love exists & you're included

indie multimuse, ft. OC & canon muses from 9 1 1: Lone Star, Doctor Who, Monk, and more. Highly selective & mutuals only.

[lovedbyaster]

here's a new pinned post!

my name is aster, they/them/theirs, 25+. this is an independent multimuse blog. muse list here!

Please be 18+ to follow or interact with me. This blog is not for children.

I do not make or read vagueposts, please tag them so I can avoid them. I am not psychic and I do not guess. If you want me to know something, tell me.

I will hardblock if I see you reblog a callout or if you ask me to engage with a callout.

please tag ALL PHOTOS, GIFS AND MENTIONS OF the twelfth doctor from doctor who.

i am anti-censorship in all forms for private writers writing for fun. Zero exceptions, no prerequisite, write whatever you like however you like. 'but what about -' mun =/= muse. Fiction =/= reality. I personally find research for writing extremely fun but personal unpaid writing does not come with research requirements.

i will rb memes/muse inspo/etc from whomever i feel like whenever i feel like it. i encourage you to do the same with my posts.

i cannot read things that have multiple spaces between words.

i do not put deadlines on threads and do not respond to deadlines on threads.

I often do not have energy to talk a lot or at length. it is not because i don't like you. i am very sick and very tired most of the time. be nice

thanks for joining us here.

likes on this post welcome but not remotely necessary, i just like little waves from friends :)

[memesomething]

50 ways for people to be mean

a list of ways people might be mean! send either one of the prompts or 🐸 and I'll generate a number 1-50

[interrogation] one character is interrogating the other. they can do this the easy way or the hard way.

[choking] one character is strangling the other.

[left behind] one character leaves the other behind - good for plane crashes/fires/zombie attacks/etc.

[left to die] one character leaves the other to die somewhere

[left for someone else] one character decides that someone else is more important than the other character.

[drunk] one character is drunk and is a mean drunk.

[drugging] one character spikes another's drink or food with a drug or poison

[ignore] one character is begging for something - and they are ignored.

[torture] one character is being tortured

[doxxing] one character doxxes another (publishes their address or private info online)- e.g. SWATting, having randoms show up at the house, etc

[horse head] in the bed. we know how this goes. it's a death threat.

[mail bomb] there's a mail bomb in the mail when a character goes to open it.

[buried alive] someone is buried alive.

[filmed] someone is being hurt and there is a character who's chosen to film it. the film can be shared with loved ones etc - good for whump.

[extortion] one character is being extorted or blackmailed, OR someone is trying to extort/blackmail them.

[biting] someone is being held/restrained and they're biting, scratching, kicking, fighting their captor

[loved ones] one character threatens or hurts the other character's family

[public humiliation] one character humiliates another, in a public setting/venue - maybe using a 'secret' they have to hurt them?

[fire] one character is affected by a fire - their house burns down, they get burned themselves, etc

[burning] one character is burned by something other than a fire (chemical, iron brand, etc)

[arguing] one character is angry with the other and goes to start an argument about it

[fighting] one character physically initiates a fight with the other

[sleep deprivation] one character deliberately keeps another character awake, knowing that they need sleep

[mutilation] one character is mutilated by another - scars, loss of body parts, branding, etc

[ownership] one character is claimed as another person's property - tattoos, collars, etc

[shooting] one character shoots another

[detention] one character is tied up or locked up somewhere, and is unable to leave

[restriction] one character is chemically or physically restrained - leather straps, tied to chair, sedated, etc

[medical] one character undergoes a forced medical procedure/practice - preferably while fully conscious and unable to stop it

[surgery] one character is forced to experience a surgery conscious and in pain

[sabotage] one character is deliberately sabotaged by another

[isolation] one character is isolated somewhere with no interaction/input from the outside world. they're alone alone alone alone alone.

[training] one character trains another the way one might train a dog/horse/animal

[invasive] one character has been injured and in providing first aid, the other character is invading their privacy/personal space (removing clothes, etc)

[questioning] one character is being asked questions about something they obviously don't want to be asked about

[water] one character is held underwater, being waterboarded, or suffering the water in some way

[deprivation] one character is being deprived of one of the basic needs for life - food, water, air

[brainwashing] one character is being brainwashed/manipulated/gaslit into certain behaviours or beliefs

[cult] a character is in a cult or cult-like environment - story ideas e.g. leader of the cult shames them, two characters in the cult/want to escape, etc

[vicarious] a character is made to feel responsible for something they have no control over (loved one being tortured, bad decision at work, etc)

[bait] one character is used as bait - with or without their knowledge

[replacement] one character has lost someone and is, intentionally or not, using the other character as a replacement (could be upset that the replacement isn't the same)

[stress positions] a character is forced to hold a position that is uncomfortable or exhausting to hold

[robbery] a character has their money or valuables stolen from them in e.g. a mugging or breakin

[theft] a character has valuable information, work documents, personal photos, etc stolen from them

[sobriety] a character attempts to coax an addict into drinking/using again

[pass-agg] a character keeps getting mean notes from the neighbour

[finances] a character has their finances tightly controlled by another

[disbelief] a character finally tells someone about their terrible experience and they are Not Believed

[witness] a character witnesses a crime, especially a violent crime

[ravenclairee]

HUDSON WILLIAMS at the Run N Gun Film Festival Photographed by Grayson Lang

[and-fishing-equipment]

in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME

and don't forget to stay silly

[weltenwellen]

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[gentlesleaze]

Oh my god, I love you so much.

[shadeofgreed]

You deserve someone that's going to appreciate you. You deserve someone that wants to be excited about when you get home. You deserve someone that wants to hold your hand during those bad days. You deserve someone that's going to love the worst parts of you.

So that's why I took you, kiddo. Now when I take the duct tape off are you going to try to scream again or are we going to play nice?

[lovedbyspark]

setting this down at @lovedbyaster's feet but also i think this could be interesting with bezi @caterva if you want skgjslkgj

There is a thief in the castle walls, but Princess Eira Hywel does not particularly mind it. In fact, she's been aiding them.

Some months ago, Eira had begun to notice that paper and ink had begun to go missing from her personal chamber. Then, not long after, books too had begun vanishing from her reading nook one by one, sometimes returned, sometimes she suspected gone for good. A childhood copy of the Holy Book had been taken, as well as some old primers and fae-tales which she hadn't touched in so long that the only reason she'd noticed they were missing were the stripes of clean wood on otherwise dusty shelves.

It was peculiar. Eira enjoyed the novelty.

Eventually she began to intentionally leave extra wells of ink and small sheaves of paper out on her writing desk along with books she'd become bored of. Every few weeks, they would disappear. Eira loved it. She treated it like a game, wondering which books her mysterious thief would decide to take, and took guesses at who the thief might be. One of her waitstaff, surely? A handmaid, perhaps. Most were literate enough but she knew that the eldermost of them, Maeve, could not so much as write her name. Maybe she'd grown curious and was too embarrassed to ask? But then Maeve was very loyal and very old fashioned; if she even had the inclination to teach herself to read and write, she would have returned the books at least. Or the culprit could be quiet Ursula, Eira thought. She'd had a child some years ago and it would be reasonable to expect that she might like to teach him the basics. But then the boy couldn't be more than three or four now... Too young to care about writing or reading, and unlikely to know how to handle a quill at all.

It seemed to Eira that there was only one way to find out who this thief was without ruining their sense of secrecy: She would lie awake all night pretending to sleep and wait for them to slip into her chamber. There would be the problem of avoiding the physician and the nightly sleeping medicine he insisted on her taking, but she was sure that would be an easy enough hurdle, fits be damned.

So that was just what she did. Tucked deep into her heavy blankets, foul medicine seeping into the soil of her least favourite potted plant, Eira watched her dark room from beneath her lashes, thrilled at the prospect of finally solving the mystery of her literature-hungry thief.

[lovedbyaster]

Connor isn't the sort of person who cares much for the monarchy, in general. They're overly rich people who just sort of decided they'd conduct themselves as better-than around the city, and as much as that describes the 'leader' of the Volpe Rogues' Guild, Connor at least finds some satisfaction in working for Mr Volpe: the thieving is done for good reasons, and if it isn't then it's done for reasons that make sense to him, anyway. They protect their town, and their own, with a viciousness that suits Connor just fine - not that he relishes the chance to be vicious, but that there are only so many means to so many ends in a kingdom as small as Adrevale. He refuses to go home.

Anyway: he is here of his own volition tonight and he assumes the Guild is aware of the fact that he has to be sourcing his stuff from somewhere (money means nothing in a town not literate enough to sell the parchment and quills he needs), but Connor is in the fortunate position to have been left to his own devices. They know he won't drag them down with him if he gets caught. Which he won't, unless he's an idiot like he is tonight, watching Princess Eira as she sets out her things for the taking just as she has done several nights in a row, and pours her sleeping draught into a particularly non-sleepy looking plant pot.

Connor is not an ordinary guard in the Hywels' rotation, but he is owed more than one favour within the palace walls because Connor simply makes a habit of keeping favours-owed tucked up his sleeve. Today, as he has been many days previously, he is in the standard guards' uniform. He accompanies the physician in to see Eira with little fanfare, has become a familiar enough face in the palace (albeit unpaid) that he is issued orders by a commanding officer - and complies - with little idea among the group that he does not belong there. He works only nights, they all know. Ailing mother. (Connor's mother is dead, and he killed her.)

Witnessing her dump the potion, he knows he should leave. She intends to catch him in the act. He has been rostered on for tonight, but he could leave her chambers unattended, he's sure; an excuse about a bad omen, a feeling his mother required him, a sign he could not ignore. They'd call him paranoid, but he'd be able to disappear. It would be simple.

She wants to catch the culprit she's been leaving things out for, and Connor does not know why either of those things are true: the wanting to catch him, or the choice to leave him things. So he stays.

The option to leave stays held tightly in the hand he uses to hold the door open (ready to close). Connor's words are accented deliberately oddly, the voice of a native speaker instead of the accent that usually lilts in the direction of a home he has denounced in favour of a kingdom he does not love.

"Trouble sleeping, ma'am?" he asks, when he opens the door again some time after the Princess slips her way into bed, and finds her breathing still that uneven, poorly-masked excitement. He nods to the empty parchment sitting at her desk. "Got a story in your head?"

[paper-mache-stars]

been thinking about grace and adrian being alike

[lovedbyaster]

The smell makes Alexei scowl but he presses on.

Thin spirals of smoke, acrid, burning, spin from beneath the hot metal as it flattens into Red's skin.

"You tell where Ciro is," he says evenly, "this stop. Is easy."

Red screams.

It's primal and angry and very afraid, tears out of his throat as angry shards of glass climbing like bile into his mouth and shattering in the air. He hasn't had any water in what feels like weeks, just barely enough to keep him alive, and now his mouth salivates anyway at the smell of cooking flesh and his eyes prick with tears and he lurches in a wanton, languid, bodily-reaction sort of way to get further away from the hot iron but it's only pressed deeper into his chest for the effort. The wall behind him is solid concrete, embedded with iron, fused with it so that his whole body aches when it makes contact.

Red hasn't not had a headache for longer than he can remember. His wrists and hands and ankles are bloodied with blisters (iron cuffs) and the scars of infections that start and are chased away with Pablo's antibiotics because he's too 'valuable' to kill.

At some point he understood how this was happening, what fae deal he had been tricked into making by a man he'd trusted on the sheer fact that he was - biologically - family, and in Ciro's world, that meant something. At some point though the sun had left him, and the pain had crept in, and he had not been able to hold onto the truth of what happened at the same time as clinging with both hands to himself. How pathetic, he thinks, body wracked with coughs because he splutters for air after the scream, forgot to breathe when it scraped upward in his chest. How pathetic that he lands on himself, in the end. With nothing else to grab onto he tries desperately to keep himself intact.

He misses the sun like a constant, searing knowledge that he is not where he should be. It hurts worse than the sear into his skin. It hurts worse than any of this. Without the sun and without the Volpes and without his name, what even is left of him? What is left for him to hold onto in his pathetic, scrabbling, last-ditch efforts to feel like a real person instead of someone crushed flat and already septic, just waiting for the crush to be removed so they can die.

Alexei is good at his work: he knows that there is no getting answers when a person is too blinded by pain to think or form words. It means he leaves the gap and Ciro, sometimes, very occasionally, finds a piece of himself the way that he does now. It's enough to let him squeeze out: "Please." It means nothing. The word is heavy on his tongue. It's all blood and magic that pours out of him in droves and leaves him weak and exhausted and drowning in how much he is not whole - the magic does not want to be in him when the sun is outside. He is empty empty empty empty empty empty. Ciro will never not be hungry again. He will be starving for sunlight the day he dies. He will eat her whole if she lets him. He will still be alone in this suffocating room, where it is dark and the world is cruel and he cannot do anything that once upon a time was easy.

Please, he whisper-begs, and his breath hitches, and Red's hands fist and unfist in their cuffs as he tries hard to ground himself. Maybe this time Alexei will hear him. Maybe this time they'll see. Ma-

Maybe Dad will come down again (God, and he'd begged for that, hadn't he? He had been so convinced. Dad will see me. His own son. He will know) and when he comes down, he'll, um --

Maybe...

"'zo," he chokes. He is crying, he's aware. Red doesn't have the spare water for it but it forces its way out of him, body intent on expiring, achey achey achey achey. All he wants to do is kneel. All he wants to do is rest. All he wants to do is lie in the sun until he dies. "'s... I n-- I n-" the pause has been long enough now that he feels the last drips of magic seep into the burn and spiral around it, trying to help, their sugar more like jagged ice, their willingness slipping as they miss the sun as badly as he does. He is alone. He's alone down here. He's alone and he's going to die and worse, maybe he isn't going to die, he's just going to be alone forever. "Ciro," he fights to say, and he does this just because he knows it will buy him a second longer to gather his energy. It will buy him a marginal pause, a second where Alexei thinks maybe he is going to finally answer, to break in a way Red literally has not been able to, all this time: maybe Alexei will give him time enough to try.

Alexei backhands him (Ciro flinches, violently, in a way he hasn't in a while), refusing the break. "Speak."

Red doesn't know what he could possibly say. There is nothing that will make this stop. There is nothing that will keep Alexei and Stefano Volpe from trying to find their son. There is no way to tell them that he is here. There is no way to tell them he doesn't know how much longer he can survive this, survive them hating him. Survive being looked at and seen right through, instead of seen.

The pain of the past month bubbles all along his skin. He wants to scream again. He wishes he had something else to say, some other begging to offer.

Instead Alexei presses the hot iron into his skin a second time and Ciro writhes, and he forgets again what it is like to think there is any way out of this, that there is any option except pain, that the men here are looking for him. All there is is the weight of Alexei's knee on his hip, pinning him down, and the ache for the sun so deep inside of him he feels his soul split in two looking over every part of him for any sliver for sunlight, and the hot iron that keeps him from using the magic even if he wanted to.

He's sure he begs. Stop - STOP - LORENZO -- please pleaseplease I need the sun, please, Alexei please, the sun -- but he doesn't do it consciously. It comes out of him the way oxygen comes out of his lungs.

The session is over and Lorenzo is up the top of the stairs again when Ciro surfaces again enough to beg, "...'zo," in a croak so tired and lonely and cold he thinks he must be in the process of dying (he is not). He does not know when he got tossed to the floor. His body aches from being in the different position, cannot get comfortable here.

Alexei stops.

"I w'nna go home." please, his voice says. Please.

Please. "please. I just wanna go home."

@lovedbyspark

[angelbabymikaa]

i love when my mutuals are mutuals with each other #myecosystem #myenclosure

[girlsjustwannadrawwhump]

If he didn’t wanna be tortured he shouldn’t have been that pretty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[oh-evan]

tk strand in every episode 2.14: dust to dust

[hopefulwonderlandrunaway]

Look at him 🤏🥹

[dafancyuhinspiration]

[lovedbyaster]

[Undercover] with? Eira?? Somehow? Missing modern day princess of a small country? Alternatively, undercover Alexei and one of yours is the victim.

[Undercover] -A is an undercover cop, or a reluctant gang member. B is a trafficking victim. Our story isn’t A saves B - our story is A needs to work with B to find an opportunity to free the rest, and A is sorry, and it’s dangerous, but A needs B’s help anyway.

An undercover operation is a tightly maintained ship.

Connor doesn't go into things blind. There's a lot of research that goes into something like this, a mission whose intricacies are accounted for and detailed out at full length as much as possible before putting boots on the ground. He'd had to be vetted and re-vetted, his history interrogated and cover story exact; there'd had to be a certain period of time following his previous undercover work, because they could not run the risk of him being recognised (unfortunately, for this job, his hair would be and would remain orange: he hates it), and he had needed to know exactly how deep this cover was and what he was committing to.

There are check-in points and opportunities to signal that he wants to bail, absolutely, but the sort of tireless work that's gone into this, and keeping track of him at the same time, has been immense. They smuggled a small tracking chip intended for livestock, wrapped up in a capsule the size of a grain of rice, into his evening meal a week ago. It's in the wastewater system now, after a short jaunt around his extremely interesting cell full of fascinating bricks to count and pieces of moss to watch grow. A final sort of last hurrah, a demonstration: yes, I am fine, and I want to keep going.

Anyway, his next check-in with Hank (through a contact of a contact) is not for another two and a half weeks, Connor's in a jamb, and he is a resourceful man.

Resources within the scope of the plan, as detailed within thorough planning documentation prior to the commencement of the mission:

a) relationships built within the network of trafficking victims. These are to be built in a general, rather than specific, sense wherever possible: the 'grooming' of witnesses prior to laying charges is generally frowned upon procedurally and makes it more difficult for the prosecutorial team. As much as the police want their vics to feel safe discussing the circumstances of their trafficking, they also want the perps to land gaol time at the end of the day. To be able to say hey, thanks for sharing your trauma in a courtroom setting, there was actually some point to all that public humiliation you just put yourself through. b) things that he'd smuggled or brought in with him into the operation. For all intents and purposes Connor, while in this role, is a male sex worker named Dmytriov, who speaks primarily Russian and a little broken English. He was able to bring a lighter with a pack of cigarettes(currency, in many places), hair ties (he hates the hair he's got for this job. It's Alexei LiteTM, and Orange), makeup (highly flammable - good with the lighter), and a little pack of 'hastily-packed' clothes (assembled by the team to be a little smelly, a little dirty, and very sparkly). c) reasonable policing resources within a limited budgetary capacity as demanded by the requirements of the role, arising through and as a result of his involvement in the undercover work, acknowledging the likely necessary purchase of alcohol and other drugs for maintenance of cover d) his own good judgement in the course of the investigation, where it is necessary to make a decision for resourcing including human resourcing in a time-sensitive and self-directed manner, with regard to procedural law, civilian safety, and the likely interests of the state Attorney General in deciding how and whether to pursue elements of the case.

In this instance?

It's just that he can't be in two places at once. Genuinely, it's just that he can't be both here and there, and they just don't have the time between now and the next overseas shift to explain the inside-information 'bust' he's proposing alongside seizing the once-a-month-opportunity to grab a set of keys that wouldn't be noticed missing until two days after they vanished.

He can't be in two places at once.

It makes him say, "Eira," because she is both opportunistically there in the room to the left of his cell and she bites people sometimes, "Miss Eira from Next Door! I have question. No, no -- no worry, is not That question, I am man into man. But important. Come closer."

@lovedbyspark

[lovedbyspark]

Elias' jaw works and he craves a cigarette as Connor continues to stand where he is. It reminds him of how much he hates other men. Boorish, rude, impulsive, and prone to playing games that they think are clever but are really just stupid and annoying.

"What do you want?" His German accent thickens around his words the more agitated he gets. Connor is blocking his hard-won begonia's sun. "Job? Money? Directions? I have nothing for you. Get out."

When Connor still does not, Elias goes from death white to a funny, blotchy sort of pink. "I am going to call the police," he announces again. Except instead he reaches for a rake and jabs the handle in Connor's direction once, not touching, but threatening to should he come any closer to his property. "I'll have you arrested!"

[lovedbyaster]

Mm. Interesting response. 'I have nothing for you', so set on what a newcomer would be looking to take.

Maybe this is his man. Connor entertains the thought idly, not convinced but willing to play devil's advocate. He has learned very little of the owner of this property from the people in the town nearby; it seems that they largely know of this place, but nobody knows the owner personally. Connor wasn't sure that it was inhabited, and had not in fact been intending to press forward yet - but he is at the fence, viewing the gap in the curtain in the upstairs bedroom where the room darkens too much to make out more than the fact it is there, and that does mean the information he's been given has a leg to stand on.

It's not much of a leg, but it's reasonable cause. And Connor's certain that could translate to a warrant, if Judge Katterly would get back to him already. The weight of his phone is heavy in his pocket.

The rake does nothing to deter him.

"Are you Elias Kettler?" he asks.

Only secondarily does he add, "My name's Connor." (He's not stupid enough, yet, to tell him that he's a detective - no point offering the guy an opportunity to go back and destroy evidence, if there's any there to be found.)

[lovedbyspark]

Elias draws the rake back, the head thunking back into the dirt. His hands itch and he's spilt some of his tea and he's very conscious of how bare his fingers are, and how badly he'd like to wrap them around the annoying man's wrist until it blackens and dies.

"I don't care." Simple.

He leans the rake back against the shed's sun-warm brick and stalks, muttering, back into his cottage. The door slams shut.

[lovedbyaster]

Yeah, Connor thinks; that's fair. He wouldn't give much of a shit either about some guy standing by the side of the road, behind a fence, having fun naming people.

He watches Elias stalk upstairs in the movement of the windows he can see from the road. The phone buzzes its permission in Connor's pocket, a written warrant arriving promptly in his inbox: the police finally are called to Kettler's property.

Connor sends the other guys to the front door because he's not looking to get himself potentially shot by a maybe-murderous recluse who doesn't give a shit what his name is. Instead he makes for the brick little shed Mr Kettler had opted not to open in front of a stranger, and resists taking the rake with him as he goes.

[lovedbyspark]

Elias' jaw works and he craves a cigarette as Connor continues to stand where he is. It reminds him of how much he hates other men. Boorish, rude, impulsive, and prone to playing games that they think are clever but are really just stupid and annoying.

"What do you want?" His German accent thickens around his words the more agitated he gets. Connor is blocking his hard-won begonia's sun. "Job? Money? Directions? I have nothing for you. Get out."

When Connor still does not, Elias goes from death white to a funny, blotchy sort of pink. "I am going to call the police," he announces again. Except instead he reaches for a rake and jabs the handle in Connor's direction once, not touching, but threatening to should he come any closer to his property. "I'll have you arrested!"

[lovedbyaster]

Mm. Interesting response. 'I have nothing for you', so set on what a newcomer would be looking to take.

Maybe this is his man. Connor entertains the thought idly, not convinced but willing to play devil's advocate. He has learned very little of the owner of this property from the people in the town nearby; it seems that they largely know of this place, but nobody knows the owner personally. Connor wasn't sure that it was inhabited, and had not in fact been intending to press forward yet - but he is at the fence, viewing the gap in the curtain in the upstairs bedroom where the room darkens too much to make out more than the fact it is there, and that does mean the information he's been given has a leg to stand on.

It's not much of a leg, but it's reasonable cause. And Connor's certain that could translate to a warrant, if Judge Katterly would get back to him already. The weight of his phone is heavy in his pocket.

The rake does nothing to deter him.

"Are you Elias Kettler?" he asks.

Only secondarily does he add, "My name's Connor." (He's not stupid enough, yet, to tell him that he's a detective - no point offering the guy an opportunity to go back and destroy evidence, if there's any there to be found.)