#so he just fucking hates himself. he thinks this is a fate worse than death

[glomscrooge]

I understand why people carry dt17 scrooge's teasing into glomscrooge content based on the show, but please consider how embarrassing it would be for him to admit that he likes this glomgold. I'd kill myself honestly

[tsukimefuku]

blunt trauma ♰ nanami kento

summary: your mission is to execute a curse user. the issue? said curse user is nanami kento, your former high school classmate and the man who you still secretly love.

tags and cw: dark content, no use of y/n, sorcerer!f!reader, villain!nanami, +18, explicit smut (mostly rough with tender moments hate/love sex), unprotected sex (wrap it, ppl), masturbation, oral (f receiving), pv, from enemies to enemies who fucked 👍, drama and angst (i’m a latina who grew up watching telenovelas), mentions of death, canon-typical violence, ptsd, cursing, hurt/no comfort, this man is saltier than the sea and turned it into everybody else's problem. 

wc: 7.5k

notes etc.: somehow it became a character study. this is my rendition of what i think gege would make nanami to be like if they followed their original plan and had nanami be a villain. inspo list is so huge i had to make a playlist, i got carried away.

writing/reading soundtrack: playlist link ; main songs → way down we go (kaleo) and daylight (david kushner).

disclaimer: i do not in any way approve of (or encourage) the relationship depicted here. it is toxic and bad for all parties involved. this is fictional and should stay that way.

oh, father, tell me ♰ do we get what we deserve?

It felt like the air had been beaten out of your lungs by the very one and only blunt blade you ever knew when you heard the news from Gojo.

Of course the first thing he did when he finished wrapping things up was calling you. If roles were reversed, and this had been Geto, he wouldn't expect any less from you.

During the School's Exchange Event, Jujutsu High was attacked by multiple high grade curses and curse users.

One of them was your former best friend from high school, Nanami Kento. 

"Are you certain it was him?"

"Absolutely," Gojo replied on the other side of the line, "there were traces of cursed energy from his cursed technique. He was also spotted by one of MeiMei's ravens."

"And how many students did he…"

"Two students from Kyoto."

Your head instantly felt dizzy.

"He also killed around a dozen assistants and people securing cursed objects underground."

"Shit… shit," you muttered, forgetting for a few seconds what words were and how to form a coherent sentence. Following suit, your stomach dropped with a sinking ache the moment you made the obvious realization, uttering the most painful thing you had to say in your life — even worse than he's gone, so many years before.

 "This will earn him a death sentence, won't it?"

Gojo was silent for a few moments.

"Hey…"

"Tell me. I can take it."

After a bated breath — from your end, mostly — he confirmed your worst fears.

"Yes. It will."

Ever since Geto's and Nanami's defection, you and Gojo had a special type of shared sorrow over each other's failures to save the people you both loved the most. Call it trauma bonding or codependency, but you developed an unwavering sense of loyalty towards one another.

For that reason, he already knew what you were about to ask him, and you only would because you knew he wouldn't find it in himself to refuse it.

"When it happens, please, have me be appointed as the executioner."

"Of course."

Sitting with a glass of whiskey while gazing out of the window in an understated house just by the outskirts of Sendai, Nanami couldn't say he was fulfilled, unable to grasp the concept of feeling in any way elated ever since his teenage years. However, he was definitely satisfied that this plan had worked.

He managed to put a dent into Jujutsu Society, aiding Geto — or, at least, someone that looked like him, not that Nanami truly cared about it by this point — in retrieving multiple cursed objects that would be used for their inevitable fallout.

There had been a few casualties, though.

Two students and many personnel died — or rather, met their fateful end by the edge of his blunt blade —, but some deaths should be expected if Jujutsu Society was to be brought to the ground, down to its last brick.

Ever since that fateful day when he was nothing but a tall child sitting beside the cold corpse of his best friend, Yu Haibara, Nanami had simmered what would become a cauldron of absolute venom-dripping rage against Jujutsu Society.

To hell with saving other people — what about them? What about the teenager that would never grow to be a sorcerer, who became an inanimate nothing before ever getting the chance of making something out of himself? 

That face… Nanami could never forget it. It haunted his dreams, even a decade later. Such a stark contrast between the light-spirited smiles and this cold, gray monolith that laid in the morgue.

They had no right to rob their students from their youth, much less from their lives, but that's exactly what Jujutsu High did when they didn't even bother to check the mission appropriately before dispatching Haibara and Nanami to a certain death.

Nanami escaped, but just barely, by the skin of his teeth. Haibara, however, wasn't blessed with the same luck, and drew the short straw when his hitched final breaths met their end against Nanami's shoulder. Nanami, who carried his best friend on his back, desperately tried to win a losing race against death. 

Help was late to arrive.

They were too late for Haibara.

And, in a sense, they were too late for him, too.

The worst part, though, was when they were finally being transported all the way back to Jujutsu High. As he glanced over Haibara’s cadaver, now covered by a body bag, one particularly insensitive assistant very rudely stated, “at least there is a body to be buried.”

At least

There is a body 

To be buried

Those words echoed in his head for what felt like eternity. Was that the best they all had to hope for? To at least have remains left behind for the mourning?

In any case, that was why, even though he had to kill, Nanami never mangled any of his human victims — something not easy to do, given how his technique worked and how easy it was to split someone in half.

You had noticed this perverted benevolence while looking over the necropsy reports, a realization that just added insult to injury.

Let there be something for the funeral, I suppose, was what he told himself.

In his own twisted way, Nanami figured this was a kindness very few sorcerers received at their tragic ends, and decided he'd definitely be more compassionate than what Jujutsu High put their sorcerers through. 

In his eyes, those from Jujutsu High who died under his will were the ones granted a truly merciful death.

His peace was disturbed by the sound of the entrance door being brutally kicked in, flying its way across the living room. He pulled his blunt blade from the side of his armchair with his free hand, but quickly put it down when realizing it was you that had just barged inside.

He knew you very well — well enough to be certain you wouldn't come swinging at him immediately.

"I can see you still have a temper. Destroying the door wasn’t necessary, I would've opened it for you," he stated, sipping on his drink.

"I don't care," you retorted, "I guess you already know why I'm here, in any case."

"I do. You're here to carry out my death sentence," he stated, completely unbothered, as if talking about the weather.

As if he was just mundanely stuck in his ways. 

You huffed, placing your hand over your sword's handle.

"Precisely."

"We haven't spoken in a long time, why don't you take a seat?" Nanami inquired, pointing at the armchair right in front of him. "I want to finish my drink."

You glared at the curse user, as he, unfazed, kept gulping on his whiskey. Nanami was wearing a black buttoned shirt, black pants and black oxford shoes, and you couldn't help but see him as a grim reaper — this was a somber look, fitting for the equally somber man who carried it.

For a second, you took in his features — you hadn’t seen Nanami for a few years after the last time you crossed paths.

His shoulders had slightly broadened, and he still bore the same chiseled face, framed by his sand-blond hair neatly slicked back.

Nanami’s eyes traveled over you quickly, apparently doing the very same thing.

Time had left its marks. It was evident you both had grown up — and apart.

You knew this was a shit idea, but entertained it enough that you actually walked towards the chair and sat down. There were definitely things to be talked about, and you just about had a million questions for him.

Most of them, however, boiled down to what you immediately asked.

"Why did you do it?"

Nanami put his glass on the coffee table right in front of you.

"It was a necessary means to an end."

His words came with frost-bitten coldness, his voice embodying the monotone you once loved, but eventually, grew to hate.

You scoffed, incredulous at his reply, involuntarily clenching your fingers around your katana's handle as it laid on your lap.

"Necessary means to an end? Nanami, you killed teenage sorcerers!"

"As I said, and I don't like repeating myself," he interjected, "it was a necessary sacrifice for a greater cause."

"You're such a hypocritical, self-righteous ass!"

Nanami sighed, clearly displeased.

"We have always been able to keep some semblance of respect for each other, despite our… differences. Do not use that foul language with me."

You laughed bitterly, no amusement or fun in your voice as you did.

"Do you think I can still have an ounce of respect for you after what you did? You murdered my people! They were all sorcerers. You killed students, Nanami! Jujutsu High's students! Just like Haibara once was!"

He shot his eyes at you, and the aura of his cursed energy grew sinister at your words. 

"Don't say his name."

Yu Haibara, arguably the glue that kept the trio together. You were hot headed, Nanami was intransigent, and Yu was the conciliatory ray of sunshine that kept you two — but you, particularly — from constant quarreling as classmates nearly every day.

But back then, you'd argue with Nanami with love.

This wasn't the case now.

Not entirely, at least.

"He was my best friend too, the three of us were! Do you really think this is what he would've wanted?!" you questioned him, equal parts hurt and enraged.

"I'm not one to ponder on could've or would've been's. Haibara is gone."

"I'm not a would've been!"

You could still remember it. The day you realized why dealing with Nanami and hearing his sharp comebacks riled you up so intensely. 

You finally understood you were in love with him.

Ever since the first day you met Nanami, you envied the way he'd be able to keep his feelings in check when you constantly felt like falling apart. You felt jealous at how he was considered a greatly competent individual, regarded by all as the best of your class, while you were basically viewed as a ticking bomb nearing explosion. And finally, it made you livid the way how everyone treated him like the informal leader of the trio when the three of you were out on a mission together.

However, those were the same things that got you to admire your friend and, eventually, fall in love for him.

That day, you asked Nanami to meet you outside after class by himself — much to Haibara's dismay —, because you had something to tell him. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the unforgiving sun of summer was already setting, casting an orange glow through the leaves of the tree you were both under.

After confessing your feelings for him and bracing yourself for being shot down, because why the hell would Nanami Kento, the brilliant, competent, and mature second-year, have any interest in the chaotic, hot headed mess you were, you realized he actually looked surprised. After taking a few moments to collect himself, Nanami told you how he had thought you actually hated him.

At last, somewhat nervous — but definitely intent on not letting it show —, he confided he had affectionate feelings towards you as well.

Your first kiss was awkward, as it would be expected out of two inexperienced people such as you and Nanami were at that age, but it carried the sweet taste of a blue spring marked by teenage years' innocence.

It felt like a promise.

Unfortunately, such promise was unmercifully cut short the very next day, when Nanami and Haibara were dispatched to their life-changing mission.

What an irony it was that, in the end, you were the one to actually mature over Haibara's death, growing up to be an upstanding sorcerer, loved and admired by peers and students alike, and Nanami was the bomb to blow up in everybody's faces.

What a cruel irony.

"I was there too, and I'm still here, having to pick up the pieces of what you deliberately destroyed!" you rasped, angrily.

"You weren't a 'would've been'? Where were you when we needed you? When I needed you?" his voice didn't conceal the tinge of hurt that those questions carried.

What a fucking low blow.

"Nanami, that's not fair. There wasn't anything I could've done in that situation, and you know that!"

You blamed yourself for a while for not going on that mission with them, until you realized that you too would probably have died if you were there. From the three, Nanami was the only one strong and fast enough to pull off an escape like he did.

He diverted his gaze back to the window.

"You were the one to bring up hypothetical scenarios. Let's indulge in them for a minute, shall we?" 

Nanami glanced back at you, and his next words brimmed with bitter resentment, even if his voice sounded more calm and collected than ever.

"You see someone you supposedly love slowly sinking into darkness. What do you do?"

"Don't you dare, you condescending prick! I asked you so many fucking times what was going on. You were the one who shut me out!"

Your voice carried a decade-old pain that resonated from the depths of your soul.

It came from all the times you entered his dorm room with his favorite sandwich after he had cooped up in there for days on end, and he didn't even bother to eat it. Every time you asked him to talk to you, said you were there for him, and was met by a vacant stare.

And, at last, the time when he cruelly blamed you for not being there when Haibara died.

The way he coldly told you about Haibara's last words.

According to Nanami, Haibara said he wanted to speak to you one last time, at least to bid you farewell.

And you weren't there.

Oh, the viciousness with which he blamed you, and decided you owed him something for this perceived failure. 

The next time Nanami talked to you, he asked you to leave Jujutsu High with him, just like Geto did, and swore to destroy them. You tried, pleaded, implored for him to reconsider and stay, but the very following day, you were met by an empty room where the person you once loved used to be. 

That emptiness had, paradoxically, filled you wholly with grief.

Gojo once told you that nobody could save someone who didn't want to be saved.

You still thought you should've tried harder, in a childish attempt at giving yourself an illusory semblance of control over that clusterfuck of a situation.

This is the gap inside our psyche that feeling guilty tries to fill, isn't it?

We can only feel guilty about the things we could've changed, right?

Your voice sounded decades older than yourself, burdening the weight of multiple lifetimes of hurt and grief. Your soul was too old for your own good.

"How can you find it in yourself to blame me for this?! No… This is a prison of your own making. You built the house of cards that is tumbling down on your head as we speak entirely by yourself."

He huffed intensely through his nostrils — Nanami’s version of a snort —, looking the other way before proceeding, each syllable hitting you with the deadly precision of his cursed technique.

"You abandoned us, leaving me and Haibara to fend for ourselves, just like Jujutsu Society did."

By that point, you began yelling, and your voice reverberated all across the room.

"The hell I did!"

You had to take a deep breath before proceeding.

"I just couldn't get behind this dumb idea that we should become curse users and bring down Jujutsu Society."

"Why didn't you come with me?" he finally asked, in an amalgam of pain, sadness, longing, anger, and stinging resentment. "I would have followed you to the deepest recesses of hell if you asked me to."

You huffed, laughing angrily in between your teeth, before thrusting your words like thorns against him.

"Funny you should say that. You'd go anywhere for me? How about staying? Why couldn't you have stayed for me, then?!" 

Perhaps that request was egotistical, but you didn't care. If only for a moment, you wanted to give yourself this small privilege — to want in a world of duty.

"I was the one actually left to fend for myself, right inside the belly of the beast, and you couldn't have cared less."

He stared at you, nothing in his eyes other than the void left behind after his spirit got killed with his best friend so many years ago.

"I didn't stay because… Because," Nanami stated, with a grave finality, "and you're the one who chose to stay. You're still actively choosing to, just like you did back then."

"That's not a good enough answer," you replied with a bad taste in your mouth.

"It's what you've earned," he coldly replied, "but in case you change your mind-"

"Enough," you interrupted him, incredulous that even after everything, this man had the nerve of suggesting you'd ever be interested in running away with him. "It appalls me you would even consider I could… After what you've done? No, never."

Nanami sighed, and for a brief moment, seemed to be actually disappointed under his resigned, polished visage.

"Well, then. Let's get this over with, at once."

In a split second, you pushed your chair on the ground, falling on your shoulders and rolling on your back, dodging his lightning-fast attack. It left a crater behind, right where you were seconds before. Nanami jumped over the fallen armchair, and you dodged him once again, spinning on your heels, unsheathing your sword as you did so, to deal a beheading blow on the back of his neck.

However, right before impact, you faltered, slowing down your movement.

Your own body held you back from taking his life.

He didn't seem to notice.

Nanami bent down just in time to avoid the blow, and swung his blunt blade towards your kneecap. You were quick on your feet, and jumped back, putting a good distance between the both of you.

"I can see you're actually fighting to kill," he noted, getting up on his feet.

"Of course. That's what I came here to do," you spat in his direction.

"You were never the practical one."

You scoffed.

"Guess I learned something from you."

He smiled at the irony of that, but his eyes didn't follow his expression. 

Nanami lunged at you, but while you thought he'd deal his next blow in your direction, he hit your footing, having you fall on the ground. Abruptly, his blunt blade descended in your direction, but you were able to catch it and have it slip to your side using your katana supported by your hand behind it, sending a sharp, loud sound around the vicinity, trembling against the bones and flesh of the house.

You rolled on your side when he struck a new hit in your direction, leaving another gaping hole on the floor, and you jumped yourself up. 

Before you could attack him, however, he took you by surprise, and you lifted your sword to defend yourself. Nanami hit your katana with his blunt blade, breaking it near where the handle and the steel met, launching your body back on the wall.

The impact knocked the air out of your lungs, and you fell to your knees, unable to recover yourself as you got up. Instantly, you heard his quick, steady steps sprinting their way in your direction.

You were cornered.

This is it.

You braced yourself for the impact, closing your eyes. You remembered his technique perfectly.

Precise, just as he was.

Deadly, just as he was, too.

You were to die at the hands of the man you loved, who had become a murderer and only a distorted, broken version of whom you used to truly love.

This seemed like an oddly cruel way to go.

However, the impact never came.

His blunt blade stopped as it was about to hit your stomach, and you opened your eyes, just to see his face mere inches apart from yours. His mountainous form blocked your view from anything else behind him, and Nanami, at that moment, actually looked like the menace he truly was. 

“Why were you appointed as my executioner?” Nanami asked, much to your surprise.

“I asked to be,” you answered, holding his gaze as something went through his eyes. A hint of anger, most likely, and some sense of betrayal, certainly. 

“So, you want to kill someone you once loved? You were always prone to self-penitence, so it stands to reason you’d do something idiotic like that.”

You scoffed, grimacing at him, feeling your entire body incandescent with rage.

“I fucking hate you, Nanami.” 

He inched his face even closer, brushing your noses against one another, eyes stone-cold and hauntingly vacant.

“I hate you as well.”

For a moment, you wondered if he had really stopped his blade before impact. You didn't expect it, but hearing those words felt like you just had been hit, victim of a blunt trauma, at how much they tore you apart. 

The same blunt trauma that severed the Nanami you once knew — the teenager with bangs, who'd always be carrying around a few spare changes to get soda cans from the vending machine for you and Haibara, in his own understated kindness — and this empty monster looking back at you.

"Good. Finish me off, then, and get your revenge for a crime I never committed. Being unfair and an all-around self-centered asshole certainly suits you, fucker."

His hand made its way up your neck, and you were pressed against the wall. The grip was firm, but not enough to choke you — it came more as a warning than anything else.

"I already told you to stop using that foul language with me," he ordered, low voice simmering with genuine irritation.

"Then make me," you challenged him, hoping for this torture to be over as fast as possible.

Just fucking kill me already.

His blunt blade fell with a thud on the floor, and you were confused for a moment, wondering if he really wouldn't give you the kindness of a quick demise. Did he plan on choking you to death?

Did he hate you that much?

His other hand came up, but before you could do anything to try to resist — which would be nothing but a futile attempt at survival, given that Nanami was physically much stronger than you —, his fingers snaked their way through the back of your hair, tugging it at the roots. 

His mouth clashed against yours, all teeth, tongue, anger, and hunger, and instantly every nerve in your body flared up with a raging fiery ember you hadn't felt in years. All the pent-up resentment, hurt, and desire you had for Nanami swirled together in your gut, guiding your hands up his hair, as you also pulled on it intently, robbing him of a gasp.

You intertwined your tongue against his, and he unceremoniously bullied his own inside your mouth, leaving no crevice unexplored, as his hand on your neck descended towards your waist, where he clenched his fingers with a vicious grip. You whimpered against his lips, and he grunted in return, pushing his body on yours. His throbbing growing cock could be felt, even through both of your clothes, as he pressed it right against the edge of your pants.

When you finally parted after what seemed like a not-long-enough eternity, you huffed and panted, and albeit less than you, he was panting too.

"I fucking… hate you…" you gnarled, glaring into his eyes. The hazel-brown gaze you once adored was now clouded and dark, like the muddy waters of a deep lake.

"Shut the fuck up," Nanami groaned back, strongly cupping your cunt with his large hand. You whimpered in surprise, and he pulled you in harshly for another kiss, letting go of your hair and sex to sink his fingers on the backside of your thighs, pulling them. You immediately jumped up and threw your arms around his shoulders, as he manhandled your legs to have them hooked around him.

He quickly took you both inside the room, and tossed you on the bed, having you gasping in surprise. Before you could catch your breath, he climbed his way on top of you, pressing your body down, and clashed his mouth against yours again, making you actually lightheaded from a lack of air.

You pushed against his chest, grunting uneasy, and surprisingly, he parted his lips from yours.

"What?"

You panted heavily, nearly hyperventilating, and mindlessly rested your hand on his cheek.

"C-can't breathe…" was all you mustered up to say, trying to replenish oxygen back into your system.

His eyes softened so discreetly you nearly missed it, and his cold-ivory enclosure slightly cracked under the affectionate touch he didn't expect.

Nanami had no idea how much he had craved it ever since you parted ways, and hated himself, just a little, for how much such an innocuous gesture stirred his old feelings up, throwing his heart against his chest in a fluttering rush.

I should be over her by now, dammit.

Nanami also brought his hand up your face, and ghosted over your cheek for a second before sliding his fingers delicately down over it.

You also weren't prepared for that, and your chest tightened all over your heavy heart as you remembered your first kiss.

The way he'd cup your face in his hands.

 So delicate, so lovely.

This touch, at this very moment, felt like a painful reminder of everything you had lost.

"Kento…" you cooed, voice strained in your throat, with all the things you were sure you'd never say.

He hummed your name in return, and kissed you while sinking your body against the mattress. This kiss was different, as his lips brushed gently over yours, and his tongue tenderly teased over the seam of your mouth. You welcomed him in, and you both explored these deep waters tentatively, as he upped the intensity after each stroke of your tongues against each other.

He tasted like whiskey, and bread, and the tainted love left behind as nothing but a reminiscence of less grueling days. You couldn't help but feel robbed by him.

You both had been missing out on this for all these fucking years.

"Why did you have to go?" you asked, pulling back from him, a tinge of anger to your cadence, and another of pain in your face.

"Why did you have to stay?" he spat back at you, equal parts saddened and resentful.

His mouth made its way to your neck, and you gasped with the sensation of his warm breath mingled with saliva against your skin, as he licked and bit his way around.

You couldn’t find it in yourself to push him away, and your eyes burned with the prickling sensation of tears that wouldn’t come. You were starved for his touch, his smell, his body, even if this was the murderer of your students, of your friends.

In your head, you felt like digging a hole and throwing yourself in it, to wallow in the misery of realizing that you were about to fuck the murderer of people you loved, and that it felt good.

A pool of heat and fire shot down your insides as your heartbeats throbbed in between your legs.

You hated yourself, and on top of it all, hated Nanami. 

Hated that you couldn't help but still love him, even after all he had done.

This was the setting tension in between the both of you, the two extremes of hate and love pulling against each other, all while the tug of war rope refused to snap to either side.

He pulled your shirt over your head, tossing it aside, and you undid his shirt, unzipping his pants. He unzipped you too, and quickly enough, took off your pants along with your panties with a single sharp tug.

Back to rough, but not entirely, it seemed.

His hand glided against your thigh and his fingertips slipped over your entrance, getting completely glazed by your already dripping arousal. He grunted, a guttural and intense sound deep in his chest, giving you another bite on the soft skin of your neck.

"Hate me?" Nanami asked, teasing his digits over your cunt, "doesn't seem like it."

You managed to scoff at him, which would prove to be a mistake.

"Go fuck yours-"

Before you could finish your sentence, he dove two of his fingers inside knuckle-deep, without any hint of a warning, forcefully stretching your walls around them. You immediately let out a whimper so pitiful you wondered if that was really your voice.

He seemed satisfied at that. Perhaps, even elated.

"Good girl," Nanami whispered right beside your ear, nibbling against your earlobe with his teeth, sending shivers down your spine. He began sliding his fingers in and out, and you bucked down against his hand while moaning and mewling, walls sheathing his digits as he finger-fucked your cunt, neglecting your clit as punishment for calling him a condescending prick earlier.

His palm rucked against your dripping folds, echoing wet slaps all throughout the room, as your arousal kept pooling on his palm.

He mumbled softly against your skin, bringing his mouth up to brush against yours, "hate… you still love me."

You instantly drew one of your hands to slap him in the face for this hurtful teasing, but he had quick reflexes — quicker than yours. He dodged himself back as your hand hit the empty sheets, and edged his fingers to hit against your soft spot, pressing it so violently, you let out a strained cry from the shooting overstimulation pain.

"Ah- Shit!" you shouted, face all scrunched up.

"Can't you behave for once?" he chided, "why is it so hard for you to j-just-“ 

Nanami’s breath hitched in his throat as he grunted, unable to finish his sentence.

You shut him up the only way you could think — grabbing his cock harshly over his boxers. It was extremely effective, and he immediately humped his length against your hand, while lowly groaning.

With trembling hands and a violent snap, you haphazardly pulled his boxers down to his mid-thighs, as his fingers kept mercilessly bullying their way inside you, sending vibrating waves all throughout your body with every thrust.

“Stop… telling me… ah-aaah-“ you rolled your eyes back with a loud moan, struggling to keep a train of coherent thought, gnarling your next words,  “what to… ah- do!”

His cock sprang out, slapping against his belly. The tip was already flustered red, leaking with pre-cum, and had a long, prominent vein on the underside.

To punish him back for the roughness, you grabbed his length with one hand, and with the other, pressed the middle of your palm against his flushed tip, glistening his arousal around it with enough force to jump across the divide between intense pleasure and painful overstimulation.

Nanami cursed with a feral voice through his teeth, immediately biting the side muscles of your neck with no semblance of restraint, making sure to leave a purple remnant of pain etched on your skin.

“Ah- ouch! Fuck!” you spat out, tightening your grip around his cock, but weakened enough to release the tight pressure against his tip, letting him fuck into your hand. His hips bucked erratically, and his lips pressed a quick kiss right where he had previously bitten.

He couldn't help it.

Suddenly, Nanami stopped his rutting fingers to press his thumb against your already throbbing clit. That instantly had you seeing stars as you cursed loudly in between moans and grunts, drawing your free hand to his head, ferociously tugging at his hair, as heat pooled in your lower abdomen like fiery embers of coal.

He grabbed your arm, pulling it away from his shaft, and removed his fingers from your walls, having them clenching around nothing at such a sudden emptiness. You began complaining, only to have your voice cut short by his tongue slipping its way inside your mouth, in a sloppy, wet kiss. 

Parting from you, Nanami’s eyes were glassy, and you were absolutely sure your gaze must’ve looked just as hazy as his.

In a brief moment, before you realized it, he slid himself down, and unceremoniously lapped at your already sensitive clit with his warm tongue, hot breath tickling against your sensitive skin.

Both of your hands descended towards his hair, brushing over his golden and now messy locks more tenderly than you expected. Nanami suddenly shivered and moaned into your cunt, edging his tongue down your folds and back, eyes fluttering shut the moment he tasted you entirely.

He felt a tinge of pain clench at his chest, realizing this was the taste he had missed out on for all that time — your taste, which would surely ruin him forever.

Nanami’s pain, however, was quick to turn into outrage, as he began sucking on your clit relentlessly, eliciting the most animalistic sounds you had ever uttered.

You instinctively tried backing away, and he pulled on your thighs, holding them with such a violent force that his hand was sure to leave an engraving of his digits over your plush skin.

Nanami was intent on dragging this orgasm out of you by any means necessary.

You had never given him anything he wanted from you — be it the company to fight against Jujutsu High or the same unwavering loyalty he had for you. So this was something he’d take.

If you wouldn’t be by his side, then the least you could do was to cum for him so fervently, he’d be sure to ruin you just as much as he felt like you had ruined him. You owed him that, or so Nanami thought.

“Aaah-- Kento! S-slow d-… fuck!”

You came with a thunderous shout, jolting your hip forward as your thighs tightened with inhuman strength to the sides of his head. Nanami made sure to deliciously lick your way down from your high, applying such a precise and perfect pressure on your clit that you could’ve wept from sheer satisfaction.

After your legs went limp, he slowly climbed his way back to you, pressing kisses all over your body, leaving a ghost of heat wherever his mouth traveled. When Nanami finally reached your face, he put his forearms against your sides, hands over your shoulders, caging you in, as he pressed his mouth against yours in a slow kiss.

You were floating in a calm sea, salty waves caressing your body every time they passed through, and it felt cozy. Inviting, even. As he parted his lips from yours, Nanami gazed into your eyes in the way he used to.

For a second, you got catapulted into the past, and the orange sun that warmed your cheeks through the leaves as you kissed for the first time seemed to shine its rays over again.

With his arms around you, the nonsensical feeling of being protected washed over your heart.

“Come with me,” he whispered with a sultry, husky voice. 

“Kento…” you cooed, sighing, wanting nothing more than for this moment to extend for infinity.

But it couldn’t.

You didn’t go with him, so many years ago.

And wouldn’t go now, either.

That wasn’t how it worked for the both of you.

Nanami understood it, and what seemed like another crack against his unwavering walls had formed the moment his brows furrowed above his eyes.

“Fine, then,” he said, with a tinge of genuine hurt to his voice.

You parted your thighs to accommodate his hips, and he obliged, guiding his hand down to align his cock against your entrance. You bent and hooked your legs around him, pulling him in, and as the tip of his length got pressed against your dripping cunt, he gasped slightly over your lips.

Nanami sunk in slowly, going through your already relaxed ring. However, it apparently wasn’t relaxed enough, or perhaps he was just too big, because you could feel every inch of stretching his cock made against your walls as he slowly bottomed out inside your cunt.

His mouth fell open and you exhaled a moan into it, breaths mingling together. You two drank each other in. Nanami pressed his forehead against yours, and you both held each other’s gaze, as he pulled your left wrist above your head, holding it there, pushing you down the mattress by your waist with his other hand.

After a moment for you to take him in, Nanami began rolling his hips into you, while his hand kept bruisingly pressing your wrist against the mattress. You could feel his balancing act of trying to love you and wanting to hurt you at the same time.

You weren’t so different from him in that sense, though. Your nails got dragged down his back with abrasive force, and for a second, you considered drawing blood from him. He grunted, and you saw the spark of cold-hearted anger flash through his now dimmed eyes.

You both wanted to love each other just as much as you wanted to hurt each other.

In a more forgiving universe, perhaps, he’d hold your hand tenderly, intertwining his fingers in yours. Maybe you two would be in the kitchen as he showed you one of his favorite bread recipes, and share quiet moments of understanding companionship when remembering those who had left this world too soon.

But this wasn’t that universe, unfortunately.

He was to die, and you were to carry out his execution. 

Except you couldn’t, because even if you still tried to cling on to any sliver of morals, even if his life was something yours alone to take, the mere thought of a world without Nanami was far worse than the reality of a world in which he was a murderer.

You insisted on fighting a losing game, and much to no one’s surprise, you lost. 

Good riddance to me, I suppose.

His grunts came hitched and stuttered against your mouth as he was now rutting himself into you, biting your lower lip hard enough to almost pierce the skin with his teeth. You moaned loudly, dragged around with pain and pleasure, the combo that seemed to summarize the gist of your relationship.

He let go of your wrist and descended his hand without a warning towards your already overworked clit, glazing his thumb against the ring of arousal you were leaving around him before starting to make circles around your nub. Your moans came out cracked and faltering, as you tried to resist the instinctive urge of fleeing that the overstimulation was eliciting.

“Give me… one more,” Nanami groaned lowly against your cheek, planting multiple kisses down the side of your face and your chin. His hair — which had already fallen from its usual slick arrangement — brushed against your fluttering eyelids, momentarily weaving golden sand colors over your your vision, and you drove both your hands to the back of his head, pulling him in for another kiss. 

You could kiss him like this forever. 

You actually wanted to, at that moment.

To his request, you nodded, and this was probably the first time you acquiesced to any request Nanami had ever made to you. 

Fulfilled, his thrusts and his finger over your clit became increasingly erratic, as he was now moaning your name against your mouth. You pushed your tongue over his, sliding your hands up his head to tug at his roots, and that was all it took to tip him over the edge.

Nanami came with a muffled groan, having your tongue still pushed inside his mouth, and kept pumping himself inside you trying to keep the comedown at bay. His thick, white cum got glazed all over inside you, and the slaps of flesh and skin began sounding ever more wet than they already were.

You weren’t so far off, with your walls fluttering around him, and he noticed it, keeping his now trembling thumb pressed and circling intently over your clit. With one perfectly applied nudge on your sensitive bud, Nanami finally pulled you over the edge along with him.

Some tears began pooling on the edges of your lashes, and all your emotions — anger, sadness, grief, longing, and a particular brand of despair you cultivated during the last decade — came crashing down as he wrenched your second orgasm from you.

Your body convulsed under him, fluttering walls expelling his softening cock out, as you shouted and grunted into his mouth. You didn’t know if you were more furious at yourself for still loving him, at him for loving you, or at Jujutsu Society for jumbling you both like pawns to be tossed around until you two were broken beyond repair.

Angry at them for sending the young out to have their spirits crushed too soon. For all the deaths no one got to mourn because there was too much work, too little time, and the wounded were always left behind to fend for themselves.

Just like you were.

And just like Nanami was.

You sat at the edge of the bed while putting your shirt back on, and looked back at Nanami, who had his buttoned shirt open over his chest.

“Are you still resolute on your decision of not coming with me?” Nanami asked, with a tinge of eagerness. Or maybe it was just your imagination.

You pondered for a moment, and knew exactly what the answer to that question was.

“Yes. I’m not coming with you.”

For a second, you caught the faintest glimpse of the person he used to be. Something aching to genuine disappointment.

The longing that flashed through him, unfortunately, was quick to go, as he began buttoning his shirt down, averting his gaze elsewhere.

“Why?”

“Because I’d hate myself for the rest of my life if I did,” you stated, sighing before continuing, “and it’s not because I can’t kill you or because I love you that I don’t despise you. You crossed an uncrossable line.”

He pursed his lips, and almost felt regretful for the path he chose.

Almost, since regret now would come ten years too late.

“You can’t go back. They will know you let me go,” Nanami remarked. Be it from him or from looking around this house, Jujutsu High would surely hold you accountable for this — for willingly letting the curse user and murderer, Nanami Kento, escape their wrath.

“I know that,” you replied, a tad bit more defeated than you expected, “that’s why I’m fleeing to Hokkaido.”

He sighed and looked at you. You held his gaze, feeling a little hint of anxiety at what he seemed to be simmering under the surface.

With a warmer expression — or as warm as he could muster it up to be  —, Nanami spoke again. 

“I truly want you to come with me. You’d be safer. We’d… be by each other’s side.”

For a moment, you faltered, open lips with no sound coming out of them. Blinking yourself back to Earth, you asked, “you mean together?”

Nanami kept silent, but nodded, waiting for your response.

He wasn’t just asking for you to come with him, but to be with him.

You wanted to. You did. Something Nanami never knew was just how much you wanted to follow him when he asked you the same thing, so many years ago.

But even though you wholeheartedly loved him with every minute part of your being, your loyalty lied elsewhere.

Not with him, but with the people he had killed.

Well, at least that was the comfortable lie you were capable of living with.

It would destroy you to realize the loyalty you had for the murderer of the people you loved. 

In the end, even if you weren’t a teenager anymore, you were just as much a hostage to your feelings as you had always been.

The ticking took a long time, but the bomb eventually went off.

With a decade’s old delay.

“I… just can’t. I can’t.”

Nanami reclined himself against the wall over which the bed rested, closing his eyes as he supported the back of his head on it. 

He never told you, but this moment broke his heart all over again.

He felt pathetically small.

Guess we get what we deserve, after all.

“You really do have a taste for penitence,” Nanami noted, his voice barely concealing the bitterness that tainted those words.

You scoffed, getting up on your feet, ready to leave as the first rays of sunshine began bleeding through the thick curtains that covered the bedroom’s window.

“Go to hell.”

He chuckled, a sound you hadn’t heard in a very long time. However, it sounded off-key. Wrong.

Sad.

“We’re already here.” 

At the end of it all, he wasn’t wrong.

You were doomed to always keep leaving each other.

If only the world had been a little kinder.

But kindness, it seemed, wasn’t in the cards for you.

End notes: I’m silently screaming. Oh my, this one took way longer than expected, but I enjoyed the writing process during every step of the way (I mean, if that wasn’t evident already from the fact that I made a playlist for this 😂). I forgot how much I was a sucker for gut wrenching angst. Hope you enjoyed it too! 🦉

-

Tag list: @actuallysaiyan @diogodxlot @jadedjane @redlikerozez @voiceless9000

@marvelousfanfictionbitch @kentocalls @ohhheymessa @magical-girl-b @simp-manhwa

@codenamesongbird

[littleblackraincloudofcourse]

My thoughts on the lives and deaths of the House of Usher

Prospero - I almost feel sorry for Perry. His ideas weren't bad and unlike his siblings he was doing them himself. I also found it hilarious when he tried to fuck his brother wife. If nothing else that kid had confidence. Fredrick was dick to both of them anyway and she deserved to have fun. If you remove the blackmail and acid rain and that would have been one hell of a party.If Perry hadn't been planning to blackmail everyone he wouldn't have deserved his death. But his death was EXQUISITE. Everything about that scene was so perfect I can't find words to describe it. Everyone involved in creating that scene deserves an award

Camille - We actually got to know very little about her. Her whole story was about finding dirty on the others and managing crisis for the family. Even her death isn't shown. I think the point was that she never got to just be. She lived and died for others but never connected with anyone.

Napoleon - Leo was to me the closest to likable of any of the siblings. He clearly loved them and that may have been the only love he way capable of. He certainly didn't love his boyfriend or anyone he had/was having sex with. He treated people like objects. His death is tricky to categorize. On one side what he did to Pluto was horrifying and anyone who treats animals that way deserves the same fate. But he never actually did any of those things. It was all hallucinations and illusions first from drugs then Verna. He was stressed and grieving and kept finding dead animals everywhere. I would be ready to smash walls in that situation too. He definitely didn't need to be a pet owner but I think his death should have been less torturous

Victorine - I wrote this one last because it was my favorite Poe story growing up and she played it beautifully. That slow steady decent into madness I should have hated this character most of all. Those poor chimps and who knows what other innocent creatures she killed with experiments she knew wouldn't work. Even with her father constantly pushing for progress she should have stopped. Verna gave her so many chances, she wasn't even there when Vic killed her girlfriend or herself. She could have stopped at any point. Yes she still would have died but it could have been painless and less tragic. T'Nia Miller's performance was so good that I actually felt sad for her in that final scene. At least until I thought of the chimps again.

Tamerlane - Knock off Madeleine. Where her sisters hid and guarded their personalities she never had one. Her entire existence was for appearances (hence the ridiculous amount of mirrors). Even when she tries to show emotion she couldn't look at the person she was talking to. Her death might have seemed the most passive but it was shoot beautifully. It was also the only thing she actively accomplished on her own.

Fredrick - Fuck you Frodrick. When his siblings said he was just like their father they didn't even realize how right they were. He might have been worse. His poor wife deserved so much better. I genuinely enjoyed watching the pendulum swinging towards him as he was paralyzed beneath it. I only wish there was more than one so he could feel more pain. He was so much a piece of shit Verna enjoyed killing him. Everyone else got warnings, chances to walk away and have peaceful deaths But this asshole, she knew he didn't deserve one. He got exactly what he deserved. Lying in a puddle of his own piss waiting to die. Seriously fuck that guy

Lenore - This sweet brave girl was the only good the Ushers ever brought into the world. So pure and good even Verna mourned having to take her. I loved that she got to know how much good she put into the world and how many lives she saved. Even knowing from the beginning she would die, it was still heartbreaking to see. At least it was painless and instant

Madeleine - She was cold and selfish but she was also usually right. I respect that even when making a deal with the devil she still had standards. She at least made sure not to have children incase. There is a bit of irony in the fact she didn't want to spend her life serving a man then chaining her destiny to her brother. Gave of serious twincest vibes that I am glad where not explored. Her death seemed a fair balance for her past and mirroring her mother's death brought everything full circle. She fell with the house of Usher. Also sapphire is a good color for her.

Roderick - Without doubt the worst of them all. He knowingly killed millions with his drug. He destroyed any shred of humanity in his children. Possibly worst of all, he knew the damage he was causing and who would have to pay for it but he didn't even blink. Being mentally tortured by his dead children was not enough. He deserved the worst death of all. I understand the poetry of him dying the same way his father did but I wish he suffered more.

[suffersinfandom]

So there’s a lot of debate over who’s responsible for Ed’s turn to the Kraken (or, as I like to call it, “the Krakening”), and I think that’s partly because no one person can be blamed. Ed is a deeply hurt and traumatized individual thanks to his life pre-canon, and that hurt can be attributed to a lot of things -- his father, Hornigold, the society he grew up in, the culture of piracy, toxic masculinity.

But there are three key events that we actually see happen between the dock and Ed pushing Lucius overboard, and these three events in combination are the lead-up to the Krakening:

Event one: Stede running away. Stede doesn’t show up at the dock and Ed, convinced that he’s unlovable and of course Stede wouldn’t come for him, accepts abandonment and heartbreak.

Event two: Izzy. “I should’ve let the English kill you.” “This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.” “This! This is Blackbeard, not some namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend!” “I serve Blackbeard, not Edward. Edward better watch his fucking step.”

Event three: the crew’s chanting. After Izzy leaves, Ed faintly hears the crew laughing and asking for another song. This is the last time we see Ed before he pushes Lucius overboard.

Okay.

After Stede panics and runs and Ed returns to the Revenge alone, he cries and eats marmalade in a blanket fort. He’s heartbroken and sad, not smearing on the eyeliner and hitting the rhino horn. Lucius gets through to Ed with “maybe life just begins again,” Ed sings his little song in front of the crew, and then he starts cleaning up. 

I’ve seen this scene in S1 compared to the scene in S2 where Ed is tidying his cabin up on the day he’s decided to die. While we should absolutely read these scenes as parallels, I think it’s a mistake to say that they’re the same thing -- that is, scenes of Ed cleaning his depression mess, cheered up by what he thinks is his impending death. 

In fact, I think that the S2 scene is sadder when we have these two contrasting Eds. Ed in S1 is newly hopeful. He’s still sad, but he has a community that cares about him and the hope that he can be different. He doesn’t have to be the dread pirate Blackbeard; he can just be Ed in the space that Stede created, even if Stede himself is gone. Ed doesn’t have the same dark energy in S1 that he has in S2 after he has firmly rejected hope for change and anything beyond Blackbeard. S1 is life beginning again; S2 is life coming to an end. 

See above: S1 Ed (bright-eyed, a little manic, open, hopeful that life can begin again)

See below: S2 Ed (dull-eyed, very manic, vaguely menacing, only hope is death)

So event one -- Stede leaving -- isn’t responsible for the Krakening. We can’t know what might have happened if Izzy had, say, been tossed overboard in a mutiny, but it wouldn’t have been the season two we got. In my opinion, every indication points to Ed recovering in the company of the crew. 

Next we have the confrontation with Izzy. This, I think, is the real turn. 

Izzy is cruel here. He hates Ed being soft so much that he tells Ed he’d be better off dead. His wording is an implication that Ed is alive at Izzy’s pleasure (“I should have let the English kill you”) as well as a warning that Izzy’s loyalty to Blackbeard does not extend to Edward. 

I don’t think that Ed interprets Izzy as a direct threat, but Izzy is -- as always -- acting as a manifestation of toxic masculinity. This scene is the world saying that Ed can’t be soft and gentle if he wants to survive. He can’t mourn lost love. He doesn’t have the luxury of healing in a community.

Ed, still raw and sad, is being reminded that he’s not allowed to be just Ed. Just Ed has been told his entire life that he’s not meant for fine things, and whenever he reaches for a fine thing -- friendship, love, community -- he’s told that pirates don’t have friends, he’s unlovable, and he’d better watch his fucking step. Just Ed wasn’t enough for Stede, so how can he be enough for anyone else? For the crew? For Izzy and everyone else in a world that seems to want Blackbeard?

After event two, Ed is on the precipice. He’s unbalanced and uncertain. He isn’t sure that life can begin again after all. And then he hears the crew.

Offscreen and far away, the crew asks “Eddie” for another song. We know that there’s no maliciousness in that because the crew likes the Ed they’ve seen, but Ed is vulnerable. He doesn’t hear friends; he’s not used to having friends. He’s used to Jack and Izzy, who both betrayed him. He’s used to the people on the party boat who pretended to like him and then turned on him. If Ed isn’t valuable, lovable, or even worth liking, then why would the crew genuinely want him to come back? They must be mocking him. 

Lucius gave Ed hope that he could have fine things. Izzy yanked that hope away and, in this moment of doubt, Ed can only hear further confirmation that he was wrong to want better than the violence of Blackbeard.

It’s not a coincidence that the first things Ed purges are his red silk and Lucius. The silk is now a warning against reaching for fine things, and Lucius is the one who encouraged him to be soft and vulnerable in front of the crew -- something that he thinks the crew rejected. Ed moves to protect himself by abandoning all hope for things that he has been told aren’t for people like him.

In conclusion: a lot of things contributed to the Krakening and the main villain here, as it often is in this show, is toxic masculinity and patriarchy.

[margueritedaisies]

I just love drawing families of fictional characters, its interesting to think of how each sibling would look. I try to make them different from one another but at the same time maintain familial similarities.

Jinzha resembles their mom, Muzha their dad, and Nezha's a good mix of both.

Also get ready with some sibling dynamic rant, mostly relation HCs by me.

Enough with the parent child dynamic

I want sibling dynamic. Where these three come to terms on what happened between them. Specifically Muzha and Nezha's interaction is the one I want to see.

Tbh those two's fates in the myth reminded me of Hyakkimaru and Tahomaru in Dororo.

Like Nezha and Muzha had so much potential to gain solidarity with each other. Because Jinzha could never relate to them as the ignored or unwanted child. Muzha has that middle child stuggle fr.

Muzha is the one so eager to gain their fathers favor trying to meet Jinzha's level . Nezha wants nothing from his father so he makes himself worse.

Muzha's frustration with Nezha is that Nezha is rebellious, disrespectful of their dad

While Nezha's frustration to Muzha is that Muzha is so blinded and always struggling to achieve something so futile. Deep down he hates how Muzha is suffering this way but he wouldnt speak of it. This is why they always at odds.

They should make a movie focusin the Li brothers fr

Other than overusing the actual myths.

Fuck the ending from the original myth, they didnt even consider how the children felt from all the abuse. Not even mention of Muzha's death.

Enough Ao Bing, what about Muzha???

And the moral lesson is just about "respecting elders"?? The story still had so much to wrap up. How can you call this a family if there is some sort of hierarchal system. A family requires empathy to maintain that connection.

Tbh its kinda realistic

Families and siblings can still inflict trauma from each other .And a story based on reconcilation is a good way for this to be about family counselling.

I wanna see the "what ifs". It could be each brothers own story of self healing from the trauma caused on each other.

Maybe Im getting my hopes up too much, but it could be a development for them to forgive, start anew and an opportunity to connect and catch up on what they missed on each other.

Edit:

As for Jinzha he also has his own struggles as the eldest. Keeping up the station as the golden favored and perfect son. But its Asian family dynamics, which means hes in a lot of pressure. But he is mentally and emotionally strong. The brothers always busy on his studies ,future responsibilities and training to be able to spend time together. Their timetables seemed to be planned out to always not meet. Jinzha especially had less freetime. And if he ever came across any of his brothers, it was only one of them never both.

He doesnt mind being a buffer for the other two feuding but it does stress him out that it will never change. But he'll make sure to give time and attention to both of them as much as he can.

Other than keeping up his fathers expectations he also doesnt want to fail as a big brother to them🥺😭

Muzha and Nezha can see his efforts so they do not dare hold anything against him. Muzha still keeps his competitive attitude when Jinzha's around but accepts any offered kindness from Jinzha. While Nezha enjoys his company when he gets the chance.

Also because I tend to hold on to this little bit of bonding😭🥺🥺Jinzha trying to be the best big bro

Thinking of the contrast in the future where Jinzha was tasked to torture Nezha destroyed me😭😭😭What did Jinzha even feel while he had to do it??

Also here some Nezha with his hair down again

[shadowqueenjude]

He was an asshole for this, but Eris had long since stopped caring. He knew that he had to do some bad things now so that he could overthrow Beron and prevent far worse things from happening later. As for bad things he’d done? This didn’t even make the list.

It wasn’t hard to drug the shadowsinger and drag him away. Eris had already caught him once before, and he hadn’t changed his tactics since. Fool.

When the Inner Circle’s janitor woke up, he began to struggle. Predictable, but Azriel could do nothing against his restraints.

“You,” Azriel growled, trying to throw himself at Eris, chair and all.

“Me,” Eris replied calmly. He took a sip of his wine.

“What, you planning to kill me?” he snarled, rattling the chair with his struggles. Eris rolled his eyes.

“That would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it? Would rather ruin my alliance with your court.” He placed his glass down and steepled his fingers in front of him. “No on the contrary, I’ve taken a special interest in you, Shadowsinger.”

Azriel’s face was filled with a ferocity that promised a slow death to Eris. Eris merely tsked at the expression.

“Anger does not suit you, Azriel,” Eris purred. “You lose all your pretty boy features.”

“SHUT UP!” Azriel roared, shaking the chair again. “I fucking hate you.”

Eris sighed. “Funny that you turn your hatred towards me when it is your companions you ought to despise.”

Azriel’s eyes narrowed on him. “What the fuck do you mean?”

Eris shrugged. “It’s not my fault I was engaged to marry Mor. I was a mere child then, powerless to do anything to stop it. I didn’t want it any more than Mor did, only I didn’t dare disobey my father while Mor disobeyed hers. She got punished for it. Got nails all over her body. But had I brought her over that Autumn court border to heal her…she would’ve suffered a fate worse than death. She would’ve become Beron’s servant. Like me. Forever.”

Azriel said nothing. He knew Eris was right, even though Eris was sure he was loathe to admit it. Eris continued, “But your best friend, that brutish general, slept with Mor while knowing what the costs may be, while knowing that you were in love with her.” He laughed lowly. “Some friend, huh?”

Azriel still said nothing, but Eris could sense the target of his anger shift. He was being convincing then.

“How much do they truly respect you? Forcing you to do their dirty work. Making you torture people because they’re too squeamish to do it themselves, even though Rhysand possesses daemati powers and needn’t resort to torture. Isn’t it triggering, considering the torture you went through in your youth?

At last, Azriel said something. “Yes,” he whispered.

“You are the outsider there,” Eris continued. “Both of them mated to Archerons, yet the third Archeron sister belongs to my brother. Don’t you feel rather left out? Like you’re not truly a part of their group? Who there really understands the anger you keep rooted deep inside?”

Pain and sorrow flickered across Azriel’s face, and Eris stood up, stalking over to him and leaning before him. “But I understand,” Eris murmured. “I understand, because it’s the same anger I shove deep down inside because I am under Beron’s thumb. We are the same, you and I. But if you come with me, if you help me overthrow Beron, you won’t be so powerless anymore. You won’t need to hide the anger inside. We’ll finally be free.”

Azriel swallowed. “What would you have me do?” he asked. Eris smirked, resting his hand on his face, rubbing his thumb against his lips. Azriel’s cheeks turned red at his touch. “Spy on your friends for me. I want to know how much they’ve been keeping from me. And then in a month…you quit and join me.”

Azriel raised a brow in challenge as he stared Eris down. “I still fucking hate you,” Azriel muttered.

Eris chuckled. “You’re a fool if you think I care, shadowsinger.”

But Eris knew Azriel was lying. Azriel didn’t hate Eris. Not really. Not like he hated himself.

Just like Eris.

For day 4 of @azrisweek free day

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Okay I'm having another thought about Isaac (I am thinking about Isaac again, big fucking surprise)

I feel like it says a lot about Isaac that during Motel California when Stiles found him and used the flare to snap him out of the mental torture spell that the motel ghost and the Wolfsbane had put all of the wolves in, Isaac was the only one not actively trying to physically harm himself. Isaac was hiding under the bed.

(If you haven't seen the episode and/or don't watch the show, mentions of trauma, suicide and self harm below.)

Like - let's run it down.

Ethan was being tortured by visions of someone trapped inside of his body and he tried to use a circular saw to cut that someone out (trying to cut himself free). It likely represents the idea that he was coming to resent merging with Aiden in their Alpha state, hating not having his own individual identity, hating the fact that Aiden might make him hurt someone (against his will while they're merged) innocent like Danny in the name of Deucalion's cause.

Boyd was being reminded of a childhood trauma (and I am actually so pissed that the show didn't go into more detail about this story and if they weren't planning on revealing the full details - why didn't they just make his visions about Erica? because he's clearly tortured and fucked up about that) where it seems like he was responsible for a younger sibling in a public place and that sibling was then abducted or went missing (and maybe turned up dead later?) and he feels responsible for her disappearance and/or death.

So he takes the safe out of the office and places it on top of himself to weigh himself down while he drowns in the bathtub - one, because he knows that no one of humans who are conscious of the goings on can lift it off and free him, and two, likely to represent the crushing weight that he feels over the guilt of losing his sibling. The crushing 'responsibility' he felt (even though he was just a child and it wasn't his fault). And it probably comes back to Erica - how he felt responsible for taking care of her during the time they were captured, and he likely felt responsible for her death too.

And Scott - sees a vision of his mother kidnapped and murdered by Deucalion, and he is told that it's all his fault. And he tries to burn himself alive while questioning if there is a ghost trying to convince him to do it or if there's something truly wrong with him. (And not knowing that Derek is alive, he feels responsible for Derek's 'death' and the lives of everyone around him - so the message here is pretty clear.)

What happens to Isaac is what interests me the most. He remembers something that happened during his childhood, a distinct memory with his father - a seemingly random, average conversation where his father is trying to teach him about tools, and things escalate quickly. When Isaac makes a simple mistake, his father's anger booms out of control, and he tells Isaac that he is inherently flawed, and then - Isaac has a vision of himself being locked back in the freezer that his father used to punish him, which we later find out means that the ghost prompted him to crawl under the bed, a tight space that would normally send him spiralling into a panic attack. The ghost is using his claustrophobia to torture him (when Stiles finds him, he's sweaty and shaking and clearly very poor off), but he's the only one of the wolves not actively trying to kill himself.

What this says to me is that - Isaac has already lived through a fate worse than death. Worse than the kind of mystery that drives the average person to suicide. This says to me that a demon (or whatever lives in the motel) that thrives off people killing themselves, gets more pain and suffering to feed off of from Isaac having a claustrophobic panic attack and believing that he's back in his father's basement in the freezer than it would if he was actually miserable enough to want to kill himself.

Isaac already died while locked in that freezer many, many times.

Idk that's just what that moment in the show says to me.

[shalpilot]

do you ever think about how killer is 4 years older than kid. as adults that's not a huge age gap but growing up killer was larger, older, and probably had to take of himself and kid. how long do you think he has designated himself as kid's protector? what sacrifices might he have made for kid when they were growing up? when kid was 9 and killer was 13. when kid was 13 and killer 17. did he ever really shed the feeling of responsibility for kid's safety after kid grew up and became his captain? does he ever regret after wano following him? of course he loves him, but some fates might be worse than death. killer would follow kid into hell but how long can he keep charging after kid into unwinnable battles? how many sacrifices will he have to make? after wano does kid ever hear killer's laugh without feeling like he wants to throw up? does ever he think killer would have been better off loving someone else?

i hate them i hate them so much

I think about it the most when I draw them as kids and realize I have no idea what the hell a “child development” is /j

As someone who’s been the youngest in my friend groups for…ever… I’ve never been on the other side of that kind of dynamic but I can imagine that somewhere along the line Killer sat down and was like ohhhh my god. Oh my god he doesn’t need me to protect him anymore and just had a little moment of … do I feel happy? do I feel proud? I think he’d quickly realize that Kid does still need him even if it’s not to keep him from getting his head caved in. I can also imagine they might’ve had a few nasty fights about Kid being Killer’s captain now and things ARE different and you HAVE to listen to me I’m the CAPTAIN it doesn’t MATTER what you think

They make up tho… clearly

NOW. FOLLOWING KID INTO UNWINNABLE BATTLES. AUUUGGHHHAARGHH. This is me speaking as Shal Kid stresses me out SO much can he sit down for five minutes maybe. He doesn’t have to fight EVERY yonko actually he already got the one can he pl. please. so I would think Killer feels this x100 but at the same time he *also* likes running into battles but would greatly prefer. If Kid would give a little warning beforehand. Like Killer’s still gonna do it he will follow him anywhere but the years that have been shaved off his life by his fucking idiot partner can not be insubstantial.

Sacrifices… Killer and WCI Sanji would get along wouldnt they /j Killer is shown time and time again to be willing to give up EVERYTHING for Kid unquestionably and it makes me SICK. He’s Kid’s partner, yes, but he sees himself as expendable if it means Kid gets to keep on living. And Kid doesn’t even know!!!!! Does Killer think Kid would want this??? Does he really believe Kid would want his partner giving up his life for his sake?? what if I screamed what if I yelled so loud

When I think about how Kid sees Killer after Wano I go into a deep dark hole and I cry a little bit. I feel like Kid could read Killer’s emotions perfectly even under the mask but now that non-verbal communication has been shattered. And even when talking it’s impossible to tell how Killer really feels about something and that must really put a fucking strain on communication 😃👍👍 I have a lot of thoughts on some parts of tbis but they’re like. Kinda heavy and I haven’t thought of how to verbalize them quite yet?? but boiling it down… Kid pulling away because he doesn’t want to overstep while Killer’s suffering and Killer wanting to beg Kid to stay by his side but he can’t !! :)))))))) YEOWCH!!

They are perfect for each other and they deserve each other and I wish they had an easier life.

[kerubimcrepin]

Wakfu Season 3, Episodes 1-6

//tw mentions of SA

Episode 1 - Fallen Heroes

I had a very long discussion with a friend of mine, who is a fan of medical settings, about how cool the existence of IV within the lore of Krosmoz is.

We didn't come to any conclusion. It was just us fanboying about this. Because my friend loves medical things and I love putting character into situations (some of which would not be survivable, if them being put on IV wasn't possible) (big fan of the concept of Joris getting poisoned and very sick and Kerubim and Atcham freaking the fuck out).

Funnily enough, during the making of my YouTube series, I discovered that there are two Sram-venerating women named Toxine in this franchise.

Adamai harbouring feelings of violence towards the members of the brotherhood is a good idea, (<- obviously the guy that wants Joris to beat the shit out of Kerubim would say this), but man, it could have been so cool if someone competent was working with this idea.

Episode 3 - Oropo's Tower

I should admit, this moment was probably a big win for Tristepin Mental Illness fans. Also, this is sadly the most explicit they can get with the reasons why Tristepin might hate being the Iop god in a cartoon.

He has plenty of reasons. Not only had Iop had 394824 demigods who hated him and felt abandoned by him while suffering fates worse than death (all gods have those) and just as many mortals he took advantage of using the power imbalance of godhood and promises of love (all gods have done that), he also canonically sexually assaulted a woman.

Ngl, if I was Tristepin, I would be considering killing myself — however, the kids and the wife would be sad.

They shuoild do this to Yugo too. He also had other wives. Albeit in an infinitely less insane way than Tristepin. Ankama.., please stop ignoring how existentially horrifying the Eliatrope demigods are.

In the Dofus MMO Kerubim pretty much calls the brotherhood of the forgotten an emo club of people with too much free time on their hands doing nothing but whining about their daddy issues.

And he was so real for that.

Btw canonically, Mishelle/Coqueline makes him feel intimidated (due to her grand age) while she herself doesn't really care about him (besides liking his good attitude towards animals), and is actually besties with Otomai.

Episode 4 - Beastly Girl

I like to headcanon that Joris's relationship with Coqueline is that he projects onto her ("oh god.... being 7 forever would make me kill myself.... even being 3ft tall is already horrible and makes me want to die..... the poor woman must be suffering") while she's like,, 1. probably doesn't think of herself as a "woman". I think she would describe herself as a creature, maybe a girlcreature, and 2. is literally chilling and doesn't give a single shit about anything but animal welfare and direct anti-god action.

I think talking to her would kill Joris because he'd realize that not every immortal person is as insecure about Literally Everything as he is.

She literally says, "the only good gods are ex-gods". We stan a leftist girlcreature?

This screenshot can be used as a reaction image for so many different shows. More fictional parents should say "my child is NOT ascending to godhood and shedding their mortality, becoming something beyond my comprehension, before they're of age. Fuck you."

Episode 5 - A Iop Hides Himself to Cry

You want to read @bitter-panacea's analysis posts about Goultard so bad.

Despite my negative feeling on s3, this is a WIN for Goultard fans, as far as I'm aware. (and Goultard enjoyers, since I kinda consider myself one)

I;'m going to walk into the sea.

Episode 6 - The Ecaflip's Scratching Post

YEAH BABY, A FULL ON IN-SHOW CONFIRMATION OF MY "USH HAS A DIFFERENT MOM THAN KERUBIM AND ATCHAM" HYPOTHESIS.

This might not seem like a contentious issue to normal people. Gods have... a lot of different lovers, so it seems normal to assume that Ush has one mom, while Kerubim and Atcham are twins like Eleley and Flopin, and have a different mom...

But a cancelled game that Tot really liked and still considers canon had really weird "there's an Ecaflip priestess who is the CEO of Giving Birth" lore, and was planned to be the mysterious mom of Kerubim and Atcham (and many other demigods), which contradicts a lot of previously established lore (ankama LOVES retcons. sadly).

I am quite open about thinking this is stupid and not considering this canon until they show her to me in an actual released media (and even then I will find a way to headcanon a better reality). Seeing the series itself acknowledge that Ush is not Atcham and Kerubim's full brother makes me feel quite better.

Hi Ush were you doing [SEXUAL ACTS REDACTED] upon cats again.

Cute...

A normal thing for a Bontarian to do. Blue-clad (metaphorically, he isn't wearing blue but white. Still very Bontarian though) man over here protecting kids and women. While also beating them up.

But unironically, I think it's cute that he has this gap moe of being an evil man who also saves people and cares about honour (because that's a proper thing to do) despite cheating constantly.

Somehow, his shallowness and "I mostly care about appearances, even if I do have a moral code" sort of behaviour is just as Extremely Bontarian as Joris's.... 30 mental illnesses.

THE OST IN THIS EP IS SO GOOD. ECAFLIP FANS WINNING ONCE AGAIN.

Hey past me! Maybe he really does pay these cats to put up with his insane behaviours. 🤨

Yugo, I'm gonna be real with you:

he's probably heard Joris and Kerubim say these exact words at least twice before,

He is reallllllly weird about cats and I am unsure if that's illegal in your setting,

He lured in people to kill in his tower for sport serial killer style.

He's bontarian. -20 morality and honor points immediately.

[celestiaras]

‧₊˚✧ ❛[ you still love him ]❜

ft. hex haywire x f! reader — xsoleil, nijisanji en

╰₊✧ he’s still the same man that you love even if his hands are stained red, can’t you see that?┊0.7k words

contains: yandere hex, murder & death, obsessive/possessive behavior, delusions, kidnapping, established relationship turned forced relationship

➤ author's note: i don’t think it will ever be possible for me to write hex as anything but a yandere...

he hates the way you are looking at him with such fear as though he was some wild monster you stumbled upon in the deep woods at midnight, but he understands that you are just confused about the situation. anyone would be shocked to find a corpse neatly tied up to mask the rotting smell in the basement of their lover while trying to look for a toolbox, but wouldn’t you just calm down and hear him out? he hates the sight of you crying and flinching every time he reaches out to you, it breaks his heart to see you frightened of him.

you’re so naive and blissfully unaware of your own surroundings that you don’t even notice the dangers around you that you just seem to attract with your innocent charm and beauty. he’s just trying to keep you and this love he treasures so much safe, it’s all he ever wants and all he lives for. it’s his job as your boyfriend, as your lover, as your soulmate to shield you and your relationship from all potential harm even if it means getting his hands dirty.

if anything, shouldn’t that make you love him even more since he’s willing to go to hell for your safety and protection? even with this little secret revealed, he’s still your beloved boyfriend of about eight months now— the boyfriend you always praised for treating you better than you thought you deserved (even though he thinks you deserve all the stars in the night sky): not allowing you to lift a finger in his company by cooking and cleaning for you, smothering you in affection to always making you feel so loved and secure, and treating you like a princess. his only red flags were his bouts of jealousy and possessiveness, but you never gave it much thought and just gave him a kiss on the cheek since it seemed to ease his mind in the moment.

really, he could never push aside his overwhelming feelings of envy and rage whenever he remembers that he couldn’t have you completely to himself since you talk to dozens of others daily for your job. that’s all it takes really, just his mind whipping up fictitious scenarios of you talking to other men or worse was enough to drive him up the wall— so what did you think would happen when you started hanging around that disgusting fucking coworker?

you were just trying to be nice to him because you were such a sweet soul who couldn’t recognize the signs of his leering eyes and subtle inappropriate touches, or maybe you weren’t as innocent as anyone thinks and you were purposely testing him with little mind games. either way, his undying love was evident from the blood that stained the same stainless steel kitchen knife he used to make you steak dinners and the lifeless body that was old enough for rigor mortis to settle neatly in the corner of his basement.

the red that stains his hands is the same red of the string of fate that connects soulmates such as yourselves, a testament to his devotion and adoration for you. there is no other man or woman who would go to such lengths of killing another human being to protect you except for him— it’s always been him and you know it.

he knows that you still love him even if you are shaking in fear while he holds you in his arms. he knows that once you figure out how grateful you actually are for his sacrifices with or without his help, you’ll go back to your cheery self. maybe you two could even get married, with matching wedding rings of white gold and the finest cut diamond— he’d make the best husband for you and you two would have the most beautiful family in the world. no matter how long it takes you to recognize how you really feel, he will wait for you because he loves you more than you could ever imagine. you are here with him right now, safe within the walls of his own bedroom and far away from anyone else who only wishes you ill will, and you will stay with him until death does you part.

[little-fandom-dump]

going to try so hard to cohesively express all of my feelings about Thee israel basilica hands, so bear with me as i write a fuckin novella about this wet cat lad

(obvi spoilers for s2, e 1-7)

i am first and foremost. just incredibly impressed with his growth this season. last year, we had "he's done something to my boss's brain" and "this, whatever you've become...is a fate worse than death". last season, he had nothing but malice and spite for stede (for helping ed discover he can be soft and gentle) and ed (for letting himself change around stede) both. we know canonically now that it was all fueled by love- albeit a possessive and jealous love that hinged on his ideal perception of who ed was as blackbeard.

for years, he subjected himself to a cruel and unfulfilling affection. he allowed himself to be abused just to feel needed, to receive table scraps of attention and praise.

by all rights, he should fucking hate stede this season. after all, didn't he ruin blackbeard's pirating prowess, tarnish the version of the man he has fallen in love with? the crying in a soft velvet robe, the blanket fort and amateur poetry- these are coping mechanisms ed would never have indulged in before meeting stede.

but izzy doesn't hate stede, not really. like he says in episode 7, he understands that stede makes ed a better person- someone more loving to himself and those around him. how could he truly hate someone who does what he could not, who helps the man he loves grow into the best version of himself?

no, who izzy really hates is himself. in izzy's eyes, he's the one who pushed ed into becoming the kraken again after the breakup- he thinks he's responsible for all of the abuse and torture ed puts the crew through in the resulting weeks. the gun to jim's head, the apathy at ivan's death, the extreme psychological and physical abuse that ed inflicts onto the crew- izzy puts a lot of that blame on himself. we see this in his interaction with lucius about moving on- he dangled his leg above the shark, wasn't it really his fault when his leg was bitten off? he drinks himself half to death, begs for the crew to just kill him already, drives all of his pain inwards and inwards and inwards.

the thing about that, though? when a person engages in such self-destruction, they're bound to hurt those closest to them (ask me how i know). and he does. izzy's pain and guilt and self-hatred bleed into the lives of the crew, and it's only after he puts ed's gun to his temple and misses that he realizes it. so, what does he do? ever the unkillable bastard, izzy climbs his ragged way out onto the deck and turns the same gun back on ed. he may be a fucked-up self-loathing twat, but he can't allow (what he views as) his mistakes to hurt the crew-- or ed--anymore.

it is a testament to both the brilliant writing (and con's acting), however, that he doesn't suddenly heal after that. it wouldn't be a realistic expectation to have of him- after all, he's gone through incredible physical, emotional, and mental trauma for years now. izzy, he's not a functioning or emotionally healthy person. instead of suddenly being better and well-adjusted, he's angry and bitter and still so self-destructive. but he still tries to thank stede for the rescue. still tries to convince stede that ed didn't hate their breakup and do horrendous things to the crew and himself, still tries to keep him from knowing they (seemingly) killed him.

and when ed wakes up and stede finds himself the captain of their motley crew again, izzy is still hurting but izzy still tries. among so much hurt and devastation, he tries! and then the crew makes him a new leg, a literal embodiment of the trust and love they have for him- and he realizes that he deserves better! he deserves better for himself than to drink alone and spit venomous insults at his reflection. sure, he still drinks before noon and insults the crew-- but he also teaches stede new pirating skills, helps lucius out of his own traumatic funk, navigates the new ship dynamic as best he can. the insults are still there but there's no longer poisonous intent behind them. (the poison replaced with positivity)

the amount of grace and emotional maturity izzy is displaying in later episodes is incredible, considering what storms he's just weathered. his effort is admirable, especially towards ed and stede. he has every right to hate the two of them, to disavow them and leave the Revenge, but he doesn't. Instead, he takes time to reclaim parts of himself that were long hidden or never developed at all. chrissake, he lets himself be tender! he lets wee john help him with his makeup, sings a lilting love song to the crew, openly admits to stede that he loves ed, supports stede on the republic of pirates, allows himself to be more vulnerable than he's ever been before.

izzy sees now how good ed and stede are for each other, and he congratulates them on their, *ahem*, docking even while harboring his own jealousy and hurt. even if it's a bit of a joke, the sincerity is still there- he's willing to grin and tell stede he balances ed out, the two of them are good for each other. it's not even remotely hinted at, but i'm willing to bet izzy knew what the two of them were doing in the cabin while he was singing his soft and sweet requiem for the love he harbors for ed. and yet he still chooses to be kind and supportive to them both. to himself.

i know this post was a million paces long, but i'm just having so many feelings about izzy hands. and i'm so, so proud of him for admitting to himself that he deserves better, he deserves vulnerability, comfort, support, and the fullness of his identity as a queer person. it's a major change this season (one i honestly did not expect!), but one i love love love. great storytelling and great acting. i'm so looking forward to the future of izzy's character development.

TLDR: izzy's commitment to doing better for himself and others makes me emotional. i'm incredibly proud of him for trying to do/be better each passing moment.

[jenn0wow]

Dorian x Inquisitor Trevelyan Fan Fic excerpt

Chapter 5: Dorian Hates Ferelden Chapter

Josef is an ex-assassin with a secret past who begrudgingly accepts his fate as Herald after the Conclave explodes. Having a personal grudge against Templars, Josef chooses to align himself with the mages. Once Dorian Pavus joins the inquisition, Josef finds the man frustrating but a talented mage with an affinity for death. Josef develops feelings he knows he shouldn’t be having while he attempted to save the world. Dorian also starts having these same complicated feelings.

In Dorian Hates Ferelden chapter, Dorian has been with the team (Josef, Bull, and Varrick) for several weeks now. His relationship with Josef is strained because Dorian likes to talk and Josef really doesn’t.

This is one chapter in a 100 pg fanfic I started back 2015 😀👍 Although at least 50 pages of it was written this past month lol. If you notice any more that is inaccurate pls don’t tell me or I’ll cry

———————————————————————

Another day, another “adventure.” Dorian enjoyed being a part of Josef’s most trusted team, but he was quickly becoming homesick—something he didn’t think he was capable of being. It’s not that he really missed home, it’s that he hated Fereldan. Most of it was covered in trees, mountains, rocks, mud. And now he had the misfortune of being acquainted with it all up close and personal with these little trips across the country land to save a farmer from demon wolves or some other back country nonsense.

Haven was lackluster too, no indoor water unless you counted the dingy bath hall. It was also cold. Damp. Inside and outside. Even when it was warm, he felt harassed by a wetness in the air. It made it difficult to ever keep his hair in place. If he said that out loud he was sure someone like Iron Bull would shame him for his vanity. Perhaps keeping himself preened and well kept made him feel more normal and not on a death journey against powerful demons and the occasional darkspawn.

Dorian couldn’t keep his head on straight with where they traveled. Trees all looked the same to him. All forests were just the same forest to him. This trek was no different, just point to where he should use his magic and onto the next moist, disgusting parcel of land.

“Reports say there’s a rift near some ruins past the river. I figure if it takes longer than expected, we can stop by a nearby town for supplies and make contact with some of our scouts and make camp.” Josef said, when they left the original encampment they started from.

Dorian didn’t mind the camping thing at the beginning as it felt novel and exciting. He also didn’t want to complain too early on since he knew he should be grateful for being a part of all of this, but now he couldn’t bear laying on another cot or worse the ground. He keeps waking up to bugs crawling on him, and when the missions take too long, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to shower for days. A quick rinse in a river is good for some of these men, but for Dorian, he likes to actually use soap with his water. Maybe a nice clean towel. Like a civilized person.

Dorian watched Josef as he studied the surroundings. Josef didn’t even like his job and yet he took it very seriously—barely a whine or complaint out of him unless it’s the wee hours of the morning and he’s acting funny about being the herald. It seemed so easy for him to just do it. Not that he has much of a choice. His glowing hand has him chained to this journey. Dorian didn’t have any true responsibility to be a part of this, but he’d seen too much to back out now.

Dorian had become so lost in thought and walked right in a cluster of gnats. They buzzed in his ear, went up his nose. Absolutely revolting. “This is my last fucking straw.” Dorian swatted at them and started rubbing his face on all the bug gunk.

Josef looked back. “Is everything okay?” He said, raising an inquisitive eyebrow that felt a bit demeaning if Dorian was going to be honest. “It’s only half a mile until we get to town. Can you handle that?”

Dorian scrunched his nose as he heard a snicker from the Qunari. Dorian shot him a look and then painted a smile on his face for Josef. “Everything’s super dandy.” He replied, only with a little sarcasm. He then muttered, “Like you could call anything we’re going to civilization. It’s just three log cabins and a horse farm.”

Josef stopped in his tracks. “Is this too much for you? I can leave you back at Haven…unless it’s too primitive for you.” Josef seared a glare into Dorian that the mage couldn’t figure if it scared him or turned him on more.

Dorian nervously chuckled. “And waste all my good looks and talents by sitting around and doing nothing? No thank you. I’d rather suffer here than there. Much better view here.” He said with a cheeky smile, “I'm just not very accustomed to Fereldan life and roughing it, I suppose.”

“Okay, princess,” Iron Bull chortled.

“Sparkle’s pretty valid for being uncomfortable. This kind of lifestyle isn’t for everyone.” Varrick commented. “It was a rude awakening for myself as well. But, I enjoyed my own freedom too much to complain.”

“Well, I’m not NOT going to get used to it. I’m here to stay.” Dorian tried to posture himself a bit, trying not to feel too pathetic. “I actually used to do a lot of traveling around places like these before joining the inquisition…although I made sure to charm myself a roof over my head and a warm meal most nights…Anyways son't worry about me.”

“Well, if you’re going to be here…at least stop complaining about it.” Josef’s words were cutting.

Dorian bowed. “As you wish.”

The herald sped up his walk to keep a healthy distance between him and the team. He needed to refocus.

“Actually, why did you even join us?” Varrick asked. “Not to be disrespectful, but aren’t you a little..ya know…”

“—Prissy, stuck up, spoiled.” Iron Bull interjected.

Dorian shot him yet another look and his hand went up in flames.

“I was going to say something like sophisticated or civilized. Adventuring and camping and all this doesn’t really seem like your style. Or at least from what I gathered.” Varrick shrugged. “Just curious as to why you accepted the offer. You’re still useful at Haven.”

Dorian let his flame simmer and sighed. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s my ego wanting me to be on the front lines and a star player in all this mess, but there’s something also that tells me I should follow that man,” his gaze was tight on Josef, “even if it meant walking through demon infested pits. He saved my life, you know.”

“Okay, you’re not that special. He has sort of saved all our lives, but I get it. Josef may not want this job, but he certainly has owned it. No matter his past, you just want to follow and see what he’ll do next.” Dorian nodded in agreement with Varrick’s statement.

“And the glowy thing on his hand is so fucking cool.” Iron Bull interjected again. “Seeing him close rifts was the only reason I needed to follow him. Plus he’s good in a fight. I wouldn’t follow someone who couldn’t hold their own like that.”

Dorian watched Josef again, who clenched his sharp jaw as he concentrated on his walk. He could tell Josef didn’t see himself as the others do, as Dorian did. He was just a man, but he was becoming more than that without Josef even realizing. It must be a lot to carry.

Josef tried to drown out the rest of the party’s conversation. He didn’t care for the flattery. It wasn’t something he wanted to cling to. They were paper thin to him. However, he knew that he could not avoid the charming praises forever as his responsibility grew with the position he was forced into. He was trying to be on his best behavior. Trying to do what felt right. It’s what he’s been trying to do his whole life, but to what success…that wasn’t for him to decide. All he knew was he didn’t want to be the face of a movement, a crusade…

He swallowed those feelings down and tried to focus. Trees. Flowers. Grass. Birds. Mud.

“Maker—UGH!”

Josef looks over his shoulder to see a frustrated Dorian fallen butt first into the mud. Dorian groaned in annoyance as he slowly picked himself up. Varrick and Bull were of course uncontrollably laughing. Dorian then looked up from his now soiled pants and saw Josef looking down at him.

“I’m not complaining. I…quite like the mud….” He said, wincing a bit.

Josef scoffed and kept walking. He wasn’t going to make a fuss about it. That would just further bruise the mage’s ego.

It reminded him of when he first left home. It was a harsh transition and it was only until he was taken in by the assassin’s guild that he was able to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. They trained him hard. It was necessary and in these times he’s glad he had it.

He heard the sounds of people, civilians luckily. Not that he wasn’t prepared to take out any rogue venatori assassins or robbers, but he wasn’t focused enough for it to be a swift fight. None of them were focused enough.

As they got into town, it was exactly how Dorian described it bar a few extra log cabins. They walked through town in search of their supplies. One of the farmers allowed Dorian to use his water pump to clean off his pants.

“Great, first muddy pants and now I’ll have soaked ones that uncomfortably clinging to my body.” Dorian tried not to pout. “Everyone here is lucky I have the perfect ass or else this would be way more depressing.”

They collected their supplies and as the four men left, a smell caught their noses as they passed the local tavern.

“Mm, smells like a hot meal.” Varrick said.

“Dang, that smells good.” Bull said, “Made me remember I was hungry.”

“Aren’t you always hungry, you big cow?” Dorian spatted at him in jest. “But, I agree it does smell quite delicious.”

Josef pressed his lips together and thought for a moment. It wouldn’t hurt to get a heartier meal. Jerky, fish, and bread at camp could be a bit monotonous. For some, it wasn’t very fulfilling and for others it must not be up to their palette standards. As an assassin, he couldn’t afford to lose his cover while traveling so making any appearance in such public spaces was dangerous. As herald, it didn’t really matter as much. Actually, according to Josephine, it helped with his public image. Which was a thing he had now apparently.

Josef looked over at the lively tavern and then back at his crew. “Let’s stop to eat.” He said.

“Uh, really?” Varrick looked at Josef. “Actually, I’m not questioning and I’m gonna let this happen. Thanks, Herald!”

A big grin spread on Iron Bull’s face. “Let's clear this place out!”

The two excitedly walked to the tavern. Josef sauntered behind, with Dorian mimicking his step.

“So why are you suddenly so nice?” Dorian asked, “Not saying you’re never not nice, but from past behavior, you haven’t spontaneously decided on a leisure activity.”

“Do you have a problem with it?” Josef raised an eyebrow.

“Quite the opposite. While I’m not a superfan of Fereldan cuisine, I like it much more than the scraps we scrounge up at camp.” Dorian said, “I’m only asking because I want to better understand you. Like what goes on inside your beautiful brain and what not.”

Josef opened his mouth, words caught. “I’m…really not that complicated.” Josef quickened his stride and walked inside the tavern. He’d like to think he was keeping a simple kind of composure and impenetrable cover--but everyday it's more difficult with the responsibilities he now holds. The people of the inquisition were much more eager to question him than his old guild mates. Josef could have said he escaped the circus after selling his soul to a demon nug and they wouldn’t have questioned it. In the inquisition though, he could breathe wrong and they have at least five questions about it and sent four spies to find out more. Or they’d just sic Dorian on him and have him go insane.

Dorian huffed and smirked. “I beg to differ.”

The four men sat at a table with four large bowls of stew in front of them. Bull also ordered a handle of ale, which turned to him ordering everyone a cup as he felt it was a moment of celebration.

“And what are we celebrating?” Varrick asked.

“Dinner!” Bull let out a large billowing laughter.

It was in these moments that Josef felt a bit lucky. Anything could have happened after the chantry incident, and somehow he was lucky enough to be experiencing this--with…what he’d like to consider friends. It’s what made the title and responsibilities and world ending more manageable.

He took a sip of the ale. Much stronger than it thought it would be. He winced and coughed as it went down.

“Can’t handle liquor, Stitches?” Varrick teased.

“I haven’t drank liquor in many years.” Josef confessed. “I wasn’t allowed to in the guild.”

“That’s awful,” Bull said, “The Ben-Hassrath could be like that as well, but I do what I want now. Pleasure doesn't have to be a distraction if it’s also the goal…” he sipped on his ale. “Wait, you were allowed to have sex? You could have sex, right?” He had a worried look on his face that Josef knew was genuine worry.

Josef laughed and hid his face in his mug, letting his walls fall for a moment to try to match their energy. “Yes, we were allowed to have sex.” He sipped on his ale, a bit nervously. “Well, with most of those men, it’s not like you could stop them anyways.”

Dorian laughed. “Were you one of those men?” Dorian cocked an eyebrow. “If I may ask…”

Josef felt his face become warm either from the alcohol or the question. “Ah…” he nervously chuckled. “When I was younger…I suppose…”

He then felt himself get cold, a pulling feeling in his chest. Was that what Ervin was becoming to him? A sexual exploit of his youth? Is that what he felt comfortable telling everyone? What he felt comfortable telling himself?

Dorian watched as the herald’s face dimmed. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked the question. Usually he reveled in making others uncomfortable, but usually he instilled embarrassment in people, not a deep sadness.

Josef’s chest tightened, and he didn’t know what to do with the feeling. He took a big swig of the ale, and got up from his seat. “Excuse me,” he made his way to the door.

“Ah, there I go making things worse.” Dorian huffed as he watched him leave. “Why is it always me making him all weird and emotional?”

“Because you’re weird and emotional. It’s contagious, Pavus,” Bull laughed, “except it’s only catching to mushy humans. We feel none of that.” He clinked cups with Varrick.

Dorian crossed his arms and leaned in his seat.

“And you’re always poking and prodding around so obviously,” Varrick noted. “Maybe, and it’s just a suggestion, stop doing that.”

“I’m just curious.” Dorian said, “And don’t you want to know more about him?”

“Of course,” Varrick said.

“No,” Bull said.

“I know a lot about these hero types, and Josef is the stoic, sullen type. Poking around and being too obvious about it will usually get you on their bad side. I’m not trying to get on Josef’s bad side. And usually the stories unravel by themselves. You just gotta be patient.” Varrick shrugged and picked up his spoon to eat more of his stew.

Dorian clicked his tongue and crossed his arms in a huffy manner. There was a moment of silence at the table as Dorian pondered and the two slurped down their soups.

“I should go apologize,” Dorian said, getting up from his seat.

“Maker’s breathe…,” Varrick muttered.

Dorian opened the door to see Josef leaning against the tavern’s exterior, brooding. His arms were crossed tight around his chest, and his gaze was far off. The way the sky was colored shined nicely on his skin, which was just an observable fact that Dorian felt the need to make note of in his brain. Josef was handsome, check.

“It was not my intention to upset you with my question.” Dorian said, “I was relying too much on the ale to make you more….open.”

“You’re fine. I’m just…thinking…” Josef looked up towards the mountains.

“Don’t make me curious,” Dorian said, standing next to him. He leaned on his shoulder for a second then slid two steps away after he was reminded himself to give him space. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask what you’re thinking about even though I’m itching to know.”

There was a small silence.

“And why do you care?”

Josef turned his gaze towards him. Dorian felt a weird sense of fear as if he was digging himself into a hole perhaps. Josef looked at him like he was under a microscope, like he was studying things about Dorian that Dorian didn’t know about. It was terrifying in an exhilarating way, or at least that’s what Dorian was telling himself. A gaze like that made him ask himself why did he care so much?

“Because I like knowing who's leading me to possible death and definite danger. And as I said before, I’m always itching with curiosity,” Dorian quickly formulated.

“You can afford to be open about you and your emotions. I cannot. I cannot allow myself such vulnerability and I never have.” Josef looked away from him, and Dorian felt a weight lift off of him with the herald’s gaze elsewhere. “I can’t help but be envious.”

Dorian could see the flush of alcohol on his cheeks. Perhaps the liquor did loosen him just a smidge.

“You’re not the only person who has had to hide parts of themselves. Perhaps my openness now is because I’m appreciating the freedom you and this opportunity has given me.” Dorian responded.

“I don’t think I granted you that. You would have found it on your own.” Josef breathed out. He then looked at the sunsetting, the golden hue of the sun reflected off his dark eyes. “I’m afraid though it’s been too easy since you joined.”

Dorian felt a bit flustered by those words. At first not knowing what Josef meant until he did.

“You think there’s danger brewing in the distance.” Dorian asked, “isn’t it always?”

“When things get too easy, it never lasts too long.” Josef’s jaw seemed to harden. “I’m not superstitious, I’m just observing. And something bad is going to happen. Any day now.”

There was a cold chill with his words. Both refreshing and bone chilling.

“Well, let’s at least enjoy the peace while it’s here.” The mage tried to lighten the conversation.

Josef cracked a small smile. “That’s the thing. It feels as if we’ve enjoyed it much longer than we should have.”

[drarryglobesficrecs]

Soulmates/Soulmarks - drarry fic recs

Pt. 2

Fated by springair(4k)

The last place Harry expects to find his soulmate is in Azkaban.

...

“Hello,” Harry tries again. “What are you doing up?”

“Can’t sleep in this place.” Malfoy smiles slightly, and Harry can’t help but be a little creeped out by the way his lips curl. “I’ve finally went fucking insane, then?” he asks, every word posh and delicate and slow, like he’ll break something other than silence if he raises his voice too much.

Vortex by xanthippe74(20k)

“Don’t worry, my dearest one,” Draco’s mother told him when he confided his worries to her. When he was old enough to feel the pangs of adolescent longing, but still too young to sense the storm gathering around them. “Magic will overcome any distance or obstacles to bring two soulmates together when the time is right. Circumstances will arise that steer them in the right direction; strange coincidences will make their paths cross again and again. Then the most wondrous moment arrives, when you both realize that your soulmate, your perfect match, stands before you, and from that day forward your hearts will be one.”

Ten years after that conversation, the idea of perfectly-matched soulmates feels more like a curse than a blessing to Draco. Who would want a soulmate who was a schoolyard bully, a Death Eater, and a convicted felon? Certainly not Harry Potter. And Draco is determined to take this secret to the grave.

Every Me and Every You by bixgirl1(69k)

Harry liked his life just fine, thankyouverymuch — so it was bad enough when a sly fairy cursed him to leap into alternate realities. But seeing Malfoy in all of them? Definitely way too much. And worse yet: needing the bastard's help to figure out how to get out of of it.

It was a disaster waiting to happen, really.

Well... probably.

New Slang by shushu_yaoi_lj(25k)

He muttered the simple spell, the one he had been practising since he was little, one of the first ones he had begged Mother to teach him.

“Vinculum,” he whispered, and the emerald green thread appeared, still tied around his little finger, but lying limp and severed, hanging from his hand, still sparking and emitting a faint shimmering light, but irretrievably broken. Since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Every Line by Inkdrinkershadowsinger(21k)

Draco has known since the battle that he has Harry Potter's soul mark on his body, and he's known just as long that he can never say a word about it to anyone. Harry is his auror partner, his friend, finally, and Draco is happy with that. He is.

Chilly Feet by shushu_yaoi_lj(13k)

It all starts with a pair of chilly feet under Harry Potter’s bum.

Everything a Word Can Mean by OTPshipper98(2k)

In a world where magical people are born with the nickname their soulmate will call them by tattooed on their skin... what does it mean that the word on Harry's chest is the thing he hates to be called the most?

Just The Two Of Us by Hekatee, Pierian(3k)

Harry finally meets his soulmate. Except his soulmate has been given a heavy dose of morphine and has no idea that his drugged-up rambling includes the words that change Harry's life forever.

Rorschach by gracerene(5k)

Harry never gave much thought to Malfoy's soulmark. But that was before he caught a glimpse. Now it's all he can think about

you've got the antidote for me by Kandakicksass(20k)

When Harry Potter unintentionally severs their soulbond before it can fully form, Draco Malfoy resigns himself to a slow death and decides not to burden Harry with a soulmate he's made it very clear he doesn't want.

He's never been selfless before, but for Harry, he can try.

Written on the Heart by who_la_hoop(113k)

Harry doesn’t mind that so many Slytherins from his year have returned to finish their NEWTs, really he doesn’t. It’s just – do they have to be so friendly? He’s not prejudiced, really he’s not. It’s just – they’ve got to be up to something, right? Unnerved by the attention he’s attracting from everyone – the Slytherins are the least of it, to be fair – and struggling with a raft of changes to Hogwarts itself, Harry wishes he could be happy that one constant remains: Draco Malfoy really fucking hates him.

When he’s hit by an illegal love-spell though, Harry finds he has more to worry about than whether or not Blaise Zabini actually wants to be his friend. For if everyone affected has been blessed – or cursed, by the look on Malfoy’s face – with a magical tattoo revealing the name of their soulmate, what does it mean that Harry’s skin remains completely bare?

[teecupangel]

What's your stance on what-if-character-x-was-evil AUs? Asking because when Kassandra showed up before Layla in the flesh my brain went "...and she clearly works for Abstergo."

While I admit I didn’t think Kassandra would be part of Abstergo when I saw her appear at the end of Odyssey’s main game, I do think it would be fun to think about how she would have ended up as a member of Abstergo.

Also, what idea we can throw into the wall into how she would have ended up as part of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order? XD

Hell. I know the Inner Sanctum is the highest members of the Templar Order but I kinda like the idea that Kassandra would be above them, sorta like the true Grand Master and shadow head of the Templar Order.

That would have been a fun twist to explore…

Although, in terms of Odyssey the game, it would have been a twist ending that would have polarized the players and the DLCs have to work hard to make that twist believable.

In fanworks and AU ideas? Go wild, everyone.

Now, let’s talk in a more general way about how we can implement ‘what-if-character-x-was-evil’ AU ideas in Assassin’s Creed:

The easiest way to do this is to make their backstory different (for example: (1) when Desmond left the Farm, Vidic found him early on and became a father figure that manipulated him into hating the Assassins or (2) Al Mualim’s indoctrination of Altaïr dug deeper than it did in AC1 and he grew up completely loyal to Al Mualim to the point of joining the Templar Order himself with his ‘father’ or (3) Arno is raised by Bellec himself so he’s absolutely one hundred percent a willing accomplice to all of Bellec’s plans and hates the Templars for killing his father to the point that he doesn’t believe the Assassins and Templars can co-exist)

A fun way to do this is to corrupt the characters themselves. This could end in two different main categories:

They are corrupted by the POE and this could be (1) full-blown ‘power corrupts even the best of us’ type or (2) 'I will do these unforgivable sins because the alternative pushed by the Calculations will bring about a fate worse than death to the world and those I care about, this is my sin to bear alone' route. (3) There's also a combination of (1) and (2) that I like to call the N-route of "Have I not suffered enough? Do I not deserve my own happiness even if it means the suffering of others?!".

This one is my favorite because I love fucking with Desmond using the Bleeding Effect: it is not the characters who become corrupted but their digital avatar in the Animus. Either because Abstergo skimmed on QA or this is truly a bug in the Animus that they didn’t think would happen because all that reading of the POE’s corruptive powers messed with the Animus itself and that corrupted versions of the Assassins? That’s the one that appears in the Bleeding Effect. Just imagine Desmond having corrupted versions of his ancestors whispering to him, slowly driving him mad all the while giving him the attention and kindness he didn’t receive as a child. And Desmond would be weak to their whispers because he believes he knows them, had relived their lives… and the corrupted versions know they need Desmond on their side.

[nellyofthevalley]

spawn, ch.1

astarion x fem!tav…

rating: explicit content: NON-CON, tragedy, violence, lots of cazador, dead dove, probably death at some point, i don’t know it’s a lot, fuck or die summary: cazador uses the one thing astarion cares about to exert control over his favorite spawn in the worst ways.

“My boy, you’ve not been paying attention. I never needed you to be my spawn to control you. Leave if you like,” says Cazador. “But first, tell me, what do you think I will do with her if you leave? And where will you go running off to?” Tav just looks at Astarion across the room, accepting of what’s to come, eyes begging him to leave. She shakes her head, telling him not to stay; to save himself. If he left, she would be granted a fate worse than death, he knows it. To kill her would be a mercy. Cazador has never shown mercy. 

chapters: ch.1 | ch.2 | ch.3

read it on ao3 or below the cut:

No. No no no. Anything but this.

When Astarion rises that morning from his nightly trance, Tav is gone without a trace. No sign of struggle, no note, nothing. Only an empty bed. He panics, pacing around the room, trying to think. 

Maybe she’d had enough and left him. Maybe it was too much for her—he’d warned her of that, that he came with a lot of baggage, and he thinks that maybe she’s finally wisened up. Still, Tav was never one to be so cold, he’s certain she wouldn’t just leave, right? She’d have the decency to tell him. 

Cazador still lives, perhaps she’s gone to take care of him herself. He’d hate that, but she’s always been pragmatic and the worry in her voice when they talked about facing him was evident. Tav had asked him so many times how he was feeling about the ritual, clearly hoping he’d changed his mind since the last she’d asked, and he’d gotten frustrated with her. She could have taken things into her own hands to prevent him from completing it. 

No. No, he knows the truth, and he knew it from the start, much as he’d rather deny it. It was bound to happen, he’d given Petras and Dalyria an earful, and his siblings had come for him once already on Cazador’s orders. Cazador knew he’d taken a lover, he had to; he’d watch from the shadows and force every last minute detail out of the mouths of his brothers and sisters. 

Cazador has her, he’s sure. He took her. Worse, Astarion’s sure this means they’d been watched for longer than they thought; it’s the first night they’ve stayed in separate beds for awhile, and now, only tonight, she’s gone?

It’s hard to believe; they’d already won the battle against the Absolute, and Cazador is nothing compared to that. And yet, he’d managed to whisk her away, right under his nose, having perfected the art of capturing people, by many means, over the centuries. Astarion blames himself—they’d put off facing Cazador for too long and now she paid the consequences for it. 

He has to go alone. If he doesn’t, Cazador will surely kill her as soon as he dares to step foot in there with allies, and he can’t risk it.

For a brief moment, Astarion wishes she’d simply left; he thinks it and holds onto it with a little naive hope. She’d shown him how to feel again, and he could re-learn that, even if it took centuries. But he couldn’t re-learn it if her very essence had been stolen from this world. Not in a century, not in forever. 

Cazador is waiting for him in the ballroom. There, with his six siblings, and by Cazador’s side, Tav; her hands and legs tied, her mouth covered with tape. He would give anything to trade places with her. Gods, just seeing her like this—she hardly looks like herself, bound and helpless, but those amber eyes and braided hair he’d recognize anywhere.

She looks, outside of the restraints, to be untouched. No blood, no bite marks. Still her. 

“Welcome home,” Cazador announces with a smirk, tightening the grip of his hand resting on her shoulder. “Are you done with this… outburst of yours? Are you ready to take your place as my good little spawn again?”

Astarion disregards his words, trying to focus. He can’t get distracted, can’t let Cazador’s manipulation work on him. It’s not about him. It’s about Tav. He can’t be imperfect. Not now.

“She has nothing to do with this,” he says. 

“Ah. You thought you could disobey me and go unpunished? You’re the same stupid boy you’ve always been,” Cazador mocks. “She has everything to do with this.”

“You can’t compel me anymore, you can’t order me!” The desperation in Astarion’s voice shows; already, he’s losing his composure as the walls close in around him. He’s wrong, and he’s aware of it the moment he speaks.

There’s no way out. The moment Cazador got his hands on Tav, it was sealed. It doesn’t matter if he can be compelled or not—he has no choice in the matter. The only variable now is how cruel it will be. If he can get Tav out alive.

“My boy, you’ve not been paying attention. I never needed you to be my spawn to control you. Leave if you like,” says Cazador. “But first, tell me, what do you think I will do with her if you leave? And where will you go running off to?”

Tav just looks at Astarion across the room, accepting of what’s to come, eyes begging him to leave. She shakes her head, telling him not to stay; to save himself. If he left, she would be granted a fate worse than death, he knows it. To kill her would be a mercy. Cazador has never shown mercy. 

“This is your home, we are your family. The only ones you’ve known and will ever remember,” Cazador taunts him, reminding him of the old life long lost to his memories. Astarion is already his, malleable and ready to serve him, ready to bargain with his life.

“Fuck you! Just take me. Take me back,” he pleads, his lips burning with shame as he does it. “Let her go. Don’t you fucking touch her!”

“Oh, I won’t lay a hand on her. Foolish child of mine,” Cazador says. “You will.”

“What—? No…”

“Can you imagine how much I loved to hear about your ego and boasting when Petras ran back to me? Spending all this time thinking you’re the master. You’re still nothing but a putrid, hopeless spawn. Look what you’ve done to her.”

“No,” he repeats.

“Come now, don’t be difficult. If you want to be a master so badly, take it. I’ve taught you how, now prove to me you’ve learned your lesson. Take the pleasure you crave from her body, make her yours,” Cazador commands, beckoning him forward. “Whisper little apologies into her ear while you defile her, tell her how sorry you are. We’re all dying to see your performance. Do it well enough and I’ll let her leave.”

How did they get here? How did they fall from grace so fast? It was mere days ago Astarion had fantasized about how he’d kill Cazador, how he’d take the ritual for himself. How sweet it would be to get his revenge and walk in the sun again. 

Cazador leans over, ripping the tape off Tav’s mouth and leaving a streak of red behind. “Go on,” he says. “Talk. Put on a proper show for your audience.”

“Don’t you fucking listen to him,” she immediately insists; the words had been clawing at her mouth for release. “Leave me. Please! Go.”

“You don’t understand,” Astarion replies, his face resigned to anguish, any fight he had left gone. “You don’t know what he’ll do. I can’t leave you here.”

He approaches her—what else can he do?—and kneels. He can’t stand to look in her eyes anymore. He needs her to become any another victim to him, but it’s an impossible task. He turns her around and shoves her forward, putting her on her hands and knees, just how he’s done so many times before.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into her ear, how Cazador told him to. “Forgive me, my love.”

“This isn’t you,” Tav says. “It’s okay.”

Even now, she sees the good in him; he doesn’t deserve her, he never did. She doesn’t see the truth. This is him. This is what he was made to be.

Astarion places his hand on her back, shaking, still trying to find it within himself to be this person again. This monster. His hand slides up her neck, to her hair, grasping at the strands and craning her back. A little sparkle of tears welling at her eyes dampens his very soul. 

With what small freedom he retains, he positions himself to drink from her. He inhales, taking in her sweet scent; Tav, by habit, leans to offer herself. Before the opportunity can pass, he breaks skin with his fangs, biting hard and indulging in her. Reaching for the only thing that can bring him any sort of relief.

Cazador doesn’t intervene; he watches, relishing in witnessing his favorite spawn’s barbaric display. Astarion’s messy, painting his lover’s skin red; his lack of care is reminiscent of a wild animal. It’s exactly the point. To turn him into a creature and to take away the last bit of his humanity. His siblings ache, the metallic smell of blood in the air intoxicating them, drawing them in. All they can do is watch their dear brother fall apart, piece by piece. 

Tav utters a harsh groan as Astarion sinks his fangs deeper, drinking more; he’s aggressive, he’s taking too much and she can do nothing about it with her hands tied and her voice tired. He forces himself to separate from her, and the sight of blood trickling down her shoulder and collarbones rouses him in a visceral way he can’t control.

Astarion lets her hair go and violently pulls her pants down to her knees. He frees himself, moves her underwear aside and pushes into her. She cries out for him, in despair he’s sure, but he tosses the thought away; he must. Has to pretend every noise she makes is no different from the ones she made for him in the forest, so many months ago. 

Tav whimpers beneath him as he takes her, burying himself as far in her as he can, each thrust fiercer than the last. Drops of blood seep from his death grip on her hips. He tries to remember a better time, but what better time was there? When he’d slept with her before, that wasn’t real—he was manipulating her, charming her as he’d done to so many others for Cazador. How their relationship blossomed later didn’t change that or make it any less of a tainted memory.

Now he’d missed the opportunity to touch her, to really touch her how he’d wanted to. Astarion had dreamt of the day he’d be ready to lay with her again. In his fantasies, he’d be reborn again with her, forgetting his countless experiences and learning everything anew with her as his lover. He’d imagined discovering what he liked together, how he’d awkwardly kiss and touch her all over, paying close attention to what made her warm, what made her heart accelerate, and the spots that made her melt to his touch.

“I love you, we’ll be okay,” Tav reassures, a quiet murmur under the sounds of him ruining her heart and body.

Cazador’s words echo in Astarion’s mind: ‘whisper little apologies into her ear while you defile her’. He can’t do it. An apology, like this, is meaningless. How do you tell someone—the person you care about most, the only person you care about—you’re sorry while you hurt them like this?

He always did love how patient she was with him, and how their sexless relationship didn’t seem to take up even a moment of her thoughts. She was just happy to be with him, showering him with kisses and affection he’d never known before. And this is how he’s repaying her. 

His hand finds her hair again and he pushes her face down to meet the cold tile floor.  Astarion can’t hear her, can’t face her, can’t see those tears he knows are there. He has to separate himself from her. His eyes close and he focuses on the feeling, the best he can. 

In his mind, he pictures the forest. In spite of the pretense, they had fun, and he can still remember how beautiful she looked in the moonlight. She rolled and offered her neck to him, trusting him, something she never should’ve done. Drinking from her then was such a rush—it was still new, to drink from a thinking creature, and he could feel her body awaken and warm for him when he did it. She enjoyed it, and that made it all the better. There was satisfaction in knowing he was giving her something, too. 

Astarion thinks of what he’d do to her now in better circumstances. How he’d fuck her slow, fast, in every position and every surface. He’d tease her and make her beg for it, denying her finish until she did. Her body would writhe beneath him, a silent plea, but he would take his sweet time with her until she was sweating and feisty and yelling at him to fuck her proper.

Then he’d finally let her come undone. He’s hardly aware of his own undoing when it arrives, lost in his thoughts of what could’ve been. When he looks down at her, he feels disgust, like when he’d turned away, his body had been taken over by another that moved and felt for him. It hurts to see her now, her lovely skin coated with disheveled trails of thick crimson, her face glued to the ground, and his own shame spilling out of her.

“No,” he says only, cursing himself again, spirit shattered. With what little pieces of his mind remain, he tries to redress the both of them and then sits there, wishing it all away in a futile effort; the Gods never answered his calls, and they wouldn’t today. 

Cazador’s voice booms across the ballroom again, but the words go right through Astarion’s ears, his senses shut off to the world, and his soul a thousand planes away or more.

It’s not until one of his siblings comes to take Tav away that he’s back in his own body. 

“No! You can’t,” he yells in disbelief; foolish for it, foolish to believe Cazador would do anything less than the worst. “I did what you asked!”

“Yes, and you did such a poor job of it. You’ve let yourself become too soft!” Cazador’s laugh echoes through the ballroom and shakes Astarion’s core as reality settles in. “Because I so kindly believe even someone as arrogant as you is worth teaching, I’ll show you how to be a real master. Godey will see you back to the kennel.”

“Fuck you,” Astarion cries, but his body is subservient, yielding to Godey’s grasp. “What will you do with her?”

“She will stay in my chambers,” Cazador answers, taunting him, flaunting his power. “At least you can do one thing right—this one is quite lovely. You picked well.”

Stripped of his weapons, armor, dignity. He has nothing. Nothing but her. Maybe, just maybe, together, they could get out… they could escape… Not now, another time. Though he doesn’t understand why, he still hasn’t felt the call of Cazador’s magical pull after ridding themselves of the tadpoles. It means all they need is a leg-up, some sort of advantage, and they can be free.

So long as Cazador doesn’t make her his spawn.

Astarion retches at the thought of it. If Cazador turned her and became her master, that would utterly and truly destroy him. It makes him sick, just thinking of her in Cazador’s chambers, in his bed, him touching her—what does he have planned for her? It was rare they ever saw Cazador taking a special interest in anyone, and the spawn had learned to never show love. He’s learning that again, now, the image of her after he’d finished is burned into his memory, and the knowledge that he’s the one who made her that way. 

When he’d refused to bring his master that lovely boy he couldn’t stand to hurt, he’d been locked away for a year, alone, in silence and darkness. The worst year he could remember. But he’d never stopped to consider what had happened to that sweet boy.  

[merllis]

Percy Jackson Fic Recs

mother to mother by vivelalark

The Goddess of Marriage had no love for mortals – not anymore. Not with all their arrogance and pride and stupidity.

Io was the first to betray her, Jason broke her heart, Ixion was a disgrace, and so she had forsaken them all for her golden throne in the skies, detached and indifferent.

Sally Jackson was no exception. Hera had answered her prayer out of pity for the mortal woman, alone on her birthing bed, and put aside her disdain in a moment of mercy.

The only thing she hated more than mortals were demigods. 

(Or, an AU where Hera, the Goddess of Mothers, crosses paths with the Best Fictional Mother™ aka Sally MFing Jackson) 

Words: 30,086 Chapters: 5/?

An Undertow of Sand by Shujin1

"A half-blood child of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds." Who decided the sons of Kronos met the criteria for eldest gods? There are older gods. Elder Gods. And They have been watching. See with the vision granted to your mind, oh Child of Prophecy. For reality is a lie. Your very existence is a flaw. An anomaly. A bend in Fate. And if Fate can bend, then it can break.

Everything is different. Nothing has changed.

Open your eyes…

Words: 260,726 Chapters: 31/?

The Hero Unsung by Sarcastic_Metaphor

“Oh gods,” Percy thought, “I got fucking isekai’ed.”

Thrown back in time and tossed onto the scorching shores of ancient Greece, Percy becomes the unwilling center of attention for an entire army. One destined to sail for Troy and wage a ten year war. If only they could appease the gods keeping them far from their destination first…

Meanwhile, Percy will have to make allies fast while navigating a pantheon of deities who have not yet been tempered by time. Because here, it’s not just the kings who have taken a terrible interest in him; Percy will soon learn just how painful the attention of a god can really be. 

Words: 83,614 Chapters: 15/?

Oh Yeah, No, I Totally Forgot by BlueberryLimoncello

Amphitrite really had only gone to that particular beach to see if there was something special about it. To see if the surf was softer, the wildlife nicer, if the nymphs were maybe prettier. She needed to see if there was a reason Poseidon went there so often.

But the stretch of sand she’d come to was truly pitiful, it wasn’t anything special or different, it was in fact boringly empty.

Or it was meant to be empty.

A small child stared up at her with big green eyes, a mop of dark curly hair, and an armful of various colorful buckets and a tiny shovel.

Oh.

Words: 76,841 Chapters: 33/?

Falling For You by 1967HogwartsGoddess

In an alternate series of events, Percy saves Annabeth from falling into Tartarus. Too bad he can't save himself. As Annabeth leads the Seven on a treacherous quest to meet him at the Doors of Death, Percy fights through a wasteland of pain, torture and difficult choices. Surrounded by monsters, alone in the darkest corner of the underworld, he starts to question whether he's a good kid anymore.

Final chapter is an AU following on from chapter 66. 

Words: 269,696 Chapters: 69/69

the winner takes it all by 5_m0re_minutesDaisy by hautepink

Hera messed up. Percy Jackson wakes up outside the Wolf House to a she-wolf goddess telling him that the Queen of Olympus wiped his memories. Even worse, Hera accidentally put him to sleep for an entire year instead of six months. It's December 2010, and without Percy's help in the war, Gaea and her giants claimed victory and drove the gods into hiding. With the Mist fallen and the world crawling with monsters, Percy must seek out the demigod survivors at Lupa's guidance as they prepare to make their final stand.

Or an AU, dystopian retelling of Heroes of Olympus with a lot of plot twists: the canon divergence is not what you think it is, and the original plot gets entirely upended. 

Words: 208,722 Chapters: 40/?

Daisy by hautepink

An unfortunate sophomore in college finds herself waking up after passing out in the midst of an all-night study session in the middle of a hospital. This would be concerning even without the fact that she seems to be in labor, and Sally Jackson is very much not her name.

Words: 40,341 Chapters: 9/?

Wrath of the Earthshaker by IStillPlayWithLegos

The Gorgons die screaming.

Stheno's wails are heard for miles as she burns from the inside out. The eldest begs for mercy, reminding her killer of his father's kindness. Will Solace thinks of mice and locusts and plagues. Of Apollo Smintheus and the mercy he showed in the Trojan War. He giggles at her pleas and summons more sunlight. The only thing left of her is a pile of golden ashes.

Euryale thinks fighting a daughter of Demeter is beneath her. She learns her lesson at the hands of Katie Gardner, who remains sitting at their table out in the stone garden. She whispers to the bushels of roses and firethorns around her and strokes their petals with a gentle touch. Katie smiles into her teacup as Euryale suffocates, sent back to Tartarus, swaddled in a blanket of thorns.

Percy Jackson guts Medusa, stomach to breast, with black claws, and watches her blood pool at his feet. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel it pulsing. Riptide severs her head in one clean strike, and she dissolves into gold dust. For the second time, she is slain by one named Perseus. There's no Chrysaor or Pegasus to spring from her neck this time, but a child of Poseidon is present to haunt her all the same.

Words: 29,532 Chapters: 9/?

The law of change and the lack thereof by Irisinally 

After the Second Giant War, Percy just wanted a break. Because of that, his mom decided to visit her family back in Britain.

It was just his luck that his cousin was some other kind of special. With the discovery of wizards, a new mythological mystery that could very well be good or bad and Camp Half-blood taking part in some kind of magic games, Percy's break was completely ruined.

Absolutely perfect, isn't it?

Words: 113,002 Chapters: 32/32

My Golden Crown of Sorrow, My Bloody Sword to Swing by mrthology

He stepped forwards, Anaklusmos held out in front of him. No one else was in the throne room—not even Annabeth. It was just him and Luke's body. His feet crunched over shattered bits of marble and glass, the steps loud in the echoing silence. He looked up to the black sky above, terror suddenly clogging his throat. Something was wrong here. He had been sure his dreams would end with Kronos' defeat, that he would no longer be haunted by visions of what could be and would no longer have voices clamouring in his mind.

Apparently not.

———

Percy refused godhood standing in the ruins of Olympus, Luke’s body sprawled at his feet. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, and for them all. 

Words: 8,000 Chapters: 1/1

Camping By The Shore by withay for JadeStar

Estelle Blofis is too sick to go camping with the Girl Scouts, and this is the worst thing to ever happen in her six years of life. Luckily, her big brother is willing to create a camping trip for her. Told from their parents point of view.

Words: 5,628 Chapters: 1/1

Full Disclosure, I am a Monster by NOTTODAYARTT

It made a sound that sounded halfway between a growl and an exasperated sigh, "Kid. I really don't want to drag you out here, but I will if I need to. Now here's how this is gonna go, you could one, come out and," it shuffled around and grabbed something from its pocket, the object popped and then started hissing, "share this delicious cherry coke with me, or B I can drag you out by your arm and you'll start crying and I'll feel bad, because you're crying… So kid, what's it going to be?"

(In other words, monster!Percy because there's not enough of that in this fandom) 

Words: 10,235 Chapters: 4/7

Hired Hands by neighborhood_yogurt 

"A short, plump man in a three-piece suit stood over a costumed child wrapped in a small boat chain. The man had a smoking revolver in his hand leveled at a spot right next to the kid’s ear. His ridiculous top hat sat low over his eyes, but his hooked nose was just long enough to jut past the brim. The lighting in the warehouse wasn’t great, but Percy recognized him immediately. It was the Gotham supervillain Penguin, and Percy was on his godsdamned payroll."

Words: 50,325 Chapters: 12/17

Just Add Water by seasunwrites

“Don’t you feel it, Sal?” he said, pulling her closer.

She looked up at him and met his eyes.

“What?”

“The sea,” Poseidon explained. “It rises with the moon. Over and over. One of the only sureties in this world. Over and over, the tide will rise.”

Sally gave him a funny look. “Well, of course I know about the tides and that it’s a full moon—”

“Yes, but do you feel it?”

.

It's strange, how you add a bit of water and suddenly...Percy isn't human anymore.

(aka an h20 au that no one asked for) 

Words: 58,434 Chapters: 10/?

Inkspell. by youngjusticewriter

Because of a passing breeze the man’s trench coat and some fallen leaves drifted in the wind. “That reminds me - I suppose it’s rude of me not to introduce myself! It’s a pleasure to meet you my new friend. I’m Osamu Dazai.”

And that was how Percy’s new life began.

[\]

Or, Percy saves Dazai from drowning while underwater. Dazai is naturally curious how that worked considering Percy was holding his wrist.

Words: 34,420 Chapters: 8/?

After the Gates of Prophecies by mrthology

"They know something has irreversibly changed," Juno said.

"I'm Greek," Percy protested, ignoring the roaring in his chest, the pull the Roman demigods and legacies had on the very fibres of his being. He wondered if they even knew he existed, that there was a new God walking amongst them.

"You are something new, Perseus. There has never been a god like you before. You've terrified us all." Juno paused, allowing Percy to watch the thriving city. "You are going to change us all. I simply do not know if you will change us for better, or for worse."

—

Percy refused godhood standing in the ruins of Olympus, Luke's body sprawled at his feet. Fate, however, had a different plan.

Words: 41,000 Chapters: 12/30

Of Storms and Bloodlines by inkncoffee

When people thought of Poseidon they thought of the sea; Poseidon, Lord of the Seas, Commander of the Waves, the Stormbringer. Upon consideration they would add Earthshaker, for catastrophic events such as earthquakes were hard to forget. Few remembered, however, that Poseidon was also Lord of the Horses. Stormbringer and Earthshaker tended to squeeze that one out.

Percy had been able to talk to horses for as long as he could remember. He liked to think he understood them. Although he's not entirely sure why the new stallion thinks he's its foal.

Poseidon is not jealous that Percy thinks a horse makes a better father figure than himself. At all.

Words: 12,780 Chapters: 3/3

you with the sea in your eyes (you have the ocean at your fingertips) by SenjuMizusaya

(Fem!Percy)

After finally defeating Kronos, Percy had expected peace, not a flash of molten gold after which she found herself as a twelve year old girl in a village recently reduced to rubble, surrounded by forest and Ancient Greek.

A little too much Ancient Greek.

 (Or, Percy is flung back into the past and gets a hands-on history lesson when it comes to living during the Greek classism.) 

Words: 52,321 Chapters: 9/? 

my soul opposes fate (with daily will) by visiblyuncomfortablIf 

Percy Jackson rejecting godhood was not the plan, and so the Fates must act. So, as the Giant War ends and Gaea is defeated, the Moirai make a god out of the boy destined for it. No one but them is happy about this decision, but now Percy has to learn to navigate his new powers and new life whether he likes it or not.

there's one good thing to come out of it though, it's the new friendship he's somehow found himself in with a certain sun god… 

Words: 62,177 Chapters: 20/?

A Quarter Life Crisis by Butterflies_Stormclouds

Percy turned down godhood in the hope of having the white picket fence dream with Annabeth. Now he's in his early twenties, has the girl, his flat and midway through a degree and it's not quite as peaceful and fulfilling as sixteen year old Percy had imagined. But nothing in his life has ever gone smoothly and "retirement" doesn't quite fit into Percy's vocabulary all that well.

Words: 17,258 Chapters: 5/5

I've been here before by Butterflies_Stormclouds

Percy has been present when a lot of major deities have "died." Two months before getting married, Percy falls down the rabbit hole when parts of those deities left within him fills the missing pieces of his soul a little too well. 

Words: 44,283 Chapters: 17/19

bring the forgotten dawn by poisedwalrus

“What is it?” Grover asks, “What’s with that weird look on your face?”

“Just trying to figure out if turning me in will get us enough bounty money to buy our way to LA.” Percy says, craning his neck towards the news van.

“We are not turning you in to the police.” Grover presses his head back into the alleyway.

“Why not?” Percy says. They could use a bit of cash. “You guys can just break me out afterwards, right?”

Annabeth looks like she’s considering it.

“No, guys,” Grover says. “No.”

If Percy has to spend the rest of his life cleaning up after the gods, then he might as well start from the beginning. 

Words: 21,890 Chapters: 6/6

Symbol of the Ocean's Love by WardofWinters (QoLife)

Aphrodite doesn't use a dove to claim her kids, she was born of the sea. She rose from the depths of the ocean, crafted of seafoam. No, she doesn't use a dove to claim her children, her little pearls, she uses her sacred conch shell.

Problem is, so does Triton. 

Words: 11,963 Chapters: 2/5

Hold Tight and Pretend It's a Plan by Rynna_Aurelia

Olympus has fallen.

The second Gigantomachy has ended far differently than the first, and in Gaea's triumph, the world has been torn apart. But the Fates have seen what ends their failed meddling have brought, look on at the dead—and undo what should never have happened the only way they possibly can.

Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, is returned to his twelve-year-old self, memories intact and determined to save everyone he can. But he is not alone.

The Moirai underestimated the strength of the Lord of Time when stealing his power, and there is something about this particular demigod brat that intrigues him. . .

Perseus Jackson came roaring to life with a violent gasp, green eyes wild. After a moment of panicked flailing and struggling to breathe, his fear-filled gaze settled upon a girl with blonde hair and stormy grey eyes, her face stern and unimpressed.

"You drool in your sleep."

Words: 112,485 Chapters: 21/21