#and they do things like saying fuck miracle limits and trying to organize everyone the best they can and getting people on boats

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Birthday

Summary: could you do a hs losers x reader where the readers new to town and hates her bday bc each year her past friends and family had always forgotten or did nothing so when richie finds out her bdays coming up he tells the losers and they all plan a special surprise party and richie saves up and gets her something super special and the losers r all like wow he’s never gotten anyone anything like this b4 so she finds out that he likes her or something so it’s like the best bday she’s ever had

Richie bikes swiftly passed you, faster than he usually does, which can only mean he’s trying to surpass you. You barely refrain from flipping him the bird in public, as you too throw your weight into peddling. It’s no use, Richie is more athletic than you by a long shot, and he’s been practicing with Eddie for track. You’ll never be able to catch up with him with no viable effort.

‘You asshole,’ you yell out to him, noticing an elder woman pledging through her yard too late to stop your exclamation. She regards the both of you with malcontent, stabbing her hark too brutally in the soil of her allotment for it to be a coincidence.

‘Not my fault your short legs can’t reach the peddles.’

You growl, lifting up from your saddle to race faster, but Richie sees you do it and does nothing but laugh.

Any other time you might give him hell for it, but today, you are in no mood to indulge in Richie’s escapades.

It’s your birthday, and while for most that equalizes a fun day stacked with presents and cake, to you it stands for a day full of misery.

Your birthday is cursed. And no, that is not you being dramatic. At your ninth birthday, your cake got slammed into floor, therefor ruing the gift your parents had been working on for weeks, and which was their only present.

At age ten, you fell off your brand new bike into a ravine and had to go to the hospital to get eleven stitches. On your fourteenth birthday, you and your parents got into such a huge fight they send you up to your room and forbad you from sneaking down at any point in the day.

There are more examples to back up your claim for the terrible birthdays, but you have tried to desperately block them all out, so you won’t rehash them.

That’s why your so peeved that Richie is forcing you to the quarry.

‘If you could tell me where I’m supposed to be going to bet u could find a short cut and be there faster than you.’

‘Nice try Dora, I’m not telling you anything. It’s a surprise.’

‘Alright, I get two attempts. If I can’t guess where we’re going, I’ll do your homework for a week.’

‘And if you do guess it?’

‘Then you owe me a favor and no matter for what reason I cash it in, you don’t get to complain.’

‘Fine, bring it miss know it all.’ Richie slows down to slide next to you, the wind picking up as the two of you descend down the mountain. His smile is mischievous and cheeky, probably too confident to think you’ll be able to reckon the spot he has in mind.

If only he knew that you had limited the possibilities to two places, the exact amount of guess you were granted.

‘Hm, are we going to the arcade?’ Your first theory is. Richie doesn’t have anything on him right now, except pennies that have been rinkeling inside his pockets the entire bike ride, the only thing he needs to go to the arcade.

Richie smirks, and shakes his head. ‘Try one my dear, may I say that the odds aren’t in your favor right now?’

His impressive ego in the way he taunts you with the right answer fuels your desire to be right. ‘Are we going to the Barrens?’ You sing, smiling wide as Richie’s shrinks.

‘Eh, no?’ He says, but he sounds petulant. ‘Fuck this shit, what gave it away?’

‘A girl never reveals her secrets’, you say covertly, forgetting momentarily about the agitating day. You suspect that might have been Richie’s intention.

It’s not like the Barrens is such a stretch in the first place, the losers and you have made that place your own, but you do hypothesize that he may have planned something special for you.

Your theory turns out to be true, as you can spot a long table at the end of the dirt path you and Richie are currently riding on to get to the clubhouse. The table is stacked with a variety of candies, your favorite, drinks that are sweet enough to rot your teeth, something Richie should be more aware off - having a dad who is a dentist-, and a giant cake with eight candles on. Each one representing a loser.

You say nothing as you approach, in a sneaky way torturing Richie a bit more before revealing that you’re at the verge of tears of this nice gesture. Richie slows down his speed by dragging his shoes along the dirt, glances darting nervously towards your face.

‘I know you said no parties, but how else was I supposed to show off my rocking dance moves?’

‘Do you mean the moves you make that look like you’re dying?’ Stan chides, him and the rest of the losers rolling up behind you two. They’re all walking next to their bikes, and Bill’s hands are smudges with cake residue he somehow missed while cleaning up. They didn’t want to be here before you and ruin the ‘surprise’, but it’s clear everyone has worked hard to organize this for you.

‘Fuck you Stan the man, the color green doesn’t fit you.’

‘Happy’, Bev grounds out, leveling Richie with one look, the way only Bev can, and then address you. ‘Birthday.’ She hugs you despite you still holding your bike, and you let it clatter to the ground with a loud bang.

‘Thanks Bev.’

‘Happy Birthday’, the other losers also call out, because there’s just too many of them for each to wait their turn.

‘We hope you don’t mind we don’t have any presents, we spend basically all of it getting ingredients for the cake, which we had to redo- twice.’

They don’t offer any other explanation about why the cake had to be remade two times, but by Eddie’s scowl you can fill in the blanks.

‘No, honestly, this is already too much.’ It is too much, but their efforts are so kind and heartwarming that you have to bit back a happy squall. No one has ever bothered to organize anything for your birthday, whether it be purchasing a two dollar present or even ordering a cake, but these people that you had met less then a year ago were willing to scramble together all the money they could, just so they could turn your day special. Thank god for moving to Derry.

For the first time in years, your birthday has brought smiles and laughter, and no tears and weeping moods.

‘Nonsense my dearest young lady, this is but a blip on our radar, a speck of dust on the tv, nothing compared too-‘

‘Can we please cut the cake now? Before something else goes wrong with it?’ Eddie glowers, refuting to wait for an affirmative.

‘Don’t forget the candles,’ Ben says as he follows Eddie to the table. You’re about to join them, when a hand on your wrists stops you.

‘Hey, Y/N? You really don’t mind this right? I know you said you didn’t want anything but I know how nice it is be caught off guard with something like this.’ Richie rubs the back of his head as if that makes him see any less anxious. It’s incredible how smart someone can be while simultaneously also being so dense.

‘Richie’, you say as you smile, unable to hide it any longer. ‘It’s amazing, thank you so much. If there is any way I can repay you I’ll do that. I’m really happy with this.’

‘That’s good, not that I was worried about it, who isn’t a fan of everything I do?’

Rolling your eyes only spurs Richie on, but it’s become an automatic response now, you can’t help but do it.

‘Oh, I almost forgot. I did get you another gift. Two actually, if you count my huge dong as one.’

‘Gross Richie, why do you always have to add something sexual to everything?’

‘It’s my game babe, love it or leave it. Anyway, here is the gift if you want it. If you don’t that’s fine too.’

‘Don’t get all shy on me now Rich’, you tease as your bump your arm into his while grabbing the package. ‘I’ve just gotten used to your antics.’

The package isn’t heavy, but it also isn’t light. It’s wrapped in enough layer that you can’t feel what’s inside of it just by holding it, but that was probably Richie’s intention. That or he is simply horrible at wrapping up.

While you carefully peel off each layer, you begin to speculate on what it could be. It could be a gag gift, but Richie looked sincere, and his eyes behind his glasses are magnified in true anticipation, a gag gift wouldn’t illicit that response.

As soon as the final layer is detached, you gasp, armored by the actual gift. It’s a blue bracelet, covered in butterfly pattering. You once mentioned having a similar one as a kid that you loved but lost one day while playing outside and had been sad about for weeks.

You can’t believe Richie had kept it in his mind, and had gone out to look for it.

‘Richie… I don’t even know what to say right now.’ You exclaim, squeezing the bracelet in your hand tightly, a blush covering your face. Richie’s mimics yours. ‘Thank you’, you say while reaching out to him and kissing him on the cheek. Richie face burns a brighter red.

‘Yeah… glad to be of service.’ His mind is ball parks away, and he is left dazed.

‘Come on Y/N, it’s time for you to blow out the candles.’

You go easily, letting your hand linger around Richie’s, deciding mentally that you’ll do it tonight before you go home. Your birthday has already been better than anything you could have imagined, and maybe it has one more miracle left to give. If Richie says yes to your question about going on a date, then this will truly have been the best birthday you have every had. By the love struck expression Richie is walking around with, you have an inkling as to what his response might be.

You blow out your candles, but you don’t need to make a wish. You already have everything you could possibly want.

----

‘Off course that asshole buys her a gift, but never returns the money I loaned him so long ago. I’m not a fucking bank.’

‘I think it’s cute.’

‘No, Eddie is right, I’m also waiting on my refund.’

‘It’s adorable he bought her something, he really can’t hide his crush anymore.’

#richie tozier #My writing #richie x reader #the losers x reader #it x reader #it imagines #richie tozier x reader

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale’s analysis: Loveater and Miracle Queen

Spoilers Below

(Earlier I was not really in the right head space to talk about this. Personal matters and my own internal dilemma kind of merged with my emotions with these episodes leaving me in this Apathetic funk. I am now of clearer mind and can say what I feel about these two now that they are both out. So Spoilers.

-The execution of Fu giving up being the Guardian was... lacking emotional punch. I am glad he gets to move on with his life (or whats left of it). Kind of works like Decommissioning from KND I guess. He forgot Everything regarding the Miraculous. Considering he was compromised, it was for the best. But I didn't feel the impact.

-Miracle Queen was a cooler version of Akuma Queen bee, and to be fair did give us a cool battle of Miraculous-esqu fight, which was cool. 

-Now I hear all the Chloé stans heartbroken about no redemption. It could be that it never started yet. Chloé didn't really show much, she only wanted to be a hero for recognition, and no one, not even her own parents were giving her any. Hawkmoth pounced on it. Maybe Chloé gets a redemption, maybe she doesn't. Honestly, she will need a LOT to make up for it. But hey, Zuko has done equally crappy and good things in Avatar the Last Airbender, maybe Chloé will get her Zuko redemption. We will have to wait and see.

-We will be getting a lot less romantic Love square, and more Platonic love square. So that will be refreshing I suppose. Any development is good at this point considering how they randomly make the Main duo regress emotionally at a drop of a hat.

-The last scene. The scene where Marinette and Adrien split off to go with their ‘Other’ interest. This is where everyone in the Adrimi and Lukanette ships rejoiced and the Love square ships cried in bloody agony. This scene is a bit more intricate then it leads on. Watching the episode, Marinette isn't now dating Luka, she is still fresh from giving up Adrien romantically, that is a fact, and if Luka is anything like he is portrayed, then that is the truth. Lukanette isn't canon, but there is something there. 

-Adrimi or Adrigami on the other hand, might be exploring a relationship, but it is going to be slow, too slow where it becomes a non-started by early season 4.  Kagami showed annoyance with Adrien’s hesitance, and that was the first flag. Kagami is gonna push for it, she is gonna push for more and more and then Adrien pushes back. It will collapse and Marinette will be a supportive friend trying to help them both. Or it could be Marinette actually tries helping Adrien while he is in this phase of ‘Courting Kagami’ where he realizes he is in love with Marinette.

-Now back on to Luka. I am gonna say it, if Luka and Marinette become an official item, its over. I will drop everything regarding the show and move out. (Not out of disgust or because of ship nonsense, but out of simply because of one fact that is true as I write this.) There is currently no Feasible way of breaking them up with it seeming natural and beneficial. Luka is too perfect. Not in a ‘Oh jeez his amazing and worlds better then Adrien way’ but in fact that the boy doesn't have any character flaws to make this seem logical for either side to cut the ties of a romantic relationship. There is no thread to tug that would make Luka get undone. I honestly want someone to prove me wrong, find something. So Season 4 either start showing the a few negative traits on the boy or make it so that Marinette and Luka aren't officially together.

-You could argue that Marinette’s new duties as Guardian might impede on that but, nope. Luka is too patient and understanding. There are no limits, no chinks in the armor, the boy is a diamond with a perfect cut and perfect Clarity. And I find it so dull. Cause Flaws allow for development and improvement.

-So getting back on track it will be Adrienette vs Lukanette. or I guess you could say Ladynoir vs Lukanette. Or you can even say both. Thats why this is stressed to the point in that earlier tweet by that young girl.

-As for Hawkmoth. I... I got no idea what he is doing. I think he should have lost and been revealed by now. But whatever. I guess Nathalie is in the glass coffin to. Maybe Hawkmoth combines The peacock and the Butterfly, now seeing that it was possible.

_______________________________________________________________________

Okay, I think I covered the main points addressed in this finale. Now I can get to my personal feelings about the direction its going.

I don't see the fucking point in this whole love shenanigans. The love square dynamic could have been explored better without introducing more love interests. Talk about taking away the only really difference between this show and a shojo anime. We know the Lovesquare is end game, so why pull up all these unnecessary steps, the same growth can be given and probably in a more organic way by Not introducing new rivals. But you know what, this isn't my show. I am not writing it.

Hawkmoth is clearly overplayed and tired, we need something new, something fresh. A new Villain needs to take the stage.

But I can see some potential growth. I can see Marinette and Adrien developing. There could be something more to this and for the time being, I am willing to see this out.

This finale will not make me ‘Quit’ the Show.

However, The fandom I have seen during this may make me consider it.

#ml #ml spoilers #ml season 3 #ml season 4 predictions #miraculous ladybug #loveater #ml loveater #miracle queen #ml miracle queen #adrinette #lukanette #adrigami #ladynoir #ladrien #marichat

[op-peccatori]

True Disaster (NSFW) | MLQC Lucien | Kinktober (October 2nd)

Prompts: October 2nd:  Asphyxiation || Orgasm denial/edging || Public

KINKTOBER IS HERE and I’m liviiiiing. @alloveroliver​ thank you, thank you, thank youuuu for organizing and hosting Kinktober!! 

Fandom: Mr Love: Queen’s Choice

Pairing: Lucien/Reader

Rating: 18+

Warnings: explicit smut, unprotected sex, oral (female), orgasm denial, (semi?) public sex, overstimulation, sex toy (vibrator)

a/n: the title is from Tove Lo’s True Disaster. I believe this song applies to how I feel about Lucien perfectly. and I dearly hope I didn’t fuck it up during the editing

For the fifth time today, you’re wondering if this is worth it. It’s getting old. 

You can barely concentrate on the pages in front of you, the letters blurring in and out of focus. Your breath is growing heavier, everyone’s voices loud in the background but still beyond your understanding. Your thighs squeeze together, a futile attempt to gain some friction, to ease the agony you’re being put through. Your coworkers have no idea anything is out of the ordinary, they have no idea you’re on the verge of losing your mind. And it’s all thanks to the man smiling angelically down at Anna while she thanks him for appearing on their special episode for Miracle Finder. 

Sadistic bastard.

You would say he hasn’t even glanced your way, but you know that’s not true. You can feel him taking note of your reactions. Every drop of sweat that beads on your forehead, the slight tremble in your fingers, every moan you swallow with panic clearly visible in your eyes is observed by him. You can see how much he likes it, it’s clear in the dark glint in his eye. You can almost hear him purring with delight.

Your boyfriend is an evil man. It’s a part of his charm. 

You wonder how no one can hear the buzzing in your body. You can feel it down to your toes, but it’s centred below your belly. Sending pulses that threaten to overwhelm you. It’s absent right now, but every once in awhile his eyes would dart to you and decide you haven't been tortured enough.

Just a little more, baby. Can you do it for me? 

And so it would increase, pulling you under the surface but never letting you drown. It’s breaking you down inch by inch, a hand around your ankle dragging you into madness. Putting you right where he wants you.

Good girl.

It takes you a few seconds to realize someone was calling your name. You glance up to see another regular on the show, Kim. The singer. Kiki, Willow and Minor have agreed that while he wasn’t quite on Kiro’s level, the singer was very good-looking. His aloof and reserved personality only added to his appeal. You just hope he doesn't notice the twitching.

“Hi, Kim! Sorry, I’ve been...a little out of it, you laugh nervously. “What were you saying?” The man, bless him, just gave you a small smile before repeating himself. 

“I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to be a part of the team,” he says, smiling a little wider at your protests. “I’m really glad I got to know everyone here. And you, of course. I’ve been a fan of Miracle Finder since I was a kid.” 

And isn't that just so sweet? 

You relax and smile back at him warmly, immediately engaging him in conversation about the common factor in your childhoods. He tells you how excited he was when he got a call from you, his usual reserved demeanour set aside. You miss his flushed cheeks and shy gaze completely, too busy telling him about your favourite episodes. 

You’re distracted. And like a fool, you let your guard down. 

“Um, I was wondering if you’re...seeing anyone,” he asks suddenly. You pause, blinking at the sudden question, a something nervous churning in your stomach. 

“Huh?“ He seems oddly encouraged by your response.

“Yes, I actually wanted to ask if you’d like to get a coffee or something soon,” he confesses with a ghost of a laugh. Just as you’re done processing this, your mouth opens and the only sound you manage is something resembling a strangled tone because it’s started up again. Not low, not steady–it’s insistent, working the walls of your core ruthlessly. Your eyes fly to Lucien in panic, but he’s not looking at you. You hold on to the edge of the table, mouth open and eyes wide. 

No. No no no.

Kim calls your name, concern in his voice. 

“Right, um. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid,” you say and gasp, your smile shaky. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” His face falls but before he can say a word, you squeak something about the bathroom and fling yourself out of the chair, rushing out of the conference room. Your journey to your office is shaky at best, the wave building with each step you take. You fall to your knees with a low cry as the door closes behind you. You can’t touch yourself, because he’ll know. You can only pray that this time, he’ll let you finish. 

“Oh God.” 

Your hands are clenched in the pale blue carpet, your knuckles white. Your teeth are digging into your lip painfully. Your walls flutter, and you’re so close. It’s been over two hours since you started this game, your confidence in winning it non-existent after being denied for so long. 

It was right there. And then it was gone again, snatched away from within reaching distance. You slump and whimper, the disappointment nearly unbearable.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fu-“ 

“Well, isn’t this a sight?” came a voice you knew were all too familiar with. You look over your shoulder to see Lucien standing in the doorway, an infuriatingly innocent smile on his lips. His eyes are anything but. You take a deep, fortifying breath and fall on your ass, leaning back on your hands, as you pant. There are tears in your eyes. 

“I hate you.” He locks the door behind him. His smile slips into a smirk and you couldn’t help but think there was something extremely filthy about it. You want to devour it, lick the curve of it and see if it still stays when you shove it into your sex. It probably would. 

“Do you?” He coos, slipping his jacket off and draping it over a chair. He moves smoothly, without a care in the world, as if you aren’t trembling at his feet. He offers you a hand and you take it with a weepy glare, letting him pull you up. Your knees are weak, and you have to lean back against your desk to be able to remain standing up. If he were a less composed man, you just know he’d be laughing evilly. Instead, he watches you, your skin heated and gaze needy. 

“So much. You’re trying to kill me,” you say with certainty. He grins at that, a hand on your thighs already, stroking the flesh there teasingly. He kisses your cheek, your neck, humming at the taste. ”And you're succeeding.”

“That’s a very serious accusation, darling,” he says, tone mocking but mostly suggestive. Your belly clenches in response. “What in the world would I do after killing you? How would I go on?” 

You scoff, hyperaware of his long fingers hot on your skin. “With ease and the memories of torturing me to keep you warm at night, I’m sure.” You try to adjust your body so he would be closer to where you need him. He pinches the inner part of your thigh in response. 

“I would wither away,” he sighs, stepping closer to you. He’s sincere but your frustration has reached its limit. You don’t have the patience for his dirty mind games, not right now. “I like the real thing far too much.”

“It doesn’t seem like it.” 

“No?” He brings his other hand to your mouth, tracing your lower lip with a finger. You bite it and the sound that leaves his mouth could only be described as predatory. “But you know I’ll give you anything you want, don’t you? You need only ask for it.” Ask for it. You have troubling asking for it, but you also have trouble with not being allowed to come for this long.  

Decisions, decisions.

“Then let me–“ you try to say, but are ultimately unable to finish. Lucien’s mask slips into something eager. “Let me...“ 

“Let you?” he asks slyly, the pads of his fingers teasing the edge of your underwear. Your head tilts back, watching him as he leans over you with a hand resting on the desk. Your heart races faster at him being so close after what feels like ages.

You remain quiet. 

“Let you what?” He asks again, a whisper against your lips. His fingers dance over your clothed entrance, his pupils dilating when he feels just what he’s done to you without even touching you. One dips into your sex slightly and your walls contract. You’ll say anything to get him to give you what you need. “Use your words, babygirl.” 

“Let me come,” you implore, mouth curving up when his hand stills, his eyes wide with surprise that you actually said it and gave in. You’re mildly embarrassed but mostly aching for him to touch you. He opens his mouth, probably to tease you a little more, because he’s an asshole – when you both hear someone calling your name. You ignore it, continuing. “Please, Lucien? Let me come. On your fingers, your cock, anythi-”

“____!”

It’s Kim. 

‘Seriously?’

It doesn’t seem like he’s about to give up, his voice growing closer instead. The doorknob jiggles. Lucien and you stare at each other, breaths mingling. The look in his eyes is so electric, you chew on your lip nervously. And then he rips your underwear in half, stuffing its remains in his back pocket as you stumble. 

“Lucien!” you whisper-scream. Honestly, he can be so jealous and petty. It pisses you off at times, but right now...you decide it’s working in your favour, because he’s pulling the vibrator out to replace it with his fingers, pushing your legs apart impatiently. Very out of character for him. You know it has everything to do with the guy outside, which has you terribly amused. “Maybe I should see what he needs–oh.“ You’re cut off by his fingers pushing their way into you, with Lucien not even bothering to start with one. There’s little resistance, and you might have thought to be self-conscious with how utterly wrecked you are, but you can’t think beyond the prize that’s suddenly within your reach. 

Thank you, Kim!

“Oh, please, please please.” You cling to him, terrified of being left dangling from the edge again, your hips grinding into his hand. “I’m so close baby, just a little more.”

Lucien doesn’t say anything, his breath tickling the shell of your ear before his tongue sneaks out to trace it. Your hand comes up to rest on his broad shoulder, before slipping down to the fly of his pants. He’s wearing the black ones. A favourite of yours, mostly because of how they stretch over his backside. You had barely been able to look away every time his back was to you. Paired with his black turtleneck, it was positively sinful. And unhelpful. 

You suppress a smile at his obvious bulge as you unzip his pants carefully, your fingers spreading over his briefs greedily as you palm him through them. He groans softly, biting down on your earlobe. Your fingers squeeze around him and you whimper. You can’t help but run a hand over his ass before you pull his briefs down, his cock leaking and stiff in your hands. Your lips quirk up at the feeling of him panting into your hair, and he kisses you urgently, his curling fingers making you moan and pull away.

You spit into your hand and wrap it around him, your palm warm and slick around his shaft. His tongue licks into your mouth again with increasing intensity. 

The desk is uncomfortable beneath your back when he presses you into the surface, your stapler digging into your shoulder but it’s forgotten when his dick is slipping through your folds. The burn is satisfying, as is his low groan. 

“Oh, you feel so good.” Your walls are clenching around him, your legs pulling him closer. 

“You have – no idea how perfect you are.” He watches you arch your back with raw desire in his eyes. You have no thoughts to spare, just a deep hunger for him as he snaps his hips into yours, his fingers gripping your hips possessively. “Come on my cock. You’re – almost there baby, I’ve got you.” His words are a rumble that moves through your body. There’s no patience for softness, no sign of gentleness. He sets a harder pace, angling both your hips and hitting you just right, hand slipping down to your sex to finally throw you headfirst into darkness. The room is still spinning when it fades away, his cock still hard in you. 

“I think I blacked out,” you croak, blinking repeatedly. He smiles down at you, a touch of wickedness to the curve of his mouth. He kisses you on the mouth, quick and hard, and then he’s pulling out of you and pulling a chair to take a seat. You have half a second to pray before your knees are pushed apart and his head is buried between your legs, tongue pushing through your slit, ravenous and precise. You can hear someone scream, only the rawness of your throat making you realise it’s you. His tongue is intent in the way he uses it, lapping at you and rubbing your swollen sex. It’s painful, you’re too sensitive but his lips are around your clit. The sounds you hear are obscene and you’re thrown into another orgasm, one you weren’t prepared for.

He doesn’t stop. You’re half gone by the time he stands up, his lips glistening with your own essence before he licks it off and his eyes are brimming with satisfaction. 

“Beautiful.” 

Your jaw is slack, your entire body seems to have dissolved onto the desk, your legs still trembling. Your hair is sticking to the back of your neck. His eyes don’t leave you as he strokes himself to completion, his seed spattering your abused sex like thick paint as a curse escapes his lips. Your slow smile is content and lazy, and still, he watches you. 

There’s silence in the hall outside your office. 

#alloverkinktober #mlqc #mlqc lucien #smut #mlqc fanfic #mlqc xu mo #mr love queen's choice #mr love: queen's choice

[tes-trash-blog]

So, uh, a while back you mentioned making a post about how Prisoner McNord might affect the player experience/perceptions of the "default" and I would be super interested in reading that

So!

I have a few thoughts already on what is considered “default” in Skyrim to be expanded upon in a future shitstorm rant (it’s on the list, between Almalexia Is Interesting Actually and Even More Crying About Snow Elves Part 17: My Tears Have Become Sentient And Are Also Crying).

And as always, keep in mind that Skyrim is coming up on 9 years old, elements of it have not aged well, and this is in no way, shape, or form meant to be a “If you like Skyrim then you’re Bad” rant. In case you haven’t noticed, I kind of love that game. It has flaws; all games do, and frankly it’s a miracle this game is as solid as it is. The writers are that, writers. They had deadlines to make, hardware limitations to consider, and above all else, worked for a company that wanted to make money.

To keep this relatively short I’ll focus on how your perception of Skyrim is influenced by the first few minutes of the game via Ralof, the Nordiest Nord to Nord since Ysgranord, and how the writers really, really really wanted you to hold on to that perception.

Overanalysis and spoilers (Metal Gear Solid, Borderlands, and Bioshock respectively yes this will all make sense in context) under the cut.

Part 1: How To Make A Perspective In Three Easy Steps

As the saying goes, first impressions are lasting impressions. This is evident in.. well, every bit of media you can find. The first chapters of a book, the first episode of a show, the first 15 minutes of a video game, all as a general rule:

1.) Introduces the setting, a part of the main plot, and with these two, sets the tone of the medium (high fantasy movie, light hearted TV show, mystery series, horror game, etc.). Exceptions exist, especially in horrors, mysteries, and certain visual novels, but even these exceptions rely on setting a tone so they can subvert your expectations later on.

2.) Give you an idea of what is going on. This is normally accomplished with exposition of some sort; Star Wars had its famous screen crawl expositing the dark times in the Galaxy, Borderlands literally begins with “So, you want to hear a story..”, Metal Gear Solid briefs Solid Snake (you, the player character) on a vital mission to save two hostages and end a terrorist threat, so on and so forth. And again, there are exceptions: Bioshock purposefully disorients you with a plane crash in the middle of the ocean so you’re inclined to trust the first person who talks to you.

This all serves to suspend disbelief, immerse you, and earn your trust. This is a new world, you have no idea what’s going on, so you’re gonna take cues from someone who does. Combine points 1 and 2, and that..

3.) Gives you an idea of what is “good” and what is “bad”. Damn near every story has a central conflict, you gotta pick a side, and there’s gonna be a bias as to which one is superior or morally just. Using Bioshock again, this mysterious man named Atlas guides you through the first level, and tells you how to fight and survive in the hostile environment of Rapture; meanwhile, Andrew Ryan taunts and belittles you, and also has a giant golden bust of himself. The shorthand is: Atlas is humble, helpful, and good, while Andrew Ryan is a megalomaniac who wants you dead. Leaning on Borderlands again, the first voice you hear is literally a guardian angel telling you not to be afraid, and that you are destined to do great things. Once more with Metal Gear: Your organization and your commanders are good, you are good because you’re saving innocent people, and FOXHOUND is bad because they’re terrorists who have the means to launch a nuclear warhead.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s do a quick runthrough of the first, let’s call it 15 minutes of Skyrim. No commentary on my end, just a play by play of the beginning of the game.

Part 2: First Impressions In Action

You wake up on a cart. Your vision is hazy, and you are clearly disoriented. You see a man bound and gagged, another man in rags, and several men dressed like soldiers. Everyone on the cart is tied up, and the people driving the cart are wearing a neat, vastly different uniform.

Then comes the famous line: “You! You’re finally awake! You were caught trying to cross the border, got caught in that Imperial ambush same as us, and that thief over there!” The thief bitterly remarks how these damn Stormcloaks had to cook up trouble in a nice and lazy Empire. The Nord who first spoke with you nobly says that we’re all brothers and sisters in these binds.

The presumed Imperial tells you all to shut up. Undeterred, the thief and the Stormcloak provide more exposition: The gagged man is the leader of the resistance, is supposedly the true High King, and since he’s on the cart, it’s clear that everyone on board is bound for the executioner’s block. The thief is terrified; the Nord accepts his fate, but takes a moment to opine on better days when he flirted with girls and “when the Imperial walls made him feel safe.” There is also a remark about General Tulius and the Thalmor agents; the Nord, in a rare bit of anger, damns the Elves and insinuates they had a hand in this capture.

It’s execution time. General Tulius gives a speech about how Ulfric started a civil war and killed the former High King; Ulfric, being gagged, cannot say a word in defense. A Stormcloak is executed to mixed reactions (“You Imperial bastards!” “Justice!”, etc.). The thief runs away; he is shot by Imperial archers, demonstrating the futility of escape. It’s your turn. The Nord in Imperial armor states you’re not on the list; the Imperial captain doesn’t care and orders you to the block anyway.

You see the headsman’s axe rise up when, as if the gods intervene, a dragon appears and interrupts your execution. In the chaos, you run with the Stormcloaks. The game does not give you the option to run away alone, or with the Imperials; until you meet Hadvar again in the fire and death, you take orders from Ulfric.

Part 3: The Crux

A lot happens in the first few minutes of Skyrim. You’re disoriented from being unconscious, and that’s compounded by your two near death experiences (point 2), the first person you meet is a calm, almost reassuring mouthpiece of exposition while the other side, at best, doesn’t care if you die (points 2 and 3), one major aspect of the plot is revealed (point 1, and the tone is that this is a classic Rebellion story).

And people love rebellion stories. Americans especially; we spend billions on the day when a bunch of white guys said “fuck you” to a bunch of other white guys. With the additional layer of when Skyrim was developed, by who, and in what landscape it was written.. Yeah. There may be two ways to go for the Civil War questline, but for most players (myself included!) their first gut instinct is going to be “side with the guys who didn’t just try to kill me.”

It’s the same song and dance. In Bioshock, your instinct is to trust the Irish guy who wants to help you get out of Rapture alive, but he needs your help first. In Borderlands, your instinct is to trust the woman who is literally called a guardian angel, and she shows her compassion by asking you to help the people of Fyrestone and the poor robot who got hurt in a gunfight. In Metal Gear, your instinct is to shut down the threat because terrorists are evil and these ones are not just terrorists, they’re deserters. Hell, even in other Elder Scrolls games the plot is laid out by helping hands: you’re a prisoner being contacted by your murdered friend, and given the goal to stop Jagar Tharn (Arena), you’re a Blades agent tasked with putting a vengeful spirit to rest that leads you to a weapon that can secure the Empire’s power (Daggerfall), Azura literally tells you not to be afraid, and that you destined to stop an old threat (Morrowind), and a soon-to-be-assassinated Emperor voiced by Actual Grandpa Patrick Stewart recognizes you in a prophetic dream (Oblivion).

Where Skyrim departs from these games, and even the other Elder Scrolls titles, is how much it enforces the first thing you see as solidly good and evil, and how little it tries to subvert that perception. Remember point 2, when the game makes it clear that this person is trustworthy? Therein lies the bread and butter of psychological horror, mysteries, and heart wrenching plot twists: that trust gets tested, and often broken.

The rebel leader Atlas? He’s somehow more evil than Andrew Ryan, and has subtly controlled you the entire time with a command phrase (“Would you kindly..?”). You are unable to stop yourself when you bludgeon Andrew Ryan to death at Ryan’s command. “A man chooses,” he tells you. “A slave obeys.” His final words are him telling you that you are a puppet, only able to obey.

The end of Borderlands reveals that “Angel” was watching you the entire time.. from a Hyperion satellite. You were tricked into opening a Vault holding back a dangerous monster, and you don’t even know why. Borderlands 2 goes further into just what (or rather who) Angel is: a teenage girl and a powerful Siren, used by her own demented, evil, father, Handsome Jack, to manipulate the Vault Hunters and gain more power for himself. Her final mission given to you is simple: she wants you to set her free and end her father’s mad march to power by killing her.

Metal Gear Solid ultimately plays it straight in that you stop the terrorists and disable the nuclear threat, but you don’t emerge from the rubble as an action hero; you’re forced to kill your own brother, the terrorist cell is revealed to be composed almost entirely of people exploited by your organization, and you secretly carry  a virus designed to kill the people you were trying to save. War, as it turns out, is not as clear-cut as “we good, they bad”. The people you’ve killed without thinking are your genetic brothers. Sniper Wolf, the assassin who shot your commander’s niece, survived a genocide and has never known a life outside of war. Psycho Mantis’ telepathic gifts were exploited by both the KGB and FBI until he lost his mind. Ocelot is Ocelot.

Oh, but those are other games. What about The Elder Scrolls? Well..

In Daggerfall, your search for hidden correspondence leads you to finding the Mantella, a sort of soul gem that can power the superweapon everyone wants: The Numidium. There are six entities total who want the Mantella, some for their personal gain, one to make a home for his people, and one so he may finally die; the Underking’s soul is in that gem, you see, and he’s been trapped in this misery since the days of Tiber Septim.

In Morrowind, Dagoth Ur recognizes you not as a schlub with a dummy thick journal, but as his oldest and dearest friend. The Empire who guided you for so long? They’ve manipulated you into taking down the Tribunal, destroying the one weapon that could stand against their might, and depending on your interpretation of “then the Nerevarine sailed to Akavir”, have possibly killed you.

And what of everyone’s favorite game in the series to mock? Surprise! Oblivion isn’t even about you, hero! It’s about the actual chosen one, Martin Septim! Sure you can join the Thieves’ Guild and cavort about as Grey Fox, or uncover the traitor of the Dark Brotherhood, or run off and become the Mad God.. but none of those events actually acknowledge you. To be the Grey Fox is to literally be forgotten, by the time the Dark Brotherhood questline is complete there is effectively no more Dark Brotherhood, and to become Sheogorath is to lose yourself entirely. The Hero of Kvatch is one who is ultimately forgotten. Your actions were important, have no doubt, but such is the fate of the unsung hero: they’re not sung about.

Even Arena plays a little bit with your expectations in that the Staff of Chaos alone isn’t enough to stop Jagar Tharn; you need friendship (just kidding it’s a magic gem in the Imperial Palace). Skyrim.. kinda glosses over that. They land a few punches, but for them to stay with you, you have to keep an open mind.

Part 4: Why does that matter?

Because if your expectations are never subverted, your trust never tried in any meaningful way, then your perception of a very specific, spoon-fed worldview is never challenged. The trust you build with a group that is, in essence, a fascist paramilitary cult is never shaken in any way that’s meaningful. You get some lines intended to evoke sadness when you sack Whiterun, but by then it’s too late. Not that it matters; at the end of the Stormcloak questline, there’s not much question about who was in the right. You never lose friends or allies; the Jarls in the holds change, but is there much difference between Idgrod Ravencrone and Sorli the Builder? You might feel a little guilty when you see the Dunmer forced to live in the slums, but then the haughty High Elf says that she didn’t laze around and instead made a name for herself, or the Dark Elf farmer who complains about his snowflake kinsmen harping on about “injustices”. The Argonians seem decent until you meet the skooma addict/thief, and the Khajiit.. let’s just say that even if we disregard the two Khajiit assassins sent to kill you, there exist a lot of extremely harmful stereotypes that none of your friends dispel. They commit no horrific war crimes in your presence, the worst you hear is a Nord (normally a bandit) yell “Skyrim is for the Nords!”, or the clumsy Welcome to Winterhold script where a Dunmer woman is harassed by two Nords; one’s a veteran, by the way. Got run through the chest by an Imperial craven, or so the story goes.

Your only chance to rattle the Nord-driven story is to go against your gut feeling and side with the Imperials (the plotline is pretty weak, not gonna lie), or complete the optional quest No One Escapes Cindha Mine where you see what a Stormcloak sympathizer does to the Forsworn. Even if you complete that quest, the Forsworn still attack you. “They’re savages,” say the Nords, and the game isn’t too inclined to say otherwise.

When it comes to portraying the Nords in any light that’s not negative, Skyrim doesn’t deliver like it did in other games. You saw what life is like in Morrowind under Tribunal rule; it’s not great. The Houses are almost universally awful and they have slaves. You see the destruction in Cyrodiil and hear the rumors on how much the Empire is flailing with the Oblivion Crisis. Hell, even Arena tells you that life in Tamriel kind of sucks, but it’ll suck a little less when Tharn is dead.

That doesn’t happen in Skyrim. You are encouraged to join the sympathetic Stormcloaks, you find out your destiny as Dragonborn, and you set all these things right. Of course you do. You’re a hero, baby. Others have gone on about how storybook the Dragonborn questline is so I won’t go too much in, but that’s it exactly: Storybook. You’re Neutral Good. You’re going to kill the bad dragon that wants to do its job and eat the world. 

And that refusal to really examine the nuances and horrors of war, to consider what it means to be a hero that is never morally challenged or forced into a Total Perspective Vortex, to never challenge an extremely biased perspective or even explore its “logical” conclusion?

It leads to extremely dangerous ways of thinking if unchecked.

#lore overanalysis #about my favorite subjects: media studies and skyrim #this is another long one #good god it's long

[voxlette11]

Eric and Leo, Finale

Two high-powered businessmen learn what it means to play with experimental drugs.

A/N: This is a re-post of something I originally authored in 2013/14 on Mpreg Central under the username BellLee (BellLee11) - I can’t remember because I lost my login info and access to the forums once permission regulations changed!

Content: unknowing mpreg, lactation, birth, accelerated pregnancy

Eighteen Weeks After Conception

…

Leo was huge, and Eric was completely in love with him for it. He followed him secretly every now and then throughout the day, not only out of paternal investment, but also out of personal curiosity and gratification. How did Leo get his daily duties done with a belly that looked like an oversized beach ball? How did he maintain his balance? How did other people look at his monstrosity of a gut? 

The other day Leo had dropped a pen in the hallway and struggled to get low enough to actually reach it; he’d had to spread his legs and slowly squat to even consider the possibility. He carried things now by partially balancing them on the top of the notable mound. He had to, there was no room in his arms otherwise.

His gait had changed markedly over the past weeks, Eric had noted. In the beginning, Leo’s pregnancy hadn’t affected his bodily movements very much and everything had been very much the same. But as the pregnancy progressed, Leo’s hips seemed to take on a cross between a sway and a waddle while in motion – in fact, Eric would say it almost appeared as if they were marginally widening with each passing week, for each passing week the waddle/sway was getting more and more pronounced.

Carrying his belly put a lot of strain on him, curving his back sharply at the bottom. This forced the small man to throw his front load forward and his head and shoulders backward in an attempt to even out his taxing weight distribution.

This was not the only change. 

In addition to his growing belly, Leo had also started growing small breasts. Eric had noted them in full for the first time four weeks ago, when the brunet had complained that they were aching. Eric had assumed the accumulating breast tissue was just a side effect of Leo’s additional weight gain, but it turned out they were something much more utilitarian.

Eric had straddled the small man’s thighs in bed, leaning over Leo and rubbing at his swollen, pink nipples with large, dexterous fingers. He tugged and smoothed, turned and twisted. And that’s when they both discovered that Leo was producing milk in his mammaries.

“What the hell is that?” Leo asked quizzically, looking seriously concerned about his body for the first time since his morning sickness went away.

Thinking quickly, Eric supplied, “You’ve had a lot of body changes these past few months, yeah? It’s got to do with your hormones. Too much of them, and then this stuff starts happening.”

Leo seemed to mull this information over in his head, and Eric waited apprehensively for his response.

I don’t want this to be over so soon…

“Hormones, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh…well, whatever you’re doing, it feels like a fucking miracle so keep it up.”

“You got it.”

And so, added to their routine, was a daily “milking”. If Leo went too long without stimulation, his small breasts got so uncomfortable he couldn’t focus on his work. Eventually, to save time, Eric bought a milk pump. They used it together often, Leo sometimes alone. It was the perfect opportunity, really, because Eric secretly took what was produced and froze it in storage. He figured by the time the baby was born, Leo might not want to feed it himself 24/7. Any new mother appreciated a respite, and that’s where a generous store of milk came in handy.

Eric also used these opportunities to feel out the baby, limbs, arms, the head. He liked to know where the baby was positioned, though judging by how hard it was for Leo to catch his breath and how often he went to the restroom, Eric figured the baby was compressing his lungs and sitting right on his bladder. Sometimes, he felt kicks, a fluttering against his large hand, to which Leo would grunt and say, “Gas.”

But that was four weeks ago. Now that Leo was, biologically, thirty six weeks pregnant, it seemed it was easier for him to breathe. That meant, according to what Eric had read, that the baby was descending into the pelvis, preparing for its imminent birth. This was in sync with Leo complaining of discomfort in his pelvis, and he was endlessly shifting around while stationary, trying in vain to make himself comfortable. Also, Leo’s nipples were widening, darkening, the same shade as the line on his belly. Easier for the baby to see. He had taken to small unconscious nesting behaviors, like organizing his closet and asking Eric to help him clean his modest apartment in the Bronx. 

Eric had only two more weeks to wait.

…

Twenty Four Weeks After Conception

…

The baby had not yet arrived. It was three weeks late, which meant that, biologically, Leo was carrying a baby ten months and two weeks at term. This worried Eric. There was an important merger going on at the company, the joining of two firms coming to a crux, and he hadn’t had much time to spend with Leo one-on-one as they liked. He had especially wanted to keep a close eye on the smaller man as his due date approached, particularly because Eric was the only one who knew what was actually happening to him. But both their busy schedules meant they rarely crossed paths, and neither of them had spent more than ten minutes with the other in weeks.

Eric could tell that Leo was reaching the limits of his physical capacity. His clothes bordered on the unprofessional, they were drawn so tightly across and around him. His belly, apparently having reached its limit for outward growth a few weeks ago, began bulging and expanding at the sides. He really was beginning to physically resemble a ball, a ball that could barely walk and function as a normal human being.

Eric got out of his meeting early, and decided to go check on the other man. He walked down to Leo’s floor, but when he got to Leo’s desk, the pregnant man wasn’t there.

“Excuse me,” he stopped a passing clerical worker. “But why isn’t Leo in today?”

“Oh, him?” the woman nodded. “He called in sick today. Why? Did he miss something big?”

No, but I might be missing something big right now…literally.

Eric was filled at once with a healthy sense of fear and giddy excitement. Could this be the day? 

“No, no everything’s fine. Thank you. Excuse me,” Eric dismissed the woman and rushed to the elevator.

Please, please wait for me.

He caught a cab and paid the driver extra to get to Leo’s place in half the time. Quickly, he buzzed into the building via the doorman and climbed the stairs to the third floor himself because the elevator seemed like too slow an option. Hands shaking with excitement, Eric pulled out his key ring and found the spare to Leo’s apartment. 

He opened the door.

…

Leo hadn’t felt like getting out of bed that day. He had the energy, but something had felt off for some reason. A sense of some impending force. He supposed a lot of it had to do with the stress he was putting up with at work, mental, emotional, and physical. He considered himself a hard worker, but everyone needed an off day. He figured he might as well take this one as a freebie for himself.

He had been getting strange, shooting sensations down his legs ever since the pressure in his pelvis had appeared around four weeks ago. He was having difficulty sleeping, leaking nipples, swollen ankles, itchy stretching skin, and still insatiable hunger. The flutterings were the strongest they’d ever been, sometimes actually managing to take his breath away. He was generally uncomfortable. And last week, he’d had a serious internal freak out when he’d pulled off his boxer briefs and found the insides coated with some sort of slightly bloody, mucous discharge. He’d brushed it off because he hadn’t felt any different, and it didn’t happen again.

Now, however, he felt different.

As of that morning, he’d been getting low, strange, dully painful tightenings that started in his back and worked their way around to the front of him, reverberating up to his belly button. His prostrate was being stimulated somehow in all of this, and he was harder than he’d been in weeks. The strange sensation had happened more than once, each time getting slightly longer in duration and the frequency increasing but a few minutes.

He lounged on the bed, naked. Nightclothes were more of a hassle than they were worth. He stared at the ceiling, wishing something would happen to break the tedium of his boredom. 

Then, the bedroom door opened, and there stood Eric. Leo smiled to himself.

Perfect.

…

Leo was a sight to behold, laying naked on top of his sleep-rumpled bed sheets. Eric hadn’t seen him naked in weeks, and just looking at him made the blond go half-hard. His belly was obscenely fecund, arcing away from his spine in a practically violent fashion. His abdomen demanded attention, the straining skin obviously struggling to contain the child within. The baby was low, Eric could see that even with Leo laying down. His abdomen bulged more and more dramatically as it got closer to his groin, taking on a torpedo-like shape. Leo’s breasts were still small, but they were pert and perched atop the great swell like little decorative afterthoughts. His bellybutton looked abused, red and swollen, five times its normal size by some strange feat of the body. His cock, too, was erect and pressing against the curvaceous underside of his mound.

Eric breathed a sigh of relief. Leo looked ready to burst, but he wasn’t in labor. Yet.

“Hey,” he said, stepping into the room. “I heard you were sick. Came over to make sure you were okay.”

Leo waved away his worries.

“Nah,” the brunet said, “I just…felt…strange today was all. I couldn’t bring myself to get to the office.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

“Yeah…,” Leo trailed off, then looked slyly to the side. 

“So,” he began, “I’m pretty bored here…you want to make this day a little more interesting?”

Eric's cock stiffened eagerly to its full length.

"Of course," he said.

He climbed onto the bed, parting Leo's legs himself. He wrapped one hand completely around each swollen ankle and lifted them up onto his shoulders, Leo making little grunting noises of discomfort as he did so. The tops of Leo's thighs were pressed against the torpedoing slope of his abdomen and there was little room for proper maneuvering. The sides of his belly spilled over their natural limits, and up close Eric was mesmerized by the rhythmic rise and fall of that enormous bellybutton as Leo breathed.

"Well?" The brunet motioned. "You gonna fuck me or sit there?"

Eric smiled and released his cock from his pants.

"I'm going to fuck you," and he pushed inside without any lubrication. He didn't need any. Leo was incredibly loose, looser than he'd been in his entire life. Eric wouldn't have been surprised if he could fit the entirety of his massive hand into the small man's asshole.

He thrust into him deeply, sheathing and unsheathing the whole of his gargantuan width and length, relishing the sight of that small puckered anus expanding and contracting with his cock.

Eric put his hands on Leo's belly, and Leo moaned, lifting his own smaller hands to hang onto the headboard in his ecstasy. Eric felt all over and he thrust, his hands feeling out where the baby's head was situated, sitting right in Leo's groin.

"I'm so full," Leo moaned, and Eric was set into a frenzy.

He began pounding away like crazy, rocking the frame of the bed with each thrust, watching Leo's cock as it quivered and strained for its release. A glance up and he saw that the small man's breasts were leaking, apparently he had not milked himself today. The swollen, dark, erect nipples were dribbling milk down the sides of Leo's chest, and he didn't even seem to be noticing because he was in such a state of ecstasy.

"Ahh...ahhh...right there, Eric, fuck..." Leo's hips rolled, or rolled as well as they could manage under his massive load.

Eric helped him, catching him under the ass and driving his cock even deeper. Leo's thighs were compressed against his belly with each thrust, and he was grunting over and over again with the force of the impact.

"I'm...hngh...going to-" Leo's cock exploded, spraying cum all over his belly. His hands scrabbled for purchase at the headboard, his voice keening, his toes curling. At the same instant, Eric unwittingly breached some sort of stopper, a plug located deep in the reaches of Leo's interior. Leo gasped, and Eric saw the great surface of his belly visibly tighten and shift, it was moving, and moreover it was moving the general direction of downwards and out. Leo's insides contracted like a vice, pulling Eric's orgasm from him, pump after pump after pump of cum.

Eric felt something else on his cock in the depths of Leo, his cum churning around his penile organ. A peculiar wetness, one not caused by his own fluids.

"Oh...," Leo's voice.

When Leo's interior loosened, Eric withdrew himself, as he did so he could feel Leo's body preparing to tense up again. When the head of Eric's cock exited Leo's anus, a strange milky stream of cum and some other fluid came out after it.

Leo had been fucked into labor.

…

Leo was in a thrill, enjoying the sensation of being filled, of being pounded into so roughly again and again. He could feel his cock struggling to release, and as he felt Eric brush past a point he rarely managed to push past, his orgasm was fucked out of him.

That's when it happened.

Something gave inside of him, something he heard quietly give a singular popping noise, and the aching pain from before seized him. But this time it was more intense. Intense enough to be actually uncomfortable. His belly tightened, but this time there was the distinct impression of something inside of him being moved. A flurry of the flutterings started up, battering his insides.

Meanwhile Eric was releasing inside of him, a massive load of cum, and Leo could feel it expanding within his interior as his semen-stuffed bowels contracted.

"Oh..." he said, unsure and surprised. He had never felt anything like this before.

He felt Eric leave him, but something else was coming out of his ass. Something unusual. It was wet, it was a steady stream, and it was soaking through the sheets on his bed. It had been mere seconds and already the fluid was seeping up into the linen under his back.

“Eric,” Leo made an attempt to right himself, but the gravity of his belly was too much. “Eric,” he continued to struggle. “What is that? Can you see that? What the fu-ohhhhhh...”

A great, sharp pain had worked its way through him, speared him through the bellybutton. A huge flutter, no, a pounding, followed shortly thereafter directly on top of his bladder. It took all of Leo’s self-control to keep his piss in. His hands went to hold his belly in confusion, his short arms unable to encompass its girth, reaching uselessly for the origin point of the tremor.

Eric got there first, since Leo couldn’t even reach that far. Eric’s hands were cold on his orgasm-heated abdomen, an almost welcoming feeling amidst the pain. Leo winced through another, this one starting low in his thighs, curling around his hips, twisting around his navel, and shooting up his spine. Leo swore he saw his girth actually move, the fecund mass making a slight push outwards, then sliding down deeper into his pelvis. There was a mounting pressure everywhere and anywhere beneath his ribs, and the matter of releasing that pressure seemed to be getting more urgent with each passing second.

“Eric,” Leo grimaced. “What’s happening…?”

…

This was it. This was the moment. Eric had debated with himself how this would play out over and over again, but now that they had actually gotten to this point he only had three words to say:

“You’re pregnant, Leo.”

There was a moment of stunned disbelief, something that did not happen to Leo often. In fact, Eric could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually managed to surprise him. Now he got to use the other hand, too, by the looks of it.

“…What.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I know what you fu-raARGH,” Leo’s belly tensed under Eric’s fingers, the baby shifting downwards inside. After thirty seconds of breathless panting, all the while staring at Eric with burning intensity, the brunet continued.

“I know what you said,” he winced periodically. “But I can’t be pregnant. That’s…urgh…that’s-ARGHHH…impossible…”

Eric traced a finger up that dark, bisecting, now shivering line on Leo’s abdomen before speaking.

“Not for the right amount of cash.”

“I-I don’t…,” Leo’s belly heaved, “How?”

Eric began rubbing in circular motions on the small man’s pitifully swollen side.

“I put it in your drink. You told me you wanted to know what it was like to carry a baby. I told you I wanted kids. You remember.”

“Well, yes,” Leo grunted, unable to even prop himself up to look Eric in the eyes. “But I didn’t know you could actually do it. You should have told me, you fucking basta-ohhhhhhhh...”

His blue eyes screwed shut, riding through the pain Eric could physically see and feel in his contracting abdominal muscles.

Eric leaned forward and planted a kiss on the slope of Leo’s gut.

“I would have,” he explained, planting another kiss, further up the massive, now-glistening dome. “But I didn’t tell you that I, too, have a secret fantasy…to watch a man who didn’t know he was pregnant…,” another kiss, this time directly on top of that swollen knob of a belly button. “…give birth.”

Leo panted and huffed, rolling his eyes.

“Well, you fucking did it,” he groaned. “…I guess…it’s nice to know…uuuunnnghhhhhHHH…I’m not fat.”

“The baby should be coming out soon,” Eric assured him. “It’ll all be over. The supplier said the births were usually pretty fast. An hour, about.”

“God, I hope so.”

…

Five Hours Later

…

The baby wasn’t coming out. In fact, after the initial induction of labor, it appeared that it hadn’t made any progress at all. Leo was in agony. His breasts were still leaking milk, and sweat ran from every pore in his body. Eric was there to rehydrate him, but that was a small comfort to the aching, consuming pain which had become his body.

The hours passed slowly, and Leo had long since given himself over to his natural urges, trying to push the baby out but to no avail.

“We might not be in this situation if I had known I was pregnant,” Leo had said pointedly, when he still had energy, about three hours past. 

“But Leo,” Eric had replied, “Where would you have gone? Men don’t get pregnant.”

And Leo had known he was right. Still, he needed to take his agony out on something, and the person who got him impregnated him just so happened to be the closest conduit for his pain-induced rage.

Leo was past the point of rage, and he was starting to get desperate.

“Check me,” he whined. “Please, please, check me.”

Eric nodded, his stamina running low as well, and he parted Leo’s legs further than they already were so he could shove his fingers into the ever-loosening asshole. 

Leo winced, biting back a cry of pain and discomfort, keening as inside of him Eric’s fingers brushed against what they had concluded was fulfilling the role of a cervix.

“It hasn’t dilated any further,” Eric reported, withdrawing his hand. Leo choked on a wistful sob.

This is never going to end.

Eric had not left the space between Leo’s legs, however.

“What are you doing?”

“I have an idea. If fucking was what brought this on, maybe…?”

Leo understood perfectly.

“Do it,” he said, “Just fucking do it.”

I’m willing to try anything.

He felt Eric push inside of him for the second time that day, this time even less noticeably than the last. His anus had been stretched beyond comprehension. In fact, he didn’t even feel anything inside of him until Eric’s cock began to brush against his cervix. It took a considerable amount of work and leverage to get there. Eric’s hands were once again under Leo’s ass, lifting him on a sloping plane above the bed. The gravity of his belly was slipping towards his head, the baby inside not taking kindly to the disturbance of it’s hard work. Kicks pummeled Leo’s lungs and intestines, bowing out the thin membrane of his abdomen. It was not a pleasant sensation.

“Ready?”

Leo nodded, and Eric began.

With each thrust, Eric’s cock connected with the cervix. Shooting, agonizing pain radiated from the area, and Leo began to cry in earnest. 

“It hurts,” he cried, “It hurts!”

Still, Eric pounded away, determined to fuck his plan into action. Each thrust was accompanied by a kick, and Leo could scarcely breathe. Eric’s thrusts were getting longer, choppier, with each subsequent kick or contraction. It wasn’t long before he exploded inside of Leo once more, coating his cervix with yet another bucket of cum. Again, Eric withdrew, setting Leo’s ass back on the bed.

Leo waited. Nothing.

“It didn’t-ohooOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!” Slowly and then all at once, he could feel changes inside of him. The pressure mounted, it came to such a head that Leo was sure his hips would split and his belly would split open like a bean cooked too long in a microwave. Instead, warm piss dribbled from between his thighs. His cock, once his bladder had been evacuated, slowly sprung to attention as his prostate began to register the stimulation. A burning, stretching, un-ignorable sensation began to take a hold in his ass.

This was it.

…

Eric watched as Leo gripped and grappled with himself, grasped onto his shiny, sweating, heavy heaving belly as if it were a lifeline. All at once, the mass within Leo moved downwards, bowing out the expanse of skin that covered the area between his bellybutton and his groin. Leo screamed.

“It’s coming, it’s coming,” he cried hysterically.

Eric could see Leo’s anus begin to widen preliminarily, for there was no head in view. He positioned himself between Leo’s legs once more, this time prepared to help their child into the world. But the minutes passed slowly, and still there was no sign of the baby.

“Are you pushing?”

“Of course I’m-NNNNNNNRRGGGHHHHHHAHHH!-pushing!” Leo wiggled his hips marginally, trying desperately to eject the mass of their child. “I’m trying, it’s impossible!”

“Nothing’s impossible!”

“I can’t do it,” Leo sobbed. “It’s too big. My hips…uuuuuuuuughhhHHH…my hips are too small to pass it.” 

“I…”

“You’re a giant! I’m the size of a fucking ten-year-old, what did you THINK was going to happen!?” Leo screamed again, yet another useless contraction hardening the surface of his fecund gut. “You’ve killed me. I’m going to die…”

Eric was frightened, and then he grew angry. Angry at himself, angry at the situation, and angry at Leo for giving up so easily. He grabbed Leo’s hips, and while supporting his back, gave a savage twist so that Leo was laboring on his side. He held Leo’s legs wide open, one small leg propped on his shoulder at the knee, the other held still under his giant hand. Leo’s anus and now fully erect cock were exposed.

Leo cried out at the unexpected movement, looking at Eric in shock.

“What are you doing?! Have you gone fucking insane?!” he shrilled.

“Push.”

“I can’t do anything like this!”

“PUSH.”

Leo, tired and ready to try anything despite his earlier premonitions of failure, did as Eric bid. The blond watched the small man’s face turn pink, then red, then a dark shade of purple as he tensed each and every one of his muscles. Leo’s fingers dug into the soiled sheets and gripped at the headboard so tightly his nails turned white.

“Breathe. BREATHE.”

Leo beathed.

“Push.”

“I…I can’t…”

“PUSH.”

Leo pushed again, and slowly, slowly, the mass moved further downwards. The tiniest bulge began to form in his anus as the baby came down his canal.

“It hurts,” he sobbed, “It hurts so fucking ba-AAAAAHHHHHHH!” Leo’s hands went to grasp his belly, arms wrapped around it as if folding in on himself would make the pain go away.

“Eric,” he began again, “Eric, help me, help me, please. Make it stop…”

“Push.”

“Eric-“

“PUSH.”

The bulge was now sizable, a part of the baby’s head showing through an orange-sized opening. But that was it. The skin of Leo’s anus was stretched to practical transparency around it, in danger of tearing. If he tore, it could mean a lot of trouble for all three of them. Eric made a snap decision, and cupped his hand over the opening as Leo struggled.

“Hold it.”

“But you said you wanted-“

“HOLD IT.”

“NNNNNNNGGHHHHHHHAHHH!” was Leo’s only response, crying out as a contraction gripped him once more. His pushing now was involuntary, a natural instinct. Eric felt the top of the baby’s head push out slightly against his palm.

“HOLD IT.”

“AaaAHHHHAHH!”

Eric checked the skin around Leo’s anus – it seemed to be stretching fine.

“Push!”

Leo didn’t need to be told. He pushed, over and over again, and sliver by sliver the baby’s head became visible. But it was too big. Eric used his fingers to pull the skin over the head, pulling and pushing at it with the heel of his hand.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHNN!”

With a ‘slup’ and a great gush of pre-natal fluids, the head was free.

“The head’s out! Leo, the head’s out! You’re doing so good!” 

Eric lay a hand on Leo’s laboring belly, still sizable but less so now that the head was no longer inside. 

“Come on! One last big one!”

Leo’s hands dug into the sheets, and with one final cry the body slipped out, and Leo’s noises of pain comingled with the disgruntled wails of a newborn. His belly now looked deflated, empty, but loose like a leather bag that had once been over-stuffed.

Eric took the child gently in his arms, clearing the nose and mouth of natal debris, cutting the cord with a shoelace.

Leo was still lying on his side, panting, eyes closed. He was okay. He wasn’t bleeding.

Eric walked to the head of the bed, laying the infant between the two of them.

“Look,” he said softly, “Leo, look at our daughter.”

…

Leo opened his eyes, and met those of the biggest and most beautiful baby he’d ever seen.

“Our…,” he reached out a trembling hand, taking gentle hold of the still crying baby. He drew her close to his chest, where after gentle prodding she began to suckle.

He gaze met Eric’s, and he couldn’t recall a time or place where the blond had looked at him quite so lovingly.

“You’re lucky she looks like you,” he said, angry having melted away at the arrival of their own personal miracle.

Eric smiled, “What do you mean? She’s got your hair.” He reached a hand forward, smoothing Leo’s sweaty dark locks away from his forehead.

“You know what I mean,” Leo replied, going back to watching their daughter as she fed. “She’s a little big, isn’t she?”

Eric laughed. “Well, she should be. Technically she’s a month old.”

“Fuck, me. Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“Forget about the ‘fuck, me’, I’m changing it to fuck you.”

Eric just laughed harder, and despite his aches, the lingering contractions as he delivered the afterbirth, and his complete exhaustion, Leo laughed too.

“How many of these did you want?” he asked, once they’d both calmed down.

“Three.”

“Three?! You’re doing them. I’m never doing this again. I’ll knock you up.” 

“Leo…”

“What?”

“…it only works on guys under 150 pounds.”

“…fuck.”

#belly #mpreg

[gascon-en-exil]

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Empire

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Adrestian Empire I therefore have below the male Eagles, Crimson Flower-exclusive Jeritza, former Imperial noble Hanneman, and...Seteth, because he’s the closest thing to a non-self-insert lord figure in Silver Snow and because he had to end up somewhere. As I said, not very neat.

The Kingdom

The Alliance

Hubert

His profile is sparsely filled out and his photo less than promising, but the select few who catch his eye will be treated to a courteous (if mildly acidic) barrage of introductory messages and polite requests to meet over coffee or a light lunch, no dick pics or requests for same in sight. It’s only after the exchange of small talk has passed that someone - could be you, could be him - brings up why he has kink as a listed interest, opening up a Pandora’s box of horrors as he casually shows you some of his photo collections. Asses red from whips and floggers, scrotums stuck through with pins, barbed cock rings, electrified nipple clamps, and ghastly shots of the man himself, his mouth dripping with blood over a fresh bite wound on his teary-eyed partner’s shoulder. He is, he explains, a Dom at heart - and the rougher the better. What he doesn’t explain and likely never will is that all that pain play and torture porn neatly covers for the fact that he’s less endowed and less skilled in that area than he’d be willing to admit, or that he harbors a secret longing to be Dommed himself, probably by someone close to him who has no interest whatsoever. He takes his career very seriously although you’ll never learn exactly what that entails, but you have a sneaking suspicion that whatever it is enables all those coldly violent impulses he displays in the bedroom.

Favorite erotic tea time subjects: CBT, vore, femdom

Favored gift: stiletto heels, for use on his face

Ferdinand

Within a minute of talking to him you know his full name, what prominent public figure(s) he’s related to, and where he plans on going with his life, in an overwhelming display of lack of concern for keeping his private life private that would be worrying if he didn’t pair it with an indefatigable self-confidence. The type of gentleman who expects flowers and opened doors and one person to pay for a whole date and coy blushing about going back to his place for some tea, but what unfolds afterwards may be surprising to anyone who wasn’t picking up on the subtext during the night out: that you’re dealing with a toned and vigorous vers/bottom who longs to lie back and be taken care of but absolutely will never turn down a challenge or request no matter how much it demands of him or how expertly he will be able to rise to the occasion. Long practice and some truly enviable thighs (he’s a noted equestrian, and loves showing off his album of favorite horses) let him milk a cock for hours - nearly as long as the subsequent pillow talk will be. It’s little wonder more than one of his lovers has had the idea to gag him...or to fuck him somewhere outside his bedroom once they go in and find the walls plastered with posters of his favorite pop and stage divas staring at you. Prime trophy husband material, wealthy and well-connected and fetching on anyone’s arm, but there’s no question that he’ll only be truly happy if he’s with someone who can challenge him to step out of his unusually large comfort zone: socially, professionally, or sexually.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: edging, crossdressing, fisting

Favored gift: a horse cock dildo, for his much-lauded huge hole

Linhardt

A master at genuinely negligent ghosting, it’ll take a minor miracle to actually arrange a meeting with this guy. Either he never answers, or he does but only to snap at you because he’s busy and only even logged into the app because his mind wandered for a second. Still, he draws a lot of attention from those into geeky twinks. Is not into foreplay, and can scarcely be bothered to maintain interest long enough to even stay hard unless you get lucky enough to hit on one of his subjects of recent fascination. Never offers to do anything in bed, and will in fact pick up his phone to browse through Wikipedia and Reddit while he’s being penetrated. Calling him out for his appalling lack of manners will get nothing more than a wry snort and a quick summary of whatever’s currently got his attention. Never cums, doesn’t seem to want to cum, and guys creative enough to try to ride him are often disappointed that he’s more likely to grumble that all that bouncing on his pelvis is making it impossible for him to catch a power nap. Just about the only way to fully get him invested is to get really weird - introduce him to some fetish he’s never thought to try. Incest kink, breeding kink, role reversals, elaborate roleplay...the more cerebral the better, because the physical stuff tends to put him off (especially blood play, which is his hard limit). Needless to say most aren’t up to that task, and so he’s nonchalantly left a trail of frustrated and disappointed men in his wake.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: somnophilia, historical roleplay, mpreg

Favored gift: a long-lasting vibrator, so he can stick it in and let it work while he’s otherwise occupied

Caspar

No amount of headless torso pics and carefully scaled dick pics will be enough for his ego, but encountering him in person will reveal that he’s not so much vain or delusional masc4masc as really, really compensating for something. This manifests as a deep-rooted resentment against guys taller than him or, ahem, better-proportioned, but his preference of sexual partners does not reflect his prejudices - which is fortunate for him given his measurements. Loud and energetic in all things, and it shocks no one that he’s a screamer in bed but also can’t last for very long once he really gets going. Lucky for everyone that his refractory period is unusually brief, although that leaves him deflecting odd inquiries into whatever substances he may be on (he’s clean and always has been, hard as that is for anyone to believe). Likes to top for the workout, but he won’t say no to riding a good dick. Has an unexpected sentimental side he’s not very good at expressing except indirectly, in the same way that he’s apparently oblivious to his casual innuendos. It will take someone very patient to put up with him, but the reward is (probably) worth it for the body alone provided he’s got a sufficient outlet for all that energy. Would be perfect for an active poly relationship or long-term FWB situation so no one guy has to manage him alone, but he’d have to be at the center of any such arrangement lest his numerous insecurities rear their heads. Is not into incest kink.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: post-workout sex, multiple orgasms, autofellatio (he wishes)

Favored gift: condoms a size too big for him, because even safe sex should be an opportunity for bragging

Seteth

He doesn’t share nudes, and says upfront that he’ll block anyone who asks or opens conversation with one. Seems to be genuinely interested in friendship over anything else, although he’s not great at small talk in text and would rather chat over snacks on a park bench or at one of the numerous community events he likes to organize. Is a family man through and through: devoted to his loved ones, quiet in his hobbies, and unusually spiritual in an orthodox church-going way. You start to wonder if he’s even into men or if his presence on the apps was just a very strange fluke, but he holds his handshakes just a little too long and progresses quicker to hugs and quietly intimate arm touches. Discussion of his prior love life is strictly off limits, but many months down the road when you finally get invited into his bed it’s clear that he’s no blushing virgin and is adept in the use of fingers, tongue, and cock for fully satisfying his partner. He might even bottom, although he’ll blush about being long out of practice in that area which suggests a wealth of untold stories by itself. He also may be, somehow, the only man in existence who knows what intercrural is and how to do it. Blessed with stamina far beyond what might be suggested by his age (which he only reveals several weeks into your acquaintance, another point of embarrassment for him), your encounters are far more likely to end with a phone call from one of the innumerable people who look up to him and depend upon his reliable if fussy sense of duty than it is from him tiring out. Fond of fishing, and known to take dates out to cast a line and then maybe have some naughty fun afterward. Does not appreciate being called a daddy, but he’s been known to accept big bro as an occasional slip-up.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: discipline, incest kink, scalies

Favored gift: your STI testing history, because he doesn’t mess around with that stuff

Hanneman

A polite if unassuming silver daddy, with no sugar for the obvious escorts but the cushy professional post and generosity to make him appealing to a less openly mercantile sort of young man. His chosen field is not an easy subject for light conversation, but damned if he doesn’t try his best regardless. His favorite tactic might be finding some way of applying his work to something about his date, no matter how tenuous the connection or how unwelcome the observations. Not super fit and doesn’t get out much so as the night is winding down he’s not good for very much other than intermittent blowjobs and even more languid handjobs, although a truly dedicated partner might coax something more out of him with help from a little blue pill or two...and maybe some poppers, because he’s old enough to remember when everyone used those. Despite his reputation for mildly inappropriate perving on guys young enough to be his sons - some of which he acquired in a professional context, with some of his favorite anecdotes of past trysts involving junior lab techs/TAs/secretaries/others among his subordinates - he’s not actually averse to fooling around with men closer to his own age, although he’s more awkward about it since he’s a bit out of his element when he’s no longer the only experienced voice of wisdom in the room. Either way, if there’s one thing he hates it’s sloppiness, whether in one’s personal or professional life. As a result he avoids bars like the plague and has little patience for drunks. Contrary to this fastidiousness however his advances in his career are such that he may one day do something radical and ill-advised in the pursuit of knowledge; one only hopes that the various skeletons hiding in his closet don’t come back to haunt him - with regret or harassment lawsuits or who only knows what else.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: medical kink, teacher/student, cock milking

Favored gift: consent to video encounters, for future reference

Jeritza

The kind of rough trade all your friends warned you about...except he’s not rough trade, not really. Deeply troubled and disarmingly attractive is a deadly combination, and he thrives in a medium where one-word responses and explicit pics are considered perfectly commonplace. Encounters with him are quick and rough and nearly anonymous, always in the dark and with little opportunity to see or interact with him apart from the hands grasping you to him and the admittedly impressive cock jabbing into you from whatever angle he can manage. He’s had the threat of assault charges or worse thrown at him more than once, but it’s never made him any more considerate or careful. To the very rare individual who keeps returning for more the most explanation he’ll ever provide is that he becomes someone else when pursuing sex, someone hard and violent and not at all like the person he insists that he is. This is something he ties into some deep-seated trauma, but there’s something distinctly insincere about the underlying psychology as if it were only an excuse for an abuse fetish run wild. Pretty much all of his tricks ghost him at that point, wanting to get as far as away as possible from a true crime drama just waiting to happen. Curiously enough if he ever does find a long-term partner it won’t be with the expected extreme masochist - expect them only to show up in a police report one day, with extremely gory pictures - but with someone who can match his lustful bloodlust with more of the same and who is totally comfortable throwing around death threats that at some point transform into only moderately disturbing innuendos. 

Favored erotic tea time subjects: masks, blood play, asphyxiation

Favored gift: anything sweet he can lick off your body...because it’s either that or viscera

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses

[thenamesseven]

Plot: Namjoon and you are too drunk to control your desires tonight.

Word count: 2.1k

Warnings: This is pure smut. There is no background story or a complicated plot, just Namjoon fingering you in a club...Which is kinda too hot to be honest.

Here is your request anon! Sorry for taking so long but also thanks for requesting this...Hehehe, came out hotter than expected. Enjoy it!

Walking through the crowded dance floor with Namjoon practically attached to your backside turned out to be harder than what your drunk brains had thought it would be. His hands were flat against your stomach, making sure your body wouldn’t move an inch away from his, your boyfriend’s face rested on your shoulder and sometimes he would nuzzle your neck so seductively that your knees became week. The fact that you hadn’t fallen down yet thanks to your boyfriend and your incredibly tall high heels deserved to be called a miracle.

Namjoon and you weren’t used to go out like this, being the leader of an international k-pop group limited your relationship more than what people thought. Simple things such as dates, hugging in public or even deciding to spend the night at the other’s place were pretty complicated for somebody whose life was more public than private. His bandmates were angels sent from Heaven though and they all had organized this huge party for Namjoon’s and your 3 year anniversary together. They had rented a whole club only inviting people that they knew wouldn’t cause any trouble or sell pictures of the party inside to the newspaper the morning after.

Namjoon and you stumbled into somebody once again but you were too busy trying not to eat the damn floor and he was too busy apologizing with his eyes glued to your ass to recognize into which idol the both of you had walked into, it was not like you cared anyways. “Namjoon!” You scolded, turning around when you finally felt stable on your high heles “You seriously need to stop doing that, if we keep walking into people they’re going to end up getting mad at us” Your drunken state was not helping you and instead of believing your serious words, your boyfriend took it as some kind of joke since he started laughing.

“Do I look like I care baby girl?” He asked smirking, taking your hand only to pull you closer to his body again “It’s our party and we’re allowed to do whatever we want” Your boyfriend’s plump lips started leaving a trail of hot, open mouth kisses down your neck that was worth of the moan that escaped your lips. Namjoon, clearly hearing this, sunk his teeth against your flesh while his big hands gripped your hips tighter.

The alcohol in your system wiped out whatever chance of thinking logically you might have had and instead of continuing your scolding speech you ended up melting in his hands, purring against his ear while your hands moved up his chest slowly “Whatever we want?” You asked naughtily, blinking as if you were the most innocent yet genuine person in this world.

Namjoon perfectly knew you weren’t but God knew he loved so much when you acted like that.

“Do not tempt me babygirl, you wouldn’t want me to fuck you in front of all this people now would you?” He whispered against your ear while one of his hands slid down your body until his fingers were playing with the hem of your dress.

You giggled, hands on his back as your lips found their way to his ear. You trapped his earlobe between your teeth, nibbling onto it for a little before you let it go “Maybe, maybe not” Namjoon growled at your teasing, backing you up into an empty corner of the club which wasn’t totally isolated but it gave you enough privacy to keep playing the naughty game the two of got going.

Namjoon forcefully turned you around, hitting your butt with the big bulge he had trapped in his suit’s pant. Another moan got out of you while one of Namjoon’s hands slid down to your thigh as the other moved up to your neck, where his fingers squeezed slowly and gently before moving away so nobody would noticed the scandalous things he was planning to do to you in that corner. His chin returned to your shoulder, lips close enough to your skin to make you shiver against his body, a sensation that drove your boyfriend mad.

“You surely would love if I fucked your brains out on the bar, wouldn’t you baby girl?” He whispered, hips rocking against yours “Imagine yourself laying on your back, legs all spreaded out for me as I shove my big fat cock inside of that little, tight pussy of yours” You heard him smirk when he sensed your breathing was becoming irregular, too heavy, too slow “Imagine all their eyes on you, girls jealous because their boyfriends don’t fuck them as good as I fuck you, boys jealous because their girls don’t scream their name like you scream mine”

You whined, wanting more, needing something more satisfying than the dry thrusts you were getting “Namjoon” His name coming out of your lips was music to his ears, it was probably the sound he loved the most in this world but he also enjoyed discipline and you knew better than that.

His hand gripped your thigh, knuckles turning white from the strength he was using. You know he would probably leave marks on your skin but you loved it so much when he got rough “Be a good girl, you want a reward right?”

“Sorry daddy” You muttered quietly, hearing Namjoon’s quiet moan as the apology slipped past your lips.

“That’s it baby girl” He pressed a kiss against the crook of your neck, running his fingers through your hair as he scanned the room with his eyes “Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could suck my cock on that stage though? Letting everyone see how you choke on it? How greedy you are when it comes to satisfying your daddy?” You didn’t even understand what he was saying anymore, all your brain was processing was that Namjoon’s dirty talk had you clenching around nothing and your panties were absolutely soaked at this point. “Maybe I could eat you out from behind with your naked body pressed against the huge windows upstairs, so everybody passing by could see you all hot and bothered with my face between these juicy thighs of yours” Namjoon hissed when you moved your ass back against him, earning a deep low chuckle that only turned you on even more.

“Daddy please?” You didn’t even know what you were asking for at this point. The only thing you knew was that lust was starting to overwhelm your body and pleasure was what you were seeking for.

“Please what babygirl?” Namjoon turned the both of you around once again, his body and the poor lighting inside the club were enough to hide your figure in that empty corner, his back broad enough to cover whatever was about to happen there. “Please fuck me on the bar? Please let me suck your cock or please eat me out?” He smirked looking at your dilated pupils, feeling your heart pounding hard against your ribcage as he mentioned all the possible things he could do to you “Do you think you could cum on my fingers right now baby?”

You looked at Namjoon, breathing heavy, heart pounding so loud that you barely heard the song that was being played at the moment “Is that what you want?” You asked, satisfying him with your answer.

“Well I can fuck your brains out with them, make you scream my name in this room full of people and taste your delicious juices once your done” Namjoon’s reasoning was good enough to convince you, you were too turned on to reject his idea anyways.

“Then do it, fuck Namjoon, I can’t wait anymore”

Namjoon would have scolded you, even punish you for not calling him daddy a second time during your naughty exchange but he was also too turned on to stop, he was too horny to walk away from you. Besides, he did say you would scream his name in the club, right?

“Screw this” Muttering that under his breath, Namjoon stepped closer to you and pushed one of his long fingers inside your pussy.

It wasn’t the first time he was fingering you, Namjoon did the same thing whenever the two of you got enough time to get naked and give each other the pleasure you were seeking for but it always ended up with him pounding into you and not with you reaching your orgasm with his fingers inside of you so it was slightly correct to say this was kind of new. When your warm, soaking walls clenched around his digit, Namjoon groaned, feeling his cock throbbing inside his pants, he could smell your arousal, he could feel the drops rolling down his finger as soon as he started moving it in and out of you.

“F-Fuck (Y/N)” He stuttered, face buried against your neck. Namjoon’s tongue came out, brushing against your skin seductively “You’re going to make me cum in my pants if you keep being so sexy”

"What if that's what I want?" You whispered, biting his ear, nails digging into the skin of his shoulder as he pushed you harder against the wall.

Without caring if somebody saw what was going on between the two of you, Namjoon pushed another finger inside your pussy, moving them in and out like before. Your hands went up his chest, resting on his shoulders where you gently digged your nails through the cloth of his expensive shirt as you attempted to open your legs more but Namjoon didn’t allow you to.

“Behave, don’t be a dirty slut” He whispered against your ear, his hot breath caressing the shell of your ear. Honestly, you couldn’t care less at this point, you just wanted Namjoon to pick you up and fuck you against the wall.

“Namjoon” You moaned his name again, knowing it was his weakness “Please”

“You need to cum?” He asked, smirking when you barely managed to nod as soon as you felt his fingers curved up against your g spot. Luckily his free hand came up to cover your mouth before you could moan even louder attracting the attention of nearby dancers. “You need it so bad, right baby?” He asked teasingly, his hand moving faster and harder against your sweet spot.

“B-Babe p-p-please” You had your head leaned back against the wall, eyes rolling back in pure pleasure as Namjoon’s body pressed against yours kept you standing, your knees were to weak to stand your own weight at this point.

“I’ll let you cum, you’ve been a really good girl tonight” 

The both of you smiled at those words, Namjoon stepped even closer to you something you had thought to be physically impossible. His legs spread so you could watch the bulge in his pants, his back hiding your small figure that was trembling against the wall, seeking the bliss his fingers could give to you. Namjoon’s face moved closer to yours, his plump lips brushing your mouth teasingly right before his tongue came out to lick your lips hungrily, promising more naughty activities in the following hours. Maybe in the bathroom, maybe as soon as you got in the car or in your bed where he made you scream his name as loud as you could while he came inside you.

Your eyes moved up to his, drowning in the lust and pleasure that were reflected on them, you shivered when he didn’t kiss you, his lips moving past yours towards your ear to whisper a single word.

“Cum”

Like the good girl you were, you obeyed Namjoon as soon as the word got out of his lips, reaching one of the best orgasms you had in your life. Your body shook gently against his hard body, moans being muffled by his hand as more of your juices ran down your inner thihgs as evidence of how good your boyfriend had made you feel. Namjoon kept his fingers inside of you, moving them slowly to ride out your high and once you seemed to calm down he pulled them out of you.

Still looking into your eyes, he sucked on his fingers, moaning at how sweet you tasted for him. When he was finished he reached out to grab your hand, pulling you closer to his body and finally giving you the passionate kiss you wanted just to allow you to taste yourself on his lips. After a few seconds Namjoon pulled back, brushing some strands of your hair behind your ear.

“Get to the bathroom” He said licking your lower lip “Let me clean you up with my tongue”

#kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop oneshot #bts #kpop smut #bts smut #bts jimin #bts jungkook #bts taehyung #bts jin #bts jhope #bts suga #bts yoongi #bts namjoon #kim namjoon #bts fanfic #namjoon smut #rm smut #namjoon fanfic #rm fanfic #smut #oneshot smut #bts oneshot

[phantomphangphucker]

Ectober Day 21: Shattered - Legless On Maim Chap.1 - One, Two, Three...Oh Ancients That’s A Lot Of Broken Bones

Danny gets hurt a lot, eventually that had to land him in the hospital. And Lewis always ends up with the weird patents.

*Note: This wasn’t supposed to be a crossover. It just decided it had to be one halfway through.

It had always been a bit of a running joke just how bad Jack Fenton’s driving was. Many even saying that so long as he was behind the wheel, any vehicle could defy the laws of both gravity and reality...and the rules of the road. Which meant that everyone always got out of their way, cops included. The Fenton RV taking impossible turns and breaking 300mph was just a part of Amity Park.

So it was normalised, comfortable. Everyone lulled into the mindset that the Fenton’s were somehow immune to car crashes or that their RV was functionally indestructible. And at least they wore seat belts right? Okay, they usually wore them anyway.

Which is why, when the cops and ambulances were called out to a massive car pile-up, everyone was stunned stupid to see the eccentric family’s RV torn in half in what could only be described as a car massacre. Thirty or thirty-five, it was hard to say, vehicles strewn over the road; most damaged horribly. There’s body’s laying all over the road and limbs sticking out around twisted metal. Screaming and crying filling the air, with the less injured trying to help out the worse off. Paramedics start running everywhere, as the cops get the area closed off and join in helping victims.

If it wasn’t for how used to the Fenton’s the town was, everyone would have likely been incredibly shocked and paused; as Jack Fenton deadlifts and throws half of the massive RV. What does cause shock, is him being splattered in blood. No one having ever seen either Fenton with blood on them; or the daughter for that matter. It was just the boy that could occasionally be caught a bit bloodied and beaten.

Which is why Todd, a paramedic who honestly hasn’t had enough sleep, isn’t surprised as he rushes over to the bloodied and oversized man; easily telling it isn’t his own blood. Pushing Jack out of the way to stop the man from touching the, definitely injured, boy. Who’s caked so heavily that it’s impossible to tell who he is, which is why Todd is very surprised as the kid groans and tries to sit up.

Jack stammers barely above a whisper, “D-Danny-boy?”.

Of course, it was the son, great. Todd looks the kid over as he pushes the kid's shoulder to stop him from moving, “son, you need to stay still”.

“‘M fine”, based on how the kids speech is slurred and he’s shaking his head to clear it, he definitely is not fine.

Todd completely ignores his partner asking Jack about medical histories and allergies and if he was injured. Todd can’t help but scoff over how the large man wasn’t so much as scratched. Before frowning at the kids legs, he honestly did not want to touch them. It looked like he’d jumped feet first into a cheap meat grinder. The flesh mangled and torn, bits of bone jutting out or on the ground. If Todd had to guess, he’d say not even once inch of bone or skin was intact.

Todd blinks as he hears the kid mutter, apparently able to self-access to a disturbing level, “breaks: eight ribs, left arm, seven fingers, fuck my legs, shit. Dislocated shoulder, five cracked ribs, six herniated discs”, wheezing, “blood, lots of that. Okay okay, legs. That’s, uh, not good”.

Todd clears his throat once he’s gotten the gurney set up, seriously thankful the kid is half sitting half laying on a blanket. Effectively startling the boy out of his mutterings, who looks at him wide-eyed, “oh shit, person”.

Todd rolls his eyes but gets to work, motioning his partner over to help move the boy. “Just stay still kid”. Watching and having half the mind to whack the kid over the head, as he flops to lay down -which is beyond bad to do if he thinks he’s damaged his spine- and sounds, of all things, annoyed.

Todd’s partner chuckles at the boy as they carry him over to one of the waiting ambulances, “you definitely seem a Fenton that’s for sure”.

Todd has to force the kid to lay down as he tries sit up, after getting him in the ambulance, to look around, “kid, your folks are fine. Just take it easy. It’s you who needs to be worried over”.

The kid actually scowls at him before tilting his head around to scan the accident site, “okay, if you don’t stop moving we are immobilising you completely”. But Todd sighs slightly as Maddie hops in and hovers her hands around Danny, “sweetie, oh Zone, Danny”.

Todd grunting, “I’m going to have to ask that you don’t touch, sorry”, as he’s hooking up vitals and bags. There’s no way this kid hasn’t lost a concerning amount of blood and it’s a small miracle, if you could call it that, that the kid was even conscious.

Todd’s a bit surprised that the kid is still trying to look around, albeit a bit more subtly, “anyone hurt?”.

Maddie gives him a soft smile, “your dad and I are fine sweetie”.

“No, everyone. Is anyone hurt?”. Todd is seriously thrown by the seriousness and urgency to the kids tone. He sounded more like one of his fellow medics or a cop, than an injured kid.

Maddie blinks and worries her lip, “I’m not positive sweetie, but I’m sure there are injuries”.

Todd and his partner grab the kids' shoulders and force him to lay down. The kid looking like he wants to run off and seemingly moving to do exactly that. Todd holds up some straps, “do I seriously need to use these?”.

The kid glares at him before huffing like this is the hardest thing in the world and grumbles, “no”, as he lays still on the gurney; glaring at the ceiling with an almost impressive level of annoyance. But, apparently, not fretting about people -even though he’s injured to such a horrific level that Todd’s not even able to touch the kids' legs- is enough for the kids' body to just give out; as the kid blacks out.

Todd and his partner exchange worried glances, as the kids ECG turns on, showing an alarmingly slow heartbeat. Both watching it as they clean some of the blood off the kids' torso; hoping that’s interfering with the readings. It’s not, but in doing this they both notice the multitude of scars. Some with clear stitch marks and others that are completely unfamiliar to them.

Todd glances to Maddie with a slight frown, no kid winds up this scarred on their own. But that’s a problem for the cops, not him; as they arrive at the hospital.

The two paramedics hopping back in their ambulance to head back out before blinking at Jack running into the hospital. How he got here almost before they did, they’ve got no clue. The two shake their heads and shrug, speeding off, just more Fenton weirdness. Hopefully, that weirdness will help the kid out, he’ll be lucky to even keep his legs.

Dr. Lewis’s assistant snaps on his gloves for him after rigorously cleaning his hands, she opens the doors for him as he speaks, “so what are we dealing with? From the crash right?”.

Brittney pushes up her glasses with her wrist and nods, speaking as everyone else in the room makes space for the head surgeon, “yes, the Fenton son. He’s got more broken bones than intact ones...”.

Lewis smiles, thinking as Brittney rattles off the very long list of injuries, it had been a while since he had seen them, years in fact. Though this isn’t exactly how he’d like to be seeing any of them. Lewis nods before setting to work, “ah Danny, he’s grown a lot. His folks are old friends of mine”. Multiple people mutter about how, “that explains a lot”, and, “somehow that’s not surprising”.

Lewis is honestly amazed Danny’s even alive. Especially considering his strange vitals. But Lewis has seen strange before, so so long as Danny’s vitals don’t drop it’s whatever. But based on just his listed central injuries he should have lost more blood than the human body even carries. He managed to sever his Inferior Vena Cava, Superior Mesenteric Artery and Femoral Artery.

He’s not sure if that’s weird or just really impressive. Though he doesn’t let it faze or interrupt his work. But once he gets Danny’s chest open he stills completely, more than a little confused.

Multiple people whisper, “what is that?”. And Lewis has no answer. There’s just a glowing pale blue ball of what seems to be energy. Somehow it was partly through other organs as if it wasn’t physically touchable. Lewis pokes it, curious, only for his hand to go through it. But Danny shivers, so he promptly decides it’s just part of him and messing with it would be bad.

Lewis shrugs, back to the actual problems with Danny. Lewis can actually work with normal medical problems. Even if they were excessive and weird. Seeing as he came in with two, TWO, ruptured lungs. One kidney was a lost cause, the other barely salvageable. His spine was an interesting puzzle to put back together, but he’s not paralysed. Small miracles Lewis, small miracles. Thankfully his arms and hands just had simple breaks and dislocations, even if nearly every finger on his left was badly crushed. But hey, at least Danny was right hand dominant.

His legs though...Lewis sighs after poking and looking around, he knew with one look the legs were going to be bad. And normally he’d like to do the most difficult task first. It was always the most interesting and usually needed his full alert attention. But someone could live without good legs, they firmly can’t with major severed arteries and non-functioning lungs. Again, Danny should be dead. Very dead. Even if he was miraculously without any head or neck injuries. Not even whiplash.

Sighing again, Lewis turns away and snaps off his gloves into the trash. These legs weren’t salvageable. He was good, one of the best actually, but even for him limits exist. And leg bones that were shattered into millions of tiny pieces, like someone had put a bomb in a room full of oddly fleshy and bloody glass, was far past his limits.

Lewis nods to his team, “keep him stable”.

They nod as he leaves but nearly all of them mutter, “he’s actually doing the taking? The bad news? Wow”. Now it wasn’t that Lewis shirked his duties or couldn’t handle breaking bad news. He just wasn’t a people person, wasn’t sensitive enough apparently.

Lewis approaches Jack and Maddie, making a point not to smile and sends a small nod to their daughter, Jasmine, before speaking to the parents, “I’m sorry that this is how we run into each other again”.

Maddie nods and fiddles with her fingers, “agreed”, looking up at him and smiling pleadingly, “but you were always the best in your classes. So I’m sure he’s in the best hands”.

Jack clears his throat, “how is he? Will he be okay? How much longer?”.

Jazz sighs, “I’m sure he’ll be fine dad. Danny’s tough”.

Lewis forces down a laugh, not appropriate right now, “he certainly is”, looking more serious and looking back to the parents, “by all accounts, it’s a miracle he made it here at all. I’ve seen folks who’ve gone through wood chippers with less injuries. But he’s stable, he’ll live”.

Both parents sigh in relief but Jasmine squints at him, “and what’s the bad news? You didn’t say he’s out of surgery so clearly he’s not. The head surgeon wouldn’t leave the middle of surgery just to mingle”.  

Maddie and Jack look from her to Lewis, worried and scared. Lewis nods with the appropriate frown, sighing, “unfortunately you’re right”, clearing his throat, “though he didn’t sustain any head injuries, and all the major and minor central damage has been repaired and will heal fine. His legs, I’m afraid, can’t be helped. Even keeping them would be a bad idea”.

Maddie chokes out a sob and clings on Jack. Jack speaking softly, “are you...are you sure?”. While Jazz looks extremely startled and slightly conflicted.

Lewis nods at his two friends, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can even begin to do or try”.

Jack bows his head before nodding slightly and clenching his fists. Looking back up to Lewis, “Danny-boy’s a strong kid. I’m sure we can all handle adapting. Do what you think is best”.

While Jasmine walks up and plays with her hands, looking slightly pleading, “you’re sure he can’t keep them? Even a little?”.

Lewis sighs and nods, “I’m sorry Jasmine”, before giving her shoulder a slight squeeze and heading back to surgery.

Lewis picks up the bone saw as he reenters, freshly washed and gloved hands. His newest team member grimacing slightly as he gets to work. His team moving around and aiding him as he goes, pushing his weight on the device, occasionally switching out to bone nibblers or scalpels and other smaller tools. Everyone firmly ignoring Lewis’s slightly fond smile as he admires his work. Walking around to check out the symmetry. Most medical surgeons don’t exactly care how their work looks, Lewis does. Like tattoos, if you make scars and wounds pretty enough or give some kind of design people might actually grow to like them. Though clearly Danny had no issue with scars, considering the impressive amount of them he had. But hey, everyone likes symmetry.

Lewis makes a couple slight, and arguably unnecessary, changes, before having his underlings do the closing and heading back out to see his friends. Glancing at the clock as he goes, twelve hours total, expected honestly but still.

It’s no surprise that they’re less hopeful and happy about seeing him this time. “He’ll be fine. You can probably see him in a while but it’s best you don’t touch him”.

Jack and Maddie nod, looking a bit shell shocked. Lewis motions for someone to bring them some water and sits down. Clearing his throat, “now he’s going to be out for around half an hour, after that he’s going to be a bit groggy and he’ll be on a lot of medications. It’s best you wait till he asks to tell him about his legs. I can do that if you’d prefer?”.

The two nod as they accept waters, Maddie speaking, “thank you Dan. We’d like it if you were there to...explain things if he asks for specifics, but we can tell him”.

Jack nods, smilingly slightly forced, “he’s a curious kid. Always asking what this or that does”.

Lewis returns the smile more genuinely while Jazz appears to be grimacing.

Jack rubs Maddie arm and doesn’t call Lewis out on just sitting there somewhat awkwardly. His lack of people skills never even seemed to be noticed by the two, which is part of why he could call them friends. They were so strange that his strange went unnoticed.

Jazz eyes her parents before getting up and tugging on Lewis’s coat slightly, whispering, “give them some room, I’m a curious one too”.

Lewis raises an eyebrow before nodding, yes ‘space’ was something people usually needed. Walking with the girl who’s got a deep frown for a while till she speaks to him, “so...your name’s Dan?”.

“It is, not short for anything. Why?”, Lewis was fully expecting some questions about aftercare or even the nitty-gritty of surgery, not his name.

Jazz frowns slightly more, “then make sure you’re introduced as ‘Lewis’ first then”.

“Bad experience?”.

“Very”.

Lewis looks behind them, towards the parents, “I take it they don’t know?”.

Jazz shakes her head but smiles ever so slightly, “he likes to keep somethings to himself”.

Lewis smirks as his pager goes off, calling him away. Likely more people from the crash.

All three Fenton’s stiffen and hold their breaths as Danny groans, “who dropped a semi-truck on me?”, screws up his face, and opens his eyes. Blinking a couple of times, “oh duh, a road did”, before chucking slightly.

Jazz smiles softly and shuffles her chair closer to him, while their parents flinch, “you’re pretty close actually little brother. But I don’t think there were any semi’s involved”.

Danny clearly attempts to lift up his hand, but it is held in place. Jazz speaking as Danny looks not pleased about that, “don’t try breaking it. You need it, the public hospital did a good job though. Looks cool”. Seriously hoping that he gets that he has to act at least somewhat normal.

Danny snorts, “ice ice baby”, before blinking and screwing up his face again, “hospital? Am Imma bag of broken shards and bloodied mashed potatoes or something?”.

Jazz cringes at that, “yeah”.

Danny rolls his shoulders slightly, “well alright then”, snorting and looking at her, “what’d I fuck up this time?”.

Now all three cringe, Jack clearing his throat, prompting Danny to look towards him as Jack speaks, “nothing, son. It was just a freak accident-”.

Danny’s barked laugh cuts him off, “sounds like the story of half my life”.

Jack blinks and exchanges a slight smile with Maddie, though they still look sad. Maddie pets his hair gently, his head being the only thing not wrapped or restrained, “but one that none of us were even slightly responsible for”.

Danny chuckles, “that’s a nice change. Change is good. Let’s you buy burgers. Hospital burgers though...”, Danny makes a disgusted face, “not worth a cent. Prob make my tongue fall off or sometin’ and I like my tongue. It’s squishy and doesn’t belong to a snake”.

“Sounds like someone’s up”, everyone turns to Lewis’s voice. Danny chuckling, “look, a doctor, in a hospital. Who would have thought”.

Lewis smiles, “certainly not I”.

Danny shifts, Jazz is sure he was attempting to point at Lewis, “I like you. You seem very hit-able, but, like, the kind that also makes questionably strong coffee“.

Lewis shrugs as he walks fully into the room and stands next to the bed, “I’ll take it, and you’re right, I do take my coffee black. I don’t even mind the grounds”.

“Ah a doc after my heart, possibly literally. But it’s mine, not yours. You want it, you gotta lick it, like a cat”.

“My wife’s got a cat, real prick. Not going to copy any of his behaviour”, Lewis smirks and shrugs, “even if you have a very healthy and nice heart”.

Danny laughs loudly, everyone else laughing slightly as well. Jack and Maddie thankful for their sons weird, and definitely inebriated, humour. Jazz completely understanding why, or more so how, Lewis is friends with her parents. He might be weirder than them actually.

Danny smirks, “I would slap my heart if I wasn’t told to not break my white wrapping confines. ‘Cause this muscly bastard gets all the exercise!”, Danny screws up his face and laughs again, “pretty sure a cat tried to kill me once!”.

Lewis glances at Danny’s ECG, showing a heartbeat that is way too slow and pulse much the same. Not to mention the startlingly cold body temperature. But since Danny seems fine and stable in those regards, he’s just assuming that’s normal. He’s seen weirder and the Fenton’s are exactly the people to have a strange son.

Danny follows Lewis’s eyes, chuckling at the faintly beeping thing, “huh, well that’s awkward”, snorting, “really half-assing the job. Lazy prick”.

Lewis tilts his head and can’t help but laugh, it really was only half what it should be.

Jack smiles, “it’s doing a great job actually Danny-boy”.

Lewis smirks, “really holding you together there”, before shuffling, slightly self-aware. He liked patients who were a bit out of it, he could let his tongue fly more. But there were others here, friend kind of others. But no one seems fazed, though Jazz groans sounding exhausted rather than bothered.

Danny grins goofily, “so my bones n’ shit are lazy then, cause that’s their job. Heart’s jus suppose make a right bloody mess”, wiggling slightly, “just be really dramatic about it. Like with that tv show guy who got stabbed by a straw? Just spewing red like a fountain”.

Jazz groans, “that’s really morbid Danny”.

Lewis laughs slightly, “that’s also not really possible”, shrugging, “not like that at least”.

Danny smirks, “oh? Do tell. That’d make a great prank”.

Jazz groans, “Danny no”.

Making Danny smirk at her, “Danny yes”.

Maddie smiles at him, “I’m sure doing that wouldn’t be a good idea”.

Danny shrugs, “it would be really messy. I’m good at that though, I mean my room? My life? Just oof. Mess”, screwing up his face, “right right yeah, I ‘twas a mess wasn’t I? Drenched like went swimming in viscera”.

Lewis is the only one who doesn’t cringe. While Danny raises an eyebrow at Lewis, “who gots to clean that all up? I could, like, sign the soiled towels or whatever”.

Jazz, officially worried Danny thinks he’s in ghost form, “little bro, us Fenton’s are odd but not odd enough for people to want our signatures”, she then flicks his black hair so that it is definitely in Danny’s line of sight.

Danny blows air at it, “just a Fan of weird but not weird weird”. Danny then tilts his head and blinks, frowning, “right, accident. Just piles of twisted metal”, frowning more.

Everyone is fully expecting that he’s noticed something’s missing now but instead he asks, “everyone fine? From that? Serious injuries? It wasn’t a ghostly accident was it?”.

Lewis blinks, ghosts?, that’s right, Jack and Maddie are ghost hunters. Lewis clears his throat, “mostly scrapes, whiplash and some broken bones. But there have been a few reported deaths”. Lewis almost jerks from Danny reacting like someone just shot him directly in the face and point-blank. “Woah Danny, it was a nasty crash, casualties are expected-”.

Jazz cuts him off and plucks out one of Danny’s hairs, functionally startling him out of any mental spirals, “there’s nothing anyone could have done Danny. Including you”.

Danny screws up his face and it looks rather painful, “but those paras, they wasted time on me and holding me back. Coulda helped”.

Jazz cringes, knowing how hard that would have been on him. While Jack and Maddie gape at him. Maddie speaking, “sweetie you needed it. Your life isn’t a waste of their time”.

“But they could have saved someone else if they hadn’t been busy with me! I’d have been fine!”.

Maddie jerkily moves her hand to grab his but thinks better of it and runs her hand through his hair, “sweetie no”.

Lewis, a little caught off guard, “you really shouldn’t have survived yourself”.

Danny actually rolls his eyes, “‘m fine”.

Jack clenches his hands, “I, son, no you’re not”. While Jazz pokes his cheek, “just breathe and focus on your own healing, like the rest of us mortals”, winking at him and putting on a slight smile, “you go be helpful when not ensnared by the medical system”.

Danny looks at the ceiling and blinks a little, “what caused it? The accident?”.

Jazz instantly saying, “not ghosts”.

Lewis clears his throat, “it was a drunk driver apparently”.

Danny squints at him, “at three p.m.?”.

Lewis shrugs, both impressed and pleased he remembered what time it happened at, “if it helps, he died”.

Danny frowns, “it doesn’t...much”. Lewis represses a smirk at that.

Danny tilts his head slightly and squints at Lewis, “this ain’t Amity hospital. Why you no question ghost shit?”.

Lewis blinks and actually laughs slightly, realising he forgot to give his name, “right, I’m a friend of your parents actually. Dr. Lewis. I know about their profession”.

Danny snorts, “convenient”, and eyes Lewis cautiously. Lewis can tell Danny’s visually picking him over, looking for danger. This boy was scarred and paranoid, that didn’t really add up to a pretty picture. Maybe he was a hunter too, would make sense. Just clearly more, would ‘intense’ work best?, about it.

Jazz flicks Danny’s ear, “he’s a good guy. Little odd, but that’s for the best”.

Danny eyes Lewis some more, but Jack and Maddie both smile at him so he blows out a breath and rolls his eyes, “so fams doctor friend was getting all friendly with my organs. Really getting to know me on an internal level”.

Jazz laughs, “yeah. Danny. Yeah”.

“Guess I gotta do one better then”.

Now Lewis is the only one not glaring. Danny had an extremely dark sense of humour.

Danny smirks, though his eyes still look rather freaked out and haunted, “what? Gotta make sure my meat suit knows who owns and haunts it”. Jazz just sighs.

Jack smiles and laughs, it’s a bit hallow though, “no ghost could ever overshadow you Danny-boy!”.

Danny gives a genuine toothy smile, “I’m already spooky enough”.

Maddie blinks and looks to Lewis, having been reminded about Danny’s contamination and thus how his body functioned a bit different. Though the slow heartbeat was a bit of a shock, “that’s right, you never asked us about Danny’s unusual readings? I’m sure you’re curious about that?”.

Lewis shrugs, “I’ve seen some seriously weird stuff over the years. So long as no one or thing tries to kill me or my patient, it’s cool”.

Danny laughs, “it’s like we’re the same person! Just you see more guts, hopefully anyway”.

Lewis smirks, “well I am very good at handling them. Hands of an Angel some say”.

Danny smirks right back, “well some say I’m downright devilish. So yay, yin and yang. Very black and white, I approve”, Danny looks to the ECG, “but yeah, that’s me norm”, shrugging as he looks back to Lewis, “everything’s my norm”. Danny keeps talking as everyone cringed, “though I’d really like to know where the fuck my legs are”.

Everyone gapes at him for a bit, even Lewis has never had a patient just let something like that roll off their tongue. Usually there was at least some shock or a mild freak out. Sometimes they just refused to believe it before freaking out severely. Danny just sounded like he’d misplaced his hairbrush or forgot to study.

Maddie shakes herself off slightly, petting Danny’s hair, “they were, um, they were too badly damaged sweetie”, before looking to Lewis, who nods and steps forward slightly. “They were pretty well shattered apart. Most pieces too small to even attempt to put back together. Your skin and muscle was hardly any better. The bone absolutely had to be removed and leaving the rest would only hinder you and would risk your health”.

Danny nods, “well alright then. You did what you thought best so it’s cool”.

Lewis blinks, “Danny...that is the single most relaxed reaction I’ve ever gotten or heard of”.

Danny chuckles, “Imma chill dude”, blinking and then laughing, “oh Ancients! I’m legless on main!”.

Jazz makes a face and groans into her hand, releasing he’s referencing how his other-self is sometimes legless, “that is a horrible joke Danny!”.

Jack gives an awkward smile, “well at least he’s handling it well”.

Lewis isn’t sure if this qualifies as ‘handling it well’, but it does make his job easier and more enjoyable. Plus, they’re friends, so of course Lewis is going to do the house check-ups. Even if they’re in another city. So it works for him. Traumatised emotional wrecks and people spiralling into depression, he can’t deal with that; at least not well. But someone looking to crack a joke or relax and pretty much ignore the damage? That, he can do.

Danny smirks, “Imma terrible terror so good!”, tilting his head down as far as it can go, which isn’t very far, “so will I be able to draw constellations on the scars?”.

Lewis smiles and decides to just speak, they weren’t exactly normal people, “sure, but wait till it’s not raw. But it looks good as is, I like to play around with my work. Make things look nice”. It’s refreshing to not get looked at strange though. This is exactly why he missed the two strange scientists.  

Danny smiles, “anything for the asstetic...antiseptic...fuck...aesthetic”, making everyone laugh slightly.

Lewis nods, “yes, it’s clear you don’t mind scars-”.

Jazz interrupts him, “yup! That’s guys for you”. While Jack and Maddie just look confused. Lewis blinks, getting the message from both her comment and the dirty ‘shut the hell up’ look, obviously, Jack and Maddie aren’t aware of the scars. Which is odd, if they were from ghost hunting they would probably know about it. If he was getting them professionally treated then they would also know about it. And considering the oddity and severity of some of the scarring, he absolutely needed professional treatment. There was no way he was treating himself. The skill would be admirable, but that would be one extreme pain tolerance. But that thought makes him blink, deciding to look over Danny’s readings. His levels of pain killers were way lower than they should be, okay everything was off. But logically Danny should be in pain. Glancing at him, “you okay overall though?”.

Danny just gives him a confused raised eyebrow, “‘m fine”.

Lewis gives him a dubious raised eyebrow in return, “considering you did imply you were fine without functioning lungs and missing chunks of ribs and multiple broken vertebrae. That’s not even mentioning the legs. So not sure if I actually believe you”.

Jazz nods and hums, muttering, “that’s a good rule of thumb with Danny. He’s an idiot”. Danny just huffs, rolls his eyes, and mutters, “I’d have been fine”.

While Maddie gasps slightly and Jack clenches his fists and jaw. Maddie nearly whispering at Lewis, “that bad?”.

Lewis nods, he’s still impressed and confused how Danny’s alive. But it is interesting and he is glad Danny’s not dead.

Danny rolls his eyes and huffs, “I’m fine. Go fret over someone who needs it”.

All four saying, “you need it”, which Danny just scoffs at.

Lewis has to run off at the sound of his pager again, Danny snickering, “run off a lot doc? Got a patient sense?”. Making Jazz groan.

Lewis waves as he heads out the door, “running off is half the job”.

Danny snorts, near shouting, “that’s half the life!”.

Jack and Maddie smile, Maddie ruffling Danny’s hair, “you’re sure you’re feeling fine? Right now?”.

Danny smiles softly, “I’m good. Swear it”.

Maddie pats his head, “well hopefully you heal fast. And we could, could build you legs”.

Jack chuckles quietly, “and you’re a Fenton! We’re tough! You can handle it for sure! We’ll adjust”.

Danny chuckles awkwardly, “yeah...”, clearing his throat, “so I’m hungry, who else is hungry?”.

Jazz tries to not sigh exaggeratedly but nods to her parents. It would be good for them to have some alone time, she was the only one who hadn’t been in the vehicle at the time, “you guys go get something, anything not greasy for me and something soft for Danny. I’ll keep him company”.

The two exchange a glance but nod and head out.

Danny rolls his eyes at Jazz, “what if I wanted fries?”.

Jazz glares at him, “a normal person in your state shouldn’t be having that”.

“You know, it’s going to be more annoying eating mush for however long than ‘healing’”, giving her a look, “I would point at you but I can’t, well I can, just shouldn’t. Like I said, quote-unquote ‘healing’, ‘cause you know, can’t let myself actually heal”.

Jazz sighs, “I know, has any of it actually healed? Since you weren’t exactly conscious to stop it”.

Danny rolls his shoulders, “I stopped it as soon as I spotted the paras. But I did heal the head stuff before then”.

“Lewis thought that was weird, the lack of head injuries”, glancing at the door quickly, “you know, neck and head injuries are one of the most common to get? I’m guessing the legs would have taken too long, but you should have healed your chest”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “head injuries are waaaaaay more annoying. And Jazz literally all of my neck was broken. That would have been way more suspicious. My ribs get broken every week, though fine, shoulda fixed the lungs”.

Jazz cringes, that was arguably way worse. While Danny looks where his legs should be, “know that I am making imaginary wild hand motions at my quote unquote ‘legs’. Jazz, I don’t know if I even can heal this. I’ve never lost a limb before. Cuts, scrapes and breaks aren’t the same as regrowing a freaking limb. Two freaking limbs”.

Jazz sighs, “yeah I know, I tried to stop him from completely removing them but there really was no reasonably human explanation for why, I could give him”, shifting, “but you’ve lost bones before right? They grew back”.

Danny chuckles, “right as ectoplasmic rain they did”, sighing with a frown, “but I also wasn’t putting off my healing at the time”. Danny glances at the medications they have him on, nodding his head at them, “guessing you can’t do anything about getting me off this stuff either?”.

Jazz giggles and shakes her head slightly, “you’re stuck on doctors orders Danny. Plus, it is helping with the pain, right? Even if it is making you a little loose-lipped”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “loose-lipped plus secret identity don’t goddamn mix. But this stuffs supposed to remove foreign stuff, supposed to help healing. Ectoplasm is normally foreign, I can feel my ectoplasm reacting to it even if my ectoplasm is all pushed down and hiding”, wiggling a bit, “I can tell it’s making me produce more ‘plasm; which is both energising me and making me weaker. And the stuff is actively making it hard not to heal”.

Jazz looks at the ECG and thinks over the strange doctor. He clearly knew Danny was weird already. It was rather obvious right now, “okay, that’s probably bad, but Lewis knows your weird, clearly. Mom and dad know about your quote-unquote ‘ecto-contamination’. So I could just tell him your bodies so normalised to ectoplasm that you need the little bit in you?”.

“Or I could just pull some overshadowing shit”, the two stare for a bit before Danny sighs, “fine”.

Jazz nods and goes to open her mouth but Danny whispers, “shhhhhhh, hush-hush time”. With Jack and Maddie returning with food seconds later. Danny getting green jello, which he laughs at, and milk.

They all sit around talking some more, in-between eating, before Danny starts making a show of yawning and being tired. Jazz easily picking up that he just wants to be left alone. “So I know Sam and Tucker are going to want an update on Danny, since they can’t actually come in and see him”, giving her parents meaningful looks.

Jack and Maddie don’t want to go, not at all. But they both know their daughter is probably right. Plus hounding him probably won’t help him at all. They know he wouldn’t want them to put their lives on hold. Plus they have to prep the house. Jack puts on a smile and stands, “I’m sure Danny-boy wouldn’t want Amity left unprotected either!”.

Jazz grimaces at Danny’s flinch and heavily veiled panic. Leaning over him and whispering, “Sam and Tucker can handle it. You trust them right?”, and kissing his forehead.

Danny makes a disgusted face at her but she can still read the panic and paranoia on his face. While Maddie ruffles his hair and Jack awkwardly pats his head. Danny just makes an exaggerated grumpy face over that. Whispering at them as they walk out to leave, “I’ll be okay, promise”. They look at him with smiles, no one really wanting to disagree or look like they were holding him to that. Jazz being the only one that truly understood the weight of Danny’s promises, seldom made but always kept.

Jazz slips off, saying she has to go to the bathroom as her parents take a breather on a bench and just stare at the floor squeezing each other. Thankfully, she finds Lewis pretty quickly; looking over some papers. He glances at her and back to the papers before looking to her fully and tilting his head, “everything alright? I haven’t been notified of anything?”.

Jasmine looks around, Lewis easily getting the message that whatever was going on was very much private. So he starts down one of the empty hallways, Jasmine falling in step. “Actually, something is wrong. Sort of”, Jasmine looks him up and down cautiously before speaking again, “obviously Danny’s a bit...different”.

Lewis chuckles slightly, something weird was going on and she clearly wanted to know just how much he knew. He’s got a gut feeling that what he says will affect what she tells him, “that might be an understatement. His heartbeat alone shouldn’t be sustainable, he should be hypothermic, and his blood is not only not the right shade of red but also oddly thick. That’s not even mentioning how malleable his bones are, how fast he’s metabolising medications, how long he can go without breathing, or the strange scars”.

Jazz giggles and smirks, though a little alarmed at just how much he had noticed, “so you are curious then?”.

Lewis shrugs, “I like interesting and I’ve seen weirder”, Lewis looks around slightly, “though my ghost hunter buddies, which yeah that’s an odd profession, battered son, who should really be dead, showing up on my operation table, with impossible vitals and more scars than flesh, and then I open him up to find what looks like a blueish white sun that’s somehow impervious to touch; is definitely up there for the prize of weirdest day for Dan Lewis”.

Jazz coughs, firmly caught off guard, blinking at him as she breathes out, “you saw that...”.

“I was near blinded by that”.

Jazz pauses in her walking and replays Lewis’s words, tilting her head at him, “wait, that’s not the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?”.

“I had a patient try to eat me once. They genuinely debated trying again directly in front of me. That wasn’t even the weirdest part”, shrugging, “they’re one of my best friends now though, so it’s fine”.

Jazz blinks and wheezes slightly, “oh Zone. You are like Danny”, shaking her head, “all three of his closest friends have tried to kill him. One even tried it with a scythe”.

Lewis chuckles, “based on Danny’s sense of humour he probably approved of that”.

Jazz nods as they start walking again, deciding this guy was trustable and had an extremely high tolerance for weird, “you’re right on that. I guess you can handle weird. And there is a reason for what’s in Danny’s chest”, frowning, “but our folks don’t know, best they don’t. Best no one does, so keep it to yourself”.

Lewis nods, he doesn’t exactly agree but who was he to control what kids told their parents? “I won’t be telling tales. Is it safe for him?”.

Jazz can’t help but blink at that, just like Danny his first concern was other people’s health and safety, smiling slightly, “yeah, he needs it actually”, looking around quickly, “heard of ectoplasm?”.

“In conspiracy theory and mythology books, yeah?”, tapping his chin, “always in relation to ghosts actually”, chuckling, “let me guess, ectoplasm is very much real and, for whatever reason, Danny has it in him?”.

Jazz smiles and nods curtly, “ecto-contamination it’s called. Most of the people in Amity have it. But Danny’s is...special. Because of an accident with our parents' ghost stuff. The thing in his chest? Is basically a hyper-concentrated ball of ectoplasm. Creates, filters and flows ectoplasm. Works like a heart but with ectoplasm instead of blood”, Jazz shrugs, “so while ecto-contamination usually wears off, his won’t”.

Lewis nods, “so this ‘ectoplasm’ flows along with his blood then? I take it, that it’s not red and is thicker”.

Jazz nods, “green actually. Of his quote-unquote ‘blood’, we guess about a quarter is ectoplasm”, smirking, “so any blood samples you’ve taken are going to come back weird, probably unusable”, frowning, “especially if your technicians tried to remove the ectoplasm”.

Lewis sighs slightly, having a feeling he knows where this is going. That Danny needed very special treatment, possibly off the books kind. “I’m making another guess and saying that Danny’s blood and ectoplasm are codependent?”.

Jazz nods, “you catch on quick. He needs both and that’s why everything with him is a little off. Ectoplasm is really cold, so his temperature is lower. His heart doesn’t have to do all the work but both have to do it, so his body does it the most efficient way it can, thus the slow heartbeat and pulse. And so on”.

“And this makes him able to survive things he shouldn’t? Why all the injuries his scars came from haven’t been treated professionally?”.

Jazz nods, looking around again, “yeah. Ectoplasm is a lot more versatile than blood. It can do the functions of blood or oxygen. Even brain functions. It’s also capable of increasing its own production”, sighing, “which is the reason I’m even telling you all this”.

Lewis scrunches up his eyebrows, this explained an awful lot. This ‘ectoplasm’ had been acting as oxygen, letting him bypass his lungs. It had been acting as extra blood so the blood loss wouldn’t kill him. He’s more curious over the ‘why she’s telling him’ bit though; likely important for his patients' health, “oh?”.

Jazz blinks at him and shakes her head, “okay Danny got lucky getting you”, sighing again, “basically, the medication you have him on. At least one is affecting his ectoplasm. Making him overproduce. Messing up healing and making him weak from overexertion. Also making him hyperactive though, so he won’t be able to sleep probably”.

Lewis frowns and nods, that definitely wasn’t good. “Well what medications can he take?”.

Jazz frowns, “that’s the thing, we don’t know. He just never takes anything for anything. Caffeine is probably the closest thing he gets to medicines”.

Lewis couldn’t legally have a patient, who just had multiple major surgeries, not have any pain medication. That sort of thing was considered unethical. But it was simple enough to fake giving someone medication. So long as no one other than him checked in on Danny. He could use the Fenton’s well-known weirdness to his advantage for that but it would be far easier if he could send them home. But Danny’s injuries were far too severe to be out of the hospital in even a wheelchair. But then again, “tell me, does Danny’s ‘condition’ give him a healing factor? Or make wounds, in general, less serious? As he seems to have implied?”.

Jazz cringes slightly, Danny and his mouth, before nodding, “yeah. But that’s supposed to be a secret”.

Lewis smirks and nods, of course it was. Someone might want to replicate that, “of course, from your parent as well I assume”, at her nod he asks, “why all the secrets though? From them”.

Jazz sighs, “they’d try to correct it. They’ve already tried to remove the ectoplasm but it didn’t work since he just makes more. If they knew why and how, they’d try to remove it”, frowning deeply and looking at Lewis, “that would basically kill him”.

Lewis frowns, surely his friends wouldn’t do that if their kids just explained the risks? Sure those two always did hate ghosts, they wouldn’t be hunters otherwise, but still. “You sure they would? Seems out of character to me”.

Jazz smiles, “I don’t personally. If Danny explained it to them. But Danny’s...a little paranoid”.

Lewis chuckles, that sounded a little familiar, “I can understand that. I’m guessing he okayed you telling me this because of the medication issue?”.

Jazz nods making Lewis laugh and shake his head slightly. “Well, I’ll see what I can do. Legally he has to be on medication”, shrugging, “but if that, say, never actually makes it to him and no one notices. Then who’s to say he didn’t have his medication”.

Jazz blinks at Lewis, who’s just casually suggesting breaking the law for a kid he’s never actually met before; just because he was friends with said kids' parents. Before breaking into a small mischievous smile, “guess we’ll be seeing you a lot then. Got to make sure your dear friends' son gets what he needs after all”.

Lewis chuckles, “indeed, and who would dare deny the head surgeon?”.

Jazz simply smiles as she turns to head back, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then, Dr. Lewis”.

Lewis nods and smiles to himself as he watches her go. He’s gotten himself messed up in yet another strange patient through one of the people in his, honestly small, social circle. Hopefully, this one doesn’t get abducted or try to kill him though.

#danny phantom #phandom #ectober #ectober 2019 #shattered #venom #crossover #danny phantom focused #blood and gore #injury #hurt/comfort #broken bones #major character injury #injury recovery #hospitalisation #car accident #mild angst #ectobiology #amputation #amity is danny's lair #dan lewis is just a really good dude #jazz fenton #jack fenton #maddie fenton #danny fenton #dan lewis #hospital fic #fanfic #phanphic #have a fic suck my dick

[spacejew]

oops accidental personal post I guess

It's weird that I almost feel the need to go here to personal blog again because of a handful of irl friends following what was supposed to be a private personal Twitter in theory, just for like, idk, internet strangers and friends I made online not those imported from meatspace. Also those character limits... Suffocating.

Anyways yeah things are kinda stable but dissapointing lifewise? I'm definitely in a rut and stuck somewhere I'm desperately trying to get out of. Also like. idk. Gender shit. I think I really fucked myself over hard when I made the decision a few years back to conviously bottle up all my dysphoria and trans feelings and bury them and repress them hard and just live as a very gay and feminine bi boy and like. hm. I think I've been happy since? But im thinking now that maybe. Because that's still a part of my psyche that haunts me every day. I might actually have been mildly depressed this whole time and like, still struggling to make important life decisions because of the anxiety of that. Idk. Maybe if I got a therapist and realistic attention to that all those years ago and it turned out to be very real n legit and i got to make tough choices and live my truth, I would be equipped now to actually be joyful and able to fully focus on hard work and taking risks and putting myself out there and being successful and shit. Idk idk idk. I just have to wonder if all this time I've actually been quite unhappy and filling the void with dumb shit and a good deal of dissociation and complacency. Idk. what I'm saying is maybe I made a big mistake there lmao and could've started transitioning, if that's right for me, 4-7 years ago maybe, who knows. Haha so fun. Fuck me. Big Regrets, lads. But also I still don't know if that's right. Which probs means it is who am I kidding. Oof. But it's ok life is a journey I'm full of wise shit and I know it's not the end of the world. It just kinda. Makes me so sad on behalf of the old me who would cry so much because of dysphoria and living in this body in this life. She knew. I don't know why I buried her alive like that. Anyways.

I spent all year struggling to make an animated short (which ended up being kinda long tbh like 10 minutes?) by myself mostly, just me and my mental blocks and executive dysfunction and shit, but I was v passionate about it and worked hard and got to actually bring a whole vision to life, with basically nobody to tell me what to do, just give me feedback that I wasn't obligated to follow. It came out pretty nice and I'm very happy that I got to tell exactly the story I wanted and try a cool new look and I just wish I gave myself more time to work on the actual animation part but I put my heart and endless weeks and months of refinement into the storyboarding and script and every little detail and I really feel accomplished and like it paid off -- and I even got to do a private screening at my summer camp job that I was called in to do one more time at the last minute right when I finished my film, it was a miracle and so perfect, everyone cried and truly loved it and felt touched by it. And then I went to animation festivals! And all this cool shit! But... I haven't been able to figure out a public screening thing yet. And I feel like all my excitement is gone now. And I really wanted to polish the look and some backgrounds a little, just some very quick rerendering and comp, but. I feel like too much time has passed, i just feel dissapointed. I haven't put it online yet cause I haven't done my public screening, cause of my stupid anxiety about little details and overall idk imposter syndrome I guwss I feel more ashamed of it than proud of it even tho it's probably good, and like I feel that everyone was excited to support me but probably nobody cares anymore.

Basically I had all the wind taken out of my sails. Oh and right when I was trying to get it off the ground I guess and push through, my grandma died. I'm so heartbroken I loved her so fucking much and. She never got to see the film cause of my stupid bullshit. I feel so bad about that. So so bad. Ugh. And it's a film very very hilariously blatantly directly based on me and my feelings and my real family history, ultimately besides other main themes it's about talking to your grandparents and family about the past and your current feelings. And in it the main character, a girl, cough cough even though it's basically me, cough cough go figure, gender shit, anyways the climax is her going back in time to talk to her great grandma, and it's very emotional and my best friend of like almost 10 years now composed and recording a music for that scene for me. And now when I eventually screen this, my entire family and also myself is gonna get torn to shreds by this scene more than intended because my own fucking grandma, who I was excited to show this film to more than anyone on earth, passed so unexpectedly without seeing it. Fuck. Why didn't I send it to her when she was in the hospital? Obviously cause if I did that that would make it real and she wouldn't get better and all I do is live in denial. Ugh. Anyways yeah. The point is I'm stagnant and in a rut right now and just want to move forward and focus on making new work and just get a real career relevant job already. Tough year hit a well needed high and now petering off back into misery. Not to be dramatic. I'm ok tbh I have a part time I'm slowly getting sick of and a loving supportive partner and some very good friends, tho not as many as I used to see regularly and that's kinda sad too. That's your 20s babey.

I just need to move on and make big changes. My pattern rn is like. Work fri-sun, if I'm lucky I get to hang out with friends or lovers, usually at least with my partner. on monday I recover from working. on tuesday I have dnd and usually get some stuff done but honestly just catch up on warframe with my clan friends. wednesday my partner and I got to the park and library for half the day and eat and draw and talk. on thursday I mentally prepare for work again and usually we go out to play another roleplaying game with her roommates friends. a lot of that free time that's been left unmentioned is spent being over at bae's sometimes so I don't have the ability to get much work done. Lately I've spent most of my time planning a dnd campaign which is fun but also too stressful on account of obviously I'm not playing it yet so like what's the point, sorry friends who have patiently waited for months for me to be ready to start the game for them. And also like. Yeah idk. just sad and confused and resting my weary heart and body after a very rough month after my grandma passed. But! I did accomplish a very crazy deep cleaning of my room. I threw out 14 bags of shit at the least. I wish I weighed it all, it was a lot. I feel so much more organized and cleansed from that. For the record I didn't have any trash in my room, nor was it every a mess. Just every single cabinet and drawer was crammed full of stuff and I guess I hoarded a lot of shit. I was able to throw away a lot of things I held on to be cause of sentimentality and I'm proud of myself for growing that way. So like. Idk. It's not all bad, baby steps. I still feel like I'm constantly improving as a person! I'm positive, optimistic. Just tired, anxious, and feel bad.

Also I finally got a new phone and because of my hubris I dropped it without a case and it shattered only two weeks in. The day I was gonna buy a case. But it's ok. Story of my life I guess. I can't keep everything pristine and polished forever, one day shit falls and breaks but it's still usable. It has character.

I wasn't expecting to dump everything like this, sorry yall. Thanks for reading I guess. Also I forgot how to do a read more on mobile lol sorry

#personal #capn whitey #tw death #i guess

[youngster-monster]

day twenty-eight // Dance

[a.k.a the masquerade fic]

[Lek belongs to @arcquos. Sable and Thyme belong to baronetcoin]

The Revelry is a novelty. A festival of rebirth for a City that has only begun the process of healing from the wounds left by the Red War. It's a celebration of survival, of hope and joy. Traveler knows they need those.

And that’s all well and nice, but it’s lacking something. A climax. A final event that says, we did it, we're alive, we'll make the most of it. A way to truly relieve pent-up energy, a party like none other. Something bright and colorful and terribly, wholeheartedly extra.

"A masquerade?"

Ikora shrugs lightly. The idea is odd but sound: Guardians are used to keeping their faces obscured but never in a way that is more fun than practical, and civilians never say no to wearing a disguise. Eva Levante nods absently, her mind already miles ahead, considering the costumes she could design.

"Isn't is dangerous, to gather so many masked, anonymous strangers into one place?" Zavala asks. They couldn't check everyone – anonymity is the point, after all.

"What major threats are we still facing? Uldren is back in his prison cell, and it's not like any other enemies of humanity could easily disguise as human with a mere mask," Ikora says. She stirs her tea once, twice, slowly, giving him time to come up with a response. When he doesn't she adds, "We won, my friend."

"The peace might not last."

"Another reason to celebrate it while we still can."

He nods, conceding the point. "It's... Not a bad idea,” he admits. “Guardians and civilians could both use the distraction. Cayde?"

The Hunter Vanguard startles out of his thoughts. "Yeah?"

"Your opinion on the matter?"

"Huh- yeah. It's good. Good idea! Dancing's fun. And it would be a fun challenge for my Hunters. I can make them run around and play Guess Who."

"So it's decided." Zavala claps his hands with finality, signifying the end of the meeting. "Eva, I trust you'll be able to organize this event yourself?"

"Amanda Holliday mentioned her involvement in similar events before I came back. I'm sure she'll agree to help me if I need anything."

"Good. Send any requests for funds and materials my way, I'll make sure they're fulfilled in the shortest delay."

-

If there's anything Eva enjoys, it's putting Guardians to work. They're a dutiful, hardworking lot and follow her directives with few questions and great effectiveness. And they always seem so... Impressive. Untouchable. Larger than life. It's fun to see a little old lady like herself boss them around.

"No, no- this banner isn't straight.”

A few of the guardians helping her giggle as one shoots back, "Neither am I, maybe that's why this isn't working."

She rolls her eyes. "Higher on the left side, please."

"Yes ma'am!"

So polite too.

Guardians also like to be bossed around, she thinks as a Warlock jumps up to the banner. They hover next to it, lifting it inch per inch until their friend back on the ground gives them a thumbs up. Something cracks as they let themselves drop down, and they briefly buckle as their broken ankle stops supporting their weight.

Eva can't help a brief moment of worry, even as their Ghost appears to heal them. Guardians are so reckless! She gets halfway to a heart attack whenever she sees them take undue risk out of habit or disregard of their personal safety.

"Miss Levante, ma'am? We put the flowers up like you asked."

She turns to the second group of Guardians. They're covered in flower, petals stuck in their hair and the folds of their ornate outfits, as if they tried to clean themselves up but gave up halfway through it. The Titan has a whole branch of wisteria hanging over her shoulder pad. Someone has been throwing flowers around. All three of them, she guesses.

Still, a glance behind them shows the job was done well enough. She claps her hands. "Good work! Why don't you help your friends here clean up, and then you can go help yourself to the cookies on my desk?"

They exchange excited looks before running off toward the first fireteam, throwing her hasty goodbye as they go.

She shakes her head fondly. Mention sweets – or festival garments – and they're like children again, running around, desperate to please her in exchange for a treat.

She takes a look around to check their handiwork while they chatter in excitement in the background. The City square they have taken over for the Masquerade is looking quite festive already. Flowers cover the walls of nearby buildings, sometimes hiding and sometimes highlighting the colorful flags and banners hung alongside them. Garlands of lights and dyed cloths are strung overhead, casting colorful shadows on the passerby. It wouldn't look too out of place in a fairy tale. She's pretty proud of their work.

It's a group effort. The best things usually are.

-

"I'm hungry."

"I know, Lek."

"And my feet hurt."

"I know, Lek."

"And I'm tired..."

"I might repeat myself, but I know, Lek."

Lek hits Razel over the head with her stack of paper.

"Hey!"

She tries again, but this time he's expecting it. He parries the attack with his own stack, feints, and aims for her side. She dodges. When he tries to follow after her she trips him and he goes flying, only avoiding falling on his face by some Warlock bullshit miracle even he isn’t sure how he pulled off.

"Asshole," he says without bite.

She giggles, though she’ll deny to her death that’s the sound she made. "Yeah."

The two of them were put on street corner duty because of those kinds of antics. They weren't trusted to do anything else. Turns up being competent and successful Guardians means jack shit in terms of party planning. Neither of them know how to hammer a nail in a way that doesn't threaten the structural integrity of the entire wall – something they discovered only after the fact. Whoops.

Which is how they ended up here, handing out flyers for the upcoming masquerade. No one can fuck up flyers-handing. Well, maybe they could, actually: Lek's original plan was to go somewhere very high up and throw them down so they'd fall all over the City, saving them the effort. Ralek would have gladly gone with it, too, but Ikora saw them climb up a building and sent them back down with a stern warning to stay out of sight for at least a whole afternoon.

But an afternoon is a long time to be hanging out flyers for, and they're so bored.

Nothing good ever comes out of the two of them being bored.

"You know," Razel muses after giving a curious woman one of his flyers, bringing his stack down to a little over half of its original height, "This would go a lot faster if we'd split up."

"Yeah but imagine how boring that'd be. I'd probably be asleep already."

"A nap sounds good right now..."

She waves her own stack. "I think you're missing the point of the exercise."

He hums, unconvinced. Stares down at the flyers, wondering why he never learned how to nap with his eyes open.

"Hey," He says after some reflection time. "Bet I can get rid of these faster than you."

Lek's eyes come alight at the word 'bet'. She turns her laser focus on him and lifts a hand – bets are a tradition, among Hunters, and so is the use and abuse of loopholes. Better lay some ground rules. She counts off her fingers and rattles off, "One flyer per person, no throwing any in the trash, thirty minutes time limit, whole city is fair game-" She pauses, waits for an objection that doesn’t come. She grins like a cat and bends her last finger. "Have fun."

Then she's off like a shot, jumping to the roofs with her stack of paper clutched in her fist. Razel blinks, processing the last seconds, then takes off the other way.

He throws flyers at passing people, stuff them in bags and mailboxes and the unsuspecting hands of small children. They're not exactly the target audience but a child technically counts as a person, and that's one more flyer to give once he's already thrown one to each parent.

He doesn't try to give out stacks or to throw them away. A bet is a bet: he's honor bound to the terms of the contract. And it's more fun that way anyway. He laughs at the baffled look on strangers’ faces when he runs past them, barely slowing down to slam a colorful paper in their hand.

He's down to a single flyer when the comes back to the rendezvous point with fifteen seconds to spare. Lek appears moments later, her stack reduced to one as well.

They look at each other.

Ten

Razel runs toward her–

Nine

She jumps to the side, rolls and jumps back to her feet–

Eight

His momentum makes him stumble on the pavement–

Seven

He skids to a stop–

Six

Flails his arms to keep his balance–

Five

Turns around–

Four

Leaps–

Three

Reaches out–

Two

Gives a little boost of Warlock power to his jump—

One

And stuffs his last flyer in her pocket, just as the thirty minutes alarm rings.

He loses balance a second after and falls over her, sending them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

"I win," he says, breathless from the exercise and the cape twisted around his neck.

"I'll buy you a drink," she says, and kicks him in the stomach to get him out of her cape.

-

"Hey is it me or is Zavala having fun?"

Ikora is busy watching Zavala when Cayde appears out of the blue and comes sit on her desk. She’s used to it enough she doesn’t even jump, just scout to the side to make space for him.

A dozen feet from them, Zavala and Eva are talking animatedly about... Costume designs, she hazards. By the look on her face, Eva doesn't approve of the Commander's taste in color schemes. No one sane of mind ever does.

"He enjoys having an occasion to dress up," she tells Cayde, eyes never leaving the spectacle of Zavala trying to look firm and dignified while waving his arms around.

"I thought he could only have fun with military strategy and crocheting. And reading poetry. Maybe building model ships in bottles.”

"He has the heart of an artist."

"And the fashion sense of a four year old on a sugar high?"

She chuckles. "Yes, that too."

Bold colors make bold statements seems to be his motto in most aesthetic-related things. And Zavala do love making bold statements.

They watch as Eva seems to beat some sense into him. Zavala nods, apparently satisfied by her proposition, and they bend together over the papers scattered on Eva's desk.

"I'm glad," Cayde says out of the blue.

Ikora mentally traces back the thread of their discussion, trying to find what he's referring to. "That he's having fun?"

"Yeah. He needed that. We all did." He leans back on his perch, somehow never dislodging the precarious piles of books behind him. "A stressed Vanguard isn't good for morale. Guardians can sense those things, you know?"

She smiles, almost despite herself. Out of all of them, Cayde is the closest to the guardians they guide.  It's always heartwarming to see how concerned he gets for their well-being, and how much he tries to pretend he doesn't.

"About stress relief-" he turns fully to her, scooting as close as he can without falling off the desk. "You said you'd come eat ramen with Razel and me tonight."

She sighs. "I know, Cayde, I'm sorry. I was busy. I'll come next time."

"You won't have to."

She blinks, startled, and turns to the new voice. Razel grins, the way he does when he manages to sneak on someone — a rare occurrence — and bounces up to them. His hands are full with white plastic bags, so he greets her with a gentle bump of their shoulders.

"You got the goods?" Cayde asks.

He drops the two bags on the table. "Spicy ramen for three, two cans of beer and one cup of tea, to go," he rattles off like something learned by heart. "Also, dumplings."

They high five. Ikora watches, bemused.

"If you don't come to the ramen, the ramen will come to you," Cayde says wisely.

Razel nods very seriously and jumps on top of her desk, next to Cayde. Fitting them all in what little space there is in-between the books is a balancing act he only partially succeeds at. A few piles wobble worryingly as he settles in place. He steadies them with a panicked glance to Ikora.

She only shakes her head, long suffering, and chooses to ignore she near catastrophe. "Thank you, Cayde," she says.

"You're welcome! My only contribution to this was coming up with the genius idea and making Razel pay the bill." He ducks the balled up napkins thrown at him, laughing. “You owed me Glimmer! And a few favors.”

Razel squints at Cayde, unwilling to concede the point but aware Cayde is right. He huffs, crosses his arms. “You’re lucky it was for Ikora, you lazy tin man.”

Ikora picks up her ramen cup with a soft smile as they keep bickering.

Cayde and Razel don't do much eating, in the end. They're too busy trying to pilfer slices of meat and dumplings from the other's plate, and stabbing each other with their chopsticks in retaliation. They get into a vicious chopsticks war for a minute, trying to get a hold of the last dumpling.

They're having fun, though. So is she, she realizes as she takes advantage of the distraction and deftly picks the dumpling off the plate, shoving it in her mouth before they can try to reclaim it.

Maybe Cayde is onto something with that whole "stress relief" thing.

-

They're playing cards when Cayde brings it up.

"Are you coming?"

Razel looks up quizzically. It's not wise to look away from a game with a Hunter it’s not like he’s not losing already. He's pretty sure Cayde isn't even cheating this time. Holliday might be but her poker face is too good for him to tell. Being half raised by a gambling addict robot will do that to you. That’s the thing, though: she’s gonna beat him whether or not she’s cheating. She's got year of training with Cayde, and he only got into cards like... Two months ago.

He didn't they were going anywhere, but he's been wrong before.

"Coming where?"

Cayde snickers, opens his mouth to reply, but Holliday kicks him in the knee before he can say whatever he had in mind.

"To the masquerade,” she says. "You know, the thing you gave out the flyers for?"

"Bold of you to assume I read those."

She snorts. "I kinda assumed so, yeah. Do you have any threes?"

"Go fish."

Cayde leans back, stretching his legs under the table. He nudges Razel with his foot. "So. You. Masquerade?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, I'm going, if I find anything to wear. You?"

"Free drinks and the opportunity to watch Zavala dance? You bet your ass I am. Amanda?"

"Ellie has been dragging me around the City looking for a couples costume," Holliday says, looking kind of dead-eyed at the thought of shopping. "At this point I don’t think I have a choice."

He's not sure he has ever seen her dressed in anything other than her usual shipwright outfit. He doesn’t quite manage to imagine her in civilian clothes.

"What are you going as?" He asks Cayde, who seems to have it all figured out.

Cayde winks.

"You'll see," he singsongs.

"Come on!"

"Give it up, pal, I already tried," Holliday sighs. "He won't talk."

Cayde shrugs, unapologetic.

"It's more fun that way."

Razel drops his cards on the table and falls on his back, groaning. "I don't know what to wear," he whines.

"Ask Eva. Or Ikora."

In the corner of his eye he sees the two of them pick up his cards, share them between their hands. He doesn't think they're playing Go Fish anymore.

He likes watching them play, the easy confidence with which they slide cards in and out of their sleeves, the distracted way Cayde drums his fingers – bare, for once, metallic blue scratched to chrome in places catching the light of the hangar. It speaks of an old habit. Years playing together, learning each other's tells.

He yawns.

"I'm gonna... Take a nap," he says quietly. "Wake me up for dinner."

"Sure thing, buddy."

He's going to wake up with a backache, but that's a problem for future Razel.

-

Razel did end up going to see Eva Levante for his costume. And because she's a bit of a miracle worker, a bit like magic, she managed to make him one in the few days left before the Masquerade.

The sun sets on the last day of the Revelry, setting the City alight in shades of pink and gold. The streets fill with people, in groups or alone, all covered in colorful outfits and fantastical masks. The air rings with excited chatter and laughter. With the way they act one could think they have been waiting for this night for years, not weeks.

Considering it’s the first of its kind, maybe they have been waiting for years, unconsciously, for an occasion to dress up and dance like nothing else matters.

Razel is in Eva's tent so she can do last minute adjustments on his outfit. He shakes his head left and right while she pokes him with needles, grinning at the jingle of the bells on his hat.

She dressed him like a jester from old Earth stories, all in shades of blue and green and purple. All his clothes bear pattern. His pants are striped, his billowing sleeves covered in colored diamond shapes. It’s a wonderful, vibrant headache. She covers the lot with a long sleeveless coat, embroidered with flowers and vines and little skulls. Shiny pearls and baubles hang off the high, flared collar, catching the light when he moves around.

"Do you like it?" Eva asks.

He grins. "Hell yeah. It looks incredible."

She smiles in return, satisfied. "Good. Try the mask on."

He obediently ties the mask around his head. It only covers the top half of his face and doesn't do much to hide his identity. But he feels like anonymity isn't really the point of the event, in the end.

It’s about the drama, the extravagance, she told him. He trusts her professional opinion on the matter.

Eva takes a step back to admire her handiwork. At her command he spins slowly in place, showcasing her own handiwork.

She claps her hands with a huge grin.

"Well, I think we're done here," she says brightly.

He looks at her in confusion. "What about payment?"

She waves him off. "No need for that. You're the hero of the Red War. It's the least you deserve."

It's way too nice a title considering the only thing he did was shoot in whatever direction the Vanguard pointed him toward. But it is nice, and Razel never says no to free stuff.

"Thanks ma'am!"

"You're very much welcome. Now shoo. Go have fun!"

He nods, grinning right back at her, and leaves.

-

Lek is dressed as a white duck.

Razel was not aware that she’d be dressed as a white duck.

Incidentally, Razel almost died tonight when he burst out laughing at the sight of her costume.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He screams, laughing too hard to dodge her fist. He staggers back, every bell sewed to his costume jingling at the brusque movement. “You look good! It matches your hair!”

“Damn right I do,” she says, in a way that implies he will definitely be thrown over a railway if he contradicts her.

In his defense, the idea is hilarious. Well executed, but ridiculous.

The white mask is bordered with fluffy white feathers that melt into her hair, and the bright yellow bill shadowing the lower half of her face almost doesn’t look ridiculous. Her round, feather-covered dress is another thing entirely. It isn’t goofy, not quite, but… The image of Lek in a dress is just way to weird for him to take seriously.

Well. It is kinda goofy.

But it’s true: it looks good on her. If only because she wears it with the same dignity and certainty as her usual Hunter getup. It gives it a certain air of class.

“Anyway, you can talk, you clown.”

“I’m a jester!”

“Aren’t jesters just another type of clowns? Like fools? And buffoons?”

She’s right. But she shouldn’t say it. He strides off with a huff.

“The party’s in the other direction, idiot!”

He spins around. The bells on his hat jingle merrily, and one of the pointy sleeve things actually slap him in the face when he turns. Lek cracks up as he freezes, confused.

“It’s- a good costume,” she gasps in-between bouts of laughter. “Real fitting!”

Honestly, there’s nothing he can say against it. She’s right. He stills kicks her in the shin as he passes, for good measure.

Night has fallen by the time they finally make it to where the ball is held. The square is already filled with people in garish costumes, a riot of colors and fabrics. It’s… overwhelming. Razel grabs on to the back of Lek’s costume as they weave through the crowd. The feathers slipping between his fingers help ground him. Still he breathes easier once they’re a little out of the way on one side of the square.

“Alright?” She asks.

“Yeah, I’m just not used to… you know.” He waves vaguely, not sure what he’s gesturing at. “People. Didn’t even know there were that many in the City.”

“It’s the last city on Earth, of course there are many people in it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect that many!”

She shakes her head. “We need to get you around more people. You spend too much time alone in space.”

She’s not the first to tell him that. Won’t be the last, either. He shrugs — if they miss him they can always vidcall him. He gets bored too fast, in the Tower. Lek knows it, too: most of the time she flies off with him, she just comes back more often.

She nudges him with her elbow. “Hey. Wanna go get some drinks?”

He look at the sea of people, then back at her. Then back at the people. Thinks about the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything today.

“Think they got chips back there?”

“What kind of monster doesn’t bring chips with the beer? Of course they do. C’mon.”

-

In principle, masks are supposed to hide their identity.

In practice, there’s no disguise in the world that could ever hide Shaxx’s voice.

A crowd has formed around him, clearly separated from the rest of the people milling around the square. He’s wearing a knight armor, the kind from far before the Dark Age, and holding a tankard of beer in each hand. His helm doesn’t have any opening yet the cups keep emptying. How he’s doing it, now that’s the real mystery of the night.

They’re playing ‘Who can out-drink Shaxx’, even if it’s not much of a game. The answer is a clear and simple ‘no one’, though Cayde-6 has come very, very close to before, by virtue of being a robot.

(Shaxx not being one is still up to debate, so it’s still an impressive achievement.)

But a drinking competition is always a fun challenge. The guardians flocked to it. If the Crucible taught them anything, it’s that Shaxx and a good, competitive time are near synonyms. Civilians were quick to join in once they noticed the commotion — they like competition just as much as Guardians, they’re just more likely to get alcohol poisoning.

One thing leading to another, they ended up with two teams facing off next to the drinks table in some unholy combination of beer-pong and a drinking contest.

The goal, officially: get the opposite team trashed before yours. Then someone suggests Shaxx finishes the remaining drinks of the winning team, and it becomes a race to get the Lord of the Crucible as drunk as possible before they run out of participants sober enough to compete.

One of the competitors sways in place as she throws the ball. It goes wide and the momentum of the throw seems to throw her back as well. She falls over her team and almost bring a few down with her like bowling pins. Her friends appear out of the crowd to drag her away, ribbing her for being a lightweight.

Cheers rise in the crowd as they wave her off. She manages a sloppy salute in return before a friend pushes a cup of water in her hands. She focuses all her attention on it, staring down the cup as if it holds the secrets to the universe, Darkness, and everything.

"Who will take her place in the red team?" Shaxx bellows. "Come on! You cannot know yourself without testing yourself!"

Someone steps out, wearing a wolf pelt over their head. The muzzle shadows their face; it's hard to discern their face in the low light of the square.

"I'll show you how it's done," the stranger says as he joins his team.

Laughter rings through the group. "Sure you will, old man!" Someone on the other side calls out.

As a matter of fact, yes, he does.

His aim is excellent – he almost never misses. And he sure can hold his liquor. By the end of the round his team is winning by a rather large margin and his luck holds for a few more rounds after that.

He loses a few games, almost by design. Whenever he's in a team with players too drunk or too incompetent to aim, suddenly he can't aim either and the other side ends up winning with most of its drinks intact. Meaning Shaxx ends up drinking most of them.

He's... Definitely trying to get Shaxx wasted. It seems to be working decently, too. The Titan is clearly feeling the effect of so much alcohol in such a short span of time. His voice gets even more excited, he rambles on, gestures more aggressively.

Finally, when he looks properly inebriated and people have started wandering off, too drunk to keep playing, the stranger turns to him.

No words are exchanged and they both have their faces hidden yet an entire conversation happens in a single look. Shaxx puts down his tankards and joins the team opposing the wolf-man. He cracks his fingers, his neck, and takes the ball.

"Try to keep up," Saladin says, mocking.

"Oh, you're going down, old man."

-

Suraya is not a fan of parties. She doesn't like how stifling the place feels, how closed off, doesn't like the loud music. The costumes are nice and free food is always a plus, but–

She's an outdoorsy kinda woman. She fares better when she can see beyond three feet ahead of her.

She sighs and lifts her mask up to take a sip of her drink.  It's nice, she thinks begrudgingly. Not the cocktail – although that, too – but... Seeing people so happy and alive, guardians and civilians alike. She has to admit it was a good idea.

Once again she looks over the people dancing to the tune of a popular song. Out of all the wiggling, jumping people, one of them catches her eyes. His costume – all in shades of brown and black – seems dull compared to the more colorful ones of those surrounding him, setting him apart. The mask entirely makes up for it.

It's a skull. Just... an entire bull skull. That's neat. Bit morbid, but neat.

That's not what makes her notice him, though. Not entirely. It's the weird... thing he's doing with his body. At first she thinks a Fallen somehow managed to infiltrate the City, with how weirdly he's moving. It would explain how he's filling up these sleeves: it's not muscles, it's arms, plural.

But no, closer inspection reveals it's just a regular old human or close relative, doing some approximation of dancing.

There's bad dancing, and there's bad dancing. This is definitely the later. There's no rhythm, no grace, no–

Suraya narrows her eyes. She knows this guy, somehow. The mask slips forward a bit, revealing a flash of bare blue skin before he adjusts it. And by the Light, she'd recognize this bald head anywhere.

"Zavala?" She blurts out, incredulous.

The man, busy looking at whatever his feet are doing, lifts his head at the sound of his name. How he heard it among the noise is a mystery she’s too surprised to linger on. He notices Suraya and makes his way towards her in an awkward shuffle. It’s almost in tune, but it’s not dancing.

Once he’s close enough he greets her with a nod and a simple, "Hawthorne."

She whistles. "Damn, Commander, they let you in with a weapon of mass destruction like that?" She says, gesturing to the dance floor he just vacated.

He glances behind his shoulder, then at her, trying to understand her meaning. She sees it happen when he does, in the jerk of his shoulder, like a repressed laugh. He replies, entirely deadpan,

"I know. My dancing skills have blinded more than one before."

Well, he's not wrong. She has half a mind to poke her own eyes out in the hope of wiping the sight from her memories. Unfortunately hers wouldn't grow back so she'll have to refrain.

He holds his composure about a second before letting out a chuckle. "Ikora has been teaching me for decades," he says. "It's starting to pay off."

"Well if that's the improved version, I'd hate to see the original."

"I'm sure Cayde has recordings somewhere."

She mock-shivers.

"No thanks. I like being able to sleep without nightmares."

They fall quiet, both knowing Zavala's dancing is the least of their problems when it comes to nightmares. Both keenly aware of how rare a dreamless sleep has become, since the Red War.

After a short, tense pause, Zavala clears his throat and says, "Nice mask, by the way."

"Thanks."

"Owl?"

"Yeah."

She takes another sip of her drink. The poncho she's wearing as a costume is bulkier than what she's used to, covering her from head to toe. She went for a creepy barn owl look: from the stares she got from some, it's a success.

"It's good, to see them have fun after-"

"Yeah," she repeats. "I was thinking the same thing. It was a good idea. It's not healthy to hold on to the dead so much and not do anything for the living."

He nods. "Less grieving those we lost, more celebrating those we still have."

"Cheers. I'll drink to that." She salutes him with her cup before taking a long gulp of it. It's sweet and fruity, with a hell of a kick. The gal dealing with the drinks sure knows her job well. He mimics her movement, but doesn't drink. She gets the impression their Commander isn't big on booze. Makes one wonder why he even has a drink in hand. Cayde is her first guess. Or Razel, though one rarely needs to make the distinction, attached at the hip like they are.

For some time after that the two of them stand next to each other in silence. Somehow it's more comfortable than awkward. Though maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised. The two of them are similar in more than a few ways. It makes for easy companionship.

She goes to take another sip of her cup and is disappointed to find it empty. She eyes Zavala's drink.

"You're going to drink that?"

"Ah- no. Here, you can have it."

He doesn't have to say it twice. He watches her take a tentative sip – it's unexpectedly sweet – and only looks away once she's nodded in approval. She wonders, again, why he bothered to get a full cup if he wasn't going to drink it.

With his now free hand he gestures to the dance floor. "See them?" She follows the movement to a matching duo. They're both decked in red. One's an Exo, with just a simple red mask to cover her identity. The other is harder to recognize, dressed as what she guesses to be the Red Riding Hood. "That Exo is one of my Titans."

She looks again, and – no, she can't see it. Without the shoulder pads it's impossible to distinguish a Titan from any other guardian.

Guardians and civilians, it's easy. Guardian have that way of walking around, not quite military, rather the way one walks when they are wholeheartedly attuned to their own body. Combat and repeated resurrection will do that to someone. But guardian classes? Without their pseudo-uniform, it's hard to tell.

"Huh. I wouldn't have guessed. Guess without their whole getup they're just people underneath."

He tilts his head to the side, giving off the impression of a contemplative look despite his masked face.

"Yes," he finally says, his voice weighed down with an odd emotion she's a little too drunk to determine.

He shifts on his feet, adjusts his mask, starts to turn his head towards her and stops. He seems almost— flustered?

She throws him a curious glance. "Something on your mind?"

She expects a few things. She does not expect him to ask, "Do you want to dance?"

Flashbacks of his atrocious dancing comes back to mind. On the one hand it looks as painful to take part in as it is to watch, if not more. On the other, she's pretty sure it would be considered a service to humanity to stop him from embarrassing himself and the art of dancing even further.

She looks at him for a long time, mulling over the question. She chugs Zavala's drink in one go.

"Alright," she says, throwing the two empty cups in a trashcan. "Let's go."

-

There's something off about the masquerade. No, not off, not quite, but – something strange, definitely.

Ikora can taste it on her tongue like smoke in the air, like ozone before a storm. The arcane energies of the Universe hum around her, static tingles on her skin.

A feeling worth exploring, she thinks.

She rests her back against a nearby wall and closes her eyes. Full meditation is impossible to achieve in such a noisy, bustling place, but she doesn't need a full meditation. She just needs to concentrate–

There.

A burning fire in the midst of candle flames, bright as the sun to her inner eye. She can feel it at the edge of her consciousness, moving...

Coming closer.

She opens her eyes.

"Hello, Osiris."

He's dressed as himself, mostly. It's been so long since he's been in the City, it might be the best costume of all. Who would recognize him as the former Warlock Vanguard or a banished Guardian? Especially in this crowd.

He stops a few feet from her. Not quite hesitant but wary of encroaching in her space. Of what she may do if he poses himself as a threat to her city.

"Ikora," he says carefully. "It's been too long."

And whose fault is that? She doesn't voice the thought. It has been a long time. She moved on from her resentment.

Well, most of it. But she’s not looking for a fight tonight.

"It has," she says, detached. "What are you here for? It must be important, if it could drag you away from your simulations."

He shakes his head. "Sagira insisted. Apparently I need to get out more, or I'll truly become as insane as you think I am."

As insane as we know you are, she thinks ruefully. Though he does not look the part, now. He looks... happy?

His eyes crinkle, betraying the smile his mask covers. "I can see gears turn in your head. What are you thinking?"

She waves her hand. The red fabric of her sleeve seems to glow, embers-warm, under the fairylights. "Nothing important." Then, because it needs saying, for her sake if not his, "It's good to see you. Have you been well?"

He shrugs. "As well as one can be when neck deep in Vex. But what about you? How has the Vanguard position treated you?"

It has been too long, she realizes. After all it was Razel who went after him, the last time. Razel who's been in contact with him, as well. They saw each other, but only briefly. Only in passing.

"I've been well. I enjoy my work, and the people I do it with."

"Silver linings," He says. She can hear his grin and answers it in kind. They both know this position would give them grey hair, if it was possible. "It's hard work, but you've always been a hard worker. I saw you kept up your study, as well."

She blinks. How does he know? "Yes. Yes I did."

"Impressive. I could barely do anything else but Vanguard business, in my time. Makes you admire the wonder of good delegation, hm?" He chuckles wryly. "I liked your papers on the Taken – especially the latest, on the Taken Techeun. It was brilliant."

She has to admit, she's touched he kept up with her. It's good to know he still cares in his own way, even though she wonders when he found the time to read her work. Typical Osiris: never calls but reads all her dissertations.

"Razel helped me gather much of the data," she says, for the sake of honesty.

"And he helped me get a hand on your researches," he replies in kind. "He's a good kid. Helpful."

She smiles, fond. Mentally she notes to warn Razel about the danger of handing Warlock researches to rogue agents, for good measure. Then again Osiris is a bit of an exception.

"He also told me you got married."

She tenses, expecting... reproach, judgment, resentment, she's not sure. The impulse is irrational – he hasn't been his teachers for an eternity – but she can't help it.

He notices it and only looks sadder when she forces herself to relax.

"I did," she says coolly. "We sent you an invite."

"I wasn't in a good place then," he tells her, almost pleading. "I'm... Sorry, Ikora."

She looks at him for a long time, wondering... Osiris has never been to admit he's wrong. So why ask forgiveness tonight? Why not years ago, when she still felt betrayed over his actions?

But for better or for worse, it is tonight. So she extends a peace offering – if not forgiveness, then something close enough. It’s not often that one hears an apology from the great Osiris, after all.

"Her name is Nasreen. She's a Guardian too – a Titan. We met in the Crucible."

They met on opposing teams, to be exact. After Osiris was banished, Ikora felt... Lost. Uncertain. With the loss of her mentor, she turned to the only other thing that truly felt familiar to her. The Crucible. Her and Nasreen had a brief but legendary rivalry, the undefeated champion against the rising star. Then Ikora left again to focus on her duties, and Nasreen...

Followed after her. Asked her out for drinks. Held on to her, first as a friend then a lover, when Ikora sorely needed an anchor. She will eternally be grateful for Nasreen’s impact on her life, and she couldn't ask for a dearer friend or a better wife.

She's so, so lucky to have her.

"She's- beautiful. The bravest and kindest person I've had the fortune to meet." She smiles, warmth pooling in her guts at the thought of her wife. She tries, maybe pointlessly, to summarize a whole person in a few words – to show Osiris what she sees in this woman. "She loves cats, keeps conspiring with Razel to make me adopt strays. She always tell me I don't eat enough, and she bakes me sweet and stashes them around my work station so I have no choice to eat them."

It seems too little. There isn’t enough time in a single night to explain the impact Nasreen had on her life. But Osiris looks at her as if he gets it.

"I'm glad you have someone like her in your life," he says. "Is she here tonight?"

"No. She's working a rescue mission in a remote part of the EDZ, couldn't make it back without putting it in jeopardy."

They've been married for long enough Ikora doesn't mind. She does wish she could share this experience with her wife. But there's always next year, and the one after that. Neither of them is going anywhere.

Osiris takes a step back. "Well, then it's my duty to entertain you in her absence."

"Your duty?"

"As- your mentor."

"You're not my mentor anymore," she reminds him, not unkindly. Neither of them can fall back on old habits, act like they’re still master and student. They're equals now, in power and position. She doesn't look up to him the way she used to and he doesn't look after her like he was supposed to.

He nods, conceding the point with a kind of sadness she’s unused to seeing in him. "True. As your friend, then." He extends a hand. Hopeful, maybe, that she sees him as a friend too. "Would you like to dance?"

She takes it. "With a friend? Always."

They move to the dance floor, slotting themselves between groups of dancers. The light is brighter away from the sides, and it reflects off the metallic details of her costume. The peacock feathers-train of her dress fans around her as he makes her spin, a graceful arc of reds and golds.

"A phoenix?" He asks, jerking his chin at her costume.

"The theme was birds of a feather. For unity."

She smoothly steps out of the way of two men passing through the crowd. She recognizes Shaxx’s shining knight armor hanging off the shoulders of a wolf-headed man, both roaring drunk. She can't help a snort of laughter as she watches them go, stumbling over each other and breaking out in fits of drunken laughter.

Osiris follows the movement easily. She's not surprised to see he can dance: he never could bear the thought of not knowing something.

"We match," he says, nodding to the feathers covering his shoulders.

"We do," she says, and is surprised to find her words weighed down by a deeper meaning than mere fashion. She compensates with a smile. "Though you could have made an effort."

He sniffs imperiously. "I had better things to do than to find a costume."

"More like you wear one everyday."

He spins them around sharply, almost making her stumble. She adjusts her stance and doesn't bother covering her chuckle. She’s right and they both know it, he’s just sensitive about his fashion choices. As he should be: they’re horrendous. She dearly hopes he’s not responsible for whatever the Followers of Osiris are wearing.

She gets three dances with him before the Vex overtakes his mind again. He draws back, somewhat reluctant, bows, and strides off without a word. There no explanation, but she didn't expect any. He would never apologize for his single-minded obsession and she has long stopped waiting for him to.

Yet, before he's swallowed by the crowd, he stops and turns to her.

"I'm happy for you, Ikora. Truly. And I'm- I'm proud of you."

He's gone before she can find summon up a reply.

She breathes out, not quite a sigh, and a weight seems to lift off her chest with it.

-

      [Tanz mit mir]

Razel has been dancing for Traveler knows how long. It feels like hours and mere seconds all at once. The evening is a blur of colors and sounds in his mind. He aches all over, his legs from the dancing and everything else from laughing too hard.

He spins Lek around one more time as the music comes to a stop. She stops gracefully, arms extended, throwing her head back. The effect is quickly ruined as she wobbles dizzily.

They high five and she slips back into the crowd, not bothering with words when their surroundings are so noisy. She'll be back by the banquet table, he suspects. It won't be a problem to find her again once he's got tired of dancing like she did.

He has a few more songs in him, he thinks. He's ready to dance through them alone – or maybe find another single dancer to keep him company – when he catches a glimpse of a familiar Ghost in the crowd.

She disappears quickly, but he'd recognize Virgo anywhere. He makes his way to her Guardian. She's already turning to him before he reaches her, her attention caught either by the high-pitched jingling of his many bells or a warning from Virgo. Pretty sure she got into the habit of keeping tabs of his approach when he got into the habit of jumping on her back when she least expects it.

"Sable!" He calls out, waving. He closes the remaining distance at a jog and catches her in a hug. "Hi! You look stunning."

She returns the hug with a quick squeeze of her arms. "You too! I love the little bells."

He shakes his head to make them ring and giggle helplessly.

"I'm a little drunk," he says.

"I can see that."

"I tried to beat Shaxx at his... Alcohol Crucible. Drinking Royale. Whatever." He shakes his head again to get his thoughts in order. "How are you? Are you having fun?"

"Not as much as you," she says. "I just got there."

"Bet you were in your lab and forgot the time."

She rolls her eyes and punches him lightly in the arm. "It's not a bet if you already know you're winning."

"You guys keep telling me I shouldn't take losing bets!" He takes her hand between his and grin in excitement. "Wanna dance?"

The abrupt change of subject throws her off-guard. She tilts her head in confusion. He bounces on his toes, waiting. When no explanation offers itself she asks,

"Why would I want to dance?"

"Because it's fun?"

"I don't know how to dance," she says like he's a bit dense.

"Never stopped me before."

She's about to say something else – a clever comeback, he guesses – when she glances over his shoulder and her eyes widen under her mask. She freezes all over, briefly, before startling into a flurry of movements. She grabs his hand and drags him toward the dance floor, almost frantic, shoving people out of the way in her haste. She only stops when they're some way into the crowd and pins him in place with her hands on his shoulders.

"Sable?" He asks, puzzled, and reflexively rests his other hand on her waist as if they were about to waltz. Ikora tried to give him dancing lessons – some habits stuck. Not that he can waltz, per say, but he can make it look like he knows, and that's almost as good.

She shushes him. Then, realizing it is far too noisy for anyone to hear him over the music, she says, "I just saw Thyme."

They start to sway gently with the music. He nudges her back, stepping with her, and slowly they sink in a sort of slow dance where neither participant is paying any actual attention to the movements.

"Don't you wanna see her?"

She blushes. "I mean, yes, but-"

She steps on his foot and is too flustered to notice. He looks down and endeavor to not do the same. They both have that typical slender Warlock figure but he's far heavier than her – she does too much lab work to put on muscles the way he does. He doesn't think she'd like it if he stepped on her toes.

Still keeping an eye on his feet – they move out of rhythm but at a safe distance from Sable's – he says, "Don't tell me you're shy."

"I'm not used to dressing up!" She hisses, taking them in a clumsy spin. They bump into another couple. Luckily the two are too drunk to care and let themselves be pushed over. "What would I even tell her?"

"I don't know, I've never asked anyone out before."

She shakes her head. "No, no, no, it's not right. It should happen-"

That makes him smile, it's just so... Sable. "Like in the movies?"

She blushes harder but doesn't deny it.

He spins them around again, no less clumsily but with more enthusiasm. There, a few feet away, stands an exo in a beautiful red dress. He doesn't know her personally, but he's heard enough from Sable to recognize Thyme at a glance.

(The many times he stumbled on her staring dreamily toward Thyme help, too.)

He grins. "I spy, with my little eyes-" He moves his hand to her chin and turns her head the way he's looking, "The most gorgeous Titan in the room."

She makes a noise like she's choking on her spit. Somehow, her blush deepens, gaining her entire face and the tip of her ears. He snorts, trying to stifle his laughter at his expense. This time, when she stomps on his toes, he knows she meant to do it.

"Easy for you to laugh," she hisses. "You wouldn't know embarrassment if it kicked you in the face."

He spares a brief, drunken thought toward the mechanics of such an event and pulls a face at the subsequent image it inspires him.

"True," he concedes. "But I win way more bets that way."

"Good thing I don't take bets as seriously as you then."

He glances above her shoulder, toward the red Titan. She's making her way on the dance floor, not far from them.

Razel shifts on his feet and spins them in a circle. He lets go of Sable so that they're only holding hands. Her momentum forces her to take a few stumbling steps back in an effort to keep her balance.

"Have fun," he tells her, winks, and lets go entirely.

She trips and falls backward, confusion turning to panic. But instead of falling flat like she probably expected her back collides with the strong chest of a certain Titan.

Thyme closes her arms around her to keep her upright. "Are you alright?"

Sable turns Crucible red. Razel mouths 'Thank me later' at her and sinks in the surrounding crowd before she can reply with a rude gesture.

-

Razel moves to a side of the square to nurse his drink and his sore toes, unfortunate victims of his benevolent act on Sable's love life.

Lek dropped by to hand him a cup and immediately disappeared, distracted by a particularly fashionable woman walking by. Lek is either pestering her about her clothes or trying to get into her designer pants. He never knows, with her.

The good thing is she forgot her own drink when she ran off, which means he gets double the alcohol for none of the effort of making his way to the bar. Sweet victory. He chugs it in one go, less for the taste than to get his buzz back. Lek is more of a 'straight tequila with a hint of lime' kinda person. He likes his cocktails fruitier.

He throws the empty cup in the nearest trash can and startles when a voice says, just behind him, "Nice dunk."

By the sound of it, it belongs to an Exo. His voice is low in a way that isn't natural, the way people sound when they're playing a character. It has a nagging familiarity to it, known but hard to place.

It's the alcohol, Razel thinks, and the noise surrounding them. He has a good memory for voices usually, recognizes them better than faces.

He turns and yeah, at least he was right on that front. He's an Exo, though it's hard to tell with his head covered as it is with a hood shaped like a chicken's head. Its beak, glinting copper in the fairy lights, covers the top half of his face. Tawny feathers trail down his neck like a mane, spill over his shoulders in a cloak.  Some have that same copper-shine to them as the beak, catching the lights as every movement the Exo makes.

There's nothing majestic about a chicken, but this costume sure makes a valiant effort at it.

"Nice costume!" He says in return, gesturing wildly to the kind of man-shaped pile of feathers. His drink spills over his fingers, soaking the fabric of his glove. "Ah, shit."

He takes the cup with his other hand and stares, unsure how to proceed. Then he shrugs and takes the glove off with his teeth, the wet fabric sticking slightly to his skin. He juggles his drink one more time and gets rid of the other glove for good measure.

The Exo makes a choked noise. Razel throws him a confuses glance as he stuffs the gloves in his pocket. The man waves his hand in dismissal.

"Do you-" he clears his throat, oddly flustered. A glance at the (now notably emptier) cup in Razel's hand and he seems to come to a decision, his shoulders straightening as he does. He plucks the cup from his grasp, finishes it in one go and throws it with pinpoint accuracy into the trash. Before Razel can protest, he bows and offers him his hand. When he speaks again it's with the same pretend assurance as before, low and sweet. "May I have this dance?"

A giggle escapes Razel. He pitches his voice high, as well-bred-lady-of-the-Dark-Ages as it will get. "You may," he says, putting his free hand in the Exo's.

The Exo chuckles as his fingers close gently over Razel's, cradling his hand the way a Dark Age gentleman might have. His touch is warm even through his gloves, the heat of his internal hardware seeping through the metal.

He pulls Razel forward. His hand comes to rest on his lower back to guide him through the crowded dance floor. Somehow they don't bump into anyone. To Razel it's almost second nature to follow his lead, step in his track, place his hand on his shoulder. The feathers tickle his bare skin.

"I hope you're not too attached to your toes," he says brightly. His bells jingle merrily as he dips his head forward, coming closer so as to be heard over the current song. "I'm a bad dancer."

"I'm sure you'll be fine." The electronic song fades and lets place to a slower, softer one. "Just follow my lead."

Razel glances down to their feet. Left, right, left. Back, side, together. Right, left, right. Forward, side, together. With the Exo leading it's easy to keep the rhythm.

"Don't focus on your steps too much, you'll lose the music."

He looks up again, counting in his head. One, two, three. Back, side, forward – no. He fumbles, almost tripping them up.

The Exo doesn't waver, stepping around his blunder easily. He dips his head forward, the side of his feathered hood brushing against Razel's cheek.

"It's just three steps, alright? Back, side, together. Forward, side, together. Good. Keep it up."

He counts in Razel's ear until he can find his way around the steps on his own, the Exo's fingers tapping the rhythm against the small of his back.

When Razel manages a spin without getting his steps mixed up, he presses him closer and says, proud and fond, "Attaboy."

And Razel finally manages to put a name to the voice.

In surprise he stumbles, trips them up, sends them sprawling to the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and clothing. A flailing elbow catches him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.

Cayde lets out a squawk of surprise on the way down, smothered by Razel's weight dropping on top of him. He starts to say something, but it's drowned out by Razel's laugh.

"I didn't recognize you," he chokes out in between fits of giggling. "I just-"

He collapses in giggles again before he can explain how hilarious this is. Cayde looks at him for a second, puzzled. Then the situation dawns on him – the mistaken identity, the sheer... Masquerade cliché of it all. He bursts out laughing.

"I was talking right into your ear!" He says, almost laughing too hard to talk. "How did you not recognize me before? I'm hurt, really."

"You changed your voice!"

"Only in the beginning!"

Razel can't manage a shrug with his shoulders shaking with laughter. He shakes his head and pushes himself on his forearms, staring into Cayde's face. The hood is askew, the beak falling over one of his eyes. It's him alright, with the horn and the bright blue eyes and every single scuffs and scars. Razel can't believe he didn't see it sooner – even the way he walks is unique and familiar.

He brushes his thumb under Cayde's eye, to a small scuff in the paint there. A shiver goes through Cayde at the touch, when he scrapes his nail lightly against a nick in the metal. It seems to travel all the way through his cloak, the feathers shivering with him, puffing up before settling back.

"Buddy," Cayde says, "We're laying in the middle of a crowd."

Indeed they were. "Maybe we should move," he replies, distracted. There's a bit of motor oil on Cayde's cheek – he wipes it with his thumb, scratches the part that stubbornly sticks to the metal.

Cayde's hand spasms against his back.

"Alright, get up," he says, voice strained. Razel rises easily, holding out a hand to help him up. "Let's get out of here."

Razel nods, bumps his shoulder against Cayde's once they're both on their feet. The space they occupied is immediately filled with dancers and he has to hold on to Cayde's hand to avoid losing him. Cayde tugs lightly on his hand and guides him off of the dance floor only seen in glimpses of his glittering cloak through the crowd.

"Where are we going?"

Cayde points to the closest wall. "Up," he says. "C'mon. I have something to show ya."

Razel doesn't question it. He follows Cayde, climbing over a dumpster, a wall, a roof; using his Warlock power when an obstacle proves to be too high. It turns into a bit of a race, at some point, but not one he ever expects to win. His aim sucks, with a gun or with a jump, even worse when he's drunk.

He misses his last leap and hits the edge of a roof, scrambling to keep hold on it. Cayde catches him by the wrists, pulls him up before he can slip down.

And then, just like that, they're on top of the world.

[Better love]

It takes Razel a moment to notice, still unbalanced from the run, the fall, the alcohol. But when his eyes finally adjusts he gasps in wonder.

They're – high up, higher than he thought despite having climbed here. The whole City is spread up under them, a gigantic spiderweb of light like a reflection on water of the stars above.

"I know, right?" Cayde moves to stand next to him, resting his hand on Razel's shoulder. "It's not the highest spot in the City, but... Close enough."

Razel grins. He lifts a foot, feels the pull of gravity, almost pitches forward. There's a hum in his bones, the cold, empty air taking all the space in his bones. He feels light, buoyant. Altitude has that effect on him, like battle but softer, quieter.

Music drifts up from the party below, the melody clear and the lyrics lost to the wind. He turns on his toes, flirting with a fall. A step forward, another, then he's spinning, feet walking a loose circle as he goes round and round. His coat fans around him, bells jingling along with the music. He goes faster. The lights below and the stars above blur together, vertigo making his heart beat faster and faster–

He stops, abruptly, when he bumps into Cayde. Strong arms loop around him, steadying him. He's laughing, he realizes, shoulders shaking with it. He lets his head fall, resting his forehead against Cayde's. Cayde chuckles under his breath, pressing his hands against Razel's back.

The music fades away. For a moment, it's just them, laughing like idiots again.

"You really can't stay standing tonight," Cayde says.

"Easier for you to sweep me off my feet," he replies, breathless from laughter.

He lifts his hand to Cayde's face, pushes the hood back, pulls him in. Cayde goes easily.

There's a kind of deep-seated satisfaction in touching him. Fingertips lodges in the gaps of his metal plates, dry lips against his mouth in a clumsy, smiling kiss. Like the breathtaking relief of pouring cold water on a burn. The fire inside him, the restless, burning energy that drives him, dimmed to low embers. Warm and comfortable, seeping in his bones in place of the altitude high.

The arm Cayde has around his waist tightens, pulling him in until they're flush together. His other hand travels upward. He strokes his back, feather light, up his neck. He knocks Razel's hat off his head and tangles his fingers in his untied hair, tugs at it just enough to angle his face right.

It's a spark to his embers, setting him alight once more. He wants more – no, he wants everything. Every inch of Cayde against his skin, every breath lost between them.

He clings harder, dips a hand under Cayde's collar just to feel the warmth of his whirring core against his skin. He lets out a needy whine smothered by a gasp as Cayde makes up for it by kissing his jaw, his neck, pushing his coat out of the way so he can follow the line of his neck to the junction of his shoulder. He lets go, briefly, to take off his gloves. His hands don't stray from Razel's skin for long. As soon as they're bare they find their way back to him. One dives in his hair again, running through the loose strands, the other stroking the skin of his waist before dipping under his shirt. It runs over the slight jut of his hipbone, the hard plane of his stomach, his side, his ribs. Almost greedy in its climb up his body. Razel shivers, at the touch and the cold wind against his skin where his shirt rides up.

In retaliation he rips off the feathered cloak — definitely shredding the lace tying it in his hurry to get it off. It falls in a flutter like a bird taking flight. He rakes his fingers down Cayde's back, blunt nails digging into the soft leather of his armor. He didn't dress any differently under the heavy cloak. Part of Razel is glad for it. He knows how to get him out of these clothes and he's not sure he would have the patience to understand the workings of a costume right now.

He digs his fingers in the vulnerable spot to the side of Cayde's spine, where a few naked wires come close to the surface. Cayde gives a full-body shudder, chokes out a moan.

"Yours or mine?" He says, voice ragged and low.

It takes a moment for Razel to get his thoughts enough in order to process and answer the question.

"We can transmat directly to mine," he gasps out, almost feverish from Cayde's touch.

Pros of living in your ship: you never have to bother walking home.

"Yours it is."

A flick of his wrist and Cubix appears, transmats them home without a word.

Cayde's cloak and Razel's hat remain on the ground, forgotten.

#writing #LGBT Destiny Month #destiny 2 #long post #cayde-6 #ikora rey #zavala #osiris destiny #my ocs #razel #lord shaxx #lord saladin #suraya hawthorne #eva levante #i think that's everyone?

[binkywinky]

hi! Comics rec anon here! to answer your question, I'm not entirely new to comics, have read a few but not enough to say I have a specific type. The first series I read was all the jessica jones comics which I really liked, also the miles morales series which i enjoyed and the spidergwen series which was cute but the art was kinda annoying lol. i also like a couple of dc ones like mister miracle. so i think i prefer a general rec from you since the comics world is so big. thanks in advance!

Got it. Hmm… let’s see. It’s probably easiest to break it down by publisher then. I’ll try to give a mix of ongoing, finished, and “classic” stories. 

Fair warning, I read a lot of comics (probably about 60 per month, and that’s not including manga), so even though this may feel like a long list, it’s short for me.

Marvel

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - Relatively new series, and it’s been fantastic so far. Great art, and a bit more grounded than the Amazing Spider-Man run (which is also great). Stellar art, too.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man - A little YA-ish at times, but overall enjoyable. You get to see a lot more of Miles’ personality in this one, which is always fun.

Superior Spider-Man - Because nothing is more fun than seeing a semi-reformed Otto Octavius try to be a hero.

Captain Marvel - Kelly Thompson does a phenomenal job with this series. She has a great hold of Carol’s voice. Would highly recommend Kelly Sue Deconnick and Margaret Stohl’s previous runs to give context (Captain Marvel 2012-2017, Mighty Captain Marvel, and The Life of Captain Marvel).

Jessica Jones - Not sure if you’ve read Kelly Thompson’s recent run or just Bendis’, but hers is definitely worth a read.

Avengers (2019) - actually a solid run. I would check this out if you’re more into crossover, large-scale storytelling. They’re in the middle of War of the Realms, though… so maybe wait until like August or September?

Immortal Hulk, Daredevil, and X-23 - also good. I read them off and on (not really my fave characters to read on their own, I enjoy them in ensembles), but the stories are solid.

Rogue & Gambit - mini series that I absolutely love by Kelly Thompson (she does great character work) that came out last year. Mr. & Mrs. X is a follow-up to it and also tons of fun (nearing its end as well). 

Runaways - I fell off of this when Brian K. Vaughn left, but I can say up through his run ended is well worth the read.

As far as classic stories, Infinity Gauntlet, The Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Secret Invasion, and Secret Wars would be my first recommendations.

I would’ve recommended Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, but maybe wait on that. It’s about to end soon and transition to just Ghost Spider (where she leaves Earth-65 and comes to Earth-616 where Peter and Miles are). Same for X-Men. I’m currently reading Uncanny, but X-Men is about to be overhauled soon. So probably hold on that front.

DC/Vertigo

Honestly, not the biggest DC fan (I lean more towards Vertigo actually), but there are a few that I enjoy.

Action Comics (starting at #1000) - I am not a Superman fan, but I enjoy this series, which says a lot. I enjoy what Bendis is doing with him in this run.

Naomi - a new series, also by Bendis, following the story of a young Black girl who is investigating the circumstances around her adoption. Don’t want to give too much away, but probably my fave DC run at the moment. And Jamal Campbell’s art is fucking gorgeous.

Dial H for Hero - it’s fun. It’s weird. Not for everyone, but maybe give it a shot.

The Flash and Batman, New 52 runs - New 52 gets shit from fans a lot, but I thought these runs were awesome. Very good story-telling.

Dark Nights: Metal event - Probably one of the best things DC did in a long time. It’s a massive event that pretty much reworked the DC universe and all the characters. Enjoyed it immensely.

Heroes in Crisis - this miniseries ended very recently. It’s a story focused on a major event that happens at Sanctuary, a rehab for superheroes suffering from mental health issues (e.g. PTSD after doing something that nearly killed them). Not your usual superhero story, which I liked.

American Carnage - very gritty story focused on a white-passing Black man who infiltrates a white supremacist organization. It’s really fucking good.

High Level - I picked this book up randomly because the cover looked cool. I’ve been reading it ever since. I would say it’s weird sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk adventure. A little strong on the language, but very interesting story and great artwork.

Birds of Prey - awesome series with the DC women. A little shaky sometimes, but Gail Simone does really good character work. Her run is probably the only one I’d bother reading.

Deathbed - miniseries by Vertigo that ended maybe a year ago. It’s so bizarre and hilarious and out there. I loved it.

Batwoman (J.H. Williams run) and Batwoman: Rebirth - Kate Kane, my favorite lesbian superhero. Williams did a great job in his run (and the art is to die for). Don’t read the back half, they change writers and it’s a goddamn mess. But then Marguerite Bennett (a queer woman) picked it up in Rebirth, and it got awesome again. Also, shout-out to Greg Rucka for officially making her queerness canon in 52.

Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman’s my fave of DC main characters (along with Martian Manhunter and Wally West I & II), and my favorite run for her is Greg Rucka’s. He does a surprisingly good job of writing women. The run is over at the moment, but I’d check it out. Good stuff there.

For classic stories, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Flashpoint (precursor to New 52), and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are some of my faves.

Image

Image is probably what I read the most. Definitely has the most diverse pool of comics to choose from.

Saga - My favorite comic series of all-time. I’ve gotten so many people to read this and they love it. It’s weird - really weird, actually - but the storytelling is phenomenal. And it’s on hiatus right now, so plenty of time to get caught up.

Ice Cream Man - This series is so fucking weird, but I love it. It’s sorta like… Tales from the Crypt? Different stories (mostly horror) that all feature this demon ice cream man.

The Weatherman - This series is such a goddamn delight. I don’t want to ruin the plot but just… yeah. Read the first issue and it just goes crazy from there.

Man-Eaters - Sort of a niche story. Basically, this takes place in a society where when women get their cycle, they turn into giant cats and maul men, so they’ve given them pills to keep them from menstruating. Sounds weird? Wait until you read it. Probably a highlight series of the year for me. 

Black Science - You might not like the art in this one, but maybe give it a shot? These scientists are trying to solve the problem of limited resources on Earth by hopping across dimensions for new ones (infinite dimensions, infinite resources). Only problem is, their machine got damaged so now they hop uncontrollably to whatever dimension it chooses for however long it decides. It’s a wild ride.

Middlewest - An interesting take on parent/child relationships and how the consequences of abuse, anger, and depression can manifest in dangerous ways. Sounds more bleak than it is - the story actually has quite a bit of humor.

Excellence - Very new series, but with a PoC lead, about PoCs, with mostly PoC creators. A story about a secret society of Black magicians and a son whose next in line to take on the mantle, and it’s pretty fucking cool. Issue 2 comes out this week - check it out!

The Walking Dead - I don’t think I have to explain this one, do I? Zombies.

Lazarus and Lazarus: Risen - Sci-fi story set in a dystopian society where the world is ruled by like 15 or so families, and they each have a Lazarus to fight for them. This is told from the perspective of the Carlyle family’s Lazarus, Forever. 

Die - If Dungeons & Dragons and Jumanji had a baby, it would be this book. Sounds weird, but once you read it, you’ll find the description to be accurate.

Anything from Brian K. Vaughn - I have yet to read something from Brian K. Vaughn that I don’t like. Saga, Paper Girls, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Barrier… his shit’s always good.

Independents / Not Marvel, DC, or Image

Some of these are nostalgia-based, so fair warning.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM Studios) - very new series that’s out. Great art. If you were a fan of the show, I think you’ll like it. It’s a re-imagining of sorts. There’s also an Angel series that just started.

Nancy Drew (Dynamite) - Listen… I could not stand Nancy Drew as a kid. Never got into it and thought it was boring as hell. But I really loved this miniseries (another Kelly Thompson run). It’s maybe 5 issues?

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers (BOOM Studios) - Honest to God, if you had told me 3 years ago one of my fave comics would be a Power Rangers one, I would have laughed in your face. Both of these series are really good and provide the continuity, nuance, and characterization the show lacked. Fan of the show or not, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you enjoy the teenage superhero genre. Also, just some really amazing art and world-building.

Anything from Jinxworld - This is Bendis’ own publishing company. He’s put out Cover, Pearl, Scarlet, and United States vs. Murder, Inc. All of them are really good.

Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse) - This is the series the Netflix show is based off of. Right now, they’re doing Hotel Oblivion in the comics, but start with Apocalypse Suite and Dallas.

So, there you go anon. There are FAR more I would recommend, but I tried to give a good range of books for you to choose from without (hopefully) overwhelming you. And if you have any questions, I’m more than happy to talk about any of them.

#binky answers anons #binky talks comics

[bailesu]

July 4, 1776, 1863, and 2018

Warning:  I hate Trump with a burning atomic fury and what follows is a mixture of my family’s history, America’s history and me damning Trump to burn in Hell for eternity.  If you don’t want to read that, skip the read more and go on.  I totally understand.

This is the America’s day, for good and for ill, for America has been both a great country and a terrible one.  We sent men to the moon and set high ideals of equality and freedom... then failed to live up to them again and again.  I love my country, but sometimes it drives me crazy.  Its past is full of glory and horror, good deeds and terrible deeds, and above all greatness, but greatness can be wonderful or horrible.

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress issued a document which declared American Independence.  But not just Independence.  It laid out the idea that all men are created equal by God, with inalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.  This high ideal thus became one of the foundation stones of America.

It was written by a man who owned dozens of slaves and had children by one of them, who he continued to own.  Thomas Jefferson managed to embody both our highest ideals and our greatest depravities.  

One in four Americans were slaves in 1776.  Women could not vote and neither could White Men who lacked Property.  Child abuse was the normal way you raised your kids.  Threatening to murder your political rivals was basically normal.  One of our great leaders of the Revolution, Sam Adams, was basically a man who organized riots and lynching.  (Lynching of people who served Britain, rather than Blacks, but lynching is murder, whoever the victim.)

By any modern standard, America in 1776 was a terrible place, a land carved out by killing Native Americans directly to take their land and indirectly by disease.  (Mind you, every nation, including the ones we killed off, has a history of killing neighbors and taking their land; the nations without that history died.)  

But it was also the seedbed of modernity; it became a democracy, if not a very good one, and its ideals still ring across the ages and have provided leverage to every group trying to get fair treatment instead of stomping.  We helped inspire the French Revolution and the rise of Nationalism.  In 1945, when Vietnam declared Independence from France, the first lines of their declaration read:

All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

America has always struggled with the tension between this high ideal and the deeds our country has done which are not high or noble.  We often fail, but on this day, we have to look again to this ideal and work to make it real.  

My own ancestors were all tangled up in this mess.  Three Quaker Brothers fled to America to escape persecution and the loss of their family’s lands due to the British Civil Wars, settling in Pennsylvania.  One of the brothers, Thomas, eventually went South to North Carolina.  He is my ancestor, and his family soon came to own slaves.  They were never top-tier slaveowners but they prospered.

If you are a White Southerner, your ancestors either owned slaves, supported the slave system without owning slaves, or both, unless they came South very recently.  We all have to deal with that legacy.  Many in the South don’t want to, but if this country is ever to heal the wounds inflicted by over 250 years of slavery, then we have to.

During the Revolution, Thomas’s son, also named Thomas, fought in the Revolution.  By killing Cherokees; they allied with the British to save their lands and they found out the hard way that Britain couldn’t help them.  On this day, 1776, he was sitting in a military camp, but soon they would return and drive the Cherokee out of part of North Carolina and all of South Carolina.  (Ironically, many years later, a member of the Richardson family would marry a Cherokee woman and their later descendant would marry one of Thomas’ descendants.)  He may eventually have fought the British, but we have no record of it.

Thomas’ grandson, William Alexander Christopher Biles, was born on the plantation.  His family made him go pick cotton with the slaves a lot but we don’t know why exactly; it would serve him well later when his family lost everything but we have to assume that he probably hated it at the time.  William’s father was too old to fight (In his 70s!) but William was not.  He fought in a North Carolina regiment and was shot and stabbed repeatedly, including having his skull cut open and a gut wound.  This happened during Pickett’s Charge, so he was left behind in Union hands; a doctor, his name lost, operated and saved his life after initial triage had said he wasn’t worth trying to save.  Whoever he was, he was a miracle worker, because somehow he saved WAC’s life, though he had a plate in his head for the rest of his life.  In fact, he *escaped* from the hospital and returned to duty until the final surrender at Appomatox!  We don’t know his motives for fighting, but it was probably a mixture of wanting to save slavery and loyalty to his state.  It would be nice if I could say he was anti-slavery, but he wasn’t even the Jeffersonian kind of anti-slavery, where you still own slaves, but you do limit slavery’s growth somewhat.  By 1860, your choices were basically either to say ‘SLAVERY IS AWESOME’ or flee to the North, that far South.  (In the border states, you could say ‘I hate black people, so I want to end slavery so I can get rid of them’.  This is not a huge moral step forward.)

His family’s estates unravelled; the Biles clan did not know how to get by without slaves.  He went west to Missouri and worked with his brother a while, then became a farmer; he was not good at either, but his cotton-picking skills enabled him to get by; I can only imagine he found it rather humiliating.  And as a slaveowner, he deserved humiliating.

To be White in America carries the shame of having ancestors who did terrible stuff.  Some of it was so accepted you can’t blame them too much but others *could* have done better and didn’t.  The essential problem of being descended of the winners is that they probably did terrible things to win.  (And the problem of being descended of those who lost is that your ancestors got thrown down the stairs and lost it all.)

I don’t feel guilt for my ancestors, but I do feel responsibility.  I cannot control what they did, but I do benefit from it and part of my response to that has to be to try and make a better America, to help overcome our worst impulses.  And I do that by teaching, so that those coming up will understand our past, why we did terrible things, and how we can do better.  (And how we did awesome things too, because the hardest part of history is that the same people can do wonders and horrors at once.)

Which brings us to the now.  I was describing 1920s and 30s fascism to my students and one said, “So, basically, Trump.”

And it’s certainly way too close.  I am lucky; as a White Man, I am automatically spared much of the worst of Trump and his idiot followers.  This country has always been tilted in my favor.  

Trump embodies pretty much all of America’s past sins, but also is basically the biggest drooling idiot who has ever sat in the White House, making even Harding look like a supergenius.  He knows how to work his audience, but he’s utterly incompetent at governing, to the extent you can call it governing.  He embodies sexism, racism, egomania, and cruelty.  He is a man who instinctively degrades and bullies everyone around him, who has cheated on all of his wives and abused his mistresses, a rapist, a thug, and a cheat.  He is a horrible human being in almost every possible way.  Many people who claim to be Christian flock to him because they have flushed Christ down the toilet long ago, but unfortunately, flushing Christ down the toilet has a long history in American religion.  

If there is a hell, Trump is going to roast in it and if there is not, we’ll have to make one just for him.  I want to see him fall like Lucifer from Heaven, if Lucifer fell into a mixture of broken glass, shards of metal, and lava.  But it’s important to remember, Trump is not some alien aberration; he incarnates real American flaws, mixed with his personal flaws of being a pig-ignorant, aggressively anti-thinking man-baby molester of women with vast wealth he has always abused to shield himself from consequences.  Racism, sexism, greed, and so on all have a long history in this country.  And his supporters voted for him with their eyes wide open.  We cannot expect any better from them.

America has a huge cancer and that cancer often has been driving the national bus, so to speak.  And getting rid of it is going to be a long fight.  But bringing change to this country is always a long, hard fight.

So on this Fourth of July, fuck Trump to hell, along with all his shitty supporters.  We have nearly two more years of this shithole before we can toss him on his ass.  (Impeachment takes 2/3rds in the Senate, so it’s not happening even if we take both houses, I fear).  May we sweep the Republican party, which has devolved from the people who ended slavery to a resting place for all of America’s sins, into the garbage pile in November and again in two years.  Growing up in America means I’ve watched the Republican party gradually mutate into a degenerate, feral hate society run by a mixture of greed, racism, and fake Christianity.  

Fuck the Republican party and all the morons who vote for it, whichever one of the Seven Deadly Sins drives them to spew hatred, abuse immigrants, rob the poor to make the rich richer, and to destroy all our alliances and trade relations.  They chose a feral animal as President, a molester and a bully, and I hope he destroys them all.

May they all eat shit and die.

#In Short #Our President is a pile of shit #But he represents America's Shit #So We have to deal with that #History

[sobasically]

Hey guys! Muse here! And it’s time for your daily dose of Greek mythology.

So everyone has at least a basic understanding of the Greek pantheons. They all live on mount Olympus and are lead by lightning god Zeus and wreak havoc on the earth with their antics. But there’s a shit ton more to the Olympians than meets the eyes.

So what exactly are the olympians? The answer isn’t as straight as you’d think it is. For one thing, the olympians can get hurt and die like any other human. They are victim to the same vices as any other person. The difference is they don’t have to face the consequences. They ‘die’, they reform. They get hurt, they heal. They do something shitty, meh. Olympians will be olympians. In essence, they are humans minus the limits. 

Frustrating right? The Greeks knew this. But they couldn’t say anything about it unless they wanted to have their life royally fucked over. Kinda like politicians :D

Anyways, there were 12 main olympians. Technically there’s 13, but more on that later.

First you have the original siblings:

Zeus: the youngest and most powerful. He is the god of the sky and weather. Zeus is the most hyper masculine asshole you will ever meet. He could be fair and stuff but usually this was just because his antics caught up with him. Most of the time he was a horny, competitive, burn your eyes glowing hypocrite. This dude saw someone hot and thought “damn I’ll tap that.” And he did. Against their will. And it always resulted in suffering for everyone else. You can’t stop him. Believe me, the gods /tried/. 

Then there’s Poseidon, god of the ocean, fertility, and horses (in his pre-Hellenistic incarnations). Poseidon is similar to Zeus in that he is also horny as shit. But he was 8 times more violent and petty. You do not want to piss him or his many many many many many many many children off. Just look at what happened to Odysseus. Of all the gods you don’t want to piss off- and dammit you do NOT want to piss off the gods- Poseidon is number 2 on the don’t list. (Hera is #1 on this list for reasons to be discussed later)

Hades is the king of the dead and the eldest son, therefore the rightful king of Olympus. Yeah, according to Greek law this dude should be ruling. But, because Zeus sorta saved their asses from their dad and Hades drew the smallest straw he has to rule the realm of dead people. No he isn’t the ‘god of the dead’ and does not judge them or kills people. He just rules them. Nothing else. He keeps order in the land of the dead and that’s it. Apparently he’s really good at it. The Greeks were terrified of him. (If only he ruled Olympus. Maybe stuff wouldn’t be shitty)

Then you’ve got the sisters

Hera, wife of Zeus, goddess of women and marriage, queen of Olympus, Craziest bitch alive. Does that sound harsh? No, it isn’t. She’s fucking insane. Hera has a serious jealousy problem. Her husband is always cheating on her and she can’t punish him (believe me, she’s tried.). So she does the next best thing to calling out her husband. She makes his victims lives literal hell. His lovers are smited, cursed, driven mad, and his children face the same (though often unsuccessfully). Don’t even think of looking at her temple the wrong way otherwise you will SUFFER.

(If I die suddenly after this. You’ll know who did it.)

Demeter is one of the more chill olympians. She’s goddess of the harvest. When she’s happy, people prosper. When she’s not happy... everyone starves. It’s not so terrible though. When she lost her daughter she traveled the earth performing miracles and stuff. She’s one of the gods that have an entire cult to her, the Elysian mysteries. She was one of the ones who inspired the idea that death is a drab thing, that one can be reborn. Long story short, Demeter/Hades for Olympus rulers 2019.

Finally, you have the lesser known, oldest sibling, Hestia. She’s the goddess of the Hearth and is an eternal virgin (by choice). Not much is known about her. But from what is, she’s a kind hearted and fair person. 

Then you have the sorta related but not Goddess:

Aphrodite, Goddess Of Beauty, love, lust, and being petty bitch #2. Born from Nut-SeaFoam (her name means that, fyi), Aphrodite is a sexy boobed (seriously this is constantly mentioned), Golden/flower dyed haired bitch. She gets jealous easily and flirts with everyone. Like, she’s done a shit ton of horrible things. And everyone has the hots for her. The olympians tried to contain her with marriage. The problem is they married her to the least attractive god and  assumed she’d be ok with that. She wasn’t. She cheated with Ares. On a side note: she’s also a war goddess. Like, she can fight and win. Don’t piss her off.

On to the children.

Ares is the only child of Zeus and Hera. You can really tell by his sexual appetite and uncontrolled rage. He is the god of offensive war. As in running into battle covered in blood half naked because you are so pumped up for war that you are also horny. He is notorious for not thinking things through and being a bit of a coward when someone displays even slight superiority. His sorta sister Athena has to drag him in by the ear and remind him that to win a battle you have to think things through. Which is why people like her more.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, crafts, and defensive war. She was born in armor screaming a war cry... from Zeus’s Head. (She could technically be the daughter of Metis, Titaness of Logic and first wife of Zeus, since he ate her.) She is a daddy’s girl and brilliant strategist. She’s chaste and organized. Many generals trust her as their patron. Athena is actually described as being a bit androgynous. She does happen to have a bit of a superiority complex, like most olympians. But as long as you take her counsel seriously and don’t try to rape her you’re good. 

Hephaestus is son of Hera, born from her thigh, and disabled god of metalworking and the forge. Like, he has a limp. Now he isn’t ‘ugly’ per say. He isn’t Olympian attractive by far, but I like to think he’s average man attractive. Of course, Hera was disgusted by his affliction and flung him from Olympus (“this bitch ugly. YEET”-Hera). Interestingly enough, the olympians still rely on him to make their weapons and stuff. Hes clever, he figured out how to catch his wife cheating on him. So the dude gets more shit than from the Olympians than he deserves. 

Apollo and Artemis are the twin archer gods of the sun and moon. 

Apollo is god of the sun, music, poetry, divination, and rational thought. He’s incredibly attractive and yet does not have a lover. In fact, his luck with lovers is.. non existent. Either they die, reject him, or turn into trees (not that that bugs him too much). When he isn’t consumed by loneliness, he is busy writing songs on his lyre and reciting poetry for the muses. He’s also incredibly athletic, and was known to play discus a lot (not as much after the incident). 

Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, childbirth, and wilderness. She is incredibly chaste and demands the same from her followers. She loves animals and children and hanging out with her ladies. Artemis is described as this tall, muscular lady. Amazon’s probably looked up to her as the ideal body. For the most part, she was pretty decent, a bit of a stickler for her rules but still.

Then you have Hermes, messenger of the gods and trickster. This dude is the definition of a little shit. He’s constantly pulling pranks on heroes and the gods. He’s even the patron of thieves. Don’t shoot the messenger though, just cause the dude is snarky doesn’t mean what he says isn’t true. Hermes is the direct voice of the gods. So you have to begrudgingly listen to him. Fun fact: he was able to talk as a baby. 

Last but not least is Dionysus. Dionysus is god of wine, (ceremonial) madness, and Death (in early incarnations). He also has a cult of his own. But they are less friendly and more horny. Dionysus is this chill dude who casually emits this maddening vibe. His hobbies include drinking, partying, and making women eat their sons. He’s a youthful looking man who occasionally has horns. He was basically the Greek version of Charles Manson. Hestia gracefully stepped down to let him become the final and most recent addition to the olympians. 

Naturally, there are many many more gods and many many more stories about why and how these gods became the way they are and stuff. But this wouldn’t be a summary blog if I droned on about all of it would it? So I stop her, stay tuned for more on the gods and their adventures, from Greece and beyond. 

Ciao! -The Muse

#Muse #Greek Mythology #🌙 #the olympians

[claudiadonovan]

Please write 70 paragraphs of meta about elizabeth and olive as characters

ok so first of all: i had multiple paragraphs of this typed up a couple days ago and then my computer crashed, so clearly the universe wants me to chill. but here i am, rewriting all the words to spite the universe, for I WILL NEVER KNOW CHILL. (disclaimer: this is largely incoherent, and the organization isn’t exactly thesis ready. tyfyt.)

anyway. let’s begin with something i’ve talked about at length before, because i do think it’s at least worth setting elizabeth’s narrative against the backdrop of the movie’s full scope—that is, elizabeth’s arc is the driving force of the movie. regardless of what the film is ostensibly about (at least in terms of marketing, for obvious reasons; it’s clear that everyone working on it knows better), what angela’s crafted is a love story. bill functions as a steady presence throughout, providing the technical framework (and the shoves that elizabeth needs in the direction of what she wants); olive certainly takes her own journey, but hers is a growth told largely in flashes; it is through elizabeth’s terror and conflict and indeed love that we see much of the movie unfold. all of those things are central to the conflicts we find and necessarily the heart of the movie’s resolution. there is a reason the film must end in the place it does, with elizabeth cracking open her heart and finding the means to build a bridge between them inside.

but i’m getting ahead of myself. (and, yes, rambling already. LISTEN, i was asked for 70 paragraphs, a lannister always pays her debts, etc. etc. you’ve been warned as to what lies beneath the cut!)

if you will let me set one final scene, before i move inside the universe of the movie: i saw professor marston for the first time at an advance screening. the theater wasn’t enormous, but it was completely packed. there were a couple moments in the opening bill/josette scene that drew a few chuckles, iirc, but the moment elizabeth spoke her first line, that entire theater came to life. and let me tell you: what a relief that that was my first experience with the movie, because clutching your leg and alternating between wheezing with laughter and delighted squealing draws a lot less attention if everyone around you is also in hysterics. the reaction both to “i know” and “i know that, too” was incomparable. it felt rare and wonderful, nevermind the fact that rebecca’s delivery remains impossible to oversell.

all of which is kind of beside the point, except that i will say i appreciate the in-universe acknowledgement that elizabeth is genuinely hilarious? BECAUSE SHE’S HILARIOUS. the fact is that angela, as she designed her (and rebecca, as she played her), allowed elizabeth to be SO MANY THINGS. there are a million ways that this could have (would have, lbr) gone wrong in literally anyone else’s hands, but one of those many ways is elizabeth herself. like, i think there’s a particular character cut-out for the combination of attributes that include controlling/ferocious/brisk/kind of a stubborn asshole, especially if you’re angling for the arc to conclude with a display of vulnerability. that sets off the WEE OOOH WEEE OOOH DO NOT TRUST WEE OOH alarms in my brain. but elizabeth is a million things, among them also funny, charming, pragmatic, and so utterly full of life. (i sort of figured “totally brilliant” went without saying.) she is never limited to one or two of these at a time, as they shift along some linear arc; there are moments that showcase particular aspects, but she is always the sum of all of her parts.

one of my very favorite moments, particularly in the way that it establishes both elizabeth/bill and, i think, to some degree the way that elizabeth interacts with the world, is the lie detector epiphany scene. one of the things about them is that they are able to shift very fluidly from “heated debate” to whatever the opposite of an argument looks like. which – i realize in that scene the lie detector was a Huge Deal, but there’s no sense of bill and elizabeth ever stagnating in their arguments; more often, they delight in them. they sharpen their wits and their knowledge against each other – it’s (a huge) part of what makes them work, and it’s also part of what makes them so damn extra. (olive’s utterly baffled face as she watches them that transforms slowly into an amused/fond/still-puzzled smile says all i want to say here.) the point is: they don’t require things like apologies from each other, particularly as a result of their exchanges. like, their arguments are more likely to lead to proposals than to pleas for forgiveness.

basically, i don’t think elizabeth has huge reserves of patience for other kinds of interactions; she spends much of her time with a person who always meets her halfway. anyone who can’t inevitably falls underfoot. she also thinks dropping things like “oh, and if you fuck my husband, i’ll kill you” into conversation during a first meeting with a student they’ve just brought on as an assistant is absolutely fine, especially since she doesn’t initially view them as on the same ~~~level. (not that she doesn’t mean to be hostile—and condescending—because obviously she has some self-awareness, but her casual, wry delivery of it is so very, very elizabeth. she gets a kick out of herself.) my other favorite thing is how much i do think she believes she’s offering some genuinely useful clarification as she carries on through that atrocious explanation of olive’s beauty—she gets it, it’s not olive’s fault, like any of those are reasonable things to say to another person. elizabeth’s answer to dealing with the emotions she was kind of pretending she didn’t have when she told bill it was fine to fuck olive? be a patronizing asshole! works every time!

but olive isn’t bill, and she’s not just gonna spring back from whatever that was, because literally what the fuck is wrong with this woman (i know, olive. i know). and it’s not like elizabeth doesn’t have the capacity for guilt; that’s the whole reason bill telling her she made olive cry finds them in the middle of the apology that unfolds. (let me side note here that bill gently leading elizabeth back onto the edge of some moral pathway with signs like “maybe be less of an asshole?” is one of my favorite things in the entire world.) which elizabeth begins delivering so perfectly awkwardly and vaguely sardonically that it’s hard to imagine anyone could even take it seriously? the way she ends the “i didn’t mean to insult you” with a smile that could physically not be less real—great, look, i did the apology, bye—really sums it up. and the exchange that follows—i’ve done nothing / no, i know, you’re right—is so peak elizabeth, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like she’s sitting there like, yes, i know, all i said was don’t fuck my husband, i didn’t say you already had. anyway, didn’t i say it wasn’t your fault? why do i even bother talking???? elizabeth, who manages to jump into apologies without any real willingness to make overt concessions about any wrongdoing. (an apology that leads them to a speakeasy is much more suited to her, really.)

as mentioned before, elizabeth really is a million things all at once, and she’s a mess of contradictions on top of that—see: completely fearless and deeply terrified, a woman who answers her husband’s admission of her own brilliance with “i know” but cannot accept that olive thinks she’s amazing. a lot of that, imo, stems from the fact that every time she walks into a room, she has to prove herself. so she brandishes her intelligence like a blade, for it is only with a sword to their throats that the men inside her circles (and outside, presumably) are willing to acknowledge her beyond her gender. and even then, no doubt there are many who dismiss the weapon for a toy, or suggest she cannot even hold it properly, so unprepared are they to change a lifetime of bullshit ideas that they craft their own false reality. and bill has known her his whole life; presumably, elizabeth was central to the foundation of his own ideas surrounding gender. he has had access to her brilliance at every turn.

olive is an anomaly. olive catches her off guard. all elizabeth has done is upset her, and yet olive says with conviction almost virulent that it is criminal that they will not give her a degree. but elizabeth still holds the sword in her hand, and so she swings it in defense, instead, in aggressive disbelief. because, of course, elizabeth’s never met anyone like olive.

but, of course, olive’s existence forces elizabeth to reconcile much more than just that. at least, sort of, though elizabeth’s pretty stubborn about closing her eyes and putting her fingers in her ears and waiting for them to go away. (ELIZABETH YOUR HUSBAND LITERALLY FINGERBANGED YOU WHILE YOU WERE BOTH WATCHING OLIVE SPANK A GIRL BUT SURE, YEAH, VERY MYSTERIOUS FEELINGS.) that she manages to frame the conceit of them all trying this thing out more like a research project than like, hi, i like you too? is almost too elizabeth to handle. that the second there is no denying this particular combination of sexual attraction and love—what else is the lie detector good for if not invariably forcing inarguable realities at them?—elizabeth retreats into sarcasm. “open emotional dialogue” isn’t exactly her forte of fortes, is kind of the point i’m making here. (the surprising moments of truth are always interesting, though. “i was afraid i’d always be in his shadow,” for instance, is a startlingly sincere moment of vulnerability, which i think is an important nod to the shift in her relationship to olive. i mean, obviously they started flirting way back in the speakeasy, but it’s inherently a given with that line that she sees them as existing on the same playing field. elizabeth, inviting other people onto her level? a miracle!)

here’s the thing; elizabeth is a disaster, and a revolutionary, and a realist. in an effort to achieve the goals she thinks she can (forcibly! with much effort!) achieve, she has already made concessions, things like: demand her goddamn doctorate due, but surrender her name. i think elizabeth has probably, pragmatically, already had to rearrange enough of herself and her life to fit into the crawl space that might, if she bends and scrapes and pushes hard enough, win her access to the other side—the things she wants, the vision she imagines. (a world she is as stubbornly committed to as she is her Opinions About Things.) bill has not had to make the same kinds of sacrifices, and so giving this thing up—this person up, this person they both love—is inconceivable to him. but elizabeth sees their love as something that has already bent her into the wrong shape; they have lost their jobs, an essential part of elizabeth’s future. bill demands their happiness be prioritized; elizabeth’s perspective isn’t half so black and white. since when can a woman simply have the things she wants?

one of the most interesting things elizabeth says, in the way that it sort of lays bare her character, is the whole: “they are right to shun us, and perhaps they are right to beat us. not because we fuck each other, but because we’re foolish enough to think we’re better than them.” which, a) obviously we have access to the amount of shame she keeps inside her, which is a lot, but b) this idea that elizabeth has always held herself a little aloof from the rest of the world, in terms of her own superiority complex, is v. real and v. interesting. and the idea that it’s that high ground that she feels come crashing down when they get caught is fascinating. like, only when the neighbors were suddenly able to exact judgment, to ruin the lives of their children, did she realize that she’d been pretending to see them from a tower above. that nothing she’d ever done—that no proof of her own intelligence—could change that, that it was her supposed disillusionment of their own superiority that had safeguarded their relationship in her head.

in the end, of course, she finds it is a loss she cannot bear. stubborn asshole that she is, one can only imagine how very long she would have spent miserable and steadfast about the decision were it not for bill’s prognosis. but with a little hand-holding from bill along the way, it’s elizabeth who finally chooses the thing that has brought her the most happiness, and who issues a damn apology like she means it. (and rebecca delivers a performance more than worthy of oscar buzz, dammit.)

WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO OLIVE. let’s start with the descriptors the movie provides for her, first from bill: beautiful, guileless, kind, pure of heart. and then, from elizabeth: an exceptional student, a quick study with a passion for learning, strong work ethic, keen mind, an unwavering moral compass, and a deeply instilled sense of justice. (obviously, a lot of those are re: academics, given it was from a letter of recommendation – a letter of recommendation for a student she and her husband have more or less just propositioned! iconic – and “an unwavering moral compass” is still a hilarious dig, but anyway.)

so obviously olive’s “beauty” is at the center of the film’s early conversations – this idea of asset vs. albatross plays a heavy role, and what it means as a quality that olive must manage and navigate. even though elizabeth acknowledges it as a detriment, it’s also basically the foundation of their first encounter—the way olive’s beauty has already invaded the space of elizabeth’s marriage, professionally speaking or otherwise. and it’s kind of interesting that it’s more or less the assumptions surrounding olive’s appearance and impressions that basically kickstart her interest in psychology in the first place – that she is so incredibly frustrated with her interactions with people (unlike elizabeth, she doesn’t walk a blade into every room she enters).

anyway, i’ve mentioned it before but it’s still one of my favorite things, and i do think it bears noting: olive’s investment in the marston/holloway duo begins with and is showcased in its beginning stages primarily via her admiration for elizabeth. in so many ways – both within the film’s universe and in meta terms – bill is the obvious choice here. young pretty ingénue ™ falls for charming intelligent attractive (male) professor ™ who is, as it happens, very clearly into her. all of which, of course, the movie (delightfully!) paves the way for, but by the time there’s more focus there they’ve also crystallized into people not done justice by those descriptors alone, particularly in olive’s case. the point: elizabeth being as compelling to olive as she is right from the beginning i think says a great deal about olive, who is utterly charmed by a woman so brazenly, indelicately brilliant.

i mean, honestly, here’s the thing: angela did a SHIT TON of research over the course of eight years about the marstons. that’s why it’s so easy to spot which decisions she made that were very active departures from likely history, like this one. honestly, as someone who truly could not give less of a shit about the “veracity” of the movie as it applies to the movie’s quality/worthwhileness/watchability, i definitely think it’s fascinating to consider in terms of the choices angela made—olive becoming a part of the family first as bill’s mistress in real life (note: not to suggest i’m wielding total historical fact, just at least one propagated history, and one that likely would have been developed by another director) vs. an olive whose initial attraction lands at the feet of elizabeth’s radicalism. an olive who is wooed by the ferociousness of elizabeth’s intellect! i ask again: WHO BUT ANGELA WOULD HAVE EVER WRITTEN THEIR STORY THIS WAY. (in case this needs clarifying: no, i do not in any way make this claim to make an “exclusive attraction” claim, i mean to make note of the particular choices that provided the early foundations for their relationship, narratively speaking; obviously, them all being in love with each other is quite literally the entire point of the film, wonder woman be damned.) (jk diana i love you!!!)

as a whole, olive’s relationship to feminism is super interesting and absolutely a thing i would have loved them to explore more (among, like, the other nine hours of things i want more content about). it’s also another part of the whole appearance vs. reality question as it applies to olive (i thought that you were just… / what? / i don’t know. not that.) and what a world that olive, too, is allowed to be so many things: a cult sorority pledge master, kind, just, raised in a convent; the daughter and niece of radical feminists, incredibly smart, the bravest person in the whole movie, etc. etc. (also, THE ONLY FUNCTIONING ADULT. but we’ll get there.) her “guilelessness” is complicated by her history, and even as we are presented with the possibility of naivete, the “observing olive” scene sort of dismisses that cut-out figure out of hand, by way of elizabeth. olive knows exactly what she’s doing; she has lived many years having to navigate precisely the right amount of eye contact to make with a boy, precisely the tone to select. that is practice, and experience. she both finds herself apologizing every other minute and is unwilling to be anyone’s doormat—accommodating, yes, generous, yes, but even as early as the elizabeth/bill/olive apology sequence, she by no means jumps at the chance to accept this vague gesture. she wears her emotions on her sleeve and finds herself the more powerful for it.

olive is absolutely searching at the beginning of the movie – for explanations, for answers, for the kind of life she wants to lead. (for, i think it’s safe to say, elizabeth’s respect—a much more arduous ask than her husband’s.) and the truly incredible thing about olive is that as soon as she experiences the thing that she wants, she knows herself well enough not only to know with absolute certainty that it is what she wants, but also to pursue the hell out of it. after their joint first time, olive literally has no doubt left in her; this makes her happier than anything else she has. “unwavering moral compass” or not (lmao), uh, what fiancé? because the truth is that olive’s heart is her conviction, not duty. if it’s right, she will feel it. and so she does.

olive’s connection to her emotions, to her convictions, to her awareness of what she wants—like, it’s honestly a superpower. emotional intelligence and academic intelligence? honestly, chill. she’s also kind of their guiding light, whether in the moment she steps out on that platform in the pseudo-wonder-woman outfit, thereby changing the conversation entirely, or the first time she kisses elizabeth and rearranges everybody’s headspace. she always casts light on the next step of the narrative, on a place often frightening but a place everybody else will end up by the next act, anyway. (elizabeth may expect people to meet her halfway in terms of words, but olive’s the one reaching out her hand at every turn, waiting for someone to take it. and olive is the one—in many ways—with everything to lose.)

olive takes most care of the children; olive is the one most often sending them off to school with lunches in hand; olive is the most capable at wrangling something edible out of the oven; let’s be honest, olive is definitely the only who can convince their 1930’s (etc) cars into motion when they’re feeling particularly stubborn; olive likely exchanges baked goods with the neighbors and shares small talk and offers the helpful advice only possible from someone who cares enough to be a good listener. olive makes friends. so i ask you: literally, how the fuck did elizabeth and bill ever live their lives without her?

elizabeth probably spends more time making snide comments about the neighbors than making friends with them; bill spends time working on manuscript #17 (and then, you know, the obvious), although i’m sure he can be wrangled out to offer some charm every now and again.

(clearly not enough for Prying Neighbor to call his name when she walks in their damn house, though. I WILL SAY, while i’m here and because i can, the biggest moment of discontinuity in this entire movie is Prying Neighbor shouting elizabeth’s name next after olive’s. OLIVE, yes, checks out, she’s home and available and friendliest most of the time. BUT WHY ELIZABETH??? WHEN WOULD ELIZABETH EVER BE HOME ON A WORK DAY??? BILL IS THE ONLY OTHER PERSON IN THE HOUSE WHO WOULD USUALLY BE HANGING AROUND. I CANNOT MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE. i mean, i’ve since headcanoned that they’re always making fun of the fact that she literally cannot get into her brain that it’s elizabeth with the regular job and not bill, but i’m just saying.) 

anyway, returning from that tangent: i think the exchange about happiness in the final hospital scene provides an interesting echo to elizabeth’s earlier “love – it doesn’t matter” (are you happy? / does it matter?), which is fairly heart-shattering from someone who’s been certain of and willing to pursue happiness throughout the course of the whole movie. but it’s also an incredibly valid question: it’s not as if “happiness” was in the calculus when elizabeth told her to leave, either. what does happiness actually mean to them? (the brief shots of them without OLIVE are! fucking! brilliant! angela’s ability to make that tiny bed look empty without olive in it was a stroke of genius.)

and, of course, “does it matter?” is the question the movie answers resoundingly in the affirmative. in the end, it’s olive’s choice that decides how the film will end. it’s olive who gets to say “no,” who gets to dictate the terms. it’s olive with all the leverage. it’s olive who decides if she will meet elizabeth halfway. it’s olive with elizabeth’s heart in her hands. it’s olive who deserves a new goddamn stove, you assholes.

in the end, it’s olive who has the capacity to shape their future, and shape it she does. for decades to come.

#professor marston and the wonder women #ok this was over 3k words so i'm done talking forever now goodbye #hopefully that works for your 70 paragraphs of meta anon! i...could have added more but a girl's gotta have self-control somewhere #anonymous #asks #movie: professor marston and the wonder women

[stitchthebratprince-blog]

Yesterday was good day. Well as good is its going to get without you. I did something that i did not want to do but that you so desperately wanted when you were here. I cried when i saw Jorge, Alex in our house. In your home. I did not want to take them to go see you. I cried cause i did not want to do it. Not without you. I didn't want to deal with this. I cried but after that felt you in my heart. I still do. You gave me the strength to deal with this to persevere.

I was not prepared for the hugs. I wanted to just to shake their hands be distant and civil. I guess a bit cold. But i wanted to be on my best behavior, for you. I was though on my best behavoir. I didn't put Jorge in the ground like I promised him because my promise to you is more important.

I got to the mortuary early. I flew there to see you. I left them in my wake. My mom being who she starts to nag me about it. Trying to claim rights she lost long ago. Rights you made sure she knew where yours, when you were here. We protected each other.

I had to wait for Korrey the lady that is helping us, better yet me with these arrangements. I really wanted to dress you. My mom wants to be a miteda but i stopped her at the door. Your only fault was that you are very vanidosa. I knew that whatever state you were in you did would not be happy if they saw you like that. I went in before them by myself. I wanted, needed to do this myself. Well at least with out their help. Ended getting help from one of the worker in the mortuary. I put your pjs on 1st. I cut your toe nails. You always let them get to long. You should have told me you needed them cut already. I even cut the skin flap on the sole of your right foot. The one that always bothered you. put your socks on cause i know how you hated having cold feet. I put your crocs on in case you may have wanted to get up and walk around cause i know you hate walking barefoot, i hoped you may have gotten up to walk around for me one more time and told me anything and everything else you needed to tell me and to hug me and give me one last kiss. I even put on your nice robe in case i know how when you are outside of the house for a long stay like in the hospital, you dont like to be in just your pjs. You like to be covered up. You hate the cold but you also hate the heat more. But Your body was so cold.

Alex rode with us. He is a bit more respectful now or it could be that they are in mourning.

My dad and Jorge got lost or better yet I left them behind.

It reminded me of the winter when we would wake up in the morning and I would cook breakfast and you would come into the kitchen or when I would go to your room to wake you up and you would hug me and even though the heater was on your hands would be so cold and then you would be trying to get your hand under my shirt to hug me and steal my heat to warm yourself up. "Hmmm you're so warm. Give me!" And i would scream and we would play around and laugh while i tried to wrestle you off while in a loud and playful voice i would say ,"Stop! get off me dude! How are you so fucking cold?" We would only stop after the babies would start barking and dog piling on us and kiss us. You would let go and say, "Babies calm down! I'm not hurting your poppa! He is ok he is jus a big cry baby is all. I couldn't hurt even if i wanted to he is to big and strong. " i guess i am proving you right with the crybaby part now.

As I was zipping up your robe for the final time. You did something. Your physical body did something beautiful and wonderful. I was filled with hope that my prayer were being answered that there was a miracle and you did it you came back. Do you remember when we try and see what clothes fit you and we try to fit you into a pair of pants or i would help you get dressed in the hospital and you would be sitting on the bed and then lay down and throw your head back and huff and complain, "I've gotten too fat." Well you threw your head of the little brick pillow but without the huff. I smiled because i know you are still here with me. You are filling me with strength to keep on going. I had to finally agree with you that you had gotten a little fat. I see it now but i never saw it before because you were always so animated so vibrant and alive. Even in your sleep. But at least i was right it was water weight because they said because of the decomp you retain a lot of water and were beginning to leak all of that water. At least in death you shed that water weight right? Always with the extreme measures

To me you are my mom. To me you are beautiful. To me you are the whole world and more.

After i was done getting you dressed i called the family in. Who by now are as good as strangers to me but were never ever far from your mind and heart. Its been 10 years since i last spoke to them, a month in my mom's case. But I agreed to let my mom get them organized to see you on friday. Its what you really wanted in life and i denied it to you. You never held any ill will to me for it because you know i didn't want to expose you to pain. These people were toxic to you. You never deserved their hate. You never deserved their anger towards you. You never held any ill will toward them, all you had was love. You were not perfect but god dammit you were close to it.

They all went to you. One by one and said their good byes. They cried. They hugged you. They kissed you. They asked for your forgiveness. I had stop crying. There was no anger only a stillness in me. I felt all of this was very hypocritical at this point. I didnt say anything though. I didnt reach out to comfort anyone. I behaved. I let go out and wait and then we said our good byes. That soon you will be home to rest in your house. I know how you hate being gone from the house for to long. The babies miss you and i asked that when my time comes please let it be you that comes for me. Don't leave me. Please keep an eye on me. But if you can some way some how please come back to me. I'll need you no matter what. Its selfish of me but i don't care. You let me be selfish.

We had dinner. We ate at your favorite thai restaurant out here in riverside. I felt such warmth there. Not heat from outside we even got an extra thai ice tea. I guess that was for you. I drank it though. I thought you would not mind you know because of the lack of a physical body and you being dead and all. I know how much loved them though. I was so at peace yet so disconnected. After dinner though when we left the restaurant i had it out with them. I told them off. I didnt cuss at them Or say it in anger. I said it from the heart. I've started to let go of the pain and hate you were so worried would consume me. I guess you were worried about me getting angry but i didn't i only cussed twice. I laid all my issues with each individual person and told them how it was going to be. Jorge got angry i guess. I didnt really care not just because i exposed all of his sins but because i did it in front of his lady. I know what you would have said in the car. "You told them only 6 people. Thats you, my mom, my dad, alex, leslie, and him. He shouldn't have brought his entourage. But it was nice seeing oswaldito. He has gotten so tall." It was a reckoning. For them and for me. I did apologize to them because i know i was the only thing keeping them from you. I horded your love and attention. I tried to protect you. I feel bad because you wanted this, You were wearing me down on this issue, and i kept denying you. I know most of all you wanted this because you wanted me to let go of the hate and anger and i did.

Jorge left after that in a huff and mom wasnt happy eitherLeslie wanted ice cream so we went to the plaza. We sat around and talked we tried to talk about you but you know mom. She is so self centered and started in on her issues with my dad. I didnt want this shit eithe and i told her this. She got upset cause i shut her down. We left after that.

I had thought things were going to be bad and i had made plans i overbook. I should have cancelled them. I should have just stayed home. I just dont want people to think i am suicidal. Everyone keeps thinking that. I think but i am not. I wont hurt myself or the babies. They are our family. They are your legacy. Ohana! And what does ohana mean? It means family and no one gets left behind. At least now that you are no longer physically here i can start to fill the house with pictures of you and us like i wanted.

I still feel you here so i will stop with the day to day bs. I'll limit this to the things i cant say to you in public. Cause if people think i am going to off myself now they will probably have me committed if i started to talk to you out in public... at least when i do talk to "myself" when i am problem solving i'll be talking to you.