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perfectsunlight · 1 year

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✧ 𝟬𝟰 ✧ 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘁

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲, pushing

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𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 | 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 | 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁

𝗙𝗘𝗕𝗥𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭

“no. now, bada. tell me now!” y/n shouted, fists clenched into balls at her sides. hot tears fell from her glaring eyes as she stared at the taller girl in front of her. bada ran a hand through her hair, trying to maintain her composure.

there wasn’t anything that could stop the other girl’s meltdown. she knew better than that.

once the fire started, there was no way to put it out. she just had to let it burn out on its own.

the tension in the practice room was palpable, thick enough to suffocate. y/n's voice had risen to a feverish pitch, her chest heaving with every breath. her fists trembled as if they were on the brink of exploding into action. hot tears blurred her vision, but she refused to let them fall.

bada's attempt to maintain her composure was faltering. she could feel the weight of the younger girl’s accusations pressing down on her, threatening to break her resolve. her hand, once elegantly raking through her hair, now clenched into a fist at her side, mirroring y/n's anger.

"why are we talking about this here?" bada retorted, her voice tinged with exasperation as she turned away to face the mirrored wall. she couldn't bear to look into y/n's accusing eyes any longer.

but y/n was relentless, her voice trembling with the fury of betrayal. "because i want to know. i need to fucking know. was it you?"

bada closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, trying to find the right words. when she turned back to y/n, her expression was a mix of guilt, frustration, and fear. the storm that raged between the two dancers threatened to consume everything.

“yes, y/n,” bada finally admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “it was me.”

y/n's face contorted with a mixture of hurt and pure rage. she took a step toward the korean, her finger pointing accusingly. “you knew how much it meant to me, how hard i worked on it! and you just stole it, without asking, without even telling me?”

bada couldn't meet the other girl’s gaze. it was a fury brighter than the sun, and she didn’t feel like dealing with the hothead right now. she looked at her hands, as if there was anything interesting to look at there. “i was desperate, y/n. and we worked on part of it together so i thought i could make it work for the group.” she explained as calmly as possible.

the american clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “desperate? that's your excuse?! you think that justifies what you did?!” her voice raised even louder, disbelief ever evident in her tone.

“i had the company on my back! what did you think they were going to do? give me more time?” the taller girl snapped, feeling frustrated with the other dancer’s lack of understanding. bada was starting to feel aggravated now. how could the younger girl now understand where she was coming from?

“you could have just asked me! or just let me present the choreography myself!”

a sarcastic and forced laugh fell from the older girl’s lips. it was a sound y/n heard far too often from the taller girl. it was belittling, truly. “you really think they’d let just some american dancer get credit for choreography of a korean girl group?”

that was the sentence that truly snapped something within the young american. all she saw was red.

y/n's eyes blazed with fury as she shot back, “it doesn't matter where i'm from, bada. it was my work, mine! you should have given me the choice to decide how to present it.” bada's frustration bubbled over, her own anger flaring.

“you don’t get it do you? the company, the fans, everyone expected me to come up with something groundbreaking. i thought i was doing what was best for the group!”

the american's jaw tightened as she stepped even closer to bada, their faces inches apart. “so, what? you're saying your fucking reputation is more important than us? than me? because you couldn't even respect me enough to be honest!”

bada's voice quivered with heated emotion as she shot back, "no, it's not like that, y/n! i value our friendship more than anything, but i thought i was helping you by showcasing your talent." y/n couldn't contain her frustration any longer. she raised her voice even higher, her words filled with resentment.

“helping me? by stealing from me? i don't need your fucking help!” y/n's shoulders heaved with anger, her face flushed with emotion. "well, congratulations, bada. you got your glory.”

“selfishness? you think i did this for myself? you don't understand how much i've sacrificed for this group, for you!” bada shouted back. the older girl took a step closer to y/n, face so close to hers that she could see the flames dancing in her eyes. and in bada’s own were a hurricane of emotions spinning.

“do you know what they say about me because of you? you shouldn’t even be here, you know that?” bada snapped again, eyes glaring daggers into the younger girl. “you should be thanking me.”

the two girls were too caught up in their argument to notice aespa’s arrival, as well as redlic’s in the practice room.

it was no longer an argument between two dancers. this was a battle of fire and water.

“is that what you think of me? is that how you really feel about me?” y/n whispered, venom dripping in her tone.

but it was what bada said after that made y/n completely lose her temper.

the taller girl had a smug glare on her features as she scoffed in her face. “oh, it's not just me. it’s everyone.”

all y/n remembered was pushing the korean girl so hard that bada ended up hitting her back against the mirrors hard. she remembered redlic pulling back the other girl while giselle held by the waist and dragged her away.

her vision became a blur of red-hot anger and hurt. the room seemed to close in around her, and she was only vaguely aware of the shocked gasps from the others and their attempts to separate her from bada.

aeri’s grip on her waist tightened, trying to restrain her best friend. “y/n please,” she pleaded quickly. “she isn’t worth it.”

bada’s fingers brushed against the back of her head, checking for any signs of injury. the hurricane of emotions in her eyes had turned into a whirlwind of shock and disbelief. she couldn’t believe you actually pushed her.

the tension in the practice room was palpable, and as if a volcano erupted, y/n's voice echoed off the walls with a mixture of betrayal and animalistic rage. “after everything? you really think that i shouldn't even be here?”

bada hesitated, her smugness fading in the face of y/n's intense emotions. she realized she had gone too far, but her pride prevented her from backing down. “it's just business. it's about doing what's best for the majority.”

the room fell into a heavy silence as y/n's anger and frustration churned within her. she couldn't find words to express the depth of her hurt and disappointment.

it was redlic who finally broke the silence, her voice stern and authoritative. “that's enough, both of you! we're a team, and this is not how we resolve our issues.” she let go of bada as she turned to face giselle, who still held onto the american tightly.

“please,” gigi said in a hushed tone, feeling how fast her friend’s heart was beating against her chest. “it’s not worth it, trust me.” she knew y/n was far from cooled down, and she mentally thanked her trainer for the strength training she received.

the other girls exchanged worried glances, their debut on the line as they witnessed the heated altercation between their teammates.

y/n's chest heaved with the effort to control her emotions, but her eyes never left bada's. “no,” she declared, her voice trembling with a mix of determination and heartbreak. there was nothing left for her. this was it.

no more bada. no more SM. no more dance.

“i quit.”

✧ 𝗦𝗬𝗡𝗢𝗣𝗦𝗜𝗦 ✧ ⸺ 𝗯𝗮𝗱𝗮'𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲, 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿. 𝗻𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿. 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝟯 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗿: 𝗻𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁, 𝗻𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼 𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝘆.

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✧ 𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧 ✧ ⸺ @10cmpulisic22 @zhivaxo @the2ndl @moonsvrse @arievlaw @awkwardtoafault @mightymyo @1luvkarina @jisooftme @angel-hyuckie @bangtancritterrrr @unforgivenangel @starchasermyloves @deadgirlwalking3 @cosettesrants @faatxma @santasbitch @jaeneohee @jxrdxnh @kaaylvst @jesuschrist2006 @enhapocketz @stinkbvgs @neuftaeng @sinifere @ocyeanicc @svt-rei @l-a-u-r-a--b @yunjinwrld @leo-dragon @phamminji

⸺ ✧ 𝗖𝗟𝗢𝗦𝗘𝗗 ✧ ⸺

#smau #all american bitch #bada lee #bada lee x reader #street woman fighter 2 #swf2 #original series #swf2 x reader #perfectsunlight

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copperbadge · 5 months

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Amateur Translation Programs

So I had a lot of imaginative and informative responses to my post about looking for an amateur translation program -- something where I could load in a foreign language and it would insert a box where I could add a translation every-other-line. The idea was that this way I could practice translation with more advanced texts, and texts I chose, and thus move away from Duolingo, which at this point is good for drilling and daily practice but not for more advanced learning.

I didn't find precisely what was needed but I did get some inspiration for further explanation, and I also learned that adding the term "glossing" (thank you @thewalrus-said) into my searches helped a great deal in terms of weeding out programs that were either "Let this AI translate for you" or just endless promotional links for Babbel and Duolingo and such. I thought I'd collect up the suggestions and post them here; at the end I'm including my best swing at designing what I wanted, and why it doesn't work yet.

Suggestion one, from many people, was various ways to generate a page that is simply fixed Italian text with space underneath each line to add in a translation. This is pretty simple as a process and there are sites that will do it for you, such as this one that @ame-kage suggested. However, most of these don't allow for movement in the Italian text, and many produce a PDF which you would need to print out in order to write on unless you're willing to open it in Acrobat (and deal with Acrobat). A good solution for some but not what I'm looking for purely because I'm trying to make this super frictionless so that (knowing myself as I do) I will actually do it.

I did find this version interesting, suggested by @drivemetogeek: Have one word doc saved as your "template" doc and set the line spacing as 2.0 or higher. Select your text from source and paste it into the template doc as text-only. Ctrl a, ctrl c to select all and copy, then open a new document and "paste special" as picture. Right click and set the "wrap text" as behind text. Now you have a document where you can, basically, type over the existing text because it's the background of the page. This seems like the most frictionless version, because you could set up a bunch of them ahead of time. If you wanted to move between desktop and mobile, however, you'd need to ensure that the pasted image was fairly narrow so that you don't have to sideways-scroll.

Relatedly, people suggested generating a document that is simply the Italian text with empty space beneath it for typing in of the translation. This can be done either semi-automated, using a macro or a language like Python, or find-and-replace on, say, the stops at the ends of sentences. It basically outputs the same as above but with a more digitally accessible format, without any more effort than above. If you were to do this in Google Sheets you could also fix the column width so that it didn't do anything weird when you opened it on your phone. But it is still very friction-y, and does not allow for easy shifting of the Italian as needed. There's high probability of the translation breaking weirdly across the page. Still a top option in terms of simplicity and access.

@smokeandholograms suggested another variation illustrated here where essentially you're converting the text to a series of tables, with each paragraph a row, and an empty cell next to it for the translation. I might play around more with this one eventually, since I think I could possibly make it a three-column and put the Italian in one, the translation in the next, and the auto-translate to let me know where I might be slipping in the third. (Not that I trust auto-translate but comparing a hand translation to an auto translation can be useful in terms of working out when I've messed up the way a tense or mood is read. I tend to read indirect verbs as automatically imperative because I'm a weirdo.)

@wynjara linked to an add-in for Word specifically designed for translators, known as TransTools; this appears to employ a macro to do the same thing, though it does have a format where you can place the translation next to each sentence directly rather than in a separate cell. The full suite of tools is only $45 which is reasonable for my budget, but for what I need I think I could also just create the macro.

Using LaTeX as a tool specially designed for glossing was an option on offer, but I don't know enough about LaTeX to figure out the pros of this one, which is in itself the major con -- there's a learning curve that I think varies widely by person but for me is unfortunately a wall. It came out of a discussion on Reddit about trying to find something like what I want; also in that discussion is a link to a code generator that allows you to…do something…to the initial language, but it's not entirely clear to me (I'm sure it's clear to people who understand coding) what you would then do with it that would allow it to be output in the way I'm hoping for. Like, I could turn a paragraph of text into HTML, I understand that far, but any Italian I find is already on a website.

Moving more into apps that might work, Redditors on the LaTeX discussion suggested SIL Fieldworks, which is a professional language tech tool. Fieldworks isn't a program I'd previously encountered but much as with the ones I had, it looks like the learning curve is fairly steep and it is definitely overkill generally for what I need, though it might also harbor within it the thing I want. It is free, so I may download and play around with it.

@brightwanderer suggested using note-taking or "whiteboard" apps such as Freeform or Nebo; these are generally a kind of "infinite canvas" in which you can drop objects, text boxes, or handwriting. I don't know that Freeform would be measurably different to just using Word and a macro, since I'd still have to input/format all the text and then be stuck with the same "fixed text" setup -- and it's also iOS only -- but for some folks it might be more helpful. Nebo is a similar infinite-canvas with unfortunately the same issues, though on the plus it's available for Android, which is where most of my mobile property resides.

@bloodbright suggested that I was looking for a CAT tool, a professional translation tool mainly used by translators working in the field. This was a concept I'd encountered, but I hadn't found a good starting place. They suggested Smartcat and OmegaT. Smartcat bills itself as an AI translation platform and is HARD pushing the "don't translate it yourself, hire a translator or let AI do it" angle, so it's difficult to tell what it offers in terms of actual tools for translators, and it's also cagey about pricing, so I can't really evaluate it. OmegaT is free and gives off big "some weirdo homebrewed this in their basement" vibe (which I am here for) but I also recognized it from screengrabs that were the reason I veered away from professional-grade software: it looked too complex. Realistically, the major downside of OmegaT is that I don't think I can put it on my phone. One thing I did find interesting is that once you translate a portion of the text, the original language goes away, though I assume you can turn that off if needed. I do kind of like that because it means my distractable brain is looking at Less Stuff.

So where did I end up?

Well, it looked like I was going to have to try a homebrew myself. I had the idea of trying some of the initial suggestions but in reverse -- designing a document where every other line was a single-cell table fixed to the page. You could paste in the Italian, which would wrap around the cells, and then enter the English in the cells.

You can fix a table in place in Google Docs -- you click on the table, then under Table > Style select Wrap Text, Both Sides, and Fix On Page. Getting the whole page set up is a little labor intensive but once you did that, you could just save it as a template and make a duplicate of it each time. And this actually works….on desktop.

Unfortunately, if you open it in the mobile Docs app, the app can't handle the fixed tables and automatically moves them all to after the text that's been pasted in. I tried redesigning it so that it's a table within a table -- one for the Italian, then within that a series of them for the English -- but when you nest a table in Google Docs, it doesn't let you fix the second table in place. And you are also still dealing with the wrap issue, although you can resize the page and add a large right-hand margin as a kludge of a fix for that.

You can build this same kind of document in Word, so I tried building one in Word and then uploading it to Drive, but when you open the Word file in Docs (or in Microsoft Word for Android), it still strips the fixed positioning -- there's just some functionality missing from both apps that doesn't allow them to handle fixed-position tables.

So, the design is sound, just not the final execution. If I could program an app, I could probably remedy the issues with it -- it's simply a series of text boxes nested inside one another with different formatting. I would imagine that's relatively basic to set up, although given that neither Docs nor Word can handle fixed tables in mobile, perhaps I've stumbled on a much bigger problem that everyone is ignoring because nobody actually needs or wants fixed tables in mobile. :D

Experimentation is ongoing, anyway. I might simply have to resign myself to the fact that my translation study is going to have to be in front of a computer, which might be for the best anyway when I inevitably want to compare my translation to an auto-translate to see where I might have read something wrong.

#language learning #translation #sam learns italian

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ragnviindrz · 1 year

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revenge is sweet. / dottore x f! reader

info: you trick dottore into inhaling aphrodisiac, however that goes bad for you..

this content includes: DARK CONTENT, drugging, NONCON, porn w/o plot, syringes, use of scalpel, forced kissing, rough sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), creampie, mating press, breeding kink, forced pregnancy, bleeding, pregnancy mention lmaoo im not actually sure if what i said abt the position is correct :')

note: one of my drafts got deleted so i made this instead. this was kinda rushed.

any reblogs/support is accepted!! :)

"How did this happen?" He hissed, as he dropped the syringe on the floor. You look up to see his face, flushed red. He looked like a mess, it seemed your plan worked.

He turned away from you, but was unable to hide his erection. Though, as he turned back - he noticed your smug expression. Your smile could not get any wider as you see him practically fuming. It's like he has smoke coming out of his ears like those typical cartoons.

"Hah? So it was your doing? How stupid of me to get tricked by a labrat like you. That's fine, I have another test in mind. Female anatomy is so interesting. Hm.." He spoke, as he didn't seem bothered, yet he was.

Your smile dropped immediately, as your heart did too the moment he continued, "I wonder if I could get you pregnant. A mortal, and myself... What would be the result?"

His hands reached to you, though you couldn't do much; being chained against the examination mattress. Slowly, he pushed your nightgown up revealing your naked pussy as he pretty much took every of your belonging when he took you.

"Wait– stop!" You yelled, but he didn't - he removed his gloves pushing two fingers inside you and scissoring enough to try and get you wet. He leaned closer, staring into your eyes as he forcefully kissed you, shoving his tongue in your mouth as you let out tiny moans.

Your slick coats his finger, as you adjust taking his fingers. It was like your body was overjoyed at this, but he didn't really mind as you writhe and let out gasps and moans within the kiss.

He pulled away from the kiss, string of saliva connecting the two of you. "You taste delicious.." He pulls his fingers out of you, tasting your slick.

"I believe you're ready now." He hums, as he tugged his pants down, letting his leaking cock slap onto your stomach.

"No way, Dottore.. That won't fit– please!" He doesn't answer as he removes the chain, pushing your legs and practically folding you in half.

He pushes the tip inside your slit carefully, stretching your pussy out and he muttered, "We'll make it fit, then."

As soon as he finishes his sentence, he shoved all of his girth inside making you scream in pain. He had barely prepared you to take his huge cock, and you weren't wet enough.

You blacked out for a moment, until he slaps you awake, and in that minute you've blacked out he has grabbed hold of a scalpel, tracing it against your skin, cutting just enough to make you bleed, but not enough to harm you seriously. "So.. fucking pretty."

He thrusted in and out, as you let out gasps of pain and pleasure - your blood coating his dick but he didn't stop. He got faster and faster, as he licked the blood from the cut he made earlier.

"Did you know that the position we're in.. Is the most effective for when a man is trying to get a woman pregnant?" He groans in your ear, as he pounded your pussy. "Luckily for you, I'm close, so stay still. Okay?"

His thrusts got more erratic, as he tries to chase his orgasm. His fingers found itself on your clit, rubbing and swirling his fingers creating a circle motion.

"Please.. Hgnnh..~ Pull out.." You plead, but your plead goes in his ear and comes out the other.

"I beg y–" Your pleading was stopped as he forced an orgasm out of you, your slick coating his dick and stomach. You tightened up even more around his cock, making it impossible for him to pull out.

"You ask for me to pull out, but your body doesn't want me to. You're begging to be bred, girl. Don't worry, I'll give you what you want. After all, what doctor am I if I cannot provide you what you desperately need?" With that, he was balls deep inside you, filling your womb with cum. It was extremely hot inside you, whilst he rode his orgasm, his cum acting as a lube.

He pulled out of your cum filled pussy, as you felt extremely bloated. His white cum mixed with your blood. Dottore scoope the cum dripping out of you and shoved it back in, keeping you folded to avoid anymore of his cum spilling out.

He let you rest for a bit, until the five minute has passed - and he stood above you, his cock erect once again.

"What? Didn't think we were done, were you? It's only begun after all."

first post, woo!! thank you for reading. :)

#genshin impact smut #tw noncon #tw: dark content #dark content #genshin impact noncon #cw.pregnancy #cw.noncon #tw.dark content #tw.noncon #tw.creampie #tw.pregnancy #dottore x reader #il dottore #dottore x fem!reader #dottore x y/n #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin dottore

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chvoswxtch · 2 years

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hi court!!!! I devoured your frank castle fics, you just capture him so fucking perfectly!!! soooo, i’m usually pretty extroverted and outspoken and I feel like I see a lot of frank x shy reader. I was wondering if you were interested in potentially writing this request: frank and a pretty confident and extroverted reader (on the shorter and curvier side bc I’m self indulgent) who maybe feels a bit insecure because of a lack of romantic partners and whatnot and maybe they’re friends and something happens and frank just wants to show her how attractive he really finds her…

maybe this sparks some inspiration? i would love to read it, but either way I am obsessed with anything frank or matt you write!!!

ps: thank u for the follow now we’re moots and i’m so fucking excited!! xxx sending so much love your way

hi angel baby d!!!

first of all, thank you so much for your sweet words. i'm also so fucking excited to be moots now!!! as a short curvy girl myself, I happily self indulged on this with you. thank you so much for the request, angel. I wasn't sure if you wanted it to be spicy or not, so I left it open ended. but if you want a spicy follow up, i'd be more than happy to write it. ;) please enjoy this valentine's treat from me to you, love. ❤️

I know y'all didn't think I was gonna leave out my frankie girlies on valentine's day. everyone say thank you @neverlandcity. ❤️

warning: swearing (bc frankie), mentions of alcohol, & allusions to spiciness. word count: 1.7k

[part two]

pretty.

From the moment he met you, Frank hadn’t been able to shut you up. He always knew exactly what was on your mind because you had no problem speaking it. For someone so small, you sure as hell had the confidence of someone his size, and the attitude to match. He was certain it looked comical every time he had to haul you out of a bar over his shoulder when you tried to pick a fight with some asshole three times your size. Other times though, he just sat back and watched with a grin. After all, sometimes those shitheads earned it.

If there was one person in this entire world Frank was scared to death to piss off, it was you. But, he got lucky in that your patience with him seemed to be limitless. As much as he had tried to keep you at arms length when you two first met, you weren’t having any of that shit, and very quickly had won him over. You very easily became one of his favorite people, and overtime he eventually got used to keeping up with you.

But tonight, you were quiet.

Frank couldn’t think of a time since he’d met you that you had ever been quiet. There was the one time you lost your voice from having a cold, but that didn’t stop you from furiously going through two entire notepads in a three day span. He thought he’d enjoy the silence, but honestly he had gotten so used to your voice that it was unnerving not being able to hear it. There was an immense sense of relief he felt once you could talk again, even if you did sound like you smoked forty packs a day for a while.

You hadn’t said more than ten words since you showed up at Frank’s door thirty minutes ago with a full bottle of tequila that was steadily being depleted. He cocked his head to the side as he studied you, noting the intense look of concentration on your features as you sliced up another lime in perfectly proportionate wedges.

“Did someone die?”

You immediately paused, whipping your head around to face him as your brows knit together in the center of your forehead in clear confusion.

“What?”

“Just wonderin’ if someone died.”

“Uh…not that I know of?”

“Then what the hell you bein’ so quiet for?”

“What are you talking about?”

Frank leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes slightly as he studied your face.

“You’ve barely said a full goddamn sentence since you walked through that door, and you’re cuttin’ up that lime like you’re performin’ fuckin’ open heart surgery. Not to mention, that bottle was full thirty minutes ago.”

A scoff sounded from your lips as you squeezed the juice of one of the lime wedges into your glass and shrugged your shoulders.

“Yeah well, someone is a heavy handed bartender and likes their drinks strong.”

“You’re the one makin’ the drinks, sweetheart.”

Frank arched one of his brows with a smirk as you glared at him. Your lips parted as you went to retort, glancing between both of your glasses and the assembly line that you currently had going. You shook your head as you went back to fixing yourself another drink and flipped him off over your shoulder.

“Shut up.”

Frank rolled his eyes as he rubbed his palms down his face, eyeing you as you sat back down at the table across from him and sipped on your drink.

“Jesus, normally I can’t get you to shut the hell up and now I can’t get ya to talk to me? The hell’s that about?”

He could tell he was testing your patience by the way you narrowed your eyes and pursed your lips in displeased line.

“No one died, Frank.”

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

An exasperated groan left your lips as you set your glass on the table with a heavy thud, crossing your arms over your chest as you rolled your eyes.

“I had a shitty date last night and I wanted to drink about it. There. Will you quit being a dick now?”

Frank tensed up at the mention of the word date.

Who the fuck did you go on a date with? Why didn’t you tell him? Since when were you dating? Wait…did you say-

“That bad?”

Your eyes instantly locked with Frank’s, and the emotion swirling around in them had him softening. You swallowed thickly and put your armor back up, rolling your eyes as you laughed dryly and downed another sip of your drink.

“I’ve had worse.”

As much as Frank didn’t wanna hear about you going on a date with some asshole, he did have a lot of questions.

“He uh…do somethin’?”

The nonchalance he had attempted had clearly failed by the smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth.

“Nothing that warrants you going all “Punisher” on him.”

Frank cocked his head to the side slightly as he stared at you, tensing his jaw as his fingers twitched in his lap.

Anyone even fuckin’ lookin’ at you the wrong way would warrant that.

The smirk on your lips quickly fell when you noticed Frank was seriously considering the validity of your words. You let out a deep exhale as you stared down into your glass, swirling the contents around slowly.

“Just…not his type I guess.”

“The hell’s that s’posed to mean? He say that?”

You held your hand up as Frank sat up a little straighter in his seat, shaking your head as you chuckled dryly to yourself.

“He didn’t have to.”

Frank’s face fell at the dejection in your tone, but he was impossibly confused. There was a layer of scarlet starting to burn on your cheeks, and you prayed Frank would think it was from the tequila and not from the embarrassing truth.

“I…I’m just…not what he wanted, and that’s fine, you know? I just wish I would’ve stalked his social media before the date, because then I would’ve known better than to go. I mean…all his exes were these like super tall, thin, bombshell supermodel types, and that’s just…not me.”

There was a rage flowing through Frank’s veins that he hadn’t felt in a long time. As much as you were trying to play it off, he knew you were upset. He could see the way your eyes glimmered as you gazed down into your glass.

“Whatever. He was boring anyway.”

“He sounds like a bitch.”

A loud laugh slipped past your lips as you spit out your drink, covering your mouth as you stared at him incredulously and tried to speak through your giggles.

“God Frankie, tell me how you really feel.”

No one had called him Frankie since Russo, and the first time you had, he froze. He hadn’t expected to like the way it sounded coming from your lips so much. He tried to pretend like it annoyed him every time you called him that, but he secretly loved it. It was something that now belonged only to you. He’d never let anyone else use it.

Frank shook his head as he finished off his own drink, setting the glass down on the table a little harder than he had to as he scoffed.

“Fuckin’ idiot was probably intimidated.”

“Intimidated? Frank, I can’t reach the top of my fridge without a step stool.”

“I’m not talkin’ ‘bout your height, smartass. I meant by you.”

There was an edge to Frank’s voice that stunned you quiet and had your giggles immediately disappearing. He seemed genuinely pissed off about something, and there was a flame flickering dangerously in his eyes. He stared at you quietly for a moment, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts. Shaking his head slowly, a tiny smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re smart, I mean really fuckin’ smart. Sometimes too smart for your own damn good. You’re funny, and you ain’t even gotta try to be. You got the biggest goddamn heart out of anybody I ever met. I know you talk a big game and you’re ‘bout five feet and some change of pure sass, but you give a shit, ya’know? I mean you care ‘bout people, always goin’ out of your way for everyone and shit. I mean hell, you intimidate the shit out of me, and I’m a man. I can only imagine how much you terrified that little boy.”

Your mouth hung open as you processed Frank’s words. There was so much venom in that last sentence alone that you were nearly speechless.

“I…you’re…contractually obligated to say that.”

“The hell I am.”

“Frank-”

“A boy wants a girl, sweetheart. But a man…a man wants a woman, yeah? And you, darlin’, are all woman.”

You’d be a fucking liar if you said you didn’t find Frank attractive. But you certainly never thought he would ever see you that way. You thought he tolerated you at best considering you practically forced your friendship on him. You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol simmering in your veins or his words buzzing in your ears, but there was something about the way he was looking at you right now that had warmth spreading throughout your lower half.

“I do.”

“What?”

Frank chuckled as a wolfish grin spread over his lips, nodding his head in your direction.

“You asked if I thought you were pretty.”

Your eyes doubled in size as your lips parted, blinking a few times to try and clear the drunken haziness that had started to cloud your judgment.

“Oh God…did I say that out loud? I don’t even-wait, what? You…you think I’m pretty?”

“I think you’re fuckin’ gorgeous.”

Frank tilted his head to the side slightly as he let his eyes wander shamelessly over your body, clearly pleased with your reaction to his confession. He used his boot to kick his chair away from the table a bit so that he could spread his legs out as he faced you directly. He gently patted his thigh with one of his large hands as he stared at you with a smirk spreading over his mouth.

“Now, why don’t you c’mere and let me show you just how pretty I think you are, sweetheart.”

#frank castle #frank castle x you #frank castle x y/n #frank castle x reader #frank castle x female reader #frank castle x fem!reader #frank castle x f!reader #frank castle fic #frank castle request #the punisher #the punisher fic #the punisher request

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capevans3000 · 1 year

Text

Sick Mind

A/N: Gahhh, so I have been re-bingeing one of my all time favourite TV series, Crimimal Minds lately. This led me to so many amazing fanfics by writers on Tumblr written on, yes you guessed it. Spencer Reid. Argh. This man is just so beautiful it's a crime. I've been feeling inspired and so I forced myself to come out with this piece before the inspiration and discipline to write dies on me. This hasn't been proof read so please expect some errors. This is written based on different perspectives so it may be slightly confusing. Hope it reads smoothly though. :)

TW: Minors please DNI! Extreme violence, Reader being in scary situations, a swear word, description of a disillusioned person, talks on crime, true crimes, sexual crimes. Let me know if i missed out on any others!

Summary: Spencer Reid x Reader where Spencer has to figure out an unsub to save reader in time.

Word count: 3217

(Photo not mine!)

“You don’t have to do this.” Spencer’s muffled voice echoed in your blood-rushed ears. “Put your gun down, we can talk about this.”

You looked up at Spencer through your heavy eyelids. He was standing just a few feet away from you, yet he sounded like he was speaking from a distance. It was proving difficult with every passing second not to throw up right then and there. The whooshing noise in your head that was keeping pace with your rapid heartbeat was giving you a splitting headache. Flashes of white lights shot through your eyes like lighting streaks. If there was any slight comfort at all for your headache, it was the cold wind hitting your bare shoulders like a cooling blanket. You wanted so badly for your headache to stop. And then it did.

——

“Penny for your frowns?” Laura, your co-worker asked. You snapped awake from your reverie at the sound of her voice. “You have been staring at the essay for the last 15 minutes with a frown on your face. Is the essay really that bad?” Laura quizzed. You looked down at your desk and remembered the essay that you had been trying to grade. None of what you had read in the student’s essay stuck, but it had nothing to do with his writing skills or concepts. Your mind was far away… on Spencer.

You had met Spencer during a crime seminar where he was a guest speaker and you were a participant. True crime had always been your interest so when the opportunity came to attend a seminar on criminology, you did not have to think twice. Being an avid true crime fan, you were actively writing pages and pages of notes while Spencer dazzled the group with his knowledge and expertise from his time at BAU. He was like a magician, capturing everyone’s attention at the centre stage. You hung at his every word. Despite your shy personality, you often raised your hands to ask questions whenever it was appropriate. Your active participation and eagerness to learn had caught Spencer’s attention. You didn’t know it then, but after the first few times, Spencer looked forward to seeing your raised hands. He didn’t know it was possible, but he was mesmerized by you. He enjoyed answering your questions and seeing your pen tearing through the pages as he spoke, so fast that it almost looked as if you were trying to start a fire. Although the topic he was guest lecturing was a heavy one, he couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of warmth when he looked at you.

From your point of view, you couldn’t believe your luck that you were taught a topic of your interest by such a handsome and intelligent speaker. Every single word from Spencer’s mouth was knowledge and you lapped at it like a thirsty islander. At the end of the seminar, you plucked up your courage to approach him. After waiting for the throngs and throngs of ladies to leave his side, you finally got a chance to get near him.

“Doctor Reid, do you think I can use your perspective on…” before you could complete your sentence, you were pulled aside by him and swiftly lead away out of the auditorium. You picked up your pace to match his long strides, walking through a group of girls with dagger eyes on you. You realised why the girls were staring. The warm grip on your hand made you suddenly extremely aware of Spencer’s hand holding yours.

Once the two of you got through the crowd to a quieter place, Spencer stopped. He spun around to look at you. You looked up from his hand that was still holding yours and smiled at him, half quizzically and another half genuinely happy. Spencer returned your smile. It was an awkward smile and you couldn’t help but squeal internally at how cute his smile looked. You tried to calm your beating heart. Looking at him up close made you realised just how much more handsome he is. You were taken by his eyes, his lips, and the way he awkwardly pushed his hair away from his face. His confidence when lecturing was gone, now replaced with a cute and awkward (in the best way possible) vibe. It was one year after the two of you started dating that he confessed that when he saw you up close for the first time, he was so overwhelmed by your smiles that he didn’t know how to react, except reverting back to his socially awkward younger days when he saw girls that he liked. This scene right here would become a core memory for the both of you. It had been two years since that moment with Spencer and every single day you thank the universe that he had held your hands to bring you away from the squealing ladies just to have a quiet moment with you. You don’t even remember what you needed his perspective for when you approached him after the seminar, except that you and Spencer were glad you did.

——

“What? Yeah… no I mean no. It’s not the essay. I’m just having a headache that’s all. I’m probably going to head back soon.” You replied Laura with a weak smile, your right hand absentmindedly fighting with the engagement ring given to you by Spencer three weeks ago. You and Spencer had only been dating for two years but he already couldn’t wait to make you officially his wife. Wedding plans were temporarily halted though when the BAU received a high profile case one week after your engagement.

Spencer had been really stressed out at work with the case that was seemingly impossible to crack. Spencer wasn’t able to share any of the case details with you as you were not privy to it as a general citizen. It pained you seeing him so stressed and yet there was nothing more you could do other than bring him mugs after mugs of hot coffee or making sure he was fed regularly. Although Spencer was not able to have you as a sounding board to discuss the case even though he knew you’d definitely be able to provide a fresh perspective on things, he was so thankful to have you in his life. In Spencer’s world where it was always filled with violence, murders, deaths and loss, you were the only positive thing in his life and he was committed to protecting you.

You waved goodbye to Laura and left the school office. When you stepped out of the school towards your car, you ran into Larry, a fellow teacher. You were not in the mood to chat but he was standing directly on the path towards your car and there was no way of avoiding him.

You nodded and greeted him courteously as you walked past him to your car. “Err, Y/N, can I speak to you for a moment?” You turned around to look at him. You wanted to get into your car and drive off, but you couldn’t. Larry looked distraught. “Sure, what’s up? Are you okay?”

“Can I hitch a ride today? My car is broken and I could really use the ride.” Larry asked. You knew where Larry lived, having been there once for a teachers’ day gathering. It wasn’t far from the school and it wasn’t like you would need to make a big detour so you agreed. Larry got into your car and you began the drive.

Back in the BAU’s office, the team was buried in piles and piles of endless case notes. Worry and anger hung on their faces. While the case was only referred to the BAU two weeks ago, the unsub had began killing his victims since two years ago. The case was referred to Spencer’s team due to the speed that the unsub had been killing from three weeks ago. The local PD had noticed a rise in victims with the same COD and knew it was the works of the same serial killer. Three female bodies were uncovered within a few days. They knew they had to engage the help of the BAU.

“This is seriously so frustrating.” JJ grumbled as she went through the list of victims again to find a link to them. There was absolutely no link at all. There were no discerning similarities to the victims that the unsub targeted, except that they were all females. They were whites, blacks, Asians, long haired, short haired, brunette, blondes, young, old… They were all raped and shot.

“The unsub is devolving. There must have been a stressor in his life recently that is causing him to kill so rapidly. If we don’t figure him out soon, he’s going to kill again.” Emily addressed the team.

“And I hope we don’t have to have another body discovered before we catch him.” Rossi sighed.

Spencer fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. He has never felt like this before, but something about the case was making him feel uneasy. His thought immediately went to you. He needed your warm embrace right now to make everything all right. He turned his chair to look at the board again, now plastered with more pictures of victims. That was when it hit him.

“Guys, I think we’re looking at this all wrong.” He stood up and went to the board. “We’ve not been able to have an accurate profile on this guy so far because his victims appears so random. But what if they’re not random? What if we don’t look at his victims, but the people around his victims instead?”

Spencer’s hand immediately flew to the phone that was on the meeting table to call Penelope while the rest of the team pondered on his words.

“Hey Garcia, can you check if there are any links between the people around the unsub’s victims? Check boyfriends, husbands, close friends…”

“I’m on it.” Penelope’s voice echoed into the room through the phone. Everyone could hear her furiously typing on her computer. “All right, so here it is. Victim one… she was married to a guy named Todd Graham. He’s a professor at a university. Victim two – she was married to a guy named Brian Hayden who works in HR… oh and he performs magic during his free time to local children during weekends… if only he could have used magic to protect his wife… Victim three, she was dating a guy named William Woolworth… he’s a banker. Quiet, law abiding citizen and his record is clean like a whistle. Victim four, her husband was a true crime author named Ryan Gloss who has published a good number of books. Victim five, her boyfriend, Rick Garrett, is a current trainee at FBI. His latest victim… she was dating a guy named… shit. His name is Spencer.” Penelope’s face turned white.

The team looked at each other as they listened to Penelope list off the names and description of the victims’ husbands and boyfriends. As soon as she reached the last victim’s boyfriend, it was clear to them who the unsub’s next victim was going to be.

Spencer wasted no time. He bolted out of the door, with the rest of the team inches behind him. The team jumped into the car and was on their way within minutes. Spencer gripped onto the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles had turned white. He has made this journey many times before that he could drive with his eyes closed, but he was never as afraid as he was now. All he wanted was to get there as fast as he possibly can.

——

You opened your eyes to see Larry towering over you. A trickle of blood flowed past your eyes from your forehead but when you tried to wipe it away, you realised your hands were tied. You tried to recall what happened. The drive with Larry began innocently, until he suddenly whipped out a gun at you and ordered for you to drive back to your place instead of his. Confused, and worried about what he would do if you denied his orders, you made the drive home. At one of the traffic stops, you tried to reach for your phone to dial 911 discreetly but your phone was swiftly thrown to the back seat by Larry.

“Drive, honey.” Larry’s voice was scaring you more than the fact that he just called you honey seemingly out of nowhere. “Drive us home so that I can make you a nice dinner. After dinner I promise you I’ll show you how good I am in bed. I’m going to prove to you that I am better than that little side boyfriend of yours.”

Larry’s words sent chills down your spine. You stole a side glance at him and saw him smiling at you in a deranged manner. Having read this in crime books before, you think you knew what was happening before, although it seemed so impossible. Larry had always appeared… normal to you. Nothing he ever did raised any red flags. To buy yourself time until you can get help, you decided to play along.

“Okay. Instead of cooking, why don’t we go to a restaurant nearby? It must have been a long day for you and I don’t want you to cook.” You placed a bet, hoping he would agree.

“No, no, honey. I love cooking for you. And I can’t wait to get you home so I can get you out of your dress. Maybe you can help me in the kitchen. We can cook together in our birthday suits.”

The hairs on your hands stood immediately. You were scared out of your mind. You wanted to call Spencer but your phone was at the back seat, unreachable.

“Larry, why don’t you put down your gun first? It’s hurting my sides.” Your mind was racing thinking of how you could get out of this situation.

“So that you can drive straight to your boyfriend?! Do you think I am stupid?” Larry roared into your ears.

Biting back your tears, you continued the drive back to your home. The whole time you were thinking of how you would escape when you got down from the car. You would make a run for it. Down the street, into another neighbour’s house… anywhere, as long as it was away from Larry. But your plans were unsuccessful. Larry continued to press his gun to you as you exited the car. He even went so far as to climb to the driver’s seat to exit from the same door as you so that he could hide the gun from your neighbours.

As soon as the doors to your house close behind you, Larry tore your dress off. He was unsuccessful though, as only your sleeves were torn off. As much as you wanted to keep your wits, you broke down crying from the sheer fear. “Larry, please, don’t.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry honey. I don’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.” Larry’s face softened and he pulled you into his arms. “I will never hurt you.” He pulled apart and looked at you. He seemed calmer now, until something on your TV console caught his eyes.

“Fuck!” He swore and threw a picture of you and Spencer onto the ground. “Why do you have to cheat on me with him? I have been nothing but a perfect boyfriend to you and yet you cheat on me. What about Spencer that is better than me, you tell me!” Larry came at you with one swift motion before you could react and dragged you into your bedroom. He hit you with the back of his gun. That rendered you unconscious. The next time you awoke, your head was bleeding and your hands were tied to your headboard.

Through your throbbing head, you looked around your room to locate something that would ease you from your restrains without Larry noticing. You didn’t have to try too hard though. Your heart quelled when you heard Spencer’s voice coming through your room doors, although to be fair, you weren’t sure if it was just your hallucination or that he was really here to save you.

Spencer burst through your doors and his eyes immediately located you. You were beaten up, bleeding and in a very bad shape. He wanted to run to you but he knew he couldn’t. Spencer knew if there was any chance to save you, it was to play to the unsub’s disillusioned game.

“We can talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. She cheated on me and she deserves to die.” Larry laughed maniacally while pointing his gun at you. At this point, you were drifting in and out of consciousness to hear a single word.

Larry was devolving so quickly that it caught the BAU by surprise. Before Spencer or any of the BAU could disarm Larry, Larry had shot you at your abdomen. That was when your blinding headache stopped.

Spencer shot at Larry and Larry was dead within seconds. Dropping his gun, he ran towards you while Emily called for the EMS. “Y/N! Y/N! Stay with me, please! Please don’t leave me.” Spencer got you out of your restrains and laid you in his arms. Emily was at his side, providing support. The rest of the team were scrambling to secure the scene.

During the whole one week that you were unconscious, Spencer never once left you, except when he had wash up. Even then, he didn’t want to take too long and would rush back to your side. He practically lived in the hospital with you, at your bedside. It would take a literal track lift to remove him from your bedside. He talked to you, read to you, massaged your hands, wet your lips to keep them hydrated. He took care of you, even better than any nurses or doctors ever could. The doctors didn’t know when you’d wake up, but Spencer was refusing to give up hope. Again and again, he told you about his plans for your wedding. He continuously told you how much he missed you and love you. He plead with you to wake up so he could marry you.

You must have heard him in your unconsciousness because you finally opened your eyes, much to Spencer’s joy. “Doctor Reid, can I have a moment of quietness so I can sleep please?” You teased him weakly. You couldn’t laugh without your abdomen hurting. You couldn’t recall much of what happened.

Over the next few weeks of recovery, you managed to get Spencer to fill you in even though he was reluctant to. You found out that Larry had been in a disillusioned relationship with you for over two years. When he found out that you were dating Spencer, his sick mind contributed it to you cheating on him. He began killing women who were dating or married to any guys that were remotely similar to Spencer. He began killing more rapidly when you announced that you were engaged to Spencer. His endgame had always been you. You were never meant to live. At least not until Spencer figured out Larry’s profile and saved you.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #matthew gray gubler

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indras-wife · 5 months

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hiii !!! I was wondering if I could request a yandere indra with a fem reader who smokes cigarettes? Maybe she grew up with a bad childhood, resulting her using cigarettes as a coping mechanism. I was wondering if you could make her be quite independent since she basically had to raise herself and she's quick to snap back at people whenever she doesn't get a cigarette since it contains nicotine to calm you down and makes you relaxed?

Also whenever the two would speak about their childhood, she would genuinely be quite surprised how it seemed a lot more normal than hers ? thank you !!!

This has to be one of the best requests I got anon! Indra has a very interesting woman to deal with it seems~ Two independent people... I wonder how this will go~✨👀 I was not sure whether you wanted modern or no, but I tried to write in a way that can suit both modern au and the anime era. Hope its okay with you sweetie(if no, let me know. I will write a separate one with the desired concept) 💖

A smoker darling...Indra never thought he would be so feral for such a woman. The way this woman presses the cigarette to her red pained lips, lights it, smokes and then looks at him with her jet black eyes as she puffs out the smoke, drives him to the edge.

He was first VERY VERY against the idea that his sweetheart is smoking. Not only because he hates the smell of burning nicotine, but also because women of inappropriate behavior are the ones smoking. In short, Indra thought of his darling being a prostitute upon their first interaction. Very judgmental of him, but this man has his opinions and he stick to them, as bad as they sound to others.

Surprisingly for him, as repellent as her smoking was, he was somehow enchanted by her. This man could not help himself but think of her every minute of his day. What was she doing now? Was she wearing her signature red lipstick? Was she smoking? Why was she smoking? Did she have a reason to smoke? The more he thought of her, the more possessive he became of a woman who he doesn't know well. However, later on, his obsessed ideas served the basis of their closeness.

When they got together, Indra was TRYING hard to persuade his darling to stop smoking. "The smell of nicotine gets stuck in your hair. I hate it. Stop smoking. Why are you even doing this?" Such sentences were being heard by his darling every day, 24/7, every hour of the day. At first she was laughing at him, not paying much attention to his rumbling and not giving him a definite reason for her habit but the more he spoke about it, she could not hide the reason for her smoking.

"This is just coping mechanism for me Indra. I smoke to relax and unwind" she explained, holding a cigarette between her delicate fingers. "I have been smoking since I was a teen, around 13 so its already something I got used to and cant change. Sorry"

Indra would just furrow his eyebrows at her explanation, feeling conflicted with many questions. Why was she smoking as a child? What made her smoke? Didn't her parent try to stop her? He had all the questions in the world ready for her, waiting for a moment to ask them.

His darling, defeated by his persistent nature(she found it hot nevertheless), agreed to reveal her reasonings, only if Indra promised to share about his childhood. Thinking he can escape, Indra agreed, not thinking much into it.

" My mom just gave birth to me, nothing else. She didn't raise me Indra. I did. I raised myself in the streets full of drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and many other people who were shunned by everyone around them in their lives. The only thing that my mother did was beat me when I failed to get her the alcohol of her choice. Smoking helped me get through that depressive part of my life. I still have nightmares from my days of living in the streets so....smoking helps me cope with them.."

Indra was taken back by his darling's backstory. He was guessing something terrible happened that led her to this path of self-destruction, but he was not expecting for her story to be this...dark. He loved that his darling was independent, relying only on herself, but he had no idea that her childhood was the reason for that characteristic. Indra always acknowledge that his life was hellish, cruel and overall fucked up, but hers...Even worse than his!

He began to feel more sympathetic towards her and her smoking habits. Of course, he would not fully tolerate it, but he would stop driving her mad with requiring her to stop smoking.

He has some...unsuccessful attempts at trying to stop her smoking. He would sometimes snatch the cigarettes from her lips and drop it to the ground. He would steal her cigarette packs and burn them without her seeing, and when his darling would ask if he has seen her cigarettes he would just give a short "no". Of course his darling could instantly figure his doings, but most of the time she would not speak.

His darling, however, snapped one day at him for doing his usual "stop-her-from-smoking" routine. On that particular day (the day her mother died), she was feeling more anxious, so her only thought was to smoke. She picked a cigarette out of her pocket, but it was snatched away in an instant. Her eyes met with Indra's who was towering over her with a warning glare. His darling was not in the mood for his usual tactics so she just pushed him away hard and run off somewhere to smoke in peace. Indra tried to go after her but failed.

In the end, surprisingly, his darling introduced smoking to Indra, seeing how stressed he was from his duties. This was now something he couldn't live without and he both blamed his darling and thanked her.

He would not let her smoke with anyone else after he also got in the rabbit hole. Seeing his darling smoke was HOT and he was too possessive to let any other man see her. His darling didn't mind this and was in fact enjoying his possessive side.

These two would have silent "dates" where they would stand in the balcony of the house, smoke and look at the stars above them. A very romantic date indeed~

#indra otsutsuki #otsutsuki indra #大筒木インドラ #indra #indra x reader #indra otsutsuki headcanons #indra uchiha #yandere indra otsutsuki #indraotsutsuki #indra x y/n #yandere x reader

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darsynia · 2 years

Text

Just Right | Ch 7

(Steve Rogers x F!Reader, post-Ultron Multichapter)

Summary:

You’ve been in love with Steve Rogers for at least a year, but he treats you the same way he treats every other member of the team– with respect, but nothing more. It takes an inter-dimensional mistake and a whole second, more assertive, actually interested Steve for you to realize that you don’t want just any version of Steve Rogers– you want the one you’ve been pining for all this time.

Length: 3,512

FIC MASTERLIST | LAST CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

Tags: @ronearoundblindly @munstysmind @tiny-anne @themaradaniels @starryeyes2000 @chickensarentcheap @isasalom @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @deepbatched @qvnthesia

Excerpt:

You catch up with Gold Steve right as he’s headed back into Bumble. You get it-- it’s the least-used of the sparring rooms. The unenhanced humans leave it for the enhanced ones, and the enhanced humans all have their own routines, most of which don’t feature the unique landscape.

It’s a perfect place for Gold Steve to isolate himself, basically. You wonder how many hours he’s spent in there.

Pushing the door open feels like an imposition, but if your plan doesn’t work, this man will never see his version of you again (the possibility that you might never know hasn’t hit till right now. There are a million alternate possibilities, and the three of you are basing your contingency plan on an offhand comment about a fall). Not only that, but his last few encounters with you will have been negative.

You’re standing in the entryway gathering up your courage when he speaks.

“He told you, didn’t he? You’d have just left me alone to cool off, otherwise.”

Wincing, you nod.

Chapter Seven

All right, it seems someone has decided to spoil our fun. It was bound to happen, but you all know I neither forgive nor do I forget. If you don’t want to be accused of breaking up the best 1v1 since Thor and I threw down in the forest that one time, get out of the hallways for the next thirty minutes! All surveillance will be OFF to hide the evidence of my righteous acts of anger.

“Tony, you magnificent genius!” you giggle. Both Steves look confused, so you explain your theory. “This has to be Stark-style cover. He’s clearing the hallway so no one figures out it was me, since if they do, I’ll be persona non grata here for weeks.” A thought occurs to you, and you frown. “Actually, for him to meddle like that probably means something’s up. I’d better…” You trail off.

The end of that sentence was meant to be ‘head over to Tony’s lab to figure it out,’ but even after kissing Steve, even after being some sort of focal point for both versions of him, that feels presumptuous.

“I’ll go with you,” Steve says, as if it’s natural for you to see yourself that way.

Gold Steve holds up a roll of athletic tape. “There are some things I still want to take care of. Keep me updated?” The two Steves go through an exchange of looks that you can’t decipher, before Gold Steve offers Steve a little smile. “If Tony wants to tell me something, he will. It’s fine, go on ahead.”

“All right.”

The two of you watch Gold Steve head for an alcove with punching bags, and he turns to you. “I can stay back for a few minutes if you don’t want to be seen in the halls with me.”

You know walking with Steve would be seen as an admission of culpability for your role in breaking up their sparring match, but you shake your head. “Steve, I’d go with you on a walk to certain death. I can handle a bit of disapproval from my coworkers.” It’s flippant, but you mean it. Most of the support staff does-- you’ve talked about it. That’s why you’d trained with Nat a couple of times, because sure, none of you are super powered, you don’t make the tech for yourselves, but you sure as hell would help when it counted, if you had to. If it would make a difference.

“If I let myself take you on a walk like that, I wouldn’t deserve you,” he says, holding the door open for you. The look on his face is serious, and you stop beside him and just… let how you feel show on your face. You remember how that felt from Gold Steve, and you want that for Steve.

He blinks a couple of times and looks down, possibly shy despite being everything you’ve ever wanted, and yep, there it is, you love him even more than you did a few minutes ago. It’s like clockwork.

You get to Tony’s lab without hallway incident, and his reaction tells you he’d been hoping you’d both drop by. Tony has clearly either gotten some sleep, or Pepper’s managed to haul him in for a shower, shave, and a change of clothes.

“Okay, who’s handing out dire expressions? You get a two-for-one deal?” he asks, leading you into his spacious adjoining office.

Steve says, “I had a conversation with Rogers--”

“I was hoping to ask you about that. Must have been some talk if it got you wanting to punch yourself in the face. Then again, I want to punch you in the face too, some days.”

“The sparring was unrelated,” Steve says, ignoring Tony’s attempt at riling him up. You notice that he settles into the plush leather couch only once you’ve chosen a seat. “He was already working out in there, doing some moves I didn’t recognize. We figured it was a good chance to talk technique.”

“Two identical heads are better than one? I get it. I think Pepper would appreciate that opportunity too.” The look Tony shoots at you after saying this makes your entire body catch fire.

“Tony!”

“He told me more about why he’s here,” Steve says, clearing his throat. “His timeline is years into our future, but Tony, things are bad over there. I understand his contingency plan, maybe even respect it, but it’s extreme. I don’t mind saying I’m conflicted.”

“I’m dead over there. He confirmed it,” you admit. Steve’s leg starts bouncing, and you wish you had the courage to reach over and rest a hand on it, but you two aren’t there yet. “He also said if we knew what the plan was, we wouldn’t let him go back.”

Steve stands, obviously too upset to sit still. “He’s right.”

“Hit us with it, Cap,” Tony says-- and that’s exactly what he does. Steve explains that his counterpart refused to detail exactly what happened, just stating that something powerful had been misused, and as a result, an unimaginable number of people died. To unravel it, Gold Steve and his version of the Avengers plan to use technology not unlike the device that brought him to your universe, but it isn’t that simple. At least one of the items they need carries a cost.

A cost that Gold Steve plans on paying with his life.

Even after seeing the way Gold Steve had acted in the surveillance video, the way he’d seemed to be mourning something, this news hits you very hard.

Tony’s already pages ahead. “Okay, so we figure out how to save him before we send his ass back. He’s you, so the idea of not going back at all won’t fly. Guy will commandeer this whole place single handedly if he thinks he has to.”

Steve’s tense body language relaxes on hearing that. “Thank you. I agree.”

“Did he… tell you anything about the how?” you ask.

Steve’s jaw clenches. “At one point he hinted at a fatal fall, but I don’t think he meant to. My guess is that it’s weighing on him.” He looks at Tony, lifting his eyebrows to emphasize his next words. “It was clear he thinks his death is some kind of catalyst. A necessity.”

“Score one for tortured nobility?” Tony sighs. “Geez, Steve, even your sacrificial moments are more poetic than mine. It’s enough to give a man a complex.”

A thought’s been forming in your mind, and you can tell that Tony’s about to devolve, so you go ahead and say it. “Steve, has anyone ever tested your healing factor? Like really pushed it?”

“You’ve jumped out of airplanes and stuff before, right?” Tony adds before Steve can respond. “Was it always into water?”

Steve’s brows furrow. “Not always.”

“Without your shield, how far do you think you’d have to fall to die?” Tony presses.

“Pretty far.”

Tony nods at you. “You get an idea?”

“I wondered what counts as ‘dead,’” you say hesitantly. “Whatever we give Rogers would have to be something he’d be willing to use, even though he thinks he has to die to win, right? We’re… we’re probably going to have to trick him. So I was thinking about medical ways to cheat death, and what ‘rules’ your healing follows. I mean, it’s not magic, and dying isn’t a precise process.”

Both men are watching you intently, and you can’t tell by their expressions whether they’re following what you’re saying. If this wasn’t so important, you’d back off. You’d listen carefully to what Steve and Tony suggested and then go back to your desk so you could put it all together without all this pressure. But this-- this is heroism, to you. This is your way of fighting. With your mind, and your designs.

“Go on, ‘Dine. I can tell you have something,” Steve encourages.

You dig your hands together on your lap and try to take courage from the hidden pride you can see in his eyes. “Okay, so the question is, which thing do we think drives that healing factor? Is it brain waves? Is it tied to your heart beating? Because CPR can bring people back, if it’s done soon enough. Brain waves take a long time to fade, depending on the manner of death. If Gold Steve--” You break off, embarrassed. You hadn’t meant to reveal that you have a special nickname for him.

“Shelving that, keep going, I think I see what you’re getting at,” Tony says, which is empowering, because Tony Stark never passes up an opportunity to tease.

“Okay. Tony, your armor just has to come into contact with the arc reactor to work, right? FRIDAY monitors your vitals, though, I’ve heard her on the comms. So that means you’ve figured out how to set it up so that skin contact is enough for her to sense them, right?”

“Yes, sensors in certain places. Wrist, over my heart, at my neck.”

“Okay,” you say, getting up, excited. “I have that suit, the one with the rip. We could fit it with a defibrillator, a really subtle one, maybe? I mean, if he looked dead, if his heart stopped for a while, maybe that would be enough to trigger the healing again? How long could we wait before triggering the shock to restart his heart? After that, the healing takes over, and he’ll be alive.”

“He did say he wished his universe had someone to make them gear like ours,” Steve says. “That might be enough for him to accept the suit if you offered it to him.”

“You remember that?” you ask. You do, but the whole thing was memorable, given the location of that rip.

“I thought he was hitting on you.”

“Oh god. Do you have game in any universe?” Tony groans.

“Do I need to?”

“Please stop?” you ask plaintively.

When the three of you adjourn, it’s so you can retrieve the suit for Tony to fit with a subtle defibrillator. This time, you ask Steve to avoid walking over with you, certain that if Gold Steve sees the two of you spending time, he’ll worry that his secret is out and change something.

Sam is in the room when you get there, testing commands for Redwing.

“Hey, ‘Dine. I hate to admit it, but the swap you did with those buttons really helped. I haven’t hit the wrong one after ten launches.”

You grin. “Great! You know you don’t have to say that, though, right? If you don’t like it, I’ll swap it back.”

“No worries. Just because I haven’t bitched at you about anything yet doesn’t mean I wouldn’t,” he says, favoring you with that gorgeous smile of his.

Behind you, Steve's voice says, “You want to try one more time?”

You turn around, startled. You hadn’t seen him when you walked in, but Gold Steve is standing there in regular clothes. He’s got the shield. You must look disapproving, because Sam steps over right away.

“He said he was going to stop by before dinner, show me one of the moves he and his Sam use.”

Deep down you know that Steve would never have balked at letting another version of himself use the shield, but there’s something about it that feels too much like sharing. There’s no way in hell you want to examine that, though, so you nod your approval as best you can.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but is it something that needs both of you? Can I work whatever it is into the armor, somehow?”

“Nah, needs the shield, otherwise I wouldn’t have touched it. Watch--” Gold Steve says, and Sam’s already releasing Redwing. The drone flies in a wide arc up by the ceiling, then dive-bombs over to Gold Steve, who expertly hides it behind the vibranium shield. “Redwing got clipped during a mission, once, and we came up with this.”

“Doesn’t that mean you’re changing history?” you tease, but immediately regret it. Gold Steve’s expression hardens, and he can’t get the shield off fast enough. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“No, you’re right. I’m… I’m too comfortable here, I think,” he says, and without another word, Gold Steve is out the door, the shield still rocking on the floor from the vehemence he’d shed it with.

“Man can’t help himself, I think,” Sam says, but you feel completely awful. Awful enough that when Sam says, “Go on, I know you want to,” you don’t even argue with him.

Instead, you go straight over to the locker where you’d stashed the ripped uniform in its bag. “Sam, could you take this to Tony? He’s got a theory I’d like to test.”

It’s the truth, but your conscience pricks you a little.

“You’ve got it,” Sam says, and as soon as you hand it over, you run out the door.

Gold Steve is not in sight, so you do what you should have done the last time you were looking for someone, and ask FRIDAY.

It’s a perfect place for Gold Steve to isolate himself, basically. You wonder how many hours he’s spent in there.

You’re standing in the entryway gathering up your courage when he speaks.

“He told you, didn’t he? You’d have just left me alone to cool off, otherwise.”

Wincing, you nod.

“Don’t worry. It’s good that you struggle with lying. It’s part of what I--” Gold Steve stops, smiles wryly, and continues. “It’s a good thing.”

His innate sense of decency won’t even let him admit how he feels. Had he talked about that with your Steve? There’s a lump in your throat, but you push past it. You feel like you’re taking on the mantle of that other self, the one he’ll never see again if he does what he’s planning to do.

“I don’t want you to die.”

Gold Steve has the wrapping tape again. “I didn’t want you to die either,” he says. “I did everything I could to stop it, and now I’m going to do everything I can to take it back.”

He pulls out a long strip of the tape, and the sound it makes as it rips away from the rest of the roll is loud, even in that large space. You imagine it as the sound of a heart breaking, but you genuinely can’t tell which out of the two of you that heart belongs to. Maybe that’s why you can’t help but say what’s on your mind.

“Doesn’t that mean she’ll come back and you’ll be gone? It’s going to break her heart, Steve. It’s already breaking mine!”

Oddly, that seems to calm him. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he says confidently, starting the process of wrapping his hands. “It’s part of the plan. When I go back, it will be before I left. Another Steve will already be there. She won’t have to do without me, she’ll just have to do without this me.”

Horrified, all you can do is stand there and stare at him. It’s as though the love you have for Steve Rogers has solidified in the spaces he inhabits-- your heart feels like it’s stopped, your lungs are clogged with fear and dismay.

“‘Dine,” Gold Steve whispers, coming over. “I shouldn’t have-- that was wrong of me to say.”

“But it’s the truth," you manage. Inside, you’re screaming. You want to reassure him. You want to tell him your secret, that it doesn’t have to be this way. But deep down you know that if you tell this version of Steve Rogers what you and Tony plan to do for him, he’ll reject it, and that’s a path to certain death.

So you’ll stay silent.

Even if it destroys you.

Steve finds you desperately nursing a cup of coffee the next morning.

“That bad a night?” he asks, sitting across from you.

“Oh my god, Tony’s right,” you groan. “Steve. Steve. You can’t say that to a woman you like. You shouldn’t even say that to a woman you don’t like!”

He looks completely baffled, and more than a little chagrined. You take pity on him.

“Okay, look at it this way. When you said that, my first thought was, ‘he sees how ugly you are when you haven’t slept well, and it’s so bad he couldn’t help but say something.’”

Immediately, Steve reaches across the table toward you, palm up, insistent. You reluctantly pull one hand from its position cradling your precious, and as soon as you touch his hand, Steve’s thumb brushes across the back of yours in an obvious caress.

He directs an intense look at you and says, “The first thing that went through my head was, ‘Wow, it looks like that cup of coffee is the most important thing in her life, this morning.’ You look as beautiful as ever, I promise.”

It’s the first time in your life that you doubt Steve Rogers is telling the whole truth, but given the motivators involved, you forgive him.

“I take back what I said about Tony,” you blurt out, wide-eyed. “Damn.”

The bashful look is back, and both of you realize you’re not alone in the room at roughly the same time. Steve gives your hand one last squeeze before grabbing his fork and starting on the scrambled eggs on offer this morning.

“Since you say you didn’t sleep well,” Steve says, enunciating with special care, “--did you want to talk about it?”

You look around to see if Gold Steve is in attendance, but he isn’t-- and it occurs to you that you haven’t seen him around the dining area for quite a while now. What you want to say is close enough to gossip that you lower your voice to just above a whisper.

“He’s deliberately isolating himself. I don’t know how much time he’ll have when he goes back, but-- we can’t let him do this. It feels wrong. No matter what happens, we should send him back feeling appreciated by this version of his family.”

“If we tell him we want to give him a sendoff, that might give Tony enough time to finish up,” Steve says, equally quietly. “We just can’t give the rest of the team the impression it’s a wake.”

“You’re right. I can’t imagine Natasha taking his plan lying down.”

A pair of support staff members sit at the other end of your six person table, and with a look, the two of you decide to change the subject.

At least, you thought that’s what that shared look was about.

“So, ‘Gold Steve?’”

You become laser-focused on your half-full coffee cup.

“Do you have a nickname for me, too?”

You do. You call him ‘your’ Steve-- but wild horses couldn’t drag that from you today, not after getting so little sleep. Your mind is… not sharp.

“I reserve the right to answer that on a day I get a full night’s sleep,” you tell Steve. “As for the ‘gold’ thing, he’s from an alternate universe, right? AU. The periodic symbol for gold.”

Steve looks intrigued and no small amount relieved. You decide you won’t tell him you spoke with Gold Steve about the other you unless he asks. There’s no need to worry him-- you’re completely invested in your Steve, despite how much you wish you could save his counterpart.

The subject shifts again, and after a persuasive argument on Steve’s part, you go grab a small plate of food. He’s glued to his phone when you get back, which is unusual enough that you assume it’s something pretty important. Two more people join the table, and soon you’re happily listening to a discussion about classic baseball and pushing the last bites of food around on your plate. Steve asks to borrow someone’s pen, and when he gets up to leave, he hands you a folded square of paper.

Everyone left at the table wants to know what it is, but you tuck it into your pocket and gather up your things to leave.

You don’t unfold it until you get to your desk, and when you figure out what it says, you can’t stop grinning.

Looks like you’re the Boron Radium Iodine Nitrogen Sulfur of this operation. Will you have Cobalt Fluorine Iron Einsteinium and dinner with me tomorrow night?

I'd meant to write out what the 'translation' of the note was, in just periodic table symbols, so here it is:

Looks like you're the B Ra I N S of this operation. Will you have Co F Fe E and dinner with me tomorrow night?

Next chapter (the conclusion!)

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x f!reader #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #captain america x f!reader #captain america x reader #captain america #steve rogers #mcu #mcu fanfiction #marvel #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #captain america x you #romance #pining

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chiiyuuvv · 1 year

Text

MOVIE - HYUNWOO °

~~~~~~~~♡

Opening the door, the smell of popcorn fills my nose with delight as I take in the scent, a determined smile fixated on my face. As I walk around, my eyes run up and down the long lines filled with people waiting for their popcorn and other various foods.

I quickly claim my spot in line, grabbing my usual candy bar and popcorn. My eyes settling on a brown headed boy holding some popcorn, who looks like he was trying to find something. His eyes meet mine and it seemed like his body had perked up as he walks toward my direction.

My eyes widen as I watch his movements, quickly turning my body so he wouldn't see my bright red face as he walks past me. "Here it is.." i hear him mutter, walking towards the movie room. I let go of the breath I didnt even know i was holding, quietly laughing at myself as i eat some of my popcorn, walking in the similar direction.

He looked kinda cute..

I shake my head, ridding him from my thoughts as I opened the door and walk to my designated seat, popping another popcorn into my mouth. The room was already kinda dark as I get myself comfortable in my seat, turning on the heat warmer and sitting my legs up.

No good movies were out so I decided to watch my all time favorite movie, (m/n). It seemed pointless, considering I had already seen the movie before (almost more then 5 times). I knew everything about the movie, from the actors gestures to lines, which I could recite perfectly.

A audible gasp leaves my lips as the light dims. I quietly clap my eyes and turn my attention to the movie, watching it was if I never seen it before.

Very invested in the movie, I feel a tap on my shoulder followed by a quiet "sorry."

"Its fine.." I quietly mutter, looking over my shoulder to find that the same boy from earlier was sitting next to me. My eyes widen and my heartbeat quickens as I quickly face forward, my face slowly turning red.

Throughout the movie, I secretly glance at the boy, studying his facial features closely. He had cute eyes and such an adorable smile, something that made my heart melt instantly.

"And for you, I'll give you this candy bar.." He quietly recites. "..with every bite this will remind you how sweet but bitter love can be.." i quietly finish his sentence, not failing to notice how his body shifted toward me. I let out a soft giggle, finally looking at him.

"I thought I was the only one who knew.." he remarks, jokingly grabbing his chest which earns a few shushes. "This isn't my first rodeo." I joke, winking at him as I eat some of my popcorn.

"Hmm then you wouldn't happened to know Lost would you?" He asks, raising an eyebrow as my eyes light up from hearing the movie name.

"Oh my god that's one of my favorites!!" I gasp, earning yet another shush. "I think we should whisper.." he says, watching some people send us dirty looks for talking. "Yeah.." I giggle quietly, noticing how much closer the boy had gotten to me.

My breathing quickens as I stare at his pink lips, letting out a nervous laugh as I quickly look away, my face reddening. "Are you okay?" He asks, his eyes filled with concern as he stares at me. I quickly nod, suddenly feeling hot as I advert my eyes from his, scratching my head shyly. He lets out a little giggle before talking more about the movie, making me forget what I was fidgeting about.

".. and then he-" I stopped, realizing the lights had turned on. I felt shocked as I looked at the screen, watching the credits play. "Wow we must've talked through the whole movie." The boy says, taking the words out of my mouth as he stretches his back, letting out a yawn. "Yeah.." I laugh, getting up and gathering my trash.

The boy follows my actions, getting up and walking towards the exit, slowing down so I could check up. "I dont think I've ever done that before.." he says nervously, referring to what happened earlier.

"I dont think I have either." I say, looking down as my shoes suddenly looked so interesting. "I definitely enjoyed it." I look up from my shoes, finding him grin at me cutely, my heart inwardly swooning.

"I'm hyunwoo."

A/n: the ending definitely did suck but I enjoyed writing this :)

#xikers drabbles #kpop #xikers imagines #xikers fluff #xikers fanfic #xikers #xikers fanfiction #xikers au #Spotify #junny #xikersau #spotify #soft imagine #xikers hyunwoo #hyunwoo xikers #hyunwoo #hyunwoo x reader

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floralifetime · 1 year

Text

Toruk Makto's Sister

Warning: Very bad writing, some grammatical error (English is not my first language, so please be gentle), mentions of bad parenting, mentions of abandonment, some bad words.

Previous Chapter ➡️ Next Chapter.

⚠️⚠️Phrase and pictures (only the names are mine) are not mine, all the credits to the owners.⚠️⚠️

Things written in orange will be interpret as the original language of the Na'vi, I say this because I'm not able to build sentences in their language from scratch, in future chapters when you see things written in orange, you will know what that specifics color means.

Chapter n.4 Two Twins

Parenthoos requires LOVE not DNA.

We walked for some time while Jakey asked me every 2 minutes how I felt and if my shoulder was still hurting, yes of course but it was eased by the makeshift bandage. “Once again, Jakey I'm fine. It's nice of you to worry so much, but I guarantee you I'm fine, at least for now." my brother sighs looking down, I approach and place my hand on his shoulder. “What is it, big brother?” I ask, my voice softer than a feather. Jakey stopped and looked me in the eyes, sad, worried.

“I'm sorry, I should have protected you better…” He blames himself for my injury. I looked at him wide-eyed, as if a second head had sprouted. It's not his fault, I knew full well the forest would be dangerous, and with the looming darkness it will only get worse, this is not his fault. It never was. “Jakey, what are you talking about?” I asked, already feeling the guilt eating away at me for making him believe such a thing. “I mean, I'm here armed and I was supposed to protect you, yet you ended up injured when I was here!” he complains and I notice how his gaze lingers on my wound, even if I want to I can't hide it, the scratch is very extensive, it doesn't just take my shoulder even though that is the part that makes me suffer the most. It also nicked part of my arm, about two inches above the elbow, but it doesn't matter, I knew the risk I was running, I also knew that Jakey, although he never listened to my warnings, was trying to do his best.

“Jakey, big brother, I knew what could happen. Of course the Thanator is a particularly big bad luck but… I knew what I was getting myself into, when I wanted to accompany Grace out here, we all knew it.” I try to reassure him but he presses "But I was here to protect you, I'm a fucking Marine!" he starts waving his arms, as if they could show his concern. "And you were wounded in front of me, I was with you and I was usless!" he concludes. "That's not true, there was nothing concrete you could do, other than what you actually did." I take his hand.

“You know, Thanators are also known as Palulukan, or dry mouth bringers of fear.” I shake his hand pushing him to look at me. "Why dry mouth?" he asks and I shrug. "I really have no idea, but either way, that's not the part we're interested in." I smile. "What interests us is the other part of the definition. Bringers of fear." I retrace as Jakey raises an eyebrow, or at least tries since Avatar bodies don't have them, he's trying to figure out where I'm getting at without actually saying anything to him. "Jakey, what I mean is that even the Natives of Pandora, the Na'vi, they stay away from Thanators as much as possible, fearing them like few things in the world. If they are afraid of them who were born and raised here, imagine what we should do who know little or nothing about Pandora." "So…?" he asks confused, I have to remind myself that my brother needs simple instructions or he gets lost. "So, what I mean is that you could not have foreseen such a situation, I should have expected it eventually, but not you." I stop and place myself in front of him, putting my hands on his shoulders. "Listen to me carefully, because I don't want to go back to this topic again. It's not your fault, it will never be, it could have been much better but we're fine and we're together, that's what counts in the end, isn't it?” I asked and he nodded with eyes as big as owls. "And always remember that you are my brother, my hero. If Eywa gave me the chance to choose the best brother, I would always choose you!" I conclude smiling and lifting my arm with difficulty to stroke the cheek of my brother who was trying to hold back the tears. "Shit!" he whispers. “I have the best sister in the world, I'm so damn lucky!” he smiled pulling me to him in an embrace as tight as felt. I laughed and hug him back. “Together forever, never apart. Maybe in the distance but never in the hearth.” we say together, it's a familiar motto, I invented it as a child, a bit like the motto The Sully's stick together! of Jakey's invention. It would be perfect if Tom was there too, but we can keep him with us in our hearts, he will be safe there and he will accompany us everywhere.

Jakey gently taps the tip of his finger on my temple, he has to do it a couple of times more than usual to finally see me listen to him and let him go, however he has never shown haste or disappointment in this gesture, the softness of the touch has never changed. Despite all his flaws, Jakey has a lot of patience with me, I have to give him that, so I pulled away from him slowly, looking at him with a big reassuring smile that was reflected in his grateful smile. “Thanks again, little sister. I'm not sure what I did to deserve you, but I'll do better, I promise." I smile blushing slightly. "It's no use, you know." we both smiled. “The Sully's stick together.” we say in chorus before breaking away completely and looking around. “I'm no ace at orientation right now and don't currently recognize the area…” I sigh sadly. "On Earth it's always recommended to stay where you are and wait for help when you get lost, but I don't think this is the case here." My bigger brother claims. "No, I would say no also because there are predators here that don't exist on Earth, I honestly don't want to become their dinner." I say. “We'd better start walking and look for a safe shelter.” my brother nods and with these words, we start moving again.

We walked for I don't know how long, we were silent but soon Jakey broke the silence between us. "Soon we won't see anything, let's stop for a moment." He says scanning the sky. His statement prompted me to do the same thing and nod. "You're right, I think we'd better find a shelter quickly." I agree. Not hearing him answer but hearing noises near me, I turned around to understand what he was doing and I caught him while he was building a flashlight as best as possible. I said he is not the best of intelligence. "Jakey, by the grace of the Great Mother, what exactly are you doing?” I asked, hoping not to confirm my suspicions. I was disappointed, of course. "But Jakey, you'd put us in even more danger with fire, you know that?" I ask him. “Why?” he asks without even turning to look at me, one of the things I can't stand. If I talk to you, at least look me in the face. “Jakey, you know I don't like it when you do that, look at me.” I remind him and he finally pauses working on the craft torch and looks at me. "Thank you." I sigh before continuing. “Don't build anything that has to do with fire, its light will attract predators.” I explain. “And how do we continue?” he asks as he goes back to work on the flashlight, as if I hadn't said anything. “I really don't think we should continue, remember how you used to sleep in trees when there were no other shelters? Well, I think we should do the same thing.” I say just as Jakey finishes the flashlight and gets ready to light it. "I'm not going to sleep in a tree, sorry sis, but I want to go back to the outpost and to do that I need to see more than total darkness and some fluorescent silhouettes." my brother grunts, I was about to reply when the desperate, yet deafening, crying of two children bumped into my ears and penetrated my heart. Jakey also immediately stops what he was doing and turns to look at me with absurd speed. “You heard it, didn't you?” he asks me, I nod, still shocked and with my heart pounding so much that I feel the blood pounding in my ears. With just a glance my brother and I agree, we have to find the little ones.

We followed the direction from which we heard this noise, we weren't running because my wound was still hurting, but we were going at a much higher speed than normal walking. As soon as we reached the place where the crying and screaming were coming from, we started looking around for the little ones. I scan the ground and every single nook and cranny of the lush forest until I find them. They were two very small children, as I slowly approached them I could notice their particularly small size with purple hues around the tiny fingers, they must have been born recently. I lean towards them and I can't help but notice the paint that smears their little bodies. A large red stripe across their tight abdomens, with a differently painted area in the center, right where their little heart beats. The area not painted red was painted black instead, a symbol was drawn there, it was a circle, which contained other smaller and smaller ones, ending with a point at the exact height of their hearts. In practice, someone had drawn an archery target, since the Na'vi do not usually use rifles, on their chests. Near their little hands, which moved incessantly in search of something to hold on to or some good soul to take them in their arms, there were the remains of a red thread.

Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I reached down and picked them both up, resting their little heads on the insides of my elbows, just where my forearms begin. Their little tails curl around my wrists as I gently lift them up, supporting their little heads, bringing them both closer to my face. “Shh…It's okay kids, you're safe now…” I whispered cradling them gently and squeezing them to my chest, still gently. “I know, it's scary…I would cry desperately too if I was alone in a forest at night…” I cooed kissing their small foreheads. I feel the girl's tail squeeze my wrist, as if to seek security. It breaks my heart to reflect myself in her eyes full of tears, so I pressed her to my chest, the little one holed up there, stopping crying, finding the feeling of shelter that she was looking for so much. She wasn't hungry, she made no effort to latch on to my breast, she just sought shelter from someone with a good heart willing to hold her. Calmed the girl, I diverted my attention to the boy, who was still crying and screaming, moving convulsively.

"Shhh, baby, what's wrong honey?" I ask cradling him, the gentle undulating movement of my arm, together with the purr I make for him, calm him down, definitively. Finally the little one stops moving and crying, his tail tightened its grip on my wrist, exactly as his sister had done when she had calmed down. “They've calmed down…Hell, there really were kids in the middle of the forest then!” Jakey walked over and watched them in disbelief, as if his voice hadn't already hinted at his total astonishment. I turned to him nodding. "What are we going to do? What are such small children doing here?” Jakey asks upset. I sighed and looked carefully at the place where the little ones had been laid, hoping to understand something more. The grass under them is folded, it is not dark but still has it's natural color, I brush the tufts with my tail, not being able to do it with my hands having them busy. The blades of grass were still soft and I could feel the life still flowing through them, which means that whoever left the children here did very, very recently. There were remnants of red threads near where their little hands were, as I mentioned earlier, these remnants and the paint that covers their little bodies suggest to me that some ceremony took place, I can't say exactly which, but I don't think that has positive connotations. The Na'vi place a lot of importance on colors when it comes to painting themselves and red doesn't always have positive connotations, and the same goes for black. The targets drawn on their rib cages don't inspire me well at all. I looked around quite a few times, but there was no sign of anyone claiming them and they must have heard them as they were crying up to two minutes ago, and the crying of small children is known to be particularly deafening. I don't even think the parents are here somewhere hiding, they would have already come out to protect their children. The only hypothesis I can think of is the most terrible thing a parent can do to their children. The abandonment.

“Little sister, what are you doing?” Jakey asks me, confused about my attitude. “I'm surveying the ground, figuring out how long these little treasures have been here.” I explain. "What did you understand?" he asks, concern overwhelmingly making it's way amidst the astonishment in my brother's voice. "It seems that a ritual has been performed, I can't exactly say which ritual it is but the fact that the parents are not here doesn't tell me anything good, even the colors that have been used are not the best." I explained. "What are we doing?" he asked while he was making funny faces at the two little ones, the boy laughed, the girl unlike her brother, she didn't seem to have much desire, in fact she remained curled up on my chest. "Sorry the little girl doesn't really feel like laughing…" I smiled as I watched Jakey attempt to interact with the boy. “Anyway, you still haven't answered me, what are we going to do with these little ones? Why are they here, where are the parents?” I looked around as he asked me these questions, seeing no sign of imminent danger I looked back at my brother. "We'd better stay here and wait, maybe I was wrong and the parents will arrive soon…" I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt but the target drawn on them was an all too obvious warning of abandonment, if not something worse.

“Stop fiddling with that flashlight, Jakey, how many times do I have to tell you it attracts predators?” we waited a couple of hours, as i thought the parents didn't show up even by mistake. “But at night we can't see anything, how do we go back?” he asked as I sat cross-legged on the floor. "We're not going back, we have two very young children with us, do you think we should attract hungry predators?" I asked as I set the little ones down on the ground and began to collect a certain type of plant and weave it, after having appropriately apologized and addressed a quick prayer to the Great Mother. “And where do we keep these children? We can't sleep in a tree with them with us…Because do we take them with us, am I right?” he asked, glancing at me sideways. “But who do you take me for? Of course we take them with us, we don't leave them here!" I replied indignantly. "Sure, of course, I just wanted to be totally sure, sorry." he replied already regretting his words and his thoughts. “But how, do you know me, do you think I would abandon innocent children in the middle of a forest? The parents didn't show up and we waited for hours. The paint on their bodies makes me think a ritual of some sort has been performed, but instinct tells me it's no good. We can't leave them here." I explained as my brother sighed regretfully. “You're right, I shouldn't have even thought about it. I'm very sorry." he replied.

More minutes passed, in which I finished my creation, a carrier for babies, so I could carry them on my back and shoulders, it would be nice to have my hands free while Jakey and I kept moving to find a tree big enough to accommodate everyone. Another prayer to the Great Mother and another apology allowed me to fill the carrier with soft, absorbent musk so that the little ones would be comfortable in there. I lifted the female again, and she wrapped her tail around my wrist again as I held her to me. “I won't leave you here, little one. It's too dangerous, I'll take your brother with me too." I smiled as I cooed softly and the baby she gave a gummy toothless smile but she was so cute she was beautiful just the same. I approached and kissed her forehead, while the little girl laughed happily and snuggled against my chest. I keep her there quiet for a while, continuing to look around, until I feel something pull a strand of my hair. I smile as I turn around and discover the culprit, the little one who is having fun playing with the lock he's holding. Chuckling I leaned over to him, poking him softly with my nose, making him laugh and gurgle happily. “Are you having fun, little darling?” I asked as he continued to laugh. "Come on, we can't stay here for long, we have to find a safe place to shelter." I put the little girl in her place in the carrier and then I did the same thing with the boy, immediately after I put the carrier on my shoulders and stood up. Meanwhile my brother, blatantly ignoring everything I'd said to him, had finished and lit that damn flashlight that had gotten ruined on our way here, so he had to work on it again. “Are you okay? Are the children okay?” he asked and I turned first to the right and then to the left, their little heads resting perfectly on my shoulders, increasing the pain I feel from that wound, but it doesn't matter. I covered them with my hair so they wouldn't be noticed by any external dangers, before answering. “Yes, as you can see they are fine. Now really, put that flashlight away and put it out because…” A rustling too close and a sound like a hyena's laughter interrupted me.

A shiver ran up my spine as Jakey stood in front of me trying to protect us. The sounds were rumbling, it was clear there was more than one. “Little sister, you who have followed some training, can you tell me what these noises are? Or rather, who makes them?” I swallowed and hid the little ones further. “They're…Viperwolves. Smaller than the Thanators, but also decidedly dangerous. They look more like terrestrial canines, they are silent, fast and, worst of all…” I sigh stepping back slightly. “They hunt in packs, so if one is here…Surely the others will be there too.” My hearing and my memory hadn't deceived me, in fact several Viperwolves, just under a dozen, came out of the bushes and immediately surrounded us, this is their favorite tactic. I took a deep breath and looked around, noting that the Viperwolves in front of me didn't seem hostile, their tails wagging briskly behind them and they didn't growl, they made a sound similar to the howling of wolves or dogs. I took a step forward as I slowly extended my arm, keeping my fingers pointed at them so they know I have no weapons and no malicious intent. “Can I pet you?” I asked the closest after he cautiously sniffed my hand, he moved his head in a movement that seemed to confirm, while he looked at me curiously during the caresses. “Are you…Friendly?” I asked while others of them approached me wagging their tails more, as if eager for cuddles.

Unfortunately, things weren't going so well for my brother, he had managed to fend off a couple of them with his torch, which he had then given up to take the knife he had brought with him, starting to slash with it, wounding as many Viperwolves attempted to attack him, including a particularly small Viperwolf, he looked like a young one, who ran away whimpering. The difference between the two flanks of the pack was incredible, just as those near me were calm and affectionate, which is extremely rare for predators as skilled as they are, so much were the others rabid and hungry, willing to kill my brother and make him their dinner, but I didn't lose Tommy to let Jakey die too, I'm sorry, as hard and painful as it is for me to hurt them, I have to help Jakey defend himself. Hearing noises coming from a tree near my brother, I took a stone and turned to scan the black space where something was moving. As soon as the Viperwolf attempted an attack on my brother I threw a couple of stones at him, causing him to dismount and flee, as I threw another couple of stones at him since he had tried to attack Jakey again once he got to the ground. The Viperwolves attempted an attack all together but were stopped by a shower of arrows, which hit them in almost vital points, killing them instantly.

Jakey and I both turned towards the source of the shower of arrows and saw a Na'vi woman, perched on the branch of the tree where she stood, bow in hand and ready to strike again should any more Viperwolves approach to him or to me. I couldn't help but lose myself in observing her as she descended, always with the bow in her hand in an attack position, she had been exceptional she impressed me, being a marksman in the army I see many good shooters but she…She was something totally unseen, a perfect mix of grace and mortality, my dream when I shoot myself with an archery. Basically, perfect. I only noticed later that she was staring at me curiously, not probing, she seemed genuinely curious. I understood why only when I felt the muzzle of one of the Viperwolves press against my thigh, they hadn't run away but, on the contrary, they had holed up behind me, seeking protection. I raised my hands and then performed the greeting they exchanged between them, seeing her nod, I began to speak. “Oel ngati kameie, please don't kill these Viperwolves, they didn't attack me, they don't have to die because my brother didn't listen to me when he should have.” I said, ignoring Jakey's protests and backing away, trying to protect the Viperwolves, even though she could have killed both them and me if she wanted. The woman seemed to evaluate my every move and then waved back from her. “Oel ngati kameie, you are right, I have no intention of harming them, they can go off into the forest free.” I smiled at her gratefully. "Thank you, may the Great Mother's gaze be kind on you and your loved ones." I see her lower her bow, she doesn't want to attack me and I was happy about it, I turned to the Viperwolves who shifted their gazes from me to the woman. “You can go, boys. Sorry, I am truly sorry for the losses you have suffered. I hope you are well and can get yourself something else to eat.” The Viperwolves, as if they had understood what I had said to them, got up, let me stroke their heads one last time and disappeared into the thick jungle that surrounded us. I turned around and saw Jakey approaching me, not knowing who to look at, me or the woman who helped us.

“Jakey promise to behave yourself now?” I asked without giving him time to speak, he nodded, his mouth still open. "Perfect, so now I'm going to check on the little Viperwolf you hit with the knife, I'm going to see if it can be helped…" a hiss interrupted my speech. I looked around and noticed a fairly large Viperwolf, lying on the ground, with an obvious head wound caused by a blow, it is probably one that Jakey had hit with the flashlight before using the knife. The Na'vi woman knelt in front of me, she looked at me cautious but also curious, while I gently took the animal's head to check the wound well. "It's not fatal, luckily, I can cure it, but I need a hand…Would you be willing to give it to me?" I asked crossing the woman's eyes, she looked at me for a couple of seconds before simply nodding. “I've never seen Dreamwalkers act like you.” before I could reply, she answered my question. "Sure, I'll help you." I sighed in relief. “Thanks, I need Blue Flowers and Taxax Root.” she nodded. “I know where to find them, we will also need the leaves of that plant, they become perfect bandages.” I nod intently as I stroke the side of the creature's snout, trying to soothe him in his pain. “They would be perfect, I'll go get them.” I was about to get up but the woman's hand held me back. “Don't do it, he seems to appreciate your presence, you calm him down. I'll go get what we need." I smile at her with gratitude as I see her get up and go to get what we need, while my brother stood staring at her. If he tries to get smart with this woman I swear I'll beat him.

“Shh, it's okay…” I cooed as I heard the animal cry in pain and fright. “I know you're scared, I'm sorry…” I stroke its muzzle. "You'll be fine soon, I promise, I won't leave you alone." I smiled as I saw the woman come back with everything we needed in her hands. She knelt next to me and, with one of the leaves, I cleaned the wound while she squeezed the flowers between her hands to get the sap out, I collected some in a leaf and bandaged him while she helped me wrap it around the wound, it took us two whole leaves to heal him but together we did it. “He's fine now, but he's going to have a bit of trouble getting up. He's stunned." she said. "Do you know where it's herd has gathered? The rest alive, I mean." she looks at me and motions to the right, into the depths. "They have gathered over there, probably another member is injured but will survive. They will surely be with him." she observes as I nod, weighing my idea. "We should be able to lift him and bring him to them, in the meantime I can control the other Viperwolf, if I can help him, I'll do it gladly." she stared at me in disbelief "I never thought I'd see such a thing." she whispered but before I could ask her about it she nodded, so together we lifted the Viperwolf and carried him to the others.

Once we arrived and the put down the first wounded Viperwolf, I rushed to the cub no one attacked me, no one showed the slightest sign of aggression towards me, as if they knew in advance that I was here to help them. “It's okay…” I said putting my hands out, literally, so the bigger ones could make sure I was here with good intentions. “Can I look at your wound, little one?” I asked, he was in pain but he didn't object, at least, not at the beginning. I took advantage of this and knelt next to him, examining the wound, it was a fairly deep cut on his side. “I need the healing plants I saw on our way here…” I think aloud. "Is it curable?" the woman asks bluntly, taking her eyes off Jakey's flashlight, I swear I'll make him eat that flashlight as soon as I'm finished here. “Luckily Jakey didn't cut too deeply, something can be done to save him.” I said. “Where did you see the plants you need?” she asked as I felt her gaze pierce the back of my neck. “Right there next to you, you know? Would you bring them to me, please? Only the leaves, those are enough.” I asked her, heard her bustle and she brought me what I needed. “Irayo.” I thanked her and she was amazed, evidently she has never been explicitly thanked for anything, or she is not used to seeing Dreamwalkers thanking a Na'vi. "It's okay, honey." I hose gently towards the young Viperwolf, while I squeeze the smallest and slightly fluorescent leaves in my hands, the sap is what is needed, I spread it delicately on the wound. I hear him whining, it burns badly and he's in pain, I understand that, but I can't help but hold my breath trying not to whimper myself when I feel him biting my arm, my wrist. I also pray that Jakey doesn't do anything stupid as I hear him scream and curse at the cub, while the woman hisses at him trying to silence him. "Listen, my little one, I don't want to hurt you, I promise…" I said stroking his head, barely holding back the pain. "But it's the only way I can help you, I don't want to leave you with a wound if I can heal you." I explain and then conclude. “I believe in you, I know you're strong enough to do it! I'm sure!" I encouraged him and he, after looking at me carefully, let go of my wrist and I was able to complete the bandaging of the wound. "Perfect, you did great!" I congratulated him smiling. “Now we leave you and your pack alone…May the Great Mother bless you with a good dinner.” I smiled as I stood up, then turned around to follow the woman and my brother.

We check the others but they're dead and there's nothing I can do for them except pray, which I do and as soon as I'm done I hear Jakey speak. “Hey, thank you for what you did with those beasts…You know…Save us.” I widened my eyes and looked at him as if it was the first time I'd seen him, thank? For an act of gratuitous violence basically? Decimating a herd is not something to be proud of, they have a totally different way of looking at these things. The woman, in response, took the flashlight from his hands and turned it off, drowning it in a stream that I had not noticed before. “Hey, what have you done! We need that!" the woman hissed at him again, then turned to me. “You saved them, both. Even at the cost of being injured." she said in such perfect English that I almost fainted hearing her speak so well, I hadn't noticed before. I nod and smile at her. "Of course I saved them, I couldn't let them die, you already have too much blood on your hands because of us." I witness, she smiles for the first time as she slowly walks up to me, Jakey does the same thing, only faster as he pulls up beside me and starts examining my wrist like it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen. "You're hurt, take this." she said as she handed me one of the Taxax leaves we had taken earlier. “Do you have one more?” I ask incredulously. “Yeah, I didn't want to risk running out while you were dealing with the first Viperwolf, so I took an extra one, just to be safe. That should be enough for you, your wrist is not very big.” she ascertains by looking at it. “Irayo.” I thank her as I take the leaf and, thanks also to Jakey's help, I manage to put it around my wrist. “It was kind of you to save them. I'm happy that at least part of the herd survived." She says as she starts to walk away. Jakey, of course, started calling her and following her and I was forced to follow my brother in turn.

Here, this is chapter four, also as long as few things in the world😅. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting, but I've been busy these days too, I've done everything possible. In any case, thanks for reading and, if you like, see you in the next chapter, number five👋.

Taglist: @avatarbyamara

#tsu'tey x reader #tsu'tey #avatar #jake sully x sister reader

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explodingsilver · 1 year

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Book review: Lightlark by Alex Aster

Back in January, I was in the mood to read a bad book, and Hoopla just so happens to have this one. You may remember hearing about it last year; it’s most famous for being 1) heavily advertised on TikTok, and 2) very poorly written. Turns out that second point is no joke. But it’s not just bad, it’s the specific flavor of bad that compels innocent bloggers on tumblr.edu to write 3,000 word reviews that don’t even exhaust every problem they had with the book. Such as myself, for example.

(This won’t be as long or as thorough as @crow-caller‘s definitive review, but it’s still the longest post I’ve ever written.)

The writing style

I’ve said it before, but the best way I can describe the writing style of this book is that it reads like it was written by a neural network that was trained entirely on Throne of Glass clones. Aster clearly knows what words she needs to use to make it fit the YA style, but she does not stop to consider whether the resulting sentence actually coheres. One of the more egregious examples:

Oro's betrayal was a glacier in her chest, throbbing and raw.

Are ‘throbbing’ and ‘raw’ really words that people use to describe glaciers? Because if so, that’s news to me.

But it’s not just the individual sentences that feel slightly off and more than a little bit auto-generated, it’s the whole damn plot. The sentences are merely a scaled-down version of this book’s uncanny feeling, like some strange literary version of Pumpelly’s rule. The actual plot is constructed with that same strategy of throwing the most popular components of YA fiction into one story with no thought given as to how they actually fit together. The protagonist, Isla Crown, is incredibly sheltered but also a fierce warrior, the plot revolves around an infamous fight-to-the-death where no one has actually died, there’s the two 500+ year old love interests, a rival woman whose main personality trait is hating the protagonist...

This is much more of a tangential problem, but I also suspect that the book would be about 3/4 of its current length if you just removed the unnecessary paragraph breaks. I can’t recall having that complaint about any other book I’ve read.

Lightlark and the Centennial

The whole conceit is that the titular island of Lightlark is surrounded by a storm that only lets up every 100 years, so the leaders of the six realms meet up during that brief window in order to try and break the curses on their realms. With a concept like that, you’d think that Lightlark is a vast wilderness with maybe a village of hardy recluses here and there, but no, it’s an absolute bustling city, practically the capital of the world. (As an aside, it’s hinted that the world does contain more than just the six realms, but the book is really bad at making this feel true.)

Let me preface my description of the Centennial with a disclaimer: I dislike it when a book’s magic system justifies the existence of hereditary monarchy. Obviously, a book’s magic system necessitating the existence of hereditary monarchy endears it to me even less. Well, guess what this book does! The prophecy they are following in order to break the curse says that a ruling line must come to an end, so none of these rulers have heirs. But in this world, a realm’s magic is stored in its royal family, being passed from parent to child, and if the line dies out, the whole realm will go extinct. Sad news for the guillotine fandom.

The Centennial is an infamously deadly affair, because in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled, someone has to die. Here’s the thing: this is the fifth Centennial, and all the realms are still around, meaning that no one has ever died at this notoriously fatal event. They’re not even allowed to try to kill each other until the halfway point, with the first half just being various demonstrations that are subject to the whims of the rulers who come up with them. Later this is explained by saying that it’s really tough to choose which realm has to die so the others can live, which fair enough, but still doesn’t explain the reputation.

Now, while everyone else tries to do their own thing, Isla and her best friend Celeste (the ruler of Starling) secretly try to find this fabled artifact called the Bondbreaker, which can break the curses, but requires enough blood to kill a person to activate. Their plan is to split the blood cost between them, and this should break the curses on their realms but not the others. Why Isla never suggests that all six look for it and split the blood cost six ways and break the curse for everyone is beyond me.

The realms and the curses

So first off, the six realms that are actually competing are named Wildling, Sunling, Moonling, Starling, Skyling, and Nightshade. I’m going to be real with you: I don’t like those names. The fact that five of them are [Noun]ling makes them feel like placeholders that Aster forgot to change before submitting the draft to a publisher, and ‘Starling’ and ‘Nightshade’ are already words with definitions that are never acknowledged by the book.

The curses are also strangely incongruent. Starlings all die at the age of 25, while Skylings can’t fly, something that no one else was able to do in the first place and so really doesn’t make me feel bad for them. The Wildlings, meanwhile, get hit with a double curse: they must kill whoever they fall in love with and they have to eat a human heart once a month!

Yeah, let’s talk about the Wildlings, shall we? Given that our protagonist is one, we end up learning a lot about them.

The Wildlings are, we’re told, a society of fierce Amazonian temptress warriors. They seem to be matriarchal, though this isn’t really explored in-depth. It’s also stated that they’re at risk of going extinct because of the curse that requires them to kill whoever they fall in love with. Now hold up: why would the society infamous for producing seductresses stick to monogamy so fiercely as to pose an extinction risk? You’d think a society like that would opt for a more “conceive via one-night stands and raise the child communally” approach or something similar, especially since this has been a problem for 500 years, but that would require Aster to think through the implications of her own worldbuilding.

Now you might be thinking “hey, maybe the extinction risk is because of the whole needing to eat human hearts thing”, and yeah, you might think. But that particular aspect of the curse is explored so little that I began to get the feeling that it only exists as an excuse for the Bad Boy Love Interest to give Isla the nickname ‘Hearteater’ (but more on him later).

(As a side note, the combination of the heart eating thing and them having nature powers made me realize that I would like them more if they were straight-up Bosmer with the serial numbers filed off, but that’s just my preference.)

Isla is notable in that, due to her parents falling in love without killing each other, she is not affected by the curses, but also has no powers. Given that the Centennial involves demonstrating her powers, she has to find ways to either fake it or distract everyone by doing something else. This is one of the few things I actually liked about the book, and also something that will be important to remember for later.

Isla’s abilities

Back when I read Throne of Glass, my biggest complaint with it was that it keeps hyping up Celaena as the most feared assassin in the land, yet she spends most of her screentime doing things like playing the piano and trying on pretty dresses. This book has the opposite problem: we’re constantly told that Isla is incredibly sheltered due to her guardians trying to hide her lack of powers, yet she is easily able to do things like beat two different 500+ year old guys (who have commanded armies!) in one-on-one combat. This is explained as her having been trained all her life by one of her guardians, but I still don’t think that accounts for her being strong enough to do that.

And speaking of things her guardians taught her: her guardians’ plan is for Isla to seduce the king of Lightlark, a notoriously cold and reclusive man, because in this universe, if someone falls in love with you, you get access to their powers, and since he has the power of four different realms, Isla would finally get actual powers. Do they ever test her to see if she can seduce anyone at all before sending her off to do this? No. They seem to be under the impression that packing a bunch of revealing dresses will be enough to do the trick.

Isla refuses to go along with this plan for reasons that amount to “I’m not a slut, I’m a good girl who wants True Love”. So of course, she gets herself into a love triangle.

The love interests

Because is it truly a bad YA book if the protagonist doesn’t have to choose between Boy Next Door and Badboy McHunky? (Good YA authors realize that this actually isn’t a necessary component.) As mentioned earlier, they’re both over 500 years old.

Badboy McHunky is Grimshaw (nicknamed Grim), the ruler of Nightshade. Here’s the thing: I fundamentally get the appeal of dark and brooding bad boy love interests, moreso than most people in my general Tumblr cohort. Darkness is sexy by default. So keep that in mind when I say that this guy did nothing for me. His only personality traits are being edgy and horny, and I say this as someone who generally considers those to be positive traits. And despite all the suggestive scenes and the book playing up their attraction to each other, I never figured out why he likes Isla in the first place.

He also just doesn’t really work as the bad boy that the book is trying to pass him off as. The book will do anything to sell him as a villain except for having him actually do anything evil on-screen. Even the reveal of the one genuinely bad thing he did makes him come across as less like a villain and more like some clueless schmuck who got played like a fiddle by the real villain.

Boy Next Door is Oro, the king of Lightlark and ruler of Sunling. He’s the one that Isla has been tasked with seducing, and he’s developed a sort of cold detachment from everyone specifically to prevent himself from falling in love. Of course, things like “spending a lot of time with Isla and at one point carrying her while flying Superman-style” don’t exactly work in service of that caution.

As a side note, given that he’s portrayed as cynical and world-weary, I spent the whole book picturing him as a handsome but tired bearded man. Imagine my disappointment when I finally saw the official art of him that shows him as looking like Ken from one of the newer Barbie movies. If this were a movie, he’d be played by one of the Sprouse twins.

In the end, I really did get some satisfaction out of Grim realizing that he can’t use Isla’s powers because she doesn’t love him anymore, while Oro can. But I get the impression that my reaction was supposed to be “serves him right”, and instead it was “oh thank fuck, she’s going to end up with the guy that she has the bare minimum amount of chemistry with”.

The plot twist(s)

Remember how earlier, I said that Isla’s lack of powers was one of the few things I truly liked about this book? Yeah, I use the past tense “liked” for a reason. Because not only is it revealed that she did in fact have Wildling powers the entire time, but her father was a Nightshade, and therefore she also has Nightshade powers! And the only reason she thought she was mundane is because her Nightshade powers were masking her Wildling powers! So not only does the best thing about the book not actually apply in the end, it doubly does not apply! It’s important to note that earlier, Oro told Isla that if a child is born to parents from different realms, the child only gets one realm’s power. I also don’t remember if the book ever addresses why she’s not affected by the curses if she’s had powers the entire time.

But that’s not all! It turns out that Celeste is actually Aurora, the one who caused the curses and is therefore immune to them, and has used her shapeshifting ability to pretend to be every member of her own line of descendants for the past 500 years! I don’t even want to try to comprehend the logistics of doing that.

But that’s not all! It turns out that the Bondbreaker is actually the Bondmaker, and its purpose is to steal someone’s powers!

But that’s not all! It turns out that Isla and Grim were in a relationship prior to the events of the book, and he memory wiped her so that she’d go along with her guardians’ plan! When she gets angry about this, he immediately tells her that he really did believe that this was necessary, as Aurora convinced him it was.

So Isla abruptly falls out of love with Grim, uses the Bondmaker on Aurora to steal her powers, and then kills Aurora, bringing the Starling ruling line to an end and fulfilling the prophecy. But since Isla now has Aurora’s powers, the Starlings don’t drop dead, and since Isla and Oro are in love, Isla now has all six powers.

The wardrobes

I know, I’m also surprised that there’s enough to say about this aspect to warrant its own section in the review. But there’s several things that bothered me about the Isla’s outfits, and I am normally not a stickler for fashion in books.

Thing number one: there was a weird color coding system in place for the realms, where every realm is obligated to wear one specific color. And by weird I don’t mean “counterintuitive”, because the color choices made sense, but weird as in “why does this system even exist in the first place?” I can understand color coding the leaders during the Centennial, but everyone must abide by this system all the time. The only reason I can think of is so that everyone can tell at a glance what realm any given person is from, which is something that I cannot see being used for good, but the book never even attempts to address this. But there’s a catch: because nature contains a variety of colors, Isla and the other Wildlings can wear any color they want as long as it’s not already claimed by another realm! Isn’t she unique? Here’s the problem: Aster seems to have forgotten that this is also true of the sky. The joke here is almost too obvious to make.

Another thing that bothers me is the anachronism in her clothing. I do not mean this in a “this fantasy based on a specific era has characters wearing clothes that went out of fashion ten years beforehand”, I mean that this is a medieval fantasy setting and yet Isla wears a modern day bra. She also owns several tank tops, which are even referred to as such by the text. Sometimes her outfit descriptions, particularly ones where she’s just relaxing in her room, make it sound like she’s about to get sold to One Direction. But not all of it. Sometimes you get descriptions like this:

[The armor] had been fashioned into parts that accentuated her figure while also protecting it–metal shoulder pads, chain mail sleeves and tights, metal-plated boots that ran up to the top of her thigh, a sculpted breastplate.

This is the kind of passage that would get posted to r/menwritingwomen and get 10k upvotes, with one comment pointing out that a woman wrote it buried in the comments section with 4 points. Why does she need chain mail tights if her boots cover all of her legs? How does she even move in those boots? Doesn’t matter. The first priority is looking sexy, with practicality a distant second.

Miscellaneous points that didn’t quite fit into the other sections

I understand that the marketing for this book promised diversity? Well, the actual extent of it is that the token black guy is mourning over his dead husband.

Isla does not realize that Starlings can use their magic to forge weapons despite watching them do it right in front of everyone in a previous chapter

The necklace Grim gives her is described as a “diamond large as a small potato”, and I’m torn between thinking about how much her neck must hurt and making a “large boulder the size of a small boulder” joke

The book implies that Isla has some sort of spine pocket and refuses to elaborate on this

One thing I will say in this book’s favor is that at least the title does not follow the ‘X of Y and Z’ format. I know that’s damning with the absolute faintest praise, but I really can’t tell books with those titles apart anymore.

At one point, Isla sees the teeth of some wicked creatures who are trying to kill her and realizes with fright that their teeth are "tools to eat with". This woman is ~20 years old and has gone most of her life not knowing what teeth are for.

Conclusion

Honestly, this isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, it’s merely the worst professionally published book I’ve ever read (not counting those where the publishing house exists solely for the sake of that book, à la Handbook for Mortals). Lightlark is to Maas-style fantasy what Divergent was to YA dystopia: bad in a specific, formulaic way that exposes the scaffolding of the genre for all to see. It hasn’t caused the immediate collapse of the genre, but ten years from now it will be commonly cited as the beginning of the end.

#lightlark #alex aster #book review #ya fantasy #book discussion #original content do not steal

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linkemon · 5 months

Text

Asymptote (Axel/Lea x Reader)

Friendly reminder that English is not my first language. You can check my Masterlists both in English and Polish here. Consider supporting me on Ko-fi. You can also check out my commissions if you’re interested.

Other oneshots can be found here.

ɪꜱ ᴀxᴇʟ ʟᴇᴀ ᴀɴᴅ ɪꜱ ʟᴇᴀ ᴀxᴇʟ? ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇᴏʀʏ, ʏᴇꜱ…

ᴀᴅᴅɪᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ɪɴꜰᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: 1. ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅʟʏ ʀᴇᴍɪɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ ɪɴ ᴇɴɢʟɪꜱʜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ. ɪ ᴛʀʏ ᴍʏ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ʙᴜᴛ ᴀɴʏ ᴛɪᴘꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇᴅ.

Asymptote - line that a graph approaches but does not intersect.

As soon as I had some time for myself, I decided to spend it at the top of the clock tower. I was definitely asking for melancholy.

The day was coming to an end and the sun was slowly disappearing below the horizon. I watched the traffic die down. Several children were just leaving their playmates and running to their homes. The image of young Isa flashed before my eyes but it quickly disappeared when I heard a voice from behind me:

— Lea, can we talk? — asked [Reader].

— Call me Axel. I think we've already established that. — I laughed.

[Reader] mounted with slight hesitation.

I had company, the only thing missing to complete the picture was blue ice cream.

The girl, as if guessing my thoughts, took two packages out of the bag.

The strange, salty-sweet taste brought back memories. I looked around for Roxas, as if he was going to appear next to me at any moment.

Sometimes there was another, unknown figure wandering around in my mind, which I tried with all my might to dig out from the recesses of my memory. So far, to no avail.

I looked away from the sunset to glance at [Reader]. She looked wonderful with her hair slightly flowing in the last rays of light. However, her eyes seemed to wander somewhere far away.

— What's with the long face? — I extended my hand to her, which she didn't take.

— How should I put this so that you understand me correctly... — She tightened her fingers on the stick.

— Just shoot, it's probably the easiest way. — I felt nervousness growing inside of me.

I saw her gathering courage. She took a deep breath. I had the impression that I wouldn't like what she was about to say at all.

— We won't be able to go back to what was before.

I was right.

A simple sentence but it sent panic into my recently regained heart.

In an instant, everything around me faded away. I stopped hearing the singing of birds and the wind around us. It was replaced by tinnitus. I stopped paying attention to what was happening below us. I just stared hypnotized at her face, trying to process the words again and again. My voice refused to listen to me when I tried to form any sentences.

I was only brought out of my trance by the melting salty ice cream that flowed freely between my fingers.

— I know this might not be the best time considering tomorrow, but...

The tone of her voice betrayed remorse but I couldn't listen to it.

— Why? We talked about it recently... — I couldn't finish the sentence.

I was surprised by the sound of my own voice. It seemed strangely weak and silent.

— I can't accept you like this, Lea. — That name again. — You are so similar and yet so different. I thought maybe it would work and with time I would get used to it. Now I'm sure it's impossible.

— I do not understand you. Are you saying he was better than me? — I shook my head, unable to organize my thoughts. — I was the first, he was just a part of me, my shadow.

— But it was this shadow that I fell in love with. Axel was everything to me!

Her eyes misted over, as they always did when she talked about him... about me.

— He's still here. Axel is Lea and Lea is me.

— You're wrong. For me, he left when he sacrificed himself for Sora and the others. I'm sorry I gave you false hope. I believe we will become good friends but nothing more.

It felt like my chest wanted to contract, even though I knew it couldn't. Apparently that's the beauty of being human — for every moment of happiness you pay with bitterness.

— Axel and I have one thing in common, [Reader]. We don't give up easily. That's why I'm going to fight for you. You know he would do it too.

— See you tomorrow. — She got up and left.

Just like that.

She expected me to forget everything.

But I've got it memorized.

#axel x reader #lea x reader #kingdom hearts x reader #oneshot x reader #kingdom hearts #roxas

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lucianalight · 10 months

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You say the show characters weren't divided to "good" and "evil" but they are still stripping people and putting collars their necks which personally I find pretty messed up. This is my problem and why I can't bring myself to watch season 2 because everything I end up seeing seems like the TVA is still doing horrible things and not treated with the weight it should. Like, there's torture scene, but it's supposed to be okay because turns out it wasn't really physical? Like thats still torture that crosses the line way past grey in my opinion.

It's these two images for me is why I can't be asked to see any of the TVA as just grey especially it's asked while Loki is still called a villain. He didn't do a fraction as bad as they did.

If what I saw was Mobius owing up to being wrong about believing in the TVA and how his glorious purpose hurt people instead of seeing Loki say he invaded New York because he was mad at Thor and Odin, maybe I wouldn't still mad at the show

The actions are wrong, it doesn't matter who they're against what justification they have for using them. I rather have a story the condemns those actions and finds a better way than one that keeps the system with only a promise that now they'll only target the bad people

What I've been trying to say and said before in my s2 review, is that the narrative is neutral this time. It just shows you the story and leaves you to decide for yourself how you want to judge characters and their actions. That's sth very important for me in a story. I always have an instant knee jerk reaction to any blunt sort of message/framing even if it's a good one. I hate it when I feel like the writer is holding up a sign and telling me "look look it's a bad/good action or you should love/hate this character". No, thank you very much I can think for myself. The writer's feelings towards the characters can also bleed through so you understand when a character is treated by distaste and another with adoration.

These were the most important issues I had with s1. Because it stopped me from doing what I love most, in-universe analysis. Sth the fandom were doing before TR. No one told us, what happened to Loki before Avengers, we were shown clues. No one told us the reasoning behind every sentence of the characters and what they meant. But we analyzed every single action and expression. We put the pieces of puzzle together and built the picture. I was happy doing just that, until with TR the in-universe analysis didn't make sense so we had to look what caused it from out-universe pov.

Now with s2 having that neutrality I want, I don't care what the creators wanted to say as long as the characterization and actions make sense and are consistent with how I see the canon material. That's why Loki's line about New York didn't make me angry.

That hatred and dismissal toward Loki we felt in TR, IW and S1 is also gone. So having that irritating narrative of s1 out of the way and a better writing, the characters look grey to me. Which means like any other human they do bad things and good things. I didn't got the feeling that any of wrong actions are framed as sth good. Not putting collar on people(they were actually uncomfortable), not the torture scene(which I hated as I explained in my review) and not what TVA was doing all this time. In fact one of the few instances of framing in the narrative is that their atrocities were acknowledged.

The promotions of S2 were terrible though. I have no idea what they were thinking. None of the trailers were interesting and who would buy TVA merch? They're not even aesthetically beautiful and why would anyone want one of those creepy posters anyway? Although that's what happens when you sideline your main character in s1 and then you have nothing except creepy totalitarian merch for promotion smh. So yeah I get what you mean.

The ending also wasn't like now they're targeting the bad guys. It was shown that they won't interfere with what happens in timelines unless one of HWR's variants start a war and their intervention was needed. I haven't watched ant-man 3 but I assume they were referring to it when they said one of his variants made trouble but it was handled and their intervention wasn't needed. So they just intervene when the people of a timeline can't handle sth themselves. I also got the impression that they were changing their whole system to sth new.

In the end I hope it's been clear that by posting about the series, I'm not insisting, encouraging or recommending others to watch it. Because I know what Loki means to us. And Because I've seen many of my mutuals didn't like s2. Some did. S1 still makes me as angry as the first time I watched it but I liked s2(that doesn't mean I won't criticize it though). No two people are ever gonna agree with each other on everything. So it's ultimately a choice everyone need to make themselves.

#loki s1 criticism #loki s2 positivity #anti thor ragnarok #anti infinity war #therese-lokidottir #messages

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mirabel-on-a-bicycle · 1 year

Text

“We find our community when our community is visible.”

There's so much more to this scene than what's going on actually. Elle visiting Lambert and meeting Naomi and Felix, I feel, also alludes to this ongoing conversation about the difference in queer visibility and acceptance in the arts and in STEM.

I FELT that scene btw, I so strongly did. Stem has been my whole life. I've only ever been surrounded by the culture in these fields. And it's rigid. It hardly leaves any room for self expression (istg u do something as low tier as cutting your hair short and suddenly you owe 10 billion people an explanation). Even full fledged scientists like Dr. Daniel Pfau, Joey Nelson, Jarrah Dale and a whole slew of others on places like 500 queer scientists, OSTEM and Queer in Stem still talk about feeling unwelcome and alienated in their own academic spaces growing up and grappling with losing a sense of community within the very thing they had so much interest in as a kid.

I've been holding onto my favorite science podcasts and films so strongly since the last few years of school when my love for science was slipping away from me at an alarming speed, because they were the whole point of continuing, everyday, to face engineering as a future— to somehow sperate it as a living breathing thing from the dead system it was taught in, to still see beauty in it despite everything. They're incredibly important to me.

Last year I went to visit a friend studying at a very similar prestigious art college and.. its just that roaming around the whole place with her was like an ache getting heavier and heavier. High ceilings and walls plastered with concept art, personalised desk spaces and boards full of self expression—like you could look at a board and clearly tell what kind of person they were, rooms full of music, shaved thermocol lining the floor like snow, open galleries where the students had sleep overs, people in the middle of easy flowing conversations about films and gender and academic approaches, art pieces and statues in every bend of the road that completely dismantled every traditional assumption about them— it was all real. And it just. felt so right. It felt like something was glowing so so beautifully and strongly in me by the end of the day that if I ever left that place itd go out of control and set everything on fire.

And I distinctly remember my friend saying, matter of fact-ly, that half the faculty was queer.

In all the spaces I've ever been, I found the people I grew and bonded and learnt about myself with in friend circles, lab partners, and group project members. And in mentors especially. It was my 6th grade eng teacher who had stopped a student mid sentence and taken 5 minutes to patiently explain to us what being gay and lesbian actually meant and what words that we could've been picking up from here and there were hurtful and weren't to be said ever. It was Mr. Ajayi and Mrs. Singh who were trying to be the mentors to Nick and Charlie that they never had. I can't help but wonder how different it could've been for me and every other queer kid in my school and college, if we'd had even a single mentor we could've confided in like that.

The roads from my home to pretty much anywhere in the area are lined with arts colleges and galleries, and each day on my way to college, I pass the workshop I took courses in in middle school and its students, knowing that it's all within arms reach and yet so far away. I've (not very kindly) felt this contrast too, but I'm still nowhere near feeling what Elle and Naomi must've felt when they said that to each other.

And it really sucks that people can't have that no matter what their academic background is. That the sciences keep pushing out people willing to learn, that minorities in these spaces have always had it much harder because the system was so rigid that it left no place for community within education. It's a serious and very widespread issue. Black, disabled and queer students and professionals keep dropping out every year because of this.

And I don't know if this was intentional or not but I love love LOVE how heartstopper touches upon this subject as well. It truly left no stone unturned.

#heartstopper #heartstopper season 2 #heartstopper analysis #elle argent #elle heartstopper #yeeshh this got heavier that normal its just that this show is doing things to me ahahha #insert that meme of my outline where all this is going on in my head but what i tell her instead is hide me in ur bag lamoo #this is where i stay now 😌#queer

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goodnightmemes · 2 years

Text

BONES SENTENCE STARTERS / s01e12 - s01e14

❛ Don’t use your charm smile on me. ❜

❛ Every family has its secrets. ❜

❛ Are you a nerd? ❜

❛ Go ahead. Don’t let me stop you from - What are you doing exactly? ❜

❛ You know I gotta tell you, I never bought all that English 101 stuff. Sometimes a river is just a river. ❜

❛ Could you please, maybe just for once try not to piss everyone off around you? ❜

❛ My God, it’s like we lead parallel lives. ❜

❛ You’re just one of those guys who’s way too good at lying. ❜

❛ I’ll see you in the comic books, buster. ❜

❛ So what you’re saying is that reality falls far, far short of the fictional. ❜

❛ I was just using it as an excuse to make conversation and reestablish our connection. ❜

❛ Great, how he’s ignoring us in two languages. ❜

❛ You know that book I’m reading, about getting along with your coworkers? It says that sarcasm is never helpful. I could lend it to you if you want. ❜

❛ Did you hear what I said about sarcasm? ❜

❛ I call shotgun. ❜

❛ I called shotgun. What does it mean to a society when the niceties are no longer observed? ❜

❛ Is anybody here? You don’t have to be afraid. ❜

❛ Of course they’re gonna be afraid, I have a gun. ❜

❛ I am asking you as a favor not to make me do this…to scare her. Please? ❜

❛ Interesting or horrible? Because sometimes, it’s the same thing with you. ❜

❛ Mega tough old bastard. ❜

❛ I’ll tell you what, because I like you so much, if I find out who did it, I’ll kill him. ❜

❛ You think you can intimidate people into doing what you want? ❜

❛ How do you handle someone who isn’t afraid of you? ❜

❛ That’s gonna hurt in the morning. ❜

❛ I know you’re all about self-reliance and fighting your own battles and standing up for yourself, but now, as your friend, and knowing how much you hate psychology here, you need therapy. ❜

❛ Later I found out it was three days. But, I thought it was a week, maybe more. ❜

❛ He came in every day and made me believe I was going to die. ❜

❛ I promised myself if I ever had the chance, I’d get even. ❜

❛ You put a hit out on my partner? ❜

❛ If anything happens to her, I will find you and I will kill you. I won’t think twice. ❜

❛ Come here, look in my eyes. Look at my face. If anything happens to her, I will kill you. ❜

❛ Should I keep talking as though you are paying attention? ❜

❛ The information that I’m about to tell you must not leave this room. ❜

❛ I am philosophically imposed to institutional secrecy in all its forms. ❜

❛ So now politics are more important then murder? ❜

❛ Next time you know, you miss me, pick up the phone, call me, we’ll do lunch or something. ❜

❛ He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a parent, you do. ❜

❛ You want to back down a jot there buddy? ❜

❛ Well maybe he discovered that being pushy is how you get cops to pay attention. ❜

❛ What are you hawking at me for? ❜

❛ Ugh, you’re so sweet, honey. You really are. ❜

❛ We get it. You’re a rebel. ❜

❛ Yeah, I know at times like these not to get hopeful, but on the other hand you’ve got to have hope. ❜

❛ I’m not really interested in bonding over the loss of my parents. ❜

❛ Ah, good one sir, very droll. ❜

❛ Never. Freeze. On. Me. Again. ❜

❛ Well, I’m never trusting any of us again. We’re that good at lying, huh? ❜

❛ Some people find it harder then others to get over the loss of a loved one. ❜

❛ Either talk loudly enough so I can hear all the way or whisper so I can’t. ❜

❛ No, we are going to keep doing what we are doing behind [name]’s back. ❜

❛ Oh, I’ll do that! Was that overly enthusiastic? ❜

❛ You just want to see what happens when you toss some frozen pig into a wood chipper. ❜

❛ Your primary job is to do what I say, failing that your job is to fool me. You failed to fool me. ❜

❛ I can be vindictive and petty. I will take you down even if it means striking at you through your friends and co-workers. ❜

❛ I know what it’s like not to know what happened. I know how painful that can be. ❜

❛ Even if you don’t believe it, I know your parents are somewhere proud of what you do. ❜

❛ Hey, you know, your people are my people. ❜

#rp meme #sentence starters #rp sentence meme #sentence meme #rp prompt #inbox meme #roleplay meme #roleplay prompts #sentence starter meme #rp memes #rp prompts #*tv #*bones

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thefallofophanim · 2 months

Text

DOLLS & DESIRE

The Angel no longer needs to pass through my subconscious. He's a constant traveling companion, sometimes appearing when I think I'm protected by daylight, and all I can do is accept his invasive presence. The ethereal entity laughs, then Aliosha - its core - cries, calls for help. Aliosha doesn't want to die, Aliosha will pray every night if necessary, for God to spare him. I ignore him. I saw enough of his suffering when he was still with me.

And yet, I can't resist his embrace. His arms wrapped around me, my head on his chest, the Angel and I are like a living statue. I embrace him like a lover, far from the laws of the Faithful Ones and my vow of abstinence, mocking God and his preachers. His kisses are my only lighthouse in these times of absolute solitude.

It's on this winter's day - spring is just around the corner - that I tell him about the endless hours spent with Confessor. The incomprehension, the humiliation, and a multitude of other emotions so awful that I can't allow myself to name them. My child body violated, my adult soul torn apart. I speak on Semione's behalf, too. They never had the luxury to escape like I did. Will this continue endlessly- eternally, for them? We both wonder, but don't say. The Angel listens. "Dolls. That's what Confessor made of us. What he would have made of you, if he could have had you. What would I do if he decides I'm worthy of him again?"

The thought alone makes me nauseous, so much so that I sigh, burying my head in the fabric covering Aliosha's body-if I can afford to call him that. His fingers run through my hair so gently, his shape is so close to the one I once knew. I no longer know where Aliosha ends and where the Angel begins-if I ever knew at all.

"But there is something worse." I continue. His eyes gleam with interest. "I myself have succumbed to desire. What a shame, Aliosha, what a shame. If you only knew how sorry I am." No response, just the feel of his hand on my face. "Semione tried to reassure me. To tell me it was nothing like what He did to us. I have taken advantage from no one. They- Semione- were furious, but purely because they knew my safety was now threatened." Aliosha embraces me tighter. His wings vanish for an instant, like an oneiric illusion, leaving him bare, human, fragile before me. I couldn't resist temptation. Could I, this time?

*Suddenly, the hand that was caressing me grabs my hair and pulls, forcing me up so that I end up standing (or almost), whining in pain. The one holding me is, indeed, Aliosha, and I can't even formulate my incomprehension - the Angel has never been violent before. He's taller, and the tips of my feet barely touch the ground. I don't understand, but the pain prevents me from thinking - my pain, and the pain reflected in his irises as well. His eyes are wide, almost mad; his mouth is gaping, mute; his body is shaken with spasms. I repeat his name over and over. Does he even hear me?

Then I realize we're no longer on our own . A legion of his kind now surround us, forming a circle of which we are the heart. An ethereal Colosseum of divine spectators. I haven't seen them since the last time. They chant my name, sing my praises, praise me on my dedicated work.

Aliosha stops torturing me, but refuses to let go. He is seemingly on edge. I never thought I'd see a Celestial in such a state. If he were to pounce on me now and devour me, I wouldn't be surprised. I would let him.

"Aliosha." I keep calling his name. "Liosha." Even I lost hope. And that's when I notice his tear-darkened skin. He is weeping.

He croaks out, "So this is what human emotion feels like. How inconvenient." Murmurs among the Ophanim. "I'm not interested in you. Let me see him, glimpses of him. What's left of him." I request. No sooner have I finished my sentence than he lets go, only to grab my arm, my waist to draw me into a frenzied dance.

He remembers.

I follow his familiar steps, and memories of forbidden dances in the Monastery, sometimes the Church, swirl before my eyes. It was just us then, free. I miss that freedom. I miss him, I admit at last, as I pull him tightly against me. The angelic circle closes in on us, witnessing this singular parade on this land between the world of Silhouettes and that of Men. He grabs me from behind, and speaks to me. "He- I wanted to dance once more, more than anything." My breathing quickens as his face approaches mine. "Did you need me like I needed you?" I can't answer. "Years," he continues. "Years to find you, my Savior. Please, don't leave me again."

I turn around in disbelief. What is he talking about? He, on the other hand, is more passionate than ever."I don't blame you, Lysander, you know. I know I wasn't up to your grace."

I'm at a loss for words as the truth invades my mind. He frowns, and I piece everything together immediately. This ceremony, my illusory omen, my lie. Semione covering me, Anouk's frightened glances. The blond child I read the thoughts of. I want to run away. I try to, but he won't let me, holding me as close as possible.

"Why not me? Answer me! Why not me?! I was always the purest-" his voice breaks as he clings onto my cloth. "How could you do this, then allow me to sin with you?" His grip tightens. I desperately search for an escape, helpless. He grabs my hair once again, forcing me to face him. I can feel tears forming at the corner of my eyes. The Ophanim howl around us, the noise polluting my mind. Once again, a part of me wants to let him win. To succumb, drown in his flesh, without an ounce of regret.

And yet, even before my thought is complete, my hands are wrapped around his neck. My grip is far from fragile, and a groan of pain escapes my dance partner's throat as I squeeze, choking the humanity out of him. We fall into the pale flowerbed-him lying on the ground and I on top, merciless. I strangle him, he never stopped pulling my hair, and we both howl at each other; but also at the angels around us, perhaps even at God himself. My mind is blank as I bend down to bite his face, with no clear objective other than to destroy him, break him, reduce him to nothingness. I can't hold myself back anymore, I want to dominate him, not the other way around. I, for once in my life, want to have control over something. The feeling seems mutual, and I tremble in ecstasy when I feel his lip slit under my teeth.

It wasn't until we were exhausted, sobbing, our cheeks contorted with sweat and tears, that we stopped, our vocal cords severed. Aliosha's fingers are entwined with mine, and as we exchange a last glance, he is dragged out of my reach by several of his fellow holy beings, useless and weakened by his human heart. He disappears, and I collapse as the Ophanim close in on me. They cradle me like a child, asking me to continue the task they've given me. Let us fall, they whisper. Let us fall.

When I wake up, they are all gone. All that's left is yet another piece of stained glass, laying, shining before my eyes.

#writing #prose

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