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subliminalwish · 4 months ago

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A Blooming Predicament

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Pairing: Sylus x Reader Summary: You chanced a glance on a dark alley on your way home, expecting to see a lost stray needing shelter from the rain but the one you ended up taking home is currently bleeding on your couch. Content: reader is not MC, reader is female, this is a slow burn, mentions of gunshot wounds, bleeding, and administering first aid, depictions of blood, wound care, implied crime & organised violence, mild language and dark humour, reference of alcohol, written under the influence of medication - some inconsistencies are possible. A/N: My apologies for the delay - I'd been incredibly sick. This chapter is much longer than the other two, and a lot of my time was spent trying to condense this while still keeping the pace. I hope it's not too much! Thank you so much for reading.

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You wish your hands would stop shaking so much.

His breath on your neck is warm but shallow, ghosting over your skin — faint, like sighs on velvet.

At least you can tell he’s still alive.

He hasn’t spoken since you dragged him out of that alley. Neither have you.

The intoxicating scent of charred spice burns into your lungs.

He’s so tall, doubled over you as you struggle to support him on your journey back to your apartment. Stark against the chill of the rain, the heat where his weight rests against you spreads — soaking your clothes, clinging to your skin, promising stains that might never wash off.

It’s fine, you tell yourself. You’re used to stains. The faint dusting of pollen. Fingerprints on glass. Smoke clinging to fabric. Streaks of green from crushed stems. The kind that lingers long after it should be gone.

You press on, stumbling through your building’s doors haphazardly. You’re a mess of aching muscles, trembling fingers, and the weight of him, draped over you like some exotic scarf.

Something grips you by the waist. Anchors you. You look down to see his large hand pressing you even closer to his body. Strong, despite the injury.

“What floor?” comes the sudden gravelly whisper fanning over your neck, your skin puckering in goosebumps on contact.

You tell him.

“Hold on tight.” That’s the only warning before the floor disappears beneath your feet, and for a split second, you think: this is a terrible way to die. The world vanishes in wisps of black and scarlet, weightless and soundless. The walls dissolve; there’s no sense of up or down — only him, warmth pressing against you, grounding you in this abyss like the only real thing left.

Solid footing returns as abruptly as it was stolen. Your knees buckle slightly at the sudden impact; the world reappears around you. You’re at your apartment level.

“How —” you start, but he’s already dragging you to move.

“Which door?” There’s a strain in his voice that wasn’t there before.

The stupid questions can wait.

——

He crashes onto the couch with a quiet groan, tipping his head back on the backrest as his eyes flutter shut.

Yours dart around your apartment until you find what you’re looking for. You’ve never had a half-dead man bleeding on your couch before, but you’re sure there’s at least something in your little first aid kit that can help. Gauze, antiseptic, an old roll of bandages. Ibuprofen, for the mild inconvenience of being shot.

You make your way back to his side, your attention now on the ruined fabric clinging to his skin, torn where the wound is worst, stained in deep red.

Your grip on the edges of the kit tightens, your heart pounding in your ears, your vision narrowing to the spreading blotch where skin meets couch.

A slow inhale, and then —

“Have you ever done this before?” His deep voice pulls you back, almost startles you — hoarse at the edges, tight with pain. Tempered with something softer. The sound catches at something in your chest, and you hate the way it makes your heart clench. His eyes are open by just a crack, a hint of red peeking through, locked on yours. His head is still tipped back as he takes measured breaths.

“Not at all.”

He shifts, a familiar smirk with a tinge of exhaustion on his lips as he moves to tear the tattered shirt off him.

“Follow my lead.”

Your hands move on autopilot, following his instructions without question. His voice is calm. Too steady for someone who’s bleeding out. You hold on to that low timbre for your life, the subtle shifts of his body, tilting into your touch when your fingers brush against exposed skin.

“You need to press harder.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Use this next.”

“Breathe .”

Somewhere in between the stitching and the bandages being pulled taut, your heartbeat evens out, matching the smooth rumble of his voice, his mere presence keeping you from falling into the void.

Time blurs at the edges. You sit back after carefully securing the wrappings, your eyes scanning over his bare torso and its now-rhythmic rise and fall, to the rest of him for a final check.

“You catch on quick,” he says warmly, a tone of pleasant surprise with the undercurrent of something you choose to ignore. You don’t know what to say to that, lowering your gaze to your hands now resting on your lap, the tremors from earlier fading without a trace. You flex them before looking back at your handiwork, the gauze wound tight around him, keeping him from unraveling —

So why does it feel like he’s the one who’s holding you together?

——

“This… might fit,” you say, almost apologetic as you hand him your largest hoodie. He takes it with one hand, glancing at the wrappings around his torso before giving you a look.

“I don’t want to ruin your masterpiece,” he says smoothly, making you roll your eyes as you grab the hoodie back. He leans over expectantly.

By some miracle, you ease him into the hoodie. The fabric stretches just a little too much in places, snug against him. You try not to think about it.

He lets out a satisfied sigh and leans back, now far more relaxed than when he first staggered into your flat hours earlier. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to return it.”

“No, it’s fine,” you say a bit too quickly. “You can keep it.” It’s probably for the best.

Desperate for something to do, you head to the fridge. “Um. Do you want something to drink?”

“Some whiskey would be nice.”

“I’m not giving you any liquor.”

“Then forget it.”

You scowl at this strange stray you’ve taken in, his size dwarfing your couch as he claims his territory between your blood-stained throw pillows.

You grab a glass of water and set it on the coffee table with a pointed look. He doesn’t even glance at it.

“Is there someone you can call? Do you need to borrow a phone?” you ask as you move back to sit on the adjacent chair.

He’s already pulling his own device out and dialing on the cracked screen. “I’m sorted, but thank you.” There are bloodstains on the phone, too.

You fall silent as you hear the other line answer in one ring.

“Boss!” shouts the person on the other end. They sound relieved.

“The deal is off. Wrap it up. Now. Meet me at the usual place when you’re done.” He doesn’t wait for them to respond, ending the call and putting his phone away in one fluid motion.

You wish you moved to the other room — the less you hear about any of this, the better.

“Looks like I’m your problem for a little longer,” he says gently, looking at you now with a softened expression. He waits for you to react.

“Just until the sun fully sets,” he adds. “I don’t do well in the daylight.”

You automatically glance out your window at the gradually darkening cityscape. The rain has long stopped, the world outside shrouded in a light sheen from the drizzle.

You nod, unsure why it matters whether he leaves now or after the sun sets. But something about the way he says it — the way he looks at the sky — makes you think you don’t want to know. And the less you know, the better.

A minute passes. Then, his voice cuts through the quiet — low, almost lazy, but there’s something behind it.

“Why did you help me?”

You blink at him. You should probably give him a real answer.

“Did you want to bleed out in that alley? I can put the bullets back.”

That earns you a soft huff, something like amusement curling at the edges of his breath.

“I meant at the flower shop.”

You don’t reply right away. You could tell the truth — that you didn’t want to be collateral damage, that you like your life quiet and uncomplicated, and a shootout in a flower shop tends to disrupt that. But saying it outright feels too honest. Too callous.

So instead, you shrug, feigning nonchalance. “Seemed like the least messy option.”

A pause. Something amused flickers across his face, there and gone in an instant.

With nothing left to say, you both settle into silence, your guest occasionally humming an unknown tune.

There’s little need for words when the air between you is already thick with unspoken things.

You can still smell the sharp, metallic bite of blood underneath molten amber, settling at the back of your throat, refusing to let go.

As the sky outside finally deepens in hue, he gets up with purpose, his movement effortless, as if he hasn’t been close to death just hours before.

“Thank you for your hospitality. I won’t forget this.”

You hope he does.

He opens the window without offering an explanation. Sits at the edge on the sill and casually leans out to assess the view below before looking back at you with a long, measuring look.

“I’m sure we’ll meet again soon.”

You hope not.

He says it with so much certainty, as sure as the setting sun.

Something about the way he moves makes your stomach lurch, your instincts screaming before your brain catches up.

He’s leaning too far back. Too far into the gaping maw that is your window.

“Hey —”

You’re already on your feet before you even realize it.

“Can you not —”

He tilts backwards completely. Your window swallows him whole. He vanishes from your sight, rips your heart out of your chest and drags it with him.

“Hey, wait!”

You lunge forward, half your body slipping past the frame. The dizzying drop yawns beneath you. Your eyes follow the trail of hazy smoke and black feathers descending rapidly toward the empty street, and seconds later, he materializes onto the pavement, looking up at you with that same slow curve of his lips that makes your chest tighten.

You watch him walk away, his silhouette vanishing into the dark. The ruined couch, the lingering scent of iron mixed with warm spice, and the tattered afterthought of an expensive shirt are the only proof he was ever here.

You aren’t the type to get caught up in things that don’t concern you.

But if there’s anything worse than making a bad decision, it’s pretending you didn’t already make it.

You look around now at the aftermath of your choices decorating your living room, clean-up on your mind.

You’re used to stains. The rust-dark imprint of a thorn prick. The inescapable perfume of crushed petals. The faint, bitter tang of torn leaves. Blood and viscera are just different shades of the same thing. The kind that lingers long after it should be gone.

Some whiskey doesn’t sound so bad right now.

——

You didn’t wake up this morning expecting to get mugged by a bird.

One second, the shop keys are in your hand. The next, they aren’t.

A rush of black feathers, a flick of talons. The haunting, sharp echo of a triumphant caw. The weight of metal is stolen from your fingers before you can process the theft, before your breath can even catch up with the crime.

You blink up at the sky, dazed. The shop keys glint between its claws like a prize.

The city moves around you, indifferent. People pass by, eyes fixed forward, their worlds sealed off in invisible walls. A car horn blares in the distance. Someone laughs. The morning air is thick with damp concrete and yesterday’s regrets. You push past the early morning bustle, past people too preoccupied to notice you chasing after an airborne thief. A few glance up at the sound of ruffled feathers, but nobody in Linkon asks too many questions.

It swoops low, wings outstretched, dancing just out of reach before darting forward again. You swear you hear it cackle.

It winds through the city, taking you through twisting paths and narrow passages. Leads you down familiar streets, past shuttered cafés and flickering neon signs, past lampposts that hum with the last traces of their glow. It keeps ahead of you by mere feet, never quite out of reach, never close enough to catch.

Then, without warning, it folds its wings and drops.

You skid to a stop.

It lands right on the wooden sign hanging above Larkspur & Ivy, perching neatly on the edge. For a moment, it does nothing — just stares, head tilted, considering you. Flicks its tail with a self-satisfied ruffle of feathers.

Then, slow and deliberate, it unfurls its talons and lets your keys slip through.

They clatter onto the pavement.

The crow lets out a single caw, sharp and bright in the morning hush. Almost like laughter.

You crouch to pick up your keys, but your gaze snags on the bird.

Up close, its feathers are too smooth. Sleek, polished. A glint of metal. The light catches strange on its body, edges too sharp, movements too precise. And when it tilts its head, you hear it — a mechanical whir, the faintest click of shifting plates beneath the feathers.

Red rubies for eyes, like molten glass, glowing against the grey morning like a warning carved into the skyline.

You feel like you’ve seen that shade of red before.

You exhale, slow. Linkon has its ghosts. Some of them just wear different disguises.

The crow watches you expectantly. Lets out another raucous caw. Flaps its wings once, then takes off into the sky, vanishing into the city sprawl.

Your fingers tighten around the stolen thing, thumb tracing over it absently before you slip the key into its place. The sky is empty now. The shop’s door unlocks with a hollow click, and the scent of flowers greets you like a well-worn memory.

Behind you, two men walk past the shop. Eyes flicking your way, exchanging a look, quiet and knowing, as you busy yourself among the oleanders and poppies.

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scifibabee · 3 months ago

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hey, ya girl had a breakthrough in therapy. who wants to journal with me?

and to be so clear: this is a very nuanced topic, and is based on me and my experience, not saying this is true for all autistics (i'd hope that'd go without saying, but. covering my ass, anyway).

---

the autistic trauma of moral vigilance

aka: being raised in a world where your natural way of being was read as wrong

here we go, folks!

1. every mistake was magnified

when you're autistic, your “errors” don’t get interpreted as oops.

they get interpreted as defiance, disrespect, or dysfunction.

you didn’t make eye contact? you’re rude.

you didn’t answer fast enough? you’re ignoring me.

you asked too many clarifying questions? you’re challenging me.

you didn’t mask your overwhelm? you’re overreacting.

so your body learns:

“if i’m not constantly vigilant about how i show up, i’ll be seen as bad.”

2. masking becomes morality

you didn’t just mask to fit in. you masked to be perceived as a good person.

you learned to suppress natural behaviors—stimming, directness, emotional honesty, tone mismatches—because they weren’t just “weird,” they were interpreted as rude, insensitive, selfish, inappropriate.

and over time?

you stopped being able to tell the difference between what’s wrong and what’s just not neurotypical. you started assuming everything that caused friction was your fault.

so you worked harder and harder to appear morally polished, socially fluent, emotionally tidy. even when it was costing you your nervous system.

3. repair was conditional — and rarely initiated by others

when you’re autistic and raised in a neurotypical environment, you’re almost always the one expected to adjust.

so when a rupture happened?

you were expected to apologize first

you were expected to explain yourself

you were expected to take responsibility for “miscommunications” — even when the other person didn’t meet you halfway

this teaches your brain: “if i don’t preemptively take the blame, i’ll be punished — or worse, completely misunderstood.”

so you spiral not because you were wrong, but because you fear what will happen if someone else decides you were.

4. black-and-white morality became your structure for survival

because when the rules are unclear and inconsistent, when neurotypical norms feel like quicksand, your brain builds rigid systems to try and feel safe.

so you cling to moral absolutes:

“good people don’t yell.”

“if i’m right, i must be calm.”

“if i mess up, it means i was selfish.”

“if i’m hurtful, i’m dangerous.”

you make yourself small, soft, and passive because god forbid anyone see your real emotional intensity and call it wrong.

again.

---

anyway, gonna be screaming the mantras

REGULATION IS NOT A MORAL REQUIREMENT

and

MY BODY IS NOT ON TRIAL

until they hopefully stick.

#thank u for coming to my ted talk #gracie writes #mine #therapy #autism #actually autistic #moral absolutism #autistic trauma #neurodivergent #neurotypical #adhd #audhd #actually adhd #actually audhd

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camille-anis · 1 month ago

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Petals for the Forgotten

Summary : You weren't the MC. You weren't chosen. But you loved them. This is what's left of you.

CW : Angst, fem reader, non mc reader

A/N : First of all, I'd like to apologize in advance if there are any mistakes, because this is my first time writing and English is not my first language. It's been a while since I played lads but I've had this idea in my head so I'm sorry if there are any inconsistencies with the game. I hope you'll enjoy it all the same, happy reading.

Zayne — The garden no one saw bloom

You think it began when he smiled at you. A real smile, not the one he gave to patients, not the one he wore like a mask when things weren't going well. No, a smile just for you.

One day, you made a minor error on a pre-operative report. Nothing serious. But him, Zayne, the one everyone feared for his coldness, had taken the time to correct you with a gentleness you didn't know he possessed.

And then, he had said: "You learn quickly."

Three words. And yet, it was enough for a treacherous seed to find refuge between your ribs.

You never believed in love stories. Even less in the Hanahaki disease. For you, it was fiction, a tragic tale for souls too sensitive, too fragile for this world.

But the flowers... The flowers never asked for your opinion.

You woke up one morning with a burning throat and a metallic taste on your tongue. A violet bellflower detached from your lips like an unconfessed confession. Perfect. Immaculate. Deadly.

You continued to work. To smile. To cough in the bathroom when no one was looking. To smother the damp petals in tissues that you then concealed.

To love him.

Silently. Desperately. Mortally.

Zayne saw nothing. Or perhaps he refused to see. Perhaps it was simpler that way, to pretend that your eyes didn't linger on him when he entered a room, that your breath didn't catch when his hand brushed yours.

He passed by you with his impeccable files, his meticulous analyses, his subtle perfume — that scent of pine and antiseptic that haunted you even in your dreams. That coldness that no longer frightened you for a long time.

And then there was her.

His patient. His childhood friend.

You remember the day you saw them in the hallway between two procedures. Her hair was still wet from the rain. He handed her a towel without a word. She laughed. He smiled.

That smile... it was different. Deeper. More authentic. As if all the light in the world had chosen to take refuge on his face at that precise moment.

You had never seen his face so relaxed. So alive.

Every time she came to see him between missions, you felt him change. Metamorphose before your eyes. His gestures became softer. His voice lost that characteristic coldness.

And you became transparent. Invisible.

And it was even more painful than the flowers taking root in your lungs.

You thought you could hold on. That it would pass.

But one day, as you leaned over the sink in the break room, a coughing fit doubled you over. Dozens of violet petals splashed across the immaculate porcelain, tinted red, with your red.

And Zayne walked in.

He froze. The scattered flowers, the scarlet blood everywhere. The deafening silence that enveloped you both.

He closed the door behind him. Slowly. Methodically. As if performing a delicate operation. "Since when?" His voice was barely audible.

"It doesn't matter," you replied while wiping the corner of your lips, where a drop of blood still glistened.

He came closer. Too close. You wanted to scream. Or collapse against him and let your tears soak his immaculate coat. Or kiss him, just once, to know what his lips tasted like before dying.

But instead, you laughed. A small nervous, empty laugh.

"You think it isn't real, don't you? Hanahaki. The disease of lovesick fools. You must have studied it somewhere in your forgotten old textbooks."

He said nothing. His green eyes, usually so cold, so distant, wouldn't let you go. For the first time, you saw something in them that you couldn't name. Fear? Pity? Regret?

"I thought it was a legend, too. Until you." You continued, the words escaping your mouth like frightened birds.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asked, his voice betraying an emotion you had never known in him.

"Because I knew you couldn't do anything." You plunged your gaze into his. "And I didn't want... to burden you with this."

He looked away. He seemed... hurt. But not for you.

"I can slow the progression," he offered, his tone becoming clinical, professional. As if you were just another patient, another body to repair.

"But you can't cure me."

He looked at you for a long time. As if searching for a way out, a solution, a lie to cling to. As if he could rewrite history, change feelings, tear out the roots that had wrapped around your heart.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered, the words falling between you like stones into a bottomless well. And that's what hurt you, much more than the flowers tearing apart your organs. Not that he didn't love you. You already knew that.

But that he couldn't.

Because his heart, as frozen as it might appear to the world, was already beating for someone else. And no science, no medicine, no prayer could change that.

He offered you a temporary treatment. Medications to slow the growth of the flowers. A procedure to remove them. He almost begged you to accept, his eyes shining with an urgency you had never seen in him.

But you refused.

You didn't want a meaningless survival. A body without love. A heart too empty to continue beating. You preferred to die with this feeling intact, this exquisite pain that reminded you that you had lived, that you had loved, even if in silence.

You wrote him a letter. You left it on his desk, between two surgical reports. A letter where you didn't ask him to love you back, but simply to understand why you had chosen to leave.

You don't know if he read it. You didn't want an answer.

You left alone. You chose the room furthest from the north wing, where light barely enters and silence resembles the sea.

You didn't scream. You didn't cry.

You lay down. You closed your eyes, one last time.

And the flowers did the rest.

Zayne found you a few hours later. He knew exactly where to look.

You were nothing but a cold breath, surrounded by withered violet bellflowers, and crystallized blood. A macabre work of art, almost beautiful in its tragedy.

He didn't cry.

He sat beside you, took your still warm hand — that hand he had never really held while you were alive — and whispered something that no one else heard.

Then he placed a flower in a vial. Just one.

And he placed it in Operating Room 3. On the windowsill, next to an old gardening book that you had given him one day, claiming that he needed to learn how to care for living things.

You weren't the protagonist of his story.

But you were the tragic ending of his.

Because sometimes, it's the secondary characters who leave the deepest scars.

Sylus — The codes no one decodes

The first file you decoded for him was barely six months ago.

An intruder had managed to manipulate the internal sound waves at the Onychinus headquarters. The best experts had given up, defeated by the enigma. No one had understood how. You did.

Sylus didn't congratulate you. He simply said one word: "Effective."

And that's the kindest thing he ever said to you.

This simple word had become your treasure, a rough diamond that you polished in your mind each night before falling asleep. A rare compliment from an even rarer man.

Since then, you stayed.

Not because he kept you. He never kept anyone.

But because in his silences, in his pointed looks when you fed a stray cat or when you clumsily dropped something or when you cared for your precious flowers in the small improvised garden under your office window, you had found a space.

Not a place. Not a story.

Just a possibility. And that's worse than anything.

Because possibility feeds hope. And hope is the slowest, cruelest poison there is. You fell in love with him while trying to avoid him.

You didn't look for him. But it was always him your eyes found.

You didn't want to know what he read during his rare moments of rest. But you found him asleep with annotated music notebooks, unfinished compositions.

And you never dared to tell him.

You built a wall around your heart, stone by stone, code by code, as you did with security systems. But feelings are viruses more insidious than any malware. They infiltrate. They contaminate. They destroy.

You surprised him one night, in the conference room. The 'miss hunter' as he liked to call her, had fallen asleep on data from an ancient artifact. Strands of hair fell across her peaceful face.

He removed his jacket — that jacket he never took off, like armor against the world — to cover her. He looked at her for a long time, as if she were a precious memory, a rare constellation, an equation only he knew the solution to. You never saw that tender gaze directed at you.

The day you coughed up the first flower, you were still working on a particularly complex encryption system. A pain in your chest, as if someone had plunged a knife right into your heart. A burning sensation, as if acid were flowing through your veins.

Then a blue lily fell from your mouth, silent and damp. A messenger of death wrapped in beauty. You put it in a metal box.

You didn't believe it at first. You thought it was a chemical reaction. A hallucination caused by lack of sleep.

Until others followed. Blue lilies, ever more numerous, ever larger, as if your body was becoming a funerary garden.

And that same body began to weaken. Your fingers trembled on your keyboard. Your breath became short. Your nights, battles against suffocation.

You tried to hide it. But Sylus remains Sylus.

He observes everything. Even when he pretends not to care.

He confronted you one evening, as you were leaving the office, a bloodstain betraying you at the corner of your lips.

"You're bleeding a lot. Why aren't you saying anything?" His voice was calm, almost detached. But his eyes weren't.

"It's nothing. Just a cold." You attempted a smile that turned into a grimace.

"Do you think I'm stupid? You're vomiting flowers." He said these words as if announcing the day's weather. Simple. Factual. Undeniable.

You laughed. An empty laugh, as if mocking yourself, this absurd situation, this body that was betraying you.

"Are you going to fire me for this?" You tried to joke, but the words came out more bitter than intended.

He didn't laugh.

He just narrowed his eyes. Studied every detail of your face like a code to decipher, a puzzle to solve. "What is this disease? A mutation? Did someone contaminate you?"

"It's not a disease. It's a... curse."

You said nothing more. He didn't press.

But you saw it. That gleam in his eyes. That fierce determination that characterized him when faced with enigmas.

He searched. He combed through the oldest archives he could find.

He found a forgotten word: Hanahaki.

And a truth too ugly to be spoken aloud.

He came back to see you a few days later. Late at night.

You were in the generator room, sitting on the floor, a faded lily in your hands.

"It's me... isn't it?" His voice was just a whisper, almost lost under the hum of the machines. You raised your eyes. Slowly. Painfully.

"I never asked you to love me." You simply replied.

"You never asked me for anything else either."

He crouched down in front of you. He suddenly looked older. More human. Less invincible. He extended his hand toward you as one approaches a wounded animal. You backed away.

"If I had known you were capable of love... maybe I would have lied to my heart." You laughed bitterly, the sound transforming into a painful cough.

He exhaled, as if struck by an invisible force. The words had reached him where no weapon ever could. "Why didn't you say anything?"

You shrugged.

"Because I'm not miss hunter. I'm not the one who triggers cataclysms or prophecies. I'm not the one who makes your heart beat. I'm just a line of code in your algorithm. Replaceable. Erasable."

He closed his eyes. You saw his jaw clench. He would have liked to be cruel. To accuse you. To shake you. To tell you that you were stupid to have let things go so far. But he said nothing.

Because what you were saying was true.

And truth is the only thing Sylus has never known how to fight.

You stopped coming to work. No one saw you again.

A note was found in your private files, left in an old system journal format, coded with a melody he had composed one evening when you thought he hadn't seen you crying.

"I'm sorry I didn't know how to be a story."

Simple words yet so devastating. A virus that would infect his system forever. Sylus didn't cry.

But he burned all the flowers you had left behind. As if he could erase the proof of your love. As if he could rewrite the code of your meeting.

All except one.

A blue lily.

Which he had tattooed in the shadow of his nape. Where only he knows of its existence. Where the pain remains in silence.

A beacon hidden in his own body. A reminder that even the most secure systems have their flaws. And that some codes are never meant to be deciphered.

Xavier — The time no one took

You spent your nights calibrating temporal sensors, sorting anomalies, chasing echoes that might not even exist.

Xavier spent his hunting Wanderers.

You worked on the same floor. But you lived in two different worlds.

Yet you loved him. For a long time.

Not violent or possessive love. No. The kind of silent thing that settles between two heartbeats. The kind of feeling you never confess because you know it wouldn't change anything.

He always called you by your full name. Not once had he pronounced just your first name, that nickname your close ones used, that intimacy you would have so wanted to share with him.

You knew why. You weren't her.

Not the girl who accompanied him on each of his missions.

Not the light of his past. Or of his future.

He had laughed with her several times. Sometimes you heard them from your isolated post. A mundane discussion about a music style had turned into a passionate debate. She had stolen his earbuds, a gesture so familiar, so intimate. He had let her, with a smile on his lips that you had never seen.

You, you had only taken silence from him. Professional nods. Carefully drafted anomaly reports, which he skimmed through without really seeing them.

You were just a voice in his earpiece when a breach opened. Just another biometric signature among others.

But that was enough for you.

At least, that's what you repeated to yourself each evening when returning to your empty apartment, looking out the window and dreaming of a life for two. Just you and him.

Until the day you started vomiting flowers.

The first time was after a long mission at the border of N109 zone, a particularly unstable temporal rift. Xavier and she had been stuck for forty-eight hours in a loop. You had spent all that time awake, eyes fixed on the screens, desperately searching for a solution to bring them back.

When they finally returned, exhausted, she had collapsed in his arms. He had held her against him like a recovered treasure. You had simply turned off your equipment and headed to the bathroom, where a coughing fit had bent you in half.

You had thought it was only blood, that red substance that stained your lips. But no. A blue morning glory had fallen from your mouth, with a sweet and unbearable fragrance. A macabre miracle. A beauty that was killing you from within.

You cleaned up the blood. Threw away the flower. Silent throughout, as you had always been. You didn't tell anyone. Because you knew.

Hanahaki. An ancient disease. Almost forgotten. Mentioned in the most obscure texts. And incurable, unless loved in return.

You tried to ignore it. To pretend it was a passing anomaly.

You continued to transmit data, to smile behind your glasses, to cough secretly into tissues that you then burned to leave no trace.

But your body betrayed you.

One evening, as everyone was leaving the command center after a particularly taxing day, you collapsed near the main entrance. Your legs gave way beneath you like branches too fragile. A cascade of blue flowers surged from your mouth, forming around you a crown of suffering.

Xavier, who seemed to have returned because of something forgotten, probably his watch, rushed to you. He knelt down, his blue eyes wide with shock. He saw the flowers.

"Is it a contamination? Did someone hurt you?" He asked, an expression of genuine concern on his usually stoic face.

"No... no, it's not that." You murmured, struggling to breathe between the petals obstructing your throat.

You clenched your teeth, trying to keep your throat closed, but another flower came out: blue and perfect.

He picked it up.

"This flower... is it an ancient symbol? Some kind of... death ritual?" He asked, confused, seeking a rational explanation for this phenomenon that defied all logic.

"It's not a ritual. It's a curse."

You turned your head toward him, your gaze clouded by tears you refused to let fall. "I'm sick because I love. And it's not reciprocated."

He froze. Looked at you without understanding. Then slowly, gently, his fingers tightened around the flower, almost crushing it.

"Me?"

You laughed. A dry, painful laugh that triggered a new wave of coughing and flowers.

"Who else? I don't talk to anyone else." You tried to smile, but your lips only formed a grimace stained with blood.

Silence.

You placed your hand on his cheek. A gesture you would never have dared make normally. A last gift you allowed yourself before the end.

"Don't worry. I don't want reciprocity. I'm not asking you for anything. I just want... to be able to breathe a little longer."

But you couldn't.

You died three days later. In your sleep.

Your heart gave way under the flowers that had invaded every corner of your rib cage, transforming your body into a morbid garden.

Xavier didn't speak.

He canceled all missions for a week. An unprecedented act that sparked whispers throughout the base. He erased your digital traces from the system, as if you had never existed, except for one.

In a secret corner of the archives, a file bears your name. Not your full name. Just your first name, the one he had never pronounced while you were alive.

Inside: the image of a single blood-stained flower.

And a line, written in an ancient language: "She loved me in a language I didn't speak." A late confession. An eternal regret.

For even he can never go back in time to repair the heart he broke without knowing.

Rafayel — The canvas no one saw being born

You worked right next to his studio.

Every morning, you unlocked the rusty gate, took out the brushes, and let the sun graze the incomplete canvases that waited for someone to give them life again.

You weren't a painter. Not like him. You restored.

You took dead works, forgotten, cracked by time and indifference, and tried to give them back dignity. A final brilliance.

Rafayel painted the future. Emotions. Souls. His canvases were windows open to universes that no one else saw.

And he only looked at you when you laughed.

"You still have fingers covered in varnish," he would say with a smile. "You'll end up poisoning yourself."

You laughed. You didn't care. You would have gladly let the varnish eat away at your skin down to the bone if it meant he would continue to look at you.

It was your way of existing in his eyes. Of occupying, if only for a moment, a corner of his retina. You loved him slowly. Like loving a song you've never heard in full.

Each day, a new detail was added to the fresco that Rafayel had become in your mind. The way he squinted at a canvas that resisted. How his fingers danced above a palette, seeking the perfect color. The sound of his breathing when he sometimes fell asleep on his stool, exhausted after hours of frenzied creation.

But you knew. You weren't his muse.

He never spoke of her, but sometimes he painted her. The 'miss bodyguard'. That slender silhouette that returned in his canvas with obsidian reflections.

That silhouette that wasn't you. Would never be you.

She often talks to him when she comes to his studio, laughs with him, a hand placed carelessly on his shoulder as if she had all the rights in the world. Sometimes, he offers her a brush. She laughs, hugs him. It's their ritual: a brush for each victory, each successful mission.

You, you've never received anything but his friendship. A comfortable, lukewarm friendship, like a shawl placed on the shoulders of a sick person out of pity.

The day you coughed a red anemone onto your palette, you understood.

It wasn't an allergy.

It wasn't the varnish you handled daily.

It was love. The kind you never asked for, and which kills when it isn't returned.

Hanahaki.

You immediately knew what it was.

You had read the old legends in a notebook of Lemurian mythology that Rafayel had left lying around one day.

You had prayed for it to be false.

But flowers never lie.

You continued to live. To work. To restore works that would survive long after your body had become dust. To smile when Rafayel passed by, covered in paint.

"You should sleep more," he said one day, stopping in front of you longer than usual. "You look... a bit faded. Like a color that's fading."

You didn't reply. You didn't want him to see, to know, to understand. You simply nodded, offering him a smile that was meant to be reassuring but trembled at the corners.

But he eventually saw it.

One evening, as you had come to return a notebook he had forgotten at your place during his last visit, you collapsed in his studio, at the foot of an unfinished canvas representing a field of wildflowers under a stormy sky.

A shower of red anemones covered the floor, escaping from your mouth and mingling with spatters of paint, creating a work you would never have wanted to sign.

Rafayel froze at the sight of your condition. Then he rushed over. Took you in his arms.

His hands trembled. His eyes, usually so confident when fixed on a canvas, wandered over your face with palpable panic.

"No. No, no, no. Is it me? Is it... me who did this to you?" His voice broke on the last word, like a wave on a rock.

"It's not you. It's what I feel." You whispered, the metallic taste of blood mingling with the sweeter one of flowers.

You raised your eyes to him, gently, like a final light before eternal night.

"You never promised me anything. I knew from the beginning."

"You should have told me..." Rafayel's words were tinged with remorse.

"And then what? You would have loved me out of pity? You would have painted a lie?" You shook your head, "I'd rather have these flowers. At least they're real."

He said nothing. He was crying, silently.

You placed your red-stained hand on his cheek.

"I just wanted you to know that I found you as refreshing as a new air. As vibrant as a color one discovers for the first time. Even if you never saw me, I saw you entirely. And it was beautiful. I appreciated being your friend."

You died that night, in his studio.

Silently. Without calling for help. Your body surrounded by red flowers like an offering. Rafayel refused to paint for weeks.

He let the canvases molder in a corner, the brushes dry, harden, become unusable. As if his art had died with you.

Then, one day, he returned.

And on an immense canvas, he painted a woman sitting in the light, hands stained with varnish and love, restoring a work that no one else could have saved.

No one knew her name. People stopped in front of his exhibition, touched by an emotion they couldn't name, feeling there was something profoundly true in this image, something that transcended mere representation.

But at the foot of the painting, a phrase was engraved in the wood: "She loved like one restores a damaged canvas — in silence, and until the end."

And sometimes, when light strikes the painting in a certain way, some people swear they see red anemones growing along the frame, their petals opening toward the sky like silent prayers.

Caleb — The vessel no one knew how to repair

You knew every fiber of his vessel.

Every vibration, every tremor, every tiny defect in secondary circuits that escaped automated diagnostics. You could sense when a problem would arise days before it manifested, as if the metal and wires spoke to you in a language only you understood.

It was you who taught him to recognize a trajectory anomaly by ear, sitting cross-legged in the cockpit, hands full of grease, a half-chewed piece of gum between your lips.

"You're my mechanical guardian angel," Caleb would say.

You smiled.

Because it was almost that.

You kept him alive. From a distance. You watched over him through the metal and circuits of his vessel. But never in his arms.

You loved him.

You don't really remember how it started. It was blurry.

One moment, he had offered you an energy drink on a rainy evening.

The next day, he had defended you against an odious superior who criticized your abilities.

And the day after... You had no longer wanted to repair any vessel but his. As if your hands had developed an exclusive memory of his circuits, a particular affinity for the metal that protected him from interstellar voids.

But you knew it. You were not and would never be the famous 'Pipsqueak' he spoke of with that tenderness in his voice.

You were a blurry silhouette in his rearview mirror. A comfort marker. A practical tool. Not a story. Not a future. Just a fragment of his present that would disappear as soon as he accelerated.

The first flower appeared after a particularly dangerous recovery mission. He had returned with the vessel in tatters, impact marks all over the hull, the heat shield almost destroyed.

You had worked three days and three nights without sleep to restore it. When you had finally finished, you had collapsed against the command console, exhausted but satisfied.

That's when you had coughed so hard that you doubled over.

You had coughed so hard that you doubled over.

And in the hollow of your palm, a pink flower, delicate, perfectly formed. A Bleeding Heart tinged with a red that wasn't that of the petals but of the blood that now lined your throat.

You knew immediately.

Your late grandmother had already spoken to you about it on several occasions. Hanahaki.

A disease that strikes only those who love too much. And who are not loved in return.

A disease that modern science had relegated to the rank of myth, psychosomatic, collective delusion of a bygone era.

Yet, there it was, in your hand. Real. Deadly. Beautiful enough to die for, literally. Caleb noticed your pale complexion. Your persistent cough. The dark circles under your eyes. He forced you to rest. You refused.

"I've known people who broke everything except themselves. And you're the opposite, huh?" He told you one day, as you struggled with a faulty relay despite your fever.

"Maybe I'm already broken." You replied with a sad smile, wiping away with the back of your hand the sweat that beaded on your forehead.

He laughed, without understanding the weight of truth in your words.

And it killed you a little more. Each unshared laugh, each gaze that passed through you without really seeing you, each story he told about "Pipsqueak" and their adventures... so many roots that sank deeper into your lungs.

When you lost consciousness in the hangar, he thought it was a gravitational overload. He rushed over. He activated all emergency protocols.

He didn't understand why you were vomiting flowers. Why was your heart weakening for no apparent reason. Why the scanners detect no known pathogen.

"Is it a weapon? Did someone do this to you?" He asked you, kneeling beside your hospital bed, his calloused hands gripping yours with a strength that betrayed his fear.

"No, Caleb..."

You grabbed his sleeve, trembling.

"It's me. It's just... me."

He frowned, lost.

You rested your head against his chest, listening one last time to that heart that had never beaten for you. "I loved you... like one loves a star that will never return. Bright but untouchable. Vital but distant."

He remained frozen. Completely paralyzed by the confession you had just made. By the horror of understanding that it was he, indirectly, who was killing you.

He tried everything to understand what was happening to you and how to heal you.

He contacted the most discreet researchers. He went through old medical books. He even begged an Enforcer to let him search through the forbidden archives.

But nothing.

Love can't be forced. And you were already too far gone, carried away by a current against which no one could swim.

You died between two beats of the engine.

In the rest area he had specially refurbished for you, with that window looking out at the stars you so loved to observe during your breaks. Your body surrounded by pink flowers, shaped like broken hearts, like a cruel metaphor for what had killed you.

Caleb doesn't speak of you anymore.

He sealed the hangar where you worked. He doesn't let anyone touch his ship.

But sometimes, when he returns from a mission, he leaves a little pink flower on the dashboard.

And one day, someone heard him whisper in the empty cockpit when he thought he was alone: "You don't fix anything now, huh? Yet I'm the one who's broken."

Because some vessels, even the sturdiest, never fly the same way again when they've lost their guardian angel.

To those who weren't the story

You weren't the light of the world.

You weren't destined for great prophecies.

You had no power, nor a great reciprocated love waiting for you.

You had flowers in your throat.

And a heart too vast, too generous, too full of them.

Men who saw in you only a pale reflection of the one they truly desired.

They didn't choose you. They didn't save you. But they remember.

And perhaps that's the real curse of Hanahaki: not dying of unrequited love, but leaving behind an eternal remorse in the hearts of those who failed to see.

For some hearts never melt under the warmth of a gaze. Some loves die without ever having had the chance to live.

And some flowers bloom only once — in the silence of a final breath, colorful witnesses to a devotion that surpassed understanding.

We are all, in our own way, blind gardeners. Unknowingly cultivating feelings that bloom around us, sometimes neglecting the most beautiful roses to chase after mirages.

The true tragedy is not to love without return.

It's to leave without having been seen.

To be reduced to a dried flower in a closed book.

To be understood too late.

So the next time you see someone coughing slightly in your presence, look carefully. It might just be allergies.

Or it might be a garden desperately trying to reach you, to show you its beauty before withering forever.

For silent love is the loudest when it disappears.

#love and deepspace #hanahaki #angst #lads #caleb #sylus #zayne love and deepspace #xavier love and deepspace #rafayel love and deepspace #lads sylus #lads caleb #lnds #lads zayne #lads rafayel #lads xavier #hanahaki disease

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orionhelluvaranting · 4 months ago

Text

Like creator, like character

Isn't that interesting how every bloody time someone tries to call Stolass' out this frigging owl finds a way to justify himself or shift the blame?

"I would feel bad if I hurt you but we both know I didn't do that!"

"Cheating implies there was a betrayal..."

"I don't look down on you!"

"I didn't leave you, I would never, that wasn't my choice!"

And do you know who does the exact same thing?

Vivziepop by herself! 🌟

"You disapprove me for sexualizing the rapist and preferring to sell merch with him rather than with his victim? C'mon, guys, Val isn't real! He's Karen from 'Mean Girls'! Fiction is an escape!.. You're just pissy your faves didn't get merch!"

"I liked the post calling my haters 'subhumans'? Well, people are just 'exhausted of being attacked for liking a show'. My fans harass critics? It sucks, but my fans are 'scared to talk about liking the show due to the harassment'. So you're no any better!"

"You've found a plothole XYZ, inconsistency in the story, lame jokes or any other flaws of my shows? No, my writing is smart and logical, bc I said so! Learn to read between the lines!"

"You think I have favoritism toward certain characters? No way! Stolass and Blitz are BOTH in the wrong, I'm gonna show this! Millie isn't ignored by the narrative, actually I'm so excited for you to know about her more! Loona doesn't speak a half of the season because... it was easier on the budget. HB has steered more towards a male-led stories. It's intended this way. You're just misunderstand my genius thought process."

"That's not my problem", "I care about SA victims," "Grow up!" etc.

And I'm not even talking about the justifying/problematic tweets she simply liked 💫

This woman always has an excuse. For everything. Just like Stolass does. Honestly I'd rather not speculate about Stolass being Viv's self-insert (as other critics said long before) but that kind of behavior only confirms such statements. It's like they both live by this quote:

Say whatever you want but for me this is the main proof that Stolass will NEVER take responsibility for his own actions. Because it's seems like Vivienne has no clue how to do this either. She doesn't think she could ever be wrong. So she uses the same mentality for Stolass since he's her beloved pet.

And which one of Viv's excuses is your personal favorite? Mine is "We didn't ask anyone to redesign these characters, it's a choice". Sounds like "They should've seen that coming! It's their own fault they're harassed! What did they even expect?" for me. Just fucking brilliant! 😤💢

PS/ I haven't been monitoring Vivziepop closely enough all the time and maybe I don't see the whole picture, so please correct me if I'm wrong here but... I can't remember a single time this woman admitted her wrongness or apologized sincerely. Ever. I mean, if there's at least one case of Viv making amends or smth it would be nice, even if it prolly won't fix everything.

#helluva boss critical #vivziepop critical #anti stolas #stolas critical #observation #if youve any objections please show the evidences #id like to see them /srs

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taeaura · 4 months ago

Text

Thomas {Hewitt}'s Voice

Because I swear he can talk 🙏

Hii - I’ve been thinking about this for a while now: What would Thomas’ voice sound like? I decided to waste my time {watching TCM interviews / bts} so that I could gauge what Thomas’ voice would sound like.

Evidently, Thomas would have an accent reminiscent of those around him. Luda Mae, Henrietta, and Kathryn / The Tea Lady have the most authentic ‘Texan’ accents out of the family, considering those actresses are the only ones from Texas. Hoyt / R Lee Ermey is from Kansas, and Old Monty / Terrence Evans was born in Pensylvania. Andrew Bryniarski {Thomas} was also born in Pensylvania - Which is very evident in his accent in later interviews.

Things to consider: Bryniarski has been suspected of the usage of sterroids and alcohol abuse - Which can alter your voice - This is extremely prevalent when comparing modern interviews to older interviews.

Bryniarski’s voice is slightly nasally, a bit raspy, and on the deeper-end of the spectrum. At times, his pitch is average - Others, it’s lower. His voice never gets ‘high’ when he’s speaking, but it can through non-serious or extreme measures. I.E; When Thomas' leg gets cut {1:19:15}, Erin chops off his arm {1:25:07}.

Speech Pattern:

Thomas' vocal cords don't appear to be damaged, just scarcely used. This could make speaking a difficult and uncomfortable {mentally, physically} task for Thomas. It's a chore rather than second-nature. This also applies to his oral and mastication muscles. The only time he uses his mastication muscles is when he eats - which is AT MAX three times a day. I'd say maybe just two. This would lead to muscle atrophy - weakening or loss of mass in the muscles. When we talk, the neck and tongue muscles {Strap muscles, Thyroid muscle group, Cricoarytenoid muscle group, Genioglossus, hyoglossus, palatoglossus, styloglossus, Superior lingualis, inferior lingualis, vertical lingualis, and transverse lingualis} do the majority of the work.

Considering Thomas' mastication muscles are weaker, he'd {most likely} have difficulty pronouncing "t", "k", "d", "g", and "r". Thomas would also be prone to slurring, mispronunciation, slow speech / common pauses, enunciate the wrong syllable - or enunciate equally, and inconsistent speech / errors.

Here's clips of Andrew speaking on the TCM set - I figured clips of him on / around set would be more accurate to how Tommy speaks JUST BECAUSE Andrew would be in the headspace of Thomas during this time.

{Warning: The audio quality is so ass I apologize 😞}

I think Thomas' voice would be more like Bryniarski's in the third video - where he's talking about Leatherface's relation to the chainsaw | 'Leatherface's best friend is his chainsaw.' {Which I will be making a post about that specific statement.}

Obviously - Thomas would have a southern {Texan, specifically} accent, though I don't know how 'rough' or 'thick' his accent would be. I have an inkling that Thomas would have a rasp because of his weakened vocal cords. Probably lots of depth to his voice, though it wouldn't be excruciatingly deep. Most likely reminiscent of Andrew's pitch - With minor changes depending on the situation, energy levels, hydration, headspace, and how much he's spoken that day {I'm projecting here ☝️🤓}. His preferred form of communication would be minimal, blunt statements, using as little words as possible. Simple 'yes'' and 'no's' would be portrayed through nodding / shaking of the head. Directions would be communicated via pointing.

For example;

"Have you eaten yet? / Are you hungry?" = "You eat?"

"I like green." = "Green, good."

This is NOT because Thomas is dumb - Contrary to popular belief of the town. It's because talking is a chore for Thomas. It's something he has to think and put effort into as opposed to yapping your ear off. He'd also only speak if it was really important. I doubt he'd be a chatterbox, but he'd make noise like grunts or groans - Some incomprehensible sounds that are only distinguishable by those who've been around him long enough. You'll get the hang of it - Recognizing certain sounds correlate with specific experiences or responses. Do NOT try to imitate them - He'll glare and shut off socially; Which is the opposite of what you want if you want to get close to Thomas. {And Luda Mae would beat you black n' blue for making fun of Tommy.}

tldr; Thomas would {most likely} have a voice reminiscent of Andrew Bryniarski's - Slightly raspy, heavily molded by a Texan accent and pronunciation issues.

____

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socksracoon10 · 8 months ago

Note

p2 where the argument turns into a makeout sesh yes or yes?

𝐇𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐮𝐧 (𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐)

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: (𝘠/𝘕) (𝘓/𝘕) 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘰𝘣 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯… 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴? Pairing: Carlos Sainz Jr. x F!Reader, Charles Leclerc x F!Reader, Max Verstappen x F!Reader A/N: I AM SO HAPPY SOMEONE ASKED FOR A PART 2 BECAUSE THAT'S ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT SINCE I POSTED THE FIC YESTERDAY... anon thank you I was over here giggling and kicking my feet reading your ask... uh halfway through writing this I realized I got carried away it's MUCH longer than I intended LMFAO Read The First Part: Hit and Run

𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙤𝙨 𝙎𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙯 𝙅𝙧.

"Hey man, next time you race try not to kill the other drivers," (Y/N) (L/N) sunk down into the P3 chair next to Sainz, who had just won the race. He glanced over at her with a scowl, clearly wanting to say some nasty things if it wasn't for the million cameras in the cooldown room. She shifted in her seat, stretching her arms as she watched the race's highlights on the screen besides her. Carlos and her both had a spectacular race, considering they had started from the bottom of the grid more or less. She knew she had the skills to get to the podium, but she was surprised at the fact that Carlos had managed to somehow win the race from nowhere. It didn't seem like his normal self and she wondered what could've motivated him to actually drive good for once.

"Next time you race, try not to be cocky and drag other drivers down," Carlos grumbled, his voice was muffled due to the rag that was currently soaking up all of the sweat on his face. She glared at him, holding an accusatory finger to the air before Max had settled down in the P2 chair. He shook Carlos's hand, before waving at (L/N). The room was silent, spare Max rambling on about what he saw during the race. As Max continued to talk, (L/N)'s eyes flickered occasionally onto Carlos, wondering what was going through his mind. She was definitely in the wrong, but her ego wouldn't handle that and she needed to tear him a new one once they were done with all the celebrations. She always hated this circuit anyway.

"She's not supposed to be here, mate," Charles giggled, jerking his thumb towards the woman that was angrily storming into Ferrari's garage. Carlos looked up from where he sat with a groan escaping his lips.

"She isn't," Carlos stood up, taking the cap off his head to run a hand through his hair, "I suppose you've come to apologize for your behavior this weekend? Or last weekend? Or the many weekends before that?" "Apologize?" (L/N) snorted, rolling her eyes, "I've come to ask about what you said at the press pen!"

Charles, sensing the tension between the two, gently ushered the two into Carlos's driver's room before shutting the door. The last thing Ferrari needed after this lovely weekend was to deal with the drivers having to go through PR training once again, especially with the amount of times Carlos had been talking shit about (Y/N) (L/N). Carlos had stood by the door, arms crossed as he gestured with his hands for her to begin whatever stupid argument she had managed to pull out of her ass this time.

"You remember what you said?" She growled, and when she saw him shake his head, her nostrils flared, "You literally told the press, 'sometimes, I like to put people in the places they belong and that's precisely what I did with (L/N)', are you kidding me?"

"You should be happy," Carlos scoffed, "I could've said way worse. Besides, I was giving you a taste of your own medicine. You said after qualifying yesterday that even with a million practices, I'd still fumble."

"Yeah, because you do! You're inconsistent as hell and that's why-"

"And yet who won the race today starting behind you." Carlos interrupted her. She closed her mouth, chest heaving. Carlos could see the gears turn in her head, she was trying so hard to come up with something. He had a smug smile on his face and somehow this was more victorious than winning the Grand Prix.

"It doesn't matter if you win today or not, you won't be driving for Ferrari soon, anyway," She spat. She smirked at the way his face fell, her arms crossed with her head tilted upwards. That cocky look on her face that always drove him wild.

"You're such an asshole," Carlos seethed, and before she could respond with a snarky remark, his lips crashed onto her. His hands came to hold onto the sides of her face, pulling her as close to him as he could. He pulled away for a brief second to take a quick breath and noticed the way her eyes widened, "Did you just kiss me? Listen here buddy, I'll have you know that-" Her words died down when she noticed Carlos's eyes flicker to her lips. God, her absolute hatred for him made her forget how charming he truly was. She wouldn't admit to it, though. Not now nor ever. Right now, all they needed was to blow off this steam. She grabbed onto his neck, pulling him down to another searing kiss, eyes closed as their teeth crashed into one another. She tugged his hair and he squeezed her waist, both of them realizing that feelings may not exist at the moment, it was all about just shutting each other up.

"I hate you," She murmured before going in for another kiss.

"I hate you more," His lips attached to her neck, leaving open-mouthed kisses that were sure to bruise her.

"Well, I hate you the most, stop trying to be better than me." She snapped in a strained voice and he groaned out loud, pulling back to stare at her,

"How much money do I have to pay for you to shut up?"

𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙇𝙚𝙘𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙘

Charles didn't win the next race, unfortunately. He was a bit happy that he didn't DNF, but the fact that the winner of the race was none other than his sworn enemy did little to comfort him. He glanced over to Max who was at P2, and looked around to the room to make sure that rat wasn't lurking nearby.

"W-What was the gap between you and her?" Charles asked. He knew asking would literally do him 0 help, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting to know.

"I want to say around a good 20 seconds or so? Maybe a bit more, I wasn't too sure," Max responded, watching Charles sink deeper in his seat with a look of despair. He gulped, staring aimlessly onto the wall in front of him. How was she that fast? What had she done with the car overnight?

"I'm sorry for (Y/N) for the next few races," He heard her, loud and clear, as she entered the cooldown room, mocking him for what he said last weekend. Charles instantly glared at her, not even bothering to hide his true intentions. No amount of PR training could hide his disgust for her. She settled into her seat, relishing in the feeling of being the race winner.

"You do anything with your car?" Charles grunted, and she shook her head,

"No, no. I just have more skill," She flashed him a smile, before getting up once again to grab a bottle of water. Max, for once in his life, decided to be quiet in the room and see the argument follow through. He'd heard Charles tell him multiple times about how (L/N) got on his nerves, but seeing it in person would be amazing.

"I doubt that. You used to place below me during the races," Charles took a sip of his water.

"What are you insinuating then?" She snarled, and Max glanced over to the camera crew, signaling for them to leave. While this would do numbers for the ratings and news headlines, they were promised some share of money if they got their asses out.

"Um guys, I don't think we should be fighting, we have to cooldown anyway..." Max began, but his words fell onto deaf ears as Charles stood up from his seat to stalk over to where she stood.

"Maybe you'd be more likeable if you were honest with yourself, sometimes cheaters-" Charles began, standing his ground when she yelled back,

"So you think I cheated in this race? Seriously? That's your argument?"

"Well, we do know that last weekend there was water in your tires," Charles snapped,

"That wasn't my fault? Stop being such a sore loser, Leclerc. Maybe this is why you haven't won a championship yet."

Max's jaw dropped as he watched the words fly out of her mouth. Charles, in the meantime, tossed his water bottle to the ground and stepped closer to her with his finger in her face,

"At least I raced clean without losing grip when I tried to overtake someone. You just got lucky today, that's it."

"Luck, really? Yeah, tell me about your luck when you're fighting more with your teammate than with the other drivers on the grid during the race." She hissed.

Was it the air? Was it the fact that the adrenaline was still high after the race, or was it the fact that despite not being able to stand each other they were only centimeters apart. It didn't take long before Charles's hand dug into her scalp, pulling her head back ever so slightly as he kissed her. Seeing this as another challenge, (L/N) brought Charles down to the ground, both of them fighting to be on top while still furiously kissing each other. His hands gripped her waist and she had her arms around his neck, dragging him towards her as they rolled off of each other on the ground, tongues practically in each other's mouths with the intention of wanting to ruin each other. She scratched him, he yanked her hair, she punched his chest and he twisted her arm and yet their lips never stopped wanting to consume the other. It wasn't until (L/N) pulled away to breathe again did they both realize that Max was still there with a very shocked expression.

"I'm... I'm just going to leave and make sure uh no one else enters this room but uh guys you might want to... put yourself together before we get on the podium," Max had one hand covering his eyes as he walked out of the room.

"Do you think he's gonna tell people we just made out?" She asked, propping herself onto her elbows.

"I doubt it," Charles responded with a roll of his eyes, "I mean, who would go and loudly state that Charles Leclerc was kissing you of all people? I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy."

He winced when her hand smacked the back of his head.

𝙈𝙖𝙭 𝙑𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣

Max never forgot. He never forgot anything. He had made a promise to himself that he would wipe that smirk off her face and he intended to keep it. Even with all the setbacks that he was facing this particular weekend. Back to back penalties, a grip drop and on top of all this, a very haughty (Y/N) (L/N) purposely bumping into him on the paddock with a bright smile,

"Have fun! I've always wondered how the view from the back would look like for you," She chirped, speeding past him on a scooter. Max's jaw went taut, and he did little to hide his anger for the rest of the day. He was going to make sure that the race tomorrow would haunt her for the rest of her life. She had chosen the wrong person to mess with and he was determined to prove it to her.

Max was on a different level during the race, he was unbelievably fast and it surprised everyone but mainly (Y/N) (L/N).

Her radio went off, and someone buzzed through, "Max is currently at P6, he's coming up behind you."

"What the hell?" Her voice was a bit quiet, still in disbelief at the fact that Max was now right behind her, "How does he do this?"

And before she can react further, she sees him overtake her as he flashed his middle finger at her before speeding off. That got her going, and despite the radio telling her to calm down and control her motions, she began to chase after Max. Her ego was bruised but surely she could redeem herself. Unfortunately, she lost grip and her car went spiraling out of control towards the barriers.

"A safety car will be deployed soon, Max," GP informed the driver.

"Who crashed?"

"(Y/N) (L/N)."

Max couldn't help the giggle that escaped his lips, and to quote Alonso he merely stated, "Karma..." before turning his radio off for the rest of the race.

By the time all the celebrations were done, Max walked past (L/N)'s garage and he noticed the way she was pouting, legs crossed as she was busy texting somebody. Her fingers flew across the screen, and it almost looked like she was about to cry. Max did feel a bit bad for her, he knew she had worked to get to where she was - she was after all the only female driver on the grid so she was talented. He walked over to her in the best hopes that he could try to make her feel better, I mean he wasn't a monster.

"Oh, look who's here, the ugly ass sloth who can't mind his own business," She sneered, crossing her arms as she looked up at him. Yeah, that was it. Max didn't want to comfort her anymore, he was going to stoop down to her level.

"You know, maybe if you learned to shut your mouth and admit your mistakes, you could've actually done well in the race today." He scoffed, towering over her. She stood up, going back to texting her friend with a scowl on her face.

"Texting your mechanics to help salvage what's left of the car?" Max snorted.

"No, I'm texting my friend about how some douchebag keeps talking to me like I even asked for him. Like why the hell are you even here? Go back to your own garage, asshole." She snapped, pocketing her phone. Max threw his backpack onto the ground besides her and took a step forward,

"You know I was going to be nice to you-"

"You said Karma over the radio, I heard that shit clearly," She hissed, stepping closer as well.

"I said it in the moment, but right now I was going to be nice. I was going to comfort you. You are talented, you're not a shit driver like I said you were, but God... your ego. Your stubbornness. Your... your absolute pathetic move to shift the blame onto someone else for your wrong doings. Get over yourself, you don't know shit about your own car and yet you always blame me for something during the race!"

"My car is completely fine before you wrecked it!"

"Oh, so that DNF last weekend was my fault? You rammed into me! Let's not forget that!" Max yelled, glancing over to the new shiny car that would be in use next weekend.

"Oi, eyes on me," She snapped her fingers in his face, grabbing his jaw to turn it to her, "Don't stare at my winning car."

Max yanked her hand from his jaw, glaring at her. Oh, he hated her. He hated her so much. Even when he wanted to be nice to her, she always found a way to ruin it. How was it possible for a woman as beautiful and genuinely talented as her to somehow always end up as the most annoying, stuck-up little piece of shit that he had ever seen? Within seconds, he had her against her "amazing" car with his lips onto her. She gasped in surprise, eyes darting to the corner of the garage to make sure all the mechanics had left, but considering the way Max was making her melt in his kiss, her worries soon faded away. Max had one hand pressing her down against the car, her back hit the edge of the halo and she groaned in pain, causing her to arch into him as he deepened the kiss. Her hands came to grip onto his shoulders as she bit down on his bottom lip, and she could feel him smiling against her.

"I wish you were like this every weekend," He whispered, delving into another kiss. She wrapped her hand in his hair, tugging him gently away from her,

"I hope you realize this is a one time occurrence. I have standards," She smirked.

"They must be pretty low then like your racing skills," Max snapped, kissing her once more as he felt her smirk fade against his lips. He really did mean it when he said he was going to wipe it off her face, he just never imagined it to be in this way.

"Shut up," She mumbled, "Just shut up."

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dualityvn · 7 months ago

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Date 5 Progress and Others

Hello, everyone. I thought I'd give an update on Date 5 and my plans for the game as a whole.

I have been struggling with the script lately, because I find that the contents of the initial demo (prologue, date 1 and date 2) do not fit very well with the overall plot I am aiming for. I also feel the need to tweak the way I've been writing the main character. So, I apologize for the delay and for potential inconsistencies.

I am going to finish writing Date 5 without yet modifying earlier updates, but know that I have plans to edit the entire script before publishing the full game. Therefore, the final update may drastically change Date 1 and 2. The genre, characters and general concept will still remain the same, so please don't worry about the game becoming unrecognizable.

I can't yet give you a release date for Date 5, but I am doing my best to get it done as fast as I am able.

What Date 5 is going to contain:

- Elaborate NSFW scenes with each of the love interests. Much longer and more flexible than the ones in Date 3 Bad Ends

- Updated sprites

- A lot of CGs, majority of them NSFW

- SFW/fluff alternative scenes to the NSFW ones

- More murder

After Date 5:

This is one of the biggest updates of the game, because of how flexible and elaborate the NSFW scenes are. After this, there will be a smaller update called Interlude. This will be written from the perspective of Keith, Tenebris or a mix of both, depending on which route you're on.

After Interlude, the story will be branching out further and nearing the final update.

Thank you very much for your patience and support! I hope you all continue to enjoy this game and all it has to offer.

#duality game #updates

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facets-and-rainbows · 10 months ago

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Update from Kazue Katoh's Twitter

The Blue Exorcist hiatus will be extended for another month (through the November issue)

[Drawing of Katoh apologizing] Sorry for all the delays!

As Blue Exorcist celebrates its 15th anniversary, I'm taking my first ever unplanned three-month break from publishing it. I think it's about time to share more information on the situation with my readers...It's a personal matter but I'd like to tell you.

I was actually diagnosed with an illness at my regular checkup in March, and I've spent the last few months working in between hospital visits.

I've finished surgery, which went well, and I've been discharged for the time being, but I needed extra time for post-op treatment so I'm going to have to extend the hiatus.

It's ended up as a long 3-month wait, and I'm sorry about that!

I'll be keeping my exact diagnosis private for now, but in my case it shouldn't be life-threatening with proper treatment.

I'm currently back to work and feeling good, so don't worry too much!

[Drawing of Katoh in a hospital bed] I actually got excited for my first hospitalization, and my first surgery, and my first general anesthesia, and my first catheter... Maybe it's a manga artist thing. I had my catheter removed by a nurse who apparently reads Blue Exorcist, haha, nothing can scare me anymore (*Catheter=a tube that goes directly in the urethra) (Nurse: Take a deep breath and I'll take it out when you exhale...)

[Drawing of Katoh at the gym] I got back to the gym 3 days after I was discharged from the hospital! They said exercise will be good for my recovery.

The current plan is:

Next month: There will be no Blue Exorcist chapter in the November issue of Jump SQ (which comes out in October), but I'm drawing a new poster for it!

The month after next: Blue Exorcist is scheduled to return in the December issue of Jump SQ (which comes out in November.)

At any rate, I'll be continuing treatment alongside work for a while, so there may be times when that impacts my work and makes you all worry...Apologies in advance! My soul couldn't rest if I died before finishing Blue Exorcist, so I'm hoping to stick around and keep drawing it while I continue my treatment.

All this has just been spurring on my inconsistency as an author, but I hope you'll stick with Blue Exorcist going forward!

Kazue Katoh, Sept 4, 2024

[Drawing of Katoh making a determined little fist] And take care of yourselves too! Get your annual checkups!

#blue exorcist #ao no exorcist #translation #GIRL TAKE THE REST OF THE YEAR OFF IT'S FINE #you sound like a stereotypical AO3 author casually dropping bombshell life updates in the comments of a new chapter lol #Glad the prognosis sounds good at least

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ajokeformur-ray · 2 years ago

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The breeze seems to whisper 'I love you' // Astarion x gn!reader / Tav

This is my first Astarion fic so I really hope I bring him justice; he deserves that and everything else which is good in life. It took me three days in total to fall head over heels for him, and this piece is dedicated to @ace-tarion for being such a sweetheart in this, as in everything. I love you, dude!❤️

I haven't played BG3, I know maybe 80% of the plot (tadpoles in brain = bad = travel to Baldur's Gate), I've watched a ton of Astarion clips, so apologies for any inaccuracies or inconsistencies. I'm just here for Astarion (though I'd love to play BG3, I don't have any technology capable of running it💔).

Content: You/Tav x Astarion (established relationship), canonical past for Astarion is hinted at and laced within narrative, cuddles, animals referred to as 'snacks' within mentions of Astarion (only a mention; no actual description of animal-feeding/mentions of anything pertaining to animals being fed on).

Summary: Night-time falls, your heart sinks into your stomach as surely as your body sinks into your bedroll, and you want cuddles from Astarion.

Word count: 1, 624.

I am accepting requests for Astarion ❤️ no smut and no pregnancy/birth/kids!!

You lay on the cold, hard ground. The earth is unforgiving, soaking up the day's sweat without offering any kind of reprieve. Stones and hard clumps of dirt dig into your back through the bedroll, the wind is slightly too cold and it penetrates your thin blanket, haphazardly thrown over you in an attempt to ward off the elements.

Everyone has a tent, except you, and you make it a point to lay as close to the fire as you can on the nights Astarion is out hunting; it wouldn't do to help yourself to his tent. He keeps his tent away from the others, though still adhering to the semi-circle layout chosen by the others around the campfire. He would not mind you letting yourself in to his tent, he would likely welcome returning to you there, and yet you cannot justify it even to yourself.

After two hundred years of shit, pure shit, he deserves every ounce of privacy and the security of knowing his tent is his own.

You sit up just enough to shuffle yourself closer to the fire, curling inwards as a shiver wracks your body. It isn't cold, necessarily, but your temperature is not conducive to a restful sleep. You lay on your back, gazing up at the stars which punctuate the sky, breaking up the inky black and blues with pinpricks of white, yellow, and some dull spots of grey from the stars which died many eons ago and are now fading from the sky.

You promise yourself you'll try to remember their placement in the sky.

Despite the best of intentions, you know that you won't.

Your vision goes blurry at the edges as you continue staring up at the night sky, looking for any constellations you recognise by way of finding yourself a bedtime story to recount as you try to fall asleep. The leaves on the trees sway gently in the breeze, and your mind wanders, as it so often does, to Astarion. Your sweet vampire, who simultaneously breaks your heart and put it back together in the same moment every time you uncover more of who he is, more of his past.

Oh, but you love him.

Of its own accord does your body take a long, deep breath in, your heart sinking into your stomach as surely as your body melts into the bedroll. All of your thoughts of Astarion and all of your feelings for him are safe inside yourself, and they serve you now in warming you from the inside out.

Your eyes slide closed, and if you press your forehead closer into your blanket, you can almost tell yourself that you can feel Astarion lying down beside you, you can smell bergamot and feel his silver hair tickle your cheeks, you can feel his fingers intertwined with yours, your legs tangled together, his crimson eyes upon your face so intently fixed like he's scared to blink in case you disappear before his eyes, leaving him clutching only the cold night air, his equally cold body pressed against every line of yours...

You smile to yourself and burrow deeper into your blanket, feeling sleepier, warmer and closer to your rest by the second. Thoughts of Astarion flood your mind and you curl up tighter, as if to keep all these thoughts right where they are. You know if you open your eyes that you'll be alone; you know not where Astarion is this night, but you know he is trying to sate his hunger with the snacks which live in the forest.

So you keep your eyes shut.

As you allow yourself to slip further into your threshold consciousness, you wonder what Astarion would say to you if he returned at this very moment...

"Hello, sweet. Gods, you are beautiful."

You smile again and squeeze your blanket ever tighter to you. Yes, he would probably say something like -

Wait.

Was that - ?

With great caution do you open your eyes, ready to slam them shut again once you see that Astarion isn't there, that he didn't just speak to you. But instead of the cold hard truth slamming into you, flowers bloom in your heart because Astarion is here, looming over you, his silver curls seeming to be glowing in the soft moonlight. His crimson eyes seem black, his charming smirk soft at the edges as he gazes down at you with obvious fondness, vulnerable such as it is.

Of all the stars above me, this one's the prettiest, you think to yourself, and you open your eyes wider to better enjoy the view.

Astarion's smirk melts until it becomes a smile as he kneels down beside you, one of his arms reaching out to brush a leaf away from your face. His fingers ghost across your skin, and you shiver. "Thank you, darling. I know I'm beautiful. Not enough people mention it." His joke fades into vulnerability, as it so often does around you.

But it is no matter. You always meet him where he is, and right now it is no exception.

You smile at Astarion, all of the love for him shining in your eyes until they look like molten galaxies, and he swears he feels his heart, which stopped working centuries ago, skip a beat. You are unguarded where you lay in your threshold consciousness, not embarrassed to have spoke aloud your thoughts, and Astarion wonders if the old saying, that love makes fools of people, is true. You lay at the foot of a vampire, at the foot of a predator, smiling at him, physically and emotionally vulnerable, completely unguarded. Most others at the camp are asleep, Astarion can hear, and yet here you are...

Wait. Why are you awake?

"Darling," Astarion's voice is a hush and you strain your ears to be able to hear him. He bends closer to you to accommodate, anticipating your needs before you fully register them yourself, "Why aren't you sleeping? No harm shall befall you when I'm here." Long ago, he had sought your protection, but now he wanted you both to be safe. If this is how the mighty fall, then Astarion must admit that he is happy he lost his balance. He quite likes the view from down here.

You shake your head and shuffle closer still, unable to get close enough to your most beloved vampire. "Can't sleep without you." I just want to be held.

Oh, help him, but this is devastating in its simplicity. His undead heart bleeds and words have brought Astarion to the point where they run dry. Instead, he stands, and reaches a hand out to you. The message is clear - he wants you to accompany him to his tent, he wants to carve a piece of heaven out with you amongst all the chaos unleashed, he wants to hold and to be held.

Astarion just wants you, and who are you to deny him?

One of your hands slips into his while the other pulls the blanket away from you and Astarion's smile widens as he effortlessly pulls you up to stand beside him. You bend to scoop up your bedroll, and follow Astarion into your tent. The door flap flutters in the wind as Astarion releases it, and it settles in place like a butterfly finding a flower.

You find yourselves easily, your bedroll dumped next to Astarion's, pushed up close until his bedroll becomes a double. It's a well established routine for the two of you, with you spending more nights here than you don't. You never enter his tent if he isn't here, and you certainly never come in without his permission. One day, Astarion will find the words to convey his appreciation for your concern, but until then, he will remind you at every chance he finds that you are always welcome. He finds it greatly ironic that you seek permission to enter space and he, a vampire, does not. He knows he is welcome, wanted, cherished, loved.

It took some work for the both of you to get here, but his months with you are the counterweight to the hell he escaped from.

He'll never be able to thank you enough, he has no idea what he is doing, but perhaps this is a start.

Somehow, through the fuzziness of denied sleep, you end up back in bed, your blanket around you and Astarion's still chest under your head. He lays beneath you like he is patiently waiting for you to make yourself comfortable, and you take the opportunity to wind both of your arms around his waist and squeeze, pulling yourself up just enough to be able to bury your face in his neck. One of your legs slips between his, anchoring the two of you together.

Slowly, like he's afraid to move too quickly in case you disappear within his grasp and leave Astarion holding nothing but the cold empty night air, his hands settle upon your back and a sigh which seems to come from deep within him spells peace for the both of you. "This is nice," Astarion's voice rumbles through your ear and you press yourself ever closer to him, unable to get close enough. Your arms constrict around him again and you feel yourself smile as all those sleepy dreams you were having earlier are now here, beneath you, wrapped around you. As you hold on tighter, so too does Astarion, until the two of you are so completely intertwined that the elements cannot reach you. He has no body temperature and yet you are the comfiest and the warmest you have ever been.

Safe.

This time, Astarion doesn't tell you that you accidentally spoke your thoughts aloud.

#astarion x reader #astarion #baldurs gate 3 astarion #baldurs gate 3 x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #astarion comfort #astarion fluff #bg3 x reader #bg3

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