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certifiedstarrr · 6 months

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"i'll beat her bitch ass." - c.s

femvolleyballplayer!y/n x chris

warnings: cursing, crying, intentional lowercase, no grammar used (intentional), past injury, use of y/n (sorry?)

summary: it’s the semi-finals of the biggest volleyball tournament of the year and y/n feeling great at first but 2 people who were supposed to be there didn’t show upーthen after her game she gets the worst news of her life. will it affect her gameplay for the tournament?

this is set in some random ass au that i can’t really explain😭😭

p.s sorry to people named amelia, no hate to y’all !💗

don’t like don’t read !!

find some other shit to do.

not proofread (a bitch don’t got no time for that shit)

this is my work and i do not approve of plagiarism in any way. i also do not approve of reposting my work onto other apps or anything of the idea. SSTVRNIOLOO 2024.

a/n: HEYY so this is your surprise fic ive been working onnnn ~ this could be a series but idk yet 🤷🏾‍♀️ also my laptop stopped working so i don’t have the option of typing anymore, so it’ll be on my phone or ipad. (mostly ipad though) 💔

wc: 1.1k

happy reading loviess !

ೃ༄

waking up feeling great, but then remembering about my volleyball game in the semi-finals, i felt nervous. i hop out my bed and start walking to my bathroom.

heading over to the bathroom to brush my teeth, wash my face and do my daily skincare.

i grab my jersey from a hanger in my closet, closing the closet door after equipping the clothing item i needed.

bringing the jersey to my head, pulling it over my head, and the jesey laying tight on my torso. the red and blue complemented each other well and suited my natural complexion.

seizing my knee pads, arm sleeves, and leg brace and shoving them into my sports bag. i anxiously fumble with the zipper; failing many times to zip it up but succeeding after attempt six.

going down my steps, i pull out my phone and go to me and chris' texts.

y/n

hey baby are you almost here?

read: 2:03pm

chris💗

yeah ill be there in 5

read: 2:04pm

y/n

alright see you soon baby💕

read: 2:05pm

i shove my phone back into my sports bag and wait for my boyfriend to pick me up.

ೃ༄

i look around in the crowd; searching for the two people who said they’d be here and wouldn’t miss it for the worldーmy parents who are fucking liars.

it was the semi-finals of the biggest college volleyball tournament of the year and i was excited.

until i saw two empty chairs waiting to filled by no one. but i saw my friends and my biggest supporterーmy boyfriend of two years: chris. he was there for every game, there to pick me up from practice; whatever i needed. i loved him more than anything.

the stadium was fullーspecifically 23,000 people. it was sold out and i see a sea of people wearing our school colors: red and blue.

everybody was here: from alumni, parents, and students. i was a tiny bit nervous because i’d never seen so many people come to watch our school play.

but after all, it was the semi-finals.

i scanned and searched the crowd and found the triplets, and my friends: lauren and angelina.

i met up with my teammates at the bench and we went over our game plan. i look over at the opposing team and see my biggest rival.

amelia. the little fucking bitch that plays foul. the snarkiest grin decorating her stupid face.

last season she almost permanently injured me over one pre-season gameーi was hospitalized for 3 fucking months and she just laughed about it and acted like she didnt know what i was talking about. that bitch could have injured me so badly that i coulda been kept in the hospital longer, or permently.

i scanned the front row and once i found him, chris doing our secret messageーblowing a kissーwhich means “you got this, i love you, and kill their asses”.

doing our team chant and reviewing our lineup. my position was spiker; specifically outside hitter. so that means i was main hitter: who got most of the sets.

meghan; my setterーwho was also one of my best friends, did our secret handshake and communicated with hand gestures that the opposing team doesn't know: which in turn gives us the opportunity to fix a plan during the game.

ೃ༄

everyone was set in their correct position and the sea of people went silent. it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. the first whistle blew and i locked in.

it’s you, the ball, and your teammates. nothing else matters right now.

the first serve of game and its already a long rally.

the perfect set comes from meghanーdirectly to me,

i spike the volleyball and the only sound heard in whole the stadium was the loud smack of my palm hitting the ball straight down to the floor on the opponent's side.

it went to amelia and she dove for it but missed.

i let out a little giggle as her face twisted into an furious one. i loved pissing her offーand each time i do, its payback for her injuring me.

ೃ༄

whilst jumping to block a deep incoming set dump, lorelai; one of our team's middle blockers, landed wrong on her ankle and broke it.

she was such a good blocker and which now she had to exit the game due to her ankle, left me in a state of disappointment.

another one of our other middle blockers, yasmine, traded spots for lorelai. she wasnt as good but still played well and got the job done.

i look over at the crowd and see the triplets and my two friends holding a banner that spelled out "let's go y/n". i cheesed at the bannerーbut still with a stupidly wide grin on my face.

ೃ༄

it was down to the final minute of the game and the crowd was on their feet.

i was serving. and hell, i was scared i was gonna mess it all up. my jump-serve was excellent, but i was in shambles when it came to the final seconds of a game; even if i wasnt playing.

throwing the ball into the air as the sea of people that gaped at my every move. running after it and jumping in the air and cocking my arm backーswinging it at the ball, hitting it far left to a weaker player on the opposing team.

scoring an ace,

"all ace !!"

my team cheered. they lost. fuck you amelia.

ೃ༄

amelia scoffed, flipping me off and walking over, slapping me over apparently "cheating". also telling me that chris didnt love me and i was just a good fuck.

and that's where i dont play.

shits about to go down.

"i'll beat her bitch-ass."

extra: guys i felt so much relief releasing your surpise fic <33

also dont play wit y/nnnnnnnn she gon beat amelia's ass

now if i wake up to an activity page of who-knows-how-many thingies its better than christmas morning ~ i have a angsty chris fic sitting in my drafts and im trying to start it but ive no motivation to start writing, and i just realized anna: (@worldlxvlys), riyah (@hoesformatt), and grace (@lacysturniolo) follow me. tysm for reading !! sorry im a giant yapper

xoxo, riri !

taglist: 🏷 @lovingmattysposts @elliesturniolo1 @elliewrites1 @sturnsbitch @luvmxtt @vanteguccir @novasturniolo03 @tyjna6 @sturnlova @sturniolo-lover1317 @patscorner

(comment here to be on my taglist !)

#matt sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #triplets #christopher sturniolo #christopher sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo imagine #chris sturniolo x you #chris sturniolo x reader #chris x reader #christopher owen sturniolo #stvrnioloo

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magellanicclouds · 5 months

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Halo - An Essay: regarding waste management systems and devices for MJOLNIR armoured Spartans It has been a hectic sort of few weeks. Between work and getting sick again (for the fourth time already this year thanks to my crewmates who can't remember it's their duty to stay home when they're ill) I've been on the outs. I haven't had the energy for much, but I'm usually a pretty active person, so this has kind of made me loopy? Which feels like as good a time as any to talk at length about the concept of catheterizing Spartans for waste management in MJOLNIR.

Let me explain.

This Silly Post crossed my dash recently and I fully understand it is meant as lighthearted fun - we have fun here. But it also dragged out some strong thoughts I've had haunting in the back of my mind about this for years because I'm super normal about Halo, and have time on my hands and the right amount of sleep deprivation and medication on board. So I wrote 3500 words about it. And about Karen Traviss, who is pretty knotted up in this conversation, since she's the one who decided to start it back in 2011.

To preface, I'm not an expert, but I have worked in emergency medicine for 25 years, and been a fan of Halo for almost as long. I've had more of a lukewarm relationship with it the last decade or so if I'm being honest, but it will always have a home in my heart; I just think letting it under my skin like that in the first place may have made me feral and prone to biting. Thankfully, I can always happily rotate Fred in my mind until the heat-death of the universe, so that's nice. Anyway, full disclosure: the essay below contains discussion about medical devices, physical trauma, and I am sharing quite a lot of personal negativity about the Kilo-5 trilogy and Karen Traviss. That said, if you'd like to sit in on the length of what I'm about to yell into the sky about all this, you can find it under the cut. I love you.

Welcome to my dissertation.

Section 1 - The Relevant Background:

Equipping Spartans with urinary catheters weeded itself into the Halo universe in the 2011 book Halo: Glasslands, during a conversation between Spartan II Naomi-010 and ODST Mal Geffen. Glasslands was the first in Karen Traviss's Kilo-5 trilogy, and she is both the originator of this, and the only official Halo author or source to have used catheters specifically since. Some context: I don't personally like these books, or their author, or even her reasoning for why she chose to add this. My personal preference doesn't make something 'bad', and I'm not out to hurt any feelings. Kilo-5 isn't a total wash for me, there are some characters and ideas that I'd of otherwise loved to have seen explored through the lens of a different author, but these books felt smothered under Traviss's habit of always injecting her very loud personal voice into the narrative fabric. I think this is something that's fine to do in an original series, but doesn't really belong in an established third party IP. She bangs on about so much of her own narrow worldview and self-assured prejudices across the trilogy that still discussing them today creates division in the fandom, and sadly did a lot of lasting damage to a couple characters. But for the topic here, the dialogue that started all this cath chat came from Naomi-010, having idle conversation with Mal who asks her about bathroom breaks. “I’m catheterized. Another reason why that machine has to be so precisely calibrated. This suit plugs into me in a lot of places.” 'The Machine' she's referring to is a Brokkr assembly, which was introduced to the lore as a large mechanical armature used to get Spartans in and out of MJOLNIR. You can see them in action in cinematics from Halo 4 (+Spartan Ops) and 5.

One single mention, and it was big news. Traviss was naturally interviewed about it because of course she was - people can't help themselves but forget an entire novel and tunnel vision on 'but how pee pee?', and her answer has always irritated me. It's not in what she says, so much as what 'what she says' means in her voice. Traviss didn't answer it directly, but instead talked about how she likes to get into character's heads by addressing the mundane necessity of things that often go overlooked to expand a sense of familiarity with the character and their world. Sounds super reasonable, I know, but don't give her too much credit - that's not a quote. It's just me paraphrasing and honestly I was pretty generous in my wording. Probably because I agree! What bugs me about it, is if you've ever read literally any interview with her, or her personal musings about her writing process, you know there's a bit of an 'honesty' issue there. She's somebody who feels perfectly comfortable ignoring established character voices, traits, or histories to satisfy whatever roles she's reinvented for them, and too many others wind up as mouthpieces. How much are you really challenging yourself in finding characters' voices when most of them are just yours? And the part about familiarity with their world? I giggled a little. She doesn't care about their world, or their aesthetics, or their technology, or their medicine. Because she didn't care about Halo while writing these, and she's not vague about admitting that. It's a matter of pride for her to purposefully refuse to research those things, in the same way she disregarded Star Wars and Gears of War - she doesn't consider the effort to be a valuable part of her process. So instead she'll skim the foundation, gather some recognizable names, pick her targets, and trusts that her personal experiences combined with an outsider perspective will generate better content to seamlessly overwrite what existed. Cool, Karen. Annoying, but why bring all that up? We're here to talk about catheters, right? Well, the fandom for the most part begin and end their assessment of the dialogue at urinary catheters, but the whole quote implies so much more than that - "This suit plugs into me in a lot of places." We're not just dealing with a cath, but apparently with multiple additional external-to-invasive connections. Reader, this dialogue is a plinth to Traviss's bizarre refusal to research not only the franchises she's contracted to write in, but also just into the basic function and hazards of existing concepts that she wants to introduce, and all because she's convinced herself she's done learning about the world. Choosing to ignore the creative freedom of limitless potential in a future of technology that would be basically magic to us today, and instead degrade 529 years of advancement is certainly a take, but it's even more ridiculous to do it with a subject (The Spartan Programme) that is considered to be the peak of advancement in that future's setting. That's clownery, just like her alleged commitment to adjusting her perspective to suit a universe's world.

I want to close out this section with a question: Why is it that writers in the Halo space - both fan and official - cling so tightly to current-day modern concepts as if they'd still be perfectly relevant in 500+ years? Music, for example, apparently suffered a multi-century stagnation in lots of published and fanmade Halo media. Though my partner made a strong counterpoint about this to be fair: we still listen to music composed by Mozart. So there's an argument to be made there. Medicine though. There is way less latitude to embrace the classics there. It's been shown across several games, novels, and films to be sufficiently advanced well beyond anything we're currently capable of or even understand, so why undermine that and choose to drag it centuries backward? For clarity, I am not talking about what might be standard in the public or private sectors, nor the enduring things that'd be used by the public and military alike, like sterile dressings, syringes, supplemental oxygen equipment. Those are the Basics and they will be relevant to us indefinitely. But I'm talking about the UNSC. I'm talking about ONI R&D. I'm talking about Section Three. Retrograding tech and failing to address a necessity that applies to every living person in the Super Soldier Wizardry department makes my mouth flatten into a tight little line.

Section Two - Caths, and why this whole thing got written:

Indwelling urinary catheters, both urethral and suprapubic. There's a laundry list of problems here, but I've distilled it down to the three biggest when suggesting they'd have any safe practical application in Spartans: Care. Activity. Damage. There is unreasonable expectations of care and maintenance for caths with regards to people who can be on operations isolated for months at a time with no support of any kind and are often limited to carrying only what can be kept on their person. The level of extreme physical activity Spartans engage in on any perfectly normal day whether deployed or not is unfit for the stability and safety of a cath. And damage; obvious enough, but with this one I'll be taking a huge emphasis on concussive forces - explosions. Something Spartans are subjected to a lot. I'll be using the height of modern-day catheter quality as a baseline for this, since that's what Traviss felt was sufficient. Regarding Urethral vs Suprapubic, Traviss doesn't specify by name, but Naomi's comment in full reads to me that she's only catheterized temporarily while armoured, hence the assembly needing to be so finely calibrated. Foley caths are temporary urethral caths that would only supplement the urinary process while a person was armoured. Suprapubic caths however are surgically placed devices. They do need routine tube replacement to keep them clean, but unlike the Foley that just serves as an aide measure for an otherwise fully functioning bladder, suprapubic caths are usually placed in people with congenital bladder disfunction, or who've suffered injury or disease that left the bladder in poor health or failure. This type of access will always require a tube in place and this would be the exclusive method of urination - in or out of armour. My Big Three Concerns fit both types similarly, though there is some additional risks associated with urethral caths that I'll cover.

Care: Caring for an invasive cath is a not insignificant effort. They're prone to blockage, kinking, and bacterial growth. They're so frequently responsible for UTIs and kidney stones that these complications are just considered the Standard Fair for having a cath. Their need to be frequently replaced because of their penchant for bacterial growth is the kicker here - whole floral colonies sprout up in caths and can eek their way out into the body through compromised tissue and wreck havoc. They have no self-cleaning mechanism, and steadily deteriorate. Changing and replacing an indwelling cath is a procedure that requires additional supplies that'd have to be carried, and needs to be done in a practiced and clean setting; preferably medical. Granted, there are people who manage the removal and insertion of their own caths at home, but they still need to ensure a clean and safe environment while they do this. A Spartan could never be guaranteed that, nor would it even be wise to consider the vulnerability of removing so much armour to handle it. Modern day caths are recommended to be replaced every 30 days or so, with some models able to be in place for a few months at a time, but that's with constant daily care and cleaning; something that'd be unreasonable for a Spartan to maintain while entrenched who knows where for who knows how long, and without access to replacement medical supplies. Those endurance times between replacements are geared for the average public person who leads an average public life and care for their cath as directed and don't get into fist fights with Sangheili. Needless to say, the endurance time for the same device in a Spartan who leads a wildly different lifestyle probably cuts those times down to a third.

Activity: Modern day caths are designed to offer people the most utility and versatility possible. Both models are available for people who are bed-bound or have extremely limited mobility, as well as for those who are mobile, independent, and live out average lives. With regards to the latter, suprapubics are somewhat more common, if for no other reason than to reduce the Foley's higher risks of induction injury, but modern urethral caths also allow for regular movement and activity with a more reduced chance of becoming dislodged or damaged than they would have had a couple decades ago. But when I say regular activity, I mean going on a walk. Shopping for groceries. Doing basic house chores. Even light exercise and sexual activity can be managed with physician advisement and the appropriate precautions taken. Anytime a Spartan was fielded they'd have to be all the more overly-cautious about Movements Outside of Their Control during confrontations, maneuvers, ambush, environmental or vehicular incidents. Even when things go well there'd be too much risk involved. That said, traumatic decatheterizations happen more frequently than anyone would like, and I'm talking about regular old Joe Everybody. I respond to no less than a dozen of these incidents a year. Both types of catheter are held in place by a bulb balloon that's inflated from a port with around 10-30ccs of saline after the tube enters the bladder (30ccs would be more appropriate for better security of the line). Before removing a cath, the saline is removed to deflate the balloon and the tube is guided out - with a Foley cath, that means being guided out of the urethra. When a Foley cath is traumatically removed, the saline filled balloon - which is like five times wider in diameter than the average 6mm urethra - does a pretty devastating amount of damage on it's way out, penis or vagina; though a penile urethra has significantly more length to damage, and the penile meatus very typically is torn. These incidents run high risk of bladder hematoma as well, which requires urgent surgical intervention. The very worst traumatic decatheterizations I've responded to were all penile and had trauma to external tissue. Ever microwaved a hotdog a little too long?

Damage: How often are Spartans subjected to explosive and other concussive forces? Silly question - answer: a lot and often and unavoidable. And we know they still feel the powerful feedback. Despite shields and dampeners and a self-moderating gel layer, strong inertial forces are still felt through the suits. Across multiple novels we're given details about near misses and blasts, accelerated or uncontrolled falls, rattling their teeth, hampering their vision, hearing, or balance; they've been rendered unconscious and suffered internal injuries. The fact that most of these events don't flat out kill them is a credit to their armour and augmentations. For reference - when a person experiences explosive or concussive force from a distance enough to avoid separation of limbs, bisection, etc, the totality of their injuries can't and won't be seen externally. How they present on the outside is just the tippy tip of the iceburg - it's what's happened to them internally that you need to be concerned about. Cracked or fractured bones, torn musculature, arterial shearing, hollow organ rupture, cardiac and brain tissue bleed, to name some common ones, and this kind of trauma extends to all implanted devices as well. For example, rods and nails and other structural aids or replacements are much more resilient than your organic tissues, and can dislodge when tissues tear or rupture, damaging anything in their way like shrapnel. The fragile little balloon of a catheter will shatter when subjected to even relatively minor explosive force, so to even consider for a moment that this would be a viable piece of equipment for people intended to routinely be involved in explosive environments is beyond willful negligence. That there wouldn't be a better solution to the question of waste management - a necessity for literally all human people who make up the entirety of the Spartan branch, with the infinite funding of ONI R&D seems so stupid to me that I… well, that I wrote this. Because, friends - participating in active warfare is not cath-safe. The kinds of physical demands and forces on Spartan bodies are not cath-safe. The risks will never outweigh the benefits to this. Even while sealed in powered armour and a skinsuit tech layer, the very thought of Section Three engineers or Halsey or anyone involved in the development of MJOLNIR dismissing the glaring obvious failure of Spartans having any kind of externalized invasive devices is so unreasonably negligent that it could only be the brainchild of an author who's convinced that these characters are all actually just psuedo-intelligent government boogiemen who aren't as capable as they claim to be. But No. They are that capable, and they are that intelligent and the fact that they have a bottomless budget and deeply flexible ethics is literally what makes them so dangerous.

So if we have to address this, how do we do it? Apparently there was always an official answer for this. Former Franchise Development Director, creator of the Master Chief**, and extremely racist asshole Frank O'Connor weighed in on this in the same interview, where he almost immediate rejected and denied Traviss's catheterization claim and says that 'this sort of stuff' was the kind of thing he and the other creative heads at Bungie/343i talked and planned about all the time. So how does this work then, because we're invested now. According to 'ol Frankie's elegant input: they just pee freely into the suit. That's it. For clarity, he's talking about the skinsuit and not the MJOLNIR interior proper. He goes on to say that connectivity between body and MJOLNIR at all levels is fully noninvasive, but precise, and that it doesn't matter what kind of body output a Spartan introduces into the suit interior, because a hygienic valve system (??) will scrub it continually and collect all matter for recycling and reintroduction via capillary action powered by movement. It's not clear in what layers or intermediaries these mechanisms occupy, he doesn't break it down more than that. But that's the answer, and it did exist back when Traviss was penning Kilo-5.

Is this answer better than haphazardly plugging extension cords from actual organ systems into MJOLNIR interior? Yes. Like, leagues better by comparison, but also I still think it sucks. To me anyway. It's flat out gross as hell, which definitely fits the personal brand of a man who proudly overfed his cat and called himself "Stinkles", but also it just doesn't strike me as the kind of design strategy ONI would pursue for any of their assets. Beside it just being 100% torn from Dune's stillsuits, it's also missing that special brand of proprietary Section Three je ne sais quoi. There's layers upon layers of too-specialized equipment installed into these people for everything else, why skip this? A body function that should have been Point 3 on a 50 point list of 'stuff to manage'. Also though? It's a lot of freedom. This is just another easy opportunity to add yet another layer of dependence. Spartans are expensive equipment. It doesn't do to give them any fewer reasons to think they can ever walk away.

So anyway, I figured I'd take a crack at it. I came up with this while editing the last two paragraphs: [Waste management] - a fully internalized collection and processing device - lets say a cybernetic implantation - that entirely replaces the bladder. It has bio-organic lumens that interconnect it to the GI and Hepatic organs. The implant assists in accelerating the processing of gathering and refining waste materials with the help of nanobots that identify and redirect waste along the lumens of each system, plus they keep the implant clean and free of bad flora. All twice-processed waste gets refined a lot quicker and any water by-product of the process is refined and redistributed back to the organs along the lumens. None of the refined water is removed from the body for drinking, because that's an unnecessary step; it's already inside. (Drinking water would be the responsibility of a suit system more likely - like, sweat leeching in the skinsuit; refine, filtrate, purify, collect into a reservoir, and jettison the excess sodium. ) There is no 'extraction of other viable nutrient' from the remainder, it's been twice identified as waste. It gets catabolized and consumed by the nanobots as a fuel source, and no externalized waste is created at all while the Spartan is geared up. The implant doesn't always run like this - it only engages this way when the Spartan is wearing MJOLNIR, and when they're not, it just works like an out-of-the-box bladder. The intermittence of usage lets the organic organs truck along as usual, preventing risk of atrophy, and the Spartan can just use a bathroom like everyone else. I'm not a bioengineer, but I do like sci fi and I think all that sounds like something that'd be possible in this sandbox. And that's the real fun of it, isn't it? There's no way anyone today can anticipate what sort of gadgetry might be available 500+ years from now, especially in a fictional universe that includes military tech hybridized with reverse engineered alien tech.

I think it's fascinating when writers and artists shake loose and really grab the reins, and I love seeing the fruit of that labour in this particular tumblr community so often. We're not a huge Halo circle, but we're a passionate one, and if this essay leaves you with nothing else, I hope it will at least remind you to Go For It when you're writing your next fic or drawing your next piece, or composing, or sewing, or printing, or anything!

In Conclusion: Rest easy, friends.

Despite Traviss's word and even books that went to print, the official canon is that Spartans are not catheterized. If that's a bummer for anyone, canon can't stop you from writing whatever you want, but I do hope maybe you'll remember my reasoning for why it might not be the best idea? At least not for armoured Spartans. A Spartan, but they're laid up in hospital? Any non-Spartan personnel? Maybe you're writing in the public sector, a colony world or vessel? Sure - I'll bet caths are still plenty widely used. Why not? They're a blissfully simple and useful effective piece of equipment. It's just all about adjusting and adapting for practicality. Medical science, like any technology, adapts and evolves infinitely as we learn and discover new things. Treatments or drug algorithms I'd of used just last year have already undergone changes, and protocols are amended constantly. It's why a person 'practices' medicine; why a scientist is always a student. If questions like this or similar really need answering in your next work, remember: Give yourself the credit you deserve, and embrace the spirit of invention. Let my Cyber Bladder, by Sparklets be the candle in the window for you!

You may all retrieve your keys from the bowl and unsilence your phones. Stay safe and please text me when you get home. Thank you. ' u ' **Addendum: Former Bungie Creative Art Director Marcus Lehto is in fact the person who is most associated with the creation of the Master Chief.**

#halo #long form #my writing

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megamindsecretlair · 7 months

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WIP Wednesday

Thank you for the tag @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin , im never sure if ppl look forward to whats upcoming from me, but these keep me honest 🤣😭

Step one: Post snippets of the fics you're working on (can be a summary if there's no snippet)

Step two: put them in a poll and let people vote on which one you should work on, then prioritize the one with the most votes.

Step three: Ask me about my WIPs! Don't be shy, I love talking about my fics! We don't create or share in a void, we want to hear from you lovelies!

Well, Mega, what can we look forward to 👀

1) Beauty and the Beast Inspired Stunna: I have severe Yahya Abdul Mateen II brainrot and baby, 🥲 the way I want to write literally everything for him. This will be a precursor to a novella I wanna write with original characters and lots more action, but Id love extra feedback for it. It will have vampires, toxic staff, and naughty bits.

2) Mea Culpa: I have been debating how much time I wanna dedicate to rewriting that monstrosity of a movie 🤭 okay, thats not fair. The idea was there, the execution wasn't because TP wouldnt know what's sexy if it slapped him in his face. Who am I fooling? I won't be satisfied until I write the whole thing and satisfy my brain. So yeah, prepare for a rewrite according to what I would've done. Think corruption kink, think court drama, think Zyair being the toxic mess we know and love.

3) Mob Boss Tyrone: I feel like ive been teasing this for years 🥲😭🤣 and thats because the ask was specifically for a one shot and I plotted out 7 parts 🤭🤣 at this point, yall know how I am. I tried to conform to short fics for my sanity and I just cant 🤷🏽‍♀️ some ideas require one part, some require several. It will include hella angst, hella smut, hella toxcity, but at the end of the day, hes always going to love his baby girl. I also think im going to switch it to Fontaine chuz thats a prettier/grittier name and would suit the story better.

4) A Watchmen fic for Cal (Yahya): lissen, ive finally went back to finish Watchmen. Not because it was a bad show, but because it requires 100% of my focus and I aint had it. But for Yahya? Ill make the time. I feel like that is 100% a soft dom and I just wanna be his cute lil princess, sue me 🤷🏽‍♀️ I love a man I can't tell what to do 🤣

Theres more but for the sake of brevity, Ill keep it at the 4 most occupying my brain at the moment. Soooo, which one yall want first? And yes 🥲 im aware of how many series I need to update 🥲

No pressure tags: @nerdieforpedro @harmshake @notapradagurl7 @ellethespaceunicorn @miyuhpapayuh

#megaminds updates #megaminds tag game #tag game #tumblr tag game #wip #work in progress #wips #Ask me about my WIPs #poll game #poll #megaminds polls

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subbmissivesuccubus · 7 months

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Part of the Job

Another story requested by my patreon member! If you're interested and would like to support my work, please consider checking it out, link in bio <3

Disclaimer: Gojo X Fem!Geto. ‘Blackmail’ but not really. Hospital sex. A lot of boob loving.

~~~~~

“Getooo~” a shrill voice called out with an annoying teasing tone. Geto rolled her eyes, already knowing why Utahime was so excited.

“Ugh. What is it?” she asked as her Senior reached her, playing along.

“Rude. Be respectful!” Utahime said, pouting before she continued, “But anyway, your boyfriends here. Again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Geto responded, putting away some paperwork on her desk, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have patients to take care of.”

“Yeah, and one of them is your boyfriend. He specifically asked for you. Again.”

“He’s not my boyfriend and I’m not doing it. Have Nanami look after him or something.”

“If Nanami caters to him one more time I think Gojo will leave the hospital more injured than when he came in. Just go already before he throws a tantrum.” Without waiting for a response, Utahime turned around and left the room, leaving Geto alone.

Geto sighed, realising that she unfortunately had to do her job. She looked into the mirror and checked that her uniform was proper, her white dress and stockings pristine and clean. Her long black hair was pinned up in a high ponytail, a strand of it framing her face in the front and her makeup was simple yet elegant. She looked good, as usual.

She walked out of the room and towards the location where her…patient was waiting. She didn’t even need to confirm where the man would be. There was only one room that would be sufficient for that rich bastard.

She knocked on the door once she arrived, sliding it open before she walked in. Despite the annoying situation, she did enjoy coming into the private suite of the hospital. A series of rooms reserved for the higher ups of society- celebrities, billionaires and such. It was a large room with an AC, a TV, a working internet connection, a big comfy bed, soundproof walls and, most importantly, a private nurse.

“Geto!” the nuisance called out excitedly as she walked into the room, “About time! I’ve been waiting for so long!”

Geto closed the door behind her and locked it, rolling her eyes, “I know you just arrived, stop being so dramatic.”

Gojo, her patient in question simply stuck his tongue out at her childishly before he went back to browsing the TV channels. She made her way over to him, trying her best to steel herself for whatever bullshit he was about to start spewing.

Gojo Satoru. He was a handsome young man with striking white hair and even more mesmerising blue eyes. The first time she saw him, she had to remember how to breathe, his eyes sparkling like sapphires. He was the son of the family who owned the hospital and he was well on his way to becoming the head someday. And for some reason, he seemed to have developed a habit of faking injuries and illnesses just to get into the hospital.

For ‘some reason’.

“So, what’s your problem this time?” Geto asked as she sat beside the bed, getting comfortable, notepad in hand as she looked over the man who was sitting against the headboard of the very comfy bed.

“My head hurts.” He responded, giving her a sad puppy dog look, “It’s been hurting all day. I think it’s something serious.”

“It sure is serious.” Geto said, poking his forehead with a manicured nail, “your brain is so empty- I bet the one braincell you have is hurting your skull when it knocks around in all that space!”

“Haha. Very funny.” Gojo said, pretending like he was going to bite her fingers and laughing when she suddenly pulled away, “Anyway, you know the best cure for it, right? You are a nurse, after all. My nurse.”

“Well, a headache will just be a tablet you can swallow but…that’s not what you’re demanding, are you?”

“Demanding? I’m not demanding anything.” Gojo said, lying through his teeth as he looked her up and down with that familiar expression, “I’m just asking you, as a medical professional, to give me the treatment that works the best on me.”

Geto sighed. Here she goes again.

Double checking that the door was locked, she took off her shoes before she crawled onto the bed. Gojo threw the remote away, the TV showcasing some random program but it didn’t matter as Geto sliding onto his lap blocked his view from the machine. She looked down at him, an unimpressed look in her eyes as he stared up at her, mischief behind his blue orbs before his gaze trailed down to her chest. With a sigh, she got to work, starting to unbutton her uniform.

“Oh yeah~ Give me those tits~” the white-haired man purred, practically drooling as Geto’s skin got revealed. She pushed the top half of her dress off of her shoulders and arms, the routine getting familiar as she exposed her bra clad breasts to the perverted patient.

“Fuck-“ Gojo gasped, shamelessly pushing forward and slotting his face into her cleavage, breathing in her scent and lightly shaking his head side to side, motorboating her, “I love it when you wear black.”

“You want to take it off of me?”

“Mmhmm.”

With his face still smothered between her ample breasts, His hands slid up her back, tracing up her spine, his long fingers massaging her muscles before he reached the clasp of her bra. With practiced ease, he unhooked the item, not moving his face away from her chest even as he helped her remove it.

He threw it to the side, finally parting from her so he could have a good long look at her bare chest. Geto understood early on that Gojo was obsessed with her tits, the man often looking at her breasts more than her eyes. She was quite gifted in that department- her breasts decently big and plump enough for his hand to engulf and squeeze tightly.

Giving the valley between her breasts a kiss, his hands came up and grabbed onto her breasts, Geto’s back arching as she allowed him to grope at her. The man bit his lower lips, his pupils turning into hearts as he started to squeeze her like a toy. Her soft flesh seeped between his fingers as he groped her, Gojo using his grip on her to move her breasts in random directions. Sometimes, he’d push her breasts up a bit before letting go, his cock throbbing under Geto’s butt as he watched the way her tits bounced back down only for him to do it again.

“Shake those tits for me, yeah, that’s it~” he ordered, mouth watering as Geto shook her shoulders enough for her breasts to start moving side to side, the way her plump flesh danced mesmerising. He stuffed his face between her tits again, Geto still shaking her body as he enjoyed the feeling of her tits slapping his face.

“Tighter- fuck- make it tighter-“

Geto swore he could probably cum in his pants if the moan he let out was anything to go by. With his hands now on her ass, greedily pawing at her, she pressed her breasts closer together, squeezing them around Gojo’s face. She could feel him moan against her; his cheeks red as he happily suffocated between her soft globes.

“More- squeeze more- fuck – yes!”

Gojo’s cock was already rock hard in his pants but he couldn’t help it. He absolutely loved Geto’s body, especially her tits. He’d spend all day suckling on her nipples if she let him, her soft breasts now becoming a happy place for him. Work is annoying? He’d imagine groping her titties. People are getting on his nerves? He’d picture falling asleep with Geto’s nipple in his mouth. Geto is ignoring him to do her ‘job’? That’s fine, just jerk off to the thought of big, fat milkers-

“Oh fuck!” Gojo moaned, pulling his head from between her breasts to take a deep breath, body shivering as Geto suddenly started to move her hips against his. Her hands now behind her, grasping onto his legs, she arched her back a bit as she ground against his clothed erection, her perky butt massaging his member just right. His grip on her ass tightened as Gojo leaned down, mouth open and panting as his tongue ran over the plush of her right breast. Making his way down to her nipple, he giggled at Geto’s flinch once he flicked her sensitive bud with his tongue, her nipple instantly hardening. Not one to waste time, he sealed his lips around her and started to suck, groaning against her from the sensation of suckling on her sweet bud while also having her ass rub against his leaking member.

As he sucked her, licking her nipple up greedily, Geto thought back to how this all started. How she was so happy to have been accepted to one of the most prestigious hospitals out there. How she quickly got the respect and admiration from her peers for her work ethic and no-nonsense attitude while still being empathetic and kind to patients. She had met Gojo a month into her job and they hit it off, his status not influencing the way she treated him. Despite his spoilt attitude, they ended up being good friends even before she realised who he was.

The first time he got injured and Geto had to look after him, he groped her butt, his pain killer muddled brain claiming it made him feel better. The second time, after he realised Geto wasn’t mad at him, he admitted himself in for a headache and needed to see Geto’s bare breasts to get better. The third time, after his days were haunted by the sight of Geto’s pretty nipples, he claimed his dick was aching and swore that emptying his balls into her mouth would solve his problems.

And so, this routine continued. Perhaps it was because Gojo was technically her boss and Geto had to follow his orders (despite the fact that Geto would sooner castrate him than do something she doesn’t want to do). Perhaps it was because Geto was pent up, hot and horny that she was willing to let Gojo use her body for his perverted desires (much more likely). Or, perhaps, they were two emotionally constipated people who’d rather fuck each other than confess to any actual affection.

“I want you to sit on my face.” Gojo said hungrily, flicking her nipple with his tongue before giving it a kiss. Geto snorted, biting down a gasp as he bit down on her bud, “Is that another, super legit medical procedure?” she asked.

“Sure is.” The man responded, his other hand pawing at her ass, fisting and pulling up her skirt, “your pussy juice can solve any problem.”

“Ugh. Gross.” Geto said, this time unable to hold back her gasp as he suddenly spanked her, the pain red hot and addicting, “Fine- lie down.”

With an excited grin, Gojo did as he was told (a very rare sight), his head resting comfortably against his pillow as he waited for his treat. Huffing, Geto slid her hands underneath her skirt and started to pull off her undergarments. Gojo watched as she slowly started to drag her panties down her milky white thighs, her uniform covering up her cunt but he knew he’d see it in a second. With a bit of manoeuvring, Geto threw her panties to the floor, shivering as she felt the slight chill of the air conditioner brush against her- admittedly wet- cunt.

“Ready?” she asked, crawling up towards his head.

“Fuck yes!” Gojo said, already panting excitedly as he gripped her hips, helping her balance as she finally made her way to his head. “Fucking hell-“ he gasped as she straddled his face, not sitting down yet as she gave him a perfect view of her cunt. He was quite familiar with her pussy at this point, her cunt being absolute perfection. Cute and pink with puffy pussy lips, a tuft of hair and a sensitive clit- her pussy was what dreams were made of. “Your pussy is so perfect- fuck- get down here!”

Gripping her hips tightly, Gojo pulled her down, Geto letting out a cute yelp from the sudden movement as she sat on his face, his mouth directly on her cunt. She moaned as Gojo took a deep, greedy lick of her pussy, kissing her cunt like he was making out with it. The moans he was letting out like he was the one getting fucked was vibrating her pussy, making her body shiver as he pleasured her. Geto had to admit- the man knew how to use his tongue.

“Fuck-“ she gasped out softly, refusing to be vocal to preserve her pride as Gojo lapped at her pussy, the man sucking on her clit like it was a sweet treat. He smacked her ass occasionally, making her rock her hips against his tongue even harder as he ate her out. He seemed to love getting her to break down, having her squealing for him by the end.

She was driven to her climax embarrassingly fast, Gojo’s talented mouth working her pussy perfectly. He moaned against her, mouth open and tongue lapping up her juices as she came in his mouth, Geto muffling her moans by slapping a hand over her mouth. She trembled on top of him, her thighs shaking and back arching as the pleasure hit her, her cunt gushing all over Gojo’s face.

He eventually tapped her thigh, signalling that he wanted her to get off. She pushed herself onto his chest, the man having a happy, satisfied look on his face as he took deep breaths. He looked at her, hunger still in his eyes.

“How do you want me to take you?” he asked, panting heavily, his lips wet from her slick. Geto wasn’t any better, her body shivering from the aftermath of her orgasm but her pussy wanted more. She needed him.

“…from behind.” She said, mirroring Gojo smile as he pushed her off of him, making her fall back against the bed. She quickly rolled over as the man greedily started unbuttoning his jeans, pushing his pants and underwear down in record speed just as she got on her knees. Geto looked behind her, mouth drooling as she stared at Gojo’s thick, delicious cock. The first time she sucked him off, her jaw was sore for three days straight. He was long, thick, with heavy balls and a delicious red tip, a tip that was leaking so much pre-cum she wished she could lap it up.

He grabbed her hip with one hand, grasping the base of his cock with the other before he started slapping his dick against her wet pussy, making her jump with every hit.

“Put it in yourself.” He demanded, clearly expecting Geto to protest but the woman was so horny that she quickly complied. He chuckled as she brought her arm out from between her legs, grabbing onto his member before she guided him to her hole, pressing his tip against her leaking entrance. She heard Gojo curse at her lewd action, his cock throbbing against her as he started pushing in. They both groaned simultaneously as his dick thrust inside her, splitting apart her wet, needy walls.

“Fu-uck-“ Geto moaned, her patients dick already bumping her cervix, his dick so deliciously long it took her breath away. Gojo growled as he gave her juicy butt a mean spank, moaning as he felt her tighten around him from the impact. “Gonna move- fuck me- I love this fucking pussy!”

With another smack, the man started to thrust, gently pulling out before slamming back inside her, both of them moaning. Geto gripped onto the bedsheet tightly as her body started to move back and forth, tits swinging as he gradually picked up the pace. She always enjoyed it when Gojo took her from behind, the position making his cock drive as deep as it could inside her. His grip on her hips was tight, the man pulling her back to meet his thrusts as he started passionately fucking her. Balls clapped against her clit each time, the slick sound of their filthy fucking echoing through the room, no doubt being audible outside the door were it not for the soundproof walls.

“Fuuuuck!” Gojo snarled, sweat on his body and heat on his face as he fucked this beautiful, sexy woman. He enjoyed their little routine, knowing full well that he wasn’t actually blackmailing her. At this point, she knew enough about him that she could threaten him and get whatever she wanted. Hell, she could just withhold sex for a day and Gojo would cave. He knew he had feelings for her but it just wasn’t the time for them. It will be, eventually, he was sure of it.

So for now, he would just fuck her cunt, enjoy her body and give her enough orgasms to make sure she knows she’d never find someone as good as him. He needed to make a stand considering just how amazing Geto was. There was no doubt a long list of men who’d want to be with her, but she chose him and he didn’t take it for granted. One day, he’d have her body and mind and heart.

They fucked like animals, Geto eventually loosing strength in her arms as she lowered her face onto the mattress, panting and mewling against the bedsheet with her ass up. Gojo loved the view, licking his lips as a hand came up to grope at her butt before his thumb inched towards her rim. He felt her jump, her gasp adorable as he started rubbing her tight asshole, his mouth starting to water as he pictures eating her ass. He needed to do that next.

“Fuck- cumming- gonna- oh yes-“ Geto moaned, drool seeping into the bedsheet as she was fucked silly, his thick cock hitting her g-spot perfectly. M-Me too!” Gojo gasped, gritting his teeth as he gently pressed his thumb into her other hole, groaning as he felt her tighten around him even more, “Fuck- where do you want it?”

“I-Inside me!” Geto begged, voice jumping from the force of his thrust, her ass ripping against him, “fill me up!”

“Fuck baby- let’s cum together!” Gojo said, ready to pump her full. She was on birth control but he felt his balls constrict over imaging a time where she wouldn’t be- where he could truly breed her and knock her up.

“Cumming! Fuck- cumming!”

“Cum for me babe- oh yea- gonna fucking- fill you!”

“Yes- yes- yes!!”

With a shrill squeal, Geto climaxed. Her back arched as her pussy gushed around his member, her juices dripping down her thighs as she came. Her body shivered, the woman biting down on the bedsheet to prevent any further noises from leaving her throat. It barely helped as she huffed and moaned against the fabric, eyes rolling to the back of her head at the amazing feeling of an orgasm literally being fucked out of her.

Gojo moaned shamelessly, pressing her hips so tight against his, not allowing her to move as he came inside her. He smiled a wide grin, tongue sticking out as he pumped her full, balls clenching as he dumped his nut into her eager, waiting womb. Fuck…he really wished she wasn’t on birth control. He’d never get tired of the sensation of her pussy milking his cock for every drop, her ribbed walls clamping around him, soaking his dick in a mixture of their juices. She was so perfect.

Eventually, after coming down from their highs, Gojo slowly pulled his cock out, dick twitching as he watched her gaping pussy leak out his cum, making her body a mess of sweat and semen. Geto sat up as well, a bit dazed from her orgasm and a bit miffed that she now had to continue her workday stuffed with cum. Post nut clarity really was a bitch.

But before she could say anything, Gojo sat back against the headboard, legs spread and cock still erect as he started taking off the remaining of his clothes, getting completely naked.

“You’re still my nurse, right?” he asked, noticing her confused expression, “My head still hurts. I think I need to cum down your throat for it to go away.”

Geto snorted, unable to hold back her laugh as she started crawling towards him, happy to give her body a break but still eager for more.

“And I suppose you’d like to tongue my asshole open later?” she asked as she grasped his member, Gojo hissing from the sensitivity.

“Exactly. I knew you were an excellent nurse.”

~~~~~

#satosugu #jujutsu kaisen smut #geto suguru smut #gojo satoru smut #gojo x geto #jjk smut #subby writes #jjk fanfic

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yuurivoice · 5 months

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Heyy!! I've noticed in your spicy audios you don't really tend to use SFX and barely use it all? Is there a particular reason behind it or something? very curious

A few factors are involved.

First off, a preface of saying it's been a lot more common and frequent more recently because now that I'm medicated it's feels a lot less like work to add at least some squishy noises. That's going to be a recurring theme moving forward.

The straightforward answer? It's a huge pain in the ass to make it sound good and there's a big fuckin difference between a ~1 minute clip with a full suite of sounds and a 10+ minute audio. If there are folks out there producing that level of intricate audio smut regularly, without a sound designer, good on em. Making a convincing and accessible AMBIGUOUS fuck scene with sfx and the like is a challenge and I don't often feel equipped to tackle it. Plus, I've been pretty damn successful without doing all that...so, that hasn't exactly felt like a huge flaw or missing piece.

Now, meaty plaps and squishy fuck sounds is pretty easy and is something I'm doing regularly now vs only on occasions. So I'm excited for that.

Then the deeper answer that applies in some cases is that I like the idea of the literal listener making their OWN accompanying noises. There's a sort of fine balance between immersion and immersing someone in an experience that doesn't quite match their own needs or expectations and takes them out of it. There's no one size fits all solution.

So that has always factored in heavily with my consideration. There are some times where specific sounds feel logical and it definitely enhances the experience.

There's certainly room for more that falls into my specific wheelhouse, which I feel much more capable of adding to my workload now.

Also, funny enough, I've actually been exploring some spicy SFX packs to do some more intricate scenes that lean more heavily into them. Or at least do a special series of shorter audios with higher production just for fun.

Sort of a if it ain't broke don't fix it situation in the end, but I am eager to step things up more and more as I'm feeling more capable and willing. It can't really be overstated how much of my content was created by dragging myself to the both and fighting myself just to get shot done. "I am mentally ill" isn't a very satisfying explanation but uh, in retrospect, it was pretty fucking hard to accomplish much of anything without holding myself hostage and bargaining until I overcame every instance of procrastination. So, under those circumstances, you'll have to forgive me for not wanting to break out the lube and fingerfuck my fist before hitting the post button. Lmfao

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alicenpai · 6 months

Text

art thoughts lately!! particularly about con prep ..

- i am getting tired of drawing chibis during con prep season 😔 like i mentioned before, i think im "good" at drawing them, but they are kind of uninteresting to draw. and i get bored after a while! i think that's why charms burn me out so fast. luckily my last "specialty" merch design was just submitted so . i can move on to prints and other designs now

- i still like designing charms but i think i might try portrait charms. which means that like . my charm catalogue will cover a less broad range of fandoms (?) bc portraits will take a lot more work + harder to draw characters i don't know well

- might also still do buttons bc i like the idea of having low cost options on my table (i.e. canadian con goers tend to have a lower purchasing power?) although i think i may have been under charging...... i might have to raise the price by a few cents, because again, they do take time to draw. i put unnecessary amounts of detailing in them . it sparks joy ok 😔 anything priced under like. $10 (?) will be a low cost merch option and i like the idea of still having my art be "accessible" and not just like. having $15-20 charms and prints

- i also want to lean more into like. stickers in the style of the baccano sheet i drew last year! i think it's a lot of fun to interpret a favourite series in this graphic design style. a lot of work and research but yeah

- i hate lineart again so it might be time to learn how to clean sketches again

- might also be time to crank out the chisel brushes again - whenever i see artists using the chisel brush it makes me miss my 2017-18 era art sm .... there's such a delicious flow in chisel brushes .. part of the reason i stopped using them is 1. i was getting tired of using the brush (though i think my 2019 art was a bit tame compared to the previous year), and 2. complications on my computer with photoshop and then having to move on to clip. i can't replicate the tilt sensitivity of my ps brushes (specifically the helen chen brushes) in clip ^__T so i had to learn to wield another set of favourite brushes. i know clip also has chisel brushes but this one was my favourite aughhgh. will have to dive into the brush settings window for like 2 hours again ..

- overall, im really looking forward to stickers and prints the most! esp prints! i have a greater vision of what i want to capture in my art, after doing the Halloween piece and the pandora hearts twin mirrors piece. i want to push my art in a more illustrative direction (thank you miss shirahama kamome of witch hat atelier you have changed my life), if it works out. ill definitely have to toss the old prints that don't suit my style anymore, though ill see about doing a "last call" to see if anyone wants em during anime north 🤔 if not they will be recycled hehe

#diary #i can't sleep so im gonna type my thoughts into the void 😔

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oogaboogasphincter · 10 months

Text

Deceits of the Devil (priest!marcus pike x f!reader) | chapter two: the magician

chapter summary: after the harvest dinner, you're kept up all night by a frightening plague and are bedridden for the next couple days. when sunday arrives, never did you think you would look forward to mass as much as you do now that father pike is involved. yet another illness bewilders you during the service and a knight in an alb comes to your rescue - and gives you some very interesting information. does this help you feel less alone or will it make you even more of an apostate?

word count/series~chapter-specific warnings: 6.1k+ words // MATURE (18+ ONLY) MDNI! reader uses she/her pronouns and is incredibly non-religious, slow burn taboo relationship, lots of religious/spiritual talk, horror elements and general spookiness ~ descriptions of vomiting/vomit, some light body horror, fainting, discussions of health, slow burn is slow burning, WE LEARN HIS FIRST NAME IN THE NEXT CHAPTER TRUST I WILL SPARE YOU PRECIOUS READER FROM READING FATHER PIKE AS EVERY OTHER WORD GOING FORTH

a/n: i'm not really sure if i like this chapter, i think i do?? again i'm not really sure where i'm going with this story, but i'm just trying to go with the flow and have some fun with minimalist editing. i have some ideas for later chapters but i'm not too sure how i'm going to get there yet. marcus seems a little ooc to me in this chapter, but he also only had like 30 minutes of canon screen time so i feel like i'm entitled to some creative liberties 😭 again, let me know what you liked and what you'd like to see more of in future chapters! :) *moodboard is for aesthetics only, reader has no physical description

The embroidered rosettes lining the hand towel’s edges start to warp into one dusty pink blur as you swallow back bile again. You’ve been hunched over the toilet all night, switching between dry heaving and being sick so often that you can’t tell the difference anymore. Knelt on the cold tile, with the moonlight that comes through the window making a mockery of your candlelight, you feel incredibly alone in Lucy’s house. She’s just upstairs in her room, but you don’t want to disturb her from sleep at this hour of the night. You’ll continue to wick your own cold sweat away and clean any residue of gut spillage until you’ve emptied yourself - a point you thought you had reached hours ago.

When you got back to Lucy’s you felt fine, jovial even. The innocent flirtations and budding friendship you shared with Father Pike at the harvest dinner injected a spring into your step, one so strong that Lucy commented on it with a smile. She gave you a quick tour of her inherited cottage, since you only had time to change clothes after arriving from the airport before you were sprinting off to the cathedral.

The house is all vintage charm, with quaint rooms and antiquities. Lucy’s room is upstairs, neighboring the room that belonged to her mother before she passed away. Lucy has left it untouched in its entirety because her wounds are still too tender to prod, which you respect with wholeheartedness. You didn’t ask questions when she walked past the room as soon as she introduced it. Downstairs contains the living room, which is populated with wicker and wool save for the pink velvet couch. The kitchen is embellished with mint gingham, complementing the vintage and well-kept appliances. Lucy has an en suite, so the downstairs bathroom is all yours, with its clawfoot tub beneath a massive shuttered window that overlooks the backyard’s garden. Your bedroom has the same whimsical view, albeit from a much smaller window. It seemed dark when you first walked in, but the towering beautyberry bushes just outside explained that. The room is largely taken up by the queen bed, outfitted with pine-colored linen, so you suppose that accounts for the extra shadows too. Despite the eerie silence that shrouds the house, you can see yourself living here peacefully for your visit.

The two of you said your goodnights to each other and retreated to your assigned rooms. You hung up your clothes, stocked the bathroom with your toiletries and cuddled up in the sheets for their first time cradling someone ever. The stress and excitement from your evening had drained you of energy, but somehow you couldn’t find sleep. Actually, you know exactly why you couldn’t sleep: visions of Father Pike danced in your head like goddamn sugarplums. While your visit is contingent on when you’ve deemed your stay sufficient - and when you’ve been accepted for an apartment in a city thousands of miles away from this village stuck in an orthodox time warp - Father Pike is a major draw to settle your wings.

Regardless of the opportunity that cities hold, it’s difficult for you to find people you mesh well with. You don’t make it any easier on yourself, opting to sequester yourself to university, work, your solitary bedroom, rather than put yourself out there. But that’s because when you do, you find arrogance, cruelty, entitlement. It’s easier on your heart to be alone and you enjoy your own company.

Enter: Father Pike. He was kind, kinder than anyone else at the cathedral. You might be biased, with his dreamy eyes deviously manipulatling your impression of him into a favorable one. Maybe he didn’t show you any more chivalry than any other person would have, you just spent more time with him so it unfolded naturally. But no - he felt different. You tossed from one side to the other, wracking your brain for answers and scrambling your thoughts once they had composed into investigated little piles to see if an answer was lying in plain sight instead of hidden amongst overthinking. Nevertheless, your mystery remained unsolved of any concrete reasoning.

You decided it was his honesty: the way he treated you with understanding delicacy when you revealed your unreligious core; how he laughed at your atrocious jokes that erred on the side of being sacrilegious - a genuine laugh at that; his smirk that took pleasure in the mischief shared between you two when he helped maintain your guise, one that gleamed with… dare you say it… devilishness.

Without your permission, your brain, slightly delirious with exhaustion, began orchestrating a symphony named after him. As you drifted off to sleep, the cozy scent of cinnamon filled your nose, the warmth of his gentle yet confident touch tingled all over your skin. He was like a plate of steaming waffles on a blustery morning, an everlasting hug, a book destined to be your favorite that’s hidden amongst the most unassuming shelves, just waiting to be picked up and cherished by you. You’re doomed.

A sharp pain in your stomach awakened you and the nonstop churning that followed it had you fleeing to the bathroom. The light was unresponsive when you flipped the switch, and after a few more unsuccessful tries, you barely had time to light a candle before your body unleashed itself. Thankfully you had gotten some light because you were in no shape to aim for the toilet in darkness. You attribute your upset stomach to a multitude of reasons: the nerves from seeing your best friend in-person for the first time in a year; the sudden illness you experienced; the butterflies that Father Pike gave you. You had even begun thinking that maybe there was a part of the meal that triggered you, but there’s no way you’re still harboring anything you consumed in the last twenty four hours.

Like any time you’re sick, you start trying to think of things that calm you down. Maybe if it is in fact your nerves that are acting up, some peace will help put a stop to your blight. You close your eyes and rest your head against the toilet seat, breathing in and out, images coming clearer to your mind with each breath. A field of flowers dancing underneath happy sunlight, the gentle lapping of ocean waves on a clear day, the scent of a puppy’s fur, Father Pike’s hands…

Your efforts have the complete opposite effect of your intention. The veins that web across the top of Father Pike’s hands, instead of the heady attraction they conjured earlier, make you squirm like eels caught in a trap. With every little detail about him that you try to remember comes a drowning of illness. Is he… is he making you sick?

You close your eyes as your body hurls forward into the toilet again. Sweat trickles down your temples and invades your eyes, stinging them with salt and forces you to wrench them open. When you look in the toilet, you jump back with a startle. It can’t be. You scrub your eyes with the backs of your fingers before slowly grasping the bowl with your two shaky hands and peer inside: your vomit is bright green. The pile of sludge glows inside, too weak to illuminate the bathroom, but enough to constrict your pupils out of both exposure and fear.

What the fuck?! Like roadkill, you turn away out of revulsion but can’t stop staring back at the offense through your periphery. Could you even flush this thing? It looks like radioactive waste straight out of a bad post-apocalyptic movie. With every second that passes of it just sitting there, you become frightened to a degree where you can’t stop trembling. That thing just came from your body. In the dark, now accompanied by neon ambience, your hand searches blindly while your eyes are glued to the monstrosity, like it will get up and walk away. You grab the hand towel to wipe your mouth clean, but you curl into it, muffling your sobs. You wish someone was there to tell you that you’re fine, there’s nothing wrong with you, just to hold you. Only one person clouds your mind…

More lime green empties into the toilet. You huff in frustration, completely fed up. At this point, you’ll disregard the unnatural hue of your vomit as a fluke if you could just stop and be granted the ability to sleep. As silly as it sounds, you determine there is a brown-eyed common denominator in all your illnesses. So, with the dismal energy that remains, you thwart all thoughts of him away. You shut your mind’s doors, shutter the windows, pull the blanket up and over your head and hunker down in your mental fortress. You can feel the arrows of lust being shot at the walls, incessant and ambitious in breaking you down. You don’t let them nudge one brick. They soon retreat and your castle falls silent, like there had never been a threat in the first place.

To your surprise, it works. Like magic, you’re finally granted some mercy by your body. The cramping dissipates like cotton candy in a puddle, and suddenly, you feel all better. Your muscles are a little sore from seizing and releasing, but other than that, you’re… fine. The cold sweat evaporates and the acidic taste in your mouth is neutralized. You grimace at your puke, which has reverted to its horrible organic color. You seriously don’t know which is more putrid: this horribleness or the glow stick version.

You now feel comfortable - and eager - to flush so you do. You stuff the soiled towel into the laundry bin, making a mental promise to Lucy that you’ll do your best to scrub any evidence of this night out of it. Within minutes, you’re flopping down onto your bed, huddling under the covers and finding a sleep too peaceful to follow the horrors you just suffered.

—-

Saturday you’re bedridden - against your will. You tell Lucy about your blunder, excluding the radioactivity bit, and she cancels the activities she had lined up for you two to have some fun, forcing you to stay confined to your bed. She serves you tea and keeps you on a diet of bread, apples and chicken soup, rolling her eyes at you when you beg and whine for a piece of her dessert. But, your best friend always knows best.

When you settle down for the night, a fear creeps up in you that the events of last night will repeat themselves, or even worse, go to more horrid lengths. But, thankfully, you feel like normal before bed and you stay asleep, thanking the stars and moon in your dreams. You had kept your mind clear of Father Pike, you noted.

—-

Sunday morning is here and you get out of bed jittering with excitement. Today you’re going to mass and that means you get to see Father Pike again. You laugh at your own foolishness when you realize this will be only the second time you’re seeing him, tugging your jeans up over your hips and jumping to get the job done faster. But, in a town desolate of amusement, you allow yourself to lean into the infatuation. There’s nothing wrong with a little blossoming crush, you tell yourself, untouchable or not.

Lucy chuckles when you walk into the kitchen, her cereal spoon hovering in mid-air, “Wooow,” she elongates the syllable as you twirl on your heel, showing off your incredibly mundane outfit, “I haven’t seen you up and awake this early in… how many years ago were we in kindergarten?”

“Oh, ha ha,” you grumble playfully, pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and taking the seat across from her. You keep your eyes trained on your breakfast, feeling your best friend’s gaze boring into your lips that twitch with a smile you can’t fight no matter how hard you try. The silence of the cottage, save for the awkward clanking of your spoons, rips a giggle from you that you smother with your hand.

“Don’t act like I don’t know why you’re so chipper,” she accuses conspiratorially. You look up at her, your anxious shoulders deflating with an impatient sigh.

“Just tell me what time we’re leaving.”

—-

The cathedral looks much less cozy in the brightening sunlight than it did illuminated by warm-toned street lights and candle sticks the night prior, but it’s no less majestic. There are crows perched on the roof, cawing a morning chorus. The structure’s hulking size seems less threatening by their presence in addition to the pale backdrop of the morning. The inky blackness of the night sky has opened to reveal a powder blue, bouncing off camel coats and cherry scarves that had been twisted into muddy smudges and blood ties at the harvest dinner. Even the cathedral’s inner hull seems more like an endless cavern than a sinister vacuum, with your curiosity being stimulated by all that you could not see before; what lies inside all of the corridors, the hidden passageways, the arched doors? Maybe that’s something you could ask Father Pike.

All of the newfound loveliness aside, it doesn’t erase the feeling that you’re in a place where you don’t belong. You didn’t quite think through all the ramifications of seeking out your holy crush, but who doesn’t forfeit their rationale in the face of infatuation? You’re always open to learning, especially about cultures that you’re not a part of, but you didn’t think mass would be this boring.

Lucy briefed you about when to stand, sit, stand again, when to sing and when to be quiet. So no one would suspect a thing, you follow along like a lamb with the same robotic obedience that everyone else does. You’re surprised to find personal dismay at the lack of life behind the hymns that the other goers recite, nor is there any in Father Thorn’s sermon. It saddens you that these people dedicate their lives to this higher cause, boast about how it divinely guides them to choose the right paths in life, only for them to sing with as much enthusiasm as you do. Father Thorn stands painfully erect, addressing the room like a schoolteacher whose monotone and thoughtless eyes make you think that maybe there was some reluctance in his profession of choice. From the piercing glare he gave you yesterday, you know better than to imagine questioning his integrity lest you want your severed head deposited into his goblet.

Father Gala flanks the droning priest in a gilded throne that must serve no other purpose than to support the elderly Father’s aching bones. He listens on with a permanent soft smile, flickering his eyes amongst the audience with visible cheerfulness. His eyes lit up when he noticed you in the crowd and gave you a friendly nod, which you returned with amicability. Lucy nudged you on the shoulder when he glanced away with a whisper, “Look, you’ve made a friend.”

And on Father Thorn’s other side stands who you’ve been aching to see for a whole of thirty six hours. He had taken very seriously to carry out the beginning demands of mass, saying his prayers and following the proposed movements with an almost militaristic adherence. But since the reading of scriptures began, his shoulders relaxed and his fingers interlocked in front of himself with peace. His brown eyes gaze absentmindedly to the narthex behind you and you so desperately want to get up close and see how the sunlight that streams in through all angles of the building hit his irises. Do they shimmer with threads of gold, or do umber chasms allude an unreachable depth?

Your crush seems eons away from where you sit a few rows back from the sanctuary. The sermon fizzles out to a barely noticeable hum as a tornado of names rushes through your head while you assess your preferred priest and try to imagine which would fit him best. While you’re intent on respecting his title and maintaining proper etiquette for someone you literally just met a few days ago (and internally cringing at the speed of which this infatuation has snowballed) you have to at least dream of what you could call him.

Is he a David? No, he’s too young for such an old name. But it is biblical and maybe he’s a junior, or the third or fourth. Dave as a nickname is where you draw the line. That just feels all wrong.

Possibly something strong and sturdy, like Joel? Eh, Joel sounds too ornery and old again.

Go simpler, you think, Jack. No offense to all the great Jacks of the world, but it would be a shame if this exceptional man was dubbed so plainly.

And none of these options sound good with his last name, which you know as fact: David Pike, Joel Pike, Jack Pike. No, no, definitely not.

Cutting into your brainstorm, you agree that Father Pike can wear anything and look great. He has his usual black priest garb on, but layered atop is a white robe whose seams are trimmed with a red and gold pattern of tiles. If you’re being completely honest… it’s a little heinous. The fabric looks starched beyond belief and the decoration screams of yester-millenia. But, somehow, his virility isn’t snatched by the drabness. His shoulders maintain that delectable broadness you noticed at the dinner, along with a poise that is mannered yet youthful. The golden threads shimmer adorably in the sunlight with the fidgets of his wrist as he fiddles with the side of his thumbnail.

As if on cue, his eyes land on you just when your cheeks break out in a heat. Your heart jumps to your throat momentarily but is lulled back down to your chest by his soft, tender smile and the identifying gleam in his gaze. It’s as if you’re his puppet and he’s pulling the strings to shape your lips into a smile to match his own, completely unable to control your body. You think you can’t find him cuter but then he’s upturning his hand so his palm faces you and he waves. Again with your bodily autonomy extinct, you wave back with the shy nature of a blushing virgin.

Lucy notices your hand first and her eyes are quick to follow your tunnel vision. She takes your wrist and lowers it to your lap, glancing at you with that funny mixture of scorn and encouragement that only a best friend can give. “Not now,” she whispers quickly before returning her attention to Thorn’s speech with the shadow of a smirk. Father Pike still looks at you.

Your mind drifts deliriously to a part of mass that Lucy called communion, when the parishioner metaphorically drinks the blood and eats the body of Christ, or drinks wine from the goblet and eats a wafer from the hand of a priest. The seduction engulfs your mind like a virus thinking about sipping from a goblet that Father Pike holds in his strong hands, meeting his gaze while your throat bobs with drink. While taking the wafer into your mouth as he places it on your tongue, maybe he’s slow to withdraw and your lips would catch on his finger…

Lucy taps your bicep to indicate to you it’s time to stand again. Father Thorn’s voice is suddenly much louder, booming in your ears and reverberating in your chest, down to the ground beneath your feet.

“God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.”

A fickle tingling lunges through your veins, sending your nervous system into a familiar panic. When have you felt this peculiar feeling before? You feel ill, like you want to curl up on the floor and empty yourself, or passing out would be an easier option. Oh no.

“For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven,”

Everyone bends at the waist, bowing towards the sanctuary, but you remain standing upright, frozen. Your eyes bulge with wild terror. The blood drains from your face. Father Pike meets your gaze and he furrows his brow in confusion at first, before you watch him be consumed with brazen worry.

“And by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”

Father Pike disappears from your sight as your eyes roll into the back of your head.

—-

You come to groggily with a lukewarm cloth being pressed to your temple. A low, firm voice is muffled and distant in your ear despite its closeness, but you absorb its warmth intravenously, “Hey, hey, hey…”

You can hear his strain to remain calm and steady. He drifts away for a moment, you feel your feet being propped up on a pillow, and his breath is back at your ear, ghosting over your dewy cheek.

Under the safeguard of questionable consciousness and the panicked edge in his soul, he lets an endearment slip, “Wake up, pretty girl, come on…” he whispers in an increasingly pleading tone. His timbre does the opposite of his intention and keeps you wanting to stay asleep, to writhe and drown in his comfort within the darkness of your mind. In your dreams, you can be his pretty girl.

You roll onto your side and grumble, fighting to stay in your head. The unforgiving surface you’re laid out on shoves against your bones but you remain stubborn. The man at your back chuckles under his breath. He pries your arm from your side and overturns it in his hands, cradling it delicately, and you wish to feel those arms and hands encapsulate you, engulf you like a snake and constrict. But then he’s pinching the tender patch of your inner bicep, jolting you awake. You tear your arm back and by the offense on your face, he knows you’re back in reality.

Someone had moved you from the spot you had collapsed to this room, empty of anyone besides Father Pike. It’s quiet and dull, exposed stone comprising both the walls and floor. You’re sprawled out on a large and long wooden table, atop a sweetly placed blanket that unfortunately doesn’t do much to cushion. Wardrobes and other tables dot the rest of the room, illuminated by the small and sparse stained glass windows that line the perimeter.

Father Pike assesses your mindful curiosity and deems you sound and coherent. He decides to awaken you further with a little well-intentioned abrasiveness.

“Are you going to do this every time I see you?”

“I hope not,” you sit up and Father Pike is quick to put a hand on your back, steadying you. Only now with your eyes open do you realize just how incredibly close he is to you; his lips parted with apprehension are mere inches from yours. You meet his eyes and you were right - they glow in the sunlight, the caramel streaks highlighted and accompanied by obscured taupe that shelters his innermost secrets. You flinch away imperceptibly, afraid of your own arousal.

“Are you-” he has to clear his throat, turning away to spare you before he tries again. His voice was tight with nerves.

“Do you feel okay?” Much smoother but there’s still a hint of constraint. He’s softened from their teasing.

You think for a moment, mentally check in with your body then answer honestly, “Yes, I’m okay.” And you are. Besides a subtle ache on your outer thigh, which you assume broke your fall, you feel completely normal.

Father Pike stands from where he knelt and puts the back of his hand to your forehead, checking your temperature. You try your very best not to drench your panties. “Do you feel any pressure in your head? Any nausea? Do you feel dizzy while sitting right now?” It’s a barrage of questions, but in his comforting tone it doesn’t feel anywhere near overwhelming or like an interrogation.

“No pressure, no nausea. I feel a tiny bit dizzy, but nothing like before. And after all, I did hit my- did I hit my head?”

“No, your thigh hit the ground first. It looked like you twisted your knee on your way down. Thankfully, because if you hadn’t, you would’ve hit your head first.”

Now that he mentions it, your knee does feel a bit funny. Hopefully it’ll just bruise over and won’t cause any lingering issues.

Your thoughts are obliterated when Father Pike takes your face in his palms, tilting your chin up so he can look into your eyes. He’s checking your pupil size, but it sends an unwarranted, delectable chill up your spine nonetheless. There goes your attempts to avoid a mess between your thighs. You gulp foolishly and he looks at your throat bob. He runs his tongue along his bottom lip before sealing his mouth closed. A habit you can picture him doing any time he’s deep in thought, this time it’s dipped in eroticism.

“Does being unknowledgeable about the church really stress you out this much?” He’s caring, concerned. Condescension, intolerance and disdain are in a different galaxy entirely than his intentions. His eyes bore into yours considerably, assessing you like you did him earlier. Trying to figure you out.

You gather your thoughts, taking into account the near-fainting spell you had on Friday and trying with all your might to remember only the vital details of what happened during the night after you got home. Coming up with no definite answer, you shrug, “No, this felt completely unrelated. It was just my body acting out of order.” You had felt uncomfortable during the sermon, but not fearful. It didn’t wrack your nerves to sit there and listen to illusionary words like it had when Father Gala shook your hand for the first time. But even then, your illness had come after the stress. Your sea of anxiety had been drained and what came to be revealed at the bottom was a previously undiscovered chest of volatile poisons. They felt correlated, perhaps, but not connected.

Father Pike’s worry remains in his face like he doesn’t believe you. Not because he thinks you’re lying, but almost like… there’s something you don’t understand that’s happening. Suddenly it feels a little awkward between you two, with the cause blurry. You decide it’s best to elaborate so you both can have a few more pieces to aid in finding a solution.

The door is a good distance away from Father Pike’s back and looks as though it’s made of the sturdiest oak to ever grow, but you still don’t trust it. If someone were to lean their ear against the other side, in addition to the enshrouding silence, they could clearly hear what is being said. Mass must have ended a while ago, but the cathedral is open to roaming parishioners, tourists and other inquiring minds. You lean towards Father Pike and he comes to stand at the edge of the table. Lowering your voice, not nearly to a whisper but close enough, you confide in him again,

“But, I won’t lie. I feel as if one wrong move will get me permanently exiled.”

His expression doesn’t change. The neutrality of it is a little disconcerting, actually, with the way he just remains standing there with his fingertips perched on the edge of the wood, until he retracts himself to where he had been a few feet away. He doesn’t deny nor confirm your feelings, his eyes downcast.

He clears his throat again. “Are you anemic? Diabetic? Do you have any reason why you’d have fainting spells?” His tone is steeped in worry, rushed. Like he just wants a clear-cut answer so that neither of you have to keep guessing or digging deeper.

And he’s almost a little… aggravated? His words are acute and directed at you, like you’re suddenly the reason to blame. It is your body that’s being troublesome, but you’d like to know what’s been going on with it recently just as much as he does. Even if you did, it’s not your responsibility to tell him, nor your fault for its antics. With his sight still turned away, busy adjusting your feet on the pillow, you furrow your brows in disbelief and make your scoff come off as animated, playful, “I didn’t know you doubled as a doctor, Father Pike.”

Luckily, that seems to put him at ease. The bothered creases in his forehead smooth away and he looks back up at you with a humble smile, as if to say he’s sorry for getting so suddenly worked up. He rests his hand on your shin, so naturally, but he takes it away the same moment and puts his arms at his sides. You know he wanted to leave it there, the flicker of guilt across his face evident. You rein yourself back, tightening the restraints that have come loose on your attraction; you don’t want to break him.

His voice reverts to its baseline calmness, “I don’t. My brother is a doctor and I would help him review for tests, so that gave me a lot of free training and insight. Just being around him, the physician’s mindset started to rub off on me. They see things in such a peculiar, analytical way, so different from my own. Logic prevails over everything… it’s helped me to decipher who really needs the help and who doesn’t.”

Oh. Such a strange thing to hear Father Pike admit that… it gets your gears going.

You approach it as gently as you can, while still feeding your curiosity, “Hey… aren’t you guys supposed to believe that Christ can cure anything?”

You don’t think you mean to bat your eyelashes at him provocatively but you do. He smirks, shakes his head with a chuckle that more or less comes out as an amused exhale from his nose. He cuts your boldness back down to a humble level, “I thought you didn’t know much about the church?”

Oh? His accusatory smugness mirrors yours. Two can play at this game, apparently.

“I don’t, but I know enough that you guys put all your faith into your, well, faith.”

The waning dizziness you felt earlier has officially rid itself, so you feel it’s safe to sit up on the table. Father Pike takes a seat as well in a chair that he’s pulled from aside one of the wardrobes, positioning it close to you so that he’s not too far should you feel woozy again.

“Well, yes…” He’s thinking, does that godforsaken thing with his tongue on his lip again. Then comes the confession.

“Some of the parishioners… they’re painfully alone. The only people they talk to are family who either forget their existence half the time or enable them. Being alone all the time, you need to entertain yourself with something. They’ve been reading the same scriptures for their entire lives, it plays behind their eyelids whenever they close; it’s in their dreams.” He takes a heavy breath, steadying himself for the brutal honesty he’s about to lay out to you. He’s not sure he’s ever felt this naked before in his life.

“It’s not like the Bible gets an update,” you kid quietly. That gets him. The skin around his eyes crinkles as Father Pike laughs heartily, nodding his head, “Exactly.” He echoes you with amusement, “It’s not like the Bible gets an update,” his smile grows fonder. You mourn the joy that leaves his face when it’s replaced with a solemn frown.

“As much as they don’t want to admit it, the people of this town are like any other. They yearn for change. They need something new, fresh, to stimulate their minds, or at the very least, a distraction from their loneliness. So, on a very normal day, their knee starts to hurt. And then as the days go on and they do their usual tasks, the knee begins to hurt more. It worsens until they fool themselves into walking with a limp, saying that they can’t live their excruciatingly mundane lives anymore. Because they desperately want a change, no matter if it’s a hindrance.

“Sometimes, pity is king.

“They refuse to go to the doctor without the church’s approval. They come and see to me, or one of the other Fathers, and we talk through their ailments. I say a blessing or two, and on their way home, suddenly that appointment they were pleading for has lost all urgency. They’ve been miraculously cured by us, or God. But we’re not doing any radical, magical healing here. Don’t get me wrong, there are very real illnesses that affect our parish.”

He pauses to look around the room, as if someone has slipped through the cracks in the rock and hears his rational disagreement as something obscenely blasphemous. His voice is low and wary, but you’re proud to detect a streak of confidence when he talks about his personal beliefs.

“The others here, they shun modern medicine. They believe what you said, that all things can be cured through Christ. But… that’s not entirely right to me. There are people who need more… pragmatic cures. Then there are others who all they need is a little motivation from the spirit.”

You never thought you’d be empathizing with a priest over feelings of exclusion, no less somewhere in the heart of a cathedral, surrounded by religious paraphernalia. It doesn’t feel like Father Pike is baiting you to say that the church is a farce just so he can blackmail you later. His quick, breathless words speak for themselves; he’s been dying to show someone his heart. But are you really the first outsider to cross his path? There has had to have been someone who wandered into Carmeltree unknowingly or a resident that didn’t readily accept the teachings that they began being indoctrinated with since birth. Father Pike’s motive doesn’t seem malicious, but it’s unclear.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He shrugs, clasping his hands together with a smile amused by the simplicity of his answer, “I have one of your secrets, and now you have one of mine.”

Dry chuckles fill the room. “That’s a pretty big secret,” you joke.

“What about it?”

“Well,” worry crosses your face, imagining what the Bible wavers would do if they heard what Father Pike is spilling across you now, “if anyone else heard it, about their priest, well, you’d be…”

“Exiled?”

“Yes. Mamed, called a fraud or a non-believer.”

“Well that’s incorrect. I’m a believer.”

“Not by their standards, you aren’t.”

“See why I’ve confided in you?”

A steady wave of recognition settles in the air. Two people with their morals in line but would be labeled heathens by the rest of the conservative population have established a safehouse in one another to retreat to if need be. Lucy was right - you have made a friend, she just had the wrong Father.

The elderly one’s cane taps ring out in the gaping corridor outside your room, alerting you and your friend that your divulgence must end. The stiffness returns to his back, squaring his shoulders underneath that heavy-looking alb as he stands and scribbles something on a piece of paper.

Don’t think about the sweat on his skin. Dappling his muscles, collecting in pools until they runneth over and stream down in little rivulets…

He helps you to your feet with a hand in yours, but it’s shoving the paper into your palm before you have the chance to drool over its warmth. “Here’s the town doctor’s details. If you feel unwell or the fainting persists, please go see him. I don’t-”

There’s a knock at the door. “Father Pike?”

He makes a comically fearful face at you, clenching his bared teeth and widening his eyes, snapping to put a finger to his lips when he elicits your desired giggles.

“One moment please!”

He ushers you to a door at the back corner of the room, leading to one of the many magnificent courtyards incorporated into the cathedral.

You turn back on the step to take one last look at him, “Thank you for all your help.”

He takes your hand in his own two, like his Father before him.

“You’re in my prayers.”

You go to leave, but he murmurs urgently, leaning out of the doorframe, “Come back tomorrow. I can help strengthen your act.”

He winks at you.

A friend, you remind yourself. He’s just a friend. The giddiness that bubbles up from your heart to your throat begs to differ.

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amywhereyouwant · 1 year

Text

Some TOH HCs I wanted to share

There are a LOT of them, so They're under the read more for your scrolling convenience

Luz

-Uses She/They pronouns

-Would watch the entirety of Sword Art Online just to be able to shit on it properly

-Eats way too much Shredded Cheese even though she’s Lactose Intolerant

-Has made a Your mom joke to Willow only to remember she doesn’t have one

-Mains King in Tekken and made a custom attire trying to make it look like the other King

-Screenpeeks religiously in Split Screen Multiplayer

-Predicted Hecazura 2 books into the series, still won’t shut up about it

-Relatively known Digital Artist, her blog probably took off when she started making art of the Demon Realm

-Hates baking

-Helps Amity bake out of the kindness of her heart(Also seeing Amity enjoying herself is really nice)

-Had a cold once, hasn’t had a Human Realm illness since

-Has SH scars from her depressed period back in the human realm(S3E1), still ashamed over them

-Quotes Memes constantly, only Hunter understands what she’s talking about

-Cracked a rib tripping on a rug on her way to bed

Amity

-Absolutely hates Bugs, like, genuinely despises them

-Does not know how computers work, but still tries to use Luz’s laptop to look up date ideas

-Can and will dress as the most stereotypical Witch ever

-Adopted(All 3 Blight Kids are in my HC)

-Likes to bake

-Does not know how to bake

-Gets sick constantly

-Works out a lot so she can help out with rebuilding the Isles(and also a little bit for Luz)

-Used to apologise a lot for minor things(Pre-timeskip)

-REALLY Bummed she didn’t get to see Titan Luz

-Watched the barbie movie the same day Gus watched Oppenheimer

Gus

-Goes nonverbal when stressed out, uses Illusions and his palisman to communicate

-Cried for hours when he finished the last Cosmic Frontier book, even though it was a happy ending

-Likes the idea of Professional Wrestling, but wishes the fights were to the death

-Quotes Cosmic Frontier as a Vocal Stim

-Dramatically perishes in Matt’s arms on the regular

-Headcanons O'Bayley to look exactly like Hunter just for the memes

-Thinks Human 2D Animation is the most beautiful thing to have ever been created

-Watched Across the Spider-Verse and Begged for Luz to draw a Spider-Suit for him, she did one for everyone

-Got really jealous when everyone else got flapjack tattoos, then he realised he could just make one of his own with an Illusion

-Got insanely mad when he learned about Human Discrimination(“How can you hate someone for something they can’t change? That’s ridiculous!”)

-Watched Oppenheimer the same day Amity and Hunter watched the Barbie Movie

Hunter

-LOVES Dino Nuggies

-Didn’t know Dinosaurs were real for a while until Luz showed them to him, Velociraptors are his favourite because “They’re like Wolves but Lizards!” (They’re not)

-Has a tumblr account where he posts about Wolves, Luz is his only follower

-Definitely has a Fursona

-Kicks Luz’s ass at most video games, except for Halo 2 specifically(I wonder why)

-”Will you go out with me?” “Hunter we’ve been dating for a year” “Oh.”

-Thinks Huggbees’ How it’s actually made videos are 100% Legit and honest

-Made Willow a Flower Shirt to match his Wolf Shirt

-Wears Willow’s Flower Shirt he made

-Imagine Dragons is his favourite band

-Has Epilepsy

-Steals Willow’s dresses sometimes

-Found Nicole Coenen on YouTube, showed her to luz “She looks kinda like Amity!”(Nobody else sees the resemblance)

-Probably plays a LOT of Roblox

-Watched the Barbie Movie with Amity(Luz forced him to)

-Has seen every single vine there is(Thank the Titan for Vine Compilations on YouTube)

-Any kind of facial hair he grows is really patchy so he just goes clean shaven for convenience

-Snuck food during TtT even though he was 100% allowed to eat normally

-Bananas do exist in the Demon Realm, Hunter has just never learned that they do

-Gets visits from the Spirits of the other Golden Guards in his dreams

Willow

-Tackled someone to the ground when they only slightly bumped into Hunter(We stan a protective queen)

-Feeds her palisman doggie treats, nobody knows why

-Filled Camila’s entire back garden with way too many plants during TtT, they’re still there despite not being watered for a while

-Made a Garland made of both Demon and Human Realm plants for Hunter on their anniversary

-Has no real idol/role model

-Happily Listens to everyone else ramble about their interests

-Wears Hunter’s Wolf Shirt

-Calls Hunter “Hun” as a short for his name, started doing it even more after she figured out what it actually meant

-Pranks people she doesn’t like by putting giant Grape Vines around their house

-Held a presentation about plant care for the Gravesfield Gardener Society

-Thinks most Human Sports are boring(Except for Hockey and Roller Derby)

Vee

-Pulls off some crazy ass cosplays

-Knows how to drive Camila’s car perfectly, still has no idea how it actually works though

-Laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe first time she heard Metal Pipe Fall Sound Effect

-Considers Luz to be her Sister, Camila burst into tears and hugged her when she called Luz “Big Sis” in front of her for the first time

-Plays Minecraft on Camila’s home PC, has spent tons of time on Hypixel and built a little shrine for the other basilisks on a private world

-Takes after Luz in a lot of ways

-Is way better at Spanish than Luz, flexes about it constantly(Nobody really cares)

-Had no idea how to tell Masha she was a Basilisk when they confessed to her(Masha knew long before she told them)

-Is really cuddly in Basilisk form, not so much when shapeshifted(“I don’t really feel like it’s myself”)

-Her first kiss with Masha was really awkward, she apologised like 45 times and cried because it wasn’t good

-Steven Universe is a canon IP in the universe, so she got really confused when Amethyst sounded EXACTLY like her

I have no idea why I made this

#the owl house #toh headcanon #the owl house headcanon #toh community #toh #amity blight #hunter noceda #vee noceda #willow park #gus porter #luz noceda

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2xplusungood · 1 year

Text

Maybe Im just reading too deeply into things but I get the distinct feeling that Obsidian absolutely fucking hated Fallout 3 and it manifests in various subtle ways

One of the most iconic characters in Fallout 3 is the Galaxy News Radio host Three Dog, who has a very bombastic personality, is constantly talking about The Lone Wander's exploits and is a meetable/killable character. In New Vegas, Mr. New Vegas host of Radio New Vegas, is more of a calm, suave sort of character who mentions the courier specifically only once. You never meet him and he's only really mentioned in the game once (That I can remember at least) by Trudy at the start and never again.

Fallout 3's whole deal was the conflict between the blatantly evil Enclave and the blatantly good Brotherhood of Steel. In New Vegas the BoS are back to being cultish isolationists with almost no presence in the mojave and the Enclave is completely absent bar ONE questline that humanizes the people who previously were a part of the Enclave.

Stealth was extremely abuse-able in Fallout 3 with the Chinese Stealth Suit and Stealthboys. Stealthboys in New Vegas aren't nearly as useful and the only people who use it in the storyline are the Nightkin, who are getting mental illnesses from it and Benny, who is IMMEDIATELY captured while trying to use it. You can also find TWO unique Stealth Suits: The Chinese Stealth Suit from F3 which is hidden away in an extremely radioactive part of Hoover Dam and doesn't have its "Stealth field" function and the Stealth Suit Mk II, which constantly talks as a joke and gets you addicted to med-x

Power Armor was a huge part of Fallout 3's identity, appearing heavily in the promotional material and getting Power Armor training is part of the main quest and is near impossible to miss. New Vegas supplants this by having the "Flagship armor" be the NCR Ranger Armor and if you don't do the Brotherhood Questline or For Auld Lang Syne you can easily miss it.

This is more my interpretation but Fallout 3 (As well as 4) tend to glorify the times before the bombs "hey weren't the 1950s fucking AWESOME hey look 50s music! Gingham! Nuclear families!" to a degree that the satirical aspect ends up being completely lost. Hell theres something to be said about Nuka-Cola, a fake brand mimicing overabundance of advertising in the world, becoming what is essentially a real life brand to advertise Bethesdas big AAA game series. New Vegas, on the other hand, takes a giant dump on this idea by almost completely removing the "1950s but future" aesthetic with a much more fantastical "wild west but future" vibe while having a lot of its themes being "for a better future you need to stop clinging to the past"

The Karma system is a core part of Fallout 3 but I cannot stress enough just how much of a fucking meme it is in New Vegas. Like the most common way to gain karma is murder while doing things "looting the camp of the people who just tried to kill you" and "killing/disabling the immortal autocrat of new vegas" give you negative karma so the whole system feels completely random and arbitrary that affects very little in the game which I feel like is entirely intentional to point out how dumb the idea of a "good person/bad person" system in any game is and the reputation system is more "your actions will govern how people see you" rather than some vibe you give off of being good or bad

#fallout new vegas #fallout 3 #bethesda #obsidian

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saintsenara · 4 months

Note

For your unhinged ship asks series: ron/lupin and ron/sirius please!

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

remus lupin/ron weasley

which also got a separate shoutout from another anon:

now... this is one which has really intrigued me.

i back the idea of shipping lupin with both molly and arthur weasley because it's clear in canon that he really values the emotional support they provide him - and, specifically, how this emotional support takes place in a domestic context alongside other forms of comfort [such as having a decent meal for once] which lupin desperately needs.

and ron does seem to be reasonably well-suited to also providing this comfort - he mentions lupin looking underfed and ill multiple times in prisoner of azkaban, for example, and we know that he's perfectly happy expressing his affection for people by looking after them.

but it's striking - outside of prisoner of azkaban - that ron takes the same view that harry does: that lupin is considerably less important and impressive than sirius.

while sirius is still alive, ron never alludes to lupin as someone he considers an authority or someone whose respect he is interested in winning - and he never seems to consider it unusual that lupin is never in contact with harry, whereas he encourages him frequently to write to sirius.

in half-blood prince and deathly hallows this changes a bit [ron is, for example, "smug" when lupin validates his certainty that the trio weren't found by the death eaters on tottenham court road because harry still had the trace on him], but with the authority ron had previously projected onto sirius transferred to harry [ron doesn't intervene when harry is berating lupin for leaving the pregnant tonks - although he says that he didn't agree with harry's points once lupin is no longer there - whereas he does, for example. intervene when he thinks hermione is trying to undermine sirius by giving kreacher clothes].

you have, then, the thing which i think is interesting in a lot of post-marauders-era ships with lupin also present here - that lupin isn't someone that the lightning generation [with the exception of his ride-or-die stan, dean thomas] particularly care about outside of the confines of the classroom. and so i think that the fun for an author becomes trying to work out what the hook is... because it's certainly not obvious to me.

[what is obvious? that ron fancies tonks - he's so beautifully worried during the seven potters chase that lupin will deck him for touching her, and it always sends me.]

sirius black/ron weasley

now this one i back a lot more - and i've explained why... here.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #unhinged and deranged ships #rupin #remus lupin #ron weasley #what a combo...

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lilyblackdrawside · 8 months

Text

Game balance is a pretty common topic and I think about it too sometimes. In the context of single-player games, specifically.

long post.

When it comes to multi-player versus games, things should remain balanced. They won't be, that's how we always end up with all the possible options a player can pick in different tiers, but there should be some striving towards not creating gross disparities.

However, in games where we don't have 2+ humans facing off against each other, I think it's absolutely fine to pretty much throw it out the window. There's really no harm in it and it opens up pathways for creativity to flow. Some things can be very difficult to bring in line with other options, so if a dev is afraid of having an unbalanced option, they might end up discarding something that could've been really interesting.

To stop with vague words, I'll go to my go-to series: Touhou.

In the Touhou games there is hardly a game where you don't have one or two character or shot options that stand out as being noticeably stronger or weaker than the rest.

Sanae in Ten Desires just sucks. Her shot deals no damage and is awkward to get the most out of in boss fights.

Meanwhile Marisa B in Double Dealing Character might just be the most powerful shottype in the series.

There are many such cases, I could keep listing them. Marisa in UFO is kinda terrible overall: A-type has a bad bomb for that game (Master Spark kills your movement and instantly annihilates UFOs, making it ill-suited for playing into the game's gimmick) while B-type has the worst shot (nice idea, but deals negative damage) but a good bomb. She just can't win in that game.

To stick with UFO for a moment longer, Sanae A's homing snakes have a tendency to miss if you make them travel too far. (They still do that even in later games, but only in very specific situations. In UFO it happens kind of a lot.)

Subterranean Animism is also full of off-beat shots. They're all on Marisa, too. Marisa A(lice) has a focused shot when unfocused and a spread shot when focused. Naturally, this is deliberate and I like it, but it is undeniably awkward to use. She's also the only one who loses more Power on death when full than she drops, because Alice gives her 8 Options instead of 4, but only increases Power gains by half or two thirds, I don't exactly remember, so you're always in the hole so to speak. Marisa B(atchouli) has like two useful formations - Fire and Water. Wood is a super-spreadshot that has a 90° dead zone in the front, Metal shoots to the right and left and Earth shoots behind you.

Marisa C(appa) has good damage but no spread (pretty normal for Marisa), but it has a bomb that deals 1 damage. It can't kill any enemy. C sucks for the main game and is godlike in Extra.

On that note, all of Marisa's bombs just suck ass in some way. Alice's and Patchouli's need you to go into melee range. Alice's does have long-range damage, but it's not much and Patchouli's is just a melee blast. Nitori's is a barrier. Barriers are nice, we know that from PCB, but between that and a narrow forward shot, Marisa C struggles to generate initiative during stage portions. You don't have a button that just handles things.

However, what do all of these wonky, sometimes underpowered shottypes in common? They're fun to use. I love messing around with Marisa B's formations, finding the optimal spots to use them. Can you clear the whole game with just Fire and Water formations, treating them as your Focus and NoFocus shots? Yes. But there is room to master it.

While I don't love to play UFO, I think Marisa B might be my favourite shot-type because it's so bad. It feels good to make it work.

Now on the other end of the spectrum there's DDC's Marisa B who is incredibly plain and breaks the game in two. It's just Missile Marisa and her bomb is some dinky circle that slowly travels upwards, deals mediocre damage and has invincibility time that's less than half of its total duration.

It also converts any bullets it erases into P-items. You can generate more resources with this bomb than it uses. It gets stronger the higher you set the difficulty. Marisa B scales with the difficulty. There is no other shottype in the series that does this. Okay, SA Reimu B also does this, but her bomb just converts enemy bullets into friend bullets so it's not anywhere near game breaking.

So what am I getting at here? The games would be worse if every shottype was "balanced", however nebulous the idea of that may be.

If every shot-type had to not suck, we wouldn't have gotten SA Marisa C, which is pretty annoying to use for 90% of the main game. We probably wouldn't have gotten a third of Mountain of Faith's shot-types or TD Sanae either. (nobody seriously plays MoF Reimu C for some notion of that being the most powerful shot-type in that game. It's a close-range type attack that you have to be insane to get the most out of. Just pick Marisa C like everyone else who's too cool to play normal shots.)

I like the wacky stuff. I want more Touhou games with weird shots like we had in MoF, SA, UFO and DDC. I want another Cold Inferno, I want Marisa's piercing lasers back, I want another SA Marisa A who has a focused unfocused shot for really no reason at all. Give me jank. Give me another shot-type that wasn't thought through to the end and accidentally breaks the game in the best way possible. Or just another MoF Marisa B.

Honestly, Mountain of Faith's Marisa B is a great example of where imbalance can hit a peak, because due to a glitch it deals so much damage that until like Stage 6 it clears all spellcards and nonspells so fast that bullets won't even reach you. There's no sense in it at all, but it is funny. It's funny! You can avoid this glitch from triggering; Its activation is somewhat specific. It's not something I want all the time, because that one just ruins the game, but is there any harm in it? No! Nobody is harmed by it. I get to laugh at the glitchy laser and have a good time.

Similarly nobody is harmed by someone having an easier time clearing DDC because they picked Marisa B and I'm not harmed from struggling through UFO on that Marisa B.

The bottomline here is that people shouldn't worry about whether or not a game is "balanced", so long as there's no element where players can abuse imbalanced elements against other players directly. And even then, fighting games have always and still have joke characters that are way weaker than the rest of the cast and it's fine. People love the challenge these things bring with them. They love to pick some crusty guy in a fighting game who has no movement, no options, bad frames or whatever and get the most out of it. It feels good to prevail from a disadvantaged position.

#long post

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grayintogreen · 2 years

Text

I don't know what schedules are, so in honor of Chapter One of YCDHN being posted, it's time for something I have been waiting for SO LONG to give more details about my process about.

WHAT IS A NONAGON AND WHAT DOES IT DO?

So given that this entire fic series is based entirely on “but what if” and I had a lot of specific theories about where the Aeor arc was going, when it came time to decide what to do with Lucien, I leaned on those theories a bit when building this alternate take.

Now normally when you have an arrogant asshole dealing with Eldritch Beings such as Lucien, you end up in a scenario where he’s probably going to get betrayed or just fucking eaten by the damn things, so I kinda expected that was where it was going- that he’d get consumed somehow and the Nein would have to rescue his dumb ass and yada yada yada they’d get Mollucien out of this somehow, because at that point I didn’t know the campaign was ending and I wanted purple tiefling AND Caduceus and just assumed that Matt would play the Mollucien as an NPC since… Lucien memories.

That did not happen! Obviously! And I love what did happen, because the Dragon kicking the Big Bad’s teeth in and becoming the Big Bad, himself, is an awesome trope. BUT as a fanfic writer, I am often preoccupied with what could have been, and therefore when I started drafting out OUADYA as a two-part story (since originally it was going to leave Lucien’s fate and the Somnovem ambiguous and just focus on the Creedemption part of the narrative, and that aspect of it was removed EXTREMELY early, like… Hupperdook arc early), I knew that no matter what else happened the Somnovem were going to be the final bosses and therefore they needed to be built up A LOT more menacing than they were in canon since they were kinda, through circumstances (probably because of the absence of Molly to torment), not as massively terrifying as they could have been within canon.

So to do that, we have their constant hassling of Molly, but then there’s Lucien, too. And that’s when I started thinking about what exactly IS a Nonagon and why did Lucien succeed where the previous guy got completely effed up and consumed? And how do we tie the idea that Lucien is probably Ruidus-Born and Fate-Touched into it (and again this was a fucking year before the Lucien book came out)?

So I built my little Anakin Skywalker narrative- Lucien was, through some insane alignment of the cosmos, born specifically to deal, for good or for ill, with the Somnovem. That’s why he has the same fucking red eyes- miss me with anyone telling me that isn’t significant somehow. Now he wasn’t born specifically to be their herald, but he was built with a soul/mind strong enough to handle them or combat them. If he’d taken Sehanine’s hand (as shown in there’s something divine in the way screams can sound), he would have ended up as her Champion- she’s the Lady of Dreams, so she’s the one in a position MOST suited to fighting them. He didn’t, so that put him on the path to either being subjugated or subjugating them.

The book definitely agrees with my belief that the Somnovem saw him as a pet (Culpasi), an unpaid intern (half of them), and the punkass teenage getaway driver who needs to stop questioning the adult criminals and drive the fucking bus already (the other half), though the book was also VERY OBVIOUS about them letting him fucking know that, which… Yeah. Then again, the book also skipped over the two years he was in the Astral Sea to the point where it looks like it never happened, so maybe they had to speedrun his dawning realization that these assholes may love him, but he’s still their chattel slave bitch.

Since the Astral Sea field trip IS a massively important part to Lucien’s narrative IN ACTUAL CANON AND IN MY VERSION OF IT, I had to construct what that meant for a Lucien who can’t leave, who isn’t and can never get out of his situation and is rapidly losing hope and sanity. I also had to figure out a reason for Molly to even fucking want to get him out and therefore the linchpin thing came about.

And the second the word “linchpin” entered my narrative, I realized I had just built the Soul King again.

But before I get into WHAT THAT NONAGON DO and how it relates to the shift in power dynamics within Cognouza, let me… fucking explain the Soul King.

The Soul King is the thing (and I say thing not to be dismissive or sarcastic but because it is a fucking thing in all reasonable sense of the word and Urahara, who is about as much as as fantasy realm atheist as you can get calls it that) that controls the balance of souls in Soul Society in Bleach. Without it, existence falls apart and all the different worlds of the dead and the world of the living would collapse in on themselves (sound familiar). He has zero power in the governing body of any realm, no voice, and is honestly, basically a torso and a head sealed up in a damn vault somewhere, and everyone is like “yeah the Soul King is fucking great” without giving a single damn about who he is or ever talking about how they fucking sealed him in the vault so he wouldn’t one day destroy them because some of his fucking limbs went out and caused problems on purpose.

(also fun fact- the Soul King’s power manifests as eyeball creatures that look like this.)

Basically what this means for the Nonagon is that with Lucien very very close by as in RIGHT THERE IN THE AETHER CRUX, the Somnovem can move more independently, have a stronger since of self, and can cooperate better with one another. Without him, they’re in the slop, biting each other, and unable to reason. The two years Lucien spent where they were mostly backbiting and annoying him were the worst of it, but after those two years things started to solidify and then Molly died and the Moonweaver’s seals on the eyes broke and suddenly they have TWO Nonagons and an actual fucking goal to work towards and aren’t just using Lucien as a sounding board and a free brain to solve problems for them.

Any free mind can be of use to the Somnovem, but only the True Nonagon (aka Lucien) is capable of sustaining them and managing to hold up the weight of Cognouza’s bullshit without going mad and crumbling into the void. That doesn’t make it easy and left to this bullshit, Lucien would ultimately… Become a fucking soul in a vault capable of regulating the flow of information throughout Cognouza so it can goddamn function. He would lose his identity entirely. That’s what they want. That’s what he’s been risking happening by trying to put out a fire inside of the house, and the Somnovem have stopped playing the coddling masters and have brought out the lash now that he’s not even pretending to follow their lead.

To them, he has always been an object- an object they very much love and adore and worship and want to keep happy so he does what he’s supposed to do without any of them having to cause him harm (because you don’t want to abuse your cute little pet), but an object. If he isn’t going to fall into line, then that needs to be fixed and that’s where we’re picking up at the start of YCDHN- what happens when Lucien tries his big subjugation monologue in a situation where it’s very much NOT “I’m not stuck in here with you, you’re stuck in here with me” because at any point the Somnovem could have forced him to obey and Lucien’s arrogance just chose to believe that wasn’t an active choice they were making. He believed they wouldn’t try to cause him harm because they needed him and they worship him, and never thought oh shit, these are wizards they will do whatever they can to get what they want.

SO GOOD TIMES, AMIRITE??

#liner notes #you can't deny high noon #my writing

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