, a new myth sprouts, and each of those grew and evolved right there along with us. Which, of course, brings us to Asher.

Asher West was, by all accounts, a fairly normal guy. Graduated from high school, going straight into college on a modest academic scholarship. He played frisbee golf with his friends on the weekends, studied hard from 9 to 5, and was seldom seen without a cup of Starbucks in the mornings. He had a sizeable social media following, as was expected for someone with a traditionally handsome visage and adequately charismatic personality. Every day he'd happily post a quick selfie, posting for his thousands of admirers a run of the mill shirtless pic, often without so much as a filter. It'd almost become muscle memory for him: tap the camera icon, snap the pic, post with some benign emojis as the caption, and boom. 900 likes as the day meandered on. Did it provide him with a momentary burst of endorphins? Yes. Was it satisfying? Somewhat, at least he thought so. Years of his staggeringly average life had been all but usurped by this second life online, where he was glamorous, exciting, and adored.

It was so much easier to live in that fantasyland than to truly be present in the real world around him. He, as many of us are, was living his life as someone else- and a life that spectacled easily caught attention. It was easy to come across him in the sea of countless names and faces. It was easy to stumble upon that pretty face. It was easy find, attracting more than just starry eyed fans. Skulking in the void between lines of 1 and 0, buried deep in the infinite cosmic vacuum of the world electric and technological, another pair of eyes would befall him.

It had slinked into his vast sphere rather quickly, and it had begun to watch. Watching each and every 'tasteful' selfie, every vapid thought that he'd post, and every like and pin he'd make, it watched him with empty, expressionless black eyes from within a fragment of his phone's memory. It studied him, curious at first. Things of its nature were always curious, always inclined to watch and analyze and replicate. Even as he slept, his phone siphoning it's charge from it's cable, it would read. The more it saw, the more it had learned about Asher. In fact, it knew more of Asher than perhaps he himself was aware of, if not able to admit.

It had seen those intimate moments he'd taken careful measure to hide from the vast majority of those watching eyes. Second accounts under pseudonyms, gave way to countless of hidden alternate lives he lived: Tumblr blogs dedicated to bad-boy thrist traps and queer erotica, Twitter accounts cataloguing pictures and videos of his closest kept kinks, a well used and well loved Chaturbate account with his face tastefully cropped out of frame... all these lives immortalized in the endless archives of the internet. And after all it's patient watching, all the hours of analyzing, all the months of consuming his information, it had grown an attachment.

Asher had come home late one night. Not unusual for him, as the occasional party wouldn't derail his real life ambitions. After a few libations, and no small amount of cannabis, he'd made his way back home to his small apartment above the corner store. Just as he'd done numerous times before, he stripped himself of his shirt, pulling his camera from his jeans pocket, and snapped a slightly inebriated picture of himself. It'd be enough to boost his ego the next morning, enough to power through the long haul of his draining daily agenda.

SNAP. The flash of the camera went off, and his beloved face was shared for all to see. Though, that night, he mis stepped. Perhaps it was the booze, perhaps it was the toke, perhaps he was simply too tired to notice that he'd left the screen on. By the time he'd hit the bed he was out like a rock, collapsed onto the bed and quietly drifting to sleep. There on the brightly lit screen, in the darkness of the unlit bedroom, it saw its opportunity.

From it's perch on the nightstand, the phone began to spark. Small sparks at first, a quick fizzle and quiet pop. Then more: louder, brighter, faster. It began to rumble against the wooden tabletop, sizzling and sparkling as it danced before the screen went black and dead. Slowly, electric crackling gave way to a bubbling sludge. The glass subtly started wave and bellow, as if it were liquified, not taking long to begin to spill over the edges of it's metal frame. The black sludge fell like oil onto the hardwood floors, collecting in a growing, bubbling pool.

From the primordial ooze burst forth a long, slender arm; it's taloned fingers scraping as it braced itself on the ground. A second arm clawed it's way out, and with an echoing slosh, it had begun to pull itself out of the sludge. It's long, emaciated torso and thick muscled legs had slithered out, landing on two massive, clawed feet. It towered above Asher's bed as he slumbered, bent over so as not to hit it's back onto the eight foot ceiling. It stood there, looking at the person it'd observed and studied for so long. The image presented in the world it'd pried himself out of was nothing of what lay before it. From what it had gathered from his more clandestine dealings, it had noted that he was far from the archetypes he'd collected on Asher's behalf.

He did not have the tattoos like those he'd pinned on Pinterest. He was not wearing the dark, heavy clothes like those he'd saved on Instagram. He wasn't well endowed like the video's he'd favorited on X-Tube. He didn't give off the aura of some rebellious casanova like the stories he'd reblogged on Tumblr. To a creature of symmetry and consistency, this was an error to be corrected; a dichotomy requiring integration.

It crouched down above his drooling maw, gently caressing his head to face it's clenching claw. The talons pressed ever so tenderly past his lips and over his tongue, becoming the very black ooze it had crawled out of once more. It flooded down his throat as it's second arm made it's way into his mouth, as if it were being sucked into Asher. He was drinking it's essence, it's aqueous body slurping down into his core. It's torso compressed as it wriggled down his gullet, ringing out splashing squelches as Asher gargled it down.

As quickly as it had entered, it's long legs slithered into his mouth, leaving only its large feet thrashing about in the air. Asher's stomach was bubbling and undulating under the sheer pressure from this invasion, growing to a large gut spilling over the waistband of his jeans. One loud slurp and a crisp pop, and the feet slipped into him, leaving his writhing body squirming on the bed. It expanded within him, incorporating itself into every fibre of his being. Pressing into his arms, his legs, pushing up his throat until it met the top of his palate. The pressure began to mount, black goo dribbling down the corners of his mouth, until a wet crack sounded in his cavernous head, and it flowed into his skull.

It took mere seconds for it to reach his brain, which it flowed freely into throughout the grooves and nooks. Entirely coated, imbued and inoculated with it, the deed was done. Asher opened his eyes, tiredly sitting up in his bed. He looked over at his phone, tapping it with his finger: 3 AM.

At first it seemed like a nightmare. He could recall moments here and there, though the majority of his 'dream' was a blur. From what he could remember, it was nothing visual he could recollect... but it he could recollect the sensations. Wet, slimy, invasive, and cold- much like he felt drunkenly sleeping in his cold sweat. He brought himself to his feet, dragging his feet on the slippery floorboards to his bathroom.

Flipping the switch, the harsh fluorescent light flickered to life above him, as he turned the nozzle on his shower. Immediately, his jaw nearly dropped to the floor. In the mirror, Asher finally caught a glimpse of himself: strange black bruises and undulating bumps were scattered across his body. That pristine, smooth skin was now covered in sprawling web-like lesions from head to toe. He had mere moments to process the horror reflected in front of him before an immediate pain in the gut had him doubled over the counter.

His stomach started to bubble and groan, and through the foggy haze of his blurred vision he saw his feet begin to ripple and swell. He could feel the slick sweaty soles slide across the tile floor as they expanded and grew. As they reached a substantial size 13, the swelling crept it's way up his calves and into his thighs. Asher wobbled on his feet, as if they were filled with gelatin beneath his slippery skin while his knees began to buckle. He collapsed into a crouch, the fumes of sweaty footmusk bellowing up to his nostrils as his legs cracked and stretched above. He'd never truly experienced scentplay as he'd so dearly fantasized about throughout countless hours of edging to such content, nor had this funk ever emanated from his own soles. In the moment, he felt something within him prod into his brain. As if poking the individual folds of his cerebrum with thousands of tiny needles, causing cascades of thoughts to enter his mind- all of which telling him to embrace. In his mind's eye, he could see himself burying his face into his sweaty sole, between his long toes, lapping up every droplet of sweat that was spewing from his pores. The thought was buried deep in his subconscious, pried out with expert measure, by something now within him.

Grasping for anything to steady himself on, Asher gripped the edge of the sink, pulling himself upright once again and now towering above the countertop. He hung his aching head low, watching with strange newfound fervor as his cock began to feel heavier and heavier. Drool started to drip from the bottom of his lip, landing square onto the lengthening shaft. Like a sandbag, his balls dropped and swelled while he got harder and harder. Another onslaught of pinpricks in his head brought forth another command: stroke.

Steam started build in the bathroom as the hot water continued to fall from the shower, intensifying the scent wafting from now both his feet and his pendulous sac. Each breath of hot, wet musk hit like ecstasy, and with bated breath, he softly grasped ahold of his python and began to pump. Each knead of his engorged member was accompanied by a change. His fingers grew long and sinewy, smooth and slick with precum. His arms remained thin but toned, growing longer and packed with lean muscle. His torso lengthened, topped off with a firm pair of pecs above his sinewy abdomen.

As pressure began to build in his balls, his mind began to feel the needles one last time, imbuing his brain with one last injection of a single trait: pride. He didn't need the approval of anyone else, he was aware of how fucking hot he was. He didn't need to heed the rules that society had straddled him with, he always forged his own path. He had no fears of recompense for his attitude, his ego, his spirit- the world would either stand with him, or he would step on top of them. Either way, what bliss. As the last of his inhibitions and fears had gathered in his groin, he cried out in elation as he erupted. Rope after rope of black sludge shot from his cannon, washing him with a sense of relief he'd never before known. He released his grip on his softening cock, hanging at an obscene eleven inches. He smirked at the sludge coating his mirror and pooling beneath his toes. A sight like that would have shocked and terrified the old Asher, though as he stood before his reflection, devoid of any tension, he relented to the entity within him. It had delivered onto him a new self, a new image, a new viewpoint. As tattoos both vulgar and delicate began to sprawl across his skin, he happily admired his new likeness.

The entity had bestowed a gift to him; throughout the horror, throughout the fear, he was becoming the true Asher that had only ever peeked out from the abyss of his psyche. He leered, bringing his thumb and middle finger together before snapping loudly. From his pores, the black sludge began to spill across his body until he was nearly covered from the neck down in what appeared to be a rubber suit before it began to become a bit more defined. A plain white tee shirt, classically fashioned with a black and white varsity jacket from his college. Skinny, weathered black jeans barely containing his sizeable commando bulge beneath it's thin fabric. On his feet, a pair of white socks and tightly tied high top Chucks, quelling the ripe stink of his soles within the sneaker for some sub to pry off and enjoy.

He grinned, posing and modeling for himself, before he finally turned off the steaming water. After the long, arduous, painful process, the entity had incorporated itself entirely within him- now completely indistinguishable from parasitic to symbiotic. It had rewritten him, completely remade him in the likeness of who he had shown the vast virtual world. There was no cognitive dissonance, there were no lies, there was no deception. All that remained was the Asher he had created in his fantasy, now ready to fuck the real world and all within it.

Thus, as our creature feature comes to an end, I leave you with a modicum of friendly advice. Don't leave your phone on as you slumber, for those that are watching, those that are waiting, those that have been learning are a mere sheet of glass away from finding their way inside. Take my counsel, or ignore it. But do so knowing the outcome, and whether or not you are prepared to weather such a storm.

[qqueenofhades]

what's been particularly vile to me is this group of white online leftists who insist that anyone who cares about more than this one issue for the election is a bad person, like, as if us black and brown people are making up reasons to be afraid and not.....believing the gop when they say they are coming for us. believing trump who has said previously that he does not bluff, that he will do the things he's said he will do (i hate what social media has gone to the word gaslighting but it feels like gaslighting. we lived through four years of trump. we saw the damage. stop treating us like we're being dramatic). it must be great to not have to worry about that i guess? "life won't change under trump" is such a telling admission because maybe theirs won't but mine will. and so many others' will.

and it is often again these (white) online leftists that love to call anyone who disagrees with them a white liberal (derogatory) because they know it would be racist (bad) to be this shitty and condescending to poc but they don't want to actually listen to anything black and brown voters are saying. it's easier to just call us white liberals and throw our opinions out, to ignore the work of black people for decades to gain the right to vote, to disregard the weight of telling them to not do that. it's genuinely appalling. they care so much about racism until it's time to engage with poc who have different opinions than their online echo chambers, then we're just stupid liberals with terrible opinions like..... wanting to live. not wanting four more years of trump. so sorry for that.

sorry for this vent in your inbox, i'm just so fucking tired of white people trying to rewrite history as if trump wasn't that bad. he was for my family and countless others and i am terrified for what's to come if he wins.

The thing about (the often-white) Online Leftists is that they have become just as much as a radicalized death cult as the diehard Trumpists. If you don't want to die for The Revolution and/or sacrifice your life, friends, family, the rest of the country, etc., then you're Insufficiently Pure and must be Purged. (Which I think is just complete BS, as none of them could actually handle sacrificing anything, but it's increasingly the only kind of performative rhetoric that is acceptable in leftist-identified discourse spaces.) This is functionally identical to "if you aren't willing to lay down your life for our Lord and Savior Donald Trump and the Great White Christian Nationalist Dictatorship, you're a liberal cuck," but with the names and justification changed. It doesn't change the underlying radicalization, nihilism, and insanity of the premise.

Another thing the Trumpists and the Online Leftists have in common is that they are busily rewriting just how bad Trump was in order to serve their Ideology. Ever since January 6, 2021, the Republicans have thrown everything they have at revising and whitewashing any suggestion that it was an "insurrection," and the Online Leftists have done the same, in an attempt to "prove" their insane point that Trump "would be better" than Biden. This is embodied in the recent ultimate-brainworm-nonsense maximalist-online take that "Biden has to lose so the rest of the world will see that the US rejects genocide!!!" That's right, the message that the rest of the world would take from Biden losing to Trump is that the US rejects genocide. Never mind if Trump literally wants to commit all the genocide possible and to install himself as a fascist theocratic dictator. In the deeply twisted minds of the Online Leftists, this is the only possible interpretation of Biden's loss, so they'll push for it as hard as they can! The Trumpists and the Online Leftists, at this point, are working pretty much in concert to damage Biden for similar insane reasons and get Trump elected. Etc etc., one Nazi and ten people at the same table is eleven Nazis.

Like. Sure. Four years ago, when Trump was president and people were dying by the thousands because he didn't want to wear a mask because it smeared his bronzer, just to name literally one of the terrible things he did every single day (and not even mentioning how much worse a second term would be) we were absolutely better off. Super-duper great. (Sarcasm.) Either that or "there is suffering and evil in the world and the only solution is to drastically increase the suffering and evil for everyone and to destroy what progress we have managed to make because It Does Not Fix Everything Now" is an absolute moral imperative, and either way, yeah. I'm calling bullshit.

[mock-arts]

part 2/2 of my 2023 cover collection! This one only 75% star wars and 25% sandman. Check out my cover collection tag for big chunks of covers like this, or check out my big bang tag for a bunch of collab'd stuff! idk or do whatever you want!

oh, and happy thanksgiving for my american buds I'm thankful for getting to work with so many cool people

Links and summaries beneath the cut!

2023 cover collection

We'll Meet Again by @littledumplingwrites (art) (with more art by @punkascas)

When Initiate Obi-Wan Kenobi is assigned to AgriCorps, he goes to his Creche Master to ask why he hasn’t been assigned to a Service Corps better suited. As a result he’s sent to MediCorps to become a healer. Cue Obi-Wan becoming Ben Kenobi: a master healer and specialized surgeon who does philanthropic MediCorps work on the Outer Rim. It’s hard work, but good work and he enjoys what he does. But when the Clone Wars start, Ben is called away from his humanitarian work to patch up Clone Troopers and Jedi on the battlefield. And once he’s there, he meets a rising star in the Clone Army: one Captain Cody.

Or, Healer-Surgeon Ben Kenobi was called to the war front. And he wasn't too keen on going. What were the Jedi even thinking when they started a war?

That M*A*S*H Star Wars AU that I just couldn't get out of my head, so I wrote it. (However, you do not have to know or have seen MASH to understand this.)

Healer Ben Kenobi, Reporting for Duty by @littledumplingwrites (art) (with podfic by mengde)

Healer Ben Kenobi finishes his surgical work on one battlefield and finds out he has a new assignment: rendezvous with the 212th and work with the clone healers there. This makes Ben a little nervous, because his new boyfriend Major Cody is a part of the 212th and Ben hasn’t heard from him in weeks.

Can the two of them work through their relationship issues, even as the Separatist Droid Army closes in on their position? Can Cody learn to trust someone who isn’t a brother? And can Ben learn to put his partner’s care above his past hurts?

Can be read as a standalone. Also, you do NOT need to know anything about M.A.S.H. to read or enjoy this story.

Bonds of Beskar by @popjeckdoom (art) (with more art by Aliennotperson)

In a universe where the Mandalorian Empire never fell, but changed, Ad’be’alor Kote Vhett faces threats from all sides. His father, Mand’alor Jango Vhett has been cursed into a Majick sleep, and as Tor Vizsla and his supporters tear the Council of Clans apart, Kote is desperate to wake his father and reunite the Empire. In an effort to save his father, and his people, Kote Vhett offers “anything” to the person who can cure his Father’s curse.

Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi may be the person for the job; only one issue--the Jedi have been in hiding for a thousand years, still hunted by Sith and Mandalorians alike. Can he keep his true identity secret long enough to help the Mand'alor... or will events conspire to reveal him before his mission is complete?

Forever; Without Stagnation by @noir-renard (art)

Din and Luke meet on Tatooine. Din and Luke fall in love. Din and Luke get married—

And then the plot catches up.

The Galaxy needs you, says The Force, and Luke believes it.

Din will understand, Luke thinks. It won’t take that long. What is a few years compared to the vow of 'forever'?

Only Blindly Could I Read You by @lillytalons (art) (with more art by @vanisketches

Rex's goal was to get into the organization, get the information, and take it down. Of course, no one had ever successfully infiltrated this empire, and most people had died attempting it, so it was easier said than done. But, the fact that a government agency had also sent in an agent, their best agent, was either a very good or very bad thing. Rex just happened to recognize them, and for some reason, Ben had decided that working together was the best option. What could go wrong?

It's a Sad Song (But We Sing it Anyway) by @ouzoa11-writes (art) (with more art by @impalafortrenchcoats)

Obi-Wan and Cody Kenobi have raised Luke for years and are at the center of the Rebellion when a new threat looms the horizon in the form of a new weapon. The tides seem to turn in their favor, even as they face new challenges along the way.

Or: Obi-Wan and Cody are soulmates who just want to see everyone survive. Their lives from Luke and Leia's nineteenth birthday to a confrontation with Vader alone.

Standalone though it is part of the "We Raise Our Cups To Them" universe

An Epiphany of Poppies Upon the Battlefield by @questing-wulfstan (art)

April 1940, On a French battlefield, Hob Gadling doubts his will to persevere in being alive for the second time of his existence. He swallows morphine in the hope to soothe his horror-scarified mind, and summons a mirage of the stranger who occupied his thoughts as the patron of his immortality. In a Japanese psychiatric ward, Delirium of the Endless is alerted by Dream's irruption in her realm, who she found missing when she sought his company on her quest for the Prodigal. Disappointment overcomes her as she finds it was but an image of her brother conjured by a mortal, and so it does Hob when her eruption dismisses the vision. Delirium will not resign herself to her exponential loss of brothers however, neither will Hob Gadling withhold his aid from any entity in distress, whether the stranger or his younger sister ; they just might hold the might to liberate Morpheus between their four hands ...

The Other Kingdom by @banhus (art)

In 1916, Roderick Burgess successfully summons Death, and Hob Gadling wakes up in the trenches alongside three dead soldiers.

[gatorbites-imagines]

Can i request the continuation of jason todd and dick grayson yandere ask? Maybe add in smut aswell. (Don't force yourself!, Take a good care of yourself 💗)

-🥚 anon

Yandere Jason Todd x speedster male reader x Yandere Dick Grayson

Part 2

Headcanons

Imagine sitting in a spinny chair petting a cat like a bond villain. I have wanted to write a part two for this for a while. Instead of reader just dating his og universes version of them, what if reader was dating multiple people 👀? Cuz you cant imagine the kid of Thawne being a nice person.

Ill refer to readers original universe as OG verse, and the yandere universe as yan verse cuz its easier to understand.

Part 1 can be found here

In part 1 yan Dick and Jason has pretty much abandoned their former dimension in smithereens after having wiped out the entire justice league, as they tried to stop them from crossing dimensions and tearing a hole in reality itself to find you.

So, when Yan Dick and Jason appear in your OG dimension, different procedures set up by the league notify them about the tear in reality and how unstable it is. They’d rush there and find two bloody and battered versions of Dick and Jason, and thinking they fled some battle or a doomed timeline, they bring them to the tower.

When Jason and Dick wake up, they immediately fall back on the many tricks they had been taught under their batman, who was apparently even better at lying than OG batman, as they believe them when they claim their home dimension was destroyed and they have nowhere to go.

It takes a while to work Yan Dick and Jason into the league and their hero roster, but they never suspect them of being anything less than heroes and stable. They start calling them Rick and Jay since it gets confusing with multiple people named the same thing.

They don’t drop hints that they know you, but they do try to figure out where you are and what you are doing at all times, but its harder than they thought it would be. Who would have thought trying to track a guy that can cross dimensions and time at will would be so difficult.

Rick almost bursts a blood vessel when he hears some of the younger OG league members talking about how “Mach 10 has been dating multiple people at once”, and Jay wants to curl up into a ball and disappear and tear himself apart.

Their obsession finally starts showing through the cracks as they use league resources to find you and stalk you. More and more cracks appear in their masks and fake personalities, as they see you going on dates with other people.

Jericho, Jamie Reyes, Roy Harper, Garth, Kyle Rayner, the list went on. You seemed to be dating multiple people at once, at the same time, as you used your powers to be in multiple places at once.

You weren’t a good person, so you hadn’t even felt bad when Jamie had cried finding out you were cheating on him with multiple people, you just shrugged and asked him what he had expected from Thawnes offspring.

It was common knowledge amongst the younger league members that you were down to a roll in the sheets with most, but there wasn’t a loyal bone in your body, and you could easily turn on whoever you were dating at the time if it was part of a plan.

Of course. Rick and Jay never saw you as the problem. How could you be? You were perfect, you were everything that mattered in the multiverse, and you could do no wrong. It had to be your partners that were the issue, they had to be neglecting your needs and leaving you having to resort to finding different ways to meet them.

OG justice league knew Rick and Jay had some issues, but they had always blamed it on coming from a dimension that had been destroyed by some unknown evil. But as time passed, they started to think that maybe the backstory they had been given wasn’t true.

It came to a head when one day Rick almost gutted Roy after he and Jay had followed you around Coast city, where you had met up with Roy and the two of you had gone on a date, ending with you two back in Roy’s apartment.

Rick and Jay were both cracking as they saw others put their grubby disgusting hands all over you and just doing whatever they wanted. Whenever they heard others insult you, they felt like repeating what they had done in their original universe.

After Rick attacked Roy, he was placed on probation. Jay was more subtle about his plans, as he wasn’t as blinded by rage as Rick and was more fueled by not feeling like he was good enough and blaming himself.

People didn’t even put two and two together for a while when your non league admirers started going missing, only to be found much later dead in many different ways. There was no way to tie the murders together, but it was clear there was a pattern, but no one could figure out what it was.

The league finally discovered just what type of people Jay and Rick were when you one day wandered into the tower. Maybe the league needed your help with something involving the speedforce, or the negative speedforce.

But the moment the two yanderes saw you, it was like they became completely different people, the masks they had been wearing for months shattered as they almost stumbled over each other to get to you first.

You just saw in your seat grinning to yourself as they clambered into your lap, vile threats of what he could do to anyone who touched to passing Ricks lips, as Jay warbled out apologies and begs for you to love him and appreciate him.

The league wasn’t sure what to do, but their suspicions only grew. It got to the point where they somehow track down the dimension the Yans originally come from, to see what really happened. Imagine their horror when they learn Rick and Jay killed all of them out of obsession fueled love for you.

But when they finally figured out the truth, Rick and Jay fully dropped their roles and started chasing you around like lovesick puppies again, butchering anyone who got in their way.

The league could lock them up, but they had also seen what happened when they were separated from you, and as long as they were around you and an had no reason to lash out, they seemed fine for the most part.

You had moments where you would peace out to different dimensions, especially when Rick and Jay started foiling all your attempts to mess around with other people, Rick always exploding in rage and Jay breaking down in tears and wails of misery.

Again, you were never a good person, and they annoyed you sometimes, but it was kinda cute to have them begging for scraps of your attention even as the league tried again and again to capture them and lock them away.

Rick and Jay never find a way to lock you away, you are just too powerful. But they at some point stumble across ways to make themselves stronger so they can keep up. Like making themselves speedsters, or developing gear to follow and track you, they come up with something.

But you learn an easy way to distract them is by piling attention on them for a while, get them comfortable, then you can peace out when they get on your nerves.

Jay is always easier to trick than Rick, as Jay is always aching for any tiny piece of attention and love youll give him, his knees always buckling when you kiss him or hold him, words almost akin to worship always tumbling out from between his lips towards you.

Rick is harder to trick, as hes always suspicious and angry, but an easy way is to dominate him in some way, like tying him up and then leaving him there, leaving him to get out on his own, or get help from Jay if he needs it.

All in all, the league is scared and cautious, but knows they wont be an active threat to the league as long as they have you. And your relationship with your yanderes is nowhere near healthy, with you only loving them like someone would love a pet or a toy, and them loving you way too much.

But what can someone expect from the offspring of Thawne, and two extremely unstable Bats.

[essektheylyss]

This was entirely tangential to this post from @utilitycaster which is why this is its own post, but the tags made me think about what feels most compelling about Liliana to me, and it's really because there's such an interesting approach to redemption in terms of the sunk cost fallacy to be had there.

There have been plenty of comparisons between Liliana and Essek, but I don't think they're really situations that can be compared. Essek had done one horrible thing (that was of relevence to the story; it is implied that he's taken other actions that he feels were wrong, but we don't know what those entail nor do the Nein care enough to ask, so per narrative convention, they do not matter for analysis) and was only still involved in it to the extent that he couldn't take it back, so to survive he had to continue covering his tracks. But he was also incentivized to otherwise act in alignment with the group that was not those on behalf of whom he had made terrible choices, because he was still living in the Dynasty, and as such wasn't actively perpetuating those actions beyond the cover up.

Liliana on the other hand is acting with the Vanguard and has been furthering if not personally committing atrocities on their behalf for a number of years, continuing to the present. Like Essek, she believes her involvement in the cause to be a difficult choice that was made for noble reasons, and now can't see a way out. But she is also relieved to be told to stay, though at the point that they discuss her leaving, she is alone and outside the immediate range of contact or oversight from the Vanguard. It seems reasonable that she could disappear with a decent headstart, and perhaps become untraceable quickly enough to be safe from anyone following. With this context, returning to the Vanguard with the intention of feeding information to the opposition feels like the riskier choice, but crucially it is the devil she knows.

I actually liken this more to Cassandra de Rolo than Essek. Cassandra was manipulated against her brother by the Briarwoods, but this was also spurred by having watched Percy seemingly leave her for dead. There are legitimate reasons why the Briarwoods, as the people who rescued her and then kept her alive for many years, are the easier option in which to place her trust. She knows what she's getting from that vantage point and how to handle it. She doesn't inherently have faith that someone she only knew as a young and helpless child, who ran from the hardships she's faced, would have the strength or willingness to do what she has found necessary for survival.

I think that Liliana's actions are more willful, not least because she was not a child nor in mortal peril when she joined the Vanguard, but she sees herself as having made difficult choices when only faced with difficult options, and I do think they have been difficult. She didn't want to leave her family; she doesn't want to hurt the young Ruidusborn under her care; she is probably genuinely sorry that innocent people were considered a necessary sacrifice for what she sees as the greater good. It is psychologically taxing to feel as though one is always picking between bad options, which is a significant contributing factor for why people buy into a sunk cost for so long. And over time, those hard decisions become easier, because you know what to expect from the outcome. Though Liliana is well aware that she might be killed for a misstep among the Vanguard, she already knows how to act to maintain their favor, but how she might be received on Exandria by those fighting the Vanguard, even with the Hells vouching for her, is anyone's guess.

This is a very real reason why people remain in cults and struggle to push back against this kind of conditioning: because the decision to leave feels more immediately perilous than the decision to stay. (On a certain level making these kinds of choices and actions habitual is a fundamental basis behind a lot of military conditioning.) And if you are acting in the interests of your own survival, but that survival comes at the cost of that of countless others who have not, in fact, made any threat or harm against you to begin with, then is the nature of your survival morally defensible?

This analysis isn't a question of whether Liliana will commit to her role as double agent and turn fully against the Vanguard, or even which one of these is a "better" story; this is about what the story might say if she doesn't. Yes, she might commit to a different path than the one she's on and make an effort to redeem herself, but it is also a perfectly coherent and interesting story if she doesn't.

[rollinouttahere-writes]

(Don’t) Face Your Fears: Part 2

Yandere Merfolk Straw Hats x GN!Reader

1.8k words

Part 1

This is the second part to that merfolk story I wrote before that I retroactively added a name to once I realized it wasn’t just going to be a one off.

Despite several members of his crew wanting to come with him, the river cutting through your island consisting of freshwater meant that only Luffy could go. Sure, Franky did build what was essentially a mobile saltwater pool that Luffy could use to bring some of them along, but he didn’t have it nearby and Luffy wasn’t willing to wait.

He wanted to see you again, and he wanted to do so now.

Being a bull shark had many perks, and he was currently using two of them. One being the coveted ability to swim in both fresh and saltwater, and the other being an impeccable sense of smell. It was best in water, but this island was so small that he could easily follow your trail. An awfully long trail, he noted. You are quite the runner! Usopp would have some stiff competition if you were merfolk, too.

Your unique scent came to a head, bringing Luffy to a halt. Pulling himself up onto the river bank, he sniffed the air to confirm that you were nearby. Somewhere in the house not far from where he is to be exact. A sharp grin spread across his face. He was right! You do live near the river! This will make getting ahold of you much easier.

Before he could pull himself fully out of the river, someone exited the house. Not just any person, but you. Luffy quietly slipped his upper body back into the river, leaving only his head poking out of the water.

Your footsteps drew closer, stopping slightly upstream from where he was. Once there, you dropped onto the ground and buried your face in your hands. Luffy watched curiously as you groaned loudly and scowled at the river when you pulled your hands away from your face. Is this a human thing? He’s intrigued and inches closer. Humans have awful night vision, he isn’t concerned about being noticed before he wants to be.

“I can’t believe this. Months of work wasted because I just had to run into merfolk during my first trip into the ocean,” you muttered under your breath. “What kind of stupid bad luck is that?”

Bad luck? You meeting and coming to their rescue was good luck! Great luck even! Luffy frowned at what you said. He knows he startled you earlier, but he thought it was just because you were surprised to see a merman up close.

Did you just… not like merfolk?

Why not? He can guess that he was the first merman to ever be so close to you. How could you come to dislike people you’ve never really gotten to know? That doesn’t make any sense. If you were willing to help people despite your obvious discomfort, then surely you couldn’t be a hateful person.

An idea suddenly clicks in his head. Other humans must be telling you awful things about them!

Nodding with resolve, Luffy swam even closer. When he was right in front of you, he launched himself out of the water and wrapped his arms around you. You immediately tried to scream, but he was prepared for you to do that after your last interaction and slapped a hand over your mouth.

You kicked and thrashed in his arms, and it only increased as he began pulling you into the water with him. You’re definitely not weak, he’ll give you that, but you aren’t stronger than him either. 

By the time he settles back into the water, you’re hysteric. You’re still trying to scream for help even with his hand in the way, and he can feel hot tears streaming down onto him. That makes him feel a little bad about what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to upset you, he just wants to show you that merfolk aren’t anything to be scared of.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you!” If you heard him, you made no indication that you did. You were still fighting him hard and digging your puny human claws into his arm. What were these people telling you that had you acting this terrified?! 

Luffy became distracted as he picked up on more scents and heard doors being opened. It would seem that his hand wasn’t keeping you as quiet as he’d hoped, especially not with how much you were splashing in the water. Looks like you two are going to have to leave.

Pushing off, he hastily makes his way down the river and towards the ocean. You probably wouldn’t listen if he told you to hold your breath, so he settled for swimming with you balanced on top of his chest. This was easier said than done. Between swimming upside down and your squirming, he wound up dropping you into the water.

Bizarrely, you went from doing everything to get away from him to desperately reaching your arms out to his figure and holding on for dear life. Luffy pulled you back up onto him, patting your back as you hacked up the water you’d inhaled. Much to his relief, this experience seemed to have settled you down somewhat.

You didn’t look happy by any means, but you weren’t fighting against him anymore, so he considered this a victory. Seeing that there wasn’t anyone around, Luffy decided to try talking to you again, “Hi! I’m Luffy!”

“Please don’t drown me!” You sobbed, “I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you mad, please don’t kill me!”

Drown you? Kill you??? Luffy is completely bewildered by your pleas. Sure, he did drop you just now, but that was an accident! “Whoa there, no one is going to kill you! I’m sorry I dropped you, I didn’t mean to.”

“Then what do you want from me? Please just let me go, I promise I won’t tell anyone about this!” 

What’s got you so damn freaked out? He doesn’t get it. How dangerous are the people around here that you’re so horrified by him? Does every new person you come across try to harm you? That must be the case. 

“I wanted to see you again! Also, I want you to join my crew! You seem really nice, so I think you’ll fit in great,” Luffy beamed at you, not paying attention to how you recoiled from his teeth.

“Join your crew?! Are you insane?! I’m not one of you!” You spat out incredulously.

“What’s that got to do with anything? We don’t mind tugging you around in a boat,” Luffy didn’t really get why you were being so argumentative about this. He already told you that he’s not going to hurt you, what’s the hold up? These other humans must really have you brainwashed. Good thing he’s here to save you from them!

“I don’t want to be pulled around on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I want to go home!” You shrieked while frantically peering around to check your surroundings.

Much to Luffy’s relief, he’d finally made it out of the river and into the ocean. Once he’s gotten you away from this awful island, he’s sure you’ll calm down and be more willing to listen. You’ll love all the other crew members after you get to know them, he just knows it! You won’t even want to go back to this pathetic island after they’ve made friends with you.

“You’re back already? Could you not- You’ve got to be kidding!” Sanji surfaced and swam straight at you two. “You really thought it was a good idea to drag them out here just like that?”

You cringed away from the new shark and looked like you were about to faint. Luffy couldn’t help but puff out his chest in pride as you clung onto him, obviously a part of you recognized that he could protect you. 

“I had to! Other humans showed up, and I couldn’t just leave them all alone there!” Luffy nuzzled his face into your hair, choosing to ignore the way you shuddered from the contact. You’re probably just a little cold.

“That’s bullshit! No one came out until after you dragged me in!”

Sanji’s eyes narrowed at Luffy, “This is why we didn’t want you to go alone, you have no tact!”

“Like you would have done any better! You would’ve just creeped them out if you’d gone,” Nami jabbed. Sanji sulked away, not even attempting to plead his case. Nami, on the other hand, swam closer to you, eyeing you up curiously. She reached out to experimentally tug on your wet clothing, not paying any mind to how uncomfortable you looked.

Chopper was the next to appear. You were definitely surprised by his appearance, but seemed more confused than scared by him. The doctor went right up to you, visibly concerned, “Luffy! You can’t just drag a human into the water like this! It’s cold enough that they could get hypothermia if we don’t get them someplace dry soon!”

You latched onto this immediately, “Y-Yeah, you should take me back to shore before I get sick!”

“Don’t worry, I got this covered!” Franky pulled a self made boat over, “It’s not much yet, but I’ve got biiiig plans for this thing.” The boat in question looked like a small house boat. There weren’t any doors on it, just an open three walled structure for shelter. 

“Oooh, good thinking, Franky!” Luffy happily approached the boat and heaved you onto it. The second you were out of his arms, you scrambled into the walled off part of it. You stared at them with wide eyes with your back pressed up against one of the walls.

More of his crew appeared, wanting to get a good look at you now that you weren’t actively running away from them. With each head that popped out of the water, you curled in on yourself more and more.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? What if other humans come after us to get them back? Don’t we have enough enemies already?” Usopp was hanging back, still skittish about this whole idea.

“Of course it is! They’re our friend now, so we’ll protect them!” Luffy pulled himself up onto the boat while you shrank back even farther. He turns to face you, grinning even wider than he already was, “Don’t worry about all those awful humans on that island, we won’t let them hurt you!”

“What are you talking about? Everyone there is-”

“Very dangerous and spreading lies about what merfolk are like! You don’t need to say anything, I already figured it out,” Luffy nodded proudly.

“You didn’t figure shit out, you maniac!” 

No one listened to you, and there was a chorus of groans from the merfolk. This was hardly anything new to them, humans always assumed the worst of them. 

Admittedly, Luffy didn’t have a long term plan for what to do with you yet, but he’s already made it this far without ever making any plans. Everything will fall into place soon enough, and you’ll learn to be grateful for his extremely considerate rescue.

[crystaljellie]

I honestly think that there are so many interesting songs that fit the life series characters so well, so I’m going to talk about them here and explain why I associate them with these songs!

Bdubs - Never love an anchor by the crane wives

"With this heart of mine that's guilty, not remorseful" | It's guilty because Bdubs feels bad, he feels bad he couldn't achieve what he should. He feels bad that he killed Impulse in third life, betrayed him, and even then it got him nothing. He's guilty because he knows the harm he's caused

"There is love that doesn't have a place to rest, but it would burry you if it had settled on your shoulders" | I notice that Bdubs has a lot of trust and faith in his companies, something about this brings back the 'He loves me' scene from last life back. Bdubs loves a lot more than people seem to think he does, so he must hold it back in case of that love being used against him

"I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel" | Maybe things that Bdubs wants to be, for the sake of letting go and letting himself detach from these people so losing them doesn't hurt as much. Letting other people label him as such

BigB - Know How by the Crane wives

"I am not brave; I keep my focus on what is safe," | I think this is fitting to BigB even if it's not necessarily true; I think from his perspective how he feels, ignoring how he is actually very brave. But at the same time he does keep his focus on what is safe, there's a reason why he always makes it to the final or session before the final.

"Just because I know what I'm supposed to do now, doesn't mean I know how" (Edited line to be shorter) | I'm not sure how to explain this but I do think it really fits him, he knows all the things he's meant to do, to survive, for example killing with the boogeymancurse, but he dragged it out till the very very end before he killed Cleo in last life, because he didn't know how he was supposed to do it.

Etho - I don’t know anyone I am by Salvia Palth

"I don't know anyone, I am in relation to anyone I guess" | Etho has always been seen as a loner throughout all seasons, he doesn't very much get the time to make meaningful bonds or understand his teammates. It makes sense he would struggle to see himself as more than just a survivor as well, he hasn't given himself the time to focus on anything else.

Scar - Icicles by The Scary Jokes

"Their shallow observations will only stall the transformation" | This is very secret life scar to me, maybe something something the watchers talking to him, everyone forcing the title of villain onto him, yet the watchers see him as a gift to them, as a victor and they're trying to make sure Scar keeps doing what he has been and not back out because they're calling him 'villain'

"But I admit it would be easier, To be relieved of all this shame and not have to wear it on my sleeve." | This fits Scar's feelings on the matter, not wanting to go forward, not wanting to be shamed and outcast by the rest of the lifers.

"I can only be forgiven if I'm giving myself up to you" | Secret life in general but also back in 3rd life, Scar believing he can only make up for killing Grian at the end by having Grian kill him, something something 'slay me and take the enchanter'

"My world has turned so cold, but I won't cry, 'cause icicles don't soften when they die so why should I" | Despite Scar being constantly alone, he stayed strong he never 'softened' or cried he also became cold which is why he won.

Grian - Bird Song by Florence + The Machine

"And he sang about what I'd become" | How Grian had slowly lost his mind in third life as well as all the other games, how Grian had became someone obsessed with getting kills, going out of his way to trick and trap people and find loopholes to kill

"I picked up the bird and above the den I said 'That's the last song you'll ever sing" | Grian doesn't want to think that he might be a bad person, or he might be going crazy, so he has to silence anyone saying otherwise, anyone that might prove a danger to him. Maybe because he can't let the watchers get word that he's exactly who they say he his. Maybe even so this is relating to the theory that he might have been the one to curse Jimmy.

Impulse - A Mask of My Own Face by Nature Tapes

Okay now hear me out on this one, Impulse is constantly in and out of alliances especially in third life, lying to everyone to gain vantage.

"And none of them would know that I am secretly myself" | Because they trust that Impulse is putting on a facade all the time, but maybe what they are missing is that the facade is what he considers to be him. Or at the very least keeps him safer

"I'd blame it on the person that nobody knows I am" | Something about him always being like 'Oh I did this so they'd trust me more I'm still on your side I promise' Or 'I did this for the task!' When he could have absolutely targeted anyone else.

Martyn - Metaphors by The Crane wives

"I've gotten good at living on someone elses page" | It's the way Martyn is always deceiving and always planning to betray, living on someone else's page, being content and loyal until he has the chance not to be.

"You can't trust a single thing I say" | Idk something about him talking about how he was planning to betray Ren in third life.

"Don't look too hard cause you won't like the scars he left in me" | THIS BEING SO TREEBARK LISTEN TO ME. HE GAVE UP SO MUCH TO REN THERE ARE SO MANY SCARS CAUSED BY FOLLOWING THE ORDERS TO KILL SOMEONE YOU LOVE

Lizzie - The Crooked the Cradle by The crane wives

"There's blood in the water" | Thinking about Lizzie showing up in limited life to play Pearl and the first thing she was tasked with is killing. Like she showed up and instantly was given the title of boogeyman, a gimmick that was only there in the one other season she was in, a sense of familiarity and a sense of dread.

"The quiet are restless the silent are still" | When there is peace on the server and it is quiet there are people waiting to kill. When it is silent it is because all is dead. And Lizzie knows that well being quick to die each time, she is the silent, especially when she fell into the void, she died alone and in scilence.

"If Mercy's abound I'll be safe I'll be sound, and the devil won't know of the love I just couldn't let go" | Something about Joel being the cause of her death In Secret life... loved him so much she went down for him, she couldn't let it go and it got her killed.

"Can anyone hear me?" | Her in the void not being able to be heard....

Mumbo - Saint Bernard by Lincoln

"To remind me that I am a fool" | I am very strongly of the headcanon that Mumbo is also a watcher, something something he needs to remind himself that he is fooling himself into thinking he could fit in with the world of the watchers or the world of the players

"When I am dead I won't join their ranks because they are both holy and free" | And Mumbo's not, Mumbo doesn't get to go where they go, he still has more to do, more to make up for. Still instructions left to follow

"There's really just one thing that we have in common, neither of us will be missed" This is so Mumbo talking to Grian coded for me

Pearl - Here I am by the Crane wives

"How long have I been here all alone" Double life Pearl in her tower....

"Settled in, had a plan but I never factored in, Everyone else saying goodbye" | Basically also double life Pearl she had a plan with Martyn go to the nether get stuff come back find her soulbound, and then they all left her.

"This ghost town is making a ghost of me" | Everyone dying around her, and being alone like this without chance of redemption slowly killing her.

"I promised myself I'd learn to be the one who leaves" | Throughout the next games, like secret life, she'd be the one who leaves instead of gets left behind, but she didn't seeing how she was always last one alive out of her teammates

Skizz - Wrecking ball by mother mother

"I made a fist and not a plan" | Skizz is usually quite reckless and goes action first plan second.

"You gotta see the artistry In tearing the place apart with me, baby" | This but more in the ironic sense, because Skizz while he wants to reign chaos he is also fiercely loyal and kind to his allies, so tearing the place apart with me, is important. He doesn't just want to cause chaos he wants connections

Scott - Icarus

"Climb ye higher and higher and higher 'Til you're far away and breathing cleaner air" | Scott winning last life, climbing higher and higher through the ranks until he breaks through the clouds into what he had hoped was cleaner air spoiler alert it’s not.

"Who have you become in the wake of all that's happened here?" | What’s happened to you, what happened in last life that changed you, what made you so cold and bitter and so quick to assume the worst when double life came

"Spreading out the ashes of a love That only gave and gave" | Either this as flower husbands, being the ashes of a love that only gave to others, or specifically Scott’s love, that only gave and gave to the one whom he loved

"There's no room for all the hearts who will not stay" | For the people who will not stay with him, the watchers pressuring him to do better and leave the, behind. He won’t though.

Joel - The Wolf by the crane wives

"I will join the wolf at my door Breathing out storms when she comes around" | Well yes we know Joel is a dog boy clearly, but also how he is oh so aggressive to everyone he meets, ferocious and knocking things down.

"I am always burning, burning, burning" | Burning with rage? Burning things down? So many emotions they're lighting up his world so much that it blinds him from seeing anything else

Jimmy - Hollow Moon By the crane wives

"In the darkness, Slowly crawling over my skin, Whispers at the door, "let us in, let us in" | Whispers of the watchers, or maybe his curse, something knocking to let death in.

"I won't be sleeping, There's too many monsters in the backyard" | Okay yes funny because of Minecraft mechanics. But also, idk something about Jimmy not being able to see the watchers but still feeling their presence.

(I'm giving Jimmy an extra song because he's special)

Strawberry blond by Mitski

"I love everybody because I love you When you stood up, walked away barefoot And the grass where you lay left a bed in your shape I looked over it and I ached" | YES I AM BACK ON MY FLOWER HUSBANDS BULLSHIT! Trust me so much they're so insanely in love, they love the world because they love each other, their relationship is so sweet and soft.

"All I need, darlin', is a life in your shape I picture it, soft, and I ache" | because all they ever needed was each other, not the death not the violence, just to be in love

Tango - Monster by Dodie

"I'm guessing that I've grown horns I guess I'm human no more I can tell I've rotted in your brain" | Tango's anger and wondering if those reactions made others see less in him. Make him a monster

"You think I'm a crazy bitch I craft my words to fit your head 'Cause no one listens to the dead" | Idk... something about this and Tango, he always dies relatively early too, maybe it's only death that'll comfort him

Cleo - The Garden by The Crane Wives

"My stone, My shield, my steady hand, Hold your light To the darkness in my head" | Something about this being about how Scott has been her friend and ally throughout all seasons

"Give me something pretty to wear beneath my blood-stained clothes" | I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT BUT THIS IS LIMITED LIFE CLETHO, DOES ANYONE HEAR ME PLEASE TRUST

"My darling, the devil knows my name" | Cleo makes a name known for herself by fighting, making a point with their sword

"Get on your knees and, Dig up the garden, Won't you throw down that spade and, Dig up the garden, darling?" | Something something a wife talking to her husband

Ren - Arms Tonite by Mother Mother

"I died in your arms tonight" | Martyn killing Ren in 3rd life....

"I lost sight in your arms tonight, it was nice" | Lost sight of the goal so obsessed with his kingdom and the Red army

"I cry hard because I have died, and you're alive" | Martyn out living him (Not by very long) In third life

Gem - The Well by the Crane Wives

"All the words I couldn't say to you Fill up the spaces in my chest" | This being Shiny Duo and Gem and pearl being on different sides unsure of how to stay together

"Send me anywhere, take me out I'm the well they're gonna drag you down" | Gem knowing she's only going to be used as a catalyst to hurt others despite her wants

"That old house, those rotting memories Burned easier than I'd have thought" | Those short memories of limited life being replaced by the nicer memories of at least the first half of secret life

And I am done yapping, mayhaps I will do more someday