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heartpascal · 10 months

Note

omg plsss do more platonic father-figure joel fics comforting the reader please i begggg they are so good

carved over the door

▹— joel miller x platonic!reader

▹— summary: you’ve been hiding something from joel, and he finally found out. his reaction is… not what you expected.

▹— a/n: ok this isn’t even like. close to being a favourite but i think the idea is cute, execution just isn’t great!! to be clear, things like this are NOTHING to be ashamed of, but this is gonna touch on how it can make the person feel!! (EDIT as of july, i have no idea how this fic is looking so please go easy, i haven’t proofread it, only tagged a bit of writing on the end to finish it up, so it’s not great)

▹— warnings: father figure joel, reader is illiterate, r is embarrassed about it, therefore says some bad things, is ashamed almost, so please be wary, cute lessons ensue, swearing, lazy writing at the end, use of ‘sweetie’

▹— taglist: @rhymingtree @sleepygraves @wnstice (everything), @auggiesolovey @just-kaylaa @evyiione @lemonlaides @fariylixie0915 @erensloveinterest @dazedshoon @faceache111 @randomhoex @canpillowscry @pedropascalsrealgf @star-wars-lover @coolchick333 @soobsdior @ilybbg @rvjaa @oliest19xx @pedropepsi @sunflowersdrop @truthfuleeyours (pedro)

masterlist

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Being born into the end of the world probably should have killed you off early. Most kids your age were either dying or dead, or being trained to become child soldiers. It was rare for kids born in the pandemic to live, you had been told. Risks of death were everywhere, from Infected, to FEDRA, all the way to all those diseases you hadnt been vaccinated against.

Survival odds were bleak, to say the least, but you were one of the lucky ones.

Life had put you in the path of the only two good people you knew — Joel and Tess. It was them who had saved you from FEDRA’s clutches, though you had never understood why. They had consistently told you that they only looked out for themselves, so was the way of life in the apocalypse, but each time you needed them, there they were.

There was that time you had an infection, and despite the weather being awful and security tight, Joel and Tess had gone out on a supply run, getting a hold of the antibiotics that had saved your life.

You tried to be useful, hopeful that if you helped them enough, as much as they helped you, that they wouldn’t kick you out any time soon.

It’s why you always took it upon yourself to clean their bloodied clothes, to sew up the tears that would have ruined them, to wash the dishes you all ate your rations off of. It’s why you always made sure to use the coldest water, refusing to take any that may be the slightest bit warm from them. Little things like that would surely keep you at least somewhat helpful.

It’s also why you kept your biggest secret quiet.

You had done your best to prevent them from ever finding out, and had they not decided that you could join them in visiting Bill and Frank, you were sure they never would’ve.

They’d known the two men for a while before you had arrived, and this would be your first time meeting them. Joel usually insisted upon you staying at the QZ, too worried over the journey and the risks it posed for you to attend any of their supply runs, but they seemed… content to let you join.

The three of you would be heading straight to Bill and Frank’s, and then straight back. No pit stops, no detours, just one confirmed route.

Your nerves had been playing up the whole time, causing you to jump at any sound, your hands shaking at the sight of Infected, hell — you had listened to every word that Joel and Tess said, though they didn’t blame you. It was your first time outside of the QZ, and they understood how frightening this could be.

You couldn’t decide if arriving at Bill and Frank’s made your anxiety better or worse.

It kept you quiet the whole time you were there, even as Bill tested the three of you, nodding when the screen flashed green. You stuck by Joel’s side as the four of you set up the table, Bill inside the house cooking dinner.

The four of you finally sat down, with Frank and Tess starting up conversation quickly, before Frank stopped, turning to you and saying, “Oh, would you mind going and grabbing a bottle of Barbera, sweetie?”

He was nice, and you didn’t want to get Joel and Tess in trouble with them by bringing you if you didn’t help them out, so you nodded with a nervous glance at Joel. “Sure, in there?” You pointed towards the house, and Frank nodded with a smile, turning back to his conversation with Tess.

You stepped away from the table, glancing back and seeing Joel looking at you with a quirked eyebrow, frown marring his features. You smiled tightly toward him before opening the front door, stepping inside and following the smell of cooking until you found Bill. “Um, Frank said to grab the bottle of… Bar—Barbera?”

Bill grunted, a grumpy expression covering his face, and nodded his head toward another door. You went through it quickly, down some steps, and you just about stopped yourself from crying when you saw the number of bottles around the room.

By the three minute mark, the stairs creaked, and Joel appeared at the bottom, looking increasingly concerned as he saw your distressed expression. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s—it’s fine.” You replied, your voice shaking slightly, and you looked away from him, continuing to scan all the bottles on the shelves in front of you. The labels meant nothing to you, and you couldn’t help but get more upset by Joel’s presence.

He placed a hand on your shoulder as he approached, and didn’t say a word as he grabbed a bottle up towards your left. He led you out of the room, handing you the bottle and guiding you to where the other three were now settled at the table, food set out in front of them.

“Thank you, sweetie.” Frank said kindly as you set the bottle down at the table, quickly pulling your hands back before anybody could see the shake to your fingers.

You sat through the rest of the dinner quietly, barely able to enjoy the actual nice, home-cooked food through your racing thoughts. You answered Frank when he spoke to you, still knowing that you needed to be polite, but you were starting to feel sick.

When the three of you finally made it home, Joel and Tess had shared a number of concerned glances, eyebrows drawn close together as they murmured between one another, still talking quietly even when you dropped down on the sofa, a sigh leaving your chest.

It stayed that way for the next few weeks, and there was an awkward energy growing in the apartment the three of you shared. With your uncharacteristic quietness, and the way Joel and Tess would converse quietly, as if you hadn’t noticed, something was up.

That much became increasingly obvious when Joel sat you down on the couch you slept on, the crease between his brows as deep as ever.

He said your name nervously, and cleared his throat before he continued, “When we were at Bill and Frank’s, I, uh— I noticed somethin’.”

“Noticed what?” You responded when he didn’t continue, your anxiety leaking into your voice in the way it shook as you spoke, and you knew exactly what was coming. He’d realised your secret — he and Tess must’ve been deciding what to do during all of those talks.

“Fuck,” He muttered, clearly unsure how to go about this conversation, “Don’t… take this the wrong way, but, can you read?”

Your heart dropped to your stomach, and you swallowed nervously. “‘Course I can read, Joel.” You replied, snapping at the man, who just frowned more at your response.

He nodded, and reached into the backpack by his feet, pulling out a relatively thin book. He looked almost remorseful, pulling this out when he knew you were lying, and you hated the way that shame pulled at your stomach, making you feel sick as you looked at the letters you couldn’t make any sense of.

“Y’know, there’s nothin’ wrong with not knowing.” Joel said, voice softening as he looked at your panicked expression.

“Except that you don’t want me around anymore, right? It’s fine, but it’s not good enough. Don’t want some dumbass kid who can’t even read hanging around, is that it?” You snapped, anger firing up in your chest as you stood from the couch, fists clenched at your side as you averted your eyes from the book in his hand.

Your cheeks were burning, embarrassment flooding your expression, and your eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

“What? No, kid, sit back down.” He said, pushing you back to your seat by your shoulders. “Don’t go ‘round making assumptions like that. I’m offering to teach you.”

“Oh.”

He snickered at your response, though he looked almost embarrassed to be making the offer, like he was unsure what your response would be.

“So… you’re not kicking me out?”

“‘Course not. Getting ahead of yourself, there.”

“You really wouldn’t mind… teaching me?” You asked, heart still hammering in your chest as you stared at the man, his face softening at your nervous questions.

In response, he moved to sit right beside you on the couch, and opened the book in his hands. “It’s been a while for me, kid, so go easy.”

You smiled at him, wiping your tears before settling close to his side, head gently resting against his arm to get the best angle of his book. He pointed an index finger at the words as he read aloud, pointing new letters out each time they came up. Some familiar words came up, spelled phonetically, and made sense once you’d learnt the full alphabet on paper, but others made much less sense. Like fight — where did the gh come from?

By the time the two of you had made it through the first chapter, you could recognise letters on paper, know the sounds that the letters made, and even read majority of the simpler words, the ones that came up often.

Tess came home a bit later on, after you had fallen asleep against Joel’s shoulder. She raised her eyebrows, a hint of something like a smile on her face as she looked at the two of you, and asked, “Good first lesson?”

Joel wiped a hand down his face, his muscles tense in his efforts to keep still in order to not wake you, and stay awake himself. “Made some good progress.” He acknowledged, his voice barely louder than a whisper as he looked down to where you were slipping from his shoulder. Tess nodded at him, before heading down the hall to get on with unpacking her backpack.

From then on, these sorts of evenings happened a few times a week, almost always ending with you falling asleep against Joel. Your reading ability improved, and when the two of you finished the short book, you started rereading it immediately, now able to follow along more clearly as the stuttered words flowed more easily, and soon enough, Joel was promising to grab a new book from Bill and Frank’s.

The new words were tricky, when starting the new book, but each time you got stuck, Joel was there to help, and eventually, you got used to reading without his help. Sounding out words you were stuck on yourself, just waiting for his confirming mmhm to be muttered before you would continue on.

When finally, you finished an entire chapter without a murmur from Joel, you pulled away from his side excitedly, looking towards his face and seeing his expression being nothing short of filled with pride. He pulled you back to his side, one arm wrapped around you this time, and squeezed your shoulders before urging you to continue.

Feeling your eyes start to slip, words going blurred on the page, you asked, “Could you keep going?” Without questioning you, he continued from where you left off, reading the words out loud and keeping his arm wrapped firmly around your shoulder.

It was strange, hearing that softness to Joel’s voice, when before these lessons, you’d only ever heard the gruff voice he usually had. It made sense, you supposed, given that he remained rough around the edges for everybody who wasn’t you and Tess, but it made you feel… almost comfortable. It was like a safety net was wrapped around you, like nothing could happen to you if you stayed at his side.

You yawned, eyes still trying to focus on the book that Joel continued to read, his finger subconsciously moving along the page whilst he spoke the words.

It wasn’t long before you fell asleep against him, his voice fading to a whisper when he realised. It became something of a tradition between the two of you, these lessons where Joel taught you, and then eventually read to you until you fell asleep. He didn’t mention how much it reminded him of before, of her. And you didn’t mention how much more comfortable you had gotten since the lessons had started.

No longer were you on the edge of your seat, waiting for them to give you the boot. Now, you finally felt… accepted. In a way you never had been before Joel, before being taught something that wasn’t just for survival.

Strangely, it was almost like you could live, rather than survive. You didn’t voice it aloud, but you suspected Joel felt similarly, if his change in behaviour said anything.

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jo-harrington · 6 months

Text

Team Building (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: No one does Halloween quite like the Hellfire Club, and you just so happened to have promised to join them.

Previous Part: Closing Time

Warnings/Themes: AU where the Upside Down doesn't terrorize Hawkins. Reader works at the Claire's at StarCourt. Eddie works at TapeWorld. Mutual Pining and Slow Burn, Fluffy Fluff, Trick or Treating

Note: HAPPY HALLOWEEN and welcome back to the Store Manager Verse. I actually wanted to be further along with my chronological releases but it just never happened. This one is definitely probably one of the best timed releases with the holiday but there's a minor note that there's...maybe a reference to a yet-to-be published installation of the story. Eddie and SM are gonna be going on a little road trip at some point and will meet some of SM's family. DONT EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT FOR NOW. Just enjoy the shenanigans.

You can find my masterlist here for more featuring our resident Store Manager and all of my other writing.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

---

"You look cute today."

"Thanks!"

"You need to look less cute next week. We're doing zombies, remember?"

"Got it."

Every day.

"Did you pick up that fake blood from Melvalds like you promised?"

"Yeah it's at home."

"Ok great because...because I was a little afraid you were gonna forget about our plans."

"Don't worry Eddie."

He reminded you every day.

"Ok so we're meeting at Gareth's at 4 on Thursday."

"Alright I'll be there."

"No, uh, glitter makeup? We're going for realism. Shock and awe."

"I swear to god!"

Every day for an entire week, whether he was scheduled to work or not, Eddie showed up at Star Court to remind you that you had promised to go Trick or Treating with him and his friends.

It was cute endearing.

October--and more specifically Halloween--was one of your favorite times of the year at work. It was laid back and fun. No pressure from either Back to School or the Holiday rush, you could "dress up" with little costume pieces or fun makeup every day, and you could have a bowl of candy at the cash wrap that made everyone's day a little bit brighter.

And outside of work, you'd really embraced the season.

Correction, Eddie made you embrace the season.

Before moving to Hawkins, Halloween had always been incredibly...commercial. Costumes and decorations from the little seasonal aisle at the drugstore. The biggest display of candy at the grocery store that you needed to stock up on unless you wanted your house egged.

And your social life consisted, mainly, of outings with your coworkers. Pumpkin patches and haunted hayrides almost always became team building activities. That wasn't to say your coworkers--new and old--weren't your friends too.

But with Eddie...it was different.

A harvest festival outside of Muncie, horror movies late at night during a thunderstorm, warm apple cider at Merrill's Farm while looking for gourds that were shaped like your heads. Pumpkin carving on the porch at the trailer, cutting out bats and cats from black construction paper, and now Trick or Treating with his friends.

You thought, early on in your friendship, that it was just some throw away comment. But knowing him as well as you did now, you realized that he really meant everything he said.

Every promise was purposeful, especially when it came to the people he cared about. Which was why you were sure he was determined to make the night perfect. Not only for you, but for everyone.

Especially the handful of little sheep that were newcomers to Hellfire.

"The freshman," he explained on Sunday as you worked on your costumes together. "They're little turds but...I dunno, they have potential."

You'd already heard about them at the beginning of the year as Eddie gushed about his new recruits; younger brothers that Eddie sort of always wished for but was thankful he didn't actually have.

"They're not gonna think I'm some like...weird old person right?" you laughed self-consciously, thinking back to Jeff's comment when you said you wouldn't buy them beer. And sure you were not that much older than Eddie, but you were sure you were ancient to a bunch of 14-year olds.

"You're the coolest person I know. And I'm the coolest person they know."

"You saw how my brother is though," you waved your hand dismissively. Jimmy's words--who would have guessed your boyfriend's not lame like you--wouldn't stop echoing in your head though.

Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend.

Eddie still wasn't your boyfriend.

They must have echoed in Eddie's too because his cheeks flushed and he immediately became bashful. He ducked his head into his shoulder a little bit and refused to meet your eyes as he hacked away at the sleeves of the old flannel in his hands.

"Your brother," he finally replied, "is a little turd too. I'm sure the kids will worship you. More than they worship me. I promise. Everything will be alright."

---

Before you knew it, Thursday rolled around.

You were running late to get to the Emerson's to get ready thanks to a last minute visit from your DM. Who knew that pictures of you and your team for the company-issued costume contest would take so long?

Still, to save time, you decided not to change costumes until you got to the house. Seeing as Eddie had grand plans for everyone's face paint to make them look as close to Day of the Dead as possible, you figured you would be fine.

However, you were not expecting the entire gaggle of boys to stare at you with stars in their eyes as you stepped out of your car, duffle bag full of torn old clothes and gallon of fake blood in-hand, done up like a glam metal superstar.

Or as close to it as you could get with the accessories you carried at the store. Rainbow hair extensions and glitter spray, layers of chain jewelry, and too much cheetah print.

"You," Eddie began as he pushed through the group to get to you. His face was already a ghastly pallor thanks to a layer of facepaint from melvalds, exactly as he had envisioned. "Are a traitor and a turncoat, a disgrace to the uniform, and your status as Corroded Coffin's number one fan."

"I've literally never heard you guys play," you rolled your eyes at him.

"Did my lesson about the different types of metal mean nothing to you?" he clutched a hand over his heart and then reached out and fiddled with your jewelry. "And didn't I say no glitter."

"I just need to use the bathroom to wash it all off. Then you can make me gross and moldy like you."

"It's not mold. It's rot. Get it right." You flipped him off and he grinned. "Hey sweetheart."

"Hi."

"Nice of you to finally join us."

Eddie threw an arm around your shoulders and led you into the garage. You said hi to Jeff, Gareth, and Dave, and then he introduced you to the sheep.

Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Will.

They were all a little bashful as Eddie went down the line; it was reminiscent of when you met the others, except less fun facts and more silly tidbits meant to embarrass the kids.

Will the Wise whose worst stat was intelligence. Dustin who had a girlfriend in Utah--

"She's real, I swear."

--Mike who had already gone through two new characters because he couldn't roll to save his life. Literally. And Lucas who liked sports.

"Oh my god," you scoffed at Eddie. “You make it sound like sports are a scourge."

"They are."

"You like hockey."

"I," Eddie paused. "Tolerate hockey."

You grinned triumphantly and said hello to each of the boys before ducking into the house to get changed.

"Dude, she is way out of your league." you could hear Mike whine, followed by a dull thud of a fist hitting an arm.

"That's what we've been telling him the whole time," Dave cackled.

---

Eddie and Will were the masterminds behind the zombification process--bickering back and forth about what scar went where and how gross that pus should look as they applied facepaint--but all the boys tossed in their creative input.

"Oh my god, do you still have that rubber eyeball from lunch? We can glue it to Jeff's hand."

"What if--don't touch my hair--what if we--don't touch my hair."

"More blood! More! MORE!"

Before you knew it, two hours had passed, it was dark out and gaggles of Trick-or-Treaters were already filling the streets. Gareth's mom had set herself up on the porch with a bowl full of fun-sized candy and wished you all farewell as you took off down the sidewalk.

A veritable hoard of the undead, with ripped clothes, foaming mouths, blood-soaked hands, and pillowcases to double as treat bags.

To your surprise, there was a lot more to Trick or Treating than you had initially thought. All your childhood, you'd just gone door to door for a few blocks, rang a bell, got some candy, and at the end of the night traded treats with your brothers or your friends.

To Hellfire, it was just as involved as any of their DnD campaigns. And it's how you learned more about each of the boys, and surprisingly, more about their fearless leader.

Lucas and Mike were the perfect strategists and, as you began your trek, listed off neighborhoods that gave the best candy. You got the in-depth analysis between full-size and fun-size candies, chocolate versus peanut butter versus nougat, and you made a mental note to be more mindful of the choices you put out at the cash wrap for next year.

Dustin and Eddie were the navigators mentally mapping the distances between each neighborhood and how quickly and efficiently the group could get around.

"We should have just taken the van," Eddie scoffed when Dustin suggested Loch Nora first, the furthest trek of the night.

"No, then we'll end up back at Gareth's by 10. We just need to walk fast, it'll be perfect."

"And my mom is making a casserole for dinner," Gareth piped up. "She said you're all welcome to stay."

"Why don't we end at my place," Mike suggested. "We can just hang out in the basement and my mom will order pizza."

"No one wants to sleep in your dusty ass basement Wheeler," Dave scoffed.

"We're definitely skipping school tomorrow," Eddie pointed at all of the kids. "I hope you all know that."

Dave and Jeff, much to your surprise, were the "war generals" as they so graciously called themselves. They had a few rolls of toilet paper and a carton of eggs tucked away in their pillowcases, in case they came across--

"The enemies!!!" The older boys hollered into the starry night sky, quickly earning glares from other kids and parents as they passed.

"And who would that be?" you asked. The entire group looked at you like you'd grown a second head. "I'm sorry I'm not well-versed in Halloween mischief."

"Oh it's gonna be fun corrupting you." Eddie laughed wickedly, and started ticking off examples on his fingers. "People who tell us we're too old to trick or treat."

"I thought you said no one cared!" you exclaimed.

"Most people," he clarified, "don't care. But someone called the cops on us. What was it? Last year? Year before?" He looked at the older boys for confirmation.

"Mrs. Peterson who likes to sic her dogs on the kids who get too close to her rose bushes," Lucas offered next.

"If someone has their porch light on, but doesn't answer the door."

"When someone gives raisins instead of candy," Will supplied, ignoring Dustin's quiet, I like raisins.

The list went on: people who made fun of their costumes, the one house where the guy sat on his porch and douse kids with "holy water" for engaging in devilry.

"And Jason Carver," Eddie finished with a flourish.

They all looked at you for some kind of objection...or maybe your approval? You weren't too sure.

But at your soft nod, they all whooped and hollered and a few of the younger boys even took off running so they could jump and scare some of the kids who were just minding their own business.

"See?" Eddie asked and grabbed your hand in his as you followed at the back of the group. "And you were afraid they were gonna think you were some gross old lady. They're trying to impress you."

"Impress is a stretch."

"Ah ah ah," he shook his head. "I will hear none of it. I told them all that they were to be on their best worst behavior. Make sure you have the best time. That they are mere peasants here to serve the Queen of the Undead."

You let his hand go and pushed him away from you, even though your heart beat a little faster knowing he wanted them to behave around you.

"Go before I gnaw on your brains."

"You promise?" he waggled his eyebrows at you suggestively.

"Go!"

---

It was an eventful night.

You moaned and groaned and shuffled your way across Hawkins, just like the zombies in Romero's movies, to get all sorts of sweet treats. Candy and popcorn and fresh-dipped caramel apples that someone was making in their yard in Loch Nora.

The group successfully TP'd one house, and you'd even personally egged someone's front door after they called the gang delinquents. You were not athletic in the slightest, but you hit your target dead on, and basked in the boy's gleeful war cries.

You were grateful for Eddie's suggestion of sneakers because you'd walked more in those 4 hours than you had during any Black Friday or Christmas Eve double shift in your entire career. You were sure even a day at Disneyland couldn't hold a candle to the Hellfire Club Whistle Stop Walking Candy Tour of Hawkins.

The boys all took to calling you mom pretty early in the night after you stopped Jeff from chomping into a handful of starbursts.

"Your braces," you reminded him, motioning to your teeth. "You're gonna snap a wire; you hate the orthodontist."

He groaned and all of the boys started snickering. Eddie, of course, was quick to shame him.

"Listen to your mother!"

And the nickname just stuck.

Of course Mike--who you noticed tried to emulate Eddie most out of the group of freshman--had a retort.

"If she's mom," he said smugly. "Does that mean you're dad?"

The boys all started making kissy faces and you had to laugh as Eddie got a little flustered.

After watching him flounder for a comeback, you decided to help him out, so you crossed the distance and pressed a quick peck to his cheek before you turned and shook your finger at the boys in a disappointed way.

"Next person to sass your father," you started. "And you're all grounded." They all looked a mixture of confused and worried for a second.

"What does that mean?" Lucas asked nervously.

"It means you start the next session with half of your hit points," Eddie finally recovered, voice growling in a threat. The boys all clammed up and turned to head to the next house.

"Sorry about them," he shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Nah, it's ok," you smiled reassuringly. "They meant well. Still...til death do us part, I guess."

You both froze and you started panicking.

Why had you said that?

Still, Eddie was able to make it all better. He shuffled his feet and cracked a smile, then gestured to your costumes.

"Or uh...undeath. Considering."

Still, you had butterflies in your stomach every time one of the boys called you mom and dad for the rest of the night.

---

By the time 10 rolled around, you were back at the Emerson's house. Gareth's mom greeted you all excitedly with sodas and plates of hot buffalo chicken casserole with crispy tater tots on top, and you all sat in the garage to eat and divvy up your haul.

"So," Eddie slumped on the sofa next to you at some point after dinner was finished. You were tiredly watching Lucas and Dave argue the merits of Three Musketeers versus Milky Way and glad for the distraction. "Did you have fun?"

"Of course."

"Enough to do it again next year?"

"Is this your way of telling me you guys trick or treat every year?" you joked. "Because I kind of picked up on those hints all night."

"More like...I don't know," he sniffed awkwardly. "You still planning to be my friend next year?"

"Stop asking me that," you hit the back of your hand against his chest. "If I got to see you be a big dork with your gaggle of kindergarteners--"

"Hey!" came Will and Mike's whine from a few feet away.

"--and I'm still here, nothing's gonna scare me away Eddie."

He grabbed your hand to stop you from hitting him again, but stayed silent for a moment, eyes darting back and forth between yours as his tongue worried his lip.

You got nervous the longer he hesitated to say something, and once he did, you had the sneaking suspicion it wasn't exactly what he'd really wanted to say in the first place.

You hoped it wasn't what he wanted to say. Hoped it was just something he couldn't say in front of his friends.

"Then you don't mind if we do Alien next year. And before you say anything, I think I would make a great Ripley. I already have the hair for it and I'm pretty sure I have that same underwear."

"Sure Eddie," you agreed a little stiffly. "Sounds perfect."

He smiled, but it didn't quite meet his eyes.

Still, the two of you stayed huddled together on that couch for the rest of the night, surrounded by friends.

Hands held comfortably together.

Next Part: Promotion

#Eddie Munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #Eddie muson fic #Eddie Munson stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine #Eddie Munson fluff #store manager verse

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txttletale · 4 months

Note

Your discussions on AI art have been really interesting and changed my mind on it quite a bit, so thank you for that! I don’t think I’m interested in using it, but I feel much less threatened by it in the same way. That being said, I was wondering, how you felt about AI generated creative writing: not, like AI writing in the context of garbage listicles or academic essays, but like, people who generate short stories and then submit them to contests. Do you think it’s the same sort of situation as AI art? Do you think there’s a difference in ChatGPT vs mid journey? Legitimate curiosity here! I don’t quite have an opinion on this in the same way, and I’ve seen v little from folks about creative writing in particular vs generated academic essays/articles

i think that ai generated writing is also indisputably writing but it is mostly really really fucking awful writing for the same reason that most ai art is not good art -- that the large training sets and low 'temperature' of commercially available/mass market models mean that anything produced will be the most generic version of itself. i also think that narrative writing is very very poorly suited to LLM generation because it generally requires very basic internal logic which LLMs are famously bad at (i imagine you'd have similar problems trying to create something visual like a comic that requires consistent character or location design rather than the singular images that AI art is mostly used for). i think it's going to be a very long time before we see anything good long-form from an LLM, especially because it's just not a priority for the people making them.

ultimately though i think you could absolutely do some really cool stuff with AI generated text if you had a tighter training set and let it get a bit wild with it. i've really enjoyed a lot of AI writing for being funny, especially when it was being done with tools like botnik that involve more human curation but still have the ability to completely blindside you with choices -- i unironically think the botnik collegehumour sketch is funnier than anything human-written on the channel. & i think that means it could reliably be used, with similar levels of curation, to make some stuff that feels alien, or unsettling, or etheral, or horrifying, because those are somewhat adjacent to the surreal humour i think it excels at. i could absolutely see it being used in workflows -- one of my friends told me recently, essentially, "if i'm stuck with writer's block, i ask chatgpt what should happen next, it gives me a horrible idea, and i immediately think 'that's shit, and i can do much better' and start writing again" -- which is both very funny but i think presents a great use case as a 'rubber duck'.

but yea i think that if there's anything good to be found in AI-written fiction or poetry it's not going to come from chatGPT specifically, it's going to come from some locally hosted GPT model trained on a curated set of influences -- and will have to either be kind of incoherent or heavily curated into coherence.

that said the submission of AI-written stories to short story mags & such fucking blows -- not because it's "not writing" but because it's just bad writing that's very very easy to produce (as in, 'just tell chatGPT 'write a short story'-easy) -- which ofc isn't bad in and of itself but means that the already existing phenomenon of people cynically submitting awful garbage to literary mags that doesn't even meet the submission guidelines has been magnified immensely and editors are finding it hard to keep up. i think part of believing that generative writing and art are legitimate mediums is also believing they are and should be treated as though they are separate mediums -- i don't think that there's no skill in these disciplines (like, if someone managed to make writing with chatGPT that wasnt unreadably bad, i would be very fucking impressed!) but they're deeply different skills to the traditional artforms and so imo should be in general judged, presented, published etc. separately.

#ask #ai art

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rollinouttahere-writes · 10 months

Text

(Don’t) Face Your Fears: Part 2

Yandere Merfolk Straw Hats x GN!Reader

1.8k words

Part 1

This is the second part to that merfolk story I wrote before that I retroactively added a name to once I realized it wasn’t just going to be a one off.

Despite several members of his crew wanting to come with him, the river cutting through your island consisting of freshwater meant that only Luffy could go. Sure, Franky did build what was essentially a mobile saltwater pool that Luffy could use to bring some of them along, but he didn’t have it nearby and Luffy wasn’t willing to wait.

He wanted to see you again, and he wanted to do so now.

Being a bull shark had many perks, and he was currently using two of them. One being the coveted ability to swim in both fresh and saltwater, and the other being an impeccable sense of smell. It was best in water, but this island was so small that he could easily follow your trail. An awfully long trail, he noted. You are quite the runner! Usopp would have some stiff competition if you were merfolk, too.

Your unique scent came to a head, bringing Luffy to a halt. Pulling himself up onto the river bank, he sniffed the air to confirm that you were nearby. Somewhere in the house not far from where he is to be exact. A sharp grin spread across his face. He was right! You do live near the river! This will make getting ahold of you much easier.

Before he could pull himself fully out of the river, someone exited the house. Not just any person, but you. Luffy quietly slipped his upper body back into the river, leaving only his head poking out of the water.

Your footsteps drew closer, stopping slightly upstream from where he was. Once there, you dropped onto the ground and buried your face in your hands. Luffy watched curiously as you groaned loudly and scowled at the river when you pulled your hands away from your face. Is this a human thing? He’s intrigued and inches closer. Humans have awful night vision, he isn’t concerned about being noticed before he wants to be.

“I can’t believe this. Months of work wasted because I just had to run into merfolk during my first trip into the ocean,” you muttered under your breath. “What kind of stupid bad luck is that?”

Bad luck? You meeting and coming to their rescue was good luck! Great luck even! Luffy frowned at what you said. He knows he startled you earlier, but he thought it was just because you were surprised to see a merman up close.

Did you just… not like merfolk?

Why not? He can guess that he was the first merman to ever be so close to you. How could you come to dislike people you’ve never really gotten to know? That doesn’t make any sense. If you were willing to help people despite your obvious discomfort, then surely you couldn’t be a hateful person.

An idea suddenly clicks in his head. Other humans must be telling you awful things about them!

Nodding with resolve, Luffy swam even closer. When he was right in front of you, he launched himself out of the water and wrapped his arms around you. You immediately tried to scream, but he was prepared for you to do that after your last interaction and slapped a hand over your mouth.

You kicked and thrashed in his arms, and it only increased as he began pulling you into the water with him. You’re definitely not weak, he’ll give you that, but you aren’t stronger than him either.

By the time he settles back into the water, you’re hysteric. You’re still trying to scream for help even with his hand in the way, and he can feel hot tears streaming down onto him. That makes him feel a little bad about what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to upset you, he just wants to show you that merfolk aren’t anything to be scared of.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you!” If you heard him, you made no indication that you did. You were still fighting him hard and digging your puny human claws into his arm. What were these people telling you that had you acting this terrified?!

Luffy became distracted as he picked up on more scents and heard doors being opened. It would seem that his hand wasn’t keeping you as quiet as he’d hoped, especially not with how much you were splashing in the water. Looks like you two are going to have to leave.

Pushing off, he hastily makes his way down the river and towards the ocean. You probably wouldn’t listen if he told you to hold your breath, so he settled for swimming with you balanced on top of his chest. This was easier said than done. Between swimming upside down and your squirming, he wound up dropping you into the water.

Bizarrely, you went from doing everything to get away from him to desperately reaching your arms out to his figure and holding on for dear life. Luffy pulled you back up onto him, patting your back as you hacked up the water you’d inhaled. Much to his relief, this experience seemed to have settled you down somewhat.

You didn’t look happy by any means, but you weren’t fighting against him anymore, so he considered this a victory. Seeing that there wasn’t anyone around, Luffy decided to try talking to you again, “Hi! I’m Luffy!”

“Please don’t drown me!” You sobbed, “I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you mad, please don’t kill me!”

Drown you? Kill you??? Luffy is completely bewildered by your pleas. Sure, he did drop you just now, but that was an accident! “Whoa there, no one is going to kill you! I’m sorry I dropped you, I didn’t mean to.”

“Then what do you want from me? Please just let me go, I promise I won’t tell anyone about this!”

What’s got you so damn freaked out? He doesn’t get it. How dangerous are the people around here that you’re so horrified by him? Does every new person you come across try to harm you? That must be the case.

“I wanted to see you again! Also, I want you to join my crew! You seem really nice, so I think you’ll fit in great,” Luffy beamed at you, not paying attention to how you recoiled from his teeth.

“Join your crew?! Are you insane?! I’m not one of you!” You spat out incredulously.

“What’s that got to do with anything? We don’t mind tugging you around in a boat,” Luffy didn’t really get why you were being so argumentative about this. He already told you that he’s not going to hurt you, what’s the hold up? These other humans must really have you brainwashed. Good thing he’s here to save you from them!

“I don’t want to be pulled around on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I want to go home!” You shrieked while frantically peering around to check your surroundings.

Much to Luffy’s relief, he’d finally made it out of the river and into the ocean. Once he’s gotten you away from this awful island, he’s sure you’ll calm down and be more willing to listen. You’ll love all the other crew members after you get to know them, he just knows it! You won’t even want to go back to this pathetic island after they’ve made friends with you.

“You’re back already? Could you not- You’ve got to be kidding!” Sanji surfaced and swam straight at you two. “You really thought it was a good idea to drag them out here just like that?”

You cringed away from the new shark and looked like you were about to faint. Luffy couldn’t help but puff out his chest in pride as you clung onto him, obviously a part of you recognized that he could protect you.

“I had to! Other humans showed up, and I couldn’t just leave them all alone there!” Luffy nuzzled his face into your hair, choosing to ignore the way you shuddered from the contact. You’re probably just a little cold.

“That’s bullshit! No one came out until after you dragged me in!”

Sanji’s eyes narrowed at Luffy, “This is why we didn’t want you to go alone, you have no tact!”

“Like you would have done any better! You would’ve just creeped them out if you’d gone,” Nami jabbed. Sanji sulked away, not even attempting to plead his case. Nami, on the other hand, swam closer to you, eyeing you up curiously. She reached out to experimentally tug on your wet clothing, not paying any mind to how uncomfortable you looked.

Chopper was the next to appear. You were definitely surprised by his appearance, but seemed more confused than scared by him. The doctor went right up to you, visibly concerned, “Luffy! You can’t just drag a human into the water like this! It’s cold enough that they could get hypothermia if we don’t get them someplace dry soon!”

You latched onto this immediately, “Y-Yeah, you should take me back to shore before I get sick!”

“Don’t worry, I got this covered!” Franky pulled a self made boat over, “It’s not much yet, but I’ve got biiiig plans for this thing.” The boat in question looked like a small house boat. There weren’t any doors on it, just an open three walled structure for shelter.

“Oooh, good thinking, Franky!” Luffy happily approached the boat and heaved you onto it. The second you were out of his arms, you scrambled into the walled off part of it. You stared at them with wide eyes with your back pressed up against one of the walls.

More of his crew appeared, wanting to get a good look at you now that you weren’t actively running away from them. With each head that popped out of the water, you curled in on yourself more and more.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? What if other humans come after us to get them back? Don’t we have enough enemies already?” Usopp was hanging back, still skittish about this whole idea.

“Of course it is! They’re our friend now, so we’ll protect them!” Luffy pulled himself up onto the boat while you shrank back even farther. He turns to face you, grinning even wider than he already was, “Don’t worry about all those awful humans on that island, we won’t let them hurt you!”

“What are you talking about? Everyone there is-”

“Very dangerous and spreading lies about what merfolk are like! You don’t need to say anything, I already figured it out,” Luffy nodded proudly.

“You didn’t figure shit out, you maniac!”

No one listened to you, and there was a chorus of groans from the merfolk. This was hardly anything new to them, humans always assumed the worst of them.

Admittedly, Luffy didn’t have a long term plan for what to do with you yet, but he’s already made it this far without ever making any plans. Everything will fall into place soon enough, and you’ll learn to be grateful for his extremely considerate rescue.

#one piece #yandere one piece #one piece x reader #one piece x you #one piece x y/n #monkey d luffy #luffy #nami #cat burglar nami #sanji #black leg sanji #cyborg franky #franky the cyborg #tony tony chopper #usopp #yandere #platonic yandere #merfolk au

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bucknastysbabe · 4 months

Note

hi cal! i love your page sm. i wanted to request more chubby bucky (i’m so obsessed & haven’t seen him in a min) also make sure to take care of yourself and have a good day/night 🩷

HI!!!! Sorry I’ve been such a spazz and awful about my page and askbox I’m in my new era blah blah but YES! CHUBBY BUCKY! Thanks for the well wishes I’m trying to practice ~self care~ and ~time management~ mwah mwah much love. So let’s say this just in the same universe as Poolside Blues!

Rating: Explicit

Tags: TW: body dysmorphia, obsessive thoughts, negative body talk, Muscle chub Buck, Bucky’s shit self esteem is saved by sunshine gf, holiday weight gain, Bucky being a stubborn mf, switch!Bucky, reader has empathic projection, horny texts, body worship, WE LOVE SOFT PARTS AND STRETCH MARKS ROUND HERE, teasing, sub space, daddy kink, pnv!sex, cuddles and fluff, Bucky is just a big cuddly tiger kitty

“Bucky if you stare at the scale any longer I’m going to break it. Holidays are over, you can get back to being in the gym twenty-five eight.”

Bucky eyed his petite girlfriend, frowning from the doorway to the bathroom. He palmed his stupid fucking gut and sighed, he actually had to suck in to see the number! This is why Bucky hated the holidays. Besides being cold. James Buchanan Barnes very much disliked the cold, one could assume why.

He could handle the residual un-moveable pudge leftover from Hydra’s ever consistent tinkering with his bodily functions. But then it all started with Halloween. Wanda and his girlfriend loved to bake. So he’s getting force fed cookies. Then they need to decorate, go to functions, give out candy. No time for gym.

Bucky grumbled and stepped off the scale, padding to his closet. He grumbled more, “Stupid turkey holiday.” Great yes, the holiday known for feasting. Pumpkin spiced everything in his vision. Bucky had a weakness for pumpkin, his ma made good spiced bread. He took a short vacation with his lovely little angel to the mountains. He tried to rationalize that hiking and marathon sex would make up for the amount of food he had ingested.

Tony Stark of course had a grandiose Thanksgiving celebration. Bucky tried to keep it light, he did, he really did. But every refusal got sad eyes or downright offense. The former winter soldier was belly up by the end of the night, all gym plans out the window.

Christmas fared no better. His best gal absolutely adored Christmas. It was the first holiday she’d experience not as an asset to Hydra, just like Bucky. So instead of RUNNING or LIFTING, the Brunette was shopping and ice skating. He’d already gone up a size in clothes December 3rd to be exact. Bucky correctly guessed he would go up another post-Christmas.

He’d whinge and rant to Steve, the blondie listening and telling Bucky to chill— it’s not like anyone thought it was bad. Bucky exasperatedly shouted, “I’m like a goddamn balloon! I don’t need to be on missions like this! I’m going to Bruce, jerk.”

“Punk.”

Bruce didn’t help either. Just said once he got back into a routine it would come off and he’d be at his regular weight. Refused to give Bucky Ozempic either. Some kinda doctor he was, his patient was obviously distraught.

“Are you dressed yet?,” she hollered.

“Give me a second!,” Bucky pouted.

He was going to pout today. Go to gym, get anger out, and pout. So he shimmied on some catastrophically tight basketball shorts and the biggest shirt he could find. Luckily it covered him up. May or may not have been a panic buy. Bucky cursed some more sitting on his bench to lace up his shoes, stupid gut getting in the way.

Red faced and irritated he snarked, “Happy now princess? I’m going to the gym, nothing is stopping me, I will be going to work out.” She grinned and watched him grab his bag, slapping a round ass cheek on his way out. Bucky shuddered at the wobble. Her familiar rasp rang out, “Nice ass baby! Go get em!”

He was too old for this. Technically his girl was ten years his junior if you took off the cryogenic time. He loved her dearly, always bubbly, somehow remained optimistic after all she’d been through. But the little freak liked Bucky’s pudge, loved it. Always grabbing up on it.

Bucky took the stairs to the gym. He needed it. The brunette thought with a smirk that if he had a nickel for every time he had to remove her hands from his ‘handles of love’ he would’ve been a millionaire back during the Depression. He grimaced at the feeling of his chubby tummy and thick thighs.

Finally. He’d made it. Gym time.

Not a soul in sight, Bucky could just relax and get his frustrations out. With a fuck-ton of a cardio and some toning exercises— really didn’t need any muscle to bulk him out more. He felt a bit peaceful for once, a strange bravado coming over him. The soldier stretched his unused muscles and did a bit of breathing exercises.

God, he already felt lighter. Maybe. Maybe he would take a picture and see if the camera made him look different. Bucky’s therapist already hammered him about his ‘body dysmorphia and negative self-image’.

Taking a peak about and tying his hair half up, Bucky propped the camera at a flattering angle and yanked off his shirt. He refused to look in a mirror for the holidays unless he was clothed. Fiddling with the inane controls, the man finally had the thing on a timer. He pulled off his shirt and tried to pose, straighten up his back again.

The flash went off and he ran to the phone, hit send, then sat down on a nearby bench to look fully. The brunette had to keep his ‘body positive!’ thoughts at the forefront. His chest and legs looked good. Face didn’t look too puffy thanks beard.

Disgust picked the earlier bravado up and hulk smashed it. Buck’s eyes were glued to his rounded belly and fat hips, a muffin over those horrid shorts. There, oh my god, there were stretchmarks on him? Bucky never had stretchmarks! Not the red kind! But there they were— mocking him. Ragged lines on his hips and sections of stomach.

He deleted the picture, feeling horrid. He should run more. But not before the pings blowing up his phone. She was strange and texted in 5 different messages that could’ve been sent in one singular text.

“Babbbbyyyy omg you’re so hot”

“Fuck, I’m getting all flustered in this debrief.”

“Look at that pretty body. Wanna lick those pretty stripes, tiger.”

“I’m so horny lmfao get your ass back to the room in 30. I’m gonna fucking ride you so goddamn hard.”

Bucky blinked a bit, feeling himself perk up. He still was a overblown balloon, but at-least the weirdo he loved enjoyed it. “Tiger huh,” he murmured, scratching at the sensitive marks. Bucky had a time limit now, snatching his gear up and stuffing it into a bag, hustling down the stairs to his room.

“Hey Buck,” Sam’s voice was a blur as Bucky entered his room. He smirked a bit hearing a muffled, “Weird ass.” The super soldier kept his mind on the prize— getting the daylights fucked out of him by his girls. Nope he wasn’t going to pay attention to the chafe on the inside of his thighs one bit. Okay...maybe he’d powder the area after the shower.

All he had to do was wait now. Wait. Not get nerved about his very naked body. He felt like a pile of exposed lard but it’ll be okay. Yep. Bucky would be fine. Pussy would fix his problems. As long as she played nice and didn’t tease. That rendered Bucky into a teary, babbling mess. Either he was always a masochist or Hydra made him into one but God— sometimes when she got mean he saw stars.

The door busted open, Bucky feeling relief at her grinning face. She gently closed it behind her, stripping easily while throwing her panties at him. He caught the material, moaning softly as she growled, “See what you did to me in the middle of that debrief? Had to cut it short my pheromones were so bad.”

Bucky inspected the panties, eyes fluttering at the slick wetting the cloth. He gripped and inhaled, hand flying down to soothe his cock. A lithe body crawled to the end of the bed, the soldier flushing as she seated herself in between his thighs. Keeping him in fucking missionary, her manicured nails spreading him a bit. He gasped, body jolting at the exposure.

Her perky tits heaved as she groped at his thighs and slid down to get handfuls of his round ass. Bucky threw his head back and moaned, “W-What are you up to?” Earlier mentioned pheromones were making his body keyed up and sensitive, pupils likely swallowing up blue eyes. She leaned forward, taught body against his cock.

“Mmm- I don’t know really. You just looked so delicious,” she kissed his belly and cooed, “I know you’re upset with yourself right now, Buck, you’re fucking gorgeous. Holiday weight or not. But I’ll even go to the gym with you, know I’ve been a distraction.”

Bucky slurred a name, hands reaching for her waist, she was so sweet. He sighed, “I enjoyed you as my distraction, best disss-traction everrr. Fuck you’re makin’ me horny babydoll.” She crawled up his bigger body to plant a kiss on Bucky’s swollen lips before sliding back to her place. His cock leaked when she giggled, “I know, poor baby’s all achy for me. But I wanna do something first.”

She slid palms up and down Bucky’s muscled arms, soothing him a little. Then the she-devil gripped his chunky love-handles and shook, watching with poorly-disguised glee. Bucky whined, “Baaaby, stoppp, it’s awful!”

“Think of them as tiger stripes, they’ll fade out when you drop weight,” she dug under where his belly hung a bit and traced at his most sensitive stretch marks. Bucky let out an indecent noise, thrusting up into her sweet touch. The fellow avenger cooed, “S’that feel good tiger? Need some lotion. Pretty boy.”

Bucky outright whimpered when her hand wrapped around his weepy cock, already slick from copious pre. She slowly moved her hand, praising him. Pretty boy, smart, handsome, good, kind, helpful.

He was going to bust a nut before anything happened. Bucky barked, “B-babe, stop! Stop!” Her pretty brows knitted together, hand jerking away as she asked, “What’s wrong bub?” He panted, “Gimme a second, w-wanna fuck you so baaaad.” She gently stroked the outside of thick muscled thighs, padded with love in her opinion.

“Thought I was going to ride you?,” she asked, face beginning to flush.

Bucky shook his head, managing to push himself up to get face-to-face. His soft body filled the tight space between them, making her whimper now. Bucky used one hand to caress the side of her face, the other massaging her pretty tit. Long lashes fluttered, her lips falling open.

Score. He managed to somewhat fumble through the pheromone fog.

Bucky rumbled, “Nuh-uh, all this talk about my body and you don’t want me to pin you down and fill your pretty pussy up? Hm sweetheart?” He punctuated the sentence with a deep kiss, the sweet thing easily giving up to him. It was fun when she played mean but Bucky had more experience— he could play his girl like a fucking fiddle.

“C’mon,” smack, “use your,” smack, “words baby,” smack smack. She didn’t want to stop kissing, sucking on his bottom lip as he pulled away. She blushed, embarrassed on how fast the situation had flipped. His girl whined, “Yeah, c’mon fuck me, fuck me full daddy.” He grinned and laid back, strong arms pulling her atop him.

She squealed, eyes widening. Bucky purred, “You know what to do, Daddy’ll let you on top.” He bit his swollen lip again watching the tip of his clock get swallowed by molten heat, the pair of them shuddering in ecstasy. Her little hands planted on his chest, panting and whining at the fullness. He’d get to work, holding that pretty waist and fucking up into her tight cunt.

It wasn’t long before she was crying out and laying atop his body, gasping, “Y’feel so good! Ah! Soft and oh god s’fucking hard!” Bucky sucked at her neck and thrust into her with downright pornographic slaps. He grunted and gasped, legs wonderfully getting another workout.

He murmured into her ear, a hand stilling all that writhing the poor thing was doing, “Yeah doll? Daddy fucking you good? Feels good to lay on Daddy and get your pussy pounded huh?” She sobbed, clenching and spilling tears on his neck, “Yes daddy! Yes! Don’t stop, fuckfuckfuck, s’rubbing my clit! I love you Daddy!”

Bucky’s eyes crossed for a second. What?

The evil flab that curses his very existence is a free clit rubber? He moaned in delight. Bucky changed their position some to milk out that new fact. Might as well abuse it before it’s gone. His baby was clinging to him now, mewling his name, pussy spasming sporadically. Bucky tilted her head up, melting at her pretty eyes. He rasped, “Come for Daddy baby, know you’re close, let go babydoll.”

He was grinding the tip of his cock into her soft spot while cooing at her. She hiccuped on a sob, the entirety of lean frame tightening down on him. His baby was a lot stronger than she looked. He could feel her core clamp and soak his cock, sending Bucky reeling into his own orgasm with a hoarse shout. He whimpered at the feeling of his balls drawing painfully tight, emptying all he had pent up.

They laid in a pile of sweat and spend, probably love. She was still subbed out, nuzzling into Bucky, only making a soft noise when his soft cock slid out. The brunette guessed it was his turn to return her earlier favor. He felt like the man of the hour. Crazy little kitten thought her geriatric overweight cyborg assassin was hot. Even with the holiday pounds.

So he pressed little kisses, rubbed her back, waxed poetic nonsense of his love for her. Bucky was a lover boy back in the day, just a little rusty, not like his Babygirl was on planet Earth right now anyways. She murmured into his neck with a dopey smile, “Tiger.”

Once again, crazy fellow asset saving Bucky’s wavering self-esteem. How lucky was he?

#bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x reader #chubby!bucky x reader #chubby!bucky #fluff and smut

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salaciousdoll · 2 years

Text

Taiju’s Giant Dereliction

Pairings : Half! Giant/ Half! Vampire Taiju Shiba x Chubby! Fem! Reader

Encapsulation : Cyclopean City. The city of the abandoned and alive. City where you discover a lot of things that’s not supposed to be discovered

Warnings : smut, slight voyeurism, overstimulation, belly bulge( even if you’re plus size babes), oral( fem receiving), face sitting, cumming inside of mouth, breeding kink, magical au, riding, everything is big on Taiju, huge size kink, Taiju is 10’10( he’s a giant), guest appearances, cervix fucking, rough fucking, dirty talking, degrading/ praise, pet names( princess, doll, etc.), black coded reader, bl00d kink, bl00d sucking, vi******, and a surprise at the end

Word Count : 8.3k

18+ Spooky Barbies Allowed

Okay let’s see if this will work @festive. Thank you for letting me join your monster fuck collab

Walking down the dark, hollow walkway of Cyclopean city was something you never thought you would do. It’s an abandoned city, yet you’re here with your friends after they convinced you to come along with them.

Cyclopean city consisted of giant statues, giant buildings, cars, and all. Everything was so much bigger compared to you all. You felt like a tiny person every time you passed an abandoned car or building.

Your friend hooked his arm around you scaring the shit out of you, “ Awe come on, you can’t be that scared? Look at it this way, everything is abandoned. Nothing will come to life if you touch it or walk past it. I think this city is actually cool.”

Your girl best friend knocked his arm off you just to put hers right there in replacement, “ Yeah, the stupid fuck is actually right about the last part. This shit is dope because we’re so used to things being normal size. Okay, you can’t count buildings because buildings are always taller than everyone but these are like skyscrapers, don’t even get me started on the tall, wide ass doors. Wonder what they need it for?”

You came with a group of friends and were glad because of this situation right here. They’re slowly easing your mind from the creeping instinct you’re getting everytime you take a step.

You turned your head to talk to your best friend's girlfriend, “ How did you find this city Yessica? I didn’t even know this existed and I don’t think these goofballs knew either.” You could tell she was the most fascinated out of everyone because she hadn't complained not once and just been staring at things you all passed on the way to the big mansion.

“ My brother used to live in this city before it got abandoned. We didn’t have a great relationship but he taught me the hearts and crescents about the city.”, Yessica says while walking hand in hand with your best friend. She was showing you all the way to the mansion she “discovered”.

“ I can’t help but notice you used past tense when describing your brother so what happened to him and I thought you had another brother.”, Miu says. Sheis Justin’s girlfriend.

Yessica smiled showing her little teeth, “ My other brother moved away as soon as he died but luckily he still kept contact with me. I told him that I was visiting this city today. He pleaded for me not to go by myself, so I asked you all to come with me.”, She said with glowing eyes.

Her eyes weren't the only thing you were suspicious about. You were also focused on the way she was looking at you was very interesting considering that she’s licking her lips nonstop. You were almost certain she gave you a wink at the end of that sentence so you hurried and turned your head.

She can’t be flirting with you while being your best friend's girlfriend, that’s a boundary you will not cross, ever.

“ Yeah y/n, so loosen up. It’s not like her brother will come alive if he hears us talking about him, isn’t that right baby?”, your best friend says before kissing Yessica on the cheek. Yessica said nothing but smiled at the group, nodding her pretty little head afterwards.

You felt like she was leading you all to a trap but ignored that feeling when Justin decided to tap your shoulder saying the last one to the mansion is a rotten egg and had to give them their candy when they go trick or treating in a few weeks. He only said that since you could see the mansion from where you all were standing and man was it big. You were the chubbiest out of the group and he wanted to play a running game. They always do this and it’s starting to frustrate you because it’s like they’re trying to tell you something but hey maybe you’re reading too much into it. He can fuck off is what you wanted to say it you just went along with it because you thought you were gonna get made fun of for not even giving yourself a chance to run. Like they did previously when you were on the track field with them at your best friend practice.

“ I’ll give you all a head start, yall know y’all can’t match my stamina so please go ahead.”, You say, smirking at all of them. They all laughed before taking off. Justin turned around to point at you, “ You better not be lying, l/n. I’m gonna kill you if you are.”

You knew he was joking so you just stuck up your middle finger at him. You watched as all of them ran only to notice one wasn’t running with them. You looked around and couldn’t find Yessica anywhere and you were almost certain she was standing right beside you all.

You heard a seductive voice beside your ear, “ looking for me?” Your skin felt like it jumped from your entire body. She saw your fear and laughed loudly while holding her stomach. You stood there for a moment tryna regain your consciousness before raising your eyebrow at her, “ It’s not that funny and why aren’t you with them?”

She stopped laughing as soon as you asked that question and that scared you even more than what she did earlier. She walked to stand in front of you, taking in your body from head to toe, her eyes traveled back to your eyes, almost seeing herself from how deep she was looking in them, “ Can I show you something? I promise it’s not gonna be scary or anything. I just want to show you the place I always go to whenever I get a chance to visit this city.”

You were so hesitant to go, so you decided to speak up but before you even got the chance to, she beat you to it, “ Don’t worry, it’s just 2 mins away and then I’ll run back with you to the mansion, sounds good?”

You didn’t even get a chance to object before she started walking in the opposite direction of the mansion. You followed her in silence until she spoke again, “ How come you don’t tell them how you feel?”

Your eyes widened at her because you didn’t know what exactly she was talking about , “ What do you mean? Tell who?” Yessica smiled back at you before holding her hand out for you to take, “ Come on y/n, are you acting stupid or just plain stupid, either way my brother would enjoy you.” She tried to mumble the last part but you heard some of it. Only the brother part.

You held her hand only because of the night fog casting around you as you two walked further, “ What am I supposed to say? Oh, hey, you all make me uncomfortable when you do certain things and how you drag me into them, including you this time.” Yessica stopped in front of you before turning around to face you, “ It’s important for you to be here today, y/n. That’s why I dragged you out here along with those little bitches you call your friends. They always find a way to put you down, subliminally too. You just don’t see it but he did tonight and he’s not happy. Neither am I.”

Your expression was so cute to her because it was laced in confusion, “ Who the hell is he and why are you not happy about it? It’s your girlfriend doing it so I’m confused.”

“ That doesn’t mean shit if she’s participating in harming you. I get it, you don’t care and you're confident. I could practically smell it radiating off you, yet that causes you to be a little dumb to their jokes and subliminals. We’re gonna fix that for you. My brother and I. Say hi to my brother Taiju shiba, babe.”, Yessica says before pulling off a black wig to reveal her strawberry blonde hair making you step back, right into the hand of a statue almost falling as you didn’t even notice it was there.

You were in shock because your suspicions are always right, yet you never act on it until it’s too late, “ I gotta go Yess-” she did nothing but smiled at you while tapping the giant statue next to her, taking a ring off her finger next, “ It’s Yuzuha babe, I think I want to keep you for myself but knowing that my brother just heard that, I don’t think I can. You’re so perfect too, what a shame you have to go to a dick like him.”

You watched as every word she spewed out her mouth, she got bigger in size. You were too stunned to speak because you thought she said her brother died and for two, She’s getting so tall almost like the giant and the beanstalk. You always read or saw that book when you were little, now seeing it in person is too much for your brain to handle.

She bent down to talk to you, “ You got nothing to say, my darling?” You almost wanted to scream but from the way she was speaking you couldn’t. Her voice was so smooth and it calmed you like a hypnotic ringer going in and out of your ear.

You gulped, looking down at the ground before looking up at her, “ You were a giant all along, but how did you get back normal fucking size and who is Taiju shiba and what does he want with me? What the hell do you want with me? And how tall are you?”

“ Didn’t know you could be so talkative, I like it. He won’t though. Anyways, to put it into the simplest form, I’m a giantess and my brothers are giants. We were born like this but found a cheat link to become normal size when we discovered a spell, you should know where I’m going with this right?” You nodded your head while standing next to her. Even if she had to squat or peer down, she thought you looked so adorable.

Yuzuha continued to say, “ Taiju shiba is my dead brother babe, he’s right over here. You’re literally next to him, actually you’re standing on his hand. You see he’s alive, but he’s a statue due to an problem he had with people he fucked with, he’ll explain on his own time. To answer the last two questions, isn’t it obvious we want you to be ours, our lover, our wife, everything. It doesn’t have to be that fast but tonight he wanted to show you why he wants you, isn’t that sweet?” You could tell she has a strong hatred and love for him because of the look in her yellow-orange eyes.

She then looked at you with pity and you knew something was off, especially when she whispered, “ I’m sorry but it’s the only way. I’m 9’0 by the way. Never heard that before have you?” You for sure didn’t hear that, neither did you see when she cut your neck. You only felt liquid dripping down your neck.

She was easing your mind from panicking and asking questions when she spoke or asked questions to you. You were starting to think she was a siren but no she just had you under compulsion. She will make it up to you when you get done with her brother.

You were about to touch your neck to see if it’s real and you’re not hallucinating but Yuzuha kicked a rock, causing you to be distracted, “ Let’s head to the mansion shall we?” You nodded your head without even paying attention to your blood she took on her hand when she grabbed the back of your neck scaring you into oblivion but when you saw she meant no harm you calmed down. She was now rubbing your blood that was on her hand on to the statue's face. You just wanted to leave and forget about everything that happened here.

You were about to run off when Yuzuha placed her ring back on her finger making her human size again, she stopped you from running away, “ Wait up, listen you have to keep this a secret okay, I’m not gonna use compulsion this time, I want your full promise to me, so please don’t tell anyone not even my girlfriend who’s your best friend.” You didn’t miss the irritation in her voice when she said the girl friend part, but you let it go considering that she could turn back and crush you as a giantess. You also didn’t acknowledge her usage of compulsion. You were taught not to ever pick a fight you know you can’t win. There was also another side of you that is saying to never be scared to fight anyone, no matter the size or height.

So in turn, you just nodded your head without noticing a set of eyes opening as you turned back to Yuzuha holding out your pinky, “ Okay, I pinky promise, not because of you but because you’re gonna tell my best friend yourself and I am tired from all this information so let’s not talk about it while we arrive at this giant mansion. I bet you all lived here too.” Yuzuha laughed at the last sentence because you’re right and yet you don’t even know you’re walking into a lion's den.

You and Yuzuha walked in complete silence to the mansion. When you both arrived there was a huge gate with a snake in the form of an S. She lifted the snake and the gates opened just like that. You wondered if your friends managed to think of that before taking the shortcut but knowing them, it’s not possible.

You walked to the front door and saw it slightly opened meaning that your friends were in there, so you had no problem walking inside. Everything was so fucking huge in there, it was honestly scary and the darkness just added the haunting part. You were about to reach for Yuzuha’s arm when you couldn’t feel anything.

You looked on the side only to find no one there, so you did what a smart person would do, walk right back out, but the door slammed closed. You banged on it and tried to yank it open. To no avail, nothing worked. You didn’t want to yell because who knows what’s in this house and what sense does that make to yell like that when nobody can hear you. After all, this city is abandoned.

You brought out your phone for the flashlight and turned your back to the door. Your flashlight showed you a lot of statues you didn’t even see due to the dark. Your neck was still bleeding for some reason so you had no choice but to hold it while you walked through the tall statues. Maybe you could find your friends or the back door. Maybe this was a prank from Yuzuha or the others. Yeah, that’s it. You kept telling yourself that to ease your mind.

It was like the statues were lined up for a battle considering that they were facing each other and some were balling up their fists. You felt a creepy vibe from them. Your suspicions were correct when you saw your best friend's scarf on a medium size statue. He was still larger than any human, just not bigger than anyone else. Four others matched his size so at least he wasn’t the one one. It also looked like his hair was half up and half down once you flashed the flashlight on his face.

He almost looked possessed from how wide his eyes were but nevertheless you took her scarf, well tried until a deep voice rumbled throughout the mansion scaring you, “ I wouldn’t do that if I were you, he doesn’t like his things being touched or taken without permission, little one?”

You looked around and couldn’t see anybody, so you thought your mind was playing tricks. You tried to take it again, which had a different voice but with a harsh tone, “ You don’t listen do you, we’re gonna have so much fun with you.” The laugh that disrupted after was atrocious and evil and you were getting irritated so you spoke up for yourself, “ This not even his and I don’t even know who I’m tal-”

Suddenly a tall man appeared in front of you, bending down to the level of your flashlight making you almost piss yourself but luckily you peed before you left, so you just jumped back making him howl in laughter, “ You’re talking to me, little one.” He suddenly stood up after his boisterous laugh and held out his hand towards you, “ I’m sure my sister introduced us before, but the only catch is I didn’t get your name, little one.” You heard someone snicker in the back of you and was about to turn around until the giant man caught your chin in between his index and thumb, “ come on, princess, I’m an impatient man and want to know who’s invading my house without my permission, time’s ticking.”

“ Well then I’ll be on my way, don’t have to tell you my name if I didn’t invade so let’s just forget this happened and that you exist, yeah? Yeah.”, You were about to turn around and walk but you got lifted up by your arms like a bride, your mind wondered how fucking tall was this giant, if Yuzuha is 9’ feet how tall is he?

He held you in his arms Cinderella style, “ Nope, I just can’t forget my pretty intruder besides we’re destined to be together, didn’t Yuzuha tell you that!” You sighed loudly, “ So you’re Taiju shiba.. the one she lied and said was dead, how come you’re not dead now?”

He looked down at you with a striking smirk showing his canines, “ I’ll show you why in a minute. You’re awfully calm about being held by a 10 feet 10 giant. Why is that princess?”

You hated the nickname when you were younger— now it sounded so perfect and fitting coming out his mouth. You’re actually glad he dropped the little one nickname because you were in no way little in weight but size compared to him and the other steel statues you were around.

You paid attention to his features, admiring them. He wasn’t steel like the others since he wasn’t a statue anymore. He was actually pretty and his nose was big along with everything else. It was like he was crafted with sugar, honey, etc. basically he was crafted with the good stuff. You also hated that when he mentioned his height, your pussy quivered from the excitement of being in his arms. This was the first time you were being held by a man without any worries of if you’re too heavy or if he’s gonna drop you. You had no doubt you would feel the same if he was his human size.

You honestly had another question in your mind but when you finally gained consciousness to who’s holding you it was too late considering he’s sitting down in a large chair with you on his lap and now you’re without your specific question in mind.

How did he move so fast and why didn’t you hear his steps like giant steps were supposed to be heard?That was your next question so you blurted it out while he peered down at you with yellow venom eyes that reminded you of a viper snake or some type of dangerous animal. They weren’t calm, they were full of madness and honestly you were scared when you didn’t get your answer right away.

Taiju blue hair fell down crowding his face a little as he peered down at you while holding onto your back with one hand, “ If I tell you that I would have to kill you and I already have that on my mind especially when you look so helpless right now with dried blood making a pattern down your neck, so don’t push it by asking questions that would get you killed.”

You were starting to think he had a blood kink from the way he threw his head back when he mentioned your predicament at hand.

“ Just one more question, if you were that statue by me and Yuzuha, how are you a human giant right now instead of a steel giant? What I’m trying to say is how did you ge-”, his finger pushed inside of your mouth making you gag from the impact and suddenness of a finger going to the back of your throat. You coughed loudly and tried to move your head back so you could breathe but his other hand was right there holding your head. He was prepping you while answering your questions, yet you didn’t need to know that now.

He watched with amusement at how much of his finger you took into your throat. He was two line veins down— the line veins on your finger to be exact. You were already gagging, he couldn’t wait for his dick to be lodged down your tiny little throat.

“ your blood is how I became what you call a''human ``. In fact, I’m not a human at all and that’s insulting to me that you would think that out of your pretty little head. Gotta say, doll, your blood smelled and tasted amazing and I’m sure the others can agree with me, only they didn’t get a chance to taste your blood, hell I didn’t get the full experience, so why don’t you let me get a taste of you; you would like that wouldn’t you?”, Taiju says, taking his finger out your mouth watching your saliva disconnect from his finger as you get your coughing fits out prior to tilting your neck at an acute Angle, baring his teeth at you with a hiss.

He was about to bite you but you had other plans, “ Before you kill me, can I ask you one more question and can I give you an answer to a question you asked me?” He raised an eyebrow at you and leaned back against his chair again, “ go on, pretty girl.”

You cleared your throat, “ you wanna know why I’m so calm? It’s because I expected this. I put the pieces together in my mind about Yuzuha and made the connection that she was using my best friend to lore me here. It’s a complicated assumption by the way. So, I decided to accept my fate because what can I do against a fucking giant? Absolutely nothing so why try to do it? Now on to the question, why does that last statue have my best friend’s scarf that was around her neck? What did you do to her?”

He put his hand on his heart with a fist, “ I’m wounded that you think we would do something to them. I have no intention of touching them. They’re not important, but I know where they shouldn’t be— Here. They shouldn’t be here because you are shifting way too much and you’re waking something down there, you mind helping me out, pretty doll.” You almost let out an audible moan when you felt his large erection under you. He was bigger than the norm and it was expected but not. You hope he doesn’t think it’s going inside of you.

“ I don’t think that’s gonna fit and besides you don’t even know my name.”, You say, trying to hold eye contact with him, failing miserably too. Taiju took your hand in his, “ What is your name, princess?”

The low vibrations of his voice was everything you needed to hear to open the floodgates below you. He was so sexy and you honestly wanted him from the moment he scared you. You like the thrill and spooks, just not too extreme. This wasn’t extreme, yet.

“ Y/n, L/N. Nice to meet you.”, You say with a little smile on your lips.

Taiju brought his head down to kiss you on your hand, “ Nice to meet you, y/n. Now we can have the fun you so badly desired since the moment you saw me or maybe even walked past the other statues. You like big things, hmm?” You almost wanted to hide in embarrassment because he was right, you just hoped that he doesn’t know you have a size kink. It’s not gonna be good for you when he does find out.

“ I, um, I really don’t. It gives me macrophobia.”you we’re trying to slide down but you just ended up making Taiju groan before holding you in place by your ass, “ Please for the love of God, stop moving or else I’m gonna fuck you and not give a damn about how you can’t take it.”

You shouldn’t have been turned on by that but you were and man did he smell it, you were confused on why he was peering down at you with nothing but hunger and lust in his dark yellow eyes, “ You and I both know that you have a size kink. Give me permission and it’s done. Satisfied. Fulfilled. Your word against mine princess, I’m a changed man so I’ll let you decide your fate; be killed, live happily knowing you are never going to be stastified, or fuck me until we both satisfied?”

You gasped up at him at the end because why would he say that out loud and so casual. Were you that good at reading since he found out about your size kink too? Some may say you’re childish but you’re not. It just caught you off guard and you liked it. So you choose the only option you could choose.

“ Good, good girl. Now sit on my face, baby doll. You won’t regret it.”, Taiju says, flashing his canines again. His pointy teeth were starting to grow every time he smiled and this only confirmed your suspicions about him being half vampire. You didn’t mind the giant part but vampire? You kinda did mind because he could kill you at any moment just by draining your blood. He could also kill you by stepping on you. Oh you would honestly love to be thrown around and stepped on by a man this size, this is what they call down bad. You were down bad for him just as he was with you.

Taiju made his way to his bed, a few inches from his chair, and laid down with his hands behind his head. You felt like a tinkerbell in human form since the man was 10’10. No matter how tall you were, he was taller. You lifted up your shirt exposing your pretty bra causing him to lick his lips at how pretty the outline of your titties were in your bra you wore.

“ Giving me a little strip tease before I deflower you, how sweet? Such a generous woman. Now speed it up, would you? I’m getting impatient.”, Taiju says while sitting up to take his black v neck shirt off letting his tattoos show and most importantly, his man-boobs to show. Fuck was he gorgeous to you. His blue hair was all the way down now and it added more to his beauty. You moved off of him to stand in front of his bed before hearing stuff move behind you. Before you could look, Taiju kissed you on your lips. How he got to you so fast was beyond you. You knew he was trying to distract you from something because of the way he suddenly kissed you. If he asked for permission to fuck you why would he kiss you without your permission now.

You opened your mouth when you felt his hand unbutton or slide down the rest of your clothes leaving you in your bra and panties. You felt so cold and felt even more cold now that your body is engulfed with him at the moment. His skin makes you feel like that. It was cold. Icy even. Taiju pushes his tongue in your mouth and in an instant you suck on it in desperation. Your hands were on his chest and he loved the feeling of your warm hands on him. This was the warm feeling he wanted for centuries. Inside and outside.

As you two continued kissing, Taiju couldn’t help his hand exploring your rolls and roundness that illustrated on your body. Your body was so perfect to him whether you had ass or not, too. He was addicted to the way you were shaped, the confidence you possessed, and the way your skin glowed . And it wasn’t an fetish, it was an obsession, only with you though. It first started when Yuzuha came talking about her girlfriend and her friends to Hakkai when they had their bi-weekly sibling dinner.

She should’ve never mentioned you or described how you look, showing a picture on top of that. He could tell she had a crush on you but he was determined to get you first, so he plotted even if he was still a statue. He was already mad he couldn’t eat with them since they were sitting down in front of him eating their favorite food and he got even madder once he realized Yuzuha was mocking and teasing him with a picture of you. At the time, he could only move his eyes and he was glad for that especially when he saw your face.

One day, he was glad he could move and feel his fingers. Some of the steel was breaking off. It’s been too long, way too long. He never lost his intelligence, so he came up with a plan. In the next two weeks, Yuzuha and Hakkai came to visit again and in coming to visit they saw his message against the wall next to him. It looked like it was a rock he used, however Yuzuha didn’t like his message about you being his, so she and Hakkai went on their merry way without sitting down and eating with him. They’ve been doing that ever since he’s been in steel, suddenly they stopped visiting for months after that incident of Yuzuha getting very angry at Taiju. He knew why and it made him laugh. Now he’s laughing and smiling on the inside because he finally got the girl. His girl.

Taiju unhooked your bra in a swift move, your hands immediately fled to cover your tits but he pulled them down and held your hands in his right hand while continuing his attack of kisses on your lips. He was pecking them over and over now. He adored you and you just didn’t know it. The stretch marks that paraded your boobs, he adored. The stretch marks across your stomach and thighs, he adored. He finally remembered the wide smile you possessed in the picture she showed him and he adored it ever since.

He then pulled back and looked you in your eyes, “ Now sit that pretty fat pussy on my face, princess. After all, It’s what a princess deserves right.” Your cheeks heated up and you hated that you smiled whenever they did that. You were blushing at the moment and he knew you were, which caused him to let out a little laugh. You climbed on the bed with your tits out, your nipples were hard due to the cold air but you digress because that’s the least of your worries.

You were now up to Taiju neck—both of your thighs caging him in on his shoulders, “ are you ready?” Taiju raised an eyebrow, “ Getting bold are we? The question is are you ready ?” He stuck his tongue out and man was it long like a snake, it curled too. You were so going to enjoy every minute of this. You got your knees on either side of his head now, since you moved up a bit. Your pussy hovered over his tongue teasing him and he was growing aggravated until you moved your panties to the side revealing your wet, slick pussy. You were so wet and he wanted to devour you and that’s exactly what he did once you plopped down on his face throwing your head back in the direction his tongue was going. Up and down.

His tongue was moving in a wavy motion when it entered your tight little pussy hole, you clamped down on his tongue as much as possible without causing his tongue any pain. Your moans were so hot to him, “ Aah fuck yes, keep doing that Tai, fuck!!” His nickname rolled off your tongue and he loved it. Just like he loved the smell and taste of your pussy, he wanted to drown in it, maybe even die in it. He always wanted to die a happy man and this was the chance.

You couldn’t help but to move your hips back and forth as soon as he took his tongue out of your hole to suck on your pussy. The slurps and other nasty lewd sounds he made filled the opening room of the mansion along with your moans bouncing off the walls of the mansion. Everytime you moved up, his nose bumped your clit over and over again making you move even faster. His tongue matched your pace in full figure 8.

You felt his quiet moans against your pussy making you even more feral, “ shit! I think I’m close, Tai— I’m fucking close. Ohh your tongue feels so good and you look so good with your face buried in my pussy right now.” Your words caught everyone off guard because they thought you were the quiet type, you felt like eyes were on you two but you didn’t dare bend your head back and take a peak. You wanted your orgasm and you were gonna get it especially at how Taiju was talking to your pussy while now flicking his tongue over your clit, “ This pussy is so fucking good, you’re getting this treatment every day from now on.” He was talking in between slurps and you absolutely adored the hell out of that shit.

You gripped his blue and white hair tightly in between your fingers and peered down into his eyes, “ Your eyes, they’re Augh! Fuck! Yes.” Taiju knew what his eyes were doing because he could feel it in his veins, they were turning red and his pupils were dilating.

Taiju saw that you were trying to raise your hips a little to the action of his tongue around your clit, biting it afterwards creating a hiss from your throat. He pulled back and shook his head— releasing a glob of spit on your already wet pussy making you squirm at the warm and icky feeling. He then reached up and held your love handles/ hips down prior to him stuffing his face in your pussy after slamming you onto his face without even caring if you broke his neck or not.

Your thick thighs were crowded around his head tightly as he licked around your pussy in a zigzag motion, you knew right then and there, you were about to cum.

“ Tai, I can’t hold on, ughh! I'm Cummin' your tongue. Your tongue. Your tong- holy shit!”, You spewed out nonsense as your body shook on top of his face, his chuckles only made you shake even more. Your ears were ringing and this was the first time this happened to you. You couldn’t even think as you came on his tongue and lips not giving any fucks about your cum getting on half of his face.

You didn’t even notice that you were torturing yourself when you kept moving your hips against his tongue without any of his help, yet you were blaming him, “ Taiju, please stop I can’t anymore. Mmgh!”

Taiju snapped his head back and you fell back on his large torso, he let out the loudest laugh you ever heard, “ What are you sayin’ princess? You’re the one who kept going even when my tongue wasn’t moving or hands were gripping at your wide ass hips. You were fuckign amazing now let’s see how amazing you are at taking my dick, yeah?”

You felt your panties slip back over your pussy, later getting yourself lifted into his arms again making sure to switch places with you. You were the one lying on the bed with a tired expression on your face while he stood before you peering down at your figure, “ You are one beautiful woman, the greatest I ever encountered. I want you to prove that to me, though. You don’t get that title without putting in any work my pretty little slut. Do you think you could take me?”

He pulled his pants and underwear down in one drop, your eyes widened at his size. It was almost insane how big he was. You couldn’t even count the inches but you knew it was past 9 inches that’s for sure. It was thick and laced with pretty veins scattered all over his dick. You felt like if you took his dick, you would break. Luckily for you, you always accepted a challenge . This was definitely gonna be a challenge.

If you were to describe his dick, it would be pretty but dangerous, kinda like you. It curved a little to the left and the little happy trail that trailed to his dick was the same color as his hair color, blue. And the tip was just as fat as the rest of his dick. How the fuck are you supposed to take this again?

“ Don’t worry, princess. I got you. Not gonna hurt you so ease up for me, can’t have you timid before I even get the chance to fuck that pretty fat pussy of yours.”, Taiju says before reaching to the side to get a bottle that has the words Lube Life on it. He knew you wouldn’t be able to take all of him so he was glad Yuzuha brought a bottle of lube for her to use on her strap when she gets the chance to fuck you.

The blue hair giant leaned down to kiss you on the lips with gentleness, the most he ever displayed within meeting you. You both forgot about the statues in the hallway connected to the room when you two connected with each other. Taiju loved the feeling of your lips on his, now. The kiss lasted as long as he was putting two squirts of lube on his cock, eager to enter you. You reached down and grabbed his hand that’s on his cock, “ Come on, big boy. Let me do it for you, please?”

Taiju smiled before nodding his head. You could say he was at a loss of words from your boldness. You kept surprising him and he was starting to love you even more. His elbows were on either side of your smaller body holding him up as you stroke him up and down. His head was in your neck muffling his own whimpers in embarrassment because of the way you were making him feel just off two strokes.

You unhook your hand from his cock and lifted yourself up to take off your panties, letting the air breeze by your clit earning a whimper from you. Taiju lifted his head to look at you, watching as you now held eye contact with him while laying back again, “ Are you ready, princess?” You gulped before nodding your head. He tapped his cock against your pussy three times and so thin the third time he slid his heavy cock over the slit of your pussy making you moan at the feeling. You were going to request a pussy job later because that felt too good.

Your eyes widen when you felt the head of his cock pushing inside, “ Holy fuck! It hurts. It hurts.” It felt like you were a virgin getting your virginity taken again. You were whining with your eyes shut tightly and mouth parted slightly at the impact of him going inside of your walls, not even taking the time to see the crave in Taiju’s eyes as he kept pushing in slowly, “ Come on, baby. You could take it. Relax for me, take a deep breath and the pain would be over in a quick second.”

You tried to relax but you couldn’t. He was too big for you, so you thought about the first thing that helps you relax, nothing. Absolutely nothing helped you relax, so you kept trying to move up while Taiju was tightly holding on to your hips disregarding your fupa covering his hand. Not like he cared in the first place, “ Y/n!”

The way his voice echoed throughout the room should be a sin. You could tell he was mad so you cracked open one eye seeing the most angriest face you ever seen, “ don’t make this hard for both of us, now relax or I’m gonna make you relax my own way, unless you want to stop completely.”

Your thoughts were complicated because on one hand you wanted to find out how he’s gonna calm you down but on the other you wanted to save yourself from the pain. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

“ Taiju, I want to do this but I’m just scared, that's all. Never had a dick that big inside of me so spare me the anger okay?!”, You yelled at him. You saw one of his eyes twitch and then he leaned down to whisper in your ear, “ Don’t ever raise your voice at me and now I’m pissed. Fuck angry, I’m pissed. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?! Better not be me! ”

You always thought pissed came before you were angry but he seems to think otherwise. Your thoughts were interrupted when you felt teeth breaking into your skin. He was sucking your blood while bullying his cock into you. You tried to move his head but he grabbed your wrist, putting them in his right hand above your head and kept sucking blood from you. Both of your wrists could fit into one hand and that scared you. Nevertheless, it wasn’t more scary than Taiju sucking your blood. He wasn’t sucking a lot which was weird but you were still weirded out that he was a vampire and a giant. You bite your lips containing the screams erupting from your throat. Taiju thrusted back and forth inside of your pussy as he sucked on your neck.

“ Ahh, it’s too much, I don’t think you could fit anymore inside.”, You screamed out, finally giving in to him sucking your blood. You were surprised that he fit half of him inside of your gaping pussy now. Your walls were shaping for his cock and his cock only. They fluttered in excitement when he moved more inches inside of your pussy.

He suddenly snapped his neck back while his hips snapped forwards making your scream and drag your nails down his back creating blood, “ Fucking hell, baby. Your pussy is shaping for me so I couldn’t resist adding more of me inside of you where I rightfully belong. Aaah shit! Hang on for me a little longer princess, don’t want your first orgasm off my cock to be me just sitting inside of this beautiful pussy now. Keep fuckin’ scratchin’ me baby, mark your territory .”

You looked up with an open mouth and blurry eyesight due to your tears falling down your face. You could t believe you took almost all of him, “ Tai, I feel so full but can you please move, it’s burning and hurting. Please ease my pain again. Just not with that method, please.”

Your voice was low and he knew you were done for. His cock was gonna be the only name you could think of for now and forever.

Your blood dripped off Taiju’s lips and cock. This was something you never thought you’d be into as you gaze between him and the opening of your pussy while sitting up on your elbows, “ Please fuck me!” The pain was intense yet so was the pleasure. Taiju smiled before leaning a little of his body weight on you, crowding your body into his arms with his head on the other side of your neck, opposite of the bite he created, “ Kahhh, your pussy sucks me in so well, such a pretty good girl you are. Allowing me to corrupt you even if someone already beat me to the punch the first time. How naughty you are.”

He was moving in and out of your squelching, hot pussy slowly while kissing and sucking on your neck with his right hand now caressing your rolls as he held you in his arms on the bed. You felt like you were being used as a pillow from the way he held you tightly against him, almost like he didn’t want to let go in fear of you leaving.

Little whimpers and moans were coming from your mouth. You chanted his name like it was the only thing you knew from the beginning of time. His dick was pushing into your cervix and it hurts so good to you. You discovered that you must have some sort of pain kink in order to be enduring what you are right now, “ uuh! Taiju move a little bit faster, I think I’m close.”

Taiju obeyed your orders and he never obeys anyone orders so this was a surprise for him and them. The bed creaked underneath you two as he moved inside of your pussy faster than before. Your juices were coaxing his cock just right and he couldn’t do anything but moan into your neck. His body sweat was mixing with yours as he fucked your into dumbness.

Your legs tried to wrap all the way around Taiju’s hips but he was too big so one leg was attached to his hips and the other was falling down his hips. Taiju hair stuck to his forehead crowding his eyes making himself irritated because hair was getting in his eyes and he couldn’t see you take his cock. His moans were so pleasing to you because they were deep as hell for one, “ Fuck, just like that. A fucking vixen you are sucking me in like this while whispering too big over and over under your breathe. You like this, don’t you? You like my cock fucking you like this, hmm? Nngh, you can’t even fucking respond.”

Indeed you couldn’t because you’ve had your second orgasm for the day, “ nuhh, Tai— I’m cummin’, m’cummin”. Your body shook underneath him as your eyes rolled back into your head in pure exhilaration. You saw nothing but whiteness as you came onto his cock. Taiju wished he could've taken a picture of your face while you came. Taiju placed butterfly kisses all over your face before fucking you through your orgasm. He needed his release too and he was going to get it from the way he was drilling inside of your already fucked out pussy.

Your screams and his moans were combining and echoing off the walls as he tried not to push more into you than what you could handle while chasing his own orgasm. Your walls were fluttering around him as he rocked your body in sync with his own hips. You could feel something poking your belly and Taiju could too, you didn’t think it was possible until you looked down with blurry eyes. You took your hands to whip away at your tears while he continued to fuck you, just now with hos knees on the bed. He eyed your stomach everytime he went inside and it did nothing but set him off even further. You had a belly bulge, his cock did that. Your eyes widened when he took your hand to touch your lower stomach, “ Feel that shit,that’s me baby. All of me. You probably didn’t think it was possible for someone your size to get a belly bulge, huh? Now you know— Ooh fuck, I think I’m cummin’ baby.”

He thrusts his hips into you three times trying not to snap all of his dick inside at the same time. He didn’t know how he came inside of you like he did because whenever he fucked other women in the past they could barely take half of him and then he’ll have to put their needs first. Never got his orgasm until now. Yeah he’s keeping you.

You felt so warm and full because of his thick ropes of cum shooting inside of you. You felt like it was nonstop. Your body shook underneath his as his body shook above you before he hungrily kissed your lips, “ fucking on top of the world right now, can you do one more position for me?”

Your eyes snapped open from its hazy state as he lifted you up with his cock still throbbing inside of your abused pussy. He sat back down in his chair, this time with the other statues surrounding you both. You were too dick dumb to realize that the statues moved and they weren’t even statues anymore. They were alive and staring at you with lots of hunger even if they had blood bags in their hands, sucking on them.

You looked up into his face with wonder as he held you by the fat of your ass halfway down his cock with one hand, by your head with another. Something or someone was holding your hands behind your back, but Taiju wouldn’t let you see as he watched you squirm and struggle to take him, “ Only focus on me, princess. I’m the only one in this room with you.”

You felt all your nerves let loose when he said that because now you did think that you two were the only ones in this room. He compelled you and Draken, Mochi, Kakucho, and the others didn’t like that not once while they looked on.

“ You didn’t have to say that.”, Mikey says while staring at your little but voluptuous body moving up and down Taiju’s 13 inch cock trying to steady yourself even more than he’s holding you.

“ We had a no compelling rule with her, so why did you do it?”, South says from behind you. He was the one holding your wrist back as he watched you with hungry eyes. You were one beautiful magnet. Everyone in that room with you two were either his partners or friendly rivals in the battle prior to them turning into statues. They managed to accept their fate over the years and we’re gonna get back the descendants of the one who casted them as statues in their prime time. She was the peace and wreckoning upon Cyclopean City. That’s why you were here. Part of the reason is because you were beautiful, the other part is because you were the only descendant they could get their finger on.

“ Shut up, I’m trying to get my nut and you all are fucking ruining it. We’ll discuss later.”, Taiju was back angry now and didn’t notice that you passed out from exhaustion. He did notice that you finally took all of his inches and that may have been the reason you passed out against his chest, “ South you’re paying for this, so the next time you want to fuck someone. I’m ruining your orgasm.”

Taiju peered down at you before kissing your sweaty forehead, “ I’m sorry, sweetheart, but everything is for the best.” Taiju bit into his wrist, drawing blood from his wrist. He brought his wrist to your open mouth and let the blood flow inside of your mouth.

“ I have no choice but to turn you. You can’t find out that we were your enemy. Now you’re one of us, enjoy my princess.”, Taiju says before baring his teeth into the supple flesh on your neck, drinking all the blood away from your body. He would have snapped your neck, which would’ve been easier but he decided to drain you of your blood in order for you to complete your transition. You felt your body being squeezed of life and by the person you sitting on. He held your body so tightly against his while draining the life out of your body.

You felt yourself sinking into more darkness and soon darkness was the only name you know now. You should thank the Shiba siblings for that.

Tagging: @dejwrites @hellavile @happygoluckyalexis @mastermindenoshimaalicia @simpingforwakasa04 @bontens-angel @bontensbabygirl @yooniluvbot444 @mikeys-gf @ushijimasslut and many more who wants to be involved

#tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x black!reader #taiju shiba smut #taiju shiba #taiju smut #chubby reader #x black reader #black reader #fem reader #anime men smut #anime men x reader #anime smut

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transmascissues · 5 months

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i’m getting my drains out tomorrow and i’m sure things will be different after they’re gone, so here’s my observations about top surgery recovery as of 6 days post-op!

(click here for my first post, from 3 days after)

something i forgot to mention in my last post is that if they tell you a medication has to be taken with food, do not fuck with that. absolutely do not. my antibiotic had to be taken with food and on day 2, i thought “well, i just had breakfast not too long ago, surely that’s close enough and i’ll be fine” and my parents agreed, but guess what? i spent the next hour in hell. the meds made me nauseous so i had to eat, but eating still hurt a lot because of the sore throat from being intubated, so trying to make it better just caused me more pain. and both the sore throat and the nausea (which i guess was as much a heartburn sort of situation as it was nausea) were both very chest-adjacent feelings, so that on top of the usual pain and discomfort from surgery was just a perfect storm of horrible things all centralized to one part of my body. it was awful, and i will never fuck around with something like that again. that being said, if you do find yourself in that situation or are just looking for something light that will still do the job because you’re not that hungry, 10/10 would recommend oatmeal and apple sauce. apple sauce is what finally got my body to stop rioting against me and my bad decisions, and after that i started always taking it halfway through a bowl of oatmeal and that worked perfectly.

on day 4, i was able to sit up and get out of bed by myself for the first time! i still can’t do it just by using my core muscles, but if i hold onto my legs and lower them, i can sort of roll myself up into a sitting position without using any of the affected muscles too much.

on day 5, the sore throat from hell that being intubated gave me finally went away! cheers to not gripping my pillow in pain every two seconds while i swallow my spit anymore. it lasted a while, but it honestly went away pretty fast — on day 4 it was a bit better than it had been, and then the next day it was just gone.

also on day 5, i really started to feel the bandages digging into my armpits. i’m not sure if it’s because the bandage has been slipping up over time, if my armpits have some extra swelling now, or if it’s just been wearing my body down over time, but it feels like it’s starting to cut off circulation at a certain point and it makes my arms ache sometimes. that’s probably not great, but the surgeon will be redoing everything at my post-op anyway so i’ve just been riding it out until then. in the meantime, i can tell it’s definitely worse when i’m sitting back and kind of slouched (because that position pushes it up more), so i try to sit up or walk around when i feel it. having pillows on either side of me to put my elbows up on definitely also helps a lot — that’s how i’ve been sleeping, but it would be good for just sitting too.

also also on day 5, i started getting this weird fluttery feeling in the spot where the left side of my chest and the meat of my left armpit connect. it feels like it’s probably some sort of muscle spasm. it’s not painful at all, but i honestly wish it was because it’s just super weird and uncomfortable instead and i hate it. it genuinely might be my least favorite out of any pains or sensations i’ve had so far. luckily, though, it seems like it’s already died down and only happened a couple times today.

my energy has been all over the place. i’m at the point now where mentally i’m much closer to my normal state so i’m once again having the adhd urge to constantly do stuff, but my body’s ability to keep up is far less consistent. sometimes i get restless and can just get up and pace around for a while, but other times i try to do that and get really quickly exhausted. i’m definitely more able to have conversations and feel more like myself now though, even when my body is tired out.

i’ve been thirsty as all hell the past few days. i feel like i’m constantly asking my boyfriend to refill my water for me because i drain it so fast. it’s a very specific kind of thirst, too — like it never quite goes away even when i’m definitely very thoroughly hydrated, and like anything but water can’t even touch it. it’s not a bad thing, getting lots of fluids after surgery is important and i wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly why my body is doing it, but it is a bit frustrating to just be incessantly thirsty for days at a time.

my walking posture is getting straighter every day. i still have to hold my chest to walk because of the bandage feeling like it drags things down, but if i’m walking with my mastectomy pillow, it mostly just looks like a typical slouch and not the deep hunch i started with.

at this point, my chest is super sensitive to any kind of movement, and that’s the other thing the pillow has been really good for at this stage. if the bandage shifts at all, if my body moves at all, basically anything — i feel it all in my chest really intensely. it’s not always painful, but it isn’t comfortable either. holding the pillow to my chest helps stabilize things so the movement doesn’t reach the sensitive parts as much, which is really great.

walking up stairs is easier than walking down stairs, which is the exact opposite of what i would’ve guessed. from what i can tell just from moving around, i think it’s because bending your legs up to a higher step pretty solidly relies on your legs and lower core muscles to make it happen, while reaching your legs down to a lower step requires stretching your body out (which is famously not your body’s favorite thing to do after top surgery). it often feels like i almost can’t reach the step below and have to just barely catch it with the balls of my feet. it’s also just generally been good to take the stairs super slow going up or down because you really can’t use the railing — putting enough weight on it to really rely on it at all requires using chest muscles, so the best i’ve been able to do is just rest my hand on it in case of emergency (because i’d rather hurt my chest than crack my head open if it comes to that).

one of the things that makes the stairs hard is that my center of balance is off from hunching, and that definitely affects my walking too. it’s less pronounced now that i’m in the habit of using the pillow to walk straighter, but i have to take shorter strides and sort of shuffle around because longer strides need better balance, and even with the shuffle i’m stumbling more than usual. i already have some balance problems so i’m pretty used to the feeling of it, but it has freaked my parents out a couple times to see me start listing to one side before i catch myself.

fuck reflexes. reflexes are the actual worst. something i didn’t anticipate is that no matter how careful you are to not reach your arms too far or move them too fast, you can never totally account for what you do if something starts falling. a few times now, i’ve definitely reached too far or fast before stopping myself because i saw something about to go down and my brain instinctively told my hands to catch it. i’m not sure if there’s anything you can really do about that, but it’s worth being aware of because it caught me by surprise the first time i did it.

one side of my chest has been consistently more swollen than the other. that side has also consistently drained less, and the fluid it does drain is darker and redder. we asked my surgeon if that was normal and she said there’s almost always one side that drains more than the other, but it’s still something we’ve been keeping an eye on. hopefully i’ll be able to get a more concrete answer at my post-op, once she can see the swelling up close and look at the drainage numbers from the past week.

as i’ve been getting some use of my body back, the pain in my chest has gotten a bit more obvious. it’s milder pain, and when i’m not doing anything it’s mostly painless to the point where i’m going a lot longer between tylenol doses, but when i’m using my body, i can definitely feel it. the fact that i’m not avoiding physical activity like the plague as much means i’m noticing more pain even though objectively my pain levels have gone down — the things that hurt now didn’t hurt less before, i just didn’t even attempt them before because i knew they would hurt so much. now that the pain is down, i can try more things, which means i’m more likely to try something that ends up hurting. of course, you should always try to follow the if-it-hurts-then-stop rule, but you can’t avoid the pain altogether as you learn your body’s boundaries, so i ended up getting to a point where getting better feels like getting worse.

on that note, i’ve also learned that there’s a pretty distinct difference between milder “i should proceed with caution” pain and intense “stop what you’re doing right now” pain. as much as avoiding things that hurt is ideal, it’s not always realistic, but my body has definitely been very clear in telling me what i can and can’t compromise on. in the beginning i was really paranoid about doing anything that caused any pain at all, but now i’m more familiar with where i can push a bit further if needed and where i really need to hold off.

i’ve been getting chills much more easily lately, and they’ve also been SUPER strong. i’ll be watching a show or listening to music and something will give me chills, and it’s a really intense feeling all across my ribs, and even thinking about the thing that caused it brings on a whole new wave. i’m super curious to see if it’s just a temporary result of my nerves doing their thing or if it’ll stick around long-term. it’s not unpleasant at all, i honestly really like it.

i got some food for myself for the first time today (day 6) and it just involved slicing some pretty soft cheese, but wow, it was a workout for my shoulder. i’m guessing it’s because i haven’t really used my muscles in that way for a week, and because not being able to use my chest muscles means i was relying on my shoulder a lot more to do all the work of moving my arm. by the time i was done, just holding the block of cheese to put it back in the fridge felt like lifting weights.

i didn’t change my shirt the first few days but i’ve changed a few times now, and we’ve perfected the art of getting a button up shirt on me without overreaching my arms at all. basically, you want to put both arms into the sleeves before you lift the shirt up onto your shoulders, because once the shirt is on one shoulder, you have to reach back a lot farther to get to the other sleeve. once you have both arms in, you can lift it onto your shoulders and button it. ideally, whoever’s helping you should do most of the work to pull the sleeves over your arms so you don’t have to stretch your arm out to get them on. i’m sure that’ll be overkill once i have a bit more mobility, but for now, it works great. it definitely would be tough if the shirt was fitted though, so i’m glad i went up a size.

i hope my posts like this have been helpful, or at least interesting to read! i’ll definitely keep updating as time goes on and things change, and i’m also going to work on a breakdown of my experience at the hospital pre- and post-op, as well as my post-op appointment experience once that happens tomorrow.

y’all are getting the good, the bad, and the ugly of my recovery experience. i know a lot of this has been very focused on the bad and the ugly so far because surgery is generally rough, but i’m going to see my chest again tomorrow so stay tuned for some good!

#bet you weren’t expecting an even longer post than my last one #i just have so much to say about this whole experience #i want to document EVERYTHING especially the stuff i haven’t seen other people mention #top surgery adventures #top surgery #trans man #transmasc

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yamayuandadu · 6 months

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Tamamizu Monogatari, a unique love story

This article, unlike most of my recent longer pieces, was not planned in advance. I learned about the subject very recently, and instantly realized I absolutely have to introduce it to more people, the previously posted schedule be damned. The Tale of Tamamizu (玉水物語, Tamamizu Monogatari) is a story about a fox turning into a human, but a rather unconventional one, filled with an unusual degree of sympathy for the eponymous protagonist and focused on a rather unique relationship. In addition to summarizing it in detail and explaining the possible inspirations behind it, I will also try to explain why the tale found a new life on social media as a, broadly speaking, lgbt narrative, and why I think there is a compelling case to be made for such an interpretation. Unless stated otherwise, all images used through the article are taken from the Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive, on whose website you can view scans of the original Tamamizu Monogatari.

The Tale of Tamamizu, also known as The Contest of Autumn Leaves (Momiji Awase) is an example of otogi-zōshi, illustrated prose narrative. The story was presumably originally composed in the Muromachi period (1335-1573), and it survives in multiple copies dated either to the early Edo period or to the end of the Japanese “middle ages” directly preceding it. The identity of the author (or authors) is unknown. Despite its apparent popularity in the past, it seems no major studies of the tale of Tamamizu have ever been conducted. A streamlined translation (or rather an extensive summary) was published online by Kyoto University Library in 2001 and can be accessed here. In 2018, a full translation, as well as a brief introduction, were prepared for the anthology Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales. Still, it doesn't seem either sparked all that much interest in Tamamizu, despite the story’s obvious modern appeal. Since the tale of Tamamizu is not well known, I will start with a detailed summary. I am consistently using female pronouns for Tamamizu after she transforms, as does the older translation. The other English translation switches between female and male pronouns. I will explain in the final paragraph of the article why I made the decision to follow the former. The Tale of Tamamizu The story of Tamamizu does not start with the eponymous character, but rather with a certain mr. Takayanagi from Toba. He is troubled, as while he is already 30, he has no children. He decides the only choice is to pray to gods and buddhas. This actually does work, and his wife becomes pregnant, and after the expected period gives birth to a daughter. She doesn’t get a name at any point in the story. The girl’s birth is followed by a timeskip. As we learn, she was distinguished by twenty five features associated with beauty. This is apparently a reference to the belief that a buddha possessed thirty two specific physical traits; the number might have been altered to twenty five because of a popular group of twenty five bodhisattvas associated with Amida. By the time she reached the age of fifteen or so, she also developed great skill in composing poetry in both Japanese and Chinese. Her parents at some point decided that it would be ideal to send her to serve in the emperor’s court in the future. The girl spends most of the time in awe of the blooming of flowers, the wind and other similar phenomena, as one would expect from a literary character of similar status. She maintains her own flower garden, and spends much of her time there.

On one of the days when she visited it alongside her friend Tsukisae, the daughter of her nurse, she caught the attention of a fox. The fox is, at this point in time, not yet Tamamizu. He wishes he could introduce himself to the girl. He considers the standard method - transforming into a nobleman - but he realizes this would likely sadden the girl’s parents, and would tarnish her reputation. He falls into despair. It does not exactly help that his attempts at visiting the garden again end up poorly - on the way there, he gets pelted with stones and then, after trying again, shot with an arrow. Still, he continued to hope to meet with the girl. An opportunity finally arose through a lucky coincidence. Another family living in the same area had multiple sons, but no daughters, much to the parents chagrin. They loudly lamented that they wished they had at least one girl among the children. The fox overheard that and realized it might be an opportunity. He transformed himself into a teenage girl (curiously, the story specifically puts her at the exact same age as the unnamed second protagonist), and enters their house. She explains that she is an orphan, and while passing by she overheard the family’s woes. She offers to become their daughter. The couple instantly agrees.

The fox spends some time living with her adoptive family, though she gets sad easily and keeps bursting into tears. After some time, they offer that they will find her a husband in due time, but she reacts to that poorly, and eventually suggests she would prefer to become the servant of a noble lady. Her adoptive mother agrees this isn’t a bad idea, and reveals that her younger sister is a lady-in-waiting of the daughter of a local noble, mr. Takayanagi. She suggests the fox could become her attendant too. She is overjoyed at this prospect, and is soon sent to Takayanagi’s mansion to meet with his daughter. The girl receives her new attendant warmly, and gives her a nickname, Tamamizu-no-mae (Tamamizu for short). They get along really well, and Tamamizu gets to partake in her various activities, serves her food and drinks, and even sleeps in the same bed (Tsukisae does too, though). While Tamamizu does remarkably well as a human, some of her fox habits remain. Most notably, she is really afraid of dogs. Her lady sympathizes with her plight, and actually bans dogs from her household. This is a much welcome change from Tamamizu’s point of view, though apparently some other members of the staff start to view her as a coward because of this, and simultaneously resent her closeness with the girl. The bond between Tamamizu and the girl reaches a new level when on a moonlight night they spontaneously compose a poem together. It deals with longing. We are told it was followed up by multiple other poems, which are not quoted in the story. Eventually the girl gets tired and heads to her room. However, Tamamizu remains outside gazing at the moon and eventually starts crying, unsure what fate awaits her. Tsukisae, who was inside all along, actually becomes concerned about Tamamizu, and says she feels sorry for her, correctly identifying the cause of her sorrow as love for an unidentified party. She shares her thoughts with their lady (in the form of a poem, of course). The latter summons Tamamizu inside, and soon all three go to bed together. Tamamizu is still overwhelmed by her feelings and can’t fall asleep, though. Tamamizu continues to serve the girl for the next three years. She also remains in touch with her adoptive mother, who sends her letters and new clothes every now and then. One day, many visitors arrived in the house for a friendly competition. The winner will be the person with the most beautiful collection of autumn leaves. Tamamizu decides she must find some for her mistress to give her an advantage. To accomplish that, at night for the first time in years she turns back into a fox, and leaves to visit her siblings. Not the adoptive ones, though. As it turns out, she has two fox brothers, one younger and one older. She actually hasn’t visited them in so long they assumed she died and held funerary services for her in the meanwhile. They are overjoyed to learn that is not the case, and after learning about her current life agree to help her with finding unique leaves. She tells them to leave them on the veranda of her mistress’ mansion, and reassures them it’s safe for foxes to be there thanks to the earlier decision to not allow dogs on the premises. After the visit Tamamizu returns home in her human form. Tsukisae and her mistress ask her where she has been, and she jokes about meeting with a “dubious fellow” (which, to be fair, is not even a lie, given the typical folkloric portrayal of foxes). This in turn leads to more jokes, revolving around Tamamizu no longer thinking about her mistress. She feels distressed by this suggestion.

Tamamizu’s brothers in the meanwhile succeed in their search for thrilling leaves. One of them found a branch with five-colored leaves decorated with the Lotus Sutra (as you probably know, one of the main religious texts in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition). Tamamizu is overjoyed, and instantly brings them to her mistress. The girl received plenty of leaves from other people in the meanwhile, but all of them pale in comparison. She is so happy about the gift that she requests Tamamizu to also write poems meant to accompany the presentation of the collection. She protests that she is unsuitable, but eventually accepts this honor and gets down to work. The parents of the girl came along to watch her write, and both of them concluded she is exceptionally skilled. She ends up providing five poems, one for each color of leaves gathered. They are subsequently combined by these the girl wrote herself.

Obviously, the main characters’ joint entry wins the competition. This grants the girl such fame that the emperor declares she should come to his court. Since her father is not affluent enough to pay for traveling there, he bestows additional estates upon him to make that possible. Even Tamamizu gets her own estate, Kakuta in Settsu Province. However, she decides it will be for the best to give it to her adoptive parents. Shortly after that, Tamamizu’s adoptive mother falls sick. She leaves her mistress to attend to her, but it did not help much and her condition kept worsening. Therefore, her stay had to be extended over and over again. This predicament worries her mistress, who sends her a letter to let her know that it is boring and gloomy without her around, and implores her to return as soon as her mother’s condition improves. Tsukisae is similarly concerned. Both of them voice their concerns through poems, which at this point should not be surprising for the reader.

Tamamizu of course appreciates these displays of sympathy, but she cannot return, so in response she only reassures both of them that she will meet with them again as soon as possible. Shortly after that, the mother’s condition worsened yet again. The entire family laments through the entire day, but eventually everyone manages to fall asleep - save for Tamamizu. In the middle of the night Tamamizu notices that an old, hairless fox entered the house. She quickly realizes that he was her paternal uncle (a fox uncle, that is. Not a relative of her adoptive parents). The illness was his doing, as she quickly realizes. Tamamizu requests him to leave her adoptive mother alone. However, the old fox says he cannot do that, as the illness is his act of revenge against her family, since her father killed his child. He concluded it is only right to make his daughter sick so that she dies too.

Tamamizu admits that this makes sense in theory, but she points out that acting upon desire for revenge will only bring bad karma, and bad karma from previous lives is why both of them were born as foxes in the first place. She offers the old fox a crash course in Buddhist ethics, and warns him that accumulating even more bad karma might lead to someone eventually killing him too, and to yet more rebirths in one of the three realms which are best to avoid (animals, hungry spirits, hell).

The old fox notes following buddhas is for humans, not for those born in other realms of rebirth (he’s not entirely wrong, humans are generally held to be in the optimal condition to seek enlightenment; animals must follow instinct and thus end up accumulating bad karma, devas are to preoccupied with celestial bliss), but eventually he relents and agrees that it would be wrong to kill the woman because of the actions of her father. He concludes that it would not even make him feel better, since his child would remain dead. He tells Tamamizu that evidently he was able to meet her because of good karma acquired in a past life, asks her to pray for his deceased child, and leaves, announcing he shall become a monk reciting nenbutsu from now on. Tamamizu did what he asked for, and even performed a funerary service for her late cousin. With the problem solved, her adoptive mother returned to good health. She was therefore free to meet with her mistress again. She was elevated to the rank of chujo no kimi, the foremost among servants. However, despite her mistress’ best efforts to make her feel appreciated, she was suffering from persistent bouts of melancholy. She wished she could confess her love and consummate the relationship, but she concluded that since she kept her identity secret for so long, it would be no longer possible to reveal it without losing the acceptance of the girl. She decides she must disappear. However, before that she prepares a long poem explaining her predicament.

She placed it in a box, and gave it to her mistress, explaining that it should only be opened if something happens to her. She then broke down in tears.

Tamamizu’s mistress does not fully understand what is happening, and asks if she perhaps is worried about their planned relocation to the imperial court. However, Tamamizu denies that and guarantees she will accompany her on the journey there. Her mistress starts crying too, and says she has hoped they will always be together. Shortly after, the day of the journey came. Tamamizu’s mistress and mr. Takayanagi, now recognized as a lord, were certain that she went with them, but as soon as they reached their destination it turned out she was nowhere to be found. Days upon days of grieving followed. Eventually, the girl realized that she had no choice but to open the box. From the poem contained within, she learned everything about Tamamizu, from the day they first met all the way up to the disappearance. It explained how she hoped to protect her mistress through her current life and beyond, but had to give up after realizing it was all in vain. In the final words of the poem, she firmly refers to her with the name she was given by the girl - Tamamizu.

The poem moves her deeply, but the story does not have a happy ending - we never learn what happened to Tamamizu afterwards.

Tamamizu’s forerunners

It is agreed that much like the considerably more famous Tamamo no Mae, Tamamizu in part depends on earlier Chinese literature about foxes. Not exactly on the same sort of stories, though - she is not exactly a malevolent seductress, to put it lightly. The key to finding her forerunners is the scene in the beginning when the still nameless fox considers transforming into a male suitor at first, before settling on the form of a female attendant, and the erudition she displays through the story. An argument can be made that this is conscious engagement with a very specific type of older fox story, largely forgotten today. In Tang China, fox stories enjoyed considerable popularity. You may remember that I mentioned this in passing a few months ago in another fox-themed article. One of the genres popular at the time was focused on fox suitors. There are many stories like that, but they largely follow a similar plot: a male fox falls in love with a human girl, takes the form of a dashing literatus and requests marriage. The girl’s family rejects the proposal, as despite charm and erudition the fox is ultimately an outsider with no family, and doesn’t depend on the well established institution of matchmaking. Afterwards, he typically tries to win the girl over with some sort of trick, and fails in the process, thus meeting his demise when his real identity is inevitably exposed.

In some cases, twists are introduced and the fox is effectively exploited by the family: for example, in the story about a certain mr. Hu (a common surname which is a homonym for the word for fox) and the granddaughter of the official Li Yuangong, the Li family agrees for the girl to be taught by the fox, and even asks him for advice on various matters, just to kill him once he outlived his usefulness.

Zhou Wenju's painting A Literary Garden (文苑图, Wenyuantu), showing a group of discouring Tang literati (wikimedia commons)

Many literati came from humble backgrounds, and only attained high positions thanks to success in the imperial examinations. However, their advances were often frowned upon by nobles, who saw them as upstarts. Therefore, faking a more notable origin was widespread to secure a better position in the high strata of society. All of this is reflected in the stories of the fox suitors. Xiaofei Kang, who wrote my favorite monograph about Chinese fox beliefs, notes that the stories might have effectively been a way to cope with everyday anxieties. In other words, perhaps the fox self insert fails so that the real person sharing his precarious status can succeed.

Another aspect of the Tale of Tamamizu which offers a clue about its origins is the focus on Buddhism, and its role in the lives of non-humans in particular. Tamamizu evidently attains a considerable familiarity with Buddhist doctrine, to the point the old fox basically seems to perceive her as thinking more like a human than a fox. Evidently, she doesn’t think being an animal should prevent one from seeking good karma. This seems to reflect a medieval Buddhist phenomenon. Roughly from the Insei period (1086-1185) up to the eighteenth century, and especially between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the dominant esoteric schools of Buddhism propagated the doctrine of hongaku (本覺), “original enlightenment”. This idea originates in an earlier Buddhis text, Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna. According to proponents of this idea all living beings, even plants, possessed an innate “Buddha nature”, as did natural features like mountains. They were innately capable of attaining enlightenment, or innately enlightened outright. Religion influences art, so it has been argued that the spread of new stories about animals behaving like people in the Muromachi period had a distinctly Buddhist dimension.

The modern reception of Tamamizu

Despite the fascinating themes of the story of Tamamizu, it only found a greater degree of modern recognition in 2019, outside of academic circles at that. I'm surprised it took so long, since when you think about it, the sensibilities of the author indeed seem surprisingly modern. The narrator even reassures us Tamamizu’s human form is the same age as the object of her affection, anticipating what sorts of shipping discourse could arise 700 years later. Anyway, in 2019 a fragment of the story was the subject of one of the classical Japanese literature questions from the National Center Test for University Admissions, a standardized university entrance exam held across Japan each January from 1990 to 2020. This obviously exposed an enormous number of people to it, not just exam-takers. Following this event, a Tamamizu fad seemingly swept social media and pixiv (curiously, there’s a single piece of art there which predates the phenomenon by six years; op actually updated the description in 2019 to say they are happy more people learned about the story). There’s even a Tamamizu Monogatari tag on Dynasty Scans as a result. It’s worth pointing out the wikipedia entry of the story was written in 2019 as well. Most curiously apparently a research project focused on Tamamizu, Kahoko Iguru’s Border transgression between species and gender as observed in “Tamamizu Monogatari”, received a grant in the same year too (source; more info here). It doesn’t seem the results have been published yet. I will keep you updated if that changes, obviously. I am actually surprised I didn’t notice the Tamamizu phenomenon back then, even though 2019 Antonia was distinctly more terminally online than 2023 Antonia is. It’s worth noting that Tamamizu’s fame didn’t fade away. The online following the story gained was referenced in an Asahi Shimbun article a year later. A quick survey of social media will show you there are people still talking about Tamamizu today. People who aren’t me, that is. What made Tamamizu so unexpectedly popular - arguably more than the story has been in the past few centuries - in recent years? Most of the linked sources relatively neutrally state that people perceive it as a “unique love story”. Social media posts are often considerably more direct: for many people, the appeal lies in the realization the Tale of Tamamizu is probably the closest to a lesbian love story in the entire corpus of medieval Japanese literature. I won’t deny this is in no small part its appeal for me too. Note this is not an universal sentiment by any means, though. It is difficult to tell if this was the intent of the medieval author(s), of course. It is obviously impossible to deny that women attracted to women existed in medieval Japan, as is the case in every society since the dawn of history. However, they left little, if any, trace in textual sources. As pointed out by Bernard Faure, in Japan in the past as in many other historical societies “sexuality without men is properly unthinkable” and therefore received no coverage. While there is plenty of Japanese Buddhist literature dealing with male homosexuality (trust me though, you do not want to read it; I’ve included a brief explanation why in the bibliography), there is basically nothing when it comes to women. The only possible exception is what some authors argue might be a medieval depiction of a lesbian couple in Tengu Zōshi, a work I plan to discuss in more detail next month, but note that this would be only an example of condemnation, since this work is a religious polemic dealing with vices of the clergy.

The supposed lesbian couple from Tengu Zōshi; image from Haruko Wakayabashi's The Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism; reproduced here for educational purposes only.

This sort of absence of evidence is a recurring pattern through history - you might recall my own attempts to find out what Bronze Age Mesopotamian sources have to say on this matter. Before the Meiji period, when the term dōseiai (同性愛) was coined as a calque of Charles Gilbert Chaddok’s freshly invented label “homosexual”, there wasn’t even a distinct Japanese term which could be applied to lesbian relationships. Once again, this does not indicate this phenomenon did not exist - but it does indicate that due to extreme levels of sexism in the perception of both sexuality and relationships it was difficult to even imagine for the average author. Faure suggests the prevailing attitude was presumably similar as in continental Buddhism, in which lesbian love “was at best perceived as a poor imitation of heterosexual relations—or a preparation for them—and as such condemned” at least in monastic rules. To put it bluntly, only penetrative sex was regarded as real.

And yet, in spite of this, I do not think it is wrong to wonder if perhaps what seems like subtext to a modern reader is actually intentional. This is obviously a reach, but given that relationships between women - not even romantic ones - were historically not a major concern of most authors, I would argue it is not impossible that a work which revolves virtually entirely around the relationships between female characters was written by a woman. Perhaps a woman romantically interested in other women, even. Even more boldly, I’d ponder if perhaps the ambiguous gender of the fox before transformation was meant to make the romance palatable to general audiences. Note that while foxes transforming is a mainstay of both Japanese and Chinese literature, the change of gender is actually quite uncommon in such stories, making this single reference all the more unusual. Granted, gender change is hardly a major focus in the story of Tamamizu. The only real indication the fox is male is the decision to take a male human form at first, but beyond that, things get muddy to the point the matter of gender in the story evidently warranted an actual study, as I pointed out earlier. As you’ve noticed, this matter was approached in different ways by translators too. I personally think the most important factor is the fact Tamamizu refers to herself with this name in the final poem. This name is intimately tied to the distinctly female identity she took. Whoever she was in the beginning, by the end of the story she is clearly Tamamizu. If one felt particularly bold a case perhaps even be made that Tamamizu can be read as a trans woman based on this, perhaps. I think simply disregarding the brief reference to a male form is valid too, though. Even if these arguments were to be refuted fully, I would argue that there is a further reason why at the very least reinterpreting the story as dealing with a gay relationship is not against the spirit of the original work. As I outlined, the tale of Tamamizu seems to draw inspiration from a very specific genre of fox stories, in which foxes are essentially a metaphor for people seeking relationships which were frowned upon. Obviously, the fact that Tamamizu is not a human by default makes any relationship she would be involved in somewhat unusual and frowned upon, but that does not assign a different metaphorical meaning to her struggle. Is Tamamizu even really fully a fox and not a human at all by the time she writes the confession of her love, though? The old fox seems to basically dispute if she still thinks like an animal. We also know that she maintained her human form for so long her biological relatives assumed she had passed away. She also found acceptance of virtually every single human character in the story - save for herself, that is. It’s also not like it’s hard to reinterpret her struggle specifically with the inability to consummate the relationship through the lens of the medieval Buddhist views of female sexuality, rather than through the lens of the general view that relationships between human and transformed foxes were doomed to failure. To paraphrase Cynthia Eller’s evergreen quote about futile search for nonexistent matriarchal prehistory in ancient texts, I do not think an invented wlw past can give anyone a future, but at the same time I do not think it means we should conclude that nobody ever had similar experiences in the past, or that we can relate with works even in ways their authors did not intend. For this reason, I would ultimately argue in favor of embracing the Tale of Tamamizu as a narrative which can be read as a lesbian love story.

Bibliography

Bernard Faure, The Red Thread. Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (please note: read this book very cautiously since multiple content warnings apply. Faure is a remarkably progressive author, so it’s not about his personal attitude or anything. The problem is that it is not possible to deny much of the Japanese Buddhist discourse about homosexuality had little to do with modern notion of gay relationships, and essentially amounts to explaining when exploitation of children is a pious act)

Rania Huntington, Alien Kind. Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (some sort of explicit content warning applies here too, though mostly because some of the discussed works are trashy Qing period erotica. More funny than anything.)

Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China

Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane (eds.), Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales

Jacqueline Stone, Medieval Tendai hongaku thought and the new Kamakura Buddhism: A reconsideration

#japanese literature #tamamizu monogatari #lgbt history

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dayfalwastaken · 7 months

Text

Notable Slenderman designs from over the years

Something Awful: As the users of the original Create Paranormal Images thread took to calling him, "Poo Poo", the first Slendy on this list is sort of a composite variant of his first depictions. After Victor Surge had made "the Slender Man" people started creating their own photos and a couple even drew him. Designs varied, but many featured arms that turned into tentacles or tree branches, and blank faces with either few or very pronounced facial features. These first drawings gave me the impression that Slendy was a creature that attempted to blend in and look human, but if examined its nonhuman aspects would become apparent almost immediately, empty face notwithstanding. As such, while his suit gives the impression of a well-dressed man, if one looks at it from a small distance they'll note the lack of buttons, pockets and other such accessories, so in a way the suit is like a second skin as opposed to actual clothes. Merely a disguise.

Marble Hornets: The Operator! Version that got many people into the Slenderman mythos, the Marble Hornets rendition streamlined the many variations of the Something Awful forum into a simple yet iconic design. This guy is very tall, and makes it clear that he's the furthest thing from human. Proportion-wise, his torso is not even half of his total height, while his arms almost reach the ground. Weirdly enough, his hands don't seem to have fingers? And look to be morphed into the suit, though they could be wearing fingerless gloves. He has a straight upper body and shoulders, and in most entries has barely if any shadows on his face to enunciate human features. As in, most of the time his face is completely blank, although there are entries where you can spot the outlines of a nose, mouth and eye sockets.

TribeTwelve: To me, the Administrator is a more grounded (heh) Slenderman. If you ignore the times he's shown to tower over humans, this guy, while tall, isn't abnormally long. He even has human-looking skin and visible eye sockets! With regular proportions for a Slenderman depiction, he's pretty tame in appearance when he doesn't have his tentacles or spider legs out. So really, he's just a regular man in black with no face, which makes him a bit more believable but still creepy as all hell.

DarkHarvest00: Gorr'rylaehotep! This dude's like a streamlined version of the Marble Hornets Operator, which was himself a streamlined Slendy. He's like an expected evolution of a live action Slenderman, where his body isn't elongated so much as it's scaled up for him to appear larger. That said, he's in no way thick, being quite thin for a big guy in a business suit. Luckily, that doesn't take away from his scare factor, as he's remains an imposing figure throughout the series... In the shots where he doesn't move too much, that is… Having fewer overall appearances in DarkHarvest00, he's also the most consistent Slendy on this list to keep a totally blank face with no features. Neato!

Slender: the Arrival: This guy isn't slender. Like, at all. He's well-built for a Slenderman and, dare I say, kind of muscular-looking. If you shorten his arms, he's just a big human, but I think that strengthens the unease you have when you see him. The others, aside from the TribeTwelve design, don't really hide their uncannyness. Once you’ve spotted them, you know there's something wrong when you look at them. The Arrival Slenderman takes it a step further. He gets all up in your face, not even stalking you all that much. He almost refuses to blend into the background, opting to terrorize you up close. He doesn't obscure the fact that he's an otherworldy entity that shouldn't exist, and I think that's great. His ragged skin and ears melted into his skull offer him an incredibly distinct look, and given how well the game uses him, he's super scary to play against. He's also among the first Slendermen to feature a red tie, which will go on to be a very popular design choice when depicting this character.

The ways people chose to draw/show/model Slendy have always intrigued me, so I made this lil thing to show off the differences in a few designs over the past decade! I hope you've enjoyed reading through this, and I'll see you next time when I'll draw and analyse five more. Have a good day!

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ghostlychief · 3 months

Note

I'm not sure if you write for Blue team, but can you do relationship headcanons for them? If not, then relationship headcanons for John-117?

another master chief request for the books, LETS GOOOOO

(i decided to write headcanons for John) enjoy!! <3

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Dating Master Chief (John 117) Headcanons

no warnings; just fluff

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Dating John would feel like the calm after the storm, or like a consistent gentle rainfall that can’t help but ease you, quelling your worries

Dating John is calming like rainfall in the sense that you feel a sense of respite wash over you when you’re with him; being with him is also akin to that of the calming pitter-patter noise you hear when the rain comes; it’s never to harsh, or too loud; always a consistent rhythm

You feel a blanket of security wrapping itself around you tightly, never threatening to let you go when dating him; it’s solid and firm, just like John

You both were a bit shy when you first got together; no surprises there though, John leans more on the quiet side, and you, well, anyone would be a little timid when first dating a Spartan (they were genetically modified humans after all)

But John quickly made sure that you felt completely and utterly safe around him; he knew what he was capable of, and the last thing he wanted to do was ever scare you; and you appreciated that about him

It’s not like you are some scared little girl, afraid of Spartans, but, you know, they were the infamous Spartans you heard about growing up, you weren’t quite sure what to expect when you first met them (surprise, surprise Blue team all turned out to be lovely people)

You appreciated John’s understanding for the time it took for you fully get to know him, and be comfortable around him

In your early stages of dating, you guys mainly kept to public outings, like restaurants, movie theaters (yes Reach has a cinema), parks (you both enjoyed going on long walks together and you tease John about how his ‘normal’ walk is your jog)

You could say that he properly ‘wine and dined’ you, well as much as one can on Reach seeing that its operation is more so military and not just another regular planet

He was a gentleman: he opened doors for you, whether that be building, apartment, or car doors; it didn’t matter, he was there to open them for you; he also would sometimes place his hand at the small of your back, which sent sparks twinkling up your spine the first few times he did that (let’s be honest, you still feel giddy even now)

He was a great listener, always ready with a question (or 10) whenever you were telling him about your day, things that happened at work, the latest book you read. He always had a follow-up, always curious to know more about you, and what you’re thinking

You also were the same in that matter, always asking him questions; who could blame you though, his job was a lot cooler than yours

You were in awe of all the different planets and solar systems he’s been to (including the Halos) and you always picked his brain about the Covenant (you’ve been fortunate enough to not cross paths with the Covenant)

When John wasn’t on a mission, you weren’t at work, or you guys weren’t going on a “formal” date, you and John could be found lounging around one of your apartments, either reading, watching TV, doing puzzles, things like that

Sometimes you guys liked to do your own thing but in the company of the other

However, one of your favorite things to do is to nap with John

He’s so large that he generates a lot of body heat, so whenever winter rolls around and there’s snowflakes in the air, you loved to cuddle up with him on the couch, completely wrapped in his embrace and fall asleep with no worries on your mind (being with John made that easy)

John is the kind of partner who is a great shoulder to cry on; his support is endless for you, and he’s always there whenever you run into a problem; he’s there to listen about what’s troubling your life, but he’s not one to be pushy about how to fix it; no, he’s there for you, and makes sure to comfort you the best he can (which usually is you asking him for a hug, which he immediately complies with)

John gives the best hugs because 1) he is taller than you, so he can easily wrap you up tight and rest his head on yours, and 2) his arms are long and muscular, which makes his hugs 10x warmer and just better overall

Something that you quickly learned about John after a couple months of dating was that he was actually funny (right, like what are the odds a Spartan of his caliber has a funny bone?)

His humor was of course dry and sarcastic, but he got a laugh out of you every time he cracked a joke

Blue team also tells you stories about John (not to his knowledge) since they have known him since they were all pre-teens; sometimes you’ll bring something up to John, and he’ll be like “Where’d you hear that from?” (he wasn’t stupid he knew); and then a couple days later you’ll hear how hard John made training for them (oops)

Nevertheless, dating John has brought a sense of security into your life that you never thought you would feel, or have; you only hope is that you provide the same for him

(spoiler, you do)

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skyeventide · 9 months

Text

there's like, things about Dragon Age and the ancient elven empire there that I don't believe can quite be grasped unless you have a cursory understanding of either Tolkien or the Tolkien-generated trope of elves as an advanced civilisation of superior beings with magic/technology/knowledge/lore that is now lost and/or that largely influenced the remnants of the human empire, which substituted the elven one as the leading force in the continent. fantasy worlds like Dragon Age are deeply in conversation with that (and I guess like the Witcher or smth but I never read or played that, and didn't finish season 1, so my knowledge is second-hand; but either way).

the thing in Tolkien and Tolkien-generated tropes is that these elves are good. they're superior, they teach things to the second-coming races, they're narratively exalted, they're borderline divine, any kind of more or less violent colonialism (it happens) and feudalism (also happens) they instate is good, narratively obfuscated, or even justified. Tolkien has criticism of colonialism in his work, but rarely if ever goes all the way when it comes to elves. criticism of elven hierarchies based on clan and level of holiness and greatness are often narratively undermined (e.g. Eol, a character whose criticism of Turgon and the Noldor is diluted by the fact that he's awful as a person)(you can go into detail about Galadriel and Nimrodel but this post is technically a Dragon Age post lmao).

there's a Tolkien paper called "The Wretched of Middle Earth: An Orcish Manifesto" by Charles Mills, which goes into scathing detail about how the narrative sets up the elves as a superior race and consistently characterises the other groups, orcs, humans, dwarves, as racial inferiors. it's not afraid to call out "aryan" comparisons, without trying to argue that Tolkien actively believed in that ideology. the racial herarchy is there, in the text.

tl dr elves have all the rhetorical trappings of an empire... without ever being one. they're good, they're paternally helpful towards the humans they educate (who are therefore the superior humans), and they're good also and particularly in the sense that they never "fell" in a religious sense, no matter their individual actions (fastidious details and contradictions notwithstanding). they didn't abandon the true god.

what's happening in Dragon Age is that these elves, who are narratively presented as the "true" elves, the lost ideal, the immortals before modern elves turned from their ways and lost that immortality, the great advanced civilisation that probably taught humans before humans feasted on their remnants, these elves... are an empire. they conquer, enslave, pillage from the dwarves (another trope turned on its head; don't tell me the dwarves-elves peaceful companionship where the dwarves keep digging to satisfy the demand of material but they're also best friends with elves, turned to explicit war of conquest for possession of raw material in Dragon Age, doesn't elicit mithril-lyrium comparisons), have pantheon wars. this is the sole logical conclusion of those tropes. it's the subtext, the unspoken, the unspeakable, brought straight to light. it's the rhetoric of empire that's been buried in stories about elves brought to its only possible sensible end: this is an actual empire. there's no way it could have been anything else.

(this goes deeper with the numenor-gondor-tevinter comparisons, which are absolutely blatant when you know that gondor's precursors, numenor, went full empire, and that their last action before the island sank was attack the elves' blessed realm. if ar-pharazon and numenor had won, we could have gotten something very similar to Tevinter in storyline. only the Tolkien racial hierarchy simply cannot be toppled like that, it's practically divinely mandated and protected. the maker-the allfather directly and personally intervenes. but without this extremely disruptive and literal deus ex machina, that too is turned on its head in Dragon Age: it's not god who sinks the capital of the human empire to prevent their violent conquest AND traps the fighting humans underground, after the elves have fled instead of choosing to fight; it's humans who arrive, the elves flee, and then humans presumably sink the capital city into the ground. once again, when the ontological hierarchy of races and the divine decree of goodness and favour is removed, the true logical conclusion comes to the fore. one empire substitutes the other.)

#Dragon Age #The Silmarillion #I honestly think the choice of the elvhenan empire #built on decades-long tropes of fantasy and elves #is sheer genius #Elvhenan #JRR Tolkien

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idle-daydreams · 3 months

Text

Demon King - Part 2

Shutendoji!Chuuya x Reader

Continuation of this.

Tw: Yandere, dub-con, mentions of blood, cannibalism and violence

[A.N: This got way too long, and isn't very yandere-y, imo. But its been in my head for a while, and I hope you guys like it!]

In a certain way, being the wife of the Drunken Demon wasn’t all that bad.

You’d reached this conclusion on a silent night like this one, padding through the corridors by yourself. Chuuya’s – Manor? Castle? You weren’t quite sure – was far bigger than the quarters to which you were confined, quarters that were nevertheless larger than your entire home back in your village. They were a picture of comfort: there was a massive canopied bed, piled high with the softest pillows for you to sleep on; magical lamps illuminated the place, neither dimming nor burning out no matter how long they were kept lit. A roaring fire kept you warm in the winters, and hidden vents that kept you cool in the summer. There was always food and water, fresh and clean and delicious. You had your own bath, with more running water than you could have ever used in your entire life, heated or cooled to your body temperature. Chuuya brought you books to read, parchment to paint, any manner of things to pass the time, things that you couldn’t ever have imagined owning. He’d even allowed you a garden, though you weren’t to go there in his absence. He loved to spoil you, giving you everything you could possibly ask for; he was kind, and patient, indulging your idlest whim and your most irrational desires.

The only thing he denied you was your freedom.

You sighed, sinking down upon your bed. At one time, the loneliness had frightened you. Stories of the Drunken Demon had consumed your mind, and you’d spent countless hours curled up in a corner, crying and shaking and throwing up from the sheer terror of what he would do to you. Now, you relished these moments of solitude, times when Chuuya wasn’t clinging to your waist or brushing your hair or fucking you senseless wherever he could. The bruises and love-bites littering your skin, proof of his demented love, delighted him to a frenzy. Your cheeks still burned at the memory of hours the two of you had spent locked in a tangle of limbs, lost in the throes of pleasure, worlds removed from the puritanical teachings of your wifely duties drilled into your head during your early years. As with everything else, you’d gotten used to it – that part of your ‘marriage’ had been shamefully easy to get used to – but you knew what inevitably lay next. Either Chuuya would grow tired of you... or he would impregnate you. You’d never liked the idea of children, but the thought of raising half-demon offspring filled you with dread.

How long has it been? you wondered. Weeks? Months? A year? Despite the massive windows – always shut for your safety, of course, but still allowing you a view of the walled gardens – it was difficult to gauge the passage of time, since the path of the sun and moon didn’t seem to be that consistent in the demon world. You couldn’t help but wonder: did your family miss you, or did they think you dead? If Chuuya had truly bought you from them – and despite your adamant refusals to his face, you had to admit your family would have easily sold you off – then what tale had he spun to them? What exactly had they thought of Chuuya himself?

The thought of your ‘husband’ still sent shivers down your spine. It was difficult to wrap your head around the idea of being the wife of Shuten Doji, a demon so terrifying that people had trembled at the very sound of his name. Even though Chuuya wasn’t that Shuten Doji, he was still insanely powerful: on the rare occasion that Chuuya had taken you out in public, arm wrapped firmly around your waist, you’d been awed by the sight of great and dreadful demons sinking to their knees before him, not even daring to look upon his face. You’d seen him fight, tearing apart beasts and monsters twice his size with his bare hands, a maniacal grin on his face, red marks dancing upon his skin, reminders of his power. It had been incredible to witness and terrifying to comprehend.

The sound of the door opening jolted you from your thoughts. You tensed as a pair of muscular arms wrapped around you, Chuuya’s now-familiar from pressing against your back.

“Hey, [Y/N],” he murmured in your ear. “I’m back. Did you miss me?”

“Good evening, Chuuya.” You reached up to caress his cheek. “Yes, I missed you very much.”

“Good. I missed you too.” He pressed kisses upon the side of your neck. “So, what were you doing all day? You haven’t finished that watercolor you were working on. I thought you liked that stuff.”

“I… was thinking of you.” You closed your eyes as his hands began to wander. “I guess I lost track of time.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” Chuuya molded himself to you even tighter. “I know the feeling. I can’t get you out of my head either, you know that? I love you so much, miss you so much, it’s almost annoying sometimes. Sometimes I wish I could carry you around with me, you know? Put you in my pocket so that I can look at you wherever I go. Wouldn’t you like that, [Y/N]?”

“It would be nice.” You shifted slightly, trying to put some distance between the two of you as surreptitiously as you could. He was just so close: his hands were splayed upon your belly, chest flush against your back, chin resting in the crook of your neck. Chuuya responded with a small growl, nipping at your ear.

“Stop it,” he murmured. “I haven’t seen you since this morning. You want to be with me, don’t you?”

“Of course,” you said quickly. “But, I just, um—” Your eye fell upon the gourd of sake sitting in the corner— “I just thought you might like a drink.”

“Hm? Why not?” To your relief, Chuuya loosened his grip on you, leaning back to recline lazily on the bed. His eyes, however, followed your every movement, his gaze hungry.

“Come here,” he said as you proffered the sake to him. “You know I don’t like drinkin’ alone.”

You pursed your lips. You didn’t like the demon lord’s wine; while Chuuya claimed it wasn’t made from human blood, he also wouldn’t tell you exactly where it came from. Nevertheless, you settled into his embrace once again, allowing him to wrap an arm around you. Chuuya began playing with the sash of your kimono.

“You seem distracted tonight, [Y/N],” he said, playing with the sash of your kimono. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re usually way more sarcastic than you’re being right now. Did anything happen? Are you unhappy? Do you want something?”

“No.” You bit your lip as the silken fabric gave way all too easily under his sharp nails, allowing his hands to brush against your breast. “I’m happy to be with you. I don’t want anything right now.”

“Then drink.” He held the sake to your lips invitingly. It was rich and dark and far too potent for your liking, making your head spin with a single sip. You grabbed his wrist to stop him, making him laugh.

“Still so weak,” he said. “But you should drink more. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s what you always say. I’m starting to feel like that’s code for something.”

He set aside the gourd, lowering his head to your breasts. Slowly, with agonizing tenderness, he began suckling on the pebbled flesh, drawing a keening moan from your lips.

“C-Chuuya,” you said. “Please.”

“Please what? You want me to stop?”

“No, but—” Your breath hitched as Chuuya returned to his ministrations, fist tightening in his hair. He was good, so good, that it was almost frightening. His hands wandered your body, sending sparks dancing in their wake. You arced your back, forgetting your hesitations as your mind sank deeper into a pleasurable haze. As you let out another moan, Chuuya hummed in approval.

“I want you, [Y/N],” he mumbled against your skin. “I want you so much it hurts sometimes. You’re so beautiful, so kind, so perfect in every way. I’ve seen my fair share of princesses and noble women, but none of ‘em hold a candle to you, you know that?”

“T—Thank you.” You looked away, embarrassed by his praise. Even after the level of intimacy between the two of you, it was still difficult to talk to him. There was a wide gulf between the two of you, a gulf you didn’t think you could ever cross.

Chuuya raised himself on his forearms to look at you. Your eyes flitted to his bare chest and his well-sculpted body, a being that once had been only a dream. Heat flooded your face, pleasure and panic tangling in your chest, and his smile widened.

“You like me too, don’t you?” he purred. “Course you do. I still remember the first time I brought you here. You were so scared then, such a shy little mouse. Now you’re not so scared, are you? Now you love me.”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I love you.”

He chuckled delightedly, swooping to press his forehead against yours. “I love you too,” he whispered against your lips. “I’ll give you anything and everything you want. A slip of moonlight? A bed of gold? The heads of every man in the world laid out at your feet? All you have to do is ask.”

You gazed upon him, into his guileless, grey-blue eyes. “I want to go home,” you whispered.

Chuuya paused, sitting up. Your heart sank, and you braced yourself for the incoming onslaught of begging and accusations.

“Home,” he said flatly. “You want to go… to your human home.”

“Not because I don’t love you,” you said quickly. “But – I am a human, Chuuya. I’m not a demon like you. I can’t live locked up forever like this.”

“Neither can demons.” He reached out to trace patterns along your shoulders, his tone oddly flat. “A demon’s world is far bigger than that of any human. I could show you things, places, people you couldn’t even imagine. You know the only reason I keep you locked up is because you continue to resist me.”

“I don’t resist you,” you pointed out hopelessly. “I live with you; I sleep with you. I call myself your wife! What more do you want?”

“There is more.” Chuuya leaned in closer, a strange light in his eyes.” There is a ritual – a proper ritual to join the two of us for all of eternity. If you’d only agree to that, then we’d be mates for the rest of our lives.”

“A ritual?” You stared at him. “You mean you want to turn me into a demon?”

“Its not as bad as the humans believe.”

“I believe that too!” You pulled away, filled with a sickening dread. Some part of you had realized this, but it was horrifying to hear it from his lips nevertheless. “I’m not going to turn into a demon, Chuuya! You can’t do that to me.”

“Why not?” He laughed bitterly. “You think you’re still purely a human?”

“I’m not… changed.” Your eyes filled with tears as you met his gaze. “I may have been with you, but I’m still me.”

“And you think that’s all you’ve done?” He loomed over you suddenly, the room seeming to fill with shadows. Flickers of red ran up his face and down his chest and arms, reflecting the red in his eyes. “You’ve eaten demon food, taken a demon’s seed inside you.” He raised his arm, showing you a thin scar that ran along its length. “You’ve drank my blood.”

Your blood ran cold at the sight. “No,” you said hoarsely. “Even then, I—I’m not a demon.”

Chuuya’s mouth tightened. You shrank back, terrified, only for him to pull away abruptly. “Fine,” he said, getting off the bed. “If you want to go home so bad, then let’s go home.”

“Wait, I’m sorry!” You sat up, alarmed. “Wait, please, I–I—"

“What?” He turned to you. “I thought you wanted to see your family.”

“I do, but…”

“I’m not going to hurt them, [Y/N].” He smiled, a rictus snarl. “I promise. Now come here.”

Something in his words made your hair stand on end “Yes, m—my lord,” you said, hurrying towards him.

“I’ve told you, [Y/N].” He wrapped his arms around you, pressing a hand over your eyes. “Call me Chuuya.”

The air changed. It grew cold. The wind rustled your hair, making you blink. As Chuuya pulled his hand away, you looked around, eyes smarting from the chill in the air.

You were standing on a hill overlooking a glittering city.

“Where are we?” you asked, voice trembling.

“Don’t you recognize it?” Chuuya waved a hand at the town laid out below. “Your village.”

“But—” You took a step forward, peering down at the twinkling network of lights. “No, it’s not. My village was pretty small. That is some great city.”

“That is a small place compared to the cities of today. But maybe you need more convincing.” He grasped your hand again, and in the blink of an eye you were standing in front of a shrine. Your village’s shrine.

But it was changed. Lichen covered the gates, moss creeping through the cracks in the ground. But more than that was the tall light that stood just outside the gate, a little flat plate just beneath it.

“It – those lights,” you said. “Those are the lights from your palace.”

“They’re called electric lights, and they’re not exclusive to my palace.” Chuuya crossed his arms. “The world has moved on, [Y/N]. It’s been a couple of hundred years since I took you, give or take a decade.”

“No!” You turned to him, aghast. “No, it – you’re lying!”

“Well, you’re welcome to go down into town and ask people, if you don’t believe me. Or read that plaque over there. Or even wander the world if that’s what you want. But you’ll find that I’m tellin’ the truth. You’ve been my wife for over two hundred years now.”

“No!” You turned a full circle, scanning the scene for someone, something, to prove him wrong. Your eyes met Chuuya’s, and the pain and resignation in them made you pause. “You’re… not lying,” you said blankly.

“No.” He shook his head with a small smile. “I wouldn’t lie to you, [Y/N], it’s not my style. I’d have told you outright if your family was around – I’m not afraid of any of them, no one will ever keep you from me. But they’re not there anymore.”

“But – why?” You sank to the leaf-strewn ground, shaking, your vision blurry with tears. “Why would you do to me?”

“Because you are not listening to me.” Chuuya sank to his knees beside you, embracing you. “You’re mine. You belong to me. You were always meant to be with me. You just needed to lose everything to understand that.”

#yandere chuuya #yandere bsd #yandere bungou stray dogs #bsd imagines #yandere nakahara chuuya #bsd x reader #nakahara chuuya

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