#my dream would be......... sai............ on ios...................

[clumsypuppy]

Was nobody gonna warn me that I would fall a little bit in love with every character in Stardew

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Are the means of computation even seizable?

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH in TOMORROW (May 15) at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. More tour dates (London, Manchester) here.

Something's very different in tech. Once upon a time, every bad choice by tech companies – taking away features, locking out mods or plugins, nerfing the API – was countered, nearly instantaneously, by someone writing a program that overrode that choice.

Bad clients would be muscled aside by third-party clients. Locked bootloaders would be hacked and replaced. Code that confirmed you were using OEM parts, consumables or adapters would be found and nuked from orbit. Weak APIs would be replaced with muscular, unofficial APIs built out of unstoppable scrapers running on headless machines in some data-center. Every time some tech company erected a 10-foot enshittifying fence, someone would show up with an 11-foot disenshittifying ladder.

Those 11-foot ladders represented the power of interoperability, the inescapable bounty of the Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machine, which, by definition, is capable of running every valid program. Specifically, they represented the power of adversarial interoperability – when someone modifies a technology against its manufacturer's wishes. Adversarial interoperability is the origin story of today's tech giants, from Microsoft to Apple to Google:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

But adversarial interop has been in steady decline for the past quarter-century. These big companies moved fast and broke things, but no one is returning the favor. If you ask the companies what changed, they'll just smirk and say that they're better at security than the incumbents they disrupted. The reason no one's hacked up a third-party iOS App Store is that Apple's security team is just so fucking 1337 that no one can break their shit.

I think this is nonsense. I think that what's really going on is that we've made it possible for companies to design their technologies in such a way that any attempt at adversarial interop is illegal.

"Anticircumvention" laws like Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act make bypassing any kind of digital lock (AKA "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM") very illegal. Under DMCA, just talking about how to remove a digital lock can land you in prison for 5 years. I tell the story of this law's passage in "Understood: Who Broke the Internet," my new podcast series for the CBC:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/08/who-broke-the-internet/#bruce-lehman

For a quarter century, tech companies have aggressively lobbied and litigated to expand the scope of anticircumvention laws. At the same time, companies have come up with a million ways to wrap their products in digital locks that are a crime to break.

Digital locks let Chamberlain, a garage-door opener monopolist block all third-party garage-door apps. Then, Chamberlain stuck ads in its app, so you have to watch an ad to open your garage-door:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Digital locks let John Deere block third-party repair of its tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

And they let Apple block third-party repair of iPhones:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

These companies built 11-foot ladders to get over their competitors' 10-foot walls, and then they kicked the ladder away. Once they were secure atop their walls, they committed enshittifying sins their fallen adversaries could only dream of.

I've been campaigning to abolish anticircumvention laws for the past quarter-century, and I've noticed a curious pattern. Whenever these companies stand to lose their legal protections, they freak out and spend vast fortunes to keep those protections intact. That's weird, because it strongly implies that their locks don't work. A lock that works works, whether or not it's illegal to break that lock. The reason Signal encryption works is that it's working encryption. The legal status of breaking Signal's encryption has nothing to do with whether it works. If Signal's encryption was full of technical flaws but it was illegal to point those flaws out, you'd be crazy to trust Signal.

Signal does get involved in legal fights, of course, but the fights it gets into are ones that require Signal to introduce defects in its encryption – not fights over whether it is legal to disclose flaws in Signal or exploit them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

But tech companies that rely on digital locks manifestly act like their locks don't work and they know it. When the tech and content giants bullied the W3C into building DRM into 2 billion users' browsers, they categorically rejected any proposal to limit their ability to destroy the lives of people who broke that DRM, even if it was only to add accessibility or privacy to video:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

The thing is, if the lock works, you don't need the legal right to destroy the lives of people who find its flaws, because it works.

Do digital locks work? Can they work? I think the answer to both questions is a resounding no. The design theory of a digital lock is that I can provide you with an encrypted file that your computer has the keys to. Your computer will access those keys to decrypt or sign a file, but only under the circumstances that I have specified. Like, you can install an app when it comes from my app store, but not when it comes from a third party. Or you can play back a video in one kind of browser window, but not in another one. For this to work, your computer has to hide a cryptographic key from you, inside a device you own and control. As I pointed out more than a decade ago, this is a fool's errand:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

After all, you or I might not have the knowledge and resources to uncover the keys' hiding place, but someone does. Maybe that someone is a person looking to go into business selling your customers the disenshittifying plugin that unfucks the thing you deliberately broke. Maybe it's a hacker-tinkerer, pursuing an intellectual challenge. Maybe it's a bored grad student with a free weekend, an electron-tunneling microscope, and a seminar full of undergrads looking for a project.

The point is that hiding secrets in devices that belong to your adversaries is very bad security practice. No matter how good a bank safe is, the bank keeps it in its vault – not in the bank-robber's basement workshop.

For a hiding-secrets-in-your-adversaries'-device plan to work, the manufacturer has to make zero mistakes. The adversary – a competitor, a tinkerer, a grad student – only has to find one mistake and exploit it. This is a bedrock of security theory: attackers have an inescapable advantage.

So I think that DRM doesn't work. I think DRM is a legal construct, not a technical one. I think DRM is a kind of magic Saran Wrap that manufacturers can wrap around their products, and, in so doing, make it a literal jailable offense to use those products in otherwise legal ways that their shareholders don't like. As Jay Freeman put it, using DRM creates a new law called "Felony Contempt of Business Model." It's a law that has never been passed by any legislature, but is nevertheless enforceable.

In the 25 years I've been fighting anticircumvention laws, I've spoken to many government officials from all over the world about the opportunity that repealing their anticircumvention laws represents. After all, Apple makes $100b/year by gouging app makers for 30 cents on ever dollar. Allow your domestic tech sector to sell the tools to jailbreak iPhones and install third party app stores, and you can convert Apple's $100b/year to a $100m/year business for one of your own companies, and the other $999,900,000,000 will be returned to the world's iPhone owners as a consumer surplus.

But every time I pitched this, I got the same answer: "The US Trade Representative forced us to pass this law, and threatened us with tariffs if we didn't pass it." Happy Liberation Day, people – every country in the world is now liberated from the only reason to keep this stupid-ass law on their books:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

In light of the Trump tariffs, I've been making the global rounds again, making the case for an anticircumvention repeal:

https://www.ft.com/content/b882f3a7-f8c9-4247-9662-3494eb37c30b

One of the questions I've been getting repeatedly from policy wonks, activists and officials is, "Is it even possible to jailbreak modern devices?" They want to know if companies like Apple, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, and John Deere have created unbreakable digital locks. Obviously, this is an important question, because if these locks are impregnable, then getting rid of the law won't deliver the promised benefits.

It's true that there aren't as many jailbreaks as we used to see. When a big project like Nextcloud – which is staffed up with extremely accomplished and skilled engineers – gets screwed over by Google's app store, they issue a press-release, not a patch:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/nextcloud-accuses-google-of-big-tech-gatekeeping-over-android-app-permissions/

Perhaps that's because the tech staff at Nextcloud are no match for Google, not even with the attacker's advantage on their side.

But I don't think so. Here's why: we do still get jailbreaks and mods, but these almost exclusively come from anonymous tinkerers and hobbyists:

https://consumerrights.wiki/Mazda_DMCA_takedown_of_Open_Source_Home_Assistant_App

Or from pissed off teenagers:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

These hacks are incredibly ambitious! How ambitious? How about a class break for every version of iOS as well as an unpatchable hardware attack on 8 years' worth of Apple bootloaders?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/25/mafia-logic/#sosumi

Now, maybe it's the case at all the world's best hackers are posting free code under pseudonyms. Maybe all the code wizards working for venture backed tech companies that stand to make millions through clever reverse engineering are just not as mad skilled as teenagers who want an ad-free Insta and that's why they've never replicated the feat.

Or maybe it's because teenagers and anonymous hackers are just about the only people willing to risk a $500,000 fine and 5-year prison sentence. In other words, maybe the thing that protects DRM is law, not code. After all, when Polish security researchers revealed the existence of secret digital locks that the train manufacturer Newag used to rip off train operators for millions of euros, Newag dragged them into court:

https://fsfe.org/news/2025/news-20250407-01.en.html

Tech companies are the most self-mythologizing industry on the planet, beating out even the pharma sector in boasting about their prowess and good corporate citizenship. They swear that they've made a functional digital lock…but they sure act like the only thing those locks do is let them sue people who reveal their workings.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/14/pregnable/#checkm8

[dreamlikevening]

What Are You Birthing This Season? 🐇🌱⛅️🌷

Pick a Fabergé Egg 🪺

🥚 One

note - i used the ios dictation feature to feel more personally connected to your energies so the text is actually my spoken words translated into my phone, i made some minor grammatical edits so bear that in mind hehe

What are you birthing?

OK hello hello testing OK testing testing? I’m getting the image of a microphone 🎤 music notes. could be a musician. The word “hints” came to mind, somebody who’s into mystery-detective novels. The page of wands came out — energy of discovering a new passion so right off the bat, something that you are birthing… this season is a more curious and discovery oriented approach to life where you are seeking out new things where you can get new joys. It is also ace of cups energy finding something new that you are grateful for and enjoy the endeavor of stepping into it and this can play out in so many ways new enjoyable relationship, relationships, new conversations to have with people talking about topics that are refreshing to hear and to converse about rather than focusing on the past and old topics (old shadowy topics). It’s stepping into YOUR energy. We also have two of wands so there’s a lot here about adventuring and exploring. so let’s see what you were actually birthing with this energy of getting out there to make new findings. What are your birthing? you are getting recognized for something (more likely than not, it is a creative endeavor) At the beginning we did have those musical notes that I channeled you’re getting recognized for some sort of creative endeavor or an activity that you do that requires a lot of going with your instinct going with what your heart is saying, kind of the decorative design of your mind rather than the analytical. rather than the structured and methodical. you could be very highly celebrated for this so let’s find out what it is. It is definitely something newer to you so for example, with the microphone, it would be let’s say you’ve recently started learning how to sing then you will be soon recognized for your natural abilities and your approach to singing and even though it is new to you and you’re still learning about it growing curious about it trying to figure it out, people already see you as really talented in this aspect the way you are birthing the scale is simply by curiosity and it is related to you getting out there in the world. it could get you to many interesting places not just physical, but also mental so new ways of being that can really bring out your true self is what I’m getting. so overall, you are birthing great recognition, and a more expanded way of being where you are less restricted and less calculated. You literally have four fire cards, and then the world which I think just really represents the energy that you are going to be thriving in!

Why is it important for you?

OK, so why is this energy important for you? I am using angel cards and we got “Employment Change - your career path is leading you in a higher direction with positive changes to support your dreams priorities passions in life purpose.” this is kind of a super clear message, but this birth is important because it is going to serve a very specific and heightened purpose in your life when it comes to how you earn income when it comes to how you feel aligned and together and like you’ve got your life purpose in check. 10th house qualities so your 10th house placement could be significant at the time of this birth!

How to get closer to this “birth”?

As for how to attain it, how to tap into this energy. how can group one tap into this exploring energy? “Bountiful Nature - spending time in nature helps shift you to a higher vibration and reminds you of God‘s infinite abundance.” this is very self-explanatory the way you will attain this energy is by spending more time outside getting some air, touching some grass being around trees around flowers going to gardens even if it’s just sitting out in a patio, a backyard, front porch if you’re a musician — using nature as your muse, if you are a writer using nature as your muse. taking inspiration from nature and creating something out of it, painting an artwork about flowers, drawing and doodling flowers, writing a poem about animals anything related to nature tap into that even looking up facts about nature anything anything! that is how you will tap into this inspired and “willing to explore energy” that will grant you this creative power that is being birthed by you🌻🌱.

🥚 Two

note - i used the ios dictation feature to feel more personally connected to your energies so the text is actually my spoken words translated into my phone, i made some minor grammatical edits so bear that in mind hehe

What are you birthing?

hello hello 222 what are you birthing? Also welcome you are birthing. It seems the star energy as well as six of cups energy oh and another card wanted to come out (10 of swords) OK when it comes to matters of healing, you stand out to people. you inspire other people to begin to leave things in the past. leave the bad in the past. you have a very generous caring star energy that makes people want to look at you. Look forward to seeing you and also looking forward to see what they can learn from you and take from you. This isn’t the kind of take where it affects you negatively, but it’s the kind of taking from you where a person is willing to listen to you except you, as you are and embrace themselves as a result of who you are which is very inspiring, kind role model energy so I am getting that you are birthing connections where you feel okay and you actually feel stronger and more empowered by giving to others something that actually benefits them and benefits you. it is harmonious energy so you are birthing those kinds of life connections. Let’s see what else you are birthing, OK it seems you are definitely birthing connection and birthing the ability to show up. This means showing up for yourself, showing up for others, showing up for matters of the heart, things that light you up. you are able to showcase those things or make them prominent and stand out in your life, so let’s say you have a passion for a certain musical group or a passion for making clothes. This would be a season of your life where you are promoting your passion for this thing, whether it be by posting all your thoughts and insights on fashion on a blog or talking very much about an artist you really love. This is just being open to the world and really demonstrating those things that make you you to the rest of the world and deriving connections to other people through just that. Ace of pentacles and I hear “this will make you coin” !!

(cards were the star, six of cups, ten of swords, & the sun)

Why is it important for you?

it is important for you because it will raise your energy levels. Also raise magnetism levels. There’s actually imagery in this card with two white doves. There’s a planet earth in the palm of the angel’s hands. The angel is carrying a basket of flowers and there’s a black and white bunny below her, she is surrounded by pretty flowers in the garden type scenery so this birth will grant you more energy more vitality more ability to notice the beauty around you because of the meaning that is placed behind the things you are sharing with the world. You’ll look forward to giving and sharing, therefore life will look forward to giving back to you. This is for sure increasing manifestation abilities because you are putting things out there in the world and things that match what you’re putting out there will return back to you in a very meaningful and joyful way.

How to get closer to this “birth”?

I was given a one liner for you: “Consistently working on your priorities will make them flourish like a lush flower garden.”

^ angel oracle card titled - “Do The Work”

Thank you so much for being here! Please share your insights if any <3

🥚 Three

note - i used the ios dictation feature to feel more personally connected to your energies so the text is actually my spoken words translated into my phone, i made some minor grammatical edits so bear that in mind hehe

What are you birthing?

Group 3 I am excited to see what you are birthing so let’s get into it. What is group 3birthing? OK that was fast nine of swords in reverse, wheel of Fortune. You are birthing a surprising outcome in your life. Something unexpected — most likely linked to a thing you overthink a lot something that causes you a lot of anxiety. There is an unexpected factor here that is going to come in and swing this situation in a different direction. Stork imagery, and this could be related to your household. I just saw the 10 of pentacles. family… themes of the home. The surprising factor here - night of swords, new communication coming in receiving some piece of information that was not present before. hearing about a person that you were not expecting to hear about. hearing a story or an update on a situation that you were not expecting to receive at all. this seems completely out of left field. it seems like an answer to something where you were close-minded. this is definitely about getting clarity over something where you felt very unlucky very unclear where you were lacking answers and it seems to be related to how you viewed the world. It seems like an unhealthy mindset thing was going on and there’s a surprising turn of events where you are getting a calmer view so it seems that what you are birthing is moving forward in a new way that is more beneficial to you, leaving baggage behind six of swords, you’re entering an improved way of living.

Why is it important for you?

I’m pulling an angel card. your card is “Let Go Of Guilt - when you allow your light to shine brightly you inspire others forgive yourself for what you think you’ve done or not done and trust that God loves you unconditionally for who you are learn and grow from past mistakes instead of beating yourself for them.”

this will be very personally linked to you depending on who is reading this as this is a general reading so for each person that reads this, they will know what it resonates with in their case but I could not have said it better than the card myself, and I believe that spirit is calling in this advanced way of being where you can start to understand things better. it feels like going from being a pessimist to becoming an optimist. That is the energy and it seems to be important for you so you can grow and forgive, leading a kinder tomorrow.

How to get close to this “birth”?

Getting another angel card. how can my group number three get close to this birth? Your card is “Quiet Retreat - It’s time to disconnect from the outer world so that you can discern and process your true thoughts and feelings from your inner world, create this quiet time for yourself and you’ll have more clarity about what to do next.” this is for sure advising you to reflect more on what you are feeling rather than losing yourself in expectations from the outside or all the meaningless directions coming in from everywhere BUT you. the focus here should be your thoughts your feelings, your plans, your goals your wishes highlight YOUR, so intentionally set time to figure yourself out. Listen to yourself!

Thank you so much dear group number three for all the hard work you do and the light you shed upon this world. May your journey proceed calmly like the waters, I send you so much love!

have a wonderful rest of your day or night🌼

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 4: Read Between The Lines]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉����

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

It is your first week of basic training at Great Lakes on the north side of Chicago, and as you lie in the top bunk of your assigned bed you wonder what the hell you’ve done. You enlisted right out of high school, eighteen, no driver’s license, no work history, never been more than fifty miles outside of Soft Shell, Kentucky. The drill sergeants are always yelling and you’re bad at push-ups; you can’t understand the recruits from big cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Detroit, Houston, and they don’t seem to get you either, and aren’t interested enough to try. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t signed that five-year contract, but where would you be if you weren’t here? Home is not words but textures, colors, fumes that still burn in your sinuses: cigarette ash on rose pink carpets, red embers glowing in the wood stove, Hamburger Helper and Mountain Dew, coffee creamer in Hungry Jack potatoes, laughter and heavy footsteps and slamming doors, scratch-off games, dogs barking, collecting coins from couch cushions for gas money, scrubbing clothes in the bathtub when the washer quits, Mama taking gulps from her favorite cup—plastic, Virginia Beach, filled with equal parts Hawaiian Punch and vodka—when she thinks no one is looking, blue shows flickering on the television, Family Feud, Maury, Good Morning America, WWE SmackDown. For as long as you can remember you’ve known you couldn’t stay. Now you’re getting out, but nothing in life is free.

You are at Class A Technical School in Gulfport, Mississippi, and even though it’s hotter than some noxious, volcanic hellscape—Mercury, Venus, Io—you are beginning to like it. You taste the salt of sweat when you lick your lips, sugar in the sweet tea they serve in the chow hall. There’s a magic in building something where there was only empty space before, in patching roofs and painting walls. Here being quiet and watchful is exactly what they want from you: head down, hammer striking nails, measurements and angles and long hours under the sun with no complaints. You’re not just running away anymore. You are creating something new.

You are sitting beneath swaying palm trees and a full moon on Diego Garcia, draining cans of Guinness with Rio, and he’s telling you things he shouldn’t, too personal, too honest: Sophie wants to try for a baby next time he’s home on leave, and part of him wants that too but he’s terrified. As thunder rumbles in the distance and raindrops begin to patter on the waves of the Indian Ocean, you tell Rio you think he’d be a good father. He wonders how you figure that, and you say because he’s not like any of the men from home. He gives you one of his crooked smiles—a flash of teeth, knowing dark eyes—and doesn’t ask what you mean.

But of course, when you swim up from the inky currents of sleep you are in none of these places. You are curled up on the floor of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio, cheap worn black carpet peppered with stars and swirls in neon green, pink, blue. You stretch out with a yawn. Someone has left a Lemon Tea Snapple within reach; you twist it open and guzzle it, hoping to extinguish the pounding in your skull, a rhythmic thudding of warm maroon, half Captain Morgan and half misery. The music isn’t helping. From the green Toshiba CD player, a man is singing in Spanish. Aegon and Rio are sitting at the nearest table and playing Uno.

Aegon says as he ponders his cards: “You know Enrique Iglesias, right Rio?”

“You are so racist.” Rio puts down a wild. “And the new color is red. Racist.”

“So what’s he saying?”

“Aegon, buddy, I told you, I was born here. My grandparents came over in the 60s. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“You can’t understand any of it?” Aegon is skeptical. He plays a skip, a reverse, and a seven. “My dad never taught me a word of Greek but I can recognize plenty of phrases. Vlákas means idiot. Spatáli chórou is a waste of space.”

Rio sighs, relenting. He puts down a two. “The song is called Súbeme La Radio, Turn Up The Radio For Me. Bring me the alcohol that numbs the pain… I don’t care about anything anymore…You’ve left me in the shadows…”

“Damn, now I’m sad. Draw four, bitch.”

“When the night comes and you don’t answer, I swear to you I’ll stay waiting at your door…” Rio studies his cards. “What’s the new color?”

“Green.”

“Yes!” Rio slams down a skip. “Fleeing from the past in every dawn, I can’t find any way to erase our history…”

Everyone else is awake already. As muted late-morning daylight streams in through the small tinted windows, Aemond is weaving between tables, pointedly checking on each person. He glances at you, says nothing, turns around and walks the other way.

“That’s tough,” Rio says sympathetically, popping open the tab on a can of Chef Boyardee and shoveling ravioli into his mouth with a plastic fork.

Aegon gives you a smirk. “You want to fake date now?”

“I’ll think about it.” No you won’t.

Helaena appears, a prairie girl vision in a modest blue sundress and with her hair tied back with a matching scarf. She reaches into her burlap messenger bag and offers you a choice between a ranch-flavored tuna pouch or a silvery pack of Pop-Tarts. “Strawberry,” she tells you.

“I’ll take the Pop-Tarts.”

Helaena gives them to you and then shakes a bottle of Advil. You’re so groggy it takes you a few seconds to figure out what she wants, then you obediently hold out a hand. Helaena lays two tablets in the center of your palm and moves on, soundlessly like a rabbit or a spider.

You wash the pills down with Snapple. As you nibble half-heartedly on a Pop-Tart—trying not to look at Aemond, multicolored sprinkles falling down onto the carpet—your eyes drift to the tattoo on the underside of Aegon’s forearm. It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. You’ve spotted it before. Only now do you remember where you recognize the lyric from. “Is that Green Day?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says, enthused that you noticed. “Letterbomb.”

“I love that whole album.”

“Me too. I could sing it front to back if you asked me to.”

“I’m not asking.”

Aegon cackles and resumes his Uno game with Rio. Baela is wearing denim shorts and a crop top, slathering her belly with Palmer’s cocoa butter from Walmart as she chats with Rhaena and eats Teddy Grahams. Daeron is waxing the string of his compound bow. Jace is gnawing on a Twizzler as he scrutinizes Aegon’s map, annotated with Xs and circles and arrows in sparkling gel pen green.

“I’m going to be a thousand years old by the time we get there,” Jace mutters.

Aegon hits the table with his fist. The discard pile collapses and cascades, an avalanche of Uno cards. Rio, undisturbed, continues contemplating his next move. “You know what, Jace? The cities are full of zombies, the interstates are blocked by fifty-car pileups, if we bump into anyone else who’s still alive they’re just as likely to rob and murder us as want to be friends, and on top of all that I’m trying to do you the favor of preventing you from getting so irradiated you turn into Spider-Man. If you have a better route in mind, I’d love to hear it.”

“Spider-Man…? You’re such a dumbass, what are you talking about?!”

Luke says from where he stands by a window: “Aemond, someone’s outside.”

“What?” Aemond stares at him. “Zombies?”

“No. People.”

Aemond bolts to the doors, the rest of you close behind him. Rhaena turns off the CD player. You, Rio, and Aegon squeeze together to peer out of one of the windows. There are men—three of them, no, four, all appearing to be in their forties—passing by on the main road through town. They are armed with what are either AR-15s or M16s, you can’t tell which.

Rio whistles. “If you get shot by one of those, the exit wound will be the size of an orange.” Everyone looks at him. This was not an encouraging thing to say.

You elaborate: “Thirty-round magazines. Semiautomatic, assuming they’re AR-15s for civilian use. I guess they could have gotten ahold of M16s somehow. Those have a fully automatic setting.”

“So regardless, we’re out-gunned,” Jace says.

“If they know how to use them. Some men think guns are wall decorations, like deer heads or fish.”

Aegon recoils. “Fish?! What the fuck. I’m glad the colonies left.”

“Maybe they’ll keep walking,” Daeron says hopefully. One of the men stops and points at the bowling alley, saying something to his companions. They laugh and begin crossing the small parking lot. They are less than two minutes from the door. “Oh, great…”

“There’s an emergency exit in the back,” Baela says.

Aegon snorts. “Yeah, that we stacked about twenty boxes of bowling pins in front of to zombie-proof.”

“We won’t be able to get out before they hear us,” Aemond says. Then he abruptly orders: “Grab your guns, let’s go. Helaena, Baela, Rhaena, you’re staying here.” Aemond’s remaining eye—briefly, reluctantly—skates over you as Rio, Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Daeron scatter to obey him. “You too.”

“But I’m the best shot.”

“I don’t want them to know we have women with us.”

“I’m of more use to you outside.”

Aemond rips his Glock out of its holster, pointing it at the floor. His frustration is palpable, an electric shock, heat that refracts light rays until they become mirages on the horizon. “You’re going to stay here, and if a stranger comes through those doors you’re going to kill them. Okay?”

His urgency stuns you; his eye is blue-white summer storm lightning. “Okay.”

“Now get back.”

You soar to the nearest table, duck under it, reach for your Beretta M9 and double-check the clip, fully loaded. You click off the safety.

“Aemond, wait, let me go first,” Aegon is saying by the door. “I’m better at de-escalation, I’m less…uh…intimidating.”

“Less socially incompetent, you mean,” Jace quips.

“I’ll lead,” Aemond insists. “Aegon can talk. Rio, you’re up front with me.”

Rio pumps his Remington 12 gauge. “I’d be delighted.”

Jace is amused. “I’ve been demoted, huh?”

“He’s bigger,” Aemond replies simply, then opens the door and vanishes through a blinding curtain of daylight. The others follow closely; Daeron, the last one out—his compound bow in hand, the strap of his Marlin .22 slung over his shoulder—shuts the door behind him.

Very faintly, you can hear Aegon: “Hey, guys! What’s happening? How’s the apocalypse treating you…?”

Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are under the table with you. They deserve to have options. You tell them: “If you want to go hide behind the lanes or try to get out the back door, now’s your chance.”

Helaena shakes her head, clutching your t-shirt: black, Star Wars, pawed off a shelf at the Walmart. “I want to stay with you.”

“Same,” Baela says determinedly, gripping her Ruger. She barely knows how to use it, but she’ll try. Rhaena is shaking, her eyes filling up her face, small fragile bones like a bird’s.

You can’t hear voices from outside anymore, but there are no gunshots either. You keep your M9 aimed at the doors, your breathing slow and deep, your heart rate low. Your hands are steady. Your eyes hunt for the slightest movement, for the momentary shadow of someone passing by a window. Against your will, your thoughts wander to Aemond. I hope Aegon is on his left side. Aemond can’t see there.

“Rhaena, get your gun out,” Baela says sharply. “Come on. Turn the safety off. What if you were alone right now? What if we weren’t here to protect you?”

Rhaena nods, fumbling to free her revolver from its holster. “I’m sorry…I’m trying…”

Now there is a stranger’s voice, gruff and deep. He must be just beyond the door, the farthest one to the right. There is a creak of hinges, a sliver of sunlight. “That’s just too damn bad, fellas. You got a nice little hideout here, and you’re gonna have to share it—”

The door opens. Two unfamiliar faces, too shellshocked to raise their rifles in time. You close an eye, line up your sights, fire twice, and that’s all it takes: one headshot, one in the throat, blood like a fountain, spurting scarlet ruin, thuds against the carpet strewn with neon stars, gurgling and spasms as their brains send out those final electrical impulses: danger, catastrophe, apocalypse. Rhaena is screaming. Helaena is covering her ears with both hands.

You run to the doorway; there are more booms of gunfire out in the parking lot. You cross into the late-morning light to see the other two men on the pavement: one with an arrow through the eye, the other with a gaping, hemorrhaging hole where his heart once was. Rio is admiring his work, holding his shotgun aloft. He scoops a handful of Cheddar Whales out of his shorts pocket and shovels them into his mouth.

“Goddamn, I love Remington Arms Company.”

“Oh, that was awesome,” Aegon says, wan and panting, hands on his waist. “Yeah, that was…that was…” He bends over and vomits Snapple and Cool Ranch Doritos onto the asphalt.

“Everyone okay in there?” Rio asks you.

“Yeah.” Behind you, Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are stepping through the doorway. Your thoughts are whirling sickly: I killed someone. I killed someone. “They wouldn’t leave?”

“We told them the bowling alley was ours,” Aemond says, not looking at you. “We asked them very politely to keep moving. They chose to try to intimidate us into letting them stay. They weren’t good people, and these are the consequences.”

You click on the safety and re-holster your M9. You’re wearing Rio’s on your other hip. They seem to weigh so much more than they did ten minutes ago. I’m not supposed to be a killer. I’m a builder.

“Aegon, are you okay?” Daeron asks, a palm on his brother’s back.

Aegon retches again. “Shut up. You can’t even buy fireworks.”

“Zombies.” Luke is peering through his binoculars. “Not many, just two. Way up the road.”

“There will be more.” Baela’s cradling her belly; you don’t even think she’s aware of it. “They heard the gunshots, the sound carries for miles.”

“We’re leaving,” Aemond says. “Right now. Everyone get your things.”

As backpacks are hastily zipped and Daeron and Aegon stand guard in the parking lot, you kneel down beside the men you murdered and check their rifles. They are M16s, either stolen or illegally purchased: there’s a little switch by the trigger to choose between semi-automatic or the so-called machine gun mode.

“They barely had any bullets left,” you tell Rio. Just like us when we were trapped on that transmission tower.

“Yeah, same story for the other two guys. Four bullets in one magazine, a half dozen in the other. But it only takes once. We don’t have any ammo that will work with M16s, do we?”

“No, we definitely don’t.”

“Fantastic. Well, we’ll throw them in a Walmart cart and take them with us just in case.”

You’re staring down at the man you shot through the head. His eternal resting place is a puddle of blood and brains in a bowling alley in rural Ohio; surely no one deserves that. “He was a real person,” you say, dazed. “Not a zombie. Just a person.”

“Hey.” Rio grabs your shoulders and spins you towards him. From where he is helping Luke gather up the remaining food, Aemond’s head snaps up to watch. “You hurt him before he could hurt us. You did the right thing.”

“Sure.”

“I killed a dude too. I blew his heart right out of his chest. You think I’m going to hell for that?”

“No,” you admit, smiling. “And if you’d be there with me, I guess I wouldn’t mind so much.”

Rio grins, wide and toothy. “Well alright then. Let’s finish packing.”

The ten of you depart from Shenandoah, Ohio heading northwest on Route 603 just like Aegon marked on his map, Jace chauffeuring Baela in one shopping cart, Rio pushing another loaded high with food and M16s.

“It looks like rain,” Helaena says.

Everyone else peers up into a clear, cerulean sky, wondering what she means.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re a few miles north of Shiloh when the storm rolls in, cold rain and furious wind, daylight that vanishes behind dark churning thunderheads, jagged scars of lightning in an opaque sky. The road is only two lanes, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and ravaged crops and untilled earth; it would look like the patchwork of a quilt if you were gazing down from an airplane, but of course the FAA grounded all flights over a month ago when the world went mad: Revelations, Ragnarök, the fabric of the universe unweaving as death burned through families, cities, nations like a fever, like plague.

“Maybe we should cut across one of these fields,” Jace says, pointing. He is soaked with rain; it drips from his curls, runs into his eyes. Baela is in her cart again; each time she tries to get out and walk, she’s gasping and can’t keep up within half an hour. You’ve all taken turns pushing her, much to Baela’s dismay. She’d be humiliated if she wasn’t too exhausted to keep her eyes open.

“Here, let me do it,” you offer, and Jace gratefully relinquishes the cart. Baela gives you a frail wave of appreciation.

“We stay on the road,” Aemond insists, flinching as rain pelts his scarred face. “Farmhouses have driveways and mailboxes, we’ll pass one eventually. If we lose the road, we might not be able to find it again. We’ll end up wandering around in circles in the woods.”

“Just like the Blair Witch Project,” Aegon says glumly, his Sperry Bahama sneakers audibly soggy.

“There!” Luke announces, spotting something with his binoculars. “Up ahead on the left. Past the bridge.”

You can’t see what Luke does until there is an especially brilliant flash of lightning: a farmhouse, old but seemingly not derelict, and with a number of accompanying buildings, guest houses and stables and barns and towering silos.

“Home sweet home!” Rio says. “And I don’t care if I have to kill a hundred of those undead bastards to get in, it’s mine.”

“Well, hopefully not a hundred,” you reply, in better spirits now that a sanctuary has been found. Aemond keeps glancing back at you as you push Baela’s cart. If he wants to say something, he’s doing a good job of resisting the temptation. “We don’t have that much ammo.”

There is a concrete bridge over a river, probably unremarkable and only five or ten feet deep normally but now torrential with rain. Water rushes by beneath, a muddy incline on each side as the earth rises back up to meet the road. A reflective green sign proclaims that you are only two miles from Plymouth, which Aegon plans to skirt along the edges of. It’s a decent-sized town; he thinks you might be able to find a car to steal there, something with gas in the tank and keys on a hook just inside the house.

“I call the master bedroom,” Jace says craftily, rubbing his palms together. You’re near the center of the bridge now, another ten yards to go. “Nice big bed, warm cozy blankets, and I was up for half of last night keeping watch so tonight I am off duty, I am a free man, it’s going to just be me and my girl and eight glorious uninterrupted hours of sleep—”

Rhaena shrieks, and then you hear it over the noise of the storm, pounding rain and rumbling thunder: moans, growls, hisses like snakes. Not one zombie. A lot more than one. They’re crawling up from under the bridge, from the filthy quagmire at both ends. There was a hoard of them waiting, aimless, dormant, almost hibernating. But now they are awake. They are grasping for you with bony, dirt-covered claws. They are snapping with jaws that leak blood and pus and bile as their organs curdle to a putrid soup.

“Get off the bridge!” Aemond is shouting. He has his Glock in his right hand, a baseball bat in his left. He’ll shoot until he’s out of bullets, and then, and then…

Rio helps you get Baela out of the cart, then opens fire. His Remington doesn’t just pierce skulls, it vaporizes them. When he’s out of shells—there are more in his backpack, but no time to reload—he yanks the M16s out of the other Walmart cart and empties each of them, mowing down zombies as the rest of you scramble across the bridge. All around you are explosions of gunshots, thunder, lightning, zombie skulls crushed by bullets and blunt force trauma. Baela is firing her Ruger as you half-drag her, one arm hooked beneath hers and around her back. When the last M16 is empty, Rio starts clubbing zombies with the butt of it. You’ve all reached the north side of the bridge, except…

“Fuck off, you freaks!” Jace is screaming. They’ve backed him up against the guardrail, a swarm of ten or more. His Remington shotgun is out of ammo; he’s swinging it wildly, but he doesn’t even have enough room to maneuver. There are still more zombies emerging from under the bridge. You can hear them snarling and groaning. You swipe an M9 off your belt and put a bullet in the brain of a zombie as its fingers close around your ankle, then you start picking off the ones mobbing Jace. You aren’t fast enough. As they lean in to bite him, teeth gnashing at the delicious throbbing heat of his jugular, Jace throws himself over the barrier and into the surging water below.

“No!” Baela cries. She careens off the road and into the field, running parallel to the river as swiftly as she can. You are helping her, steadying her, firing at any zombies you have a clear line of sight on. The others are here too: slipping in the muck of the flooding earth, shouting for Jace. He surfaces through the frothing current, flails pitifully, disappears beneath the water again. You glimpse a white hand, a shadow of his dark hair, a kicking shoe. There are more zombies on the opposite side of the river, trailing after Jace, lurching and slobbering viscous, gory saliva. They cannot swim, but they can follow him until he washes ashore.

Jace bursts up through the waves, gasping. “Help! Aemond…Aemond, for the love of God, help me…” He blubbers and then is dragged under. Aemond and Luke are continuing frantically after him. Baela is hysterical, sobbing, trembling with adrenaline. Aegon is yowling as he swings at zombies with his bloodied golf club. Helaena is darting around almost invisibly, always cowering behind Daeron or Aegon or Rio.

You glance north towards the farmhouse, growing not closer but farther away. We can’t leave shelter. We can’t leave the road. You lock eyes with Rio. He’s thinking the same thing.

“Aemond, we have to go,” Rio says, but in the midst of the rain and the turmoil it barely registers.

“Jace, we’re coming to get you!” Aemond swears. The ground is increasingly sodden, deep, difficult to trudge through. Jace resurfaces, coughing and sputtering.

“Jace!” Aegon wails. He caves in the skull of a zombie who was once a registered nurse as Helaena crouches behind him. “Jace, I’m sorry! I’m gonna miss you, man!”

Jace splashes in the rising river, his arms flailing helplessly. He is being swept away far faster than any of you can move on foot. “Aegon, you dumb bitch!” Jace manages, then slips beneath the water and doesn’t reappear.

“Where is he?!” Baela is saying. “Aemond, where…?”

You are trying to soothe her, to bring her back to reality. She was always so pragmatic before; you have to wake her up. “Baela, listen, we can’t stay here, he would want you and the baby to be safe—”

“Aemond! Aemond, we have to go!” Rio catches him, wrenches him around, roars into his face as driving rain pummels them both: “We have to go, or we’re going to die here too!”

It hits Aemond all at once; he understands, horror and agony in his sole blue eye. “We have to go,” he agrees. And then louder, to everyone: “Get to the farmhouse!”

Baela collapses into the mud, howling, tears flooding down her face. “No, he’s still alive, he’s still alive, we can’t leave him!”

You and Rhaena are trying to haul Baela to her feet. Now Aemond is here, pulling you away from her—his fingers tight and urgent around your wrist—as he and Luke take your place. “Go,” he commands. “You run. Don’t wait for us. Rio?”

“I got her,” Rio replies, grabbing your free hand with an iron grip. Gales of wind rip at you; every millimeter of your skin is soaked with rain. As you flee across the fields towards the farmhouse, dozens of zombies pursue you. More are still staggering along the banks of the river, swept up in the hoards chasing Jace and the promise of his waterlogged corpse when it reaches its final destination. Daeron has run out of arrows and is shooting with his .22, which is very much not his preference. Aegon trips, getting covered in mud as he rolls, and Rio stops to help him. While he is distracted, you look back at Aemond. He, Luke, and Baela are moving quickly, but not quickly enough. A drove of zombies is closing in on them. You have a spare few seconds at last. You yank your backpack off, grab a box of ammo inside, and reload your M9.

“Chips?!” Rio calls over his shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

He knows you well enough to listen. The world goes quiet as your finger settles on the trigger. There’s a rhythm one slips into, an impassionate lethal efficiency. It’s easier to keep going than to stop and have to find it again. You fire over and over, dropping eight zombies. You sheath your M9 and whip Rio’s out of your other holster, the sights finding grotesque decaying faces illuminated by lightning. You pull the trigger: blood, bones, brains, corpses jerking and convulsing as they fall harmlessly to the mud. Aemond is here; when did he get here?

“I told you to run!” he’s shouting through the storm, furious. He’s shoving you towards the farmhouse. You resist him.

“Let me kill as many as I can—”

“Go! Now!” Aemond orders over the clashing thunder, and then sprints with you all the way to the front porch to make sure you listen. Everyone else is already there. Helaena has fetched a spare key from under the doormat and is turning it in the lock.

Daeron observes her anxiously. “We don’t know if it’s safe in there, Helaena.”

“Not in,” she says, insistent. “Through.” Through this building, and maybe through the next one too. The average zombie is not terribly clever. If they lose sight of you, without the benefit of the momentum of a hoard they are lost. Helaena opens the door. The living rush inside, and she locks it behind you. As you are bursting out the back door, you can hear zombies pounding their rotting palms against the front one. You soar through a stable full of dead horses and donkeys, leaving the doors open; this should keep the zombies distracted if they make it this far. Then you race to the farthest guest house. Luke, swiveling with his binoculars, spies no zombies approaching as you steal inside. There is no spare key this time; Rio punches out a first-floor window for you to climb through. Once everyone is inside, he and Aegon move a bookshelf to cover the opening.

You all stand in the living room, gasping and shivering, dripping rain down onto the rug and the hardwood floor. The air is dusty but clean of any trace of vile, swampy decay. Outside, thunder booms and lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate the lightless house. The sky is so dark it might as well be nightfall. Baela sinks to her knees, clamping both hands over her mouth so she won’t sob loudly enough for a zombie to hear. Rhaena and Luke are beside her, both weeping quiet rivulets of tears, trying to comfort her in whispers. Helaena is rummaging around searching for candles; she has already taken a lighter out of her soaked burlap messenger bag.

“Daeron, bro, come over here,” Aegon chokes out. He embraces Daeron, clutches him tightly and desperately, doesn’t let go. Rio is reloading his Remington 12 gauge.

Jace is dead. Jace is dead.

Aemond says to you, his voice low but seething: “What the fuck was that?”

You blink the raindrops out of your eyes as you stare at him, bewildered. “You needed help.”

“I told you to run.”

“I’m an asset, I have skills that can keep you alive, why am I here if I’m not going to be useful—?”

“You’re not in the fucking Navy anymore!” he hisses. “When I tell you to run, you run, you don’t stop, you don’t look back, because I can’t worry about you and take care of everyone else.”

“Nobody asked you to worry about me.”

“But I do.”

“Aemond,” Aegon pleads, waving him over. Aegon’s plump sunburned cheeks are glistening with rain and tears. “Man, it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now. Please come here.”

“I’m going to clear the house,” Aemond says instead.

Rio raises an eyebrow at you—this is one fucked up guy, Chips—and then pumps his shotgun. “Me too.” He sweeps with Aemond through the main floor and then vanishes up the staircase.

Helaena is lightning candles she found in the kitchen and arranging them around the living room. Daeron starts gathering food from the pantry. Rhaena and Baela are murmuring to each other softly, mournfully. It doesn’t feel like something you should intrude on. Luke is peeking out of a window with his binoculars, vigilant for threats. Aegon sniffles, wanders over to you with large, sad, shimmering eyes, pats your shoulder awkwardly.

“Hey, Chocolate Chip. You doing okay?”

“No,” you answer honestly.

“Yeah. Me either.” Then he flops down on the hideous burnt orange couch and lies there motionless until Daeron brings him a can of Dr. Pepper. Aegon pops the tab, slurps up foam, and then begins singing to himself very quietly, a song so old you can remember your grandfather saying it was one of his favorites as a boy: A Tombstone Every Mile.

When Rio comes back downstairs—heavy footsteps, he can’t help that—you meet him at the bottom of the steps. “The house is good,” Rio says. “And Aemond’s in the big bedroom on the right if you’d like to go up there and talk to him.”

“I don’t think he wants to see me right now.”

“I could not disagree more,” Rio says with a miserable, exhausted smile. Then he goes to the couch to check on Aegon.

You pick up one of the flickering candles, white and scentless, and ascend the staircase. You find Aemond in the master bedroom, the same accommodations that Jace laid claim to when he was still alive. He is sitting at the edge of the bed and staring at the wall, at nothing. Tentatively, you sit down beside him, placing the candle on the nightstand.

“Aemond…what happened to Jace…it wasn’t your fault.”

“Criston said I was in charge, that’s the very last thing he told me. They might be the last words I ever hear from him, and I just…” His voice breaks; he wipes the rain and tears from his face with open palms. “I really wanted to get everyone home.”

“I’m so sorry about what I said at the bowling alley,” you confess, like it’s a dire secret. “I don’t want to fight with you, Aemond, I…I want to help you. I can see what you’ve done for everyone here, me and Rio included, and I believe in you. I want to be a part of this.”

He nods, an acceptance of peace, but he still doesn’t look at you.

“Can we start over? I’ll never bring it up again, okay? I wasn’t trying to guilt you or upset you or anything. I should have just dropped it. I overreacted. And I understand why being with someone like me maybe wouldn’t be…super appealing.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

Aemond wrings his hands, shakes his head, at last turns to you, golden candlelight reflected in his eye, his scar cloaked in shadows. His words are hushed, clandestine, soft powerless surrender. “I’m already so afraid of losing you.”

He cares, he hopes, he wants me too? “I’m here right now, Aemond. I don’t know what else I can say. I’d promise you more if I could.”

He reaches out to touch you, to ghost his thumb across your cheekbone, wet with rain. Then he kisses you, so gently you cannot help but imagine the wispy borders of calm white summer clouds, the rustle of leaves as wind blows down the Appalachian Mountains. You don’t have to ask him what he’s thinking, what it feels like. You can read it in the startled, firelit wonder on his face.

You taste like the beginning of something, here at the end of the world.

[5secondsofmoxley]

Screwed // Part 1

Pairings: Jay White X fem reader, El Phantasmo (Riley) x fem reader

Warnings: language, implied sexual content, angst, some fluff (sorta??). No use of Y/N, or any descriptors for the narrator. I try to leave it as open to interpretation as possible for you the reader to imagine whoever you’d like. I tried to keep it gender neutral as well, but I did end up saying the narrator is a woman for storyline purposes.

Author’s Note: The dynamic the reader has with Bullet Club is very heavily inspired by a two part imagine on Wattpad by babyface2216. Not sure if they have a tumblr, but I’ll link the story here. https://www.wattpad.com/1293863303?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_reading&wp_page=reading&wp_uname=5SecondsOfMoxley

This story was also almost solely inspired by a dream I had that I decided to turn into this. I want to thank @madhatterbri and @cowboywritersworld for writing Jay fics recently and giving me motivation to write for him lol. So this, my first Jay fic, is dedicated to you both 🫶

I never knew it was possible to feel so guilty. And I shouldn’t feel like this. We were drunk, shit happens. But god, out of everyone I could’ve possibly slept with, it had to be his best friend? Him and I aren’t even official. I mean sure, everyone knows how we feel about it each other. We’ve made out a few times, some might say we’ve gone on a few dates but we never called it that, it was just us hanging out.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to be with him. But something always gets in the way: the guys interrupt, one of us has a meeting, wrong place, wrong time. What bothers me the most is when he pulls back. I can’t even begin to count how many times I thought we were finally going to do something and he pulled back. Of course he would never tell me why. Always played it off like he didn’t just put a stop to it for no reason.

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he doesn’t have feelings for me like I thought. Maybe he feels guilty knowing how I feel and he’s just trying to get his dick wet. Which, he’s never done with me as I said. But I don’t think any of that is the case. I’m not blind, I see the way he looks at me. I’ve felt the way he plays with my hair when he thinks I fell asleep during the movie. I’ve felt him press a gentle kiss to my forehead just before he left my room. I’ve seen the smile he gives to me and no one else. I get to see the soft side to him no one else gets to see. So why does he pull away?

The bed stirred behind me, and the arm around my waist tightened. I am royally screwed.

“Mm, good morning.”

I groaned. Throwing the sheets off me, I reached down and grabbed the closest piece of clothing I could find. Unfortunately for me, it was his shirt. But knowing I needed to cover up and get out of here as fast as possible, I took what I could get.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He sat up, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. I scrambled around the room, trying to collect my clothes and gather my thoughts. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what we did. Being drunk isn’t enough of an excuse for me.

“Hey,” he grabbed my wrist, putting a halt to my escape. When I finally mustered the strength to turn around and look at him, I felt more guilt. His brows are furrowed, clearly confused as to why I’m reacting so bad, but he also looks a little hurt. I don’t blame him. I am acting pretty bitchy but I don’t know what to do.

“What’s going on in your head?” He stared into my eyes, waiting for an answer I couldn’t give him.

I took two steps back from him and ran my hands through my hair. Not only am I feeling guilty, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so awkward. We’re close friends, but I never saw him in a way I thought would end up with us drunkenly hooking up.

He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Thankfully, in the time I’d been gathering myself, he at least had the decency to pull on some boxers. “Look, this doesn’t have to be weird.”

“You’re kidding right?” I glared at him. How could he possibly think this isn’t weird?

“Alright, so it’s a little weird. But it doesn’t mean we have to make it weird. It was fun, right?” Though he was smirking at me, I could see some doubt in his eyes. He was genuinely asking me how I felt about last night. If the guilt hadn’t already hit me like a ton of bricks, it sure did now. I could barely remember anything from last night. All I knew was we were the last two at the bar, the rest of the guys surprisingly decided to call it an early night. He wanted to make sure I got back to my room okay. I don’t know what was going through either of our heads that led to me inviting him in, and us hooking up.

I sighed and sat next to him. I ran my hands over my face and through my hair again. “To be honest, I don’t remember much from last night.”

“Oh.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. A comfortable silence we’d sat in so many times before, yet this one was different. I gladly accepted it though considering the situation we were dealing with.

“Last night,” he started, as he turned to me, finding me already looking back. I cut him off before he could continue.

“Was a mistake. I mean, obviously, but,” I paused for a moment. Standing up, I started to pace as I felt like I was going stir crazy.

“God, I don’t know what to do. Do we tell him? I mean, we have to tell him. Right? We’d be horrible people if we kept it a secret.” He scoffed, interrupting my rambling. I whipped around to find him glaring at me.

“Us fucking doesn’t make us horrible people. We were both drunk, shit happens.”

“Yeah but,”

“But nothing! You guys aren’t even dating!” I had never seen him so tense. Actually, I don’t think I’d ever seen him so frustrated. Or, I guess I’d never seen him so frustrated with me. We’d always had the teasing kind of friendship. The kind where if a stranger listened in they’d think we were bullying each other. But we took each other’s words with a grain of salt.

“You know how I feel about him. I-“ he cuts me off again. Standing up to put more distance between us. I’m over by the window, hugging myself as if it’d protect me from this argument I was dying to get out of.

“Yes. Everyone fucking knows you’re in love with Jay. And yet, here you are waking up in bed with me.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Riley?”

He laughed incredulously. “What do you think I mean? You’re so in love with Jay, yet you left with me last night. You invited me in.”

“Oh fuck off! You say it as if you and I weren’t the last two there. You insisted you wanted to make sure I got back safe.”

Riley laughs at me again. “You invited me in.”

“Would you stop fucking saying that!”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“God, Riley, I was drunk off my ass. I don’t actually remember a time I was that fucking drunk. I literally have no recollection of what the fuck was going through my head.”

“Yeah, so? What, are you going to tell me you were so out of it you thought I was Jay? Or maybe you were picturing him since he doesn’t seem to want you.”

His face fell, in the same way I imagine mine did. I could see the regret wash over his face instantly. It didn’t make his words hurt any less.

I bit my lip, and rapidly tried to blink away the tears. I didn’t want to give Riley the satisfaction of hurting me the way he wanted to a moment ago. “Fuck you.”

Walking over to the desk, I made quick work of throwing my phone and wallet into my bag. Just barely catching site of my key card, I ripped my bag off the desk and brushed past him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Riley make a move to grab my arm, but I was faster and managed to get by.

Just before I could open the door, Riley spoke again. “Where are you going? This is your room.”

“I just need to be as far away from you as I can be right now.”

He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. That was a shit thing to say.”

I couldn’t look at him again. Partially because a few tears had managed to escape. And partially because I was too ashamed to let him see the doubt that was eating away at me. I couldn’t leave though. Riley‘s words had more weight to them. Like he knew something I didn’t. I pressed my forehead into the door, unwilling to turn around and face him.

“Does he?” I whispered. I didn’t think he heard me. I spoke so quietly and he sat on my question for a moment before responding with his own.

“Does he what?”

“Does he not want me? Does he not feel the same way?” I turned around, leaning back against the door. I feared if something wasn’t supporting my weight, I’d collapse in my self pity and shame. “Jay has had so many chances. And I know I’ve made it so disgustingly obvious how I feel about him. When we’re on screen he does everything he can to imply that I belong to him. Makes me wear his jacket, his shirts, keeps an arm around me, glares at anyone that could possibly be giving me the eye. But the minute we’re alone, fully alone where nothing can stop us from finally moving forward, he does. He pulls back. Why?”

I can’t bring myself to look up at Riley. I always held my head up high, like I was so strong that nothing could bother me. I’d never let any of the guys see me cry, let alone doubt myself. It’s hard being the only girl in Bullet Club. I didn’t wanna be seen as fragile. I wanted the guys to treat me like an equal. Sure, I did things the guys couldn’t do. Distracted their opponents by batting my lashes at them and maybe, just maybe wear something a little too revealing in matches I thought my boys needed the extra upper hand in. But all the more, that made me have to carry myself in a way that everyone knew I wasn’t just some piece of ass the Bullet Club drags around with them. I can’t tell you how many bumps I’d taken for my boys.

Riley sighed. Catching my attention for a brief second before I looked away again. He sat down again. I could tell he was having an inner battle with himself.

“Look, I just said what I said to hurt you. I’m sorry. Jay, he,” Riley pauses for a moment. I finally bring myself to look him in the eyes, but he’s staring at the ceiling.

“You know Jay’s reputation, yeah? Before you came into the picture I mean?” He glanced at me for a second, then quickly looked away when he saw me staring back.

“Yeah. Everyone knows Switchblade’s reputation. That’s why when we first met, I brushed off his flirting. I didn’t wanna be another notch in his belt. No less as I was introduced as the first female to join Bullet Club. I didn’t want it to seem like I was just his fuck toy.”

“And yet somewhere along the way you fell for it.”

“Are you saying he doesn’t have any feelings towards me?”

“No. No, not at all. I’ve never seen Jay with a girl the way he is with you. Do you remember that first night you came out with us?”

I thought for a second. The first night I went out for one of the infamous Bullet Club outings. I’d been part of the club for only a month at that point. The guys had tried convincing me to go out with them many times, but I’d never given in until then. I always thought I’d be intruding on some boys’ night type of shit. But I was finally starting to feel like I belonged. Not that the guys ever gave me the cold shoulder. Trust me, no one joins Bullet Club that they don’t want. I finally felt comfortable in the dynamic that had been set. Sure, it sort of felt like I was the mom of the group. Constantly making sure the guys were on time where they needed to be, and stopping fights when needed. But it had taken me some time to be okay with taking on that role, and to see they were okay with it too.

They had dragged me out to some bar, that was so lively it borderline felt like a nightclub. We had gotten what was apparently their usual booth, and a round of shots to “initiate” me into the club. It was a great night. One of my favorites actually.

“Of course I do.”

“So, you remember that blonde that was ballsy enough to send a drink to the table for you?”

There was this hot guy, he’d been eyeing me since he’d walked into the bar with his friends. The boys found it hilarious that here I was, the sole woman at a table of muscly men, and this lanky blonde had the balls to send me a drink. They couldn’t believe he had the nerve to pull such a move. Especially since Jay had his arm wrapped around my shoulder. And that was before him and I were anywhere close to where we are now. I had barely stopped rolling my eyes at his incessant flirting and started flirting back.

“What about the blonde?”

“You remember when Jay bought us a round of drinks?”

“Riley, get to the point, please.”

“Jay never bought the rounds on nights he won big. He went to buy the rounds because the blonde was at the bar. He didn’t plan on saying anything. You know Jay, he’s good at reading situations and getting the upper hand. Well, he overheard the guy tell his friends that he didn’t care about us surrounding you. He was going to make a move. He knew you wanted him too. Jay got jealous, and Jay never gets jealous. Or at least, at that point he didn’t. Everyone knows how full of himself he is. He has no reason to be jealous of anyone. Especially since you had just started returning his advances. But you had passed some comment about the blonde being your type and so Jay was threatened. I don’t know what exactly he said, but whatever he did, Jay scared him and his friends out of the club. I think that was the first moment I realized Jay had actual feelings for you.”

“So, why hasn’t he,”

“Because he knew I had a crush on you.”

I swore my heart dropped down to my ass. If I hadn’t been leaning against the door, I’m sure I would’ve dropped from the shock that had just smacked me in the face.

Riley has a crush on me? Riley, the dork that constantly bullies me. Oh shit, I’m a fucking idiot. Sure, I’ve had the teasing sort of friendship that I have with Riley with other guys. It’s just the kind of person I am, that if you didn’t know we were friends, you’d probably think I’m just down right mean. I blame it on the fact that I’ve always made friends with guys more so than girls. But as I think more about it, more how Riley is with me, he wasn’t just teasing me. It was Riley’s way of flirting with me. A sort of bantering way. I had always been so focused on Jay that I just never saw it.

I could feel his eyes on me. I don’t know if he’s waiting for me to say something, or if he was trying to get a read on me. Either way, I knew he wasn’t going to get an answer he liked.

I sighed. “Riley, I,” he cuts me off again.

“I know. Okay, I know, you’re in love with Jay. And I’m sorry that he’s held back with you because of me. He knew I had a crush on you long before you joined the club. I got really excited when the guys gave you the invitation. I thought maybe I’d have a chance. Of course, Jay being Jay, he flirts. He’s a flirtatious guy. And obviously, he’s not blind to how gorgeous you are. Somewhere along the way as we all got to know you, Jay fell for you. At the beginning, when he was just flirting with you and you were brushing him off, he insisted he wouldn’t make a move on you. Said he just couldn’t help himself around a pretty girl. And as time went on, you started flirting back more and more. You two got close and it became clear to everyone that you guys had feelings for each other. Sure, you and I are close, but not like you and Jay. To be honest, I can always tell when you guys have had moments. Because Jay always looks so guilt ridden when he catches my eye. I know Jay is too prideful to ask me if I’m okay with him making a move. And to be honest, I could never bring myself to tell him to go for it. Because I always held on to this delirious hope that somewhere, deep down, you’d feel the same way about me. So last night, when I walked you back to your room, and you invited me in, it was innocent at first. Just our usual antics, fucking with each other. Pushing each other around. I was trying to help you get your makeup off and get clothes out for you to change. But you just had so much energy still. Kept pushing me away, telling me you wanted to go back out and just do random shit until sunrise. I jokingly wrestled you to the bed and we rolled around for awhile until I was on top of you. We kinda stopped laughing, and I had a moment that I just got to look into your eyes and the alcohol gave me the courage to kiss you.”

I couldn’t stand anymore. Riley was giving me too much information too fast. I couldn’t begin to process everything. I dragged myself back to the bed to sit next to him. I sighed, staring a hole in the wall. I didn’t know what to say. But Riley continued.

“You kissed back after a second. I wasn’t expecting it. And things just kind of escalated. I knew I should’ve stopped it. I knew you didn’t feel the same. You were just drunk, and honestly probably just horny since I knew you weren’t getting anything from Jay because of me. But I don’t know, I guess I was drunk enough to just let it happen and figured I’d deal with it today. I’m sorry.”

I remained quiet. I didn’t know how much time had passed. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what time we’d finally woken up. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I knew what I was thinking. I was pissed at him. Pissed at the fact he let last night happen, let alone him making the first move. Pissed at him being the reason that Jay had held back for so long. Pissed at him for being the reason I’ve been so self conscious because of the way Jay could be so hot and cold with me. Pissed at him for being selfish enough to know Jay was almost waiting for Riley to give permission to make things official with me but still not doing it.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say any of that to him. Because at the end of the day, I loved Riley. Just not in the way he wanted me to. He already knows that, and I didn’t feel like I need to hurt him anymore than I already have. “So, how do we move forward from here?” I asked.

Riley sighed. “Well, for starters, I’ll tell Jay. Everything that’s happened is my fault. I hope you can forgive me, and we can still be friends.”

I tried to catch Riley’s eye, but he was staring a hole into the floor. I hesitantly reached over and intertwined my fingers with his. He looked down at them, before giving my hand a squeeze.

“Riley, I’m sorry. I never knew how you felt about me. I feel like I’ve sort of thrown it in your face how I felt about Jay. I never meant to hurt you. And I’m sorry if last night I gave you the impression that there might’ve been a chance.”

He finally looked at me. A sad smile on his face that I’d never seen from him. I felt awful. “Trust me, it’s not your fault.” He shrugged. “You can’t help who you fall for.” Riley looked forward for a minute before looking back at me. “Like I said, I’ll talk to Jay. I think it should come from me. Him and I are long overdue for this talk anyway.”

A part of me was glad he wanted to be the one to tell Jay. And the smart part of me worried. I knew how hot headed Jay could be. I feared that this wouldn’t end well, for Riley at least. And I’d be devastated if I fucked up their friendship.

“Are you sure? I know you two need to have your guys’ chat but, maybe I should tell him. Jay is different with me. And honestly, Riley, I’m afraid he’s going to kill you.”

Riley laughed. “Oh, he probably will.” I gave him a look, but that just made him laugh more. “We both know how Jay is. He’s going to be pissed. I don’t expect this to start off well. But, I’m hoping he’ll give me a chance to tell him I’m okay with you guys before he fully kills me.”

“Maybe I should be there at least? Might lighten the mood a little bit.”

“Oh yeah. You being there as I tell Jay we fucked last night will definitely blow over well with him.”

“Well, at least I can pull him back.”

“Honestly, I don’t think that’d be the best thing. I know for a fact Jay will be beyond furious with me. But I don’t know how he’s going to feel towards you. Might not make him feel any better seeing us show up together just before I tell him what happened.”

“Riley,” he cuts me off again, giving my hand a squeeze.

“It’ll be fine. I have to do this, for you, for Jay, and for me.”

[1970sgothfreak]

Okay before you read this final part I just wanna say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me while I’ve been on my break, I am going to try and post more content but I got my dream job/apprenticeship but once again thank you so much and enjoy! ☺️

The Forgotten Twin’s birthday Final part

You sat in the alleyway and looked up at the dark stormy sky of Gotham, it had just began to rain so you stood io and began your journey home, on the way back you though of what your mother had said about you going back to the league.

Were…were you really thinking of going back to the league, you would have to leave everything behind…Alfred, Jon,…the boys and your father.

You shook your head and noticed that you weren’t at the manor but had in fact walked to the bat burger place, you had been so focused on something else that you hadn’t realised you were hungry.

You went inside and sat down ordering your regular and pulling out your phone noticing a bunch of texts, opening your phone you decided to read Jon’s texts first

“are you okay?”

“Im so sorry I let it slip please don’t be mad at me!”

“Thank you for sending me your location be safe”

And the final one

“I love you ♥️”

It was short and simple but, it still made you smile and blush before you checked the other messages they were mainly things like:

“Are you okay”

“Dads really upset”

“Come home we need to talk”

“Please come home we’re sorry”

“This is ridiculous” you thought to yourself as you took a bite of your food, noticing a bunch of family’s eating together happily, you felt sad but also envy

Why did those children get what you didn’t?

Why did they have people who actually wanted to spend time with them?

Why…

Why weren’t you good enough for them?

Y/n pov

I finished my food, placing the money on the table before leaving and squeezing the water out of my jacket, I thought over the things said and sighed annoyed wondering if they actually were sorry or just sorry that they got caught

I headed back to the manor and entered when I hear the boys talking, I quickly shut the door and snuck around the corner to listen to their conversation, it was…about me..!?

“Bruce you need to calm down”

“Calm down my reputation is going to go down the drain so are the boys if they ever find out what we did to Y/n!”

Oh…

They really didn’t care, of course I knew that but finally hearing it made me realise it and how much…it actually hurt a bit..?

I pulled out my phone and saw that Jon sent another text

“You get home okay honey..?”

“Yea I did…found out the truth lol”

“Truth?…”

“Bruce is only trying to apologise so that he and the boys don’t loose their public reputation…I’m thinking of moving back in with my mom”

“But then I won’t be able to see you again…”

“You will! I’ll make sure of it, I’ll even ask my mom right now!”

I exited the chat and pulled up my moms contact before texting her and asking if it was okay for me to bring Jon with me or for him to at least be able to frequently visit, I saw the chat bubbles appear and waited with anticipation to see her reply

“Yes that’s fine, I’ll make sure he’s allowed access to you constantly”

My face light up with a smile once I saw my mothers reply and texted Jon to let him know, he was also excited all that was left to do…was pack up and say goodbye I don’t know what will he harder but…all I know is that I’m getting out of this place and I’m going home and one thing I know for definite is….

I am never coming back.

Taglist:

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[itsyouch]

Beyonders Trilogy characters I'm TOO emotionally attached to :(( (I have this horrible feeling they are all gonna die so I'm putting this out here before anything happens)

btw please don't correct me if I'm right. I don't want any spoilers, especially about my faves

Drake: Drake is my number 1. He is my comfort character, my silliest guy, and hes totally a father figure for Rachel. I would crash out sooo bad if he dies. But I know he won't haha......

Tark: listen..... if ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM ITS OVER FOR ME. I DONT KNOW IF I CAN MOVE ON IF SOMETHING HAPPENS. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH AAAAAAHHHHHH!!

Dorisio: HE IS MY JOY. MY SWEET I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. I NEED MORE BOOK TIME OF HIM <3333 OOW OW OOWWWW

Nedwin: OHH I CAN'T EVEN PUT TO WORDS HOW MUCH I LOVE HIM!! He's so depressing and he deserves better

Rachel: oooww I love her so much! She's so silly I can go on but I'll be here for a while x]

Ferrin: he is such a goodly fleshed out character, in his back story and demeanor, Brandon Mull really knew what he was doing when he wrote him <3

im felling kinda good about Ferrin, I think he's gotten to good for Brandon Mull to just kill off, Ferrin doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to die :)

(OMG I JUST REMEMBERED! I had a dream I met this random girl, and she saw that I was reading Byonders, and she was like "oh I love this book!! But when Ferrin died-" I had to look at her with a thousand yard stare, I tell ya. I literally felt the dread while in the dream. Thankfully it was a dream haha...)

But the characters I think are gonna die are

Galloran (which sucks cuz I wanna see him live in a safe world and finally get to rest)

Drake

Tark

Aram

Nedwin (because he might sacrifice himself for Galloran...)

Nia

Io

Honestly even Jason might die too... I don't have hope for anyone

I feel like more people are gonna die obviously, but I can't think of anyone else. I didn't add Jasher and Farfalee cuz they still has more lifes (if Maldor doesn't crush their amar😭)

But its mainly Tark and Drake that have me taking physical damage rn.

I am so so so so so scared for Drake, he only has 1 life left, and I don't think I can take it if he dies a meaningful death. Cuz his whole reason for leaving the eternal feast was so he could use his last life to do something good

IF HE DIES IN AN IMPORTANT WAY. FULFILLING HIS PURPOSE. IM GONNA CRY. I DONT WANT HIM TO DIE A MEANINGLESS DEATH. I JUST DONT WANT HIM TO DIE!

It's either he dies in an important way by serving the rebellion, or! HE JUST DOESN'T DIE! PLZ PLEEEASSEE PLEASE.

....

I can literally save myself by not finishing the book, if I don't finish it, then everything is fine <3

Drake and Tark are my STRONG #1 favorite characters. Tark is so fleshed out and has such a sad back story :(

Ferrin and Drake are the same to me, but the difference is that when Ferrin talks or is described doing something, I get giddy and can barely focus on the book, I would totally wear a hat and shirt that says "#1 Ferrin supporter"

But with Drake... when ever he talks..... ooow oww, I just wanna... GRR I DONT KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT. I GET EVEN WORSE. ITS EITHER I CANT STOP GIGGLING, OR I JUST BREAK DOWN CUZ HES GONNA DIE!! see here..... I don't know if he's gonna die, I just always jump to conclusions ,:')

wasn't supposed to add this part but I just love yapping. Also have fun knowing how cooked I am, everyone who finished the book and knows which one of my favorite characters are gonna die <3

[wrenaspun]

Just wanted to tell you that I love your writing so much — I reread “one way or another” like once a month at least. And any fic where you write from Laurent’s perspective is automatically incredible showstopping never been done before etc. in my eyes. Nobody gets the depths of his horniness for Damen quite like you :)

Anyway for the prompt, how about Laurent and Damen trying to figure out the best way to tell Auguste (alive) about their relationship

Aw anon, thank you, that's very kind!! I'm so glad you enjoy the fic(s) enough to return to them <3 For the prompt, this ficlet ended up taking place in the same 'verse as burst the sky in my head, but it should also stand alone just fine! -

“You could hire a skywriter,” Damen suggested lazily. He had one arm behind his head and was staring drowsily up at the clear Ios sky, his sun-browned skin glistening in the sunlight, looking like some artist’s wet dream of a classical painting.

Laurent scooped up a handful of sand and threw it at him.

None of it landed above his shoulder, but Damen’s face scrunched up anyway, and he brought his free hand up to brush fussily at a few nonexistent grains on his nose. Then he reached out and took Laurent’s hand and brought it to his lips. “You could have one of those parties,” he said, while Laurent tried not to melt under the combined force of the sun and Damen’s sheer charm. “With the glitter, and the announcements — what do they call them?”

“Gender reveal parties?”

“That,” said Damen. He mimed a balloon popping. “Congratulations, it’s a boyfriend.”

“That is not what Auguste would say if I burst a blue glitter balloon in his face,” said Laurent, but he spent a few minutes thinking about doing it anyway, just for the look they would get.

The problem was, there was no good way to tell one’s older brother that one was seeing his nemesis-turned-friend. More — that one was in love with said friend, wanted everything that came with that, to get married, to spend their lives together. Laurent curled his toes into the sand.

Not for the first time, he wished Auguste was a little less straightforward. But that was unfair, because he loved his brother’s unflappable straightforwardness, his easy candidness. It wasn’t really his fault that it made things difficult for Laurent, who had come out to his mother at the age of fourteen by saying well… in a delicately sceptical tone when she talked about his bringing girlfriends home. The next week she’d said the same thing but about boyfriends and he hadn’t corrected her and they’d understood each other quite perfectly ever since.

Auguste, good-natured and oblivious, would not pick up on such a hint. He was quite useless at picking up any hints at all, as a childhood full of poorly-coordinated cover stories for Laurent’s attempts at mischief would attest.

But if Laurent couldn’t hint, the only alternative then was to say it aloud: Auguste, I’m in love with Damen. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Laurent wanted it so much that it became impossible to say. His desire was so ravenously enormous that it looped back around to being mortifying. He felt as though he had a very large, very poorly behaved dog behind him all the time, trying to get at Damen. He’d never felt like this before about anyone.

“You could hire a musician,” said Damen. And opened one deep brown eye to peek up at him, his merriment poorly disguised. “To sing it at him.”

“Will you please take this seriously,” Laurent grumbled, but even his voice was conspiring against him, refusing to sound sharp. He sounded disgustingly smitten.

Damen sat up, brushed off his torso, and then in a single graceful movement of rippling muscle he manoeuvred himself onto Laurent, pushed him down into the warm sand, pinned him bodily in place. “Believe me,” he said; Laurent’s whole body was flushed and thrilled, “I’m taking this very seriously.” He drew his nose over Laurent’s jaw, and even that minute touch sent sparks down Laurent’s spine. He turned his head and pressed a vicious kiss to Damen’s neck, applying his teeth, revelling in the laughing groan this wrung from Damen’s chest.

“Laurent,” he said breathlessly. Laurent hummed, and Damen said his name again, his smile audible. “I have another idea.”

Laurent broke reluctantly away. “Tell me.”

“Auguste texted me ten minutes ago asking where we were.”

“He what?” Alarmed.

“Well, he’s on break too,” said Damen, in an eminently reasonable tone.

“Is he coming down to join us?”

“He said something along those lines,” said Damen. “I didn’t want to interrupt your lecture on Professor Euandros’ shortcomings.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Laurent muttered. Teaching Professor Euandros’s third-year course on classical poetry had been a nightmare that he would need the whole summer break to recover from. The man hadn’t met an organisational system he didn’t hate with a violent passion. “So Auguste — but what was your idea?”

“Oh,” said Damen. He rolled off Laurent and sat up — a poor start. Laurent said so and watched as Damen’s teeth showed in a dazzling grin. “Here, sweetheart,” Damen said, tugging Laurent closer to him. “Let him find us like this, and you won’t have to say a word. I’ll do all the talking.”

“Like this?” They were both sitting up now, leaning against each other, skin to skin. Intimate, but very innocent. Damen made an affirmative noise. Laurent hummed thoughtfully, then let himself slide down until his head was in Damen’s lap.

“Or like this,” Damen agreed, stroking his warm fingers through Laurent’s hair.

Laurent hummed again. Then, teasing, he turned his face and nuzzled in a certain direction. Damen jolted. Laurent bit down on a smile.

“Not like that,” said Damen. The beach was empty aside from them — it was small and relatively unpopular, and the vast majority of people had gone back to work last week — but there was still the little thrill of exposure. “Fucking hell, Laurent.”

“You said ten minutes ago,” said Laurent. Desire was swelling in his chest, as wild and as wide as the sea.

Damen said, “Yes,” very carefully. A man who knew exactly the kind of trap that was being sprung on him.

Laurent said, “It takes thirty to get down here from the university.”

[thebluestbluewords]

ball drop

I don’t actually think that Auradon would have the same cultural celebration that USAmericans do for NYE, but it’s fun to imagine!

*

"I'm going to get worse," Mal announces. "I've been nice for long enough. I tried the princess thing, I've done the whole good fairy routine, and I'm ready to get worse again. I think I deserve it." 

Carlos flicks a piece of popcorn at her. "We all deserve it. You do goodness about as well as a sea monster does spaceflight." 

"Wouldn't a deep-sea monster be well-adapted for space?" Evie wonders aloud, throwing a piece of popcorn up in a gentle arc. It gets stuck in the fairy lights hanging over the bedpost, which might have been her goal. Saving snacks for later is deeply important. "I mean, it's going to be well suited for an environment with deep pressure and minimal friction, right? Space can't be too different from the ocean, environmentally speaking." 

Carlos spins around. "E." he says, with a horror so deep that Mal has a single, heart-stopping moment where she's afraid that her mother is in the room with them. "No." 

Evie giggles. She's too pretty to be real, all bright and bubbly and lit up by the twinkling fairy lights they're not supposed to have in the dorm room. "Yes?" 

He glares. It's probably supposed to be intimidating, but Mal's been thinking of him as the baby of their crew since he actually was a foot shorter than the rest of them, and after facing down her mother, a measly little glare from a pretty boy is nothing. "Space is totally different from the ocean! Water can't exist in a vacuum! Does the term VACUUM of space mean nothing to you?" 

Evie twirls a piece of hair around her fingertip. "I mean, space is big and dark. That's a lot like the ocean." 

"Evie--" 

Evie's nails catch the light like tiny mirrors. She's always put-together, always polished and pretty and perfect. Her nails are still done up from the christmas party they'd attended over the weekend, and the gloss isn't even chipped yet. Mal watches, mesmerized, as she spins the tendril of hair into a perfect curl. A halo. Like one of Saturn's rings. "I like space. My favorite planet is Io." 

"Io isn't even a planet!" 

Evie giggles. "I know. I think I'm getting a head start on Mal's resolution." 

"Hey, you don't get to steal my resolution!" Mal cries. She doesn't really mean it, but there's something awfully fun about complaining just for the sake of it, so she's not going to hold back. "That's mean!" 

"Do so," Evie shoots back. Her tongue is red and wet and she sticks it out at Mal like a red flag. Wicked villains, do not kiss. "I'm stealing it because I'm wicked now. I'm being worse for the new year, and I'm already doing it better than you." 

"Rude," Mal growls, and launches herself up onto the bed. If her girlfriend is gonna start the year off by stealing her resolution, she's obligated to start her year off by being even worse, and stealing a kiss. Or ten. "I'm stealing your virtue this year. I'll defile you on every desk in the library."

"Ooh, will you," Evie sighs. "I'd love that, babe, but see, I'm going to get us banned from the library again. I'm actually putting salami in the vents as we speak, and you just think I'm here talking to you." 

Gods below, Mal adores her. "They'll never trace it back to us."

"They'll trace it back to me," Carlos complains extremely rudely, throwing himself up onto the bed as well and shattering all of Mal's dreams of having a lovely night alone with her girlfriend. "Librarian Falchion blamed me when somebody lit the stacks on fire, and I wasn't even on campus when it happened." He cocks his head in a suspiciously innocent gesture. "I wouldn't light a book on fire. I like books." 

"Boo hoo, baby. Listen," Evie rubs her index finger over her thumb, in a gesture that definitely doesn't make Mal think about what else she could rub with those gorgeous fingers. "Do you hear it? I'm playing the tiniest fiddle ever, and it's a sad song just for you." 

"Fuck off." 

"I'm gonna eat more pasta shapes this year." Jay announces sleepily. He's a fucking baby about staying up late now, and when they try and drag him out for late night mischief, he keeps spouting some nonsense about ""early morning practices"" and ""seriously, Mal, 6amconditionaing"". It's just another way that Auradon's deconditioned them. The forces of goodness are always interfering where they're not needed and ruining Mal's perfectly plotted time for staying up and scheming with her crew. "Fuckin' farfelle. What the fuck does that mean. M'gonna find out." 

"A quest for knowledge!" Mal crows, "A worthy resolution!" 

"Y'can't-- Jay yawns so hugely that she can see the neon blue sour gummies embedded in his molars. "You can't steal this one too. Not allowed." 

"I'll steal all your resolutions. It's part of being worse." 

Carlos kicks her. "I'm making a resolution to annoy Mal more in the new year."

Mal kicks him back. "You can't. You're already maxed out on annoying points." 

"Sure, but you can't steal that one." 

"Can so," Mal scoffs. "I annoy myself every day. Have you seen the shit I've done to get FG to tolerate us? The only thing I could do that's more annoying than sucking up to her in class is like, sucking up to her outside of class." 

"She's in an acapella group, you know," Evie says sweetly. "We could always stop by to see our favorite teacher's performance." 

"I'd rather throw myself out a bus." Mal says, horrified. FG in a sparkly costume is the last thing she wants to spend her free time looking at. Her usual school suits are pastel enough. And singing?? 

"I'd rather throw myself under Mal's bus," Carlos agrees, but it's muffled around his mouthful of popcorn, so he doesn't sound all that serious about it. "For real though, I'm gonna try and be better about remembering my library books this year. The more goodwill I can build up with the librarians, the better." 

Evie nods. "So they'll be less upset when you burn down the library, got it." 

"Hey!" 

She laughs. "No, no, I get it. Trying to build up favor with the librarians is a smart idea. I'm going to work on focusing my energy this year." 

"I have a crystal for that." Mal offers. "It's only a little bit cursed."

"IT BIT ME." Jay says, suddenly awake. "I HAD TO GO TO THE NURSE FOR THAT SHIT." 

"It only bit you a little bit, hush. You were sleeping." 

"Was not." 

"Were so." 

Evie raises her hand "Where was I when this happened?" 

"Debate trip. Agrabah. We went to a cave Mal found in the enchanted forest when you weren't around to tell us no," Carlos says cheerfully, because he's a bastard who likes causing problems on purpose. "Mal said she'd peel my fingernails off and feed them to me with cream cheese, like horderves, if  I told you, but she only made me swear until the end of the year, and I don't think she has time to peel all of my fingernails off before then." 

"What time are we at?" 

"Two minutes til midnight." Carlos reports. "Assuming we're still following Auradon Central time. If we want to switch to Atlantica time zone, we've got two hours and two minutes." 

Evie shoots upright, jerking her soft hair cruelly out of Mal's fingers. "We have to finish saying our resolutions! Serious ones, or else they won't come true." 

"I don't think that's how it works," Mal grumbles, mostly to herself. "They're not real anyway." 

"Shut up," Evie says, planting a graceful hand into Mal's face. "I'm resolving to focus my energy on the things that matter most, and stop spreading myself thin trying to do everything at once. If I'm going to be the youngest fashion designer the kingdom has ever seen, I need to focus more on my designs and my math classes." 

"Gross." 

"For finance reasons," Evie says sweetly. "I'm going to be a bazillionaire. Jay?" 

"Pasta quest. I'm eating every shape of pasta." 

"But not every sauce," Carlos says thoughtfully. "Or every kind of garlic bread. Feels like an oversight." 

"Shut up, library boy," Jay grumbles. "Get over here."

Carlos bounds into the blanket nest. "Make me." 

"That just leaves you, Mal," Evie says, turning towards her. "And you've got forty seconds left, so you'd better make a real resolution." 

"Get worse." 

Evie hits her. 

Oh, her court-appointed therapist is going to love this. Fine. 

"I...." Mal wheedles. "Am going to..." 

Ugh. 

"Work on...." 

"Mal," Evie whines. "Please. The countdown's starting."

"Telling my friends how much I love them," Mal says in a rush. "Ten!" 

"NINE! EIGHT!" Evie picks up the chant, even though she's looking at her with that stupid sappy face that means she's proud, or something. "I love you too, Mal!" 

"FIVE! FOUR!" 

The weight of two boys collides on either side of Mal, crushing her into Evie. 

"THREE! TWO! ONE!" 

"We love you too," Evie whispers, and crushes their lips together in their first kiss of the new year. "Happy new year, my dragon.”

[pikkissis]

@puppet-limbo

I....... SCREENSHOTTED THIS SOOOO FAST!!! saved it... and now its in my computer (and my heart) forever....

INHALLLESSSS

BECAUSE RIGHT!!!

It's so mysterious because...the game really doesn't delve into more of these implications than just to say, oh!! They're rescued now! It has me... pondering... like, only if Pikmin 4 increased the demand, the urgency, such as timing... as they had it in Pikmin 1. By chance, there could've been a heightened sense of... oh no, this characters gonna die... how would this change the trajectory of the game, the story line... and all, by posing intrigue!!!

What will the "death" of this character reveal to me? Will this force me to the beginning of the game depending on its significance? Does this make me care more about my mission?

MAYBE... That'd make it convoluted -

and hopefully not as superfluous as that planetary list, but i didn't say anything

being that there's quite a handful of castaways to rescue... but... not all of them are leaflings. If there was just a little more push... a different motivation, such as to say, "Come on, recruit!!! Lives are counting on you!"

BECAUSE!!! You're in the Rescue Corps! It's no longer solely in Olimar's perspective! So, perhaps a...setback... to the mystery of leaflings was the application of the "collecting" role/formula of gameplay, (i.e, the sparklium, ship parts, and pokos)....so... with a little less "collecting" and a little more story-telling and focus on castaways, it would've allowed more room for an expansion of leaflings! With this, they could've confirmed whether it was, as you said, parasitic or DNA integration - or, at the very least, come closer to a definitive answer rather than just... ope... everything's okay now because of glow sap!

I'm so stumped too, that, in one of Olimar's logs, he reflects of the circumstances of Pikmin 2 to be a "bad dream"...

But!! Could this just be his memory loss? A side effect of being a leafling for as long as he was? BAH! A girl can dream, it just seems Pikmin 4 tossed the concepts of Pikmin 2 not to mention the obliteration of Pikmin 3 for some reason seeing that they changed the whole purpose to why Louie is on PNF-404 to begin with... or... unless... Louie forgot too...............

but that's just a theory..........

ALSO!!! AWWW thank you so so so much! I'm so flattered that you feel that way about Io and her story!! ;w; CUS SDLJHSFKJ OH GOSH, I'm confident Collin would.... do his little sad face.... like...

"Io..."

and Io's like, "It's too easy!" ... to be fair, her time as a leafling is most likely a HUGE blur! So... he's like...

"Easy?!" LKJSDFLKJSFD

[utterlyvertigo]

☀️ ~ Valeria Fleming, Percy Jackson OC ~ ☀️

🎶 “Without a song or a dance what are we? So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me.” 🎶

☀️ Name: Valeria Fleming (Named after her Grandmother)

☀️ Mortal Parent: Monica Fleming - Lead singer of a Grammy winning rock band “Fleming and The Moonstones.” Can see through the mist, currently one of the mortal vessels of The Muses

☀️ Godly Parent: Apollo - Valeria and Monica both have a really good relationship with Apollo. Valeria was claimed within seconds of her rolling into camp (a sheep knocked her over)

☀️ Total Quests: Currently Zero. Her first Quest (The Quest for the Host) takes place in her third summer in Camp

☀️ Bisexual, she/her

☀️ Was homeschooled, but is going to finish her high school diploma at Alternative High school

☀️ Prays to Hera, and has a very amicable relationship with her. Hera erected turnstiles and Iris message fountains in her cabin so campers would use cabin to contact their families rather than just for collecting rouge volleyballs.

☀️ Val is the only person who ever actually pays the turnstile fees in Hera’s cabin, despite being made a faux drachma to use by Cabin 9

☀️ Weapon of Choice: “Brian” - An enchanted gold arrow (which can disguise itself as an old paintbrush covered in dry paint*) that can be used both as a regular arrow in a bow and a weapon in itself, as it’s controlled by pitch. It was a gift from Euterpe. Valeria also does sword work and has a pretty basic Celestial Bronze sword from camp

*Brian the Paintbrush really exists, it was a gift from my art teacher.

☀️ Shield: Ramona - Valeria and her friends have matching magic bangles that turn into unique shields. Ramona shows the myth of Io, as a cow

☀️ Valeria, like every Apollo kid, has a variant of synesthesia (not my original headcanon, please tag if you know who came up with it!)

☀️ Pet: Mishu - White fancy mouse, acts as a messenger, delivers notes and small objects (no heavier then a full coke can) to other campers

☀️ Special Ability: Valeria has the ability of prophecy. It isn’t as strong or clear as an oracle, which makes her feel rather Cassandrian. It mostly comes in dreams or small visions. It’s never anything particularly clear.

☀️ Valeria is a divination witch, she has several tarot decks and is learning to read tea leaves

☀️ Her pitch is perfect, she has a mezzo soprano voice. There are notes she can’t hit (these end with Brian literally getting shot into her foot)

☀️ Very competitive, and a very sore loser. Once tried to throw a mythomagic figure at Nico because he was beating her

☀️ Banned from attacking people from the chariot the chariot race, has to drive instead

☀️ Loyal to her friends and her siblings. Particularly her little sister Neo

☀️ Listens to music via a Walkman. Often sneaks out to buy more cds/vinyls for her record player.

☀️ Crabby when woken up

☀️ Can get very hotheaded, and a bit arrogant when she isn’t getting her way or being challenged unfairly

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Plus le temps passe et plus j’ai le sentiment d’être vraiment né à la mauvaise époque... Je rêve de simplicité, de relations authentiques, de cette innocence qu’on a laissée derrière nous. Je n’aspire pas à la perfection, ou à l'accumulation de matériel, seulement à des échanges sincères, spontanés et vrais. Des connexions profondes entre humains. Un monde où la bienveillance et l'empathie seraient des valeurs centrales. Mais aujourd’hui, tout semble calculé, chacun utilise et manipule l'autre pour ses intérêts. Les gens ne dialoguent plus pour essayer de se comprendre, ils veulent juste imposer leurs idéologies. Toutes les valeurs actuelles misent en avant ne sont pas les miennes. Le bon sens aussi à quitter les esprits... Je ne me reconnaîs plus en la majorité de mes semblables. Se sentir tellement en décalage est abusé au point de me demander si ce n’est pas moi qui suis à côté de la plaque. Bref, je sais aussi que je ne suis pas tout seul à ressentir tout ça et c'est ce qui me fait tenir dans tout ce bordel ambiant. Mais au fond j'ai encore foi en l'humanité c'est le plus important sûrement pas cette année sinon je le saurais. Alors si vous lisez ce message, sachez qu'il y a en d'autres des comme vous qui aime les autres la vie les gens alors donnons rendez-vous pour l'année prochaine. Car nous sommes de belles personnes

The more time passes, the more I feel like I was really born in the wrong era... I dream of simplicity, authentic relationships, of this innocence that we left behind. I do not aspire to perfection, or to the accumulation of material, only to sincere, spontaneous and true exchanges. Deep connections between humans. A world where kindness and empathy would be central values. But today, everything seems calculated, everyone uses and manipulates the other for their interests. People no longer dialogue to try to understand each other, they just want to impose their ideologies. All the current values ​​put forward are not mine. Common sense also leaves the minds... I no longer recognize myself in the majority of my peers. Feeling so out of step is abused to the point of wondering if it is not me who is off the mark. In short, I also know that I am not alone in feeling all this and that is what keeps me going in all this ambient mess. But deep down I still have faith in humanity, that is the most important thing, surely not this year otherwise I would know. So if you are reading this message, know that there are others like you who love others, life, people, so let's see you next year. Because we are beautiful people happy New Year 2025

Più passa il tempo e più mi sento davvero nata nell'epoca sbagliata... sogno la semplicità, le relazioni autentiche, questa innocenza che ci siamo lasciati alle spalle. Non aspiro alla perfezione, né all'accumulo di materiale, ma solo agli scambi sinceri, spontanei e veri. Connessioni profonde tra gli esseri umani. Un mondo in cui la gentilezza e l’empatia sono valori centrali. Ma oggi tutto sembra calcolato, ognuno usa e manipola l’altro per i propri interessi. Le persone non dialogano più per cercare di capirsi, vogliono solo imporre le proprie ideologie. Tutti i valori attuali proposti non sono miei. Anche il buon senso abbandona la mente delle persone... Non mi riconosco più nella maggior parte dei miei coetanei. Si abusa del sentirsi così fuori passo al punto da chiedersi se sono io a non cogliere il punto. Insomma, so anche che non sono il solo a provare tutto questo ed è questo che mi fa andare avanti in tutto questo caos circostante. Ma in fondo ho ancora fiducia nell'umanità, questa è la cosa più importante, sicuramente non quest'anno altrimenti lo saprei. Quindi se leggi questo messaggio sappi che ci sono altri come te che amano la vita degli altri, quindi ci vediamo l'anno prossimo. Perché siamo belle persone

[studywithtarun]

How to remove phone addiction and have an attention span bigger than a gold fish!

You are not alone by the way , we all are stuck in this loop of consuming regretting and further consuming social media and I get it it so fun but we have to remember our goals and get back to work but frankly speaking it is near to impossible to do so and I get it so I decided to help by giving my tips. Earlier I used to have screen times of 7 to 8 hours now it is just 3 to 2 and still I accept I waste time but I did do some stuff to reduce my screen time😓

Here are the tips :

1. Remove colors - colors are the one that attract you to open a app (I am not lying I have scientific backing comment to know about it ) so remove app colors by using launcher in android or a icon changer in iOS.

2.Location - so when you are arranging your app drawer or reorganizing home page put your social media out of reach like it should be harder to reach it , it help because we all are lazy (don’t lie saying you are not lazy accept reality😭) and for iOS I recommend putting it is hidden folder as it requires you enter password (turn of Face ID for unlocking hidden folder)

3. Set a wallpaper that reminds your goal such are your dream stuff or like a vision board it should help you to back track !

4. If none work try app blocker and screen time recorder it help as it adds further hindrance in opening your addicting time consumer .

5.Have a buddy who will keep nagging you not to watch your phone (best work is done by sibling majorly younger one) they should keep you on track even parents would work just so one to remind you not to watch your phone.

Now this all the tips that I used if you have any please tell me and repost or share to people who need it 🫠

Byeeee

Your study buddy

Tarun

[antonias-beloved]

I haven't drawn this character in years omg

It's my fortnite oc Fauna! I gave her a slight (barely noticeable) redesign, adding earrings and a matching necklace, and changing her dragonfly wings to moth wings, specifically the Luna moth! It fit the colour scheme and overall vibe better than the dragonfly wings, plus I really like moths.

Story!

Fauna was once a member of the last reality, drawn in by the promise that her creation, the chrome, would become more powerful. She joined with her Pluxarian friend Flora, who would eventually become the Herald. But as time went on, Flora lost herself, and Fauna was left alone, apart from the cube princess, Echo (another oc, probably should redraw her too). But when news got out that the cube king and princess had ran away because of the corruption of the cubes, Fauna realized something.

The chrome had been twisted too.

So she ran. And instead of getting captured by the Imagined Order like Echo and her father, she wound up in a kingdom called the Oathbound, where a younger snapshot of Geno, the leader of the IO rules.

That's where she met Stellan.

The two got along really well, working on projects together and telling each other their secrets. Fauna didn't want anyone else to know about her past in TLR, but she felt she could trust Stellan. In return, Stellan told her about a shapeless man who haunted his dreams. Over time, they both fell in love with each other, but neither of them said anything, in fear of rejection.

But one day, the Ageless Champion found out about Fauna's previous affiliation with TLR, and ordered her to be exiled. But before she left, Stellan met her by the gates one more time. They started talking about her exile, and the project the two of them had been working on, known as the rift gate. She said to continue building it without her, and to try to find a way to convince the champion to let her return. Stellan promised that he would.

And then he kissed her.

They didn't see each other for another decade.

Ten years later, Fauna gets a letter from the Ageless Champion, saying that she could return. 'He finally did it,' she thought. And so she returned. And immediately, Stellan was at the gate to greet her. They embraced each other, and then there was an awkward silence.

"At the gate, before I left..." Fauna starts. "That kiss... Do you still feel that way?"

"Yes, of course I do, Fauna. Why else do you think I spent so long trying to bring you back?"

Fauna smiles and kisses Stellan.

And they've been in love ever since.

[theinfiknight]

What if the characters of Discworld were Avatars of the 15 fears from the Magnus Archives?

Now, just a disclaimer, this is just my personal opinion of which character would best fit the bill. Regardless if you agree or disagree, feel absolutely free to do so either way. Also, obvious spoilers for the books excepting Shepherd's Crown and Raising Steam.

The Web:

This one is obvious and can be no one other than Lord Vetinari himself. An absolute master of subtle manipulation and long term planning, Vetinari is the perfect Avatar of the Web. He creates a reputation of pervasive fear and makes people believe that he could do away with them at a whim, despite him never once killing a single person who wasn't an irredeemable criminal of some sort, and even then usually giving them chances to redeem themselves first. This being the case, I'd say Lady Margolotta is also an Avatar, and the one who exposed Havelock to the Web in the first place.

The Hunt:

The most stereotypical aspect of the Hunt is manifested most by Wolfgang von Uberwald, the textbook Hunter who chases and kills for the thrill of it. Both Sam Vimes and Angua hear the call of the Blood, but both refuse to heed it, and so aren't Avatars. I'd argue that there's another Avatar of the Hunt fulfilling the other role, created by the Hunt to be the perpetually hunted, the never caught but ever pursued white stag/ golden doe, the one, though not only, Rincewind.

The Eye:

One Avatar is Jeannie and every Kelda before and after her. The Kelda sees everything and knows what has happened and what will. The alternate answer is Blind Io, given his literal eyeballs that float around and also that he's cognizant of everything that goes on in the Disc, and that everyone knows he's watching.

The Spiral:

The Elf Queen. The undisputed master of illusion and deception, creating false worlds that operate on her rules, trapping people in unreal dreams they cannot escape, making them see and believe what she wants them to see and believe. Bel Shamharoth is also a possible answer given how he distorts the senses and feeds on those he traps.

The Buried:

Albrecht Albrechtsson. Knockermen are undoubtedly Avatars of the Buried, with the complex stew of fear and reverence they feel for the underground, and Albrecht is the lowest among them. Agi Hammerthief is probably the only fully realised Avatar of the Buried, who dwells beneath the Disc where no one will ever reach him.

The Flesh:

The Igors and Nutt. The Igors for obvious reasons, their affinity for tinkering with bodies, and their indisputable understanding of the fact that meat is meat, and as such can be used for a lot more than its original intention. Nutt because he is a creation of said tinkering, flesh made warped, with a living engine of meat inside him.

The End:

Mort and Bill Door, and possibly every zombie. This really needs no explanation. Mort stepping into his Master's role is the textbook descent of a human into Avatarhood, developing strange powers and slowly becoming Other. I'm not counting Death because he is the personification of the thing and isn't human enough to qualify as an Avatar. Susan is possibly some kind of Agnes Montague analogue, born from the force itself.

The Slaughter:

Carcer, the Gonne, and Cohen the Barbarian. Carcer killed for the fun of it with no care for reasoning, consequence or morality. He WAS a one man slaughter by himself. Cohen's existence was also very similar to Carcer's, albeit he killed far more people and lived by a Code that ensured that though he mass murdered on the regular, he always did it with the same honesty as a man hunting for his next meal. As such perhaps Cohen was more an impersonal personification of the Slaughter like the Piper rather than an Avatar of it. The Gonne was more an a artifact that channeled the Slaughter into whoever held it, be it D'Eath, Cruces or even Vimes.

The Corruption:

Vorbis and the Cunning Man. Vorbis absolutely embodies the toxicity and insidious creeping infestation of the Corruption. He pollutes organisations and people, changing them and turning them into versions of himself, utilising extremely unhealthy relationship dynamics in order to do so, creating an atmosphere ripe with fear, desperation and despair. The Cunning Man is similar except his method of corruption is more direct than Vorbis's ie literally taking over the body of his victim while subtly influencing the minds of those around him when he's less corporeal. His presence is filth of the mind and stench of the soul, and incites disgust and fear among those aware of his true nature.

The Stranger:

I had some trouble with this but finally decided on Susan and Lu Tze. Although one would intuitively put Susan under The End, in practice the characteristics she actually exhibits line up more with the Stranger. She walks unseen among others, unknown in the places she passes through, never usually staying very long in one place unless that happens to be her dwelling at that time. Her presence unsettles people. She doesn't fit in among others and has always been set apart. She's too undead to be truly alive and too alive to be truly undead. The only people who really know her are Death and Time. To everyone else, she's a stranger they see sometimes.

And Lu Tze, of course, is just the Sweeper. No one knows the first thing about him apart from the fact that he happens to be there. He's a part of the background of whenever he is. If anyone ever truly Looked at him, and actually noticed what they saw, that he's in fact a stranger in their midst, the first words out of their mouths would be "I do not know you"

The Desolation:

Stratford, Spider the Rat King, and Ipslore the Red. Stratford was a motherfucker who would bleed every last drop before abandoning the corpse he created. This was a bastard who, wishing to cause Vimes as much pain as he could, chose to target his son rather than seek him out directly. A man after the Desolation's own heart. Spider was out for everything the humans had. It wanted their utter ruin and destruction and was well on its way to achieving it. And Ipslore attempted to destroy the whole world with his resentment, using and abusing his own son as his instrument to do so, and would have succeeded too, if it weren't for some idiot with a half brick in a sock.

The Extinction:

The Things from the Dungeon Dimensions. The Extinction is the end of the rule of Man and their replacement with the horrifying Other. And there's nothing that fits that description better than the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, constantly seeking to bring about exactly what the Fear is.

The Lonely:

This was difficult to decide as well, but I believe the First Tooth Fairy might qualify. Living literally locked up in a bubble separate from the rest of reality, it lives apart from everyone and everything else, keeping alone for all eternity. Additionally, I believe that every living witch(with the exception of Nanny Ogg) carries a piece of the Lonely inside them. Its influence never goes away, and those who succumb to it are the ones who become cacklers.

The Vast:

Tiffany Aching and, funnily enough, a Simon once again. Tiffany's primary source of power is that she is, at her core, something far bigger than herself. She may be just Tiffany but she is also Land under Wave, the power and will of millions of years of life before her. At her most powerful she is aware of EVERYTHING, from the bones of the flint beneath the chalk to time itself to the stars being born in the distant sky. She is small but she is also Vast. And Simon sees the whole universe and truly understands what he's looking at. He sees and understands more than he can express and his knowledge of the Vast almost approaches comprehension.

The Dark:

The one, though once again not only, Samuel Vimes. There couldn't be any other answer here. The dark walks with him. He was born in it, moulded by it... By the time he saw the light it was nothing more than BLINDING. But yeah, he is most at peace in the true dark in the pissing rain on the cobbles, even before he was literally possessed by the living darkness itself. The dark aids him and talks to him. The dwarfs and the goblins may live in the dark, but Sam Vimes looked into the Abyss, and he wasn't the one who blinked.

[scarlettjohanssons-mistress]

Russian literature

Warnings: Age difference, teacher-student relationship, alternate universe - pre-canon, alternate universe - canon divergence, slow burn (?)

Word count: 2.0 K

Pairing: Melina Vostokoff x Fem!Reader

Prompt: It is literally a transcript of a dream I had with the actress Rachel Weisz. Modify a bit and change her to her character Melina hers.

Requests: OPEN

[Main masterlist] [Marvel masterlist]

"You may retire to your recess."

Without waiting for any further response from teacher Maria, I took my best friend's hand and my glass of cold coffee and we left the room.

Since we arrived at Italian class in the middle of the day, Daniela repeatedly insisted that at recess time, I had to accompany her to the school cafeteria, since she had not had breakfast.

The Italian teacher was very strict with schedules, so we knew we only had fifteen minutes to get some food (and a candy for me) and another fifteen minutes to eat in peace.

"Do you want to go to the bathroom first?" asked Daniela stopping in front of the bathroom door as I rearranged my top.

"Dani, we don't even have time to eat" we both laughed as I took her hand and dragged her to the main hallway that connected the five buildings on the inside. "Besides, if we don't go right now and we go in the middle of class, the teacher can't ask us any of the vocabulary questions."

"Agh, I know. The lady thinks for some strange reason, we had ALL weekend to study irregular verbs, doesn't she know that her subject is a complementary to my college degree?" we both laughed.

"She's crazy, did you see how she looked at me when I answered 'io vorrei' wrong?"

Before Daniela could answer me, next to her, a woman passed by, with a fair complexion, a big but pretty nose, and beautiful brown hair.

I could see her moving her head from side to side. She was looking for something.

Many people would say it was 'chivalry', my friends (Daniela) that I'm a fucking flirt, but I would say, it was both and neither.

I quickly let go of Daniela's arm, turned and reached for the poor woman.

"Hi, hey, do you need help?"

My stomach turned when I saw her eyes. Oh, my mother. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever met.

"Hi, excuse me, do any of you know how to get to the literary studies department?"

That's when I was grateful for studying 'literature' in college. "Oh sure, if you want we can take you there."

I couldn't see her, but I could even notice Daniela's panicked look behind my back.

"Oh, no need, I just don't know which building it's in" commented the woman with a nervous chuckle as she crumpled a piece of paper in her hands.

"We have no problem accompanying you. These hallways can be confusing" The woman gave me a charming smile, to which I responded and we both set out to walk from building 'D' to 'A'. "By the way, my name is Y/N and this is my friend Daniela."

For the first time, the woman looked directly at my friend and my friend just said a small 'hello' and raised her hand in greeting.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Melina."

"Do you study here, Melina?"

Damn, saying her name was completely addictive.

"Not really. Do you?"

"Yes, we are in our third semester of college."

"Third semester, they look so young" she commented raising an eyebrow.

"Well, thank you, but, that doesn't take my years off."

We both laughed while Daniela just followed us without mentioning anything.

After a few minutes, we arrived at the site, where we were quickly greeted by Sabrina, the department secretary.

"Hi Sabrina, how are you?" opened the door Daniela and let us in, as she waved.

"Hi girls, well thank you, how about you?"

"Well, thank you very much for asking."

"Melina, this is Sabrina, the secretary of the study department."

"You are Melina Vostokoff?"

"That's right."

"Oh, Mr. Hudson is busy, but he'll be able to see you in a few minutes, would you like some coffee or something?"

"coffee be excellent" before she sat down in the waiting room, she put down her bag and looked at me and my friend. "Do you have classes to go to?"

"Yes…" Dani spoke

"No," I said.

She looked at us confused.

"Well, actually, we do have classes, but, it's nothing major."

"You know what" Daniela interrupted me "Can we have a few minutes?" she asked Melina "We want to go to the bathroom."

"I don't want to."

Daniela pinched me causing me to gasp.

"If you want."

She took my hand and dragged me to the bathrooms.

"Look, Y/N I don't know what you're up to and if you want to continue being a flirty fucking whore, but, we absolutely cannot skip Italian class, just because you want to stick your tongue down that woman's throat."

"Daniela, don't be a spoilsport, what can happen if we don't show up for the second half?"

"I don't know and I don't even want to find out. Let's go," she tried to grab my arm and pull me, but I held on to the door frame.

"I'm not leaving."

"Y/N, please let's go."

"No Daniela, if you want to go, go ahead, but I'm not leaving."

Daniela just frowned, pursed her lips, looked me up and down as her face turned red as a tomato. She was furious. But she left.

I walked over to the sink, drank some water and combed my hair and checked my makeup and clothes and walked out of the bathroom.

I entered the study department again and found a Melina sipping coffee, while on the coffee table, there was another coffee and multiple cookies.

"Oh, I asked Sabrina for another coffee, in case you'd like some."

"Thank you."

I sat down and quickly took a sip.

"Where is your friend?"

"She had to go."

We were both silent for a while, until a doubt came to me.

"May I know what you're going to talk to Mr. Hudson for?"

"I was hired to teach the Russian literature class."

Several of my friends were in French, Spanish, Latin American and other literature classes. But none of them had gotten into Russian, no one was interested.

"Oh, it sounds very interesting."

"Are you going into the classroom?"

"Of course. My favorite author is Russian"

"Really, who is it?"

"Vladimir Lenin"

"Excuse me, Mrs. Vostokoff," Sabrina interrupted us. "Mr. Hudson is ready to receive you."

"Oh thank you" she gathered her belongings and before walking to Professor Hudson's office, she turned to see me "Thank you so much for helping me."

"You're welcome, Mrs. Vostokoff," I winked at her, eliciting a chuckle.

She walked a few steps, so I turned to go back to my classroom, but her voice stopped me.

"Oh, by the way, Lenin was a politician. Not a writer."

———————————————————————————

"

Well boys, that concludes today's class."

As I watched all my classmates gather their things and head out the door. I grabbed my notebook, pen and cell phone and stuffed it in my bag, but I stood watching as Melina began to close her laptop.

"Do you need anything T/N?"

"I wanted to ask if…can I buy you breakfast?"

She stopped putting her things away and looked me straight in the eye.

"Invite me, where to?"

"I know a coffee shop that's near here."

"Good" She finished putting her things away and put on her brown trench coat, it matched his eyes. Carefully, he rested her right hand on my left cheek and stroked my cheekbone with her thumb. "How many times have I told you to stop calling me 'you'?"

———————————————————————————

I could confirm that I was fully in love with Melina Vostokoff.

For years I found it disgusting to eat in the company of someone outside my family circle. Because even when I was across the table, I could hear people chewing and swallowing; some even do it with their mouths open. It made me very, very disgusted.

But to see the Russian's white cheeks puffy from chewing her waffles, while her right hand tried to hide her mouth. Her eyes were on mine and her cheeks showed the shadow of a smile.

It was completely adorable.

"Can I tell you something?" asked Melina.

Her voice snapped me out of my trance and forced me to continue eating.

"Sure" I took a sip of my coffee.

"I think it was a bad idea for you to stick my subject into your schedule."

I choked on my coffee, sending me into a coughing fit. She quickly patted my back, causing my cheeks to redden.

"Why do you say that?"

"Are you kidding Y/N?" she guffawed "You suck at remembering anything about Russian literature. I bet you don't even remember one Russian author."

I could not help but laugh. She knew me.

"You're right, I suck."

"So… why are you taking the class?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I was getting into the class…for you?"

She stopped cutting her waffle and looked at me with wide eyes.

"Me?"

"Forgive me, but, you are too beautiful to see from afar."

Before she could answer me, her cell phone started ringing.

She pulled it out and quickly answered.

"Hey honey, is everything okay?" shit, she had a husband, why didn't I think of that great possibility, a woman like her who was single? impossible. "Hey, it's okay, when I get home I'll work it out. I promise. I love you" she hung up.

"Forgive me, I shouldn't have told you what I said. I don't want to interfere in your marriage…" I began to ramble as I tried to put the silverware down on the plate. My hands were shaking, but, she took one between hers.

"Marriage?"

"Ahh, it's not…" point to her cell phone on the table with my eyes.

"She was my oldest daughter, Natasha."

———————————————————————————

I knocked on the door three times, and as I listened to the footsteps approaching the door, I arranged my dress and the bouquet of flowers in my hand.

The door opened with a crash.

"Y/N!"

"Yelena"

The little girl jumped into my arms, and even with my hands fully occupied, I was able to carry her.

"Are you coming to see mom?"

"Don't tell your mom, but I'm coming to see you, best friend."

With my index finger, I tapped her nose, causing her to wrinkle it.

"I promise."

"Hello, pretty girl."

Melina came downstairs wearing a white knit sweater I had given her last Christmas and some pants I had helped her buy. They hugged her hips in a phenomenal way. Her butt looked so sexy with them on.

"How are you?" I asked as I stole a kiss . "Iugh" Yelena made noise as if she was going to throw up. Causing me to let go of Melina and tickle the blonde girl.

"Come on little girl, I brought gifts for you and your sister."

"YEI, Nattie, Y/N brought gifts!"

The teenager's footsteps came down to us as her sister began to unwrap her new barbie.

"Hello Y/N"

"Hello red"

Red was my nickname for her. She would only let me call her that.

"What did you bring?"

"I figured you'd like a new skateboard…"

"Are you kidding!"

"Of course not" from the bag I pulled out Natasha's new skateboard, causing the little girl to let out a small squeal.

"Ah Y/N, thank you so much!" She grabbed the skateboard to hug me. I hugged her back. "I love you so much!"

"Did you already say thank you, Yelena?" asked Melina as she did her mom pose. Putting her hands on her waist.

"Thank you so much, Y/N" she also ran to hug me. "I love you."

"I love you too, love bugs…but go play, seize the day."

I didn't have to say it twice for them to run away.

"You didn't have to give them anything," Melina said.

"I know, but, I didn't want to leave my favorite girls without a gift."

"So your favorite girls, huh?"

"Hey, don't be jealous. You're my special girl too" I gave her the bouquet of roses and sunflowers I had bought especially for her.

I saw how her eyes sparkled and she brought her face close to smell the flowers.

"Have I told you that I love you?"

"Did I tell you?"

"Not that I remember," she joked.

"I love you, then."

"I love you so much more."

Note:

It took me a long time to write this, but now I'm like a machine, writing one after another (because they stole my cell phone, I HATE YOU MEXICO)

I hope you enjoy it

I appreciate the reblogs, the likes and the comments

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