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cottonlemonade · 2 days

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A Simpler Life [Part 3]

word count: 2296 || avg. reading time: 10 mins.

pairing: post-time skip Kita x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff, slice of life, mutual pining, neighbors to lovers

warnings: spoilers

synopsis: In pursuit of a calmer, simpler life you flee the city to move to the countryside - only to fall in love with your neighbor.

[part 1] [part 2]

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The next day you waited in the front yard for him on his way home and invited him for dinner again. And the day after that. And after that. Before long, you offered a standing dinner invitation and he happily accepted.

Now, Kita’s steps quickened when he called it a day. It became rarer that he stayed until sundown to maybe do something that could be easily taken care of tomorrow. Having dinner with you every night was almost as if … almost like… coming home to you. The first thing he did when he stepped through your gate was go check on your plants. The tomatoes were doing really well and your radishes, while a bit on the puny side, also weren't too shabby. He wound a few of the newly formed pea vines around the trellis, then went to knock on your door.

A wonderful smell wafted in his nose but his heart only jumped when he saw you. You were setting the table, an apron around your plump hips, your hair tied up to a bun. It took every ounce of self control he had not to greet you with “I‘m home“. But maybe you‘d find it funny if he did? He tucked the thought away for later. Right now he dusted off his clothes, took off his shoes and stepped inside.

With the rainy season came a new routine for Kita. He loved this time of year because his fields thrived in this weather and it was fun for him to go check on their growth every other day when there was a break from the downpour. While the rain splattered loudly on the roofs and puddle-strewn streets, he stayed inside, doing the paperwork that came with farming, going over numbers and making phone calls to ensure the supply chain was in order once it was time to harvest mid fall. Before, he would have used the remaining time in his days to read or do some maintenance around his home, fixing little things he noticed or building a new piece of sturdy furniture to then deliver to his grandmother in the little hamlet he grew up in 40 minutes away. And while he did do all those things, he made very sure to keep aside more time for you as well. You met up in town for a cup of tea or to go to the grocery store together or drove to a neighboring town for a famous fish market he had told you about, eating your fill of gorgeously fresh sashimi and having a drink under the beautiful traditional awnings of the shops while looking out onto the stormy waves of the ocean. You never called it a date. You always made sure to refer to it as an “outing” and while he was glad to spend time with you, no matter what it was called, he couldn’t help but deflate a little whenever you clarified it to the people in your town who had gotten curious and suspicious about how often you two were spotted together. “Our Kita never spends this much time with anyone, let alone a pretty thing like ya. Ya should pay Yumie a visit soon, I reckon.”, one of the grandmothers had noted the other day and Kita had vehemently shaken his head behind your back to make her stop. The last thing he needed was word getting back to his grandma. She would want to meddle or as she would put it “help”. She would probably invite you over for dinner and ask all kinds of embarrassing questions, strongly hinting at the fact that she wasn’t getting any younger and Kita should hurry up and give her a pretty wedding and plenty of great-grandchildren. It wouldn’t matter that her grandson hadn’t made any romantic advances to you yet or that you perhaps didn’t even see children in your future. In all honesty, Kita would be happy with whatever you wanted. You would want children? Alright, he could get started on that straight away as far as he was concerned. You would want to spend your days with him alone and get those little goats you were gushing over the other day? He would gladly comply and build their enclosure as soon as you’d say the word. But as much as he was yours, you weren’t his. He was accompanying you on outings and although you were incredibly sweet and initiated contact often, he had learned that this was just the way you were. And he was foolish to read anything else into it.

He almost didn‘t hear the knock over the rain. It was early in the morning and he sat on his couch with a cup of tea and a book but looked up when he heard your voice calling his name.

Opening the door he came face to face with a pitiful pout.

“My home flooded.“, you announced.

“What?“

“Apparently the roof isn‘t roofing as it should and now there is a huge puddle in my living room.“

A few minutes later he stood in your doorway, marveling at the myriad of blankets and towels laid out on the floor while in the middle of the room a big flower printed bucket was steadily filling up with water trickling in from the ceiling.

He would have a word with the town‘s realtor later for selling you a house that was anything less than perfect.

“Once the rain calms down a little I’ll have a look at it. Weather report said it should be dry in the afternoon.”

You threw him a hopeful smile.

“Really? Thank you so much! Can I make you lunch in return?”

He shook his head and upon seeing your face falter he immediately followed it with, “Ya’ve been cooking for me for weeks. Lemme do it for once.”

Personally, you thought you deserved an award for not drooling all over Kita‘s kitchen table. Seeing him shake out his wet hair when he returned from a quick run to the greenhouse for some fresh veggies was already testing you but now he was preparing said fresh veggies to turn into omurice and you were just about ready to lose your mind. There was something so wonderfully cozy and domestic about seeing this man prepare his produce with a little unconscious smile on his lips. His shoulders, broadened by the field work, moved smoothly as he fried the rice and you didn‘t hear him at first when he asked you a question, because your thoughts were somewhere else entirely. The meal immediately turned into your new favorite dish and his cheeks blushed when you couldn’t stop gushing about how good his rice tasted. You learned a while ago that it was a big source of pride for him when people complimented his produce, so you made sure to do it whenever possible, suppressing all the squeaks rising in your throat when you saw him turn shy. As you two enjoyed lunch, he requested more stories about your traveling and how you came to Japan, listening intently and asking for more details here and there. Laying a hand on your well-filled tummy you leaned back and let your eyes wander through his pristine home and out the open window, watching the continuous streams of collected rain drizzling from the shingles of the porch awning. Your eyes fell onto the little open shed next to his gate and the curled up form of his dog lazing around underneath.

“Shouldn’t we let him in?”, you asked and Kita followed your gaze.

“Hm? Why? Roku is a guard dog. He lives outside.”

“But… it’s wet outside.”, you mumbled.

“It’s nice in the hay, I promise.”

“Hm…”

“Don’t worry, he is doing well. If he’d be in here he couldn’t do his job properly to guard ya.”

Using his chopsticks, Kita placed a red bean mochi for dessert on a small plate with more fresh strawberries and handed it to you. You accepted and chewed the sweet treat thoughtfully, still looking outside, unaware of his adoring smile.

The rain did let up in the afternoon just as predicted and together you carried a ladder and some supplies over to your house. You insisted on helping and although you couldn‘t do much to assist, you noted that you could still cheer him on and make sure the ladder didn‘t fall.

Moving slowly on the wet roof he went to work. The leak was fortunately nothing major and it didn‘t take long to fix. On his way back to the ladder however -

He drew in a sharp breath when he felt a muscle pull in his shoulder.

“Oh my gosh, are you alright?“, he heard you call from the ground.

“Yeah. Just slipped.“

Kita almost missed a step on his way down when he suddenly felt your hand supporting his back. He was really trying not to enjoy you fussing over him but when you led him inside and ordered him to sit on your couch while you prepared an ice pack, he couldn‘t help but play it up eeever so slightly. And then regretted it instantly when you offered to apply a muscle relaxant balm. Ears and cheeks burning, stomach stirring, skin tingling and thoughts racing, Kita focused on a wood knot on your floor, telling himself to calm down as you rubbed the balm onto his shoulder.

With the start of the new week he was once again busy with errands in town and the city and only got to see you for your daily dinner - by now his favorite part of the day. When he got home on Friday night, he was surprised that Roku didn‘t come to greet him as he stepped out of his car. Kita looked around and found the black and white dog snuggled in the open shed in his usual space but now lounging luxuriously on a very plush dark blue pillow. He sighed as he knelt down to pet the soft floppy ears, Roku blinking sleepily up at him but not moving from his new bed.

It looked like you made it yourself, it even had the dog’s name embroidered on the side.

“She really spoils us both, hm?“, Kita muttered and Roku grumbled in agreement.

And so, with another sigh, he decided to confess to you. Soon. Even if just for his own peace of mind.

Once you had left after dinner and he was alone with his thoughts, Kita tried to focus on his book but his mind kept wandering. He had never confessed to anyone before. Quite honestly, as much as his grandmother would have been disappointed, he had been fully prepared to be alone for the rest of his days. He never would have guessed that a gorgeous foreigner from the city would take up residence in his heart. You reminded him of the little wild tulips that dotted the fields with white each new spring. They had always been his favorite because although maybe unassuming and almost delicate at first glance, when you looked closer they were resilient and just… beautiful. He should probably write you a letter to let him choose his words carefully. Yes. And he’d deliver the letter to your doorstep to then patiently wait for your response.

“Did ya already get this one?“, you asked. Deciding to use the break in between downpours Kita had suggested to do some pruning in your veggie patch. The soil was soaked and muddy but the stone plates he had laid down a few weeks ago kept both of you from sinking in.

He smiled and nodded, working on the tomato plants while you went over to trim the superfluous sprouts from the bell peppers. He noticed some days ago that you had started to use his dialect in a few words here and there and every time it happened, his stomach did a little somersault.

“Thank you, by the way. For everything else, too.“, you said suddenly. He looked at you for a moment before continuing his task.

“Don‘t worry about it. It‘s not a big deal.“

“I don‘t just mean the pruning. I mean everything. It‘s a huge deal!“, you exclaimed, “You helped me with my garden, I don‘t know what you did to that realtor but I got compensation for the leaky roof and a whole handwritten apology letter. You give me advice, share your phenomenal produce for free, built me a planter, fixed my roof“, you gave a nervous chuckle while he blushed at the list of your appreciation, “and you mean to tell me none of that is a big deal?“

“Because they‘re only natural when ya love someone.“, he shrugged and froze a moment later mid-snip when he realized what he had just said.

“What?“

“I…“

“You… you love me?“

He took a deep silent breath. “Well… yeah.“, he then said in a tone as if confirming the sky was blue, “I thought it was rather obvious.“

When you didn‘t respond, he went back to pruning, trying to exude his usual air of calm but his heart pounded in his chest. There it was. And you didn‘t say anything. So you didn‘t feel the same after all. But at least it was out now. He examined the leaf of a momotaro tomato when he felt your hand on his cheek, turning his head to you. His eyes widened when your lips touched his. Short at first. You looked at him, probably waiting for a reaction, then leaned in again.

Kita squeezed his eyes shut to drown out the rushing sound in his ears. With trembling hands he needed two attempts to get the gloves off his hands so he could cup your cheeks and pull you closer.

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a/n: This is truly everything I love 😌 I loved writing it! The next part will be spicy so if you’d rather keep this story sfw this is where is “important” plot ends 🌟

art: coloring done by @keiko-chan

[part 4]

#kita x chubby reader #kita shinsuke x chubby reader #haikyuu x chubby reader #chubby reader #haikyuu fluff #kita shinsuke x y/n #kita shinsuke x you #kita shinsuke x reader #haikyuu kita #kita shinsuke #kita fluff #hq kita #kita x reader

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fictional-orphan-smackdown · 1 day

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tbh I just thought it'd be funny to pit a character from one of the most formative pieces of literature against a character from the funny cat books

All propaganda under the cut

Frodo Baggins

Frodo demonstrates incredible tenacity, intelligence, and heart. His growth and struggle is amazing, and he’s a hero who fails!! But because he inspires such love and loyalty in his friends, his quest succeeds. He’s a tragic hero, a model that so many fantasy books misunderstood and even still were inspired to copy nonetheless. I think the fact that he is an orphan isn’t as important as it is for some characters, but it is important to some extent, emphasizing the loneliness of being a ring bearer, as well as the strength of his relationships with his friends. His parents are also descriptive of his personality, his mother being a descendent of the Tooks, the most adventurous Hobbit lineage, and his father being from the more genteel-in-bearing Baggins’. Frodo is a reluctant hero, only accepting the role, and enough adventure for a lifetime, only once it was clear he was the best option. He was polite and refined, even in absolutely foreign circumstances, and, in a bit of parallelism, not only saves his best friend from drowning, but in the end, sails away in a boat to a new life.

The things this guy endures to save the world are horrifying. There are plenty of other stronger people who think they can do it better than this humble, meek, unassuming halfling but they can't begin to understand. This mission isn't a privilege, it's a burden. He's trying to do the ultimate stealth ops when he's public enemy number one, with the enemy's life force wrapped around his neck like an anchor, corrupting his body and mind with every single step. Think about the most exhausted you've ever been. Then imagine having to walk nearly 2000 miles with that exhaustion, little to no food or water, getting stabbed, poisoned, hunted down, while carrying the full weight of the worst person you can think of as they try to drive you insane every second of every day. And he still makes it, for the sake of his home, his friends, his whole world. Is it any wonder he struggles to find peace after an experience like that? He deserves so much.

Frostpaw

Frostpaw was born within a cat group called Riverclan. She has two siblings, graypaw and mistpaw. She was made the medicine cat’s - Mothwing - due to Frostpaw having a vision of her father dying as a kit. She is quite traumatized, seeing her leader die, finding the deputy’s murdered body, and hearing her mother being mauled to death all in one book. She eventually decides to become a warrior apprentice, possibly and/or probably due to her stating that she’s not having visions from Starclan. She had a crush on an adult, Splashtail, who (unbeknownst for Frostpaw at the time) killed Reedwhisker, the deputy. Splashtail also attempted to kill Frostpaw after she told him that she had a vision of Reedwhisker’s death. Her mother, Curlfeather, also teamed up with Splashtail in order to end Reedwhisker’s life for power over her clan, and probably manipulated Frostpaw before her death because of this as well. Frostpaw went on a journey with a Thunderclan cat, Nightheart, in order to go to a group of cats, called the Cats of the Park, due to the deceased first leader of Riverclan, Riverstar, telling Frostpaw to do so. She meets and befriends from cats within the group, including a cat named Wafflepaw.

#poll #lord of the rings #lotr #frodo baggins #warriors #warrior cats #frostpaw

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honeyjars-sims · 3 days

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Episode 33: New Ventures

Seth and Reese were finally turning one and the DiMarcos were ready to celebrate! Lucy and Christopher couldn't believe their boys were growing so fast. It seemed like just yesterday that they were preparing to bring them home. Now they were beginning to walk and talk.

Lucy was thrilled with the wonderful job Kaylynn had done putting the party together. As she’d requested, it wasn’t too over the top but everything looked great and ran smoothly.

The food truck arrived just in time to feed their hungry guests, and there were plenty of age-appropriate activities for the kids to enjoy while the adults mingled.

Everyone was having a great time, and Kaylynn seemed to be quite proud of what she pulled off.

“You should do this for a living,” Lucy told her. Kaylynn laughed it off. “No, I’m serious,” Lucy continued. “Maybe not just kids’ birthday parties, but anniversary parties or even weddings.”

Lucy pointed out all of the connections Kaylynn had around the community, how skilled she was at planning things, and most importantly, how much she enjoyed helping out other people.

Kaylynn’s eyes grew wide.

“You’re totally right!” she exclaimed. “I loved putting this all together, and if I become an event planner, I can have some control over when and how often I work.” She thanked Lucy and went to find Matt to tell him about Lucy's great idea.

Later the boys had their birthday cupcakes and got more on their faces than in their mouths. They had so much fun that they passed out in their high chairs when they finished.

After Lucy and Christopher got the boys all cleaned up, Lucy spotted Damien walking toward her. She’d extended an invitation to her boss but hadn’t expected him to actually show.

She introduced him to Christopher and the boys and before long, the conversation predictably turned to work.

Damien told Lucy that seeing the new projects being developed and how they’d been received had reignited his passion for the company.

“I’ve had a lot of ideas about how I want to continue with the expansion of the company,” he said. “But I’d be remiss not to get your input given the work you’ve put in so far. Are you interested in becoming the Coordinating Producer for my new production company?" He was quick to assure her that the promotion would come with a pay increase.

Lucy couldn’t turn down a challenge, especially if it meant some actual collaboration with someone as accomplished as Damien. She was happy to accept the offer, but she asked for one small favor.

"Can I hire an assistant?"

Damien was happy to oblige her request, but he had one more surprise in store for her.

"I think I found the perfect name for the production company, but I wanted to get the okay from you first. How do you feel about Sunny Side Productions?"

Lucy was thrilled with the idea. They both felt the moniker was perfect for the new venture. They had just began discussing adding new members to the team before they were interrupted by Matt and Kaylynn.

“Sorry to leave so soon, but–” Kaylynn began.

Matt interrupted her by shouting, “IT’S BABY TIME! WOO!”

Kaylynn smiled and continued, “My water just broke.” Lucy promised she’d forgive them for dipping out early to bring a new life into the world.

Previous | Beginning | Next

#next post is the epilogue!#ts4 #sims 4 #the sims 4 #ts4 gameplay #ts4 story #simblr #sims storytelling #sims story #sim stories #simlit #cuwtd #oc: lucy dimarco #oc: matt dimarco #oc: damien major #christopher steel #kaylynn langerak

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vole-mon-amour · 11 months

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James got Jamie drunk and got him raped. He forced Jamie to have sex with an adult when Jamie was (and probably the day he turned) 14. James has been beating Jamie for years. James has been abusing Jamie mentally as well, being the cause of Jamie's depression, self-consciousness and many other issues. James has probably been beating up Georgie, too, until she had the means to get out.

There's a huge difference between recognizing your bad behavior (being a jerk and a bully for funsies—which isn't great, too, but it's redeemable, especially since Jamie was basically abused into this behavior) and changing for the better and throwing an abused kid back into his abuser's arms that gave him such severe PTSD that some encounters give him very painful flashbacks. He doesn't even remember his first sexual encounter bc it was so bad that he blocked it out, but he for sure will be triggered again if something like the auction in s1 happens again. Jamie was raped, and by an adult at that, when he was just a teen.

Even if James changes for the better in the future, he already ruined Jamie's life in the ways that Jamie will never be able to fix. Never, no matter how hard he tries and works on himself and goes to therapy. It's the horror that will always stay with him. It's the things that will haunt him in nightmares on his worst days and stop him from falling back asleep.

It doesn't matter if James becomes dad of the year (unironically) and finds a wife that he'll genuinely love and cherish and never show any toxic behavior for the rest of his life (which probably won't happen, I can almost guarantee you that). He will always be a wife beater and child abuser. So when you go on a rant about protecting James and how he's only human, at least remember and admit what he did.

Jamie deserves BETTER and I'll stay on this hill. 'It's been a while'? It should stay that way. Ted never should have told him to forgive him and Jamie should have never reached out to his abuser, let alone visit him in rehab and act like it's all fine and at least 21 years of the abuse didn't happen.

Because it absolutely did.

#ted lasso #jamie tartt #tw abuse #tw rape #my dad didn't even come close to the damage james did to jamie #i loved my dad very much and i was was devastated when he died #yet I'm still dealing with the aftermath of his actions 2 years later #again: my dad loved me the way he could. i loved him.#but it was almost very toxic and destructive and he hurt my mom mentally quite a bit #to the point when i learned what he did i couldn't fucking believe it was the same person #and i felt betrayed and devastated and so incredibly mad #jamie is a good kid that wants love and Be Good #but getting back to his abuser and acting like never of that happened is not a part of that #it should NEVER be a part of that #there's plenty of love from other people AND at home #james can go fuck himself and leave jamie alone. period.#it's 11:11 pm #and with that i am hopefully going to sleep

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bitegore · 1 year

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serious question for non-native english speakers who have any sort of religious beliefs (or people who have a language they speak for liturgical reasons and not in their day to day life, ie praying in arabic or hebrew)

when you say "god" in colloquial english, does it feel like you're saying a word that actually means your deity that you actually believe in or pray to in whatever degree?

personally: nope, unless i'm specifically trying to talk about mine, in which case I usually use the hebrew term i'm used to (hashem, translates to "the name") or "g-d" (written as such for religious purposes) but "god" as used in english to me is sort of just like "the christian god" and it's off to the side. de-religion'd and de-importance'd for me. hence the question, because it makes me curious

#i will admit to a significant lack of cultural knowledge re: other people's minority religious traditions but i would imagine that like #there are plenty of diaspora groups in ie america or other parts of the world that pray in one language (from home) and speak primarily #another #like i know that jews worldwide speak hebrew as a liturgical language. id imagine muslims worldwide do the same. a jew in israel frex would #probably have a different feeling on this (speaking hebrew most of the time daily) if i were to ask if they felt like idk. whatever they #use to refer to 'god (generic)' in hebrew vs hebrew lmfao #anyway i figure this goes for other religions as well #like id imagine it would be a little odd to be idk hindi or smth and worship exclusively in english when your texts and stuff are all in #another language #red rambles #i love when language. can you tell #i find this stuff genuinely fascinating #brought to you by a) a post about saying 'i love you' vs 'te amo/te quiero' with different levels of significance and b) a jumblr post

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soarrenbluejay · 2 months

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Since I’ve been encouraged to actually share my funny little blorbo ideas here’s another one gang;

Danny moves to Gotham on scholarship for engineering, because the Fentons may be infamous but they’re also insanely brilliant and besides both he and Jazz are showing every sign of embarrassed child of a super genius syndrome, so while the bats are keeping a close eye on him Just In Case, duke is also thinking of introducing him to the Our Parents Are Maniacs But Anyway club maybe after the first month or so.

Gotham does not go for standard dorm living bc of his ‘condition’ and lack of wanting to constantly spook/gaslight a roommate. Besides, living with two small children is a dorm sounds like a disaster in action.

So Danny signs up as a mechanic in Crime Alley, buys himself a teeny weensy lil apartment and Makes It Work. He has been all year after showing up with a de aged Dani and Dan in Amnity after all, and that had gone,,, fine? (The entire town, observing how Danny had been getting increasingly more uncomfortable around his godfather prior to the cloning incident, then just dropped off the face of the earth for several months, the first two weeks stuck in Vlad’s basement enduring horrors and the next Too Many desperately fapping around in the Ghost Zone to get everything handled. All the clones live, all 13 of them. Bunch of them are stuck in the Ghost Zone due to constant need for ectoplasm, but eh, plenty of Zone born never leave, so. One, in the future, apprentices under a green warrior lady on Pandora’s suggestion, another is working in the Eternal Library with Ghost Writer, etc etc. so Danny eventually came back to Amnity with one small child under each arm very obviously traumatized by Somethingn with vlad and doesn’t like being alone with him,,, or touched without warning,, and immediately and passionately proclaims the kids his but struggles to explain how or why,, look some very reasonable assumptions are drawn okay. So the town does the very reasonable thing and does the midwestern equivilant of excommunicating Vlad, except it’s a lot more run him out with pitchforks vibes since he’s the Mayor. Anyway)

He is immediately loved, because while non Gothamites are usually more of a pain than they’re worth, everyone in a while someone even from out of town will just fit in so nicely it’s uncanny for everyone involved. Addams family vibes, it’s referred to as ‘making it home’, just personal hc. He is protective of all the kids playing in the parks and street girls that can totally take care of themselves on their corners but find it HILARIOUS when he just tackles a dick like a wild animal full force no warning. He can fix anything it seems, but refuses to work with weapons. Reasonable enough, people get twitchy about gangs sometimes. Danny mentions being not against Hood or anything, but he’s not going to work for him, littles to take care of and all, but had past experience with ‘Dora and that inheritance mess with her brother he was being a real prick about’ so everyone assumes it’s the equivilant of him having Done His Time and being plenty good for a life time and respects it as long as none of that petty midwestern small town hotshots bring any of that shit over here. And they don’t, because said individuals are on the other side of the mortal veil, so happy day.

See I really love deaged!Dan because he’s just a grumpy lil guy. But he’s also killed millions. He’s so protective of his loved ones, but held back by blending in and also being Smol that it comes off more bitey kitten than anything else. Dani, of course, is a terror, so she fits right in with the crowd.

And sorry gang, but a bunch of kids on their own in Gotham in a poor side of the city just isn’t going to get any attention: that’s just business as usual really. What first gets attention on Danny is not his ‘condition’ or being mistaken for a meta (which he legally probs has an argument for even without the gene bc like these bitches don’t know how metaism works anyway so) or alien (I’m 90% sure he’d be covered by the alien protection act by virtue of being half ‘not from earth’), but because Danny despite best efforts is a Weird Guy.

He grew up in what could only be described as a low level villain level and spent most of high school dealing with smack downs and spiritual invasion. He’s never really processed that any of that is not in fact Normal. Also, he’s capable of making Anything if given the insides of a toaster, blender and alarm clock, and could probably rewrite the circuits of the apartment blindfolded and improve them 1000% even if it ABSOLUTELY would not be up to code.

And sure, things slip every once in a while, bits of spectral ice here, small floating incident there, but everyone just Minds Their Buisness ya know? You really gunna mess with the guy that personally ensured that when your car got flattened by a fight with Killer Croc, you were still able to get in to work the next day by some wizardry? Really?

But Gotham is a city so cursed it’s probably in the exponents countwise, so of course there is a) a flourishing community of magic users and assorted supernatural weirdos and b) a whole lot of shit for Mega Overpowered Ghost King Danny to idly pick at day to day in order to help with his protecting other Obsession. Gotham has plenty of heroes, but by god do they need the spiritual equivilant of an electrician/priest.

Still, Danny, as a baby ancient under a facet of Kronos and KING OF THE DEAD is like, way, way out of their scope to be able to grok, so it mostly just comes off as you know, a family of banshees or something. When asked, Danny very haltingly says he was briefly dead but then revived, which neatly explains his Weird Ass aura and makes it SPECTACULARLY AWKWARD to ask further about. So everyone nods politely, and goes back to their lives after double checking no nefarious bullshit was being pulled.

Then, of course, Vlad finally tracks them down. The whole neighborhood is altered in short order because he doesn’t bother trying to hide being a Rich Bitch or how he’s sneering down his nose at people on the sidewalk. Every connects the dots when Danny paniks. Dani and Dan’s daycare are staffed with some extra, very buff set of hands within the hour. Jerry, Hood’s third in command, personally shows up to the garage Danny is working at to talk things out with him bc he knows he does t like the deal with this stuff due to past unspecified circumstances but well, they guys had already started fucking with him, you see. Stole his tires, spray painted the windows, pickpocketed him blind, and when he retreated tipped off the police to the drugs they’d planted in the glove box.

Danny might not have been born in Gotham, but he was one of them. And the Alley takes care of it own.

#basically I want a fic where it’s not the Batfam but Gotham itself latching onto Danny #also more angy lil baby man Dan in big puffy coats being protective #dp x dc #dc x dp #gotham

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boxingcleverrr · 5 months

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Popular Hades & Persephone "retellings" are, rightly, getting dunked on all over the socials right now and, as a Pagan who has an altar to the Queen, I could not be happier. But also, I feel like a lot of people miss WHY they're bad - aside from just plain bad writing and lazy tropes. Which are, yeah, also REALLY bad.

Pretty much all retellings try to wave away, or excuse, or twist the whole kidnapping bit. And I actually do have sympathy and understanding for why, when speaking from a modern perspective.

But honestly...you gotta get over it. There are other stories to play fix-it with, not this one.

The Abduction is The Thing.

Were I a little more sober I could bring up chapter and verse of the Hymn to Demeter but frankly, if you know even the middle school mythology curriculum version of the story, you SHOULD know the themes. The story of Persephone was one mothers and daughters in the ancient world held dear, because it was a reality: you will, one day, be swept away from your home to go cleave to a man you most likely know nothing about. You will miss your mother, but chances are very good that he will be a good husband, once you get to know him, certainly better than Zeus or Ares, and he will make you a queen of his home.

Leaving home to marry was often scary, and violent (look up the history of the tradition of Bridesmaids, if you don't already know it - they were originally decoys on the marriage road). Centuries later we'd have tales like Beauty & The Beast serving the same function: comfort, hope, you are leaving your safe loving home to figure life out with a (often older, powerful) stranger. Your trauma over this sudden ending of your childhood made manifest in a Beast, or a God of The Underworld.

It's wonderful that we don't NEED stories like this anymore to comfort us (here, at least, in this culture). But if you try to force them into modern vernacular it just will not work, not really, because you're gutting out the whole point just to have a more tidy romantic male hero.

I have read MANY very good ...novelizations? fanfic(? however you would frame them, but they're certainly not "retellings"), etc. that simply take advantage of the blank spaces in the myth, and there are many!

It's not explicit that sexual assault happens - "The Rape of Persephone" as a title was coined in much earlier eras, when the word was just as often used to simply refer to abduction.

"She was starving!" the gods didn't need to eat. So it's easy to read her eating the Pom seeds as a deliberate choice on her part. Like, shit, people, scholars have written whole papers on the symbolism of this moment, between marriage rites and even yeah, Seph choosing both worlds with her husband's knowing consent.

And that, I think, is the real heart of the thing. People want an utterly mundane, spelled-out story here, as opposed to what it really is, has always been, just like any other myth or religious parable: IT'S A METAPHOOOOOOR.

They don't need to be destined, or meet at a goddamned BALL and then CONSPIRE to fake her kidnapping, or shit, I once saw one where Hades got MIND CONTROLLED by Zeus?! Jesus.

Persephone was yoinked into the Underworld against her will.

That's how it went.

I don't mean this in a "stay out of my belief system!" way, shit I'm a white American chick with delusions of witchery. I mean this in a "stop stressing yourself out trying to make things palatable" way:

This is a very real, very precious myth to many people, BECAUSE for at least that one event, Persephone had no autonomy, BECAUSE for thousands of years most women had no autonomy. Erasing that, sanitizing the fact that a girl is ripped out of the spring, from her mother's arms, is erasing the thing that gave comfort to women for centuries. And people can and should still find power and healing in it now!

Fill in the blanks the story leaves in whatever manner seems fit to you, there's plenty of room, but. Come the fuck on.

#blathering #truly had a ramble bubbling for weeks #just pagan things

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crystallinestars · 15 days

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NSFW Alphabet - Aventurine

In honor of the handsome gambler coming home, have some Aventurine smut.

I’m so sappy for this man, ugh.

Aventurine x fem!Reader

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

For the first while, the one doing majority of the aftercare would have to be you. Aventurine has had plenty of one-night stands where the other person got what they wanted from him and then left without engaging in any form of aftercare. He’s used to sex being transactional, a tool he used to win people over.

As such, Aventurine feels lost when it comes to providing aftercare for you since it’s not something he has experienced before. At first, it feels strange to him when you offer to get him water, massage his sore muscles, or cuddle with him right after sex. It felt strange, yet he found himself enjoying the moments when you allowed him to rest his head on your chest, feeling your fingers run through his hair as you chatted about various things.

Aventurine slowly warms up to the idea of receiving this type of treatment after sex, and once he becomes accustomed to it, will return the favor. He’s fond of giving you massages and kisses and joining you in the bath for some extra cuddles. He’s also very likely to order you a delicious meal to replenish your energy or spend the rest of the night lazing in bed with you until you both fall asleep.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

I know that this is supposed to be sexy and erotic and whatnot, but if I had to be honest, I would say Aventurine likes his eyes. As much scorn and discrimination as his eyes have brought him, they are his last remaining link to his family and people, and I think he treasures that. Plus, he likes it when you compliment his eyes and say they’re pretty. It makes him feel a bit better about his Avgin heritage.

On you, Aventurine likes your hands. He really likes how you gently caress him, be it in or out of the bedroom. From the way you hold his hand in yours, to the way you cup his cheek or trace your fingers along his body, he loves it all. He feels treasured under your touch, as if he were something precious to you, something irreplaceable. It makes him feel a complicated type of way, but he still seeks out that touch.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Is possessive, so he likes to cum inside and then watch his semen drip out of you. It’s a form of staking his claim on you. However, he’s perfectly happy to cum on your chest or face or wherever else you tell him to, though preferably in or on your body. Aventurine is also content to have your juices smeared all over his face from eating you out. Something about feeling how wet you are turns him on immensely.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Aventurine memorized your undergarment sizes and has spent a pretty penny buying you all kinds of fancy and risqué lingerie from expensive brands. He got you a few matching sets of high-quality lingerie among several costumes, such as a bunny girl suit, a maid dress, and a nurse outfit, to name a few.

He’s planning to give some of them to you as a gift on special occasions in the hopes of getting you to try them on and give him a little show. He loves seeing you dress up for him, and thinks it would be a fun way to spice up your sex life.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He’s pretty experienced. Aventurine has had a few partners in the past, though they were strictly one-night stands with no feelings attached. It was more of a means to an end for him to relieve stress or win over the person for a deal. He basically used his partner and got used in return, and although some of these encounters were fun, they always left Aventurine unfulfilled.

It wasn’t until he met you and engaged in real lovemaking that he finally understood what was so amazing about sex (more on this in the intimacy section).

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Aventurine is pretty versatile, and his favorite positions change depending on what he’s in the mood for.

If he’s in the mood for something rougher, then he defaults to taking you from behind. He presses his hand on your upper back, pushing you face-down into the bed with your ass up in the air for him. He’s also fond of taking you against the wall with one of your legs hooked around his hip for a deeper penetration.

If he feels like letting you take the lead, he’ll lay back and let you do as you please. You want to pin him down or ride him in cowgirl? Go for it, he’s game. Use him however you want. That said, expect him to be a bit of a brat by challenging your authority with the smuggest of grins on his face. You have to earn his submission.

During moments of sweet and tender lovemaking, Aventurine prefers missionary or lotus. These positions are perfect for exchanging kisses and holding hands, and the eye contact between you feels more intimate which heightens the experience for him. He loves being as close to you as possible, your bodies pressed flush together as your hips move in sync, so expect him to keep his arms wrapped around you for as long as possible.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Aventurine is both serious and humorous. He definitely verbally teases and taunts you because he wants to get a reaction out of you, especially in the early stages of your sex life. It’s also a mask he employs to hide his own nervousness and vulnerability. However, he’s still considerate and respectful of your boundaries and feelings, and he takes the time to discuss these things with you in a serious manner.

While he’s usually very teasing and playful during sex, Aventurine has his serious moments. Those usually come up during tender lovemaking since it’s a more emotionally charged experience that leaves him feeling vulnerable. Genuine words of affection from you go a long way during those moments, and Aventurine might even return them in kind if your relationship has progressed deep enough.

Once he’s past the stage of slowly opening up and has become comfortable being vulnerable with you, Aventurine will act more playful and teasing again. Unlike at the start, this time he doesn’t tease you to mask his true feelings, but as a way to engage in some playful banter and watch your cheeks flush because he finds you super cute when you’re embarrassed.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Just look at Aventurine and tell me he doesn’t groom himself all over. He definitely keeps his pubic hair neatly trimmed so it looks tidy. It’s also the same blond color as the hair on his head.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He's had sexual partners before, but there were no feelings involved, so the sex left Aventurine feeling unfulfilled. It felt good, sure, but it still didn't fill the void in his heart, and he was left empty. Sex with you feels completely different, though. You're devoted to his pleasure, you treat him with love and consideration, and he can feel how much you love him through your touch and words.

There is also something so fulfilling and joyous about making you feel good, of knowing that he is the cause for those moans and blissful expressions of yours. Sex with someone he loves is a completely different experience because it's more emotionally charged, and though it makes him vulnerable, he feels more connected to you. He loves that emotional connection even more than the physical one, and it also makes him realize that there's so much more to sex than simply reaching orgasm.

Getting Aventurine to lower his guard and allow himself to be vulnerable during sex is something that will take time, but once he learns to embrace the experience, he’ll be very romantic when making love to you.

As mentioned before, Aventurine likes to keep as much physical contact with you as possible, so he’ll hold you tight against his body while rocking his hips into you. He also enjoys holding hands, especially when close to orgasm.

He’s a very sensual lover, so he runs his hands along your sides or spine, leaves hot kisses on your jawline and neck, and whispers romantic words about how he loves you or how you’re being such a good girl for him. Feel free to do the same to him in return, he loves feeling your loving touch.

Even when he’s being rough, he’s still loving toward you so you’re never left feeling like he’s just using you to get off. He wants you to be comfortable being this intimate and vulnerable with him, plus he loves giving affection.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Aventurine accumulates a lot of stress from work, so I think he masturbates fairly regularly. He usually does it in the comfort of his own home when he has some downtime.

With your consent, he uses some lewd pictures and videos of you to jack off to, or he uses his imagination, recounting his favorite moments from your past sessions. He also pictures you in various risqué outfits or imagines what it would be like to try new kinks with you.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

He's a switch but tends to take on a more dominant role because he likes having some for of control over a situation, be it in or out of the bedroom. He's quite adept at giving you commands and suggestions, such as watching you masturbate and giving you directions on how to play with yourself. Aventurine is also into mutual masturbation, with either both of you watching each other get off, or using your hands to please the other.

He's into dirty talk, but mostly giving. From you, he likes to receive praise on how good he makes you feel. He also enjoys hearing you beg and describe in as much detail as you can what exactly you want him to do to you. If the task embarrasses you, that's even better because he finds you incredibly cute when you're blushing.

Other things he likes is edging and overstimulation (giving and receiving), mild exhibitionism (see Location below), videotaping/photographing your body or your sex sessions (with your consent, of course), and mild choking (mostly receiving, but can also give).

Aventurine can handle and enjoy rougher treatment from you, but he loves it most when you worship his body. Your loving and gentle touches feel so good, and honestly, he needs the pampering. Bonus points if you compliment his body, be it his looks or physique.

I also feel like he's into footjobs and boobjobs, and getting you to go commando or with a vibrator stuffed in your pussy in public (but only if you're into that).

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Generally prefers to have sex somewhere comfortable and private, so the ideal place is usually your home. The kitchen, bathroom, living room, etc are all fair game because Aventurine is not very picky about the location, though he does have a preference for the comfort of a soft bed or couch.

If exhibitionism is something you’re into, Aventurine can also fuck you in riskier places like a public bathroom or near an open window, though he won’t let either of you get caught.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Seeing you in his clothes is a surefire way to get Aventurine in the mood. His shirts are too long for you, so he finds it cute how the sleeves cover your hands, and how the neckline dips lower to show off your cleavage. Bonus points if one of your shoulders is exposed. He finds the sight incredibly erotic and endearing.

Aventurine also likes seeing you dress up for him, be it pretty dresses and nicely done hair or perfectly applied makeup. The idea of you dolling yourself up for him just to have your neat appearance ruined by the end of the night arouses him. As does the idea of seeing those painted lips of yours leave lipstick marks on his cock while you suck him off.

Aventurine can get easily turned on if one of your make-outs turns hot and heavy. Feeling the desire and passion behind your kisses can get him aroused pretty quickly, and he’ll try to turn you on in response by deepening the kiss or sucking on a few sensitive spots on your neck he knows make you weak in the knees.

He also loves it when you tease him, especially sexually. If you give him fleeting touches against his clothed dick, press hot kisses along his throat, or tug on his lower lip with your teeth, he'll easily get worked up. Giving him a fleeting taste of pleasure before pulling away, leaving him yearning for more all day will drive him wild and he'll follow after you like a puppy. Expect to be teased into oblivion in return once he gets his hands on you.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

As a man with a truckload of trauma, there are certain kinks Aventurine isn’t comfortable participating in, or some that he flat-out rejects.

He’s not into roleplaying scenarios where one of you is subservient to the other, so things like slave play or petplay get a hard no from Aventurine. He also doesn’t like calling you mistress due to the time he was forced to call his enslaver ‘Master’.

While he’s ok with some light bondage like having you pin his wrists down with your hands, he gets uncomfortable if handcuffs or rope is involved because it conjures up bad memories from when he used to be restrained like that as a slave. For the same reason, he’s not into wearing collars or collaring you.

While he can handle some rough play like choking, spanking, and biting, he doesn’t like being heavily hit, because again, it triggers bad memories for him. He doesn’t like being injured or causing you injury. He also doesn’t enjoy demeaning dirty talk that treats you or himself as something lesser or as an object.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

His silver tongue is good for more than just talking. Aventurine enjoys giving oral because watching you writhe and fall apart under his mouth is a huge ego boost. He loves to play with and tease your pussy, memorizing all the motions that get the best reactions out of you or any directions you give him to please you right. He becomes an expert at eating you out.

Aventurine gets a deep satisfaction out of pleasing you, and it definitely gets him hard to hear your moans and watch you squirm because he’s making you feel good.

However, I think he prefers receiving just a teensy bit more. Just a smidge. Having you between his legs, eagerly sucking his cock while maintaining eye contact with him is just heaven. There’s something so nice about being lavished with your love and attention, of seeing and feeling how devoted you are to making him feel good. It makes him feel appreciated and desired, which is a huge turn-on.

That said, Aventurine really likes 69ing because that way you both get to give and receive pleasure at the same time, which is a win-win. Though he does miss seeing your pretty eyes looking up at him while your mouth is stuffed with his cock.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Again, depends on his mood. If he’s feeling frisky, he’ll opt for a quicker and rougher pace, snapping his hips into yours in quick, sharp thrusts while holding onto your hips or arms to hold you in place. However, he’s never rough to the point of it being painful. He doesn’t want to hurt you, so he’s never that rough with you.

Since he’s a sensual person, Aventurine definitely enjoys slower sex. It’s his go-to when making love to you. The thrusts are slow yet deep, his cock dragging against the walls of your pussy, allowing you to feel him properly and fully. With a slower pace, he can kiss you deeper, press his forehead against yours, and exchange words of love more easily. He’s also a fan of slow morning sex.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He’s fond of quickies. As much as he loves to take the time to work you up and explore your body, sometimes he just needs to quickly release all that pent-up lust to clear his mind. Especially if you’ve been teasing him for a portion of the day or you guys don’t have an opportunity to seclude yourselves for a longer session of sex. He can wait until you get home, but if you’re also willing, he’d much rather have a quickie.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He’s a gambler and lives for the thrill of taking risks, so I’d say he’s open to experimenting in the bedroom. Aside from the things mentioned in the ‘No’ section, Aventurine is very open to trying new things, even more dangerous ones like choking or exhibitionism. Even if he’s not into something, he’s willing to at least try it once if it’s something you really want to do with him.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Has average to a bit above average stamina. Can go for one long round with a lot of foreplay, maybe two if he’s particularly horny. Probably recovers quicker than you, though.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Does own a variety of sex toys he experimented with, but his favorite is a bullet vibrator that he uses while masturbating.

Will absolutely buy toys to use on you, like dildos, vibrators, ballgags, crops, etc… feel free to use the toys on him too, if you want.

He finds toys to be a fun way to occasionally spice up sex to prevent things from getting too stale in the bedroom.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Huge tease. The biggest tease. The kind of tease to overstimulate or edge you until you’re crying and beginning him for relief or to stop—you won’t even know which one. Thankfully he’s rarely that mean, but he likes to edge you a bit before diving into the good stuff.

Aventurine loves to hear you beg, and he will deny you what you want unless you ask for it nicely. You want him inside? In what way? His fingers or his cock? You need to be more specific, darling~

He also verbally teases you, commenting about how eager you are for his dick or how wet you already are despite just starting, etc… And he always says it with that smug, confident smirk of his.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Aventurine tries to be quiet because he’d rather hear you over himself, but he does let out his voice a fair bit. He’s prone to whining when you pleasure him, letting out low groans and soft moans, sometimes even growling if you get him particularly worked up, though that sound is rare.

He also talks a lot. Even if he’s breathless from exertion, he’ll still talk dirty, complimenting you on taking him so well, on how eager you are to please him, or how good you feel inside. If he’s making love to you, you might even catch him whispering a strained “I love you” when he’s close to climax.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Aventurine has nimble hands and knows exactly how to use them to drive you crazy with pleasure. He’s an expert at fingering you, knowing just the right way to curl his fingers inside your pussy to hit your g-spot, what pressure and speed to thrust them in and out of your sopping cunt until your toes curl and you’re clamping down on him as you orgasm.

He also likes to slip a hand between your legs to rub at your clit while fucking into you or to gently tweak and pinch your nipples. The little squeaks and sighs you let out in response are music to his ears.

If at any point you’re frustrated by him constantly edging and teasing you, he’ll quickly shut down your cute protests by deftly rubbing at your clit in exactly the way he knows you love. The way your jaw goes slack as you forget what you wanted to say, reduced to a moaning mess, has him gloating and grinning in triumph. He loves watching you succumb to his touch.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Is 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) long when erect, and 4.1 inches (10.5 cm) in circumference (girth). His dick is slender with a few prominent veins running along the shaft. The tip is a nice pink color.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Average. Generally, Aventurine engages in sex 2-3 times per week, but can easily go for more since he’s easy to arouse. The only issue is that he’s often too busy to find the time. You better believe that when he comes home from his weeks-long business trips, he’s taking you to bed for some passionate sex.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

It depends on the situation. If he has work to do after, then he will cuddle for a bit before reluctantly parting from you.

If it’s nighttime or if he has no pressing matters for the day, then Aventurine might let his exhaustion take over and allow himself to fall asleep. It doesn’t happen immediately, though. He prefers to indulge in the afterglow with you, chatting and cuddling for a while, maybe taking a bath together to clean up before bed. He falls asleep a lot easier with you by his side, feeling your fingers tenderly card through his hair or burying his nose into the crown of your head and breathing in your scent.

Unrelated, but he can be both the big and little spoon, though I think he prefers being the little spoon more often. It makes him feel secure when your arms are wrapped around him. He likes falling asleep while facing you, too. Being wrapped up in each other’s arms brings him comfort.

#hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #star rail x reader #aventurine x reader #hsr aventurine x reader #aventurine x fem!reader #aventurine x reader smut

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caligvlasaqvarivm · 2 months

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Murder, Love, and Destiny: An Eridan Ampora Character Study

Warnings for things from Homestuck, like discussions of child abuse, mental illness, murder, suicide, etc. etc.

Because there's a huge wall of text after this point, I'm going to summarize what I hope to convince you of in bullet point format, and then hope you'll actually read the rest of the text before arguing with me about it.

Eridan is the least casteist highblood, if you ignore all the slurs.

Those are his emotional support slurs.

Pale EriKar was not only canon, but set up to be endgame.

Eridan is incredibly plot-relevant, thematically relevant, and was definitely originally intended to be brought back to life, alongside the other dead trolls.

He's Sad.

The first thing we have to establish is what counts as "canon" for the purpose of this essay. I am only counting the original comic up to Game Over, after which there's a general consensus that Hussie kind of gave up on his original planned ending, and slapped together something that most people hate. So I am immediately disqualifying Pesterquest, supplementary material, fanworks deemed canon, the epilogues, and Homestuck^2.

Moreover, we are taking Hussie's commentaries with a grain of salt, for two reasons. The first reason is that I firmly believe - and will be arguing - that the original plan was to bring Eridan (and the other dead trolls) back; therefore, Hussie (who has a track record of playing coy with future plot twists) can't speak too fondly of him, lest he give it away. The second reason for de-emphasizing Hussie's words is that, post-retcon, Hussie isn't very well going to say that he had plans for a better ending, and then didn't execute on them; to save face, he has to act as though his trashing of several prior plot threads, including but not limited to Eridan, was the plan all along.

Therefore, this essay will not be putting too much emphasis on Word of God, and will instead be relying on textual evidence from the comic itself, of which there is plenty. So without further ado:

Eridan is a Consummate Murderer.

The reason I'm starting with this point is that, far more than any other, this truth lies at the core of his being. Eridan is formally introduced to us with a murder, and he's haunted by an overpowering genocide complex. He outright describes to Rose at one point that "killin is all i evver done practically," and uses "murder" as an expletive (ie "swweet stinkin murder"). With a conservative estimate of 5 kills per week for 4 sweeps (Vriska looks VERY young when she has to start killing, and Eridan was likely a similar age when he began), both Eridan and Vriska easily have bodycounts above 2000 - the real number is probably even higher.

At this point, many raise an objection that Eridan is only killing lusii, but I believe we need to count his kills as troll murders, for three reasons: first, a dead lusus results in the orphaned troll being culled; second, one has to assume he has had cases of trolls trying to defend their lusii, or coming after him for vengeance; and third - and most importantly - Eridan HIMSELF is thinking about the orphaned trolls.

Compare Feferi: Go Home:

That should keep her happy for a while. At least until she dies.

To Eridan: Go Home:

That should keep her happy for a while. And make a freshly orphaned troll somewhere very sad.

So Eridan, to a much greater extent than even Feferi, is thinking about the orphaned trolls he's leaving behind, and considers his own actions to be murder.

Now that we've established the facts regarding his murders - a rough bodycount, and the fact that, by his own admission, he barely had any hobbies outside of it - we can move on to the effect that it's had on him. It's not very good!

Vriska's manipul8tions and murders had to be done for her own sake - if she ever stopped, she died. Therefore, much of Vriska's personality revolves around justifying her own actions so she doesn't have to reckon with her softer feelings, like guilt or kindness - which she expresses would be viewed as scandalous by others of her caste.

But if Eridan ever stops feeding Gl'bgolyb, everybody dies. The stakes he has riding on his shoulders are, at all times, the fate of all trolls, including all his friends. Given Dualscar's title was "Orphaner," it's implied that killing lusii for Gl'bgolyb has always been a violet blood's duty, and is seen as such by the others, which is why nobody expresses gratitude for his hard work even a single time.

Which brings us to our next point:

Eridan is Crushed by Anxiety.

If Eridan stops killing lusii, everybody - especially his friends, but everybody else, too - dies.

If Eridan ever shows guilt or kindness, he'll be considered "weak" by the standards of highbloods - he shares this with Vriska.

Eridan is expected, by aristocratic tradition, to take on the mantle of his ancestor Dualscar and finish his work. Dualscar met a comedically cringefail end, so this is a massive undertaking.

Before finding out that god tiering is an option - so, for nearly his entire life - Eridan has had to live with the expectation that he will outlive all of his friends. The lowbloods from culling or dying on the battlefield, the highbloods from old age, and Feferi from being killed by the Empress when she gets old enough.

(This is reflected in who he talks to the most - Feferi, who's the only one with a natural lifespan longer than his, Vriska, who's a highblood, Kanaya, who's practically guaranteed to survive into adulthood, and Karkat, whose anonblood allows Eridan to give him the benefit of the doubt.)

Also if he can't land his concupiscent quadrants he'll die from that too, but that seems pretty secondary to the rest of his concerns.

He can't even make friends with the other highbloods, because sea dwellers are expected to hate and antagonize them.

He had a free ticket into adulthood, but would almost certainly be expected to join the army and serve as a commander. That is to say, his fate of performing the role of a vicious, murderous sea dweller seems dreadfully inevitable to him.

NO WONDER he can't stop having emotional breakdowns. NO WONDER his chatlogs swing wildly from relentless self-aggrandizement to traumadumping. NO WONDER he's obsessed with murder and death and genocide.

Doc Scratch calls him a "vengeful boy on the path of nihilism," and it's not hard to see why: Eridan's entire life has been about living up to the role imposed on him by society, sacrificing his own time and sanity for everyone else, which he "nevver got any appreciation for anywway." And all he had to look forward to was more of the same, all his friends dropping dead one by one before him. For Eridan, there has never been any hope.

SGRUB could have been a way out for him, but a combination of his own terrible choices, spurred on by his anxieties, and his teammates' unwillingness to knock some sense into him, meant that he only wound up mired even deeper in his hopelessness.

We all know about how Eridan wouldn't stop killing the angels on his planet, provoking their aggression and turning it into a ball of death. How he was definitely not supposed to be doing this, and how his stubborn insistence on it led to his further ostracization from the rest of the group. The thing is, when we look at his angel-murders from the point of view that Eridan's entire life has been about murdering things or else Something Bad™ happens, it actually starts to become... kind of sad.

KARKAT: BETWEEN A TRIGGERHAPPY PRINCE WITH A GOD WEAPON BLASTING ANYTHING THAT TWITCHED AND A MILLION CRAZED ANGELS HE DELIBERATELY ENRAGED, IT WASN'T WHAT I'D CALL AN IDEAL SOCIAL HUB. KARKAT: IF YOU WERE LONELY WHY DIDN'T YOU VENTURE OUT MORE OFTEN? ERIDAN: wwell i wwoulda but nobody else wwas vvolunteerin to pick up the slack on angel killin duties

Killing the angels is something he feels like his has to do, because his entire life has been about killing things he doesn't want to kill. He's unable to break out of that mindset on his own, and his unpleasant personality has scared off anyone who might want to help. No one on the team tries to understand his thought process on a deeper level, not even Karkat, who just tells him it was an idiotic thing to do without addressing his underlying anxieties at all. Indeed, "nobody understands."

And this is really the root of why I think so many people get the wrong read on Eridan - Eridan is constantly contradicting himself, constantly denying his own feelings, constantly pushing an image that he doesn't actually believe in, and constantly insisting that he's fine with all the horrible shit in his life - that he likes it, even. After all, he can't admit to his guilt for his murders, or how much he doesn't want to watch his friends die, or how scared he is about the future - that'd be weakness!

CC: I can't look after you anymore. CA: I DIDNT EVER NEED ANYONE TO LOOK AFTER ME CA: i was totally fuckin fine my ambitions were noble

You see his contradictory nature with his stated love of history, which he only ever offhandedly mentions - because he's not actually that interested in history, it's just something that's expected of someone of his station. And you see it with his wavy accent, which he himself calls "weird" and drops when he's trying to be emotionally sincere. And you see it with his dumbass outfit, which is very clearly an imitation of Dualscar (with the only exception being the wizard-ass scarf, because wizards are his actual interest. I don't believe he likes fashion. I genuinely believe - and Eridan himself says so - that he basically has no hobbies outside of murder).

Even being proud to be a sea dweller is pretty much an outright lie:

CC: You can't )(ave t)(e sort of affinity for "our kind" t)(at you profess if you've only spent, w)(at... CC: A few days underwater, maybe? IN YOUR W)(OL-E LIF-E!

One that he tells because he's SCARED OF THE OCEAN. Because he knows what lives in the ocean, because he's been feeding it his entire life. I see a lot of people who give Eridan an interest in marine life, and I'm telling you, that's just got no basis in canon. He's fucking TERRIFIED of the sea.

And for that matter, land dweller genocide. Eridan doesn't want to do it. Both Feferi AND his internal narration call him out for not actually wanting to do it. He outright states he wouldn't kill his friends.

CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

But he feels like he HAS to want it, HAS to believe in it, HAS to be talking about it constantly, because that's what's expected from him as a sea dweller, and a sea dweller is ALL that he will get to be. The mutation that puts a violet streak in his hair is damning. It's a fate he feels like he can't escape. Which brings us to:

Eridan is Not Actually Casteist, Well He Is But Not Like That, It's Complicated

Secondary title: Those Are His Emotional Support Slurs, Okay

In the exact same vein (haha) as secretly not wanting all the land dwellers dead, Eridan also genuinely doesn't feel like he's better than lower blood castes. Vriska and Equius obviously put quite a bit of stock into being nobility, and both have acted superior to Karkat for it. Feferi actually revels in her high status, and while she is genuinely well-meaning, she's not as interested in abolishing casteism as she is in changing the meaning of "culling" specifically (the hemocaste, aristocracy, and casteism still very much exist in a Beforus under her rule). Gamzee MIGHT be the only highblood less casteist than Eridan, but then again, as soon as he snaps, he does say a lot of casteist stuff to Equius, although it's unclear how serious he is, and he also proceeds to get really into his weird highblood clown cult.

Meanwhile, Eridan - despite all his slurs and talk of genocide - does not actually try to "pull rank" on a lowblood for being a lower caste than him with a single exception. That exception is Sollux... after he's already shown having entirely caste-neutral opinions on Sollux:

CC: But Sollux finally came t)(roug)(, and now I believe t)(e full c)(ain is complete! CA: man that guy CA: hes a fuckin drama machine it is fuckin pathetic CC: YOUR STUPID FIS)(Y FAC-E IS T)(-E DRAMA MAC)(IN-E T)(AT DO-ES NOT)(ING BUT W)(IN-E AND GLUB. CC: 38P CA: fuck SORRY CC: Anyway you s)(ouldn't say t)(at about )(im, )(e is a )(ero and )(e saved my life. CA: yeah sorry

CA: my feelins seem petty and meaninless noww CA: she had better things to wworry about than my ovverwwrought bullshit CA: like the dead guy wwho savved her CA: so forget it thanks anywway

It's only AFTER he's mad at Sollux for dating Feferi that he starts going in on Sollux with casteist rhetoric... which is treated as unrequited flirting and not serious casteism:

ERIDAN: hey finless this doesnt concern those wwith mustard sludge slippin through their vveins ERIDAN: its a matter for royalty only ERIDAN: so keep your mouth closed or ill slit you open ovver my next meal SOLLUX: w/e bro, not iintere2ted. FEFERI: -Eridan, please! I don't want to see any more dueling. FEFERI: Don't try to provoke )(im. It's not like I don't know w)(at you're doing! You keep trying to spark a rivalry wit)( )(im to get me to auspisticize between you two, and pull us out of our quadrant! FEFERI: It is t)(e oldest and lamest trick in t)(e book. It didn't work t)(en and it won't work now!

THEY don't even think he's being casteist.

In fact, directly contradicting this earlier argument he has with Feferi:

CC: T)(is is t)(e last time I will say t)(is. CC: W-E AR-E NOT B-ETT-ER T)(AN ANYBODY!!!!! CC: GLUB. >38( CA: pshh CA: hemospectrum begs to differ

He OUTRIGHT states his real feelings here:

CA: im the biggest fuckin idiot who ever lived CA: i cant BELIEVE i just opened up to you like a chump when i knew what was comin CA: i am one sad fuckin brinesucker CA: overemotional sappy trash youre right im not better than anybody CA: im worse than anybody CA: EVERYBODY CA: all the bodies

So the question of "is Eridan casteist" has an answer of "kind of, but also no." Eridan DOES espouse the rhetoric; he's constantly saying stuff that a casteist sea dweller "should" be saying. However, if you look at his ACTIONS, and the way he actually treats people, he doesn't actually care about blood color. He'll hit on anybody, and he's rude as fuck to everybody. The real problem with him is that he's terrible to talk to, not that he's discriminatory.

That's the thing about Eridan. Understanding him means looking past the way he presents himself, the lies he tells to himself, and even, at times, the way the narration presents him. His "overblown emotional theatrics" seem a lot less overblown when his problems ARE so real, deep-seated, and constantly causing him an unimaginable amount of anguish.

The problem is, the main people he has to bounce those problems against are Feferi, Vriska, and Kanaya, three of the people most comfortable with their privileged positions, for whom Eridan's genuine emotional distress seems like needless melodrama. Feferi loves being a princess, Vriska enjoys her noble privileges, Kanaya doesn't need to worry about culling. But for Eridan, his noble status, and the duties and expectations placed on him for it, have caused him nothing but pain - of course he would feel like nobody understands. Most of his closest friends genuinely don't, nor do they try to.

Because that's what he is at his core - a traumatized fucking child, who doesn't see any way out. Eridan is not a casteist genocidal sea dweller... he just wishes he was one, and tries to be one, because if he actually was one, he wouldn't feel so awful and scared and sad all the time. He'd be normal, like his friends.

The reason he constantly spouts anti-land dweller rhetoric and uses casteist language is to assuage this cognitive dissonance. That's why he has to come off so strong, present himself in such an aggrandized way, act like such a douchebag. They're his emotional support slurs. He doesn't actually believe what he says, which means he's a Bad Sea Dweller, which means he's Failing, which means Something Bad Will Happen, so he'd better get his ass in line and say something casteist!

And it's all made worse because:

Eridan is Dumb of Ass (and True of Word)

Oh my god you guys he's so stupid that it hurts.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. Eridan is clearly well-educated and book smart; he has some of the most elegant prose out of the trolls, and he's prone to going off on insane rants with it. (Actually, his language gets more flowery and showy when he's trying to impress a stranger, and gets progressively more laid back, chill, and even kind of "bro"-y when he starts talking to people he doesn't feel like he needs to impress.)

CA: at this point i find all her adorable black pixie dabblins to be prime kiddie playtime shit CA: all of her FRAUDULENT MAGICS cannot come close to posin threat to my mastery ovver the TRUEST SCIENCES CA: an wwith my empiricists wwand i servve as the righteous hope that wwill incinerate delusion and the deluded alike CA: my holy fire is the wwhite fury bled from the wwrath-wweary eyes of fifty thousand nonfictional angels CA: and wwhen theyre finished wweepin they wwill boww before their prince GG: wow what are you talking about

What I mean is this: his brain is so full of anxiety and cognitive dissonance and murder and death that he struggles to care about other people, which has devastating effects on his social skills. I go really in-depth on how his though process informs his behavior here. The question may have popped up in your mind already: if his casteism stuff isn't actually real, then what is Eridan actually like? The answer is, overwhelmingly, and discomfortingly, SINCERE.

This boy is gunning at 100% emotional earnestness 100% of the time, and it's deeply uncomfortable for others to deal with. He'll swing wildly from insults and derogatory language, to stating a desire to kill all land dwellers, to awe and amazement at his friends' prowess, to demanding that they do things for him, to traumadumping and venting, without missing a beat. Often in the same conversation.

CA: kan its hard GA: What CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

He's also specifically terrible at parsing hostility. Functionally, he interprets all hostility aimed AT him as either pitch/ashen flirting or "ironic repartee," and similarly views his own hostile words as verbal jousting, pitch/ashen advances, or even just factual descriptions of the world around him (ie calling Nepeta a "kittycat shipper cavve girl"). Hostility and aggression are just kind of his baseline, default state of being, and he basically has no ability to differentiate between good and bad attention. I talk more in-depth about his emotionally bereft upbringing (and shitty lusus) here, but suffice to say that our boy isn't getting any emotional support at home, and as a result, craves attention, no matter what kind.

This also means he's insanely gullible. For example, Rose calls him an idiot to his face, and then blows up his computer, sarcastically calling it "your first lesson in showmanship." Eridan proceeds to literally considers it that, blowing up Jade's computer after he's done talking to her. Furthermore, Kanaya sees him as a burden, insults him to his face, and pretty much just bullies him along with Rose for fun.

So she trains Eridan to become a powerful white wizard of hope to challenge her, as a joke.

And yet, in spite of all that, Eridan still has nothing but gratitude and praise for Kanaya:

ERIDAN: kan i been meanin to thank you KANAYA: For What ERIDAN: for all that trainin you did ERIDAN: i wwouldnt be the incredible holy wwizard i am noww wwithout your help KANAYA: But I Didnt Even Really Train You I Just Made You A Wand ERIDAN: yeah wwell thats all i needed i guess ERIDAN: i just needed for someone to showw a little faith in me so im sayin thanks i owwe ya KANAYA: Okay Then Youre Welcome KANAYA: I Hope You Use Your Magnificent Powers Of Light And Hope For Goodness And Purity And Lets Not Forget Science ERIDAN: dont wworry im all ovver that shit you dont evven knoww KANAYA: Uh Oh I Hope That Didnt Come Off As Too Sarcastic ERIDAN: wwhat KANAYA: The Thing I Just Said KANAYA: I Didnt Even Realize How Sarcastic I Was Being Its Starting To Become A Problem I Think KANAYA: Please Dont Take Too Much Offense ERIDAN: haha damn kan if thats your idea of offense bein made then i honestly gotta fuckin wworry for you ERIDAN: tell you wwhat ill givve you some lessons in dealin out the dark umbrage to repay you for your tutelage in the wwhite science

Like, he's in the middle of genuinely thanking her for believing in him, she makes fun of him to his face, and his response is to laugh it off and offer to teach her how to properly insult someone. It's honestly... kind of sad. Not that he doesn't deserve the ridicule, but what we're seeing here is a traumatized, emotionally neglected boy trying to communicate the best that he can that he loves and appreciates his friends, and receiving nothing but mockery in return.

It's really not a surprise, then, that he goes off the deep end. His entire life prior to the game has been shit; he got broken up with as soon as he entered the game (by someone who didn't even care enough not to use fish puns while doing it); he's ostracized and avoided for the game's duration; and then he spends the rest of his time on the meteor being bullied. He feels deeply hopeless and anxious about their situation because he literally doesn't know how else to exist, and his concerns are dismissed and mocked at every turn. When Feferi turns on him with intent to kill, that's his breaking point.

I see a lot of people say he goes grimdark, or succumbs to external influence somehow, but I don't think that needs to be true (nor is it) - he's just a deeply traumatized kid with almost no support network who's finally been pushed to the edge, despite displaying every possible warning sign and making multiple cries for help. Yes, ultimately, he's guilty for his own actions, but his killing spree - alongside Gamzee's and Vriska's - represents a cohesive failure as a team to address very clear problems in their midst.

So Feferi and Kanaya are sick of his ass. Sollux hates him platonically, Equius doesn't like him, and Nepeta thinks of him as a creep. Vriska is his awkward ex, and Terezi agrees with him when he calls himself pathetic. He never interacts with Tavros, Aradia, or sober!Gamzee. Is there anyone that treats him nicely?

Uh, okay, so I swear this isn't shipping goggles -

Pale EriKar Is Canon And I Can Prove It

So, I'm going to start this with a disclaimer: you can ship what you want to ship. I don't mind. I don't care. Headcanons are valid, death of the author, etc. What you do in your free time is up to you.

What I am attempting to argue in this section is that an Eridan/Karkat moirallegiance was heavily foreshadowed, one of the most heavily foreshadowed things in the entire comic, and - assuming that the original ending of Homestuck included all the dead trolls being brought back and redeemed - was going to be endgame. There's a torrential amount of evidence pointing to this, and very little of it is acknowledged even by the EriKar shippers, which is a shame.

At the very least, I'll be happy if I can convince some Karkat RPers to be extra nice to Eridans, because they are actually just friends who care deeply about each other. Canonically.

The first thing to note is that Eridan and Karkat, at least prior to SGRUB, talk all the time, to the point where Feferi feels the need to comment on it:

CC: You know, I'm not sure w)(y we never talk about our romantic aspirations. CC: We s)(ould more often. It is kind of -EXCITING! CA: shrug CC: Probably because you fill your gossip quota wit)( your nubby )(orned bro. CC: You leave not)(ing left to talk about wit)( your dear sweet moirail! CC: We are supposed to )(elp eac)( ot)(er wit)( t)(at stuff too, remember. CA: maybe CA: seems kinda CA: odd though

("Can you please stop having an emotional affair with Karkat" "Eh, I'll think about it")

The second thing to note is what the contents of those conversations entail. Sure, they "gossip," but it goes deeper than that, because they gossip about things that Karkat would NEVER gossip about with anybody else, because Karkat usually respects his "VERY GOOD FRIEND"s. For example, here Eridan mentions that Karkat has speculated on Kanaya's love life with him:

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that GA: No Thats Not It CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly

And it's not even a one-off thing, because here Karkat is again, mentioning Nepeta's crush on him:

KARKAT: OK, BUT TO BE FAIR, I'M PRETTY SURE SHE'S STILL OBSESSED WITH ME. KARKAT: IT'S A VERY UNFORTUNATE, VERY RED AND VERY UNREQUITED SITUATION I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TIPTOE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, OK? KARKAT: HER DISINTEREST IN YOUR ADVANCE WASN'T A REFLECTION ON YOU AT ALL. KARKAT: COME ON, WE TALKED ABOUT THIS.

It's a situation he's been trying to "tiptoe around for a long time," and he tells ERIDAN, of all people? MULTIPLE TIMES? (AND HE ALSO TELLS ERIDAN THAT THE REJECTION WASN'T HIS FAULT???? WHAT??????)

So we've established that they talk frequently and about some pretty seriously sensitive topics. But did you know that they also talk about... their feelings?

See, the thing is, Karkat has always been weirdly nice to Eridan. Here he is in a memo near the very beginning of their game, when Karkat is at his most "rah rah, I'm the big bad leader":

FCA: i got a problem FCA: wwith feferi FCA: and im really kinda sittin here in bad shape about it emotionally speakin CCG: OK, WELL CCG: I GET THAT, I HEAR YOU BRO CCG: BUT THIS IS STILL NOT THE RIGHT PLACE FOR THIS SO I'VE GOT TO BAN YOU. CCG banned FCA from responding to memo. CCG: BUT SERIOUSLY JUST GET IN TOUCH WITH ME IN PRIVATE ABOUT IT, OK MAN? CCG: WE'LL GET YOUR SHIT STRAIGHTENED OUT.

Compare that to Tavros asking for advice later down in the same memo:

PAT: sINCE i DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE NOW, bUT MAYBE HELP ME, PAT: aBOUT A THING THAT HAS TO DO WITH A GIRL, PAT: lIKE, PAT: a ROMANCE THING, yOU MIGHT KNOW ABOUT, CCG: YOU PEOPLE ARE IMBECILES. CCG: ALL OF YOU. CCG: I AM NOT POSTING THESE MEMOS TO COUNSEL YOU ON YOUR PAST AND FUTURE DATING PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CCG: WHY ARE YOU ALL SUCH BASKET CASES. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY ANYMORE. PAT: sORRY, CCG: SHOULD I BAN YOU? WHAT'S EVEN THE POINT ANYMORE! ONE OF YOU STOOGES WILL BE RIGHT ON THE LAST ONES HEELS WITH ANOTHER SOB STORY. CCG: JUST CCG: HURRY UP AND TELL ME WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS BRO.

He then proceeds to dispense no actual love advice; he just points out that Vriska can totally read this memo too, and then mocks them both when she shows up - thus making it clear that he is giving Eridan special treatment.

You see it again in his discussion with Eridan in [S] Kanaya: Return to the Core, where Eridan invokes a "pact" between them, and Karkat immediately plays nice with him, despite himself being extremely high-strung and stressed out:

KARKAT: RIGHT, IT'S POWERED BY SCIENCE, I FORGOT. KARKAT: OR HOPE. WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS. ERIDAN: i dont fuckin need this from you i take enough shit as it is from the rest a you dirtscrapers i thought you and me had a kinda pact or wwhatevver KARKAT: OK FINE, SHUT UP, I APOLOGIZE. I KNOW IT'S TOUGH BEING YOU.

That's definitely pity, which Karkat states to be the basis of all relationships besides pitch. But, sure, okay, Karkat is sometimes nice to his friends. He is, after all, the Friendship Troll, so that's not necessarily out of the ordinary. But how about the fact that it goes both ways?

That's right, Eridan "100% aggro 100% of the time" Ampora is actually really considerate toward Karkat's feelings, and basically nobody else's. Upon hearing that Karkat is distressed that Sollux has died, Eridan actively puts his own meltdown about his breakup with Feferi on pause:

TC: BeCaUsE OuR GoOd bRo sOlLuX JuSt kIcKeD ThE WiCkEd mOtHeRfUcKiN ShIt CA: wwhat the fuck do you mean by that CA: are you sayin hes dead TC: YeAh :o( CA: oh fuck CA: oh god fuck noww i feel like an asshole

He then goes on to chastise Gamzee for his shitty advice, demanding to be given the chance to comfort Karkat himself instead:

TC: BuT I ToLd hIm tO Be cHiLl TC: BeCaUsE ThErE Is a mIrAcLe cOmInG, i cAn fEeL It CA: that is the wworst fuckin advvice CA: wwhat an awwful thing a you to say CA: MAGIC ISNT REAL STUPID STOP BELIEVVIN IN IT TC: i'Ve gOt tO BeLiEvE At wHaT My hEaRt tElLs iN Me, EvEn iF It's a fAkE ThInG TC: HoNk CA: this is a lot a pointless fuckin rubbish and isnt no emotional help to him or me either for that matter CA: put kar on

Before finally giving up when Gamzee insists he's "too scared of Jack" to help, drinking some Faygo, and trying to ask past Karkat for help, because past Karkat isn't sad yet about Sollux dying. So, to recap,

Eridan's first instinct when in emotional duress is to go to Karkat.

Eridan feels like he knows Karkat well enough to know that Gamzee's advice would be useless (and is proven right by the fact that Gamzee and Karkat's moirallegiance fails for similar reasons).

Eridan is willing to shelve his own emotional meltdown for Karkat's sake.

Eridan demands to be the one to provide Karkat with emotional support.

And this is, again, not a one-off thing. In the memo Karkat opens right after Eridan and Gamzee have both turned murderous, after he's spent several minutes making death threats toward Eridan and insulting him directly, he goes:

CCG: I'M SO UPSET, I'M JUST COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. PCA: yeah i knoww wwhat its like you wwanna talk about it

Eridan spends this entire memo under the belief that it's a completely run-of-the-mill conversation they're having:

PCA: i mean yeah obvviously i kneww you wwerent serious PCA: i guess i appreciate the effort youre puttin into cheerin me up PCA: i can alwways count on you for some good ironic repartee kar nobody else really gets our sense a humor CCG: UGH, NO PCA: are you busy PCA: you said youd try to make it to lowwaa soon wwell howw about it

Which implies that offering to listen to Karkat's feelings is also a completely regular thing for them.

But something magical is ALSO happening within this last memo, and to really explain it, I'll first have to be a little mean to the GamKar shippers (sorry).

So, canonically, GamKar doesn't work out for them, despite also being somewhat foreshadowed. In fact, they feature on Nepeta's shipping wall, which is actually, in my opinion, foreshadowing that it WOULDN'T work out. (Nepeta's ships being wrong, and shipping being something she needs to learn to outgrow, is a whole essay on its own, that I'm not getting into here.)

But the thing is, the seeds for them not working out were also planted in the first - and only - real post-moirallegiance interaction that they have with each other, where Gamzee tries to calm Karkat down... and FAILS:

GAMZEE: naw brother, i was just about to all say for you to try and get your settle down on, maybe. GAMZEE: :o( ... KARKAT: OK KARKAT: OK YEAH KARKAT: I GUESS YOU'RE RIGHT. KARKAT: NO, YOU'RE RIGHT, I SHOULD RELAX. KARKAT: AND BREATHE. KARKAT: I MEAN, WHAT ARE MOIRAILS FOR, RIGHT? KARKAT: THIS IS HOW IT WORKS, I STOP YOU FROM KILLING EVERYBODY, THEN YOU RETURN THE FAVOR AND CALM ME DOWN AND I JUST KARKAT: BREATHE KARKAT: LIKE KARKAT: THIS... KARKAT: SNIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK, THAT SUN IS BRIGHT. KARKAT: CALL ME CRAZY, BUT IT'S KIND OF HARD TO RELAX WITHIN A STONE'S THROW FROM, OH, I GUESS ONLY THE BIGGEST FUCKING STAR ANY MORTAL HAS EVER LAID EYES ON. ... KARKAT: BUT I MEAN, CAN THIS BE HEALTHY? KARKAT: AREN'T WE GOING TO GET BURNED OR HAVE OUR RETINAS SCORCHED BY LOOKING AT IT? KARKAT: OH GOD I THINK I'M HAVING A PANIC ATTACK.

But let's go back to that memo where Karkat is freaking out in every way possible. This is how he starts that memo - so upset about the deaths of his friends and terrified by Gamzee that he can barely string together a coherent thought:

CCG: WE ARE SO SCREWED. CCG: OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK. CCG: GUYS, I AM TERRIFIED, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. CCG: I'M IN A ROOM FULL OF BODIES, AND I THINK I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO TURN MY BACK ON THEM? CCG: OH MY GOD, I JUST HEARD A HONK. ... CCG: FEFERI, I'M SORRY. CCG: IT WAS MY FAULT, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. PCC: Sorry for w)(at?? CCG: FOR CCG: I CCG: I CAN'T DO THIS CCG: IT'S TOO MUCH FOR ME, I'M SORRY.

In fact, he's so distressed that he bans Past!Feferi and Past!Gamzee almost immediately after they come in. But then Eridan comes in, and... I mean, first of all, just compare how long it takes for him to ban Eridan:

But more interesting are the contents of their conversation. Over the course of talking to Eridan... Karkat completely calms the fuck down. Like he's entirely forgotten that he's shitting his pants with fear. In fact, he even starts critiquing Eridan for his dumbassery:

PCA: evven if i wwasnt compelled to think you wwere still bein flippant and ironic wwith me you cant exactly outright reject me can you CCG: WHY NOT PCA: cause youre future you PCA: doesnt count unless its present you til then its all fair game CCG: IS THIS REAL, ARE YOU BEING IRONIC OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T EVEN TELL ANYMORE CCG: THE PROBLEM IS, I CAN'T PUT THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR PAST YOU AT ALL, SO I DON'T KNOW. ... CCG: YOU'RE KILLING ANGELS NOW, AREN'T YOU PCA: no CCG: YOU ARE KILLING FUCKING ANGELS, RIGHT NOW, IN THE PAST, WITH YOUR SHITTY GUN. I JUST KNOW IT. PCA: wwell uh PCA: therere just so damn many kar and theyre not gettin any less bloody pissed is the thing CCG: THIS IS WHY IT WOULD NEVER WORK BETWEEN US, MAN.

It's extremely funny. Over the course of talking to Eridan, he goes from:

CCG: OH GOD OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD CCG: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

To:

CCG banned PCA from responding to memo. CCG: ANYWAY CCG: THAT'S IT I GUESS.

Eridan isn't even trying to calm Karkat down. He still succeeds in doing so. This is because they are soul mates. And I mean that in the sense that the comic literally calls being moirails soul mates, which it doesn't do for the other quadrants:

A reasonable human translation would be the concept of a soul mate, but in a more platonic sense, and with a more specific social purpose.

That "social purpose" being that an even-tempered troll calms down a more hot-tempered one, and vice versa.

It also goes on to note:

But some pale pairings, as the one above [referring to a picture of Nepeta and Equius], will be strikingly obvious to all who know them.

But what's really interesting is the next page.

And yet others will seem to have been hatched for each other.

Did you catch that? Let me zoom in.

(Also, the blue and red cuttlefish to represent Sollux - Feferi and Sollux spend the whole game together, and even wind up talking about their feelings constantly in a pile - more on piles in a sec.)

In fact... in Eridan's first visual appearance...

The crab has always been there for him.

It's also important to talk about the bottle of Faygo that's been photoshopped to be candy red, Karkat's blood color. The path that it takes actually directly mirrors Karkat's relationships with Gamzee and Eridan - it's initially something that Gamzee has, but winds up being ejected out of his life, and washes up on Eridan's shore. In fact:

TC: SnAtCh aN IcEcOlD, dOg TC: MoThErFuCkIn cHuG ThAt sHiT LiKe yOu aNd tHe bOtTlE WaS ReUnItEd lOvErS CA: are you recommendin a bevverage to me or somethin CA: is that wwhat this is TC: YeAh mAn SlAm A FaYgO CA: i dont havve a fuckin faygo you stupid fuck wwhy wwould i keep that disgusting shit on hand TC: ArE YoU MoThErFuCkIn sUrE AbOuT ThAt? CA: oh CA: oh god youre right i do CA: i totally forgot about it TC: YoU SeE MaN TC: MoThEr TC: FuCkIn TC: MiRaClEs TC: :o)

When Gamzee and Eridan discuss this exact bottle, Gamzee even likens it to "reunited lovers"; it's something that Eridan has had this whole time (after all, he was cheating on Feferi with the guy), but never realized.

There are a few miscellaneous things that don't really mean anything on their own, but put next to all this other stuff, is worth considering, so I'll list those now.

First, they both do the bonk:

Second:

CG: ARE WE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF STUFF I SAID. TA: eheheheh you LIITERALLY a2k me that every tiime are you jokiing. TA: ii cant even tell anymore. CG: IT'S A JOKE MORON. CG: HONESTLY I'M JUST GLAD NOBODY ELSE IS PRIVVY TO OUR CONVERSATIONS.

Third, Karkat muses to his future self about how he misses his friends, especially the assholes, two pages before staring at a dead Eridan's ass (joking, he's definitely looking at WV, but it's still significant that this thought is being associated with Eridan):

CCG: I MEAN, DON'T GET ME WRONG. CCG: I MISS ALL OF MY DEAD FRIENDS A LOT. CCG: EVEN THE ASSHOLES! I MISS THEM TOO. MAYBE EVEN ESPECIALLY THEM, IN SOME PERVERSE WAY. CCG: AND I SHOULD BE RELIEVED THAT THEY ALL SEEM TO BE HAPPY IN SOME WAY, EVEN IF IT'S BY FLOATING NEBULOUSLY THROUGH DREAM PROJECTIONS WITH THEIR FREAKY BLANK EYES. CCG: AND I GUESS I AM RELIEVED ABOUT THAT. CCG: BUT AT THE SAME TIME IT'S LEFT ME UNSETTLED.

Fourth, in the same conversation, he bemoans his failed relationship with Terezi, before Future!Karkat chastises Past!Karkat for his instability and mixed signals. Going back to the page on moirallegiances, an explicit function of a proper pale relationship is stabilizing a troll's other relationships:

The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

Of course, I don't need to tell you how messy and unstable Eridan's relationships have been.

And finally, Piles of Stuff™ are associated with moirails, and directly stated in-comic to cause an outpouring of emotion:

Standing near this pile stirs powerful emotions. The closer you stand to piles of stuff, the more freely the feelings flow. It is a law of reality.

So here's a seven-word tragedy for you: For Sale, Shitty Wand Pile, Never Used:

ERIDAN: at least i got the upright basic decency to hide my shitty wand pile somewwhere in the lab you wwont find it dont evven bother lookin KARKAT: WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES HAVE PILES OF THINGS, JUST STOP.

(Which he specifically tells Karkat about.)

So, yeah, what I'm saying is, there's just, like, a weirdly large amount to read into here. That Karkat and Eridan are probably soulmates or whatever. And that this is important because...

Eridan Is Plot Relevant (Well All The Dead Trolls Are But This Is An Essay About Eridan)

So. Now we are going to talk about themes. Yes, like we are in schoolfeeding again. I'm going to keep it simple, because "The Themes of Homestuck" is a whole essay on its own, and this one about just the shitty fish boy is already way too long.

I think it's fairly non-controversial to posit that the main theme of Homestuck is, "children should mature, care about each other, and throw off the shackles of their old society, because they will be responsible for a new world one day."

Up until Game Over/the Retcon, this is so prevalent and well-established that SBURB/SGRUB's coming-of-age themes will outright be commented upon by the characters, and the main villain is a child who deliberately stunted his own growth so he could go around kicking over other peoples' toys forevermore.

So, the thing is, with that being the theme of Homestuck, if ALL of the Alternian trolls don't survive to the end, the ending is thematically unsatisfying, because the message suddenly gains an addendum of "well, some kids just need to die," which totally sucks. Like, sure, Eridan was a violent, crazed murderer even at the best of times, but his permanent death within the canon ending kind of means that the comic is saying that people in his position don't deserve kindness or second chances. That position being a traumatized, emotionally neglected child, who was being bullied by people he considered his friends. It's a pretty terrible message.

It's even worse when you consider what other trolls don't make it to the end - Nepeta, the most outspoken troll against the hemospectrum (and Davepeta does NOT count, don't try to tell me the final culmination of Nepeta's character arc is being combined with some guy she barely knows and a bird). Feferi, who genuinely wanted the best for others, even if she was kind of a privileged princess. Aradia and Sollux also stay behind in the bubbles, even though their lives have pretty much been endless parades of suffering and being used by other people. Even Equius doesn't deserve it - he was kind of a casteist freak, but not irredeemably so, and the fact that he became kinder to Karkat over the course of SGRUB proved that he had the capacity to change. And Tavros, allergic to himself and being insulted by Vriska, is a terrible way to end his arc.

It's also really clear that, since half his friends are dead, Karkat just doesn't really have anything to do. His title is the Knight of Blood, and Blood is about bonds - romance, friendship. And yet, he ends the comic having never figured out what Blood was about, with no confirmed filled quadrants (sorry DaveKat likers, but within the comic itself, DaveKat is never confirmed), and most of his bonds nothing more than ghosts in the bubbles. It's a terribly unsatisfying ending for the most narratively important troll.

I think, then, that even if you don't agree that Homestuck should have ended with full revivals and redemption arcs for all the trolls, the essay is going to proceed on like you do, so, sorry, I guess.

The thing with Eridan, specifically, is that he's actually tied deeply into the plot and themes, and his return means more than just Karkat finally getting a date (although that's important, too). Eridan is directly intertwined with a prophecy to kill Lord English; he's set up to mirror Caliborn and Calliope; and thematically, his redemption would be the most clear instance of the "interrogating society" part of the theme of Homestuck, because Eridan is kind of the Society Troll. And also, he was definitely supposed to be Roxy's wizard boyfriend.

Just gonna get that last one out of the way real quick because it's a fast one, Roxy fucking loves wizards and is a hipster. Eridan is a wizard and is also a hipster. Roxy has a crush on a prince. Eridan is also a prince. Roxy wears a purple striped scarf. Eridan wears a blue striped scarf. Roxy uses rifles. Eridan uses rifles. Momlonde's introduction includes a passive-aggressive fridge battle that features a cameo of Eridan's quirk.

Using the colorful MAGNET LETTERS, you recently left a succinct message, which may or may not have been directed toward anyone in particular. But you couldn't find the letter W, so you just stuck two V's together. Your mother then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for your convenience.

Yeah. So. Uh. Not only did Eridan need to be brought back to date Karkat pale, but he also needed to be brought back to date Roxy flushed. Can you imagine how funny it would be. They'd get together within 5 minutes of meeting for the first time and Rose would lose her shit. Anyway.

Him being a parallel to Calliope and Caliborn is also a quick one - Caliborn uses Riflekind/Sceptrekind, and Calliope uses Pistolkind/Wandkind. Eridan's two weapons are rifles and wands. Lord English is described as an evil wizard and at one point is shown using Calliope's wand. Eridan is also an evil wizard who uses a wand.

Look, I'm not saying that Eridan is necessarily directly related to these two, nor am I even necessarily saying that he and Roxy HAVE to date, but I am saying that he's got Weird Plot Connections that make him bizarrely relevant to characters that only come into play well after his death - almost like the comic was setting up that he would be coming back. His reaction to Cronus supports this, which I go into detail about here.

There's other strange "Eridan's plot important" things, too - like the fact that he's completely unimpressed by Faygo, considering it to be "just soda," and seems to be the only non-cultist who's okay with it. Or the fact that he's actually been awake on Derse since before the game (but unable to hear the horrorterrors, maybe foreshadowing some psychic resistance?) which he casually reveals to Kanaya and which Terezi is aware of, hence he's included in the people she names are "in" on the existence of the game. Or the fact that the genetic code for Alternia's first guardian was written within the pages of four FLARP books, with the addition of a fifth code Gamzee wrote in Karkat's ~ATH book... but Eridan was the fifth FLARP player in the team, implying that Doc Scratch/LE influencing Gamzee caused him to usurp Eridan's part of the first guardian code, giving LE his way into the trolls' universe.

Individually, it's all kind of nothing, but it just paints a bigger picture of Eridan being weirdly relevant, especially when we get to the juicy stuff:

The Prophecy

ARANEA: The 8ard of Hope may seem a little jaded these days, 8ut he once had a deeply a8iding faith in magic, and dedicated himself to 8ecoming a great wizard. He 8ecame convinced he was hatched to defeat an extraordinarily evil magician, one he swore the angels foretold of. ... [T]his magician once somehow from afar tried to strike him down at a young age, so he would never have to face him. 8ut the evil spell was deflected, sealing the magician's spirit away in a series of unassuming vessels until he could find some other cunning way to enter our universe. ... ARANEA: 8ut at some point he 8ecame disillusioned with magic. If there ever was any truth to his far fetched vision, the legacy of defeating the evil magician would have to 8e passed on to his descendant, or if his descendant proved to 8e as much of a failure as he did, then perhaps on to some other Hero of Hope.

ERIDAN: i slaughtered enough angels to knoww my limits and wwhere i stand against the lord of all angels they prophecized

GG: im pretty sure hes from the future! CA: wwhy GG: because he said hes my grandson CA: wwhat the fuck is a grandson CA: is that some kind of pervverse human familial thing GG: umm yes ... CA: that gun i just gavve you is somethin of a hatchright to the kid CA: happy i could play a role in your dirty stinkin lineage GG: like an heirloom? i guess it could be ... CA: i kinda think thats wwhy i found the gun in the first place CA: but noww im forsakin it because fuck i just found a better destiny than my old crappy one wwhich i nevver got any appreciation for anywway

Jake is supposed to have been the one to defeat Lord English. (No, Jake defeating pre-LE Caliborn right before he gets sealed into Cal doesn't count! He doesn't even get the final blow in that fight, DIRK does.)

But Eridan at one point had that destiny on his shoulders. Aranea turbohealing Jake, and the resultant hope field, summons a bunch of angels, which are heavily associated with Eridan - yet another random connection that Eridan has with future plot events.

Jake was another character, alongside Karkat, who was kind of reduced to a joke by the end, despite the fact that he had literally, directly, been passed the destiny of defeating Lord English. It's hard not to see this as a consequence, at least in part, of removing Eridan from the story. By cutting him out of the fabric of the ending, several plot threads - including this prophecy - are left dangling in irrelevance. And so Jake, like Karkat, now has nothing to do.

Homestuck is generally a series where every prophecy does come true, which makes it kind of startling when several prophecies fail to - Feferi's to "unite the two races," Jake's to defeat Lord English, and Karkat's to bring "compassion, forgiveness, and equality among all bloodlines" in the Signless's place.

That last one is actually relevant to:

The Thematic Importance of EriKar As Soul Mates

Eridan represents the worst aspects of Alternian society. He's a sea dweller at the top of the caste structure, with free reign to murder whoever he wants, soaked in the blood of thousands of innocent trolls. He espouses the casteist rhetoric that their society is built on, calling for the deaths of all land dwellers and the oppression of the lower castes. And while he should be benefitting from his position of privilege, it has also done nothing but hurt him.

Karkat, meanwhile, is a pariah. A mutant who would've been culled on sight, who spent his entire life living in hiding, and most of the game in fear that he would be ostracized or worse by the rest of his friends if they found out about his blood color. He's also the second coming of Troll Jesus, and thus, more despised by the Alternian ruling class than a mutant normally would be. For most of his life, he dreamed of nothing more than finding belonging within the society that had deemed him unfit.

Their friendship is something that "should not be." The highblood and the mutant. The royal-v and the off-spectrum. The empress's sea dweller and the second coming of the signless. Eridan "should" see Karkat as a miscreant to cull on sight. Karkat "should" be terrified of Eridan's very existence.

But in reality, Eridan doesn't give a shit about blood color, and Karkat just wants to be accepted. Eridan just wants someone to care about him, and Karkat loves his friends. Aside from Feferi, Eridan is the only highblood who never comments about Karkat's mutant blood, and they were best buddies even before Eridan knew.

Eridan and Karkat getting together isn't JUST the two most undateable trolls on the team finally landing a stable quadrant. These two, moreso than any other pairing, represent the themes of Homestuck. Children growing up, caring about each other, and throwing off the shackles of their old society.

In the pre-retcon timeline, their team failed to do so. This led to Gamzee falling into his highblood clown cult, Equius letting himself and Nepeta die by submitting to his place in the hemospectrum, Vriska killing Tavros because she couldn't allow herself to show weakness, and Eridan completing his caste's dream of genocide. Karkat spent the entire meteor trip and beyond beating himself up about it, since he considered it all to be his fault.

But with the introduction of John's retcon powers, they have the chance to, one by one, redeem themselves. I believe that's how the original ending would have gone: Terezi would ask John to bring Vriska back, because she only feels comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Vriska would then have asked John to bring back Tavros, whom she regretted killing. Tavros would be there for Gamzee, rendering him an ally. Gamzee would ask John to bring back Equius and Nepeta. Equius would ask John to help him not make the same mistakes with Aradia, and Aradiabot would catch John by the wrist and demand he bring her back in time to before she died, allowing her to circumvent her own death and Sollux's guilt. Sollux would ask John to keep him from provoking Eridan, saving Feferi. And Feferi would be pretty ok with the way things were... but KARKAT would then pull John aside, and drop an entire book of mistakes he made on John's lap, and this would result in a finalized timeline where all his friends are alive and god-tiered.

Because all the trolls SHOULD have survived.

Vriska should've survived because people should be allowed to have second chances.

Tavros should've survived because caring about each other, and being willing to show kindness and mercy, are good things.

Gamzee should have survived because people mired in religious fundamentalism and cults deserve to be offered a helping hand.

Equius should've survived because people should be allowed to grow and change their beliefs.

Nepeta should've survived because she was the anti-casteism troll. Casteism is bad, folks! Not only that, but I'm convinced that she was originally going to give the Ultimate Self exposition, and Davepetasprite^2 had to be contrived in the canon ending in order to shortcut Nepeta's character development, ruining it in the process.

Aradia should've been allowed to stay with the rest of the team and live a life free of the control of evil uncles and shitty ancestors.

Sollux should've been allowed to stay with the rest of the team because we all deserve to heal and be happy.

Feferi should've survived so she could be in a kismesistude with Nepeta, and realize that casteism itself is bad, not just the definition of culling, and then used her Witch of Life powers to even out the lifespans between the next generation of trolls, which needs to happen or else casteism will just happen again as long-lived highbloods inevitably amass power. And, also, it would complete the prophecy Gl'bgolyb gave her that she was intended to unite the two races (dream bubbles don't count, because by that metric, Sollux did more than she did by establishing a connection between the trolls and humans).

And Eridan should've survived, because the harm society has done to us can be undone. We don't have to submit to the roles it imposes, to the laws it wrote, to the abuse it inflicted. We can be free.

I've seen a lot of people who believe that such-and-such character did SUCH awful things that they don't deserve a happy ending. Oftentimes, it's Eridan, but nearly all of the dead trolls have gotten this treatment. So, let me just ask all of you who have gotten this far and still hold that opinion one thing. Do you think that's what Troll Jesus would have wanted?

This is why pale EriKar is so important: for it to happen, Eridan has to make a choice between upholding the beliefs of his shitty society, or pursuing a happier, kinder future, one where he outright rejects the caste system. For it to happen, Karkat has to shake all his insecurities about not being good enough by Alternian standards, and take on the duty of creating something better than what he came from. If pale EriKar happens, it means Eridan and Karkat choose love, not fear. Compassion, forgiveness, and equality.

This choice - this pairing - is the ultimate representation of giving Alternian society one big middle finger. Saying, we don't need you anymore, fuck off! Saying, we reject you at your core; we will choose something better! Saying, we will create a new world, and it will be kinder than the one we came from!

Pale EriKar means LOVE WINS.

Thank you for reading.

#homestuck #eridan ampora #karkat vantas #erikar #im also going to tag all the other trolls that feature because yeah.#vriska serket #feferi peixes #nepeta leijon #equius zahhak #gamzee makara #kanaya maryam

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rafeandonlyrafe · 3 months

Text

good boy

words: 1.5k

warnings: established relationship, marriage, protective!rafe, (guard??) dog, fluffy

“rafe, it's literally two weeks. ill be fine!” you say, folding his clothes, having dumped out his suitcase onto the bed to reorganize it when you saw how he packed it, just chucking things in.

“two weeks where im a hours away from you by plane.” rafe sighs, watching you carefully repack his suitcase as he pouts on the bed, not wanting to leave you.

“you know, cameron, i lived a whole 20 years before meeting you.” you point out, knowing while rafes concern comes from his love for you, it will completely overwhelm what is supposed to be an enjoyable family vacation and leave him miserable the whole time.

“i don't see why you can't just come with me.” rafe groans, flopping back against the bed. you smile and round the bed to where his head is resting against the pillows. you press a smooch to his forehead, rubbing your hand over his head, petting at his soft hair.

“baby, it's just for your family. you know that.” it's not like you don't want to accompany rafe to a tropical paradise, but you would feel way too awkward intruding.

“what if something happens to you? and im not here to protect you? id be the worst fiancee ever.” rafe grabs your head from rubbing his head, holding up the ring on your finger for him to admire.

“nothing will happen. nothing ever happens here.” you laugh. you're not sure what crime is like on the other side of the island, but your neighborhood is incredibly safe.

“im still worried.” rafe sighs. “you in that big house all alone.”

“im gonna spend 99% of the time wedding planning.” you hum, thinking about the tabs pulled open on your laptop of different venues, dresses, and color palettes.

that finally gets rafe to crack a smile. “can't wait to marry you.” rafe says earnestly. he only proposed a month ago, some people would say that you were too young to get married, but rafe knew when you came into his life and turned everything around for him that he had to put a ring on your finger.

“i can't wait either.” you bend down to press a kiss to rafes lips. “but seriously we need to talk about your packing before we tie the knot, why do you only have one pair of shorts packed for an island?”

-- two years later --

“remember those two weeks you left before we were engaged? it's not really much longer. you should go, baby. it's a good opportunity.” you are sat on rafes lap, back pressed against his chest as he scrolls through his email.

“it's just work, and it's a whole lot longer than two weeks. i don't want to leave you here alone for over a month.” rafe closes out of the email, making you sigh.

“i was fine for those two weeks, ill be fine now. promise. i think you should go! it's a big conference.” you turn sideways on his lap so you can look rafe in the eye. “besides, it's still six months away. plenty of time to prepare.”

“prepare?” rafe raises his eyebrows. “so you'd be good with security cams around the whole house and personal security?”

“cameras on the outside and hell no. you don't want some random guys watching after me do you?”

you can see the gears turning in rafes head as he frowns. “yeah, you're right. no men.”

“so you'll go?” you smile. rafe closes his eyes for a brief moment before nodding.

“yay!” you squeal. you're not excited to be left alone, and you love being around your husband more than anything, but the work trip is a big deal, and you know he'll be kicking himself if he misses out on such a good opportunity.

“rafey?” you call, eyes sweeping across the living room as you enter your shared home, a head full of fresh highlights.

“hubby?” you call out, continuing deeper into the house until you see movement through the glass door leading towards the backyard, but it's not the typical roll of the ocean against the shore.

“rafe?” you question as you open the door. you expected to find him in his office, where he was before you left for the beauty salon.

rafe smiles, waiting for your eyes to look down, and when you finally see what is sitting at rafes feet, you let out a gasp.

“oh my gosh!” you squeal.

“wifey, meet max. our new australian shepherd.” rafe gives a command with his hand, that has max running towards you.

you sink to your knees as the young dog excitedly greets you, licking at your hands as you pet him.

“hi maxey.” you coo at the dog, you're guessing around two years old, with max being full size but still having some young features.

“rafe, you didn't tell me you were getting us a dog!” you stand up, max following close behind as you rush to give your husband a hug.

“i have a confession.” rafe says, his hands looped around your waist. you frown, worried that max was just a foster and you'd have to give him back, or that something went wrong with the adoption. you often talked about getting pets before getting married, but wanted to wait a little bit, and then time just slipped away and before you knew it, you were over a year into your marriage.

“what?” you whine out.

“ive been working with a trainer behind your back. i wanted to make sure max was ready before we chose him for sure. he knows commands, me, your scent, our house. everything. he knows his primary responsibility is to protect you and our property.”

“oh my gosh!” you slap rafe in the chest, surprised that he was able to keep such a secret from you. “how could you do all that without telling me?” you laugh, not angry, but surprised that he was able to orchestrate everything.

you don't wait for rafe to explain how he was able to find so much time, stepping out of his hold to kneel down and continue petting max.

“we have some more training sessions so he can learn with you as well.” rafe further explains, also leaning down to pet max behind the ears as he pants excitedly at his new owners.

“what is it maxy?” you ask as he lifts his head up, looking around the living room. “you miss your daddy?”

you sigh as max lets out a sad sounding huff, petting your hand over his head, scratching at his neck which you know is his favorite. rafe has been gone on his business trip for a month now, with only a week and a half left until he returns home.

max suddenly jumps off the couch, eyes on the backyard. he lets out a bark, claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he moves to the glass door. he lets out another bark, making you stand.

“what is it boy?” you ask, looking out the window.

max lets out another bark, this one the familiar territorial bark that he’s practiced in his training with you and rafe. you know the only reason that rafe feels safe enough leaving you home is that max is a great guard dog.

you get closer to the window, squinting your eyes to try and see in the darkness when you sudden jump back with a scream as a squirrel runs across your patio, causing max to bark and run along the glass door until it scatters into the yard.

“holy shit, maxy, you scared the shit out of me.” you press your hand to your chest before kneeling down, scratching behind his ears. “it was just a squirrel.” you reassure him with a pat.

your heart rate is just starting to calm down from the fright when you hear the front door open. max instantly takes off with you following after him, letting out a sigh of relief when you see rafe standing in the foyer.

“baby.” he sighs happily, setting his suitcase down as you run into his arms, pressing your lips together. “i missed you so much.”

“i missed you too, what are you doing home though?” you ask, giving him another kiss before he can answer.

“they didn’t need me for the rest of the week, decided to get home to my lady.” max barks, making rafe lean down to pet him, still holding you up. “and my good boy too, of course.”

“so happy to have you home.” you nuzzle your nose into rafes neck, inhaling the familiar scent that you missed so much.

“happy to be back with you, wifey.” rafe says, carrying you further into the house.

“oh, and you will be very happy to know maxy did a great job protecting me while you were gone.” you tell rafe. it mostly involved max barking in warning at any delivery guy or car turning around in your driveway, but his presence did help making you feel safer and less loney.

“hopefully not too good.” rafe huffs as he looks at your pet. “can’t have him replacing me now.”

you giggle, surprised rafe can manage to be jealous of your dog. “never.” you swear, pressing another kiss to his lips.

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rockatanskette · 1 year

Text

One of the running themes in "humans are space orcs" circles is the idea that humans will bond with anything. I can think of plenty of stories of humans making friends with wild animals, alligators, predators, creatures that aliens would immediately recognize as too dangerous for contact. But I was reading a story about two orangutans released back into the wild today and there's a certain element to that story I haven't seen so often: humans will bond with animals regardless of whether the bond is reciprocal.

For every story of a human making friends with some unlikely creature, there are dozens of stories of conservation specialists tranquilizing animals, tending to their wounds or illness, and releasing them because they're too dangerous to handle consciously. Stories of tagging birds of prey and timber wolves and Siberian tigers. Fat Bear Week? Any of those bears would rip your face off without hesitation. But they're round and fluffy and intimidating and beautiful and we love them even though they hate us. We make an effort to protect our monsters, because we love our monsters.

Imagine an alien planet that's experiencing ecological degradation. Their flora is dying, and they can't figure out why. And, offhandedly, in a diplomatic mission, an allied planet mentions that humans have successfully reversed similar devastation on Earth. So they reach out and Earth sends some experts to check it out. And what do they suggest? Reintroducing an apex predator that used to be a scourge against alien settlements. The species still exists in other regions of the planet, but it is slowly disappearing outside of its native habitat.

The aliens are askance. They've told bedtime stories to their young of these creatures: how they tear apart their prey, how they've eaten their organs and rip apart their homes. Some suggest that it's a trick—that the humans are trying to prompt them into destroying themselves.

But there are many alien cultures on this planet, with many different stories and some of them agree. The world watches in anticipation as the humans help their predators. They seek them out, these fearless otherworlders, putting them to sleep and tending their wounds. They keep track of the beasts, not to harm them, but to protect them.

At first the doomsayers' prophecy seems to come true. The predators devour prey animals like a feast, like a slaughter to people who have never been so close to the circle of life. But then, slowly, not over months but over years, comes change. The prey no longer eat the leaves and buds of every tree; some are left to bloom and fall. The refuse rots in the dirt, and the floods cease as the soil grows thick with compost and rotted bone, thick enough to hold water. The shapes of rivers change to protect their surroundings from the rain. The pollinators rebound.

Decades later, other cities and nations begin to accept this human myth of "conservation." Champions arise, alien champions, now, who go into the depths of the wilderness and the seas to protect those predators from the apathy of time.

Not all of them make it. This is something else the humans teach. Sometimes the tranquilizers are not enough. Sometimes the timing is wrong. Sometimes accidents happen. And when they do, the aliens look to humans for an answer for why they should protect these creatures who have killed those they love?

"Because they knew the risks," the humans say. "Because they would be the first to speak to save them. Because they taught you to see the beauty in the wild and you must not close your eyes."

So, despite themselves, they don't.

#humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #humans are space australians #this wasn't originally about steve irwin #but it turned into being about steve irwin #i'm crying about stingrays now #it's fine

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ioniiaa · 3 months

Text

My Darling, My Honey

Alastor X Fem!Reader (Part 7)

Quick Notes:

You, the reader who is an artist, and had become Alastor's sweetheart, have just died.

Alastor is about to find out.

Part 7:

The sound of a singular gunshot rang clearly in the night that had been so peacefully quiet up until that moment in time.

Alastor, with the engagement ring in his pocket, who had been peacefully reading a novel within the confines of your shared home, nearly ripped his book in half upon hearing the sound of a gunshot in these woods.

The forest around here was part of his private property, anyone who dared to trespass or hunt in his neck of the woods was shot on sight. Many people ignored the plentiful and very obvious warning signs, so it wasn't his fault so many people ended up becoming your and his meals. Everyone else just thought the law didn't apply to them, straight-up criminals. In his eyes, they all deserved it.

Thinking it was just another nuisance, a "tsk" left Alastor's mouth as he grabbed his shotgun and headed into the woods.

After a few minutes of walking, he finally caught sight of the transgressors. Two men that he, unfortunately, recognized right away as the men from the bar who liked to push his buttons by harassing you.

The seething rage pooled in his core, bubbling up into his chest. This was his chance to get rid of those nuisances once and for all.

They would trouble his darling no more.

For him to get into a better position to take the men out, he crouched down and quietly circled around them like a hunter playing with his prey.

After circling around to position himself behind the men, what he wasn't expecting to see was the most nightmarish sight he's ever seen.

His beloved sweetheart, soon to be betrothed, all disheveled and tied up against a blood-splattered tree with a bullet lodged in the middle of their forehead.

Your eyes were lifeless. There was no doubt about it, the love of his life was dead.

Alastor didn't need to even think before pulling the trigger on the men, shooting one after the other, over and over, even after their bodies had hit the ground.

He. Was. Enraged.

By the time Alastor was done with them, they looked like Swiss cheese, barely strung together.

Alastor's breath was heavy, his chest heaving, near hyperventilating, his eyes were enlarged and his mind was focused on one thing. You.

His beautiful love, he couldn't bear to see you in this state.

In his oddly manic and shocked state, he untied you from the tree and took your body back to your shared home in the woods not too far from here.

For a few moments, his rage was replaced by sorrow and mourning as he buried you in the backyard. As fucked up as he was in the head sometimes, he would rather die than think about eating you. You were sacred to him.

As he laid you down into the ground, he embraced you once last time and took the ring out of his pocket. He placed the ring onto your ring finger and kissed the top of your hand, "In life and in death, I am forever yours, as you are forever mine. I love you, dear."

After you were buried, the rage returned like a vicious tsunami. Oh he wasn't done with revenge just yet.

Every single man or woman that ever mistreated you or offended you, was put on his list.

This night was the catalyst that gave birth to the serial killer known as the "Bayou Killer".

Alastor stopped visiting Mimzy's bar since your death, with his sole focus and dedication in life going to hunting down those that had harmed you in life. After all, they deserved it, you were like an angel to him.

But what Alastor didn't stop doing, was broadcasting his radio show. So many of his connections were made because of his show, so it was a valuable resource to keep active, to use to his advantage.

Alastor continued living his life like this until every single name was crossed off his list.

It was then that it was time for his luck to run out.

Right upon the killing the very last person on the list, was Alastor also shot right square in the forehead.

Before his consciousness faded into black, all he could hear was the muffled panic of a stranger who seemed to be apologizing for mistaking him for some sort of animal.

All Alastor could do was chuckle at the irony of the whole situation, the maniacal laughter was the type that only a madman could produce- before everything went dark and he died.

He thought he would never see you again, because surely, his beloved sweetheart would end up in heaven right?

The answer to this would remain a mystery for many decades to come as Alastor descended into Hell and became who is now widely known in Hell as "The Radio Demon".

-> Part 8

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wonderwomanfantasy · 10 months

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okay but imagine a jealous Miguel who's been absolutely obsessed with you but was to scared to say anything. One day he comes over to your house to tell you how he feels about you but he notices you're wearing an old hoodie from your ex(who you obviously don't care about because you've been madly in love with mig) and he just goes feral and rips it off you, he says sm nasty possessive shit while he fucks you in full nelson✋ I'm sorry I've just had brain rot over this man and saw your asks abt him

oh baby I'm obsessed. this is nasty so it's going under the cut ^^

Miguel is 100% the type of guy who will refuse to admit he has feelings for you while everyone else knows. Yeah, he brings you coffee almost every morning, it is not to see you smile he just uh… made extra? He likes it when you rely on him, he likes being your hero even if he’s just buying you pads. He’s touchy too, when he passes behind you he puts his hand on your lower back even if he has plenty of room, or wraps his arm around your waist while the two of you are in a crowded place together so he doesn’t lose you. God speaking of crowded places if the two of you are ever in a loud place trying to talk he’ll lean in close so he can hear you speak and if his proximity makes you flustered, all the better.

Miguel knows deep in his heart that it’s wrong how jealous gets, and realistically if you two were just dating he’d be able to just chill the fuck out but since you aren’t he can’t help but worry that someone else will catch your eye while he’s busy working out how he feels for you and wondering if he’s selfish enough to pull you into his dangerous world like that. The realization that you’re already in too deep makes his stomach churn. Even if you’re not dating you’re easily the person he’s closest to, everyone in the multiverse knows about his weak spot for you… if there's danger you’re already in it, if he really loved you he wouldn’t just keep you at arm's length, he’d cut you out of his life completely.

It’s a surprise when Miguel stops by. You’ve told him a thousand times that your home is open to him anytime but he always at least calls beforehand. Not this time. You can tell right away that something is off, he doesn’t hug you when he comes in and he’s got this weird look on his face like something eating at him but he won’t say what's up.

Miguel really did come over with intentions to tell you that he can’t spend time with you anymore, that it was too risky and too painful… then he sees the goddamn hoodie you’re wearing. And he recognizes it. He knows in that moment that he isn’t going to leave you, he isn’t going to let you go and let some other man have you. You are his, in this universe and in every other.

“Is that your ex’s?” you’re a little tripped up by the suddenness of the question, and before you can answer it he’s looming over you, one of his clawed fingers hooked in the collar of the garment.

“Are you thinking about him again or what?” Miguel demands of you and really he doesn’t even care to hear the answer. “I could treat you better, why don’t you fill your pretty little head with thoughts of only me?” as if at that moment you could think of anything else. Not with his pretty eyes looking at you like that. Not with his big sharp fangs biting and ripping your clothes off of you. All you can think about is him.

You’ve never been scared of Miguel, not the way other people were, but at that moment when you see the hungry look in his eyes all you can think is “god he’s going to eat me alive” and it sends a shiver down your spine.

He carries you like you weigh nothing to him. And honestly, you’ve seen this man bench press a minivan, you probably don’t weigh anything to him. Miguel holds you in front of a mirror and makes you watch as he presses his big dick into you and uses your body like a fleshlight.

“See that? See how good you take me?” he whispers into your ear “You’re mine now, no one else gets to fuck you, no one else gets to hear the sweet noises you make, just me.” he says while bitting your neck

He has your legs over his arms and he really is just bouncing you up and down on his dick, he pushes your head down and makes you watch as he pushes into you for the first time before he pulls your head back to look at yourself in the mirror.

“Wanted to fuck you like this for so long, now that I’ve got you here I don’t think I’m ever going to stop,”

And he doesn’t stop. Not until a mix of his cum and yours is dripping down his thighs and your legs are twitching. When he finally pulls out he scolds you for not keeping his cum inside of you and pushes the mess back into you with his fingers.

He asks if you feel empty without him nine inches deep in you (you do) he asks if any other cock could ever make you feel full again (not likely) he asks if you’ll forgive him for being so rough with you, and if you’ll let him do it again.

#miguel o'hara #miguel x you #miguel spiderman #miguel o'hara x reader #gender neutral reader #miguel x reader smut #miguel o’hara x reader

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aestherin · 1 year

Text

— KEEP MY HEART ♡

scaramouche x f!reader social media au

SUMMARY — you find plenty of guys around you attractive, but there is only one you’re willing to make the first move on: the guy you first saw during your older brother’s soccer game. spoiler: he's a player from your rival university.

status: on-going | taglist: closed

genres: social media au, college au, strangers to lovers, crack, fluff, a sprinkle of angst (?), modern au, i wanted to do smth chill haha

extras: kmh playlist is still a wip, but if you're interested in checking it out, [click here] 🤍

author's notes:

omg 2nd smau is here!!

updates may be inconsistent, i don't have a posting schedule

again, idk what i'm doing haha

english is not my first language so expect grammatical and typographical errors (bear with me please :"D)

will contain swearing

PLAYERS.

— SL4YERS — the reds — the blued

SCOREBOARD.

game start ! (prologue)

— FIRST HALF

goal 01. i feel something ¬ goal 02. live a good life goal 03. let's play chess ¬ goal 04. do you like cats goal 05. a proof to your claim ¬ goal 06. am i being rejected goal 07. my baby ¬ goal 08. happy birthday goal 09. do you like sweets ¬ goal 10. i'm loyal, sir goal 11. my name ¬ goal 12. ghosted goal 13. unbothered ¬ goal 14. stupid is the new sexy goal 15. call me baby ¬ goal 16. i'm taking you out goal 17. kuni

— HALF TIME

goal 18. i can teach you ¬ goal 19. one thing goal 20. home ¬ goal 21. available for sale goal 22. welcome ig ¬ goal 23. note to self goal 24. tba ¬ goal 25. it was boring goal 26. tba ¬ goal 27. tba

— SECOND HALF

tba

TAGLIST I @lady-elodie @aiikalvr @lovely-althxa @unsterblich-prinz @xiaosonlybeloved @xiaomainlmao @cindywasneverhere @coquettemaiden @sunsethw4 @lunavixia @calickoh @arealistonao3 @lowkeyivorie @zyilas @mondaymelon @yukiipc @heartswonder @st0pthatsgay @ozzierenato @astreaa-express @shewolfmiko @lovelyycherries @myaaones @countessqin @aloveablechaos @letthewindlead @lunaavity @local-blueberry-boy @luminestars @layla240 @useless-potatho @atlaszi @alatusorrow @lahsram2201 @sakiimeo @user11918163805279 @vqazx @neigesprincess @kunicrush @yoursockstinks @hotgirlshit5 @mikctp @crucnhice @apotatouwu @yuaenri @sammybeefangirls @miko1ly @deffenferofjustice @etherisy @sagegreenthinks

i cant mention more than 50 people in one post so the other taglists will be in the reblogs instead!! 🤍

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targaryenluvs · 4 months

Text

— A WHOLE NEW WORLD

pairing: percy jackson x fem!reader

summary: in which you and percy navigate a whole other world, and encounter trials in the way.

warnings: angst, bullying mentions, teasing, physical violence courtesy of clarisse my bae, drowning, confessions, fluff, hugs, smooches, percy n you are a comedic duo i swear, basically a self insert, not proof read

wordcount: 5.7k

a/n: i’m insane, this is the longest thing ive ever written. so please reblog and interact <3

you’d grown up with the same stories percy had. the greek gods and goddesses, their lives and tales, their failures and secrets. what you didn’t expect was to be the child of one.

you, percy and grover were currently on a field trip, and you couldn’t have been happier. all around you was history, and you were fascinated by it all. breaking away from them, you viewed the tallest of statues and the intricate, taking your phone out secretly and snapping a photo to show your mother later.

you were dragged out of your fairytale by laughter, and percy’s scowl evident on his face as you made your way over. “i don’t know if you have a miserable home life or just enjoy being a bitch but this trip would be much more enjoyable without your annoying voice.” you sneered before shining a fake smile her way. percy’s laugh in your ear made you join in, but the reprimand afterwards dulled your mood.

you weren’t a big fan of bullies, especially when they targeted your friends. for some reason you obtained a boost of confidence and a need to protect your own friends from such people yet you couldn’t defend yourself on your best day.

the trio of you sat, eating your lunches, you were inhaling your favourite food much to the amusement of grover and percy. “i don’t think your food is running off y/n.” grover teased as you shoved his arm, “i know, but i’ve been waiting for so long, i didn’t eat anything this morning, i was too excited.” percy turned his head towards you, “you were excited?” you nodded, “for a museum?” you waved him off, returning to your food.

but not before nancy launched a sandwich percy’s way, you’d had enough, and so had he. the two of you got up despite grover’s protests, and somehow she ended up in the fountain, even though percy hadn’t touched her. you’d been lost in the crowd around the fountain and once you’d broken out you found percy on the ground.

“perce! percy are you okay?” you tried to shake him awake to no avail, so you did the next best thing, slapping him awake. twice should do it. his eyes opened, focusing in on you, “i’m here, i’m fine, i know you care about me.” relieved, yet annoyed you hit his shoulder before you and grover helped him up.

and when he did wake up he spoke about what he saw. on the walk to your hearing percy went into detail. and you couldn’t help but feel scared, what the hell was going on?

and the two of you stuck with the story of nancy throughout, feeling betrayed when grover went against you. your own parents were out of town and you were freshly kicked out of school, percy’s home was also your own. you prepared yourself before the two of you entered the apartment, gabe wasn’t exactly a sight for sore eyes.

and soon enough yourself, percy and his mother were headed for montauk. you’d left over twenty four messages for your parents but it seemed none of them had made their way through.

“so all the stories, they’re all true?” percy was fast asleep in the front seat, and the book in your hands wasn’t all that interesting. sally nodded, “i know it’s all a lot for the two of you to take in,” if percy was a demigod, then were you too? “what am i? who’s my parent then? are my parents my parents? am i adopted?” sally stopped at the intersection abruptly, turning towards you with a sad smile, “sweetheart, it doesn’t matter. your parents love you no matter what, i know it. you’ll learn everything with time, i’ll tell you more when we’re all inside okay?”

the water droplets on the window were plentiful, some big, some small, some new and others falling. the storm outside was looming, loud and dark, but it seemed to bring you comfort in all honesty, you loved the rain. and as you sat and drove all you could think of was your future, and what it had in store for you.

you’d been in the kitchen whilst listening into sally explain to percy about his parentage, the gods and goddesses. you were sure if you heard anymore you’d pass out. percy’s outburst led you back to them.

“well i’m not a baby! i know there’s no such thing as monsters, i know there’s no such thing as gods and i know for certain that there’s no such thing as demigods.” the hand on percy’s shoulder brought him back down, “percy, why would your mother lie to you? no one on this earth loves you more than her, i think we should listen.” his face was riddled with confusion, “you’re telling me you believe this crap?”

before the conversation could get heated, grover’s appearance interrupted. “what the hell are you doing here? how did you get here?” grover sighed, as much as he wanted to explain he needed you all to get moving, “i promise i’ll explain everything but somethings coming,” percy and yourself took a step back, “grover.”

“and i know that sounds really bad,”

“grover?” he brushed the two of you off, continuing to ramble at sally.

“but the important thing is not to panic—”

“i’m not panicking.” sally rested her hands on her hip, “great! i’m also definitely not panicking. i feel very good about how we’re doing so far—” you closed your eyes, maybe when you opened them it’d go away. “grover!” you and percy shouted out at the same time, “what?”

you pointed towards his legs as percy spoke up, “why is there half a goat in your pants?” his legs were bare, mist not around.

as if the day couldn’t have gotten any crazier or exhausting for you and percy grover all of a sudden showed up and you were all on the move. sally was punching the accelerator, whilst grover continued to explain, “what are you?” grover turned to face you, “i’m a satyr. and i’m your protector. i was assigned to you but we didn’t know that y/n was special like you, so i guess i’m sort of protecting you both.”

“you’re my protector? and what y/n doesn’t get one?” you laughed, “no offence but i think i’m alright perce. if you’re our protector than shouldnt you have protected us at school? against nancy?”

“i protect you against actual evil,” you snorted, “the only evil is nancy’s personality, that should count.” percy managed a smile at your words. “if i hadn’t gotten you kicked out of school, you’d have never survived the night. and what’s chasing us now would have found you there easily.” it was like a truckload of information all at once, you felt like you were in a movie.

“the mist. it’s the veil that hides the magical world from the human world. my legs. dodds’ wings. even dodds’ absence, but it isn’t supposed to hide things from me. that never happens. something powerful is at work here. the sooner we get you two to camp, the better off you’re… you told them about camp, right?” grover looked towards sally for an answer as you moved his hand away from your face. grover tended to move them around when talking about something he was passionate about.

“not yet, no.” sally shook her head as you smiled, “you’re early remember?”

“camp is a sanctuary for half-bloods.” great now you were going to a summer camp. the more he divulged the more you began to understand. you’d always been told you were special, percy especially. you should’ve known you were meant for more. demi gods were never safe, that was obvious by the huge monster behind the car.

“is that the minotaur?”

“once the attacks start, they never let up. okay? dodds was just the beginning.” you twisted your body to get another look at it, “okay well if we’re being chased than maybe less talking and more runnin, driving, whatever just go!” you shouted out, your heart was ramming against your chest, your hands felt warm and jittery. you needed to move, to do something, you hated just sitting and relying on a car. you zoned out in time for percy’s regular jokes.

“he is still wearing underpants.” you giggled at him, “i wonder what size.”

“the mythomagic cards were training. everything has been training for what’s still ahead of you, and i know wherever percy goes, you go.” you rolled your eyes, “i always hated those stupid cards, guess i should’ve played huh?” percy cocked his head, “what’s ahead of me? of us?”

“kids,” you all turned to sally, her knuckles were turning pale white, an unrelenting grip on the wheel, “hold on, please.” you clutched on to the seatbelt and seats as you all were jolted around, dodging a car and attempting to evade the minotaur, which wasn’t exactly all that easy as he rammed into the car, horns penetrating sallys window.

she fought for control, her foot pressing down on the accelerator before you all ended up crashing.

the ground was wet and mushy, you felt dirt gather underneath your fingertips as you crawled out of the car. you could see sally helping percy out as grover made his way out. your leg was aching, a shard of glass caused a gash in your thigh and dragging it along the floor hurt like a bitch, “ah, shit!” you rolled over onto your back.

percy’s eyes darted towards you the second you cried out, “y/n!” he dashed towards you, sally and grover in tow. “are you okay? what happened? where does it hurt?” his eyes were frantic and his hands unsure, the sight of you hurt was more than enough to worry him. “i’m fine, i just, if we take the shard out and tie something around then it’ll stop the bleeding right?”

percy shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head, hoping it would clear it out, the whole situation was already stressful but his best friend injured? an absolute nightmare. “i— i don’t know! mom! what do we do?” he shouted as sally grabbed your jumper from inside, “move aside percy, let me help.” he didn’t want to, percy wanted to stay right by your side, but he knew she could help you where he couldn’t.

the make shift tourniquet did the job thankfully, but you were in and out from the loss of blood, the last thing you recall was sally jackson in the hands of the minotaur, and suddenly, gone.

your voice was stuck, trapped in your throat. your eyes stung immensely, waterline flooded. she was family to you, one of the sweetest people, supportive. and just like that, erased, just dust. your eyes searched your surroundings for percy, to see him, to help him, but all you could view was darkness as it took you far away.

the last thing you’d heard was grover yelling out for the two of you, “stay awake! please!” his pleads were unmet, as you were whisked away to a world of sleep.

the light was harsh on your eyes having just woken up, at least your bed was comfortable. but you still had no clue where you were. your body was stiff, needing to move around. as you shuffled to sit a voice called out for you.

“y/n!” you turned to see percy peering through the window, a large smile on his face as he promptly ran inside to you. “percy.” his arms wrapped tightly around you, squeezing hardly. “you’re killing me here.” you croaked out as he let go, taking a step back.

“i’m sorry. do you need something? are you hungry?”

“that i am, where are we?”

“camp half-blood, welcome y/n l/n.” an older boy spoke up from the doorway with his arms crossed, leaning on the frame. “luke.” percy recognised the boy, which made you feel at ease, “hi luke.” he smiled, “hey, how are you feeling?” you sighed lifting the blanket up and resting your feet on the floor, attempting to rise from the bed. “like i need to walk a bunch, is there food around?”

luke nodded his head before signalling you to follow, “is your leg okay?” the pain had lessened since the initial hit but it was still sore, “i think i’ll be okay, might have a limp. i can be a zombie for halloween maybe.” percy was glad you were making jokes, seemingly back to normal.

the camp was everything you could have dreamed of. straight out of the pages of a book or out of a movie, amazing scenery, nice enough people, and insane skills amongst them. you had no clue how you’d fit in. you’d settled into hermes’ cabin, your bag and bed next to percy’s.

“so, how long have you been awake?” you were pushing down on your mattress with your hands, testing the springs. the bed wasn’t as soft as you’d have liked it to be but you couldn’t exactly buy a new one.

“let’s go outside and talk.” percy muttered, leading the way. you were sat down behind the cabin now, percy slowly sliding down the wall to be next to you.

“i only woke up a few minutes before you, i saw chiron he’s a—something. and i met the camp director mr d, dionysus by the way. they wouldn’t let me go back into the infirmary until we finished talking.”

“why’d you want to come back so quickly?”

“your bracelet was missing, i didn’t know where it was so i was freaking out. anyways i saw the camp a little, and i came back for it and you were awake. i got, i got scared before.” percy couldn’t bring himself to look you in the eye, he felt nervous admitting it, his worry for you. your smile was wide as you recalled his own worry for the bracelet you’d made him.

“what? why?” he exhaled, his hands playing with his shirt, “i— i thought you wouldn’t wake up maybe.” you grabbed his hand, “i’m right here, there’s nothing to worry about perce. how are you feeling?” your voice was barely above a whisper, filled with sympathy and sorrow, you still hadn’t spoken about his mother.

“don’t.” he shook his head whilst averting his gaze, staring down at his hands. “don’t what? i’m not going to force you to talk about i promise, i just want to make sure you’re okay.” percy closed his eyes, “i can’t just,” percy breathed in, working up the courage to meet your eye, he hated the pity on your face, “just forget it, her.” you rested your hand on his neck, bringing him in, “no one’s asking you to percy, if there’s anything you need from me, or if you just want to sit and die of diabetes with every blue food in the world, i’ll be right there.”

“thank you.” his voice came out muffled against your shoulder. you tried your best to comfort him with a hand in his hair, you pulled him back to take a look at him. his eyes were glossy, a few tears had fallen free. using your sleeve you wiped them away, “now what demigod has the time for tears, percy jackson?”

you loved percy best like this, with a grin plastered on his face.

“yknow what we could use?” percy pulled you up from the ground, before you walked back to the cabin. “and what exactly is that m’lady?” you rolled your eyes, “first of all i despise your british accent and second, a nap!”

percy was sweating profusely, his nightmare having jolted him up from his bed. his jittery movements concerned you, book in your hands forgotten as you surged forwards, “perce? you okay?” his eyes were blown and chest heaving, but at the sight of you he relaxed, “yeah, yeah i’m fine.”

“you okay?” luke stood infront of the two of you, arms crossed, “super.” percy snipped back as you swatted his arm, “be nice.” your voice was firm, and you knew how percy was, you’d say sarcasm was probably his middle name if you hadn’t already known it.

“we all have them, you know.” luke clicked his tongue, taking a step closer. “intense, recurring nightmares. that’s normal here.” his words were surprising to you, knowing that yourself and percy rarely fit in.

“and the daydreams, and the ADHD, and dyslexia. demigods just process reality differently, than humans do. for the first time in your life, you’re just like everyone else.” you let out a sigh, whether of relief or sadness you didn’t know. did you want to fit in? be the same as everyone else? nothing special?

“so are you also… do you not know who your—“ lukes lips pressed into a thin line, knowing what percy insinuated, “am i… unclaimed?” the two of you nodded in unison, “no, hermes is my father. that doesn’t matter, we’re all on the same team here.”

percy’s agitation was obvious, as well as reasonable and it was exactly how you felt. “each kid is brought here and made to wait around until their parent decides to pick up the phone? pick up— whatever. how is that fair?“ percy nodded along, “she’s right, why is that okay? why do they get to bring us here to just ignore some of us?” you did feel bad for luke, you felt as if the two of you were bombarding him with questions and expecting him to hold all of life’s answers.

“spend too much time trying to figure out why the gods do whatever it is they do, you’ll drive yourself crazy. sooner you stop worrying about that, the sooner you can enjoy what this place actually does offer.”

percy’s interest piqued, “and what’s that?”

“glory.”

you’d spent hours trying different things. percy almost hit a bunch of campers with an arrow, whilst you’d hit the bullseye, much to your elation. the both of you were absolutely horrendous at welding, which you figured. the only thing that had stuck with you through out the day was the idea of offerings. and you knew percy was thinking the same thing.

the smell of fire invaded your senses as percy threw in the thing that meant most, whilst you sat by him and wondered if it would actually work, would she be able to hear you? you’d zoned out for a bit, feeling as if you were intruding whilst he talked.

“i hope you’re sitting down, but… i think… i’ve made some friends here. like, real friends. y/n and i, we might actually fit in for once.” you beamed at the thought, yet not wanting to interrupt so you settled for nudging his shoulder to which he smiled at you, “i think they might really like me. imagine that. he isn’t here. my father, he just… didn’t show. i mean, ignoring me is one thing, but he doesn’t get to ignore you. i’m gonna make him come down here. i’m gonna make him see me, i’m gonna make him see us both.” and with that he blew out the fire, a small flicker of hope ignited inside.

“we’re going to get her back percy, i swear.”

and that was the end of your pleasant night, the reign of terror, clarisse and others were infront of your cabin. and that’s where your night went haywire.

you and percy were thrown to the floor roughly, landing on your bad thigh caused you to shout in pain. “aw, does someone have a scratch? where’d you get it from? the minotaur?” the girl was blonde, and you had no clue who she was but her mocking tone made you want to punch her in the face.

“do you think you’re special? better than everyone else?”

“no.”

“tell me you made it all up about the minotaur, and I’ll let you go. maybe to impress your friend here? you practically have heart eyes when you look at her.” clarisse approached you, “don’t touch her!” percy shouted as clarisse chuckled, “why not? you gonna stop me?”

“he didn’t make anything up.” you responded to her question since percy hadn’t, with her harsh glare you prayed for the earth to swallow you whole. “she’s right, i didn’t make anything up.” clarisse was hoping for truthfulness from percy, she couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or happy, she could teach him a lesson.

“some kids gotta learn the hard way.” the two other girls charged towards percy before abruptly walking around him, dragging you up by the elbows. “hey! if you’re mad at me then hurt me! don’t touch her! let her go!” clarisse held percy back as the girls forced you to your knees, “guys i appreciate the sentiment but i’m not all that thirsty.” please tell me this wasn’t used recently.

percy thrashed around in her grip, desperate to save you, “you really like her don’t you? not a single ounce of fight in you when it’s your ass on the line but for her,” his chest heaved, and his hands clenched, he wasn’t commonly violent, but a beat down on clarisse seemed amazing right about now.

“get off her! y/n!” your eyes were clenched shut in an attempt to prepare yourself, holding your breath, yet nothing happened. when you peeled your eyes open you were met with an empty toilet bowl.

“please tell me you guys didn’t drink it yourselves.” if it wasn’t already an indication of her irritation based on the scowl on her face the second-grade ‘you stole my swing’ type of pull at your hair dragged you back to younger self. but what really awakened you were the three tentacle like forms of water, “what the hell?” the harsh collision of your back on the wall saved you from the attack. the girls all staggered around, careful of the water before scurrying out.

percy rushed over to you, hands cradling your face, “are you okay? did they hurt you? you didn’t touch the water did you?” you raised your hand to cut off percy’s rambling, “i’m fine, but what the hell was that?” he shook his head, “not a single idea in my head.” percy slumped opposite of you, “there’s not much in your head either way.” percy placed his hand on his heart, feigning shock and hurt, “how dare you!” your giggles rejuvenated percy, your smile was all he needed to be happy again.

the figure of someone at the door caused you to shoot up, careful of the water, you saw annabeth come into view. crap.

“we can explain.” you both held up your hands, caught at the scene of the crime and afraid of the consequences. “no, you can’t.” percy nodded in agreement, “okay,” the girls face resonated with percy, eyebrows knitting together in confusion as he tried to recall how, “wait, I know you.”

annabeth shrugged her shoulders, “no, you don’t.” percy stepped forwards infront of you, directly inline with her, “yeah, but you were there. that night in the infirmary.” you couldn’t recall seeing her there when you woke up, “i don’t think she was, i don’t remember seeing you.” anabeth peered down at her shoes before returning to the conversation.

“yes. i’m annabeth.” she introduced herself, you’d heard of her a bit from other campers, daughter of athena.

“are you stalking us, annabeth?”

“yes.” her bluntness was something you didn’t expect. “okay. why?” you inquired further, “well, i’ve been waiting to see if something like this would happen. “so i’d know if you can help me.”

“you’ve been waiting for me to get my head in a toilet and for percy to be manhandled? well, girlhandled.” percy was confused, “help you do what?”

“win capture the flag.”

the helmets weren’t exactly the most comfortable but you figured keeping your brain in your skull was more crucial.

you walked next to luke with percy on the left of him, “you’re gonna love this. campwide mock warfare, all glory to the victors. annabeth’s the head counselor of the athena cabin. she’s led our team to three straight wins. been a long time since anyone’s won a fourth.”

“she was there in the bathroom, she said she’d been waiting for it to happen.”

“annabeth sees the world differently. always six steps ahead of everyone else. you should cut her a break.” you scoffed, “cut her a break for what? her life seems perfectly fine.” luke shook his head, “not everything’s as it seems y/n.”

“whose side are you on, anyway?”

luke stopped and turned towards percy, “oh, hers, always. she’s my little sister. maybe I should back up.” you nodded, “i think we should sit down if we’re going to be getting an origin story here.”

luke’s entire story of how he and annabeth got to camp made you regret your earlier comments of an easy life. she’d been fighting since she was a child, it’s all she’s known. “she’s been watching us since we got here. why?”

“annabeth is the strongest warrior in camp, the only way left to prove herself is to go on a quest.”

“and what does this have to do with us?”

“chiron’s been promising her for years. one day, a demigod would arrive who was fated to go on a quest that even chiron couldn’t prevent. and when that happened, she could join it. every new arrival, or, arrivals in your case, annabeth watches, looking for a sign they’re the one. usually, she gives up after a day or two, but she’s still watching you two.”

“can you ask her to knock it off?” as much as you hated to admit it, she did kind of freak you out, “i agree, we’re not going on some magical quest any time soon.”

“yeah, sure. but you never know, what if she’s right?” the conch shell blowing in the distance alerted you all.

it was battle time.

as you walked behind luke you couldn’t help your nervousness, which percy always noticed. “hey,” his voice was soft and reassuring, a hand on your shoulder, “we’re gonna be fine, it’s just a friendly game. we’ve won three times and we’re going to get a fourth since they have us brilliant additions of course.” percy literally bowed in front of you as if being applauded for a performance as you chuckled, “oh please, you cant win with idiocy percy.”

“that is extremely offensive! how many times have i beaten you in monopoly?”

“ohh, you want to talk about monopoly mr bank robber? do you honestly think no one noticed when you randomly turn in broken change and grab even more bigger notes? or the fact that three houses does not make a hotel!” clarisse watched the two of you fool around from afar, she was going to make you pay.

the pebble you’d thrown clattered against percy’s armour, “hey! what was that for?” you groaned out loud, your head lolling back, meeting the log. “if you keep flossing i’m going to push you myself perce. you need to take this more serious—” the girls surrounded you from every angle, swords in hand as you rose from the floor, your own sword clutched tightly.

“flags that way, it’s not here.” clarisse smirked, “we know. yeah, glory’s fine. revenge is more fun.” her spear crackled as they all surged forwards, time to fight, it’s now or never.

clarisse’s scream was deafening. “so much for friendly huh?” percy shook his head, “not now! you can tell me how wrong i was when we’re out of here.” for some reason once they’d begun their attack, you’d never felt more alive. as if you were born for this, to fight. every sword and hit that came your way was met with double the force, hurling people backwards as you tried to make your way to percy’s side. one of the girls was sly, managing to corner you on the boardwalk near by.

her knee, she’s weak in the knees.

the voice echoed through your head, as if compelled you followed up on it as the girl went down almost immediately. thank you very much random voice! the sound of cheers floated through the air as you saw luke plant the flag in the ground.

4 — 0.

perhaps you’d been distracted by the people, or maybe it was percy being held by his armour courtesy of clarisse. either way you didn’t notice the girl lunging your way, not until the cold water engulfed your body.

you’d never learnt to properly swim.

percy’s footsteps drummed through the air, each step heavy and weighed down with purpose. he had to get to you, now. the second you’d hit the water he was on the ground running. it had only been about five seconds at most yet percy was already at your previous spot, diving in head first.

act now, think later.

your eyesight was blurry as the two of you resurfaced, the first thing you spotted the crowd on the shoreline, they waited with bated breath, your team cheering once the two of you were back up. “i’m so sorry, i said i would protect you but clarisse— i was so scared when i saw you get pushed, i think i froze up. i should’ve listened to you, i should’ve taken it more seriously. this is all my fault.” he was holding onto your face for dear life, afraid to let go.

percy had dived head first into the water for you, no hesitation. he put himself at risk for you. he always knew what to say and what to do. percy was your person. you’d been an idiot, why’d it take so long for you to realise what you knew deep down?

you love percy jackson. and not in a friend way, in a love way. in the best way.

your lips were pressed on his in seconds, you weren’t in a hurry, not desperate, not messy. just passionate and deep, as if you were trying to convey your feelings through it. you were simultaneously trying your hardest to remember this moment. percy’s cold hands on your cheeks, both of you sopping wet, nothing else mattered to you, until he kissed back. percy on the other hand was desperate, he’d been waiting for so long, settling for the title of best friend. he had you in his arms, he’d already lost his own mother, he wasn’t going to lose his other half.

his hair tousled, curls sticking to his face, yours dripping wet, hands on your neck as you clutched his. “what are we percy?” he grinned, “whatever we want to be.” the pair of you may have forgotten the fact that you were currently surrounded by campers, but the deafening cheers and shouts of support warmed your heart. surely a kiss didn’t elicit such a reaction? yes it did, but also the fact that a trident loomed over percy’s head.

percy jackson, son of poseidon.

the two of you walked with a literal army of people, friends, even. for once you both felt as if you belonged.

luke was unbearable, taking any chance he could to tease the two of you, “my little campers, all grown up.” he fake-cried, wiping false tears from his eyes as you poked him, “now if we can find someone then where’s your partner pal?” percy laughed, “please never say pal again.” you turned his way, scrunching your nose, “doesn’t work does it?” he shook his head as the three of you chuckled.

“but seriously, you two are made for each other, i’m happy for you.” as you reached the cabin you couldn’t help yourself as you hugged luke by surprise, “thank you. we’ll be in soon, we just have a bit to talk about.” luke made his way inside as the two of you turned to walk away but not before hearing him call out, “keep your hands to yourself percy!” percy rolled his eyes as you smiled.

the two of you sat at the boardwalk again, feet dangling off. you’d been discussing the quest, as well as the fact that it was only undertaken by three.

“so, you, me, anabeth and grover. percy i know school sucks but if you could count those names on your fingers for me please.” percy groaned as you laughed at your own joke, “i know, i know. but i figure four heads are better than three.” your legs swung back and forth as you shrugged your shoulders, “we could fold grover into a box and take him with us secretly.” percy suggested.

“yeah, maybe.” your voice was quieter than before, eliciting concern from percy, “hey? you okay?” you were fidgeting again, this time with the black bracelet you’d made for him. he met your eyes with a smile as he lifted your head by the chin.

“i promise, i’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.” and for once you could feel how serious he was, “thank you perce, you— have been apart of my life since i was little. i don’t think there’s a single person i trust more on this planet than you. i’m sorry, for everything you’ve gone through. i swear, we’re going to make it out of this. we’re going to find your mother, we’re going to find the lighting bolt, and everything can return to normal. well, besides the fact that we’re all demigods and all.” the laughter was bittersweet, a moment of peace before you embarked on the quest.

“you’re beautiful you know that?” he whispered to you, as if he was afraid for others to hear. you grinned at his words, leaning in towards him as he followed, “i know, you make it a point to tell me at least once a day. but you, percy, are as gorgeous as the calm seas.”

you wiggled your finger in his face as he swatted it away, “if i had known my girlfriend was a poet i would’ve had every word of yours written down.” you felt fuzzy, warm. with percy you felt a million ways, all of them good.

as cheesy as he was you loved him.

“look at us, exploring a whole new world.”

“did you just aladdin me?”

“yup, do you think they have a flying carpet here?”

“why so zeus can strike it down when he’s angry? i feel like the gods are all little kids throwing temper tantrums.” percy shushed you, “they might be listening.” he joked as you punched him.

“i hope they are. so they know, we’re coming for them.”

“holy shit that was a badass line.”

“perce?”

“yeah?”

“you’re ruining it.”

#pjo x reader #pjo series #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson x fem!reader #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson imagine #percy jackson fic

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