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hcneymooners · 6 months ago

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⋆ you used to be alive, now you're almost mythic.

warlord!ambessa x dragon rider!f!reader. men & minors dni.

synopsis: despite being arranged to marry your brother, ambessa chooses you as the next reigning consort of house medarda. in the wake of her assassination, you begin to unravel.

cw: dark content. please tread carefully. heavy angst, heavily inspired by house of the dragon but still understandable if you haven't watched it, warlord!ambessa, dragon rider!reader, consort!reader, arranged marriage, wife!ambessa, age difference, older woman/younger woman, non-graphic suicide, mental illness, grief, very morally grey characters including reader. notes: i'm in my luteal phase and began to rewatch hotd and this happened. you must suffer with me. i'm returning to my roots (grief and insane family/romantic dynamics). i wanted to explore the effects of ambessa's death on reader and what it means to love someone who is sometimes well-intentioned but almost always corrupted.

୨୧ you meet on a clouded day, you in your house's emerald silks that catch like seafoam in the bitter wind. ambessa towers over everyone else, battle-scarred and beautiful in ways that make your chest ache. she is supposed to wed your brother and you are meant to be afraid—this is the woman who burnt three kingdoms to ash, who feeds her enemies to her dragon.

୨୧ instead, you find yourself fascinated by her hands, how carefully they hold the marriage contract as she chooses you instead.

୨୧ the rumors spread quickly: the gentle noble daughter and the warlord, what a terrible match. they whisper that she must be cruel to you behind closed doors.

୨୧ they don't see how she braids your hair each morning, how she teaches you to wield a knife ("don't be stupid, [name]. you know who you've married. you are an easy target. you must not abide."), how she watches you with such careful control when you’re naked before her for the first time.

୨୧ her wedding gift to you is perfect. you and ithoa the dark are evenly matched—the dragon is massive and obsidian-scaled but gentle-hearted, prone to curling around you protectively during storms. ambessa jokes that you've made her soft.

୨୧ you remember your first flight together, how the wind tore the breath from your lungs and ambessa's hands steadied you, warm against your waist.

୨୧ the first time you saw her truly fight, it was like watching a dance. she moved like water, like shadow, like death itself. afterward, when her enemies lay bleeding into the earth, she looked at you with such fear in her eyes—fear that you would finally see the monster everyone claimed her to be. and she was one, you weren’t blind, but she’s yours.

୨୧ in some ways you are worse than she is.

୨୧ you help clean her of blood and kiss each of her knuckles. you learn fealty tastes of copper and salt.

୨୧ you wake sometimes to find her watching you in the dark, her fingers tracing patterns on your skin like she's memorizing you. "what are you thinking?" you ask, and she says, "that i never thought i could love something so much. it terrifies me."

୨୧ you understand—love like this is dangerous; it sent half your bloodline mad.

୨୧ there are nights when the nightmares come, when she thrashes and calls out names of the dead. you learn to weather these storms, to hold her until she remembers where she is. you whisper against her temple, “bessa, come back to me." and she does, she always does.

୨୧ "my advisors say i've grown weak," ambessa confesses one night, her head in your lap as you card fingers through her silver-streaked hair. "perhaps they are right."

୨୧ you think of how she still trains daily, how her enemies still fear her name, how she commands armies with an iron fist. but is she is weaker. she's learned to love too, to show mercy when warranted. you lie.

୨୧ you tell her, "you've only grown wise," and she kisses your palm like a benediction.

୨୧ the politics grow more heated. you notice how mel watches her mother with increasing worry, how the peace treaties remain unsigned. you find ambessa in her war room late at night, maps spread before her, and you know what's coming. you love her enough to pretend you don't.

୨୧ you know something is wrong when ithoa screams. it's a sound you've never heard before, something ancient and terrible that makes your bones vibrate. you're running before you can think, your feet carrying you through corridors that seem to stretch endlessly.

୨୧ you find her in the war room. there's a cup rolled beneath the table, a dark stain spreading across the maps she was studying. she looks peaceful, almost, except for the way her fingers are curled like claws against the floor. someone has closed her eyes. someone has touched her. someone has taken her from you.

୨୧ your knees crack against the stone as you fall. there's a sound coming from your throat that doesn't sound human, a keening wail that matches ithoa's grief. you gather her into your arms—she's still warm, still soft, still smells like herself.

୨୧ there is a constant ringing in your head.

୨୧ for one terrible moment, you look at mel standing in the doorway and your mouth forms around the word "dracarys." you feel the heat building in your chest, taste ash on your tongue. ithoa's answering roar shakes the castle foundations. it would be so easy—one word and everything burns.

୨୧ but your father taught you mercy, didn't he? or maybe your mother did. taught you when to hold and when to release.

୨୧ your mouth fills with blood from where you've bitten your tongue holding back that deadly word. mel's face is wet with tears as she falls to her knees beside you, reaching for her mother's other hand.

୨୧ "i'm sorry," she sobs, "i'm sorry, i'm sorry." you want to tell her that sorry isn't enough, that you want to murder her with your own hands—no poison. instead, you keep screaming, high and shrill until your voice breaks, until guards have to pry you away, until they force dreamwine down your throat to quiet you.

୨୧ the funeral is a blur of red and black, but you wear green still—your final act of defiance, of remaining true to yourself as she always wanted. ithoa's keening echoes across the kingdom, a sound of such profound grief that even the oldest dragons respond. she hasn't eaten since ambessa fell.

୨୧ when mel approaches, you see the cost written in the shadows under her eyes. she loved ambessa too, in her way, even as she plotted her death. "i understand," you tell her, voice hollow. "it had to be done. she wouldn’t see reason. she was ruining us.”

୨୧ you see how she flinches at your words, how desperately she wants absolution you cannot give.

୨୧ "you are still my daughter," you add softly, and watch her composure crack. she reaches for you but you step back, the space between you as vast as the void in your chest. “but my blood does not forgive.”

୨୧ you turn back to her before leaving. you say, "learn from your mother. do not apologize for the kill. if they see weakness they will eat you alive. stand on her bones. build on them."

୨୧ you start to forget to eat, to sleep. your ladies whisper concerns about your wandering the castle at night, how you speak to shadows in ambessa's voice. ithoa grows more restless, wilder—they say grief-maddened dragons are dangerous, but you understand her rage. you are two halves of the same coin.

୨୧ sometimes you wake thinking she's still there, reach for her warmth only to find cold sheets. you wear her old shirts to bed, press your face to the fabric searching for traces of her scent. sometimes you go back to the war room, press your face into the cold spot where her body had rotted, and try to find her.

୨୧ you only reach her in your dreams.

୨୧ you sleep in her chambers still, surrounded by her things. sometimes you wake to phantom touches—her hand in your hair, her lips against your shoulder. you find yourself talking to her, telling her about your day as if she's just stepped out for a moment. "you would have laughed," you say to the empty room, "you would have loved this."

୨୧ ithoa refuses to leave the castle grounds, her massive form curled around the tower where you sleep. her grief manifests in physical changes—her scales losing their luster, her eyes clouding over. her handlers whisper that she's dying of heartbreak. you understand—you're dying too, just more slowly.

୨୧ you find yourself holding her things to your chest—her favorite knife, still sharp enough to draw blood when you clutch it too tightly; her riding gloves, worn soft with use; her journal, filled with battle plans and, in the margins, little notes about you.

୨୧ “[name] wore green again today," she wrote once, “she is my only redeeming quality.”

୨୧ sometimes, in your last days, you remember that morning in the garden. how the sun caught in her hair, how she looked younger when she smiled. "if i die," she had said, practical even then, "don't follow me too quickly."

୨୧ you had kissed her quiet, tasting sunshine. "you can't ask that of me," you'd whispered against her mouth. "you've never asked impossible things of me before—don't start now."

୨୧ she had laughed, then grown serious. "you're the best of me," she said, touching your face with those deadly hands that were only ever gentle with you. "the only good thing i've ever done." you had wanted to argue—she was more than her reputation, more than her wars.

୨୧ but she kissed you again and you let it go.

୨୧ now, you think she would understand. after all, she never could deny you anything you truly wanted. and this—a reunion, a reclaiming, an ending that is really a beginning—this is all you want.

୨୧ "fresh air might do you good," your lady's maid suggests, and you smile distantly toward the misty bridge.

୨୧ "yes," you agree, fingering the vial in your sleeve. "i think i shall walk tomorrow, at dawn."

୨୧ you don't tell her you've already sent your letters—one to mel (forgiveness, finally, because you know now how duty weighs), one to your house (explanation, though they never understood), one to the maesters (instructions for ithoa's care, though you suspect she'll follow you as dragons sometimes do).

୨୧ dawn breaks cold and clear. you wear blue, the color of loss in your house, and ambessa's favorite ring. it is heavy and should keep you under the waves. ithoa waits by the bridge, her dark scales catching the first light.

୨୧ the bridge stretches out before you like a body. ithoa's eyes follow your every movement, understanding in her ancient gaze.

୨୧ you uncork the vial with steady hands. you pray. the poison doesn't taste of anything at all. you think that's funny, somehow—that death should be so subtle when life with her was so vivid.

୨୧ as your vision starts to blur, you swear you see her standing at the other end of the bridge. she's wearing her armor, but her hair is up the way you always loved it. "little dove," she calls, holding out her hand, “you’re late, and i’ve missed you."

୨୧ they say a dragon's cry can be heard for leagues. they say ithoa's mourning shook the mountains themselves.

୨୧ they say that when they found you floating in the water, you were smiling and still beautiful, one hand stretched out as if reaching for someone just beyond sight. it almost looked as if you fell, that you’d leaned too far, if not for the vial. they place flowers in your mouth, in the bloated pockets of your waterlogged skin.

୨୧ mel won’t let them burn you. you sink into the earth, and your flesh becomes land. she puts your bones in her mother’s grave but keeps a tooth. it’s diamond, a replacement for one lost to illness, and it sits in the center of her diadem.

୨୧ your last thought, as the world grows soft around the edges, is of ambessa’s hands, how the scars hurt her the most there. the pain was chronic, aggravated by any extensive movement. still, she bent them to hold yours because you were always scared in the beginning.

୨୧ through the water, the sky seems so wide. you aren’t scared now. you're going home. you're going home. you're going home.

୨୧ maybe it is not a good place, where you’ll arrive, but it will not matter.

୨୧ the afterlife is white and quiet. it presses against you. you’re slick, weeping, and bare. there’s a birdsong in your head.

୨୧ you turn, crouched low like a dog, and she’s there.

⚚ special taglist: @sugrcookiiee @icespiceluva @16novvs @tnash-tammy @dyk3miffy @iwasholic @absandsevikasgirl @blackdykegirlblogger @fortluocha @neganwifey25-blog @rottngrl3 @fruitfulfashion @ambessaswifey

#ambessa x you #ambessa x reader #ambessa x y/n #arcane ambessa #ambessa medarda #ambessa league of legends #ambessa the chosen of the wolf #wlw #lesbian #sapphic #arcane fanfic #arcane x reader #fe #female!reader #fem!reader #angst #mine ; 🐎.

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gatheringbones · 2 months ago

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[“It’s a vision of unpatriotic masculinity soothed into submission by uniformed womanhood—at least, womanhood with a badge. The colonial vision of social work it conjures is armed, yet sensitive.

Our culture is saturated with these social workers: weary, gun-toting heroines of carceral gender progress, glamorous avatars of the thin blue line. From Charlie’s Angels to Cagney & Lacey, from Decoy to The Silence of the Lambs, not to mention Prime Suspect, Top of the Lake, Killing Eve, Jessica Jones, The Fall, Mare of Easttown, and literally hundreds more dramas and procedurals featuring various kinds of armed female civil servants, we are conscripted in our millions every day to pay our respects to the lady cop. She is allowed to be “imperfect.” (Sociologists have found that, in real life, policewomen often employ emotionally flat, macho, dehumanizing speech patterns in their dealings with civilian women.) Feminism means cutting the lady cop some slack. Even if she’s “an imperfect protagonist,” the trail of women’s empowerment she’s on is blazed by weapons with state-backed legitimacy. Her feminism is a disciplinary saviorism, a fantasy of a benevolently undemocratic route to sisterhood. Feminist progress, for the cop feminist, is something she can impose from above, compassionately, but also, if need be, coercively. What is she here for? To rescue all of society, and sometimes (especially) to use her womanly instincts to rescue other women—even from themselves.

In the past, as we shall see, feminist Freikorps were often a bit of a laughingstock and became something of a nuisance to the government. Nowadays, in contrast, the cop feminist typically treads the hallways of Harvard, the International Criminal Court, NYU, Columbia, Yale, Stanford, or the American Philosophical Society. Her arguments come in new and sophisticated flavors of self-described radicalism. And yet, cop feminism is sometimes part of a self-described revolutionary politics. A cop feminist may even understand on some level that the prison-industrial complex is a vast support system for white capitalist patriarchy, and yet nevertheless believe that female police officers don’t serve the interests of class power in quite the same way male cops do. For her, the sheer feminist force of the woman with a gun is not fatally diminished by the gun in question’s tie to the armed wing of the state. She feels pretty confident that women cops don’t murder unarmed Black people; that women cops don’t harass sexually active women on the street, nor post vile comments on police union message boards; that they have a positive effect on the community; that they serve as little girls’ best defense against sex traffickers and other predators; that they’re just what the police needs in these trying times, what with public trust in the institution being so eroded; that they simply care more; or that they look good in a uniform.”]

sophie lewis, from enemy feminisms: terfs, policewomen, and girlbosses against liberation, 2025

#sophie lewis #currently reading

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kryptznnn · 8 months ago

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Can't get this off my headdd!! Katsuki having a partner with a snow leapard quirk that gives them the appearance of ofc a snow leapard and also have like an ice quirk?? How would he react to that? You can write it on how you like I just want to be fed😋😋

♡- Different

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

➸ INTERESTS; -mha! katsuki bakugo x f! quirk using reader

➸ BACKGROUND; - (requested submission) Fascinating was probably the best word to use for you when describing what you were. For Katsuki it was perfect, you were perfect, it's as if there were so many great qualities your quirk had given you his curiosity had grown into affection. He hadn't mind watching and studying you from afar, but when he felt a distance come between you two, he took action.

➸ WARNINGS; - wc. 1.5k, fluff, romantic tension, observing lover, indecisiveness, romantic confusion, kissing, friends to lovers' kind of trope.

➸a.i; - I know this is short and im so sorry ugh, i really enjoyed writing this though, I hope you enjoy it!!

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

Maybe his peers were right about you prior to getting close with you. He had heard about you, your features and your quirk being the reason why you seemed that way. He knew your features and personality sounded familiar as someone from his past, but when you walked into his class, he knew exactly who you were.

Y/n L/n, he had known you prior as a child, before you had moved away after being bullied for your quirk and appearance. He never hated it though, he always found it appealing. He had always been drawn to you out of curiosity by it, looking like an exotic animal.

The way your eyes flashed with different colors, popping out as the black lining around your eyes was sharp, your inner corners and waterline dark. He could tell you had applied some makeup to hide majority of the spots and patterns that decorated your face, but he didn’t like it.

He liked being able to see your entire face, and for the most part as he knew your quirk had been in effect for as long as you wanted. As the patterns took effect onto your skin it hadn’t changed the fact that the word snow within snow leopard was literal, also able to control it.

Overtime the two of you went from exchanging small glances in class to actually speaking to one another, as your friend groups clashed. He was happy to say the least, and his friends could tell from how he acted around you. Katsuki was quiet and focused on what you would do, treading carefully and even doing as much to not curse around you, making you laugh every time.

He never really liked looking into your feline-like eyes, it felt as if he was falling into a trap or unknown territory. Even if it was something simple as you waving or smiling at him with your eyes he would look away, his head resting on his hand before smiling softly. His favorite thing about when you would laugh, or smile because your canines would poke out and your ears would flap around.

He took into deep account everything about your physical appearance, studying the way you talked, walked, and even fought in battle. He couldn’t deny you were very flexible and strong, let alone when you used your ice type powers within practice.

What he wasn’t fond of was the fact that it seemed your relationship with him was becoming distant as you began studying with Todoroki. He understood why the two of you were close and had no other reason to study with one another as you shared similar quirks, but the feeling didn’t sit right with him.

He felt as if he was running out of time with you before things had even properly begun. He cherished the small times you two spent together alone, hoping you felt the same way. The times everyone would go out as a group and the two of you trailed behind as you spoke of everyone else, good and bad. He would say or do anything to make you laugh, seeing your canines or how your patterns crinkled slightly up to your eyes, you looked pretty-

No, you looked beautiful to him. The same type of way he watches his parents interact with one another and his father showers and serenades his mother with compliments such as ‘beautiful’ or ‘gorgeous’, maybe even ethereal. He was never sure on how to show you or tell you the way he felt, or the way he wanted you to see yourself how he did.

He had always thought that repeating the same things his father did was cringey, and how you spoke of cringey stuff all of the time there was no way he could set himself up. It seemed as if it was suicide if he even thought of doing so, so when he mustered up the courage to tell you it had apparently been too late.

You cancelled on him last minute as you were supposed to train with Todoroki, again. As you always had nearly twice a week every day for the past 2 months. It drove him insane truly, he hadn’t liked Todoroki any better beforehand and now it seemed to have gotten worse. Even when you all hung out as a group you were quick to speak about what you had practiced or learned from him.

It had kept everything within Katsuki to not cause a fuss and blow up in everyone’s faces, literally. He would just leave without explanation every time, going out and taking a breather before going straight to his room and going to bed. The best part of him was that everyone knew he wasn’t going to just give up or forget about you, one thing he loved more than being stubborn was a fight, and it wasn’t hard fighting for you if he knew he was set to win.

So, when you made it known to him you were free for the day and had nothing to do, he nearly jumped out of bed. Quickly getting ready and damn near sprinting out of his room, making his way to yours. Clearing his throat and taking a deep breath before knocking on your door.

He was nervous, for some odd reason, he never had been before, not for anything. So then why was he so nervous when it came to you? You were his friend, as he was yours, and he just wanted to tell you how appealing you are to him and that you were very nice. Friends don’t do or say the things he wishes to do or say to you though, silly him or not knowing that already.

You were quick to welcome him inside, opening the door fully as you stood at its side from inside as he made his way inside. You ushered him to the small decor you had in the center of your room past the bathroom, a large fuzzy carpet for the two of you to sit on. You were quick to speak first engaging in conversation between the two of you. He had barely answered, only taking in your figure and body features as you spoke.

When you were speaking about something you were passionate about you spoke quickly, your tail moving rather rapidly behind you as your ears never perked lower. You would speak with your hands too, as if reliving the moment as you wanted him to understand it better.

He thought to himself he must’ve looked crazy just staring at you while nodding, not even smiling or laughing at your remarks. He was focused on your words and actions yes, but he was also thinking about what he was going to say to you. Thinking to be gentle and sincere with you when he began until you began to speak of your training with Todoroki.

“And it was so funny because he fell and-“

“You talk about him a lot.” He deadpanned, now cutting off your statement as he really didn’t want to hear any further of him. You stopped and looked him in the eyes now, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s my friend, and we train all of the time with one another.” You said, now looking away at Katsuki’s intense eye contact. You weren’t used to it in all honesty, usually he was quick to pull away or look away from you, now things had changed.

“I’m your friend too, right? Do you talk about me a lot too?” He asked, his hands planted behind him as he sat with his legs crossed, his eyes never leaving your as he moved in closer. You backed your head away slightly, taking in his subtle flirty tone and looked away, your ears flattening slowly as your lip perked to the side.

“Yes” you said in a hushed tone, now looking down into your lap as your tail had remained still, the patterned prints and thin fur on your face now being tainted with a shade of pink. He took in your expression with a surprised look, as he had never seen this expression before.

It must have been embarrassment, or maybe you liked him. Whatever it was he wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass, as now seemed like the perfect time to do what he wanted too. More like what he needed too, it was like a nagging feeling in his stomach and chest telling him too.

Without a second thought as you picked up your head he leaned in and kissed you. After a couple of seconds, he pulled back, looking at your shocked expression. He was going to apologize, but as he opened his mouth a split second later you had already jumped back onto him, kissing him back.

His hand was quick to make its way to the center of your back, giving you support as he nearly toppled over. You soon broke the kiss after he had kissed you back, looking at him with a large smile, your canines showing.

"I think you're a lot more to me than just a friend."

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

✴🕷 please do not copy, plagiarize, edit, or translate any works submitted by me. all works are originated and all other pictures used within those works are online images. thank you!! @kryptznnn 🌸my main navigation

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hydrus101 · 2 months ago

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Yog Sothoth,,,,

I will be taking this opportunity to finally post about my Yog-Sothoth endgame theory for malevolent. (The discord already knows I’m crazy but now the tumblr folks get to know it too)

The Belief:

Yog-Sothoth is an ever-present part of malevolent, but not an active force in the way Kayne or Lillith may be. He is not the player or the keys, he’s the whole goddamn piano. (Figuratively)

Yog-Sothoth, all in one, the key and the gate, as his name states, has deep ties to gateways and temporal passages. Malevolent begins with a gateway gone awry, opened by Antoine for Shub Niggurath—and co-opted by the King in Yellow—the results of which killed one and fragmented the other. Gates are a recurring theme in Malevolent, most notably this first instance and the “Tear” which was tampered with by the man posing as Edward William Allan.

The famed Yog-Sothoth summoning chant from the Necronomicon is present in Part 8 (19:50) right after John reads out “The King in Yellow” from the book annotated by Sarah Cummings, accompanied by what sounds like a PA chime. The text reads as:

Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.”

Charon is mentioned briefly in Season Four, and Charon is one of the names/personas attributed to summoning Yog-Sothoth in the Grimoire. (CoC Grimoire pg 38).

Notes: I don’t believe the “Charon” mentioned here is Yog-Sothoth, proper merely that the “Charon” we met (Aldrich Ward) was a follower and took his name from Yog as a moniker.

Yog-Sothoth is not involved with the Order directly, (as is standard in his lore, he is not often solely worshipped, but frequently called upon in the pursuit of other ends) beyond being a patron of moving things from location to location or possibly the deity of Aldrich, personally.

There is also potential for a deeper connection here, as “Charon” is revealed to be Aldrich Ward, possibly named after the character Charles Dexter Ward from the short story of the same name, which is the first of Lovecraft’s works to introduce the Yog-Sothoth chant.

It’s possible, albeit unlikely, that the Dark World might be a domain of Yog-Sothoth’s. The Dark Ages manual (pg. 140, which contains information on Horig) tells of a place called Limbo spawned of Yog-Sothoth and described as “a living yet mindless…..land of gloom and chaos, where light is like darkness.” Very similar to how John describes the Dark World.

Yog Sothoth is also a deity of time, which might explain the time dilation John and Lillith have both experienced at the hands of the Dark World and wherever Lillith was trapped beyond a gate. (Lifetimes for John, in a span of ten years, and two hundred years from Lillith’s point of view).

The symbol found on the floor of the secret room at Marie’s (which contains the desiccated body of the man that was posing as Edward William Alan) is described as a “circular, with a pattern that repeats into its center” (Part 32). This symbol is also found on the bestiary, (which also sports Shub’s symbol, among four others) as well as the floor of the barn at the farm where the Tear is. This, in my eye, essentially confirms that the Circular Pattern is Yog’s, and not Lillith’s, as has been hypothesized. Lillith herself wasn’t being summoned in both locations, but a gateway was.

Larson’s child, the mines monster, was said to have been gifted to him from the Outer Gods, and children begotten from Yog-Sothoth have the tendency to be invisible, and may only be observed through magical means. (Malleus Monstrum p165) This doesn’t effect the plot so much, but is another piece of evidence towards his overall existence.

Kayne mentions in Part 52 that Charlie is “standing at the… threshold”. This could be a number of sites, most notably the site of the ritual at the house at 58 Pelican Lane, (CoC Game One) which housed the gate that initially severed the King in Yellow. Yog-Sothoth is often known as the Lurker in the Threshold, and frequently intercepts people who are cast haphazardly through gates. It’s possible Charlie is currently in his care, so to speak. We know for certain that Malevolent’s storyline doesn’t end here, giving rise to (hopefully, fingers crossed) a Charlie spin off series (maybe involving Yog ((fingers crossed again)).

#malevolent #malevolent podcast #I’m crazy insane about this

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tinydefector · 1 year ago

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Hello hello, Your writing is absolutley amazing AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH, I CANT. Anyway

Could I request Tarn x human reader? (Maybe some NSFW •3•) Please and thank you in advance ❤️

His Possession

Tarn x human reader

Warning: Smut, fingering, sex

Word count 1.7k

Request and ask open, read pinned post

Tarn masterlist

Took me a little to work on this one trying to figure out how I liked to write Tarn. So I hope you enjoy your Favourite DJD man

_______________

They didn't quite know what had made Tarn interested in them nor why he kept them after offlining their original ‘owner’. the Decepticon was possessive and protective of his human pet. Never letting them far from him and always in optic range, he did not fear them. How could he with how small and fragile they are.

They squeal lightly as he plucks them up from their spot. Tarn's optics are narrow, his grip firm yet careful not to crush them. He observes their work with a mix of curiosity and disdain. They settle in his grip and go quiet. "Hi sir" they say sheepishly.

As he holds them, Tarn's thoughts drift to his comrades, particularly Kaon, who seems to have formed some sort of connection with the human. He finds it trivial, but as long as it does not interfere with their duties, he allows it to continue. His gaze shifts back to his human, noting their submission and silence. He wonders if they understand the privilege it is to be in his presence.

A soft gasp comes from them as Tarn presses his masked face against their back. A low content growl leaves him. His servos stay wrapped around their waist. "Sir, is everything alright?" They ask softly while trying to turn to look up at him. His optics flicker with a mix of possessiveness and protectiveness, his frame radiating a sense of dominance. The human's gasp does not go unnoticed, and he relishes in the effect he has on them.

As they attempt to turn and look up at him, "Everything is as it should be,” he states,

With a squeeze of his servos around their waist, "Continue with your work," he commands, his voice brooking no argument.

They do as told, continuing on their work while he watches. They lean back lightly into his touch as they type away. It had taken a long time for any of the DJD members to let the little human do anything but after how long they had been under Tarns watch they had slowly been given tasks to complete. His human looked much different than they did the day he had taken them, they were healthier, dressed better and didn't look like the neglected pet they had when Tarn had killed the disgraced Decepticon who had kept them as a pet.

"Tarn?" They call out softly as Tarn's talons trace patterns on their skin, a shiver runs down their spine, a mixture of fear and anticipation. They have become accustomed to his touch, and it gave him a prideful sense of accomplishment.

But Tarn remains silent, his talons continuing their intricate dance on their skin.The human's breath hitches as Tarn's talons drag lower, sending a shiver of anticipation through their body. A soft whine escapes their lips,They feel the weight of his presence pressing against them, his nuzzles against their skin igniting a fire within them

In that moment, as Tarn's touch becomes more intimate, they realise what he wants. Their heart races with a combination of nervousness and excitement, their mind flooded with a myriad of emotions. Biting their lip softly.

They continue standing there as Tarn's touches become more possessive. "Sir, do you want me to undress?" They ask while looking up at him. Another whine escapes their lips as Tarn pulls them closer, his talons deftly working to discard their clothing. The air is thick with tension as the layers of fabric fall away, exposing their skin to his hungry gaze.

As their clothing falls to the ground, the human's heart races with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty. They trust Tarn, but the unknown lies ahead, a path they willingly tread upon. Their body is laid bare before him, vulnerable yet willing, a canvas upon which Tarn can leave his mark.

This was what he adores how willing his human was to please him and only him. And he voices his approval. “Very good pet” As Tarn spreads their thighs, his talons glide along their tender flesh, eliciting soft moans that escape their lips. Their body trembles with anticipation, their desire growing with each stroke of Tarn's talons.

Their plea for more reaches his audios, their voice filled with a mix of need and longing. "Tarn, please..." they call out softly, their voice a delicate melody that stirs something primal within him.

A low growl rumbles deep in Tarn's chassis, a primal response to their plea. He relishes in the power he holds over them, the way they willingly submit to his touch. It fuels his desire, his dominance taking hold. Pressing his digits against them, he slowly works them open, savouring the small whines and moans that fall from their lips. Their back meets his chassis as they cling to his arm plating, seeking stability.

They moan louder with each thrust of his digits, one hand covering their mouth as they try to keep quiet. They grind down against his digits, soft pleased falling from their lips.

"Sir, please, more," they call out desperately, Their body craves the intensity of Tarn's touch, yearning for the fulfilment that only he can provide.

He can see the anticipation in their body, and a prideful Pur leaves him as he leans over their body to whisper in their ear. “Sweet thing” As Tarn retracts his digits, the human lets out a whine of longing. A cry escapes their lips as he presses them down onto the desk, arranging their body for his own viewing. Their chest pressed firmly against the cool surface, their hips lifted by one of Tarn's servos, positioning them just as he desires. The Decepticon moves with a sense of purpose, standing to open his interface panel.

"Such a willing little plaything," he murmurs, his words laced with a mixture of dominance and possessiveness. "You crave my touch, don't you? You ache for more, for the pleasure only I can give you." His voice drips with confidence, knowing the effect his words have on them. His voice seemed to make them melt under his touch so easily.

"Yes, only you Tarn" they call out desperately, Tarn relishes in the whines and sobs that escape his human's lips, their body arching into his touch as their desire intensifies. The sound of their pleasure fuels his own, a dark satisfaction coursing through him. As he presses his spike against their back, he can feel their body tremble in anticipation, knowing the length that will soon be buried deep within their pliable, soft form.

A "Yes," he growls, his voice dripping with possessiveness and authority. "Only me, my little plaything. Only I can give you the pleasure you crave, the pleasure you need." His words are a command. Leaning in closer, his hot venting breath tickling their ear, his voice a low, seductive rumble. "You're mine to use, to take, to mark. I'll make you scream, make you beg for release until you can't take it anymore."

They go silent when he presses into their tight entrance, body shaking lightly while they press their face into the desk. their body trembling under the force of his penetration. The sensation of his spike sinking deeper, splitting them wide open, elicits a mixture of pleasure and pain that leaves them momentarily speechless. their body instinctively reacting to the overwhelming sensations coursing through them.

With each deliberate roll of Tarn's hips, his spike delves further into their depths, claiming them completely. The tightness of their embrace fuels his possessiveness, a primal need to dominate and control. He revels in the slurred moans that spill from their lips, "You're mine," Tarn growls, his voice a low, commanding rumble.

"Mine to ravage, to use as I please. Your body is mine to possess, to mould to my desires." He cages them in, his grip unyielding, as he continues to thrust into them with a relentless rhythm, driving them to the brink of ecstasy.

Tarn's hips forcefully drag his lover back onto his spike, the intensity of his thrusts mixing pleasure and a hint of his violent tendencies. Yet, despite his darker nature, he strives to be as gentle as possible with them. Growled purrs and snarls escape him as he relishes in the tightness and warmth that surrounds his length. "You're so tight, so perfect," Tarn rasps, his voice a mixture of desire and awe. "You were made for me, my little One. Your body fits mine like a glove, sheathing me so perfectly." his voice filled with a raw hunger.

As their orgasm builds up, sobbed moans fall from their lips as tears run down their face. "Tarn, Tarn!" They cry out while clenching tightly around his spike, their orgasm hits hard as they buck back against him. "'Please please!" their voice filled with a desperate longing for release. Their tight clench around his spike only serves to heighten his own pleasure, pushing him closer to the edge.

With a cruel smirk, Tarn responds to their pleas, his voice dripping with degradation. "Oh, my little toy, begging for more, are you?" he taunts, "Imagine how you would look, filled and dripping with my transfluid. A perfect mess, marked and claimed by me," he remarks, He continues to thrust into them, driving them closer to the edge, Their sobs and pleas only serve to fuel his own desire, pushing him closer to his own overload.

As Tarn reaches his overload, his body tenses, and he releases load after load of his transfluid into his little lover. The sensation of his release, coupled with the sight of their bodies joined and the fluid slowly leaking from their connection, fills him with a deep sense of contentment. A low, rumbling pur escapes his vocalizer, a sound of satisfaction and fulfilment

Looking down at his human's used body, Tarn's optics narrow with admiration. In this moment, he sees them as a perfect embodiment of his desires, a vessel for his pleasure. "Perfection," Tarn hums, his voice filled with a mixture of pride and possessiveness. To him, their bodies entwined and marked by his transfluid are a testament to his dominance and their submission. They were his and only his, and primus knows he wouldn't be letting go of them.

#transformers #transformers x human #transformers idw #transformers x reader #transformers lost light #transformers tarn #mtmte tarn #idw tarn #tarn x reader #valveplug

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hools · 10 months ago

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How do u paint?? Like what's the process

i go into a lot of my thinking process here but on the kind of technical side, lately ive been thumbnailing -> painting over the thumbnail on the same layer -> seeing where it goes from there. generally. when im painting over a character the character is usually all on one layer and i do flat colors & shading and everything at once. but i spend a lot of time figuring out a composition i like and im very iterative. its fun but its time consuming and its easy to get ur brain fatigued but its how ive always done things it feelz like.

for brushes i love using @/robogart's brushes they have soooo many and i forgot which pack i got but they're all really good i cant recommend enough. texturework is sooo fun with these. if you mess around with the csp halftone layer effect you can get a checkerboard pattern which i use sometimes. i tend to tread lightly with layer blending modes these days because its easy to muddy up everything but i love using lighter color/darker color layers. and ive never figured out how to blend things properly in general so i dont do that<3

#asks #anonymous #i havent been paintingmuch recently so these arent fresh in my head but i hope i explained some partsszss #also i hava headache i fucked up my glasses again and im paying the price.

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moodymisty · 1 year ago

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[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: @commodoreprocrastinator this is your fault, now deal with the repercussions of your actions. Part 1 of 2. I hope it's romantic enough even though it's the cardboard cutout primarch and only my second time writing him. ¯\_( ❛︠ ⍙ ︡❛)_/¯

Summary: Your knight returns after what has felt like ages apart, and decides to take part in a secret moment alone.

Relationship: Lion'el Jonson/Gn!Reader (no pronouns are used in this, but it does have a very princess/knight vibe so fair warning)

Warnings: None that I can think of

Word Count: 1305

Lion El'Jonson strides down the halls of the Invincible Reason with purpose.

The ceramite boots of his armor hit the ground louder than that of an astartes, and any one he passes by stops their task and gives a respectful bow of their head. He doesn’t demand them to bow and kiss the floor, but he expects a level of decorum from his legion. They are expected to as sons of The First; As Dark Angels.

As he walks, rain pattering down against any surface exposed to it, Lion'el sighs.

Belath had proven more than timely with his updates as to the legion’s current effectiveness, which the Primarch appreciated. He will always find one of the astarte's finer qualities to be his lack of verbose speech- his ability to get to the point. But even in it's simplicity, it had still proven irritating when he had something else on the mind.

Travel to the Fortress Monastery had proven both as unexciting and lackluster as his drawing and discussion of strategic plans had been.

He arrived during the night, the moonlight spilling through the massive glass windows and mullions forming patterns along the stone floors. The Lion breaks their design as he walks through them, a hand resting on the pommel of his shortsword. His greatsword rests on his back, overtop of the dark emerald green cape that flows behind him just brushing against the floor.

He goes higher, traveling up flights of stairs made of solid stone. Some have runners of ornate, hand woven cloth, the design in a dark emerald green embellished with golden thread. All of it- every tapestry and mural, bears the symbol or at least the color scheme of his Legion.

Higher again, until he’s far beyond where most astartes and serfs typically tread. The rug that runs down the hall is much more worn, having taken an unknown number of years worth the footfall without being replaced. There aren’t many souls who come up here, for there isn't much reason for them to. The Lion's personal quarters reside in these halls, and unless he calls them they have no need to ever step foot here.

He turns one corner, and at the end of the hall lies his destination.

He can see two Astartes guarding the door, as he had placed them. He had placed trust in the elder of them to choose another marine to serve as his parallel in guard along with two others to rotate with. A young astartes is beside him, clear by the different regalia and symbolism he wears that gives it away to only one familiar to their legion.

Lion stands between them, his hand adjusting once more on the pommel of his sword.

“Take your leave.”

He speaks plainly to both, and they nod their ceramite helms before walking past. Once the Lion can no longer hear their heavy power armor trudging down stairs that even made of full stone complain as men so heavy walk on them, he places a hand on the door’s handle.

He pulls it open; Winged helm in his opposite hand. Not moments later does he hear a voice call his name sounding both surprised and excited.

“Lion?”

At the call of his name he looks forward, seeing you leaning away from the window. Your hands had been leaning against the sill, watching whatever had been of interest below. More than likely the sea of Dark Angels all returning, a sea of dark green. You've always had this odd sort of of fascination with it all. He steps closer, and you turn to fully watch him come to stand right in front of you.

After a moment’s waiting, the massive Primarch slowly lowers to a knee. He sighs as he does so, as if irritated by a request you hadn’t even made. You take the invitation to come closer, as you gently press a chaste kiss against his lips. You feel his beard brush against your skin, the top half of his blonde hair pulled back. He doesn't sigh in discontent that time.

“I missed you. Are you ok?”

The Lion finds your overt concern pointless, but somewhat endearing. He’s never had someone so overt in caring about his wellbeing. Though even if it’s pointless, he can’t expect you to shed the emotions you’ve shown for so long. He can and has as a Primarch, to a mortal they are interwoven into your very being.

“Yes.”

He glances over to a massive table filled with stacks of books. They’re scattered about, some open and some stacked in piles of an unknown organizational system. He’s not surprised you took interest in the massive collection.

Your hands have stayed hovering in front of your chest most of this time, though now they move forward and hesitantly reach for him. He allows you to touch his jawline as you come closer. The rough scruff of his beard tickles your palms, and you'd laugh if you didn't think he'd be almost childishly insulted by it.

“How long are you going to stay this time?”

Lion knows that you aren’t expecting any actual answer; He cannot give you one, nor will he. The moment an uncontacted world is discovered, he will leave. It is his duty and his purpose. No matter even if he has other thoughts on his mind, thoughts of you, they cannot impede his goal.

“Long enough for the legion to rest.” He pauses. “What do you want?”

He always asks this, only able to show how he feels about you in these silent gestures. You don’t say anything nor blame him, as despite him being far older than yourself, you can clearly tell this sort of thing is entirely uncharted.

It's been a bit odd; He's many years your senior, but it often feels like you're the one showing him things.

You can't avoid smiling this time, though it's abit more guilty that perhaps Lion was expecting.

“I would love to watch your men spar again, but they've only just stepped foot on Caliban." Lion gives you an unimpressed look.

"You would ask something of my Legion instead of myself?" Your hands are still on his chest armor, and your fingers brush across the giant aquilla in a slightly flustered gesture.

"But, you’ve said your men aren't strong enough for you to duel them.”

He remains one of if not the best duelist that the Imperium has ever seen, and despite how diligently and strictly he has trained his Dark Angels, none of them have the natural prowess he has to be a true fight. It's simply in his nature as a Primarch.

Lion, in an extremely rare moment, softens his face with a hint of amusement. He raises and armored hand to gently hold your jaw, and brush a small bit of a hair away from your face. His massive hand overtakes much of you, but he's surprising gentle despite it. He uses a small bit of his strength however to pull you just close enough to give you a gentle kiss to the forehead.

“When we arrive to Terra, perhaps I can proposition one of my brothers for a duel then. I am sure at least one of them will be eager to accept.”

A fight between Primarchs? You had never considered yourself bloodthirsty or violent, but something about it makes your heart race- eager to watch. Perhaps it’s what his men feel shortly before a battle, or when they begin their training each and every day.

You smile at him, and grasp at his gauntlet. It's the closest you can get to any sort of intimate gesture, with his armor still on. He looks at you with the most relaxed face you've seen on him in awhile, as you speak.

"I would love to see that."

#Lion 'i need to impress my beloved by beating the shit out of my brother' El'Jonson #Lion El'Jonson x reader #primarch x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

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soapydoll · 8 months ago

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PLEASE tell us about the fnaf x oc fanfic, im so intrigued

This is a better story than actual fnaf. It handles some pretty heavy topics (accidental transphobia, cannibalism, body horror, gore, gradual sanity degradation, etc) so tread carefully. But I’ve never seen another piece of art capture my own fixation on codes and patterns quite as well as this story. Riley is an intensely relatable and lovable protagonist who I want to root for so so badly, and I’ve seen so many incredible interpretations of the metaphors in play here.

I joke abt it being x oc but it is a gen fic, with an incredibly written friendship between the two main characters at the forefront of the story. Literally nobody is doing it like this.

It also has some of the most skin crawling jaw droppingly effective horror I’ve ever read. Before this story, I wasn’t sure I could be affected by written horror at all, but I was proven so wrong by this story. The way the author writes Chica specifically makes me feel true dread beyond anything the original games could possibly invoke.

For a piece of fiction built on the foundation of a franchise that’s begun to rot, this story shows true, earnest love for its source material in a way that I’ve never seen in other works like it. You can *feel* the time the author has spent in this world, caring for its inhabitants when even the company that made the games couldn’t be bothered to do so much as tell the characters in their code that they can walk around furniture to keep the game from completely breaking.

Even if you don’t know anything about fnaf at all, I would recommend this story. You don’t need to know anything more than the bare bones basics of who the mascot characters in security breach are, and the story justifies itself the rest of the way from there. Please please read this fucking fic I have nobody to talk about it with and I reread it whenever my life starts going bad for comfort. It’s like an old friend to me.

#txt

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acapelladitty · 1 year ago

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Harvey Dent/Female Reader: Bootblacking

Summary: Harvey's boots are looking a little lackluster and he decides that it's your job to fix them up for him.

Kneeling at his feet, Harvey remains seated and the sheer aura of control which rolls from his dual-toned frame makes your mouth dry out as you gaze up at him, awaiting his next instruction.

“Start.”

The small tin gives a metallic creak as you open it, exposing the limited collection within. Two tins of polish sit atop the other beside a plastic tub of saddle soap and their position is held by a pair of horsehair brushes which fill out the remainder of the space. Small but well-loved, you pull free the various items you need with trembling fingers as arousal makes your hands shake.

Before you, Harvey’s feet are still against the floor as he sits on the edge of the bed. His grey boxers clung to his hips, the thin fabric incapable of hiding the thick bulge of interest which tented free below it. The only other piece of clothing which he wears are the black leather boots which are the focus of your attention, dragging your eyes away from his concealed cock.

The scent of fresh leather is strong, the boots brand new and purchased with this little job in mind. As it invades your senses, your cunt clenches around nothing, a growing dampness on your thighs pairing with the needy ache in your cunt as you ignore the temptation to touch it.

You twist open the tub of polish, quickly gathering some on the fresh microfibre cloth which it sits on. Your breath coming in short pants, you wrap your fingers around the heel of Harvey’s boot with reverence – feeling the thick tread pressing against your palm.

Flexing your hand, sharp teeth bite at your lower lip as you rub the polish along the upper; taking great care not to let any collect in the vamp as you gently begin to rub the leather with the cloth.

So focused on your task, you exhale as your fingers roll across the textured leather. Every seam and divot feels amplified beneath the thin cloth and you breathe the smell of the polish with a slackened mouth – arousal making it impossible to concentrate on anything else.

Working diligently, you glance up to see Harvey’s eyes on you. His head is tilted, scarred side facing you more directly, and his expression is intense; mouth twisted into a scheming smirk as his pitted skin shone in the meagre light.

Drawing the cloth across the side of the boot, the yellow fabric now stained black, you ghost your fingers across the leather, satisfied with the job you’ve managed. Rocking back on your ass, you release the boot and await his inspection.

Submissive pride blossoms in your chest as you clench the cloth between trembling fingers. Your gaze flicks between the boots and Harvey’s thick frame, his tented cock and bulging thighs giving way to his wide chest – the dark hair there only marred by the scarring which cuts through the hair in messy patterns.

He shifts his finished foot, placing it flat on the floor and moving it enough to allow him to lean forward and examine the shine. The movement has the delicious effect of grazing your aching clit and your hips move of their own accord as they hump into the slight stimulation, your lips tight as they fight to hide a groan.

Exhaling a thick plume of smoke from his cigar, Harvey chuckles at the earnest reaction.

“Not a bad job.” He chides playfully. “Here, test it out for me.”

Pushing his boot forward with purpose, the thick tread of the sole slides along the carpet as the smooth top of the boot rubs roughly against your cunt and the cool sensation of it, as hard and unyielding as the man himself, draws a keening whine from your lips as your cunt clenches against it – lips spreading to gain as much purchase as possible.

“Harvey!” You groan out, hand wrapping around his exposed lower leg as you hold him in place against your grinding cunt.

“Come.” Harvey demands, his voice low and gravelled. “I know you can, you little brat.” As he speaks, he ups the rocking motion in his foot – the movement allowing the smooth top of the boot to massage your cunt in a deliciously brutal way as he assaults your clit.

Already almost there, it doesn’t take much and, with a keening whimper, you hump your cunt against him pathetically as your walls clench and tighten. Your release is just as pathetic, your juices quickly coating the top of his boot, and Harvey tilts his foot enough to rub the very tip of his boot in the mess; spreading it across the freshly polished leather with an observant hum as it visibly glistens.

Panting as you come down from your release, your fingers move of their own accord as they once again clean the mess from his boots. Brushing through your arousal, you bring it to your lips and taste yourself – the act earning you a rumble of approval from Harvey as his hand drops to his covered cock.

“Let’s take a break before you do the other one.” Harvey says, his voice almost a purr as his free hand cards through your hair with clear affection. “Your hands have been busy so let’s put that mouth to work for a change.”

Pulling his cock free, it stands to attention immediately and the sheer girth of him never fails to make your mouth water. Shuffling forward on your knees until your body was caged between his thick thighs, you wrap your hand around his cock and guide it towards your mouth with enthusiasm – a submissive determination to please settling deep in your chest.

“Yes, Sir.” You mutter, glancing up at him as you quick take his cock within your lips and set out to give him everything that he’s needing as you own cunt twitches with satisfaction between your thighs.

#harvey dent #two face #harvey dent x reader #harvey dent x you #two face x reader #two face x you #dc comics #two-face

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dr-demi-bee · 8 months ago

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Day 17--------------------Read on AO3--------------------------

Pairing: Miri/Gale

Prompt: Can't sleep

Fluff, soft Gale, Comfort and affection, SFW

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Gale rolls over in his sleep, his arm blindly groping for Miri’s slight form beside him. His eyes crack open with a bleary grumble when he find the bedroll beside his empty and cool. Miri’s absent from his tent when he sits up and scans it quickly. There’s no fire crackling, and the soft moonlight pouring in from the slight gap at the tent flap suggests it’s still quite late.

Miri’s easy to spot when he exits his tent though. The massive wolf sitting on it’s haunches at the edge of camp could be no one else. And he knows enough about her by now to know that the tilt of her muzzle up towards the moon is almost certainly from melancholy.

It had been an exceptionally hard tenday. For all of them, of course, but Miri in particular. No doubt his more recent foolish bouts of ambition had not helped. Gale’s still grateful for her persistence in talking him down - from not just one ledge but several, at this point.

“Loquere si tibi placet,” Gale murmurs the soft spell with what’s become a well practiced hand gesture.

Scrubbing the sleep from his eyes, Gale treads across camp to Miri’s side. The swivel of her ears means she knows he’s coming, so he doesn’t hesitate to bury a hand in the ever thickening plush of the fur on her neck when he reaches her side.

Miri rumbles a low sound and turns her head to nuzzle it against his chest. He ‘oomphs’ at the force of it, but quickly recovers to wrap his arm around her neck and bring a hand up to her snout. They stay like that for a long moment, neither breaking the still silence of the night. Gale’s hand rubs soothing patterns along her muzzle.

“Did I wake you?” Miri murmurs at long last in that throaty rumble or her lupine form. Past the translation of the spell he can hear and more accurately feel the low, growling grumble that rumbles up from her chest to her jaws.

“Only your absence, my love,” Gale returns softly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He’s quiet for a long moment, simply scrubbing his hand through her fur in soothing motions. Then finally, he probes her further, “Are you alright?”

Miri’s quiet for a moment. She worms her head a little closer to him, always seeking that closeness. Gale would claim it’s for warmth, but in either form (and especially her lupine form) Miri is hot like a furnace. She finally lets out a long sigh, and the sound of it rumbles through her and against his hands.

“Trance escapes me this night,” she admits softly. As close to an admission of weakness as he is likely to get, more often than not.

Gale hums a commiserative sound. He struggles many nights to sleep - at least the falling asleep part. Save for when she is warm at his side.

“Is there any way I can help?”

Those bright chartreuse eyes turn up to him - and the effect never fails to arrest his heart in his chest. They brim with a troubled sadness he can only glimpse fractions of. Even knowing the wounds to her heart, he does not know the full intensity of it.

“I’m sure there is much on your mind,” Gale adds softly. “You know you can always unburden yourself with me.”

“This I know, my heart,” Miri rumbles back. “I‘m still trying to sort through my thoughts.”

Gale nods knowingly. He knows better than to try and pressure her to say more - both because she is intensely stubborn, but because she’s just as likely to struggle to say. But he can hear the emotions pressing through her tone. The wizard curls forward slightly, pressing his head to hers, and his distress eases at the sound she rumbles back.

After a moment, she wriggles in his hold to plant a large tongued lick on his cheek, much to Gale’s dismay. Miri chuffs a barking, laughing sound at the way he grouses and scrubs a sleeve over his face.

“Let’s get you back in bed, my heart,” she says softly. She rises to her feet, curling around him to nudge his back and turn him towards the tent they share. “You need rest.”

“Only if you are joining me,” Gale counters a bit petulantly, giving her a teasing look. Miri chuffs, giving him another more forceful nudge to get him to start walking.

“I’m coming, don’t you fret,” she returns teasingly.

Satisfied, Gale starts the walk back to his tent, Miri’s heavy paws falling in step beside him. He can’t resist put his hand up against her withers as they walk together. She tilts her head to give him a knowing, slightly cheeky look. He narrows his eyes at her playfully in return.

When they reach the tent, Miri shifts back in a rolling blaze of yellow-gold primal weave. They learned the hard way it’s a bit of a challenge to fit a wolf her size inside one of their tents (as much as he enjoys snuggling with her amongst unreasonably soft fur).

Miri gives him a soft smile, gesturing with one arm to usher him inside.

“After you,” he insists, matching her expression. She huffs a soft laugh but acquiesces, ducking through the flap.

She’s settling into their side-by-side bedrolls as he follows after. Gale climbs in eagerly, pulling her back against his chest and nuzzling his face into her hair with an appreciative sigh. He smiles when her arm wraps over his and she tangles their legs together.

He’ll sleep substantially better with her in his arms. Gale’s hand resumes what’s become a habitual practice - slowly soothing it’s way up and down her stomach, her sides. Occasionally over her arm, kneading shoulder and muscle. It’s easier than breathing to press tender kisses to her crown, her nape, her neck - just where he can reach in their repose.

And when Miri’s breathing slows and he can tell she’s trancing once more, he follows after.

@lanafofana @lastlight-inn @waterdeep-weavemoss

@crimson-and-lavender @feedthepheasants @spooky-lil-bee

@heartfluttered

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #galemance #gale x tav #bg3 gale #primalweave #oc: miri #miri x gale #dr d's blurbapalooza #my writing #kinktober #flufftober #bg3 fanfic

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fincalinde · 11 months ago

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nice to see you back on here! if you're answering questions again, i've had something i've been meaning to ask, if you don't mind. do you have any thoughts on the things wwx and jc did for each other?

I'm never truly gone. Whenever you see a fox scurrying about its business in the twilight, I am with you in spirit. By which I mean I'm very busy but I do get a notif if someone sends me an ask.

This one has sat in my drafts for a while and it's still quite messy, but I thought I'd better just get it off the to do list and move on. So, the Twin Heroes!

I've seen quite a bit of negativity towards JC in my time, usually accusing him of all manner of iniquities that aren't actually supported by the text. To make my own position clear: I don't think JC did nothing wrong ever in his life. But I do think he's a capable clan leader and an extremely loyal brother who tried very hard to make things work with WWX.

Let's start with the biggie: WWX gives JC his core. It is an incredible act of love to be sure. Functionally it saves JC's life (he's not going to last long in that state) along with preserving the existence of the Jiang Clan itself. I don't have a problem with WWX making a unilateral decision here, because he knows JC won't agree otherwise and the stakes could not be higher. It also makes sense that the Grandmaster of Impulsive Cultivation conceals the entire thing from JC. He knows the effect the truth will have on JC, and he's just trying to get them through the current crisis and worry about the consequences later. So I think his choices are understandable in a desperate situation where there are no good options.

To be honest, what bothers me is WWX's subsequent dumbassery. My god, man, what is the point of making a monumental sacrifice for someone and then proceeding to fuck shit up for him on a regular basis afterwards?

WWX's behaviour is catastrophic for the Jiang. I understand that he's in his emo goth era and I don't expect him to make perfect decisions at all times, but the way he treads on JC's toes makes my teeth hurt. Quite probably WWX himself was never going to end up in a good place, since his demonic cultivation made him too much of a threat for the Jin (or society at large) to leave him in peace. But that's not particularly relevant to the way he undermines JC. On more than one occasion, JC is doing his best to navigate a delicate political situation and WWX clomps in with his size 13s and makes everything worse for everyone. This, as much as popular sentiment turning against WWX, is a huge driver in why they have to fake their falling out and sever ties publicly.

Meanwhile, JC makes an equivalent sacrifice for WWX—he lets himself be captured, even though it results in the loss of his core and, as far as he knows at the time, the functional extinction of his clan. This is revealed right at the end of MDZS, encouraging the reader to look back at the novel and recontextualise JC's actions throughout. JC put WWX above his own life and the continued existence of his clan. There can be no question that he made as enormous a sacrifice for WWX as WWX made for him. Their mutual ignorance of this fact for so many years is the heart of their tragedy.

But crucially, there remains a difference between WWX and JC. Because JC doesn't only come through for WWX when the stakes are high. Right up until the death of JYL, JC is the one trying to balance his responsibility to his clan with his desire to protect WWX. For a start, they fake the cutting of ties between WWX and the Jiang, when it arguably would be much less risky for JC to cut ties in actuality. JC is also the one taking further risks by allowing WWX to see JYL in her wedding clothes. He even suggests WWX gets to pick her child's courtesy name. These things show a pattern of consideration that WWX simply does not match.

Let's not forget, JC does a decent job as clan leader. He's very young, and unlike NMJ or LXC, he has to build his clan again from literally nothing. Disciples need to be recruited and trained from scratch. Lotus Pier needs to be rebuilt—without Jin gold. He's doing what needs to be done to ensure the Jiang Clan continues to exist, yet still attempting to balance that with his loyalty to WWX even as WWX becomes more and more of a liability. Yes, WWX is being affected by the resentful energy he's cultivating, but his arrogance has been present from the start. It's not that the resentful energy is creating new traits in him, but that existing traits are being exaggerated.

WWX does a lot of very admirable and brave things and he is pretty much always trying to do right by the people he cares about i.e. the Jiang and the Wenmants. The trouble is that he's fundamentally not capable of recognising the damage he's also doing. His altercation with JZX over the soup is one thing—though JC (with JGS) has to pull him off JZX and it makes a bad situation worse, it's an understandable impulse reaction to seeing his beloved shijie being mistreated. But despite the negative consequences of his impulsivity, he never learns to stop and gather more information before reacting (unlike JZX!). He continues to undermine JC by letting the whole world see that he doesn't respect his authority. This really is where I as a reader get stuck: what use is the grand gesture of the core swap when the more everyday consideration is so totally lacking?

I also think it's interesting that in the temple JGY points out to JC that if he'd stuck by WWX, no one could have done anything about it and things might have turned out quite differently. I don't think JGY is being truthful here; or at the very least, if he is being truthful then I don't agree with his assessment. It's a remark intended to goad JC and prod him where he's most sensitive, and it's successful in that regard. I'd be willing to bet that deep down JC does fear that if he'd backed up WWX then everything might have been all right and JZX and JYL would still be alive.

But it's simply not true. WWX's affiliation with the Jiang is catastrophic for them. He openly flouts JC's authority—and of course his demonic cultivation taints the Jiang by association, particularly in light of the Jin smear campaign. WWX's intervention to rescue the Wenmants is the last excuse JGS needs to do what he planned from the beginning: put a target on WWX's back. This isn't a post about whether or not WWX's actions to protect the Wenmants are moral; it's merely an observation that they put JC and the Jiang at risk by association, especially when WWX also deliberately insults the Jin in a public forum. The Jin don't exactly need to work hard to sabotage WWX's reputation: they're merely handing him the rope and he's merrily tying the noose. On a pragmatic level, an actual estrangement rather than a fake one would have been the more better option for JC if his sole priority was the wellbeing of his clan and not also his love for WWX.

On the other hand, if WWX had continued with his demonic cultivation but respected the authority of his clan leader and not undermined him in public, JC might have been more able to effectively protect him. I'm not entirely convinced by that argument, but I certainly find it more plausible than the idea that JC backing WWX would have prevented the consequences of the determined Jin smear campaign.

Essentially, my point is that I'm not splitting hairs about the degree to which JC and WWX love each other. Their love for each other is not in question. Nor is it in question that they have made equally huge sacrifices for each other. But there's the rub. What about the small sacrifices? Who is making those? More often than not, it's JC. JC has the weight of his clan's survival on his shoulders and he still does his best to remain privately loyal to WWX despite the risk it poses to his own position. He only turns on WWX when WWX's actions result in the death of JZX and JYL—JYL being arguably the only person they both love even more than they love each other. (Sorry, LWJ. You only make the leaderboard in Life 2.) Meanwhile, WWX is willing to give up his core for JC but not willing to make the effort to present a united front against political foes who are actively trying to destroy them. He loves JC, but I see no evidence that he respects him.

#ask #testblog-54 #roquen meta #seriously don't ask me to make value judgements here #if i delve into the ethics this post will be 5x longer #my focus is solely on what jc and wwx do for each other #an 'is' post and not an 'ought' post

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feriluce · 1 month ago

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⟪What's Left Of You⟫ Chapter 11-The Stolen Heart | Minsung

What if it's all a lie?

What if nothing was real? Maybe Jisung has passed away in his sleep and by some miracle ascended to heaven. Or it was a dream, soon reality would force its way back into his consciousness and give him a hefty slap in the face to remind him what it felt like to live. Like it always did.

What if Jisung's feelings for Minho were nothing more but a psychopathological side-effect of his abandonment issues? Looking back at how his previous relationships used to be, how they ended, there was a certain pattern; chasing every high, ignoring his own needs but feverishly meeting those of the other's just so he could have a sense of belonging.

But in the end... Good things didn't last long enough. They never did.

He wasn't lying when he told Minho how he felt. Happy. He meant it, deep down Jisung knew he said it with sincerity. Was it purely physical? Jisung was physically attracted to Minho, there's no use denying that.

Strong hands that grabbed him by the waist, gentle fingers caressing and gliding over skin. Soft moans. Desperate and needy. Deep kisses. Half lidded eyes. Hushed moans. Passionate and hot and electrifying. Recalling all those lustful moments had Jisung feeling dizzy.

He looked down on himself, lifting the blanket to reveal a growing erection. He sighed and rolled to the side, having now perfect view on Minho's shirtless back. A smile tugged on his lips.

Then there were those moments when Jisung's brain came to a screeching halt. A look into Minho's eyes and he was gone. A tickling sensation in his belly, increasing heartbeat, trembling hands, dry mouth. Suddenly at a loss for words every time Minho's attention was undoubtedly and solely on Jisung. Minho spoke softly, as if Jisung was the most delicate flower to ever exist.

Minho was there when Jisung suffered through a migraine attack, barely getting any sleep himself. He cooked for me. Who does that?

Amidst all the soft, sweet affection, there was Minho's relentless teasing; randomly poking Jisung's side, grabbing his butt and slapping it, sarcastic remarks, calling him 'hamster cheeks'. Jisung loved Minho's teasing but he would never admit it. Nope. Never. That was totally out of the question.

All this – was it actually real? Did Jisung really exist at the same time as Minho? Did they really meet? There must be a catch! Jisung pinched the skin on his upper arm. A curse word almost made its way out of his throat. Rubbing the now reddened spot, Jisung skidded closer to Minho's back, the warmth radiating from him was enough for Jisung to wrap an arm around his middle. He could fall asleep like that, there was only one problem: Jisung was horny.

Jisung's lips found Minho's shoulder, pressing a wet kiss on soft skin. His first desire was to spread red excited kisses all over the other's back, waking him up in the process, only to get his sexual needs satisfied. However, after the second kiss, Jisung halted, his eyebrows creasing in confusion.

This was not a dream. This was reality, and Jisung had the freedom of choice. Now he could either choose to continue his usual spiel of lust and self-abandonment; or he could turn the other way and tread on a path less traveled by, which would ultimately lead him to something new.

Uncharted land. New and scary.

Fantasies of him and Minho together. Jisung would show him his room, letting him look through all the magazines of his favorite K-Pop-Group, if he was into it. If not, it'd be alright, they'd find something to enjoy together. Like playing games on the console.

What music does Minho like? What's his favorite color? Does he have an opinion to pineapple on pizza?

They have seen each other naked, Jisung could point out every mole on Minho's georgeous body, but if put in the situation, Jisung wouldn't be able to answer any of those basic questions.

More such questions flooded Jisung's mind, washing over him like a Tsunami, and leaving him a bit dizzy as he continued to gently peck Minho's back – and the back only. But this time, after every kiss he left on the skin, he made a promise. A promise to himself, to the world, to Minho.

Can we please keep seeing each other? I promise to be less of a nuisance to you. If you want to talk for two hours about your cats, I'll sit and listen and not get bored. You're the best thing in my life. I feel less lonely when I'm with you. You make me so happy. Minho. Lee Minho. I think I'm in love with you, love with you~

As the smooches traveled southward, Minho's eyes fluttered open. He was a bit confused because he couldn't comprehend why his back felt so funny, before he finally realized that it was Jisung. He heard the smacking of wet lips on his skin, leaving a tingling sensation. Minho smiled, enjoying the affection very much. When Jisung's hand traveled to the front and gently squeezed Minho's chest, he gasped in surprise. Minho took Jisung's hand and turned around. When he caught Jisung's shocked expression, he smirked. Why are you so cute, Sungie~

Minho cupped Jisung's round face and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. Feeling the boy shiver and softly sigh under his touch sent Minho's heart rate into the three-digits. Gently, he pulled him closer to his bare chest, wrapping his arms around Jisung and holding onto him as if his life depended on it.

It was still early in the morning, the sun had not yet risen, occasionally birds were warming up their melodic voices. Jisung and Minho stayed like that for a while; cuddling, entangled in each other's arms, enjoying the warmth and safety of one another.

Jisung had drifted off into a superficial slumber, strange colors and objects were mixing together as the dream went on, but immediately dissolved when his eyes shot open. Did he hear something? Why was his heart beating so fast? His hand stretched out, only to find the space beside him empty and cold. With a frown on his face and ignoring the light headache, he sat up and looked around. Relief washed over him when he found Minho sitting by the desk, scribbling away in his notebook. Minho looked highly focused; even from the side, the scowl on his face warned Jisung not to disturb him.

With a sigh, Minho leaned back in his chair, scratching his head with the tip of his pen. He quietly closed his notebook and, still scowling, he met Jisung's gaze. The thing is, once Minho locked eyes with Jisung, all tension fell from his face, softening his features, and a happy smile pulled his perfect lips upwards.

Jisung's heart skipped a beat.

So did Minho's when the smile was returned equally.

"What were you writing?" Jisung blurted out without thinking, voice croaky and a semitone lower.

Minho raised an eyebrow. "Really? What happened to good morning, how did you sleep?" Minho shook his head, got up from the chair and stuffed the notebook in his backpack. Then he stood to look down on Jisung with a playful smirk. "No manners." Before Jisung knew what was happening to him, Minho had him tackled, sending them both onto the bed.

"Dude, get off of me," Jisung demanded.

"Nope."

"Please?"

Minho chuckled. It was a kind of chuckle that made Jisung gulp, a kind of chuckle that Jisung better not ignored. Something was about to come – a punishment.

And in this case, the punishment came in the form of relentless tickling. Minho flipped Jisung around like a pancake, locking him into place in no time. Minho had the time of his life, laughing over Jisung's pleas for mercy as he poked his fingers into Jisung's sides.

Minho stopped when Jisung gasped for breath. "Are you alright down there?"

Heavy breathing and a nod. "Yeah, but- but you better make up for that." Jisung wiped some strands of hair out of his heated face. "Or else."

Minho chuckled. "What do you want me to do?"

Jisung mumbled something but Minho didn't hear him well, so he leaned forward, now basically lying flat on Jisung's back. "I didn't catch that, love, could you please repeat that?"

Love, he sounds so old when he says that, but goddamn I like it.

Jisung felt Minho's hot breath tickling his ear, a shiver rippled down his back. When Minho shifted a bit to lean on his forearms, Jisung's eyes widened in shock when he felt something poke his butt. Was Minho aware of the pressure he put on his cabinmate beneath him?

Jisung's head started spinning yet again. There was an absolutely gorgeous man above him, who seemed to be just as crazy as Jisung.

"Hm? Nothing?"

When Minho spoke, his voice vibrated through Jisung's body, and because of that, he was snapped back into the moment and aware that he still owed Minho an answer. "Well, I like food."

"I can buy you dinner, or your favorite bubble tea."

"That sounds nice," Jisung's voice came bit strained.

"Thursday we can go out. Last time I've seen a small store, they sell ramen and bubble tea," Minho whispered, lips hovering over Jisung's neck, "we should go there, what do you say?"

Jisung's eyes fluttered, somehow loving the physical restraint Minho put on him, and the slow, torturous grind of his hips. "I'd love that..."

"You'd love that?"

"Yes..."

Jisung's shirt lifted and cool fingers trailed over warm skin, giving his waist a squeeze, and Minho's lips latched onto Jisung's neck, sucking and gently biting the skin. Jisung buried his face in his pillow, otherwise a weird noise would have escaped his throat, and he didn't want to deal with that right now.

He just woke up, merely minutes ago there was not a single worry or thought in his head, neither was the idea of being pushed into the mattress with Minho on top- but who was he to complain? This stranger-turned-lover had Jisung utterly wrapped around his finger.

Gleaming spots were dancing along the edges, breathing became uneven, condensing on the window, and racing hearts syncing in with one aother.

A sudden shrill sound shattered their heated bubble, Minho jumped a mile away from Jisung. Confused and his brain a mush, Jisung turned over on his back. Minho was leaning on the desk with one hand, panting because he was out of breath, his hair was a mess, and by the look on his flushed face, Jisung could tell his cabinmate was just as ruined as he himself.

Jisung reached for his phone on the bedside table and turned it off. Stupid alarm.

"Fuck," Jisung mumbled under his breath.

"That was your alarm clock?" Minho questioned, disappointed.

Jisung groaned and started pacing the room. He needed to cool down because he kept glancing towards Minho and he couldn't trust himself not to pounce him.

｡⋆｡˚ ʚɞ ˚｡⋆｡

The morning air was crisp because it had rained overnight. Jisung shivered, Minho noticed and wrapped an arm around him, Jisung smiled and leaned into the warm touch. On the way to the main building, they ran into Changbin and Hyunjin; the latter leading the way while the former held onto Hyunjin's hand. Their smiling faces dropped once they spotted Jisung and Minho, immediately jumping apart and letting go of each other's hand. While Jisung didn't notice shit, he was too engrossed in feeling safe and warm, Minho did notice but chose to not give it much thought.

Before they entered the main building, Minho pulled Jisung closer one last time and rubbed his arms to warm him up. The canteen was the usual sensory hell, loud and smelly. It all was bearable once Jisung took the first bite of his Gyeran Bap; cooked rice, fried eggs, topped with spring onion, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Heaven.

Minho skipped the sesame oil and replaced it with hot sauce, which earned him Jisung's classic side eye. Between bites they tried to have a light conversation, which turned out to be quite difficult as the noise level seemed to increase by the minute. Minho had to repeat his words several times.

"I'm sorry, Minho, when there are too many sources of noise, I'm having a really hard time focusing," Jisung apologized, hiding his face behind a hand but looked up when he felt a soft touch.

"It's okay, love, let's eat up, then we'll leave."

Jisung melted at Minho's reassuring smile.

The promise of a nice day disappeared when the camp's gates rolled open and two police cars stopped in the middle of the courtyard. Four police officers, two from each car, got out. They exchanged a few words, then two of them went straight towards Jisung and Minho watching from the entrance, where Minho stood frozen in fear.

Jisung stepped aside so the police officers could enter the main building, his eyes were fixed on their backs as they headed towards the reception, then stopped to talk with the person behind it. Jisung felt his heart pounding in his throat, mouth dry, thoughts racing; despite knowing he did nothing wrong, a certain part of him felt like he'd been caught smoking pot. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed people gathering by the entrance. Hushed whispers, both curious and anxious.

"What happened? Why's the police here?"

"Who snitched on us?"

"I told you not to bring alcohol."

"Did someone die?"

Jisung rolled his eyes. A tap on his shoulder caused him to flinch and turn around, it was Changbin.

"Pretty sure they found out about your little affair," the buff guy mumbled, letting a heavy arm drop on Jisung's shoulder.

"Being gay is not a crime," Jisung hissed back, shrugging off the arm.

Changbin seemed to be caught off guard, he laughed nervously, and cleared his throat. "Well, we're in South Korea, you still gotta be careful."

Jisung narrowed his eyes at him. "The fuck's your problem, dude?" Only now did Jisung notice that he was alone. "Where's Minho?"

Changbin merely shrugged. Jisung craned his neck, looking over the crowd in search for a tuft of soft black hair. Any other time, Jisung would have waited until he knew what was going on here. There was a certain aspect of him that relished when shit went down, but only as long as he was neither the cause nor center of attention.

Minho had simply disappeared, left without a word, and Jisung didn't think twice when he hurried back to their cabin. He found Minho kneeling on the floor next to their bed. Why's he packing?

"Minho, what are you doing?"

Startled, Minho flinched. "Nothing," he said quickly, too quickly. His hands were trembling as he rolled up the cables for the console.

"Doesn't look like nothing to me," Jisung sat down next to Minho, "but rather you're panicking." Gently, he placed a hand on Minho's lower back. "What's wrong?"

Minho took a breath or two. He took the console and held it in front of him. "This- I didn't purchase it," he pointed to the game cases, scattered on the floor, "none of it. Now they're coming for me!"

Jisung bit his tongue, trying hard to suppress a laugh. In the past, his usual self absolutely would have burst out laughing; mocking, pointing his finger. But Jisung was adamant in making it a point to keep his promise, besides, seeing the panicked look on Minho's face triggered the strong need to work things through with him.

Jisung smiled warmly. "Yeah, I figured."

"You- what?"

"Don't look at me like that," he chuckled, "at the campfire, remember? We were drinking, sharing stories, and I clearly remember when you said that you were caught stealing electronics from some fancy store."

Minho blinked, connecting the pieces in his mind. "I... I don't steal. I'm investigating people's property," he murmured, glancing away.

Jisung drew small circles on Minho's back, slowly closing the distance between them. "I don't mind that you're a thief, because you already stole my heart and I'm totally fine with that."

While Jisung had a broad grin plastered on his face, Minho's body tensed. Not in an anxious, panic-ridden way, but rather he couldn't process Jisung's words properly. From his perspective, they came out of nowhere, hitting him head-on. He was expecting a stern lecture, or typical phrases that people used when they didn't know what else to say. Like, 'that's what you get for breaking the law'. So, his brain was ready to receive criticism, and when those didn't come, a wire short-circuited in his brain.

I don't mind that you're a thief because you already stole my heart and I'm totally fine with that.

Simple words, though a bit cheesy, but in Minho's mind they would play on loop for the rest of his life.

Once he was able to regain some self-control, he cupped Jisung's face; thumbs softly rubbing over his cute cheeks, looking into his round eyes, hands traveling over the boy's shoulders and down his arms. Minho's heart raced, his mouth was dry.

"Jisung, I lo-"

Jisung caressed Minho's cheek, just like he did when they had shared their first kiss a week ago. Minho's eyes sparkled, a sight to continue getting lost in. Their lips touched and started moving into a slow and sweet kiss. Whatever Minho wanted to say, it could wait. Right now, words were neither needed nor able to describe what both of them felt.

BANG BANG BANG

Jisung and Minho jumped apart. Frozen in shock, they stared at the door.

BANG BANG BANG

"Police, open the door!"

Minho began hyperventilating once more, wheezing, his chest heaved up and down. He wanted to shove the console and the game cases into his backpack, jump out the window and run away, or at least lock himself in the bathroom. He wanted to do all that, and yet he sat there on the carpeted floor, unable to move. Jisung's voice seemed to come from far away.

"Minho!"

A hand on his chin forced Minho to look at Jisung. "Baby, I'm right here. Nothing's going to happen. Whatever they want, I'm sure it has nothing to do with you. Take a deep breath, yeah? Breathe for me."

And breathe he did. With Jisung's help, he was able to calm down far enough so he could get up and sit on the bed. As Jisung approached the door, he, too, took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for what might happen. He had seen enough crime and action movies to know that he could get jumped by the police once the door cracked open.

Bracing himself for the impact, Jisung pushed down the handle. The door swung open with a creak. Jisung gulped at the sight of a tall and insanely ripped police man; the hem of his sleeves clung tightly over his upper arms, cutting into the skin. He looked like Rambo, minus that murderous gaze. One wrong movement, one inhale too deep, and the buttons that held his shirt in place, would explode – and definitely hit Jisung in the eye.

"Han Jisung?" the man in the tight uniform inquired.

Jisung nodded weakly.

"We would like to ask you some questions, is that okay for you?"

"I didn't do anything!" Jisung blurted out, totally missing what was said to him.

Well done, idiot. Now you seem even more suspicious. Way to go!

The police officer gave him a sympathetic smile, even took a step back when he noticed Jisung's trembling figure.

"You're not in trouble, I can promise that. We only have a few questions, that's all. Alright?"

He walked across the small porch and down the stairs, where he stopped and obviously waited for Jisung to follow him. Jisung gulped, his mouth was awfully dry, and pulled the cabin door shut. On wobbly knees he joined the police officer down at the stairs, fingers tightly clasping the wooden handrail.

The second police officer, way shorter than the other, he almost disappeared behind his colleague, fished out a pen and a little notepad, ready to write down everything that Jisung was about to say.

"Do you know Choi Yu-Seung?" the Rambo imitation of a police officer asked.

"Uh, she- she's my social worker."

"When was the last time you've seen her?"

Unconsciously, Jisung started biting his fingernail. Most of his recent memories were pretty steamy, unraveling them from others cost him a lot of brainpower. "Last week, I think... We had an appointment, but she never showed up, uh, I last saw her the previous day."

"Do you remember which day that was?"

It took everything in him not to burst into tears. His tough attitude could only get him so far. Was this how true criminals felt? How falsely accused victims felt? Or maybe it was simply the effect the police had on people.

Focus, Jisung! Think! What happened? The whole office reeked of smoke. Before that? I was angry because their credit system is hella fucked up!

"Thursday," Jisung stated confidently. He was absolutely sure that he had a conversation with Choi Yu-Seung on a Thursday, because he remembered being confused about the short vacation happening on a Thursday, in the middle of the week.

Jisung, listen, what happened before that? The fuck you mean?

The police man with the little notepad interrupted Jisung's inner monologue with a cough; crunchy and mucous, like that of a smoker since he was thirteen years old. "You sure it was Thursday?" he sneered, pointing loosely towards Jisung's neck, "Looks like you were quite... busy."

Rambo-cop turned around sharply. Jisung's hands flew up and covered his hickey-stained neck; the lip-shaped marks were yellow around the edges and still a bit red in the center, but only visible if you really looked for it. Tears of suppressed anger and shame pricked in the corners of his eyes.

"Can I leave?" Jisung gritted out, scowling at the two cops.

"Yes, of course, thank you for your time."

Jisung immediately turned around and went back inside his cabin. He slammed the door shut with extra petulant force.

#minsung #minsung fic #minsung fanfiction #han #han jisung #lee minho #lee know #skz #stray kids

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terrarain · 2 years ago

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tenderly (in your embrace)

character(s): takami keigo (hawks)

summary: when it all starts to get to be a little too much, you're there for him, arms waiting.

notes: reader's pronouns unspecified, mostly just a comfort fic!!

word count: 1.6k

Sometimes, the quiet tapping at the glass door of your balcony would interrupt the usual silence of your apartment. You were never annoyed, however; no, how could you be? You couldn't really keep a hold on any feelings of annoyance when you glanced over your shoulder to see the playful glint of the molten gold-brown.

Typically, a few whispers are exchanged as though the two of you were teenagers secretly meeting behind your parents' backs, but nothing more. Your relationship with the hero was an odd one and certainly unconventional.

"What are we?" you ask, delicately tracing the feathers on his back. Hawks breathes out slowly, wings fluttering lightly, his own hand trailing a light path up and down your arm.

"Cuddle buddies?" he suggests with a vaguely amused tone, pressing you closer to him. A motion that causes the bed to creak quietly. Idly, you wonder if you should check for loose bolts or something in your bed frame.

"Cuddle buddies," you echo, lips twitching upwards into a slight smile. "I guess so."

Two touch-starved individuals meeting together to feel the tangible form of someone, of anyone. So that they could keep a grip on reality.

Sometimes, though, there was no glint to his eyes. Perhaps a wry grin playing at his lips to hide his exhaustion, but none of the usual mirth in his eyes.

On these nights, his body language was frighteningly easy to read. Those nights went by in silence for the most part and, rather than Hawks being the big spoon, you would take him into your arms and rub slow circles into his lower back.

You never ask questions on those nights, afraid that the quiet tranquility of your arrangement would all be shattered if you so much as exhaled a little too harshly.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

The rhythmic tapping of the glass balcony door alerted you to Hawks's presence. It was a familiar pattern; one that you had grown accustomed to after months of sporadic visits from the winged hero.

Placing the book in your hand down onto the coffee table in front of you, your feet automatically bring you over to the door of your apartment's balcony to let him in.

All it took was one instance of eye contact. Eye bags that were deeper than usual, eyes barely lit up with a weakly flickering light, a sagging posture, and wings flapping in agitation. Not even a weak smile to keep up pretences; no, he was just... tired. Weary.

You decidedly don't say anything, instead opening your arms in invitation. The effect is immediate; the man stumbles into your arms and even though you prepared yourself for the weight, you still take a small step back due to his body collapsing into your arms.

Carefully, you nudge the balcony door closed with a foot as you listen to Hawks's slow breathing against your shoulder.

The two of you stand by your balcony door for a little longer, artificial golden warmth of a nightshade the only light during the moonless night. Even as you gently tread your fingers through his hair - knotted in some places, you observe - his body remains tensed.

With all of the gentleness in the world, you tug at Hawks a little to get him moving. He follows as you guide him to your bedroom, never once letting go of your form. Slowly, you sink into your bed with him in your arms and he curls into you.

So, so small.

Hawks was by no means tall, of course – but his presence gave him a sense of command. The way he carried himself as a hero drew attention to him and put him in control. Yet, as of this very moment, the way his hands formed fists into the fabric of your shirt, the way his usually large and showy wings were currently small nubs with only a few small feathers clinging on, he felt so small.

You tighten your hold on him just a little.

Without thinking too much, you press your lips into his hairline, one hand resting steadily the small of his back and another in his hair and slowly combing through it. The closer the hand on his back got to his wings, the tenser he got, so you kept your hand away from them and instead drew formless shapes into his lower back.

The sigh he lets out is almost inaudible and you’re sure that if the night hadn’t been dead silent, you would’ve missed it entirely. Though you had been rather awake despite the odd hours of three in the morning, you could feel sleep pinching at you and your eyes were starting to feel heavy.

“Keigo,” he whispers. You immediately awake from your sleepy haze.

A name, you realize quickly. His civilian name?

You murmur his name in response, testing it out on your tongue. “Keigo.”

It sounded nice. A part of you wondered what spurred him on – why he decided to tell you his name. A name that was hidden away from the public eye. You would be lying if you had never thought about what the pro hero’s name would be – but you never prodded him for it.

Hawks – Keigo – buries his face further into your shoulder as you speak his name in a low tone, body relaxing. His eyes are closed, from what you can see, but you have a feeling he’s not really asleep. He always had trouble falling asleep on these nights.

Distantly, you wonder if he has anybody to hold him tenderly like this. A charming rogue in the face of media, working as a hero that was too fast for anyone to follow, background shrouded in complete and utter mystery–

A hand kneads at your waist and you sigh into him.

These vulnerable moments. Something told you that he didn’t get to be vulnerable often. It wasn’t like he could really afford to when he was the number two hero; people looked to him, to the heroes, for comfort. If the heroes were to comfort the civilians, who were to comfort the heroes?

Their friends and family, presumably. Perhaps lovers. You wonder if Keigo had anybody like that in his life.

Probably not, you think, slowly and gently working your way through a knot in his hair. You didn’t keep up with hero news as frequently as you would like, but you’re pretty sure you’ve never seen Keigo interact with anybody as a close friend. You weren’t even sure if he had family that were alive.

And a lover…

“A lover?” Hawks looks at you in amusement, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Why are you asking? Are you offering, babe?”

“Just checking to make sure I’m not, like, going to wake up one day to an angry spouse shouting at me for stealing you,” you reply, ignoring his last question. “Just checking that you aren’t cheating on some secret significant other.”

His face twists at that and you wonder if it has anything to do with you telling him all about your past exes just the night before.

“I wouldn’t ever,” he murmurs resolutely. A more selfish part of you feels upset – would that mean he’d stop visiting you nightly if he ever fell in love with someone?

“Right,” is all you can say. The coffee machine whirls to a halt and you change the topic. “Want some coffee?”

At some point, Keigo’s breathing had evened out and you realize belatedly that he’s fallen asleep. With all of the fondest tenderness you can muster, you press a light and barely there kiss to his forehead before letting sleep take you as well.

The next morning, Keigo wakes up blearily, wings flapping about idly as he takes in the familiar surroundings. A room that was very much you - a room he had become fond of after a few months of nightly visits.

He sits up carefully, doing his best to not disturb you from your slumber. Lord knows you needed sleep as much as he did, with the many odd hours you spent awake and overthinking.

With a large amount of affection that surprises even him, Keigo gently traces your cheek with a thumb. He freezes when you shift a little, burying yourself further into the pillow your head was resting on, and only relaxes when you continue to snore away.

It takes everything in him to force himself out of the bed, wanting nothing but to stay in bed with you and sleep in. The slow bustle of civilians outside of your bedroom window reminds him, however, that he can't afford to do that.

"Love ya, chickadee," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead the very same way you had done to him last night before slipping out of the bed.

He reaches for a pen and sticky note nearby. You won't miss a single sticky note, he thinks, as he scribbles down a little message in neat handwriting. Keigo's about to put the note down and leave before hesitating - and quickly scribbling down one last thing. He leaves the pen and note on your bedside table before entering the world once more as the second hero Hawks.

That morning, you wake up to an empty space next to you and a little note on your bedside table. The handwriting unmistakably belongs to Keigo - and, even if you didn't recognize the handwriting, the little red bird doodled into the corner of the note was a clear indicator of who left the note there.

Thanks for the cuddles, chickadee. Wanna go out for coffee sometime? xxx-xxxx-xxxx

The empty feeling you woke up immediately fills up with tender affection as you smile amusedly to yourself, pulling out your phone to text the winged hero.

You: so, when are you free for some coffee?

#hawks #hawks x reader #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader #rainywriting #bnha x reader #keigo x reader #mha x reader

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msdarkwoodsworld · 3 months ago

Text

Darkwoods Compendium of Whispered Dread

Foreword: Peer into the void between stars, or the cracks in the mundane world. Here lie tales of encounters with the incomprehensible, the ancient, and the horrors that fester within humanity itself. Tread carefully.

The Photic Anomaly

Old Silas chewed the inside of his cheek, the salt spray a familiar ghost on his lips. Forty years he’d kept the light at St. Jude’s Point, a lonely vigil against the churning Atlantic. But the light he saw tonight wasn't his own beam cutting through the squall. It pulsed, deep out at sea, where no ship should be, and certainly no land. It was a colour he couldn't name – a sickly violet-green that seemed to vibrate in his vision, making the very air hum.

He raised the brass binoculars, knuckles white. The storm raged, waves like liquid mountains crashing against the rocks below. Yet, the strange light held steady, a baleful eye in the tempest. It wasn't a beacon; it gave no warmth, no guidance. It felt…hungry.

He tried the radio, the crackle and hiss a weak counterpoint to the wind's howl. "Mayday, Mayday," he began, then paused. Mayday for what? A weird light? "St. Jude's Point calling coastguard. Reporting unidentified illumination approximately ten nautical miles east. V-Violet-green hue, pulsating."

Static answered him. He tried again, the strange light seeming to brighten fractionally, as if noticing his attention. A coldness, unrelated to the storm, crept up his spine. He focused the binoculars again. The water around the light… it wasn't behaving right. Instead of cresting and falling, it seemed to fold inwards, drawn towards the luminescence like iron filings to a magnet. Geometry felt wrong near it, the perspective skewed.

He lowered the binoculars, rubbing his eyes. Fatigue? Hallucination? No. The hum was real, a low thrumming that resonated in his bones. He went to the lamp room, checking his own powerful Fresnel lens. Its rhythmic sweep seemed paltry, insignificant compared to the alien glow on the horizon.

Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. Not static, but a sound. A wet, clicking, chittering noise, interspersed with something that might have been words, spoken in a voice like dragging stones. "...Ssssilas..."

He froze. Impossible. The radio wasn't transmitting, only receiving. And that sound… it wasn't human.

"...Keeper... witnessss... the opening..."

He slammed his hand down on the power switch, plunging the radio room into silence, save for the storm and the now-palpable hum from outside. He stumbled back to the window, heart hammering. The light was closer. Distinctly closer. Maybe five miles now. And it was larger, the colour more intense, shapes seeming to coalesce and dissolve within its depths – things with too many angles, too many limbs.

He could see the effect on the water more clearly. It wasn't just folding; it was crystallizing in impossible fractal patterns, freezing mid-churn into jagged, glassy sculptures that reflected the ghastly light. The cold intensified, seeping through the thick stone walls.

He backed away from the window, grabbing the heavy, cast-iron poker from the fireplace. What good would it do? Against that?

A high-pitched whine started, emanating from the very glass of the lantern room above. He looked up in horror. The crystal facets of his own Fresnel lens were beginning to glow faintly with that same violet-green resonance. The light wasn't just out there anymore. It was answering. It was being invited in.

The main lamp flared, not with its usual warm incandescent glow, but with the sickening, otherworldly pulse. The rhythmic sweep faltered, stuttered, then stopped, fixing its beam directly onto the approaching anomaly. A pathway of light, his own beacon turned traitor.

The hum became a roar, shaking the tower. Silas clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut, but he could still see the violet-green light burning through his eyelids, feel the impossible geometry etching itself onto his mind. The last thing he heard before the stone cracked and the sea-level glass imploded wasn't the storm, but a sound like a billion insects chewing through reality, welcoming something vast and terrible ashore.

The Resonant Deep

Dr. Aris Thorne adjusted his headphones, the faint hiss like auditory snow. "Anything, Lena?"

Dr. Lena Petrova sighed, leaning back from the console, screens reflecting in her glasses. "Just the usual background radiation, cosmic microwave whispers. The Mariana Trench is quieter than deep space sometimes."

Their project, 'Echo,' was ambitious: deploy hypersensitive hydrophones to the Challenger Deep, hoping to catch exotic particle interactions, gravitational wave echoes, anything shielded by seven miles of water. For weeks, it had yielded nothing but profound, abyssal silence.

"Keep the gain high," Aris murmured. "If there's anything novel, it'll be faint."

Lena obliged, sliders inching upwards on the virtual console. The hiss intensified slightly. Then, something else. A low, rhythmic pulse. Too slow for sonar, too regular for geology.

"Aris, listen."

He leaned closer to his own monitor, patching her feed through. Thump... thump... thump. It was incredibly deep, barely within the range of their equipment, resonating more than sounding.

"Seismic?" Aris wondered aloud.

"Doesn't match any known tectonic signature," Lena replied, fingers flying across her keyboard, running analyses. "Frequency is stable. Amplitude… increasing?"

It was. The thumping grew marginally louder, clearer. It had a strange, bi-phasic quality, like a monstrously slow heartbeat. Thump-thump… pause… Thump-thump…

"Biological?" Aris whispered, incredulous. "At this depth? The pressure alone..."

"Nothing we know could produce this," Lena said, her voice tight. "The energy required… it's immense."

They listened for hours as the signal persisted, unwavering. They cross-referenced geological surveys, volcanic activity databases, even old military sonar records. Nothing matched. It was coming from below their deepest sensor, deeper than the trench floor itself.

Then, a new element emerged. A faint, high-frequency counterpoint, woven around the deep thumps. It sounded like… singing. Or chanting. Harmonically complex, filled with microtones that scraped at the nerves.

"Okay, this is impossible," Aris said, pulling off his headphones. "Equipment malfunction?"

"All diagnostics green," Lena reported, eyes wide. "The signal is clean, Aris. It's real." She pointed at a waveform display. "Look at the complexity. This isn't noise."

The chanting grew, intertwining with the 'heartbeat,' creating a disquieting symphony from the planet's bowels. It felt ancient, profoundly alien, yet disturbingly familiar, tapping into some primal layer of the human brain. Aris felt a headache building behind his eyes. Lena was rubbing her temples.

"It's… affecting us," Lena stammered. "Nausea? Dizziness?"

Aris nodded grimly. "The frequency? Infrasound?"

"Maybe, but the chanting… it's like it's trying to communicate."

Days turned into a week. The signal never stopped. Sleep became difficult for the small research team. Crew members reported vivid nightmares, unsettling feelings of being watched, irrational anxieties. Two engineers demanded to be taken off the project, muttering about 'bad vibrations.'

Aris and Lena persisted, obsessed. The chanting evolved, becoming more intricate. Using pattern-recognition algorithms, Lena found repeating sequences, structures that hinted at language.

"It's not just a heartbeat, Aris," she said one evening, her face pale and drawn. "It's grammar. Syntax. The thumps punctuate phrases. The chanting is the content."

"Saying what?"

"I don't know. The structure is… non-human. But the core emotional resonance…" She shuddered. "It feels like… waiting. And hunger."

Suddenly, a new sound erupted through the feed – a sharp, tearing, grinding noise that overloaded the sensors, sending needles into the red. Alarms blared.

"Report!" Aris yelled into the intercom.

A panicked voice came back. "Sensor Four is gone! Cable severed! Something… something hit it!"

Then Sensor Three went dead. Then Two.

"Pull it!" Aris shouted. "Get the array up, now!"

The winches groaned, hauling the kilometres of cable upwards. Lena stared at the main screen, where only Sensor One still transmitted. The deep thumping and chanting were louder than ever, frantic, excited.

Then, a final sound before Sensor One also cut out. A clear, distinct series of clicks and whistles, sharp and intelligent.

Lena translated it through the rudimentary linguistic model they’d built. Her blood ran cold.

"What did it say?" Aris demanded, grabbing her shoulder.

Lena looked at him, her eyes reflecting pure terror. "It said… 'Found you.'"

Cartographer of Madness

Elias Thorne wasn’t an astronomer, not professionally. He was a historian, specializing in obscure medieval manuscripts. But his small inheritance had allowed him a cottage far from city lights and a decent telescope. He loved the familiar constellations, the celestial clockwork. Until he found the Atlas Caelestis Damnatus.

Bound in what looked disturbingly like tanned human skin, tucked away in a forgotten archive box mislabelled '17th Century Almanacs,' the book felt wrong. Its vellum pages were covered in star charts unlike any he knew. They depicted familiar anchor stars – Sirius, Vega, Polaris – but the constellations woven around them were alien, filled with sharp, unnatural angles and disturbing symmetries. Cygnus was a fractured, multi-limbed horror; Ursa Major coiled like a serpent devouring its own tail.

And the names… scrawled in a spidery, archaic hand: The Crawling Chaos, The Feaster from the Stars, The Hounds of Tindalos. Below them, annotations in a cipher Elias couldn’t immediately break, and disturbingly precise coordinates.

"Probably just some occultist's fantasy," he muttered, trying to dismiss the unease settling in his gut. But the craftsmanship, the sheer detail… it felt authentic. Driven by a morbid curiosity only scholars can truly understand, he took the Atlas home.

That night, he pointed his telescope towards the coordinates listed beneath a particularly grotesque cluster labelled 'The Angles of Ib'. According to standard charts, the region was relatively empty. Through his eyepiece, however… something flickered.

Not stars, but points of non-light, absences against the faint galactic glow. They arranged themselves in sharp, impossible angles that made his head ache. He sketched what he saw, his hand trembling. It matched the chart in the Atlas perfectly.

Sleep offered no respite. Dreams were filled with impossible geometries, colours that hurt his eyes, and whispers in the cipher's language. He started deciphering it during the day, a nagging obsession taking root. It wasn't Latin or Greek, but something older, guttural.

His friend, Dr. Alistair Finch, a fellow historian, visited. "Elias, you look dreadful! Haven't seen you at the university in weeks."

Elias waved him towards the Atlas, spread open on his desk amid scattered notes. "Look at this, Alistair. Have you ever seen anything like it?"

Alistair peered, then recoiled slightly. "Good Lord, man, what is this? Black magic?" He examined the binding. "This feels… organic."

"It shows constellations, Alistair. Constellations that exist." Elias pointed to his sketches. "I've seen them. They defy Euclidian space. They're wrong."

"Elias," Alistair said gently, "Perhaps you need a break. Stress, isolation…"

"It's not stress!" Elias snapped, his voice cracking. "It's knowledge! Forbidden knowledge! The cipher… I'm close to breaking it. It speaks of pathways, Alistair. Gates!"

Alistair left soon after, promising to call, his face etched with concern. Elias barely noticed. He was consumed. The cipher began yielding fragments: "...where the angles meet... beyond the veil... He Who Waits... "

The world outside his study began to seem thin, unreal. Shadows stretched at odd angles; corners seemed sharper, more numerous than they should be. Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he saw fleeting movements, things that skittered away when he tried to focus. The whispers from his dreams began to echo in his waking hours.

One night, he focused on the coordinates for 'The Feaster from the Stars.' The telescope revealed not points of non-light, but a swirling vortex of colours he couldn’t name, colours that felt greasy and malevolent. And within it, something moved. Indistinct, vast, shifting.

He cried out, stumbling back from the eyepiece, knocking over a stack of books. The Atlas fell open to a page depicting a ritualistic diagram involving sharp angles and celestial alignments. The whispers intensified, coalescing into words he now understood.

"The angles are the key... the angles are the gate... Trace the path... Invite the watcher..."

He looked at his hands. They seemed alien, jointed wrong. He glanced at the corner of the room. It wasn't ninety degrees anymore. It was acute, sharp, inviting. Something was unfolding itself from the intersection of the walls, a creature of impossible angles and shadowy limbs, peeling away from reality like old wallpaper.

Elias didn’t scream. He picked up a pen, his eyes wide with horrific understanding, or perhaps terminal madness. He turned back to the Atlas, to the chart of 'The Angles of Ib.'

"Yes," he whispered, his voice raspy, inhuman. "I see the path now. I must map it. I must…"

His pen scratched across the vellum, adding new lines, new angles, connecting the dots of non-light, finalising the map. Outside, the stars themselves seemed to shift and contort, aligning with the madness being charted within the small cottage. The Cartographer of Madness was completing his final, terrible work. Alistair would find the cottage empty, save for the Atlas, now depicting a sky horrifically transformed, and a lingering scent of ozone and something anciently, terribly wrong.

Where the Lines End

The air in the abandoned subway tunnel tasted of rust, decay, and something else… something colder, dryer. Liam shone his high-powered flashlight beam down the tracks, the circle of light swallowed by oppressive darkness. This section of the old City Line hadn't seen a train in fifty years, sealed off after a cave-in they said. Liam, an urban explorer with more nerve than sense, had found a way in through a collapsed sewer junction.

"Okay, Maya," he whispered into his shoulder mic, connected to his partner topside. "I'm in. Smells like… old regrets and asbestos."

"Copy that, Liam," Maya's voice crackled back, tinny and distant. "Signal's weak already. Don't go too far. Thirty minutes, then you head back, deal?"

"Deal. Just want to see how far it goes."

He walked deeper, boots crunching on debris. Water dripped rhythmically, echoing strangely in the confined space. Graffiti from decades past covered the walls, faded tags and crude drawings. But further in, the graffiti changed. It became less spray paint, more… scratches. Deep gouges in the concrete, forming bizarre symbols and patterns that seemed to writhe in the periphery of his light.

The air grew colder. The dripping stopped. A profound silence descended, swallowing even the sound of his own breathing. He checked his compass. The needle spun erratically.

"Maya? You read?"

Only static answered. He sighed. Typical. He pressed on, intrigued by the strange markings. They were becoming more complex, incorporating impossible-seeming spirals and angles that hurt to look at. He felt a growing sense of disorientation, as if the tunnel itself was subtly warping.

He rounded a bend and stopped dead. The tunnel didn't continue. It didn't end in a cave-in. It just… stopped. But not at a wall. The tracks, the concrete walls, the arched ceiling – they fractured into a mosaic of sharp, geometric planes, intersecting at angles that defied logic. It looked like a Cubist painting of a tunnel entrance, rendered in decaying concrete and shadow. Beyond this 'fracture,' there was only absolute, impenetrable darkness.

"What the hell…?" he breathed, shining his light directly at it. The beam didn't reflect; it seemed to be absorbed, vanishing into the non-space beyond the fractured threshold. A low hum emanated from it, felt more than heard.

He cautiously approached the edge. Peering past the jagged planes, he saw… nothing? No, not nothing. Something worse. Fleeting glimpses of impossible architecture, vast, cyclopean structures under a sky that was the colour of dried blood, lit by no sun. Then it shifted, showing glimpses of the tunnel behind him, but distorted, stretched, decaying at an accelerated rate.

He felt a wave of vertigo, nausea. He stumbled back, heart pounding. This wasn't a cave-in. This was a… wound. A place where reality had broken.

He fumbled for his camera, needing proof. As he raised it, he saw something etched onto the plane nearest him, almost hidden in shadow. Not graffiti. A handprint. But the hand that made it had too many fingers, jointed at sickeningly wrong angles. Below it, scratched frantically: "IT SEES. DON'T LOOK BACK."

A skittering sound echoed from the darkness behind him.

Liam spun around, flashlight beam cutting wildly. The tunnel he'd walked down looked… different. Longer. Narrower. The graffiti seemed to pulse faintly. The silence was gone, replaced by faint, wet dragging sounds, getting closer.

Panic seized him. He turned and ran, back towards the way he came, towards the memory of the sewer junction. But the tunnel twisted impossibly. Corridors branched off where none had been before, leading to dead ends or looping back on themselves. The geometry was actively hostile.

He risked a glance back. Something was moving in the darkness, keeping pace. Not a single entity, but shifting, angular shadows detaching themselves from the walls, flowing like liquid obsidian.

He screamed into his mic, "Maya! MAYA! GET HELP!" knowing it was useless.

He tripped, sprawling onto the grimy tracks. His flashlight rolled away, its beam spinning crazily before settling on a section of wall nearby. More scratches. A crude map, showing the tunnel layout, but distorted, nightmarish. And a final message, scrawled with what looked like blood and desperation:

"THE LINES NEVER ENDED. THEY JUST WENT SOMEWHERE ELSE."

Liam scrambled for the flashlight, but a chillingly cold, multi-jointed grip closed around his ankle, dragging him back towards the darkness, back towards the impossible angles, back towards the place where the lines ended, and something else began. His screams were swallowed by the non-Euclidean geometry and the silence that followed. Topside, Maya only heard static.

The Crystalline Blight

The meteor didn't streak across the sky; it tore through it, leaving a brief, jagged rip of violet-black that healed itself moments after the object plunged into Farmer McGregor’s fallow field. It wasn’t large, maybe the size of a small car, half-buried in the churned earth. It didn’t smoke or glow with heat. Instead, it radiated a peculiar cold, and its surface… it wasn’t rock.

McGregor, a man whose curiosity often outweighed his caution, approached it warily the next morning. The object was a complex lattice of interlocking crystals, impossibly smooth and sharp-edged, shifting through colours that didn’t seem natural – hues that simultaneously suggested depth and flatness, iridescence and utter absorption. Touching it, his fingers recoiled not from heat, but from an intense, vibrational cold that numbed the skin. A fine, shimmering dust coated the ground around it.

"Strange," he muttered, poking it with his boot. A few tiny crystalline fragments chipped off. Fascinated, he picked one up. It was cool to the touch, almost weightless, and seemed to refract the morning light in bizarre, geometric patterns. He slipped it into his pocket, a strange souvenir.

That evening, the trouble started. McGregor developed a headache, centred behind his eyes. Looking at the familiar patterns of his farmhouse wallpaper made him nauseous; the lines seemed to warp, the floral print subtly rearranging itself into angular, crystalline shapes.

"Martha," he called to his wife, rubbing his temples. "My eyes feel… funny. Everything looks sharp."

"You spent too long staring at that thing in the field," she chided, setting down her knitting. "Probably strained them."

But it wasn't just his vision. The water from the tap tasted faintly metallic, resonant. The ticking clock sounded discordant, its rhythm fractionally off. He dreamed of endless, cold, crystalline corridors and woke up with the tiny fragment from his pocket clutched tightly in his hand. It seemed… warmer.

Over the next few days, the changes accelerated. A faint, iridescent sheen appeared on McGregor’s skin where he’d touched the fragment. It wasn’t a rash; it looked like microscopic crystals embedded in his flesh, catching the light. His vision grew stranger – he started seeing the world overlaid with a faint, geometric grid. Objects seemed to possess internal structures of sharp angles and planes.

"Doc Matthews," he stammered during a hurried visit, "Look at my hand! And my eyes… the world’s turning into… into glass!"

Doc Matthews peered through his spectacles. "Just looks like dry skin, Jed. And stress can play tricks on the eyes. Getting enough sleep?" He prescribed a lotion and rest.

But McGregor knew it wasn't stress. The fragment in his pocket pulsed with a faint, cold light now. He found himself drawn back to the field. The crystalline structure hadn't changed, but the dust around it had spread, carried by the wind. The grass near the impact site was changing, blades becoming stiff, translucent, edged like razors. A dead bird lay nearby, its feathers replaced by delicate, sharp crystalline growths.

Martha was changing too. She complained of stiffness in her joints, a strange clicking sound when she moved her fingers. A similar iridescent sheen was appearing on her arms. "It's the dust, Jed," she whispered, fear in her eyes. "It's in the air, in the well water…"

Their conversations became strained, difficult. Not just from fear, but because their perceptions were diverging. McGregor saw the terrifying geometry taking hold; Martha felt a cold rigidity spreading within. Their shared reality was fracturing.

One morning, McGregor woke to find Martha standing perfectly still by the window, staring out at the field. Her skin had taken on a pronounced crystalline texture, facets catching the dawn light. She didn't respond when he called her name. He reached out to touch her shoulder and his hand recoiled – her skin was hard, cold, unyielding as quartz. Only her eyes moved, tracking something unseen, reflecting the world in a thousand tiny, fractured planes.

Panic rising, McGregor ran outside. The blight was spreading faster now. Trees near the field shimmered with crystalline bark; the farmhouse walls seemed subtly faceted. He looked at his own hands – the iridescent sheen covered them entirely, tiny, sharp crystals pushing through his skin. He could feel the geometry restructuring him from within, a cold, precise, alien transformation.

He stumbled towards the meteor, the source. Perhaps he could destroy it? He grabbed a sledgehammer from the barn, his movements stiff, awkward. As he approached the crystalline structure, it seemed to pulse brighter. He swung the hammer, but the impact produced only a high-pitched, resonant chime. The hammerhead didn't dent the surface; instead, microscopic crystalline fractures spread up the hammer's handle, racing towards his hands.

He dropped it with a cry, watching in horror as the wooden handle transmuted into brittle, shimmering crystal. He looked back at his farm, his wife, his world. Everything was slowly, inexorably sharpening, hardening, crystallizing into a silent, beautiful, terrifying new form. The Crystalline Blight wasn’t just infecting; it was converting, remaking the world in its own cold, geometric image. He could feel the angles taking root in his mind, the last vestiges of his humanity cracking like glass.

The Wicker Feast

The village of Oakhaven nestled deep in the wooded valley, deliberately forgotten by maps and highways. Clara, an anthropologist researching isolated folk traditions, had felt a thrill finding it – a community supposedly untouched by modern anxieties. They welcomed her with quiet smiles and cups of strong, herbal tea, their lives governed by the seasons and the looming presence of Blackwood Forest.

Their leader, Elder Rowan, a man with eyes like chips of flint, explained their central tradition: the annual Harvest Tithe. "We give thanks to the wood," he’d said, his voice calm, resonant. "It provides for us, shelter, game, unique fungi... We offer gratitude in return."

It sounded quaint, bucolic. But there was an undercurrent Clara couldn't shake. The villagers’ smiles didn’t always reach their eyes. Certain parts of the forest were strictly forbidden. And the 'unique fungi' Elder Rowan mentioned… she'd seen drawings in old village records, unsettlingly amorphous, vaguely sentient-looking things.

The Harvest Tithe approached. A large, wicker effigy was being constructed in the central clearing – humanoid, but subtly wrong, with too many limbs and a disproportionately large head. "A symbol of the bounty," Elder Rowan explained when Clara asked. Yet, the villagers worked on it with a grim determination, not festive cheer.

Young Thomas, a lad who sometimes brought Clara firewood, seemed nervous. "You leaving before the Tithe, Miss?" he asked one afternoon, fidgeting.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world, Thomas," Clara replied brightly. "It's the culmination of my research."

Thomas swallowed hard. "It's… important everyone attends. The wood… it watches." He glanced fearfully towards Blackwood Forest, then scurried away.

Unease prickled Clara’s skin. She started asking more pointed questions, subtly digging into the village's history. She found inconsistencies, records hinting at periods of unusual prosperity following times when villagers inexplicably 'moved away.' Whispers of 'bad harvests' were linked to dissent or outsiders questioning the Tithe.

The night before the festival, Clara couldn't sleep. She crept out to the edge of the forbidden section of Blackwood Forest. The air here was colder, unnaturally still. No birds sang, no insects chirped. A faint, musky, fungal scent hung in the air. Peering through the dense undergrowth, she saw strange, phosphorescent fungi pulsing with faint light, illuminating twisted trees and rocks covered in carvings that mirrored the bizarre wicker effigy.

She heard a rustling nearby. Hiding behind a thick oak, she saw Elder Rowan and two other villagers dragging something heavy wrapped in burlap towards the deepest part of the woods. It struggled feebly. Clara didn't need to see what was inside to feel a cold dread grip her heart. The Tithe wasn't symbolic.

The next evening, the entire village gathered around the wicker figure. Torches cast flickering shadows. The air thrummed with chanting, low and guttural, words Clara didn't recognise but which resonated with primal fear. Elder Rowan stood before the effigy, arms raised.

"The wood provides!" he intoned. "The soil gives life! The harvest is gathered!"

"And the Tithe is due!" the villagers responded in unison, their faces rapt, feverish.

Clara scanned the crowd. Someone was missing. Thomas. Her blood ran cold. She looked at the wicker man again. Its shape seemed subtly different now, less empty. Was there movement inside?

"We thank the Old Ones of the Deep Wood!" Rowan cried. "We offer sustenance! We offer life, that we may live!"

From the edge of the forest, a sound began – a low, resonant vibration, like the earth groaning. The strange fungi within the woods pulsed brighter, casting eerie light. Trees swayed despite the lack of wind. The ground beneath Clara's feet seemed to thrum.

Then, it emerged from the trees. Clara had no frame of reference for it. It was a shifting mass of fungal ropes, earthy tendrils, and pale, sightless eyes clustered on stalks, moving with a slow, deliberate hunger. It was immense, smelling of damp soil and decay, and it moved towards the wicker effigy.

The villagers didn't scream; they bowed their heads, chanting louder. The 'Old One' reached the wicker man. Tendrils probed the structure, then plunged inside. Clara heard a muffled, high-pitched scream, quickly cut short. The wicker structure shuddered, then began to break apart as the entity... fed.

Clara clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling a gag. This was the price of Oakhaven's peace, their prosperity. A sacrifice. A human sacrifice.

Elder Rowan turned, his gaze sweeping the crowd, locking onto Clara’s horrified face. His expression wasn't triumphant; it was resigned, weary, yet utterly implacable. He knew she knew.

Clara stumbled backwards, turning to flee. But villagers moved to block her path, their faces no longer smiling, merely empty. She was an outsider. She had seen. And the wood… the wood was still hungry. The Tithe had been paid, but perhaps an extra offering would ensure an even better harvest next year. Her research had led her not to quaint folk traditions, but to the gnawing, ancient hunger at the heart of human survival.

The Cepheid Variable

Dr. Alistair Finch (the same historian who visited Elias Thorne, now years later and deeply unsettled by Elias’s disappearance) had inherited his estranged cousin’s fascination with the stars, though his approach was rigorously scientific. He specialized in Cepheid variables – pulsating stars whose predictable brightness cycles allowed astronomers to measure cosmic distances. Tonight, he was observing V473 Lyrae, a well-documented Cepheid, using the university observatory's powerful telescope.

The data stream flowed onto his monitor, plotting the star’s light curve. Brighten, dim, brighten, dim. Predictable as clockwork. He sipped his stale coffee, checking the spectrograph readings. Everything normal.

Then, a flicker. A momentary dip in brightness, out of sync with the established rhythm. "Odd," Alistair murmured, zooming in on the data point. "Instrument glitch?"

He ran diagnostics. Systems clear. He kept watching. The star pulsed normally for several cycles. Then, another anomalous dip, slightly longer this time. Followed by a sudden, intense flare, far brighter than its usual maximum.

"That's not right," he muttered, cross-referencing with historical data. V473 Lyrae had been stable for decades. He checked other instruments monitoring the same patch of sky. They confirmed the anomaly.

He focused the telescope's visual feed. The star, a pinpoint of light trillions of miles away, seemed… unsteady. Not just pulsating, but shimmering, as if viewed through heat haze. He increased magnification, pushing the limits of the equipment.

For a fraction of a second, the light from V473 Lyrae seemed to smear across the viewport. Not a lens flare, but a temporal distortion. In that smear, Alistair saw… images? Fleeting, superimposed on the starlight. Impossible structures buckling, worlds cracking open, vast, shadowy shapes moving between galaxies. It lasted less than a heartbeat, then the star snapped back to its normal appearance, albeit still pulsing erratically.

Alistair felt dizzy, his breath catching. "What… was that?" He rewound the recording, playing it frame by frame. There it was again – the smear, the embedded visions of cosmic catastrophe. It was like the star wasn't just pulsating light, but broadcasting glimpses of… something else. Something terrible.

He called his colleague, Dr. Ishida, at another observatory. "Kenji, are you seeing this? V473 Lyrae?"

"Seeing it?" Kenji's voice was tight with excitement and fear. "Alistair, it's gone mad! The pulsation period is changing second by second. And the spectral lines… they're red-shifting and blue-shifting simultaneously! It's impossible!"

"I saw something else, Kenji," Alistair said, his voice low. "Images. In the light."

Silence on the line. Then, "Images? Alistair, are you sure?"

"Like… echoes. Or warnings. Of destruction. Things… vast things moving in the dark…" His mind flashed back to Elias, his mad talk of angles and watchers. Had Elias seen something like this?

Suddenly, the feed from V473 Lyrae shifted again. This time, the smear resolved into a clearer, horrifying tableau: a familiar spiral galaxy – Andromeda – twisting, distorting, its arms being consumed by patches of absolute void that spread like inkblots.

"My God," Alistair whispered.

"What is it?" Kenji asked frantically.

"It's showing us Andromeda… being unmade."

Then, the image shifted again, closer. A yellow star, orbited by blue and green planets. Sol. Earth. And something vast and nebulous approaching it, blotting out the stars.

The connection with Kenji crackled and died. Alarms started blaring softly in the observatory – not equipment failure, but external sensors detecting gravitational anomalies. The very fabric of spacetime around Earth was subtly warping.

Alistair stared at the feed from V473 Lyrae. It wasn't just a star anymore. It was a window, or perhaps a mirror, reflecting a doom that was racing across cosmic distances, its arrival heralded by the star's death throes. The predictable clockwork of the universe was breaking down.

The star flared one last time, an impossibly bright pulse that overloaded the sensors, burning its image onto Alistair's retinas. In that final flash, he didn't see distant galaxies, but his own observatory, moments into the future. He saw the dome cracking open, not from internal pressure, but pulled apart by forces from outside. He saw himself looking up, mouth open in a silent scream, as something cold, dark, and infinitely vast descended from the sky, heralded by the dying pulse of a distant, variable star. The echo had arrived. The warning was the event itself.

The Hue of the Void

Julian Croft was an artist obsessed with the impossible. Not surrealism, but the truly non-existent. His latest fixation: a colour described in a decaying, anonymous pamphlet he’d found pressed between pages of a geometry textbook in a dusty second-hand bookshop. The text, filled with rambling, pseudo-mathematical proofs and unsettling diagrams, called it 'Ashen-Violet' or 'The Hue of the Void.' It described it not as a mixture of pigments, but as an absence, a visual frequency that existed in the negative spaces of perception, glimpsed only 'where the angles sleep.'

"It's madness, Julian," chided his agent, Isabella Rossi, surveying the canvases littering his studio. They were covered in murky greys, dull lilacs, blacks that seemed to absorb the very light. "Nobody wants paintings of… nothingness. Give me landscapes! Portraits!"

"You don't understand, Izzy," Julian replied, his eyes feverish, dabbing at a canvas with a brush coated in near-black paint. "It's not nothingness. It's a presence. The colour described here… it’s the shade of the space between things. The gaps in reality." He tapped the pamphlet. "If I can just capture it…"

His obsession consumed him. He ground his own pigments, experimenting with crushed meteorites, rare earths, even synthesized compounds based on the pamphlet's cryptic formulae. He worked in near-darkness, believing normal light contaminated the 'negative frequency.' His studio became a cave of shadows and chemical smells.

His paintings grew stranger. The greys and violets began to take on an unsettling depth. Looking at them too long induced vertigo, a sense that the canvas was receding infinitely, or conversely, that something within the painted void was looking back.

"Julian," Isabella said during her next visit, keeping her distance. The air in the studio felt wrong – cold, stagnant, with a faint, metallic tang. "This isn't healthy. You look like you haven't slept in weeks. And these paintings…" She gestured towards a large canvas dominated by a swirling vortex of greyish-violet. "They make my eyes water. They feel… hostile."

"They're close," Julian whispered, his gaze fixed on the vortex. "Almost there. The Ashen-Violet… it requires a specific geometry, too. The angles have to be right, to 'sleep,' as the text says." He picked up a palette knife, scratching sharp, non-Euclidean lines into the thick paint.

Where the knife scored the canvas, the colour seemed to deepen, to darken beyond blackness, becoming a patch of utter visual emptiness that seemed to pull at the surrounding light.

"Did you see that?" Julian breathed, ecstatic.

Isabella hadn't seen it. She just felt a sudden, intense wave of dread and an irrational urge to flee. "Julian, I'm leaving. Call me when you've painted a nice boat or something." She practically ran out.

Julian barely noticed. He worked feverishly, applying the strange pigments, carving the impossible angles. The patch of 'Void Hue' on the canvas grew. It didn't reflect light; it consumed it. The air near the canvas grew noticeably colder. Faint whispers seemed to echo from its depths, fragments of the pamphlet's mad text.

He stepped back to admire his work. The Ashen-Violet section was perhaps a foot across now, a perfect void in the centre of the swirling greys. It was mesmerizing, hypnotic. He felt an overwhelming urge to touch it.

"Just a glimpse," he murmured, reaching out.

His fingers brushed the surface. There was no texture of paint or canvas. There was only cold, absolute emptiness, a pull that felt like it was drawing the warmth, the light, the very essence out of him. He tried to pull back, but couldn't.

Panic flared. The whispers intensified, swirling around him now, seeming to emanate from the patch on the canvas. The angles he'd painted seemed to extend off the canvas, etching themselves into the air, into the walls of the studio. The room's geometry started to warp, corners contracting, shadows deepening into fissures of Ashen-Violet.

The void on the canvas pulsed, expanded. It was no longer paint; it was a hole. A hole in the world, looking through to somewhere else – somewhere cold, empty, and utterly inimical to life. Shapes, vaguely sensed rather than seen, stirred in the depths of that impossible colour.

Julian screamed as the Ashen-Violet flowed off the canvas like viscous anti-light, wrapping around his hand, his arm, spreading across his body. It wasn't covering him; it was unmaking him, replacing substance with absence, warmth with void-cold, colour with its terrifying negative.

When Isabella, driven by a nagging worry, finally forced the studio door open days later, she found the room unnaturally cold and altered. The paintings were slashed, ruined, except for one large canvas facing the wall. The strange pamphlet lay open on the floor. Of Julian, there was no sign, only a lingering metallic scent and a profound sense of emptiness.

She hesitated, then turned the remaining canvas around. It depicted a swirling vortex of grey and violet, but the centre was now a perfect, sharp-edged silhouette of a human figure, rendered in a colour that wasn't black, wasn't grey, wasn't violet. It was the Hue of the Void, an absolute absence that seemed to drink the light and whisper of spaces between the stars. Julian had finally captured the impossible colour. Or perhaps, it had captured him.

#horror stories #horror story #lovecraft #hp lovecraft #lovecrafian #cosmic horror #horror

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