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yeyinde · 5 months ago

Text

shadow monsters on wooden church walls

SIMON RILEY X READER

an escaped convict finds shelter inside an abandoned chapel in rural New Mexico. and with it, a very obliging woman on the run from her fiancé.

(well. obliging, asleep. is there really much of a difference?)

18+ | HEAVY NONCON. COCK WARMING. SOMNOPHILIA. PUSSY SLAPPING. NONCON CUM EATING. UNSAFE SEX/BREEDING. MARKING. SIZE DIFFERENCE. IMPLIED KIDNAPPING. WILD WEST AU. SEXISM/MISOGYNY. BASTARDIZED RELIGIOUS MYTHOLOGY.

He finds you asleep on a pew.

A gloved hand shoved under your temple. The other curled into a loose fist, knuckles resting against the bench seat. Your elbow tucks itself nicely into the slope of your waist, forearm balanced on your belly as you slumber, fully relaxed and utterly unaware of who—or what—stumbled upon you.

Too relaxed, maybe.

There's a softness to the spill of you that makes his teeth ache—melting candy. Spun sugar. Something that makes him want to burrow his jaws into the marshmallow sweetness sitting pretty for him like a little treat.

His belly grumbles. He can't remember the last time he ate.

And lucky for him, there's no artifice to the steady rise and fall of your lace-covered chest. The swell is a lulling rock that disturbs the dust gathered along the wood in a thick, dense blanket of moulder and disuse.

He tucks the pistol he snatched on the way here into the pocket of his stolen jacket, cocking his head to the side as he considers this unexpected discovery.

The church was meant to be empty. A sequestered haven for him to hide inside until the lawmen chasing him passed by further in the north. This diverging path known only to the man who shared his wisdom of it in the prison. Locatable only by staggered markers left behind by the pilgrims who were plundered of their goods and left to die in the sprawling, untenable wilds of New Mexico.

(It's always been man eat man in the dust.)

He's not sure how you found it. The state of your boots and the bottom of your dresses make him believe you'd been on the run for some time. Coincidence, maybe. Or—

You don't stir at all, even as his boots clunk against the loose, dusty floorboards as he prowls closer to your prone form. His breath drawing ragged from his broad chest. Heart dropping down to his empty belly where it pulses thunderously in his guts. The reverberation thrumming in his groin—

It's been a long time since he's seen a woman.

Even longer since he had one.

It never seemed like much of a necessity when he was younger. His life split between survival and hunger. Ripped from his ramshackle home in Manchester and squeezed into an overcrowded boat headed to America.

Land o' opportunity, his old man promised, but much like all of his predictions (and schemes), America had little forethought to spare on a poor family with nothing to their name. Opportunity—but only inasmuch as the wealth carried with you provided. And being poorer than dirt, it only made sense that New York had little to offer except rubble—more dirt. More soot staining his fingers, blackening his father's teeth.

He doesn't find it too surprising they were chased out west within a week. Trudging along the same dirt-covered road as everyone else in search of something to call home.

The only place willing to take them was an aptly named town called Tombstone. A place where both his dad and brother rest.

Incarcerated at eighteen for enacting revenge on their murderers, and now a full-bodied man of some thirty-odd years, it's a jarring, encompassing thing to see you sleeping like this. So vulnerable. So soft.

Maybe it's the fragility of these curled parts making up the cluttered framework of your body that appeals to some aspect of himself that longs to break small, soft things between his fists. Crush bone like paper. Shatter it into pieces like fine china. Brittle porcelain.

Whatever it is, it itches in his guts. Makes his hands grow slick, dampening with sweat. Blooms a vicious fever in his head. This unquenchable thirst clawing at the back of his throat is only sated by the spill of your soft, cottonlike body tucked into the pew.

It's—

Precious, he thinks, cock stirring, thickening in his borrowed pants. Sweet lil' thing, he coos, tongue scraping over his teeth. All curled up inside a church. Alone.

Waiting for him.

He isn't one for religious zealotry. It held no appeal even as the priests visited the prison, beseeching him to repent. The idea of god, gods, never held much interest to him, but he learned the Bible they carried with them, this sacred object of divine wisdom. A fairytale, not too dissimilar to Chaucer, he found.

But he can't deny there's something a little poetic about this. Something divine.

Almost as if that mighty, tempestuous god they preached about was smiling down on him. An offering not at all dissimilar to the riches he bestowed on the men who caught his eye.

And don't all those men face trials and tribulations before being given grace, too? Lands, and honour, and sanctified, but most of all—

Wives.

And a sweet one, too.

Folded up into yourself like a little bird who fell from the nest. Shivering on the cold, unfamiliar ground as it waits for its parents to come and bring it back. Unaware of the viper in the grass behind it. The hawk circling overhead.

Lucky for you, god thinks you'd fare quite nicely in his stomach instead.

And really—

You should know better, he thinks, hands dropping to the stolen buckle of his belt. Sleeping in a lonely building like this. Practically waiting for him to come along and take what he's owed, aren't you?

And who is he to pass up such a pretty little gift from God?

You come awake on a gasp.

Clawing against iron wrapped around you—tentacles, maybe; you were at sea seconds ago, lost to the whims of the ocean as something tried to pull you down, down—and choking on an inhale that gets stuck in the hollow of your throat, glueing to tissue. A bubble that won't pop. That you can't breathe around—

"Keep squirmin' like tha', birdie, an' I’ll be ready t’go again."

The voice, slinking slowly through the thick fog spooled densely over your mind, comes in a lazy drawl half-growled into your crown, warm breath tickling over your scalp. Unfamiliar, too. And much too close.

Pieces click in the back of your head. You remember running. Hiding in the church. Being moved. Dreaming of a turbulent sea that rocked you back and forth—

Seasick. But no—

This isn't the ocean. It isn't your fiancè.

The thing behind you is bigger, broader. Where you would have expected to meet solid muscle, you instead sink into a thick, warm pelt. One that's all heat. A raging fever. Burning against your back, under your thighs.

This laden heaviness in your limbs. Your belly—

A burn there, too. A pulsing, terrifying ache; this pressure you can't squirm away from, can't breathe around—

Panic pops the bubble stuck in your throat when it surges up your esophagus like a fist. The world slowly loses the haze, the thick cloud of confusion and sticky-eyed sleep clinging like molasses to your awareness, but what is left behind when the veil is ripped off is nothing short of abject horror.

There's a man behind you.

But that's only half-true.

In the sluggish grapple of your cognizance flailing around for solid ground in the heavy drape of hypnagogia, you shove your fingers into the degree of separation between sight and dream, curling against awareness, and—

You're cradled in his lap like a child. Spine liquid against his chest, legs pulled taut over impossibly thick thighs, knees bent at an angle that makes your hips twinge in discomfort. Pulled too far apart, and done so to make room.

Nausea claws up your throat when your bleary eyes drop down to the immodest, intrusive spread of your legs, feet dangling helplessly in the air, bouncing with some unfathomable motion. The position takes a second to unravel, to work out with the sleep-sticky tremble in your fingers. Mind still chasing the end of a dream even as the sudden spill of massive, bare thighs takes shape in the trembling ruins of your cognizance.

And God—

You wish it didn't.

With your skirts rucked up beneath your bared breasts, held in place with a big, heavily scarred forearm looped around your ribs, crushing your arms to your body, you can see the unmistakable rut of pale, mauled muscles flexing, tensing

And then suddenly, lifting.

“Told y’to stop squirmin', birdie—”

But you're not moving—

The pressure from before sharpens into a blistering ache as this—thing—inside of you grows. Stretches. Presses against tender, sore muscles as it snatches the last wisp of air from your heaving lungs.

There's a sting so deep, so wide, inside of you that you almost think you can see the soft curve of something moving against the skin of your belly. A trick of the mind, maybe.

Nightmare on solid ground.

You clamp down against the urge to scream when it shifts within you, pulling on soft, tight walls.

It hurts. Feels like you might be impaled on a dagger, maybe. A knife. A writhing mass devouring you from the inside out. But no—

You know what this—what it—is even if your brain refuses to acknowledge it. To let it take shape.

It keeps you cradled in the protective cup of its palms where the world is superlunary, your body incorporeal. Weightless.

But with every hiccup, each gasp, this nebulous sanctity congeals a little more into the brutal reality of what you've woken up to.

A man.

Unfamiliar. Unknown.

Rasping in your ear. His breath soured by the leftover communion wine you'd found tucked beneath the pulpit. Reeking of sweat and stale tobacco. Dust and dirt. Days on the road. Something wild. Primal. Animal, maybe. The musky scent of a horse, fur heated under the sun. Unwashed man. Masculine and potent. Dirty. Carrying the scent of loam, humus, with each harried breath he heaves against you.

But it's not just the smell of him. His hands, his skin, is covered in a hazy watercolour of grime from days without washing. From the sands of the barren, empty plains soaking into his skin, and smearing across scarred, torn tissue as he sweats in the heat.

Maybe it's his own internal fire causing him to burn so hot. Pyretic. An inferno against your back, under your thighs. So scorching, you wonder, dazedly, if it isn't the devil himself rutting into you below like a bullish beast.

With his feet tucked into big, dusty leather boots, you can't tell, but the sight of hooves emerging from them instead of pale, dirty skin wouldn't surprise you in the slightest.

Maybe it'll be easier to stomach if he was just that because what sort of man would do this to you in an abandoned house of worship.

A beast—

His arm tightens. With a grunt, he shifts, grinding you down into that ineluctable pressure, maneuvering you on his lap like some oversized doll, a child's toy. A plaything for him to amuse himself with. To use—

In the pit of your belly, something blooms. A vicious, untenable feeling of fragility. Weakness. You can't move an inch in his ferric grip. Can't breathe without his assent. You're little more than an object cradled in his hands. Utterly powerless in a way you haven't really felt at all—not even when the man you were supposed to marry curled his hand around your wrist and told you that he'd enjoy chopping your independence down into bite-sized pieces. Gorge himself on your helplessness.

This makes the frailty, that clawing, desperation feel like a boy's play at patriarchal ownership. Clumsy stumbling through the motions. A pantomime of sadistic cruelty. Revelry in power.

That was a loss of control.

This—

This is not.

In order to lose something you need to have had it in your grasp to begin with.

It was yours when you ran from the man, your fiance, when he clamped his hand around your wrist, eyes wild and feverish with delirium, and said he'd keep you forever. Life of imprisonment chained a man who scared you more than the gnarled scar on the side of his head.

And after, too. As you fled from the coach on a whim when it rattled over a small hill, tumbling down the embankment. Hiding in a small alcove, waiting for them to grow tired of searching for you.

Cradled when you found the church. A safe haven. A place to rest—

Only to wake up to a hand on your throat. A purr in your ear.

Hands empty.

Useless.

Curling into the messy spill of your skirts, clinging to the fabric until your joints ache from the strain, and your nails bite through cloth to sink into skin, because that's all you can do.

Clutch. Hold. Plead—

"Takin' me so well, ain't you, birdie?"

Even his voice sounds devilish. A robust, brassy rumble you've never heard from a man before. More akin to the growl of a tiger. Beastal and wrong. Drenched in a thick, unmistakable bliss as he seats himself deep inside of you like he's been bestowed the privilege. Allowed to claim what you denied even to your intended husband—

"P-please stop—"

Each steady pump of his hips fills your belly with more of that impossible, overfull feeling. The too-tight squeeze of you around something that wasn't ever meant to fit pulls at your flesh until it burns.

"Please—" your moan is a wretched, mournful thing, but it makes him grunt into your ear like a starved, taunted beast. The arm slung possessively around your ribs tightening into a painful squeeze that forces the air from your lungs in a huff.

The dizzying spill of hypoxia makes you almost thankful when it dulls the blunt, fat split of him bludgeoning into you in response. A sharp, full jerk that tears through you. Forcefully eking space where there is none left to give. Stretching, rearranging, until you can feel him in the very apex of your being.

But in that, a strange, horrifying trill brims, leaking from the pressure cracks of your bones. Spinal fluid dripping out. Thick, hot oil that steadily floods the mess between your thighs, eroding the bones, the muscles, in your pelvis until all that remains is an oozing, gooey pool he rocks into. Molten.

Sticky, wet sounds spill from the cradle between your thighs, each one burning through your chest until you choke, mortified. Blistering from shame.

It's difficult to catch your breath around the squeeze of his arm over your ribs, and the too-full stretch in your belly. Harder, too, to think. To make sense of the wall of solid, soft heat against your spine. The ache in your thighs as your legs are spread much too wide.

Everything below his arm feels like an open, pulsing wound—

But it changes when his hand, just as scarred, as ugly, as his thighs, the forearm clenched tight around your waist, slides down from its lazy perch on your neck, lowering to the gaping, throbbing wound between your thighs.

He curls it into a loose fist, scabbed, scarred knuckles sharpening into fattened peaks. His fingers bend inward, seeking.

It doesn't make sense until he touches you.

With your swollen folds spread over the thigh (impossibly thick; monstrously so—) girth of him, it opens you up to his wandering hand. He delves into the split seam of you, rubbing calloused, rough fingers over throbbing, stretched flesh.

And for a moment, it's just a tickle. Pressure on your puffy, outer lips, but then he leans back, shifting the angle of your pelvis until he can slide his dirty fingers up, up—

"Fuck, lil' bird. Gonna strangle my cock if you get any tighter—"

You're howling. Thrashing in his hold as the ache pulses, squeezing like a vice around the unfathomable, fattened mass bullying itself desperately inside of you. Rutting bluntly against something just behind your navel that makes you nauseous with each stroke. Every muscle in your body seizes as he grunts, ugly and vicious, into your ear and starts moving you against him, lifting and jerking your body into his lap, meeting his own thrusts.

“Must want it bad, eh, birdie? Listen to you—” his fingers slide through the mess between your thighs, and the sound that spills makes you think of the shores of Asphaltites. The splash of brimstone—slick, wet. Wanting. Am-heh lapping at the waters. “Fuckin’ gagin’ for it.”

You're not. No. You want to scream but the air is snuffed from your lungs. Sickness writhes in the back of your throat, clawing desperately at the walls of the esophageal prison it's locked inside. Inescapable. You can't let it out—

He wouldn't like that, you think, and it splinters in the back of your head. Separating into fragmentary pieces. Their sharp, obsidian edges, still slick with those broken, polluted whims—be good, it drips; be good and take it—press into soft tissue, cutting open gyri. Stuffing the wound—

And he's speaking, too. Groaning in your ear as he rocks into you. Bein’ so good f’me, ain't you? Takin’ my cock like this—

Good.

Against your will, you relax. Swallow down the sickness trapped in your throat. Good. The tension bleeds out of your muscles, and in the slippage, your softened thighs sink into his lap a little more, pushing him deeper than he was seconds ago.

It rips a whine from the back of your throat when that too tight, stinging feeling spins into something else. Still overfull, but—spreading. Evolving. Shifting as spills into the gaps, flooding, and filling, and—

Good. It's good.

The noises he makes change suddenly as your body eases, melting around him almost without thought, wholly against your will. Turns animalistic, feral, as you breathe into the heat swallowing you whole, chasing more of that overwhelming fullness, that hazy, ghosting pleasure that peppers delicate kisses over your nerves—gentling, distant; but growing closer with each shift—

“Tha’s it—” he snarls, shoving his face into your sweat-slicked nape. All teeth. The whitehot brush of a tongue. “Can feel your little cunt openin’ up f’me. Want more o’ my cock, birdie? Such a greedy thing, ain't you?”

The physical sting of jagged teeth scraping over your damp skin marries the burn scorching your chest in a brutally demeaning synchronicity.

It's intentional, of course.

You know what this mockery, this cruelty is, but they reave through the vestiges of propriety, unearthing your shame until it lays between those crooked teeth he keeps pressed into your skin.

The etchings of a smirk tickle along the knob of your spine when his mangled mouth pulls upward at your harried whimper.

“Bein’ such a good girl, ain't you?” He coos, digging those assailing fingers deeper into the soil of your mortification. “Takin’ my cock like this—” a groan trembles over his words, a clawing, helpless thing he can't seem to bite down on. “An’ in a ‘ouse o’ god, no less.”

His voice is airy. Thinner. Drenched in thick amusement as he cleaves into you with a growing desperation.

“Who knew I ��ad such a sweet little cunt waitin’ for me?”

You want to refute his words, but he just squeezes your ribs before you can shape them on your tongue. Renting your protestations until they fall in a choked gasp, a mewl, at his feet.

“Been locked up a long time. Got a lot saved up f’you—”

This new dip in his abasement doesn't make sense until he shifts, shuffling forward on the pew. It brings your line of sight closer to the broken window on the wall to the right of the crooked pulpit. A candle burns on a worn, wooden stand beneath the shattered glass. In the flickering candlelight, and hazed against the unfathomable blackness of a moonless night in the desert, the image that forms in this swelling abyss is nothing short of horrifying.

As the contours render slowly—spilling like liquid ignominy in midnight satin—the hulking shape behind you begins to fill out.

The first thing you notice—

He's big. His broad chest nearly swallows you whole as he leans over you like a hellish beast readying itself to devour you alive.

But it's not just his size that trips your pulse into a painful sprint, but the sight of him.

He looks mauled. Decorated almost entirely in thickened scar tissue running in strange, jagged lines along his skin, coloured in swaths of soft pink and blotchy purple. Deep pocks. Slashes. The meat beneath the right side of his jaw, right beside his chin, is missing, leaving behind the indented slope of shiny pink tissue cratering deep down to bone.

The baleen lines scraped into his wound look like the flat press of teeth and you wonder if someone took a bite out of him.

He makes a strangled noise when you shudder, tensing at the cannibalistic nature of the wound—of the mosaic of brutality sliced into skin.

“Go’ so fuckin' tight, birdie—” in the window, the blurred image of this beast draws closer to you, mouthing along the slope of your neck with a ruined mouth. A mockery of a lover's kiss as he shifts you in his lap, rasping: gonna make me fuckin' cum if you keep squeezin’ me like tha’

It rips out another shiver that tickles along your spine, making you tense up again with a choked sob as the thickened press of his cock grinds against something inside of you that makes your vision swim and your ears ring—

Cutting through the pulsing roar in your ears is a thunderous groan from deep inside of his chest. It's a savage, terrifying thing that claws over the haze, ripping it to pieces between it can spool over your head.

Blinking through the tears in your eyes, you're met with a swell of cold, deadened fury.

“Fuckin’ hell—” he spits on a biting snarl, tendons in his neck bunching together. A vein pops out from beneath his skin, throbbing in a dark, blue line—

“Ain’t givin’ it to you good enough, huh, birdie?”

You don't know what you did. Can't untangle the sudden anger in his voice as it sunders that thread of his derisive subjugation, ushering in an unfathomable anger slashing over his brow.

With your arms trapped under his, you can't brace yourself when he pushes to the edge of the pew with a growl, and begins to shove himself inside of you with a terrifying speed.

It's too much. You can't breathe around the punishing pace he sets. Forcing himself into you over and over again. Taking you. Making you take him.

There's no escape. His hold is like iron around you. You can barely cling on as he moves you up and down his cock, forcing the fat, blunt head into your sore, tender walls at a bruising pace. Each rock jarring your body as he makes you swallow him down to the root—look'it tha', he coos, ugly and biting and mean, his hand dropping to press tight against your belly; the pressure making you feel sick: go' my whole cock in there now, birdie—

"Tha's it," he rasps, rubbing his mauled, torn muzzle over your shoulder. Jagged teeth catching skin. "Squeeze my cock, birdie. Fuck, go' such a tight lil' cunt, don't you? 'nough t'make a man go half insane, ain't it?" He tilts his head suddenly, blowing warm, humid breath over your cheek when he exhales on a mean, callous scoff.

"S'what you do, birdie? D'you offer this sweet pussy up t'anyone who passes by?"

His words are uglier than the moulting scars on his skin, and they sink deep inside your head when he presses his foul mouth up against your ear, groaning the words out between rasping pants. Tha' what y'do, birdie? Spread these pretty thighs t'anyone? Don't even know who I am and y'pantin' for it. Gaggin' for m'cock—

You flinch away from the sting of them, twisting in his hold to escape. To run—

But he just huffs mockingly in your ear, deriding you about how you're tightening up like a pretty fuckin' bow around his cock.

"Made for it, weren't you?" He taunts, words rolling between jagged, fangled teeth. Sharpened to a brutal, devastating point.

You shake your head as much as you can with his face tucked inside the curve of your throat, mewling feebly in denial because that's all you can do. Whine. Sob. Wailing like an animal as he pistons his hips into you, each jarring thrust accompanying a sting on the back of your thighs as his hard, unyielding flesh slaps into yours.

It's humiliating. Shameful. His finger presses into something that makes your belly knot. Muscles tightening. Spasming. Your leg kicks out against the back of the pew when he smothers his thumb over that place again, drawing tight circles that make your navel throb, pulsing as if your heart dropped down to the pit of your belly. Beating like a drum behind your mound.

It's agony. Terrifying, awful agony—

But it isn't. It's not. Not really.

Not when he drapes himself over your back, lowering his stubbled, unevenly textured chin to your shoulder, and shoves you forward. The angle gives him more room to pull out, and the emptiness that follows each retreat has you sobbing. Fingers clawing at the tangled mess of your skirts to cling to something as the ugly, awful feeling inside of you tips on its axis. Shifts.

It's wrong. So, so wrong—

You don't want this.

But he doesn't give you much of a choice except taking it. Letting it happen.

"But tha's not true anymore, is it, birdie?"

His arm tightens around you. Squaring against the ground as he spreads his thighs further apart, rutting into you with a fit of anger that steals the scant air from your lungs. Drills real, tangible fear into your head that he's going to break you if he doesn't slow down, doesn't stop—

"...'cause you're mine," he snarls, lips tucked against your ear so you can hear him over the awful noise made as he hammers into you, the sickeningly lewd squelch. The stinging slap of soft skin of firm muscle. "Ain't you, birdie? An' this cunt—" his fingers trail down, grazing over the skin of your rim stretched too tight around the thick of him. Pressing until it hurts. "Belongs to me now, don't it?"

He mocks your pained whimper with a patronising coo of his own, but mercifully, the pressure shifts away. The respite, however, is brief.

The arm locked around your ribs shifts as his fingers slide to the cradle of your mound, his thumb brushing over your tender, sensitive clit in slow circles. His other hand peels off of your forearm, reeling back slightly before shoving inside the loose gap of your unlaced dress, cupping your breast in a rough, scorching palm.

He squeezes it tight in his hand until you whine, squirming against the discordant sensations dragging over your nerves. The pleasure of his thumb doing something magic between your thighs and the bruising ache in your breast—

It shifts again when he moves his hand, dragging it back until your pebbled nipple is trapped under the broad trap of his thumb. Just pressing. Holding. The touch is daunting. Possessive.

You tense again. Waiting—

The pain doesn't come.

It's just—strange. Ticklish. He rubs his finger over your nipple in slow, ghosting swipes. Barely a whisper of a touch. A mere graze. And as you slowly acclimate to these soft, small circles, the pleasure grows, pulsing between your thighs.

Every pass of his fingers feels like it's strumming against some taut line that coils behind your navel, tightening. Growing—

And then it's gone. Dissipating into frustration with a mean huff spilling out against your nape, quickly reshaping itself into a low, mocking taunt when you thrash, mewling pitifully at the loss of that heady feeling liquifying in your veins.

“We're you about t’cum, birdie?”

He tuts at that; making a low, mordant coo in the back of his throat when you whimper in response.

“Didn’t know you were so greedy.”

There's a strange undercurrent in his tone you can't make sense of. This loose, looping thread that weaves between the seams. Incomprehensible—

But you find the answer in his touch.

It tightens almost in warning, but you know him better now than to let yourself trip into that fallacy. A notion that solidifies itself when the hand that was once pushing you to that heavy, all-encompassing brink steadies itself on your belly. Pushing. He anchors his hold against your breast, letting it fill the cup of his palm as he squeezes once more, another mocking warning, and then begins to move.

The pace is rougher, faster, than before. With you tipped forward slightly in his lap, the angle makes it easier for him to unleash that thread of ire on you. Using the space to plant his feet solidly on the ground, knees spreading as he bucks his hips, pounding his cock deeper, harder, into you with a savagery that rips breathless whimpers and sobbing moans from the back of your throat with each jarring thrust.

Your teeth clack painfully together when he pulls you down to meet each one, cock shoving so deep inside of you, you could swear it was lodging against your heart. Knocking everything inside of you askew to make room, to fit—

There's a sudden, stinging pain that blooms from between your thighs, and you thrash as it happens again, again—

His hand comes down over your clit, and you yowl at the burning sensation of him slapping you there—

"Please, please—!"

You can't recognise your voice anymore. It sounds wrecked. Raw. Each blow draws out a deafening wail as the heat reaches a blistering zenith. A devouring, ravenous heat—

His voice cuts through the shrill ring of it all. "Say it, birdie. Who does this cunt belong to?"

It tips off your lips in a desperate litany. A plea. You, you, you—

"S'not good enough, birdie. You gotta say it. Who does this cunt belong to?"

You say it because that's what he wants—you. it belongs to you. my cunt belongs to you. please, please, pleasepleaseplease stop—but he groans like you've gutted him. Slamming his palm down against your tender, swollen clit as he sloppily ruts into you, grunting in your ear about God and wives and fuck, buried, this sweet cunt was gonna drive him fuckin' mad—

Everything narrows down to raw sensation. Just the constant, feverish push of his cock dragging against your walls, bluntly pushing into that spot behind your navel that makes your ears ring, and your vision swim. The scorching press of rough skin against your stinging, throbbing clit; the abrasive stroke of each clumsy, pawing circle catching on swollen flesh. Blooming a vicious heat in your belly.

It draws tight. Coiling into a tense knot as a ruts into you, grunting about being close, so fuckin' close, birdie, so you better come on my cock; want this pussy coming all over me—

There's a sharp pain burrowing into your nape, his teeth sinking in deep, breaking skin with jagged teeth, and that knot snaps. Shattering into a series of intense, dizzying pulses that squeeze behind your navel, liquid bliss saturating through the cracks, and bubbling, molten, in your veins.

You're a twitching, shuddering mess. A sicky spill melting into his chest as he clamps down harder against you, grunting around the bite of flesh he lodged between his jowls as he swells inside of you, finding his release.

As he throbs inside of you, his teeth dig in deeper, biting down harder on your nape to smother the snarl ripped from his throat. His hips pump into you with staggered jerks bereft of all finesse; just a clumsy rut as he chases the aftermath of that same mind-numbing euphoria rippling through the honeyed mess of your body.

But it's this bliss that mutes the pain, hiding it under the deluge of endorphins that mushrooms inside of your head, blotting out the pain that you can feel lingering on the periphery. Looming on the edges of the syrupy spill of bliss still pounding in your veins.

Even with clots numbing the worst of it, you can feel the ache in your muscles each time you move. A prelude to the rest of the night, perhaps.

A thought that scraps against the film covering your fear. Panic an acrid burn in the back of your throat, a sting in the corners of your eyes—

Just as you open your mouth to rasp out the words let me go, he unhinges his jaw from your nape, and huffs.

There's a paralysing stab of fear cudgelling into you whenever he moves. It wells up from the wound, and you wait, teetering on a knife's edge as he slumps back against the pew, body unspooling from its tight coil as he lazes with you still sat on his lap, on his cock, purring like a satiated cat, ignorant of (or purposefully ignoring) the way you flinch at his touch when he drops his hand down between your thighs to cradle your sore, abused cunt. Even spent, softening, he still feels so big inside of you. A thickness you can't think around.

"Never came inside anyone before," he muses, catching the trickle of slick, of cum, that leaks out when he shifts back. "Ain't you lucky, birdie? Was savin’ it all up for you. An’ you go' the honour o' bein' my wife."

It cracks through the air like a whip. The echo resounds in the back of your head, smothering the whimper of panic that claws up your throat. Wife. Wife—

"I—I have a fiance," you stutter out, heaving through tattered lungs. "I can't—"

"How's I supposed to know? I don't see 'im, do I?"

"He's—he's looking for me. And he's a real, um, powerful man. I won't—I won't tell anyone if you let me go. You can just—just leave, and I'll never speak of this to anyone—"

His arm tightens around you, snuffing the words out on a pitiful gasp.

"Fucked you nice an' full o'my cum, birdie. You jus' gonna go back to 'nother man when I'm drippin’ down your thighs?”

Your lungs ache. "Please, you didn't—you can't—"

He swipes his fingers through the mess puddling under your thighs with a derisive snort, and brings his hand up to your face. Making you look at the thick, milky smear sticking to his skin. Slowly, he pries his index and middle finger apart, twisting his wrist to show you the web that glues between them.

It's a lot, you think, stomach churning. Too much.

"An' there's more o'tha' all nice an' plugged up inside you, birdie. Gonna sit here til it takes."

He draws his hand closer, thumb and ring finger closing around your cheeks, squeezing painfully until your mouth pops open on a whimper. His fingers bully between the gap of your lips.

It's bitter. Salty. You try not to gag as he roughly shoves them in deeper, knuckles knocking into your teeth as he forces them in, petting his fingers over your tongue. Your gums. Your teeth. The soft skin of your cheeks. Smearing his spend all over your mouth. Making you taste it.

And it's as vile as it is demeaning, and you shudder at the chuff of amusement that rumbles out when you gag, choking when he shoves his fingers in too deep. Trying not to weep as he lowers his head to your nape, nipping the throbbing, torn skin around the bite mark, grunting out a callous demand of swallow it. All o' it. Every drop. If you don't, then I'll jus' make sure you get it from the source next time—

"Bet you'd look so fuckin' pretty on your knees f'me, wouldn't you? Gaggin' on my cock. Could barely take it all in your sweet cunt, an' tha' was made for me, wasn't it? Be a struggle to get it all down—"

"Please," you slur around his fingers, shaking your head pitifully as his cock stirs inside of you, twitching at the revolting image he draws. "I'll—"

He taps his fingers against the roof of your mouth and you clamp your lips shut to stem the nausea that surges. Swallowing reluctantly around the bitter taste of him on your tongue. A painful gulp that makes him groan.

"See, birdie? You're full o'me now."

His fingers tickle when they drag over the wet, sticky skin of your lips. A tease.

He grunts when you shiver, cunt inadvertently clenching around him—

"Ain't ready for another round jus' yet," his voice drops, pitching low. You freeze instantly. Falling still on a shallow gasp. "But if you don't stop squirmin' on my cock like this, birdie, I reckon I'll 'ave you bent over the pulpit soon enough. What kinda husband would I be if I didn't give my wife what she was achin' for?"

Wife. There it is again. And nestled within the cruel word is the clink of a metal collar locking around the inflamed curve of your chewed up neck. Bound to a man you don't know. Don't want to know—

With you held in his grasp, tucked securely to his chest, he settles back into the pew with huff. A quiet admonishment when you try to stir, shushing you with a brief flex of his hand tightening around your neck. A warning. Be good.

It's hard to think with him buried inside of you, still taking up so much space.

And maybe that's the crux of it all. You can't breathe around the softening swell of him to let the thoughts form. Take shape. They flicker past in the moonless midnight of your mind; comets dying in the atmosphere.

Or maybe you're too haunted by the pulse of his heartbeat somehow lodged inside of you, echoing in tandem with your own. A deafening rataplan you can feel in your belly. Your guts.

You squirm—

“Birdie.”

The cup of his palm flexes around your throat—a warning, maybe—and he's pulling you further back against the broad, thick swell of his chest. As easy as breathing. As easy as taking you apart in a church. Unmaking you in a pew.

Turning a house of worship into a mausoleum.

It's a little unfair, all things considered. You pay your dues on Sunday, head bowed over the back of a pew, hands demurely clasped in your lap as you mumble through the familiar beats of mild flagellation. Prettied up in penance. Handing out a fistful of coins and spare nickles when the offertory passes by.

To be trussed up and tossed to the wolves twice over in a single night makes you tip your chin towards the angled, crumbling rafters in silent mutiny. But the bold, blasphemous display of fury doesn't cause the heavens to split, and some grand being to smite the demon sniffing the skin behind your ear.

It only makes his hand settle more firmly around your throat, thumb sliding along the smooth curve from collarbone to jaw. The wide, unfathomable expanse of his hand is more than enough to bite at the vitriol brimming in the back of your throat. Don't be stupid.

(At least—not yet, anyway.)

Without anywhere else to direct the smouldering embers of your anger—and not nearly stupid enough to break it on the jagged cut of his teeth—you slump against the steady rise and fall of his chest, letting it whisper out on an exhale. But even with self-preservation keeping the ugly words under a firm heel, you can deny that this tastes like defeat.

A sour, bitter sting in the back of your throat—full o’me, birdie—that you struggle to swallow around.

It feels like a tremendous weight you can't escape. Like everything is collapsing around like the raining ruins of a condemned house, leaving you half-buried in the rubble. Holding the roof overhead in your hands. This Atlassian task sinks your soles deeper into the dirt, dragging you down.

His threat, his presence, is an anchor buried in the seabed—utterly immovable despite how hard you yank at the chain.

Something has to give.

You're not terribly surprised when that something is you.

Riddled with holes, in tatters, the fight is quickly snuffed under the flood of water surging through. Filling space.

It's fatigue. Exhaustion. You're drained, you think. Mentally, physically. Emotionally. Everything catches up all at once, and your heavy eyes start to blur around the edges, listing shut.

For a second. Just a second.

Through the sluggish putrefaction of mouldering grey matter, you try to promise yourself that you'll run, that you'll escape, after. You just need rest. Sleep. And once you have it—

He squeezes, choking the wayward thought out under the broad cradle of his palm almost as if he knew it was there.

“Get some sleep, birdie,” he rumbles, low and brassy; the murmur of his voice purring through your ribs. “Go’ a long trip ahead o’ us yet. Gonna need it.”

It isn't the soft uttering of a man worried over your condition, but rather the rough, patronising drawl of a brute relishing the prize he caught. A plunderer preening over his loot.

You don't spare much thought to where you're going, and let him pull your weak, battered body deeper into the broad spill of his warm chest, holding you against him as the residuum of your wounded survival instincts drown in the spill of exhaustion dripping out of each decisive cut trephined into your head.

His muzzle is back on the side of your neck as your eyes slip shut, licking between the bracket of his fingers spreading possessively over your mauled skin with a rumble that trembles through your bones, shaking loose the last vestiges of your fight.

It's much too late to bemoan your lack of luck. Your lot in life. Even so—

Going from skirting around the grasping hands of a doglike man drooling on your toes, wagging his tail for just a taste—somethin’ tae take th’ edge off, doe, jus’ somethin’ tae quench this thirst; ah can't take it anymore—to waking up in the jaws of another beast, half-devoured, is such a devastating, almost Grecian sort of irony that had you any room to spare inside your belly (and if his hand not been so firmly clenched around your throat), you might have laughed until your knees gave out, and the world collapsed down on top of you.

Instead, all you can do is try to get comfortable around the bellyaching fill of him, and pretend there's still a chance you can wiggle out of his grasp as easily as you did your fiance—

But as his molten tongue lashes over the wounds on your throat, digging the tip into the puncture mark he left behind, you can't help feeling the sharp sting of defeat hew through the lingering tendrils of hope, severing it at the root. Letting it bleed out in his hands. The same ones that shackle you to his chest, keeping you in his clutch like a stunned bird in the gaping maw of a wolf's jaws.

Rather fitting, you suppose, as those artful fingers smear through the blood and sweat, pinching the stubborn remiges that remain until they're stuck firm between the tips.

A tug, a pull—

They come loose, clutched his triumphant, bloody fist.

And as the candle flickers, crawling down the wick, the flutter of them falling to the dirty floor casts shadows on the old church walls:

(crushed birds, burning dogs, and grasping hands surging from the depths—)

He stirs later, rousing you from a fitful sleep running from a burning dog by taking refuge in the gullet of a lake on fire.

You blink, scrubbing your numb fingers over your sore, tired eyes. “What—?”

“Been thinkin’,” he says, and something about his tone prickles sharply at your paltry instincts, making them stir like lead in your guts. "What's the name of tha’ little fiance o'yours anyway?"

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Jus' think I should meet the man, is all. Considerin' I stole his little wife—"

A noise is wrenched out of you—some strange, strangled amalgamation of denial and dread. “Don't,” you whisper, a fever pitch; a plea. “Don't—”

He's unpredictable. His moods are as mercurial as the sea he crossed over to find you. Tempestuous: you think of his eyes, those burning pits. Much too wide. Wild. A frenzy.

Like a fox—the one you saw when you were a child. Rabid, they said, tugging you away from those big, round eyes. Gone fuckin’ mad.

With its lips peeling back, spitting up foam and sickness, it looked like it was smiling.

Oh, doe; the same eyes, the same grin. Sickness dripping down his chin as he stared, slack-jawed and hungry. Been waitin’ so long fer ye—

“C’mon, can't be s’bad as all o’tha’.”

You think of him, then—perhaps the lesser of two evils—and shudder at the ripple of desperation spilling like oil into your chest.

“Johnny,” you mutter, wondering if he'd still take you like this—ruined as you are; a pittance of what your father promised—if you ran back to him, broken tail tucked between your legs. Back to that foaming mouth and those big, wild eyes. “Johnny MacTavish.”

If he hadn't been stroking your jugular as he asked, trailing the tips of his fingers around the aching curve of your thigh with the other, you might have missed the frisson that crackled across his implacable veneer at the name.

So suffused to him are you that any idea of distance is only divisible between atoms, and your skin hums with this little hiccup. The tensing of his muscles under your thighs; hands stuttering along flesh—

Something about that name makes him pause.

“Johnny,” he says it like he's testing the word, feeling the way it fits between his teeth. Shifting the weight of it around his tongue. Warm-up. Stretching a muscle. Familiarity thrums along the seam of his mouth; pregnant with a mordant, mocking delight. “Might ‘ave to pay ‘im a visit after all.”

In its the afterbirth breathed into the world on his name where you see the cosm split, unveiling a world between them marbled in blood and viscera.

Home in the manner of a botfly.

Something that takes. Makes fecund land from flesh and bone; a parasitic kinship that eats itself, and everything else hapless enough to stumble inside its gaping, wounded maw.

You think of a foaming grin. A sickness that burns from the inside out.

A burning dog—

And when his smouldering hands reach between your thighs to cup your cunt in the broad spill of his palm, you feel the flaming waters of a blazing lake lapping at your spine.

“‘ow ‘bout tha’?” he muses, a needling thread of ice splitting through his tone. “Guess it's a small world after all.”

(—and a rather bleak one for you when he decides that God's will is stronger than a still-wet signature on a piece of paper.

Finder's keepers an' all o' tha'.

Besides, if Johnny really wanted you, he wouldn't have let you go, would he?)

#this really didn't need to be so long but one of my biggest flaws is being unable to get to the point #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #ghostfics

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satyakideworld · 2 years ago

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RAG implementation of LLMs by using Python, Haystack & React (Part - 1)

Today, I will share a new post in a part series about creating end-end LLMs that feed source data with RAG implementation. I'll also use OpenAI python-based SDK and Haystack embeddings in this case. #Python #OpenAI #RAG #haystack #LLMs

Today, I will share a new post in a part series about creating end-end LLMs that feed source data with RAG implementation. I’ll also use OpenAI python-based SDK and Haystack embeddings in this case. In this post, I’ve directly subscribed to OpenAI & I’m not using OpenAI from Azure. However, I’ll explore that in the future as well. Before I explain the process to invoke this new library, why not…

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#api #cloud #Framework #Haystack #mac #openai #Pandas #Python #RAG #React #VectorDB #VectorSearch

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boracynth · 1 month ago

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Obstinate Orphanhood: A Bede Analysis

This essay is long overdue. I'm a shameless proponent of Bedeism, if I'm being honest; that is, Bede from Pokémon SWSH is my blorbo to end all blorbos in the Pokémon universe. He's a prickly little brat, and he doesn't play nice with others. That's half the reason why I like him. "Like" is even too tepid a word for what Bede means to me. "Love" is too sappy by half, but whatever; I'm splitting hairs at this point, and you don't need to worry about the exact language that captures the essence of my feelings for Bede Pokémon.

I'm writing this essay because Bede is a character that inspires a veritable flood of raw emotions in me. He's an orphan, like me (I'm more of a paper/social orphan, of course, an adoptee where he isn't, but I'm not the focus of this essay, so I'll leave this parenthetical thought alone). I understand that there are fandom analyses out there that examine his neurodivergence and gender identity (I'm a big fan of trans Bede, tbqh), but I haven't seen much of an approach via the lens of critical adoption studies. That's my wheelhouse, insofar that this fledgling, ever-growing field can be one. I'm just so passionate about this framework and its cutting-edge, intersectional, decolonial research that I want to apply it to my favorite childhood franchise, Pokémon.

So what does introducing the topic of orphanhood do for our understanding of Bede's character arc? Why fixate on Bede's orphanhood separate from his class identity (which would beg the question of a Marxist lens/reading of his characterization, but I'm not here for that lmao)? Well, dear reader, Bede's identity is multivalent. His orphanhood is a result of the family policing system--as opposed to a "child welfare system," which is the uncritical language most uninitiated folks use--and he was forcibly systematized by an orphanage and ostensibly the Galarian family policing mechanism. Family policing serves a racist, capitalist power structure that privileges certain families and family structures over others. Think your typical middle-class nuclear family, complete with heterosexual parents and a white picket fence.

Bede is a white boy, and white boys are not the norm in the family policing system in the real world (and probably not in the Pokémon world, lbr). Disproportionately, black and brown children from low-income families populate the family policing system in the United States, and this is echoed in the rest of the West as well.

Nevertheless, Bede is indelibly shaped by his orphanhood and exposure to family policing. Even if Bede's parents died by tragic natural causes--something that is never confirmed--being shuffled around like an eyesore or inanimate object through an orphanage, and then being exposed to the troubling philanthropy that is Rose's endorsement (and notably not adoption) makes Bede a product and victim of a ruthless system that profits off of children.

I would be remiss to avoid the topic of Rose.

Rose is not Bede's father. He never has been. I shudder to imagine that relationship and its ragged, heartbreaking complexity. That's not to say Rose wouldn't have been a good dad--perhaps he would have been. Perhaps he would be kinder to his own child and not dump them at the first sign of failure. Who knows? But at least as an endorser, patron, and pseudo-employer of sorts, Rose is a complicated figure in Bede's journey. He abandons Bede the second he does something unaccountably "wrong." He sees no issue with cleanly breaking off his contact with an orphaned teen who looks up to him as if he hung the stars in the sky.

Rose gave Bede his first Pokémon, Hatenna. Hatenna is a tricky Pokémon to raise, especially for someone with unwieldy, unruly emotions like Bede. Rose cultivated, in the way of a patron and billionaire philanthropist instead of a father, a strategic relationship with this no-name orphan.

Whatever your thoughts are on Rose, he remains very much a hero-turned-villain in Bede's story. He is the antagonist and obstinate obstacle in Bede's way. When he abandoned Bede, Bede relived trauma that stemmed from losing his parents, which is why I'd argue he's so distraught at Stow-on-Side when he loses his endorsement. Importantly, Bede is not confusing Rose with a father figure here--rather, he's thinking of job security, which is what would guarantee Bede a home at the end of the day. Bede doesn't want a father; he wants a home. Home isn't a white picket fence or warm afternoons spent lazing in the sun, either--it's peace. Bede wants peace. What orphan doesn't want peace?

He's ambitious, to be sure. Most teenage boys who are serious Pokémon trainers would be. But Bede's ambition is a way to guarantee that he can actually stop being so ambitious. That sounds circuitous, but what I mean is that Bede really hates having to fight tooth and nail for his survival. When you've scraped by for years as a scrappy, overlooked orphan whose parents are long gone, peace is the goal. You want to stop having to survive; you want to live instead.

I'm waxing a little poetic here now (or I'm tooting my own horn), so I'll stop and return to Bede's character arc. Let's look at a screenshot of a pivotal scene in Bede's journey.

Bede's language here is insolent (and not to mention fucking hilarious, but I digress) and insubordinate. He's standing up to Oleana, who is the righthand woman of his patron-employer. He's so confident that he's going to secure what he needs in Stow-on-Side.

I want to comment on the language he uses. "Did you stand in the path of a Pokémon's Simple Beam or something?" Bede is artful with his insults, and I'd argue that this is because he's built an entire identity and survival mechanism around using words as weapons. Weaponizing language is Orphanhood 101, honestly. When you're expected to explain the absurdity of your trauma over and over, you acquire a storyteller's eloquence. You master language and become hyperarticulate to defend yourself. I tweeted about this, actually. "Bede's eloquence is a survival mechanism stemming from having to articulate his bitter plight from a young age. Orphans make the best orators. I don't make the rules."

Maybe I'm just talking in a biased, handwavy way now. Regardless, I think Bede's eloquent insults aren't a marker of his supposed "posh" or snooty tendencies (although yes, he is a snooty bastard), but rather they represent how obstinate he is about carefully articulating why others have failed him. His censure is artful because he's fought so hard to make it an art form. You make enough shitty pots and over time you master them, right?

This brings me to his hard-won peace at the final arena: Wyndon Stadium. The Bede we see here is still his obstinate self, but he's come to terms with something important: loss. He lost again, and again, and again. He lost battles, he lost his endorsement, and yes, he lost his family. He's lost so much at such a young age.

Loss shapes orphanhood. As an adoptee, loss--and the grief that comes with it--powerfully shapes the way I move through the world. Because adoption is loss. Family separation is loss.

The Bede we see in Wyndon Stadium has accepted that loss is a part of life. He fought so hard, for so long, just to learn that aching lesson--a lesson that some adults scarcely ever learn.

Bede is an obstinate orphan, and when I say obstinate, I don't just mean it in the cute alliterative way. I mean he's fiercely stubborn and terrified of change. To lose is to change. What could be more frightening to an orphaned kid than change?

I have no fucking clue if I managed to say anything significant with this essay. I just know that Bede inspires the garrulous granny in me (Opal would be proud). This scrawny, peaky tit of a boy is my favorite character, and his ferocious determination to achieve peace and security and a sense of belonging and home means the world to me. I see myself in his story. I see myself in his arc.

Oh, and yes, I did draw Champion Bede one time, just for shits and giggles. He'd never actually become Champion, lol. But just imagine how cool it would be.

#my art #bede pokemon #pokemon analysis #character analysis #pokemon swsh

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blackberrysummerblog · 5 days ago

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Hello hello! Happy Sunday everybody!—I’ve been gone a long time and haven’t been able to read nearly as much fic as I’d like, but I’m trying to mend that. For anyone who missed it, a few weeks ago I finished my birthday fic for @rimeswithpurple, Pull Yourself Together. It’s chock full of tropes like Only One Bed, Forced Proximity, Magical Mishap, and more. I have a real soft spot for it, so thank you to everyone who’s read it and let me know you liked it :)

I love a good process post from other people, so here’s one from me, in which I have to say that GENERALLY I don’t make any kind of outline. I GENERALLY have a pretty good idea of how a story will go from start to finish and then I write that story from start to finish—yeah, quite often surprising myself with a change in direction, which is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Isn’t it great to be surprised?—Gang, I’m old. Surprise means I’m not at the end quite yet.

So anyway, I’ve had two mad deviations from my usual process since joining this fandom: my ongoing crucible marriage au, which is STILL in huge pieces all over my drive (and still not dead in my mind) and now my COBB from 2024 with Arianna, Time Will Lie Down and be Still. I’ve been mostly working in a start-to-finish order, but here I am struggling a bit in the last chapter (the bit where I have PLENTY of framework to hang the action on—the story is literally based on a movie), and I’m realizing that it’s maybe not working because I need to add other scenes into the parts of the chapter that I’ve already written. That happens from time to time, but where I’m deviating from my norm the most here is that I’m writing scenes I’m not happy with. The writing stinks, y’all. It’s literally like, This happens, then That happens—I just put the action down to have it, and it is NOT GOOD. Not to say that my writing is always great, but I’m usually happy enough with it when I share. But, it’s a process. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think; I’m just having a bit of trouble reconciling the idea that I may have to reread my writing, a thing normal people do all the time. At any rate, it’s not how I usually work, so here’s a bit of what I have; it’s Baz POV, describing a dream he had the night before:

I was in a field, watching a boy cry. Not Dev, not me—far too fair, this one. His hair was thick and curly, a shade of brown that had been run through with gold. He looked about twelve or so—not quite a teenager, but nearly. It was dark and a soft wind kicked up—I saw it in the branches of the tree that he was leaning against. He scrubbed dirty fists into his eyes, and suddenly I could make out a cottage in the middle distance, with a light still on in the window. I could feel everything in this boy’s breaking heart: the overwhelming ache of disappointment, the self-loathing. Hopelessness washed through him again and again, waves that hit with each ragged breath between his sobs. I felt as though my heart might break right along with his, and then he suddenly looked up.

Not at me. No, he was looking at the sky. He wanted to escape; he longed to be free. I took a step back, stunned by the magic I felt welling up and radiating from him. Power like this doesn’t exist in the World of Mages—it’s like something from legend. Dream or no, I could smell it—green smoke, burning, the sharp snap of cinnamon. Cinnamon and…the scents were familiar to me. Somehow I knew it was the scent of a spell, but I don’t think the boy was casting it. Not willingly, anyway. Rose petals floated in on the night air, and more blue feathers.

He fell to his knees then, shoulders hunching over, the back of his shirt splitting. Something was happening to him, something immense and frightening, but I wasn’t afraid. If anything, I wanted to go to him and tell him that he would be all right, and perhaps I would have if Mordelia hadn’t slapped me awake with a pillow to the face.

And now I have a lot of catching up to do! Enjoy the rest of the week, everyone! No pressure tags and hellos to: @larkral @raeny-day @cutestkilla @c0nsumemy5oul @artsyunderstudy @iamamythologicalcreature @ic3-que3n @cows4247 @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @youarenevertooold @valeffelees @letraspal @stitchy-queerista @monbons @imagineacoolusername @ileadacharmedlife @aristocratic-otter @nausikaaa @confused-bi-queer @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @prettygoododds @shrekgogurt @facewithoutheart @alexalexinii @forabeatofadrum @thewholelemon @roomwithanopenfire @supercutedinosaurs @ivelovedhimthroughworse @brilla-brilla-estrellita @drowninginships @bachusekart @the-beard-of-edward-teach @j-trow-95 @leithillustration @fiend-for-culture @skeedelvee @bookishbroadwayandblind @bookish-bogwitch @best--dress @mooncello @orange-peony @talentpiper11 @sillyunicorn @martsonmars @wellbelesbian @onepintobean @hushed-chorus @palimpsessed

#six sentence sunday #snowbaz #baz pitch #simon snow #carry on #simon snow series #rimeswithpurple #carry on big bang #pull yourself together #writing #writing process #Cobb 2024 #Cobb

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sillylittlerebelsblog · 2 months ago

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On Hope After Wounding

There's a reason why we collectively are in love with the rags to riches story or why we are mostly rooting for the underdog. A life can break but still bloom. The human psyche is remarkably adaptive. Even after long seasons of emotional injury, it seeks new framework often through creativity, routine, or belonging. What emerges from this is not the erasing of pain, but the symbiosis of pain and beauty. It is the quiet acknowledgment that a life interrupted can still become a life well-lived.

#literature #dark academia #poetry #light academia #aesthetic #writing #art #quotes #books & libraries #dead poets society

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mrk236547789 · 10 months ago

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Construction worker pushes his body to its limits while being due and ends up triggering his labor

The hammer's rhythmic clang echoed through the dusty air as Jack pounded nails into the wooden beams. The sun hovered lazily in the sky, casting a warm glow over the unfinished framework of the house they were building. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he paused to wipe it away with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of grime on his skin. He was 9 months pregnant, and today was no ordinary day on the construction site.

Jack had always been a tough cookie, pushing through pain and fatigue like it was a mere trifle. His fellow workers often marveled at his endurance, but today, the weight of his secret grew heavier with each swing of the hammer. The contractions had started early in the morning, subtle and infrequent at first, but now they were demanding his attention with an intensity that was hard to ignore. He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, willing his body to hold out just a little longer.

The foreman, Dave, a burly man with a thick mustache, called out to him from across the site. "Jack, you okay over there? You're looking a little...pained."

Jack grunted a non-committal response, his hand tightening around the hammer handle. "Just gotta keep this baby together," he said, tapping the beam with the tool as if to emphasize his point.

Inside his mind, the baby kicked in agreement, sending a jolt of pain through his abdomen. He leaned against the wooden frame, taking a moment to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. The baby's movements grew stronger, more insistent. Jack knew he couldn't hide his condition much longer, but the project was so close to finishing, and he didn't want to let the team down.

"Dave, I think we're going to need to call it a day," Jack finally called out, trying to keep his voice steady.

Dave squinted in his direction, the concern on his face growing as he took in Jack's clenched jaw and the slight hunch of his shoulders. "What's up, buddy?"

Jack took a deep, shuddering breath and looked around at the half-finished house. The team was counting on him to keep up the pace, but the contractions were coming closer together now, like a drumbeat that grew louder with each pulse. "It's time," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "The baby's coming."

A hush fell over the site as the workers turned to face him. The clanging of tools and murmur of conversations faded into silence, replaced by the sound of Jack's ragged breaths. Dave's eyes widened in shock before quickly narrowing in determination. "Alright, everyone, pack up and clear out," he bellowed, his voice booming across the construction yard. "Jack's going to have this baby right here if we don't get him to the hospital."

The crew dropped their tools and rushed to gather their things, a flurry of movement and whispers as they hurriedly dispersed. Some paused to pat Jack on the shoulder, offering words of encouragement before jumping into their trucks. Dave approached Jack, who was now leaning heavily against a post, his face contorted with each contraction. "Come on, pal," he said, his voice gentle. "Let's get you out of here."

With a grimace, Jack allowed Dave to help him to his feet, his legs wobbly. The foreman's strong arm wrapped around his shoulders, providing support as they shuffled towards the pickup parked nearby. Each step was a battle against the tightening in his stomach, a reminder of the urgency of the situation. The gravel crunched beneath their boots, and the dust swirled around them as they moved.

Once at the truck, Jack leaned over the open door, panting heavily. The interior smelled faintly of diesel and leather, a stark contrast to the sterile hospital environment he knew he needed to be in. "Thanks, Dave," he managed to say, his eyes never leaving the horizon as if focusing on something in the distance could help ease the pain.

Dave's grip tightened on his shoulder. "You've got this, Jack," he said firmly, trying to hide his own anxiety. "You're the toughest person I know."

Jack offered a wan smile, gripping the edge of the door for support as another contraction washed over him. "It's just like nailing down that last piece of roofing, right?" he joked through gritted teeth.

Dave chuckled nervously, trying to keep the mood light as he opened the passenger side door. "Yeah, just like that," he agreed, though they both knew it was nothing like that.

Jack eased himself into the seat, the leather cool against his overheated skin. He took another deep breath and nodded to Dave, who sprinted around to the driver's side and hopped in. The engine roared to life, and the pickup jolted into motion, sending a spray of gravel flying. The drive to the hospital was a blur of bumps and turns, the contractions coming in waves that grew more intense with each passing minute.

Jack's eyes remained fixed on the horizon, his knuckles white on the seatbelt. The world outside the window was a blur of color and light, the buildings and trees rushing by in a haze of anticipation and fear. The air in the cabin was thick with tension, punctuated only by the occasional grunt of pain from Jack and the rev of the engine as Dave floored it through a yellow light.

Dave's hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, his eyes darting between the road and the rearview mirror, checking for any sign of pursuit. "You holding up back there?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Yeah," Jack grunted, his eyes never leaving the horizon. "Just keep driving."

The pickup's suspension protested over each pothole, sending jolts through Jack's body that seemed to sync with the contractions. His breaths grew more ragged, and his knuckles whitened with each grip on the seatbelt. The pain was unbearable, but he had to keep it together—for the baby, for the job, and for his pride.

Dave's eyes remained glued to the road ahead, his foot heavy on the gas. He could see the hospital's towering structure in the distance, a beacon of relief in the urban sprawl. "We're almost there," he said, trying to reassure his friend. "You're doing great."

Jack nodded, his teeth clenched, his breath coming in short gasps. He could feel the pressure building, the baby's relentless demand to enter the world. The contractions grew so intense that they blurred the line between pain and exhaustion, each one a test of his endurance that seemed to stretch his body to its limits.

As the truck screeched to a halt in the hospital's emergency bay, Jack's water broke, a warm gush that soaked the seat beneath him. Time seemed to slow as the reality of the situation crashed down upon him. "It's happening," he murmured, his voice hoarse and strained.

Dave's eyes shot to the rearview mirror, his own fear mirroring Jack's. "Hold on, buddy," he said, his voice tight with urgency. "We're here." He leaped out of the truck and sprinted around to Jack's side, flinging open the door.

Together, they stumbled into the hospital's emergency room, the sliding glass doors parting like a curtain to reveal a sea of white coats and concerned faces. A nurse, her eyes widening at the sight of Jack, rushed over with a wheelchair. "Sir, you need to sit," she urged, her voice firm but gentle.

Jack grimaced as he lowered himself into the chair, the plastic cold against his sweat-soaked back. The nurse quickly assessed his condition, her hands deft and efficient. "You're in labor," she confirmed, her gaze flicking up to meet his. "We need to get you to the delivery room, right now."

Jack nodded, his eyes squeezed shut as another contraction hit him like a sledgehammer. The nurse pushed the chair with surprising speed, weaving through the maze of corridors. The walls were a blur of sterile white and green, punctuated by the occasional beep of medical equipment. Each bump and turn sent a fresh wave of pain through his body, and he gripped the chair's armrests until his knuckles turned white.

Dave trailed behind, his stride long and uneasy, his mind racing with the thought of his friend's unborn child. He'd never been in a situation like this before, and his hands felt useless at his sides. "You got this, Jack," he murmured, more to himself than to the man in the chair.

The delivery room was a stark contrast to the chaos of the construction site. The air was cool and sterile, the walls lined with monitors and medical equipment that beeped and hummed. The nurse transferred Jack to the hospital bed, her movements swift and practiced. She hooked him up to a fetal monitor, the rhythmic thump of the baby's heartbeat joining the symphony of noises in the room.

A doctor, her face masked but her eyes filled with empathy, appeared at Jack's side. She checked his vitals and the baby's progress with a calm efficiency that did little to ease the panic rising in his chest. Each contraction felt like it was ripping him apart, the pain a living, breathing entity that consumed his every thought.

The doctor spoke in a soothing tone, her voice a balm to his frayed nerves. "You're doing great," she said, her gloved hand resting on his arm. "But we need to get you ready to push."

Jack nodded, his eyes squeezed shut as he braced for the next contraction. His body was a battleground, torn between the need to keep working and the primal instinct to bring new life into the world. The doctor's words were a distant echo in his mind, the pain a crescendo that threatened to drown out everything else.

The nurse handed him an oxygen mask, and he took a deep breath, feeling the cool air fill his lungs. "Breathe, Jack," she instructed, her voice a gentle command. "You can do this."

Jack nodded again, focusing on the rhythm of his breaths. The room was a flurry of activity around him, but he was in his own world, a world where the only thing that mattered was the life he was about to bring into existence. Each contraction was a mountain he had to climb, a challenge he had to overcome.

The doctor looked at the monitor, her eyes narrowing in concentration. "Alright, Jack, it's time to start pushing," she said, her voice firm but reassuring. The nurse took his hand, her grip offering silent encouragement.

Jack took a deep breath and pushed, his face contorting with effort. The pain was like nothing he had ever experienced, a white-hot pressure that seemed to fill his entire being. He could feel the baby moving, urging him on, and with each push, the doctor's voice grew more encouraging. The room was a blur of activity around him, but all he could focus on was the sensation of his body stretching and straining.

The doctor's voice grew more urgent. "Again, Jack, come on. We're almost there."

Jack gritted his teeth and pushed with every ounce of strength he had left. His muscles burned, his lungs screamed for air, but he didn't stop. The nurse squeezed his hand in a silent cheer, her eyes never leaving his. The pressure built and built until it felt like his entire body was going to split in two.

Then, a miracle. A sudden release, a gush of wet warmth, and the unmistakable sound of a newborn's cry filled the room. The doctor held up a tiny, wrinkled creature, covered in goo, squalling indignantly at the abrupt transition from the safety of the womb to the cold, bright world. The room erupted in a cacophony of shouts and laughter, but Jack heard only the sweet sound of his baby's first cries.

Tears streamed down his face as the nurse placed the baby in his arms. It was a girl, with a mop of dark hair and a fierce little scream. She looked up at him, her tiny eyes searching, and Jack felt something inside him crack wide open, a love so vast and fierce it took his breath away. "Hello, little one," he whispered, his voice hoarse from pain and exertion.

The doctor and nurses bustled around, attending to the baby and checking Jack's vitals. The chaos of the delivery room was a stark contrast to the quiet calm that had settled over him. He studied her every feature, marveling at the tiny fingers that curled around his thumb, the way she squirmed and wriggled against his chest. The pain was still there, a dull throb that pulsed in time with his heart, but it was overshadowed by the overwhelming joy that filled him.

#mpreg #giving birth #mpreg birth #mpreg story #birth kink #pregnant man

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jcmarchi · 7 months ago

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The Sequence Engineering #464: OpenAI’s Relatively Unknown Agent Framework

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-sequence-engineering-464-openais-relatively-unknown-agent-framework/

The Sequence Engineering #464: OpenAI’s Relatively Unknown Agent Framework

OpenAI Swarm provides the key building blocks for implementing agents.

Created Using Midjourney

Welcome to The Sequence Engineering where we discuss core AI engineering topics, frameworks, platforms, implementation techniques etc. As mentioned in our Sunday series, we are starting 2025 with a very exciting editorial calendar with 6 editions.

The Sequence Knowledge: Continuing with educational topics and related research. We’re kicking off an exciting series on RAG and have others lined up on evaluations, decentralized AI, code generation, and more.

The Sequence Engineering: A standalone edition dedicated to engineering topics such as frameworks, platforms, and case studies. I’ve started three AI companies in the last 18 months so have a lot of opinions about engineering topics.

The Sequence Chat: Our interview series featuring researchers and practitioners in the AI space.

The Sequence Research: Covering current research papers.

The Sequence Insights: Weekly essays on deep technical or philosophical topics related to AI.

The Sequence Radar: Our Sunday edition covering news, startups, and other relevant topics.

It is ambitious but certainly fun so please subscribe before prices increase 🙂

TheSequence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

To officially kick off our edition about AI engineering, we are going to focus on a framework released by OpenAI for multi-agent interactions that remains relatively unknown.

OpenAI Swarm is an experimental framework designed for exploring and developing multi-agent systems. It provides a lightweight and flexible interface for coordinating the actions and interactions of multiple agents, enabling the creation of complex and emergent behaviors. Swarm is explicitly intended for educational and experimental purposes; it’s not built for production environments and does not offer official OpenAI support.

Architecture

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obsessionexpert · 1 year ago

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Damian Wayne is absolutely trans

So much trans energy

So I propose Trans Fem Damian Wayne with they/she/he

Gender:

Gender is more some foggy but solid quality, but in there is some feminineness, hence them identifying with trans fem as a simple label she slapped on so that they didn't have to question longer since it didn't feel wrong.

Discovery:

I don't think he'd spend much time thinking about her transness. Only reason she discovers it being that her dysphoria gets really bad, so they embark on a secret quest to figure out what's bothering her so she can no longer be a potential liability especially if this thing gets worse. "This thing" being transness.

They come out to Dick by announcing she is neither girl nor boy and he shall respect that. Then struts out of the room to avoid conversation. Next time Dick sees Damian its while Dicks talking on the phone about Damian (for some unrelated things) uses they on the phone, notices dami, mutes himself, asks if that pronoun set is okay. Damian is like "tisk is it not obvious" and Dick asks if other people can know, and about damians name. Damian clears up that yes everyone can know (tho not the general public) and yes she's fine with their name.

Finding out he's trans fem is a different story that probably involves a late night conversation/confession/pondering of transness. I'm leaning with Tim.

Pronoun Elaboration:

Damian wouldn't put that much effort into pronouns. She ponders what pronouns they'd be okay with for thoroughness because obviously they can't leave their research half-done, but caring about pronouns is an additional grievance that others can use as a weapon and it'd be weak if something so insignificant others don't really care about became something that could be used to harm them.

I do think Damian would end up using she more as Damian and the people around him, get more used to seeing her as trans fem. Especially as they transition more visibly (btw when I say transition I mean all kinds of transition. Damian's transition is mainly social for a while but this applies for when he does medically transition too)

Dysphoria:

He doesn't really get social dysphoria, it's a lot more bottom dysphoria, physical dysphoria in general, and even the way she internally genders herself, but they do like being included in stuff like girls night and other groups/activities intended to be exclusive to girls. Damian doesn't really get how others (Like Jason who I also head cannons as trans) can be bothered by the wrong pronouns and stuff other than being a pride thing (Like it would mostly be for her).

Physical Transition:

Damians transition goals aren't really that physical. Maybe way farther in the future he might consider going on E but since that could decrease his physical possibilities they probably won't want it anytime soon. It might change depending on how canon goes for him. She figured out she was trans too late for puberty blockers, but he does want bottom surgery as soon as they discover transness. (Which isn't happening. I don't have an age yet for when this happens but they're not a teen yet). Damian as a teen goes through a phase of trying to build more lean/less bulky muscles but that ends somehow. The influence of muscly woman in her life and the general shattering of that traditional framework combined with Damian prioritizing what's needed for vigilantism.

Social Transition:

They tried wearing breast forms but some light hearted remark, embarrassment, and dysphoria led to them never trying it again. Damian doesn't want the general public to know, but everyone she deems as important enough to know personal info about him does. (Probably a pride thing and plus who wants the Gotham upper crust to rag on you *cough* what happened to Dick *cough*) Damian does give in (Begrudgingly they insist) to getting more traditionally feminine clothing and they definitely wear it. At first to kind of challenge the batfam, because really how far are they going to let him go? Surely they won't keep up with this when she wears a skirt? It's less out of any real desire for this to be in her wardrobe, but lo and behold it ended up mingling a bit with the rest of his fashion. They end up growing their hair out in a still short (The style only goes down halfway to his neck at the longest) but more androgynous haircut. Damian also employs the use of a plain dark green headband to "push back the longer hairs blocking her sight" even though he would never let his hair grow long enough to block her sight and really the hairband is for aesthetics sake more than functionality most of the time. The headband is a gift from Alfred.

Conclusion:

Holy shit I have so many trans batfam head cannons. Expect a part 2 to this probably

#trans damian wayne #trans fem Damian wayne #trans headcanon #trans batfam #trans fem damian #transgender #trans feminine #trans fem #damian wayne #just got mark out some future ideas #Cis+ Tim Cryptic gender Cass Trans woman Dick and babs genderflud Jason he/she duke Steph as that one hc I might agree with and need to fin #Man-ish Bruce perhaps #WHY WAS FEMININE TENDERNESS IN HERE???

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illuminatedquill · 6 months ago

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Story Summary: Preparing for their imminent departure from Peridea, MORGAN ELSBETH arrives at the personal quarters of GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN to give him an update - only to find the Imperial warlord deeply immersed in the study of a subject that has captured his attention: SABINE WREN.

Happy belated birthday to @jedi-nurse and @dreams-are-paper-thin! I haven't forgotten the Florida man and Camp Rock slander on our Discord server and promise that the next one will be full of pain and misery. Buckle up. I'm coming for you two.

"Enter."

At the spoken command, the doors slid open with a barely perceptible hiss as Morgan Elsbeth stepped into the private quarters of Grand Admiral Thrawn. It was somewhat of a miracle really, considering the Chimaera's state, that the doors worked at all; the once formidable Star Destroyer had taken a vicious beating on its voyage to another galaxy, courtesy of those wretched star whales. Thrawn and what remained of his crew had gone to great lengths to keep his ship flying, patching over all the damages with whatever could be spared, salvaged, or harvested from their new home - which wasn't much, looking at the desolate waste of Peridea.

Large areas of the ship were simply unusable or shut down to either conserve power or because it was rendered uninhabitable because of machinery stripped down to the bare bones of the ship to keep other vital systems functional. The ship's outer hull appeared skeletal in some places, the inner framework peeking through exposed sections like a rib cage. To Morgan, it served to give Thrawn's personal flagship a meaner, ragged edge; like the face of some giant, undead bird of myth that continued to haunt the skies of Peridea. The Grand Admiral had prioritized function over everything else - except, it seemed, when it came to his personal quarters.

But, then again, the Imperial warlord was the only reason for the continued survival of his crew - and, if luck held their way, the survival of the Empire. It made sense that no expense was spared to ensure his room was exempt from the draconian rules that kept the rest of the Chimaera up and running.

Once inside, Morgan felt as though she were in another ship entirely, fresh from the Imperial shipyards.

It was immaculate, to say the least. Grandiose, but not in the way most Imperials would associate with the word.

To those unfamiliar with the Grand Admiral, they would remark that it seemed spartan and minimalistic, at least in comparison to some of the other offices they had seen. Most Imperial officers had been to the Emperor's Palace; seen his lavish displays of wealth and power and artifacts from the Old Republic days. Morgan had found such exhibits to be boastful, and she could rarely hide her distaste on the few occasions she visited the Palace.

Thrawn's personal suite provided a far more different experience than the Emperor's. Everything inside was chosen and placed with the utmost thought for efficiency and functionality. Handmade furniture, art, and decor - not the usual Imperial standard - that were token "gifts" from conquered worlds, each one with a personal wealth of artistry and history native to each culture. It felt almost more like someone's personal living room, rather than the office of an Imperial Grand Admiral. A huge library of data cards and printed history books, all from a hundred different worlds, spanned an entire wall on both sides of the room. In the center, a lowered sitting area within a rounded enclosure, complete with a miniature command table set in the center.

Behind this enclosure was the Grand Admiral's work desk with three different viewscreens all around it, each displaying a dozen different datapoints of information flitting across each screen. Morgan could see Thrawn sitting there now, his eyes taking each new update with ease; the alien's mind was a strange and wondrous machine, capable of absorbing vast amounts of data seemingly like the process of osmosis. It would normally take a full dedicated team of analysts a solid week to work through and make sense of the amount of data that Thrawn consumed in an hour.

Where the Emperor took trophies of his victories, so did Thrawn - in that sort of thinking, the two were similar. But the nature of their prizes was different; Thrawn boasted his fierce intellect, versus Palpatine's lust for power. His trophies, so to speak, was knowledge of his enemies: their history, their culture, their very souls. The Grand Admiral prized knowledge over everything else and the cold, logical rationale to use it as an effective weapon against all those who would dare stand in his way.

Were it not for the Jedi Ezra Bridger's duplicitous tactics during the Siege of Lothal, Thrawn's presence during the main Imperial-Rebellion conflict could have changed the outcome of the war. Morgan was sure of that, at least. The Empire's loss of its greatest tactician forced the Imperial navy to rely on ever-increasing brute force and an over-reliance on superweapons, such as the failed Death Stars.

But the Jedi and their mysterious ways had an irritating ability to defy logic and reason. She knew that first-hand - as did the Grand Admiral. It was not a mistake he would repeat again, underestimating a Jedi and their connection to the cosmic phenomenon they worshipped known as the Force. It was why he had struck a deal with the Great Mothers - who then reached out to her. The witches were familiar with Jedi and their tactics. They would make formidable allies and be an effective deterrence to Jedi sorcery when Thrawn returned to make war against the New Republic.

Morgan felt pride swell inside her chest at the thought; the rise of her people once again, with Grand Admiral Thrawn leading the resurgence of a new Empire. Everything she had sacrificed for, so close at hand.

All because of me, she thought, feeling a little smug. And no one else.

Approaching the desk, the Grand Admiral looked up from his personal computer to greet her. "Lady Elsbeth," he said. "How may I be of service?"

She handed him a data-pad, containing all the latest updates. "The latest numbers, Grand Admiral," she said. "Everything is going according to your wishes."

Thrawn's red eyes flicked through the data-pad's rolling screen of information, not missing a single line. She knew what he was reading; the loading of their cargo was almost complete. Soon they would be ready to be leave this wretched planet and head home to begin the great work of restoring what had been lost -

Thrawn sighed.

Morgan frowned. "Is there something wrong?" she asked, suddenly aware of the Grand Admiral's strange mood.

Smiling faintly, he set down the data-pad and replied, "It has nothing to do with you, rest assured. The work you have accomplished is tremendous and must be commended."

Some of the tension went out of Morgan's shoulders at that statement. Thrawn was no Vader, but he did not tolerate incompetency among his subordinates. "Thank you. Then is there something else, Grand Admiral?"

The warlord pressed a button on his computer. The viewscreens surrounding his desk lit up with a series of images. Morgan peered at the visuals scrolling across the screens, arching a befuddled eyebrow at the Grand Admiral.

"Sabine Wren?" she asked. Different images of the Mandalorian were displayed on the viewscreens, showing the young woman at different stages of her life - a myriad of Sabine Wrens, with different armor styles, hair styles, and colorful looks, all up to her current outfit. But the constant throughline throughout the Mandalorian's life was the fierce look of defiance burning in her eyes and the mischievous ever-present smirk.

Thrawn nodded. "Indeed. She has proven to be quite . . . vexing, of late."

Now Morgan was surprised. Very little confused the Grand Admiral - she would never have suspected that the Mandalorian would prove to be one of those things.

"How so?"

He stood up smoothly from his desk and walked over to one of the images of Sabine Wren that was displayed. "Tell me, Morgan," he murmured, pointing at the image - Wren's present-day look. "What is missing from this version of Wren that the others have?"

Morgan wandered over, staring intently at the image of current day Sabine Wren. She took her time, studying the details of the armor until sure that it had been memorized. The Grand Admiral watched her closely, his face unreadable. Morgan did not want to disappoint him; he expected his subordinates, carefully chosen, to keep up with his line of thinking, no matter how winding or ambitious it appeared.

She moved to the other images of Wren, studying the Mandalorian's appearance in each of them - in her mind, she was analyzing, comparing, and contrasting, finding the similarities and, more importantly, the differences between them and the present outfit.

Finally, she turned towards the expectant Thrawn, certain of the answer she had. "Yes?" he prompted, calmly waiting her response.

She cleared her throat, ignoring the sudden spike of nervousness that threatened to scramble her words. Speaking to Thrawn at times was more nerve-wracking than giving a speech to an audience of thousands.

With a (thankfully) steady hand, she pointed at the images of the younger Wren, one after the other - more specifically, she pointed at the peculiar symbol emblazoned on the upper portion of the Mandalorian's chest armor.

The very same symbol that was missing from the current iteration of Wren's armor.

"This - bird symbol, Grand Admiral," she said. "That is what's missing from Wren's current armor."

Those red eyes glowed with approval. She felt a thrill of satisfaction at seeing it. "Well observed," he replied. "The symbol is that of Wren's own design: her unique take on a Mandalorian creature of myth, the Starbird."

"it looks like the New Republic symbol," Morgan started to remark - and then winced.

Thrawn's look of approval vanished and was replaced instantly with an icy stare. "There is no New Republic, Morgan," he said quietly. "There is simply the Rebellion and their false government that has been propped up for far too long."

She swallowed. "My apologies," she murmured. "I misspoke."

"No," said Thrawn flatly. "You didn't."

For a moment, black terror spiked within her - and then he suddenly smiled reassuringly. The menace in those red eyes receded, like the fading afterglow of an explosion.

"You needn't worry," he said. "It is a mistake that we will soon rectify once we return to our home galaxy."

Relief flooded through her. "Thank you," she said gratefully.

He acknowledged her gratitude with a dismissive wave, turning back to the viewscreen. "So," he said, "Wren's custom starbird is missing from her current armor. Why is that?"

Morgan was still reeling from Thrawn's sudden change in mood. More questions, she bemoaned in her head.

"Erm - I'm not sure, Grand Admiral," she admitted. "There was a change, I suppose. Something in her personal life. I know her family died on Mandalore shortly before the war ended."

The Imperial warlord smiled faintly at her. "You're more correct than you know, Morgan," he said seriously. He cocked his head at her, his red eyes flashing with something approximating curiosity. She felt like an insect being studied by clinical, detached eyes.

"Yes?" she asked, feeling wary of his next question.

"Have you ever been in love, Lady Elsbeth?"

She went slack jawed at the question. Never in a hundred years would she have ever anticipated Grand Admiral Thrawn asking her a question like that. Never.

After taking a few moments to regain her composure, she finally stammered a response. "I - er - well, not really," she admitted, a faint blush coming to her cheeks. "There was one brief dalliance I had in my youth on Dathomir but . . . I'm not sure it would qualify as being in love."

Thrawn motioned at her to continue. Morgan felt the blush coming on more strongly now, forcing herself to dig deeper into old memories that had lain long buried. At least the Grand Admiral had the care to not call her out on her embarrassment, she thought. Or, more likely, he simply did not care.

"It was a short-lived fling," she recalled. "There was a girl in my village - her name was Dalia - that I was sweet on. I made her candles that gave off her favorite flowery scent. Every night, before going to bed, she would light the candle and place it in her window. I was downwind from her home - I could smell the fragrance on the evening breeze and knew that she was thinking of me."

"You did not love her?" asked Thrawn.

"I . . . it's complicated for me to explain," Morgan said. "We were young. What we felt for each other could be written off as the passions of youth . . . or it could have been love, yes, thinking about it now. I honestly don't know."

"She must have been extraordinary," noted Thrawn. "For someone like you to have liked her so strongly. The memory you have of her is still strong, after so many years."

"Yes . . . " Despite the many years that had passed since she had last thought of Dalia, the memories resurfaced without much struggle now. Like flowers that had been waiting to bloom at the slightest touch of daylight. The image of Dalia burst forth so clearly now; a young woman, tall and wiry with muscle, with an explosion of freckles across her face and long, flowing raven-black hair that poured like a river down her shoulders. Her eyes were the color of moss, and her laughter was bright and vivid. Even now, Morgan could still hear it ringing in her eyes, prompting a wistful smile to crease her face.

"She was extraordinary. No one could notch a bow like her in our entire clan. Dalia could shoot an arrow through twelve axes cleanly."

"What happened to her?"

A darkness fell upon the bright memories then, like a funeral shroud. Images sparked through her mind; the endless metallic crunching footsteps of droids, the sharp, barking sounds of blaster fire, and a sickly green fog that smothered the landscape. Her sisters, screaming and dying at the hands of a mechanical monster.

"The Separatists came," Morgan whispered bitterly. "Dalia was the first to stand against them."

"And the first to fall," Thrawn said.

"Yes." With a herculean effort, Morgan shook herself free of the accursed memories. "Why are you asking me this, Grand Admiral?" she asked, her tone frank but just a few shades shy of being accusatory. She had not enjoyed that trip down memory lane.

As if sensing her annoyance, Thrawn held up his hands in a placating gesture. "A few more minutes of your time," he explained. "All will be clear soon enough."

He walked back to his desk and slid open a drawer, pulling something out from him. With surprising swiftness, he tossed the unknown object to Morgan; she caught it deftly, her reflexes kicking in. She ran an inquisitive thumb over the unknown object - a roughly carved wooden medallion with a familiar symbol painted on it in fading colors.

Morgan looked up at Thrawn. "Is this - ?"

"Taken from a raid on an abandoned village once inhabited strange crab-like creatures that call this wretched planet their home," the Grand Admiral elaborated. "I had a squad of troopers investigate one of these places, searching for resources some time ago. They returned with nothing much of value - save for this trinket."

Morgan studied the strange medallion more. "The symbol looks like the Rebellion's. Crude."

"Your initial assessment is understandable, but incorrect. I believe it was made by the Jedi Ezra Bridger, during his extended stay here."

"Why?" asked Morgan. "If the symbol is not the Rebellion's, then what - "

Her eyes widened with understanding. Thrawn nodded, his red eyes flashing. "Indeed. The Rebellion symbol was not widely in use during Bridger's time. This one is something similar - some sources would say was the inspiration for the Rebellion's version later on."

Wren's Starbird. "The missing starbird," said Morgan. "There's a kind of poetry that he had it, all this time."

"Yes," said Thrawn. He sounded almost . . . impressed. "I do love the poetry of it all. It's almost mythical how these two wound up together after so long and against such impossible odds."

He pointed at the pictures displayed on the viewscreen of the younger Sabine Wren. "Note the location of the starbird in each of these armors."

Morgan moved closer to see. "It's . . . upper left side of her chest. Where her heart is."

She blinked. Where her heart is . . .

Bridger had it all this time. Her heart.

The Jedi took it with him when he left.

"And it is now absent in her current design," Thrawn murmured.

Now it was starting to make sense. "You asked me about love," said Morgan, turning to stare at the Grand Admiral.

"I wanted you to have context for why Wren is so surprising to me this time around," Thrawn explained. "It is better for you to understand what drove her so far - and why."

He gestured at the images of Sabine Wren. "You see, Lady Elsbeth, I know Wren and her motley crew of rebels very well. Before my untimely expulsion from our home galaxy, they were a constant thorn in my side. Ultimately, their bonds and the Jedi's abominable connection to the Force are what led to my defeat at Lothal."

His voice was measured but there was no mistaking the undercurrent of barely restrained rage coursing underneath his words. Something in the pinched look around his eyes gave away the seething anger boiling underneath the Grand Admiral's stoic exterior. It was like watching magma flow through deep cracks in a planet's crust.

Volatile, thought Morgan. I must tread carefully here.

"And something was different about her this time," he continued. "I even said so to her face; she utterly confused me with her actions. Much had been sacrificed to allow the Spectres to triumph over me. But her recent actions on the planet Seatos threaten to undo all of it. Our little reunion revealed something to me - something unfathomable."

"She was in love," Morgan concluded. "With Ezra Bridger."

"A strength more unknowable and more unpredictable than the Jedi's cosmic abilities," Thrawn sighed, shaking his head. He glanced at her. "If there was a way to save Dalia on the night she died from Separatist forces, would you do it?"

Morgan thought about it. "Yes," she said. "I would."

"Even if the cost came at the undoing of all your life's work?" asked Thrawn.

She recoiled - and felt a mild pang of shame at doing so. I'm sorry, Dalia. You are long dead. I owe you no fealty.

"Of course not," she retorted. "Never at such a high cost."

The Grand Admiral threw up his hands in dismay. "You see? Unfathomable. Unknowable. Unpredictable. We both understand that. Yet Wren, with so much at stake, chose war over the hard-won peace."

He swiped the images of Sabine Wren aside on the viewscreen to reveal a new one - this one more recent. The image was hazy, flickering with distortion; the equipment used to take the snapshot was not up to date and in need of repair it seemed. But the figures in the photo were unmistakable: Wren, in the Peridea landscape surrounded by unfamiliar dome-like structures, hugging an older Ezra Bridger, garbed in strange robes.

Their embrace was achingly close, their figures locked together in a way that screamed an intimate familiarity that went beyond friendship. Morgan felt an uncomfortable sense that she was intruding on something confidential, that should only be seen and experienced by Bridger and Wren.

She inhaled sharply. "She found him."

"Yes," Thrawn said simply. "She did. I thought him long dead, truth be told."

Morgan glanced at him, expecting the Imperial warlord's face to be stormy, full of loathing at this reunion between two of his mortal enemies - but she was surprised to see only grim amusement there.

He caught her look. "Have you heard the story about 'The Starbird and the Void Dragon'?"

She blinked, taken aback by another about turn in his questions. "Erm - no," she confessed. "Should I?"

"It's an obscure fairytale from the early days of Mandalore," explained Thrawn. He resumed his gaze at the stolen picture of Wren and Bridger's embrace.

"Once, there was a starbird that travelled far and wide, searching for a companion. It found one on a distant world - Lothal."

Morgan's eyebrows rocketed up her forehead in shock. Lothal was the home world of Ezra Bridger. She stared at the picture of the Mandalorian and the Jedi. Forces of destiny, she thought.

"Yes," said Thrawn, seeing her expression. "A curious coincidence, so it would seem. Or perhaps, tidings of something far more mysterious. The starbird fell in love with the world and its only inhabitants at the time: the loth wolves. One of them grew especially close to the starbird and, at last, the mythical bird rejoiced in finally finding a companion to call its own."

"What happened then?" Morgan asked, wondering where this was going.

Thrawn waved his hand for dramatic effect. She found it amusing that the Grand Admiral was playing up the fairytale so much . . . not that she would ever tell him.

"After a time, a void dragon with red eyes fell from the stars. It burned a path through Lothal's skies. The leader - the starbird's beloved friend - led a pack to fight against the new threat, which sought to plunder the planet's forests - home to the loth wolves - of all its treasures to add to the dragon's hoard."

Thrawn's red eyes glowed with fervor as he continued the tale. Even Morgan was beginning to get enraptured in the story.

"The battle lasted many days and sundered the land and sky. Finally, the only combatants remaining were the starbird's companion wolf and the void dragon itself. The great beast had been beaten, it knew, having taken many grievous blows - but it was filled with spite and fury. In a final, desperate move it took the starbird's friend deep into the heart of Lothal's forest and bade it to follow them to save its friend. The loth wolf begged its friend not to do so, for it knew that in doing so, their forest home would burn from the starbird's presence."

The Imperial warlord left the story there, letting the silence sit thicker and thicker between them. Finally, Morgan asked, desperate to know: "Were they reunited? The starbird and it's loth wolf?"

Thrawn stared at the image of Wren and Bridger for a long moment. Then he said, without drama, "Yes. They were reunited."

"How? Did the starbird trick the dragon?"

"No," he replied softly. "It burned the forest down."

He pivoted to her then, his stance rigid, red eyes flashing with authority. "I want our exit strategy accelerated by an hour. No excuses. See it done, Lady Elsbeth."

Morgan was aghast. Running the numbers in her head, what the Grand Admiral was asking was not unreasonable but seemed . . .

Was he afraid?

"I don't understand the point of this whole exercise," she said, frustrated. "Wren being reunited with Bridger worries you?"

"It does," said the Imperial warlord. "And it should worry you, too. It all connects. Everything we have talked about in the past several minutes."

"It's just a story," she said, confused. "A fairy-tale."

Thrawn looked at her coldly. "Perhaps. But the accomplishments of Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger are very real, Morgan Elsbeth. Generations from now, some would even say they sound like a myth. Sabine Wren has lived up to her symbol of the Starbird in ways that are immensely worrisome. Remember the story."

Understanding dawned on her in that moment. "The starbird burned the forest down. Wren gave up the map to find you - "

" - in exchange for a small, miniscule chance at finding her lost Jedi," finished Thrawn. "She helped me. Despite knowing all it would cost her - and the people she fought alongside back in our home galaxy."

"My mercenaries will handle them," Morgan argued. "They are more than capable."

"Your faith in them is misplaced," Thrawn replied in an icy tone. "But they will be useful in slowing them down long enough for us to make our escape."

He glared at her. She wilted under the full force of his anger, restrained as it was.

"Wren has already burned one forest down to find her Jedi. And now she has her prize. We are all that stands in her way to get him home. I will not risk our plan so close to fruition at the whims of fate."

Morgan pursed her lips - but bowed in deference to him. "As you wish, Grand Admiral," she said.

"Thank you," he replied.

On the way out, she couldn't help herself and paused at the door. Thrawn noted her pause. "What is it?" he asked, sounding impatient.

"You know it's just a fairy-tale, right?" she asked. "It's not real."

The Imperial warlord shook his head. "I'm afraid it is very real, Lady Elsbeth," he said.

"How do you know?"

He stared at her, his red eyes glowing like embers. "Because there are no more forests on Lothal," he said quietly. "They do not grow there anymore. And the loth wolves howl to the night sky in remembrance of their lost home, forced to roam the endless plains and fields."

Morgan nodded. "I see."

Later, it occurred to her what about that whole conversation disturbed her so much. When Thrawn studied his adversary, he always found a way to exploit a revealed weakness. He was never afraid of the foes he faced afterwards.

But this time . . . this time, he had studied the enemy.

And yet, the fear remained.

#sabezra #sabine wren #ezra bridger #grand admiral thrawn #morgan elsbeth #sabezra fanfiction #ezrabine #star wars #star wars rebels #ahsoka #ahsoka show #natasha liu bordizzo #eman esfandi

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caligvlasaqvarivm · 1 year ago

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I've been reading some of your homestuck essays, I think they're really good! I would like to know what you think about post-retcon homestuck and the interactions between reader and author throughout homestucks publishing. I was not in the fandom at the time of it being published, but I find this to be a very interesting aspect of the comic!

I was only on the fringes of the fandom at the time, but even that was enough to recognize that the fandom was absolutely awful. Every bad story you've heard about the Steven Universe, Voltron, and Undertale fandoms has its roots in the Homestuck fandom.

Pretty much as soon as the webcomic got popular on Tumblr, Hussie was put under intense scrutiny for basically every decision they ever made ever. I'm not going to say that Hussie was a perfect individual who never did anything wrong, because Hussie is a human being and that's how it works, but it's basically impossible to overstate how much the fandom tried to make an enemy out of Hussie.

The fandom was convinced that Hussie was their personal LE, and that attitude continues to this day - like, for an easy example of the fandom harassing Hussie for Literally Anything, when he stated that all trolls were bi/pan, to the point where they didn't have specific words for single-gender attraction, comparing it to a "more exacting preference" like somebody who only dates fat people - but that even within that framework, Kanaya was undoubtedly a lesbian character - people insisted Hussie was being homophobic. Fucking homophobic! For confirming all trolls are bi/pan, except Kanaya, who's a lesbian!

Other examples include: calling Hussie homophobic for John saying he wasn't a homosexual and Karkat literally not knowing what a homosexual was, because again, all trolls are bi/pan. Calling Hussie racist for making the kids aracial but accidentally leaving references to Dave having pale/pink skin in (because Hussie is a biased human person who can't be perfect and who did try to be more inclusive as the comic went on). Deciding that the dancestors served no purpose except for Hussie to be mean to their audience. Like there are valid criticisms to be made of Homestuck, but anything that was valid, nuanced, or thoughtful was drowned under a deluge of incoherent accusations of every -ism and -phobia that the fandom could possibly muster, the fandom as a whole racing to see who could paint Hussie as the biggest monster, even as they were harassing them to make more Homestuck.

Not to mention this was the era of rampant, unchecked ship wars and fandom misogyny. Not that fandom misogyny has gone away, mind you, but it's slightly more in check now. This was the era of fandom where it was normal to be sent death threats for shipping the "wrong" ship, and fandom ship wars were often encouraged by media of the time (love triangles were HOT - think zutara vs. kataang, team jacob/team edward, danny fenton/sam manson vs. danny fenton/valerie grey) because it drove up engagement. Homestuck was not really interested in shipping wars and love triangles - while many characters had circuitous routes and false starts, many were also pretty clearly set up to have specific endgame ships. But the fandom wasn't trained to behave that way, and the troll quadrants + canonical bi/pan trolls + active role of romance in the story meant that the ship wars were brutal - and also, Hussie was getting harassed every step of the way for not making peoples' favorite ships canon, a major part of a larger trend of people constantly ragging on Hussie for things not going the way they wanted plot-wise, to the point where Hussie had to comment on it constantly on his Formspring.

And don't think I forgot about the fandom misogyny! Here's a hot take for the class: Vriska is literally just Girl Zuko. She's ostensibly a noble from an imperialistic, warmongering, fascist society with an abusive parent who raised her with strict expectations, who thinks she has to act much more evil and more tough than she feels in order to earn the approval of her parent/society, and who secretly has misgivings and feels really bad about it and was set up for a redemption arc.

And people HATED Vriska. Vriscourse was so bad that many Homestuck fan spaces banned talking about Vriska at ALL, because just the mere mention of her name would spark massive, endless flame wars as people argued whether or not she deserved her little redemption arc (spoilers: yes, it turns out death is cheap in Homestuck and characters changing, growing, and becoming better is a huge part of the story) or whether or not she was justified in doing the things she did. Genuinely, I think a huge part of this intense hatred and anger was just misogyny. God forbid women have Zuko's character arc.

It was also part of two other large trends in the fandom - the first was that, despite finding every possible reason to call Hussie -ist and -phobic they could, the fandom itself was, ummm... "of its time." For example, the original March Eridan stuff was pretty clearly meant to be funny because, look, man in a dress! Isn't it sooo funny when Eridan wears a dress? (No hate to the artist, this was a long time ago and I'm sure they're a different person now.) The fandom was also constantly goading Hussie on WRT which characters were fat, and while we can argue about whether Hussie is fatphobic because none of the characters are canonically drawn to be fat, I'm going to go to bat for them on this: people treat the Fat Vriska jokes as though Hussie is the creepy weirdo exclusively, but the fandom was goading them on and thought that shit was hilarious, because that was what early internet fandom was like a lot of the time - at the same time as it harassed and decried creators for being problematic, it would turn around and delight in shitting on women, neurodivergent people, POC, and fat people, and Homestuck was rampant with it.

The second trend the Vriscourse was a part of was one that also hasn't fully gone away, but it's better now - wilful ignorance of the actual comic's contents. I'm not talking about the usual fandom fare of noncanon ships or "x character is trans/autistic/etc. even though I know there's no canon basis," which is all pretty damn harmless, but I mean like, memes and fanon would override canon and you would be outright harassed for not playing along. There are STILL places to this day that will call you an actual fascist, genocide liker, evil and irredeemable, etc. if you try to stick up for Eridan, even though Eridan is actually the LEAST casteist highblood and his entire character arc is about how his shitty fascist society makes him deeply anxious and unhappy. Similarly, you can/definitely would be be harassed for saying you don't like March Eridan and/or think it's OOC (it is), and I have nothing but sympathy for Gamzee and Equius fans, who also get it really bad.

The most vocal parts of the fandom, if not the majority, were people who were generally uninterested in engaging with Homestuck on Homestuck's terms, instead dead set on making up a version of it in their head and harassing people who disagreed, including Hussie. Echoes of that persist to this day - Equius, Gamzee, and Eridan get it bad, but practically none of the trolls have fandom interpretations that actually line up with who they are - Kanaya is actually just Eridan's bully (and did nothing to help Tavros after she caught Vriska kissing him), but people portray her as Nice Team Mom. Feferi is a casteist hypocrite who loves classism and calling people the r-slur, but people portray her as bubbly equality lady. So on and so forth. Like, damn, I barely participate in fandom and I'm out here meeting people who think Karkat ACTUALLY hates his friends like he says he does.

And then, of course, these people went and harassed Hussie because actual Homestuck did not match up with the Homestuck that existed only in their own heads.

On top of all the fandom harassment, Hussie was also facing ballooning scope. Most of Homestuck was a single dude drawing, writing, and animating it, and they would update every two or three days, sometimes less. So from the get-go, Homestuck was an INSANE project that demanded an insane amount of work and time from Hussie, and as it went on, it only got worse - and fandom expectations only got bigger. Suddenly, Hussie had to be in charge of merchandise, in charge of vetting, hiring, directing, and paying third-party artists, planning animations months if not years in advance, creating entire sections of the comic that had GAMEPLAY, directing ACTUAL GAMES, etc. ... there's an argument to be made that Hussie should not have taken on a workload they couldn't manage, but at the same time, the fandom certainly wasn't telling them to slow down. If anything, they harassed Hussie for every update, and were furious when hiatuses needed to happen to plan and execute some of the bigger moments later in the comic.

There's a Sarah Z video out there on the creation of the Homestuck game, which I think is OK if you take into account that Sarah kind of has fandom brain and is a little biased against Hussie (and I guess Hussie did send a spurious legal threat which is pretty funny but, y'know, understandable that Sarah would be peeved), where it's really clear that Hussie was not ready for the kind of responsibility, time, and effort needed to manage a whole-ass video game.

So by the time Game Over and the Retcon roll around, you basically have to imagine that Hussie has so many irons in the fire that the furnace is about to pop like a balloon, and the people they were making the damn things for in the first place have been relentlessly harassing them for YEARS, and weren't even that interested in engaging with the actual story in the first place. I'd say the majority of the fandom to this day STILL does not understand Eridan - how do you think they would've taken his redemption arc, and especially the fact that he was set up to date Karkat and Roxy? Given the pattern of their behavior up to that point... they'd probably harass Hussie and call them homophobic.

This is why I genuinely cannot blame Hussie for turning on the fandom and truncating their story. Vriska got upgraded to main character and had her character development reset because fuck you, fandom, you couldn't understand her redemption arc in the first place so now you don't get one. DaveKat got (kind of) made canon but as a weird throuple with the Mayor because fuck you, fandom, you didn't appreciate any of the actual gay ships that were set up so now you're stuck with brutally OOC DaveKatMayor. Karkat and Jake have their plot threads left hanging because fuck you, fandom, you never even noticed all the prophecies and symbolism and character arcs because you were all too obsessed with screaming at women and took the dancestors as a personal insult, so now the guy who's supposed to defeat LE and the guy who's supposed to bring equality and forgiveness to all bloodlines don't even get to participate in any of the important boss battles.

People call Hussie a troll, and they really aren't. If you read their old Formspring, they're clearly deeply fucking passionate about the art of storytelling, and switch between bafflement, mild indignation, and playing along when people ask them stupid questions. But back then, they were always very serious and genuine when they answered questions asked in good faith, and I'm being 100% genuine when I say that I've learned about how to tell stories better by reading Hussie's Formspring. Over time, however, those stupid questions became more common, and often morphed into outright harassment, and in response to that, Hussie's answers became more humorous and facetious, and the fandom - who was already trying to find ANY reason to hate Hussie - started to paint Hussie as an unreliable trickster and liar who got their jollies by shitting on the fandom.

Honestly, in doing so, the fandom was what turned Hussie into exactly that. Again, I'm not saying Hussie was a perfect baby who did nothing wrong - there's a lot of stuff to critique and scrutinize about their writing, their biases, and what topics they found appropriate to joke about. However, I AM saying that they were also just a human fucking being who was trying to write a good story, who was harassed at every turn, mostly for things that actually weren't problematic at all, whose words and actions were always taken in the absolute worst possible faith, and that the fandom is not fucking faultless, and if there's anyone that I'm mad at for how bad Homestuck ended, it's the fans.

That's my hottest Homestuck take.

#homestuck #i don't want to argue about any of the actual bad or weird stuff hussie's done #because i also don't care leave the guy alone already #i know enough to know that what they got from the fandom was WILDLY DISPROPORTIONATE #i have met people who believe that hussie fucking up the comic #is an UNFORGIVABLE ACT OF MALICE that 'hurt people the comic was important to'#and that hussie is ergo an unforgivable monster #who refuse to acknowledge that hussie received much fucking worse on a regular basis #and that it was retaliation and not a random act of evi #and it just. kind of. sucks?#like can this be the year where the fandom decides to be forgiving and compassionate #like troll jesus would have wanted

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