#that children need to be taught play skills

[gowns]

Why Kids Aren't Falling in Love With Reading - It's Not Just Screens

A shrinking number of kids are reading widely and voraciously for fun.

The ubiquity and allure of screens surely play a large part in this—most American children have smartphones by the age of 11—as does learning loss during the pandemic. But this isn’t the whole story. A survey just before the pandemic by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the percentages of 9- and 13-year-olds who said they read daily for fun had dropped by double digits since 1984. I recently spoke with educators and librarians about this trend, and they gave many explanations, but one of the most compelling—and depressing—is rooted in how our education system teaches kids to relate to books.

What I remember most about reading in childhood was falling in love with characters and stories; I adored Judy Blume’s Margaret and Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse. In New York, where I was in public elementary school in the early ’80s, we did have state assessments that tested reading level and comprehension, but the focus was on reading as many books as possible and engaging emotionally with them as a way to develop the requisite skills. Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment. Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive. But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.

This disregard for story starts as early as elementary school. Take this requirement from the third-grade English-language-arts Common Core standard, used widely across the U.S.: “Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.” There is a fun, easy way to introduce this concept: reading Peggy Parish’s classic, Amelia Bedelia, in which the eponymous maid follows commands such as “Draw the drapes when the sun comes in” by drawing a picture of the curtains. But here’s how one educator experienced in writing Common Core–aligned curricula proposes this be taught: First, teachers introduce the concepts of nonliteral and figurative language. Then, kids read a single paragraph from Amelia Bedelia and answer written questions.

For anyone who knows children, this is the opposite of engaging: The best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story. “Nonliteral language” becomes a whole lot more interesting and comprehensible, especially to an 8-year-old, when they’ve gotten to laugh at Amelia’s antics first. The process of meeting a character and following them through a series of conflicts is the fun part of reading. Jumping into a paragraph in the middle of a book is about as appealing for most kids as cleaning their room.

But as several educators explained to me, the advent of accountability laws and policies, starting with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and accompanying high-stakes assessments based on standards, be they Common Core or similar state alternatives, has put enormous pressure on instructors to teach to these tests at the expense of best practices. Jennifer LaGarde, who has more than 20 years of experience as a public-school teacher and librarian, described how one such practice—the class read-aloud—invariably resulted in kids asking her for comparable titles. But read-alouds are now imperiled by the need to make sure that kids have mastered all the standards that await them in evaluation, an even more daunting task since the start of the pandemic. “There’s a whole generation of kids who associate reading with assessment now,” LaGarde said.

By middle school, not only is there even less time for activities such as class read-alouds, but instruction also continues to center heavily on passage analysis, said LaGarde, who taught that age group. A friend recently told me that her child’s middle-school teacher had introduced To Kill a Mockingbird to the class, explaining that they would read it over a number of months—and might not have time to finish it. “How can they not get to the end of To Kill a Mockingbird?” she wondered. I’m right there with her. You can’t teach kids to love reading if you don’t even prioritize making it to a book’s end. The reward comes from the emotional payoff of the story’s climax; kids miss out on this essential feeling if they don’t reach Atticus Finch’s powerful defense of Tom Robinson in the courtroom or never get to solve the mystery of Boo Radley.

... Young people should experience the intrinsic pleasure of taking a narrative journey, making an emotional connection with a character (including ones different from themselves), and wondering what will happen next—then finding out. This is the spell that reading casts. And, like with any magician’s trick, picking a story apart and learning how it’s done before you have experienced its wonder risks destroying the magic.

-- article by katherine marsh, the atlantic (12 foot link, no paywall)

[magnetothemagnificent]

The world is so hostile to tweens.....

Like we joke about how our schools growing up would ban the latest toy trends, but that reality genuinely horrific when you think about it. Like maybe 1% of the bans were based on safety, but the rest cited reasoning like

-"kids were bartering for collectibles" (kids learning about economics and product value)

-"kids were wearing them and the colors were too flashy" (kids experimenting with self expression and fashion)

-"kids were playing with them during lunch and recess instead of using our rusted safety hazard playground" (kids utilizing their free time to do what helps *them* unwind).

Play areas specifically geared towards children and especially towards teens are constantly being shut down. "Oh kids today are always on their phones!" Maybe because

-there are barely any arcades left and even less arcades that aren't adult-oriented,

-public pools and gyms are underfunded and shut down,

-"no loitering" laws prevent kids and teens from just hanging out,

-movie theatres only play the latest films and ticket prices are only rising,

-parks and playgrounds are either neglected or replaced with gear only directed at toddlers and unsuitable for anyone older

-genuine children's and young teen media is being phased out in favour of media directed only at very small children or older teens and adults.

-suburbs and even cities are becoming more and more hostile to pedestrians, it's just not safe for kids to walk to or ride their bikes to their friends' houses or other play destinations

Children's agency is hardly ever respected. Kids between the ages of 9-13 are either treated as babies or as full-grown adults, with no in-between. When they ask to be given more independence, they are either scoffed at or given more responsibilities than are reasonable for a child their age.

This is even evident in the fashion scene.

Clothing stores and brands like Justice and Gap are either closing or rebranding to either exclusively adult clothing or young children's clothes, with no middle ground for tweens. Tweens have to choose between clothes designed for adults that are too large and/or too mature for their age and bodies, or more clothes they feel are far too childish. For tween girls especially it's either a frilly pinafore dress with pigtails or a woman's size dress with cleavage. No wonder tween girls these days dress like they're older, it's because their other option is little girl clothes and they don't want to feel childish.

And then when tweens go to school, the books they want to read aren't available because they cover "mature" topics (read: oh no two people kissed and they weren't straight or oh no menstruation was mentioned or oh no a religion other than Christianity is depicted), so kids are left with books for way below their reading level. No wonder kids today are struggling with literacy, it's because they can't exercise and expand their reading skills with age-appropriate books. Readers need to be challenged with new words and concepts in order to grow in their skills, only letting tween read Dr. Seuss and nursery rhymes doesn't let them learn.

Discussions about substance use, reproduction, and sexuality aren't taught at an age-appropriate level in school or even by children's parents, so they either grow up ignorant and more vulnerable to abuse, or they seek out information elsewhere that is delivered in a less-than-age-appropriate manner. It shouldn't be a coin-toss between "I didn't know what sex was until I was 18 and in college" or "my first exposure to sex as a tween was through porn" or "I didn't know what sex was so I didn't know I was being sexually abused as a kid."

Tweenhood is already such a volatile and confusing time for kids, their bodies are changing and they're transitioning from elementary to middle to high school. It's hard enough for them in this stage, but it's made worse by how society devalues and fails them.

We talk about the disappearance of teenagehood, and maybe that's gonna happen in the future, but the erasure of tweenhood is happing in real time, and it's having and going to have major consequences for next generation's adults.

[thewritetofreespeech]

Tender Loving Care

pairing: Aemond x Reader

summary: after a training accident, Aemond's wife takes care of him. In more ways than one.

tags: heterosexual sex, cowgirl, massage, hand job, cum eating, cranky Aemond is a good boy for his wife, mentions of the other members of the Green but not present.

-------------------------------⚔️--------------------------------

Training accidents were as common as breathing if one wanted to master the sword.

If one wanted to hold a blade, then one must also be prepared to suffer its bite. Aemond was well aware of this. Even though it was just training, play fighting for the knights & instructors brought in from all over Westeros to teach the prince, he had been cut before. Nothing serious. Nothing like his eye. He wishes it had been. It would make this latest injury less wounding than the others.

A simple misstep, that was all. His own clumsiness was what put him in this bed. His leg wasn’t broken or maimed, but twisted in his fall, to the point that he could put no weight on it. Or at least that was what the maesters said.

2 weeks. That was the punishment for his own mistake. He was not to leave this bed save to relieve himself and the few moments a day he was granted to stand & test his legs progress. Each day was a new torment. Not for the pain, Aemond could handle that, but the failure of trying his leg and only have it betray him again & again. He wondered how his father did it all those years trapped in his bed. Aemond would have begged for death sooner.

“Husband,” the prince looked up from his window and thoughts of limping over to throw himself out of it, when his wife’s voice came into the room.

One of his few constant visitors during his confinement. Helaena came to visit him but was busy with her children. Aegon only came once, to taunt him about his trip more than anything before he left and a back handed ‘get better Aemond the Fierce!’. His mother came as well but flapped between concern and scolding for his ‘recklessness’. She was the only one who seemed genuinely concerned for him, though her concern was not needed. Aemond did not wish to feel more like an invalid than he already did. “What is it?”

“It is time to change the bandage on her leg.” To keep it straight. To keep him bound, he thought with a spat, although Aemond arched a brow at the comment.

“Where is the maester?” His wife was many things, but she was no practitioner of medicine nor magic.

She sighed. “Did you really expect them to come back willingly after last time?” Aemond pursed his lips.

Under the best of circumstances, Aemond was aware that he was not the most agreeable person in the realm. Could anyone really blame him? His existence had taught him over & over that it was better to lash out and cut first, lest you be the one who is sliced. Metaphorically, of course. He wasn’t a mad man like some of his ancestors. And attached to this bed the only weapon at his disposal was his words. He had cursed, jeered, and ranted, honestly uncharacteristic of himself, at the maester who had attended to his leg the day before and had the nerve to tell him his progress was splendid. If it was so splendid then why was he still in this bed? If he was such a great man of knowledge and skill, why hadn’t he healed him yet?! He should go back to whatever dung heap he crawled out of and beg alms for to the gods for wasting a fine Citadel education on an incompetent!!

The prince said a few more unkind things before he forbade any of them from touching him again. He did not think they would take him seriously.

“So, they sent you to do the work of a common barrio healer since they do not wish to do their jobs?”

“I think it was more that they thought you wouldn’t scratch at me. More fool they then, hn?”

Aemond sunk further into his pillows, sulking. He doesn’t mean to scratch at her. He doesn’t mean to scratch at any of them, honestly. He just wanted to get out of his bed and go on with his life. To have the world move on around him, to grow weak and irrelevant in this bed, was the real punishment. “I’m sorry.” He apologized. “…thank you…for helping me…”

“You’re welcome Aemond.”

How quick she was to accept his apology. How quick she was to help him, already coming to his side despite his scratching, when he needed her. No wonder he was always alone….

The prince did what he could for her as he raised his leg from the pillow propping it up and held it there while she unwrapped the old dressing. “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” It was not meant as a slight. Just a genuine curiosity on if she knew the proper way to wrap his injury.

His wife just chuckled. “Yes, Aemond. Despite not wanting to come in here on their own, the maesters did instruct me on how to do it properly.” Cowards, he thought. “There! All done.”

Aemond looked at his leg with his good eye and tried to flex at his foot. His nostrils flared at the persistent pain, but it was wrapped correctly. He was impressed. “Thank you.”

“Of course. I want you healed as soon as possible as well.” Her hand reached for his on the bed and clasped it. “In fact…I was told of another treatment….one that might help with the…circulation in your leg.”

“Oh?” Aemond was curious about that. Trapped in this bed, his legs were not getting the work out that they normally would. Training aside, the walk around the castle was enough exercise for most lords. He hadn’t been able to go more than a few steps for days. His legs teetered between weightlessness and the sharp pricks of falling asleep all the time. “Will it improve my condition?”

“It….could…” She seemed unconvinced. Avoiding, even. But perhaps that was because the last person who made remarks about the improvement of his condition was threatened to be fed to Vhagar. “Will you let me try it?”

What was there to lose, he thought, and Aemond nodded before he helped her take off his lower bed linens so both his legs were bare. A small vial appeared out from her pocket, and she poured some of its contents onto her hands before rubbing them together and placing them on his leg. “Just…try to relax for me.”

A hefty ask, but he does try. All he could do recently was ‘try to relax’. ‘Rest, my prince’, ‘you need time to heal’. It was all he had heard for the past days, to the point that any word close to ‘relax’ had almost the opposite effect on him. But for her, he does try. For her it worked a little. His shoulders finally untensing. Looking at her in the candlelight. Soft feelings swelling at the touch of her soft hands. “Does it feel good?”

“Yes.” He answered, almost without thinking. It did feel good. He didn’t realize how stiff his leg was until this moment.

Aemond let out a deep exhale. Not really a sigh, just the release of all the air in his lungs and tension built in his body. His eye closed as he laid back and let his wife work. They aren’t strong, but persistent. He continued to enjoy until he felt her hands shift up higher. Up his calf where his injury was to above his knee. “What are you doing?”

“What??” Her shocked face was particularly adorable in the soft light. Wide, wild eyes. Body frozen save for a soft tremble in her shoulders. “I..I’m rubbing your leg. I told you.”

“My injury is not there though.” He told her logically. Gaze still fixed on her for any kind of reveal.

“I…I know…” Her hands shift to seem to want to move away from him, but she willed them to stay still. “I just thought…maybe there was some other tension I could help you with….”

It was Aemond’s turn to be shocked, but he doesn’t show it on his face like she does. His wife was a lady. A demure, kind, noble one at that. Though she wasn’t nearly as boring & cow eyed as the other noble ladies on offer to him at the time of his betrothal, or so Aemond assumed as he didn’t pay much attention to any of them, boldness like this was not heard of in their marriage. She never denied him. Seemed fond of when they were together; or at least made all the right noises like she did. But it was always he who initiated such acts in their bedroom. To see her offer, and on offer, as he finally took in her appearance and the thin robe she had come to him in, Aemond would not deny that it was quite arousing.

Without another word, Aemond parted his legs further to give her room. If this was her intention, he would not deny her. There was a flush on her cheeks that bleed down her neck towards the V of her robe when he did this. Her resolve seeming to waiver, and disappointment started to drip into his chest at the prospect he may have ruined this too with his terrible attitude, but she continued.

The prince sighed. Gladdened to feel her hands on him again and closed his eye with a newfound desire for his treatment, now that he knew what was going on. “Higher.”

“Here?”

Her coquettish tone was a tonic to his ears. She was enjoying this. She was enjoying touching him and playing with him. His cock jumped as it filled fuller. More aroused by the fact that his wife truly did want him than her hands close, but not close enough, to his member. “Higher.”

“Here?”

Aemond opened his eye and genuinely growled at his wife. Though this game was amusing, enticing, it had been days since he’d found release. Being stuck in this bed did not really spur a person on towards desire. And though she laid with him at night like a good wife she had been spared from her ‘wifely duties’ for some time as Aemond was either still in too much pain from his leg, or unable to move it to perform the act, or in too bad of a mood to make the effort. Having her close. Feeling her touch. It was like the flood gates opened on a dam he had long since locked up and threw away the key on. “Please….”

His kind, noble, demure wife took pity on him, and also took his cock in her hand. Aemond’s head tilted back as he moaned. Her soft hands stroking his member from under his night shirt slowly, deliberately. She had touched him before, so she knew how he liked it, but honestly she could have touched him anyway she liked. Like a clumsy novice that first night they were together, and he still would have melted in her hands.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes.” Again, without thought. But headier this time. More needy. He opened his eye to look upon his wife and found her staring at him. Those bright eyes darkened with desire. He’d never seen it before; mostly because when they were together her face was either buried in his chest, or shoulder, or in the pillows. Aemond bit his bottom lip hard. Trying not to cum at just the sight of her.

“It’s ok.” She told him in a whisper. Like it was a secret between the two of them. “You can let go husband. Will you let go for me?”

It was the softest command that Aemond had ever heard, and yet it forced him to obey more than any other. His back pressed further back into the pillows as his head tilted back again. His cock spasming in her hand as his seed leapt out from the tip. Covering her hand and perhaps getting some on her pretty robe by her knee. He would have to get her another one.

He opened his eye again after coming down from his high. Just in time to see her lick his seed off the palm of her hand. “What are you doing?”

“Well, the royal seed is sacred, is it not?” Her grin was soft, but mischievous. “We should not waste it.”

Aemond’s hand darted out to grab hold of her arm and drag her down to him in a deep, needy kiss. Apparently the flood gates he thought were released earlier were in truth just a leak in the levees. This was when the dam broke now. The need he had for her burning so hot that he could almost taste blood at the back of his tongue, his blood was boiling so hot.

He tried to spread his legs wider to make more room for his wife, but when he moved, he was reminded (painfully) of his injury. “Damnit!” The prince hissed against his wife’s lips. The throbbing in his leg almost in tandem with his cock.

“Sssh…it’s ok Aemond.” He wanted to bite at her soft words.

It was not ok! None of this was ok! He was injured, in pain, stuck in this bed, and now he couldn’t even fuck his wife! He felt useless. He felt angry. He felt humiliated not being able to do things as a man should, and he just wanted to get back to normal!

Before he could tell her any of this, however, his wife pulled back and removed her robe from her body. Mesmerizing in the fire light. No Valyrian alabaster, but still just as dazzling to Aemond. Shift discarded, his wife raised her hips and inched closer to hover them over his own. “The maester said not to move unless absolutely necessarily.” He wanted to argue that laying with his wife was absolutely necessarily, particularly in this moment, but all his words left him on a moan as she lowered herself onto him. “So you just stay there. L-Let me take care of you.” The little stammer in her voice as she started rolling her hips almost sent Aemond into a frenzy, but he endured.

He genuinely couldn’t move with her on top of him like this and his position on the bed. Though why would be want to? For the first time since his accident, Aemond was actually ecstatic to be stuck here in this bed. His wife lovingly impaling herself on his member. Riding him with skill just short of a dragon rider. If he had the wits still about him, he would have chuckled at his own joke. ‘Dragon rider’. As it was though he was stupid with lust. Dumb, witless, helpless at her mercy as she took from him everything and gave him back so much. He still had brains at least to return the favor.

His wife cried out when he reached up to cup her breast. The weight of them in his hands something he missed. Aemond does not get a lot of time to enjoy them, however, as his wife suddenly fell forward. Covering his body with her own. Hips still moving but at a much snappier pace with the depleted gap between them. He didn’t care though. His hands just repositioned themselves on her other mounds at her backside and pressed her to move faster.

“A-Aemond!” Her cries were his music. The tempo in which he set a new rhythm.

The wet sound of their sexes kissing along with their actual kissing fill the room, until it all stopped in one bright, shining moment of his wife shaking on top of him while her fists tried to fight his pillows and he spilled inside her this time.

He wished he could hold her like this for longer. Her weight a comfort, like a blanket, in his arms. But she rolled over onto his non-injured side to lay beside him. It was good enough. “Do you feel better now?”

Aemond looked down at her, having to turn his head completely as to not just look at her with the sapphire in his eye, realizing at last what this was about. Her idea of a good will effort. To lift his spirits and relieve his tension. Maybe keep him from trying to execute more of the maesters in the castle. “Yes. I’m feeling better.”

She smiled, then placed a soft kiss on his shoulder. “Good.”

The fingers from the hand around her own shoulders played with her hair as he stared at the ceiling. “Was this all just for me though?”

His wife looked at him with a perplexed look, but then realized what he was asking and blushed. She was smart enough to figure it out. “Not…all of it. I did want you to be in better spirits but…I have missed you.”

The corner of Aemond’s lips ticked up. Pleased, and pleased with himself. He did not think his sexual prowess was worth much compared to his prowess with a sword or strategy. But to hear that his wife wanted him, truly wanted him, was all the praise he would ever need. “So, you came up with this idea to satisfy both of us, ābrazyrys.”

“It wasn’t….all my idea…” Aemond arched a brow at his wife’s words. Curious now where she had got the idea from, as it had clearly come from somewhere. “Aegon commented on your bad mood and how someone should ‘cheer you up’. He gave me the idea, but the rest of it was all my doing.”

Aemond wasn’t sure which comment he was more shocked about. The fact that his brother knew how he was faring in his recovery, or the fact that he made lewd comments to his wife. He was battering between feelings of an odd sense of touched and white hot furry, but he decided to just let it go for now and enjoy his wife. “Well, thank you, regardless. In future I will try not to scratch at you while I am still confined to this bed. Lest you ask.”

She giggled when he kissed the top of her forehead. “And the maesters?”

“They are on their own.” Idiots. “I make no promises on their safety, but I will…endeavor to be of better character in the future.” At least not threaten to feed them to Vhagar. That seemed a reasonable adjustment.

[sp0o0kylights]

Steve’s mother was the black sheep of her family.

Stella hated the snow, and the isolation of the small town she grew up in. Hated the bright colors, and sheer friendliness of the neighbors. How everyone was always involved in each other’s business, at all times--and how getting involved meant sharing.

Giving up your time for the greater good.

‘We’re one big family!’ Her father had told her, and hadn’t understood why she found the concept utterly revolting.

Just like she couldn’t understand why they never agreed with her ideas. Things would run so much more smoothly with more rules, better regulations. They didn’t need to rely on magic when they had spreadsheets.

Who cared if some people were upset? If some of the workers where put out of jobs, or “hurt” by her changes?

That was how evolution worked.

The strongest survived, and the business world demanded only the strongest of leaders.

She didn’t regret leaving.

Didn’t look behind her for a second, all too happy to go to college and find herself a rich man to make miserable.

Even had a child, though they were never her favorite things. Her Steven of course, would be so much different from the children she’d grown up among or the ones she helped oversee for her father's work.

He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t shriek or scream or make demands of busy adults. Steven would know his place, and he would stay in it until he had grown into a reasonable adult.

No unrealistic expectations, not from her son.

And absolutely, 100%, no magic.

(Unfortunately for Stella Harrington and her relationship with her son, magic does not obey the whims of one person.

Particularly not that kind of magic, one far older than Stella could comprehend.)

See: Steve knew where he came from. Would never say it of course, outright refused to put a name to it.

Knew better, even when he was young, than to speak it aloud.

Though his mother had long abandoned any powers given to her, Steve was still born with his. When lonely, he often found he could wander into a different kind of woods. 

One absolutely covered in snow.

Steve should have been cold in those woods, but he never was, not even the first time he stumbled into them at the tender age of seven.

These trees never scared him. Not like the ones in his backyard sometimes did.

The whole place felt rather welcoming in a way his own house had never been, and as Steve had stumbled along following the faint glow of lights, he found himself feeling more relaxed.

Happy.

Even at seven, Steve was smart enough to know he needed to turn back, after a while. That his mother would be furious with him if he caused her to miss the meeting she needed to go to.

That he had a responsibility to be where she put him.

He hadn’t crested the hill yet. Hadn’t quite figured out where the glow was coming from, when he realized he needed to go home--but his trip wasn’t wasted.

A baby reindeer distracted him.

It peeked around a tree, and upon seeing him, came dashing his way.

Steve should be scared, would have been scared, but something in him told him this creature was his friend. He held out his hands and greeted it as such.

He was right.

A few more little reindeer came up over the hill, running around him, and together he played what felt like a game as he walked back in the direction he thought his house lay.

Said his goodbyes when the snow started to wane and made promises to return.

Found, sadly, that he wouldn’t get another chance too for almost a full year. He was too busy, signed up for multiple sports, handed over to tutors and taught life skills by a parade of nannies, none of whom ever stayed for long.

He dreamed of the snow.

The gentle way the woods felt.

It was what made him tell the lie that let him go back.

Steve was eight by then, and smart to how his parents and nannies worked. That some of them overlapped their stays when his parents went away.

So it was easy to tell Mary that she could go.

That it was okay, really. Carla had just called, she was on her way.

Just like it was easy to tell Carla that his parents' plans had changed. Let her know she wasn’t needed after all.

What harm would it do if he was alone for a night? His father kept telling him he was a big boy. Soon he’d be on his own anyway.

The snow found him faster this time, when he went for his walk in the woods.

Delighted, Steve kept an eye out for the reindeer, fingers skittering across tree bark as he looked around, once again tracking the soft glow that came up over the hill.

It was a long walk to that light, but Steve didn’t mind.

Not until he heard the crying.

“Hello?” Steve called, voice prim and proper as always. It was a little high--Tommy teased him endlessly about it, but he had been assured it would deepen.

The crying didn’t stop, but things got quiet for a moment, in the way that happens when someone was trying hard not to be found.

(Steve knew exactly how that felt, not wanting to be found. Wanting to cry for a moment, without someone telling you to toughen up, be a man, ‘God Steven you’re too old for all this--’)

“It’s okay!” Steve rushed out, trying to locate where the muffled sounds were coming from before they ran away. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise!”

Which is right about when he almost tripped over the other kid.

He was hunched against a tree, knees drawn into his chest with brown hair hanging into his eyes. His clothes were a odd--a little like how his teacher had made Steve dress when they’d done a play about the middle ages.

“Who’re you?” The boy asked defensively, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

“I’m Steve.” He said, before kneeling down himself. “Did you get hurt?”

“No.” The boy sniffled. After a moment he added; “M’ Eddie.”

His eyes were large, and reminded Steve of a puppy he once saw. All cute and round and shiny.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.” The boy said and it wasn’t an accusation, but it wasn’t friendly.

“I’m not from around here.” Steve told him. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

It was kind of hard to know, given Steve wasn’t sure where here was, exactly--and absolutely knew better than to ask his parents.

“Well then you should go home.” The boy sniffled again.

Steve wasn't put off by it. Tommy had been a lot meaner than this after all, when they'd first met. 

Given their parents made them play together anyways, Steve felt he he could get this kid to like him too. 

"I'm gonna, later. I'm looking for something right now though--you wanna come?" 

Which he felt was a pretty nice offer. Might distract Eddie from whatever was bothering him.

(Steve liked distractions, when he was upset. It made it a lot easier to swallow down the bad feelings.) 

“You shouldn’t hang around me.” Eddie said suddenly. His nose was as red as his eyes, and he refused to look Steve in the eye as he hunched further into himself. “I’m bad.”

“You’re not bad.” Steve told him. 

He got a glare for it.

“How would you know?”

“I dunno.” Steve stopped, brows furrowing in thought. “I just--kinda do. I always have.”

Which was true. Steve was awfully good at identifying who was good and who was bad, from adults to his fellow classmates. It had gotten him in trouble before his mother had sat him down, and told him he just had a good business sense.

That he needed to keep to himself who was good and who was bad, especially the adults, because it wasn’t his place to say such things.

(‘But it’ll serve you well in the future.’ His mother told him, tucking an errant strand of hair back behind his ear. ‘Particularly for business deals.’)

“Well you’re wrong then, because I was born bad.” Eddie scoffed, arms crossing over his chest. “Everyone says so!”

It was dramatic as hell, and Steve couldn’t help the giggle that escaped him.

“I’m sorry!” He said immediately, when Eddie’s face flushed angrily. “I’m sorry it’s just--you look kinda silly.”

He mimed Eddie’s stance for a moment, including a dramatic little huff of breath. It unbalanced him, and Steve ended up dropping on his butt, which made him to laugh even louder.

“No one who does that can be bad.” He said finally, through the giggles. 

“That’s--stupid. You’re stupid.” Eddie said, except he was clearly trying to hide his own laugh at Steve’s antics.

“I’m not stupid--and you’re not bad. I promise.” Steve said, before reaching out a hand, one pinkie extended. “I’ll swear on it.”

“What’re you doing?” Eddie asked him, but he didn’t sound sad now. More curious. 

Curious Steve knew, was a lot better than sad. 

“You wrap your pinkie finger with mine. Then it’s a pinkie swear, which is like--unbreakable!”

That’s what Carol had told him at least, and so far it had held true. Steve figured it must work doubly so, in a place like this.

Cautiously, Eddie reached out, entwining his pinkie with Steve’s. Like any minute Steve would snatch his hand back, and tell him it was all a joke.

Instead, Steve bobbed their hands up and down once, before letting go and asking; “Do you wanna go find that light with me? I wanna see what it is.”

He pointed up the hill, toward the glow that had haunted his dreams.”

“Oh that’s boring.“ Eddie told him, but he had a grin on his face that felt infectious. “It’s just the town. I’ll show you something way better!”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, and let Eddie snatch his wrist, launching to his feet and bringing Steve with him.

In doing so his hair blew, revealing that he had pointed ears.

Steve stared at them in awe as Eddie tugged him further into the trees, until they burst into a clearing filled with gingerbread houses. They ranged from teeny tiny, to large enough that Steve and Eddie could walk in them, and it wasn’t long before the two started a game of tag, broken only by laughter. 

In retrospect, this was his downfall.

Because the little gingerbread houses were really cool, and Eddie was a lot of fun. It was easy to play with him--like the two of them had been made for each other.

Steve had never connected like this with a person before. Never had so much fun with someone before.

Not even with Tommy and Carol, his very best friends.

Eddie seemed to feel the same way, and not even an hour into meeting him, Steve knew he would remember this for the rest of his life.

Remember Eddie.

Steve ended up losing track of time. Stayed so long that his lie was discovered.

The person who came looking for him wasn’t his parents, but looked weirdly like his mom--if his mom were a boy.

He introduced himself as Steve’s Uncle Nick after he called the two boys to him, hands on his hips in a way Steve kind of wanted to mimic.

Steve knew it to be true, in the same way he knew how to find the forest, and if someone was good or bad. A feeling inside him he could tap into, warm and fuzzy in a way that, should he ever be pressed, he might admit to feeling like magic.

“Now how did you get here?” Uncle Nick asked him, like Steve's presence was a surprising little puzzle.

Knowing better than to lie, sensing that his Uncle would be able to tell if he did anyways, Steve told him the truth.

It got him exactly what he expected, which was an upset adult.

Unlike his mom or dad however, his Uncle didn’t yell at him, or grab Steve’s hand in a punishing grip. No nails dug into his skin, no harsh words were hissed. Uncle Nick simply pinched the tip of his nose, before giving a sigh that shook his massive frame.

“Your mom is going to be very upset.” He said finally.

Like Steve didn't know. 

“I just wanted to see the lights.”

“The lights--oh.” Uncle Nick glanced over his shoulder. “Could you see them from your house?”

Steve shook his head.

“No but I could feel them.”

Like a pulse in his chest. A compass, or--a guide.

“He says he can tell who's naughty or nice.” Eddie chimed in, oddly quiet for how loud he had been. “He says I’m good.”

This was said as a challenge, and Steve eyed his new friend out of the corner of his eye. He’d never dared speak to an adult like that, and was both a little in awe of Eddie doing it, and afraid for him.

Something his Uncle seemed to sense.

“Edward, go home.” He said, firm but kind.  Not like how Steve's mom was when she was mad, or his dad when he had a bad day at work.“I’ll come talk to you later. Come on Steve, let me walk you back. I best explain this in person.”

Then he took Steve’s hand in his, while Steve called out a goodbye to Eddie over his shoulder.

“You’ll come back and visit, right!?” Eddie yelled back. 

Steve shouted an affirmative, even knowing it wasn’t likely he’d be allowed.

(Wished with all his heart, that he'd be allowed.) 

“Eddie is really good, you know.” Steve said once he no longer could see his new friend, because it felt important to tell his Uncle that. Necessary, for some reason.

“I know.” Uncle Nick replied gently. “But let’s not worry about him right now, okay?”

“Okay.”

Then they were back in Steve’s woods, the ones that were sometimes unfriendly. In his backyard, and up to the door, and even from here Steve could hear his mother and father screaming at each other, in a tone that made his stomach curl.

“Come on kiddo. Time to face the music.” Uncle Nick told him, and Steve found he really didn’t want to let go of his Uncle’s hand.

He did though.

He was a big boy, and well trained. He didn’t flinch from his parents. Didn’t disobey when his mother demanded he tell her exactly how he got to the fun place, with all the snow--and listened further still when she demanded Uncle Nick take it out of him.

Take what Steve didn’t know--not until his Uncle lost the argument.

Reached into Steve’s chest and did something to him, something that killed that warm and fuzzy thing that had always lived inside Steve.

He cried harder than he ever had before that night. Cried and begged for Uncle Nick to put it back, that he was sorry and he wouldn’t ever use it again if they just let him keep it.

(He promised, he promised, he promised-!)

Sank to his knees and told his parents that it hurt.

They didn't listen, and they didn't put it back.

His father told him to get up off the floor, and then pulled him up when Steve found he couldn’t.

Hauled him to his room, even as his Uncle warned his mother that he couldn’t get rid of it. That he could only suppress it, the same way she suppressed hers, but those words didn’t really matter to Steve just then.

Not when he was hurting, and tired, and found himself wishing for his new friend.

(His mother told him he’d feel better in time.

Steve never did.)

xXx

The hole in Steve’s chest had never filled.

It kept him up at night. The yearning for something just out of reach, tormenting him with a feeling of being hollow.

He didn’t know how his mother could stand it.

Steve stopped fussing about it though--or rather, he stopped the first time his father had slapped him over his complaining.

“Enough, Steven! You’re perfectly fine. Now start acting like it, for fucks sake!” He’d roared, and shocked as he was, Steve had still done what he’d been taught to do.

Toughed it out. Sucked it up. Got over it.

Dumped his entire life into basketball and swimming and other parent-approved activities, even if he felt empty.

He was eight, then ten, then fourteen and soon Steve wasn’t healed, but he'd adjusted. 

Got aloof to the pain as his popularity skyrocketed, and his parents left him on his own while they chased the almighty dollar.

(Secretly, Steve tried to fill the void in his heart with parties and people, alcohol and even the occasional drug, though most just left him feeling worse than before.

It was perhaps how he ended up acting as he did.

Turning from the sweet boy who was always helping others, to someone who was fast with their insults. Popularity was a sharks game, and though he refused to participate in the bullying his friends enjoyed, he made sure everyone knew who the biggest fish in the pond was.

Because the hole was always there, in the back of his mind. The thing inside him that was missing, that made him crave the snow, and the lights, and the boy with pointy ears. 

He might be able to force himself to forget about all of that, if only the hole in his heart would allow him.)

xXx

Five days before his fifteenth birthday, some random guy showed up in Steve’s yard.

This wasn’t unusual--Steve invited a lot of people over.

Tommy and Carol both had a standing invitation to use his pool and Steve often used it to curry favor with the upperclassmen--but even underwater, Steve didn’t recognize the teenager leaning over to watch him swim.

Plus it was a little weird for someone to pop up on a Sunday.

Refusing to be intimidated, Steve surfaced right under the guy, head whipping up to make sure he splashed him in the face.

Laughed as the other guy sputtered.

“Can I help you man?” Steve drawled, hooking his arms on the lip of the pool.

“I’m looking for someone. Steve Harrington?” The guy told him, glaring as he wiped water off his face.

His hair just touched his shoulders, in that awkward stage of growing out that made him look like a pageboy.

Steve tucked that little observation away for later, in case he needed it.

“Congratulations, you found me.” He said, eyeing him over.

Black jeans with holes in the knees, wallet chain and a black shirt with a faded logo of some band Steve had never heard of proudly displayed. A checkered plaid shirt topped the whole outfit, with a red guitar pick dangling around his neck from a chain.

Like the guy thought he was some kind of rockstar, and not in bumfuck Indiana.

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Though I think you’re in the wrong place. The audition for the new town jester is being held at the high school.”

He got a frown, like the guy knew he was being insulted but didn’t quite want to believe it. “I’m not here for an audition.”

“You sure? Cause you’re definitely dressed the part.”

“Okay, you are definitely not Steve.” He said, arms crossing his chest. He had a ring on each hand, catching the light as he clutched at his arms. “Steve wasn’t this much of a dick.”

Which wasn’t the first time Steve had been called out for his behavior--but it had never been by the people he was supposed to care about.

Those people, the people his parents liked?

They loved it.

“Times change.” Steve told the stranger. Kept his tone light and playful, the way that always made girls giggle at him and guy’s listen.

Well the ones he wasn’t making fun of, anyways.

“People do too.”

He rearranged himself, planting both palms flat against the concrete, bouncing once to build energy before rocketing out of the water.

Stood, and watched with interest as the new guy’s eyes raked over his naked torso, before his whole face flushed red.

How he looked away, like he suddenly couldn’t bare to look at Steve.

“You shouldn't have changed that much.” He muttered, but Steve already had his number.

"Why were you looking for me anyway?” Steve asked as he went and grabbed a towel. Wrapped it around his waist, but kept his upper body shirtless.

Idly scratched at his hip and watched as the guy acted like Steve had practically stripped naked in front of him.

Weirdly enjoyed the little spark it gave him, to watch this guy appear so affected by his bare chest.

Defensive, the stranger bit out; “We were friends. I haven’t seen him in a long time, I was just checking up on him.”

That made Steve pause.

Really look over the guy standing before him.

The fidgeting, the blushing, the way he avoided Steve’s gaze.

He opened his mouth, an odd urge to draw this out guiding him when the hole in his chest pulsed.

Like a convulsion, a miniature seizure that took Steve entirely by surprise.

It had been a long time since it had done that, long enough to throw Steve off his game.

Make him feel unsafe, unmoored.

Abandoned.

“Yeah?” He wheezed, before covering himself and the flood of wrong/want/need with a harsh cough. “Well now I know you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree. I’d never be friends with a fucking queer.”

At that, the guy’s mouth dropped open, head whipping around to stare at Steve in shock.

"Don’t deny it, I can tell. You’re practically drooling over there.” Steve smiled with all his teeth, even as he struggled to keep his breath even. “It’s disgusting.”

“You know what, fuck you. I thought you were different and you’re not.” The stranger spat, with far more venom than Steve was prepared for. “You’re the same as all the rest.”

He scoffed, before whirling on his heel, middle finger high in the air as he stormed off into the woods.

“Have fun with your sad, beige fucking life!” He yelled, voice a little choked up.

“I will!” Steve yelled back at him, oddly heated.

Rubbed his chest when he was gone, before sitting down to try and figure out what the hell just happened--and why the hell his chest hurt so much.

xXx

Steve’s life remained completely and painfully normal--until Nancy Wheeler.

Nancy and her smile, Nancy and her reminder of what it felt like to be loved. 

She didn’t fill the void inside him, but what she did came close.

Felt similar.

Steve found he’d do anything for her, looking at life once again through the lens he had back when he was seven.

It was great.

Better than great--it was the best he’d ever been.

Then Barb went missing.

Shit hit the fan so fast that in retrospect, Steve still doesn’t understand it. There was Jonathan and his camera, with the background of his missing little brother. Tommy and his insults, grabbing Steve up by the collar. Nancy being weird, Nancy ducking him to hang out with the guy who took photographs of them having sex.

Steve's brain tracks it all in little snapshots. The way he realized that maybe Nancy was right--he was way more of an asshole than he thought. How he decided to clean the theater, and then apologize to Jonathan.

(Creepy shit or not, Jonathan’s brother was gone. Steve had never had a brother, but he understood how it felt when something important was taken from you.

How it made you act after.)

There was a shift inside him. Not coming from the void, but from how Steve dealt with it.

And then there was a fucking monster coming out of the ceiling.

This is how Steve learns the magic he once had wasn’t special. That it’s not the only supernatural thing that exists in the world.

Only unlike the snow and gingerbread house and boy with pointed ears and an Uncle that looked a hell of a lot like Santa Clause, this version came with evil government laboratories, the Upside Down and his girlfriend holding a gun.

It was kind of a lot, really.

Particularly because his parents weren’t home.

(They still came home of course, but it wasn’t with the same frequency as it used to be.

The business trips went from once a month, to every other week, to long stretches of away periods. Long enough that Steve spoke to them over the phone more than he did in person, and knew more about business mergers than he ever cared too.

Also his fathers love life, courtesy of his drunk mother.)

Steve didn’t exactly handle it well.

Doesn’t think any of them handled it well, really, even if Nancy blamed him for trying to pretend he was okay. But right as their relationship blew up in Steve’s face, shit started happening again.

Flickering lights and freaky monsters. A group of kids Steve found himself in charge of, who were doing their level best to commit suicide.

(“We’re helping El and Will, idiot!” Mike Wheeler protested in the back of Billy Hargrove’s Camaro when Steve brought up that this was not what being benched meant, and Steve let him have that one given the way the world was spinning.

God that asshole hit like a train.)

Another snapshot, full of fear and fury, and things were over once again. 

Steve was telling Nancy it was okay. She could go with Jonathan, that he could tell it was what she wanted.

It hurt him to do it, but he wasn’t going to be like his own parents.

Realized with a weird amount of clarity, that he wanted to be the very opposite of his parents.

Late in the night, feeling every ache and pain in his body but knowing everyone was safe, Steve finally started the long trek home. 

He didn’t have his car (he hoped that was still at the Byers place) and he didn’t have his keys (no clue where those went but he was praying it wasn’t in the freaky tunnels) and was well into the middle of his walk when his chest started acting weird. Really weird. 

Steve ignored it.

He kept ignoring it, focused on getting back to his bed, and his bed alone.

(Maybe he had been thinking more than that. About how the last time he had truly been happy wasn’t with Nancy, but with Eddie. That he’d give anything to go play in the gingerbread houses again.

Maybe he was even thinking of how warm his Uncle had been, the way he was so gentle when he held Steve’s hand.

How he’d argued against Steve’s parents, when no one else ever did.

It was probably just the head injury.)

Unfortunately--or fortunately, depending on who you asked later--the weird feeling didn't stop.

It grew and grew, until it felt like something was breaking out of him.

Like a cough you’d long suppressed that crawled forcefully up and out of your throat, it both hurt and felt amazing, a pang echoing out through his very core--

Then suddenly there was snow on the trees and Steve was stumbling into a teenager with fluffy hair.

“Sorry.” He muttered, right before he went down on his knees.

“What the hell---” Fluffy haired guy said, spinning around and looking at Steve like he was a ghost. “Oh shit, are you okay!?”

“I’m fine.” Steve lied, even as he gave in and laid down.

Man, this snow was nice.

Comfy and soft, and cold on his face.

There was a string of curses coming from above him, and Steve made the effort to twist his head so he could watch fluffy hair kneel frantically next to him.

“ What happened!? How did you get here!?”

“S’long story man.” Steve slurred, feeling bad and looking worse. His head fucking hurt.

“Don’t suppose there’s a guy named Eddie around? He has uh,” Steve fumbled, hands trying to point to his ears. “Pointed. You know.”

He gestured to his own ear again.

(Figured he might as well ask, given all the snow.)

The Fluffy Hair pulled said hair back at that, revealing his very own pointy ear. “Dude you’re in the North Pole, all us elves have pointy ears.”

The North Pole.

The words Steve had only ever dared to think, and never said out loud.

“Cool.” He said instead, not really feeling like he was inside his own body.

“Just--stay there, okay? My name's Gareth I’m gonna go get someone.” Gareth the elf (an elf, wasn’t that a trip. Did that mean Eddie was also an elf?) said, hands hovering awkwardly in the air, before he darted off, out of Steve’s sight.

“Can you get Eddie?” The question came out in a whine, the hurt in Steve’s chest overtaken by the pain in his head.

He didn’t get an answer.

Which was okay, he thought.

He didn’t really need one.

He had the snow, and the woods that weren’t straight out of a fucking nightmare, and, he could just sleep right here…

“Steve!”

He blinked, and found he must have passed out.

“There you are. Stay with me.” A blurry face was saying. A couple more blinks brought it into focus, and Steve knew this person, even if he couldn't put a name to a face.

The hair was longer, and there were more rings on his fingers, ones Steve could both see and feel as a hand ran along the back of his head.

Worried doe eyes met Steve's own, and just through the curtain of curls, he caught the outline of a pointed ear.

“Ed--ie?” He croaked, unsure.

“Yeah Stevie, it's me. You're okay, we brought you back to my place. Gareth is getting help.”

He was trying to sound reassuring but he mostly just sounded worried.

Not that Steve cared, because he finally figured out why older Eddie was familiar.

“Oh.” He managed, the words feeling like he had to push out. “It was you. By the--pool.”

“What?”

It felt like eons ago. The weird guy, asking after him. Back when Steve had been doing anything he could to fill the void his magic had left behind, and turned into a raging shithead as a result.

“M sorry.” Steve slurred, voice cracking in its honesty. “I was--asshole. M'sorry.”

The look Eddie gave him was wild. Like he couldn’t believe Steve was here, and definitely couldn’t believe Steve was apologizing.

Which was fair. Until last year Steve wouldn’t have ever apologized, to anyone, ever. 

“Yeah you were, but we can talk about it later. Right now I just need you to stay awake.” Eddie said instead. It was gentle, a lot more gentle than Steve felt he deserved.

It made him want to explain, more than anything, what had happened.

“I was tryin to fix…the hole. Inside.” Steve needed Eddie to understand. Needed it more than breathing, just then.

“I know, big boy.” Eddie soothed, and his hands were back in Steve’s hair.

It felt nice.

“S’not an excuse, promise it's not. I was hurt--hurting, and--I was mean.” Steve continued. It was getting harder to think, the world swimming in and out of focus, but this was important.

Perhaps the most important thing he’d done in a long time, sans saving the kids from the demodogs.

“It’s okay, Stevie. I didn’t get it back then but I understand better now and…”

He might have said something more. Steve thinks he was, but then Eddie was shaking him harshly, and Steve realized he might have tried to pass back out.

“Come on Stevie, sweetheart, you can’t sleep right now. You have to stay awake for me, okay? Steve?”

Steve tried to shake his head and hissed when he found out how much that hurt. Breathed in and out through the pain, before his brain connected back to what he’d been trying to say.

“Not jus’ to you.” He panted. “Wasn’t mean just to you.”

That was important too. That Eddie knew he hadn't been targeted. That Steve was a dick to pretty much anyone he came across.

“I know. I've uh, been watching you, from here."

“Yeah?”

“We have this giant globe. Like a crystal ball, but it’s set deep into the floor so you can only really see half of it. It can also connect to snow globes, and it can let you see places. Watch people.”

Eddie’s voice was soothing, the deep timber of it echoing through Steve’s chest. Belatedly he realized his head was in Eddie’s lap.

That felt nice too.

“I was real mad at you but the Bossman--uh, your Uncle, he kinda showed me you once or twice and then I started watching you myself. Sorry I know that’s weird--”

“Least you didn’t take pictures.” Steve wheezed and then tried to grin because that was very much supposed to be a joke.

(He definitely had felt more put together when he dropped the kids off in Billy's Camaro--so what the hell was happening? Had the shock worn off? Adrenaline?

Fuck maybe he should have just driven Billy’s stupid car back to his house, instead of leaving it at Max's house.

Asshole deserved to not know where his car was anyway.)

Then suddenly there was a lot of noise and light and fuck did that all make his head hurt. Hands went all over him, people barking orders, and a girl Steve was pretty sure was his age was peering at him.

“Steve?” She asked, but it sounded distant. Echoey and unclear.

“I can’t keep him awake!”

That from Eddie, who sounded much clearer, if not utterly panicked. 

“It’s okay, I’ve got him.” The girl said, tight but professional in a way that typically belonged to someone used to medical emergencies. “You can let him go now.”

“Are you kidding me, Buckley you’re an apprentice medmage-!”

Steve frowned at that, but found something was drifting over him. A weight, like an invisible blanket pressed down gently, and he had a second to recognize that this too, was some kind of magic before sleep tried to take him.

He fought it for a moment as a thought occurred.

One last thing he needed to say.

“You’re still good. Eddie. You’ve always been--”

The magic took him away.

xXx

It smelled like cinnamon.

Cinnamon and sharp hints of peppermint, the kind that tickled at Steve’s nose as he slowly rose back into consciousness.

Steve winced as he sat up, head itching like ants were crawling all over it. Idly he tried to scratch at his forehead and found himself touching a thick bandage, at about the same time his body seemed to catch on that he was awake.

It reminded him that he had had a hell of a night in the form of an onslaught of aches and pains.

His fingers traced the edge of the bandage as he took in the cheerful red walls surrounding him. The room was the exact kind of kitschy his mom hated, little twirls of white here and there making the place look like the inside of a candy cane.

The center piece was the full size window, taller than Steve was and twice as wide. Fat, fluffy flakes of snow drifted lazily outside it, some sticking to the window panes as they floated on by.

It was a little like being knocked out and waking up in the Wonka factory, but given all the shit that he had been through the past twenty four hours, Steve didn’t mind it.

Snow was infinitely preferable to the weird ash that came out of the Upside Down.

As if sensing he was awake, the door opposite the window swung open. A tray came through, positively stacked with a stupid amount of pancakes and oozing with maple syrup, the type Steve could smell.

“I,” Eddie announced, head just visible above the good, “had a very embarrassing meltdown when they tried to take you away from me. So suck it up Harrington, because you’re stuck with me now.”

Steve stared at him, mildly concerned he was a hallucination.

“I brought you pancakes.” Eddie added, pausing as he approached the bed like he hadn’t actually thought through to this point.

“I see that.” Steve said, just to fill the sudden, awkward silence. “There’s…kinda a lot there, man.”

So much so it was threatening to escape the confines of the tray and drip down onto the carpet.

“You play sports things don’t you?” Eddie defended, making the executive decision to put the tray down on the bed. “Kinda thought you’d need like, a lot, especially if you're healing." 

Steve snorted, but didn’t bother to hide the smile that crept onto his face.

Even if it hurt.

Dragged his gaze from the pile of pancakes now laid before him, to the man fidgeting awkwardly by his bedside.

Realized belatedly, that Eddie hadn’t changed much.

Not since Steve had last seen him, though he never in his life would have thought one of Santa’s elves would wear so much black.

(Frankly Eddie looked just like every other teenage metalhead Steve had ever met, sans the pointed ears. One of which was now pierced and had little metal hoops threaded through it.)

Eddie realized Steve was looking, and bashfully twist a strand of his hair in front of his face.

It was cute.

It made him look cute.

“You might as well sit and help me with this, it’s way too much.” Steve told him.

Which was the truth--Eddie had brought him a shit load of pancakes and Steve wasn’t exactly sure he could chew all that well right now, considering his left cheek was so puffed out it felt like a chipmunks.

Didn’t want to turn down a gift though--or rather, turn down a gift from Eddie.

Who he absolutely still needed to apologize properly too.

“I guess I should start off with a thank you.” Steve began, as Eddie dropped onto the bed. “I think you might have saved my life, though I swear I wasn’t doing that bad off before I got here.”

“Robin said the shock wore off.” Eddie told him. He didn’t wait for Steve to dig in, grabbing a pancake and rolling it up like a sausage before stabbing one end in syrup. “She also said you had a hell of a concussion, two cracked ribs and a literal boatload of scratches,”

Which sounded about right, considering.

“Still though.” Steve frowned, looking at his hands. “I mostly just fought off Billy, the demodogs never got me.”

Something he was incredibly thankful for, given the sheer amount of teeth.

“I think you’re downplaying your injuries here, handsome, you gave Robin a hell of a fright. She cursed in four languages." Eddie talked fast, just like the little boy Steve remembered him as.

It made him grin. 

“Handsome, huh?” Steve teased, and regretted it the second it slipped out of his mouth.

He hadn’t meant to call attention to it. Not just yet anyway. Wanted to work his way up to his apology and then the things he had kind of realized on his walk home (and possibly before that, though he thinks he might have…repressed it.)

Given the way Eddie froze, Steve figures he’s got about two seconds to talk himself out of it, before Eddie rightfully shut him out.

“I like it. The nicknames.” He said, which is also not what he intended to come out of his mouth and God he was really blowing this, wasn’t he?

“Steve,” Eddie started, sounding a little strangled and nope, no, he was going to fix this dammit!

“I’m sorry.” He said honestly. “I know I was an ass when you came to check up on me, and I know I said some terrible things to you. I regret it. I regret it a lot, and I shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

“You weren't wrong.” Eddie cut in, twirling a ring on his finger, eyes firmly on it. “I am gay. I am flamingly gay. And I understand if after today, you don't want me here.”

Which apparently answered the question about whether or not elves gave a shit about such things.

(Or maybe they did, and it was humans who cared, and Eddie was giving him an out for it.

Steve figured he’d ask later.

After he had finished groveling.)

“I want you here.” He said, as seriously as he’d ever said anything. “I think the real question is why you would want to help me?”

It was the one thing that didn’t add up. Why Eddie had been so nice, when he’d shown up.

Sure it was one thing to be a good citizen or whatever, help out a guy who was passed out on the ground, but Eddie hadn’t just gotten help.

He’d stroked Steve’s hair. He’d kept him awake.

Hell he called Steve sweetheart.

And now he was here again, right by Steve's bedside, checking up on him.

You didn’t do that for the guy who was a downright douchebag too you, even if it had been a few years.

Eddie bit his lip, before he chanced a look back at Steve, up through his bangs. “Because you said I was good Steve. You were the first person who ever said I was good.”

Quieter he added “And because we were friends once.”

“I'd like to still be friends.”

“Even if I'm gay?”

Steve took a deep breath, and let out a truth that he’d maybe been ignoring for almost as long as he’d tried to forget about the hole in his heart.

“Cards on the table Eddie, I’m not sure I’m not gay Or whatever both is." 

He'd heard the word once from Chrissy, but hadn't cared to remember it.

(Regretted that a little bit.) 

He got a mighty frown in response.

“Don’t do that. Don’t--joke, like that.”

“It’s not a joke.” Steve said slowly, feeling the words as he spoke them. “I think this is part of the stuff I always just--ignored. Didn’t want to deal with it, because my--”

Steve couldn’t bring himself to say magic, and so, aborted the sentence entirely. “I couldn’t deal. So everything connected to this place, to the rest of my family, to you, I just pushed aside. Pretended it didn’t exist.”

Pretended that he was normal.

Just like his parents wanted.

Then he’d met Nancy.

Realized what he felt about her, he’d always felt about Eddie. That the way she looked at Jonathan wasn’t the way she looked at him--and even then, in the love he had for her, Steve hadn’t looked at her like that either.

Steve had been attracted to her for her yes--but initially, maybe, because she’d looked a little like someone else.

Admitted to himself that he the reason he could clock Eddie so fast back when he was fourteen, wasn't because he was that good at reading people, but because he recognized what it looked like to get caught checking out a guy.

“But I could never forget about you.” Steve added because well. “I’ve never been able to forget about you.”

He’d already said cards on the table, hadn’t he?

Might as well reveal his whole hand.

“You were the last thing I thought of, when I was trying to get home. I wasn’t thinking about my house, or my parents. I was thinking about you. I’ve never been able to come back here, not after Uncle Nick,” He cut himself off again, frustrated that he couldn’t just fucking it, but made himself take a breath.

Continue.

“--but I could, last night. I could get to you.”

Technically he’d gotten to Gareth, who Steve probably also owed a thank you too, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

Gareth had found Eddie anyway, in the end.

“I absolutely get if you want nothing to do with that, considering I think I’m just now accepting this about myself but. I wanted you to know. You’re important to me, Eddie. You always have been.”

It was weird--Steve should have felt laid bare. Vulnerable now that he’d laid out all these things he’d suppressed, that he thought taken away alongside his magic.

Instead he felt lighter than air.

Like the weight had finally been lifted and he could breathe deep once again.

For a long moment no one said anything and Steve figured this was it, he’d gone too far, when Eddie darted in, pressing a quick kiss to Steve’s cheek.

He pulled away just as fast. Wide eyes searched Steve’s face, as though expecting Steve to change his mind. 

If anything, it just solidified it.

Steve reached out slowly, gently grabbing on of Eddie’s hands. Brought it up to his mouth and kissed the back of it, while maintaining eye contact.

Enjoyed the way Eddie’s face went bright red.

“You’re important to me too.” He managed, voice awed. “You’ve always been important to me. Stevie.”

Finally feeling like he knew where he belonged, Steve grinned back. 

xXx

Bonus

“When I said let him sleep Munson, I didn’t mean with you!” Someone screeched a few hours later, jolting Steve awake.

“He was awake when I came in!” Eddie protested, shoving himself up onto his elbows when the women from yesterday--Robin, Steve thought her name was--stormed in. “We fell asleep together after Robbie, I swear!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Hi.” Steve said with a little wave, before the two of them could screech some more. “I’m Steve.”

“I know, Dingus.” Robin told him, eyes narrowed in fury. “You’re a member of the Clause family, everyone knows who you are.”

“Oh.” Steve said, though it felt less cool and more weird that someone had finally said it out loud.

That he, Steven Harrington, had an Uncle, and that Uncle was Santa Clause.

‘Dustin is gonna freak.’

“I’m sure Mega-Idiotson here hasn’t told you, but I’m the medmage that saw you last night. Or kinda--see I’m an apprentice medmage, but my teacher was kinda out with the Boss seeing someone a town over and time was tight and we couldn’t exactly wait--”

“Breath, Buckley. In,” Eddie teased, before demonstrating a deep breath on himself, hand sweeping into his chest before he loudly exhaled. “and out.”

“Shut up, Eddie, I’m working up to something here!”

“What is it?” Steve said, feeling like if he didn’t interject Robin would take a while to get to the point.

“I might have accidentally undid whatever was on your magic?” Robin rushed out, so fast Steve nearly didn’t catch it. “Like I can tell that’s the Boss’s magic, and that he did--whatever that was, but I couldn't figure out how to heal you with it there and it was kinda already leaking out so I just--took it off?”

Steve gaped at her.

“You fixed me?” He managed after a moment, hand darting out to squeeze at one of Eddie’s.

“Um. Yes?” Robin cautioned, like she wasn’t exactly sure that’s what she did.

“Oh my god. Oh my god!” Steve laughed, then felt absolutely stupid for not checking in with himself.

Because Robin was right.

The hole was gone--and his magic was back.

How had he not noticed that his magic was back!?

“Eddie, Eddie she’s right--I have it back!”

He turned in bed, dropping Eddie’s hand so he could cup his face and kiss him instead.

“Okay, I don’t need to see this--” Robin complained, but Steve didn’t care.

Could only laugh delighted into Eddie’s mouth, before Eddie deepened the kiss.

(“Guys seriously I am still right here! Can’t you at least wait until I’m gone!?”

“No. Now get out Robin, you’re ruining my moment!”

“It’s okay, Eds. I’ll give you as many moments as you want.”

“Ew, ew, ew-!” )

This whole ass thing on A03 if you'd rather read it there!

[flowersandbigteeth]

Can you do a werewolf x bunny female, I think that would be so cute, like this big scary looking werewolf with a innocent bunny girl, adorable! Sfw or nsfw I think it would be super cute

I had this idea rolling around in my head for a while, but it works so well with a werewolf and a bunny I couldn't resist ^_^

General Plot: You are the nanny for a wolf king and he wants to try some of your development techniques.

Wolf King x bunny female reader

Word Count: 2k

💕 SFW MASTERPOST 💕

W: sfw yandere monster fluff, hunting and chasing, cute werewolf pup

“Rawr! I’m the big, bad wolf!” Joel growled, baring his little fangs at his terrified prize. 

“Put that mouse down, prince Joel,” you chided, following the precocious little wolf pup through the garden. 

“No! I’m a vicious predator! I don’t have to listen to herbivores!” he snarled at you, shaking the mouse in his little fist. 

You sighed. His tutor had taught him all about predators and herbivores that morning, so he was an expert or so he thought. 

“Yes, carnivores are very important, your majesty, but your father put me in charge of you and he is the biggest predator around,” you pointed out, “do I have to tell him you wouldn’t listen to your nanny?”  

He stiffened at the mention of his father and dropped the mouse, who scampered away. 

“I don’t need a nanny!” he pouted at you. 

You put your hands on your hips and pouted back. 

“Fine! Then I’ll just go play hunter with some other little wolf pup who appreciates me!” you said, turning to walk away. 

A tug at your skirt told you that you’d won. 

“You don’t have another pup do you?” he asked from behind you. 

You turned and looked down at him. 

“There are lots of wolf pups in the village who would love a nanny willing to play with them,” you said. 

He wrapped his arms around your leg and squeezed his eyes shut. 

“No! You’re mine (Y/N)!” he shouted, “I’m the prince and I won’t allow it!” 

“Calm down prince Joel,” you said, scratching him between his ears, “I’m not going anywhere right now, but you have to be good so we can play!” 

He nodded, excited. 

“Okay!” he said, “you go hide and I’ll hunt you!” 

You glanced around the royal garden to make sure the guards were all at their stations before you agreed to let him out of your sight for a moment. 

“Okay,” you said, “count to twenty! I’m just a bunny, you have to give me a fair chance!”

He nodded eagerly while he covered his eyes. 

You scurried to the small patch of trees at the far side of the garden and ducked behind some branches. He would find you quickly, he had a very good nose, but he never seemed to get tired of chasing after you.  

You were so busy peeking around the branches to watch for Joel, you didn’t notice the shadow looming over you. Your hearing as a bunny was very good, but you didn’t hear the branch snap until it was too late. Gasping, you tried to fight as a heavy hand wrapped around your mouth. Immediately you looked around frantically for Joel. This was likely an assassination attempt. It made sense to take out the nanny first. 

“(Y/N), why are you hiding from my son?” a low rumbling voice growled in your ear. 

You squealed on instinct in the presence of a predator, your heart pounding in your chest. His hand loosened on your lips. 

“We’re playing a game, your majesty,” you said, swallowing heavily and gasping for breath, “h-he’s hunting me.” 

Upsetting the king meant certain death. Herbivores weren’t regarded very highly, you were considered disposable servants at best. His heavy breath brushed your long ear, making it twitch. 

“You wish to be…hunted?” he asked, husky voice husky and full of gravel. 

You blinked, your cheeks flooding with color. 

“It’s just a game, your majesty, for children. Joel likes it and it is good for his skill development,” you explained quietly, aware of the heat of his body at your back. One hand was clutching your waist, the claws of his fingers digging into the cotton fabric of your dress, while the bands of muscle in his arm held you close.  

“You will let me hunt you…tonight. Meet me here at 9,” he rumbled in your ear and then he was gone. 

You collapsed into the grass, a cold sweat on your chest. 

“Gotcha!” Joel shouted, pouncing on you and you screamed louder than you’d ever screamed in your life. 

—-

You trembled as you approached the garden a few minutes before nine. Surely you were walking to your death. If you’d been more creative you’d have fled, but you didn’t have any ideas for what to do for money, food, or even passage out of the capital. So you faced your end bravely, hoping it would be quick. 

Before you’d put prince Joel to bed, you’d given him an extra long hug in case you didn’t come back. You hoped he would remember you fondly when he became king and maybe he would be kinder to the herbivores than his father. 

The garden was dark, with only the torches of the castle flickering at the far edges and as you walked deeper and deeper the sounds of the building got further and further away. The beating of your heart in your chest filled the silence. 

“Y-your majesty?” you murmured to the quiet garden, but there was no reply. 

Padding over to the trees where you’d been before, you looked around, wondering if he was going to be late. He was the king, after all, he never had to be on time. You hoped against all hope that he’d forgotten entirely. 

You howled as a hot breath in your ear growled, “RUN!” 

As a bunny you were very fast and you instinctively took off immediately, heading for the farthest side of the garden that touched the forest. Perhaps if you could make it there, you would survive. Your powerful legs sent you launching over planters and darting around a fountain, but it was no use. 

You could hear the scrape of the king’s claws on the concrete as he scrambled over a statue after you. If this went on for much longer you’d die of a heart attack before he got a chance to rip you to pieces. 

Just beyond the palace wall you caught sight of a hole, your frantic mind instinctively favoring a place to hide over a tiring chase. Diving towards the gap, you wiggled your body through it panicking as thick hands latched onto your ankles. You squealed and kicked, but he was much too strong now that he’d gotten you. Your nails collected dirt as he dragged you back towards him. 

He flipped you over, straddling you with his big body and your eyes widened, wondering if the last thing you would see would be the moonlight sparkling off of his silver fur. His eyes, deep black, were shadowed in darkness and the most you could see of his face were his massive, sharp teeth dripping saliva. This was it. You were going to die. 

“Caught you,” he said, panting clouds in the cool night air and grinning. 

Your heart beat faster than you thought it could and the world went black. 

—

“Papa, is (Y/N) dead?” you heard Joel ask and you felt something warm shift beside you. A little claw tapped your nose.

“I’ve already told you seven times! She’s not dead. She’s sleeping. Get away from there!” the King’s deep voice grumbled. 

Your eyes popped open and without thinking you scurried as far away from it as possible, crouching in a ball at the far corner of the bed you were in. Your eyes flying around the room, you realized you were in the King’s bedroom, in his bed. 

“(Y/N)!” Joel beamed and his tiny furry body collided with yours knocking you over. 

With wide eyes you looked up at him. 

“Daddy said you were being naughty and playing in the garden at night and that’s why you fell asleep! You said I’m not allowed to play in the garden at night! Do I get to punish you? You get no pudding for a week, you have to give it all to me…no a month!” 

Thankful and surprised to be alive, you threw your arms around your little charge and squeezed him to your chest, tears tumbling down your cheeks. 

“Come on (Y/N)!” Joel pouted, pushing you off of him, “if you're gonna be a crybaby about it I’ll make it half a week, okay?” 

You heard the King sigh. 

“Can you please go fetch (Y/N) some juice from the kitchen and the doctor, Joel? Take your guardian knight…” he said. 

You blinked at him. He wasn’t dressed as he usually was in shining gold armor that only made him look larger, instead, there was no shirt on his firm chest and he was just wearing some loose pants. You’d never seen him informally, even as often as you were in the personal rooms of the royal family, and your cheeks pinkened. 

He came and sank into the bed next to you and you scooted so far away you slipped off of the edge of the bed with a squeal. 

“Oh for goddess’ sake, (Y/N)!” he grumbled, pulling you up from the floor with his big hands and plopping you in his lap. 

He gave you a bit of a gentle look and brushed a damp lock of hair out of your eyes. 

“I don’t think this hunting game is good for your health, love,” he said, running the back of his knuckle over your cheek, “you looked like death had come for you and then you passed out!”

Your eyes got wide and your mouth dropped open. 

“Game!?” you gasped, “I thought you were going to eat me?!” 

He laughed out loud.

“Eat you?” he asked, “why would I eat you?” 

He pouted, stroking your ear with his padded fingers. 

“Do you really think I’m a mindless monster?” 

You hurriedly shook your head, not meaning to offend him. He’d spared your life once, he might not do it again. 

“No your majesty,” you stammered, “you simply startled me that’s all. I didn’t realize we were playing a game.” 

He snorted. 

“Well that’s what I told you,” he pointed out. 

You gave him a wan smile and nodded. That was not exactly true, but you weren't going to argue with him. You were sure he thought he'd been clear as a magnifying lens. His fingers were still playing with your ear, stroking the length and gently tugging it this way and that. 

“That you did, your majesty,” you said, trying to slow your heartbeat, racing like a wild horse. 

 “I don’t like to see you frightened, (Y/N),” the king murmured softly. 

His hot breath brushed your head, stirring the threads of your hair. You fit quite neatly just below his chin, much smaller in his lap.

“It pleases me how sweetly you and my son get on,” he said, his big hand curling around your waist and drawing you close to him, “I have to teach him to be regent, I can’t always coddle him…but you give him the gentleness I can’t. It’s quite a comfort to me.” 

“You’re very kind, your majesty,” you said. 

He tipped your face up to his. 

“I’m not. I’m not kind at all,” he said, smiling, “I’m very, very selfish. When I want something I take it.” 

“I’m sorry?” you stammered, confused where this was going. 

“I want you in Joel’s life more permanently. His mother was a monster. I don’t want to see that develop in him. I think you’d make a much better mother.”

“I-I don’t think I understand, your majesty,” you whispered, searching his dark eyes. They were black and endless, difficult to read. 

“I’m making you my wife,” he said plainly. 

“But I’m a herbivore,” you gasped, “I mean…is this a joke, your majesty?” 

He snorted. 

“Half the kingdom are herbivores, don’t you think they’d adore a sweet, pretty bunny queen?” 

You were sure they would, but this all seemed very strange. 

“I guess so…” you said. 

His eyes twinkled. 

“Don’t think of declining,” he warned, flashing his fangs, “no is not an answer I’ll accept. You’re mine (Y/N) and I’ll do what I have to to keep you.” 

Your eyes got big and you nodded slowly. 

“Oh…Okay…” you said. 

“(Y/N)! (Y/N)!” Joel cheered, splashing juice everywhere as he came barrelling into the room. 

The King gave him a fatherly growl and he froze. 

“What did we talk about earlier?” he asked. 

Joel brightened as if he were remembering something he could accomplish correctly. 

“Momma!” he cried, hurrying over to you with the cup of juice. 

You scooped it out of his hand before he tried climbing up on the bed with it. 

“Do you feel better, momma?” he asked, putting his arms around you and his cheek against your shoulder. 

“Um…yes…” you murmured, clutching the cup, pinched between the adoring arms of your new wolf family, “yes, I guess I do...”

[aetherdoesthings]

would you like some cake? (pt 2)

forethoughts: if you want to read part one it's would you like some new toys :D. i'm literally going to go home in a few hours and pull for arlecchino i'm so excited so happy so on adrenaline i can't ahhhh

notes: gn!child!reader, but fem!reader in mind. NOT AN X READER, READER IS A CHILD!!!

You don’t remember when was the last time you stepped foot in the playroom again. Father said she would take you to a different playroom, away from the others. You spent every day in that new playroom with Father. Father always gave you an option to go back. The door was always wide open. Distant sounds of the other children laughing and cheering rang in your ears. 

Father said you were getting better day by day. Much more used to your new toys. Father even allowed you to bring your toys with you everywhere. One inside your boots, one strapped to your belt. Father even allowed you to bring one to your room. 

Your room. Instead of the room you shared with the others, Father had moved you. Closer to her office. You have your own room now. Father had decorated it herself, she said. The mattress felt like three of the mattresses in your old room stacked upon each other. The room made you feel tiny. Alone. But Father was always there. Father was always with you.

Father said you were almost as skilled as the guards that stood outside the orphanage. 

Father was proud.

Father was proud of you.

Father always read you bedtime stories. Tucked you in, planting a soft kiss on your forehead before turning off the lights. Father always taught you to not listen to what the other children said. That the only person you should be listening to is her and yourself. 

You don’t remember when was the last time you felt eyes casted on you and words piercing your heart when you ate your meals. You still ate your meals in the hall with the other children; Father was adamant that you would still have some interaction with the others. But you didn’t care. 

Father made sure you knew your worth. 

~

Using your chopsticks, you fished up a bundle of noodles, putting it in your spoon and then in your mouth. You chewed, and then fished up another bundle of noodles. The children behind your back were loud and rowdy as usual. Father said to pay no mind to them. This time was different.

They were talking about Father.

It was Father’s birthday tomorrow. 

Father was always secretive and didn’t reveal much about herself. They were planning on surprising her with a big party in the playroom. Of course, you weren’t part of it.

Father was always there for you, you thought. Never shy from giving you gifts and words of advice on the days you needed them. 

You stood up from your seat, carrying your empty udon bowl to the sinks, giving it a quick rinse before putting it on the racks. You walked out of the hall, letting your feet take you where your mind wanted to go.

You closed the door to your new room, taking a seat behind your desk as you took out two sheets of paper, and some crayons Father had gifted you. While the rest played and had fun, you were in your room, scribbling away as best as you could with your black crayon. With your second piece of paper, you took out more colors from the box.

Father was always there for you.

You’d be a bad kid if you didn’t do the same, right?

The other’s idea of a celebration was tricking Father to go to the playroom, then cheering and singing happy birthday to Father while they played with Father. That meant that Father was unavailable to give you your daily lessons on how to properly play with your new toys. Fortunately you were busy too.

You entered the kitchen the moment you heard everyone else chant happy birthday in all different keys, the wide empty space with high workstations and cabinets sending doubt into your head. You shook it away, closing the door behind you with two hands, before taking a small tour around the space you would work with. Seeing that dinner was just served, all the cooks were done, leaving you a window of time to carry out your plan. Using a nearby stepping stool, you climbed onto the counters, reaching the high cabinets that were attached to the roof. Just as fate intended it to be a cooking book fell onto your lap, flipped to the page you wanted to go on. You closed the cabinet door, placing the cooking book by your side as you placed your boots on the stepping stool. 

Father said you were good at looking for what you needed.

Father said you were good at doing what you wanted to do.

You prayed Father was right.

With the big book set on one counter, you scurried around the kitchen, gathering all the required ingredients and items you needed next to the book. You found two more stepping stools, allowing you to move around on each stool like different stations. 

Father said your academic level was higher than the rest; you were doing exams meant for ten year olds.

“Pour… flour… in a bowl…” You muttered, finger on each word. You did as the instructions said, scooping out some flour and dumping it into a bowl.

“Egg…Sugar…Mix… Bake…”

For the rest of the day, you buried yourself in work, making what they called a ‘batter’. You had nearly dropped your hard made batter when you had to place the mold inside the oven, a new lesson learnt the hard way. After as much time as the book said, you took the mold out, this time wearing the funny shaped gloves on top of the counter next to the oven. With all your strength, you lifted the baked circular batter into a cart, before wheeling the cart back to your workstation. As the batter was baking, you had prepared a frosting, as they called it. Using a flat rectangle shaped object that had its corners rounded out, you spread the frosting over the top of the cake, before adding a fresh cherry to the top. 

The celebration had stopped. 

You heard Father’s voice tell the children it was time for bed. You gripped onto the counter, trying not to get shaken by the earthquake created by the hoard of orphans storming up to their room. Holding your breath, you waited until you couldn’t hear Father’s footsteps anymore, before letting out a sigh. You placed your finished cake on a pretty plate, using two hands to hold each side before exiting the kitchen.

~

You let out a deep breath, looking at the gold and crimson ornate double door in front of you. With the papers in your pocket, cake in hand, you used your shoulder to turn the doorknob, stumbling into Father’s office. 

“Y/N?” Father. You turned around, facing Father. Father was behind her desk, hand moving from her forehead to her chin as she looked at you with a playful grin. Since your back was still turned to her, she couldn’t see the cake you made.

“I was worried sick about you, my dear. I didn’t see you at the celebration the others held for me.” Father chuckled. “Where were you? Not even the caretakers or workers could find you.”

You opted to not answer her question, rather hobble your way over to Father’s desk with your little legs. You placed your creation on the same place Father had set you when you got injured. Father looked at the cake, her eyebrows raised as she tried to conceal the grin that was spreading on her face. She pointed at the candle that was stabbed into the cake next to the cherry with her index finger, and the wick was instantly lit on fire. 

“U-Umm…. I overheard it was Father’s birthday… so I wanted to do something special for Father…” You mumbled, fidgeting with the hem of your sleeve as you tried to maintain eye contact with her. “I-I made you a cake. I t-tried my best. Would Father care to try my cake?”

Father let out a chuckle, looking at you with a soft and warm gaze. “You made a cake? All for me?”

“I-I wrote a c-card too…” You pulled the card and the second piece of paper out of your pocket, placing it next to the cake.

“Y/N… I…” Father chuckled, the corners of her mouth reaching her eyes. You’d never seen her look at you like this. Yes, she was always happy and cheerful. But never this much. Even as she tried to conceal it, you had spent enough time with her to know that she was feeling much more than a simple grin. 

“Of course I would love to try your cake.” Father took the fork that was placed next to the cake, digging out a portion of your creation before putting it in her mouth. You could’ve sworn you saw a glimmer in her eyes. She took another bite, nodding her head and smiling at you.

“D-Does Father like it?” You asked with a worried tone. 

“I love it, my dear.” Father hummed, forking out another chunk of your cake, putting the fork in front of your mouth. “Why don’t you try your own creation?”

“But it’s Father’s cake.”

“I insist.”

“O-Okay.” You wrapped your mouth around the fork, chewing on the cake you made. A smile crept on your face as you swallowed the bite. Thank the gods you had actually made food and not poison.

“Come here, my child.” Father patted on her laps. You walked around her desk, climbing on her laps as you looked up at her. She continued to spoon feed herself and you, wiping away any crumbs on your lips with her finger.

“H-Happy Birthday, Father.” You exclaimed.

“Thank you, my dear Y/N.” Father smiled at you, planting a soft kiss on your forehead. “I loved it, my little cook. This was the best birthday present ever.”

You could feel serotonin rush through your body. “R-Really?”

“Yes! Why would I ever lie to you, my dear?” Father hummed. “Thank you for such a wonderful birthday gift, my dear.”

~

Arlecchino sat on her chair, a sigh exiting her mouth as she looked at the card you had written, as well as the piece of paper. She had read a quick bedtime story to you, tucking you into bed before going back to her office. Arlecchino opened the letter, as the words entered her heart, fueling that flame of hers she carried and protected.

“Father,

haqqy dirthbay. I hoqe you hab a goob bay anb are haqqy. thank you for everything you bo for me. i really like my new toys.

Y/N.”

[anchoeritic]

「 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐬. 」

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jake sully x na’vi/fem!reader

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: nsfw(18+), minors dni. clit play, handjob, vaginal sex, really soft and passionate jake.

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you find yourself falling in love with a dream walker: mating with him under the tree of voices.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: this is my first jake sully fic. the scenes are a bit tweaked just to make this a bit shorter but overall, it goes along with the script. i hope you all enjoy! reblogs & feedback are always appreciated, thank you so much

jake sully was never on your to-do list. you would’ve never expected for him to ever even come close to the thing.

he was a dream walker and you were pure na’vi.

you were strictly his mentor, his guidance, ever since eywa had picked him. you taught him the skills of your people: to hunt, bond, and learn.

it wasn’t long until he picked up on your wave. sometimes, you’d think that he’d be better off mentoring you instead.

he was filled with determination, even with, what felt like the world, weighing on him.

“jake,” you whispered quietly, resting a hand onto his shoulder. he tensed up at the warmth of your palm, turning his head to face you.

his grip was still tight on the bow, but his focus stayed completely onto you. “nìk'ong.” your hand slid down his arm, angling the bow right at the target.

hovering beside his head, you let out the breath you were holding right as he let go of the string, piercing it right through the yerik.

whimpering away, jake quickly caught up to its bleeding body, thanking it for its sacrifice as his first kill on pandora.

a hand was softly placed on the creature’s limb before he dug the blade into its heart, letting eywa take hold of its spirit at last.

“oel ngati kameie, ma tsmukan, ulte ngaru seiyi irayo. ngari hu eywa salew tirea, tokx 'ì'awn slu na'viyä hapxì.”

observing him closely, you watched as he slid the knife back into the sheath, letting out a quiet sigh of exhaustion.

“a clean kill,” you spoke, rubbing the yerik’s head, laying it on your lap. “you are ready, jake.”

pulling out the arrow from its heart, you reach for his hand, grazing it ever so slightly. you felt his eyes on you, burning holes into you.

“come, follow me.”

grabbing his hand, you jumped from branch-to-branch, keeping him close. you were on the tips of your toes, you’ve never felt so alive.

you ran across the forest, jake following shortly behind as your footsteps illuminated a pathway for him.

“slow down,” he laughed, trying to match your pace. you ignored his wishes, going even quicker.

“you need to be faster.” you shot back jokingly, turning around to tease him. “come on, we’re close.”

admiration was one of the many things jake sully had felt for you ever since he laid his eyes on you.

the way you’d smile to yourself whenever he made a stupid mistake trying to speak na’vi, the way you’d still manage to protect even as an outsider; a dream walker.

the way you’d scowl at his horrible earthling jokes that nobody ever laughed at, but you were the only one that paid attention to them.

“a bad reaction is still a reaction” as jake would say to you before you rolled your eyes at him.

but it wasn’t just your beauty, it was your wit. your strong beliefs, intentions to spread love outside and within yourself.

playing with the children, introducing him to them and being completely accepted like one of your own. it was like a big family he had earned back again. it felt like home.

you felt like home whenever he was around you, but those feelings could never be let out

or so you thought.

you finally made your way to utral aymokriyä (tree of voices), walking slowly through the bright, shining lights of the tree.

“we call these trees utral aymokriyä: the tree of voices.” you brought a string of leaves to your cheek, closing your eyes.

“the voices of our ancestors.”

the whispering of ancient na’vi voices could be heard as you continued to talk amongst them, acknowledging their presence in attendance.

jake stands closer to you now, brushing the tendrils away from your face to see you clearer.

clearing your throat, you turn yourself back around to avoid anything else to happen between the two of you. “you are omaticaya now. you may make your own bow from the wood of hometree.”

“and you may choose a woman.” your voice going dry, teary at most. your chest felt heavy, your heart nearly dropping to the bottom of your stomach.

“we have many fine women. ninat is the best singer-“

an expression of confusion can only make up jake’s face as he interrupts you before you could finish.

“i don’t want ninat.” he states strongly.

the attention was back onto you, struggling to come up with another reply. “there is beyral, she is a good hunter.” you said with your back faced towards him, refusing to show the sadness in your eyes.

he reached his hand out, intertwining his fingers into yours. “i’ve already chosen.”

“but this woman must also choose me.”

peering from your shoulder, you smile cheekily. squeezing his hand gently and pulling him into you. “what if i told you.”

you looked into his eyes, to his lips, down to your intertwined hands. was this really happening?

“she already has.”

sparks of happiness shot around like fireworks as he pulled you closer to his chest, gently sitting you onto his lap.

jake makes the first move, pressing a tender kiss to your lips. your hands explored his body, feeling up on the structure of his back.

his hands slipped down to the curve of your backside. you returned the favor, only kissing him even deeper.

the eagerness between the kisses shared were merely starved. he’s always loved you and he was longing to show you how much he really did love.

“kissing is very good, but we have something better.” you whispered against his lips, trailing kisses along his jawline.

you slowly pull away from his lips, already missing them. “closer, jake.”

taking the end of your queue, you raise it to him. he follows, doing the same.

you close your eyes, the feeling sending you nearly over the edge already.

the moss beneath your bodies glew, acknowledging the two souls that had finally connected to each other under its tree.

“y/n, kiss me.” jake licked his lips, wanting, needing to feel your lips against his again.

you obeyed his wishes, wrapping your arms around his neck and continuing where you left off.

quiet moans were shared as your tongues explored each other’s mouths, deciding whether or not to take it further.

his hips proved it positively, moving under you begging for some type of release.

“don't be afraid to touch me.” you mumbled, grabbing ahold of his wrist. you placed his fingers closer to your core, brushing against it.

a groan was heard by him, barely escaping. you were wet, he could feel it through the fabric.

the smell of your arousal only making him need you more.

his bulge grew harder beneath you, pressing up on your core as well. a faint moan fell from your lips at the feeling, rocking yourself on him.

“let me feel you.” you slipped your hand lower, wrapping your hands around his member.

he dug his face into your neck, hiding the volume of his pleasurable noises.

jerking him slowly, you swiped your thumb over the tip, collecting his pre-cum. “tell me,” you inched closer to his ear, licking the lobe. “tell me how much you want this, jake.”

kisses were left around the crown of his head, your other hand resting on the back of his neck. “tell me you want this as much as i do.”

his only response to you was barely words, just noises of pure bliss. it was the pure need for you to touch him, to feel you wrapped around him. he wanted to make love to you.

“y/n,” he managed to plead out, “i want this.” looking up at you, resting his arms around your waist.

you lined up his tip at your entrance, sinking down onto him slowly. his lips became a perfect fit with yours as they connected once again, tasting each other.

he sat inside of you perfectly, a perfect match of a puzzle piece. molded together out of love.

“jake.” you threw your head back in ecstasy, crying out for him.

his hands slid down to your hips, helping you ride yourself out on him. “damn,” he murmured, watching your body bounce on top of his.

sweat beading down your forehead. your knees digging into the moss as the rhythm of your pace quickened, his moans growing louder with each stroke.

your thighs started to tremble the faster you went, you could feel his nails digging into the flesh of your thighs. you swore you could touch the end of the universe, reach past the stars.

you could tell his release was nearing; profanities were heard besides your own noises, signaling for you to finish him off.

“tìyìng me ngeyä tìyawn.”

your nails left marks on his back as you felt your release chasing after his shortly.

clenching around him, you slowed down; savoring the moment.

wood sprites circle around their bodies, illuminating the scene.

their release hitting the highest of its peak about to collapse on top of each other. “give it to me.”

riding out the high, your breaths become short in time.

“oeng ulte oe, tì'i'avay krrä.”

[separatist-apologist]

Guilty As Sin

Summary: Rhys has been watching Feyre Archeron for a long time. Thinking about what he'd do if he ever had her. How he'd keep her.

And now he has her.

TW: Dubious consent, blood kink, knife play

Read On AO3

-

It would be, perhaps, Rhysand’s greatest triumph to kill Tamlin Rosewood. After all, Tamlin had set him down this path so many years before—when they’d been teenagers, two boys from questionable, if not wealthy homes, looking for something to make them feel alive. Tamlin had asked Rhys if he wanted to see something cool, and then let him watch as Tamlin sliced apart a local vagrant. It should have been horrifying. Disgusting.

And yet Rhysand had found the whole thing fascinating. More fascinating still was how easy it was to claim his first kill. Rhysand needed a moral code to keep himself in line, to keep from just jamming a blade into every person who passed him on the street. Tamlin had suggested it, too, perhaps recognizing Rhys’ propensity for violence. Or maybe he knew all too well how enjoyable snuffing out life was. How close to God it made Rhys feel.

Pick those that can fight back.

People who’ve wasted their life.

Do the world a  favor.

Of course they’d eventually turn on each other. How long before two serial killers realized the world might be better off without at least one of them? It had been a cat and mouse game ever since, trying to catch the other unaware and going to ground when they failed. Tamlin had come close a couple times while Rhys had mostly just watched.

Waited.

Bided his time until Tamlin genuinely believed himself to be a god. That Rhys was so afraid of him he wouldn’t dare. Tamlin had let his guard down just enough to find himself a girlfriend he apparently liked. And she, Rhys decided, was going to be how he finally killed Tamlin. Collateral in their feud, he told himself. After all, any woman dumb enough to fall for Tamlin wasn’t worth much. 

He’d looked her up—Feyre Archeron. Her profile picture on facebook was an artbrush, but she’d helpfully listed every job she’d ever had since high school—and there had been many. Rhys ran them all down until he got to the art studio she taught at and, because he liked a little drama in his life, signed him up for one of her intro classes. 

He had been unaware he would be the only adult in said class until a wave of bouncy, giggly children had stormed through the doors, taking seats at easels while their parents vanished. He could have slipped out—he’d meant to, he swore it. But Feyre Archeron had come waltzing in wearing a baby blue sweater, sleeves rolled to her elbows, the hem hanging just beneath her ass, and oh. Rhys stayed in his chair, if only to admire the curve of her hips in those cotton soft leggings.

She didn’t seem like Tamlin’s usual type. There was a softness to her features, a constellation of freckles dotted across her nose alongside a splatter of violet ink in those cerulean eyes, that made Rhys certain she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her full mouth curved into an easy smile, gaze settling on him.

“Did you mean to sign up for this?” she asked him, eliciting another round of giggles from the children. There was no malice to her words, playful and sweet. He wanted to put his hands on her. Was she corruptible? Oh, how Rhys wanted to find out. His plans reshaped themselves as they looked at the other, though Feyre didn’t know it. Killing her wasn’t an option, not anymore. No. He’d take her for himself, stripping Tamlin of everything he cared about before finally spilling his blood. And he’d start with perfect, pretty Feyre Archeron.

Rhys offered her a lazy smile, running a hand through his ebony hair. “My skill level is comparable, I’m certain.”

“I guess we’ll see,” she replied, her delight evident. Rhys felt her amusement reflected in his own body. When was the last time anyone had charmed him by sight alone? Nevermind how funny he found her, watching as she interacted with each student with the kind of unending patience he could only dream of. It begged the question—what did Tamlin want with her? He knew Tamlin, and of all the virtues Tamlin might claim to have, patience certainly wasn’t one of them.

He had a famously vicious temper. 

Did Feyre know her boyfriend was a serial killer? Did Tamlin know his girlfriend taught school children in her spare time? What would be more abhorrent to who? Rhys never managed to untangle that, just like he never managed to make his brush strokes half as nice as the eight year old beside him. Rhys lingered, waiting until the kids were gone and Feyre was cleaning up to say something to her.

“I’m not some kind of weirdo, I hope you know,” he began, drawing a pretty laugh from prettier lips. 

“No? I might have thought so if I hadn’t seen how abysmal you are with a brush. I teach preschoolers on Tuesdays. You might be better suited in that class.”

“You wound me, Ms. Archeron,” he replied, one hand pressed to his chest. “You didn’t like my house?”

“Oh, was that what it is?” she asked, squinting at his muddied colors on the paper. “I thought you were painting me a stormy sky.”

“I’ll paint whatever you tell me to,” Rhys quipped, noting how her cheeks flushed. No ring on her finger—god, but how incredible to seduce her out from under Tamlin’s nose. For Tamlin not to realize he was losing everything to his old nemesis. How long before Tamlin learned of Rhysand’s treachery? Rhysand was a patient man. It was one of his better qualities, few as they were.

He’d send Tamlin a wedding invitation inked in blood, fuck his new wife, and then, as a gift to her, bring her Tamlin’s still beating heart.

Wife? That was a weird thought.

Rhys cleared his head. He was merely excited at the prospect of punishing Tamlin—that was all. Feyre was beautiful, but hardly wife material. Besides, the kind of woman who spent her time teaching children to color within the lines didn’t want to get shackled to the likes of him. Not long-term, at any rate. Rhys had dated plenty of women, all of whom woke up one morning deeply unsettled and certain they were making a mistake. He couldn’t blame them—he would make an awful husband. 

A good lay, though? He could give her that. 

“Watch yourself Rhysand.”

“Come, now,” he said, rising from the little metal stool he’d been sitting on. She was so much smaller than him—lithe and lovely, so breakable in a way that made him want to be careful rather than rough. “Only my enemies call me Rhysand.”

“Fine. Watch yourself Rhys. I’ll think you’re flirting if you’re not careful,” Feyre said, twisting that thick, golden brown hair off her face with a paintbrush. Something within him stirred at the sight of wispy tendrils framing her face, fingers twitching with the urge to brush them from her cheekbones. 

“Careful isn’t how anyone who knows me would describe me. Besides…maybe I am flirting.”

This was the part where she told him she had a boyfriend. Rhys waited, catching the flicker of indecision streak over her features. He could practically hear her rationalizing it in her mind—there was no harm in a little flirting.

Oh, Tamlin. Rhys cocked his head. How far could he take this before she broke? If he could just get his hands into those tight leggings of hers, she’d forget all about that blonde haired bastard. C’mon, Rhys urged.

His silent plea fell on deaf ears. Too good for the likes of him, Feyre said, “Well, if you were flirting, I’d have to tell you that I have a boyfriend.”

“Lucky him,” Rhys replied, gut twisting despite his easy expression. “I know when I’ve been beat. See you around Feyre.”

And then he left, still smiling to himself as he went. She had no idea, of course. 

But Rhys would be seeing her very soon.

– 

Feyre stared down at the meal, ruined again. Behind her, Tamlin practically seethed with unseen anger. She could feel him working to leash his temper, to resist the urge to tell her I told you so.

I told you you’re a terrible cook.

“I’ll order dinner,” Tamlin said, ignoring the way Feyre blinked back tears. Bracing the ledge of the sink, she stared out the open window into the dark. She was trying—didn’t that matter? It wasn’t that badly burned, besides. They could have eaten around it. Feyre wished Tamlin would sit down, tell her it looked good, and eat it. Was that so much to ask? 

Apparently, given the heavy, long-suffering sigh from the man behind her. “You don’t need to try so hard, Feyre. You have me.”

“It’s—” She choked back the urge to scream that it wasn’t about impressing him. It was about care, about showing him that she loved him in some tangible way. Doing something for him so that he, in turn, might do something for her. Might do or say something that made her feel seen and safe. 

It had been a year of the stretching silence and the long sighs. Of not technically doing anything that would cause her to break up with her, all while giving off an air of not liking her very much. Well—that wasn’t fair. When the lights were out and they were in bed, Tamlin was very attentive. Detached, somehow—he never wanted her to look him in the eye—but he knew every place to touch and tease to make her writhe. And that was too often enough to convince her it was better to stay and hope whatever was bothering him faded and he went back to the love sick fool she’d first fallen in love with.

It didn’t help that Rhysand—Rhys—was still lodged firmly in her brain three days post meeting him. He’d been…well…he’d been beautiful. And charming. And funny, too. Endearing, even, as the kids teased him for his poor paint work. And when he’d said he was flirting, well…Feyre had imagined sending Tamlin a quick text message.

This is over. Don’t call me again. 

Throwing away a year on a man with a roguish smile seemed like a call for help. Still, he’d been on her mind, unshakable as her relationship with Tamlin stagnated like pond water. He ordered food without consulting her, ate it silently, all the while staring at his phone. He worked for a security firm and spent so much time watching the cameras, tracking people with a single-minded devotion she wished he’d focus on her.

“I’m going out,” he told her abruptly, only after Feyre had changed into a tiny slip of a nightdress, thinking she’d feel better if they at least had sex. His pine green gaze slid down her body without a hint of interest or appreciation. Just an acknowledgement that she had nearly every inch of her skin out for him before looking back to her face. “You can wait up, if you want.” How romantic, she wanted to scream. She felt utterly pathetic, a neglected housewife married for twenty years while her husband had an affair. Only Tamlin’s affair was with his job and Feyre would never come first. 

Say nothing, she ordered herself. And yet her traitorous lips said, “Couldn’t it wait another night?”

He regarded her without emotion. “It can’t. Get some sleep, Feyre. I’ll be in later.” Tamlin turned without a look back, swiping his car keys thrown haphazardly on the dresser, and strode from the room. Feyre didn’t, listening to the sound of the soft snick of the closing door and the sound of tires pulling away from the curb.

What was more pathetic, she wondered as she padded into the kitchen for a drink for water? Staying up late to seduce him, thus allowing him to have everything he wanted without doing any work at all, or staying with him when she was so miserable in the first place? Was this love?

Feyre didn’t get a chance to answer any of those questions. 

There, in the hall, stood a tall, muscular…man? They certainly seemed masculine, with broad shoulders that tapered into a rather nice waist beneath that high necked sweater. Matching black pants and a belt would have made him look rather nice, had he not been holding a massive, jagged knife in one gloved hand.

The ghost face mask obscuring his features didn’t help, either. Feyre didn’t move, heart hammering against her ribs. Scream. Run. Do something.

“There you are,” a deep, rich voice spoke from beneath the mask, “I’ve been looking for you.” 

“Don’t hurt me,” Feyre whispered, rooted in place as he made his way towards her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, drinking in the heady smell of his cologne and that horrible knife glinting beneath the artificial lights beaming overhead. 

With his free hand, he reached toward her and to her credit, Feyre didn’t flinch. She merely stood utterly still as he brushed his knuckles over her cheekbone before sliding his gloved thumb over her lip.

“Hurt you? Darling, I’m here to rescue you.”

Her brain couldn’t make sense of those dark words dripping with the promise of…the promise of what? Feyre tried a step backward, tripping over her own nervous feet to fall to the ground. The man lunged and she braced herself for the pain of his blade, for blood and misery before finally death. But all she found was fingers around her body, hoisting her into the air.

She flailed, heel connecting with his jaw. He swore and the two fell to the ground gracelessly a second time, him tearing her nightdress to keep her pinned beneath him.

“I do so like you like this,” he all but growled as she tried to yank that mask off his face. If she was going to kill her, she deserved to look him in the eyes. His fingers curled around her wrists, subduing her quickly—easily, before gathering both in one big, broad hand. The other came over her mouth and nose, cutting off her ability to breathe.

“Don’t fight me,” he whispered as she kicked out her legs from beneath him. Why was this happening? She was going to die. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

A tear slid down her cheek. How could he say that as he was suffocating her with his hand? She  continued to writhe, for all the good it did her, her screaming mind drowning out the words her attacker was saying. Lungs burning, desperately trying to gasp for air, Feyre couldn’t control her limbs. She felt herself getting dizzy, choking on her own pooling spit.

“I’m not going to kill you,” her attacker said, his voice far away. “Stop fighting me and I’ll remove my hand.” Her body went limp as she complied immediately, willing to do anything if it meant she could breathe again. And true to his word, her attacker removed his hand, letting her take a gasping, sobbing breath of air. 

“Good girl,” he praised softly, caressing her cheek a second time. “If you do everything I say, no one has to get hurt. Can you stand?”

“No,” Feyre said, eyes closed as she focused only on the sensation of air in her body. She wasn’t going to help him abduct her, besides. Not that it mattered. He had her wrists bound before he picked her back up like she was weightless to him, walking her toward her front door with ease.

“My boyfriend has cameras on the door,” she said, unsure if she was warning this man or helping him. “He’s going to see you.”

A chuckle rumbled from his broad chest. “Oh, I am well aware. Your boyfriend is too busy hunting tonight to check…and by the time he does, you and I will be long gone.”

The cool night air was like a caress against her clammy skin. Feyre saw the car—sleek and dark—parked so brazenly in the drive. 

“The police will find you,” she warned, deciding for a little boldness despite her swimming head and desperate desire to fall asleep.

“That would require Tamlin to call them…and he won’t. No, my darling—this is personal and you’re simply caught up in the middle of it. Now—can I trust you to behave in my back seat, or do you need to go in the trunk? I don’t want to put you back there…but I will.”

“What do you mean?” Feyre demanded, mind swimming.

“I mean, I don’t want to die on the road—”

“About hunting,” she interrupted, looking up at that ghostface mask. “About Tamlin not calling the police.”

Her attacker seemed to hesitate, muscles going taut beneath her. “I had a whole presentation planned. Why spoil it?”

“Tell me.”

“Your boyfriend is a killer—just like me. He taught me, in fact—or rather, we taught each other. He can’t involve the police without risking himself so he won’t.”

“Am I bait?”

“Oh, Feyre darling, you are so much more than that. For now, you’re merely my guest. Now—can I trust you in the car?”

Ferye closed her eyes. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to be careful. She had the thought just as her attacker laid her in the back of his car. She panicked, seeing him hovering over her, and immediately kicked him in the throat. He stumbled back as Feyre filled her lungs with air and screamed. She didn’t yell help—but screamed at the top of her lungs hoping a neighbor would come out.

“Fucking shit,” the kidnapper groaned, lunging forward. With her wrists bound, Feyre couldn’t do much, especially when he picked her back up. “Go ahead. Scream as loud as you want—-” She screamed directly against his ear, causing him to jerk back a step. He didn’t speak, merely popped his trunk and dumped her unceremoniously inside.

“Remember I tried,” he said before slamming it shut. Feyre immediately started looking for the little hatch that would open it, pulling it with her teeth.

The masked man was waiting, arms crossed over his chest. “Why must you make this difficult?”

“I hate you,” she bit back, heart racing in her throat. He only sighed before producing masking tape. After a moment, she found it pressed over her eyes and mouth before he bound her ankles, too.

“Open my trunk and roll out,” he dared her, the sound of his voice somehow more terrifying than the sight of him. “See how far that gets you.”

He slammed the trunk again, leaving Feyre alone in the dark. She screamed against the tape, trying to break it until her wrists were raw. He’d begun driving, the music faint through the fabric of the backseats. Would it have been smarter to pretend to be his friend? To lull him into a false sense of security? Feyre had never been particularly patient. In fact, she was spontaneous to a fault, acting without thinking and hoping it all worked out. Of course, that was for school assignments and ghosting friends—never because she’d been kidnapped.

Think, Feyre. 

She couldn’t, though. Not beyond her immediate problem, which was the tape over her mouth and eyes. If she could just get it off, Feyre thought she’d be able to think more clearly. Figure out a plan and execute it. She rubbed until her wrists ached and her head pounded, but at no point did she manage to do anything but chafe her skin, exhaling for air roughly through her nose. 

Eventually, the car came to a stop, the music cutting off abruptly. Lost to the dark, Feyre went limp as the sound of shoes on gravel flooded her senses. A moment later, cold air rushed into the trunk as hands lifted her in the air.

“You’re a terrible actress,” her captor murmured, his amusement plain. “I’m going to unbind you when we get inside. Are you listening to me? Nod your head.” Feyre did.

She heard the sound of numbers being keyed into a pad followed by the smell of warm cedar, drowning out the unmistakable scent of snow. Feyre was set on something soft—a sofa, before the tape was peeled off her eyes, and then her mouth. She was in a cabin, she realized. Well decorated and comfortable—and likely remote. Had he taken her up into the Illyrian Mountains?

“People will be looking for me—”

“No they won’t,” he replied smoothly, reaching for the edge of his mask. He was showing her his face? Feyre panicked—the only reason he’d do that was if he didn’t intend for her to tell anyone. She almost begged him not to, but a second later he’d peeled it back, revealing…well. Not what she’d imagined.

He was handsome, the asshole. Dark hair paired with eyes so blue they seemed violet were the first things she noticed. He was staring down at her, his sensual lips curled into a smile. The sharpness of his jaw and his high cheekbones gave him an almost aristocratic air, and his warm, brown skin was utterly unblemished and smooth. 

She’d been imagining him as some ugly man. This was worse, somehow. If he was caught, he’d have prison groupies. People would wonder if he’d really done anything horrible at all given how lovely he was to look at. That charming smile certainly didn’t help. 

"I remember you," she said. "From the art studio."

Rhys grinned. 

“Let me explain to you how things are going to work between us,” he began, running a hand through his thick hair. “There is nowhere for you to run, and if you try, you’re likely to plummet to your death or freeze before I find you. No one is looking for you. Repeat that as often as you need to. Tamlin will make all your excuses. He’s not going to rescue you. Until I’m done, you are at my mercy.”

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked, wishing she could curl herself into a small ball. 

He chuckled. “No, Feyre. I’m not going to kill you. I think we might get along perfectly well so long as you don’t do anything foolish.”

Like running away. The look on his face told her he expected her to. She didn’t have shoes, was dressed in a pair of leggings and an oversized t-shirt. She wouldn’t get far, but maybe he was lying. Maybe he banked on her fear to keep her compliant. 

He made a show of pulling a pocket knife from his pants and freeing her, frowning at her raw, bruised wrists. Feyre drew them against her chest, looking up at him warily. “What now?” He shrugged. “I don’t care what you do, so long as you remain within these walls.”

Fat chance of that. But Feyre nodded, hoping she looked properly scared. The cabin itself was small, and filled with cameras. He’d see her. Fine. He had to sleep at some point—he couldn’t be monitoring her all day, every day.

It was a bit of a stretch to call it a cabin given the home had two floors. It was remote, though, and seemed to function mostly off the grid, and had a rather nice kitchen she doubted he knew how to use. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a den he seemed to work out of—she wasn’t sure, given he didn’t open that door and merely gestured to it with a casual, don’t go in there.

Maybe it was where he tortured his victims. 

Feyre was given a room down the hall from him, devoid of a lock. “Look up,” he murmured, chin gutting toward the camera. “Wave to Tamlin.”

Feyre glanced up, unsure which of them she hated more. “He can see me?”

“He’ll see this,” Rhys murmured, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s easy enough to send it to him.”

“You could get back at him without involving me,” she heard herself say, wondering if that made her a traitor. This had nothing to do with her, and Feyre felt as if she was being punished unfairly for whatever was going on between Rhys and Tamlin. 

He shrugged. “Consider this a rescue.”

A rescue? Feyre was going to kill him. Maybe he saw it, because he nodded toward the twin bed shoved in the corner. “There’s some clothes in the closet you can use—”

“Who did they belong to?” she demanded, heart leaping in her throat.

“My cousin,” he replied, eyes narrowed. As if he were offended she might suggest there’d been another captive in the room. Feyre didn’t want to think about that—it made her panic all over again. 

Rhys left after a few more self satisfied words around how he’d find her if she tried to escape so not to bother. Feyre wasn’t listening, already thinking about escaping through the window. Was it locked? Her bedroom door wasn’t, which felt like a test. Was he hoping she’d try and escape? 

Feyre sat on the edge of that bed and talked herself into her plan. Ignoring that it was cold and isolated and that she was woefully unprepared, Feyre instead thought about Rhys.

He wasn’t a god. He was only a man. He might have cameras on her, might have her watched, but he couldn’t search miles and miles of forest. The only advantage he had, supposedly, was that he knew she was missing before anyone else did. Feyre had grown up running through the backwoods and something about the slick way Rhys had his hair shoved off his stupid, too-perfect, face, told her he could not boast the same.

Feyre found booties in the back of the closet, and a million pairs of leggings hanging in the closet besides sweaters that were far too big for her frame. They’d double as a blanket, she decided as she pulled it all on. 

He was probably watching her. Feyre turned toward the camera and the blinking red light and offered her middle finger before throwing open that window. 

“For fucks sake!” Rhys’s voice called from somewhere inside the cabin. Feyre scrambled out the window, toppling feet over head into the frigid snow. Rhys’s fingers skimmed her ankle, attempting to drag her back inside. 

Scrambling to her feet as he came right out behind her in that stupid mask, Feyre realized it was a lot harder to run in snow than she’d expected. She had a head start on him for a solid ten seconds before he slammed into her, taking them both back to the ground. Rhys was made of solid muscle and was heavy. 

His bare hand wrapped around her throat, arching her neck upward until his lips touched her ear. “I told you not to,” he said as she writhed beneath him, desperately trying to get out from under him. 

“I don’t care what you say!” Feyre screamed. Rhys grabbed her arms, holding them in one broad hand as he restrained her thoroughly.

“You will—” he began, but Feyre head butted him, earning a furious curse in her ear. He half fell to his side, losing his grip on her wrists, which gave her time to scramble back to her feet. Rhys was just behind, grabbing her around her middle before hauling her up on his shoulder.

Feyre screamed, and though Rhys stumbled, he didn’t drop her like she’d hoped he would. 

“Scream all you want,” Rhys roared in response, as if he needed to make his point. “No one can hear you!”

“Tamlin is going—”

“He’s not coming!” Rhys interrupted, his fury finally scaring her. She hadn’t been frightened before—not truly. But right then, draped over Rhys’s shoulder while he wore that mask in the dark, his voice dripping with condemnation, Feyre was frightened. He sounded irate, dragging her back into that cabin with sure steps.

He didn’t take her back to that same room. Instead, Rhys dropped her into a different one—one that looked distinctly lived in. One that belonged to him, she realized. Feyre attempted to scramble up but Rhys was consistently faster. He had one leg, and then the other bound to the posts at the end of the footboard.

He sat on the bed beside her, laptop resting on his thigh. He pulled that mask up over his face, tossing it to the bed beside her. 

“Look for yourself,” Rhys snarled, shoving the open messages on the screen in front of her face. “Look and see how much he loves you.”

There were a slew of messages between them, and yet Feyre’s eyes snagged only on one.

Kill her then. 

She waited to see if she’d cry, but nothing came. “You’re lying.”

“He’s not coming for you,” Rhys informed her, eyes bouncing over her face as if he were searching for something. “This is between us, and you’ve become collateral.”

“Then why don’t you kill me?” Feyre snapped, yanking at her ankles trapped in the leather cuffs. They were bondage cuffs, she realized, rather than handcuffs. 

“Why would I kill you?” he replied, cocking his head to the side. “Tamlin might not be mounting some heroic rescue, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t view you as his. His little toy to play with until he gets tired of her…” Rhys murmured, sliding the side of his finger along her neck. “I’m not supposed to touch.”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”

“I asked you not to leave,” he continued, ignoring her plea as his fingers made their way down her shoulder. “Left the door open so you knew you could move freely through the house. You’re so desperate to get back to him, but I know what he does to pretty little things like you. Where they end up. How their families mourn.”

“Stop,” she whispered, unsure which terrified her more—his touch, or the threat of what Tamlin might eventually do.

Rhys caught her wrist, binding it over her head before Feyre’s mind could catch up with his actions. She was wholly restrained and he was holding a knife as he walked around the bed. 

“You’re still bait,” he murmured, one hand sliding over a wooden bedpost. “He can see us right now, you know. He’s watching, hoping I’ll kill you before you tell me something you shouldn’t.”

“He doesn’t tell me anything,” she whispered, trying in vain to wriggle away. 

“If you didn’t know anything, he wouldn’t have responded at all. He’s slipped up—you know something,” Rhys declared, running the sharp edge of his blade across her leggings. The fabric snagged, ripping neatly from ankle to waistband.

“I swear I don’t,” she protested as cool air caressed over her now exposed thighs. He wasn’t done as he ruined that oversized blue sweater, too, leaving her in nothing but the shredded remains of fabric. Violet eyes swept over her now naked form and rather than sadistic amusement, Feyre swore she saw unguarded desire staring back at her.

“You do,” Rhys murmured, pausing between her legs. She tried to hide herself from view, but she was restricted by the restraints. “You just don’t remember.”

“How is this supposed to help?”

“Who said anything about helping?” Rhys questioned, tossing his knife beside his mask. The weapon left a small impression atop the black duvet, sharp end pointing toward her ribcage as if to warn her not to try anything.

Feyre pulled against her restraints, for all the good it did her. “Then what are you doing?”

“I’ve been watching you for a long time,” Rhys told her without moving. He did, however, gesture behind him to a wall half hidden in shadow. There, hanging in a gold frame, hung a familiar work of art. Her first ever painting sold—it was a moody seascape Tamlin had accused of being cliche. She’d been brand new, and yet talented enough to be accepted into a showing where an anonymous buyer had overpaid for it.

Feyre still had that first check tucked away in a desk drawer, and when she felt overwhelmed or dejected, she’d pull it out to look at. That same buyer had purchased something from every collection she’d done, always paying far more than she was asking. 

“That was you?”

“I have an eye for beautiful things you know,” he informed her, his gaze a brand against her skin. 

“You’re jealous?”

“Desperately,” he replied without irony. “It’s always been like that between us. He has everything I want.”

“Rhys,” she whispered, unable to look at him anymore. She wanted to tell him not to do this, and didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid. 

“He’s watching,” Rhys told her, glancing over his shoulder. “Keeps hacking into my system to see what you’re doing. Will you smile for him, Feyre? Let him think you’re happy?”

“Just let me go,” she pleaded as her captor slid to his knees between her legs. “I won’t say anything.”

“I can’t,” he murmured, lips ghosting over sensitive skin. “I want to keep you.”

Alive, was the unspoken word between them. Did he realize that was a low bar? A bar already set in hell, so far beneath his feet there ought to be no trouble clearing it. And yet…Feyre turned her head as he kissed up his leg, stomach tight from anxiety. 

“Like this?”

He shrugged. “I’d untie you, but I think you’d kill me with your bare hands if I did.”

“I think you’d like it,” she shot back, squirming when she felt his warm breath tease between her legs. 

“I’m hard just thinking about it,” he agreed with a grin. 

His tongue slid up the center of her pussy before Feyre could think of a good comeback. She yelped, trying—and failing—to escape the feeling. It had been too long since someone had done this for her, which was how Feyre explained the bolt of lust racing through her. He didn’t stop, eyes pinned to her face to see if she liked what he was doing.

Feyre was resolved not to react. Men always tired of this act after a minute or two, doubly so when they weren’t being catered to on their back, but instead forced to kneel. It was easy, at least in the beginning, to ignore his tongue teasing her clit. She thought about how cold the snow had been when she’d fallen out the window and reminded herself he’d shoved her in a trunk. That he was a killer, too, and toying with her boyfriend.

Or ex-boyfriend. Feyre wasn’t really sure what they were anymore. She supposed they were over, given he’d told Rhys to kill her. Feyre’s eyes slid to the camera in the corner of the room and somehow, she could feel him watching. Could feel his anger, too—as if this were all her fault. As if she’d kidnapped herself, tied herself up, and was now being forced into pleasure, too.

Are you happy now? Feyre wanted to scream it. 

“Eyes on me,” Rhys growled, forcing her to look back down at him. How long had it been, anyway? Her body hummed at the loss of contact, proving that though she was trying not to feel anything, she couldn’t block him out entirely.

“You’re wasting your time,” she whispered.

“All my time belongs to you now,” was his frustrating reply. He returned his tongue back to her pussy and this time, though she tried, Feyre couldn’t refocus on anything but his touch. It was all wrong—his mask lay on the bed, the knife still pointed toward her, inches away from her exposed skin.

For all she knew, he was lying to her and would kill her when he finished.

“Please stop,” she whispered, pulling on her restraints.

“Come, then,” he said in response, his voice muffled. 

Feyre didn’t want to come. For a while, she writhed against her restraints until he physically pinned her to the bed, holding her still so he could continue his slow torture. Feyre thought he liked when she fought him—that he wanted to bring her under submission. She held herself back, whimpering from the effort as she counted in her head. 

“Do you need a distraction?” Rhys murmured when he heard her reciting the ingredients to a recipe. “Something to turn off that meddling brain of yours?”

“No,” she gasped, but he was on his feet, hands undoing his dark trousers. “I don’t need—I’m fine, I’ll finish—”

“I know you will,” he replied, pulling his long, thick cock from his pants. Feyre couldn’t not look at it as Rhys moved around the bed, extending his restraints so he could reposition her. Feyre fought him, slapping Rhys hard in the face when he undid her arms. He grunted but didn’t react other than to sigh, his frustration plain. With the longer rope, he could tie her hands to the bedposts without overextending her arms while her head now hung off the edge of the bed.

“I won’t,” she informed him.

“You will,” Rhys replied, pinching her nose when she pressed her lips together. As he waited for her to take a breath, he rubbed his cock over her cheek while his other hand slid across her breasts to play with her nipples.

Feyre tried—oh, how she tried—but in the end, she had to take a gasping breath of air. He pushed the head of his cock between her teeth, not caring when sensitive flesh scraped roughly against the jagged edges. The hand that had once pinched her nose now held her throat, squeezing just enough to warn her not to try and bite. 

She did anyway.

“Don’t do that again,” he warned, taking his knife and resting it on her stomach. Feyre didn’t believe he’d use it until he took the hilt and began using the smooth silver to tease against her clit.

She couldn’t argue with him, mouth filled with his cock. She widened her jaw to take a breath as he angled his hips, pushing himself further until he was backed up against her throat. Feyre gagged lightly, praying he wouldn’t keep going. 

She didn’t want to throw up.

Clearly neither did Rhys. Groaning softly, he whispered, “You suck so well.”

She wasn’t doing anything, really—Rhys moved his hips, setting the pace so he could fuck her mouth. Feyre screamed around him when she felt him push the hilt of the knife into her body so he, too, could fuck her with it. He’d been right about one thing—sucking his cock kept her focused on what was happening between her legs. She could think of nothing else, her mind torn between the air coming into her lungs and what Rhys was currently doing with his mouth. 

With his legs spread, he’d returned to licking her clit, focused wholly on that and nothing else. How did he not cut himself on the blade, she wondered as she tried to wriggle the knife out of her pussy.

It didn’t work. Whatever he was doing, he was skilled. Feyre was reacting, her body tightening around the hilt of the blade thanks to the skill of his tongue. Rhys groaned when she sucked in more air than she’d meant to, lips forming a seal around his shaft.

“Just like that baby,” he moaned before picking up his pace. She was going to come and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Feyre tried, eyes leaking from the cock bruising her throat as saliva dripped down her neck. He was going to come, too.

Quick, she realized with some relief. He was timing himself with her, well aware she was close to completion. At least he wouldn’t draw it out? Or he had something else planned. Feyre didn’t know.

Didn’t want to know.

Didn’t want to admit that this was the best she’d felt in a long, long time. How fucked up was it that she hadn’t been able to get off for months, and now, tied up and forced, she was careening toward the sort of pleasure that threatened to unmake her. Was this how stockholm syndrome worked? Her body, flooded with pleasure, began to think that maybe it wasn’t so bad to be stuck here with him.

“Keep sucking,” Rhys moaned again, his hips losing some of their controlled rhythm. Maybe it was better to just get it over with. Feyre sucked around him, though she refused to move her head and help him.

Rhys licked faster, moving in precise circles until her hips began to roll into him, chasing the inevitable. Feyre clenched, finding purchase on the hilt of the blade. Rhys rubbed it just against the perfect spot, his tongue unwavering and Feyre was undone. She screamed around his cock, body bowing off the bed and directly into his mouth. She heard him curse though she didn’t care, half ruined from the pleasure now ribboning through her. Feyre was a star, white hot as it erupted over a silent sky.

She’d forgotten, just for a second, he still had his cock buried in her throat. With a twitching jerk, Rhys came into her throat, his come spilling out the sides of her mouth to join the mess of spit pooling along her collarbone. 

Panting, he pulled himself out of her to show her the knife coated in her own release and dripping with blood. His blood, she realized with alarm, noting the gash sliced over his palm.

“I got too excited,” he breathed, wiping it over her naked breasts. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful.”

“Untie me,” she whispered, tugging against the restraints. “Please, untie me—”

Despite his injured hand, Rhys was quick about it, undoing her hands first, and then her feet. She’d told herself she was going to hit him for what had just happened, but instead Feyre merely sat up while he stepped out, half naked from the waist down, only to return with a warm rag he used to wipe up the mess of come and blood. 

“I’m not going to kill you,” he whispered into her hair, pulling her against his chest. 

Feyre looked up at him, unsure if she believed him. “Tamlin told you to.”

“I wouldn’t kill my worst enemy to satisfy him.”

She swallowed. “And…if I wanted to kill him?”

Rhys grinned. “Say less, pretty baby. Say less.”

[tulliok]

we stopped watching around the later seasons and barely remember what happened in them so we're encouraging you to talk about what you dislike or want to criticize

Got asked, so here’s my abridged season 8-9 thoughts.

As someone who grew up watching the show from the beginning, I have a lot of gripes with how “friendship” is defined as a power-up or a material resource. However, it really wasn’t that big of a deal because I understand that MLP is a show targeted towards young girls that enjoy playing with toys, and the show was able to still portray realistic and educational lessons. 

The introduction of a friendship school in season 8 was a poor decision for so many reasons. Narratively, it locks our main characters into a single location, and we go from having a cast with unique occupations and storylines… to one where all six share the same responsibilities as an instructor and tackle the same lessons. Especially when some of them don’t seem like the type to enjoy teaching at all.

But the biggest issue I have is that the school validates the show’s idea that friendship is a unique resource that has to be taught, and that comes with a load of problematic implications. To get to the worst one right away, the school came packaged with a storyline about xenophobia and Equestria’s prejudice against their foreign neighbors. The coding of non-pony species in the show has always had weird racial implications (yaks and dragons being depicted as loud, unintelligent barbarians, the buffalo and Zecora representing members of real marginalized groups), but it is made even worse in this season by depicting them as people that are uneducated and need to be taught basic social skills and lessons in a foreign land. The Friendship School is literally a project designed by Twilight to spread Equestria’s idea of friendship to other countries! On top of that, they introduce what is essentially a conservative, white supremacist pony as a villain, and to beat him Twilight needs to prove that the exchange students are worthy of being taught. I really don’t think I need to explain why this is extremely weird and shouldn’t even be in the show in the first place.

I love the show because of episodes like Amending Fences, Leap of Faith, and No Second Prances—episodes that teach children that relationships aren’t big battles of morality and power but are complicated experiences that everyone has a unique response to. These experiences cannot be taught in a school with sewing lessons and apple picking and taking exams. They are also not unique to any particular community or race—that is a fact of life that most children should immediately understand. It’s extremely disheartening watching the show regress to the point where Rarity is telling a young girl that her cultural costume isn’t pretty enough and she’s dolling her up in wigs to cover her braids and giving her etiquette lessons to “fit right in." I don’t care that the moral was that she was wrong; what’s wrong is that the show even bothered making episodes like this at all. 

Season 9 concludes with a happy ending where all is well, but it isn't because the young child villain, the one character that needed friendship lessons and the grace to grow up, was turned into a garden accessory without a second thought. All while surrounded by the redeemed villains that the series arbitrarily decided were more worthy of our sympathy.

I don’t want to overwhelm anyone with my opinions and I want to be as fair as possible about what made me so uncomfortable with the show’s conclusion. I am a longtime fan, but I also care a lot about children’s media being responsible with their messaging, especially when they tackle subjects that require a great level of care, such as race and relationships. MLP (whether older fans like it or not) is ultimately a show about teaching children valuable social skills and providing moral lessons with every adventure.

I doubt this mixed messaging was intentional on the writer’s part. Rather, the last seasons were recklessly handled. To a viewer’s eyes, there isn’t a difference between these two.

[sunandsstars]

HIS FORTRESS

Jake x Neytiri x Na’vi!Reader

Summary: When finding out the expansion of his family Jake became ecstatic, his favourite girls were bearing his children. But Neytiri found his excitement annoying, pregnant woman right? Warnings: Pregnancy, Mentions of hunting/dead animals Word count: 2.3k

Happiness is simple.

Jake followed the same routine every day since the war, it was always wake up, give his mates kisses on the cheeks then getting ready to start the day as clan leader. He always started with learning from Mo’at about being Olo’eyktan and the spirit of Eywa, even though he has been Omaticaya for a few months there is still much to learn. Then he goes hunting with the other warriors in the forest, after catching prey it was eat then spend time with his girls.

While it wasn’t unheard of for a tri-relationship in Na’vi culture, it was extremely rare. Mo’at says they must be blessed by their great mother to continue with the ritual, and bless them Eywa did.

Neytiri was the first one to find and welcome him to the clan, she taught him the ways of the people and bonded with him under the tree of voices. Jake thought that one mate was it, they are bonded for life and needed no other. But along came ___, she was the same age as Neytiri at the time and a good friend to her.

They both went to Grace Augustine’s school when they were children, they played together and was raised together as friends. But Neytiri always stated she felt something different when around her, something she always felt around Jake. Never with Tsu’tey and never with any other men or women in the clan.

___ was sweet, she was a skilled hunter and a warrior, already passing her Uniltaron when she was of age to. Jake saw why Neytiri liked her, and decided to get to know her himself. As time did pass by over the weeks he fell more and more in love, with both woman. Neytiri, Jake and ___ bonded under the tree of souls. A union that could not be forgotten.

“Ma Jake?” a tired voice broke out from the hammock, “what are you doing up so early?” ___ sat up and rubbed her eyes, yawning and glancing at how the sun just started revealing itself over the planet they orbited.

“I was just thinking, yawnetu” he reached over and grabbed the back of her head, pulling her flush to his chest and kissing her hair. “Besides, our wife wants us up to hunt. Remember? she has been craving a lot of strange things lately…” he glanced to where Neytiri usually slept beside her and found the space already empty, assuming the woman was down in the forest already.

“You can go without me. I am too tired” ___ snuggled deeper into her mates side, breathing in his scent. Jake however, looked at her with raised brows, she never passed the opportunity to hunt with her partners. ‘Maybe she really is just tired’ he didn’t want to worry himself with anything too deep and slowly moved her arm to get out of bed. His mate scooted to where he slept and snuggled into the warm spot, tail curling around her body.

Jake chuckled and put on his cumberband, grabbing his knives and making sure they’re sharp enough he strolled out their hut, climbing down the tree branches and landing to the ground. He sniffed and looked around, saying good morning to the already awake Na’vi and humans. Walking towards a part of the forest he saw a footprint and went to track it.

Jumping above roots and ducking under others the Olo’eyktan moved around skilfully. Dreads swinging from side to side, ‘man i should have put it up’ he groaned in annoyance. Usually Neytiri had a band on her and would put it up for him and he was thinking of asking her, but he’d have to find her first.

He stopped in a clearing where the footprints disappeared and found no dented grass or snapped twigs. His trail was lost. He stomped his foot like a child, Neytiri must’ve gone up but he couldn’t track her like that. A hand slapped the back of his head and he screeched in shock. Whipping around he came face to face his his other mate.

“Like a baby” she tsked in English, having seen him throw his mini tantrum. Jake’s cheeks flushed, he was a leader, a warrior and yet sometimes he acted like a child, he was silly and his head sometimes became airy, easily forgetting customs and rules he was taught. Norm called him a himbo, whatever that meant. “Come” snapping out of his thoughts he was dragged away from their spot and towards the river that was nearby, seeing two dead yerik with an arrow lodged in each neck “I need help with bringing these back to the clan”

‘Jeez how long has she been up’ he scratched his head and tilted it to the side, staring at the hexapedes in thought. He walked up to one and his mate the other, grabbing the animal and hauling it over his shoulder. Grunting at the weight of it he watched Neytiri tie up its legs and do the same, the two slowly walking back home. Jake pouting the whole way, he didn’t even get to shoot anything…

___ was up and about, the sun high in the sky and shining down on the Na’vi that resided by Hellsgate. She was helping with simple chores, deciding to take rest and not do any extraneous activities. Mo’at has let her know of joyous news and told her to take it slow today as the elder can see the exhaustion on her daughter in laws face.

Hearing yipping she turned to the sound, seeing her mates back from their hunt with two large yeriks on their backs. She dropped her basket of fruits and rushed towards them, some hunters already grabbing the animals and prepared them to skin. “‘Tiri” she hugged her mate, excited to finally have seen her this morning. Waking up without her was upsetting, she usually liked basking in the warmth of both of her mates and not just one.

“Yawntutsyìp” Neytiri responded back, wrapping her arms around her mate and kissing her unbraided hair. She would have to redo it for her. Jake watched in great love, and a little bit of jealousy. So he intervened and grabbed ___, wrapping his own arms around her. Neytiri glared at him.

“Hey now, where’s my greeting hmm?” he nuzzled his face against her hair and breathed in, the scent of Pandoran flowers hitting his nose. ___ giggled at the look Neytiri was giving him, she always found their little rivalry funny.

“My beloved, we greeted each other this morning. ‘Tiri and I have not until now” the woman in his arms gently pushed him away and went back to their wife’s arms.

The Tsakarem smirked at their husband and he only stuck his tongue out in retaliation, “nì’eveng” she rolled her eyes.

“Why have you gone out so early?” ___ interrupted and moved away to glance up at the other woman, raising her eyes and giving her a knowing look. She knew the condition Neytiri was in, it was the same as her but a few days further along. But her wife did not know that she was the same, having been a recent discovery. Jake did not know at all about either of them. Men.

“I was craving yerik and decided to catch two for us and share with the clan” to be honest she just wanted the yerik for herself, selfishly. But her wife and clan came first, even if she knew the rest of the hunting party were out now gathering more meats. ___ thanked her and held her hand, turning to their husband who was still pouting at them.

“I want some too…”

“No”

___ laughed and dragged Neytiri away before she could evoke more chaos, leaving Jake who was called by his human friends. “I have some news my love” she started when they where further away, bringing Neytiri’s hand to her belly she grinned.

The Na’vi could only blink, staring at her hand in silence. Then she grinned and giggled “I cannot believe it”

“Believe it”

“We are both..at the same time..the great mother has truly blessed us” She pulled her wife closer and put their foreheads together and breathed in, closing her eyes “oel ngati kameie”

Jake could only watch from across the camp in confusion, ‘was their separation really that much of a big deal? Women’ his tail hit Norm behind him who was out of his avatar, deciding to go human for the morning. “Hey!” he complained and swatted the appendage that was still hitting him “what’s gotten you so worked up?”

“You see my mates over there? Why are they acting so lovey dovey”

Norm and Max turned to one another and deadpanned “Buddy..they’re mates. It’s normal”

“But i’m their mate and i’m not getting any attention” he pouted. Norm could only roll his eyes and slapped the aliens leg, Jake turned to look down at him in question.

“Lemme get into my avatar, then we can go have bro time. Max, link me up”

Jake and Norm strolled through the foliage, after breakfast the clan separated to do some more chores like cleaning, making clothes or patrolling the area. They’re not in hometree anymore, being out in the open could be dangerous for them.

“So, any idea of why my wives are basically disowning me?” Jake started, thinking back to breakfast when the two woman where basically all over each other, whispering loving words and piling food onto one another’s leaves.

“Women are complicated, maybe something major happened for them to act this way” Norm thought back through his Pandoran knowledge, trying to remember anything about Na’vi females and their biology.

“Maybe.. I mean Neytiri said she was craving yerik and woke up at fuck knows what time in the morning to catch them. And ___ was too tired to do anything physical at all” Jake huffed and sat down on a large rock, picking a fruit that was nearby and tearing into it, throwing one at Norm who barely caught it.

The avatar then realised the fuss, the cravings, the fatigue. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, but then again Jake has a below average IQ…

“I think you should talk to them” Norm finally concluded, he won’t tell his companion directly, it wasn’t his place to say, he bit into the fruit and watched Jake. The Olo’eyktan nodded and stood up, patting Norm on the shoulder and leading them back.

“I just hope they’re ok”

“By the sounds of it i’m sure they’re more than ok”

The two woman devised a plan together, they would tell Jake then announce it to the rest of the clan tonight. They could not wait any longer.

They were sat waiting in their pod, chatting and updating their song beads, one more to signify their new journey into motherhood. Jake rounded the corner and barged in, his feet slapping onto the ground heavily. “So you two gonna tell me what’s going on?” ‘smooth Jake smooth’ he mentally scolded himself, coming across as too harsh.

Neytiri just threw a piece of twine at him “mawey ma Jake”. ___ stood up abruptly and padded towards her husband ears wiggling and head spinning, she was nervous. Telling Neytiri was one thing, but telling Jake was another.

“Ma Jake..we have something to share with you” the man in question raised an eyebrow, finally he was gonna get some answers to their weird behaviour. ___ grabbed his hand and rested it upon her still flat tummy, pressing it into her a little so he could feel the tiniest bump in her skin.

Jake blinked.

He blinked again.

Then he grinned “No way” he pressed again into his mates stomach and laughed out in glee when he felt it more. ___ nodded and beckoned their other mate towards them, grabbing his other hand and holding it to his other wife’s tummy. If Jake’s grin could get any wider it had “No way” he voiced again in disbelief.

“Srane skxawng” Neytiri hit his head lightly, chuckling at his expression. He felt tears well up in his eyes, he had two kids on the way. His wives were both pregnant, at the same time. It was a miracle.

“Jake?” ___ saw the tears in his eyes and cupped his cheeks, her face contorting into worry “nga tam?”

“yawne, oe nì’ul to tam” He grabbed his girls and nuzzled them, kissing both of their heads, cheeks and lips. Crying out of happiness, he gives his thanks to their deity “irayo si Eywa”

Their clan held a great feast that night, their leader was starting his own family, two children on the way was a blessing and their Tsahìk made sure to say great prayers over the fire.

Jake was in bliss, his hands never left Neytiri’s or ___’s tummies. Not even to eat, the latter having to pop food into his mouth every so often to make sure he doesn’t starve. Neytiri could only slap her tail against his back at his silliness, but she cannot deny the happiness she felt in that moment for her mates.

“Oe tsìlpey fi’u ‘evenge” the love struck man tapped Neytiri’s belly with his hand, she merely spared him a glance and waved him off, disagreeing entirely.

“It will be boy. I can feel it”

___ finished her food and rested her head against her mate, the glow of the fire making her look ethereal “yes, he will be strong warrior. Like his father” Jake just sniffed in reply, feeling more tears come up. The woman on his other side hit him on the shoulder and called him a weakling.

But he couldn’t ask for anything more, this was his family. His fortress. He wasn’t gonna let anyone else take it away from him.

Norm sat on the opposite side of the fire, giving his bro a solid nod in approval. He knew it all along, never doubt the mind of a scientist.

[unknownfortuna]

Your Mom

The moon represents many things in our life- including how we viewed our mom. Below is a list of both evolved and unevolved traits you've seen in the relationship with your mom (or whoever you considered as your mom:)

*If you have this sign in the 4th house these traits may apply as well*

Aries Moon- You seen your mom as a hothead. She could've had a reason to fight (or not) but either way everyone knew how she felt.. which was usually anger first. She was a leader and pioneer in her family. The first to do things like starting a family or challenging views on how women 'should' act. She may have been incredibly athletic or just had an explosive energy and confidence about her. At times you may have felt like you were siblings due to her childlike way of acting out her emotions. As she ages, the fire she carries within her only seems to shine brighter when compared to people to her age group.

Taurus Moon- Material possessions, your appearance, status, and the things you need to be stable were a huge part of your conversations. It may have felt like your mom would put these things before you. An unevolved manifestation of this would be having to go without certain necessities (like a new pair of shoes) at the cost of her wanting something for herself that would bring more stability/status (vacation, car, house). Overall, you were taught the necessities in life and how to acquire them- through slow and steady work.

Gemini Moon- The gift of gab. Knowing when to speak, how to speak, and who to speak to were lessons taught. She was incredibly witty and knew how to steal an audience. Unfortunately, conversations may have felt superficial and a bit lighthearted. It may also be hard to navigate certain conversations. Any conversation can be started but it may not go the way you would like. This may have caused you to realize your emotional wellbeing is something you had to navigate by yourself in private. There may be a delay in your decision-making skills and ability to commit to things because of this.

Cancer moon- The nurturer and the protector were two roles your mom played. You may have felt as if her emotions were something that dictated the way she moved when it came to her decision making. I would also argue that it may have been hard to hide things from her. Cancer is at home in this planet and whether it came in a feeling or a certain look you gave her- the slight inflection in your voice- she knew. Family is incredibly important to her and just like the hearth of the home, your mom is the center of the family.

Leo Moon- Your mom was always in the center of everything. A negative manifestation of this could be never feeling like anything in your life was truly private. Somehow details would be leaked, and you realized it was because of your mom. Having fun and somehow feeling like adventures with her was never ending that you became a huge adult child that continues to express yourself unapologetically is another trait. You understand how to enjoy life and express yourself in some artistic way....Mostly through your clothes and hairstyle.

Virgo Moon- You have stomach issues like your mom. Dieting, health, paranoid convos ('You're in the prime age group for kidnappings!') are normal topics you discuss. She may have been a health nut and caused you to go through an accidental eating disorder or two. Overall, the conversations had to do with routine/ health and how you could improve in some way. Also being overly critical of each other and those around you was a bonding activity:)

Libra moon- You were taught how to negotiate, be the perfect child/person, and charm your way in an ugly situation. I feel like I have seen many libra moon children view their mom as two faced. She had one mask for her home and another for the public. You could never put your finger on why you thought she was fake or why the perception of another person talking about her was so off but there you go. Passive aggressiveness is an unevolved trait with a libra moon but this was a normal form of communication with your mom! it didn't have to be a screaming match in order to understand when your mom was voicing her disapproval... You can read between the lines.

Scorpio moon- Control and power plays. Whether it was because your mom viewed you as something she always wanted or you were her last shot at molding a child into what she wanted, you always felt like she wanted to control you more than she wanted to listen to you. She talked at you and planned things out without your knowledge. Secrets behind who your mom is will constantly reveal themselves to you. There is an intense bond between the two of you that you may never be able to explain to others. Female rage is something you have seen play out by your mom many times. At times it may seem like you only know her true dark side.

Sagittarius Moon- Your connection with your mom can feel almost spiritual. Sometimes you may feel as if you were placed in this world to guide her more than she may guide you. You are a bundle of joy and may have been seen as a jokester to her. An unevolved trait could be your mom not exercising her intellectual capabilities or misusing them for a life of leisure instead. This could also hint at you not being too close with her due to her constantly traveling and leaving you in someone's care or circumstances out of her control which separated the two of you.

Capricorn moon- Your mom may have been seen as an authority figure in your life. Life is hard/unfair the best you can do is learn how to remain calm and collected when things are falling apart. It seems like a huge reason for your mom seeming to be 'cold' is because your father figure was the opposite- a disciplinarian turned temperamental man. With time you start to see your mom more as a human rather than this authority figure who expects you to take on the responsibilities life gives...Whether or not you asked for them. Independence is learned, not taught however, your mistakes will be focused on more than your successes.

Aquarius moon- You could have felt like your mom was a bit odd. She was disciplined about certain things that didn't seem to matter but oddly lenient about others. It felt like the 'rules' were not clear and it got to a point where you started doing your own thing, after all, if you're going to be painted as a rebellious child, why not fit that? Communication through technology could be something used when it comes to your mom. Perhaps she was physically distant from you at times and this was how you continued to keep in touch. She has her own hobbies as well as a taste for the eclectic. While her hobbies may stay in the same realm she just....gets weirder as she ages.

Pisces Moon- The intuition you have of your mom and vice versa is something that is truly divine. You feel her emotions as if they were your own. Your feelings tend to be enmeshed and it's hard to figure out where you truly stand when near her. She could also deal with substance abuse (usually drinking)...Or just running away when problems arise. You may view her as someone who has a tendency to stay the victim of circumstances when the reality is...She's doing it to herself. She could also be lover of art (especially music/poetry). As much as she tries to help others, sometimes you may wish she would help herself first.

'Let divine order pick the perfect place that's meant to be mine. Bring the home that's right for me.'

[melanirana]

Hi! If it's not a spoiler, I was curious about your ocean symphony fiasco Eclipse. What happened to his partner? I'm assuming he had one because he has children, Sun and Moon.

So, before I stat some context about me. I’m Autistic with a dash of ADHD and I really like animals and their biology.

Let’s talk this AU’s Mer biology and mating patterns.   

Mer are pack hunters and live in schools with up to 50 members. Solidary Mers are as rare as they are big, Mers tend to become solidary at a size of roughly 12 meters (39 ft.). The school dynamic of Mers is similar to that of Orcas, the school takes care of the young together. The school plays together, learns together, travels together and hunt together but not as “cruel” as Orcas, however, still efficient.

One difference between Orcas and Mers is the fact that there is no matriarch that leads the group but rather the oldest individual. This individual can either be male or female since both sexes are part of the school. Batchlor groups can from, both male and female, but don’t tend to last longer than two years.

If an individual is separated from its school or lost, they will sing a song unique to its school and its members would respond with the same song, this song is taught to the young very early on. A Mer could be on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and its school on the other, it would still find its way back.

If a Mer is ready to mate the male will separate from its school and find a coral reef where he would settle down and sings his song for a female to hear. Once a female hears his song and is interested, she also separates from her school. She will approach and or observe the Mer before deciding to mate with him or not. If the female decides to mate with the male, she will sing her own song back to him and the courting starts.

The courting process can lats up to a maximum of two months, in this time both mates will display their hunting, scavenging and overall survival skills. During this time, they will also establish an emotional connection through grooming, cuddling, conversations and singing in duets. All this happens before the actual mating.

The mating is just like that of seahorses. The female will develop an egg for a week, then lay the egg and hand it over to the male. From that point the females role in the mating process is finished. Once the egg is laid, she may stay with the male for a couple more days, which is not too common but after the egg is laid, she leaves and returns to her school.

It is highly unlikely that the same two Mers will meet again, whether that is to mate or just a random encounter. Which also helps broadening the genetic gene pool.  

Females do not contribute to the actual raising of their young, just like seahorses, they lay the egg and let the male take care of it, while she can mate again a few months after. That is the reason why Mers have an equally as fast reproduction rate as humans, balancing out the high death rate.

The male will return to his school once he received the egg and protect it. After 40 days the young will hatch. The entire school will help raise it, even the females of the school will help. The young will never meet their mother and they don’t need to, as everything important is thought to them by the school and their father.

Ther is a very rare phenomenon that has not yet been observed by humans and a rumor amongst Mers.

This phenomenon is Mers staying together after mating and raising their offspring together. This is extremely rare, even rarer than twins. In this chase the two Mer that meet to mate stay together and form their own school with their offspring and other young they adopt, that are either abandoned or lost their school/ father, forming a family unit.

Eclipse was lucky to meet his mate. At the time he finally decided to find a mate he was already the biggest, active, Mer at the time. This caused him some problems, manly every Mer was afraid of him because Mer his size tend to be cannibalistic. Another problem was to find somebody close to his size. As the biggest active, second biggest living, Mer that is going to be difficult.

But luckily for him he did find somebody, or rather she found him. This Mer was the sixed biggest living and the eleventh biggest overall. Still a bit smaller than him, length wise, only by a couple of feet and with a slimmer body type. The both of them clicked instantly, Eclipse being the calm goofball and her being the loud goofball.

The two stayed together for four months, which were filled with a lot of cuddles, kisses and goofing around. After Sun and Moons egg was laid their mother stayed with Eclipse for another week before she left. Neither of them wanted the other to leave but “it’s what Mers do” and they can’t go against what Mer are supposed to do.

So they separated. Eclipse had no school to return to and neither did she, so they returned to a live of solidarity. At least for Eclipse it didn’t last too long, as Sun and Moon soon hatched, and Eclipse devoted his live to them since. This allowed him to shove the feeling of loneliness he felt since his mate left to the back of his mind.

Sun and Moon are Eclipses only biological children but not his only children. It was not uncommon for Sun and Moon to leave for reef exploring as two little Mers and coming back as three little Mers. Or coming back as two little Mers and an abandon egg.

Eclipse never said no.

Hope I answered your question :D    

[frankcastleonlyfans]

part two of dad!daemon headcanon pleaseeee 😭

𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐀𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐃𝐄, 𝐏𝐓𝟐:

pairing: dad!daemon targaryen x mom!reader

reblogs, feedbacks and likes are appreciated. i hope you like it!

warnings: fluff, daemon being an awesome dad, more fluff, just pure fluff.

    · ┈┈┈┈┈┈ · ୨♡୧ · ┈┈┈┈┈┈ ·

It's been five years since you gave birth to your last child.

You and Daemon had a beautiful baby girl, that he decided to name Viserra.

Since her birth, Daemon became even more protective towards you and the children.

He knew his brother wasn't going to live many more years, and Alicent was showing herself to be a threat on the council.

You tried not to worry too much, and also to keep him calm.

Daemon spends most of his days teaching sword fighting to his sons — and daughter.

Alyssa always wanted to play with your husband’s legendary sword, Darksister.

On her fifteenth name day celebration, he gave her her own.

"Valyrian steel..." She whispered, her eyes were full of emotion. "Father, I don't know what to say"

"All legendary swords have names. The conqueror had Blackfyre, I have Darksister, your brother Rhaegon named his Devour. What's yours called?"

Alyssa being your husband's daughter, you couldn't think of a different answer;

"Doombringer."

Daemon couldn't be more proud of his little knight to be.

But he was also worried about her.

Alyssa finally became of age, and Daemon's brother, King Viserys, thought it would be the best for the house of the dragon to marry one of his sons to her.

Of course it wouldn't be with the second heir to the throne. Aegon was already married to his sister, Helaena.

And, Daeron was in Oldtown, so certainly it wouldn't be to him either.

"What did you say to him?" You asked your husband.

"I said, I'm not marrying my little girl to that psychopath one-eyed son of his!"

"Daemon!"

"What? I don't care if he exiles me for the hundredth time, my daughter is not going to marry that freak! The kid killed cats for fun when he was 12, Y/N!"

And like a good father, he didn't mind making her company.

Fortunately, he could enjoy his youngest daughter as she remained the only child between his teens.

Viserra was curious and a fast learner.

Daemon usually took her for walks on the dragonpit to see Caraxes, but never to rides, because she wasn't fond of heights.

She liked to learn about the dragons but not to be on top of one.

She also loved when Daemon talked to her in high valyrian.

"Do you wanna know something interesting?" He said playfully and she nodded, "The valyrian word for "love" and "need" are the same."

"Really?" She gasped.

"Really." He chuckled, "For example, jorrāelagon ao. Now, what did I say?"

"Love you."

"Yes, but so is "need you". The phrases are the same."

"Jorrāelagon ao" She repeated, hugging Daemon's huge torso.

He loved his girls more than anything, but he'd always remember to pay some attention to his boys too.

At the age of 18, Rhaegon spent most of his time on the westerosi skies, riding his dragon, Araxes.

Daemon not only taught his sons sword fighting, but gladly showed them his amazing riding skills.

With the help of his father, Maegon finally found a dragon for himself. He claimed Seasmoke after Laenor's passing.

Both boys shared their father's adventurous spirit, and they loved to be on the air.

"I bet Aemond couldn't do this with that old burden of his!" Shouted Rhaegon, exhibiting his riding tricks.

"Vhagar can't even put herself in the air without falling to pieces!" Maegon mocked.

"She's so old that she saw Aemond's hair and thought it was Visenya taking her to conquer Dorne!" Daemon laughed.

His kids were his joy.

a/n: check out part 3 here

[yumianscreation]

Timothy and Cassandra Drake were twins, Janet and Jack didn’t like that. You see, the two wanted a daughter, not a son, So when a 5-year-old Tim came up to them and said he didn’t like being a boy with tears in his eyes, they were overjoyed, since that meant they now had two daughters and no sons. When the twins turned 7, Timothy, who was renamed Tina, and Cassandra would pretend there was only one of them, it worked since Tina wasn’t on any records, they had fun with it, and they told each other everything, making sure to teach the other what they knew, Cass had joined a ballet class, so she taught her sister, and Tina was in a computer club, so she made sure Cass know everything about it, each day, they would switch who went to school, Telling each other what they learned, they developed the same handwriting, so it couldn’t be told apart, they had the same signature as well. Tina was always the one who went to school for tests since she liked academic things more than Cass, and Cass went for field trips since she liked seeing new places more than Tina. They never invited friends over, to keep their secret, and their parents stopped traveling to raise the two until they turned 13 and could look after themselves. When the two grew older, Jack and Janet started selling Testosterone and Estergine, making sure it was available for their own daughter as well as other trans kids around Gotham, they sold it at fair prices. Tina had taken up stalking the local vigilantes, Cass following her when she went out, so when Robin was reported dead and Batman grew violent, the two had to do something, they made a plan, Tina would go to Bruce and force herself into the role of robin, and Cass would make her own identity, that way, there would be two of them to keep bruce in line. weeks before they did this, they signed up for self-defense classes and gymnastics, Their Ballet skills helped in their self-training. The two learned to read body language at a young age since they liked to watch people, and they found people’s surprised and startled faces funny, so they knew stealth, so they just needed to learn basic fighting moves and gain strength. When the time came, They put their plan in motion, Cass created her costume and named herself ‘Crow’, and Tina took up the Robin mantle, forcing Bruce to behave himself as to be a good role model to the two children. When their Parents' flight crashed, the two were panicking, since some taking them in would mean revealing that there were two of them, and so, Tina made them a fake uncle and all was well, they just claimed that the uncle was just like their parents, and hired a guy to play the role when the uncle was needed to be seen, and when they turned 16, they got themselves emancipated. At this point, the two had grown tired of pretending to be the same person, so Tina made herself some fake documents and made it so she was Cass’ cousin, and the fake uncle had been her dad, she got herself emancipated and all was done there, the two lived in their manor, Tina ran Drake industries and Cass worked part-time at a ballet studio, at this point, Tina and Cass switched Robin and Crow so it was as if Tina had been Crow the whole time and had just Followed Cass into the business, and bruce was none the wiser.

[lassieposting]

So on the back of my headcanon about the Prototype more or less raising CatNap, I've been watching someone play Project Playtime for the first time, and I'm fucking yelling

If you play as the monster, the Prototype literally teaches you (as Huggy Wuggy) how to hunt. He's the one giving the tutorial instructions.

And honestly? The vibe I got from that "interaction" is that Prototype likes children. More than that: Prototype is good with children.

Project Playtime takes place in the intervening decade between the Hour of Joy massacre and the start of the main game. Based on the fact that Huggy needs the Prototype's guidance, it's probably fairly early in that period - he's not used to hunting for himself yet. So Huggy here is a monster with limited intelligence - he's the most 'animal' experiment we've seen, though he is still able to write - and the soul of a child.

And the Prototype tailors his lessons appropriately. Like, I trained to work with kids, and he uses essentially the same approach I would to teach a young or special needs child a new skill.

Simple Instructions: what Prototype is teaching Huggy here is, at its core, strategy and tactical thinking, and that's a subject he seems to understand well and know a lot about. A more intelligent experiment - like, say, young CatNap - might ask a lot of questions, and Prototype could probably give them long, in-depth explanations of why doing X thing prompts Y response or why Z tactic is useful. But Huggy isn't on that level, so Prototype keeps his instructions and explanations short, concise and easy to understand.

No Guesswork: Huggy, described as having only "sufficient" intelligence post-transformation, likely has limited capacity for complex thought. Where CatNap might be encouraged to think ahead for himself and suggest problems that could arise, Huggy would struggle. So Prototype gives him all the information he needs: here are the ways the humans will try to avoid or harm or mislead you, and here are the ways you can fight back. He even points out little tips that might seem obvious, like listening for the breathing of a hiding worker, because he knows that might not occur independently to Huggy.

Positive Reinforcement: When Huggy successfully incapacitates a human player, Prototype laughs and praises him, treating a potentially upsetting conflict like a fun game. Once Huggy has gotten rid of all the human players and won the match, Prototype tells him he did a good job and that he can rest now.

The Bad News Sandwich: One technique I was taught for dealing with young children is that when you have to give them upsetting or disappointing news, sandwiching it between two good things limits the distress it will cause. And Prototype does this twice with Huggy:

[Praises Huggy for catching a player and putting him in the food chute] [warns Huggy that the other players could try to rescue their friend] [offers a way to stop them doing that]

[Praises Huggy for clearing out the factory] [tells Huggy that more humans will return] [reassures Huggy that for now, he can rest and relax]

Anyway. Prototype taught at least one child-aged experiment to fend for itself and defend the factory: confirmed. And so, scenarios I'm now picturing with Prototype and little CatNap: this

I'm also 👀👀👀 at the fact that like. While it's directly stated that while his main motive for having the experiments attack the Project Playtime workers is to stop them making more creatures, he's got a secondary motive in that he's using the Bigger Bodies mascots *to gather food for the smaller toys*. The larger toys may have become hostile towards the smaller, weaker, "prey" toys, but the Prototype seems to be at least trying to provide for them, albeit in the only fucked-up way available to him.

Anyway I just think that's really interesting considering he's been implied to be the game's ultimate Big Bad. I think there's more to him than we've been told

[itsdeniini]

Would u also make a hyungline version of approacg to kids? 🥺

🎠ྀིʜʏᴜɴɢ ʟɪɴᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴀᴘᴘʀᴏᴀᴄʜ ᴛᴏ ᴋɪᴅꜱ!

˙✧˖° 🫧 ⋆｡˚꩜ note: i am a self-taught tarot reader, and the interpretations i provide are personal. if anyone would like to share their own insights, i would be more than happy to hear them! please be kind <3

Heeseung ~ ❨

Ten of Cups

Heeseung is poised to be a devoted father, prioritizing guidance and nurturing his child's development. He will be both playful and firm, aiming to instill discipline while also indulging them. He'll strive to impart lessons about love and demonstrate care, leveraging his innate intuition and empathy to connect effortlessly with his child. He'll excel as a listener, offering unwavering support and solace whenever needed.

Jay ~✰

Page of Wands

Jay would dedicate himself to being a source of inspiration for his children, investing all his moral and material resources in them. He aims to expose his child to the world from all angles, ensuring they are well-informed in every situation. As a father, he seeks to earn immense respect and wishes for his children to learn manners and respect for elders from a young age. He will unwaveringly believe in his children and devote time to teaching them valuable lessons.

Jake ~ ෆ꙳

The Justice

Jake adores the idea of being a father to a girl, letting his daughter play with his hair and adorn it with silly hairpins. However, he has a soft spot for children regardless of gender. Jake is genuinely caring and maintains a positive vibe even in the saddest situations. He is willing to sit through anything to resolve issues and would offer unwavering support. Deep conversations are a must for him, and his caring and loving nature would make him a sweet, perfect father.

Sunghoon ~✦

The Chariot

Sunghoon would be incredibly sweet and kind with his own children. He's attentive and caring, always prioritizing their safety and happiness. He has a gentle disposition and is skilled at explaining things, whether in a playful or more serious manner. He would root for his kid like a cheerleader, encouraging them to grow and learn at their own pace, but with his guidance. He might come across as strict at times, but it's only to assist them in improving and becoming better versions of themselves.