#so now its hard to go read anything else bcs it might be a bit lighter and fluffier

[skitskatdacat63]

Do you ever get super enamored w some writer(s)'s work and it's like ...how do I read any other fics for this fandom after this

[mynamesaplant]

Forgiveness is Electric

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just a little short story about @critterbitter's hc of Emmet, Ingo, and Elesa. This is between the Volume Control and Volume Control (Reprise). Just a tiny change, Emmet caught Tynamo bc I sort of forgot when he did... My bad. Please go take a look at Critter's work, it is beautiful in every sense of the word.

I lied about posting to AO3 last time with Yearning for Wood Floors, but I will update that soon along with this one.

Enjoy!~

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I do not think she will like those.”

“Who doesn’t love sweets?”

Ingo argued, plucking a box of Snom-Caps and turning it over and over in his hands. He contemplated the choices of candy in the aisle, the teenage clerk puffing their long, purple-streaked hair from their eyes behind the counter as the two children agonized over their decision. The clerk, Dakota, saw Ingo and Emmet in here all the time, the former had something of a sweet tooth and the latter… Well, whatever the opposite of a sweet tooth was, that was Emmet. The kid just loved sour things.

It wasn’t unusual to see them, but it didn’t usually take this long for them to make their selection. They had been there for nearly fifteen minutes, painstakingly reading each and every label and discussing them in hushed undertones. That was unusual by itself. Ingo was not known for his volume control.

Although unusual, they weren’t worried about them doing anything shady like stealing or being careless and knock things off the shelf. Might as well let them go about their business. To pass the time, they watched the fretful newly acquired Tynamo circle around them faster and faster until Emmet snatched the Pokémon deftly from the air and soothingly stroked its back.

“I am Emmet. We do not know what she likes.”

“We must do something! I just feel so dreadful.”

Emmet could see Ingo working himself up over this, just as he had a few hours ago, and Emmet placed a reassuring hand on his brother’s arm. His smile and eyes softened as his twin turned to him, Ingo’s eyes glittering with emotion and whatever proclamation dying on the back of his tongue.

He hadn’t meant it. He really hadn’t. He always got too loud when he was excited.

It had just backfired on him horribly.

Ingo cringed even now as he remembered the tears in her eyes, her hands slapped over her ears, and eyes huge with confusion and pain. She had run off before he could even apologize, and that knowledge was eating him alive all day.

Candy wouldn’t fix this. In his heart of hearts, he knew that, and maybe he had come here to grab himself some of his favorite snacks to ease the pain of losing a potential friend.

It was hard for them to understand others. Emmet and Ingo were so in-sync with each other that everyone seemed to be moving so much slower by comparison. It was like playing charades with someone who was underwater, the twins made perfect sense to one another, but it was unclear to everyone else.

This was not new to them, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating.

With their moms being busy with work and their uncle who didn’t have much interest with them most times, Emmet and Ingo came to rely on each other almost exclusively. Drayden would give them a little bit of pocket change, but never much. They had to be ultraconservative with what he gave them and had taken it upon themselves to run around Anville Town to take little odd jobs.

Leaves to rake? Oran berries to pick? Snow to shovel?

Emmet and Ingo did it all and saved what they could. They barely scraped together the money to purchase the Pokéballs needed to catch Tynamo and for additional balls to try and catch Ingo a starter.

Even though they knew everyone, they weren’t really close to anyone in town.

That could have been different if Ingo hadn’t ruined everything!

“Perhaps sweets are not the solution…”

Ingo finally admitted, setting the box down and rising to his feet. Readjusting his cap on his head and dusting off his knees to unconsciously tidy his appearance, Ingo’s frown deepened in thought. Even if he and Emmet apologized to her, Miss Elesa would not understand them. Drat! If only he had remembered her hearing aids, he had completely forgotten them tucked behind her black hair.

Emmet watched his face scrunch up, clearly having a long inner dialogue with himself where he alternatively berated himself and told himself that there was no crying over spilled milk. Gray eyes scanning the shelf, he took a bag of sour gummy-Bewear for himself, and chocolate covered pretzels for his brother, before hauling them to the counter where Dakota waited.

Tynamo drifted just below his elbow, still quite nervous around new people and often retreating to its ball when too anxious. Emmet’s soft encouragement was the only thing keeping the EleFish out while Dakota rang up both bags.

“Tynamo? Good for you, kiddo. I hear they’re not easy to catch.”

They rested their elbows on the counter, chin resting atop with a kind smile to the quieter twin. Dakota could see him beaming with pride, but he merely nodded, shuffling on the spot while he fished in the pocket of his overalls for some money. His Tynamo, like its trainer, seemed a little bashful at their words, and retreated into its ball.

“200… I think you brother is comatose over there.”

Dakota said not unkindly. Emmet jerked his head to where his brother stood motionless in front of the candy.

“Ingo!”

It was Ingo’s turn to jerk out of his, as Dakota had put it, “comatose state”. He trotted over to his side, staring at the bags of candies with confusion before it all seemed to click into place.

“You did not have to spend your pocket money on me.”

Emmet’s smile softened at the bashful note in his sibling’s voice. He wanted to. Ingo was feeling down, his twin often overthinking problems and burning himself out in the process. Emmet liked to take a step back to listen and reflect on people and conversations. A little break would do Ingo some good, so he insisted on the treats.

“I am Emmet. I wanted to. Yup!”

While Dakota bagged their treats in a small brown paper bag, they couldn’t help but lean over the counter to examine them. Although many people didn’t understand the secret code that the twins exchanged between glances, mouth twitches, and hand movements, Dakota could tell something was awry. Withholding the bag, they leaned over the counter with a faintly curious expression and a light tone.

“You guys alright?”

Unsurprisingly, the two exchanged looks, and a wordless conversation was held between them while Dakota waited. It was Ingo who swiveled his head back to face them, his face knit into a calculating grimace that seemed a little less friendly than usual, but only marginally.

“Yes,” he said slowly, eyes not breaking with the clerk, but they could see him shifting uncomfortably. “Emmet and I are attempting to right a wrong. However, we are encountering several roadblocks.”

There is a pause. Dakota still held the bag just out of reach as they gnawed on their lower lip. This wasn’t really their business, and they weren’t the type to stick their nose in where it didn’t belong… They thought of Drayden, who spent a lot of time in Opelucid and not watching his nephews – he barely spent any time with them.

They’re just kids.

“Do you need some help? It’s my job to help customers in the store y’know.”

Another pause. Another exchange of glances.

“I-” Ingo tries to being, already hard pressed to say anything and even less so when his sibling elbowed him in the ribs and shot him a look. He wouldn’t be allowed to take all the blame. “We upset one of our classmates with our carelessness. We think she was attempting to befriend us, but- uh… there were a few errors on our part.”

“And you’re trying to get candy for her to forgive you?”

“We thought about it, but it grew too complicated. We do not know what candy she likes, but more importantly, we do not think it’s a suitable apology.”

The clerk nodded, tapping the counter in thought as they tried to piece together some genuine advice for the boys.

“I think it’s a nice peace offering, but I think an apology would be better.”

“We broke her hearing aids… Yep…”

Emmet croaked suddenly, shrinking back in shame at the same time that Ingo grabbed the brim of his hat to tug it lower over his eyes.

“Ah,” Dakota hummed, tapping the counter even faster. They meant the new family that moved in from Sinnoh. They remembered their dads talking about the new signs that had to go all over town for the girl’s safety. Dakota couldn’t remember her name. “How did you break them?” They asked, already knowing the answer.

“Volume control.”

Ingo cringed, remembering his uncle’s warning about his naturally loud voice. Inside voice, Drayden had been emphasizing, and Ingo was trying to take those words to heart, but it was difficult. Since Ingo’s face didn’t emote well, he relied on his voice and his movement to articulate his emotions to others. They nod sympathetically.

“You didn’t see them?”

“No…”

The boy was squirming now, his shame and embarrassment with the situation reaching an all-time high. He felt Emmet moving to his side, reassuringly pressing against his arm, and resting his head on his twin’s shoulder. A flood of comfort helped Ingo release a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

Behind the counter, the clerk was rummaging through something – although tall for their age, Emmet and Ingo couldn’t see what they were doing. They heaved a box onto the counter, tipping it so the contents spilled out for them to see, and the boys were confused.

“Headphones?”

Emmet leaned forward on his tiptoes to look at the colorful array of boxes that ranged from normal headphones to ones that had Pikachu and Eevee ears topping them.

“Yeah, uh, maybe if she wears these, you’ll remember right away that she has headphones in.”

It was a half-baked idea. In truth, Dakota felt a bit sheepish about it now that the idea was out of their head, but when they looked up, the boys were beaming – well, Emmet beamed. Ingo reminded of them of their friend’s Purrloin in a way they couldn’t quite put their finger on.

“Bravo! What a marvelous suggestion!”

Ingo practically cheered, stepping beside Emmet to look through the headphones. It was probably going to cost them a bit from the tags on the boxes, but it would be worth it. The headphones would immediately remind Ingo that she had hearing aids in so he would be more inclined to get Miss Elesa’s attention in a different fashion, but it also might do the same for others who were unaware of her deafness.

“Sure – er, thank you…” Dakota was looking at the prices now and mentally smacked their forehead. They probably couldn’t afford the headphones. “I’ll-” They hesitate. It almost pained them to say what they were going to next. “I’ll pay for them so you can take them to her now.” The twins’ eyes went wide, both about to protest when Dakota interrupted, “In exchange, you can do a few chores for me at my place. I need to do some yardwork, but it always gives me hay fever. Sound like a deal?”

The answer was easy for them. Dakota told them to pick ones that they thought Miss Elesa would like.

“I think these ones are quite dashing.”

Ingo said, picking up the box with the Pikachu ears. Emmet pursed his lips and shook his head.

“Nope. Too big. Not a gamer girl.”

They continued to rummage through the boxes. They agreed that she must like Electric types. She had a Blitzle as her partner after all.

“I cannot recall, she is from Hoenn, correct?”

Emmet shrugged, unsure himself because they had both been looking through a magazine with an expose on the newest train lines running out of Nimbasa when she had been introduced. That just meant to them that, when the time came, going on their Pokémon journey by rail would be all the easier.

“Not sure.” He looked at the box Ingo had in his hand and his smile broadened, nodding in agreement to his brother’s unasked query. The perfect balance of subtle but stylish. “I am Emmet. Those are perfect.”

Plusle and Minun headphones.

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

happy pride month (mod goldmary + everyone)!!!

i am here 2 finally present Awakening “would they do drag?”: second gen edition 🌈✨️

Owain: He's dabbling in crossplay but hasn't discovered full drag yet. I think he goes through a v brief phase of being defensive abt it (like calling it ‘guyliner’ n shit) before he realizes no one cares and he can do what he wants. once he's worked it out tho? ohhh my god. Everything is happening. in fact I'm not entirely unconvinced Odin Dark isn't just one of his drag personas.

m!Morgan: dresses gnc but I don't think he'd seriously do drag. a skirt is being worn but like… in an emo/scene kid way. u feel me?

Brady: definitely wants to serve deep down but is far too self conscious. he's had the opportunity before and turned it down bc he feels no amount of makeup will make him ‘pretty’ & therefore it's not worth trying. makes me sad bc i dont agree with him at all… like genuinely I think he'd fucking slay and he DESERVES to feel beautiful for once but agh. brady. sometimes you can accept yourself a bit too hard and end up chained to that version of yourself. I think he's done this. hes sold on the idea that hes uggo when thats not at all true….... pls brady u can be pretty too let me help u plssssssss 🥹

Yarne: no, but not because he’s opposed to the gender fuckery aspect. It’s more that the performance part would make his heartrate skyrocket and he’d pass out probably. also I can't imagine makeup playing nice with fur. maybe if there were taguel specific gender roles he’d play with those but uhh... yeah. on the bright side i do think he'd look lovely with some flowers braided thru his ears or similar.

Gerome: ok. so. he's definitely gay. he's definitely at the club. but i do not think he is a queen. gerome instead i believe is a paying customer. he tips very well, and though he sits at the back and doesn't even clap or anything hes still spending bucks and doesn't cause a fuss so hes become a beloved regular. I DO think there's a tiny part of him deep down that wants to queen it up, but that would take like an entire ocean's 11 heist to pull off (i'm talking Make Chrom Transition levels of difficulty here). there's also a serenes page claiming awakening's files suggest gerome might have been a woman at some point in dev so uhh take that as you will i guess 🤷‍♀️

Inigo: remember when his feh dancer alt came out in like 2017 and everyone was so fucking happy for him? because awakening makes it SO clear he secretly wants to be a dancer more than anything else (which for some reason is said to be a fem role even tho we've had male dancers before)?? and bc we Know that his current role as a 'gentleman' swordsman not only is a mask used 2 cope, but also makes him absolutely miserable deep down???

yeah.

call it ‘just a hc’ call me a conspiracy theorist but I fully believe inigo is 100% a dev intended tranfem allegory and that reading her as a closeted/repressed woman makes so much sense that I am genuinely shocked at how uncommon this reading seems 2 be. like her paralogue is titled 'a man for flowers' ffs. they may as well be calling her a friend of fuckin dorothy's at this point yet i stilllll come across ppl talking abt 'canonically queer fe characters' and they do not includer her in the list 💀

.....anyway its drag until she works it out. In the meantime I think Inigo is the most insufferable egg known to man and every time she says something akin to 'i love girls i wish i was a girl :(' severa gets one step closer to popping a blood vessel.

Laurent: OK YAY the final guy. I kept going back and forth on him bc i truly believe he could just be a boring gay, but he could Also have a secret slay side.... i wasnt sure. sooo eventually I just polled it. here are the results:

Surprisingly an overwhelming yes happened pretty much straight away! and now in hindsight I realize that researching and gathering data is probably how Laurent would have wanted things lmao

so i present now my 'informed' opinion that Laurent is very seriously into drag. Owain and her become drag sisters, tho they dont really hang out outside of the club. I do think drag is lowkey her second job (accountant by day cunt-out-ant at night etc) and she's probably going to earn enough that she ends up running her own club one day. with enough hot springs therapy sessions I think she could convince inigo to come work for her also. AND, as one person said on my poll (very important): "the hat stays on" 👍

so there you have it thats awakening done!!

the only other games I know well enough for drag assignment are three houses and path of radiance (tho planning on replaying sacred stones and maybe the other 2 gbas at some point) so idk i'll see if I can come up with anything for those.

otherwise this has been v fun! ty for enjoying my opinions :]

👀

[pumpkinsy0]

hcs of how papercut can tell when the other is feeling jealous/insecure of another person?

please😋

OoOoOo OKAYYYYY

how curly can tell ponys jealous:

•pony bounces his leg and gurts himself a lil??? NOTHIN TOO CRAZY NOW but he goes quiet and does something like dig his nails into his skin and leaves indents

•pony MIGHT copy them a little bit, not do EVERYTHING they do nor is it down to the molecule motion, hes just trying to see if whatever that person did would also work on him too

•ponys such a criticizer??? give him even a hint that u want to critique the person and he goes in on them so hard w no shame. even if curly doesnt know much about the person he will play into ponys jealous bc he thinks its funny!!! like u r ponyboy curtis wtf could u b jealous for man u got so much going for u compared to everyone else rn

•ponys eye twitches in front of the person, he swears it doesnt but curly will have proof one day, ONEEE DAY

•pony will throw himself into a hobby he does and try to get better at it so he feels like he has something to be proud of, this means pony gets busier ONLY out of spite. curly hates when pony does that, ur just tiring urself out and now we cant hang out, get a fucking grip brah

•he reads too into the persons tone of voice, makes it seem like the person was antagonizing/pitying him, thank god curly is blunt bc he calls it out immediately w no hesitation (in this case bc hes not getting how pony feels and truly just thinks pony did it on accident)

how pony can tell curlys jealous:

•he will pretend he doesnt know the good thats going on for the person, just straight up ignore it till he cant no more and its all he bears about. even then hes just maggicallyyyy the last person to hear about it even tho he lives w ANGELA who knows everything about everyone and a huge gossiper

•everytime he or someone else brings the person up he will alwaayyys never seem impressed w what they do no matter what. doesnt matter if that person found the cure for cancer, all they will get out of curly is “ok idgaf”

•curly hates them in their face, u can call curly a lot of things but u cant call him fake. pony can sense curlys jealousy coming on before he even realizes he is and try to get him to calm down/scold him from doing it. hell curly will never even admit him being jealous when its laid out for him

•curly will do anything in his power to not b around that person, IF HE COULD EXPLODE THEM W HIS MIND AND THEY CEASE TO EXIST??? promise he would do it so quick. pony says “theres goes ur lil friends” and watches curlys face scrunch up angrily allthe time, he actually feels sick to his damn stomach😭

•backhanded ass compliments, curly would do it wether he knows or not. thats one of the things that stays consistent throughout his jealousy and after hes over it. pony is the only one who could actually push him to say something NICE and still would probably need to give curly a purple nurple to establish hes serious about it bc its not the time or place

•curlys already competitive but he will bring up stuff that doest even matter to establish that hes better at other more meaningful (in his eyes) things, add pony being there witnessing it all and hes doing double to impress pony and turn hid full attention toward him

[drake-bois]

Imagine Tav pulling Gale out of the way of some danger (battle, traps, whatever). Being manhandled so effortlessly is such a huge, unexpected turn-on for Gale that his brain basically has a massive .exe shutdown.

Omg yes i love this!! He would absolutely go crazy. Thank you anon!!

a/n: little imagine for our best wizard!! Slight difference from the main game bc underdark is in act 1 but its fine lolol. I looked this over once quickly for errors so please forgive me if there's any errors or if anything sounds awkward!!

Pairing: Gale x fem!tav

Warning: a little spicy towards the end but not straight smut(if you would like it to be full-on smut, maybe a continuation of this, let me know!

Tav and party are walking through the underdark, heading for the Arcane Tower to see what this whole mystery is about. As they are walking they encounter a difficult fight with a spectator and its petrified victims. Tav suggests resting to the rest of the party, Astarion and Karlach agreeing, but Gale opposing, “We need to get to the Arcane Tower, I hate being in this place as much as anyone else, but, if we can get to the tower, we can get what we need from there and leave as soon as we need to through one of the sigil circles and go to camp right after, okay?” Understanding Gale’s point, she agrees to continue on, reluctantly on that though, seeing that Gale is in a bit of pain and sensing that he is uncomfortable with continuing as well, but he just wants to get out of there. They continue walking and suddenly Tav sees a gaseous cloud of poison trap and Gale is walking straight for it. ���Gale!! Stop!” Tav says, running to grab his arm and pulling him back, just in time as the cloud explodes. Gale suddenly is just standing there, arms at his side, looking like his brain just shut down. “Gods Gale, what were you thinking?! You were walking straight for the gas cloud,” Tav says, hunched over and out of breath. Gale didn't respond though, just staring into nothingness, eyes blank. Tav tried to read his thoughts, because he’s usually not this un-talkative, but… nothing, it's like his brain turned off(i imagine that all she hears is just the fax machine sound, or dial-up sound). “Gale? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did you get hit by the gas? What’s wrong?” Tav says urgently, scanning her lover for injuries or signs of sickness, but she doesn’t see anything. “Oh bother, it looks as though you've broken him, Tav. Might as well continue on without him,” Astarion remarks sassily. Tav gives Astarion a snide smile, and looks back to Gale, still speechless. “Gale, my love, what is the matter? It is bothersome that you aren't speaking.” Tav says as she puts one hand on his cheek. Gale suddenly snaps his eyes onto Tav, eyes wide, then his face changes from expressionless, to having a smirk, and hungry eyes. He then forcefully grabs Tav by the hip with one hand, and by the face with the other, and kisses her deeply. She is taken by surprise at first, but softens into this deep, hungry kiss. They pull back, breathing hard, gaining a snide “get a room” remark from both Astarion and Karlach, and Gale relaxed, but still looking hungry. He then finally speaks to Tav, quietly so it's just for her to hear “Gods, Tav. I haven't been more turned on by you than just right then. You pulling me away from that trap did things to me I didn't know happened in these situations. You better prepare for tonight at camp, because I'm going to absolutely ravage you. If you permit me, of course.” Winking at her, he deactivates the trap, saying loudly now so the whole party would hear, “Haste now everybody, I have urgent matters at camp to tend to after this. Let's finish this and get back.” Now, Tav is the one that is speechless. They follow Gale to the tower, and work hastily to get this done. She loves when he is like this, dominant, and crazy for her, almost unable to control himself. Tav can't wait to get to camp now; not to rest, but to have Gale.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed this anon, and that it lived up to your expectations! If you liked this and would like to see other things like this throw me a request (check pinned)!! Thank you for reading!! <3

[pyrographic-memory]

WOOOOOO MIDNIGHT ZOOMIES LET'S GOOOO

So a couple people have been saying "damn this is giving Wonderland a bit" about Emergence and the flamingo and the Houses, right. And I was like "damn, maybe they're onto something" and after some gear grinding and dancing under the moon they might actually be.

Take everything from here with grains of "potentially", "maybe", and "what if", cuz this is just me spitballing shit with a coffee stirrer bc the DVD logo keeps hitting the corners in my brain. Probably also gonna mention the graphic novel so if you ain't read it this is your warning.

I was running on a tism high with this one last night, sorry if it's incoherent. Aight let's yeet-

Vessel and Sleep are both Arcadian, and there's a number of Houses in Arcadia meant to keep balance of the world I guess, and a war started between them (the burning banner in Emergence's mv, and the Reaver/Roy vs "the Drowned Lord"). Over what? No concrete idea, but my guess is that someone said "man fuck this" and tried to revamp the balance, new gods vs old gods style.

While I definitely see how there's HELLA evidence that they're a toxic mf, I've been of the mind for some time now that Sleep was never the bad guy here. They're an old ass god of dreams and nightmares (emphasis on fucking old), with seemingly a touch of familiarity with death and life ("so tell me what you meant by living past your half-life"/"in lockstep with the universe and you're well-versed in the afterlife"). That kind of dichotomy tells me they are a neutral entity, they ain't got the cosmic wiggle room to be a selfish bitch. To us they're also gonna be really fucking weird, just. In general. Vessel was a person of huge significance to them even back in Arcadia - priest, herald, guardian, angel-adjacent creature, fuck it, let's say a mix of all those (I come as a blade, a sacred guardian"). Why else would Sleep single him out from every other human and hold on so hard?

Whatever exactly happened in Arcadia, Sleep and Ves were somehow involved in the start of it. Vessel was murdered (maybe while defending Sleep) and in turn Sleep was badly wounded. Vessel reincarnated on Earth, and spent his (relatively short) life searching for something he knew was real but just could not pin down, and he was stuck feeling alienated and subsequently had such shit luck with any relationship he was driven to try and end himself. And this is where Sleep finally finds him, at his lowest point.

But Vessel doesn't remember anything, and Sleep can't just tell him "hey, you're not crazy, you're definitely an alien lmao, but I need you to get your shit back together so we can go back and fix the fuckshit, yeah?". So they resign to rebuilding him. Ground up, starting with the soul. Then the mind. Then the body. There's a lot of trial and error, one step forward two steps back. We've all had that one friend that hit rock bottom and had to be dragged back from the depths of hell and a handle. There was a lot of kicking and screaming involved, wasn't there?

And Ves is pretty fucked up, so he's not exactly in a great mindset from the beginning. Something about Sleep feels so familiar, and he is desperately willing to give them everything to escape the pain, yet in the back of his mind he knows they're hiding something and that makes him itch. And he's absolutely right in feeling that itch, so maybe it makes him paranoid at times and he flip-flops between embracing the help and being like "wtf are you not telling me". But again, Sleep is a being of neutrality, so they keep their mouth shut and let the recovery process take its course. At times that doesn't exactly help Vessel's case cuz they're cryptic as shit and don't communicate in any normal fashion and that frustrates the shit out of him.

So the majority of all that is Sundowning and Tomb right. Now we have Take Me Back To Eden. This is the physical recovery. This is also when Ves starts to remember. Not everything, but pieces are coming back to him, and eventually it's enough that he starts asking questions. Maybe Sleep feels it's been enough time that they can tell him a little bit, and if any of it involves the part where he died the crashout is absolutely valid (The Summoning going into Granite maybe?). He's having a rager, ready to fuckin curb stomp someone's head, Sleep tries to calm him, they get into a fight, Ves cools off a bit and apologizes. He's a passionate guy, he feels emotions strongly, we've all seen it. But he's still torn between understanding why Sleep didn't tell him and wishing Sleep had told him at least something.

Sleep also divulges that there is a way to get back to Arcadia, but it's probably an arduous process that has a likelihood of killing him and this bullshit starting all over again. This is where the gold and aqua regia connections really come in, cuz while AR does break down gold, it is mainly used to purify it. Ves has to be purified to ascend. He has to disconnect his consciousness from the meat suit, which is the pretty way of saying he technically has to die. This is a painful process in probably more ways than one, but Vessel doesn't exactly have a choice other than embracing it (Vore). And then we have the internal-mental conflict come back between this ascendant version of him and the self-preserving human (it's hard-wired into us, he can't help it). He powers through it though, because he has bigger things to look forward to now, and he's nothing if not goddamn stubborn.

This is where I feel like things get a tad interesting. What if Sleep is still too weak after all this time of building back up strength that they don't feel like they'll be able to make it back home? They only have the strength to send one of them back? This would definitely fit the tragedy trope of someone finding their significant other only to lose them shortly after on the journey home, and this whole discography has been rife with tragic romance. So we have two possibilities: 1) Sleep gives their divinity to Vessel and it guarantees him a foot in the door. 2) they pull a Dragonball fusion dance and literally become a singular entity (which more or less they already are so why tf not)

Honestly I'm leaning towards option 2 cuz of Emergence. "Are you carbide on my nano, red glass on my lightbulb, dark light on my culture, sapphire in my white gold". All of these things are combined components. Nano-carbides are a hardening agent, red lights are used in sensitive film development, bacterial cultures are kept contained with UV light, and sapphire and gold are used in various electronics. They are all crucial elements to the processes they are used in. There cannot be one without the other ("Did you not say... we were made... for each other?").

Obviously this new album is us seeing that the process works out and they do make it home, but like any good story there has to be the suspense of "ohhh will the hero actually make it??". Vessel was someone new in Euclid because he finally found his own balance. He knows who he is now, and mourns who he was even in the dark times when he knew things weren't right. Because it's still a perspective that he's learned from.

And now that he's tamed his own demons he's gotta go kick some divine ass, and I kinda feel bad for whoever is on the receiving end of his wrath. They're going to be a grease stain on the fucking pavement, lmaooo

[dexaroth]

tagged by @blyszczopies to answer questions and tag mutuals id like to get to know better :3 tag list is at the bottom!

⭐ Favorite color:

i honestly have had some 'color opinions' sloshing through my head for a while.. its complicated but you can rarely go wrong with these ones 👆 these are the ones I like the most! specially when combined together!

for favorites.. it depends a lot on how you use the colors and if they're alone or accompanied! some things look bad if they're just completely sky blue and such..

(putting this under a read more bc its a Very long post)

for the purposes of having an ultimate favorite color.. man i honestly don't know. it's a completely even match between purple and blue, though only the non-100% saturated shades of blue bc true blue is quite unbearable. I think the ultimate champion in questions of how many things can work with it would be blue. sometimes too much purple can be unbearable, but too much blue not so much

red Can be beautiful in many cases, but orange is simply superior between pure yellow and pure red. pure yellow specifically is literally unbearable for me. i hate it so much. for me to like a yellow it HAS to be going towards orange or its nothin'. lime green is super beautiful but pure green is also too much, and so is cyan. though the specific range of teal/green-blue can be nice, but it does not come close to lime green, instead it accents it quite nicely.

we don't talk about pink. or magenta. or any of its hideous nicknames. perish the thought!

⭐ Last song played: erm. well. you see, most of the music i have downloaded came from youtube. and quite a bit of them from compilations of songs all in one usually 30+ minute video..

the one currently playing is by Lauren Bousfield. i've tried searching for the - actually paragraph cancelled. i thought it was one of the comps by the pavor nocturnus1 channel but it turned out to be from some random other channel. i was having trouble identifying which song it was because it's a single audio file but it turns out the song currently in that queue to be playing is the song Cascading Retail Spaces!

i've had this album compilation downloaded since.. 2017! damn! and other albums of hers too. I don't know anything else about her though, but her music slaps :3

⭐ Currently reading: ah.. i dont read at all sorry 😭 does looking at the drawings from the morpho books series grant me any pity points perchance..

⭐Currently craving: WAFFLES!!!! GOD PLEASE!! and cookies..

^my cookie pile in project zomboid. can you tell?? (no waffles bc they're randomly found and not able to be baked like cookies..)

⭐Coffee or tea: neither soz.. i did try to enjoy coffee like 10 years ago but its just meh. tea as well, very boring. not counting the fact i have to load these suckers with sugar for them to even be worth drinking >.> but i suppose i'd choose tea over coffee simply due to variety and that some are naturally sweet :J

tagging: @moodycarcass @oxu @crazysodomite (maybe even u again timo if u wanna awnser my curious inquiries below.. muahaha)

additionally might i add my own questions... for funsies :33

favorite stone pattern:

favorite time of day:

favorite cloud pattern:

actually hm its quite hard to come up with somewhat potentially universal interesting questions. fuck. erm

FAVORITE ANIMAL!!! this question never disappoints. additionally favorite family of animals maybe?..

also from the makers of the best question ever above.. what's the silliest/weirdest animal off the top of your head?

last dumb mistake in a game?

last triumph in a game? (life cant all be losses afterall..!)

favorite clothing pattern?

worst + best texture(s) to feel?

and finally.. name one cool thing that happened this week. no matter how small. it is your duty now! commence!

actually i suppose it'd be weird to not awnser my own questions.. well here goes:

i like the one stone pattern that's a bunch of thin slabs slotted together. the ref image i have says its name is cliffstone/bluff stone! i also like the 'bavarian castle' one!

time of day: DUSK!!! MY LOVELY DUSK!!! though dawn is veeery nice as well. i used to be fonder of the night but dusk is just sooo niceys. dawn loses points for giving way to the boring middays though. but every time of day has its charm

cloud pattern; i actually dont know their names besides cummulonimbus..? lemme search..

according to this chart ive found on ddg. nimbus! i love gray skies and i love rain and i love fog. stratus and scuds are also nice

fav animal: erm.. got myself in my own question! i dont think i have a true favorite? i suppose ill go with jerboas.. as for the family. rodents of course. im the rodent mutual how could i not choose rodents! blasphemy!

silliest animal: off the top of my head? its a worm-like animal with a goofy face.. i thought it was legless lizards but that's not quite it.. i dont remember the name 😞

though there is a guy that's named worm lizard apparently.. oh such a foofy goofus

last dumb mistake in a game: most recently i was trying to go back to my base in a car in project zomboid and ran straight into a insane zombie crowd. the car got stuck in the grass bc it was loaded to the brim and i tried to move it backwards and let zombies approach me with the hope i'd run away from them on time, but it was not moving and then i panicked and stepped outside the car near a zombie with the sprint key enabled, bumped into the zombie, fell on the ground and by the time the get up animation started the zombie was already eating my guy. i was so mad

last triumph in a game: not much of a triumph but i got to fitness and stregth to lvl 6 in pz which are grindy time consuming skills to lup. but i have a base and crops and my coogieeees

favorite clothing pattern: i also dont know!! id say checkers that arent too busy or its derivatives. but also star/celestial patterns of course

^ from my fashion inspo folder

worst + best texture(s) to feel: i hate silk and those ones that are like a million little hairs that i dont know the name in english. best i suppose would be plush/cotton? i dont know their names either lol

and finally.. name one cool thing that happened this week: hmm. i suppose the nice sky i saw earlier today? though also one my af attacks has gotten a lot more notes than i expected. which is epic 💪🐁

[the-storming-sea]

also also read ur intro post just now may i politely ask about your opinions of asian media and rep. is it specifically for fantasy? or just lots of genres with general trends or themes youve noticed? 👀

omg i wrote that so long ago and my brain is kinda fried so i'll be a little brief. may expand on it later but eh its all good. these are just rambling thoughts

a lot of asian rep in media mostly revolves around the east asian experience, which is valid bc god knows they need it, except often times it leaves out literally everyone else in its wake, or it keeps grouping up certain asians together. currently south east asian cultures are particular victims of this. But sometimes what ends up happening is that there is a "fantasy asia" world where the world is not technically Asia, but it might as well be given the inspiration behind it. in my personal opinion its kinda orientalist and a bit fetishistic of the 'exoticness' of asian cultures. Like it wants asia but without all of the real people in it

like for example the world in raya and the last dragon. it was great seeing someone who looked at me on screen but goddamn they couldn't at least set it in south east asia, let alone have distinct cultures instead of just taking little aspects of culture and making fantasy. it was a great movie for diaspora sure, but anyone actually from south east asia was disappointed. Xiran Jay Zhao compiled a two part video on it that elaborates more on it better than i could right now–i say compiled bc she doesnt do much talking in them aside from the beginning of the video; everyone else talking in it is south-east asian.

another fantasy world heavily inspired by Asia is ofc atla's world. my problem is that While its a good representation of east asian cultures, south east, south asian, northern asians, and western asians are left behind.

and what bothers me is that there are many places where they can fit in. Like the swampy tribe areas and the ancient firebenders from the dragons era feel like they should be south east asian inspired somewhat, and if you wanted to make a commentary on how these lands have been taken over and colonized (or at least there was an attempt on colonization) would be interesting. or how it feels like it makes more sense for katara and sokka to be more north asian inspired than american inspired. and of course there was the one (1) south asian inspired character who was. more of a caricature than anything else. im not saying the indigenous american rep is bad. obviously any representation is great, especially for indigenous americans. But if you are going to create a clearly "asian inspired" world (like nearly every aspect of this world is asian in culture and the main character is clearly a buddhist monk, it would be hard to argue otherwise), then at least take inspiration from asian cultures?

(side note people making fun of the swampy fog people is not great. does not feel great. regardless of whether they believe they're south east asian rainforests or the american bayou)

other small things are more of fan issues than creator issues. specifically the way people treat some anime characters like they're white instead of japanese/asian and then hold them to white cultural standards. all might is a great example, where despite being named Toshinori Yagi and being from a world where the mc has green eyes and green hair, people still think hes white bc hes blonde haired blue eyes and loves america? which–side note, you dont have to be an american to love america, lots of older people who got really into the american dream still like america. another thing was when i read a bnha fanfic that described someone as looking "asian" which. yeah i sure hope so. the story takes place in japan. and then theres some people not recognizing that asians all look very different from one another even if they're from the same area of the world.

more recently ive noticed the fandom racism in dungeon meshi specifically towards shuro, who despite being from a fantasy world is clearly japanese, and from a japanese-inspired culture. and its his culture which leads him to respond to laios in the way that he does. im not saying its racist to be upset that shuro responded to laios that way, but like. different cultures come with different cultural views and different ways of responding. shuro and laios come from two very different cultures. it happens.

this is kinda a lot and may not make sense bc im super tired rn jhfdbgdhjfbgd but i didnt want to forget this ask and just never respond to it

[rat-prophetess]

10 and 9 from the pathologic ask game!

Ty!! :D

9- I think the only thing that stresses me out in terms of mechanics is the feeling that there's probably some important side quest/interaction/piece of information that didn't show up in the quest log or letters that I just totally forgot about. Also the fucking rats. I just want to catch you and put you in my pocket so I can bet on you in a race later! I love you stop trying to eat me! please you are such a small target to hit I just bought these boots.

10- !!! Everything! For so many reasons! I think overall it's just that it felt very familiar from the beginning.

[OK this might be long and somehow both tmi and boring at the same time, so uh feel free to skip.] *Shockingly*, I'm sure, I am in fact Officially Mentally Ill™ and my personal depression has a lot of dissociative symptoms attached. Unfortunately I grew up in a house where We Don't Believe In Mental Illness, so I spent a lot of years feeling absolutely nothing and just wandering around in this fog feeling like my body was just a marionette kind of moving on its own while I just watched and couldn't do anything about it. I was told that I was perfectly normal and there was nothing wrong with me at all (because if we all just pretend hard enough...) so I thought that was just it. If there's nothing wrong with me then there's nothing to fix and this is just how it is on this bitch of an earth, c'est la vie pas le paradis, etc. Life is just tracing the same paths over and over and nothing changing except that it kept falling apart and getting worse. I felt totally cut off from the rest of humanity because I didn't feel like a real person in the same way that everyone else was a real person.

Do you see where I'm going with this lolll. being dropped into Patho classic and feeling like there's just. something a little bit off all the time and no one else seems to notice it. The buildings are the wrong size inside; everything feels kind of artificial, like it might just be a stage set; sometimes you have the same conversations over and over. You trace the same routes day after day, and it really does feeling like being blood moving through a vein, and meanwhile everything is deteriorating around you. The characters are horrified and frustrated to learn that they're just dolls and feel helpless and like they have no control over their own actions or fates. So I was like HEY SHE'S JUST LIKE ME FR!!!!! <333 They get me <3

It's always a relief to find a piece of art that makes you feel genuinely understood. Any experience/idea/belief that you have no way of communicating is really isolating, but as soon as someone else gives it a name or an image or a narrative form, it suddenly feels like a real shared human experience. It's like learning the word тоска and realizing oh, my language doesn't have a word for that feeling but there is a word for it! That's validation, babeyyyy! The whole game is like that. Also I'm v attached to the characters now. None of them are even a little ok at any time. <3 I love them. Everyone in the town is either queer, kind of fucked-up, or queer AND kind of fucked-up. High School Friend Group Simulator right there.

Ok sorry probably none of that makes sense bc it's almost 3am but uh. Good thing we're all used to reading long, cryptic dialogue that might be pretentious and makes no sense! It's thematic! Anyway I'll shut up now.

[gabapentinblues]

journal update 2.22.2025

woke up really not wanting to be alive, waking up has been so horrible recently. the sun is out again so at least thats nice.

i drank three cups of coffee and wrote morning pages. all i ever write about is how miserable i am and how i dont want to be alive. im just embarrassed by how i feel and i miss my therapist and my therapy program so much.

i just ate a banana for breakfast and had a small lunch too. trying to get back on track and actually lose some weight. trying to access a compassionate voice to help me through it. like look your body is still going it has what it needs and youll feel better this way, youll be glad youre doing this. ive lost this amount of weight before, its just tiring to have to do it again. i did maintain for like two years though which is pretty good, cant believe how much i undid in like three months its insane.

might let myself cut tonight we'll see. i took some gabapentin but tbh i dont even feel it i just feel numb.

i put clothes away and tried to straighten up my room a little bit and i worked on some art projects a very little bit, now its just waiting for things to dry i dont have much else to do. once its nice outside later this week ill probably work on getting my things brought in from the garage, im not going to worry about it now.

i was really sad last night and texted my friends that i dont think anyone will ever not treat me badly if i get close to them and no one really replied or was supportive so i felt like i overstepped and they are just getting tired of me. i apologized this morning and my one friend said its not a big deal but i still feel like it is. i still feel unsupported and i dont know who im supposed to turn to or if i can express it to them that i feel this way.

no one is talking to me today and i just feel so alone. ugh and i literally just checked my phone and realized i missed my friends reply from like an hour ago. but the friends im worried about arent texting me and i really do just feel unwanted and angry. i just impulsively deleted the chat so i'll stop checking for a response. i feel like such a loser. i feel like no one respects me and i dont deserve it anyway.

i still get so upset everytime i think about my ex bc i swear theres no way i cross her mind. she obviously doesnt give a fuck about me or we would still talk, i tried everything to work things out between us and im so mad. why doesnt anyone want to stay with me i dont know what i do wrong or how im not finding the right kind of people who would stay. i dont know what im supposed to do. i feel on the verge of spiraling about this.

not hearing back from therapists has me feeling really bad too, i feel like ive been abandonded and no one is going to make sure im okay. i dont know how much longer i'll have to go without real therapy, but going from the amount of support i used to get to nothing has been really hard. i try to talk to my friends but i really dont have that many people i can talk to. my family just ignores me and wants all of this to just fix itself. theres no point in trying to talk to them.

im afraid to tell anyone how much i actually want to die and how little hope i have for the future. i pass the days doing barely anything, i hardly leave the house, i hardly have anyone to talk to, i just drink coffee and lay around on tumblr and sleep and read fanfiction and journal about how pathetic i feel in like three different diaries (including this), sleep some more, and sometimes work on art projects, i barely exist at all. i know i need to be doing more if i actually want to feel better but i dont know how to start. i like sleeping the days away and avoiding everything, part of me wants to see how long i can get away with it.

[ddeongies]

i need to lock in so i can try and do a thinkpiece for chapter 12 but that will maybe have to come later(slash never...) bc we are in the same boat and my brain is mushhhh right now so this might also be incoherent but HELLO HI i saw and read ur update so quickly i think something activated in me like nmau sleeper agent. this chapter was so cute 🥹🥹🥹 i love them sm...to my earlier ask YESSS TRUST AND CONSENT IS SO SEXYYYY ESPECIALLY WHEN CHARACTERS RESPECT WHEN SOMEONE'S SAYING NO and it's so good to see that from both sides too, i kind of said everything i have to say abt it in that other ask but really it's just so lovely how comfortable they are with each other despite the still lingering uncertainty about the nature of their relationship AUGH.

i love ryujins inner monologue all the time but just seeing how yeji seeps into her thoughts more and more over time and seeing her just bask in this overwhelming presence and her blossoming feelings like shes down BADDDDD, just this headfirst tumble from plain attraction into (almost) love i love themmmm.

ik we love seeing sexy top yeji but her cutie side is JUST AS IMPORTANT!!! soft pouty yeji im so...shes so...and her unfaltering desire to do whatever she thinks will make ryujin happy like even though she had already said it was fine they weren't hooking up, still offering just omg chill. i love her. sometimes she needs to think about herself first though. but thats just adding back on to my earlier point like ryujin is there and counter balances where yeji's mind might go and reassures her that yes she does actually like yeji as a friend before anything else.

i love the level of intimacy they've reached in this chapter...playing with fingers while cuddling always gets me like . we are seeing each otherrrr its so important. and the soft kisses without leading into anything else like AAGHBH THEYRE SOOOO the way u write them is sooooo........

let me add the little bits i did have from 12 thinkpiece i half started ummm.

first of all. yejiselle IM NODDINGGGGG THEYRE LITERALLY SO GREAT i love aetzy i love their friendship u literally give them such a fun dynamic even though theyre not the main focus. second of all. i really appreciate the way you explore that quieter, more contemplative side of yeji, like we all know she's a talker but this yeji(all of your yejis really) feels so steady, so calming, so safe. the kind of warmth that puts you to sleep because of how relaxed you feel etc etc. third of all... when ryujin gets a little bit mouthy and then they start a playful banter oh exactly and the ROUGHHOUSING YESSSSSS like u literally get it u literally understand everything

ok back to business. i really like your descriptions of like. scenery. like even just beyond actually describing it the way you do it makes it feel like actual characterization both in the way things in rooms are set up and the way whichever pov character notices and describes things its so great.

...the eager beaver shirt...ur sick....i also love when we get to see snippets uve posted show up in whichever fic theyre from

i think that's all for now i might come back again later if i think of anything else im dying to comment on, also i saw u got around to my other ask and i loved reading ur answer so much like we literally are seeing eachother abt everything. (and dont worry about taking a while to answer them, i totally get it). as always. thank you and take care!!!

-🖤

omg i will eagerly await a chapter 12 think piece no rush no rush 😁 (and never is good too lol i feel you very hard on the brain mush issue godspeed friend)

i love showing consent and trust and stuff and one of my goals with nmau ryeji is to show like just them having this comfort and compatibility and mutual respect from really early on. like it’s not too hard to get through the slightly messier and more uncertain parts of getting together when the foundation you have is so good and easy! like do they know how to ask each other out? no! is it still worth it to keep trying? i’d say so!

god yeah yeji is SO much more present for ryu than she used to be like early on if yeji wasn’t physically there ryu wasn’t thinking about her so constantly but now…. she’s down just as bad as yeji is lol i love it and that’s what it’s like when you’re into someone… like everything is about them and you don’t even realize it

part of what makes sexy top yeji so sexy is the fact that she’s also this cute and pouty softy like she’s just all around precious and then she says or does something more 🥵 and it’s like oh…

but yeah it’s also really important to me that they had this baseline of friendship first. like you don’t need that for a good relationship (i literally met my wife on tinder so we dated in a very straightforward way lol), but for these two i really like it’s necessary for them to both get to the places they need to be idk

playing with fingers is so important….. especially when it’s something that irl ryeji be doing like please ladies 😭 and they both have such nice hands too 😭 (something that may be coming up in the chapter i’m currently working on lol)

i love aetzy so much they’re so fun n cute! (i also love yeji and jimin’s friendship, but it didn’t work out narratively in nmau sorry girl. giselle specifically felt like a perfect non-athlete friend for yeji to have in this story specifically i’m glad she has a role.

i really see yeji as such a steady, grounded, emotionally intelligent person. it’s very strange to me when people boil her down to like yapping and being clumsy (which are both parts of her that i adore), but like i think the more and more we get to see of yeji when she’s not in pure like Idol Mode (like in her instalogs) it just proves more what was already clear. she’s like a calm, observant, contemplative person and idk i think that’s really neat. ryujin has literally said if she’s the sun yeji is the moon like… it’s fascinating how little we truly know her (and i will stop my essay on how incredible i think yeji is as a person and continue to keep addressing it in my writing lol i got carried away)

also YES roughhousing is so important like they’re just acting like two kids with crushes which is what they are!! any excuse to get a little physical with the girl you like lolol

and thank you! i really try to make scenes feel grounded. sometimes i’ll do a first pass where i just focus on dialogue and internal monologue and then i go back in and choose like the setting/activity and try to flesh everything out

lol i definitely got a bit carried away here, but thank you as always for such a thorough and lovely comment!! i love chatting about all this stuff so so much it’s one of the best parts of writing in this amazing little community! 🥰

[pondslime]

??? FINALLY got the chance to sit down and read this

jfc, meg. ur really sending my ass straight back into the swamp. u have pitched me directly into the bayou and now I'm being pursued by a blue-eyed gator. how DARE u (I love u dearly)

FIRST OF ALL!! the prose in this is absolutely stunning.

u really captured this feeling of heavy, dense, INESCAPABLE heat. we're back in ambrose and it's SWELTERING. oof. reading this was like crashing ur car straight into a bog and having to trudge thru the muck!! waving ur 2005 flip phone in the air desperately trying to get service!! so u can call roadside assistance!! but surprise!! there's no reception and the only roadside assistance u get is some vile hick w/mommy issues!!!

bojangles in a wifebeater. the fact that u gave me that mental image. wild....................much. to ponder

favorite lines under the cut bc I'm howling about them. as we speak

The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

LOVE THIS WORDING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO VERY MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!! REPTILE BOY !!!!!!!!!!!!!! CROCODILIAN MFER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

NOW THAT'S THE JUICE RIGHT THERE

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry.  “Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

I cannot. physically put into coherent words. how much I love this bit.

just............OOF. the reader stuck in this house with who she is vs who he thinks she is vs who she has become!!! and @ the end of the day she decides it doesn't matter and eats the candy bc whatever. one of them should probably enjoy it.

THE FAIR DON'T COME AROUND HERE NO MORE AND THE TAFFY WILL ALWAYS GO DOWN WRONG !!!!!!! OH MY GOD !!!!!!!

oh. ILL. ill and diseased. excellent stuff

Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world.  Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away.

n o w o r d s

gagging. throwing up even. ur prose. ur P R O S E

I'm in space...............the stratosphere..............I suspect

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that.  In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

my jaw absolutely DROPPED at the transition between the nightmare to waking up in bed jhsdfjhsfdjhdf getting eaten out by this FREAK!!!!!!!! do alligators eat each other???? I'M ROTTING AWAY!!! love love LOVE that SO much. god. that's the juice that's my JAM that's everything!!!!!!!!

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops. The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

U M ?????????????????????????? thinking thinking THOUGHTS

wow??????????????? wowza???????????

ANYWAY. any shred of coherency that I have left is steadily dripping out my ears and I'm just yodeling gibberish @ this point. this is SUCH a drop-dead gorgeous piece. your prose is so so so immaculate. it's so wonderful to get to read ur stuff again. u always knock it out of the park. luv this and luv u

fever dream

Bo Sinclair x AFAB!Reader

7.6k words. dubcon ofc. reader is absolutely mentally bankrupt. stockholm is where we live, it's where we are, it's where we'll die. sporadic smut, pnv, fingering, and oral (fem!rec). blood and sweat everywhere. Bo calls reader a bitch a couple times but like, it's out of love or some shit. somno. alcohol use. nightmares. ghosts. swamp things. the ever-looming threat of death and depersonalization.

welcome back to my youtube channel. I have been. working on this fic. since May of last year. and it's finally done(?) it is long and weird and maybe bad and meant for you to get lost in. a journey with no destination. a haunted house only you are the haunted and the haunt and the house. tbqh I'm rewatching HoW today for the first time in months and months and I had to get this out of my drafts so I can check back into the sanitarium with minimal baggage, y'know?? I hope it makes you feel some type of way.

The summer heat is in your blood and the swamp is in your lungs and he is under your skin. 

You’ve never known an August like this, like a blister. You go to bed sticky and wake up drenched in sweat. The ceiling fan is a hurricane agent that offers no respite, just blows the humidity in vicious cycles. There’s no air conditioning in the house; it’s too old. Instead you wrap ice cubes in dish towels and press them to the back of your neck. 

A storm’s been hanging on the horizon for days. Thunder rolls out of a wall of iron gray, an idle threat. The air is soupy and super-charged. No rain comes. 

The nights are delirium. You go to bed on opposite sides of the mattress, oil and water. He sleeps naked, sprawled out like a water skeeter. The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

You lie awake, listening to the cicadas and waiting. Just when you’ve started to cool down and drift off he reaches over and fumbles at your leg, grabs your arm. He pulls you on top of him, hands on your body beneath his old t-shirt. You ride him with your eyes closed and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever, the sweating, the shaking. 

You wake every morning suffocating under his arm in the center of the mattress with honey between your thighs. 

.

He drinks his coffee hot even though the steam can barely rise above the rim of the mug in the humidity. You pour yours over ice and savor the feeling as it seeps down your throat and into your stomach. You curl your toes on the linoleum and almost smile at him across the table. He’s golden from all his time in the sun. You can trace the lines of his wifebeater over his shoulders, across his chest. You stare at him across the table and think about the taste of his skin. You want to run your tongue along that tan line. 

He catches you staring. “What?” he says flatly. 

You redirect your gaze to your hands. Shake your head. Wait for him to move on so you can resume your perusal of his body.

When he looks away, out the window, the sun catches those eyes and turns them to sea glass. He needs a haircut; walnut curls crest over his ears like kudzu. When you get up to clear the table your skin peels from the vinyl seat cushion with a sting that makes you wrinkle your nose. 

“Be good,” he tells you before he leaves. You wonder what he means, what he thinks you might get up to in this house full of dust and guns and ghosts. You know better than to ask, and you nod and kiss him goodbye and feel his lips on your lips for hours afterwards. 

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

When he pulls into the driveway you’re on the front step eating a popsicle and counting the minutes. He saunters across the gravel like John Wayne, shoulders exposed, hair plastered to his neck. You meet his eyes and wrap your lips around the cherry-flavored mess dripping onto your fingers. He spits into the weeds and eyes you through his lashes. 

“What’s for supper?” 

You suck on your sticky thumb. There’s a full spread on the dining room table, ready and waiting. “Whatever you want.” 

He licks his lips. 

Supper gets cold. 

.

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry. 

“Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

You sit on the porch steps and amass a pile of wax paper wrappers beside you. It’s soft and melty, peels out of the wrapper with a sticky crackling sound. It’s salty and sour and tastes like cheap sugar. Like a memory of summer that may be real, or maybe not. Could be yours, or could be someone else’s.

You eat more than you want, until your teeth hurt and you can feel the hot spot on your tongue where a canker sore will form. You rake that spot back and forth across your incisors. You can’t help it. Sometimes it feels like things have to have a hurt to them. 

“You ever been to the fair?” you ask him over your shoulder.

He grunts from the porch swing. “Used to go when Vince ‘n me were little. Took Les a couple times when he was old enough.”

“You ever take a girl?”

“Nah.” His boot thumps on the porch, an offhand punctuation mark. “Couldn’t find one to go with me.”

You doubt that; you’ve seen his yearbook photos. But then again, maybe he was off-putting as a teenager. Spooky. Hadn’t quite learned how to camouflage yet. Came on too strong, wore too much cologne, used too many teeth.

You survey the vast swath of woods that surrounds Ambrose and try to imagine a ferris wheel, red and blue and blinking, rising from the green like the hump of a whale.  “I’d go with you.”

He snorts. “Yeah?”

You look down at the piece of taffy in your fingers. You don’t really want it. You unwrap it anyway. “Yeah.” You gnaw on the candy like a dog savoring a scrap. “Be like a date,” you say thickly.

“What, you wanna skip down the midway holdin’ hands? Makin’ out in the Tunnel of Love?”

You can picture it, sunset and a sundress. He’s laughing. You’re laughing. The crowd is made of wax. “You could win me a stuffed animal.”

He scoffs again, but then he asks you, “What kinda stuffed animal you want?”

You think for a second, unstick the taffy from your molars and push it around your mouth with your tongue. “A Louisiana crocodile.” A souvenir from your time in the South. Maybe it’ll be wearing a little trucker hat and a smile that doesn’t reach its eyes.

“Ain’t got crocodiles here, sugar. ‘S all alligators.”

“Fine, an alligator then.”

You run your hands over your shins, sticky with the humidity. The chains of the porch swing creak rhythmically behind you. The sea of trees is dark and still and endless.

“Fair don’t come ‘round here anymore,” he says finally.

You force the taffy down your throat, swallow hard, and reach for another one.

“Figures.”

.

You’re buzzed and reckless, sucked down a pair of beers too fast just because they were frosty. The shears snick like some needy, nipping thing. You found them upstairs under the bathroom sink once upon a time and you always put them back when you’re done. They’ve been there longer than you’ve been alive. You comb your fingers across his scalp and loose locks drift onto your clean floor. 

“Don’t take it too short,” he admonishes into the mouth of his beer bottle. “You butcher me, I butcher you.” 

You roll your eyes behind his back. “Have I ever?” 

He grunts in acquiescence. That’s as close to a win as you’ll get. 

The windows are open; the thunder presses against the frayed screens. A gigantic moth flings its feathery body repeatedly at the ceiling light. You run your hand through his hair slow just to feel it between your fingers, thick and soft. Your thumb glances off the scar on the left side of his skull and comes back for another pass. 

He jerks his head, puts a stop to that. “You done?” 

“Almost.” 

You’re particularly fond of the curls at the nape of his neck, always save them for last. You coil one around your finger. You want to ask him if you can keep it, but you’re afraid he’ll say no or worse, that he’ll say yes. He’ll ask for something in return. You’ll give it to him, no matter what it is. You give him anything he wants, everything he wants. It’s the least you can do, the most you can do. 

You snip them one by one, bittersweet. 

“Done.” 

He leans over in the chair to examine his reflection in the window. “Good enough.” 

He stands up and drains the dregs of his beer. His hand finds your waist and he pulls you in and you bend like a reed, peering up at him, inspecting your work. He smells like sweat and sun. You grip his shirt in your fists and move with him as he sways lazily side-to-side. 

He gives you the gift of a smile, half-cocked and handsome. “You wanna dance, mama?”

Your fingers spider-creep up the shield of his chest and lock behind his neck. His skin is hot and sticky against your wrists, clipped hairs poking and itching. Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

He tilts his head towards you and you get caught in the trap of his mouth. The thunder moans. You can feel the sweat beading on your upper lip, in the pit of your elbows. His hands are heavy on your bones. 

His jaw scrapes along your temple like a razor blade and a fever chill rolls over your skin, hot-cold. “G’on upstairs, get those clothes off.” 

Have you always been such a good listener? 

.

He comes home drunk and fucks you on the table, in the midst of supper left cold and waiting for him. You knew he’d be hungry. You are right about some things and wrong about others.

You wince every time a dish topples off the table and shatters on the faded linoleum. He doesn't look at you, not once.

Afterwards, he disappears for a while and leaves you to clean up the kitchen. You are dazed, legs unsteady, leaning on the counter like an old friend. It’s been a bad day. Dinner has soaked through the back of your shirt and so you take it off, hang it over the back of a chair for later, and set to work on the mess.

You cannot puzzle out how he managed to get blood on every dish you are trying to wash until finally you realize it is yours, seeping quietly from a slice on your palm. When he comes up behind you your spine stiffens, arching like a snake making a final stand. He puts his hands on your bare waist and his lips against the back of your head like a sweetheart, like a husband, like a different person.

“Leave it, darlin’. Come sit on the porch with me.”

You bite your lip, lift your palm so he can see it, watch the world blur with saline. “I cut myself,” you say, and only then does the sting set in, so sharp you can feel it in your teeth.

He makes a sympathetic noise and cups your hand in his. “Now why’d y’go and do that?”

You open your mouth to answer but only a moan comes out as he lifts your arm and seals his lips over the cut. He sucks, gently at first and then harder, hard enough you feel the seam of skin separate and your fingers jerk like puppets to the pain. He lets you go and you cradle your hand to your chest as he laps your blood off his lip.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, takes your arm, tugs you from the sink. “C’mon. I need a smoke.”

You follow him onto the porch, curl up in his lap with a dishrag pressed to your palm and watch smoke and moths float around the light.

Your blood dries on the dishes with the gravy.

.

The clouds boom a reminder that they are still hanging above the house, but you are already awake in the split second beforehand. You are cocooned in the sheets and panic for a moment, arms pinned to your chest, bedroom black as a coffin. When you claw free, gasping, the air is like moss draped spongey and damp across your face. 

You worm out of the bed, out of the room, stagger into the hallway and down the stairs in the dark. You are mere steps ahead of some emaciated beast, its breath muggy on your cheeks and the back of your neck. You twist your shirt off and throw it on the floor of the den before it can strangle you, wrench the front door open and slam through the screen with both hands. 

The night is wet in your nose. One hundred million insects scream to God. In the back of your mind you think about joining them. Your toes scuff to a stop on the precipice of the porch and you peer into the darkness with round eyes, bare chest heaving for more air than you can hold. You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world. 

Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You wrap your arms around yourself and sink to the ground, sit perched on the top stair in your panties and sweat-drenched skin. The nail of your index finger rips apart the cuticle of your thumb. Mosquitos float open-armed to your legs like swamp angels. It’s too hot to cry. 

The yellow porchlight struggles to life. The screen door bangs flatly behind you. He can’t ever pick up his feet, scuffing through the dust you haven’t swept. 

His fingers brush the bone of your shoulder. You don’t flinch nowadays, usually. “Y’alright?”

You don’t have to answer that. Let him wrap his hand around your throat and fishhook his fingers into your mouth to pull your jaw open, you don’t have to answer that. You grit your teeth and dig crescent moons into your thighs with all ten fingernails.

Your silence doesn’t bother him. He leans on the railing to your left, curling his toes on the concrete, looking out into the night. Sleep has mussed his hair to one side and left imprints of the sheet fanning across his chest. There’s a hickey in the shape of your mouth in the curve of his neck. Lightning flutters shy among the clouds and the thunder reprimands it. There’s something stuck in your throat, something you can’t swallow down no matter how hard you try. Moths flock to the porchlight. If anyone was alive in the town to look up the hill, they’d see you haloed, and him too. 

“‘S late. Come back to bed.”

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

“You listenin’ to me? Let’s go.”

You can’t go back inside. You can’t go back inside. Something in you doesn’t line up right. Someone is holding a pillow over your face.

“No,” you think you say out loud. The word flutters off into the night. You watch a mosquito drift beyond the reach of the porchlight and disappear. The stars bow gracefully into the arms of the clouds. 

After a beat, he shuffles out of your periphery. The screen door slams. Maybe this time. When you least expect it. Maybe he's sick of you at last. You pick at a scab on your knee until it comes loose and flakes off, and then you pinch the skin around the wound and squeeze until a bead of blood, scarlet-black, mounds and breaks and gets all over your fingers. You raise them to your mouth and suck them clean and it tastes familiar. Safe. 

He doesn’t come back with a knife, or a gun. He comes back with the quilt and sheet from the bed, a pillow stuffed under his arm. He unfurls the quilt on the porch. The pillow flops to the ground like something hunted to extinction. He follows suit. 

“C’mere.” He wrestles with the sheet, props himself up on an elbow and punches the pillow into place. “C’mon.” 

You breathe, just for a minute, watching him. You want to hate him so bad it hurts. You want him to hit you so you’d have a reason to hit back. You want to fight for your life because you can feel it slipping away, waning, evaporating in the heat. Already you’ve found shreds of yourself under the couch, covered in dust. You are drowning. You are thirsty. He is water, cold and brackish. 

You rise from the stairs and come to him because you need him, because he is all you have. 

“Get the light,” he says. 

You go and come back and his hand finds your calf in the dark, slides up the back of your knee, guides you to the ground. The quilt is a mockery of softness, the porch unyielding beneath. You curl up with him at your back and he folds his arm around you, thumb worrying aimlessly at your nipple. His breath is hot on the nape of your neck. 

The air roils in your lungs. The night surges in. You are alone, so alone, aching with loneliness, now and always. You close your fingers around his wrist and guide his hand between your legs. He rubs the cotton of your panties with something like pity and you let a moan seep from your throat. 

Your face lolls into the pillow and it smells like fever dreams and cold-sweat nightmares. The fabric of your underwear catches on your clit and you gasp, arching against his chest.

“Easy,” he murmurs as his fingers drag back and forth. He hooks his foot around your ankle, forces your legs open. You asked for this. You’ll take it and thank him. 

Lightning silhouettes the world beyond the porch in black and purple. When you close your eyes, you see the rooftops of the town in the colors of heaven. You rock against his hand and pretend you’re someone else somewhere else. You feel the thunder in your teeth and wish with all your heart the rain would fall. 

He puts an abrupt end to the friction and cups you in his palm, wide and warm. You make a plaintive sound and wiggle your hips, push your ass against him. You need to feel something. You need him to help you. Otherwise, you might disappear beneath the horrible blanket of the night. 

“Please,” you moan. 

He presses his lips to the back of your neck, whispers into the shell of your ear like a lover. “You love me?” 

You squeeze your eyes shut. “Yes.” 

His teeth graze your skin as he slips his fingers past the waistband of your panties. 

“Good.” 

You wonder if he knows he keeps saving your life. 

.

The house is a midden of family misery. There’s barely space for you between heaps of clothing and glassware and mass market paperbacks. You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away. No matter how much you sweep and dust and tidy, the clutter seems to crawl right back across the carpet like morning glory. 

Late morning finds you in the master bedroom. It’s sweltering up here. The air sticks to your face like tattered gauze. The junk in here is of a particular breed, more meaningful—photo albums, baby clothes. Much of it has been stacked high just inside the door like a battlement. A fortification between this room and the rest of the house. You’re not allowed in here. 

Neither is he. 

Beyond the wall, everything sits untouched. A layer of dust rests primly on the bedside tables, the vanity, the yellow quilt still neatly made up on the bed. The art on the wall is sun-bleached in evenly spaced lines from the half-open blinds. The silence crowds your ears. It feels like standing in a tomb, the family crypt. 

With courage paper-thin, you've decided you'd like to confront the heart of the horror. Like shoving your fingers down the throat of the beast trying to bite you. Like making a home in its mouth, a bed in its bed. You want to eat me so bad, you’ll have to savor every scrap. 

It’s eerie in here. This room is brighter than the rest of the house by far. You can feel that parasitic presence all around you, cajoling you with hands that are soft and dry. There is a faint, floating smell of faded flowers. You breathe slowly to keep yourself from sprinting back downstairs.

You gaze at yourself in the vanity mirror. The dust almost erases you from sight, almost. You reach a finger out and draw a single streak across the silvery surface. You’re in there, somewhere. Sometimes you forget. 

The front of the vanity holds a trio of slim drawers with tiny gold handles. You catch one with the tips of your fingers and tug, just slightly. It creeps open without resistance. The inside is lined with green velvet. You pull it open all the way and search through the contents with your eyes. Blush, lipstick. Eyeshadow in seven shades of blue. You slide the drawer closed and move on to the next one, the widest one in the middle. 

This one holds a treasure trove of golden baubles:  a jumble of earrings, half a dozen hairpins, a long, thin cigarette holder. A string of pearls that look too chipped and dull to be real. And a locket, oval-shaped and decorated with a halo of tiny vines. You pick it up and the chain slips over your fingers like a thin, shining snake. 

You dig your nail into the seam and pop it open. To your muted disappointment, it is empty. No husband. No children. 

It’s yours, you decide suddenly. You want it. You've earned it. A prize, a consolation for the hell you’ve been through. For the fact that you have survived him, and she has not. You wonder if he’ll recognize it. Part of you hopes that he does. You imagine the look on his face and his hands on you afterwards. Your mouth is wet. 

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that. 

In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

You hear the rumble of his truck out front and the thrill of fear that shoots down your spine is so cold it’s almost welcome in the stuffy room. You shove the locket into the pocket of your shorts and fling the drawer shut. It closes with a soft, complicit thunk. 

You pick your way back through the boxes and slip through the door like a reptile into water; smooth, silent. You make sure it latches behind you before you hurry to the top of the stairs. 

Out of the corner of your eye, just before you dip out of sight below the banister, you see something bend the light that reaches through the crack beneath the door. You freeze, turn your head only slightly. You see nothing. Only sunlight. Certainly no feet, dainty and bare, padding across the carpet with red-lacquered toenails. 

Panic, delayed, breaks loose. You gallop down the stairs so quickly you forget to skip the ones that creak. 

By the time he comes inside, slamming the door fit to shake the frame of the house, you are hunched over the dishes in the sink like you’ve been there all morning. If you are unduly quiet, he doesn’t seem to notice, and if he notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

.

“I think I love you.”

You say it half-casual, half-pronouncement, the way you might tell your mom you’re dropping out of college. Tell your boyfriend you’re over him. Tell your boss you’re moving to Louisiana. “I mean it this time.”

Bo snorts, lifts his beer to his lips. “That so?”

You shoo a bee from the rim of your glass and suck down the last of your drink. You just might be drunk. “Yup.”

“Think that’s the bourbon talkin’.”

You roll your eyes, shimmy a little in an effort to make the busted lawn chair more comfortable. You thought he’d be more excited. “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

He smacks his lips like he’s considering his answer. The sunlight shifts through the trees and you close your eyes, blissful. “Lemme ask you this. You ever set a snare, baby?”

You can feel it in your blood:  the sun, the breeze, the brook bubbling over your toes. It’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Hey.” He leans over in his chair and snaps his fingers, splintering your peace. “I asked you a question.”

“Nah. Never set a snare. Some of us were normal kids.”

He ignores this and you feel like you’ve gotten away with something. “Well, sometimes you catch a critter, but it don’t strangle to death like it’s s’posed to.” 

You frown. 

“So you gotta do somethin’ about it, right? But you gotta be real careful. Can’t get caught up by the sufferin’. Gotta keep your head about you, y’know?” He’s not looking at you, but you can picture his lips, twisted in something like a smile. “‘Cause it don’t matter what it is…raccoon, possum, bunny rabbit…that sucker’ll take your hand off if y’let it.”

Your throat is sensitive all of the sudden, feels closed off. Maybe you swallowed a bee. “What are you even talking about?”

His head lolls lazy to the left and he stares at you for a second in a way that makes your hair stand on end. Then he chuckles, winks at you, turns away and leans back in his chair. 

“Nothin’, sugar. You’re awful cute.”

.

The heat wreaks havoc on the lifeless inhabitants of the town. You trail behind him like a listless kite as he makes the rounds, checking for damage, hauling the worst afflicted home to Vincent. It baffles you how much he seems to care about them. How much investment he has in keeping the rot contained beneath a pristine cosmetic veneer. For what? For who?

You don’t tell him it’s all rot, all of it, the people, the buildings. The trees. The air. Him. You. 

Some days, most days, you can’t quite look them in their faces. It’s guilt, you suppose. Guilt and acknowledgement of a fear so pervasive you no longer notice the way it clings like a second skin. You’ve convinced yourself if you meet their eyes you’ll find them glaring at you, envious and accusatory. Or worse–you’ll see the future, suspended in the flat, glass pupils of a dead game animal.

Occasionally you punish yourself by looking too closely. You note the receding hairlines, where the skin beneath the wax has dried and pulled taut and shifted the scalp along with it. You observe the way the light shines through plump round fingertips that are only hollow shells of wax, all that soft flesh desiccated and shriveled to a skeletal wedge underneath. You wonder, sometimes, whether Vincent smoothed over any flaws–scars, moles, asymmetrical lips. You touch your face subconsciously and think about the things he might fix for you.

It makes you feel like you are tiptoeing on the precipice of sanity, arms wide, just waiting to topple.

You take a particular interest in their clothing, wonder whether it belonged to them or to someone from the town. You never ask Bo, although you know he could tell you. You ignore the obvious parallels like a badly stitched seam. None of the clothes you wear belong to you either.

There are more residents than you ever imagined, half the houses not as empty as you assumed. Ten years, three brothers, three hundred and forty-nine holes to fill. You were decent at math in a past life, but nowadays, you try your hardest not to solve problems, no matter how they howl and scratch at the door. You’ve become adept at avoidance of the obvious in favor of learning how to assimilate into the cobwebs and shadows. No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

You believe it so hard that when you find it, on a girl in a house on a street you’ve only been down once or twice, you can’t make sense of it for several long seconds, staring dumbstruck and stupid while the static subsumes your brain.

“Let’s go,” he barks from the sitting room. The couches are pink and floral and faded.

You cannot move. You are made of wax.

“You deaf? Come on.”

She’s wearing cutoff jeans and the t-shirt you bought on a trip two years ago, or maybe three. There’s blood, brown and faded from half-hearted washing, streaking the collar and left sleeve.

Her hair is lighter than yours, and shorter. Her feet are smaller. Her nose is bigger. But the shirt is yours, and so is the blood, and for a second, you know you are a ghost.

“Hey.” He grabs your arm and turns you around. You think maybe she’ll move, now that you’re not looking. “You got a problem?”

You cannot answer him, because you do not have a voice. Because your lips have been glued together and painted the perfect pink. His gaze flicks from you to the girl and back and you wonder if he kissed her the way he kisses you. You hope he can see it, the way you are withering under the wax. You hope he will pick you up, cradle you in his arms, take you home and take care of you, make you whole, make you human.

Isn’t that all you’ve ever asked for?

He snaps his fingers in front of your face and you flinch, because you are real after all.

“Let’s go.”

You let him push you towards the door, hear him close it behind you, feel the floorboards shiver as he follows you down the hall. He puts his hand on the small of your back and ushers you out of the house, down the sidewalk cracked and stuffed with weeds keeling over in the heat. You can feel your feet melting to the concrete, skin crawling, sagging. You try not to stumble. You don’t want him to leave you behind.

“She ain’t you,” he mutters at the end of the street, so low you barely hear him over the buzz of the cicadas.

You aren’t sure if he’s lying, now or ever. You don’t ask him where her clothes are and he doesn’t offer. She might not be you, but you might be her. And you both might be someone else.

Either way, the shape of her is burned into your vision in blue and green, and she shakes her head at you when you close your eyes.

.

You wake to the sound of rain on the roof and it pulls you immediately from bed, stumbling sightless over your feet to get to the window. You yank on the mangled cord to raise the blinds and sure enough, the dust of summer is melting down the window in waves.

“Bo,” you say hoarsely. “Bo, look.”

It is then that the silence of the room seeps into your brain, the conspicuous lack of snoring. Your heart sinks into your wringing stomach. 

In a perfect world, he’d be taking a leak. He’d stumble back to bed and wrap you in his arms, press a kiss to your temple, and you’d drift back to sleep in the bliss of air conditioning. 

Your world is a few dirt road miles south of perfect.

You have to go find him. Find him and haul him out of whatever dark place he’s waded into, before he comes back worse than he went in.

The hall is a throat you have to fight against to get to the stairs, black and humid with walls that breathe. You feel cobwebs on your face and slap them away only to realize it’s your own hair caught on your lashes. The glow of the TV laps at the bottom step like floodwater, makes the carpet undulate like something just sank below the surface. You hesitate, for just a second, before you step down and feel solid ground beneath your feet.

He sits slouched on the couch in front of a screen full of static, deadeyed, jaw clenched. He doesn’t seem to notice you, quiet, creeping thing that you are. The static sounds like rushing water. Mangroves rise from the shadows in the corner of your eye. Lilypads part around your feet. If you turn your head just right, his eyes flash red in the light.

You stop halfway between the stairs and the couch, unsure what kind of animal you’re approaching. Your hands float up like a shield, like a bridge. “Bo,” you say softly, and it echoes in the night. “Are you okay?” 

He blinks, like a person. You notice a bite mark, a purple half moon in the meat of his forearm. Your skin is well acquainted with the shape of his teeth. 

“Bo,” you whisper. You don’t want to get closer. “Come back to bed.”

You hear a splash in the kitchen. The carpet squishes between your toes. Something brushes your ankle and wriggles away. You need to get out of here. You can’t leave without him. 

“Baby…please.” You step towards him and freeze as he lurches forward, sits up straight. His hands dangle between his knees, his gaze still locked on the fuzz of the television. 

“I killed my mama, y’know.” 

His voice is pitched, low and dull. A sheen of sweat glistens on his upper lip and cheekbones. The color is gone from his face and here, in this place, he looks almost green.

You fight to form breath into words. “I…I know.”

He’s speaking again as though he didn’t hear you. You can see in his eyes he is far, far away. “I watched her die. Took a real long time. But I stayed…waited. Had to make sure.”

The water is rising, cold and slick, over your ankles and up your calves. Panic rises with it, packs into your throat like silt. “You were real brave, baby. You did it. You made sure.” Your voice is thin as a reed. 

A terrible, empty grin cracks his face and then vanishes without a ripple, and now he looks at you for the first time and his eyes are hollow and blue as marbles and he whispers, “Then why ain’t she dead?”

The water surges to your knees like it’s been displaced by something large, something prowling. You teeter forward, heart hammering, splashing as you regain your balance. Too loud, too loud. Do alligators eat each other?

“She’s dead, Bo. She is.”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” He rises to his feet so fast you lose your balance again, flinching back from him. “She ain’t and you know it. You’ve seen her, she’s here! In this fuckin’ house!”

You shake your head quickly and in your periphery something ducks beneath the surface of the water. “No. She’s not.” Convince him, convince yourself, make it true.

His chest is heaving, his gaze darting around the room, searching. You can picture a shadow in shadow, curled up and waiting in the corner of the ceiling like a fat black spider, fingers splayed wide and tipped sharp and red. 

Bo grips the back of his head and moans and it echoes off the trees, too loud, too loud. “Fuckin’...everywhere.”

Faded flowers. Blush, lipstick. A trick of the light. A locket wrapped in vines. Something hunting, just below the surface. If you let it rip him apart, would it come for you next?

“She’s everywhere…in my goddamn head….” He sways on his feet like he might fall and if he does, if the swamp swallows him, you’ll die here in this place.

“Hey.” You close the distance, push through the muck, brush his elbow. “Hey!”

He smacks you away, snaps his jaws closed. “Don’t touch me!”

You cringe and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Something groans in the dark. Something moves near the ceiling. 

His eyes on you are predatory, cold and empty, and his brow furrows. “Who are you?” he demands.

Wide-eyed, you open your mouth to answer him, but there is nothing on your tongue but moss. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

He leans toward you. “Who the fuck are you?”

You hold your hands up in front of you, backing away, mud between your toes. Your fingers are skeletal. Your nails are painted red. “I don’t know!”

A terribly low, vibrating sound is rising from the water, sending ripples in all directions, freezing your heart in your chest. He moves towards you and the swamp parts around him, allows him to pass like he is a part of it.

“You ain’t leavin’, baby.”

His teeth are sharp.

He lunges.

You scream.

The sound gets caught in your throat like a wad of feathers and bones and you choke, twisting, coming to in your bed. In his bed. Disoriented, you gasp for breath and release the death grip you have on the sheet. Your brow is so sweat-soaked your eyes are beginning to sting. The air is dry on your skin; the blanket is gone. The lower half of your body is tingling.

His head lifts from between your thighs and he looks at you with eyebrows raised. “Easy, sugar. Ain’t done with you yet.”

“Wh…what?” You rub at your eyes, trying to shake the sensation of water closing over your face. Somewhere, some version of you is bleeding in the silt.

His tongue makes another pass and you whimper, arms shaking with the effort of holding yourself up, of treading water, of fighting the maw of a monster. “Relax, baby. Go back to sleep.”

It’s all so insurmountable, the weight of it on your chest, and you sink back into the mattress without a ripple. His mouth is wet and warm. His dark hair is disheveled and you wonder absently if he misses it, that lock you stole. The room is silent save for the sound of your drowning.

“Is it raining?” you whisper, and hate yourself for the hope behind it.

He pauses, meets your gaze over the watery surface of your body. All you can see are his eyes and you could swear, for a second, they reflect neon red. “No.”

You let your head drop back onto the pillow, let him devour you, feel a tear slip over the brim of your lashes and disappear into your hair.

.

The storm breaks on a Wednesday. 

At first, you don’t register the rain on the roof. You don’t even take note of the thunder anymore, after weeks of torment. It’s become a fixture like the dust, like the pervasive smell of decay.

It starts slow, cautious, rolling into town like a tourist with a busted GPS. You mistake the patter for the familiar buzz of TV static even though that makes no sense, even though you’re the only one in the house, even though the TV is off in the next room. All you can hear is the rough swish of the scrub brush on the hardwood floor, coaxing flecks of blood from the gaps between the boards. It’s already beginning to reek in the heat.

You wanted to clean it up last night when it was fresh but he wouldn’t let you, strongarmed you up the stairs and pinned you to the mattress. You’d never admit it to him, to God, or to yourself—and really, is there a difference in Ambrose—but he fucks so good when he’s riled up like that, when it feels like he can’t get enough of the killing so he’s going to take it out on you, take everything you have to offer him plus a little bit more.

The cut on your palm is half-healed and hurts when you put your weight on it. There’s something about that—familiar, comfortable, not grounding, not really, but like static. Stable. Buoyant. Like the bruises on your knees. A constant that cradles you and takes you up and out of here, not too high, just above the trees.

A stair creaks behind you and you freeze like a hare in the shadow of a hawk. It could be Vincent, but he’s busy with last night’s batch. It’s not Bo.

You ease yourself up onto your knees, rock back, stand up, and creep to the foot of the stairs. They are empty. You are alone with the sense that someone has just disappeared out of sight, retreating up into the aching cranium of the house, skirt swishing.

You are never alone, not really.

It’s only then that the sound of the rain seeps into your brain, soothes the hair standing up on the back of your neck. A weight you have been holding on your shoulders since the end of July dissolves like sugar and your spine lengthens by inches. You drop the brush, forget the ghost, walk barefoot through the bloodstain on your way to fling open the front door.

It rains.

It rains even though the clouds are thin, the sun forcing its way through in places like it just can’t bear to admit defeat. It rains and pools in the potholes of the driveway that have been waiting open-mouthed to be filled. It rains and the grass and weeds release a sigh of bliss, stop begging for mercy.

You step down from the porch in a trance, palms up and open, trailing pink-tinged footprints that melt across the concrete like raspberry taffy. You walk across the lawn, scuff your feet in the grass, wonder if maybe you’re dreaming and decide you don’t care.

You sink to the ground, sprawl on your back, feel the damp soak into your clothes and your skin and it makes you whole, makes you new, makes its apologies for taking so long. You are floating, only eyes above the water, surrounded by salvinia and duckweed.

You hear his footsteps just before he calls to you. “The fuck you doin’, girl?” he shouts, but when you open your eyes, he’s losing a fight with a grin, picking his way up the slippery hill.

You sit up halfway. “It’s raining.”

“Y’don’t say.” He drops to his knees beside you, slumped with relief.

His wifebeater is splattered with blood and water but you grab it with both fists and pull him to you, catch his mouth and coax him to the ground.

“Crazy bitch,” he mutters, but he guides your hands to his belt and grips your ass with both hands as you fuss with the buckle, even rolls onto his back to ease your way and lifts his hips so you can tug down his jeans. “Right here, huh?”

“Yes.”

“In the front goddamn yard.”

“Yes!”

“It’s fuckin’ rainin’!”

“I know!”

He laughs and the heavens giftwrap it with a roll of thunder. You're giddy, beaming at him, and he traces your smile with the pad of his finger and something akin to admiration.

You're brand-new, him too, and both of you together. Like it's the first time, a better first, another universe. His hands are on your thighs and his shirt rides up above his stomach. Water drips off your nose and onto his lips and he licks it off like it might save him and maybe it just might. Maybe it’ll save you both.

Exhausted, exalted, you wash the sweat and grime off each other with filthy hands and thirsty mouths. You wrap your fingers around his bare shoulders and ride him with your eyes open and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever breaking, the panting, the shaking.

The locket taps against your chest, the lock of his hair tucked inside it. He cups your face, slips his thumb in your mouth, and there’s blood beneath his fingernail. You suck it clean with greed and obedience, savor it, turn your face to the sky and let the crocodile tears run down your cheeks.

“That’s my girl,” he growls, and you bask in the rare and wondrous glow of his approval.

You come apart in splashes like raindrops, small, staccato swells in your core while he kisses the rain off your skin. His hands find the bruises they’ve left on your hips and squeeze and it’s all you could ever ask for, to be held. To be hurt. To be his.

Maybe it’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Y'know, girl, maybe you're right,” he says. "Just this once."

You’re confused until you realize you’ve spoken out loud. You look down at him, cold skin, wet curls, a smudge on his jaw that could be mud or blood, his or yours or someone else’s. He looks back like he sees you.

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops.

The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

You don’t smile, don’t sigh, just push the hair off his brow and sink slow and gentle beneath the surface and into the green, not a ripple made in your wake.

“Good.”

[j0ekw]

Hey did anyone else (particularly ppl who have been to uni) have a bad experience reading Loveless? Not even that its a bad book or anything, I just had a rly hard time with it (I've stopped reading it like halfway)

(B4 reading do be aware that this is quite personal and is more about my experience than the book itself, if ur just looking for discussion on the book specifically then this proly isn't up ur alley)

Like obviously the main character struggling with their sexuality and the consequences that has on the ppl around them is going to be especially sore if that struggle is relatable (which is a bridge I don't want to cross rn). But, as a Uni Student also in the UK, I found the setting weirdly upsetting.

Now its a different uni to mine, the characters are doing different courses to me and come from different backgrounds, but like I can't help but feel a sense of betrayal. In the book, sure there's conflict but the MC, who's just started in first year, is going to uni with ppl they know, they're getting to know ppl there quickly, they're going to cafe's and societies etc. Where I left it off, they were at this prom thing in fancy clothes with a ton of events coming to ahead, and there was a major conflict coming to ahead in the middle of a bouncy castle fight. Its a scene with bad consequences, but like the whole time I can't help but think about how amazing the event sounds, and how cool everyone looks.

My first year was spent being ill, tired all the time from work and the ppl in accommodation, being uncomfortable around most ppl and then, being afraid of some bullshit fine from the uni for keeping the kitchen clean that I felt I was the only one taking seriously (I don't even know if they were legally able to enforce it) and of course, with 2020 rolling around, covid. And sure, things have gotten a bit better since then, it took a few years but I found a good community, better housemates and a better job. And there were good bits in first year. However, reading that book, I couldn't help but think; has my experience been so bad that I can't even fathom what a good uni experience is meant to be? Because the book sounds fake, and maybe there are some exaggerated bits to make it more exciting, but even though I find a lot in common with the MC, it feels like they're in a world a million miles away from my own. Every cafe experience is tainted with regret bc I could've gotten the food cheaper, every society social felt like "go to pub" so god forbid you can't or don't want to drink, I don't think I've even been to a formal event. And even now, as a person helping to run a society, I can't even make that much better because the uni aren't helping! I didn't even start thinking about sexuality till I took a year out working full time, because that was probably the most stable situation I've been in since what feels like forever, and had the headspace to start thinking about that stuff.

And the book itself was published in 2020, its contemporary! I can't even blame the decline of this country due to the ghouls running it on why my experience is so different (altho maybe Alice is writing from her own experience which would be before my own).

I just feel like I've taken years off my life to make this uni thing work, and reading a world where money is a non-issue, fun events are going on, and the MC is around ppl they've known for ages, makes me envious.

I'm realising that this is rly personal and a non-issue in the grand scheme of things, I might just be feeling sorry for myself. I do still need to finish it tbh, maybe I was in a bad frame of mind at the time.

[solsolace]

no bc- i just read “snowball” and cuddly childe + winter/cold + his family has found its way into my hard and now i’m in need of comfort scenarios now that it’s so cold pls 😭 if you want ofc! this is just a suggestion as a very touch starved reader and fan of ur work :,)!!

home for the holidays

✧ synopsis: [fluff] headcanons and drabbles; childe brings you to his home for the holiday season :) ✧ ft. childe x gn!reader (+some of childe’s family!) ✧ warnings: slightly suggestive towards the end but nothing serious, mentions of food, spoilers for childe’s real name ✧ a/n: not super wintery, but i'm in the mood for family bonding and cuddles; i hope this is alright!! (sorry it took me forever to get to this btw lmao)

»»————-　 ✦ 　————-««

✧ okay, so, harbingers don’t really get time off- including for the holidays, buuuut- childe was finally given a chance to oversee some recruits in snezhnaya, and it just so happens to line up with the holiday season, aaaand… well, he can handle some work and still get to see his family, right? right, of course, he is tartaglia after all, there’s nothing he can’t do!! ✧ plus… he’s managed to convince you to come along with him. so, it’s like he’s killing three birds with one stone! hell yeah!

✧ as eager as he is, childe can’t help but feel oddly anxious about bringing you to meet his family for the first time (despite the fact that he has been begging you to come to snezhnaya with him ever since you two have gotten together. and probably way before that, too. he’s just been very excited to share the part of himself that isn’t completely tainted by the abyss and fatui with you) ✧ he’s aware that they’re going to love you, of course-why wouldn’t they?- but what if you don’t like them? what if his siblings annoy you (or worse, embarrass him) or his parents say something offputting? he adores you, but he doesn’t know if he could handle you and his family not getting on. ✧ though, if he’s nervous, you’re an emotional wreck, whether you show it or not. childe’s told you about his family before, and the fond smile and sparkle in his eyes when he thinks of them has always made your heart flutter- they sound so sweet. you’re excited, but perhaps a bit too eager to please. you’ve spent a lot of your time recently trying to find clothing and supplies that will both protect you from snezhnaya’s freezing temperature while also giving the impression of “really-good-partner-for-your-son-please-accept-me.” oh archons, you really hope that they approve of you. ✧ both of your worries are quickly swept away when you reach his family home-more of a manor if we’re being honest, the lad is rich and he keeps his mf family taken CARE of and one of childe’s sister’s opens the door before squealing happily and calling out for the rest of the family. ✧ childe’s mother absolutely gives you the biggest, warmest hug in the entire world- definitely hugs you first before hugging her son. she might also cry; it’s been a while since she’s gotten to see him in person, and look! he’s so grown up now! he even has a lovely partner!! :’((!!! she has chosen pointedly to not count being a harbinger as maturing. ✧ it’s honestly quite lively for the first few hours of your visit; the younger ones are bouncing around you in their excitement, the older siblings are discussing new happenings with childe (and teasing him about you, of course), childe’s mother is rushing around trying to clean their already very nice house, and childe’s father is… absent. he did not come down to greet you or his son. ✧ if you start to feel overwhelmed, childe is quick to notice, and will usher you to a different room away from everyone else for a bit to make sure you’re okay.

Childe tells his family he’s going to give you a “tour of the house”, taking you by the hand and leading you down the hall before anyone can say anything. He takes you to what must be a study, walls lined with bookshelves (save for the space where a stuffed bear head is mounted on the wall) and a desk in front of the window. Outside, the snow is blowing across the frosted ground in swirling clouds, a frozen howl echoing against the glass.

“You alright?” He asks, pushing to close the door behind him. You nod, working on maintaining control of your breathing. Childe’s hand reaches to brush just in between your shoulders, tentative at first, but as you lean into his touch, he snakes his entire arm across your back and pulls you into his side. He lets you recline against him, allowing you to take however much time you need to calm down. Ever so faintly, you can hear the relaxing rhythm of his pulse mixing with the winds outside.

Once you’ve been grounded and are feeling a bit better, you move from his arms to sit atop of the desk. There’s not much you need to brush aside, though you do spot an interesting paper reading, “Gifts for the kids”. You try to spot Childe’s name, curious about what his family would get him, but a clear of his throat summons your attention before you can.

“So…” He starts, taking a step toward you. His eyes wander away from you, and there’s an air of feigned nonchalance that you’ve come to know all too well.

“Sooo?” You mimic.

“Are they… My family, I mean, do you…?”

He’s cute when he’s stumbling over his words, you think. It’s rather rare for your boyfriend’s smarmy, talkative ass to be at a loss of what to say. You know Childe really values your opinion, but is worried about it at the same time.

“Your family is wonderful, ‘jax.” You smile reassuringly, and his eyes light up. “They’re a bit excitable and energetic, but… I like it. They remind me of you.”

Now you’ve done it; Childe immediately descends upon you to steal a kiss, causing you to laugh a bit at how abrupt he is. His kisses are excitable and energetic, just like his family, just like him.

You two are, however, interrupted by a chorus of “Ooo”s, “Eww”s and “Aww”s. You both part early, glancing over at the door to see his little siblings' pairs of eyes peeking through the doorway, watching your antics in amusement. Childe narrows his eyes at them while your composure flusters, before he puts his lips back on yours. The children shriek with giggles as they scurry off, chanting some Snezhnayan version of “kissing in a tree.”

✧ when the two of you return from your, ahem, departure, you notice a tall, tired looking man in the living room. childe’s mom is discussing something with him in hushed, adamant tones, falling silent when she spots you. the once vibrant atmosphere in the room seems to have vanished. childe’s hand stiffens against yours, but his gaze remains steady. the other man does not speak, merely allowing his eyes to wander from Childe, to you, and then back to Childe. He gives a small nod, before turning to kiss childe’s mother on the forehead and leaving through the front door. ah. that must have been childe’s father. ✧ you want to say something, ask about what the hell that was, but his mother prevents you from speaking with a cheerful announcement that dinner will be served soon. she’s already making her way to the kitchen as she calls childe to come and help set up, leaving you in the now all-too-cold living room by yourself. ✧ big families mean big meals, but your added presence apparently means childe’s mom is going to pull out all the stops. i need you to imagine a 7-course meal with all 7 courses served at once. an entire damn restaurant spread out on the dining table. roasted ham, pirozhki, salmon pie, olivier salad- you couldn’t even name some of the dishes. it kind of amazes you that she not only managed to cook all this, but was able to fit it all in one space. ✧ also. yes you can make your own plate but don’t even try to be coy or modest. you’re a part of this family now and they’re gonna make sure you eat like one.

“Here, sweetie, have some more ham.” Childe’s mother is already slicing pieces off and dropping it on your plate before you can respond.

Your plate is already piled as high as it can go. But, you are nothing if not polite and desperate to get on your boyfriend’s family’s good side. “Oh, uh, thank you, Mrs.-”

“Just call me ‘mom’, dear.” She speaks with a giggle. You nod.

“Oo! You should try the cabbage rolls, me and Anthon worked on those!” Teucer chimes toward you.

“Anthon and I,” Tonia corrects her little brother gently.

“Huh? No, you didn’t- you weren’t even there!”

The warmth had returned with the chattering and merriment of Childe’s family. You steal a quick glance at your boyfriend, who is being abnormally quiet, and see him smiling down at his plate. His blue eyes have an almost melancholic wistfulness about them, one you’ve often noticed when the two of you were in Liyue- always apparent when he’s talking about how much he misses his family. But, he’s here with them now, isn’t he?

You won’t pretend to know what he’s thinking about, but you do want him to enjoy these moments while they’re here. They mean a lot to him. You reach beneath the table to lace your fingers with his. He snaps out of his reverie at your touch, turning his head to look at you. His smile widens as he squeezes your hand.

“Oh, by the way, Ajax, where are you gonna be sleeping?” Childe’s older brother asks, covering his mouthful of food to avoid spitting.

Childe tilts his head. “Uh, the guest room?” Beneath his breath, you can hear him add, almost solemnly, “As usual.”

“But that’s where Y/N is going to sleep.” His older sister comments.

“Yeah?” Childe picks up a spoonful of borscht and guides it to his mouth. “The beds big enough to fit both of us.”

His mother looks absolutely aghast. “Ajax, you know how I feel about funny business under my roof!”

He sputters on his soup, quickly grabbing a napkin to dab the beetroot that spilled out and waving his hand. “Mom-”

“Oh, but, what the hell. It is the holidays!” She chuckles, before switching to a stern mutter, “but you two better keep it down, okay? Teucer’s room is right across-”

“MOM.” Your boyfriend’s face is a deep red, his freckles standing out against his tinted skin, and you can’t help but giggle. He buries his face in his free hand with a groan.

“Wait, so Ajax gets to sleep with his partner, but when I bring my girlfriend over, she has to sleep alone?” His older sister scoffs with disappointment. “It’s not like WE were gonna do any ‘funny business’ and yet-”

“Wait, what’s ‘funny business’?” Teucer asks innocently. The table is filled with roaring laughter-and Teucer’s confused pout- and you lean into your boyfriend’s shoulder. You can practically feel the heat radiate off of his cheeks, but he’s grinning, too.

You’re only about halfway through your monster of a meal when Tonia stands up, clapping her hands cheerfully. “I think it’s time for dessert!” She calls, skipping off to the kitchen.

“Oh goodness, she’s so proud of her kutia.” Mom remarks fondly. “ We don’t normally eat it until a few days from now, but Tonia was really excited to make it for you, Y/N. Please, be a dear and compliment her on it when she comes back, won’t you?”

You shoot Childe a look of surprise and horror, whispering, “There’s more?” And he just chuckles. You should’ve expected this. As with anything to do with Childe, there’s always more.

✧ with his mother’s blessing, you two finally get some real alone time in the guest room. though, for a guest room, it’s huge- probably bigger than your own room at home. it does feel… emptier, though, especially in comparison to the rest of the house. there are no decorations, just a large bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a dresser. you and childe’s suitcases are tucked neatly under the bed. ✧ already in your pyjamas, you hop on top of the mattress and shimmy beneath the blankets. the soft bedding sinks until you are comfortably encased in your cotton cocoon. if your boyfriend doesn’t hurry up, you might just fall asleep without him. ✧ thankfully, he comes into the room pretty soon after you, dressed in a large shirt and his boxers. he’s more modestly dressed for bed than usual, but you’re not too surprised- this isn’t exactly a private home, after all. ✧ he flops on top of the blankets across your legs, sighing loudly and melodramatically. you stretch down to ruffle his hair lovingly.

He twists his head toward you, catching your palm and planting a kiss on it. You smile before beckoning him to join your side. As soon as he’s spread the blanket haphazardly over himself, he’s weaving his arms across your waist and smushing his cheek against your shoulder.

“Was today okay?” Childe asks softly. He always seems to get unbelievably soft when he’s sleepy. You wonder if he’s aware of it.

You lift your hand to brush the side of his face. “Today was amazing, babe. Your family is really fun, and they’ve made me feel so, so welcome.” You kiss his forehead and he hums, almost relieved. “Thank you, for bringing me.”

Thank you for coming, he wants to say. Thank you for trusting me, thank you for staying with me, thank you for loving me. The words won’t come out, so he instead tightens his arms against your core.

“Ajax, are you okay?” You swivel so that you can wrap one of your arms around his neck, his head falling into the side of your chest.

There’s a pause as he considers it. Is he okay? He doesn’t get asked that a lot- and when he is asked, he always lies. He doesn’t want to lie to you any more than he has to. But what can he say? He’s home, but it doesn’t feel like the home he knew. His family has grown, and he has, too. They’ve changed, he’s changed… He misses everything he had, and there’s no way to go back.

You gently tap his shoulder, bringing him back to you. You, another change in the life he once recognized. He raises his head to look into your eyes, patient and yet worried- for him.

Childe smiles. “I’m okay, sweetheart.” He has you now, after all. He can’t go back to the way things once were. Maybe he doesn’t need to go back, if going back meant not having you at his side. Maybe one day, he’ll find the words to tell you this.

You lean in to kiss his forehead again, but he straightens up to meet your lips with his. It’s a bit clumsy, you’re both sleepy and warm and together, but you melt into each other.

Childe separates from you after a moment, and in your tired, loving haze you miss the sudden devious glint in his stare.

“You know what would make me feel even better than okay, though?”

“Hmm?”

His hands begin to roam under your shirt. “Well, you remember that ‘funny business’ my mom mentioned earlier-?”

You groan, pushing away from him and picking your pillow up to shove into his face, a bark of your boyfriend’s cackle following. He continues giggling as you turn away from him with a huff, making a point to lay down.

“Good night, you big dork.”

His laughter dies down as he slides further beneath the covers to join you, rewrapping an arm around you and pulling you closer. He kisses the back of your neck with a contented sigh.

As long as he’s next to you, Childe is already way better than okay, he’s certain of it.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

[d8tl55c]

notes from editing the papers to be more readable (part 2) hoverbike diagram edition ~

main plan for this one was: instead of trying to duplicate details, i could scrape-scrape-scrape out the negative space around details onto a clearer background and go from there! this took a while here's the results of that work w/o my notes over top ...

(note that this process wasn't any more perfect than the tracing method - there's a lot of interpretation and guessing to both with the condition of this image)

ok! let's get into this >v< stuff i found will be bolded and green'd for readability

first thing i dug up was the readable text in the upper left. i think it's safe to assume that the first word is "Hover," given. :) hoverbike. but the second one isn't as clear. after a few tries tracing it i came up with the final phrase, "Hover Complete," which sounds so sososo cool. reminds me of Turing complete?? maybe when you make vehicles that can levitate over any surface that's a standard piece of jargon lol. i don't think the two lines after that are readable.

next is the arrow pointing at the vehicle with the two words near it. at first i agreed with the "Power Core" assessment bc it's such a common term... but when i was trying to dig that up i just couldn't find the forms of those letters?? there's also some SUPER-distinct spikes and curves of an m in that last letter. it could still be Power written super fast, but idk. so, with the obvious P, that turns into "P-m Core" i- instantly loved this phrase too- xd it would kill as a scifi term. i couldn't come up with anything irl for it except for some VERY specific electronic components (way over my head) (& extremely hard to google). apparently, something called a PM core (Pot core Module) is used in telecommunications and industrial electronics (source: this pdf from ferrite pm core supplier, TDK).

i have no idea what this thing is (left). i like it, though. curious detail: i've been referring to that thing (right) as a hoverbike because it looked similar to one from memory, but on closer inspection it's lacking a lot of the decorations and basic silhouettes of the in-use vehicles from Wanted and the The Box scrolling shot.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ oop. is that whole thing (right, previous image group) a "P-m core" ??? then why does the text to its left mention hovering? or is it a prototype bike? or a simplified drawing of one? dunno........ anyway, i was going to say that the final bikes have zero knobs, joysticks, or other rounded protrusions to speak of - they are exclusively touchscreens and sleek angles. therefore id say this thing (left, previous image group) is probably an internal component of some kind. or something else entirely. i can't read the text connected to it either

i was very excited about this line. ......until it started looking like Irken text. (|-•L'/_',=-_ '/<''/L'_'| !! anyway, the readable bits imo: a delta Δ (i was excited bc this is a common physics symbol), a T (temperature? time? torque? teslas?), a dot (decimal point? multiplication?), and a partial derivative symbol δ (if you're desperate to understand these lines and took some calculus a while ago). whatever is happening on this line, it might involve both finite and infinitesimal changes. weird!

let's get these two from the page center out of the way. short version: i have no idea what's going on in/around the 3 boxes, and the upper chemical-equation-ish-thingy looks terrible with the cutting-out method. off to the right are my best guesses after tracing the upper line several times: Cl+ ions can exist, and ClO chlorine monoxide is a compound that exists. (more on ClO from sciencedirect) the significance of this information is lost on me right now. if any of this rings a bell to you, dear reader.... pls help- :,3

connected to the chemical-equation-ish-thingy are these other mystery nodes. i've highlighted and traced several options for what these could be. _27 ? D37 ? Dꟻ7 ? :)ꟻ7 ?

finally, the circuit-diagram-looking section. i immediately noticed the US resistor symbol (---\/\/\/\---). whether or not the vertical lines surrounding it matter are unknown (the capacitor symbol is ---| |---, but no special resistor symbol i could find matches this exact setup, and you don't typically layer separate components over each other like this in a circuit diagram). my first sketch interprets the line & smudge coming off of the resistor circuit as a ground symbol. my second sketch interprets it as a messy connection to the second box off to the side, with the swirly line inside. the inductor symbol is a helix connected to the wire (--ꔛ--) (or a bouncing line connected to the wire (---◠◠◠---)), but no special inductor symbol i know of rotates one way and then the other... nor are inductors typically drawn all by themselves in boxes........ if the inductor were parallel to the wire, it would make more sense (inductors can influence wires they are parallel to), but this whole thing is kinda meaningless to me.

in summary, i think this whole diagram is... meant to look like a very serious technical document from afar. honestly i wasn't expecting to get any SERIOUS(!!), IN-DEPTH(!!!!), HARD SCI-FI(!!!!!!!!!!!), ACCURATE DOCUMENTS PERTAINING TO THE EXACT WORKINGS OF THE HOVERBIKES- it was just fun to take it at face value with my current knowledge and see if anything came from it. :3 the fact that there's a single resistor symbol is cool for attention to detail LOL... genuine respect for anyone who can make approximation designs like this without. anxiety paralysis over getting something wrong. it looks awesome!!

-

if you're inspired by my edits, pls reblog this with your thoughts ! !!

i've been scrutinizing unclear lines and trying to recover old corrupted memories from ECE classes all day ... so i probably missed something c;

ok gang. its theory time

the analysis of the new mercenary scene. meta, blueprints and time

warning it is incredibly choppy because of the chaos i am in rn !!!!!! but anyways

okay so. the video cuts off at green&red defending themselves but i doubt that really means a lot

the glitching. it IS reminding me of the way chosens memories were scanned through. but mercs having a whole tv remote?? chosens memories mightve as well pushed them to use youtube ?? but why didnt they access it earlier ?? why vic didnt???

bc of these question im more willing to think they themselves decided to use youtube right now. maybe only right now !

this raises a ton of questions. does outernet have somewhat of an access to internet after all? is it just their own tech? (could be supported by the fact that if youtube was common there i doubt theyd be using specifically television for it. i feel like theyd use other screens instead without a need of a remote especially considering how advanced their tech is)

still possible that it is common. considering they aren't that focused on it and there are random workers in the bg literally enjoying the show

this whole thing is VERY meta lol but i do think the mercs are the ones that influenced the stream in this way

A BIG portion of alan drawing a flower from ava season 2 is paid attention to in the glitching scene for some reason ?? maybe as a note for his and secs alliance.

the video then cuts off and goes to victim again. the whole video was watched through

the stream cuts off to mercs. **RIGHT** at the moment chosen notices the freedom stick rights article. based on the vid it could be just primal messing with shit but i feel it was intentional. (ha. freedom? loser. we're here instead)

later. the video resumes at victim again. i didnt see any changes to vics or chosens ending.

okay. the mercs. pulling up screenshots for this one

i. cant decipher THAT much even though the quality is 1080p for me.

but i DO see that the first blueprint has as i suppose the hover ??

the text pinpoints "power core" and its pretty much the most readable thing for me. another one is kyokaz was here its just a cameo

the blueprint shows buttons? perhaps the controller of the hover? going to a circle thingy. perhaps what is working inside the hover

the whole thing on the left corner says f___ complex but i cant decipher

second screenshot. the blueprint left to the first one looks like a pc?? and its not surprising even in the screenshot itself bc. the mercs have one to the right corner behind em

now. third sc.

HELLO?

firstly. A VIC DRAWING????? WITH A GUN????

there is a possibility of it being any stick but. i feel its victim. in my guts

shooting?? what. for.

it is scribbled out . . .

there is a possibility (along with the self portrait of vics in the unused bg) that it was just. him doodling. it would kill me actually because he is no great artist like sec. just a doodler (<words of flareboi here)

now. this

again . the question how they accesed it.

if they can get youtube to open there. how did vic not know of the showdown. of sec

showdown was uploaded online. that was literally in canon !!!

unless there's a rule that not everything internet-like and youtube like can be accessible. but i dont really think of any implications that proved that

except. for the fact that showdown was already uploaded. before the ep even ended. would it imply time passing differently in both realms?

lord i needed to scream it out.

OH GOD !!!!!!!!!!!

[deripmaver]

laurent is a good person - book 1 meta

one of the most amazing things about captive prince is how the reveals in book 3 recontextualize all of the scenes leading up to them, including about laurent himself. in book one, all we see is damen pov as he’s being abused and humiliated by this supposedly spoiled, vile ice prince. when the regent comes to damen and subtly (and not so subtly) insults laurent, calling him unfit to rule - well, why would he think anything different? laurent has insulted him, had him whipped within an inch of his life, and even attempted to (and later successfully lmfao) have him raped while drugged out of his mind. 

after book 3 we can reread most if not all of book 1 as a very traumatized boy who has finally been confronted with the man who killed his brother, leaving him alone with his abusive uncle, and who he clearly has made into a complete monster in his own mind. damen of course sees him as a complete bitch, but there’s textual/subtextual evidence that laurent is well liked, and that his behavior during book 1 was actually pretty out of character for him. i’d like to provide some examples of that now!!!!

“Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white as though in reaction to a slap, or an insult. Damen’s view, half-truncated by the short chain at this neck, had been enough to see that. But Laurent’s expression had shuttered quickly.” Captive Prince, Chapter One

i couldn’t resist adding this one in hehe. laurent recognizes damen!! he’s come down, knowing his uncle has devised another truly horrendous and triggering “gift” and that he’ll lose support if he calls it our for what it truly is, only to find out that it’s fucking damianos of akielos sent to him as a sex slave. a jab at laurent’s trauma about auguste and also a jab at laurent’s frigid sexuality - which ofc is completely the regent’s fault. fuck that guy so much lmfao 

“‘It’s so rare to see you at these entertainments, Your Highness,’ said Vannes.” Captive Prince, Chapter Two.

this is right before the fight between govart and damen in the ring, of course. damen sees laurent as depraved and vile as the sexual sadism on display by the veretian court, and considers him to be a willing purveyor of it. this is wrong, of course, as said by vannes here. laurent has only shown up because he wants to humiliate damen lmfao.

“He did remember being supported by two of the guards, here, in this room, while Radel stared athis back in horror. ‘The Prince really . . . did this.’ ‘Who else?’ Damen said. Radel had stepped forward, and slapped Damen across the face; it was a hard slap, and the man wore three rings on each finger. ‘What did you do to him?’ Radel demanded.” Captive Prince, Chapter Four

this scene, to me, was the most telling lmfao. it’s right after damen is whipped. you could argue that radel is just a servant in the employ of the royal household, so is of course going to be loyal to the prince, but he seems genuinely surprised of the prince’s cruelty towards damen. not only that, but he slaps him and immediately assumes damen must have done something. which - i mean, technically he did lmao. not necessarily enough to deserve having the skin flayed from his back, but you know. if laurent was in the habit of torturing pets and slaves, why would the overseer react this way?

“The men guarding him were the Prince’s Guard, and had no affiliation with the Regent whatsoever. It surprised Damen how loyal they were to their Prince, and how diligent in his service, airing none of the grudges and complaints that he might have expected, considering Laurent’s noxious personality. Laurent’s feud with his uncle they took up wholeheartedly; there were deep schisms and rivalries between the Prince’s Guard and the Regent’s Guard, apparently.” Captive Prince, Chapter Four

laurents relationships with his guards are also some of the biggest indicators that he isn’t just a spoiled brat, but can insire a deep loyalty in his men. even if they do all want to fuck him. ah, sexual harassment. it’s also hilarious that damen immediately assumes they’re loyal to him because they want to fuck him - nice projection there, dude. we know a bit more about laurent and his guards thanks to green but for a season, but this little bit here is interesting.

“Laurent was indeed good at talking. He accepted sympathy gracefully. He put his position rationally. He stopped the flow of talk when it became dangerously critical of his uncle. He said nothing that could be taken as an open slight on the Regency. Yet no one who talked to him could have any doubt that his uncle was behaving at best misguidedly and at worst treasonously.”  Captive Prince, Chapter Five

idek what to say here. laurent my beloved <3333

“‘When someone doesn’t like you very much, it isn’t a good idea to let them know that you care about something,’ said Laurent. Damen felt himself turn ashen, as the threat sank in. ‘Would it hurt worse than a lashing for me to cut down someone you care for?’ said Laurent.” Captive Prince, Chapter Seven

this isn’t really relevant to my thesis lmfao i just love this exchange bc it gives SO MUCH information about laurent and his uncle in just three lines of dialogue. what has the regent done, who did he cut down just to hurt laurent? when and how did laurent learn that? p a i n 

“Laurent’s fussy horse began acting out again, and he leaned forward in the saddle, murmuring something as he stroked her neck in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture to quiet her.” Captive Prince, Chapter Nine. 

HORSEY NO- lmfao this scene just hurts so badly on the reread. especially later on, in book 3 i think, where laurent says something like “i provoked my uncle.” he’s really blaming himself for his uncle KILLING HIS HORSE, his horse that his murdered brother trained, one of the only living connections to auguste... all because his uncle could not let a single miniscule plan laurent had set go through without some kind of repercussion. literally all laurent did was do something to stop an innocent group of people from being abused, nothing to undermine his uncle’s rule, but because the regent is VILE he could not let laurent have even this. he’s so good with her, too. he must have known by this point and also known that there was no way to stop this. P A I N

“‘I know that you have somehow arranged this,’ said Erasmus. He was incapable of hiding what he felt, and just seemed to radiate embarrassed happiness. ‘You kept your promise. You and your master. I told you he was kind,’ Erasmus said. ‘You did,’ said Damen. He was pleased to see Erasmus happy. Whatever Erasmus believed about Laurent, Damen wasn’t going to dissuade him. ‘He’s even nicer in person. Did you know he came and talked to me?’ said Erasmus. ‘—He did?’ said Damen. It was something he couldn’t imagine. ‘He asked about . . . what happened in the gardens. Then he warned me. About last night.’ ‘He warned you,’ said Damen. ‘He said that Nicaise would make me perform before the court and it would be awful, but that if I was brave, something good might come at the end of it.’ Erasmus looked up at Damen curiously. ‘Why do you look surprised?’ ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t be. He likes to plan things in advance,’ said Damen.” Captive Prince, Chapter 9.

this is the first in-text confirmation we have that laurent has a good heart beneath his layers and layers of trauma-induced lashing out. book one often skeeves people out because of its graphic and, honestly, yes, kind of sexualized depiction of rape, slavery, and depravity, but beneath it all you meet these two protagonists who are going to have all of their most deeply held views about each other challenged. laurent from very early on is shaken to his core when damen refuses to rape nicaise in the ring - it cracks the very foundations of the person he’d built up in his head as this horrible monster who killed his brother in cold blood. and damen keeps defying laurents expectations by being a good person through and through. on the other hand, laurent spends the first part of the book taking out years of anger on damen, but here for the first time we see him do something just because its the kind thing to do. yes, torveld is an ally against his uncle, but laurent has clearly been scheming with him for a while now, and he’s now overlooking his hatred of damen and working with him just because none of the slaves deserve whats happened to them. it’s such a sweet moment.

“One of the other men, eyeing them, approached a moment later. ‘Don’t mind Jean. He’s in a foul mood. He was the one had to stick a sword through the mare’s throat and put her down. The Prince tore strips off him for not doing it fast enough.’” Captive Prince, Chapter Nine.

HORSEY NO- pt 2. this is just another really sweet and sad detail - laurent being so upset that the horse’s death could have been more painless. it must have hurt so much to see her in pain, and to know that the only way for that pain to end was being put down as quickly as possible. i wuv him. im sad

that’s it, though there are still a few more chapters left in the book. this isn’t providing any new information, of course, the path of the three books is to show that laurent isnt the man we meet in book one, that he’s actually sweet, and earnest, and he’s been fighting his own battle practically alone against his abuser since he was fifteen years old. also, the reveal that laurent knew who damianos was from the start makes it clear imo that all of his violence in book 1 was supposed vengence, not... him being evil. he apologizes explicitly in-text, and also, all of the acts of violence he commits cause serious problems for him in terms of his future alliance which he then needs to fix. i just love how layered these books are, how there’s so much information in them that makes rereading almost more fun than reading them for the very first time!