#my attempt at symbolism lmao

[captaindamianos]

Inktober Day 2 - Spiders

In the spider's web

[handdrawnfantasma]

walks up to a m/f couple hey so which one of you is fucked up and normal about it and which one of you is normal and fucked up about it

[nightcxre]

childe themed kandi anyone? no? just me?

...i'll see myself out

[crystalflygeo]

Last of her kind Emperor!Alpha!Zhongli + Slave!Omega!Dragoness!Reader-

cw/tags: mentions of slavery and past sexual abuse on fem!reader, A/B/O dynamics, mating bites, fingering, scenting, pet names, zhongli has a knot and alpha fangs and is not afraid to use them lmao, some nip and clit stimulation ig?? emotional roller coaster ngl.

notes: So remember a loooong time ago when I held a poll and one of the options was "dragon" and it WON?? well actually it was this, (dragon READER heh) it just got WAY out of control. 5.6k words and now I wanna make it into a whole series //head in hands// anyway ye have this weird lil funky AU I poured my sweat blood and tears into (also my heart and soul) idk why I am just so attached I love it so much plsss I have ideas fot other scenes with them already aaaaaaaaa <3

Partially inspired by some of @silentmoths' fics holy shIT I LOVE DRAGON READER AND I LOVE OMEGAVERSE NOD IF YOU AGREE!!

Last but not least if y'all wanna be part of my pinglist uhh I'm making one now so :3c

Part 2 ->

Strange yellow leaves fall around you all over the courtyard…

“Fix your clothes, you have to look appealing… well, as appealing as a creature like you can be.” The voice of your Master calls out harshly, pulling and tugging at details in your outfit. It was a flimsy and silky thing, mostly see-through, rather elegant, but very revealing.

You’re used to it.

“And stop looking so miserable! You better smile and please this Alpha. He’s not just anyone, you know?”

You nod meekly, trying to hide the slight trembling on your body. This will be just another bonding attempt. Nothing else.

It will fail. Just like all the others before.

Silver chains clink and tug the collar at your neck, it shakes you back to the present as you stumble forward.

Master guides you through a maze of corridors, with sleek surfaces of dark wood, decorative lanterns and paper screens. They’re strange, covered in even stranger symbols that look nothing like the ones back in the desert. Your bare feet, used to rough hot sand, now walk along polished wood with your draconic tail dragging behind. Everything looks so lavish…

You’ve been brought all the way to Li- Liu-… Li-yue? A foreign country, to meet a potential client. Well, a client to your Master. You are just the merchandise: a dragonblood Omega. Rare, unique even, “exotic”.

But defective.

Your fists clench in nervousness. How rough will this Alpha be with you? You dread to find the answer. Alphas were cruel, ever since you remember you’ve been taught to please, be gentle, obedient and look pretty, but they were never any of those things. Alphas just took their pleasure and used your body as they wanted, usually until you were crying and screaming, begging for mercy. You just hope this Alpha would give you some pity and be quick… or give you time to rest in between attempts.

Though you had learned since long that your wishes don’t tend to come true.

What a disappointment. After I spent so much money and resources on you.

Such a waste of time, what use is there in an Omega that can’t bond?

Why do I even bother with you? You’re just good for the reproduction camp. Maybe that way you can produce another dragonblood.

This is your last chance, mutt. If you fail again, I won’t be bothering with you anymore.

You feel anxiety creeping on your chest, heart jumping to your throat as the dark thoughts invade your mind. Last chance… your last chance at bonding. At proving you’re not useless and stupid. At serving your purpose as Omega. What was happening to you was fair. You deserve to be punished and you should be grateful you have one last chance after all your failures.

You just want to… to…

Tears prickle at your eyes and you breathe in deeply, trying to contain your distress and hugging your own tail, rubbing your face on the fluffy tip.

Whatever happens today, your fate is going to be sealed.

The nest room is nice.

Like the rest of the place, it is rather elegant, dimly lit with neutral colors and wooden walls, filled with pillows and blankets that had a very subtle flowery aroma to them. Small cabinets to one side with some decorative objects on top and a full-length mirror on the other side. So much different from the barren cold stone walls and tents from the desert camps.

“Hm, pretty fancy.” Master says taking off your collar, your soft unblemished neck now on display, free from any claim. “Now…” He pulls at your hair and you wince, whining and lowering your ears on a submissive display. He wouldn’t hurt you right? You have to look pretty. “The emperor will be here shortly. Make sure to do anything and everything he wants. And you better smile, I told you.”

“E-Emperor?” You pale, eyes widening.

He scoffs and pushes you back, you stumble back into the mess of pillows. “That’s right. I don’t know why but he was very adamant to see you it seems. Perhaps he just wants the prestige of owning the last known dragonblood, hm? Another novelty for his collection, I’m sure. You should consider yourself really lucky. So…” He flashes his Alpha fangs at you with a growl and you whimper again, cowering. “I would suggest you do your best and don’t disappoint this time, he’ll pay a pretty penny for you.”

And with that he leaves, muttering something and almost slamming the strange sliding door.

And so, you’re alone.

Immediately your brain goes into overdrive. An emperor? You had been presented to various Alphas of high status before, wealthy merchants and high-ranking tribe members, but this… this was probably a whole other level.

An emperor had to have an empress, right? Someone of noble birth and high status such as himself, not a lowly sand lizard like you, with weird ears, scales, horns and a tail. Why would he want to see an Omega like you? Perhaps Master was right, he intended to keep you as a trophy in his collection, another pretty thing.

It was humiliating.

But anything was better than being doomed to the reproduction camp…

Maybe the emperor had a harem? You’ve heard of them before, some Alphas liked to boast having many Omegas bound to them. Living in this luxury, not having to worry about much anything except looking pretty and pleasing him once a while. Hell, maybe he wouldn’t even pay attention to you, you’d be just a glorified pet.

You could… do that.

Without noticing, your tail starts swaying after you, this could be a chance. Your chance. You just had to make him like you. Forget the bond. Don’t think about it. All you have to do is please him.

You start frantically arranging the sheets and pillows around, building the comfiest nest you ever had with all the extra material, scenting it with excited happy pheromones. You could do it, this was your chance.

You won’t fail this time. You’ll be pretty, obedient, submissive, the ideal Omega. You’ll let him use you to his heart’s content, sure you may be a little sore but it’ll be worth it if he chooses you. He won’t even care about the bond.

…Right?

You jolt when you hear the door slide slightly open again, your heart leaps to your throat as someone walks in.

Oh.

Is… he the emperor? … He’s handsome.

To be fully honest, you expected some fat pompous middle-aged man not this… perfect specimen of an Alpha.

Your tail sways a little with curiosity.

He looks only slightly older than you, tall, wearing elegant robes in brown and golden hues. His eyes are like a sunset: golden, warm, almost glowing. A red liner accentuating them. Long chocolate hair faded to amber at the tips. His scent was earthy and pleasant, subtle unlike most Alpha musk. Almost comforting and… familiar?

He seems to stare back at you with the same surprise, frozen for a moment, eyes slightly wide, he says something you can’t quite hear and it shakes you out of the spell. You suddenly feel a little self-conscious, curling your tail around you, ears down and resisting the urge to brush (hide) the scales at the corners of your eyes.

It occurs to you that you’ve been just staring like an idiot, you don’t know very well how to address him, nor know his foreign tongue. So, you simply lower your head in respect. “My Lord…”

You suddenly feel nervous. This is it.

You turn around, following the motions ingrained in your brain. Body splayed on the nest, arms tucked in, head down. Submissive, obedient. Your hands are shaking, you feel dizzy, heart thrumming in your chest, blood rushing in your ears.

You lift your butt just slightly, tail curling elegantly over your back, out of the way to expose the flimsy fabric covering your privates, properly presenting to the Alpha. You focus on trying to control your pheromones, letting out just whiffs of a needy sensual scent, worried of mixing in your anxiety and fear and displeasing the emperor.

You had to be pretty, enticing, compliant, and he would, h-he would…

A rather awkward cough has you tense. “There is… no need for that.”

You blink for a moment, taken aback at the rich deep baritone of his voice, so hypnotizing you almost don’t register his words. He speaks common tongue, but still, what does he mean? Isn’t this just… standard protocol for bonding? Isn’t he going to mount you?

You dare peek over your shoulder and see him sitting elegantly over his knees at the floor. He’s outside of the nest range.

He’s also slightly pink at the cheeks and pointedly avoiding looking at you.

Is this a trap? Is he testing you to see if you’ll misbehave? Your hands clench, nails digging at your palms, your breathing and heart increasing pace.

“I just want to talk, I promise.” He tries.

You hold the position.

He sighs, and then-

“Omega, relax.”

You almost squeak at the Alpha command. His voice, his will, seeps into your skin, your nerves, your very bones. You feel your muscles loosen up, tension leaving your body like a bowstring snapping and you lie on the sheets sideways.

Right right right, you’re tense, you have to be soft and pliant-

You look over at him and he’s… heading over to the little cabinets. He picks up a kettle of some kind and little cups that sit on the top, moving around calmly and elegantly as he seems to prepare something. Your head tilts and you gingerly sit up straight. Tail and ears down, curled up not unlike a wounded animal.

“Do you speak the common tongue?”

“Y-Yes!” You nod. “A little…”

“Good.”

The emperor seems… pleasant, he is calm and unguarded, so different from the cold intimidating Alphas you’ve met who like to show off, who immediately order you around. He even used an Alpha command on you but it felt… grounding. There is something equally eerie and entrancing about him and you feel yourself as much drawn to him as terrified of his imposing aura, and you couldn’t explain why. It’s a bit unsettling but also comforting at the same time.

He pours two cups and turns to you. You stiffen and he offers you one.

“Qixing tea is one of the most refined Liyue teas. It tends to be very bitter but this blend has a more pleasant taste, a little floral even. It is also said to help relax one’s mind.”

You carefully take the cup, not wanting to insult such gracious offer, though you’re utterly confused, shouldn’t you be the one serving him?

The cup is warm.

You stare at the golden liquid, small black dots sit at the bottom. This has no alcohol… right? It can’t be worse than snake wine at least.

You carefully take a sip, trying to imitate how the emperor is holding his.

It is… nice, a strong sharp taste but not bad, and very aromatic.

He’s looking at you expectantly and your tail and ears twitch. “I-It’s very good. Thank you, my Lord.”

He smiles and your heart skips a beat. “I am glad. Some say Qixing tea is for older people, but it’s frankly one of my favorites.” He stares at his cup with a somewhat nostalgic gaze, as if it brings him fond memories. “Ah, you can address me as Morax.”

You nod quietly and take another sip. Past the tea’s powerful flowery scent, you can now sense his Alpha pheromones, with him being so close and the air less tense. They’re strong but not overwhelmingly so, sharp and tantalizing, a refined foreign scent you can almost taste in the back of your throat. It stirs something in you, something warm and alluring.

“Do you know where were you born? Who are your parents?”

The question takes you by surprise for a moment as you shake out of your thoughts. Ah, he must be inquiring about your dragonblood. “I-I’m…. I’m not sure, my Lo- um… L-Lord Morax. As far as I know my mother worked at a-a heat house… no one knew who my father was and she passed away when I was very young.”

“I see… so you have no idea where you got your dragon traits from.” It was a sentence rather than a question and you shake your head meekly, taking another sip from the tea, ears lowering back.

“Apparently it could be due to recessive genes.” You once again repeat the same words you’ve heard all your life. You hate bringing attention to your dragon features, people either treat you like a rare exotic creature or a dangerous one. You didn’t know which was worse.

“Hmmm…” Lord Morax seems pensive for a moment, also drinking some of the tea. “Have you been with your caretaker for long?”

You look down. “Master has been in charge of me ever since I… p-presented as an Omega.”

“Does he treat you well?”

Your eyes widen, the question catching you completely by surprise. T-Treat you well? You are… treated like any other slave omega, if only being singled out by your draconic traits. He feeds you, he gives you clothing and education, he arranges the best matches he can for bonding, he even got you here in the first place. You owe him everything, you’re nothing without him.

So then… Why do you find yourself thinking back on all the harsh words, all the punishments, all the screaming and crying, all the… t-touches…

You gulp. “M-Master ensures I have the best living conditions and opportunities I can.” Is what you settle for.

He hums.

There is silence for a moment and lord Morax settles down his cup.

“I don’t think you’re aware of how special you are.”

Just when you thought he couldn’t surprise you anymore, he utters those words and makes your heart speed up.

Is this anxiety? Fear?

“Judging from what your Master has told me, you’re treated like quite the novelty, an exotic half-blood not unlike the Valuka Shuna or Kätzlein. Here in Liyue however those with traits like yours are called Xiānshòu.” The foreign word rolls off his tongue. His golden eyes fix on you and you freeze. “Also known as illuminated beasts. With immense power and longevity, even the half-bloods. They’re well respected and looked up to, why, some are even revered as deities...”

You? Such a fantastic creature? That can’t be…

“Seems to me like things are different in the deserts of Sumeru, however.” His eyes narrow and for the first time you notice his diamond pupils. They look like a snake’s. The same eerie glint he had a few minutes ago is back darkening the bright golden eyes. Yet, for some strange reason you don’t feel scared this time.

A shiver travels down your spine as you feel your instincts purr in delight. Protective… for some reason lord Morax is being protective of you. You don’t know why or how but you can feel it and it made your inner Omega preen inside. An Alpha wanted to protect you, care for you.

“Such a shame.” He adds, sounding almost disappointed but there is something darker underneath. Word simmering with… frustration? “You are such a lovely dragoness, worthy of every praise and prayer they’d sign in your name here.”

You’re very glad your cup rests at your lap, blushing furiously with trembling hands.

For the next few moments, he continued to ask some more questions. What you like or dislike, what you do in your free time, even something as innocuous as your favorite color. Time seemed to stretch into infinity as you grew a little more comfortable with your answers and the whole situation, as though you weren’t talking to an emperor, or even a potential master or Alpha but rather… someone who saw you for who you are.

You liked that. You liked him.

You wanted to stay with him.

You wished to-

“Alright, I think that’s enough. I will have a talk with your Master and we’ll settle things.” He stands up and dusts his attire a little.

Your breath stops.

He is leaving.

He is leaving.

Did you do something wrong? Didn’t he say he liked your appearance? Are you such a failed disgraceful omega? Your last chance at bonding. You didn’t even get to impress him. You want to call out to him, do something, anything. Panic rises in your chest, drowning you, freezing you. You can barely think, instincts screaming, begging, wailing in despair for him. This kind Alpha, this gentle, patient, imposing, majestic Alpha who’s too good for you and yet something deep inside you yearns for him…!

“I am very glad to have met you little xiānshòu.” A small smile tugs at his lips. Then, he turns and heads for the sliding doors.

So, you do the first thing that comes to your mind.

The empty cup falls from your hands, your footsteps thump loudly on the wooden floors, soft fabric clenches between your fingers.

As soft as the lips you crash yours onto.

…

It only lasts a few seconds but when you back just a little, ears low and tail curled up in apprehension, you realize what you did.

You’d kissed him, you’d kissed the emperor.

You’re shaking like a leaf, clinging to him for dear life. He stares at you with wide surprised eyes but you’d rather die right here for your insolence than live the rest of your days in regret.

His scent takes on an alluring hint to it and your inner Omega is overjoyed. Up so close it is almost irresistible. His face remains impassive, if a little tense, but you can see in his eyes something you identify very well… hunger, desire.

“Lord Morax… t-the nest… please.”

“Y-You don’t have to-”

“Please! Allow me to please you, allow me to show you…how…” You whisper against his lips, leaning in again as your eyes flutter close.

And suddenly his hands wrap around you and pull you close, cupping your face, curling at your waist, there’s something possessive in it and you feel slight vibrations as he growls deep from his chest against your mouth. But there is also something sweet, something delicate…

And for once, you want more. You want this.

How did you end up here? In the most beautiful nest you’d ever constructed, with the most handsome, kind, caring Alpha you’d ever met?

His kisses are deep and slow, completely unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. You lie on the soft sheets as he looms over you, exploring your mouth with an unhurried pace, hungry yet not forceful, letting you timidly do the same at your own pace.

This is nice…

His hands run along your body, caressing your skin through your flimsy attire. His touch curious but gentle.

“May I?” He asks, tugging at the fabric off your shoulder.

You shiver, at his voice, as the pure want in it, in his eyes, in his scent.

“Y-yes my lord…”

“Hmm…” His kisses trail down your jaw down to your neck as he starts pulling the garments off. Careful, instead of simply ripping them apart, your heart skips a beat. “If we’re going to do this, you can use my name and not just titles…”

Your top falls off and goosebumps litter your skin, nipples pebbled as one of his hands cups your breast.

“M-Morax…” You try, shakily, as if testing out the word alone on your lips.

“No, little one. Zhongli. That is my name.” He kisses down your shoulders, nipping at the skin.

“Ah!” Your tail flickers around and you purr.

You take the initiative to kiss him this time, and your hands start roaming his foreign clothes, fumbling with knots and pawing at the fabric. He chuckles at your frustrated whine. You want more, more of this feeling, more of him. To touch his skin, cover him in kisses, worship him.

(Show him what a good Omega you can be.)

No…

You want to make him feel good and please him.

Elegant fabric falls down discarded as he shakes off the layers of his top and you blink surprised. The fabric was bulky and covered up his figure. Lean but muscled, tantalizing like honey. You immediately latch onto him, nosing, scenting, nipping and kissing, feeling the faint outline of his abs and muscles twitch under your touch. He smells so good, he feels so good…

Your Omega instincts are starting to cloud your senses more and more.

Suddenly one of his hands gently squeezes a soft breast and you moan at the sudden touch “O-Oh!”

“You’re sensitive here, do you like this?” He asks, massaging your chest.

You whimper and nod frantically, tail wagging behind you. You had never been this responsive to having your chest played with, though then again, it was rare… but his sensual touches were quickly undoing you. Wetness pools at your gut and you rub your legs together.

Lord Mor- Zhongli… leans down then and something wet flicks over your nipple making you gasp, before warmth surrounds your nub. You cry out even louder. He sucks and laps at it and you instinctively tangle your hands on his hard dark hair, your legs wrapping around his waist.

You groan again, too many layers on the way.

“C-clothes… off, please!”

“As you wish, my dear dragoness.”

He continues squeezing, kissing, caressing and lapping at your skin, leaving a couple of hickeys along the way and teasing his Alpha fangs against you as his attention descends through your body once more, continuing his trail of kisses along your hip. His fingers dip down the waistband of your mesh pants and when you raise your hips to help, he pulls them down.

You’ve been naked in front of others more times than you’d like to count. But there’s something oddly intimate and special about this situation right now.

Your ears lower in apprehension, and your tail flicks by your side, resisting the urge to cover up. Lying down with your legs slightly spread around him. Already flushed, sweaty and panting.

“…You’re gorgeous.”

Huh?!

“I’m so lucky to have found you.” Zhongli nips at your hip. “So lucky that you want me too.” He kisses at your inner thigh.

Your breath hitches.

You’re the lucky one. Completely overjoyed that this Alpha likes you, desires you.

The first touch at your core has you mewling.

Zhongli strokes at your folds, still gentle, finding you soaked as your slick coats his fingers. Your body jolts and you moan “A-Ah!” He smirks against your thigh and nips there again as his fingers move in circles, teasing, testing, before moving to your clit. A finger pad stroking it just so, making your whole frame tremble, like every nerve in your body is being stimulated.

“Mngh- please!”

His fingers travel between your folds. First one sliding in rather easily, pumping steadily as you shudder in pleasure, and then two, making you writhe, bucking your hips against the touch, pushing them deeper, chasing that feeling.

Your body feels hot, too hot. Every sensation blocked except that warm wet feeling down there, in your new heaven. Your hands claw at the sheets, a pleasant fog setting in and you can feel yourself slipping into your most primal needs. But oh, oh, not like this.

You want him. Need him.

“You- y-you! please my lord!”

Something snaps in the Alpha’s eyes and Zhongli growls. Golden eyes dark, swallowed by lust and need and you whine when his fingers leave you. You vaguely hear rustling noises and before you can protest again, he pulls you up back on his lap and oh…

He’s big.

His erection stands proud between your bodies, rubbing against you and you shuffle impatiently, nuzzling against him.

Yes, yes…

Zhongli helps positioning you, gives himself a few strokes, and you feel his cockhead kiss at your entrance, you whine and stare at him rather confused. “L-Like this? B-But I have never- This is n-not how-”

He kisses your forehead, your nose, and pecks at your lips. “I can imagine this is very different from how they’ve taught you Alphas mount Omegas, but I my dear, intend to make love to you.” He whispers, hot breath fanning your cheeks as he nuzzles you, so close, so intimate. Your heart hammering wildly in your chest. “Like this you will have more control. I want you to relax, enjoy, my sweet dragoness.” He kisses at your cheek, down your jaw to your neck. “May I?”

You can feel your eyes water. No one had ever told you that. No Alpha had ever been this patient or even asked your permission before. Words die on your throat as you stare mesmerized at Zhongli. Grateful. Incredulous. Completely enamored.

You nod, and he guides you down.

It’s different like this. So much different.

You bite your lip and whine a little once you start to move, his hands hold your hips as you raise them and sink back down on his cock, inch by delicious inch. You feel… full, but warm, good. Your insides clench around him and he groans.

Oh… you could get used to this…

“Hah… ah! … m-my lord... I’m…” You feel dizzy but in a good way, your body tingles all over and it’s exhilarating, addicting.

He leans forward a bit, nosing at your collarbone, soft kisses tickle your skin and he… he’s almost purring in delight, inhaling your scent. “I told you, you can just call me by my name... Would you let me hear it?”

You buck languidly on his embrace, enjoying this…sensual experience, these new feelings and sensations. His tender closeness, his intoxicating pheromones, his deep baritone.

Him.

“Zhongli…”

His name comes out as a needy cry and he growls, Alpha pride clearly satisfied. His hands roam your body just enough to shift position and pull you even closer, hips rolling in tandem, picking up speed, his fangs grazing your shoulder.

Your head is swimming in pleasure, fuzzy like stuffed with cotton, small little “Ah… ah… ah!” moans punched out of you. You’re vaguely aware of your nails digging onto his skin but you can’t even stop yourself, you need to hold onto something, anything.  

Even your tail subconsciously curls around his ankle (and he doesn’t even seem to mind), like every cell of your body is screaming at you to hold onto him and never let go.

Zhongli’s own breathing comes out in harsh puffs and satisfied groans as he buries himself in you over and over, the sound of skin slapping on skin becomes more prominent.

And then, he hits a spot that has you seeing stars.

Your eyes snap open (when had you closed them?) Back arching as if struck by lightning and letting out a high-pitched moan. H-How did he do that?! What was that? You don’t remember ever feeling like this in previous bonding attempts.

“M-more?” You mewl in delight.

Zhongli looks at you with a satisfied smirk and it only fuels the fire in your belly.

“Gladly.”

That same wonderful feeling travels up and down your body again and again as your moans and whimpers rise in volume, calling his name over and over. Zhongli kisses you, deep and passionate. Whispers praises and sweet nothings on your flickering dragon ears. Touches you so soft and reverently. Your body feels so hot, your mind going blank, you can feel the base of his cock swelling with his knot and the familiar coil of pleasure tightening as you anticipate it, crave it, more intense and satisfying than ever before.

And just as you reach that high, his fangs sink into you.

You come with a squeal, body tensing, clinging onto him, clenching on him as he lets out a deep satisfied groan, knotting you. Wet stickiness coats your insides and thighs. And everything feels right, just right. Perfect even.

It takes a moment to come back to your senses, and it’s to Zhongli’s hands rubbing circles at your back comfortingly, while he laps and kisses at the bonding mark he left on you.

And then the high comes crashing down.

The bonding mark.

Tears well up in your eyes and start rolling down your cheeks, your tail uncoiling from him and curling around yourself protectively, ears down.

Please no… this can’t be…

Please stay…

Please.

Zhongli immediately notices your distress, in your actions and your scent, completely different altogether. His own instincts going wild at the lack of a happy sated mate scent. “Darling, what’s wrong? I’m sorry did it hurt that much? Did I… harm you in some way or did something wrong?” Oh, he sounds so genuinely concerned.

You shake your head desperately. Of course he hasn’t.

But you will.

Your body will. Betray you as always.

No bonding mark has stayed in your neck for longer than a few minutes. They all fade.

Just like the alphas that place them in you.

And then comes the anger, the guilt, the disappointment, the despair, the loneliness…

You can’t take it. Not this time.

“S-stay… please…” You sob.

Your voice sounds so broken, so weak and tiny, absolutely heart wrenching.

And Zhongli embraces you.

“I will, my dearest dragoness. I promise you.” He kisses one of your horns.

You want to believe him but you can only cry harder…

The room is dark as your eyes flutter open. It takes a few minutes to adjust and for your mind to catch up. Where are you…? You look around at the wooden walls, nestled in comfy sheets, you see some wooden cabinets and a tea set-

…!!!

You jolt awake, tumbling some pillows from your fancy nest. Your last chance at bonding. The emperor. He was leaving, and then…!

You slap a hand against the junction between neck and shoulder and feel something there, a bandage… you try to stare at it confused, though it’s impossible from the angle. And then fear consumes you. What if… it’s not there…?

Your body is still naked, though you have been covered with a thick fabric while sleeping, as it now pools at your lap, your Omega scent and that of an Alpha mixed together pleasantly, you turn around.

The Emperor. Lord Morax. Zhongli.

He sleeps peacefully by your side, on your nest, after having mated you.

He stayed.

You stare at his handsome features, fair skin, dark long hair, strong jaw, muscled arms. His lips slightly parted as he breathes evenly. So at ease.

You want to reach out and brush at his hair, touch his face, kiss him.

You want this moment to last forever.

Looking up slightly you see the large mirror, see yourself. A tiny thing, with freaky ears, horns and a tail.

It was… good, while it lasted. Almost like a dream.

Tears start falling down your cheeks again and you try to be as silent as possible as you pull and lift at the bandage in your shoulder. And there underneath it is… something?

Your fingers trace a mark, a wound, it stings and you hiss.

No way. There is no way.

Hope flutters in your chest, your stomach flips and you feel dizzy, nervous. A bonding mark? Is it real? Is it still there?

You shuffle out of the nest as fast and stealthily as you can, standing in front of the mirror. Hair a mess, eyes wide, pale in fear.

And there it is. The clear mark of an Alpha bite, still rather tender. A claim. A bond.

You start sobbing as you trace it, touch it, feel it. It must have been hours, there is no way…

It’s there, it’s there, for real. You want to laugh, to cry, you’re still nervous, scared, hopeful, happy, a million things at once.

But how? Why now?

“Hnng… darling? Are you crying again?” You stiffen as you hear the voice, deep and hoarse, laced with drowsiness. You turn and see him sit up and yawn carelessly like a rishboland tiger. Elegant and intimidating like one too with his bright golden eyes, Alpha fangs and muscled figure. Still naked as well, you note.

“T-the bonding mark… it’s still there!” You exclaim to him, gesturing to it.

“You should let it heal nicely.”

“Y-You don’t get it!” You huff. “My Lord… it’s still there! I’m bonded, I’m yours!”

He chuckles. “Rather, I would say we belong to each other, now.”

Belong to each other.

That sounds nice.

You turn back to the mirror, still staring at it, poking it with a finger softly, as if afraid it’ll disappear, as if it was an illusion, a dream.

But it’s there.

“For years… for years I thought I was doing s-something wrong, that there was something… wrong… with me…” You cry softly. “No Alpha had even bonded me…”

Suddenly you feel strong arms curl around your frame, a chin resting at your shoulder where it kisses your skin, and then brushes over the mark. It stings but you welcome it.

It means it’s real, all of this is.

Zhongli inhales, taking in your scent. “Well you see my dear, a dragonblood… a xiānshòu like you, can only be truly bonded by one of its own kind.”

The words take a moment to process, to sit on your brain, and you frown confused, staring at him from the mirror. And then your eyes widen.

Golden antlers crown his head, majestic and almost glowing, small scales appear under his striking amber eyes, the color of burnt ocher. A large tail, even bigger than yours in golden and brown hues, sways lazily behind him, before finding yours and intertwining with it, the feel is foreign but not unwelcome. Like holding hands.

You turn around so fast you almost trip if it weren’t for his hold. The dragonblood features are still there, in plain sight.

Your throat feels dry.

“You… you’re…”

He raises a finger to his lips and shushes you, then smiles. “I am yours my dear. Just as you are now mine.”

You cling to him and hide your face on his chest as you cry. Overwhelmed, relieved.

Yes, this is where you belong.

[thatdeadaquarius]

PART 2 - Genshin Impact SAGAU / Isekai: Gifts to Give Your Allogene!

ELEMENTS HERE: Dendro, Hydro, Cryo, Geo

Part 1 / Part 2 (you're here!)

☆

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (they/them only)

Planet: General SAGAU / Isekai Stuff, Platonic Cuteness

Orbit: Headcanons-ish, a couple sentences for each

Stars: a little bit of everybody as of Baizhu/Kaveh update! including rare beloveds like Aloy! (I hope I got them all… at least the playable ones… ) Please understand that some characters are more “foreground” characters and have more screen time so I may have written some more for them because I knew them better!

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: weapons for gifts?? 16+ Older Teen Audiences Advised, light cussing

☆

& Trigger Warnings: None Known.

☆

Edit 1/1/24: Hey I expanded on this in my Eldritch Fanfic Post Part 2, but I just wanted to vet the old posts and say I did do a form of exoticism by including the word "Huangdi" throughout this.

I've since replaced it for better readability with "Emperor" but I didn't want to erase my mistake like it never happened. I'm genuinely sorry about this, I never had ill intentions by including it, but regadless of intentions that's the impact of my actions. I'm absolutely going to be looking out for kind of thing in the future/get a sensitivity reader/a beta read from that culture to check me.

I hope you still enjoy my writing and can understand.

Dendro Allogenes:

Tighnari = with some help again to put magic into it, you give Tighnari some head coverings you sewed together that have the power of Cryo in them! So now he can actually see what plants are out in the desert, visit Cyno, or just enter the desert to his heart’s content, which, yes, his tail started unconsciously wagging after you explained what it was. “Oh! For me? Well I’ve taken to avoiding the desert if I can because of… wait a minute, you say it has cryo in it? What? How does that work?? You think it’ll genuinely help me in the desert?? You made it???” Tighnari’s ears are all twitching with excitement, and he’s holding the covering (that matches his clothes/dark green) like it’s a new plant for study, omg he pulled out his magnifying glass and everything-

Collei = so she’s actually a really good seamstress, and makes plushies a lot, esp for kids! but one day you found one of her first attempts, a ragged looking sort of pale pink bunny… her first attempt at a plushie Baron Bunny!! so you decided to mimic her design (still baron bunny but with a sort of Sumeru-like clothing on it), and sew her one! You made a whole day of it, eating together, going to the best spots to sightsee (for as long as Collei was up for it/not too tired) and then gifted her the plushie Baron Bunny! She accidentally let out a small scream that startled both of you tbh, and then snatched that shit so quick lmao, kicking her feet on the picnic blanket and everything! With your permission of course, Collei then tackled you for a hug lol, she ranted about all the little details and made you tell her several times over how you made it so she could make some more in the future too! She may or may not have talked about missing Amber and teared up… but then you redirected her attention to the bunny saying, it’s like a gift from Amber and you really! (you also added a function where, if you squeeze the Baron, it’ll dish out some healing power and some heat! …Collei tackle hugged you twice for that one)

Alhaitham = what a hard person to get gifts for, he’d probably be like “thanks” no matter what you got him 😭, he means it tho, it would just be underwhelming… but on the bright side, he definitely seems like he’d show a deeper appreciation for handmade gifts! Since you learned how to make one for Yoimiya, you decide this calls for another handmade hammock (also bc Teyvat doesnt have hammocks)! You painted symbols like green crystals and geometric patterns, but also lions and a golden Palace of Alcazarzaray for Kaveh, and your symbol, the eight point star (like the four point but with flare/not like the jewish symbol with equal points lol)!! So that way he can keep lazing away, and avoid people more comfortably lmao, and also if he is going to do that, he doesnt have to sit on rocks or hard structures for hours reading, and you hope it’s encouragement for him to spend time outside/take a break and nap! (Haitham knows that’s part of why you gave him this, even if you didn’t say it, and so he makes a point to do that more often to make you happy, take the advice for his health) oh look, after thoroughly looking at your craftsmanship for 10 minutes, you got a smile in addition to a “thanks”, damn, that’s actually how you know he likes it a lot <3 :)

Nahida = you remember vaguely from Nahida’s storylines/friendship levels that she loves games, and so you collect her a nice deck for Genius Invokation TCG! You also made her a cute bag and container for it, her bag is a rose maple moth crocheted bc really this was an excuse to just make the cutest character in Sumeru look even cuter, (like this, i tried very hard ok, bc this doesnt exist yet, im shocked) The first image is most correct, (imagine the face and stuff is cuter/simpler) as that’s also the backpack part! Her eyes were so big when you handed it to her, (you honestly were shocked they even could get any bigger lol). She jumped up and down excitedly with the backpack on (ur fucking heart, just like you intended, the wings flapped around and everything <333) you are also currently working on a luna moth (the pale green moth) in case she wants it to match her outfit more! even tho Nahida insists something handmade once is enough, you can see the childish yearning in her eyes, like a kid trying to say no to a toy that’s being offered right in front of them lmao

Kaveh = pretty girls deserve pretty things, and you were definitely feeling the pressure to make something high quality enough for Kaveh, tho u know he’s sweet enough that he’d appreciate anything you’d take the time to handmake (and tbh.. it sounds a little arrogant, but ur hoping something so cared for by what he, or at least most people see as some kind of all-powerful god above the archons, will boost his self-esteem/confidence in his own worth more, or at least let him know one more person cares about him…) so you didnt make it super detailed, and you put a note on it too to let him know your not as great at that as he would be, but you made a model of the part of the teapot house you’re going to design for him! Like a sort of sneakpeak, you made a small lookalike of Alhaitham and his house, but filled it with decor like if Howl didnt hoard all the cool shit in his room in Howl’s Moving Castle, but instead spread it out, and sort of used your modern taste for layout, (not the ugly ass corporate aesthetic) and a small garden. You also made nearly all the decor and stuff something interesting (like some primogem strings, they can be pretty small, for string lights, lampgrass from Mondstadt that he’s never seen etc.) and while you very shyly handed him the model at first, he was practically vibrating with excitement!! “You made this?! Oh of course I don’t expect perfection, it looks wonderful so far, especially if this was your first attempt!!” Kaveh has like sat down, and is delicately holding it and looking around, and when you tell him it’s an actual space, meant for him, he gently sets down the model and grabs you by the shoulders, “Show. Me. Now. …please?” looking at you with very determined puppy dog eyes lol

Yaoyao = …idk what you expected. It was so obvious. A crocheted bunny backpack. brown, so it matches her, since her basket was brown, or you could leave off the feet, whichever u prefer, and anyway, Yaoyao is always doing things for others, so the little girl was so cute and pink when you actually gave her something instead! (once again, using ur old trick of making the person think u need something then shocking them with a handmade gift instead hehe) She IMMEDIATELY switched it out for her basket and has pretty much converted to using it full time! (tho when she needs the more solid one she’ll still wear it, she just alternates, esp if there’s some occasion she’ll deffo wear the bunny backpack, it’s her “fancy god-made bunny backpack!”)

Baizhu = the doctor isn’t one to talk about himself a lot, so you weren’t sure what he would like other than some new tea… but you wanted to make it yourself so while you were a little disappointed it was just a basic pet gift, you wanted to maybe put a little extra into it so maybe Changsheng will use it and Baizhu will think it’s cute! You crocheted a little pet pod/cave for her to hang out in (imagine this but a Jueyun Chili hehe) and it also has a little crocheted vine rope so the little Jueyun Chili cave can be hung from things, or even tied onto Baizhu’s apron/hold it like a purse! That way Changsheng doesn’t always have to drape across his shoulders/has somewhere to retreat! When you shyly showed Baizhu and Changsheng, he literally clapped, so did Qiqi lol (he usually does those tiny smiles… but this one was the brightest most genuine you’ve ever seen, even in game…!!) You find that Baizhu’s eyes look like that type of person’s eyes were they just look like “happy”, like there’s a little fond sparkle in his eye. Changsheng was all like “about time I got something instead of him! I’m basically an assistant too y’know! …thank you very much, my Emperor.” (if you’re NOT squimish of snake pics, pls look at this cute smile Changsheng would give)

Hydro Allogenes:

Barbara = …so even Barbara was a little hesitant at first, but came around to the idea after some convincing, and some encouragement (and showing her she was capable of it) but you basically ….may ….or may not have… found a loop hole for her being a catalyst? So, thru a lot of persuading Barbara to train with you and Childe (who also thought it was amusing to see such a young girl who’s literally a nun and a singer do this) you got Barbara to make water bombs! Like her circle of notes that float around her when healing, she sings and gestures and similar to her ult, (but like Childe’s E-skill it just switches between the two), the notes fly out and explode in the direction she sings/aims! You wanted to remind her of her old dream of being recognized, and wanting to help in battle in a more combat way, and besides, you’re sick of women getting regulated to the healing magical role in games/anime fantasy, so yeah. You and Childe are literally evilly giggling to each other in the background as Barbara sends quater notes and lines of music that explode (like how water can sharpen and cut things like Childe’s blades? Yeah he taught her that) so intensely that it cuts into the Pyro Lawlachurl, bringing it to its knees- Barbara accidentally cuts its head off as the finishing blow. While she gasps in a little fear, but mostly shock, Childe jumps up and down and starts cheering.

Mona = got sparkly eyes, nearly snatched the gift out of your hand, you made her some awesome earrings from the character banner wishes! All pretty ombre pink and blue they swirl and look so pretty framing Mona’s face, she only wears them on special occasions despite your claim of everyday use, they also help her figure out where the clearest view of the night sky each night but glowing brighter and brighter when she gets closer to seeing clearly, Mona is almost? weirdly envious?? for her past self that had to suffer thru all the inconvenient cloudy nights lmao

Childe = like anon said, a new pair of knit gloves, using the fur from the snow king boar! he’s amazed they never wear out now, and he totally uses them as an excuse to hold your hands all like “I just can’t get over how soft they are, feel them, you did amazing comrade! even better than some Snezhnayan shops!!”, exactly what you expect he’s leaning into your face and everything- 🙄

Xingqiu = an ao3 account you had a hard time with Xingqiu’s, afterall, he’s from a wealthier family, so he can get mostly what he wants, and you don’t wanna just get him another book… so you kidnapped him to Inazuma! (idk if this is canon, or happened in an event or smth I missed idfc) So, you also kidnapped Albedo for this trip, so that Xingqiu could actually see the impact his writing made overseas! While you intended for this trip to make Xingqiu feel better abt his writing, (and to help Albedo feel appreciated too, despite him not expressing much low self-esteem in his art, compliments heaped upon him def cant hurt, plus u can see him go pink too hehe) you also wanted to surprise him with a author book signing! If he was up for it, of course, which he “I absolutely, definitely, certainly am, my liege!” Kid’s practically hopping in place, as you get him all ready for his book signing (and not rlly Albedo bc he’s always fucking perfect, u dont have to do shit, even his messy hair looks nice 💀) …you also may or may not have given him some hair decorations (to help his asymmetrical cutting, not that it looks super bad, but for a change at least)

Yelan = …it’s official. You are intimidated. It’s only pretty hydro women and Ayato from here on, on your “Gift List”. Needless to say, like a few other allogenes, you wouldn’t know shit about this woman if you didn’t read her lore… it’s not a fine replacement, you don’t think, but with (lots of almond tofu, and osmanthus wine too) dev access to help you, you created another bracelet for Yelan. Inscribed (just like the heirlooms) inside simply says “You Are Not Alone”, with your eight star symbol following after (like a four star but with some flare, and also not the Jewish star lol), it glows an otherwordly gold, a contrast to the bright blues of the other bracelet. Its function is a geo shield, to protect Yelan and any teammates nearby when it’s activated, she can also leave the shielded area in one spot, so she can do her e-skill and still protect people. You’d just casually asked her to meet up with you one day in that teahouse you know she runs for intel, and when you presented her the bracelet, she held it delicately, saying nothing as she examined it, reading the inside. A small smile tugged her lips up, and she slips it on as she sips her tea, “…Well, I’ll have to show this to present this one to the family shrine, I think this more than makes up for the heirloom I failed to keep. A replacement from the Guide of Teyvat themselves… Thank you, my Emperor, for this handwrought gift you bestow upon a mortal such as me. …and thank you, for not leaving me alone.” Yelan bows a little in her seat, sharp blue eyes more softened than you’ve ever seen her, trained on yours. Her hands are together in that same praying motion that gives you the weirdest sense of deja vu…

Kokomi = so you don’t know much about her, as the it seems the character lore for Kokomi you can remember was… lacking, to say the least. Hoyo definitely plays favorites, BUT YOU DON’T!! At least when it comes to gift givining so everyone feels appreciated, you got a pretty book (handmade or bought) and got it/made it kinda small, like the size of the book in her idle animation, bc turns out that’s her diary of sorts. You know the priestess feels if she expresses any opinions that her people will just take her side, or her word as… well, a divine priestess, the weight of her title you suppose. She also keeps track of how many spoons she has! Like what things drain her, and what things make her feel better (big social interactions vs. reading a war treaty book by herself for example) So you made her a bullet journal! (here’s one of my favorite bullet journal youtubers, here’s a flipthru of her completed journal) you didn’t fill out the whole thing, just some example pages, to show her the possibilites! …you were kinda worried bc she turned away at first after delicately accepting it, and since it was just you two, she allowed herself turn back around and start excitedly chatting your ear off as she leaned in- and wow. Kokomi’s eyes really are, dreamy, like cotton candy… and they’re so much prettier when she smiles…

Ayato = …you know exactly what to do. Interrupting his busy schedule (and only actually taking one day out of it actually bother him so he can have the others as a secret vacation hehe) to come over to the Kamisato household and homemake some boba drinks for him, Ayaka, and Thoma to try! Mostly Ayato tho, you got all the syrups, the milks teas, the boba, and luckily, were able to get some help from Xiangling in experimenting in making… popping pearls! (they’re edible boba pearls that are actually filled with juice/syrup flavors and burst on your tounge when you barely bite them! they’ve very sweet, and Inazuma definitely didn’t have any different pearls other than tapioca, those squishy black pearls you see in his regular boba tea) …Ayato is literally holding your hand like he’s about to drop to one knee, this man is down bad for boba (and you) and… are those tears?! Is he tearing up?! “I can’t believe… THE Akitsu Mikami… blessed me, personally, with boba?? With NEW boba teas and pearls I’ve never even seen?! …Thank you, my beloved emperor!” Mans has quite literally gotten on his knees, but bc he’s so tall, he can still comfortably hold both your hands in his bigger gloved ones …Thoma is desperately trying to get Ayato up, Ayaka is getting onto her brother in the background.

Candace = it’s not exactly a traditional gift… but the reason Candace doesn’t wear a lot of her jewelry or finery is because of the hard job she has as a Guardian/in the desert, so you figured giving her more things she can’t even really wear wasn’t the way to go.. So instead! You gather a journal or advice from Ningguang, Keqing, Yelan, Zhongli, and all the others in the Qixing who were willing to help you, and kidnapped Ganyu for a sight seeing trip! (since u and Ganyu has that whole “in between two very different worlds” bond) You brought Ganyu because you know if anybody would be good at managing something/getting it started (like the music fest back for Lantern Rite… that I missed bc I dont understand how lantern rite works 😭😭😭 VIOLENTLY SOBS ITS BEEN 2 YEARS AND I HAVENT GOTTEN A SINGLE LANTERN RITE U GUYS-) it would be Ganyu herself! …and to also give her a break. See Aaru Village suffered from little to no economy before Candace finally negoiated with the elders to let Sumeru merchants travel into town/buy from them/sell to them, but she’s had a rough time keeping the old coots from being dicks about it since, …and it’s also hard to convince the younger generations to come back after many wanted to see the outside world because of this… So what better what to solve two birds with one stone?? GANYU!! And all the economy and business advice you could gather form Liyue! You hope that the village flourishing (and helping Candace cut down on shady merchants) would impress the older generation, yet also get more money in the town so they can dress it up a bit more (like fixing unsteady bridges, also u kidnapped Kaveh to help revitalize their cultural architecture buildings back into life/or help make the simple buildings just prettier) Now Ganyu and her are besties (Candace rlly needed another friend besides just Dehya alone to come out and see her in the desert) and the adepti was very willing to come visit her and Aaru Village to help the economy maintain its footing/run smoothly, and Kaveh also comes and works on it/checks on her/the village! …When you initially showed all the plans to Candace, saying it’ll impress the old by bringing back old designs/architecture plus interest/satisfy the younger generations to know their hometown is advancing and make it more appealing to come back to… The Guardian puts her shield and spear off to the side, she lowers her head, and greets you, bc u kinda just started rambling without saying hello- whoops- , “Salaam aleikum Qore, **I have already become the first Guardian to have been blessed by the gods, to receive this Vision was the only aid I could turn to in trying to help my village, my community… but to be blessed once more? I would never have dared to dream, let alone the Ogdoad Qore… I am grateful on behalf of myself, my village, and all of King Deshret’s people. …truly, I did not expect a gods eyes to turn favorably upon us since my ancestors’ time. Thank you, my Qore.” You just give her a smile back, she taught you the return phrase, so you hope it’s appropiate, “Waaleikum us salam.” :)

Nilou = This woman is consumed by dancing, other than keeping the peace (well, within reason apparently bc she’s okay with a coup-) but you’ve heard how hard it can be on dancers, how plenty of them have to have strong muscles to perform consistently. So, using adepti magic, you’ve enchanted this minakari you’ve painted (a type of metalwork that’s then painted by artists, on Earth countries like Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan make them) like the teapot! It’s a small island that has a dance studio, and more importantly, a spa with hot springs, a sauna, and a room full of medical supplies dancers would need like salves, heating/cooling pads (using pyro/cryo), and space for stretches! Overall, just a place for her to get away from all the people and to heal her body up for the next performance, and after getting it all prepped/packed up with supplies, and showing it to Nilou… she literally had her hands over her mouth the whole walk around the rooms and showing her everything. Nilou had already been shocked you’d painted her a minakari piece, let alone all this! Like some others, she was quick to drop the formalities, and before you could even say “I hope you like it!” she was wrapping her arms around you and squeezing as tight as she could, tearing up and saying how happy she was that someone understood how hard dance can be on the body and how hard it can also be to take care of yourself, and how she can’t possibly show her gratitude- wait a minute. She’s pulled back and gripping you by the shoulders, not even bothering to wipe her eyes, before she swears to give you a dance every year with all the culmination of her work as she learns and makes newer and better dances!! <3

Cryo Allogenes:

Kaeya = horses so he’s actually a calvary captain- you actually wanted something that’d emphasize the handmade part of the gift, to really let Kaeya know somebody out there really cares about him, cares about him in the way that they’ll sit down and think of an idea and think of him, and then work for hours, sewing, drawing, crafting something just for him, to happy about. You make him a small, pocket sized photobook, and have a picture of every person who cares about him in all the slots, and near the end, from his last birthday where you gathered everybody together to celebrate, is a photo of Jean, Klee, Albedo, Sucrose, Venti, Rosaria, Noelle, Amber, even Eula, Diona, Mika, Barbara, and Mona came! But most importantly, you got Diluc to host it at Angel’s Share, and after some convincing, got him to get in the picture, you’re slightly off center, sandwiched by Kaeya and Diluc, where Kaeya is mid-laugh at the center, having just seen Diluc’s embarrassed face. It’s the last one in the mini album, and each photo has an even small message at the bottom, giving Kaeya a message from everybody, just for him. At the very end, with the group photo just before, is one of yourself and him posing together, you having taken him out roaming Mondstadt for the perfect picnic spot, just to give an excuse why you wanted a picture with him. And at the time, he found it a little suspicious, but was just flustered enough he let it slide. But now, opening and unfolding this tiny album, full of smiling friends and caring words, Kaeya gives a small, watery chuckle, you’ve left him a message too. “Take care of yourself Kaeya, because someone out there really cares about you. :) “

Rosaria = After seeing her “nun” outfit, there’s no doubt in your mind that Rosaria is yearning for clothes closer to her preferred aesthetic. So, using your knowledge of punk clothes and modern goth religious aesthetics, you’ve made some pieces for her to try! Some black pumps with metal crosses for heels, yes they’re sharp and this nice shawl with beads, and finally, a nice lacy skirt (no you did not make fucking lace, jesus christ, you’re not a miracle worker, despite the belief of some teyvatians-). All of which, wow, got Rosaria to give you an honest to god… smile. A full, genuine smile from Rosaria… yeah that made all your hard work worth it.

Eula = a book on common manners so Eula is actually great at cooking! So what better chaos to gift to her other than introducing her to Xiangling! Especially since you’ve given the young Liyuean cook recipes from your own world for her to try out, she’s been on a rampage of new things, and so what better new experience than a cook from an entirely different country? You also made a small book of recipes (look up how to make a zine book on youtube it’s actually kinda easy) from your world, different from Xiangling’s because you thought Eula would like different recipes than her. …So needless to say you were then being berated by two chefs for not sharing all the recipes lmao, tho that really just gave them reason to share recipes! Also any new spinoffs Xiangling’s already made from the initial ones you gave her, and now Eula not only graciously thanks you for the recipes, but also her new pen pal! :)

Diona = So, to prep for this gift, you forced converted the Cat’s Tail to a non-alcoholic cat cafe during the daytime, and only in the evenings do they start serving alcohol/cats put up. You also got onto Margaret for hiring a child to make alcohol, so instead have Diona work better hours, and only during the cafe time, so she’s not making alcoholic drinks either. (you also checked in on child labor laws in Mondstadt, and ran some paperwork by Jean just in case) But most importantly, you teach Diona all kinds of new drink recipes to make, like Shirley Temples, smoothies, etc. You even (once again, by getting help from Xiangling and Diluc) made a drink for hangovers, but more importantly, helped her make one called “Sober Up” which magically flushes out the alcohol out of someone’s body, so Diona can finally sneak people a drink that (while still cursed to be well-made since Diona made it) is a trip to drink lol, it’s like a blast of carbonation/electricity to the system and will typically make most people very nauseous (but since magic’s doing it, they dont need to throw up, they’re just sick feeling for an hour depending on how much they drank). Diona nearly cried after she saw the effect on hungover customers, and immediately started sneaking them into her father’s drinks, so now he’s leaning more toward sobriety most days, and after finding out what Diona did, started to talk to his daughter more. The next time you see her, and ask after her father, she just wraps her little arms around your waist, the highest she can reach, you hug her back.

Chongyun = for prep for this gift, you painstakingly, slowly convince Chongyun to accept more and more moments of warmth, like trying some spicy food that’s gone cold, but just away from people so he can be silly out in the Liyuean mountains instead, and to try and use exposure therapy to try and get him used to yin energy/warm/excitable things, rather than the inefficient method of just avoiding it all (as it doesn’t always work/deprives him of so many nice things!! >:[ ). So that way! You can finally! Take him to have fun!!! You haul him (and Xingqiu bc the more the merrier) to go swimming in Luhua Pools, go jumping off all the peaks from one to another paragliding, using cryo to surf down waterfalls, and most importantly, go to a hot springs at the end of the day! Chongyun was worried about them being too hot and activating his yang energy, but you all agreed he had been training to get used to it, so now he when he goes to try it, he just relaxes into the heat. He could feel the tug to get out and run in circles and get excited, but finally, Chongyun could just choose to sit and relax into the warmth with friends instead :)

Ganyu = if I had a nickel for every woman In teyvat who just needs a break I’d be fucking rich …Obviously, a day off. But an ACTUAL day off, with work regulated to others, and unless there’s an Osial level incident 2.0 (fuck his wife, you put Shenhe on duty to protect Liyue just in case) NO ONE. IS. TO. DISTURB. GANYU’S. FIRST. VACATION. IN. DECADES. You get her to show you the prettiest viewing spots in Liyue, and as you go, tell stories from your life on Earth, showing her pictures on your phone (from both the internet and ur photos), to show her how mortal you are on one hand, but then how different you are here, upgrading her weapons and artifacts, and most importantly, her gift, a Teyvat modified cellphone! Albedo and you had been working together for months to try and make something close enough to connect ur two worlds, while introducing him to adeptal magic and other powerful objects like primogems and wishes that you have to help power it, that way the only other person who might understand immediately how it feels to be (literally lol) caught between two worlds can always rely on each other! …Ganyu cried. Yep, tears down her cheeks and everything, “…I- I- don’t even- even know what to say? All this, telling me about your mortal world, helping me get stronger, and now- now this? I may not have much to give in return, other than my company and my bow… but should you ever need me, or even wish for me, I will hold you as steady as I hold together Liyue itself, my Emperor." Ganyu’s smile is so, so, so pretty, and all the prettier now that her soft blue hair and sweet eyes are framed by the sunset, like it’s her own gift back to you.

Qiqi = A backpack for herbs! You’ve made sure to stitch her name into it so in case she forgets it’s hers, she’ll just see her name again, and lots of little pockets so she can carry all the herbs/make deliveries, it looks a little like this but with a goat instead of cow, and some cocouts lmao, literally a “coco-goat” milk backpack! She is now the cutest person in Liyue, everyone agrees, nearly every single person who comes into Bubu Pharmacy gives Qiqi a compliment now, and Baizhu will periodically take a break just so he and Changsheng can coo at her lmao (Qiqi made sure she wrote down in her notebook in big letters next to your name “This person made my cocogoat backpack, remember to thank them during prayer times, and collect lots of fresh herbs for them”)

Shenhe = It’s kind of a lot, but really, at this point, you’ve done more for some of the others so this probably isn’t even scratching the surface of how big of a gift you can give, so why not. Going full steam ahead, you furnish her a house at the edge of town, so that she’s not overwhelmed by all the human traffic/people, but still close enough to make the friends she wants! When you first show her the dining/living room so plenty of guests can come over, and begin to tour her through it, the strongest woman you’ve probably ever known gently holds your shoulders and stops you from speaking, and turns you to face her, Shenhe’s eyes are sharp with observation as they roam your face, and then settle on your own wide eyes. Her eyes soften, and a small smile warms her usual stern face, (idc how tall you are, she’s taller, I fucking promise) as she leans down a little to look at you closely in the eyes, “Thank you for being a kind god. You did not have to be so generous to me, and yet here you are. If you ever feel like you’re an outsider in Teyvat, in any country or company you find yourself in, please, promise me you’ll come here. Come home to me?” ✨💘✨

Ayaka = You manage to get her away from her duties to take her out to Sumeru! Mostly so you can introduce her to Nilou, see her performance, and the flourishing arts that now fill Sumeru City’s streets, and more importantly, a dress you made so she could dance with Nilou + dance on stage, she wasn’t confident enough/didn’t want to dance for a crowd, so it’s just you three or just you two after awhile. Ayaka looks the happiest she’s been in awhile, more so than you ever saw in game, and it’s… almost like a breath of fresh air to see her away from what you felt was such an isolating environment, even after the Vision Hunt Decree was over. For her last dance, Ayaka does so alone, a little after the sun has set, so it’s all blue, and the stars are coming out, finally, you get to see an even better version of the dance she gave the traveler that night. She only opens her eyes at the end, to give you the giddiest smile you’ve ever seen on her, cheeks cute and plumped up bc she’s smiling so hard, and bows to you (Ayaka’s thanked you a million times, but she doesn’t need to, you can feel how happy she is just from this)

Mika = THE BOY!! One of the most boys to ever boy in all of Teyvat!! Your boy!!! :D What a boy, he nearly fainted when you handed over his gift one day, and you had to reach out and steady him, then hand him it again 😭 It’s similar to the Marauder’s Map, since you enchanted it (once again, what’s the point of dev access if I can’t make gifts for my skrunklies?) and since you don’t want it to end up in bad hands/get spyed on, it only shows itself with a phrase as well “I wish upon a golden star, to know this land as well as its player.” and it’ll show him everyone in public spaces in Mondstadt, not private homes, but like the plaza, the church, the Knights of Favonius, etc. He thanks you every single time he sees you for the map, as it’s both fascinating to him to have a proper well-drawn map of the city of Mondstadt (you copied it from the Teyvat in game map, but there were some buildings missing bc they’re more real here/more fleshed out as a irl city) but that just made Mika even happier bc he can go and map them out!! Literally can’t talk to you bc all he’s saying is “T-TH-TH-THANK-THANK YOU ALL FURST-!!!” before running away most of the time lol

Layla = An embroidered tiny pillow for her to easily clip onto her bag/fit in it, and take on the go with her! (this but the text just says “Sweet Dreams Layla ♡” ) that you’ve also added scent to, including some sleep inducing magics, so she’s guarenteed to sleep well and efficiently when she uses it! She blushed so hard you thought she was sick at first when you gave it to her, and she also used the pillow as a shield to hide her face as she thanked you lmao, and she made you a pillow in return! …even if she thinks it’s not as good as yours, both craft wise and function, Layla worked for weeks on it! …lol now ur the one hiding ur face behind a pillow (this but they’re all plants of sumeru)

Aloy = …if you had a nickel for every person you’ve provided with a house, you’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice… Poor damn heroine just got dragged from one world to the next, just as the last one finally was at peace, now she’s here in Teyvat, where nothing’s familiar, the entire world is set up different, people are nicer and more open here, and there’s still threats looming on its horizon. Needless to say, she is tired, and misses her own homeworld. You really wish on her behalf that Hoyo hadn’t done a crossover, but since she’s here, you figure you might as well make it easier on her. You’ve made another teapot-like adeptal magic container, so she can have a place all to herself, and given her a ticket to your own, afterall, if anybody knows what’s its like to get yanked to another world, specifically Teyvat, it’d be the travelers and yourself, and sure enough as time goes one, Aloy becomes closer with you all, and begins to finally feel a sense of familiarity, she wraps an arm around your shoulders the first time she saw you tried to make her own personal teapot place emulate her homeworld. The widest grin you’ve seen on her face, she gives you a squeeze, “It’s just been one adventure after the next, and when we started out, you were just another stranger in a world I didn't understand. But after everything we've been through, I can say this for certain: My bow is yours, now and always. Thank you for the second home, my king.” Aloy says teasingly, laughing at the face you make.

Geo Allogenes:

Noelle = goddamn when will the busy women trend END these poor souls Motherfucker, you’re gift to Noelle was to knight the damn girl yourself. No, but you nearly talked Jean’s ear off for an hour, after gathering evidence (both from eyewitnesses, and Noelle herself, including other knights and Jean herself) about why the literal fuck Noelle wasn’t a Knight of Favonius yet, and why she should be. After genuinely shaking Jean’s nerves a little, she agreed, and finally, Noelle was going to knighted along with any other potential recruits during the testing season, (as people with high reputations, which, once again, using your god status for all its worth, could recommend new recruits) but most importantly… You gave her a 5-star claymore, which, you do have to somewhat work on yourself physically in teyvat now, but your dev access lets you cheat a little (like the cooking meter on cooking dishes, you’re the goddamn cooking god when hosting guests hehe) so you also are allowed to edit it, like adding a Geo-bonus to the weapon itself! When the ceremony for knighthood was going, and pretty much all of Mondstadt came to finally see Noelle get knighted, you made a fun show of walking out where you were hiding and replacing Jean, to knight Noelle yourself. She’s gone completely red in the face, and is starting to sway a little in her down on one knee position, as you gently place the blade on both shoulders, and grin at her as you turn and pull out the claymore for her. She actually does end up falling over, pale as a ghost, whoops-

Albedo = internet access so he can become a fucking god basically the alchemist is a hard guy to make a gift for, another person you’re a little afraid high-quality handmade gifts would impress him more… so you worked hard, and eventually you managed to make three big notebooks for Albedo, one with lined paper, one bulleted, and one blank for sketches (you did the title page a decent sketch of his pretty face smiling and “For Albedo” underneath, and while that one had a picture, the other two had just the words) and you also loaned him your cellphone for awhile, and suggested the idea of a laptop to make for himself, as he already managed to get you connected to Earth��s internet again, that’s part of the reason you customized/made him notebooks, so he could research from the internet and write down any notes he wanted! …wow. you really did it. after explained all this, and leaving him notes about the laptop idea as loose paper stuck inside one of them, you managed… to get Albedo to… smile. At you. Like a FULL smile, pretty lips, wide smile, and flushed cheeks-!! Albedo caught the notebooks you almost dropped.

Ningguang = what do you get the woman that has everything? so you started to think of things that’d make an experience, and after remembering her lore about her making a chess game, you decided a board game would be good! And if you make the little pieces, it’d be one of a kind too! (she’s the type that really loves handmade gifts/as long as you put effort in it doesnt matter how “bad” it looks to her, she’ll believe it’s still good <3) …So you made a Teyvat version of Monopoly. You figured the business part would be in her realm of expertise, and maybe she could use it to play with business associates or friends, and of course, she’s a competitive woman, so she thinks it’s great, and even asked permission that a marketable version be made (one that’s not nearly as nice quality as hers from you obviously)! Ningguang also treated you very well as a thank you for making it for her, a nice dinner at Liuli Pavilion, with a useful gift of places you haven’t seen in Teyvat yet bc it’s more expansive now that you’re physically here!! You may have gotten over-excited about it… and she may have chuckled at you… and you may have gotten flustered after she rested her pretty hand on yours for nearly half the dinner as you stuttered thru and explanation of the game…

Zhongli = …what do you get the man that has everything (ningguang problem 2.0)?? Well, since you thought of something for her that was an experience a little bit, yet also one of a kind, you figured the same path for the previous God of Wealth/literally invented money/etc. would do, plus he’d the type to deeply appreciate handmade gifts too! Using a few chunks of Light Realm Core, 3 Masterless Starglitter, 1 Intertwined Fate, and 1 Condensed Resin, to make a nigh indestructible Ginko leaf hair pin, which also to replace his last pin, which while not broken, was getting old and beat up (he’s immortal he doesn’ notice these things unless they’re like magically long lasting items lol). But in a few spots are these peach beads like this instead of all white beads, like on the ring both have symbols of longevity, and are usally associated with immortals, you wanted to make something that’d also hold memories (hence the resin, from leylines) so if the erosion ever took him, Zhongli could hold the pin and see some of his favorite memories played back (like misty glittering gold projections)! When you told him all this, the materials, (he obv knew the symbols) and the intentions, and then handed him the gift, his soft smile got bigger and bigger, until you could see him small fangs (❤️‍🔥) and then he turned around? You were confused, until he look over his shoulder, his eyes flashing gold in the sunlight, “Will you do me the honor, my Emperor?” OH- you unclip his old geo cor lapis one, and pull his hair up into more of a low bun, and put the hair piece in. the golden ginko leaves chime softly in the breeze. The old god turns back to you (idc how tall you are, he’s taller, and he had to crouch a little so you could reach lol) and gives you that blinding, beautiful smile again, the kind that makes his eyes look warm and happy. He takes your hand delicately, like you’re made of something fragile instead of stars and magic stronger than any he’s ever seen, “Truly, you bless me too generously, my Emperor. Thank you, for caring for a forgotten god like me, for caring about my heart.” …Zhongli presses a soft chaste kiss to your knuckles, right on the middle finger’s knuckle, his lips are warm and so, so soft, like they’re barely even there. <3

Yunjin = a bit difficult because she’s so theater focused in life, but you figure since she does solo shows a lot, she’ll still be the one to benefit the most from your gift, you made some floating plaustrite lanterns to help heft some platforms for more stage space/cool effects! (this but a little more detail, you painted some bamboo and a few simple adepti on them) Like putting props up there or lights to aim on actors, or even actors themselves since the floating rock is steady enough! Yunjin practically squealed (which immediately made every actor in the vicintity be like “YUNJIN!! UR VOICE WILL GO HOARSE STOP-”) and gather the whole troupe to thank you! But she especially told you that although she already intended for you to have front row seats every time you came to see her plays, she especially wanted to get some stories from your life, or even just your favorites from Earth for her to perform for you!! (she even suggested that one of the platforms could be your special seat, like an opera box seat lol)

Itto = you know that belt buckle he wears that’s just an Oni head? Yeah, you made him a second belt but with a onikabuto beetle as the buckle instead! (kinda like this) but a small enough it’s not inconvenient and poking his stomach, which you definitely got a Inazuman blacksmith to help out, you mostly painted it, and when you show Itto the belt, mans literally just wraps his buff arms around you like a hug but then just starts spinning you rapidly, and lets out the highest pitch “EEEEEEEEEEE-!!!” you’ve ever heard him make (and you’ve given him a few trinkets before, so this is a new record wow). No, it doesn’t matter to Itto how much you weigh, have you seen his abs?! He says as he’s still got you a little off the ground, and is now walking away with your limp body and wearing his new belt, “This, and a proper meal to thank you are the bare minimum, my wonderful emperor! Come on, the gang’s already there anyway, you gotta try my Granny Oni’s food, and I’ll make something too! My best, most special, sandwich, Way of the Strong!! Y’know, because if anybody deserves it, it’d be the strongest, and sweetest, you!!”

Gorou = since teyvat isn’t exactly the pinnacle of advanced civilization, though there are some advancements sure like the Kamera, there are still a fair amount of things that’re just left up to locals to produce and make using whatever process they’ve got, regardless of efficiency, and one of those is soap. Yep, soap. Earth is more advanced when it comes to beauty products, but also hygiene products, and Gorou has a hard time maintaining his tail he’s said when he’s stressed/overworked. So, you used some knowledge from your interdimensional smartphone (love u Albedo) to find a homemade recipe to make soap! (…for dogs, but you don’t know if he’d find it offensive… so you don’t tell him LMAO) and you even made it a cute shape (just so when you handed it over, he’d open it and of course, go all red all the way down his neck even, hehe, (he secretly liked it)

You towards all of Teyvat, except it's not even their birthdays (idk if u want it to be it can)

☆

PLEASE LET KNOW IF ANY LINKS/PICS ARE INACCURATE FOR A CULTURE/MISLABELED ETC.

Me after writing all this:  _」(´ཀ`」 ∠)__

… so I may have hyperfixated a little too hard on this one.

Did the OG asker want this? …probably not…

Did anyone ask for this?? …no.

…did I do it anyway….…yes.

…sorry?

(I promise I only thought to do this because there are so many characters left out in favor of the more popular ones for most SAGAU posts, and bc i never want any of my babes to feel any less loved than any others if I was actually there in Teyvat… you get… this mess.)

sorry!

☆

Safe Travels,

💀♒

☆MY BELOVEDS☆

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche

[sh1-n0bu]

scara’s electro mark on the back of his neck would totally be an erogeneous/sensitive spot and no one can change my mind<3

✿ 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨, 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 ✿

characters: scaramouche/wanderer x nb!reader

warnings: fluff, light angst, reverse comfort, takes place after scara’s defeat, slight body dysmorphia and mentions of self harm, soft scara🥹

notes: honestly same tho. and as someone who has a very sensitive neck, i absolutely know how he would feel like lmao

scaramouche hated the mark.

it’s hideous, disgusting, wrongly shaped to signify his failure as a puppet, the reason for him to get disregarded but moreover an eternal reminder of his mo- no. his creator.

wanderer hated the mark on the back of his neck.

no matter what happens, he always tries to keep in hidden, away from prying curious eyes. buried deep under layers upon layers of clothes to at least pretend that the mark is non-existent.

sometimes he would even end up clawing, scratching or even cutting at the small part on the back of his neck as if trying to cut out the electro symbol, carved deeply into his flesh since his creation. but the bloody marks, bruises and scars would end up healing faster than than normal due to him being a puppet of a god.

never leaving a scar. never leaving a mark. just the damned, cursed motherfucking purple electro symbol left behind. shining proudly and perfectly as if trying to mock him.

and this time it was no different. the young puppet sitting on the edge of your shared bed with a frown and a glare. hands twitching, waiting, wanting, wishing to reach out and claw at the symbol again.

taking a deep breath in and letting it out after a while, wanderer slightly shook his head. no. he shouldn’t harm himself any further. you would be sad once you find his neck angry, bleeding red with scratch marks and dried blood under his fingernails. he would hate to make you sad.

letting out a heavy sigh, the young man laid down on the bed, facing away from you- feeling ashamed about thinking of harming himself and breaking your promise.

sucking in a short breath, jolting harshly when arms came to wrap around his middle suddenly, pulling his smaller frame closer to cuddle with his back to your chest.

wanderer loved this feeling. being wrapped securely around you, feeling your warmth seep into his own cold skin, warming his body, warming his heart. the feeling of your heartbeat thrumming in a repeated rhythmic way against your ribcages, the feeling of the thumps against your chest soothing his pain, easing his own non-existent empty heart, pouring into the hollowness of his chest and filling it to the brim with your own.

wanderer loves you.

but sometimes he can’t help but scowl at you- more of a pouting- when you lean down and place a small peck against his electro symbol. face flushing in embarrassment, eyes narrowing back at you in a faux anger- a poor attempt to hide the small glimmer in his eyes- pouted lips twitching to try and control his muscles from forming a smile.

fortunately he always loses in this silent battle between you two. letting out a huff with mutterings of “you’re so clingy” or “you’re hopeless” slipping out from his lips which is already starting to curve up into a smile.

yes, the puppet loves you. hopelessly so.

shuddering with a suppressed groan when the short man felt your lips against the back of his neck once again, pressing on the electro symbol. a quiet, poorly attempted muffled chuckle falling from his mouth when you continue to press kisses against his neck, one hand coming up to rest on your hair- slightly tussling them in the process.

“yours. not hers” when wanderer heard that phrase muttered from you, he felt himself softly smiling. eyes crinkling upwards, lips forming a smile with his cheeks turning even more red.

yes. wanderer loves you so.

[canmom]

Comics mini-Comints: Dungeon Meshi

reread dungeon meshi through to the end. still such a great manga. here are immediate thoughts - if I end up having time and energy I hope I can write something that goes deeper!

ironically i was only a few chapters from the end when I stopped keeping up, but I was struggling to remember all the characters and context, so reading it through in one go was definitely an ideal way to achieve maximum impact there.

ryoko kui does a very elegant job of handling a transition from 'silly antics' to 'big dramatic fantasy' while still keeping the central thematic throughline - eating and being eaten, belonging to an ecosystem, the significance of sacrificing others to achieve your own desires. a lot of setups pay off in a way that feels meticulously planned - and of course the crux of the final showdown revolves around characters attempting to eat each other, of course the big payoff is a huge feast that symbolically unites all the conflicting factions. it is maybe a bit too neat and happy for my taste, but it's undeniably tightly executed - it never loses sight of what it's about. especially compared to something like Frieren, it's an incredibly coherent serialisation, up there with e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist.

kui's art style deserves all kinds of praise - it feels effortlessly simple, but it clearly communicates all sorts of different shapes and body types and it's really fun to see her play around with remixing the different visual elements when she switches the races around. in general Laius's autistic monster loving ways clearly reflect kui's own deeply felt appreciation for all the ways people and animals live (accentuated further by all the extra sketches the scanlators tuck in). in a way you could kinda call it like Parts Unknown the fantasy manga.

the stakes of the final conflict are interesting - there is much to be said about the framing of 'desire' and its fulfilment, of this occult idea of 'the infinite'. lots you could put in relation to other manga, and also buddhism. (in particular I really want to develop a comparison to Made In Abyss, there are so many parallels, it just might be too spicy for tumblr lmao).

one thing I really like about it is how much its fantasy dungeon-exploring setting owes to D&D and other TTRPGs, rather than videogames. monster ecology has been a fascination of that game since the early days of Dragon magazine, and Kui sharply zeroes in on some of the intrinsic conflicts baked in to that fantasy milieu, notably the lifespan thing, while smartly avoiding the traps of 'evil races'. there's some really fun nods to the weirder monster manual entries. and in a story with so many characters and factions, it does a genuinely incredible job of furnishing everyone with understandable, reasonable motivations, conflicts drawn from their context just like the monsters are explained by their ecology.

and one thing that I particularly appreciate is like... how much it is able to simultaneously understand and sympathise with a character and also show us how and why they'd rub others the wrong way. it's impossible not to like our main group, they're all such charming dorks and the manga leads you along with all the crazy rpg party shit they do, but at the same time you definitely find yourself thinking 'guy's got a point' in the kabru chapters lmao. I'm projecting hard bc i don't really know a thing about ryōko kui but laius def feels like the sort of depiction of having an autism that you can only do if you've lived it.

but yeah, it's a fuzzy ending where it all turns out well. but what's the deeper thrust of it all? there's a funny moment where marcille is like 'maybe in the end our journey is about learning to accept death' and the grouchy old gnome guy completely laughs this off as naive, because death doesn't mean anything. and indeed their big plan pays off, and falin does indeed come back just fine. but still, through all of this it asks you to bite the bullet that being a living creature means eating to survive, at the cost of other creatures, with the other side being that one day you too will be eaten. in contrast to this honest way of being is the beguiling fantasy of infinity, where all your desires are immediately fulfilled - this is shown as a dangerous path of corruption that produces madness and manipulability. having limits and rubbing up against the wishes of others, or 'doing things you don't want to do' as izutsumi's arc puts it, becomes necessary for having some kind of definition as a subject. the thing that makes the demon concrete as an entity is a desire, or appetite, that can't immediately be fulfilled.

of course we can connect this to the idea of narrative conflict. a standard advice for putting together a plot is to ask what each character wants and why they can't get it. wanting something implies movement. and indeed over the course of this story, we see that while having too many desires fulfilled too readily leads to incoherence and callousness, equally a character who is left catatonic as their desires have been eaten by the demon must be reawakened to activity by finding a new desire.

it's kinda Buddhist innit. neither the opulence of the palace nor asceticism. desires are what tie you to the world. but mixed with ecology: what a creature does to find the energy to live is what defines its lifestyle, its form.

this is probably where I'd start talking about entropy gradients and shit if i wasn't typing this on a phone at 1:30am lmao.

but yeah - it's a powerful move to go from 'D&D monster recipe show sendup' to 'living with the inherently violent nature of being an organism fated to live in a finite sum game' and yet Dungeon Meshi makes it feel natural and convincing, while remaining tremendously charming and funny throughout. ryōko kui is definitely some kind of genius, and I can't wait to see what her next act is gonna be. it's all definitely making me appreciate the act of eating a lot more.

next story on my plate is probably The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, which sounds like it will present a very gnarly thematic contrast.

[galesdevoteewife]

Some thoughts on Act 3 cutscene, endings and the line “To know you love me for the man I am"

[ Gale romance spoiler all the way to the epilogue ]

In my vanilla playthrough, the particular act 3 cutscene dialogue which Gale wanted the crown caught me off guard. It was one of the rare bg3 moments that stirred complicated feelings within me. (to a point I was considering maybe I should romance Emperor lmao) The structure of his proposal felt thoroughly planned and scripted. Every question I raised was met with a well prepared answer.

Too ambitious? It's not for myself; it's for us, for the greater good. Too dangerous? What have we done that wasn't risky? We're up to the task! Power corrupts? Just a means to an end. I’ll still be me, just an improved version. Now I only need a kiss.

I viewed it from the perspective of him hard-selling the player a difficult decision, and the entire conversation felt strategic. Topping it off with the famous line, “With you, I forget my goddess. I love you.” Such a powerful, attention-grabbing statement delivered with utmost sincerity. It's likely that the player would remember only this line, also making it more difficult to reject him. While I don't doubt his love for them, his motives were a question to me.

One of the things that makes Gale's darker path unique is that everything looks beautiful—voyage through the galaxy, kissing lovers, his voice, so tender and sincere. There's no eerie light, no violence, no bloodshed.

Some thoughts on his true intention and how insecurity is the must-solve in Gale's romance arc

In my opinion Gale’s main emotional knot in relationship is the insecurities he harbors. He holds a logic that he is loved (or tolerated) because of his power. Gale Dekarios wanted to be seen and loved but he "holds a poor figure next to Gale of Waterdeep". While there are exceptions like Tara, his mother, and perhaps Elminster, who love him for who he is; it's not his default to believe that people would appreciate him without his power/achievement/service.

With that in mind and let's circle back to why he wants godhood.

If the player reject him in the boat scene, his instant reaction is: “But I could be so much more to you.” If they reject godGale: “I achieved everything we hoped I would, and still I'm not good enough for you?” –Not a word about the better world. I wasn’t convinced he wanted the godhood “for the betterment of all”.

Instead, what he truly wants is the player’s heart... and I think he believes that obtaining the crown and godhood can win them over. Awkwardly, he would need their help to get rid of the elder brain and he is trying hard to convince them.

Some argue that godGale quickly transforms into the type of passive deity he despised, but I hold my opinion on how deeply he cares about the world in the first place. True, he could sacrifice himself to save the day, but he always says "it's the right way/fate" with nothing empathetic for the general folks. I am suspicious that he says it to dismiss the player's concern.

A bit of addition to this theory. Seeking godhood is not a new ambition for him, according to Elminster's epilogue letter. In my canon, he desired it for Mystra if not for the player, attempting to draw closer to her as an equal.

Gale, the god of ambition

Ascending without resolving inner conflicts is like thrusting a dagger into redemption Durge's hands, potentially exacerbating the situation. The ascension path strengthens this twisted logic. Looking at the godGale romance ending cutscene, he gets to dress the player in matching outfits, hold them in his arms, in his realm, in his symbol. They are finally his, and he would believe it’s the power that made it happen.

However, this would lead down to a never ending thorny path with an insatiable hunger. As a god of ambition, it's in his nature to desire more, continually pursuing additional power because it's a viable all-purpose solution in his mind. He will work his way up to the god rank, might even consume a few, "bringing chaos that even trembles the heavens" —according to Raphael. And guess what? In the dnd universe, there are even superior beings above AO.

Nonetheless I hold hopes and optimism towards the godGale romance. I don’t see anything stopping the player from starting to make things better and nudging him into better use of his godhood. Ambition is not necessarily a bad thing. However, at the point where the game ends, this path is a dimmer one.

Some thoughts on the line: “To know you love me for the man I am, and not the magic I command... None have loved me so purely before.”

When I first saw this line and my tav reacted with a sad face I thought she was thinking “Huh? But i love you for your magic too??” xD

It just doesn’t make sense if he is drawing a conclusion that the player would love him for a 0 magic muggle Gale. He is a wizard. His alliance with the player was built on him contributing to their journey with his magical ability, and their romance was sparked by a shared moment through the weave.

My interpretation is that what he meant by “the magic I command” was referring to the mighty power he used to possess, and “the man I am” was everything he showed you—his love for magic, nerdy side, witty jokes, cooking… things that he thinks define who he truly is. In my canon, he probably went through a long period where his title/talent was all that mattered to people, for his portfolio was way too strong (if I read my dnd materials right, lorewise he could be a legendary character even. I will make a post once I put my findings together). The Chosen of Mystra (among the 22 known chosen in more than a thousand years, some of them are even Mystra’s daughters), the prodigy archmage with the gift to conduct the weave. He could have experienced hurt multiple times as people showed little interest in his personality, then he fell back to conceal Gale Dekarios behind the Gale of Waterdeep fortress. However, this consequently blocked him from building real friendships/relationships.

His circle is small, yet I suspect it's partly because he wouldn't let people come close enough to see Gale Dekarios. Even in Act 3, he still wants to keep it between the player and himself. At the beginning of the journey, he denied the player's attempts to know anything other than his profession. If the player is a wizard, he would even play authority and "apprentice" them. By the by, here's an interesting reading about how he might be masking.

Professor Dekarios of Illusory school

Lastly, my favorite path for Gale! Ugh, it just melts me to see him smile that wayyy (How can Tim and the team be so genius and make the expression distinctive???? I mean, he has been smiling all the time, but especially sweet in the epilogue???) He is content. He knows he doesn't need the mask, nor power, or godhood for the player and him to be each other's. From my point of view, it's an arc of self-acceptance and unknotting. He is convinced power isn't everything, and he chooses to teach illusory magic (gotta admit, destruction-force wise it’s almost a harmless school) for he is the one who wants magic for realizing imagination and the one who shed tears over burned roses.

The path in which Gale Dekarios believes that he is seen, understood, loved, and finds peace. Nothing I would like him to have more. I hold true love for this fictional 3D man *wipe away joyful tears*

Sidenote [1]: Some hate Gale for thinking he's only “pretending”. I personally think he is a well-layered character, for there are so many ways to explain him and plenty of room for ambiguity, making it fun to think about his thinking.

Sidenote [2]: I inevitably project some of myself onto him. The concept of “you don’t need to try so hard, pretending to be someone else to be accepted by the world. you only need to find the right band.” is a kind thought that’s so cozy to me.

[19burstraat]

queering futurity in crooked kingdom

if I had any real time for this (I do not) I'd be tempted to write a real essay about it, but I have a dissertation and two other real essays for my actual degree, so let's do a bad tunglr bullet point analysis. I'm... largely generalising and paraphrasing here, and I suspect this has a billion things to iron out or that I forgot about, but I hope this might be a bit interesting regardless of how much you may or may not know abt queer literary theory lmao.

in extreme short, there is a subset of queer theory around what is, in essence, queer time. there is a heteronormative future/'futurity', and it is marriage, children, a good job, a nice house, and dying at a good age after a fulfilling life. queer* and trans people both reject and often cannot access this: plenty couldn't/cannot get married or have children, or had to surpass lots of obstacles to do so, many queer and trans people were or are killed young, or died prematurely in the aids crisis. and so we get queer temporality; a resistance to the heteronormative future that is refused or inaccessible, and to reproductive futurism; the concept that people value the future over the present... and this manifests in kicking back against things like the symbolic 'child' as a representative of futurity. not real children, but empty platitudes like think of the children! think of the future for your children! there can also be a development of a death drive, which is sometimes literal and sometimes metaphorical, which is, again, basically a rejection of 'the future'.

while the grishaverse doesn't have homophobia as such, you can still do queer readings, bc it is ofc influenced by our world, by virtue of being Written By A Person From Our World. and especially in kerch, there's still stuff like patrilineal inheritance... buuuut reproductive futurity & friends are very deliberately destroyed by the end of crooked kingdom. mostly by the usual culprit (taps sign that says IT'S KAZ AGAIN LOL) but by the narrative and the other characters as well. walk w me! I don't think this is a real analysis more just a lot of Thoughts but... nvm

*used here as an umbrella term since the theory I'm pulling from is the field of queer theory

the two men (van eck and rollins) who are most concerned with reproductive futurism (having heirs and a legacy, 'building something that will outlast them'), are promptly buried under the rubble of their building efforts by our usual culprit. kaz uses the mentality of legacy and lineage against them both; he kidnaps van eck's pregnant wife to use as a bargaining chip, and he uses rollins's son and heir against him, because he knows what's most important to these men is their line, their work being handed down. he deduces that rollins has a son through rollins' vanity around building something to 'last', and his naming of the kaelish prince. rollins is literally themed around monarchy and descent; the king of the barrel, the kaelish prince, the emerald palace. kaz, for his part, is the bastard of the barrel. the illegitimate son, not produced by any conventional family structure, ketterdam his mother and profit his father... and therefore he is the perfect person to blow up this imagined monarchy

wylan is rejected by van eck for his disability, for being supposedly incapable of continuing his father's legacy; and so we gather that the actual child doesn't matter to van eck, it's what The Child represented to him, which was the future of the van eck company. the illegitimate kaz restores van eck's disowned son to the succession through sheer trickery, and jan van eck's trading empire is succeeded by his son he attempted to reject, and his farm-boy barrel-tough boyfriend. they bring home the first wife that van eck had committed, for failing to produce the 'perfect' heir. no perfect heteronormative future here!

(also by virtue of wylan and jesper being a mlm couple, there is now way less emphasis that can be put on the idea of biological children 'continuing' the line, and it somewhat stops the expectation that ruined wylan's life from being passed down)

the two m/f couples are also very distant from this idealised reproductive futurity. matthias dies, ruining any idea of a 'conventional' future he could have had with nina, and while his death is generally more about the extremist brainwashing stuff explored w the drüskelle, it does blow to shreds that futurity even more, and nina's power is also a very literal HEY GUYS. LET'S THINK ABOUT DEATH... plus she leaves ketterdam to take matthias to be buried at the end of the book.

kaz and inej both do very dangerous jobs and separate for long periods of time. they may marry or they may not, they may have children or they may not, they may be physical with one another or they may not. it doesn't really matter; they'll try, but we don't get to find out how far they may or may not get, which honestly I kinda like. their future is open, the river running carrying inej to the sea. also, inej makes an explicit rejection of this kind of 'normal' future:

So he wasn’t fit for a normal life. Was she meant to find a kindhearted husband, have his children, then sharpen her knives after they’d gone to sleep? How would she explain the nightmares she still had from the Menagerie? Or the blood on her hands?

we don't really know whether or not kaz as a character is queer (I do not think kaz knows either lol) but it doesn't really matter, you can still read him as a queer figure both a) just if you want to! and b) in this sense of queer temporality, bc he's the crux of a lot of it. we already covered the bastard thing and his happy habit of kicking reproductive futurism when it's down, and as Edelman says: 'If the fate of the queer is to figure the fate that cuts the thread of futurity...' well, kaz 'build something new. watch it burn' 'he knew exactly what he was going to leave behind: damage' brekker is our man!

he does not give a single flying fuck about the future. he destroyed van eck and rollins' legacies, and he'll do that shit again. he doesn't have enough of an ego to consider a 'legacy' for himself besides destruction, which is a rejection of a legacy in itself. his plans for the future amount to fucking shit up and making a bunch of money to use to do more damage, until he gets shot/stabbed/hanged/drowned/whatever, which he constantly anticipates.

kaz also has a massive distrust and disdain for traditional family structures, because he's seen them crumble twice; his actual family are all dead, and the hertzoon con was built on creating a convincing family mode to lure them in. "my mother is ketterdam, she birthed me in the harbour; my father is profit, I honour him daily" is a sneer at paterfamilias type families where the mother is there to just give birth and the father is the head of the family, to be honoured and served, rather than loved. he also has zero sympathy for the 'think of the children!' thing, bc he knows it's disingenuous; who thought of him? no one. rollins was happy to con kids with the false promise of family and safety, and all the people he paid off were happy to turn the other way. was there no one to look after you? no, there wasn't. his mother is ketterdam: filthy, feral ketterdam. no nurturing mother has he!

So he threatens Alby and Hanna with no qualms, because while he doesn't actually ever intend to hurt children (...not physically anyway, apparently upsetting them is fair game FJJFJD), he knows the power of the threat— the idea of the child— is often more impactful than the actual act itself. ("Inej, I could only kill Pekka’s son once. He can imagine his death a thousand times.") it certainly works on rollins and van eck! he'll make you think of the damn children alright!

inej takes direct action to defend actual children, not just the idea of them, and then we hear in rule of wolves she's hated by the kerch government for it because she's fucking with their profits. (look also to how they flapped about searching for wylan, one rich man's kid, and are completely useless about hundreds of forced indentures. what a surprise...)

she reunites with her parents, but she worries persistently about whether or not they will accept her for who she has become, and we are never quite told whether or not they do. we like to think so, but we don't actually know. and although she gets to see her parents again, her future is on the wraith, not with them.

most people have dead or splintered families, actually. only inej has both parents, and for three - four years, they didn't have a daughter.

The general proximity to death in general is very potent; nina's power, kaz's whole backstory, the camping out in a graveyard. jesper's recklessness and love for fights, inej being ready to die rather than be a captiver again and kaz's response to that being 'not just yet', rather than not at all...

all following into the whole no mourners, no funerals thing!!! the fact that they know they won't be remembered or cared about if they die!!!

Edelman: 'Choosing to stand, as many of us do, outside the cycles of reproduction, choosing to stand, as we also do, by the side of those living and dying each day with the complications of AIDS, we know the deception of the societal lie that endlessly looks toward a future whose promise is always a day away.'

SOC:

Inej's mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they'd lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. 

“No mourners, no funerals. Another way of saying good luck. But it was something more. A dark wink to the fact that there would be no expensive burials for people like them, no marble markers to remember their names, no wreaths of myrtle and rose.”

pick up what I'm putting down guys please please I don't have time to tease this out properly but like. I think kaz and wylan are the linchpins here. (again)

[plotbunny-bundle]

Bruce having his morning coffee looking out the window: "Is that a fucking peacock?"

I made this with https://fakechatmaker.com and microsoft paint

attempt at an image description and more legible text under the cut.

Image description

[a fake screenshot of an unlabeled discord chat. The time marked at the top of the fake screenshot is 9:26 AM.

An image of a peacock standing on grass. A person without an icon labeled Me, implied to be Bruce Wayne comments “Apparently we have a peacock”. The time of this comment is labeled as 7:54 AM.

A person labeled Robin III with an icon of an overhead view of the Gotham skyline replies “oh you found it”

An icon of a black and yellow flashlight labeled The Signal replies “was that not normal fake rich people shit?” Then corrects himself to “stuff” with an Asterix.

Batgirl 3.0 who has an icon that is a block of purple replies “OMG did Damian steal it from Penguin or something?”

Me(Bruce Wayne): “language.”

The Signal: “sorry”

Nightwing whose icon is a comic panel of Nightwing eating popcorn comments “B I don’t think this is an appropriate place to be having this discussion.”

Me replies “My front yard is not an appropriate place for a peacock.”

Robin III comments “@Batgirl 3.0 He did. Exotic animal trafficking raid. About a week and a half ago.”

 Me asks “how long has that animal been in my house?”

Robin IV: “he is not an animal! He is a majestic peafowl who deserves more than to live life in a cage!”  Robin IV’s icon is the Robin symbol associated with Damian Wayne.

Red Hood whose icon is a brick wall comments “WHO IS BLOWING UP THE GROUP CHAT AT EIGHT IN THE FUCKING MORNING!” in all caps.

Me: “language.” Red Hood responds with an emoji of the middle finger.

Nightwing: “Guys let’s calm down. It’s just morning and we were all up late last night.”

The Signal: “I wasn’t.

Batgirl 2 whose icon is a yellow Bat symbol over a black background. Asks “cute what’s its name?”

Robin IV: “His name is Richard”.

Batgirl 3.0: “LMAO”

Nightwing: “excuse me!?”

Robin III replies with a crying laughing emoji.

Red Hood: “Ha that’s perfect. Hold on.”

Robin IV: “it isn’t an insult you imbeciles! The peafowl is a majestic animal that represents the beauty and grace of the flying Graysons!”

13 minutes later Red Hood replies by posting a black-and-white picture of Nightwing in his discowing costume.

The Signal replies with two crying laughing emojis.

 Batgirl 3.0 replies “what is that?”

Robin III:  “Nightwing’s first costume. It was Acrobat inspired. It’s not as bad as the mullet.”

Batgirl 3.0: “Oh I have to see that.”

 Robin III: “give me a moment. I’ll find a photo.”

Nightwing: “don’t dish out what you can’t take little brothers. B has footage of both your first weeks as Robin.”

Robin III: “which means he has footage of you to Dick”

Nightwing: “Caroline. Hill.”

Robin III: “you wouldn’t.”

Nightwing: “you have no idea what I do.”

Red Hood: “I change my mind. It is still worth getting woken up at ass a.m. for this.”

Robin III: “really? Look at your eighth grade textbooks in a while? I wonder if Rena is still around.”

Me (Bruce Wayne) : “enough. Tim Dick stop blackmailing your brothers. Damien you will find a rescue for Richard. We will not be keeping him. Everyone else next time you see a strange animal in the manner tell me or Alfred as soon as you can.”

Robin IV :“yes father.”

The Signal : “well that was an interesting way to start the day.” The time of last comment is 9:25 AM

End ID]

[lexezombie]

ADAM ENJOYERS COME GET YALLS JUICE

I made a demon Adam design for funsies and for,,, future devious activities <3

If ppl want design notes:

He's based on a cockatrice - serpent + rooster symbolize combined

Peacocks symbolize vanity and we know this mf loves himself LMAO

His face works like Vox's

He rips his tail feathers out in an attempt to keep himself looking 'normal' (he doesn't like the change)

He can't actually fly anymore, just kinda jumps around -- like a chicken

The upside down A + the markings on the feathers are suppose to look kinda like leaves (somethin somethin symbolism for Eden)

one of my friends pointed out the upside down A looks like an arrow too so... ig thats more unintentional symbolism

He misses Lute <3

[namazunomegami]

Atonement

Pairing: Geto Suguru x gn!reader

Synopsis: How can you cleanse yourself from the sin that has been tainting you since your attempt to escape? The answer is easy: walk on barefoot for him, suffer some misery, risk your health for him, open yourself up for him and you can earn his forgiveness.

CW: canon compliant, established relationship, toxic and complicated dynamics, religious symbolism, porn with feelings, Geto is a manipulative ass how surprising, gaslighting, m!receiving oral, fingering, non-consensual edging, good old unprotected sex + creampie

WC: 5.3k

Credits: my lovely @notveryrussian who worked so hard to get this fic proofreaded. Ngl they deserve all the praise and respect because we lost literal pages from the already edited draft because windows is crap and they had to start over again. Take one big break darl, you deserve it 💕

Song rec: mythical creature by pregnant whale pain was my main inspiration during writing but i think tumblr dot com is not ready yet to listen to an unknown hungarian avantgarde metal band while reading porn lmao. Maybe i'll drop the acoustic version later.

A/N: Here is part 1 in case if you missed it. I think you need to know what happened to completely understand the buildup and have a general idea about their relationship. This fic is probably my fave I’ve written so far, a special lil brainchild of mine. These two are living in my mind rent free with all their lore and they'll never let me go.

Reblogs are greatly appreciated 💕

Minors don't interact unless you want me to stand outside your house at 3 am with a pitchfork

It was very hard to explain to your family what happened to you. The worry which they approached you with, especially Mimiko and Nanako just stirred a weird sense of guilt in your chest. The twins even offered to help you out with chores, eagerly telling you to rest, let your body heal. Your heart shattered to pieces in that moment, weeping endlessly with fat, salty tears. Your precious darling girls, so considerate of you, so caring, their hearts filled with everlasting gratitude. And you wanted to leave them. You felt like a piece of shit of a parental figure, obviously.

Days passed as if nothing had ever happened. Even in your private moments with Geto, the issue was never brought up. He took care of your wounds, of course, but your escape attempt wasn’t a topic of conversation at all. You swept it under the rug.

Which means it was only a question of time until he was going to wield it against you.

“Leave the scabs alone.” he reprimands you softly, dragging your wrist away from them. The hot water softened your scars, making them itchy, easy to pick away at them. But Geto is so thoughtful for looking after you like some kind of crazy mother hen, right? Even sitting in the tub behind you.

He takes hold of the edge, stepping out of the tub swiftly. The water suddenly drops around you, goosebumps dot your skin from the sudden touch of the moistened air as he hides that broad, sun-kissed form of his beneath a bathrobe. You ache for a bit of peace, a bit of me-time, but since the so-called “accident”, he just couldn’t stop himself from keeping an eye on you constantly.

Your hand dances along the surface of the water, bunching the bubbles together into various shapes, like they’re islands. Like you’re a young god, decorating the plane you’ve created. But his outstretched palm appearing in your vision disturbs your creative process.

“Come, I’ll take the stitches out.”

Compared to when your wound was sutured, cutting out the thread is a relatively quick process. Especially with his competency. The tweezer lifts and holds the knot, as he severs the thread with a pair of scissors and pulls it from your flesh before he moving on to the next. It’s uncomfortable, not in a way that it hurts, but it makes your skin crawl and your bones bend. An overall disgusting feeling. But when it’s over, it does feel better. And knowing him, you wonder if it’s purposeful or not.

“Must you make it painful?” you complain, thumb pressing down on the closed, marred skin. For the wrong reasons though, but you can freely complain.

“I didn’t intend to hurt you.” his voice is soft like silk, but not without a sharp edge in it, slowly unfurling, like the jaws of a venus flytrap. “I just wanted to teach you a lesson.”

You glare at him, your eyes piercing him like a dagger.

“Me? I wanted to teach you a lesson.”

This… was a bit too far, you must admit.

You storm out of the bathroom, like you could get away from the conversation.

“Go on, speak.” his words echo through the walls of the bedroom, making your movements halt immediately. You glance up at the window, faced with his reflection as he leans against the doorframe. “What should I learn from you? That you’re not afraid to run? To put your life in unnecessary danger?”

A long sigh leaves through your nostrils.

“If it comforts you, then yes, I realized that I had made a dumb decision.”

You don’t have to turn around to know he’s standing right behind you. Looming over you, shrouding you like an evil trickster spirit.

“I must admit I enjoyed your little attempt…” his palms are heavy on your shoulders, just like his words echoing close to shell of your ear. “Catching you, watching your resolves crumble, the raw terror plastered on your face…” the way his voice caresses you is just like the way he would hold a blade right against your throat, pressing down on the pulsing veins that could be cut open so easily. Like needles slowly being inserted into your ear canals. Eventually it softens, getting more serious and chiding. “But you did scare me. Have you ever thought about what would’ve happened if I didn’t go after you?”

You’d die, you would definitely die. Bleeding out amidst the leaves and grass, letting the frosty night bite you tense and weak. All alone in the dark.

Hold on…

You wouldn’t be injured if he hadn’t frightened you in the first place.

Did he just… no, it can’t be.

He slowly walks away from you, and you hear the bed creak under his weight. The choking feeling finally lifts from your throat. You turn towards one of the incense burners, already filled, it merely needs to be lit. But you do it slowly, just for the sake of appearing busy, to not feel obligated to carry on with the conversation.

But you should make peace with him before he does. He’ll make you face all of your mistakes and their consequences, if not outright making you suffer because of them. Rub all of them into your face until you have no choice but to plead for forgiveness.

It’s not easy, but you open your mouth. The scent of sandalwood lowers your guards, helping you be honest and brings forth the thoughts you’ve been trying to hide for a long time.

“Sometimes I wonder if we’re doing the right thing. And I wonder even more about that if we’ll fail before reaching our goal. Fail spectacularly. Because we want to do the impossible.”

“What is exactly the right thing? Being selfless? Forgetting all about our grudges and letting the world trample all over us? Or being selfish and crushing anyone under our feet to keep each other safe?”

Like an elastic band being strained for far too long, you snap. Luckily, the bronze lid of the incense burner holds out under your grasp.

“It’s too fucking late for moral arguments! Can’t you speak to me more directly for once? Instead of hiding behind your… carefully crafted scenarios that only prove your point.”

You should have avoided looking at him. At your serpent, who made you sin, who was cursed alongside you, your serpent who devoured your beloved Adam. You yearned for the remains, sitting in the bottomless pit of his stomach.

But you swore those remains spoke to you, through layers of flesh, scales, and deception. Soft and calm like a light summer breeze.

“Do you have doubts about me, darling? Are you giving up on me?”

The question breaks you, evaporating all of your anger and resentment in a flash. Devoid of any playful tone or hidden meanings, so raw that it takes hold of your heart and squeezes it so tight that it couldn’t possibly beat anymore.

You know how he twists the truth, striking right into the softest parts of you. He feeds you poison – yet you swallow it right down every single time.

“Faith has no zenith, my dear.” you answer, low and sweet, like you wanted to comfort him. The lid on the incense burner closes, giving you enough time to build up the courage to approach him. You weave your words carefully, in such fashion that it can be interpreted in multiple ways. If he switched just one little word, he’d immediately gain more insight into what’s really been weighing on your heart. “There’s no such peak we can reach on which we can stagnate forever. Faith sometimes wavers, sometimes we question our beliefs. Sometimes we’re unsure if our prayers are heard.” you get down on your knees before him, taking his hand into yours, giving him a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “But I do want to have faith in you.”

His features visibly soften. Heavy lids close in relief, and you feel his thumb brushing along your knuckles.

This is your chance! Go on, there’s no time more perfect than this to try to convince him.

“We should really get away from the temple.” you start with an almost resigned sigh, but your excitement soon starts to show. “Just for a few days. Manami will handle the followers while we leave for the countryside, or an island. We can bring the girls even.”

A faint glimmer in his eyes tells you his answer is going to disappoint you.

“They don’t know about the girls, but they certainly know about you.” he reminds you sternly. “The higher ups want us dead and the last time I offered to protect someone, they ended up getting killed.”

His voice is faint, almost shaky. He rarely talks about the death of Riko. And if he ever brings her up in a conversation, you know he means it.

The heavy lid above his eyes drops, violet irises hiding behind his lashes, averted from you. The words coming out of him are barely above a whisper, like his lips are made from lead, like forming the words is a tiring task because they’re so heavy, and filled with something violently torturing him.

“This is a risk I’m not willing to take again. Not even for you. Especially for you.”

You feel something pooling on your waterline. Translucent pearls of tears appear so involuntarily when you see him like this. Sometimes you do want to hurt him, but when you see him in pain, it torments you even worse.

“I’m not asking you to take risks for me. I never did. But you should take some for you. You could use some respite.” you lace your fingers with his. It brings you a strange kind of comfort how your hand just loses itself in his, but it’s yours that looks more lively and powerful. Like it’s you what keeps him together. As if without you he would shatter into pieces. “You take on an awful lot of responsibilities, I think sometimes more than you’re capable of handling.”

Affection sweeps through his features as he caresses your head, from the roots of your strands to the thick bone of your jaw. A lonely thumb brushing along from your cheekbone to the lobe of your ear. And there’s nothing you can do, only stare at him, wide-eyed with reverence, like he’s an ethereal being.

“This is not your cross to bear.”

He wanted to ease your concerns, but you’re much more stubborn than that. You won’t stand there, at a safe distance, watching him drag himself to his Calvary, whipped and crowned with thorns. You’ll push through the crowd, smash them to bits just to reach him and offer your veil to wipe his face. A thousand times, as many times as he needs.

“Of course it is, what do you expect from me? Unlike…” No, don’t say names, do not compare yourself to certain figures in your past and the way they treated him. “I’m worried about you, for no other reason than I genuinely care about you. That’s why I want you to put our plans to aside - let’s unwind a little, recharge. Before all of this drives us insane.”

He deliberately avoids answering, your concern grows and grows like vicious vine. Is this too much to ask for? A small moment of normalcy can’t be granted to you? What are the two of you really? Idols of worship, if not gods at this point because your sheep do regard you as such. But can’t gods long for a visit amongst mortals? Can’t they shed their divine status? You could, but maybe, before he’d let you leave, he’ll feed you pomegranate seeds.

Would you eat them again? Of course you would. Even if you fight and snarl a little beforehand. Because love is the death of duty, and of a peaceful mind, of comprehensive decisions. Love is so mystified, shrouded in the illusion of an immortalized existence, just like death. Love is, indeed, death.

Your palms cup his face, his skin radiates warmth through you. The warmth of the evening sun that makes the sky bleed with the prettiest colors you can imagine. Your touch slowly encourages him to look into your eyes, finding a strange kind of determination and care mixed with your obvious worry. A Magdalene dwells within your gaze, who already washed her prophet’s feet with tears and dried them with her hair before he starts his last journey to Golgotha.

“I told you a million times, if you fall too deep into your misery, when you feel like you can’t come back to the surface on your own, let me know, so I can pull you out. Or let me know so I can go after you. And we’ll drown together.”

All those little pacts and vows you made during the years echo through you. Even the first one, the most ancient of them all, when it was still easy to hide your concerns behind your techniques.

I’ll keep an eye on you.

It’ll keep an eye on you.

You lean closer, foreheads and the tips of your noses touching. Eyes closing in almost perfect synchronicity.

“Promise me, Suguru. Promise me again.”

You wait and wait, until his warm breath brushes your skin like fine silk, like a feather.

“I promise.”

You sigh in relief. It hurts, it hurts so much. There’s so much place in your heart for him to dwell in. He owns it and he won’t give it back. Ever.

You only wanted a chaste kiss, but a special type of hunger wakes deep below your navel. You taste his words, you swallow them down, nipping them from his lips. You look for the rest of them, his thoughts that hadn’t been formed into words yet, the rest of the sentence, you search for it with your tongue inside his mouth.

You grab onto the sheets, trying to push yourself up. Like you could overpower him, like you could battle against him. To have him laid out on the mattress, defeated. But he stops your advances with a palm resting on your shoulder, gently pushing you away.

“You’re not healed yet.” he whispers, truly concerned.

“Then I’ll be on top, I don’t care.” you oppose breathily, your fingers trying to pry his robe open.

“The cut on your hand could re-open if we’re not careful.”

Oh, how you adore him when he’s so tender with you, but now, this is the last thing you want. You want to bare your teeth and go right for the throat.

“Then you’ll stitch me up again.” There’s a playful edge in your voice, and you kiss him again with the same curve of a smile while he lets you crawl on top of him.

And he smiles against you too, delighted by your eagerness. You, trying to eat him up, digest him - he’s just enjoying you and the feast you’re having. Taking everything from you. He only wants to capture you, to cage you in his hold. He’s kneading your flesh leisurely and humming into your mouth contently, almost lazily.

In the crooks of his body, you find your religion.

The sharp line of his jaw, the tendons of his neck, the hollow caverns around his collarbone. But your mouth carefully avoids the scars slashing through his chest, after all those years, it still pains him when the lightly coloured, textured skin gets touched. As if these lips of yours and your aimlessly trailing fingers were the same blades, penetrating the flesh again and again.

There’s not a morsel of him that you weren’t intimately familiar with. In a way that rivals how much you know about yourself. And what you know even better is that how can you venerate them, dote on them, adore, and idolize with such devotion you could anger all deities created by man and make them scream blasphemy on you.

You take his cock in your hand, teasingly working your palms around him. Pumping it, stroking your thumb along the underside to make his breath hitch. His dick grows beneath your hands, getting harder and heavier. The first beads of precum get smeared along the length by your skillful fingers.

“You know you don’t have to- “but you cut him off while settling between his legs.

“Just relax and let me do all the work.” your response comes out a bit more deadpan than planned. “You deserve it once in a while.”

And with that, you wrap your lips around him, enveloping him in warmth and wetness, your tongue slowly swirling around the head. His thighs twitch, more precum oozes into your waiting mouth as the muscle between your teeth works eagerly. You give him a few, gentle sucks, slurping up the mixture of your own saliva and his arousal. Between ragged breaths, he reminds you to breathe through your nose as you take more and more of his length. You relax your jaw, your fingers tense around the base of his cock and you’re trying as hard as you can to defeat the urge to gag. When you fit all of him inside your mouth, you empty your lungs and give him a harder suck, hard enough to make you cheeks hollow and his chest heave. As your free hand is occupied with kneading his balls between your fingers and knuckles, a moan bursts out of him.

The sound boosts your confidence, filling you with a wicked kind of playfulness. The kind of wicked that makes you pull back your tongue a little, as to not keep your teeth hidden. You drag them along his sensitive, pulsing underside, balancing the pressure between pleasure and pain. Like you could prove to him that you’re ready to bite back, that this is the only moment when he can’t control you, that he shouldn’t underestimate you.

And just as if he could read your thoughts, his hand goes for your head, fingers getting lost between your strands. But he’s not as cruel as to push you down on him, instead he guides you, increases the rhythm that you’re working with. Steady and firm, but not too fast. You earn yourself his praises, soft curses pitched higher than his normal voice.

This is what real worship looks like.

When you feel the muscles in his thighs and stomach tensing up, you stop. You emerge from the space between his legs, wiping your lips clean and admiring your work. All that flushed skin blooming in pink on his chest and face. You move, trying to get into a new position, settling your calves right next to hips. You start aligning yourself with his cock to finally start grinding on him.

He sits up and traps you with an arm coiling around your waist.

“Since when were you so reckless?”

His hand creeps around the apex of your thighs. A finger barely brushes along your slit. By adding another digit, he spreads your folds, finding hot, smooth, slippery flesh.

“I would’ve prepped myself.” that’s all you can say in your defense.

Fingertips circle your hole, applying a bit of pressure, checking how much you’ve loosened up. He invades you slowly as your lungs empty, the hardened skin on his fingers stroking and massaging your sweet spots before he starts working you open.

You wrap your arms around him, slowly undoing his bun to have something to grab onto as you jolt, as your bones melt, as your brows furrow in bliss. The moans coming from you are breathy and tender, and you hide them in his strands. He twists his fingers inside you, stretching your warm muscles further, making your back arch and you press your hardened nipples to his chest. Your essence engulfs his knuckles, clear and sticky like honey.

The heel of his palm settles right against your clit and you shamelessly grind on it. Your mewls pass over his ears as he’s nuzzling into the crook of your neck, nipping at the skin of a faint scar. But you resist giving in, you stop him, telling him that’s enough, but in reality you just want your control back. Take back the lead and revel in it.

And somehow he obeys, laying back into the sheets.

You slip out of your robe, showing yourself fully. The bruises on your skin can finally bathe in the dim lamplight, painting the complexion of your sides, shoulders, and upper arm in different shades of blue and purple, like paint on bare canvas. Like the night sky carrying storm clouds, like you’re rotting, decomposing. You find a twisted, perverted joy in the fact that he must be seeing them for the whole time.

“Slowly, slowly.” he murmurs softly as you’re pushing the head of his cock inside you. “There’s no need to rush.” Trimmed nails trail up and down from the flesh of your thighs to your bruised sides. Tender and slow like a ghost, goosebumps pepper your skin from the tickling feeling. “I’m already yours.” He purrs and your heart flutters.

And there’s so, so much pride in you that only you can render him to this state. Too powerful for the world to bear him, capable to burn this plane to ruins, defying the barriers between a mortal and a god - or something way worse than that. Maybe you should receive twice the respect from your herd, for being the only person who can enslave him in this way, that only you can have this sort of power over him. Only you can overthrow him. Because you’re just too dear to him, too close to his burning heart.

Maybe it’s your time to warn him. Tame him like the monster he is.

You move with your own rhythm. His hand caged between your fingers and pressed down against the sheets. You give him no other choice but to venerate you back and he does, with pleased, low rumbles coming from his throat. Only a singular hand is allowed to roam your form freely. On your back tracing the shallow line where your spine lies beneath skin and flesh, wandering towards the inner part of your thighs, then to your stomach and chest. And you reward him with a prayer of your own, encapsulated in deep, long sighs.

But you’re too trusting of him. You let your guard down too easily.

You’re holding onto his kneecaps, leaning towards them a little, allowing every inch of you to be seen. You want to give him a show, but your knees are too worn and tired.

He takes hold of your hips, helping you guide yourself along his length. His pelvis moves along with you in synced rhythm. Your teeth are pressing down on the soft skin of your lips, but you can’t keep your whimpers in. You’re getting close, your muscles and nerves are st tight and pulsing, your walls are pressing down on his length. His name mindlessly slips out of your mouth.

Maybe you can say you love him before you shatter.

But his fingers clench around you, strong and firm, stopping your movements. Lifting your hips up so high that his cock is barely inside, robbing you from your incoming orgasm.

You’re shocked, eyes staring into the nothingness, open wide. Your stomach drops, stirring up all kinds of feelings dwelling in you. A chill races down your vertebrae as you glance down at him.

“Suguru..?” Your voice is weak, shaky.

Fear courses through your being, primordial and all-consuming.

And when he speaks to you it’s all dark, shrouded in malevolence.

“You forgot one thing, darling. After I brought you back from the forest.”

No, no, no, he can’t do this to you! He can’t hold your orgasm hostage for the sake of toying with you! You should puncture his flesh your nails, scratch him, tear him up, but you can only grit your teeth. Your features twist from bliss to rage.

“You…” boiling anger swims through your voice. It’s like it’s not even your voice - more like a hiss, a growl.

There’s an undecipherable mixture of pity and amusement in his eyes. He twitches inside you but you’re too upset to notice.

“Apologize.” he sneers - almost commands.

His words cause anger to bubble up in you.

“Oh, you piece of shit…!” you seethe, but sob and moan when he slams you back on his cock, stretching you around his length again. Wanting to quench your rage with the sensation you crave the most right now.

“I hope, for your sake, I don’t have to repeat myself.”

It doesn’t matter how much you try to squirm, fuss and wriggle, he forces you still. His behaviour frustrates you to no end when you’re so desperate for a bit of friction, the horribly hollow and burning feeling of your lost peak torturing you seemingly endlessly. To the point where you’re too tired to put up a fight, when you’re teetering on the edge of breaking. You know you must swallow your pride, you have let him have it his way.

“I… I’m sorry.” you apologize meekly, teary-eyed, your voice a pathetic mewl. He finally starts lifting you up and easing you down, building you up slowly. But it’s not enough. You need more but he won’t give it to you just yet.

��You do?” he asks you in a way that it cuts deep into your marrow. It’s not even close to a loving tease – no, he’s outright mocking you.

Vicious bastard. You should grab his throat and squeeze the air out of him.

“Yes, I do!” you cry out without thinking. “I’m sorry for running away from you.” you push the words out through your whimpers. He increases the pace, making you yelp and shake, you end up closing your eyes reflexively. He robbed you from the sensation for so long that you became sensitive, it’s easier to make a mess out of you. Your face is red with shame, so much so you can’t look him in the eyes. The humiliation is like an invisible rope tightening around your neck.

“Promise you’ll never do that to me again.”

He pushes your hips further along his length this time, shifting you a bit towards his thighs. Creating a perfect angle, he uncovers a sweet spot inside you that makes you almost incapable of forming coherent words. And he eats the sight right up.

“…I promise… I promise...” you manage to get your answer out in the form of a choked hiccup. Your vision blurs. Everything is too intense for you to handle. You swear that the very shape of you could dissolve at any given moment.

Faith is desperate. Gods are hungry for despair. So they deliberately make you suffer and only then reveal themselves to you.

His fingers dig into your waist so hard it burns. You feel the world shift with you and then you collide with the sheets. Your bruised back ripples with pain. You’re unsure if he did it out of spite or not. You don’t know if he’ll completely shatter your dignity, or if he’s fine with just enforcing the feeling that you can never be above him, that you can never defeat him.

His weight on top of you is overwhelming. The midnight dark locks of his hair spread around you like spilled ink. And through the thick fog of your mind, too far gone in twisted, masochistic pleasure, you lock your legs around his waist. You don’t want him to go away. You might as well cease to exist if he does.

“And what do we say when we apologize?”

The soft plea coming from you is more instinctual rather than deliberate.

“Forgive me.”

You ache for him to move, you’re starved for the incoming high. Like a ravenous beast, all devouring. When he finally gives it to you, his thrusts make you feel possessed, make your back arch, your head falls back into the pillow as if you were offering your neck to him (maybe one day he won’t be able to resist the urge and will bite down on the jugular, through your trachea, putting you out of your misery) - you don’t dare to beg for anything else.

Maybe just for a little blood. A mark he can wear, just like you wear your bruises. Your nails somehow acquire a will of their own, your scratches have him excited and pleased.

His fingers meander around your jaw, gently coaxing you into letting him guide your gazes to meet again.

He’s imitating you, admiring his work like you did with him. And what he sees is a being stripped from any likeness of a dignified human being. With eyes so blown he can see the bottommost pits of Hell in them.

And he’s satisfied, rewarding you with a soft kiss on your temple.

“I forgive you.”

Your release crashes over you like a tide, submerging you, burning you to cinders on the inside. Tearing you apart. And when he collapses on top you after filling you to the brim, you feel like a festering wound.

He’s a disease, miasma, a flesh-eating parasite crawling inside you.

“You’re…” you huff. “You’re awful.”

“I know. But you love me all the same.”

You wonder what you should have done to earn a different outcome, but you give up soon. Looks like he already had plans for your atonement in mind. After all, gods are impatient creatures. They’re dependent on your reverence and servitude. And you’ve waited for too long to make things right.

Why, why, why - it echoes inside your head.

But if you think about it… he’s your serpent. The vilest, most horrendous creature created by God. The one who charmed you, tempted you with sin and has now sunken his fangs into you. Of course he did, and instead of trying to heal from his venomous bite, you want to catch him - to find out his reasons, to prove to him that you didn’t deserve that.

And yet you could never, ever prove him wrong. Your serpent will always think it was right to bite. It’s in his nature afterall.

“Is your hand alright?”

He makes it up to you with spoiling you again. He cleans your wounds so sweetly, so thoughtfully, looks after you in a way that nobody could, which confuses you even further.

He cherishes you, destroys himself for the sake of keeping you safe - not like it’s a choice, but a must - just like a mother would. He scolds you, reminds you not to make the same mistake again, collars you, keeps you on a tight leash, only loosening it (just a little) when he succeeded at making you play by his rules, just like a father would.

And somehow, he excels at both. Way better than those two ever did when it came to you.

You wish your glare could pierce right through his skull when you hand the empty glass back to him. You don’t have it in you to play nice. You don’t even attempt hide that you’re sulking, he probably finds it funny - adorable even.

“Go to hell.” you spit and lay back into the sheets, your bruised back facing him.

“Oh, darling…” he coos, but the surface level sweetness of his tone hides a sharp edge of condescendence. He crawls into bed, right behind you, caging you in his embrace, forcing you to feel the warmth of his body. The warmth that you’re so used to, the one you can’t sleep without it. Nobody has ever made you feel this safe, and the fact makes your heart ache and your stomach twist.

“If there’s a Hell, I’ll see you there.”

[ncteez]

Sacrilege (m.l)

the one where no gods exist when you’re alone with Mark Lee.

ao3 | m.list | minors dni! | if you read it, reblog it.

wordcount― 5.3k

pairing― mark lee x fem reader

content― top/dom mark lee, characters are in their twenties, sub/bratty  reader, 

warnings― DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE RELIGIOUS OR CAN NOT HANDLE CNC. i am not responsible for your experience with reading on tumblr. I am not holding this fic in front of your eyes and forcing you to read it. I have tagged everything appropriately and suggest you scroll past this fic to save yourself from triggers or adverse reactions. This fic contains extreme disrespect to christianity and catholicism, desecration of religious symbols, and mild cnc.

note― Probably not the greatest smut ever to be written considering i did almost 0 research on these religions, but it's dirty and disgusting. if the thought of a lacquered wooden cross being penetrated into someone sounds painful, that's ok. It probably is but this is fiction and she’s gonna love every second of it, okay? Okay.  Huge, fat, wet, squelching love to @domjaehyun​​​ for reading this for me and fixing all of my errors. 

smut tags under cut:: 

smut tags― mild cnc (reader is unsure about the cross thing but mark is relentless), for the record, the cross is not raw wood and has a smooth finish,  reader is first attempting to seduce the priest through confession lmao, she’s also just a massive whore just like me :), Mark is the priest’s son, jerking off, penetration using a wooden cross, unprotected sex, spitting, choking on and/or sucking off a cross, degradation, and name-calling, he’s a godfearing man but also he likes sexual perversions, humiliation, explicitly getting fucked in a church, kind of fingering? 

~

           Mark wonders why you’re always making confessions, sometimes multiple times a week regardless of if his father is prepared or available to listen. 

           Once a week his father listens to confessions from the other churchgoers, even Mark himself is expected to do this. Often he will make up sins that he has committed just to seem as though he had been learning from some sort of mistake. Never would Mark actually tell his father through a confession booth what he has done or is willing to do. He’s an adult, he can confess whatever he wants. You, on the other hand, you’re working his father to the bone in terms of forgiveness. 

           Mark’s interest piques at the very idea of a young woman, around his age, needing to confess so much. Did she hurt someone? Does she hurt herself? Did she kill someone or maybe she is caught up in a situation that makes her commit atrocities? He can’t even imagine what one person could be doing to elicit such a need to be cleansed and saved time and time again. 

  Mark makes his way to the back of the church to complete his duties and, of course, he isn’t surprised to see you enter the confession booth for the second time this week. Hushed whispers were echoing through the room and only then did he realize that you almost always confessed when the church is empty. You must not be unaware of his presence at all, unaware that he is the son of the priest that you spill your sins to, and unaware that he can absolutely hear you when he walks closer.

           He isn’t entirely sure why he is listening. The walls of this church echo any and every sound, and to be fair, the only reason his interest is piqued is that his father was silent from the moment you’d entered the booth. All he heard was you. You didn’t seem to start the confession off in a proper manner, so yeah, maybe it caught him off guard. 

           His ears make attempts to adjust to the words coming from the booth, but the words were coming out in a tone that he had never used himself when seeking salvation. Minutes passed and he still hadn't heard his father speak a word. It was just you, addressing dreams, vision, wants, and needs. 

           You weren’t confessing, you were actively sinning in the presence of god, attempting to seduce his father. 

 “I woke up shaking, Father. What should I do?” 

           Mark notes how quiet his father is still, despite you asking him what to do about the dream. His face sours when you continue to speak, this time in a slightly louder tone. 

 “Aren’t you going to say anything? I just can’t help myself sometimes, I–”

           It’s not that it was intentional, really, it wasn't. If anything at all, Mark is incredibly disgusted by your attempts to dirty talk during a confession. Disgusted that you’d do such a thing, and…maybe intrigued by what you may have said that he wasn’t quite able to catch before. He quietly moves to the other side of the booth, the side where you seem to be spouting off all sorts of things, and he raises his head to listen a bit more. 

 “You were big, you know? I can’t get thoughts of you out of my head. Have you ever touched a woman, Father?”

           Mark leans in further, his body reacting more than his disgust. Unfortunately, the hard-on growing in his pants ceases the moment his father cut you off. 

 “Enough.” The priest says in a stoic and harsh tone. 

           Not another word was spoken and Mark does his best to back away quickly and quietly as you exit the booth. Of course, he’s acting as though he is sweeping a corner when he turns to look at you. Eye contact is made and he can feel an intense rush of heat spread across his cheeks.

           His father stays inside of the booth for a long, drawn out, three or so minutes before exiting and all Mark can think about is if you walked out of the church soaked and warm between your legs. It’s not even that Mark is into sinning. He isn’t. His entire life was built around this church, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a man. He has needs just like you do, apparently.

           Never would he get what he needs from a woman as dirty as yourself, though, it doesn’t stop him from thinking about it and how your voice sounded when you were actively trying to fuck his dad.

 ~

 “You’re disgusting.” Mark narrows his eyes at you when you pass by, spitting the words at you as if you were a piece of trash on the sidewalk. 

 “Excuse me?” You ask, stopping in your tracks and looking back at him just as harshly. 

 “You think I can’t hear the way you speak to my dad during your confessions?” He takes a step forward as he whisper shouts at you. “You really think he’s just going to take you up on the offer?” 

           Narrowing your own eyes, you step closer to Mark to stop anyone else from hearing his little tantrum. “Wanna tell me why he always listens to my confessions then?” You question, smirking before walking away as if nothing had even happened.

           Mark watches as you leave, upset that he hadn’t gotten a rise out of you at all, and instead was offered a genuine question that sits in his mind. Why does his father allow you to make a confession after confession if all it is, is an attempt to seduce him? You weren’t even ashamed of it, it seems, and it pisses him off to no end. 

           Rushing after you, he is quick to grab at your sweater and pull you back. 

 “You might as well not even wear clothes at this point with the way you act.” He barks, dragging you off down the hall and into a side room that should remain empty until everyone leaves the church. He intends to put a stop to this, because he’s heard several more of your confessions by his own will and learns that, apparently, your only sin is being a harlot. 

 “You have no place here.” He adds as he closes the door behind the two of you.

 “Your father says otherwise.” You laugh, walking across the room with a shrug. It’s not the first time you’ve been reprimanded in a church, and it probably won’t be the last. “What? You don’t find yourself thinking of dirty things from time to time?”

           Mark narrows his eyes even more at you.

 “Of course I do, but not this often, and not directly after a service.”

           You watch him walk towards you, with his perfectly tucked shirt and his darkened and angry eyes. Being alone with him doesn’t help his argument, because, in all fairness, he’s just as hot, if not hotter than your priest. 

 “What about you then?” You ask, leaning against one of the shelves in the room, running your hand up your legs, and hiking your dress up a couple of inches. “Father won’t admit to having ever touched a woman. What about you?”

           Mark grimaces, wrinkling his nose as he watches you. 

 “What the fuck are you doing?” He questions, stomping over to you and pushing your dress back down below your knees.

 “Oh!” You laugh, ticking your tongue at him and tilting your head. “You cursed. Aren’t you going to ask for forgiveness?”

           He stares at you for a few seconds, being face to face with a woman that seems so desperate for any touch has his heart racing. He’s trying to call you out, not turn you on.

 “Can’t you act decent? I barely know you and you’re flaunting yourself at me.” Mark bellowed, stepping back from you and examining the way your body is relaxed. You seem to be enjoying this. 

 “You’re the one who pulled me in here. Was it really to argue with me, or were you trying to get to me before Father does?”

           Thinking for a moment, Mark realizes he’s the reason this is happening. He could have just let you leave like everyone else, after all, it would be the first day you weren’t heading for the confession booth. Here he is though, and there you are. 

 “He would never.” Mark laughs, mocking your attempts to seduce his father. 

 “What about you though?” You shoot back instantaneously, watching the way his words get caught in his throat. 

           He’s a weak man, truly, because the very thought of what’s under your dress, the very idea that you’re so willing, fogs his brain to the point of almost malfunctioning. It would be so fucking easy if he wanted to. No one would even know. 

           Before you even knew it, you could feel the air in the room change as he storms closer to you, he aggressively pulls your dress up to your waist and instantly he’s shoving his hand straight between your legs. A small yelp leaves your throat followed by a laugh. 

 “I knew it.” You laugh bumping your head a bit against the shelf at the force of his movements. You can feel the way his palm cups your core and presses harshly against it. “I knew you were just as dirty as me.”

 “Stop,” Mark demands, bringing his other hand to cover your mouth. “Stop talking.” He continues, already pulling his hand from your core and second-guessing himself. “If we are going to do this, I need you to shut up.” 

           You nod with a smile against his palm, breathing in when he pulls it back and trusts your ability to stay quiet. He’s staring directly into your eyes as if it’s a threat that he will stop, a promise that he will get his father to blacklist you from the church and never allow such a sinner to step foot inside again.

           Staying true to your word, you remain quiet as he trails his eyes down. He looks at you as if you’re some sort of monster, and for him at this moment, you definitely could be. 

           Lowering himself to the floor, he positions himself to look at your clothed core, seeing the small wet stain seeping through the fabric. 

 “Already?” He laughs, eyes darting up to your face. 

           You nod, wiggling your hips at him in an attempt to entice his lips to attach there. But he doesn’t. He just stands back to his feet and backs away. 

 “I bet if I left you here, you’d chase after me.” He mocks. “I bet you think I’m going to give you my cock, don’t you?”

           Shyly, you smile with a nod. Isn’t that what’s going to happen? Isn’t that what this is all about?

 “Wow, you really are stupid.” He laughs quietly, shaking his head at you as he reaches behind a podium and pulls out a large, lacquered wooden cross.

           Great, you think. He’s definitely about to start preaching to you. Maybe he will even attempt to perform an exorcism to expel the horny demons out of you.

 “Please.” You roll your eyes, standing yourself up straight from against the shelf and patting your dress back down into position. “I don’t need you to try and bring me to salvation.” You’re already preparing to walk out without looking twice at him, but he laughs right back at you.

 “You think you know everything.” He argues, walking towards the door and locking it. He stands in front of it now, crossing his arms and staring at you. 

 “What’s the cross for then?” You ask, a little nervous now. 

 “Did I not just imply that I wouldn’t use my cock on you?” He questions, twitching in his pants at the way you stand before him, much smaller in energy now. 

           Oh. Oh. 

 “You’re going to–” You swallow hard, realizing that the sins being committed aren’t just from you. They’re also not ignored by just you. This room doesn’t even feel like part of a church now as he holds the cross with more reason than praying. 

 “I am.” He assures you. “Do you want that?” 

           For some reason, despite genuinely worrying for your soul at the very idea, you nod quickly as the temperature of your body rises to dangerous levels. 

 “Get on the desk then.” 

           You follow suit, shamefully walking to the desk and propping yourself onto it. 

 “Take off your clothes.” He demands again, watching you intently as he stays in place.

           You watch him back as you begin to slip your dress from your shoulders and lift your ass so that you can push it down and onto the floor. 

 “You’re acting so shy now. What’s up with that?” He mocks, walking towards you as you attempt to tug at your panties. “Keep those on. No one wants to see that.” He says, chuckling at the way you didn’t even have the decency to wear a bra to service. Lucky for him, your breasts are enough to drive him past the point of return. 

           You stay quiet, doing as he’s told and watching the way he examines you. He must feel so in control right now, and you’re happy to let him, but you can see him falling apart behind his eyes. His cock is incredibly obvious beneath his nice dress pants, but you wouldn’t dare reach out to touch him, not yet at least.

 “Suck it.” He says, dragging the cross against your nipples and onto your chin. 

           You almost shake your head at him. Wouldn’t such a hard material such as wood hurt? Will it bruise your throat? Doesn’t seem to be a worry of his in all honesty, because he’s intent on pressing it against your lips.

           Not quite opening your mouth, you look at him with wide eyes. 

 “No?” He smiles, hooking your mouth and prying it mouth open.

           You relent this time, feeling the cold and smooth tip of the cross enter past your lips. It’s not that you are against doing it, you just. . . haven’t done it before. You’re not exactly sure of how to respect a holy relic such as this one when you’re expected to choke on it. 

 “That’s it.” Mark coos, pressing the cross further into your mouth. “Just like that.” 

           You close your eyes at his voice, licking the smoothed object with an intensity you didn’t know you had. After all, it’s been so long since you’ve been intimate with a person, hence the constant wet dreams about your priest. This, is somehow, incredibly hot to you. To have his son fucking your mouth, regardless of what object he’s using to do it. 

           Mark continues to press the cross further and further into your mouth, watching the way you swallow around it and relax your throat as it slides more and more down your throat. He wonders what it would feel like if it were his cock, because you’re taking it so well. You must have done this before, with countless other men, he thinks. How lucky for them to have someone so desperately wanting to be gagged. 

 “You’re filthy for doing this, you know that?” He insults, tipping the cross just a bit so that its hardened wood hits your throat the right way to elicit a gag out of you. 

           You cough around it, pushing his hand back so that he can pull the object from your mouth. The tears are prickling at the corners of your eyes as you look up at him, wondering if he’s going to pry your mouth open again but he doesn’t. 

           He tilts his head to look at your panties, seeing that the spot had gotten bigger. 

 “I can’t believe you actually like this–” He laughs, feeling his cock begin to hurt for some sort of friction. “Again?” He asks, and when you open your mouth again, he almost moans. 

           You take it into your mouth without so much as a second thought this time, allowing him to slide the cross back and forth against your tongue and into your throat. You willingly swallow around the harsh edges, tears falling all the while. 

           You’re gagging so softly around it, he’s almost jealous at this moment over how you wanted his dad before you wanted him. Surely no one would do this for you, right? Just Mark, Right?

 When he pulls it out this time, your saliva coats the cross in a way that arouses him intensely. Intensely, he stares at your lips, slack and waiting for him to continue his abuse but he opts not to. Instead, he grabs your hand and places it against his cock. 

           Feeling a little shocked that he’s actually letting you touch him, you take the opportunity and run with it. You press your palm against his hardened cock without any amount of shame, and you watch as he hangs his head for a moment. 

 “Bet you wanted to fuck my mouth.” You croak out, your voice sounding just as bruised at your throat. 

           His head shoots up in response to that and he grabs your face harshly, bucking against your hand at the same time. “Stop talking.” He seethes, releasing your face and inserting his fingers into your mouth instead. “Stick your tongue out.”

           You do as he says, feeling his heavy cock twitching against your palm. 

           Mark seems like an expert at this, you aren’t sure, but when he presses your tongue down with his fingers to open your throat up, he spits into your mouth so easily that you have no choice but to swallow it.

 You moan at that, grabbing his cock this time as your tongue fights against his fingers that are holding it down. Mark’s hips stutter at your grip and loses almost all composure when he dips down and moves his arms to either side of you, essentially pinning you there and pressing between your legs. 

 “You want me to fuck you so bad, I can see it.” He croaks, not even allowing you to offer him a nod before he’s got his lips attached to yours and licking into your mouth. It feels impossibly better than the cross pressing against the back of your throat but you swallow his kiss just as easily. 

           His hips continue to grind against your hand as he continues to assault your tongue with his own, groaning into it more and more before he’s nearly a panting mess before you. He pulls back from the kiss only for a moment to stare at you, eye contact more fierce than it was before. 

 “Do you want to fuck me?” You manage to slip out before he can silence you again, and his eyes widen in shock.

           More than anything, that’s what he wants to do to you. He wants to shut you up in as many ways possible right now, and he definitely wants to fuck you in as many ways as possible. But he can’t, and he won't. 

 “Hah– I bet you’d love that.” He laughs, reaching a hand from between the two of you to press his pants down enough to let his cock spring free. You can’t even get a good look at it, because he’s instantly grabbing himself and fucking his fist before looking back up at you. “Go on, look.” He says, leaning up so that you can watch him jerk himself off in full view now. “You’d probably beg if I asked you to.”

 “Please?” You instantly let out, eyes staring at the angry head of his cock leaking with precum.

 “I didn’t say to actually beg–” He laughs, halting his hand and instead, thrusting his hips into the tightly formed hole he’s created. “I’m not going to fuck you.” He laughs again, picking the cross back up and looking at you with a smirk.

           Of course. The cross. Well, at least you’re going to be fucked with something right? You eye the piece of wood and then go back to watching him. You’re not sure what it is about this situation but it feels like you’re body is on fire. Maybe it’s because hell is right beneath you, just a floorboard away from what the two of you have gotten yourselves into behind this locked door.

 “Oh?” He halts his hips and licks his lips. “You actually want me to fuck you with this?”

           You nod frantically, spreading your legs in front of him and showing off how large the spot on your panties has grown. 

           Watching as his eyes practically burn a hole through your pussy, he releases his cock and looks at you seriously this time. 

 “You are aware of what we are about to do, right?” He laughs nervously, glancing at the cross. “Like, if you ever tell my dad about this, I will be disowned.” 

           You shrug, looking back at him. “Who said I was going to tell him?”

 “Well, since you’re so inclined to confess every fucking day–”

 “Mark, you’ve already fucked my throat with it.” You deadpan, hooking your legs around him to pull him close enough to feel his cock hit your wet panties. “You’re the dirtiest one here.”

           He laughs at you for that. Because yeah, maybe he is. Maybe he’s the one who shouldn’t be in church, and maybe he’s the one who should have been confessing this whole time. Never in his life has he ever done this, or so much as imagined doing it, but. . . it’s so perverse. So, wrong. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s attractive about it. 

 “You don’t have to use the cross, you know.” You urge him in an attempt to use his cock, because it’s already sitting so heavy against you. It’s kind of all you can think about.

 “No.” He barks out, pulling his hips back and pressing the cross against you instead. “I’m taking these off of you now.” He gets right back into it without a second thought. He doesn’t care what he’s doing or what the repercussions of doing this will be. It’s not like he wasn’t going to hell before anything, not based on the fantasies he’s had anyway.

           Mark hooks his fingers into your panties and pulls them down your legs harshly, to the point that they’re stretching so far that it feels like they could cut through your skin. He backs away for a moment upon seeing you grimace at that, allowing you to slip them down your legs before positioning himself back between them.

 “Sinful.” He says, looking at your pussy and the way it clenches around absolutely nothing. He sees the slick seeping out of you already, and it’s not only pathetic but so fucking desperate of you. 

           Before the cross, he experimentally traces his fingers along your folds until he gets to your entrance, and without hesitation, he slips one of them in. The grip of your walls alone could probably send him over the edge if he were to make a last-minute change and shove his cock into you, but he holds back. Instead, he traces the cross against you in the same way he did with his fingers, slowly inserting it alongside his digit. 

           Pulling back, Mark watches your face as the cross opens you up, probably dragging against your walls most uncomfortably as a reminder of the ultimate sin you’re committing with him right now. 

           When your face doesn’t contort into that of pain, he pulls his finger out of you and places his hand back on his cock. Still staring at your face, he fucks the cross in and out of you. He does this until you finally moan. 

           Upon that little whimper of a moan, Mark is sent into a different headspace. One that quickens his pace with the object inside of you. He presses it in and then pulls it all the way out just to see your pussy beg for more.

 “So sinful–” He coos this time, trying to ignore the shiver that shoots through his body at the way you yearn for it. 

           Fucking it back into you, he works his hand into the right rhythm and continuously thrusts the object in and out of you with a gentle, yet rough pace. Now, he makes a point to fuck his own fist at that same pace. Thrusting forward as the cross is buried deeper and deeper inside of you. If he thinks hard enough, it’s almost like he’s the one fucking you. 

           He keeps this up for a few minutes, up until your legs are shaking around him and you begin to reach out with your hands. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s incredibly fucking horny right now, he’s probably be rushing for the holy water to save you from whatever demon is possessing you. But he knows that this is no demon, this is all his own doing. He’s loving it. Every single bit of this situation is being burned into his memory, and when your legs shake, it only urges him to fuck the object into you harder.

           You whimper out strings of nonsense, almost begging for a release from this grasp he is holding over you both physically and mentally, but he doesn’t relent. Your pussy is being pounded by an object that should have you crying in fear, but instead, you’re so close to release you can only beg for more, more, fucking more. And god, he keeps giving it to you.

           In an attempt to open your eyes, you feel dizzy with lust. Your hips buck up against the object with intent, and you can’t stop watching him. 

 “Fuck–” Mark stutters, watching you fuck yourself against the holy relic. It allows him to rest his arm as he continues to fuck into his other hand, still at the same pace as your hips. 

           He’s watching and intensely imagining that it’s you on him, and he can’t stop thinking about how fucking warm you must be, how tight, how sinfully delicious your pussy must be for you to be acting like this for him. And then he loses it, and on the verge of his orgasm, he slips the cross out of you and lets it fall to the floor. 

 You can barely understand what’s happening until you feel something bigger slipping into you. When you feel his cock prying you open, pumping in and out of you at a frantic speed, you cling onto him with a bruising grip.

 Mark practically falls over you, forcing you to fall back against the desk as he relentlessly slides his cock in and out of you. His breath is heavy against your neck as he loses himself, and all you can do is thank the same god you just disrespected for this cock that’s abusing your hole in all of the right ways.

 “I can’t–” He groans out against your ear, slowing his pace so that he can gain a rhythm back and fuck into you in hard, long thrusts. “You’re so fucking dirty.” He insults, pushing you up the desk with each thrust. “I can’t resist.” He insults himself this time. 

           You can barely make a sound from the number of sensations you’d been feeling for the past however long. You want nothing more than for him to rub your clit, or for him to let you rub your clit. And as if your prayers were answered, he does just that. 

           You can feel him squeeze his hand between your bodies just to harshly press into your clit in a way that provides more pain than pleasure, but you’ll take whatever you can get while he uses you in the way you practically asked him to.

           Your orgasm hits you almost instantly, pussy sucking in his cock each time he goes to thrust, and the sounds coming from your throat could be considered demonic by some, but he swallows them up with ease when he notices your climax. 

           Mark licks into your mouth, soothing you with dirty words when he pulls back to breathe. 

 “You should see yourself–” He pants out, sticking his tongue out to lick against your lip. “Coming on my cock like this?” He says again through a moan. “You’re beautiful.” He adds like a period at the end of a sentence. 

           That alone makes you feel…different, in fact, it prolongs your orgasm far past sensitivity when he continues to thrust into you. You can’t tell if he said that because he’s close, or if it’s because he meant it. Quite frankly, you could give less of a fuck if he meant it. 

           Mark stutters his hips when you lift your head just slightly, gripping his hair and skewing his head to the side so that you can whisper into his ear. 

 “Are you going to come inside of me?” You whisper with a shaking voice, “are you going to love it as much as I will?”

           His eyes squeeze shut as he aggressively turns his head and, once again, pries your mouth open with his tongue. A bruising kiss follows as he fucks his last few thrusts into you, doing just as you implied he should.

           He pumps his cum into you relentlessly, thankful that it’s not all over his pants, thankful that you came around him instead of that forgotten cross on the floor. He wants nothing more than to remind you time and time again who got to you first. It was him, not his father. 

           You smile at him when he pulls back out of breath, examining his pants before stuffing his sensitive cock back into them and reaching down for the cross.

 “If you ever fucking tell my dad about this–” He seethes, narrowing his eyes at you much as he had done before. 

 “Go on.” You say, voice shaking as you try to grasp back onto reality from whatever world his cock had sent you into. 

           Mark is at a loss for words, because, what could he possibly do about it if you were to tell? He looks at you, still spread out against the desk, dress crumpled on the floor, his cum seeping out of you in a messy show of how much of an absolute whore you must be. 

 “Just, don’t tell him.” He finally says, averting his eyes from you and looking at the cross in his hand. 

 “Do you feel bad already?” You ask out, finally lifting to get off of the desk.

 “Don’t you?” 

           You shake your head, struggling to stand as the seething pain of having a wooden cross stuck into you shoots through your body. “Not really.” You try to laugh, but you wince instead.

 “Did I hurt you?” He finally asks, walking up to you with a soothing hand that hands your dress out to you. 

           You’re a little shocked by his kindness. 

 “Yeah, a little.” You laugh it off though because, at the moment, it felt good. You wouldn’t have wanted any other way despite how blasphemous the act was.  

 “Oh.” Mark seems sorrowful in his tone, but his gaze doesn't leave you. “I- um, I don’t know how to make it like, not hurt?” He scratches the back of his head.

           In your attempt to put your dress back on, you do note that the pain inside of you isn’t unfamiliar. You’d been fucked hard before, but that was a long time ago. You missed this feeling, realizing that it was exactly what you think you needed. 

 “It’ll pass.” You assure him, taking a deep breath and trying to stumble your way to the door. “I guess I’ll see you next Sunday?” 

           Mark dips his head with a small nod, feeling guilty for what he’s done. Not because of the cross, not because of the sin, but because he’s unsure of how to get out of this happening again. 

 ~

[chokchokk]

𝐧𝐨 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐞 [𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐬] | choi san x fem!reader

PART ONE of : have your way with words, be my people pleaser 

“San, what else do I have to do? Draw it out? Do I have to beg?”

𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜 : You’ve always been able to read him like a book, but for some reason you still fold for San.

"You've never begged."

𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎 : fluff, smut

𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 : 6.9k

𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 : teasing, painful attempts at flirting and joking, vaginal fingering, no usage of y/n (forgive me), vaginal sex, pet-names

𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚜 : considered for revision

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎 : this was like the first choi san smut i've ever written and i was trying to find my tone and omg i actually don't want to re-read it it's probably SO CRINGY omfg. i'm sorry for any icky moments i did not know any better 2 months ago LMAO this is also the only part that's pure "fluff" just fyi because i hadn’t planned this to be a series yet !!!!

He’s biting his lip, rolling his head to the back, trying his very best to stay focused on the paper he’s working on, all while you look at him in awe from the other side of the table. His glasses have slid dangerously close to his nose tip and the hair clip you’ve put into his hair to hold it together has lost all of its strength already — you really have to pull yourself together to not carefully slide one of the locks away from his eyes. 

Yes, San is a complete mess, and undoubtedly failing at hiding it. He probably doesn’t want to ruin the late library ambience, being the thoughtful Sannie he is, or at least not destroy the study sessions by not focusing on work, but the infuriated tapping with his pen against the wooden table isn’t covering any of his angry grunts. 

But even if you’ve noticed his desperation an eternity ago and have been deeply distracted by it ever since, you can’t bare to tell him that you’ve already given up. You guys have promised each other at least one is going to get this session done, so San be it, you tell yourself. If you have counted correctly, there are just ten minutes left on the clock, he should be able to do that, no matter how stressed he is.

And usually, you’re optimistic he’s able to do it, but you’ve never seen San’s eyes darken like this before. On normal days, he’s all smiley and giggly, squeaking words of helplessness at tasks that overwhelm him, covering up his frustration very well. Of course you can still look through his façade and say things like “San, let’s take a break” or similar things, but that’s only when he’s smiling still. 

Maybe it’s because you’re both studying for finals that there’s a lot of competitiveness or ego involved. Anyhow, you don’t want to get yourself involved in that, no, don’t want to resolve it at all, actually.

Let’s say it like this; San is scaring you, yes, but he is also being incredibly hot and  turning you on so much without knowing it. You can’t help but watch his dissatisfaction being gulped down his freckled, thick neck, and observe his Adam’s apple moving up and down. You draw a trail along his jawline and the loose black T-shirt he’s wearing with your eyes, following his neckline until the rhythm of his heavy breathing is revealed by his moving breast. 

San knows a lot, yes, but what he doesn’t is that he’s a walking sex symbol with his broad shoulders, narrow waist and intimidatingly friendly face. He’s biting his lips with just no idea what his looks are doing to your privates this exact moment and his soft voice is not helping.

He’s at his last task now and you catch yourself be a bit disappointed, when he takes his hand to balance his head and covers his face with it. You could feel guilty now for not interrupting or lending him a helping hand, but being attracted to your designated study buddy for the longest time with a painful amount of allusions to it is way more straining you on an emotional level than the stalker-behaviour you’re showing. How San hasn’t caught up is baffling to you, and the amount of times you’ve tried to make a move only for him to be oblivious is painful. (Let it be known you were never forced to answer Seonghwa’s question of “would you fuck San?” with the honesty that you did, but his little sheepish smile after your nod is enough to confirm that he should know, but just doesn’t. Sure, it’s unclear until this day if he even understood the question or the answer correctly, but it just feels like you have done most of your part.)

“I’m almost done,” San murmurs— breaking the silence between you two in the library— his voice comparing to nothing more but a sigh. He’s tensed up, eyebrows furrowed, and he’s scrunching his nose a little bit to sniff his agitation away.

“Take your time,” you try to say as nicely as possible, attempting to calm him down. It does help, it seems, because San is straightening his back to take a deep breather, his eyes finally wavering away from the paper. You smile at him and get a head nod in return.

Sharing this short moment of just acknowledging each other’s presence, you confirm that San, regardless of how socially (sexually?) stupid he can be, is an intelligent guy after all, not to be shaken up by this little bit of studying. Straight A’s, perfect GPA, teacher’s favourite — you’re lucky professor Kang has put you in so many group assignments together, or else you would have never been able to meet with San like this on a Friday evening, studying for your finals.

“I feel like I ran run five miles or have to commit arson,” San jokes half-heartedly in a breath and you giggle, looking around to not disturb the other students with your laughter. “What’s stopping you?”, you ask playfully, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” San answers and touches the backside of his head with both of his hands. “What’s stopping you, hm?”

You frown, the once raised eyebrow coming right back down, your amusement wearing down.

“What’s supposed to be stopping me?”

San pouts innocently and fetches the clip from his hair, black bangs falling to his face, but he doesn’t set his glasses, making him look at you with squinted eyes. They look even heavier now, eyelids covering most of his irises when he leans forwards to you: “You haven’t touched a single task since an hour now, why didn’t you tell me you were done?”

You don’t know why you pant in panic— it’s an understandable question, San probably noticed you stared at the man during the whole time he was the only one committed to the studying— and you’re afraid there’s this tension again, but not driven to the paper, but you.

“You, lemme think, looked too..”

You know your sentence can’t be finished in any way that would be positive. You would’ve liked to end it with “concentrated” or “in the zone” to give him credibility for his hard work, but San has been way too obvious struggling to hold on, and you’re not a good liar.

“… Handsome.”

It’s not a Freudian slip, if it’s on purpose, yes.

“You looked to good to be true, San. If you weren’t wearing the baggiest shirt from three days ago, you’d coin dark-academia realness.”

You always make jokes like these, it’s your expertise. They usually make San enormously embarrassed, which is the best part of it all: He, who was growling his frustration away, is now giggling, expression softening, as he scrunches his face together with a wide smile. The high-pitched noise awakens your motherly instincts— it’s these moments you could just melt away in adoration.

“You’re lucky you’re not a professor, because that look you gave that paper right there isn’t going to help anybody concentrate on their studies. People-pleaser? Teacher's pet? I wish."

“Ugh!”, San moans quietly, his dimples revealing that he’s deeply touched. He will never get used to your overly specific (and usually sexually connotated) compliments, but it’s better that way. San cracks his fingers to recover, but then covers his mouth to hide his blushing smile once more. Take that for two people-pleasing and validation-seeking students, one more focused on studies, one more trying to fuck than the other. He barely goes to parties, which robs you of the little chances of opportunities to make a move on him.

“Okay, I won’t lie to you, I was done long before you, but someone’s gotta be valedictorian this year.”

“Really nice of you”, San sighs— he’s gathered himself now and has put on his friendly smile again, “But I’m really done now as well.”

“How done?”

“To go home-done.”

“My home, I assume.”

“Of course.”

With his finishing sentence, you hold a staring-match again, which you lose, as San takes his pile of paper and stacks it vertically to organise his stuff. 

From here, the procedure should be simple. He drives you to your place (safe), maybe he’ll eat a midnight-snack with you (very likely), and maybe watch a movie (unlikely today) to then leave, if he doesn’t fall asleep during that. You already have the night schedule written out in front of you, and all you’re left is whether you’ll convince San for another study session tomorrow.

But then, in the car, San grabs the steering wheel but doesn’t start to drive.

You think he must be too tired and decide not to ask him. Honestly, you feel quite dizzy as well, but mostly because San has opened his mouth half-way now, audibly breathing in and out — it sounds like he’s panting. His tongue has also runned along his upper lip, making it glisten reddish pink under the parking lot-lighting. It’s unbearably arousing you. “Give me just a second,” he murmurs.

“Does your head hurt? We can just walk, you know,” you suggest, but San shakes his head: “No, that’d be inefficient and really dumb.”

“You’re the one dozing off, San, not me!”, you scoff and turn yourself around to face him, elbow placed on the radio. San opens one eye — it looks like he’s winking, his tongue pressed against this upper teeth. “And you’re being quite sassy, aren’t you?”, he grins and you swear you’ve never wanted to not shut up more in your entire life.

“If being sassy is what keeps you awake, I don’t see anything wrong with it, San,” you fight back, even more playfully this time, lips pouted to emphasise your mocking tone. There is a clear, lustful intention you’re trying to project, and secretly, you hope San notices it, but there isn’t any indication he isn’t already, which you find strange.

“Oh, you think I must be real tired, huh?”

San begins to grin and all of the sudden, things are happening very fast: His hands aren’t placed on the steering wheel anymore, one of them has moved to your chin, holding (and keeping) it up, after you try to back away out of reflex, the other is placed dangerously near to your hip — he’s propping himself against the seat, you can feel him breathe against your nose tip. His whispers expand like flames on your face. What has ignited this man? 

“San?”, you ask carefully, every bit of playful confidence inside you crumbling down to your guts. It’s not like you aren’t enjoying this still, in fact, you feel like you’re going to go savage and clash your face against his any second, but San’s finger is pressing so delicately, yet so firmly into your skin, it’s messing up your projected image of the cute little — unfortunately sexy — nerd in your head. You don’t want to admit you’re intimidated, but San has been extra scary since he said he wanted to light buildings on fire. At the same time, you’ve been waiting days, no, weeks for this and a tingle between your legs signals you that you’ve been prepared ever since. 

“Can’t go home yet, can we?”

His eyes are still dark, when you look at them through his glasses and there’s a bit of shine left on his lips, when you glance at them longingly. San’s breath is shaky, and you’re not sure whether yours is as well. You’re too focused on imagining the next scene. San has finally reached his burning point, it appears, and you’re too stunned to react verbally to his question. Are you seriously going to do it in the car, in the library parking lot?

“Buckle up.”

It is only now that you notice you haven’t put your seat-belt on. The sound of the plug clocking in takes you out of your reverie. 

“San, screw you. Oh my god, screw you so much.”

He laughs a dirty laugh, even more so devilishly, when he returns to his seat and immediately begins to drive out of the parking spot. Has he been acting? Fuck this. Hastily, you have to get into your original position and buckle yourself up as he has told you. This bitch, you think to yourself and stare holes into the car window, this motherfucking bitch.

“Just a little revenge for making me work alone because you wanted to make me valedictorian? Or what, because I’m— what was it? Too handsome?” His voice has turned softer immediately, teasing you with a sweet undertone.

“Okay, we’re even now!”, you laugh sarcastically, trying to not become sulky. You’ve subconsciously crossed your legs and arms already, and your whole body is turned away from the driver’s seat.

“Sure,” San answers and you can hear him press some buttons. “Music?”

You throw him a side-eye and take the AUX. 

“I could violate your ears so good right now,” you snap and search for a fitting playlist for this frightening night.

“You could try.”

When has San become a bully? How has it come to this? San is playing with you, more obviously than ever before — toying with you in the game you started. 

But let it be known you could never be offended by this man.

Because when you play the first song that came to your mind— it’s «Sexbomb» by none other than Tom Jones — it becomes clear that you are more than happy to be his gaming companion, levelling up the tension to the max, though it's not a sensual song per se.

It’s petty, but provocative at the same time. You’ve never gotten what you wanted, have never expected to get it, and the surreality of the scenery just a few seconds ago is enough to keep you stimulated for the whole drive, ignoring San’s big grin on his face, as he safely gets you home.

And of course San joins in for the midnight meal. Without having spoken a word for a quarter hour now, you open the fridge and cram out anything eatable. You should’ve went grocery shopping, there’s barely anything left. 

“Not so prepared, I see?”

“San, if you say one more word, I will—“, you shut the door of the fridge, revealing a San who’s leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, head thrown to the back to squint at you.

“You’ll what?”

He’s the worst and heaven knows he should know that as well. Every attempt to overthrow him fails, because nothing seems to break this man — you can’t animate this man for you own good, even when he’s try-harding to look cool. 

“You’re being a bitch today and I hate it.” Biting your lip, you rethink your sentence and shake your head, eyes not swaying away from the black-haired man. “Actually, scrap that, I hate that I like it way too much,” you hiss, ridiculing yourself and taking of your sweatshirt, leaving you in a sheer top. It’s warm, you’re hot, this situation be very easy to understand. 

He doesn’t know what to do. Or maybe he does, and he’s just being a pain in the ass again: both could be absolutely true, when he moves his head and musters you from bottom to the top, a huff leaving his nose. It seems as if he’s mocking and checking you out at the same time, licking his lips and biting his tongue. 

“San, what else do I have to do? Draw it out? Do I have to beg?”

You whine and you’re not one bit embarrassed about it, though San doesn’t even take it in the desperate way you clearly are.

“You’ve never begged.”

San is scratching his neck, acting like an innocent brat, much to your obvious disapproval.

“Come on, you can’t be that dumb, San, can you?”

“How would I be?”

“San, what the fuck does that mean?”

“It’s simple,” and San is pushing himself from the wall now, taking heavy steps towards you, “I can’t give you an answer to a question you’ve never asked.”

“I,” you begin to think of your next line argument, but noticing how he’s pulling his eyebrows together to throw you an almost belittling look through his lowered glasses, you give up, baffled about the reality. Replacing the next words, you pant.

“I’ll give you an answer, alright?”, San encourages you, taking one last big step. He’s standing in front of you now, in your little kitchen, next to the counter, looking down at you, free and available as he can be. 

“Whatever it is; yes,” he whispers, accepting something you’ve never offered him directly.

Of course San isn’t dumb. How could he have been, when you’ve been so obvious? There’s a shameful heat driving up your stomach and you bite your lip.

“Baby, I’m all yours.”

You could have kept teasing him for the way he was obviously lowering his voice to sound more authoritative or sexy or something , but no, it’s just too much. Being cornered by San, hearing him surrender to you with his words, but still in a way that made him dominant over you — that is just way too much. 

Seriously, all yours?  Where did he get that one from? Wattpad?

“Fuck right off, San.”

It feels like your brain splits in half, your conscience leaving the second you throw yourself at San, hands grabbing every piece of hair you can get to pull him down to your face, whispering insults into his mouth, as your heads meet. He just grins and licks over your teeth, tongue slicking against yours.

“Happily,” he murmurs into the kiss, his hands grabbing you by your hip and waist, pulling you towards his muscular body. He must think he’s being so funny and yes you would have loved to argue with him, but you’re weak in his grip, ruffled by the pure tension that has been brewing all those days. There’s wet noises and sucking to be heard and it’s all sending urgent signals to your privates. You will, no must fuck him, and you're going to fuck him better than whatever he’s expecting from you, just to blow his mind.

You let his hair go and tug at the seam of his shirt, prompting him to raise his arms and have his clothing be slid off his body. Eagerly, you come back to his lips while throwing the shirt to the side and take steps forwards, leading San to your bedroom. Entrusting you with the guidance, he walks backwards and falls onto the bed, breaking the kiss. With a grunt, San props himself with his elbow, but before he can tower over you, you reach your arm over his shoulder, grabbing the bed frame, trying your best to keep his broad silhouette under your eyes.

Your lips already feel numb and you swear you can feel something pulsating inside your pants, when you slowly slide onto his lap and let the warm fabric touch. After a bit of movement, you and San are both shuddering and whimpering, lips meeting again in the snake-like maneuvering. He’s becoming harder with every little suck at his tongue, twitching even, and in addition, you’re becoming too impatient as well to edge yourself like this. 

Your hands move to the zipper of his baggy jeans, and San is trying to take this as a sign he’s allowed to take off his pants, but you give his palm a little slap. He smirks and returns his hand to take a pillow, stuffing it behind his neck. You wanted to take control, but he’s way too comfortable with it, it’s annoying you, yet at the same time, you wouldn’t even know what to tell him at this point.

Opening the zipper and sliding a hand in, you trail the outer side of San’s shaft through his boxer-shorts with your finger to identify with what kind of girth and length you’re working with and comment “bigger than I expected”, as if you have imagined it before, which would be the truth, yes, but not smaller than the absolute unit he is possessing.

“Ah, really?”, San gutters, voice shaking with each little touch of yours, but never letting his guard down completely. You anchor his boxer-shorts and tug it down just until the point when his shaft jumps out. He gulps and opens his mouth to pant again, when you spit into your hand and palm his shaft to give it a nice stroke from the very bottom to the top, admiring the shine of it. You pump his penis, feeling the skin inside your hand slide with every movement, and make it grow to its final length that way. It’s fascinating, really, but you’re too busy to contemplate about reality. You take the initiative and get a taste of the wet mixture that is your own saliva and his pre-cum. You pump the part you can’t reach with your throat and in no time, San’s eyes are rolling to the back.

“That’s good,” he comments, going through your hair, which motivates you to go even deeper. Hitting the back of your throat, his girth makes you tear up, but you sit through it, since San is tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, caressing your head softly. You try your best to suck and slide your tongue over his tip, to which he immediately reacts. “Hmnh~”, he hums and you bathe in his pleasure-lorn breaths, until you kind of get a hunch of what he likes the best and continue to drive him this way. “That’s good… Hnnh- heek!”

Was that a weep? You thought the whines were high enough, but San is definitely hiding his high moans, trying to cough them out. You continue to bop your head and watch his aroused expressions with amusement; his eyebrows are pushed together to form a needy frown, teeth biting down on his lower lip, inflicting pain on himself. From what it looks like, he’s pretty close, his hand weakly lying on top of your head, hesitating to push you back, once you remove it. 

“Don’t cum yet!”, you demand, and San sighs helplessly.

“You’re edging me?”, he manages to choke out with a smirk, and San wipes away your tears from your cheeks. “As if I couldn’t get hard immediately after from just looking at you!”

You scoff, his directness has caught you a little bit of guard. You’re still trying to return to normal breathing after quite literally having been choked by his dick, not be attacked by his sudden strike of confidence.

“Can I undress you?”, he asks and you nod, all the hair he’s put away falling back in front of your face.

Once your shirt and bra is off with quick seconds of his hands at your back, San is taking his view all in, his plump lips parted and never to be closed again. Before you can wipe the grin from his face, he storms at your dekolleté, swinging his arms around you. His sucks are tugging at your nipples, after he pushes himself forward, one arm fully around your back, the other finding his way to your other breast to massage it. Moan after moan leaves your mouth and your head becomes heavy, falling to the back: his hand effortlessly catches it, finding safety in your hair. As you scratch his neck, grabbing it to pull him closer to your upper body, you repeatedly pant his name.

“Hm? What?”, he reacts, circling your skin with his tongue.

It’s so erotic, you think you’re going to cum untouched, pants on and all. San is leaving kisses everywhere on your torso, some wetter than the others. He is leaving a trace of saliva on your neck with his tongue, gliding against your chin with it, ultimately meeting your lips once again. It’s filthy, but just so, so erotic.

He’s still holding your breast in his hand, stimulating your nipples while filling your mouth with a mixture of spit and rhetoric (and very provocative) questions. 

“Feels good?”, San asks with a raspy voice, his nose scrunched amusedly, when he sees how messed up you are. Strands of hair are sticking on the wet spots of your skin, drops of sweat are dripping down to your collarbones. You’re already so disheveled. “Want me to continue?”

“Yes, pl—,” You can’t find the words, as they get lost somewhere in San’s mouth, once you give him confirmation. His tongue is exploring the inner space of your mouth, and his hand has become busy with taking off your pants. You kneel, making space to let your jeans slide off your thighs and you have to raise your legs to finally get rid of it. Your panties are still on, when he lets his hand slide between your legs. His hand feels warmer than the heat that you have become, and when San finds your clitoris through the fine fabric, you spasm to the front. You bury your face into his shoulder and bite a small inch of his skin, when he begins to stroke that spot with two of his fingers and nibbles at your ear and whispers sweet nothings into it.

“So wet.”

Sharp breaths escape your breast, as he begins to play for your swollen clitoris.

“Come on, tell me what to do. There must be some things on your mind, right?”

San is luring you into a false sense of control and you’re stupid enough to obey his command. It’s just like he said; you need him, you need San, and if he doesn’t stop acting like he doesn’t know, you’re going to combust.

“Fuck, San, just make me feel—“, and though you can’t exactly hear yourself whine out from all the licking happening at your ear and his callous finger caressing your most sensitive area through the fabric, you still know you’re sighing, “so good.”

Your eyes lose focus, when you feel your panties disappear from your pussy, the cold air surprising your sensitive spot.

San sneers and finger-guns you, but before you can sneer, he sticks it into your mouth, lubing his digit up with your spit to carefully ease it to your pussy.

He groans and moves around the moisture for a short moment. San has always had quite thick fingers, but it feels even more robust now, when it slides into you. You clench around him and move your hips to the painfully slow pace of his pumps.

“Be patient. We don’t want you to hurt, do we?”

That he’s staying the nice little Sannie even in this situation makes you want to go insane, but not more than the slight scissoring to confirm your stretched innards.

“Patient enough?”, you hiss and grind against his hand again, to which San only coos, “Patient like the good girl you are.”

By then, his words and movements are almost like magic, when he angles his finger a little bit and finds your g-spot, which sends you into a short moment full of sparks and bliss, but a long, aching eternity, when it’s only repeated in the unbearably long intervals after a little bit of pulsating. You’re feeling every movement in such a detail, as if his one singular finger is becoming one with your body, one with your senses. 

“Is this enough for you?”

You’re whirring and your mind is babbling nonsense from all the possibilities San is presenting you. Mushy and messed up, you move against his finger, which slips with ease through your wetness, while you try to figure out what you want more: San’s dick or San’s face.

“I’m waiting for an answer, you know,” San whispers, softly kissing your forehead, as he continues to finger you.

“Th- then eat me out,” you whine under your breath and something inside you churns, when he giggles and removes his finger. He raises you by your legs, pushing you by the hip at the same time. You’re on your back now, breathing heavily as San is aligning his face in front of your entrance.

“With pleasure,” he hums and spreads your legs with his elbows, putting you on full display. It’s much too late to feel embarrassed now. You’re not shaved, you basically haven’t done anything, but maybe the rawness of it all is what intrigues you as well.

He stretches the skin a bit with both of his hands, making it get used to the position, while he peppers soft kisses on each of your thighs, that tickle each spot of your skin. You relax into his hands and naturally, you exhale the tension out of you.

His tongue feels soft and hot compared to his finger, when he slides it from the very bottom to the top, sending a shiver to your spine. It’s sensual and slow, and it does appear to you that San is savouring the taste, pushing his whole tongue against your labia to get the full picture of it. You shudder, a mixture of your own pulsating muscle and his humming vibrating between your legs.

He sucks on your clit and you notice immediately how pleasured are, already grabbing your sheets and curling your toes, pushing your legs against his hands he’s using to keep you opened. “Fuck,” you whine and move your head to the back, yearning for more stimulation. A slight chuckle leaves San’s mouth, until he plunges his tongue into you whilst continuing to suck all the sex juice that leaks out of you. The breath leaving his nose warms your privates and you quite figuratively melt into his mouth.

This time, he doesn’t need a lot of searching for your g-spot with his fingers and you weren’t prepared to immediately be sent back to pleasure-haven. He slides through the rough walls from the inside of you and doesn’t leave any spot go untouched, while he catches anything leaving out of your pussy with his mouth, creating squelching sounds all around. 

The pleasure at your clitoris and the pitter-pattering inside you is slowly tying the knot, and you shut your eyes with unavoidable whines leaving your lips. It’s all happening way too fast for you to react to each and every motion.

“Fuck, San, don’t stop, I’m— Oh, fuck—!”

The wet sounds of San’s saliva being mixed with your sex fluids, and his fingers moving in- and out of you again, they’re all adding onto the roller-coaster drop of your orgasm, but San thirstily panting “cum, cum for me!” against your vulva —while his tongue is busy pleasuring you—, his hot breath condensing against your own heat, that’s got to be one of the many significant factors that finally sends you over the top.

You moan and drive your lower body against his face, thighs closing down on him to squeeze his head.

San doesn’t even think about stopping there though and keeps you up there: He thunders his finger to push your button continuously and get every remaining squirt into his mouth, his tongue shovelling it all in.

“San, I— fuck! Please, San,” you beg, though it’s not a plead for him to stop, but rather make this moment last forever. You’re shaking, your pelvis is trembling towards his sharp nose that’s dug into your private hair, before you collapse onto your mattress and San eventually stops, grinning pridefully.

His lips are swollen pink, eyes covered with a desirous veil and San has to swipe his bangs away from his face to look at  your exhausted expression that’s still recovering from that hell of a heavenly orgasm. He swallows whatever’s left inside his mouth and leans over to you in order to bathe in your bliss. Out of pure gratitude, you cup his face and kiss him.

“You look all messed up already,” he admits, and enjoyment can be heard in his voice. Returning the kiss, San prompts: “Can you handle a second round? Or want to handle a second round, that is.”

Still panting, you nod eagerly, your lips grazing against his repeatedly.

“With words, lovely.”

You whine at his mendacious, know-it-all smile and give him a slap. "Quit it with the fucking-, ugh!" With an airy voice, you groan: “Yes, San. Please. I can handle, want to handle— want you to handle me, right fucking now."

San pats your head, pressing another kiss on your forehead and crams through the night stand cabinet next to the bed, probably searching for a condom and finding an untouched package full of it.

“Freshly-bought or just unused?”, he asks jokingly, putting the hand on your cheek as if he was pitying you for your minimalistic sex life that he’s assuming. The other hand is occupied opening up the box. “When did you buy these?”, he lisps, holding the condom in his mouth to rip it open, “I hope these aren’t expired.”

“Expire my ass!”

Oh, he better know you were keeping those for a good reason every time he came over. (Though you’ll keep it a secret it took half a year to get them to use.)

“You should say how fortunate that there’s so many, San.” You sniff. “’Cause hell knows this isn’t going to be—“

San slips into the latex layer with ease and doesn’t hesitate to enter your hole with one big, smooth slide. His finger is nothing compared to the thickness you’re experiencing; you just feel full, the stretch inside you making you feel like your body is being turned inside out. Before you can finish your clap-back, a wrecked and whole-hearted moan leaves your mouth.

“Isn’t going to be what?”, San asks, lowering his upper body and ultimately pulling out a little bit, sticking a thumb into your open mouth, “The last time? Is that what it is? You know you’ll want this again? Really, sweetheart?”

You don’t even want to form words anymore and just nod eagerly, sucking at his finger that tastes slightly acidic.

“It’s so dangerous to say that, you know that?”, and he’s pressing his forehead against yours, his dark, deep eyes staring into you with suffocating concentration. His hand is buried deep in your scalp. “Because you don’t know how happy that would make me”, San purrs with a raspy voice, and an airy moan leaves his mouth the second he thrusts right back into you. “So, so, unfathomably happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. I’m going to make you my little happy whore.”

It has already occurred to you that San had taken it as a challenge to call you every pet name that exists, but for him to degrade you like that, after every single word of of his sweet-talk has entranced you into numbing euphoria, has now just taken you to another state of pure bliss. With every creak of your bed and tug at your hair, your vision gets more blurry. You can see San and only San, piercing through you with his genitalia and eyes.

“Did you get that?”

“Y- yes!”

"I don't think so."

Your forehead cools down, when San gets his body back up again and installs his hands at your hips to get a good grab and also drive himself even deeper into you.

This has been your wet daydream for the longest of time— and even if you apparently could have been fucking him already during all those hours, which is frustrating, yes, but so, so fucking hot— listening to San’s sounds of pleasure, seeing his vision get all hazed from it and watching his eyes moving to the back of his, makes it all worth it. 

He pulls in and out again, finding a steady pace to really feel your inner space expand and close down on him again.

“Are you going to fuck me stupid?”, you lisp into his finger, your saliva sliding down your lip, cooling your fever down.

You can feel he’s sweating as well, as your fingers search through the cold wetness of his hair. "Do you want me to fuck you stupid?”

“Yes! Yes, please. Fuck me stupid, San!”

And with that appellation, San removes the thumb from your mouth and collars your throat with an almost animalistic growl and thrusts with ridiculous precision and force at the same time, a loud clap echoing through your bedroom. You’re not sure whether you’ve made a mistake, but San is absolutely blinded by pure desire now. With a slight choke, you try to moan, his shaft moving in and out of you mindlessly.

As he pounds into you, you notice once more that San’s breaths are being cut short because he’s still trying to stay as quiet as possible and you stare him down, his fingers collaring your neck.

“I, I want you to—“, you stutter, gasping for air and trying to catch up with your shaken body, “‘want to hear you moan. Moan for me, San, please!”

He laughs a little bit, panting along your plead and places his lips against your earlobe, letting you breathe freely for the short moment he's roaring things into it, his hand tangled in your hair.

“You, hah, feel just as delicious as you taste. You feel so good around my big cock. I bet you’ve never, unnh, had a big cock like mine, haven’t you? Never had someone like me, shit, fuck you out like this. How, ah, fuck, long have you been fantasizing this, huh? Days? Weeks? Months? Stupid little girl, thinks I didn't know, haha."

His breathy moans are absolute angelic, and that’s all you can comprehend, when you slowly feel your mind drift away. He’s hitting the spots just right, pressing your buttons with aligned movements. His thrusts are becoming sloppy, your moaning more strained. You don't even care that San is showing you that everything you knew was a lie, or at least an act he's kept up to mock you, because if your obliviousness has led to this moment— his cock crashing through you with a pace that makes you fear the next morning— then yes, again, it was all really worth it.

"I'm gonna—", you whine, and you're cut off by his hand again. Your eyes can barely perceive his sex-drunk expression, when you feel the knot inside you preparing itself for explosion.

"You're gonna cum?", San asks, his heavy breathing making it sound like he's gasping, "Are you going to cum for me?"

"Yes, I am!", you grunt and the male licks his whole palm to lube it up in order to rub it around your clitoris for maximum pleasure. You shiver, your legs trying to free themselves from the heavy weight that is Choi San, and screams for mercy leave your mouth, your second orgasm sending you to heaven, hell and back to earth, when he pulls out and continues to slide his hand over your clitoris until you spasm away from his touch. In the meanwhile, San has taken the collar off your neck and resumed jacking himself off, moaning your name and other pretty words to himself.

"You're so pretty like this, fuck," he cusses, the squelching sounds in his hands becoming more inaudible. "So fucked-out, because of me— shit .. I'll—"

He grabs you by your head, pulling his own face closer to yours to meet your lips for the last time, quickly removing the condom. Sharing a deep kiss, he ejaculates onto your abdomen, moaning from his own release into your opened lips. You lay there, wordlessly, your brain both foggy and clear as it has never been. You feel your warm sweat dry refreshingly on your skin and San shuffles away from the bed, walking to the bathroom with practiced steps to discard the empty condom and return with a towel to get you clean.

"And?", he asks, as you search for your pillow to clench onto it, feeling the stretched skin inside you. Sure, San has somewhat prepared you for the fucking, but no metronome could replicate the cruel rhythm he made you cum with.

"What, and?", you ask him back, your voice a bit raspy from the loud moaning.

"How was it?" 

San looks completely innocent again and it baffles you that you're falling for it again, even when his hair is forming unholy strands, immoral sweat dropping from his chin as he speaks. It's a cringe-worthy question and you would have dismissed it, if it wasn't for the cuddle you got from him.

"Come on, was it up to your imagination?", San begs you to answer, burying your body between his heated-up arms.

"Yes," you answer weakly. "Sannie, you’ve.. You've done your job. That was S-Level people pleasing, really."

San grins, placing multiple kisses over your temple and forehead. "You have such a way with words," he comments, "good thing that it really brings you far in life, hm?"

Was this the right time to make dad-jokes?

No, but nobody has fucked you out like San, so you'll let it slide. Even the corny "eating you out for breakfast" quip he makes in the morning, when you both notice that the fridge is still very much empty, or the "from study- to fuck-buddies" monologue he holds on your drive back to campus, you'll all let it slide. 

(And maybe you're stating the obvious here, but poor Seonghwa is never going to forgive you for San's laugh after you say something sensational with "letting it slide" used in another context, this time in the narrow space of his residency-bedroom, his roomie having listened to all the sounds coming out of your mouth behind the thin walls.)

part two: “into it, too deep”

[socialist-microwave-laser]

your post regarding christians learning hebrew made me consider - i'm anishinaabe (ojibwe or chippewa or native american or however you call it) and so i very much hope this does not derail you and is instead only the shared experience i mean it to be - it reminds me of how white people and the descendants of colonizers will mystify & then appropriate native medicine and mythology, our art, languages, and cultures, because they think it has secret ancient magic powers, and that everybody who actually practices that medicine or speaks that language is dead and gone, and that indigenous people are ancient history. when we are still alive and around and speaking those languages and practicing that medicine today. and the only reason we would even be all dead and gone anyways is if the colonizers who now appropriate our culture had succeeded in their plan to wipe us out!! anyways that's just a thought, like i said, i hope this only comes across as solidarity of some sort, i read your post and really felt i related to the experience!

oh this isn't a derailment at all!!! something i've noticed a lot but feel like i don't know enough about to be eloquent with it is the similarities between a lot of indigenous cultures and jewish cultures. idk it's super cool. shoutout to Really Fucking Old cultures and traditions surviving through and despite everything

there was a celebration for 40 years of democracy here in argentina at la plaza de mayo on saturday. lots of argentinian flags everywhere, big concert stage set up, the works. my friend and i went to an encampment on the casa rosada side that i had noticed a few times before. they had hand-painted signs talking about how they're from an indigenous self-advocacy group that has been trying to get an audience with the president for two years and three months. to support their continued stay on la plaza, they had a shop of homemade materials like bags, scarves, baskets, and more. i ended up buying gifts for my siblings, a gorgeous rainbow scarf with designs the man was telling me had all unique meanings and symbolisms in mapuche culture, and a handmade necklace of the tree of life. i told him that being jewish i'm always on the lookout for more scarves i can use to cover my head, and he told me he hopes this will serve me well (it has, i'm in love with it already). when he told me about the tree of life necklace, i told him judaism has similar symbolism, called etz hayim. he thanked me for teaching him the term

i don't know if that was a particularly impactful exchange for him, but there was some sort of solidarity i immediately felt, like our fights are intertwined (as are all our fights but you know what i mean). you put at least some reasons why that solidarity exists here into words. we are parts of cultures that have faced and are still facing attempted genocide after attempted genocide, and yet we are still here, embodying our people and not backing down. as people try to relegate us to some mystical past, we are vocal and fight back. solidarity to you anon, ily and i wish you the best. please feel free to talk to me more about this

i've reached out to the indigenous organizers currently camping out in front of la casa rosada but as of writing this i haven't gotten a response. the website hasn't been updated in a bit, but i'll add what information i have so that more people can learn about this fight in argentina (i'm realizing as i add this stuff that almost everything is in spanish lmao. i'm going to reblog this with the photos of their signs and translations of each. if your browser doesn't automatically translate these links please lmk and i'd be happy to help out anybody interested in learning more)

information about the org:

a story about a previous protest:

a story about the current encampment:

[ashlynniis-bracketeers]

UNCHAINED SANGUINEOUS HEARTMAKER {Guilty Gear}

Riding the high of a resounding Epiphany.

...Did I pull another "Desdinova" purely out of sheer A.B.A hopium? (I kept the lines sketchy, though, because I could not be arsed to try and mimic Strive's linework style again after the pain from last time ahjsdgajhsdgadk)

Yes. Yes I did.

So, those Season 3 character survey results, huh? The A.B.A hopium is real. I really do wonder what they'd do with her if she was brought to Strive, so I decided to try my hand at a "Strive-ified" A.B.A design.

Make sure to check under the cut for the "concept art" I made + their associated information.

So, design background info:

So, she's a... weirdo homunculus, right? An artificial human, created by a mad scientist she never met, so she was alone and never really learned how to... "people". That key in her head also keeps on reminding me of the bolts lodged in the sides of pop-culture-ified Adam's (Frankenstein's monster) head. She's also desperately trying to find a human(oid) body for the demon/magical foci Paracelsus/Flament Nagel, who she is deeply in love with. Artificially-created human, medical themes, artificial human form, deeply in love...

So what if she decided that, with her attempts at finding a body for him repeatedly failing (XX endings don't count, XX's canonicity is completely FUCKED lmao), why doesn't she just... create one herself instead?

In other words, the creation becomes the creator. Lil' bit of "Bride of Frankenstein" thrown in, if the guy making the bride (or in this case, groom) was the monster itself.

So, making her into a key-axe-wielding mad scientist homunculus.

I tried to make her pose reminiscent of a dance move, specifically a "dip".

I hope you like it!

GG ABA Strive fandesign sheet 01

The first drawing I got done of my design for A.B.A (featuring a base-shapes Paracelsus for scale). Featuring her color palette (F1 is base flesh, F2 is scarring, H is hair, B is bandages, C1 is primary coat color, C2 is secondary coat color, C3 is tertiary coat color, E is "edges", M1 is one of the metal colors, A is "accents", M2 is the second metal color, and the square below that is the eye colors), weird ragged patchwork "lab-coat", boot details, "branding", and some of the text on her design.

- The phrase printed along the front edge of her coat (and the heels of her boots) is "LOCK&SEE" (the "&" stylized to look like/replaced with a keyhole symbol), a spin on the phrase "Lock and Key", fitting with her obsession with keys and tendency towards twisting sayings/phrases into mondegreens. Also implies hiding something.

- The brand on the back of her coat is meant to look like the coffin shape on the back of Paracelsus's head during Moroha Mode, with the nose hole and right eye hole visible. Text above it reads "PARACELSUS" (with the P and R stylized to have curved horns in the back like MM Para), and the text underneath reads "FLAMENT NAGEL" (with similar "horn" stylization on the F).

- The scarring is damage from her not wearing proper protective gear during her experiments (because she doesn't seem like one to wear proper PPE lmao), much of it taking up most of the left side of her upper torso/arm (meant to mirror Strive Faust's stitching).

- She's both grimy and very... "DIY", so her stitching is very hodgepodge.

- The text along the stitching on the back of her coat reads "The More The Moodier.", a play on one of her mondegreen win-quotes in XX (against I-No: "People say "the more the gloomier", but she's just too much to take...") but with the same alliteration as "the more the merrier" which it was derived from.

- The brand on the right side of her shorts is the same as on her back, but without the "FLAMENT NAGEL" and with "PARACELSUS" underneath instead of above.

- The key markings (gloves, boots) all have the same key-blade shape as Paracelsus.

- I had some trouble figuring out some of her colors, as they differed between the sprites (blue metal, glove. and trim) and official artwork (dark brown metal + glove, blue trim), so I decided to have dark brown for the keys and dark blue for the studded trim and left glove.

- The laces of her boots and the buttons on her coat are meant to resemble Para's mouth stitches

- Made her head-key/neck keys have a little skull decoration similar to some of her XX art (it's very inconsistent).

GG ABA Strive fandesign sheet 02

The second "Strive-ified" A.B.A design sheet I made.

- Both of the large gloves look the same, with the red bands and Paracelsus-blade key markings.

- The dark blue left-hand glove is (mostly) the same. I like to think that it's her "woobie", what with her tendency to get attached to inanimate objects.

- The dark blue cropped tank-top is meant to only be visible in Moroha. The text reads "MOCK&KEY" (the "&" stylized to look like/replaced with a stylized keyhole symbol, the top part of the keyhole meant to look like a coffin), another spin on "Lock and Key" like the previously-mentioned "LOCK&SEE" compounded with her believing herself to be superior to humans. Moroha is what was locked-up.

GG ABA Strive fandesign sheet 03

Third sheet I made.

- Noting specific design changes during Moroha. Coat opens + key "eyes" gain red glow.

- Design for her head + neck keys.

- Design for her bloodpacks. Text reads "FRASCO". Symbol underneath meant to look like a "flask" shape made out of an upside-down keyhole.

GG ABA Strive fandesign sheet 04 (Para)

The fourth sheet I made, featuring Paracelsus and his colors.

I honestly didn't change much lmao. His design is already weird by GG standards, mostly just tweaked some things.

- Made his eyes asymmetrical. Right has small iris and no pupil, left has beady pupil. Wanted to make him look "cartoony (western) neurotic/nervous" while hinting at his "main" glowy eye in Moroha being his right eye.

- I blurred/smudged the blood along the bottom edge to imply that A.B.A dragging him around wore away some of it.

- I added some spikes to his collar for a "punk" look, which glow red in Moroha.

- I kept his mouth stitches in Moroha. The mouth-corner stitches remain, while the middle stitches are tied around his left horn.

GG ABA Strive fandesign sheet 05

The final sheet I made, featuring mechanic ideas, "meta" stuff, and a design for repurposing an older move into a reversal super.

- Non-replenishable resources don't really fly in Strive, so I decided to make them replenishable through an alternate version of Bonding (a.k.a Keygrab). One Keygrab variant for Moroha, one Keygrab variant for a bloodpack. Starts off with no bloodpacks. Max three bloodpacks at a time. Functionality basically the same as XX.

- Turned Altercation (i.e. Enter Goku Moroha) into a Moroha-exclusive reversal super. Goku Moroha is not something that flies by modern fighting game characters, let alone Strive, so GM would definitely get axed. Still keeping Altercation as an absolute weirdo of a move, taking different resources depending on how much she has of each.

- Not sure what to actually do with Moroha's function/moveset, but having an "Install" state is the big thing that defines A.B.A's playstyle, so she'd probably keep at least base Moroha.

- Evidence: Concealment becomes a full reversal that only hits one hit as opposed to three, because most people cancel it after the first hit anyway lmao