#just shoddy observation

[codenamesazanka]

extremely questionable methodology but i compiled all the dialogue spoken between Shigaraki and Deku starting from when Shigaraki breaks out of AFO’s control in Chapter 379 up to Chapter 412.

(There are chapters where they appear but do not speak. Those are the chapter numbers.)

The takeaway is that Shigaraki is extremely chatty! A lot of it is taunts, but Shigaraki’s also revealing a lot of stuff about his plans and his opinions.

Deku does not seem as interested in returning the conversation, however. Whenever he does speak, it’s less in response to any of the content of Shigaraki’s chatter, and more heroic statements of intent. (The ‘you’re still human’ is the only direct refutation, I think.)

To be fair, his focus is all on surviving Shigaraki’s attacks. Nearly all his internal thoughts are strategy - combining a quirk with this quirk, how exactly he can physically stop Shigaraki. Additionally, before Chapter 410, he was probably too worried about All Might; while for most of Chapter 412, he was asphyxiating. Hard to chat when so much shit is happening.

And you can argue Shigaraki is just Villain monologuing. Deku doesn’t have to pay attention to anything he says - a lot which are, after all, taunts - he doesn’t have to engage with Shigaraki’s dumb rants.

His goal is to save Shigaraki/The Crying Child, and only that - not like talking or asking questions about anything or responding is required for that.

[mugentakeda]

sorry for atla posting (it will happen again) but i was thinking about the yukka/zukka parallels and that post saying "what if sokka held resentment to iroh because he thinks maybe yue wouldnt have thought to sacrifice herself if iroh hadnt said anything abt her connection to the moon" and then how zuko hadnt even considered being the one to take the firelord title until iroh said it was a swell idea and then zuko just went with it because zukos mental state at that moment was if iroh told him to jump hed say how high

sokka watches zuko struggle to not deteriorate under the pressure of the crown and taking care of his sister and his dad rotting away in his basement and assassinations and revolts and paying for his forefathers mistakes and his uncles mistakes and that same uncle fucked off to ba sing se and is just living it up there while zuko does all the dirty work. sokka watches him spend hours going through passing big laws about big important things and then he watches zuko spend hours going through unimportant petty bills that his advisors toss at him just because they dont like him and zuko just keeps trudging through it, despite it all.

sokka is watching zuko dissolve into ashes right before his eyes the same way he watched yue dissolve into mist right before his eyes. and the fact that both times it was caused by love for a country that, in sokkas opinion, they truly owe nothing to (yue wouldve been miserable her whole life stuck with a loser like hahn, unable to ever voice her true feelings about what happened around her because shes always seen at the council meetings but never heard, trapped by her countrys traditions. zuko works like a dog day and night in the same place that burned him inside out for all to see and mock, trapped until he dies by his countrys mistakes.), and obligation. and on top of that, both times it came about because of a suggestion iroh made.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn't seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr...but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

What is a "Speaker to the Dead"?

Actually, Magnus Quinn isn't terrible at sword fighting

Imperial complicity: Abigail the First

Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate

Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?

What does the Fifth House actually do?

The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family

Cytherea's political observations at the anniversary dinner

Abigail Pent's affect: ghosts and autism

Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?

Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children

Magnus Quinn's very understandable anger

Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy

Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?

"Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her" (the Fifth in TUG)

The Fifth's relationship dynamic

The Fifth's relationship is unconventional in a number of ways

The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus' relationship

Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River

Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?

Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)

How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?

Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

The politics of the anniversary dinner

Was Magnus born outside of the Dominicus system?

Overthinking John Gaius:

The one time John was happy was playing Jesus

Is Alecto's body made from John's?

Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?

Why isn't John's daughter a necromancer?

The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto 'what have you done to me?'

Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs

What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)

John's conference call with his CIA handlers

Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror

Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)

When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?

Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)

The 'indelible' sin of Lyctorhood and John's shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism

Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?

What was Jod's plan at Canaan House?

John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path

The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows

When was John Gaius born? (And another)

John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

John and Jesus writing sins in the sand

John and Nona's echoing chapters

John's motivations

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics'

Funerary customs and the violence of John's silence

Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time

The horror of the River bubble

Every instance of 'is this how it happens' in HTN

Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive

How do stele work?

Thought crime in the Nine Houses

The Houses have a population the size of Canada

What must it be like to fight the Houses?

You know what can't have been fun? Merv wing's megatruck on Varun day...

Augustine's very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)

Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way

Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system

Why don't the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?

How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?

How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)

What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?

Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship

The horrors the Cohort found at Canaan House

Do the Houses understand the tech keeping them alive?

Overthinking House religion:

What do the Houses believe about death?

Was M's nun a Franciscan?

Cavaliership and arbitrary socio-religious structures

Ritual scarification

Sacraments and sacramentals

What did Silas think god wanted at Canaan House?

In defense of Silas

There's no such thing as a 'good' necro/cav relationship

Veiling and shaving in Ninth House cult practice

Tongue-in-cheek thoughts on Eighth and Sixth religion

A very long deep-dive on House belief and practice

Overthinking Harrowhark Nonagesimus:

'The meat of your meat...belonged to god' and 'that is how meat loves meat'

The horror of parental touch: Harrow, John Gaius, and Abigail Pent

Why is Harrow so obsessed with Abigail's hands?

Frontline Titties of the Fifth and transgressive necro/cav relationships

Harrow, Wake, and permeability of the soul in HTN

Bible studies for weird queer necromancers:

Epiphany: revealing god's child to the wider world

The Holy Innocents and the creche massacre

The Virgin Mary and Commander Wake

John Gaius and John the Baptist

Instantiating the Trinity and the Second Resurrection

What's the significance of Paul?

St Paul's theology of gender and sexuality and the House theology of cavaliership

Maundy Thursday: consuming another for eternal life

Harrow and the Harrowing of Hell

[civildisorderstream]

2023, The Year of Self-Sabotage

Has anyone noticed the trend businesses have been on in 2023? There's a LOT of self-sabotage going on in the business world. Throughout my life, and everyone else has their own observations too, once in a while you see a company make a boneheaded decision about their product or service. And once in a while you'll see a decision get made that is bad, but maybe it at least has some justification (even to an anti-capitalist goober like myself). But this year has been nonsensical moves of greed or product/service sabotage that make no sense for longevity or harm what's in the best interest of the consumer.

Activision-Blizzard: The Overwatch debacle, and Diablo Immortal's scummy practices.

Netflix: The account sharing debacle.

Twitter: Maximum divorced loser Elon Musk destroying its functionality and branding and we still call it Twitter.

Reddit: Inspired by Musk's stupidity, the API tools debacle. Shame on the Reddit communities for not knowing how to strike btw (you don't put a time limit on it).

Hollywood: Pulling shows and films from streaming services to declare them as failed products and somehow get a tax write-off for it.

Also Hollywood: Willing to take quarterly losses greater than the annual cost to meet the demands of two striking unions put together.

Unity: Announced in the past day that it will charge developers a fee for installations because greed.

Titan Submersible: "Safety is for losers" says billionaire who proceeds to use his shoddy tech to do a murder-suicide.

Starbucks: Breaking ALL of the labor laws to try and stop unionization. Admittedly a reach to be on this list but the situation (like all the others) is ongoing and can compound.

Embracer: A massive corporate company that bought a bunch of smaller companies. Thought a 2 billion dollar deal with the Saudi government was a sure thing, so they spent 2 billion dollars on stuff. Deal falls through, so they start closing companies they acquired.

That's just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. These aren't business decisions done for the sake of consumers. These are all decisions done to spite consumers or the workers who produce the products and services.

People try to remember years as being the "year of" something. And it's a thing I do too. For me, 2023 is the year of corporate self-sabotage.

[blueywrites]

morning head

(find the companion ficlet here)

eddie munson x gn!reader (no pronouns, no genital or physical description given aside from having enough hair that someone can grab)

you wake eddie up with a blowjob.

cw: 18+ only. oral (m receiving), somnophilia with no explicit consent given (eddie is happy about it; don't do that in real life). eddie refers to reader as 'baby' and 'sweetheart'. fluffy, sensual smut with no plot.

2.4k

The trailer is cold. Frost kisses the edges of the dirt-smudged window in Eddie’s bedroom, and wisps of bitter air leak in through the shoddy seal between frame and wall. Maybe that’s what rouses you – the bite of cold on your nose, enough to make you scrunch your face and turn away from the blue light filtering through the glass. The move smushes your cheek to a splay of Eddie’s ticklish curls. The prickle against your skin makes you too itchy to sink back into the grips of sleep; your consciousness rises up instead, settling behind your eyelids. It doesn’t take long for you to decide to give up and crack your lashes, blinking blearily to clear your vision.

Eddie’s face is inches from yours. His cheek is cast in the cool early-morning glow of the window you turned from, and that light fuzzes soft over his nose and lips flushed pink from sleep. The planes of his face are smooth and relaxed, though even sleep cannot erase all the lines in his skin. They’re evidence of how untamed his living is— laughter at the edges of his eyes, divots of dimples that frame the corners of his mouth, faint scrunch marks between his dark brows. Real, alive, and so utterly beautiful. It’s a rare moment to see him so peaceful, only stolen due to the heaviness of his slumber, and you covet the opportunity to observe him unabashedly. The sight filters into the crevices of your chest, settling into a comforting warmth; if you hadn’t already been swathed in heat from the neck down, you’d still be protected from the cold.

You shift slightly closer to Eddie, close enough that your belly brushes against the cotton of his shirt where your own has ridden up in your mid-sleep writhing. He doesn’t twitch, doesn’t even stir, and you smile as that fact fills you with more affection than could be explained away should you be questioned about it. Why is everything he does so endearing to you? Because he’s Eddie, you suppose, and that’s enough. Moved by that feeling, you hook your arm around the curve of his slender waist, pressing your palm between his bony shoulder blades and fanning your fingers to reach as much of him as possible over his t-shirt. 

The smallest sign of life then. Without even a flutter of his dense eyelashes, Eddie turns further onto his side, his torso and hips curling towards you as if by instinct even while his arm remains thrown wide, splayed across the sheets, his wrist dangling from the edge of the bed. The arm closest to you is tucked under both of your pillows, bent toward his head, his skull cradled by his own fingers beneath layers of cotton and worn filler. He’s just getting comfortable, you suppose. But incidentally, his shifting stirs the air beneath your heavy blankets, and a waft of scent blooms from the shadowy space your bodies make separating top sheet from mattress. 

The smell is all heat and musk, sleep and body. It’s a scent that calls to your own body, stirring the animal that lives in the pit of your stomach. The animal rouses with a languid stretch, attention piqued as you inhale deeply— tang like the edge of sweat, sweet and rich like churned earth and the ghost of rumbled pleasure against your thighs. 

Cool light and chilled air become stifled by stagnant darkness as your animal guides you beneath the blanket.

You slip down, seeking blindly with your face. Down, and it brushes against the cotton covering Eddie’s chest; down more, and your nose finds the soft, smooth pudge of his abdomen above his belly button. Down again, and the shirred band of his boxers bumps your chin. The humidity from your breath and the heat from his body are already making your cheeks damp as you nuzzle against the wiry hair that peeks above his boxers, just a taste of the nest that lies inside. The masculine scent of him is stronger here, and Eddie’s thigh twitches sleepily as your now-warm nose buries against him. You thread one arm between his legs and the other over his thigh, hugging his lower half with a contented, blissful hum muffled from his ears beneath the heavy blanket.

It’s a little hard to breathe in here, but you wouldn’t give it up for anything when you get to love on him like this. Even unconscious you know he likes it because his top leg shifts back and his hips bump up, knocking the soft mound beneath the fly of his boxers against your chin. These shifts are slight— tiny, languid movements that would be more purposeful if he were awake, and knowing he’s still asleep makes the animal inside purr. It perks, intrigued by the promise of a new game: pleasuring Eddie without waking him.

Your nuzzling turns to soft, light kisses peppered over the thin material keeping him from you. It doesn’t take long to have him plumping under your lips; you open them wide, fanning him with hot breath through starchy cotton as you gain satisfaction by fitting them sideways over the width of his length and sucking lightly. You can only taste dry cotton and not any of him, but it has the desired effect: Eddie’s abdomen tenses briefly, and when he relaxes again, his cock has fully stiffened, now ready and waiting for you to free it.

Tingling heat grows between your thighs as you waste no time taking him out. Carefully, you stretch the waistband to prevent it from catching on his head, tucking it down just far enough to keep your treasure exposed. You rest your head on his bush, letting a gentle palm guide his silken hardness against your mouth. There. It’s with a rush of relief and excitement that your lips finally touch Eddie’s skin, and when your tongue snakes out to taste him, you moan quietly in the back of your throat. Another lick, a longer one, and the arm Eddie had thrown wide and let dangle from the edge of his bed shifts down in an arc toward his hip.

You pause for a moment, motionless and listening to see if he’s awakened. After a long moment of still silence, you allow yourself to move again. Your lips drag lightly up his silken, musky skin, seeking the nexus of heat on him; they bump against his spongey, swollen head, and you tent the blanket as you arch up and take his tip into your mouth.

That sweet, earthen tang blooms on your tongue. Spit pools in response, a drooling reply from your animal. You stretch the wet muscle down, seeking the ridge of his head and running it along the underside to earn yourself a twitch. It excites you, spurring you to push down lightly and pull back, letting the wet heat of your mouth slick him up and the drag of your lips make him feel good.

Push and pull, push and pull— with each bob, you love on your man as he sleeps. You get lost in the steady rhythm, attention honed to the feeling of him filling and leaving you, the thrum of the pulsing vein on his cock, the slick you leave behind on his skin, spit slowly crawling toward his base where your fingers are wrapped around him. All is heat, sweat, and friction, wetness and tang, the stretch of your lips and the familiar pinch in your jaw. The delicious labor of bringing your partner pleasure.

You get so lost in Eddie that you nearly bite down when the blanket is suddenly jerked from your head. 

Luckily for him, your teeth don’t budge, although you do make a startled noise in the back of your throat. Your first instinct is to suck the rush of fresh air greedily into your lungs through your nose, and then your eyes flick to up Eddie’s face, wide and nearly guilty as if you’ve been caught out. He looks sleepy still— heavy-lidded and hazy, hair wild and knotty, not yet finger-tamed— but his flushed cheeks and the heat in his gaze instantly send a pulse of desire between your legs. You bob down on him further, and his hand comes to cradle the back of your skull, tangling in your hair. When you swirl your tongue, blunt nails scratch against your scalp as his fingertips tighten. 

His lips part slightly so he can rasp at you, “Shit, baby. M’I dreamin’?”

“Mm-mm,” you hum, shaking your head minutely and smiling around his cock in your mouth. 

A lopsided grin slowly stretches across Eddie’s face as he looks down at you. He asks, sleep hoarse and rumbly and fond, “Well then, wha’d I do to deserve to wake up like this, huh?” 

You’re struck, not for the first time, by how much you love him. He’s so handsome it aches— in your chest and in your sex. You pop off him, maintaining eye contact as you lick up his slick cock with the broad flat of your tongue. Eddie groans, breathy and deep, gaze transfixed on you as you murmur, “You just smelled good.”

Eddie huffs a chuckle, amused and disbelieving, and his fingers reflexively tighten against your scalp as you take him in again, resuming a quick, deep pace that has him hissing and his thighs tensing.

Eddie sounds much more awake now as he groans, “Fuck, baby. Keep doin’ that and I’m gonna cum down your throat.” You moan, sucking deep, moving with intent as you keep eye contact with him. And you know by the way Eddie’s plush lips fall open with a rumbling gasp that he got your message:

That’s what I want.

It becomes obvious then that Eddie isn’t holding back anymore, and your loving quickly turns sloppy as he takes the lead. His hips cant up in time with the push of your mouth, and the wide span of his strong fingers cradles the back of your skull, holding you with just enough force to bump his cock further into your throat than you could on your own. His heavy breaths and airy grunts mix with the sound of thick, wet spit and your quiet, garbled moaning, filling the bedroom with wall-to-wall heat that quickly overtakes the chill of the winter morning. The fingers of your right hand clench in Eddie’s boxers, bunching the fabric over his tensed thigh as he holds you in place and fucks up into your mouth. The feeling of his cockhead bullying your soft palate, shy of mean but utterly insistent, makes you burn even hotter yet. Your animal keens and your lower half aches as you hold on obediently, shallowly dipping your head down to meet the thrusting of his hips as Eddie uses you for his pleasure. 

Quickly, the evidence of that pleasure builds. It reveals itself to you as his breath turns to harsh little huffs, his fingers scrunch up your hair into his fist at the back of your head, his abdomen ripples and tenses rhythmically under your other hand, which presses there for leverage to keep your stiff neck and shoulders from collapsing. “That’s it, sweetheart. You know just how to take my cock. Makin’ me feel so good.” Eddie rumbles his encouragement between curses and quiet babbling as his movements become taut with desperation. Through the thrumming of your pulse in your ears, you catch bits of what he’s saying— a stream of consciousness mixed with praise and reverence for you and your little mouth. How you’re so wet and soft inside, how you’re perfect for him, how lucky he is to have you under his sheets like this. 

You mewl around his thickness as he twitches on your tongue, a quiet, needy sound in the back of your throat that you repeat over and over even while your jaw begins to ache. The pain is distant when you can nearly taste the promise of his spend on the tip of your tongue. You’re ready to drink down each drop of his pleasure as if it sustains you. Maybe it does.

Just one more push and pull and Eddie drops his hips, guiding you down to follow him; you moan when he orgasms as if the knowledge of his pleasure has it rolling over you in waves, too. His elbow grazes the outside of your shoulder as his belly tenses and he crunches up, grunting open-mouthed as his head leaves the pillow. The familiar brine of his cum follows, blooming at the back of your mouth, and Eddie’s grip on your head loosens so you can shift up and settle his tip in the cradle of your tongue. He feeds you with his spend, but also with his vulnerable whimpers and the pink flush that has now spread down his pale chest. He cracks open for you, and you savor each bit he allows you to consume, which is everything. All of him.

As he twitches out the last of his orgasm with your lips wrapped around him, Eddie loosens his hand, shaking your hair from between his fingers so he can knead the back of your neck, firm and fond. You hum, entirely satisfied as he finally melts bonelessly beneath you and his other hand comes around to cradle your jaw. His thumb feathers over your cheekbone as you rest your head on his heaving tummy, letting his softening length slip out of your mouth and flop beside your nose. 

In the long moment of recovery that follows, you notice that the blue light from the window has brightened, accompanying the faint trill of the few birds that never left for the season. You kitten-lick the final pearl of cum that beads at his slit, feeling hazy and contented as the chill seeps back in, cooling the sweat on both your bodies. And you don’t move until Eddie does, stretching beneath you in a full-bodied, muscle-quivering, groan-inducing stretch that makes you smile against his bush. 

You’re rewarded with one last affectionate head scratch before Eddie sits up abruptly, jostling you on his lap and disturbing your peace. 

But that won’t be for long. 

Eddie ignores your groaning protest and, with a grunt of effort, he manipulates your boneless body flat to the bed. You bounce slightly as your back meets the mattress, your eyes scrunched at being manhandled until he moves to straddle you— sitting on your pelvis, hovering over you, gracing you with a vision of his rat’s nest of hair and his smug, frisky grin that means he intends to return your favor.

You more than happily accept.

please reblog if you enjoyed! your feedback keeps me going 💙

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Town Ghosts

Ok, so this is inspired by this post.

Danny almost lost his balance as he turned on Casper High’s street corner. Catching himself in the nick of time, he resumed his uncontrolled dash down the streets of Amity and finally made it to his locker just in time for the first bell to ring. As he looked up from his locker and noticed how sparsely populated the halls were, Danny frowned. First bell indicated they had 5 minutes before the actual beginning of class, and usually that meant a decent amount of stragglers were still chilling around.

“Damn it, do we have an exam?” Danny mumbled as he took out his phone to text Sam and Tucker.

Wheres everyone? He sent

Assembly, came the answer from Tucker to which Sam added, We saved u a seat

Danny didn’t bother answering and instead quickly gathered his things from his locker before hurrying down to the assembly hall. Everyone was talking which meant he wasn’t late, and he managed to catch Tucker waving him over. Danny maneuvered his way to his friends before sagging into the promised saved seat.

“I swear, if Boxy wakes me up at 2am again to rave about packing peanuts one more time I will put him in Soup Time for a month.”

Sam winced. “Rough night, huh?”

Tucker patted his shoulder in commiseration.

Danny closed his eyes. “At least tell me assembly is taking Lancer’s period?”

“We still have half of it afterwards,” Tucker answered.

Before Danny could groan, the teachers started shushing the crowd. As he looked up to the shoddy stage, Danny could see a blonde woman wearing all black.

“Nice boots,” Sam whispered.

“Hello everyone,” started the woman on stage. “My name is Black Canary, you may know me as a member of the Justice League.”

At that Danny sat up straight, suddenly way more aware. Simultaneously, a wave of whispers started amongst the crowd which was quelled by the numerous teachers shushing everyone. Once silence had been more or less reestablished, Black Canary started again.

“I am here as a spokesperson in our efforts to raise awareness about discriminations against meta humans. This initiative started as a personal project of a lot of the founding members of the Justice League. Did you know that recent studies that show that violence against meta humans is disproportionately more frequent than violence against baseline humans? In fact-”

And one she continued for the next half hour, after which she had some students distribute some pamphlets with different phone numbers on them. There was a little more time dedicated to a few exercises and a video of a testimony from a former meta human criminal. As the presentation progressed, Danny started relaxing more and more, to the point that he was half asleep when time for questions was announced.

“What about ghosts?” Paulina’s voice came through the mic the teachers had passed around, “Are they covered by all those fancy laws you mentioned?”

And yep, Danny was fully back to being awake now.

“Ghosts?” repeated Black Canary, in an even tone but before Paulina could answer, another voice cut through the room.

“Ghosts aren’t people, Paulina.” Valerie’s voice came through sharp and clear.

Paulina’s eyes narrowed in on her former friend. “Says who?”

“Says science!” Valerie exclaimed. “Though I shouldn’t expect a Phantom groupie to understand that.”

“You’re just jealous.” Paulina flicked her hair dismissively.

Danny sank into his seat as he tried to block out the very public argument happening in front of him. Black Canary seemed to be observing the exchange with curiosity, while the teachers were trying to reach Paulina to get the mic out of her hand. There were a few students with their phones out, filming the whole debate and Danny would bet it would be on the school forum by the end of the day, probably sparking yet another Phantom debate.

Just then, as if it wasn’t enough, Danny could feel his ghost sense activating. As he turned his head, he caught a green shimmer at the edge of his vision zooming past the window.

“Come on,” he mumbled. “Gimme a break.”

“Do you want backup?” Sam asked.

“I got it,” Danny grumbled. “Cover me.”

“For sure, dude,” Tucker answered.

Danny stood up and shimmied his way down the rows of chairs to a teacher with Paulina and Valerie still arguing in the background. When Danny reached the nearest teacher he asked for leave to go to the bathroom and by was granted it after which a teacher finally managed to get the microphone away from Paulina. As Danny walked out of the room, he could hear Black Canary’s fading voice asking a question as he got further and further away.

“What do you mean by 'ghosts'?”

[xenosagaepisodeone]

ringcams have to be some of the most neuroses-inducing technology introduced in recent memory. if recording strangers on your phone to upload to tiktok uses digital context to render consent and privacy moot, essentially dehumanizing someone in the name of framing them as entertainment, then 24/7 surveillance in the name of “safety” achieves a similar effect by presupposing criminality in everyone who comes into view. the smallest motions of social life such as wandering onto private property arbitrarily is crunched for signs of misconduct and assigned demerit points by the person observing. relationships with neighbours are shaped by unspoken rules and invisible tests that they aren’t even aware they’re being subject to. there is practically no neutral way to own a device like this because they’re marketed on inciting the fear that there may be actual life (and people of colour) in suburbia.

the average person will have no use for a ringcam. when i was working in insurance, i would be obligated to ask about ringcam footage for thefts and fires, but unless you are claiming nearly hundreds of thousands in damages under very unconventional circumstance, most file processing could be completed without it. their quality is often too shoddy to capture who stole your car in the dead of night, or they’re too inconveniently placed to pick up the plate number of the person who drove off after a hit and run. the average cop doesn’t even use it because investigation for thefts normally just involve going to impound lots or nearby pawn shops to see if anyone hocked your stuff already. it’s only effect is having an inner cop artificially inseminated in your brain.

[suzukiblu]

Hello friends please enjoy another WIP excerpt from "kidnapping your soulmate for fun and profit". ❤

The flight to Superboy’s presumable place isn’t too long, like he said, so Tim manages to keep his brain from running off in too many buck-wild directions, and they’re landing in front of a big but slightly shoddy-looking plain wooden house before he’s catastrophized too badly. Or like . . . maybe not too badly. In theory. Probably. 

Superboy lands in front of the porch and the little group of people who appear to have been talking on and around it, and doesn’t even let Tim down before he’s excitedly blurting, “Everybody, this is Tim, he’s my soulmate! Tim, this is, uh . . . everybody.” 

Tim’s done his research at this point, so he recognizes Rex Leech sitting in a chair on the porch, Dubbilex sitting in another with a ratty-looking little white dog in his lap, Tana Moon standing by the steps, and Roxy Leech sitting on them. He doesn’t know the dog’s name, but the rest of them he’s researched, for obvious reasons. They all look startled, then bewildered. 

Tim feels a little awkward about the whole situation, considering Superboy still hasn’t let him down from the bridal carry, but ignores it in favor of Smiling Civilian Face #4 and a polite little wave. 

“Nice to meet you, everybody,” he says. 

They all stare at him blankly for an awkwardly long moment, at which point Superboy finally seems to realize he should put him down, and then Roxy Leech lights up and jumps to her feet to run over. 

“Oh my god, SB, that’s amazin’!” she says brightly. Tim immediately clocks her as full of shit, but more in the sense of “trying to be happy for someone when not remotely happy herself” than “just being a fake asshole”. “Hi, Tim! I’m Roxy!” 

“Hi, Roxy,” Tim says, offering her a handshake to go with Smiling Civilian Face #4. She throws her arms around him and hugs him instead. Again, he’s too baffled to register the nerve-strike instinct. “Um . . . hi?” 

Dubbilex comes over with the ratty little dog in his arms and stares intently at Tim, who does his Bat-training best to think nothing but normal civilian thoughts. The dog sniffs him curiously and then jumps out of Dubbilex’s arms and straight for him. Tim barely catches him in time, which means now he’s got a dog and Roxy attached to him. Which . . . okay, sure. This might as well happen. 

Oh god, the dog’s licking him now. Why is the dog licking him now? 

“Krypto seems to approve of you,” Dubbilex observes. Tim continues to think very normal civilian thoughts, and Dubbilex tilts his head, looking . . . thoughtful. 

. . . Tim hopes these are normal civilian thoughts. 

“He’s cute,” he lies with Smiling Civilian Face #2. The dog–Krypto, apparently–looks like a wriggly wet rag, actually, but that’s not the dog’s fault. Well, aside from the wriggling. Dubbilex still looks thoughtful. 

“Don’t lick him, you little shit,” Superboy says, eyeing Krypto dubiously. 

“Aw, you don’t think he’s lickable?” Roxy asks with a sly grin, and Superboy turns bright red. 

“Don’t you lick him either,” he says, grabbing her off Tim and floating up into the air a couple feet with her in his arms. She cackles delightedly and throws her arms around his neck. Tim wonders if she’s his girlfriend. Recon on Superboy’s interpersonal relationships was . . . unclear. 

Meaning, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out if the guy was platonic about a single woman or girl in his life, so who fucking knows.

Tim really doesn’t know what that means for their mark, considering.

[candeathbereal]

Some Astrology Observations

Now of course I have heard about the cancer placements having a moon shaped face because they rule the moon it makes sense. Now I wanna talk about some things physically I have noticed for some placements.

-Fire placements seem to have a relatively athletic body and that is not to say skinny or small. Because honestly an athletic body in my opinion is more about the appearance of strength if that makes any sense. Now that brings me to my next point.

-Air placement seem to look whimsical. Like Gemini placements especially embody the look of a fairy or elf. 

-Water placements have a youthful look but look like a grandma at the same time. I swear most people with like a water rising or prominent water placements seem to give off the vibe of grandpa/grandma. For instance my boyfriend has a Scorpio sun, mercury, and rising, and this man seems like a grumpy old man, but I wonder if that has to do with his Taurus moon and/or Capricorn mars as well idk tho.

-Earth placements there is the obvious stuff like Capricorns having sharp features and aging kinda backwards. Or even Taurus placements having a prominent neck (sometimes no neck at all). Honestly I always wonder about myself with things but I have noticed that earth placements have a rbf no matter what bruh. Like me and my sister have it and like I’m a Leo rising but she is a Gemini rising. What do we both have in common? Earth placements…also we are related so at first I doubted myself with this observation. Until I started looking at other people’s charts and I think the only way to not have a intense rbf is if you have Libra or cancer placements but even that is shoddy. It’s a working theory for now.

Oh another thing about the cancer placement moon face thingy, Leo placements remind me of the sun most times. Hot, outshines anyone even if they hate being the center of attention (lowkey me but it’s less of a hate but more of a im so used to minimizing my presence due to how people react to me that I have grown to hate people paying attention to me) I think it has something to do with my Pluto trine ascendant or my Lilith in Aquarius opposite my Leo rising. Idk tho

-Having Saturn dominance is so weird bruh like the only sibling I have that doesn’t have Saturn as a dominant planet is like my brother (who has had the worst luck like what he has gone through would make anyone burst into tears from how fucked his childhood was). But I think Saturn dominance is more than just you having a rough life. It’s more about your perspective and how you act upon that in my opinion. 

Now take anything I say as generally opinion based because I am not by any means an astrologer. I am just passionate. Either way I would love to know you guy’s opinions. :)

[justpoliteconversations]

Trust [Four + Veteran!Reader]

It was in that moment that Four realized you trusted him. And that he would never betray that trust.

Was getting ready to start my Yan!Sky piece, but this bit me so hard while trying to get my tired ass in gear I couldn't say no. Indulgence at its finest.

Masterlist

TW: Choosing not to disclose. Read at your own risk. I mean it.

Disclaimer: Don't own The Legend of Zelda franchise. Linked Universe is the fan creation of jojo56830.

---

In an unspecified location, at an unspecified time, amidst an unnamed unit, you slumped over the embankment of your shoddy ass trench and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. Gun held flush against your side. In. Out. In. Out. Waiting. In. Out. In. Out.

The sun is hot. You're thristy. It's so fucking hot.

The damned flies are buzzing, buzzing. Buzzing.

You can't feel your leg. You can't feel your arm. That's bad, but you can't remember why. You can't move them. That's bad.

In. Out. In. Out.

It's hot.

'Gotta keep the choke point. You gotta keep it.'

In. Out. In. Out. Johnny's staring at you. In. Out. In. Out. There's flies in his eyes. They're in his eyes, they're in his eyes, they're in his-

'Gotta keep the choke point.'

It's quiet. Except for the flies. The damned flies. They're in Lee too. In his eyes.

It smelt of rot. And flies.

Those damned flies.

Johnny's rotting. Kenji's rotting. Samuel's rotting. Jame's rotting. Gorge's rotting. Kisha's rotting. Lee's rotting. Rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting (rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting)...

'They're in me too.' Those damned flies. Buzzing. Buzzing. Buzzing.

It's hot.

---

You never told him how you lost your leg and arm. About how you got discharged from the military. How you got those scars on your face and neck. You never told any of the chain how it happened. Just that it did and you didn't want to talk about it.

And that you couldn't stand the sound of flies buzzing. Or touching you. Or touching anyone else.

Especially not near the face.

That had been that. They knew more than most how difficult it could be to relive those kinds of memories. And so they respected your wishes and didn't ask again, no matter how much the sight of your arm and leg (and they were your arm and leg. not just replacements that happened to be on your body. your limbs. yours) enticed them to pry and dig and stare curiously.

Seven months they maintained their respectful silence. Seven months you came to know the Chain as people and not just characters in a game. Lived with them, ate with them, fought with them. For seven months, you said nothing of your past beyond a few raunchy jokes and a few strategic observations.

It was a closed issue. A non-issue. No one's business but your own. Until it suddenly wasn't.

And it had been you who broke that silence.

You were surprised as well when the words slipped from your lips one evening. Sitting beside Four (such a small man, and yet his presence held so much weight when he was so focused), as the small smith maintained his equipment with an ease that spoke of a lifetime of diligence and experience.

Everyone else was off preparing for the night. Foraging, scavenging, wood collecting, patrolling.

You were alone. You felt safe (Four was humming and mumbling as he sometimes did. sounding so soft and calm and assured). You hadn't realized your mouth was moving until after the silence had been pierced through.

"Could you help me with my arm?"

The soft humming stopped. The shifting of the small man turning his head (his hair dragging softly along the seams of his vest) loud in the sudden quiet.

It had been so abrupt. So sudden. Even to you (especially to you). So unexpected. A cold sweat wanted to break out across your skin. Your mouth was dry. It was suddenly too hot in your skin. Under your skin.

You hadn't meant to speak at all. It'd just slipped out. You'd just felt so calm and secure and warm near the fire with the smith muttering at your side (so close you could reach out and brush a stray bang back behind his ear. so close you could see the smothering of blue and green swirling in the red canvas of his eyes) and it'd just happened. And you didn't know how to take it back. You didn't know if you wanted too.

Your eyes moved to Four. To his small, strong (ridiculously strong. blessedly strong) form. All lithe muscle and graceful movements corded into a tight frame. Powerful arms that could wield a battle hammer one handed, a chest so dense it pushed the seams of his patched vest when he turned and breathed, or sighed or flexed.

He was looking you in the eye. His cool, focused gaze flashing blue and red and violet and green, a kaleidoscopic of colors flickering and shifting around an unmoving pupil locked on your form. More piercing than a bullet. Steady as a rifleman's hand.

Then he blinked, and cool violet (ringed with vivid green and a deep, deep blue) was watching up at you with mild interest. "Of course. Just give me a moment to finish up here and we'll take a look." He said, calmly. Steady. Casual. Violet and green intermixing, blue pulsing a steady, red-dripped rhythm in time with their beat.

You nodded, resisting the impulse to swallow around the dry lump in your throat. Still staring down at the head of fine, pin-straight blonde hair bent gracefully over the smith's favored shield. Your heart thumping, thrumming, pulsating in your ears.

No going back. Hold your ground.

You expected to hear the buzzing of flies in your ears. The thick of rot on the back of your tongue. Something, anything to punish you for the wrongness of your actions. Your words.

It never came.

You heard only the faint, red-soft hum of Four, mumbling under his breath as he breathed. In. Out. In. Out. The slip of delicate pink as his tongue wetted the corner of his lips as he worked. The gentle coil of his feathery bang (oily now, after weeks on the road) as it slipped from behind a single pointed ear and brushed against the soft curve of his cheek.

He smelt of forge soot and oil. Of sweat salt and the faint sour of body odor under the clean wash of heat, warmth, and fire that lingered on his skin always.

In. Out. In. Out. Your eyes flickered to him briefly. Soft, pinkish-red flickering around the shine of a liquid, unwavering pupil.

"I'm happy, you know." Four said, the soft, soft red pushing past the rings of blue and green and violet until they all blurred around the edges. A vivid sunrise in motion. "I've always wanted to be your friend." And he smiled. A bright and honest grin that colored the apples of his cheeks. "I mean that."

"Yeah." You pushed out. Throat dry, but heart beating now to the pulse of liquid red and blue and green and violet hue. "Me too."

---

"How long we gonna have to wait? I'm hungry! We can't even hear what they're sayin'!" Wind whisper-yelled, huddled up against War's side as the captain ruffled the soft fluff of the youngest's hair.

War's face twisted into an overly dramatic swoon as he cooed playfully. "Patience. No need to rush the progress of sweet, blossoming romance for the sake of one little sea brat's grumbly-tummbly~"

Wind's face twisted into the most offence it had held since the first time Sky tried (and succeeded) in putting him down for bedtime (fairytale story ready and all). Nevermind that Wind had secretly enjoyed every minute of it, and it had become a biweekly occurrence when Sky was feeling especially homesick. "Bast-"

A hand slapped over the sailor's mouth mid-curse. "Wind." Hyrule began, sweet (too sweet. it made Wind shudder with nearly forgotten self-preservation) smile on his lips as he said softly. "Our brother is making a friend. Let's not be selfish, yes?" He smiled just a bit bigger, hinting at teeth, and Wind nodded quickly under Hyrule's hand, eyes wide with the fear of fairy mischief dangling ominously over his head. "Good! I'm happy we agree!"

"Shhh!" Legend hissed, casting a menacing side-eye over his shoulder at them. "Shorty's makin' a mo-DID HE JUST PULL THEIR ARM OFF!?"

"HE DID WHAT NOW!?"

"BY THE THREE-"

"FUCKING COOL!"

Time sighed, running a hand down his face as his boys began descending into chaos.

'Malon give me strength.'

"Twi! Hey, Twi! Four ripped their arm off!"

"What!?"

'Please.'

---

Back to the shadows.

[od4saku]

Itoshi Rin is beginning to think that he is only good at wasting time.

Another day has passed with little to no contact between the two of you. Fingers thrum against a desk, occupying the vacancy that was once filled by your things: a laptop with a star sticker in the corner, a shoddy mouse, a book you'd raved to him about just a week before. He hadn't listened then— he'd give anything to get a chance, now.

The empty space eats away at him. There are only fragments of you left, and he thinks that hurts the most. Not your absence, but the falsity of your presence. The pillow on your side of the bed is still indented from where you used to lay your head at night (from however long ago it was last used— Rin doesn't remember when you stopped sleeping over.) An empty vase sits on his bedside table. You used to buy flowers for it; a new selection every month, though your favorites were always carnations. A candle you left on the desk is sitting lonesome in the corner. The wick is burnt to a stub, curled like an ashen rib, contrasting the stark white of the jasmine-scented wax. The glass jar rises far higher than the wax. It's an old, well-loved possession, and the fragrance carries even without it being lit, and painfully, it reminds him of you.

It all does. Everything in this room, everything in this apartment. In this life, even. He smells jasmine in the wind, and he sees the flowers you used to bring home in boutiques and growing wild on the sides of streets. He sees your outline in every passing stranger. The curl of your smile shows itself to him in the curves of smoke that rise from his manager's cigarettes. Words swirl and spin, on pages and on phones, and he hears them all in your voice.

He is resentful. It's a vile thing, the feeling in his gut. His liver swells with hurt and grief. His stomach pulls and churns. His lungs are heavy with smoke, from breathing in every bit of your shadow he could find. Oh, but he is angry, angry more than anything. Angry at himself. Rin didn't have to miss you— this loneliness, the kind that clings to your skin like ash— he didn't have to feel it. A knot has been settled in his stomach since you left. He feels encased in wax, a thousand stone heavier and smothered by the smell of fragrant flower and something burning.

Rin cannot help the hatred he feels for himself, making its home in his heart. Nestled neatly into the left crater in his chest is a sordid bundle of feelings that burn like a forest met with a match. Smoldering deeper and deeper into his ribcage, it flickers with more life than he himself has possessed since you left. Because, truly, it was his fault you were gone, was it not? The confession to himself makes his body ache more, and vile builds up in his throat— he knows he's right. He knows it's him, him, him. The thief of his own joy. You. His light. He'd put out the candle.

Rin remembers how you met. In an unsavory bar, with dim yellow lighting and the uncomfortable presence of drunks with no boundaries, he caught your semi-smile from across the room. He was sober, watching his friends meander around like headless chickens, and he thinks you were in the same position. Laughter creased your cheeks, he observed even though he couldn't hear, as you laughed at something your rosy-cheeked friend said. He followed you with his eyes, watching your fingers curl around her shoulders, pulling her close. Affection, love. His mind wandered; he mulled how might it feel to be on the receiving end. And he blinked, and then you were looking at him. A deer in headlights, he'd tried to turn, but you were already on your way— and he'd already seen your smile. So brilliant, so blinding. He was already gone, just hadn't realized it. (A candle, lit. Glass jar full to the top. Fresh off the shelf— faintly smelling of jasmine.)

The way he loved you was something different. A hot, heavy love. It bruised and left marks, blossoms of black and blue on his pale neck and collarbone. A fire in his belly and stars in his eyes. He loved you like an alcoholic loves a bar, like a fisherman loves the moon. A savior, a salve, a saint. Oh, he loved you something violent. A gross dependency, an addiction to your warmth. He needed you to sink into his skin, to burn his flesh so he’d be scarred with your heat forever. He wanted to smell like your smoke, and jasmine. To feel his lungs ache with the burden of ashes. Like no other, he loved you. He loves you. He never stopped. He’d never stop. He’s never told you— doesn’t think he can— but he would never stop. The sun sets outside the window to his right, filtering through the half-drawn blinds. The rays of molten gold hit his arm and the edge of the desk he sits at, slumped. The wood glows with a cold, impersonal light. A little fragment reflects off the corner of the candle’s glass jar, sending a piece of light dancing against the wall behind Rin. He swears that even the sunlight itself is colder without you to be lit up by it.

Ironically, he shivers. The fog glazing Rin’s mind fades a little and he’s forced to consider the time— it’s not late, but it’s been days since he last slept. He has practice in the morning. A foul churning makes itself known in his gut— practice. Lately, it’s been all he’s done. It’s always been that way, truthfully, but with you he felt more free. When he had you, he could push it aside, just for a little. When your relationship had begun, he didn’t need to care about much else. But eventually, time waned on. The candle burned, and the wax dissipated into gas, and his profession returned to the forefront of his mind. It had never really left, only been sidelined for a short while. But when this priority had resurfaced, he’d pushed everything else aside for it. All his other necessities lay forgotten, like a grandmother’s antiques after her passing. Left to collect dust in an insensitive relative’s attic. He forgot about eating, and sleeping, and you. The things that really mattered, gone. Ambition was his downfall in the end. Now he had it— he was back on top of his field, back in the lead, in charge. But he had burned you out. All that was left of you were the scars— ones that he had savored at some point. Now, they were just a reminder of what he didn’t have.

You tried your hardest, he can see in hindsight. A warm, home cooked meal would often wait for him in his apartment when he returned late from practice. You offered him anything— a massage, space, warmth, a home. You gave him everything. And he took it. He was hot-wired and burning, electric. Too gone to appreciate you, too bothered to give you peace. To say thank you. To return the favor. And still, you gave him anything you could. The fragments of yourself— the candle, the flowers, the shape of you still indented into his bed— you shifted your life to try and change his. And he remained obstinate and stubborn, stuck in his ways. Leaving early, returning late. Gone before you woke and back after you’d already fallen asleep. It was because of this that Rin didn’t realize you had officially moved out until a week after you’d left, when you’d texted him telling him you’d come to get your things on some foggy Thursday afternoon. He didn’t even notice. That, he thinks, snapped him out of his stupor. His drive, his game, he blanched. Itoshi Rin feels conceited to say that his anger makes his mind a scary place, but it’s the truth. And he has unknowingly made you a victim. His self-loathing had only ever had one person to affect before— himself— he’d never considered it hurting you. He’d never considered that he’d be the reason you burned out.

Today was that foggy Thursday afternoon, and he doesn’t deserve to wait for you like he does. He doesn’t deserve to still love you, not with the same vehemence or passion. The air is heavy in the bedroom of what was once a shared apartment, like smoke lingered, even though no candle had been lit in the week you’d been gone. Silence weighs like a million tons. He blinks, and the desk is still empty, the vase is still barren, the light bouncing off the candle’s glass jar has only shifted a millimeter. No, he doesn’t deserve to care. He doesn’t deserve you. He didn’t choose you, he lost you. He didn’t deserve anything. The rotten bundle in the left side of his chest pulses like it’s pretending to be a heart. He aches something ugly. And Rin almost, almost thinks he’s imagining it when a hesitant knock sounds at the door. He’s not near the entrance— a room away, about— but it’s so deadly quiet in the apartment that the sound carries. He stands and moves, and the smell of jasmine smoke follows. Rin is on autopilot when he opens the door, and he’s even more gone when he sees you. You are even more beautiful than he remembers, he thinks, and he can’t breathe. You’re so pretty when you look at him, but there is mourning in your eyes. Your warmth is not that of a candle, a fireplace, a welcoming, homely heat– you are hot like a funeral pyre. You burn like it hurts. Smile lines hide from your face. The crease by your eyes when you smile isn’t there. Your eyes, in fact, are red. Streaky cheeks and lashes webbed together indicate that you were crying and the excuse of a heart in Rin’s chest goes up in smoke.

He looks at you for a while, eyes flitting across your face, Despite how much it hurts, he drinks in every detail— every pore, every crease, every lack thereof, every single thing. Because it’s been so, so long since he’s seen you— a week— and even longer since he’s really, really seen you. Your lips are chapped. Quickly, your tongue moves to wet them before you open your mouth to speak; he tries not to stare. “I’m here for my things.”

Silence permeates the tension in the air. Thick, thick smoke hangs like a veil, choking the words out of him. He stands in the doorway staring like a statue of a fool. He’s sure he looks pathetic, stupid, even. A frail excuse of a man, of a boyfriend. A person who did not deserve you. Who didn’t see you begging to be seen, to be prioritized, to be chosen. A failure. The knot in his stomach tightens. He can’t stop looking at you, observing the invisible scars he’s left, the pain he sees written in the bags beneath your eyes, the streaks on your face, the hurt he put you through. Every second makes him angrier at himself. If he wasn’t frozen in place, he’s sure his hand would curl into a first so tight that his bones would crack like twigs.

He wonders how long he’s been hurting you for. How long you’ve felt this, this invisible pain. Without saying thank you, without saying he loves you. How much damage has he done? Irreparable, horrible damage. How long has he been doing this for, without even realizing? He thinks back to a couple months ago— a sleepless night.

He can't tell what time it is, but there is no light outside the window and the sky is speckled with faint, distant stars. Silken curtains conceal the moon, if it's even out there. Quietly, Rin moves to sit upright against his pillow, careful as to not wake you. It's so strange, really, because you’re right next to him and that usually leads him to peaceful nights. But he suspects that your company might be the reason for his sudden insomnia tonight.

He tries to make out your figure in the darkness of the room. He can’t fully see you— all he can discern is a silhouette beneath a blanket, a mess of hair falling against the curves and slopes of your face and jaw, and a hand, outstretched. Like you were reaching for him.

Rin's been awake for hours, he suspects. going through the motions of closing his eyes and pretending to sleep isn’t doing anything for him anymore. Listening to your breathing grow soft and slow only served to fuel his racing mind, the myriad of thoughts that kept him awake. You’re on your side and he observes your outline inhale, then exhale. Steadily. Systematically. Soundly. You look so peaceful, like an angel of some kind. A pit grows in his stomach. A nauseating, gnawing feeling. The very same one that’s kept him up. A guilt, he thinks, that is eating him alive.

His vision adjusts to the dark, and it falls on your hand. Your palm, more specifically, which is face up. A small, raw burn scar marks the soft flesh in between your thumb and pointer finger; nothing too big. It almost looks more like a birthmark in this lack of lighting. He winces, a little, as you shift the tiniest bit and push your extended palm closer. His vision focuses even in the dark and he’s forced to take in the true nature of the wound— splotchy, and angry. Red and fresh and beginning to swell a little, and undoubtedly painful. And all of it, his doing.

Rin exhales. He did that to you. It’s his fault you got hurt.

Just a few hours ago, he’d returned home to your shared apartment to you starting dinner. And he’d stupidly bumped into you when moving to wash his hands at the sink, letting you slam into the hot pan with your hand. Only a second of contact was made, and he’d forced you to let him help you bandage and clean the small wound. But the damage was done. He’d hurt you. His hands, your hurt. He burned you.

His eyes travel up your hand, to your arm, to your chest and neck and jaw and then face, where he startles at your open eyes, only one visible from your positioning, shining even in the dark with a mirthful warmth that he’s still unsure of sometimes. “Is the view really that nice?”

His face grows warm at your words, and the rasp that exhaustion adds to your voice. Your playful cadence only serves to ignite his guilt further, like kindling. His jaw tightens and he sees your brows knit together as you read his body language. You shift and pull yourself up with your hands, wincing slightly. He thinks that you think he doesn’t notice.

“What’s wrong, Rin?”

He can’t find the words to express his guilt. How he hurt you. How he was scared that it was only the beginning. How he had so, so much pain, and how he was fated to lash out. How it was only a matter of time. But even he didn’t understand this at the time, so he just choked out a simple, “I burned you.”

You blink. He stares at your hand, unable to meet your eyes. A palm gently touches his shoulder, and then fingertips move down his clothed spine. Your touch is so warm as you pull yourself closer. “You didn’t mean it, babe.”

He just looks at you. Your hand makes its way to the side of his head, and you pull the taller man close, down into your chest. The heat is unbearably kind to him, and he feels himself relax into you even though he doesn’t deserve to. You sigh, and it echoes in his skull. He can hear the steady beat of your heart. Gentle hands massage his scalp.

The guilt surges up again, and he blurts out: “what if it happens again?”

You pause for a beat before continuing your movements. He thinks that you can tell it’s not just about the burn anymore. (Up, down, up, down, switch to the other side of his head.) “It won't.”

“But it might.”

And then you press a smiling kiss to his scalp, and he feels worse and better at the same time— “it’s okay. It’s worth it, if I'm with you. Burn me as much as you like, Rin. I can take it.”

He snaps back to reality when you slide past him, coming closer than you have in weeks. His mouth goes dry at the almost-contact. He watches you walk into the apartment, steps losing speed the further in you get— you’re slow, and deliberate with how you navigate. Like it’s a new environment. Something inside him shatters. Because it’s not new. It’s yours. It’s his and yours and you used to belong here, and now you’re picking out your things. He can’t do anything but watch as you riffle through various drawers in various rooms and pull out various items. He spots a phone charger, a dented metal water bottle, a notebook, a scarf. Things too sentimental to leave behind in a place you didn’t care for anymore, he guesses. Because of course you hate him now. It makes sense— he would, too. Rin feels grotesque. He is a dissonant note, he is the smell of burning plastic. And he just watches you as you prepare to walk out of his life forever, the one person he thinks he can say he loves without lying a little, because of course he is. Of course, because Itoshi Rin is so, too good at wasting time. So yes, he agrees, he would hate him too for what he did to you. For keeping you at arm’s length and expecting you to love him despite it all. He would. He does. (When did he stop feeling bad? When did he stop noticing? When, when, when?)

You walk into the bedroom, and he tails you at a distance. Standing in the doorway, he watches you take it in. The half-drawn shades paired with an almost-vanished sun cast gold lines onto you and the room is uncomfortably warm. You are bathed in gold. You are so, so beautiful. And your eyes fix onto the nearly burned out jasmine-scented candle. Something in your expression shifts. Rin says nothing about the flicker in your eyes. You open the desk drawer, and he half-expects you to pull out another one of your belongings— but it’s a lighter. The long, slim kind, that you keep for candles. You don’t look at him when you say, “might as well, right? It already smells like the gym in here.”

Your words are joking but he knows you’re making an excuse and you know it too. Biding time, is what you're doing, and something so grossly like hope dries out his tongue. You are trying, too. You aren’t ready to let go yet, either. The candle isn’t burnt out yet. There’s still time. You light the candle and the warm smell of jasmine amplifies— there are notes of vanilla, and something sweet like honey, and it’s so much richer than it was when you’d first brought it home. The wick burns and stretches its limits. It’s a matter of minutes before it gives out. It’s a matter of minutes before his chance is gone. Rin is good at wasting time, but maybe he can be better at using it. So he dry swallows the knot in his throat, and speaks.

“I missed you.”

He didn’t know what else to say. It’s so painfully true, his simple, stupid sentence. He missed you. So, so much. You don’t look at him. You watch the candlelight flicker, as if you’re waiting for it to go out.

“Oh,” is all you say.

“I did.” He manages the words out and they are rough with unprocessed emotion and guilt and god, he hates talking about his feelings.

You turn at this, eyes dull. He feels about as shattered as you look. “I kind of can’t believe you.”

And why should you? Oh, why, why, why should you? The simple answer is: you shouldn’t. He doesn’t think you should. You don’t think you should. No one, god, no one, would think you should. Because Itoshi Rin is cruel. He is a distant lover, with hands bloodier than his heart. He is callous. He is cold. Itoshi Rin is not a man who will wait for you, but one who will want you to wait for him. He is stubborn and unkind. Itoshi Rin cares not for most people. He holds more hate in his heart than love. He can’t help it. He can’t. He can’t be fixed. Broken beyond repair, Itoshi Rin is not worth your time.

But, among all this, he is selfish. Oh, he’s so selfish, with the way he wants you. He wants your hands in his hair and your warmth on his skin. He wants to feel your heartbeat flicker and burn under his rough palms. He wants to hold the left side of your chest— your beating, bleeding heart— in the palm of his hand. He wants every inch of your body to have his touch seared into your skin so you can’t forget about him, not ever, because he can’t be alone without you. He wants your voice in his ear, he wants you to say his name. He wants your love, plain, simple, clear. Because despite his selfishness, despite his flaws, his ambition, his cruel streak, his hatred, he loves you more than anything. It’s one of the few things he holds true in his heart, one of the only facts and constants he has. He is 24, he is foolish, he is in love with you. This is all he has. He cannot let it go. He refuses to.

“I love you.”

You have been with Rin for a year, 8 months, 22 days, and a few hours. He knows because he keeps track. All this time, he’s never been able to say those words. He knows they’re true. You know it, too, that he loves you. But he’s never said them. You never pushed, never bothered. And if you cared, you didn’t say a word. This is something about you he can’t help but think was one of the reasons he fell for you— emotional intelligence, beyond your years. You didn’t make milestones a big deal because you could sense he didn’t want them to be. But you go still at his statement now, and he hears your breathing hitch ever-so-slightly at the unexpected transparency. He says he loves you, and he means it. He does. He means it more than anything.

If Rin was a better person, he’d say more. He’d tell you that it’s okay if you leave him (it’s not), and that he understands (he does but he doesn’t care), and that you should find someone better (even though he really doesn’t think you should.) He would talk to you about how his past shadowed his future, how that affected him and how that, in turn, affected you, even though he never meant it to. How he has always been second best, but with you, he felt golden. How he wasn’t ready for the candle to burn out yet, but he couldn’t stop it. He really, really should say something else. But he’s not a better, or bigger, or kinder person. No, that’s not the man you fell in love with. So he says it again. “I love you.”

The words are more confident this time, whereas they were quieter, more hesitant the first. You don’t blink, you don’t move, Rin wonders if you even breathe— and then you laugh. There’s nothing funny but you laugh. It’s a rather inelegant snort of laughter, that gasps out into heaving breaths. Before you know it, you’re doubled over, hands on your knees, and it’s not a mean laugh. No, it isn’t. Joy fills the room. It’s yellow, like sunlight, but a million times warmer. Not the unpleasant kind, but a gentle sort of heat— like the first rays of sun after a long winter. Like spring is coming. Like a palm being warmed over the heat of a tiny, lit candle. Rin cracks a smile. It’s the somber kind. But it’s full of something blazing— something hopeful.

Through laughter, you manage to ask, “say it again?”

He makes a face. “No.”

“Oh, screw you.” It’s like the sun has risen (even though it just set) and the sky has been purged of clouds and smoke turned into a gentle little breeze and the world was a million pounds lighter. The burden of guilt feels less like a burden and more like a ball and chain– still heavy, still holding on, but salvageable. There is a key. There is a way out.

His words didn’t fix everything. He knows that much. They didn’t erase the hurt, exhaustion, pain, the world of loneliness he’s put you in. They might never. But they brought your smile lines back. They brought the creases in your eyes back. They fixed, not saved, but fixed a little piece of what was broken. There is so much to be done. There are words to be said, arguments to fight, touches to be shared— but for now, this is enough. You drop your collected items on the desk and sit back on the bed, patting the space next to you, beckoning him to come sit. And of course he does, because he owes it to you forevermore. He’d spend the rest of his life making it up to you, he thinks. He knows he will. He sits next to you and feels warmer than he ever has.

(Neither of you notice that the candle has burnt out— oh, well. There’s a new one, unopened, in the closet anyways.)

[zensations35]

It's Manual Fucking Labor (Luci/fer)

Been working on this one for a bit. I love the delicious rivalry between Al and Luci, so I toyed with that a bit and made it spicy with some snz. I also am really enjoying the text flair I'm getting to play with for all these characters, so I hope yall are liking that. Ahaha. Enjoy!!

“That one needs to go over here!” Charlie points as she heaves one of the freshly slated planks of wood for the hotel revamp. “Can you cut three more for us, dad?” she smiles sweetly at Lucifer who sits crosslegged in front of a pile of wood.

He nods, dragging the back of his arm across his forehead.  “I, uh, I’ll go head and do that, sure.” 

Her eyes are bright and full, like the sun he never saw. “Dad,” she beams at him, “thank you for this.”

He tilts his head, “For what, Char Char?”

“For helping. For putting in so much effort. For,” she pats one of the planks, “for wanting to do it this way.”

Lucifer’s brows rise. “Th-this way?”

Charlie strides off before he can ask her to elaborate. His eyes flick back to the uncut wood and his lips tip down in a pout. 

“Problem?” A staticky trill sends Lucifer’s hackles up. 

“What?” Lucifer snaps, grabbing one of the slabs of wood, dragging a sharp claw deftly down the middle and cutting it as if it were a razor saw. Small fluffy flakes snow the air around him, making his cheeks fuzz. “Hhhfff…” his brow scrunches and a flush spreads from the circles on his cheeks. “Hieh--HiSFFH!” 

Alastor skips over, peering down in amusement as sawdust skitters all around the fallen angel.

“Hm, quite shoddy,” the Radio Demon observes, tapping his cane against the plank with a squeal of feedback.

Lucifer finishes cutting the planks and coughs, wringing out his hands. “It’s manual labor, Alastor. I doubt you’d understand how to even do it.”

“Ooooh I see.” Alastor leans dolefully on his cane, “bonding with our dear Charlie with handmade projects?”

Lucifer sniffles, scrubbing his face with his whole fist. “Mh-hyep.”

The smugness surges by 60%. “Ohh, are we having trouble??” 

“No! Of hh-c-course n--” Lucifer’s voice starts to pitch higher and higher, “Hig’Sshieu!” 

Alastor lets out a keening laugh.

“Fuck off, Alastor, before I make you,” Lucifer growls.

Alastor tuts at him. “No need to be cranky, your highness.”  He pulls out a red and black handkerchief, but Lucifer waves it off with a cool huff. 

“I don’t need your hanky panky.”

A whistle of radio silence whines in their ears. Lucifer cocks a black eyebrow.

“What? What’d I say?” 

Alastor sighs and tucks the cloth back into his suit pocket. “Not that you’d use it without a nose, anyway.”

“Hey!” Lucifer snaps, fangs glinting. “It’s complicated!” 

“Far be it from me to inquire how your…extremities manifest.”

“You--snf--you--hieh!” 

Alastor cups a hand over his ear, patiently waiting for the rest of the sentence, nothing but sass in his daggerlike smirk. 

“I-I’m gonna--hhg’HGx’SHIeu!” This time, several puffs of flame escape from between his fangs, and Charlie finally realizes something is going on with her dad. 

She hurries over after setting down what she was working on. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

Lucifer palms the spreading flush on his cheek and gives an unconvincing bray of a laugh, “Noh-huh-thing! Nothing at all! Perfectly fine!”

Alastor hums, lifting one of the smaller slabs of wood, his stance casually askew. “Of course he is, Charlie!” he saunters toward Lucifer, ever the helpful little elf. “He was just about to get started on--oh, my, let me just…” the Radio Demon scrapes his hand across the wood, brushing the powder from the last sawing off of it and directly into Lucifer’s fucking face. “There we are! Oh dear…” Alastor feigns concern as small spirals of smoke begin to coil out of Lucifer’s snarled lips. 

That fuck! He did that on phhh-pur-hhh!

His face scrunches, fangs peeking, rimmed by an orange glow as he lets out high pitched whines, “Ieh hiiih! HIP’CHSS’IEψ!” flames mist like aerosol, catching the flakes of wood shavings and motes of dust in its heat, cooking them into flakes of gray ash. The hellfire rejoices but the King sighs. 

He wipes away fresh tears and lets a vague chuckle out. “Ah, Charlie, sweetie, perhaps we could speed up the process? I could just, ah,” he angles his elbows and dances his arms, “Zap a bap!” he does a little finger gun shot. “Yeah?”

“Ah, poor, Charlie,” Alastor clucks his tongue, fingers drumming across her shoulder, “I know how excited you were to do this by hand with your father--what was it you said? A bonding moment?” his voice is anything but altruistic. “But if he can’t handle it, I suppose it would be best to do things the easy way…” his teeth clack caustically.

Lucifer seethes. his teeth warping and curling. “I’m fine,” he decides, fighting back a throatful of air. 

“A-are you sure, dad?”

Lucifer flaps his hand dramatically. “Absotively! Don’t w-Huh! Worry!” 

Charlie doesn’t look one hundred percent convinced but if he says he’s fine, and wants to continue, then they’ll continue. She gives him two more boards to cut and hurries off to work on another section. 

Lucifer turns back to the unfinished planks, his shoulders simmering with translucent fog. Alastor continues to observe in silent amusement.

“Are you going to help at all?” 

“Maybe.”

Rrgh. Lucifer throws himself to a standing position, muttering under his breath. I swear to me, if Charlie didn't like that guy I would…

Well, there’s a lot he would do. Especially if he were…”Hiiet--” 

Fuck me to here!

 He needs to get a handle on the fucking fire. “Hgk…” Lucifer gulps the throatful of heat, his body taut with a shiver. His fingers squeeze the plank he’s holding and… ”Hi-ih-IEH⛧GHSHHIEUψu!” 

Instead of flames, five feathers pop out and flit around the short King, catching the breeze and running off into the wind. A couple of them float near Alastor who looks irritated at them, waving them away with a chop of his hand and a staticky, “How very uncouth…”

Lucifer’s pride flares and his grin grows wicked.

“Weelllll,” he unfurls his six wings, exaggerating them with a flex. “I better get this installed up there.” 

Lucifer quakes his wings and smacks them down, clouding the ground below his knees with dust and shavings. He shoots into the air, spinning away from the source of his allergens as he rubs at his teary eyes and flushed cheeks. 

Fuck Alastor, that prick. He deserves a bit of karma. Would Lucifer really be at fault if he were flying and he just happened to lose a few feathers? If they just by chance were to fall into that jackass’s face??

As Lucifer flies, a few feathers wilt from his wings--by accident of course! And, as predicted by divine oracle, they just happen to float down near the red haired Radio Demon, currently distracted while helping Charlie with something frivolous, Lucifer is certain. 

The feather drifts…soft downy catching the dying light in a soft pink glow. Slow, deliberate. It coils, totally by accident of course, right down beside the Radio Demon, and nudges the left side of his nostril. He blinks, now distracted from his work. His crimson eyes flit up but another brush of the cottony down makes his lids ripple shut.

“Hh-hh!” 

His shoulders spike and he thrusts a hand up to shoo away the feather, “Ss٨ﮩﮩZH! Hgk٨ـﮩﮩ” 

“Alastor!” Charlie spins in surprise when his mic clatters to the ground. 

He gives a feeble attempt to wave her away but she puts an arm around him comfortingly. 

“Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down. You just recovered after all--” 

Lucifer watches with an indignant pout as his daughter comforts the wrong person. He doesn’t miss the not-so-subtle flash of Alastor’s smug grin as he allows Charlie to lead him away, leaving Lucifer to finish the rest of the work by himself.

God fucking dammit.

[highvern]

Track 3: Cyber Sex - Doja Cat

“We freak on the cam, love at first sight, just a link to the 'Gram”

Pairing: Jeong Yunho x reader

Genre: Smut, 18+

Warnings: camgirl!reader, whipped/loser!yunho, flirting, strip tease, cyber sex, butt plug, sir kink

Length: ~900

Note: finally finished. hate it! next is yeo and idk when it'll be posted

Like, comment, reblog, enjoy!

Mixtape Series: Late Nights Masterlist

main masterlist

Connecting imurangel with uknowme…

The black screen buffers into a dark bedroom. Or what you imagine is a bedroom given the layout; posters haphazardly hung on the walls, a basket of laundry off in the background. All warmed with a soft glow of the lamp resting on the bed side table just in the corner of view.

“Hi,” you smile at the camera, observing the man illuminating your screen.

He’s cute. Much cuter than you expected. The few times you auctioned off a private show like tonight you’d been met with men old enough to be your grandfather or guys who’d never seen the inside of a shower stall. But money was money and you put up with it as long as the deposit cleared your bank account. 

User uknowme is already defying your usual expectations. Dimples and a shy grin answer you. His ears burn red already and his lips fail to release any of the words they silently stretch around. 

The twitch of your lips is visible in your viewfinder; a genuine smile at his nerves before you throw him a bone. “What's your name, cutie?” 

“Ugh… it's Yunho. I’m Yunho.”

You roll the letters around your tongue, “Yunho.”

The speakers echo his sharp inhale at the sound of you tasting his name. 

Leaning back on your hands, you press your chest forward and draw attention to the low cut of your top. He specified this outfit, or at least some version of it. “Whatever you’re comfortable in.” Most men want you in some cheap lingerie or a shoddy halloween costume. Easy, simple, straight forward. A nuisance to wear but for what they paid you’d suffer the infernal straps or itchy lace.

But tonight, you stressed more about it than ever before because no one extended such consideration. And that was before you knew who was on the other side of such an innocuous request. The silky white pajama set you settled on at the last minute was perfect. 

At least, Yunho seemed to think so. 

“I..ugh…like your top?”

“Thanks! It's a little different than what I usually get to wear.”

“Yeah, some of the stuff on stream seems like a pain.”

Puckering your lips in a pout, you reply. “You don’t like it?”

“No! I mean yeah I like it I just— you look good no matter what you have on.”

The bumbling nervousness is delicious, especially from someone it seems so out of place on. For the first time, part of you wishes he was in your room. At the mercy of your teasing touches, where you can watch the blush bloom across his face as you goad him; maybe see if it bleeds down his chest as well.

“You think so?”

“Yeah, you’re beautiful.”

Now you blush. No one had this effect on you. At least not in this space where people eagerly shower you in cheap compliments in hopes you’ll reward them with your body. And yes, Yunho did pay for a private show but something about him screams earnesty; like you’re really that pretty to him and he’d be happy to just talk even if you were covered from head to toe with a paper bag over your head.

And it makes you want to surprise him.

“Yunho,” you revel in the way he squirms just from his own name, “do you wanna see the rest of my outfit?”

Yunho nods, eyes tracing the strap of your tank top skating down the curve of your arm. 

Jumping to your feet, you step back in the frame. The satin shorts are just as revealing as any pair of underwear you own. He can glimpse more skin that peaks in and out of view as you give a slow spin; the crease of your thigh, the curve of your ass, and a peak of white lace panties melting against your skin. You can feel Yunho’s eyes take in what you flaunt for him, as if he’s in the room with you and not however many miles away in his own solitude.

“I picked it out for you.” You chime over your shoulder.

The smile on your face is sweet on the surface but sadistic satisfaction runs deep at how so few words fluster him so easily. And his inability to do anything other than provide a choked reply only deepens the ravine.

Cute.

“Do you wanna see the rest of it?”

You're at a proverbial fork in the road. You could take off your top and let Yunho see your bare chest first or you could turn, take off your shorts, and show him the jeweled buttplug he listed as one of his kinks. His reactions make you eager, hungry to see how far you can push him and what you’ll be rewarded with when Yunho reaches his limit.

And the final nail in the coffin, “Sir?”

There's a pause, long enough that you doubt you read the questionnaire right. But Yunho brings himself back up to speed in no time.

Leaning forward, his entire demeanor changes. The tips of his ears still burn red but his face morphs into a controlled impassivity. If you examine him close up, you're sure you’d see the remaining anxiety linger just below the surface. Laying in wait to take over at the first misstep. But you aren’t about to let that happen when you’re just starting to get a taste of what hides beneath such a cute face.

“Show me, pretty girl.”

-

Taglist: @tomodachiii @cvpidyunho @miniseokminnies @ddaengpotate @arycutie @gaebestie @primoppang @gyuguys @mine-gyu @doremifasire @missminhoe @toplinehyunjin @crvs4vldtn @prettygyuuu

© highvern. copying/reuploading/translating my work anywhere is strictly prohibited.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn't seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr...but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

What is a "Speaker to the Dead"?

Actually, Magnus Quinn isn't terrible at sword fighting

Imperial complicity: Abigail the First

Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate

Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?

What does the Fifth House actually do?

The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family

Cytherea's political observations at the anniversary dinner

Abigail Pent's affect: ghosts and autism

Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?

Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children

Magnus Quinn's very understandable anger

Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy

Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?

"Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her" (the Fifth in TUG)

The Fifth's relationship dynamic

The Fifth's relationship is unconventional in a number of ways

The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus' relationship

Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River

Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?

Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)

How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?

Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

The politics of the anniversary dinner (and further thoughts)

Was Magnus born outside of the Dominicus system?

Overthinking John Gaius:

The one time John was happy was playing Jesus

Is Alecto's body made from John's?

Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?

Why isn't John's daughter a necromancer?

The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto 'what have you done to me?'

Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs

What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)

John's conference call with his CIA handlers

Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror

Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)

When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?

Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)

The 'indelible' sin of Lyctorhood and John's shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism

Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?

What was Jod's plan at Canaan House?

John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path

The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows

When was John Gaius born? (And another)

John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

John and Jesus writing sins in the sand

John and Nona's echoing chapters

John's motivations

Is Alecto just as guilty as John?

John's cult (and what he might have done to them)

The horror of Jod

Did John get bloodsweat before he became god?

Some very silly thoughts about John and Abigail arguing about academia

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics'

Funerary customs and the violence of John's silence

Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time

The horror of the River bubble

Every instance of 'is this how it happens' in HTN

Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive

How do stele work?

Thought crime in the Nine Houses

The Houses have a population the size of Canada

What must it be like to fight the Houses?

You know what can't have been fun? Merv wing's megatruck on Varun day...

Augustine's very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)

Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way

Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system (though perhaps the Fourth *is* on Saturn)

Why don't the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?

How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?

How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)

What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?

Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship (further thoughts)

The horrors the Cohort found at Canaan House

Do the Houses understand the tech keeping them alive?

The scions from an external perspective (sci fi baddies)

Cav cots

The Nine Houses and feudalism

The horrors of early necromantic education

[harmlessghosty]

Touchstarved love-interests when they first meet a plus-size MC

~ demo spoilers below the cut ~

Kuras carries you out of the Fogfall into Eridia without an issue, bridal style and cautious not to jostle you for fear of making the bleeding much worse. He’s careful placing you onto the operating table, not thinking at all about your weight and how shoddy the equipment in his clinic might be. After all, he’s operated on people as large and larger than Leander, so you’re a drop in the bucket. No judgement at all for your size. In fact, he still finds you fascinating. If you’re entirely out of shape as well, he shows concern for your ability to travel such long distances, but overall, he’s truly just happy to see that you’ve survived. After you leave, he tosses your torn clothing, stopping for a moment to allow himself to think about how wonderful you looked to him.

Leander is immediately smitten. Oh? Someone with curves? With parts that jiggle? How exciting! And you seem just as interested, aren’t you? Why wouldn’t you be, when he’s instantly doting upon you with caresses to your wide hips and nudges to your shoulders in hopes that you might take his hand. To hell with the bandages; he’s interested, but more than that, he’s blinded with a vague sense of lust. After all, his escapades are known throughout Lowtown, though he’s careful to find only the best partners for himself. If he could just get you into that room at the Wet Wick for a moment…but no. He settles for placing his hands on your cheeks, forcing you to look at him with curiosity and bewilderment, and charms you with his smile.

Vere watches from a distance at first. His eyes rake up and down your body from his chained-up perch as he wishes he could draw you closer to get a better look. All he can think is that, from behind, you look quite ravishing. He imagines your ass would look nice without that sweater from that awful doctor’s office covering it. Maybe he could have a peek if he manages to flip it up with a sharp breeze? As he teases you for losing your key, he takes long pauses to better observe your shape and keep you guessing, and he struggles to hold back a grin. It’s been some time since he’s seen someone as curvy and fleshy as you in this shit town. He wonders if you might join at the brothel for a rendezvous and implies that you’re always welcome. Though he’s teasing, he does genuinely hope you accept his offer, just so he can see…

Ais is quick to notice your size and smirks to himself. You’re big everywhere too, aren’t you? And he loves it. Look at that—Someone who can match his size and handle his rougher-than-typical approach to attraction. When he shows himself to you, he takes a good, long look up and down your body, practically drooling at the thought of dragging you behind the columns of the Seaspring and seeing what’s under those clothes. Would you move as smoothly as he thinks you might? Maybe you have a cute voice too along with that size. If you didn’t look so mentally weak, little sparrow, then he might throw you into the Seaspring himself to give you a reason to stay. You know he can lift anything with those muscles, not to mention he would love to swing you around like a rag doll, putting you exactly where he wants you.

Mhin doesn’t even think about your size at first. In fact, they’re so focused on their Soulless target that they hardly notice you exist. The moment you start blabbering though, they roll their eyes. You’re frustrating them, getting in the way. Here they are, trying to do their job, and you’re thinking they’re here to save you? Ridiculous. But…Don’t you look interesting in an outfit that they recognize is from Kuras’ clinic. Something that shows off your body in a way they’re not sure whether they like. Are you trying to attract attention to yourself for some kind of gain, or are you just stupid? Don’t you know that, in a place like Eridia, it’s better to blend in? They think to offer you their cloak, but they need it more, after all. Besides, they certainly don’t mind seeing someone with your pretty shape in their line of sight, not that they’d admit it.

[edanmaia]

hofas spoilers below; my random thoughts based on my shoddy translation (very acotar-centric)

lidia having kids is WILD. and ruhn's character really pivoted from frat boy to adult man...

the book was 800+ pages and yet so little happened

character motivations, character arcs, and whatnot were very surface level

I dont think nesta actually lost her ability to wield the trove?

azriel azriel azriel wow what an observant man 😊 we've never seen him talk this much

the one elain and gwyn mention made me giggle

DUSK COURT / PRISON !!! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR BOOK 5

language translation pill is weird...

rhysand's sister mention?????? so fucking random

i need to think about how this ties into the next acotar book

The ending wasn't satisfying but it wasn't unsatisfying

i'm guessing the bryce / az / nesta bonus scene is about cellphones and them taking pictures

ember / randall bonus scene will be feysand and some nessian & azriel

the ruhn lidia bonus chapter was just an extended HEA.

sexual assault... there's a decent amount... and it's kinda brushed over

where tf is mor LMAO

the cauldron was wrong... it's also corrupt... mmm m mating bonds chosen by the mother vs by the cauldron????

no rhys/ruhn look alike explanation 😭

that ending made it seem like there wouldn't be a cc4 but maybe a novella similar to acofas?

i feel like she really toned down the sex scenes, which i am so grateful for. it gives me hope that acotar 5 will have a good plot.

high king plot wont happen. bryce abolished the monarchy... so will rhysand if he became high king

will elain use the orb Bryce used to share her visions?