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monsterloverwriting · 1 year

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Beast of the forest

So often did you hear of the beast yet see nothing that it became all too easy to think of him as nothing more than a story meant to keep children out of the forest at night. But you were no child and the call of the cool forest air on your skin was too great on this hot night.

It was like a voice beckoning you to the forest edge, something sweet and deep in the pit of you that needed to be in with the trees on this hot night the slight sheen of sweat on your skin already starting to cool with the night air. A deep breath, in and out, as you watched the forest edge all of the stories come to mind as you stood watching, waiting, listening.

A great beast that would steal people away into the forest with no explanation or warning. A beast that was impossibly large if the teeth marks on bones left by the forest edge were anything to go off of. You let out a sigh, it was ridiculous to think that something like that could exist. It was like saying that Santa Clause was real, both were stories made up to scare children. The inexplicable calling to the forest had to be something to do with the fact that your AC was broken and it felt like it was boiling inside your small house. The night air within the trees would be the perfect reprieve.

Before you knew it you were in the thick of the trees deeper in the forest than you could ever remember being during the day. When had you stepped in? How long have you been walking? Why did you feel so fuzzy all over? It almost felt like you were high as you walked through the forest, stepping over fallen trees and through foliage like you knew the way, like you were on a laid out path you'd been on a thousand times before. Finally you made it to a clearing and stopped at the edge appreciating the beauty of the small patch of land feeling so much better here, like you were meant to be in this clearing. A small sigh left your lips as you stepped one foot in letting the cool forest air rush over your bare arms drying the last bits of sweat that hung stubbornly to you. The moon was high in the sky as you walked to the center of the clearing, your fingers running over the tips of the tall grass. You enjoyed the way it felt, the way the grass tickled at your fingertips, everything feeling heightened in senses as you slowly found yourself in the center of the clearing looking directly up to the sky reveling in the way the air and grass felt against your skin.

In your state you almost didn't hear the small snapping of a twig on the side of the clearing as you slowly bent to take off your shoes wanting desperately to feel the hard ground between your toes. When the snapping got closer you looked up, trying to see through the thick branches, what was out there? Slowly you felt your limbs get heavier, the feeling of being high getting stronger as a sweet scent filled your nostrils.

“Finally. I was wondering if you’d ever answer the call.” A smooth deep voice nearly sang from the darkness. Your attention snapped away from the sensation of the grass to the voice as a mountain of a creature walked into the light of the clearing. In your fuzzy brain the only thing that instantly went through your mind was, big.

Big seemed to be an understatement when it came to describe this beast. He towered over your frame as you stood frozen, his height was amazing and it was comparable to his muscles, making his arms seem to be the same width as your waist. He stalked toward you, his steps causing slight tremors as he got closer and closer to you. Finally he stopped in front of you looking down as he slowly reached a hand that was easily the size of your face and gently caressed your cheek, a small smile playing at his lips, a glint of sharp teeth visible as his lips parted.

“I’ve called so many times yet you remain so stubborn, I should teach you it's rude to make me wait.” He hummed, fingers slowly trailing down your cheek to gently wrap around your throat. With each touch, the fuzzy feeling grew more heightened, in the back part of your mind you were sure something was affecting you to feel like this, this wasn’t normal. You were face to face with the beast of the forest, his impossible size making you seem like a doll to be played with and the only thing at the forefront of your mind was how much you needed him to touch you more.

“So much wasted time, but now you’re mine.” His voice was sweet, like a song you would hear in your dreams. You let out a small moan as his grip tightened around your throat for a brief second squeezing the sides in a delicious way making your head swim. He slowly released you stepping back, unthinking you followed the path of his hand instantly missing the connection.

“What a good pet you’ll be now that you’re under my spell.” Before you could think about what he was saying you were pushed to the ground. His massive size pinning you the weight almost suffocating as the sweet smell filled you again and you went nearly brainless as he began running his hand under your thin tank top. A sound of ripping fabric and you were laying in the broken remnants of your shirt bare from the waist up he glanced down at you with a smirk, teeth glinting as he moved down, cupping one of your breasts in his hand tweaking the nipple harshly between his claws as he nipped at the other with sharp fangs. The moan that escaped your mouth was entirely involuntary as you arched into his harsh touch, hips rutting up to meet his body begging for some kind of friction.

“Good girl. You want me. You didn’t know it before but I've been watching you at the edge of my forest, watching as you denied my existence loud enough for me to hear. Watching as you teased yourself when you thought you were alone. I’ve been waiting so long to see you like this, under me.” He nearly growled as he moved up your body, grinding his hips down hard against you forcing you to feel how hard he was for you under the thin cloth he wore.

“Now you’re mine and I am going to make sure you never forget it.” He growled against your throat, sharp teeth nipping just below the shell of your ear. At the same time you moaned he ripped your shorts and panties away from you like they were paper throwing the shreds behind him as he moved one clawed hand down your body to your already soaking cunt.

You moaned, eyes closing, when he found your clit, slowly circling it with the pad of one clawed finger. He looked down at you thoroughly enjoying how pliant his pheromones had made you. You were putty in his hands and he planned to use you thoroughly tonight and every night after. As you squirmed under him, hips following the pattern of his ministrations against your clit moaning, he took this chance to force his tongue into your mouth.

“Mmph”

It was the only thing you could muster as he kissed you with more passion than you’d felt with all of your past lovers combined. He held you close fingers moving to start fucking into you slowly, first just one finger, gently trying to get a feel of how tight you were, his mouth swallowing each moan you let out as he added a second finger starting to stretch you, searching for the little spot to make you cum on his hand. When he did find it, your shuddering breath against his lips made him bite down on your bottom lip pulling it in his sharp teeth as he began pressing, rubbing, massaging that perfect bundle of nerves, his thumb reaching up, pressing harshly against your clit.

You screamed your release against his finger, grinding down onto them, forcing his fingers deeper in you as you squeezed around them arching to press your sensitive nipples against his chest needing as much of him touching you as possible. You heard him moan into your neck as he stroked you through your orgasm until you started to squirm against the ministrations.

A long whine left your throat as he pulled away from you leaving you feeling too naked, too bare on the hard ground.

“Shhh Kitten, I’m not done with you yet.” He huffed as he ripped at the fabric around his waist. He let out a long groan at his cock finally being free from the loose garment, his hand going to wrap around himself and stroke as he looked down at you. You leaned up on your elbows looking at the thick appendage, tongue darting out to wet your dry lips. It was massive, the length of your forearm with thick veins decorating it making it seem that much more erotic, the flared tip alone the size of your fist, the large knot swelling at the base made your mouth water obscenely as you looked up at him.

“You will take it all,” He growled, pushing you back down to the ground. One hand collecting both of your hands to pull them above your head pinning them there as his other hand went to your ankle placing it on his shoulder as he lined the tip up to your achingly empty pussy. He moved to straddle the leg that wasn’t on his shoulder, pinning it as well, trapping you under him as he pushed into you stopping once he had the head in to let out a long drawn out moan.

“So fucking tight.” He ground out, forcing himself to be still for a moment to let you adjust. Your whine of protest at the stillness of the intrusion had him pushing into you further, the stretch deliciously painful as he did his best to keep himself in control.

“Fuck, that's right Kitten, moan. Let me know how much you love the way my cock fills you. Ruins you for everyone else.” He purred, leaning down to plant harsh kisses against your neck moving deeper into you. The stretch and feeling of him inside of you on top of the already fuzzy feeling heightening everything around you was too much as you came again around him, pulling him even deeper to the edge of his knot feeling it hit against the edge of your already stretched cunt.

“Fuck!” He roared before biting down on your shoulder causing you to arch into him even more desperate for the friction of his body against yours. Needing everything he would give you. He pinned you down starting to rut into you, his knot hitting you slowly starting to sink in. You cried out at the stretch unsure if it was more painful or pleasure either way you wanted it, needed it in you.

“More, more, more, more.” It was all you could say as you did your best to match his rut, hips moving desperately against him.

“That’s right Kitten, you want my knot, want me to fuck you into oblivion, breed you. Keep you.” He moaned against your shoulder tongue slowly lapping at the punctures his sharp teeth had made. He finally pushed into you, his knot swelling, holding him to you as he howled his release into you, rutting hard into you hitting your cervix again and again. You came around him at the feeling of him feeling you so completely, screaming with him.

“Good girl.” He cooed softly into your hair as he moved the two of you so you were laying against his chest, blissed out, stuck to him by his knot. He drew lazy patterns in your back with one tip of his claw making you shiver slightly in the cool air. Before his knot even began to release you fell asleep against his chest nuzzling against him.

“Good girl (Y/N) good girl.” He whispered into your hair, picking you up to carry you deeper into the forest to his home. Now your home as well. He’d make sure you’re comfortable, in the morning he’d let you know his name, let you think he was learning yours for the first time. And he would keep you.

#monster fucker #monster lover #monster smut #mdni #slight breeding kink #monster in the forest #writing #smut #First bit on here #yandere behavior #illuded mind altering

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months

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The art of Daniel Danger

[Image ID: Daniel Danger's art print, 'To all who home to this happy place,' depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

There’s this behavioral economics study that completely changed the way i thought about art, teaching, and critique: it’s a 1993 study called “Introspecting about Reasons can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction” by Timothy D Wilson, Douglas J Lisle, Jonathan Schooler, Sara Hodges, Kristen Klaaren and Suzanne LaFleur:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281868_Introspecting_about_Reasons_can_Reduce_Post-Choice_Satisfaction

The experimenters asked subjects to preference-rank some art posters; half the posters were cute cartoony posters, and the other half were fine art posters. One group of subjects assigned a simple numeric rank to the posters, and the other had to rank them and explain their ranking. Once they were done, they got to keep their posters.

There was a stark difference in the two groups’ preferences: the group that had to explain their choices picked the cartoony images, while the group that basically got to point at their favorite and say, “Ooh, I like that!” chose the fine art posters.

Then, months later, the experimenters followed up and asked the subjects what they’d done with the poster they got to take home. The ones who’d had to explain their choices and had brought home cartoony images had thrown those posters away. The ones who didn’t have to explain what they liked about their choice, who’d chosen fine art, had hung them up at home and kept them there.

The implication is that it’s hard to explain what makes art good, and the better art is, the harder it is to put your finger on what makes it so good. More: the obvious, easy-to-articulate virtues of art are the less important virtues. Art’s virtues are easy to spot and hard to explain.

The reason this stuck with me is that I learned to be a writer through writing workshops where we would go around in a circle and explain what we liked and didn’t like about someone’s story, and suggest ways to make it better. I started as a teenager in workshops organized by Judith Merril in Toronto, then through my high-school workshop (which Judy had actually founded a decade-plus earlier through a writer in the schools grant), and then at the Clarion workshop in 1992. I went on to teach many of these workshops: Clarion, Clarion West and Viable Paradise.

So I’ve spent a lot of time trying to explain what was and wasn’t good about other peoples’ art (and my own!), and how to make it better. There’s a kind of checklist to help with this: when a story is falling short in some way, writers roll out these “rules” for what makes for good and bad prose. There are a bunch of these rulesets (think of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style), including some genre-specific ones like the Turkey City Lexicon:

https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/

A few years ago, I was teaching on the Writing Excuses cruise and a student said something like, “Hey, I know all these rules for writing good stories, but I keep reading these stories I really like and they break the rules. When can I break the rules?”

There’s a stock answer a writing teacher is supposed to give here: “Well, first you have to master the rules, then you can break them. You can’t improvise a jazz solo without first learning your scales.”

But in that moment, I thought back to the study with the posters and I had a revelation. These weren’t “rules” at all — they were just things that are hard and therefore easy to screw up. No one really knows why a story isn’t working, but they absolutely know when it doesn’t, and so, like the experimental subject called upon to explain their preferences, they reach for simple answers: “there’s too much exposition,” or “you don’t foreshadow the ending enough.”

There are lots of amazing stories that are full of exposition (readers of mine will not be shocked to learn I hold this view). There are lots of twist endings that are incredible — and not despite coming out of left field, but because of it.

The thing is, if you can’t say what’s wrong, but you know something is wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “Well, why don’t you try to replace or polish the things that are hardest to do right. Whatever it is that isn’t working here, chances are it’s the thing that’s hardest to make work”:

https://locusmag.com/2020/05/cory-doctorow-rules-for-writers/

But if I could change one thing about how we talk about writing and its “rules,” it would be to draw this distinction, characterizing certain literary feats as easier to screw up than others, having the humility to admit that we just don’t know what’s wrong with a story, and then helping the writer create probabilistically ranked lists of the things they could tinker with to try and improve their execution.

Which is all a very, very long-winded way to explain why I bought a giant, gorgeous art-print at Comic-Con this weekend, even though I have nowhere to hang it and had sworn I would absolutely not buy any art at the con.

I was walking the floor, peeking into booths, when I happened on Daniel Danger’s booth (#5034, if you’re at the con today), and I was just fuckin’ poleaxed by his work.

http://www.tinymediaempire.com/

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘It stopped being about the panic,’ depicting a ruined mansion interwoven with the skeletal branches of a tree, with a weeping statue and two human figures]

Now, see above. I can’t tell you why I loved this work so much (and that’s OK!), but boy oh boy did it speak to me. I just kind of stood there with my mouth open, slowly moving from print to print, admiring works like “It stopped being about the panic.”

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/2022-sdcc-it-stopped-being-about-the-panic-v4

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘headlight in the path of,’ depicting a ruined mall with a pair of stags standing at the top of the escalator.]

On the surface, this is moody, post-apocalyptic stuff, heavily influenced by classic monster/haunter tropes, but it’s shot through with hope and renewal and the sense of something beautiful growing out of the ashes of something that has toppled. There’s real “(Nothing But) Flowers” energy in “Headlight in the path of”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-headlight-in-the-path-of-v2

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘We are no longer able to protect you,’ depicting a ruined factory with a coming-apart sign reading ‘We can no longer protect you forever,’ and a statue of a sword-bearing angel.]

Danger isn’t just a

very

talented artist, he’s also an

extremely

talented craftsman. As a recovering pre-press geek, I was (nearly) as impressed by the wild use of spot color and foils as I was by the art, like in “We are no longer able to protect you”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc-2022-we-can-no-longer-protect-you-forever-v3

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘made of smoke and chains,’ depicting a ruined landscape with a pair of derelict subway trains at the foot of a hill on whose peak is a rotting mansion. A pair of human figures, holding hands, are approaching the mansion.]

Danger himself calls this work “weird sad hyper-detailed artwork of dreamy buildings of ghosts and trees,” which is a very apt description of this work, as you can see in “Made of smoke and chains”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/made-of-smoke-and-chains-mist-preorder

So I looked at this stuff and sternly reminded myself that there was no way I was going to buy any art at the con. Then I walked away. I got about two aisles over when I realized I had to go back and ask permission to take some pictures so I could put a little link to Danger in my blog’s linkdump, which he graciously permitted:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=interestingness-desc&safe_search=1&tags=danieldanger&min_taken_date=1687478400&max_taken_date=1690156799&view_all=1

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s art print, ‘To all who home to this happy place,’ depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

But then I got all the way ass over to the other ass end of the convention center and I realized I had to go back and buy one of these prints. Which I did, “To all who come to this happy place,” because fuckin’ wow:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-this-happy-place-v6-foil

This was unequivocally the best thing I saw at this year’s SDCC, but I also got some very good news while there, namely, that Emil Ferris’s long, long-awaited My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol 2 is finally on the schedule from Fantagraphics:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/emil-ferris/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

It’s coming out in April, which gives you plenty of time to read volume one, which I called, “a haunting diary of a young girl as a dazzling graphic novel”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

If you are or were a monster kid or a haunter, this is your goddamned must-read of the summer. It’s a fully queered, stunning memoir for anyone whose erotic imagination intersected with Famous Monsters of Filmland.

(Also, if you’re that kind of person and you’re in the region, you should know about Midsummer Scream, a giant haunter show in Long Beach; I’ll be there on Sunday, July 30, for a panel about the Ghost Post, the legendary Haunted Mansion puzzle-boxes I helped make:

https://midsummerscream.org/

Now Favorite Thing book two was the best news, but the best experience was watching Felicia Day get her Inkpot Award and give a moving speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkpot_Award

And then learning that Raina Telgemeier also got an Inkpot; I love Raina’s work so much:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/04/ghosts-raina-telgemeiers-upbeat-tale-of-death-assimilation-and-cystic-fibrosis/

[Image ID: A photo of me with Chuck Tingle, who wears a pink bag over his head on which he has written ‘Love is Real.’]

To cap yesterday off, I also ran into @ChuckTingle, which is as fine a capstone to a successful con as anyone could ask for:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53065500076/in/dateposted/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/23/but-i-know-what-i-like/#daniel-danger

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bucketsofmonsters · 1 year

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The Witch's Apprentice - Part 5

cw: demon summoning, prolonged isolation, size difference, non-human genitalia, oral sex, agoraphobia, magical branding, more tags will be added as the story continues

male demon x afab reader

Word count: 4k

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

By your third week of being locked in your room, you felt like you might lose your mind.

Considering you’d been locked in the house for years you’d think the room wouldn’t be so bad. The actual space wasn’t that much smaller but the real problem was that there was nothing to do. Everything you’d been busying yourself with for years was locked outside, your books, your garden, your best friend.

Any pretense of freedom had disappeared. You could no longer go outside, chose what to do with your day, or see another living thing.

Well, most living things.

Eden had soundproofed all of the rooms for her own usage, so no one overheard anything she didn’t want them to. She knew how to break through it and project sound through the walls, something you’d never learned to do. However, you had no qualms about using the soundproofing to your advantage.

Lucien was less and less incredulous with every new time you summoned him. What do you want’s turned into easy greetings and his exasperation with you faded, although he seemed loathe to let you notice.

The summonings had become almost daily events.

You never made it more than an hour or two without at least giving it a shot. Your lack of actual summoning materials or techniques made it so he didn’t strictly have to come, could just decide not to show up, but he almost always did, choosing to stay with you for hours on end.

Every now and then he’d drop out, feeling a tug of being summoned by some other witch before he’d pop back, unsummoned and of his own choosing.

Today you were laying back on your bed while he sat on the floor. Even sitting, he was tall enough that your heads were roughly in line with one another.

You never did much. You would ask him question after question and watch as his answers got more and more evasive, not even to hide anything but seemingly doing it just because he could. He spoke in circles just to watch your head spin and see how long it would take before the questions stopped in favor of throwing pillows at him.

All the pillows lay scattered around him leaving you tragically out of ammo. You supposed you’d just have to hope that he’d had a change of heart in his neverending quest to irritate you.

It never worked. Not really.

Even if it weren’t for the boredom that made you cling to every word, there way something almost charming about his refusal to commit to an answer, to dance around the question and try and make you forget what you’d originally asked, regardless of whether he cared about you knowing the answer or not. It felt almost like a game.

“What does it feel like when you get summoned?” you asked, curious what happened on his end when he got that distant look in his eyes.

“Why, do you think you're getting summoned?” he asked with a laugh. “Is there another witch out there who wants to lock you in an even smaller room?”

“Stop it. She’s just worried.”

“Uh-huh. How long do you think this is going to last?” he asked, staring out at your locked door with blatant disgust.

You were less evasive with your answers. “I don’t know. If it lasts longer I might actually lose it.”

“So let me take you somewhere. Come on, I’ll have you back before you know it.”

Where the teasing and talking in circles was entertaining, this was your biggest point of contention. Lucien had become fixated on getting you out of here, on showing you the world.

You’d be lying if you said part of your apprehension to leave wasn’t fear. It had been so long, even talking to him had been such a big step. You couldn’t imagine just being somewhere new.

But you also couldn’t do that to Eden, betray her trust like that. No matter how many times he reassured you that she would never know, it left a churning feeling in your stomach. She’d been there for you for so many years, kept you safe. You couldn’t just leave her like that, behind her back.

You avoided the topic as often as you could. Other than those little arguments, seeing him had absolutely become the best part of your day.

You supposed that wasn’t hard to do. You spent most of the time he wasn’t there sleeping, What else was there to do?

You told him as much and he couldn’t quite manage to hide the flash of pity that crossed his face, the one that showed up whenever you mentioned your current living situation.

He did his best to push past it. “Have you been having fun dreams?” he asked with a grin.

You tried to brush off the comment despite his suggestive tone and allusion back to what he’d seen before. “They’re fine. Why don’t you show up in them anymore?”

“Just fine? Maybe dream me needs some pointers.”

You leaned off the bed, reaching for the pillow that lay closest to you on the floor. You managed to get a grip on it right as you started to slide off the bed but Lucien pushed you back up before you could fall to the floor.

He was rewarded for his efforts by a pillow flying towards him that collided with one of his horns as you let out a quiet harrumph.

“You’re so rude to me. And why are you asking? I’m here all the time, do you miss me?” he asked, cooing at you with faux sympathy. “Because if you want me there all you have to do is ask.”

“None of that was an answer to my question,” you informed him, well aware it wouldn’t get you anywhere.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re much more fun when your inhibitions are gone.”

“Mmhmm, I’m sure. And do you take a lot of humans to your little sin room?”

“Only the cute ones.”

You snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

“I could take you back there.”

“You are so shameless. If you want me to get all loose and flirty again just bring some wine by or something.”

“Not like that. I just think it would be good for you to get out, stretch your legs.”

“For the last time, I’m staying right here.”

“Suit yourself,” he said with a huff, as if there was even the smallest chance that he’d finally give up on the idea. “If it were me, I would have killed that bitch by now.”

“Stop it! You will not talk about her like that!” Your defense of Eden was as reflexive as ever. You knew he had every right to be unimaginably angry at her but she was still your best friend, your savior.

His inevitable upcoming protest was cut off by your dinner being slid under the door, Lucien keeping absolutely still as the metal tray scraped against the floor.

He hated being here when she was nearby, even if she wasn’t interacting with you much these days. He claimed it was because he didn’t want to get you in even more trouble and get any more of your freedoms taken away.

You were sure that was part of it. But you saw the way he tensed up when she got close, when any sign appeared of her existence right on the other side of the door.

He was afraid of her. Absolutely terrified.

It made your heart ache, seeing him like that, seeing the fractures in his facade. You couldn’t help but wonder what she’d done to him to make him act like this.

Not that he’d ever tell you. You knew better than to push that point, it was one secret he was more than entitled to.

You did your best not to dwell on it too much. If you did you’d have to reflect on the way he always put himself between you and the door, the way he tensed up whenever she called out to you, knowing you couldn’t even respond unless she allowed it through the soundproofing. She never did.

You couldn’t be sure exactly when, maybe when you summoned him on your own the first time, maybe when you’d told him about all the years you’d spent stuck in this cabin surrounded by the vicious woods, maybe when you’d broken that summoning circle and trusted him, but at some point he’d decided that you were just as much Eden’s victim as he was. Some mysterious point where something switched in his mind and it moved from being you and her against him to Eden against the two of you.

You didn’t blame him for it. Eden had done horrible things to him, that much was clear. He needed her to be a villain and you could give him that.

Lucien always waited a long time before speaking after she showed up so you just lay there, attempting to sneak glances at him and getting caught every time.

Eventually his shoulders untensed and he seemed to decide it was safe to speak again, although a simmering anger still burned in his eyes.

“She isn’t teaching you jackshit.”

“Well…” you attempted to protest before he immediately cut you off.

“Not a question. I could teach you, you know. Your little witch isn’t the only one who knows magic.”

You laughed. “And what’s the price? You want my soul or something?”

“Please, if I wanted your soul I’d probably just need to ask, your dumbass would just hand it over to me.”

He probably wasn’t that far off the mark, if your history was any indication.

You shrugged as you replied. “There’s no real point in teaching me anyways, I’m not very good at it.” You weren’t even sure why he was offering, he’d already seen more than enough of you to know you were a lost cause.

“Being good at things isn't the only reason to do them. Come on, have some fun with it.”

Everything in you screamed that it was a bad idea, that you’d fuck it all up. But the way he was looking at you, daring you to say yes, managed to override those instincts just long enough to squeak out, “Fine. But you’re not allowed to get mad when I mess up.”

You weren’t sure what to expect of Lucien as a teacher. Whatever those confused expectations in the back of your head were, he certainly didn’t match them.

He was a patient teacher, letting you feel things out quietly and slowly. His jokes and evasiveness disappeared completely and every question you had was met with a careful answer.

You discovered very quickly that his sort of magic was very, very different from Edens.

Eden was all about rules, about maintaining the security and purity of her spells first. Everything was a strict ritual to be observed.

Lucien’s magic contained a freedom you thought couldn’t be afforded to humans. Instead of a list of materials and steps, what you were faced with most frequently now was instructions to shut your eyes and imagine, to put all the trust you had into the idea that when your eyes opened, whatever you imagined would have happened.

It was something you struggled with. That faith that it would work.

It wasn’t that you didn’t believe in the magic, you’d seen far too much for that. It was thinking it would work for you that you kept stumbling

Where Eden’s magic was like a recipe, Lucien’s felt more like a trust fall.

And still, you progressed. Without the same confidence Lucien carried himself with, but progress nonetheless.

He brought you little gifts every time you made progress, slivers of the outside world.

You’d been getting frustrated with yourself. The very first thing he’d tried to teach you was just the ability to reach out to someone.

You sat there, day after day, attempting it. The way he’d explained it, everyone had an aura, a little pool of energy that hovered around them. If you focused you could reach out, stretch it thin and find someone else’s.

It had to be close. Not in proximity but in a more abstract sense. He reassured you that the two of you were more than close enough for it to work.

One night, after he had long since left, you were practicing and getting frustrated once more when you felt that aura of yours he’d described time and time again bump into something warm, and a sense of familiarity washed over you.

A moment later you felt something back, a meandering sense of something winding inside of you, pulling at some part of you that made you giggle. Who knew auras could be ticklish?

The next day he came bearing an eclair. It felt like a breath of fresh air. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been able to eat something sweet like that.

You treasured the little paper doily it came on, sometimes just tracing the intricate designs that bordered it.

A few days later was a soft scarf in a bright red that had been given to you when you opened your eyes to find yourself letting off a faint glow in that same red.

The next time you managed to do something, this time it was simply to warm up a surface by a few degrees, he reached out and handed you a gift he had at the ready. It made your heart swell that he already had it, like he had absolute faith you’d be able to do something to deserve it. This time it was a tiny ceramic fox that had its little head lifted defiantly towards the sky

You kept them all buried under your pillow, terrified that any day now would be the day and Eden would come in to free you only to see mysterious trinkets that could only have come from elsewhere.

You kept the fox wrapped up in your scarf, afraid you’d roll over wrong in your sleep and it might break but still unwilling to hide the little treasures too far away from yourself.

More often than not, you woke up clutching them, a habit you couldn’t break no matter how hard you tried.

Sooner than you ever could have imagined, you weren’t even afraid to make mistakes around him anymore. When you’d begun, you’d been convinced any slip-up would ruin everything, that he’d give up on you and leave you behind. Now you floundered and messed up spells and it didn’t matter. He made sure that you were alright, that it was safe to learn and eventually you figured them all out.

“I’m running out of rewards,” he said with a chuckle as you beamed down at your fox, one you’d managed to make wobble without so much as touching it. “That’s how you know you’re getting good. How will I ever motivate you now?”

“Are you kidding,” you basically shouted, pride and excitement welling up inside you. “Did you see what I just did? That was amazing! I don’t need a reward to want to learn how to do incredible things.”

“Maybe. I think you deserve them anyways.”

The comment brought a heat to your cheeks, one that was becoming more and more common in you every time Lucien was here. Another thing you tried not to dwell on too much, lest you get swept up in it.

His head cocked to the side with a familiar look as you gave him an understanding smile. “Off to see another witch?” you asked.

He sneered. “Yes, your favorite witch, in fact. Well, I shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

He leaned down towards you and kissed the top of your head before immediately dissipating, a move that didn’t feel quite fair. At least it didn’t give him the chance to watch you flounder.

As you slept that night you found yourself having a familiar dream. The walls of colorful fabrics were a much more welcome sight than the forest that so often plagued your dreams.

A dream Lucien stood before you, per usual. But something was off this time. It took you a second to place it before you realized that even standing here, passively, you could sense his aura. You knew him too well for the trick he was trying to pull.

But after an onslaught of little tricks and his rude kiss and run earlier, you were feeling a little more mischievous than normal. Perhaps he was rubbing off on you.

Before he could say anything to tease you, you strode up to him, got onto the very tips of your toes, and reached up to pull him into a kiss.

He was too tall for you to be able to pull a maneuver like that without him playing along but he eagerly leaned down to meet you, lips crashing together. His hands fell to your waist, helping you keep your balance as you strained to reach him.

You pulled away after a moment and looked up at him with a smirk, giving his aura a little tug as you said, “You really should announce when it's you.”

He laughed. “You didn't give me the chance.”

His hands tightened around your sides, giving you a gentle squeeze as he kept you close. “We don’t have to stop, you know. I’d be a cruel man to rob you of a wet dream.”

Your boldness grew in your chest. You couldn’t remember if you’d ever been around someone and simply not felt nervous before now but these last few weeks, he’d managed to foster that feeling in you. You were eager to try out this new confidence.

You slipped out of his grasp and fell to your knees in front of him. “You know,” you said, “I haven't been able to thank you for being so kind to me.”

For once he seemed to be at a loss for words. After a moment of floundering, he managed to say, “You don’t need to do that, little one.”

“I want to,” you said, looking up at him with big eyes.

You barely caught the quiet groan that escaped him. “What did I do to deserve you,” he asked, and it too was quiet. You couldn’t help but wonder if it was a question meant for you or if it was for the universe itself.

After his little nod of permission, you were immediately undoing his pants, eager to get your hands on him after so many weeks of pining after him.

Being here, now, it felt silly that you’d denied yourself those feelings for so long. Outside of his little pocket of hell where you’d been able to do as you wished, you’d tried to force down those feelings.

But now, despite the appearance of his familiar room, nothing was here to help you along. The dam just broke, and you couldn’t help but wish you’d given in much sooner.

As you pulled down his pants you found he was already hard, his massive cock bouncing up as you freed it of its confines.

Part of you was glad your first encounter with it was in a dream because it was intimidatingly big. It fit his frame as he towered above you but you were unsure if humans and demons were meant to be together like this. You found you didn’t much care either way. You’d make it work.

You gave an experimental lick to the tip, your tongue moving lightly across it.

His hand came down to grab your jaw as you pulled off of him, squishing your cheeks as he angled your face up toward him.

“You’re too sweet, little one. It’s going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

“Wanna be sweet for you,” you said, leaning into his touch.

He released your jaw and tilted his head to the side, giving you the reigns.

You licked up a long stripe up his cock, from the very base. It felt like the most you could manage, your hands encircling him to make up for what you couldn’t do with your mouth.

His breathing was coming faster, his eyes remaining locked on your form. As your hands pumped up and down his shaft, focusing most of your attention on licking at the head of his cock, you couldn’t help but wonder how much of him coming undone so quickly was because of the actual sensation and how much was from him getting to watch you.

He seemed entirely entranced. You felt several times as his hands moved to touch you before pulling quietly away, like he could get head from you and yet was nervous to touch, as if that would make it too vulnerable.

The more grunts and whines you pulled from him, the more determined you became. You pulled back from your persistent licking, taking him in for a moment.

He might be massive, but you focused on the fact that as real as this felt, it was a dream. Surely in a dream you could do whatever you wanted. You were most certainly going to try.

You managed to fit your lips around the head, your mouth stretched wide. You swirled your tongue around the tip as your hands worked his shaft, determined to draw even more noises from him.

You looked up with wide eyes, waiting to make sure you were doing okay. You could feel them watering as you worked him over but you pushed past it as those watery eyes met his, pitch black and full of nothing but lust and adoration.

A massive hand found its way into your hair, not pushing but caressing as you tried to take as much of him as you could.

The hand tightened in your hair and he grunted out, “I’m going to…”

That was the only warning you got before he started to come.

You tried to swallow it all but couldn’t manage it. It just kept coming, it was too much. You popped off the head with a little cough, the rest getting all over your clothes and making you once again glad that this was a dream.

This would have been a nightmare to explain to Eden. You might’ve just had to burn your clothes and hope for the best.

Lucien lets out a gentle chuckle, thumb wiping some of his cum off of your face. “A little over-ambitious but I appreciate the enthusiasm.”

You snorted out a laugh and as he looked down at you fondly, you thought you could happily stay here forever.

And then something other than the contentedness and fondness crossed his face, wrinkling his brow.

His expression soured and before you could so much as ask a question, he simply said, “Wake up” and the world around you fell away.

You woke up frustrated and confused, not understanding why he sent you away. You wanted more and you wanted to stay and more than anything you wanted an explanation. You summoned him almost reflexively, the process second nature to you now.

Before any of your confusion or frustration could come out, he blurted out, “Let me take you somewhere.”

A wounded little sound escaped you as the moment soured and his obsession with whisking you away appeared once more. “Not a chance.”

“But if you could go somewhere…”

“Can we not do this? Please? I can’t.”

“Can’t?”

“Shouldn’t. Whatever word you want me to use.”

“Why, because she says you shouldn’t? I say you should.”

“I say I shouldn’t. Isn’t that enough for you?”

The fight normally petered out right about there, both of you frustrated and exhausted with the uphill battle of trying to get the other to understand.

Not today. Something had changed between the two of you and the desire to linger in it, to bathe in the affection, dissipated as he grabbed your arm and the room around you gave way to the stone walls of an alley.

The narrow, stone corridor was devoid of people but you could hear the buzz of a crowd not far off, probably not more than a few paces away. It was hard to tell exactly as the noise bounced off the walls, echoing in your ears.

Despite your anger, you found yourself edging closer to Lucien. Anything familiar was welcome in this alien place you’d been thrust into.

Your breathing got shallower and you pleaded with him. “Take me back.”

“I will if you want me to. Just not yet. Please not yet. You need to leave, you need to not be there.”

You looked up at him with teary eyes, the trust you’d been basking in being shattered in a moment. “Why are you doing this? I know it’s not for me because I don’t want it.”

“She’s made you afraid. You’ve been tricked and trapped and you need to leave. I need you to leave. You just need a push, that’s it. Just need to be away from her.”

“Listen, just because you don’t like her…”

“No, this is not spite talking, you need to listen to me, you need to figure it out.”

You reeled back. “What?” Surely if he knew something that could change this endless fight, he would have told you. What could there possibly be that you needed to figure out all on your own?

“You just, you need to ask…” his words were cut off with a yell as he doubled over on himself, runes burning into his skin as he spoke. They shone bright red and it almost looked like he was being branded.

The anger faded immediately into concern as you rushed to his side.

“What’s happening, I don’t understand?”

“You can’t say anything,” he insisted, a frantic look in his eyes.

“But you said…”

“I know what I said, you can’t ask anything.”

More than anything, that scared you. The constant pleading for you to break free and push back against Eden and now he was doing everything but that, retracing his steps after unmistakable witch marks were burned into him.

She’d done this. That much was clear.

You couldn’t keep doing this. You needed to know, needed to understand.

“Take me back.”

“I…”

You put everything you had into your voice as you said, “Lucien, take me back.”

The use of his name in his already weakened state with the ruins still charred into his skin was enough, he didn’t have it in him to fight back and you were whisked into the depths of the woods. You returned home.

#terato #demon x reader #demon x human #monster bf #monster boyfriend #monster x human #monster x reader #demon #the witch's apprentice #I love knowing what's going on in Lucien's head when yall don't lol #this is my last chapter of that #answers soon #its going to make his past behavior make a lot more sense ill tell you that much lol

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monstergirlclaws · 1 year

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attention all monster girls:

it is Monster Girl Saturday. until tonight's server reset, your base defense and attack speed have been increased by 10% and your total HP has been doubled. have fun and be yourselves!

#monster girl saturday #i'm making it a thing #what does it entail? wouldn't YOU like to know #hm. entail. okay whatever else it involves it definitely involves tails.#creature behavior

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spacedace · 6 months

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Fuck whatever DC is doing with the al Ghul's characterizations and story lines, I've decided that from now on the al Ghul's are gonna be DC's version of the Addams Family instead.

Now I don't mean just give the various al Ghul's the exact personalities of the various Addams and call it a day. That's boring, that erases all the interesting parts of the al Ghuls, that's just using "find & replace" and not actually adding anything. I mean give them the vibes of the Addams Family.

Keep the al Ghul's as the al Ghul's with all their scheming and machinations and world domination attempts but give them all the unhinged energy, the casually insane view of the world, the deranged levels of love and devotion for family. Make them that group where objectively they are batshit insane but also you cannot argue with the fact that they are indisputably the most stable and functional family in the entire universe.

They're creepy, they're kooky, they're mysterious and spooky. Ra's many opulent homes and impenetrable fortresses are a museum and the al Ghul's really are a screa-um whenever people come to see-um (or when they lay waste upon their enemies in a surprise attack that has been planned for months and is just the first domino in a series that will ultimately lead to achieving a far greater goal).

They all love each other and want each other to be happy, they express this primarily with stabbing and murder attempts (its fine, death is a thing that happens to other people).

And forget the League of Assassins being a cult. Just make the whole vast globe spanning organization a collection of cousins/aunts/uncles/dear old friends ect. No one (not even the al Ghuls, if they cared to keep track of such things) is sure who is actually related to them and who just got absorbed into the ever expanding family tree based on their vibes being right.

(Is Sensei Ra's father you ask? Well he's certainly someone's father - probably.

Anyway have you heard about Cousin Cheshire? Despicable poisoner of a young woman, capable of the most horrific things imaginable - yes she is the sweetest dear. Like I was saying though, she just had a baby!

Everyone in the family is just so excited to throw a baby shower to celebrate! Ubu has really gone all out with the spike traps, he does so love getting to welcome a new addition to the family.

Talia of course has cultivated a brand new strain of the most toxic plants imaginable to make a brand new kind of necrotizing poison. You know, as a nice little romantic gift for Cousin Cheshire and that young man of hers. It really is so important to make sure you take time for you and your partner to go on dates and have a few pitched battles to the death on dark rooftops in the pounding rain when you have children.

Now there is some to-do about it all of course, you know how family get together can be. Everyone is arguing over who should get to give little Lian her first weapon and what it should be. Nyssa is pushing for grenades but Ra's is insisting on a sword - he's traditional like that you know - but Dusan has the vote so far on throwing knives. You know the kind that have the little divots along the edges of the blades them to make it easier to get the poison you dip them in to stick.)

I'm just saying that the al Ghuls should be a delightful cross between the Bond Villains they were originally conceived as and the lovingly unhinged Addams Family. It just feels correct in my heart.

(Again keep the interesting aspects of the characters and the nuances of who each of them are like their drive to save the world through destroying humanity and their strong environmentalist leanings and their constantly playing 5D chess and everything, but like, take away the racism and the cartoonishly evil for no reason bullshit and give them some fun feral energy to go along with it).

#batman #ra's al ghul #al ghul family #talia al ghul #nyssa raatko #cheshire dc #sensei dc #no more racism and fucked up dark family dynamics #the al ghuls aggressively adore each other #violence and schemes is their love language #in the full au version of all of this i'd like to imagine how canon plot points change with the al ghuls having these vibes #Just imagine Damian still trying to kill Tim when he first ends up in Bruce's care #but instead of it being a ploy to get rid of a threat its because he's just so excited to meet one of his big brothers #and attempted murder is just how you tell someone in your family that you love them #Tim just SO CONFUSED because Damian is talking so animatedly about how happy he is to get to have some brotherly bonding with Tim #while ACTIVELY trying to run him through with a sword #idk how things change with Cass exactly but i feel like they would in this #like either David Cain isn't an absolute monster or the al ghuls catch wind of what he's doing & are like #This is NOT how al ghuls treat family! what is this shameful behavior! She can't even insult you while you fight!#fighting and violence is a perfectly healthy way to express your love but only if there's actually LOVE involved!#The Heretic & other Damian clones still get made but only because Talia just misses her son so much that she makes more of him #Nyssa has just been bopping around the world for a few centuries & pops up every now and then to have a death match with her baby sister #i just have a lot of strong feelings about the al ghuls deserving better and combined that with the vibes of my favorite unhinged family #Dick still hates Talia but Talia takes all his insults as her darling step son telling her how much he loves her #which only drives Dick even crazier #Tim rocks up to the League of Assassins during his whole trying to prove Bruce is alive thing already seen as an al ghul #Oh yeah that's Cousin Timothy he's one of Talia's kids - never met a truer al ghul in your life #You see how he blew up all those bases? Ra's cried he was so proud #Ra's spoils his grandkids absolutely rotten which is giving Bruce SO MANY gray hairs

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