#that's what we've been calling it so that's what i'm tagging it as

[sanguineterrain]

hi sanne!!! my mind has been rotting with assistant!reader x dick, and i literally can’t get it out 😭. i'm in love with your writing and reblog everything! thank you so much, have a great day!!

cute idea! I gave it a little twist ;) hope u enjoy!

dick grayson x gn!assistant!reader. flirting, secret identities, sparring.

****

Bruce Wayne is evasive on a good day and downright invisible on a bad one.

So when you see him down the hallway from his office, attempting to escape without being caught, you nearly trip on your feet trying to catch him.

"Mr. Wayne!"

His shoulders rise with tension. You pity the guy, you really do. Being a gazillionaire is tough.

"Mr. Wayne! Mr. Wayne, Sharon has been hounding me about the charity dinner. Please, if you could just go to this one dinner... you haven't been to an event all month."

And you're getting the brunt of it from all of WE's clients.

Bruce turns, his smile looking more like a grimace. "Hn. Hello. A dinner? I was sure I had a shareholder meeting that day—"

"All month? B, what happened to the two event minimum? That's your rule."

The new voice comes from behind you. Dick Grayson walks down the hallway, wearing jeans that probably cost as much as your monthly rent.

"Mr. Grayson," you say, nodding primly. "How are you?"

You shift the files in your hands as they start to slip. Dick is quick to catch them, balancing the stack.

"We've been through this," he says with a smile. "You know you can call me Dick."

Yes, you've been through this. Every time Dick shows up to Wayne Enterprises, he tells you to call him by his first name. And every time after that, you call him Mr. Grayson.

"Right..." you say, taking back the files. You turn to Bruce. "Mr. Wayne, if you would just consider the dinner..."

Dick gives Bruce a severe look. "B, this is ridiculous. You're such a stickler for rules and yet—"

"Oh, look at the time." Bruce scoots past you and Dick. "I've got that meeting with Lucius. Where does the day go? Please tell Sharon I'll get back to her."

You can't understand how a guy whose biggest exertion is made by playing tennis at the country club can slip through your fingers so fast. He's around the corner before you can blink. You sigh.

"Don't worry," Dick says. "I'll get him to go. And I'll get one of my siblings to tag along to make sure he doesn't duck out early."

You smile briefly. "I'd appreciate that, Mr. Grayson."

"Dick. So!" He trails behind you as you make your way back to your office. "Do you have any plans for tonight?"

"Working."

"O-kay..." Dick jogs ahead to hold the door open for you. You push through, trying not to frown. "What about tomorrow night?"

You toss your scarf on the hook. It ends up on the floor. You ignore it.

"Still working."

"How 'bout I ask B to give you the day off then?"

Now it's your turn to give a severe look. "If you're implying that I'd be obligated to go out with you in return for a day off, you've completely misjudged my character, Mr. Grayson."

"Whoa, okay." He holds up his hands. "You're right, that didn't come out right. How about I get him to give you a day off, no strings attached?"

You dump your files and sit at your desk. "That's at your discretion."

"Hey." Dick leans on your desk, puppy eyes at full power. "Maybe we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Did I do something that put you off? I'd like you to tell me if I have. I hope the fact that I'm Bruce's son isn't stopping you from being honest."

You put down your pen and look at him. "Look. You seem like a nice guy, and you're handsome with a rich dad to boot. But I'm just not available, okay? You're looking for someone to go to Tahiti with. I respect that. But I'm not that person. I'm just not interested in that."

"You think I'm handsome?"

You sigh and open your laptop.

"Right! Sorry. Not the point." Dick sinks into a crouch next to you. He pulls the oddest poses sometimes, like he's made of rubber bands. "Okay. You're not looking for a trip to Tahiti. Got it. I don't take many vacations anyway. So how about having a friend?"

"And why would you want to be my friend? I'm just some assistant."

"Well, I..." Dick scratches his neck. "I like you. Is that so hard to believe?"

Very. But okay. You can throw him a bone.

"I guess not," you say.

Dick frowns. "You don't believe me."

How does he do that?

"Can I please get back to work?" you ask, only a little worried about being rude. "I'm sorry, I'm just very busy."

His face falls briefly before he stands and nods.

"Of course. No problem. I'll see you around? And I'll get B to go to that dinner."

"Thank you."

You don't notice his lingering looks, or the fact that he picks up your scarf and places it on the hook on his way out.

****

3...17...64.

The safe clicks. You smirk. Easy peasy. The hotshots always use their own birthdays for combinations. Predictable. You bet Bruce Wayne does the same.

It's a blessing that you were able to duck out early today. Bruce gave you the rest of the afternoon off. You suspect that was due to some outside meddling.

You take out the files from D.A. Colson's safe. You always say that if crooked district attorneys don't want their documents stolen, they shouldn't put them where anybody can find them.

...Maybe you were too harsh with Dick. He's sweet, no doubt. It was nice of him to get you off early. But you kind of feel like he'd take issue with the fact that you spend your weeknights breaking and entering.

"You know, cracking safes is already Catwoman's shtick," a voice says behind you. "You might wanna find a new gimmick."

A thrill shoots through you. You toss your head as you turn, leaning against the open safe.

"Catwoman steals diamonds." You hold up the documents. "I just steal files."

"Files from the district attorney," Nightwing says, crossing his arms.

"The dirty district attorney," you correct.

"I'm supposed to let you off on a technicality?" He sounds amused.

Your shrug one shoulder, a little coy. "You could. I hear you're the nice one."

He laughs. Nightwing has a pretty smile. It's the first thing you'd noticed about him.

"Oh, yeah? Anything else you've heard?"

"Plenty. But I'm in a bit of a hurry tonight, Wing. As much as I enjoy our little chats..."

You dart to the window. Nightwing easily blocks your exit.

You're not quite sure what overtakes you when you run into Nightwing. Ignoring the fact that he manages to be the one to chase you almost every time (and what a chase it is), there's a tension between you. Or maybe it's just one-sided on your part. It certainly doesn't help that he's got a nice smile and bouncy hair.

"You know I can't let you go," he says, hands on his hips. "Put it down."

And he's extremely good at what he does.

"Make me," you say.

He never uses his escrima sticks, which you know is a courtesy to you. But that doesn't mean you can't hold your own.

"Alright," Nightwing says, smirking slightly.

He takes three steps, blocks your immediate kick, and takes the documents.

Something swoops in your belly. You kind of get why Catwoman exclusively fights Batman. Once you go bat, you never go back.

"Got them," he says cheerily. "Now what?"

You throw a glass bird tchotchke at him from Colson's desk. He catches it with his free hand, but it's enough of a distraction for you to slide into his legs. Nightwing stumbles less than you would like, but you push him down against the desk.

He grunts as he hits the wood, then rolls you over in the next breath, hands catching your wrists.

"Stealing... makes you no better... than Colson," he says, hair falling over his mask. All of him is pretty, really. It's too bad he's so firmly on the blind side of justice.

"If these documents are released, Colson will win his case and bury his own crimes in the process. Is that what you want? Another crook in court?" you ask.

Nightwing frowns. "You know that's not fair. We can't toss a case for the sake of putting Colson behind bars. And if we pick and choose whose lives to play with, what gives us the right to carry out justice?"

"I dunno, Wing," you say, a little breathless. Nightwing's hips are politely shifted off of yours, chest to yours. "Seeing you go rogue would be kind of exciting."

You can tell he's glaring at you. "Not in your dreams."

"Been in my dreams, have you?"

You gain enough leverage to push Nightwing off of you. He's back on you immediately, trapping you against the wall.

"How is doing something like this not crooked?" he asks.

You scoff. "It's for charity. I'm donating residents to the county jail."

You twist in Nightwing's hold and land a kick. In the three seconds he's distracted, you grab the documents. No sooner do you do that does Nightwing tackle you. The documents slip out of your hand.

"I can do this all night," he says, knee wedged between your legs. "Might as well yield."

"Yield? You're not even playing at your full strength, hotshot."

He smiles. "No, I'm playing nice."

You roll your eyes. "Well, play fair."

And then you jump out of the window.

Your tuck and roll isn't the worst but it's not the best. Especially when Nightwing neatly lands a few feet away without a wince.

"Showoff," you say.

"Give me the documents," he says. "I want to put Colson away, too. But this isn't how to do it. He's still a civilian, and his client's life matters."

You get up and wobble on a loose brick on the edge. Stupid historical buildings.

You're desperate. If he keeps this up, you're bound to land yourself a night in the police station and lose the documents.

So you dust yourself off. And you stop. Right at the edge of the roof.

"Okay," you say.

Nightwing takes a careful step forward. "Okay?"

You toss the documents to him. He catches them in surprise.

"You're surrendering?" he asks.

You shrug. "Like you said: you can do this all night. And I guess there are better ways to catch Colson. More permanent ways."

He tilts his head. "You're not gonna kill him, are you?"

"No! Jesus, man. Ye of little faith."

"I'm just trying to understand why you surrendered."

You sigh. "Because you always win anyway. You're a better fighter than me. And I'm cornered. I just feel like cutting my losses early. You're a lot more convincing than Batman."

"Is that so?"

"Oh, yeah. I much prefer you chasing me."

"Uh-huh." He nods towards the building. "Come on, then."

"Okay, sure."

You take a step. And you fall.

The brick is loose under your foot. It doesn't take much for you to keep going.

Panic surges through you, but that only solidifies your acting.

"Wing!" you cry, toppling over the edge.

"Shit!"

Nightwing lunges and grabs you by your waist, then uses momentum to haul you both to safety. His cheek against yours for a moment, body pressed to yours. It really is a damn shame he's such a Boy Scout.

You knock him in the stomach and snatch the documents, then separate from his grip. You watch his face contort in realization as you land and bolt.

"That wasn't playing nice or fair!" he yells, landing on the opposite side.

You're already gone, laughter echoing.

#dick Grayson x reader #dick Grayson x you #Nightwing x reader #Nightwing x you #Nightwing fanfiction #nightwing x y/n #dick Grayson fanfiction #dick Grayson imagine #dc fanfiction #batman fanfiction #inbox #blurb

[drumlincountry]

Every ✌️🏳️‍🌈💖queer vocab as gaeilge 💖🏳️‍🌈✌️ infographic I see has like aerach, maybe ait, and then the same list of terms that were directly translated from English by USI in like 2016. Cowards. Tell me the slurs.

#There's a serious conversation to be had about how terms for queer experiences can't be clearly translated across cultural and linguistic #Boundaries. B/c like. How does each culture define gender transgression? #What's a deviant sexuality? It depends on what the culture defines as normal #And EXTREMELY IMPORTANTLY FOR PPL WRITING THESE VOCAB LISTS #just importing English terms makes it seem like queerness is foreign and like. That Ireland didn't have queers #Until the Brits told us what bisexual and transgender were #So while I understand ppls discomfort with inclusing slurs. Well. They're proof that we've always been here. #I'm infinitely interested in the fact that dyke I.e. pejorative term for lesbian is the same as the verb to complain #That at least one person I know got called 'pale/white boy' growing up. Like that was how kids would call each other gay insultingly #And that 'queer ' is best embodied by words meaning strange and crooked #I want to know what queer Irish speakers called themselves!! I want to know how they were understood by their communities #Even when it was negative ! #I wanna know all the slurs and idioms and double entendres. Idc about leispiach #Unless! That was a term that was used! In that case i want to know the hows and wheres very badly pls!!! #queer tag #irish language #An ghaeilge #gaeilge #Irish shit #Gotta say trasinscneach is adorable tho :-) tras!

[svtskneecaps]

literally it's 3am where i live and i'm on mobile but FUCK IT i haven't posted any actual writing in like a YEAR on this blog whose description include the words "I WRITE" and i can't tell if i'm even going anywhere with this so fuck it under the cut is the prospective absolute mess of the first chapter of the flipo family time loop fic. (for clarity, flipo family as in slime, mariana, and juanaflippa) this covers loop 0, aka the relevant parts of canon. words: 1630

parts of it i popped off with and other parts i hate; up to you to identify them. also the italics and other formatting got erased when i copy pasted and i'm re-adding all of it by hand so if i missed a spot, no i didn't. if i missed an accent on a letter in spanish that was a typo, if i missed a ¡ or ¿ that may have been on purpose.

oh and for obvious reasons, content warning for mentions and mild descriptions of child death and child murder. no blood, and most of it is a three word mention; i'd say the brief paragraph beginning "Tilín didn't scream" is most of the reason this warning exists.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

He’d been hoping for a bright, sunny day to start their vacation, but was sorely disappointed. The portal had apparently taken them pretty far, since they’d gone from noon to night time. Talk about jetlag. They hadn’t even been on a plane.

“What happened to the other guys?” he wondered aloud as he stepped onto the platform.

“Yeah no clue,” Phil said, scanning the empty station. “Thought they’d meet us here.”

“Guys!” one of the Spanish speakers--Vegetta, he’d said, when they’d all met up at the first station--called, from a lectern at the wall. “There is a book!”

They crowded around as he read the instructions aloud--something about pressure plates, Slime wasn’t paying that close of attention. He was a little more preoccupied with making sure it only felt like his brain was dripping out of his ears. That would be kind of embarrassing.

Which was not to say that he wasn’t enjoying the constant onslaught of people talking over each other using words he may or may not understand. In fact, it was the opposite; he was frankly thriving in the absolute chaos that kicked back up around him as a timer appeared in the wrist communicators they’d been provided along with their tickets.

“Como se dice ‘we are going to die now’?” He giggled, chasing Phil and Fit to one end of the station.

“¡Vamos a morir!” shouted Spiderman, echoed seconds later by the black bear in the collared shirt.

Giddy over the high of attempting to use his high school foreign language for the first time maybe ever, Slime absolutely didn’t contribute much to solving the puzzle, and before long the sound of the timer ticking down was accompanied by a loud buzzing alarm.

“It’s been an honor!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. “It’s been an honor!”

The bear ran past them again, shouting, “I’m going to die!” in English this time.

“Adiós amigos!” Slime yelled.

The countdown ended.

And then his communicator buzzed, and there was a video playing on the screen, showing a cartoonish yellow duck in front of a blurry beach stock photo. He skimmed it absently--some generic welcoming message and another side quest for them--distracted by Maximus audibly losing his shit laughing across the station.

“Come on, I’m trying to take a vacation, I gotta work now?” Fit complained. “This is ridiculous.”

Slime wanted to jump on that bit, but the message cut off with coordinates marred by static and the noise of the emergency weather alert system and he lost his train of thought completely.

“I got the English book!” Spreen called, holding it with two fingers like it had personally offended him.

“English leader,” Vegetta said, seeming to find that amusing.

“English leader.” Spreen laughed and flicked the book away. Slime stepped back but somehow it still nailed him in the chest.

“Guess I’m reading then,” he said cheerfully.

“In Spanish?” Maximus said.

“Um.”

Vegetta called something, backing across the plaza with the book open in his hands. Phil backed up to the wall.

“Here,” Phil instructed, “we’ll read it here.”

“Okay okay.” He flicked it open. “So we have to get water wheel planks--”

Their peace lasted a grand total of thirty seconds as voices suddenly began shouting, overlapping in chaotic chorus.

“What is that?” Fit demanded.

“Is that coming from the other side?” Phil stared up at the top of the wall.

“This is the thinnest thick wall I’ve ever seen,” Slime said, giddy laughter bubbling out of him again. “Is this thing made out of pencil shavings? If I sneeze on it, is there gonna be a hole?”

“Nevermind, we’ll read it over here.” Phil dragged them away again, but the Spanish speakers were dispersing into the trees.

“Forget the book,” Fit said, “follow them!”

(In the end it was explosives that took the wall down, which in hindsight was a precursor to how a not insignificant portion of time on the island was spent. The first day, however, it was just funny, much like everything else.)

(That was to say, the first first day.)

The communicator had indicated that today there was something special planned, so he made an extra effort to wake up.

“Morning Jaiden!” he called to his upstairs neighbor.

“Hi Charlie!” He could hear her farming through the wall. “Glad you woke up on time!”

“Well you know, you know, El Backflipo couldn’t miss it,” he joked, sifting through his backpack. “Got any spare food? I’ll trade you uno backflipo.”

“I have so much toast, come here and get some, free of charge.”

With a quick backflip and some toast to start the day, he popped open the map.

“There’s a lot of people down the wall,” he noted, their green dots so clustered they formed one. “Wanna check it out?”

“Yeah sure.” Jaiden tossed some seeds into a chest. “Do you know what this event’s gonna be?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted cheerfully.

She laughed. “Yeah, me neither. I guess there’s an egg involved, but that’s all I know.”

He dug around in his backpack for a paraglider, nodding along. “Yeah, yeah, un huevo, I get you.” Shuffling the landmine from Vegetta to one side, he yanked out his glider and threw himself out her window. “Let’s go!”

(nothing like getting struck by lightning to wake a guy up in the morning)

Slime fiddled with the communicator as he waited for the line of people to get through the ticket machine; he already had his own, a nice B for Backflipo. The new live translations still boggled his mind. He had to fight the urge to chant weird shit under his breath, just to see what the bubbles would say.

He paid a little extra attention when Mariana walked up to the machine. That guy seemed cool. They’d done that pequeño dormir together on day one, and he had a good sense of humor. Egg parenting would probably be funny.

He was thrilled to see the B for Backflipo on the ticket Mariana stepped away with, even if Mariana was decidedly less so. This was gonna be good.

(it was, and it wasn’t)

So, Mariana wasn’t exactly the coparent of dreams. Then again, Slime was pretty sure Mariana could say the same about him. In fact he was pretty sure Mariana had said the same, but in Spanish, when he wasn’t checking the translation.

It was great. They thought they’d killed a child immediately and then decided to fake their own child’s death to get away with it, and then confessed their sins to a bilingual angel and built a farm and then he buried himself beneath an improvised cross and went into a coma until his sins were forgiven, or something, except his sins weren’t forgiven in time to save his own child’s life.

And then Juanaflippa was dead. Dead at Mariana’s hand.

His bitch wife killed their daughter.

(Everything went faster, after that.)

Slime wanted to kill him.

Slime wanted to kill him for killing their fucking daughter, but of course, Mariana couldn’t even be bothered to be around to take care of her alive, never mind to pay for his crimes when she died by his hand!

(in a better world, his rage started and ended there. in a better world, the anger fizzled out with the lack of a target.

this was not that world)

There couldn’t be an Egg Event with no eggs.

If he killed them all, it would bring her back.

(in a worse world, he succeeded. in a worse world, the Egg Event ended there.

this was not that world)

They held a trial.

If he won, it would bring her back.

(in another world, he didn’t convince them. in another world, they left his daughter in Hell.

this was not that world)

Tilín was still before she hit the ground.

Tilín didn’t scream. Maybe they didn’t have time. It happened so fast. He was sure it happened fast. Almost too fast. But everything went so fast, now, even though Flippa was back. Yet, time slowed down for this, like a rubberneck driving past a highway accident, watching him desperately trying to shock their heart back into motion.

“YOU KILL MY BEST FRIENDS,” Flippa wrote. He begged her to understand. She wrote, “i can’t believe it.”

She wrote, “I HATE YOU.”

(in a better world, the error would have been caught in April instead of July.

this was not that world)

His daughter fell to his bitch wife’s sword. The same way. The next day.

They’d only just gotten her back. And Mariana killed her again.

He only left eggxile for the funeral. She wouldn’t stay dead, but he had to be there.

Time went even faster after that. He was Gegg, or maybe Gegg was him, or maybe Gegg was Gegg, or maybe. . . ?

He went back to eggxile.

He wasn’t leaving without them. Tilín. Juanaflippa. He would do whatever was necessary. He would pray to any higher power. Lil J still owed him a goddamn favor, but the guy wouldn’t pick up his calls. Maybe if he put more shit in the shrine; angels liked shiny shit, didn’t they? He went back to the mine, where the gasses swirled in his head. He built the shrine. He mined. He built the shrine.

He went back to the mine.

He went back to the mine.

He went back to the mine.

“This is where I sit, this is where my bitch wife sits, and this is where my daughter sits, if I had one!”

He’d said that before. No he hadn’t. Yes he had.

No, he just needed to clear his head.

Charlie Slimecicle went back to the mine.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

#qsmp #qsmp fanfiction #qsmp slimecicle #qsmp juanaflippa #won't tag his partner since he didn't get to star much in this part #this idea is at its core a flipo FAMILY fic though it starts out with slime #just. the problem is getting to that point. bc beyond these words i have like 500 more lmao #for anyone curious for directors commentary in the tags: #pequeño dormir' is on purpose; i figured that would be a mistake slime would make at day 14 on the island #i also omitted the ¿ and ¡ from slime's spanish dialogue for the same reason; it's as close to an actual accent as i can get in text #(accent as in accented speech not accented letter; speaking spanish with an american accent) #slime's quote at the end about where people sit is taken verbatim from one of his streams #at time of posting it is available on his vods channel titled 'we won the war. (qsmp)' #a lot of the day 1 dialogue and flippa's dialogue from tilín's death is also verbatim #oh and the sequence from the 'we won the war' vod carries a lot of weight in the idea (wasn't the spark but it filled some gaps) #for me the cave gases are what drives every loop; time rolls back whenever slime inhales too much gas and 'forgets' #i don't have exact mechanics about it but suffice it to say if ANYONE were to spend too much time in this random ass cave #they would also loop back in time; slime's just the one who in this timeline Happened to discover it #shut up vic #block game brainrot #yea idk i just liked some of the dialogue tbh i think this gets super messy after they get flippa and then brings it back around at the mine #it's got some messy pacing in that middle bit but the foundation of a time loop story is its loop 0 #that's what every loop after it has to call back to; that's the beauty of a time loop story #how is this different from loop 0; how is it the same #we've come so far only to get nowhere at all yknow #i'm a fan of stories rhyming but ESPECIALLY time loops so this is the setup for a lot of that #dude i gotta send this i've been sitting on parts of this draft for a year #may someone besides me read these words 🙏 thank you and goodnight #if people say nice things maybe i'll finally wring more words out of my brain. idk. #long tags

[bowtiepastabitch]

Oh by the way don't go on twitter rn

#genuinely get closer every day to deleting my account because what the fuck guys #okay just gonna rant in the tags for a minute ignore me #because what the actual FUCK #I made a twitter account so I could see what Michael Sheen posted #because it makes me happy and that has value for me #and I've checked back every couple days then every couple weeks since october to see if he'd posted anything #and people are sTILL fucking going on about it #guys #guys I'm begging y'all to realize that bullying someone off a website is not the activism slay you think it is #there are celebrities that are PROUD zionists can we PLEASSE focus on them?? if we're gonna talk about celebs at all???? #your time could be doing so many more valuable things than posting over and over about your opinions #about some other random uninvolved guys opinions #about a complex conflict in which it is not a wrong desire for innocents to not be killed!!! #in which a ceasefire is what we've been demanding from our reps for months!!!!! #and some fucking statements he made MONTHS ago #statements which by the way were not wrong or incorrect #y'all forget that being anti-zionist in the modern imperial hellscape of america and the uk has very serious consequences that I have seen #in my own actual goddamn life #calling for a ceasefire is exactly what we were asked to do by organizers jesus fuck are y'all that dense???? #have you done so little actual activism that you don't know that??? what is happening????? #and now georgia tennant deactivated her fucking account because she got dogpiled too #for not providing a full PR defense against claims she was a zionist #like guys come on we all know how that goes #it doesn't matter what you say someone is gonna get angry and pick it apart she doesn't owe us proof she's not a zionist #I'm not here to say she responded correctly but there's nothing she could have said that would have made twitter happy #because that's how celebrity drama works and you know it #so now of course everyone's buzzing again about michael and georgia and neil and fuck him fuck her whatever #people are blocking each other for supporting or not supporting and shit it's a bloodbath #and for what #for. fucking. what.

[elytrafemme]

every single fictional character i like should split and have mood swings like me. "ohhhhh but it's not canotical" "ohh they have good control over their emotions and stable views on the world" i don't fucking care. i see cq in his fake desert i see klavier's control dialogue i see dahlia and her serial murders and komaeda and the gun literally fuck with me right now. we need to stop being cowards about our fictional character headcanons i think everyone should kill people always because i can't

#neg #omg am i having an episode right now is this episode coded is that what we're doing oh my God should we tell all your friends #should we call the president oh my God mare is having an episode right now guys don't freak but it's finally happening aaaahhh #we've been waiting forever but our queen's finally back she's having an episode oh my God we stan like crazy oh my God i'm calling everyone #can we have a cake at the episode tell me we're having cake at the episode i'm buying a cake it's official girls oh my God AAAH #she's so crazy LOVEEE her. oh my God!!! #anyway i think my blond bitch rockstar fave should get to kill the titular character! #sorry i hate the fucking name censoring in tags i'm trying to ween off of it cause it's like not accessible tee bee aych #but like i need to speak my truth so we're doing epithets #he should literally get to kill him and rip his carpet up WHY DOES NOBODY TALK ABT IT #they all make him cry or whatever this isn't the right blog for this but i've got images okay #enough crying enough consolation hugging where's my apology only for it to not be accepted and things to be fucking over #where's MY catharsis you know. this barbie needs catharsis! #i'm super light headed i should super stop posting but like who am i going to text in these conditions #the answer is nobody nobody wants to text my phone like they can blow it up it's fine w/e #i'd make instagram stories but it'll be like a whole thing and they'll report me again for mental illness #i'm going to stop apologizing for having breakdowns publicly actually. if you were like this you would too. #actually maybe you wouldn't because you'd be soooo well adjusted well i'm a weak bitch like actually #and my bones are fucking breaking right now so i'm gonna tell everyone about it <3 #i licherally don't want to damage public property now and by that i mean my room LMAOOOO #this is nawt public property but the paints so nice

[revelingrexan]

this project started because my brain was like "oh Spark's sticker (yellow team leader) has a really nice smile. :) ... nice smile = White HatOHCOME ON"

then i needed to see him in all the poses (in the blue team outfit for the rest because he'd be blue team)

#pokemon go #villainous au #heroic au #valorous au #<- that's what i call my AU 'cause it's a good cool word that's pretty close to the word 'villainous' and i feel clever #rexan's art #(so yes now we've got heroic & valiant & valorous [i'm the only one who uses valorous but #you'll need to pry that out of my dead hands i'll keep using it and anyone else can too i'll just be stubborn over here in my corner] ) #heroic white hat #valorous white hat #I ACTUALLY SPENT SO MUCH TIME ON THESE PICTURES IT'S RIDONKULOUS #(but it was very fun and these turned out very cute so no regerts [sic] ) #i think these were my first edits like ever. as in #actually tracing the source pictures. ...wait i made an edit for glistening-gay's Villatic AU characters. but i #finished these Pokemon Go pictures actually back in August 2021. (I KNOW. ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO) #(I JUST NEEDED TO ADD MY USERNAME AND I FINALLY GOT MYSELF TO DO THAT) #-checks date of Villatic post- ...AHA. THE VILLATIC PIC WAS MADE IN 2022 MORE THAN SIX MONTHS LATER. THESE *WERE* MY FIRST EDITS #all other redraws i've done have been eyeballed #...i think my tag rambling is done. ...okay cool yay i finally submitted these pictures to the internets! woo!!

[neverendingford]

.

#tag talk #because of all the artists I follow and the art I see I'm able to muster up some art when the muse sings. #so thanks I was able to sketch something for the guy I'm getting to know and maybe will be dating at some point #was thinking about whether to call him cute or not and I think yeah I do think he's cute. #I've been using all my brain power to min-max the interactions we've had without jumping too quickly into the deep end #which is why I don't call him my boyfriend because we've only met irl twice but I think there's no reason why we won't escalate to dating #provided I can not fuck things up #prolly not healthy to have the mindset that I'm responsible for whether things go well or not #not healthy to have the mindset that I'm a stick of dynamite and if I screw things up it'll all blow to shit. #idk. I still feel that way. #we'll see. #either way he's my in to a whole other friend group of coworkers and their friends since we got matched by a coworker/friend #my coworker his friend so I have higher hopes since it's not an online match. #he seems pretty cool and I'm doing my best to spread out the interaction and not get too caught up in his dms #and I was the one to be like “yeah this hangout has gone pretty long” because I know I tend to drag things out longer than they should go. #even if the other person is engaged it's functionally great to make a lunch date last the whole afternoon into the evening. #we both have things to do so as fun as it is to hang out for five hours I'm trying to keep emotionally healthy. #enough distance to keep perspective on things. #my last relationship the other person pushed for more and more hangout time and more and more closeness and I think that's what fucked it #I need to keep my distance to stay emotionally healthy #and honestly? I'm proud of myself for learning that and keeping it in mind. #I've had some hard experiences to learn that lesson but now I'm going to put it to good use and maybe get some dick again. #it's deadass been since October. deadass halfa year since I got dick. #I fucked someone more recently than that but fucking and getting dick are not the same thing. #anyway. new relationship. wish me luck.

[domesticmail]

let him reap what he's sown

#sorry more tag venting #but like MY GOD it's so annoying that he gets frustrated that i'm not a perfect person #and it devolves into literally ignoring me but also claiming i can talk to him whenever i want #like fuck you fuck you fuck you. you don't even care about me or our relationship #we've been together over two years and you don't even CARE?! at ALL?! to resolve ANYTHING?! #you just want to yell at me and get your way #fuck off fuck off fuck off a million times over #i don't know why i wasted all my time caring about you when you told me over and over again i don't matter to yoy #news flash: that is NOT how you treat your girlfriend!!! of all people!!! #i fucking care about you!!! i make you dinner and listen to you rant about your day!!! i support you with everything you do!!! #and you're mad because i said I WAS GOING YO MISS YOU? WHEN YOURE GOING ON A TRIP? THATS GUILT TRIPPINGv #?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? #i don't understand. i feel like it's normal to tell someone you'll miss them when they're going away #it's not bitching and moaning you ass it's called just fucking telling you my feelings #it's not guilt tripping!!! i am not guilt tripping you by saying ONE TIME that i'm going to miss you #UGH. get the fuck out of the relationship if you're not going to give a shit about me at all #i have no way to leave right now so i'm stuck but you!! can fucking!! go!! #so GO AWAY if you don't like me!!! leave me!!! i don't fucking care at this point #god. i don't ever want to be in a relationship after this #i don't ever want to deal with another human being ever again #and less important: i fucking have to shit and he's on the toilet rn. #i'm giving up i think #i have no faith in him or this relationship at all #if he's not going to put any effort in i'm not either #it can peter out and die now. there's nothing left #i feel like shit about it but hey! he's the one who brought us to this point #he's the reason we aren't speaking #so whatever #let him reap what he's sown

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

So this is a weird ask but I figured an Actual Welsh Person would be the person to go to, and you've been pretty gung-ho about the language thing. So I hope I'm not bothering you with this.

Is there a cultural consensus on foreigners learning Welsh? I'm American and I don't have a single shred of Welsh ancestry. My family is historically German, and we've been here since the English Colony days, so it honestly seems really weird even to try to claim some tie to German heritage.

Anyway, my point is, I have absolutely zero legitimate claim to the Welsh language. I don't plan to travel to Wales in the foreseeable future. I have no reason to learn Welsh except that it sounds pretty and I enjoy a challenge.

Putting aside the issue of "lmao it's gonna be stupid difficult to learn an endangered language if you don't have anyone to speak it with" (I have a loose plan for dealing with that, and the experience of learning two languages to "can read most novels without needing the dictionary" level without anyone to speak them with in person already) entirely, do you reckon it's okay for me to study Welsh? I know Americans are really, really bad about just kinda assuming the whole world belongs to us, and I'm trying not to do that here. Especially because Welsh IS endangered.

I imagine your average Welsh person probably doesn't care what some random American does. But like, for people who care about the language...Would it be considered disrespectful or overstepping for me to study it? I don't expect you to speak for the entire country, of course, but I respect your opinion and I feel like you'd have a grasp on what the general feeling towards a foreigner like me might be.

Thanks for your time.

I honestly, truly, do not understand how the discussion around cultural appropriation has been twisted in the cultural zeitgeist to such an extent that people now feel anxiety about learning other languages.

This is not a personal attack on you, Anon - the gods only know that you clearly care and want to do the right thing, and that's beautiful and wonderful and also I will come back to extolling your personal virtues at the end of this post, so stay tuned. But I do want to take a moment here to talk about the broader issue at play, which I have seen echoed multiple times elsewhere, because fuck me what are we doing to ourselves.

Learn. Languages.

That is what languages are for! To be used for communication. If you don't learn languages, you are forcing everyone else to use yours. How have we somehow, as a culture, twisted that into being the less selfish option? How have we done that? I posted my favourite Welsh idiom recently, and someone reblogged it and wrote in the tags that they loved the idiom and would start using it, but they would do so in English because their "Welsh pronunciation would make their Welsh grandmother spin in her grave."

What kind of mental gymnastics is that?

How the fuck do you twist it so badly that you think taking a Welsh idiom for your own and exclusively using it in English is less offensive than saying it in Welsh but maybe a bit wrong? I've literally had people proclaim to me that they're learning Welsh on Duolingo but they never speak it because they're too self-conscious, and they tell me this not to highlight a massive flaw in themselves that they need to work on, but as though I'm supposed to pat them on the head and thank them for... still making me speak English to them.

There was that post where a Deaf blogger received an anonymous ask saying learning sign language is cultural appropriation, as though Deaf people haven't been calling for Sign to be taught in schools. As though a Deaf person being entirely isolated in everyday hearing society unless they have an interpreter with them is less offensive than a hearing person being able to use BSL.

Like, these are not sacred or religious languages. The purpose of Welsh or BSL or what have you is not to perform the Eleusinian mysteries. It's a living everyday language, same as English -

Except it's not the same as English. As Anon here so rightly points out, Welsh is endangered. That means we are desperate for people to learn it. That's how it will survive. That's how we reversed it from 'dying language' to 'living language', in fact - we managed to get lots of people to learn it. You know what is a threat, though? People not learning it because, like poor Anon here, they've been somehow convinced by Western society that you're only allowed to learn languages if you personally have a historic or cultural connection to them that you can prove via six forms of ID and a letter of recommendation from a druid. Or people never using it because they're too embarrassed to try and risk losing face by getting it wrong, or maybe sounding a bit silly, and thus forcing us to use English anyway. Those are threats.

Anon. Listen to me, feel the sincerity of my words: we adore you. We adore you. You cannot imagine how appreciated it is when someone learns Welsh. You cannot imagine how touched we are that you wanted to, that you tried, that you respected us enough and considered us valid enough that you made the effort. Our closest neighbours are the very people who are still trying to stamp out Welsh to this very day. Do you know the number 1 reaction I get, by a country mile, when I tell English people that I speak Welsh? It's some variant on a scoff, and the sentiment "Why? What's the point? Bit useless, isn't it?"

By a country mile. That's the reaction I expect, and brace for, and is overwhelmingly what I get.

So when someone who isn't Welsh actually chooses to learn Welsh?

Imagine what that feels like! To go from not-even-hidden disgust, from outright mockery and often active suppression campaigns, to a foreigner earnestly telling me that they love and respect my language so much they're trying to learn it. Imagine how that feels.

Please learn Welsh. Please learn it. We will love you for it. We will build you a statue. We will bake little Welshcakes with your face on in icing sugar. We will write you poems in complex rhyme. We'll name an Eisteddfod prize after you. We'll name at least, like, three sheep after you. Thank you, thank you so much for even wanting to learn. You're a delight and a marvel and a wonder. Your hair looks great today, as it does all days. You're a strong, independent human being of immense wisdom and compassion. If this were a Welsh myth you'd be a wise salmon the heroes came to for advice. What a fantastic human.

The welcome awaits if you choose to learn

#linguistics #asks #long post

[katy-l-wood]

I've seen a lot of posts welcoming new Tumblr users, but I haven't seen any welcoming old users BACK. So, if you're returning, here's some fun new stuff Tumblr has added. Some of this may be desktop only right now, but Tumblr has been very good about migrating features to mobile without too much delay. I'm also primarily a desktop user, so some buttons may be in different spots on mobile.

You can now turn off reblogs on your posts, even the old ones. Click on the little gear icon at the top of the post window and towards the bottom to set reblogs to "anyone" or "no one."

You can have up to 30 images in a post now! Just be sure to be respectful and tag it as a long post.

Speaking of long posts, you can now set tumblr to automatically shorten anything over a certain length. It's under Settings>Dashboard.

Tumblr now has content labels, which is what has allowed them to bring back mature content art. These are important, so please use them. You can turn them on on each post individually by clicking the "everyone" drop down next to the "post now" button. And you can control how your dashboard shows or doesn't show labeled posts by going to Settings>Account.

You can now filter tags and post content via tumblr itself without using something like XKit! This is also under Settings>Account.

Tumblr offers an ad-free subscription now. $40 a year. If you love this little hellsite, this is a great way to show support!

Tumblr also allows users to pay to turn their posts into ads now. It's called blazing a post. It is great fun and generally hilarious. You have no control over your audience. You're just yeeting your post, of any sort, not just advertising, off into the void. An ad-free subscription hides these posts, but you can in fact turn blazed posts specifically back on while blocking the rest of the ads. Blaze a post by clicking on the little flame icon at the bottom. You can only blaze your own posts.

You can buy fun little tchotchkys for your dashboard and, sometimes, the dashboards of others. Right now we've got crabs, a horse that shits everywhere, and the super special double blue checkmarks. These are just fun little things to play with.

You can now enable tipping on your blog/individual posts. Totally optional, of course, but can be useful if you're a creator.

Staff has been a lot more active this last year, so if you want to keep up with what is going on be sure to follow @staff, @changes, and @wip.

That's all I can think of. Everyone else is free to add to this!

#Tumblr #Welcome Back #Welcome Back to Tumblr #Twitter Meltdown

[creacherkeeper]

is this old religion, are we calling it love?

{sweet movie, alisha dietzman / @gaphic / tiktok / @iamalivenow / on earth we're briefly gorgeous, ocean vuong / @manywinged / these violent delights, micah nemerever / the reader, bernhard schlink (trans. carol brown janeway) / hestitations outside the door, margaret atwood / a self-portrait in letters, anne sexton}

[ID: ten images of text together in a litstack

1: Confession: I will think of you forever

2: a post by gaphic: It’s only tragedy if you convince yourself, for even just a moment, that everything could be ok, despite knowing it won’t be. Tragedy lies in ‘so close, yet so far.’ It’s avoidable because it would only take a tiny alteration to prevent disaster, but human nature is in the way- not maliciously, not knowingly, despite trying so hard.

3: a tiktok comment and answer: Are they lovers? / Worse

4: a post by iamalivenow: gay sex won't fix this. it'll probably make this worse. that being said don't you want to see how much worse it can get?

5: Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.

6: tags from manywinged: #technically they know and understand each other better than anyone else alive #but they communicate that in the most fucked up insane unnecessarily complicated way and think thats normal

7: I don't think you've ever felt anything that didn't hurt you. / We've found each other, out of everyone else in the world. Does that hurt, too?

8: "I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do."

9: Should we go into it together / If I go into it with you I will never come out

10: of course the love is there. / still, / still, / still.

end ID]

#litstack #web weaving #quote compilation #i love giving these vague taglines and then in the tags being like yes this is about blorbo from my games #its Funnee. when they escape containment. 2 me. #lizzie/onion/brandi #lost township #yes this is about the messy dyke girlbestfriend situationship everyone please join hands and pray for them thank you #characters who are either gonna get fixed or get sooooo much worse (or a combo of the two!!) and only time and the dice will tell #faun are you happy now. make me the onion/lizzie playlist.

[jewishvitya]

[This post was originally written in response to someone tagging me and claiming that a free Palestine would mean all Israeli Jews will be kicked out and where will I go, and how they can't understand why I'm so against Israel being our ethnostate. OP blocked me, so I'm reposting with a few edits, because I already wrote this and I might as well.]

Look. I understand your mentality. We're traumatized by a history of violence against us. We were shown that so many in the world want us dead, and so many others won't stop them. I get it. But I refuse to let myself silently become the face of similar oppression for other people.

Israel benefits from antisemitism and maintains myths that got Jewish people killed in the past, like double loyalty. It weaponizes it for propaganda reasons. It's supported by antisemitic Christian zionist organizations with terrifying motivations. It started out with violence not only against Palestinians but against Jews too. Israel isn't motivated by our safety, it abuses that idea. It manipulates and weaponizes our trauma to make us feel justified in causing so much suffering to innocent people.

You're right that I'll have nowhere to go if I'm kicked out of here. This is where I was born. My parents come from other countries that I won't feel safe in. But all of this is hypothetical. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is not hypothetical, it's REALITY. It's happening RIGHT NOW. And I don't understand how, as a Jewish person who knows what this kind of suffering and loss of life means, you seem unable to prioritize that. I tell you I'm witnessing a genocide happening right next to me and you keep telling me "but what if they hurt you instead."

The assumption that Palestinians will pull some sort of reverse ethnic cleansing against us is racist. This assumption is the reason Israel feels comfortable calling the carpet bombing of a civilian population "self defense." Killing them based on a this is not self defense, it's a racially motivated crime against humanity.

And I'm calling it an assumption because I'm not willing to pull from the Hamas charter that they've since replaced. Hamas isn't Palestinians. The only reason they became this powerful is Israeli funding, and Israeli violence giving Hamas free PR as the only ones who will stand up to the state that will keep them trapped and dying.

We control every aspect of their lives. Israel created a place that breeds radicalization. No group of people, living under the conditions forced on Palestinians, would be peaceful. They would fight back. Because peaceful attempts to have the human rights that Israel denies them got nothing. We stomped on every single one. We blocked all other routes and left them with only violence, which Israeli politicians have been using as an excuse for over 15 years to make a show of force with military campaigns whenever they wanted a boost in popularity. We created living conditions with such low life expectancy that half of the population is children because so few adults survive. They don't deserve this. No one deserves this.

Palestine was a land with people living in it. One plot of land can create multiple groups of people, especially when we've been separated for 2000 years. Our connection to this land does not cancel out theirs. Removing them to create our own country could never be right. It's not an argument saying that our connection to Israel gives us the right to move here to live ALONGSIDE Palestinians. That's not what we wanted. We wanted a country that enforces Jewish majority and legally prioritizes Jews. You're justifying this when I repeatedly state that the only way for it to exist is through ethnic cleansing and genocide. There's no way to make this concept into a reality without killing, displacing, and oppressing whoever's left in various different ways, from apartheid to other kinds of discrimination.

I'm not against safety for us. I want to be safe. I want my children to grow in a safe world where we can be openly and joyfully Jewish. I'm not willing to pay for that with the lives and freedoms of other people.

So I will be loud about this: Palestinians deserve to be free in every part of their homeland, even if it's our ancestral homeland too.

If safety for us means we're the ones committing the genocide, maybe we should rethink what safety looks like.

I'm terrified for the lives of millions of people in Gaza. Right now, all I can think about is this, and it baffles me to see people so willing to transfer the horrors of our history to other people.

I had a lovely conversation in DMs in response to the first post, about how zionism encourages us to isolate rather than build bridges in the places where we live all over the world. We can't ignore the way antisemitism saturates culture, but we should also remember the places where Jewish communities thrived for centuries, the places where our neighbors protected us. We're hated, and we're loved. Each form of oppression is unique, so no other group experiences what Jewish people do exactly, but we're not alone. We have a long and rich history of solidarity with other marginalized communities and involvement in liberation movements. We're actively working to make the world safer, and we have people fighting with us. I'm just participating in this fight where I am. The struggle for liberation is a human struggle. You can't use the trauma of antisemitism to silence me about other kinds of bigotry.

Never again. To ANYONE.

#riki babbles

[solaireverie]

cl16 | lost in a film scene

summary: [ charles leclerc x f!actress!reader — social media au ] 

sometimes fantasy becomes real life. up-and-coming actress y/n l/n never thought she'd find love when shooting her newest movie, which incidentally involves formula 1, but charles leclerc is determined to sweep her off her feet.

— requested

faceclaim: simone ashley

author’s note: hi there!!! thanks so much for requesting ♡ idk how movies work so suspend your disbelief please lol. i hope that you enjoy this!!

[ masterlist / guidelines ]

89,123 likes

hollywoodupdates Universal Pictures has announced that yourusername will be playing Lila Gallagher, one of the main characters of a highly anticipated motorsports film that will be released next year.

view comments

user ugh i hope they actually represent f1 properly...

↪ user i heard that some of the drivers are involved so it should be okay!! 🤞

user y/n is gorgeous as usual 😍 can't wait to see her slay this role

liked by jacobelordi, raye, charles_leclerc and 23,392,341 others

yourusername monaco grand prix with slipstreammovie 🏎 ❤️🤍 glad to be back in the paddock again

view comments

user what's charles doing in the likes 👀

↪ user he was the one who invited her lmaooo

↪ user wait fr???

↪ user yep 😂 and he still had the audacity to play coy the entire time and act surprised when he saw y/n in the ferrari garage

user i really appreciate how y/n and the rest of the slipstream are genuinely trying to learn more about f1 and motorsport, can't wait for the movie! 🙌

liked by yourusername

user everyone say thank you to y/n for serving everywhere she goes

charles_leclerc enchanté 😉

liked by yourusername

↪ danielricciardo that's my line???

↪ user scratch that what's charles doing in the comments 🤨

charles_leclerc has added to their story

yourusername has added to their story

seen by blakelively, charles_leclerc, sabrinacarpenter and 3,492,591 others

charles_leclerc added to their story

seen by yourusername, pierregasly, landonorris and 4,129,592 others

liked by charles_leclerc, jacobelordi, slipstreammovie and 52,128,392 others

tagged: slipstreammovie

yourusername and that's a wrap on slipstreammovie 🎬 i'm so excited for you to see the results of our blood, sweat, and tears — in theatres march 2024 🏎💨

view comments

charles_leclerc 👏👏👏

↪ yourusername 💗

↪ user oh my god???

user can't wait 😍

jacobelordi how was karting? 😂

↪ yourusername fantastic, thanks for asking 😌

↪ charles_leclerc if you call shunting it into the walls three times in your first lap fantastic, then yes it was

↪ yourusername french gp 2022...

↪ charles_leclerc okay fine! i never said anything 🥲

↪ user i don't know what's the best part of this conversation 😂 jacob indirectly confirming that karting wasn't a slipstream cast event, which means that y/n went separately with charles, charles teasing y/n, y/n becoming a f1 nerd, or y/n being an absolute savage

user hoping she's actually dating charles omggg

391,128 likes

hollywoodupdates yourusername has arrived on the red carpet for the slipstreammovie premiere! It seems that she's also brought a guest in charles_leclerc, who has been rumoured to be dating the actress since they met at the 2023 Australian Grand Prix. Could this be the confirmation we've all been waiting for?

view comments

user i mean y/n just called charles her partner while talking to an interviewer so i guess it's true 🤯

↪ user she did?

↪ user yeah! i think the quote was "i'm really happy to have my partner with me today, especially since he helped me so much with finding the nuance in my role"

↪ user the racers who are also in love 🥹 idc that y/n is only a driver in the movie she'll always be a 2-time world champion in my heart

liked by yourusername, joris__trouche, slipstreammovie and 48,293,102 others

tagged: yourusername

charles_leclerc beyond proud of you, mon amour ❤️ you'll always be p1 in my heart

view comments

yourusername what if i'd rather be on pole position? 😏

↪ charles_leclerc there are children on instagram, y/n

↪ charles_leclerc but anything for you 😉

user I CALLED IT 🫡

user they're such a gorgeous couple 😵‍💫

user love how they're obsessed with each other... me core fr

user when's it gonna be my turn huh @ god 😒

likes and reblogs are appreciated!

taglist: @scenesofobx @vellicora @boiohboii @julesbabey @flannelforthetoads

#solwriting #f1 x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula one x reader #formula 1 #f1 #f1 fanfic #formula 1 fanfic #formula 1 x you #f1 social media au #f1 imagine #f1 smau #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc smau

[radio-writes]

I Don't Know if I'm Real Without You

— Part 2 of 2 (Read Part 1 here: What is Left of Me Without You)

Synopsis: He didn't love you, but he needed you—that's what he said, at least. He needed you to show him just how deep your devotion to him really was.

Warnings: abusive relationships, power imbalance, some misogyny, heavy manipulation, gaslighting, murder and violence, physical injury to reader, major character death(s), angst

Tags: married, one sided romantic love, Alastor x Reader, female!reader

MDNI

"Why, just the other day a green fuzzy caught sight of another stiff by the river! Poor green egg went green in the face!" A laugh track followed the voice on the radio.

Alastor sat on the couch as he riffled through his briefcase, making sure he had everything he needed today.

"What poor taste," You commented absentmindedly from behind him. "Is that really any way to start off a Sunday morning?" 

Alastor let out a distracted hum at your words. He hadn't really been paying you much mind. A lazy smile simply played on his face.

Just one body? Seems they missed the other two friends it had in there.

"Well, it takes talent to entertain, my dear. Something these hacks clearly lack," He said casually, waving a hand at the radio's direction. 

"And speaking of stiffs! We've got a fresh one today, folks—" The host's voice was chipper as it came from the radio.

Alastor sat a little straighter, as if on instinct.

"Darling, do you mind fetching my script?" Your husband spoke over the hack radio host. "Seems I might have forgotten it in our bedroom." 

"Not a problem, dear," You replied almost instantaneously. Your hand landed on his shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze before you left the room. 

Alastor stood up, cooly making his way towards the radio as he turned the volume down slowly. 

"Glue stuffed in his mouth, chilled off, and absolutely tattered by nails, people! Brutal new body found behind the local—not so secret—juice joint!" The radio continued, but Alastor's smile remained calm despite the gruesome news.

His eyes stayed at the doorway you left through, making sure you had actually gone.

There was no need to sully your little ears with useless chatter like this. You were much more use to him all oblivious and naive, so he'd prefer to keep you that way. 

When the radio host finally finished talking about his the most latest victim, Alastor turned the volume back up to how it was. He made his way back to the couch, hands gathering his script neatly into his hands from the top of his briefcase.

He chuckled to himself before calling out to you. "Never mind, dear! The little bugger was at the bottom of my case this entire time!" 

He wasn't the type to forget these things. He was always so organized, sometimes to a fault.

And you knew that.

And Alastor knew that you knew that.

But he wasn't worried. You'd never doubt him. Whatever pesky little thought you had related to him, you'll just brush off easily.

He'd made sure of that.

Alastor heard you playfully scold him, your soft laughter rung through his home.

"—I guess you can say he really nailed that Chicago overcoat!" The annoying little shit on the radio joked just as you entered the room.

Alastor spared it one quick glare before his sight fell on you once more. You didn't seem to care for the joke much, but your eyes did linger on the dials of the radio for a second too long Alastor thought.

"Does the radio seem a bit louder to you, Al?" You asked him.

Ah, he must have turned it back a tad bit too far.

He looked at you with faux confusion. "'fraid I don't know what you mean, dear. Why would it be louder?" He stood up, closing the briefcase in front of him and straightening out his collar. "But I do have to split now, darling, or the ol' big cheese would have my head."

Your eyes met his warm chestnut ones. Alastor could practically see the way you brushed away your silly concerns in your head, a soft smile once again gracing your lips. 

He knew you were confused as to why his boss supposedly needed him at work on a Sunday.

He knew you wanted to ask why.

He knew that, at least some part of you, didn't fully believe that he was headed off to the radio station. 

If you were smart you'd have listened to it.

But you were his wife. 

So you simply nodded in understanding, moving closer to where Alastor stood. You made to grab for the suit jacket that still hung on his arm but the tall man was quick to pull it high above your reach.

"Not so fast there, darling." He teased, smiling down at you.

"It's cold out, dear. I'll help you put your coat on," You insisted, small, delicate hands reached up for the jacket.

Alastor stepped back from you, briefly tapping his fingertip against your nose. "And who said I was in any hurry to cover up this lovely new shirt my wife got for me?" He teased, snapping the suspenders he wore against the crisp white shirt.

He simply adored it when he made heat color your soft cheeks. He loved seeing proof of his effect on you.

His eyes drifted to the clock behind you, his smile straining just a tiny bit when he realized what time it was.

He'd miss his mark if he wasted any more time here.

"In any case, darling, I really do have to dash," He smiled back at you, already heading towards the door before you could say anything else. "But do keep yourself free, baby. I'll be back before you know it." He shot a wink at you.

He grabbed his hat from the coat rack and plopped it neatly on his head, then he was out the door in a second. 

Alastor let out a short, tired breath.

Sometimes, he did find your love to be a bit tiring. But he supposed, at the moment, it was still worth much more than the hassle it caused him.

He hurriedly strolled down the street, smiling and greeting everyone that passed by him politely. His ego stroked just a little bit with every flustered dame.

He didn't care for any of them, but he never grew tired of knowing the charming effect he had on people.

Alastor tried to clear his head of you as he hopped into a taxi. He laughed as the cabby recognized him almost immediately, but he didn't pay the man any mind as he yapped about how much of a fan he was.

Instead, he found that his thoughts have annoyingly strayed back to you. He's found that you've been so persistently present in his mind lately.

One would think that sounded so romantic, that he was a cold man finally falling for a sweet little thing.

But in reality he was weighing his options.

You've always been so behaved, so meek.

He found you endearing, that much was true.

You were great company, after all. You loved the same music he did, kept up with his dancing, and sang so beautifully along whenever he tickled the ivory keys.

You dressed up to compliment his style, even if it wasn't to your comfort. Smiled at all the wretched people, even as they gossiped behind your back. Perfectly prepared and happily ate every dish he liked, even stranger ones you found hard to stomach.

Because you shaped yourself to be his partner. You did everything and anything that you could to gain his approval.

And that was indeed endearing. The lengths you went to, just to hear a simple praise from him.

Alastor used to wonder if there was ever a limit to it, but as the times flew by he realized you were just too happy to rewrite even your own logic just to stay by his side.

And it was also true that you were a brilliant cover.

As a taken man, there were much less people prying into his life as opposed to when he was an eligible bachelor. And no odd rumors ever spread about him thanks to how behaved you were.

People saw him as soft, gentle, caring. Because a violent, murderous, psycho could never keep a delicate little thing like you as his wife, could he?

Yes, you definitely had your perks. That much he already knew.

But you've been so restless lately. So oddly, insistent on being by his side more. 

He'd tried to talk it out of you. Whispered how he was so lucky that you weren't like other wives. How you trusted him and respected his space. How you didn't nag him like a terrible partner would.

And it worked...for a while.

Until you've been fixated on getting the darn basement door open, at least. Somehow, you had it stuck in your brain that opening that stupid lock would have proved your worth to him.

You've been visiting that mug of a shopkeep at the locksmiths so often that Alastor just simply had to get rid of him already. He returned the useless tools he sold you last time too of course. He didn't quite like others making a fool out of what was his.

Only he could do that.

The cab stopped by a rather classy bar, the driver letting out a low whistle, going on about how they also wished that they could live up the big life.

Alastor tipped him generously, bidding him a great day as he stepped out.

He tossed his jacket on quickly before he adjusted his bowtie in the reflective glass window of the building. This was, he thought, his second favorite part of it all.

For such a detached man, Alastor loved many things.

He loved meeting his victims for the first time in person. The thrill of so many eyes on him as he clasped their clammy palms in greeting.

He loved talking to them, watching their eyes light up as he mentioned what they wanted the most. That moment where he knew he had hit the nail on the head and found out exactly what made these scum tick.

He loved using it against them, luring them to a false sense of security.

And, his absolute favorite part, he loved dragging the sharp edge of his knife against the skin of their necks. The lovely shade of red bleeding down their stiffening bodies.

He just can't help but love—

"My darling?" A voice—your voice—rung out in the dark alley. 

There wasn't time. There was no time to hide the body, toss the knife, flee from the scene.

There was no time to come up a with a story, a lie, a cover.

Because you were right there, standing in the alley with him. His blood stained hands and the corpse by his feet plainly in your view.

Even with the blood smudged on the lenses of his glasses, he could see the fear in your eyes, the gears turning in your head as you tried to process the scene in front of you.

It's a real shame. Earlier today he had decided that you still had more purpose to serve him. That he could still put up with you. That he would still be able to stomp out whatever stubborn will riled you up lately.

Clearly that wasn't the case anymore.

"Now, now, dearest," He started, hand reaching out to you as he held the knife still in his hand.

Your feet moved, but to Alastor's shock you ran to him.

Your panicked eyes took in the violent red that stained the pristine white shirt as you took his outstretched hand in both of yours.

"We should go," You hurriedly whispered, fearful eyes met his confused ones. "You can't be seen here."

You tugged him along the streets, careful to keep yourself in front of him as you tried to hide most parts of him stained with red.

Alastor's eyes were wide, his long legs working on their own as he tried to understand what exactly was happening.

"Dearest?" He whispered to catch your attention. "I just chopped off a man, you know that, right?" 

Your steps didn't falter as you hurried along, but you didn't turn your head to look at him either.

"Yes," You responded. The tight knot against your throat kept you from saying anything more.

"I sliced his throat open," Alastor continued to prod more. "His blood is all over me, in fact."

You whip your head around in urgency. You meant to shut him up. You meant to warn him not to talk so loud, that you couldn't be too sure who could be around to overhear.

But when your fearful eyes met his calm, warm, sweet, ones you ended up swallowing against your dry throat. Adorning a shaky smile instead.

"And I'm sure you did it to keep yourself safe, dear." You said, although it seemed as though you were trying to convince yourself of that.

It was as if a light bulb lit up in Alastor's head. He finally understood what was happening. He fought against his own body to keep himself from smiling as he stared into your uncertain eyes.

"I knew you'd understand," He feigned a sigh. His hand, that was previously unresponsive in yours, curled its fingers to hold onto you. "I knew I would be safe with you, my darling wife."

Alastor noted the way your stiff shoulders slacked at his words. As if you were waiting for his praise; as if you were waiting for that little bit of confirmation to fully push away all those pesky, silly, little doubts you held.

As if you were begging to have the slightest bit of reason to cling onto, to prove that there was no cause to leave your spot beside him.

"If anyone asks," You said softly, your hand reached out to wipe away the little bit of blood on his cheek. "I'll tell them you came home early to me. You did promise that you would come back quickly, anyway."

Alastor smiled down at you, letting himself lean into your touch as you seemed to love it when he does. "I am so lucky that you love me, doll."

You continued to lead him down the streets, sticking to less lit areas as you did so.

Alastor couldn't stop the grin from spreading widely across his face.

Because you did love him. You loved Alastor with all your sanity it seemed, but he was, unfortunately, far too happy to take advantage of that.

It was a huge weight off his shoulders really. 

Alastor enjoyed the hunt, the kill, but the clean up? Not so much.

While yes, he did enjoy tricking people into eating up his stories, misdirecting them this way and that, silently mocking how clueless they were. It was still such a pain to have to constantly make sure his stories were air tight. 

He didn't have to do that anymore, though. Not when all his darling wife had to do was smile shyly at people and hint that he was back home all night busy with more usual pleasures.

It wasn't even that hard to convince you to let him stay out late, hunt to his heart's content.

It was all just bad, terrible people. Scum of the earth. Dangers that could hurt you, or others. And Alastor, the dashing, selfless, secret knight in shinning armor was willing to dirty his hands if it meant keeping people safe. He'd taken on the burden so everyone else didn't have to.

Your husband, a great, tragic hero.

And besides, it's not like he asked you to kill someone. All you had to do was lie a little. Nothing grand, nothing elaborate—he wasn't so sure you'd be able to handle it after all—just smile, and hint, and spread a few insignificant white lies. 

It was easy enough, wasn't it?

And your little love for him did everything else. Your own lovesick mind fought your instincts without Alastor even doing much of anything else.

You convinced yourself so quickly that all this blood, all this violence, all this murder, just made your husband an even greater man.

Ah, he truly did love the way you loved him.

You were with him now down in the basement—Alastor conveniently finally figured out how to open the stubborn padlock—and if he was being honest, he never really imagined you joining him here.

Well, not alive anyway.

You watched him as he neatly packed the most latest body into a bag and burn the gloves he used during the act. Going through his simple routine to make sure he could continue to get away scot-free.

Alastor noticed how your eyes always averted from the corpses, insistent on staying on his form instead. He didn't really mind it, but oh did he enjoy that little spark of fear you worked hard to stomp down whenever your glance landed on a limb or two. 

He heaved the bag over his shoulder, before finally fully turning to you. "Well, let's get a move on, shall we, darling?" He smiled cheerfully, motioning with his arm for you to head up the stairs first.

You were glad to do so it seemed, you always were. You didn't have to watch your husband dispose of bodies, but Alastor found it rather cathartic how you've now started to cringe away from the basement door, after weeks of pestering him over opening it.

A little lesson, he thought. Well deserved. 

And look how behaved you were now again.

The walk to the nearby woods was uneventful. Silent. Routine.

Unlike the first time around he dragged you along. You kept wondering and wondering until you finally asked out loud how Alastor knew the streets so well. How he knew where to go where no one would see him. The man you saw him kill was the first one, wasn't he?

He laughed at your unsure smile, brushing your worries off with the flimsiest excuses. How he'd been home late so many times already because of work. How he just preferred to take the quieter roads so as to decompress from all his adoring fans—fans who weren't you.

And it was enough.

Because you foolishly trusted him. You wanted to believe him, and so you did.

Alastor hummed cheerfully as he continued to shovel dirt over his most recent victim. He was certainly far enough into the woods not to care too much about being overheard, anyway.

A sudden soft beeping noise joined his melody, and he looked down at his—rather expensive—watch.

"Would you look at the time! I hadn't realized it was already so late. Time surely flies when you're saving the world, right, darling?" He looked over his shoulder at your unsure form.

You stood hunched over, your back against a tree, and your arms wrapped around yourself, a fair distance from the man burying a body.

Your eyes avoided the hole in the dirt as you painted a strained smile on your face. 

Saving the world.

Alastor could practically see the way you tried to remind yourself that that is what your husband was doing.

"It's hard to keep track when you've got a lot do," You vaguely answer, choosing your words carefully.

It's not that you worried Alastor would do anything to you. But you were, unknowingly, cautious of any single thing that could trigger any more silly concerns within yourself.

Alastor hummed in response, his eyes staring at the mangled corpse he threw in the ditch. "They'll be looking for me at work if I don't show up soon, though." He thought out loud. "But I can't exactly leave this rotten stiff like this, can I?"

He sounded troubled. He looked troubled, with that wrinkle between his brow.

A good wife would soothe him.

A good wife wouldn't stand around watching her spouse do all the hard work.

He didn't need to say it though, not that he had any mind to. You heard his voice in your head regardless. 

Your timid, unsure voice spoke up. "I...I could stay behind and continue burying it?" It sounded like a question.

One that it seemed like you hoped the answer was no. 

Except you'd be a horrible wife for thinking that. You should be praying that he'd say yes.

After all, a good wife would do anything to help her husband.

Alastor froze for a second, his eyes catching yours from above his glasses before he adjusted them up his nose. 

Then you were rewarded with a smile.

"My darling wife, always so helpful," He cooed, walking towards you. He dropped the shovel to the ground and wrapped his arms around your waist, almost lovingly.

Alastor could feel how fast your heart beat in your chest, almost fighting to get out. "But I could never ask a lovely doll like you to do such a dirty job like this." He tsked as he looked down at you.

"I can handle it, my dear," You responded, eyes bright with stars at his praises. It was almost as if you'd forgotten what exactly it was you were agreeing to.

Alastor pretended to think for a moment, but his eyes caught sight of the watch on his wrist and decided he didn't exactly have time to enjoy playing with you more.

"Only if you promise not to get caught, my darling." He smiled down at you, and you quickly nodded, promising you'll do a good job and meet him at home.

He pressed his cold lips chastely against your forehead, and left you with a corpse in the woods to bury.

But it's just that, anyway. Nothing too much to ask for.

It's not like you killed him.

And he was probably a horrible person to begin with.

Right?

You brushed away the heavy, gnawing feeling, as you met the glassy unseeing eyes of the corpse in the ground.

Alastor surely knew what he was doing. And you loved him enough to do this simple thing to help with that.

Just as you shoveled in one patch of dirt to cover the man's eyes, you heard a loud gun shot echo through the early morning woods.

You jumped out of your skin, cold hands gripping the shovel as the sound rung out.

Your heart was at your throat as goosebumps littered your skin. 

Alastor.

You ran. You barely registered your own body moving until you felt the cold air whipping against your face as your legs carried you to where your husband went.

Worry. It all but consumed you, as your blood rushed loudly in your ears and your heart pounded.

Please be okay. Please be okay.

Please—

You didn't know what you were doing. You didn't recall it. You didn't feel any of it.

You remembered seeing your husband's body collapsed and bloodied on the forest floor.

You remembered seeing someone with a gun standing panicked over him. 

But no, you didn't remember when you ran at the culprit.

You didn't remember the feeling of stabbing the shovel into their side, nor the warmth of their blood as it splashed on your cold skin.

You didn't remember bashing the steel against their skull with all your might; the metal dented and morphed as it disfigured the man's face.

You didn't remember screaming until your throat was raw. You didn't remember the tears scrolling down your bloodied cheeks. You didn't remember the horrible, unbearably cold, ache in your chest.

You didn't remember staring down the barrel of a shaky gun.

You didn't remember dying.

All you remembered, was the feeling of Alastor's warm arms embracing you as he pressed his welcoming lips to your forehead. 

And how you knew you'd never feel it again.

At least, you didn't think you would.

You blinked in confusion as you stared up the man—thing?—that caught you in their arms like a bride.

"I guess someone ought to rewrite those wedding vows because death didn't seem to do us part!" It laughed. Its voice sounded as if you were merely listening to it from a radio.

No, wait. Sure the thing that caught you also laughed, but you could have sworn you heard a whole crowd do so as well. Strangely, almost like a laugh track.

It's sharp yellow teeth showed proudly as it grinned down on you, and you couldn't help but cringe away a tiny bit from fear.

What are you? You wanted to ask, but you knew better than to be blunt.

You wouldn't want those nasty paper folk to catch wind of Alastor's little wife being rude—

Except. Were you still his wife? Where was he anyway? Where were you?

The thing that held you laughed cheerfully as it gently set you down onto your own feet. "Darling, I will never get enough of how easy you are to read," The thing said, twirling it's cane—microphone?—in it's hand before it leaned on it to study you. 

You got a strangely familiar heavy feeling in your gut, but before you could think much of it, your arm was looped through its as it pulled you along to a shop window.

"It seems you're a tiny bit confused, my darling," It said with a bright smile. "It's alright, you weren't always the brightest bulb in the room, but you certainly made up for it with your passion." It chuckled, once again a laugh track following its words from seemingly nowhere.

You felt the tip of its microphone at your chin, tilting it so that you'd turn your gaze from him to the shop window.

You almost jumped away, like an animal not recognizing itself in the mirror.

It took you a minute to realize that you looked at your own reflection.

You even waved your hands around and tilted your head to make sure it followed your movements. To make sure this was real.

You looked nothing like yourself. Hell, you looked nothing human.

"Truthfully, I'm a little offended, dear." The thing beside you spoke up, now turning to his own reflection as he adjusted his bowtie and dusted off his red pinstriped suit. Something oddly familiar.

"It took me less than a second to recognize you, and you still seem to not even know who I am." It said, glancing at you from the corner of its bright red eyes.

Your gaze trailed up to the top of its red hair, seeing two small horns—at least that's what you thought they were. 

"The devil?" You asked cautiously, still confused. "Am I in Hell?"

It let out a hum at your response. "One of two. I suppose it's one of your better shots, my dear." It said.

It turned to face you, suddenly leaning down close, so as to have it's mouth right by your ear. Your body freezes on instinct as it spoke.

"Must I really bed you again for you to remember me, darling? Or would watching me bury another body be enough to jog your memory?"

You leaned back, only enough to catch a look at the thing's face. The knowing eyes that seemed so warm, so inviting, so charming, despite how monstrous they looked. The smile that seemed incapable of falling.

The familiar feeling that brewed in your gut.

"Alastor?" You asked, your now clawed hands reached up to caress his cheeks, and the thing—your husband—leaned into it. His eyes briefly closed.

"Took you long enough, really." He said, a joking exasperation in his tone. 

The thing—your husband, you had to remind yourself again—abruptly pulled away, his tone bright and cheery as he began to drag you along the streets with a heavy clawed hand on the small of your back. "Now enough of that! Time for more important business, darling!"

"Wait, Alastor? How? What?" You stammered, attempting to pull away to take a second to breathe and clear your head.

The hand that guided you slid to the side of your waist, pulling you tightly against it's Alastor's side. "Ah, my darling thing. Always so slow on the uptake." He shook his head as if he found it adorable. "We're in Hell, dear!"

The words rang loudly in your ears, your heart sinking to your stomach.

"And we have important business to take care of, yes indeed!" Alastor continued, not letting you process a single thought. "And for this, I'll need a partner I can trust! I'll need a partner who I can rely on! I'll need someone absolutely devoted to me." His eyes met yours but he saw how the alarm still outweighed his words.

His eyes narrowed, lowering his face abruptly to yours, to the point where you could feel his breath on your skin. He wanted your attention, all of it, and didn't really care all that much about what else you had to think about.

"Hellooo? Anybody home?" He joked, tilting his head as he saw your eyes come back to focus on him. "Ah, there you are, dear. Thought I lost you for a moment."

You supposed you could think things through later. Even if Alastor looked terribly different now, this was still your caring husband after all. And he needed something.

A devoted parter? Was that what he said?

"Well, you know I'm always here for you, Al. Whatever this plan of yours is." You tried to paint a smile on your lips as you always have.

"Oh, but how exactly do I know that?" Alastor stood back up to his full height, his head tilting as he smiled down at you.

Your brows furrow. You don't quite know how to tell him that. You swore you've done so much for this man, and yet when trying to think of an example, none came to mind.

You cooked and cleaned and looked pretty for him? Spent time with him? Loved him? Lie for him? Hide a body for him? That's just what a good wife would do.

But you supposed—you think—you killed for him.

"I avenged you?" It came out more of a question than an answer. "I killed for you."

Alastor didn't blink as he responded. "Then do it again."

Your mouth ran dry.

Had you heard him correctly? Was it a joke?

You waited for the laugh track to play but none came.

"What do you mean...exactly?" You asked with a nervous laugh, your lips straining to keep the smile.

"Kill for me again," Alastor casually said. He turned, eyes locking onto a random demon further down the street you walked along on. He raised his microphone to point at them, turning his head—unnaturally—to face you again.

"Like that one. I suppose he'll do." His tone was still as cheerful as ever.

You follow to where he pointed, eyes hesitantly looking at the creature. 

You quickly looked back up to meet your husband's gaze. That feeling was there again.

And you weren't sure if it was the fact that you just died, or the sheer lunacy of the request, but you finally realized what it was.

Doubt.

You doubted Alastor.

"Why?" Your voice was small. "Is he a bad person too?"

Alastor rolled his eyes. "Hell, if I know dear. I've only just seen him now. But we are in Hell, you know?" His shoulders casually shrugged as if he didn't really care. "So, maybe?"

You tried to hide the tremble in your voice. Tried to hide how you doubted him. "But I already killed for you. Why do I need to prove my devotion even more?"

"You killed out of passion, darling. It hardly counts." He laughed, as if you were being so silly.

You're left with even more questions when Alastor grabbed your wrist, and you melted into shadows before re-appearing right in front of your supposed victim.

"What the fuck?" They exclaimed, jumping back.

"Good day, good fellow! The name's Alastor! Pleasure to be meeting you, quite the pleasure!" Your darling husband stepped in front and forcibly shook the confused sinner's hand.

Alastor waved a hand in your direction to showcase you. "This right here is the Mrs., and she'll be killing you now."

You flinched as Alastor's voice further distorted.

Black tentacles wrapped around the now thrashing demon. And to your horror, you realized they came from your still-grinning husband's back.

His red eyes now consumed by black as he looked down at you expectantly.

"I...I don't have a knife." You avoided his eyes and looked away.

Alastor's head tilted. "You have claws now, dear."

You felt bile raise to your throat at the idea of ripping some stranger apart with your own hands.

"It'd be terribly difficult if these clothes get stained. Who knows where I could get new ones in...Hell." You had to spit the word out. "A-and, we're out in the open. Anyone can see us, there might be police here o-or their friends and family."

"You won't do it." Alastor cut off your rambling, more of a statement than a question.

You didn't meet his eyes.

You heard him sigh in dismay. "Well, it's alright, my dear. I suppose I knew your love for me had its limits."

Your eyes widen in shock, head whipping to look at him in panic. There was disappointment in his gaze as he looked away from you. Even as his smile remained painted on his lips, you could see how he seemed to shrink away from you.

"That's not true!" You half yelled, ignoring the struggling demon still held off the ground. "I'd go to the ends of the earth for you. I'd give up my life for you. I followed you to Hell, even! How could you even think that my love for you isn't boundless, Alastor?"

"Because it isn't." He sighed, his clawed hand gripped his microphone tight as he started to walk around you. "You say you'd do anything for me, that you'd give everything up for me. But I'm asking you for something so simple, and you couldn't even do that."

Your shoulders stiffen, you try to turn your head to follow him around. "This is not simple, Alastor." You said, a tinge of hysteria creeping into your voice. "You're asking me to kill someone for you, again."

"Wrong." Your husband said in a rather, sing-song manner. A jarring buzzer effect played at his words.

"I'm asking you to kill someone who is already dead." Alastor explained, barely paying mind to the sinner who now just looked very uncomfortable. "And you're already in Hell."

He looked at you as if you were stupid not to have put this together yourself. "He won't lose anything. You won't lose anything. There is nothing to give up with this tiny request of mine."

He stopped walking in front of you, but a greater deal of distance away now than when he started.

"And yet you can't even do that, my love."

You glanced down at your hands—your claws—in uncertainty.

That persistent feeling—doubt—swallowed you whole as you stood there willing your body not to move.

You should stop.

Run.

Never look back.

But instead your body moved toward the sinner; sharp, shaking, hands hesitatingly sinking into their flesh.

Once. Twice. Thrice. You couldn't be useless to your husband.

Their muffled screams sounded so far away from you, even as they yelled right by your ears.

You felt it.

Their skin giving way and the blood dampening your clothes each and every time you sank your soft, delicate, clawed hands into him.

The feeling of your long claws coming into contact and tearing through whatever bone or muscle stood in their way.

The awful, gut wrenching, guilt that swallowed your chest.

You hated it.

Alastor's hand clasps affectionately at your shoulder as he watched you cheerfully. Enjoying the conflict in your eyes as your heart died with every drop of blood that spilled from your hands.

"I think I may have just fallen so deeply in love with you, my dear wife." He cooed into your ear.

And your chest didn't flutter, or grow, or skip a beat like you had thought it would at those words.

But it's probably just the guilt, right?

It's just because so much has happened that you couldn't process anything.

Because you still loved Alastor, didn't you?

You loved him with your very soul, but he was a liar, and you may have finally started to see it.

Taglist @lil-bexie / @mizukikyong / @amurtan / @fokrilove / @fairyv-ice 

#tw: murder and violence #tw: physical harm to reader #tw: major character death #tw: heavy manipulation #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin alastor x reader #hazbin alastor #alastor #alastor x reader #vien writes #Finding the right amount of old timey phrases to toss in without it sounded so cheesy is always such a challenge #Also this got out of hand I swore this fic was not meant to be this long or even in two parts #but here we are

[alltoowelltom]

marry that girl

oscar piastri x reader

liked by yourusername, landonorris, maxverstappen

oscarpiastri🔹️: There are welcomes and then there are Vegas welcomes! 😁

user1: good luck this weekend! 🧡🧡

user2: damn the jacket 😦

user3: is Y/N coming to the race??

↳ user4: yes! there are pictures of her arriving on twitter

↳ user5: i think all the wags are coming it's vegas 😭

mclarenauto🔹️: That's how it's done!

liked by oscarpiastri, lilymhe, alexalbon

yourusername🔹️: ready 4 u vegas

danielricciardo🔹️: but is vegas ready for Y/N..

↳ yourusername🔹️: never 🥰

user1: Y/N IN THE PADDOCK

user2: her smileeeee

lilymhe🔹️: Y/N come to williams everyone's ignoring me 😞

↳ yourusername🔹️: WHAT

↳ yourusername🔹️: no one puts lily in a corner 😠 omw

landonorris just posted a story:

yourusername just posted to their story:

liked by charlesleclerc, landonorris, yourusername

maxverstappen1🔹️: wow-

user1: MAX WHY ARE YOU AT A CHAPEL

user2: PICK UP THE PHONE BABY

user3: WHO'S GETTING MARRIED?

user4: THIS ISN'T YOU

user5: Why is it so blurry?? How wasted are they all 😭

↳ user6: LMAO HAVE YOU SEEN EVERYONES STORIES

user7: i just KNOW kelly wouldn't get married in vegas...right??

liked by yourbestie, oscarpiastri, alexandrastmleux

yourusername🔹️: weddng tings 💍

user1: Y/N?????

user2: DO YOU MEAN WEDDING?

yourbestie: Y/N Y/L/N

↳ yourbestie: ANSWER MY CALLS RN

↳ yourbestie: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

user3: vegas was in fact NOT ready for Y/N

oscarpiastri🔹️: 😘🤩🧡

↳ user4: even drunk to the point of getting married he won't leave that orange heart 😭

user5: girlies we've lost Y/N to a man I fear

liked by yourusername, pierregasly, landonorris

oscarpiastri🔹️: mr & mrs piastri..

maxverstappen1🔹️: great end to the weekend mate!!!

yukitsnoda🔹️: @.pierregasly

↳ user1: LMAO WHAT

nicolepiastri: OSCAR JACK

↳ landonorris🔹️: oooh mummy's found out

nicolepiastri: PICK UP YOUR PHONE

user2: AM I TRIPPING

yourusername🔹️: hubby 😋😋

↳ nicolepiastri: Y/N, darling, please ask your husband (?) to ANSWER HIS MOTHER

↳ yourusername🔹️: 😦🫡

↳ user3: do we think she's still wasted 💀

user4: THIS IS THE LEAST OSCAR THING OSCAR HAS EVER DONE

↳ user5: but if you really think about it, this is the most Y/N thing that Oscar and Y/N have ever done 😭

user6: IMAGINE ON THE F1 CHANNEL: 'Y/N PIASTRI, WIFE OF OSCAR PIASTRI'

↳ user7: 😭😭😭

yourusername🔹️ and oscarpiastri🔹️: A brief moment of silliness after the race in Vegas (aided by the insane number of shots purchased for the group by one @.maxverstappen) seems to have come into the public eye (by us). We have discussed our situation (sober) and come to the conclusion that this is the natural progression of our relationship, and despite the lack of planning, we are both looking forward to this new chapter in our relationship. 👰🤵 (Thx @.lilymhe for the wedding gift of this hideously tacky jacket from the gift shop - Y/N)

user1: STILL MIND BOGGLED THEY DID THIS

yourusername🔹️: ps. we are very sorry to our family and friends - we wish you had been there to celebrate with us, and will definitely be hosting a reception (open bar for you guys - NOTHING FOR US)

↳ nicolepiastri: as much as chris and I would have loved to be there, welcome to the family Y/N ❤️❤️

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri

francisca.cgomes🔹️: Congratulations Y/N and Oscar!!

lilymhe🔹️: I'M STILL SO HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS

↳ yourusername🔹️: thank you for being my maid of honor lils!!

user2: so who will get drunk & married at oscar and y/n's reception?

↳ landonorris🔹️: @.alexalbon take notes

↳ alexalbon🔹️: 😳😳

liked by oscarpiastri, yourusername, carlossainz

tagged: yourusername, oscarpiastri

landonorris🔹️: taking third wheeling to a new level (jk, happy for you two)

user1: LANDO I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

carlossainz🔹️: I can be the fourth 🛞

user2: HER SITTING BETWEEN HIS LEGS

lilymhe🔹️: @.yourusername @.oscarpiastri DOUBLE DATES!!

↳ yourusername🔹️: we already go on double dates with you and alex but love the enthusiasm babe!!

↳ landonorris🔹️: can I come 🧍‍♂️

user3: lando being the perpetually single friend in the group 😭

user4: now that I've come to terms with it CONGRATULATIONS GUYS

mclaren🔹️: 🧡🧡

oscarpiastri🔹️: thanks man ☺️

↳ landonorris🔹️: I know I said I was happy for you (I am) but please stop "honeymooning" in the room next to mine ifykyk

↳ oscarpiastri🔹️: ask mclaren to book our rooms on separate floors I just got married.

↳ user5: OSCAR 😦

↳ yourusername🔹️: @.oscarpiastri real honeymoon over winter break?

↳ oscarpiastri🔹️: deal 🤝

#oscar piastri smau #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri x y/n #oscar piastri x reader #formula one smau #formula one x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 x y/n #formula 1 fanfic #lando norris #mclaren

[runningfrom2am]

leveling the playing field XII

summary: with nowhere else to go after getting caught cheating to help lucy gray, you both make some desperately stupid decisions.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 3.2k

tags/warnings: capitol brat!reader, maybe slightly ooc coryo, idk i tried my best. do they love each other or hate each other? who knows (we do, kind of). use of a derogatory term (pr*stitute) implications and mentions of abuse, so read with caution!! also a little bit of swearing but that's neither here nor there. oh, and manipulation (both of them lowkey)

masterlists // nav // requests

a/n: nothing much to say other than thank you guys and i hope you like it :)

series masterlist

"Coryo!" You grin, running out of the house and down the front porch steps, throwing your arms around his shoulders as soon as you can reach him. It had only been a few days since you'd seen him, but you had to do what you had to do. Truth be told, you did miss him, though.

He chuckles as he catches you, carefully letting you down after a moment. "Hey, Y/N/N, how's it going?"

"I'm good." You grin, turning back at the sound of people laughing inside the house. "You have to come in to meet Ash. He's gonna come with us today, and Lucy Gray is packing a picnic! It's gonna be so fun."

"Who?" Coriolanus asks, but you're already gone, heading back up to the house. An uneasy feeling settles in his gut as he follows you, shoving his hands into his pockets as he enters the home. The kids are trying to gather things into bags, and Lucy Gray is packing some food to bring with the group out to the meadow.

You, on the other hand, are wrapped around the arm of a boy who looks like he belongs in the Capitol Zoo. "Coryo, this is Ash. We met at the Hob the other night." You explain, looking between the two of them as Coriolanus clenches his jaw.

"Nice to meet you." He says through gritted teeth, reaching out out of habit to shake the boy's hand. He's got dark hair, and somehow darker eyes. Immediately, he doesn't trust him.

"You too, man. Love the peacekeeper getup." He chuckles, shaking his hand briefly and Coryo quickly recoils to wipe his hand on his pants.

"Oh, Coryo is a peacekeeper." You explain, smiling up at Ash as he drapes an arm around your waist.

"We're in the business of trusting those monsters now?" Ash asks, somehow maintaining a lighthearted tone. Like it was a joke, like Coriolanus was nothing more than his position.

"Only a couple." You laugh, shocking Coryo completely. Not so much as a word in his defense while this district trash said such horrible things about him. He was back to not even being able to recognize you. "Coryo is my best friend. We've known each other since we were kids. Sejanus too."

Best friend... That's it?

"That makes sense then." Ash nods, and Coryo stands up taller as Ash not so subtly sizes him up.

"You know, Sejanus has been awfully chummy with Billy Taupe and his friends. Ash is one of them." You say to Coryo quietly, taking up the rear of the Covey as all of you walk out to the meadow behind the house. "Have you noticed?"

He hums in acknowledgment, thinking it over. "It is odd." He agrees. He has noticed your mutual friend sneaking away on any nights out they could spare, and just generally being more cagey than usual. And it makes more sense that his name would mean anything to your new friend.

"Have you asked him about it?"

"No." He shakes his head. "You should, though. He trusts you more."

"That's not true." You laugh. "You are his best friend, after all."

"As are you." He raises an eyebrow at you.

"Oh, please. He throws that term around too loosely." You roll your eyes playfully.

"And you don't?" He asks, obviously referring to how you called him your best friend earlier. It's working. This was evidence that referring to him that way was driving him crazy- you had him wrapped around your finger, and you loved the feeling.

"Nope." You grin, bumping him with your shoulder. "Have I told you the haircut is really working for you? Because it is."

"Thank you. It wasn't by choice." He explains, smiling at the compliment but shrugging it off.

"I figured." You laugh, reaching up to run your hand over his shaved head. "I miss your curls, though..."

"Y/N! Come here!" Ash calls from up ahead, walking backward now as he waves for you to join him.

"Coming!" You call back, immediately ditching Coryo to catch up with him.

Coryo cringes at how his boots sink into the dirt and how you let Ash yell at you like that. Like you were a dog. You'd hardly known the guy for a few days and he's already talking down to you, Coryo is appalled at your taste. You run up to Ash, immediately reaching up and sticking your hand in his unbrushed hair. If Coryo was a brunette and didn't shower ever, that's probably what his hair would look like. It made him nauseous.

The following night, after Coriolanus complained endlessly to you about the birds he had to spend most of his days trapping, you had a stroke of absolute genius. He really, really hates those birds, just as much as you can tell he already hates Ash.

As the sun is setting over the field surrounding the hanging tree, you tell Lucy Gray you're going for a walk, and off you go into the woods with only your mind to keep you company.

They'd set so many traps it was unbelievable, and a good amount had trapped some of the songbirds inside. They were beautiful creatures, timid, too, for birds who were typically so vocal. They were products of the Capitol, so that would only make sense. You were careful not to make a sound as you opened every trap you could reach. You could just hope that by the time Coryo and his group arrived in the morning, they hadn't been trapped again.

You knew this was likely considered treason, interfering with government projects, but you didn't have a whole lot to lose, and seeing the frustration on Coryo's face when he ranted about how stubborn these birds were made the risk well worth it. It wasn't the revenge you were used to doling out to people who had wronged you, but you had been working on changing, after all.

After setting free no less than twenty birds that blew your hair back out of your face as they shot out of their cages, occasionally thanking you by singing your footsteps back to you or clawing at your arms, you made your way back to the street to head back to Lucy Gray's home.

You sucked your teeth over the stinging in your skin from the small cuts and scrapes that nnow littered your forearms. You suddenly understood why Coriolanus hated the creatures. They were beautiful singers, but clearly so inconsiderate. They'd be trapped again anyways, you were just delaying the inevitable to piss off your friend. They got scratches on you, but your people would still win the war.

You lift the excess fabric of your skirt to pat the beading and drying blood off of your arms as you walk. The town was quiet, only a few people scattered around very rarely. Either homeless or drunk, minding their business as you silently made your way down the dimly lit streets toward the seam. You recognize you're almost home when you pass the Hob, through the alley where Coriolanus graced you with his subpar apology. Squinting toward that same back exit as the door creaks open, you move across the alley to hug the opposite wall as you walk, trying to mind your business.

"Yeah, okay. I'll arrange for that. Thank you, yeah. We'll work it out. I promise." Was that... Sejanus? Your theory is confirmed when the speaker steps out into the alley. It was quiet, a weeknight. If the Hob had been open, it was deadly quiet by this hour.

"Sejanus?" You call out, speaking without thinking.

The boy jumps, slamming the door behind himself and looking toward you quickly. "Y/N? What are you doing here?" You can see the panic in his eyes as you get closer, tucking your bloody and exposed arms behind your back.

"Just out for a walk. I wanted to look at the stars." You nod up to the unpolluted and clear sky to accentuate your point. The sky didn't look like this at home. "What about you?"

"Oh! Uh, same." He lies. "It sure is beautiful out tonight."

"It is." You agree, looking up at the stars for a beat while you cross your arms over your chest in the silence. "Who were you talking to?"

As he panics you try and tuck your arms back once more, the stinging of movement reminding you of why you hid them in the first place. "Just, uh, no one. Myself."

You hum in response. Sejanus made his fake story hard to believe. "Why don't you trust me?" You ask, tilting your head at him. "I feel like after all we've been through, you should trust me more."

"I do trust you." He replies quickly. "It's less about that, more about... I don't want you to get involved. It's better for you."

"Is Coriolanus involved?"

"No. No, he doesn't know anything. Same as you."

You nod slightly, looking him up and down. "Well... If you need help or you're in a tough spot, come to us, okay? There are few people you can trust out here. We have to have each other's backs."

"No, no, it's not like that." He assures you. "But okay. If I need help, I'll ask."

You smile. "Well, you better get back. Don't want to get caught out so late."

"You too, Sage."

You chuckle, giving him a quick wave as you walk back away from him.

Even in the dim lighting, he could see the marks across your arm that you tucked away with your turn, sauntering away casually in the direction of your current home on the Seam.

Coriolanus was walking a beat alongside the market almost a week later, the one his bunkmate usually took, but today he was too hungover to crawl out of bed. Coryo didn't have the stomach to watch you drool all over that district boy today, so he decided to just take the shift for his new friend instead of bothering to see you. Maybe, this would result in Beanpole owing him a favour anyway, and that was always nice to have.

It was a Thursday, so not all that busy at the market. It was mostly just mother's gathering food and supplies, which left him incredibly bored for most of the morning. He was wallowing in his self-pity when something finally drew his attention. Your laugh. He would know it anywhere. He scans the street again, posture straight as he tries to track you down, which doesn't take long.

Of course, there you are with your new friend, his arm over your shoulder as you hold his hand against your chest. God, Coriolanus hopes you don't spot him. He looks straight ahead, chewing on the inside of his cheek and wishing he could disappear. You were torturing him, the fact that you couldn't see that, or you just didn't care, was driving him insane. It was worse than if you had just stayed in the Capitol.

Now, he can't help but focus on your voice on the mostly quiet street.

"No, I know!" You giggle, looking sideways at Coriolanus who stood at the edge of the street. You're sure by now he had seen you. You didn't know he would be here, normally he wouldn't, but it makes the task of agreeing to spend time with Ash more bearable. At least it was for a reason. "I've never touched a mandolin before, how could they expect me to pick it up in one night?"

"Well, I'd sure be surprised if you could. No one learns that fast." Ash replies, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. You hate it, you want to shove him off and hit him where it hurts, but you can't. At least Coryo was here to witness it.

"True." You nod, walking with him slowly past the stalls, browsing at some of the small trinkets and goods they had. It seemed to be all random things, which was foreign to you. Back home, every store had a purpose, even after the war the Capitol held onto this sophistication. "This is so pretty!" You smile, spinning out from under his arm to get a closer look at a dress someone had made. It was shorter than your skirt, typically one that would be worn by a child in this region, but it was oversized enough that you could wear it and it would land mid-thigh.

"How much is this?" You ask the woman sitting behind the wooden table, holding up the dress that she had clearly made.

"Forty." She answers, nodding to you. "It's steep, but I put a lot of work into it. It'll last your daughter a long time."

"Oh, no." You giggle, shaking your head. "I was thinking for me." You say, lifting part of the fabric to admire the stitches.

"For you?" Ash asks, raising an eyebrow at you.

"Yes, what do you think?" You reply, holding it up in front of you. "I like the red accents. It's beautifully made."

"You'll look like a damn prostitute," Ash replies without missing a beat. "That's what I think."

You bite your lip, face going red as you look down at it draped against your body. You're not sure if it's from anger or embarrassment. You sigh, folding it up again and turning to the woman who looks shocked. "I'll take it." You smile suddenly, placing it back down while you dig out some cash from your pocket, handing her fifty. "And don't worry about making change, I just hate carrying coins around."

"Thank you, dear. You enjoy." She smiles gratefully, taking the money and tucking it away in her pocket. You nod at her, and before you even turn around with the new dress under your arm you feel a firm grip on your skin, yanking you away from the stall and into a side street.

"Hey! Let me go!" You shout, trying to peel Ash's grip from your arm where it's digging in so tight it's already flushing the areas and opening your healed scratches from the birds, smearing the drops of blood across your skin.

"No, you listen to me." He says, dropping your arm in favour of pointing a finger right in your face as you're backed up against the wall. "If you're gonna be my girl, I'm not letting you walk around like some kind of whore. Do you understand?" He says, clearly fumingly angry by now.

You laugh, rolling your eyes. "You don't scare me, you're a district-born loser with no fucking job! How dare you try and tell me what to do with my-"

You're cut off when he smacks you. You take a shaky breath, instinctively holding the side of your face where his palm made contact. You feel your confidence faltering with the heat pulsing under your skin, and with your eyes closed in this back alley, suddenly you're back home. But you're not. You're not home, and he's not your father, and here, you're free. You're gonna kill him.

You open your eyes and stand up straighter, looking him dead on as your chest heaves with anger. You shove him back, pulling your arm back in his moment of shock to take a proper swing at him as he scrambles to push you back up against the wall. In your rage, you failed to account for the fact that he was much bigger than you.

"Hey! Back off her! Now!" Coriolanus shouts, clicking the safety off his gun before Ash can lay another hit on you, gun aimed unwaveringly at the boy as he quickly walks toward the two of you.

Ash panics, and you feel this as the forearm he had pressed up against your throat, pinning you to the wall loosened its hold and you shoved him off just in time for Coryo to push his way between the two of you, the barrel of his gun now inches from Ash's nose.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Hey, we're cool. I didn't do nothin' to her."

Coriolanus is fighting every urge to just pull the trigger on the loaded weapon in his hands. For you. For this asshole hurting you, for touching you, for the crime of even looking at you, he should do it. He breathes heavily, every muscle in his jaw constricted so tightly he's sure it'll ache for weeks.

You watch over your friend's shoulder, watching the gears turning in his head. Do it, you want to tell him, but even in your anger you can see that's irrational, so you keep your mouth shut.

Coryo sighs, lowering his weapon to use it to gesture to the street. "Get out of here." He mumbles, deciding to let him go. "And never so much as look at her again, understand?" You're almost a little disappointed as Ash spits on the ground at your feet, starting to walk away when Coryo turns the gun faster than you can process and jabs the butt end of it into Ash's face. A chilling crack echoes out against the crumbling walls surrounding you and he hits the ground, unconscious with an obviously broken nose.

Coryo is panting as he turns back to you, quickly throwing the gun back over his shoulder. "Are you okay?" He asks, reaching out and holding your shoulders, hands running down your arms quickly to look over the injuries. "Did he do this to you?" He looks over the scattered cuts and scratches. He could tell they were healing, and they were inconsistent with what could be done with a blade or a man-made weapon, so he deducts quickly that you must have fallen into the wrong bush or something. Maybe when you were gardening.

You shake your head quickly, eyes locked on the boy on the ground.

"Hey, no, look at me. Are you okay?" Coryo asks again, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look at him. He nods expectantly, waiting for you to answer.

"Yes. Fine." You whisper shamefully, giving a slight nod under his gentle hold.

"C'mere..." He mutters, pulling you closer to hug him. He sighs, holding the back of your head and gently smoothing down your hair. It shocks him when you start to shake, trying to muffle your crying in the fabric of his uniform. He shouldn't have waited so long. He took his eyes off you for less than a minute to maintain his own sanity, and this is what happened.

You knew you were safe with Coryo, this was your fault for straying from that over some petty anger. He had betrayed you, sure, but he told you it was because he only wanted to help. If you had listened, none of this would have happened. You should have known he was right. At least he hadn't abandoned you, he'd even saved you. You were lucky he was even around.

"He hit me." You sniff through sobs, gripping tightly onto the back of his grey uniform. "I didn't, I don't know why, I-"

"Hey, hey, hey..." Coryo shushes you, pressing his lips to the top of your head. "I've got you. You're safe now. I'm here."

"I'm sorry..." You sniff, overtaken by the foolishness of your own decisions. For denying your feelings for him in a way that only resulted in hurting the both of you.

Coryo has to fight back a smile as he takes in the familiar scent of your hair. "Don't be." He whispers, kissing your head. "I'll always protect you."

You nod against his chest, locking yourself firmly into his grasp. Even as your blood dried and stuck to his coldly grey uniform, you found it hard to let him go.

taglist: @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @klplynn , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @gloryekaterina , @andrewgarfieldsbitch , @queenofspades6 , @pepperonipastas , @ladybug0095 , @lunamothwrites , @sbrewer21 , @mus-tbe-a-weasley , @splxtscreen , @unclecrunkle , @karmaswitch , @coconut-dreamz , @nekee-lilac02 , @ooooglymoooogly , @riddlerloveb0t , @lovedbalances , @notyourwildestdream , @snowlandson-top , @too-lit-for-fanfic , @utopiakys , @deafeningballoonnacho , @roosterschanelslut , @chmpgneprblem , @cosmoetik , , @urvampgfsworld , @carolanns-world @nan-nie , @shakespearseclipse , @iovemoonyy , @notyoursweetheart-honey ,  @xyzstar , @eatpizzasass, @slytherinholland , @queenofshinigamis , @elodiebeau , @soulessjourney

i've closed my taglist for coryo now!! sorry to everyone who wanted to be added, but unfortunately there was significantly more demand than i expected and i sadly just can't tag everyone. BUT! if you still want notifications when i post for this fic, please turn on my post notifs!!

#tbosas #tbosas x reader #ballad of songbirds and snakes #thg series #tbosas fic #coriolanus x you #coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus fanfiction #the hunger games