#who knows maybe they still won't work but in hindsight

[kaban-bang]

OP of that AI post blocked me lmao.

[yeyinde]

lavender skies | Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x GN!Reader

Then suddenly, and all at once, there's a loudness in your head: a hundred whispers echoing in time to the same off-beat rhythm, full of memories and moments shared between you, threads woven throughout the years all buoying to the surface as you realise you're a little bit in love with him.  (And that, maybe, you've been a little bit in love with him the whole time.)

tags: friends to lovers (but the type of friends who are basically already dating and everyone knows except them - until suddenly they do), mutual pining. Slight Kent bashing, oops. Golden Girls as a coping mechanism. warnings: none. very tame, considering who I am as a person. Heavy make-out sess, though. word count: 6,6k notes: This has been sitting in my requests forever (I lost the original, but the gist was: Gaz + pining + idiots in love). You can blame a lot of this on summer rain and 80s city pop. Been going to the pier and listening to it while I wrote this. Not my best, sure, but it was fun.

The Tinder date he warned you not to go on (and seriously, mate, who uses Tinder anymore?) ends like this:

Your date, the biggest gentleman in Kent, as proclaimed in his bio (a red flag in hindsight—there's no such thing as a gentleman from Kent), sneaks his number to the waitress, and then leaves you behind in downtown Manchester to go bar hopping with a group he just met. 

It's not a great loss. All things considered, it's not even the worst date you've ever been on. It was just a spur-of-the-moment whim—equal parts anxiety and megrim: the sudden fear of being single forever (and no, despite what Kyle might say, it has nothing to do with the wedding invitation you'd gotten on Facebook, or the three others that came before it)—and therefore, there isn't much to be upset about. Not really. 

But the world doesn't work on half-hearted lies and shaky truths, and on a dank little corner in Manchester, abandoned by your ride home, your abysmal date who barely looked at you, you can't deny that it hurts. That it's a little bit of a hit to your self-esteem in a way that makes you angrier than you were before, because, honestly—he wasn't even a catch to begin with. 

Stupid. 

You should have listened to Kyle, to his immaculate wisdom and emotional maturity far beyond his years, but you hadn't because—

Well. Sometimes the world should work on little lies. If only to the ones you tell yourself. Ones like:

It's completely fine—really it is—if your friend of nearly eight years is moving on with his life. And it's totally, absolutely okay if your best friend meets some flighty barista in Amsterdam and won't stop talking about her for the meagre three weeks he's been back from his impromptu trip to the Netherlands, then to Mexico. It's fine. It's all fine. 

Because maybe you are, too. 

And maybe that's the reason you went out with David from Kent. 

From Kent? He texted, only hours before your date. (Hours because he'd been busy with this thing for his job—his boss is corrupt and the world is, too, but at least Amsterdam Barista is doing fine). You can do so much better than that, birdy.

You wanted to say, what? Like someone from Amsterdam instead? but you're doing this new thing where you try not to sound as mad as you think you are. Zen, maybe. Internal peace and happiness. So, instead, you say:

He's nice. I like him. 

Words that, of course, have come back to bite you. 

He isn't nice. He wouldn't stop staring at the waitress, and talking over you, or just generally ignoring your existence. He left you downtown, stranded without a way home. You don't like him. You really don't even think you were that interested in him. 

But it makes sense.

Kyle is moving on. Your friends are getting married. 

And where does that leave you? 

Well—

It leaves you stuck downtown with shoes that were intended to be used for aesthetics, the kind that means standing entirely still and immobile, and not walking the fifteen kilometres to your flat because you'd spent all your money on this super flattering outfit and these unfunctional shoes, and can't afford a cab or an Uber. 

Sometimes, you pretend you're a functional adult—one who knows how to navigate everything with ease, and you live in the present, the real world, where time is fluid and unchangeable, and things make sense (maths and geometry and physics) unless they don't (black holes and the vastitude of space and fate)—but moments like these remind you that you don't. That you live, instead, somewhere in the parentheses of both. 

The indigo sky, murky black and void of any stars, seems to grumble along with you as you turn toward the street, readying yourself for the long walk home. Except the groan sounds less commiserating and more ominous. A noise that seems to reverberate through the crowded street, and right into your bones.

Some have the wherewithal to find shelter. A smart move because almost a moment later, the heavens split, and a summer deluge drenches the street. It's unrelenting in its downpour, soaking everything in its path in a shrill roar. 

Caught in the middle of St Peter's Square, there are not many places to duck under for sanctuary, but you find an alcove beside a store, and dart toward it. The non-functional boots are pretty to look at, but with each step, you feel the hard synthetic rubber grind against your heel. Blisters form, break. The burn makes you inhale sharply against the pain, hobbling now on tender feet. 

The wall is slick with condensation, but you lean against it to keep your feet from taking the brunt of your weight. 

It reminds you, quite suddenly, of that night in Cardiff with Kyle. When you'd drank three-dollar margaritas at some downtrodden bar with your friends and ate rather limp-looking fish tacos (a mistake, of course, and Kyle still can't look at corn tortillas the same way), and laughed until your belly hurt at something he'd said—the words lost to alcohol and faded with time—and then leaned over, promptly throwing up in a bush. 

You still can't drink tequila without giggling (and gagging) at nothing, a phantom memory, and the thought presses against a tender spot in your chest in all the wrong ways. 

Time is fluid. An unavoidable truism that you can't escape. 

There are people you've known since you were a child whose faces you can barely remember. Ones you promised the world to, to always be together, who you hardly think of anymore. 

Moving on. Moving forward. 

You think, then, of Kyle. Of the distance that lingers between you both, widening each day. It's nothing you've done, nor he; it's just—

Life. Concurrent. Everpresent. 

It hurts to lose a friend, you'd always think. A small moment of grief, of loss. But not like this. Never like this. 

Stuck in a downpour in the middle of Manchester, you realise you miss him. Have been missing him. 

Huddling under an awning, you fish your phone from your soaked pocket, and pull up the only person you want to be around right now, in this moment of vulnerability. Loneliness. 

You send him a quick text, date was a bust. Stuck downtown. Are you busy?

Kyle's reply comes three breaths later. For you? Never. Send me your location. 

You send him your pin. 

Another message pops up: stay put. I'm on my way. 

You met Kyle Garrick at university. 

It's one of those things in life that just sometimes happens. A happy accident. An eventuality that makes the world feel a little less daunting. A lock and key sliding into place. Sunsets in pretty ochre. 

Someone you knew and someone he knew (two people who are now best man and groom in the upcoming wedding) decided to invite all of their friends out for a night, and it was then, slightly tipsy on cheap ale when you realised the boy in the back—a head taller than everyone else and more befitting inside the glossy pages of a magazine—was different, somehow, from anyone else you'd ever met. 

It started when some stupid kids decided to pick on another. A smaller boy with a blue cap. 

Kyle was the only one who noticed. The only one who seemed to care. 

It was his anger that drew you to him in the first place. Moth to a flame. It's quick—the sizzling flame of a lit match: suddenly burning the wick and nearly uncontrollable. But it's short. A flickering star, burning bright, burning hot, and then being tempered and swallowed down until it's smouldering. Still hot, still dangerous, but—

Managed. 

It was a snap. He was laughing, jovial. Telling jokes, and having fun, but still maintaining that enviable enigmatic persona: reserved but kind. Funny, but mature. And then it crumpled in an instant, folded away into anger. Bright and blistering. He walked to them, eyes blazing, and didn't wait for any excuses when the kids noticed him, just quickly decimated their foundations, and crushed their feeble lies between his teeth. 

"Bullyin'? That's a pretty foul thing to do, innit, mate?" 

And that was that. 

He handed the kid back his hat—the one the others knocked off into the gutter—and told him, clipped, that he was better than them. 

Just keep your chin up, yeah? Fuckin' losers, that lot. Don't go messing about with them anymore. Fucking pricks. That's a nice hat, too. Where'd you get it? Really? Oh, that's mint—

It was that moment when, unprompted and unnoticed, he easily slipped away from the group to help some kid he didn't even know that you realised you were very keen to get to know him. 

"Fancy a kebab, hero?" You asked, smirking up at him. 

A grin broke across his face. Sharp, feral. "I could always go to a lamb kebab."

The rest, really, just came quite naturally. Your best friend. The person you go to for anything—even terrible dates that leave you stranded in the rain. 

You just wish you knew when it all began to change, to fall apart. 

Kyle meets you near St Peter's Square. 

You spot him first from your hiding spot beneath the awning, catching sight of his form moving through the (now) empty streets, hands shoved in the pockets of his denim trousers, the bottoms tucked, sensibly, into his fawn-coloured boots. 

Even with the hood of his windbreaker pulled low over his brow, you can pick him out of a crowd with an ease that is as warming as it is jarring. 

You wave him over when he stops on the mouth of Mount Street, looking in toward the Starbucks on the corner. 

He finds you just as easily. And oh, his expression makes your toes curl in your misshapen boots. 

Anger pinches the corner of his mouth, and hangs off the furrow of his brow, the divot between his eyes. 

"Unbelievable," he huffs when he reaches you in the middle of the street, and sucks his teeth when you open your mouth to protest. 

"It is what it is," you offer, playing the peacekeeper. You fall into step with him, trying not to wince. "I'm over it." 

"Yeah?" The shadows across his brow deepen. "Are you sure? 'Cause… I'll fuck him up for you." 

Setting your friend on a man from Kent feels entirely too vindictive, despite how much of a rush you get at the thought of seeing the man cowed a little bit. You shake your head, playing the part of a reasonable adult. 

"It's okay. I'm just—I'm just, over this, yeah? Can we—"

Kyle stops you with his hand against your shoulder. "You alright?"

"My feet hurt," your smile is strained. "Terrible shoes." 

"Take 'em off."

"Are you crazy—?"

"I brought slides for you. Figured you'd wear something stupid." 

"Okay, fair. But—ouch? We can't all be crazy good-looking Armani models. Some of us have to work for it." 

Kyle snorts. "Just take your shoes off, yeah? Throw 'em in my bag."

You can't deny it feels blissful when you lean against the slick wall outside of a shop, toeing off your tight boots. Aching feet freed from their prison. The sigh you let out makes him glance up at you from the pavement, bent over the rucksack he brought. 

There's disapproval in his gaze—maybe at your choice. Choices. The date he warned you about. The boots. The socks he spots are stained with blood on the knob of your foot. 

He tuts. A soft admonishment that cuts through the silence of the empty square. But it's all he says. He swallows the rest and drops the shoes he grabbed on the pavement in front of you, slowly pushing them forward with the tip of his toe.

You try not to grin when you see them.

Crocs. The ugliest ones you could find in Schuh. You'd bullied him into getting a matching pair with you. Neon yellow adorned with little clips. 

You slip them on as Kyle reaches down to grab your boots. He pauses with them in his hand, eying them with something that taints the air with his disdain. 

"When did you buy these?"

"On Friday." When he was sleeping off his impromptu trip to Chicago. He brought you home deep-dish pizza, frozen, and promised that it tasted much better fresh. "For the date."

"Why?" Is all he asks. 

You shrug. "They're cute…?"

His eyes stray to your shoulders. The wet fabric of your shirt. His chin lowers slightly, but his eyes stay fixed on your flesh, on the goosebumps that bubble to the surface, spreading over your exposed skin. Eyes flicker, catching a droplet of water you can feel running down from behind your ear, falling over the slope of your neck. It breaks against your collarbone. He watches it all. 

There's tension in the air. Static. The pressure builds and reeks of ozone when it presses into you, knuckles digging into the hollow of your throat. It renders you unable to speak—locked in a paradigm where the world beyond the honeycomb of his eyes ceases to matter, to exist almost. Thick honey ensnares you. Molasses. It clots against reason, logic, and makes you feel weightless. Floating, unmoored, in this unfamiliar abyss that closes in around you. 

Except—

It isn’t. 

There’s something aberrant about it, anomalous, that you can’t ignore; but beneath it sits a preternatural sense of familiarity that bends the paradox into knowns. Into tangibles. Concretes. 

This is the same tension that has been simmering—festering, almost—since before he joined the miliary. In Cardiff when he leaned against you in the taxi, boney shoulder digging into your arm, and said, ‘dunno what I'd do without you, y’know? 

It was the hazy smear of neon from the shops perched on the street. An ethereal gold hue streamed in from the window, cutting across the tenebrous in an asymmetrical chiaroscuro. The light was soaked up by him. Warm honey, the perfect compliment to his eyes, to the soft pink of his lips. 

How could you possibly describe the feeling that spumes in the pit of your stomach outside of undiluted comfort? 

Home.

It feels like like in shades; muted. A soft undercurrent that lingers inside something else, something deeper—

Moments in the foyer when he was heading back home for the evening. When he’d linger in the doorway, shoulder balanced against the frame, arms folded over his chest, and warned you not to watch Taskmaster without him. 

He’d know, he said. 

When you asked how, he just said:

“Because I know you.”

It feels like that. Like that and something more. Everything, all of it, coalesces into this. Into this moment where you can’t stop staring into the flecks of mahogany and charred birchwood in his eyes, and he can’t seem to decide where to keep his, vacillating between the slope of your neck and matching your stare. A lurch, a flash of something in your chest when your gazes meet. The deep sfumato of a bare forest in the middle of winter—rich browns, raw topaz, honey and amber in a sea of white. A sleepy hinterland. Solemnent and peaceful. Dreamy. Hypnogogic. 

The world always seems to shudder into a deep slumber whenever he’s around. 

He dips closer, swaying into you. Gravity, maybe. Tidally locked satellites on the same rung. Something bubbles in your chest. Unwinds from its dormant perch between the gaps in your ribs, and climbs up your esophagus. Ready, you think, to be free—

In the distance, tyres squeal against the pavement. 

—and all at once, the moment burst, breaks. Shatters into a million pieces, cosmic dust, and you watch them fall around you, blinking rapidly, as though you’ve just woken. 

It feels like slowly coming down to earth when you quietly gather your things, words now stuck in your throat. In their prison. 

Kyle tears his gaze away from your bare skin, clearing his throat. 

"Hardly." He murmurs after a moment and slips his jacket off his shoulders before wrapping it around yours. It smells of rainwater, wet rubber. Beneath the polymer, you can smell Kyle—vetiver, cypress, jasmine; sweet and heady—and you bury your nose in the hood when he turns back to the empty street. “Well, uh—”

You can’t speak. Not yet. 

He seems to understand. 

"Yeah," he nods, and reaches out, tugging on the end of the drawstring. "Let's get out of here." 

The rain lightens into a muted drizzle, soft droplets that fall, almost rhythmless, on the wet pavement. The town sleeps, the streets bare. Empty. The only sounds come from your slick footfalls, a horn in the distance. 

It’s an easy silence that lapses between you—not at all unlike the lulls before, when things were easy and featherlight and endless; when you could talk to him about everything, anything, and all of the worries in your life were saved for something else. Never him. Never, ever him. 

But it tugs at something in your chest. The same pressure blooms at the edges, lingering in the periphery. You think of the spell you fell under—quiet yearning—and shake your head, desperate now to break it. 

It’s just as easy to slip into familiarity. To tease, and taunt. And so, you do. 

"I'm surprised you haven't said I told you so by now. That's so impressive self-restraint."

His gaze slides over to you. "Well, you know, it's implied."

"Oh, is it, now?"

"Yeah, like when you messaged me and told me about it and I said—"

"Who even uses Tinder?"

"—that he's knobhead, and you're gonna get hurt."

You scoff. "He's from Kent, so."

"Even worse," he makes a face, derision contrasted by the jaundiced lamp spilling over the pavement. "A Tinder date with a guy from Kent? What's next? Moving to Bristol?"

"It's a nice area." 

He rolls his eyes. "Sure. As nice as Essex, maybe." 

"The two are not even comparable—"

"'Dunno why you're rushing into anything, anyway,” he angles his chin toward you. “If this is about Carver's wedding, I said I'd go with you, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but…"

"But what?"

"That's sort of—like, you just have your own thing going on. I don't want to get in the way."

"I've always had my own thing going on. So have you. But that's never stopped us before, has it? What's changed."

"What about—" you swallow down something thick, bitter that wells in the back of your throat. "You know. Amsterdam. The Barista, or whatever."

His brow knots together. "And what about David from Kent?"

You sweep your hands out, motioning morosely toward your Crocs, your damp outfit. "This is what happened with David from Kent. Not exactly the fairytale meet cute you have with Amsterdam—" he makes a noise, like he means to interrupt. You cut him off. Bury it. "And besides, you should take her. I'll just—" 

"I want to go with you."

"Why?"

Kyle falls to a stop near the Kebab shop you usually go to whenever he comes back from his missions, when he's craving good, hearty food that will rot his insides and clog his arteries. A small comfort from before, when everything he has now was just a dream, and you were struggling students in university who could barely afford a meal each and would split a lamb dinner over ale and terrible movies from the noughties back at your flat. 

The suddenness of it all makes you blink beside him, slowly angling your chin up at him. A questioning noise wells in the back of your throat, but when you finally turn your gaze to him, it does out. A snuffed flame. 

He brings his hand up, finger scratching at the soft patch of skin on the bridge of his nose where it starts to arch up. The look on his face, hidden, slightly, by the night blanketing overhead, but just illuminated enough by smears of neon and flushed street lamps for you to see it clove into something slightly flustered, hesitant. Sheepish, almost, like he hadn't meant to say what he did, and now doesn't know how to proceed forward. Cards tucked tight to his chest. Does he play his hand or fold? 

You blink. Then blink again. Struggling, almost, to take in the suddenness of his flustered state. 

Because the thing is:

Kyle doesn't get embarrassed or sheepish. 

A running gag in your mutual friend group is that Kyle is twenty-eight going on sixty-five. An old man crammed inside the body of a young adult. He runs hot—passionate about his beliefs, quick to temper when he thinks an injustice is being doled out; a disciple of loose stoicism, but of a new age variety that is half parts stereotypical stoner chillness and ripe maturity—but he rarely is ever caught unawares enough to become embarrassed by something. He just has a perfect gauge of himself and those around him, able to quickly make friends with anybody he meets, and self-aware enough to know when he's in the wrong, when he needs to dial it back. 

Being his friend for so long, you know the nuance of these expressions. His mien is ingrained in your head: known and catalogued. Nothing about Kyle is a mystery to you except the things you're barred from knowing (his second life away from home, you often joke: wholly confidential, entirety draped in secrecy). 

But the look on his face is entirely alien to you. An expression you hadn't thought him capable of making. 

It's jarring. It bludgeons into you with a ferocity that takes your breath away. 

You know the man standing beside you, but this, everything else, is so unearthly. So foreign. 

"Kyle," you hedge, taking a small step closer to him. You're not sure why. Maybe to reacquaint yourself with the man standing before you. Maybe to find something of familiarity within him to comfort the sudden crescendo of your pounding heart because even just the heady scent of his cologne—vetiver, amber—quells the sudden bloom of anxiety in the pit of your stomach. "Are you—?"

"No," he mumbles, then huffs out a soft laugh. It sounds mean, in a self-deprecating way, and your heart lurches for him. "Yeah, no. I'm alright. I just—shit, you know? 'Course I'd wanna go with you. Should be kinda obvious, no?"

Sure, you want to say. Sure, no, totally. Very obvious. And maybe had he not stopped, not made this peculiar expression on his face—like he isn't sure what to do when he always knows what he wants, what he's meant to do—you might have said them. Might let them tumble from your lips, equally self-deprecating and a touch forlorn despite never really knowing why, but that would be a lie, now. 

Because you do. 

The look on his face is upsetting—not because Kyle never makes that expression, or because he's never uncertain about anything, ever, but because you don't know it. It's not something you've ever seen before. And it hurts. 

It's stupid. This whole thing. It shouldn't make you feel some sense of loss when he does something you don't expect. He always does. It's his brand, now—jettisoning across the world to catch bad guys and slap the trite American sense of justice and liberty for all across the faces of anyone who tries to oppose it—and you're very much acclimated to this side of him, the one he hides away from you, giving nothing at all about where he's going, what he's doing, what he's done, until he's back in England, safe and sound, and texting you at six in the morning for an English spread because he missed home. And maybe, maybe he missed you, too. 

Those quiet moments are tucked into a cosm where it's only you and him, and greasy food, and reruns of Golden Girls together with your feet in his lap as you sit on the chaise and pick favourites (his is, of course, Rose) until the sun goes down, and he heads home because he has a debriefing in the morning in Hereford, and you have work. It's bereft of unease, of tension. Time slips through your fingers fluidly, and you hardly notice it's been hours since he first arrived. Comfortable, wholly, in his presence and in your skin. 

Soulmates, everyone used to joke. You just get each other. Near finish each other's sentences. 

Except for lately, where there has been this undeniable tension simmering between the two of you—a sense of fragility that you can't comprehend.

Growing apart, you thought. And then: guess it's time to do the same. 

It made sense to make the first move. To download Tinder—much to his chagrin—and start looking for your—

Your Barista from Amsterdam. 

And oh. 

Oh. 

Maybe it's the way the street light frames the angles and plains of his face, or the shadows that run deep lines of tenebrous across the valleys in his eyes, the sharp slope of his lips, the soft pout. The inscrutable expression that rents a jagged divot between his brow, and an unsure twist of his mouth. Maybe it's everything. Nothing. 

But the only thing you know right now is that you know him. Have known him. Deeply. Intimately. In a way that goes beyond the boundaries of bodies, of flesh and blood. Bones and marrow. You know his soul. His essence. The foundations of who he is cobbled together in a lonely kebab shop over cheap ale, commiserating on an endless stream of papers and assignments; the eventuality of ever after when you hand in the final one. Over beans and toast in the afternoon, a whole day spent lounging in your flat watching reruns of Golden Girls, and petty arguments over Taskmaster that always seem to go a little bit too far, and never far enough. Fights that end two days later when he shows up with Greggs and a complete box set of that show you said you wanted to watch but never had the time for. Bargain shopping in Tottenham on an early Saturday morning because there's this chair, you see, one that you saw on their Instagram page and you simply must have it. 

Soft moments in between, brackets where life doesn't seem to wrap its cold hands around your throat. Time spent in each other's company just for the sake of it. 

Climbing onto your roof—a thatched mess of moss and straw and broken asphalt shingles that will one day give under your weight—and watching the stars, always searching for one that rockets across the sky while he murmurs beside you, quiet in this stillness that falls like snow in the dead of night around you. A hushed whisper as he relays the places he's been—all stars, he rasps, hand brushing wide strokes across the raspberry sky, dusted with light pollution: I'll take you there one day to see. Best fucking beer I'd ever had, too, just don't tell my cousin because he thinks the shitty lager he makes for his bar is good—and you try to picture it amongst the grey clouds. A life on the opposite side of the world. Just the two of you. Always. 

And that's what it's always been, hasn't it? Just you. Just him. 

It's sometime past midnight on a street corner in Manchester. Your feet hurt from walking all night, and your clothes are damp from the rain that caught you off-guard. A summer downpour. It clings to your skin in a way that's both freeing and wholly uncomfortable, but you're not thinking about that. You're not thinking about anything at all, not now. Not really. There's a silence in your head as the world falls into pieces, breaking like the jaundiced light that cuts crevasses and canyons in the tenebrous that colours sharp valleys of his face. He turns, then, a gentle list of his head as he takes you in, breathes your silence and questions the wideness of your eyes, the soft parting of your lips. The movement makes the light spill over the arch of his nose, the slope of his brow. The dawning of a new day. A new world. The untouchable of the moon where no light shines now burning hot under the sun. 

Then suddenly, and all at once, there's a loudness in your head: a hundred whispers echoing in time to the same off-beat rhythm, full of memories and moments shared between you, threads woven throughout the years all buoying to the surface as you realise you're a little bit in love with him. 

(And maybe you've been a little bit in love with him the whole time.)

So, you say it. You whisper all the words that bubble up, impatiently waiting between your teeth, effervescent and burning white-hot as they throw themselves over bone and flesh to be free. 

Confessing goes like this: 

Molten agony in your guts as the secrets you barely understand yourself dissolve into the atmosphere, spoken aloud and born on cobblestone and petrichor. Wide-eyed shock, uncertainty, as a new quiet falls over your shoulders, louder than anything you'd ever heard. Guncotton in your nose. A million detonations in your ears. 

You've never much liked the silence. You break it, then, with your bare hands. 

"...and that's basically it." 

It isn't much. It isn't poetry. You're not even sure the words were real. A figment of your imagination, broken free because of baristas in Amsterdam and losers from Kent, abysmal dates and the unending fear of being wholly alone in a world you're not prepared for, all without the person who makes you feel a little bit better about the nothingness that permeates around you. 

And sure. Sure. You don't need him. If Kyle decided never to speak to you again, you'd cry and you'd hurt, but you wouldn't be less of a person because of his absence. He doesn't complete you in the same way you've read about in thick books with strong-willed protagonists and an abundance of petty misunderstandings, but he compliments you. Elevates the good and stifles the bad. You want to experience things with him—not because there's some grand force at play, red strings knotted around your fingers that lead you back to him—but because you like his company. His thoughts. His mind. His presence. His essence fills you with joy in the same strokes it makes you want to pull your hair out sometimes. Good and bad. You want it all. 

You want it. Want him. 

And he—

He's taking you home a little past midnight where you'll make yourself beans and toast and maybe try and sleep, or turn on the television to watch four women you're intricately connected to eat cheesecake and solve each other's problems. He could be at his own flat right now, playing that video game he said he wanted to try when he got back, or watching that movie he was supposed to with his flatmates, his friends. He could be talking to some barista in Amsterdam. 

But he isn't. 

He's here with you. Still. Still. 

"I just—," you say, or try to. 

But the rest is a muffled gasp against soft lips when he presses his against yours, stealing the words out of your mouth. 

You can feel your heart beating through your lips. Taste him on your tongue when he draws you closer, hands reaching, grasping. Pulling you into him, into his body. You fit against him, tucked safe between the parentheses of his arms. He tastes of cardamom and cornflower. Lavender notes between his molars. Hints of milk on his tongue. You drink him down and know, then, that this is what they mean they talk about love being a feast because you chase this taste for the rest of your life and never be satiated. 

He loops his arm around the small of your back, dragging you closer still. As if any atom between your bodies is an affront. There’s no hesitation in the action, in the way he burrows into your skin. No trepidation. 

And maybe it would be silly for there to be any. You know him—every iota, every inch; secrets whispered at midnight in a shallow breath and dreams uttered at noon. To be known, to know, is a powerful thing. You feel it ghost across your flesh, featherlight, and reach for it with your bare hands. Seeking, searching. You don’t stop until the tips of your fingers meet his warm skin, curling around him. Anchoring yourself to him. Stuck, now, in permanence. 

You find spots that were untouched before. Behind his ears, the dip of his brow, the curve of his nose, and the slope of his jaw. Cupping it in the palm of your hand, a plinth for him to rest his chin. 

Your canvassing makes him groan, makes him tilt down into you as he begins his own exploration, chasing you in a mad pursuit. Sliding over your valleys, your plains. Running over the rugged mountains and the steep cliffs. He scours your topography with eager, nimble fingers. It’s slow, languid. There’s no rush with this, a consensus you both seem to come to rather quickly when he pries open your mouth and tangles his tongue with yours. It’s sweet, soft. His hands mimic his chase, sliding along your body as if he means to commit the entirety of you to memory, searing it in his brain. 

It’s only when he comes to a crossroads at your navel, pushed flush against his body, does he stop. You moan in despair at it, wanting more and more, not ready to give up this taste that curls over your tongue—saccharine sweet, salty—and Kyle echoes the noise with a groan, a quiet plea for air that both of you desperately need but can’t quite make yourself take. 

“Fuck—” he groans again, breath stuttering out in sharp, deep gasps. “Can’t bloody tell you how long I wanted to do this for, fuck—”

His words seem to peel back the dreamy gossamer of a slowly burning sensuality. It ignites in a blaze, not at all unlike the swiftness of his anger. The sharp, sudden strike of a match. The crackle and hiss of flames renting the air. 

The blaze starts at the point where your upper lip touches his, and almost immediately, it consumes you. 

It's frenzied when he kisses you again—feral and wild: all teeth and tongue and nips against your bottom lip but the moment you sink into the fervour, Kyle changes it. Slows down. Chaste pecks to your sore lips amid a sensual onslaught. A languid roll of his tongue, soothing the burn his teeth left behind. 

The way he kisses you feels like a paradox. 

It's organised chaos. Refined madness. A cluttered mess of finesse and deliberate suckles; an artist's masterstroke. 

You can't keep up. His rhythm is fierce and uncatchable. 

Each step seems to stutter. An avartan you can’t keep pace with. Elongated taals, dips. A crescendo of harmony that is matchless, unreproducible. You struggle along with his swift current, his unerring tide that sweeps you away; unmoored, adrift. The tentative exploration ends. He knows you, now. All of you. And this is his summit. His scramble to the top. It’s biting passion; roaring flames. 

You cling to him, holding tight to the liferaft he offers in a slow huff, a gust of mirth across your lips and into your lungs, slowing down to accommodate you. Malleable, now, he lets you lead, lets you take over, and move seamlessly with him. In tandem, parallel. Equilibrium brings you to heel, and you sigh into his mouth—a deep exhale of everything that has been building and building, tipping the scales around you until it was unbalanced and precarious. Teetering on the edge a precipice unknown. 

His hand roams across your known geography—hills and streams, rivers and canyons—until he reaches your hand still bracketed around his cheeks, slowly peeling it away from his flesh to slide his fingers between yours, holding tight, and—

Kissing is immaculate. Bending at an altar, and making an offering to something bigger than yourself. It’s the spark of lightning flashing overhead, static in the air. Magnets drawing closer and closer until they snap together in the middle.

But holding his hand?

It feels like coming home. 

The world tipping back into place. Amber warmth in your veins; the softness of a jasmine petal. You suck in a deep breath at the shock of it all. 

You think of missing puzzles and loose sea ice drifting alone in the vastitude of the ocean. You think of a life where he isn’t in it and find yourself shuddering at the wrongness that emanates from it. 

You want him. Want him—

It’s Kyle who pulls away first, resting his forehead against yours. You blink slowly, eyes catching dark amber, honeycomb. It draws a smile from you, full and deep. Giddy on the taste of him, of this. 

The only thought in your head is finally, finally.

You see his lips curl in response, eyes lidded and heavy. Blooming with want, affection. Adoration. 

"What, ah—," he laughs a little, then, breathless and happy, and the noise anchors itself to your breastbone, pressing into the hollow of your ribs. A place you'll keep it forever. "What now?"

He hands you the starless sky, and places it into the cup of your palm. Breathes laughter in the air, paints the moon with his joy. You think about the places he wants to take you, and the ones he swears you'll never go. You think about aeons from now when the world is gone and the stars all die out, when there's just the hazy lavender of endless abyss you can't make sense of. You think of him, and you think of you, and you wonder when it started to just make sense for there to always be two. 

Maybe that night in Cardiff when he held your shoes and gave you his coat. When he draped his arm around your shoulders, laughing at something stupid you'd said. A year before he joined this task force he makes cheeky remarks about but never goes too deeply into detail. When it was just endless summers spent working and drinking and eating good food. 

He'd asked the same thing, then, half slumped over in the taxi, and three sheets to the wind. It made his eyes darken, endless pits. Black holes. The expanse of the sky is framed by brown lashes, and drooping lids.

And you'd said—

"Beans and toast?" It feels right. It feels good. "We can—"

He huffed, too, just like he does now, and squeezes your hand once, tugging you along. 

"We're not watching Golden Girls."

You watch Golden Girls. Kyle wraps his arm around your neck, keeps you tucked in close to his side. He steals kisses from you when Sophia says something that makes you laugh until you're breathless and trembling. 

When David from Kent texts you, he grins wide, and whispers in your ear, think I've always been a little bit in love with you, you know? 

Yeah, you say, and kiss back until the taste of him is etched into the space between your teeth. Since Cardiff. For you?

"Since Uni for sure." He smiles again, sheepish and a touch flustered. It glitters on his brow and nips the apples of his cheeks. "You stole my heart when you devoured four lamb kebabs and then ate my tabbouleh. Said to myself, yeah, that's the one for me, innit?"

"On second thought, what's that Barista's number? Might try my luck instead."

"Nah, you're smitten," he presses his lips into the hollow of your throat, nips his teeth against your pulse point. "And you're all mine. No take backs."

"Ah, for fuck's sake—"

Ahhhhhhhh. Sappy romcoms are my kryptonite and it shows.

COD MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION

[genericpuff]

wait wait wait, regarding that Minthe post, you're telling me that Rachel literally wrote the character as having BPD.....and portrayed her as an abusive mean piece of shit??? WOW. fucking WOW. sorry for being so angry, but even if she "retconned" that - it's still so god damn disrespective. as someone who has BPD it hurts so much to see my mental illness villanised :(

ugh I'm so sorry pal. and I don't blame you for being angry about it, like I don't even have BPD and I'M fucking pissed LOL like I can understand why Rachel might have wanted to backtrack from that knowing fully well that Minthe's story wasn't gonna have a happy ending, but writing her with BPD in the first place and then BACKTRACKING from it as soon as she likely got heat for it (or just realized it wasn't a good look) isn't much better because it means now all she's done is written the stigmatized negative effects of BPD into her character without showing the more positive outlooks of healing and managing. Maybe that was doomed to happen considering Minthe is someone who doesn't get a happy ending in the myths, but it begs the question of why she'd write her with BPD to begin with because in hindsight it really does seem like she just wanted to use it as a way to make her "evil".

But like, when you read the actual episode, you can SEE the potential there for character growth, you can SEE that she's aware of her actions - but doesn't understand why she's "like that" which is a VERY common feeling among people with undiagnosed mental illnesses - but it was never meant to be.

Like jfc not only is it HEAVILY IMPLIED, but again, the episode is literally called "Splitting". And we see exactly that with Minthe, who can't seem to rationalize with herself that she messed up.

But... that leads me to another point that I failed to mention in that first ask response: she DIDN'T mess up. Like, yes, she messed up by escalating it to the point of slapping Hades, but it wasn't her fault that she didn't make it to her date with Hades. Whose fault was it?

Continuously throughout the first season we see Thetis being an awful influence who manipulates and gaslights Minthe. They're "friends", but it's clear Thetis does not have Minthe's best interests in mind. In this very scene we see Thetis manipulate Minthe and even attempt to get her so drunk that she won't be able to show up to her date. And then of course when that plan works and Minthe freaks out, Thetis spins it around on Minthe in a very passive-aggressive way.

But of course, the narrative has to find a way to turn this whole thing on Minthe being the bad guy. Hence we get the slap which shifts the focus entirely away from what led up to it back onto Hades who has, in a lot of ways, put her in a situation that she can't control. And of course, being in those kinds of situations does not help with mental health.

Like, sorry, I'm really going off here now, but... the slap happens in Episode 76.

When is it finally addressed again? Episode 103.

It took Rachel nearly THIRTY EPISODES to finally bring it back to Minthe, and in that time the reader has spent SEVERAL EPISODES reading about how sad and lonely Hades is, and about how cute and lovey he is with Persephone. The reader has not had ANY time to reflect on Minthe's circumstances, because it completely pivots away from her to focus on H x P as a sort of distraction from the fact that Minthe is a victim in her own right.

And when it DOES return to Minthe in 103, we get this harrowing reminder that her entire life is dependent on Hades-

And once again, here comes Thetis to the "rescue", reinforcing the negative feedback loop that Minthe is trapped in where she's put in unhealthy situations. She drags her to a bar and the whole time Minthe is not having fun because she's understandably still reeling from what happened.

Now we DO get some character development here, where Minthe realizes exactly what I've just finished explaining, that Thetis isn't her friend, that she'd rather not have Thetis as a friend than continue being talked down to and manipulated.

But then, as we know, because Rachel still needs Minthe to be the "bad guy", the breakup between Hades and Minthe winds up being all about Persephone from a POV that attempts to villainize Minthe for being "jealous" (rather than focusing on how shitty Hades actually is for having an emotional affair with Persephone to begin with) and then Minthe goes right back to hanging out with Thetis anyways for the sake of having the "evil other girl" who wants to "ruin" H x P's relationship.

It's not until Season 3 that we finally see Minthe tell Thetis to fuck off for good, but by then it's too little too late, and Minthe has lost an entire character arc. Rachel tries to go "see! Minthe's life is so much better now that she's taking care of children!" but that's an entirely different solution to a problem Minthe never had. She never got treatment for her BPD. She just got away from H x P which, while is a good thing, isn't actually analyzed as such. It's treated more as a "good thing" for H x P and the readers, because now they don't have to be subjected to Minthe's evil scheming anymore, something something "the evil is defeated". And don't even get me started on this comic's problem with constantly resolving female characters' story arcs through motherhood.

It bums me out so fucking much. Minthe deserved so much better. She's one of the many characters in LO who make it so painfully ironic when they're done dirty, because despite Rachel's attempts to write a "feminist retelling" that focuses on "moving on from trauma", she's inadvertently done more damage to feminism and the stigmas around mental health and trauma through her assassination of grounded and realistic and relatable characters like Minthe and Demeter who are shown ZERO empathy or understanding for their actions (unless it can be done so by making Persephone and Hades into the heroes). It happens so often throughout the comic it almost feels like how the comic markets itself as a "progressive feminist retelling" is some sick joke that I'm just not getting.

[marthawrites]

Harrenhal Butterflies

Modern Harwin Strong x fem reader

Word count: 3.7k+

About: Sparks flew between you and Harwin before slinking off together during a work dinner, and they continue to fly afterwards. Unprompted, you both slink off together once again during an elective work trip to Harrenhal. Tension ends up breaking in a most unexpected place.

Includes: Smut featuring reader receiving oral, light/playful degradation, some praise, some dirty talk, vaginal fingering, and unprotected protected vaginal sex

Note: Hello lovely reader! This story was inspired by the request "may I request revenge sex in someone else’s car with harwin strong?" from angsti who's no longer on tumblr. She probably won't see this but I still wanted to write and dedicate it to her! As always, reader is non-descript. Please, enjoy!

Working as a dispatcher for the City Watch had its perks. Three times a year, for "team building exercises", fellow employees would plan a day trip for those who wanted to participate. Luckily you were able to take the day off, which, for you, led into a long weekend – perfect! You were equally excited and nervous for this trip: a hike in Harrenhal amongst the lovely fall colors.

"Isn't Harrenhal one of the most haunted places in all of Westeros?" You asked one of your favorite co-workers, Sara Stark, as you both killed some time in the break room. 

"It's said to be," she said excitedly. "Supposedly there's blood mixed in the mortar," she added with curious delight. Sara had been living in King's Landing for a year or so, and worked for the City Watch maybe half that time. Having lived in Winterfell her whole life she had a soft spot for dark folktales of the world.

You came to realize, affectionately, that people from the north were built differently.

You laughed, half nervous. "The woods are probably filled with ghosts! My time off request is already accepted, but maybe I'll skip going on this trip…"

Sara snorted and rolled her eyes. "Oh come on! Ghosts can't hurt you, scaredy cat!"

"What's this I hear about someone skipping out on the best hike of the year?" Harwin asked after overhearing the conversation. He refilled his coffee mug and leaned against the counter, mischievous brown eyes panning curiously between you and Sara.

It was stupid – absolutely stupid – how good Harwin looked in his uniform. Big, tall, broad… his dark curls mussed in a way that made you want to push your fingers through them. After yours and Erryk’s break up, you and Harwin were known to banter. Some office teasing was innocent, right? At least… that’s what you told yourself before the workplace dinner last month where you both had a steady buzz and ended up making out in the bathroom. In hindsight, making out in a bathroom was super gross. He looked so fucking handsome in his blue suit, though! Encouraged by alcohol, you couldn't stop your flirting tongue once it started. And, next thing you knew, he had you pressed against the hallway’s wall kissing you with no care of smearing your lipstick. Giggling, you dragged him into the nearest bathroom and locked the door. Aside from smeared lipstick and kiss swollen lips, nothing else happened that night. The flirting continued, however. 

"The veil is thinnest right now and we're going to Harrenhal of all places!?" You asked, expression – comically – equally bright and uneasy.

"Oh please," he scoffed. "I grew up there and know the whole land like the back of my hand. It's not that bad," he winked. "You gotta come. It's gorgeous this time of the year."

"Yeah, scaredy cat!"

You groaned. "The peer pressure is suffocating!"

"Come on," Harwin drawled. "I'll stick close to you. Throw you over my shoulder and run from any ghosts if I have to."

Sara snorted. Harwin smirked. You blushed. "Fine. Fine! I'll go."

"Aye! There's my strong girl."

-

Whether it due to the location, time of year, or general disinterest, only a quarter of the City Watch's employees participated. You were surprised to see a couple of the higher elite squad, too. Targaryen's had to take their royal safety very seriously, and King Viserys – as well as any and all members of his family whom he deemed needed protection – always had a member of the Kingsgard near. 

Harwin had spoken the truth: Harrenhal was beautiful in the chilly fall glow. Oranges, reds, and yellows contrasted starkly against gray clouds. Despite tales of hauntings, ghosts, and monsters, the surrounding land was deeply fertile. Native plants of all colors and sizes were on fiery autumn display. Trees, shrubs, and even mushrooms decorated the land in a fairy-tale fashion.

People naturally gathered in smaller groups while everyone waited to hear the day’s game plan. You, Sara, and Harwin were nearest the front. Sara happily chatted with you about mycelium and how excited she was to photograph and harvest fungi for her collection. Harwin and another man of the City Watch went over the plan one more time to make sure they were both on the same page.

All the while, you and Harwin made (perhaps not so subtle) flirty eyes at each other. You’d never seen him in casual hiking clothes, and doing so now made butterflies twirl in your belly. 

“Alright, folks!” Harwin said with a clap of his big hands. A smile warmed his face as people turned their attention to him. “It’s about a three mile hike to the Rushing Falls. There’s a nice trail to the top of the waterfall, and from up there you can look across the God’s Eye to the Isle of Faces. Hopefully the fog will lift by then so we can get a proper view. It’s stunning this time of the year. After we’re done, we’ll all come back here and head over to Raventree Hall to share a meal together. That’s the overall plan! Any questions?”

Excitement buzzed in eagerness to start. “I have extra water and granola if anyone needs some!” Someone said. That was enough to break the ice. Sara, and others, began walking ahead – so much for her info dump about mycelium!

“Ah shit,” you groaned, running a hand down the side of your face.

“What’s up?” Asked Harwin, dark eyes soft and concerned as he looked you over.

“I forgot my spare lens in my car. I brought it so I could take some wide shots,” you admitted, half annoyed with yourself. Leave it to you to forget something even though you triple checked that you had everything! “I’m gonna double back and get it. I’ll catch up.”

He chuckled. “I’ll go with you. Don’t want any ghosties scaring you along the way,” he teased.

You rolled your eyes and bit the inside of your cheek in an attempt to hide your smirk. “Pfft. I can handle myself.”

But, it was already too late. Harwin hollered ahead that he and you would be back in a few. If you could see Sara you knew she’d be giving you finger guns and a shit eating grin. She knew of your little crush on Strong and wasn’t above pestering you about it. 

It was only the two of you, now. You peered up at him just in time to watch him point. “There’s a shortcut around this way,” he said, gesturing in the direction. “It goes through a small parking lot that leads to the main one.”

Nodding, you said, “sure! This is only my second time here. And it’s been a long time since then.” Alone with him, now, your mind drifted to the bathroom makeout session. It drifted even further as you remembered how his hands felt on your…

He smiled in a way that made you feel like he knew exactly what you were thinking; brown eyes twinkling with boyish amusement. He led the way and you followed close behind. The pathway wasn’t very wide, and you’d have to be tucked under his arm for the both of you to fit across it. If it were colder, or you bolder… you could probably get away with it. But, those same butterflies from before still twirled around in your belly making you feel more self-conscious than you cared to admit.

Right as you were about to walk out of the smaller parking lot and into the larger one, something unexpected caught your attention. You gasped. “What! No way. I didn’t even see Erryk. When did he get here!?”

“What?” Asked Harwin, looking between you and what stole your attention.

“There’s his Bronco! God I love that thing. I only got to ride in it a couple times before we broke up.” You two had been broken up for awhile now, and since then he’d done some work on his four door black Bronco. It had a lift, larger wheels and tires than what came as stock, and it was all blacked out. It looked good. And mean. You wanted to take the top off and drive it! “I’m gonna go look at it,” you said with mischievous delight.

Strong whistled beneath his breath. “Damn. That thing is nice.”

You b-lined it and tipped up on your toes to get a peek inside. “I want one of these so bad! This is pretty much my dream car. Truck. Whatever you call this thing.”

Cargyll really did have good taste. Harwin slowly walked around it and checked it out the whole time, taking notes of this and that as he did. Once he saw you looking through all the windows realizing that it hadn’t sounded any alarm yet, his dark eyes glinted with impishness. He pulled one of the back doors open. “That idiot didn’t even lock it!”

You squealed. “What! Oh my god,” you said as you swung the other backdoor open. “Holy shit. He’s lucky he took the keys otherwise you’d have to chase me down, a newly offended car stealer, on foot!” You sighed dreamily as you flopped on your back in the backseat. Your legs still hung out the car but you didn’t mind. It felt good – and fun – to be laying in someone else’s car without their knowledge. You giggled behind your hand; the risk of it gave you a rush.

“Bad girl,” he said as he leaned against the edge of the doorway your legs hung out of. You didn't even hear him walk around! “I'd expect better from you,” he added with an easy curve of lip.

“Are you scolding me?” You asked as you sat up.

“I am. A good, smart girl like you, threatening to steal a car like any petty thief?”

Something flexed in your abdomen as boldness took hold of you. Perhaps it was the risk that egged you on, or the way Harwin's mouth looked as his lips pouted in the slightest manner, or the way his brow furrowed beneath a wayward curl. Whatever it might have been, a thrill danced up and down your spine. “And what are you going to do about it, Strong?” You asked daringly, gaze lingering on his mouth before slowly flickering up to his regard.

“Tell me, pretty girl, did Erryk play these games with you in here?” He leaned forward to deliberately invade what little remained of your personal space, voice dropping lower the closer he came to you. That same easy curve of lip decorated his mouth while his gaze remained on yours, the blackness of his pupils beginning to widen in those deep brown irises.

The width of his shoulders took up all the space in the door and you swore you could feel heat coming off his solid bulk. “Not as much as I wanted…,” you answered, lower and slyer than his own tone. You looked up at him through your eyelashes before glancing to his mouth again, leaning closer into him as he did you.

“What a shame.”

In the next breath your mouths collided in an instantly searing kiss. Nothing about it was shy, or tentative, or reserved. The distant familiarity of his lips had you sighing in bliss against them. You grabbed at the front of his jacket – that odd water resistant material that somehow felt smooth and rough alike – and pulled him further into you. And, as if they’d suddenly gained a mind of their own, your legs spilled open to accept his wide hips between them. “I like this much more than a bathroom,” you mumbled through the kiss, grinning. Blood warmed your cheeks and fuzzed your mind; low muscles in your belly tightening with eager anticipation.

Harwin answered by holding the back of your head with one large hand, the size of it allowing him to graze his thumb along your cheek in a way that deepened your kiss. A pleased groan sounded from somewhere in his chest. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he drawled, dragging his tongue against yours before biting on your bottom lip. “At your desk… in the break room… anytime I see you walking around the office. God. You have the perfect mouth for kissing.”

Heat thrummed beneath your skin and you were full on dizzy, now, drunk on Harwin’s words. “I haven’t stopped thinking about this since the last time we did it,” you admitted as you pressed your legs tight against him, wrapping your arms atop his shoulders.

He groaned again, louder this time. “If you wrap those pretty legs around me I won’t be able to help myself,” he said huskily as he kissed and bit all along your neck. 

You wrapped your legs around him, then, pulling him fully against the heat of your body. Daring. Tauting. Needing.

“Mmm that’s what you want, isn’t it?” He growled. “Driving me crazy all on purpose now? You really are a bad girl.” He pushed his wide hands up the front of your body – over your hips, along your sides, up beneath your breasts to feel their weight upon his touch – all while leaving tiny love bites on your shoulder. “Will you let me make you feel good this time?” He asked, finally pulling away from you long enough to look at your pretty face and parted mouth.

Before you could stop yourself, you answered, “yes,” in a hot breathy tone. “Shit, yes. Please, Harwin.”

“Right here in your ex’s rig?” He asked as he slowly slid down the front of your body, thick fingers hooking into the waistband of your leggings.

“Yes,” you squeaked, watching him. You lifted your hips in time with his hooking, and he wasted no time in pulling your bottoms down your legs until it caught on your shoes. Somehow it felt more lewd than having them fully removed.

Those big, calloused, warm hands felt over the smooth skin of your thighs. His fingers splayed as he felt down the full length of your legs, and then up again, fingertips denting into your soft flesh. “So pretty all sprawled out,” he whispered, shamelessly trailing the pad of one thumb up the center of your underwear covered center. Much to his delight it coaxed a little sound from you. “And so sensitive…”

“...please don’t make me wait,” you begged with soft doe eyes.

He smirked. “I don’t plan to,” he said as he pulled your underwear down. Instead of leaving them balled around your feet, however, he tore one of your shoes off and tugged your bottoms and panties off in the same motion. They still remained bunched up and hanging off one foot.

If you thought it lewd before, this felt dirty.

With Harwin’s palms holding your thighs open both his thumbs gently parted your folds, opening your pussy for his greedy eyes. “You’re such a good girl for getting all wet for me. Do you think you can stay quiet?” He asked cheekily with an arch of brow before kissing the front of your hip. He kissed the other side, too, and dipped his head low. 

Just as you started to say something Harwin dragged his hot tongue up through your soaken folds. Your lungs swelled with excitement and the breath you gasped came out in a broken moan. “Oh my god…!,” you whispered when he lapped again and again, relaxed tongue sliding over your clit in a way that sent goosebumps tingling all over your body. One of your hands lowered to his hair and you shamelessly sprawled your fingers through his brown curls, tugging appreciatively when he lavished all his attention to your bud. “Mm fuck..! Just like that…!”

He moaned a satisfied rumble against your cunt. Turning his gaze back up to you, he said, “poor baby. Your little clit is so achy and needy, isn’t it?” While still looking at you he worked his tongue in deliberate motions, learning your body more and more by the second. He circled, and flicked, and kissed, and ‘mmm’d’ his approval into you. “What a sweet treat you are,” he said barely above a rumble. He didn’t stop lavishing your clit until your thighs were trembling beneath his hands.

“You’re gonna make me come like that. I’m close… ‘m so close,” you whimpered as you ground your pussy against his mouth, seeking more and more of him even as he was giving you all his mouth could. 

“Shh… shh, quiet, princess. I know it feels good, but we can’t have someone hearing you,” he said, eyes dark and dancing, as he slipped a finger into you. He worked it in time with his tongue, then, curling and testing your walls. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. As soon as he found that wonderful patch of nerves inside you, he squeezed a second finger into you and pumped them in and out, hitting that spot every time without fail. He latched onto your clit, licking and sucking in tandem with his fingers.

Bliss, and electricity, and fire blazed through your body as Harwin pushed you to peak. Orgasm flooded your muscles with pleasure and you barely covered your mouth in time to muffle all those lovely sounds of release. Harwin pushed you through it steadily; prolonging without overstimulating. Once you stopped trembling he gradually pulled away from you, grinning. “I could do that all fucking day,” he whispered against your mouth before stealing your satisfied moans in a kiss. 

You could still taste yourself on him. You needed more.

“I need more,” you purred, one hand grazing over the bulge at the front of his bottoms.

“Not here, princess. I don’t have a condom,” he replied with an edge of mournfulness – wanting nothing more than to bury himself in you and fuck you silly on his cock.

Butterflies filled your belly again as you answered, “I’m clean… and on birth control. If you are too..? Then fuck a condom.”

He twitched and somehow grew even harder against your palm with your words. “Fuck… gonna let me have all of your pretty pussy?” He fumbled with the front of his bottoms and you helped him pull them down. Lust overtook you and you were unable to answer, only able to help free his cock. He sighed in relief as it was freed. You gasped, too. It was like the rest of him; thick, solid, hot. He bit your lip as your hand wrapped around him, smaller and cooler than the rigid desire of his length. “Open your legs. You can take it, I know you can.”

You did as told, propping up on your elbows so you could look down the front of your body to watch as he pushed into you. He guided himself to your entrance and pressed forward, easing into you, slowly stretching you out around him. You mumbled something incoherent at the sight and gasped in a mix of pain and pleasure as he filled you to your body’s end. When he began to pull out your arousal gleamed on his cock. Your head buzzed and your desire soared. “More. Harder… faster.. Fuck me like you mean it,” you pleaded, spilling your thighs open as far as they comfortably could in the confides of your ex’s backseat.

Something changed in Harwin, then, and his gentleness began to crumble away. He held tightly onto one of your thighs and one side of your hip, driving into you firmer and quicker. “This pussy just needs to be filled so bad, huh? Don’t wanna take this big cock slow… no, you need it slamming in and out of you,” he growled lowly, accentuating his words with drives of his strong hips. 

Wordlessly, you nodded at him with desperate eyes. You moaned behind a hand as he speared in and out of you; full, so full of him. The pressure, the stretch, the thrill of finally having him sent a second orgasm creeping along your spine. You wrapped your legs around him and drew him further into you.

“My poor needy girl. Should’ve came to me sooner if you needed fucked this bad,” he said, grinning, before sliding his gaze down to where your bodies joined. “This little cunt is starving, baby, you’re taking me so well.” He changed his angle slightly and picked up his pace, pounding into you with added vigor. If your moans weren’t muffled enough then the sounds of skin slapping on skin would be more than enough to give you both away. The Bronco, despite its size, began to rock with the motion of Harwin’s fucking. 

If heaven was real, surely it was here.

Your legs flexed around him as your back arched, body tightening as Harwin pushed you to peak again. Your eyelids fluttered before they rolled closed, wholly blissed out. Climax washed over you and your walls convulsed round him – squeezing – urging him to join you.

And he did.

With one final thrust he buried himself as deep as he could be and unloaded into you. The warmth of his cum filled you in a way that had you sighing in relief. He panted, spent and deeply satisfied. “I’ll buy you your own Bronco. Whatever color you want,” he said as he pressed his forehead to yours, basking in the sensation of post-climax bliss.

You laughed. “You don’t mean that! Shut up.”

“I mean it. I saw a pretty blue one driving down the road the other day. You’d look so good driving one.”

Slowly you unwrapped your legs from around him and giggled. “Who knew Strong got so pussystruck?,” you teased.

Laughing, he carefully pulled out of you. “Ah, hell. You’re gonna have to sacrifice your panties to clean yourself up. Hiking with no underwear? You really are a dirty girl,” he quipped back.

Both of you took a minute to wipe clean and fix your clothes before walking away from Erryk’s rig as innocently as you could. Which, more than likely, wasn’t innocent at all. “You’re not buying me a car. But… maybe dinner?”

“Of course I’ll buy you dinner. And a beer?”

“As long as you promise we don’t end up in a bathroom or backseat of someone else’s car.”

“Ha! Last I remember it was you who egged both of those things on,” he taunted, glaring at you playfully.

Well, he wasn't wrong. 

You snerked and slapped his backside before finally retrieving your lens from your car.

Now to come up with an excuse as to why you two took so long. Maybe no one would notice?

-

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider a follow, and/or reblog, and/or letting me know as it all makes me vvvery happy! ♥

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Masterlist

Main Taglist: @watercolorskyy @melsunshine @girlwith-thepearlearring @arcielee @barbiedragon @aemondtarqaryens @chompchompluke @fan-goddess @schniiipsel

[defectivehero]

Hello! If ur requests are open, I'd love to see a villain or hero trying to break down the walls of their enemy, who's whole purpose is to be a tool. Denied everything for the sake of a single goal, a mere sacrifice, destined to die :)

this ask is so peko pekoyama & izuru kamakura coded. and i love it so much. warnings: manipulation, child abuse, graphic depictions of injury/violence/blood, dehumanization

"Ah, you're awake," the villain realizes aloud, looking at the hero. "I was hoping to get some answers from you."

The hero is silent. They look surprisingly calm, despite the situation they find themself in: bound to a chair, a blindfold secured around their eyes. They don't look unnerved, startled; there's no emotion in their expression—no modicum of energy or presence to denote them as even remotely human.

Admittedly, this hero has intrigued the villain, ever since the moment they met. The hero had moved with a mechanical precision, and the villain was surprised to find that their precision extended to every other facet of their life. There is no boundary between work and personal life for the hero—because they simply don't have a personal life. At least, that's what the villain has found. They'd love to be proven wrong at this point—would love to be proven wrong about their lingering suspicions regarding the cruelty of the local hero agency.

"What did you want to ask about?" The hero asks, as if they are the one controlling the conversation. And maybe they are. The villain blinks, thrown back into reality.

"Why are you...?" The villain tries to say. They're not quite sure how to proceed. They take a slow breath and start pacing around the hero, hoping to quell their restless energy. They are the one in control. "No. What did the agency do to you?"

"Why do you care?" The hero hums. There isn't a denial of any kind—"They didn't do anything to me" wasn't a response. The villain's stomach stews in unease.

"Answer the question," the villain demands.

"Very well," the hero answers carefully.

In hindsight, the villain should've braced themself for the answer. They were so focused on the question that they neglected to prepare themself for the nearly infinite amount of possibilities—unspeakably cruel possibilities. They're suddenly grateful that they blindfolded the hero—grateful that the hero won't be able to see their expression. Because what they say next breaks the villain’s composure.

"I was seven when it happened… My powers manifested. I didn't know how to use them. It was bound to happen."

"...What was bound to happen?" The villain hears themself say. Their voice sounds like a stranger’s.

"I was kidnapped walking home from school. One moment, there was a sharp pain on the back of my head; the next, I woke up to a glass cage and a manacle secured around my ankle."

The villain is biting the inside of their cheek so hard they can taste blood. They shouldn't be surprised, but they are.

"I didn't know where I was or what was happening. I was just a child." The hero continues. The villain wants to think that there's a trace of emotion in the hero's voice after the latter statement, but they get the feeling it's just their imagination.

"For a while, I was alone. I don't know how long. I tried to summon my powers, but they still weren't under control. I nearly killed myself in my attempt to escape.

"Then, someone visited. It was a man in a dark suit. He unlocked the cage, or manipulated it, I can't remember—and walked up to me. There was a glass of water in his hand. I was so thirsty.

"I was too young to know any different, too young to question what was clearly a kind gesture. I took a sip... My vision spiraled and I fell to the ground.

"I woke up on an operating table, with people staring down at me through advanced medical equipment. Tears were slipping down my cheeks, from the brightness of the lights above. Someone secured a mask on my face. I tried to stay awake, but I couldn't move.

"I woke up on the floor of my cage, in a pool of my own blood. There was a giant wound on my forearm, leaking pus. I dry-heaved over and over again. Nothing came up.

"I got a lot of visitors after that. It was clear that they did something to me. Suddenly, I was getting meals three times a day, books and video games to keep me busy... I must've been eight or nine years old at that point—old enough to understand that I was nothing more than a lab rat."

It takes them several moments for the villain to find their voice. "...And then?" They manage to ask. They stopped pacing minutes ago—now they're standing across from the bound hero.

"Then I was trained," the hero says. "Brought to the brink of my exhaustion over and over again, day after day. Months passed, then years... like granules of sand slipping through my fingers."

"I was soon trusted to participate in missions. I didn't know what was happening, why I was fighting who I was fighting. All I knew... was the hollowness in my chest and the commands inscribed on my mind itself."

The villain is silent. They don't trust themself to speak—they know their voice would break, betraying their thoughts.

At some point, the hero is the one to break the silence. They tilt their head to the side slightly, leveling the villain with what they can assume to be a curious gaze under the blindfold. "Why have you captured me? Do you hope to rehabilitate me?"

"It won't work," the hero says before the villain can answer. Somehow, they've ascertained that their capture was motivated by that exact desire: the wish for rehabilitation, the visceral need to do something good for someone other than themself. "They have broken me beyond repair." The hero's voice is hollow.

"Everyone can be fixed," the villain responds.

"But I am not a person. I am just a shell, an empty husk. An amalgamation of observations on human behavior, with no memories, no passions, no opinions. I don't even have a name."

Somehow, this is what breaks them. Somehow, the villain survived the onslaught of horrible information, suffered through the retelling of dehumanizing events and cruelty beyond measure. Yet this is what breaks them: the hero does not have a name. A name: a concept so simple. Even animals have names—they are ascribed names by humans. What does it say that this person has no name? They have been deemed lower than humans, lower than animals. They are merely a tool. A weapon.

The villain's thoughts are spiraling. They feel themself moving before they can stop. They robotically break the distance between the two of them, until they're standing over the hero. The hero must sense their proximity, but they do not respond—do not even flinch or move. The villain bites the inside of their cheek hard and begins untying the ropes around the hero's limbs.

"What are you doing?" The hero asks. They sound vaguely surprised. But the villain is nearly certain it’s just an act.

"Leave," the villain demands, their hands shaking ever so slightly as they finish freeing the hero. "Go."

There's a brief flicker of emotion on the hero's face—a quick flash of complete, utter confusion. It happens so fast that the villain can just barely comprehend it, can just barely grasp that the hero may, deep down, have the freedom to express genuine emotion. But as quick as it appears, the confusion is gone: smoothed over by an infuriatingly blank slate.

The villain watches the hero leave. The moment the door clicks shut, the bile on their tongue rises and they dry-heave. They cough and take deep breaths, feeling their throat burn with more than just acid. Unshed tears linger in their eyes, in the back of their throat.

Is the hero past saving? More importantly, do they even want to be saved?

The villain rubs a hand over their face and walks back to the wooden chair where the hero sat moments ago, kicking it over in a rush of pure frustration. It slides across the floor with a horrible screeching noise.

The villain is overcome with an intense desire to do something rather uncharacteristic: they want to free the hero from the agency's chains. And, hell, it's not out of a foolish desire to do something good. Not anymore. Somewhere, deep down, the villain wants the person they just spoke to—who has only known cruelty—to be given a chance to truly live.

It's ironic. The villain has been fighting heroes for years, unaware that the real evil has been under their nose this entire time. Because, while the heroes may be purveyors of justice, the nature of that "justice" is determined by the agency. It's the agency that contributes to the systemic oppression running rampant in their city, it's the agency that manufactures people and turns them into weapons.

The villain clenches their restless hands at their sides. It seems they have to make a slight change to their plans.

©2024, @defectivehero | @defectivevillain, All Rights Reserved. reblogs are greatly appreciated—just please don't steal my writing or share outside of Tumblr.

i can't tell if i'm happy with how this turned out or not. i feel like the ending kind of sucks, but whatever. it is what it is.

tag list: @lateuplight @wit-is-wisdom @greengableswriting @whump-me-all-night-long @noawhite @rekhyt-of-arcadia @the-blind-one-speaks @sufferfictionalcharacters @basically-psyduck @alexkolax @subval01 @emerald-blade @felicia609 @surplus-of-sarcasm @ilickedanenvelopeandilikedit @a-chaotic-gremlin @unknownogre @prompt-fills-and-writing-spills @whatwhumpcomments @excusemeasibangmyheadonawall @agayprince @starsick1979 @a-lonely-little-ghost @agayprince @plum-tello

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[bluishfrog]

HAPPY 1-YEAR OF DRAWING ANNIVERSARY TO ME!

(Warning: slightly longer post incoming cause sometimes I gotta be a sentimental bitch ok? So let's go on a little trip down memory lane.)

This day, a year ago, I made my very first fanart. It was dnf (if that surprises you, then welcome to being on my blog for the very first time). I drew a little frog face too so I could use it as a watermark (fun fact: I still use that very same first one).

I immediately put my drawing up on twt because I told myself that I wasn't gonna be afraid of having people see that I was at the very beginning of this journey and had no clue what I was doing. That instead of being bad at art, I was gonna be awesome at being a beginner who doesn't know shit.

I started with little doodles and silly comics and then I laughed way too long when the first drawing of mine that gained some attention was a dnf butt joke. At the time I was trying to balance shipping and non-shipping art so I didn't even draw dnf that much but in hindsight it's probably the only possible way this could have gone.

At the very end of August I woke up to @honelle56 caps-locking at me in my messages - I was very confused and tired (I am no morning person and I will never be, fuck off with your mornings) because Dranart liked my drawing of singing Dream. Dranart was my 17th follower on twt which is a useless yet extremely funny fact about my time on that hellsite.

I also drew human!patches because a) patches was and will always be my favorite dteam member and b) it was a really cute trend and while I do love drawing dream, george and sapnap, I was also quite happy to try drawing anything but a white man for once. And I really liked how the drawing turned out.

Much, much later, I tried to draw my first slightly more realistic looking drawing. I was extremely confused on how to draw anything like this. Especially their hair gave me tons of trouble but given my experience, I think it's not a bad attempt.

When hijacked smp started I obviously wanted to participate, and I drew c!blu who doesn't associate with any side in particular but instead serves soup to everyone who visits her tavern 'The Soup House'. She also wants to be paid in stories from all around the map.

One of the events I was most excited about was dnf week. I even collaborated with two talented writers and I drew the corresponding art for two fics.

(Fun or not so fun fact: when twt had like three hundred collaborative aneurysms about the situation at that moment, that was when I created this tumblr account. I didn't use it super actively (I guess I needed another situation to fully make the switch) but I at least started the account that now developed quite a bit since then.)

I didn't really draw at all through January and February and I actually kinda thought I would move on from that hobby and fandom (not because of negative feelings, just because I didn't really have the urge to create anything within this fandom) and then situations happened and now I am here; and for some reason that is beyond any logic and my understanding I am now even more insane about dteam.

Wild to me but we are rolling with it now, I guess.

Since I got here, I drew more than ever (I actually think I might have made more drawings in the month since I got here than I made the whole rest of the year). There's just such an active and funny community here that cares about fan works for the sake of creating and not just because a CC might see it.

Unfortunately, Tumblr won't let me add more than 10 images in one post (maybe fortunately for everyone who has this monstrosity of a post on their dash). So if you want to see all the progress I made since I got here, you can look at everything in my art tag. For now, I will close this post with one of the art works from the past month that I like the most:

Can't wait to see what the next year might bring :)

Love, blu

[elvisabutler]

eros

summary: he was a frat boy. you were not a sorority girl. could i make it any more obvious. or how you fall for a frat boy and you two finally actually get it on but not necessarily in the way both of you intended. fandom: austin butler rating: m pairing: austin butler x female reader word count: 1716 warnings: talking shit on fraternities and sororities. mild insecurity. talk of disastrous dates. coming untouched. coming in pants. handjobs. implied p in v sex. a touch ( okay maybe a bit more than a touch ) of sub austin. impatient horny college people. author’s note: so as @blurredcolour can attest to i meant for this to be a touching little piece about how these two had sex for the first time and he sort of defied her expectations and all this nice romantic stuff. it's why i called this piece eros. yeah, then i started writing it and well, it's still romantic and sweet? but i also had the three people who saw bits before i posted forget how to breathe so oopsies. as always comments and reblogs and hearing your thoughts are my lifeblood so feel free to scream at me in dms or asks or in the comments. i'll eat it up and write like a woman possessed i swear. beyond that, if you want to be on my taglist fill out the form here. i might just make a tumblr post for it too but we'll see.

If anyone were to have told you half a year ago that you'd be head over heels with a boy who's in a fraternity, you'd have laughed. You'd have told them that they really should brush up on their comedy skills because there was no way you would do that. Not after every aggravation you had with them. Not after every class where one of them popped up with some stupid remark that had you wanting to deck them in the face and not after knowing that just because they had gotten into some exclusive club they got a leg up on other people. Maybe it's true that's how the world worked but it didn't mean you'd have to like it. Then you properly met Austin. You got to know this stupid premed who minors in theater of all things and cares so deeply for his friends and for other people that it threatens to choke you sometimes when you think about it.

He's not perfect and he makes stupid jokes that you swat him on the arm for and spreads himself just a little too thin but he's yours and heaven help you, you're his. It's too early to be thinking about forever, you think, but the idea doesn't terrify you as much as it should. The idea of being with him as he goes through med school and as you complete your own schooling and go into the workforce is almost comforting. The idea of seeing him with a child that's a small mix of the two of you doesn't immediately make you run for the hills. The idea of him in your life, in your bed and in your apartment feels like an inevitability that comforts you more than anything else.

Of course, all of this—you like to think— might depend on whether or not Austin feels the same way. It depends on whether or not maybe tonight you can convince him that you'd honestly like to have sex with him. The circumstances are right, your roommate won't be home tonight at all and the house is fine and in capable hands. The two of you even have a date where for once Austin plans on cleaning up for something other than a frat function or a school related function. There's no reason he shouldn't want to unless he doesn't actually want you that way.

In hindsight, you don't know why you were ever concerned as you find yourself up against your bedroom door, head tapping it lightly as Austin's hands move up your sides while his lips attack your neck.

"Austin-" you whine, as one of his hands moves to your chest, trying to free your breasts from your dress and instead just managing to squeeze them. "You— The dress, we gotta undo the dress."

Your words are clearer and said with more clarity that you thought was possible given Austin's wandering hands. Someone— one of the two of you has to keep a clear head— if only so that you can both enjoy this. So that Austin doesn't try and rip your dress or your panties or god forbid your bra to get at your body in his impatience.

Austin forces his face away from your neck and groans a little at how there's already a bruise forming from his lips, how your skin is just that little bit darker where his lips had sucked and where his teeth had nipped. You were his girlfriend and you loved him. You loved every single part of him— the part that had to work so hard in classes and at work, the part that missed his mom in the middle of the night and would call you tearing up, the part that cared about his people so deeply that he'd murder for him— they were all what made him the person you wanted to be with and that was a heady thing to know. It set a fire ablaze inside of him that threatened to overtake him and bring you with him. You were his girlfriend and here you were in a gorgeous dress still with him after what was hands down the most disastrous date he's ever had with another person. The reservation was at the wrong time, the restaurant ran out of half the food to make their dishes and there was not one but two couples breaking up next to you. Not to mention the way the uber had broken down mid trip and how the wine had spilled on his jacket ruining it until he could manage to get it dry cleaned.

Yet you were still here and in his arms and willing and wanting to have sex with him. No— you were willing to make love to him the same way he wanted to make love to you. He wants to take his time laying you out across your bed, watching your face as he enters you and watching how your face contorts when he plays with your clit while he's inside of you. He wants to see your face in ecstasy and hear your mewls of pleasure in his ear. Your nails would mark him up, drag lines down his back from how overwhelmed you are and he could see just what he does to you.

"I love you," he whispers with a reverence you weren't prepared to hear in contrast to his hands trailing fire across your skin. "I know we say it all the time but— I— I'm so thankful you gave me that shot, babe. So thankful you let me clean your car. You could have told me no—" His words are cut off with a low groan as he feels your hand undoing his belt and sticking your hand in his pants with a speed that startles him. "Babe I'm—"

"You're being—ah— very romantic, Aus. I love it— but I'm ruining my underwear and I want to see you come right now." The words that come out of your mouth have both you and Austin pausing for just a moment because while you can be startlingly blunt that particular combination of words is a bit much for even you.

"O-Okay," he manages to stutter out in response, the blues of his eyes completely overwhelmed by his pupil. "In my pants?"

Your chest heaves at the idea, at the implication that Austin would let you bring him off like this and come in his pants. It's a rush of power you aren't expecting and that you figure no one would expect. You bite at your lip, watching as Austin's eyes are glued to them before you finally answer. "Would you?"

It's Austin's turn to have his head tilt back, exposing the long length of his neck to you as you move to nip and kiss at it. You pray that he bruises there, that there's a hickey or two for everyone to see he's yours. Against your lips you feel the rumble of his voice, rough as a gravel road. "For you? Yeah. Do anything for you."

A smirk crosses your lips as you finally pull away from his neck, noting the red bit of his skin and giggling softly. Your hand twists and your thumb brushes against the tip of his cock as you just look at Austin, marveling at how he keeps ahold of you, keeps you pinned to the door even as his breathing shifts and as he bites his lips to keep quiet. "Austin," you croon, "wanna hear it. Want everyone to know I got the hottest frat boy in my apartment. That he's gonna come undone because I'm jerking him off. Want everyone to know you're all mine. That you're so—"

Austin's lips slam against yours, causing a messy kiss of clattering teeth and bitten lips in order to get you to stop talking. Even with the distraction your hand picks up the pace, moving in a way you're pretty sure Austin enjoys as he whines and whimpers into your kiss. You could die happy hearing these noises. You want to hear these noises every second you can if he'll let you. He pulls away, trying to put some distance between you two because he meant to come during sex on your bed and not like this. Not like a horny little teenager. You deserved more.

"Babe— gotta— I'm gonna—" He can't finish off the thoughts though and your hand keeps moving as you clench your thighs together the best you can.

"Austin, baby please. Do it for me?" You flutter your eyelashes and pout in what is one of— if not the dirtiest trick you could use before you feel his body curl just so and tense up just enough that you know he's gone before you feel the warmth of his come covering your hand. If you're honest with yourself you can feel your pussy clenching around nothing and you wonder if perhaps you're in the same boat without being touched in the same way.

It takes you and Austin a moment to catch your breath, staring at each other in a bit of shock before he finally says something, moving to make it so he isn't pinning you against the door. "That— I was supposed to have sex with you not—"

You cut him off with a nuzzle to his nose, watching as his face scrunches up just a little. "You still can. I still want you to. Might have gotten off last night to the idea. Was hoping you would tonight actually."

Austin swallows and watches how you shift in place, still wanting more friction. "Yeah? Want me to lay you out on the bed and make you come till you cry?" He licks his lips at the picture he's inadvertently painting and you can't help but mirror him.

"I'd like to see you try, Butler," you answer with a smile, teasing him with the old name you used to call him in anger. "It'll take a while."

"I've got all night," he shrugs before his eyes move and catch on the yoga mat by the door. "And you're pretty flexible. Lead the way to your fate, babe."

You get a call about a noise complaint from your landlord the next day.

taglist: @ab4eva, @blurredcolour, @butlersxbirdy, @precious-little-scoundrel, @eliseinmemphis, @prompted-wordsmith, @lookingforrainbows, @araxw, @thatbanditqueen, @ellie-24, @austinbutlersgirl67, @heartbrake-hotel, @ccab, @18lkpeters, @slutforsomegoodlettuce, @dkayfixates, @kendralavon7, @chasingwildflowers, @slowsweetlove, @kxnnxy, @meetmeatyourworst, @purejasmine

[openphrase123]

no mirabelle monday inutile update this week, so. tiny author infodump about the first act and of the fic below the cut (spoiler alert for the fic up to the current chapter, chapter 11) and also maybe some stuff about what to expect for act two??

this is probably obvious but i'm having SO!! MUCH!!! FUN!!!! BEING EVIL!!!!!!! every time someone yells in the comments or wails in despair i gain so much life. i'm serious about the fic tag about the story ending happily but holy hell i'm going to make everyone work for that happy ending

anyway when i was writing i was scratching at the walls of my enclosure during every chapter the siffrin namedrop didn't happen. geez it took so long for siffrin to get their canon name. why did i do it like that. (i know exactly why i did it like that)

the red formatting. i did that on a whim in the second chapter and went "hold on. if i can do that here i can do this Anywhere" and now #FF0000 is my best friend

i was struggling with what to put in the visions of the future because. i don't want to give everything away. but also i have learned from dnd that you can drop literally anything in a paragraph like that and 90% of people at the table won't connect the dots because context is everything. i thought people would get that siffrin was a star in the eclipse chapter but only a few people really caught on by then

there are a few lines and paragraphs that get repeated more than once, and that is. extremely intentional :) i will not list all of them but here are the highlights

ch1 | ch11

ch1 | ch8

ch1 | ch4

and also some lines that will be Very Fun in hindsight of act 2 tee hee

i'm currently at this very moment finishing off the jouvente chapter... i have a lot of the other chapters after that written in sections, and all of the chapters up to jouvente done (intermission and one other) but like. whew. the other party members really make this fic bangin.

by the time the jouvente chapter comes out i'll be posting the isabeau angst document. and let me tell you those two are FUN to read back to back. my new favorite pastime is bothering isabeau in new innovative ways

odile in act two is also. oh my god. i can't say it at all but i love her. i did this in curtain call but i love writing odile as a catalyst to Problems, like without her the Problems still would have popped up but she's just being economical about it. her catalyst in this fic is, admittedly, less mean, but it's still there

bonnie. smiles. i don't want to talk about bonnie yet.

and siffrin - well i don't really know who that is!! too bad!!!

i don't think i've said it in any official channels yet, i've mostly alluded to it in comments - but loop IS in this fic. slightly differently than canon though. i shan't say. i think they'd be a little different considering the situation i've put them in. still the same vibes though

anyway. act two. i said this in a comment also but it's very much structured like a novelization of a jrpg. which i am having a lot of fun with. there's a tutorial fight and everything. as well as your Typical JRPG Travel Locations (that vision of the future is Not Lying the fancy paper mario train is here) (no ff7 golden saucer though i am Sorry)

and. if you have made it this far. you have passed my test here is a preview for next week's chapter

[curiouselleth]

Raistlin is Eru? Go on...

Hi @backgroundelf!

Thanks for asking, I'm thrilled to share it with someone new! A forewarning, however; this got a bit long, I had a lot of fun writing it all out lol 😂😅

So, Raistlin is Eru is a crack theory I've been rotating on and off for a little while.

I think I got the idea during a conversation about Eru and the Valar, specifically how Eru seemed to be so hands off after the Valar entered Arda, and how the only actions he seemed to take were preventing the Valar from doing things that would endanger the world, namely during the Ainulindalë, preventing too much discord in the music and going to war with Numenor.

And it just kinda popped into my head. Maybe it was the specific phrasing of discord in the music that reminded me of some of Lord of Nothing from the Last Trial:

(this is from the 2021 english dub on youtube)

"It's not too late yet, to play a new song, clear the discord and correct what went wrong!"

Then a few lines later:

"It's not too late yet, to fix the problem-- change the dissonant song that life has become, not too late! For a new world, one of harmony suppressing the old!"

And I just started thinking about it, and it kinda made sense? Still in a crack theory way but oh my gosh it made sense. It would explain Eru's lack of interference, he saw the damage that gods outside a world, not living in it could cause. I haven't finished the Dragonlance Legends trilogy yet, but from the Chronicles with Paladine living in the world not using his full powers and being part of it (a bit like Gandalf in hindsight), that seemed to work a lot better! So only those who were a part of it - the valar - had the power to more actively shape it.

But then, things that threaten the very world's existence like the discord in the music or the valar going to war with Numenor? He reacts. And in the case of Numenor - violently.

And as I was just reading a Dragonlance timeline, the similarities between Dragonlance and the Silmarillion are prominent. I won't go into detail, there's far too much and I've barely skimmed it.

He saw the catastrophic damage to Beleriand and it's peoples during the war of wrath. A continent rented and destroyed. He will not see his world hurt again. So when Numenor invades, he fears what the Valar would do when attacked, because the damage in Beleriand when they weren't attacked was so bad, what happens when they feel they need to defend themselves? So he drowns Numenor, he destroys the Numenorians in Valinor, he bends the world and removes Valinor, removes the valar, from it. They could have good intentions, the best intentions, but he will protect his world. He will not see his world destroyed again.

But it's not just that. The Numenorians wished to become immortal. Wished to challenge the valar, the gods to get it. How long until they wish for more than immortality, how long until they wish for the powers of the Valar, how long until they wish to become gods? Almost exactly. Like. Him.

So he utterly destroys them so none but the faithful escape, so none will survive to continue pursing this goal, just like him. Just like how he wished he would've been stopped. He saves his world. But it is irreversibly changed.

After a time, the Valar play less and less of a roll in the world, as the world grows away from him. He has too seen what happens when gods are worshipped for too long. More war, more death, more destruction. Maybe it wouldn't happen the same way in this new world. But he will not risk it.

Even though he planned an end of his world, he planned it to be renewed. Without hurt.

You can see him in the gift of men too. He has known long ages in the abyss. Completely alone, nothing, desolate, but the worst, knowing that it was never going to end. Never. Shackled to this eternity. So he gives them the gift to leave, that he wished for more times over than he could count.

But he puts eternity on the elves. I haven't fully thought this part out, perhaps after Arda is made anew, Arda unmarred, he has planned a end for himself. Not necessarily suicide, but an end. Stepping away, going where his spirit will. This life ending and becoming something new. And that is why he leaves eternity on the elves. So, as a race, they may step in to fill the gap he left. Not as gods, not that powerful. But all of them together sharing the power. It becoming their world. And perhaps after a somewhat similar cycle of being in that role for some time, they get to be in control of their fate. And they get to change it as Raistlin changed his fate of eternity as a god.

---

But how did this happen? How did Raistlin make a new world when it was too late? *insert entirety of Lord of Nothing here*

The flame imperishable. It's so mysterious in the Silmarillion. We know so little.

So how did it come to be?

Raistlin spent many ages in the abyss. Some more clear than the others, some with not a thread of sanity. It would come and go. But over time, he grows a little. As a person.

His realization of how deeply wrong his actions were tormented him endlessly. But it was what saved him. He dwelt on it, reflected and grew. He gained compassion and empathy. The grief for what he did, the pain he caused others in trying to avoid it himself gnawed at him. Consuming him. But he learned, and became better.

The multiverse is semi-canonical in Dragonlace. When the world had died, other gods saw. How sad, a few thought. How foolish, many more thought. Then they moved on.

Uncounted ages later, one looks back. And sees with a shock that Raistlin has changed so much. And decides to give him a second chance. If he hasn't changed enough he will just fail, nothing more coming from it. "One without a heart cannot create life," (paraphrasing Takhisis.)

The god gives Raistlin the barest of sparks. Raistlin doesn't notice for a long time, he had long ago retreated to one of the corners of the abyss. If such a thing exists in a endless void.

But, he finds it. He searches for the one who left it but nothing. He studies it, cautious. Is he imagining it? It wouldn't be the first time he was hallucinating. But no, it's real. There is no outside influence on it. It's just there. A chance.

For a long time, he does nothing. He is so afraid, what if he fails again, what if he actually hasn't grown? (I'd like to think he also gained at least a little self awareness over time lol)

Eventually, he decides. He goes for it. He nurtures the tiny spark, he nurtures it and cares for it and protects it and it grows, and grows, and grows. It grows into the Flame Imperishable.

And he finally is brave enough to do it, to create life. And he creates the Valar. The Maiar. They create the world. He fears that he is too flawed to do it alone.

Ainulindalë happens. The world is made, he is secretly delighted when the dwarves are made, but he will not change The Plan (TM) this early, too risky, they'll have to wait their turn. The elves and men come, the Two Trees come and go, the First age, the Second, time goes on and time. The stories we love happen and are written and forgotten as time ticks ever forward. As Raistlin's world lives.

He knows it will never be enough to make up for his mistakes. There is no atoning for killing his first world. But he does everything he can to make this one good, and life flourishes.

There's just so many parallels and Eru's actions can be explained and make sense in a way, Raistlin's choices, his history and experiences drive him to do differently, to act out to prevent others from making the same choices, and to make a different ending. He sees the parallels, the similarities too but makes sure that there will be a different ending.

---

I'll definitely write this eventually, but my silm cyoa fic Be He Foe or Friend is really getting away from me and getting bigger so it might be a while. I just know if I have more than one big writing project going at once I won't finish anything lol. I don't know, maybe I'll start figuring out a plot or something soon lol.

I really haven't read many of the Dragonlance books yet, I'm mostly just using knowledge from the musical, chronicles, and the first and second books of the legends trilogy, so I don't know if all of it is really accurate to the books. But it's still fun lol

Sorry this got SO long, I was curious so I stuck this whole thing in a doc (minus the tags lol) and its 1590 words 🤣

Thank you so so much for the ask, 💖💖💖 I really enjoyed talking about this and if you have questions or want to talk about it more I'd LOVE to lol.

[bugsbenefit]

just saying it now and i'll keep saying it until s5 comes out. but no matter what leaks we get (even if we'll eventually get something we can confirm as most likely correct) we still won't know what'll actually happen in s5 for sure in any way

for reference, one of the "correct" s4 leaks was Mike telling El he loves her in a romantic monologue. what the leak failed to mention, however, was that El was in a life or death situation, unresponsive while being chocked to death by Vecna, and that Mike was saying anything and everything he could think of like how he loved her since he saw her for the first time all while Will, Jonathan, and Argyle are standing right next to them

according to the leak it was a big dramatic romantic scene. what we got was the dingy badly lit pizzeria freezer and Mike almost crying thinking El was dying while telling provable lies

and that's just how leaks WORK. Always. either because the leaker doesn't have all the information, or because the scripts are intentionally vague, or even because the leaker only remembers certain plot threads well and is balling on the others (you also never have unbiased leakers. someone who doesn't know the show at all is going to leave important context out bc they don't realize it's relevant. but a leaker who favours a certain ship is going to (maybe even subconsciously) interpret scenes in that ships favour, and so on)

we could get a potential leak for s5 that for example says "Max dies in the void" but then what ends up happening in the show is she fades into the void or something and then wakes up in her irl body in the hospital in the next scene. the leak "Will kills El" could be about Will pulverizing her in monopoly (hyperbole), and "Mike and Lucas have a horrible fight" could be a 10 second spat followed by a scene of them joking together. you get the gist

essentially, even the leaks that ended up being "correct" in hindsight still only gave you about 20% of the plot while leaving out the most crucial bits

...what i'm saying is stop putting so much weight on leaks. even if we reach a point where we start getting some we can be pretty sure of. they'll still get shit so insanely wrong it'll be Painful post s5

[visualtaehyun]

Rules: List 10 of your comfort shows, then tag 10 people

Thanks for tagging me y'all @sorry-bonebag @twig-tea @rocketturtle4 ✨

My criteria for a comfort show are gonna be 1) any piece of media 2) that I've watched more than once and 3) that I will keep reaching for. That's it. I can't even explain what the common denominator is tbh?? It's just- the kinda movie or show that I need on DVD to easily put on again and quell the brain worms (yes, I physically own all but #4-#6).

1. My School President: What can I say, this show took me entirely by surprise! I started watching a few days before episode 4 aired - aka the pinky touch ✨ the conversation in the stairwell ✨ and the origin of Gem4th's fanclub name being Khun Nuu ✨ - and fell right in love with it. I love musical storytelling, I love coming of age stories, I love a good romance, and I love found family/friend group dynamics so this really hit the spot for me. I guess these apply to a bunch of my choices for this tag though haha

2. Cutie Pie: I've talked about this show in another tag game (as "A show people find bad but you will defend") and all of that still holds true so I won't repeat it here. I'll just add that this show introduced me to Nunew who's my favorite artist these days. :)

3. Love In The Air (Love Storm): Yup! The show that most people on here seem to recall as that extra horny one lol It's one of the first Thai QLs I watched along with as it aired, maybe even the first one. I started watching when episode 2 came out, I think? And I just loved the D/s-dynamic, lovable brat Rain, and these rookie actors so much that I not only went looking for the bts, cast reactions, and interviews but I even started following Twitter translators for the show and cast. This show (and ZeeNunew lol) was basically my introduction to how the Y industry works, what Thai fanclubs are like, and got me well and truly interested in learning Thai. I think I've seen it enough times to speak along by now cause I also used my familiarity with it to study Thai. And now that BossNoeul are finally getting a new show, I'm really looking forward to seeing them in new roles!

4. Not Me: It's simply brilliant. And it's so grounded! You know how lots of tops in Thai QLs are rich, a CEO, drive a supercar, and live in a gorgeous modern home with huge windows (and death stairs lmao)? I love that Not Me starts in a place of privilege but has White leave that behind pretty early on. Bangkok really is a city where you can constantly see the divide between rich and poor. So I appreciate this show even more after having been to Bangkok. Not Me's characters look unfiltered and real and that's how the entire show feels as well. I just love what P'Nuchy has given us here! Oh and +1 for White narrating his entire story, I just kinda love that in general (also enjoyed Kawi narrating Be My Favorite). The next two kinda fall into one category: shows I loved as a kid, remembered - found - rewatched as a teen, and still fondly remember.

5. Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne: This is a magical girl anime that I first would have seen on TV in 2001. In hindsight, this show's religious themes may have influenced me in my love for fictional faith and devotion. Just a thought, haha, totally don't have more than one dnd character who is majorly connected to divinity, faith, and devotion, even though I personally am agnostic...

6. The Weekenders: I routinely cite this as my favorite cartoon (and I watched- just- So Many as a kid omg). Since I watched this on German TV, I only know the German dub which was honestly really fun. If any Germans read this and have seen that show: Wirsing! The rest is movies all the way down!

7. Timeline: A 2003 movie with a bunch of well-known actors that arguably qualifies as a B movie because it flopped so hard at the box office. It's my trash though. I chose it at the video store, brought it home, loved it, and then proceeded to rent it like once a year lol! It's basically a bunch of archeologists and history nerds travelling back in time to the Hundred Years War to save their professor. It has my preferred time travel dynamic of Everything is fixed and whatever traces in time you leave were already there to begin with.

8. Inception: There's several Christopher Nolan movies I love but this one is just so grand and fun and maybe I also had a bit of a crush on Elliott Page back then 👉👈 I'm a born nerd so naturally teen-me used "Non je ne regrette rien" as my alarm for years lmao This category is basically just Disney & co. musicals lol

9. Mulan (1998): If you asked me to choose my favorite from the entire classic Disney musical line-up, it would always be this one. It's the queerest, of course I'd always choose it!

10. Anastasia: You know, I looked at my shelf full of cartoon musicals- no wait, High School Musical and Pitch Perfect are next to them, hm, wELL- at my movie musicals shelf and it came down to choosing between this one and The Swan Princess (1994). And this one just kinda won out because "Once Upon A December" is impeccable! And now I've got it stuck in my head 👍

Since it took me a few days to get back to it, this has clearly made the rounds already. Who to tag?? Uh-- @pharawee @airenyah @telomeke and whoever sees this and wants to do it of course!

[dzamie-oc]

Voretober 28 - Stuffed

Length: 1100 words Vore type: M/???, oral vore, cock vore Fandom: None Other info: unwilling prey, anthro dragon pred, belly rubbing, belches, digestion Summary: Dragon has had a bit too much to eat. Luckily, he has an otter.

"Ugh," Azurel groaned, leaning his scaly blue head back against the couch. "Uuuugggghhh…" he repeated. While he wasn't completely pinned by his heavy gut, nor chained in place by the heft of his scaly sack, the dragon moving from his spot definitely did not feel worth the effort.

It was a sentiment shared by the otter standing before him, tail swishing and cock nearly as hard as Azurel's. But while the dragon preferred not to move from exhaustion, Gabe had a different reason for keeping the scaly predator still. As he all but fell against his boyfriend's swollen belly, immediately purring, Azurel had to admit his enthusiasm was infectious.

The otter's paws slid all around the dragon's gut, gently pressing back in against the struggles of the prey unfortunate enough to still be alive inside. Azurel reached out and hugged him close, running his claws through Gabe's thick, brown fur. This coaxed a moan out from the otter, who leaned even further against him. The dragon's stomach groaned and gurgled, momentarily drowning out Gabe's purrs, and the pair shared a look.

Azurel opened his maw, but rather than stuff his boyfriend inside like he had his other prey, he instead let out a loud, wet belch, right in Gabe's face. The otter scrunched his face up as drool, feathers, and an acid-eaten bra flew at him, and though he groaned in complaint, his swishing tail and erection pressed firmly against Azurel's gut told a different story.

"Feeling any better?" Gabe asked, grinding his hips against the dragon. Already, the remnants of the struggles from within weakened further, and Azurel knew from plenty of experience that the otter knew exactly how to help.

"Not enough…" he moaned, "why didn't I stop at three?"

"Because I wanted to see you eat the witnesses, too." Furry, webbed paws shoved slowly but firmly into the blue, scaly belly, and got another gurgle in response.

"Seven was too much, in hindsight."

Gabe paused. "Seven? I saw six."

Azurel took a deep breath in, and as he let it out, his stomach churned again, accompanied by the cracking of a number of acid-weakened bones. "You were shoving that wolf down my throat, when that ferret lady… I guess decided to choose where she'd end up." He picks up one of his legs to jostle the heavy sack resting between them; while he couldn't see it, it felt like it was already less lumpy than his stomach. "And I guess she had a fondness for being dragon jizz."

"Mmmm…" Gabe hummed, running his paws down his boyfriend's body. He crouched out of sight and wrapped both paws around the thick, people-devouring monster standing proudly between Azurel's legs. A warm, slick spot slid from the base of his shaft, up over each ridge, and finally to the tip. The dragon gasped in pleasure and flared his wings, but arching his back was a no-go against the formidible weight of his stomach. Gabe stood back up, stretched with a smile, then leaned forward on his boyfriend's gut like a table. "Feels to me like she's just about done in there, along with the other two~"

Azurel reached up and scratched behind the otter's ear, getting him to just about melt into a purring mess on his overfed gut. "Then keep rubbing, my dear gutslut, and I'll make sure they find their proper place in and around you," he rumbled, before wincing and dropping back against the couch.

The otter's paws got to work, kneading more purposefully at the stretched, scaly belly, but smirked at his boyfriend. "You know, if I wanted to, I could leave you trapped here, maybe get you off and make a mess of this room. No otter in the line of fire."

"You won't," Azurel replied, confident.

"Mmmyeah." Gabe pressed his paws in, left, then right, then left… and then shoved both in. Azurel's stomach groaned again, and Gabe leaned in, only for Azurel's scaly hand to push him back. The dragon leaned his head back and let out another loud belch, this time accompanied by a wide gout of flame. While Gabe stared at the fiery show, he felt the dragon's stomach shrink down slightly around what was left of his meal.

Azurel snapped his jaws shut and rocked his head forward again, steam still rising from his closed mouth. "Not burned, right?"

"Right," Gabe said, already going back to affectionately pressing against Azurel's belly. After a brief glance down, the otter pulled his tail around and curled it around the heavy balls below. They were already back to their usual shape, albeit not size, so the lucky trio to become dragon seed had already done so, no otter affection required.

Of course, judging by Azurel's unfocused eyes and heavier breathing, "required" and "desired" were two very different things.

After several minutes, Azurel finally slumped down on the couch and kicked his legs up, using his own tail to ensure his sack got safely on the cushions. He beckoned Gabe towards him, and with a smile, Gabe climbed onto the couch as well and immediately straddled his beloved dragon, rubbing their cocks together even as he kept his paws focused on the scaly belly.

Azurel groaned again, but this time more in pleasure than pain. "Next time, you're helping with witnesses if you're so concerned about them."

Gabe grinned down at him, purring and visibly enjoying how soft his boyfriend's prey were becoming on their way to being simply more fuel for the scaly predator. "I dunno, next time, I think you can fit eight."

"Mreh," the dragon complained, launching a playful swipe at Gabe's arms.

The two of them continued, rubbing and purring and grinding against each other, until Gabe paused and leaned down until he rested fully atop his boyfriend, muzzle to muzzle. "Hold on, boyf, I know the kind of magic you do. You not digesting these guys faster was a choice."

Azurel simply grinned and leaned forward to lick the otter's furry cheek. "Yep, sure was."

The two stared at each other with matching smirks until Gabe pushed himself back up and continued rubbing. "Silly dragon."

"It's why you love me, cute snack."

[analviel]

It's not strange or uncommon for Nations not to work for their governments.

Reasons can range from 'because they just don't feel like it', to the Nations joining rebellion forces.

Philippines personally doesn't like his government so getting involved is more an exception in his part than anything else - he hasn't been involved in government work since the end of the second republic, and only started talking to Leaders again around Carlos' time, Macapagal lost almost all his favor with the Maphilindo stunt, and Marcos? Well.

(Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.)

Phil won't claim to constantly be happy with one Leader, or always be displeased with another throughout the time they served, unfortunately it's not as simple as that. Humans are multifaceted and multifaced beings, there were good times and bad times with everyone equally. Although if the good times is more than the bad times....

After EDSA, he made the executive decision to never be directly involved in the governing of humans by humans ever again.

(Until now, he still wouldn't be able to answer if the decision was driven by being dissapointed by humans, or impressed by them.)

The lucky Nations would not work for their government because they believe their leader organization are good and stable enough to be left alone -like Canada.

The pragmatic ones believe human affairs should be handled strictly by humans and would only involve themselves in a situation if another Nation does so - going so far as ignoring attacks or skirmishes by outside forces unless a Nation is leading the attack. Like China and India.

Of course there's the ones on the complete opposite spectrum, who'd prefer to be on the need to know basis of anything and be involved in everything. Like America and Germany.

Viet is an example of one of the many in-betweens, being definitely present in her government but under disguise, her Leader only knowing of her and who he's supposed to answer to distantly. She says she likes to keep everyone on their toes, her arrangement letting her weed out the negative people in her government body with no one able to cover up anything.

Philippines imagines her everyday life is a spy movie.

It all depends to each their own.

Leaders have to be careful with ordering around Nations - after all, what are they going to do if they don't want to listen? Fire them? Banish them when the land they live off and the air they breath is a part of the Nation itself?

(Well, they can do a lot, as China is witness to, but that's not the point.)

That's why they remember Leaders who are sly enough to pull the wool over their eyes - sometimes maybe even more than their Heroes.

It's not as simple as 'Nations can't disobey Leaders'. They very much can.

It's just that Nations aren't infallible just as Leaders aren't absolute.

It's why the world wars, particularly the world war 2 was... scarily impressive, as an example of that idea -Nations-Country-Leader dynamics had been put to the test on a global scale.

The only war to summon almost all of the Nations from whatever woodwork they'd gotten comfortable in.

America says it was a whooping 95% attendance on the battlefield.

(Defending, avenging, and then full-circle.

Germany himself is a good and upstanding guy, but by virtue of the fact that he was front and center.... well, there's a lot of conflicted emotions. And some not so conflicted for his perceived irresponsibility.)

********'****

I just enjoy some diversity even among Nations.

Like how using Human names are more common in the west than the east, for example.

[osakafromazumangadaioh]

(This is a post I made on my cohost a lil while ago, I lightly edited it for clarity)

You've seen this post about Hidamari Sketch right? It's kind of famous, at least it is to me. If you can't click through to see the link text here it is.

Remember how Hidamari Sketch aired during the DTV transition, and SHAFT knew exactly what to do with the new real estate for the widescreen version?

This was a fact that bounces around in my brain like a DVD screensaver. Hidamari Sketch aired in Japan between January and March 2007 during the DTV transition and they prepared two versions for broadcast, one that was HD 16:9 and one that was SD 4:3. I've heard of things going wrong during this transition like the shot of Mugi getting cropped out in the 4:3 broadcast version of K-On but this time period isn't super well researched in the admittedly small digging I did.

So it makes sense that a studio during this time would make these changes right? Your show is going to appear in two very different formats, you're going to want to make sure it looks fine in both. Anyway I was reading the replies of this post one morning and I read one that gave me pause.

This started me researching the analog to digital transition in Japan which I won't get into here but long story short, yes it did air during the analog to digital transition. There was an analog digital simulcast of both signals in Japan that started in about 2003 and ended in 2012 when all analog transmissions were shut down. So there was a period where broadcasters were putting out both HD 16:9 and SD 4:3 to serve people/areas who had not made the jump to the digital signal.

But it got me thinking, some people in the replies were talking about not being able to find proof that it aired in 4:3. Chances are they just didn't know where to look. Anyway I just looked on nyaa and lo and behold.

So I had the original broadcast versions of season 1 and 2 in 4:3. (i was unsure what the second torrent would be, it didn't have any information in the description and "TV broadcast" could have been the 16:9 broadcast bc there was a simulcast but it was the 4:3 version).

Anyway I was curious if there were any other changes, I kind of doubted that there were since it's already a lot of effort to produce two different versions of scenes but maybe there was something that the person that put together the original comparison missed.

If you, like me, believed the truth of that original post I'm about to tell you Santa Claus is not real. I compared these with the BD and found 2 of the frames from the original post. (the other I presume is from the first episode of season one also). And, they're,,, cropped from the 16:9 version.

In hindsight this makes perfect sense, I know sometimes they will redraw or reanimate certain scenes for the blurays because production is sometimes very fucked and they don't have the time to make things to their usual standards but if you're working for TV schedules why would you give yourself more work to do?

I'm sorry im sure this is interesting only to me but "Shaft redrew the wide character shots for HD during the DTV transition" is something that had the same veracity in my brain as, water is wet and i thought about it about as often. Two things make this very funny.

The image is cropped from what I assume is the original which makes it more obvious that it was a joke.*

the person that made that edit (presumably on 2ch or a/ on 4ch) didn't like, make the entire image 4:3 they popped the background out so it wouldn't appear squished. Which is such an insane effort post that you still see people go, oh yeah no it has to be real no one would go to the effort to do that. (read this post, people go to insane lengths for zero reward all the time)

I cooked up a very quick comparison in photopea to show what I mean. At this point it's trivial to remake the background, it's just a repeating pattern anyway.

*I would love to tell which is older but google recently changed how reverse image search works and it doesn't show you pages with the list of dates of when that page was last crawled so it's a little hard to figure out and I don't want to spend a bunch of time figuring out an alternative. So whoever cropped out the obvious joke part is one of histories greatest pranksters in the relatively small pond of people that give a shit about slice of life anime. tl/dr two people, the person that made the original image and the person that cropped off the obvious joke part have combined their efforts to fully prank me 10 years later and I don't think anyone else I've told about this has felt owned or surprised to the same extent as me so I feel like histories greatest fool here

[silveringofrose]

Driftwood Doors and Hourglass Hearts

Love is a many wondered thing they say and my brain pauses a minute because isn't it usually some low kilojoule thing? Then it's off on a tangent wondering at the wonder that upon reflection was more smoke and mirrors than anything else.

But maybe the haze is just what happens when the reflection seems more counterfeit than carbon copy and your answer to “Who are you?” feels fuzzy around the edges. Then again, no one wants to know about another gifted kid whose bus into a bright future crashed and burnt out in a blaze of untapped potential right?

So we just hide the scars of our inadequacies behind masks of perfection. And never mind that it’s a scream awake nightmare played on a loop because my brain is set to Do NOT Disturb so it fades.

It fades into the glaring of a five alarm fire trying desperately to remind me how much time has passed since last I did anything but fight for a breath that isn't drowning in the blood rush to the feet of a heart racing at a thousand thoughts a minute all wondering...wondering…

Wondering how surviving became a synonym for living when the two are a type of mutually exclusive that guarantees annihilation of one or both? But back to that splendid wondering or wondered splendouring or whatever they're claiming love is these days.

Only I'm still stuck on trying to figure out when we decided this low fat sugar free variety is "Everything You Never Knew You Needed!!" And I'm frantically closing all the popups announcing that time is almost up and I'll miss my chance if I don't step through one of these doors soon.

But I already fell for the clickbait one time and all it got me was a cheap knockoff where the size of the more in my I love you’s wasn't big enough to cover all the cracks where the little things fell like sand through an hourglass.

And I tried flipping it over. Turning the page and starting from scratch. But time doesn't work like that. It drifts away into the hindsight of the past and a book only ever has so many pages before it's done. You'll never unknow it and even if you forget a little, it will always end the same.

And it's become a sort of game. I can see myself falling through that door into a forever and so I dare them to open it. But the truth is that these days I'm permanently harnessed to the triple bolted steel encased fortress of my heart. I can stand safely on the very edge of the cliff.

Look down and wonder if falling really was like flying or I only told myself that. And people might ask one day who this is about. And I'll say I don't know. A lot of people I suppose. Or maybe just me. And I'll smile and they won't know.

Won’t see how it's hiding all the places where the more in my I love you’s couldn’t survive all the ways I was never enough to love myself.

~ @silveringofrose 2024

[leporellian]

don giovanni modern au headcanons

'didnt you already make a modern au headcanons list like 2-3 years ago' yeah and i'll do it again baby. this time though its better

(if you're wondering i sourced all the last names from various don juan plays over The Years, except for elvira's, which is a tribute to her original actress in the moliere play.)

on don giovanni himself - giovanni tenorio is, essentially, a rich idiot with no day job. his dad is a republican congressman, and giovanni says he "disagrees" with him, but really this means "giovanni calls himself a libertarian and thinks weed should be legal while Not Caring about any of his dad's other policies". - (he will change political affiliations on a dime if he's trying to persuade/seduce someone.) - (it's also funny he's a libertarian bc he's also very much a catholic still.) - giovanni's parents are pretty excessively doting on him and refuse to believe that their sweet little angel, their only child, could be a... well, you know. in childhood his mother was excessively permissive while his father was straight up physically abusive (in the "kids these days don't get paddled like they used to" way), and while it's unclear how much of that influenced the kind of person giovanni became it seems like both parents regret their parenting in their own way. - because of his family being old money, as well as his dad's stock investments (don't tell anyone LOL), giovanni has a stupid amount of money he usually treats as entirely disposable. he has no idea how to manage it and usually spends a good amount of it buying stupid shit to entertain himself for like 5 minutes or to aid in a Scheme. - (this has led to situations where leporello will come home to find giovanni holding an umbrella cockatoo and swearing it as their new pet, for example, because giovanni thought it would be fun. and it was, for maybe about twenty-six minutes.) - also because of his dad being a rich congressman with Connections giovanni is pretty easily able to get away with everything. any time leporello questions this giovanni goes "oh it'll be just like ted kennedy" which annoys lep to NO end because he doesn't even know what to say to that - he lives together with leporello, his childhood-friend-turned-roommate-turned-possible-indentured-servant, in some stupid ass mcmansion somewhere in the chicago suburbs. i'm saying naperville for now bc naperville is like the mcmansion-slash-unhinged-rich-people-behavior capital of illinois godbless

(why does everyone in this modern au live in or around chicago? because i know that place best. personal bias sorree)

on leporello - leporello catalinon was childhood friends with giovanni, which is funny bc they're so different in terms of background and upbringing - he was born the eldest of five (his siblings are all sisters) into a working-class jewish household, not too far from where giovanni grew up. he and giovanni met in elementary school and bonded, because back when he was a kid giovanni was actually somewhat nice. - eventually giovanni got in trouble in high school doing some dumb (and in hindsight relatively harmless) shit and giovanni's parents decided being his being in a public school was the problem, so he and leporello fell out of touch when giovanni relocated to some catholic school - leporello has a passion for the archival process, so he went through college with the goal of someday becoming a historical archivist. this was a good idea in that he's good at that and a bad idea in that it left him with a bunch of debt he couldn't pay back. - while coming home the summer after college he got back in touch with giovanni, who was like 'oh hey you know you could come live with me and i won't charge rent AND i can pay off your college debt for you'. leporello was like 'oh that sounds great :)' only to realize once he moved in that Something Was Not Right About Giovanni Now, and that somehow in the six years they had fallen out of touch giovanni had become... not different but definitely lacking something. - (but at this point he'd already been roped into the abusive-friendship-slash-indentured-servitude deal and he couldn't imagine any other options. so.) - also he's autistic but you knew that already.

on elvira - elvira duparc actually grew up more near central illinois, which... for those unaware of the illinois Landscape once you get out of chicagoland it turns into 'corn and weird republican backwater towns' Fast. so she grew up in a small republican town - her family was one of the better-off there, and it was a town where everyone Knew each other. so like she was considered upper-class within the community but compared to the kind of money giovanni or even ottavio's families have it's not That much - giovanni ended up in the area while on a trip somewhere and you know how it ended up going. he neglected to tell elvira about his parents or anything so until she finds him again she has No idea his dad's a congressman - he essentially pulled a 'look at me i'm so helpless and lost all on my lonesome' sort of thing and elvira, who really is ultimately an 'i can fix him' person even if she would deny the charge, took him in. in some ways he was seemingly perfect bc he was just as catholic as her family but there was also a definite subconscious idea of Escape in that giovanni had traveled much more than she had and if she were to be his partner she'd likely go move in with him away from home - anyway he abandons her and the whole town immediately turns on her and she's gossiped about like she's the town's prime slut. so she buys a beat up volvo and gets out of dodge to go find giovanni and hold him accountable (or... fix him.) - also she's bisexual and has adhd but she doesn't know either of those things until After the plot of the opera. godbless.

on donna anna and don ottavio - anna ulloa and ottavio robinson are engaged but really they don't seem to be a good couple... anna is always rather closed off (Read: Closeted Lesbian Alert) while ottavio is. definitely says he loves anna and appears to be devoted to her but it's unclear how much he'd actually do for in a time of crisis. and Well - ottavio and giovanni were actually college buddies and their families know each other bc ottavio's dad is Also a congressman. ottavio claims he doesn't endorse any of giovanni's "tomfoolery" but at the same time his attitude about it is to essentially just ignore it. some suspect he secretly envies giovanni in some way and just never says anything about it. ottavio also seems to be trying to go into local office and work his way up to being a gov official on the same level of his old man. - actually ottavio's first Government Job was being an assistant for pedro ulloa, anna's dad, who's a county commissioner. which was how he and anna ended up meeting. - anna very much wants to hold office just like her dad. in fact she probably wants it even more than ottavio does. but she hasn't ever actually Ran for office yet and just busies herself with various government jobs. meanwhile ottavio is like, on a school board or something and is almost sort of indignant about it - anna is deep in denial about being a lesbian and tries to reason why her and ottavio are a Fine Couple Actually constantly. she's been asked on multiple occasions if she's aromantic and she's like NO... i'm just PRAGMATIC and TAKING IT SLOW that's all... but like. looks into camera We know what's going on. - (to be fair anna's parents were very distant with one another to the point you could claim Both of them were deep in some closet or another and just never fully figured it out. so anna doesn't have any baseline of what a relationship Should look like.) - (anna's dad was basically like... you know the dad from bambi? best possible comparison i can make.)

on zerlina and masetto - they're just some guys. literally - zerlina aminta and masetto batricio are two freshly-graduated-from-high-school sweethearts who are like, going into the local community college together or some shit. zerlina wants to be a schoolteacher but honestly she absolutely would teach children swears if she was able to so she's a long way from her goal. masetto... idk what masetto wants to become. a physical therapist maybe? - they haven't even voted for the first time yet so they don't actually know that much about anyone's Government Parents. like when giovanni's trying to butter up zerlina he's all like ...you know my dad could let you get anything... he's congressman tenorio... and she's like Who the fuck is that. which rubs giovanni more of a wrong way than he admits. - zerlina absolutely still reads warrior cats and could name nearly every major and minor character in my little pony: friendship is magic. note that neither of these passions are in a childish way but in a 'oh she is kind of unhinged godbless' way. - masetto is also autistic but in like the complete opposite direction of leporello. leporello is a chatty extrovert autistic who is so so desperate to please people and understand social skills. masetto is polite but beyond that he really cannot be bothered to give too much of a shit. - which means between masetto "will say the obvious thing everyone is thinking but doesn't want to say" and zerlina "has no filter and will give her honest opinion completely unprompted" they WILL collectively tear you a new one without even realizing what they're doing. leporello was around them for like 30 minutes tops and they somehow fully psychologically analyzed him and nearly drove him to tears without realizing it. (which is funny given he's like 10-11 years older than them.) - zerlina can and likes to drive like a maniac but she chooses not to most of the time <3 she wanted to be a monster truck driver when she grew up and honestly it's unknown if she ever actually gave up on that dream or not

on Other Stuff - i think giovanni dies by grease fire. he's overworked leporello to the point lep can't cook like usual, and once elvira gives her as-per-canon spiel abt him Stopping right the Fuck Now he's already got his mind off it. so when things erupt into flames he doesn't think and just shoves a whole pot of water onto it thinking That will Stop It (it didn't) - i'm not entirely sure the specifics of the statue here but i think leporello very clearly remembers that after they'd both been burned by the grease fire- leporello being in better condition than giovanni- giovanni started shrieking about pedro ulloa and "the man of stone" and started panicking about his last rites. the smoke had made leporello too woozy to see much but he does feel like Something Else Was There. who knows how much of it was real or how much of it was leporello's smoke-induced delusions - afterward when leporello was in the hospital over the whole thing giovanni's parents decided to give him the choice of either suing them or them just paying him enough money to clear both his medical bills and the leftover debt he already had so he can start anew. leporello is too tired to fight at this point so he just takes the money. he finds he has a bit left over and donates that away to women's shelters - the whole story is reported in the media as being that giovanni committed attempted assault and manslaughter, and then purposely killed himself over it with a grease fire when he realized the cops were closing in on him. the death report isn't exactly accurate but leporello doesn't know how to explain what he's seen so it just remains that way. giovanni's father resigns in disgrace a few months later because it led to the reveal of just How Many of his son's actions he was covering up. - leporello and elvira are friends of Course they are friends. she shaves off her hair and becomes a total biker butch and he ditches all the clothes giovanni got for him that he found So scratchy and uncomfortable. they both live in their own apartments now and both are visibly much happier for it - (although i do imagine the don's abuse and the nature of his death- he had a closed casket funeral, i'll say that- have left leporello with a case of ptsd) - about a year after everything goes down anna dumps ottavio and starts dating elvira like 2 weeks later LOLLLLLL... and another year on leporello finds his own partner that he loves and trusts. so. they're happy in the end even if the path there isn't smooth - you might also ask, 'wait if anna and ottavio both wanted to hold political office who got there first?' the answer is zerlina. she ran for school board and got in by sheer willpower alone like something out of looney tunes. it turns out she's way better at arguing about things than she is at actually teaching kids. GODBLESS!