#its where things become Real and starts to really take shape

[eldritch-spouse]

I love the idea of Zizz becoming obsessed with a lucid dreamer.

She talks to him about things she's too afraid to talk to other people about, rants about how tiresome her work is, and doing stupid shit while they wander a dreamscape she makes. Sometimes she fucks him if he doesn't take on a human appearance (realizing she's a monsterfucker). She thinks he is nothing more than a random figment formed from their dreams, enjoying these moments that will be gone by the morning.

Zizz keeps getting drawn to her, the more time he spends, the harder he falls for her.

[Aaah, this is a cute idea. Reader is ambiguous.]

The first night, you didn't know what was happening.

There was a presence in your dream, you felt it as soon as it invaded the sanctity of your slumber. A thick shadow lurking in the halls of the manor you spent so long visualizing during waking hours just so you could bring it into your dreams.

Curiosity led you to follow that strange pull. You didn't consciously manifest anything or anyone yet, so what could it be that your brain cooked up on its own?

It seemed to be wandering, and the closer you got to it, the louder these slow thumps could be heard, footsteps making aged wooden floorboards creak in protest. The parts of your dream where this thing dwelled seemed to become somehow more vivid than the ones you created, as if it were breathing life into them. Your curious search becomes a frantic chase when you catch the outline of something massive turning the corner.

Was the manor this complex? Were there these many halls?

No, you remember it being smaller. Is it... Changing its location? Changing your dream? This has to be the product of your sudden distraction. Yes, that's it.

You remember the way you stopped breathing when you opened a door, only to see him pass by.

What you can only describe as a giant demonic entity, with pallid, ash-like skin and a great veil over its horned face. A thin tail that ended in a crescent shape swaying lazily behind a masculine inhuman figure.

Between the shock and fear, you could only watch it trudge to another division, uncaring of your presence.

Your lungs start working again, on the first desperate gasp-

You wake up.

The second time, he laughed.

Some time had passed.

You never truly felt all that comfortable in your own dreamscapes after that odd encounter and, strangely, even if you remembered the sight of that demonoid so clearly, manifesting him was proving itself to be harder than expected.

You felt like you needed to bring him back, if only because his appearance left more questions than answers, and that encounter begged some clarifications.

The versions you did manage to create always seemed oddly deformed, as if you were a novice at this.

Tonight, you were dedicating your time to making him reappear, which led you to a mostly white space devoid of features beyond a floor, and the several copies of the entity you are failing to put together.

Some are discolored. Others have too many horns, the one in the corner is... Melting? The latest keeps disappearing and popping up in random spots. None of them are behaving at all, just standing there like mockeries of statues.

They feel so fake, so paper-like, cheap imitations of something that felt so powerful and perfect! Like there really was another person in your dream...

You're getting frustrated.

It's a pointless effort born out of a spook.

After what feels like an eternity of populating an endless landscape with grotesque reflections, you simply sit down and watch them fail miserably at existing.

Except... A new one emerges from the back of a swaying, greenish copy.

It looks around, tensing, as if perturbed by something, then casts its gaze to the clones surrounding it.

You didn't make that one. Not willingly. It's... It's too perfect, he looks exactly like the demon you saw, down to a T! Even the little glowing blob on his head, that's him! That's... Him. The real one. Oh fuck.

Horrified yet oddly gleeful, you simply stay very still and watch everything unfold.

The giant demon begins exploring once more, touching the flawed versions of himself he comes across. The ones that seem to particularly disturb him are waved at, and with the simple gesture, disappear entirely. Although you cannot see his face, his tail swats quickly behind the monster's body, it's clear he's at least amused by what he's seeing.

One second he's moving to the nearest malformed abomination, the next you blink and he's standing still, fixed on you. There's no doubt he's spotted you sitting cross-legged like an idiot, you bet you stick out like a sore thumb.

It felt like hours passed in that silent locking of stares. This time, you remember to breathe. But your mouth certainly won't open. And he doesn't utter a word either, resuming his perusing.

Finally, he spots the one whose clothes keep flickering in and out of place. You don't know why it's like that, and it embarrasses you. Your brain can guess the general body type and coloration of the demon given he doesn't cover all that much, but it has no way of knowing what his genitals look like, so your mind is visibly cycling through possibilities.

Seeing himself naked, with a variety of ridiculous genital equipment, the entity invading your dream starts to shake slightly.

You fear you might have greatly offended him without meaning to, but then, this sound starts bouncing off non-existent walls until it reaches you.

A melodic sort of chuckling that fills you with some unknown lulling tingle, rising into amused, helpless belly laughter, cackling. His head throws back and his shoulders quake. It's the only thing you can focus on, a voice so clear and so distinct, something you've never heard before. How incredible.

Well... At least he finds it funny? Good, that's. Good. You guess.

When the noise dies down, you find him looking at you again.

The flustered tightening of your belly is probably what woke you up.

The third time, he spoke to you.

It must not have been more than a week.

You think he's lurking around more often, because you're starting to pick up on the way his presence alters the spaces around him, makes them feel all the more immersive.

This time, you were creating a garden, picking the flowers you'll put in a variety of plots.

When you head to the little gazebo in the center, you find that not only has it increased twofold in size, he is sitting at the table you placed there.

The demon seems calm, legs spread, one hand resting on the table, the other holding his covered head as he watches you freeze.

Your first instinct is to turn back and pretend he's not there, to walk away, maybe try shoving him out of the dreamscape. But do you really want to?

" Stay. " He beckons, the moment you take a step back.

" Who are you? " Is instantly shot back.

The monster leans back on his seat, the clawed hand previously resting rises, and with a snap, day turns into night, a brilliant sky with millions of stars and swirling cool hues.

It's nothing short of gorgeous.

At this point, you think he has more control of your dream than you.

As if to prove that, the chair opposing him slides back, and he tips his head towards it, waving.

" I like your dreams. " The demon starts. " You're interesting. "

" ... Thank you? " Because what else are you supposed to say.

" Sit. " He beckons again. " Talk to me tonight. "

You didn't believe it.

Didn't believe who he said he was.

How he managed to enter your dreams.

Didn't believe that someone like him could ever find you worth any time.

You chalked it up to total madness, and took the entire conversation as a humorous game, laughing when it seemed as if he was getting almost enamored with you.

After an admittedly delightful night sharing drinks he had conjured for the two of you, Zizz sighs and tells you that it's time for you to wake up.

You're about to ask how he would know such when he leans forward to gently tip the glass up to your lips, and the richness of your favorite drink is the last thing you feel before it all fades away.

Tonight, he offered to take you into one of his dreamscapes.

A smile in his words and a shine to the soft paw he extended your way convinced you to accept the offer.

Maybe the way he purred and whispered your name like a prayer should have been warning enough that you were playing a dangerous game.

It's been hours. A day? Too long. Longer than you've ever been dreaming for. Tracking time is harder in a location you have no control over.

This is a very beautiful royal mansion, and you've been having lots of fun spending time with Zizz in it and all...

But you'd like to wake up.

It's not happening. You can't bring yourself out of the lucid dream. You... You're stuck.

When a quiet moment falls between the two of you, a small hand taps the supposed demonlord's arm.

" Zizz? "

" Mmm? "

There's a gulp. " ... I need to wake up. "

Seconds bleed into what must have been a minute of complete silence.

Until his palm lands on your head and he affectionately combs over your hair, leading you forward beside him as you're about to enter his dreamscape's bedroom.

Claws tighten on the skin of your scalp.

" Don't be silly. "

#Zizz oc #yandere monster #yandere teratophilia #monster boyfriend #yandere demon #monster x reader #not sfw #minors dni #monsterfucker #terato tag

[max1461]

only tangentially related but sometimes I wonder if survivorship bias makes us view modern art as less than older art, that time and cultural memory acts as a natural bullshit filter, that actually people were just as vapid and pretentious back then, but none of the vapid and pretentious work had enough cultural value stick around to be examined now

I think it's partly this, but it's partly something else.

This is probably gonna piss a lot of people off, but I think in a particular sense, contemporary art is just... straightforwardly more advanced than older art. I know, I know, but hear me out: I don't mean that as a value judgement. What I mean is like...

Ok, take math as an example. Math started out talking about things that everybody's heard of: triangles, circles, whole numbers. But as those concepts were better understood, they got abstracted more and more. Symmetries of shapes where abstracted to symmetry groups, numbers abstracted to rings and fields, eventually it was all abstracted to category theory, and so on. And now if you look at major research topics in modern math, things like e.g. the Langlands program, as a non-expert, it often looks like a bunch of fucking nonsense about bullshit objects that don't have anything to do with the real world! But even though I don't understand the Langlands program itself, I know enough math to understand why all the levels of abstraction that I have understood are meaningful and valuable, and I can see why going even further would be too. And math is useful enough that the results often speak for themselves.

So I think contemporary art is much like this. If you read contemporary art theory, you will immediately see that it is all very meta. Art used to be made about very concrete things—people and nice looking vistas and so on—that anyone could understand. And then theorists came along and built up frameworks for thinking about art, because they wanted to understand why that art worked, why it was powerful and emotive. And then new, avant-garde artist came along and made art about the frameworks, pushing at their edge-cases or exploring their unintuitive implications. And then new frameworks were built up to understand that art, rinse and repeat. This account is, as I understand it, a little bit ahistorical—the building and the pushing of frameworks was often simultaneous and often not clearly articulated. Although, frankly, the same could be said for the history of math. But in retrospect I think a pretty undeniable picture emerges.

So, to put it bluntly, I think one of the reasons so much contemporary art looks vapid is that it isn't for you. It's about things you've never heard of, in the same way that category theory is about spaces and morphisms, and explaining that to someone who's never heard of groups or topological spaces is basically impossible. And I think there are some differences—art is obviously, you know, totally vibes based in a way that math isn't. If a big wire sculpture with styrofoam cups on it or whatever doesn't speak to you then it doesn't speak to you, no one can defend it on "objective" grounds. And art isn't useful in the way that math is, so it doesn't demonstrate its validity to people who don't get it in any way. But what I wish people understood is that there are people, who know a bunch of art theory and art history, who that wire sculpture with styrofoam cups on it does speak to. It makes them go "oh, I love how it plays off of X and contrasts with Y" etc. etc. And that isn't going to happen for you because, like, you don't know what X or Y even are! But that doesn't make it valueless, it just makes it insular. Which, you know, contemporary art really is! I think there are a lot of contemporary artists who claim to not be doing what I just described, who claim to be making art "for everybody", but I think if you read their artist statements and stuff it often becomes pretty clear that this is not the case. And this is a valid criticism of contemporary art! But "vapid" is mostly not.

Pretentious, definitely. It's pretentious as fuck.

#anon #navel gazing

[manicpixiedreamcurl]

No Happy Endings (Unless Fairy Tales Come True).⁺˚*･☾

Pairing | Eddie Munson x reader

Warnings | 18+ only, minors DNI. Porn with smatterings of a plot. Cheating (reader cheats with Eddie as do others), oral (female receiving), protected P in V sex, kinda sad Eddie but only for a bit, brief mention of uncomfortable sexual situations, readers first orgasm, little bit of Eddie with somebody else. Some generalisations about gender and sex for plot reasons.

Word Count | ~9,300

Request | Once upon a time I made an offhand comment in the tags of an ask saying it’s possible Eddie’s fucking lots of cheerleaders behind their boyfriend’s backs. Then an anon threw it right back at me and it’s haunted my thoughts ever since.

A/N | The initial comment was offhand. Reader is not a cheerleader, she’s just pals with cheerleaders. Also cheating is bad etc etc. I also don’t really think Eddie would do this, but I’m taking my Eddie just wants to be loved thing to its logical endpoint; Eddie is become slut, destroyer of pussy.

.⋆｡⋆✮˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆. 

Can we-,” she groans softly, biting her shiny lip as she looks at him over her shoulder. “Can we, uh uh, turn the music off?”

Eddie’s gaze shifts from watching himself disappear inside her to the flushed cheeks of her face, her long fluttering eyelashes. 

“No, we can't."

"But-" Eddie grasps her cheerleader ponytail, silky in his fist, and pushes her face forward into the mattress, whatever she was going to say now muffled by his sheets. 

She doesn't seem to mind. That little squeak she makes when she's close starts picking up when Eddie grinds a little rougher into her, liking what was supposed to be a silent punishment for her request 

Eddie has to hold back a scoff, has to stop himself from leaning over to turn the dial on his stereo as far right as it’ll go, instead. 

He likes her, as much as he can like the sexually frustrated popular girls he brings back here. She just ignores him in the halls, instead of overacting disdain for him in front of her jock boyfriend’s face. 

That, and her pussy clasps his dick like it’s in love. 

But that’s the new Iron Maiden album she’s talking about, and he’ll be damned if he turns it off for a girl who’ll kiss her boyfriend tomorrow morning with the mouth that moaned for him tonight. 

In the next thirty seconds she cums around him with a shudder, back arching, presenting her ass to him like she wants it spanked. But he's not allowed to do that, lest her boyfriend bend her over tomorrow and find a lasting mark in the shape of Eddie's hand, darker where his rings are. 

That's the image that makes him cum, the real reason he does this. Some time this week or next, the basketball player that thinks this girl loves him will call Eddie or one of his friends a freak, maybe shove him in the hall or write dumb shit on his locker. And it won't hurt like it used to. What pain there is will be buried deep under the thought that now gets Eddie through the monotonous nightmare that is high school, that lets him grin in the face of almost every mouth breathing neanderthal that thinks Eddie's the dirt under their white sneakers.

I fucked your girlfriend stupid. 

Eddie rolls off her and settles back into his pillows with a long sigh, tugs the condom off himself carelessly. He searches his bedside table half blind, flicks the lighter when he finds it, smoke curling up from the new cigarette between his lips. All the while, he listens to the sounds of a woman dressing. Rustling fabric and whirring zips, the drag of a hairbrush through touch-messy locks.

Eddie doesn't watch. It's not for him. 

He doesn't get the intimacy of watching a pleasured woman put herself back together. No coquettish looks over naked shoulders or flirty wiggling hips. Neither does he get the kisses, or the girlish smiles and shy waves in hallways. He doesn't carry anyone's books, or cuddle up with take out and a movie. Eddie doesn't get gentle hands in his hair or a lap under his head.

He doesn’t even get his name, cried out in pleasure, from these girls who wish he was someone else.

But he does get their moans, real and desperate. And that's enough. What more could he expect?

"Hey, so, I thought I could maybe come by next week, around the same time?" 

Eddie glances over. She's pristine now, like he’d never touched her. Not for the first time, he spies the little cross around her neck and doesn’t bother holding back the scoff.

"Sure," he nods, used to this routine from her and all the others. She'll get cold feet around the three day mark, tell him she has to stop doing this. Then she'll show up anyway, looking sad and guilty until he fucks it all away. Eddie takes a long drag and watches her stand there awkwardly, wanting to leave but not wanting to be rude. 

Then she remembers who he is. "Okay, bye then." 

She's out of his room in a second, heading to his front door at pace. If Eddie feels a prickle of hurt in his chest, he knows just how to beat it away. 

"Tell Rory I said hi!"

.⋆｡⋆✮˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.  

Eddie's face hasn't lost the pleased smirk since you approached him after school. 

It appeared the second after you asked, in a way that you’d clearly practised, if you could buy from him. Standing there by his van, surrounded on all sides by your classmates finding their own way home, he’d fixed you with a look. Dark eyes you'd never properly taken in scanned you shamelessly. With his tongue pressed to his top lip, Eddie crossed to the passenger door and opened it with a swing and mock gentlemanly gesture. "Alright, hop in. We'll get you what you need."

Now, sitting to his right with your knees pressed together nervously, you can't help but keep looking over at him for seconds at a time. You’d thought that by this point you’d have convinced yourself not to go through with it. That sitting next to him this long would get it through your head that this is Eddie Munson, and even considering this is crazy.

He’s not your boyfriend. That should be the first thing you think, but instead you’re caught up in the knowledge that last week you would not have looked at him twice, in a relationship or out of it. They would never have considered going home with Eddie, and neither would any of your friends. Or so you thought, before a group of them, cheerleaders all, had admitted what they’d done with him. In his trailer, in the woods behind school, in this van.  

“It’s not the fifties anymore!” Stacey had said, smile all pity for your clear confusion. “We all love our boyfriends.” This had prompted a chorus of agreement from the five other girls who’d admitted to meeting with Eddie. “But it’s not like we’re going to be with them forever. Why not get some experience with somebody…good? Even if he is a complete loser in literally every single other way.”

You’re trying to wrap your head around it as you look at him. You hadn’t thought of him as a loser, exactly, but certainly unpopular. And that wasn’t you being unfair. It’s like he rebels against it, being liked. The way he jumps at people in the cafeteria and makes himself the fool in class. He wears t-shirts with monsters and screaming faces on them. He carries around a pocket knife. You’ve seen his initials carved into enough desks to be sure of it. 

But then, Bea had told you, all earnesty. “It’s kind of different with him. He won’t…pressure you, if you change your mind.”

You’d watched five girls nod in agreement with varying degrees of willingness to admit it. 

It had shocked you to your core at the time. But now that same core is warm at the suggestion. In truth, Eddie Munson is better looking than you'd ever let yourself think. Those wide eyes you'd got a good look at earlier are framed by long dark eyelashes. His lips are plush and pink, framed sweetly by boyish dimples. His hair looks clean and soft, his hands on the steering wheel look strong. 

When you look up from those hands, you find that the smirk has been replaced by a grin. He's caught you staring, and you are left with a hot face and a mind that searches for a way to change the unvoiced subject. 

"Who is this?" You ask, gesturing to the radio, the melodic wailing and electric guitar unfamiliar to you. 

Eddie raises an eyebrow. "Black Sabbath? Ozzy Osbourne?" 

You nod, realising you have no way of building on that information even as you open your mouth to reply. It closes again, and Eddie’s face sinks into irritation. 

"I have a pretty good radar for silent judgement, you know."

"I wasn't." You shake your head in earnest at his disbelieving look. "Honest. I don't really know enough about it to judge."

Eddie hums, then smiles sardonically. "Certainly hasn’t stopped anyone before." 

You chew your lip, wondering how you're going to turn this around. You don't even know entirely what you're supposed to do. Seduce him? That doesn't seem likely to work at this point. Ask him directly to what, fuck you? Treat you like you don't have a boyfriend waiting for your call? 

As it happens, you don't really need to do anything. Eddie pulls up outside his trailer and looks at you with a tilted head. "So, how do you want it?" When you blink, he gestures between you. "This. You’re welcome in the castle, but we can fuck in the backseat if you prefer."

You can't imagine how you look to Eddie after that. Something fishlike, with widened eyes and an open mouth. Embarrassment floods through your veins, that despite your admittedly weak efforts to seem casual and aloof, you may as well have written your intentions across your chest and flashed him. 

"Have I really been that transparent?”

Eddie narrows one eye, shrugs in a yeah, kind of, gesture that has you covering your face with your hands. 

“You must think I’m a terrible person,” you mumble into your palms.

“Mm? Oh, cause of the boyfriend thing?” He breathes a laugh through his nose. “Nah, I don’t care about that.” When you don’t respond, Eddie sighs. “Who’s your boyfriend again?”

You glance through your fingers at him, find those wide eyes directed entirely at you. “Kenneth Hunt.”

Eddie smirks and tilts his head forward to hide his face for a second. When he looks back up at your worried expression, he shakes his head as if getting rid of a thought then stares at you straight. “Couldn’t care less about the guy. Far as I’m concerned, you’re doing the right thing here.”

You drop your hands to your knees, rubbing over the skin with your sweaty palms. “You’re just saying that cause you wanna get laid.”

Eddie’s pink lips curve into a smirk again, eyes bright with mischief and anticipation.“I think you know exactly how easy it is for me to get laid without you, sweetheart.” He opens his door, barely paying you any mind when he continues. “You’re already here, but finding somebody else would be inconvenient, at worst.”

Eddie walks to his door with confidence, a trademark bounce in his step. Your eyes shut tight, allowing yourself a second to breathe without him looking at you. Maybe you thought you’d have more time, a little longer to decide if you really wanted to do this. You had the $20 bill in your purse ready in case you chickened out and actually ended up buying weed you’d have dumped in a random trash can on the way home. 

Even now, you are wondering if you are the sort of person who can go through with this. At the start of your relationship, the very thought of being with anyone else would have disgusted you. 

It is not a surprise when you realise that it just doesn’t anymore. 

When Eddie turns after getting the door open, he finds you walking up after him. His lips purse in a smile and he ducks his head, gesturing for you to enter first. 

You don’t know what you were expecting a drug dealer’s home to look like. Certainly, this homely, cosy room wasn’t it. The whole place is obviously masculine; in need of dusting and lacking the subtle decoration of women. But it looks like the home of a middle aged man, not that of the rebellious boy whose hands are already touching eagerly at your waist.

There’s even a pair of grey slippers by the door. 

A shiver runs up your back when Eddie’s mouth finds your shoulder, the sting of it warm even through your clothes. You make space for him to drift up to uncovered skin, wanting to let go when you feel soft lips and warm breath on the sensitive place where your shoulder meets your neck. Instead, you allow curiosity to come out.

"You, um, really like mugs, huh?" 

"Hmm?" Eddie says, pausing his seduction to glance where you are looking. "Oh. Right. No, my uncle used to collect 'em? Same with the hats." 

"How come?" 

His fingers twitch at your waist. "He, uh, used to drive trucks for a living?" Eddie shrugs, a hand coming up to tuck hair behind his ear in a gesture you might read as bashful if he were anyone else. "Picked 'em up wherever he went."

"One way to keep a travel log, I guess." You smile, and for just a second Eddie smiles back. Not the pleased smirk or the sardonic grin he’d given you talking about his music. A genuine, happy thing that softens his eyes. 

You pull your bottom lip into your mouth with your teeth. He really is good looking up close. You can’t help thinking that maybe he would have been from a distance, too, if you’d ever allowed yourself to look. 

Eddie seems to sense the change in your demeanour. If you were less desperate, you might regret prompting the loss of his shy, pleased expression. As it is, the return of his mouth to your neck has you rubbing your thighs together, seeking friction already. Teeth scratch the skin of your jaw, a tease of coming roughness that has your toes curling in your shoes.

“C’mon through,” he says, turning your acquiescent body the direction he wants it to go, walking behind your clumsy legs. 

“Okay, this makes way more sense,” you laugh. This room is all him. Records and cassettes, multiple guitars, clothes everywhere. The smell of smoke, the smell of Eddie. 

A messy bed. A dirty ashtray. An open pack of Trojans.

Eddie hums dismissively, pressing himself to your ass. He feels hard and ready, twitching against you at the soft, feminine sound of surprise you let out. Experienced fingers smooth up your thigh, until his hand is digging into the softness at the top, a single thumb playing with the frilled elastic of your panties. 

“How do you want it?” His thumb smooths along cotton, finds the split of your pussy through the fabric and your cunt clenches. “Hm. How about I get you warmed up first, yeah? Play with this little pussy till I can slide right in.”

Eddie presses his thumb up where you are wettest, humming happily at the heat of your cunt while your knees shake, ready to collapse and leave yourself open to whatever he wants. 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s how I want it.”

“Well, good,” he laughs, his free hand pulling up the hem of your skirt. “‘Cause that’s how you’re going to get it.”

Your eyes flutter at the feeling of Eddie's callused fingers dipping under the waistband of your panties. He stops a minute to play with the curls of hair on your mound and smiles against your neck at the pleading wiggle of your hips. When Eddie’s fingers pull your lips apart, exposing your sticky cunt to his touch, he sighs approvingly into your ear. "There she is." 

His fingers tease gently at your entrance, gathering wetness and rubbing at the smooth lips of your cunt while you both stare down at his hand working beneath the fabric of your panties.

“Fuck,” you breathe, knowing he must be feeling exactly how excited and ready he has you. Eddie fills your clenching cunt with two fingers, the stretch of them walking that blissful line between pleasure and pain. Your body jolts at the intrusion, but the sound you let out is pleased, a quiet gasp and whimper that prompts Eddie to breathe a laugh into your neck.

“You like that?”

You nod rapidly, hips jumping at every slow movement of his wrist, the aching stretch and drag of his fingers in your cunt. The press of callused pads against your walls, catching perfectly against the sensitive skin of your walls and-  

“Oh, fuck.” 

Eddie curls his arm tight around the front of your waist when he feels you start to slide away, steadying you against him with a delighted laugh. "This is the best fucking part with girls,” he tells you, angling his wrist just right, your mouth falling open to allow you to gasp air into your lungs in between groans. “You’ve got all these fun little spots to work with.” He squeezes your waist for emphasis, presses his lips to your ear. “Want to know my favourite?”

Eddie’s thumb finds your swollen clit, and you know in an instant exactly why girls forget they have boyfriends when he touches them. 

He starts fucking your cunt with his fingers, pressing tight to the perfect spot inside each time while his thumb rubs tight, focused circles on your sensitive button. Your thighs shake around his hand, and Eddie coos a mocking tone that only serves to make you clench tighter around him. 

You can hear it. The building wetness, louder every second, but you can't think to be embarrassed, not when Eddie's tucked his chin on your shoulder to stare down at your body, rolling and flinching to the rhythm he sets.

"Oh, god. Fuck, fuck-" 

Your toes curl in your shoes, hips chasing his fingers and their magic though he makes no move to stop. Together, the sensitivity of your clit and your clasping hole build until you're crying out, reaching behind you to press a hand to Eddie's cheek. It’s a sudden need, an ache to see him, the person giving you this, the person determined to bring you to this blissful peak you have been desperate to reach for a long time. The ecstatic tremors people are always talking about. 

Eddie’s face turns to yours at your desperate touch. He is all flushed cheeks and prettiness; excitement in those wide eyes, his tongue peaking out in his concentration. He hums a questioning tone, and you moan back, mouth open and breathing in the smoke and mint of his breath. 

Eddie's lips are soft looking and pink. Simultaneously, or perhaps one follows the other, the thought crosses your mind that he might kiss you, and you cum on his rough fingers. 

Your body seizes up, caught between searching for more of the pleasure he brings and trying to push him away as it reaches a painful edge. Eddie's fingers are steady and unrelenting until the hand on his cheek is pushing back to tangle in his hair and you are gasping. You ache for more of his touch, the high it seems only he is capable of giving you. 

You wonder if it’s always like this, after. The feeling that parts of your body are more his than yours, now.

"Please, fuck me." 

Eddie grins, dimples pressing sweetly into his cheeks, giving your clit one last mean rub just to feel the jolt of your body pressing to his. His fingers are wet with your slick when he brings them between your faces, expression a little crazed. That pink tongue appears again to lap at his middle finger, his eyes fluttering then fixating on you.  

Your mouth opens before he even asks. Eddie presses his fingers, still dripping with you, against your tongue. It's musky and salty and natural. Nothing amazing, but the way Eddie's watching you take it gives you half a mind to suck on the digits, just to see how he might look at you while you do it. 

He pulls his hand away before you can make good, running the pads over your bottom lip. 

"It's my favourite," he murmurs, big eyes set on your drooling mouth. 

A feral, desperate part of you wants to ask if he means he likes yours best, this boy who must know the taste of so many. Your eyes flicker to his own pouty mouth, but he doesn't give you the time to lean in the way you might want to. 

"Get on the bed." Eddie releases your body, leaving you cold along your back and where his arm had held you tight around your waist. Body thrumming, you settle yourself back on his mattress, toeing off your shoes and opening your legs to let your skirt slide tauntingly up your thighs. 

If you were coming to realise how attractive Eddie was before, one orgasm deep you are convinced of his beauty. He looks even better like this; flushed and a little sweaty, his messy hair the work of your fingers. You watch him, panting, while he removes the heavy leather jacket and his shirt, throwing them carelessly to the floor. The tattoos that decorate his pale arms and chest have you sinking deeper, wiggling your hips to try and find friction against his mattress.

“You gonna take your shirt off?” He asks with a smirk. “Let me see your tits?”

You glance down at them, wondering not for the first time what the appeal is, and look up to find Eddie’s lithe hands pulling at his belt. The clink of the buckle makes your cunt clench, watching his fingers pull leather through metal. Your own hands find the hem of your top to pull it up and over your head, face heating at his unashamed gaze on the newly exposed skin.

“This, too?” You ask, reaching behind you to the clasp of your bra.

His lips curve. “You know many guys who’d say no?”

“I’m asking you.”

Eddie blinks, eyes flicking up to yours. You see him swallow under his pale throat and then he clears it, hands losing their grace to frantically undo the button and zip of his jeans.

“Yeah,” he nods, teeth abusing his pillowy bottom lip. “That, too.”

You pull at the clasp and let it fall. Eddie moans at the back of his throat, his hand slipping into the exposed check fabric of his boxers. The desperate movement of his wrist under cotton, brought on by the sight of you, could fool you into thinking he was new to this. Dark eyes drift back and forth like he’s trying to pick his favourite, a pink tongue peaking out in a show of concentration.

You laugh, shaking your shoulders to give him a show, and it’s like you’ve reset him.

Eddie grunts, takes a long breath, and pulls his thick cock from his boxers. He drags his hand over his length in a smooth stroke, the excited boy that had you giggling just a second ago replaced in an instant by a man showing off.

He has a right to it. You search for friction from his mattress at the sight of him, long and thick. A dripping head exposed when he pulls back pink skin around swollen flesh. He'll hit the end of you, that spot he’d found with his fingers. And he’ll split you apart while he's at it. 

Eddie tears open a condom wrapper with his teeth, smoothing the wet rubber down from his tip until it's stretched transparent and clinging to his heavy cock. He tilts his chin up proudly at your unashamed stare, his dick twitching. 

"Turn over." 

Happy to do as you're told if it gets him inside you faster, you turn your back to him and fall to your hands and knees. Once you are staring at his headboard, a ringed hand finds your shoulder, pushing you down until your chest is flat to his sheets, your ass up and on display for him. 

"You still want it, right?" 

You hardly think you can be hearing him right. You turn your head as best you can with half your body held flat like this, but he is out of eyeshot, your gaze only finding a stack of amps and a pile of wires that further mark this room as his. Unable to catch him, you settle for wiggling your hips, grinding into the air, your humility lost to his fingers and the sight of his cock. "Uh, no, my pussy's in the air waiting for somebody else to come along. Be serious, Eddie." 

A half there chuckle sounds above you, and a quick warm kiss is pressed to the curve of your back as his hands flip up your skirt. "Fuck yes," he breathes, eyeing your ass cupped sweetly in wet panties until he gets his fingers in the elastic to pull them down to your knees. 

You feel exposed, your most intimate place bare and open to his gaze, but you are as hot and wanting as ever, whining low into his sheets. The hand on your shoulder drifts down your back to your hip, his thumb rubbing gently over your skin when his cock meets the entrance of your pussy. 

"Relax," he says, the first gentle push of his hips not enough to get him inside when you're this wound up, body resisting the intrusion. Eddie keeps stroking your hip, lets you clench and unclench your fists and toes in your effort to let go. "'m gonna make you feel real good," Eddie assures, the promise in his tone a comfort. "Just as soon as you're ready, okay?" 

You mewl, wanting that more than anything. With a long sigh, you let the soft caress of Eddie's warm hand and the ease of his voice soothe you until your body is loose and supplicating. 

"That's right. Let me in, sweetheart." 

The slow stretch of his cock pressing inside you is an aching, brilliant burn. Your fingers curl into the bed, stuck between pushing back onto him and giving in to whatever pace he wishes to set. He stops before he reaches the end of you, panting in the air, hand caressing your hip. You whine when he pulls back, pussy clenching up in a desperate attempt to keep him inside. 

“'m tryna be gentle,” he laughs, pressing his face to your shoulder with a shaky breath. "This pussy needs looking after, ‘kay? S’too tight to force it, so don't rush me."

You nod, rubbing your cheek on his sheets, surrounded by the smell and feel of him. Eddie works you open slowly with his cock, pushing deeper before taking the sweet stretch away over and over again until you’re shaking with need. Your pussy flutters around the invading inches of his cock, twinges of pain slowly giving way to sweet pangs of pleasure.

“Doin’ so well,” he soothes, breathing harshly through his nose. “Want it all, don’t ya?”

“Want it all,” you repeat

"You need it a little harder?"

"Mm, yeah. Need it harder." 

Eddie gives you one last slow roll of his hips, his strong hands drifting up to grasp at either side of your waist. 

With the first rough thrust, you are crying out. His thick head meets that spot his fingers had located inside you, mapped out and known to him already. Eddie’s cock, heavy and hot, slides easily through the soaked walls of your cunt, your body happily inviting him to use you just like this. 

The aching stretch, the drag of his cock inside you, the dirty tease of his heavy balls smacking your clit with the way he has your hips tilted. Almost as good as all of that is the sound of Eddie above you. 

Masculine groans and fuck yeah's. Boyish laughter when your cunt squeezes happily around him, the delightful humiliation of it only encouraging your pussy to keep clasping his cock. 

"Feels good, yeah? Yeah. S'good for me, too, baby. It's a sweet little cunt you're giving me."

You shudder, whining at the sound of that. You don't exactly think it; you just know somewhere that it's true. If Eddie will touch you, fuck you, talk to you like this? Give him your pussy is exactly what you'll do. If he wants, he can have it to keep. 

You can feel that perfect incline wanting to happen again. Eddie has you mewling under him, your hips squirming to encourage his thick, warm cock deeper with every thrust he gives you. 

You have hit the familiar wall. Pleasure mounting and mounting, going nowhere. Only now it’s Eddie fucking you, and you trust him already to take you exactly where you need to go.

"I wanna cum again," you whine, barely noting the stutter of his hips. "Wanna cum. Please." 

He doesn't reply for too long, waiting until a frustrated cry leaves your lips. "I like the sound of you begging," he answers, the salacious grin on his face audible in his tone. "A little more wouldn't hurt."

Your toes curl in half irritation and half need, hating him a little despite the pleasurable prickle his teasing causes to dance up your spine. You consider screaming into his sheets until he gives you what you need. You could grab his hand and force it between your legs, or else try to draw the ecstasy up yourself if you didn't think he would only stop fucking you as punishment. 

Eddie presses deep and then deeper still, the head of his cock rubbing perfect at the end of you, and you know then that you have no use for pride when it comes to him. 

With shaking arms, you push your chest up from the mattress until you are resting on your palms, elbows locked straight. When you look back, you find Eddie flushed and sweaty, dark curls stuck to his forehead and his pink cheeks. His brown eyes are round and surprised to be looking into yours, shifting back and forth between your left and right. 

"Eddie," you say, his name leaving your mouth as a moan. "Please make me cum. I need-" You stutter and gasp at his fingers tightening a bruising grip on your waist, your clit throbbing in response to the demonstration of the strength in his hands. "I need you to do it for me, Eddie." 

He blinks at you, pink lips open to let out his pretty groans. Then he's nodding, and his right hand disappears from your waist to find your clit. 

"Thank you," you breathe at the first circle of the rough pads. Your pussy twitches as relief spreads through your body, already attune to what Eddie's touch there will bring. At once, the places he has found on your body take you to an edge that you would willingly throw yourself from. "Eddie. Eddie, Eddie- fuck-"

Your arms give way when your cunt throbs violently around him. Eddie follows you down, his chest curling over your back. He keeps his fingers working you through your high, wrapping his other arm around your front to hold you close. Reaching back to tangle your hand in his hair, you feel his lips, his warm cheek, at the sensitive skin of your neck, his aching closeness just as good as his cock at bringing about this ecstasy. 

"Shit. Shit, you're so fucking good," Eddie groans, voice a pleasant vibration on your skin. His cock twitches and jumps inside your aching hole, and you feel the sudden warmth as his cum collects at the tip of the condom. 

Your bodies twitch through aftershocks together, then slump as one to the bed. Eddie's chest holds tight to your back, his hairy thighs bracketing yours. For a few sweet, fuzzy moments, you are alone in the world with him. 

You scratch gently at his head, fingers still lost in his messy locks. Eddie breathes a long sigh then makes a gentle happy sound like a relaxing cat. 

You laugh softly, and lose him. 

Eddie's comforting weight vanishes along with his warmth as he sits up. With a sigh, he pulls his softening cock out, your pussy aching with the significant loss when he's gone.

Once you think you can control your limbs, you roll over onto your back and stare at his ceiling, searching your chest for guilt over what you’ve just done. It's not your boyfriend you can hear pulling off a condom, not him searching a cluttered side table for a pack of cigarettes. It's not him who tosses himself back on the bed beside you with a bounce. 

But you don't find shame. You're too busy feeling the relief that nothing is wrong with you. Your body is capable of what it should be, and in truth you are giddy with it. So much so that you find yourself laughing into the air, covering your face with your sweaty hands and shaking your legs at the knees. 

“Where did you learn to fuck like that?”

When you take your hands from your eyes, Eddie has a cigarette hanging from his lips, a lighter in his hands waiting to be flicked. “Uh,” he starts, grabbing the unlit smoke so he can speak with both sides of his mouth free. “I don’t know. Practice, I guess. And then you just gotta, y’know, pay attention to what the girl likes, ‘n’ what she doesn’t like, I guess.” 

You collapse into his pillows, watch him return the cigarette to his plush mouth and take a long drag, breathing out away from your face. 

“What do I like?”

Dimples appear on the cheek closest to you, shallow crow's feet at his eyes. “Liked me sweet talking you while I bullied your cunt.”

The way your pussy clenches has you believing him, curling up at his side and watching him settle himself. “Mm. Yeah. Do you like that, too?”

Eddie blinks for a second like he hasn’t heard you correctly, tilts his face down to where you are lying on his mattress, gazing up at him with a dreamy smile. “Uh, yeah,” he nods, hair a beautiful mess, shifting with his movement. “But I kinda just like fucking, honestly, so…” 

He laughs awkwardly, eyes shifting between you and his cigarette on a loop.

You nod. “I guess it’s just easier for guys.”

Eddie considers this, shrugs. “Yeah, in my experience.” He grins to the side. “Some days a strong breeze does it for me.”

You snort, reaching out to trace a line along the tattooed chain that curls around his torso. Eddie squirms a little like it tickles, but allows you to follow the links with your finger. You bite the inside of your lip, wondering where this need to tell Eddie everything you’re thinking came from. 

“Got a confession,” 

“Shit.” His eyes go wide, blinking fast with worry. “Shit, please don’t tell me I just took your virginity.” You smile, shake your head, and feel the tension leave his body. “Jesus, don’t scare me like that. What is it?”

You watch him take a drag from his cigarette, the slow rise and fall of his tattooed chest. “I, uh. No-one’s ever made me…finish, before.”

Eddie’s nose scrunches up sweetly. “Christ, that’s almost as bad. You came for the first time staring at my unmade bed.”

“I didn’t notice,” you tell him, swirling a finger around one link. Your teeth dig into the gum behind your lip. “Could’ve been looking at anything, probably, and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

Eddie licks his lips quickly, his gaze moving from your mouth to your eyes. “If I’d known it was your first time-”

“Not my first time-”

“Your first time reaching the big O, experiencing le petite mort, uh, blowing your lump-”

“Blowing my lu-”

“If I’d known,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “You’d have had a sweet view of this most handsome of faces between your thighs.”

You pause your touch on his stomach, blinking at him. The image is as invasive as it is appealing; those big eyes watching you while his mouth works your sensitive pussy. Your clit throbs at the thought even while you squirm with a touch of discomfort. "You really do that, Eddie?"

"Did I or did I not tell you pussy was my favourite taste?" Eddie asks, sounding a touch irritated until he takes in your expression. "You never even had your pussy eaten, sweet thing? Nobody even tried?" 

When your head shakes timidly, Eddie huffs like he means it. “Man, what is the point of sex education? Everyone’s fucking anyway, but all these boys don’t know what the hell they’re doing.” He shakes his head, looking genuinely aggrieved for you. “Need a whole semester on how to find the Goddamn clit, or else find the patience to try looking for it in the first place.”

His genuine irritation has you amused and fond in equal measure. “Who would teach that class, Eddie?” You laugh, thinking of the man who’s been teaching sex ed since your parents attended Hawkins High. 

“Hey, Coach Wright only pushes that abstinence only bullshit cause that’s what the man dictates," he snickers, clearly imagining it himself. "The man in this case being the Indiana Department of Education.”

“Of course,”

You like him like this. A boy you would have described as scary forty-eight hours ago, laughing with you, joking like old friends. If you feel any shame, it’s not for a boy across town you always thought too highly of. It’s for this boy here, who you really didn’t think of much at all. He is kind enough to be angry on your behalf. To look after you the way nobody else ever has.

And he’s pretty. You’re happy to admit it now. He is so pretty that when Eddie licks his lips and blows smoke from them, and the image of him between your thighs returns full force. What it would be to have those eyes on yours, the softness of those lips somewhere you can't see, only feel. 

You swallow, rubbing your thighs together to deal with the growing throb of your clit. 

Eddie catches the movement and blinks at you with a slow smile. He snuffs out the cigarette in the ashtray on his bedside table before turning to you with a little sigh. "You're desperate for it, huh?" 

“Yeah,” you breathe. Abandoning any possibility of playing coy, you touch at the lithe muscle of his arm. “But, not, I mean- You don’t have to. It’s already-” You look at his pleased face, hoping he hears what you want him to know. “It’s already better than it has been for me. Like ever, Eddie.”

Eddie smiles at you shyly, gifting you the sight of one dimple and the sweet shine of his soft eyes. “I’m happy to hear that. I mean, I’m not happy that it wasn’t good before. Happy that it was good, that I was good. To you. You know?” You nod, heart aching, more endeared to him with every word he speaks now that the cocky boy you pushed you into this room and bent you over to take his cock has been replaced by this blushing one who is clearing his throat nervously under your adoring gaze. “Right, yeah. Gonna eat you out now, ‘kay?”

“Okay, Eddie.” 

With gentle firmness, he leans over your face to help you lie back into his pillows, his hair falling around you and tickling your cheeks. Eddie mumbles an apology and tucks it back behind his neck only to find you staring up at him, expression soft and wanting. You watch each other. His eyes flicker, and you think, not for the first time, about what it would be like if he kissed you.

"Just to be clear,” he says, voice soft until- “It wasn't talking about Coach Wright that got you going again?" 

The reverie is broken with his laugh and your mortification. "Oh my God, Eddie, obviously not!"

"You sure? Cause I pride myself on giving, and if you need my flawless impression to make this the best it can be, I will do that for you, sweetheart." He presses a short kiss to your collar while you giggle, shaking your head at him. His lips linger at your chest, his wet tongue gliding over your nipple, lips sucking till you gasp. Just as you’re about to moan his name, he releases the pebbled bud to laugh. When he looks up, his eyes are watering with mirth. "You have some amount of nerve to look me in the eye and call that running!"

"Stop!" You cry, toes curling at the too accurate impression of the old man's crackly Southern drawl as Eddie giggles into the softness of your stomach.

"My grandmother Mabel moves faster, and she's been dead near twenty years, God rest her soul!" 

"Eddie, I hate that!"

"Oh?” He says, running a finger around your belly button. “You want dirty talk? Why, you look so damn sexy climbing that rope I could-"

You squeal, kicking your legs either side of his torso, and reach down to press a hand over his mouth, feeling the humidity of his laughing breaths against your palm. "Sto-op," you whine, waiting till he's finished laughing and is blinking slowly before moving your hand. Eddie smiles at you, dimples on display, and kisses your stomach again, down to the top of your thigh. His tongue peaks out at the sensitive skin there, hot and wet, and the throb in your cunt reminds you why he’s there.

Eddie chances a look at you, and you see in his expressive eyes that he's thinking about speaking. Instinct brings your hands to his hair, brushing back some of the damp curls at the front. His eyes flutter, some tension in his body gives way, leaving him with a cheek resting on your thigh. 

He swallows then speaks. "You want me, then?" 

Your chest hurts. You don’t look away. "Yes, Eddie. I want you." 

His eyes close tight for a few seconds, until you drag your fingers through some of the displaced curls, scratching soothingly with the pads of your fingers at his scalp. He hums softly, blinks again, then sighs as he sinks down between your thighs. 

“Ah, there she is,” he says, any traces of vulnerability lost the second he catches sight of your pussy, wet, swollen, and waiting for him. “Oh yeah, she needs more, for sure. Should’ve told me earlier, baby. I would’ve helped you out.”

“I didn’t-”

“Shhhh,” he breathes, hooking a leg over his shoulder and pressing the other aside and up so he can push in close, the soft plushness of his lips brushing your mound when he grins. “Wasn’t talking to you. ‘M having a conversation, here.” Eddie kisses at the curls of hair above your cunt, drifting down until his breath becomes a teasing caress. He gives your twitching clit a single kiss, lips wrapped perfectly around it, and your legs jump either side of his head. “Yeah, you were saying?”

“You’re so fucking weird,” you laugh, half caught between amusement and desperate anticipation, covering your face with your hands while Eddie mumble apologies to your cunt for the second interruption.

“She’s just jealous, sweet thing," he murmurs, leaving wet kisses down to your entrance, his nose bumping your aching button. "She doesn't understand our connection." 

He licks, broad and hot, up the length of your cunt with a satisfied groan. "Tastes so fucking good."

Eddie's head shakes, pressing his mouth to your weeping pussy, lapping at your soft entrance. You listen to the sound of his tongue, his satisfied lip smacks and grunts, and realise he was entirely serious about loving this. Your toes curl at every stroke of his tongue, soothing the ache his cock left behind. 

You are taunted by the way his nose keeps brushing your clit, teasing the sensitive bundle of nerves that is desperate for his mouth. If it weren't for the building ache, you could watch Eddie like this for hours. Hair messy and sticking all over his face, eyes closed in bliss. The way his head moves like he wants to get deeper, taste everything you have to give. 

Your fingers tighten in his hair, give a gentle tug, and his soft eyes find yours.

They remain half closed from satisfaction, the warmest brown lost to dark pupils. They are still the prettiest pair of eyes you've ever seen. 

"Feels good," you whine, tangling one hand in his curls. With the other, you smooth down your mound to the top of your cunt, exposing your clit with two fingers so he can see the sweet button he's been torturing. "But I need you here. Please, Eddie." 

He pulls himself from your entrance with a gentle gasp of air, the bottom half of his face soaked with you. Your talkative boy doesn't say a word, just nods desperately before lathing his tongue over your clit. 

Your thighs lock around his head without you even noticing. Your body is desperate to keep him there, though there really is no need to try and force him. Eddie will kiss your clit till you're crying if you promise to say his name like that every time it feels good. 

He circles his tongue around the top of your cunt, playing with the nerves and watching the drop of your chin, the slow but constant nod of your head while you cry out. You feel your pleasure building under his mouth, the now familiar crest approaching. Your clit twitches with your thighs and Eddie groans happily, sensing the approaching high he's drawing out with his worship of your pussy.  

Eddie gives you the perfect satisfied sound from the back of his throat, wraps his pillowy lips around your clit to suck gently at the swollen button. Your cunt numbs for a split second, close to pain, then sends flashes of ecstasy through your body as you cum. Eddie’s name comes just like he wanted, in a stream of grateful whines. 

When your limbs lose their tension, legs falling limp against his shoulders, you think this must be what it feels like to be high. Even the final press of Eddie's lips to your oversensitive clit only draws a soft grunt from you. The loss of his warmth is sudden and sharp, but you don’t let him go for long. When you feel him flop down beside you on the bed you search for him and find his hand, as strong as you had thought it would be. You press your fingers to his palm until he holds your hand properly, grounding you enough that you feel ready to speak.

"That was amazing. I mean," you breathe a laugh, turning to look at him, finding him staring up at the ceiling. "Holy shit, Eddie. You have some kind of gift."

He doesn’t glance over, blinking those big eyes at any sight but you. The movement feels natural, to try and get his attention by bringing your joined hands to your mouth. You leave a kiss to his knuckles and Eddie finally looks at you, eyes shiny. 

"Can I," you murmur into the back of his hand. "Can I stay for a while?" Your face heats at the poorly hidden surprise on his face, but you push forward with a nervous giggle. "Kinda need to wait until I can feel my feet again, anyway." 

"You can stay as long as you want, sweetheart," he nods, swallows, then corrects himself. "As long as you need.”

You chew your lip, leaning in a little to just rest your temple at his shoulder. "Good, cause I actually kind of need to know why one person needs so many amps."

You feel the subtle shake of his laughter under your head, soothing and warm, and curl up at his side, pulling at his arm until it clasps you tight. You let yourself enjoy the happiness in Eddie's voice. 

"A metalhead can never have too many amps, Princess," he assures. "Allow me to explain…"

.⋆｡⋆✮˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.  

A little part of him hates you. 

He didn’t demand you look at him like he was special, important to you, or moan his name like that when you came. He didn’t invite you in so you could ask him about his amps, or his handmade Corroded Coffin poster, or Wayne’s collection of mugs. He didn’t ask you to stay, you just did it. 

Eddie let you stay too long, and held you in his arms too tight. He’d spoken too much, answered every question and asked his own before listening to more than he should have. He let himself get a taste of what it might be like to be wanted by you all of the time, not just when you are left disappointed by whoever you came to him to replace, forget, or punish. He might as well have smoked a whole twenty pack of Camels, the way all that sweetness turned to ash in his mouth. 

“What are you going to do now?” He’d asked, when his van stopped outside of your Mom’s pretty front garden. He’d stared at the petunias and felt stupid for even asking.

“Call my boyfriend.”

He’s glad it was dark, glad you were staring at your hands so you didn’t see him flinch. Eddie used the minute of silence after to mourn what he never had, then he’d felt you shift beside him. Your lips found the corner of his mouth, your eyes and his shut tight to savour it. An almost kiss, more fitting than anything else you could have given him. 

“Thank you, Eddie,” you’d whispered, warm breath spreading over his cheek. Cool where the tears were. “Tonight was…special.”

Eddie watched you walk inside, then slammed the heel of his palm into the dashboard until his wrist ached. 

Bea showed up at his trailer the Sunday after. She flashed the stretchy green fabric covering her mound under her pleated skirt and Eddie thought about all the times pulling at the elastane and hearing it snap back onto sensitive skin made his cock jump, trying to will that reaction when she placed her vanilla scented skin against his, rubbed her fingers over his crotch. She took his wrist to pull him towards his room, and he felt panic overtake any excitement in his chest. 

Would he lose the scent of you on his sheets if she lay herself down where he wants you to be? 

“Can we, uh, slow down?” Eddie had asked, planting his feet in the hallway before his room, feeling the pause before she replied as a physical presence between them. 

“Slow down and do what, exactly?”

Eddie’s lips twitched. Let me tell you all about my Uncle’s mug collection, he almost said. 

“I don’t know, I just- I need a minute. We could talk.”

Her hand dropped his wrist, found her hip instead. “Okay, but you know that’s not what this is, right?”

“Yeah. No, I know. I mean-” He sighed, thought, fuck, what have you done to me? “I know what this is. I’m not your boyfriend, but I’m not a sex toy, either, okay?”

"Don't act like you don't get something out of this too, Munson."

Edde ran a hand through his hair and thought about how you'd pulled his face to yours with it, how much you wanted to hold him, see him while he made you feel better than anyone else ever had. The way you’d stayed after like it meant something.

"Not what I want," Eddie said, walking decidedly back to his front door to throw it open and gesture to the cold air. "You may take your leave." 

"Whatever," Bea mumbled, her arm crossing her body, the insecurity brought on by rejection apparent in her stance. Eddie felt a touch of guilt about it. "I know one of them probably gave you puppy eyes and made you think you might have a shot, Munson, but just so you know, none of the girls are interested in you for more than this. We do talk, you know?" 

The guilt vanished, swiftly replaced by hot sharp shame that stung his throat. 

"I mean, don't fool yourself, Munson. You're fun, but you're nobody's boyfriend."

"Just…get out."

When she was gone, her baby blue sports car pulling away from his home, Eddie threw himself into his bed and allowed himself a moment to breathe the smell of you before he covered his eyes with his fists and swallowed tears

You're all he can think about. Sweet memories mixing with terrible dread, the knowledge that the dream will end abruptly for him on Monday. It's the same story as all those other girls. You'll be back with your boyfriend by then, resentment worked out by Eddie's cock. Maybe in a week or two you'll show up at his trailer, wide eyed and wanting. 

The only thing worse than that would be if you never came around again. It’s sick, he realises, but he’d put himself through it for the way you look when you cum, would go through even worse for the way you say his name when you laugh.

Eddie wonders if he can avoid the sight of you when he gets into school, keep you out of sight and until you leave his mind. But he's not at his locker longer than ten seconds when he swears he can sense your presence from the drop of his stomach.

Eddie looks up, and there you are. Walking with your boyfriend. Kenneth Hunt (dubbed Kunt by Gareth in what Eddie felt was a stroke of genius), worse than a bully. Puts on a real nice front for teachers and parents and girls. He rarely takes part in the real shit, just stands on and watches like being there while his friends shove Dustin or Jeff into a locker makes him tough. He’ll throw some insults occasionally when he’s feeling particularly brave. He’s pathetic.

But he has you.

“Fuckin’ idiot, Munson,” he mumbles, hating himself for believing for even a second that it wouldn’t have ended this way for him. Soon, as you pass him, one of two things will happen. 

You will bury yourself into that prick’s chest, bat your pretty eyes at him and act like you need protection from the freak. 

Or you’ll ignore him, flounce past like you didn’t fall apart on his fingers and his tongue and his cock. Like you didn’t lie warm and comfortable with him in his bed for hours. Like he didn’t make you smile. Like you didn’t almost kiss him. 

His chest already aches, and he’s thinking seriously about skipping his next class and hotboxing his van just to forget he ever let you in anywhere; his van, his room, his stupid, throbbing heart. 

Only, Eddie blinks at you, trying to work this scene out. You aren’t cooing in Kenneth’s ear. Or putting on that baby voice girls do with boys they like. Your face is scrunched, fingers curled into fists rather than pressed lovingly at his arm. Actually, you’re hissing at each other, the frustrated sound of a public argument trying to be kept private. 

“Baby, I seriously don’t understand where all this is coming from!” 

“I explained already,” you answer, exasperated, shaking your wrist from his hand. “I just don’t think we’re right for each other.” 

You’re approaching, and his naïve heart calls for you, hope a dangerous warmth in Eddie’s chest. 

You look up. Your eyes find his. 

“Since when, though? I just-”

“Hi, Eddie.” You wave, giving him a pretty smile, your head tilted shyly.

“Hi,” he breathes. He wouldn’t have been able to hide his excitement if he tried. But you aren’t trying, so why would he?

You bite the inside of your lip and scan him up and down, taking in his dark mess of curls, his ripped jeans and his Reeboks as you walk past with a subtle, flirty smile. Kenneth pauses, losing ground on you to instead stare at your retreating form. He turns to Eddie, jaw loose, eyes displaying his desperate attempts at joining what to him must seem like completely unconnected dots.

Kenneth’s fists clench, and he shakes the very idea from his head. “Freak,” he bites, taking off after you.

Eddie huffs a laugh, because the insult doesn’t matter anymore. Not when this new knowledge is so sweet. 

He watches the letterman jacket jog up after you, and thinks, I fucked your ex-girlfriend stupid. 

#eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fic

[thewertsearch]

Let's kick things off with a mega-giga ask compilation!

I've spent the last couple of days working through the backlog, and I've been able to answer some quite old asks that were spoilers at the time they were sent.

@kintatsu asked: So, I was rereading your blog, and got to the post where you determine that John's 13th birthday was a Monday, and complain on his behalf that he couldn't really relax due to having the whole schoolweek ahead of him. Well, I checked, and the previous day was the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox, i.e. Easter Sunday. So it might have been a holiday week.

John entered the Medium shortly after Easter Sunday, and he did so by biting into an apple. Forget about the god tiers – his most powerful transformation is clearly Catholic Beast Mode.

Anonymous asked: The thing about knowing your Aspect, I think, is that it's the Aspect you most GET. I GET Space and Light, I understand them completely, they are suffused in my bones and my blood, they are writ large upon my brain and every base in my DNA. What aspect do you just GET?

To be honest, I don’t think I know enough about any Aspect to ‘get’ it.

If I had to choose, then I'd probably feel the most natural affinity for Life and/or Doom – and if was forced to pick one, I’d say I'm very slightly more drawn to Life, just based on vibes.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: I think the horrorterror’s plan (or the closest thing we can comprehend) is CHAOS-by which I mean LIFE. Skaia is order. If it can want, then it wants its players to follow the script it has written-the Alpha. It wants propagation, the snake to eat it’s own tail, blah blah blah. That is order. That is perfect servitude. That is NOT life. The gods, meanwhile, want chaos. It wants its servants to live. It does not tell people to do anything. It simply gives them the facts, and says “here is what you should do. You can not, you can do whatever the hell.” It wants romance, conflict, CHAOS. that is life.

And if this theory is accurate to the canon Life aspect, then I feel justified in my affinity for it. It falls fairly closely in line with my own philosophy.

@necrowyrm asked: When searching your blog I always type "thew" before Tumblr autocompletes your URL. That has become who you are to me.. Thew, Glorious Liveblogger, navigating the treacherous seas of Homestuck

Sally ‘Thew’ Ertsearch, reporting in. 🫡

Anonymous asked: there's actually another arthurian joke to do with dave's land/quest. have another look at the disc platform that bro stabbed. how would you describe the shape of that turntable?

Ayy, Dave's a Knight of the Round Turntable! Honestly, that'd be a pretty great name for his theme song.

@caliquill asked: kanaya vs rose would be absolutely hilarious but. kanaya IS the original "I Can Fix Her" girl for a reason.

Anonymous asked: the only real requirement for a name suggestion to be picked was that the firstname was 4 letters. but by really cool coincidence strider and lalonde are 7 letters, and egbert and harley are 6, and if you add those together its 4/13! similarly, both the trolls names were required to be 6 letters (i think hussie mixed and matched them actually, some of the firstnames were suggested as surnames and vice versa) so theres a similar case to be made for 6/12. but just doubling the same number i think holds less water than adding together two different numbers

Number symbolism is just very flexible in general. All Hussie really had to do was introduce a few 'important' numbers, and the fandom could start finding them everywhere!

Anonymous asked: This may be the wrong place to ask, but have you deleted your post of analyzing the Let the Squiddles Sleep song? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Here it is. Hopefully you're able to see it now!

Anonymous asked: Will the Mega-Ask-Compilation and Liveblog Recap also happen? ~LOSS (19/2/23)

The former is currently taking place. The latter was planned, but after skimming my blog for a bit, I realized I didn't have as much to say about it as I thought I did. Plus, it's been ages, so I'm really excited to look at some new pages. We can leave the old ones for later - I'll probably do some sort of blog retrospective eventually.

Anonymous asked: i figure the trolls' battlefield went through a full set of dnd dice/platonic solids, plus maybe some other notable johnson solids like a truncated icosahedron (aka a soccer ball or buckminsterfullerene), before becoming a sphere. maybe the outer ring went through stages like simple torus, mobius strip, borromean rings or other fun knots, before becoming a mobius net. (not really sure what a mobius net is, mathematically, but that's apparently what the thing around the final form of the kid's battlefield is called.) or maybe something weird happens with that many prototypings, and the battlefield turns into a tesseract or a klein bottle or a menger sponge or a mandelbulb.

If you so much as look at the Battlefield created by the Gigasession, your brain will leak out of your ears.

@manorinthewoods asked: <3Dave, >3>John, >3oJade, <>Rose (by process of elimination) ~LOSS (5/6/23)

I don’t think either of the girls have worn a playing card symbol. The leaf on Jade’s Wardrobifier does kind of look like a spade, but John’s already got that quadrant on lockdown.

Anonymous asked: Reading stuff about skaia on this blog reminded me of madoka, and made me consider that skaia might be like kyube and the other incubators and sburb is skaias way of keeping the unerverse from decaying

Reading this ask makes me realize that Rose is a near-perfect mark for Kyubey.

There’s only one way to save your session, Seer. Form a contract with me, and become a magical girl.

Anonymous asked: man. i dont know what i expected to happen when you found it. but for The Baby Is You to be liveblogged in less than 20 words during a post was not the way i expected it to go

I know it’s not technically part of Homestuck canon, but it really feels like Homestuck canon to me - at least to the same degree as Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, and I liveblogged that.

Anonymous asked: begging (lightheartedly) for you to add posts like LOLCAT and "this guy's an orb" to one of the liveblog tags. they're pretty funny, and it's nice to see off-the-cuff reactions like that, haha. imo it'd be a shame for new readers to miss those kind of posts

Done! I sometimes forget to tag posts like that, because I usually just fire them off and forget about ‘em.

@captorations asked: “Give me a set of rules, and I'll analyze the hell out them, every time.” hello fellow doom player. hope you like the color green

Based on ~ATH’s association with curses, as well as Sollux’s programming hobby, I think there’s a decent chance that Doom relates to coding in some way.

Coding is all about rules, so perhaps Doom, is, in fact, the aspect of rules and logic. I'm not sure why such an aspect would be named 'doom', but it's been obvious for a while that these aspect names aren't always literal.

Anonymous asked: I’d just like to clarify some terminology because it seems relevant, but Aradia isn’t a red blood, she’s a rust blood

[The blood colors all have canon names: Aradia = rust blood Tavros = bronze blood Sollux = gold blood Nepeta = olive blood Kanaya = jade blood Terezi = teal blood Vriska = blue blood (I like cerulean better tho) Equius = indigo blood Gamzee = purple blood Eridan = violet blood Feferi = fuchsia blood and Karkat has no official blood name, but people usually call him mutant blood or candy-red blood - C ]

Oh, there are official names for each color? That’s going to be helpful to disambiguate each blood caste, especially when we really start digging into troll culture and biology.

Anonymous asked: I do believe the top-left ship on the wall - no, Karkat doesn't have red eyes. […] It's probably Vrisrezi, yes, but it could also be Vriskat.

Yeah, I’m still not sure who this ship is supposed to represent.

They have Terezi’s eyes, but the hair and symbol look like Karkat’s. Plus, Nepeta hates this ship, which would make sense if it’s between her crush and someone other than her.

Honestly, my best guess is that it was meant to be Karkat, and the red eyes were just a mistake on Hussie’s part.

Anonymous asked: something I never thought about… is the blue blood sourced from equius or did he get a stock.

Aradia has real blue indigo blood in her veins, and it almost certainly belongs to Equius himself. He could have got it from a donor, but I personally doubt there was anyone else he could ask. Equius feels like he'd be an outsider, even to other indigo-bloods.

Anonymous asked: vriska would be a good strider

Vriska Serket raised by Bro Strider would be the most terrifying character imaginable. I don't even want to contemplate what that upbringing would do to her.

Anonymous asked: Any piece of lore hussie writes needs to contend with the fact that hussie is resolutely committed to the bit. Hence all the words on how different trolls are being entirely blasted aside by 'and then they're just grey humans anyway lmao'

That's the price of admission into Homestuck, for better or for worse. Hussie quite clearly enjoys screwing with us, and we have to take everything we see in the comic with a huge pinch of salt.

Anonymous asked: I'll disagree a bit on the phrasing that Eridan forces Feferi to <> him because firstly she doesn't even seem convinced that he would commit genocide and secondly she dropped him super easily once the lusus-feeding is no longer necessary. While understandable, that doesn't suggest to me someone who is obliged by Eridan's aggression to pacify him. I think she has much more agency in this relationship (or lack thereof I suppose) than that.

Feferi definitely had her doubts – but she must have believed that Eridan was dangerous to a certain degree, because that’s the basis of a moirallegiance.

Forced might not be the right word, but she certainly felt some amount of obligation to pacify him. She sure wasn’t in that relationship for the good of her health.

Anonymous asked: So, Vriska has a conversation with Karkat, where he says she seems to have blackrom feelings for Tavros, but that he doesn't think Tavros can even feel blackrom properly. Then she has another conversation with Tavros in which she antagonizes him, and he notices, but just kind of ignores it and doesn't respond emotionally. Then we see her make a huge dramatic redrom gesture and kiss him. She vacillated because he wasn't into her… incel behavior.

Yup. I’ve always held that Tavros never wanted anything to do with Vriska. He doesn't want to love or hate her - what he really wants is to live in a world where she doesn't exist.

Vriska’s refusal to accept this basic fact is one of the main reasons she’s decided to make his life a living hell.

Anonymous asked: I headcanon that troll blood is analog, but the empire culls non-digital colors because they make the troll race seem like a joke or something. Lol

If there were minor variations in blood color, the Empire probably wouldn’t want to acknowledge it, since the stratification of blood classes forms the basis of their society.

We haven’t seen any trolls besides our twelve (apart from Troll Will Smith) so we can’t compare the blood of two members of the same caste - but we can speculate. Human blood color is known to vary depending on its oxygenation level, and I imagine troll blood would reflect its current chemical composition in the same way.

Anonymous asked: Vriska must be seething while Karkat introduces the concept of quadrants to the reader. Imagine this basic and important facet of troll life, and you're just getting schoolfed it. (This message was sent on 20/10/22.)

This was a fun bit of weirdness from early Hivebent, wasn’t it? In retrospect, it's kind of hilarious that Karkat decided to infodump to Vriska about the obscure, niche topic of… dating.

@sanctferum asked: According to his formspring, Hussie's self-insert's classpect is Waste of Space. He also briefly considers Huss of Lips. This is obviously not meant to be taken seriously but. since you asked @absinthe-and-alabaster asked: i believe hussie said somewhere that FedoraFreak's classpect was "Gent of Piss" Anonymous asked: (not sure if this is technically a spoiler but) hussie has jokingly said that fedorafreak's class is a gent.

If Dad Egbert was a Player, then the Gent class would be forced into canonical existence, as the only class that could possibly define him.

Anonymous asked: If Vriska's control does require the victim to on some level want to do the thing, then Sollux's insistence that you do not under any circumstance eat the mind honey could be something he developed in response to that incident. So that if she ever controls him again, she won't be able to make him eat it.

Wow, I never considered that. That’s a very good (and tragic) take, and I think I'm at least locking it in as a headcanon.

Anonymous asked: the official extended zodiac actually has… 288 signs, if im doing my math right? and also probably hadn't yet been conceptualized when that page was posted (the earliest known evidence comes from 2015). i don't know if any thought was put into the number or if it was just pulled from their ass, but there was a running gag in hussie's q&as where he repeatedly threatened us with a 10,000 page intermission focused on 48 squiddles, each representing a sign from the alternian zodiac Anonymous asked: I believe the troll zodiac is one of the few things in HS lore that was truly retconned, there’s actually 288 signs.

Move over, 48 Squiddles. I want to hear about the 288-player clusterfuck that actually gave rise to Alternia!

@manorinthewoods asked: wheee, you got to the first god tiering! this probably opens up a load of new things to say, so, first off: do you think you need to have a full echeladder to god tier? vriska implied so.

She never outright stated that it was required, but I still think it probably is. You generally need to max out your class levels before you can prestige.

@morganwick asked: Believe it or not, you're still in the "Homestuck could have updated RIGHT NOW" phase of the comic's release schedule. The break after the Equius-Aradia kiss aside, the hiati you've heard horror stories about didn't start becoming a thing until the end of Act 5.

[this was around page 3000. still true at this page though - C]

Hussie’s sheer productivity at this stage continues to astound. Could you imagine having that much creative energy?

Maybe Hussie just drinks twenty coffees a day.

Anonymous asked: as someone who is Normal about aradia it's an absolute delight to see someone dig into her character. she's so fascinating to me. (also, fun fact, a while ago tumblr voted her the coolest character in all of homestuck. so there's that)

Aradia’s awesome, and I still don’t think her death is going to stick.

Her ghost was perfectly capable of existing without a body, so there's no reason she can’t survive her new body's destruction.

Anonymous asked: feferi hasn't just woken up, she won't be stuck asleep until 3 hours and 14 minutes into the future! timestamps, yo

Consider this the first mark on my otherwise impeccable record.

Anonymous asked: does cat have a troll/kidsona? itd be interesting to see a full 4 player session in art

[No kidsona, yes trollsona, but even a picture of her would spoil stuff from Act 6 😆 - C]

What she said. It’ll be a while until we can meet KATYAA SCRENR.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: Hey! You can just call me Fan. In all honesty I’m just some guy who likes your liveblog. He/him. I’m gonna list some fan aspects, and I want to see what you think they’d represent, and what abilities they’d give Law Dreams Might Shape Flow

Ooh, more fan aspects! These were a lot of fun to puzzle out the last time.

Law would be the aspect of command, instruction and agreement. An example power would be giving someone a simple rule they're compelled to follow, such as 'don't turn around'.

Dreams would be the aspect of ideas, motivation and symbolism. An example power would be the ability to detect people's idle thoughts - the things they're not even aware they're thinking about.

Might would be the aspect of growth, conflict and evolution. An example power would be the ability to temporarily enhance someone's Aspect abilities, at the cost of making those abilities harder to control.

Shape would be the aspect of form, encapsulation and topology. Shapeshifting is the most obvious application of this aspect, but it's appropriate.

Flow would be the aspect of persistence, momentum and continuity. An example power would be the ability to 'continue' something that has recently stopped. For example, if your PC ran out of power, they'd be able to keep it running for a while. The longer it had been previously running, the longer they could keep it running.

@martinkhall asked: I think Bro might have been raised entirely by shonen anime and My Little Pony Friendship is Magical (the version that existed only in the heads of the worst examples of Bronys). And puppets. Puppets were definitely involved in raising Bro. Anonymous asked: "He has no known relationship with any of the other parents, but was definitely getting foreknowledge of Sburb from somewhere. I’m not even sure I want to know what sort of childhood produces Bro Strider." well. i mean. he grew up with Lil Cal didn't he? the clearly haunted puppet from the sburban dreamscape of derse? it was what he dropped to earth with. i feel like that might explain at least a small part of, like, whatever he had going on.

That’s true. I don’t trust that puppet one bit, and we don’t know what it was up to before the start of the session.

I still suspect that the thing’s still just as alive as it was on Derse, and is just choosing to play dead.

Anonymous asked: I imagine you might've already been told this, but when checking out your FAQ I noticed you described PS/PQ/FS as "not exactly canon" and that you're less interested in liveblogging them because one of your favorite parts is watching all the story come together -- without spoiling anything, I find it pertinent to mention that Pesterquest & Friendsim definitely contribute to the wider "canon" even though dubiously canon themselves. Definitely "part of the story" so to speak.

Yeah, we’ll have to see what comes of this. The problem is that I’m still fuzzy on what ‘dubiously canon’ actually means.

Hopefully that will become more clear as I’m actually liveblogging these tie-in materials – which I am planning on doing. Only time will tell how in-depth the liveblog will actually be, though.

@manorinthewoods asked: In my Sundered opinion, Bec Noir is the best character design in Homestuck. I can't think of any other interesting designs at the moment, other than some which don't beat him and are spoilers anyway (like LE's). Which design do you find most interesting, out of the ones you have? ~LOSS (22/9/23)

I definitely agree that BecJack has one of the best designs in the comic. Plus, Scratch is so weirdly intimidating for a cueball-head.

Anonymous asked: My favorite part of PKWU is just how pointy Gamzee's chin is. It's so… Defined.

iT’s ToO lAtE, ErIdAn! I’vE AlReAdY DePicTeD MySeLf As ThE ChAd, AnD yOu As ThE SoYjAk >:o)

Anonymous asked: i need you to know ag canonically ripped off the sleeves on all of her shirts just to show off the robot arm

I believe it. I don't even need a source; this is just so true to Vriska's character that it's obviously correct.

@bladekindeyewear asked: If you and your ask screener decide that literary/external-media hero title examples without any details or explanation are alright to pass on unless they're too obviously revealing -- and those in and of themselves are usually in heavy dispute by classpect theorists -- I've long been of the opinion that Monkey D. Luffy and Peter Pan are the best possible literary examples of a Page of Breath.

All Pages of Breath must be associated with pirates. No exceptions.

Anonymous asked: unfun fact: the reason rose and jade dont have a lot of pesterlogs with eachother is just because their text colours were kinda eyestrainy together. thats it thats literally the whole reason!! god damn

Hussie: "I don't write Rose/Jade conversations because they’re hard to read."

Also Hussie:

Anonymous asked: you have officially passed my second favourite flash in literally all of homestuck. it's all so well hinted at beforehand but it still comes to punch you in the gut nonetheless Anonymous asked: My favourite thing in this flash is how the name of the flash isn't John: Rise Up, it's JOHN. RISE UP. it's WV sending a plead to John to not die. My second favourite thing is the way the music remixes Doctor (The theme for LoWaS). Anonymous asked: [S] JOHN. RISE UP. is one of my favorite flashes in all of Homestuck. Savior of the Waking World is some of Toby's best work What are your thoughts on our first taste of god tier? @violetsquare111 asked: So glad you liked Savior of the Waking World! One of my favorites in the comic for sure. It takes a lot of ideas from another of Toby's songs, Penumbra Phantasm, a song that… never actually got finished or officially released. There's still various renditions of it though, and the HS collection links a couple of em. (Some people have speculated that Penumbra Phantasm itself was never supposed to be a Homestuck song, and might end up being used in Deltarune, which would be cool as hell) Anonymous asked: It's crazy to think that just about 12 hours ago John was wearing silly disguises to fool his dad and now he's dying to become a god.

God time!

I do think it was the most emotional flash we’ve had, on the strength of the music alone. Savior of the Waking World goes hard as all hell.

Honestly, when WV started calling John a hero, and telling him to rise, it did start to give me some mild chills. Like, yeah – we know John’s a hero, but it feels extra special when it’s coming from someone who’s normally so irreverent.

@elkian asked: Welcome back, hope you're feeling better! I am losing it a bit over you IMMEDIATELY understanding how this coin flip sitch works, something about the narrative and reasoning doesn't match my brain so I've reread it multiple times with total understanding out of grasp and watching you dissect it halfway into the page is truly wild (delighted). Also feel like I understand it a lil better with your analysis.

Thank you! This message was actually sent the last time I returned from a pause, so apologies that I’m one hiatus late in answering it.

@royalvorpal asked: I just reread your entire blog in anticipation. Anonymous asked: This is such a good liveblog, I'm rereading it again and you are really letting me relive the pleasant parts of my middle school years. Reading this blog makes me feel like I'm back on the school bus talking to my friend about the newest update. Thank you for doing this 💛 Anonymous asked: That return page didn't have any sound, so misleading! (I jest, nice to see you're back.) ~DJ @manorinthewoods asked: Hahahah, we are BACK! Lovely, I've missed this liveblog. Most in-depth Homestuck liveblog I'm aware of, looking forward to the restart! ~LOSS (29/3/24) @popcornsalty asked: So excited to see you back!!! :D @chaosorchestrator asked: welcome back! It's good to hear that you're planning on getting back into it! I hope things have been going ok for you in the meantime! @necrowyrm asked: HAPPY 4/13 (OR AS THE ENLIGHTENED KNOW IT: 13/4) AND WELCOME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your votes of confidence, and happy 13/4 to you all!

@rippledphysique asked: Just found this blog and devoured it in a few days. I am selfishly wishing you the best in health and life so that it may return one day… @elkian asked: Hey Sally! Just wanted to wish you well on the recovery, the plague is no joke and I hope you've been able to enjoy some kind improvement. And that 2024 will be kinder, as well. Anonymous asked: wishing you the best in your interim, hopefully you can get a better position where you're not prone to burning out! Anonymous asked: Hope you're doing ok!! I miss seeing your cool liveblog on my dash @kittycatttmattt asked: Poor girl… Got killed by the schedule

Thanks for all the well-wishes, as well. Really, it wasn’t the schedule that was the issue – I just had a lot going on in the background last year. That’s all over now, though!

Anonymous asked: yeah, Homestuck's back babeyyyyy - the site was crashing because of traffic and everything @calamitascalliope asked: You coming back from your break resurrected Homestuck's corpse hggfffdd Anonymous asked: i think this actually is the first time homestuck has updated since you started liveblogging lol - homestuck 2 has been inactive assumed abandoned since december 25th 2020. also happy slightly belated blogiversary btw - you've been delighting us with your journey for two years now! @heliotropopause asked: New Homestuck upd8 just dropped. Apparently. Anonymous asked: what are the odds that you start liveblogging again the same exact day that postcanon comes back from the dead? Anonymous asked: crazy news. so literally just today, october 8th 2023, hussie has officially given complete free license to the newly formed "homestuck independent creative union" (HICU) to create content and monetize it with the homestuck brand however they see fit, with zero creative or financial control from any corporations or even hussie themself, though hussie has said they're available for consultation whenever the HICU wants their input. the HICU seems to be made up of people the community largely has respect for, and the person heading all of this up is James Roach, who is one of the most widely respected individual who has been inolved in homestuck "post canon" (ie. after homestuck itself ended). nobody was expecting any of this, it's completely bonkers. hopes are looking pretty high for homestuck compared to where they were merely a day ago.

Throwback to the day I personally resurrected Homestuck.

Has anything come of this since, actually? I haven’t heard anything about this new comic – although I do scroll in the opposite direction any time I see a reference to Homestuck, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t.

@corporalotherbear asked: What’s your favorite Pokémon?

Contrarian, that I am, I’ll instinctively gravitate to Missingno., if only for the nostalgia factor. Gen 1 glitches were my first real experience with pulling back the curtain of a game’s code, and taking a look at what lies beneath.

My favourite official Pokémon are Porygon-Z, Shedinja, Reuniclus and Metagross!

@heliotropopause asked: Breath/Light is an interesting one, because the ‘Mixolydian’ implies a musical theme, and I thought Time was the musical Aspect. Maybe it’s not that simple. They've all got a musical reference in the name- they are called fraymotifs, after all. Anonymous asked: The Fraymotifs are all musical references actually. E.g. Breath/Time is "Ivories in the Fire", the ivories in question being John's piano keys. A fraymotif is a battle theme. Anonymous asked: ivories in the fire is a musical theme, especifically a Rap term used by Snoop Dogg. So yeah it's connected to Dave Anonymous asked: re: fraymotifs: you pointed out "mixolydian", but that's not the only musical term there. feather "cadence", pneumatic "progression", even fray "motif" itself! hell, the building where you buy these things has an emblem with a crossed sword and music note! so i think this might be less a situation of "need to rethink time aspects association with music" and more "fraymotifs have a musical association also" Anonymous asked: if you look a bit closer at those names, (including the one "fraymotif",) you may realize that "mixolydian" isn't the only musical term referenced…. @galaxa-13 asked: You say the breath/Light Fraymotif implies a musical theme, but they all do! Fraymotif is a portmanteau of "fray" (to fight) and "leitmotif" (repeated musical phrase). Each Fraymotif name implies a musical theme.

Dang it. Yup, they’re all pretty obvious references to music.

I wrote that post the day I was trying to wrangle our family PC into running the Homestuck Collection without lag, so I was a little distracted at the time. Please direct all complaints to Windows XP.

#asks #full liveblog #act 5.2 #this is just the first part of the comp. I have enough asks for another one. maybe another two. we'll see

[kisakis-boyfriend]

Hiya! I love your works so I have a Halloween request for Bennett. His bad luck usually means that gets absolutely zero play, but things start to take a turn for the better when he begins getting nightly visits from a sleep paralysis demon reader. Bennett is semi-conscious and unable to move himself while reader has his way with him. When Bennett wakes up in the morning it all seems like a crazy dream but the evidence left on his body is very real.

Sleeping Benny

Pairings: Bennett x reader

Warnings: Male!reader, dom/top!reader, sleep paralysis demon!reader, sub/bottom!Bennett, soft noncon (Bennett enjoys it pretty quickly~), some fluff at the end

Genre/Format: Smut; Oneshot

Author's Note: Oough I love this concept, anon! As usual, Bennett is 20+ here~

Please check my blog title to verify whether requests are closed or not! Thank you!

It was no secret that Bennett was terribly unlucky. Always winding up in strange and dangerous situations, it was a miracle that he survived some of the things he'd been through... and though he often wore a smile and tried to see the bright side of every situation, his constant bad luck did affect him mentally

Bennett was rather prone to horrible nightmares, causing frequent insomnia and even paranoia throughout the daytime. He did his best to hide the symptoms and, for the most part, he was successful. Lately, the nightmares had become much worse, jolting him awake at all hours of the night in a frenzy

Then one night, after yet another brutal nightmare, Bennett was once again scared awake. His labored breathing and racing heart were telltale signs of that, but this time he didn't bolt upright. His back was still pressed flat against the mattress and the only thing that could really move of their own accord were his eyes, which quickly darted around the dark room as he tried to get his bearings. Something felt very wrong this time, a strange sensation of panic flooded all of his senses at once and Bennett tried to scream...

...Yet no sound came out. It was as if his vocal chords no longer worked. He tried to move his arm only to find that he could not, his entire body felt like it was made of lead as another wave of panic washed over the restless adventurer. His arm remained draped over his stomach as it rose and fell at a frantic pace

Bennett's stare was fixed on the ceiling above him, shadows cast from all sorts of things from the single nightlight amidst the darkened room that he resided in. A new sensation caused his eyes to widen; what felt like someone's hand trailing its fingers up his legs. Fingers digging into the soft flesh of his thighs caused him to whimper, squeezing his eyes shut while the groping continued. It moved upwards, brushing against his member that was tucked into his pajama shorts and pulling a whine from him. The sensitive area between his legs being untouched both by himself and other people

Bennett glanced down in the direction where the strange feeling was coming from, expecting to see a person, but instead what he saw was nothing more than a shadow. Except the shadow was oddly shaped like a human...kind of. The edges of the shape were blurry and fuzzy, somewhat similar to static. It was impossible to make out any features or details, he wouldn't have even assumed that it was supposed to be a person if it weren't for the obvious feeling of being groped where the shape was positioned

-

The man laying below you looked in your direction, his wide eyes staring at you fearfully, though you knew he wouldn't be able to tell if you were truly there or not. Just a fun perk of your nature; being incomprehensible to humans in this semi-conscious state that you lure them into. Especially humans that had any conditions that affected their ability to sleep, even short-term things such as pulling an all-nighter once. Anything was more than enough to fuck with them and invade their consciousness for a little while

Long enough to feel their cute little body up, for example. And boy did you find such a perfect little thing. Someone who has yet to be touched at all, who's sensitive to even the gentlest of gestures, someone who would be fun to ruin.

So, that was your plan. To slowly work the poor thing up over a couple nights until his body was desperate for something– anything to fill up his virgin hole and grant him the pleasure that he so desired

Night 1 had already begun. The first step was to litter his body in teasing touches. That's all. Just touch every sensitive part on his small body so that he would crave more, subconsciously thinking about these feelings tomorrow. Sliding your hands along his inner thighs and up into his shorts, just barely brushing past his dick but never touching it directly. Dragging your nails back down and squeezing his thighs once more while the human let out a soft moan above you

Surely the little thing was confused right now. Grappling with the thought of being touched by someone or something, to his mind, that he didn't know. But also something that he wasn't even sure was real. To him this seemed like a dream, a hellish nightmare that he would eventually wake up from. All of this was terrifying and yet.... the way your hands glided across his skin, groping his thighs and rubbing up to his chest, it felt...good. It was pleasurable. He didn't know why he felt the way he did, he just knew that his body was all tingly and warm now. As someone's hands roamed his scarred frame the desire for more crept in, causing lewd sounds to fall from his lips unwillingly

Just as quickly as you had appeared, you left him. Alone with the lingering feeling of fingers caressing his thighs and nipples, Bennett couldn't help the way he tried to move his hips, attempting to buck into touches that were no longer there. Still unable to move, he resigned to his fate. Sighing before closing his eyes and eventually succumbing to sleep

Night 2 came rather quickly, and you were excited to tease your new plaything once again. Waiting patiently at the foot of his bed until his eyes shot open and his breathing sped up, taking in his surroundings a little less frantically than last night. You went to work right away, repeating your teasing ministrations of squeezing his thighs, but this time going a little further. Spreading his legs a bit so that your face would fit in between them and licking his sensitive skin, the new sensation caused Bennett to gasp suddenly. He was still immobile, the only things that could move slightly were his eyes and mouth once again, though he could not speak. Only noises such as whines and gasps could slip out

The noises enticed you to keep going, biting his thigh gently before trailing soft kisses up towards his hardening member, licking and sucking on the fabric that covered it until it was visibly wet. Your hands went to work on his dick next, wrapping around the length and pumping him roughly. The sudden movement resulted in a beautiful moan from the human, if he wasn't paralyzed by your powers surely his back would have arched for you

You continued stroking his clothed member harshly, abruptly stopping whenever you thought he was close to an orgasm. The repeated edging caused him to pant, sweat rolling down his warm skin as you toyed with him. Next, you decided to work Bennett's pretty hole open. Pulling his boxers down and eyeing your goal deviously, you gave his dick a few more pumps, making sure to collect as much precum as you could before returning to his entrance. Using that bit of precum and your spit as lube while you pushed one finger inside

He was tight. Impossibly tight as his muscles clenched around your digit invading his body, moaning like a whore above you the entire time. Bennett didn't know whether he wanted to push his hips down so that you'd go deeper inside of him, or pull away because this felt really weird...but also really, really fucking good. A part of him wanted this to keep happening, the new sense of pleasure was like a new adventure. Exploring something that he'd never known about before

Just as Bennett becomes used to the feeling of one finger prodding inside of his hole, you add another one, stretching him open a bit further. Thrusting into his wet hole and curling your fingers until you found his prostate, pushing against his sweet spot to pull more choked noises of pleasure from the poor thing

And once again, just as quickly as you'd fingered his virgin ass open, you pulled out and left. Leaving Bennett to lie there motionless as his chest heaved from the excitement, his little ass clenching around nothing as he was left to feel empty and alone... But once again, he remained immobile until he awoke the next morning, going through his day on edge from your cruel....well, your cruel edging

Until the third night finally arrived. Bennett was almost too restless to fall asleep in the first place, secretly hoping that whatever had been exploring his body would come back again. He wasn't ready to admit it quite yet but...he had begun to unlock his inner whore, thanks to your help of course

After a while of tossing and turning, Bennett finally settled in to fall asleep. Turning on his side and huffing as exhaustion crept in, causing his eyes to become heavier and heavier until he succumbed to that drowsiness. Not long after is when you showed up, twice as eager for the things that you had planned for tonight

Eyeing your prey from your position in the corner of his room and bathed in the pitch black darkness that covered the area like a blanket, you slowly stepped closer to the bed where Bennett lay. His breathing was shallow and his muscles were noticeably tense, a sign that he was already awake and well aware of your presence. Staring at the wall in front of him while your shadowy form crept closer and crawled into the bed with him

An obvious shifting of weight on the mattress confirmed your presence to Bennett, gulping while you spooned him from behind. Even though he couldn't see you, he was sure that you were the same being from the past few nights. A familiar heaviness in his chest was one of the many giveaways, besides the fact that he was basically paralyzed until the next morning...

Nonetheless, you slid one arm under the human and wrapped it around his torso, pulling him back against your body. You were solid enough that he could recognize the feeling of a body behind him, yet it still felt off. There was no warmth emanating from you at all, no heartbeat either. Just the vague shape of a human body pressed against his sensitive back, holding him close while your other hand lifted his leg and draped it over your own. Keeping his legs spread so that you could do whatever you wanted and he wouldn't be able to close them or move away, not that he wanted to though

Bennett's body trembled, both in fear and excitement, as you wasted no time touching and groping his delicate flesh. His underwear had been discarded before he even crawled into bed, another testament to that eagerness of his. Since you removed them last night, he figured that you'd probably just do the same thing again tonight, so why not do that part for you beforehand?

This was much appreciated on your end, able to jump right into the action after feeling up his squishy thighs that you had come to so adore. Immediately going to stroke his soft cock while the little thing moaned at every touch, his eyes fluttering closed in pure bliss.

Bennett wished that he could move on his own for some things. Sure, on one hand not being in control made this whole situation more fun, left to your mercy and unable to even scream while you did anything to him. But on the other hand, he so desperately wanted to buck his hips into your hand, the slow stroking that you were currently doing just wasn't enough...he needed more...

Of course, you already knew that. Which is why you kept up a slow and steady pace, teasing his sensitive tip occasionally to build up that desire. When Bennett was fully erect, you stopped stroking him. Once again using his own precum and spitting into your hand to lube yourself up, jerking off until you were hard too. Then you stretched his ass open just as you had last night, working in three fingers in total so that his hole was fully prepped to take your length

Finally the moment that he'd been waiting for had arrived, you were going to be inside of him and corrupt his innocence. His virgin hole would stretch around your thick cock and he'd become your little bitch, just a warm hole for your pleasure. Swept up in his fantasies, Bennett didn't notice the drool pouring from the corner of his mouth while he imagined such a thing, too lost in the fantasy of becoming someone's cock slut to pay attention to reality. Well, until you penetrated him, that is. The burning stretch of something entering him for the first time pulled his hazy mind back into his present

He hadn't anticipated how much it would hurt at first, though the pleasure that soon followed made it all worth it. The feeling of a fat cock stuffing his little ass was so much better than Bennett had imagined...and when you began thrusting slowly? Easing him into a steady rhythm and molding his insides to fit you perfectly? That's when he truly let go. His body went slightly limp as he relaxed into your hold, eagerly accepting your dick like a good whore

As your thrusting became rougher, Bennett was reduced to a moaning mess in your arms. A dumb smile plastered onto his face while you railed him, grunting next to his ear from the way his ass clenched around you. The way his warm, wet hole squeezed your dick finally sent you over the edge, shooting a load of cum inside of him and biting down on his delicate neck while your eyes rolled back into your skull

While you finished emptying your cum inside of him, you went back to stroking Bennett's dick, eliciting cute whines from the little human as you brought him closer to his first release. Speeding up your movements cruelly until he came all over your hand, his first orgasm hitting him hard as his limp body twitched in your arms. Taking advantage of the fact that he couldn't move, you gathered some of Bennett's cum on your fingers and shoved them into his open mouth, taking pleasure in the way he gagged on them and couldn't do anything about it. He would have to accept whatever you put into his mouth, forced to taste his own cum while you smeared it onto his tongue, forcing your fingers down his throat again just to hear him whine and choke on you

When you were done playing with him, you removed your digits from his mouth, slowly pulling out of his ass afterwards and letting him relax completely. Bennett's mind was still pretty fuzzy even as his heart rate returned to normal, quietly drifting off after a few minutes. But for once...you stayed. Instead of the usual ‘leave immediately after getting to the good part’ you continued to cradle your newest plaything. You weren't entirely sure why, it just felt right to linger for a while and feel someone's heartbeat against your empty chest

-

When Bennett awoke the next morning everything seemed like a dream. Sitting up in his bed, he ran his hand through his messy, white hair, taking in his surroundings through eyes still partially blurred by sleep. The sun peeked through the curtains a bit, shining rays of light on the wood floor and his adventure's attire thrown off halfheartedly. Everything seemed normal until Bennett noticed the slight pain in his shoulder. He crossed an arm over his chest and found a bite mark left on his skin, probably bruised by now based on the pain when he pushed on it

It was then that the memories of last night flooded back into his brain. It wasn't a dream. That was all real...that really happened. He thought, remembering the way you made him choke on your fingers, the way you jerked him off just before that, and the way you fucked him like a toy even earlier... every last detail crept back in, sending a wave of warmth throughout his body as his hips involuntarily humped the sheets still covering his lap

He had hoped that last night wasn't the end of this new adventure.... craving your rough grip on his hips and thick cock stuffing him again. Whining at the thought of becoming your permanent cocksleeve and hoping that whatever had done this to him felt the same...

Reblogs are extremely appreciated <3

#my writing #genshin impact smut #genshin smut #genshin x reader #genshin impact #bennett #genshin bennett #sub bennett #bennett x reader #male reader #dom reader #top reader #halloween specials 🎃 #requested #demon au #oneshot

[schneiderenjoyer]

Arcanist's "Perception" & The Unseen World

Hello! I'm back at it again with a fascinating look into analyzing new information from the recent event in global that help solidify certain headcanons and theories I have about arcanist genetics/behavior and how much more they're different from humans.

It focuses on the Meditator's Realm and how it supports something I've already had assumptions on and that is:

Arcanists can tangibly see and interact with things others, mostly humans, can't. This apply to other arcanists as well even if some can theoretically perceive them.

This is a long read, so take your time.

Let's start with what I mean by their perception creating tangibility on what an arcanist can see and interact with. Arcanists are highly sensitive to strong emotions and their thought process works differently on how they manage it. Using Kaalaa Baunaa as an example, we can see how she manifests stress and anxiety as a literal monster stalking her with the proposal papers as its "anchor" or main source of the strong emotions:

This is one of the many ways arcanists "perceive" emotions that makes sense to them and through Deep Meditative Thought (Gnosis), they can compartmentalize it into a more coherent structure that would be more similar to how humans deal with strong emotional response without it manifesting into strong "hallucinations."

But are they really hallucinations?

Not quite. While the emotional state can be seen as delusions, they're very much real to arcanists for one specific reason: Their core. I forgot the actual term they use for it (it could actually just be Gnosis honestly), but one of the biggest biological difference between humans and arcanists is that arcanists apparently have some kind of stone in their brain that's theorized to be the deciding factor of how they can use arcanum and "perceive" wild things.

But the "delusions", according to humans, are actual solid things the arcanists can interact with. They're tangible and real, but invisible to the naked eye with only a particular set of individuals being able to "see" them. These unseeing things becomes what's known as "myths" or "cryptids" to humans. But even arcanists find it hard to perceive these things as they're not specialized in it.

We can see this in Tooth Fairy.

While other arcanists can see the tooth fairies in her jar (which has unique properties meant to contain them), the "other fairies" that surround her constantly and more freely are invisible to them both in sight and hearing.

This leads me to believe that each arcanists see many "unseen things" differently and purely based on their skills and capabilities, but have the potential to "see" what other arcanists see either with the right tools (anchor) or enough practice.

People who try to "perceive" these things without proper training or equipment to "observe" them carefully can lead to a lot of mental distress, even insanity. Commonly humans because:

Humans are creatures that go by the motto of "Fact over fiction" or "Seeing is believing", but when actually facing the truth of things, they buckle under the pressure.

But that doesn't mean arcanists are immune to these effects either.

This is one of Baby Blue's "items" that she brought back from "Wonderland" and it's unstable and imperfect. Even UTTU's arcanist staff slowly lose the sense to properly "perceive" the item if they look too long both because it's incomplete and it's an "unseen thing" that only Baby Blue has fully deciphered in her head. It's a tangible, solid shape to her, but a confusing distorted attempt to mimic the real thing to others. It could also be due to the fact it's not from their world, but from "Wonderland", a place slightly different from their own.

But how did she manage to bring it into reality that even untrained arcanist eyes can "perceive" it with only minor consequences of lengthy observation to it?

This is where the Meditator's Realm comes into play.

It's described as a Realm that "mirrors" reality that can be entered through a special meditative form and connects the Deep Thought (Gnosis) of arcanists to it, allowing them to explore and interact with it to some degree.

Kaalaa Baunaa even compares it to dreaming, but more specifically she's referring to what humans call Lucid Dreaming. It's a form of astral projection where the soul disconnects from the body after entering REM sleep. A deep meditative state achieved through sleep. This is further supported from Baby Blue's interview about "Wonderland":

The implication is staggering as this could mean that even humans can enter this realm through lucid dreaming, but can't achieve as great of an influence there as arcanists who are naturally born to view everything in reality as different. The Meditator's Realm could be proof of a parallel world anyone can access with enough skill and resources.

Like the Manus Vindictae.

Their goals for wanting to reverse the world is still unknown, but with the new insight about the Meditator's Realm, we can speculate that how the Storm operates is through the collapse and bridging between "Reality" and a "Mirrored Reality." And with the Manus' intention of "bringing the world to the right course of history", the possibility of them selecting one of these parallel worlds and attempt to merge it with theirs by "erasing" parts to later glue fragments from another into it is more and more possible.

And an arcanist's ability to "perceive" the unseen realms becomes a very prevalent key to surviving a Storm.

Because with this, they can see the "in between" and the moment "reality" and the "mirrored world" starts conflicting before the Storm takes everything away due to the unstable consequences of bringing two worlds together.

They're still not immune when the Storm actually arrives, but just simply being able to "see" the signs gives them an advantage in braving it.

TLDR; Arcanists not only think differently from humans, but can see and interact with things far beyond the scope of "reality" that even other arcanists find hard to understand without training or an anchor.

The Meditator's Realm could be potential proof of parallel worlds and could be how the Manus dictates the course of what era they want to reach. As well as the unstable collision between "reality" and the "mirrored world" could be how the Storm operates.

Thank you for reading! Hope this fascinates you into thinking other theories about the Meditator's Realm and what could this mean for the world lore and arcanists.

#reverse 1999 #reverse 1999 lore discussion #surprise surprise it's a theory crafting and analysis that wasn't fueled by Schneider brainrot #UNLESS...nah lmao

[vympirestake]

— Michael Myers NSFW Headcanons

— Michael Myers x GN!Reader, 🔞, possessive Michael

— oral (both receiving), generally rough (mention of bruising), edging

═════════════════════════════

first things first, the mask stays ON

really, until you have firm trust and understanding built together its going to stay on at all times

that said Michael is rough in every sense of the word, especially at the beginning of the relationship

it's less that he intentionally does this and more that he just doesn't know his own strength, or really care to know at least right now

he's absolutely a virgin but I think, if nothing else, he's stalked enough horny teens to get the general idea

even so when you're both finally comfortable enough and start making movies, he's almost timid

or at least as timid as a 6' something deadly legend can really get

he allows you to take the first steps, guiding him, explaining to him what you're doing and how to touch you

he doesn't say much, which won't really change through your relationship, but you can tell he's watching and listening very intently

still, it comes as a suprise when he holds your thighs open, his grip almost bruising as he explores your most intimate area with his fingers

it really feels like he's just experimenting, almost toying with you in how he pokes and prods to see what makes you squirm or moan

please give this man head

the first time you do it he becomes so uncharacteristically flustered

hands are anywhere he can put them, he's breathing like crazy, you might have hallucinated it but you could swear you got a whimper out of him

when he finally cums he tangles one hand in your hair to hold your head down on him, hips thrusting up into your mouth trying to chase his high

but when he finally buries himself in you, he is like a man possessed

grabbing your hips or waist so hard you know it'll bruise, anything to drag you as close to him as he can get while he pounds without any real rhythm

once he's a little more seasoned his edges smooth ever so slightly

his grip is a little more calculated, especially for when he's feeling possessive as he does secretly love to see the bruises, knowing he is the one that made them

now he's versed in what really makes you tick so he can indulge in his newest kink: edging

his day job is stalking people in their own homes for hours on end, he has enough patience to keep you waiting on the edge all night

and he doesn't really even want anything out of it, just enjoys watching you arch and plead over and over "michael, please, please, please, michael, let me come"

when he's comfortable and trusts you wholly and completely he will take off the mask

immediately dives in to give you head

he doesn't have much of a technique, just finds what makes you feel good and figures something out

but anything he lacks in technique he makes up for in a surprising amount of enthusiasm but, really, this is everything he enjoys about being with you

watching you writhe around, holding you down/your legs apart in turn making wonderful new bruises, and keeping you completely at his mercy

now that he's maskless he has also discovered the joy of leaving hickies on you

possessive possessive possessive

because of his secluded nature, just stalking you in the day isn't enough. he needs everyone around you to know you belong to him

so the moment he gets you in his grasp, he's sucking and biting marks into any available flesh though especially where it can be seen easily

you've got dark bites along your thighs, purpled bruises like a necklace along your neck, and suspiciously hand shaped marks across your hips 25/8 all day everyday

═════════════════════════════

#michael myers x reader #michael myers #halloween #x reader #mine #headcannons #spicy

[coltermorning]

When Lightning Strikes Twice (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)

Summary: You and Arthur pursue a treasure only to wind up switching bodies thanks to an unexplainable lightning storm.

Author’s Notes: This is probably pure chaos to read because of the pronouns but enjoy I tried my best :,)

Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, smut, high honor Arthur Morgan, bodyswap

AO3 Link

~

When Lightning Strikes Twice

Word count: 10876

The sun was baking the ground, the trees, everything it could reach. You included. It was a wonder the heat hadn’t caused an endless scape of brown to stretch into the horizon. It certainly felt like it should, like being an egg on a skillet. Your predicament wasn’t making things any easier either.

“Where’d you say this tree was?”

“Just down this way.”

You followed Arthur on horseback toward some kind of treasure. Hopefully. You normally wouldn’t give a moment’s thought to a map, especially one as ragged and torn as the one you had found, but Arthur mentioned he had found two that turned into treasure—gold. It was at least worth a look. Shit at tracking, you had asked Arthur to come along. You knew it would mean splitting the take, but if said take was as large as Arthur’s previous finds, it would be worth it and then some.

“Think the tree’ll have some kind of clue?” you asked, wiping the sweat from your brow. Your patience was running pitifully thin.

“Map says to go past it. I think I know where.”

Cryptic. Really, you didn’t know why you put up with him. That was a lie, you did—Arthur had become one of your closest friends. It was a bit of an odd pairing, him being so serious and literal and you being so easy-going. But the more you got to know him, the more you brought out that side of him, no matter how deep he tried to bury it.

“Oh, he knows where!” you said to your horse, patting its neck.

“Hush,” he grumbled, earning himself a cackle from you.

Sure enough, you soon reached the tree the map depicted, managing not to melt off your horse in the meantime. It really was unbearably hot.

Arthur stopped his horse next to the tree, studying it. It was definitely the right one—a low limb stuck straight out of its side as if someone had shaped it into an arrow, pointing the way. The bridge behind it was the same one depicted on the map.

“How’d you know where to find this?”

Arthur got down off his horse to get a closer look. “Told you. I get around, note my surroundings. Unlike you.”

“Hey, if I didn’t note my surroundings, we wouldn’t have this map in the first place.”

He chuckled. “Sure.” Circling the whole tree, he studied it closely before getting back on his horse. “This way.”

“Where to?”

He didn’t answer, and you had half a mind to throw something at him. But when he slowed again, pointing out another tree with a funny limb, you pursed your lips.

“Ah. One with the land, he is.”

“Would you stop talking to your horse about me? It’s unseemly.”

“Like you don’t talk to your horse.”

“I talk to my horse plenty. I don’t gossip.”

You laughed. “Sure you don’t.”

Arthur shot you a look before moving on, finding another tree, then another. The map showed the first tree in the foreground, a river beside it, and finally a group of trees that had been burned. So far, the latter two weren’t revealing themselves. That is, until you followed where the last tree had been pointing and found a river snaking by the hillside, sparkling in the hot sunshine.

“Think that’s the one we’re looking for?”

Arthur considered. “Has to be. See that rock in the stream there?” He nodded toward said rock, the same one depicted on the map, and your excitement took hold at the sight of it—maybe all this sweating and waiting would pay off.

You trotted past him before he could start, taking the lead.

“Where you going?”

“I don’t need you anymore,” you teased. “Go right on home, leave the real work to them as can handle it.”

“Like hell I am,” he said with a snort, catching up to ride alongside you.

After crossing the small river, your horses climbed the hill on the other side, coming out onto a worn path.

“That cluster of dead trees seemed to be on a hilltop,” Arthur offered. You looked ahead of you, across the path, to the steep hill that ran upward and nearly out of sight behind the trees.

“Up it is,” you said, leading again. This was a harder hill for your horse to take, but you were soon very high, overlooking the rocky landscape. There was a small settlement just south, one you had never come across before. The people milling about were wild for doing anything other than resting with this heat bearing down on them.

“Butcher Creek,” Arthur said, inclining his head toward it.

“Hm.” You turned, needing for this to be over. Needing to be back in camp with your head dunked in a barrel of water.

Climbing higher still, going north on a small path that snaked through the grass, the pair of you finally came out on the very trees the map depicted. They were all burnt and gnarled, without many limbs to speak of. As if something powerful had snapped them all off.

“Did a fire do this?” you asked, slowing your approach.

“Looks more like lightning to me.”

“Lightning?” As soon as you said it, you felt a shift in the air, a slight breeze where the air had been stiff as hot death a moment before. You looked toward the sky but saw no foul weather to speak of. Your horse still shifted uncomfortably beneath you, something it only ever did during said weather. “Strange,” you muttered, getting off your horse to follow Arthur.

He had approached the trees, looking between their deadened trunks for any sign of something left behind on the ground. There wasn’t much to look for—it was a tiny spot of land, very few trunks left standing in the small patch of rock and infertile ground.

“What are we looking for?” you asked him, knocking against the first tree you came to, checking for hollowness.

“I ain’t too sure. That bit on the back didn’t make much sense to me.” This meaning the back of the map which had a tiny scrawling of words on it. You tried to recall them from memory.

See the sight Utter the word With blinding light It will be heard

Arthur figured this was more nonsense than anything, but you hadn’t brushed it off entirely. “Utter the word,” you mumbled under your breath. Maybe there was a word carved into a tree. You began your search for such a thing when you felt that breeze again, the whispering touch of it making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. You looked up when the wind began moving the tree leaves like a promise of an oncoming storm. But there was still a cloudless sky, the sun bearing down its relentless beat. If it weren’t for the trees moving, you would think you were going mad.

“You feel that?” You looked to Arthur.

“Feel what?”

“That wind.”

“Yeah.” Abandoning his crouching search of the ground, he stood tall, taking in his surroundings. “We’re up pretty high.”

“Still strange.” You looked over at your horse, the way it stepped around unsettled. “This may sound stupid but…lightning can’t strike unless it’s cloudy, right?”

Arthur shot you an unamused look.

“I’m serious. My horse never acts that way.” You pointed to it, drawing his attention. The animal was beginning to get beyond the point of wanting to listen despite Arthur’s horse standing firm beside it. It wouldn’t be long until your mount lost its tether to the ground and ran from whatever was giving it such a fright.

You made for it with hands held up and voice low. “Easy,” you hummed, trying to calm it. The closer you got, the more the horse tip toed away, the whites of its eyes beginning to show. And still, that strange wind picked up. “Easy there,” you repeated. It was useless. The horse finally got scared enough to move, stepping away from you.

“What’re you doing to it?” Arthur said as he approached. “You best grab the reins before it-”

The horse bolted before he could finish the sentence. “Shit. Hey!” you yelled after it. It had never acted so spooky before, especially not toward you. But there it was, galloping into the trees so fast you knew it would take Arthur’s horse to catch it. You set your hands on your hips and let out a sigh. “This treasure better be goddamn worth it.” You looked to Arthur, but when you did, something else caught your eye. Your horse had led you over to a new vantage from which to view the dead trees. And the gnarled trunks all fit together, almost like…

“Look at that,” you told Arthur, pointing to them. He turned, and the wind gave a bellowing howl. It was so strange, such a loud noise for such cloudless weather. Normally wind like that, a cold wind through all this heat no less, signaled rain. But you couldn’t focus on that, not when your heart began to race from the sight before you. “The trees. They look like- well…” Maybe you were reaching. You didn’t want Arthur to think you’d gone as crazy as your horse. But still, that poem on the back of the map talked about a word.

“I see it,” he said. “They spell…”

“Why.” You said it together. And the second you did, the wind drew back in a breath, as if in retreat. Then the sky exploded.

You cowered and fell, knowing nothing but deafening noise and blinding light, entirely disoriented. You held onto the ground beneath your fingers as the howl of wind was swallowed by a crack so loud it tore against your ears. Then there was heat, unfathomable heat. Scorching your skin and any remaining senses you had. Before you could even think to run for your life, all went black.

~

You moved your eyes around, not opening them. You hurt all over. So much that your entire body felt heavy. You tried to move but groaned in pain. Only, the sound that met your ears was entirely wrong. Your eyes shot open. And before you was…you. On the ground, feet away. Unconscious.

“What the-” You stopped dead at the sound of your voice. At how deep it was. “No…” You looked down to find Arthur’s shirt on your body. No. Arthur’s body. “What the hell?” Arthur’s voice came rumbling out with your every word. “I-” You couldn’t think of what to do. Couldn’t think. You fought through your pain and started crawling, heading for your body sprawled out on the ground. You were dead. You had died. From the looks of the burnt up ground, you’d gotten struck by lightning. But the sky remained relentlessly blue, so at odds with the horror of what you saw before you.

You finally reached yourself, unable to process how strange that was as you reached out with Arthur’s hand and touched your body. Immediately, you jolted awake.

“What’s- what the hell?” You could only stare at yourself, unbelieving, as your own eyes went wide at the sight of Arthur. Of you in Arthur’s body.

“I’m…” You were completely at a loss. How could you be alive in two different bodies? How could you be alive at all?

“You’re me.” The words coming out of your mouth…you had to think hard to come up with who was who, with what that meant.

“Arthur?” you asked lowly.

“How did this happen?” You looked unnaturally still when you said it. When Arthur said it. His mannerisms on your body were absurdly strange.

“I…” You could hardly fight the words out. You could hardly believe what you were seeing. Maybe you had died. “The lightning. The trees.”

At the mention, you looked to the dead trees out from under the brim of Arthur’s hat. They stood there as unassuming as ever, the cloudless sky as still as it had been on the ride up here, the scorching heat returned.

You heard Arthur turn to look at them too but didn’t watch, unsettled by the sight of yourself.

“How the hell did lightning strike us? It’s clear as a bell out here.” You had the sudden urge to laugh, hearing Arthur’s anger pour out in your voice. It sounded ridiculous.

“Beats me,” you answered. “How am I you? Why am I you?” You met your own eyes once more. And the feeling was still so wrong that you tried to stand just to have something to do with yourself. You were weak, like you had taken one hell of a beating. But moving was different. Arthur’s body was considerably stronger than yours. Finally reaching your feet, you looked down from a taller height, noticing every inch of how different you felt for the first time. For one thing, you were a man now. So that was how it felt, standing around with something between your legs. You shifted back and forth on your feet, getting used to it.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop it.” You looked to yourself, to Arthur, and smiled.

“What?”

“Don’t move your hips around like that. It looks ridiculous.”

“What, like this?” you said, shaking your hips back and forth. The sheer weight of his body was an adjustment, your balance catching.

“For the love of-” He grimaced like he normally did, only it looked laughable on you.

“Don’t scowl like that,” you said, still smiling. “I never scowl.”

“Yeah, well, I do,” he said, standing. When he managed it, you did laugh, the sound of Arthur’s rare mirthful laughter piercing the air. You were so short. How had you never noticed how small you were compared to Arthur? “What?” he spat.

“You’re just- you’re so little.”

“And you’re an ugly bastard.”

“Hey! I am not. In fact, I’d say I look pretty good like this.” You posed with chin held high, knowing how much it would irk him.

You immediately felt his—no, your—hands on you as he shoved you. “Cut that out.”

Your grin widened. “Make me.”

You could tell it was taking all his will not to pounce on you. But even he knew it was useless, as tiny as he was probably feeling right now.

“Forget it,” he said with a dismissal wave. “How do we fix this?” He looked to the trees and made for them, trudging up the hill.

You followed, noting how large your stride was. How weird it felt to walk with something between your legs. “Who says we have to fix it?”

“I do,” he snapped. “I ain’t getting stuck like this.”

“Oh, come on,” you said, your words in Arthur’s voice sounding just as laughable. He would never say something so eagerly. “It ain’t so bad.”

“For you maybe.”

You stopped, crossing your arms. It drew his attention.

“What?” he said on a sigh. “And stop standing like that. You’re standing like a woman.”

“You don’t have to be so hateful towards me. I know being me isn’t all that grand, but you don’t have to throw it in my face.”

His expression faltered. Just barely. But you knew your own face well enough to spot it.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he mumbled, turning back to the trees.

You rolled your eyes. Then cracked a grin when you had a sudden idea.

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove it. Let’s go a day like this, see how well you can handle being a woman in a man’s world.”

“No,” he said flatly, looking to the trees again. “Where’d that damn wind go?”

“Seems to have left,” you said with a shrug. “May be stuck like this.”

“This all just a joke to you, is it?”

“It’s certainly amusing enough. Remind me not to get too angry by the way. It’s more cute than it is intimidating.”

When he didn’t respond, you just smiled and turned, making for his horse. It had run a short ways away, likely when lightning had rained down from the cloudless heavens. If it had even been lightning at all. If it weren’t for you walking in Arthur’s boots, you would think none of it had happened in the first place.

You reached Arthur’s horse, the animal nuzzling your hand fondly, not recognizing you weren’t its owner. “There,” you said lowly, liking the sound of your deep voice.

“Hey! What the hell you think you’re doing?” Arthur shouted.

“I think I’ll go for a ride, see what a day in the life of Arthur Morgan’s like.”

“Are you crazy? You’re staying here until we figure this out.

“No, I ain’t crazy. And I’d like to see you stop me.”

Arthur’s hand twitched beside the gun on your hip, like it always did when he was agitated. You barked a laugh. “You gonna shoot me? Shoot yourself?”

“I’m fighting the urge.”

“Really,” you said, beginning to get annoyed. “It’s not that bad. Just give it one damn day, then we can figure this out, go back to being ourselves.”

“I don’t want to. And I don’t want you to. You’ll get me killed, parading around like that.”

“Like what?”

“Swinging your- my hips around. I’ll get shot on sight. Hell, your mouth’ll probably get me shot up if that don’t.”

“Your mouth’s about to get you shot up just fine,” you said flatly, mounting his horse. He was still far enough away that you didn’t have to worry about him catching up. “Enjoy finding my horse after all that lightning.” You smiled through his protests and kicked his horse into a run, riding swiftly away, no longer hampered down by the sweltering heat thanks to your newfound optimism and purpose.

Riding a horse was strange now, having to adjust to Arthur’s heavy-set body. When the town of Van Horn came into view, you were relieved for two reasons, the first being that you’d managed to stay in the saddle. The second rendered you unable to contain your smile. How different it would be to waltz up to the bar, to know other men eyed you with intimidation instead of perversion. Well, maybe waltz was a bad word. Arthur was right about that much—you had to do a better job of playing the part or risk getting him killed. Getting yourself killed. But you had known Arthur long enough to know how to imitate him well enough. All it took was a grimace and averted eyes, walking like you were a bow-legged cowboy. How hard could it really be?

A half hour later, you got your answer. Being a man was the easy part. Being a man like Arthur was where things muddied. Apparently, he drew attention to himself just by being. He was a big guy, and no doubt unfamiliar in these parts. A few nasty looks in your direction was all it took for you to keep his hat slung low over your eyes. No wonder he did that so often.

“What say you and me go have a little fun?”

Never having heard a question like that directed at you, it took you a beat to realize the woman by the bar who said it was asking you. Or Arthur.

You looked to her, trying to hide your surprise. “Maybe another time.” You were almost sure you’d heard Arthur say that before. But it didn’t stop the color from rising to your face.

“No need to be embarrassed, sweetheart. I’ll treat you real gentle.”

Sure she would. Oblivious to who hid under Arthur’s skin all the while. “No, but thank you.”

“Uh huh,” she said tauntingly. “You just let me know if you change your mind.” She walked away, and her words suddenly had your mind turning furiously. What would it feel like to have sex in a man’s body? Just as the thought reached you, the saloon doors slammed open. And in walked you. The sight still made you uneasy.

“You,” Arthur said, his tone in your voice drawing the attention of a few of the other patrons.

One whistled. “You better run, partner. I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that gaze.”

Arthur heard this and shot him daggers too. It was much less intimidating on your face than his, but it shut the man up all the same. He walked straight to you and took your arm. “We’re leaving.”

You yanked it away. “Hold on, now. I just got here.”

He stepped in close, still so much shorter than you that you almost had to duck to hear. “Don’t go making a scene,” he hissed.

“I ain’t,” you said quietly. Then, leaning back on the bar, “Besides, I got a new friend over there.” You held the woman’s eyes who had called out to you, smiling in that charming way Arthur could.

“Quit it,” he said, drawing your attention back to him. “Those women’ll eat you alive.”

“Maybe I’d like that,” you mumbled, just loud enough that he heard.

“Are you insane?”

“No,” you said, turning around to face the bar, speaking lowly so no one would hear. “And like you ain’t thought about it.”

“About what?”

“About sex. About how it would feel in my body.”

You swore you saw a tinge of redness on your own face. But Arthur charged through his embarrassment like a bull. “No, I ain’t thought about it. This ain’t my body to do what I please with.”

You scoffed. “Now isn’t the time for chivalry, my friend. This is a once in a lifetime gig. You really want to waste it?”

He sighed, tugging on your arm, pulling you toward the door. “Come on.”

You gave in, knowing it was better than letting Arthur cause a scene. As much as he liked to claim you would be the one to do it, you knew damn well it would be him attracting all the attention. And now that he was sporting around a woman’s body, he could slap you as hard as he liked without consequence. You weren’t about to give him the chance.

“Where we going, then?” you asked when you passed through the swinging doors. Your horse was hitched beside Arthur’s, calm once more. You went up to love on it only to see the animal cut you a sideways glance, pinning its ears. You had momentarily forgotten. “Give my horse a little love, would you? Doesn’t like other people.”

“Pipe down with all that,” Arthur spat. You rolled your eyes. Like anyone in this town would ever have the brain power to realize you and Arthur had switched bodies. “Here,” Arthur said, feeding your horse a treat and giving it a few pats on the neck. “Now then, I say we head back to figure out where that wind came from. We don’t know how long we could be stuck like this if we leave it be.”

You groaned aloud then stopped yourself, knowing how wrong it sounded coming from Arthur. “Why you gotta be so uptight about this? Let’s let loose, have a little fun.”

“I don’t think you’re getting how serious this is.”

“I am. It happened. And it could just as easily un-happen. Relax, would you?”

He sighed in frustration before lowering his voice. “You want to be me so bad? Fine. But I’m getting a room and locking you in it so you don’t get us both killed.”

“I won’t get us killed, Arthur. Since when don’t you trust me?”

“Since you decided to parade me around like that,” he snapped. “Since you started making eyes at other women. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”

Like hell you didn’t. “Fine,” you said, storming away from him. Your longer stride had him struggling to keep up with you as you made for the mail courier.

“Where you going now?” he asked, your voice taking on a desperate edge.

You didn’t answer, treating him like he always treated you. It was enormously satisfying.

You stepped up to the window and asked for a room, throwing your money down on the counter. It took one look of your pointed anger for the man before you to cower. Damn, did you wish you could make people shrink like that on a regular basis. You rounded, pushing through Arthur like he wasn’t even there. This body had its advantages. You were beginning to understand why Arthur wanted it back so badly.

You stole upstairs and pushed in the door. You were halfway to slamming it in Arthur’s face when he caught it, your own fragile little hand catching on the edge.

“Excuse me?” he said, pushing through it and shutting it behind him. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“You,” you said, sitting down on the bed and turning away from him to shake off some of your anger. “Treating me like a damn child. You never do that.”

“I’m not- I don’t mean to be that way. There’s just…a lot at stake.”

“Yeah, your precious body. I get it.”

“No, it ain’t that.” He sighed, an exaggerated sound. He didn’t talk for so long you looked at him. He had your hands resting on your gun belt like he always did to his. He finally met your eye and said slowly, “I just don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”

You scoffed. “What, with that woman back in the saloon? Arthur, you know I’m not that stupid.”

He hesitated. “So you didn’t…”

You narrowed your eyes. His eyes. “Seriously?”

“What?”

You shook your head, turning away again, getting one of Arthur’s guns out to admire it. To take your mind off the idiot at your back. “I’d just turned the woman down before you got there. If that’s what’s bothering you.”

“That’s not…” Arthur said, trailing off. Obviously not wanting to breach the subject of you using his body for your own pleasure.

You relieved him of the burden. “Just drop it. I’ll stay here locked up like a good girl, and we’ll go figure this out in the morning.”

He had the audacity to laugh, and you shot him a sideways glance. He was smirking, your mouth angled upward sharply. “For the love of god, don’t call yourself a good girl in my body. It sounds ridiculous.”

You couldn’t help the corner of your mouth turning upward in response. It was comical how different you were, the glaring differences coming out in speech and mannerism and thought.

“I am a good girl,” you grumbled, and he told you to quit it while laughing outright this time. The sound of your own laughter was strange, like something you had only ever heard muffled before. Now that it was clear and unobstructed, it was smooth. Pretty. It made you smile.

Arthur pointed to the weapon still in your hands. “Put that away, would you? Don’t want you getting any ideas.”

The small weight in your hands was so strange—you had held one of Arthur’s guns before. His were much improved from a regular Cattleman and heavier as a result. But his hands swamped the weapon now, and it felt as light as your own as you cradled it, the power in your hands alone remarkable.

You tucked the gun back in its holster, laying back on the bed. Well, attempting to. “Shit.” You looked to your feet hanging over the edge.

Arthur chuckled. “Move up some. You’ll get used to it.”

You did as he said before eyeing him. He had nowhere to sit.

“You, uh…can sit, or…”

He waved you off. “I’m fine. Thinking about going for a beer. You want one?”

You lit up at that. “You ain’t locking me up then?”

“Oh no, I definitely am. I meant I’ll bring one back for you if you want.”

You scoffed, turning away. Even that slight motion had the bed groaning beneath you from the weight of his body. “Forget it.”

He just laughed, like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“You know, you’re damn lucky I listen to you. Otherwise I’d be down at that saloon with my tongue down some poor girl’s throat by now.”

You met his eye just quick enough to see the blush on your face he tried to hide. “No you wouldn’t.” He was right. You weren’t that kind of woman, really. But such a dramatic change had rendered you enlivened, if a little reckless.

“Yeah, yeah,” you said, turning away again. “Bring me a beer then.”

You heard the door snap shut and closed your eyes, noting every inch of unfamiliar body lying flat on the bed. You felt a sudden surge of jealousy so harsh, wishing for a heartbeat you had been born a man. Then again, that might have been because you were attracted to men. Enamored by their muscled bodies, their strength. Arthur was certainly those things. You had never quite thought of him as someone you were attracted to. Partially because he was such an annoying fool, but mainly because you had never allowed yourself to think it. Your friendship was a good thing in a hard life, and you didn’t want to wreck it. That didn’t stop you from wanting to explore every inch of his body.

You let that thought swirl away before it could do any damage, thinking instead of how exactly this had all come about in the first place. A lightning storm in broad daylight. You had no doubt it was what the little poem on the map alluded to.

See the sight Utter the word With blinding light It will be heard

The lightning had struck the moment you and Arthur said ‘why.’ The only thing you couldn’t understand was how on earth that rendered your consciousnesses switched. Maybe that was the joke—the why of it all. Whoever had penned that map was a cruel person indeed.

How you hadn’t died upon contact was another thing entirely. Almost as if the lightning had never really existed in the first place. Maybe you were imagining it all, still knocked out cold on the ground. Or dead. That soured your mood enough that you went back to thinking about Arthur’s body. At least it was a more pleasant thing to consider.

Your curiosity got the better of you, and you reached downward, skimming against coarse muscle all the way down. Christ, did he have to be built so powerfully? Years of work and being on the run tended to instill strength in a man, but this was ridiculous.

You brushed those thick fingers of his against the top edge of his pants, hesitating, debating touching what you really wanted to touch on him. It would be overstepping, you knew. The man had a right to some privacy. But god, did you want to know what every aspect of being a man felt like. Desperately. So you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching down, touching the still clothed part of him that immediately reacted to the contact of his heavy hand. Reacted in a way that made you loose a breath the very second you heard the door handle turn. You panicked, scrambling to throw your too-long legs over the side of the bed and sit up. You watched your body step back into the room, Arthur’s suspicion edging onto your face when he saw how quickly you had moved.

“Forgot to…get my money from you,” he said with narrowed eyes, nodding toward the satchel wrapped around you.

“Oh,” you said, entirely too eager to use the excuse to move and cover your blunder. You reached in his satchel and fingered through countless things you couldn’t put a name to. The bills were stuck in the bottom and you dragged them out, handing them over in a too-clenched first. Arthur eyed the money, then you.

“What?” you asked. You knew better. Really should have stayed quiet.

“Why you acting so funny?”

“I’m not.” You prayed it came off as relaxed, though you couldn’t be sure how it would look on Arthur’s face.

“Really?” he said, entirely unconvinced. “Why’d you jump a mile when I came in then?”

You felt your face heat. You looked away, tipping his hat down to hide your blush.

“I know that move,” he said accusatorially. “Tell me.”

You took a long breath, not knowing what the hell to say. What could you? I was in the middle of touching you, Arthur? In the middle of doing something you just told me you wouldn’t dare do to my body without permission? It was wrong, and you knew it. You couldn’t tell him.

He broke the silence, stepping toward you. “Tell me.” It was every bit Arthur, that commanding presence he held coming through your own voice somehow. It made you cower further, if that was even possible. It was…ungodly attractive, him wielding your body like his very own weapon. Demanding.

The thought had your blood rushing downward, much like it did in your own body. But this was different. This was all-consuming, blocking all thought. And when his manhood began to strain against his pants—your pants—you panicked and spoke.

“Forget it,” you said, still hiding your face, trying to calm yourself down. It was impossible. All you could think about was the need building within you, worse than you’d ever felt as a woman as it couldn’t seem to be reversed. You didn’t know how obvious it would be to adjust yourself in front of him but felt the need to. Or else he would notice exactly what was plaguing you before you could say another word.

He stepped toward you suddenly, and you moved to wave him off. “I’m fine, I-” Too much movement. Entirely too much. Your pants brushed against you, and you grew harder still. Goddamn did it feel so strange, so different, but the desire to make it go away was getting hard to fight off. You knew why too, and you didn’t want to admit it to yourself, though the thought flashed through your mind anyway—Arthur’s body. This was Arthur’s body, and the fact that he was so aroused somehow turned you on. Which in turn resulted in your predicament worsening every second. You let out a shaky breath.

He laughed, the sound out of place enough for you to finally meet his eye. He was staring at your pants, at his own crotch. He knew.

“Dead to rights, I’m afraid,” he said. “I weren’t gone a minute. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

Shame filled every inch of you. “I didn’t- it’s worse now than it-”

He held up a hand, making your words fall away. “Save it. I ain’t mad. Should have figured, really, how you were talking at the bar.”

“I’m sorry,” you said desperately. “It’s your body, like you said. Ain’t up to me to do as I please with it.”

He chuckled, that charming smile of his somehow working its way onto your face. “It’s fine. You’re just…” He shook his head. “As I said, I should have figured. You being you.”

You normally would have jumped at him over saying that but couldn’t, not when your words were suddenly lodged in your throat. Because he was fine with this. He was okay with you touching him. And the thought had more arousal than before consuming you, enough that your focus was blurring between him in your body and you in his.

He started. “I’ll, uh, leave you be if-”

“No, don’t do that,” you said in a panic.

You watched a smile curve up the side of your face. “What, can’t keep your hands to yourself when I’m away?”

“God, don’t talk like that,” you breathed.

“Why? Turn you on?”

To keep your jaw from dropping, you grabbed his hat and rammed it down farther, hiding your beet red face behind it. Christ alive.

He laughed and moved to the door. “I’m gonna step out. Do whatever you need to, I don’t mind.”

“No.” You were firm on that. You had already overstepped once. You wouldn’t do it again. No matter how much you wanted to.

You looked over at him. He stood at the door, your body so calm and still like only he could make it. He looked at you expectantly, and you realized he was waiting on you to say something, to explain.

“Can you…” You couldn’t finish that question.

“Can I what?” His smile was wicked, your face carved up with it.

“Jesus, Arthur, why do you have to make this so hard?”

“Make what hard? You?”

There was nothing within arms reach to throw, but if there had been, he would already be ducking. He sensed this and kept talking through a laugh. “All right, all right. Relax. I’m just needling you.” He stepped closer. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Make it go away.”

He smiled, smugness mixed with a bit of shyness. “I can make it go away all right. But…you sure you want that?”

You panicked slightly. You meant go away as in help calm yourself, not help find your release. But now that he was offering…

“Yes,” you said, so quietly his low voice almost didn’t speak it. You couldn’t believe you admitted it, uttered it aloud.

He gave you a long, unreadable look. Then, after long enough that you were holding your breath, “Okay then.” He stepped forward slowly, his sheepishness finally seeming to catch up to him. “You want…me to show you or…”

Your heart thrummed. “No.” It was in that very moment you knew what you wanted. That it became glaringly real between you—finding your pleasure not only as Arthur, but with Arthur.

You reached for him and were pulling your own body down on top of you before you could form another thought. He made a noise of surprise, but you didn’t hesitate. Not when the weight of him landed atop you and you had to resist the urge to buck your hips into the newfound pressure.

He couldn’t say a word before you crashed your lips to his, keeping your eyes shut tight all the while. You didn’t want to think about kissing your own mouth, only that this was Arthur you were kissing, that maybe you had been wanting to do this all along. Under more normal circumstances.

He broke away. “You…”

“Just shut up,” you said, the low timbre of Arthur’s voice rumbling through your chest as you pulled him to you, kissing him so forcefully his hat fell off your head.

He pulled back again, unable to resist running his mouth. “This is…so strange.” And it was. It was odd to feel yourself against you, but you couldn’t care. Not when this was Arthur’s body reacting so sensitively to it. You wanted to touch yourself, to feel how to wring each ounce of pleasure from him. But you didn’t—couldn’t—because you had pulled him down on top of you, and Arthur started moving back and forth against your thigh. It drove you wild.

You looked down and watched as he propped himself up, making your mouth fall open in his pleasure. Maybe it was because you knew exactly what that would feel like rocking against him, but you felt your—his—cock twitch in response, straining. You couldn’t take it anymore.

You used your newfound strength and flipped him underneath you, surprised to feel how weightless you were under his touch. You laid against him and moved. And god, was it your undoing.

Your mouth found his as you kissed him unforgivingly, grinding against him. The immediate arousal was unshakable. Lightning to the touch. Winding you up so tight you groaned, the sound coming out ragged and deep.

“Easy,” he said, your own breathy voice sounding right into your mouth. ���If you want to last, that is.”

That made you hesitate. “You want…me to-”

“Do what you want, I’m just saying,” he interrupted. That was a terrible answer. Because it left it up to you. And as it stood, you wanted to feel each and every way a man could pleasure a woman.

“You sure?” you asked softly. And Arthur’s voice saying those words…

“Yes, I’m sure. And faster than this. Your body has needs too, you know.”

You kissed him, biting his lip for the cheek. He let out a low moan in return.

You continued to grind against him but held yourself up with one strong hand, trailing your fingers down his skin. “I can teach you something about those needs,” you said lowly. Every caress of Arthur’s aroused voice on your ears sent grating pleasure shooting downward.

You moved down and tore your own gun belt away, then your pants, knowing these were the pair that were baggy enough to do it. You made to pleasure your own body beneath your underthings, to make Arthur squirm beneath you, when he spoke.

“I know how to pleasure a woman just fine-” You had brought your thumb down on your clit. And Arthur let his head fall back, his eyes shutting tight. Your thumb was now noticeably bigger, but that didn’t stop you from knowing what to do with it. You dragged it around torturously slow, making his—your—chest heave and fall. You brought your mouth down to your clothed nipple. Normally, this would feel like an odd thing to do, but for some reason it seemed like any other thing. You didn’t care that it was your body. You cared that it was Arthur you were showing all this pleasure to. Arthur taking it all, Arthur helping you find an edge you were dangerously near.

You sat up and tore the rest of your clothes away, leaving him completely bare. You watched as Arthur looked down, admiring you. His head fell against the bed once more as he groaned softly, his hand moving toward your entrance. You wanted that so badly his cock strained again. You wanted to watch him touch you, watch what he would do to you.

You bent down and pressed a kiss to his arm in encouragement. Then he brought his hand low, finally running his fingers along right where you wanted him to. The image of you touching yourself was doing something to Arthur’s body you couldn’t contain. Wild, unbridled need. But that was Arthur’s mouth going slack when he felt your wetness on his fingers, Arthur reveling in how you felt because of him.

You let him do as he wanted and kissed him again, wanting to feel him against you. You knew better than to move your hips against him now—you were wound tight as a coil, and doing so would end this quickly.

He broke away from your kiss, having to take a breath when he began pumping his fingers in and out of you. You went for his neck instead, kissing and licking and mouthing. You wanted him to find his pleasure, wanted him to feel what an orgasm was like in a woman’s body for the sole reason that you could bring him to that precipice over and over and over again—something he couldn’t do quite as fast being a man.

You took his mouth again, demanding. Wanting to work him up into an irreversible need. You knew just what your body craved and knew how to get him there. So you refused to let him away from your mouth, especially when you brought your hand down to drag his own away, using Arthur’s fingers instead. They were bigger, and he let out a moan right into your mouth when you sunk two in at once, right down to the knuckle.

He was trying to breathe, trying to keep his head, but you kept kissing him, pushing his head down into the bed in your fervor. You pumped your fingers in and out slowly, dragging them against your walls just like you liked it. You wished you could feel this yourself, his thick fingers inside of you.

He mumbled something incomprehensible, so you let him take a breath, pulling away just so.

He was a flustered mess. His breathing was heavy, his eyes were blown wide with desire, and damn it all if you couldn’t see Arthur below the surface. Because you could, his mannerisms making you want to take him then and there when they sprawled across your face in deep need.

“What was that?” you said, curling your fingers just right, dragging them slowly still.

“You’re gonna…make me…”

“Come all you want,” you told him. He groaned. You kissed him once more, your tongue tangling with his.

You knew yourself well enough to know you were close, but this wouldn’t get you there. So you quickened your pace, pressing deeper, his beautiful fingers doing more than yours could.

He was panting then, something you didn’t normally do. All Arthur, his pleasure on the brink. So you let his mouth be and ducked your head, latching your mouth around your own nipple in a way that had his back arching. You ran your tongue against him, a slight scrape of your teeth. All the while, you fucked your fingers in deep and fast. Then faster. Then harder. Until you noticed his hands had clasped around your veined forearm, holding on for some kind of tether to keep him from losing himself entirely.

You worked your breast with his tongue, scraping a demanding pull against it, and he snapped.

He let out an exasperated noise somewhere between a feminine moan and and all-out groan. Definitely Arthur. You had never made that noise in your life. The lines between you were blurring.

You released your hold on your breast and watched him, watched your face screw up in pleasure in a way that only he could make it look. You kept pace, using your hand to work him over thoroughly. And you suddenly understood how good this was, making a woman reach her pleasure first. Waiting, basking in this, it was the perfect thing for you right now in the needy state you were in.

He moaned and panted and moved against you but took it all, wanting it all. How strange it must feel, after years of a man’s pleasure. How much more delicate and precise it was.

You finally brought your hand away, smirking at him. “How was that?”

“This was supposed to be about helping you,” he said breathlessly.

“And?”

“And that was goddamn perfect.”

“Good. I do know my own body well. Which is why this,” you said, setting the pad of his thick thumb back to your clit. He squirmed, still coming down from his high. “Is going to make you see stars.”

You moved your thumb, and he let out another groan too deep for your voice. You swirled fast shapes, criss-crossing against that sensitive nub. He was panting and writhing and trying to get away from your touch, and you boxed him in and held his lower body down. It was harsh pleasure, enough that you could almost feel it yourself. You certainly wanted to, if you ever got your body back. Now he knew the ropes. Or you would happily show them to him a second time.

In half a minute, he was so close that you got your balance right and plunged the fingers of your other hand inside, pumping fast as you worked him with your thumb. He yelled this time—actually yelled out his pleasure. And it was your own high-pitched moan that filled the room, something rougher about it. Baser. You continued your abuse of him until he was writhing to get away, whining each breath.

“There,” you said low, his own voice making you ache with desire. You slowed down your pace before finally withdrawing your hands.

You knew what came next, and you were…well, nervous. You knew what your body liked, but this next bit would be your own pleasure swallowing you whole. In an entirely unfamiliar sense.

He heaved in each breath, eyes heavy-lidded. “You’re telling me…you can feel that…as many times as you want.”

“Back to back,” you assured him. “I can make you do it again if you-”

“No,” he said, grabbing your hands to be sure you wouldn’t. “No,” he said more calmly. Then, “Your turn.”

He turned, forcing you to lie on your back. Your nerves flared when you watched him reach for your clothes. But just as you had, he knew what he was doing with his own body. You just got to sit back and watch.

He didn’t bother undressing you entirely, just stripped his satchel and gun belt, unbuttoned his pants and pulled them back along with his undergarments. And you watched with bated breath as he prepared to touch you for the first time, or touch himself, and god, you couldn’t think which was hotter. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was when your tiny hand finally wrapped around his cock. The touch alone was enough to send pleasure through your veins so severe you knew you would have to pace yourself. Then he grabbed your hand, pulling it down slowly. He wrapped it around that impressive length of his, now so achingly hard you had to clench your jaw, and wrapped his own hand around yours. Guiding you.

“Move slow,” he said quietly. His words drew your eyes, and you noted him straddling you before your gaze landed on your small hand around his big one, beginning to stroke his cock together. The sight alone would be your undoing. But the feel of it…

Your head fell back with that image branded into your memory as you stroked yourself. He guided you in pressure more than pace. And you understood better how to keep from hurting a man, being too harsh or too rough against his skin. It was hedonism. Where a woman’s pleasure was finicky but explosive when found, a man’s pleasure was immediate. Constant. Unbearable.

You groaned aloud. Arthur was quieter, less forceful than you had been with him. You couldn’t tell if it was because his body preferred it that way or if he was nervous to bring you to that edge. Either way, it was…torturously good.

He guided you along a little faster, making deep, long strokes all the way down to his base. That was where it felt the best. You tucked that piece of information away. He went faster still, and you pulled your hand away to keep your climax at bay, making him stop and look at you.

“I…want to do this proper.”

His eyes glittered with arousal. You didn’t know how he would feel about it, being on the receiving end. But you wanted to bury his cock so deep inside you he would cry out from it. That much you knew.

He took a moment to answer. Then, “If that’s what you want.”

“What do you want?” you asked. “You’ve been quiet about that.”

He thought on it. Then climbed over you, lining your body up with his. “You really wanna know?”

You nodded, the anticipation eating you alive. For his touch and his words.

“I want my body back. So I can show you all this pleasure myself.”

You clenched your jaw again, your breath quickening. Lord above, did you want that. So much.

“Me too,” you said quietly.

“Really?” he asked, his hand finding you and lining you up with him.

You tried hard to keep focus and watch him as you nodded. “Maybe I…have for a while.” And you had been too damn stubborn to admit it to yourself. Too worried about friendship and lines crossed.

He hesitated. “Me too.” He said it quieter than you had.

Without leaving you any room to answer, he sat, the feeling of pressing into him unlike anything. Your mind went numb. Blank. You looked down and watched where your bodies met, watched him hesitate for a breath before sitting fully, throwing his head back in pleasure when you were joined completely.

Again, it was different. Whereas you would have only wanted him as deep as possible in your body, every inch of you was overcome with feeling now. It was grating.

Arthur started a pace that was much too fast for all you were feeling, so you brought your hands to his hips and slowed him down.

“Move like this,” you whispered, helping him grind slowly back to front, so that his cock never left that sweet spot deep within you.

He fell forward, chasing his pleasure. Then slowed to look at you, almost apologetically.

“It’s okay,” you told him. “Find your pleasure first. I won’t stand this for long.”

It was true. You wanted to bury his cock deep, spill in your body. The thought alone made him twitch.

Arthur continued his brutal grind, making you groan so deep you worried you would come. But you held yourself back, barely. And he was making smaller movements, slowing, taking all of you in a way you knew meant his release was nearing.

You wanted to touch him again, kiss him, but you let him be. You knew how good it felt just the way he was circling his hips and nothing more. So you resisted, and you watched as your own mouth fell open in deep pleasure. Arthur came a third time. It wasn’t like the others. He came around you this time, the smallest tightening and fluttering of those delicate muscles of yours making you hold your breath so as not to find your own pleasure. He was soon panting, moaning, beautiful little sounds. Sounds you wanted to make for him.

He finally stopped, leaning back. “My god.”

“What?” Your hands moved from his hips to his ass. That was an odd thing—almost like Arthur’s body had wanted that, not you.

“Just…different. Perfect.”

You smiled at him, keeping your patience held by a thread. Still buried deep in him, that was quite the task. He seemed to realize this and looked down at you, and before you knew you wanted to say them, words came tumbling out of you. “I want to know what it feels like to…find my pleasure inside of you.”

He scrunched your eyebrows together in an expression only he ever made.

“Just this once,” you whispered.

He was silent a moment. Then, “You sure about that?”

“I’m willing to risk it. If you are.”

He thought again, eyes studying his own mouth. Finally, he met your gaze. “All right then.”

You felt the smile creep over your face, your giddiness returning. Faster than he could react, you had lifted his hips, pulling him off of you. He made a small noise at the movement—one you knew well, the feeling of loss of touch a bitter thing—but you were too busy moving him underneath you to care. You laid him softly on the bed, taking a moment to see those eyes of yours on you, before getting up. You started stripping his clothes away, needing to finish this completely bare. You brought his shirt away first, the broad chest beneath such a handsome sight. Then his boots and socks, then pants. You couldn’t get his layers away fast enough, and when you were standing there staring down at yourself completely bare, you hesitated. His body was beautiful. His strong legs, his lean muscle, his cock pressed up against his belly. You couldn’t resist—you took his length in hand and began stroking him. It was so good you held back a groan. You looked up to crawl back onto the bed but found him watching, an expression of such greedy want on your own face that you couldn’t resist saying something. “Like watching me do this to you?” you said lowly, making your strokes longer, more noticeable.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving your hand around his manhood.

“Don’t worry,” you whispered, crawling back over him. Needing him now. “When we get our bodies back, it’ll be my own hand wrapped around you.”

He moaned. You laughed, the sound low and sensual. Finally, you were lining yourself up with him, the head of his cock pushing against your entrance.

He brought a hand to your shoulder. “Slow.”

“You keep saying that,” you teased, pushing into him. You wanted to be quick about it, to fuck him senseless, but you would do as he asked. You sank into him to the hilt, buried deep. Even though you’d just felt it, it was so good you stopped a moment, taking it in. You brought your head up and gave him a soft kiss, holding his eye for a breath. Then you moved. God above, was the pleasure insurmountable when you moved. Your walls wrapped around his cock so tight you kept letting out involuntary groans.

“Goddamn,” you breathed, bringing one hand to his hip, one to the back of his thigh. It took everything in you to keep the pace slow. Tortuously slow.

Arthur was not without his own pleasure too. His breathing was labored, the sounds he was letting out not unlike the ones you usually made. It made you want to slam into him, make him come around you again.

“Arthur,” you groaned. In warning. He didn’t answer. “Please let me fuck you.”

“Think you can handle that?” he said. Always a damn tease.

“Yes, you bastard.”

He laughed, the sound so like his own for it being in your voice. “Do it then.”

The second he said it, you pounded in deep, making him cry out. Making you grit your teeth. It was so good you couldn’t stand it. You quickened your pace and thrust into him hard, finally allowing your orgasm to build. And build. And consume you whole. You knew nothing but pleasure, like it was a part of you, as you fucked him harshly. You felt his balls go taught, his cock so hard and so sensitive inside your slick that you were letting your own noises work their way into Arthur’s voice.

“Fuck,” Arthur breathed. Then he cried out, and you only knew he reached his pleasure for the familiar way your body went rigid, arching into his. You pounded into him, riding him through it, finally flying over the edge. Your orgasm overcame you in a rush of burning pleasure as you felt his spend spill deep inside. You slammed into him, unmoving. It was the best feeling you’d ever known. All of it drawn out right where you needed it most.

You held there breathlessly, pressed against him so intimately that the moment seemed frozen in time. But there he was, a mess beneath his own body. Because of his own body. Your cunt greedily taking his spend like it was meant to be there.

You groaned at the thought and pulled out, collapsing on your front beside him. So overwhelmed you just breathed, in and out. To remember what fucking planet you were on.

You closed your eyes, listening to his heavy breathing beside you. And after a moment, you were staring at the ceiling. No, you hadn’t moved. You opened your eyes and turned over, and Arthur was staring at the ceiling. That was off-putting. Like you had been yourself again for a heartbeat. You closed your eyes again to see if it would have the same effect, but nothing came to you. Only darkness and the after effects of one demanding high. That was strange too, different. How differently the male body worked, even the come down settling within you deep and constant. Maybe that was why women could bounce back so fast, men needing time to do it. In fact, you even felt tired, like nothing would suit your more than a good night’s rest. Arthur was likely the same. You had made him find his pleasure four times. Four times. You allowed yourself to wonder, just for a moment, if he could do that to you himself. You knew your own body well enough to get you to that place, but now he did too. You were willing to bet if this ever happened again, each of you in your respective bodies, that it would be just as mind-blowing as this had been. Maybe better.

“You okay?”

Your own voice was soft, careful in the dim room. From timidness or from tiredness, you couldn’t be sure.

You opened your eyes to find your face staring back at you, gaze heavy with satisfaction.

“More than okay.” You closed your eyes again. You wanted to be saying those words to Arthur. To his face, not yours. “You?”

“Hell, okay doesn’t cover it. That was…”

“Yeah,” you breathed, the word deep and drawn out. You adjusted yourself, facing him. “I’m sorry I sort of…forced this on you.”

He met your eye again, his own careful expression shining through. “You didn’t force anything.”

“I really did. But, you did too, cornering me like that. You just had to know what was wrong, didn’t you?” you said, grinning at him.

“I’m always that way,” he countered. “What’s your excuse?” He was the one grinning now.

You didn’t have a retort to that, knowing full well there wasn’t one. You had wanted him. Plain and simple.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, and you gave him a small shove for it. It was a little too forceful coming from his strong hand, but he didn’t seem to mind, laughing at you instead. “You like being me, huh? Get to show me who’s boss, shove me around. Pin me down and such.”

The and such part was definitely a plus. But he was wrong about the first part. You met his eye, emboldened by his confidence. “I’ll get my body back, and we’ll see who’s boss.”

“Will we now?” he said, meeting your eye with a mischievous gleam in his own. As a woman, you would have wanted to wipe that gleam away, to climb right back on top of him. But you were tired and satisfied now, and some small part of you still ached from that lightning strike. All you wanted was to curl him against you and sleep.

“We will,” you said, turning and closing your eyes again. For the briefest of seconds, you were looking at Arthur’s relaxed face. Then you came to, still facing the ceiling. If you couldn’t get settled in one body or the other, you would go mad soon.

“What are we gonna do about this?” he asked.

You hummed, not quite in a mood to talk about it now. “Leave it for the morning.”

He chuckled beside you, his laugh through your voice. It was soothing in a way that had you drifting, somewhere between restfulness and sleep. You stayed like this a long time. He eventually said something else, something about lightning, but you gave in to his body’s want and flung over the edge of unconsciousness, unraveling into thought and darkness alone.

~

You awoke to a warm body beside you. The memories of the day prior came flooding back like a tidal wave, slapping you into alertness. You jerked up to find yourself looking at Arthur. He was looking back, those blue eyes studying you, a smile below them.

“Welcome back.”

You were in your own body. You looked down—still naked, and wrapped up in Arthur’s arms. “I…” You didn’t know what to say.

“I woke up like this too. Myself, I mean. Seems the little lightning strike had a shelf life.”

You couldn’t believe…it couldn’t have been that easy. It couldn’t have all been real. More than that, this couldn’t be your closest friend holding you in his arms.

“You…that did happen, right? I’m not insane?”

He chuckled, the sound a perfect one coming from him this time. “No, you ain’t. Or else we both are.”

“Shit,” you said, turning onto your back. The strangeness of it all…it overwhelmed you. But that didn’t stop you from noticing where Arthur’s hand had landed after your movement. On your bare belly. You looked down at it, and he must have noticed, because his fingers started running circles against your skin, low enough that a familiar heat began building within you.

He leaned over, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. “What was that you were saying about when we got our bodies back?”

The male smugness in those words…

You pulled him down atop you, kissing him hard. It was everything you wanted, everything you had been lacking the night before. The desire had been there, the mutual need, but this was different. Perfect. It was him atop you, him running his hand down your body, him wanting you as normal as ever. Nothing standing in the way. And you nearly smiled against his mouth at your next thought, when those strange trees crossed your mind—you would get struck by lightning ten times over just to be in his arms. To be you. To be exactly what he wanted.

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #high honor arthur morgan #rdr2 arthur morgan #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 #fanfic #writing #nsft #lemon fanfic

[couch-house]

2023 baybeeeee. havent done an art summary in a while since i basically stopped drawing early 2020 and didn't get back on the horse until mid-2022 (i wonder... what could have caused that!) i dont feel like my art has really changed this year, only in the ways that I draw specific sonic characters (looking through my archive is fun bc i can see the progression of the diseases known as Giving Them Big Eyebrows and Drawing The Monoeye) and--more exciting 4 me--my practice with paneling comics! :)

i think the progression is much more noticeably when you line it up with last year's sonic art... i can see all the Milestones.. more talking abt that under the cut

May: couch gets into sonic. June: Yucky Sonic 1.0. this was also the month when i Heard Of fleetway super. July: couch comes back from brazil, having read stc. this is also when i start dong actual short comics. compare may -> june -> july. (also please forgive whatever tf i was doing with skintones. i needed some practice)

august: merger au takes shape. dog invented. also i just really like that speed racer sonic mspaint picture. its fun :) september: deep in the fleet mines. october: i lose a lot of steam and mostly just doodle. another comic comparison for those three months:

november: frontiers comes out. i go crazy mode and make that sonic + knuckles comic with the pretty backgrounds and LOTS OF TINY TEXT. december: winter break AND im tired. january 2023 i come back insane crazy mode and write some fanfiction?? still havent finished that LOL. made some nice cover art :) february: i shift into knuckles mode fora month. make another comic. this one is much better i think :) november -> february

march: i shift into transfem metal sonic mode. also just stick to a lot of doodling. also write more fanfiction. crazy. april: transitory period as i shift back into stc/exit: sonic mode. may: more fanfiction. more comics. i really like how both of these turned out :) while the last two were definitely taking a lot more notes from stc, i think around here i start paying attention to and trying to learn from more creative panelling from artists i admire. like @/superemeralds THOAM and @/starrjoy's pandora au.

june: i play sa2 and it's good. july: i play unleashed and it is both miserable and good. i get in kind of an artistic frustration zone and wiggle my way out. august: idk i think im just chillin. super react dot jpeg happens. it's not even named that, it's named after the other image on the canvas, which was maria holding baby shadow. more comics.

september: i burn out for a bit. get real tired. eventually get back up and make more comics. the goal here and last month has become "try to make more interesting panel shapes. I've noticed other artists don't just use rectangles--try playing with irregular polygons and see where it gets you." well it gets you mixed results as you learn :) also i think after that pause i accept the monoeye into my life. sigh...

october: oc showdown starts and @/neurotypical-sonic asks me to make some halloweeny art :) feels like i dont do much this month bc i focus on those. november: A LOT OF ART?? INSANE. more oc showdown stuff. i play shadow the hedgehog (2005). it's good and i love it. i draw a ton of shit on one canvas for it. Fucking Dember: i have shifted back into stc/EXIT mode. motivation's a little weird bc work's a little weird. doing commissions also makes it weird. well im having fun and being myself :) a final handful of comics from this month:

idk maybe ill do something sicko crazy b4 the end of the year. mayb i'll follow exit sonic's example and #GetWorse. who knows :) well this is fun i love looking at my art and seeing and noticing things. thank u all for your support and I hope we all have a great 2024!

#id in alt text #partially descriptive... i put the details i figured were relevant #art summary #i have WPRDS to SAY. i like thinking abt my art #okayvwell this was supposed to stay a draft but WHATEVER

[antiwhores]

hihi! remember the perv bakugou post? that but with denki (i love your writing btw)

Pervert!Denki x Reader

——

Just some headcannons about Kaminari being a big ass pervert to you

unedited, masturbation, peeping, non con pictures, stealing, etc.

I am not proof reading this 😣. Hope you enjoy! I’ve never written about him before but hope this satisfies!

Pervert Denki is WAY less ashamed than the regular guy.

He feeds into his own excuses by saying that this is normal for him. That its okay because he’s not doing any real harm.

He’ll still try to keep it a secret from you.

He doesn’t want you finding out about how weird he is. He’s liked other girls before and when they find out about his perverted ways they always steer clear of him.

THATS when he starts feeling ashamed in himself. And its only gotten worse after the last time he got caught.

He really liked this girl a couple years back. He would just catch himself sneaking glances from… unusual positions… in usual places. Nothing serious in his opinion.

The girl found out and shunned him. Rumors spread about him being a pervert and for a good year he couldn’t get any play.

He ended apologizing to that girl later on. He genuinely felt bad after some shaming from Kirishima.

He went back to his old ways AS SOON as his heart started to explode from a single touch from you.

He did almost every pervy thing in the book when he met you.

He would gawk at your chest and thighs whenever he could. And sneak peaks at your underwear.

He would look for opportunities to destroy your clothes on “accident” during spars. Like he’d just happen to zap you enough to burn past your clothes. Or maybe he’d accidentally push you into the water just to see your figure and that cute matching underwear set.

He would take pictures at very unusual angles. Sometimes he would just play it off as funny photos. That angle thats supposed to be funny, the one that goes down from your forehead. He would take those on purpose just to get a close up og your tits.

He would find out about your exes and become friends with them just to ask how you were in bed. The details he would ask would be insane. Does she swallow or spit? What color is her pussy? What did it feel like? How deep is her arch? What does she taste like? What shape and size are her titties? How does she take dick? And with all this information, he’d create his own fantasy and jerk to his hearts content.

Although, he would do most of his pervy shit at your house when you finally let him over as your bestfriend.

It always went down for him when you took a shower or just left for a while.

He’d start to go through your stuff, everything. Your panty draw, journal, trash can, every single drawer, your sheets, laundry, computer, etc.

Occasionally, he’d stuff some of your clothes and underwear in his bag. He’d smell the shirt as he fucked into the panties or vice versa. Then he’d wash them, go back to your house, and plant them back where he found them.

If you kept your toys anywhere in that house, god help you. I will not elaborate.

If you’re in the shower, he’d try to find a blindspot to watch you. Not a lot of luck on his part. He’s gonna just have to settle with smelling your body wash and conditioner.

And when you sleep, he’d smell you and excuse himself to your bathroom to jack off. Nothing more. He was scared to do more. He was overpowered by his fear of loosing you over his lust.

And if you so happen to find out about him, he’d be devastated. He couldn’t even avoid it with jokes. He would apologize as soon as he could muster the courage.

But he can’t look you in the eye without laughing as a defense mechanism so he’d have to write you a note. You need to know that he’s serious. Even if he does joke and laugh about it. He doesn’t mean to! He just doesn’t know what to do!

#mha x reader #denki kaminari #kaminari x y/n #kaminari x reader #denki x reader #denki smut #denki imagine #denki x y/n #kaminari smut #kaminari headcanons #kaminari denki

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

The Magical Girl Guide to: Faerie Witchcraft

A post a long time in the making, it's finally time for it to get out of my drafts. I've talked about specific faeries in the past but never a sweeping generalization on faerie witchcraft it, so let's change that this 2024.

Faerie witchcraft at its core is a path of witchcraft that revolves around communicating with the folk, working with them, calling on them and leaving them offerings as thanks for their assistance. That is the biggest generalization I can make about the path, but what that core looks like can be very different from faerie witch to faerie witch. So, let's talk about the faeries.

(As always, these 'magical girl guides' isn't the 'end all be all'. These are barely the tip of the iceberg. Always look at other's experiences/UPG and of course make sure to do more extensive research beyond a post on Tumblr.)

What are faeries?

Faerie, Faery, Fairy, Fae, Fey, Fay, it doesn't matter how you spell it, we are all referring to the same thing ー the Good Neighbors.

By definition, faeries are "is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European culture a form of spirit, often with metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural qualities."

There are no real single origin for faeries so much as a collection of folk beliefs from all over.

Terminology

Other Way to say Faerie

Ao sí/Aes sídhe

Daoine sídhe

Sídhe/Shee/Sìth

The Good Folk

The Good Neighbors

The Fair Folk

The Folk

The Gentry

The Good People

Greencoaties

Changeling - a substitute left by a faerie after kidnapping a human. Can sometimes be one of their own, other times it is glamoured rocks and sticks. Was used as an explanation for stillborn children in the past.

Seelie - the "faerie good guys" in stories.

Unseelie - the "faerie bad guys" in stories.

The Wild Hunt/Sluagh/Underfolk - a group of supernatural hunters in a never-ending hunt/chase. The perception of the Wild Hunt changed after the introduction of Christianity to the isles.

Wild/Solitary Fae - faeries with no Court affiliations, not to be confused with the Wild Hunt.

Trooping Faeries - live in communities and are known for singing and dancing.

Faerieland

Also simply referred to as Faerie, this is the home of the faeries.

Thought to be divided into the four Seasonal Courts of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The Spring and Summer Courts represent the Seelie Court while Autumn and Winter represent the Unseelie Court. These lands are considered to be eternal displays of the season they are.

faeries in folklore

We would literally be here all day if I talked about faeries in folklore. Y'all know faerie folklore and mythology is ancient X'D so this category isn't really all that important.

In these stories, faeries can be anything from benevolent to tricksters to someone out to get it back in blood.

faeries in media

Just as expansive as the faerie folklore post. Faeries are becoming more and more frequent in pop culture with books such as the Folk of the Air series by Holly Black, The Spider Wick Chronicles also by Holly Black, Sarah J. Maas' ACOTAR series and even in older TV shows like True Blood.

Hell, I'm working on a novel that has to do with faeries.

UPG

Since starting my own journey working with the fair folk I've come to learn that your fae working experience is shaped by the fae you go out of your way to interact with, the fae local to your area, what the folk feel comfortable sharing with you and what they feel comfortable letting you share with others.

A faerie witch whose experience centers around the flower faeries local to their area is going to be different from a faerie witch whose experience centers around Unseelie fae. Same for someone who only focuses on transactional relationships with the fae (ex. leaving out home baked goods weekly for a brownie, the brownie takes care of the home and that's the extent of their relationship) vs a someone where their path focuses on enveloping themselves in faerie culture and learning about it on a more personal level (ex. befriending a Court local to your area).

For me personally, my fae work experience centers around wild fae like selkies and death fae like banshee and dullahan. Both of which are very personal and has me enveloped in the cultures of these faeries. No transactions here but something deep and personal, like family. It's influenced the witchcraft I've chosen to incorporate into my craft as an eclectic witch and things I experience on a daily basis. (I do have guides on both selkies and banshee if you are curious. Dullahan post is in progress.)

Because of this, your prospective relationship with fair folk and what that may bring in your life is going to be very personal to you, I've found. There will be some overlap, of course. You'll run into someone and go 'oh damn, me too!!'. But it will still be special and unique to you.

It can be as personal as you want it to be. It can be as impersonal as you want it to be. It's up to you.

As such, I can't really make a generalized UPG post about what working with fae is like. There are so many kinds of faeries out there that it would take forever to complete! And one person's daily UPG can look vastly different from someone else's.

I don't believe it's as rampant as it used to be in witchcraft-related spaces as it was in say 2016, but there will always be people who will say things like 'avoid working with faeries in general' or 'fae work is only best for the experienced. If you're a bigger, fuck off'. But I personally think that, like with any craft, as long as you take the time to baby step your way into it, study as you go along, then fae work isn't something that should be gatekeeped to the experienced.

Seelie vs Unseelie: A Lesson in Faerie Morality

There's a huge misconception about these two faerie categories that Seelie means 'good faeries' while Unseelie means 'bad faeries'.

So the best thing someone can do when stepping into the world of fae work is completely disregard that notion. You can meet Unseelie fae who don't mind mortal company and then meet a Seelie faerie who doesn't fuck with humans in the slightest. I think it would better to think of it as faeries who commit to the right or left-handed paths and even then that's putting human morality on it. Human morality and faerie morality are not the same and the faster you realize that, the better it'll be for you.

What you might find atrocious, faeries might go 'that's not so bad'.

What you might find 'not so bad', faeries might find despicable.

Unseelie courts tend to be a bit less welcoming than Seelie courts in a general sweeping overgeneralization. That’s not to say there aren’t Unseelie fae that wouldn’t interact with humans, but a good majority probably won’t be happy to see a human frolicking about the place unattended. So if you ever feel the desire to visit an unseelie court, I’d wait until you’re more experienced working the fae and having the etiquette down

How important is etiquette?

I've personally found that the closer you are to a faerie, the less important etiquette is.

I don't speak to my selkie friends the way I speak to the flower faeries that are local to my area. The way I talk to banshee I know is very different than how I talk to banshee I don't know.

So yes, it is important to learn the proper etiquette to avoid angering a faerie. But the closer you get to the specific folk in your lives, should the relationship go beyond acquaintanceship/transactional, you'll find yourself speaking a bit more casually with them over time.

Faerieland: A Personal Dive

The home of the Good Neighbors.

You can go to Faerie by way of the astral or by slipping into a pocket of Faerie found in our realm (ex. you're on a nature hike and suddenly you've found yourself walking into a revel).

You could write a 50 page dissertation on the courts of Faerie and still not be done covering it. There are hundreds of Courts outside of the main few that you'll hear tossed around by fae workers and folklore enthusiasts and even with those known few there can be dozens of Sub-Courts.

I've met faeries from the Flower Court, a Summer pixie who came from a specific sub-Court called the Lake Court. I've heard of fae workers talking about Winter Sub-Courts that have to do with specific wintery holidays. So yes, there's definitely more than just the Seasonal Courts.

I always let people who frequent this blog what I can and cannot do and what I have and have not done. So in the spirit of keeping things transparent, I've only ever visited two Courts in Faerieー the Autumn Court and the Death Court. I can't really tell you much direct information about the other Courts because of that.

So I can't really give any 'here's a place I recommend visiting in Faerie' beyond a simple 'avoid any place embroiled in politics'. Any court going through serious issues whether that’s a change in power or what have you, won’t be the best place to visit.

Stick to well-populated places to start. You’ll likely find less problems there than say remote areas of Faerie. Just know, Faerie can be as terrifying as it is beautiful.

As for leadership, that looks different from Court to Court, Seelie to Unseelie.

I usually hear more about matriarchal rulership in Faerie, but there are faerie kings.

Who counts as 'Fae' and who doesn't?

If they consider themselves fae, they're fae. If they don't consider themselves fae, they aren't. That's really all there is to it. I've met merfolk who consider themselves faeries and I've met merfolk who consider faeries separate entities from themselves.

So in my experience, I've found that you just learn what the entity in question thinks of themselves as and respect that.

I'm just trying to keep faeries out my space tbh

You'll find the old timey methods to be very suitable. Iron, salt sprinkled around and so and so forth.

And should be out and about in nature, and you want to enjoy a hike without the fair folk messin' with ya, I'd recommend keeping an item of clothing inside out, carrying rowan or iron charms. And keeping to the trails. Faeries are more likely to avoid areas with heavy human foot traffic.

suitable offerings

The disclaimer here is that these are general offerings that most faeries should like. Should you ever find yourself working frequently with a faerie or find yourself the companion of one, there could be other things that they specifically like or dislike. But you usually can’t go wrong with:

General

Anything from nature like flowers, leaves, etc.

Tea

Honey

Cream

Berries

But should you be trying to get the attention of a faerie of a specific species, fine tune your offerings to that type of faerie. Seashells for selkies, bones for dullahan and so on and so forth.

how to gain the attention of a faerie

1) old fashioned offerings

2) astral travel

3) spirit attraction spell

I’m not a promoter of conjuring or otherwise, forcefully bringing a spirit to your vicinity. Think about it like this: you’re at a wedding. You’re best friend in the entire world is getting hitched to the love of their life, and you’re among the audience. You’re welling up with emotion and pride for your friend to have made such an important milestone in their life when… Suddenly, you’re not at their wedding anymore.

No, instead you’re looking at some random stranger who summoned you to their home who say it’s because they’re interested in working with those of your kind. You wouldn’t be too happy about this, would you? 

Not only is conjuring or summoning bad for the entity, it can be bad for you if this entity isn’t easily forgiving of being torn away from their personal life to your home and you can end up paying the consequences for it. Instead, I recommend a spell that attracts entities to your home or if you’re sufficiently prepared, astral travel it up.

#magical girl guide #witchcraft #faerie witch #faerie witchcraft #fae work #spirit work #witchblr #black witches of tumblr #witches of color

[starrspice]

So, Eclipse is from a totally different pirate ship than Sun and Moo, does he have any rivalry with them? They are brothers? How long have the three sailed?

SO YES!

Eclipse does have an entirely different ship from Sun and Moon!

He doesn't have a REAL rivalry, deep down they all care for eachother, but he does get his kicks messing with them

None of them are brothers or technically related, but they all grew up together and have been friends for as long as they can remember. So yhey do have a very brotherly relationship! Sun and Moon have always been far more in sync with eachother but when Eclipse gets thrown into the mix it's certainly never boring!

They actually started off all running the same ship, but they came to disagree on what they wanted to do overtime so Eclipse struck out on his own.

He ran off to become a famous treasure hunter specializing in magical or mythical artifacts. (He actually gets really bent out of shape if you call him a pirate)

As for how long they have all been sailing probably well over a decade maybe two. As soon as they had the means to get a ship they were out of there and never looked back

One thing all 3 of them and Y/N have in common is a love of traveling and seeing the world! Its part of what brought them all together you know?

And if you're curious where Eclipse's ship is while he's trying to Woo Y/N he's left it under the charge of his right hand man! When he's ready to take back over its waiting for him!

#ask starr #askbox #fnaf sb #moondrop #sundrop #fnaf sun #fnaf moon #eclipse #fnaf eclipse #pirate moondrop #pirate sundrop #pirate eclipse #silent shanty au #silent shanty #siren au #fnaf pirate au

[redd956]

Tornado Safety

This year’s tornado season prediction for the united states is looking quite grim, so I decided to make this lil tornado safety post.

Difference between Warning and Watch

First you need to know the different between a tornado warning and a tornado watch. 

A tornado watch means there is a potential risk for tornadoes.

A tornado warning means that server weather as bean spotted.

The real one you know to get going for is the tornado emergency which means that there is truly something heading your way. However you should respond to all of these appropriately, and if one is issued keep watch for the weather.

What to look out for

The calm before the storm is a real thing. The wind may die down, and the air become still. Everything might fall silent for a moment

The sky is turning dark really fast, or green, or both.

A roar similar to that of a distant freight train. Tornado’s sound like freight trains.

Fast moving and rotating clouds, especially if they’re making a funnel shape

Obviously tornado watches escalating for tornado warnings

What to do

Let’s say the tornado warning is now issued, and eventually a tornado is coming your way. What do you do? Well the situation depends on how immediate the danger is, and what your circumstances are.

First let’s start with the “average”  American advice. Go to the lowest level of your home, and hopefully a basement or storm shelter. 

Now if that isn’t an available option, there’s no need to fear or panic. The lowest level of your home is advised. Try an small enclosed room, with low to minimum windows, such as a bathroom, closet, or center hallway.

If you are in a mobile home GET OUT OF THERE. 

WHY DOES THE UNITED STATES HAVE THESE, WHEN THEY’RE OVERPRICED ANYWAY, DEATH TRAPS, AND ITS THE COUNTRY WITH THE HIGHEST TORNADO RATES.

Let’s say there’s nowhere to go.

Go to a safe available nearby building, especially if it has a basement. However if that is still not an option lie in the nearest ditch (I know it sounds crazy but it works) and shield your head/neck with your hands

If taking shelter in a home, make sure everyone is with you. That can include pets, but if you’re in a super emergency situation it is better to leave them and get to shelter as quick as possible.

If you can get low and shield head, or body with a mattress, blanket, etc.

Natural Disaster Safety

Doesn’t matter where you live, you should probably have an emergency kit, especially one attuned to the climate of your area. This doubles if you’re in a natural disaster prone area.

Many of those in the United States have learned lately what the consequences of not having the proper equipment on hand are.

So what should you have for a tornado?

Battery Powered Radio

Flashlight

Extra Batteries

First Aid Kit

Water & Canned Food

Emergency things tailored to people of household (medical problems, etc)

If you live in a cold region also have cold safety materials too

What NOT to do & Extra

Don’t disregard the watches, and especially the warnings. They are there for a reason, and you should really keep an eye out. You might even want to head to shelter anyway if the wind is crazy strong.

Don’t stand near windows, or be that classic midwesterner who is on their porch getting a good shot of that swirly cloud of death. I know its fun...but its not safe.

If the situation is an absolute emergency don’t take time to grab your valuable. Its devastating to lose them, I've been there, but you can replace most tiny things and not a life.

Make sure any invalid family members have their own viable tornado plan. My grandma lives in a tornado prone area, and the plan has completely changed since she’s been confined to a walker. Make sure your family members like that have a plan.

Being in a car during a tornado is not safe at all. Drive to nearest shelter, or get out and hop in that ditch.

If the tornado looks like its standing still, it’s not. That shit is heading towards you.

Always be sure to remember to cover your head, or help shield your children.

Myth Busting

Overpasses are not safe shelter for when you’re in a car. It’s a myth, take that ditch instead if need be, or drive to a shelter.

Hiding under your car is dangerous. Tornados can drop on your car, either crushing you or sucking you up into the air along with your vehicle

Cars cannot outrun tornados

Don’t open your windows. It’s not going to stop the tornado from blowing your house over, instead it may even help it. It will allow for debris to enter your home easier, and cause the wind to be able to tear your house apart from the inside out.

Aftermath

It’s hit now, maybe your house was safe or not. Keep track of watches still, tornados can return, or could be apart of a tornado outbreak, meaning a second or even third tornado can hit the area. 

Assume all downed lines are active and dangerous, try not to use the gas, electricity, and water til you’re sure its safe.

If you’re not home return home once it’s deemed safe

Keep aware of damaged buildings, glass, debris, etc. 

If you want to and have the chance help your fellow man, lost animal, and etc. Checking on people is a kind and lifesaving thing to do, as well as securing people’s pets.

All of this from a person who lived in a tornado prone area growing up, to you.

#tornado safety #survival hacks #tornadoes #tornado #2023 #midwest #tornado alley #tornado what to do #life saving #advice #life tips #natural disasters #cw natural disasters #natural disaster safety #natural disaster #twister #cyclone #safety tips #survival advice

[alexilulu]

Books I Read in 2024, #6: Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (Greg Stafford Steve Perrin Jeff Richard Jason Durall and friends, Chaosium Inc., 2019)

A bronze age-styled fantasy epic setting originally published in 1975 (as White Bear and Red Moon), Glorantha is one of the founding touchstones of fantasy storytelling in the RPG space that draws upon historiography and a firm integration of magic and mysticism into the firmament of its setting.

My first experience with Glorantha, like a great deal of others, was King of Dragon Pass. I don't remember exactly where I first heard about it. It's either on SA in the LP subforum back in the early 2010s or Tumblr in the same era; if it's the latter, Jared is entirely to blame for this, and probably because of him telling me stories about it in my car over the years.

King of Dragon Pass is a management game in which you play the tribal leader of a Heortling group exiled from their homeland in the wake of Belintar's accession to the throne in the Holy Country of Esrolia, forced to travel to the forbidden land of Dragon Pass where centuries ago the Dragonkill War wiped the land clean of all human presence. For you see, the Dragonkill War was named not for what we did to the dragons, but what dragons did to humanity.

Glorantha is like that.

Glorantha sticks in my mind easily, to be honest. It draws such a stark picture of itself so quickly you can't help but feel arrested by how committed it is to being itself. The Gods are so real that reenacting their greatest deeds invests you with their awe-inspiring power, and the Runes they wield are so bound into the fundament that embodying and studying them allows you to manipulate reality directly yourself.

The game itself is straightforward; every skill is rated from 0 to 100, and you roll 2d10 to roll under your skill rating, which you can further influence by channeling your passions or the Runes that represent you. Its character creation is delightfully baroque and fitting with the focus on historiography: you roll to generate the general lifepath of your parents and your own history in the last 21 years of Dragon Pass' history, during an eventful lead-up to the Hero Wars starting in 1625 when the world will enter a true tumult as empires face off.

I really just love the little things about the world here. Glorantha is detailed in the way that only a seasoned reader of history would be, with a light touch to give you plenty of room to imagine your own tribes in the region, the foibles of each village that give it real texture. The book grounds you in the idea of being from each ethnic group, the stereotypes others hold for them and the realities of their lives.

More than once it states that the Orlanthi recognize 6 gender roles and 7 forms of marriage, which is both a refreshing acknowledgement and also just a good reminder that societies for centuries have seen things in ways that would be foreign to the modern reader, and that you have to think of these societies in the context they've been shaped by.

The various pantheons of the world rule. I could evangelize about Orlanth, the god of storms all day, but it rules that the chief god of the largest and best-known pantheon, the Lightbringers, is the god of the season of utter disaster where life becomes cheap and dangerous, which i suppose makes sense as far as who you would beg to for survival during.

It's combat is dangerously swingy, in a way that kind of rules, in that you can plan for a lot of bad things to happen but you really can't stop that 5% roll from putting a javelin through your soft palate. This is your granddaddy's RPG, there's no luck recovery methods. You die, you beg the local priest for a resurrection and pay him handsomely for the privilege and don't do that shit again.

It just sticks in the mind for me. Very few other RPGs take the sort of careful, historically and culturally-focused bent on producing and placing a world in the way that Glorantha does. It feels lived in and loved, with a clear idea of itself and what it wants to be. I wish I could say the same for more games in the space.

#Alexis Reads Books 2024

[mel1rose]

Prologue

As flame reduces even the stars to ash, as ice seals away even time itself, as great trees swallow even the sky...

Fear not the power of darkness.

And so, we start where it all began. Come, let me show you a real happily ever after...

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Word Count: 1.7k

Inspo Music: Toccata & Fugue in d minor - comp. Bach, arr. Stokowski; Thinking Time - TWST Soundtrack (aka post-overblot flashback theme part 1); Beauty and the Beast Prologue Instrumental (1991) - comp. Menken

Warnings: Gender-neutral reader, hello darkness my old friend, existential questions, spooky ambience, and the slightest hint of blood if you squint, but nothing recent.

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Darkness is the only thing you know.

You can’t move, for the shadows envelop you in their embrace. You can’t hear, for the eerie silence snuffs all sound. You can’t see, for the void is all that exists.

Well, the void, and apparently you, are all that exists.

…That can’t be right.

Wasn’t there supposed to be something happening? Something important?

You wrack your brain for something, anything, that could illuminate your reason for being here. You try to remember what happened. Nothing. You try to remember how you got here. Nothing. You try to dig deeper, to the first memory you have, any memory, really, to tell you who you are. All you know is you and the void.

But one thought, strong and clear, crosses your mind.

Find them.

…Find who?

Find them, the thought insists.

Why? You ask. Why do I need to find them?

Find them, the thought insists again.

But somehow it feels right. It feels like what you’re supposed to do. But…how? You’re trapped in a never-ending, cold, dark void…

…Not for much longer.

You feel something start to grow in your heart. You look down and see light for the first time. It’s small, unassuming against the ever-expansive darkness.

But it’s there. It’s shining. It’s…warm. Your warm light.

Little by little, it expands to the rest of your body, chasing away the cold from your chest, your shoulders, your torso, your limbs, your neck, all the way to the top of your head and the tips of your fingers and toes.

This is not where you’ll stay, not if you have anything to say about it.

You stretch out your hand, finally able to move, focusing all your being on finding a way out. Your hand starts to glow, growing brighter and brighter until it bursts and fractures into a million stars. They swirl around you in a beautiful dance of light and color that almost look like…strings. In fact, the longer you look, the more shapes start to take definite form. You swear you can hear a firm, yet gentle melody pierce the silence with its rising and falling tones. The lights finish their dance in a grand flourish, coming together in a flash and a shower of sparkles to reveal a door.

You step forward and open it.

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You find yourself standing in a garden. The sun is shining, the air is clear, and the scent of roses hangs on the breeze. You feel soft grass cushioning your bare feet. You hear the leaves rustling in the swaying trees and birds chirping as they fly overhead. Vine-covered walls line the border on one side while towering hedges line the other.

It’s warm, you notice. So warm.

Find them, you hear the breeze whisper.

There it is again. No time to rest, you suppose.

Guided by the breeze, you walk through the garden, stepping onto a path of mossy stones, passing beds of tulips, daisies, and dandelions. A few rose bushes guard the exit, framing a well-traveled walkway that becomes more overgrown and unkept the farther you travel away from the garden.

You don’t have to walk very far to see where the breeze wants you to go. Past a towering tree, its trunk thick and strong, you notice that the same stone wall from the garden stretches out along the path. It ends at a rounded stone archway that opens into a dark, interior hallway; the closer you are to it, the more you notice the cracks that line the archway’s surface and the increasing lack of sunlight shining down on you.

Find them, you hear the breeze whisper in a chorus of voices.

Against your better judgement, you cross the threshold into the hallway, following where the breeze takes you. Dust clouds hang in the air. Cobwebs decorate any surface or corner they can stick to. What were once grand carpets, drapes, tapestries, and tables now bear the scars of ravenous colonies of moths and termites.

Find them, the whispers on the breeze say. But the breeze doesn’t feel inviting anymore.

It feels cold. So…cold…

As wind whips past you, you rub your arms together, trying to salvage whatever warmth you had left from the garden. You look up to see the raggedy crimson drapes sway one after the other down the hallway until an old wooden door at its end slowly creeeaaaaks open.

Find them, the whispers say. You feel the return of the wind, now buffeting you from behind towards the open door and into the dark room beyond.

It’s too far for the sun’s rays to reach you here. But as you step forward, small square braziers by your feet activate with a puff of smoke one after the other until the entire room is lit by soft, blue flames.

You’ve entered a room lined with cracked columns. Frayed navy blue strips of patchy velvet limply decorate the walls, some parts stained a dull yellow. Eight pedestals stand in the middle of the room, forming a walkway towards an elevated platform accessible by worn marble stairs but covered by those same navy blue drapes like curtains on a stage. Curious, you take a closer look at the pedestals and their display of a…varied assortment of objects.

A broken crown, wilting like a dead flower despite being made of a sturdy metal. Obviously, it wasn’t sturdy enough to handle the pressure.

A curved claw, adorned with a large chasm that threatens to split it in two. Parts of it are discolored with patches of dark yellow and reddish brown. Something bad must’ve happened to the poor creature that this belonged to for the claw of all things to retain damage.

A seashell necklace, worn with holes covering its cracked surface. Its faded golden luster and threadbare black chord testify of numerous uses. Interesting choice for a display that’s nowhere near the sea.

A red gem, dulled from countless scratches. It’s still attached to a torn scrap of black fabric and the frayed remnants of a feather. Maybe with a little bit of polish it’ll look good as new?

A dagger, its blade covered with rust and threatening to fall off. Gem-shaped indents in the hilt are little more than forgotten craters in the metalwork. Pity. That could’ve been useful if things go south.

A skull-shaped brooch, the pin on the back bent at an odd angle and hanging loosely from the spring that once kept it in place. Oh come on! That could’ve been perfect for…something.

A sharp needle about a foot long, miraculously spotless and kept in good condition compared to the other objects. But upon closer inspection, there’s some slight discoloration at the bottom and a single track of a reddish brown substance that spans from the tip to most of the way down its length. This feels…oddly…familiar…maybe from a dream?

An antique gold key, its bow bearing a simple design of a raven’s skull. A strip of black-and-white striped fabric tied around the shaft droops downward as a lifeless little bow. What does it unlock?

You analyze the objects one by one, taking in all of their details and imperfections. Only one catches your eye. You return to it, inexplicably drawn to the artifact like a moth to a flame. You reach out to touch it.

Find them, the whispers say, urging you on.

But before you can make contact, you feel the wind return once again, this time flapping the drapes covering the platform until you hear fabric tearing from the force. By the time you run up to stabilize them, the frayed drapes fully separate from their base and fall to the ground, taking you with them in a puff of dust, debris, and a sneeze or two.

From your vantage point on the ground, you notice two things. One - the aged drapes are not stained. In actuality, they bear a faded yellow pattern of stars and crescent moons. Two - those drapes were covering a rather large, rather clean, rather expensive-looking oval mirror.

Golden snakes twisting around themselves form the frame, accented by a few shining rubies. At the top sits a crown of feathers, molded from the same metal that houses the mirror itself. You expect to see your reflection as you stand up, but you see nothing except an empty void.

Well, you see nothing except an empty void and a shadowy figure walking towards you.

It stops at what would be just in front of the mirror. All you can make out are long, flowing, black robes, making it appear as if it were a being risen from the shadows themselves. It holds out its bare, clawed hand towards you in a silent invitation.

Find them, the whispers in your heart say, stronger than ever.

You hesitate for a moment. You look down at your hand. You look back at the mirror. You reach forward, expecting to hit glass, but your hand passes right through the rippling surface. You take the figure’s steady hand.

As you step through the mirror, you glance all around you and see not one, not two, but seven lights, all coming from their own mirrors, all following the shadow holding your hand. Each light glows a different color at a different brightness, even compared to your own, but all chase away the feeling of dread that briefly settled in your heart at seeing the void again. You realize that you’re not alone anymore. You look back towards the figure again, each step more confident than the last.

The figure stops, turning around to face you and the gathering of lights. The same flowing robes that obscure the shadow’s body shroud its face. You hear a voice speak in your mind, sophisticated yet slightly grating, distorted somewhat by the whispers that echo its words.

To me. To them. To yourself.

The hour grows long, and time is scarce.

Keep steady your grip, no matter what may come…

And as you fall back into the darkness’ cold, soft embrace once more, a revelation crosses your mind.

You…are you, right?

No. You are…you…but…not…at the same time.

You are @$#%*&$%&^.

You are…Yuu.

And you’re about to become the meal of a large gray chimera with blue flames shooting out of its ears.

Welcome to the Villains’ world, Yuu@$#%*&$%&^

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A/N: It's finally done!!! I'm so happy to share this with everyone and to actually put an idea down on paper that I've had for a long time now. I've got more stories to share, so stay tuned!

I do not own Twisted Wonderland or any of its characters; those rights belong to Yana Toboso, Aniplex, and Disney.

I do own any stories that I write. Please do not modify or repost my work.

#mel1rose's book of tales #my writing #tw: dried blood #twisted wonderland #au #gn!reader #yuu

[pants-magic-pants]

Cheers, loveys!

Here is post 1 of 3 about Pattern Construction. I’ll make a diagram post like this and then also take photos of my actual coat and with me in it. 

I don’t remember how I started off doing the pattern, but I will guess that I took a tailcoat that I already possess and used it as a base, which in general seems to be a helpful way to start making clothes that fit if you’re not a master pattern maker (which I’m not, and I made plenty of mistakes which we’ll get into.)

There are two people I want to thank, and the first is Aria Couture [X] and their quality photos and observations, vocabulary and groundwork. They are the shoulders I stand on. Their photos were how I made all of the notes discussed in these diagrams, and how I discerned what kind of pattern needed to be made. 

So the main changes that needed to happen to my base pattern was 1.) jacking up the shoulders to high heavens, 2.) elongating the side pieces (which I’ve come to call panels so go with me), 3.) adding pleats in that squared off spot in the back between them, 4.) adding a custom collar and cuffs, 5.) designing my own lining. 

THE PLEATS were a nightmare. There was a lot of math involved, and math that was not necessary, but the most important thing was creating a shape that would fold together into a straight line on top, look cascading on the sides, and marry the rest of the coat in a reasonable place. After a lot of trial and error, I ended up with this rounded wedge that spreads out on the inside of the coat, but also folds backwards onto itself (like half of a box pleat), to reattach to the back side panels. This is what gives the coat its look of all this shiny velvet blossoming from beneath the back buttons and gushing out the sides. 

As to why the pleat piece is rounded, all of the pleat lines were diagonal, so that the coat would flare out. Cutting this piece as a completely straight line on top meant it ran out of fabric in the top corners, and more of it needed to be pulled in, more and more sideways. Adding a sloped height to its corners helped it do what it was supposed to and become a mostly straight line when folded together.  

THE PANELS (second image), there are just a few notes about those which I think are important. As I am female cosplaying a male and wish to keep the masculine shape of the garment, some tricks needed to be pulled to hide my waist and hips, so this is what I came up with. 

PROPORTIONS MATH. It’s a thing I started doing a couple cosplays ago, to get accurate shapes and lengths of garments, to give me the same silhouette as characters. It’s worked out really well for me. It’s been a real life application of algebra that I wasn’t expecting, as a former student who hated math. Now, I love math! Armed with a ruler and a protractor, I have taken down a lot of notes about such silly things as: what degrees the angles of the lapels are, and how wide are the shoulders compared to the head? (In Jareth’s coat’s case, the ratio of head:shoulders is 1:4.) With that knowledge, I took a photo of myself in the bathroom, measured my own head and shoulders in pixels, wearing a mock-up, and corrected shoulder span measurements to fit this ratio. It was a whooole thing, but I think it was worth it.

And I used proportions math for everything. How much of the arm do the cuffs take up? Where along the legs did the dramatic slope of Jareth’s “fishtail” start? Those things aren’t listed here, but hopefully this post gives you enough tools to figure it out on your own for your specific garment, or any garment you ever want to make.

THE COLLAR. Not much to say about it, but there’s how it looks.

SLEEVES. Dear God. I was stuck on sleeves for months because go ahead and look around online for detailed information about how to add basically football gear sized padding to your shoulders, and all of the intertwined modifications that needs. It isn’t out there. 

One thing I can at least say is that it helps to start off with a great base, and the other person I have to thank is a tailor on YT called Chris Sartorial [X]. This guy hasn’t been active for years, but when he was, he was no nonsense, such a professional who knew what he was doing that he couldn’t even take the time to properly light his videos. Such a king. His channel helped me with my dress shirt, and also with making the base sleeves for this coat, which were of the “2 piece” variety. This kind of sleeve is used for blazers and coats so that it appears to fall in a nice boxy shape off the arm, usually from a shoulder pad, and then slightly turn at the elbow. While he doesn’t go into shoulder pads, this still halfway set me up for success, and knowing the relationship between shoulder and sleeve.

However, there are a few things I learned about shoulder+sleeve modification as shown above, and hopefully it’s a good “bouncing off” observation.

THE CUFFS. Again, not much to say, but this is how my pattern came out, to create that nice tear-drop shaped gap, with that sort of blooming and expanding height that his cuffs have, like a vase. The lace trim will be in another post. One thing I should mention is that the lace trim is tall enough that the bottom of the cuff won’t end on your wrist if you want to be able to see your own hands. The cuff needs to be measured so that it will end 2-3 inches up from your wrist. 

THE LINING

Dear God, she’s still writing. I am a huge fan of lining even though I’m not good at it, and my actual lining didn’t turn out looking as smooth as my drawings, but this is what I came up with, which in theory should look good. haha Any deviations from the norm that you see are just stylistic choices. I wanted the area in the top back to look sort of dripping like the back lace piece.

Was this interesting? I sure hope so. Please ask me questions if I’ve glossed over something.

#jareth cosplay #jareth ballroom coat #labyrinth #costume construction #pattern #pattern making