#...maybe that WOULD be a good enough system...

[butchpeace]

1. You’re right, the 80% figure was from an old study that didn’t differentiate between those two things. But if you really think they’re correctly differentiating between “true trans” and gender nonconforming kids now, you’re way too naive.

2. If trans people have “literally always been here”, and being trans isn’t influenced by the way cultural norms affect psychology, why have we seen a massive increase in trans identification in young females? Why do I repeatedly hear from young people that they have tons of other kids (mostly girls) identifying as trans in their school class?

Are you of the opinion that there are “fake trans people” and “true trans people”? Interesting if so, considering implying that anyone isn’t “valid” would get you labeled instantly as a terf.

3. Of course every medication has risks. But in a responsible medical system, those risks are constantly being assessed, and treatment with the drug in question is always subject to reassessment and the entire use of that drug could be discontinued when the harm outweighs the benefit. I can see that happening within a few years for testosterone use in females, because there’s new research coming out, and none of it looks good.

But really l’m done with trying to convince people this is bad for us. It’s just common fucking sense that a woman shooting up high doses of testosterone for years on end isn’t going to have good health over the long run.

And can you think of any other case where medications that are understood to be very obviously harmful (to anyone with a developed adult brain) are used on people with a mental illness? Is there any other situation that’s even remotely similar to attempting to physically change someone’s sex in response to them being psychologically distressed? And in situations where the reason for the distress isn’t properly diagnosed and treated?

4. Are you not aware of the informed consent system in the US? For about a decade now, the situation has been that anyone can walk into a gender clinic, have a short meeting with a therapist, and be put on hormones within 2 weeks.

Puberty blockers and hormones for minors have had slightly more obstacles to access, but don’t you think that’s necessary considering the fact that we’re talking about children?

Kids don’t even remember what they ate for dinner the previous week, they’re extremely suggestible because they’re still making sense of the world, and they’re not mentally or emotionally mature enough to process what they’re feeling the way an adult does.

If an adult tells a kid that if they like pink and princesses and wearing dresses, maybe they’re a girl, and starts treating the kid like a girl, what do you think is going to happen in that kid’s brain?

You’ve studied psychology — Do you genuinely think the kid would say “No I’m a boy, I just like feminine things because I’m gay!” We’re talking about pre-pubertal children here. Kids believe what their parents tell them.

If you think it should be easy for any kid to go to a doctor and get put on blockers…I hope you never have children, because you have no idea what children even are, let alone what’s best for their health and happiness.

And in fact, it has been shown that the vast majority of kids who are going through those treatments are same-sex attracted. They quite literally are shooting up gay kids with blockers and hormones, over a supposed condition that no one can scientifically prove even exists.

Even if being “true trans” is real, there are still kids who aren’t trans who are being transitioned at young ages. I know because I’m friends with them. Most consider what happened to them to be a form of child abuse, or medical abuse of a minor that should be illegal. Many of them have lasting health issues caused by blockers and hormones, and the psychological trauma they go through from having these changes happen to them at such a young age is typically immense.

This is a major fucking catastrophe, and if you don’t think something needs to change in order to mitigate that harm, I have nothing else to say to you.

[hitomisuzuya]

Oh miss Hito! Can I plead. I mean please. Request wanderer/scara, perhaps hybrid? (cannon genshin) accidentally smelling some type of aphrodisiac mushroom while doing a commission, and when he finds you he starts to act weird, having really flirt comments he brushes off just to end up slamming the door to ur room and nuzzling on ur thighs, biting them and grinding himself into the mattress with such a sweet sound.

I just want him to get off just by being that close, and who knows maybe scara will rip our panties off and eat like he’s starving

hybrid!scaramouche x fem!reader. smut. grinding. cunnilingus. accidental aphrodisiac usage (i really did not know how to word that). biting. whiny scara.

this request was so intimate 😳

it's inevitable that one will sneeze if something tickles the nose. some pollen happened to be floating by on the wind, connecting right with scaramouche's nostrils.

his ears twitch as he sneezes. it's a big sneeze, one that made him inhale sharply before he sneezed again. the force of said sneeze blew aphrodisiac spores from a mushroom into the air. his second sneeze is what made him inhale it.

"what the fuck is this shit?" he grumbles, batting at the air to disperse the spores. wrinkling his nose, his tail flicks as he continues on his way.

he originally planned to spend the day laying around, and napping. however, as time went on and the aphrodisiac spore's affects start to settle in (which was a little faster than most. consistent irritation made it trickle into his system that much faster), he started thinking about you.

a lot.

when his cock starts to throb just from the mere thought of you, he knows the only thing he wants to do is find you. every fiber screams inside him that he needs you. it didn't matter what he did to try and get his mind off of you, it didn't work.

before he knows it, scaramouche is gritting his teeth, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands to try and control his thoughts. your delicate little body would look so fucking hot swollen with his children.

he can barely ignore the aching in his cock as he knocks on your door. even though it's only a few moments before you answer the door, he thinks you take too long.

you sense something is off. way way way off. "scaramouche? is something wrong?" you are concerned. he just doesn't random drop by, not being the very social type. still though, you are glad to see him, and his charming ears.

"can i come in?" his voice shakes, a little strained. "no, wait, you should stay back," it really would've been for your own good, even if it wouldn't have done you much good in the end. he doesn't know what he is capable of.

"huh?" you tilt your head, confused. you practically have to pull teeth getting him to come inside usually. "are you okay?"

scaramouche barely hears your question. his eyes are shamelessly sliding down your body before he even realizes it. "fuck, those thighs of yours. i could just.." your thighs look so soft, so pliable.

thoughts of holding them apart while he fucks you absolutely stupid consume him.

"w-what? do you even hear yourself?" you blush, looking away shyly. his comments are making your heart pound faster than it usually does whenever he is around.

his skin looks flushed, and his breathing is labored. "are you running a fever?" you start to put your hand on his forehead, "let me check."

"stop it," he growls, batting your hand away. "just forget this happened."

you stand there, stunned as you watch him leave. you want to stop him, and try and find what is going on, but you know that it won't do any good. as you close the door, you swear you hear him scream "FUCK!" in the distance.

hours later, the aphrodisiac is still coursing strong through him. you smelled so good it was suffocating to him. soon enough, he finds himself back at your house, clenching his fists tight.

scaramouche decided to say fuck off to the concept of knocking, simply just walking into your house. "so fucking naive," he hisses discovering your door unlocked, not concerned about just walking in like this.

you are always way too fucking nice to be mad about it.

he zeros in on your scent immediately. you are right up in your bedroom, practically waiting like a wrapped present for him.

"you left your front door unlocked, idiot," his eyes widen seeing you in only a clingy shirt and panties. "oh? doing laundry?" his eyes are anything but discreet as he crawls onto your bed.

you are stunned, watching him crawl onto your bed. "scaramouche? are you okay? i have been worried about you?" the novel you are reading drops from your hand as you watch him crawl to settle at your thighs. "what are you doing?"

"hmm, if you are worried about me, then that means you want to take care of me," his head is getting awfully close to your thighs, and it makes your heart hammer in your chest. his ears flick, keenly picking up your increased heart rate.

"just let me nuzzle them for awhile. they have looked so fucking tempting all day," he sighs shakily, brushing his cheek against your thigh. he fully expects to rightfully kick him away. he has just walked into your room, and was rubbing himself against your very bare thighs suddenly.

you didn't fight him, and he didn't know exactly how you felt about him. "what happened earlier?" you lay back, letting him do as he pleases. in the end, you couldn't and didn't want to say no to him.

scaramouche would rather the ground swallow him whole than admit what happened. "i won't lie, i'm really fucking turned on right now," his cock throbs as his tongue sweeps out to lick the inside of your thigh.

this close to your panties, he can smell the warmth and arousal of your cunt. "your skin..so pretty.." he breathes shakily, skimming his teeth against your skin. "so unmarked," you let out a soft moan as his teeth start to nip and bite your skin.

you squirm a little as he pulls a mound of skin into his mouth to suck on. goosebumps prickle onto your skin as his tongue prods the inflamed flesh before moving onto a different spot. the insides of your thighs tingle as his thumbs brush again them.

you moan softly as he focuses on a sensitive spot. scaramouche whimpers softly, rutting his aching cock against the mattress. "such a pretty noise, so it again."

he can smell you are starting to get wet. moaning, he increases the pressure of his bites, his tongue lapping greedily at your soft flesh. "last chance to push me away, i don't know if i can control myself," he growls, inhaling the sweet scent of your pussy.

"i..i.." is all you can manage, moaning a little louder as his tongue sussed out your clit outside your panties. he groans tasting you, letting saliva soak your panties.

"these are in the way," he mumbles, easily shredding them off of you. immediately, he parts your soaking folds with his tongue, licking long and slow. he can't stop grinding his cock into the mattress. you taste so fucking good it blew his mind.

you gasp as his tongue circles your clit. your hands tremble, shakily finding the back of his head. the sensitive nub throbs and swells. wanting more friction, you gently press his mouth down onto your pussy. "your tongue," you moan shamelessly, "it feels so good."

his fingers press into your thighs, holding them apart as he laps at your quivering hole. he can't hold back his soft whimpers and moans as he devours your hole, prodding the sensitive nerves around your entrance.

"fuck, i am gonna cum," he moans, scooping your clit into his mouth to suck on. his tail curls around your thigh as your hips rock to grind on his mouth, your taste saturates his tongue.

scaramouche didn't know how much he needs to feel you, to taste you, to devour you until now. his body burns with the need. "i need more," he whimpers, holding your pussy on his mouth for a moment, his thumbs stroking the blossoming bruises on your thigh.

cum spills into his shorts listening to whimper while he sucks on your clit. "maybe i'll deny you to enjoy my meal longer," the effects of the aphrodisiac hardly show signs of wavering.

[esjayess]

@aroace-get-out-of-my-face I’ve known about your hunger games AU for less than 24 hours and it’s taken over my life. I hope you’re proud of yourself. I did have things I wanted to do today. But you and your contagious brain worms.

Anyway, I took a few liberties for stuff I wasn’t sure of. So take that as you will. Heres the reaping scene from Disrtict 4, I had to get it out of my system

———

Stanford Pines didn’t want to die.

That was the first thought that ran through his mind when his name was called, then nothing. Distantly, he can hear his mother sobbing. Other than that, the crowd is quiet and still as death. He allows himself a moment for his eyes to wander. Every face he’s lived with growing up stare at him now. Some of them, the wolves, as he and Stan had called them growing up, are giving him vicious smiles, as if they’re imagining seeing him ripped apart already. But most of them simply watch him warily, expressions more relieved than anything else.

At least it’s not me. At least it’s not my loved one.

Ford can’t find it in himself to blame them for that.

The only eyes he can make out that are totally absent of relief are Shermie’s. His own child is too young to get reaped, and he himself is too old. Ford meets his older brother's eyes. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Shermie so scared. The eldest Pines brother usually does a very good job of keeping a stone face in front of the capital cameras, but today his expression is crumpled in horror. In mourning. Because Ford is going to die.

Ford doesn’t feel as horrified as Shermie looks. Or at least, his own horror is distant. Far away from here. He can’t feel it as he steps out of the crowd. He can’t feel it as a peacekeeper grabs his arm to make sure he doesn’t get any funny ideas about running. Where would he even go? Trying to run would only make his death come faster, and he doesn’t want to die.

He’s flanked by peacekeepers as he’s walked onto the stage. Rico, the capital envoy who draws their names each year, gives him a smile before turning back to the audience.

“Now then. Before we move on, do we have any volunteers?”

Ford blinks. He’d nearly forgotten that part. In spite of himself, a wave of relief courses through him. Because Crampelter, as much of a nightmare as he made Ford’s whole childhood, had been telling everyone from the moment he could speak that one day he was gonna win the hunger games. He was born and bred to do it. Raised and honed into a true career. Ford may hate Crampelter, but…

but…

“Anyone?” Rico probes. No one responds. Ford’s brow furrows.

His eyes search the audience and find Crampelters with no trouble at all, as he stands at least a head above most of the people around him. Ford expects a cruel smirk. Maybe a taunting hateful glare. He doesn’t see that. Instead he sees fear. And almost a sort of regret. The small fragile relief Ford had dared allowed to bloom wilts. That expression tells him everything he needs to know: Crampelter won’t be volunteering today. Ford wants nothing more than to hate him for that. For backing out at the last second, but he can’t. He can’t blame Crampelter. Not for this. After all, who in their right mind would willingly enter the games? Even the victors in four always returned with ghosts in their eyes for anyone who bothered to look close enough to see them. Crampelter looks away from Ford’s gaze. Even from all the way back here Ford can see Crampelters father grab his shoulder in a too tight grip, and mutter something. The boy wilts, but still stays silent. Ford turns his eyes back front. None of that concerns him. He lets the cloud of nothingness fall back into place as Rico claps his hands, and turns an appraising eye to Ford. Something in his eyes would make Ford uncomfortable if he wasn’t busy disconnecting himself from reality. The moment passes, and Rico turns his winning smile back to the audience.

“Alright then. Stanford Pines it is. Let’s-“

Before he can finish preparing to move on and draw the girls tribute name, there’s a scuffle from somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd. Someone stepping out of line. A few peacekeepers move to handle the insurgence. All heads turn as they come away with a figure, who squirms and kicks as they hold him with his hands behind his back. If the dissenter is lucky, he’ll be thrown in jail for causing a scene. If he’s unlucky he’ll be executed. Ford won’t be around to see it either way. But before he can block the world out again, the dissenter speaks, making Ford’s eyes widen.

“Stop! Let me go, let- I volunteer. I volunteer.” The figure shouts. The peacekeepers freeze, and loosen their hold enough that the figure can shake free. He does so, but doesn’t move, doesn’t flee. Instead he turns to face the stage. His voice is resolved, unwavering. “I volunteer as tribute.”

Ford freezes. He knows that voice. He can’t know that voice. Beside him, Rico lights up, evidently pleased with the drama.

“Oh! Hey, bring that young man up here. I think we have a volunteer!” He flicks a dismissive hand towards a peacekeeper, ordering them to come drag Ford off the stage. Ford, in a daze, lets them, even as he strains his neck to try and catch a glimpse of that face. His face. It can’t be his face.

The dissenter who he can’t know doesn’t resist the peacekeepers. He keeps his head high as he is frog marched over to the stage. Ford keeps straining to see even as the peacekeeper shoves him along, all but shoving him down the steps before finally releasing him back into the crowd and returning to his post. Ford immediately whips his head back to the stage and meets the eyes of the figure he can’t know just as they arrive at the base of the stairs.

Ford does know him. Of course he does. It’s Stanley.

Stanley who he hasn't seen in almost a year. Who he was so mad at. Who had wrecked his project. Who protected him their whole childhood against the kids who were trained to be careers. He was never going to win against Crampelter, but he fought him for Ford. Stanley who was there on that stage…to take Ford's place.

To lie in Ford’s grave.

Just as suddenly as reality left him, it’s all right back. Too real. Why did he let them drag him off that stage? Away from Stanley. He couldn’t let them do that.

He can’t let them do this. Not to Stan.

“Stan, don’t.” It’s not too late. Stan can take it back. He has to take it back. The protest sounds loud in his own head, but he can’t be heard over the murmurs of district 4 quietly discussing the turn of events. The Pines weren’t meant to be their champions. The Pines weren’t meant to be in the games.

Ford is hardly conscious of moving, but he must be because he crashed hard into the man in front of him, who turns to glare at him before his face shifts into surprise then sympathy. Ford shoves him aside and all but shrieks up to his brother.

“No! Stan don’t!”

This time Stan hears him. He turns at the commotion. He seems…surprised. Surprised at what? That Ford is protesting this? He doesn’t try to run. Doesn’t ask Rico if he can take it back and return to the safe anonymity of the crowd. Instead he simply tilts his head, and gives Ford a smile. The same way he did back when Ford had nightmares before reaping day.

“It was me.” Ford had fretted, way back when they were twelve. Their first reaping. Neither of them had slept so well. Shermie had only just aged out, and now all their anxiety about him rebounded back onto them. All that fear had come to roost in Ford's mind in the night, and it was his name they read.

“That’ll never happen, Sixer.” Stan had assured. “You know the big bad careers want in. For glory, and all. They’d never let it be you.”

“But what if it was?”

“It won’t be.” Stanley had assured. And that had comforted Ford because it sounded so true when he said it. Like an absolute fact of the universe.

Because it was. It always had been true. If it had ever been Ford, it would’ve been Stanley. Why hadn’t Ford realized that sooner?

This was worse. How had this scenario never been one that haunted his nightmares? If Ford going into the games was terrifying, Stan going into the games was…unthinkable. Unimaginable.

He can practically feel all the cameras swivel to him as he tries to claw against the crowd to get to that stage. To get to Stan, to do something. Anything. In his peripheral, he can see peacekeepers moving to intercept him, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.

But before he can break through it all, grab Stan and get far away, there’s a pair of arms grabbing him around the waist from behind, and lifting his feet off the ground. Ford keeps thrashing and kicking and screaming and scratching at the arms to force them to let him go. Let him get to Stanley.

“Let go! I can’t let him do this.”

“Stop.” A familiar voice begs, close to his ear. “Ford please. I can’t lose you both.”

And Ford slows. Shermie. If it were anyone else he might’ve kept fighting. Got himself shot. But with the way Shermie is clinging to him, not letting go, he’s just as likely to get Shermie killed with him if he continues to cause a scene. From somewhere far away he can hear Rico’s light chuckle, remarking on what a touching scene that was.

“Wow.” He muses. “Lot of emotions are flowing today. It’s delicious! And look at you!” He turns all his attention to Stanley, eyeing him the way one might do with a particularly fine cut of meat. “Well, you’re damn near identical. Incredible! Why switch at all, you’re basically the same person.” He takes a minute chuckle at her own joke before addressing Stan. “Now, what’s your name, stud?”

Ford’s eyes refocus on the scene just in time to see Stan flash a smile that looks so real, except for a blankness in the eyes. “You can call me whatever you want. But my name’s Stan. Stanley Pines.”

“Oh! So cheeky.” Rico bats his arm playfully. Ford wants to tear the man’s arm out of his socket as he continues talking. “Well, Stanley Pines, you must tell us what just happened. I’ll bet that was your brother back there. Twins?”

Stan’s facade of cool flickers. “Yeah…”

He seems to try and force the front back into place, and say something witty, but ends up just biting the inside of his cheek and staying quiet, turning his eyes down to the ground rather than towards the people he’s lived with his whole life. The people he’ll probably never see again. Ford thinks he’s gonna be sick. Rico tsks and pats Stan’s cheek in a horribly condescending way that he flinches back from. Rico doesn’t seem to notice.

“Aren’t you sweet? Everyone, give it up for Stanley Pines, Our district 4 male tribute.”

Stan seems to shrink on himself as a scattered, confused applause rings. Ford bites back a snarl. It’s more lackluster than usual, this applause. They all knew it was supposed to be Dennis Crampelter. Since he could walk he’d been trained for this. Since he could talk he’d been telling anyone who would listen that one day he would be a victor. He was born to be a victor. It was his honor to be addressed by only their family name, so that when he won everyone would know to whom the glory belonged. But he hadn’t volunteered. Stanley had. And Stanley hadn’t done any of that training.

He couldn’t find it in himself to blame Crampelter for not volunteering for Ford. But he can sure as hell blame him for forcing Stanley into the arena.

“Well, that was fun.” Rico’s boots clack across the stage as he heads for the other bowl. “And now, the girl.”

He reaches deep into the bowl, and draws out a card, taking his sweet time opening it and strolling back center stage. He clears his throat.

“Susan We-”

He doesn’t finish reading the name before a small form shoves to the front of the crowd, causing quite a bit of grumbling.

“I volunteer.” A shrill childish voice nearly snarls. Rico pauses, glancing over the edge of the stage.

“I haven't even announced the chosen tribute.” He says, a bit bemused. Ford tears his eyes away from Stan to see Darlene Crampelter. Only twelve years old. Just like her brother, she’d also been telling anyone who would listen that she was destined to win the games from the moment she could talk. But…twelve year olds didn’t win the games. Ever. Even career twelve year olds always found themselves outmatched. She was supposed to win when she was eighteen. Sixteen at the earliest. Not now. But here she was, volunteering. Ford casts his eyes a bit further in the audience to see Crampelter paler than he’s ever seen him before. There’s a horror in his eyes that feels similar to Ford’s own, even though that thought makes him want to gouge both their eyes out. Darlene crosses her arms and glares up at the man on the stage.

“Fine then.” She bites out. “Finish reading it, and then I’ll volunteer.”

For a second, the whole reaping freezes as Rico seems to debate what to do with this break in protocol. But after a moment, he merely chuckles.

“My my. Someone’s enthusiastic. Come on up here, darling. What’s your name?”

A peacekeeper goes to guide Darlene over to the stairs, but she brushes them off, and vaults straight up onto the stage, striding to the center where Rico and Stan wait. She walks with the confidence of a victor. She comes to a stop about a foot away and eyes the man expectantly. Rico has to crouch to properly hold the mic near Darlene’s face.

“I’m Darlene Crampelter.” The girl declares.

“Charmed.” Rico said with a little amused smirk. “And what led you to volunteer, Darlene?”

Darlene gives the audience a smile that’s like baring her teeth. “I’m gonna win.” She vows. “I’m gonna bring victory to district 4. I’m gonna show them all that Crampelters are no cowards.” She bites out that last word and glares straight at her brother in the audience. Rico tries to draw the mic away, but Darlene grabs his wrist and pulls it back. “And he’s sure as hell not gonna win anything.” She says, jabbing a finger in Stan’s direction, who raises an eyebrow as she keeps going. “And no one else had the guts, so I’m gonna do it.”

That gets a few cheers, which makes Darlene beam with pride. Rico smiles too, finally wrestling the microphone back as he rises.

“Oh, your confidence is precious!” He coos, causing Darlene to tear her eyes away from the audience to glare daggers at him. Rico pays that no mind as he gives the crowd a million dollar smile. Literally. You can see every Botox filled wrinkle and artificially whitened tooth. That face must’ve cost the same as an entire districts tessarae.

“Well, there you have it, folks! What an exciting reaping, right? So many twists and turns. But here they are! Your tributes; Darlene Crampelter and Stanley Pines! May the odds be ever in their favor!”

The applause is much louder this time. It’s very clearly not for Stan. Many people are cheering Darlene’s name. She preens and waves out at them, which makes them cheer more, before turning, head held high, and marching off in the direction Rico indicated. Stan doesn’t pay the crowd any mind, dead focused on Ford and Shermie. He gives another small resigned smile and stands perfectly still watching them, as if drinking in the sight of his brothers until a peacekeeper grabs his arm and drags him off behind the curtain.

Ford strains against Shermies arms again as Stan vanishes behind the curtain, but his older brother holds fast.

“Ford, you can’t. I’m sorry.”

Ford opens his mouth to protest, but all that comes out is a sob. He doesn’t want to cry about this. It feels like admitting that Stanley is…

He turns away from where Stan disappeared, closing his eyes so he can’t see the crowds who are probably watching him. Shermie adjusts his hold so it’s less like a restraint and more like holding him together.

“It was me.” Ford chokes out. “It was supposed to be me. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t supposed to do this.”

“I’m so sorry.” Shermies normally stoic, but lightly teasing tone is replaced with a grave, sad voice that breaks in the middle. He holds Ford closer like he’s afraid another reaping might come and take him away. Ford lets himself be held as he thinks.

He could be sad. He could feel its siren call, like a weight trying to drag him down. He could mourn. If it were himself being sent to the arena he probably already would be, but this is Stan. There’s no universe where he can mourn Stan. Not like this. Not so young. Not torn away by the capitol.

He can’t mourn. Which means Stan can’t die.

“Pines family?”

Shermie and Stan look up in tandem to see a peacekeeper about a foot away. Ma and Pa are already behind him. “I’ve come to bring you in for the goodbyes.”

He speaks with absolutely no emotion in his voice. Reluctantly, Ford lets go of Shermie, to more effectively glare at the peacekeeper.

“Let’s go.” He practically spits. The peacekeeper turns away, unaffected by his vitriol. He doesn’t make sure they follow him. If they don’t keep up, the punishment is the loss of their goodbye.

Goodbye…

This will not be goodbye. Ford will not let this be goodbye. Stan will win. He’ll find a way to win. He’ll come home. These people will not kill Stan, he’s a fighter. And if the born and raised careers wind up better than him?

He’ll survive it. At least until Ford can burn the world down to get him out.

———

Good stuff. Really, every part of this AU is phenomenal!!

[sweetromanova]

Crisis Management: Part Four🖤

Natasha Romanoff x PR Handler!Reader

Summary: Your assigned to make Natasha Romanoff more ‘relatable’. Somewhere along the way you forget your job was to fix her image, not fall in love with it.

Chapter Four

Things were… chill now. Surprisingly chill.

Post-chaos, post-crazy-men-with-guns, post-Natasha-saving-you-infront-of-thousands-of-camera-phones, life at the Tower had settled.

Sort of.

You were back at work, strategising reputations and terrorising people with social media. Natasha was back to sparring, briefing, intimidating new agents with her entire existence.

And the team? They were being weirdly normal about it all. Almost too normal, which meant one thing.

They were plotting.

It started small. Tony casually asking “So… how’s work-life balance?” Steve mentioning offhandedly how well Natasha had been sleeping lately. Wanda smirking every time you entered a room. You had been easier to break than Natasha, the team could get your cheeks to the same colour as Natasha’s hair with just a few comments and it gives enough away that they didn’t need words. 

But Natasha? Untouchable. Unbothered. Perfectly composed.

She gave them nothing. No confirmation. No denial. No sass. Not even a smirk.

Just cool, calculated indifferent.

⋆⋆⋆⋆

“Alright, this is war." He hissed to Sam one night in the kitchen, phone in hand. “I’m getting revenge!”

Only last week, Clint had been the butt of every joke after the team convinced him post-mission that he’d tested positive for some kind of disease that turned him into an ape.

Believable? No. 

Had he believed it and spend 16 hours, locked in the lab then been filmed by the others of his dramatic breakdown for TikTok? Absolutely. 

Sam sipped his tea. “This is how you get arrested.”

“I’ve accepted that.”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

2:38 A.M.

The lights were dim. The hallway was quiet. Clint’s phone was recording.

He tiptoed toward Natasha’s room, whispering into the mic like a wildlife doc.

“This is the elusive Black Widow in her natural habitat. She’s lethal. She’s quiet. She said if I ever woke her up before 5am again, I’d need dental records to be identified. Naturally, I brought my camera… and a foghorn.”

Sam, off-camera, mutters. “I’m not helping you fight her when she murders you.”

He creaked open the door, expecting either an empty bed and she’s somewhere above him about to snap his neck. Or maybe pillow with a knife stitched in the middle. 

But what he saw instead?

Two bodies. One blanket.

Your head tucked into Natasha’s shoulder, arm sprawled lazily over her stomach. Her hand, tangled in your hair. Both of you seemingly sound asleep, peacefully unaware that hell was about to break loose.

Until Clint gasped, loudly.

“OH MY GOD- OH- YOU GUYS- YOU-“

Natasha bolted upright, groggy and terrifying.

“Barton, I swear to everything that is holy-“

“YOU’RE CUDDLING?! THIS IS DOMESTIC?!

You blinked, barely awake. “Tasha?”

“TASHA?! I KNEW IT.” He yelled, turning the camera to his own face, delirious with joy. “THEY’RE TOGETHER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THEY’RE- OH MY GOD GUYS! THEY’RE TOGETHER! SHE’S- OH SHIT! SHE’S COMING!”

Natasha launched the pillow with sniper accuracy.

The video went dark but the audio kept rolling, just the sounds of Clint screaming, the unmistakable fwump fwump fwump of a pillow being weaponised and Natasha’s low, murderously calm voice growling.

“I told you what would happen, Barton.”

Somewhere in the background, Sam could be heard wheezing with laughter. “She’s using the good pillow! Bro, run!”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

Later, on TikTok:

@/BartonUnhinged

🎥 I almost died getting this. Worth it. #NatashaRomanoff #SoftSpyEra #IWillBeInHiding #SheCalledHerTASHA

Comments:

@/W.Maximoff: this made me cry

@/TheRealCap: We warned him

@/TonyStank: I already printed merch

@/romanoffthereal: run.

The next morning, you found Clint hiding in the ventilation system.

Natasha didn’t kill him.

But she did shoot him with a stun round.

And maybe, just maybe, she wore that smug little smirk all day while holding your hand in full view of the team.

⋆⋆⋆⋆

You’re sitting cross-legged on the couch, ring light angled, phone recording, while Natasha lounges just out of frame with a mug of tea, some kind of thriller book that would give you nightmares and her most judgmental expression.

You tap the screen, smiling sweetly. “Hi guys! I’m back with another video but this time I have a very special guest… my current girlfriend, Natasha.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then a scoff. 

You glance off-screen at her in mock confusion. 

Natasha has straightened up, brows arched so high they might detach from her forehead. She sets her tea down with slow, dramatic precision.

“Current?” She says, eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry, what?”

You bite your lip, trying not to laugh. “I said current girlfriend. As in… present tense?”

“…Current?” She repeats, her voice dropping an octave. Sexy enough to make your throat dry up.

You glance at her, already sensing trouble. “It’s just a phrase-“

“Mm. Interesting choice.” She hums, finally setting the book down and turning to face you with that slow, calculated tilt of her head. “Like I’m… one of many.”

You start to laugh but something in her expression make it stutter in your throat.

She shifts closer, just slightly. Enough for her thigh to press against yours.

“Should I be worried?” She murmurs, voice dipped in velvet. “That there’s an upgrade coming?”

“Tasha-“

“Or maybe…” Her hand slides up your thigh, just barely, just enough. “You like the idea of options. Something casual. A little rotation. That it?”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out.

She smiles like she’s toying with her food.

“Because if that’s the case…” She leans in, lips brushing your jaw, breath hot. “…maybe I should remind you what makes me very, very hard to replace.”

Your soul leaves your body.

She pulls back just an inch, eyes glinting, voice still low. “You sure you wanna keep calling me current, baby?”

You can’t form words. Your brain has rebooted.

The camera is still rolling.

You dive for it in a panic.

She laughs, smug and satisfied and leans back like nothing happened, sipping her tea while you fumble with the screen, red-faced and speechless.

From behind her mug, she laughs. “Don’t worry. You can edit out the part where you stopped breathing.”

You groan. “You said you’d stopped doing that!”

“Doing what?”

“Making me go red and shit on camera.”

“You started it baby.” Natasha smirks. “Just remember I’ll always end it.” 

Your finger hovers over the delete icon, another trend you can’t upload because of your ridiculously hot assassin girlfriend but her hand comes up to push your finger away. “Don’t delete that.”

“Huh, why?”

“Upload it. Let everyone know you’re taken.”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

It opens, mid chaos. The camera’s at a weird angle, out of focus and flashing to and from a black screen.

“I’m telling you now, if Steve eats all of the peanut butter again, I’m staging an intervention.” Tony’s voice moodily grumbles, somewhere off screen.

“I once survived three days with only peanut butter… and rage.” That was Clint.

As the black screen disappears, colours flash, almost like the camera is being shaken around. The view is tilted sideways, a little off-focus but it’s slowly stabilizing, giving an almost too intimate peek into the Avengers’ living room chaos.

The screen is upside down but the focus is better and the viewers can just make out what’s going on. That’s when things get personal. Natasha is on the far end of the couch, legs tucked underneath her, her fingers slowly combing through your hair where your head rests on her chest, body tucked up on her lap. Your eyes are shut, a lazy, satisfied smile on your face, completely melted into Natasha’s touch. Both clearly unaware they’re being recorded, much less broadcast. Wanda and Vision sit across the room, trying (and failing) to ignore everything. Vision is reading a novel. Wanda flips through a fashion magazine with a sigh.

Tony is prancing round like Jack Sparrow, insulting everyone and everything with a fondness. Sam, Steve and Bucky are all having their own conversation, pointing at the television that viewers assume is playing sports, gesturing manically. It’s peaceful, it’s content… it’s being live streamed.

The screen jostles again, still tilted at an odd angle. Somewhere offscreen, Peter’s voice can be heard muttering.  “Okay, okay, I think I’ve got it set up. Just testing the lens alignment, no big deal…”

“I’m telling you...” Sam says to Steve, who’s nursing a soda on the other side of the room. “…if we lose this next game, I’m blaming Bucky. He’s bad luck.”

“Excuse you-” Bucky looks up from the game on screen. “I am the luck.”

“The luck no one wants.” Sam mutters.

“Can we put the movie on yet?” Clint calls, huffing at the rerun of the game the guys are watching. “I’m gonna eat all my popcorn before it even starts.”

“You sound like a child.” Natasha laughs. “Better you do eat your popcorn because if we’re watching the horror that Tony wants too, you’ll only throw it off your lap like last time.”

“I did not throw it!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Clint.” Wanda sighs. “I was picking kernels out of my hair all week last time.”

“IT WAS SCARY!” He defends.

“Real talk.” Tony interrupts now, finally taking a seat. “Who would survive a horror movie out of us all?”

“If we’re being honest…” Clint mumbles through a mouthful of popcorn, making everyone in the room grimace. “Vision’s the only one here who would survive a horror movie.”

“Statistically, you are correct.” Vision comments, without looking up from his book.

Tony puffs his chest out next. “I’d survive. I have a suit and charisma.” 

“You’d trip over your own ego in the opening credits.” Sam cuts in, passing bottles of beer around the room.

“He’d monologue and get eaten mid-sentence.” Natasha says, pulling you a little closer into a more comfortable position.

“‘This isn’t even my final form!’ CHOMP!” You laugh at the look on Tony’s face before looking back to Nat.

You can already tell she’s going to tease you before you start. “You’d have a good chance because you’d try to befriend the killer.”

“Well… maybe they just need a hug! Emotional intelligence matters.”

“She would trauma bond with the slasher and become their therapist.” Clint adds, howling in laughter.

Wanda finally throws her magazine on the coffee table, giving up with trying to pay attention. “They’d leave with more closure than they came in with.” 

“I’d just shoot them.” Bucky shrugs, not really understanding the game. “Why would you try and talk to the guy with a knife when you have a gun?”

“Well it’s not necessarily a knife.”

“It could be.”

“But not always.”

“But most of the time.”

You cut back in. “Can we go back to the part where Natasha said I’d try to hug the killer? Rude.”

“You hug me every time I glare at someone. It checks out.”

There’s a unison of ‘Awww’ that makes Natasha blush.

“Shut up.” Natasha scowls.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll make sure the killer doesn’t get you.” You tease, pinching her cheeks between your finger and thumb.

She narrows her eyes at you, lips quirking in that dangerous smile that never means anything safe. “Oh yeah? And what happens when I’m the killer holding you captive?”

You blink, pretending to think it over. “Mmm... I probably make you dinner. Talk about your childhood. Ask you what your love language is.”

Clint chokes on a popcorn kernel. “She’s gonna romance her for her life.”

“I’ll make her beg for her life.” Natasha corrects and suddenly the room gets a little hotter.

“You’d make me beg?” You pout. “You wouldn’t just save little ol’ me?”

“Begging looks good on you.” She murmurs, what should probably be only loud enough for you to hear but by the reaction? It wasn’t.

Clint chokes again. “Okay! Choking for real this time!”

Sam fans himself dramatically with a throw pillow. “Is it hot in here or is that just the trauma leaving my body?”

Steve groans, shielding his eyes. “There are innocent ears present!”

Tony snorts. “Name one.”

“I’m literally right here.” Peter says flatly.

You bite your lip, trying not to laugh as Natasha leans in a little closer, her breath warm against your ear. “The rest of you I’d kill in a heartbeat but I’d definitely keep you around.”

Your face is beyond red now, flushed with the audience that you think is only the team and not the hundreds of thousands watching you live.

“It IS getting hot in here.” Sam adds again, pulling the collar of his shirt.

Vision tilts his head. “There appears to be a 42% increase in temperature across the room. That is… unusual.”

Natasha just grins smugly, pulling you even closer into her lap. Tony raises a brow and glances at his phone. 

Then he goes very still. “Uh… guys?”

No one hears him or like usual, they choose to ignore him.

He says it louder. “Guys.”

“What?” Everyone snaps back in unison.

Tony turns his phone around. “We've been live for 16 minutes.”

Dead silence.

Even Clint stops chewing.

“…HOW?!” Steve finally asks, with dread in his voice.

Tony’s head slowly turns to Peter then to his phone in his hand.

“NO?!” Peter lets out a scream. “MY AUNT FOLLOWS STARK INDUSTRIES ON INSTAGRAM! SHE WON'T LET ME COME AGAIN!”

Sam throws a pillow across the room. “We are so getting cancelled.”

Natasha doesn’t even flinch. 

“This is why the kid shouldn’t hang out with us.” Bucky moodily inserts, ignoring the look of offence on Peter’s face.

Tony snatches the phone out of Peter’s hands, fingers flying as he fumbles with the screen, the audience being spun around in circles as hands grab. “Okay, okay, stop, stop! Disconnect! End stream! Delete! CAN YOU HELP?! Aren’t you meant to be PR?!” He points the phone at you, to which you roll your eyes at.

“I’m off duty.” You shrug, feeling Natasha’s fingers grab your chin to pull you back to her lips amidst the chaos. Natasha’s lips press softly against yours, steadying you in the middle of the madness. The world around you blurs, the frantic voices fading into a distant hum.

Tony’s panicked shouting continues somewhere off to the side. “STOP KISSING! THEY CAN SEE!”

“Turn the camera!” Peter yells, trying to pull it back.

“I TRIED BUT IT’S CRASHING! THE COMMENTS ARE CRASHING IT!”

“TURN IT OFF!”

“I CAN’T.

Sam throws a cushion at Peter. “Congratulations, kid. You just made us viral.”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

“Back by popular demand, we’re back with this bunch of misfits, who are taking on the Guess the Gen Z Slang challenge.”

Natasha let out a small sigh beside you, cradling her tea like she was already over it. “You’re really doing this.”

“Yes.” You grinned. “For science.”

Tony groaned from the kitchen. “Didn’t we fail the first one of these challenges?”

“Spectacularly.” You said brightly. “Today’s goal is to lower the Tower’s collective IQ by at least 30 points. Let’s begin.”

Sam leaned back, arms crossed behind his head. “I’m gonna ace this.”

“You say that now.” You pulled out your phone. “First word: ‘No cap.’ Clint?”

Clint blinked. “No… hat?”

You snorted. “Incorrect.”

Steve tilted his head, thoughtful. “Is it like… no capital letters? As in, informal communication?”

Everyone turned to stare at him.

“Lowercase aesthetic.” He added with a nod. “All the young agents use it apparently.”

Tony threw half of his cookie at him. “It means ‘I’m not lying,’ Rogers. Keep up.”

“Correct.” You said, pointing at Tony. “One point to the man with the ego the size of the moon.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Tony bowed in his seat. “Next.”

“‘It’s giving’.” You read.

Bucky furrowed his brows. “Giving… what? A gift?”

‘Is it like giving head?”

Everyone chorused. “NAT!”

“What?!”

Sam shook his head. “No, come on, it’s like… a vibe. Like if something’s dramatic, you say, ‘it’s giving Tony Stark.’”

You pointed at him. “Yes! Sam gets it. Bucky, go read a Buzzfeed quiz or something.”

“I’m 106.” Bucky grumbled. “I invented vibes.”

Natasha sipped her tea. “That’s giving delusion.”

“EXACTLY.” You said, nearly choking on your laughter. “Thank you Tasha.”

Next one. “‘Mid.’ Wanda, go.”

Wanda didn’t even blink. “Tony’s third Iron Man suit.”

Tony gasped. “Rude.”

“Accurate.” Sam coughed.

Vision, beside her, looked intrigued. “Does it refer to something median? Statistically average?”

You blinked. “…Technically yes. Honestly? Yes. I’ll allow it.”

“Boom!” Vision said, with what might’ve been his attempt at enthusiasm.

“Next!” You scrolled. “‘Rizz.’ Steve?”

He glanced around warily. “…Is this one dirty?”

Peter called from the hallway, “It’s short for charisma!”

You glanced over. “Correct!”

Peter popped his head into view. “Wait, am I being filmed?! Is this on TikTok?!”

“Yep.” Tony confirmed, rolling his eyes at the enthusiasm.

Clint leaned over. “Wait, is ‘rizz’ good or bad?”

“It’s good, Grandpa.” You reply, rubbing your temples.

Clint looked smug. “Then I’ve got mad rizz.”

“You have mad delusion.” Sam replied.

You scrolled again. “‘Touch grass.’”

Steve looked insulted. “I touch grass daily.”

“Of course you do.” Wanda sighed. “I hear you whisper to the plants in your room.”

Bucky muttered, “I thought it was code for like… punching someone?”

“Nope.” You shook your head. “It means ‘go outside, stop being online, stop being insane.’”

Tony raised a hand. “So basically every Thursday at this Tower?”

“Correct.”

You cleared your throat. “Next word: Feral. Wanda?”

Wanda blinked. “…Like a raccoon?”

Clint nodded like that made sense. “You know. Wild. Uncontrollable. Full goblin mode.”

Natasha tilted her head. “Is this about you last night when I said we were out of ice cream?”

You turned red. “That is… not public knowledge.”

“It is now.” Sam said, already howling with laughter.

“Moving on.” You grumbled. “Delulu. Bucky?”

He crossed his arms. “Sounds like a pasta. I’ll get the delulu with bolognese.”

“Delusional.” Tony said, sipping his drink. “It means being so out of touch with reality that you actually believe it. Like Steve thinking he’s not obvious about his crush on-“

Steve slammed his glass down. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

Natasha smirked into her tea. “Delulu.”

“Okay, next word: Slay.” You looked around. “And no, it’s not just what Natasha does for a living.”

Natasha hummed, pleased. “Still counts.”

Steve squinted. “Is this… like the old sense of the word? You slay a dragon?”

“Nope.” You said. “It means you look good, you did something awesome, you’re killing it like in a fashion sense, mostly.”

“I slayed an alien with a shield once.”Steve offered, trying.

“Not the same vibe.” Sam muttered.

You pointed at Clint. “Say ‘slay’ in a sentence.”

Clint hesitated then slowly. “That lasagna last night… slayed?”

You held up a finger. “Honestly? Not terrible.”

“Situationship.” You looked around.

“Easy.” Sam smirked. “It’s when two people act like a couple but refuse to admit it. So basically, Natasha and Y/N for six months.”

You nearly dropped your tea.

“I- WE- THAT’S NOT-“

Natasha didn’t even look up. “Accurate.”

“Whatever.” You muttered, flustered. “Girl dinner. Vision?”

Vision perked up. “Is it a nutritionally imbalanced assortment of random snacks justified emotionally?”

The room went silent.

“…That is exactly it.” You whispered. “What the hell.”

“I read a thread.” He said simply.

“Ick?” You read off next.

Bucky made a face. “Is that a Gen Z disease?”

“Nope, I got this.” Sam said. “It’s like… something someone does that makes you instantly lose interest. Like the second they say ‘moist.’ Or when Clint refers to TikTok as ‘the tick-tack.’”

“I HATE THAT!” Wanda gagged.

You raised a brow. “Natasha, what’s your ick?”

She doesn’t hesitate. She doesn’t even blink.

“Men who moan when they stretch.”

The room erupts.

Sam drops his drink. “OH MY GOD?!”

Tony chokes. “WHY IS THAT SO SPECIFIC AND CORRECT?”

Bucky groans. “You could’ve just said my name.”

Clint’s laughing so hard he wheezes. “I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU ALL THAT!”

Wanda shivers. “That deep ughhhhh sound-“

“I will never stretch again,” Steve mutters, face buried in his hands.

You’re biting your lip, shaking your head. “Okay but… accurate.”

Natasha just sips her tea, totally composed. “If I hear one more ‘aaauughh’ after a shoulder roll, I’m defecting.”

She pauses. Then glances your way with that slow, sultry smile.

“You’re safe, though.” She adds, low enough for just you to hear. “Your sounds are very… deliberate.”

Your brain short circuits.

Clint shudders, pushing Natasha away from him. “Okay! No! Too far! Someone throw holy water!”

Steve’s already walking out of the room. “I’m retiring.”

“My other Ick is when my girlfriend calls me her current one.”

“OKAY! Get over it already!”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

It’s been a couple weeks since ‘my current girlfriend’ gate.

You survived.

Barely.

Natasha’s ‘forgiveness’ is on a strict need-to-know basis. Spoiler: you don’t need to know.

Every day, without fail, she lifts her phone, strikes some ridiculous pose and drags you into the latest dumb trend, just to mess with you.

Brushing your teeth? Cue: “HEY GUYS, BRUSH OUR TEETH WITH US!”

Walking through the store? “GUYS, LOOK AT WHAT WALMART HAS! THE BEST STRAWBERRIES IN THE WORLD!”

Mid-shower? “GET SHOWERED WITH US! TODAY I’M USING-"

And then currently, while the two of you are at the sunset spot that’s fast become your favourite place to visit, since the first time you took her out.

She drops the mic with the deadliest line. “Hey guys. So, I’m here with my beautiful wife-”

You don’t even bother turning around. You just roll your eyes and stare at the sunset like it’s your only escape.

She repeats, louder this time. “So I’m here with my beautiful wife-”

You keep your eyes on the horizon, voice flat. as the ocean. “What do you want? You only call me ‘wife’ when you want something. Also this is getting exceedingly unfunny.”

“Me and my WIFE-“

“Can you stop?” You finally whip around, giving her your best glare, part annoyed, part amused. Your sunset video is officially ruined.

And then you see her.

One knee, phone in one hand, a little velvet box in the other.

You blink, mouth halfway open like you forgot how to breathe. “W- Wife?”

She doesn’t look away from your eyes, as she shrugs, completely casual. 

“Why not?”

You open your mouth to protest but she’s already slipping the little velvet box from her hand and popping it open.

Inside, a ring. Simple, elegant, and somehow so Natasha.

Your heart does a weird little backflip and you realise that all those ‘current girlfriend’ jabs? Yeah, this is payback.

Her eyes catch yours, sharp and soft all at once.

“I was gonna do something bigger.” She says, voice low and wicked. “But then you called me your current girlfriend, so I figured you deserved to suffer a little.”

You laugh, breathless, your brain doing somersaults.

She tilts the box towards you.

“So… you marrying me or what?”

You cover your face, laughing like you’re both the luckiest and most doomed person alive. “You’re the worst.”

She leans closer, grin on full display. “Is that a yes?”

You peek through your fingers, cheeks blazing. “Absolutely.”

She slides the ring on your fingers, finally rising from her bent position. She’s barely stood straight before you leap into her arms, her hands catching your thighs as you wrap them around her, planting kisses all over her face. “I love you so so so so much.”

“I love you too wife.” You finally meet her lips, unable to hold it for long because you can’t stop smiling.

“Oh, Tasha?”

“Hmmm?”

“You turn any other milestone of ours into a TikTok trend again and I’ll post that ‘thirst trap’ I got you to do in the training room. Your reputation will be over.”

“Noted.”

[idkyetxoxo]

One | Burnt Wings | The Ruin

Pairing - Rhysand x reader

Word count - 3.4k

Warnings - Physical assault (very slight), injury

|| series masterlist || next ->

Most twenty-two-year-olds spent their Friday nights wrapped in flashing lights and pulsing bass, lost in the euphoria of clubs, drinks, and fleeting moments that blurred by like streetlights in the rain.

But not me.

At 8:00 p.m. sharp, I was walking the sterile, too-bright corridors of Velaris General Hospital, the scent of antiseptic clinging to everything like a second skin. 

The floors gleamed under harsh fluorescent lights, echoing back the shuffle of my worn sneakers and the distant, hollow beeping of machines fighting to keep people tethered to life.

This place never slept. And neither did I—not really.

As I passed the nurse's station for my ward, I forced a smile, nodding and murmuring quiet hellos to the familiar faces behind clipboards and caffeine-stained scrubs. 

I was the picture of polite professionalism, the young, fresh-out-of-school nurse with hope still clutched in trembling hands.

It was a lie.

Behind the practised smile and straight spine, I was unravelling. The passion that once set my veins alight now flickered like a dying bulb. 

Every shift felt heavier than the last, a relentless wave pressing down on my chest until even breathing became a conscious effort.

At twenty-two, I was already burnt out—used up and spit out by a system that demanded more than I had to give.

And yet, I kept coming back.

Every damn day, I dragged myself through these doors like some ghost in scrubs, chasing the illusion that I could still make a difference. That I could still save people. That I could still be good.

But the hospital didn't want good. It wanted fast. Efficient. Obedient.

And I... I was soft. That's what my friends say. Too gentle. Too trusting. Too naïve.

Maybe they were right. Maybe kindness was a weakness here, in a world where vulnerability was a liability and empathy got you eaten alive. 

But I clung to it like a lifeline because if I let go, if I hardened, if I became like them... what would be left of me?

I stepped into the trauma bay and inhaled sharply, the adrenaline already kicking in, sharp and bitter in the back of my throat. 

The overhead lights buzzed above me like hornets. Gurneys stood prepped. Monitors blinked like waiting eyes. 

The air was thick with tension, as if the walls themselves were bracing for whatever chaos the night would bring.

The chaos didn't ease its way in—it detonated.

Orders barked from every direction collided like gunfire, rapid and sharp. Scrubbed figures in white and blue darted past me, faces drawn, eyes already scanning for blood, damage, triage.

The first trauma bed overflowed with bodies—doctors, nurses, a tech squeezing an ambu bag, someone already cutting clothes away. 

I moved on instinct, pulled forward before I could think. Before I could feel.

A boy—barely sixteen lay on the gurney, thrashing. A knife wound cleaved into his side, gaping like a second mouth, bleeding far too fast.

He was crying. Moaning. Screaming for his mother in between gasps of pain. His eyes locked onto mine like a lifeline. Like I could save him.

I dropped to his side without thinking.

"I've got you, sweetheart," I whispered, brushing hair from his forehead as sweat beaded there. "I'm here. You're not alone."

His bloody fingers fumbled, then gripped my scrub top in a desperate clutch. My shirt was already ruined, soaked crimson at the collar, but I didn't care.

"Am I gonna die?" he sobbed, voice small and cracked, a child's voice in a war zone.

I paused. Just for a second. And that was enough for the doubt to claw its way in.

"No," I said finally, gently, even though I couldn't promise that. "We're going to do everything we can. The doctors here—they're the best. You're going to be okay."

But I already saw the signs, his lips were blue-tinged, his skin sheet-pale. The life was leaving him, second by second, drop by drop.

I tried to loosen his grip, to give the doctor more space. "I need you to stay strong, okay? Just hold on—"

Then came the hum. Low. Cold. Final.

"Time of death—20:18," someone called out, voice clinical, detached. Just another number on the board. Another body on a shift.

And just like that, he was gone.

His hand slipped from my shirt.

He had been alive just minutes ago, sobbing, bleeding, afraid. Now he was a hollowed-out shell, cooling on white sheets.

I stared, heart stuttering in my chest. The air in the trauma bay was thick, smothering. Nobody looked at me. Nobody said anything. Death here wasn't a tragedy. It was background noise.

Someone called my name sharply, shattering the moment. "Go inform the mother."

I stood like I was underwater, limbs moving too slow, mind already somewhere else. My legs carried me out of the bay and down the corridor like they belonged to someone else.

She was already there—his mother.

Wailing. Screaming. Collapsing in on herself in the family waiting room as if she already knew. Mothers always did.

"I'm so sorry—" I began, voice tight, trembling.

But she surged forward, fists landing on me before I could finish.

"Why didn't you save him?" she shrieked, striking my arms, my chest, my face. Her pain was blinding, brutal, wild. I tried to shield myself, stumbling back, but I didn't fight her. Couldn't.

Because I had failed her son.

Even if it wasn't my job. Even if there was nothing I could've done. Even if I had only held his hand for his last breath.

I still felt like I'd killed him.

Security intervened eventually, pulling her off me, but not before she left me with a busted lip and trembling hands. My breath came ragged, uneven. I barely felt the sting.

"Take a quick tea break," my manager said gently as I returned to the nurse's station, voice full of sugary sympathy.

"I just started my shift," I replied, dazed.

She smiled thinly, though it never reached her eyes. "Then go sort out that lip. We can't have the patients getting scared now, can we?"

And just like that, I understood.

The concern wasn't for me. It never was. It was for the image. For the pristine mask we were expected to wear, even as we cracked beneath it.

"Of course," I said numbly, turning away.

I had barely made it away from the nurse's station before a wall of muscle and tailored silk collided into me.

My breath punched out of my lungs as I staggered back, but strong hands caught me before I could fall. Steady. Warm. Unshakable.

"I'm so sorry—" I blurted, flustered, eyes still half-dazed from the whiplash of grief and blood and fluorescent lights.

"Don't be, darling. That was my fault."

The voice was low, velvet-wrapped steel. Deep enough to vibrate through my bones, smooth enough to slip beneath my skin.

I looked up and felt my breath abandon me entirely.

He was tall. Impossibly tall. A figure carved from shadow and honeyed stone, built like some god of old blood and thunder. His brown skin was gleaming under the hospital's sterile lights, and patterned in dark ink that peeked from the collar of his crisp, tailored suit. 

And those eyes—gods, those eyes.

Violet. Not just purple. Violet. Unnatural. Hypnotic. Cold flame and starlight.

They lingered too long on mine.

He was calm in that dangerous way only men with real power could be, like the world would part for him if he willed it. Like he never had to raise his voice to kill a man.

Behind him, two more giants loomed. 

The one on the left was all muscle and heat, eyes flicking across the hallway with a soldier's sharpness. The other stood like a shadow, expression unreadable, darkness stitched into the seams of his silence.

The moment stretched taut. My skin prickled.

A voice shattered through the spell. My name.

I blinked and straightened, heat rising to my cheeks as I stepped back and fixed my badge, trying to bury the fact I had just been ogling a stranger in the hallway like we hadn't just pronounced a time of death ten minutes ago.

"Sorry—what was that?" I asked, forcing my voice steady.

The broad-shouldered one in the back, muscular with a smirk that didn't quite reach his hazel eyes stepped forward.

"We're looking for Helion Spellcleaver's room," he said, voice edged with something warmer, more casual, but still alert. Protective.

I nodded. "Right. If you just head down the hall and take a left at the nurse's station, someone will direct you."

I smiled automatically but winced as the movement tugged at the split in my lip. The sting bloomed hot and metallic.

The first man, the one still watching me like he saw something I didn't tilted his head, expression sharpening.

"Walk into something?" he asked quietly.

I tried to laugh, but it came out more brittle than light. "Just... grieving family members."

His eyes narrowed the slightest bit, that violet gaze darkening like ink in water.

"I see," he murmured. His voice held no judgment. No pity. Just... understanding. And something colder beneath it. Something that made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

"My name is Rhysand," he added smoothly. As if that name meant something. As if I should've already known it.

I nodded, uncertain. "Right."

The smirking one—Cassian, I would learn later gestured between them. "Cassian. And that's Azriel."

Azriel only nodded, silent as smoke.

"Well," I said, stepping back, pulse quickening for reasons I didn't want to examine. "I should get back. The nurse's station is just ahead."

"Of course," Rhysand said. But the way he looked at me—it felt less like dismissal, and more like permission to go.

I turned before I could embarrass myself further, before I let my gaze slide down that finely tailored suit or linger on the quiet confidence that clung to him like a second skin.

I walked quickly, each step measured, my thoughts a tangle of curiosity and caution.

The night didn't slow. It surged.

Trauma after trauma, wave after unrelenting wave, crashed into our ward. Blood, sirens, sobbing relatives—it blurred together, a haze of white lights and metallic-tasting adrenaline. 

I lost count of how many patients I'd seen, how many lives I'd tried or failed to stabilise. The weight of it pressed into my spine, dull and constant.

By the time I slipped away, it was less of a break and more of a retreat.

I found a quiet corridor tucked behind Radiology, far enough from the chaos to pretend silence still existed. 

My dinner—a pitiful excuse for onesat in my lap. A soggy sandwich half-wrapped in foil. I perched on the edge of an unused gurney, notebook balanced carefully on one thigh.

I shouldn't have brought it but sometimes, when the world felt like too much, I needed a reminder that I had once loved other things. Softer things.

Baking used to be my sanctuary. The whir of mixers, the scent of vanilla and burnt sugar, the precision of piping rosettes onto cakes, it had grounded me in a way nothing else did.

Now I just sketched the designs in margins between patient charts. Just outlines. Just memories.

I was nearly done tracing the top tier of a black forest gateau when a voice slid like silk into the quiet.

"That looks nice."

I jolted—hard. The notebook slammed shut on instinct, my half-eaten sandwich lodging halfway down my throat. I gagged, coughed, and wheezed as a tall shadow stepped into the edge of my vision.

Rhysand.

"Sorry," he said, raising both hands, palms open. "Didn't mean to startle you."

Too late.

I managed to cough the last bit down and muttered, "It's fine. I should be off anyway."

I stood quickly, brushing crumbs from my scrubs and trying to ignore the heat that rushed to my cheeks. My heart galloped as if it were trying to escape.

He didn't move. Just watched me, posture deceptively relaxed as he leaned a shoulder against the wall. His dark suit looked far too expensive for hospital corridors, but he wore it like second skin, wrinkleless and tailored to the breath.

His violet eyes glittered under the low lighting.

"You always take your breaks in shadowy hallways?" he asked, tone teasing.

I huffed a soft breath, tossing the remainder of my sandwich into the nearby bin. "No time to get to the cafeteria and back," I muttered, eyes fixed on the floor. "This is faster."

There was a beat of silence. I dared a glance upward and instantly regretted it.

He wasn't just looking at me. He was studying me. Like he saw too much.

"You always seem to run," he said softly, as though the words weren't meant to be said aloud. "From rooms. From people. From me."

That caught me off guard. My hands fumbled for my notebook.

"I have a busy job," I offered lamely, turning away, pretending I wasn't hyper-aware of the sound of his slow, deliberate breathing behind me. Pretending the back of my neck wasn't prickling like I was being watched by something more animal than man.

"Of course," he said. Smooth as dusk.

I didn't say anything else. I didn't trust my voice or my legs, which felt like they might betray me and turn around just to see if he was still smiling that infuriating, knowing smile.

I walked away quickly, notebook tucked tight to my chest. My heart wouldn't settle. I didn't know if it was fear or something more dangerous.

Something like interest. Something like fascination.

Then something fluttered to the ground. A small, black rectangle.

I bent to pick it up. It was a business card, sleek, expensive-feeling. Matte black, unmarked save for a single embossed violet R in the centre. 

No name. No number. Just that initial. Just that colour.

I turned back toward the hallway but he was gone. Not a footstep. Not a shadow. Just silence where he had stood.

My arms ached under the weight of the supply packs I now carried. Bulky plastic bags full of gauze, IV lines, syringes, and everything else that had somehow vanished from our trauma bay over the last few hours. 

I'd meant to grab a cart. I hadn't had time.

The lights overhead flickered as I jogged down the hallway, the soles of my shoes squeaking against the waxed linoleum. 

My brain was fogged with half-processed emergencies and chart updates, running entirely on caffeine and clinical adrenaline.

I was five feet from the restock station when I crashed—hard into something solid.

The impact sent me reeling backwards. My body hit the ground with a thud, supplies scattering like spilt guts across the floor.

And towering over me, unmoving as a statue, was him. Azriel.

Silent, expression unreadable, cloaked in an aura that didn't belong in a hospital. He hadn't flinched. Hadn't shifted an inch. 

Just stood there, half-shrouded in the shadows of the patient room behind him—where I could just barely make out the shape of a figure reclining in the bed. Their friend no doubt.

Azriel looked like he belonged to the darkness, and not metaphorically. 

It was in the way his features disappeared beneath the low light, in the way he moved—if he moved at all. My pulse kicked, cold and tight.

His eyes met mine. No amusement. No irritation. Just assessment.

Then, suddenly, he dropped into a crouch, gathering the spilt supplies with swift, practised hands. He moved with unsettling precision. So fast. So efficient. 

Like he'd done this before—like he'd done everything before.

"I'm so sorry," he said, voice low and calm as he handed me back an armful of gauze. "My fault."

I nodded mutely, accepting the items, though I wasn't sure my fingers had remembered how to close. The chill of his presence lingered on my skin even as I rose.

And just like that, I was moving again.

I told myself to walk—not run as I passed the waiting room. But my eyes betrayed me. They flicked sideways.

There, slouched with too much ease across one of the visitor chairs, sat Cassian.

His energy was the opposite of Azriel's. Loud, warm, magnetic. He threw his head back in laughter as he flirted shamelessly with one of the nurses—a redhead who had clearly forgotten what planet she was on. 

His grin was broad, teasing, and confident. A soldier at rest. But his eyes—his eyes tracked me. Casual. Playful. And yet... always watching.

I shivered.

None of them belonged here. Not really. Their presence was like oil slick on water. Dressed too well, too composed, too dangerous.

My gut screamed at me to run.

Something about them set off alarms in my brain—the kind I had learned not to ignore after nights spent undoing sutures from stab wounds and listening to victims whisper about "wrong place, wrong time."

But I couldn't look away either.

Not from Azriel, still lurking in the doorway like a sentinel. Not from Cassian, laughing but never letting his guard down.

And especially not from him.

Rhysand.

Rhysand's POV - 

I didn't frequent hospitals.

Blood didn't faze me. Neither did pain. I was more accustomed to inflicting it than suffering from it. And if someone in my world got hurt—well, that was their business, unless it became mine. 

But Helion... Helion was a friend. 

One of the very few I had in this rotting empire of backstabbing smiles and sharpened knives. Trust didn't come easily to me not since I was old enough to put a gun in my hand and a target on my back.

Azriel, Cassian, and Helion. That was the list. And even that list came with warnings.

So I visited.

Late at night, of course. I preferred the dark. It was quieter, less crowded. I didn't need eyes on me. Didn't want them. The shadows moved more freely when the world slept. They were mine.

But nothing—absolutely nothing could have prepared me for her.

I wasn't expecting to be brought to my knees in the fluorescent-lit halls of a hospital.

She barreled straight into me, blood on her scrubs, a fresh cut blooming across her lower lip like a flower too early in bloom. The moment froze. 

And for someone like me, used to chaos, used to reading rooms with cold precision, it was... disorienting. I couldn't think. Could barely move. Could only see her.

She was... soft.

Not just physically. There was something gentle in the way she blinked up at me, startled, like a doe caught in the sudden light. Her energy was this glowing, uncorrupted thing in a place built to handle decay. 

Sweet. Innocent. Young. Too young.

I should've walked away.

Instead, I found myself watching her. Following her movements as she flitted from room to room like a delicate thing barely touching the ground. She worked tirelessly, comforting patients with a soft word here, a hand on a shoulder there. 

I stood in shadowed corners, cloaked by my usual silence, and observed.

She was too damn good for this place. For this world. For me.

But I didn't care.

I started thinking of her as my little bunny almost immediately. Skittish, unsure, quick to flush and look away but always curious. Always fluttering closer despite herself. 

I could smell the sweetness on her skin when she passed me in the halls. A little tremor in her hand when I brushed too close. She pretended she didn't notice me. But she did.

They always do.

Helion looked like hell but he was alive. Hooked up to monitors, bandages stretched across his ribs. Still, he smirked like the arrogant bastard he was the moment I walked in.

"So," I drawled, settling in the chair beside his bed, "finally got yourself chopped up."

He rolled his eyes. "Satisfied?"

"A little." My grin was lazy, but my mind was elsewhere.

"The food's shit," he continued with a wince, "but the company? Not bad. Nurses are a treat in this place. One of them keeps checking in on me. Sweet little thing. Pretty. Real pretty."

My blood stilled.

He turned, watching me, oblivious to the sudden pressure behind my eyes, the way my hands curled into fists in my lap.

"She's young," he went on, voice laced with clear appreciation. "Innocent, too. Makes it more fun, doesn't it?"

Then he said her name and I saw red.

"No." My voice cut through the air like a blade. Cassian laughed behind me loud and unfiltered. Bastard always did have a sick sense of timing.

Helion raised a brow. "Why not?"

"She's mine," I said. Not a suggestion. A fact.

"You can't just claim her like—"

"Don't care." My tone dropped, roughened, dangerously soft. "She's off the table. You so much as look at her the wrong way, Helion, and I swear the second you're discharged, I'll put you right back in that bed."

He blinked, startled, like he hadn't expected me to react like that. No one ever did.

"She's too young for you, Rhys," Azriel muttered from the corner. "Too sweet. Too soft. Too good."

I turned my head slowly, my voice low, unwavering. "I don't care. She's mine."

And I meant it.

Because somewhere between the silence of the hospital and the glow of her presence, I'd decided I wasn't letting her go. Not to this world. Not to any man.

I didn't deserve her but she belonged to me.

Even if she didn't know it yet.

A/n - Here's the first part of my new Rhys story! It's obviously an AU but still ACOTAR based.

Ik some might say 22 is too young to feel burnt out, but I'm 21 and already kind of over everything. In Ireland (where I'm from), healthcare courses include placements starting in first year, so I've been working for literal years, and I haven't even graduated yet :/

While editing this, I remembered the first time I got assaulted by a patient... good times. It's more common than you'd think, unfortunately (good scene inspo though!)

Story notes—Rhys is morally grey here, and yes, he's putting a claim on the reader. It's a dark-ish romance, so please read the tags and content warnings before diving in.

Let me know what you think <3

The Ruin tag list - @queenoffeysand @sttvrdustt @wedonttalkaboutvoldemort @coeurdeveea @maltemp @sillyfreakfanparty @justtryingtosurvive02 @bosssliv5g @hyruledemigod20

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

Another element of the violence and horror is how inherently white and gender conformingly homogeneous they always are

The violence of the suburbs is so overbearing that it has a chilling effect on anything abnormal before you can even get to the point of the horror discussed in the original post

It starts with the white colonial ideal of the family, a mother a father and two and a half kids, all of them with pale skin and hopefully blonde but brunette is okay as well.

Any other type of family structure is not allowed in our Perfect Suburb as our houses were only built with so many rooms. Multigenerational homes? Why would you want a silly thing like that?

And we must protect the children. That is what we are going to say as we discriminate against people of color to avoid "bringing crime into our neighborhood" and to queer people because we don't want to "sexualize our children"

So even before you move into the suburbs, a cultural and systemic violence has occurred, a homogenizing ideal that has already selected for people that fits into this narrow view of perfection and are willing to mold themselves further to fit in with the HOA and the rest of the neighborhood

And so the natural consquence of all of this is that you play your role. You play the house wife and the mother and you have the 2.5 kids and the white picker fence and you do all of the things because that is the perfect ideal for you and your family and you've done all of this to give your kids a good, safe life because that is what the suburbs promise and then you realize that the suburbs are stripping you away as well. That it's not just the houses that lose their individuality but you do as well. And it was a process that started with the very ideal of the Suburb but you did not know because you were fed that this was the ideal

And maybe you truly love your kids or maybe you only love them because that's what a mom is supposed to do. And maybe you don't hate your husband but he is also complicit. Maybe actively so, or maybe he just also exists in this system that is slowly suffocating out anything that does not fit into its ideals and doesn't know enough to know that this is wrong because he is also told that he is doing everything perfectly right

And so everyone becomes a little less individual and everyone becomes a little more isolated

Because nothing about the American Dream, the one about the white picket fence and the nuclear family and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, is actually attainable by real people who are happy with their lives in the manner it is presented

We were never made to live isolated by our own castle walls, but to live in communities with help from others

And that's where the horror of the Suburban Housewife Horror genre comes in, this perfectly manicured and manufactured isolation that you are sold as perfection

Suburban housewife horror is really a specific type of powerful dread, the loss of personal identity with it being replaced by a husband, house, and kids while you are forced into a specific role that is unattainable by real humans that have lives and interests and fun. The creeping knowledge that your husband doesn't love you and maybe never did, he just loved the idea of you and having you as a wife to keep as a part of his identity while he overtakes yours. The expectation of perfection in every little thing even in the privacy of your own bedroom.

[adragonsfriend]

Hey serious talk for a second ok? some of you do this thing where you go “and yeah so the Jedi often take in kids from parents who are too poor to take care of them” as some kind of trump card against antis and I think your need to “defend” the Jedi has outweighed your good sense. Like I fully understand the urge, but you need to take a step back from that argument and think about what you are saying.

“They don’t kidnap kids they take in kids from parents in vulnerable, desperate situations” is not the argument you think it is.

Presenting a strategy and/or habit of taking in kids from desperate people in desperate situations as like some super high charitable trump card thing is some incredibly Christian missionary logic there ok. It is taking advantage of desperation and fear in order to acquire child.

There are so many alternative ways to write the Jedi dealing with situations of finding Force sensitive kids in desperate situations that do not suck!

Jedi who work with communities for an extended period of time, coming to know and be trusted by those communities before being offered a child born after their arrival

Jedi who encounter families with Force sensitive children work to improve the entire families’ circumstances to provide stability before offering to take in the children

Jedi encountering a desperate parent who was already trying to find a way to get a child out of their care before the Jedi arrived for some specific reason (maybe someone who always planned to give up the child for adoption but can’t trust either their family members or the system?)

Jedi actively delaying the guardians giving up a child to make sure they’ve fully considered why they’re doing it, if they’re really sure, to varying final results

In The Living Force, it’s emphasised that upon encountering a force sensitive child in a neglectful orphanage situation, a Jedi should have assessed the whole situation and helped all the children there, rather than just whisking away the Force-sensitive one (and thereby created a situation where the child had a reasonable choice about whether to go or not)

And if you’re thinking “but those seem soo lucky and too good to be true often enough to sustain the order’s population...” then it’s possible that what you actually belive is that the Jedi need to prey on desperation to acquire sufficient children, and if so, you should not be defending that as moral. That is the opposite of a defence of the Jedi.

Personally, I think the Jedi just stumble across and/or work to create the types of situations above—where the guardians actually do enter circumstances where they can consent out of something other than desperation—with greater than average frequency. It’s the will of the Force, destiny, whatever. Simple as that.

Even in the prequels with Anakin, while I do not think it goes far enough in the direction I’m pushing for here, we see Shmi be the one to ask if Qui-Gon can help Anakin after Qui-Gon leaves a conversational opening for it, and then we see Qui-Gon attempt to free Shmi at the same time as Anakin. Even after she implies she might accept Anakin becoming a Jedi if it will save him from the life in slavery, it is still important that she be helped and freed. In her language when Shmi finally sees Anakin again as she’s dying, “now I am complete,” I think it’s reasonable to assume she’s stating that she’s glad the gamble she took letting him go paid off—ergo, she knew she was taking a gamble, not that she was some pathetically grateful recipient of Jedi aid.

If Star Wars were capable of having scenes that intentionally did more than one thing at a time, maybe we could’ve had a scene that did a half decent job of making the improvement of Shmi’s situation essential to the whole interaction on a cultural level (literally just move the “Qui-Gon gave her a valuable object to sell with the understanding she would know what to do from there” plot line someone invented in a comic into the movie itself—use one of Padmé’s dresses lol) rather than using it as something to raise up Qui-Gon’s individual moral status without actually helping Shmi at all.

Helping everyone in the situation so they can actually consent to giving away care of a child has to be essential to the Jedi on a cultural level—not just individual—in order for this to work. I think it is essential to them, and so I try to write that into my stories.

Do you think about what Jedi could actually be, or do you just respond to antis’ talking points with the first idea you can grasp onto? Because the latter can apparently make you say shit like “poor people should give up their kids to other cultures when they can’t take care of them” rather than “everyone should have the resources to be able to take good care of their children.”

And that’s important.

(And just to get ahead of the curve, yes I know that what I’m saying is “some variation of Star Wars would be so good if it was good.” Star Wars fanfic/discourse would also be good if it was good, and unlike the movies, fandom is always in the process of remaking itself. So maybe we could make it good, sometime)

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

ngl I am a little annoyed with how the good faith response to criticism from fans who liked the show is often "i get why you didn't like that but canon is what you make it! You can pick and choose!"

like, I get it, and I plan to, and if nothing else it's a much more mature response than I've got from other people, but it really doesn't address my two biggest issue with the show at all:

Yes, I can ignore that it ever happened to characters that I like, but the show is still out there with all those odd misogynist and racist messages in the writing and casting unadressed. And at best, it is reinforcing a bunch of industry stereotypes, and it's not unique in that of course - but with the way the show is being lauded rn, I'm genuinely worried that a lot of people are seeing harmful things they believe to be true given the stamp of "revolutionary and progressive, actually". People are falling for the virtue signalling, and it's not a push in a good direction. To be fair, I've often got this comment when I was criticising narrative decisions that were at least somewhat removed from those issues... but idk stuff like the changed backstory and the removal of Bodhi and Jyn from the larger narrative is still part of that problem.

There was already so much potential in the backstories that were implied in the movie and the supplemental publications (which were canon for half a decade, so anyone wanting to argue with me about how "Gilroy didn't have to use your headcanons, grow up" can shut up right away, thank you). And not only is it a huge bummer that we didn't see any of that explored, and not only is it extremely annoying that Andor and Rogue One do not add up to a satisfying whole - it also means we will now never get any of these stories outside of fandom. Had Andor not been made, or been deemed (correctly) too expensive and disappeared into a drawer, Disney would not have resisted the urge to make more money off these characters forever. And if a show had been deemed too expensive, or not buzzy enough - we might have had a novel, or even a series of novels, and the characters might have shown up in other franchises. And yeah, we can still have these stories in fandom, and that's great... but this means that these stories will now only ever reach the people already searching for the crumbs. Stories like the one known former Separatist on the Rebellion's side, stories of the one good guy who was thoroughly broken down into doing whatever people told him to for that same, much less unambiguously good Rebellion? The one story of a soldier and a cog in the machine for whom breaking away from a bad system was actually hard, and not just an easy choice he made in the opening act of his first movie? That will not be a part of Star Wars in the public eye - maybe never. And much as I love and support fanworks (which almost always offer something better than the canon stuff if you know where to look!), I think it's legitimate to be angry at the decisions that were made here. Star Wars already told every conceivable version of a Han Solo-esque storyline. There was so much narrative and political interest that was lost here.

No criticism of the show is attacking the community any individual person built connecting to someone else over how they liked it. And the show had its moments, and a lot of people worked very hard on it (and others wouldn't even watch a two-hour film to prepare).

But I still think at the end of it all, it's legitimate to say that between what was canon before and could have been turned into a show or a novel and what we got in the end, I think we got a very short end of the stick. And "you can just ignore it" doesn't help with that. It's about the iffy messages and the lost potential, it's not a lack of ability to compartmentalise when I write my next fic or read someone else's. I'm not complaining because I think I have to delete all my fics and bookmarks because they're not canon anymore. Hell, I've been ignoring a canon ending to write fic for years - why stop now?

I'm complaining because there was so much potential here, and instead we got a show that is so murky in its supposed "progressive revolution" that right-wing pundits and mainstream progressive media alike try to claim it for their own views, with a story that is far less satisfying and cohesive than the one we already had.

[ahhhwomen]

Hiii I ADORE your Vampire Empire series. I first found it through your spin off fills on ao3! I love the sweetness & gentleness of Nat / Wanda/reader & how subtly protective & caring they are with girlie. I LOVED the length & detail of “Sweet” & how it felt like a standalone story. & was wondering if you were accepting new prompts? If so: what about one where homegirl needs to visit the doctor / have her teeth cleaned / something that’s maybe new or has been sad & scary to her in the past? & how WandaNat would talk her through it, take care of her & make her feel protected?

if not: thank you for your service to the Wanda/Natasha/Reader community. Keep up the good work!!!!!

A/n: You are so sweet! Though I fear this isn’t quite as long or detailed as “Sweet”, it is even more nauseously loving (with angst to begin with because I am me after all). I hate writing comfort, but I figured I would butter y’all up a little before I rip your hearts out and leave them to dry with the next chapter of Vampire Empire. Omg, who said that? :)

Contains slight spoilers for unreleased chapters of Vampire Empire

Warning: Reference to unethical medical practices

His hands are cold, like the plummet of water just offshore, sweeping you inside its waves.

Your eyelids stick together, barely letting a sliver of light through the gates of tiredness as you lie there. The metal table is unforgiving; it pushes against your weak ribs with every heaving breath that forces its way from your gaping mouth.

There is pain, blossoming as his palms brand bruises wherever his touch sears, but you can hardly feel it. His hands are rough, but his choice of weapon is far crueler as needles of countless sizes litter your spine.

It was a trickle of pressure, pulling you this way and that, repeating in endless succession. Skin breaking with a tiny crack as countless syringes emptied inside your bloodstream.

The world fades and appears in spotty memories—one second, his touch glided against your cheek, the next, below your feet. His face blurs, just as your surroundings shift and stretch.

You can’t feel your body.

You’re just…

Cold.

Not the type of cold that leaves chills down your spine or renders you useless with sniffles.

No, as hands press and pry, forcing you closer to the biting surface of the metal table, the sensation remains secondhand. Almost as if it’s not you feeling it, but another creature, vaguely connected to the husk of flesh you never called home.

On the rare occasion you are lucid enough to think, you wonder what’s inside the multitude of drugs he pumps into your system.

The doctor doesn’t visit often; more times than not, his echoing footsteps represent the hollow wails of death as pet after pet leave in body bags after his visits.

Today may be the day you get to leave, too.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

A huff settles in the tense silence of the living room.

The treat inside Wanda's hand has turned sticky with the warmth of her fingertips. It slathers, greasy and disturbing, with a scent of beef she will never be able to wash off properly.

“Your dramatics are adorable, baby, but we are already ten minutes late. So, would you please get out? Natasha is waiting in the car.” The silence continues without a single acknowledgment on your end.

You had been ignoring her for well over an hour at this point, yet Wanda never left her station, determined to get you to leave on your own terms, even if dragging you out herself would be far less frustrating.

The shit she does for you.

“He isn’t going to kill you, you know.” She grumbles beneath her breath like an afterthought as she continues to dangle beef jerky in front of your upturned nose.

You almost scoff aloud at that but think better of it and settle for a half-hearted eye roll. It was quite literally the reason you were upset to begin with. If they were going to force you to endure this torture, they might as well let him kill you while they were at it.

So, no. You were not leaving your post under the plushy inanimate object that you considered your safe haven, also known as a couch. It had become a favorite spot of yours when you knew something was amiss. Natasha had started calling it your “free sone”, and made some reference to a silly sounding game called “tag”, whatever that was.

Wanda didn’t know whether she wanted to coo or reprimand you as your eyes heaved at her comment. She settled for an indulgent chuckle; your time at the Maximoff household had left you with a bit of an attitude.

Fine, if this was how it was going to be.

Time for the ultimate triumph card.

“I will let you have some chocolate when we get back.” Your ears perked up at that. The redhead knew it was less about the chocolate and more about sharing it through kisses that caught your attention.

The three of you were packed in the car and on the road in less than five minutes after that.

Which is how you find yourself now-

A chill running down your spine as a man with comically large glasses grips your arm, intending to check the bend of your joints. You weren’t a big fan of men, especially not the kind with large hands and fake smiles, which this man was chock-full of. However, it hadn’t taken long before you realized how gentle he was.

His touch was strictly professional, but not unkind. And you found yourself getting more tense with each second that ticked by.

There was comfort in pain, an acknowledgment of existence without the shame of onlookers. The way it burrowed beneath your skin like a second layer of protection burned brighter than any somber light you had spent your life surrounded by.

It was guidance above all.

A path drawn in blood was better than walking blind.

So, this, this in between of suspense where neither pain nor comfort existed, was like being pulled out of the ocean after you finally grew gills.

It gasped inside your chest with each touch and clipped word, heaving for breath where there was none to catch- As if you were choking on the gentleness of it all. Panic pulsed in tandem with your heartbeat as he moved on to your jaw, the rush inside your ears growing louder until it was all you could hear.

The edge of your vision blurred.

Your palms grew clammy.

Your mouth dry.

Then there was a pinch.

Not harsh, but there.

It stung a little.

And suddenly the water returned. You weren’t drowning in an ocean, per se, more like floating in a swimming pool. But it helped, enough to let a breath, then another, rush into your gills and fill you with the existential dread you called calm.

A press of warmth followed the pinch, Natasha gluing herself to your side to draw your attention to her fingers gripping the flesh atop your thigh instead of the grip clutching your jaw.

Relief, not easily felt, replaced the taste of blood that clung to your tongue as you slumped slightly into her.

The emotion that followed was strange. The doctor was stubborn, pulling you this way and that, leaving you dizzy with the movement. It seems he was determined to check every bend, twist, and sound that your body could make. If you didn’t know any better, you would think he was scared for his life with the way he didn’t miss a single detail.

Which he was, of course. Wanda was standing just outside of your view, staring at the man she had paid far too much money for, like he was one wrong move away from becoming dinner, but you didn’t know that.

After the third time of spinning you around, he was pissing you off a little. An emotion you had never considered yourself capable of.

Your hands press into the cold table, knuckles whitening as you tighten your fits in defiance. Half-moon indents form while your nails prick like needles. The pain helps, a little. Yet, anger still lingers, building beneath your skin like a storm brewing on the horizon, displeasure growling inside your mind like thunder.

As quickly as it builds, it dissipates; a warm chuckle quickly washing away your annoyance as Wanda throws her head back with a snicker poorly hidden behind her hand. You turn toward her as sterile lights catch on her golden rings, leaving you mesmerized for a moment. The grumble you hadn’t realized was very much loud and clear inside the small office dies down, and an embarrassed flush tints the tips of your ears.

She was laughing at you.

With a groan, you bury your face into Natasha’s stomach, the doctor forgotten for a moment, her heat helps to alleviate some of the goosebumps that litter your skin. Your shame doubles as the younger redhead chuckles at the whole display. Her stomach vibrates with her silent joy, heaving you up and down as you press closer and whine louder.

It’s strange, even as embarrassment threatens to eat you alive, you can’t remember a time you were this carefree—the man with the silly glasses- nothing but an afterthought in your bubble of resilient joy.

It’s… nice.

Little did you know, Wanda had also made a dentist appointment for you tomorrow… what a bitch.

[afniel]

Oh yeah fully understood on those points. When it comes to looking at symbols and who's using them for what, I tend to approach it all from the angle of not so much, does this make me personally upset, which I don't give much weight insofar as people are totally allowed to do things I don't like, but moreso are they punching up or down. And the Catholic Church is historically (and currently) very powerful, so to me it's like...it is definitely offensive to use those symbols in that way, no doubt, but it's not like, systemically harmful, which is mainly where I'm looking.

And also I think that at this point I'm just very used to the eclectic/syncretic pagan experience anyway, which is that nobody is using any of the symbols normally, and anything could mean anything to anybody, so hanging out for any length of time in that space you tend to get a skin thick enough to be called an exoskeleton or you move on. I stuck around for over a decade. I'm very hard to surprise now.

(Also also I'm ethics [obligation to reduce measurable harm as much as possible] >>>>> morals [local/cultural definition of acceptable vs. unacceptable behavior] to a degree that I think can be a little strange to others, but I'm always running the 'which course of action minimizes real harm' algorithm in the background somewhere. So someone actually can offend the hell out of me, and if the only real harm being done is that I'm annoyed for a bit...yeah, I'll still vouch for their right to offend me, because that's much less harm than censorship, and that actually does feel satisfying as a conclusion to me. I may just be extremely Weird™ though.)

But I'm also coming at this from a personal religious viewpoint that would be downright blasphemous too, so! Y'know. It's easier to be unaffected. And I get that too.

But yeah I really did go to more than one youth rally that harshed the hell out of the otherwise decent vibes by suddenly going, "Hey also your secular music is big-E type Evil, and Satan personally wants you to listen to it because it'll make you go to hell! Listen to these bands instead!" And to be fair the bands they pitched instead had legit cool sounds and I'd have been happy enough to just add them to the rotation (if I could remember who they were, but I was 16 and I'm 41 now sooo I've slept a few times since then. But I'd kill to remember who they had in place of Metallica because those guys shredded)...but the part where the rejection of the 'secular world' often has nothing to do with spiritual growth and is really being employed as an isolation tactic to make people more reliant on their church in-group and more estranged from non-church social contacts...yeah, even as a teen I smelled bullshit.

And just from the viewpoint of someone who has been Christian before and does still very much respect it as a thing, just not a me thing, being afraid of Satan doesn't equate to having a good relationship with God anyway so the whole approach of scaring people with the threat of Satan is kinda fucked. It's not a 2D line with one guy on either end, and having outside perspectives to help you consider your own beliefs ultimately makes them stronger. Even if it was being done with fully good intent, it still isn't gonna be helpful or healthy to convince people that nearly the entire world is out to get them, and the only people you can trust to not gleefully commit you to a fate literally worse than death is this one group. Like there's metaphorical roads to places paved with that kind of intent, and after the life I've lived which basically sums up to 'Local Man Removes So Many Pairs Of Blinders That It's Uncertain How They Even Fit On His Head To Begin With (#4 Will Shock You!),' I am maybe a little too sensitive to anything approaching it.

But yeah for everyone who's reasonable like you and is like, 'I don't get along with this group because they're using symbols with a deep meaning to me in a way that's contrary to my beliefs and that's uncomfortable to me,' there's someone out there going, 'I think all secular music is bad, no exceptions,' and you're like, 'Surely there's one exception. Come on,' and they're like, 'Okay, okay, you got me, my secret guilty pleasure is the Charlie Brown Christmas movie soundtrack,' and you're like, 'They explicitly brought up Jesus's birth in that movie though. Like they actually quoted the Bible. That's not secular.' And they're like, 'Well yes, but it was mostly about the tree, which is a pagan icon, and the music isn't really about Jesus,' and you realize that this is going nowhere pleasant fast.

I think I don't remember the point I'm even trying to make now. Rambling is fun and easy and I think I lost myself in the imagery somewhere. But you get me. We're basically on the same page, even, I just should have numbered my pages better so it was more obvious from the start <- (normal type of things said by a guy who is still, evidently, lost in the imagery)

Was talking to a work friend about music a d he was telling me that someone suggested a band to him but when he listened it was all satanic stuff and he had to nope out.

It was Ghost.

[filthyd0g]

Bicker, not banter

Plot: you and joost have been arguing non stop. when a storm causes you two to evacuate for the night, will you continue to argue? or will you two finally stop neglecting each other?

warnings: swearing, dry humping, not proofread

edited 6/22/2025 bc i was…let’s js say not with us when i wrote this

—————————————————————

Joost trailed behind you to the hotel elevator, his gaze fixed on you back, the irritation and the urge to argue with you still simmering just the surface. He fidgeted with his hands as you guys made their way up to the room, his jaw clenching as he fought back the urge to snap at you again

"This is just great. Spending the night at a damn hotel."

He muttered, the sarcasm in his voice almost caustic

Your apartment wasn’t an option tonight, since there was a warning to evacuate the Amsterdam area due to an extreme storm. You thought it would be nice to just go to a hotel and finally get along with the man you love. Wronggg.

“Oh im sorry, is it not enough that I took you to a nice hotel to get away from the storm we were prompted to leave from???”

Throwing your bag onto the bed, flopping down next to it, you look up at him with a caustic expression.

"Oh, now you're sorry? How generous of you."

He rolled his eyes, the sarcasm in his voice dripping with almost bitter irritation. The fact that she was actually right, that you had gone out of your way to find a nice hotel for you two to stay in... it only served to annoy him even more. He crossed his arms, his expression still tense and agitated

"Yeah, you've really made this whole situation great, haven't you?"

“Me?? All you’ve done this week is pick fights with me over stupid shit!!”

"Maybe because you're acting like this is some damn casual weekend getaway, instead of a situation that could get us killed?"

He snapped back, his frustration and anxiety reaching a boiling point. He couldn't understand how you could be so nonchalant, so calm... while he was a bundle of frayed nerves and panic. You weren’t any better. You’ve nitpicked everything he did all week. But for good cause. He almost blew up the damn microwave with a fork for christ’s sake!

“Well no thanks to you, we’re not dying tonight. If you panic and I panic, who the hell is going to actually get us out of the house??!”

The bickering was getting to be just too much for you, rolling your eyes as you searched through your bag for a bathing suit. You’ll be damned if you’re going to let Joost ruin this for you.

"Oh, so now it's my fault because I'm panicking? Because I'm scared of this situation we're in?"

He practically spat back at you, the last of his self-control snapping, the dam breaking, his emotions getting the better of him

"Maybe if you weren't so damn calm all the time, I wouldn't be the only one losing their mind here!"

“Oh cry me a river, Joost, seriously.”

As if you had a care in the world, you started to strip, slipping on the bathing suit.

“I can’t do this right now Joost.”

You grabbed your phone and started walking out.

“You’re fucking welcome for taking you here.”

With those last words, the door slams behind you. You left to go to the pool downstairs. Away from whatever storm Joost had brewing in his hormonal system.

He was lashing out, he knew that... but in that moment, he couldn't find it within himself to care.

Joost was left standing in the now-empty hotel room, the silence deafening. The moment the door slammed shut, he let out a frustrated shout, his hands clenching into fists as he paced back and forth across the room, his mind racing

He knew he had overreacted, knew that he had lashed out at you when you didn't deserve it... but damn it, he couldn't help it. He was terrified, and the sight of you being so calm and composed had just pissed him off even more

You on the other hand, were just starting to relax as you slowly dipping your body into the warm water. The pool was empty due to the fact it was about 12 am. The temperature seemed to ease that tension in your mind and body. Finally you’d been able to just decompress without Joost whining in your ear all the time.

He sat up, a determined look in his eyes. He knew he was probably being irrational, that he should probably just wait for you to come back... but the thought of sitting here, alone in this hotel room, was unbearable

He stood up, his mind made up. He didn't care that it was late, that he was only in his jeans and a t-shirt. He was going to find you, and he was going to sort this out right now.

The water gently lapped at your waist as you laid your head in your arms over the ledge, deep in thought. Was this how your relationship will continue?? Do you really want to spend your life fighting with Joost??

When he finally reached the pool, he let out a small sigh as he saw you. His irritation flared for a moment, but the sight of you... in just your bathing suit ... made his brain short-circuit for a moment

“Hey…”

he said while walking up to you slowly.

“Hi.”

Your voice was unpleasantly cold and calm. He didnt deserve the warm welcoming tone you usually had with him.

He shifted his weight slightly, his gaze still fixed on you. The irritation, the anger, the desire... all was still there, and he was trying hard to keep them all in check

"You uh... enjoying the pool?"

He asked casually, his eyes still roaming over your body, unable to look away

“Sure am.”

Your short responses upset him. He knew he was being an asshole, but he felt like you were doing this on purpose now.

“You..mind if I join you??”

With a shrug of your shoulders, Joost stripped down to his boxers, slowly slipping into the water next to you. He let his arms snake around your waist under the water, turning you to face him.

With hesitation, your head came to lay on his chest, the hair tickling your face ever so slightly. The contact felt foreign for a moment, considering all the fighting this week. But, it was nice to have some sort of …normalcy.

He let out a low sigh, his hand on her back continuing to trace soft, lazy patterns over your skin, his thoughts still in turmoil. Your own mind was warring between your desire for him, and your lingering irritation and frustration... but with him so close, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the former.

You shifted against him slightly, adjusting your position, his thigh sliding between your’s, your legs now intertwined in the water.

His thigh pressed firmly in between your legs made impossible for you to think about anything other than him and how good he looked in the water.

Soon you moaned softly, the feeling of him pressing against you, gently grinding against his thigh.

He raised an eyebrow, lowering his head to your ear.

“You’ve no idea how much I miss you, Schat.”

His own hips began to move, grinding his clothed cock on your thigh.

You gasped, you pussy continuing to grind against his thigh and pulls little moans and mewls from your throat. God you missed this, missed him.

“Fuck I can feel your clit rubbing on my thigh.”

His hands reached up to grab the under of your thighs, squeezing them as he continued to grind against you.

Your breaths got slightly heavier, your hips stuttering as you grinded on his thigh.

“Joost..”

Your moans echoed in the empty room, inching closer to your release until you just couldn’t take it.

“I’m so close..”

His lips left wet, open mouthed kisses on your neck.

You realized it’s been too long since you even had any remotely romantic moments, physical and emotional. You also realized you two should probably stop before you get caught.

Joost seemed to realize that as well when he felt your hips slowly ease from his.

The walk back to the hotel room was surprisingly peaceful, like everything that happened before sort of disappeared. But you knew it hadn’t. That’s why it got awkward once you two laid in the bed. You became distant again. You showered separately and didn’t cuddle or say goodnight.

But, as you felt yourself drifting to sleep, you heard his soft voice from behind you.

“I love you, Schat.”

He whispered those words into your ear breathlessly, as if some sort of apology for how the week had been going.

“I love you more.”

There was definitely more that needed to be said, but for now, you two were content for just a moment.

—————————————————————

Guys how did i doooo i chose to do this one instead of my og first fic i was in the middle of writing bc why not. I had to copy paste this from my word docs bc tumblr wasn’t letting me write and post it here:(

[rasberrybabez]

Hallo!! i was curious if you’d do maybe like a teen au with simon x reader? not like under 18 tho:< maybe like Bully/popular!simon x Loner/nerd!reader? :3

Ahhh!!!!! Ofc my sweet anon!! 🥰 I’ve seen other reqs like this to some other creators and I LOVE it being my first one! So of course and I hope you enjoyyyy ❤️

this will be told using the American school system Bcs that’s all I know well 😣

~tags: heavy smut, bullying, cnc if you squint, squirting, semi-public, unsafe sex, humiliation, degradation, spanking, spitting, descriptions of parental neglect/abuse, MDNI

𓍢ִ໋☕️✧˚ ༘ ⋆📓⊹ ˖.𖥔 ݁ ˖

Two weeks until you got out of this hellhole, and two weeks until you would never see him again.

As your senior year starts to come to a close, the holy grail of freedom from crowded halls, ugly looks and… him.

Simon Riley.

You may be a loner, yes… but not everybody hates you. You couldn’t say the same about Simon, though.

Tall, brooding, held back a year because of the amount of absences he had. A senior, just like you, but a 19 compared to your 18. Always wearing a mask, always hiding somewhere off to the side, never stepping into the light, except for you.

Because it was clear that Simon hated pretty much everybody, but he hated you especially.

you weren’t sure why, because you had never talked to him before the bullying started. Sure, you had caught him looking at you, but after the messy breakup you and your friend group had? A lot of people looked at you, and not in the good way.

Then the bullying started. Simon, always appearing on your way to class, bumping books from your hands and making sure his elbow drove deep into your stomach. He was the cause of your tears, more often than not, but he didn’t give a shit.

And then he stopped hiding it.

Came right up to you, just to shove you into the lockers, spinning you around and shoving your face against the metal cabinets. You would squeal and cry and plead, but it was useless. Simon was relentless.

“Oh, cry all you want baby… no one’s gonna help ya’, eh? No… they don’t care… they don’t care like I do…”

His twisted words made you hiccup over your tears, just as he chuckled behind you. The skirt you were wearing as suddenly a lot shorter than how you remembered it, and shame flushes your cheeks as you realize that Simon’s practically displaying your lacy pink panties to the entire hall.

The whispers grow louder as you squirm against him. Simon just chuckles, letting the crowd find their way to class… class! You’re going to be late, the teacher is going to kill you-

Simons hand flies down to your ass before you can react, making you cry out in pain. He shoved your short little skirt up and tugged the back of your panties high, only to tighten his grip and tug. Again and again, until he had wedged the fabric between your asscheeks.

Thank god the hall was clear now.

You sob and squirm as he forces a wedgie right up into you, your clit burning through the lacy fabric as he spanks you again. Why was he doing this?

“s-stop! Stop, stop Simon please-”

His hand comes to your throat, not tight enough to choke you, but to force your gaze up to his grin. He grips your cheeks, pressing into your soft flesh to open your mouth, before spitting into it.

You whine and sob harder.

“That’s it whore, swallow.”

You try not to, but you can’t close your mouth. You start to drool, tongue lolling out as tears stain your cheeks, your previously neat bun now messy and disgraced. Simon just tsks at your behavior, sighing before shoving two thick fingers to the back of your throat, making you gag.

Now you have no choice but to swallow, and he doesn’t release you until you do.

“Fuckin’ bitch… can’t just follow orders, now can ya’…”

You fall to the ground, heaving in raspy breaths as your skirt flutters back down around your thighs. Your throat is sore and your hair is a mess, and tears track mascara all the way down your cheeks.

Simons taste lingers on your tongue, like pine and cigarettes, mixed with stale beer. It should taste disgusting… but it doesn’t.

Simons scoffs and spits one more time at your face, shoving you against the lockers for good measure. And you hate the part of you that liked it, despite struggling to stand and collect yourself after. Some hidden daddy issues sort of kink, it had to be.

You couldn’t be turned on by him.

That was the first time Simon Riley bullied you like that, and he hadn’t stopped since. It carried on during lunch and during class, and sure it got him a few detentions… but it was public school. What were they going to do, care? Definitely not.

But now, here you are, two weeks away from graduation. Your finals are all done and taken, and you’re so sick of sitting alone, from begging for mercy from some sick bully that plagues you. Sick of school, but really, truly down with it.

So it doesn’t help that in your mind spiraling tangent, you push into the men’s bathroom.

You don’t notice, of course, it’s empty. And the bathrooms look practically identical of your not looking for the urinals.

Most of the other seniors are off for the next two weeks, they’re optional days of school. But you’d rather take the time to study at home, instead of risking your paperwork for college and your wrist for writing to your dad’s drunken rage.

You just need a break, a splash of water on your face. So you tug off your jacket and fix your pants, having bothered to never wear a skirt again, not since the… incident.

You splash water on your face with a low groan, slumping over the sink as the bathroom door opens. You don’t look up, you don’t care enough to. It’s probably just some teacher or underclass man that you don’t care about.

But the rumbling chuckle that you hear behind you makes you look up with fear, catching his reflection in the mirror.

Simon’s hand grip your hips faster than you can bolt, bending you over the sink and forcing you to throw your hands up against the mirror with a cry. You struggle in Simon’s grip, but it’s no use, especially when he pins your hands with one of his.

“Must be ma’ lucky day, hm baby… little fawn like you, stumbling into my bathroom? On the day everyone else has off?”

You cry out, struggling more fervently.

“Let me go! Let me go, Simon you’re sick, you’re so fucking sick-”

“Ah-ah-ah…”

He says, chuckling and rolling his hips against you, making you cry out. He had you pressed against the sink, legs around yours and pinning you down, your pants staring against the force and stretch of your body.

“Tha’s a lot of attitude baby… you wanna be punished?”

You sob against the mirror and sink, face still wet from the water. Two more weeks, two more weeks to survive Simon. You had to survive, you had to make it through.

“Stop! Stop you freak, w-why are you even doing this!”

You cry out, trembling beneath him. That makes Simon pause, looking down at you with a frown. You really couldn’t be that daft… could you?

Unless he was the emotionally constipated one that thought that this was flirting.

Simon didn’t have the best examples of love, growing up… his father being the dick that he was and his mother slowly losing herself to depression. So obviously Simon wasn’t going to know exactly what to do… right?

It was no secret that he was attractive. He was an asshole, yeah, and most people hated him. It didn’t change the fact that he was objectively handsome, a few scars here and there, and scrappy golden blonde hair that women wished matched his personality.

And Simon had like you for a long time, no doubt. He swore that at the beginning of the year, you had smiled at him. You were in the tutoring program that he had enrolled in, and fuck you just seemed so different… didn’t glare at him like the rest of them.

Not yet at least.

So he did what he only knew how to do, and led by violence. Knocked down your books ma then knocked down you, and it got to the point where he did have you up against the lockers, flashing your panties to the school. But when he tugged the pink lace up between your ass and you squealed like that? He could see the way that perfect pussy had jumped, leaking onto the fabric like a fountain.

So you had liked it.

And that only motivated him more.

But the thing is, that you just kept running from him. See, Simon was already here for an extra year, and he wasn’t going to waste it. He’d have you by graduation, or he’d track you down until you were his.

He chose the former.

So when he walked into the surely empty bathroom and saw you? It was a chance to claim you in a way he hoped no one had before, and make you his. Finally

“…you really don’t know, baby?” He said gruffly, still grinding up against your pert ass. You could feel it through your leggings, and suddenly you knew a lot more than you wanted to. “Because I need you… a’ haven’t tracked ya’ down all year just to let you go, no baby… gotta take ya nice and hard.”

He shoves you hard as you cry out, but it sounds suspiciously similar to a moan. You can feel him reaching down to you with the elastic of your pants, tugging it slowly.

You whimper, shaking your head.

“d-don’t, Simon don’t-”

Simon clucks his tongue, just tugging them harder until he reveal the soft white lace of your thong. It was the only thing you had to wear, everything else in the wash as you cry out.

“Ye’ say that… yet yer cunt’s soaked baby…”

He’s right. You’re so wet right now that your underwear clings to the outline of your puffy, needy pussy, drenching the fabric. Simon chuckles, reaching a thumb down to toy at your clit, pulling a needy moan from you.

“Tha’s it ye’ slut… there’s almost no one here. Moan for me.”

You don’t want to listen to him, but you can help it. The way his fingers are working, the way he’s teasing you. The way he pulls your thing out of the way to slip a thick finger inside, then two. The way he makes you clench and moan, back bowing against the sink.

“Simon!”

you cry out with pleasure, panting and squirming beneath him. He chuckles and groans, leaving one hand inside of you, pumping steadily, as the other one reaches down to undo his belt. You can see your reflection in the mirror, eyes red and puffy from crying, lips red from biting them, trying to keep back moans. Cheeks flushed with pleasure as the smell of sex coats the air.

Simon makes quick work of his belt and the buttons of his jeans, tugging them down to reveal a pair of black Calvin Klein and a very big, obvious bulge.

You whimper, and his thrusts speed up.

Simon moves his thumb to rub your clit as the coil in your lower belly starts to tighten, and you moan out with whimpery need. You need to come, but you don’t want to. Not on Simon’s hands.

But you can’t really control it, not when he grins and speeds up like the knows what you’re thinking, because he does. Gets you to the edge before slowly pulling his cock out

The sight of it makes you gasp with pleasure, body tightening as your orgasm rolls over you. You don’t moan or squirm or scream, just tense and arch back into Simon with a soft gasp. You come hard around his fingers and he chuckles, letting you slump back against the sink.

And when he takes out his fingers, the head of his fat cock replaces them soon enough.

Your eyes go wide, even as you pant and try to protest, but Simon just cuts you off. Forces his cum slicked fingers into your mouth and down your throat, choking as he forces his heavy, fat tip up into your tight pussy.

You cry out around his fingers, drooling down them and your chin, sobbing harder as you look at yourself in the mirror. You hate that it’s hot, you hate how turned on you get knowing the man that you hate is fucking you in the school bathrooms, your cum coating his fingers.

Simon loves it too.

“Yeah baby? Ya’ see how fuckin’ pretty you look, boutta’ be all dumbed out on ma’ cock? Yeah?”

You can’t stop yourself from nodding, sucking harder at his fingers as he starts to force more of his thick cock into your right channel. The stretch is like nothing you’ve had before, and you’re definitely not a virgin. But no other guy matters, now that you’ve felt this.

Simon groans as he shoves himself all the way in, balls smacking against your clit and already dripping with your slick. He can smell it, your sweet and seedy sex, and he can feel the way you tighten around him.

So he keeps his fingers in your mouth as he pulls back, and starts to fuck your pussy like you’re nothing but a flashlight for him to use.

Your hiccupy moans are all muffled by Simon’s fingers, broken up with each slap of skin against yours and each deep thrust that forces Simon’s thick and ruddy tip up into your cervix. Your tears don’t stop, only increasing with the painful pleasure that digs itself deep into your bones.

It roots itself there like a parasite, feeding off of the depraved pleasure you get from Simon. From your bully fucking you in the bathroom in the middle of the day.

Simon’s thrusts increase in speed, and your moans get higher and louder.

Two weeks till graduation, and Simon’s already completed his goal, already got you right where he wants you, fucking into your tight little pussy as he forces you to watch your cock drunk expression in the mirror. You’re drooling over his fingers, already sucked all of your cum off of them. I guess he’ll just have to add more.

It’s not long before Simon starts to climb to his peak, but he knows he has to get you there first. So he keeps a hand on your hip, moving the sloppy one from your mouth, down to your puffy little clit.

“Yeah baby? Gon’ come again, let me fill up this pretty lil cunt? Yeah?”

You nod weakly, eyes glazed over as he groans and grunts, pace starting to stutter. He speeds up his circles on your clit, body doubling over as he shoves ball deep, coming with a loud groan.

You come too, gasping and panting and whining like a bitch in heat, your overstimulated pussy not only coming, but squirting all over him. Simon’s abs are drenched, along with his jeans around his thighs and your leggings pulled down only to your knees. Not to mention his cock and balls now, too.

Simon groaned and chuckled, panting as he looks down to the mess that you made. He looks up at you through the mirror, your fucked out face starting to return to normal, eyes no longer glazed over as you blink away tears.

Simon leans down, forcing a kiss agaisnt your temple.

“Tha’s it baby… my good slut. We’ll do it again before graduation, a’ promise.”

𐙚‧₊˚📜✩ ₊˚⊹♡𐙚‧₊˚📜✩ ₊˚⊹♡𐙚‧₊˚📜✩ ₊˚⊹♡𐙚‧₊˚

A/N-hoped you liked it! It took a bit of a deranged turn… but it’s fine! My first rec and I think I did good myself, even though I’m sick and already pumped out another fic today!

So I hope you enjoyed!

Luv from Razz ୧ ‧₊˚ 🍓 ⋅ ☆

[ctblanctt]

UNDER THE SURFACE.

✷ a. cabot x fem!ada!reader

The invitation arrived by email. Objective. Formal.

“Panel on Justice and Structural Reforms. NYU. Panel 2: Law & Memory. RSVP by 03/12.”

Signed: Alexandra Cabot.

You read it twice. Then you closed your laptop. You waited five days to respond. On the sixth, you said “yes.” Short. Without emotion. As if Alex were just another former colleague.

But she wasn't.

And no part of you really believed that this meeting would be neutral.

——

The room was cold, white, academic. Typical NYU. Too many people dressed in black, with attentive gazes and open notebooks. You walked in just as the panel was starting. She was there, sitting at the table, in a dark blue suit and with an upright posture, as if each word that came out of her mouth still carried the weight of a verdict.

The theme was “institutional memory,” but there was another memory present there. Yours. Invisible, but dense. Almost tactile.

You sat in the back. Silent.

She talked about laws, reforms, the trauma of the system. Cold. Clear. Brilliant. No one else saw her, but you recognized the small gestures — the way she twisted the ring around her finger, the slight tension in her jaw as she controlled herself from saying too much.

She knew you were there. She didn't look. But she knew.

Later, at the cocktail party, she approached. A glass of wine in her hand. The same short nails, the same practiced coldness on her face.

“It’s good to see you still involved in this.” she said, as if she were talking to anyone else. As if she didn't know your sleepy breath against her chest at 3 in the morning.

“Someone has to keep going.” you replied. And smiled. Not out of politeness. Out of defense.

“You have a different look in your eyes.” she commented, as if observing an old painting that has been retouched.

“Everyone changes.” you replied. “Or you intend well enough.”

She nodded. She looked away. A silence settled between you. And it was more honest than any words.

“Are you... okay?” she asked, without looking you in the eye.

"I'm functional. And you?"

“Same.”

There was no irony. Don't try to move. Just a direct, practical exchange between two people who had learned to wear the armor perfectly.

“You didn’t answer my last email, months ago.” She said it casually, but there was something in her voice that betrayed the weight of the sentence.

“I thought you didn’t need an answer.”

“Maybe you didn’t.” She said, and took another sip.

Silence again.

You could talk about anything. Politics, justice, literature. Except about you.

Because talking about the subject of “us” would require naming what still existed. And naming would be reviving. And reliving it… was dangerous.

“Are you back here for good?” you risked asking.

Alex shook her head. "I don't know what 'for good' means anymore. I'm here for now."

“‘For now’ is almost always enough to mess everything up again.”

She let out a low laugh. It wasn't humorous. It was the laugh of someone who understood perfectly.

"Don't worry. I didn't come to mess anything up."

“I’m not worried.”

“Of course not.”

Another pause.

Outside, the rain was starting to patter softly against the windows of the lobby. She looked at the door.

"I have to go. I still have an early flight tomorrow."

“Sure.”

She held out her hand. That formal gesture. Distant.

You touched her hand for two seconds longer than you should have. She didn't flinch. But she didn't react either.

“It was good to see you,” she said.

“You too.” You lied. Or not.

She turned and walked away.

She didn't look back.

But she didn't need to.

Some stories end without screams, without tears, without dramatic final scenes. Some stories just remain there — beneath the surface — like a crack in the glass: discreet, almost invisible, but impossible to ignore.

And maybe yours is one of those.

[agaricus-bitorquis]

PVP CIVILIZATION SPOILERS

Tabi ended her story at rock bottom. I feel like it was really glossed over, but we really have seen her just going lower and lower into this pit and the finale shows her, finally, at her worst.

Sure, no one was really left in a good position, but all Tabi wanted was Good for her people. Was she doing something right? No, not at all. I don't agree with her approach. However that approach is all she's known and she had Clown on her side constantly pushing her towards this brutal and cut-throat way of living and getting revenge for the Axes. She sort of knew what she was doing was wrong, and that she didn't agree with it, but did it because it meant that her civilization and the clearly LARGE amount of people unecessarily lost during it would be avenged.

But then, by the finale, she lost her civilization. She can never go back to the one place she's ever known as home, and not just that she has been permenatly exiled from her home by the very people she was trying to Save basically. Everything she did was for no reason because in the end she's now not just disgraced from her Family, Friends and Civilization for something that was never ever true, but is actively a Kill on Sight now. She has to participate in a fight that she should never have to fight in.

That's just the first point. There's then the reason why she's in that situation, Clown. Clown clearly played a very crucial part in her support system for a long time, that's how he was able to get inside her head and get her to help 'him'. She probably would have jumped off a cliff if he asked her to, and he exploited her desperation - and now she has to come to terms with all that, and more, while he runs away from her and kills himself. She gets no closure, she can't scream or shout at him, she can't even kill him if she wanted.

She's forced to never be able to actually confront him, live with the guilt of seeing not one but two people in their last moments, but also live the rest of her life thinking that Clown never actually cared about her and used her for what seems to be a large majority of her life.

(Which, I do think he did care, however he didn't care enough. I think maybe he was just a bit dissolusioned with the fact that he was using Tabi after a certain amount of time. Clown is very complicated and could be his whole own post.)

'But she has Evbo!' Sure, she kinda does, but is that enough? He isn't exactly around enough to provide enough support for her and he also hasn't had the best time this season. Is it getting better? Yeah. But there's a lot going on still. I also hate to point it out but being with Evbo means living in the sword civilization with people who will never fully trust her and may never truly accept her, and people who she will never fully trust and actually may never trust in general. She is very lonely, and probably scared if I had to guess for a lot of reasons.

Tabi is lonely. She barely has Evbo and no one else knows her or trusts her. She really doesn't have much left for her. She never 'wins', and each time she's close to a win it's ripped from her hands and we are shown this time and time again.

I'm not saying Evbo didn't suffer, I'm saying that Tabi is still suffering while Evbo gets to find some kind of peace.

[fallofthecelestial]

Okay. Since we're going over all the takes on Mr. X at this point.. What if his powers really don't have a backside. What if (the state of) his normal life is the backside.

What if his normal life is akin to that of heroes where he has to pretend to be something he's not and follow rules that the people who control his life came up with to further their own goals. What if he can only be free of other people's beliefs and expectations when he's a hero.

What if in reality he truly is like everyone else. The other heroes. The ordinary people. All those who work themselves to the bone, who are tired and overworked and sick of all the exploitation...

What if when he's in the form of the number one hero.. when he becomes the most sought after product on the hero market..

Is when he gains the freedom to truly be himself

[mukuroom]

i cant work pixiv surely im doing something wrong