#this ask is very old but i still think about it

[nvuy]

to invoke perjury (and to love no one else) — sunday

summary. an old telltale whisper of a confession leaves sunday defenceless, and all the more paranoid of your loyalty to him.

notes. omg this is so epic i say as i hold up this work that nobody asked for. i finally finished the penacony tb quest everybody clap it up for me. my sunday obsession is so so bad somebody save me from the trenches.

warnings. mdni. implied explicit content, dark themes, manipulation, sunday is (unsurprisingly) very controlling, sunday is also tremendously paranoid of everything, yandere themes, he makes you cry, sunday uses that weird lying curse on you, but worry not he does love you. i think. let me know if ive missed anything!

“You are breaking my heart.”

You glanced up from the model of the city, growing tired of picking at the corner of one of the buildings. A nervous habit, if you will. When Sunday noticed the damage later, he’d scold you for it.

For now, his eyes were elsewhere. He, too, was staring down at the miniature pinball machine, spinning it with a gloved finger.

You fidgeted, uncertain. “What?”

“You’re lying to me,” Sunday accused. His tone was soft.

Your hands pressed to the sides of the table. “I haven’t lied to you.”

“Not recently, no,” he agreed. He agreed, and you almost sprang from your seat. “But you have. And you still are.”

To that, you gripped the edge of the table tighter. Uncertainty wrought heavy in your bones like lead.

It suddenly felt cold. As if he’d slid ice along your spine. A chill wracked through you. You realised the feeling was his gaze.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off you.

But he was still slowly twisting the pinball machine around and around. He then sighed.

And then he leaned back and traced a finger along the edge of the table, not at all mindful of the small animated figurines occupying the city.

He gave one of their heads a small push, and the small figure’s body sank into the floor.

You took it as a warning.

“Do you remember the night we met?”

Of course you did.

It was a swirl of colour and muted hushed whispers now, but you could recall taking his hand, promising him the world, and kissing along his fingers to the swell of his wrist.

You nodded meekly.

Sunday hummed, clearly lost in thought. “I never forgot what you said to me.” Oh, you knew that look. That distant, faraway look. Like he’s trapping himself in his own head again. He was good at that. Acting, pretending. Putting on a show. “I’d never felt the same again.”

He was still tracing the edge of the table.

There was a small grin on his face.

Such a pleasant expression, paired with that a gorgeous light-hearted tone. His voice sounded like a lullaby echoing in the back of your mind.

His halo was glowing in the light.

“You said to me you’d be my everything. You offered a piece of your very own soul to me.” He gloved finger flitted from the polished wood, and then stopped short of your hand resting on the table. “You have such a lovely heart.”

The muscle raced in your chest.

You weren’t sure if it was out of flattery or fear. You weren’t able to tell the difference anymore.

“Such a shame you continue to spit poison at me. I used to love talking to you.” His gloved finger followed the curvature of your knuckles. “You’ve changed. You’re so different from when I met you.”

Your hands curled into fists as he traced the bone-white colour as you squeezed. Your nails dug into your palms.

He’d changed, too. He’s different too. He’s more watchful now. He barely makes time for himself anymore. He’s always either working or watching you like a hawk.

It’s unnerving. The unsettling brush of his lashes against your skin, and that unbreaking stare.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” was all you said. “I haven’t changed at all.”

Sunday hummed. “Are you sure?”

“Very.” You found the courage to glance up at him. That same unbreaking stare. When you met his gaze, he smiled. “I still care about you.”

“But, you don’t.” There was a light hearted ring in his voice.

You stopped. “What?”

“You don’t love me anymore.”

And there it was.

He was paranoid. He always had been, since the day you shedded a glove from his hand to kiss the skin wrapped around bone white knuckles. He’d been so busy pressing his nails into his palm, so preoccupied in what you were doing, why you were doing this, what you gained from it.

He’s paranoid now. He’s never stopped. He’s always been anxious. He’s always been overthinking your every move like you’re an opponent in a game of chess; always on his toes, always watching, either with his own eyes that more often than not, glared daggers into you, or through the nightingales that swarmed the mansion.

You were shaking. You tried to stop yourself.

He noticed. “You’re upset.”

“Of course, I’m upset.” Your nails dug into the underside of the table. You felt them strain as your jaw clenched.

“Is it wrong to think you’re dishonest?”

“Yes,” you answered. “Yes, it’s wrong. You’re wrong.”

“Perhaps I am, then, for falling in love with a liar.” His fingers chased up your arm slowly. “I always valued honesty above all. How rich.”

“But I’m–” You didn’t even know how to defend yourself.

Instead, you fell completely silent, face burning in humiliation.

The scent of him was intoxicating. Orange blossoms and sandalwood. You had memorised the scents of his favourite fragrances, the shampoo he used, down to his toothpaste. You knew all of it. The way he brushed his hair, the temperature of the water he preferred for his baths, to the chronological order of steps on how he got ready in the morning.

It was all order; a set of stagnant unchanging steps. Like he was following a recipe to its very word.

He was particular.

And he hated change.

He took your silence as an invitation to pry further. “You were so enchanting that night.” He was telling the truth. You could read it on his expression–and his expression. That same expression he held on that night you offered him your heart to take. “And I know now, that you are most enchanting when you lie.”

“What’s–” You interlocked your fingers. His own were tracing the bone of your shoulder now. “What have I done? Why’re you–”

“You, of all people, must understand my uncertainty,” he spoke. He sounded as if you were supposed to know the answer.

Maybe there was no answer at all. No spark to his flame. He’s just doing all of this, because he can. Because he’s paranoid, and he’s hiding his churning stomach and the anxiety that fills his throat with this stage play he’s put on.

“You willingly took in a perfect home, much different from where you came from.” He gestured to the room around him. Pillars that intricately curled into the ceiling, floor polished, the scaled model of Penacony tended to and dusted, and the walls featuring thousands of commissioned pieces from artists all over the galaxy. “No sorrows, no disorder, no dishonesty. Certainly not here.

His eyes shift to you again. “And certainly not now.”

You shrank down into your seat.

“And, under the light of the Harmony–” He raises his hands to gesture to the ceiling, as if THEY’RE watching over him. “–All wickedness is revealed. That is precisely why you're so radiant in the sunlight.”

What the fuck is he talking about?

He must have noticed your expression. You must have appeared distressed. Fidgeting nervously, your blood running cold beneath your skin.

Perhaps your apprehension, the clear anxiousness drawn over your face, egged him further.

He did not dwell on it. Instead, he simply narrowed his eyes. “It is as I suspected.” When your eyebrows raised in surprise, he continued, “you’ve been lying.”

“You don’t trust me anymore?” You frantically wiped a stray tear that had fallen. You hoped he didn’t notice the waver in your tone.

Sunday merely nodded, blinking slowly. “You understand now.”

You stared at the floor. His eyes were burning into your skull.

Your brows knitted together.

A bell tolled nearby.

You don’t recall any sort of church close by.

“I cannot excuse, nor house, nor bed, a liar. It is beyond THEIR natural order. Liars have no place in an assimilated, perfect world.”

You looked elsewhere. You picked nervously at the hem of your shirt, suddenly feeling like you were drowning in hot water.

Your nose filled and clogged with a horrible earthy scent much unlike his shampoo. This was different, real and raw, like there was somebody else in the room.

When you looked around, there was nobody else.

Just the two of you.

“Stand up,” he ordered softly.

You did so, hesitantly, still shaking.

You must have looked pathetic.

Sunday offered you his hand.

Desperate, you took it, and kissed his knuckles.

He let out a faint laugh. “That will not work. Not this time, I’m afraid.” He looked up towards the ceiling for a brief moment, before he closed his eyes. “O Triple-Faced Soul, let fire brand flesh and bone with the mark of honesty��”

Something was wrong, and his face was changing.

For a moment, you saw tracks like golden water flow down his cheeks.

His halo was glowing, but there was something else behind his head. A clouded and muted swirl of colours, mismatched and ever changing.

You tried to pull your hand from his grip, but there was a weight pressed to your limbs.

“–And ensure that every vow is etched in the fervour of undeniable truth.”

“What’re you–” He let go of your hand and you stumbled. The bell toll was only just louder by a margin, and there was now a searing heat in your head. “What’re you doing?!”

Your hands desperately rested on his shoulders, trying to keep yourself upright.

You tried again to wrench yourself from his touch. It was sickening how gentle he was being.

Slowly, he guided you back to the love seat, tutting and scolding you as you fought in his hold. How could somebody so horrible be so gentle?

You felt the urge to throw up all over his clothes. Sweat beaded down your neck and pooled at your collarbone like a necklace.

“What did you do to me?” You were panicking. “What have you done?” You pressed the pads of your fingers to your temples to try and soothe the burning. “You cursed me?”

“I’ve blessed you,” he whispered. “This way, you will be rectified.”

Something was whispering to you. Almost inaudible, indiscernible, like the banging of a death knell in your ears.

What is it? What is that?

You looked to him for an answer, but words caught heavy on your tongue like lead.

“All you have to do is tell the truth.”

You shook your head. “I’m not speaking to you like this,” you tried. Your voice came out strained.

“You don’t have a choice,” he snapped. “You are not in control.”

“You’ll hurt me for the sake of your precious pride?” Your hands coiled into fists at your sides. Thank the Lords he’d seated you, for you were sure you would’ve fallen over by now. Your feet had since gone numb.

The whispering was right in your ear. When you turned your head to confront the noise, there was nothing there.

“It will not hurt if you tell the truth,” Sunday explained gently. “I hope that doesn’t come as a challenge to you.”

Get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head–

“I’m not answering anything you ask,” you forced out through gritted teeth.

Sunday only let out a breathy, exasperated sigh. “Then don’t. We’ll see what happens to you.”

You said nothing.

Instead, you tried to stand up to leave. Screw this curse he’s put on your head because he’s retreated into his own insecurities. He wasn’t winning this time.

You were so sick of this paranoia.

When you stood, a dizziness hit you like a wave. You desperately reached for anything, and your hands found his. He did not guide you back down into the seat, but his gloved hands remained encased in yours.

Such a perfect, warm fit.

Sunday offered you a gentle, yet peculiar smile.

“Question: have you ever lied to me?”

You didn’t answer.

Your flesh felt as though it was set alight. As if the halovian had personally poured gasoline over you and held a match to the tip of your nose and watched you burn alive.

The whispering was loud. The voices was indiscernible. You couldn’t place a finger to its source, nor a face, nor a name. Three voices, all repeating the same thing. You could tell from its tone, its pitch modulation, and yet you couldn’t understand what was being spoken.

It didn’t sound like any language you knew.

“Answer the question, angel.”

Hot tears bubbled over your lashes.

“Yes.” You fought to keep the word lodged in the back of your throat, but when you forced it out, the lava on your tongue cooled significantly. The whispers grew softer.

He noticed the look of relief cross over your face. “See?” A gloved hand came down to gently touch the crown of your head. “Just answer truthfully, and it will all be okay.”

Then, the white material of his gloves came forward to swipe gently at the tears below your eyes. Salt soaked the soft cotton.

Your hand reached up shakily to hold onto his wrist.

“Did you lie to me the night we met?”

The swirls of colour around his halo were returning.

Your thumb traced the ring on his finger. Gold, with a blue gem on its interior.

Instead of answering, you tried to press your lips to his.

Sunday stopped you, though it took restraint. He held your face still, lips just barely brushing against your own. He tasted salt. Salt and sweet lies, and Aeons above was it addicting.

He sighed. “Don’t tempt me.” He watched you flinch, and rang a simple reminder, “answer.”

“Yes,” you said.

As he expected.

You were so beautiful like this. Raw, and honest.

His heart squeezed with disgust. “Did you lie when you said you loved me?”

Frantically, you shook your head. “No.”

He smiled.

“Did you lie when you said you’d die for me?” He tilted his head.

Your lips pressed together. Your fingers curled tight in the loose curls of his hair. Your nails brushed softly against his feathers.

Your chest heaved when he finally sat beside you on the couch. His skin was so warm pressed against yours, and the contact made you feel dizzy.

“Yes,” you responded.

He accepted it. His finger softly petted your cheek.

Oh, you were crying.

You felt so pathetic and weak, and bubbled words caught in your throat like fish on a hook. You felt trapped, and the colours behind his head were growing more vibrant, brighter, accompanying and drowning out that awful halo.

He’s horrible. He’s so horrible.

You wanted to say it, you wanted to tell him that you needed him to leave. You needed him gone.

He beat you to it. “Do you hate me?”

You heaved a sob. “No.” And you didn’t. You didn’t hate him, despite his obsessive control and unjustified possessiveness. His hubris, and his inability to see past his own paranoia and fear. “Please stop.”

You pressed your lips to the small, poniard-shaped jewel on his chest.

Your sign of devotion did not deter him, though, he was sure you would always have some sort of effect on him.

“It shouldn’t hurt if you tell the truth,” Sunday reminded you. There was a teasing lilt to his voice.

“I don’t hate you,” you repeated, this time as firmly as you could—albeit your voice shook with fervour. “I never hated you.”

“I’m relieved.” His hand petted your hair. “So, so relieved.”

You buried your face into his shoulder and sobbed.

You prayed it was over. You prayed and prayed for the voices to dissipate from your mind. You tried to will them away, to squeeze your eyes shut and beg for the whispers to fade into the background of white noise and static.

The kaleidoscope of colours crept below your eyelids.

Sunday held you securely, and as warm as he was, and as firm and yet so gently his arms sat snugly against you, you felt so cold. So cold and alone and so afraid.

He could fix that.

He hadn’t said a word for a moment.

The burning feeling of your skin returned, and you let out another drawn out noise of distress.

He shushed you. “One final question.”

You shook your head.

Your hands were trembling, fingers weakly pressing to your temples to rid the pounding that made your stomach churn. Your vision was swamped in swirls and patterns of colours you couldn’t put a name to.

His face, too, warped into something evil.

This wasn’t the man whose knuckles you’d kissed, whose wings gently fluttered against your skin, who’d plucked a small feather from them and handed it to you as a symbol of his devotion.

His halo dimmed for a moment.

You felt his lips brush against your ear and the tickle of a feather.

“Do you still love me?”

[mammonsrockstargf]

So we’ve all seen the posts on MC telling the brothers absurd lies about humans and just letting them believe it right?

Hear me out here: making the brothers watch the entirety of “Cunk on Earth” and just letting them believe that it is a 100% factual show.

—

"When are you evolving skin made of bricks?" Belphie mumbles into your skin, pulling you closer. “What?” you ask, still sleepy from your nap. “You know, what the lady said. About the brick skin,” you stir slightly, remembering that tonights episode had mentioned it. “Oh yeah,” you say. “I think it’s gonna be another thirty years or so,” you say, running your fingers through his hair. “Why?”

Belphegor opens his eyes for approximately three seconds and gives you a bleary-eyed look. “I was jus’ thinkin’” he mumbles and snuggles deeper into the cushions. “It’s gonna be really inconvenient to cuddle when you’re made of bricks,”

—

"Isn’t it crazy that nineteen out of twenty people are criminals?” Satan mumbles to Asmodeus, while sorting through his books, looking for a particular one. Asmodeus shrugs while filing his nails. “I don’t know, seems pretty accurate to me.”

—

"What are these?" Solomon asks looking at the bag of eggs Mammon has placed in front of him. He looks up at the demon with furrowed brows. "Eggs," Mammon says as a matter of fact and pushes the basket closer to the baffled wizard. "May I ask why?" Solomon says and pushes the basket back to Mammon again.

“They're human money? It’s to pay for my debt," Mammon states. “You’ve really forgotten how things work in the human world, old man.” Mammon laughs, walking away and leaving a very confused Solomon with a basket full of eggs.

—

"Thank Diavolo, Charles Darwin invented evolution. I'd hate it if you were a fossil." Leviathan says one night when you’re playing video games in his room. You let out a surprised giggle, which causes your fingers to slip on the controller. Leviathan stares at the big red “game over” on the screen as you apologize profusely, while simultaneously choking on your own laughter.

“Actually never mind, I want Darwin to reverse evolution again.”

—

"Santa came to visit every Christmas from when I was 3 years old till I was like 14," you say and look up when you feel a sudden change in the air. Lucifer is looking at you worriedly and places a hand on your thigh. "Wow, wanna talk about it?" he asks and your brows furrow. "It's not that serious, is it really?" you say and Lucifer shakes his head, making a tsk sound. "Typical humans, always downplaying their emotions," he says and pulls you towards him, causing you to tumble into his lap. He pats your head. "Being visited by a home intruder must have been really difficult for you," he says and you blink, remembering Philomena Cunk referring to Santa as "the world's most popular home intruder".

"Oh yeah, I guess it was kind of hard," you lie, internally dying as Lucifer coos at you.

—

"What are they doing?" Solomon asks, sitting down beside you. You look up from your homework to the two demons saying nonsense at each other.

"Katze!"

"Genau!"

"I don't know, you can ask them," you say and return to your homework, leaving the wizard to deal with the two idiots. "Hey, what's going on?" Solomon calls out and Beelzebub and Belphegor's heads snap towards you. Beelzebub's lips curl into a smile and he shrugs nonchalantly. Belphegor rolls his eyes.

"We're speaking the code language that MC taught us," Belphegor drawls and Solomon looks at you. You grin at him. "Yeah, it's called German,"

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for faking my death to get out of an abusive relationship?

Tw for verbal + mental/psychological abuse and suicide

I used to be in a discord server with some friends, there were about 40 people in it, only around 20 who were actually active. It was a while ago I can't remember. I was in that server for about 4 months.

From the start, people would occasionally get mad at me over something I didn't do. About every month or so someone would start a rumor about me and make the whole server gang up on me, I'd tell them it was false, but everyone would still avoid me for the next couple days.

I never did anything wrong, but I was always the center of the drama, and when I asked one person, R, why, he said he didn't know and that I didn't deserve so much hate.

About a week later R was talking in the vent channel about how I had manipulated him. I DMed him to ask why, and he told me it was because I asked him if he was my friend. I thought it was fucking stupid because it's not manipulative to be paranoid, but I pretended to be sorry because I didn't want him to be mad at me.

The server also had a bot where you could submit anonymous messages, and lots of people would use that feature to make up things about me to ruin my reputation.

After a while I left the server and only stayed in contact with a few people. However, every couple days another person would tell me I'm a monster and gaslight me into thinking I'm a terrible person, and every time I asked why they hated me they didn't give me an answer.

My only real friend, T, showed me some messages from the others after I left the server, and a bunch of people were making up stories about bad things I had done to them, and people who I had never even spoken to were saying that I had abused them and was dangerous.

Once someone told me thay they understood all the things R had said about me weren't true, but said it was still my fault anyway, and even told me that R had done nothing wrong (he lied about me in front of the entire server and is the reason I lost all my friends, and he yelled at me and called me evil because I was suicidal), and then they accused me of faking having amnesia because I had flashbacks.

Eventually, only four of my "friends" hadn't blocked me, and they almost never talked to me. Everyone kept calling me a terrible person because R spread lies about me and everyone else believed him instead of me.

It was to the point where I couldn't go one day without someone sending me death threats or trying to guilt trip me with false information, and I was getting very sever flashbacks of the stuff R had said to me, and I started failing classes because I couldn't focus on anything.

Eventually I had had enough, so I tagged them all in a tumblr post about how I was going to kill myself and then logged out of both that tumblr account and my old discord account forever.

(Also about a month after I had left, I got texts from irl friends, and it turns out someone on the server found the contact info of people I knew in real life just to ask if I was dead or not. And that scared the shit out of me.)

I've left out a lot of details of the abuse because of amnesia. I have a mental disorder which makes it hard to remember things, plus the brain often blocks out traumatic memories, so I'm sorry if some info feels missing.

The only reason I feel like I might be an asshole is because once I was gone, all of them switched targets and started to harass T. They said they hated him for being on my side, and sent him death threats on anon because he was mad at them for killing his friend. They started treating him the same way they treated me, and called him a horrible person but refused to give a reason as to why, and if I had stayed around they would've left him alone.

@should-be-dead (made a sideblog so I get notified when this is posted)

[maxwellatoms]

Hello Mr. Atoms, I'm an animation student in college and fan of your work. I got this assignment in which I need to ask questions to a professional in the area. Could you pretty please answer them? It'd mean a lot to me.

1- Are you happy with your career? How it's going.

2- What are your opinions, expectations and hopes about the independent animation industry that's developing?

3- What do you think about the advent of artificial intelligence? Do you fear for the future of animators?

4- If money wasn't a problem, would you still do what you do?

5- Any animators you admire and would like to mention?

Okey dokey.

1- Are you happy with your career? How it's going.

Not really, in that there seems to be no career left.

The animation industry swelled its numbers greatly before 2020. Almost immediately after that, corporate greed synergized with a pandemic to reduce animated programs and the number of people working on them to almost zero. It takes almost a year from beginning to end to make a single episode of an animated show (by the modern standard). There was nothing being made in 2020 and four years later, we''re not in a much better spot. It's going to be a long drought for (especially) Kid's TV Animation.

Recently, many of my former co-workers have hit the financial wall and can't continue, moving away after (sometimes) 20 years in the industry. I begin to wonder if I'm very far behind.

A "bounce back" a year from now would need to start today. There are still some animated shows being made now, but those are almost universally "library" properties. That means it's an existing I.P. (Intellectual Properties like Garfield/Mario/Batman/Star Wars) so as an artist you're immediately in that box. Depending on the property and the studio, it can be an unpleasantly tight box. I grew used to holding and maintaining the vision for a show, but it's less fun when it's not my vision. It's even less fun when you can't inspire someone to follow your vision because they've been so ruthlessly abused.

I'm pretty sick of how big media corporations treat their employees. If I inherit one more burnt out crew due to mismanagement, I'm gonna lose it.

Over a decade ago I fought hard to get board artists story credit for the episodes they were actually writing, and felt like I'd won a big victory for everyone. The second my back was turned, it all reverted.

Mostly... what is the point now? My career is/was developing ideas, crafting those ideas into a workable show, then managing teams of thirty to seventy people to produce a couple of dozen episodes per year. Studios actively do not want new ideas right now, and are actively searching for ways to eliminate what artists from the process. I'm not sure what my job would be under this new system, but it feels like they decided to hang onto the anxiety-inducing deadlines while removing anything remotely pleasurable from the experience.

2- What are your opinions, expectations and hopes about the independent animation industry that's developing?

It's the only way to get anything done, currently.

The current state of the industry is not sustainable. I (along with a lot of other animators I know) are trying to decide what's next, and pretty much everyone agrees that "you just have to make something".

It is (in that very specific way) a great time to be a young animator. The system was never going to treat you well anyway. If you can get something like a Hazbin Hotel happening without studio help, you can currently write your own ticket. I'm super proud of Vivsie, because that's a LOT of stuff to handle. I never had to handle my own marketing or drum up money to make Billy & Mandy happen.

There are opportunities there, but it's definitely "Hard Mode". The best idea is probably to team up with a few other people you like and like to work with.

Hopes? I hope that the young animators take over and make something new on top of the bones of the old industry, rather than just allowing that industry to patch its rotting hide with their collected works.

3- What do you think about the advent of artificial intelligence? Do you fear for the future of animators?

I suspect true AI might just peace-out like ScarJo in "Her", but we're not there yet. What we have now isn't Artificial Intelligence at all (though I do believe it may be the underpinnings of the Artificial Suconscious of what may one day become an actual Artificial Intelligence.)

The LLMs and "Generative AI" are (so far) a big dumb waste. They consume tons of energy and aren't great for doing anything creative. If you've sat down with Chat GPT for a creative writing session, you've probably run into the "out of the box" limitations which prevent it from talking about sex or violence-- which happen to be a major component of most stories.

Still, the technology has come incredibly far in an incredibly short amount of time. I imagine we're going to hit the point where we're being hazed by artificially generated political ads way before Generative AI can produce a consistent and usable character turnaround, so that'll be the test. Whatever the legal fallout is from this stuff over the next few years will set the tone.

Still, studios have a vested interest in pleasing their shareholders. Generative AI potentially has the capability of not only replacing swaths of money-eating artists, but handing that control directly to the billionaire studio heads. Mark my words: We're headed straight for billionaire-generated content.

I don't think the public at large will want to watch Elon Musk's fever dreams, so there's that. So law and general distaste might stave it off for a while, but I think there's just too much impetus for studios to continue to try to please their investors. "AI Art" is here to stay.

Eventually that will lead to millions and millions of bots generating millions and millions of songs and paintings and movies all day every day. Most of it will be utter trash. Right now (so I'm told) viewers are already burnt out, and will generally only click on what they already know. On Netflix, where there are twenty things you've never heard of and one you have, you're more likely to pick the thing that gives you comfort and gives you a guarantee you're not wasting your time. With exponentially more A.I. trash, how would you even begin to filter it out?

You'd need absolute control of an already existing distribution system. We currently have a few of those, and all of the media companies are desperately trying to merge with them to insure their own survival.

To me, the post-Gen-AI landscape looks a lot like old-school Cable, but with endless I.P. and fewer masters.

4- If money wasn't a problem, would you still do what you do?

The real question is, maybe, "What am I even doing?" These days I try to do a lot of gardening. I'm trying to learn new art skills, because suddenly twenty five years of experience managing, drawing, and writing isn't worth much. I recently worked on Jellystone until Zaslav lost 2.5 billion in the wash and had to find justification for his new yacht. The show before that? Also culled midway through to save money. The days of multi-year gigs seem to be over, and if I'm going to scrape by doing freelance, maybe I can do that somewhere else.

I'll always make art. I can't seem to help it. Ideas aren't my problem-- it's executing those ideas without the help of a structured pre-existing system. I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to pull that off. My strengths are great, but were always supported by friends I worked with.

Can I start an indie cartoon with all of these cool friends? Sure, maybe. Most of those people have gone on to have other careers of their own and got used to being paid. Now nobody is getting paid and no one can pay anyone else. My immediate circle are all now middle-aged people with families and no jobs. Convincing them to give up a large chunk of their day for an idea that's not guaranteed to pay off is going to take some real effort.

I technically have fifteen years until I can claim my "retirement", assuming that still exists by then. That's a pretty big hole to fill with... I don't know what.

The difficult "What comes next" discussions at home are really just starting.

5- Any animators you admire and would like to mention?

There are a lot of cool animation people out there. I already mentioned I was proud of Vivsie. I was also reminded recently just how great C.H. Greenblatt and Mr. Warburton are. I know they're my friends. They're both just really upstanding, creative people who take good care of their crews.

The treatment of animation industry professionals by the studio system has been one of the most demoralizing and heartbreaking parts of this demoralizing and heartbreaking time.

---

So there ya go. If you want to look for someone whose attitude is a little more upbeat, I won't blame you a bit.

Wherever you are, I wish you the best of luck. For me, just climb up there and crush it. I would very much like to add you to #5 someday.

[extasiswings]

Okay, SO! In the category of "I think it's possible that Eddie has a brain tumor/is sick in some way":

Eddie is acting weird. Eddie has been acting weird from the beginning of the season, and I know there has been discourse about "it's just that we haven't seen him so happy before" but I respectfully submit that multiple things can be true at the same time. Eddie can be happy AND it can be out of character for him to impulsively drop everything to take a helicopter ride with his new friend he met two seconds ago to see a fight in Vegas (the last time we saw Eddie be truly impulsive I'd argue was S3, buying a truck while in the midst of a serious crisis). Eddie can be happy AND it can be out of character for him to ask his girlfriend of five minutes to move in (and I recognize that we were given an explanation from Eddie in the episode, but Eddie is an unreliable narrator and his explanation also doesn't totally square with what we've seen previously - him rushing introducing her to Christopher tracks, him jumping into moving her into his house without knowing basic information about her life does not).

Then there are the Eddie-coded calls. The guy with the alien hand who is all about rigid self control and being the master of yourself - his body turning against him not because the control failed but because of a blood clot in his brain. And now the guy with encephalitis (the same condition that ultimately caused Chim to hallucinate dead people), who has amnesia and has forgotten the marriage that ended in divorce but recalls the happy time before that when his wife was just his fiancee, the guy who was experiencing chest pains that he thought was a heart attack only for Chim to say he was having a panic attack. They had Eddie be so open about his own experiences with panic attacks and coping mechanisms in 7x01 for a reason - he's genuinely doing better with his own mental health and isn't ashamed or afraid of talking about his mental health struggles. But looking at these two calls, the underlying reason for the call (alien hand, amnesiac/presumed stalker in vent) theoretically could have had mental health explanations, but instead both resulted from physical ailments in the brain. [Tangent: I also think there's something really interesting in the potential callback to S5 and the way Eddie and Maddie were sort of mirrors - Eddie with a seemingly physical problem that was caused by a mental health issue, Maddie with a seemingly mental health issue that turned out to at least in part be the result of a physical problem]

Then there is whatever they're doing with ghosts. Shannon's ghost has lingered over the narrative and was actively put on screen in 7x01. For Chim in 7x06, the ghosts were hallucinations because there was something wrong with his brain. For Bobby, I'm guessing his arc with the burn unit nurse from his past will be more of a metaphorical haunting, bringing up any number of old ghosts (but I'm also going to guess his wife will be one). For Eddie...unclear. Ryan was filming with Devin (ostensibly for 7x09 but if they're doing anything with Shanon's ghost I'd be shocked if it wasn't introduced in 7x07, "Ghost of a Second Chance"), but she didn't exactly look like Shannon. Is she supposed to be Shannon? A dream or hallucination of a different or older her? Is she a real woman who just happens to look like her? If Eddie is hallucinating, then something is clearly very wrong. If it's a random woman and he's, idk, pursuing her in some way because he's drawn to her/the fact that she looks like his dead wife, that's still another point in the "Eddie is acting weird" column (because Eddie is a bad boyfriend and wasn't the greatest husband, but what he has never been is a cheater, even when he and Shannon were separated).

And then of course there's the will of it all. The will that Buck and Eddie haven't talked about since the shooting. Now, it's no secret I love the potential of a trapped dads experience circling back to the will, but I also think there is an argument to be made for a callback to "You're the guy who likes to fix things, maybe this isn't something you can fix." Because usually, when Eddie is in danger, Buck can do something about it, take some actionable step even if a futile one - he can dig through mud, he can drag Eddie's body out of the line of fire and into an ambulance and keep him alive. And for someone who, I would guess, still thinks of himself and the will as a backup plan/contingency, who if put in a trapped dads situation may not be able to stop himself from trying to save Eddie or, if necessary, sacrificing himself to do so, because in his mind, Eddie is Christopher's dad/who Christopher needs most, it is deeply compelling to imagine what happens if Eddie is in danger from something Buck can't fix, can't fight, can't save him from. And Eddie being sick in some capacity does that.

Anyway...I just think it would be Neat.

[catmiemy]

New Life, Old Problems (Leah Williamson x Reader)

Summary: You're trying to fully settle into your new life in London with your girlfriend. But when you get sick your past stops you from reaching out.

A/N: Finally managed to put something on paper again! By now I have about 6 stories (some multiple chapters) fully planned out in my head, but I struggle so much with actually writing any of it. Although it's getting a bit better, so I might become more active again.

This is the third part of the New Teammate series (Part 1, Part 2 Arsenal version). Although I think you should be fine to read this without reading the other parts first. Also this was definitely helped along by @holly-wallis, who reached out to tell me she was excited for the next part. So thank you again!

You thought you were doing well. You thought you had settled perfectly into your new life in London. You thought your relationship with Leah was going great. And all this was true, but only to a certain degree. Underneath the surface there were still many gaping wounds and you had a long way to go, which would take even longer because you refused to accept it, pretending like you were already at your destination.

How hard it really was for you to fully trust anyone, even Leah, to be vulnerable around her, became glaringly obvious when you got sick. As much as you wanted comfort, someone to take care of you, you couldn’t allow it. The thought of trusting anyone so much when you were in a vulnerable state left you panicked.

However there was no hiding your sickness. Leah and you had plans that day and if you came up with some random excuse your girlfriend might end up checking on you since it was unlike you to cancel without a good reason. And sadly you couldn’t think of a single good reason why you were unable to meet up with Leah. How were you supposed to do that when you could barely muster up the energy to go to the bathroom when needed?

In the end you decided that the truth was your best course of action. The defender had been exceptionally understanding about your situation and the multitude of struggles you still faced because of your past trauma. Honestly more understanding and patient than you were with yourself.

Despite being reasonably confident for a positive reaction you still were too much of a coward to call your girlfriend, opting to text her instead. ‘This was better for your sore throat anyway’, you reasoned with yourself.

R: Le, I’m sorry I have to cancel today. I got sick.

L: Oh no! Are you okay? No wait, scratch that. How bad are you feeling? Is there anything I can do? Bring you something? Or do you want me to come over to keep you company? I’d be happy to!

You looked at the sweet and caring words, Leah’s concern noticeable even from these few letters on your phone. The urge to text back and ask the Englishwoman to come over was huge. She would take good care of you; make you feel safe and loved. But you couldn’t allow it because what if…

You couldn’t even begin to describe what was hiding behind this what if. Maybe it was actually that, the big unknown, the completely unexpected. Never in your life would you have pictured what had gone done with Jimena and the whole team in Barcelona before it had actually happened. It had left you afraid to fully let your guard down because who knew when something unpredictable would happen again. And right now you were definitely too tired to keep up any guards, so your only option was to keep everyone far away from you.

R: That’s very sweet, but I can’t…I’m sorry.

With a rapidly beating heart you watched your phone, practically hypnotizing it, scared of your girlfriend’s reply. What if this was the final straw?  As much as this possibility scared you, it was still more bearable than the alternative. At least it was an option you had already considered. You wouldn’t be blindsided by it. Plus if there was one thing you had gotten good at in the course of your life it was dealing with pain and people leaving you.

L: I understand, babe. But if you need anything please text or call me. And I’ll be right there! Take care of yourself! Sending you some remote cuddles. Love you!

Your whole body relaxed as you read this response, even some tears of relief rolling down your cheeks.

R: Thanks, darling, I will. And thank you so much for being so understanding!! Love you too!

And with that you put your phone away, buried yourself under the covers and fell asleep relatively quickly. The cold medicine you had taken before texting Leah doing its part in helping you drowse off without too much of uncomfortable shuffling. Your last thought was that hopefully you’d already feel better when you woke up again.

Unfortunately the opposite was the case. You were startled awake by a violent coughing fit that just wouldn’t stop. You thought that you could ride it out, but when it got to the point where you felt like you had to throw up from coughing so much, you forced your tired body out of bed and into the bathroom.

First you collapsed in front of the toilet, bending over the bowl, but once it became clear that you didn’t actually have to throw up, you dragged yourself into the kitchen and filled a glass with water.

As long as you were drinking you were fine, but as soon as you put the glass down the scratchiness in your throat returned with full force, swiftly followed by another cough attack.

You resigned yourself to keep standing there, leaning heavily against the counter, too tired to support your body weight with only your legs, and drink glass after glass, until finally you could put the water down without instantly dissolving into a coughing fit.

At that point you were trembling because of the cold, your teeth chattering and every single bone of your body seemed to be hurting. Still you didn’t immediately crawl back into bed, instead you gathered all of the supplies you might need to ride out this cold. You filled a bottle with water, grabbed some crackers and medicine and then you decided to also get a bowl to be on the safe side should you actually have to throw up at some point.

When you finally returned to bed, your breathing was labored and you all but fell into it. You quickly buried yourself under the blankets. It did little to warm you up though and you debated for a moment to get back up and get more blankets. The idea of moving again seemed entirely impossible however.

This time it took you a lot longer to fall asleep, silent tears streaming down your face because you felt so miserable. You yearned for some comfort, for Leah’s arms around you really, and you knew she would come in a heartbeat if you asked her. Still, you couldn’t. You just couldn’t!

The next time you woke up you felt even worse and it was at this point that you realized that you needed help. Somewhere in the hazy fog of fever and misery you managed to form this one rational thought. However you had little recollection of what happened next.

You remembered staring at Leah’s contact on your phone for a while, although you couldn’t say if you did so for a few seconds or minutes or even hours. In the end you decided against calling her, instead opting to get an Uber. How you managed to get to the hospital was beyond you. You had some vague memories of a very concerned and helpful Uber driver who even walked you into the ER.

Another thing you recalled was sending Leah a message once you sat in the waiting room, slumped against the wall and shivering violently.

R: Fine. At hospital. But fine. Don’t worry!!!!

You even remembered feeling very proud of this text; convinced that it would soothe all of your girlfriend’s concerns. If you would have been coherent enough to read Leah’s answer you would have known that it had the opposite effect. You did feel the constant buzzing of your phone from when the Englishwoman tried calling you over and over again, but it felt kind of nice against you aching body, so you didn’t do anything about it.

---

“She’s not answering her phone and she hasn’t texted me back, Lia! What do I do!?!”

Your girlfriend was crying as she basically screamed these words at her best friend. When she had gotten your text and couldn’t get a hold of you, she had called the Swiss woman for support and because the midfielder was known for being helpful in difficult situations.

“Okay Leah, first take a deep breath…” Lia began with a soothing tone.

“Are you kidding me?! How do you expect me to breath when I don’t know where my girlfriend, my very sick girlfriend might I add, is!” Leah yelled, feeling the need to punch something like some sort of cliché from a movie. Or even better, the blonde would have loved to have a ball at her feet right now, that she could pund with all of her strength into the back of the net. And then maybe get into a slightly too aggressive scuffle with an opponent. Just something to get rid of this nervous energy.

“You know where she is though, she’s in the hospital, so they’ll be taking care of her,” Lia reasoned, continuing quickly before your girlfriend could blow up at her again, “And fine let’s skip the breathing. Here’s what I think we should do; you pack some things your girl might need and I’m going to call the hospitals closest to her. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where she is. Then I’ll come pick you up and drive you over because you definitely shouldn’t be driving.”

Despite her earlier refusal Leah let out a deep breath, relief smoothing out the edges of her panic, at least now they had a reasonable plan. This was exactly why she had called her best friend and once the Englishwoman was less preoccupied with her fear for you she would be thanking Lia profusely.

A little later the two footballers arrived at the hospital, Lia once again taking the lead and asking about you. There was a bit of a back and forth where the staff had to figure out if they could even give them any information about you.

It was a big test for your girlfriend’s brittle composure, every second that ticked by brought her one step closer to bursting into tears or unleashing her fury on everyone that got into a five meter radius of her.

Leah managed to keep it together however, not using the healthiest coping mechanisms. The Englishwoman kept pinching herself to let at least some of the overwhelming emotions trickle out of her.

Lia frowned when she noticed, but decided to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t want to risk a full-blown outburst which might then keep them, or at least Leah, from seeing you even longer.

Finally they managed to find the right information and saw that Leah was in fact your emergency contact, something that the blonde had been telling them all along. If only they would have believed her then this wouldn’t have taken so long!

Thankfully things went quickly after that. Leah was led to your room while Lia wasn’t allowed to tag along. The Swiss woman promised that she would stay in the waiting room until your girlfriend had updated her, in case either Leah or you needed something.

Leah entered your room quietly, not wanting to disturb you even though with all the meds you had been given it was unlikely you would wake up anytime soon. Still she didn’t want to take the risk. So the defender tiptoed into your room, coming to a sudden halt once she had a good view of you.

It filled your girlfriend with fear and pain to see you so sick. You were pale, even more so than usual, almost the same color as the bed sheets. There was a tube connected to your arm, most likely to replenish you with everything you needed. You were also hooked up to a monitor, and it was a small relief to Leah that everything on it looked and sounded normal. As far as she could tell at least. Most of her medical knowledge stemmed from watching doctor shows, so that probably wasn’t the most reliable source.

After getting used to this sick, fragile version of you the blonde approached you, standing by your bedside. She looked down at you with teary eyes, gently stroking your cheek before smoothing out your tussled hair.

Your girlfriend craved more contact. She wanted to snuggle up next to you, wrap her arms around you and basically attach every centimeter of her body to yours. But Leah didn’t know how you would feel about that. Not when you weren’t awake to enforce your boundaries, not when you were in a vulnerable state which usually made you push people far away from you.

So with a sigh she pulled up a chair and sat down next to your bed, not even allowing herself to hold your hand. The England captain didn’t want to risk making you uncomfortable even the tinie when you woke up.

It was about 30 minutes later that Leah suddenly remembered that Lia was still waiting for her. She rushed down to the waiting room, not wanting to leave you alone for a second longer than totally necessary.

“She’s okay, I think. Or not too bad at least. So you can go home,” Leah explained, sounding very unsure. Everyone had told her that you would be okay, all the signs pointed to it, but she would only be able to believe it once you woke up and she could see for herself. And maybe not even then.

“That’s good! I guess you want to go back now, but call me if you think of anything you need, yeah?” Lia replied, giving her friend a tight hug.

Leah nodded, before turning around and walking as fast as she could back to your room. She would have run, but had the distinct feeling that that wouldn’t be appreciated by the hospital staff. And the Englishwoman didn’t want to annoy anyone, not when she was aware that they were already breaking the rules for her by letting her stay with you way past visiting hours.

---

When you woke up you noticed with a pang of sadness that there was no warm body next to you. It wasn’t like you and Leah stayed over at each other’s place every day, but definitely more often than not. And lately every time you woke up alone you felt some dismay. Everything was just better when you got to start the day with your girlfriend.

The second thing you became aware of was that despite just waking up you still felt exhausted, drained was the better word really, and also somewhat hazy and achy. It was then that you remembered that you were sick and that you had this weird fever dream where you took an Uber to the hospital. If you would have had the energy for it you would have laughed at the absurdity of this.

However as you opened your eyes you realized with a silent ‘Oh’ that it hadn’t been a fever dream after all, you really were in the hospital. Panic bubbled up in you, but got quickly cut off before it could become overwhelming by your favorite voice speaking up, even if you didn’t like how worried it sounded.

“Babe, are you awake? How are you feeling?”

You turned around, your lips turning into a smile when you laid your eyes on your girlfriend. She had gotten up from the chair she had presumably been sitting in, staring down at you intently. The Englishwoman’s eyes were trailing over your entire body, however not in the way they usually did, this felt more clinical, like she was attempting to spot anything that might be wrong.

“Could be worse,” you replied.

Leah gave you an unimpressed look. “But it also could be better?” She double-checked and you nodded sheepishly.

“Is there anything I can do before I get the doctor?” Your girlfriend asked softly.

For some reason Leah was still standing a good fifty centimeters away from your bed, her arms hidden behind her back as if she had to stop herself from reaching out to you. If only she would! You longed for some comforting touches and maybe a good, reassuring hug from the blonde.

“Get me home?” You joked with a pleading look. You definitely wanted to get out of the hospital but you knew that it wasn’t up to your girlfriend, and she would never do anything to endanger you.

“No can do, sorry babe. Anything else?” Leah prodded, hoping you would ask her for a hug. She could barely contain herself from launching at you, but the fear of crossing your boundaries in such a difficult situation kept her back.

“Maybe a cuddle,” you mumbled so quietly and rapidly that Leah couldn’t decipher what you were saying.

“What was that, babe? Sorry I didn’t quite hear you,” Leah apologized, taking a step closer to you.

You locked your eyes with your girlfriend’s, letting all the love and concern shining in them wash over you and give you the strength to utter your request more loudly. There wasn’t even a reason to feel weird about it, you knew that Leah wouldn’t deny it, would most likely be happy to oblige.

“A cuddle?”

Within milliseconds your girlfriend closed the distance between the two of you, sat down on the edge of your bed and leaned down to gather you carefully in her arms. You both felt and heard the relieved sigh Leah let out when you were tucked into her arms.

It made you wonder why the blonde had kept her distance before, a certain guess at the forefront of your mind. And in the safety of your girlfriend’s arms you managed to ask about it without much over thinking or fuss.

“Why did you sit all the way over there?”

All the way over there was a bit of an exaggeration, but also not really. Any sort of distance between your sick self and your girlfriend felt like way too much.

Leah tried to lean back a bit to look you in the eyes, but you held her firmly in place. You weren’t ready to lose the comfort of her body on yours, even if she put now weight on you, not sure if it would negatively impact you in your current state.

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable with me being too close when you woke up. I know allowing closeness when you aren’t feeling too good is still very difficult for you,” Leah explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Even though your girlfriend showed you over and over again, day in and day out how amazing she was, the level of understanding and love behind this gesture still knocked you off your feet, or it would have if you were standing. It almost made you believe fully that you would always be safe with her. Almost. There was still a tiny bit of fear and insecurity left. It would probably take a good while longer until you got rid of that last remnant and you were once again very grateful for Leah’s patience.

“Thank you so so much, love,” you whispered, pulling the blonde even closer to you.

“Always,” Leah stated, not an ounce of doubt in her voice. She would always do whatever she could for you, to make you feel comfortable, loved and safe.

Your girlfriend allowed you to cuddle a bit longer until she gently extracted herself to get a doctor. At first you were somewhat annoyed at this, you would have preferred to stay wrapped up together for the rest of the night. However when the doctor announced after a quick exam that you would be allowed to go home later that day, you didn’t mind so much anymore. The thought of going home made up for losing contact with your girlfriend temporarily.

Especially because she instantly stated that she would be staying with you when the doctor pointed out that you could only go home if there was someone around to supervise you. The way her voice sounded slightly offended that this wasn’t abundantly clear to everyone made you smile fondly.

That’s how you found yourself sitting in Leah’s car that Lia had brought to the hospital early in the morning with help from Viv and Beth a few hours later. The short walk to the parking lot had tired you out and you couldn’t wait to get to Leah’s apartment and crawl into her cozy bed.

You were half asleep when your girlfriend asked you, “Home?” Still you managed to nod and echo her words. “Home,” you confirmed.

In your drowsy and still a bit feverish state you hadn’t realized that Leah was actually asking where you wanted to go, your apartment or hers. In your mind it was already decided that you would be going to the Englishwoman’s place. You loved her apartment more than yours at this point, everything about it homey and safe.

So when the blonde announced that you had arrived and you opened your eyes from the half-sleep you had been in a wave of unhappiness hit you as you took in your surroundings. You were parked in front of your own apartment building.

Tears flooded your eyes, which you tried to blink away hastily before Leah could spot them. It was stupid to be upset because of this, it wasn’t like your apartment was bad or anything, you were just really craving the comfort of your girlfriend’s place. Where everything smelt and felt like Leah.

Of course the defender detected your distress instantly. She had been watching you like a hawk ever since she had gotten to the hospital last night.

“What’s wrong, babe? Does something hurt? Should we go back to the hospital?” She asked you in rapid succession, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice calm and steady.

You shook your head, mumbling that it was nothing. To emphasize this point you reached for your seatbelt, determined to get out of the car and into your apartment without any more of a hassle. Everything was fine. It didn’t matter that you had wanted to go to Leah’s home. Everywhere was better than the hospital anyway.

Leah didn’t give up so easily though. She put her hand on yours lightly, not taking a hold of it however, leaving you the option to pull it back if you wanted to. You didn’t, just this small contact made you feel better instantly.

“Please tell me what’s bothering you,” your girlfriend begged, her eyes looking suspiciously wet.

“It’s stupid,” you waved Leah off.

“Please,” Leah asked again, demolishing the last of your resolve to keep this to yourself.

“I really wanted to go to your place,” you explained, rushing to add, “But it doesn’t matter. Let’s just go inside now.”

Again you tried to make an attempt to leave the car, and again Leah stopped you with a gentle touch.

“We can still go over to my place if you prefer,” she offered, already turning her car back on.

“No, that’s not necessary. I’m just being silly,” you argued, but Leah just reached over to buckle you back in and pulled out of the parking space.

You didn’t have it in you to continue arguing. Plus you were too happy at the prospect of getting to go to your girlfriend’s place after all. So you just leant your head against the car window, letting your eyes flutter shut again.

“I thought you said you wanted to go home,” Leah said before you could fully fall asleep.

“I did, but I meant your place,” you answered tiredly.

“Oh,” your girlfriend exclaimed, her voice heavy with emotion. The idea of you thinking of her apartment as your home meant a lot to Leah. Every once in a while she couldn’t help but worry if she was doing enough to help you move on, to be the best girlfriend possible, to make you feel loved and safe. So this undeniable confirmation that she had been succeeding in all of these aspects meant the world to your girlfriend.

When there was no more reaction from you after this, Leah glanced over, smiling when she saw you sleeping soundly. You looked so young and open and vulnerable when you slept. Leah cherished the fact that you were comfortable being like this around her, that wouldn’t have been possible a few months ago.

[dixons-sunshine]

Hey!! I really REALLY love your girl dad Daryl series and I thought maybe I could request something :) Imagine Daryl building a doll house or something (maybe a cute little mini motorcycle) for his daughter I can totally see him doing something like that it’s all I can think about when I see this picture. He would totally get the materials from one of his supply runs because I headcanon that everytime he brings something for his daughter (like a doll or something)

His Motorcycle Princess | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: When his daughter was born, Daryl swore to himself that he'd do everything in his power to ensure that she remained happy at all costs. So when she asked for her very own motorcycle, who was he to deny her that?

Genre: Fluff.

Era: Alexandria, post Saviour arc (the bridge exploding doesn't happen, so Daryl never goes looking for Rick and he's happily living in Alexandria).

Warnings: Swearing, slight suggestive talk.

Word count: 1.3k.

A/n: Okay but why can't Daryl be the father of my future kids? He'd be the best dad ever. All jokes aside, I hope you like this!

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

“Daryl, may I ask what the fuck that is?” you asked in surprise at at the sight before you, folding your arms over your chest.

Daryl looked up from his workbench, his ocean coloured eyes meeting your eyes before glancing back down at the big pink object in front of him. “S'a toy bike,” he stated plainly, patting the toy for added effect.

“Okay,” you drawled, nodding your head slowly. “But... Why?”

“S'fer Hazel,” he explained, picking up a screwdriver and resuming his task of assembling the toy motorcycle. “She asked fer a bike like mine, but obviously I ain't 'bout to assemble a real one fer a five year old, so I got this instead.”

You walked down the steps into the garage and walked over to your husband, standing slightly behind him as you watched him tighten the screws of the toy. “Where'd you even get this?”

“I was lucky 'nough to find a toy store tha' was left relatively untouched. Found this hidin' behind one of the shelves,” he explained, glancing over to you and nervously gulping at the close proximity. It amazed him that even after so many years together, you still managed to make butterflies erupt in his stomach.

“Aah, okay,” you nodded, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hazel is gonna freak out over this. This is gonna be her new favourite thing in the world.”

“Ya really think so?” Daryl asked, looking at you hopefully.

You smiled softly at him. There was lot of things people could say about the archer. People who didn't know him personally would call him rude, obnoxious and cold. Those who knew better would call him loyal, determined and caring. When it came to you, there was a lot you could say about your beautiful husband. He was kind, caring, loving, considerate, observant, and so much more. And you could also proudly say that Daryl was an amazing dad. Nobody was perfect and the archer had his moments that he wasn't proud of, but all in all, there was no denying that Daryl would do anything for your daughter.

“I know she'll love it,” you reassured him, wrapping your arms around him from behind and resting your chin on his shoulder. “You could bring her a painted rock and she'd love it. As long as it's from you, she doesn't care.”

“Nah, she hated tha' bunny I brought back fer her,” he replied, closing his eyes at the warm, soft feeling of you pressed against his back.

“It's only because it was covered in walker blood,” you explained. “After I washed it, she wouldn't let the thing go.”

Daryl couldn't deny that. The aforementioned toy had been a proud edition to Hazel's stuffed animal collection for two years at that point. She loved that bunny more than anything, favouring it to join her when she played tea parties with you and Daryl. It made the archer's heart swell with love, just knowing that his daughter appreciated what he did for her made everything worth it. All the battles he fought, all the blood that was shed, it was all worth it in the end. His wife and his daughter were safe, and he'd never been happier in his life than he was in those moments in the small home you shared in Alexandria.

With you still firmly pressed against his back, he got back to work. The toy was almost done; he only had a few finishing touches he had to do. Admittedly, it was a little harder to do so with you pressed against him from behind, but he refused to ask you to move. He'd much rather work on the toy for a few extra minutes than lose the comfort your mere touch brought him.

You watched his hands intently, your mind unwillingly wandering to a place that wasn't needed at that moment. However, you couldn't help it, the knowledge of what those hardworking hands could do in other activities taking over your senses.

“You know, this gives me deja vu,” you started, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Yeah? How so?” Daryl asked, tightening the last screw into the toy.

“Remember back when you were building your own bike five years ago?” you asked, continuing when he nodded. “Seeing you hard at work, doing something you were skilled at really did something to me. It was because you were building your bike that we even have a kid at all now. And now you're building a motorcycle for our kid.”

Daryl chuckled at the memory. “Never knew grease could turn ya on like tha' until then.”

“When it's on my handsome husband's hands? You best believe it does.”

Daryl turned around and wrapped his arms around you, staring down at you lovingly. “And now we have our own kid.”

“Our own little family,” you agreed, smiling up at him. “I love you, Dar.”

“Love ya too, peach.”

“Mama! Daddy!”

Before Daryl could lean down and capture your lips in his for a kiss, your daughter bounded down the steps. The two of you sent each other an amused look, reluctantly pulling apart. Hazel came over to Daryl and held her hands up in a silent plea to be picked up, and the archer complied.

“Hey there, Hazelnut,” Daryl greeted her with a fond smile, placing a light kiss to the top of her head.

“Hi, Daddy,” she giggled, sending a wave at you. “Hi, Mama!”

“Hi, Baby,” you chuckled, walking over to rub her hair affectionately. “Did you have a good nap?”

“Yeah! I'm ready to play now!” she exclaimed happily, a toothy smile on display.

“Well, how 'bout ya and I race our bikes?” Daryl questioned, capturing Hazel's attention.

“But Daddy, only you have a bike.”

“Not anymore,” you said in a playful tone, sharing an excited glance with the archer. “Daddy got you something.”

Daryl turned around with her in his arms and showed her the bright pink toy motorcycle. Hazel let out a surprised gasp before laughing in excitement, throwing her arms around Daryl's neck and hugging him as tightly as she could.

“Thank you, Daddy! Thank you! Thank you!” she exclaimed in excitement.

Daryl chuckled fondly and pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “Yer welcome, Hazelnut.”

“Now I can be like you!” she giggled, wiggling slightly to be put down. When she was, she ran over to the workbench and stared in awe at the toy.

“Yeah,” you agreed, walking over to her to ensure she didn't accidentally hurt herself with the tools that were still on the workbench. “You just need your own crossbow now.”

Hazel gasped in delight and turned to Daryl. “Daddy, can I get a crossbow?”

“'Course ya can. How else would ya help me on my hunts?”

“Yay!” Hazel happily clapped her hands. “Mama, I'm getting a crossbow!”

Daryl smiled and walked over to the two of you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and playfully ruffling Hazel's hair. He chuckled at the giggle she let out, feeling content and comfortable as he listened to Hazel's babbling as she regarded over all the places she would go with her very own motorcycle, even to the moon. There was nothing better in his life than moments like these. This was what he fought for. And he would do it all over again if it meant keeping the two most important people in his life safe.

Because without you, his beautiful wife, and Hazel, your perfect daughter, his life would never be the same.

[yandere-romanticaa]

More yandere mortician? I miss our pookie

𝐥𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐞.

yandere! mortician oc! x fem! reader.

masterlist.

Despite it being the start of the warm month of May, this day was anything but.

Soft rain tapped against the window, giving the grey office a slight hint of a cozier ambience. Viktor was working and you had made the decision to stick around in his office, at least until the horrible weather had subsided.

As if on cue, a strong ray of thunder roared loudly in the sky, telling you everything that you needed to know - you were stuck here, possibly for the entire evening.

No matter. Despite his demeanor, Viktor was a decent source of entertainment.

And just like that you made your way down the metallic stairs, a slight pep in your step as you pondered on the various ideas on how to mess with your new friend. He once confessed on accident that he didn't mind your endless ramblings.

Now it was time to see just how true that statement was.

You heard him first before you saw him. Viktor liked to hum this one tune you never could recognize but judging from the pacing, it was most likely some old lullaby. He would hum it whenever he was lost deep in his head, which was the exact case right at this moment.

Slowing down your pace, you hid behind a wooden cabinet, silently watching Viktor. Despite his back being turned towards you, the scalpel in his hand still glimmered brightly underneath the dim office light. Soft strands of his jet black hair were loose in his messy low ponytail, which would typically make you swoon if the situation were any different.

You forgot just how awful the smell was down here. The stench of chemicals and death made you want to gag, but doing so would expose your presence. Although, you should have registered his sudden silence before that thought came to you.

"I know you're behind me." said Viktor. Even with that flat tone he had used, you could just tell that he had a proud little smirk on his face.

He raised his scalpel high in the air in a dramatic fashion, his own way of telling you to come to him.

"You're more than welcome to join me..." he spoke as he quickly but skillfully lowered the metallic tool, slicing deeply into the flesh of the now rotting corpse which lay on his table.

"... if you can stomach this."

Ugh. Not a lot of people could stomach such a sight but you felt brave at that moment. After composing all of the possible bravado you had in you, the walk towards Viktor did not feel as nauseating as you thought it would. But the moment you caught a glimpse of the fleshless face of the dead man before you, the instinct to turn your head was too much to handle.

Viktor couldn't help but to chuckle, the bastard.

Not knowing how to approach him with any topic of conversation, you asked him the first thing which came to mind:

"I often hear you sing that song to yourself when you work. What's it about?"

Viktor abruptly stopped with his slicing, his body going rigid. An uncomfortable silence fell upon the entire room, causing you to tense up. Before you could even think to say something, Viktor spoke up:

"It's an old song my mother used to sing to me when I was very young."

He continued with his work seemingly without a care, never once even bothering to glance in your direction. The awful squelching of the dead flesh made your blood pump wildly as Viktor continued to speak normally.

"I never realized just how morbid the song was until very recently." he said, slicing away at the dead man's cheekbone. You didn't even need to ask him about what he was talking about as Viktor was something of a mind reader (or so you liked to call him).

"... The song is about a little rabbit which got lost in a big forest."

Another piece of flesh gets discarded. Still, he doesn't look at you.

"It searches for food and water wherever it possibly can, the poor thing."

Out of the corner of your eye, your spot droplets of crimson blood on the floor, taunting you for coming down here. The smell is too powerful, too overbearing. Even so, Viktor continues to elaborate.

"Unfortunately, the rabbit doesn't survive the winter. It's a sad song, don't you agree?"

His words fell on deaf ears as your gaze traveled up and down the body, the skilled cuts and injections leaving you gasping for air. A warm hand made its way to your shoulder, snapping you out of the morbid daze. Viktor's gaze was sharp, but sweet. He wasn't going to hurt you.

"You can always just go back upstairs, if you can't handle it."

Another clap of thunder rang loudly in the background. The already dimmed light felt as though it was going to give in any moment now, making you feel anxious.

... You thought that you had gotten used to this, the atmosphere, the smells.

What a horrible reminder of your weakness.

Without a word, you turned around and quickly rushed up the scary looking stairs, their squeaking boards giving you an ever growing sensation of being free from the smell.

Viktor turned back to the body he was working on. With a tut, he cleaned his trusty scalpel as he gazed down at the bloody remains, his eyes sparkling with determination.

"It's a good thing I started with your face first." said the mortician.

"Otherwise, I fear she would have recognized you almost immediately."

And with that, Viktor set out to finish his horrific deed. He was not sure how much time he had left before you would start catching on to the mysterious disappearances around town but he thanked his lucky stars for all the extra time he could spend with you.

🥀 TAGS: @shamelessdarkprince, @latolover, @samuraijack, @moyazami, @sunhareskies, @red-viewe, @kate03-27, @black-swan-blog27

If you wish to be tagged in future posts, feel free to say so!

Also, fun fact about the song Viktor was singing, it's not something I made up, it's an actual song my own mother often sang to me when I was a child.

[unstable-samurai]

A NEW LOVE AND A NEW PAST - smut

JOY X MALE READER

word count: 5.3K

tags: friends to lovers, first healthy relationship, angst

[A/N: This is the first version, I will eventually correct the errors:)

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Y/N ended the day as usual. The inside of the house was slowly being swallowed by black, and when he finally realized it, he was enveloped in complete darkness. Y/N went out feeling the walls in search of the switch. The lights came on, but he still felt everything was enveloped in darkness for some reason. He had already submitted the report that he spent the week working on for the company; now he was free, although he wanted to continue working on something. The house was clean, the dishes were washed, and the clothes were put away in the closet... Shit, there was nothing else to do that night. He had to be “entertained” Everyone needed that, after all. But he wouldn’t have the focus to read a book or watch a movie. Maybe playing a video game would be the best alternative. He decided that would be it, so he took a shower and prepared his dinner (Cup Noodles, if that can be called dinner).

At around 7:00 pm, his doorbell rang. He did not expect visitors that night. Y/N paused his game and got up from the sofa to open the door.

It was a real surprise to see who it was. Standing there, slightly crestfallen and apparently not knowing what she was doing.

He had never seen her like that.

“Joy?!” Y/N asked, alarmed.

“Y/N... Can I come in?”

“Sure!”

He opened the way for her to pass. Joy was dressed in her ballet uniform; that’s what she taught at a dance studio nearby.

“Are you well?” He asked.

“Yes. I mean, not exactly…”

“What are you doing here?”

“Am I disturbing you?”

“No way! That’s not what I meant. It’s just that I’m worried about you showing up unannounced.”

“Sorry.” He noticed how tired she looked. “We had a fight, Y/N. We had a serious disagreement today. And I think it’s over.

It took him a while to process what she said.

“Fight?”

Finally, he remembered who she was talking about.

“Yes. And at the end of it all, I said it was over between us. I broke up with you know who.”

“Come, sit on the sofa” he asked, and she sat down next to him. “Why did you break up with him?”

“Things haven’t been good for a while, but i was trying to hold on, cause I thought it was just a bad phase in our relationship, but then other problems came and I couldn’t handle it all alone. You could say I’ve reached my limit.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It all happened very quickly. I’m still in my ballet uniform.” She smiled. It was a sad smile.

“But why, out of all your friends, did you choose to come to me?” Y/N asked, feeling afraid that perhaps she would misinterpret his question.

“When I was leaving his apartment, your image suddenly came to mind. So I felt like seeing you. How long is it? About four months?”

“Pretty much that. Look, to tell you the truth, I thought I’d never see you again. You or anyone from our old friends.”

“That fight really messed everything up between us, didn’t it?”

“Yes...”

“And to this day I don’t understand how things got to that point.”

“I was drunk as hell and said what I shouldn’t have to him. That simple. Some people even die because they do this kind of shit, you know?” Y/N tried to look funny with this, but it didn’t work.

“Was everything you said true?”

“No. Not really. I was just angry.”

“He thought it was true. Still thinking.”

“What difference does it make? Nothing I say will make him believe me. If they hadn’t held him back, the guy would have punched me.”

“A beating,” she corrected him. “At home, he said he would kick your ass.”

“Ah, even better.”

“You asked what difference the truth makes. Well, It’s ME who wants to understand you, Y/N. This is important to me."

“Why? This is past. You seem to be getting off-topic here. We have to talk about your breakup.”

“The two things are connected, you idiot!” Joy exclaimed, and then Y/N saw her blush. “Sorry! I exalted myself.”

Y/N didn’t imagine that being called an idiot could be cute. With a defeated smile, he said:

“The truth was, I was mad at him for getting what I wanted. The anger grew the more time we spent together. The anger came with the frustration I felt in my life, then it became envy, and the envy poisoned me and led me to say those things.”

“I thought it was just because of the alcohol.” She said, confused.

“Actually, I wasn’t drunk enough to say that shit by accident. I knew perfectly well what I was saying. The alcohol was just an excuse. At that moment I didn't realize that I was embarrassing you too. I'm fucking sorry.”

He lowered his head. Y/N would rather face death than look her in the eye.

“But what were you jealous of in him? If you lived with him like I did, you would know that there is nothing there to covet.”

“He had the only thing I cared about for himself. And that made me extremely frustrated. My idea was to slowly move away from him and cut off contact over time, but I knew he would never allow things to end that way. That’s why I acted like an idiot to kill our friendship once and for all. I... I hated myself for how I felt. That shit was making me sick, Joy. I felt like a snake among you...”

She placed her gentle hand on his shoulder, and she looked so pious in that moment that it only made Y/N feel worse.

“What did he have and you didn’t? Say please.”

“You, Joy. He had you.” The words came out of his mouth so bitterly that the expression of disgust on his face was visible.

“I?” She questioned. “Was it me you were jealous of?”

“Yes. I couldn’t bear to see you two together. It hurt like hell to see you in his arms when I was the one who should have been hugging you... See? I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. I’m sorry. Again..."

“Do you want to know why your fight with him was also connected to the end of our relationship? Because I was away from you. And when I broached this subject with him, he became extremely angry. I tried to reconcile the two of you, but he didn’t accept it. As the months passed, I felt increasingly lonely in this relationship. Everything was so cold at home, and sometimes what warmed me were the memories of the times we two spent together.” She smiled. “Like that day when I tried to teach you some ballet steps and you almost couldn’t walk for a week.”

“Hey, that shit was serious, okay? Too risky moves for beginners!”

She couldn’t contain her laughter. It was good to see her happy like that; it made him feel a little better.

“I was having trouble understanding. Or I simply made it difficult to understand the simple thing: I like you too, Y/N.”

“Even when you were with him?”

“Our relationship started off very well, but it didn’t take long for him to start feeling like he owned me, judging what I wore, what I ate, my friends, and even my weight. As if my mother judging me wasn’t enough...”

“Damn it! I had no idea you were going through this. I can’t believe he treated you so stupidly!”

“You don’t need to be jealous of him, Y/N. Why he will never compare to you, I now realize. You noticed the little details about me, like when I painted my nails, did my hair or changed my lipstick. Now i think I was very blind in not realizing before that you liked me!”

“Saying it like that makes it seem like I really made everything very obvious” he said, placing both hands on his face to hide it, embarrassed.

“Don’t run away now, little boy!” Joy took his hands away from his face. “If you want, we can allow ourselves to try.”

“What about him? Is it really over?”

“Tomorrow morning, I’m going to his house to pick up my things. I never want to see him again.” Joy placed her soft hand on Y/N’s face; he could feel the softness and warmth that her skin emanated.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, strangely polite.

“Please!”

They brought their faces closer and their lips touched, almost embarrassed, but soon they found their own rhythm and things intensified; their tongues were already dancing together. Y/N had his hand on Joy’s leg, his fingers between the fabric of the shorts and the ballet tights. She seemed so surrendered at that moment, and all he wanted was to have her in his arms, holding her tighter and tighter, as if she would regret what she had done and run away from there. A silly delirium, because Joy had her arms around his neck, and she herself was the one pressing Y/N’s face against hers. In love.

“It was good?” She asked.

“I don’t even dare to describe it. Tell me you’re going to sleep here.”

“It would be amazing. But don’t expect anything other than falling asleep together; honestly, I’m still not feeling very well.”

“No problem. I just want to have you here with me.”

“Thank you, Y/N. You don’t know, but i was forced to have sex with him whenever he felt like it, no matter how tired or unwell I said I was. But I guess I shouldn’t be talking about that now, right? I’m ruining things.”

Y/N realized that there was a deep emotional wound in Joy, which perhaps took time to heal and this also tore him apart, as he always saw her smiling, laughing, supporting her friends and even making some silly pranks. Above all, caring about everyone around her, except herself, apparently.

“You’re not ruining anything! And you don’t need to thank me for something that should be the least of my part.”

He hugged Joy, she leaned her head on his shoulder, and they remained that way for a while, until he asked:

“How about you take a shower and change your clothes? You must be tired. Did you eat anything after you left the studio?”

“I haven’t eaten anything yet. I’m starving.”

“Go take a shower. I’ll get you something to wear and then we can order something to eat.”

“Thanks.” For a moment, it looked like Joy was going to say something else, instead she just kissed him on the cheek and went into the bathroom.

After showering, Joy wore the clothes that Y/N had lent her, which were basically cotton shorts and a Muse t-shirt. Then suddenly, she appeared in the room saying:

“What’s up, bro? What’s for dinner tonight, dude? I’m so hungry!”

“Hey, did you happen to see that pretty girl who went to the bathroom?”

“I didn't see any girls. But what do you say we make a little mess before this girl shows up, huh? You know what I mean, bro?”

"Okay, I'm starting to get intimidated."

She jumped onto the couch, laughing.

“These clothes are very comfortable; thank you.”

“I'm glad you liked it. Hey how about we eat chop-suey?”

“You are wise as a king.”

He ordered the food.

Sitting on the sofa, Y/N asked:

“What do you think people will think of this?”

“Do you mean: 'we' together?”

“Exactly.”

Joy lay down on the sofa and rested her head on Y/N’s lap.

“Seulgi will like it, I believe. She was the only person I told what was really happening in my relationship. She was the one who encouraged me to break up.”

“Seulgi was a tremendous angel! I miss her too. You didn’t deserve to go through all this shit. But I’m glad it’s over. I mean, I hope so.”

“I need to let go of some insecurities. He told me cruel things, which were backed up by my own mother. You know my mother was also a ballerina, and they can be quite inhumane sometimes.”

“Let’s take care of one wound at a time. Together.”

She smiled and slowly closed her eyes. There were dark circles under Joy’s eyes, so he knew she was indeed tired.

“It wasn’t in my plans to say I love you today” she confessed. “But I think I love you, Y/N.”

“I have always loved you, Joy. And from now on, I will take care of you with kindness and love, the way you deserve. I hope to prove this to you over time.”

“You don’t need to prove anything to me” she whispered. “I already know this because whenever I’m by your side, I feel peace.”

Hearing this made him find a little courage to also be sincere about some shit.

“After the shit that happened in the bar, I created my own prison and stayed in it for four months. Terribly lonely. Work was my escape valve. After a while, I started to think it was better to stay in the dark, since the lights distorted everything around me. It was nothing more than shine; It always gave me a headache."

“I’m sorry you had to face this seclusion. But I finally came, we won't feel alone anymore.”

He stroked her hair slowly. Time was no longer his enemy.

“And one day we can say ‘fuck you’ to the past.” Y/N stated, he seemed determined.

“I can hardly wait for that day....." She broke into a smile when she thought about it. "Wow! It means I'm your Joy now, right?

Her eyes were still closed when a tear fell.

“Yes, you are my Joy now. I think you always have been, since the day we met, since the first smile you gave me.”

Another tear, this one Y/N captured softly with his thumb.

Three months had passed. It was the rainy season in the city, and the days were shrouded in bone-chilling cold. That night, torrential rain had been pouring down without respite since the end of the afternoon. Everyone completed what they had to complete as soon as possible to return to their respective homes.

Bad luck to those who had to be on the street.

Joy was with the last child, waiting for her parents at the ballet studio. The rain was delaying all traffic, so it was not uncommon for some girls to stay until a little later, waiting for their parents. For the teacher, it was no bother at all. Finally, a black car that looked very expensive stopped in front of the studio and honked loudly. The little girl said goodbye to Joy and ran through the rain to the vehicle. Joy was now free to go home. She put a coat over her ballet outfit and walked around the studio, turning off all the lights. The establishment wasn’t hers; she worked with two other teachers, and there was an old retired dancer who was the owner behind everything. The fact that she was still there was for the simple reason that Joy was the only person among the studio’s employees who lived in that neighborhood, so it was no problem to stay a little later with the children whose parents were late picking them up and finally close the studio. After turning off all the lights, she took her umbrella and locked the main door.

There was a guy leaning against a light pole next to the dance studio wearing a dark raincoat with a hood. It was a pretty ridiculous piece of clothing, to be honest. Joy found that person strange for a moment and approached, slightly suspicious. After getting close enough to see his face, she said:

“Y/N!” And Joy smiled, excited. “I thought you couldn’t come today!”

“I finished the report early. I decided to come and get you. A pretty girl like you shouldn’t walk the streets alone...”

She laughed. Joy really thought that sleazy accent that Y/N used when she wanted to say corny things was funny.

“Pretty? I look like a bird that fell out of its nest! Can you believe I was able to sweat a lot even in this cold?”

“Big Deal! Can you believe I was drinking hot coffee in my room, completely protected from the cold, while I finished writing some shit sitting in an extremely comfortable chair?”

“Jesus Christ! What would society be without men and their hard work?” she joked.

“Isn’t it? You couldn’t last a day in my shoes.”

““I don’t even want to think about it!” She grabbed his right bicep. “Luckily I have my strong and fearless provider.”

“Oh, Really? Well, i hope you introduce me to him someday. Anyway, I was thinking about taking you for a walk before we go home, are you up for it?”

“In this rain?”

“Since when are you made of sugar?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“First let’s drink some coffee. Then I’ll take you to a certain place so we can do something.”

“I thought you already drank while working hard on the computer.”

“I can make that sacrifice again.”

“And you still wonder why you have insomnia...”

The devil knew how much Joy needed a coffee too, so the two walked together down the deserted sidewalk.

At the coffee shop, Y/N ordered an espresso and a cupcake, he loved the combination of a bitter drink with something sweet. Joy ordered a cappuccino and a croissant.

“We've been living together for three months now.” He commented sitting at the table.

“I don’t know if we can call this ‘living together’.”

“You spend several days in a row at my house, so my house is a little like yours too.”

“If you think so” And she continued to eat the croissant.

“What if we make it official soon?”

“Are you talking about me living with you?”

“Exactly! It’s a good house. Spacious. We can receive our friends without any worries. It’s close to your work... I see no reason why it wouldn’t happen”

“Where is my toothbrush now?”

Y/N found the question strange but replied:

“At home. In my bathroom. Next to my toothbrush.”

She looked at him with her eyes shining, and Y/N could see that she was happy.

“So that’s it.” Joy tried to suppress her smile by drinking some of her coffee.

“Serious?!” Y/N asked so loudly that the people sitting at the tables around them looked at them.

“Sure! And speak more quietly, please.”

“Sorry” He laughed. “I’m fucking happy, that’s all.”

“I’m happy too.”

“I could scream right now for everyone here to hear.”

“Oh my gosh... don’t even think about it!

“Do you doubt it?! Are you doubting my love for you?!”

He started to get up.

“No, no! I don't doubt it! I know you love me, but I will die of embarrassment if you scream!” She tried to explain, desperate.

Y/N returned to his chair and laughed until tears came out of his eyes.

Walking and walking in the rain once again. Y/N stopped with Joy in front of the shopping mall that rose like a titan, casting dazzling lights across the square. They entered and noticed that most of the stores were already closed. Joy said:

“I think you came a little late to buy your underwear. By the way, you could do it without me.”

“Look, this weekend I’m going to sign you up for a stand-up comedy show for beginners so you can tell your jokes on stage, what do you think? No, what I want to show you is there on the third floor.”

“I just hope it’s not a wedding thing.”

“Do people still get married?”

They got into the elevator and went to the third floor. Looking at the mirror that was there, Y/N noticed how ridiculous he looked in that raincoat. Joy made fun of him by saying he looked like a trash bag.

“I’m really going to sign you up for a stand-up comedy show” he reaffirmed. “Just know that this raincoat is all the rage in Japan!”

“And what are the chances that the salesman told the truth?”

Y/N was silent.

The third floor was almost empty. He took Joy to the toys and games area, which was partially closed, but the lights were still on. She looked surprised. Not in a positive way.

“Arcade? We could have played video games at home.” She said.

“Mr. Miyagi used to say that the eyes are only capable of seeing a third of the truth. You have to look with your heart, too. Joy, you should learn a thing or two from him.”

“I never saw the movie but I know he never said that.”

“Take off your coat and come with me.” He asked, and then ran to the arcade.

“Hey, wait a minute!” She followed him, unbuttoning her coat.

Y/N stopped at the end of a narrow corridor between pinball tables and shooting games. Joy still hadn’t understood what the hell he was doing until she guided her eyes to where he was pointing, and there it was: an old, faded photo booth. That’s what he's wanted all along. Analog photos. Well, that was cute; she couldn’t deny it.

“Would you agree to take some photos with me?" He asked kneeling.

Joy extended her hand to him.

"It will be a pleasure."

Y/N smiled at her. He never got tired of admiring how beautiful she looked in a ballet uniform. They entered the machine together. Joy sat on his lap and put an arm around her neck.

“Money in banknotes?!” He questioned in awe. “The last time I got into some shit like that, it was coins.”

“The machine may be analog, but the company that built it certainly keeps up with inflation.”

“Anyway, let’s go!”

Y/N put his money in the booth and pressed the button, waiting for the first photo to be taken. Then came the flash, which caught him off guard. “You blinked!” she said. “The photo will be funny.” More flashes, and also more poses. They put on a tough face for the camera, then they smiled with their cheeks touching, then they made the ugliest faces they could, and finally they kissed.

The booth complied with the deal and spat out the roll of photos. They analyzed it together and, with the exception of the first image (the one where Y/N had blinked his eyes), all the photographs were great.

“I really liked this surprise. It will be a good memory. I think simple days also need to be remembered.” Joy commented in the elevator.

“I was afraid it would look silly. But I’ve wanted to take photos like these with you for a long time. We can make a mini-album or something. I don’t know, in my mind, it’s kind of special.”

“Mr. Miyagi used to say that when something is special in your mind, it is because it is also very special in your heart. You should learn a thing or two from him…”

“Oh, come on...”

Joy couldn't contain her laughter. Seeing her like that warmed his heart.

“Look, seriously now: i think the photos and the other things we’ll do will make the past a little better when we look back in the future.”

“A new past.” His voice sounded ethereal.

Yeah, a new past! But our hearts must stay in the present. Ever.”

Joy gave him a hug. He hugged her back, and they stayed like that as the elevator descended to the first floor. He wished simple days were always like this.

At home, a hot shower was more than enough to banish the cold they felt while on the streets. He was lying in bed looking at those photos again. They were really good, he concluded, and the record seemed to positively signal an important moment in their lives, after all, the photos were taken on the day she agreed to live with him permanently. And this might even seem strange since the formal dating request had not yet been made. But, well, fuck conventions. They were a couple, and the dating proposal would be made soon.

When she was ready.

Y/N was so far away in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when Joy had come out of the bathroom, standing in front of him, wearing a beautiful pink slinky nightie that adjusted to the curves of her body.

“Joy...?”

“I bought it a while ago, when I was still dating, you know who, but I never had the courage to use it. Not after he talked about me being fat.”

“You’re not fat. And even if he was, fuck them all with their shitty opinions.”

“You made me feel comfortable wearing that slinky nightie again.”

“I did nothing. You realized how beautiful you are on your own.”

Joy approached slowly. So beautiful, so sensual, like paradise. She sat on the edge of the bed and said:

“Thank you for caring about me, baby. I've been smiling to the point that I've created expression marks on my face since I started staying here with you."

“You’d be surprised how easy it is. And these marks... look good on you."

Y/N noticed that her cheeks were softly flushed.

“I feel ready now.”

“Are you sure?"

“I have never been as sure as I am now. You are my man. I'm your-”

“Joy” he completed.

She crawled onto the bed like a feline.

They find themselves in a fiery embrace, their bodies melting into an ember of insatiable desire. Each touch was a discovery, an exploration of carnal pleasure imbued with true feeling. Precious like a diamond. Y/N’s lips traced a path of fire down Joy’s neck, leaving a trail of heat that burned on her delicate skin. As he lowered the strap of Joy’s slinky nightie, his fingers trembled with excitement, eager to touch the soft, inviting skin that was revealed just to him. It was the longing for love combusting.

Laying Joy on the bed, Y/N immersed his head in the delight of her tits, exploring each curve with fervent devotion. His lips found Joy’s nipples, eliciting moans of pleasure that echoed through the room, while his hands explored every inch of her body with palpable urgency.

Tracing a trail of kisses across Joy’s body, Y/N got closer and closer to his goal; he had a wild desire to taste her. Each kiss was like a promise of pleasure, an anticipation of what was to come. Joy writhed beneath his skillful touches, her moans filling the night air as she gave herself over completely to the heat of the moment.

And then, finally, Y/N put his head between Joy’s legs. With a decisive look, he plunged his tongue into the source of her desire, savoring every drop of forbidden nectar that she was barely dripping with. It was a scene of ecstasy and abandonment to reason, a total surrender to the desire that consumed them. Joy gripped the sheets, her moans of pleasure mixing with the sound of the night rain as she lost herself in the waves of pleasure that took her to the edge. The senses were heightened, an eternal moment, the words sounded alive when she announced that she was going to cum. Y/N got goosebumps. He never imagined that words could make him so excited. Then her delicious honey dripped into his mouth.

“I want to feel you inside me.” She murmured after recovering from her first true orgasm.

Y/N took off his boxer shorts in an instant. She saw how hard his dick was as he opened the rubber package.

That would be the two’s first time together. Hungry with desire, he didn’t hesitate as he pushed his latejante cock into Joy’s hot, wet vagina, both of them writhing with pleasure on the messy bed, fucking in missionary position. Each thrust was a frenzied thrust, their bodies slamming together in a wild rhythm. Their eyes met in a mix of lust and love, while their mouths locked in voracious kisses, moans escaping their lips as they gave in to passion.

Joy, feeling taken by her impulses of domination, mounted him, guiding his hard cock inside her with an agile movement of her hips. Her boobs swayed freely with the rhythm of her riding, inviting Y/N to grab and caress them with his warm hands. Each movement of her hips is a thrust, an explosion of pleasure, their sweaty bodies moving in perfect harmony as she leans in to kiss him without ever stopping the flow of her hips.

Y/N grabs Joy by the waist and puts her on all fours, exposing her temptingly pert ass in front of him. Without hesitation, he thrusts into her hard, their bodies slamming together in a wild frenzy. Each thrust is deep and relentless. Moans of pleasure echo throughout the room, mixing with the sound of skin hitting skin.

“oh fuck, i’m gonna cum!” he said between moans.

Joy got out of bed and got on her knees before he even asked. She was thirsty for it. She took off the rubber and wrapped Y/N’s throbbing cock in her fleshy lips with an insatiable hunger, determined to explore every inch of that source of pleasure that rose hard just for her. Joy’s eyes sparkled with devotion as she immersed herself in the task, making extremely erotic eye contact. Her tongue, skillful and thirsty, traced circles around the pulsing red glans of his cock, exploring every groove and vein with an almost scientific meticulousness. She savored every drop of precum that came out as her skilled hands gently caressed and squeezed his balls. With rehearsed dexterity, she slid her lips to the base, swallowing him with a voracity that made Y/N moan loudly. With each upward movement, Joy sucked with insatiable ferocity, sending waves of pleasure through his body. Every inch of his cock was explored and devoured, as if she were determined to extract every last drop of pleasure he could offer. And when finally Y/N could no longer contain the impending explosion, Joy intensified her efforts, sucking with an insatiable intensity until he could no longer hold back, flooding her mouth with warm milky cum, which Joy swallowed without wasting a single drop.

FOLLOWING DAY

It had already become part of her routine to wake up alone in bed. Fortunately, the noises from the kitchen were welcoming to her ears. Joy got out of bed wrapped in the comforter. The morning was rainy (what a surprise).

There he was, by the stove, finishing what looked like scrambled eggs.

“Good morning” she said, sitting down at the table.

“Good morning, baby. Are you hungry?”

“Oh dear, I could eat an elephant!”

“I prepared toast, scrambled eggs, coffee and there’s cheese and ham if you want a sandwich.”

“You are so divine!”

“Thanks. By the way, could you get the milk for me?”

“Obvious.”

Joy got up and went to the fridge. When she opened the door and took the bottle of milk, she noticed that there was a small square box at the bottom of the fridge.

“What is that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you open it and find out?”

“Oh, Y/N! It’s not what I’m thinking, is it…?”

She couldn’t control the shaking of her hands. When he lifted the lid of the box, two rings sparkled.

“Will you agree to date me? My strategy was to persuade you with the help of drowsiness. It worked?”

“Shit, it worked great!” She started to laugh nervously. Then came the crying.

Y/N helped Joy. He took one of the rings and put it on her right ring finger; she did the same with it.

“These are our dating rings.” He told. "I know putting this in the fridge isn't the best of surprises, but you don't have a very creative guy on your side."

“It was unusual, but cute. I bet I'm the only one who opened the fridge to get some milk and ended up getting a dating ring. When I saw this ring box, God... for a second, I thought they were wedding rings!”

“I love you, but I also know how to take it easy.” He joked.

“I loved it. Thank you, Y/N.”

The morning remained cold, wet and impetuous, but, believe it or not, towards the end of the afternoon, a blessing occurred. The sun rose for a few moments and shone benevolently, and a couple who were now breathing in unity were able to contemplate it, and despite being in different places when this happened, their minds came together in a single thought: what a joy it was to be alive.

END

[A/N: I know for some people reading this the "dating ring" thing might seem weird. But in my culture it's something relatively common, and I only knew it was a cultural thing when I finished writing the smut. I decided to keep this detail because, idk, i think it's kinda a cute thing, although some people find it bizarre and associate with being possessive cause they have a severe perception about rings in relationships.

But this is nothing more than a simple silver plated ring that symbolizes a serious relationship. Common among young couples.

Well that's it. Keep your mind open and thanks for reading 🔥

I was a little inspired by this song:

[livingformintyoongi]

can I request: Jungkook and YN laying in bed cockwarming while watching a movie and they fall asleep. Jungkook wakes up in the middle of the night and is still inside YN so he wakes her up by sucking her tits and asks her if it's ok to fuck because he is hard

thanksssss💕

5:30 A.M.

a/n: Thank you for the request! It's my first time making smut as such, so I hope it's good enough for your taste ^^. warnings: Cockwarming, Mazophilia, reader is older than Jungkook by two years, kind of dom!reader and sub!Jungkook but very mild, breeding kink, hair pulling. wc: 1.8k

"Don't you find it strange that Captain America and Iron man get along so badly? I mean, they both seek the same end, why fight each other when they should be using that strength against villains?" muttered Jungkook, trying to swallow the vulgar amount of popcorn he threw into his mouth.

"They both have the same goal, but at the same time different values, and those same values are what make their relationship so strained" you nodded, taking a sip of your drink, "You know what thing does strike me as odd?".

"What?" your boyfriend's gaze was still fixed on the TV, too focused on watching Iron man and Captain America fight.

"That you asked to be inside me while we watch Captain America: civil war," you laughed softly, turning to look at your boyfriend "Sounds like too weird of a fetish. Tell me the truth, do you have an Iron man fetish or something?".

Jungkook laughed, kissing your cheek and caressing your abdomen with his fingertips. You felt your insides stir inside you. 

 "Of course not, it's just that I really love being inside you" he murmured, kissing you shortly, "I feel so much closer to you, like we're really one person, you know what I mean?".

You nodded laughing, stroking his jaw, "Sure I do, but it's still weird that you're asking me while we're watching a Marvel movie."

"I'll pick something better next time" he chuckled, snuggling under you. He loved having you in his lap and being able to hug you from behind. "Now let's concentrate on watching Robert Downey Junior fight Chris Evans."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say" you smiled, leaning against his shoulder and watching one of your boyfriend's favorite movies.

You fell asleep shortly after watching the post-credits scene, you had a long day's work, so it was expected that you fell asleep so early. Before going to sleep you asked Jungkook to switch positions and he was quick to agree. He was aware that it was quite uncomfortable for you to sleep sitting up, and since he still didn't want to leave you, you decided to lie down hugging each other, him with his head on your chest and his hands around your waist, you, with one of your hands on his lower back and the other in his hair.

Even though you fell asleep much earlier than Jungkook had planned, he quite enjoyed watching the rest of the movies alone, mostly because it was enough for him that you were lying next to him.

He hadn't planned on disturbing your rest, indeed, he hated to do so because he knew how much the work exhausted you, but there were things he simply couldn't control, like his cock. 

If we're honest, it hadn't been his fault as such, but somehow watching Wade and Vanessa's scenes while he was still inside you awakened something inside him. And on the outside, too. 

As soon as he felt little spasms in his cock, he turned off the TV and settled back against your chest, closing his eyes and trying to think about anything other than fucking you. It worked a little at first, but then he felt the soft scent of your perfume, your breath against his scalp, the softness of your breasts against his cheek. He actually tried to resist.

He took a breath of air, remembering an old conversation the two of you had at the beginning of your relationship. You had talked about whether you were comfortable with certain things in the sexual realm, among them, having something with one of you asleep. You confessed that you didn't mind as long as you weren't fighting and he told you that he trusted you enough to know that you would take good care of him even if he was sleeping. 

You weren't fighting, so he wasn't passing you around, you said yourself that you didn't care. 

That was Jungkook repeated himself as he slipped his hand under your shirt, which was actually his, and started massaging your breasts. At first it was just small squeezes, using his whole hand to cover your breast. He licked his lips, looking at your face. You were still asleep.

The squeezes now shifted to your nipples. He rolled, pulled and pinched them, gradually increasing the force on them. He was surprised to notice that you were still sound asleep in spite of that.

He thought that was good, so this time he lifted your shirt until it was under your chin. He swallowed saliva at the sight of your breasts. He seriously loved them, they were so round, nice and big. He brought his mouth up to the point where both breasts met and began to leave little kisses on the spot. His hands were now busy caressing your hips, and his hips were grinding against yours with almost imperceptible movements. 

You were still asleep.

When he realized that you wouldn't wake up no matter what he did, he began to lick the skin around your nipples. At first it was just small rubs, but they soon turned into sloppy kisses, sucking your nipples hard as his onslaught became stronger than at first.

It was only then that you opened your eyes.

You were still a little groggy from the nap you had taken, so it took you a while to realize what was happening. You came all the way back after Jungkook hit your G-spot a little too hard.

You moaned much louder than usual, opening your eyes wide.

"Jungkook?" you gasped, clinging to his hair as you felt his cock touch your G-spot again. 

"Noona" he whispered, his voice cracking. Now that you were aroused he could afford to lunge harder. "You feel so good, you're so beautiful, so tight."

You weren't understanding the situation very well, but you weren't going to complain either. Jungkook definitely knew how to make a woman feel good.

"I thought I'd have to hold back, I didn't want to wake you up," he murmured, tightening his grip on your hips as his lunges got faster and messier, "I'm glad you woke up."

"Were you holding back?" you chuckled, groaning at the end of the sentence.

Jungkook was big, much bigger than any of your exes were, and even though you'd been together for quite a while now, you couldn't get used to his size and how well he filled you up. That, coupled with how resilient and flexible he was, made him a perfect lover. 

Even knowing that, you were still amazed by the fact that Jungkook held back most of the time just so he wouldn't hurt or tease you. It seemed so cute to you.

"Of course I do," he nodded awkwardly, closing his eyes tightly as he licked his bottom lip. He had to let go of your hips and grab hold of the back of your bed in order to continue. It felt even better now that you were awake. He loved hearing your voice. "You looked so tired, but I was so needy" he grunted as he felt you tighten around him, squeezing the backrest until his knuckles turned white, "I thought maybe, if I did it slowly you wouldn't wake up."

You hugged Jungkook's hips with your legs, while your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him close until he was close enough to kiss his lips. 

You tried to make the kiss slow and deep, but Jungkook seemed so desperate. You moaned as you felt him wrap one of his arms around your waist and lift you off the bed until you felt your chest crush against his. It didn't take him long to slip his tongue into your mouth.

You both broke the kiss when you ran out of air. Jungkook wasted no time, and quickly brought his lips down to your breasts, returning his focus to your nipples and how good it felt the way you squeezed each time he sucked on them hard.

You felt close, and it really was hard not to be when Jungkook was fucking and eating your breasts like it was the last time. You pulled his hair tightly, pulling his neck closer to your mouth, nibbling and sucking every space on his skin that looked too empty.

You smiled as you heard your name leave his lips between gasps.

"Noona" he whispered, letting his head fall on your shoulder, "I need...can I...can I…?". 

"You can cum inside" you kissed his head, feeling his cock stir inside you. Each time it felt even bigger, "It's okay, don't worry."

Jungkook sighed in relief, kissing and licking the skin on your shoulder, letting his hips bump against yours.

The sound of his skin against yours was getting louder and messier, as were the moans from both of you. 

With his mind too clouded to think clearly, but still quite aware of the situation, Jungkook lowered his hand all the way down, letting his index and ring fingers rub your clit, following the same messy, rapid rhythm his onslaught had.

You clenched your jaw, keeping a loud moan from leaving your lips. Your back curved the moment his fingers touched your sensitive spot.

Suddenly everything he did felt too much for you.

"I don't think I can take much more," he said between grunts, looking at you with dark, clouded eyes.

Seeing your boyfriend's reddened, swollen, glistening lips, his big eyes shining with desire and his messy hair covering his sweaty forehead was enough of a turn-on for you to squeeze his cock even tighter.

He moaned again, but unlike you, he didn't hold it back.

"It's okay, Jungkookie," You tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling on it gently, "could you cum for me?" you whispered over his lips, licking the piercing that rested in the corner of it with the tip of your tongue.

Jungkook nodded quickly, letting your pussy milk his cock, and that was enough to cause the knot you felt in your belly to untie. Jungkook didn't stop moving until the last drop of his cum was inside you.

You both took a second before coming down from your euphoria. Jungkook fixed your shirt carefully, leaving a soft kiss on your neck as he finished. 

You smiled barely, caressing his cheek with your knuckles, "Aren't you going to get out of my pussy?" you asked teasingly.

Jungkook smiled back, but his smile was much bigger than yours, "No, you feel great."

You laughed helplessly, lowering your hands to his waist so you could pinch it gently. 

"Fine, but this time don't do anything, it's..." you looked at the clock on your bedside table, raising your eyebrows as you saw the time, "You seriously woke me up at five thirty in the morning so we could fuck??"

"We better just close our eyes and rest, we'll talk about this tomorrow" he kissed you shortly, before resting his head on your breasts again and settling back to sleep.

You just rolled your eyes in amusement, hugging Jungkook and letting tiredness take power over you again.

Materlist.

[princessbrunette]

princess what are the girls personal lives like? who’s got deadbeats and who’s got like 4 little siblings yknow?

bunny is an only child for sure. her father is kind of a deadbeat but still lives at home with them. possibly a mean alcoholic, past abusive tendencies that were small but enough to give her insane daddy issues hence her relationship with rafe. rafe might seem ‘mean’ but in comparison he treats her like a princess so she has zero complaints. her mother is an overbearing woman who lives vicariously through her, bunny’s childhood spent being put through beauty pageants and child modelling jobs.

puppy is the youngest of three older brothers — two of them are old enough now where they live with their own partners and one lives at home with her. she grew up around a lot of rough and tumble games which is why she’s so used to running around and getting dirty. her parents are pretty normal people, but she feels an underlying sense of disappointment from them as the only girl — every cut and scrape met with some kind of comment about her being too much like the brothers.

kitty is super close with her mother surprisingly, she’s into all the same kind of stuff. her mother had her pretty young so as kitty grows they feel more and more like friends than like parent and daughter. kitty has an older sister who is similar to her just 10x meaner, truly humbled her as they grew up together but she knows if she’s ever in any trouble her older sister will beat the fuck out of them. jj is terrified of her sister. i think rafe is even scared of her sister. her older sister briefly dated barry and rocked his fuckin world

deer is an older sister through and through! there’s roughly a 3/4 age difference between her and her sister and they’re pretty close, always giving her advice and stuff like that. perhaps the younger sister feels a little overshadowed sometimes because deer is so gifted but it doesn’t effect their relationship. i feel deers parents are on the older side, but very sweet people who try really really hard to be progressive— always asking deer questions about how certain things work these days etc. pretty wholesome home life!!

[cosmicjoke]

Alright, even though I haven't yet read a full translation of "Bad Boy, I just want to talk about some things from the pages we do have translated and what we see happen in the story itself.

I don't t think the level of psychological trauma Levi's experiences in this story can be overstated.

We see Levi cry when his mother's cup breaks on the floor. I think what's important to note about this, is that it takes place directly following Levi violently and brutally killing a group of men who had been threatening and beating him.

The first man Levi kills very nearly beats Levi to death. He's using a hammer fist to beat him, meaning his balled fist, and using the edge of his fist, not his knuckles, to beat Levi over and over, with Levi's head against the stone ground. He would have eventually beaten Levi to death if Levi's power hadn't awoken when it did. We also realize that Kenny has abandoned Levi before this happens. Looking through the panels again, I noticed Levi is wearing different clothes when Kenny leaves him than what he's wearing here, in the present. That means Kenny left Levi before his powers even awakened. He left him to fend for himself, a 9 year old child, on the streets of a place that had men like these prowling around, waiting and looking to prey on children, men who felt no hesitation in beating a child to death, or selling that child into sexual slavery. Clearly, Kenny couldn't be bothered to even wait for Levi to develop his actual powers before throwing him to the wolves. And once Kenny walks away, after years of drilling into him that strength is the only thing that matters, Levi is left not understanding what any of it was even for. His power finally awakens, and he brutally kills these men, and he doesn't understand any of it. He was taught violence, but for what purpose? He even asks "What's it for?" to the sole remaining assailant. He's talking about his strength. He doesn't understand why he's so strong, when it's gained him seemingly nothing, and resulted in nothing good. He's still alone, he's still in the dark, he's still existing in a world and in a life that offers him nothing but despair and hopelessness.

And this last man, in my view, is truly the most vile of the group. A truly cruel and hateful coward. We see this man begin to try and manipulate Levi, threatening him and lying to him about his own intentions, trying to claim he meant to "save" Levi, and perhaps most disgusting of all, using Levi's love for his mother against him in some twisted attempt to save his own life, by telling Levi that he would be sullying the memory of her by killing him. I can't begin to imagine the psychological toll this man's words had on Levi following this entire experience. I don't know what the entirety of the dialog between them is, yet, and I'll give a better analysis once that's revealed. But I think it's safe to assume, given what happens with Levi after, that this man's words to Levi likely solidified in Levi himself a belief in his own monstrosity.

Because we see Levi crying, after. When his mother's cup breaks in his hand, and shatters against the floor.

This is a trauma response.

Levi was clearly in shock leading up to that moment. We see him return to the place he and his mother presumably once lived, and we see Levi prepare a cup of tea, afterward staring vacantly into the liquid of the cup, remembering a clearly romanticized image of he and his mother drinking tea in that same spot. I say it's clearly romanticized, because we see a shaft of light in Levi's memory, coming down on the two of them, when in reality, in the present, there is no light at all. It's complete darkness. It's complete despair. I don't think Levi remembers his mother well. He clearly only has an impression of her, and it's an impression he's clearly idealized. An image of elegance and beauty in a world of filth and ruin.

When he picks the cups up to drink from it, the handle snaps, and the cup falls, shattering on the floor. The cup breaking is what finally snaps Levi out of his shock, and finally all the emotion of what's just happened to him comes crashing down, and he begins to cry. Again, this is very obviously a trauma response. It's not the cup itself breaking, but what it represents, I think, that reduces Levi to tears.

Because, really, that cup shattering represents the shattering of Levi's own innocence.

We can assume this is the first time he kills, and we see the devastating effect of it on Levi in the aftermath.

He's alone, abandoned by Kenny without explanation, after Kenny's approval of him had seemed predicated on Levi becoming strong. And so Levi is left here with nothing but confusion, the fading memory of his mother, the blood on his hands, something forced on him both by Kenny and the men who were attacking him, and with that horrible man's words no doubt echoing in his ears about how killing him would sully his mother's memory, that idealized image he has of his mother. One has to think Levi's own self-image was warped into that of a monster.

Levi killed those men with his bare hands, and in doing so, he displayed a truly shocking amount of strength. I'm talking something equivalent to or even greater than a brown bear or a tiger. We have to remember here that Levi is only 9 years old. He's a child. And he's able to do this.

And yet, it didn't come naturally to him at all.

Levi wanted these men to give back his mothers tea set. He asked them to give it back to him, because it didn't belong to them. He still asks, even after they beat him badly.

It's only after the brutality of their attack increases, that we see Levi try to actually fight back. He lands a punch on the man holding him down, and then that man begins to beat Levi to within an inch of his life, bringing his fist down on him over and over again, until Levi's power awakens and explodes out of him.

Levi resorted to violence in response to their increasing violence against him, but it wasn't his initial response. I know I go on and on about how I don't believe Levi is naturally inclined toward violence at all, but I think this story, for all its intense violence, demonstrates that beyond doubt.

Because Levi finally loses it, and he kills these men, and he does it in truly terrifying fashion. He tears them apart the way an animal would tear a person apart. He shows no mercy to the final man, who tries to squirm his way out of paying for his actions by lying to Levi and guilt-tripping him. It doesn't work, though. Levi kills him, too, and he does all this with seemingly no remorse and no feeling.

But, again, I come back to the immediate aftermath, when Kuchel's cup shatters on the floor, and we're reminded in stark, naked fashion that Levi is just a child. He was an innocent child. And that innocence was stolen from him by this incident. By Kenny teaching him how to kill, teaching him that strength was the only thing that mattered, but not explaining to him why before leaving him. By these men nearly killing him, by their brutality and cruelty and ugliness. By Levi having to kill them to save himself. And by his grieving fury and confusion over the point of any of it, when he kills the final man, even when he didn't have to. Levi breaking down into tears has nothing to do with the cup itself, but with what's just happened. He's horrified. I think he's horrified with himself, and he's alone, and the last, good memory he has, the one point of light in his life, this single, vague memory of his mother, has been shattered to pieces, literally and figuratively, with the shattering of Levi's own innocence.

I think that point of contrast, his memory of his mother's elegance and grace, with the brutality and violence of himself, in that moment, devastates Levi. I think he feels ashamed. I think he believes in that horrible man's words to him, about how he's disgraced his mother's memory by doing what he's done. Can there be any doubt that Levi begins to think of himself from this point on as an animal? As a monster? As "abnormal"?

We know from "No Regrets" and Isayama's own words, that Levi didn't have any friends until he met Furlan and Isabel, two people he didn't know until he himself was full grown. And so we know that from the age of 9, or even younger, since we see Kenny leave Levi before his powers even awaken, he's been on his own. He's been on his own all this time, while harboring the belief that he's some sort of savage and violent killer. That he's some kind of monster, possessing an immense strength that seems meant for nothing but death and destruction. As though he were an engine for pointless death and destruction.

And yet, all on his own, he comes to realize that his strength can be used for something else. That it can be used to help people. He saves Furlan's life, and he saves Isabel's life. And from that point on, with this realization of what his strength can be used for, Levi dedicates himself to that end. To using this immense and frightening strength to help people.

That Levi could come out of this experience still with the ability to love, to still have in him the ability to be loved, despite how all he'd ever known from love was suffering, and that he could come out of this still with the deep desire to help others, to do good, is honestly nothing short of a miracle, and I think it demonstrates more powerfully than anything the innate goodness in Levi.

Because there's so much negativity wrapped up in the concept of love for Levi. He watched his mother die, succumbing to disease, and there's little doubt in my mind that Levi blamed himself for that, her ability to care for herself compromised by his presence in her life, by being another mouth to feed, another back to clothe, when she could scarce afford to feed herself, could scarce afford to put clothes on her own back. And for his own love for her to end in an eruption of blood and violence, and the loss of his innocence, for Levi to come out of that with the ability to still connect with people, to form connections, to love and care for them, and allow himself to be loved and cared for in turn, it can only come from a deep well of genuine and innate goodness. From a heart that longs for kindness and compassion, even in the face of utter cruelty and despair.

Levi's tears demonstrate his despair and grief at his own violence. They demonstrate his bereavement and regret. They demonstrate his horror and loneliness. And they demonstrate, at his core, the persistence of a pure and loving heart that wishes to do and be good.

All of this horror wasn't enough to stamp out the goodness in Levi.

Despite it all, he became a genuine hero.

Despite it all, the goodness in him remains.

[celestie0]

kickoff characters favorite tv shows

not that anyone asked but i remember i had this in my old notes as this sort of joke interview thing for the cast of kickoff for headcanons n to commemorate the death of those notes i thought i'd try n replicate this to fill the void lol

Q: favorite TV show?

kickoff! gojo: I watched The OC a fuckton when I was younger so I’ll go with that?

kickoff! reader: omg gilmore girls for sure!! i loooooove dave so much ☺️🙈

kickoff! gojo: Um excuse me who tf is Dave

kickoff! reader: he’s just a character

kickoff! gojo: Does he think he’s better than me? Do you think he’s better than me??????

kickoff! reader: pls tell me you’re joking 😃

kickoff! geto: Huh…that’s a hard one, I’ll have to think about it for a sec

kickoff! nanami: I really enjoy Criminal Minds. It’s very engaging, and I appreciate that every episode is different, yet still there is a central plot line that aligns with the main characters

kickoff! choso: Really? Criminal Minds? That show’s so fuckin boring

kickoff! gojo: Seriously who tf is Dave

kickoff! choso: I’d say my favorite show is Impractical Jokers

kickoff! gojo: Oh fuckkkkkk I take my answer back my favorite show is Impractical Jokers

kickoff! choso: You can’t just steal my answer dude

kickoff! geto: Oh! I remembered what my favorite show is :) The Big Bang Theory!

kickoff! gojo: Now that’s a fuckin boring show 😂😂😂🫵🏼🫵🏼🫵🏼

kickoff! gojo: Hey where’d y/n go I have questions for her

kickoff! choso: I saw her slip out the back like five mins ago

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Was I an ahole for warning mutual's friend about his past? 🫶

I had a mutual in a big fandom circa 2017-2018. She was kinda sweet but shy, sometimes really bitter at people so I didn't get too close but we chatted often. Now my fandom had a big incest/ pedo shipping problems and she was one of the few people on my tl who were loudly opposed to it. I don't think she sent hatemails but she ranted in tags or her own posts often. Saying this because we had a few older fandom friends who were much more vocal and she followed their words like gospel. So the conclusion was like a betrayal.

Some years later I felt her slowly ghosting me before she finally left fandom and deleted her account. Then she came back after a few months in a new persona, totally new fandom, going by they/them, no attachment to their previous fandoms, like a new person. I don't know if they meant to hide their past or not. They contacted me and we became moots again.

Then after maybe a year I noticed that we were no longer mutual, we sort of ghosted each other as our interests diverged more so no big deal.

About 4 years since then I found myself getting into the thing they were last into. I accidentally stumbled upon their popular posts and decided to reconnect. They were going by he/him now so he was very nice and welcoming. He told me to chat with him and ask anything I needed to know, recced good blogs etc. We chatted frequently as it seemed like he was a completely different person, no longer shy or bitter, very openly into shipping and smut, happily engaging with dead dove content in the new fandom. This one also has canon incest, so I asked how he coped, he said he lost his mind in the old fandom he just filters the unwanted things out.

Now I don't know, how he changed that much or became friends with incest shippers, how he could be so casually okay with this when he was vocal about supporting survivors before. Then I saw him reblog posts shitting on sex repulsed people and some about BPD too. It wasn't hard to figure out why he changed so drastically.

I got really angry that day and accidentally sent a message to one of his "proship" mutuals how he really used to be. That guy saw my message, then blocked me, then my moot also blocked me without a word. I have regrets but I don't know what to do. Am I wrong for wanting him to not be friends with incest shippers? I miss him and I don't think he shipped them but he still joked about shipping them and being annoying. The last fandom harassed me a lot over not liking brother brother incest so I only have bad feelings. I don't think incrst shipping should be banned or anything extreme I just think they should have a separate platform so only they can see it.

[girlgenius1111]

I miss sol can we get some headcanonsss 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻 with or without future ms Fresa 😌

any chance to talk about my solstråle 🥰

-school is very much not her thing. not because she isn't smart. she's really smart. she just hates sitting still and being inside all day, and she's never been very motivated to try very hard in school. so when she arrives in spain and ingrid like sits down to help her with her homework because she's heard that sol has heinous grades, sol can do all of it. she doesn't need help. and ingrid is absolutely baffled because... why wouldn't she do it if she could? but sol's thinking is... why would she do it if she didn't want to.

-in one of the family line chapters, its mentioned that sol broke her arm as a kid, and her mom didn't believe her that something was actually wrong. it didn't heal right and now it hurts when the weather changes, and if she moves her wrist in the wrong way. she'll never know if it's because she didn't get it into a cast right away or not, but it is always a very physical, painful reminder of her childhood.

-sol was a really anxious kid. it was a lot for her parents to deal with, and sol thinks that this is part of the reason they treated her like they did. they had to go through so much with her when she was young with her anxiety that they were just... done parenting by the time she got older. her parents really weren't even very helpful with her anxiety either. it was always ingrid who could calm her down or talk her into doing things she was reluctant to do.

-she was a really good softball player when she was younger. it was always pushed to the side for ingrid's football, and the team she was on wasn't a very supportive place. her anxiety got really bad at this time, especially before games and tournaments, and she decided to quit the sport all together, because she couldn't deal with it anymore.

-once ingrid moved out, sol would wear her old clothes around the house, and try to act just like ingrid, because she thought it would make her more tolerable to her parents.

-sol loves her sister very much, but Mapi is her biggest role model. it won't ever not amaze and surprise her how easily Mapi took her in an loved her. her biggest wish for her life is to be as loving and kind as Mapi is.

-sol can play the piano. she learned as a kid and it's always kind of stuck around. she can just sit down and play some pieces from memory. she has a really nice singing voice too, but ingrid and mapi only know because they can hear her in the shower. she'll sing for fresa if she asks nicely, though.

-she has a HUGE sweet tooth. she has 'emergency chocolate' in the glovebox of ingrid's car that fresa finds one day. fresa: ?? what is this?? sol: emergency chocolate 🙂 fresa:... in what kind of emergency do you need chocolate. sol: all of them??

-sol likes to prank ingrid by telling her that she's pregnant at least once a month. ingrid always believes it even though sol has literally never dated a man in her life.

-ingrid refuses to change her number from 23 for the rest of her career. it wasn't really her favorite or first choice before, but it's sol's tattoo now, and she will NEVER change it. she'd almost rather retire.

[abstractnaturaldisaster]

is it over now? (was it over then?)

part four

part five: i was hoping you'd be there

Robin managed to keep her shit together for approximately ten minutes after she stopped watching Steve make his way through security and into the depths of the airport. In the ride back to Steve's place, her leg was shaking so much Nancy discreetly grabbed Robin's pinky and held it in the back of the car.

The rest of the trafficky route back to Steve's all Robin could think about was how to fix things. She knew Steve didn't tell her about Eddie so she could fix things and Steve didn't run off to Italy to hide from everything but the situation still bothered Robin. She hadn't known Eddie for a terribly long time but he made her dingus happy so she held him in relatively high regard. It didn't make sense for him to just cut tail and run without leaving some sort of door open for a resolution and Robin was going to her darndest to figure out how on earth she could find that crack.

When they got back to Steve's apartment, Nancy didn't let Robin go long without asking for an explanation.

"Robs, babe, what is going on?" Nancy asked.

"I need to figure out how to solve Steve and Eddie." Robin answered.

"I don't think Steve wants you too. He seemed pretty resolved to close that chapter." Nancy urged.

"I know what he said but that's not what he wants. Also Eddie is a huge dummy if he doesn't realize how good he had it with Steve and also that Steve would never cheat on anyone. Especially not after y'all's whole thing. No offense." Robin continued.

"Okay so we aren't letting this go. What's the plan?" Nancy asked.

"Thanks for your support, love. I just can't figure out why Eddie jumped to the conclusion that you and Steve were together again. I mean no offense but like that ship very publicly sailed," Robin said.

"I'm trying really hard not to take offense but the more often you say it the more I am having trouble not being offended," Nancy snarked.

"Sorry, dingus wormed his way into my little heart long before you so I still gotta give you shit over soulmate solidarity. But back to the matter at hand. Eddie only assumed you would only be visiting Steve if you were trying to get back together when really you were coming to see little old me. So what if I came out. Like what if we came out? And shared some of the pictures from like super early on and thanked Steve for being a great friend for many years when I wasn't ready to take that step," Robin knew she was rambling but, hell, she was on a roll.

"Are you ready for that? I'm happy to take your lead on all this. It's not like we haven't already told everyone who is actually important to us. I mostly write freelance nowadays anyways so there isn't really some big bag corporate overlord I need to worry about. You know Steve doesn't need you to do this? It's one thing if you're ready to come out on your own, it's a whole different thing to do it for someone else," Nancy counseled.

"I really think I'm ready. I'm sick of Steve feeling like he needs to come to everything with me and you're stateside a lot more often and I'd love to go out on dates without the next day having like a million articles speculate if you're trying to move in on Steve. I think it's time," Robin rationalized.

"All right, then. We're doing this. Should we use this as an excuse to make Jon take cute couple pictures of us?" Nancy giggled a little at her suggestion.

"Yes! Perfect. Get him over here. Operation Save Dingus from his Self Sacrifice is a go!" Robin jumped up on the couch to make her point and Nancy immediately had to come to her aid as she wobbled enough to lose her balance.

Robin was excited. She was ready for the next step with Nancy and if it helped Steve get out of his own head and/or convinced a certain metalhead with very few remaining braincells to get his head out of his ass then so be it. Robin couldn't wait to think of all the sappy shit Nancy would pretend to be annoyed at she'd be able to do now. Steve would be back in a few weeks so Robin anxiously awaited Jon's response and started several caption ideas in her notes app.

@lololol-1234 @swimmingbirdrunningrock @zombiethingy @grtwdsmwhr @dreamercec @anne-bennett-cosplayer @strawberryyyenthusiast @mensch-anthropos-human @kal-ology @ttyrussss @kristmkris @starman-jpg @wonderland-girl143-blog @child-of-cthulhu @legalmenace87 (if you wanna be tagged in future parts feel free to comment! happy to add people)

it's not quite fixed yet but we are getting so close!!!