#that first verse is on repeat. and has been. for three days | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mothiir · 8 months ago

Note

yknow what??? fuck it. im not even gonna turn on anon. IM NOT EVEN GONNA DO IT!! because at this point you'd clock my ass a nautical mile off for who it is just bc im gonna ask for exactly what you caught me for on anon LAST TIME.

SO,,,, haha,,,, heyyyy mothiiiiir,,,, pllllleeeasse more nasty ass rabbit/emp headcanonnns OR writing or anything,, you always cook and im one starving ass loser.

thank you ily and your writing once again ok ok ok BYEEE

cw: angst, not what you intended but this got me thinking about the emperor and then uh. we got this. not set in the little rabbit verse, which will soon become obvious. playing loose with the canon timelines because i don’t know exactly how the burning of monarchia went down.

—

Monarchia burns — and three days later, Guilliman and his sons make planet fall.

—

It takes a great deal to surprise a Primarch, and yet here Guilliman is, blinking at the charred rubble of your former capital, struggling to find words.

“Say that again,” he says, at length. You sit up from your prostrated position, lifting your head just enough to address his shins rather than the ground.

“There is no penance great enough for the crime we have committed against the Emperor and the Imperium,” you say, your voice soft, but ringing clear. “There is no punishment that we do not deserve for such blatant defiance of the Imperial Truth. I can state that we were misled — which is true — and that we were ignorant, but that is no excuse. All I can say is that when I discovered that my Lord Husband was acting in defiance of the Emperor’s wishes, I acted as swiftly as I could to remedy it.”

It makes even less sense the second time around. The once-glorious city is wreathed in flames; the sun blotted out by a miasma of smoke. The same story is repeated across the entire planet. A revolution almost overnight — temples torn down, idols cast into the sea, believers put to the sword. The few Word Bearers that remained had died at their posts; they had slaughtered thousands of their kinsman, but died all the same. Bears torn down by hounds.

“You did this,” he says. You shake your head minutely. Your hair — once a glorious braid almost to your waist, always ornamented with some fancy that Lorgar had gifted you — has been chopped into an unkempt bob around your shoulders. Guilliman vaguely remembers a tale amongst Lorgar’s adopted people: of a queen who had lost a great battle, and shorn her locks in penance.

“No my lord. I did nothing. My people acted against the rot in our ranks. They carved it out.”

“Millions have died.”

“It is no great loss that those who would espouse the evils of theology perish,” you say, your voice as flat and featureless as a windless sea. “All I ask is that those that remain…”

For a moment, emotion returns to your voice, colouring it.

“All I ask is that some of them be spared. Please.”

You lift your face for the first time since his arrival. Your lips are lined with blood, shadows hung beneath eyes sunk deep into their sockets. In the space of three days, you seem to have aged decades — from a fresh-faced woman in the bloom of youth, to a crone who has seen the ending of all that she loves.

—

The seas do not boil. The sky does not burn. Another battle is brought to a shuddering, decisive end as the Ultramarines join on the side of your rebels — no, you cannot think of them as such. They are not rebels; they are vindicated. They are fighting for the truth, for what is right and good. They are crusaders.

You — you are not a crusader. You are not sure what to call yourself. Lorgar called you a goddess; a title that always disquieted you, but you accepted it, for his eyes shone so when he looked at you, and he made love to you as though you were the only thing that mattered. Now, you have lost count of the number of men and women who have died for referring to you as such.

You are not a widow either. Your husband lives, though you do not know where he is. Once, Lorgar pressed his hand to your chest and felt the thrum of your heart against his palm and said that no matter where you went there was a golden cord that bound your heart to his; that no void nor fire could split asunder what was joined in love.

You dream that you wind a golden chain around your hands, pull it taut, and bite until your teeth chip, until your tongue bleeds, until it frays into dust on your lips.

—

When you meet the Emperor, you press your forehead to the cinder-warm flagstones that used to be a marketplace, and you wait for death. You know, in a distant dreamy sort of way, that you should be afraid, but you are not. You accepted your death what seems like a lifetime ago — in reality, it is less than four days since you gave the order to start burning the temples.

The irony of it all. People answered your call to arms, to not-so-holy war, because you are Lorgar’s bride, because you are the woman once called goddess. And what did you do with the power that he gave you? You ordered that his greatest works be destroyed.

But what else could you have done?

Colchis is your home. And in his arrogance — in his endless childish arrogance — Lorgar would have let it burn to ash rather than do as he had been bid. Did he truly believe his father a god? If so, why would he not obey his commandments as soon as they were given?

Thinking this way hurts you — not only because it stirs anger like a wounded animal in your breast, but because it throws into stark relief how Lorgar’s mind contained chasms and corners you never saw. How even though you gave yourself to him as completely as a woman can, he always kept parts of himself hidden from you — but you will not waste time delving into that labyrinth. His beliefs are inconsequential. Only the facts matter. Lorgar worshipped his father as a god. Lorgar was told to stop. Lorgar did not.

You visited the day of judgement upon Colchis before the Emperor got the chance, betting everything on a single desperate gesture. You do not regret it, though you will dream of the dying wails of your people until the end of your days. If you had not acted, all would have died. Now, maybe — just maybe — some may live.

“The girl acted in the best interests of her people,” the Emperor says, and it is only then that you realise precisely what was happening: he was rifling around in your head, subtly enough that you could not see the intrusion; mistaking his exploration for an ill-timed moment of navel-gazing. All at once, pain rushes into your knees and thighs, knife-like cramps. How long have you been kneeling there?

Then, inexplicably, a wash of frustration: girl, he calls you. Girl. You are staring down your third decade of life — nothing for one such as him, of course, but really.

Girl. You carved out your still-warm heart and laid it on a flaming altar and he refers to you as girl.

“Stand,” he says, and you obey, fighting the hysterical urge to snort with laughter — you’re exhausted, swooning, and starting to feel the after-effects of the universe’s most powerful psyker reading your thoughts. Blood drips down your chin. “I am satisfied with the efforts of your loyal Imperial citizens against the primitive cultists.”

“Thank you my lord,” you say, keeping your gaze fixed on the ground — thus missing entirely the swift, puzzled look Guilliman gives you, for ‘I am satisfied’ is more praise than the Emperor normally gives anyone.

(And perhaps it is just a trick of the light, or the wild shadows cast by the afterglow of battle, but Guilliman swears that just for a moment his father smiles.)

“Heracles,” says the Emperor, addressing one of the gigantic golden sentinels standing to attention beside him. “You will escort her aboard the Bucephalus. We will speak further when I have dealt with my son.”

The golden sentinel inclines her head, and you try your best to stay upright, your legs shaky as a newborn colt. You do not think of what the Emperor will do to Lorgar; you cannot.

“It goes without saying,” says the Emperor, almost as an afterthought. “But your marriage to him is annulled.”

Eight years. Your life; your heart; that golden cord. What love has joined together, none may tear asunder - except that is not true, was never true.

“Yes my lord,” you say.

#Not much shipping lol #lorgar/reader #ask moth #my writing

73 notes · View notes

aza-writes · 2 years ago

Text

Morning Affirmations

Lip Gallagher x female!reader

Requested: no

Summary: Lip walks in on his girlfriend singing to the younger kids while she gets them ready for the day. Takes place in season 4 after Liam gets home from the hospital

Warnings: few curse words, mentions of drug use (Fiona in jail) but overall, it’s just tons of FLUFF

A/N: inspired by “I love my body” by @mothermoon on TikTok. Might rewrite something similar for dad!lip, lmk what you think. Got bored before lab and wrote this

The floorboards creaked under every step Lip took to get down to the kitchen. He wasn’t too concerned with anything too wrapped up in his mind until two sweet voices pull him out.

“I love my body from my…”

“Head to my toes.”

Liam’s voice was hard to hear, even in the quietness of the unusually empty Gallagher house. Everyone was already at school or wherever they ran off to today—leaving Lip home alone to take care of some things.

Liam has only been home from the hospital for two days, leaving Lip and the rest of the family still scrambling without Fiona running the show. Lip had school off today, some random college holiday that didn’t make sense for a lot of people, but they took it anyway.

Lip had been out of bed since 5 that morning, unsure if it was considered a late night or an early morning due to the fact he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours the night before. His mind was going a million miles an hour, mixed with him worrying himself sick about Liam and going to check on him every thirty minutes. Every time he would get up from his bed, y/n would sit up, too. Her concerned look was always dismissed with a quick “go back to sleep” or “I’ll be back soon” from Lip. The “soon” in question was around five to ten minutes of Lip just sitting in front of Liam’s bed, watching his chest rise and fall.

Y/n stayed up and waited for Lip the first few times, but soon enough her eyes got too heavy for her to ignore. Even with the extra sleep, caffeine would be her best friend today.

Lip’s mind was still groggy as he trudged down the stairs, stress and sleep deprivation felt like chains were strapped to the back of his ankles. He barely made out the words y/n and Liam were exchanging.

“I love my face…” She lingered for a second, allowing Liam to think about the next verse. She smiles and continued on. “My-”

“Eyes, my mouth my nose.” Lip could help but smile at the sight of Liam touching every body part mentioned. He clearly knew this song, yet Lip couldn’t think of any of the words. When ever you would sing it to one of his younger siblings, all he could do was hear your voice. The kindergarten-teacher-like tone was enough for him to abandon all of his thoughts and focus on you.

“I like the way I look when I look in the mirror.” Liam didn’t have to wait for y/n this time, he sang it with her. Their voices both were quiet, almost scared to wake anyone up, but the house stayed quiet. It was just those three in that house, the outside world didn’t matter.

“I stand a little closer just to see a little clearer.” Both of their smiles were beaming. Liam giggling at y/n’s little tickles all over his belly and neck. Lip’s grew too. Y/n was so amazing with the kids, Lip could’ve sworn it as always been this way. Y/n and Lip, Lip and y/n. They belonged together.

Everyone in his family loved her. Carl made her a gift out of melted spoons and forks, Debbie demands they have a girls day at least once a month. Shit, even Frank called her “one of the good ones.” Technically it was after she downed a shot of vodka without even wincing, but he still liked her non the less.

Y/n turns around smiling, it only growing when she finally sees Lip.

“Good morning babe.”

“Morning babe!” Liam repeats immediatly, causing Lip and y/n to giggle with him.

Lip pours two cups of coffe before heading to the kitchen table. “Good morning to you.” He sets the coffe right in front of y/n while kissing her cheek. He carefully set his down too and kissed Liams cheek. “Good morning little man.”

#lip gallagher x reader #lip gallagher #lip x reader #shameless us #phillip gallagher #lip gallagher x you #lip gallagher fluff #lip gallagher x y/n #lip gallagher fic #lip gallagher blurb

804 notes · View notes

cysomen · 3 months ago

Text

i'm normal about cypher's home again card. i'm normal about the fact that the leaves in front of him are probably a specific cultivar of spearmint leaves (Mentha spiata var. crispa 'Moroccan' but its common name is Moroccan mint or nana mint, though technically the latter refers to a different cultivar) and you may think: well why is that significant, and it's because recognized cultivars of any plant mean they're significantly different from other cultivars to be named as such. that is all to say, cypher can't get this type of mint anywhere else.

specific cultivars of mint aren't incredibly difficult to get (especially in this day and age) but i'd like to think him drinking mint tea with fresh leaves is a nod to the fact that he probably drinks the dried kind while on base; cypher could have a live mint plant he has propagated or grown himself, although the chance of him being able to keep it alive while actively doing missions is not very high. so it's significant to the concept of being "home again"; that is, he gets to drink it the way that's most familiar to him.

secondly, Moroccan mint tea is primarily served to guests, which puts the perspective of the card into question. he hasn't removed his mask, of course, and seemingly no other glasses have been poured and/or set with herbs. so he either prepared the tray himself (which would be weird for him to set it with three glasses if he's removing his mask while alone to drink) or he was given it already prepared, highlighting the fact he's only pouring one glass. it could be that he's meeting with someone, and has only poured the tea for himself out of politeness, but that's just an interpretation of it.

that does create the concept of cypher, while on base, only being able to drink a tea served in social situations while by himself.

and lastly, though this may be a stretch, the other possible meaning of three glasses. the source for this is unclear, and it being repeated in several vaguely tourist-esque articles makes me kind of doubt its authenticity, but there's a proverb that references the way Moroccan mint tea is prepared. as the green tea leaves are left in the tea, the flavor changes as time goes on, becoming more bitter. the saying goes as: "The first glass is as gentle as life, the second is as strong as love, the third is as bitter as death." i have seen sources that instead use "bitter as life" for the first glass and "soothing as death" for the last. the lack of the other two glasses being drunk from or even being set with herbs as they should be if he was serving multiple people, i thought the possible meaning was interesting enough to share.

sources under the readmore!

first, here's the image i'm referencing, brightened and cleaned up a little:

var. crispa 'Moroccan' (it was surprisingly difficult to find the cultivar name)

this article mentions the first Moroccan proverb translation, as well as some information about it as a social activity (can't find an original source for the proverb)

alternative article that mentions the proverb's other translation (i think?)

as a disclaimer i am not Moroccan and nor am i versed in Moroccan tea culture, so if any of this is incorrect or improperly linked please let me know!

#my major is showing in the mint cultivar thing DONT LOOK AT ME #im unsure if this concept has been spoken about before but i thought the mint was especially interesting AAH #cypher valorant #valorant headcanons #headcanons tag #do i think riot cares even remotely about all this symbolism or cultural significance? no. do i? yes

16 notes · View notes

janamelie · 7 months ago

Text

New Red Dwarf Challenge

Day 12: Favourite Alternate Universe/Reality/Version of a Character

The “Back To Reality” despair squid hallucination-verse and the AU versions of our characters we encounter within.

Yes, I know it’s grim but it also fascinates me. The episode is of course outstanding in every respect and I realised on a recent rewatch that it’s not actually clear when the hallucination begins - I always assumed it was just before Starbug “crashes” and the “computer game” ends and gives our Boyz an insulting score of 4% just to rub it in even further.

But for all we know, they’re already hallucinating when the episode starts; there is no indication otherwise. Just another layer of unease added to a truly chilling episode.

It’s been pointed out by others how well paced the episode is - it doesn’t pile on the agony straight away, instead first letting our Boyz take in how different they look physically. Cat and Rimmer are horrified. Lister isn’t exactly delighted with his new Sebastian hair but Kryten is mildly pleased to be half-human. Despite his Billy hair, Rimmer is initially pleased to be human again and almost more importantly, he’s not Rimmer.

But these glimmers of hope are of course the hallucination setting them up for further shocks. Kryten is pleased to be Jake Bullet, but Rimmer’s devastatingly accurate prediction that cybernautics is actually traffic control “and you just happen to have a rather silly macho name” brings him crashing back down to earth. Of course that’s nothing compared to his horror when he believes he’s killed a human being in cold blood. That’s his reason for suicide and it makes sense for the character.

As does Cat’s. Duane Dibbley is a brilliant creation, so much so that he’s resurfaced several times both in the show and official merchandise. He’s a lovably hopeless geek and Cat’s worst nightmare. I laugh every time he just repeats “Duane Dibbley?” disbelievingly.

Of course this character was given added depth by the revelation (OK, retcon) in “The Promised Land” about Rodon and the other Cats leaving Cat behind for being uncool. Whilst it doesn’t totally fit with “Waiting For God”, it does make absolute sense that Duane Dibbley would be Cat’s ultimate nightmare. Suddenly his reasoning isn’t only shallowness but abandonment issues. Take another look at the orange outfit with puffa jacket he wears in “TPL”. It’s almost like Cat cosplaying Duane, poignantly suggesting that no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t manage to repress his inner Duane completely.

Talking of repression… Rimmer not wanting to be Billy Doyle is understandable on a surface level - who wants to be a scruffy alcoholic tramp? But the rather pat explanation Kryten offers at the end about Rimmer being outshone by “his richer, more important half-brother” doesn’t make that much sense when regular Rimmer has three more successful full brothers (as far as he knows at this stage of the show) and has always used his upbringing as an excuse for his not becoming an officer.

I’m fully aware Grant Naylor weren’t thinking along these lines but within the world of the hallucination, Billy sinking into alcoholism because he’s attracted to his half-brother and can’t handle that for obvious reasons is a logical translation of Rimmer’s subconscious attraction to Lister into the hallucination.

And it also fits for Lister if he returns that attraction. Lister’s mild pleasure at being rich and having an expensive car is another example of the hallucination setting our characters up for even nastier shocks. He’s already disturbed and uncomfortable in Sebastian’s fancy clothes (although I personally think Craig looks great in them, but there is no denying, they’re not what our Lister would usually wear. I say usually because Posh Lister exists).

Having looked into a monitor and seen the “next players” playing a completely alien version of the show we know where “Dave Lister” is apparently supposed to be a macho arsehole, the next shock for Lister is far greater. He’s not just a posh rich git, he’s a fascist mass-murderer.

Huge kudos to guest star Lenny Von Dohlen, who chills the blood in his short appearance as a terrifying fascist cop who - wait - is terrified himself, of Lister. Or rather, of the Voter Colonel. This scene is amazing, absolutely hooking the viewer into this dystopian world.

But Red Dwarf is of course, ultimately a comedy. Having pushed its shocks as far as it can, we get the revelation that the crew are hallucinating and the comic relief car chase scene. And then just as the audience have relaxed, they realise that the crew are still in very grave danger.

But Hattie’s Holly, in her swansong appearance, saves the day. Yay. If she never returns, at least she went out on a high.

#red dwarf #rdc24

32 notes · View notes

detroitbydark · 11 days ago

Text

CATCH UP DAY!

Going back to Day 3 for @deltasquadweek for my final submission. This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this and I had a lot of fun just throwing stuff together the day of and seeing where my flow of thought would take me. I look forward to next time. Until then here’s Day 3 ‘Blaster’. All my love and thanks goes out to my best friend @fractiouskat who took time out of her day EVERY DAY to edit for me. Love you girl.

Rating: General

Characters: Scorch, Walon Vau, and a series of Skiratas.

Summary: Scorch celebrates his first holiday in Mandalore.

A/N This takes place in my Clan Vau verse. Post defect but prior to Sev’s liberation from Kasshyk. this holiday as well as four others were the brain children of @crimson-dxwn and I ages and ages past. If anyone has interest in them I’d be more than happy to share. (My secret dream is that these become accepted fanon 😂).

——-

His first holiday home is Tuur be Arpatir. The Mandalorian ‘day of planting’ doesn’t sound like any great celebration to Scorch. It sounds like work, and while Delta CC-1262 has never been afraid of work, he’s not exactly signing up for it.

Fenn Shysa had deposited him at Kyrimorut nearly a week prior with a pat on the shoulder and a jovial bonk of his forehead to Scorch’s own before hightailing it back to Keldabe. Scorch still isn’t sure whether he’s thankful or not. He doesn’t have the first idea of what ‘home’ should feel like, but nothing here feels quite right.

He starts the day in the kitchen. He still rises early, the habit too deeply ingrained into his soul to do anything but rise before the sun. He helps set the long, rough hewn table for breakfast. Plates, utensils, napkins, cups- He mentally checks off each thing he’s directed to do like a good little soldier. He gets a smile from Laseema that makes his face go warm, and ignores Atin’s glare. The rest of the Skirata clan files in not long after he’s finished. Scrambled nuna eggs are spooned into plates followed by fatty fried slices of roba bacon, the edges crispy. The whole room is perfumed with the smell of bread- herb-laden savory loaves, enriched sweet rolls bursting with dried fruit from the previous fall, fresh buttery biscuits. Carafes of caf that never seem to empty circle the table. There’s a glass jar full of uj syrup, deep golden brown and intended to be drizzled over… Well, most of them would eat their own boots if they put enough on them, so really most of them just led with their heart.

Scorch finds himself sat next to his former training sergeant. Vau doesn’t exchange a single word with him, and he’s ok with that. He still doesn’t know what to say. It may be the first time in his life- his new one, his old one, it doesn’t matter. The words don’t flow, and it all feels strange in a way he doesn’t think he could describe even if they did.

He’s got his own room. One of three in Walon Vau’s portion of the yaim. It's not large by civilian standards, but the empty bed across from his makes it feel cavernous. Delta commandos were never meant to function without their pod. There’s a level of guilt in his chest, dug in and resolute. He’s here and they’re not. Sev is in the wind. Boss and Fixer are still tools of the new Empire. And… he is free. Whatever that means.

But here he is, dressed in civilian clothes and working through his list of assigned morning chores to prepare for the holiday at hand. He didn’t think he’d ever celebrate a holiday- they weren’t made for him. He’d watched enough civilians celebrate life day and planetary festivals- by comparison, sweeping and dusting seem a bit… underwhelming. He snorts. A puff of dust explodes off the mantle and directly into his face in reply, and he sneezes on repeat for a solid 30 seconds. There’s a series of hardy laughs around him. Scorch catches Fi’s eye, the former Omega offering him a grin as he sets to work with a mop and bucket. Scorch turns back to his task at hand, albeit with a little more care than before. He’s requisitioned to help with the garden a short while later.

Mereel and Corr Skirata show him the ropes of getting the garden plot ready for planting. It was no small affair. He watches as Mereel collects tiny samples of soil, running it through a spectrometer, and then mixes up a concoction of Fett-knows-what to scatter across the surface with a large spreader before going over it again with what can only be described as a turbo tiller. Parja and Ordo Skirata follow behind, pressing tiny bundles of seeds or small plants into the rows. Everything works like a well oiled machine.... except for maybe him.

Lunch is a grazing affair, with plates full of sandwiches being passed around and eaten on the go. Little pots of pickled vegetables get picked through and added to the fare.

When afternoon rolls around, the outdoor work slows to a trickle. Scorch watches as the gathered Mando’ade set up small workstations around the house and yard. Tools, brushes, and small pots of paint appear all around him while everyone sets to work taking apart armor and touching up the painted colors and patterns. He tries not to feel out of place in the deadman’s armor he wore, piecemealed as it was… and yeah, maybe there’s some jealousy there. It’s the strange feeling of being just outside the window, watching something he’s not supposed to be a part of.

“Six-Two. Stop slouching.’ The sharp correction behind him has Scorch popping to attention and turning quickly. There, looking imperious in his pristine head-to-toe matte black beskar’gam, stands Walon Vau.

‘Sorry Sargeant.’ There’s a quiet moment between them. Awkward. It drags for a few breaths before Vau gives a shake of his head. Scorch waits for further admonishment but it never comes.

‘I’ve got use for you elsewhere. Stop gawking at the Skiratas and come with me.’ He doesn’t wait before he heads for the main door of the yaim at a brisk walk. Scorch pauses, glances toward the Skirata clan. For a small personal army of hardened spies and soldiers, all of them seem to find their work utterly absorbing and don’t so much as glance his way. Scorch huffs a sharp breath through his nose. Yeah, right,. Busybodies.

What was the old man on about? Scorch had never not been curious even when he’d known it would get him corrected. Now without the looming specter of his trainers discipline that curiosity could be ignored as much as his nose on his face. There was no use trying to hide it now. Military bearing laid to rest, Scorch trots after the former cuy dal var Sargeant. He doesn’t see the various sets of amused eyes following him.

——

It’s only the reinforced durasteel door that stands between him and a veritable toy store of weaponry. He’d seen the Armory in passing, but had yet to get the grand tour. He gets it. He’s an outsider, even if he was one of them. Can’t be giving the keys to the city out to every swinging dick clone that shows up. So yeah, he gets it, but I still irks him just a little bit.

“Give me your hand Six-Two. Pay attention.” To be fair, Mirdalan was at his side with his maw far too close to Scorch’s aforementioned swinging dick for comfort- even if the damn creature was looking between him and his master and fekking smiling.

Scorch eyes the reader in front of him, “Sarge? Pretty sure every other di’kut in the place has the same prints as me.”

“And you would be pretty wrong. Cuts, callouses, burns, give you all the variation of prints that the Manda did not. Now. Hand.” Scorch tentatively raises his hand only to have his wrist snatched up and his palm pressed roughly against the reader. A light scans over the length of his palm before a high beep signals. Vau drops his hand before keying in… something.

“There. You have the same access as each of your brethren. Do try to stay out of personal lockers. In the civilian world, touching another man’s rifle is likely to get you beaten.”

“Noted, sir.” Scorch flexes his fingers and absently goes up and down the line of them, tapping each tip to his thumb as his eyes adjust to the dimmer interior lights. And…FEKKING FETT! He thought they’d had access to good equipment in the GAR, but this? This was something special.

To the left there’s a neat row of lockers marked with names-

“Yours is at the end.”

He nods as Walon steps further into the building and the door slides shut behind them. The silence is almost deafening. Reinforced walls and-

“It’s triple reinforced. A protection measure. What blows up here, stays here.”

“Sir?”

“Yes Six-Two?” Scorch feels a certain sense of nostalgia at the old merc's exasperated tone.

“When do I get to learn to read minds?”

He hears a huff and something that sounds like, “mouthy di’kut’ come through Vau’s vocoder. He manages to maintain a straight face by sheer force of will.

Walon continues his tour. The area for smithing. The tools for making slugs. The- he’s died and gone to explosives heaven- the det-making desk full of jars labeled with all the bright flashy ordinance powders he could ever want, and baskets of empty sets just waiting to be filled. The sheer scope is amazing. He’d known they called it an armory, but he hadn’t believed it was truly an armory.

“Don’t dawdle.” Scorch snaps back to reality as he follows behind Walon Vau. The Mandalorian stops at a long table and steps to the side, snapping his fingers for Scorch to come to heel. He succeeds in bringing both the man and the strill that had been resting peacefully by the entrance. Mird’s golden head plops down on the table after it wiggles its way between the two. Scorch tries to hold back the shudder when the creature looks up at its master and a tether of saliva extends from its mouth to the table top.

“That will do Mirdalan.” The strill huffs and lays down, pressing itself between the bench legs and Walon’s own. The creature’s loose skin makes it appear as if it’s melted over Vau’s boots. “These are yours.”

Scorch is pretty sure his eyes are bulging from the sockets. He does his best to rein it in (with questionable results). Focus, Scorch. It’s just a blaster. Blasters, he corrects. The matched set of Westar-35’s all but sparkle in their custom case. Scorch looks over at the dark t-visor of the Mandalorian at his side.

“Are you going to stand there all day with your mouth wide catching flies?” Scorch’s teeth clack together as he closes his mouth. “Pick them up, damn it all.”

Knowing better than to make his training sergeant order him twice, Scorch lifts the pair out of the foam lined beds. He’d never not loved a blaster, but he’d never had one that was all his own, that hadn’t been handed out to a million other jackasses like himself. It hits him hard in the chest and he has to fight the urge to try and rub the feeling away. He rotates his wrists, taking in the weight and feel of the pair of weapons in his hands, the way the metal warms in his touch, the sleek lines.

His eyes find Walon watching.

“If you cry I swear I will return them.”

Scorch can’t help the smile that splits his face, “gotcha Sir, no waterworks from me.”

“Well, praise the Manda for small favors.”

Scorch will never tell a soul, but he’s pretty sure he hears the old barve grinning underneath that buyce.

“Now, if you're going to be staying here, we need to discuss fixing the unfortunate situation that is your beskar’gam.”

“Yes sir!”

#deltasquadweek #deltasquadweek2025 #republic commando #walon vau #clone commando scorch

13 notes · View notes

ananxiousgenz · 1 year ago

Text

okay okay okay wait i have just experienced A Thought

so it's been established that the title of the most recent juno steel eps comes from the coal miner song "sixteen tons", most notably covered by tennessee ernie ford. you can find it on youtube or spotify, but it's about the backbreaking labor and dangerous conditions these miners would go through for very little pay, and because of this, the most obvious reading is that this song title was chosen to be about nureyev working to keep slip alive for years only to discover that the dokana group was screwing him over.

but. what if the song title wasn't just in relation to nureyev but to slip as well?

stick with me for a minute here, because i've got some interesting thoughts about this.

the lyrics of the first verse focus on how the people in power think that the men working beneath them are just soulless lumps of dirt when in reality they are people made of "muscle and blood and skin and bones" who are purposefully under-educated ("a mind that's a-weak") so they can only do manual labor for a living ("and a back that's strong"). slip's intention with his drug formula was to give people an escape from reality. he wanted to help those people who could do nothing but work and wanted to flip off the pharma corps by making it easily affordable and non-addictive. the first verse is basically a summary of the motives that drove him to that game of rangian street poker with the executives that brought him where he is now.

the chorus is even more interesting.

yeah, you really could interpret this in relation to peter's quest for slip's resurrection, but it could also get connected to slip's dedication to creating this drug. peter flat out told us that slip put A LOT of work and testing into it and it wasn't just something that happened overnight. however, what specifically stands out to me here is the last two lines and the reference to st. peter. in sixteen tons part 2, slip basically gives peter permission to let him go (see this post from @smidgen-of-hotboy). if we're reading this from slip's pov, the song is just reiterating that message: peter can let slip go. he knew the risks he was taking by tangling with the executives and stealing from them so his soul is really the one that is owed "to the company store", which is why slip wouldn't want peter to "call him" (resurrect him) because he made the decisions and mistakes so he would want to be the one paying for them. every day that peter leaves him alive is just another day slip is getting older and not better. every day peter leaves slip alive is another day his debt is growing larger. for the sake of his own wellbeing, peter HAS to let slip go.

the rest of the verses are basically a summary of nureyev's story thus far (verse two being his new story being born as he starts working for the dokana group, verse three being his interactions with juno and leaving him at the end of season 4, and verse 4 being the absolute ass-kicking he's about to hand the dokana group) but with the chorus that is just chock-full of slip's voice getting repeated between those verses, it just almost feels like slip is begging to be let go but peter, being peter, won't listen. it's very interesting stuff.

#the penumbra podcast #tpp #tpp spoilers #peter nureyev #slipjackson #junoverse #apologies for the long essay but i got excited about this

66 notes · View notes

nerdyvocals · 2 years ago

Text

9 People to Know Better (except I'm not tagging 9 people)

I don't normally do tag games, but I got tagged in this twice (by @jealous-kippen and @remmixx, my beloveds <3) so here I am! (also as I'm writing this out I am realizing that while both posts were titled the same way, it looks like they had different question prompts??? So I'm just gonna combine the two)

Favorite Color: Purple! Any shade will have my heart but I am partial to more red-toned purples. (PV, if that means anything to anyone who sees this other than me, you know who you are)

Currently Reading: Three things! In terms of actual books, I've been slowly making my way through the Riordanverse since my university did The Lightning Thief in my second year (first school in my state to do it once the rights were released!) since I somehow never got into Percy Jackson as a kid, and I'm currently on Son of Neptune. I'm also one like my third or fourth re-read of Eurydice by Sara Ruhl, since that's the play I'm designing the costumes for for my senior project. And in terms of fanfic, I woke up to a notification about this yesterday and Actually Screeched.

Last Song: Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan (ft. Post Malone), which was a bit of an accident. I use siri to request music while I'm driving and I asked for Dial Drunk and was singing along until I got jumpscared by the slight difference before Post Malone's verse. Although if you look at my spotify, the ROTPL album has been on repeat for weeks.

Currently Watching (Series): I've been hyperfixated on ROTPL and have watched it over a dozen times at this point, which is probably not healthy, so I put on NCIS last night for background noise while I ate dinner and accidentally watched like six episodes.

Currently Watching (Movie): Saw the Barbie movie the night before the actual opening with my coworkers (We don't cross picket lines people! I was not asked nor invited by any company, and I paid full price for my ticket. There's a one-screen theatre in the town where I'm doing summer stock, this relic from the 50's, and they were able to get access to the film a day early and did a special first come first serve premiere.) and we all sobbed the entire way through.

Current Obsession: Rise of the Pink Ladies. Full stop. I'd seen clips of it when it first aired in April but I was iffy on it in spite of how good it looked. Like most, I'm a little tired of reboots and remakes, and while I did clock Cynthia as being queer within two seconds, (I believe my exact words were "That's either a very butch lesbian or the eggiest egg to ever egg.") I was Convinced it was a queerbait situation. Plus I was nearing finals and didn't have time to get into a new show. But then Crushing Me was trending on tiktok and I realized this was not queerbait, so I put it on to have something playing while I packed for summer stock and it's been the only thing I can think about since mid May. It got me writing fanfic again for the first time in years, if that tells you anything. Speaking of,

Currently Working On: A follow-up to my previous fic, Steady, Steady! I wanted to have it up this week, but it is a behemoth. I'm a little over halfway through my plot outline and I'm at 10,441 words. Fun fact, this will be my longest single-chapter fic so far. Not just in the fandom, not just on AO3, but ever (so far!)

No-Pressure Tagging: @merely-a-player, @penguin-writes-books, @el-fandom-birb, @marley-barnes112, @isweartheyregayyourhonor, and @look-at-those-niceass-rocks (since I've already dragged you back to tumblr kicking and screaming)

#tag game #this was fun #and also longer than I expected

253 notes · View notes

cleoselene · 5 months ago

Text

rules: shuffle your "on repeat" playlist and post the first 10 tracks, then tag 10 friends to do the same. tagged by my Anthony Rizzo sister-wife @an-ivy-covered-summer

this playlist is called "Drive Time" because I mostly listen to it in the car. it has 1025 songs so this should be interesting.

1. Book Of Mormon Original Broadway Cast Recording - Two By Two (CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THIS AGAIN, WE GOT HOOKED UP WITH FREE TIX FOR MARCH)

2.The Amazing Devil - The Calling (seriously y'all plz listen to this song it is a fucking masterpiece. all of TAD is amazing but this song and "Farewell Wanderlust" are two of the greatest songs of all time)

3. TOOL - 10,000 Days (Wings Part 2) (oh I guess shuffle wants me to cry at a TOOL song this day okay! and also be filled with existential death for how many days I will have to spend in the fire with this MS! anyway this album is just constant grief in progrock metal, it's so good, probably their best)

4, Big Red Machine feat. Taylor Swift - Renegade (god this is a banger. god this era of Taylor's music, was just. *chef's kiss* this is a favorite to sing along with in the car. I think it seems like Joe got Bon Iver guy in the breakup so I fear we may never hear another one of their awesome collabs again. the way they sing verses of different lyrics at the same time is so enchanting)

5. Sza - SOS (I have been on a major Sza kick lately; the production on her music is fucking immaculate. Like R&B with lots of influences from 90s trip-hop. I am so ready for intricate electronica to make a comeback. Between Sza doing so well and Gaga's next album singles sounding super industrial, I AM EXCITE)

6. Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter (oh gosh oh gosh shuffle YOU ARE ON A ROLL. this is my favorite Damien Rice song. so breathtakingly beautiful, you absolute bastard who has only released like 2 albums in 25 years)

7. VNV Nation - Lights Go Out (SHUFFLE YOU ARE KILLING IT. Amazing song, highlight of the Noire album, which was Ronan's response to Trump's election and climate change, released in 2018. A club banger about people stupidly ignoring the warnings and just dancing in the club to great club bangers, designed to be played in clubs as the banger single from the album. Goths, we're on a different level, okay?)

8. Indigo Girls - Let It Be Me (can you believe that my mother, who at one point was easily the most popular lesbian in Southwest Florida in the 80s and 90s, thinks the Indigo Girls are "boring lesbian music?" And yes, she likes ANNE MURRAY. Like how dare she be an Anne Murray fan and call the Indigo Girls boring. Anne Murray's music is pretty but it is also the absolute definition of boring. Anyway my mom has seen Anne Murray in concert like four times, front row every time, and three out of four times, Anne handed her a red rose at the end of the show. I guess it's her tradition to hand out roses to fans at the end of the show who seemed really into it. My mom has been an "Anne Murray is a lesbian" truther forever and took these roses as signs Anne was kinda into her. Look all I'm saying is that I am the child of a 75 year old parasocial fangirl who shades competing lesbian artists like the kids do with pop stars these days, roflcopter)

9. Les Miserables The Complete Symphonic Recording - The Bargain/The Waltz of Treachery (musical theater representing! anyway this recording is my favorite of the myriad Les Miz recordings because I loooooove the Eponine. And love Gary Morris as Valjean. Actually everyone kills it in this version. The fact that the Eponine didn't even speak English since she was from the Japanese show and still got the emotion so well is a marvel. FUCK I LOVE LES MIZ PLZ CAN WE GET AN ACTUAL GOOD FILM ADAPTATION OF IT SOMEDAY YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW DEAR THIS PLAY IS TO ME AND HOW COMPLETELY DISAPPOINTED I WAS AS I SAT IN THE THEATER AFTER HYPING IT UP SO MUCH TO IDK MY BFF TWIG AND IT WAS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. Les Miz is better than Wicked. Give it the Wicked treatment)

10. Taylor Swift - So Long, London (oh wow another sad one. And how appropriate since @an-ivy-covered-summer tagged me in this becasue we had a Rizzo-related meltdown about these lyrics: And you say I abandoned the ship But I was going down with it My white knuckle dying grip [...] I'm just mad as hell cause I loved this place

like when we had this freakout when we were talking about Rizzo begging Jed not to trade him and saying "I want to go down with this ship" T___T

Anyway I am pretty firmly on the record thinking TTPD sucks but there are like... five songs out of the 31 that I like, and this is one of them. This one I liked instantly.

anyway THANKS THIS WAS GREAT LIKE I LITERALLY LISTENED TO EVERY SONG AND DIDN'T SKIP ONCE. Usually I don't listen to everyone for these memes but they're all worth the full listen this time. Goddamn I make good playlists.

tagging @sylvieons @thebreakfastgenie @brightnshinythings @malkaleh @coralreeferband

that's five my brain is bad i'll stop there but I would love to read any of your answers i love talking about music I will do it all day every day always tag me in these and in your answers because i miss a lot because dash is overwhelming but i am ALWAYS interested in these

there's a reason I worked in a music store for five years

#ask meme

9 notes · View notes

roll-for-gaslight · 1 year ago

Text

for whosoever believeth in him (shall not perish but have everlasting life)

An exploration of the two oldest Applebees siblings' relationship with religion. tw// religious trauma, child abuse, let me know if I should add anything else.

AO3 Version: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55677883/chapters/141332254

Part One: The Prophet

Part Two: The Proselyte

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

-Proverbs 3:5-6

When Kristen was having a hard day, this is the verse that came to mind most often. It was the one she fell back on when it got hard to stay awake at church, or Bucky did something to annoy her and her first instinct was to annoy him back. She was Helio’s Chosen, she knew better than to act like that. It’s not Bucky’s fault he hadn’t learned yet, he wasn’t Chosen like her, he would come to it in his own time. Instead, she would correct him gently and mend anything he broke with a Mending cantrip, one of the earliest signs of her Blessing. It’s the one she’s repeating under her breath now, as she dies in a highschool cafeteria, surrounded by the corn that should have, by all accounts, been blessed with Helio’s light and protected or healed her rather than harmed her. It’s her first set of dying words, though no one else would ever know it.

She sneaks her principal into heaven only to be sent back to the mortal plane herself. Worse than that, Helio refuses to answer the one question that’s been sitting on her mind for years: why do you let bad things happen to good people? Not only does he not have an answer, he throws her out of the afterlife when s he asks. There is a seed of doubt firmly planted in her heart by that interaction, though she supposes this isn’t the first time she felt a flutter of something like it.

"I can do all this through Him who gives me strength."

-Philippians 4:13

She supposes this could have gone better. She’s never been left home alone to babysit before, but her parents say that since he just turned nine she’s finally old enough. She’s making macaroni and cheese, with all three boys running around the dining room table. Bucky and Bricker are chasing Cork around the table because he has something she can’t quite make out in his hands, all screaming over each other. She’s just glad that when she told them it wasn’t safe to play in the kitchen they actually listened to her. She felt herself glow with pride at the thought, knowing her mom and dad would be proud of her for taking care of everyone tonight if all went well.

Then, a lot of things happen at once. There’s a crash, a scream, a thudding sound, and then all her brothers are crying. Bricker runs into the kitchen and barely stops short of crashing into her.

“KRISTENKristencomequickit’sCorkhe’shurt and—” he half-shouts, but she stops listening.

“Stay here, turn off the stove, and bring me the emergency phone!” she says immediately, shouting her instructions as she runs into the other room. When she arrives she sees Bucky first, blood all over his hands and face. It takes her a moment to remember what Bricker said and realize it isn’t his own blood, but Cork’s. She casts her eyes downward to see her youngest brother lying there, limp and colorless as blood pooled around him. There’s an action figure, one of Bucky’s, scattered into several pieces about a foot away from his hand. She approaches quickly, realizing that the blood is coming from his head, and grabs one of the napkins off of the table as she pushes Bucky out of the way.

“What happened?” she demands. Bucky looks up at her through his tears, and she realizes abruptly that she doesn’t know how to fix this.

“We were just trying to get my Adventure Man toy back! I tried to grab him and he lost his balance and his head hit the table and then he just started bleeding so fast I didn’t know what to do,” he says, and she does her best to offer him a comforting smile.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she assures him, silently begging Helio for forgiveness for bearing false witness, knowing the moment the lie passes her lips that she’ll have to repent in church for it on Sunday. He seems to relax at her words. “Go and get the black bottle with the white cap from under the bathroom sink.” she says, and he runs off. She’s left alone, for just a moment, with a slowly-dying Cork, and is faced with the helpless thought that she can’t heal him. She should have been watching him.

She begins to whisper prayers, each and every one she knows, under her breath.

Bucky and Bricker enter the room at the same time, both holding the things she instructed them to grab. She takes the hydrogen peroxide and tells Bucky to take the phone and call their parents, tell them they need to come home, but she’s not sure how to proceed after that. She feels tears prickle in her eyes as Cork’s breathing becomes shallower and shallower, and does her best to clean the wound and wrap it up despite the fact that the blood-soaked towel isn’t doing much anymore.

Just when the tears begin to fall, the moment that all hope seems lost, it happens. Her hands glow with a brilliant, burning golden light and the air fills with the scent of popcorn. Cork’s eyes fly open as the color returns to his face, and suddenly she can breathe again. She pulls her littlest brother into a tight hug, and Bucky and Bricker join them. She can faintly hear the sound of her parents as they come through the door, moments too late to be helpful but she’s grateful they’re there nonetheless. The whole world feels far away except for her brothers, right here with her.

“What happened here?” her mom asks, “Kristen, did you just heal your brother? Was he hurt, did you heal him?”

Kristen looks up from the hug and is only able to nod before her dad starts to separate the four of them. Bucky and Bricker move back when they’re told to, sent off to get cleaned up, but it takes her a few extra seconds before she can let herself let go. Her mom wraps her arms around her to guide her into the living room, and through the shock Kristen can faintly hear her calling Pastor Amelia to share the good news.

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is Sol’s will for you in Lord Helio.”

-1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Kristen’s eyes are starting to get heavy. She’s been staring upward for almost a full twenty-four hours at that point, feeling the searing heat of Sol’s light burn her face as she murmurs her prayers along with the pastor onstage. Pastor Amelia’s shift ended some time ago, so it was a man’s low southern drawl leading them now, but she can’t be sure how long it’s been. She’s ten, so it’s not her first Harvest Festival, so Helio is making her last longer than he used to before he intervenes to help her through her prayers. Her skin feels raw and blistering, and her eyes strain against the unrelenting light. She’s doing her best to make him proud.

She knows the girl beside her, who seemed so devoted when they met at the beginning, was carried out after only three hours or so. The boy in front of her passed out from the heat not long after. She had noticed that he drank all of his daily water in the first hour, but could do nothing to warn him. Bucky is on her other side, here for his first year in the Prayer and doing well. Next year they’ll be in different age groups, but she’s glad to have him here now. She’s pretty sure he’ll have to kneel soon because of how he’s shaking and sweating. Kneeling is allowed as long as they know you’re still awake. There’s a part of her that wants to kneel first so he’s not nervous, but she also knows it’s important that she remains standing as long as possible to fully connect with Helio.

She knows that probably within the hour, they’ll get an optional ten-minute break to refill their water. If Bucky can last until then, she’s pretty sure he’ll be able to make it through the next day.

He kneels, his head falling onto the ground immediately. She knows it’s technically against the rules, but she kicks him in the arm and casts one of her smallest healing spells for him. She can barely see in her peripheral vision as he glows momentarily and looks up at her. He’s still faintly murmuring prayers, so he’s not actually out yet. Kristen feels the toll the spell takes and her knees buckle, so she slowly kneels to avoid taking out those around her if she falls. She distantly notices several other kids around her kneel quickly after, as if they were all awaiting her cue as Chosen. She thinks she should maybe feel guilty for that, but she can’t quite bring care about them right now, only Bucky. He’s still sweating, but as she kneels he seems to remember his placement and raises his face to the sun yet again.

She waits anxiously for someone to say something or for Helio’s reprimand to come for breaking the rules. He sees all, so she knows it’s hopeless to think he won’t notice.

Despite that, nothing comes. When the ten-minute break arrives, Bucky turns as if to speak with her and she just hands him her water jug. “Can you fill this for me, Buck? I’m going to pray through the break. As much ice as you can crush in there, please.” she requests, and he nods.

“Yeah, Kristy, I can do that. I’ll let mom and dad know,” he responds, and she suddenly and desperately wishes for last year, when she was the only one of her siblings doing the full prayer and Bucky’s only job was to make sure she had water on breaks, free to spend most of the rest of the festival playing and enjoying the summer.

The pastor is taking a break, so anyone staying is welcome to do their own prayers. If there’s anyone else in the field, they must be really far away from her. She feels the breeze for the first time in a while, but the sun also beats down harder than before. She sends Helio her apologies, doing her best to appease him, but never feels the sweet rejuvenation of his miracles. Not until the very last second of what should have been her break, right as people return to the field. She feels all eyes on her as she realizes she must have been the only one that stayed judging by the size of the crowd. Right as she registers that information, she feels a warmth in her chest. It expands outward and the day becomes ten times brighter. She’s glowing and feels herself becoming weightless. She knows it’s Helio’s blessing at last, knew all along that forgoing her break was the perfect way to repent. It lasts a full minute before she slowly descends, and when she does she feels it.

She feels like she’s fresh off of a full night’s sleep, completely refreshed. Her braid has redone itself, she feels clean, and her skin is no longer blistering. People suddenly crowd around her on all sides, each kneeling beside her and taking a moment to look up to the sky before returning to their new formation, remaking the neat lines that had been lost before as others failed. Bucky is the last to approach and takes his place beside her, reaching out to grab her hand for one fleeting moment before pulling away again. He puts her water jug and his own between them. For a while, everything is perfect.

Seven hours later, the night brings a unique challenge, and the one that finally removes Bucky from the Prayer. It’s much cooler, a reprieve from the intense heat of the sun, but it’s also dark. At this point in the festival, that makes it too easy to fall asleep. He has the sense to kneel before he does it, but not to totally avoid colliding with Kristen. He falls across her feet, and suddenly she feels tears in her eyes. Maybe she should give up too, help him out of the crowd. She knows it would be frowned upon, and can picture the look of disappointment on her mom and dad’s faces when they see her step away. She can’t bring herself to move. Someone comes to collect Bucky, but she doesn’t see who.

She lasts until noon the next day. It’s been a full forty-eight hours, and she’s the last one standing for their entire age group. The field is empty around her. The clock strikes loudly for twelve o’clock, the time of day where Helio’s magic is the strongest, and suddenly her legs buckle and go out from beneath her. She hits the ground hard, feels the dirt and rocks scrape against her knee. The moment her head hits the ground, she loses consciousness.

Kristen wakes up alone on a cot. There’s a window open, letting fresh air and a little early morning light into the room. She checks her crystal to see it’s six in the morning, eyes aching at the light from the screen until she turns the brightness setting all the way down. She hovers over her mom’s contact for a few moments, considering texting to see where to find them, but can’t bring herself to actually do so. She closes her eyes instead to do a silent prayer for her daily spells, and it feels like a weight off her chest when she feels the holy magic fill her with warmth. Helio is proud of her. She did good.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord Helio is giving you.”

-Exodus 20:12

“Kristen, I don’t know how many times we’re going to have to go over this. If they don’t worship Helio, they’re sinners. It doesn’t matter what they do or say because anything done outside of Sol’s light is sin.” her dad is saying, frustration coloring his tone.

Her mom nods in agreement. “If they aren’t faithful, they aren’t your friend. If you can’t depend on them to make the right choice on the most important decision, how can you trust them with anything else?”

Kristen finds herself at a loss for words. It had been Bricker who started all of this, playing with that little Goblin girl on the playground before Mac and Donna had gotten the chance to pull him away. It had been an innocent question. “But she was so nice, what could be wrong with her?” he had said. He’d also immediately accepted his parents’ simple answer: she was a non-believer. Kristen had been fighting this battle for half an hour at this point, determined to show her parents the truth of Helio’s light. This is part of being Chosen, she thinks. It’s her job to right these wrongs, even if it means standing up to her parents.

“Mom, Dad, Sol’s light touches all creatures the same. If they act with good intentions and follow the rules of scripture, they have potential to find faith. Isn’t it our job to lead them there, and let them take their own path there? It doesn’t make them bad people, just lost ones.” she says, not for the first time.

“That’s enough, Kristen,” Mac says finally, using his this-conversation-is-over voice. She winces slightly, knowing that she’s in trouble. “You need to drop this, or we’ll have to go have a talk with Pastor Amelia about you questioning Helio’s word. Is that what you want?”

Panic fills her at the thought of Pastor Amelia’s disappointed face and tone. There’s no way she would still be Helio’s Chosen if she really questioned Him and she knows it. Pastor Amelia having to step in would definitely call it to His attention. She shakes her head quickly.

“No! No, of course not. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to question Him. I just didn’t understand, I guess,” she assures them quietly, and they seem satisfied. When she glances at her brothers, Bricker looks disappointed. She looks away.

“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”

-Proverbs 6:16–19

Kristen has never been more excited than her first day of highschool. She’s excited to make friends, and to fulfill Helio’s word by showing them the light. It’s the whole reason that she wanted to go to Aguefort, and it’s why she asks Daybreak to send her to detention with the bad kids. Who better to help the most lost souls in the school than the Chosen of Helio? Who better to bring them under his holy gaze?

She feels a little bad for lying, but knows that she can repent for it tonight and Helio will understand. She feels worse about asking Daybreak to lie for her, and knows she needs to apologize to him too. She’s Chosen, she should know how to act better than that.

It doesn’t matter. They don’t seem happy about her proselytizing, but they seem to like her anyway. She’s looking forward to her new group, to finally getting the chance to be the yeast that makes the whole loaf rise.

She dies instead.

“Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin."

-Leviticus 18:22

Tracker is maybe the coolest person Kristen has ever met. She’s openly queer, a werewolf, and she worships Galicaea. She grew up in the church and chose to leave it, which is scary, but it’s also really… Exciting? Thrilling? Enticing? Attractive? Kristen isn’t sure she has exactly the right word for it yet, but she knows it feels almost good.

She’s not so sure about Helio anymore. How could He not have the answers she was looking for? Not even for her, His Chosen? What did it even mean to be Chosen by Him? Did it mean anything, if she didn’t choose Him too? She’s not so sure anymore.

She hates that she hasn’t seen her brothers all week. It’s not like it is with her parents with them, they haven’t done anything wrong. She hates that her long school days have led to her avoiding her whole family. She’s had more sleepovers since school started than she has in the whole rest of her life.

She’s pretty sure she has a crush on Tracker. What would that mean for her? Would that make her gay? Or maybe bi? She hopes, for a moment, for that to be the truth but now that she’s thinking about it the thought of spending the rest of her life with a husband in a traditional marriage sounds… suffocating. Spending the rest of her life with someone fun and interesting like Tracker sounds so much better.

Maybe Helio isn’t everything. Maybe her parents are right about him, and if they are then she’s not interested. Maybe Helio holds hatred in his heart.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe she’ll find something new.

Maybe she’ll take a leap of faith.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

-Hebrews 11:1

She can still cast magic. She’s not sure who or how, but her leap of faith didn’t strip her of her divine magic. She can still heal her friends, and her Spirit Guardians aren’t corn-themed. The magic flowing through her is strange and new, no longer searing heat but instead a slight chill that shoots its way through her from her very core.

Every night’s a sleepover as long as she’s not living at home. Her parents haven’t even tried to get her home yet, not even a text since the other night. She’s just glad Fig and Gilear have been so nice to let Kristen move in with them. There’s no way she would have been able to leave that house if they hadn’t offered; she couldn’t imagine actually asking her friends to take care of her like this. Fig was just nice enough to offer first, so she didn’t feel as bad just accepting.

Tracker is going to be her girlfriend, she’s pretty sure. She still has to actually ask, but she’s pretty sure the feelings she’s having are reciprocal. She talks to Ragh, quietly and briefly, about being gay. He doesn’t make fun of her, which she suspected he wouldn’t. He just nods respectfully along as she speaks and gives her a little head pat before they depart, the most affection she’s seen him show anyone but Dayne.

Kristen’s decided that she’s happy with who she is. If someone has a problem with it, she doesn’t need to care. That’s how Tracker talks about it all: her queerness, her religion, her lycanthropy. There’s no reason Kristen should have to change who she is for some bullshit rules that don’t actually mean anything. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

-Ephesians 2:8-9

Kristen is dying again. In the gym, at prom, she is being killed by the vice principal, but it doesn’t even matter. As Helio’s Chosen she is directed straight towards the main office of Heaven when she arrives, only to find Arthur Aguefort waiting for him. Not only does he agree to come back and help her return, but he also gives her his watch to use.

Oh, and she creates a new god.

No big deal.

Okay, big deal. She hates her new god, but it’ll be okay. Maybe YES! just has to grow on her.

“For Sol so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”

-John 3:16

The chapel makes Tracker freak out, but Kristen can’t get the image of the goddess out of her head. She was beautiful, and there was something strikingly familiar about her. She tries several times to draw her, but to no avail. She doesn’t voice her desires to her friends or even to Tracker on any kind of deeper level, but feels herself drawn to the idea of a forgotten goddess who specializes in doubt. Doubt has already gotten her this far, right?

As they venture into Sylvaire and split up to gather the ingredients, only to lose all their allies except Gilear. Oh, yeah, and Kristen almost dies again, but at least this time she saves Riz. At least this time she has the chance to do some good. She thinks that it’s worth it as long as her friends are safe.

When they make it to the chapel in the forest, their second time coming in, she’s grateful to have Fabian watching her back. The whole place seems creepy, but also strangely alluring. She wants to understand who this goddess was before she was abandoned. Why would her followers do this to her? She steps closer.

‘Why do you searching for me?’ a low, crackling voice speaks directly into her mind.

“I heard that you were the goddess of doubt, and that really resonates with me right now,” Kristen begins to say, but those aren’t the right words. She pauses for a moment to think. “I have a lot of praise for you.” she says finally.

There’s a sharp pain in her chest, accompanied by a horrible wet sound. She chokes, suddenly unable to catch her breath, and grasps for whatever hurt her only to make contact with something that feels like solid bone. She looks down and— Is that a spike?

Fabian says something and then he’s gone and it’s dark. She holds onto consciousness for as long as she can, tilting her head up to the sky and wishing, just for a moment, for the strength of a god supporting her the way Helio used to. It doesn’t come. Neither do her friends.

‘I have a lot of praise for you.’

What was she thinking?

Kristen Applebees, dying yet again with a prayer on her lips.

“‘Who’ is easy. It is us, everything, and you. ‘Why’ is harder.’Why’ is something that only you can decide. The universe doesn't have a ‘why’.”

For a while, she’s floating in nothing. She doesn’t have a sense of time or space, it’s neither light nor dark, there is no sensation. Everything is just empty for a while, and then it’s not anymore. Her eyes are already open when she comes to, face turned upward towards the ceiling.

She looks down to find a gaping hole in her chest, her tie-dye shirt soaked through with blood. She puts her hand through it to make sure it’s not an illusion, but realizes belatedly that that doesn’t mean anything in the Nightmare forest. Looking at her hand, she realizes that her pinky finger is missing too.

She slowly, carefully, wanders out of the room and into the forest. Her friends are far away, and she’s scared, and she’s pretty sure she’s still dead. That suspicion is confirmed when she’s brought face-to-face with the person she wants to see the least right now: Helio. He’s accompanied by Sol and a woman Kristen doesn’t immediately recognize.

The woman introduces herself as Galicaea, Tracker’s goddess, and Kristen can’t help but feel comforted by the thought of her girlfriend for a few moments before it all goes wrong. Are these her only options? Sol’s bullshit or Galicaea’s?

No.

She’ll make her own options. She punches Helio in the face.

Her philosophers aid her as they always have, helping her find the path away and giving her magic while she can’t rely on a deity. She knows what she needs to do.

She’s going to bring back the mystery goddess, no matter what it takes.

“The first rule of existence is as above, so below. People are fractal images of the universe. You are, as we are.”

If the first rule is as above, so below, that’s where she’ll start.

She ends up deep in the forest, and she can hear Tracker hunting her somewhere in the distance. She takes mud from the forest floor and blood from her own chest, using it to paint the goddess’s face on the bark of a wide tree. She’s no artist, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

She all but lays down, her knees folded underneath her and body pressed low, but her eyes cast up to the image. Slowly, it shifts until it shows the image of a beautiful goddess, the very one Kristen has been reaching out for.

She appears in an inky void, mountains in the distance and a deity made of starlight in front of her. They speak of finding comfort in the dark unknown and wielding doubt as a tool rather than holding it in her heart; Kristen feels something slot together like a piece has been missing from the core of her very existence and it’s finally here.

She’s pulled out of the conversation by danger looming outside of her new twilight protective circle, but Tracker is the danger. He escapes into the woods, free yet again, and finally finds her friends. She feels drawn in until she can pull the pinky finger bone out of Adaine’s pocket. She casts raise dead, there’s a sudden bright flash of light, and then it’s done.

She feels her body return to her, hears her friends’ exclamations of surprise at her sudden appearance. She can see, in the low dusk light, the purple tie-dye of her new shirt made to represent her new goddess. Cassandra. She takes her first breath.

St. Kristen Applebees is born again.

44 notes · View notes

mid-sweettalk · 3 months ago

Text

Forget Me - Chapter 1: Even After All This Time

Ship: Gelphie (Wicked)

Rating: E (Omegaverse smut)

Chapters: 1/?

Summary:

It's been three years since Elphaba left Galinda in the Emerald City--three years of barely surviving, barely managing to stave off her heat. But now, her luck has run out, and her only option is to find the Alpha that Marked her all those years ago--her Alpha. or Alternative post-Stuck Safe where Defying Gravity still happens. Set post-intermission.

Based off of this tumblr prompt

Read on Ao3

Author's Notes:

This fic brought to you by parentheses because holy wow did I go a little overboard with them. And also thanks to @divorcedmoonlight for bribing convincing me to push this chapter to the top of my list over the three others I’m already working on lmao. PLEASE NOTE this is a very very angsty fic where Defying Gravity still happens after the events of Stuck Safe. I am not considering this true canon for the Stuck Safe verse. I still plan on writing oneshots/future fics where literally none of this happens so please don’t fret—i’ve had this doc (affectionately) titled “Stuck Safe Dark Timeline” and that’s exactly what it is, so just think of it as an alternate to the actual stuck-safe-future canon. I just can’t keep from writing canon divergences of my own fics apparently. (tl;dr: gelphie will still get their babies in the countryside, just probably not in this particular story) Chapter and story title from Forget Me by Lewis Capaldi! With all that said, enjoy some angsty reunion smut <3

It starts out of desperation.

Elphaba has just barely been able to manage her cycle since becoming Oz's Wicked Witch. She'd stretch out whatever little supply of suppressants she did have, and when her heat would finally catch up to her, she'd get lucky—she'd come across a pharmacy she could break into, a doctor she could persuade (after disguising herself a considerate amount). There'd been one time when she'd found another actual Omega and—guiltily, knowing first-hand how difficult they could be to come across—swiped some, leaving a few coins in their place. As long as she caught it early enough, her heat would end before it had truly begun, and she'd repeat the process for months at a time.

Apparently, her luck only lasted about three years.

It's been days now, since her heat started, and there's been no trace of Omega suppressants anywhere. Her body seems to be seeking revenge for its poor treatment, as the symptoms struck her quickly and harshly. She’d barely had any warning before the cramps started.

When she first attempts to take care of it herself, like she had in her Shiz dorm room what feels like a lifetime ago, she tries her damnedest not to think of blonde hair, brown eyes, that scent of vanilla and caramel—because she can't have it, because she can't have her without putting both of them in danger, without risking the new life she knows her Alpha has built in the Emerald Palace.

(And she is still her Alpha, will always be her Alpha, no matter the time or distance between them. That is a truth that will be as forever ingrained in the fabric of Elphaba’s heart as it is in the scar that lies in the dip between her neck and shoulder. It’s a painful truth, but it’s all she has left to hold onto.)

And so she can't help it, and the thoughts come unbidden, and the mating Mark on her neck burns as she comes desperately around her own fingers.

Of course, it doesn't work, part of her knows it will never work, but still she tries—again and again. Four fingers are nothing compared to the feeling of her Alpha's knot, nails digging into her Mark do not equate to her Alpha's mouth on her skin.

She comes, and comes, until she reaches the point where nothing can bring her over that edge anymore.

(She misses her so much. Memories echo in her ears—a sweet, high voice turned desperate.

I could make you stay, her Alpha had said.

But you won’t, she’d replied.

And it’s not just because of her heat, it’s not, because Elphaba has wished every Oz-damned day since she left that her Alpha had dared—for once—to order her around.)

And Oz, the pain.

At first, the pain comes and goes in waves, sometimes briefly—but mildly, never completely—sated by an orgasm. But the fifth day turns the cramps to an all-encompassing ache, one that brings tears to her eyes.

Elphaba hasn't cried in years, she hasn't allowed herself. So, once the first drop falls, a torrent of emotions comes with it that has her sobbing as loudly as she dares, curled up on the floor of the abandoned building she's holed up in.

She occasionally, briefly, thinks of another option: she knows there are brothels she could find. She knows, logically, that all she would need to end this torture is one night spent beneath someone else; she wouldn’t even need an Alpha, necessarily, just someone with the right tools and knowledge to trick her body into feeling sated. But the thought of anyone except her Alpha on top of her, inside her, filling her whether it be with a knot or a hand or some other device—well, combined with the cramps, it's enough to make her retch. Her Mark pulses sharply at the unwanted image in her brain, her body shivers with revulsion, and she knows that is not a true option.

Elphaba has to find her.

(She’s hated herself ever since she left, but the shame she feels at the fact that it’s this that makes her return, it’s this, of all things, that breaks her resolve to stay away—well, she’s never loathed herself more.)

She can barely stay on the broom, head foggy with the haze of pain, but she flies for over an hour. It's impossible to ignore the pressure between her legs, and the wind stinging her eyes makes it difficult to see into the many windows of the Palace.

She finally catches the sight of blonde curls and nearly falls from the sky at the pulse of wanting that wracks through her body.

She crashes onto the balcony—and it's truly crashing, not graceful in the slightest as she tumbles and lands on her side. The pain emanating from her lower stomach distracts her from the pain of the fall. She swears that, even from outside the closed glass doors, she can smell that vanilla-caramel scent, and it has her absolutely throbbing between her legs. She is barely able to make it to her knees, arms wrapped around herself in pain.

Her vision is hazy, and she can't see any movement in her peripheral vision. She's doubled over, biting her lip to keep from groaning, and hopes to Whoever is listening that she's truly found the right room, that nobody but her Alpha has heard her clumsy arrival.

Then, after what feels like hours but has probably been merely a few clock-ticks, the light shifts in front of her—the balcony doors open.

She peers upwards through her tears, sees a figure cast in shadow standing in the doorway. That scent is definitely real now, vanilla and caramel wafting over her. She swallows down a sob and just barely manages to croak out:

"Glinda?"

***

Glinda hates the life she’s built in the Emerald Palace.

And she does go by Glinda, now, to everyone in Oz. It hadn’t been her idea; Morrible had said that Glinda the Good rolled off the tongue more pleasingly, and at the time, she hadn’t been strong enough to argue. She’d thought, back then, that maybe it would be nice, to have this small piece of Elphie wherever she went, this constant reminder of the Omega she’d lost to the skies.

(She’d been so, so wrong. It ached—still aches—every time, just like her Mark did and continues to do every time it’s plastered and hidden with makeup, hidden because the citizens of Oz will love her more if she still “appears available.” Galinda Upland is damaged, heartbroken,abandonedgoods, and that won’t appeal to the masses, so Glinda the Good is the virginal, chaste Alpha dutifully waiting for the perfect prince or princess to come along.

Perpetuating the lie, acting along—she does it so well—and hearing her Omega’s name for her in every voice but the right one? It makes her sick.)

It’s been long enough now—has been for nearly two years, apparently—that Morrible has been pushing the topic of her finding a Mate.

“Bites can be remade,” she says. “Really, you can claim as many others as you’d like, no one would blame you for keeping your options open. It’s a shame you let that one bite you back.”

“The people would adore an Emerald City heir,” she says. “If it’s women you prefer, I’m sure there’s no shortage willing to mate with you.”

“Or what of that Winkie Prince?” she says. “Ozians love him; you’d be the most adored couple in history. I know he’s an Alpha, but there would surely be so many volunteers for surrogacy.”

Morrible says, and says, and says, and it all makes Glinda utterly nauseous with fury. She denies and distracts and excuses it all away, but she knows that there will come a time when Morrible will no longer give her a choice.

She already tried to take that choice away, once. Glinda can’t prove it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense—she’d been taking her suppressants as always, and yet she’d gone into rut just when the Wizard had decided to throw a ball to which all of Oz’s finest maidens and bachelors had been invited. Morrible had denied replacing her suppressants with placebos, of course, but there was no other explanation Glinda could think of, as without her Omega around, nothing should have randomly triggered her rut.

She’d been encouraged to attend the ball, to find a partner with whom she could satisfy her needs, because Glinda the Good would have an untold number of willing participants if she’d only travel downstairs to the ballroom. And if she were to find a Mate in the process, well, that would just be icing on the proverbial cake.

She’d denied, of course. She’d stayed sheltered and locked in her room for nearly a week—a long, miserable week of painful orgasms and painful heartache and burning tears and wishing more than anything that she had just gotten on that damn broom.

(But she hadn’t, and so she was and continues to be alone. She fears she will be—no, she’s resolved to be—alone for the rest of her days. She tells herself that her dreams of blonde-haired, green-skinned children running around the Gillikin countryside are as good as dead, a life no longer possible.)

So, when something—someone—crashes onto her balcony after three years alone in the Emerald City, it seems much too good to be true.

The sound is alarming, at first, of course—you’d be alarmed, too, at a loud, sudden noise outside your balcony doors when it was nearly the thirteenth hour. When Glinda sees a hunched figure, however, one that is clearly a person, she knows immediately who it has to be, as only one person would be able to reach a balcony this high.

Well. The hat gives it away, too.

Glinda’s heart thumps heavily in her chest as she moves to open the balcony doors. She’s moving more slowly than she means to, as if time has stilled or the air has become thicker. Part of her wants to leap for joy at the idea that her Elphie has returned to her, and yet another part is terrified of what she’s going to find on the other side of the glass.

She opens the doors and nearly collapses as she is suddenly surrounded by the sharp smell of cedar and pine and crisp winter air—her Omega.

Her Omega in heat.

Elphaba has landed hard, as that horrendible broom has tumbled to the edge of the balcony. Glinda takes in the sight of her—hunched over on her knees, arms wrapped around her middle, that same hat and cloak Glinda had given her what feels like a lifetime ago that are now tattered and filthy from years on the run. Her face is thinner, and she seems smaller beneath all the black layers than she had when she’d left.

(I could make you stay, Glinda had said, desperation causing her to grasp for any option that would keep them together.

But you won’t, Elphie had said, and she’d been right. Glinda would never abuse her Status, use her Alpha tone of voice to order Elphie into doing something she didn’t want to do.

She also, apparently—stupidly—wouldn’t leave with her, either.)

It all feels unreal, impossible, and Glinda briefly thinks she’s fallen asleep without realizing, that this is just one of many, many dreams she’s had over the years where Elphie reappears.

But then, not-possibly-Elphie looks up at her, flushed and feverish, and calls out her name.

Glinda?

And oh, it is her Elphie, because no other voice could bring Glinda to her knees as this one has right now. That low voice she’s longed and ached to hear is filled with exhaustion, with torment, with need, and Glinda is next to her because there is nothing else she could possibly do, no other option exists in this moment.

“Elphie?” she breathes, as though she still cannot believe it. But she reaches out a hand and cups a green cheek and Elphaba Thropp is real, really here, kneeling on her balcony and exuding heady pheromones that already have Glinda stiffening between her legs. Elphaba clutches desperately at the hand now on her face and presses it close, inhaling deeply at her wrist. It sends a throb of want through Glinda’s body, shooting up her spine in a way she hasn’t felt in years.

She’s dragging Elphie to her before she can stop herself.

Their lips collide in a frantic mess, hands roaming and grasping wherever they can reach to pull each other impossibly closer. Elphaba is quickly crawling into her lap, straddling her hips and grinding down against her. Both of them gasp into the kiss, and their teeth clack together as their tongues find each other. Glinda feels hands pulling at her hair and wet heat pressing against her through her nightgown and groans, the sound feeling foreign as it leaves her throat as it has been so long—

A pang of terror shoots through her heart at the thought of them being caught like this, and she pulls back from the kiss as much as she dares—she fears her heart will burst if she moves too far away. “You shouldn’t be here,” Glinda breathes without thinking, but it’s true. Her Elphie is not just Her Elphie, she is the Wicked Witch of the West, and as much as she has dreamed of this happening, it is so incredibly dangerous.

She regrets saying the words when Elphaba looks as if she’s been slapped across the face. Green fingers twitch in her hair. “I—I know,” she stammers breathily. “I’m sorry, my sweet, I’m so sorry to put you in danger like this—”

“Me?” Glinda interrupts incredulous. Realizing her voice has raised too loudly, she lowers it to hiss, “Me, in danger? Elphie, they will kill you if they find you here.”

Elphie opens her mouth as if to say something, but Glinda moves into action before she can. She glances back into her chambers to make sure no one has entered since she came out here—it’s rather late for one of the servant girls to randomly show up, but she can’t take any chances right now, not when it’s her love at risk. She reluctantly pushes Elphie off her lap and stands, pulling her Omega up with her. Remembering at the last moment to grab the broom, she drags Elphaba into her chambers and closes the balcony doors.

She lets go of Elphie—again, very reluctantly—and stuffs the broom into her closet to keep it out of sight should anyone happen to enter. Regarding that, though, she turns to wave a hand at the door, making the lock turn with a click. Then, with both hands out, she mutters an incantation she’s known since their Shiz days and is satisfied when the acoustics of her chambers are ever-so-slightly muted.

“Did you just…?” Elphie says from behind her.

“Silencing spell,” she says to answer the unfinished question. Glinda turns around to face her and just barely manages not to break down at seeing her once more, now fully bathed in light.

Elphaba sways a bit where she stands, eyes blown nearly black, arms wrapped around her stomach again. “O-oh.”

Glinda knows there must be questions swirling through Elphie’s head—Glinda was never able to do that spell on her own, back then. She supposes there must be things about Elphie that Glinda doesn’t know now, either. It aches in her chest, knowing that her Mate stands in front of her at long last and yet they are practically strangers to one another.

“Gone for years, and you come back because of your heat,” Glinda says, and it’s not a question. Elphaba winces, guilt marring her features, and it spurs forward something angry within Glinda. “Not because you missed me, not because you love me, but because you want me to fuck you.”

She nearly spits the words, heartache infusing every syllable. Elphaba shrinks further into herself at the sound, and Glinda wants to scream.

You left, she wants to yell. You left me here alone and now you can’t even admit the truth?

“My sweet, I’m here because I love you—I stay away because I love you,” Elphaba says pleadingly, like she’s begging for Glinda to believe her. When Glinda only scoffs, she continues, “You know as well as I that if Morrible or the Wizard knew you were even speaking to me—”

“I can handle myself,” Glinda snaps, though she knows what the Omega speaks is truth. She doesn’t realize that her voice slipped into Alpha territory until she hears Elphie whimper, sees her eyelids flutter as she leans forward subconsciously. Her stomach twists uneasily at the realization, and she tries her best to calm down.

“I—I couldn’t risk you. I tried to last without you,” Elphie confesses, blinking through the haze that must be clouding her mind. “I tried so damned hard to stay away, to keep you safe, but I couldn’t—I can’t—” her voice chokes on a sob as she grasps tighter at her stomach, knees wavering.

Glinda moves forward, instinctively reaching out to steady her, but she stops herself before making contact. Her erection throbs between her legs at the pheromones Elphaba is putting out. She is so, so angry—perhaps unrightfully so, but it’s there—and yet her chest still aches simultaneously with years-old heartbreak and the need to comfort her Omega.

Her Omega, who is right here in front of her, needy and wanting and in pain.

“Why are you here?” she tries again, making sure her voice is more neutral.

Elphaba meets her gaze, chest heaving as she tries to breathe through the cramps. “Because I need you,” she whines.

Glinda feels herself harden further at her Omega’s tone. “Need me for what?” she pushes, taking another step closer.

Elphaba’s breath hitches. “I need you to fuck me, Glinda.”

That sends a thrill tingling down her spine, but it’s still not enough. Another step closer, and now they are mere inches apart. “Why?” she insists.

Elphaba whimpers, eyes briefly darting down to Glinda’s lips.

“Because you’re my Alpha.”

Glinda breaks, leans forward and kisses her, pushing that old hat off her head so she can tangle her fingers in messy black braids and devour her. One hand goes to Elphie’s waist and pulls her close until their hips press together, and she can feel as well as hear the moan her Omega lets out when she realizes how hard Glinda is for her.

“Oz, please,” Elphaba whines against her lips as she clutches at the backs of Glinda’s shoulders.

Glinda hisses as nails dig into her skin. She bites at Elphie’s lower lip in retaliation before spinning her around until she’s falling back onto the bed. Her sheets are as grand and pink as they had been back at Shiz, and the familiar sight of black and green atop them makes her heart want to burst. She only allows herself a short moment to stare at Elphaba as she lies there, flushed and panting and wanting, lest she burst into tears and ruin the moment. Then, she is above her again, kissing every inch of skin she can reach and searching for the buttons of her dress so that she may reach more.

Elphie helps her as she gasps into Glinda’s ear, and her sweet breath against her skin sends a shiver through Glinda’s body.

“Tell me again,” Glinda says lowly.

Elphie whimpers as Glinda moves her kisses down her neck. “My Alpha,” she moans. “My wonderful Alpha, I need you inside me.”

Glinda can’t hold back a growl and sucks harshly at a spot beneath Elphie’s jaw, barely deigning to soothe the abused skin with her tongue before moving down to repeat the process elsewhere. The buttons are finally undone, and Elphie quickly shucks it off her shoulders along with her cloak. Glinda’s hands move to roam over the newly-revealed skin, groping a breast in one palm and grasping at her rib cage with the other.

Her kisses make it down to a familiar scar—the Mark that matches her own. She mouths at the spot as her hands roam further, pushing Elphie’s dress down past her hips until her Omega is able to kick it away. She doesn’t bite into it again, not yet, just kisses and licks and sucks at the spot so she can enjoy the way Elphie writhes beneath her at the sensation.

“You’re mine,” Glinda growls, sliding her lips over to Elphie’s throat. She can feel her swallow harshly as she fights back another moan. Displeased, Glinda moves up until she can look into those forest-green eyes again. “Let me hear you,” she says, just a bit softer.

Elphie nods, and when Glinda’s hand palms her soaked underwear, she tosses her head back with an unabashed whine. “I’m yours!” she says unprompted, sending a pulse straight to Glinda’s cock that has her hurriedly dragging the ruined underwear down green thighs.

She has to stand briefly to take off her own undergarments, dragging her nightgown over her head. Elphie looks up at her as she does so, and Glinda sees her eyes focus on the space between her legs, where her erection is painfully straining against her underwear. Something softens in Elphie’s expression, and Glinda hurries to take them off before she can see—but it’s too late.

“Oh, my love,” Elphie breathes, reaching out even though she’s too far away. “My sweet, are they hiding you?”

Glinda tries to hold back a wince and isn’t quite sure if she succeeds, but she manages to squeeze out of the compression underwear and climb back on top of her Omega. “Please,” she says before kissing Elphie deeply, hoping she’ll drop the topic. “Please, not right now.”

Elphie hesitates, but nods in the end, drawing her into another kiss and lifting a leg to wrap around Glinda’s hip. “Okay,” she whispers. “Take me, my sweet.” Glinda’s breath hitches, her hips bucking so that she slides against her Omega’s wetness.

“Fill me,” Elphie continues between kisses. “I’ve missed you so much. Please let me feel you. Make love to me.”

How Glinda has seemingly become just as desperate as her Omega in heat is beyond her. She quickly reaches down, aligning herself with Elphie’s entrance and, with an open, messy kiss, pushes inside.

They groan loudly into each other’s mouths as Glinda fills her easily, as Elphie pulses around her to accommodate the stretch. Long nails are clawing at Glinda’s back again, and she tugs at Elphie’s lip with her teeth as she pulls back with a hiss.

“Fuck, baby,” Glinda moans, gripping tightly onto her Omega’s hips. She hooks an arm beneath the knee Elphie has raised and lifts it from her hip up over her shoulder, stretching her open beneath her. She pushes in further as a result, and Elphie gasps and digs her nails in.

“Glin,” she cries out, making Glinda’s heart soar at the pet name she hasn’t heard in years. Her hips buck upwards, and the Alpha starts moving within her.

“You take me so well,” Glinda praises, kissing down the side of Elphie’s face once more. As she thrusts in and out, she can feel wet walls clenching around her, trying to draw her in further. She groans and slides out almost completely before snapping her hips forward, driving deep into her Omega and drawing a cry of pleasure out from that beautiful green throat.

Glinda is overcome with a possessiveness the old her would never have allowed herself to display. Thrusting into her steadily now, driving her cock deep inside her, she leans up to Elphie’s ear. “You’re here because I’m the only one that can do this for you,” she pants. She feels Elphie nod as her hips buck upwards and takes it as a sign to continue. “I’m the only one who can fuck you like this.”

“Shit, I—” Elphie cuts herself off with a gasp, and when she doesn’t continue speaking, Glinda does instead.

“I’m the only one who can make you feel this good, right darling?”

Elphie nods frantically. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chants into Glinda’s ear, spurring her on. “P-please, I’m—ah!”

Glinda’s thrusts don’t slow, but they are getting shallower—her knot is forming, triggered by her Omega’s heat. She tilts her hips to hit that one spot inside Elphie that she knows will drive her closer to the edge, grasping tightly at the thigh slung over her shoulder. Leaning back so that she can see her face, she growls, “Please what, Elphie?”

Elphaba stares at her through half-closed eyes as she struggles to keep them open. They flutter with each thrust, her lips parted tantalizingly as she pants with pleasure and need. “Please, I need—I need you to knot me,” she begs, hand sliding up into Glinda’s hair. “I need you to make me come—I need to feel you come inside me, please, my Alpha—”

Glinda feels her hips stutter and reaches down with her other hand to rub at Elphaba’s slick-covered clit. Elphie moans as Glinda circles the sensitive nub, tightening around Glinda as the tension grows within them both.

“You’re going to take my knot, darling,” Glinda says, Alpha tenor ringing through her voice. She leans down to nuzzle against Elphie’s neck, lips brushing the Mark there. “You’re gonna take it all, and I’m gonna claim you all over again.”

“Y-yes, please!” Elphie moans, head tilting to the side to allow her Alpha closer. “I’m yours, I’m yours, please—Glinda!”

Glinda bites down, teeth perfectly matching the Mark that’s already there, and feels her knot slip inside her Omega. Elphie cries out as she pulses around her, clenching with each brush of Glinda’s finger over her clit, and clutches the back of her head to bring her closer.

Then, Glinda feels a sharp sting at the side of her own neck, her own Mark now redone, and her hips twitch forward as she empties herself inside her Omega. Wave after wave of pleasure rolls through them both as Glinda fills her, her knot sealing every drop inside.

They stay like that for a long, long moment, eventually releasing their biting holds on each other in favor of languid, wet kisses along necks and shoulders. Glinda eventually finds Elphie’s mouth again and relishes the feeling of their tongues pushing together, relearning each other.

“I love you,” Elphie whispers against her lips, making Glinda’s heart leap in her chest. “I love you, I love you, I love you, my Alpha, my Glinda…” She continues to ramble between kisses until Glinda leans down to press her face into her neck and just breathe in that sharp, woodsy smell.

She can’t bring herself to say it back. Not just yet.

Another moment passes where they simply hold each other, stuck together at the hips by Glinda’s knot. She eventually lets Elphie’s leg lower itself from her shoulder, and then she doesn’t have time to react before green thighs are bracketing her hips and she is firmly, but carefully, tossed onto her back.

Glinda looks up in surprise at the Omega now straddling her, the Omega who is still filled with her knot and is now grinding down against her with a slow rock of her hips. Green hands reach out to scratch at her chest, and she can’t help but hiss at the combination of sensations. “E-Elphie…?” she says, embarrassingly close to a whimper.

“I’ve missed you, my love,” Elphaba says lowly, “and I want my fill.” She’s still rocking her hips back and forth. Glinda bucks upward before she can hold back, and Elphie gasps before leaning down to breathe over her lips. “Tell me you love me.”

“Oh, fuck,” Glinda says, definitely whimpering now. She does, she loves this woman so much it’s unbearable, but the words won’t come out, shuttered away by years of heartache and broken dreams.

Elphie’s tongue sticks out to slowly lick along Glinda’s upper lip, making her shiver. “I know you do,” she says, hands squeezing Glinda’s breasts as she rides her carefully. “You’re my Alpha,” another roll of her hips, “and I’m your Omega.” Another, and Glinda grabs onto those hips tightly. She leans up to try and kiss her, but Elphie pulls back to stay just out of reach. “I haven’t had anyone else, you know,” she continues. “You’re the only one who’s ever been inside me.”

Oz, Glinda’s so sensitive, still surrounded by her Omega’s wet heat, and Elphie’s voice, breathy and low, makes her head spin. She’s not sure at this point if she’ll come first or go mad instead.

“You’re the only one who’s ever fucked me,” Elphie says with a slight bounce, making them both groan as Glinda’s knot tugs at her entrance. “The only one to make me come apart.”

Glinda’s not sure if she’s holding onto Elphaba’s hips to keep her still or to make her move faster, but whatever she’s wanting to do, Elphie isn’t letting her have any control. She leans down and takes Glinda’s lower lip between her green ones, sucking harshly before releasing it with a pop.

“You’re the only one I’ll ever love,” she says, breath ghosting over Glinda’s swollen and spit-soaked lips.

“Fuck, Elphie!”

Elphie presses a hand to Glinda’s chest and grinds her hips down harder, keeping her still, taking her pleasure. Her other hand moves to rub at herself, and the moan she lets out is delectable. Glinda can feel her tightening around her cock with every pass of her finger over her clit. “Tell me you love me, and you can fill me again,” Elphie says through hitching breaths. “Tell me I’ll always be yours.”

Something breaks in Glinda’s chest, tension rising within her body so quickly that her vision blurs, and she’s crying out before she can even think. “I love you!” she moans desperately. “My Elphie, my perfect Omega, mine, I love—ah!”

“Glin!”

And then they are coming together once more. Glinda sees white as she tosses her head back, hips pressing up to push as deep into her Omega as she possibly can. She vaguely feels a rush of wetness spill onto her thighs as Elphie pulses tightly around her, drawing out every last bit of her seed. Then, those perfect lips are on hers again with a kiss so soft and full of love it makes her heart sing. “I love you,” she murmurs over and over again, the dam now broken, her head spinning every time Elphie says it back.

She can only take a moment more of Elphie moving her hips before she holds her tightly enough to make her still, true overstimulation now threatening to take over her body. Elphie takes the hint and settles down, laying her full weight against her and nuzzling into Glinda’s Mark. It’s grounding, and Glinda had forgotten how it feels to be so, so full of love.

“Oz, I missed you so much,” she confesses. She’s completely exhausted, too exhausted and satisfied to be angry anymore, at least for now. Her hands roam slowly across her Omega’s back, nails ghosting over her skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Elphie presses close and kisses her Mark. “I missed you, my sweet,” she whispers. “Unbearably so.”

“Please stay,” Glinda begs softly as she struggles to keep her eyes open. “Please stay with me.”

Elphie stills for just a moment, then kisses her Mark again. “I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”

She relaxes fully on top of her, and the rhythm of her breathing lulls Glinda into sleep.

***

Elphaba can’t stay.

She shouldn’t, at least; there is nowhere she could stay in the Palace where she wouldn’t eventually be found by someone who would surely immediately rat her out to Morrible or the Wizard. Oz knows what they would do to her, what they would do to Glinda for harboring her and going behind their backs. She can’t risk it. She can’t.

But lying there next to her Alpha, that familiar sweet scent filling the air and making her feel so whole and loved—it’s incredibly difficult to leave.

(I could make you stay, her Alpha had said.

But why couldn’t Glinda have gone with her, instead?)

The sun is coming up, shining through the balcony doors. Glinda’s knot disappeared hours ago, and so Elphaba has been lying here simply staring at her Alpha as she sleeps. She studies every mark she’s left upon pale skin, scratches from her nails and bruises from her love bites. She relishes in the soreness she feels, herself, can tell even without checking a mirror that her own neck is mottled with marks, as well.

She wonders how long these reminders will last.

Something shifts in the air, and Elphaba’s head perks up as the sound of morning birds suddenly enters the air—Glinda must have only done a temporary silencing spell, and now it’s worn off.

Elphaba stares longingly down at her Alpha and knows that this is when she has to leave.

She slips out of bed as smoothly as she can and starts redressing, retrieving her broom from Glinda’s closet. She lingers, wanting more than anything that she could stay, or that Glinda could come with her—but she knows if Oz’s beloved Glinda the Good were to go missing, the literal witch hunt for her would increase tenfold.

Elphaba steps closer to the bed, feet silent against the plush carpet. She merely wants to place a gentle kiss goodbye to her Alpha’s temple as she sleeps curled up on her side, but as she leans down, her nose twitches as a scent stronger than caramel and vanilla hits her—something sharp and peppery and oh-so-familiar.

Oh, no.

Her eyes widen as she looks downward, to where Glinda’s hips are covered by the blankets—and where the outline of a half-formed erection is visible.

Glinda’s in rut.

A rattling of a doorknob startles her, and she nearly has a heart attack at the thought of being caught like this, the Wicked Witch of the West standing over Glinda the Good’s naked form. But it seems Glinda’s locking spell was not temporary like the silencing spell, and the door doesn’t open.

“Your Goodness?” she hears faintly from the other side.

“Shit,” Elphaba hisses, starting to panic.

Glinda starts stirring a bit below her, face scrunching up and eyebrows furrowing together.

Elphaba reaches down to cup her cheek and shake her gently. “Glinda, wake up,” she whispers sharply. Brown eyes flutter open, seeking her out and then widening as they meet hers.

“Elphie?” she says dreamily, as if she’d thought the previous night had been a figment of her imagination.

Elphaba’s heart warms, but the panic is still there as the doorknob rattles again, a more frantic call of “Your Goodness?” coming from outside the bedroom.

The sound seems to register to Glinda, too, as she quickly sits up. Only then does she notice her state of arousal, glancing down to her covered erection and then looking back up to Elphaba with a blush heating her face. “E-Elphie?” she says again, and the fear and uncertainty in her voice makes Elphaba’s chest ache. “You’re—you’re leaving.” It’s not a question, and Elphaba’s heart shatters.

She quickly finds the Alpha’s nightgown and hands it to her. “Glinda, I have to,” she says apologetically. There are knocks banging against the door now, and more voices have joined the original. “I’m so sorry, my love, but I have to.” She cups a pale cheek in her hand again, feels tears pricking at her eyes as Glinda clutches desperately at her wrist. That peppery scent fills her entire being with want, and she leans down to kiss her deeply.

She tries to push all of her apologies, all of her love and reassurance into this kiss. She breaks away only enough to speak. “I’ll be back to help you, I promise. Do you trust me?”

Glinda’s eyes are wide and watery, her other hand is now grasping at the back of her head in an attempt to keep her close. “Elphie…” she says, and Elphaba tries to ignore the pain she feels at the non-answer.

But there’s no more time. “Hold out, my sweet,” she begs before kissing her again. “Hold out, if you can.” One last kiss, heady and longing, and then she tears herself away before she loses her will.

Elphaba sprints to the balcony, throws open the doors, and leaps over the railing. It’s only once she’s in the sky once more that her tears finally fall.

#stuck safe #omegaverse #smutfic #smut #fanfic #writing #gelphie fanfiction #gelphie fanfic #wicked fanfic #wicked #gelphie #galinda x elphaba #galinda x elphie #glinda x elphaba #glinda x elphie #my writing #ao3 #prompt

10 notes · View notes

tumb1rprincess · 9 months ago

Text

youtube

I got introduced to this song in the Malevolent discord server, someone pointed out how well it fit Arthur, and I've been listening to it on repeat ever since and I'm going feral with how much it fits. I feel like every verse sums up or describes some of Arthur's most important relationships.

The first verse is about him and Bella, which I know whether they really loved each other or not is kind of debatable, but I know they cared about each other. As far as we know, this was Arthur's first relationship, he was enamored with her (I'm so full of love I could barely eat). The lyrics use a lot of sweet, sugary words (cherry tree, toothaches just from kissing) and it puts this image in my head of their relationship being this puppy love kind of thing before Bella became pregnant and everything changed.

Second verse is about Parker. Arthur's drunk off his ass and wallowing in misery when Parker first meets him (I was three days on a drunken sin). The "empty crib" is that emptiness Faroe's death has brought and Arthur's said more than once he was pretty much suicidal at that point (I didn't care how much long I lived). But Parker doesn't push, doesn't ask for the finer details, just tries to get Arthur out of his hole he's dug himself into (never asked me once about the wrong I did).

Third verse is about John, how he's seen Arthur do terrible things, but loves him anyway (never fret none about what my hands and my body done). The whole verse is about how God may not forgive what you've done, if Heaven and Hell are even real, but you have someone you love and they have you and that's all that matters, and if that isn't John and Arthur in a nutshell, I don't know what is.

The chorus could be the multiple times Arthur has almost died, and I know he's said he doesn't believe anyone's waiting for him when he dies, but that hasn't stopped him from saying Faroe's name when he's almost died. He thinks about her, Bella, and probably Parker now too anytime he's close to dying, and how seeing them again would feel like coming home, but like "no grave can pull my body down" he just keeps getting pulled back and keeps on living.

#malevolent #john doe #arthur lester #bella saltzman #peter parker yang #faroe lester #Youtube

12 notes · View notes

rose-tinted-vision · 11 months ago

Text

Fic: 浮生若梦 | life is like a dream

Fandom: The Double (墨雨云间)

Relationship(s): Xiao Heng & Wen Ji & Lu Ji, Xiao Heng/Xue Fangfei

Summary:

Wen Ji peers at the couple, humming in thought, “have you prepared any baby names, then? How about Yue’er? or Xin’er?”

loosely based off this edited ending! | read on ao3

The sound of metal against whetstone was the only thing that occupied their camp, the harsh sounds mingling with the buzzing of mosquitoes that pierced the night air. The area was otherwise silent, with the three of them too exhausted to speak, much less do anything beyond the bare essentials.

“How long have we been out here?” Wen Ji caves first, hunched over his knees as he sharpens his sword.

“Three weeks. You should know,” Lu Ji says, stoically cleaning the blood off his blades– they would just get stained again the next day, as it had been the last few days, but the repetition helped.

It helped him to focus his mind, focus on something other than the exhaustion in his bones that was starting to hinder his movements, focus on something that was not the amount of times Wen Ji and their zhujun had nearly died earlier today.

It was a given that the war was tiring, more draining than what they were accustomed to. Their opponents this time weren’t some two-bit criminal who hardly knew how to fight– these soldiers were trained, well versed in their own martial arts, and they were heavily outnumbered, with their numbers declining with each passing day.

Their zhujun had sent word for reinforcements, but who knew whether they would survive until then?

“Three weeks…” Wen Ji repeats slowly, “is that considered lucky? The army of Dai doesn't seem to be slowing down.”

“Idiot, are you scared of dying?”

“Of course not! Who's scared of death?” Wen Ji declares with his chin raised defiantly, which Lu Ji meets with an impassive stare.

Wen Ji wasn't fooling anyone– not them, at least– they could see the fear written all over his posture, plain as day. But who wasn’t afraid of death? And if they died here, there would be no one to collect their bodies, no one to bring them back home. It was an understandable fear, and a commonly shared one.

The silence between them stretches, with neither Wen Ji or Lu Ji backing down from what had evolved into a staring contest, until their zhujun shifts, clapping both of them on the back as he declares, “I promised my furen that I'll survive. So naturally, we'll survive.”

…who were they to disobey their zhujun?

“Understood.”

—

So they hack, they slash, and they raze their enemies to the ground, never once straying too far from each other's sight.

There had been one too many near misses, some that Lu Ji was nearly too late to save them from– his hair might be greying from all the stress, if it wasn't already– he sees the exhaustion mirrored on his companions faces, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on, with his arms only growing heavier with each shichen that passed.

(Lu Ji knows that he might not survive this war.

That was something he has made his peace with, oddly enough. The only regret he had would be that he wouldn't be able to protect zhujun and Wen Ji anymore).

He cuts down another two, dodges another three, and considers the merits of giving in to the fatigue beckoning him to death’s arms. He very nearly does give in to the temptation of sleep, when–

“That's the army of Zhao’s flag!” Wenji shouts over the clamour, nodding towards the southeastern direction.

Sure enough, like rays of light piercing through the blanket of dreary clouds obscuring the clear blue sky, steadily approaching them were troops carrying the flag of the Zhao army, with Situ Jiuyue fearlessly leading the charge.

The new addition rightfully scares the Dai army, who scramble to regroup, retreating by one li before the pressure of their reinforcements. It isn’t an overwhelming swoop, or an end to the battle, but it was a reprieve nonetheless.

“My brother says we can’t spare any more men,” Jiuyue says regretfully, before looking their zhujun over, “Xiao Heng, are you injured anywhere?”

“No.”

“Good, don't let yourself get injured. I don't have much poisons with me.”

“Fine, you’re only asking him, are you?” Wen Ji says with a snort, “he is–”

Lu Ji elbows him, fully aware of what he was about to say next. Trust the idiot to be so tactless– who didn’t know how Jiuyue felt towards their zhujun? To flaunt their zhujun’s marriage in the face of their saviour was just thoughtless, too thoughtless.

“This one thanks the Princess for her help. Our Emperor should be reaching in a day,” their zhujun tells Jiuyue, before turning to address them at large, “just hang on until then.”

“Understood,” Lu Ji answers with a bow. The reinforcements would boost their troop’s morale temporarily, which gives them a chance to turn the tides.

They would survive.

—

“You have no idea, niangzi,” Wen Ji cackles, expertly dodging his zhuren’s lethal fan that had immediately come flying at him, “zhujun looked so cool, picking up your jade pendant and holding it between his teeth! Just like a real general!”

“Eleven lashes,” zhujun says, catching his fan with a flourish as he perches on the side of his furen’s chair.

(Lu Ji winces– that might cause Wen Ji’s injuries to reopen– they hadn't completely healed yet, it being a mere week since their return from the borders).

“I’m complimenting you!” Wen Ji protests, “and niangzi likes hearing of how dashing you were out there anyway.”

“Make that twenty-two,” zhujun drawls, raising a brow in warning, “or do you want thirty?”

Lu Ji shares a look with Fangfei niangzi, who gives him a knowing smile– he doesn’t know whether he should be scared or not, considering how scary she could be– he had bore witness to the entire play that she put on, after all.

(He briefly wonders how much she had seen, how much she knew.

She’s like a mind reader! Wen Ji had once exclaimed, after witnessing another of her brilliantly executed plans).

“Aiya, fujun, I was the one who asked Wen Ji to share more stories,” Fangfei says, slipping an arm around his waist, “and it was nice to hear about how you fearlessly took down so many soldiers of Dai.”

“You’re going back to acting again?” their zhujun smirks, seeing through her at once.

But the fondness in his gaze is palpable as he looks at his wife, who had rest her head against his chest, smiling coquettishly at him– and that was Lu Ji’s cue to get out of the yard, dragging Wen Ji along with him– he did not want to play audience to whatever they liked to get up to together.

—

This time, it was their turn to watch as their zhujun and his furen put on a show, taking on the role of enamoured lovebirds exploring the night markets hand in hand.

“What do you say, how long until we become uncles?” Wen Ji lands silently beside him, failing to properly stifle his wince– he’d likely landed on his bad ankle which hadn’t properly healed yet– one of their spoils of war.

Lu Ji himself had a shattered wrist bone, but that had healed faster than Wen Ji’s broken ankle, because unlike the fool, he knew how to properly rest instead of overworking his injured arm.

“A year,” Lu Ji replies, continuing to silently shadow their zhujun. Word was that bandits had entered the city disguised as vendors, looking for an opportunity to cause chaos and set up their racketeering business. He’d spotted a few suspicious individuals earlier and taken note of their stall location– but their priority tonight was the furen’s protection– those thugs they could deal with later.

“A year? You think they’ll move that quickly?” Wen Ji asks, scandalized, “I was going to give it at least two years, and that is the very least!”

“Are you blind, or just dumb?” Lu Ji deadpans, gesturing to the besotted couple below, who were clearly struggling to maintain their propriety in public.

Their zhujun had offered his furen a spun sugar candy in the shape of a cat, leaning in to whisper something (no doubt improper) into her ear, which had her flushing a bright red. Lu Ji can only let out a long-suffering sigh as Wen Ji giggles at the scene. He had thought them more proper than that, but he’d underestimated the rush of being newlyweds, he supposed.

Wen Ji peers at the couple, humming in thought, “have you prepared any baby names, then? How about Yue’er? or Xin’er?”

Of course he had prepared one. But he wasn’t going to tell the blabbermouth that.

(It proves to be not useful, when their niangzi announces her pregnancy a few months later, which catches the both of them off guard. They had clearly underestimated how far gone their zhujun was.

Turns out, they had already agreed to name their kid Tong’er).

#post canon fix it #the double #duke su #xiao heng #xue fangfei #yet another obligatory fix-it (almost everybody) lives fic #i needed this i think. to just write some self indulgent shit #rose writes

13 notes · View notes

sroloc--elbisivni · 2 years ago

Text

Bunnyguard master post

July 1, 2023: in the spirit of shameless self-promotion here's a collective post for the Usagi Yojimbo/Rottmnt fusion Leosagi fic series I've been working on this year. somewhat celebratory because 1. I'm very excited to have hit the halfway mark on this project 2. my birthday is later this month and I can do a little treat for myself if I want 3. it's my first day off in ages and I can spend my time luxuriantly and frivolously. Prompts taken from Year of the OTP; titles from Richard Siken "Litany in which certain things are crossed out."

Post last updated December 22, 2023

Bunnyguard verse premise in three bullet points:

The cast of Usagi Yojimbo are embedded in the Hidden City

Draxum helped raised the turtles

Usagi gets hired as a bodyguard for Leo a month after the Krang invasion

January - "missionfic" - something other than the desperation Usagi does his best to not embarrass himself while Leo tries to do the same and fails. (the hero shifts from one foot to the other)

February - "mermaid au" - no one will ever want to sleep with you A first meeting sparks a series of increasingly dumb and desperate decisions. (the repeated image of the lover destroyed)

March - "mutual pining" - your heart, and it is painted shut We skip ahead in the timeline to the point where Usagi has decided he's going to just quietly pine forever and Leo stops for five seconds of self-examination and immediately starts planning his wedding. (the same big and little words, all spelling out desire)

April - "No, I'm not dating your brother" - There is something underneath the floorboards After a series of shenanigans, (some of) Usagi's misconceptions are corrected and Leo eventually gets a full night's sleep. (bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing)

May - "accidental pet/child acquisition" - Quit milling around the yard and come inside Usagi uses his day off to be with his family, including his son, and Leo takes a turn being the babysitter instead of the babysat. (Inside your head you hear a phone ringing.)

June - "you're not what I expected" - These terms from the lower depths After being chased by a demon, Leo and Usagi end up in the bones of both of their pasts, one after the other. (I have told you where I'm coming from, so put it together.)

July - "enemies to lovers" - recently we have had our difficulties Leo screws up, Usagi gets hurt, and they have to work together to fix it. (the moment of epiphany, in gold light)

August - "au of your choice" (free space) - close enough to see the blue rings Usagi fights a dragon and Leo has a bunch of minor problems happen all at once. (But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats)

September - "hurt/comfort" - Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? An unexpected attack forces everyone involved to reexamine their circumstances. (Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere)

October - "identity shenanigans" - I guess I can tell you that now. Our heroes go on a date to a mob warehouse and find out things that were not exactly secrets but definitely unknown. (I walk through your dreams and invent the future)

November - "be careful what you wish for" - You want a better story. Who wouldn't? A confrontation, a choice, a number of things undone. (It should mean laughter, not poison.)

December - "forgiveness" - so maybe I wanted to give you something Our heroes reckon with their actions, and choose to try again. (I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.)

#bunnyguard #here we go :3 #turtles #usagi yojimbo #leosagi #fic talk #updated through september

102 notes · View notes

ghostflowerhotpotch · 2 years ago

Text

Possible Birthday Months for Miles and Gwen (Theory.)

Okay, as far as I am aware, there are no definitive birthdays for Miles or Gwen in the movies; not sure if there are in the comics, but considering the differences, there is no warranty they would have stayed anyways.

This is more like a fun way to justify a headcanon, chances are the writers haven't thought really hard on dates because is not really, necessary in many cases. And giving exact dates sometimes makes things more complicated too.

Regardless, the idea pop into my head once I realized I had connected enough clues to MAYBE get the months down, and I think that's fun.

So let's go!

Yes, this is where we start.

Again, we don't have hard evidence when anything of this is happening (including if it works like in our world since by being another dimension, anything is possible,) but if we go with the assumption that the writers intend to work things similarly like in our dimension, let's examine this.

Now, let's reflect on this, when a prestigious school like this would be hosting a lottery or test to let people in? Probably at one point early in the scholar year, or if anything, at the beginning of the semester.

I believe is around January, primarily because you see multiple shots with snow.

Now, we really don't know how long has been since Miles entered the school vs when he was bitten, especially since there is no snow when he has his first day. However, and I will admit I don't have hard evidence, it doesn't feel like it has been too long? maybe a few days perhaps, but it feels like it couldn't have been happening for more than a couple of weeks.

Another thing I consider is that from what I had investigated, tends to be light snow in December and not many days; so it could be plausible since is beginning of January, there hasn't been any heavy snowfall, which could explain why so many trees still had autumn leaves.

Another reason I don't think this is in September, and again no hard evidence; is that it doesn't give the impression this is the first day of school for everyone else. They all seem to chill, we don't see the teacher introduce themselves or the classroom at any moment.

Now, with the idea that this is January, how old is Miles? As I can see in the Into Spider-verse Art book, 13 yeards old.

In Across the spiderverse however, we heard this from Miles.

Now, how much time has passed between movies? Luckily, we have an answer for that in across too!

Considering it has been a year and four months, this would mean the events of this movie are happening around May; this would make sense, since Miles using this Jacket seems to be pretty normal, and we have another dude in the background with one as well.

So maybe, early May we could see? Since other guests are not using any sweaters or similar, I don't think it could be very close to June.

So that gives us Between January and May, which is close enough, right?

Luckily, determining Gwen's also helps determine Miles'!

Now Enter, Gwen.

The first nugget of Information comes from Into the Spider-verse, close to the end.

Okay, so we know there is at least 15 months of difference, or 1 year and three months.

Now, during Across the Spiderverse, we have a brief moment when we see different days of the same moment, that is the Stacys and the Parkers having a meal together.

This sequence is obviously quick, and I needed to pause A LOT at half speed to catch this stuff; I couldn't catch every frame obviously, and it would be definitely too many images.

That being said, from what I saw in my reruns, this seemed to be at least in the span of a year (meaning not repeated moments like Christmas or birthdays.) And since I don't think each moment means every single day is depicted in the span of those moments, I can say there is a chronological sense on the images (type of clothing is more summer/winter/etc appropriate, holidays, etc.)

I noticed that the depiction of Gwen's birthday has very few images with more summer-type clothes (short sleeves for example,) and was after many frames when the characters were using light, but long-sleeved clothing.

In comparison, I felt after this birthday scene, has more frames with more summer or light clothes, until we land on a more remarkable Autumn holiday, this looks like Halloween if you ask me.

(I love how goofy George and Peter look, Do you guys think Gwen has a costume, or has she just decided to dress like whatever she wants? If is a costume, it definitely feels like a closet type. Aka you use your regular clothes to get a costume)

Considering Peter is using two layers (Even if light) during Gwen's birthday, I am inclined to believe this is around May, since I could believe this is late spring/early summer (especially with the beautiful clear blue sky behind Gwen) while not being the worst in terms of temperature yet.

So, with the idea that Gwen's Birthday is around May. This would mean Miles' birthday could land around February.

Headcanons: Exact dates.

Now, a lot of this is already in hazy territory, but for the exact days there is really no way for me to tell, so now this is fully just my own headcanons.

While I don't think Miles is truly an anomaly, I thought it would be funny if he was born on February 29, considering is a day that only happens every four years. I think Miles could also spin some jokes around it.

With that idea in mind, and going on with the idea that Gwen's birthday is in June, I thought it could be funny if they also shared the same number of day, with Gwen's birthday being May 29. Yes, there is no reason for them to have exactly 15 months of difference, but I like the idea of them having that cute coincidence.

End notes

Again, this is all a fun thought experiment, there is really no concrete evidence, and I don't think the directors or the writers had truly tried to think too hard on these details since there is no necessity.

I saw that there is a wiki that claims that ATSV takes place in April, however, it didn't really lead me to any reliable sources, so until I have some hard evidence, I will keep this intact.

Hope you guys liked this ramble!

EDIT: In Reference to this ask

Thanks for your notes! I have some things to point.

I actually knew about the Decembruary detail! I watched the ITSV video from CinemaWins.

Actually, what Jeff says is that Miles needs to give it at least 2 weeks, not that he has been there for that long.

The week reference is interesting! Thanks.

Huh, I didn't notice that detail previously.

Now, with these details out of the way, what we can say?

I was right on the money about the creators not paying too much attention to dates. My original theory was that they avoided putting anything too concrete to don't run into timeline problems. Is good to keep in mind that both the test (Miles could have easily put the wrong year too, considering he put Decembruary;) and the Security Camera are all little details that aren't really relevant to the plot; like this isn't an "if we don't do this before X date the world ends."

I consider Miles Saying "And for the past year and four months" heavier proof of the time passed that what the security camera and the test had written on aren't as valuable as that. After all, if this ITSV happened on December 2018 but ATSV was on July 2023, that would mean it has been over almost 5 years for them, which has obviously not been the case.

So with the pieces of this new puzzle, what do we end up with?

New Dates

If we weigh the test Miles failed on Purpose vs the Security Camera, I think believing the Security camera makes more sense. Miles putting 2018 on a test that already says Decembruary can easily be chalked to him wanting to mess up even more.

If it has been a year and four months since he became Spiderman, and in July in ATSV, this would mean that Into the Spiderverse is happening around March.

This would mean Miles having this birthday fall between March and July, and Gwen's possible Birthday months to move from June to October.

If we continue to go with my theory of the outfits they use in the movie can count as a measurement of time, I would say March and June are very likely.

Headcanon dates for the new timeline

While I may or may not go with these dates in future stories (Which I will explain my reasoning later for those who like my fic writing.) I thought it would be fun to give some new headcanons to these dates.

Since the anomaly situation hasn't been done, my alternative number for Miles would be 24. Why 24? Because the number 42 plays a big role in his life (is the number which he won the "lottery," his spider is from that dimension, and is seen around in ITSV a lot too.) And since 42 can't be a date, 24 it is.

For Gwen, I thought it would be fun that since her universe is 65, and the month of June seems like a good lead, her birthday could be June 5 (since 06/05) I know this means there isn't an example of 15 months of difference between them, however, I think everybody goes more with the month than the exact day for these things.

I have a cousin who is roughly, 20 days older than me, but we always said "a month" while mentioned in passing because why bother with semantics.

Will I ignore this in my writing? Probably

Now, this next section is mostly there for those who like my writing, since usually, the headcanons I have here tend to translate into my works.

I will probably go with my original dates.

Here is my situation; I could believe Miles is in school in July because of the alternative universe (it seems traditionally it ends in June.) I could believe they use fluffy jackets in July because, in Miles' universe, July is colder than our own; heck I was joking with my partner that Miles probably didn't have coronavirus in his universe and the reactions to other spideys who dealt with that,

What I can't deal with, is Miles starting school in March.

While students can move to other schools all year around, the fact that the lottery part is mentioned as well as the test, makes me think this has to be at a reasonable timeline for the school year. After all, why they would host a lottery for a student when the school year ends in four months? Why Rio and Jeff would try to make Miles change school if nothing prompt them to?

Granted, this could be explained with the school year working differently, maybe they start in January, and is still early enough to do this, or start in March.

However, I disqualified the December bit (which I also discard because NO ONE HAS A STUDENT START CLASSES JUST BEFORE WINTER BREAK UNLESS THEY ARE MOVING OR SOMETHING SIMILAR.) I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to put imagine it was in December just because.

Again, this is not an important detail. Gwen's dad is different between ITSV and ATSV, as well as the fact that the situation and Peter's look are different.

(You could make the case it looks like this because Miles is imagining everything instead of being a faithful adaption. However, I firmly believe they didn't put too much time into it or stick with those concepts because it wasn't necessary. Also, this will mean Peter B maybe wasn't eating pizza instead of pushups, and I will NOT give up that.)

Why not have a different way the calendar works? Too many details to keep track of, and fics are supposed to be fun; I will not try to bend backward my writing to adhere to the canon if is not enjoyable.

Is not the only time I do this, Noir should be around 19 because of comics and stuff, but if you think I will give up the idea that Noir is in his 40s, you are dead wrong.

This part will be edited into the original post (since people don't tend to reblog reblogs, I prefer people will have the chance to see the corrections.) And queue for tomorrow so more people can see it.

Also, I made a mistake in my original post, I said Gwen's Birthday would be in June, when in reality it should May, sorry for the confusion!

If you read all the way, thank you for your patience! I know this is long.

#atsv #across the spiderverse #ghostflower #ghostflower files #miles morales #gwen stacy #atsv files #into the spiderverse #itsv #ghostflower hcs

134 notes · View notes