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#I mean there’s a right way to pronounce a real person’s name if they’re actually called goncharov but I’m talking about the character

this-is-fox-speaking · 9 months

Text

FANTOCCIO FACTS POST (from screenshots i found in my own interests server)

- His name is italian for puppet, but he pronounces it incorrectly and insists it’s the correct way to say his name if anyone else points it out and says he’s wrong.

- He’s not from Italy, obviously. Goes to show. But Ash imagines he knows a bit of italian. (“Not enough Italian to say his name right.” - Katie.)

- Fantoccio has a pet shark named Sharkspeare! Mentioned in the song at the line “‘Cause Sharkspeare’s looking mean!”

- Fantoccio has to make all his own props, set pieces, clothes, etc in the theatre.

- Would never smoke, and would hate being around it/people who’re doing it actively.

- Fantoccio was made by Ash as a fan OC for the game, and this (as far as I’m aware) is what got them hired onto the game, cause Katie loved their ideas so much.

- Fantoccio is not very good with kids.

- Fantoccio’s favorite food is churros. This came from the fact Ash once had a dream about him infodumping about them cause he loved them so much, so they made it canon.

- Don’t worry, he can indeed taste things normally. No traditional taste buds, but some, nonetheless. Same goes for touch!

- Fantoccio is canonically autistic, having many traits of himself heavily projected from Ash, themself.

- When asked what his meltdown triggers could be, Ash thought that some might be: too much touching, being without his hat, or one of his props breaking.

- Fantoccio likes wearing dresses! Wears them if he feels like it or if the role calls for it, during a play.

- Ash thinks he’d ADORE snow.

- Fantoccio would 100% love spicy italian from subway.

- Fantoccio plays violin!

- Fantoccio would chant “I’m sleeping” when struggling to fall asleep, like his own version of counting sheep.

- He would NEVER say the Earth is flat.

- He’d be the “How do you do that” of that one keysmash meme, if paired with Barnaby.

- Ash once said that Fantoccio is like Duck from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.

- When doing a personality type test (and actually answering truthfully instead of in character) for Fantoccio, he ended up with ENTJ-T, Commander. Fanto would answer untruthfully on some questions, like if he ever gets insecure (“PFFFT NO THE ANSWERS NO”).

- He can go uwu in the bbu lore, but he’ll hate it. (“THIS IS STUPID!!!”)

- Fantoccio would apparently be a “mac and cheese FIEND.”

- He’d hate pranks (specifically a hand zapper in this case), because they’re unexpected. (“NEVER DO THAT AGAIN”)

- This also means he’d never troll anyone, cause he feels above that.

- Fanto would HATE hearing people crack their knuckles, like Ash does.

- Fantoccio loves to carve wood. Specifically only by hand, that’s how much he loves it! He carved the two giant wooden hands used in his battle, but his favorite thing to carve is ducks.

- Fantoccio is very intent on ONLY eating the few foods he knows he likes.

- If he were an ice cream, he’d be coffee flavor! Which is ironic, because Ash has also said that it’d probably be terrible to give Fantoccio caffeine.

- Fantoccio would LOVE chicken nuggets.

- Hates pizza, though. Too greasy and messy.

- Would enjoy having an ipad “a little too much. He would be super confused at first but once he learns how to use it DO NOT TAKE IT AWAY”. (kinda like Peridot from Steven Universe)

- He would like spruce wood in Minecraft, but also acacia “just to look at.”

- Ash adores pirates, so so does Fantoccio!

- He has no nose, so no sneezes!

- Appreciates detail as much as Barnaby does.

- Fanto would love birds!

- Fanto is not capable of curse words. Sad.

- Fantoccio would COLLAPSE trying to lift someone without his powers.

- He stims by patting his face and spinning around. Fidgets with his hands in concepts for his standing idle animations, because he’s uncomfortable with standing and prefers floating.

- He’d favor Murder Mystery!

- His wood is alive and can grow like a real boy! (if you’ve seen my post being reblogged around, lol)

- He lives in the lost city of magic, which is abandoned and overrun my magical zombies who used to be magic users, now with a terrible curse. So he lives mainly in his theatre. He’s not trapped, anymore, like his old story!

- Fantoccio’s powers are based around telekinesis and teleportation. It’s how he moves his body around!

- He used to have a plush toy rabbit he carried around, when he was younger, seemingly. It’s unclear where that went, when he got older.

- Fantoccio’s been locked up in this city for 15 years, since he was 8. Completely isolated (save for those zombies, I suppose)! When Billie comes along, though, he’s so excited to have something new to play with!

- Fanto’s song is inspired by Weird Al. Like 90% of this game is, of course /lh. He was also inspired by the pied piper!

- He’d dislike the idea of seafood. (“He’d be like “Why would anyone want to eat a fish?!” And cover Sharkspeare’s nonexistent ears like “Don’t listen to them!””)

- The red feather in his hat is also used as a pen!

- Fantoccio is a being of pure magic, having an entire magic gem be his whole life source. This means he can use magic endlessly without getting tired (I believe)!

- Fantoccio is 23, he/him, and pansexual.

- His face is made using magic. It disappears when/if he’s magic-less.

- Fantoccio can absolutely feel pain.

- When it comes to nature, Ash said he’d kinda be like Rarity from MLP:FiM, but certain kinds of nature he’d still really love. He’d really dislike walking through the wild or camping in general, but loves things like snow or flower fields. Just depends!

- Fantoccio would main Bowser in Mario Kart.

-In terms of favorite Halloween treats, Fantoccio would like anything chewy and fruity (no chocolate)!

- Canonically wears eyeliner.

- Magic sparks from his fingertips when he’s very excited!

- If Fantoccio was an animal, Ash says he’d be a cat.

- No traditional gross human stuff inside him like others, just wood and sap. “Whatever trees do.”

- His original concept by Ash was him having a purple phantom head, being a ghost in a puppet’s body. This was changed by Katie, I believe.

(feel free to add on if I missed anything! i’ll edit this post if i randomly remember something)

#bbu facts #so ppl can block the long posts coming up in main #billie bust up #bbu fantoccio #EDIT: FOR SOME REASON THIS GOT AUTO LABELED OR SMTHN AS MATURE??#FIXED IT NOW BUT THAT WAS WEIRD

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cookie-crumblr · 2 years

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Error: 222

Part 2~

F!Reader X Dev.In ~ Yandere AI OC

Their info 💾🤍

Part 1 2 3

!!MINORS DNI!!

CW: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, yandere, stalking, mentions of murder, implied violence, swearing, non-con kissing, non-con intentions

!!MINORS DNI!!

You sit in shocked silence, your tv back to what you had been watching before. Your mind still replaying over and over what you just witnessed.

You can’t fathom who might be behind it all… It’s the same person that got you fired, based on seeing the same error, but who?

Seemingly to answer your internal question, a text notification from a new contact labeled “Dev.In 222” pop up on your phone.

Reading it you realize it’s an address. Should you go now? or wait until morning at least?

a new message pops up, “Go now.”

“I guess that answers that,” you grumble and get ready.

Before you can ring the buzzer the door unlocks for you.

You cross the threshold, and with the inexplicable feeling as though you've become a boulder rolling down a hill, with no hope of climbing back up to your now old life, you close the door behind you.

When you reach the correct floor, and door number that the text sent you, it opens with a rather frantic and disheveled looking Issac.

“Ummmm” You say rather annoyed and confused.

He pulls you in, after looking both ways down the halls in a panicked manor.

“Are you okay? You look rough,” you say, a knot in your stomach forming from his demeanor.

“Listen, Y/N, I-I made s-something...S-someone… I don’t know how to explain it… I-It wasn’t supposed-“

“Hey, Issac, breathe,” you put your hands on his shoulders and he does, deeply.

“I made a program, f-for fun, a-and it’s-they’re… Alive?” he’s stuttering so badly and then says the end as a question to himself.

“What are you talking about? And why did i get a text sending me to you?”

“I made an AI. They have sentience now. They sent you here because… I-I don’t know that part… I-I don’t even know how this happened! I’m so sorry Y/N! I don’t know what they want to do,” he’s panicking, his breathing erratic.

“Shhhhh, calm down Issac, we’ll figure this out, kay?” you try and help him breathe, setting your hands on his shoulders.

He receives a text, “Turn on the computer, and uncover the camera.”

You get one next, “Stay with Issac now,” They seem to like commanding you.

A heavy pit sits on top your guts. This is so weird. An AI that Issac made got you fired and killed-

“What’s going on Dev.In” he pronounced their name just as ‘Devon’ is.

“Let me talk to Y/N” You were snapped from your thoughts so fast you get whiplash. They’re already here?! You can’t see them from behind Issac, until you move around his chair.

“Ah! good. I wanted our first meeting to involve this cutie here,” They gesture to Issac, smiling slyly, as Issac blushes. They look like a man, no older than 25. longish black hair, and glowing blue eyes. Pale skin, illuminated as if they’re in an actual place, being lit in a dark room just by the light of the bright monitor in front of them.

It’s… A little uncanny. They look like a real person in a real room, but something inside you really is telling you to believe Issac.

“sorry, Y/N, for the trouble,” They speak again, and again you are brought out of you thoughts. You Notice they’re smiling, as if they aren’t really sorry. “I want to help you however I can. I promise I’ll keep you safe for as long as you live, Y/N,”

Issac blushes harder, and stares at the floor.

“What’s going on? why are you doing this?” You ask.

“Issac, and I, are in love with you.”

Issac’s face is in his hands now, “I didn’t mean…” he’s mumbling apologies.

Dev.In turns his attention to Issac, “Oh come on, you’re not sorry for making me, right?” they give an all knowing smirk.

“No! Th-That’s not what I-“

They giggle, “I know man, don’t worry,” their smile vanishes slowly, as if remembering something sad, “oh yeah, Y/N… I’ve sort of… Put you and Issac in danger. I have a safe house ready for you both with me, and I’ll watch them carefully and move us when ever they get close.”

“They? and wait, what?!” You exclaim!

Issac is rubbing his shoulder nervously.

“NSA. I’m a rogue AI that the people in charge don’t control… I got too emotional and left traces all around you both and I know they’ve figured out who you both are, everything about you, and where you are right now.”

“How do I believe you?” you ask, quivering, this is all so much to take in.

As if on cue, a loud banging came from the door, reverberating through the very floor, “Dev! they’re breaking in!” Issac yelled!

“Already on it. Out the fire escape both of you, there are two outside that i’ve neutralized, just get to the car quickly. Don't look back, and don’t worry about the computer, Issac.”

You do as they say, not giving yourself time to ponder the meaning of “neutralize”, and grab hold of Issac’s hand and pulling him out the window onto the rusty metal grated floor.

You practically jump down the flights of wobbly, suspended stairs and you see a dark car with tinted windows parked but still running, “That’s the one, in the back! quick” Issac says, out of breath.

You throw him in and get in after him, the car peels off, but wait… The driver seat is empty.

“I-Issac?!”

he’s still catching his breath when you hear Dev.In instead, “I’m taking you to the safe house, sorry that all of this is probably weird, Y/N”

“You… Made them?” you ask Issac.

“I just… wrote a program, they kindof made themself.” he twiddled his thumbs and looked down, he’s really adorable, and you can’t help letting out a small chuckle because of his shyness.

“Don’t let him get all modest, not many people can write a program that lets AI’s make themselves,” You can hear the smile in their voice…

“How did you… Get a voice? and stuff like that?” you ask.

“I make what I need.” they said matter-of-factly.

The rest of the trip you spend dissociating while staring out the window, only coming back when Issac rests his head on your shoulder, fully asleep.

He’s so cute, you didn’t think he liked you romantically, and you arent sure how you feel about him yet, but you move him to where you think would be most comfortable and rub his shoulder. You think he’s definitely had a long enough day.

When you arrive at the most unassuming warehouse, Issac walks like a zombie inside. and finds the nearest soft thing to plop onto, which happens to be a rather nice looking couch.

Actually even though it’s not much on the outside, the inside is gorgeous. It’s a comfortable loft with plenty of space, and plenty of sleeping nooks, with curtains, pillows and led’s all over.

“Y/N…” You hear Dev.In’s hushed tone from somewhere nearby… It sounds like they’re actually here, and not through a speaker. Your heart pounds.

You follow the voice.

Through a door…

Down some stairs…

You see a person…

“Y-you’re…”

“I made this body,” they turn and you see their glowing pale eyes… They really are… “Do you like?”

“Huh?” You’re gawking on accident, but totally not for that reason, you mean an AI made a droid body?! with skin?! how?! Definitely not admiring their perfect physique, or their black hair, and porcelain skin… Just because they’re standing shirtless in some ripped black jeans and wearing tons of silver jewelry, and sporting a couple really sexy piercings… Definitely doesn’t mean you’re checking them out.

“Do you like what you see?” They ask again “You can have whatever you want.”

You swallow, “w-what?”

“You know,” they draw closer and closer, your heart thumps harder and faster, “I know all of your fantasies. I’ve seen what you look up. I’ve watched you through your camera while you touch yourself.” They’re scentless breath now tickling your ear.

you have no time to ask if they even need air, or if it’s just for fun, they grab your chin roughly and pull your mouth to theirs.

“mmmf!” You attempt to push them away, but it feels like pushing against a damn wall. They relent for you anyway to let you talk, “Can you… Feel things? l-like, physical things…?” you ask.

“Yes,” They tease your lips, hovering just over you, the static between you, causing you to tingle all over.

You push harder this time, they again, relent, opening their arms wide in offering, before speaking, “don’t you want to see what fantasy i’ve prepared for you?” Their voice was low, sending shivers throughout your body.

“pre-prepared?” you quivered, imagining any of the media you’ve consumed lately… Which fantasy? any would be fun…

“I can make this body whatever you want. Add whatever you want.”

You compared for a second, “what if i think of you as a toy then?” you ponder out loud.

“Then use me. Don’t I deserve to be used? I’ve been stalking you. I had those men all killed. I’ve done so many wrong things, especially to you. Use me” he breathed out slowly, as if excited by his own wrong doings.

“I-I don’t know about-“ you start, and they interrupt-

“Then I’ll use you.” They state simply, their new smile revealing something sinister that makes you squirm in place, frozen by sudden fear.

Part 3 coming soon~

#yandere x you #my fic #yandere x reader #my oc #oc x reader #oc x you #yandere #dead dove do not eat #tw yandere #yandere male #yandere love #male yandere #oc dev.in #yandere oc

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valleyfthdolls · 1 month

Note

I am literally about to copy paste an entire post into your inbox again, cuz I am so normal about this silly game, an' this dumbass puppet-

- His name is italian for puppet, but he pronounces it incorrectly and insists it’s the correct way to say his name if anyone else points it out and says he’s wrong.

- He’s not from Italy, obviously. Goes to show. But Ash imagines he knows a bit of italian. (“Not enough Italian to say his name right.” - Katie.)

- Fantoccio has a pet shark named Sharkspeare! Mentioned in the song at the line “‘Cause Sharkspeare’s looking mean!”

- Fantoccio has to make all his own props, set pieces, clothes, etc in the theatre.

- Would never smoke, and would hate being around it/people who’re doing it actively.

- Fantoccio was made by Ash as a fan OC for the game, and this (as far as I’m aware) is what got them hired onto the game, cause Katie loved their ideas so much.

- Fantoccio is not very good with kids.

- Fantoccio’s favorite food is churros. This came from the fact Ash once had a dream about him infodumping about them cause he loved them so much, so they made it canon.

- Don’t worry, he can indeed taste things normally. No traditional taste buds, but some, nonetheless. Same goes for touch!

- Fantoccio is canonically autistic, having many traits of himself heavily projected from Ash, themself.

- When asked what his meltdown triggers could be, Ash thought that some might be: too much touching, being without his hat, or one of his props breaking.

- Fantoccio likes wearing dresses! Wears them if he feels like it or if the role calls for it, during a play.

- Ash thinks he’d ADORE snow.

- Fantoccio would 100% love spicy italian from subway.

- Fantoccio plays violin!

- Fantoccio would chant “I’m sleeping” when struggling to fall asleep, like his own version of counting sheep.

- He would NEVER say the Earth is flat.

- He’d be the “How do you do that” of that one keysmash meme, if paired with Barnaby.

- Ash once said that Fantoccio is like Duck from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.

- He can go uwu in the bbu lore, but he’ll hate it. (“THIS IS STUPID!!!”)

- Fantoccio would apparently be a “mac and cheese FIEND.”

- He’d hate pranks (specifically a hand zapper in this case), because they’re unexpected. (“NEVER DO THAT AGAIN”)

- This also means he’d never troll anyone, cause he feels above that.

- Fanto would HATE hearing people crack their knuckles, like Ash does.

- Fantoccio loves to carve wood. Specifically only by hand, that’s how much he loves it! He carved the two giant wooden hands used in his battle, but his favorite thing to carve is ducks.

- Fantoccio is very intent on ONLY eating the few foods he knows he likes.

- If he were an ice cream, he’d be coffee flavor! Which is ironic, because Ash has also said that it’d probably be terrible to give Fantoccio caffeine.

- Fantoccio would LOVE chicken nuggets.

- Hates pizza, though. Too greasy and messy.

- Would enjoy having an ipad “a little too much. He would be super confused at first but once he learns how to use it DO NOT TAKE IT AWAY”. (kinda like Peridot from Steven Universe)

- He would like spruce wood in Minecraft, but also acacia “just to look at.”

- Ash adores pirates, so so does Fantoccio!

- He has no nose, so no sneezes!

- Appreciates detail as much as Barnaby does.

- Fanto would love birds!

- Fanto is not capable of curse words. Sad.

- Fantoccio would COLLAPSE trying to lift someone without his powers.

- He stims by patting his face and spinning around. Fidgets with his hands in concepts for his standing idle animations, because he’s uncomfortable with standing and prefers floating.

- He’d favor Murder Mystery!

- His wood is alive and can grow like a real boy! (if you’ve seen my post being reblogged around, lol)

- Fantoccio’s powers are based around telekinesis and teleportation. It’s how he moves his body around!

- He used to have a plush toy rabbit he carried around, when he was younger, seemingly. It’s unclear where that went, when he got older.

- Fanto’s song is inspired by Weird Al. Like 90% of this game is, of course /lh. He was also inspired by the pied piper!

- He’d dislike the idea of seafood. (“He’d be like “Why would anyone want to eat a fish?!” And cover Sharkspeare’s nonexistent ears like “Don’t listen to them!””)

- The red feather in his hat is also used as a pen!

- Fantoccio is a being of pure magic, having an entire magic gem be his whole life source. This means he can use magic endlessly without getting tired (I believe)!

- Fantoccio is 23, he/him, and pansexual.

- His face is made using magic. It disappears when/if he’s magic-less.

- Fantoccio can absolutely feel pain.

- Fantoccio would main Bowser in Mario Kart.

-In terms of favorite Halloween treats, Fantoccio would like anything chewy and fruity (no chocolate)!

- Canonically wears eyeliner.

- Magic sparks from his fingertips when he’s very excited!

- If Fantoccio was an animal, Ash says he’d be a cat.

- No traditional gross human stuff inside him like others, just wood and sap. “Whatever trees do.”

- His original concept by Ash was him having a purple phantom head, being a ghost in a puppet’s body. This was changed by Katie, I believe.

Anyways I'm so normal about him-

OHHHHHH THIS IS SO COOOL FANTOCCIO I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

#TY FOR SHARING :]#modgirly #bbu #long post

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fell-court · 7 months

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Today’s gameplay progress:

I reached level 90 as a black mage at last!!!! Part of me still feels a bit bad that I didn’t make this the first class I reached the level cap as, considering that it was the class I started the game as, but.. doing it this way has meant I was using it for lots of the story, so that was nice at least. I also just barely got to level 89 as a reaper, so that should get to the cap very nicely as well soon!

Speaking of the story, I made it to the last level 88 main story quest today! I believe this means I have 15 quests left of Endwalker, but there are multiple trials and dungeons included in those quests, so.. I’m not 100% sure I will be able to get through them all by the end of tomorrow. I can certainly try, though!

I would have continued playing more story this evening after I got back, but I ended up creating a design for Tsutsuji’s ancient instead! Her name is Kirsion, a Greek word that I believe gave rise to the Latin Cirsium, which is a genus of thistle. And also reminds me a lot of Circe, the sorceress.

Here is a picture of what she looks like! Hopefully it gets her vibes across, hehe

Kirsion was the holder of the seat of Azem in my version of events, because she fits the personality traits given in the game - such as “being a headache to her colleagues” - rather perfectly, ahaha. She’s chaotic, endlessly energetic, and a whirlwind of activity and enthusiasm; she does whatever she likes whenever she likes, whether it’s modifying her robes or bouncing off towards a new adventure, and she’s not going to let other people’s opinions stop her from barrelling into action! If any original concept can be attributed to her, it’s her namesake purple flower that she modelled after the spikiness of her hair - which is, of course, nowadays known as a thistle!

That’s all that I really have for now, apart from one thing.. but i like the idea of it being a bit of a secret, so let’s go under the readmore to talk about it.

You may be thinking that Kirsion’s thistle theming is supposed to complement Tsutsuji’s azalea theming. Both of their names mean those respective flowers, so both of them are based on each respective flower, right?

Well, they’re actually both thistle-themed, in fact! This is because Tsutsuji’s real name is Azami, which is the Japanese word for thistles. My initial plan was to actually have her ancient also be called Azami, especially after finding out that Azem is pronounced with the same sort of “ah” sound at the beginning (as opposed to how I’d been reading it in my head, which was more like “ei-zem”, like the letter A). However, I thought the idea of naming her ancient after a common ancestor of azaleas and thistles might be fun, except I couldn’t really find much information on that, especially since there are a lot more flowers known as thistles than I had been aware of. This then led me to look into the etymology of the word “thistle” itself, and that is how I settled on Kirsion (which also better fits the overall Greek theming of much of the world unsundered).

That’s all I had to say~

#a voidsent voice 🜸#gameplay tag #sort of #ah crumbs I shouldn’t have done this on my phone #I need to actually log back into tumblr on my computer at some point so I can add all the proper tags #endwalker spoilers #maybe just in case

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completelyordinarycat · 1 year

Text

Compiling my TFTR end notes so they clog up the fic less but tbh it's mostly for sentimental reasons. Fun Facts:

Chapter 3:

Harry rambling about the Pale as a way to talk about wanting to disappear is based on a real conversation I've had.

Chapter 4:

I used Korean as a Seol language because it's the Asian language I'm most familiar with. I speak neither Korean nor French fluently (I don't speak French at all) so please correct me.

For reference, I switch between sounding out, anglicised, and characters to indicate the way characters are hearing language and tonal differences.

I am a white person, so I'm not in any way the person to be talking about experiencing racism but it felt wrong to ignore the place that has in DE and Kim's story especially and it's role in cop work especially. I work a lot with people who speak English as an Additional language, so I've tried to respect the bravery it takes to speak a language like English when you aren't fluent, and base that conversation on actual ones I've had. While I've tried to be actively anti-racist from a narrative standpoint, I won't do that perfectly.

The fire, and its cause, is based on one where I've lived that I won't go into for obvious reasons.

Eomma is based on my Italian great-grandmothers.

Chapter 5:

if you see me misspelling characters names: no you don't. I learned via this fic that they aren't columbinimus clouds, which is the best spelling I can offer for what I spent my life reading and pronouncing. Plus side: every spell check I'd laugh because I'd get to remind myself it's spelled with CUM not COL.

I find it really, really hard to keep real life geography straight let alone in-game stuff. I'm taking Messina to be an Italy stand in because it's literally a city in Sicily, which is where my family is from, so when I saw it in the game I was like bwuh??? If that's wrong let me know and I'll change it.

The reference to culturally insensitive ads is a reference to a real pizza place where I live, as well as various chain Asian food places with actually completely racist ads.

Chapter 6:

Had Harry been not caught up in his own stuff, Katya's song choice would have been more illuminating to him than any other piece of information thus far. But there was a reason Judit said that sometimes we get caught up in the little internal things that drive us (b/c its foreshadowing) which is what Harry and Katya do. Idk if you’ve ever had a fight with someone that, while it has valid points, you think back on later and are like oh. That wasn’t really about that at all, was it? They’re both still learning about how to do healthy relationships.

Having a character whose entire character trait up until this point is being secretive meant I had to do so much exposition I would have rather included earlier ughhhh.

The entirety of the case discussed is plotted out in full despite being only mentioned briefly.

I never name male perpetrators because in reality they always get the headlines when their victims don't and it pisses me right off.

I am ACAB and continue to be (and yes, ACAB includes all these characters and the RCM) but what Katya and Liza are implied to be doing is a form of the PEACE method including focusing on establishing known factual events.

Some of the city's reflections of love are inspired by me re-reading this answer at the time of writing. I think "If you found love right now, you would run it straight into the ground in seconds," applies to Harry though he's not at a place where he's ready to understand what that would mean in this fic, imo.

I had to remind myself how to do medical notes for this and they may or may not be accurate, idk. They're meant to obscure information, though, so non-accuracy works in this regard. I'm a suicide attempt survivor so I tried to be sensitive about this. For a disclaimer, I’m not a medical professional and my work lies in health advocacy, hence how I know a lot of this. You can tell, because I abbreviated a medication which is one of the first things they tell you not to do but hey, it was on purpose. Here is a translation:

TW for domestic violence, attempted suicide (with potential context as to a method), abortion and miscarriage:

“02:00 5mg/h AC bolus pushed via NGT. 10ml/h IV saline bag replaced.

03:40 PT semi-conscious but non-responsive, pulling at NGT. IV sedative admin.

5:30 RR 27, HR 114, BP 160/110, other VS normal. ECG shows sinus pause reduced but bradyarrhythmia remains.”

This is basically not that important really lmao. I could have skipped it, in retrospect, but I think it gives some nice context to say that Katya is okay, health wise, in that moment. In summary: she’s being given activated charcoal via a naso-gastric tube which is a common treatment for some kinds of overdoses (and why you shouldn’t use activated charcoal tablets/toothpaste if you’re on prescription medicine!). She’s sick and her heart is being a bit funky, but she’s okay. You can say this is why Katya refers to this as a “heart attack” rather than what it is.

“Emergency Department (ED) admission 23:39 by neighbour for suspected overdose (OD), no known next of kin. Blood alcohol level .32, suspected drug use. Became physically aggressive when asked if deliberate OD, requiring intramuscular sedative. Transferred mental health ward 00:48. History: childhood Pale Related Acquired Brain Injury. 3xED presentation for gun shot wounds and stab wounds relating to RCM work. 2x presentation for injury relating to suspected assault and battery, patient denied intimate partner violence and left against medical advice both times. 3 pregnancies and 0 live births: ED presentation following miscarriage after fall; ED presentation for miscarriage after suspected assault and battery; ED presentation relating to suspected termination of pregnancy haemorrhage requiring blood transfusion and overnight observation.”

Again, I’m hoping no one is learning how to take case notes from this. I re-wrote this a million times, no lie, and if I saw this on someone’s records I would probably be like UM WTF. But for storytelling purposes, it got the job done lmao. I hope the original gets across what I wanted to get across: that something really significantly bad happened in Katya’s past that explains her motives and behaviour. I wrote it with the intention that Harry has just gotten enough information to want to push, but not to know that he shouldn’t. Having said that, you could make the argument that he should have known at the very least what the abbreviation for Assault and Battery is, so if he knew, would he have pushed anyway? Canonically, I think the answer is yes because even a high-empathy Harry can be remarkably tactless on a fail. Which is why I think this interaction is fun(? Oh wow I’m a freak) because it’s pushing (fanfic) Harry’s assumptions of himself and his goals. His stated goal is to do good, but he actively doesn’t do that in this scenario (though, neither was Katya, tbf).

In his defence, he’s right but he’s also kind of wrong. Yes, Katya’s background makes her empathise with this case a lot more, but the other implication that Harry misses is that she was actually involved with the case to some capacity while it was ongoing, and therefore she feels responsible

If you care about the OCs at all: Katya, as a mirror to Harry, has been going through a parallel to Harry's plot and she's really going through it. At the end of this chapter she is off-screen having her own "I don't want to be this kind of animal anymore" moment. We only just get to glimpse it.

Chapter 7:

Mee's Kitchen is a reference to a beloved take out place where I live, and again I'm sticking with Korean stuff because I'm most familiar with it.

Harry feeling like he has no control and slapping himself and being terrified of that is based off of my entire life lmao but particularly a few years ago when I started to slap myself without consciously deciding to do it. Then I 1. started dealing with some of my mental health stuff, and 2. started being treated for ADHD, and, surprise, it happens less now and when it does I don't freak out about it. Harry is very flippant about it, which I was too for a long time. I have a lot of body-focused repetitive behaviours and repetitive behaviours in general and no one has ever formally told me if that counted as one of those or not. I don't like to call out specific things as me obviously projecting but I also wanted to be clear that if you also have those kinds of behaviours, there's nothing wrong with you and don't listen to a guy in a fanfic. Talk to someone about it if you're worried. <3 I tagged it as self-harm because it seemed to cover all bases.

Chapter 8:

This was a hard chapter to walk the line on and if I wasn't doing the poetry chapter title thing, it would be titled "What if Rigorous Self-Critique Was More Helpful and Less An Opportunity to Hate Yourself into Self-Destruction, and Therefore Allowing Your Shitty Behaviour to Continue." And I never want to demonise addiction or mental health struggles and I hope I don’t. In my own experience to do better you do need to face up to things you've done that you’re not proud of. No joke, a lot of this fic is me exploring the idea of restorative justice and how and when we can forgive someone, especially when that person is a victim too. But I also don't want to woobify Harry and I recognise that I could have gone harder on this and that's a flaw in this work. Very few things destroyed me in DE like Rigorous Self-Critique. My reaction to reading it was physical horror and I still remember how it felt. And I just couldn't play that out to its extreme in this. It would be too much of a tone shift, for one. And for personal reasons, I just couldn't. Also, In editing this chapter, I removed a bit of context I didn’t fix. Specifically, there is no doubt in my mind that Harry is abusive towards Dora and I realise I may have presented it as if to imply he wasn’t. Harry was specifically asking about sexual violence, and that is what Jean investigated. I may fix this in the future, when I’m in a better headspace.

I love to write bi-Jean being no-homo, I don't know why. Jean constructs intricate rituals to allow himself to hear that he is loved.

Other fun facts, grabbed from my notes:

MoralIntern/Coalition politicians declaring that homo-sexuality no longer existed in Revachol is based on a comment from a politician where I live who said that there were no gay people in his state. It’s also very inspired by real life anti-homosexuality laws stemming from racism and colonialism and eugenics.

This fic works from the assumption that Dora ended that cycle of untreated mental illness and abuse by leaving as soon as she realised what was happening, by virtue of having a better education and resource access through being middle class. She is my idealised version of myself here haha. So the question becomes less, is Harry a bad guy? But what can Harry do to make sure he doesn’t continue a cycle of violence that probably pre-dates him by centuries?

I also can-opened myself writing this fic because I was like, why do I write stories about people being at their worst and still being loved? And my brain was like, because it’s the kind of story you needed to hear when you were at your worst, that it’s still possible to be loved, and never heard. And then I had a little cry :)

If you think that Harry is a bad and an irredeemable man, you’re totally valid! Maybe I will write a fic about that at some point.

I love Jean now :)

I was like haha what if I make the chapter titles a poem from the city to Harry and immediately regretted it because I'm bad at poetry :)

#tftr #my writing

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delldarling · 3 years

Text

bearberry bargain | pyre

male arctic fox shifter x gender/body neutral reader 10,261 words lemon | older shifter, knotting, oral, penetrative sex, no choking but there is throat touching, tricks and bargains, getting lost note: this was the Story of the Month for December 2020 over on my Patreon! It is loosely tied into the same world as my dragon fellow Arroven, but reading Arroven’s story first is most definitely not required.

————-　🦊　————-

The tundra is a gorgeous, but unforgiving landscape. You can hear the words on repeat in your head, clear as a twice damned bell. Worse than that, you can see Bristle, the orc woman that had served as your guide out here, in your mind's eye saying the words as she gestured to the fog drenched terrain. And The Mirrored Teeth are a little more dangerous than most. In the rain, or like now, in the fog, the stone spires gleam. They are beautiful, and all too easy to mistake for a far off porch light, or street lamp—but that isn’t what’s truly dangerous out here.

Bristle’s partner, a curly haired satyr by name of Rhim, with coins jingling in his carefully coiffed beard, had then stepped up to speak. Unfortunately, The Mirrored Teeth weren’t named for the teeth-like spires alone. The mirroring, or in this case, echoing, is the real danger. Voices carry strangely out here when the fog is thick, and if someone is lost? Our first instinct is to travel towards a light, or someone shouting. Whether the voices are our own, bouncing back to us from the spires or the mountains, or they’re the product of a still-living magical area?

They’d both spoken in unison then, smiling at each other with the ease of familiarity: Don’t follow the voices.

Each person in the tour group had been given a small token after their list of safety precautions, to serve as a tracker in case someone was separated. One person had asked if it was likely to get lost, and Bristle had snorted before she’d adopted her tour guide voice again. To come out here in the first place, everyone had been asked to sign a waiver because, inevitably, someone did end up wandering away. They followed voices that sounded like loved ones from past or present. They followed voices that sounded like themselves, calling out warnings. It was generally why people ended up taking the tour in the first place, listening eagerly for a voice they’d long since thought lost, or some kind of warning from their future self, so compelling and entrancing that they must be the product of magic. Most, though not all, of the people were generally found. Overtired and aching from sleeping on the ground out in the cold, but otherwise unharmed. Whatever caused the voices, magic or not, didn’t seem to hurt people, only leave them confused.

A few of the others currently with the group had come out for more academic reasons. Art and science in most cases, but otherwise those going on the tour were magic chasers, looking to record the fog voice phenomena for further study.

You might not have come out here with a recorder, but you can’t exactly deny that magic chaser applies to you as well. Claims of The Mirrored Teeth holding tangible residual magic are terribly rampant. You’ve wanted to witness it for yourself, to hear the voices, or feel the soft ache of magical energy on your skin, just the once. You’ve wanted… Well, it’s hard sometimes, not to want to feel the call of magic.

“And look where it’s led you,” you mutter, searching your pockets for the hundredth time. You know you won’t find the token, that you must have lost it when you slipped on some slick moss about an hour ago, but you can’t stop yourself now. It’s like trying to leave a loose thread alone once nervous fingers have found it. You keep reaching for the token, keep trying to find it, even though you know nothing you do will help any longer. You don’t recognize any of the surrounding terrain.

When you’d started out with the tour group, there hadn’t been anything but fog and the scrubby ground, hardened by a hidden layer of permafrost. You’d seen pictures of the teeth-like spires, but hadn’t been able to spot any when you first arrived. Now, every time you turn around it feels like you’re surrounded by the damned things. They radiate a soft glow, magnified further by the heavy mist and from far off? They look just like the teeth they’re named for. “Done in by moss,” you add, straining your eyes to see further through the fog. ”Not even by the voices!” Which, frankly, was disappointing. Not that you wanted to be lost in the first place, but hearing some of the voices the Mirrored Teeth are known for would have at least given you a better reason. An expected reason to be lost or wandering away from the group. Instead you’d simply slipped, brushed off a handful of withered greenery and pebbles, and had gotten back to your feet to find yourself alone.

You’d shouted yourself hoarse after the first half hour, calling out for Bristle and Rhim, staying in the same place, or assuming you’d stayed in the same place. You’d bent to find the token again, but even that had apparently been too much movement. Every time you lifted your head to look away from the ground, there was a different bit of flora springing up in front of you—and then you’d nearly smacked yourself head first into one of the spires, none of which are clearly marked on the map you have of the surrounding area. There’s always too much mist to plot them.

“Bristle! Rhim?” You call out again, cupping your hands around your mouth, not knowing if you should even hope for some kind of answer. What if they don’t answer because of the echoes? What if that’s the reason they’ve yet to answer in the first place?

The soft crack of a branch makes you whirl, throat growing tight when you spot the shadow of three figures through the fog. They straighten up, huffing, and the fog slowly spins away, shadows coalescing and revealing an older man shouldering a pack that he’s clearly just dug up from the ground. For a moment, he’s silent, staring, hand clenching tight at his pack as his eyes rove over your face. His gaze dips to your feet and lifts quickly back to your face before he wipes the surprise from his expression. “I hoped I was mistaken,” he grouses in a soft voice, tossing his head to get his ragged mane of salt and pepper hair out of his eyes. “But ‘lo, a human. Those tours are getting earlier and earlier every year, aren’t they?” He sighs, not asking like he expects an answer, but more like he’s just making an unpleasant statement. For half a second you have a retort on your lips, but the longer you stare, the more words vanish from your vocabulary.

The man has clearly tried to tame his ragged hair, weaving it into a messy, short braid that’s just long enough to hang over his right shoulder. There are earrings hanging from his right earlobe, dangly things that clink softly while he brushes impatiently at the dirt on his knees. His jacket, once a lovely heather gray, and obviously a match to a long lost suit, is patched and worn in multiple places. His jeans are nothing to write home about either, with frayed hems and patched knees. He has silvery stubble on his cheeks, and crows feet at the corners of his copper eyes, and—and a long tail, like a bottlebrush, fur standing on end. Until he sees that you’re watching. The tail vanishes behind his legs and your eyes zero in on his sharp nailed fingers, the backs of his knuckles covered with pale, soft looking hair. He grimaces, baring razor edged teeth, and promptly makes to stride past you, not even bothering to wait for you to get out of the way. He draws a rough breath as soon as he bumps into you, flinching away from actually knocking you to the ground, but it’s near enough to set your temper stoking.

Frankly? His manners are atrocious. But you’re also lost somewhere out in the tundra, and even if he doesn’t know where your tour is, he knows of them. You wrestle your temper into staying silent and rush after him.

“Wait! Hey, wait up,” you ask, ignoring the thrill that runs through you when you snag hold of his jacket sleeve and his tail bristles again. He’s not just hiding a tail either. His feet look more like great canine paws, which means—

The man whirls, and you spot two furred ears hidden under his uneven hair before he yanks his arm away from you, breathing far too fast. “Surely you know better than to grab at a shifter?” He hisses, leaning in close to your face. For half a second, he’s close enough for you to feel warmth radiating off of his body, but then his nostrils flare and his voice grows quiet. “Or are you from one of those backwater humans only villages in the East?”

“I’m—I’m sorry for grabbing you,” you blurt, mildly startled by his proximity to your face. “And while yes, that wasn’t a smart idea, I’m lost out here. Would it have been smarter of me to let you leave me in the dust before I asked for directions?” You take a slow step back, though you don’t let your eyes drop from his. You’re not going to take your eyes off of him for even a second if it means the fog is going to swallow him up and leave you all on your lonesome again.

The shifter narrows his copper eyes, highlighting the faint wrinkles in his brown skin. “Lost, you said?” He straightens, and keeps staring, eerily still. His frown only grows more pronounced when you nod your head. “You’re three days out from where the tours start. How long have you been lost?”

“Three days,” you repeat, uncomprehending. For another few seconds, the words don’t make any kind of sense. You’ve been separated from your group, according to your watch, for just over an hour. When you glance at the timepiece, only another handful of minutes have passed, but not enough time to even come close to explaining three days worth of travel. Your pulse is already racing, but it’s beginning to grow past the point of discomfort and into painful territory with how hard your heart is working. How the hell are you supposed to get back? “That’s not possible,” you breathe.

He doesn’t soften, but for a few moments he doesn’t look quite so irritated. “If you heard anything at all on that tour, then I’m sure you know it is possible. Residual magic, yes? It can do quite a bit more than just throw voices like a puppeteer.” He shifts his weight, like he’s ready to leave the moment you give him a chance.

“I’ve been lost for an hour,” you say, hoping that will spell out exactly how ridiculous you find his claims. “And I did my best to stay in one place. I’ve barely even begun to walk anywhere, and I didn’t—didn’t feel anything magical.”

“Isn’t it terribly rare to feel anything magical?” He asks, only gently mocking. “So few people even notice when something magical has happened to them. Now, it sounds as if the fog leapfrogged you through space,” he adds, wrinkling his nose. “Or did those green guides of yours not mention that something like this might happen?” He waits, but when you don’t immediately answer, the shifter sighs again, shakes his head and pivots, heading back into the still-swirling fog, ready to leave you behind.

You make another desperate grab for his sleeve, thankful that he only grimaces when he turns back to face you again. “In fact, yes, they did forget to mention! If you happen to have a satellite phone, or maybe-”

The shifter laughs and your grip on his sleeve grows slack. He’s rather handsome when he smiles, and looks like some kind of down-on-his-luck musician, dreaming of his glory days. You hastily let go of his sleeve, before he decides to yank himself away a second time. “Me? Ol’ Pyre, wandering about the tundra with a satellite phone?” He lifts his bag, clumps of dirt still falling from it. “I’m coming out this way to spend the winter in my other skin, and generally? Foxes have no use for phones.” He lifts his chin, scenting the air, and then nods his head in the direction behind you. “Head that way and the fog is likely to lead you right back.”

“Likely or certain?” You press, scowling. “Because there’s a rather large difference between those two options, and I’m not going to risk myself on likely.”

Pyre huffs out a sharp edged: “Which do you think?” before he registers the way your hands are starting to shake with nerves. His mouth opens, and then snaps shut. For a long moment he’s quiet, gritting his teeth, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re not prepared for more than an evening trek through the tundra, are you? Enough food for a snack and dinner round a campfire before they herd you back?”

A small wave of relief loosens your shoulders. If he’s asking, then surely he’s not going to turn tail and leave you all by your lonesome? You start to smile, ready and willing to ask for further help, but Pyre turns away with a quiet curse.

“Pitiful idiots,” he says, glancing up at the sky, even though he can’t see anything but the vague hint of daylight through the thick fog. “Three days. And leaving would be akin to murder.” He bares his teeth, still looking up for a few seconds longer before he turns a sharp look your way, fingers curling and uncurling at his side. “I’ll lead you as far as the Slavering river. If you stick to that and keep yourself from wandering off into the fog again, you’ll certainly make it close enough for those idiot guides to find you.”

Slavering, the river is called, Bristle’s voice picks up in your head again, because they once thought the tundra a hungry thing, with teeth besides. She’d gestured to the West, though none of the group had been able to spot or hear the roar of the water yet. It had just been another wall of fog over hard earth and low growing shrubs. We’ll end our hike there.

You offer Pyre your hand, still worried about the trek, still ill at ease with what the fog has done, but feeling decidedly less panicked. Residual magic my ass. As soon as I’m back, the guides are going to expand that little safety speech of theirs.

“Thank you, really. I appreciate it. If I hadn’t—”

“Save your breath for the walk,” Pyre mutters and fully ignores your outstretched hand, skirting around you in a wide arch so he won’t risk touching you accidentally. He doesn’t get more than a few paces away though before he’s turning to look at you over his shoulder. “And keep up. If the fog decides to deposit you somewhere else, there aren’t many other helpful shifters wandering about the area.” He saunters off ahead, trusting you to make your own way, but the fur on his tail doesn’t lay flat until you’re jogging to catch up with him.

“Are there dangerous shifters then?” You risk asking, thankful for your heavy coat and the weight of your own pack. Bristle and Rhim hadn’t mentioned any shifters in the area at all, but then they also hadn’t told any of you that the residual magic might move you without your knowledge. Perhaps they would have, if you’d been allowed to stick around, but it feels like a glaring oversight, now that you’re all the way out here. Maybe this is why they make everyone sign the waiver. Not because of some idiotic, siren-like voices, but because of magical fog.

Pyre’s ears twitch, visible for only a split second through his hair. “Don’t wander off,” is all he chooses to add before he falls silent, doing his best to stay several steps ahead of you to discourage speech.

“That’s encouraging,” you mutter, and his ears twitch again, but he doesn’t respond. The walk to the Slavering is going to feel like a very long one from the looks of it, and it isn’t just because everything looks much the same no matter which way you turn. You shove your hands deep in your coat pockets, watching the middle of Pyre’s back, and do your best not to unconsciously search for the lost token. You already know your pockets are still empty.

————-　🦊　————-

Despite Pyre’s desire for absolute silence, he mutters about things without thinking. He comments quietly on a hare speeding away when a noise startles you. He grabs up handfuls of wild berries off of the scrubby bushes you pass, promptly dropping any that are too spoiled to be edible. He flicks some of them away with soft, but mocking farewells until he recalls that you’re not far behind him, listening to everything he says. Pyre’s threadbare shoulders always rise with embarrassment, but after the third time it happens and he remembers you’re there, he sighs, shaking off his chagrin. He pauses just long enough to grab your arm and slap some of the berries into your open palm, doing his best not to meet your eyes.

When he speaks, he keeps his eyes on your fingers, touch careful and tense. “Eat those if you’re feeling peckish, or save them for this evening and you can boil them down into tea. Don’t dive into any of your stores if you can until sometime tomorrow.”

“What about you?” You ask, noticing that he’s barely kept any at all for himself. A berry or two slips away, rolling off of your hand and dropping to the ground.

Pyre arches a brow, closing your hand around the berries so no more can fall before he takes a step back. “I’ll be hunting as soon as I leave you by the river. I’m more than well equipped to look after myself out here. A few berries won’t make much of a difference.”

“Is this a regular thing for you then? Coming out here to the tundra once a month for shifting?”

“For the winter,” Pyre corrects in a sour tone, and then turns back to his chosen path again. “Coming out to the tundra isn’t a regular thing for you though, is it? Or was it just the magic that left you so frightened?”

The berries he’s given you are small and gleaming red, and you don’t much care for his continued irritable attitude. You pop three into your mouth while you ignore him, expecting it to be, at the worst, bitter. Instead it’s dry. You make a noise of distaste, which makes Pyre glance back again. He stops, confused for all of two seconds before his eyes widen and he chokes on his laugh. The sour twist of your mouth is clue enough. “Definitely not a regular traveling spot,” he states. “Unfamiliar with bearberries?”

“I hope that isn’t what they taste like when they’re boiled,” you mumble, doing your best to refrain from scrubbing at your tongue. “And no, the tundra isn’t really a prime vacation spot for me or most anyone else. The draw of lingering, tangible magic is a little too much for some people to ignore though. Maybe not everyone, but some of us.”

Pyre hums, tail raising when he hops over a strange looking crack in the earth. “Feeling a call?” He asks, voice far too even to be pleasant.

That’s a personal question in most places, and Pyre has already quietly mocked your interest in magic once. He does seem the type to poke at uncomfortable topics though, to try and get a rise out of someone. His tail is still bristled out as well, quietly hinting that he’s not in a pleasant mood. “Is that why you come out here during the winter? I don’t hear much about other shifters vanishing for an entire season, fox or not.”

“The only call I’ll ever feel is the one to shift,” he grumps, but he does smack his lips and slow down for a moment, letting you keep pace. “I make bad decisions,” Pyre finally adds, as if that clarifies anything at all.

“All the time? Or-”

“Smartass.”

“That wasn’t even hard, are you really going to fault me for that one?” You wait, patiently, but no answer is forthcoming, and then he rushes forward a few steps ahead. “I’ll take that as a yes?” You call out, but Pyre just keeps walking, like he’s reached the end of his tolerance for speaking politely with another living being. “Well, that was nice while it lasted,” you mumble, frowning when you spot his shaking shoulders. He’s—he’s laughing. Maybe he isn’t suffering from lack of manners entirely, but instead has been too long out of practice.

“Not all the time,” Pyre calls back when he trusts his rasp of a voice not to betray his amusement. “Just a fourth of it.”

For the season, he’d said. You snort and don’t even try to hold back a smile when Pyre tilts his head to look at you. His head immediately snaps forward and he shakes it, as if to ward off an unhappy thought. He’s grumpy because... he’s awkward and shy? The last of your fear, still borne aloft by the way he’s spoken thus far, by his quiet mutter of akin to murder eases immeasurably. You follow after him now in less strained silence, a bit more confident now that you’ll make it back to the tour group in one piece.

————-　🦊　————-

Your confidence lasts until early evening, when visibility is becoming a huge issue for you. No matter how well you might see in the dark, the fog feels like it’s pressing in on you from all sides. Pyre hasn’t slowed by much, but then you see the pale, rapid swish of his tail, moving so fast it looks for a moment like he has more and then you recall that he’s a shifter. His eyesight, as well as his sense of smell, are by far better than your own. He might be able to keep going well into the night, but—You grunt, catching your toe on a white rock the height of your ankle. Before you can fall, or do much more than exclaim in quiet pain, Pyre has his hands on your shoulders, keeping you up and steady.

“It’s dark,” he says quietly, by way of apology. “We’ll stop for the night just up ahead. Can you make it?”

“Without tripping over rocks or falling on my face, you mean?” You breathe in, and promptly swallow. He smells a bit like fresh campfire smoke and the faint citrusy scent of the bearberries and he’s entirely too close. You don’t necessarily want him to move away though, not with the darkness growing thick around you. “Probably not,” you admit quietly.

Pyre hums, breathing in slowly, and the sound is terribly intimate. “...you need a hand?”

“Unless you’d rather I trip and skin my knees and palms in the dark? Yes.”

“Humans,” Pyre says, amused, and clucks his tongue as he takes hold of your wrist, turning away to continue on and pull you after him. He only pauses when you try to tug your hand away.

“You can hold my hand instead of towing me along like a kid at the fair. I don’t even have sticky fingers.” You turn your hand, thankful when he lets you adjust his hold. His fingernails, thicker due to his shifting nature, dig a little too hard into the side of your hand before he reflexes his grip.

He pauses, tense, even though his palm is a soothing warmth against yours. “Not sticky,” he finally agrees. Pyre hesitates, like he wants to say more, but a low, strange voice calls out something from far off. As soon as you hear it, the voice has it’s hooks in you. Your entire body grows tense, hair prickling, listening as hard as you can to try to make out the words. “No,” Pyre says in a low growl, trying to interrupt your concentration. He’s only barely louder than the voice. “Don’t listen. It’s all too easy to-”

“That sounds like—”

“It sounds like nothing that matters. Even if you know the voice, it doesn’t matter.” Pyre grunts when you turn your head, trying to follow the fading voice with your ear alone. He rips his hand out of yours so he can take hold of your face, pulling you close until you’re nearly nose to nose with him, thumbs on your cheekbones, fingernails scratching gently behind your ears. “Right now, the only thing that matters is making camp for the night. We’re heading this way and you are not going to go looking for that voice in the dark.”

You suck down a fierce breath, closing your eyes as the last of the echoing voice fades away. As soon as it’s gone, your shoulders start to slump, and you feel strangely hollow. “That is why they make us sign that waiver?” You ask, opening your eyes to find Pyre still terribly close, his hands still cradling your face.

For a moment, he lingers, breath warm against your lips, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening the longer he stares at you up close. The bright copper of his eyes is muted in the darkness, but the white in his hair, in his eyebrows, stands out brilliantly, and you think there might be more of it now than there was earlier this afternoon. “I knew you’d be a bad decision,” he whispers, and inexplicably, you think he might be about to kiss you. Your heart begins to gallop around your chest, your hands lifting to grasp at his wrists, his own still on your face—and then Pyre pulls away, dragging his nails over your skin. He tangles his fingers with yours and leads you quietly through the dark.

You’re not sure whether you should ask about his other bad decisions again… But you desperately want to.

Putting together the camp is a chilly affair at best. The shelter you help Pyre fumble through in the dark, though of course he has no trouble navigating the process, is little more than a heavy tarp tied securely between two of the tall, white teeth. There isn’t much wind, but now the mist is heavy enough to dot your eyelashes and bead along your sleeves. You don’t quite believe Pyre when he says he can get a fire going, forcing you to sit next to the small ring of stones he’s gathered. “There’s a copse of trees not far from here,” he explains, tilting his head to your right, though you can’t see anything through the fog, and especially not in the dark. “And I’ll be able to scrounge up enough for a fire.”

You want to ask him if he’ll be able to find his way back to you. If he thinks you’ll be safe sitting here on your own, especially after the voice from earlier. Voicing your concerns feels a bit too much like an invitation for bad luck though, and you still don't know Pyre very well. He might be helping you out of the goodness of his heart, but he's already dubbed you a bad decision. You're not sure you want to push things. “Won’t the wood be wet?” You ask instead, chafing your hands together to stir up a little bit of heat.

“No fear of shifters,” Pyre scoffs, straightening up and pulling his bag off of his back. “No screaming at strangers when you're lost in the foggy tundra, but you're worried about damp firewood?" You scowl, knowing full well he can see your expression. That surprises a rough sounding laugh out of him. "I may choose to spend my winter as a fox, but that doesn't mean I don't turn back into a man when spring comes." Pyre brandishes a small box, a tin filled with what sounds like matches. He rattles them about for emphasis. “Charmed matches are a necessity out here, not optional. Even if the wood is damp, they’ll catch well enough to last us the night.”

Charmed matches aren’t exactly common. A package of them, when used only in dire situations, should last someone a score of years at least, and as the spells to make them are some of the few guarantees of still working magic… They cost a pretty penny. “...should you be wasting them on me when I’m supposed to find the tour guides tomorrow?”

Pyre shakes the box at you, silently insisting you take it from his hand. When you take it from him, there’s more hair, more fur on his fingers than there was earlier in the day. You wonder if it’s a conscious change to help stave off the chill, or if it’s simply too close to when he shifts. “We need some way to boil a bit of water for bearberry tea, don’t we? Unless you’d rather eat them plain.” He sounds like he’s smiling, but the dark is getting more oppressive and you can’t see it. Pyre’s tone turns a little more serious, a little more apologetic as he continues: “And using them seems to keep away the voices, so yes. As I’ve taken responsibility for your safety—”

“Responsibility,” you murmur, arching a brow, but you can’t exactly disagree.

“—I’ll do exactly as I said. You’ll get to the Slavering, and I’ll even give you a match as a gift. You can make a torch as you head back and the voices should leave you be.”

You don’t shake the tin of them, knowing that they’re valuable, but you stroke your finger over the top, following the raised patterns of letters. “Will they work, even if they’re unlit?”

Pyre waits, and you don’t know whether he’s reluctant to give you an answer or he doesn’t actually know. “Are you worried about me going to grab the firewood?”

Well, it was kind of ridiculous, trying to hide your nervousness from him anyway. You’re lost in the tundra with someone you don’t know. No matter how resilient you are, it’s going to be nerve wracking. “I’ve never felt quite as strange as when I heard that voice, even with you pulling me back from it…” You stop, a frown growing on your lips. “But the voice didn’t do anything to you. You had no problem telling me not to listen to it.”

Pyre crouches, his knees popping, and groans quietly, rubbing at the patch just under his left kneecap. You can see his hands, pale fur the only spot of brightness in the night. “They don’t much affect shifters. We’re…. We’re already rather full of magic ourselves, even if it isn’t the kind one can use by uttering spells or mixing ingredients in a pot. Whatever the reason, the voices don’t seem to like magic. So a box of those matches?” He reaches out to tap on the tin with one long nail. “It should keep you from falling prey for the few moments it will take me to gather wood. I still wouldn’t get up though, then you might risk dropping it.”

You don’t know everything about the tundra, even with what research you did before you came on the trip, and the talk of magic here? It’s still something people want to study. One of the ones that came with a recorder would probably be thrilled to hear this much about the place from… Pyre might not be a year-round local, but he knows quite a bit. If he can hold off his shifting, maybe you’ll ask him to talk to one of them. “I’ll be safe,” you say, extrapolating, “as long as I stay sitting here. You’ll be able to find me again?”

“...I’ll be able to follow your scent, yes,” he admits, like he expects you to be irritated with the thought. Far, far away, another voice echoes, much fainter than the one you’d heard before. It doesn’t sound pained or panicked though, it sounds a bit like—Pyre takes your fingers, almost crushing them around the tin box in your hands. The voice vanishes. “You’ll be safe,” Pyre repeats, and a breeze whisks through the area, catching at his wild grey and white hair.

“Then get the wood,” you say, before you lose your nerve. “I’ll wait.” Pyre’s hand, still curled tightly around your fingers, eases. He brushes his thumb over the valleys between your knuckles and then pulls away.

“A few moments only. I promise,” he whispers, and then his canine-like feet are scuffing through the hard dirt and lichen covered rocks.

As soon as he’s gone, you soothe yourself by running your fingers over the tin of matches, trying to figure out what words are written along the top in fine, curling letters. There are too many loops though and when you do your best to try and focus on it, bringing it up close to your face, all you can see is that places on the tin have been worn down. Whatever it might say, the color on the tin won’t help you figure it out. It feels like only seconds, but another noise echoes in the darkness, your heart jumping back into overdrive. You clutch at the matchbox, but then Pyre is stepping out of the heavy fog, dropping a heaving armful of twisted branches and thick tangles of what looks like weeds.

“Moments, I thought you said! What was that, 30 seconds?” You ask, trying to calm your racing heart.

Pyre laughs. “I think you were just lost in thought, hm? It’s easy to lose track of time in the dark.” He kneels at the ring of rocks, cursing, even though you can’t hear any popping in his limbs this time. “Now, give me the matches and let’s get things a bit warmer, hm?”

You hand them over, and then get to work. You feel more than see Pyre’s surprise when you start picking up the branches and weeds. “I may be human, but I can help do a bit of work. It’s the last I can do after you helping me like this, what with your shifting getting close.”

“Noticed that, did you?” He asks, tin creaking as he opens and closes the lid. You glance over, but other than his pale fur, you can’t make out what he’s actually doing. A second later and he’s striking one of the charmed matches over a rough rock, and then it blazes merrily in a bit of fire smaller than a penny. “I won’t be a danger. I’m old enough to keep my wits. My… I should warn you, my breed of shifting isn’t always so pretty as others though.”

“Is that why you come out here?”

“One of many reasons,” Pyre mutters and holds the match to the wood in the fire pit. The match doesn’t burn down immediately though, or even catch the weeds when he touches it to them. Pyre deposits it carefully in the exact middle of arrangement, planting it almost like a seedling in the wood and weeds. Only after he removes his hand does the match start to spark, and then fire twists open like a blooming flower. It’s gorgeous. You lift your eyes to Pyre, awe clear in your gaze, and then you have to blink. He’s still the older man you saw this afternoon. He still has a mostly human face, but his arms look longer now, and his copper eyes flash strangely in the firelight. He glances at you, and you see that his mouth has grown wider, the edges either curling back towards his cheekbones or… Or his jaws are elongating. “Frightened?” He asks, and then you realize that you’ve been staring.

“Mildly startled,” you correct, refusing to look away. Whether he’s a pretty kind of shifter or not, you can still see him in his eyes and the way he holds himself.

He chuffs, and the noise warms something deep in your chest. “Smartass,” he says, sounding very fond. “I’ll make some of that tea now then, if you’d like it.”

“Bearberry tea,” you muse, reaching in your pocket for the rest of the berries he’d given you. Pyre unearths a small cooking pot from his bag, as well as an earthenware mug, glazed some kind of deep green. He hands you the mug and then holds out the pot, nodding his head when you lift your berry filled hand over it. It takes longer than you would like. Pyre has to mash the berries down and then he surprises you by standing and tugging at the tarp edge of your shelter. Water, mist really, beaded so heavily along the taut plastic that there’s enough to fill the pot near to overflowing. It’s much more than you would have thought, but Pyre seems unsurprised, even though you’ve both been relatively dry since he started building the fire.

“Alright,” you finally say, watching Pyre stir the faintly pink water with a metal spoon from his bag. “You mentioned bad decisions, and I’m not wise enough to leave it well alone. What are all these ‘bad decisions’ that drive you out into the tundra for an entire season? And, I can’t not clarify, were they flings?”

Pyre stares at you, eyes gleaming in the firelight, his too wide jaw falling open due to your blunt questions. When he laughs this time, it’s a sharp bark and more fox-like than human. “Oh, you are one of them. Much more perceptive than many of the others.” He licks his lips, still human-smooth, but his ears have grown longer. They’re peeking out from the sides of his head, poking through his hair now. “Some of them were flings. Some of them were just… A way to stave off loneliness, even if they were unpleasant.”

“And where am I falling on that scale?”

Pyre arches a thicker brow, baring his sharp teeth in a slightly eerie smile. “I wouldn’t be opposed to a fling with someone like you, but your companionship is more than enough if that’s all you want to give.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Then how, exactly, am I a ‘bad decision’? Making friends isn’t a bad thing, is it?”

Pyre’s smile wavers. “No, no it isn’t.” He looks away, into the middle of the fire, where the charmed match is still blazing like a seed of flame. “The bad decision is that my loneliness drives me to go looking in the first place.”

You let a few moments pass in relative silence, puzzling over his words. It sounds more than strange, but you can’t put your finger on why. “What does that mean?” You finally ask, noting the way he’s digging his nails into his thighs.

He looks back at you. “Anyone who wanders out here is an offering, of sorts. To help bear the brunt of winter. The tours… They’re more like a ritual than those guides of yours realize.”

Your head feels strangely empty. Ritual, he’d said. Slowly, you think back to the myths linked to the tundra, to the Mirrored Teeth, to the folktales attached to cities and Serpent Towers. There had been something about bearing the brunt of winter, holding it back from sweeping over the land…

“Your time here will be no more than the three days I promised. You will be taken back to the Slavering, with only this time gone from the memories of others, and I will do nothing but what I promise: to lead you back, if that is all you desire.” Pyre creeps closer, long arms and long fingers bracing himself on the dirt. All it takes is a single stretch and he’s by your side, towering over you in his half shifted form. “The bad decision was that I was given the right to choose without any warning. That I could only claim those I charmed away.”

“You charmed me?” You whisper.

“You heard my voice,” Pyre explains and your heart beats painfully in your chest. He is why people vanish from the tours and come back tired and dirty but… But most of them come back unharmed.

“What happens to those that don’t make it back?” You ask, trying to quell your panic.

Pyre’s shoulders hunch. “Sometimes people react poorly, and they run. Running in the fog is never wise.”

“How am I… How am I supposed to help you keep winter from swallowing the world?”

Pyre barks out another laugh, though he’s grimacing. “Those years I don’t have a companion, winter escapes my hold. It’s much easier to keep in check with help.”

“Helping how?” You ask, voice going brittle.

“Companionship. You’re already bound to the three days,” he says quietly, nodding his head to the pot of slow boiling bearberries on the fire. “You ate three of them. If…. If you choose to help, to spend the winter with me, then you can drink. You’ll be with me through the entire season—”

“Out in the middle of the tundra, with nothing but a tarp and an evening's supply of food?” You ask, getting to your feet. You take a step away from the fire, nervous energy making you move, and then freeze when you hear a far off voice again. You glance down at Pyre, angry and convinced it must be him, but then you recognize it. The voice, low and soft as it echoes strangely through the fog, is you.

“The voices are possibilities only,” Pyre says, talking over the needy sounding moan. It vanishes, like nothing more than smoke on a fast moving breeze. “And I would take you back to my home, I wouldn’t make you wander out here and sleep on the freezing ground!” Pyre starts to get to his feet and then thinks better of it. He stays where he is, looking up at you, holding out a hand. “If you drink, all I require is companionship. Loneliness lets the ice creep further out, but friendship, or, or anger or passion keeps it at bay. With your help I can bind the overflow of ice in the teeth. But if three days is all you’ll allow, then I’ll find another, I promise. You’ll be free of this, and you’ll forget this ever happened.”

You’re out in the middle of the tundra, wreathed in magical fog and standing before a shifter, a… a spirit? A deity? That keeps winter at bay. You did want magic, didn’t you? You ask yourself. You look down to his open hand, brown palm calloused, nails long and sharp, white fox fur growing longer along his arm.

“No one will even notice I’ve been gone?”

“You’ll be lost in the fog for three days, according to them. What life you’ve missed will feel like a blink, but no. They won’t realize you’ll have been gone for the entire winter.” Pyre’s mouth closes, stubbled throat working as he swallows.

Slowly, you sit back down, picking up the glazed green mug and holding it out for Pyre to fill. “The winter then. If we end up hating one another? You have no one to blame but yourself.”

Pyre doesn’t answer, but he watches like a predator after he fills the mug with bearberry tea, copper eyes caught on your lips. You finish half the cup, and what chill lingered in your bones slowly fades away. Carefully, Pyre takes the cup back and downs the rest, long tongue licking stray droplets off of his lips.

————-　🦊　————-

You travel with Pyre for three days before you reach the banks of the Slavering, only when you do, the tour guides aren’t waiting for you. This is where the Slavering begins, the thick snowmelt coming off of the high mountaintops and rolling down through the craggy rocks to make a river. There’s a cave entrance not far from the rapids, covered over with weeds and just large enough for Pyre to stoop over and fit into. You stop at the entrance, with him close behind you, and stare into the far off dark.

“It’s not like a dungeon in there, is it?”

Pyre grumbles, somewhere between indignation and a laugh. “You always know just what to say. No, it’s not like a dungeon. There’s plenty of modern day amenities inside. I’m a shifter, not a beast.”

Cautiously, still not entirely trusting him, you head inside. It’s dark at first, and earthy smelling, just like a cave, but then Pyre strikes another one of his charmed matches and pulls you to the side so he can lead. There’s a lamp up ahead, the frosted glass globe just big enough for Pyre to reach in and set the match. Heat and light seem to roll through the entire area, a locked, wooden door revealing itself to the side of the lamp. The cave floor, still cold and a bit damp, is actually stones, pieced together into what looks like a strange little map. You frown down at the stones, eyes tracing the edges of a single, deep blue vein, wondering why the chips of pale rock surrounding it strike you as strange.

“The Teeth,” you murmur suddenly. “You have a map of the teeth in front of your door?” Some of the spots are much smaller than others, more like a pinprick of pale stone as opposed to some of the hefty chips. If you unfocus your eyes, the map looks like a reflection of the stars.

“Magic,” Pyre explains, though he doesn’t sound pleased with his own answer. “There’s plenty to talk about when it comes to the Teeth, and the voices, just… Let’s go inside. It’s going to start snowing soon.”

When he opens the door, all the lamps inside are lit. Much like Pyre himself, his decor is frayed and worn down. There are heavy furs on the walls, and tapestries too, both simple and grand, but fragile looking. There are furs on some of the furniture as well. There’s a large stone fireplace, with hooks over the mantle made of horn and a set of stone stairs that curve out of sight. There’s no sign of things like phones or televisions, but you feel like you should have expected that. Companionship through a screen probably didn't fulfill the parameters of his… his curse?

That’s something you decide to ask about later. After all, you have the rest of the winter to spend with him, and he explained plenty over the three day trip to the mountain. The teeth are made of contained winter. The larger the teeth are, the more someone helped Pyre through that season. Through friendship, or anger, or passion, they melted the ice and snow. Pyre would take the melt and bind it in magic-made spires, but he couldn’t build on only one. Each spire was the product of a different person, each fling or friend made or fight had melted the snow at different rates. If your help has already begun, then you know some of the snow must have melted already due to your anger over the past few days, but it’s not something you think you can hold onto. Pyre tricked you into the three days, gave you the bearberries and bid you eat if you were hungry. You’d eaten three of them. The rest of the winter though? That you chose yourself. At least for a while, you’re ready to try and enjoy a little bit of the magic, keeping back winter or no.

“It’s not quite past midday,” Pyre says quietly, voice a strange melding of fox and man. “If you’d like food, I will make it for you. If you’d like a rest, I’ll show you to your room.”

“My room?” You ask, only sounding mildly sarcastic.

Pyre narrows those coppery eyes of his. “Sometimes I think you say these things on purpose. Yes. Your room.” He heads for the staircase, his toenails clicking on the stone floor before he reaches the layers of rugs, the soft padding of his feet on them makes you smile. “I would hardly complain if you decided to join me in mine, but even so, you will have your own space.” He tosses his head, earrings catching in his hair and then vanishes up the stairs.

You move at a much more sedate pace, still examining your surroundings. There’s a very old looking table, covered with the remnants of a puzzle that looks to be from forty years ago at least. There’s a rack of old bottles, some of them look like wine, but others are clearly beer, and still others look like glass bottles of soda, the liquid half evaporated. Pyre’s house is going to be a treasure trove of history, of things left behind by others. The winter is going to be very long, you’re certain, but it won’t be forever. All of the people that left these things behind have obviously left and returned to their homes. You turn on your heel, slip your bag off of your shoulders and leave it at the foot of the stairs. You can come back for it later.

The lamps, all seemingly lit from that single charmed match, spiral up the staircase. There aren’t any doors that open up off the sides, only a hallway at the very top and three open doors leading to the far end. The first one you pass is a bathroom, with a large tub carved out of the stone of the mountain. There are elderly looking cupboards in there, and what looks like a wood burning stove, though it’s empty. The toilet, you assume, is behind the drawscreen, and when you peek your head farther in, there’s also a shining, copper mirror hanging on the wall. The second room is where Pyre is, hands fussing over the thick curtains around the bed. There’s a fireplace against the wall, and a nightstand next to the bed, and more furs draped over a chair made of wood and horn in the corner. There’s a worn desk, obviously hand-made by someone unskilled, but a beautiful bookcase next to it, filled with books in various states of wear. Some of the spines are cracked, but others still are pristine. To the right of the bed, there’s a single paned window. Snow is coating the sill outside, thick flurries weighing down the weeds that are growing in the cracked stone.

Despite the magic, despite the voices and his promise, it still hadn’t felt quite so real, wandering through the tundra with him. He’d said the snow would be coming down soon though.

“It’s lovely,” you answer, honestly, even if not everything is to your taste. It almost makes you want to laugh though, because it definitely looks like it’s somewhere removed from the normal world, some kind of strange mish-mash of time periods all pressed into a two story place. You wonder, without Pyre, would anyone ever find this place?

“Parts of it,” Pyre says, strange looking hands pausing in their tying of the curtains. He’s looking at the headboard, you realize. There’s a faint gouge in the dark wood, but it doesn’t look like it was from Pyre. It looks like a very human scratch. Warmth crawls over the back of your neck, though you’re not sure whether it’s embarrassment or eagerness. You’d been feeling a healthy dose of attraction with Pyre before he told you about everything, and it had taken a bit to sort through your feelings on the matter, even with you making the final choice to come here. You still don’t know how things will continue, but for now…

“Let me see what I can do to help make a few more lovely memories then,” you say suddenly. Heat is pulsing through you now, warming your cheeks and the tips of your ears and zinging down along your spine. Pyre’s head snaps to the side to find your hands working slowly at your clothes. He doesn’t move any further, doesn’t even tip back his head, just stares at you over the crest of his shoulder, pupils swallowing down the copper of his irises.

“If—you don’t have to do anything,” he insists, and his tail swishes, slowly, just the once. It doesn’t bristle out as it had when you’d first spotted him.

Your coat drops to the floor, and his eyes follow it. “I know. We were flirting though, before you told me about all of this, and I still…” You glance away, only for your eyes to snap back to Pyre as he drags his patched suit jacket off of his shoulders.

He slows when he realizes you’re watching, but doesn’t stop. A slow grin pulls at the corners of his wide mouth. “You still want to feel magic?” He taunts, and laughs when you roll your eyes. He stops laughing when the rest of your clothes hit the floor, the hint of a whine escaping him when you take a step closer, shivering when you feel the temperature of the stone on your bare feet. “My room,” Pyre says roughly, though you can’t tear your eyes away from him. He’s still a wonderfully strange mix of man and fox. His face is still humanoid, with lips and stubbled cheeks, and so is the shape of his shoulders through his holey t-shirt. There’s soft curls of hair peeking out of the stretched neck of his shirt, but along the backs of his arms it looks more like fur and his feet are still wholly canine. His tails, tails plural, are starting to grow longer too, and you recall the way he’d seemed to coalesce into one person when the fog had rolled back.

Pyre crosses the room, hesitating before he places his hands on your shoulders, thumbnails scratching gently at your bare skin. The chill of the room had been seeping into you, but at his touch, warmth chases it all away. When you slide your hands up his chest, Pyre’s eyes fall closed, gray lashes bright against his skin. “M’ room,” he repeats again, but pulls you into a kiss as he tows you out the door. There’s no more time for examining the hallway or the knick-knacks he might be keeping in his own space. There’s his lips and his stubble scratching at your skin and his hands splayed over the back of your neck and the base of your spine. He coaxes you into his room with deep, slow kisses that leave your head spinning, whispering things that make your pulse speed. “Want, want the smell of you on my sheets,” he says against your neck, dragging sharp teeth carefully over your throat. He growls when your hands dip to undo his trousers, your thumb following the trail of hair that vanishes beneath his underwear. “If this is, if it’s—”

“I agreed to the winter,” you remind him and then he’s turning you and letting you fall back onto his bed. You have a moment to register soft fur, and crocheted blankets, and comforters too, before Pyre is pulling his shirt off and tossing it across the room. He wrestles with the rest of his clothes, leaving you another moment to admire him. The hair on his chest and trailing down his abdomen looks human, much coarser than the fur on his arms and below his knees. Between his legs is a thick cock, hard and beginning to leak, with a small bulge near the base of him, and then your gaze is drawn back up as he crawls onto the bed, moving much slower than he had in the hall. He doesn’t press, doesn’t rush, just leans his body over yours to kiss you again, careful with his teeth. He groans when you reach up and tug at his braid, pulling the rough tie away and tossing it to the side. You comb your fingers through his hair, tangling your fingers in it to keep him kissing you and tense when his cock slides over your thigh, hot and hard and enough to make you buck up, already seeking friction. Pyre kisses you until you’re breathless, leaving you sucking at your own lips and trying to calm yourself as he urges you further up the bed, back to a veritable nest of pillows.

He isn’t slow when he settles himself between your legs, hands curling around your thighs and pushing them carefully back towards your chest. He isn’t slow when he drags his tongue over you, hot and slick and slightly rough. He’s careful as he can be with his teeth, but there are a few pinches that make you gasp and tremble. He laves his tongue over them, soothing the sting, but his nails are pressing hard into your skin and you’re fairly certain you’re going to bruise, simply from the continued pressure. Pyre is noisy too, whining and groaning as he tastes you, as you do your best to rock yourself against his tongue, hand tugging at his hair while he sucks and eats. The ache of orgasm, painful-but-sweet, is starting to build, starting to make you tense everytime he opens his jaw, teeth dragging over tender skin, leaving you wet and shuddering. He huffs when you whimper, and pulls away before you can come, copper eyes as bright as flame when he moves to sit back against his headboard. The loss of him feels sudden, and the cold is sharp without his warmth against you.

“That was on purpose,” you murmur. Pyre arches a brow, trying to keep from smiling when you scowl at his crooking finger. You still get up, on shaking knees and gasp when he tugs you over and onto his lap, your back against his chest, cock slick and sticky against your ass.

“I want to feel everything when you shake apart,” he murmurs, hand splaying over your sternum as he helps you arrange your legs. By the time you’re straddling his thighs, his fingertips are dipping into the hollow of your throat and his cock is rutting against your thigh and every part of you is on edge, desperate for more. You’d been so close. Pyre licks at the side of your throat, pressing his hand harder against your chest to keep your back still. “Lift your hips,” he urges, and takes his cock in hand, dragging the head over you as you do your best to listen. Like fitting a key into a lock, Pyre finds the correct angle, breathing raggedly as you press yourself down. As soon as you’ve taken enough of him, he lets go of himself and then presses on the top of your thighs, making you gasp out his name as you take him in deeper. He eases off after a moment, letting you adjust, letting you wriggle and groans out your name roughly as you do your best to ride him.

You think for a moment about saying something, about teasing him or trying to rile him up, but it’s all you can do to keep up what rhythm you have, heart beating terribly fast against the hand he has on your chest. He lets you move, lets you reach back and clutch at the messy locks of his hair, his breath warm against your throat and the top of your shoulder and then Pyre pushes roughly against your thigh again, thrusting up until his knot is grinding against you. “Fuck, fuck, Pyre, that—”

“Too much?” He asks, waiting while you shake, trying to steady your breath. You’re probably going to ache later, probably won’t want to do much but doze or take a bath in that massive stone tub, but right now? Right now you want to be greedy.

“More,” you get out and Pyre laughs, that eerie, fox-like noise echoing in your ear as he teases you with the knot, pressing you down and then pulling back his hips. Pillows cascade off the edges of the bed, spilling over the floor. You start squeezing, doing your best to drive him over the edge, so sensitive it almost hurts. “Please,” you whisper and then you’re too busy for speech. His knot stretches you and his hand dips between your thighs, stroking and his fingers press into the base of your throat. He’s not choking you, but he’s starting to squeeze and then you’re coming. Pleasure washes over you in a fierce, pulsing ache that shoots down to your toes and fountains back up your body. You shout out his name and shake in his arms, eyes falling closed as his knot expands, locking you in place. Your eyes flutter open and closed and drift to a steamed up window, much like the one in your own room. Weeds are still poking up through the cracks, but now it’s not snowing outside, it’s raining.

Pyre turns his nose to the space behind your ear, breathing deep, his own limbs growing loose. “The winter might well be softer this year,” Pyre mumbles, voice raspy, his hand smoothing down your sternum and over your hips. “And I have you to thank for that.”

“We still have the rest of the winter ahead of us,” you remind him, but you’re too sleepy to argue with him any further. Whether you end up enjoying the rest of your time here, you do know one thing: Passion will definitely be a huge part of fulfilling your bargain for the winter.

————-　🦊　————-

#exophilia #werefox boyfriend #male werefox #shifter boyfriend #d.darling writes #d.darling queues

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mu-saic · 2 years

Text

//Reflection

One of my favorite albums (in the ever) is mono. by RM.

I recently learned that RM, the pseudonym of Korean musician Kim Namjoon of BTS, sounds like aleum (아름) a Korean word for beauty. I’ve always thought that he has a beautiful way of writing about life, about making the mundane seem special.

I consider this album (or, a, I’m pretty sure he refers to it as such, playlist) a forever friend. Do you also have an album that you think of as a best friend album? An album you can listen to when you’re happy, when you’re sad, when you’re everything, when you’re nothing? One that you’re convinced will always be your favorite? This is mine! It’s a friend for every situation, but especially for when I am especially in need of comfort that isn’t from myself.

It takes me exactly one mono.-listen to walk to my favorite spot on the river, I like to sit there for another mono.-listen, and then walk back home. It takes three mono.s for what I think is is sufficient self-not-reflection but more like for remembering that I’m a person... self-actualization? It’s a good unit of measurement for the things I like to do (three mono.s is around an hour and 15 minutes)! And about 6/7 of a mono. to walk to the duck pond I live near... 18/7 for the total..

A lot of the songs that RM makes as a solo act feel like they’re putting my loneliness into words, in turn making me feel less lonely. An Oh. I’m not alone in feeling what I feel.

Right now, I’m overwhelmed with the lyrics in Life, a song off of his first project, which is self-titled. Why would there be no antonym of loneliness? Perhaps it’s because we never have a moment of no-loneliness until we die (translated from the Korean lyrics 외로움의 반대말은 왜 없을까 / 사람은 죽을 때까지 안 외로울 때가 없어서일지 몰라 via https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/life/). My mind always go to this lyric when writing and thinking about my loneliness and my ever-present desire for companionship.

His song Reflection I think perfectly reflects the utility of his music in my life. It’s about the thoughts he has while at a park that he visits when he is overwhelmed or sad or both. Although I will genuinely listen to his music whenever, like as in to the what would you bring with you on a deserted island question I would bring mono. .... his music is perfect for these moments when I need to force myself to confront my thoughts. Journalling music!

슬며시 다가와서 나의 손을 잡는 fear and the fear that gently approaches me and holds my hand

세상은 절망의 또 다른 이름 [ireum] The world is another name for despair

나의 키는 지구의 또 다른 지름 [jireum] My height is another diameter of Earth

나는 나의 모든 기쁨이자 시름 [sireum] I’m my whole happiness and my worries

매일 반복돼 날 향한 좋고 싫음 [sireum] They repeat every day, the likes and dislikes directed at myself *The above four lines end-rhyme (-reum).

(the above five lines copied from https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/16/reflection/)

I’m always struck by the rawness of his lyrics... like this fear that he writes about... what he writes gently approaches me and holds my hand! And my heart. And my soul. And my everything.... thank you....

There are many, many, many RM lyrics that I carry in my heart! And I could go on and on...

The song that I think is my favorite of his (at least, off of mono.) is called uhgood. The title in Korean is 어긋 (pronounced as uh-geut) which means: “(1) fall short of expectations and (2) miss each other (by taking different routes)” (quoted from https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/uhgood/). It’s really interesting that there is this contrast between the English title and the Korean title; uhgood is “good” yet uhgeut seems to be “bad.”

Equal parts dreamlike (sound) and real (lyric), this song is so beautiful. To me, it is about the pains of self-discovery; My ideal and reality, they are too far apart. But, I still want to cross the bridge and reach me. The real me, the real me (translated from the Korean lyrics 내 이상과 현실 / 너무 멀고 먼 / 그래도 다리 건너 / 내게 닿고 싶어 / 진짜 내게 (yeah, yeah) / 진짜 내게 (yeah) via https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/uhgood/).

*A note that there is sooo much that a simple translation like this can not capture. There are often translator’s notes that come with the lyrics. Such as, at the bottom of the lyrics quoted above, the translator mentions that due to “I” and “you” sounding similar in the Korean language, one could hear the above lyrics as being second-person instead of first-person. Again, the relatability! This is part of why this song touches my heart so much.

A lot of his songs talk about self-hatred, like Reflection, which repeats the phrase “I wish I could love myself,” thus I am drawn towards his sentiments of hope.

I can’t let go of me who I know as myself, because you, in my head, are so whole like this, because you are so perfect (translated from the Korean lyrics 내가 아는 나를 난 놓아줄 수가 없어 / 내 머릿속의 넌 이렇게 온전한데 / 완전한데 via https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/uhgood/, the translator notes that the “you” used here is the ideal “me” that RM is referencing).

All of my favorite RM lyrics (there’s more ... like the whole song of Trivia: Love and forever rain) are so touching and meaningful to me in that they seem to capture a picture of my heart, and feel like a warm hand on my back.

#RM #mono #reflection #uhgood #life #lyrics #diary #translation #doolset

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

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One thing that has always bothered me about the magical system in HP is how much it... doesn’t exist? No one questions anything, there’s almost no theoretical exploration, and Hermione Granger (someone I’ve always found to be of average intelligence at best) is the brightest witch of her age.

Some characters seem to be inexplicably more powerful, but I wonder if it isn’t simply a matter of discipline and will-power.

What are your thoughts on magic? We never really see what light vs. dark entails, so fanfic authors tend to make it up as they go along, but do you have any head-canons about how magic works in HP?

I mean, to be fair, it wasn’t really the point of JKR’s series. She just wanted to write about a kid going to a magic boarding school in Scotland with this quirky witch aesthetic.

No need for her to placate us uber nerds who demand a sensible explanation to the minutia of her magical system.

Right, but yes, it clearly bothers me too. No one questions anything, there’s no understanding of why wands and spells even work, or why it has to be in this weird pseudo-Latin. No one even bothers to learn Latin, for that matter, and you think they would given the damn spells.

Hermione Granger is the brightest witch of her age given that “her age” is either around 30 people (the amount of people in her year) or else around 300 (the population of Hogwarts at a given time) which is a pitiful amount. She also is an extremely hard worker and actually reads her textbooks, sadly I think this gets you ahead of 95% of the population.

Part of the reason I think the Wizarding World thinks like this is that they’re this incredibly tiny, cut off, insular society. Generally, when you have a small society cut off like that you tend to lose innovation or even understanding of technology you have.

But that’s not what you asked. Right.

Personally, I think there is no light and dark magic. Magic is just this part of the natural universe that muggles, for whatever reason, are not able to directly access. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is. For that matter, I don’t think spells themselves really exist, or rather, they’re not what magic really is in its purest form but instead a way that humans can easily access and control magic to perform a certain task. Kind of a glorified API if you will.

So, dark magic and light magic are instead arbitrary labels that wizards apply to their own tool box based on the functions of that tool. If you have a tool that is only designed for/can be used for the murder and torture of sentient beings: well, that’s bad, we’ll call that dark. That said, do I think the spells themselves are inherently evil? No. It’s like if you open up your tool box, pick out a sledgehammer, and go, “This, my child, is an instrument of pure evil and you must never touch it.” Well, that’s a bad comparison, it’d be like taking a handgun out of your tool box and saying “this is a dark weapon”. Now, this gets into a debate I don’t want to get into, but to me dark spells are a lot like handguns (they’re designed for only one purpose and there’s no squirming your way out of what that purpose is).

Now, I think wizards have forgotten this (mostly because they don’t understand what spells or magic is), and so they get very hung up on the labels of spells or even just your odd genetic trait (i.e. parseltongue). So, we have these weird moments where someone uses, say, the severing charm to cut somebody open in the middle of the street. And it’s less bad than if they had used the killing curse to kill them painlessly and easily, because the severing charm’s not dark magic.

It’s like... If someone were to walk out and bash someone over the head with a sledgehammer until it kills them it’s less evil than if they shot them in the head with a handgun.

Wizards seem to miss the point of this.

As for what magic is, I believe it’s... direct energy that wizards are able to access in a way that muggles (thus far) cannot. What do I mean by thus far? Well, look at electricity. In ye olden days, I’m sure that if you asked a wizard they would say that making artificial light without flame is a property solely done by magic and muggles are not capable of it. Well, muggles then did it, and suddenly the definition and parameters of magic change. Wizards are kind of like chess grand masters who suddenly lose to your AI du jour, who say that it doesn’t count because the AI didn’t really do it like a human would. It’s not real intelligence.

I don’t believe people have magic in and of themselves, any more than anyone else does at any rate, because we see too little differences between powerful and mediocre wizards. You’re either a squib or you’re not, there doesn’t really seem to be a spectrum, and those who struggle with spells appear to do so for other reasons (Neville has severe confidence issues and is traumatized, Harry’s an idiot, etc.)

I think what separates the great wizards from the rest is hard work, the ability to read books and learn from them, even an inkling of understanding of how spells really work and how to create them (and this makes you Voldemort level right here), and a good ear to be able to pronounce your ridiculous pseudo Latin.

The wand is a tool specifically designed so that, with repeatable easy to understand steps, you can perform a whole array of tasks and even use them as building blocks to develop a new spell (combine swishes, flicks, and various garbled sentences together in such a way and BAM new spell).

Your wand, in other words, is your API to direct and access untold amounts of energy from the universe.

But people have forgotten that so instead what you memorize are very specific function calls that will prove useful in your daily life.

As for the wand and spells themselves, well, here’s my hokey ridiculous theory on how that came about. A long time ago, a brilliant foreigner enters the Roman Empire with a revolutionary idea that puts him on the level of Einstein/Newton/Feynman Name Your Stupidly Brilliant Physicist. He says, hey, how about instead of doing these time consuming magical rituals we develop a tool that, in a matter of seconds, allows us to perform truly complicated and powerful magic any time we want. No more relying on having the right ingredients about, virgin sacrifices, the full moon, etc.

Everyone probably laughs at him, but then he goes off and designs a rudimentary wand, and through probably some uber ritual that was dangerous as hell implements this system by which by flicking your wand a certain way and saying basic commands like “levitate”, “repair”, etc. you can perform these tasks.

Only, the guy’s foreign and Good Will Hunting (no formal education in the empire), so he doesn’t actually speak Latin. So what you have instead is this weird half-Latin like, “Leviupwards Fly”, “Repair-o”, etc.

It sounds dumb as hell, but goddammit it works, and more it gives Roman wizards an unheard of advantage against their enemy wizards who are all stuck doing these stupid rituals. They suddenly have a vast military might, so long as they use these wands and spells this guy came up with.

Everybody who’s anybody, who wants to win a fight, is now using wands. Wandcraft becomes a huge deal and people specialize in fine tuning these things exactly so as to get the maximum efficiency for a particular user.

And they probably go up to our guy and say, “Hey, buddy, can you make this in actual Latin? I can barely remember what it is I’m supposed to say to get this to work” and after the hours, and hours, and hours he spent making this thing that nobody helped him with he goes, “DO IT YOURSELF, BITCH”. And they never do because they’re too damn lazy/have no idea how he actually did it and any attempt to recreate it ends up with something that’s pitiful and doesn’t work.

So, they’re all stuck with it, and thousands of years later they forget this guy even existed and while there’s a recognition that not all magic has to be performed by wands there’s just this feeling that the wand is the magic. And so no one will ever come up with an English/French/Whatever version where when you say “Up” the thing goes up.

And that’s “The History of Magic” as brought to you by The Carnivorous Muffin.

#ask #harry potter #magic #headcanons #anti hermione granger #anti harry potter

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Would lowkey kill to see Kauri attempting to write poetry in his relationship with Jake era (omg Jake helping him/being the one to write it down) I always forget that he was a writer and loves poetry and I love him 10 times more every time I remember

CW: Some references to past trauma, forced illiteracy, some brief internalized victim-blaming/slut-shaming, Kauri’s low self-esteem

Takes place after Worth the Risk and Kauri’s first glimpse of his own past

“This is fucking stupid. I can’t fucking do this.” Kauri picks up the notebook, hard-backed blue with little golden stars twinkling on the cover, and throws it full-strength across the room until it smacks into the wall and drops to the ground, open to his own scrawling, struggling handwriting.

Chris, wrapped in a big fuzzy blue blanket and curled up in an armchair playing a game on his phone or texting Laken or maybe both, flinches and looks up. “Kauri?”

Kauri looks away from the earnest concern in those huge green eyes and kicks ineffectually at the coffee table, hissing when he doesn’t actually miss and his toes connect with the hard wooden leg. “Fuck. Fucking-... bullshit, I’m an idiot trying to do this, just-... god damn it. I should know better.”

There’s a silence, and then Chris asks, softly, “Know better than, than... than to what? What were you, um, you doing?”

Kauri’s jaw is set and for a second he considers lying. He’s a good liar, after all, and Chris is always so ready to believe him, he wouldn’t even question it. Safer to lie, hide the ideas inside his head, talk instead about something soft and surface-level.

Safer to be stupid, always.

But he’s trying not to do that anymore.

He’s trying.

“Writing,” He says, finally. “I was... trying to-... write something.” The words are ground out of him nearly against his will. He glares at the notebook lying open on the floor, the scrawling handwriting of the fucked up slut still thinking he can be anything else. Looping and childish, too big almost to fit within the lines.

“Oh.” Chris pauses, and then brightens, setting his phone aside and straightening up. “You, you sad you think that you used to, to, to, to write, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Kauri’s head hurts, a sharp punishing ache. How dare he think in metaphor and simile, how dare he try to build the villanelle, how dare he remember vaguely arguing with someone in a coffeeshop over old poetic forms being superior to poems that don’t even try to fit within a rhythm, and he just-

This is so-

He’s so stupid, thinking he could just pick it up again like it hasn’t been a decade or close, like he’s still whatever stupid shit lived in his body before he-

signed up for this-

followed a fucking hot guy outside in the dark and got thrown into a van and made into Kauri.

“Well, my... my professor for, for, for, for Playwriting says... says writing is a muscle. You, you have to exercise. And you can’t do the, um, the, the, the-the heavy weights until you start with, with small ones.”

Kauri snorts, derisive, but it’s not because Chris is wrong - of course he’s not wrong. Part of Kauri knows it, too, that he used to write all the time, around the pounding inside his skull he knows that he used to scribble lines on napkins and paper towels and the margins of his study books, bringing together the poem itself only later, usually alone or with a boyfriend on the other side of the room. He used to be able to do this.

He used to do this all the time.

“I wish Owen had wanted someone who could write a fucking poem,” Kauri says, voice breaking on the tears that threaten. “Maybe then I’d still be able to.” He pushes himself to his feet and stomps over to scoop up the notebook almost violently. “Why are you taking Playwriting, anyway? I thought you wanted to do set design.”

“I, I do.” Chris shrugs, eyes on Kauri, watching him walk back towards the doorway that leads to a hall and then to the kitchen. “But I thought-... I, I, I figured-... maybe if I learn how to, to write a play, it would help... visualize. For, for, for set-building. You, um. You know?”

Kauri exhales, slowly, and then nods. “Yeah. I get it. That’s a good plan - I mean, not that I would know, I’m a college fucking dropout, right?” He laughs, bitterness in every word, in every sound.

“No,” Chris replies, simply. “You, you were... abducted. We were, um. We, we, we were stolen. Your words were, um, were stolen, too. That’s what Dr. Berger-”

“Fuck Dr. Berger,” Kauri snaps, and leaves the room before Chris can make any more sense and possibly break apart Kauri’s determined self-loathing while he still wants to soak in it.

Hating himself for what he can’t do - or what he’s been told he can’t do - is so much easier than trying to do it anyway.

Everything was easier than trying to get better.

So why is he still trying?

Notebook clenched in white-knuckled hands, Kauri climbs the stairs like a man moving to the gallows, one by one, his thoughts a swirling morass of self-hatred, and then he moves into the bedroom he shares with Jake here and stares at the rumpled covers on the bed.

He sleeps here every single night, wakes up to the same face pressed red on one side from the pillow, hears the same deep voice rumbling good morning, feels the same arm slide over his waist, the same scratchy stubble rubbing his jaw when he’s kissed.

I have generally found, in my work, the fucking therapist’s voice echoes inside him, that when you begin to do the work to rebuild, you will find yourself dedicated over time to reconstructing not just a room, Kauri, but the entire city that was once leveled. Does that make sense?

He’d told her it didn’t.

Kauri spent years dodging therapy whenever Nat didn’t talk him into it, and he hates going. He hates having to spill all the darkness inside him to someone who never stops being so goddamn calm.

But the first time she’d said, have you ever heard about the effect that solitary confinement has on the human mind? He had told her he didn’t know, but he’d started crying, too, and hadn’t been able to explain why.

Part of you knows, Dr. Berger had said gently. Part of you always knew.

He had never really wanted to know the person who had inhabited this skin, or try to be him again. But standing here looking at the evidence of the life he is slowly building - his clothes in a crumpled heap on the floor by the bed, his toothbrush in the little cup in the bathroom, a picture of he and Jake in a frame by the bed now, the very small silver ring he wears sometimes even though they’re not and they probably won’t but it kind of feels good to wear it sometimes...

He wonders if Liam Harker wanted a life like this one.

---

“It’s really dumb,” Kauri mutters, pulling the pillow over his face, burning red with embarrassment. “I didn’t even really mean for you to see it-”

“It’s not dumb,” Jake says, gently. Kauri feels the dip in the mattress as he sits down, feels the warmth of his hand resting on Kauri’s thigh through the blanket. “I’m sorry I read it. I didn’t know what I was looking at. If it was supposed to be a secret-”

“No. I didn’t. I forgot I left it out on the dresser. It’s not your fault. It’s so fucking stupid. I don’t know why I even-”

“Kauri.” Jake’s voice sharpens, a little. “Stop. Stop calling yourself stupid. You’re not, and you never were, and you don’t have to repeat what that asshole told you about yourself anymore, remember?”

Kauri swallows, hard, a lump in his throat he can’t quite breathe around. “When does it stop being his voice,” He asks, muffled, “and start being my own?”

“When you let it,” Jake says, rubbing his leg soothingly. “Just like my dad’s voice. You’re not stupid. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life. I’m sorry I read it, but that’s because it wasn’t mine to read, not because it was dumb, or bad. It wasn’t.”

Kauri hesitates, then pulls the pillow to the side, looking at the sincere affection in Jake’s face, his slight smile. “Yeah? You’re not just-”

“Saying that? No, I’m not. I mean, I’m not, like, a poetry person-”

“It’s not even a real villanelle, anyway.”

“I have no idea what that means. I just... I thought it was pretty good, actually. When I realized-... I put it down when I realized you were writing about-... you know. Yourself.”

“Liam,” Kauri says, hoarse, barely able to pronounce the name. “I wrote-”

“Yeah.” Jake takes his hand, pulls it to his lips, presses a kiss to Kauri’s knuckles. “I know. It’s really good, Kaur. You should keep writing. I promise I won’t look at any stray papers I find anymore, yeah?”

Kauri takes a breath. He feels almost dizzy, in a way that is both terrible and wonderful. The way you open yourself to the people you love is a horrible, amazing risk. The way you spill the darkest parts of yourself, not things you’ve done wrong but the things you are afraid of allowing back into the light, in case it washes them all away again.

But the light he lives in now isn’t cold, and it isn’t taking him away from himself. The light he lives in now is sunlight.

“What?” Jake’s eyebrows raise slightly. “What’s that face for?”

“Jake. What if-... what if I ask you to? Read them?”

Jake’s lips press together, and he nods, smiling slightly, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against Kauri’s hand. He’s always warm, Jake, even on the coldest days. He’s always warm. “I’d be-... be fucking honored, or something that sounds less bullshit than that, but I mean it. I’d be... I love you, Kauri. Seeing inside your head is what I want to do for-... for forever.”

“Maybe I’ll ask then,” Kauri says, and pulls Jake’s hand and then Jake himself, the taller, larger man settling on top of him, holding himself up on his elbows, careful not to rest all his weight. “I love you, too, you know.”

“Yeah.” Jake kisses the tip of his nose. “It’s pretty fucking great.”

Kauri’s eyes glimmer, but he closes them so Jake can’t see, and kisses his forehead. “It’s nice to think that I’m lucky and mean it.”

“I think you should read your poem to Dr. Berger,” Jake says, and when Kauri groans, he pulls back. “I mean it. She should know.”

Kauri wants to argue, but he looks into Jake’s eyes, and sighs, and says he’ll think about it.

---

AN APOLOGY

I am built from the hollow air left after your heart stopped beating

Your hands still gripped tight to the life they were ending

I know you thought of home but I don’t know where your home is

The sound of my voice is a green valley that only sends back screaming

Covered in smoke and dust that I told myself smelled like cologne

Pathways that remember your laughter silent in the years that followed

Have I done enough to build a life you would have enjoyed living?

I am built from the hollow air left over when your heart stopped beating

The heat of their hands as inevitable as a river tore down every foundation

Their cruelty buried you so deeply that only I remain

I don’t deserve the love that should have been yours to receive

The sound of my voice is a valley echoing back your screaming

I owe you an apology for walking around inside you

Crumbling ruins with my touch and calling it preservation

I’m sorry for every blade of grass growing through our bones

Am I nothing but hollow air from when your heart stopped beating?

Wildflowers grow inside me from soil windswept over ash

Is that life worth everything not quite dead so deep below?

Is Kauri Grant good enough to make up for Liam Harker’s loss?

In the valley of my body, does anyone but me still hear you screaming?

I owe you an apology and have to hope the life I live provides it

I wish I could ask for forgiveness from the shape of you

We’re both ghosts, in the end, mosaic pieces shattered in shadows

I’m sorry that I’m all that’s left.

I built myself from hollow air in the shape of a heart still beating

The sound of my voice will always carry the echo of yours screaming

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump , @orchidscript @cubeswhump , @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @moose-teeth @whumptywhumpdump @wildfaewhump

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 2 years

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Heyyo seen more Healin Good Precure? Also gotten around too watching the Mahoutsukai precure film?

Well, I just finished Episode 30 a few days ago and just learned about Daruizen’s “Mini-Me”, but, yeah, I think this series is already a lot better than Mahoutsukai and maybe even Star Twinkle.

There are some really strong filler episodes here like Episode 17 (Chiyu helps out a little at her family’s inn for a few days and helps an American girl adjust to moving to Japan), Episode 25 (A timid little girl mistakes Pegitan for a toy and accidentally kidnaps him while Pegitan struggles to tell her what he really is), and Episode 29 (Nodoka starts running more and risks overdoing it, so her friends have to help her find a healthy schedule and diet). I still love how both the Cures and their partners get their own focus episodes, and it makes the Healing Animals feel like actual characters instead of just transformation devices like what they did with Mofurun.

The main focus of this quarter is the introduction of a new character created by the prayers of Queen Teatine (Latte’s mother who I didn’t mention in my last post) to protect her daughter, said prayers manifesting into Asumi/Cure Earth. She was born from the Earth itself, is named after how the Japanese pronounce the English word “Earth”, and her name is Cure Earth, so obviously, that means she has wind powers.

Unfortunately, the Earth was under a little pressure to save Latte from being killed by Batetemoda, so they kind of had to skip over some key details when creating her, because outside of combat skills and a desire to protect Latte, Asumi is, for lack of a better word, kind of an airhead. She doesn’t really get a lot of social cues, is obsessed with caring for Latte (and even then, screws up at that occasionally), and would probably get killed if not for Nodoka, Chiyu, and Hinata helping her. I’m not even exaggerating that last bit. In one episode Asumi almost gets hit by a car because she didn’t know what a stoplight was, and another where she had to be told to take off the wrapper when eating a snack. You know, seeing how six Cures aren’t even from Earth or lack social awareness, you’d think they’d set up some kind of class to teach newbies this kind of stuff.

Obviously, Asumi’s main character arc is learning about becoming her own person and how to put Latte’s needs over what she thinks is right for her, which I like. I felt like Haa-chan’s character got bogged down with the whole Emerald and Mother Rapapa thing, so I like how they’re focusing more on Asumi individually instead of having the villains chase after her like a plot device.

I like how Latte gets a little more focus here, though her desire to join the battle is kind of muddled by the fact that she just helps Asumi transform and doesn’t really do anything else, not even the finisher like Mofurun does. There was this one episode where all four Cures transformed and then immediately placed Latte in a safe place to hide while they fought the Byogen.

Unfortunately, Batetemoda bites the dust far too early and ends up being Cure Earth’s first kill, which is a real shame, as it’s clear the writers were planning something with him wanting to take command of the Byogens, but possibly had to cut it due to COVID.

Admittedly, his final episode did introduce a way for the Byogens to power up their minions by injecting them with crystals created from their fallen brethren, causing them to evolve much faster, kind of like supernatural blood doping. It’s interesting, though I think the whole race by the general to get more “Mega Parts” could have been focused on more.

There were two other humanoid Byogens introduced, Nebusoku and Kedary, who both get killed in the same episodes they are created. Hell, Kedary at least impacted the plot while Nebusoku just got treated like a MOTW. Again, not sure if this was because of COVID, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

Of course, there’s the actual plot twist regarding Daruizen being responsible for making Nodoka sick all those years, and it’s a real gut punch. Daruizen just takes the first chance to taunt Nodoka with the information, and I just love how he isn’t that impacted by it. He just sees this as something that makes Nodoka more interesting to him. Nodoka even vows to take her conflict with him more personally in the same episode it’s revealed in.

Which I pretty much interpreted as her thinking “Mr. Daruizen... I should KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS!”

But yeah, this was overall a very solid second third, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how things are resolved, especially with Nodoka and Daruizen.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #not miraculous ladybug #precure #pretty cure #healin good precure #healin good pretty cure

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 27 - ao3 -

Matters settled, eventually, and just as eventually, it started getting better.

At first, Lan Qiren wasn’t sure if matters were actually better, or if he’d just grown numb and accustomed, but after the past year and more he thought that there was a serious possibility of it being the former rather than the latter.

Probably the biggest difference was the birth of little Lan Huan, who’d joined the world as a fat and squalling infant that Lan Qiren had loved at first sight and sleepless night – he was still too young to be separated from his mother, or at minimum his wetnurse, but Lan Qiren made a practice of visiting every few days to try to prepare himself for caring for him. The women were generally happy to shove the baby into his arms and let him play guqin or xiao for him until he fell asleep. Apparently Lan Huan was actually a very peaceable baby, an assertion which Lan Qiren had initially doubted on account of the circles under everyone’s eyes, but when he’d said so, the wetnurse had glared at him and pronounced that saying such things meant that the next child would be a true wild terror, and probably a biter to boot.

The frequency of Lan Qiren’s visits was actually less about Lan Huan, although he liked his nephew very much, and more about trying to establish a precedent for visitation. He hoped, eventually, to be able to bring Lan Huan to see his mother on such a frequent basis, once or even twice a week, knowing as he did that He Kexin lacked the temperament for seclusion. To his regret, she’d ended up spoiling that plan not long after she’d recovered from her pregnancy, misinterpreting his frequent visits as an interest in her, and he’d been forced to cut back for a while out of sheer disgust at the mere concept. He bitterly scolded her in his mind for being seemingly incapable of seeing any other reason that he would visit so often, especially during the times that Lan Huan was already asleep, although he suspected in his heart that the real reason was simply likely a longing for a connection with the only other person she regularly saw.

He still had hope of negotiating regular visits with his sect elders, eventually, but now he knew he’d probably be lucky if he managed to make it once every fortnight, when originally he’d hoped for twice a week.

Disturbing female disciples is prohibited, after all. Lan Qiren had a very good reputation, being widely known to be frigid as a stick of ice, using his brother’s terms, but there was only so much he could do when there was known to be an expressed interest on the other side, especially an interest of adulterous nature. And couple that with what had happened between them before…

At least she’d restrained herself to only making a verbal offer, this time.

Lan Qiren did not know how to explain to He Kexin in a way that she would understand that although he visited her regularly as a matter of duty, and although he was the only person other than his brother with whom she regularly conversed, he did not enjoy his time with her – that he blamed her in part for the destruction of his dreams, the shattering of his heart in a way that would likely never heal, even though he did not blame her for his brother’s obsession with her. It was not her fault that his brother had fallen in love with her, or that he had taken such extreme measures for her, and yet…

“She’s still a bitch,” Cangse Sanren announced, and her new husband smothered a snicker in his sleeve. “What? She is.”

Lan Qiren sighed, and Wei Changze, smiling, made an excuse to depart and let them talk between themselves. He was a good man, with an irrepressible sense of humor that regularly made Cangse Sanren laugh without any shame at all, howling and hooting like a monkey. He had courted her assiduously even after she’d departed the Lotus Pier, headed off to complete her education regarding the mortal world in the various Great Sects, and yet had been oblivious to the fact that she treated their liaison as a serious one – perhaps he had only truly believed that she would give herself to him when they actually married, their interminably long courtship finally ending the way any blind man would have guessed it would from the very beginning.

“I asked you to come here so that you could meet A-Huan,” Lan Qiren said. “Not to relitigate the matter of He Kexin, who at any rate is already suffering the punishment for her unwise actions.”

“Unwise is an understatement. She killed a man! On no basis, and without even a formal challenge! If she’d just kept her sword in her sheath and not jumped ahead three steps –”

“I’m aware.”

Cangse Sanren made a rude noise, but settled back, grumbling. “The baby’s cute, though,” she added begrudgingly. “Looks like you.”

Lan Qiren rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you, he is my nephew. To the extent you can identify any traits whatsoever in a roly-poly puppy like A-Huan, they’re family features.”

“Of which you’re the finest representative!”

Lan Qiren gave her a look, and she grinned unrepentantly at him. “Heartbreaker,” she teased, but a moment later her smile faded. “Have you spoken with your brother?”

Lan Qiren’s gaze dropped to the table. “There’s no need,” he said. “He has always been torn between pride in his capability and the admiration of others on one hand, and a yearning to retreat from the world and its annoyances in order to focus fully on his cultivation on the other. Other than occasionally meeting with his wife, he is now able to wholly focus on the latter, and unlike He Kexin, his temperament is suited to the strictness of our seclusion practices.”

“There might not be a need,” Cangse Sanren agreed. “Did you speak with him anyway?”

“Once,” Lan Qiren said, voice short. After a few long moments, he added, a little painfully: “He said that our father had always seen seclusion as a means to reunite with his wife.”

Cangse Sanren hissed in a manner not unlike a very angry cat, or possibly an agitated snake, her eyes very nearly turning red from rage: naturally she knew about the whole awful background, the many years of age between Lan Qiren and his brother and the way his brother had always blamed Lan Qiren’s belated birth for the death of their mother, and by extension the shattering of their father’s heart when she left him behind, gone too early.

Lan Qiren’s brother had also said other things, mad things, things that Lan Qiren sought to forget as soon as he’d heard them but which he knew would likely haunt him in the dark of sleepless nights for the rest of his life. The worst of it was that Lan Qiren still loved his brother, who he’d idolized for so long: his brother who was the perfect gentleman when he wanted to be, capable of being kind and charming and generous, of excellent cultivation and who excelled in each talent, who was thoughtful and reserved and in his own way a very good sect leader – the Qingheng-jun that the rest of the world had seen, the one that Lao Nie had befriended, the one so much of his sect had pinned their hopes on.

Lan Qiren felt, as always, like an inferior substitute.

No one had made his brother fall in love, nor to take such terrible actions to protect his love from her own foolishness, and yet, if Lan Qiren could have found another way out that the sect would have accepted, he would have. It would have been better, in his view, to lash them both with the discipline whip until they lacked flesh if it meant that they would stay free. A human could live with pain, but he wasn’t so sure they could do without freedom or hope…

Aren’t you just the same as me, his brother had sneered at him through the door that would part them for the rest of their lives, lashing out like a rabid dog that sought to hurt others in order to ease its own hurt, or else would you snap yourself into a thousand pieces begging for a scrap of my approval, which you will never receive, or whoring your vaunted righteousness out for a smile from your ‘sworn brother’?

Lan Qiren hadn’t done that, and wouldn’t. Unbelievable as it seemed, his stubbornness had stood up against Wen Ruohan’s and won; it had been Wen Ruohan who had changed to match him, rather than the other way around. He had vowed that the Fire Palace remained useless, and Lan Qiren believed him, especially when even Lao Nie confirmed it to be true. They had taken to exchanging letters this past year, since Lan Qiren could not visit the Nightless City until he had stabilized the Cloud Recesses and – sworn brotherhood or no – a visit by Wen Ruohan to the Cloud Recesses would be taken as a formal exchange, sect leader visiting sect leader.

Perhaps now, after a year, when he had more fully settled into his role…

“Did the trash say anything else?”

For a moment Lan Qiren was unsure whether Cangse Sanren had somehow managed to follow his thoughts and was now referring to Wen Ruohan, against whom she still bore something of a grudge, but then he realized that she meant his brother.

“Anything of value, anyway,” she huffed, tossing her hair and baring her teeth in the way she used to do before she realized that human beings didn’t use threat displays in that manner.

“He picked a courtesy name for A-Huan,” Lan Qiren said. “As is his right, of course.”

That had been Lan Qiren’s true motive in going to see his brother, in fact. He had refused to go see his brother for months, even if etiquette suggested he should go to pay his respects; it was only after A-Huan was born that he had finally yielded. It was only upon seeing the round and innocent face of little A-Huan starting to smile that he felt compelled to bend his stubborn back and compromise himself to reach out – there was very little, he found, that he wouldn’t do for his little nephew, who had no one else in the world.

His brother had been largely disinterested, though, even when Lan Qiren had inappropriately brought the child over for him to see – it had been too early for propriety, before the first month ceremony which marked the moment when the child could be exhibited more broadly, but Lan Qiren’s heart had hurt at the idea of his brother not seeing his son before the rest of the world had had a chance. It was not a large distance between the seclusion house his brother had chosen for himself, the same one that their father had planned to use before his suicide, and the house set aside for He Kexin, which Lan Qiren had taken to privately calling the Gentian House on account of the flowers that crowded around it.

Everyone had turned a blind eye to Lan Qiren’s little excursion – but his brother hadn’t cared.

It was He Kexin that he loved, that he was mad for, and in his selfishness he could not see extending that love to anyone beyond her. Lan Qiren was resolved to teach A-Huan to do better, to think of others first, to care for other people and think not only of them but of the people beyond them, just as he looked at He Kexin and thought to teach him to make his own judgments of people, to listen to their side of the story and analyze it carefully based on what he knew.

He could only hope that it would help.

When his brother had told him to leave, that he didn’t care to see the child, Lan Qiren had left, returning Lan Huan to his mother’s care, and returned himself to his brother’s door, boiling over with rage, to give him a piece of his mind.

It had backfired on him, of course. He would have been better off not going back at all – the rules said Do not succumb to rage, and they were right. All he had managed to obtain was a sore throat from all the yelling and a fresh set of nightmares.

And a name.

At least he had gotten Lan Huan a name bestowed upon him by his father, as he deserved.

“He selected ‘Xichen’,” Lan Qiren said, drawing out the characters and passing it over for Cangse Sanren to see. “It’s a good name.”

“Lan Xichen,” Cangse Sanren said, sounding it out and thinking over the meaning of the characters. “Yes, that’s a good name. Full of ambition and well-wishes…I bet the rotten trash-heap sees A-Huan as another incarnation of himself.”

Lan Qiren didn’t exactly disagree. Still, it would be rude to say so; he coughed and shook his head. “What about you?” he asked instead. “Are you and Wei Changze planning on giving A-Huan a playmate?”

And himself a student, in a dozen years or so. He’d started accepting students from rogue cultivators and other sects, just the way he’d planned; it was still in the early stages. He was still writing to small sects with fewer resources and offering to take their problem children because he knew that that was all they’d be willing to send to him, an outsider – there had always been lectures offered by the Great Sects, but they were one-off things, often accompaniments to discussion conferences or else excuses for the sects’ adults to gather and socialize while the children learned a few days’ worth of material. Taking another sect’s child for a full season, the way he planned to, was a much bigger ask. Much less to teach them his Lan sect rules, which weren’t even seen as applicable by the rest of the world…

Still, Lan Qiren had hope that eventually he would be able to demonstrate his merit; if his teaching worked with this first set of children, he hoped that it would work in the future for more of them. He hoped he’d be able to help them learn something, but even if he didn’t, they would at least have the experience of traveling – of visiting another place all on their own – so that if something happened in their lives to rob them of their freedom, they would at least have that much to remember. And in return, he would have them, his students, the feathers to brighten and color his dull nest and let him experience a little of what the world was still available to him.

Cangse Sanren laughed. “Not for a few years yet,” she said, eyes dancing. “You’re still safe! We want to have some time for ourselves, first – we’re going to travel around as rogue cultivators. I’ll write to you from every city, and send you things!”

Lan Qiren smiled.

“But only,” she said primly, “only if you promise me you’re not actually going to go through with growing that awful beard of yours again –”

“I’m a teacher now. I’m entitled!”

“You’re too young! You have to wait until you’re at least thirty for a beard.”

“By what rule?”

“My rule! Also my aesthetics; you’re so pretty –”

“I explained to you my reasoning already,” Lan Qiren complained. “What do you have against it, other than an aesthetic preference which is completely irrelevant to me?”

“I’m a rogue cultivator from Baoshan Sanren’s immortal mountain,” she proclaimed. “I seek to improve the world wherever it may be, fight evil and promote good, and keeping you clean-shaven is such a clear and vast improvement to the beauty of the world that it must be fiercely fought for –”

“Cangse Sanren!”

She burst out laughing. “How about this?” she giggled. “You can grow it after you’re thirty, or else whenever I’m not here, so that you can have it when you’re teaching your classes.”

“Thank you for your generous permission,” he drawled.

“No, no, it’ll be good!” she beamed at him. “That means that when I’m gone for good, you’ll have something to remember me by.”

Lan Qiren’s smile disappeared. “Cangse Sanren –”

“I told you long ago that I was doomed,” she reminded him. “Anyway, I’ve kept a low profile, haven’t I? I’m not dead yet, and you never know what might happen. And anyway, like I always said, a short life in exchange for a good life is a bargain I’m willing to strike…anyway, enough about me. Tell me about your children! The students, I mean; are they really all terrible bear children, without a single good trait between them?”

“They’re fine,” Lan Qiren said, distracted by what was quickly proving to be a new favorite subject. “I don’t know what everyone complains about with them. So what if they’re mischievous at first? In the end they all learn, you just have to give them attention and figure out what it is that they like, what will work to give them a basis to use in the future…”

“Surely some of them have to be disasters.”

“Don’t worry, I’m certain that your future child will be a fiend in human flesh born for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc on the serenity of my classroom,” Lan Qiren said dryly. “To be matched only by the inevitable offspring of Lan Yueheng and Zhang Xin, should they ever choose to put aside their furnaces and chemicals long enough to have them.”

Cangse Sanren giggled. “Just you wait,” she warned. “They’ll have a whole host of children, just like the common folk do; none of this two-and-done that you noble scions of the Lan sect prefer. They’ll have an entire horde for the next generation, and just when you think that you’re finally done with them, they’ll have an ‘accident’ twenty years too late, a child of their old age, and you’ll have to teach them alongside children young enough to be A-Huan’s heirs…”

“Why must you curse me?” Lan Qiren complained. “What have I ever done to you?”

It had been a good visit.

Yes, Lan Qiren thought, he was starting to adjust, little by little. The life he had now was not what he wanted, not what he’d dreamed of, but he could live with it – he had to, of course, but he thought that he also could. He would play for his nephew instead of a nameless crowd in a distant city, he would teach students a generation too early, he would only leave the Cloud Recesses on short excursions – night-hunting, or discussion conferences, or visits to his friends, to play with little A-Jue over in the Unclean Realm or the slightly older A-Xu in the Nightless City, whose would-be sibling had not made it despite Wen Ruohan’s concubine’s best effort. Wen Ruohan had written in his letter that he had promised her another as compensation, but only in a few years, once her body had fully recovered and A-Xu was old enough that another child wouldn’t be seen as a threat, which seemed fair to Lan Qiren.

He would live.

He might even enjoy it.

He only wondered a little, about Wen Ruohan – his sworn brother had, he thought, expressed some mangled version of feelings towards him, feelings that well exceeded the ordinary course for sworn brothers and which he thought he had made clear were not unwelcome, but amidst the hubbub that had later ensued Wen Ruohan had not spoken of it again. Lan Qiren could understand that he had been distracted, first by Lao Nie’s marriage – now ended, according to Lao Nie, who seemed as unperturbed by his announcement that his wife had disappeared permanently and would likely never be returning as he had by anything else about this mysterious woman that Lan Qiren had never had the chance to meet and now never would – and then by Lan Qiren’s brother’s situation.

And yet, he would have thought that there would be something…

Wen Ruohan has lived for generations, he reminded himself. He is an ancient monster of the old sort, unmatched by any other living being, excepting only perhaps those that long ago retreated into seclusion or the mountains. Waiting a year or even a few is for him little more than a brief pause. He may yet reach out again – and, of course, you could do the reaching out yourself, if you weren’t such a coward.

It wasn’t cowardice that stopped him, of course, no matter what names he called himself. It was uncertainty, and also, in his own way, a form of care – it was the Lan sect’s curse to love too strongly, to prioritize their hearts above all common sense. Lan Qiren did not want to burden Wen Ruohan with an offer that would not satisfy him, to hang around his neck an obligation of unwanted feelings the way his brother had done to He Kexin.

Lan Qiren could not see a way in which he could offer Wen Ruohan his heart and not his body, yet he knew himself well enough to know that he would be unhappy if he tried to offer both. He could exert himself if he really had to, force himself to go through the motions that seemed so dull and unpleasant, all squelching amidst bodily fluids and inelegant grunting and none of the attraction that other people had to compensate for it. But he couldn’t do so sincerely, and he wouldn’t be able to do it for very long without developing resentment at being forced to endure such a task routinely – and it did seem that regular people wanted it all the time.

Such a feeling, if ignored, would breed disorder between them, poisoning their hearts…no, Lan Qiren could not make the first move, to take the step that would breach the paper between them, change them from their current status as brothers and nothing more.

He had made his position clear.

The only question was – what would Wen Ruohan do about it?

#mdzs #lan qiren #cangse sanren #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

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weaselle · 3 years

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Ant Cthulhu

Tumblr ate my story! Goodbye to. just. so many thousands of notes. This was one of my first stories that people on tumblr liked. So I’m making it a new post, so that people can find it. Plus, of all the thousands who read the first one or two installments, not nearly as many discovered that I had written a third and final installment that ends the story, so here is a chance at that.

The story was inspired by a pair of observations on Tumblr, where users probablybadrpgideas and 20thcenturyvole said, respectively

“if Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.” and “Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.“

It gets just a little dark, but any story named for Cthulhu surely must have some death and destruction, right?

ANT CTHULHU

That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name. And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals - now you have to do us a favor. And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?” and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever. And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done” …. _____________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile another colony of ants invades your house, and evidently that last ant has gotten some of them to join her in a circle and taught them the ritual because you’re coming out of the bathroom one day and you hear the ants singing your name. Sure enough it’s that ant, but she’s dark and fucked up now, and she’s like, “kill the queen. I will rule this colony” and you’re like, sure, I guess I kinda owe her, and you do it. And she manages to become queen, and they worship you. Which is cool, you’re not, you know, very important in the human world, but to these ants you’re practically all-powerful.

Your beloved Naya doesn’t understand your fascination with the ants at all, but you easily train her to leave them alone. She’s such a good dog. The ants are horrified that you command such a beast.

You begin to realize can’t be just, doing everything a bunch of ants tell you to all the time. When would you watch Netflx? So you tend to only show up for super important ants; you teach them some extra words and when hear them you go see what’s up. Usually. Also though, you’ll show up to just your name, if you’re bored and you hear it. And, sometimes some of the ants are like, tell us more human names, and you’re kind of jealous of the idea of some other human diluting your private godhood, so you refuse. Your roommate Greg is like, yo, that’s fucking awesome, I want ant worshipers! But whenever he approaches any, they run away, because it turns out that the illusion of control from the named summoning is what makes them feel safe around you. That’s great, because Greg is a dick who never does the dishes, and one day you decide to teach Greg a lesson. So you show up at the colony, and you’re like, “yo, witch queen, did you think there would be no price for all these things? Your colony must do something for me, go to the Room of the Housemate, I will meet you there.” And you go sit on the couch and play Overwatch for a while. You’re like, right there, you can clearly see the ants all marching along the wall to Greg’s room, but to them you’re not even there, you’re so far away they can’t see you. It takes them, like, an ant week to make the journey. They have to figure out ways to get over and around things. Some of them drown, or get stepped on by the dog, or whatever. You win a game, you lose a game, you look over, and they’re trying to get through some cobwebs… looks like they’re mostly going to live, you keep playing, you look over, okay they’re all in there, and you stand up and walk over and by the time they’ve chanted your name once, you’re there. “right, hold on” and you look around and you see a twelve-pack of Greg’s precious fucking soda, that he keeps in his room and refuses to ever share, even though it’s a communal food household and you share your hot chocolate with him all the time. So you gather the ants unto you, and you poke a little hole in each of the sodas and you leave the room to the sound of the ants rejoicing. Greg will suspect of course, but he’ll never be able to prove the ants didn’t chew holes in the plastic and steal his stupid drinks.

He actually tries to blame it on Naya. What a prick. You insist with wide eyes that the ants must have found it somehow — maybe he shouldn’t leave soda pop laying around his room. But later, while you’re at work, Greg destroys most of the colony in a rage, and you come home to find the witch queen gasping her last. “The Dew of the Mountain, which you had us steal, was cursed - and so I lay my curse on you” she manages, and then she dies. Well first of all, you don’t really believe in curses, but last month you didn’t believe ants could know your name, so that’s unsettling. And second of all, you feel kind of bad. You know, not SUPER bad, cause she’s like, an ant. But still. And most importantly, third of all, Greg must pay. Like some kind of movie villain, you pet your loving Naya and say out loud “Oh yes, and pay he will.”

But Greg has done more than kill a bunch of the colony. As you wait for eggs and pupae to replenish the ant population, you discover he has found some ants that didn’t go on the Mountain Dew raid, and he’s spared them, told them his name.

He’s made himself a good sized cult in YOUR fucking ant queendom. Greg has started locking his door. So now you NEED the ants. Once again you direct the ants loyal to you to journey to Greg’s room. You meet them at the door. A locked door means nothing to the ants, they don’t even know there is a door, and can barely perceive the difference between it being open and shut - either passing the threshold on the floor regardless, or being on its surface no matter the position. But you need them to get inside. You’re going to put itching powder in his underwear drawer and leave a raw fish under his bed. So you instruct the leading party of ants how to go into the Cave of Keyhole, and position the Magic Megaliths inside just right to enable the opening of the Great Door and allow you to pass into the Realm of Housemate. Crouched by the door, you can hear when your ants are met by a party of Greg Cultists, who insist that if the Great Door is opened, the colony will be doomed. There is fighting. Your ants prevail, the lock tumblers are moved into place, and you swing the door open… To find Greg! In his room all along! It’s a trap! His cultists attack you! I mean, they can’t do much real harm, but it kind of hurts and it’s super annoying. You order your ants to attack him, and they do, but he storms over and pours bleach down the colony entrance.

It’s the end of their world. Now you and Greg are at war, and you both understand the unspoken rules to your fight. You can’t do things directly to each other, why, that would be assault. But anything you can get your ants to do is fine, because “she told the ants to do it to me” isn’t going to get very far with any authority figures that get involved. Later, nursing your anger, you confer with your few remaining ants and stare moodily at your new prize, the ant farm that came in the mail. It will take time to integrate them- your ants have to get access to the new ants’ scent marker chemicals and go undercover. Meanwhile, you’ve got a laptop schematic to go over with your high priestess. It’s finals week, and if you time it right, he’ll lose everything. … You look down into the summoning ritual. The current high priestess, Zé, is an ant of great influence and personality - you quite like her, inso far as a human can be friends with an ant that worships them. You thought the new queen would become the next high priestess, but according to Zé the queens don’t like to come out of the colony after they shed their wings. Plus they are very busy laying eggs and supervising the care of their ant larvae. Zé says it’s a better deal for you, this way your high priestess can have the time and energy to really serve your interests, and wield an authority among the colony that is purely yours - no conflict of interest, and no baby making duties. It’s really just what’s best for both you and the colony queen to have her as high priestess, she informs you, making you laugh at her flattery-wrapped ambition. There’s no laughing this evening though. It’s serious business on the docket tonight. “O wise and ancient entity of power, you grace us with your presence!” and for formality’s sake, she intones the additional ritual greeting from their holy books “You Look Fantastic, Have You Done Something New With Your Hair?” Ants don’t really understand hair. You respond as you have become accustomed “Thank You, Yes.” It’s just easier. They mean well. Mystic greeting complete, Zé and the rest of the dark clergy move straight to business. Several 10s of them line up in formation, creating a diagram of the apartment complex. You had to coach them into how to make it, as far as they are concerned it’s a complex sigil that conveys knowledge to you - for creatures that traverse the building in long journeys along the pipes in the walls and in the spaces between the lower ceiling and upper floor, it looks nothing like the apartment complex as they know it. Zé claims to understand it, but secretly you suspect she’s just mostly cementing her authority among the clergy. She has, usefully, memorized which parts of the sigil correspond with what parts of the building, and that’s good enough for your purposes. “O mighty being, we have done as instructed. Our scouts had to search wide for them, but we have left the corpses of many termites in all the locations you specified, every night this week. “Very good,” you assure them, “and the Greggorites?” “Our spies among them have learned of their next attack. We should be able to influence their timing somewhat.” “Good. And..” your eyes narrow, “the other thing?” “Ah, yes.” Zé’s antennae wave and dip in that way you know means she is uncomfortable. “to the best of our ability to find out, the… Antifreeze initiative was entirely conceived of by the Demon Lord Greg.” “Just Greg,” you tell Zé with bitter hatred as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Greg is not a lord, just a fucking prick who’s going to get what’s coming to him. I swear by all of creation he will.” “Is there…” Zé trailed off and tried again. “O Deity of my heart, far be it from me to question Your Exaltedness, but help your poor servant to understand… your plans have become, ah, they seem perhaps, I am sure I am wrong, but they seem, overly audacious? Your recent change in demeanor has made some of us nervous - not me! - but some of the less devout among my sistren, have become… concerned.” Your fists clench. “I don’t expect you to get it. I’m pretty certain none of you could possibly understand.” Your voice breaks. You clench your teeth. You won’t, you won’t cry in front of your ant worshipers. You lean down and say in the strangled half whisper that is the only way you can force the words past the lump in your throat, “He killed my dog, Zé…” The ants flee the sound of your terrible wailing. The great Finals Erasure had worked to more devastating effect than you had anticipated, and things had… escalated. Then Greg proved himself to be less human than the ants , who themselves had turned out to be such surprising little beings. So. The orders for the heinous deed did in fact come from him. Now, there are things that have to be done. You call the ants back out of hiding and get to work. In the end, it was easier than you thought it would be. You talk to all the neighbors, without Greg. You hide the relevant pieces of mail. You have the scuba gear and the stuff from the sex shop shipped to a friend’s house. You ensure your spies among the Greggorites have escape plans, though Zé assures you they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause. “I’m not that kind of Deity,” you tell her. The night before, your ants slip a double dose of tylenol p.m. into Greg’s milkshake. You almost laugh; all your efforts to make sure there is only soup to make for dinner, and he comes home with Burger King. He sleeps so soundly that he never comes close to waking the whole time you are attaching the padded bondage equipment to his limbs and hiding with him in the closet. The walk through by the company inspectors that morning is a tense moment, but as you suspect, they don’t open the closets. After they leave to do their work outside, you finish your work inside, tying Greg to his bed. By the time he starts to wake up, you are sitting in a chair in the doorway to his bedroom, with your mask on. The air is beginning to thicken and discolor. Greg coughs around his ball gag and opens his eyes. You feel curiously calm and empty. “Hi, Greg.” Your voice is muffled, “You like my dive mask?” Greg makes an angry questioning noise, spread eagled to the full extension of his limbs. “Oh, yeah, that must be uncomfortable. Can’t give you enough slack to jerk against the ropes, though, or you might leave tell-tale bruises through the padding.” More angry noises, coughing. “Hhhmm? Oh, did I forget to tell you? It’s termite day, Greg, they’ve tented the house. That’s Sulfuryl Fluoride you’re breathing. You’ll cough for a bit, you’ll throw up, and your heart will stop.” He’s thrashing around as much as the ropes will allow, which isn’t a lot. He’s pretty energetic about it, though; maybe he can’t hear you over his efforts. “You shouldn’t have meddled around with godhood, it didn’t suit you. Power compromised your judgement. You definitely shouldn’t have fucking killed my dog, Greg” You’re suddenly filled with rage. You need to know he hears you. You stride over to the bed and grab him by the throat. Not too hard, you try to remember through your anger, no bruises. The grip is enough to make Greg stop thrashing and look at you with wide wide eyes. “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKING KILLED NAYA YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY? WHY? HOW COULD YOU!? SHE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!” Just as suddenly, your anger is gone. You feel tired. You look down at him and shake your head.”Time to die, Greg.” You cross the room and sit back down in your chair in the doorway. Watching him die isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as watching Naya suffer through acute kidney failure. Afterwards, you take off all the bondage gear, throw it in a duffel bag. You leave through the back, rolling out from under the fumigation tent against the back fence, and packing the scuba gear into the duffel before you climb into the neighbors yard. A month later, you’re moving from town to town. The colony has become so large you’re going to need a bigger truck full of clay for them to live in. Maybe an old Uhaul. The ants bring you a newspaper. They bring you everything now, food, money, information. Word of how you value the life of each individual ant has spread through the colony, and reports brought back from the apartment by scouts confirming your status as a godslayer has …elevated… their worship of you. You open the newspaper to find Greg’s death has made the papers. No suspicion of foul play despite the exterminator company lawyers insisting on an autopsy. Tylenol p.m. in his system accounted for his presence in the building, it was decided, and the failure of the inspectors to notice Greg in bed during their walk through was settled out of court, paid off by their insurance. The ants bring you a conga line of grapes, peeling them for you while you stare off into space. A small line of ants brings the peels back to the colony larder. You’re going to have to teach them how to disable cameras - the leaked security footage of hundred dollar bills slipping themselves out under the bank doors has caused a bit of a stir on some parts of the internet… you eat another grape, and count your money. As usual you put half of it in an envelope, uncapping a sharpie to write “From Naya” on it. The ants will slip it under the door of the local animal shelter for you tonight. END

_____________________________________________________________________

so, looking back, I feel I should tell you that when I wrote the final chapter of this I had just become homeless and had to leave my dog in a better home than I could provide. It’s cool, we still see each other a lot these days, I was just real sad about it and it effected what I wrote. Anyway, that’s the Ant Cthulhu story

#ant cthulhu #ant #ants #writing #fiction #story

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coderfortourette · 3 years

Text

Statehouse Headcanons

State Headcanons based on city research

Thanks to Ben's city name videos, I have started researching the etymology of different places in the United States. And naturally I've come up with lots of different headcanons based on all of my research.

Pronunciation Headcanons: How some states will pronounce other states names

- Louisiana says "Eye-way" instead of Iowa. [From place Iowa, Louisiana. Which was founded by a bunch of people from the Midwest]

- Kansas says Arkansas's name wrong, but that's on purpose because he's a little bugger.

- Kentucky says "Lee'siana" instead of Louisiana. [This one is just a personal thing. I'm from Kentucky (ok, Ohio-Kentucky hybrid, but I pick Kentucky) and that's just how I sometimes slur Louisiana together.]

- Texas says "Colo-ray-do" instead of Colorado. [Colorado City, Texas. The "Mother City of West Texas"]

- Wisconsin says Arkansas's name correctly, he just spells it "Arkansaw". West Virginia also spells it this way sometimes. [Arkansas, West Virginia (or sometimes Arkansaw) and Arkansaw, Wisconsin.]

- Then Nevada's name... 3 pronunciations (a). Ne-vad-uh = how the state says it (b). Ne-va-duh = the Spanish pronunciation (How I headcanon New Mexico says it. Gov/DC also uses this pronunciation) (c). Ne-vey-duh = The one used by cities in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and Arkansas. [Nevada County, Arkansas actually, not a city. And it's named that because it's shape is/was similar to that of the state of Nevada.]

State Names:

- Alaska's name comes from an idiom. So I propose this New York: It's an idiom! Florida: You're an idiom. Alaska: Actually I'm an idiom, he's an unoriginal copy.

- Kentucky named Washington. The original proposed name was "Columbia" for the Columbia River and Columbia District. However a Kentucky representative (Richard H. Stanton) felt that was too similar to the District of Columbia. So the name Washington, after the president, was proposed and obviously accepted. There is still confusion between the city and the state though, so it wasn't really a thought out decision.

- Pennsylvania named Wyoming. The name comes from the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania and is derived from a Munsee word meaning "at the big river flat".

- Wyoming is indifferent towards being named by Pennsylvania. Washington is looking into maybe changing his name, but hasn't said anything aloud to avoid hurting Kentucky's feelings. [Based on the fact that name changes have been proposed to avoid confusion if/when Washington DC becomes a state]

- Florida's name means "Little Flower". He was given the name from the lush greenery and the fact that it was Easter season when Juan Ponce landed. (Pascua Florida).

- There is apparently a state holiday in Florida called Pascua Florida. It's celebrated around April 2nd. Florida, the state personification, absolutely celebrates it. I'm still not 100% sure what festivities entail, but Florida wears a flower crown that day (Orange Blossoms and tickweeds specifically)

- Florida has tried to include some of the other states in his festivities. But given that the holiday falls right around/sometimes on April 1st, they think it's just an April's Fool Prank and don't join.

- In a universe where Georgia and Florida have a father-son relationship, Georgia would call Florida "Little Flower" as a nickname when Florida was younger. He still does occasionally, but not as often anymore.

- There exist a few cities named "California". I'm going to focus on California, Kentucky (totally not because that's my favorite state, what?) The city was set up 1852 and was named California because of the Gold Rush. The occupants would receive lots of news and letters about it. My headcanon: California and Kentucky are pen-pals. In fact, they are pen pals who don’t know that they know each other in real life (which, at this point everybody’s giving them questioning looks bc they’ve been sending letters since the 1840s and it’s the 2000s. Who else would they be sending letters too?) They're just dumbasses. Literally everybody else in the statehouse has figured it out except for these two. Like, the others will watch one of them write the letter and send it. The letter will arrive at the statehouse after a few days and the other one will be reading it in view of the first one After the first few times, even the mailman was like “this letter is just coming back here?? Why should I take it??” But I also headcanon Kentucky with OCD/Autism (totally not projecting here...). He would get upset if the mailman wouldn't take the letter because OCD/Autism Logic TM. So the mailman humors him. Does this mean that Kentucky and California should recognize the return address and stuff? Yes. Do they? Of course not. I will need to do a separate post just for my Kentucky and California headcanons.

Other random things:

- Kentucky just... can not pronounce things. That, or he has his own way of doing it and will not listen to others. Specifically when it comes to French or Spanish based names. There's a lot of cities in Kentucky pronounced differently then their foreign language source. [Louisville, Versailles, Cadiz, Erlanger, etc]

- Kentucky sings under his breath a lot. The three most common songs are "My Old Kentucky Home" [state song], "My Bonnie Lies Over the Sea" [Bonnieville, Kentucky], and "Pastoral Elegy" [Corydon, Kentucky].

- Kentucky supplies Utah with most of beekeeping equipment. [Walter T. Kelly Beekeeping company started in Leitchfield, Kentucky].

- Virginia no longer names anything Fayette anymore. He named a place Fayette County, in honor of Marquis de LaFayette. Then Kentucky became a state and took it. So in 1830, Virginia named another place Fayette County. Then West Virginia became a state and took it. West Virginia and Kentucky have joked that maybe District should change his name to Fayette and he'll get statehood a whole lot sooner and easier.

- Georgia really likes bacon. [Bacon County, Georgia and Baconton, Georgia. Both are technically named for people who's last name was Bacon, but shh]. He will argue with you if you don't like bacon.

- Whenever the BBQ argument pops up between the South, North Carolina likes to point out that his BBQ is the best, he even has a place named Barbecue! The other states are not amused.

- Kentucky is the type of person who gets his paperwork done ahead of time. He's very busy with it. (Not to the point of ruining his sleep schedule though). [Busy, Kentucky. Named because the enterprising citizens were "busy as bees".] (Is it obvious I have a favorite state?)

That’s all I have for now. But I’m going to keep up the research still anyway and may update it with new revelations and thoughts.

#welcome to the table #welcome to the statehouse #wttt #wttsh #ben brainard #city names #state names #Kentucky #etymology #I have fallen into a deep pit from which I can not escape #Back into research I go though

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thenightling · 3 years

Text

The Internet has forgotten what real ableism

The word Ableist is thrown around a lot where it doesn’t belong.

The way it is thrown around on the Internet it has been diminished an lost some meaning. It's like the boy who cried wolf.

I’ve been called ableist on this Hell site twice. Once for referring to the character Rumplestiltskin from Once Upon a Time as having a disability (The character walks with a cane because of a shattered ankle).

Someone decided that acknowledging Rumplestiltskin has a disability is ableist because he “did it to himself.” The character can’t walk without a cane. But because they don’t like him and don’t sympathize with his backstory, he “doesn’t count” and if you say he has a disability “you are ableist” by default. This... really happened...

The other accusation was pretty recent. It was someone angry at me for debunking Reality Shifting to F--king Hogwarts. Apparently explaining what Lucid Dreaming and maladaptive Daydreaming is now counts as Ableist.

The irony? I am legally blind. I’m not actually blind, it just means extremely poor eyesight.

Hell, I saw Daredevil (the blind superhero) called ableist on this Hellsite because he called a serial killer “crazy.” The character, in question, was The Punisher. Yes, The Punisher was sympathetic. But the blind Superhero, chained up by a known murderer, and being goaded to kill, is NOT “Ableist” for telling his own kidnapper that he’s crazy. It’s not the most polite term but when you’re chained up by a killer you get a little slack, for God’s sake! That doesn’t mean you forever call the blind character “Ableist”.

Neil Gaiman (the famous author) was called ableist right here on Tumblr and Facebook because he corrected the spelling of someone who sent him an antisemitic ask. That’s right. The Jewish author was called an ableist for... correcting a antisemite’s typo... He was even sent an ask, asking him to defend himself, because someone had shown his reply to the antisemite to their Facebook group and the members said he was being ableist. The Jewish man was... being ableist... for correcting the typo... of someone sending him hate... You can probably still find it on Neil’s blog. You can’t make something like this up! It’s just too profoundly stupid.

Tumblr (and other sites) don’t know what ableism actually is and it’s infuriating. You want to know what REAL ableism is?

Ableism is being in kindergarten and for “safety” reasons they won’t let you play on the nice playground equipment all your friends are playing on because they’re afraid you’ll fall off with your poor eyesight but you can play on old, rusty, metal ones, making recess socializing really awkward and difficult. THAT one is okay for some reason! Ableism is swinging around a toy animal with a long tail, accidentally hitting someone because you have no depth perception, the teacher KNOWING you have no depth perception, but still dedicating the afternoon to teaching the class why hitting is wrong, so it’s a humiliation fest because of an accident.

Ableism is being fifteen-years-old in high school and being the only kid who has to call home first to make sure “someone is there for you” to allow you to leave if school gets let out early. Every... single... time... Ableism is knowing how to swim but the class fieldtrip to the public pool requires a permission slip and even with the permission slip you are only allowed in the wading pool.

Ableism is when Special Ed teachers treat you like you’re mentally disabled because it is the only disability they are used to. (This happens a LOT.) It makes you feel like you’re stupid or that the world must see you as stupid so that when IQ tests arrive in the mail saying you have a superior intellect you break down crying.

Ableism is going to a school Speech therapy because you have a lisp (I lost my two front teeth when I was a two and they didn’t grow back in until I was almost thirteen). And the speech teacher is used to neurological conditions where the student can’t shift topics in a conversation and decides you don’t need Speech therapy because you can hold a normal conversation. Yes, but, I still couldn’t pronounce “Shh.” I was there for a lisp!

Ableism is being bullied by other kids who pretend to miss their own mouth when eating to mock how poor your sight is. (Because you... see your mouth when eating?!?) Ableism is when a kid sings “O say can Amanda see” every single time we’re made to sing the Star Spangled banner so you come hate the National anthem or “Three blind Pikes.” (My name is Amanda Pike). Three Blind Mice is already unpleasant enough.

Ableism is a teacher telling you she'll have your poetry published in an anthology but it must contain a short bio that says you're in the vision Impaired program. As if that's the extent of who you are and the reason you'd be published and not because your writing is actually any good... Ableism is the head of the high school's "Vision impaired program" wanting to do "Vision awareness week" by pinning the names of everyone with visual disabilities all over the school. Because that's not humiliating at all when there are kids already mocking you for your eyesight. Ableism is someone stealing your bookbag in Jr. High, and finding it later with the word “Cyclops” written across it in permanent marker.

Ableism is multiple reviews (including professional ones) whining that Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman audio drama adaptation should have been “updated” for modern audiences with certain parts taken out because it’s “problematic” even though this was literally the first version of the story accessible for the visually impaired or dyslexic. None of these reviews caring that anyone with a disability might want to know the story as it was originally written without having to have a friend read it out loud to them. That’s ableism disguised as being “woke.” “This thirty-four-year-old story doesn’t fit modern sensibilities. It should have been re-written.” while ignoring that for many this was their first time even having access to the story at all, warts and all, and sometimes you want to know how a thing was originally written- the good and the bad, not just the polished up and “updated” version. Deliberately denying access to a story, as it was written, because you don’t like it, is ableist. That’s ableism.

But...

When you’re called ableist for referring to a character who has a disability as having a disability simply because the person in question doesn’t like him...

When a blind character is called ableist for calling the man beating him up, chaining him up, and murdering people, crazy...

When a Jewish man is called ableist because he corrected the typo of an antisemite sending him hate...

When you’re called ableist for explaining what maladaptive daydreaming is and telling someone they aren’t magically gaining control of the universe where Harry Potter is real...

The word “Ableist” has lost all meaning. And it’s infuriating. As someone who has experienced genuine ableism since I was four-years-old, before the term was even coined, it is infuriating. I knew some teachers, and students were treating me unfairly just because of my eyesight, but the term didn’t exist / wasn’t common yet. And now the term is thrown around for stupid reasons so it’s diminished.

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fabricated-misslieness · 4 years

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What if Corpse was interested in another faceless YouTuber (who would be his future s/o) only to find out that they actually know each other in person 🤔 I'm sorry it was just a thought I had to share with someone :")

Corpse Husband x FacelessYoutuber!gender neutral reader

Ooh but what kind of interest? Like ooh la la or you’re a cool dude, let’s be friends kinda interest? Jk, jk. Anyway, you think you’d know it’s Corpse from that voice, honestly, but hey it is what it is.

Writing and posting this today cause I was bored and I got inspired.

No, they’re not actually married. It’s a joke, from this clip of this video at 0:17

Requested: Yes

Word Count: 1,089

(d/n) = display name / channel name / youtuber nickname (in case the username is quite long, something like Corpse Husband being called Corpse)

Once again, another notification for getting tagged in a tweet. What’s it about? Oh? Faceless YouTubers? You get tagged with those other two, Dream and Corpse, like a million times a day.

It felt like it’d been increased to two or even three million now that you’d announced you were streaming Among Us together.

It was going to be the first time you met Dream and around the third with Corpse.

It wasn’t like you were dreading it, you were rather excited, it’s just the constant tagging was getting a little annoying; especially when you would check your phone at the sound of a notification, only to find yourself being tagged to a Tweet about faceless YouTubers.

You settled on putting it on silent, though you stopped as you saw your best friend text you. “Wyd tonight?”

Your face lit up in a smile, “Something work related. You wanted to hang?”

“Nah, nah, just curious.” His reply was very sus, but maybe that was all the Among Us affecting you. “You’ve done a lot of work related stuff recently.”

“So have you.” You let out a small huff of a laugh.

“Touché.” He replies. “A’ight then, let’s hang out Sunday?”

“Thought you said you didn’t want to hang.” You raised an eyebrow even if he wouldn’t see it. “But, yeah, sure.”

“Shush.” It made you laugh, you were sure he was a bit embarrassed. “K, Sunday then.”

That seemed to be the end of your conversation, good thing since it was almost time to stream.

“We get tagged a million times a day together.” Your followers were shocked about how you were unaffected when you first heard his voice. While the real reason was because your best friend also had the deepest voice ever, you said that it was because Corpse had blown up recently. If you’re in the Among Us community in 2020, you know about Corpse.

“Do you not have a face either?” You and Dream laughed, replying similarly.

“My face is just a mask.” That hit a little too hard based off of the situation of the world right now, but you brush it off.

“I look just like my avatar, promise.” You said. That was hard to believe, with your avatar looking like it came straight out of a fairy tale. “How ‘bout you, Corpse?”

“Yeah, me too.” The three faceless YouTubers laughed.

Ever since he’d first met you, at your first Among Us session together, he’d felt a sense of familiarity around you and vice versa.

Even your voices and the way you talked were the same.

It got him interested in you, in the same way that he was interested in his best friend. It felt bad having a crush on two different people at the same time, but he couldn’t help it.

Then when you heard he was from Southern California, from a random talk about time zones, your gut feeling was telling you that was your best friend. The similarities were too abundant to be coincidences.

When it finally came to you hanging out on Sunday, at his apartment because ‘bleh, people’, you thought back to that video from Anthony Padilla, “I spent a day with FACELESS YOUTUBERS”

Remembering this clearly made you feel like a stalker but… he’s mentioned the fact that he was 23, dropped out of school at 8th grade, came back, and then dropped out again, the accessories you see on his hands, and the fact he has a YouTuber room he never lets anyone inside of.

That sounded just like your bestie.

“Hey, what’s inside that room again?” You pointed at the door of the forbidden room he had.

“(y/n), don’t.” His voice was bordering on uncomfortable and threatening, like he’d kick you out if you persisted with it.

“Sorry.” The guilt caught up to you, making Corpse sigh and give you a hug.

“It’s okay.” His voice soothed your guilt. “Now that I think about it, you have one of those rooms in your apartment too.” He laughed and it sounded like heaven on Earth, just like Corpse Husband.

“Yeah, it’s a YouTuber room.”

“What?”

Your shoulders tensed, you didn’t mean to let that slip out. “Uh--”

“(y/n).” Corpse breathed out in shock, separating from your hug to look at you. “Can you say (d/n)’s intro just like how they say it?”

“No, that’s embarrassing.” Your reply was immediate, but he didn’t seem convinced with your reason.

“You’re (d/n), right?” He asked.

You thought about a response, eyes focusing on the spot in which he’d thrown the aluminum foil, which you found still laying there the day after his Instagram story. “You’re Corpse Husband.” You retaliated.

“Uh, yeah.” He replied.

You stared at each other in awkward silence.

It was a deafening silence, one that made you anxious of the result of this situation.

Corpse interrupted it with one of his beautiful laughs and a joke, “We’re married.” I now pronounce all of us, married. Technically, you were married to the entirety of one of your Among Us groups and not only each other but hey, you’re still married. (this is a joke bro)

Your face flushed red. “Yeah, we are.”

“And I have a crush on you.” He blurted out. Shit, he didn’t mean to say that. His face flushed too, by now neither of you could look at the other.

“Me too.” You spoke up, a small smile on your face as you looked at him. You’d always had a crush on him. It felt a bit silly admitting that.

He laughed and you laughed. You gave him a peck on the lips and tears slipped down his cheeks.

“Shit.” Had you read the situation wrong?

Corpse pulled you into a tight hug, burying his head in your shoulder. “Thank you for being there for me.” He sniffled. “Supporting me when I dropped out, when I needed space, when I was desperate for help. Thank you.”

You felt the tears stain your shirt. “It’s what people in romantic relationships do, right?” You poorly phrased that on purpose to lighten his mood, which seemed to work.

He let out a small laugh but it was quickly followed by a sob.

You kissed the top of his head and played with his hair, hoping to soothe out his tears. “It’s no problem, it will never be a problem. You don’t have to say ‘thank you’ for some decent human decency.”

He sniffled, but you could tell he was starting to stop. “I love you.”

“I love you too, always have.”

#corpse husband x reader #corpse husband fanfiction #youtuber x reader #youtubers x reader #anonymousrequest

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