#with the revelation of how the human regarded him

[tossawary]

So, in SVSSS, Shen Yuan makes a few really interesting assumptions when he sits down to speak properly to Airplane Bro for the first time. The first assumption is that Shang Qinghua is a transmigrator. Two of the other assumptions he makes, connected to this first one, arguably contradict each other slightly in fascinating ways. (I will put the full relevant scene fragment / quotation from these chapters under the cut at the end.)

Shen Yuan's assumption that Shang Qinghua is a transmigrator appears to be built first and foremost on the fact that he heard SQH say, "WTF!" during the conference. Shen Yuan also reveals: "At the time, Shen Qingqiu hadn’t heard him particularly clearly, so he hadn’t paid it any mind. But afterward, the more he’d thought about it, the more suspicious he’d grown." (Ch5)

So, Shen Yuan belatedly decides that he hadn't misheard this one accidental slip during a chaotic attack that damaged him both physically and emotionally. He decides that he definitely heard that correctly! He's confident enough that he invites Shang Qinghua over to his house and then immediately and calmly accuses his fellow peak lord of treason.

Shen Yuan very casually says: "How was it inadequate? You clearly overexerted yourself. You even found demonic creatures like the ghost-head spiders, Nu Yuan Chan, and bone eagles—none of which ever enter the Human Realm of their own volition. How could Shixiong rebuke you for inadequacy?" (Ch4)

Shang Qinghua sputters, jumps to his feet, turns red, blusters with offense, sneers, brushes Shen Yuan's hand away.

"“Why wouldn’t I? I have a clear conscience. Why would I fear a false accusation?” With a sneer, Shang Qinghua brushed away his hand.

“Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky?” asked Shen Qingqiu." (Ch4)

When Shen Yuan says Airplane Bro's ID, Shang Qinghua pauses and says, “You… How do you know my ID?” (Ch4) And the scene immediately switches from a confrontation between two peak lords regarding treason to a transmigration reveal.

But hey, let's go back to that first version of the scene! What if Shang Qinghua hadn't been a transmigrator? Shen Yuan must have mentally reviewed what happened at the conference and all of their previous encounters, but he still could have been wrong in this assumption. He might have misheard and misinterpreted.

In which case, throwing out Airplane's ID wouldn't have stopped the scene and Shen Yuan would now have to deal with a belligerent traitor who 1) isn't admitting to what he did and/or 2) may turn violent in self-defense. Shen Yuan even admits: "He’d only wanted to study Shang Qinghua’s reaction to this name to determine if he had also read Proud Immortal Demon Way—but given his reaction…he wasn’t just a reader, was he?!" (Ch4)

Shen Yuan has no proof of Shang Qinghua's crimes and everyone thinks he's out of his mind with grief, probably searching for someone to blame, though Yue Qingyuan might indulgently open an investigation anyway and might actually end up finding something. If this had been Original Shang Qinghua, this confrontation could have broken out into a fight.

It was reckless. But I'm not reading it as "recklessly stupid" so much as "recklessly aggressive".

If Shen Yuan had been focused purely on revealing a fellow transmigrator, he could have opened this conversation with something like, "Have you ever heard of the writer 'Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky'?" And whatever answer he received then would have told him if he was dealing with a fellow transmigrator, who could be disarmed by this revelation, or if he was dealing with Original Shang Qinghua, who would just be mildly confused. Once he had that information in hand, Shen Yuan could go from there.

But no, Shen Yuan opens with Shang Qinghua's crimes first. Which makes me suspect that he is angry with the man for causing the disaster at the Immortal Alliance Conference. If Shang Qinghua hadn't let in the demons, Shen Yuan wouldn't have been forced to push Luo Binghe into the Endless Abyss. I personally don't think that Shen Yuan would have minded here if this confrontation had turned violent. He's perfectly capable of dealing out violence. He's a pretty good fighter, even with the Without A Cure issue, and with his confidence here... I'm going to assume that Shen Yuan thinks he could take Shang Qinghua in a fight. He may be right.

He's probably also confident that Yue Qingyuan would side with him if he had to kill a fellow peak lord (a traitor) in self-defense. I agree with this assessment. I think Shen Qingqiu's reputation would take a hard hit, as would Cang Qiong, but Shang Qinghua is a traitor here. If they could find any proof whatsoever, then the other peak lords would probably begrudgingly go along with this story.

To be clear, I don't think that Shen Yuan is entering into this conversation thinking about killing Shang Qinghua. I think he would attempt capture first. But he IS entering into this conversation resolved to either 1) unmask Shang Qinghua as a transmigrator or 2) unmask Shang Qinghua as a traitor and accomplice to murder. He accuses the man before anything else! This is going to end in a transmigrator reveal or in eventual violence.

If Shen Yuan is wrong, he cannot take this accusation back. He is either finding a "friend from his hometown" or he is making a very serious enemy here. If Original Shang Qinghua manages to pretend he's innocent and shake off these accusations, clearing any trial Cang Qiong holds for him, then he's presumably going to be secretly gunning for Shen Qingqiu from then on.

Shen Yuan is betting a LOT on not having misheard a phrase that he admits he didn't hear very well! He admitted that!

I do think Shen Yuan starts this confrontation off being angry - angry at Shang Qinghua, angry at himself, angry at the situation - underneath his calm. I think he's ready for a fight if necessary. I kind of think he might want one on some level. I think he's feeling a little reckless in his fresh grief and loneliness.

Because the other option is that Shen Yuan entered this conversation unprepared for the possibility of being wrong about there being another transmigrator. And also unprepared for getting a really bad reaction from Original Shang Qinghua. And I'd really like to think that Shen Yuan is smarter than that. Shen Yuan can be pretty clever. It is totally possible that he is just not thinking beyond his assumption here, though. Shen Yuan can also get caught up in his own ideas and emotions sometimes.

I think this would make a fun Alternate Canon / Canon Divergence AU: "Shen Yuan is completely wrong about Shang Qinghua being a transmigrator and has just revealed to Original Shang Qinghua that he knows what the man did. Uh oh."

ANYWAY! That's just the first assumption that Shen Yuan makes: Shang Qinghua is another transmigrator. Connected to this first assumption are a couple other assumptions about this other transmigrator that are both also really interesting.

The second assumption is this: "As the one who’d masterminded the event (or the logistics of it), Shang Qinghua was subject to the irresistible pressure of the plot[.]" (Ch5) Shen Yuan assumes that the plot forced Airplane Bro to smuggle these beasts into the Immortal Alliance Conference, much like he himself was forced to push Luo Binghe into the Endless Abyss.

I would have to go check the Airplane extras to be sure, but we don't know that this is true. I do remember from the Airplane extras that the System would have been cool with Airplane Bro killing Mobei-Jun, who is arguably an incredibly important character to many PIDW plotlines. I've often interpreted this as Airplane Bro having far more freedom to make his own decisions. We the audience later confirm that the System forced Airplane Bro to stay with Cang Qiong Mountain Sect and to become the head disciple of An Ding Peak. We don't know for sure that the System put pressure on Shang Qinghua to make the invasion of the Immortal Alliance Conference happen. It's implied when Shang Qinghua gets the return home feature from the System that he doesn't see it often.

Shen Yuan doesn't know these things. Shen Yuan is assuming here their transmigration experiences are very similar. Shen Yuan doesn't really directly ask.

Personally, I do think that the System was involved somehow, even if Airplane Bro's consequences for failure or disobedience weren't nearly so dreadful. With a second transmigrator and their desires in the mix, and the beginning of the real plot with Luo Binghe, it's possible that System put more restrictions on Airplane Bro and locked him onto this path (freeing him after the original outline with the romance deviation is complete). I personally headcanon that Airplane Bro could have wriggled out of the Immortal Alliance Conference without any serious punishment from the System, because I think it's funny if Shen Yuan's most hated event could have suddenly not happened if only Airplane Bro had decided not to do it, but I think that that Airplane Bro didn't try to buck the System because 1) he was generally okay with keeping the plot on track and 2) he was unwilling to challenge Mobei-Jun by resisting any orders on this front. He chose to save Mobei-Jun, now he has to live with that.

Shen Yuan doesn't seriously take Airplane Bro to task for all of the deaths and injuries at the Immortal Alliance Conference. I think a large part of this is that Shen Yuan not-unreasonably assumes Airplane Bro was forced into doing it by the System and Shen Yuan simply doesn't really interrogate Airplane Bro thoroughly to be sure. I think he unconsciously wants this assumption to be true in part because that means there's someone who really understands what he was forced to do to Luo Binghe, he's invested in the Endless Abyss being necessary, but also because now he isn't alone generally and has someone to help him fake his death. Shen Yuan is first and foremost out to save his own skin at this point in the story.

To be clear, I think it's very reasonable for Shen Yuan (and the audience) to assume that another transmigrator is also being strictly forced to follow the plot. He doesn't know Shang Qinghua is the author at first. He doesn't know just how different their transmigration experiences have been. The assumption is valid. It's just not actually certain.

The third assumption by Shen Yuan here is what really stood out to me during my reread. It's what made me start thinking more seriously about this confrontation and its setup. Shen Yuan thinks to himself: "As the one who’d masterminded the event (or the logistics of it), Shang Qinghua was subject to the irresistible pressure of the plot—yet he hadn’t released the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python that should have starred in numerous scenes. This was suspicious in itself, but if you considered the possibility that he had failed to do this intentionally in order to hinder the development of the plot—to sever the tragedy of Luo Binghe’s fall into the Endless Abyss at its roots—it made sense." (Ch5)

In the original PIDW, a Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python appeared at the Immortal Alliance Conference, and opened the Endless Abyss with its spatial-rift-creating scream. Mobei-Jun does it in SVSSS, appearing hundreds of chapters early. (I wrote a long meta piece on how I think Luo Binghe's seal works, and why it had to be something or someone with space-manipulation powers breaking it. It's under the "luo binghe demonic seal" tag.)

Shen Yuan noticed that the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python failed to appear and also decided that Shang Qinghua was genuinely surprised by Mobei-Jun's appearance instead. Shen Yuan assumes here that the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python's absence was an intentional act on the Shang Qinghua transmigrator's part in order to stop Luo Binghe's fall into the Endless Abyss. This is a WILD assumption!

It's possible that Shang Qinghua just failed to get one. It's possible that there was one somewhere else in Jue Di Gorge, but they simply didn't run into the creature.

It's also possible that Shen Yuan is right. Maybe Airplane Bro decided to quietly remove the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python from the conference, single-handedly preventing 1) Luo Binghe's demonic seal from being broken and 2) the Endless Abyss from being opened. Maybe he thought the System would overlook this until it was too late? But something about this interference made Mobei-Jun suspicious and he showed up to investigate instead.

Or Shang Qinghua organized Mobei-Jun's appearance and interference somehow, because MBJ breaks the demonic seal cleanly in SVSSS, whereas PIDW Binghe needed the Xin Mo sword to completely remove the seal only partially broken by the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python.

We really don't know what Shang Qinghua was doing. Or what Mobei-Jun was doing.

I think this assumption is fascinating, because Airplane Bro being able to omit the BMRP kind of contradicts the assumption that he was forced by the System to ruin the conference. Not completely, of course. Shen Yuan may be assuming that Shang Qinghua's System-given quest spoke of beasts generally, rather than the BMRP specifically, and Shang Qinghua was trying to work futilely around the System's wording in order to prevent Luo Binghe's fall. It's possible that the System did not tell Shang Qinghua directly to ensure the opening of the Endless Abyss. The System may have only demanded that he assist in the demonic invasion generally.

But these assumptions still bump up against each other in interesting ways, to me, even if they don't directly contradict each other. Shen Yuan thinks that pushing Luo Binghe into the Endless Abyss was demanded by the plot, but he also thinks Shang Qinghua's meddling with the BMRP could have stopped it somehow? Or that Shang Qinghua simply tried to stop it by removing a necesssary plot device and the System compensated with Mobei-Jun, because Luo Binghe's fall is an inevitable event? Shen Yuan thinks Shang Qinghua was forced to release beasts on the conference, causing a great deal of death and injury, but he also assumes that Shang Qinghua was able to pick the beasts on some level. Maybe he's assuming that Mobei-Jun picked the beasts and Shang Qinghua simply got rid of the BMRP somehow?

It makes way more sense that Mobei-Jun both collected the beasts and released them into the conference, using his spatial manipulation powers, and Shang Qinghua only helped with intelligence and keys to the security. Shen Yuan comments on how dangerous these creatures are. I really don't think that Shang Qinghua collected them personally or put them into Jue Di Gorge personally; I think that would have been pretty dangerous and that lots of people on An Ding Peak and beyond would have noticed during event planning and setup. And if Mobei-Jun did most of the work (and entered the conference properly himself in SVSSS, rather than just disappearing without being seen in PIDW, I assume), then I don't really see how Shang Qinghua could have done much of anything to stop a BMRP from getting in. Maybe he asked Mobei-Jun to avoid BMRPs, please, and that made Mobei-Jun suspicious?

My assumption here is honestly that Shen Yuan isn't thinking too hard about what Shang Qinghua is personally responsible for, because he just doesn't want to think about it. If this is Original Shang Qinghua, Shen Yuan can bring him to justice. If this is a fellow transmigrator, then Shen Yuan has an accomplice / friend. He's trying to move forward so he doesn't have to look back.

I don't think his assumption that Airplane Bro got rid of the BMRP on purpose is out of nowhere. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume another transmigrator, if there is one, might have been seeking to change the plot for the better somehow and the System didn't allow it. I just think this particular assumption is a little wild, because Shen Yuan doesn't really confirm it. (I haven't thoroughly reread the whole scene. I could be wrong about this.) Shen Yuan does not clearly confirm Shang Qinghua's intentions or motivations. Or Mobei-Jun's.

Shen Yuan and Airplane Bro go on to have a different transmigrator argument, distracted by the revelation that this is the author and not another reader, and Shen Yuan doesn't try to confirm his theories. He doesn't ask Shang Qinghua if his wild (if plausible) assumption is actually correct. Like Shen Yuan doesn't really want to know for certain whether or not they could have changed things.

But, anyway, wow, that assumption is an interesting and funny Canon Divergence AU plot! What if Airplane Bro quietly removed the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python from his traitorous invasion, and Mobei-Jun didn't show up instead, so Luo Binghe's seal simply didn't break and the Endless Abyss never opened? Would the System still demand that Shen Qingqiu push Luo Binghe into an Endless Abyss that isn't here? Would the System glitch? Would the System simply have to recalculate because it wasn't specific about what it needed Shang Qinghua to make happen here? Would the System just let Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe go back to Cang Qiong again?

~

RELEVANT QUOTATION (end of "Chapter 4: Conference" into the very beginning of "Chapter 5: Bai Lu"):

Shang Qinghua said nothing but sighed along with him. “Ah, Luo-shizhi was a heroic youth, such a pity. Those demons brought such disaster upon us; they are truly hateful. The whole world mourns with us. Shen-shixiong, my condolences.”

“If Shang-shidi truly felt it was a pity, this tragedy would not have occurred,” Shen Qingqiu said faintly.

At this, Shang Qinghua stiffened. After a moment, he seamlessly smoothed things over with a smile. “What does Shen-shixiong mean by that? Is he rebuking our An Ding Peak for inadequate administration? If so, Shidi should truly apologize.”

Shen Qingqiu refilled his teacup. “How was it inadequate? You clearly overexerted yourself. You even found demonic creatures like the ghost-head spiders, Nu Yuan Chan, and bone eagles—none of which ever enter the Human Realm of their own volition. How could Shixiong rebuke you for inadequacy?”

“Peak Lord Shen—to make such outrageous accusations!” Shang Qinghua shot to his feet, his face rapidly changing colors.

Shen Qingqiu put his hand on Shang Qinghua’s shoulder. “Why is Shang-shidi getting so excited?” he asked solemnly. “Let’s sit down and talk. Let me say something. Do you dare respond?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I have a clear conscience. Why would I fear a false accusation?” With a sneer, Shang Qinghua brushed away his hand.

“Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky?” asked Shen Qingqiu.

In that instant, it was like a bolt of lightning from the heavens had struck Shang Qinghua in the head, rendering him unable to speak.

After a long time, he managed to stammer out, “You… How do you know my ID?”

In that moment, it was like Shen Qingqiu had also been burnt to a crisp by the aforementioned bolt of lightning.

He’d only wanted to study Shang Qinghua’s reaction to this name to determine if he had also read Proud Immortal Demon Way—but given his reaction…he wasn’t just a reader, was he?!

After three long seconds, Shen Qingqiu jumped on him.

“It’s you?! How could I not know your ID after reading your entire fucking novel?! If you hadn’t let something slip when Mobei-Jun appeared, I really never would have known what hole you’d really crawled out of, ‘Great Master’!”

Volume 1, Chapter 4: Conference

The moment Shang Qinghua had seen Mobei-Jun suddenly appear, he had accidentally let out a “WTF!”

At the time, Shen Qingqiu hadn’t heard him particularly clearly, so he hadn’t paid it any mind. But afterward, the more he’d thought about it, the more suspicious he’d grown.

As the one who’d masterminded the event (or the logistics of it), Shang Qinghua was subject to the irresistible pressure of the plot—yet he hadn’t released the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python that should have starred in numerous scenes. This was suspicious in itself, but if you considered the possibility that he had failed to do this intentionally in order to hinder the development of the plot—to sever the tragedy of Luo Binghe’s fall into the Endless Abyss at its roots—it made sense.

Volume 1, Chapter 5: Bai Lu

[sandwitchstories]

But When It Comes To You...

Time for some more Sukuna brain rot!

This story is not canon but takes places in the Heian Period of time, during Sukuna's human life.

Likes, shares and comments are always appreciated!

If you would prefer to read it on AO3, click here !

Summary : Sukuna kneels to no god, king, or man.

But when it comes to you, he would gladly fall to his knees and worship you like the goddess you are if you asked.

Sukuna reflects on who he is to the world vs who he is to you.

CW: MDNI, Smut, smut with feelings, Sukuna does introspection, Sukuna has feelings, AFAB terms used to describe reader and reader's body parts

Ryoumen Sukuna revels in power and strength. He is ruthless, cunning, strategic and patient. He watches his targets and observes their every move, quickly able to pinpoint weaknesses and openings. He enjoys pushing buttons and seeing how far he can push someone before they snap. 

And then… his favorite part is putting them in their place and proving that his title and his reputation are both well deserved. Yeah, he is confident in his own abilities. He knows exactly who he is and just what brutality he is capable of. 

Sukuna’s hands are not just covered in blood. All 4 arms, up to his elbows, drip with it from their constant submergence in it. He could bathe in it. Countless sorcerers, civilians, and curse users have fallen to him and paid with their lives.

He can tear a grown man apart with just his physical strength. His hands are large enough and strong enough to crush a skull in his grip. Violence is etched into every molecule of his being, carved into the very lines of his palms and fingers.

But when it comes to you… his hands are full of tenderness and care no one would think he was  capable of. Hell, to be honest, he hadn’t even known he was capable of it. Yet with you, it comes naturally. His large hands move over your body, mapping the soft, curving planes of his territory, committing every inch to memory, soaking in the warmth of your smooth skin beneath his calloused flesh.

Sukuna knows his teeth are sharp and it is no secret he has consumed many humans. Hell, it's the very reason he let Uraume stay with him at the start. They were a helluva cook.

But when it comes to you and your succulent flesh, he devours you in a totally different way. Be it with the mouth on his face, stomach or one he conjures somewhere else, they all pay homage to you with kisses and licks. Teeth will nip and prink into your flesh playfully, then be soothed with his tongue and gentle presses of his lips to your skin. He always leaves plenty of love marks in his wake. He is a territorial man and you belong to him. He tastes every inch of you every time, determined to savor your unique flavor as if you were his favorite four course meal. 

Sukuna has fucked his share of women. Many towns and villages have brought him their most beautiful women, an offering for his protection and not slaughtering them where they stood. He had indulged in them. Used them, fucked them, and tossed them aside, no regards to their pleasure or enjoyment. He’d get his, dump his load anywhere but inside of them, and then immediately discard them naked in the hallway for Uraume to send back to their homes. He truly couldn’t have cared less, but what was the point in letting offerings go to waste?

But when it comes to you, he cannot get enough. He has no need or want for other women. He keeps a tally of how many times he can get you off before he finally lets himself cum and lets you fall asleep in the safety of his arms. The second his cock is inside of you, he is in a state of constant nirvana. Nothing exists but the two of you. Your pleasure is what gives him true pleasure. Your moans, whimpers, and begs will forever echo in his mind. 

He loves watching your face as you writhe in pleasure. He loves watching the way your mouth hangs open as vulgar sounds escape, your eyes rolling back into your head. He loves the blush that starts at your cheeks, tips your ears, and spreads down your chest. It's even sexier when it glistens with sweat.

He loves feeling you cum on his cock. The way your slick walls grab onto his cock in such a tight vice, sucking him in, milking him for all he is worth. He loves feeling you pulse and throb around him. He loves watching your pussy take his cock, your pudgy lips spread around him, embracing his thick length like a glove. He loves seeing the milky ring forming around the base of his cock as you coat him with your pleasure. Loves that your cunt gets so messy it coats both of your groins and inner thighs, loves that he can do that to you. Loves that he can reduce you to a babbling, panting, blissed out state.

He loves that it is his name you are screaming. That it is his shoulders and back your nails are digging into and scratching. He loves that it is his cock you are begging for. Begging for more, for him to go harder, deeper. His cum that you are stuffed with. 

Sukuna has never once in his life felt wanted or needed. He, in turn, has never wanted or needed any one. Love is a foreign concept and he has always considered it a waste of time. The pursuit of and the belief in it were part of what made weak humans cling to life. 

He has always felt that there was no point in forming or maintaining relationships that did not serve a purpose, that did nothing to further his conquest for power. Human beings were pathetic, they fell apart at a touch and most of them lacked the resolve and discipline to do anything worthwhile with their lives. 

But when it comes to you, he cannot summon his normal sociopathic tendencies. He does not necessarily understand what he feels for you, only that he feels it deeply and cannot stand the thought of letting you go. 

Sukuna has no desire to be seen as a good man, or a good person. He is fine with his labels as the King of Curses, the Imaginary Demon and the Disgraced One. He enjoys others being uncomfortable in his presence. He enjoys festivals being held in his honor and most of the offerings made to him.

But when it comes to you… You are an anomaly. In your eyes alone, he wants to be seen as something else. He wants to be seen as just a man in love with a beautiful woman. 

Sukuna kneels to no god, king, or man.

But when it comes to you, he would gladly fall to his knees and worship you like the goddess you are if you asked. To you alone he gives -  his time, his attention, his body, and what remains of his heart… If something were to happen to you… that would be the absolute end to any shred of humanity left in him. 

Ryoumen Sukuna is many things to many people. But when it comes to you, it is very simple. All he wants is for you to be his, and his to be yours.  

[mrsjellymunson]

The Biology Tutor | Extra Credits 02

Extra Credits 02: FRENCH

Series masterlist

Prev: Lesson 1: Female Anatomy | Lesson 2: Male Anatomy | Extra Credits 01: Communication Skills Next: Independent Study 01: Art | Independent Study 02: Creative Writing

Pairing: virgin!Eddie Munson x fem!tutor!reader

Series summary: Eddie’s failing Biology class, so you decide to offer two different styles of tuition, textbook-based and *ahem* practical.

Chapter summary: You give Eddie a French lesson.

WC: 2.9k

CW: 🔞 18+ MDNI! This part isn't explicit, but the rest of the series is, so MDNI!! Fluff, kissing, mentions of arousal.

A/N: This takes place between Extra Credit 1 and Lesson 3. It’s an added extra to The Biology Tutor series.

My masterlist

Despite your best efforts to keep things cool, you and Eddie’s relationship at school has shifted.

Eddie will greet you with a cheery, “Heeey, Princess”, whenever you pass in the corridors, and you’ll sometimes give him a cheeky wave in the lunchroom. You both flush a little whenever your eyes lock, thinking about all the intimate stuff you’ve done together over the past days and weeks.

Thankfully, as yet none of your friends have noticed the way you’ve started to giggle a little more loudly at Eddie’s antics on the lunch tables, or the way he shoots you cheeky glances to check that you’re watching. Each of your social groups would likely have something disparaging to say, and you’d prefer to avoid that kind of attention for the time being.

You’ve become even more aware of your physical proximity in Biology class. Even though you could probably reach out and touch each other (and you would really, really like to do that…) you try not to draw too much attention to yourselves.

You’re finding it hard to keep your focus on the front, knowing that Eddie’s sitting inches away behind you. But you revel in the fact that he’s there at all (and is, in all likelihood, checking out your ass).

At the end of class, Mr Clarke calls you over.

“I wanted to thank you for your efforts regarding the private tutoring. Mr Munson’s work has certainly improved since you began, as has his class attendance, which is remarkable in and of itself. And he seems to have become more enthusiastic about the human biology aspect of the syllabus too, which is… unexpected, but really good to see.”

He looks off to one side, momentarily bemused, but recovers quickly and continues,

“Nevertheless, there is a big test coming up which, as you know, makes up a sizable proportion of your grade. I would very much like to see Mr Munson do well. I was hoping that you might help him prepare, and in the hopes that you’d agree, I’ve already booked private study room 2C in the library specifically for this purpose.”

You know the library well, and the one he’s describing is a particularly quiet one, located at the back of the rarely-used reference section. If you can get Eddie to join you, it’ll be the first time you’ve ever been alone with him at school. You experience a frisson of excitement at the thought.

You readily agree, figuring that even if that wasn’t reason enough, getting further in the good graces of Mr Clarke wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. However, you do think convincing Eddie to relinquish his entire lunchtime might be another matter entirely.

You approach him in the lunchroom, managing to get to him before his usual table fills up with nerds. He was initially aghast that you were anywhere near him, but once he realised nobody was really interested he listened to your proposal.

“You seriously do this shit voluntarily?” is his only response, until you mention, more quietly, how it would mean spending an entire hour in a small, isolated room. With you. Alone.

Suddenly, he’s all for it, packing up his stuff as you exit ahead of him. He extols the virtues of ‘accepting with grace the assistance the universe offers you’ to the smattering of confused Hellfire boys before hightailing it out of the hall, stuffing pretzels into his mouth as he goes.

You reach the study room first, and are already setting out books and pencils as Eddie barrels in. He practically skids to a halt, and ambles towards you, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to act nonchalant.

“Hey, Princess.”

He plops his bag onto the tabletop, and as he gestures to the empty seats next to you and across the table, he drops his voice to a lower timbre as he asks you,

“So, uh, where do you want me?”

Thanks to his mildly suggestive question, an image flashes across your mind of perching him, naked, on the edge of the table and climbing atop him, but you quickly shake it.

You tap your hand on the seat next to you, and he enthusiastically flops himself down in it. He sits up straight, clasping his hands in his lap, theatrically attentive.

As he’s already managed to fluster you, you decide to fluster him right back.

“You’re so good at doing what I tell you, Eddie. I like that.”

Eddie’s cheeks flush pink and he swallows hard. It worked.

It doesn't take long for you to go over the test questions. Eddie’s picked up more than he’d thought from the parts of your sessions where you’d actually studied, and he flies through most of it, only getting stuck on a couple of gnarly chemistry formulae. What’s more, he actually looks like he’s having fun, gaining genuine satisfaction from answering your questions correctly and beaming as you let him know,

“That’s it, Eddie! You’ve got it!”

You can’t tell whether it’s the academic achievement, or the broad smiles and encouragement that you’re giving him, that’s his biggest driver, but at this point you’ll take either as a win.

You've gradually started sitting closer as the session has gone on. You’ve scootched to the edges of your seats, and your elbows and knees are gently knocking together. You can feel Eddie’s breath on your cheek as he jabs at his test total on your pad, screwing up his face and making a fist with his other hand in triumph. You’re genuinely thrilled for him, and not just because the very idea that you could be the reason for those gorgeous dimples popping makes your tummy flip.

Checking your watch, you realise you have a few minutes left before you have to leave, and there’s another new ‘skill’ that you’ve been thinking about trying with him.

Once all your supplies are back in your bag, you check the time again before asking,

“Eddie, would you like to try another quick practical session?”

He looks around the room, eyebrows disappearing into his bangs.

“What, here? Now?”

“Yes, but not like our, um, previous sessions. Something less… involved.”

“Okay, but what is it?”

“Eddie, I hope you don’t mind me asking you this, but have you ever kissed anyone?”

He looks a little abashed as he answers,

“Umm, does kissing your relatives on the cheek count?”

You can’t help smiling at his cute admission.

“For the purposes of this discussion, I’m gonna say no.”

He looks self-conscious, maybe even a little ashamed. Staring at the edge of the table, he clears his throat before replying,

“Then, uh, no.”

Not wanting him to feel uncomfortable, you reassure him,

“That’s okay, Eddie. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

After a beat, you continue,

“Would you like to try it? With me?”

“What?”

“Would you like for us to kiss, Eddie?”

His eyes become locked on your mouth. He swallows audibly, eyes shining with want.

“Umm, yeah. Yes. Yes, I absolutely would, Princess.”

“Just so I know how far you want to go, would you like us to… French kiss?“

“You mean… W- with, y’know, tongue?”

“Yes, Eddie. That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Are you okay with that? I mean, you don’t have to…”

Shaking your head a little, you reassure him,

“I’m the one who suggested it, Eddie!”

He looks down at his hands, now clasped again as he rubs his thumbs together.

“Only if you’re sure. I might be awful at it.”

“Well, that’s why we practice, right? So, first of all, we need to get a little closer…”

You turn your seat so you’re facing him directly, encouraging him to do the same. You pull your seat forwards, slotting your knees between his. You see his eyes scanning your face, and his fingers fidget, suggesting he’s not really sure what to do with them.

“You can rest your hands on my legs if you’d like, Eddie.”

He does so, but not without a little trepidation, and you see him swallow again.

“Just relax. I’m not gonna bite you. Not this time, anyway.”

You give him what you hope is a cheeky smirk. He smiles shyly, not sure where to look when you’re this close to him. Nervously, he licks his lips. The sight makes your thighs clench.

“Close your eyes and relax, Eddie. I’m gonna start with a quick peck.”

“O- okaaaay.”

He does as you ask, and you spend a few moments appraising him before you lean into his space. He looks angelic, his wild curls framing his pretty face and his rosy pink lips looking soft and inviting.

You turn your head slightly so your nose will slide past his, close your eyes, and ever so slowly connect your lips with his. Pursing them a little, you press forwards, and you hear a slight intake of breath.

You said it was going to be quick, but you’re enjoying the feeling so much you relish in it for a few moments. Eddie’s lips are plump, warm, and just a little moist from where he’s licked them. A tiny amount of stubble tickles your top lip. He smells of old leather, some kind of spicy cologne and vanilla chapstick, with a hint of cigarettes and weed. It’s a heady scent you could easily get lost in.

Gathering yourself, you pull back, rolling your lips inwards to taste him.

Eddie still has his eyes closed. If you’re honest he looks like he’s about to faint. Even after all you’ve done together you’re still a little nervous, and you’re suddenly mortified that he found it repulsive.

You did remember to brush your teeth this morning, didn’t you? Did you eat garlic last night and forget? Do you have spinach in your teeth, even though you definitely haven’t eaten spinach in weeks??

“H- how was that, Eddie? Did you like it?”

Suddenly, his eyes pop open. His lips part a little and he nods his head quickly, causing his chestnut locks to bounce around his face. He stares at you for a few more moments before he manages to say in a tiny, cracking voice,

“More? Please?”

You smile widely, and lean in again.

This time you move a little, pursing and softening your lips, changing their position slightly to find out what he likes, slotting them in different places.

To your surprise, this time Eddie starts to kiss you back. His plump lips press against yours and the tiniest moan emanates from his chest. He’s tentative at first, but as he gains in confidence he presses a little harder, and moves a little more.

Your lips move in sync as you rhythmically purse and relax them.

Eddie exhales heavily, and more than a little shakily, through his nose, and you feel his warm breath dance across your face and décolletage.

You part from him with a subtle wet smack.

He swallows thickly, and the grip on your knees strengthens.

You smile at him again, and his eyes flick between yours as he mirrors your expression.

“Okay Eddie, if you’re ready, this time I’m gonna use my tongue. You don’t have to do anything, but if you want to, just do what feels good. Alright?”

Eddie gives you another tiny, fast nod, and you feel him squeeze your knees again.

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready…”

He surprises you again as he shifts his hands slightly and slides them up your thighs, leaning into your space a little further. They feel warm, strong, and you can’t help but imagine how they might feel elsewhere.

What would it be like to hold his hand properly? Would his hand feel warm as it cupped your face? Would you be able to feel his rings? How would his calloused fingers feel running up your back, or across your…?

You’re broken from your thoughts as he closes his eyes again, a slight curl to his lips as he lets you know he’s ready.

You lean into his space again, and connect your lips as before. This time, you part your lips slightly and allow the tip of your tongue to poke out, and ever so gently brush across his lower lip. You hear that sharp intake of breath again as he stills, unsure of what he’s supposed to do, but then he parts his lips ever so slightly, and you slide your tongue past his lips and pearly teeth and into his mouth. You move it slowly, enjoying the feeling of his lips against it, the scrape of his teeth, the softness of his tongue beneath yours.

He moans again, and just as your tongue curls up to tickle the roof of his mouth suddenly his tongue is moving against yours, slowly, reverently, experimentally, and another moan leaves his chest.

His grip on your thighs tightens as he gets bolder, eventually pushing his tongue past your lips and into your mouth.

Abruptly, he turns his head slightly and pushes in more deeply, his tongue almost filling you. He’s insistent yet gentle, and now it’s your turn to gasp - he’s good at this - and a low whine leaves you.

You feel a chill on your legs as Eddie’s hands leave them, and you’re momentarily disappointed, but this rapidly turns into delighted surprise when one comes up to cup the back of your neck, the other grabbing the edge of your chair and pulling you closer towards him. He’s moaning continually now, turning his head to try different angles, licking and curling and sucking like you’re the very air he needs to breathe.

He’s pushing hard but not too hard, and when your teeth knock it’s adorable rather than uncomfortable.

It’s wet and messy, and oh, so fucking hot.

Your hands start travelling almost of their own accord, slipping up inside his jacket, sliding around his rib cage and settling on his surprisingly muscular back.

His hand travels up to your hair, mussing it, and you’re making his shirt ride up, but you couldn’t care less, lost in the sensations of your lips melding and tongues dancing.

There’s a pulsing heat in your core, and a wetness building in your underwear. You don’t think you've ever been this turned on just from kissing.

And how on Earth is Eddie so good at it?

You eventually both pull back, needing air, breathy and inhaling deeply.

Your eyes dance around his face, wanting to take it all in. His plump, kiss-bitten lips, his blown pupils, the way he’s looking at you with a stunned half-smile.

Needing a break from the intensity, you drop your eyes. But almost wish you hadn’t when you spot the obvious bulge in the front of Eddie’s pants.

He’s clearly enjoyed this as much as you have.

Just as you’re both leaning forward for another round, lips just brushing, the harsh and loud ringing of the school bell indicates the start of afternoon classes.

You and Eddie break apart with a start, exchanging breathy smiles, both a little surprised at how well that went.

He chuckles as he lets go of your hair, tidying it as best he can, and you pull down the hem of his shirt to straighten it.

”So, uh, I think I’d consider that lesson a success. Wouldn’t you, Mr Munson?”

He huffs out a little giggle, shaking his head slowly. His brow furrows and he fixes his face into as serious an expression as he can manage, as he dips his chin and replies,

“Oh, Princess, that feels like a great start. But you know, lessons work with me. So, just to be on the safe side, I think I might need a whole lot, lot more practice...”

He’s holding your gaze and nodding, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips for emphasis.

You nearly snort at his brazenness, constantly amazed at how he so easily flips between abject fear and bolshy confidence, and manage to squeak out,

“Well, we’ll just have to see what we can arrange, won’t we?”

He grins at you again, those dimples even deeper this time, and tidies one more strand of hair at your temple.

Reluctantly, you both gather your things and leave the study room, still with shiny lips and heat in your cheeks.

You walk leisurely, your upper arms brushing, through the racks of dusty tomes. Neither of you is in any particular hurry to get to your next class.

You glance to your side, and notice that Eddie seems bigger, taller. He’s puffing his chest and is carrying himself a little differently. You like it.

He turns to you as he asks, “D’you think we should, y’know, leave separately or whatever?”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Awkward questions, and all that.”

You see Eddie’s eyes glance to the floor, then flit to the section containing the large encyclopaedias and dictionaries, before he adds,

“You know what, you go first. There’s something I want to check out in the reference section anyway…”

He flashes you a wink as you round the door jamb, causing something to revolve in your chest as you step out into the corridor. You definitely want to offer Eddie plenty of opportunities to practice this particular new skill.

As you head off to your next class, you wonder what on earth he could be up to. But more than that, you wonder how he’ll react to what you have in mind for your next study session…

Series masterlist

Prev: Lesson 1: Female anatomy | Lesson 2: Male Anatomy | Extra Credits 01: Communication Skills Next: Independent Study 01: Art | Independent Study 02: Creative Writing

Thanks so much for reading!

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A/N 2: I added this as an extra because I wanted Eddie and reader to share a special first kiss, but couldn’t work out how to fit it into the main Lessons without making them ridiculously long. I hope you like it!

The taglist for this series is open whilst it’s ongoing, and I have a general one now too - just let me know if you’d like to join either 😀 My masterlist, where you’ll find more Eddie and Steddie fics

Taglist (open whilst this series is ongoing): @airen256 @bimbobaggins69 @urlbitchin @jamdoughnutmagician @rustboxstarr @bl4ckt00thgr1n @bexreadstoomuch @cozmiccass @sadlittlesquish @yujyujj @cluz1babe @thunderg @aysheashea @paleidiot @cadence73 @eddie-munsons-wifey @siriuslysmoking @neville-is-my-husband @aestheticaltcow @jjmaybankswifes-blog @lightcommastix @ungracefularchimedes @spenciesprincess @joejoequinnquinn @freshoutthewomb2 @sunshinepeachx @tlclick73 @hellfirenacht @yourdailymemedelivery @wendyxox @madaboutmunson @80s-addict @the-unforgivenn @skrzydlak @eddiesxangel @bunny7232 @starksbabie

[meabh-mcinness]

Nesting (Balam Shichirou x femhuman!reader)

Main Masterlist

Summary: When your demon lover, Shichirou, begins acting oddly—more protective, more possessive, and increasingly distant—you are left bewildered and heartbroken. Once inseparable, his constant rejection of your affection stings deeply, leading to emotional confrontations and a growing sense of insecurity.

As tensions rise, a startling revelation changes everything. 

You blinked in surprise at the demon before you, confusion written obviously on your face from your scrunched together eyebrows and slightly opened mouth.

It was true that Shichirou had been acting odd lately, but this wasn’t why you had thought so. He was far more touchy than usual, which you hadn’t thought possible and were now being proven wrong. A hand almost always laid upon your shoulder or held around your waist — clawed fingers curled around your stomach — no matter that he had to practically bend in half to be able to do it. His body was guaranteed to be wrapped around you during down times and almost certainly snuggled around you when you went to bed. Large, feathered wings carefully covering your body and hiding you away from the world as you lay wrapped securely in his arms.

Your normally sweet teddy bear of a lover had also gained an attitude lately towards other demons lately. While he was still kind and touchy feely with the students and younger family members that occasionally visited their siblings, he had gotten territorial in regards to your co-workers and even downright hostile to other unknown demons that crossed your path when you went out shopping together with Iruma or to just explore other places in the Netherworld. Exploring that he recently has been denying you, stating that it was too dangerous which had culminated in a fair few fights at this point. You hadn’t appreciated being treated like a wayward child who couldn’t protect themselves and his sudden aggression and overprotection was getting on your nerves.

After an almost two full months of this treatment—you seriously praised your patience with him that was a testament to how much you loved the white gargoyle despite his current attitude. When the latest fight correlated to the words — “I can’t help how my biology reacts, I don’t understand how you can be so blasé about this!”  — your brain suddenly caught on to what, it thought, was happening, and it left you feeling horrible.

The attitude, the territorial-ness, and overprotection combined with his increased skinship were all startingly similar to how he had been acting in his pre-rut a few months ago. A wince hit your face as you berated yourself, after all how could you have forgotten so soon? While you were certain that the book you had read said gargoyle demons hit their ruts once every few years, it made a certain amount of sense that a newly mated one would perhaps have it more often, in an attempt to get their new mate pregnant and carry on their lineage sooner.

You softened suddenly in front of him, all fight leaving you as you grabbed one of his large hands with your smaller ones and lifted it so that it would cradle the side of your face. Nuzzling into the scaled flesh you apologized for not understanding sooner. After all being a slave to one’s biology was nothing new to you, no matter how often humans often tried to fight it, and you could only imagine how much it would distress you if humans still had heats and ruts like their ancestors did. Briefly your minded drifted to the omegaverse that had been such a popular trope in the fanfics you had liked to read. The absolute chaos of it that usually happened in those stories would probably have driven you insane.

You couldn’t imagine how it must be to actually experience it rather than have it regulated to fictional characters that didn’t exist. It must have been awful dealing with all of those rampaging hormones and to lose control of your own body like that. With this thought in mind, you made a decision. If he wouldn’t initiate this rut for fear of hurting you, then you would.

The day after this decision you woke bright and early, a happy thrumming going through your veins and a shiver down your spine at what you imagined the next few days were going to bring you.

You bit your lip as the thoughts started to overwhelm you before shaking your head it clear it. You had a job to do and only the day to do it. You quickly wrote out a very long grocery list, including lots of fruits and high protein jerkies that could be eaten quickly in the low periods so that energies could be kept high. You thought about it for a minute before throwing a couple of different candies on the list that left you salivating, before giving it to Shichirou with a smile and a kiss before shooing him off. Your efforts received a raised eyebrow in response, but you simply claimed a craving before wandering away again.

Now came the hardest part of your plan.

You stood just inside the door of your shared bedroom, surveying where everything stood with a critical eye. Tilting you eye this way and that you vaguely tried to remember the way Shichirou had set it up. You wanted something similar since it had been so secured and comfortable, but you weren’t certain how to achieve it.

Shichirou’s normally made nest was an amalgamation of twigs, vines, branches, and even strands of both your hair woven into a giant circle, much like a bird’s nest would be. When you started sleeping over in your courtship phase, he added a custom-made circular mattress to fit inside along with several blankets, quilts, pillows – anything soft and comfortable that he thought could add to your pleasure. 

When he was in a pre-rut, he truly decked it out with the softest furs, silk, and anything he could find that suggested both wealth and comfort to try and impress you. Since the end of the rut though you had insisted, they go in a closet, to preserve them for a later use, that had apparently come sooner than you thought it would. 

With a reaffirming nod you stalked into the room and started pulling the nest apart. The structure itself was fine, but the placement of everything inside of it rankled you for some odd reason and you were determined to make it right. Once the mattress had been striped of every blanket and pillow on it, divided into piles of each type of item, you proceeded to take out the items that were truly luxurious and oh so perfect in your mind, before also separating them into the already made piles. You were determined to somehow incorporate every single piece, to make the perfect nest for you two to use later on that night.

Even without an image in mind you started you reconstruction carefully, laying each piece just so, moving them repeatedly until you found their perfect place. When Shichirou later returned, groceries bought and put away, it was to the sight of you muttering to yourself about why the nest didn’t feel perfect yet. You couldn’t figure out what was missing and by this point it was like you possessed by the need of a perfect nest.

When he entered the room further, initially intending to help you, he hadn’t made it one step before a low guttural growl left your throat unconsciously, followed by your head turning and jaws snapping at his presence neared your unfinished product. His eyes widened at the territorial display you were posing, taking a slight step back before kneeling before you. Instinct causing his back to bow and wings spread wide before you to show he wasn’t a threat.

Tilting your head as you observed the display, your eyes immediately caught the glinting of the light off the feathers running across his beautiful black wings in contrast to pale skin and the stark whiteness of his hair. Entranced you walked forward, hand lightly brushing through the feathers, feeling the softness before your eyes dropped to the boa wrapped around the collar of his neck.

This. This is what you had been missing from the nest. Pieces of him. A constant reminder of him surrounding you from both above and below. You kneeled before him, the back of your hands brushing against his cheek before going further back to seemingly wrap around his neck as you kissed his mask. The metal stark cold against your warm lips as your fingers worked a bit to unclip the fur before lifting above his head. With a giggle at the confusion on his face, you quickly stole the fur from around his hips as well before telling him to stay there, running the fur pieces back to the nest, laying and stretching them out on the side that you typically slept on before rushing back breathlessly and making your big ask.

He stared down into your eyes with knowing amusement at your actions, seeming to understand what exactly was happening without being told. In a rush of words, you requested some of his feathers, specifically the soft downy ones that grew closer to his back and lacked any rachis or barbules that made up the stiffer ones that covered the majority of his wings.

He didn’t even hesitate to move his wings to the ground before the vines growing up the wall shot out and wrapped around the base of the feathers. Your senses and mind came back to you at the sight, “Wait, what are you—”

You never got finish your sentence as a majority of the down feathers were ripped out without even a flinch, despite the beads of blood that were starting to well up in their place. Your hand flew to your mouth at the sight, tears welling up as the vines carefully deposited the feathers into his hands so that he could offer them up to you. You ignored them however as you quickly whipped off your top and moved to lean over him to put pressure on the spot.

“I meant the loose ones, not to mutilate yourself,” you hissed at him. He shoulders moved slightly at your words, accompanied by another hiss from you, “Do not shrug at me about this! You could have done serious damage to yourself, Balam Shichirou!”

“How could I not give to my beloved mate one of the few things she desires? A few feathers that grow back quickly are an easier sacrifice to make you happy than you think.” His voice rumbled out, not the least bit apologetic about his actions as he gently pushed you away while standing up, slowly directing you back to the nest. “Now,” he said as he once more offered up the soft feathers, “where do you want these?”

The notion would have been sweet if you weren’t going to strangle him with his own vines.

The urge to strangle him rose higher later that night.

After dinner you had grabbed some of the jerky and fruits ranging from bloodberries — aptly named strawberry looking fruit that were as red as fresh blood — to a bowl of what looked like a deep truly purple version of grapes. Grabbing a bag of what looked like skittles but tasted more like chocolate truffles on your way back out, arranging them nicely along the edges of the frame of the nest.

When Shichirou joined you after a few moments, you proudly displayed your finished nest before him, even managing to lure him in for a snuggle that slowly developed into kisses and light touches before he drew away as your hand brushed along his hardening crotch, citing that he didn’t want to go further tonight. You pouted but eased up, if he wasn’t ready to start his rut then he wasn’t ready, and you could respect that.

Your irritation and turmoil however had soon reached its peak. Every attempt at discussing Shichirou's behaviour or attempting to lure him into bed to relieve him sexually seemed to end in frustration and more confusion on your end. The nights he consistently rejected your advances, he still held you close, his breath hot against your neck, you felt his tension in every muscle he had. His body, once a source of warmth and comfort with his arms and wings wrapped securely around you, was now constricting and suffocating.

You had never felt the urge to cry so much in his presence before.

One evening, after another round of Shichirou’s insistence that he couldn’t dare lay with you in such a way now due to his fear of hurting you, you finally decided you had enough. You moved from your nest and planted yourself firmly in front of him, hands on your hips, refusing to budge until you had answers. "Shichirou," you began, voice steady despite the chaos of emotions and thoughts whirling inside you, "we really need to talk."

His eyes, a mesmerizing mix of greys and whites that surrounded a pitch-black pupil, that once had enchanted you, met yours with a look of apprehension, body curling in on itself as if to make him smaller. Lately those words were often followed by a fight, something you both tried to avoid by nature and yet seemed unable to in these past weeks. "What is it?" he asked, his voice a low rumble, anxiety making itself known, mentally preparing himself for another verbal sparring match.

"What's going on with you? You've been acting so strange, and it's driving me crazy," you said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I thought that you were entering another rut, but this is the fifth time you rejected me when usually you can’t wait to get your hands on me since the first one. I can't keep living like this! I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, not knowing what's happening." You took a shuttering breath, tears gathering in your eyes that you violently wiped away, Shichirou’s chirps of alarm as your displeasure made itself known in the form of angry crying. “Am I not good enough for you now? Do you know how terrible it makes me feel every time you deny the touch of my body where before you couldn’t seem to get enough? Do...do you not want me anymore?”

Speaking those words seemed to break the dam as you fell to your knees and broke into guttural sobs of at the thought, that despite his seemingly over-territorial actions he had made every day, there was every possibility that he was starting to no longer have a romantic interest in you. Where there once was a loving relationship may have turned into him simply protecting one of the few humans in the Netherworld, a source of one of his obsessions that he couldn’t give up even if he was no longer truly interested in you personally.

A startled squawk left him, and you felt him kneel before you, thighs hitting the ground with a heavy thunk. Could feel the air move as his hands reached around you, wrapping around your back and pulling you into his lap. One hand gently wrapped itself in your hair, sharp claws being careful not to cut any strands as they forced your head onto his chest, the other one rubbed and down your back.  

With your ear resting perfectly above his heart, a vibration started rumbling out of his chest that you could barely hear over your crying but could feel, as your whole body started to move in tune with it. His arms lifted you slightly as he readjusted himself so that he was sitting with criss-crossed legs before letting you down into his lap. A sudden whoosh sound was accompanied by a lack of light vaguely entered your senses, his wings had come out and encircled the both of you, hiding the view of your shuttering body from the rest of the world.

A clanking of metal hitting the ground was heard before his head lowered to bury his face in the hair on top of your head, a purring sound now accompanying the vibrations that came from his chest over the sounds of your sobbing.

Slowly, your crying stifled to sniffles and your breathing started to come under control to match his more relaxed one. As his nose continued nuzzling into your hair and large clawed hands went on with the calming ministrations, your hands came up to wipe the last of your tears away as your harsh breathing finally evened out again. 

You felt exhausted with a headache forming and small shivers wracking your body on occasion as a result on your sob fest. It embarrassed you had lost your cool like that, but you were just so tired while at the same time being consumed by so many emotions that it only exhausted you further. It had only been a matter of time before you broke.

With a soft sigh you asked the last dreaded question you had, “At this point it feels like you don’t even want me, don’t love me, anymore. Like you just see me as some human to protect from the Netherworld rather than your lover. Did I do something wrong?”

His eyes widened, jaw slacking at your words before quickly scrambling to reassure you. "No, it's not that, it won’t ever be that. I could never not want you," he admitted, his voice insistent yet softer now, “You’re my mate. My heart and soul, the better half as you humans say. I love you with every fibre of my being and would gladly die before ever having to live in a world without you in it.” His head shook, silver hair flashing about with the movement, his body shivering at the very thought of it. "No, it wasn’t because of anything even close you doing something wrong. If anything, it's because I love you so much with the gifts you have given me. Most recently especially, as you're carrying my youngling."

Your eyebrows narrowed in confusion, as your brain tried to process the information he was passing on. You knew that younglings were, as implied, young demons, the oldest of which were in what was the Netherworld’s version of their first couple years of elementary school. The youngest of that group were infants and…embryos.  The world seemed to tilt on its axis as his words sunk in. Pregnant? You?

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place—his protective behaviour, his constant need to touch you, his refusal to let you out of his sight. It all made sense now. "How... how do you know?" you asked, your hand unconsciously moving to your stomach, finally noticing the small bump protruding from it.

You hadn’t even truly noticed the swelling of your stomach, chalking up your pants slowly not fitting due to the almost sedentary lifestyle Shichirou had forced you into over the course of the past few months. You had never even noticed the swelling of your breasts accompanying it, or how you hadn’t experienced your monthly.  Far too focused on Shichirou’s newly found actions.

"Your pheromones," he replied with a small chuckle, pulling you even closer to him. "I can smell the change in your scent. What is normally a woodsy musk became sweetened like milk and pastries a couple of weeks after the rut. I didn’t realize what it meant until I met with a student’s mother who was carrying their own youngling, though much further along, that had the same cloying scent stuck to them. I didn’t tell you because I assumed you knew. Demonesses and their partners can often tell a few weeks in – by the end of the first month at the latest. I’ve known for a while now and it never occurred to me that humans might not have the same skill."

Tears welled up in your eyes again as you processed the revelation. Shichirou pulled you further into his arms, holding you tightly. "I'm sorry for making you worry," he murmured against your hair. "I just wanted to protect you and our youngling."

You hugged him back, feeling a mix of relief and excitement wash over you, a disbelieving laugh that bordered hysterical left you. "I wish you had told me sooner," you said, your voice muffled against his chest. "But I understand your actions now, and I’m sorry I wasn’t more understanding earlier."

He shook his again, musing up your hair in the process, “No, I should have thought of the fact that humans faced gestation periods differently than demon-kind and approached you about it. You act so much like a demon sometimes that it’s easy to forget you weren’t born one of us.”

“Let’s just agree we were both wrong and move on,” you mumbled.

You settled back in against his chest, snuggling against the warm flesh under his shirt and enjoying the feeling of his arms circled around you before a sudden thought crossed your brain.

“Oh, by the way,” you called to him as you booped the tip of his nose for attention. A light hum and wrinkling of the appendage was your answer. “While I understand your fears, you’re going to have to get over it. Preferably soon.”

He blinked, eyebrows narrowing in confusion at your words before widening again, “I understand. I was a little zealous in protecting you and I’ll try to do better in letting you do your own thing. Though I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to ignore all of my instincts especially with how dangerous—”

“While I appreciate that,” you interrupted him, already knowing he was going to go on a long spiel about the dangers of the Netherworld again, which at this point you could mouth along to word for word. “I actually wasn’t referring to it.” His head tilted like a bird, eyebrows stitching together once more as he tried to think of what you had actually meant.

“Sex, darling.” You declared casually as could be while he visibly startled at your words, a fierce flush spreading across his cheeks to the tip of his ears. “It is a well-known fact among my kind that human females often get extremely horny throughout and especially towards the beginning of their pregnancy.” You shifted in his lap so that you were kneeling in-between his legs, arms looping around his neck to bring his blushing face closer to your own.

“And I propose that we start right now. After all you have a lot of making up to do on that front.” With the plush of his lips pressing against your own, you couldn’t help but sigh up into his mouth at the familiar feeling of his hands lightly gripping your hips, before digging in slightly as you nipped what remained of his bottom lip.

Yes, there was a lot of making up to do indeed. And you were going to enjoy every minute of it.

[starryevermore]

love's never lost when perspective is earned ✧ cardan greenbriar

angst city™ library | send in a request (consult request faqs first)

pairing: cardan greenbriar x fae!fem!reader

request: I happened to stumble upon your Tumblr too and I saw some of your rules regarding requests, I don’t know if it’s proper to do it here or on your tumblr because I’ve never truly requested something, hahaha. But would you mind doing another continuation to this? A smut continuation of their wedding night? I have a feeling you’d manage to do such an amazing work- AllyLover2014

summary: and he won’t confess that he waited, but he let the lamp burned. as the fae masqueraded, he hoped she’d return. with her feet on the ground, tell him all that she’d learned.

word count: 1,910

warnings?: 18+ MINORS DNI, smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, oral (f & m receiving), dual povs, not proofread

PART ONE | PART TWO 

Cardan’s tail swished at his feet. From across the room, he watched as you danced with Jude. A smile tugged at his lips. His wife and his best friend. What luck he had been afforded for the two incredible women in his life to get along so well? He knew, of course, that you would. In your time at school, you often admonished Cardan for any cruel tricks he played on Jude. She didn’t deserve that treatment, you’d always say. Be better, because I know you can be. You were the only person he would allow to speak to him like that. After all, you were the only person who thought him above the part he played. If all of Elfhame thought him cruel, you saw him for he truly was. Jude, eventually, came to see that too—both your kindness and the mask Cardan wore.

You caught his eye and smiled. Cardan watched as you took Jude’s hand, gently urging her out of the swarm of dancing fae. She smiled appreciatively at you. It was difficult for humans to find their way out of these revels. If you were not watching out for her, Jude might have danced until she died. 

“You didn’t have to stop,” Cardan said as you approached him. Jude slipped away to the refreshment table.

“I cannot stand to be apart from you. I’ve had enough of a fill of that for a lifetime,” you said. Cardan’s heart soared. Your arms wrapped around his waist, and your head came to rest against his chest. “Besides, I think Jude was beginning to tire.”

“I do not plan to let you stray from my side for a long time.” Cardan’s tail wrapped around you and pulled you closer. If Cardan could achieve it, he would mould you against him so that you never could leave again. “I am glad you and Jude are friends now. She has so few she feels she can trust.”

“As am I.” Your smile faltered for a moment. So quick that Cardan might not have noticed it if he hadn’t committed himself to memorizing every part of you. He reached up, thumb tugging at the corner of your lips so that the smile might remain in place. “May I confess something?”

“Anything.”

You took a breath. You did not speak immediately. Instead, you took the time to straighten the crown that rested against his brow. “I left because I thought Jude was the one you cared for. After you were crowned High King, you were seldom from her side. It broke my heart to think that I had lost your favor. I would step aside for your happiness, but I could stand by and watch it happen.”

Cardan’s tail wrapped tighter around you. You would not run again, but he couldn’t stop the fear from sinking deep into his veins. “I was scared that you would not like the crown I wore. Jude took a liking to tell me how ridiculous I was acting. Truthfully, I think she liked that too much because it was the one thing that we could always agree.”

“Why did you wait so long then?”

Cardan laughed. “I may have agreed with Jude that I was being ridiculous, but it did little to quell the fear that you would not want me.”

“Well, whatever she said to convince you to act, I am grateful. Even if it did send me running.” You pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Cardan smiled. “In some ways, I think we both needed it. Who knows how long we may have skirted around our feelings still.”

He combed your fingers through your hair and pulled you in for a searing kiss. He loved this. He loved being your husband. Cardan no longer had to pace the floors of the palace, wondering if he could confess to you his feelings. He no longer had to dream of what it would feel for you to be in his arms, for it was now his reality. And as you moaned against his mouth, Cardan decided he would commit every moment of his long life to bringing you as much pleasure as you have already brought him. It was his duty as your husband after all. 

“Let us retire,” he said, parting from you long enough for a breath.

“It is our wedding celebration. People will talk if we leave too soon,” you said, but your voice was filled with enough lust that he knew you didn’t truly mean a single word. 

“Let them talk, and let Jude run them through with her sword for disrespecting their Queen and King.”

You smiled up at him, and Cardan stole another kiss. “Whisk me away, my love.”

The entire walk up to your shared chambers, Cardan’s tail swished behind him in excitement.

Sex and nakedness are not regarded the same in Faerie as it is in the human lands. Yet, watching as Cardan undressed before you had you positively giddy. It had you even forgetting that you were supposed to undress, too, until your husband was reaching around you, skillfully undoing the laces of your dress with his nimble fingers. 

“You are beautiful,” you whisper, running your hand down his chest to his stomach. “The most beautiful person I have ever seen.”

Cardan grinned. “And to think you tried to deprive yourself of such beauty,” he teased. He kissed your brow, dragged his lips down to your ear. His breath was warm as he whispered, “I should be quite upset, you know, that you tried to deprive me of your beauty.”

Wordlessly, you sank down to your knees. The wood was cool against your skin. A nice contrast to how warm your arousal was making you. Cardan watched you, his mouth falling open to release a shuddering breath as you took his cock in your hands. “Shall I repent, my husband?”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Any sign of his teasing had disappeared the moment you touched him. You wondered if he had always been so affected by you. You wondered how blind you must have been to miss it for all these years. “You may do to me as you please,” he breathed out.

Your tongue darted out, wetting your lips, before you took him into your mouth. As you looked up at your husband through your lashes, Cardan looked as though he might just fall apart under your touch. Pride settled in your veins. Neither you nor Cardan were strangers to pleasures of the flesh, but you were certain that no one could make him feel as you were now. You released him with a pop! and began to kiss down his length.

Cardan’s fingers found purchase in your hair. His grip tightened as you ran your tongue up the underside of his cock, taking time to flick over a rather prominent vein. But before you could take him fully in your mouth again, Cardan was pulling you away, gently nudging you back to your feet. 

“Was that not to your liking, husband?” you asked, though you already knew the answer. 

“I will not allow you to steal all the fun, wife,” he said. Cardan gathered you in his arms, carrying you the short distance to the bed and laid you down. He settled between your legs, which he had hiked over his shoulders. You reached down, brushing stray curls from his eyes. “It is my wedding night, too, after all.”

“Ah, yes, but what is that the humans say? Happy wife, happy life?”

Jude had been quite happy to share that one little line with you. Having grown up in Faerie, there was little she remembered from her time in the human lands. But she remembered that, and she shared it with you so that you could add it to your arsenal of things to make Cardan putty in your hands. 

“Oh, I fully intend to make you happy,” Cardan declared before diving in. 

Cardan ate your cunt as if he were a starved man. His tongue lapped at you, collecting your arousal as if it were the sweet nectar of an everapple. Just as he had you, your hand found its own wound through his silky curls. But where he had pulled you away, you drew him in closer. You could feel his smirk when he took your sensitive bud between his lips. 

You breathed out his name, chanted it as if it were the most precious oath. Recited it as though it were your vows to him. A cord deep in your stomach began to tighten, tauter and tauter until it finally snapped. Your chants became a scream.

Your husband emerged from your trembling thighs with a triumphant smile. He crawled up your body until he was draped over you like a blanket. Safe and secure within his arms. Cardan’s forehead rest against yours. His breath tickled your face, but you found delight in the sensation. His every breath was yours, and so yours were his. 

“I feel as though I am in debt to you,” you teased. “How can you let me finish, but not allow me the same pleasure?”

Cardan smiled. His tail dipped between your bodies, wrapped itself around your leg. “Your debt shall be paid soon enough,” he swore. 

You barely processed Cardan pressing his cock into you until the gasp escaped your lips. It had been a long while since you laid with anyone. You had forgotten how delicious that stretch felt. Acting of their own accord, your legs locked around his hips, keeping his thrusts shallow as he began to move. You pulled Cardan in for another kiss and did not let him pull away. 

His moans melted into your own. “I love you,” he chanted. His fingers intertwined with your own. “I adore you. I am yours to command.”

“Mm, don’t stop,” you said. And as though he were yours to command, he did as told, his thrusts beginning to grow sloppy. “I love you.”

Cardan gasped, and you felt him finish. He continued to thrust into you, one hand leaving yours to press against the still sensitive bud. He rolled it between his fingers, urging that taught cord to snap again. As though you were his to command, it did, and the tidal wave of ecstasy washed over your once more. 

“I love you!” you shouted, because nothing better encapsulated this feeling than those three simple words. 

Your husband came to rest against your chest, his ear pressed against the spot above your heart. He nipped at the skin of your breast until you scratched your nails against his scalp. His tail had unwound itself from your thigh, taking to swish softly in the air above you.

“I am glad I came home to you,” you said. “I am glad you did not let me stay away.”

Cardan lifted his head, a sleepy smile tugged at his lips. “I would run after you every day if it meant I got to have you in my arms for even a moment.”

“I shall never run again,” you swore.

“But then whom shall I chase through the palace?”

“I may run then,” you conceded. 

Content, Cardan rested against your chest once more. His breaths soon turned shallow, and a quiet snore echoed through the room. You followed soon after, because there was nothing in this life you would do without your husband at your side. 

[survivalove]

one thing that annoys me is people reading yangchen’s books and acting like she should be this bloodthirsty assassin.

the point of yangchen’s character isn’t that she revels in violence. it’s that she would forsake her cultural beliefs for the sake of the world if she saw it necessary. and she did.

and the air nomads punished her for it.

because they were still a living and thriving culture that could hold their own accountable.

while the rest of the world held her in high regard for her efforts, even in death, there were those from her culture that wouldn’t let her deeds go unpunished on the permanent record.

aang doesn’t have that.

he can do whatever he wants and the rest of the world wouldn’t care. no one will ever hold him accountable for his cultural missteps so he has to. that’s why it’s important to aang to hold himself to his beliefs. to keep his people and culture alive.

do you ever watch celebrities talk about being famous? how they know they have legions of fans that will praise them no matter what? and how terrifying that is to them? how important family is to them? because those are the people that keep them grounded. do you line what that feels like? to be inherently famous and have no one left in your family to keep you grounded? to be a human that’s only ever seen as a god?

no, you don’t. i don’t. but that is the life aang lives.

it’s why people who complain about the finale are annoying. it’s why people using yangchen to downplay his choice is also annoying. and it’s why people acting like yangchen had nothing to lose are extremely annoying. because her choices cost her a lot. and it hurt her. because she loved her people too.

[azen13]

The Lives and Losses of Lovers

Description: This is actually inspired by a post by @lum1nesc3nce, which you can find here! TLDR: Zhongli x God!Reader, where Zhongli kills his lover but they stay alive. This does have a bit more of a Yandere!Zhongli flavor, though, so be warned!

CW: Yandere Themes, Descriptions of Violence, Descriptions of Blood, Murder, Mild Gore,

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The patio is warm, blessed with the touch of the sun’s earliest rays. Already you and Zhongli sit in two comfortable chairs; he sips on tea, you on coffee. It is a scene that has played out a thousand times, yet one Zhongli never tires of. He never tires of seeing your face aglow, of feeling your body leaning against his, of knowing you are here, miraculously breathing life through your bones and skin.

“My dear, I was wondering,” Zhongli starts, his soft contemplative voice shattering the flimsy silence blanketing the porch. “Would you like to accompany me to Liyue Harbor to purchase some groceries?” It is a reward–he thinks as he revels in your surprised reaction–for how understanding you have been in these turbulent times. With the whole mess regarding the Fatui cleared up and a mundane mortal life ahead of him, Zhongli can afford to spend more moments with you in sweet, blissful love.

Perhaps one day it will make up for that vile scene years ago, the moment his heart became stone: your body splayed stunningly on the ground, looking like the most gilded, horrific masterpiece he had ever seen. Painted in sunlit hues, his spearhead sticking from your chest splattered with blood made of molten gold. 

Even nearly dying you looked breathtaking. 

He is still suffering from regret for the decision. At the time, the situation was looking grim; Guizhong and Azhdaha were both gone, leaving you his only close friend. He spent many moonlit nights sharing tea and hushed conversation, as well as tears and heartfelt confessions with you. Zhongli is not the god of words, but just the sight of your iridescent eyes made him want to tell you every trouble and every worry had. You were his most valuable treasure, his lover through and through. Your contract with him, to always stand by side, loyal to one another, made him so weak, so soft, so human.

But that was the issue. Everyone knew of his love, his tender affection; unbecoming of a god who wielded earth and stone as weapons. His life was plagued by phantoms day and night. When he dreamed he envisioned you being kidnapped by some evil god like Osial and being tortured. Killed. Doomed to a fate worse than death, even. In the day, every action you did reminded him of a delicate tree weathering a deluge. Your branches swayed in the intense winds and even the earth couldn’t anchor you.

So he pleaded. He begged you to stay tucked away in his private domain where no great evil could stalk after you, promising to love you for an eternity of eternities. He would love you until every mountain had become a valley. But you refused, saying you wanted to live every facet of life, turning the world like a kaleidoscope in your hands.

The mirrors shifted and the skies turned red.

Those prophecies he had dreamt, uttered to him by ghosts haunting his mind, came true. You were taken away by some pesky, lowly god, and confessed all that you knew. That was fine. Zhongli was made of stone and Cor Lapis, and even if this insignificant insect of a god knew his weaknesses–few as they were–Zhongli eviscerated them.

But the contract.

When the god was sealed away beneath the sea, Zhongli fell to his knees, mouth opened but unable to utter any words.

Zhongli is not the god of words.

It is horribly tragic, he mourns as he stares at your hollow expression, that you must face the wrath of the rock because of a ridiculous choice of words. “To always stand by his side.” You have technically betrayed him.

The earth shakes for weeks afterwards. The sudden freak earthquake is talked about for weeks on end before people move on, as life does. Zhongli does not. His memory of you remains petrified, his new specter. He will never truly love again for thousands of years. Every time he is reminded of you, a piece of his heart chips away

But then you came back. 

That day is amber, crystallized in his mind. Seeing you in the bustling streets of Liyue Harbor, so lost after centuries away from home. At that moment, Zhongli decides he will not make the same mistake twice. He would have preferred more time to draw you in carefully, but he is afraid now. Afraid that some hideous twist of fate will rip you from him again. So he whisks you away to his private domain, and drafts up a new contract, binding you to him in matrimony forever. 

Please forgive him, he begs after you sign the contract in gold, tears dripping down your cheeks. He only wishes to protect you; he has always wished to protect you. But the world is cruel to lovers, and not even the strong can uphold such a delicate thing. 

In Zhongli’s private domain, wicked things like time and fate are nonexistent. Zhongli is the only god that rules these lands. He is a benevolent god, if a little possessive. After being deprived of you for so long, he craves your presence, he claims. Day and night, he tries to spend every living moment with you. When he cannot, you are ever-present in his mind–a living, breathing thing instead of the dead spirits that once terrorized it for all those years.

Some days you seem despondent, craving room to spread your branches far and wide. But Zhongli simply chuckles and kisses the top of your head; he smells the gentle scent of your shampoo, knowing this is what is best for you. He whispers it quietly, lacing sweet nothings and honeyed words into his voice as he pulls you into his arms. You haven’t tried to fight him on this in years, either. It’s part of the reason why he has proposed going on a  little trip to Liyue Harbor. Perhaps if all goes well, he’ll allow more trips out of the private domain. All supervised by his watchful eye, of course. After a few moments of stunned surprise, you finally have the courage to speak. “I-I’d love to. Thank you, Zhongli,” you say quietly. Zhongli smiles, leaning to press a delicate kiss to your lips.

“You are very welcome, my treasure,” he whispers, a hand reaching to cup your face; his thumb reaches to brush your lips tenderly.

He can tell that you are still afraid of him, fearful that he will hurt you again. No matter. One day, Zhongli hopes, you will shed your fear like a caterpillar in chrysalis, and emerge into a glittering world full of Zhongli’s love for you. 

[spiritseeeker]

This singular frame was all it took to undo my very extreme hatred of Adam, Vivienne Medrano how dare you make me feel sympathy for this man-

Like, Adam before this scene? A blatant misogynist and a hypocrite who unabashedly revels in sinners' suffering. A guy who has no regard for anyone else, and who pisses pretty much every viewer off with patronizing jabs like "sorry sweetie" and "try to chillax, babe." Ugh, disgusting.

As the first man, it seems like he got an easy pass into Heaven. Maybe the angels were just saving face, given that their core pair of humans both took the fruit of knowledge of good and evil willingly, ordaining Adam on the technicality that "Eve did it first." But I think we can all agree that it was not on the merit of Adam's virtue.

And then Charlie draws blood during their fight in Episode 8, and, for the first time, Adam genuinely realizes he can be hurt. Like, for the first time in the duration of the show, in his entire fucking existence, someone shows him that he is not, in fact, an all-powerful symbol of power and superiority. He's just a guy with privilege who is just as vulnerable, just as flawed, just as human as the rest of them.

But once the mask is shattered, revealing the rather unexceptional man underneath, does Adam back down? Of course not—he doubles down. There's nothing worse than a narcissist who is virtually incapable of seeing the error of their ways, even when they're clearly backed into a corner. Bruised and bloody, he bellows that he's THE man; everybody should worship him.

For me, that pretty much hit the nail in the coffin. There was no redeeming a character like Adam (ironic, since he's one of the few characters in the show not in need of redemption).

So isn't it fitting, then, that his death didn't happen in some grand display requiring all of Lucifer or Charlie's might? Isn't it fitting that Adam falls to Niffty—not Lucifer, not an overlord, but a common sinner, who sees him as nothing more than a foot soldier that needs to be eliminated, a pest as easily squashed as a roach? For someone as self-aggrandizing as Adam, this has to be one of the most humiliating ways to die. The perfect end for an insufferable antagonist.

But nooo, Vivziepop didn't end it there.

Because INSTEAD, we hear Lute's heart-wrenching screams as she realizes that Adam has just been defeated; we see the look on her tear-streaked face when it registers just how badly he's been injured. The fear in her eyes at the prospect of living in a world without the angel she idolizes, the man she serves.

She's not concerned that she's just lost her arm, or that Vaggie is standing right there. In that moment, the only person in Hell is Adam, and all she wants is for him to stay with her.

Adam could have easily dismissed her feelings entirely. He could have spent his last breath hurling one last insult at Lucifer, getting the satisfaction of having the last word before his death. He could have thrown himself a pity party and cursed his fate.

Instead, this greedy, selfish, murderous fiend has the audacity to see Lute in his field of vision and flash her one last, tender smile.

We don't know for sure what Adam was thinking in this shot, but personally, I think it was something along the lines of I lost. Proud of you, Lute. I'll miss you. Goodbye.

Whatever his final thoughts are, we can surmise from his expression alone that he's accepted his fate, and that he's grateful his last seconds alive are locking eyes with someone who's important to him. Someone he cares about.

And THAT—that was enough to crack through that thick shell of hatred I'd developed for Adam and shatter it like the mask he wore for seven and a half episodes of the show. THAT 8-second moment was enough to make me reconsider my stance on Adam as an irredeemable villain.

(CURSE YOU, VIVIENNE!!!)

Does this scene cancel out all the heinous things Adam does throughout Season 1? All the lives he destroys, all the pain he causes to thousands upon thousands of souls? Absolutely not. But it does change my perception of Adam from "obnoxious egomaniac with no self-awareness" to "obnoxious egomaniac with no self-awareness that is a product of the flawed system he perpetuates."

And, I gotta wonder, what would Adam have been like if Heaven had been different?

[cbrownjc]

Alice is in her third trimester

I've seen a few comments about Daniel possibly cheating on Alice with Armand and I'm kinda like . . . you're assuming that Daniel or Armand -- who regularly, at least in the books, would be in situations where Armand would sit in a chair and watch Daniel have sex with other people -- would themselves view that as cheating. Because I don't think they would've. (At the very least, not younger Daniel.)

It's been talked about, more than once, about how the vampires in this universe are inherently polyamorous. I don't think Armand would care at all about sharing Daniel with another lover. And Daniel, being entangled with Armand (and quite possibly Louis as well) for so long might have himself become not overly concerned with such a thing.

I think Alice is the only one who would have cared that Daniel was sleeping with someone else (if she ever found out), and would have seen it that way. But I, personally, can see Armand and younger Daniel not caring about that view of things in the slightest . . . particularly because they were the ones who were together initially anyway. And that Daniel probably first ever got together with Alice during one of Daniel's running away periods.

Because the main thing that led to their splits sometimes, i.e. Daniel running away, was because Armand's refusal to make Daniel a vampire. Other than that, though? Nothing else in the relationship between them was a problem, particularly for Daniel. And I think that is going to be true wrt the show's version of events. Still being with his vampire lover, even after he may have gotten married? Don't think it is at all outside of possibility -- or that Daniel would have any guilt about it.

And THAT piece of information -- that the only problem he had with the relationship with Armand is that Armand wouldn't turn him -- is going to be the info that Daniel, in the present, likely won't want to face about himself IMO.

Daniel is clearly accepting of the fact that he was a shit father and a terrible husband. But accepting the possible true reason behind all of that?

I said it last year, and I'll say it again -- the revelation about the Devil's Minion that's going to hit Daniel the hardest is very likely going to be the one that reveals he has ZERO moral high ground when it comes to these vampires.

At the moment, Daniel can tell himself that he asked Louis for the Dark Gift because he thought Louis was wasting it. But that excuse is not going to work when it comes to the years and years he asked and wanted Armand to turn him.

That Armand refused to break his vow to never bring another into The Blood -- that is what ended up being what drove them apart. Not any moral conscious Daniel ever had, or grew, about being with Armand at all. Not even whatever transpired regarding Daniel and Alice (and Daniel getting her pregnant likely not just once, but twice, never mind marrying her.)

If Armand had decided to break his vow back then, then IMO, Daniel would have accepted. Alice or no Alice. Kids or no kids. Because while Daniel in the present has nice, even sincerely heartfelt memories about Alice? His past self was clearly emotionally checked out of whatever relationship he had with her by the time of that pregnancy announcement in 1985.

1985. The same year when, in the books, Armand finally did break his vow and turn Daniel, on Halloween. And this is what Daniel had to say about it when Armand finally decided to turn him:

"But don't you see," Daniel said, "all human decisions are made like this. Do you think the mother knows what will happen to the child in her womb? Dear God, we are lost, I tell you. What does it matter if you give it to me and it's wrong! There is no wrong! There is only desperation, and I would have it! I want to live forever with you."

As long as Daniel held any knowledge of not only vampires but of Armand specifically, this is what he would think, what he would always want. And that, IMO, is why he was emotionally checked out when Alice announced that pregnancy. Because, at that point in time, he still held the knowledge, of not just vampires, but Armand himself.

And they were still very much entangled with each other at that time IMO. Still lovers.

My theory is that it isn't Daniel kicking his drug habit that had him "getting his shit together." Well, okay, he did kick a drug habit, but the drug in question was actually Armand's blood. Not to mention Armand himself.

And I think that event happened sometime around when Alice was in her third trimester. (Hence, the name of that track listing).

. . . .

I'm also beginning to wonder if Armand actually was the one who repressed/blocked Daniel's memories of him, or if it was someone else. No, I don't think Louis was the one who did it, (or Lestat either btw), and Armand doing it does make the most sense, given he clearly is not harboring any happy thoughts about Alice, and Daniel splitting from him for her. But a day or so before the new clip came out, @faerywhimsy made a comment to me about who could have also done it, given a comment I made elsewhere about the timeline length Daniel and Armand were apart, and what book-event that matches up with and well . . . .

That person being the one who took Daniel's memories not only tracks wrt the timeline Armand and Daniel spend apart, but it would also track when it comes to the relationship Armand has with that person too. That's all I'm saying . . .

. . . .

Anyway, yeah. I think it was around Alice's third trimester when Armand and Daniel actually split for good. Which, depending on when she got pregnant could conceivably be around towards the end of 1985. Though, more possibly, go over into 1986. But I think that is why there is actually a track named that when it comes to the score for Season 2. Because that time period became a significant one. The time when Daniel actually "got his shit together."

And maybe why, in the present, he can have such love and loving thoughts about Alice. Because the reasons for his being emotionally checked out were no longer at the forefront of his mind for so long anymore (even if he still ended up being a shitty husband and father still -- with Alice as his ex and his kids not speaking to him -- without them).

[ashprince-of-bel-air]

The Empress

Next chapter

The afternoon was like any other in Rome, the languid breeze brushing through the city, providing no respite for its inhabitants. In the palace, high on the white marble steps sat two brothers in their thrones, the Emperors of Rome. Caracalla and Geta were not particularly favoured amongst the public, their wrath and cruelty was well known, even amongst the senators who most people assumed would be untouchable. No, they exercised their right to show their power without consequence and they did it well.

There was no love lost between the brothers, both had resented each other’s existence, cursing the other for the simple fact that the throne was now shared between them. Geta in particular hated this, he was the older of the two and felt that he deserved the throne for himself. Besides, Caracalla was immature with his rage, Geta thought. His rage was born out of a childish need to get his own way or to try and prove that he had any semblance of authority, not Geta’s rage though, Geta revelled in his own wrath, he knew his anger caused fear in the senate and he enjoyed knowing that he had that sort of emotional power to him, a power that he would often take advantage of, throwing the odd plate or vase in council meetings to scare the generals and senators in attendance.

Months had passed with Geta sharing his role as Emperor with his brother, it was a situation that was now becoming tiring to him to say the least. He could only think of two ways that would hopefully move the public towards favouring his authority as the sole Emperor. The first option would be to have Caracalla killed, this would definitely cement his claim to the thrown, but fratricide was heavily frowned upon by the Gods, that option was potentially ruled out for now. The other scenario would be to acquire a wife, this situation did not fill him with much joy either, Geta enjoyed his whores as he could ruin them however he pleased, he would have to be gentle with a wife and softness was a weakness to him. Nonetheless, it was the best option he had.

Soon after Geta had decided it was time for him to take a wife the word spread throughout Rome, Geta’s mother was thrilled at the prospect that maybe her son was finally going to calm down and settle with a family, his eyes only rolled at this comment for how naive she was being. The high born houses of Rome heard this summons that the Emperor was seeking a wife of good stock and good breeding and invited them to present a daughter for him to take as wife, many houses declined the invite for fear of what he would do to their beautiful and pure daughters, the refusal of his request would boil Geta’s blood further until the day you accepted his invitation.

It was a warm and boring summers eve when your family heard the news that Geta was looking for a wife, you were draped across a lavish bench in your garden soaking up the sun on your porcelain skin, no matter how much time you spent in the sun you never seemed to be blessed with its gifts of colour. Your father approached and told you of the Emperors summons, you almost leapt out of your relaxed position, begging your father to let you attend the palace and have an audience with Emperor Geta, not one to deny his daughter a request, also hoping to gain the Emperors favour, your father accepted and responded to the invite saying you would attend the palace on the morrow.

Geta had always been a fascination to you, you had attended the gladiator games several times in the last few years, and you would watch him in his podium, that enchanting sneer across his face. His bloodlust and cruelty plagued your mind daily after you first caught sight of him, you are not sure why but his threatening aura and the way he had no regard for human life would stir something inside of you, his unhinged nature called to something inside of you and you desperately wanted to answer it.

Much to your surprise, you were the only one to attend the palace and stand before Geta as a potential bride, you felt his eyes burn into your visage, he was barely trying to hold his anger that your were the only one present as an offering, his anger aroused you, causing a wetness to pool between your thighs as you felt his scorn upon you, trying to ignore the feeling you stood up straight and focused on the here and now, you wanted to be chosen by him. It wasn’t that Geta was offended by your offering, he thought you were incredibly beautiful, and your ivory skin was captivating, the red gown you were dressed in, made him think of blood upon fresh snow which excited him more than he would care to admit. Geta gave a soft nod to one of his guards and they whisked you away to a private room adjoining his in the palace, you tried to turn back to see your father one last time only to see him smiling and bowing before Geta. This was it; you had been chosen as his wife. You now happily let the guards lead you away wherever they were told to take you.

The wedding took place not long after Geta accepted your offering, he had you dressed in crimson red again on the day, the contrast between your pale white skin and blood red cloth was just enrapturing to him, it made him think of how he wanted to sully that beautiful skin of yours, leaving his markings all over your body to make you know that you now belonged to him. Your wedding night came, and you felt yourself slightly disappointed, where was the angry Geta you had fantasised about? You wanted him to fuck you and choke you within an inch of your life, yet here he was snoring away drunk on too much wine, he attempted to grope at you, but he groped at the bedframe instead before falling asleep. No matter, you would get him to ruin you at some point.

Days and weeks passed by as you settled into the role of Empress, you did not have many responsibilities other than to provide Geta with an heir, something you had attempted very enthusiastically over the last few weeks. Most nights Geta would come into your chambers and ‘do his duty’ as was expected of him, these nights were alright, yet you preferred the nights he had been on the war council. He would return to your shared room throwing and shattering vases and glasses against the walls, it was in these nights he would take you roughly, biting and choking you, leaving his markings on your skin for all to see. Seeing Geta so unhinged and his anger at the surface aroused you immensely, those strong hands causing such devastation in your room made you bite your lip and wonder what they could do to you. This fact Geta had noticed after the third time he took you roughly and noticed you had orgasmed intensely, your walls gripping and pulsing around his cock unlike when he normally took you. Surely you didn’t like his wrath right? You were not as bloodthirsty and angry as him?

Geta wanted to test his theory of your arousal after you seemed far too excited when he choked you as he pounded deep into you one night, moaning his name as your arched your body towards him. This Is not what he was used to, and it confused him, why were you not like the others and whimpering before him? This version of you excited him and spurred him on to be rougher each time, and each time he made you cum even harder for him. Geta decided he wanted to take it further and see if your bloodlust really matched his own, to see how much you truly enjoyed his wrath. He would take you to the gladiator games tomorrow.

You were thrilled to be at the games again, the smell of sweat and blood in the air was like a sweet nectar to you, smiling as you took your rightful seat next to your husband. You could feel Caracalla’s hateful gaze upon you, but you did not wish to engage with him, it was not worth indulging the brat. Geta and yourself sit at the edge of the royal balcony, you looked the vison of the Gods Jupiter and Juno, regal and commanding. The crowd chanting your names as they had fully accepted Geta now he had a wife beside him.

The games began. The first one was of no consequence, you rolled your eyes at how little of a contest it was. The day waned on until it came to the main event, you had drunk your fill of wine to combat the hot air, and you now felt a soft buzz, excited for the match ahead. Geta could see the excitement in your eyes at the upcoming match and he smiled, you definitely loved this as much as he did, and he revelled in that knowledge for now. The match was an intense one, one that kept you at the edge of your seat, gripping the fabric of your dress in anxiety, you wanted it to be bloody and they were dancing around rather than showing any action!

Eventually the match ends with no bloody conclusion, you slump back into your chair disappointed, you watch uninterested as the winning gladiator gloats about besting the other one who is laid on the floor exhausted, your eyes roll until you feel a familiar breath on your neck. “Would you like me to kill him my love?” your heart pounds at his whisper and your clench your legs together feeling the hot breath on your neck, you compose yourself ever so slightly.

“My Emperor?” you questioned, a nickname that unbeknownst to you had such an effect on him, you always made him feel like he was in charge, and he loved It.

“Would you like me to spare the loser or let him live?” His lips whisper against your ear as he begins to play with a rouge strand of your hair, twirling it around his fingers and he starts to kiss your neck, eagerly awaiting your answer.

A small moan escapes your lips as his touch” …Kill him…” you sigh and nearly whimper as he lets you go, standing up ready to put his thumb down, signifying death. The signal happens and the loser is killed, Geta turns to look at you with a wicked smile on his face, your thighs now crushing against each other to bring you some relief from the tension building there.

Gods, looking at that beautiful sneer and the way he enjoyed commanding the death of the gladiator, you knew that you were in for a fantastic night with him tonight.

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Chaos Creator's Chapter 256

TL;DR - Cale is a balanced being because of his ancient powers. Cale meets Aipotu. Cale gets an offer to be Aipotu's agent and rebuild the world.

Balance and Ancient Powers The entrance leading to the source of the world was a sinkhole filled with multi-colored lights. But there was a condition to entering it: one should be a 'balanced' being. Otherwise, the person would have their life force sucked. Wisha became weak, and the elf guardian grew older as a consequence of entering the pit.

However, Cale had no problem with that because he was a 'balanced' being. Balance here meant possessing all 5 attributes of nature, which Cale was more than qualified because of his collection of ancient powers of different attributes.

The reactions of the Aipotu residents to that revelation was hilarious. 😂

Wisha: This human is like the source of the world. Such a being could actually exist. Random dwarf: …Savior, that title was not a false one. Random elf: OMG. Isn't he no different from the source of the world? Elf guardian: *grabs Cale's hands and says with enthusiastic eyes* Please save this world!

Of course, we had the classic Cale insisting that he didn't want to be a savior, that he would only remove the Purple Bloods, and that the Aipotu residents should save Aipotu themselves... But that backfired on Cale because it further impressed the Aipotu residents about him being a savior. CH could only sigh at what Cale's actions was saying. 😂

Child Aipotu Cale entered the pit, and suddenly, Shield AP said she wanted to eat the multicolored lights in the pit. Even Cale felt hungry to his own confusion, gulping along with the glutton priestess.

After arriving at the bottom of the pit, Cale saw a huge glass-like bead the size of a house. Inside it was a girl around the age of 4 with very long flowing hair. She was Aipotu, the source of the world. And she was incessantly sobbing and crying for help. But when she heard the glutton's desire to eat her power, she wailed louder.

Cale had to reassure her that he had no intention of taking away her power. Aipotu was relieved and then gave Cale new nicknames: Angel Cale Henituse, Silver Shield Angel Cale Henituse, and Silver Angel. Cale's expression soured upon hearing that. 🤣🤣🤣

Regarding their plans to save the world, Aipotu would use the WT seed (the Jungwon statue Cale had) as a channel to regain control of the energies/powers of the world. She also appointed Cale to be her agent/representative, and tasked him with rebuilding the world, with her help, of course.

Cale was shocked with her proposal, given how big it was (rebuilding the world). He reasoned out that he was just an ordinary human. But Aipotu insisted that he CAN do it (with her help). It reminded me of Jungwon's "Jungwon can do it!" lines, but this time, it's "You and I can do it!"

Ending Remarks Today's chapter was so funny because it further increased Cale's imminent godhood status... 😂He's like the source of the world? He has multiple nature attributes? He's the savior of the world? He's the SILVER ANGEL? He's going to be Aipotu's agent? He's going to REBUILD the world? 🤣🤣🤣 Ah, poor Cale's slacker life dream.

[alatusprinz]

midnight endeavors. - wanderer x reader

genre : fluff

scenario : listening to wanderer's life history for the first time. ( reader is inspired from infp-ish personality bc i adore the idea of scara with a soft s/o)

the wanderer was used to a lot of things. in his painfully long existence, he’d seen things people would never dare dream of, walked through hell confidently with a bitter smirk plastered on his fair face. gritted his teeth through the painful betrayals from those most important to him only to realize it was never as he perceived the truth to be. and after everything, 

in the end- here he was. his indigo eyes looked a tad softer, clearer than you remembered as you finally finished listening to him explaining his past. you felt the amount of trust he had put in you, and wanted nothing more than to embrace him at this moment. yet, silent fear of disturbing him nagged at the back of your mind. to wait. wait for him to open himself more to you. wait until he is completely comfortable with your touch. 

otherwise, perhaps he’d break or scatter from your touch. especially with the forceful disinterested voice and masked blank expression he skillfully upheld in front of you. you could see through his facade, but decided to hold your tongue. one day. one day he’d be ready and you planned on waiting for that day no matter how long it takes. 

when he finished talking and finally glanced at you, however, you noticed his clear, calm violet eyes flash in an expression that resembled revelation.

he crossed his arms to mask his shock again, to keep his composure as he always did around everyone. 

“... why are you crying?” he tried, he swore he really tried not to sound judgmental and crude as he talks to everybody else. he remembers how your face fell subtly whenever he made a particularly harsh statement, how you’d try to explain his behavior to people who weren’t accustomed to him. the worst of it all, he sometimes didn’t know you were in a bad mood already and made it worse with his sharp tongue. no, wanderer never meant it towards you, ever. that’s why he was trying so hard, trying and learning this paradox of  “human emotion” he used to despise to the fullest.

you, on the other hand, only realized a stray tear had rolled down your cheek when he explicitly pointed it out. the mention of his young friend, the ashes and heart, the bittersweet tragedy of his tale as kabukimono, as kunikuzushi, as balladeer and now, as your wanderer. everything about him made you crave more, need more of him, want to love, and be loved in return. especially once you realized he was capable of love no matter how much he defied your suspicions. after all, there was no denying the warmth in his gaze sometimes, no lie in his featherlight touch when he sometimes absentmindedly caresses your cheek when he thinks you’re sleeping. he touches you so gently, like he didn’t believe his sight. like he wasn’t sure if you, or him in fact were real. maybe he had really fallen and faded away to nothing but ashes. maybe he never truly awoke again after his bitter defeat, falling from the sky-high seat of a god, only to be reduced to nothing but dust the moment he fell from that mechanical body. that’s why the true gods he used to hate so much have finally graced him with this hard-to-believe reality- a beautiful one, a meaning in life he found with you by his side. 

he was free now, he was determined in spending the rest of his time wandering the vast world to destinations that suit his liking. until he met yet another mortal he’d fallen hopelessly attached to. 

a joke, wasn’t it? wanderer was sure he had learnt from his past. even if it never meant that his mortal kins were unfaithful to him, he was still convinced that mortals just weren’t meant to exist alongside him. only this time, your loving gaze on him kept coaxing his true self out of his shell with no regards to his reluctance. no, in truth he didn’t want to grow this close to you. but he couldn’t deny you, the closer you came to the wanderer, the more he felt himself slipping away from the clutches of his old persona. he truly changed, thanks to you, a mere mortal- frail, emotional, soft spoken and sweet-toothed who cries at the tales of someone else. unbelievable. 

“i’m so sorry- i didn’t mean to, it was just-” you stumbled over your words, unsure how to explain how you felt about his past. the last thing you wanted was for him to get annoyed over your tears or somehow make him misunderstand that you’re making this about yourself. you really wanted to say how thankful you were to be trusted, how you would be there for when the nights seemed darker than usual, yet no coherent words left your mouth. amidst your panic and futile attempts at hiding your tear-stained face, you failed to notice his same violet eyes soften even more than before. so this was what it felt like to have someone by your side, to have someone… so endearing, crying over his pain as if it were your own. he did, in fact, have friends before, two of them even. but what he was feeling inside was nothing he’d ever imagined prior to your fated encounter.

the wanderer wasn’t sure if he could put a finger on his feelings for now. but he was sure he was gradually realizing why he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of you when you aren’t paying attention to him- even if this meant he would end up proving that he was just as human as you were. why he was infinitely entertained by your reactions to his teasing, and sometimes bickering. how he wasn’t entirely angered when you won the pesky quarrel with a witty remark. how he’d “accidentally” brush his hand against yours just to see your eyes widen and avoid his gaze like nothing happened. your body language never lied, that’s one thing he found amusing about you. 

speaking of amusement, he was truly puzzled the first time he got to know you. how were you so mellow? so mellow to the point you seemed like you'd shatter at the touch of his cold porcelain hands.

he wasn’t entirely sure why he felt this protective of you, perhaps even from yourself.  

and now, maybe he finally realized why having a precious fragile human like you cry over his past life story like it was your own brought this warm cozy sensation in his chest. he stayed quiet, silently gazing at you with his chin resting on his hand. 

“...are you done yet?” he felt himself cringe at his usual rough tone, he found it incredibly difficult to not sound like this. fortunately, you seemed to be slowly calming down. but not fast enough to his liking. 

that’s it.

with a deep sigh, he grabbed your wrist and pulled your figure towards his own in one swift motion. for such a slender body, he truly had incredible strength, you had to give him that. 

“what-” your eyes shot open, your sniffling dying down in one quick second from shock.

“humans, especially crybaby ones like you tend to find comfort in physical contact, correct? then so be it. find comfort in me.” rely on me, need me like i need you- he wanted to say but lacked the courage to. he truly had no other way he could word his feelings, but you saw the genuine concern hidden behind his ethereal lavender eyes. he’d never do this with anyone else, not even if the sun arose in the west and set in the east. you were both aware. his grand violet eyes still shone in high honor and pride, yet you felt his hand shiver ever so lightly around you. 

is he nervous? you bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from smiling. 

you stopped gawking at him, and allowed yourself to relax against his chest, burying your head in the space between his neck and shoulder. it was strange indeed- the amount of comfort you found in his embrace. his body wasn’t that warm, you imagined it might be cold to cuddle with him on winter nights. but you couldn’t care less, you wanted to spend eternity embraced by his hands. 

your dear wanderer. you snuggled closer in a protective manner, even going as far as to snake your arms around his thin waist. the wanderer’s brows furrowed slightly to your actions, a highly unnecessary and bothersome pink flush dusting his normally pale cheeks. damn you and your gentle touches, always making him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

speaking of warm and fuzzy, you were too. he absentmindedly tightened his arms around you, just to feel your body push against his closer. letting out a small sigh of relief, wanderer stared up at the night sky. to think that he would be the one ended up comforted by an embrace, instead of his original intentions. as much as he refused to admit out loud, he truly could get used to this, relaxing and feeling the serenity of the eternal midnight with you wrapped up in his hands. 

neither of you spoke a word. he hugged you to calm you down from your crying, and it looked like he succeeded from the absence of your sniffling and sobbing. yet still, neither of you spoke a word, too busy tangled up in one another’s bodies.

[everythingseasoning]

Suguru Geto - JJK character analysis (near complete?)

“I gave everything I had, and it failed. It all crashed in front of me. And nobody did anything— not before me— not now. I’m seeing something nobody else sees. I’m sitting in these shadows and nobody cares about me. And here Gojo is, not doing a thing— and they praise him.” - my interpretation of Geto’s thought processes post Riko Amane’s assassination.

Crying about Geto because he went through so much. Geto was compassionate and idealistic before he defected. After such intense, prolonged trauma caused by the darkness of humans, and after growing disillusioned towards the world due to how unhelpful jujutsu society was— Geto felt utterly confused, resentful, and abandoned. The very system that was supposed to represent goodness (Jujutsu Society) simply prolonged the cycle of pain and suffering. It failed everyone— it failed him. Everything he’d believed was a shattered mirror, reflecting the cracks and flaws of humanity— and Geto saw that. Jujutsu Society praised Gojo for his innate talent, whilst neglecting the cracks in its system and the world, and neglecting Geto. In Geto’s turmoil, Geto was overcome by disenchantment— losing his faith and shedding his past sense of self— his good nature replaced with bitterness towards Gojo, simultaneously accompanied with a developed, narrow perspective on normal humans. (As we see with “Are you the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo, or are you Satoru Gojo because you’re the strongest?” — Geto brings up the age old question of nature Vs nurture. He’s essentially asking Gojo if his power is the reason for his success, or if his power shaped his identity. Who is Gojo? Did he get any choice in defining himself? —He didn’t. Gojo’s whole personality is based off of his power, which determined how he was treated— the Strongest, seen as a functioning tool. —And regarding Gojo’s power: What was once a deep admiration towards Gojo, turned into resentment and envy from Geto’s end, as Geto realized Gojo wasn’t changing the corrupt systems, nor did Geto have the luxury of power to have made a difference. Geto felt spurned, and also believed normal people were unworthy of ruling, and the only way to save the world from its already unjust systems was to overthrow everything and use power to rule. After all, power is all that matters in terms out how you can change the world, which is your worth in the world— and Geto wanted that. He wanted power. He wanted to be worthy the way Gojo was— he was hurting. Maybe if he had Gojo’s level of power, he wouldn’t be in this much pain. Maybe he would’ve been able to stop other people from being evil and actually have had footing in this world. Maybe people would be listening to him, appreciating him. —Or maybe, Jujutsu Society was just a phony, after all. And normal humans were useless to change anything— all they did, in Geto’s mind, was feed into the evil nature of the world. …Geto became resentful, callous, cold, evil because of the wrongdoings inflicted on him, which resulted in his misinformed beliefs about humans and his behavior run wild with blind spite. He truly believed that the pain he inflicted on humans was justified, and he reveled in it because he had been hurt so deeply and saw it as reparations, even.

Do I believe what Geto did was okay? Absolutely not. He had much too rigid a way of seeing humans— as all bad— and that was a fallacy. But he was only 17 when he faced such confusing, extreme, difficult circumstances, and it distorted his worldview. I can’t blame him. He WAS good. But being around constant darkness wore him down, thus he descended into a callous man devoid of empathy. His actions after defecting are deplorable and not okay, however, he truly deserves compassion too. Many others, had they been in his situation, would’ve ended up horribly warped too.

How could Geto have done better, so as not to become the evil, rigid and disillusioned, cold and harmful, person he became? This is an important question. I’m still figuring it out myself. This analysis is to be continued. For now I’d say that he was unable to empathize with humans beyond his own pain and suffering, and it’s a cautionary tale about how wrapped up we can get in our own trauma and suffering— which leads us to being incapable of seeing and understanding things beyond our own individual pain, which leads us to inflicting undue injustice into others. It’s crucial that we take the time to understand the depth and complexity of humanity. The inherent value in humans.

I’m sorry, Geto. For all you went through, and for ever judging you without the fuller scope of understanding. You deserved better.

[zalia]

Truth to Power, Chiasmus, and the Final Shape (or, has anyone else noticed we're playing the story backwards?)

Through a set of circumstances, I ended up getting onto an unhinged rambling session at 3am so thanks to my friend who let me (one time when different time zones was actually useful).

Some of this may be a little bit of a reach, but I think it bears out, and i've put the truly out there thoughts at the end.

Contains spoilers for Season of the Wish finale, and basically of Destiny, including the Final Shape trailers and ViDocs.

Okay, lets talk about Truth to Power and Ikora and Arach Jalaal's discussion of it in the Witch Queen CE.

Truth to Power is a lore book from Forsaken and it is... odd to say the least. It starts out as a message from 'Eris' and then cycles through other characters Eris > Medusa > Quria > Dul Incaru > Savathun, and then back again. It includes a 'choose your own adventure' section, a hidden challenge to defeat Shattered Throne solo at light level 999, a hidden note to data miners, and talks a lot about Ahamkara, the Distributary and the Dreaming City, black holes, and Savathun's (potential) plans regarding it. Especially the idea of moving through worlds contained within worlds via black holes.

In the Hidden Dossier decoded from the Witch Queen CE, Ikora and Arach Jalaal discuss this book, it's many readings, and what it might mean.

One thing that comes up is that the story uses a literary device called 'chiasmus'

REY >> JALAAL Look at the structure of the text. At first, Eris is real. Then we learn Eris's voice is a deception by Medusa. Then we learn Medusa is nested inside Quria. Then we learn Quria is a fiction of Dûl Incaru. And at the center, Savathûn reveals herself to be the parent of it all. We are headed inward, as if moving from parent to child universe. Then we proceed in reverse. Savathûn is revealed to be a fiction of Dûl Incaru. Dûl Incaru a simulation by Quria, and so on. So in the end, Truth to Power moves outwards. Just as Savathûn plans to move. In from our universe and out to the Distributary— Or out from our universe to its parent. JALAAL >> REY Oh. I see. I see! A literary structure like that is called a chiasmus, and chiasmus means "crossing point"! Like a wormhole or a portal! It was hidden in plain sight.

They can also be thought of as ring structures. We end at the beginning.

Which incidentally is the tag line for the Akashic Revelation lore from Season of the Deep about a Guardian trying to enter the portal in the Traveller and getting visions of his original human life!

Which will become relevant i swear.

Lots of people have commented about the finale cutscene from Season of the Wish, and how it mirrors Forsaken - with Crow at Cayde's mercy, vs Cayde at Uldren's mercy. And you can kind of look at Crow's story in general as a reflection of Uldren's. Crow resurrected > Imprisoned by Spider > Manipulated by Savathun > Growing into himself and his freedom as a guardian > Reconciliation with Mara > Jumping through a portal to another facet of reality

vs

Uldren following Mara out of the Distributary > the growing distance between him and Mara > Prince of the Awoken, tricking Guardians, visiting the Black Garden > his growing madness leading to his imprisonment in the Prison of Elders and manipulation by Riven (who was controlled by Savathun) > Death

There's another cycle (there are many cycles) I noticed with Saint and Osiris.

Vanguard Commanders > Separation+Exile > Saint's loss of the Light + death > [Sundial Incident] > Osiris' loss of the Light and imprisonment > [Nezarec Tea Incident] > Recovery+being reunited > Vanguard Commanders

We've also had in the ViDoc the mention of receiving the Khvostov because it's the first weapon we ever use in D1, returning to the freeway we were resurrected at, returning to the beginning.

With me so far?

We've ended Season of the Wish with a redux version of the final fight of D1 Vanilla - the destruction of the Black Heart. Symbolically bringing us back to the start of our journey. But if you look at a lot of the themes of recent seasons... we've been travelling backwards loosely through a reflection of D1's storylines.

Season of the Wish/D1 Vanilla

In D1, we are guided to enter the Black Garden and destroy the Black Heart created by the Vex. This is the story where we first encounter Mara and Uldren who send us to get the eye of a Vex Gate Lord to enter the Garden. Which involves us going to the Ishtar Academy on Venus to find out more about the Vex (incidentally this is also where the Vex Citadel is located - something which has been very prominently visible in the Starcrossed Mission).

In Season of the Wish, we are following up work done by Maya Sundaresh and Chioma Esi of the Ishtar Collective on the Veil which was revealed to be what the Black Heart was trying to recreate. We're working with Mara and Crow (and Crow even lampshades the original story in a joke about the eye of a Vex Gate Lord!). Eventually we end up confronting the Vex and destroying a new copy of the Black Heart.

Season of the Witch/The Dark Below

In the Dark Below, we are guided by Eris to stop the resurrection of Crota by disrupting a ritual, and eventually kill him in his Throne World in the Crota's End raid.

In Season of thr Witch, we take part in a ritual to tithe to Eris to help her ascend into becoming the Hive god of vengeance so that she can cut Xivu Arath off from her Throne World

Eris: Crota's soul is banished. You have given me the gift of vengeance. I thank you… - D1

Season of the Deep/The Taken King

I admit that this is out of order and a little more of a stretch, but chiasmus is not necessarily an exact thing and I think the parallels are there.

In The Taken King, we are confronted with Oryx's fleet arriving in the system to get revenge for the killing of Crota. He destroys a large portion of the Awoken Fleet who were there to buy us time, including killing Mara Sov (she had a plan and got better!). We have to pretend to be Ascendant Hive to face him on the Dreadnaught (which is created from the body of one of the Worm Gods) and we take shards of his sword to create our own. Eventually we face him in King's Fall, use his hoarded stolen Light and free it to defeat him.

In Season of the Deep, we have the sudden reappearance of Titan in the system sent by Xivu Arath. We have Sloane who has willingly become half Taken to learn about Xivu's plans and undermine them, and she is supported by Ahsa, one of the proto-worms who is seemingly akin to the Worm Gods (Eris uses her name and the name of her slaughtered family in her ritual in Season of the Witch, alongside the names of the Worm Gods). We save Ahsa, Sloane is possessed briefly by Xivu but recovers. We also enter a pyramid and take a gift of Darkness (Wicked Implement) left to us by Xivu.

Also we have a whole dungeon about the Lucent Hive trying to resurrect Oryx and Xivu's voice memories regarding him and everything about the Hive.

Season of Defiance/House of Wolves

In House of Wolves, Skolas, Kell of Wolves, is freed from his imprisonment by one of the Nine. he declares himself Kell of Kells, frees his followers from the Prison of Elders, attempts to assassinate Mara Sov. Mara, angered by this, gives Guardians the freedom of the Reef to hunt Skolas down as he tries to unite the various houses. He eventually breaks into the Vault of Glass to bring Wolves from the past to aid him. We stop him, capture him, and eventually kill him in the Prison of Elders. This leads to a very slight improvement of relations between the Reef and the City, although the Awoken, barring Petra, are still mainly ambivalent and Mara is absolutely only interested in us as a means to an end.

In Season of Defiance, the Shadow Legion are capturing humans and Eliksni and imprisoning them on the pyramid ships. We are aided in their rescue by Misraaks, once of the House of Wolves (as was his mother) now Kell of Light (and potentially Kell of Kells eventually???), and Mara Sov, who comes to aid us, willingly using her power to let us walk the Ascendant plane in order to rescue our people. It very much solidifies the alliance between the City and the Reef.

So essentially, House of Wolves is former allies of the Reef turning on them to destroy them. Season of Defiance is former enemies banding together to save their people.

Also Taniks is in House of Wolves, and conspicuously mentioned in Season of Defiance.

Lightfall/The Red War

Again, out of order slightly, but the more I think about it, the more I see the parallels.

In the Red War, the Last City is attacked by the Red Legion led by Dominus Ghaul who is obsessed with claiming the Light, and captures the Speaker. The Guardians lose the Light and are driven out of the City. We have to regain our Light abilities from the Shard of the Traveller that we are guided to. The Speaker is killed after admitting the Traveller doesn't speak to him. We go to gather our allies once more, assault the City, fight Ghaul who is then destroyed by the Light when the Traveller awakens. The Black Fleet is shown to activate at the edge of the System.

In Lightfall, we follow Osiris who has had a vision of Neptune. We arrive in Neomuna which is a City under assault from the Shadow Legion led by Calus (who was exiled and deposed by Ghaul). Our Light abilities are suppressed so we have to master Strand which is seemingly a product of the Veil. We gather our allies, including Caiatl who had taken over command after Ghaul's death, and combat the Shadow Legion's assault on Neomuna. We fight and defeat Calus who has been granted Darkness abilities. But the Witness communes with the Veil, damages the Traveller, and most of the Black Fleet leaves the system to enter the Traveller.

Season of the Seraph/Rise of Iron

In Rise of Iron, we're called by Saladin Forge, the last of the Iron Lords, to stop the Eliksni House of Devils from taking control of SIVA, the nanomachine plague which killed the other Iron Lords when they went to seek it to save humanity, because Rasputin got mad that the Traveller resurrected his son as Felwinter. We fight the SIVA animated corpses of some of the Iron Lords and destroy the replication chamber. We fight the Devil Splicers who have been augmented by SIVA.

In Season of the Seraph, we are working to recover a damaged Rasputin and stop Xivu Arath from taking control of Rasputin's Warsat network and weapons. We enter bunkers to recover his data, including returning to Felwinter Peak to recover Felwinter's memories which leads to Rasputin sacrificing himself to save humanity, where before he had sacrificed the Iron Lords for his own selfishness. We also fight Witness animated corpses of Eliksni (the Scorn) and Eliksni Wrathborn infected by Xivu Arath's cryptoliths (which can also infect computer systems). Eramis, once a Baron of the House of Devils has to see and grieve her friends and comrades turned into mindless puppets, as Saladin once had to see the Iron Lords turned into puppets by SIVA.

I think there's also a note to be had about how we're doing these repeats. In D1 the vast majority of the time, we are alone. We are not yet the Young Wolf, the Godslayer, the hero. We are just one random Guardian.

In D1 vanilla, there's no real mission control. You have Elsie Bray tell you to follow a signal and give you some info, but then you are on your own. Mara and Uldren are quite relaxed about potentially getting you killed. In Season of the Wish, we are guided by Osiris and Mara, aided by Crow. We have people with us every step of the way. At this point in D1, Petra was more or less exiled from the Reef. In Season of the Wish, she is one of Mara's greatest supports, and you can hear how much Mara cares about her.

The Dark Below has you guided by an Eris who is alone, untrusted and seen as crazy at best, or a genuine threat to the City at worst. She has nothing in her life but vengeance. In Season of the Witch, we have an Eris who has Ikora and Drifter and Mara there to support her and who trust her. The worry is mostly for her rather than about her.

We have gone from the Last City being a last bastion of humanity with the whole universe against us, to one of two cities, filled with those we had once called enemies.

Conclusion

So yeah, a theory that we're travelling back through our story, a chiasmus (there may well be other parallels in previous seasons too) which is taking us right back to the start of our story.

Except here's the thing... Elsie Bray is the one who starts things off by having us destroy the Black Heart. It's implied to be the major event that changed things. But Elsie's timeloops are stated to always take her back way before our resurrection, to the moment when Cayde becomes Hunter Vanguard.

Well, we're just about to get Cayde back.

So what happens when you reach the beginning/end of the story and yet it continues? We're outside the boundaries of this story now! Off the path we've been following!

But unlike when we were resurrected, alone save for Ghost, when we go into the Pale Heart, we will not be going alone. We've come through the chiasmus and we've done things better, built alliances, made friends, united the Light and the Darkness.

So when we step beyond the boundaries of the storyI would suggest one thing – Guardians make their own fates.

The actual unhinged theorising

So, there was one connection my mind made at like 7am when I briefly woke up after going to bed at 4am. A Chismus is kind of like a labyrinth.

In English, Labyrinth is often synonymous to maze, and it can be! However maze and labyrinth are also used as specialised terms - a maze is a multicursal puzzle with many branching paths, while a labyrinth is unicursal, and has only one winding path to the centre and out again.

You can see them in lots of places, including places of worship where they can represent symbols of pilgrimage, or a path to enlightment/salvation. Walking them can be used as a form of meditation. And historically they've also had sometimes been used as a way to trap evil spirits, or turn away evil.

So a Chiasmus is a ring structure, and you follow it from start to finish then back to start, and a labyrinth is a unicursal winding path that takes you to the centre and then back out again, and the story of Destiny is (loosely) following that structure.

There is one specific labyrinth I think it's worth looking at.

This is a labyrinth carved into the portico of Lucca Cathedral in Italy. The inscription is Latin and translated reads "This is the labyrinth built by Dedalus of Crete; all who entered therein were lost, save Theseus, thanks to Ariadne's thread"

This is the seal for Season of Arrivals... oh hey that... that looks familiar.

This is from the Live Action Witch Queen trailer showing the Cradle on Mars with... oh wait... is that... the same fucking labyrinth?

It crops up in a lot of places in Destiny. You will see it everywhere.

Where am I going with this?

Look at the inscription for the Lucca Cathedral labyrinth: "This is the labyrinth built by Dedalus of Crete; all who entered therein were lost, save Theseus, thanks to Ariadne's thread"

We know the story of Thesus and the Minotaur. He was able to find his way through thanks to a spool of thread given to him by Ariadne (oh hey, guess what subclass we just got in the last expansion...).

Well, Ariadne's Thread is the name for a method of solving puzzles by an exhaustive application of logic to all available routes. Wikipedia says about this method:

At any moment that there is a choice to be made, make one arbitrarily from those not already marked as failures, and follow it logically as far as possible.

If a contradiction results, back up to the last decision made, mark it as a failure, and try another decision at the same point. If no other options exist there, back up to the last place in the record that does have options, mark the failure at that level, and proceed onward.

That sounds kind of Vex-like huh? Or even more specifically... sounds almost like what Elsie Bray has been doing. She is reset each time to the last set point (Cayde becoming Hunter Vanguard), and in each loop she tests paths up until destruction. It's how she comes to realise that she has to be the person who finds stasis first.

Each loop cuts off a branch of the maze, a set of possibilities that do not lead to the right outcome. And cutting off each branch until there is only one path turns it into a labyrinth.

I've thought for a while that it feels like something is iterating, working through every option until all the pieces align and there is only one path. Making sure the chiasmus works.

Piecing together a perfectly constructed bomb to take on the sword, which will detonate into the exact kind of chaos that Guardians are good at.

I apologise for the extreme longness of this post. I really hope it is semi-coherent at least?

[motocorsas]

really conflicted about these revelations concerning jorge martin's personal politics. i hope it's not too obvious that i'm a big fan of his, and have been for some time.

i remember his scandal regarding the homophobic phrase he used on El Hormiguero late last year, but he issued an apology and seems to have legitimately changed; at least, he's not publicly using bigoted language anymore. but waving a nationalist flag with ties to the spanish far right is much harder to parse. is he a fascist? is he just ignorant, and is that any better? do i renounce him and find some other favorite? it's unrealistic to expect any rider to be an unproblematic saint, but fans can still hold riders accountable by withdrawing support. but then, if i rescind my support of jorge, the question stands why i don't just quit giving money to motogp altogether, as i am very aware of the labor exploitation and enviromental damage bound up in the sport. how do we as fans decide our tolerance limit for bigotry, nationalism and ignorance, with the understanding that we're watching a straight white male dominated sport? what and who do we forgive?

this isn't the first time riders have been exposed for their unsavory beliefs. in 2014 marc marquez sold tshirts emblazoned with racist caricatures at the japanese gp. carlo pernat, who has managed enea bastianini, tony arbolino and plenty others is an openly despicable human being with a penchant for bragging about his solicitation of prostitutes.

the above quote is from a La Reppublica article which itself is pulling from statements pernat made on italian radio show La Zanzara.

there are likely plenty more cases none of us know about, like the anonymous statements published in this 2015 motorsport magazine article:

what do we do about this? the last thing we should do is remain silent and apathetic towards hatred in racing paddocks, but how do we as viewers effectively make change? these are not rhetorical questions; i don't want to support a series that is this polluted with prejudice and think we should all work to make the sport better.

[lady-of-endless]

do u have any nsfw hc’s of wamuu?🥺

Wamuu x reader headcanons (NSFW)

Author's Note: This request satisfied my old fascination with Wamuu, thank you for the nostalgia. Hope you'll enjoy it!

- Being a warrior and having Kars and Eisidisi as masters, is not easy. All of his ancient life, he had to train rigorously, follow orders, and just fight. His dedication was towards this and only this for a very long time. He has neglected fantasies because of it and he knows it but never that would be a problem.

- He does not understand the outfits humans wear nowadays. However, he won't say a thing about such a superficial aspect. However, if one day you decide to wear something similar to his outfit to get a reaction from him, suddenly this aspect makes him go through interesting emotions. Note, if you wear something blue, cobalt blue, he'll be speechless. It's his favorite color after all.

- He knows that he's different from Eisidisi and Kars but that gets obvious to you when you see him get so careful with you in bed. He takes pride in his size and stature but not now, when he's with you and you look as fragile as porcelain. He goes slow at the start, painfully slow for him, for your sake.

- His love language is mainly words of affirmation and that goes into the bedroom as well. Praise and encouragement are abundant in the bedroom.

- He is definitely a soft dom who would never try the role of someone below. Wamuu wants to take care of you and your needs but he expects you to behave accordingly.

- Whenever he gets turned on, because he wants to look like he's keeping his composure, the only way to let you know about his needs is by looking at you intensely while subtly playing with the ring from his lower lip.

- He always thought he was into degradation, humiliation, and roughness, especially with a human, but turns out he's not. One look at you and how your eyes shine with excitement as you look up at him and he knows he's unable to do such a cruel thing to you.

- However, he might be into corruption and brat-taming. Corruption as in getting you to do something against your principles. He is getting such a dangerous surge of power seeing you submit to him and his requests. Brat taming comes as a revelation after you decide to tease him, provoke him all day long and all he wants to do is to punish you for it.

- Because he used to live hundreds of thousands of years ago, he doesn't fully grasp the concept of aftercare. But without asking, after those intense moments, he likes to lay in bed next to you, wrap you up, and keep you warm as he opens up about his past. Unfortunately, this big warrior will fall asleep fast but do it while having you in his arms.

- Will never accept you to leave marks on him and vice versa. Why? Because he does not want his masters to know that he has finally given in. Not because he might look weak, he knows his worth, but because he does not want to share anything that's going on between you and him behind closed doors. However, Kars will know everything.

- His enhanced stamina, ability and senses are some things you should prepare for. He does not hurt you intentionally but it's hard for him to contain himself when it comes to claiming you.

- More vocal than you expected. No, he doesn't moan, whimper, or whisper phrases. He growls, grunts, and gets unintentionally aggressive. All because of trying so hard to hold back.

- Regarding kinks, you will have to open his eyes to this whole concept. He is curious but judgemental of some. That is until he tries them out because he will try them all out with you. He discovers that his favorites are dominant, primal (hunter), rigger, experimentalist, and voyeur.