#have been trying to figure out for literally centuries and probably even

[not-poignant]

WOWZA. Loved the new stain chapter. I wondered if you could share your thoughts concerning why Alex is still so obsessed Sebastian this many years out of highschool (considering they hardly interacted since). He even expressed that it's love! Obviously they are both very changed now and hardly know anything about eachother. So why is Alex still so attached? I'd love to hear your perspective, thank u Pia!!

Hi hi anon!

So, yeah, Alex knows he's in love with Sebastian and has known it for a while. He admits that in chapter 9, and hasn't ever really flinched away from it.

As for why... No one really knows exactly why they fall in love with the people they do. Or at least, many people don't. It's often not logical, and you sometimes meet people who are way better logical matches and never feel anything more than fondness or general affection. Love is kind of messy like that, and I don't have a neat, logical answer for you, because emotions really hate those :D

I don't think it's true that Alex knows hardly anything about Sebastian. He knows a lot of things about Sebastian, because he's observed him so closely, for a long time. He knows Sebastian has friends but still perceives himself as a loner. He knows Sebastian thinks he's better than the town. He knows Sebastian likes frogs, likes to keep a clean home, is gay, and cares a great deal about making sure people get paid equitably no matter what the job is which gives him a good idea of Sebastian's political leanings.

He knows Sebastian's cologne, the foods he likes to eat, what he likes to drink, and what he likes to wear. He knows how Sebastian lives and that he likes to game and enjoys media. He knows Sebastian is interested these days in staying fit but tends to do it via fighting in the mines, and he knows Sebastian is a very adept hunter. He knows Sebastian has poor communication skills and he knows Sebastian is very good at picking clothes that flatter his appearance.

He knows Sebastian is extremely smart, and very bright in areas relating to maths, science and IT, and that he could probably do anything he wanted to. He knows Sebastian was married, and he knows Sebastian has come from a relatively broken home that looks neater on the outside than it really was. He knows Sebastian lived in the basement for a while and while that sounded super depressing, it was actually a huge space that was one of the largest areas in the house. He knows Sebastian comes from privilege, and doesn't really know what it's like to experience poverty or true deprivation. He knows Sebastian has a mean streak and an ugly streak and can be malicious, and that he's very good at verbal sparring, and he knows Sebastian cares about animals, and also wants to look after people.

I could go on, but I don't think we can really say 'Alex knows nothing about Sebastian' because if anything he knows more about Sebastian now than he ever has. The discrepancy is that we can't say the same for Sebastian when it comes to Alex. He's only learning piecemeal, and it's happening slowly. If anything, Alex is more attached now than he used to be.

Alex finds Sebastian handsome, he feels an electric thrill when he's around him, when he looks at him, he thinks 'that's one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen.' He finds Sebastian interesting as a person, even though he doesn't necessarily trust Sebastian to always really care for him in turn, he knows that Sebastian at least cares a little. He wants to make Sebastian happy and proud of him, and he wants to impress him, and he wants to make him smile, and has thought more than once that he would do just about anything to keep making him smile.

Like, he just loves him. It's something that's grown stronger - not weaker - with time. The more he gets to know Sebastian, the more he wants to spend time with him.

I'm sure Alex has asked himself 'why did I fall in love with him of all people' many, many times, and he doesn't know either. I'm sure he's looked for solutions, and tried to not feel that way, but brains and bodies do what they do.

Love rarely makes sense. That's why not all relationships work just because you love someone, because many of us fall in love with people we're completely incompatible with on a fairly regular basis. Love isn't enough to make a relationship (or friendship) work. You need a lot more than that.

#asks and answers #a stain that won't dissolve #thespectaclesofthor #sdv sebastian x alex #can't be answering the mysteries of life fully anon #'why do people fall in love' has been a question that scientists and philosophers #have been trying to figure out for literally centuries and probably even #thousands of years #but love alone will not make a relationship good or healthy #i'm sure many of us can think of times we've loved people who have hurt us or haven't been good for us #some of us have even wished we wouldn't love that person #but love doesn't listen #a lot of the time #administrator gwyn wants this in the queue

[azriels-shadowsinger]

Confessions (Azriel x Reader) - Part Two

wc: 3.7k

warnings: smut! minors dni!

a/n: thank you so much for all the love on part 1!! hope yall enjoy!

Read Part One

Once you are alone again, you immediately go in search of Azriel. Maybe you’re imagining it, but you swear your lips are still tingling from where he kissed you. You don’t even know what you would say to him after royally fucking up that entire conversation, but you have to try. His usual spots were no luck, as were his room and basically the rest of the House of Wind.

He’s gone. Fuck.

The next best option to to go find Mor and hopefully sort through some of the thoughts racing inside your head. You find her in her room, lounging on her bed reading. She gives you that same worried and apologetic look from earlier, but you stop her before she can apologize again.

“Don’t say anything. It's fine, I’m fine. But we need to talk, like right now.” You say anxiously and sit on her bed with her. After you repeat to her everything that Azriel had said, Mor is beaming from ear to ear.

“He really said that? Holy gods, y/n! What did he say when you told him you felt the same way?” Her eyes are wide with excitement.

“Well…. I didn’t. Feyre interrupted to check on me, and then he left before I could tell him anything. And now he’s nowhere to be found.” You sigh and try to hide the disappointment on your face.

“Oh y/n. I’m sorry.” She says softly and wraps an arm around you. “He just left? He didn’t even give you a chance to say how you feel?” She questions.

“Not exactly…” you draw back, embarrassed. “He was basically begging me to tell him I felt the same, but I completely froze and didn’t say anything.” I murmur and look at my hands, ashamed.

“Y/n!” Mor yells.

“I know, I know! I’m a gods damn idiot! This is what I have wanted for literally centuries, but once I finally get a chance… I completely fuck it up!” You flop back onto her bed in defeat, running your hands over your face. “I don’t know what happened! He kissed me, and I just froze! What is wrong with me?” You groan. Mor rubs a soothing hand on your arm.

“It will be okay. You said he wasn’t anywhere in the House of Wind, so he probably found some mission that sent him away for a few days, just like he always does when he is avoiding his problems.” She reassures. You nod in agreement. “In the meantime, you need to figure out what the hell you are even gonna say to him, because you really can’t fuck it up again." She chuckles, and you throw a pillow at her.

“Not helpful, Mor!” You laugh.

———

Days pass, and there is no word from Azriel. Rhys said he should be back by the end of the week and even used his daemati powers to request that he return earlier, but Azriel refused.

You try not to let his absence and your lingering anxiety about the situation bother you too much. On the outside, you go about your day as normal, but internally, you feel like a complete gods damn mess.

———

The weekend arrives, and you anxiously await any news that Azriel is back. You don’t even bother trying to be subtle, checking the hallway between your rooms every time you hear the slightest noise.

Soon it is well after midnight, and you begin to accept that he isn’t coming home any time soon. You wander down to the kitchens in search of something overly sweet to ease your sorrows. Several chocolate chunk cookies later, courtesy of Elain, you still don’t feel much better. You stare out the kitchen window while you eat, lost in thought of what to do now.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see something move. You turn around to look, but no one is there. You were about to call it a night and go back to your room when you see the shadows in the corner moving ever so slightly. Your breath catches in your throat and you stare at the wisps of darkness. Could it be?

Two small shadows dart out of the corner toward you. Having been caught, they move closer and swirl around your legs eagerly.

The cool sensation makes you giggle, and you look down at them, ignoring the ache in your chest that it wasn’t him. But he must be here somewhere if his shadows are back. You rush up to your room, shadows trailing behind you. Just as you turn onto your hallway, you see Azriel standing outside his door. He stops and stares at you for a moment, a pained look in his eyes. Before you can say anything, he quickly slips into his room and shuts the door.

Okay, ouch. You get that he might not want to talk, but he could at least be civil. The two shadows at your side linger for a moment before slipping under his door as well. Once again, you are alone.

———

Morning comes after a very poor night’s sleep. You wait until the sun peaks above the horizon before stepping into the hall and sitting on the floor against the wall, waiting for Azriel. Half an hour passes, and he still hasn’t emerged from his room. That’s unusual, he’s usually up to train by now. You knock on his door, but the other side is silent. He must already be gone.

You make your way to the training ring, and thankfully you found him there. Azriel and Cassian were sparring hand-to-hand in the ring, and it was apparently a very intense match since they were both glistening with sweat. Azriel faces away from you, so you can only see his shirtless back, but holy gods his back. You can’t help but stare as his broad shoulders move and his muscles ripple. Cassian finally notices you after several minutes and smirks at you, stopping the match. Azriel looks behind himself in confusion, but his expression immediately changes to panic when he sees you.

Well, it’s now or never. He will just keep evading you if you don’t talk to him now. You walk over to the training ring.

“Good morning, boys. Cass, do you mind if I step in and practice my sparring with Azriel? I’m a bit rusty and could use his help.” You ask sweetly, giving him a very obvious glare that says to leave. You’re not sure what all Azriel has told him, but he catches the hint immediately.

“Oh, uh, yeah. I have to, uh… go find Nesta.” He hurries off, leaving you alone with Azriel.

Azriel takes a step, like he wants to leave too, but you step in front of him.

“What do you want, y/n?” His prominent dark circles and sad eyes make your chest ache.

“I told you, I want to practice sparring. Just like we used to.” You give a hopeful smile and pull your hair up. He sighs in defeat and steps back into the ring with you. His shadows inch forward like they want to approach you, but ultimately stay by his side.

“Fine. But I don’t want to talk.” He mumbles. You nod and get into your fighting stance. He seems very apprehensive to attack first, so you make the first move. After a few minutes, the two of you get into the groove of it, moving so naturally with one another.

“You. Don’t have. To talk.” You say breathlessly between attempted punches. “But I’m gonna.” He obviously doesn’t like that, so he starts fighting back harder in an attempt to keep you from talking. You smirk at his increase in effort, dodging his punches. “Nice try. You forget who trained me.” The side of his mouth upticks ever so slightly.

“You’re right. That means I know all your moves.” He says smugly and avoids your attack. You try not to let his voice distract you, but damn, it’s so nice to finally hear him talk somewhat normally to you after so long.

“Last week, I didn’t-“ He swings at you, causing your words to cut off. You step aside and try again. "As I was saying-“ Another swing. You give him an annoyed glare and he just shrugs. “Azriel, will you please just let me ta-“ You dodge another attack. This is ridiculous, and it ends now. Quicker than he can react, you move behind him and knock his feet out from under him with one swift kick, immediately moving to pin his arms down and straddle his waist. Azriel half-heartedly fights back for a moment before giving up.

“Fine. You win. Can you let me go?” He avoids your gaze. You tighten your grip on his wrists. Azriel’s shadows wrap themselves around your legs, and you savor the familiar feeling of their chill.

“No. You’re gonna let me talk.” You and Azriel both know he could get out of your hold in a matter of seconds, but the fact that he doesn’t means he must be willing to hear you out. You take a deep breath and focus your spiraling thoughts. Azriel gives a silent nod, still looking anywhere but your eyes.

“Look, I messed up last week. I was still kinda freaked out about what happened with Mikael.” Azriel flinches at the name, his expression turning murderous.

“Fucking piece of shit got what he deserved.” Azriel mutters under his breath. You try not to think too hard about what that means, but the blood on his clothes last week makes it pretty clear what happened.

“Anyway, I was still freaked out, and then you were asking me to tell you if I meant what I said that night, and I just got embarrassed and panicked.” You take a deep breath. This is it. “I’ve spent centuries trying to hide my feelings from you. I even tried dating other males, but ultimately each relationship ended because I put you before them. And when you started spending more time with Elain, I got jealous and decided that I had to try and move on for real. So when you asked me to tell you how I felt, I just couldn’t handle the heartache. And then you kissed me, and every single thought left my brain. I heard you tell me how you felt, I heard you ask me to tell you I felt the same, but I couldn’t form the words Az.” He finally looks up at you, his eyes wide and hopeful. “And you left before I could get my shit together and tell you. So let me say it now. I have loved you, as more than my best friend, for longer than I can remember Az. I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out how to say that last week.” He looks surprised. "It's always been you.” You repeat the words he told you last week.

A moment passes. Then two. And then his hands are free from your grip, pulling you close to him and kissing you deeply. You don’t hesitate this time, kissing him back with just as much passion. Azriel’s hips lift slightly, making you suddenly very aware of your current position. You hesitantly move yourself to go from straddling his waist to straddling his hips, unsure of what exactly he wants to happen. He freezes for a moment, causing you to overthink and pull away slightly, but before you can pull back completely, Azriel’s hands grip your hips and pull them closer to his. He groans softly into your mouth, letting one hand move from your hip to the nape of your neck, pulling you closer.

One second, you are on top of him kissing, and the next he is flipping you onto your back, holding himself up with one hand next to your head while the other caresses your waist. His mouth begins to trail down your neck and onto the column of your throat, giving you rough kisses along the way. A small whimper leaves you, which only seems to encourage him more.

From across the training ring, you hear voices approaching. Shit, you both completely forgot where you are and how public this is. Azriel pulls away and quickly stands, reaching out a hand towards you to help you up. You wonder if the interruption will be the end of this heated moment between the two of you, but Azriel pulls you by the waist close to him.

“Your room or mine?” He asks with a strained voice. The voices get closer, and before you can answer, Azriel lifts you up with your legs around his waist and winnows you to his room.

———

Once you arrive inside Azriel’s room, he gently sets you on his bed and takes a step back, staring at you. You can’t tell what his expression says, but you suddenly feel very shy under his intense stare.

“Uh, you okay?” You ask hesitantly. He gives you a grin and nods.

“I’m great. More than great. I’m just taking a second to admire this moment because I’ve spent the pst week feeling like Prythian’s biggest idiot for confessing my feelings to you when you didn’t feel the same way.” He stalks closer to you, his grin transforming into a lustful smirk. “But now that I know you feel the same way…” he towers over you, gently pushing you back onto the bed as he moves above you. “I am going to savor this. Every. Single. Second.” He kisses up your neck between his last few words.

“Oh… uh, okay.” You blush hard as the words come out in a whisper and every thought leaves your brain. Well, every thought except for Azriel. His hands tangle into your hair as he kisses you, but unlike before, this kiss isn’t overly eager and desperate. It’s purposeful and passionate, but the hunger from before still lingers between the two of you. Azriel’s hands slowly slide up your waist, under your shirt. His fingers play with the hem for a moment.

“Is this okay?” He whispers in your ear and softly bites your earlobe. You nod in response, but he pulls back and puts a hand on your cheek. “I need to hear you say it. You need to tell me exactly how far you want to go. I don’t want to do something you aren’t comfortable with.”

“Az. Please, I need you. All of you.” You plead.

“Thank the gods.” He wastes no time slipping his hands under your shirt and bra. His fingers graze over your nipples softly, causing you to whimper quietly. Azriel pulls your shirt off and quickly unclasps your bra, throwing it across his room. His eyes darken as he stares at you. You instinctively try to cover yourself, but he immediately pins both of your wrists above your head with one of his hands. “Don’t you dare hide from me, sweetheart. You are fucking gorgeous.” His words come out low and gravelly, causing you to blush a deep shade of pink.

Azriel lowers his mouth to one nipple and sucks, biting gently, while he rolls the other one between his fingers. The sensation makes you let out a low moan. He switches, making sure to give both equal attention before moving lower.

“Can I trust you to keep your hands up there?” He asks gruffly.

“And if I don’t?” You challenge with a smirk. Azriel gives a low chuckle. You feel the familiar chill of his shadows moving up your arms and around your wrists, restraining you. Two more shadows start playing with your nipples and the cold feeling makes you arch your back.

“I always wondered how you would be in bed.” He lowers himself toward your stomach. “But it seems like you like to be a brat.” His eyes gleam with excitement. “And if this wasn’t the first time that I get to worship your body, believe me, I would fuck the brattiness right out of you.” His fingers play with the hem of your pants as he kisses down your navel. “But I’m gonna let that attitude slide just this once.” His filthy words send a rush of heat to your core.

His hot breath dances over your skin and he slowly drags down your pants and panties all at once. Azriel stares at your pussy with complete adoration in his eyes.

“You are so fucking stunning, sweetheart.” He groans and teases a finger around your entrance. “And so fucking wet. Gods y/n, you might have the prettiest pussy I have ever seen.” His fingers trail up to your clit and he circles it softly. Moans spill from your lips freely now as you buck your hips towards him. “Patience. I’m just getting started.” He smirks and spreads your legs wide, before lowering his mouth to your core.

Azriel switches between kitten licks to your clit and teasing your hole with his tongue. Your moans get louder as you become more desperate.

“More. Fuck, Az, more please.” You beg. He pushes one of his long fingers into your pussy and curls it, making you cry out.

“You like that, sweetheart?” He asks with a smug smirk, as if he doesn’t know the damn answer. His shadows continue to tease your nipples, while one trails down to circle your clit while Azriel fucks you with his fingers. You had never felt pleasure this good, this intense. Azriel returns to sucking your clit, occasionally grazing his teeth across it, causing you to throw your head back and moan loudly. The familiar feeling of pleasure builds in your core. As if he can tell you are close, he speeds up his fingers. “That’s it, y/n. Come for me.”

“Fuck Azriel!” You yell and clench around his fingers while grinding on his face. Your orgasm rips through you like an explosion. Azriel draws the feeling out longer with his fingers continuously moving inside you—slower now. “Az, please. I want you inside me. Now.” You whine. He looks up at you with a shit-eating grin, his chin wet with your arousal.

“I have waited a long fucking time to finally taste you, so I will stop once I get my fill.” He puts his tongues back on your clit and gives it a soft lick, causing your hips to buck at the intensified feeling. “Give me one more like this, sweetheart. I need you to cum on my face one more time before I’ll be satisfied.” He buries his face between your legs, eating you out like a male starved. This might be the hottest thing you have ever experienced. No male has ever been so eager to eat you out, especially not this well, and definitely never twice in a row.

It doesn’t take long for Azriel to bring you to the edge again. His fingers thrust inside your soaked cunt as he sucks your clit.

“Cum for me, sweetheart.” Right as your release bursts inside you, Azriel moves his face back up to your mouth, keeping his fingers in your pussy and on your clit to coax you through the orgasm. His shadows release your hands, and you grab onto his shoulders as he swallows your moans with his kiss. You eventually come down from your high and take a steadying breath.

Azriel grins down at you like a kid on Winter Solstice who got every present he wanted. “You are breathtaking, y/n.” He kisses you again and moves his hips above yours. “Are you sure, sweetheart?” His gentle tone fills you with warmth.

“Please, Azriel. Please fuck me.” He groans at your words and lines his tip up with your entrance.

“Let me know if you need me to stop, okay?” You nod. He slowly pushes himself into you, one inch at a time. Fuck, you knew he was big, but this is something else. “Are you okay?” He asks. You nod and lift your hips to meet his, encouraging him to keep going. Azriel pushes himself entirely into you and gives a low moan.

“Fuck, sweetheart, you feel so fucking good.” He starts to slowly move in and out, gradually picking up his pace until he is pounding into you, his eyes screwed shut in pleasure. “This pussy was fucking made for me.” He moans and drops his forehead onto yours. You feel your pleasure building again as his hand reaches down to rub your clit.

“I’m close, Az.” You moan into his shoulder. This causes him to slow down slightly, opting for agonizingly slow and deep thrusts.

“Not yet, y/n. I need to feel you more.”

Thrust

“I have wanted this for so long.”

Thrust

“So fucking long.”

Thrust

“And now you’re mine.”

Thrust

His eyes pour into yours intensely.

“I have loved you since I first met you, y/n.” He says in an intimately hushed tone.

“I love you too, Az. I have for so long.” Your words pull a moan from him, and he picks his pace back up, pounding his cock into you. His fingers return to your clit and he rubs circles, drawing out high-pitched moans from you.

“Cum for me, y/n. Fuck, please. Come on my cock, sweetheart.” It comes out more like a beg than a command. Your third orgasm causes you to clench around him and drag your nails down his back, probably leaving marks. A few more thrusts, and Azriel is spilling inside you, your name falling from his lips over and over.

You both lay there for a while, savoring the moment. After a minute, Azriel slowly pulls out of you, making you hiss from how sensitive your walls are. He heads to the bathroom and returns quickly with a wet cloth to clean you up. Once clean, he gets back into the bed and pulls you close to him. The two of you cuddle in silence for a while before he speaks up.

“I’m still convinced this is a dream.” He whispers in amazement while running his fingers through your hair.

“I’ll admit I’ve had similar dreams before.” You giggle. He turns you around to face him and raises an eyebrow.

“You’ve had wet dreams about me?” You blush hard and nod. “Fuck, that’s hot.” You giggle and bury your face in his chest as he pulls you closer.

“This isn’t a dream, Az. It’s real, and I really do love you.” You reassure him. You will tell him that a million times if that’s what it takes.

“I love you, y/n. So fucking much.” He hugs you tighter. The two of you doze off into a blissfully content sleep.

omg okay i hope yall liked this!! also btw i have never published smut ever before so i apologize if it sucked lol.

i’m having a lot of fun getting back into writing fics so please send me requests if you have any bc i suck at coming up with ideas.

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #acotar smut #acotar fic #acotar fanfic #a court of thorns and roses smut #azriel #azriel acotar #azriel x female!reader #azriel x reader #azriel x reader smut #bat boys #bat boys smut #my writing

[saigawrites]

Hey siri, how to take care of an aura jelly blob?

Continuation of my series | part 1 | part 2

Seelie! Genshin characters x Platonic! Gn! Reader

Sumeru men edition

Tags : fluff, crack, scenarios

Warnings : cursing, mentions of animal attack

Summary : you took home a strange creature, that looked nothing like anything from your world. So, you try to take care and somehow live with this sentient balloon.

You didn't know what had happened at all. You didn't know how and why you took home an intellectual blob with pretty colors. But, right now there is no time asking questions, as this flying circle thing has been squeaking for about 30 minutes, trying to explain you something. You came up with an idea in your mind, but for a moment thought it would be impossible. But, who knows? Maybe this creature actually has an intelligence and can write what they wanna say on a notebook?

Grabbing a empty notebook and a pencil from your workspace table, you open it and give the pencil to the creature. Shockingly, it holds it with tiny arms, and levitating themselves closer to the paper, they start to scribble something.

Wanderer ♥︎

"Filthy humanoid creature! I am the unnamed wanderer from teyvat! I know nothing about the surrounding environment around me. Tell me, where am I, so I can figure out a way to return to my homeland. And don't you dare to take advantage of my current state! I am powerful beyond your understanding, even if I'm not in my original form."

Okay, that's kinda freaky. Why is an aura balloon acting all supreme now?

When you read what he wrote, an "really?" expression set on your face. That's probably why he zapped you when you took him out of your bag.

As much as you know, there isn't a place called "teyvat" in any part of the globe. So, this thing is from another one. Great. You somehow bringed an alien into your house.

But at least, some of your questions were answered.

You found a bit funny that a floating circle with cat ears and tail was deliberately trying to boss around, though you didn't wanna get electrocuted again, so you simply followed whatever demands this alien thing could have.

Oh, his demands were BIG. No sleeping past 6 AM, doing intense research on the topic of multidimensional lapping, and long explanations about literally everything your world can offer you.

Well, you are glad that you don't have to feed him or watch after him.

That last part was a lie, as this seemingly harmless boss companion of yours was dangerously curious, and happened to cause trouble even if he was as soft as jelly.

Yeah, that time he wanted to see what type of clothes do your humans wear, he shaked that closet a little too much, as it almost fell on you.

You learned that he is surprisingly very strong after that, he even helped you put the heavy wood rectangle back in place.

Or that time you both were taking a walk in the forest, and he came too close to an aggressive tank with antlers, a 6 feet tall moose, making him react violently to you.

Gladly, the moose couldn't come any closer as your blue-purple friend somehow casted a heavy gust of wind, strong enough to push the animal away.

Your angry little jelly blob rushed to your side after that, afraid of you damaging yourself in any way. After scanning your face for any injuries and finding none, the cat blob made sure to not to stray away from you far.

Kaveh ♡

"Thank you, kind-hearted humanoid! I was so scared when I woke up in that place. Your rescue will be forever remembered by me. I am Kaveh, the architect of the sumeru city! It is an honour to be acquainted with such a peculiar creature like you! Please, help me find a way for me to get back to my planet."

First off, did he mention sumeru? The ancient city that existed centuries ago? Second off, did he call you peculiar? These balls be wildin

The warm-yellow bunny eared balloon floated around you excitedly, waiting for your response. You wanted to pet him and slap him into the void at the same time.

You got his vibe just right in your first interaction. The jelly ball acted all cute and adorable, but the clinginess of his made you progress on the aggression part in the cuteness-aggression feeling way more.

Seriously, this piss blob's ignoring of your personal space is on another level. The amount of times you had to shove him away from nuzzling all over your face and hair is overwhelming.

In his eyes, you are a majestic architectural masterpiece. He takes notes how your eyes and ears are on the same level, how your brows are exactly perfect centimeters away from your eyes. He loves your nose structure, he often stares at it to much, gaining a questioning look from you.

He is just like that with literally everything else in your apartment. He takes notes of the proportions of some objects, and in his seelie mind he finds ways to project your modern structures into his own.

Other than disturbing your piece he likes to look out the window, stare down at all of the other buildings and examine them with extreme focus.

Sometimes he even tries to make a sketch with his itty bitty hands, but fails miserably and comes crying to you, burying himself in your arms and making you pet his smooth body.

Al-haitam ♥︎

"I am Al-haitam, and I come from another world, as you probably already have guessed from our appearance differences. I thank you for taking me into a safe environment, may the archons bless your kind-soul. I ask you to fulfill my another wish, help me return back."

Who are archons? Are they some kind of deitys? Gods perhaps? You truly don't know.

His calm and reserved behavior matched his talking style. He kinda reminded you of the mystical tree, his colors and a leaf like antenna confirmed your statement further.

That's probably why you would burst out laughing whenever the green aura circle would act all smart, reading books and watching educational videos on youtube with you.

Though, after laughing your ass off, you would always think of his behavior as cute in a way. So much that you would have to hold your hands in place and resist the urge to just squeeze the life out of him.

Sometimes you couldn't hold it tough, and give in to your desires, smiling and giggling as you nuzzle this jello orb body of his.

Fighting back and eventually winning, he would aggressively bring your communication notebook and write down that your relationship is purely professional and you are disturbing his necessary research.

Making a ridicilously serious face and nodding repeatedly you would leave him alone for some time, only to come back again to lay on him and fight in the process.

Eventually he would just give up and go with the flow of your playfulness, seeing as he got exhausted of reading multiple books already.

And when you would get tired, you both would just lay there, napping peacefully as he nuzzles in your chest, listening to your heartbeat and think of how strange you are in his world perspective.

After waking up from a quick nap, he would poke you with his tiny arms and tug you to stand up to go to the library with him.

He really loved your libraries, the sight of your extremely detailed and textured bookshelfs and scriptures would make him scream like a fangirl on the inside.

He also liked your concentrated state, with your reading glasses on and gaze fixed on the letters. He would enjoy it even more when you would take notes of the subject, he's genuinely amazed of your handwriting.

Cyno ♥︎

"I am the general Mahamatra, Cyno. I thank you for saving me from the streets. I would be more than happy if you could get me back in my world, teyvat. Thanks in advance, or should I say, in later on."

What the hell was that. Was it... a joke? Okay, now is not the time to question what type of humor does this purple circle has.

Oh, but he's questioning you, looking at you with such a attentive gaze. Is he waiting for you to laugh?

Fulfilling his wishes, you chuckled from the amusement of not getting the joke at all. The blob didn't care though, as he simply jiggled in his place, proud of himself.

From that moment you discovered that this alien orb is a terrible jokester, as he would literally pull you from whatever you were doing to just check his new made ones.

And everytime you couldn't help but laugh histerically at his antics, because you wouldn't get the premise at all. All of his jokes never made sense, but were the most hilarious thing you laughed at in a while.

And he would always jiggle with pride after you laughed, bro really thought he gained a fan of his jokes💀.

One day you thought about showing him your world's perspective of humor, as you sat him up on the couch and turned on the tv with popular comedy shows.

Safe to say he would repeatedly jump from his seat, and roll on the couch from side to side, as his purple anubis ears would jiggle uncontrollably.

You took it as a sign of him liking it, and soon enough you both had a routine of watching comedy shows and gasp from laughing.

At first you thought he was just a happy go lucky guy, not realizing he can be sort of a guard dog.

Really, you only saw him being serious when he sensed something and flew to it's direction, only for it to be a racoon that he scared away with mini thunder.

Now you got why he was such a bright color of purple. Not gonna lie, you were a little scared to hold him after that, afraid he'll electrocute the shit out of you😰.

But it never happened, so you guess he's only friendly to you? Honestly, you felt kinda honored to have this status.

Tighnari ♡

"Greetings, suspectable another species of humankind. I am Tighnari, the forest ranger of the sumeru region. It is a pleasure to be in your natural environment, being able to study your world. Though, I would appreciate it if you could help me return back to sumeru. I still have a ton of things to do back there, so please, make sure to fulfill my request."

Is he some type of a scientist? "A pleasure to be in your natural environment, being able to study your world" yeah, my ass.

And he was an ass. Pain in the ass, to be exact.

He wouldn't leave you alone, wherever you would go or whenever time it was. He was always around you, floating and examining your features.

He just can't help himself, you look so strange! And everything around you looks so strange. He just has to know atleast something about the place he is in right now, what type of setting it is, how does it work, and yada yada yada...

That's what lead you to the situation you are in now, as he peeked out of your hoodie pocket, staring at all the contests of the supermarket you were in.

Even if you had told him already a thousand times that he can't go with you because he doesn't look like everybody else, he didn't listen and sneaked inside your clothes, successfully getting out of the house with you.

You desperately tried to cover his enormous ears with your hands, stuffing him further inside the pocket only for him to pop out from the other side. What a nosy aura blob.

It would get even worse when he would fly out to scan some object like salty pickles, thinking of it as peculiar, when in reality the only thing that's peculiar was him.

He would closely watch whenever you would put something in the cart, taking notes on how you hold the product and how you place it inside the metal structure.

He especially got very freaky about your world's greenery, demanding you to go out with him into a park, a nearby forest or literally anywhere where there is some type of plants.

You instead decided to take him into a local botanical garden, and when I say he went crazy, he went crazy.

Stopping every 3 minutes to find a new plant and examine it for about 20 minutes you and him spent the whole day in that garden.

He would poke your shoulder to it being numb, asking you to explain or tell what kind of plant it is, where does it grow, how does it grow, can we take it home, all that nerdy shit.

You did end up taking some small house plants afterwards, due to his unstoppable crying and squeaking, like a child wanting their parent to buy candy in the store.

He then made sure to always bug you to take care of the plant, saying that he is "incapable" of doing so himself. What a troublesome circle.

Oof, this ones LONG. And I'm proud of it😜. Genuinely hope you enjoy this, cuz I spent an eternity writing this😭.

Tag : @vault-of-reblogs

#genshin impact fluff #genshin impact isekai #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x reader fluff #genshin isekai #genshin x reader fluff #wanderer x reader #kaveh x reader #kaveh fluff #al haitam x reader #cyno scenarios #cyno x reader #tighnari x reader #genshin fluff #genshin scenarios #genshin headcanons #genshin crack #genshin seelie x reader #genshin seelie #al haitham x reader

[natimiles]

Safer With You (Isaac x reader)

Summary: When you wake up with a nightmare plaguing your mind, Isaac is the first person you think of for comfort, so you go to his room.

Words: 1447

Tags: sfw; fluffy; literal sleeping together; can be read as platonic or pre-relationship; gender neutral reader.

Notes: by the end of the month, you’ll be loving Isaac as much as I do. That’s my goal.

It’s been a whole year, and you’ve grown accustomed to life in a mansion filled with vampires. Despite the legends you’ve heard, you feel safest when you're around them. Every time you need help, you seek them out — more specifically, you seek Isaac.

Out of everyone, he was the closest to you. You two built a strong relationship. Even Comte found it interesting how the shy, anxious, and socially awkward physicist was more relaxed around you. Sharing secrets, practicing for his classes with you, stargazing in the garden, chatting about physics — even though you didn’t understand a thing — and whatever random thoughts your mind came up with. For every little thing, you knew you could count on Isaac, and vice versa.

That’s why, when you wake up with a nightmare plaguing your mind, your sweet friend is the first person you think of. You wish you had a phone to text him and ask him to come to you. It would save you from having to get up and walk through the silent and dark mansion to his bedroom. A chill runs up your spine as you recall the weird dream. You know that in the morning, you’ll look back and consider it silly, but right now, it’s still too vivid, too scary, and too real.

Taking a deep breath, you swing your legs over the side and stand up, padding your way out of your bedroom. The mansion is unusually silent tonight — not even Mozart is awake composing. You quicken your pace towards your final destination. Thankfully, there’s light seeping from under the door.

You softly knock, glancing around the hall while waiting, ensuring no one else is awake. It doesn’t take long for him to open the door, a look of confusion on his face that deepens into an even more perplexed one when he realizes it’s you.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

You don’t reply instantly; instead, you gently nudge him to the side so you can enter his room and close the door behind you. He continues to stare at you, confusion deepening as he takes in your frantic, scared face.

“Sorry to bother you,” you murmur. “I had a nightmare… Can I stay here?”

You make your way to his bed and sit down, crossing your legs. He remains standing, analyzing you and processing the information.

“Stay? Like… Sleep here in my room?” He blushes furiously.

“Yes, if it’s not too much of a bother for you.”

“A-ah, no! It’s fine. I can sleep on the armchair, I guess,” he mumbles, thinking aloud. He looks at the armchair, trying to figure out what he’d have to do to make it comfortable enough to sleep in.

“Isaac?” you call, and he hums in acknowledgement. “Could you… sleep here with me?” you ask uncertainly, patting the mattress with your hand.

He shoots his gaze back at you, his eyes widening and blinking frantically. He opens and closes his mouth three times before actually saying something. “I-in the same b-bed?”

If you weren’t so scared, you’d probably laugh at his expression, and how he could still be so shy in your presence. It’s probably something big and inappropriate for the century you’re currently in, but you don’t want to think about it now. 

“Do you mind?” you bite your lip and frown, whispering, “I don’t wanna be alone.”

“And you think… I… can help?” 

“You know I feel safer with you,” you reply, gazing into his cherry eyes. “But if it’s too much for you, it’s okay. I don’t wanna be a bother.”

“You’re not a bother,” he stammers. “Don’t… go to anyone else. You can stay.” He sighs and fiddles with his hair. “I’ll just organize these things; you can... um, you know…” He gestures to the bed.

You give him a tiny smile and nod, whispering, “Thank you.”

He had some things to finish before going to bed, but he thought you’d want him to lie down with you soon. He tidies up some things, just to make sure he doesn’t lose track of where he stopped his work when he goes back to it the next day.

Meanwhile, you make yourself comfortable on his bed. You crawl to the right side and adjust as best you can, pressing your back against the wall and pulling the blankets up until only your nose is visible. Isaac only has one pillow, so you leave it to him; you don’t want to bother him more than you already are. Now that you think about it, he probably had more things to do, and you just went there and ruined his plans because you were afraid of a stupid, silly nightmare.

Your thoughts are interrupted by the lights turning off. Thankfully, the moonlight casting from his window helps with your brief blindness, and you can see his figure approaching the bed in slow steps. He stands for a few seconds, and you hear him actually taking a deep breath before sitting on his own bed, still a little unsure of what to do.

“Get under the blankets with me,” you say softly.

“Alright,” he mutters under his breath.

He adjusts himself next to you and lays his head on his pillow, looking at the ceiling. Letting out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding until now, Isaac glances at you from the corner of his eye. Sensing something is odd, he turns his head to get a better look at you and realizes you’re without a pillow; he’s using the only one he has.

“What’s wrong?” you ask when he’s been staring at you for almost a whole minute in silence.

“S-sorry!” He blinks out of his thoughts. “I just noticed you didn’t bring your pillow.” He props himself on his elbow to push his pillow towards you. “You can use mine, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine,” you say. “Don’t worry, I’m good just being here and not being alone.”

“But isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“And won’t you be uncomfortable without it, then?” You smile, and he pouts from not being able to come back with something. You push his pillow back to him. “Please, use it. Besides, if you don’t mind… I can use you as my pillow.”

You never thought it’d be possible to see a blushing face with the lights off, but there is Isaac, your closest friend in the mansion, with his whole face red as an apple. He flops back down on his side, his gaze still lingering on your face, probably searching for any trace that you were just teasing him. However, he didn’t find it; he knew he wouldn’t. Despite your playful persona, you never teased him like this. Yes, you tackled him to the floor and tickled him until he started crying once, but you wouldn’t tease him like Arthur, just to make him blush and stutter. He realized a few months after being your close friend that you were just too honest, and what sounded like teasing was just your honesty kicking in.

“Sorry if I startled you,” you murmur, sensing his anxiety spiking up. “I didn’t mean to tease you or anything.” As he thought. “Like I said before, I’m already happy just not to be alone.”

For the second time in a short span of 10 minutes, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Thankfully, he is a vampire and can’t just die from being out of oxygen for so long. He stares at you for a whole minute before shifting, opening his arms.

“You can come here,” he invites you sheepishly.

You smile softly and shimmy your body to meet his in the middle. Isaac wraps his shaking arms around you, and you throw yours over him; you both sigh without even noticing, a calm feeling taking over your bodies.

“Thank you, Isaac,” you mumble on his chest.

“Don’t mention it. Now go to sleep,” he hums. “I’ll be here. Good night.”

He kisses your head before thinking, and you smile, squeezing him affectionately.

Your hands absentmindedly start to slowly travel up and down each other’s backs in a relaxing caress, lulling you into a tranquil sleep.

The next morning, even Napoleon is already up, and you both are still sleeping in. The former emperor goes to Isaac’s bedroom to see if he’s still there and knows where you are. When he opens the door and sees you two sleeping soundly and cuddling, he only smiles and closes the door again. He makes sure to tell Sebastian you’re both okay and that he’ll be the one helping him out in the morning until you wake up.

Masterlists

#hug me tight isaac please #life's unfair because I can't hug isaac #ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikevamp isaac #ikevamp isaac x reader #ikevamp x reader #ikemen vampire x reader #ikevamp scenarios #ikevamp fanfics #ikevamp platonic

[fatuismooches]

I'm in love with the "Traveler finding fragile reader" scenario I've seen floating around your blog because this scenario is super interesting for Dottore specifically. Actually caring about someone else, perhaps even more than he does himself and his ambitions, not having the upper hand, and being almost wholly at someone else's mercy in a meaningful way are all probably very foreign things to Dottore. Since I suck at writing proper stories, here are some scattered thoughts.

After all the times they've encountered and clashed with the Second Fatui Harbinger, the Traveler had subconsciously realized that they would have to be just as ruthless, just as cruel as he is to neutralize him. They'd truly come to terms with this after learning about your existence, and muster the will to act upon this knowledge as the doors to the location you were being hidden in slammed open. Paimon's gaze snapped to the source of the sound, and in that split second the Traveler summoned their blade and held its edge against your throat. (As an aside, imo the Traveler would totally do something like this if they had to. We saw how they were willing to coldly execute you-know-who in the Aranyaka quest.)

As he burst through the doors, Dottore was greeted with the sight of the accursed Traveler's determination-filled glare, their white floating imp's wide-eyed stare… and the lab's dim lights gleaming off the blade held over your throat. Their surprisingly calm voice grates against his ears. "Paimon, keep your eyes on Dottore. There's no telling what he might try."

The only other time Dottore had ever felt this alarmed in his centuries of existence was when you just didn't wake up one day, reduced to barely clinging to life with the support of his modified Akasha terminal. This was a new first for Dottore - the first time he lost his rationality. Objectively, this was a favourable scenario - he knew the terrain here like the back of his hand, which would be a major advantage against an opponent as powerful as the Traveler. With this, he had a decent chance of permanently removing possibly the biggest obstacle to the Fatui.

The above should have been what went through Dottore's brilliant mind, devising scenarios to bring it to fruition. Instead, every cell in Zandik's brain was working in overdrive, trying to find a way to somehow get the Traveler away from you, to keep you safe. He knows the kind of person the Traveler is - if it were anyone else, he'd have no problem calling their bluff and striking at the slightest hesitation, but this was you, the only life he couldn't afford to gamble with.

(How the actual confrontation goes down is anyone's guess, since I don't have any concrete ideas. A proper fight is likely out of the question because a clash between two of the strongest beings in Teyvat is going to be incredibly destructive - you're almost definitely getting caught in the crossfire somehow, and Zandik can't have that.)

oh MY GOSHHHHH I AM LITERALLY DEVOURING EATING THIS UPPP

Anon. Im. I have no words. Your writing IS SUPERBBB. ITS AMAZING. All those things you said are so true. Even to this day sometimes Dottore is surprised he cares about you this much. He would have never thought he had the capacity for that previously. He always thought he had the situation and his emotions always under control, yet his love for you still blossomed. That was the one time he felt as though he could not predict something. The Doctor was known for his meticulous plans and actions, with no room for counterattacks or opposition. He was used to the cowered figures, terrified expressions of the people beneath him.

Until now. 

Dottore doesn’t have much regrets in his life. He doesn’t regret his countless experiments or people he hurt. That didn’t really matter to him. But right now, he was thinking that he should have killed the Traveler when he had the chance. Then you wouldn’t be stuck in this situation, the Traveler’s blade held dangerously close to your throat, hanging you on the thin line between life and death. (Traveler’s dull blade never seems to disappoint ig…)

The sight has him slowly losing his normal composed, rational train of thought. The tone the Traveler takes with him only worsens his thoughts, and he can’t help but think back to the time when he nearly lost you. From then he swore to never put you in more harm than you already were. But it seems like that was a broken oath now.

Scholars must plan for every possible situation and take everything into account. And now, he has to consider the possibility you may… 

There are innumerable amounts of plans and actions unfolding in his head, but each of them leaves you at risk, the one thing he has to avoid at all costs. He simply cannot risk your life. You still have a life ahead of you, the one that you deserve, one when he finally cures you. And he shall not let this Traveler stop him, no matter what he has to do.

Even as this goes on, the Traveler still can’t help but be fascinated by the fact they have the Doctor in a chokehold, not by sheer power, blackmail, knowledge, or anything along those lines. But rather from a person who didn’t seem to be anything special. If the situation was different, they would have liked to see the kind of person you were to be able to change the normally ruthless, unfaltering Doctor into a hesitant one.

I enjoyed this tremendously infinity/10, I loved how u described Paimon as an imp 😭 Traveler better watch themselves after that because when he gets you to safety, he ain’t holding back 🚶‍♀️LIKE I WISH I HAD MORE TO ADD BUT THIS IS PERFECT. I can only imagine maybe the Omega clone stepping in somehow, or a very tense verbal confrontation between the two of them where he has to give up some secrets in exchange for you. Or a crash/explosion from somewhere else distracting the Traveler enough to be able for Dottore to retrieve you.

#smooches talks #fragile reader <3 #dottore love notes <3 #traveler being ready to kill always gets me 😭 #ok but i want to see traveler actually get beat in a serious fight #omfg i cannot wait for the dottore boss fight

[creature-wizard]

"If the Law of Assumption is fake, what about the success stories?"

This is a question gotten a few times, so I figured I'd do a post on it.

First of all, the methods used by LOA practitioners to change their beliefs about themselves would certainly have profound psychological benefits to many people who'd internalized false beliefs about their personal agency and value as people. There are a lot of great brain hacks here to break yourself out of learned helplessness and unwittingly sabotaging yourself and others through the Pygmalion Effect.

Here I would like to state: if these methods have helped you regain your personal agency, learn to love yourself, and develop healthy relationships with people, then by all means keep doing them. There's nothing wrong with using affirmations or using a little make-believe to make yourself believe.

Next, there's really know way of knowing for sure whether the LOA actually had anything to do with people's apparent successes. Like if somebody tries to manifest money and finds a hundred dollar bill on the ground within a week, it doesn't necessarily mean that the LOA was the cause of that. Sometimes people just find dropped money; it's not exactly statistically improbable.

Of course, it also doesn't mean that they didn't somehow metaphysically arrange for a hundred dollar bill to come their way. But even if they did, it wouldn't prove that Neville Goddard was right about literally everything, much less the extreme solipsism he pushes in pieces like The Pruning Shears of Revision.

We've also got to remember confirmation bias, where people are more likely to remember things that support their beliefs and dismiss whatever doesn't. Somebody might try to manifest a hundred things, get five of those things, and count the five as proof the LOA works, ignoring the ninety five that didn't. The reality is that the more things you try to manifest, the more likely it is that at least one of them will actually happen.

Also, there's the whole affirm and persist/living in the end deal, where people are supposed to just behave as if they have everything they want. When you see people posting about their successes, they might just very well be trying to act as if their desires have already manifested. They might not actually have it at all.

Finally, people just lie sometimes. Tumblr itself was host to the infamous hivliving, a blogger who lied about having HIV, among... many other things. If you ever want to learn just how ridiculously dedicated someone can be to keeping up a lie online, look into the story of MsScribe sometime. If you think nobody in the LOA community is lying, I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

In fact, Neville Goddard most probably lied about some pretty important shit. You've probably learned that he learned about the Law of Assumption from this Ethiopian rabbi named Abdullah, who supposedly got it from Kabbalah.

The thing is, if you've studied mysticism and the occult for any length of time, you pretty quickly realize that claiming to have been taught by a mysterious foreigner is pretty much just code for "I pulled it out of my ass."

It's also pretty obvious that the Law of Assumption has more in common with New Thought and Protestant beliefs about divine reward and punishment than it does with Kabbalah, which is a closed practice to non-Jews. (If you want to know about the history of Kabbalah, and get enough of an idea of what it's actually about so that you know why the Law of Assumption has nothing to do with it, I recommend Dr. Justin Sledge's lecture series over here.)

Additionally, Goddard's claim that the Kabbalah actually supports his obviously Christian form of mysticism isn't only just absurd, it echoes centuries of antisemitic Christians claiming that Kabbalah actually proves that Jesus is the messiah in order to try and convert Jews.

Goddard's use of the Bible, by the way, is appalling. If you've ever read the texts he quote, it's obvious that he's just ripping passages completely out of context to spin them into something that was definitely never intended by the writers. In other words, he's blatantly lying. (And by the way, if you ever want to learn about the real history of early Christianity, I recommend the work of Dr. Bart D. Ehrman. He's also got a YouTube channel over here.)

Now tell me this: if Neville Goddard so blatantly and so brazenly lied about the source of his ideas, why should we believe him when he claims that the Law of Assumption can do literally anything? Shouldn't we consider that maybe, just maybe, he might have lied about some of that other stuff, too?

#law of assumption #loa #loassumption #neville goddard #abdullah

[ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask]

Wanna another RVB story?

Chorus

John towered over Felix and Locus like a skyscraper among sheds. His armor clinked with each breath, a soft but ever-present reminder of the war machine within. The flicker of damaged consoles threw ghostly lights across his visor, making him look even more out of a comic book than usual.

Felix, whose armor looked like it had been used as a chew toy by a particularly vicious alien species, couldn't seem to stand still. He paced, kicked at stray pebbles, and threw his hands around like he was directing traffic. "Well, if it isn't the galaxy's shiniest Boy Scout," he sneered, barely containing his contempt. "To what do we owe the honor? Run out of kittens to save from trees?"

Locus, in contrast, might as well have been a statue, if statues could look unimpressed and mildly annoyed. "Spartan," he nodded, voice as flat as the horizon on a calm sea day. "Your intervention is unexpected."

John just stood there, not even a twitch. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he was trying to out-statue Locus. "I'm here because you two have turned war into a profit margin," he stated, as calm as a librarian in a ghost town. "This whole playing both sides to keep the war going? It's got to stop."

Felix threw his head back and laughed, loud and mocking. "Oh, listen to Captain Morality over here! We're making a killing, literally and figuratively. Why would we stop? Because you said so?"

Locus shifted slightly, probably the closest he got to looking uncomfortable. "We follow orders. This is our mission. I assume you have yours, but perhaps, not the jurisdiction here."

John, meanwhile, moved in closer, and you could just feel the seriousness rolling off him in waves. It was like he thought he could solve centuries of conflict with a stern look and a well-timed punch. "This isn't about jurisdiction. It's about ending a war that you're banking on. What about the people dying while you count your profits?"

Felix scoffed, folding his arms like he was wrapping up a bad comedy show. "Oh, spare us the sob story, Spartan. We all pull the trigger. Don’t pretend you’re not in the same mud as us."

Locus, the ever-calculating half of the duo, turned his helmet a fraction towards Felix, then back to John. "Perhaps, there's a more... strategic way to accomplish our objectives."

Felix rolled his eyes. "Oh great, now he's got you thinking we can all sing 'Kumbaya' and roast marshmallows together."

John wasn't having any of it. He squared his shoulders, a move that probably had a dozen tactical advantages. "It's about choices. You chose this path. I'm here to offer you a last chance to choose another before I make the choice for you."

Felix burst out laughing. "Did you rehearse that in front of a mirror, or does it just come naturally?"

As the standoff stretched, it was clear John wasn't budging—an immovable object in a world of unstoppable greed. His next words were low, almost intimate, "This ends today—with or without your cooperation."

Felix and Locus exchanged a look that said, "Is he serious?" but they both knew the answer. John wasn't just in the game; he was the guy who planned to flip the whole board.

This was awesome! You captured all of their characters fantastically and I loved seeing John square of with Felix. Hope to see more of this crossover!

#halo #john 117 #jaune 117 #rvb locus #rvb felix #others writing

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for stealing my enemies’ power source twice and “kidnapping” a famous pop star?

Okay, uh, this does sound bad when I write it out like this but here goes:

I (130+ M) am the ruler of a group of people that lost a war we fought in over 100 years ago. Exiled from society, forced to live in decaying underground ruins of an extinct species, blah blah blah. The main problem is we’re runnin’ out of power. Have been from the moment we lost the war.

The other side, though? Our enemies that defeated us over something as stupid as territory? They got a massive power source. We’re talking big as a building here. So, I figured, why not take it for myself? It’s not like they were gonna share it, and we were (and still kind of are) literally dying. That way I can at least stop the ruins we’re in from literally crumbling down around us.

The first time I tried it went HORRIBLY. My ex lover mortal enemy (130+ M) realized it was missing almost immediately, and recruited some kid to stop me. They very forcefully stormed their way into the cities we had built and LITERALLY killed innocent civilians. I tried to fight them and lost, obviously. They put me in jail until I broke out.

The second time I tried is… a lot less noble of me. My mortal enemy’s granddaughter (20+ F) also happens to be a pretty famous singer on the pop scene (considering her and her cousin’s LAST appearance caused 40% of my soldiers to defect…) and she’d been having a really hard time.

Long story short, I invited her to join forces with me. There may or may not have been gentle coercion that involved taking advantage of her weakened emotional state, but my point is that I did NOT kidnap her like everyone else thinks. She was willing to hear me out. So I took the power source a second time, and made her my second in command. This very clearly didn’t work, either, as her cousin (20+ F) and ANOTHER kid beat me up. Again. They put me in jail again, too, but I broke out eventually. Me and the pop star are still besties, though.

The problem? It’s been five or six years, I haven’t done anything else since then, but everyone ‘n their mother seems to think I’m the scum of the earth for just trying to help my people, even some of my former soldiers themselves.

And some of that is UNDERSTANDABLE! For literally a century I was drilling propaganda into their heads (NOT MIND CONTROL THOUGH COME ON PEOPLE) and being way, way too strict with how I treated my subjects. I KNOW I was the asshole there! I KNOW! And I’ve been trying to fix that!

…But am I the asshole for all that other stuff? It’s not like I can even steal the power source again, considering I’m gettin’ too old and me and my mortal enemy are on mostly neutral terms now, but I gotta know so I can make things right. My people don’t have to live in fear anymore.

I probably am, but I’d like a neutral opinion on this instead of the same people telling me I’m either the worst person alive or a saint that did nothin’ wrong at all.

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

[alteon77]

That Familiar Feeling of Family (or how Hob Gadling ended up as an uncle to his stranger's oftentimes feral children): Chapter 1

It's a pretty universally known thing that families are just strange. As Hob is quickly figuring out, however, this little fact is magnified by AT LEAST a billion when the family in question is Endless.

(A lighthearted story in which Hob Gadling finds out his stranger has married, makes friends with a homicidal maniac/ruler, and manages to become an exemplary uncle to a pack of magically mischievous children. Really, now all he has to do is convince everyone to stop calling his and Dream's weekly meetups "playdates", and then his life would be practically perfect.)

AO3 here, Masterlist here

Hob is running. 

Now, that isn't an unusual occurrence in and of itself. After all, the immortal has been forced to flee many many times in his centuries of existence, and he can say without a speck of arrogance that he's become rather adept at it. But this running is dramatically different for one very large reason. 

A literally large reason. 

In that it's the first occasion, at least as far as he's aware, that he's ever had to try and outsprint a gargantuan bloody dragon. 

Try being the operative term here, because while he is indeed foolishly attempting it, he's also failing miserably if the puff of steamed breath that's tickling his neck is any indication. Which he guesses makes an inordinate amount of sense. Really, has he mentioned already how massive his pursuer is? 

The beast behind him lets out a loud, guttural roar, its feet causing the ground to shake as it chases after him like it's just a giant dog and he's got a half opened packet of hot dogs in his coat pocket. 

Hob idly wonders whether he'll actually die if (probably better to say when) that thing finally catches and devours him. He's never had the misfortune of being consumed before, so he's not quite sure how that will work out for him. What if there's just an arm left? Will it still be him? Will he spend his eternity as nothing more than a single discarded body part that has sentience but no way to speak? 

"Archibald! No! Bad!"

The voice, when it calls out this rather ludicrous admonishment, is definitely that of a child. A little girl if he had to guess, and when he does a quick glance around to see where she might be at (so he can hopefully save her from being eaten) he's shocked to spot her standing near his would-be killer. For a minute, Hob can't make sense of what he's seeing. The girl is in front of the reptilian monster, uncomfortably close to one of its frankly enormous nostrils, and she's pointing a finger at it, wearing the sternest expression on her youthful features that he's ever seen in his life.

The dragon crouches down, hanging its head as if in shame while the child, his possible savior, roundly chastises it. "Archie! You know better. What would Dadda say?"

She softens her scolding, though, by running one of her tiny hands along the leathery snout over its mouth, the same mouth that Hob is completely certain is filled with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth, and he isn't quite sure how to handle this. What’s the protocol here? He feels frozen as he watches the scene unfold before him, not knowing whether he should intervene and usher the girl out of harm's way or whether she’s really in any danger at all, since she seems almost as if…. as if she commands this thing? Like a young Daenerys Targaryen, except for the facts that she looks to be about five and she's clothed in a ridiculously frilly pink dress paired with shiny, immaculately black combat boots.

He's honestly… so confused. But he finds himself moving closer anyway, driven by that curiosity he’s never lost in all of his hundreds of years of living.

The girl seems to gentle towards her… pet? Can a dragon even be called a pet? He's having difficulty thinking of this nightmarish creature as anything so mundane, but even he has to admit that it’s exactly what the hellbeast appears to be regardless. 

"He won't let you… won't let you be a dragon if he… finds out about this."

The dragon, that he's just starting to process must be named Archibald or Archie, since he's heard her say it a couple times, lowers its massive head to nuzzle against the child, a puff of steam unfurling from its nostrils to ruffle her hair as it huffs like it's pouting. She soothes it then, stroking her fingers along its dark scales, the ones that seem shot through with a little sapphire when the brilliant sun from above hits them at just the right angle. 

"I know," she goes on. "I won't tell him, Archie, but no chasing the dreamers. Dadda was ad… ada…" She frowns at this as if she's struggling over the word. 

And Hob, having once had a precious son of his own who sometimes got caught up on pronouncing things, can't help but to offer a quiet, "Adamant?"

The little girl's face lights up, her ocean blue eyes widening at him in something like grateful glee. "Adamant," she repeats slowly. "That's… it."

He takes a minute to study her then, this too young dragon tamer. She's a small child, lovely in that same ethereal, unnatural way that he's always associated with his stranger. Her hair is a mess of riotous raven curls that seem to be coming loose from a single braid plaited at the back of her head, and her complexion is almost translucently pale save for the bright rosy flush on her cheeks. 

"I'm… Hob," he supplies with only a mite of hesitation.

Her smile is almost overwhelming in its joy. "Hi, Hob! I'm Aurora!"

And he opens his mouth then to ask after her parents and where they might be, to question her about the ferocious looking mythological beast that she seems to be in control of, but he isn't afforded the opportunity to do any of those things. Another voice joins them before he can, a melodic, otherworldly one that Hob knows all too well. 

It's his… stranger. 

His coat is longer here, draping down to the ground like something Hob would have worn in his goth punk days back in the eighties, but other than that he seems to have on the same black shirt, black pants, and black boots combo that Hob last saw him in. 

Hob takes a minute to gawk. He isn't ashamed to admit that his stranger is beautiful, all marble skin and high cut cheekbones, his hair a wild disarray of windblown black that sticks up at odd angles, almost as if it's the one part of his appearance that his magic can't seem to render as tame. 

"Aurora, what have I relayed to you concerning Archibald? I was told that he was in dragon form and terrorizing the wolves yet again."

"Dadda," the girl in question starts, sounding very contrite. "He won't do it… anymore."

His stranger's face tightens in what Hob thinks is supposed to be a severe expression, though it's clear he's not quite getting there in his daughter's bubbly presence. 

Wait.

Waaaaaait a minute.

What?

What did....

His… daughter? She'd said Dadda, hadn't she? Hadn’t she…. referred to his stranger by that title? His stranger? His stubborn, broody, took-a-century-to-admit-that-Hob-was-even-his-friend stranger? For a moment, Hob feels like he needs to sit, like he might pass out between the running for his life not ten minutes prior and the revelation that this child could belong…. to…. to Dream. 

Not that Hob ever really calls him that. He’d only gotten the name a few years ago when they'd last met, and while it had been a nice piece of information to have (and long overdue in his humble and frustrated opinion) he’d spent over six hundred years referring to his stranger as just that. And he honestly doesn’t see this habit of his changing anytime soon.

"I believe that is what I was promised when last he engaged in such unruliness," Dream goes on, seemingly oblivious to the panic attack that Hob is having. Truthfully, that shocks Hob not at all.

"He's still a… a baby, Dadda."

And yeah. Hob’s not wrong. She'd assuredly called him Dadda, had just said it again even. 

"Be that as it may, he is not permitted to wreak havoc on the realm or its inhabitants. No matter his age, starshine."

At last, Hob seems to find his voice, and he uses it to let out a small, barely there, "Dadda?"

He flushes a little with embarrassment as soon as the word is out of his mouth, because it sounds… not great. It's definitely not what he imagined himself saying at his next meeting with his oldest friend. But his stranger only goes stock still, his shoulders tensing as he glances towards Hob, his eyes narrowing in something that Hob thinks might actually be confusion.

Which… is all too completely understandable. Although, Hob will confess that he's never thought that his mopey stranger would ever be capable of looking as thoroughly perplexed as he does right this moment.

"Hob Gadling?" Dream questions.

"Is that… Is that your daughter?"

"It is," he allows slowly. "This is Aurora."

And while he introduces them, albeit awkwardly, Hob thinks he detects a fair amount of fatherly pride in the way that Dream puts one elegant, long fingered hand on the girl's shoulder to pull her against his side, in the way that his rather harsh, angular features soften as he smiles down at her. Seeing this, he supposes, might make him happy in any other situation, and it's a nice thing that his rather… er, reserved (i.e. cold, distant, and emotionally repressed, though Hob would never say it aloud) stranger is obviously comfortable enough with him to show it. 

But… this isn't any other situation. This is a rather… big piece of news that Hob's just been walloped over the head with.

“You have a child?” Hob blurts out, his brain processing this revelation so sporadically that it’s almost humiliating. 

Dream's brow furrows. “I believe that I only just conveyed as much to you. Are you…. quite well?”

“I’m sorry. A daughter? I can’t…." Hob struggles to articulate his thoughts, an utterly unsurprising complication given that he's relatively certain that this has to all be some strange fever dream. "Why didn’t you tell me about her the last time we met?”

Dream narrows his eyes again before glancing down at the girl. “Starshine, go and assist Archibald in returning to his dog form.”

Dog form? Dog form? That fire-breathing beast becomes a dog? For some reason, he's picturing Cerberus, with its three terrifying heads and the blood of those unlucky dead who try to escape the Underworld dripping from each of their corresponding fang-toothed maws. Hob wonders idly if the aneurysm he's sure to have soon is going to kill him.

“But Dadda….”

“No. He is forbidden from being a dragon for at least a week. Especially since I now see that he has been chasing the dreamers despite my explicit directive not to do so.”

Pointedly, he looks towards Hob, who in turn swings his gaze to his young, temporarily forgotten, savior. Her eyes have gone wide and pleading, and Hob feels his stomach lurch in guilt. 

"I was… just walking about, old friend."

And that wanker, that enigmatic tosspot (who hadn't even bothered to tell him he had a child) only raises an eyebrow in an expression of such incredulity that Hob knows he's trying to call bullshit without actually speaking the words. "Walking?" 

"Yes. Briskly."

That eyebrow goes somehow higher up on Dream's forehead. "By which you mean you were running."

Hob shakes his head. He's done some shady things in his very long life, but even he's not heartless enough to separate a girl from her… er, pet. "No. Not at all. Just… strolling. Vigorously."

And for some reason, Dream seems amused by this, as if he is aware that Hob is lying and it's humorous to him. “Very well. Three days then, Aurora.”

She claps gleefully (like she's just won something grand) before wandering out of earshot to presumably tend to her dragon/dog, and Morpheus grants Hob a small smile when she's gone. "You need not have lied on that vile monstrosity's behalf, Hob Gadling."

"I didn't-"

"You indeed did. This is my realm. I know all that transpires within its borders."

There's a loud pop from where the girl and the dragon are, and when Hob swings his gaze over towards them, he sees a great quantity of smoke clearing rapidly away. 

"Obviously not, or else you'd know it was on your daughter's behalf that I stretched the truth a bit," Hob snarks back.

Aurora steps out of the cloud before plopping down on the ground, followed immediately by a small, fluffy… thing that comes running out from behind her, yapping loudly. Hob winces, thinking that he almost prefers that menacing roar from earlier to the high-pitched noise it's making now.  

"You utterly discarded the truth in this case, friend."

Hob crosses his arms over his chest in a defensive gesture. He can admit to feeling a little… well, hurt that Dream obviously hadn't bothered to inform him of his child, and despite that being referred to as a friend by this brooding pillock does make him slightly less upset, he's still angry. 

"Pets are important to children. I didn't want to see her lose one to your temper."

Little Aurora pulls a sketchbook and a container of pencils from the bag that Hob is absolutely positive she hadn't had with her before. Humming, she munches happily on something that Hob thinks might be crackers, and he is suddenly aware of the fact that someone must have taken the time to pack these for her. Hob, to preserve what little bit of his sanity he has remaining, is going to assume that it was this child's mother who'd done so since he can't for the life of him imagine this eternal god-like entity before him puttering around a kitchen and preparing snacks like a normal bloke. That might be more unbelievable than the dragon as far as Hob's concerned.

"Ah. I see," Dream tells him, and it sounds almost as if he's trying to be… kind? "Let me set your mind at ease then, Hob Gadling. Even were I willing to hurt my daughter and do away with that ghastly creature, my wife would never allow such a thing. So, you need not worry over the matter."

Hob feels himself go rigid. Did he just say….. "Wait a minute? Wife?"

"You are soon to wake, Hob."

"Oh, no, no, no," Hob protests, putting his hands up, palm out, towards Dream. "You need to explain to me what you mean by wife."

It's no use, though. Between one blink and the next, Hob is lurching from his sleep, the image of his stranger smirking at him still fresh in his mind. His breathing is heavy, and he's soaked through with sweat, enough so that he knows he's going to have to change the sheets today. Wearily, he scrubs a tired hand over his face, and he tells himself that all of that must have been some strange fever dream, after all. 

Reaching out for the bottle of water he keeps by his bed, Hob is alarmed to see a piece of paper folded and tucked there. He snatches it up, opening the thick parchment to reveal an array of hearts drawn and colored in what he thinks might be twenty different shades of crayon. The message at the bottom is done in a messy, childish scrawl, and it reads:

Deer Mr. Hob. It wuz nise to sea u. Visit agin turmeric, pleeze. 

And Hob Gadling, who'd once won immortality just with the questionable skill of being able to run his mouth, finds that in this case, he can only stare blankly at the invitation in complete silence.

NEXT CHAPTER

#hob gadling #sandman fic #morpheus x original character #dad!morpheus #morpheus as a father #morpheus fic #sandman fanfiction #morpheus fanfiction #morpheus x oc #sandman oc #dragons as cute fluffy dogs #dream of the endless #morpheus hob gadling bromance #hob gadling as a reluctant life coach to an ornery endless #morpheus x reader

[literaticat]

Publishing is notoriously competitive and difficult--I've been hearing other authors and publishing people saying it's now harder than it's ever been to get published.

I'm not daunted! This path is hard periodt. But I'm more like wondering to myself "Is it really harder than ever to get published?"

I would love your thoughts.

That doesn't really resonate with me.

It's always been extremely difficult. It's weird to me that anyone would think otherwise. We know that being a successful actor or musician or athlete is difficult -- so, too, is being a professional writer. It just *feels* different, maybe, because people think "anyone can write." Sure, just like just nearly anyone CAN bounce a basketball -- that doesn't mean most people are good enough at it to be a Laker!

In the past (like, 20 years ago and earlier), there were IMO many more hurdles in publishing. Like you think "Publishing So White" *now*??? What about in the 20th century, or before then?

Back then, before the dawn of the computer age, the pool of people trying to be writers was probably a lot smaller. BUT, most people who were successful probably went to certain schools and knew certain people and had a certain kind of background and a certain amount of privilege. But without those things? Ehhhhh. The barrier to entry was pretty high.

Just... logistically, in terms of *steps* to it all. ALL THAT TYPING. The research? If you weren't connected AT ALL, you hadn't been to a "good school" or anything, you didn't have a professor or somebody to emulate -- how would you even know where to begin? You could DO it, it just would take a lot of time to figure it all out and it wouldn't be "easy" by any means. The postage alone would have been a problem!

Now there is much more broad, readily available and FREE access to all kinds of information about writing and publishing -- querying and submissions are free, and pretty simple -- you don't have to lug around a heavy-ass typewriter -- you don't have to go to a certain school or know certain people (I mean, you still CAN do those things, but you don't HAVE to). There are more options than ever in terms of what publishing looks like, and the barriers for entry for people who want to attempt it have been lowered to the point of barely being a speed bump.

This does of course mean that there are more people than ever TRYING to get published, so maybe it is "more competitive", but IMO, it's definitely not more difficult in a literal sense.

Annnnd.... I also don't really believe in the "competitive" part, so much. Like, yes, a LOT of people want to get published, few ever will be. BUT, I don't think of those other people as your competition. That implies that you are up against a bunch of other people in a race or something and only one can "win" and everyone else "loses."

I'm thinking it's more like, authors are poppy farmers, and manuscripts are a vast field of pink poppies. They are all shades of pink, mostly pretty light, but some are hot pink, some are orange-red, and some are RED-red. The reddest ones get picked. Sometimes ones that are very hot pink or orange-red get picked, too. There's no limit to the number of red ones that CAN get picked, it's just that there are only a few RED red ones. The more poppies there are, the more red ones there are, and the choosier the picker can be about getting the reddest of the red.

Lots of people are not great at poppy farming. They get a case of poppy-mildew, or their poppies come up scraggly and weird, and they give up. The successful poppy farmers are the ones who research poppy variants and poppy care, who take the time to water and weed and all that stuff, who learn about how to get the reddest poppies and implement that knowledge. They aren't really "competing" with other poppy farmers per se -- rather, they are striving to to be the best possible poppy farmers they can be. And most of all -- THEY KEEP FARMING.

[elasticitymudflap]

I haven't watched adventure time in so long, I never even finished it tbh BUT I do remember that Fiona and cake was, like, fanfic made by the ice king? How are they now canon characters? Or is it still a story he's writing? I'm just curious about the plot of this sequel/spin off and I figured I'd ask the resident Simon Expert™

OK SO fionna and cake are part of an extended fanfiction universe ice king was writing, usually kidnapping and forcing people to listen to him read it

as of the hbo mini series simon petrikov (the original human guy in the 20th century who put on the ice crown and got all wicked nasty bonkers over the course of 1000 years) has been freed from the curse (by his hot, briefly also wizard-cursed fiancee, betty grof, who he technically teleported to the future where she vowed to save him from the curse when he temporarily turned back into a human, and she did just that by harnessing the power of the crown and merging with the being of all chaos, golb) for around 12 years. fionna and cake are something he wants absolutely no association with, and nobody is listening to him.

humans have returned to ooo and live in big floating city in the sky, where simon seems to be living out the prolonged existential crisis of losing betty, being completely out of touch with contemporary humans to the point that he's LITERALLY a living exhibit, and the complicated trauma of his time as the ice king; he's physically sickened by the mere presence of ice in his drink and the fionna and cake manuscripts he wrote, but also admits to secretly regressing to ice king as a method of coping, finding comfort in the lack of awareness he had in that state. he's overwhelmed with the feeling that there's nothing left in this world for him but a slow march towards a lonely death. worse yet, he's become completely unable to express to anyone close to him the gravity of this growing darkness, even marceline for fear of putting her back in a situation where she was constantly concerned for his mental wellbeing.

now simon's getting desperate, potentially world-breaking desperate, and is using basically fucked up forbidden magic to try to connect with gol-betty again, possibly even summon her (which would probably destroy the world and fucking hell i do not blame him) - but while completing the ritual he was distracted by mention of fionna and cake, and now there are portals appearing in an alternate universe where fionna and cake are real, but non-magic, and coming out the back of simon's head

TECHNICALLY we still don't know how/or why the alternate fionnna and cake universe came to be, if it's a product of simon's psyche or one of those 'infinite universe, infinite possibilities' type of things, but buddy i am SO fucking here for it i am BACK babeyyyyyyyyy

#fionna and cake spoilers

[27dragons]

New Year Countdown: Dec 26

Ack, I almost forgot again! I blame the doctor appointment I had earlier today. Have a Stony paranormal/urban fantasy AU featuring motor repair shop guy Sam, money-poor Steve, and Tony the technomage!

Dec 26 - Stony - Paranormal/Urban Fantasy AU - Cookies

When Sam came into the shop’s waiting area, Steve leapt to his feet like an expectant father from half a century ago, waiting to be told if it was a boy or a girl. “Well?” Steve demanded. “Can you fix her?” He’d gone into the parking garage that morning to head to work and his beloved motorcycle had refused to start.

Sam grabbed a grease rag and scrubbed his hands with it, looking grim. “Your ECM’s died,” he said. “That’s the computer that actually runs everything. It’ll have to be replaced. Under normal circumstances, that would run you about a thousand, but you’ve had so much custom work done... it’s likely to be closer to fifteen hundred.”

Steve literally couldn’t draw a breath for a moment. “Sam, I don’t... I don’t have that kind of money. Not right now. I could...” He paused, trying to figure out how to get that kind of money. Without his bike.

“There’s more,” Sam said. “The ECM’s dead because someone hexxed it.” He wiped his hands one last time, then dug his cell out of his pocket and thumbed up a photo. Under a feylamp, the hex-mark was easy to see. “Someone’s got a grudge,” he said. “Someone with the ability to get through your wards. So even if I replace it, they’ll just hex it again. Unless you know who it could be?”

Steve stared at the mark for a long minute, but it was impossible to recognize the hand that had drawn it. He shook his head.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Sam said, sighing. “I’d do the job on credit -- you’ve been a good customer for long enough that I can trust you -- but I can’t do the hex. Luckily for you, I know a technomage who would enjoy the challenge, if you can meet his price.”

Steve snorted. “I can barely see my way clear to paying you,” he said. “No way can I afford a technomage.”

“Hear me out,” Sam said. “Tony’s from one of the Old Families, he’s rolling in money. He doesn’t care about money. What he wants is... something a little different.”

*

Tony’s high-rise office did not look like a mage’s lair. Or especially affluent, though it was definitely nicer than anyplace Steve had ever worked. 

Tony himself, when he emerged, did not look anything like Steve had expected, either. He was young, for a mage, probably not more than forty, if that. He was dressed in loose, worn jeans and several layers of shirts that looked like they belonged in Sam’s repair garage more than a moderately fancy office downtown. He had immaculately-sculpted facial hair, warm honey-colored eyes that Steve could lose himself in, and an ass that wouldn’t quit.

“You’re Wilson’s guy,” Tony said.

“Sam sent me to you, yes,” Steve said cautiously.

Tony lifted a hand and the air beside him suddenly filled with pictures of Steve’s bike and the hex Sam had found on it. Holograms, or illusions? Steve wasn’t sure there was a difference. “It’s an interesting problem,” Tony said. “Did you bring the payment?”

“Uh. Yeah, I, uh--” Steve handed over the large tupperware container he’d been carrying under his arm.

Tony cracked the lid and his eyes closed as he inhaled. “Vanilla, almond, butter, brown sugar... Dark, I think. And... rum?”

Steve blinked in surprise. “Yeah. It was my mom’s recipe.”

“Did you think of her while you made them?”

“I always do.”

Tony opened his eyes. He took one of the cookies from the container and bit off a piece. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, I can taste it. This will do nicely. Consider me on the job.”

“Uh. Can I ask... What do cookies have to do with technology?”

Tony sealed the tupperware again and tucked it into a drawer of his desk. “They don’t. There’s more to me than just technology, you know.”

“Like...?”

Tony grinned. “That’s not really a first-acquaintance story. Maybe after our third date.”

Heat climbed the back of Steve’s neck. “Date?”

“Yes,” Tony said decidedly, then reached up to snare one of the floating images and turned it to look at it. “But we’ve got to get your bike up and running first. I need to get this gorgeous beast between my legs.”

Steve’s blush climbed a little higher.

“Come back in... seven days and seven hours,” Tony said, consulting a watch that didn’t have any numbers or hands. “I should have the problem nailed by then. And then you can take me for a ride and we’ll see if any other nailing needs to occur.” He winked at Steve, which did nothing to help the blush situation, and dismissed the pictures with a careless wave. “I look forward to working with you, Steve.”

#my writing #countdown to 2024 #stony #stevetony #paranormal au

[houseofmarcella]

Obligatory Philip/History Essay for my friends (pt1)

Recently I have been seeing various memes and art pieces (that are all lovely and beautiful) and some weird twitter discourse about Philip, the show's lore, real-life historical tragedies, and a complete misinterpretation of 17th-century christianty. I was hoping to clarify some things and put out some of my pet theories.

Obligatory: I am but a humble fan and history enthusiast, and this is all written in good fun and with the understanding that any children's cartoon depicting historical figures (even fictional ones) is not always going to portray things accurately to the finest details. To begin,

THEY'RE DUTCH (ethnically?)

'Witte' is a Dutch surname meaning white or blond. Combining it into Wittebane gives us 'the white bane', and the rather obvious allusion to the European colonization (and Christianization) of the Americas. Contrary to the common belief that the continent was only colonized by the Spanish/French/English, the Dutch were the first Europeans in the area. I have always had the pet theory that the brothers were Dutch orphans who were forced to join an English settlement.

The whole "tryed to fit in with the town by becoming witchhunters" thing could easily be interpreted as them doing their best to acclimate to their new town.

I really like how this could parallel Luz and Camilla too. Caleb 'taking care of Philip by pushing witchhunting as a way to protect him from townsfolk with hawkeyes for anything weird/of the devil. This can also feed into the 'betrayal' aspect of their relationship, where Philip feels that Caleb left him, but Caleb was older and just trying to keep them safe. (Flapjack choosing Hunter when he expresses the desire to "choose his own future" in HP feels... relevant)

Earlier in the fandom, it was a general impression that the brothers were the town founders, and not just some orphan kids from an ethnicity the townsfolk didn't like. I wonder if this was a change from the shortening of s3, but the nature of the statue seems to imply they were literate and probably did something important enough to be remembered besides disappearing mysteriously into the night.

Timeline for quick reference

1613 somehow, the Wittebanes arrive in Gravesfield, a town that should not yet exist (from TtT).

1614 Adriaen Block (dutch) sails up the Connecticut River and opens the door for the Dutch West India Company to trade for furs with local Mohegan and Pequot tribes. THIS IS THE FIRST EUROPEAN SURVEY IN THE AREA, let alone a settlement!

1634 Wethersfield, the first English/Puritan town in Connecticut, is founded, this is the town that has a historic district called 'Old Wethersfield' and was the location of the conneticut witch trials (sound familiar?).

1636-37 The Pequot War

1647-70 The Connecticut Witch Trials Occur

1664 The English take over New Amsterdam and rename it New York

Wethersfield... Gravesfield...

The town Wiki page cites Wethersfield as Dana Terrace's hometown, and though her official birth location is actually a town nearby, the parallels here are so overt I will simply summarise.

Wethersfield has a historic district called "Old Wethersfield" and just LOOK AT THIS CEMETARY! A few of the town's founders were pretty damn important to the Pequot War as well.

Most importantly, Wethersfield was the site of most of the major executions in the Connecticut Witch Trials.

The Witch 'Hunter' General & Hopkins

Matthew Hopkins (obv. the inspiration for Jacob Hopkins in show) was an English (this is in England btw) puritan who hunted women and poor people on a religious zealot murder spree from 1644-1647. He killed at least over 100 people and could arguably be held as the person who started this frenzy.

He published The Discovery of Witches and called himself the "Witch-Finder General". The change from finder to hunter in the show is probably just for clarity, but the reference is there.

Pt2, with a discussion about puritanism/calvinism, how Belos probs used his view of catholicism to build the government and religion of the modern BI, and how the grimwalkers relate to the Calvinist idea of predestination and salvation... will come soon.

Thank you @ter-claw-thorne, @theawkwardarchaeologist, @triple--a--threat--a--threat, and @died-of-ligma, for dealing with my rambling.

I apologize if there are any spelling errors in this essay, it's 2 am and I had a real history essay due two hours ago.

#toh #the owl house #philip wittebane #caleb wittebane #toh hunter #history #original post

[mothpiercings]

i wrote this while on vacation then forgot about it for a week anyway

jaskier travels to future modern day where geralt is like 800 years old

after the dragon hunt geralt and jaskier part ways

geralt didn’t mean anything he said ofc, he was just angry and frustrated and he took it out on the one person he could always count on

but his stupid pride won’t let him apologize

even though he feels sorry as soon as the words leave his mouth

he watches jaskier walk away, and knows that he has to give his the bard some time

three years is a lot of time to give but geralt can’t find him

he has literally looked everywhere

oxenfurt, lettenhove, pasoda, hell even cintra (which he vowed to never go back to, but he needs to find jaskier)

the bard is nowhere

five more years pass

geralt still looks for him everywhere

every time there’s a bard with bushy brown hair or blue eyes or a lute with flowers on it, he’s reminded of jaskier and is filled with hope for one quick second

but it’s never jaskier

he hears it in a pub

it’s a no name pub he’s never been to, one he just stopped in after a hunt

and he hears it

the bard in the corner, talking to some patrons, acting as if it’s just casual conversation

“yes, yes, the great bard Jaskier, meletele bless his soul, wrote many ballads in his day, and had he not fallen to horrid fate, we might have more. but alas, we make do.” and he finished with a laugh.

a laugh

geralt storms out of the pub, probably scaring the few townspeople sober enough to notice

he takes on contracts that he knows are too dangerous for him

he goes to kaer morehn every winter and drinks himself near death

the others are worried for him, but bringing it up leads to geralt locking himself in his room for weeks

they don’t talk about it

he isn’t sober for more than a few hours at time for a decade

eventually geralt finds his child surprise

and he knows that he can’t keep this up AND be a decent father figure

he and yennifer sort things out and she helps him sober up

blah blah blah season two happens mainly as it did in netflix cannon except without jaskier

a few hundred years pass

everyone’s alive (all the witchers, yennifer, ciri, magic is the answer to everything)

it feels like forever

geralt never stops thinking about jaskier

everytime music changes or a new instrument is invented, all geralt can think about is how jaskier would respond

he cries the day he found out ab recording

all he can think about is how he would never get to hear jaskier immortalized like this

jaskier would never be remembered

that thought makes him cry harder

it takes yennifer and ciri a week to pull him out of his drunken depressive episode

geralt has settled in pretty well though

he’s generally good at adapting to change (even though the fact that his dog is named roach says otherwise)

he has a job that he mostly enjoys (he’s a park ranger. it’s the most fun he’s ever had and he loves it so much. if anyone ever found out he would kill them and then himself)

he and his family try to get together at least once a month

they got closer after they stopped having to kill to survive

when they finally got to a point where they could just be

they almost always go over to vesemirs (because despite what they say, he’s their dad)

it’s at one of these dinners, as everyone’s saying their goodbyes, a loud crack and swear is heard from the backyard

it’s a swear they haven’t heard in a long time

centuries maybe

then more swearing

geralt pauses and listens to the voice that he knows is dead

this is a nasty trick

the other witcher’s know that something’s wrong as soon as they see geralt’s expression change

they got rid of their swords a long time ago (it was the 70s after someone lambert tried to take them to a festival and almost killed someone. now they stay in the attic)

but they all carry daggers ofc

they grab their weapons and slowly stalk towards the yard

where the voice is still ranting and cursing

still in a language long dead

they open the door

geralt doesn’t belive it

“where the fuck am i, geralt” the bards voice is just like it was that day on the mountain

chapter/story two

none of them move for a beat

they can hear the man’s (jaskiers?) heart beating so fast it could come out of his chest

he doesn’t seem like a fake (dopplers went extinct a few centuries ago anyway)

if this was an imposter, they were too good at it

“jaskier” has the same scent he always has (wild flowers and a field after rain)

jaskier looks at the witchers, all big and scary and totally pointing their daggers at him

he can assume the other men are geralts brothers

though they don’t have a madellian, they each have a large ring with a wolf engraved

don’t ask jaskier how he noticed this

he doesn’t know

geralt stalks closer to the man (the man who was dead for almost 1000 years, the man who shouldn’t be here right now)

he hears a light growl from behind him and eskel lightly gripping his arm

but he has to do this, so he shakes the hand off and continues forward

with each step that geralt takes, jaskier smells… calmer

this confuses geralt, because even though they had been… friends for a long time, they parted ways on awful terms

in a language he hasn’t heard in such a long time, jaskier begins to speak

“geralt…” he repeats, “where the fuck am i?”

it takes a moment for geralt to process, and not just because he barely remembers the language

but the man’s voice sounds so much like jaskiers

and jaskier looks not a hair out of place

he looks. like he was simply plucked out of thin air in 12xx and deposited in 2022

#geraskier #the witcher #the witcher fanfiction #geralt of rivia #jaskier #yennefer of vengerberg #geraskier fanfiction #kaer morons #kaer morhen #i’m gonna write this eventually #maybe #hopefully #also #if u couldn’t tell #idk how to use tumblr #it’s difficult #so the formatting probably isn’t great #or good #but #we’ll survive

[spinosworks]

a fate worse than getting a call from the county jail

twin au where danny is put on trial in the ghost zone but since the ghost zone's judicial system is a mess they call for a character witness from various periods of his life bc he's still technically living

(a word about the court proceedings. due to the fact that i know next to nothing abt real court and i don't want to do research for a prompt i have no time to write, the entire trial is going to be on some ace attorney bullshit.)

damian gets ghost jury duty (i know it's not jury duty but that was too funny not to write)

as it turns out, getting the news that your brothers ghost is still around from a glowing green figure that materialized in your dining room is not a great way to get news. if you want to start the trial right away, damian is whisked off in his pjs. if he gets some time, it takes place that night. still, it's not a lot of time to process that you're about to see your dead brother who is apparently a criminal.

well dannys always technically been a criminal. murder is very much illegal no matter what age you are.

damian isn't allowed to know what the charges are bc it may influence how he recounts the testimony. this does not bode well to damian.

danny on the other hand does NOT know that damian is even going to be there. so the first time they lock eyes across the court room danny is a complete mess.

but guess what's an even bigger mess? the fact that the last time the twins saw each other they were literal baby assassins.

the character witness doesn't help in the slightest. if anything it goes even worse (but for who?)

damian gets to bond with the ghosts of the far frozen during the recess.

WAIT IS FROSTBITE DANNYS LAWYER?? if so i will only be putting him in more elaborate robes, no matter how funny the idea of him in a suit and tie is. non western traditional garb is professional and i will not fall into that pit.

ANYWAYS

frostbite is dannys lawyer but he's kinda bad at it,,, (the far frozens court system is a lot more straight forward)

he's basically the pheonix wright of the courtroom. he's gonna get the job done but by god is he gonna make some mistakes.

damian is going to have to be his maya or smth. damian is reading the court files (which are horribly put together who wrote this shit??) to try and help frostbite put a case together and???? WTF HAS HIS BROTHER BEEN DOING WITH HIS AFTERLIFE

to those wondering where the rest of the trio are, they weren't allowed to know where the trial is taking place due to their history of helping danny break out of prison. this doesn't stop them from trying to break him out. or stop them from getting help 👀👀

that's right kiddos, they go to gotham. not for the bats, but to figure out why one of the waynes is at one of the most prolific ghost trials in centuries (dannys gone around the block at this point. people are curious to see the verdict, if any)

kitty and jazz are friends so kitty let's slip what's going on and who exactly showed up.

('why the hell is damian wayne there?!')

that's all i have for right now, kinda fond of it so i may write smth short for it.

probably not so go wild with it. anyone is welcome to cannibalize this for parts.

(oh yeah the song i was blasting while writing this was innocent man by billy joel. just thought it'd be funny to mention)

#wow i wrote that all in like.... 40 minutes #my brain really popped off today #except not really bc i was supposed to write for smth else #dp x dc #danny phantom #batman #also none if this is actually thought out so if u expect this to make sense: #dont #you know whatd be even funnier than all of this? #that towards the end its revealed that it wasnt even supposed to be a criminal trial #danny was supposed to be placed with new guardians and damian was supposed to be the character witness for *bruce* #lol but i dont want to add that in now so whoever reads the tags gets an extra treat

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 37 – The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

I picked this up for my still-somewhat-theoretical bookclub with some friends, and honestly probably wouldn’t have looked at it otherwise. (The only previous work of Schwab I’d read was Vicious which I was, honestly, not particularly impress by.) So chalk one up for book clubs I suppose, because I’m incredibly happy I gave this a try.

The book follows the eponymous Adeline “Addie” LaRue, a peasant girl in late 17th century southern France who, desperately trying to escape marriage and a life limited to one tiny farming village, and just generally being a peasant, makes a deal with the devil. (Or primordial darkness. Or some ancient pagan god she learned about from the old witch living in the woods that comes standard with every peasant village – it’s somewhat vague, and doesn’t really matter regardless. He goes by Luc.) The deal is for her freedom – she will get to live life untethered and according to her own desires, until she is sick of it, and when she is, her soul will be his.

What this means is that she is a) immortal, and eternally 23 years old, and any change to her body reverts in a matter of moments, but also b) incapable of leaving a mark on the world. People literally forget her the moment she is out of their sight, any letters she writes fade before she finishes a word, she is quite literally incapable of saying her own name out loud and has to pick a pseudonym out of the air with each new interaction, and so on. Reality also conspires against her having more than she can carry on her person – stashes are discovered or accidentally destroyed by what seems like random chance.

The book’s divided more or less in half, with a singular narrative in 2014 New York where Addie has a meet cute with Henry – a 28 year old bohemian bookstore clerk whose made his own (much, much worse) deal with the devil, and as a happy unintended consequence is actually able to remember her – being intercut with flashback chapters telling the wider story of Addie’s three-hundred-year life, how she adapted to her blessing/curse and figured out how to have a life of something other than endlessly freezing and starving in Parisian gutters, and her relationships with Luc.

To lay my cards on the table – Henry is charming, and the book’s New York is fun and appealing, but the historical vignettes really do make the book and elevate it a bit beyond pleasant but forgettable fluff. Partially just because the nature of Addie’s anonymous immortality is so specific, the book has a lot of fun with how she learned to navigate and make the most of it. The utter misery she’d been stuck with and endured also grounds (..maybe not the right word, given the immortality, but you know what I mean) the generally pretty fluffy New York narrative a bit.

Also, given how much I loathe the whole ‘death is what makes life meaningful!’ cliche, I really do appreciate that even after spending however long buried in a snowbank in a Parisian slum perpetually one second away from freezing to death, Addie’s reaction to ‘would you make the same deal again?’ is ‘fuck you, I’m immortal!”.

The plot of the present day New York chapters...exists. If mostly as connective tissue for cute dates and descriptions of bars and art shows; this is really overwhelmingly a character piece, and after that the focus is still more on making specific scenes and vignettes vivid more than any sort of overarching drama. Which isn’t any sort of complaint, to be clear – adding action or high stakes politics or a cosmic battle between good and evil or anything else would have ruined this. The fact that the book keeps its stakes limited to a few specific souls is a huge point in its favour.

The novel’s organized around a romance (I mean, a love triangle, technically), though given the ending I’m not sure it technically qualifies for the weirdly specific criteria for a Romance Novel I’ve been yelled out about in the past. It’s not exactly the sort of love story that’s going to set the world on fire, anyway; though Henry was charming and sympathetic and inoffensive enough to effortlessly vault into my top tier of least annoying romance male love interests.

Luc I think I would have absolutely despised if either Addie had ended up buying into his bullshit or if the narration ever really tried to make you sympathize with him. As is, it’s incredibly to read him as actually sincerely falling sincerely in love with Addie at a certain point, and she basically never stops hating him to the point of going all unreliable narrator and always framing his actions as more Machiavellian and monstrous than they are. It’s great.

It’s not exactly surprising how studiously apolitical the book is, but it did still kind of strike me? Given the span of history involved, I mean – the French Revolution and World War One both intrude on the narrative exclusively as ‘bad news Addie gets out of Paris/Europe to evade’. The only active political stance she’s shown as taking in the entire modern era is returning to France during WW2 to be an anti-nazi spy out of a vague sort of patriotism.

On the one hand oh my god a version of this book that went ‘she’s queer and was alive at the time, so obviously Addie would have been at Stonewall’ would have just been, so so bad lol. But the part of me that loves drama and books that get internet hate campaigns dedicated to them does kind of wish the book had done a bit more with what she (immortal 23-year-old early modern bohemian aesthete runaway peasant girl) actually believes or thinks of the world.

Though the book’s restraint on involving historical events vanishes entirely in the cultural sphere – Beethoven makes an appearance, having sold his soul for artistic genius. I don’t mind this too much, honestly; Addie learning that even if she can’t leave a direct mark she can still inspire people and indirectly shape the world that way is a pretty central theme to the whole book, so it more or less fits. When she justifies why she considers her life worth living, the central element is beauty, she lives for songs and fine meals and paintings and books and films. The occasional intrusion of names I recognize just feels like it fits.

Speaking of: quite possibly my favourite bit of the book is how, at the beginning of each part, there’s a page with a sketch and an auctioneer’s description of a different piece of fine art that Addie had inspired over the course of her long life. Nothing much intelligent to say about them specifically, just that I adored the little touches it added.

Unfortunately, the ending of this was the weakest part of it by leaps and bounds. Just – it would have been damn near perfect, if it just ended two chapters before it did! As is, re contextualizing the entire book as an artifact that exists in universe just makes the entire thing make no sense at all (also, my god, can you imagine being Robbie or Henry’s family and reading how you’re portrayed in his ‘novel’?) But even beyond that, it felt like the book had reached a natural, nicely bittersweet ending, and then spent the last ten pages furiously trying to backtrack and make it as unambiguous and upbeat as possible. A damn shame.

Anyway, not a revelatory read or anything, but with that exception very fun and well-put together.

#book review #v.e. schwab #sff #book club #romance #the invisible life of addie larue