#I did these a while ago. long tags sorry but how else am i supposed to tell you how im doing lately | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mayullla · 9 months

Text

Title: Forever a Lost Heart

Character(s): Pantalone (Genshin Impact) Summary: Pantalone came back home after a long time to find his lovely wife sleeping soundly. Warnings/tags: Yandere themes, fem!reader, not really Stockholm syndrome but reader has given up for a long time now, imprisonment, forced marriage

Note: .....*also confused* why did I delete the previous ask a long time ago T-T I apologize i am not the best at explaining back then (even now tbf ;-;)... but anyway still hope you like this lil fic! I am really happy with this one! Also had to repost this cause i made a huge mistake in deleting the original TvT yeahhhh sorry about that...

[ - A little present~! Event - Closed - ]

It wasn't a marriage out of love. Your parents were so blinded by money, and fame forced you to marry a harbinger when he had given them a certain offer for a more luxurious life in exchange for their lovely daughter.

You.

You felt nothing more than cattle in the market, sold by your "owners," and in the next moment in the hands of someone else. Except this one was dressed it as if it was something romantic.

"Dear, how was your sleep?" Your eyes fluttered open at the voice as you looked around the dark room. Sleep still in your eyes. You forced yourself to wake up, using your arms to push yourself from the soft fabric of the bed. "You are back?" It wasn't supposed to sound like a question.

You didn't think he would come back so soon.

It has been a few days since he left, busy when the Tsaritsa summoned him for something related to one of the harbingers. "You don't sound all that please dear." It wasn't a question, as Pantalone placed a hand on your face. His gloved hand felt cold and lifeless to your cheek.

You shook your head, denying his words. Moving your hands to hold his as you lean more into his palm, closing your eyes as if comforted by his presence. "No. I am glad you are back..."

"How sweet of my love."

Yet hidden within your heart, he was correct. You didn't miss him, for the days when he was away were like a paradise for you. An empty and hollow paradise but still a paradise away from something that wanted to eat you whole. You hummed on his hand, a soft smile on your lips.

"Hmmm... you are such a doll, dear. So compliant." Pantalone chuckled, rubbing his thumb lightly on your cheek. "Did you watch over the mansion while I was away?" You nodded again. It was something that kept your mind away from the feeling of hopelessness and away from any punishments.

"Yes, I did."

"What else did you do while I was away? Did you get the gifts that I sent to you? I bought the most beautiful dresses and gems that would match your beauty. Thought nothing really is beautiful as my dove." Reminded of the boxes that the servants brought you nodded. Expensive jewels and dresses, shoes, and handbags, he had sent you many things, some of which you personally liked.

But all still useless things, they are nothing but stones and clothes, something that could never truly give you what you really wanted.

"You shouldn't lie, my dear." Ah, it seems that you didn't watch your face... it was your mistake after all you just woke up still tired from your sleep. You didn't realize your mistake until it was too late when he held your cheeks to make you look at him with such softness when his eyes had none.

"A wife should never lie to her husband, nor should she. You were always a great actress. Many outside this mansion believe that you truly love me. And quite a few misunderstood your sadness as loneliness away from her husband." His voice was sharp as he forced your face closer to his. You stared at his eyes, your own widening startled a little before returning back.

It wasn't a surprise at all that he knew. He was just too smart, for things to be kept simple.

"Were you planning on running away, dear? When I finally have my guard down around you, you could finally sneak away from me?" He innocently asked, as if he was he was accusing you. Staying still for a moment, looking down then to his eyes as you held on his wrist with a light touch, you shook your head. Well, as much as you could.

No, it wasn't like that... You had long given up ever escaping what faith had given you ever since you were born. A puppet created by your parents you were just handed over to another who could control your strings just as well.

It was something that came easy to you somehow... even if you wanted that freedom, the fear of what would happen when you stepped outside your boundary shook your heart. You didn't love your husband, but his obsession was far better than the love your parents showed to you.

"I am sorry... I just... I just feel lonely." You told him softly.

You were tired of being a doll, yet you hesitate to go out unable to find the courage to do so. If this was something of a healthy relationship maybe you could have changed for the better, but alas you didn't even have that when you were kissed by the side of your forehead by the man who softly held your face again.

"It seems that I was the reason that you have become like this. I am sorry to have left you alone for so long because of work, you have waited so patiently for me. Thank you, dear." Taking your hand, he kissed the back of your hand, the lingering warmth still there even after his lips parted away.

Your husband always knew how to twist things to his liking, how your words were twisted to his own pleasure.

"The Tsaritsa had asked me to head to Monstade soon after some rest, for some dealing over there. I wish to take you with me. My dear has been lonely for so long that it is only proper that we have some time together." Pantalone expression never changed as he rubbed your cheeks gently, his other hand holding yours. "Is there something you wished to do there, dear?"

Your eyes widen just a small bit at his words. Surprised that he was offering you finally to go out while you knew that you would never be able to leave his sight the idea of finally being able to leave the window as you watch the snow fall every minute made your heart light with hope. It was a foreign feeling something that Pantalone definitely noticed when his own smile widened just a little bit more.

Moving your hands as you took his that was holding yours, you moved it to your cheek, rubbing it affectionately as you kissed the back of his hand. "Yes... That would be lovely."

"I see that my sweetheart wishes to join me. I will have the preparations done and make it so that you will have a comfortable ride to Monstade." Pantalone stated as he watched your affections, finding it so amusing.

"It has been far too long since we have been in each other company outside. The last one was the honeymoon trip to Fontaine, but we didn't even do much then." Pantalone mumbled, a small smile gracing his lips again when an idea popped into his head, "Yes... let's do that."

You closed your eyes when he started combing your hair, uncaring to what he had in plan. His hand was gentle with you hair, as you dreamed about the dandelions and sunny skies.

718 notes · View notes

siriusleee · 10 months

Text

a better year

a/n: i linked this one to ao3 a week or so ago, but i figured i'd do it now i'm procrastinating the next chapter to adamantine chains lmao this is my take on the bookstore au tags: mentions of sex but nothing explicit, cursing, signs of ptsd, , original female character, retirement from the military, bookstore au 6.7k words summary: He takes her shoes off of her while she insists she can do that herself. He slips the right one off when the fireworks go off outside; the entire town is bathed in their light. "Midnight," she says as Simon rises up on one knee in front of her, ready to tell her goodbye and good night. She kisses him over the mask. She doesn't mention it the next day.

The official order rolled in on plain white paper, an unceremonious carrier of his future. He was the first to go: a sign that the team was being unraveled slowly. After all, they're not young men anymore.

"You'll receive your pension; it's enough that you shouldn't have to work again. And we've made sure that you have an official background. It's not much, but it's what we can do."

Laswell doesn't move her eyes from his, her fingers clutching a pen so hard her knuckles are white.

"It's for the best Simon," she says, setting the pen down carefully on her desk, "and if it makes you feel better: everyone will be released soon. I'm sorry."

He's not dumb; he knows these things only last so long. Forced retirement is something to be celebrated - celebrated that he lived long enough to have one, celebrated that his body isn't rotting in some foreign country, a home for worms. Celebrated that the 141 made it out mostly intact. Mostly together.

Johnny claps him on the back and promises that when Laswell brings him that paper when Johnny gets his own forced retirement, he'll come to find Simon.

Simon doesn't stay in England - he doesn't like the way the gray settles around him. He leaves the apartment Laswell set up for him untouched, a note for Johnny for where to find him.

He finds a small house to rent somewhere in the American Southwest, spitting distance of Alejandro's territory. It crosses his mind more than once to make the trip across the border, to see how Alejandro's doing; to see if Rudy is still scared of fantasmas .

But he isn't a fantasma anymore; he's just Simon Riley.

And it's just Simon Riley who paces the aisles of her bookstore, trying to find something to take his mind off of the fact that he is utterly and completely bored.

"This is the third time you've been here this month. I'm not putting you into debt am I?"

Her accent is different from everyone else's in town - still decidedly American, just not from here American. Simon ignores her, his eyes focused on the row of books in front of him. She sighs heavily, but drops it, leaving him behind to stock the end cap. Last week's murder mysteries replaced by this week's contemporary romances.

"I need to lock up you know - I can't stay here all night." She speaks as if it's not odd that Simon only comes in on Thursday nights - the only night of the week she stays open late to rearrange the end cap displays, to vacuum the floors to perfection.

"You haven't even cleaned the windows yet," Simon replies, pulling a fantasy book from the shelf: something about a world full of malicious fairies and a secret world beneath New York. It's something new.

"For your information, I did that before you got here," she says, pushing herself up from the floor with a groan. "And I have a life. I can't sit here all night and wait for you to pick a random book off the shelf."

"I never said you didn't."

Simon places the book as she dips behind the counter, a lukewarm cup of coffee left beside the cash register. She drinks from it, wincing at the taste as she rings the book up.

"That'll be seventeen forty-five."

Simon gives her a twenty and she breaks the change, counting out how many pennies he's supposed to have on her fingers.

"You going to be back next week?"

"Why?"

"I want to close early next Thursday; I need to know if my best customer is going to be here or not."

Simon doesn't speak as he takes the plastic bag from her hands. She waits for him, eyes never leaving his as she sips her coffee, waiting on him to answer.

"I can come by Friday instead."

"I'm closed Fridays."

"What about Wednesday?"

"I can stay late Wednesday."

He leaves her with just a crinkle of the plastic bag and the chime above the door.

***

He spends too much time at the gym ignoring Johnny's text messages. Johnny tells him Price was next - swearing that he was going to retire to the countryside where he can smoke his cigars in peace. Maybe find himself a nice girl to cook him dinner every now and then.

His fingers hover over the buttons, almost messaging Price to tell him congratulations. But Simon's not sure it really is.

He's alone at night; no one's in the gym at two in the morning. No one's there to watch the way he slams the weights down when he's done or hear the way he gasps for breath after lifting too heavy - the tear in his chest that never quite healed right burning him from the inside.

The walk home is quick; the stars shine brighter than anything he'd ever seen in England. The closest he ever got to seeing them like this was in the Middle East, but he hardly noticed the stars then. He wasn't expecting to be left looking up.

He sits in the shower at home. He can't stand the way the water hits his skin, but can't stand the idea of sitting in the water either. So he stays huddled in the corner of the bathtub, the water barely touching him.

Simon Riley thinks about death.

He thinks about what would happen if he died right now.

He thinks about what it's like to die twice.

***

The door is locked when he comes by Wednesday; he feels foolish standing there with his hand still pulling on the door, knowing it won't open beneath his touch. Foolish to think that she would-

Foolish when his heart ticks a beat as she comes around the corner. Foolish when he steps inside just a second after she unlocks the door.

"Sorry, my last employee must have locked the door on their way out. So did you like last week's book?"

"It was alright."

The silence is almost awkward as she locks the door behind him.

"Let me know when you're ready. I just made coffee in that pot behind the counter; you can have some if you want. I shouldn't drink it all myself."

She leaves him behind to disappear into the store room. He paces the aisles aimlessly, waiting for something to jump out at him. It's quiet tonight; the music that's usually playing softly over the speakers is absent. Simon can hear her through the storeroom wall moving boxes around, the sound of a box cutter piercing the quiet every so often.

She reappears, a box in her arms that she drops heavily onto the counter. Simon watches her over the bookshelf of non-fiction works as she pulls each book out, scans it into the computer, and stacks them on the counter

When the box is empty, she breaks it down and leaves it on the counter. She looks up, almost catching Simon staring at her. He ducks away, taking a book on the Korean War with him. At the counter, she can barely see him over the stack of books in front of her.

"Last week was fantasy and this week is the Korean War? You certainly have varied tastes."

Simon hands over the fifteen twenty-two he owes her, her hands linger in the distance between them.

"Do you have a job?"

"What?"

Simon's taken aback at her candor. I used to have a job he thinks, as he pockets his change.

"No, I don't."

"Do you want one? I need a weekend worker. It's just me on Saturdays and Sundays now my other guy quit to go to college. I can't pay you a ton, but I kind of get the feeling you don't need it."

He falters for a moment; that's all it takes. If he's being honest with himself, he misses taking orders, missing feeling useful to someone.

"I can do that."

"Can you start this Saturday?"

"I can do that."

She's locked the door behind him before he realizes they don't even know each other's names.

***

Her name's Billy.

"What's your name; I probably should have asked that before I hired you."

Simon doesn't answer, placing the box down slowly before he answers. It's odd, telling someone his name. His real name.

"It's Simon. Simon Riley."

She looks him over, elbows resting on the counter.

"What?"' He asks, uncomfortable under her x-ray analysis of him.

"Just didn't peg you for a Simon. You know with your general countenance; the mask and all that."

She doesn't ask why he has the mask on. Simon gets the feeling that she never will.

She works him like a dog; he's moving some of the shelves around when he thinks that this is probably the reason her last employee quit. It's like being ordered around by Price again, but this time his enemy is the dust. He doesn't stop moving until well after noon; sweat gathering in the small of his back. In her office, Billy is on the phone, yelling indistinctly at the person on the other line.

He doesn't have to watch her to know she's angry when she slams the phone down. He expects her to storm out of her office, to slam the door shut behind her. But she doesn't. When she comes out she's calm.

On Sunday she shows him how the books are organized, and she has him switch around the genres.

"Romance sells best during the spring, and mystery best in the fall and winter. So we need to pull the mystery books up to this front aisle and move the romance towards the back. These shelves roll so they're easier to move."

She's meticulous; Simon moves the same shelf four times before it's lined up exactly where she wants it. His constellation prize: cash wages handed to him at the end of the day.

"No paycheck?"

Her nails tap against the counter, the white paint chipped.

"I haven't processed your paperwork yet. I can take the money back if you want."

Simon pockets it.

They lock up together. It's warm outside, but she still tugs a hoodie over herself whenever she finishes, tucking her keys into the pocket.

It's a complete coincidence that they set off in the same direction.

Simon wants a cigarette; his fingers itch for the pack in his pocket. But she'd said earlier in the day that the smell was disgusting and she couldn't breathe whenever someone with cigarette smoke on them passed her by.

They split up two blocks away from the bookstore. She motions up to the upstairs apartment of a shitty duplex. It's not the kind of place he expected her to be in.

"This is me. I'll see you next Saturday right?"

"I'll be there."

"Good night Simon."

She doesn't wait for him to say anything; not that he would have known what to say. She's up the stairs and inside (she didn't unlock the door; he has to restrain himself from going upstairs to tell her to lock it next time) before he can think of anything to say.

He smokes a cigarette at the bottom of her stairs; watches the outline of her against the curtains in her window. A fat black cat peers down at him, peers down at the cherry of Simon's cigarette in the darkness. The street lamp is burnt out, the shadows dark. He stubs the cigarette out on the sole of his boot and throws the cigarette butt out in the street.

He's almost certain she'd chide him for that - the same way she did a kid who had the audacity to throw a cigarette down in front of her shop.

His apartment is extra cold when he gets home.

***

"Maybe Price has it right: a life in the countryside. A pretty girl to cook you a few meals. Maybe a dog to curl up at your feet," Johnny drones on the other end of the line. Simon doesn't answer, his focus on cutting the potatoes in front of him into meticulous cubes. Johnny doesn't need him to speak.

"What about you L.T.? What have you been up to?"

"I'm not a lieutenant anymore Johnny."

"You'll always be L.T. to me. And don't ignore the question."

Simon drops the potatoes into a pot, waiting on the answer to unstick from the back of his throat.

"Not much. I go to the gym a lot."

He doesn't tell Johnny how he has to break his gun down and put it back together three times each night before he can sleep.

"That it?"

"I'm working at a bookstore."

"A bookstore! A few months out and you're domesticated."

"Watch it, Johnny."

A pause.

"I have to go L.T.. Gaz is yelling at me."

Their goodbye is the silence that follows.

***

Billy's arguing with a customer when he arrives Saturday morning.

"Listen, dude, I don't care what price you want to pay. This is my business and I set the prices. If you don't like it, you're not being forced to come here."

The customer drops it when Simon steps behind the counter.

"I hate that guy," Billy tells him as she hands him a box cutter. "He comes in every week and tries to get me to lower my prices. It's a bookstore; I'm not getting rich off of this. I can't afford that. Anyway-"

She sweeps her hair behind her shoulders. Simon catches a hint of a tattoo behind her right ear and a glint of cold chain disappearing beneath her shirt.

"Finals are coming up for the local community college so I had two different study groups book the tables in here today. They're usually pretty good, we just have to make sure to keep the coffee pot refilled for them because they'll drink it dry. It's $5 if they want coffee - per person don't let them try to swindle us - but they can refill it as much as they want."

Her fingers tap against the counter. Her nails are blue this week.

"If they ask about selling us their textbooks, tell them to come back next week. I have a shipment of children's books coming in - you can sign for it if I'm busy. Do I need to show you how to use the cash register or can you figure it out?"

"I can figure it out."

"Ok. The code is 4532. For now, do you mind breaking down the boxes in the back room and taking them to the dumpster? It's hard for me to reach to open up the dumpster lid."

She doesn't wait for him to answer before she disappears into the back room.

This Saturday is busy.

Simon's about to snap at a kid who won't shut up about how the comic section is too small when Billy appears beside him.

"I'll take over here Simon. There's lunch in the back room."

He's thankful for her in that moment.

He's more thankful when the storeroom shuts behind him and locks. The table has a small bag with his name written on it. A sandwich from the deli across the street and a bottle of water inside.

There are no tomatoes on the sandwich.

Just like he always orders it.

***

He smokes a cigarette again outside her apartment. But this time he tucks the butt back into the pack. He'll throw it away at home.

***

"I want to put a coffee shop in here," Billy tells him when the store is slow. She traces the right side of the store with her fingers.

"And I want to open the shop up earlier and stay open later."

"Why don't you?" Simon asks without looking up from his task of the day: putting 'half-priced' stickers on books that aren't selling well.

"I'm not making enough money. I have just enough to pay you and my weekday employee and the overhead cost of this place, plus pay myself. There's not any extra coming in. The bank-," she pauses, red nails scraping at a piece of tape on the counter, "the bank is willing to give me a loan on the coffee shop stuff - the machines and all that - but I don't have the money for the renovations. My contractor told me he'd have to build the cabinets, open up the drywall and put an extension on our water pipe. A water filter needs to be installed. It's just - it's just a lot."

She slides the stack of books he's already put stickers on off of the counter and into her arms.

"Maybe next year."

***

The next time Johnny calls, Simon can hear the strain in his voice.

"It's my turn L.T.. Laswell said I failed the psychological and I can't stay."

"You going to keep good on your promise to come to be my annoying neighbor Johnny."

"Not yet. I want to go home to my mom for a little bit. Maybe next year L.T.."

"Next year's going to be a big year I guess," Simon says more to himself.

"What's that L.T.?"

"Nothing Johnny. We should be happy we made it out."

Simon knows Johnny's not happy: not happy he never received the rank he wanted, not happy he has to go back home and take care of his mom again.

"You're right L.T.. I'll call you again when I'm home. How's the bookstore thing?"

"It's going alright. Bye, Johnny."

"Bye."

In the silence after the call, Simon thinks he should get a cat. Something to make the apartment less quiet; something to give him purpose when he's there.

Something that won't crawl all over him at the end of the day.

***

He needs something to do with his hands.

That's what he tells Billy when she arrives at the store on Saturday morning and Simon's ripping up a portion of the carpet, a stack of flooring waiting to be installed.

"So you have to do it when I'll have customers here?"

"Tell them it's a new addition; they'll be alright."

"I'm not paying you extra for this."

"I didn't ask you to."

Billy looks at him, one foot tapping a sharp staccato muffled by the carpet.

"Fine."

She pauses for a moment, Simon's knife running down the carpet to separate it from the floor beneath. She picks up one of the pieces of flooring, turning it over in her hand.

"What is this?"

"It's vinyl. It's waterproof in case you spill something."

Billy drops the plank back onto the stack and leaves to unlock the front door.

Simon revels in the way his shoulders burn at the work, the way the rough concrete scratches his knuckles once everything is pulled off the floor and he has to start laying down the underflooring. He revels in the way his back cramps as he's bent over.

In the way he feels useful.

It takes him all day to get half the flooring down.

Billy doesn't speak to him about it, doesn't ask where he got the money from, or why he's suddenly doing free renovations on the place.

Simon knows she appreciates it by the way she drops down his lunch - no tomatoes, just a water to drink- beside him without expecting a thank you. By the way, she chides the little kids who come over to ask him a million and one questions, he doesn't know how to answer and brushes them away from him.

She catches him smoking in the back alley on his break. She's polite enough to turn back when she realizes he has his mask down and keeps her back turned to him.

"That shit's going to kill you."

"It can only hope."

Simon can tell she's giving him a withering look at him from her position half inside the doorway.

"If you come in smelling like that cancerous poison I'm not going to talk to you for the rest of the day."

He must smell because she doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day, not even saying goodbye when they depart at her apartment.

Simon hides the cigarettes in a drawer when he gets home.

***

It's Price that reaches out to him first, a quick phone call, a holdover from their days in the field.

"Are you holding up?"

Not "how are you holding up?", but "are you holding up?" The difference between three letters is so vast Simon doesn't know how to cross it.

"I'm doing fine."

"Johnny told me you've got a job?"

"Just something to keep me occupied."

"Is that all you've got?"

"What more do I need?"

The receiver is filled with the sound of Price inhaling a cigar; Simon can almost smell him through the receiver.

"You're not Ghost anymore Simon. It takes more than that to survive this."

Survive this . As if this is the most dangerous mission Simon's ever been on as if being forcibly retired has some sort of great mortality rate.

"Understood."

He listens to Price's dial tone for five minutes before he hangs up.

Maybe it does.

***

He paces the town at night. Once the gym doesn't become enough to wear him out, doesn't help his brain relax, he walks the streets.

He thinks more than once that someone is going to call the cops on him and report him for being suspicious.

But Simon Riley isn't Ghost anymore. Simon Riley is someone not worth noticing.

It's almost surprising how well the little town sleeps with the remnants of Ghost stalking through it; how now one seems to have any idea of what he was once - and still is - capable of.

He steals a lot of time sitting on people's steps, on the stoops of little houses, picking the petals off of the flowers in big pots, and lining up the shoes and toys that were left disarrayed in the chaos of the daytime. He wonders if someone is going to catch him on their security camera and name him the town freak, but no one does.

He keeps up at it enough that he can feel the shift in the air, feel winter creeping in. He notices it in the way more and more boots are left outside, by the plants with plastic coverings over them, protecting them.

He finds himself, more often than not, taking the long way around to stop at the bottom stairs of Billy's apartment. Most nights the lights are off, and the window open. He wants to tell her to stop doing that, to lock the window, but he doesn't know how to say it without giving away his nights. So instead he keeps watch, hands buried in his pockets as he counts the moths in the streetlights.

Sometimes though the lights are on and he can hear the sound of her house through the open window. Sometimes the cat peers down at him as if prepared to leap through the window screen at him - sometimes she grabs the cat, never looking down at Simon; more often than not the cat curls up in the windowsill without budging.

A few times he could hear her talking to someone, the conversation muffled from above. He wondered about who she could be talking to so late at night. Why she was up in the middle of the night to talk to someone?

He makes his way home as the town starts to wake up.

***

He moves once - to a tiny house in the middle of town, just enough to have a yard big enough to cross in two strides.

He tells Johnny it's because he was tired of the noises of the neighbors.

He tells Johnny it's because he's taken up woodworking and needs a spot for the tools.

"What are you building you old bastard?"

"Some cabinets."

"For what?"

"Mind your own business, Johnny."

It takes weeks to get them perfect. Eventually, though, they're good enough to put in the back of a rented truck.

He does it on a Friday when no one is around. He tells himself that it's easier that way, no one walking underfoot.

That night he lets himself admit - just for a moment as he sits on the shower floor - that he didn't want to see her face if she's disappointed by it.

***

She refuses to open the door for him the next day, opting to yell at him through the glass instead.

"You cannot keep making renovations to my store without asking me!"

"It's no big deal; open the door."

"No big deal: you put a floor down, you handbuild cabinets, and you broke into my store to install them!"

"You gave me a key."

"Not for that!"

It's a stalemate: Simon poised with his hand on the door handle, her hands tucked into the pocket of her jacket.

"I still have to do the plumbing."

She massages her eyes before leaning forward to turn the lock. Simon steps inside with the biting wind.

"You're fucking irritating, Simon Riley."

I know .

She makes him put up the Christmas tree - a fucking monstrosity that takes up the entire front window. It takes him all day to get the decorations to her standard; her yelling through the store at him to move something incrementally to the left or right.

Billy leans on the counter, shuffling through official-looking papers and refusing to look at Simon when he's finished.

"Thanks to you," she says, never looking up at him, "I have to start getting the paperwork processed to be able to serve food and drinks here."

"Is it difficult?"

"It's not easy."

Their conversation pauses just long enough for her to check out a customer. She turns back to Simon as soon as the door shuts.

"Why are you doing all this Simon?"

He doesn't answer, and he realizes as he stands there, hands folded behind his back and spine rigid that he needs to tell her something, but all he notices is the black ink mark on her cheek. She doesn't pressure him to answer, but she doesn't let her eyes leave him.

Simon breaks first, eyes cast down to the floor.

"Ok," Billy whispers under her breath, "you don't have to answer, but just let me know when you're going to do something else. Can you text me next time before you start?"

"I don't have your number."

She doesn't ask for his phone, instead, she tears a corner of a piece of paper off and scribbles her number on it. Her hands don't shake when she holds the paper out to Simon, but his shake when he takes it. Simon can tell Billy notices. He stuffs the paper into his pocket, pushing it past his keys and his phone.

"Hey, Simon," Billy chews on her lip.

"What?"

"Are you busy tomorrow night?"

***

Johnny's chatting his ear off, Simon's barely paying attention to him as he stares at the shirts thrown out on his bed.

"- L.T.? Simon?"

"What? Johnny, what?"

"Are you even listening?"

"No, Johnny. I'm not."

The static of Johnny's disapproval.

"What could be distracting you from my wonderful conversation?"

"I'm busy Johnny."

"With what?"

"Nothing Johnny. I just have somewhere to be later - I'm trying to get ready for dinner."

"Dinner? Like with someone else?"

Simon hangs up on him.

***

Simon wants to pretend that he doesn't have the path to her house memorized; doesn't have each step calculated to know when exactly to stand on the bottom step at 6:59 so that he can knock on her door right at 7. But he does, so he hovers on the bottom step for an extra minute.

She doesn't answer when he knocks; she yells through the door for him to come in. In his pocket his phone buzzes every few seconds, Johnny sends another message insisting that Simon tell him who he's eating dinner with. Simon thinks for a moment about blocking his number for the night.

Billy smiles at him from behind the counter, elbow-deep in bread dough. All at once, Simon feels overdressed taking in the large shirt covered in flour Billy's wearing.

"Hey. Sorry, dinner's going to be like 30 minutes later than I said. I couldn't get this shit to rise properly for like an hour."

"It's alright."

Billy must sense his apprehension because she jerks her head at a chair pulled up to the counter.

"Come sit down."

Simon appreciates the order. Billy rolls the dough out on the counter, measuring the thickness with her knuckle with a precision Simon would expect out of her. He has to keep himself from staring at her; instead, he analyzes the rest of the apartment.

He can see everything but the bedroom from his one spot; that door is firmly shut. It's clean but the type of clean houses have whenever someone new is coming over and everything is thrown into a closet. After a few minutes, Simon thinks he needs to speak.

"What are you making?"

"Rolls. I made - uh - what is the fancy word for it - beef bourgine?"

"Beef bourguignon?"

Billy smiles down at the dough as she cuts squares out.

"I'm glad one of us can say it - I can cook, I just can't speak French."

"Do you always cook like this?"

"Only on special occasions."

Special occasions .

It's awkward at first for Simon to sit there while she moves about the kitchen, putting the rolls in the oven and cleaning the counter; Billy doesn't speak much and Simon knows she doesn't feel the need to fill the silence either.

His phone buzzes again - under the counter he checks it.

Johnny:

don't leave me hanging lt tell me whos it is

"Your girlfriend?" Billy teases without turning to look at Simon from the other side of the kitchen.

"Not exactly," Simon says, muting the phone and shoving it back in his pocket.

"Do you have one?" Her voice is prying, but she doesn't look at Simon as she pulls bowls down from the cabinet.

"A girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

It bubbles inside him - just once - the urge to tell her about himself . He swallows it down.

"No."

"Not even back home?"

"Back home?"

She grins at him slyly, setting two glasses of water down in front of the two of them.

"Why do you think I have to keep paying you in cash? Your um….paperwork didn't exactly list you as being an employable American. And you have - you know - an accent."

Simon doesn't realize he's leaning toward her until his elbows hit the counter.

"No, not back home."

She seems satisfied by that answer - or she doesn't have time to ask anything else. Behind her the oven timer beeps and she turns to pull the rolls out. They're barely out of the oven whenever she ladles the stew into the bowls and pulls two rolls off one for each of them.

Pushing the bowl towards Simon she opens her mouth - Simon thinks she's going to ask something else but she just shakes her head.

"I'm going to eat over there, so you can eat too," she says passing him a fork.

"No cameras?"

"None you can see."

She retreats to the other side of the room and drops down on the couch so that she's facing away from him. Muffled behind a door to the right, Simon can hear her cat meow once.

They eat in silence; Simon knows she's only eating slowly to give him time to finish without her accidentally turning to see his face. He doesn't need it: he realizes he hasn't had a meal that hasn't consisted of a sandwich or some form of potatoes in weeks; he eats fast, slowing down just as he finishes to keep from embarrassing himself.

He sets the bowl down with enough dramatics that she can tell he's done without having to turn around. It's quiet again when she comes into the kitchen and takes his bowl to rinse it out in the sink. The sound of the water makes his skin crawl; it clashes with the domestic feeling of being taken care of.

She laughs quietly to herself as she dries her hands on her shirt, lifting it up just enough to expose the little shorts she has on underneath.

"Something funny?"

"Not really funny," she says, hands stilling in her shirt, "I don't know - it just - I - well it's about this time of dinner that guys usually try to take me to the bedroom. I was just thinking about how different this night would be with anyone else."

With anyone else .

That bothers him some.

"I don't suppose that's what you came here for," she grins at him as she speaks, resting her elbows on the counter. "Besides we don't even know each other."

"We work with each other every weekend," Simon retorts, not sure why he feels the need to prove her wrong.

"And we barely speak the entire time."

She points at him, her bright yellow nails glinting in the light.

"I've never seen you in anything other than long sleeves, even on the hottest day. You could have like fucking tentacles under there and I wouldn't know. And you don't even know anything about me."

For once, Simon doesn't think - he does.

He pushes his sleeves up slowly, each one nearly to his elbow. Billy leans forward, just enough to see the tattoo ink and scars that mar his forearms. Her fingers twitch against the countertop like she wants to reach out and touch him, but they stay still.

"Do you - do you only have tattoos on your arms?"

Simon reaches up to hook one finger in his collar and pulls it down just a half inch - just enough to show her the ink there.

"Your turn," Simon says, dropping his hand down. Under the counter, it lies fisted on his thigh.

"My turn?" Billy asks eyebrow cocked at him.

"Do you have any tattoos?"

She licks her lips once; Simon can see her thinking. After a pause she reaches down to grab the edge of her shirt - Simon's heart clenches. She lifts the hem up, just enough to show him the edge of a tattoo on her side, disappearing beneath her shorts and rising above where she lifted. She laughs a little as she drops the shirt.

"Is that all we need to know about each other?"

"It's a start."

***

He finally tells her he was in the military four Sundays after the first one. She'd told him at work she was too tired to cook and apologized, promising to make it up to him. So when he showed up at her door with a pizza and a promise that he was just dropping it off on his way home, he was surprised when she asked him to come in.

Each week they coaxed something new out of each other: a snippet about their families, about their travels. He loves Kentucky; she's from the East Coast. Her father died young. He's from England.

She's curled up in the recliner the cat on her stomach - they're watching something on television but they're both not really paying attention to it. So he blurts it out - a new confession in this weekly therapy.

"I was in the military."

"I guessed. The British Armed Forces?"

"The SAS."

She frowns and Simon stiffens.

"Is that like a unit or something?"

"Yeah."

This time she grins.

"Is that why you always lock my door behind you when you come in?"

"No. I do it because you never know who could come in when you're alone."

"You mean when you're not here."

Yes.

"No."

She rolls over, clutching the cat to her chest so as to not dump him on the floor until her feet hang over the arm and she can eyeball Simon across the room.

"I can shoot straight."

"Can you?"

***

She can. She takes him through the desert on Friday afternoon, bundled up against the cold. Out where they can target practice without anyone bothering them.

She hits every target.

***

"Christmas is this weekend."

"Yeah."

"So you know we're closed right? I'm not paying you time and a half."

A pause longer than he's used to.

"Are you doing anything for Christmas?"

"No."

"Do you want to come over?"

***

She makes Chinese on Christmas. A tradition she says because when she was younger the only places open were Chinese restaurants and her dad couldn't cook. They didn't have real dinners until she learned to cook herself, but it was always Chinese on Christmas.

The cat has a bell around its neck for the holiday and it latches onto Simon for the night. She wrinkles her nose at the cat and calls him a traitor. The cat doesn't seem to care.

"I didn't get you a present," she says, putting her bowl on the coffee table. From his spot in the kitchen, Simon speaks.

"I didn't get you one either."

"Well, you're slowly building me an entire coffee shop."

"That's not present."

"Well, it's not exactly in your job description either."

He leaves his half-eaten bowl on the counter to drop down on the couch. She's sideways in the armchair, shirt riding up and a bruise on her shin. She's back to white nails.

"I can make out with you for Christmas; other guys have liked that present."

Simon's heart nearly stops.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just kidding Si."

Just kidding .

***

She begs and pleads with him to please go out to the bar with her for the new year. He doesn't have to drink, she says, she can drink enough for the both of them.

She does. She doesn't even make it until eleven.

He carries her home on his back. Her door is unlocked and wants to think about how dangerous that is, but all he can think about is her warm breath on his neck.

He drops her unceremoniously onto the couch - he thinks about carrying her to the bedroom, but that's one place the door has always been shut to.

He does take her shoes off of her while she insists she can do that herself. He slips the right one off when the fireworks go off outside; the entire town is bathed in their light.

"Midnight," she says as Simon rises up on one knee in front of her, ready to tell her goodbye and good night.

She kisses him over the mask.

She doesn't mention it the next day.

***

By summer, Simon has the entire cafe portion of the store finished. He's embarrassed when she hangs a sign over the area: 'Simon's Spot'.

"What?" She asks, peering down at him from the top of the ladder. "You built it."

***

He breaks during the summer. Billy calls him on a Tuesday, asking if he knows anything about air conditioning systems.

"You built the cafe, so I know you're handy."

He doesn't. But he can figure it out.

After hours the bookstore is sweltering. Billy has the blinds pulled down in a futile attempt to keep out some of the heat and the setting sun. Her shirt, already cropped short, clings to her with sweat when she unlocks the front door for Simon.

It takes him two hours but he figures it out. When it kicks on she looks up at him, one arm resting on his shoulder, and tells him he's her hero.

He makes it all the way to her apartment - the promise of something for dinner and a cold drink as for payment the ruse - before he does it.

It's dark inside, dark enough that when he locks the door behind him, he slips his mask off. She turns to ask him something - he doesn't hear it; he's too busy kissing her, pushing her back against the kitchen cabinet.

It's messy - the kissing - he can't remember the last time he kissed somebody like this - all teeth and tongue and need.

When they stumble into her room, he doesn't take his shirt off, and she doesn't ask why.

***

"Come visit me L.T.. Scotlands beautiful this time of year."

"I'll have to book two tickets Johnny; that's not cheap."

"Alright, you cheap bastard you can afford it."

#my fics #simon riley x reader #simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #ghost cod x reader #cod x reader #cod fanfic #ghost cod

357 notes · View notes

ghostwise · 15 days

Note

touch prompt 13 for your ship of choice!

13. on a falling tear tags: shadowheart/tav, religion, cleric of kelemvor, cleric of shar, hurt/comfort

It’s late, and she’s cried long and hard enough to give herself a headache thrice over. The bed she’s laying in feels more like a coffin; opulence covered in so much dust and death, but after that battle, they needed beds, and Ketheric Thorme’s fortress had plenty.

And yet, they are alive.

It is nothing short of a miracle.

Zirahuén faced Myrkul head-on, and the Lord of Bones lost.

Does this mean something? The Reaper vanquished by Death’s noble defender? Shadowheart recalls the sight of her, shoulders squared, spear aloft before that hollow skull... one almost believes in things like Truth, and Life, and Justice.

Almost.

The pain in her hand flares, sending a white hot bolt up her wrist and all the way to her shoulder. She never expects it when it comes. Her body seizes up, the pain chiding her. It seems to say to her: No home will welcome you. No warm places will find you. That is the truth, betrayer.

Horrible, what a person can withstand.

Shadowheart buries her face into the pillow. The beadwork covering it scratches at her cheeks, but she scarcely notices. Nor does she move when the heavy oak door creaks open, and a delicate weight alights at the foot of the bed.

“Hey.”

Zirahuén’s voice comes in a soft murmur. Shadowheart looks at her.

Claid in a cream-colored tunic and black leggings, she has washed off every last bit of viscera and dirt, but the marks of exhaustion are still visible upon her. Zirahuen’s deep, brown eyes are lined in tension. She’s tired.

“May I keep you company for a while?” she asks, and faced with such a request, Shadowheart is helpless.

“Pillows are a bit shit,” she says as she makes room.

“Hospitable as the man himself,” Zirahuén agrees as she settles in. “How-?”

“Don’t. You know what happens when you ask me that.”

Shadowheart buries her face in Zirahuén’s shoulder. Zirahuén’s arms settle around her. Her tail curves over her hips. Their legs entangle. They’ve learned well how they fit together. This is familiar, when nothing else is.

“It's going to be alright,” Zirahuén whispers, and Shadowheart lets out a frustrated breath.

“You want me to cry.”

“A little catharsis can do wonders.”

“Believe me, there aren’t enough tears that could make this any easier.”

“Easy? No,” Zirahuén says. “This was never going to be easy, love. But I am sorry.”

Damn her. Zirahuén is the easiest person to believe. Shadowheart can be taken by her words and lifted—all too easily at that—but then again, she has always been a holy woman, and now without a goddess to attend to, what else is that faith supposed to do? Where does it all go? She wants to believe something. Her mind misses being so sure, so devoted.

A week ago she would have killed for Shar without question. A week ago, she planned to.

How and when was her belief so thoroughly eroded? And if that was impermanent, what of the rest of her heart and its convictions?

What of Zirahuen’s brown eyes?

Shadowheart is crying again before she realizes it. Zirahuén only embraces her more tightly, and buries her face into her dark hair. “I’m here,” she whispers.

“Why?” is all Shadowheart can muster.

“You know as well as I, there is not always a reason why things happen-”

“No,” Shadowheart interrupts. “Why are you still here with me?”

Tearful, she pulls away, and Zirahuén watches her with only concern in her brown eyes.

“I’ve proved—so changeable. Everything I ever claimed to be or believed to be true was false! At best I can claim ignorance. At worst, I am a liar and fickle as the moon—”

“Shadowheart, no one thinks that of you,” Zirahuén tells her earnestly. “You did something admirable. Our victory would have been impossible without you.”

“Silver linings,” Shadowheart says bitterly. “And believe me, I am glad for my deficits if they led to you being alive and well. But face facts, Zirahuén: I lived my whole life devoted to Shar, and threw it away in an instant. What’s left if I so easily threw away my whole identity? Who’s to say I won’t do this again? To our allies? To you?”

At this, Zirahuén looks very serious. She purses her lips and her brow furrows as she gives Shadowheart a look that is so engaging, so exacting, Shadowheart almost wants to turn away. Another tear spills down her cheek as she meets Zirahuén’s gaze.

“You,” Zirahuén says very slowly and carefully, “were deceived.”

Shame floods Shadowheart’s belly, settling into a dull ache. Then her hand fires off another stab of pain. She grimaces. Looks down at the tear-stained quilt beneath them.

“I can understand it’s difficult to admit. But Shadowheart, you were lied to. Manipulated. And gods know what else. You were a child. And yet… they failed, didn’t they?” She carefully sets a hand to Shadowheart’s cheek, and when she leans into her touch, brushes her thumb over her skin, wiping off a fresh tear.

“Do you know what is left, now you have thrown away the lies they tried to hammer into you? I will tell you, from my perspective: A woman of exceeding conviction, tenacity, and bravery. Tell me, do you want to return to Shar? Beg for forgiveness, and be brought back to her side?”

Shadowheart finds that she is trembling. Her heart hammers in her chest, but she already knows the answer. “No,” she says, voice scarcely above a whisper. “Never.”

Zirahuén gives her a small—proud—smile.

Shadowheart is not sure if she can bring herself to agree with Zirahuén, but she does believe her. Faith is like that. Perhaps she will never make sense of this, but something within her says it’s the effort that’s worth pursuing.

“Who will I pray to now?” she mumbles suddenly, a rhetorical question, yet Zirahuén answers with an unexpected kiss to her forehead.

“How about yourself? The Self is the beginning of any meaningful worship, after all.”

Shadowheart crowds onto Zirahuén’s pillow, and curls up against her once more. “I will consider it,” she says. “Thank you, Zirahuén… for being here while I’m at my worst.”

She smells of orchids under a new moon. Forgotten pantheons hide in her brown eyes. There is so much yet to be done, and no guarantee of success or even survival. Yet, Zirahuén cradles her head, and holds her like she’s worth holding onto.

This makes all the difference.

#rinnywrites #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #shadowheart #shadowheart x tav #cleric of kelemvor #oc: zirahuén #the girls are going through itttttt #this needs polishing but for now let's just be happy it's done #thanks for the prompt <333

15 notes · View notes

blackbutler-readerinsertsandjunk · 6 months

Note

How’d’ya feel about doing a song fic with the song ‘Remember me’ and the character of your choice ? :3

how do I feel... I FEEL HURT, I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!!

I'm a little sorry for this, because it is HEAVILY angsty... please heed the trigger warnings I've tagged this with!!

DISCLAIMER: This is a songfic to the song “Remember Me” from Coco! I don’t own the song, don’t claim to, and am not profiting off this piece at all.

Remember me though I have to say goodbye remember me don’t let it make you cry

The UNDERTAKER thinks it’s a shame that the world will only ever know his very first child as Baby Girl Crevan.

A shame, because he had a name for her. If she had made it past her first year, (her first month), the world would have known her as something different. A unique person, with an identity, a name, a soul. Instead she’s a statistic, one more victim of disease who couldn’t be saved.

He had such high hopes. Her existence would have defied his very nature, proving that something which came from death could be so full of life. That was to be her name; Vitaliya.

Even now, he feels like he can’t believe that she’s gone. Even as he knows he has to eventually lower her into her casket, he doesn’t want to let go. Her tiny body fits so perfectly in his arms as it did every other time he held her while she was alive. She looks asleep, but he knows deep inside of him that she won’t be waking up this time.

There’s an echo in his chest, of a loss like this. Maybe a long time ago, maybe back when he was still human. Something that hurt just as badly as losing a daughter.

He has to bite down on his lip to keep tears from falling. It doesn’t work.

He cradles his baby girl for the last time, holding her close to his chest as his beloved comes up behind him. If there’s anything he’s ever wanted so badly not to do, it’s to put Vitaliya down.

for even if I’m far away I hold you in my heart I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart

This pain is… a void. It’s eating him up, the constant reminder that the body he’s holding isn’t really his daughter. It’s just the body that held her during her short time on Earth. This is how she appeared to him, though, to everyone, so he’s not sure how he’s supposed to not believe that her soul is still here in his arms.

As he looks at her precious little face, he wonders if she’s finally at peace. She wasn’t here for very long. She fought so hard, and she was just too young to prevail against the illness that ravaged her. It wasn’t fair what happened.

Does heaven exist? It must, mustn’t it? If he hadn’t ended his own life while he was human, he likes to think he was a good enough person that he would have gone there when he died.

The tears continue to fall as he can’t answer his own question of whether or not he will ever see his darling child again. If he dies now… where will he go? Can he still be saved and end up in heaven? Will he meet her there when he dies? Or is he doomed now, to a life of nothing? Neither heaven nor hell will take him, and he’ll never see Vitaliya again?

He wants to. Her soul is so far away now, in a place he can’t reach, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he never gets to see her again.

He rocks her in his arms, and he hums softly, the lullaby he sang to her as he and (Name) cared for her.

If he lives until every last star burns out of the sky, he’ll sing this song every night. To any other child he ever has, and to Vitaliya’s spirit if she might visit him in an empty room in the small hours of the morning when he has no one else.

remember me

though I have to travel far remember me each time you hear a sad guitar know that I’m with you the only way that I can be

The distance from his arms to the casket might as well be an ocean when he leans down to place Vitaliya in it. Once he and (Name) bury their daughter, he doesn’t know if he can ever come back to the cemetery. Just the thought of walking through gates and sitting at his child’s grave is one he can’t bear.

But if he doesn’t come back to visit her resting place, will he ever be near her again?

(Name)’s arms circle around him. They’re a protective embrace, a gentle reminder that the two of them don’t have to grieve alone.

As soon as their arms are around him, all he can say is, “I want her back, (Name).”

“I know, Adrian. So do I.” Their voice is quiet. It’s barely a whisper, ready to be swallowed by the nonexistent wind. It feels like their world exists in shades of grey now, like their daughter took all their color with her when she died. “But she’s not suffering anymore. And we’ll see her at heaven’s gates.”

Will they both? Or will it just be (Name)? Will he ever stand at those gates and walk in and his little Vitaliya, all grown up on the other side, will run at him so he can spin her round?

“I hope we will.” He reaches down, and a long nail strokes over his tiny angel’s cold cheek. “Papa’s here, Vitaliya. Always will be. Even though you’re not here anymore. I’ll be with you, always. Even if I gotta carry you around in my heart and not in my arms. I miss you, darlin’.”

(Name) presses their face into his shoulder and sobs. And he has to not fall apart for their sake, but he can’t hold himself together.

All he can do is weep, and cling to his beloved, and pray to whatever higher power that there is that he’ll get to hold his daughter again one day.

And when he does, he only hopes that she hasn’t forgotten the father she knew for only three and a half weeks on Earth.

Because no matter how long he lives, he will never forget the daughter he knew for only three and a half weeks on Earth, and forever in his heart.

until you’re in my arms again

remember me.

#child death tw #infant death tw #grief tw #tehgreatboo #Black Butler #Kuroshitsuji #Undertaker #scenario #platonic #romantic #familial #angst #UUUUUUUGH DAMMIT #it's possible I went a little overboard because this song and Coco make me cry #so now I have to make everyone else cry #one hell of a queue

10 notes · View notes

leclercsbf · 9 months

Text

was tagged by @nyoomfruits to post a wip snippet like... ten days ago... took me a while (sorry ellie) But I Am Finally Posting. this still needs a lot of work so let’s hope i don’t end up abandoning it. tagging @ocontraire, @charlosgoggles, and anyone else who has a wip they want to share! please ping, i like getting glimpses of other people’s work.

Learning is a distraction and Charles welcomes it all too easily, focusing on the task at hand rather than allowing his mind to fixate on all of the problems that lay beyond the four corners of the classroom. He’s pleased to find that (for the time being, at the very least) he’s still able to perform as well as he usually does academically, and not once do his thoughts stray towards other pressing matters—enabling him to take a moment and just breathe.

He’s humming a song he heard on the radio by the time the afternoon rolls around, copy after copy of his updated resume being churned out in smooth succession where he’s standing before the university library’s printer; and his eyes are fixated onto the inked sheets when a shadow falls over them and bids him to look up, eyes soon meeting Daniel Ricciardo’s steady gaze.

They don’t quite know each other, is the thing. They’re certainly aware of each other’s existence—Charles can easily recall how they had once grappled for the opportunity to discuss the same subject matter in one of their shared psychology courses—but they hadn’t so much as breathed a word in the other’s direction outside of class. Daniel is arguably one of the richest bastards in the university, after all, and Charles himself is just a little above average (or perhaps he’s a tad below it in light of recent events). Their social circles simply do not coincide, and Charles supposes that neither of them had found any cause to amend that before today—which is why Daniel’s presence prompts Charles to lift a questioning brow, hands working to gather his printouts and staple the sheets together as he asks Daniel what he could help the older male with.

“I heard you got disowned.” comes the response, causing Charles to falter, and it’s only through sheer luck that he’s able to grip the stapler more firmly even as it threatens to clatter onto the floor between their feet. “That must’ve stung.”

“How did you even find out?” Charles inquires, every bit as puzzled as his tone might suggest, because Max was the only person that Charles had told—and he would have kept it to himself, really, if he and Max hadn’t known each other since they were toddlers (long enough that Max could sense Charles’ troubles from a mile away). He tells Daniel as much, growing infinitely more curious as to how the other male chanced upon the information, and the response has Charles’ eyes rolling towards the heavens.

“How does that go again?” Daniel starts, seemingly deep in thought, gestures purposely exaggerated and allowing Charles to see right through the ruse, “‘Tight ass, loose lips’? Your friend let it slip, Leclerc.”

#🏷️#🎱#this is extremely late because your boy has been playing fps instead of writing #also this is charlos i’m sorry ellie my lestappen queen #i have a love-hate relationship with this wip so i’m literally working at snail speed #even took a detour with that landoscar message fic

11 notes · View notes

stellaeviventem · 9 months

Note

looking forward to the document. i looked up to 🍉 since the pastel asriel days and im negl the truth is fucked up 💀😭 i literally feel bad for the ppl that she has affected :( i feel bad for believing she was completely innocent too uh 😭…

idk if this is a bad idea, but if i may share smth as witness, i remember in one of her recent streams, abt a month ago i think, there was this older man who started chatting in the chat section and showing interest in her, as well as putting his discord tag in the chat for other ppl to add him and stuff, and i know damn well a handful of her fanbase is minors

and the creep offered mel discord nitro or smth (idk i don’t use disc too much but im assuming it’s nitro) and yk what she did? she accepted his offer and actually expected to get it from him. the entire thing felt off, bc mel, who is almost an adult, should instead be rushing to protect the minors in her fanbase instead of just fuckin around. 💀‼️ the fact that she chose nitro over protecting minors says smth in my personal opinion but idk. like you can get nitro somewhere else girlie be so fr, remove the guy from your stream and ignore what he has to say… protect the damn minors dude. 😰

THANKFULLY it supposedly ended up being a troll, but even still, the entire thing just felt off, risky, and immature. i get that her streams are like a hang out thing where she chills with her fans n stuff so in her eyes it was prob just shits n giggles while trying to get discord nitro from a supposed older creep, but yeaa it’s a no for me. like i was on her side at that time thinking she was innocent and that STILL felt wrong 😭 thing is, there were like 2 other ppl there who thought it was wrong too, making me feel like “yea i’m not tripping this is kinda weird, the majority of ppl watching are prob teens or even younger (?) and you’re just gonna allow a creep to be here for a bit bc you want nitro???”

SO YEA, idk if this is exaggerated or if i am overreacting BUT i felt that every single thing might count. like, it’s good that the supposed creep was supposedly just a troll, but, like, still, no…

but one last small thing before i leave this for u, i admire that you and other people are speaking up about this. it’s wonderful that you’re standing up for other ppl who are being harassed by mel’s fans too (from what i’ve seen i think) so yea i think it’s very strong and courageous of you and the others. i wish you the best of luck /gen bc um yea, i think we all know by now how her and her fanbase can be… 💀😓

i appreciate you telling your story, anon <3 that's super creepy and i'm sorry that you had to witness that

your praise means the world to me :) i've heard that she's been shittalking me in her streams which is extremely funny to me. they've been off to me for a while now but since i was a fan for so long (like you), i didn't say anything because i didn't want anything bad to happen like me getting doxxed or something. her raging 100k+ fanbase of 12 year olds is highly amusing to me personally, but that doesn't mean that what they say can't hurt (pekoepeach.)

also, the fact that these 12 year olds STILL haven't come into my askbox tells me so much. they know i'm right, atp, they're just too scared to admit it.

to anyone who's struggled with feeling like you're going to get attacked by mel's fanbase, i see you. i know how it feels to be scared like that, and you don't deserve that. if you'd like to reach out anonymously, please, feel free! i am an open book and you are safe here unlike w mel <3

#asked and answered #anon #🍉#long post

8 notes · View notes

berlinbabylon · 1 year

Text

review of s4 (skip if you don’t want to read criticism)

SPOILER WARNING

so, i finished season 4 a couple of days ago and... i liked some parts of it and one episode was good (episode 8) but for the most part i really absolutely hated this season and i never thought i would say that. in my opinion, it actually got worse towards the end! i must be living in a different reality from everyone else.

i’m sorry. i really am. but i have to get this off my chest:

- charlotte double-wielding guns and shooting up those white hand idiots like she’s in a john woo movie? awesome! except... it was dumb af. this could have been so good, i’m a huge genre fan of this type of action, but not at the expense of a character’s intelligence. there was zero reason for her to barge in there when she did. at least make it seem like they’re just about to kill the good pathologist, have them string him up or whatever and she sees and has absolutely no alternative but to intervene. or have them conclude their meeting and start making for the door. please, i’m begging, just anything to make her desperate actions make sense.

- malu taking a shot for kiddie fiddler wendt? thanks, i fucking hate it. for that matter, i hate what they did to wendt’s character.

- for that matter, awesome lgbt+ rep or uhmm not. reinhold and fred don’t even get a kiss or any significant scene together (the couples date at the very end is cute but too little too late) although fred actually has a fairly important role to play this season. we never even really get to see them talk about his decision to work for that nazi paper. like, what. okay, fred quits at the end, good for him, but does this qualify as a character arc now?

- speaking of lgbt+ rep, them blowing up the esther/edgar/walter polycule only to have walter go “well whattaya gonna do. i loved him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” right as he croaks was the most ridiculous thing i’ve seen in a long while and didn’t land at all. i actually cackled. i can’t believe they turned the complex dynamic they had introduced in s3 into this clichéd jealousy mess that had no nuance whatsoever. i’m stunned people preferred their storyline this season. it didn’t track at all. neither did edgar showing up again (as i had predicted) and gereon believing him about wanting to broker peace in the underworld. el oh el.

- also edgar being like “oh btw we need to kill doktor schmidt, he’s an evil mastermind” was an absolutely ridiculous and lame way to try and advance that storyline. it also just got dumped in there and you don’t get any sense that it’s influencing gereon or his character actions at all. not that he has much of an arc or anything this season anyway but back when the show was still good (and by good i mean exceptional), his drug addiction and guilt complex was a major driving force behind much of what he did, how he behaved at work etc. here, in s4, you have to be grateful that they belatedly remember to send him to confession because he’s a catholic but that scene also just unceremoniously gets dumped in there. not to compare but since we have already seen an absolutely outstanding confession scene this tv season (in interview with the vampire, fabulously acted by jacob anderson), i couldn’t help but notice how the confession with gereon was neither written well, nor particularly acted well, nor integrated in its episode well, nor, in fact, scored well.

- max raabe’s ein tag wie gold is a bop but other than that, this season was not scored well and i say that as someone who owns the first two soundtrack releases on vinyl. there were many times when i noticed that something was off, where the music actively worked against the scene it was supposed to be enhancing. the song at the shabbat dinner was nice but as a jewish friend who i watched it with pointed out, them playing piano on shabbat is very sus, even if they’re a reform household. there was a woman with a wig which indicates (ultra) orthodox. not going to nitpick that scene any further though because the shabbat dinner and abe goldstein’s character in general were a highlight (although i loathed the storyline he was stuck in).

- tell me you don’t want to write actors out of the show without telling me. nyssen and helga have long overstayed their welcome. nyssen they could justify by having him pop up from time to time in connection to the rocket science “plot”. but he’s lars eidinger (who’s great), so. helga has just become whatever they needed her to be. anne marie’s actress had some extremely dodgy acting going on this season, sorry to say. i don’t even want to talk about the idiocy of how they wrote this storyline which could have been extremely good and important. i’ll just say that i laughed my ass off when anne marie clocked abe with her flute but generally it was not a good choice to play these kidnappings for laughs (and i guess these rich people just have no security whatsoever, even after the first kidnapping). there’s a time and a place and this storyline wasn’t it. but rich people, funny, or something. well, they are ridiculous.

- the whole story with the butler. talk about wasting screentime. his götz von berlichingen monologue was also really bad although i was delighted when i heard the verses. it just didn’t land. that goes for many scenes this season imo. i don’t know if it was the directing or what but even stuff that looks interesting on paper just does not come across well. it just comes across as ridiculous and manieriert. but not in the good way. (there is a way to do this well and the show used to walk that line very well. not anymore, it seems.)

- (side note: the frivolity of the movie industry provided the perfect pastiche for that sort of thing in s3. which is why i really vibe with it, as someone who’s a huge fan of 1930s movies. didn’t even mind that they relocated the apex of expressionism into the late 1920s when that’s very ahistorical. but anyway that’s a different topic.)

- actually as a last point on the nyssen storyline, abe goldstein shooting a hole in the ship instead of shooting anne marie in the head made me groan. it was so obviously written that way just to give her a chance to pop up later again. it made absolutely no sense, even if you try to handwave it as an attempt at poetic justice. neither did helga leaving her down there make any sense. she had no way of knowing that abe would kill her or make it seem like he killed her. at that point, helga still looked like she could think straight, she didn’t tumble around deliriously, she made a clear choice. and they just did it for the twist, not because it made sense for the character in that moment.

- the show was always very drunk on coincidences, twists of fate etc in that 19th century charles dickens / victor hugo way and i could dig that for the most part because they had this rich tapestry of social commentary going on. while i can still appreciate the breadth of society that they’re trying to show, it now comes across as shallow, there’s no immersion, i was extremely distanced from everything going on and couldn’t have cared less, which is a damn shame considering that this is where we should start feeling even more involved.

- as for one storyline that i couldn’t have cared less about: everything to do with toni. in fact, i think it would have been far more poignant if we hadn’t seen her for a season and hadn’t known what had become of her after running away and then when we least expect it, charlotte comes across her living on the streets, maybe while chasing a suspect or something. now that’s a coincidence i could buy. and such a scene would play like a gut punch. but they rob themselves of any dramatic impact by wanting to overexplain and overshow and being all pedagogical which is a huge problem in the writing of german tv shows and s4 of babylon berlin has started showing all the hallmarks of mediocre german tv and it makes me feel sick, considering how stylish and epic the previous seasons were.

- toni’s actress is not good. i’m sorry. i just have to say it. but also, they stuck her in a nothing storyline. moritz’ actor fares better but if they wanted to pair off the spares and get rid of them, they needed to do that in a way that would’ve left more screentime for the interesting and/or relevant stuff. like, uhm, everything to do with malu/litten/charlotte etc. it’s a damn crime that they didn’t do anything with lotte being fired from the police and then hired by litten. nothing. she gets to mope around at the bar a little bit and poor jacky gets to be her hapless sounding board (he deserves better, so many characters and actors in this cast deserve better). and then she gets to be gereon’s emotional support system. once again, charlotte is deprived of any and all agency and no, the double-wielding scene does not make up for it. the scenes in that haus sonneborn institution were well-shot, the horror film genre influence was clear, but unfortunately i don’t much care for horror films and i also, at that point, did not much care for toni or her friend or the pathologist (f*ck him for getting rudi killed in a very lame rip-off of stephan’s much superior exit) and we all knew lotte wasn’t going to die. that’s what i mean by immersiveness: where in previous seasons i’d have been on the edge of my seat with tension and dread, this didn’t elicit much emotion from me at all. except for the groan when lotte did her thing at the end there. the only good thing to come out of that was her conversation with gereon about her guilt which was the only time in the entire season where i believed a scene between them, emotionally, and was invested.

- i guess that, on the bright side, she got to be happy. i support that. even though i don’t believe it should have to come at the expense of the show being good. and she still had to go through that awful ordeal of the dance marathon. (one of the few memorable scenes of the season, at the very least.)

- random but i very much liked the actor playing oskar. and he was very much underutilized. really, don’t get me started on the entire debacle that was malu’s storyline. i think i’d rather have watched an entire season set on that zeppelin than what we ended up with.

- litten not even being in the finale should actually be considered a crime against humanity considering he’s literally the best character on the show at this point. for that matter, the trial against katelbach and the undermining of the legal system and the press should have been a much bigger arc and point. katelbach still being a comic relief character only used to bumble about not knowing whether he did propose to behnke or not is absolutely ridiculous. these are the characters we’ve come to know and care about and they were paid absolute dirt in s4. behnke’s best scene was the train heist and even that was not edited or scored well but hey, at least it was amusing and they did something with some sort of flair there.

- going back to lotte for a moment. i’m happy for the charlotte/gereon shippers that they got so much fucking out of them this season (to be crude, then again so is the show) but i can’t be the only one who thought they were awkward as all hell together. i never shipped them but i did always like their dynamic and i thought their kiss in s3 was magical. what they did with them here did absolutely nothing for me, i cringed when she visited him at the station and their idea of sexy talk in between kisses was discussing case-related work. none of it had the levity, flirtation or charm you’d see in a lubitsch film (one of the alleged inspos for this season) although liv lisa fries sold the hell out of her infatuated smiles and looks. volker bruch trying to smile was physically painful to me, however. sure, it could be charming that he’s an awkward turtle duck but considering everything we know about the bts issues, it really didn’t endear me any further. i dread having to watch them be awkward together in future seasons and i absolutely dread lotte’s only purpose being tied up in that. for that matter, how did she earn her badge back at the end? surely not with her double-wielding gun action? but it’s not like the show really cared to pursue this as a storyline or her as a character this season, so why should i care.

- the way they threw rukeli in there at the very end of the season was almost offensively bad. i was extremely excited for him to show up ever since they had insinuated that he’s her half-brother in s3. the actor here was fine (i wouldn’t count on him being accurately or sensitively cast bc german productions usually don’t do this, haven’t checked it, however) but you’re really going to do a whole season where boxing is at the very least on the periphery and you’re only going to throw him in at the end to make some sort of point? we didn’t even get to stay with him and lotte during their first meeting? we’re just supposed to believe they have some sort of relationship now after that camera shot panned out, showing them through the window of the café? i’m sorry but what?

- worst of all: them having him use chalk as white paint to mock the nazis in the audience to make a point. you can’t make a character we’ve barely even met the dramatic and emotional high point of the season. and i’m sorry but rukeli was a real person and in real life he was forced to present himself with bleached hair and white paint in an “aryanized” form, this was part of the abuse he suffered!!! it makes me absolutely mad to think about how they tried to turn this into some kind of empowerment thing here. nevermind that at this point in time, audiences were still overwhelmingly on his side and actually protested against fights being rigged against him. i just absolutely hate everything this scene chooses to be. i also hate how gereon walks up to that one guy who can command~ the crowd and we get a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, like, just 30 minutes earlier, to remind us that this is the guy he refused to shoot so they can defuse the situation in the dumbest most construed way possible. i feel like i’m losing my mind when i see people say that this is good writing. good writing would have involved audiences not needing a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, just because almost nothing in this season is giving anything resembling the appropriate weight and focus.

- speaking of which, the case of the season was so uninteresting and lame i even forgot to talk about it. and i still don’t have anything to say. except one thing: why did weintraub not immediately suspect that something was up with max (the henchman) when that car bomb went up killing the other henchman? because weintraub arrived in the car, went inside, came back outside and suddenly a bomb has been attached to his car in the meantime and max was standing there all the time? like, what?? this season is littered with this dumb shit and maybe it was prevalent in the other seasons as well and i just chose to overlook it because there was so much for me to love but i genuinely can’t believe five adults wrote this season and struggled so much with thinking any of it through. it feels like they just had little chess figures with pictures of the characters attached to them and tried moving them across a board.

- oh and one more thing about the flashback issue. böhm and his family being in that apartment at the very end was an absolutely ridiculous scene. his money issues were well-telegraphed, a little too well-telegraphed if you ask me, and his involvement in the shoot-up was already extremely obvious by the time his wife demands to know where he’s got his money from. that bit where he collapses against the wall and we get all these flashbacks to things an audience that’s half-way intelligent and half-way paying attention has already gotten long ago was just embarrassing for the show. the issue wasn’t just with the flashback, however, it was also with the way it was shot and edited. so many scenes this season really don’t land as intended. i feel bad for the actors because they’re doing their best and they’re also not at fault for this weird issue in german shows where they do really bad ADR (re-dubbing scenes when there were sound issues in the footage from set, it makes dialogue sound very unnatural and strange and the show always had this issue in certain scenes but in this season it’s amplified to the max, i almost couldn’t watch the edgar/gereon reunion because of the bad sound engineering). but woof that böhm family scene could have been a highlight but the way he creepily said something to the effect of them never being separated (probably telegraphing an eventual fate that we call “erweiterter suizid” in german where usually a man kills his family and then himself) and then the show just straight up cutting to the nyssen last will scene without giving any of it the time to sink in was absolutely comical. i’m sorry. but there are scenes this season that feel amateur and i don’t think you can blame it on covid when the editing is at issue.

- having said all of that, i was excited for gereon’s arc this season and imo they never did anything of note with him undercover in the SA. why not have him befriend stennes for real, become conflicted about what he’s trying to do (and, well, in fact him and the police president do want stennes to succeed so it wouldn’t even have been that outlandish). him talking to the police president about the mission at home while his very much indoctrinated nephew is in listening distance was so so dumb omg.

- the stennes putsch which i also was very much looking forward to was such a flop that fizzled out without any real spark. his confrontation with wendt was lame af. the actor is awesome, his interactions with wendt in s3 were intriguing and this what it all leads up to? gdi. i can’t believe they wasted so much time on that homophobic blackmail material plot when it was never even picked up again after it got stennes out of prison. he never should have gone to prison before the putsch, he already had his conflict with wendt from last season, they could have saved so much time on this and dedicated it to something actually interesting. and if you actually want to get into the messiness of homophobia and homosexuality in the SA, röhm and all, you better be prepared to bring on figures like magnus hirschfeld (it’s honestly ridiculous he hasn’t even been referenced on the show yet because he was super famous in berlin and germany in general and also a favorite target of the nazis). reference the harden-eulenburg affair. do something with this. not just have wendt buggering a kid in a park. i like that gräf was quietly pissed at gereon about the whole thing but this should never have been a storyline in the way it was implemented.

- it really ruined wendt on top of things. not that it made him worse as a person because he was already bad before (though lbr it did make him worse ofc) but it made him a whole lot more uninteresting as a villain (he only seemed to find his groove back in the last two episodes). the interesting part of his dynamic with malu in s3 was the intellectual clash of ideologies. while i did not and do not ship them, i was very intrigued to see where they would take that in s4. well, i have my answer. they skipped any and all interesting and relevant development and turned it into an extremely clichéd and lame honey trap plot because we all know communists loved honey traps. groan. (yes, i watched the americans.) also, rilke is my favourite poet and has been for many many years and wendt needs to keep his words out of his damn mouth. i can’t believe they revealed that wendt used to sexually abuse underaged boys and still wanted us to think that his relationship with malu is in any way romantic, cute or intriguing?

- i was so rooting for doktor völcker to get him and then malu just had to take a bullet for him. bruh. just when i thought i couldn’t hate this season more. i know i already mentioned it but still. at least she didn’t die from it, small blessings, but her getting shot straight through the chest and then being back to spy shenanigans on the zeppelin not much later was just the height of ridiculousness. i always hated the train confrontation between gereon and bruno and it seems that the show is very very determined to evermore move towards that pulpy comic book-y version of the show that i can barely tolerate in order to get to the good stuff. but when there’s barely any good stuff to get to, it gets tough.

- do i even want to talk about edgar? him taking the kids away from esther was lame. anything to do with esther was lame. i can’t even muster more to say and edgar/gereon was one of my absolute favourite dynamics in s1/2 so i should’ve been overjoyed to see it make a return here. but, in the eternal words of the matrix: not like this.

- finally, doktor schmidt, eh? well. where to begin. first of all, jens harzer is one of the best living german actors, he’s phenomenal, and the fact that he still gets so little development is a fucking joke, frankly speaking. i might have liked his scene with alfred lying on the floor best. at least it was funny. his sessions with gereon were hamfisted in their analogies. his last scene with gereon also didn’t land, it was just groan-worthy. gereon repeating back his words just made it all the more obvious how much of their luster they have lost at this point. i can’t believe someone spoke schmidt’s platitudes in a serious way like some sort of cool mic drop when the “quelle der angst” stuff only works in that hypnotic evil drugged out therapy session way jens harzer says it. the cgi was also bad but that’s neither here nor there (there was a surprising number of badly lit and framed scenes in this season, idk if they changed cinematographers but even the staple shot of following a centered gereon with his hat around became extremely overused). the thing is that i’ve long been convinced that doktor schmidt isn’t actually anno / gereon’s brother, so i should be happy that he seems to be finally be revealed as a svengali type which i also find very fitting for the movies and culture the show references as well as the history it tries to reflect (in fact, this season was as thematically rich as ever, with many metaphors and analogies for the rise of evil etc etc but what good is that if it’s all pedagogical and the actual character writing is either non-existent or utter bullshit?). they’ve dragged this out for too long now. they also, and this might be the worst offense, have completely lost the connection gereon is supposed to have to this plot. nevermind helga or moritz. have doktor schmidt be a svengali figure, fine, love that, i vibe with it, but that doesn’t mean this plot should have no advancement. it really feels like they treaded water for as long as they could because they only had a very vague idea of where they wanted to go with this and still needed to figure out the details. well, hire some fucking writers (and by that i don’t mean hire your wife, like one of the director/writers did for s4).

- i’ve really come to loathe this very german tradition of producers, directors and others thinking they can write scripts themselves and that there are barely any decent writers around who are just that, writers. we have some that are barely okay but the structural issues of underpayment etc ensure that the talent that exists can’t turn this into a job. instead you really just have nepotism and all those people who think they can write but where the wheels eventually come off. now i’ve loved babylon berlin for a very long time, i’ve been there since the beginning, i’ve actually been there since the first press announcement (the show spent a lot of time in production hell before s1/2 saw the light of day, the budget kept ballooning etc). and i will say that i think the first three seasons featured some of the best that german tv has to offer. (s3 slightly less so but it was still entertaining and i think they did a really good job introducing a number of great characters like malu and litten in it, plus sabin tambrea is always fun!) but i must now question whether i was not more so taken in by the direction, the music, the style, and some very expertly shot and executed scenes that the show either cannot or does not want to afford anymore. the type of scenes that are needed to let the wild and often nonsensical plotting breathe and give the characters a chance to shine, to give all of it depth and resonance. i’m really so profoundly sad by the direction this show’s quality has taken and i have no idea whether it’s because one of the directors did more this season than the others, whether it was because of the new writers (i hope not). whatever happened, they had enough prep time and this just ain’t it.

- last point: i know how annoying it is when a show that you love gets hated on by others, so this is the last thing i’ll say about that. but i really needed to get this off my chest because i’ve been loving the show for a very long time, i’ve been investing a lot of time (not so much in recent years but before that) into spreading the word, at least here on tumblr and irl where i got several people into the show who all disliked s4 as well btw, i loved making gifs (which is also why i’d say i have a very good eye for the cinematography and style of the show and all the finer details but gif-making isn’t a real credential ofc lol). and i’m usually quite chill about stuff, i’m neither a super stan even when i love something (which is also why i didn’t watch it first thing it came out) nor am i a hater when i don’t like something but a case like this, where i genuinely loved something and it turns sour, that hurts, man. i’ll probably watch the next season - if there’s a next season! - because i still hold out hope that it might be better, i think it’s an important history to tell and the show had everything set up in order to tell it. there are two gif sets i want to make of this season (which is also always a good gauge for me to tell how i feel about something, and even those sets aren’t sets i absolutely want to do but i’ll do them nonetheless at some point; probably). after that i don’t think i will use this blog much anymore but i’ll keep it online for as long as tumblr is online because i always find it annoying when other people delete their stuff.

so long und auf wiedersehen!

#babylon berlin #babylon berlin spoilers #s4 #i realize that this a long post of mostly negativity which i do apologize for but i hope someone might find some validation in this #if they have the same opinion #for those of you who don't i hope you don't take this to heart because most of it is really a matter of taste #and things that i'm peculiar about i suppose #i do believe s4 has objective issues with quality (yes also in comparison with the much-maligned s3)#but that's neither here nor there #i just wanted to get my personal grievances off my chest #all the best to everyone and if you still enjoy the show - good for you!#i mean that genuinely

35 notes · View notes

ladybeug · 1 year

Text

Alright so

It has been about 24 hours since i finished @peachcitts fanfiction metamorphosis and i spent at least 3 of those hours making a fanmix.

Listen, Im sorry, this is just who I am, Im someone who wants to make a playlist about a specific iteration of ml characters. Especially if there are some grey morals up in there.

read the fic, listen to the fanmix, follow me under the cut thats where the party is

...and by party I mean analytical summary of each song.

I'm about to talk about some of these choices I made in depth, as a treat for myself. An indulgence. I'll keep the fic references high level but there may be some theme/tone spoilers so real talk go read the fic and meet me back here.

@peachcitt I know I tagged you but this will get long you do not have to read it or acknowledge this homage just know I appreciated your story and thought a lot about it.

so.

the whole playlist is meant to be listened to start to finish, its half the tragedy and half the hard work to get your life right side up and the rewards.

I actively tried not to put Cry for Judas on here and i did ANYWAYS

its on so many of my playlists already, I'm loose with this song. But frankly if i could only keep it on one I would keep it on here. I mean I just don't think any other adrien iterations do things just to see how bad they'll make him feel QUITE like this one and i just HAD to have that as the first line of lyrics in the playlist.

I'm just also obsessed with sad and angry, can't learn how to behave?? The tragic acceptance of being unable to be good??

find me a better match. this song had to be on here and it had to be first.

Your Ghost - this might be the only song thats only about Marinette which is a crime because I really connected with her pov but the truth is that this is an adrien fanmix and i need to accept that.

But for real the acceptance but inability to move on in this song is just perfect.

Can't Lose - maybe the angriest song on here? A little angrier than I was going for but I had to keep this one though because, I mean, "I'm thinking I can't move if there isn't somewhere else to go?" like, the, 'sure what im doing is bad but what else IS there' of it, I mean, what can I even say. It had to be on here.

If you only listen to one song on here listen to Animal Mask.

It's a song about partners in a wrestling match written as a metaphor for when John Darnielle's wife was in labor, and its so tender and sweet, and frankly it sounds like it could have been written for metamorphosis for like every single flashback of ladybug and chat noir.

I could quote every line and be like 'this is them' but like, 'hold on,' I cried, 'I'll be right there', pulled your mask down through your hair. they won't see you, not until you want them to. What am I supposed to say?? It moves me deeply I'm having emotional problems please come join me. Every other song on this playlist doesn't matter.

Anyways intermission, while we're here, let me share this experience that I had today with you:

I did then proceed to count, was appropriately ashamed that about 25% of the playlist was mountain goats, and extremely painfully chose to remove 'oceanographer's choice'.

[tangent about Oceanographers Choice vs Haunted House]

As obsessed as I am with going straight from the unbearably tender memory in animal mask to oceanographer's choice, first line: "well, guy in a skeleton costume, walks up to a guy in a superman suit, runs through him with a broadsword", the anxious switch in music, and then straight into a song about a fucked up guy fighting the woman he is still complicatedly in love with.... and he doesn't know how else to be....

oh no, listen, as I typed that I half convinced myself to add it back in again

but I won't because I even more love the transit of animal mask to the shrill and tense line in Haunted House, "I was buried in the summer, all those parties ago", and then a confused and hysterical song about dissociation and loss of control in a world where nobody seems connected to what you're going through. The tone is more ungrounded, and scared, and less resigned. Which matches what I was going for - I tried to avoid songs that were just like... "yeah i'm evil >:) thats my identity"

[end tangent]

Little Pistol I feel like I barely have to justify, but I will say what really sold me is the reference to 'I want what's best for me, and I think I know just what that means'. But then also the slight change in tune at the end? Delicious?

The Run and Go, just read the fic ok

I Wanna Get Better is one that honestly feels like it doesn't fit perfectly but I'm really drawn to a sharp turning point in the playlist from 'bad and spiraling' to 'desperately clawing my way up' which is how reading the fic felt at a certain point, and this song feels like the perfect tonal shift and has the end-of-a-movie screaming conviction that I want. Its also just so good

Do it Anyways might be the second most important song... third most important? on this fanmix. The frantic, panicky music matched with the unwavering conviction to improvement is so unmatched honestly and if we're talking about how hard it is to be your best when you feel your worst, oh my god. Read the fic, listen at 2:44 and meet me back here and there's nothing else I even need to say

Absolute Lithops Effect.... I tricked you, this is also a mountain goats song :) its a cover though so I'm not counting it.

This is one of the most beautiful songs about hope for the future and growth that I know its very important to me. The title of the playlist comes from this song. Here's what you need to know about it:

Lithops are these:

They grow so slowly they don't look like they're growing at all. But they are.

Love Love Love: Ugh don't talk to me about love love love. I'm not going to explain how this connects to the fic. It does, I'm right. There's nothing I can say about this that can't be said better by Mr. Mountain Goats himself:

"The point of the song is, you know, that we are fairly well damaged by the legacy of the Romantic poets--that we think of love as this, you know, thing that is accompanied by strings and it's a force for good, and if something bad happens then that's not love. And the therapeutic tradition that I come from--I used to work in therapy--you know, also says that it's not love if it feels bad. I don't know so much about that. I don't know that the Greeks weren't right. I think they were--that love can eat a path through everything--that it will destroy a lot of things on the way to its own objective, which is just its expression of itself, you know. I mean, my stepfather loved his family, right? Now he mistreated us terribly quite often, but he loved us. And, you know, well, that to me is something worth commenting on in the hopes of undoing a lot of what I perceive as terrible damage in the way people talk about this--love is this benign, comfortable force. It's not that. It's wild, you know?" — NPR interview with Linda Wertheimer, 14 May 2005

Metamorphosis: okay this one I added to make myself laugh but I also stand by it thematically

SUPERBLOOM: Don't we all deserve a little celebration for the hard work we do?

Anyways this is my fanmix, if you read to here I love you and you're welcome for all the mountain goats songs I peeled off of here that I didn't even tell you about. I didn't even put heel turn 2 on here. Whoops ok now i've told you about that one.

#I get into this routine where I start a playlist thinking... this is just for fun #its just for me #i love to have a fanmix it will be a fun project for me to express and create and reinterpret #and organize and sort #and then i spend so long on it and think so hard about each song and the order and the tone #that it becomes a piece of art im attached to and then i want to share it even though its SO NICHE ITS ALWAYS SO NICHE im so sorry to do th #im doing it though #Spotify #anyways thank you for humoring me sorry to everyone #this is so long and uncalled for (except by me im calling so much)

85 notes · View notes

just-a-space-rabbit · 2 years

Text

The old Bookstore

Based on my own Writing prompt: Here

Not sure if I’m supposed to tag you @office-plant-in-a-trenchcoat, though you did sort of request it… IDK I’m still new to a lot of this…

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

Hero kept pacing nervously around in their small apartment, they simply could not believe themselves. “This is bad, this is so bad!” they muttered repeatedly, while biting their nail. “How could I have been so blind!” They slumped down in the worn-out sofa, exhausted and tired from the second double shift this week.

For a long time now the hero-gig had not paid Hero anywhere near enough to cover their living expenses, therefore they had been needing to take on a second job. Luckily, when their favorite bookstore gave an offer for a part-time job at the decent salary two months ago, they jumped on it immediately.

Everything finally seems to go the right way, pay was great, the hours were perfect… then Hero just had to spot Supervillain enter into a hidden door in the backroom. In one singular moment all the small inconsistencies seem to fall in place. Old books that had been on the shelf for years, and nearly no customers entering, yet no problem paying premium for having Hero just sit there and read.

Hero felt disappointed in themselves for not realizing it sooner, but even more disappointed that their favorite bookstore was really nothing more than a front to supervillain’s lair. Luckily no one seem to have noticed that Hero saw Supervillain, at least they hoped no one noticed… “What the hell am I going to do now?”

The most natural thing Hero thought to themselves, would be to report them to the agency, and let the league take them down. But that would mean losing their main sources of income.

They felt some shame even thinking about money right now, but why shouldn’t they, living paycheck to paycheck is not fun, and leave little room for being all altruistic and stuff…

Besides, they had no actual proof that it was their base, heck! It might just have been a meeting place or a storage. And as a smaller hero convincing the board of supervisors with no proof, it is going to be near impossible.

The other option would mean going undercover, and gather proof, maybe even break into the base at night. This was riskier, but at least Hero would keep getting paid and maybe even get a good bonus from the agency.

Despite having seen Supervillain they still had no idea who they really are, but if Hero can find out their identity it could result in Supervillain being taken down once and for all. But Hero has little to no espionage skills, so that might be too dangerous.

Maybe… their thoughts continued, maybe, they could just lie low for a while… and just hope they get some evidence naturally? No one else are really looking into Supervillain at the moment, and there is no urgency or known threats…

Their thought was suddenly cut off as they got a message on their phone. It was Boss the “owner” of the bookstore.

“Hey Hero, Sorry to bother you so late, I know you're busy with two jobs and all… but Co-worker just bailed on us again! Can you cover their shift tomorrow, please! 🥺”

Hero just kept staring at the screen for a while before texting back “Sure, I’ll cover for them. But they better pay for my lunch next week, or else… 🙃” Yeah, they are just going to lie low, at least for a few days.

They got up to take a shower, the only thing keeping them calm is the knowledge that their cover is not yet blown. Or was it…

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

I don’t know about the emojis, I mean it is texts messages... but it just makes me feel like:

#Going to need a part two as this is mostly just long version of the prompt #hero x supervillain #Supervillain x Hero #hero #Supervillain #Life of a poor millennial Hero #writing snippet #creative writing #short snippet #snippet #small snippet #writeblr #heroes and villains community #My Writing

40 notes · View notes

the-three-whumpeteers · 2 years

Text

AngelBreaker part 4

FINALLY AFTER SO LONG,,,PART 4

ahem, this is basically two short parts mashed together, mainly because that's the only way it would make sense. Finally introducing someone that isn't under North, slowly trying to show the rest of the underworld. Not particularly happy with this one, primarily because of how long it took to write, this went through give or take 10 versions before I settled on this.

Ah right, I believe someone wanted a tag so before I forget//

@kixngigglesgles

Content-wise//

The first one doesn't have much whump-wise, but I will say that North is a terrible friend, manipulative although it's now fully shown here. The second part is where someone's sedated, specifically via needle. North manhandles someone and is, once again, really shitty to Cypress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The weather had been particularly lovely that week, The sky was perfectly clear and the temperature had been pretty pleasant. Thankfully work hadn’t been as rough as it usually was- at least to cypress. Said angel had just sat down on a park bench where he and North had agreed to meet. Cypress allowed himself to finally relax, putting his bag down and enjoying the afternoon breeze.

Cypress had told North about how heavy work had been lately, and with the weather finally being reasonable it only made sense for them both to take a day off and relax, sure this was only a day off for cypress, who, unlike North, hated the job he had been assigned to- North was much better at…disposing of demons than him and they both knew that.

His thoughts were disrupted by the sound of a tired, and totally apologetic North.

“Cy please I am so sorry! I promise I didn’t mean to be late, I just started preening and you know time, kind of flies for me when that happens and-”

“I just got here too you’re okay”

North stopped, raising an eyebrow and staring at his friend for a moment.

“What do you mean? Wait, you’re the one who told me to be here thirty minutes ago, what do you mean you just got here?” North asked, probably knowing why Cypress had done that already.

Cypress stood up and stretched “Because you take forever on your appearance alone, I think you take longer on your wings than I do on my entire outfit, I took my time” he shrugged.

North gasped, purposefully exaggerating how offended he was “Well excuse me if I like looking good, I don’t like when my feathers are dusty” he huffed “ And you could do so much better! Your wings are pretty I don’t understand why you don't-” he would’ve said something else if Cypress hadn’t suddenly shoved something at him. North looked at his hands and realized that Cypress had given him a small cupcake- pumpkin, his favorite. He was delighted when he realized what it was, almost taking an excited bite before pausing.

“...did you get me this just to get me to shut up?” he asked, glancing at his friend.

“Is it working?”

North finally took a bite, staring at Cypress the whole time before nodding.

“Alright now that I’ve calmed you down with baked goods, let’s go before the food gets cold. I put some effort into this little picnic of ours,” Cypress said before snatching his bag and grabbing North by the arm. “Now come on, I’ve been eyeing that park for a while now and today is perfect, we can just sit down, eat, and finally relax.”

North walked alongside his friend, eating the cupcake concerningly fast before speaking up “Well with how stressed you’ve been I guess I can take some time off for this”

Cypress nudged him “Hey, you’re tired too, out of the both of us you work harder, give yourself a break! you’re…Enthusiastic, you’ll tire yourself out you know?” He said, a bit hesitant to talk about North’s attitude during their work- hopefully North didn’t notice that, he didn’t want an argument about this again…Cypress should really tell North to stop being so cruel during work, sure they were demons and he wasn’t supposed to feel bad, but Cypress never expected to see so many beg for their lives.

North didn’t catch on to what Cypress was thinking thankfully, instead, he seemed to be proud of himself when Cypress mentioned his enthusiasm “Hey if I’m gonna make it big I might as well do it with style right?”

“...Sure, I’m sure everyone’s gonna talk about you one day,” Cypress said, finally smiling- North had always been the type to pull off things like that.

They settled into a comfortable silence as they walked, Cypress leading the way since despite living there his whole life, North didn’t know how to navigate the town without getting lost. They were seemingly the only people taking advantage of the nice weather since the streets were relatively quiet, which didn’t surprise Cypress since the Seraphim always encouraged them to work as hard as possible- but Cypress wanted a break damn it.

Cypress stopped in front of the park gates, looking quite proud of himself still for finding such a nice little place. North, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice and bumped into him.

North was about to apologize and walk in before an excited Cypress grabbed his arm and practically sprinted in.

“Come on! I need to find a perfect spot” He said, scouting out the place while dragging his friend along. He’d reject places that were reasonably nice, from empty clearings to a bench by a stream. It took a while for him to find a spot- a quaint area under a tree that overlooked the park, and at that point North’s arm hurt.

Cypress put his bag down, unpacking everything he’d gotten, which was… excessive. He’d definitely packed more food than they needed, it was a full three course meal at that too.

“...Are you sure we can finish all of that? I know you like cooking but uh-”

“-Listen, we deserve a treat after working so hard”

Cypress was the type to cook whenever he was stressed.

North shrugged, sitting down on the picnic blanket Cypress had laid out, said friend, on the other hand, kept adding more pillows, lamps, bread, and fake leaves.

Cypress had a stressful past couple of days.

Finally, Cypress presented his masterpiece of a picnic, which was actually really impressive, and finally sat down himself. Cypress then went to open the basket of food, which was probably just as extravagant as the decorations before North stopped him.

“Cy, buddy, that’s… a bit too much isn’t it,” North said, “I promise we can eat it all later, it'll be fine”

“Right, right sorry I think I made too much…well, everything,” He said sheepishly, “Maybe I'll give it to random people, you know, random acts of kindness or something? I think the Seraphim encourage that right?”

North just shrugged “They’re very incon-” He stopped himself, rethinking his words “They encourage a lot of different things…but! Hey, what if you gave it to some random mortal? Just imagine popping into a random mortal’s house and giving them a pie! They’d probably be terrified”

Cypress grew visibly uncomfortable, he hated when North even mentioned mortals or their realm, he’d usually end up going on a tangent that eventually led to talking about work.

“-They get scared too easily, you’ll tell them not to be scared but they’d still panic over you showing up at all!”

Cypress sighed, trying his best to hide his frustration at the mention of the mortal world. “Listen, North, I wanted a break both from work and from that entire realm okay?” realizing that he’d been a little too mean- at least he felt he’d been too mean, Cypress tried to backtrack a bit “Not that I wouldn’t do that-”

He wouldn’t.

“-But this is my break, remember?”

North’s smile wavered, looking away from his friend. As much as North tried to hide it, Cypress knew how annoyed he was at how little Cypress liked their work.

“Listen, I promise you’ll like it! Mortals are fun to mess with!” North said, once again trying to convince Cypress. “Is this about work again? It’s been so long man, I thought you’d at least tolerate it by now-”

“Okay okay- let’s not bring this up now, it’s a nice day, we can drop it for now and-”

“Nothing is going to change if you don’t address it Cy, it’s not bad and you can enjoy-”

“-enjoy what? Tearing demons appart like you?” Cypress finally snapped, shutting up North. The silence after that was awkward, neither of them looking at each other. Cypress at least was good at hiding how angry and tired he was. North on the other hand, never bothered to hide his emotions, and was clearly annoyed with everything going on.

In the end, Cypress always hated conflict, and even if he didn’t want to he knew he needed to apologize to keep the peace, they’d both go back to being friends as if none of these conversations had happened in the end.

…He really should’ve distanced himself while he still had the chance.

Not like he could do much about it now, and no matter how much he thinks about what he could’ve done or changed, that doesn’t matter anymore, so he might as well just accept his situation. Despite constantly telling himself this, Cypress' mind often went back to those days. North was a jerk, but he wasn’t what he is now.

Cypress blinked, realizing how zoned out he’d been, at least he’d gotten some work done. Another fallen had washed dishes earlier, and the task of putting them away fell onto him. A porcelain plate was placed neatly in one of the many cabinets. If he broke it North would only scream at him unlike what would happen to the other fallen if they were to break something, so he was a bit more careless. There was a part of him that hoped to go back to the comfort of the life they used to have, although he knew that was impossible. Cypress still wanted to believe North was a good person. He’d been working hard to at least make North hurt him less, and there’d been progress, at least before recent events.

Basil had broken the peace Cypress had been building up for years now- not that he blamed him of course. Cypress had always been protective of the fallen, but Basil was the youngest one he’s seen yet. Despite how much Cypress pushed back against North, he had barely prevented any injuries, or worse, but he just knew that if North listened to him he’d understand.

With a sigh, Cypress finally put the last of the dishes away, closing the cabinet and looking around the kitchen he was in, the room was spotless of course, North wouldn’t accept anything other than perfection. Opening the door to leave, it didn’t take long to see another fallen outside dusting some of North’s more expensive decorations. The other fallen looked towards Cypress, about to greet him before they were both distracted by the sound of North coming back home.

Usually North was quiet, only ever looking around to see if his house had been taken care of. For some reason this return was quite the opposite from that.

There was a series of crashes coming from the entrance, and Cypress saw a couple of fallen quickly going the opposite direction since North loved hurting them to relieve stress. Cypress would’ve tried to get away too if he didn’t hear North shouting his name. The sound of North yelling alone terrified Cypress, as much as he hated to admit it, but regardless of his fear he was forced to finally see what was going on.

The hallways were empty as he quickly made his way to the main entrance, the commotion only getting louder as Cypress got closer. The sound of a stranger’s voice became clearer, maybe an unruly demon had snuck in? It didn’t happen often but there was a chance that some young inexperienced demon decided North was a weak target.

Cypress rounded the corner to see what was going on, and the person North was trying to hold down was clearly not a demon. A pair of wings more than confirmed that this stranger was a fallen. The stranger was shoved down roughly, North finally winning the struggle. Cypress couldn’t help but notice that this fallen hadn’t just been banished, which is what North preferred since it made everything ‘easier’. This fallen had definitely been in the underworld for a while now, but why did North bring someone that would struggle so much? Then he saw why. The wings on the fallen had a gold shimmer to it, and if it wasn’t for mud and dust, they would probably be quite pretty… Fuck, North liked this stranger’s wings.

North took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure despite the fallen violently trying to get North off. Cypress froze when North finally looked at him, thankfully he seemed calm, at least considering what was going on.

“Cy, can you please bring me the sedative? It’s the red syringe in the shelf to your left” He asked, sounding more annoyed than anything.

Right, red syringe, he could do that.

The fallen immediately reacted when Cypress grabbed the syringe, doubling his efforts to get away and growing agitated “Why are you listening to him?”

Cypress stopped, he wanted to answer but every answer his brain tried to come up with didn’t make sense- because he had to? Because North would hurt him if he didn’t?because they were friends?

“Cy, the syringe” North said, clearly annoyed at the delay. This snapped Cypress back, he just wanted the situation to end so he hurried over to North and handed him the small syringe. The fallen’s eyes locked on Cypress as he moved.

North, thoroughly unbothered by the tension between the two, let out an exaggerated sigh of relief as he sedated the fallen, the struggling grew worse only for a moment before it finally died down. North sighed, glaring at his ‘friend’, “Why did you hesitate?”

Cypress froze, and like a deer in headlights he could only stare at North. Even when North stood up and got closer Cypress could only stumble back.

“I’ve given you enough, I don’t want you latching on to another fallen, got it?” North hissed, making sure that the threat was clear. “Now go, I’m busy and I’ve wasted enough time here, he won’t be here for long anyway”

Cypress didn’t seem to process the last few words and scurried off before North could think of a reason to hurt him later, but he couldn't help the growing feeling of shame as he left.

#Cypress: I can fix him- i think #also cypress being a stress baker- poor guy has probably made an entire feast for a town by now #next part is the return of good ol leaf boy- that and a little more on this newcomer #North is right though don't get too attached #whump #whump writing #angelbreaker #me struggling to tag because reasons or something #tw: needles #sedation #manhandling #north has always been a shitty friend to nobody's surprise #cypress- as clever as he can be- does not notice this #angel whumper #angel whumpee

12 notes · View notes

viiisenyas · 2 years

Text

hello, hello, hello! I am a bit late (or early, depends how you look at it) but I finally began working on my next installment of this longfic.

Fresh from the press, the opening part of my next bit!

I was tagged by the amazing @psalacanthea, and I will tag with no pressure @imperatrixvini, @inquisimer @oxygenforthewicked, and whoever else would like to join in on sharing their wonderful tales!

Warnings: a bit of grief, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of death

Hawke

The soft snores of his siblings sounded from beside him as Garrett lay awake with his gaze fixed on the night sky. So much has happened in a short span of time and the grief for his mother's death finally overcame him.

A weight settled on his chest, and Garrett’s breaths became erratic as tears slipped down his temples unnoticed. He shut his eyes for a moment, attempting to will his thoughts away from the image of her broken frame in the dirt, but to no avail.

I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough to save you, Mother.

As he sniffled, Valeriana’s soft voice sounded from his left. “Hawke?”

His eyes cracked open, and he turned his head towards the Tevinter mage. She sat up, and placed her hand on her belly as she straightened her posture.

“What is it?” He muttered, sniffling again. Garrett pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. He slowly sat up with her, and let his eyes meet hers.

“Are you… are you alright?” She tilted her head.

She shifted closer to him and he tensed when she placed her hand on his back, stroking gently. Hawke wasn’t used to receiving comfort from anyone but his mother, and even then, it’d been years ago before Malcolm died. His chest tightened and he drew a sharp breath. He averted her gaze and unconsciously relaxed into her comforting touch.

No.

“I’m fine.” His answer was much harsher than he intended, and he immediately regretted it as her expression fell. “Don’t worry about me, Valeriana.” His tone softened, and Garrett fixed his gaze on the dying light of the orbs that Flemeth summoned.

A long pause settled between them, and Hawke shivered involuntarily as Valeriana’s fingers trailed along his shoulder while she slowly retracted her hand. She tucked her hair behind her ear, and he spared her a glance before exhaling through his mouth.

“You should be resting. We’ve a long journey ahead of us.”

“I know, but… I can’t sleep.” Valeriana replied.

He furrowed his brow and shifted his gaze to her, “Why not?”

“I…” She paused in thought, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s just what you said earlier, I suppose.” She turned her head towards the warrior, but her eyes didn’t meet his. “I can’t ask you to lie to your uncle about my—”

“I've already told you I'd protect you.” He interrupted. “My uncle is a bastard, and with Mother gone…” His throat tightened, and he closed his eyes as grief gripped him. “Andraste's arse.” He muttered and pinched the bridge of his nose as his chest tremored.

Valeriana gently placed her hand on his shoulder, and he felt a wave of calm washing over him. The anxiety dissipated, and he exhaled softly.

“Mother would have been able to convince Gamlen to let you and your child stay in the estate. With her gone… I’m not sure he’ll listen to us. If I tell him that I fathered your baby, it's the best chance you have against being thrown out.” He sighed.

“How do you know that?” Valeriana’s voice wavered, and she began to blink rapidly. “How do you know he won't cast my son and I out into the street, anyway?”

Many answers to her line of questions swirled in his mind, but they dissolved when he heard her final words.

“Your... your son?” Garrett’s brows shot up in surprise and he pursed his lips. “You know it’s a boy?”

She paused and averted his gaze. Hawke tilted his head curiously.

“I don’t know how it happened, but I had… a vision earlier.” She explained.

A vision?

“What did you see?”

“I was walking in a busy street and there was a child holding my hand. He looked up at me and…” She trailed off for a moment, wetting her lower lip with her tongue. “He had his father's eyes and dark red hair.”

Just like hers…

Silence settled between them, and he began to wonder what magic could grant her such abilities to see a possible future, though his contemplation was short-lived.

“Why are you helping me, Hawke?” Valeriana asked.

The question was rather sudden, and he swallowed. He’d been asked this before, barely a week ago, and he remembered his answer to his brother.

Why are you so intent on helping her anyhow? Every time I look at her, I see our sister. Bullshit… I know you, Garrett. You’re sweet on her, aren’t you?

He thought back to the first time he’d seen her in Ostagar. Although he was distracted with bickering with his brother, he couldn’t help but spare her a glance or two. He’d never admit that he thought she was fair of face and form, and she seemed far too innocent to be amid the horrors of war.

He remembered how she helped the wounded in Cailan’s camp even after what she’d endured the night before. Even when Leandra nearly turned her away, Valeriana was willing to heal his mother from whatever illness she had. She was a kind soul, and he did not expect to encounter someone like her after he left home.

He turned his head to find her green gaze fixed on him as she waited for his answer, and his stomach fluttered. He hadn’t felt like that for years; not since he was a young and foolish boy, and Hawke’s expression fell when he realised that Carver was right.

Flames.

“Why not?” He answered, moving his eyes to the grass. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Oh...” She took a breath before she offered him an appreciative smile, “You have my gratitude, and I’m sorry I didn't trust you before.”

She moved her hand from his shoulder to his bicep, and his cheeks grew warm from the friendly touch. Valeriana gently patted his skin before she settled her hand in her lap. Her eyes fell to the grass, and he spared her a glance before his lips curved into a small smile.

“You should get some sleep, Val. I’ll wake you at dawn.”

#I was listening to Winterfell when I wrote this #and I wept like a lil bitch #MY HEART IS WARM #wip wednesday #wip whenever #I got bullied into making him a soft boi #hooray for crushes!

6 notes · View notes

lfcrobbo · 2 years

Note

EXACTLY!! I find it so funny seeing people obsess over their favorite drivers and hate on their least favorite drivers to the level that they do. maybe it’s because I experience the one direction fandom during my teen years, but i’ve realized how pointless it is to dedicate so much of your life to thinking about petty drama happening in a total stranger’s life. it’s definitely healthy to have some distance between yourself and this sport

literally if there's one thing i've learnt from my many years in fandom it's how important it is to distance yourself from it!! ramblings about fandom and how we partake in it under the cut lol

not to like. dictate how people should experience things, but fandom is supposed to be FUN! and what's fun will of course be different for everyone but if you're getting genuinely angry about what someone's saying about your favourite [drive/actor/character/musician/whatever] then you NEED to take a break, because it literally does not matter.

and i get that the lines can get blurry. especially on social media! when i tag a pic of seb with #he's everything to me, or something along those lines, i don't MEAN that. but it's fun! it's just my way of saying i enjoy the version of him that is presented to me through media/fandom musings. but it's not real! and i know that! i am very aware of that, but it's not FUN to go on about that, so we don't. but i do think it should be talked about more because it's good to be aware of it and have a conscious relationship with fandom and how you interact with it.

and re: hate. i have a LOT of thoughts on the subject actually, mainly they boil down to this: sometimes it can be fun to hate things in fandom (in terms of f1, teams and/or drivers). sometimes that can bring you joy! but only if you don't take it very seriously. and i think this is ESPECIALLY true in sports. it's a big part of the community, because it's all about competition, and not everyone can win, so it makes sense to have a least favourite/someone you root against/etc. and. i like being a hater! but i'm not. going out of my way to let people know why i don't like someone. i'm not telling fans of the people i dislike that they should ALSO dislike them bc of reason xyz. i just like being petty in the dms with my friends! and then occasionally i'll make a post where i say "oh [redacted] is really annoying i hope he flops]" and that will be that. it's not REAL to me, it's just. it's fun? i'm not sure i'm making a lot of sense with this.

there was a really good post going around a while ago actually that i CANNOT find, that talked about people's need to almost. idk if this is what they called it, but act as missionaries through their fandom expressions? i.e. "i hate this thing so it is imperative that everyone else also hates this thing", OR "i like this thing, so it is imperative that everyone else also likes this thing." which, maybe i'm just, as i said in my original post, too OLD. i don't care anymore! i definitely probably did back when i was a teenager (i too, was in the 1d fandom lol and yeah. it sure does prepare you for fandom life in different ways lol) but now i just. want to enjoy the things i enjoy, with my friends who also enjoy the things i enjoy. and sometimes that includes talking about how punchable [redacted] is! and i think if more people got to that point in their. idk, fandom-careers? dumb word but i'm going with it. if more people got to that point, they would have more fun. it IS possible to be invested in something without it having a negative impact on your mood. and when you do that, it will also be easier to accept that other people dislike the things that you like?

uh i could. also go on another rant about echo chambers, fandom in-groups/out-groups, but. i will refrain lmao

sorry this is SO long and rambly. i just have a lot of thoughts and will jump at the opportunity to share them lololol. also disclaimer this is. obviously just my thoughts and it's heavily influenced by my own experiences, and my experiences aren't universal etc. if anyone thinks this is WAY off, feel free to chime in!!

TL;DR: remember that to some extent this is all fake and don't let it negatively impact your life. if it is, take a step back! reflect on why! distance is good!

#:)#i'm worried that this sounds a little preachy but OH WELL maybe it is a little bit #another thing is age of course. the thing with the internet is that you don't always know how old someone is #i have a higher tolerance for like. 15 year olds getting swept up in fandom drama just bc they're KIDS and they haven't had the time #to LEARN all of this #than i do for actual adults #that's not me saying everyone should be putting their age all over their blogs btw. privacy first of course #ask #anon

3 notes · View notes

faccal · 12 days

Text

Seven sentence Sunday Tuesday? I was supposed to do this on Monday but it just hit 12:01 for me. I need to be in bed lmao.

Thanks for the tag @alidravana i haven't been writing much in the last week or so, but I did have an idea earlier and I had to write it down. It is not seven sentences.....that probably breaks the rules but uh......sometimes it's ok to break the rules? (I'm so sorry in advance. I tried to keep it contained I swear.)

I'm gonna tag @tokillamockingbird427 @simonxriley (only if you want to do it. Don't feel obligated) and anyone else who wishes to partake.

It's a lot more than seven sentences and I'm so sorry. The last time I did one of these was years ago surely, but I certainly didn't get carried away lmao.

He's following so close behind him Soap can practically feel his breath against the back of his neck as they enter the Prince's room.

"Why did you lie about your blood, Soap?" His voice is calm, but not level. There's a faint hint of wavery there; nervousness perhaps? Surely it couldn't be fear. Surely his Prince doesn't fear him.

He lets out a heavy sigh, rubbing aggressively at his brows before turning to face the younger man. Without a word, he steps forward, and Hesh in his ever unending stubbornness, straightens his back and levels his stern gaze upon his Guard.

A soft huff escapes Hesh's lips when Soap's forehead connects with his shoulder. The two stand in silence for a short while before the older man breaks it. "Hold me." He states.

Hesh furrows his brows, gazing down at the man. "...I am." He whispers, unsure why he switched.

Soap lets out a soft chuff. "No, hold me. Support me. Wrap your arms around me and allow me to rest my body upon yours."

He certainly finds it an odd request, but most definitely not the strangest the man has ever requested. "Alright." He answers, carefully wrapping his arms around Soap's shoulders, squeezing softly at his biceps.

Suddenly, things shift, and he feels as if the weight of the entire world is on his chest. His knees shake and buckle as he clings to Soap, his feet desperately trying to offer some way to prevent him being crushed. It feels as if his bones could crack and shatter any minute, as if his body could give way and he'd just be crushed, flattened, forced to sink through the Earth long after he died.

Then it's gone, Soap's weight, his warmth. He's standing at the far end of the room now, hand grasping desperately as the window sill.

Hesh's breaths come out ragged and broken, his lungs still feeling compressed. "What....what was that?" He croaks, clearing his throat as he attempts to walk over to the other man. His legs tingle numbly, sharp pricks of pain shoot from his toes to his thighs and back down again. What was that?

Soap turns, letting out a weighted sigh as he takes in the sight of his Prince. "That was a minuscule sliver of my full potential. My full strength, my full weight." He steps forward, his fingertips lightly caressing Hesh's hand. The soft strokes of his thumb pad against his knuckles almost seems to ease his numbness and pain, but how could that even be possible? "I swear to you, that one day when the time is right, the truth will bleed from my lips like water from a fall." He offers a nod, and Hesh swears he can see for the faintest of moments, some thin veil of silver and gold thread connecting the two of them together.

Thanks again for the tag! Sorry it isn't seven sentences.

#seven sentence sunday #this turned into more of a wip post #way more than seven sentences #david hesh walker #captain john soap mactavish #writing

1 note · View note

ahundredtimesover · 3 years

Text

Inevitable (Prologue) | JJK

Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader (ft. ot6)

Genre/Tags: exes au, parents au, baseball player!JK; angst, fluff, smut (18+)

Series Warnings: foul language, alcohol consumption, minor character death, explicit sexual content in future chapters (oral, unprotected sex but be safe please!)

Prologue Word count: 2.2k

Summary: You convinced Jungkook to break up years ago so he could pursue his lifelong baseball dream. Now he’s back home, staring at you, and the little boy next to you who looks unmistakably like him.

A/N: I’ve had this story in my head for months and I’m glad I finally got to put this into writing! This little family was such a joy to write, and I thank the sweetest soul, Ava @btstannies for letting me gush over this trio and hyping me up everyday! Also, my baseball knowledge is pretty shallow so please forgive me!

Listen to: Walking By by Something Corporate

Series Masterlist || Next

“We’re here.”

The deep voice cuts through the numbness you feel, blowing life into your body that’s chosen to block out the pain for now because you know after this, it’s going to hurt a lot more.

You taste iron on your lips. You feel the sting in your eyes. You see the crescent nail marks on your palms. Then you slacken your jaw and try to breathe.

“You can cry, you know?” But Taehyung knows you won’t. Not in front of him. Not in front of the man whose heart you’re about to break.

Your best friend knows you, knows you’ll only cry when you’re alone - under the covers, in the shower, on your bedroom floor. You don’t let anybody see you like that. It makes you feel like you don’t have control, and control is the one thing you need to have right now.

“I will.”

“You also don’t have to do this.”

But Taehyung also knows you still will. It’s a decision you made on your own and he knows you well enough that nothing - no one - will make you change your mind.

“I need to.”

He hums; it’s a battle he won’t win. So he exits the car, opens the passenger seat door, and pulls you out. “I’ll be here when it’s over.”

When it’s over. Over. That’s what it’ll be after this.

You ring the doorbell and hear the faint footsteps get louder. The door opens and joyful onyx eyes greet you, a contrast to your tired brown ones. He takes it for something else, perhaps stress, since he doesn’t say anything about it.

Jungkook pulls you in a hug and you will yourself not to bask in his sweet scent, not to let his soft giggle on your neck and peck on your cheek and whisper of “I missed you” make you forget why you’re here in the first place.

He tugs you inside the apartment, the one the team offered him because he couldn’t abide by the university dorm’s curfew, being that he trains too early and finishes too late. It had been a blessing to you both, as in the course of your over two years together, you’d taken advantage of the privacy and solitude it provided.

You can’t imagine what it would give him after this.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy. All these calls with the Dodgers’ owner, then manager, then coach. You think they’d all just call at once but they’re in different cities, I guess,” he shrugs and turns to you. “They’ve been excited,” he continues, his smile reaching his eyes.

It’s never pained you until now.

“As they should,” you try a smile. “They’re lucky you signed.”

He chuckles at this. He’s always been amused at your oblivion with how these things work. He’s lucky he even caught the eye of a scout, lucky they even paid attention, lucky that the LA Dodgers wanted to give him a shot with their AAA affiliate team in the minor league.

If he’s even luckier, maybe he can get to the major league in three years; two would be a miracle. It’s what he’s worked so hard for, it’s why the decision to move thousands of miles away was a no-brainer. Not everyone gets a chance to play in the most popular baseball league like this.

But Jungkook doesn’t know any better, doesn’t know that you know how these things work. You wouldn’t be doing what you’re about to if you didn’t.

“I’m glad you called, though,” he says, nerves teeming with excitement at his news. Well, proposal. It might be a difficult sell with you but he knows it’s not impossible.

It came to him one day, in the middle of a conference call with the owner who kept raving about his soon-to-be home.

“Oklahoma City is great, Jungkook. You’re gonna love it there,” the man had said. Jungkook wasn’t completely sold on the city but he knew you’d enjoy the museums, knew you’d enjoy watching the OKC Thunder play - you were always more into basketball than baseball, anyway.

Everything had been so fast - from the meetings to the contract-signing to the planning of his move to the US - but he couldn’t imagine starting his life there without you and he just knew he had to have you there with him.

He could help you find a job or you could do freelance work; what he’d earn could be enough if you both plan things out well, he thought. He was smiling like an idiot during that call, thinking about the next phase of your life together and he couldn’t wait to tell you.

You’d been caught up with your final projects and school events and he’d been caught up with his papers but you’re here with him now.

“So I was thinking and—.”

“We should break up.”

You say at the same time. For the first time, his wide eyes mirror yours - sullen and dark, but glassy, too because he did not just hear you tell him that you two should end this.

Everything had been going so well. You’d been so excited when he got signed to the Minor League, was celebrating with him in all ways you both knew how. There were no talks about breakups, no ending things. It seemed like a given that you’d both stay together; long distance relationships are hard but there are ways to manage. He knew that. He thought you knew that, thought you felt the same, too.

He stares at you, unable to make a sound, to form words that would be remotely close to what he wants to say. His heart is breaking by the second and you stare back at him. There’s no sign of guilt. You’re not taking it back, you’re not saying anything.

“You don’t mean this, ___. Tell me you don’t mean this.”

“I do,” you sigh. “I just think it’s best if we end this.”

He wishes you had not said anything at all.

“Why?” He stammers, willing himself to face whatever fucked up reason you have for wanting to break up. It doesn’t seem real. He’s suffocating with how forward you are, with how unbothered you seem while he feels his world slowly crumbling. “Did I do something wrong? Do you not love me anymore?”

“I just don’t think it’s gonna work out.”

“We haven’t even tried. I mean, I’m not leaving yet, we have a few more months to figure it out.”

“It’s months enough to get over this so we can move on. It’ll just be harder then. We know it’s gonna happen anyway,” you lie.

You see the shock on his face, the disbelief in the words coming out of your mouth. This isn’t the woman who he laid in bed with just a week ago, naked, giggling, kissing him.

“Babe, you can’t do this. I want you—no, I need you to be with me,” he continues, voice strangled, the thoughts of asking you to come with him drifting away.

“I don’t.” It’s another lie, but it’s one you need to tell.

You’re uncompromising, resolute in your decision. Your almost emotionless face - tightened features and completely dry eyes - is a contrast to his. You can’t break. You can’t back out from this.

He muffles his cries, heart breaking at the coldness of your words.

“You’re all you need, Jungkook,” you continue. “There’s nothing else I can give you that you won’t get there.” Another lie. You know that no one could love him as much as you. It’s why you’re doing this.

“Don’t do this to me, please.”

“Don’t do this to me, too, Jungkook. You have an entire life to live out there. You’re the one leaving and I’m supposed to just stay here and wait for you? Until your dream is enough? Live my life in limbo until we can be together again in god knows when? Expect that video calls will make up for the distance? What about me and my own life? What about my needs?”

It’s messed up but that’s what you do when you love someone, right? You hurt them? And you let them go?

You can only hope that one day, he’ll understand; that one day, he can forgive you. That one day, he’ll accept that you had to do this. It’s that hope you hang onto - that you’ll hang onto for years to come - just so you won’t fall apart. It’s only that hope where you can derive your strength from because you’ll have to be strong for someone else now. Someone who isn’t him.

“We— we can work it out. We’ll try, okay?. We’ll figure something out.” He stutters, still unbelieving that this is happening, that he is begging you to be on the same page with him, begging you to fight for this with him.

“But what if we can’t? What if it becomes too much? You know what it would take to make it and I can’t hold you back, Jungkook. My life is here, my family and my friends are here. I have a job waiting for me, so you can’t hold me back either. It’s unfair to both of us.”

He’s looking at you, desperate to find a crack, to find an opening. But there’s none.

“Baby, please—” he cries, arms out to hold you but you step away, as if his touch could burn you. His heart is already shattered, why are you still breaking it? What’s left to break when you’ve taken everything away from him with just your words?

“Jungkook, think about it!”

“I am, and you’re not making sense! I know we haven’t really talked about it—“

“Exactly. Because there’s nothing to talk about. You don’t need baggage when you’re over there, you can’t be thinking about anyone else, especially one who isn’t there. You need support and more patience and understanding and… I can’t give you those. Not anymore. I’m tired. I’ve been tired. It’s gonna be even more tiring when you’re gone.”

The lies don’t stop but you know they’re necessary, that this is how you convince him, that this is how he lets you go.

Jungkook doesn’t think there’s a worse way that you can hurt him. He’s always admired your decisiveness, but right now, he hates it, hates everything he loves about you - how strong you are, how persistent you are, how uncompromising you are. Your words are ice, as cold as the December evening. You’re unmoving and he knows you well enough that you won’t take it back.

“Fine,” he relents. “You want to break up? Then we break up.” He wipes the tears off his face, trying to be brave, trying to salvage the remaining dignity he has left. “We end this right now, like you want.”

This is what you came here to do. This was the goal. And you’re absolutely broken.

You turn away, knowing any more second of looking at his clenched jaw, balled up fist, and unblinking eyes will make you give in, will make you take everything back.

“Don’t reach out, okay? Don’t call. Don’t make this harder than it already is,” he states. “You wanted this.”

You nod because he’s right. You’ll lose all rights to him after this. He’ll get over you, he’ll be okay. You’ll let him know the truth when the time is right.

“Goodbye, Jungkook. Good luck out there. Your father is very proud of you.”

You turn and head out the door, the bang not as loud as your shattering heart. And just like that, it was all over.

You stand motionless outside his apartment, unable to make a step to make it all final.

You hear a thump. Then a sob.

“Please, don’t go,” he whispers, as if he knows you’re still there, and even during the final moments, he’s still begging for you to change your mind. It’s faint but you hear it and you step away this time before you walk back in and take everything back.

Taehyung starts the car as he sees your figure approach. You head to the back, behind the driver’s seat, a hand over your mouth to suppress your sobs.

“You can cry now,” he says, as he steps on the gas and turns up the volume of the radio until it drowns out your sounds. You let yourself go and weep, throat aching at the force of it all, chest tightening at the overwhelming emotion of what you’d just done.

It hurts not like you expected. It hurts even more.

You ground yourself before you lose more of you as the seconds go by and cradle the soon-to-be-there bump on your stomach.

You need to let them know it wasn’t their fault, that they’re a blessing either way, but that it’s just hard right now. You don’t want them to feel the grief, the ache of a love that had to end, the love that created them.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” you whisper and trust that this tiny little being can hear your words. “But we’re gonna be okay, alright? Mama’s gonna be okay.”

#jungkook fic #jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook fanfiction #parents au #exes au #baseball player jk #inevitable #series

2K notes · View notes