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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Greenwashing set Canada on fire

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

As a teenager growing up in Ontario, I always envied the kids who spent their summers tree planting; they'd come back from the bush in September, insect-chewed and leathery, with new muscle, incredible stories, thousands of dollars, and a glow imparted by the knowledge that they'd made a new forest with their own blistered hands.

I was too unathletic to follow them into the bush, but I spent my summers doing my bit, ringing doorbells for Greenpeace to get my neighbours fired up about the Canadian pulp-and-paper industry, which wasn't merely clear-cutting our old-growth forests – it was also poisoning the Great Lakes system with PCBs, threatening us all.

At the time, I thought of tree-planting as a small victory – sure, our homegrown, rapacious, extractive industry was able to pollute with impunity, but at least the government had reined them in on forests, forcing them to pay my pals to spend their summers replacing the forests they'd fed into their mills.

I was wrong. Last summer's Canadian wildfires blanketed the whole east coast and midwest in choking smoke as millions of trees burned and millions of tons of CO2 were sent into the atmosphere. Those wildfires weren't just an effect of the climate emergency: they were made far worse by all those trees planted by my pals in the eighties and nineties.

Writing in the New York Times, novelist Claire Cameron describes her own teen years working in the bush, planting row after row of black spruces, precisely spaced at six-foot intervals:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/opinion/wildfires-treeplanting-timebomb.html

Cameron's summer job was funded by the logging industry, whose self-pegulated, self-assigned "penalty" for clearcutting diverse forests of spruce, pine and aspen was to pay teenagers to create a tree farm, at nine cents per sapling (minus camp costs).

Black spruces are made to burn, filled with flammable sap and equipped with resin-filled cones that rely on fire, only opening and dropping seeds when they're heated. They're so flammable that firefighters call them "gas on a stick."

Cameron and her friends planted under brutal conditions: working long hours in blowlamp heat and dripping wet bulb humidity, amidst clouds of stinging insects, fingers blistered and muscles aching. But when they hit rock bottom and were ready to quit, they'd encourage one another with a rallying cry: "Let's go make a forest!"

Planting neat rows of black spruces was great for the logging industry: the even spacing guaranteed that when the trees matured, they could be easily reaped, with ample space between each near-identical tree for massive shears to operate. But that same monocropped, evenly spaced "forest" was also optimized to burn.

It burned.

The climate emergency's frequent droughts turn black spruces into "something closer to a blowtorch." The "pines in lines" approach to reforesting was an act of sabotage, not remediation. Black spruces are thirsty, and they absorb the water that moss needs to thrive, producing "kindling in the place of fire retardant."

Cameron's column concludes with this heartbreaking line: "Now when I think of that summer, I don’t think that I was planting trees at all. I was planting thousands of blowtorches a day."

The logging industry committed a triple crime. First, they stole our old-growth forests. Next, they (literally) planted a time-bomb across Ontario's north. Finally, they stole the idealism of people who genuinely cared about the environment. They taught a generation that resistance is futile, that anything you do to make a better future is a scam, and you're a sucker for falling for it. They planted nihilism with every tree.

That scam never ended. Today, we're sold carbon offsets, a modern Papal indulgence. We are told that if we pay the finance sector, they can absolve us for our climate sins. Carbon offsets are a scam, a market for lemons. The "offset" you buy might be a generated by a fake charity like the Nature Conservancy, who use well-intentioned donations to buy up wildlife reserves that can't be logged, which are then converted into carbon credits by promising not to log them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#greenwashing

The credit-card company that promises to plant trees every time you use your card? They combine false promises, deceptive advertising, and legal threats against critics to convince you that you're saving the planet by shopping:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-well-do-good-do-nothing/#greenwashing

The carbon offset world is full of scams. The carbon offset that made the thing you bought into a "net zero" product? It might be a forest that already burned:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-market-for-flaming-lemons/#money-for-nothing

The only reason we have carbon offsets is that market cultists have spent forty years convincing us that actual regulation is impossible. In the neoliberal learned helplessness mind-palace, there's no way to simply say, "You may not log old-growth forests." Rather, we have to say, "We will 'align your incentives' by making you replace those forests."

The Climate Ad Project's "Murder Offsets" video deftly punctures this bubble. In it, a detective points his finger at the man who committed the locked-room murder in the isolated mansion. The murderer cheerfully admits that he did it, but produces a "murder offset," which allowed him to pay someone else not to commit a murder, using market-based price-discovery mechanisms to put a dollar-figure on the true worth of a murder, which he duly paid, making his kill absolutely fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

What's the alternative to murder offsets/carbon credits? We could ask our expert regulators to decide which carbon intensive activities are necessary and which ones aren't, and ban the unnecessary ones. We could ask those regulators to devise remediation programs that actually work. After all, there are plenty of forests that have already been clearcut, plenty that have burned. It would be nice to know how we can plant new forests there that aren't "thousands of blowtorches."

If that sounds implausible to you, then you've gotten trapped in the neoliberal mind-palace.

The term "regulatory capture" was popularized by far-right Chicago School economists who were promoting "public choice theory." In their telling, regulatory capture is inevitable, because companies will spend whatever it takes to get the government to pass laws making what they do legal, and making competing with them into a crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/13/public-choice/#ajit-pai-still-terrible

This is true, as far as it goes. Capitalists hate capitalism, and if an "entrepreneur" can make it illegal to compete with him, he will. But while this is a reasonable starting-point, the place that Public Choice Theory weirdos get to next is bonkers. They say that since corporations will always seek to capture their regulators, we should abolish regulators.

They say that it's impossible for good regulations to exist, and therefore the only regulation that is even possible is to let businesses do whatever they want and wait for the invisible hand to sweep away the bad companies. Rather than creating hand-washing rules for restaurant kitchens, we should let restaurateurs decide whether it's economically rational to make us shit ourselves to death. The ones that choose poorly will get bad online reviews and people will "vote with their dollars" for the good restaurants.

And if the online review site decides to sell "reputation management" to restaurants that get bad reviews? Well, soon the public will learn that the review site can't be trusted and they'll take their business elsewhere. No regulation needed! Unleash the innovators! Set the job-creators free!

This is the Ur-nihilism from which all the other nihilism springs. It contends that the regulations we have – the ones that keep our buildings from falling down on our heads, that keep our groceries from poisoning us, that keep our cars from exploding on impact – are either illusory, or perhaps the forgotten art of a lost civilization. Making good regulations is like embalming Pharaohs, something the ancients practiced in mist-shrouded, unrecoverable antiquity – and that may not have happened at all.

Regulation is corruptible, but it need not be corrupt. Regulation, like science, is a process of neutrally adjudicated, adversarial peer-review. In a robust regulatory process, multiple parties respond to a fact-intensive question – "what alloys and other properties make a reinforced steel joist structurally sound?" – with a mix of robust evidence and self-serving bullshit and then proceed to sort the two by pantsing each other, pointing out one another's lies.

The regulator, an independent expert with no conflicts of interest, sorts through the claims and counterclaims and makes a rule, showing their workings and leaving the door open to revisiting the rule based on new evidence or challenges to the evidence presented.

But when an industry becomes concentrated, it becomes unregulatable. 100 small and medium-sized companies will squabble. They'll struggle to come up with a common lie. There will always be defectors in their midst. Their conduct will be legible to external experts, who will be able to spot the self-serving BS.

But let that industry dwindle to a handful of giant companies, let them shrink to a number that will fit around a boardroom table, and they will sit down at a table and agree on a cozy arrangement that fucks us all over to their benefit. They will become so inbred that the only people who understand how they work will be their own insiders, and so top regulators will be drawn from their own number and be hopelessly conflicted.

When the corporate sector takes over, regulatory capture is inevitable. But corporate takeover isn't inevitable. We can – and have, and will again – fight corporate power, with antitrust law, with unions, and with consumer rights groups. Knowing things is possible. It simply requires that we keep the entities that profit by our confusion poor and thus weak.

The thing is, corporations don't always lie about regulations. Take the fight over working encryption, which – once again – the UK government is trying to ban:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption

Advocates for criminalising working encryption insist that the claims that this is impossible are the same kind of self-serving nonsense as claims that banning clearcutting of old-growth forests is impossible:

https://twitter.com/JimBethell/status/1699339739042599276

They say that when technologists say, "We can't make an encryption system that keeps bad guys out but lets good guys in," that they are being lazy and unimaginative. "I have faith in you geeks," they said. "Go nerd harder! You'll figure it out."

Google and Apple and Meta say that selectively breakable encryption is impossible. But they also claim that a bunch of eminently possible things are impossible. Apple claims that it's impossible to have a secure device where you get to decide which software you want to use and where publishers aren't deprive of 30 cents on every dollar you spend. Google says it's impossible to search the web without being comprehensively, nonconsensually spied upon from asshole to appetite. Meta insists that it's impossible to have digital social relationship without having your friendships surveilled and commodified.

While they're not lying about encryption, they are lying about these other things, and sorting out the lies from the truth is the job of regulators, but that job is nearly impossible thanks to the fact that everyone who runs a large online service tells the same lies – and the regulators themselves are alumni of the industry's upper eschelons.

Logging companies know a lot about forests. When we ask, "What is the best way to remediate our forests," the companies may well have useful things to say. But those useful things will be mixed with actively harmful lies. The carefully cultivated incompetence of our regulators means that they can't tell the difference.

Conspiratorialism is characterized as a problem of what people believe, but the true roots of conspiracy belief isn't what we believe, it's how we decide what to believe. It's not beliefs, it's epistemology.

Because most of us aren't qualified to sort good reforesting programs from bad ones. And even if we are, we're probably not also well-versed enough in cryptography to sort credible claims about encryption from wishful thinking. And even if we're capable of making that determination, we're not experts in food hygiene or structural engineering.

Daily life in the 21st century means resolving a thousand life-or-death technical questions every day. Our regulators – corrupted by literally out-of-control corporations – are no longer reliable sources of ground truth on these questions. The resulting epistemological chaos is a cancer that gnaws away at our resolve to do anything about it. It is a festering pool where nihilism outbreaks are incubated.

The liberal response to conspiratorialism is mockery. In her new book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein tells of how right-wing surveillance fearmongering about QR-code "vaccine passports" was dismissed with a glib, "Wait until they hear about cellphones!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

But as Klein points out, it's not good that our cellphones invade our privacy in the way that right-wing conspiracists thought that vaccine passports might. The nihilism of liberalism – which insists that things can't be changed except through market "solutions" – leads us to despair.

By contrast, leftism – a muscular belief in democratic, publicly run planning and action – offers a tonic to nihilism. We don't have to let logging companies decide whether a forest can be cut, or what should be planted when it is. We can have nice things. The art of finding out what's true or prudent didn't die with the Reagan Revolution (or the discount Canadian version, the Mulroney Malaise). The truth is knowable. Doing stuff is possible. Things don't have to be on fire.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

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19burstraat · 2 months

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Random SOC Trivia I Gathered On My Reread

I'll be using this for fics, but it's fun just to read!

Jesper does not hold alcohol well (though this is according to Kaz, who is not exactly impartial)

Wijnstraat, Nemstraat, Havenstraat, Ammberstraat are all street names if you want em

Van Eck has been involved in trying to clean up the Barrel; pious. (Allegedly pious, I doubt he really is)

1/5 Van Eck (or general Kerch trading?) vessels are lost at sea

Kaz arrested three times at ten, twice at eleven, once at fourteen. Does stints in jail but it does not say prison (ppl assume he's been to Hellgate / another prison but I don't think so. He'd never have shut the fuck up about it if he had; I assume the Stadhall Jail)

Kaz's cane is lead-lined. I wasn't sure if this was canon or fanon

Kaz runs book on prize fights, horses, and chance games. Floor boss at crow club since fifteen-ish. Youngest to run a betting shop and has doubled the profits.

Gambling halls: Treasure Chest, Golden Bend, Weddell's Riverboat, Silver Garter

West Stave brothels: The Blue Iris, The Forge, The Obscura, the Willow Switch, the House of Snow

Van Aakster is the widow mercher who sees Nina to ease his grief

Inej likes orange cakes in white paper

Black Tips tattoo is a hand with first and second fingers cut at the knuckle, Razorgulls is 5 birds in wedge formation

Nina Jesper and Kaz definitely all have the crow and cup; the others don't

Jordie seems to like books

ridderspel and spijker are arcade games

Bilge, clams, and wet stone smell in the Barrel (per Retvenko)

Kaz definitely is partial to dogs; Smeet's hounds and the grey dog the Hertzoon household had, the windup dogs, the metaphors. He loves a dog metaphor sorry ur not real babycakes you'd have loved thematic web weaving posts

Geldspin is the cotton mill in Zierfoort, Firma Allerbest is a cannery. Both in Alys' name

Wylan was 8 when Marya 'died'

the black veil tomb is carved like an ancient cargo ship

3 flying fish on a grave: government. Palm trees and snakes: spices.

Inej's mother braids her hair with orange ribbons (colour of persimmons)

University a series of buildings built around the Boekcanal and joined by Speaker's Bridge (where people debate and/or drink). Boeksplein four libraries built around a central courtyard and the Scholar's Fountain

Shipping container at third harbour is a Liddie hideout; Jam Tart House is an old hotel near the slat that the Razorgulls use

Long scar across Kaz's right knuckle

Violating contracts and interfering with the market can get you hanged in Kerch; same sentences as for murder (this is. Insane)

Haskell holds court with his mates at the Fair Weather Inn every week

Belendt is the second oldest Kerch city and sits on the Droombeld River

Jesper was 7 when Aditi died

Inej has an uncle (who seems to have some sort of ringmaster role) and cousins; Hanzi and Asha

Kaz convinced a locksmith in Klokstraat that he was the son of a wealthy merchant who highly valued his collection of priceless snuffboxes, and that's how he knows what locks the rich are using

Hubrecht Mohren, Master Thief of Pijl, who Kaz doesn't appear to think much of; one of Haskell's old cronies

Martin Van Eck, Wylan's great great grandfather, was a ship's captain, brought back a big shipment of spices from Eames Chin and started the Van Eck fortune

Kaz and Jesper (+ other Dregs boys) taught Inej to fight

Kaz and Jordie are from a town near Lij, as per the 'Johannus Rietveld' exposition, but Lij is seemingly the closest major city/county so it's easier to just say they're from Lij lol

The last time the Council of Tides appeared in public was 25 years prior to CK

Kaz found Filip running a monte game on Kelstraat; he also got the clerks who turned over fake info, the fake attorney, the man who gave them free hot chocolate

The spelling of Zentzbridge lapses to Zentsbridge, not sure which is right or if they're actually separate bridges or if there's a lot of wrong quotes floating around lol

Dryden house symbol is the golden wheat sheaf bound with a blue ribbon; Van Eck is the red laurel but we knew that

Kaz taught himself finance and gambling hall rules

Church of Barter roof is copper and long has turned green

Church of Barter built around the First Forge / The Mortar, which is a flat lump of rock that's supposedly Ghezen's altar

Ghezendaal Hospital is. Idk. a hospital. Just thought ppl might want the name

#six of crows #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #soc duology #shadow and bone #my post

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fernsandtales · 9 months

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Finally photographed and listed all the needle booksies!

Available now on my etsy

I really love all the Merchant & Mills sewing accessories, they really fit the vibes here. But also I think it's a cute way to get into sewing/ embroidery/ handiwork. Idk. Just thoughts

#needle case #needlebook #cottage vibes #sewing #grandma vibes #grandmacore #cottagecore #ferntales #frog #mushroom #embroidery #art #fibre art #australia #etsy

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rebelfell · 6 months

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The Third Date

Eddie Munson x Anorgasmic!Reader

It’s finally the night of your date with Eddie and everything is gonna be fine. Great. Fine and great. Right?

Part One. Part Two.

cw: childhood friends to lovers, mutual pining, making out, fingering, sexual anxiety/panic attack, discussion of difficulty climaxing, eddie being sweet and reassuring, fluffy ending.

I was kinda in my feelings and needed Eddie to tell me all the right things. Sue me. 6k 18+, MDNI.

You’ve barely finished knocking on the bright red door to Eddie’s when it swings open to reveal him grinning back at you. He ushers you inside, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet as he shows you around his place.

It’s a small apartment, but for two young guys living together it’s surprisingly tidy and well furnished. That must be Steve’s influence, you muse, noting the plushness of the sofa and an overstuffed armchair. Shelves piled with books and board games sit off to the side and next to the screen door is a plant that could do with a little water, but ultimately is surviving fine. It’s bordering on cozy in here, cast in the glow of a couple lamps and a candle flickering on the coffee table. The warm, sweet smell of some nonspecific baked goods filling the room.

“So, this is my castle,” Eddie says, bowing slightly and brandishing his arms.

“I like it,” you nod as you glance around. “It’s not quite what I expected.”

“What? You were thinking empty liquor bottles, a couple camp chairs, a half dozen posters of babes in bikinis?” He quirks his brow at you, seemingly reading your mind.

“That may be exactly what I was picturing,” you reply with a knowing smirk. “Though it is you, so maybe a dragon in a bikini instead?”

He laughs at that and bobs his head a few times in agreement as his eyes drift to the overnight bag you’re clutching. “Here, let me put that in my room for you,” he says with a sweet smile.

You hand it over and your eyes follow him as he heads down the hall. He pushes open the door at the very end and you catch a glimpse of his old Corroded Coffin banner hanging on the wall that brings a smile to your face. Below it is his bed, nicely made up with a navy duvet.

Just the sight of it makes your heart race and every thought falls right out of your head.

When he re-emerges from the room, you realize he’s been talking to you and you have to force yourself to focus on his voice rather than your deep contemplation of his sheets.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered dinner already,” he says. “There’s this Thai place that’s seriously incredible, but it takes a while to deliver, so I wanted to be sure it got here on time.”

“That sounds great,” you say, still milling about to take in the rest of Eddie’s place.

He rattles off all the dishes he ordered, each one sounding better than the last, and you pause by the fireplace. A row of knick knacks interspersed with framed photos sit on the mantle. Some are his figures from Hellfire and you delicately touch a fingertip to the top of each one until you reach a photo in a frame made from popsicle sticks.

It’s a picture of you and him—one of the few in existence. You think you must be six or seven based on his buzzed haircut and your braces. Instinctively, you run your tongue over the front of your teeth, almost expecting to feel the thick metal wires there. Eddie moves silently to stand at your side and peers over your shoulder at the picture now held in your hand.

The two of you are at Forest Hills, sitting on top of the dome climber across from he and Wayne’s trailer. You must have spent all summer on that thing, pretending it was a deserted island where you’d been marooned after refusing to marry the merchant sailor your evil father had betrothed you to. The picnic table nearby played the role of Eddie’s pirate ship where he spotted you climbing to the top of the island’s mountain to signal for help. He would oblige, rowing an imaginary smaller boat to your island and bravely scaling the mountainside to sit beside you at the top. He offered you passage on his ship as a member of his crew, assuring you it would be hard work but that your new life would be filled with riches like the freedom to sail the seas and explore worlds unknown you could not even imagine.

Wayne must have interrupted your epic play to snap this photo. Eddie is in his signature pose. He’s got his hands raised to the sides of his head, fingers pointed to resemble horns and his tongue flicked out with his eyes wide and wild. You’re not even looking at the camera, enamored gaze unable to tear away from him.

“It’s like you had a crush on me or something,” Eddie says teasingly.

“Yeah, clearly I wasn’t hiding it as well as I thought I was.”

You chuckle, but Eddie’s brow furrows and his voice loses that playful edge as he dips into pensiveness. He takes the frame from you and carefully places it back on the mantle.

“Did you really?” he asks. “Did you really like me all that time and I was too stupid to know?”

The question catches you off guard. You’d sort of just assumed he had to know that was the case, given how things had progressed between you, seemingly overnight. Well, overnight plus five years. It's the first time you’ve stopped to question what had inspired his pursuit.

“I’m not sure,” you say slowly. “At the time, I don’t think I knew the difference between how much I liked having you as my friend and how much I liked you. Eventually, I figured it out.”

You pause, summoning the strength to ask the question you’re dying to know. The one you’ve been wanting to ask practically your whole life.

“Did you ever think of me like that? I mean…before now?”

Sadness flickers in Eddie’s deep brown eyes and he takes a steadying breath. He moves into you, slipping his arms around your waist and holding you by the small of your back. You feel yourself tremble as he tucks his chin down and gently rests his forehead against your own.

“All the fucking time,” he whispers. “I liked you so much, but I…I couldn’t imagine you’d ever want me back. I guess I was too scared to find out.”

“Oh, Eddie,” you sigh mournfully. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” he mutters. “Trailer park loser. Criminal. Freak. Who would want me?”

You shake your head at his disparaging words and overwrite them with your own. “Honest. Fearless. Kind. Trustworthy. Genius.”

A bashful smile spreads across Eddie’s face and he tries to look away, but you surprise yourself with your own boldness as your hand comes up to catch his face and turn it back towards you.

“I wanted you,” you confess softly. “I always have.”

He leans in and captures your lips with his. It steals every speck of breath from your lungs and you think you could fly apart into a million pieces if it wasn’t for his hands gripping your waist. It feels like the kiss goes on forever and yet it’s not nearly long enough. You instantly miss the feeling of his mouth when he pulls away, but he keeps his face close to yours.

“Sorry I wasted so much time,” Eddie whispers. “We could have been doing this all along.”

When dinner arrives, you guffaw at the array of food before you. It seems entirely possible he just ordered one of everything on the menu. You dutifully sample a little of each dish and have to resist stuffing your face full after one mouthful of this roasted duck Eddie asserted was the best thing they made. Delicious as it is, your nerves have made your stomach too jumpy to eat much and before long you’re helping Eddie box up the absurd amount of leftovers.

Guilt pangs in your chest thinking how much he must have spent, but Eddie chatters excitedly about how it only gets better the longer the flavors have to sit and meld together.

“Are you sure?” you ask, handing him the last container.

“Absolutely,” he says as he pushes the fridge closed. “You can take some home with you, too.”

His hand finds the small of your back as you walk back into the living room. His touch is gentle and reassuring as you head to the couch, but it does little to quell your nerves.

“How about a movie?” he asks. “Steve brings home a bunch of different stuff. We’ve got some horror, some comedy…”

There’s a knot in your stomach as he bends in front of their entertainment center, rifling through the rentals piled up next to their VCR. The lingerie under your clothes rubs raw against your skin as you shift in your seat on the couch, threatening you with the stinging humiliation of wearing it all night long only to never be seen.

What if he’s changed his mind? What if he doesn’t want to anymore? What if he thinks you don’t want to? Is there some signal you should be giving him? Some move you should be making? Ears now ringing, you clear your throat and he glances back at you over his shoulder.

“Maybe later?” you say softly.

Eddie smiles and nods in agreement before returning to his spot on the couch. He sinks down next to you and lays his arm across the back of the cushions. His eyes stay fixed on your face, taking in every inch. It makes your breath catch as you study him back, his features as mesmerizing as always.

You hurl yourself at him, realizing just a second too late his head is dipping down to kiss you at the same time. His face knocks against yours and you wince as you pull back, a dull aching where his chin connected with your cheek.

“Shit, shit, shit,” you mutter frantically. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he laughs. “No permanent damage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” he says, his head tilting to the side.

He reaches out a hand and cups it against the side of your face, his thumb stroking your jaw. You have to resist the urge to ask again if he’s sure, he’s sure. You know you ask it too often. It’s not even conscious at this point, it just comes out. Are you sure? Are you sure?

“Hey…are you okay?” he asks. “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah, I-I’m sorry,” you stammer out your response, heart still pounding in your chest. “I don’t know, I thought maybe I was supposed to like…make a move.”

Eddie’s brows raise and smiles impishly. “What kind of move?”

“Like a…a hook up move.”

Eddie chuckles, his dimples deepening in his cheeks as he scoots closer and leans in so close you can feel the warmth coming off his skin and smell the light, fresh scent of his aftershave.

“How about you let me worry about the moves?”

You inhale sharply, his words zinging straight to your core and making you squirm in your seat from the need to be closer to him. His eyes flit down to see your thighs pressing together and a knowing smile curls up the corners of his mouth. His beautiful, perfect mouth…

He helps you climb onto his lap and wraps his arms tight around your waist, squeezing you against him. He stares up at you, the tip of his nose bumping against the bridge of yours and then mashing into the softness of your cheek as his lips cover your own.

The kiss ignites everything inside of you. Years and years of built up feelings for the boy beneath you begin to smolder—a pile of kindling finally stoked into a flame.

Experimentally, you shift your hips and begin to rock back and forth in a slow, deep grind. You can feel the effect you have on him in his stilted breath and the prodding of the hardness growing in his jeans. He kisses his way along your jaw and when his lips ghost over a sensitive spot on your neck just behind your ear, you give an involuntary thrust forward.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, tightening his already firm grip on you. “Do that again…”

You oblige him happily. Enthralled by the need in his voice and spurred by his gritty tone, you grind down on him again and squeeze your thighs around his hips. A strained gasp bursts from his lips and he fumbles to grip the back of your neck and hold your mouth against his.

He’s wearing another button up tonight, dark hunter green this time that sets off the rich brown hue of his eyes. Your fingers find the hem of his shirt and begin to unbutton it from the bottom, revealing inch by inch the clingy white tank underneath. It does little to nothing to conceal the solid muscled form of his chest and it makes your heart pound imagining it bare. But sitting down, there was still that soft roundness to his belly you’d always liked. It made you want to scratch him like he was a stray mutt from the junkyard, scraggly and carefree.

When the last button is pulled open, you help him shrug off his shirt, revealing corded arm muscles that twitch and flex as he reaches out to wrap you back up in his arms.

“God, Eddie, I need you—please.”

Your voice is plaintive and desperate in a way it’s never been before. He groans into your neck and you feel your hips take on a life of their own. The seam of your jeans catches perfectly on your clit and the feeling makes you rock harder, sliding back and forth on his lap and despising every single layer of clothing separating you.

“Hang on, hang on,” he pants, breathless as he sits up and slips his hands up your back to hold you in place. A chill runs down your spine and you sit back on his thighs, body going rigid.

“What is it? D-did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” he laughs, his pale cheeks tinging pink with embarrassment. “But if you keep that up, I’m gonna come in my fucking jeans.”

Heat rises in your own face, his words filling you with a mix of excitement and shyness. And you know he has to be able to feel how it causes you to flutter. He smooths his hands firmly up and down your back, bringing one of them up to the nape of your neck and beginning to massage your hairline with his fingertips.

“How about we…slow down a little?” he asks, his voice gentle but still husky with need.

You nod wordlessly and let your eyelids drift closed, rolling your head into his strong fingers as they continue rubbing your neck. Shivers ripple down your back and your mouth falls open with relief when he finds a knot in your shoulder and presses down on it. A heavy, resonating moan releases from deep in your chest and you immediately stiffen.

Panicking at the realization the practically pornographic sound you just heard came out of you, you slap your palm over your mouth and stare wide-eyed at Eddie. He just smiles.

“Don’t hide it, sweetheart,” he hums. “I wanna hear you.”

He pulls your hand from your mouth, bringing it to his own instead. Warm lips and hot breath caress your fingers and the pad of your thumb brushes over the impossibly soft skin of his lip. You tug it down gently, letting it spring back up.

“Your moans are so pretty,” he sighs. “Will you make some more for me?”

The words are lilting like he’s writing lyrics for a song. He looks up at you with those pleading eyes and you bury yourself in the crook of his neck, hiding your face in his curls. His lips and teeth nip at the skin behind your ear, causing you to release breathy sighs and moans just for him. He shivers beneath you and the evidence of his pleasure throbs, unable to be ignored.

Your mouth seeks his blindly, messily, desperately. Your own hands slide up his chest and around the back of his neck, raking your fingers into his curls until the heels of your palms meet the base of his skull. Firmly and slowly gripping the hair close to his scalp, you guide him deeper into the kiss. He moans into your mouth and relaxes his whole body, giving you the control to put him exactly where you want him.

So much for slowing down, you think.

His hips suddenly jerk upwards, lifting you with him, and you moan again. It’s not as loud as before, but its enough to make your lips break from his. It all feels too good, too overwhelming. The anticipation is killing you now. You’ve spent your whole life waiting, you can’t waste another second. It’s time. It has to be. It’s now or never.

“Can I, um…freshen up?”

Eddie looks up at you with a dreamy expression, his eyes a little glazed and pink lips puffy from kissing. He nods down the hall to the door adjacent to his bedroom, his eyes never leaving you as you slip off his lap.

You don’t enter the bathroom, though.

Instead you push open the door to Eddie’s room and slip inside, leaving it just ajar enough to spark his curiosity. You place yourself at the end of his bed to wait for him, half sitting up leaning back on your elbows. The mattress dips as you sink into the softness—a far cry from the lumpy thing he slept on in Wayne’s trailer. Your heart races hearing the soft clinking of his belt as he comes down the hall and pushes the door fully open.

He leans against the frame and smiles.

Eddie looks at you like a kid on Christmas Eve—not feral and wide-eyed like he’s ready to tear through a mountain of presents in an early morning frenzy, but serene and reverent like he’s looking at the tree bathed in the soft glow of twinkle lights strung on its branches.

“Hi,” he whispers.

You smile and tuck your bottom lip behind your teeth. “Hi…”

He gently pushes the door closed behind him and moves towards you where you sit on the bed. But rather than climbing onto the mattress, he sinks to his knees on the floor in front of you and rests his hands on the tops of your thighs.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he says, voice still hushed like he’s afraid this is a dream and you’ll twist into smoke if he speaks too loudly.

You nod back at him. “Me too.”

His hands move steadily up your thighs to your waist and he gathers your blouse to lift it gently over your head. Lit only by the lamp on his bedside table, the blue of your bra looks even more like the night sky and the light catches on the silvery threads, making the stars sparkle. Your whole body shivers with excitement as he takes you in, his eyes drawn to the swell of your breasts and your nipples standing rigid, pushing out from behind the unlined mesh.

“Fuck…”

His voice is soft. So soft, you think he might not even realize he spoke out loud. You smirk at him, a little disbelieving even as he sounds genuinely awestruck. His eyes dart back up to yours and he grins, chuckling with mirth at his own reaction.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just…you’re so…god, you’re gorgeous.”

Eyes falling to your breasts again, he reaches out to cup them gently and lets his thumbs brush over their stiff peaks. You hum softly at the feeling of him flicking your nipples with calloused pads worn that way from years of guitar playing. With a soft kiss, he continues on—his hands reluctant to leave them, but eager to touch you more places.

He slides them downward, relishing every inch of the curve of your waist until he finds the top of your jeans. “Do you want these off?” he asks, voice wavering slightly.

Your own breath is getting uneven itself as the beginning flames of nerves start to flicker and nip at your ankles. Eddie’s eyes parse your reaction, but you divert his attention by unbuttoning your fly and helping him shift your pants over your hips and down your legs. He tugs them off until they sit in a heap on the floor and he can take you in fully, the reveal of your matching set clearlying having the desired effect.

“Wow…” He stares, eyes soft with awe. His strong hand flexes to extend his fingers and he reaches out to gently stroke the navy material. “I like this a lot,” he says.

“That’s good,” you say, peering at him shyly. “I got it for you.”

His eyes light up at that, brows raising in disbelief. Not that he thinks you’re lying, but that he can’t possibly fathom how he got this lucky.

“Seriously?” he breathes. “No one’s ever…”

He clears his throat, trying to choke back the incoherent stream of words threatening to spill out of his mouth. And his mind scrambles to say something that doesn’t sound completely idiodic. He feels like a caveman seeing fire for the first time and trying to think of a word for it.

He’s just so fucking happy.

Cupping your face tenderly in his hands, thumbs brushing the apples of your cheeks, he gazes deep into your eyes. “You’re so special to me,” he says. “I want to be sure I do this right.”

“So far so good,” you whisper.

He’s left his button down in the living room, leaving him stripped down to only his white singlet. The muscles in his shoulders ripple as he lifts his arms and you whisk off his tank to unveil his bare chest. A couple new tattoos catch your eye. A black widow spider now sits over the demon head on his left pec, just beneath his collarbone. There’s a sword etched into his ribs and as you follow the point down, you spot two pale nicotine patches in the usual spot on his hip.

It makes your heart swell thinking of how he’d explained it that night you played pool. For when I’m really nervous, he’d said. It still seemed so silly that you could make him nervous.

“Can I kiss you more?” he asks.

You nod and close your eyes to wait for the feeling of his mouth on yours, only to gasp softly when he goes to your neck instead. His lips vibrate with a gentle groan as he kisses down the column of your throat, sucking at it lightly and listening to how it causes your breath to hitch when he finds a particularly sensitive spot. Shivers cascade down your back as he continues on his path, kissing over the mounds of your chest, down your belly, nudging your legs apart.

“Eddie, you don’t have to—ohhh…”

His mouth trails over your hip and they flex upwards, seeking more. He smooths his hands over your legs and every inch of your skin he touches buzzes with anticipation.

“Please, sweetheart?” he says, baring his teeth in a sinful smile from between your thighs. “Been dreaming about this so long…I just want to make you feel good.”

His lips ghost over your heat, the tip of his nose brushing against your sensitive button through the thin barrier of your underwear. Your breath hitches in your throat as he starts to slowly nod his head, giving a preview of the motions he’s dying to use on you. Warm, broad palms coast over your hips and ringed fingers curl around the elastic band circling your waist.

“Can I take these off?” he asks. “I want to see you.”

You hum a noise of approval, so dizzy with need you can’t even form a real word. He glides your panties down your legs, nails raking over your skin all the way down to your ankles. Fighting the urge to cringe at how exposed you feel, you bring your focus back to Eddie—back to his eyes and the way they drink you in. The tip of his tongue ekes out between his lips to wet them and he turns his head to make a path of delicate kisses along the inside of your calf.

You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay, you chant internally. God, you want this so much.

Excitement pools in your belly and the feeling mixes with your nerves into a lethal cocktail. As he kisses up one leg, your other begins to tremble against his ear. You feel as though you’re about to float away and drift untethered into the ether.

“Eddie?”

His kisses pause at your knee joint and he looks up at you. “Yes, princess?”

“I…I need you closer,” you admit meekly.

He obliges instantly and slides up onto the bed, cradling your body against his. The hardness in his jeans prods against your side and you almost black out thinking how he could be inside you any minute now. Except Eddie seems perfectly content taking his time.

He skims his fingers from your navel up your sternum, relishing every quiver of your body. His touch follows the graceful lines of your collarbone and neck up to your jaw. With his other arm under you, head resting securely in the crook of his elbow, he traces more of your outline.

At last he begins his descent, teasingly light touch weaving back and forth across your tummy in swirling patterns down to your mound. He tenderly spreads you apart and strokes your center, fingertips brushing ever so gently over your clit. His eyes stay fixed on your face as he applies more pressure, seeking your reaction.

“That feel good?” he asks, his breath warm on your cheek.

“Yes,” you gasp softly. “Keep going.”

With a little more intention, he dips a finger into your entrance and his chest rumbles with a moan. “You’re so wet,” he whispers. “Is that all for me?”

You can’t answer, your eyes falling closed and your head tipping back—almost wanting to cry because it feels so good in a way it never has. He slides further inside, gently massaging your warm, wet walls. With his thumb pressing on your clit in time with his thrusts, he adds another finger, stretching you open further. Your pussy positively blooms for him, enveloping his fingers and taking him in eagerly.

“Oh, god, Eddie…”

“That’s it, beautiful,” he husks, his digits expertly curling inside of you as his thumb swirls outside. He lowers his voice further, a heated whisper in your ear. “I wanna hear you come…”

His voice sends a jolt straight to your core, but the words cause your mind and body to diverge. You try to stay present. You try not to dwell on it, but his statement echoes. It fills your head and ricochets around the inside of your skull, taking over everything. That’s when you feel it.

Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what he’s doing down there or how good it felt just moments ago. That rigidness you know all too well permeates your body and stills everything—a boulder at the bottom of a frozen lake kind of stillness. You can’t believe you let this happen. You can’t believe you’re ruining this. You can’t believe how stupid you were for thinking it would be any different. Your heart races, pounding like a battering ram behind your ribcage like it’s trying to burst out.

“Eddie,” you croak. “Eddie, stop!”

He pulls back immediately, his eyes round with concern at the sudden panicked tone in your voice. He stares at you, his own expression descending into remorse.

“Shit, shit, I’m sorry,” he says. “Does it…did it not feel good?”

“No, no, it—I mean, yes, it did, I just…”

Your chest gets unbearably tight, the pressure crushing your windpipe. You try to inhale, but it feels more like sucking air through a pinhole. You sit up, hands fumbling for the sheets to cover yourself. Your whole body is on fire. Blistering, burning, searing pain replacing every speck of the pleasure you’d been feeling. And Eddie…poor Eddie is looking at you like he’s about to cry.

“Hey,” he soothes, timidly reaching to touch your knee. “Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know,” you gasp, still struggling to get air and failing. “I-I-I feel…”

“It’s alright,” he says, voice steady but urgent. “Look at me, yeah? Take a deep breath in and blow it out quick like you’re blowing out a birthday candle? Okay? Do it with me.”

He locks eyes with you as he demonstrates, sucking in a breath and holding it in his chest until you do the same. Once you have, he blows out a big puff of air and begins breathing steadily in through his nose and out though his mouth. You mimic him, remaining held by those deep brown pools until you feel your heart rate slow and finally steady.

“That’s good,” he says, shifting so he can rub his hand in wide circles across your back. “You’re doing so good, just keep going.”

You can’t decide if he’s patronizing you, praising you for breathing of all things. But his words are calming regardless and his hand on your back has a comforting weight to it. He keeps up with rubbing small circles across your back until you swallow hard and open your mouth to speak.

“I have to tell you something,” you say.

“Okay. What is it?”

“I can’t, um…I’m not going to…I don’t…finish.”

He frowns, brow furrowing as they knit together. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve never been able to get there. And I-I guess I panicked. I didn’t want you to spend all this time on it when it’s not going to happen.”

“Oh,” he exhales softly. “So…never?”

You shake your head, hugging your knees to your chest. “No,” you sniff. “Never.”

“But what about with Carl? You guys were together for like years.”

“Yeah, but he never…” You sigh and pinch your eyes closed. “I mean, I never—”

“He never made you come?”

Shame radiates in your chest like heartburn and you feel the sting of tears that threaten to spill over your eyelids. “I know, okay?” you whimper. “It’s humiliating.”

“No, no! That’s not what I meant. I mean, it should be humiliating for him. Isn’t it?”

“I don’t see how,” you shrug. “It’s not your food’s fault for being cold if the microwave is busted.”

“You’re not busted,” Eddie insists. “He’s got to try. He should have helped you get there.”

“He did try. We’d have sex and it would feel fine, but we’d always get to this point where I knew it wasn’t gonna happen. And it…it was just easier to get him taken care of.”

“But what about with his fingers? Or his mouth? Or a toy?”

Your face burns at the memory of similar past conversations. Bringing up things you thought seemed obvious only resulted in Carl feeling insulted, like you were saying his dick wasn't enough for you.

“It, um…it took too long.”

“What’s too long?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble. “It felt like an eternity. And I’d get all wrapped up in my head kind of…kind of like I did just now. And it didn’t make sense to waste all that time—”

“It’s not a waste of time,” Eddie scoffs. “Did he actually say that to you?”

Anger flashes briefly in his eyes and you quickly shake your head. It was true, Carl never outright called it that. He just didn’t disagree with you when you apologized for taking so long. And when you started to feel him getting tired and frustrated, it only added to your stress.

“How about like…on your own?”

“I mean, I-I’ve tried.” You look down again, your body still prickling as you try to answer without crying. “I don’t know why, but I can’t relax? I start thinking about, like, f I’m doing it right or if I’m doing it wrong. And I wind up laying there for hours trying and I feel like such a failure. Like I can’t experience this thing everyone else can and I don’t think I ever will.”

A dark, wet splotch appears on his sheets as a tear falls from your eye. You brush furiously at your cheek, smearing the trail it left behind.

“I guess I get close. I think? I don’t know, it feels good up to a point, and it feels kind of, vaguely, like something, but then it just starts to hurt and ache. And I guess that could be it, but…like, the way people talk about it? I can’t imagine what I feel is what they’re referring to. You know?”

Eddie’s head hangs low. His expression churns with a myriad of emotions like he can’t decide which one to feel. Sadness for you. Anger at Carl. Disappointment with himself.

“I’m so sorry,” you sigh. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Furiously, you wish you’d just faked it. How hard would it have been to breathe sort of heavy and writhe around a little bit? It would have been worth it to avoid all this. But even as you’re thinking that, something tells you Eddie never would have bought it. He was too attentive, too attuned to any shift of your mood, of your body. He would have seen right through you.

“Don’t apologize,” he says calmly. “I’m glad you told me, I just…I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have rushed you. I wouldn’t have said that…”

He hangs his head again and rubs his hand across the back of his neck. You sneak a glance at him, the sadness in his eyes that you caused making your heart ache. This is all your fault, you think. You don’t deserve someone like him. You don’t deserve anyone.

“I, um…I’m gonna get out of here,” you say quietly, scooting towards the other side of the bed. Eddie’s head jerks up at your movement.

“Wait, what?”

“I should just leave, I’m…I’m really sorry.”

“Hang on, hang on, don’t go—” He lurches forward, reaching for your waist to stop you and then abruptly pulling back when he realizes what he’s doing. It breaks your heart a little, the look in his eyes like he’s afraid to touch you now. Again.

“Eddie, it’s okay—”

“It’s not okay,” he says. “Please stay? This is my fault, I shouldn’t have pushed so fast, I was just excited for you to stay over. And I thought this was what you wanted.”

“It was,” you say solemnly. “It is, I mean. I do want this. I’ve wanted this for so long, I just…I don’t know what’s wrong with me and now I’ve ruined the whole night.”

“No, no, not at all.” Eddie shakes his head emphatically. He lifts his hands and cups your face, calloused thumbs rubbing the smoothness of your cheeks. “Absolutely nothing is wrong with you,” he says. “You’re perfect. The only thing that could ruin tonight is you leaving.”

“Are you sure?” you rasp.

He smiles and chuckles at your refrain. “How about from now on, you assume when I say something—anything—it means I’m sure?”

“But are you…” You catch yourself mid sentence. “…certain?”

Eddie rolls his eyes at you and chuckles as your lips finally quirk into a small smile. “I’ll give you that one,” he says begrudgingly. “But no more.”

You give a reluctant nod and he grins.

“And yes, I’m very certain,” he says. “I bought all these snacks for breakfast. And I found this little basket we can put them in. I thought maybe we could drive out to the lake and read like we used to? And then go to that diner way outside of town? With the great milkshakes?”

Tears threaten to spill over your cheeks again, but now it’s from happiness burgeoning in your chest. “That sounds really nice,” you whisper.

He grins back at you.

“Okay, then. I tell you what…why don’t we table all this for right now? Neither of us is gonna make any moves for the rest of the night. We’re going to get in comfy clothes and watch TV, or smoke, or play cards, or talk…whatever you want. And whenever you’re ready, we can go to bed.”

Reactively, your shoulders stiffen and his eyes go wide.

“No, no, no! I didn’t mean—” He slaps his hand to his forehead and sighs at his own flub. “I meant sleep. I…I really just want to sleep next to you. And wake up with you in the morning. And spend the rest of the day together. Is that okay?”

He gives you those eyes again, round and open and vulnerable. Hopeful. It makes it easy to nod at him with a gentle smile. Because it’s more than okay, it sounds perfect. He smiles back and reaches for your hand. You let him lift it to his lips and his breath is warm as he kisses your fingers.

“I just want you here,” he murmurs to your knuckles.

You bite your lip to stop the Are you sure? already queued up on your tongue. Eddie lifts off the bed and pulls a pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt from one of the drawers in his dresser. The fresh smell of his detergent wafts towards your nose and you inhale it deeply.

“I’ll change in the bathroom,” he says. “Just come back to the living room when you’re ready.”

Still smiling as he leans over you with ease, balancing on his fists pressing down into the mattress, he kisses you. It’s not a messy or desperate snog, but not quite a chaste peck either. It’s deep and yearning. Full of wanting, but asks for nothing.

He heads into the hall and his bedroom door clicks as he pulls it shut behind him. When you hear the bathroom door also click closed, you creep out from beneath his sheet and reach for the panties bunched up at the foot of the bed. You strip off the matching bra and stuff the pair into the bottom of your overnight bag. To replace them, you exhume a simple gray pajama set of an oversized shirt and loose, flowy shorts. The light material is cool against your skin, soothing for the first time the existential itchiness that had consumed you all night.

In the living room, Eddie sits on the sofa, comfortable and casual as can be in his soft sweats. There’s not a speck of disappointment or frustration on his handsome face as he flips through the channels. His mouth splits into a grin when he sees you, eyes dancing as he takes you in, just as dazzled by the sight of you in plain pajamas as he was by your lingerie.

He pats the cushion next to him and jerks his chin up to beckon you over. From the TV, the eerie tinkling theme of The Twilight Zone begins to play and you all but scamper over to the couch. He chuckles as you pad across the carpet and nestle into his side, folding your legs under you.

He reaches behind your head to pull down the knit blanket draped over the back of the sofa and proceeds to tuck it securely around you both. “Comfy?” he asks, still smiling down at you.

You nod and his arm curls securely around your shoulder. It rests there naturally, like it’s the one place in the world it’s always been meant to be. “Thank you, Eddie,” you whisper, stretching your neck to press your lips against his.

“Of course. Anything for you, sweetheart.”

His voice is tender and rumbly and you can feel his chest vibrate with the words as you lay your head against him. The softness of his t-shirt on your cheek and the warmth of his skin you can feel through it fills you with contentment. You mold yourself into his side, already thinking how nice it will be when you inevitably fall asleep right here. Right where you belong. Eddie’s head dips and he rests his cheek on the top of your head as he begins to recite along with the narrator,

“You’re traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination…”

Thank you for reading/interacting - love you, mean it (◕‿◕)

tags: @vintagehellfire @mygirlchaos @autumnleagues @valerievortex

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #eddie stranger things #stranger things fanfic #tw: anorgasmia #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst

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dailyadventureprompts · 4 months

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Villain: The Gleebringer Battalions

Gallard Gleebringer only ever wanted to make people happy. By using his skills as a toymaker and inventor he sought to fill the world with devices that would bring wonder, and save people from the drugery of labor to give them more time for play.

Seeking to save his neighbours from the horrors of war, and under the patronage of the battlehungry local margrave, Gallard has a constructed an autonomous army of toy soldiers that in some weeks time will go berserk and begin rampaging across the land, playing out an inexplicable war-game that will leave villages sacked and the entire region destabilized.

It’s up to the party to notice the looming crisis and do something about it before the toys begin their march, As the powers that be are not only blind to the looming crisis but actively dismissive of any

Adventure Hooks:

Scraping together enough coin to fund a construct army has left the margrave’s treasury more than a little tight pursed, leading them to skimp on things like repairing infrastructure, public festivals, and resupplying their garrisons. There’s plenty of opportunities for adventurers as bandits and monsters propagate through the wilderness, and the lesser nobles rely on mercenaries to guard their holdings. Its only so long before the cracks begin to show however, as roads wash out and the realms defenders turn to brigandry.

The party end up in a tavern drinking with an old military officer previously employed by the margrave. She’s iresome and illtempered, but she’ll crawl out of her cups long enough to tell the tale of how after twenty years of loyal service she was let go for protesting when some of the troops under her command were killed in a training exercise. If the party press a little she might just let it slip that it wasn’t training so much as a field test of Gleebringer’s machines, which her boss insisted be against real troops. Later on, they’ll find an official bounty posted for the woman, who’s rallied some of her fellow discontented soldiers and started on a campaign of sabotage.

For his part Gleebringer is quite blind to the looming threat, having been carried by his ever shifting attention to yet another new project once the design and manufacture of the armies were complete. The party might get a chance to talk to him however if they manage to sneak into the excursive exposition he's hosting in the province's capital, either by riding in on the coattails of a wealthy patron, or by sneaking in among the serving staff. Actually getting an audience with the toymaker will be even more difficult as the margrave has set his agents to watch and protect Gleebringer, and it's only so long before they notice the uninvited guest have crashed the private function.

Setup: While many gnomes dabble in artifice, it was early in his apprenticeship with the village toymaker that a young Gallard discovered both his love and prodigious talent for the technical arts. It wasn't just a magical knack, it was an eye for detail that had people saying that the gnome's creations seemed to be alive long before he figured out how to make them move on their own.

Soon Gleebringer toys were in demand across kingdoms, and Gallard found himself not only patronized by innumerable wealthy merchants and nobles but sought out by engineers and craftsfolk of all kinds who realized the genius packed away in his creations.

Gallard didn't let the fame or the fortune go to his head, instead using his growing connections and commission budget to experiment with even more complex designs. For example: scaling up from music boxes to clockwork bands, and eventually an automated opera house.

As a man who dreamed all his life of building a flying town, it was safe to assume that Gallard had his head in the clouds. He hated to see people suffer but seldom thought through the implications of his inventions, Such as when an automated lumber mill intended to supply materials for his projects put an entire town of foresters out of work. This penchant for distraction was only encouraged by the margrave, who saw the military applications of Gleebringer's gifts from the moment a clockwork dragon bought for one of his children ended up badly maiming one of the servants who saught to tidy up the toyblock castle it had been charged with guarding.

Over the past ten years, the Margrave has become Gallard's most generous patron, supplying him with workshops ( staffed by apprentaces who's loyalty can be counted on) and an endless series of new projects ( which always end up increasing the margrave's power and standing at the cost of the common good).

Art 1

Art 2

#villain #villain noble #villain artificer #artifice #construct #bounty #city encounter #tavern encounter #town encounter #gnome

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dhampling · 3 months

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butter gn!reader, 2.5k

Astarion and his legendary beauty. Old hunting ground turned safe haven. A halo of well-aged tavern dust floats atop his perfect head in the sunlight and you couldn’t be more in love if you tried.

you and the vampire spend a short gloaming sun discussing marriage outside the Elfsong.

word count: 2,538

crossposted on AO3 HERE

read the tags and decide your fate!

He’s softer this evening and the room is fuzzy.

The smell of richly slow-roasted meats & seasonal field greens slapped up high on battered dishes and lathered with fresh salted butter, topped with baby mint, with window-grown rosemary; with truffle salts and crushed peppercorns. Red wine gravy. The open kitchen and the overworked barkeep with sweat glistening at his cheekbone.

Chalices lift from sticky dark tables, sleeves animated in shades of burgundy & emerald moving yellowed, peeling playing cards to chests. Hands joined in prayers of gratitude and glory. Extra chairs for those held close. Laughter; lilting as the bounce of those who whirl around the open floor to the sound of the bards, folding over in some giddy stupor and barreling back to the bar for more.

You nurse a now-warm pint of Balor Ale with eyes closed, calm in empty contemplation as the city smells and sounds wash over you. A late summertide tapestry.

Though people mill about the bar frenetically and the sounds from inside the Elfsong are as raucous as ever; it all knots together to form a sweet, almost melancholy ambience.

Nearby merchants bellow late-day deals on (mildly) heat-foetid produce. Peals of children laughing as they bomb through the cobbles.

Occasionally you’ll flit your lazy eyes open to find him amongst the throngs of people inside.

And in perfect view, he lounges on the back support of an open booth seat Karlach occupies.

Other party members dot similarly around the bar area and the wine flows free as the Chionthar among them. Legs crossed one over the other and cool hands coloured in late amber - one to support, the other to hold the stem of an ‘aged’ Rosymorn Firewine which threatens to spill a little overside as his arm moves in conversation.

From this angle he’s captured beautifully in the gloaming tenday light and from his slightly straightened poise it’s clear he knows that you’re watching for him.

A voyeur.

He’d question your intent, right by your ear, in a sing-song voice so sinfully rich it’d go straight to your head; before chortling in that one silly way he knows never fails to make you smile and capturing you - his darling dearest - in a kiss for the ages.

Astarion and his legendary beauty. Old hunting ground turned safe haven. A halo of well-aged tavern dust floats atop his perfect head in the sunlight and you couldn’t be more in love if you tried.

You see he looks to you after what seems to have been a joke told by one of the group, eyes heavy lidded with joy and the worn creases by his eyes a little deeper by the day. Checking in. You join your friends when you want and are gratefully received on those many occasions, but you revere your time alone. He holds back because he doesn’t want to upset you in the slightest.

Despite reiterating that he is forever welcome to join you in said alone time - and all puns entailing your ‘ alone time ’ whispered in a soft silken purr aside - you feel it in the way he speaks to you.

A fruitfly hums by your ear. You swat it away and look to him once more.

Astarion’s eyes are back on the group.

He listens to stories beyond your earshot and smiles, lolling his pretty head back and dipping to sip from his glass often, the tips of his ears twitching ever so slightly as he does. You clock the sparkling glassware as opposed to the standard tavern-offering pewter chalice and grimace. A heavy bell rings from one of the gilded towers in the near distance.

There’s a cathedral near where you’re from - you remember your visits there as a young thing. The height of the tallest spire seemingly miles above your tiny skull. Ribbed vaulting and lancets. You’d marry him there, when he’d let you, in one of the smaller chapels just off the aged cloister walkway.

The old stone reminiscent of so many who’d loved in all sorts of mangled, patchwork ways before you two were even a thought.

You’d find a way for the sun to forgive him once this was over, so he could stand in the light of a stained rose window and feel faith in something the way those born into religion do.

A reception bursting at the seams with old friends at the Elfsong. You could dance yourselves to the point of a tired stupor with reason enough to do so. A celebration.

Travel across Toril and find a way for him to be able to stomach real food, maybe. Have a cake with marzipan and trifle with rich sherry-soaked sponge for the guests. For him.

His lips show the faintest touch of a wine singe as he looks from Wyll and across to Jaheira, squinting in the sun before standing to - presumably - head to the bar.

You close your eyes again and somewhere in the middle distance, bells continue to ring. A dopey grin as light heeled footsteps approach.

“I think everyone was beginning to wonder if we’d had a tiff.”

Astarion sniffs gently and sits - almost slumped - toward you before leaning in for the kiss.

His lips open lazily to meet yours over and over again, skimming over the back of your teeth with a tannin-stained tongue and all the urgency of a tenday rest. A cold thumb brushes over the apple of your newly freckled cheek.

A carafe of freshly corked wine on the bench before you both, glassware and a plate with warm bread. The butter you’d smelled earlier.

“Could’ve come to me sooner, lover.” You pose with a slow blink, holding his arm still at the wrist to keep his hand to your burning face.

Foreheads meet. The sun beats in the back and the still early evening air is interrupted by the faint buzz of insects and far-off children.

“I know. I do. You just looked so very deep in thought. Our heroic leader.” He jokes, emphasising ‘heroic leader’ in a mock grizzled tone before his head leaves yours and bringing you into his torso with his arm around you.

His stillness feels reverent.

He doesn’t jostle, not a single gesture. You steadily pour two glasses of Firewine from the hefty carafe and sit back into him again.

“I was thinking about you.” You say in earnest while moving to toy mindlessly with the hand draped over your shoulder.

“Hm?”

A flicker - his eyes are on you, a familiar burn, a fire poker. He knows that he’s often the subject of your pondering (if your word is to be believed) and has spent days of his own considering what that could mean.

On nights where his tongue sours with centuries of fermented scorn and his bedroll soaks through with thick, cold sweat; your mind is a fertile meadow and he resides as naught but a simple buxom milkmaid - giving and dense and virile atop dry grassy knolls and by stony running rivers, rutting and riding and suckling and spilling with bare teeth brushing shining cheekbones and dirt smears on thighs. Dimples on cheeks. Eyes of green and silver, blunt teeth.

“You. I was thinking about you.”

Astarion looks into the oncoming twilight. He rests his head to the side on yours, then nestles in a little. A sigh.

From that meadow however, there’s a house with a thatch roof in the far distance; in which he sits by a roaring fireplace in comfortable clothes of his own choice and you, bundling through the door with a basket of fresh produce to stew in hand.

Those lips alone capable of crafting a euphoria akin to a godsly blessing on him.

One bedroom; perhaps two.

Maybe even three.

“How so, my sweet?” He speaks with the familiar measure of a thousand yard stare.

He doesn’t make the voyeur joke you’d seen so vividly in your mind’s eye, nor does he collapse around you with both arms at either of your sides and his chin on your head; burying kisses into your hair and cackling maniacally.

His laundry must’ve dried on the balcony in your party’s quarters during the blazing height of Flamerule. Ruffled shirt linen, crisp and earthy.

“You want to know how I was thinking about you?”

A soft intake of breath.

“Yes.”

You shift a little to look to the Lower City further down the hills and pathways of Baldur’s Gate, the span of the Chionthar and its banks now lit with flaming torches.

The racket continues inside the Elfsong with songs being sung; food arriving at waiting tables and being spooned, hot, into hungry, wet mouths. Sweat slickened palms joining in prayer. Yellowed cards downed and reshuffled, hands dealt. Bards plucking at lutes and lyres on streets and in parks just far enough away.

He looks to you as you roll your tongue around the inside of your cheek. Soft round eyes seeking permission to dream alongside you.

‘I was picturing a wedding. Our wedding. In the cathedral back near home - I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before.”

Though it hasn’t been left to sit long enough to aerate, you take a long sip of wine and a cloying film of carnelian remains on your tongue.

His eyes sharpen.

“You didn’t just propose to me, did you?’

He quirks a brow.

‘Really, darling? Here?’

He gestures to your surroundings while feigning disdain and reaching for the other glass. You begin to shake your head.

‘Come on now, little love. Not even a ring?”

Astarion drinks. His voice is lower. You roll your head back in loving laughter and wriggle yourself from his grasp, buttering a chunk of bread before popping it cleanly into your mouth.

”You want a ring?’

A sip. A smile.

‘Go nick one. You’re the rogue here.” You quip, chewing still on the crust and wiping your fingers on a scrap of cloth.

He brings them to his lips and licks clean any trace of salty butter, kissing each pad of calloused flesh attentively before sipping from his glass.

“Thieving my own engagement ring? How very sad.’

Spare hand gesturing once again to the tavern in such a blasé fashion it would make you cringe if you still put any doubt into his estimation of you.

‘This whole thing.”

His brows furrow in jest, the corner of his mouth pulling at a quick smirk.

“Steal one for me, then.” You suckle at your wine, keeping the vessel close pressed to your lips lest their wavering seriousness give your smile away. Astarion studies you.

“You’d accept a stolen ring as a sign of promise? Of intent to marry?” He queries, though not sounding as airy - nor aghast - as he likely means to.

“Depends who stole it.”

He looks back to the city in the distance. Silence between the two of you.

“What were you picturing in that pretty head of yours? The wedding.”

His hands roll over one another nonchalantly as he says the word. Wedding. The glass sloshes. He’s toying on the precipice of serious, a scene he can’t quite play at comfortably yet.

“Oh no no no, my love. You’ll recoil. It was far too homely for your tastes.” You shake your head animatedly, waving your hands in emphasis.

He leans in towards you; a sordid grin. He’s comfortable now. The warmth in which his shirt dried vividly present.

“Oh go on, darling. Make me squirm. Tell me every fang-rottingly flaccid detail and I’ll absolutely hate it, I promise.”

You choose to forget the face of endless night this evening.

The anticipated fast approaching absence of the tadpole means - most likely - the rescinding of Astarion’s ability to walk in the sun, to bask under the stained glass rose in the chapel; or to waltz in a quiet midday embrace atop the Elfsong veranda.

“Can I trust you to be as absolutely appalled as I imagine you’ll be?” You whisper, saccharine in mock secrecy.

“I swear it. Hand on undead heart.”

He lingers barely above you, solemn; a voice of liquid gold.

You let the silence hang.

“A chapel’

He winces.

‘Cold and draughty in some early morning moment - a choir elsewhere in the building, not close enough to be loud but not far enough to have their verses be wholly indiscernible in song.”

“Go on.”

“Maybe a little austere in tone owing to the nature of the environment, but each moment feels anticipatory. A small - no, intimate - service, fast but…’

You tap your fingers on the dry wood of the bench. Trying to recall the exact sentiment.

‘Eager. Full of devotion so sickeningly true it literally fizzes below the surface of the flesh. Both of us.”

Now you sip, content. Astarion looks into the distance

There are no burdens pertaining to the ‘Absolute’. Life is being lived and the day feels as if it is ending only for another one - just the same - to rise in its place tomorrow. The idea of fighting and peril waits for the morning chimes. An unspoken agreement.

“I keep forgetting I can make choices like that now, truth be told. To commit myself to something with no intent other than that which I decide.”

He’s wistful. A little contemplative. Fingers tapping away.

“There’s no rush, my dove.’

Eyes back on you, hand reaching for yours.

‘Besides - for the trifle I pictured at the reception; we’d need to solve your little taste problem first before I’d dream of allowing such an indulgence to go to waste.”

Astarion coughs, a glint in his eye.

“You’re questioning my taste now?”

“Oh, absolutely. Look at your choice in partner.”

He laughs softly.

“You're an insufferable thing.’

Your fingers & knapsack are both heavy already with stolen gems, as are those of every friend you’ve met along the road. Rings of onyx, quartz; once personal keepsakes & now your plunderer’s spoils. He’s like a magpie whilst rummaging through burlap sacks and rotten barrels. Token pieces without rhyme or reason.

He knows they’re worthless to sell on, anyway.

‘Who knows, though. I might like that. Once I know who I am again.”

Wobbles his head. Examines his pristine fingernails, buffing them softly against his blouse.

“Did you just accept a proposal that you fictionalised in the first place?” You gulp the last of your glass before refilling it swiftly.

“No. But now, you’ve got me thinking.”

“Pray tell?”

He looks at you, eyes now awash with mischief.

“Though I absolutely adore the vision of you on your knees for me - you know I do pet, hush now - I also like the idea of claiming the pose for myself. In a way that’s meaningful for me.’

He sips. You remain in place, hushed.

‘I’m not a details man, my love.’

Eyes on you.

‘Don’t do it for me. I want to. Once we know where we are.”

You beam at him. Pinpointing the moment he turns from rogue to butter, a soft smile on his face. Sincere in the last of the sunshine.

You’re not hinting, and you’d never intend to. When - or if - you’ll tie the knot is as asking the length of a piece of string.

The road which brought you to this very bench, however; has been one fraught with similar nonsensical questions.

#astarion x reader #astarion #fluff #not smut #my writing #one shot #talk of marriage #gender neutral reader #i think #should be anyway #soft astarion

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dutchjan · 2 years

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August 25, 2022

#frankrijk #france #creuse #glaudeix #was #zomershirts #merchant and mills #wasdag #alles schoon #print #zelf gemaakt #strepen #streepshirts #zon #all slate #kleur #jan en jos #vakantie #vacance

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 months

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I've been dreaming of the Undersea Marauder.

There are so many rules in this world. So many shackles to keep him down.

Let nothing obstruct his errant path.

How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die?

A fish is bound to the water his entire life.

It’s not a life for him.

Floyd is on his back, set adrift in the face of the Coral Sea. His hands cradle the back of his head, and he finds himself staring up. A flock of birds form an arrow, slicing through the sky. He wonders where they're going, what they'll do there.

Some merpeople dreamed of trading scales for skin, but Floyd thinks about giving up his fins for feathers. A pair of wings with which to witness all manner of strange things…

He chuckles soft.

Wouldn't that be so freeing?

“Eheheh. I wanna try it, too! Wait up for me, birds. Here I come…!”

Floyd rights himself and dives unto the frigid waters. His powerful tail undulates like a teal ribbon, propelling him after and faster. He steadily gains, chasing the shadows of the birds that skim the surface of his home turf.

Floyd approaches, lifting himself toward the shimmering boundary between sea and sky. A second later, he breaks through with a mighty splash.

His body elegantly arcs in the leap. He’s a skipping dolphin, a flying fish.

Free.

Floyd launches higher and higher, zipping past the flock. He collides with some birds, screeching with laughter as they spin like cars out of control.

Here come the clouds now—he easily bursts through them. They’re made of cool and fine-grained beads of water, refreshing him as he flies.

And higher still he goes, the sky dimming, a gradient of light to dark.

Floyd is among the stars, each twinkling like diamonds in greeting. The planets, like massive globes of sugar orbiting him.

The eel is weightless, effortlessly floating through space. With his arms, he paddles--and though there should be no gravity, the space warps and gives like water, letting him sail as smoothly as a ship after a storm.

He reaches out and plucks a star out of the cosmos, giving it a curious lick. The taste is like sweetened milk, and so he pops the entire thing into his mouth.

Then begins his descent.

At the peak of his jump, surrounded by the stars, he bends downward and plunges.

But there are no longer any waters waiting for him.

He crashes through a canopy of leaves. They scatter like papers, raining down verdant, brown, scarlet, tangerine, and gold. Sunlight pierces them, giving each a magical glow.

Roots come, skittering by him like a snake might slink. Thin tendrils extend from them, brushing his face.

Maybe there is some other name for them? Hyph-something, myce-whatever. Floyd does not care to remember his twin's excitable rambling.

Alarmingly, he spies an ugly bulbous cap poking out from a root. His nose crinkles with disgust.

Shiitake mushroom.

Floyd paddles through the fungi and plants, the scent of dirt and chlorophyll filling his nostrils. It's fresh and green mixed with damp and earthy, nothing like the salty smell of the sea.

Jade would like this, he thinks.

Daisies push through, their petals tickling his skin. He takes a shaky breath, holds, shakes again, and...

Sneezes!!

A great gale is unleashed, clearing his surroundings in an instant. Floyd is sent flying up, up, and away--

He shoots out of the dunes. Sand scatters from the force he emerges with, throwing particle clouds up into the air. Floyd flails, trying to balance his body. No use--he flops uselessly under the pull of gravity.

A scream rips from his throat. Not of terror, but of joy.

The landscape unfolds into a sandy expanse. In the distance, he sees an oasis guarded by palm trees. And below, a great city crowning the desert.

There are bright tents and stalls pitched, merchants hawking their wares. Vases and lamps with unique patterns, ripe fruits, adornments in a variety of designs.

Families and friends mill about in the packed marketplace, satisfied with their mundane lives, the schedules they keep. So content, so peaceful.

Floyd grins.

And he lets himself plummet straight into a stall.

The weight of him collapses it with a loud THUD. The merchant looks on, horrified, and his circle of customers gasp, putting distance between themselves and Floyd. Sticky with fruit juices, he removes the strand of black hair that clings to his cheek.

"Eh, guess it could be worse," Floyd shrugs, tossing off a chunk of watermelon sitting like a hat on his head. A line of juice dribbles down his forehead.

He notices the crowd staring and wiggles his tail in a casual pseudo-wave. One person immediately faints--but luckily, they're caught by a concerned onlooker.

"Riffraff!" the merchant shouts, waving a fist. "Scoundrel!! I demand compensation for what you've wrecked!"

Floyd rolls his eyes. He sounds like Azul.

The eel hauls himself off the pile of fruit--and peels right past the feet of the customers. The merchant's face heats.

"Guards! GUARDS!! Come quickly, HELP!! There's a sea monster on the loose!!"

Floyd rapidly drags himself across the market, digging his talons into the ground, his tail pushing him forward. He gleefully writhes as people scream and flee, clearing a path for him. His laugh, cackling.

He's at the waterways that thread the city when heavy footsteps spill into the street.

"He went that way!!"

Floyd doesn't look back before he dives back into his natural element.

The water welcomes him, its streams washing off the sand that paints his skin, loosening the hair that clumped from fruit juices. A tender kiss, a kind hand.

He has returned to the sea.

The channel goes deeper than Floyd thinks. It widens, becoming an entire ocean bathed in sunlight. A coral reef teeming with life stretched out below him, and when he runs his hand along it, tiny seahorses escape and trail bubbles.

He turns his head this way--a school of rainbow tropical fish race by. The other way, a band is in full swing. A carp on the harp, the plaice on the bass, bass on brass.

Floyd twirls as he passes, happily humming along to the tune. The music wraps around him, giving a warm embrace. He almost misses his name being called, almost forgets himself.

"... od....... loyd... Floyd! There you are."

A face that matches his appears beside him. He is followed by a boy with lilac skin, a series of squirming tentacles at his beck and call.

“Where did you vanish off to?” Jade asks. “Azul and I were starting to get worried about your whereabouts. Weren’t we, Azul?”

“I’m more concerned for the places he visits rather than Floyd himself. Who knows how much collateral damage he could cause unsupervised,” the octopus merman grumbles.

“Oya, Azul… Could it be that you lack faith in Floyd? Even though he has unquestionably served you since middle school?"

"You're saying strange things again. I recall him losing interest and changing his mind last minute more often than 'unquestionably serving'." Azul raises a brow. "So? Where were you all this time?"

Floyd flings himself at the duo, slinging his arms around their shoulders and pulling them close.

"F-Floyd?! What is the meaning of this?" Azul sputters, struggling against his binds.

"I was everything and everywhere all at once," he responds with a laugh. "I was as free as a bird! I'll tell you guys about it~"

"Fufu, it sounds as though you've been away on quite an adventure. We would, of course, be more than happy to hear of your escapades."

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neverchecking · 6 months

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Day 13: Olfactophilia- With Sage

Man it's crazy this this was always day 13 and i never changed it bc it was already written and someone (bailey) told me there were craving Sage. Nah, that's crazyyyy.

Smut so Minors Do Not Interact. If I find out a minor has interacted with my blog, I will block you.. Thank you!

Smut CW: Sage. (He has a thing with how you smell), thigh fucking bc MAN is that HNNNNG, also he bites.

This is Day thirteen of My Kinktober so be sure to come back and check out the other days! Friendly Reminder that all of my smut is tagged 'Cindersins' including this, but this will also be tagged as 'Cinder's happy halloween' along with the run of the mill smut tags.

Kinktober Masterlist <<< Day 12 >>>Day 14

He knew he experienced the world…differently.

Ever since his death however many odd years ago, he’s witnessed it first hand. His eyesight was sharper, catching the smallest movements as they brushed against blades of grass. Pinpointing the exact moment a club was swung in his direction, easily dodging past it for a counterblow. Catching the smallest reflection of light against ores that otherwise would’ve been lost in the depths.

His hearing was exponential as well. He could hear the soft pads of paws behind him in an effort to sneak past him. Hear the delicate crushing of weeds as a cave dweller moves about. Catch the smallest rumbles of pebbles falling from a hill as a beast tries to sneak up behind him.

His taste could pick out any spice used, he could feel the smallest changes in texture, but truly, his sense of smell had been his saving grace. When the wind shifted, he could smell different prey from miles away. When he really focused, he could smell which direction the nearest stable was, where the nearest monster camp was.

He could smell you.

You were his favorite smell, by far. Something tinged by the smell of skin and sweat, but nothing could hide your natural musk. Something laced with the natural undertone of the earth and whatever soap you had bought off a merchant that month. It was indescribably comforting. It grounded him because if there was something Ganon could never replicate, it was the way you smelt. His puppets could look just like whoever they wanted, they could feel as Hylian as they come, but they would never carry the smell of life.

It’s why he took every chance given to him to stuff his nose into your heavenly hair or the junction of your neck and shoulder, just to smell you.

It’s why his teeth stayed clamp right under your jaw as he dragged his cock between your thighs, feeling the muscles twitch as you clung to him, marking up his back in your own delicate handwriting. It was sensation overload, but something so deliciously overstimulating he couldn’t help but indulge. From his nerves shocking his entire system with each drag against your plush flesh, to the tantalizing taste of your sweat remaining tart on his tongue to the pure essence that clouded around him. It was smothering, choking him with a cloud of something that was utterly you he couldn’t help the urge to drown in it.

Golden Goddess above and her three servants, he prayed this is the one thing in his life he’d never lose. He’d burn the world to keep you with him, ignoring the smell of ash that followed after him.

#yandere linked universe #linked universe x reader #yandere linked universe x reader #link x reader #yandere legend of zelda #legend of zelda #linkeduniverse #linked universe #loz #cindersins #Cinder's happy halloween #kinktober 2023 #kinktober #lu sage #lu sage x reader #yandere lu sage #yandere lu sage x reader

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we-were-beautiful · 8 months

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Unraveled Ends Chapter 1

a/n: Remember How I said I wanted to get the first chapter out the first week of July, well I am nothing but a filthy liar. All my photos for the moodboard/aesthetic come from pinterest. Big Thanks to @curse-bearing-hips and @whisplion for all the help with editing this chapter. That being said we are all still human and there may be some errors and I apologize in advance. Hope y’all enjoy

Summary: A tailor in the heart of Velaris finds herself mated to the two most powerful fae in Prythian. Unfortunately for her the mating bond only snapped for her, leaving her to question on how to move forward. Should she wait for her mates to feel the bond or should she go ahead and reject it and live with the gaping hole in her heart

Poly!Feysand x Reader

Warnings: None but there is angst

WC:2k

Starfall, the busiest time of the year for the city of Velaris. It was a time of year that I both enjoyed and detested. The Palace of Thread and Jewels was always bustling, but during this time of year the workload nearly tripled for the tailors and jewelers. Citizens milled about trying to find the perfect outfit and accessories for the special day.

The Y/L/N family shop specialized in catering to the elite citizens of the city, having outfitted everyone from the wealthy merchants to the High Lord’s family for many years. It wasn't unusual for high profile clients to come into the shop for a custom outfit. Just last month Morrigan had come in for a custom gown for a dinner that she had. So when the bell on the door rang out as it opened, I braced myself for whoever my next clients were. On my way out of the back, I catch a brief snippet of the conversation happening.

“Cassian, move your ass. We were this close to not being able to get Y/N to make our outfits last year and I refuse to take that chance again.” That was definitely Morrigan. True, by the time the High Lord’s inner circle had made their way to the shop last year, we had nearly had to turn them away.

“Don’t worry Morrigan, you have come early this year so there is no reason to worry. You are at the top of my list this year.” I reassure her as I step into the main room of the shop. Last year… last year Starfall had been hell, the memory of the last time the whole inner circle had been in the shop burned deeply into my memory

“Ah, Miss L/N we are so sorry to ask this of you. I understand that it is a last minute request, but you are the best tailor in the city.” Rhysand had all but begged. In the end, I agreed as the High Lord had agreed to pay my team and I a hefty sum on top of what their outfits would cost. I had warned him that we would be running on a tight deadline and the outfits most likely would be done right before Starfall. I had had no expectations of ever finding my mate or that I would be blessed with two of them, but fate has a funny way of working.

“So tell me what are you looking for in your outfits for this Starfall?” I had pulled the High Lord and Lady into my office to gauge what the couple desired in their outfits. Feyre started to describe what she had been looking for in her gown; as she speaks, my hand flies across the page, roughly sketching out the dress she describes. I make a few adjustments here and there after she finishes.

“Are there specific pieces of jewelry that you are wanting to showcase with the dress?” I briefly glance up to the mated pair seated across from me. Rhys had draped his arm around Feyre’s shoulders. The perfect image of the happily mated couples that parents tell their babes about.

“No, I am looking more to showcase the dress this time around.” She responds with a kind smile leaning further into her mate.

“And High Lord, are you wishing to match the High Lady’s dress?” I address Rhysand for the first time since the two entered.

“Yes I would prefer to match my mate for the evening.” the High Lord's voice is as smooth as a night time breeze.

“Ok so that is doable. We can easily match a suit to the High Lady’s dress.” I begin to ramble as the pencil begins to fly across the page “are there any preferences on colors?” I look up to the two of them. I wish I hadn’t at that moment I felt a snap. Two golden threads tethering me to the beautiful couple sitting in front of me. It’s not hard to figure out that it had only snapped for me and not for the High Lord and Lady. I quickly made sure to adjust my mental shields and my facial expression.

“Is everything alright?” Feyre cocks her head to the side, eying me with a look of concern.

“Yes, sorry. Just lost in thought.” I try to quickly laugh it off. One look on her face tells me that I was not successful in that endeavor. I quickly pass my sketchbook over to the two of them to evaluate the sketches “Now what are your thoughts. We can make some adjustments but given the time constraints we might not be able to do anything overly extravagant.”

The two of them take the book and look over the sketches with wide grins. I took the time to memorize those smiles not knowing if I would be able to see them again.

The two weeks after that fateful meeting had been near torture; to have them so close but yet so far from my grasp. I had tried my best to continue on with life as normal following that fateful meeting, but apparently my shop had pulled off a small miracle for the inner circle and thus they had declared it their place to get clothes. Occasionally I could avoid Feyre and Rhysand, pawning them off to another one of the shop's seamstresses, but more often than not they insisted I be the one to work with them. It seemed today would be no different as they beeline for me.

“Sweetheart, how are you today?” Ah yes sweetheart, the nickname that Rhys had decided for me. Once he started calling me that Feyre quickly caught on and the two of them refused to call me by anything other than their nickname for me.

“I am doing well, High Lord, I assume you and Lady Feyre wish to go first for the consultations?” I give them a polite smile. I am met with wide grins from the two of them.

“Please it’s Rhys, and yes we would like to go first.” He pulls Feyre into his side and places a gentle kiss on the top of her head as I gesture to my office, and am met with an uproar from the rest of the inner circle about favoritism as I tell them to take a seat in the waiting room.

With the exception of a few new bolts of fabric and more sketchbooks sitting on the desk my office hadn’t changed since last Starfall. Two comfortable leather chairs sat in front of the large desk. My well loved chair sat behind it, my favorite shawl draped over the back.

There was one major change in the office. A dress form, with my Starfall gown hanging to it. Typically I wanted to keep my Starfall gown hidden away until the last minute to surprise everyone, but this year it had come to reside in my office. The dress clung to the form silver fabric flowing to pool on the floor like mercury. Small crystal shards caught the sunlight and reflected small rainbows throughout the room. It was a work of art that I had taken to working on piece by piece in my spare time. It was nearly done. I just had to finish off the sleeves and it would be perfect. I wasn’t the only one who thought this as Feyre walked over to the dress. She reaches out a tattooed hand as if to run her fingers along the fabric before quickly withdrawing her hand.

“Is this dress spoken for? It is beautiful.” She asked, looking back at me and Rhysand as I shut the office door.

“As much as I would love to say that you could take that dress Lady Feyre; that is my gown for Starfall.” I move towards my chair, busying my hands with gathering my supplies needed for a consultation “Normally it stays hidden until the day of but we have been so busy this year; I've been having to work on it little by little and it easiest to do it here in the office.”

There is a little pout on her face that nearly has me giving it to her to make her smile again.

“You will look like one of the stars.” Rhysand jokes as he pulls Feyre into his side. The little jealous spark that begins to burn turns my stomach. I tried to tramp down the jealousy… the envy every time I saw the two of them here in my office or walking around Velaris. Wishing that there would be space for me with the two of them; but who am I to disturb something so beautiful and perfect. They have the perfect life with their beautiful baby and friends, there is no room for me. Our lives are so vastly different from each other so I put on a smile and get to work designing coordinating Starfall outfits for the two of them. By now the two of them know the drill and begin describing what they want in their outfits and I dutifully begin sketching them out. I catch Feyre glancing over at the dress form several times and asking for similar elements in her dress. I oblige her, willing to give the two of them almost anything, just to make them smile.

I work efficiently to try and get the two of them out of my office as quickly as possible without trying to seem rude. I needed some air away from my two mates and I still had their entire friend group to go through. By the end of the consultation both the High Lord and Lady are pleased with the preliminary designs; they leave my office hand in hand with smiles on their faces. The rest of the inner circle's appointments fly by providing me with a much needed breather, but I am thrown for a loop when I am working with the Shadowsinger.

I had made things for the Illyrian warrior before, but I never noted how observant he was. Working with Azriel had always been a treat. The male favored rather simple but quality garments. Always wanting to blend into the crowd and not stand out, his appointments tended to be rather fast, but today seemed to be different. I could feel his gaze burning into me as I sketched out a new suit for him. I glance up from the paper to meet his hazel gaze. His shadows danced around his shoulders and darted across the room. It wasn’t unusual for them to dance about the room and round me whenever he was in; almost as if they could sense a kindred spirit.

“You seem…” he paused as if searching for the right words. “Disheartened.”

I set down the pencil and give him my full attention.

“I'm fine, Azriel. It's something personal. Nothing that you need to worry about." The lie almost sounds believable, but Azriel sees right through my lie; he raises an eyebrow but does not press the issue; letting me get back to work. Once the two of us are happy with the design we are quick to head out. Before I can open my office door, he gives my shoulder a quick squeeze with his hand.

“Please, If you need help don’t hesitate to reach out.” He gives me a small smile before rejoining his friends in the lobby.

The Inner circle is quick to thank me before they sweep out of the shop and into the city. I wait a few minutes for them to get further away from the shop before I let the seamstresses know that I am going to head home for the day, feigning a headache. I don’t remember the walk home, the path so burned into my memory that my mind was free to wander as I walked the familiar path to my family's home. It is only when I am here alone do I allow the façade to crumble away. I slump to the floor as I let the tears fall. How could the Mother be so cruel; to give me not just one mate but two, who are so vastly different from me; and for them to have already solidified their bond and start their own family. Rhysand and Feyre deserve the world for all that they have done for Prythian, and here I am just me. How can I even compare to them, let alone ruin the beautiful partnership that they already have?

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