#Which involves something truly horrifying:

[wouldtheybecomeafearavatar]

would

🫵YOU

be an avatar of the lonely?

Yeah :( By unawareness.

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

I have so many feelings about Vander, he's such an interesting, flawed, sympathetic, tragic, and infuriating character. I'm obsessed with him.

He is introduced as this genuinely loving father and nurturing provider, he loves and wants more than anything to protect his kids. He is kind, he is stern, he is protective. The sheer devastation and fear in his eyes chained to a chair watching his little teenage daughter go to fight a man twice her size for his sake absolutely haunts me.

But looking back on his parenting objectively, it really was far from perfect. He parentified his oldest daughter and made her out to be responsible for the well-being of her siblings (Zaun seems to have a culture of free-range parenting, so his lack of supervision isn't a problem so much as the fact that he pressures his teenager to be the supervisor).

Furthermore, he's struck a deal with Grayson to keep enforcers out of the Lanes business in exchange for them not interfering with topside's affairs, but there is an obvious failure on Grayson's end to uphold her end of the deal. We see enforcers in the Lanes multiple times, in the Enemy mv, and also it's stated by Vi to Powder that one time enforcers chased Claggor until he got his foot stuck in a gutter, then proceeded to harass him and LEAVE HIM THERE where he wasn't found until morning. Like, Vander, the cops hassled your child and put him in a very dangerous situation, but you keep your mouth shut and do what they say? It's clear that his fear of another violent conflict has resulted in a problematic level of complacency where he allows violence to be enacted against his people but acts in fear of fighting back. Sevika was right to call him a coward.

But it's also clear that he does struggle with mental illness to some extent, which I truly truly wish was explored more because it's such an interesting aspect of who he is as a person. The way in which he lashes out at Silco is horrifying. Whether they were friends, lovers, or even just comrades at that point, it is clear that Vander did not have his mental health and his anger under control at that point in his life. And I think that's why he was so complacent. He wasn't afraid of the enforcers, he was afraid of himself. Afraid of what he would do if he let himself be involved in another conflict. Afraid of who he would hurt next, if he was so capable and willing to hurt people he cared about before. Benzo? Sevika? Vi? Powder? Mylo? Claggor? It is my genuine belief that when he said "there are worse things than enforcers out there," Benzo understood it to mean Silco or at least the other Chembarons, but Vander was fully talking about himself.

Then, in the main timeline, he is "saved" and turned into the very thing he'd spent the last several years of his life trying desperately not to be, even at the expense of his people's freedom-- a bloodthirsty, violent monster with no self control. In a way, Warwick is the person Vander used to be. The person who lashes out and hurts people he loves, but also is willing to go to any length of violence to protect them. I don't like the idea that Warwick's violence comes entirely from the animal or something external to Vander, it should be very clear that this monster is Vander.

I also think it's so interesting. When he finally becomes violent at the Cannery, and chokes Silco out again, it is only after his sons have been killed. In the AU, a lot of people criticize this idea that it depicts a "utopia" where Silco crawled back to his abuser after finding the letter, but I don't think that's what's being depicted. It's never stated or implied that he found the letter in the AU. What is stated/implied? Vander's daughter was killed. On a job that she took out of bitterness against topside. We know Silco didn't give a shit about Vi at that point, I don't see this triggering him to find the letter or come crawling back. But we saw in the main timeline, that when Vander loses his children, he's able to become the violent revolutionary he once was. Which is exactly what Silco wanted, so I reckon that's what happened. He came back to Silco, and they fought for Zaun together again.

Losing people he loves pulls violence out of Vander like nothing else.

He's just-- he contains such multitudes. He is all of these things. He is a kind, protective father and a nurturing provider. He is a flawed parent. He is a coward. He is a monster. He is a sick and violent man who is willing to hurt the people he loves. He is fiercely protective and driven to intense violence and madness when people he loves are killed.

Vander, the man that you are.

[lavenderprose]

Nanny AU? Nanny AU.

Emmrich was somewhat used to receiving panicked phone calls at work. The nanny situation with Manfred had been tumultuous for quite some time—there had been a year or so there where Manfred had burned through nannies like a fire through kindling. Four professionals had come and gone, and Emmrich had learned that very few things were sacred when one had an overly precocious genius-level three-year-old at home; especially one’s work hours. He’d taken to answering the phone immediately upon feeling it vibrate in his back pocket. Well, as immediately as whatever was living on his gloved hands would allow. He often had to let it go through the voicemail the first time as he divested himself of gloves, but there was almost always an immediate second call.

That was, until Rook.

In the six months since hiring her, Emmrich had only received two phone calls at work. Rook seemed to almost pathologically respect Emmrich’s working hours, and only called during utmost emergencies. The first, only a week into the current arrangement, had been to inform him that Manfred had vomited at school and she needed him to call the school and give them her information so that she could pick him up. The other was an incident involving Johanna the cat, which resulted in Emmrich talking her through the process of dismantling the basement drop ceiling.

Rook’s respect of his work hours was one of the many reasons why Emmrich had come to deeply appreciate her presence in his life—aside from her positive influence on Manfred, of course, and her skill in helping to nurture and educate him. Emmrich had known, of course, that single parenthood was an undertaking not to be taken lightly, and he would certainly never regret the decision to create his little family, but the lack of a partner in the endeavor had rankled at times. Rook had offered insight into what such a partnership might be.

But then, that thought veered too closely to something that Emmrich had spent a great deal of time trying to ignore over the last six months.

In any case, the dropoff in sudden calls had allowed Emmrich to reclaim a piece of his own sense of peace that he hadn’t even realized had gone missing. He’d at least stopped walking into work while wondering what unplanned issues would arise during the day.

On the other hand, he now knew that on the occasions that his phone did ring at work—with Rook’s particular ringtone to indicate to him that it was her calling—it was truly an emergency.

He couldn’t be blamed, therefore, for answering the phone with a hurried and abrupt prompt of, “What’s happened?” when Rook’s ringtone pierced the calm and quiet of his office on a Tuesday afternoon.

“Manfred’s fine,” she said immediately, prompting yet another rush of gratitude from him—she was intuitive that way. The relief flooded back out of his system, however, when Rook followed it up with, “I’m really sorry to bother you, Emmrich, but I think I need to go to the hospital, so you should probably come home.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, standing immediately to gather his things. On a handful of occasions, he’d been summoned home to take over care if a nanny had some unforeseen event—issues with their own childcare, sudden mid-day illness, and on one occasion an on-the-spot resignation. That had been a memorable and unfortunate day.

A medical emergency was a new and horrifying occurrence.

“Manfred crawled under the hedgerow and I had to chase him through the field behind the house,” Rook said, and there was an odd quality to her voice—stifled, as though with congestion. She’d been experiencing no such ailment this morning at breakfast, when she’d come in from her apartment in the guesthouse and helped him clean up the carnage of Manfred’s oatmeal. She, herself, had smelled of strawberries. Her skirt had fluttered just a little too high as she ran down the driveway to hand him his forgotten travel mug as he ducked into his car.

“Oh dear,” Emmrich tutted, locking his office behind him as he swept into the hallway. He made the split-second decision to simply text Johanna—the person, not the cat—that he’d had a family emergency and would follow up with her about the day’s cases at a later time. Johanna was unlikely to notice his absence, as it was; she was elbows-deep in some unfortunate soul pulled from the Minanter River the previous afternoon and likely wouldn’t surface until she’d gleaned the name of the man’s tax adjuster from the color of his liver.

“And he’s fine,” Rook reiterated, as though she genuinely thought that that was still his major concern after she’d told him that she was intending to seek emergency medical attention for something that Emmrich’s very own three-year-old had subjected her to. “But there was deathroot? Growing in the field? And I’m super allergic. Usually I just break out in hives, but there was so much of it, and I was wearing a sundress, and anyway I’m having trouble breathing—"

“Do you have an epi-pen?”

“No,” Rook said, “Like I said—it’s never been this bad before. I think I might have inhaled some of the pollen.”

“Calm down,” Emmrich said, sinking into his medical training and pushing the alarm to the back of his mind. It had been years since his practice had taken its turn towards the deceased, and he was unused to treating living patients, but the knowledge was still there. He comforted himself with it as he sprinted towards the parking garage, open suit jacket flailing behind him. “There should be Benadryl in the master bedroom ensuite. Chew two capsules, open a window and sit down. If you feel your throat closing or start feeling lightheaded, you need to call emergency. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay.” Rook’s voice was faint—less assured than he’d ever heard her.

“You’ll be alright, my dear,” Emmrich said. “Where’s Manfred?”

“I put him in his room with some toys. He’s probably making a mess, but there’s nothing he can hurt himself with and I didn’t trust myself—”

“That’s quite fine, darling. Breathe—slow, deep. You’ll hear the door open in a few minutes. It will be a neighbor coming to take Manfred. I don’t want you to get up. I’ll come find you when I get home.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Rook said, and the fact that this was her token argument showed her state.

“I’ll not let you drive yourself to the hospital in the state you’re in,” Emmrich said firmly. “I’ll be there shortly. Stay calm.”

Rook’s low, mumbled agreement and the tone of the call ending sounded as Emmrich started his car and the phone connected to the sound system. As he peeled backwards out of his assigned parking spot and executed a maneuver of suspect legality to merge summarily onto the roadway, he initiated a second call.

The line picked up immediately, as he suspected it would.

“Myrna,” he said, even before she’d finished her cool, perfunctory Hello? as she answered the phone. “Are you or Vorgoth working from the home office today?”

-0-

“I’m really sorry about all of this, Emmrich.”

For at least the third time since a nurse had led them into this awful little room, Emmrich offered Rook a strained smile and patted her knee. She’d put on leggings before his arrival at the house, probably to cover up the scrapes and bruises from her excursion through the hedgerow and deathroot patch, and his hand met nothing but soft, body-warm cotton. Nonetheless, he kept the touch as perfunctory as possible—a brief, chaste touch to the very apple of her kneecap.

“Don’t apologize, Rook,” he said, shifting restlessly in his plastic chair. Rook was perched in a large vinyl medical recliner, knees drawn up to her chest and face pressed to her own thighs. Her breathing had become slightly less labored in the last hour or so, after he’d arrived at the house to find her sitting on the chaise lounge in the master bedroom reading nook, face ashen and hands fisted into one of his mother’s quilts. He’d nearly tried to convince her to let him carry her to the car.

As her breathing eased, however, she began to itch and the rash worsened—large plaques of urticaria covering a vast swath of her skin. Emmrich kept a careful vigil on the patches, on the color of her lips, looking for any sign of a worsening reaction.

They had her on a pulse oximeter, which was beeping steadily at 74 beats per minute and 99% oxygen saturation—both good signs. A nurse had taken her blood pressure upon their arrival, frowned slightly, and left. Emmrich suspected this to mean that it had been slightly elevated, which was to be expected with the stress of the situation and the antihistamine he’d directed her to take earlier.

They’d been waiting for over an hour for the attending physician.

“I don’t know what’s taking so long,” Rook sighed into her knees, as she itched frantically at a plaque of hives on her shoulder.

“Unfortunately, with your vitals, you’re likely not considered top priority at the moment,” Emmrich murmured.

“I want to go home,” Rook muttered, a tone of abject misery to her voice, and Emmrich wanted nothing more than to fulfill her desire. Take her home, put her to bed and offer her something warm and comforting to drink.

He made himself veer away from those thoughts when he realized that it was his own bed he was imagining tucking her into.

A wholly inappropriate thought to have about one’s live-in nanny, said a voice in the back of his head, which unfortunately sounded too much like Johanna for comfort. You decrepit old popinjay, it added as though to confirm.

Emmrich indulged in a sigh of his own, buried his face in the heel of his hand, and said, “A little longer, darling.” When he realized what he’d said—and he’d used that word earlier as well, hadn’t he?—he looked back up in time to catch an odd, soft expression cross Rook’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wearily. “Habit.”

“I like it,” she whispered. She looked very small, sad and…young sitting there, wrapped around herself in a tense bundle.

Before Emmrich could say or do anything, the curtain of the triage room slid aside. This, of course, was for the best.

“Sigrid?” said the man who’d just arrived—the attending physician, by all indications, given he was wearing the darker blue scrubs that this hospital used to indicate such a role, and Emmrich in fact recognized him as one of the ER physicians he’d had encounters with in his role as medical examiner.

“Yes,” said Rook, though it took Emmrich a moment to remember that yes, that actually was her legal name. The one she never used and seemed averse to anyone else using, either. To evidence this, she added, “Though, I go by Rook—it should be in my paperwork as my preferred—”

“Oh, it does say that,” said the physician, tugging a rolling chair several unnecessary feet across the cramped room. He mounted it backwards and tapped his clipboard. “Sorry, I’m still getting used to this whole preferred name thing. Us old dogs have to learn a few new tricks, I suppose. So you’re Rook, she/her pronouns, and who’ve you brought with you today?” He looked to Emmrich, furrowed his brows, and said, “Oh, Doctor Volkarin. I almost didn’t recognize you out of the morgue.”

Emmrich offered a brief, wane smile. “Doctor Reldevar.”

“So you must be Mrs. Volkarin,” said Reldevar immediately, holding out a hand for Rook to shake.

Oddly, Rook didn’t deny it—she shook Reldevar’s hand, though unsmiling, and offered Emmrich a brief shrug when the good doctor looked back down at his clipboard.

“Oh, sorry, stuck my foot in my mouth again,” Reldevar said, still examining the clipboard, “You kept your maiden name, huh? Lots of women doing that these days. Anyway, Rook, it looks like you’re in today about some breathing trouble?”

“An allergic reaction to deathweed, it would seem,” Emmrich said, taking the burden of speaking away from her—which she offered him a small, grateful smile for behind her knees. “Poor Rook is very allergic, and crawled through a patch this afternoon after Manfred—that is, my son—ran off into the field behind our house. I believe she inhaled some of the pollen and received quite considerable topical exposure. She was badly scraped by the thorns. I directed her to take an antihistamine to stop the worst of the initial reaction, but steroids will probably be necessary to prevent another, worse recurrence of the reaction due to the extent of exposure.”

Reldevar hummed, pursed his lips, flipped through the pages of Rook’s paperwork for a further moment, then snapped his fingers and pointed in Emmrich’s direction. “Your husband’s got it in one, Rook. We’ll fix you up with a steroid injection here in the hospital and we’ll watch you for a little bit to make sure the reaction is going down, and then we’ll send you home with…eh, probably a prednisone prescription and a topical ointment for those hives. How’s that sound?”

“Um, fine?” said Rook, still itching, and Reldevar presented her with his hand to shake again.

“Sounds good,” he said, and leaned over to shake Emmrich’s hand as well. “Take care, Doctor.” He winked. “Take the missus home and give her a day away from the kid, huh? Sounds like he’s a handful.”

Emmrich responded with nothing but a strained smile, and Reldevar took his leave back out the curtain of the triage room.

As the curtain was still swinging, Rook took in a deep breath and said, “I just felt like it was harder to explain the situation—”

“Of course,” Emmrich said, wiggling his hands equivocally in front of himself. “That’s entirely—”

“—and I thought, maybe he’d listen to me if he thought—”

“Oh, absolutely.”

They fell into an odd, awkward silence of the sort that they’d never really had to suffer through. Rook was almost universally easy to talk to, at least so far as Emmrich was concerned, and conversation had always flowed easily between them—whether it had to do with Manfred, various professional conversations that had to take place due to Emmrich’s position as Rook’s employer and de facto landlord, or conversations of a more personal nature.

Rook settled back into the recliner, looking small and tired, and Emmrich could do nothing but reach over to pat her knee again.

It took another half an hour for a nurse to arrive with the promised steroid injection.

“So this needs to go into a large muscle,” said the nurse. “We usually do the muscle in one of your glutes—meaning this area here—” the nurse gestured to her own rear, somewhere in the area where thigh became butt. “If that’s alright with you, I just need you to lift your dress and pull your leggings to the side.”

Rook sighed, but showed no significant reluctance to the idea—even despite Emmrich’s continued presence. He knew, obviously, that this was his cue to excuse himself or at least look away, but he was trapped by some sort of car-crash impulse. It happened very quickly, and he couldn’t quite make himself look away; Rook rose from her chair, pulled her sundress up around her waist and lowered her leggings just far enough to reveal the buttery expanse of one smooth thigh and asscheek. She was clearly wearing very scant undergarments. The only real indication that she was wearing panties at all was the barest peek of a dark purple thong cresting the apple of her hip.

“This might sting a little more than your average flu shot,” the nurse cautioned as she swiped an alcohol wipe onto Rook’s flank. “It’ll ache a bit tomorrow. But once we’re done, you can go home, so that’s good…”

Emmrich became aware of just how hard he’d been clenching his jaw when Rook gasped at the prick of the syringe and his mouth, quite involuntarily, fell open just slightly. He could feel his pulse in his teeth. His legs, crossed over each other in a habitual mannerism, ached from how tensely he was holding himself. Between them, his traitorous prick stirred, intrigued by a breathless sound from a beautiful woman and the sight of her nearly bare ass.

“Oh, shit, you weren’t kidding,” Rook said, fingers visibly whitening on the armrest of the chair she’d bent herself over. “That hurts. Oh, Maker, that fucking burns—”

“Sorry,” the nurse said, genuine sympathy in her voice as she capped the syringe. She dropped it into a nearby sharps container and fastened a piece of gauze over the pinprick of blood now welling up on Rook’s otherwise pristine skin. Emmrich floundered for his own self-control. “Good news is, you’re done! The doctor already sent your prescription over to your pharmacy on file. Your discharge papers are on the table here. Any questions?”

“Oh, I live with a doctor.” Rook tossed her head in Emmrich’s direction, seemed to almost wink. “He’ll take care of me, and I just really want to go home.”

“Medical examiner,” Emmrich said, perhaps a little louder than he’d meant to. Rook had yet to pull her leggings back up all the way—the purple thong abided, teasing him from underneath the hiked-up hem of her dress. “I do have—technically, yes, I’m a medical doctor—"

“Fair enough,” said the nurse, in what was perhaps the politest way possible to say I do not have time for this. To Rook, she added, “Feel better!” and then took her leave to the tune of the curtain rings rattling on the rod and the swish of scrubs.

“Your leggings, my dear,” Emmrich said into the subsequent silence—or, at least, the lack of conversation; the rooms around them were still full of sound. Beeping heart monitors, coughing patients and the tapping of shoes on tile.

“Oh,” said Rook, who in that very moment seemed to remember that her entire hip and most of her right asscheek were uncovered. She pulled them up, wincing at the drag over her recently abused flesh, and sighed into her palm. “Take me home, please?”

“Yes,” Emmrich murmured. “I can certainly do that.”

-0-

Upon walking through the door, Johanna immediately made her discontent at the hour of their arrival known. It was indeed quite significantly past her typical dinnertime, and she was a creature of habit—but Emmrich still considered the unrepentant yowling a bit excessive.

“Oh, hush,” he admonished her, ushering Rook in the door with a hand at the small of her back. She’d deteriorated rapidly on the car ride home—visibly tiring and becoming distressed and impatient with the persistent itching of her skin. She was bright red in places, including her shoulders and arms, and her normally pinned hair had come down in large drapes against her face and the back of her neck. At some point, Emmrich had offered her a discarded cardigan from the backseat, and she now wore it draped around her shoulders. It was gray, a little lumpy, and inspired an incongruous urge of possessiveness to curl itself around Emmrich’s heart every time he glanced at her.

“Rook,” he began as he turned on the foyer light, “It would comfort me greatly if you stayed in the guest room tonight, instead of returning to your flat in the guest house. It’s entirely up to you, of course, but it would ease my mind if—”

“Believe me, Emmrich, the last thing I want to do right now is walk all the way to the guest house,” Rook sighed. Hearteningly, she pulled his cardigan tighter around herself. “I’ll make up the bedroom for myself.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Emmrich said, in almost the tone he used to admonish Manfred when he indulged his more mischievous impulses. “I’ll make up the bedroom and run you a bath. It would be a good idea to remove any remaining material from your skin before you sleep.”

“Emmrich, I can’t let you—” Rook sighed, grunted, and attempted to reach her hand down the back of her shirt to, presumably, scratch at a patch of urticaria on an inaccessible portion of her back. “You’re my—I can’t put you out like that—”

“Nonsense,” Emmrich replied, determined to make that the end of the conversation. He mounted the stairs rapidly, using his superior height to his advantage for once, and he’d already begun filling the guest bathroom tub with nearly-scalding water by the time he saw Rook make her way into the bedroom through the cracked door.

Of the bedrooms in his house, one of them was the master—which featured a full ensuite bathroom with whirlpool tub and generously-sized rainfall shower stall. Manfred’s bedroom was attached Jack-and-Jill style to Emmrich's office via a childproofed bath that featured a toilet with a potty seat installed, child-height vanity and a shower bath strewn with all manner of toys. The fourth bedroom was smallest and therefore had the smallest bathroom—a simple three-quarters bath with only a tub, though it was claw-footed and generous in size. Emmrich knelt on the plush rug and ran the bath, peering through the cracked door and attempting to convince himself not to.

It was unlikely Rook wasn’t aware of his presence in the bathroom—she could hear the water running, and would almost certainly know that he hadn’t left it to run unattended, if only through habit given the current absence of three-year-olds on the premises. Even so, as she was meandering through the room and passing in and out of view, she was shedding clothes.

First the cardigan, which bared the angry rash on her arms and shoulders. Then the shoes and the leggings—when she next wandered by, Emmrich realized that she had scraped her knees up quite badly, likely while pursuing Manfred under the hedgerow. She stood center in the room for a moment (Emmrich drew a hand through the pooling water in the tub and, upon realizing it was scalding hot, switched the faucet to cool for a moment) and pulled the pins out of her hair. Disappeared. When she next came back into view—

Well, the dress had gone, and he discovered that the thong and bra set had a pattern of skulls.

Emmrich finally convinced his eyes downwards. He was unsurprised but nonetheless mortified to find the telltale swell of an erection evident against his inner thigh. He sighed and rubbed some of the cool water across his forehead.

If this woman was a test from the Maker—or something even more esoteric; a challenge to his vows as a physician perhaps? A sudden hurdle for his self-control and dedication to gentlemanliness to overcome?—she was certainly serving her purpose masterfully.

“Emmrich?”

She’d found a robe—fluffy and white, something he’d put in the closet long ago that might have been left behind when a lover made an unceremonious exit from his life. He’d laundered it regularly for years on the off chance that it would find use again, by a paramour or a guest. Emmrich was utterly unsure which of those labels Rook fell under, especially in the moment.

She seemed to almost know what she’d done—he would certainly not go so far as to say the parade in front of the bathroom door had been intentional, but she at least seemed not to care if he’d been watching. She at least seemed content with the idea that he knew the color of her underwear and the shape of the tattoo on her hip.

It was, interestingly, a black bird. A rook, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Yes?” Emmrich responded, with an only slightly-too-long pause as she stood in the bathroom doorway and he attempted to make his tongue form sounds.

“Do you have any of that oatmeal bath left from when Manfred had HFMD?”

“Oh! I very well may.” Grateful for a reason to flee and collect himself, Emmrich did so. The colloidal oatmeal was in the back of the cabinet in Manfred’s bathroom—half a box left over from Manfred’s recent bout of Hand, Food and Mouth Disease. A disgusting five days of Emmrich’s life which he was not eager to relive.

Manfred’s fingernails were still regrowing.

Luckily, the thought of weeping blisters did wonders for the exorcism of blood from certain areas of the body. When Emmrich returned to the bathroom, his erection had flagged, and he was able to finish running the bath with all of the professional courtesy demanded of his Hippocratic oath and the employee-employer relationship he held with the attractive and berobed woman sitting on the toilet lid.

“Test the water temperature before you get in,” Emmrich cautioned as he turned off the spigot. “I’m afraid I may have run it too hot to start.”

He’d expected Rook to simply agree, or wait until he’d exited the bathroom, or at least simply use her hand to test it. To his incredulity, she immediately slunk over, pulled the hem of the robe above her knee and dipped a toe in.

The color of her nail polish matched her underwear. He did not know why—or perhaps he was just lying to himself—but it was this particular detail that brought his cock instantly, painfully back to full hardness.

He could not stop himself from imagining those toes in his mouth.

“I think I will also start my nighttime ablutions,” he said, perhaps hoarsely—he could not bring himself to care in the moment.

“Sure,” Rook said vaguely, watching the oatmeal swirl in the tub. “Thanks, Emmrich. Oh—would you help me put the ointment on after this? There are places on my back that I can’t reach.”

“Of course,” Emmrich said, feeling like his head would pop off his shoulders.

He put as many doors between himself and Rook as he possibly could. The guest bathroom, the guest room, his own bedroom door and then the door to his own ensuite. He spent a moment against the back of the bathroom door, eyes squeezed shut, talking himself off the edge.

“Oh, fuck it,” he hissed, and tore into his trousers with the furiousness of a man possessed. He stumbled to the shower, removing clothes as he went, and almost stumbled into the shower stall with his socks still on. The cold water did absolutely nothing to soothe his hot skin or boiling blood—as he slid down onto his knees and tilted his head back under the rainfall of the showerhead, he was already stroking himself with a franticness more typically seen in those half his age.

Maker, she made him feel half his age. When she pranced through his kitchen wearing a sundress and a smile. When she poked her head into his study at night to tell him that she’d read his son to sleep, asked him how his day had gone, sat on the settee and talked to him for an hour. When she let him call her darling and pretended to be his wife.

Oh, it was almost too easy to imagine it. To pretend.

He stripped his cock, pictured her hand. Her mouth. Her small breasts in their purple skull-and-lace vesture. The way he would worship her with his hands and mouth. How did she taste, how did she sound, what was the color of her—

He gasped, fingers curled into the tile of the shower floor, and came into the lukewarm water swirling around his knees.

The shame kicked in almost immediately, even as he watched the evidence of his depravity vanish down the drain. He was a man in his fifties, a father, a doctor. This sort of behavior was so completely below him, so completely inappropriate—

But damn, had it felt good. The last three years, since the blessing of Manfred came into his life, he’d allowed himself to become almost completely divorced from his own sexuality. It had been over a year since he’d had sex, and even masturbation had seemed like too much effort most nights. When he did work up the energy to reach a hand down, he did so while conditioning his hair and making lists in his head.

The relief of a true release was almost as stark as the accompanying self-loathing.

 Later, as he carefully rubbed the ointment onto Rook’s back and pointedly did not let himself look beyond the patches of rash he was focusing on, he mumbled, “I want you to know, Rook, that I…value you.”

Rook turned, hair pooled over her shoulder. She was not embarrassed of the fact that her shirt was hanging loosely off her neck, and he could not avoid seeing the peak of one brown nipple.

“I know,” she said, and Emmrich could almost convince himself that she was simply tired, or trusted him as a medical professional, or did not even consider that he might look based simply on his age.

Almost—were it not for the small, satisfied smirk he saw in the vanity mirror as she turned back around.

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 19: The One Where I Perform Mis-Directed as a Three Act Comedy, Act II

“Before you started the bumpers cars act, for the record unless you’re eight years old trying to make your dolls kiss, smashing your teeth together is not an ideal approximation of romance.”

“And [Hattie’s] gaze fell to [Anthony’s], felt as if somehow it was attached to his, as if there were filaments between them hooking together every time their glances connected.”

“Maybe there had already been the faintest glimmer of this horrifying attachment even then. His first steps on a map to a very unexpected destination but somehow it still felt as if there’d been no warning at all. As if a thousand insignificant moments and incidents had quietly woven together until one day he’d turned and he’d fallen and he’d been caught by a net of those impossibly unbreakable threads which he hadn’t realized existed.”

“…[Anthony] was not a touchy-feely person… But when he and Hattie, when their characters had kissed each other into the wall, he’d almost purred against her like a damn cat.”

“It was a closed set this morning so thankfully a very minimal number of crew personnel…On the flip side, the team reserved this level of set closure, basically a skeleton crew, for only the most explicit scenes and semi-nudity.”

“But she never had to worry in the past about being more involved in the dance than she ought to be. Not once had she arranged herself in a castmate’s arms and felt as if they were doing something truly, genuinely intimate…"

“Quite clearly the issue here was her scene partner and the potential for an amped up repeat of what had happened last time. Hard nipples, damp thighs, and a heart trying to burst out of her chest, all from a fully clothed screen kiss. This time, they’d both be all but naked, writhing on a bed, gasping, grinding, sighing.”

“This mattress feels very sturdy.”

“The moment Iris bounces him into the mattress in episode 8..."

“If millions of people were going to watch her ride Anthony like a mechanical bull…”

“Stevie pointed at the ornate mirror near the bed. Her gesture a spectacular symphony of sarcasm. ‘As your pre-seduction routine appears to involve a great deal of hair flicking and smokey glances at yourself, have at it.’”

“Are you looking for something?”

“‘Falling buckets,’ Hattie said. ‘Or collapsing bedframes or beams coming loose…’”

“…when the floorboard beneath [Anthony’s] boot performed a preemptive strike. The wood tilted inwards, just enough to throw off his footing…and his full body weight surged forward. She could see later in hindsight that he had attempted to both shield her head and not crush her underneath him…"

“Anthony landed on his knees with a painful grunt but had barely hit the floor before he was at her side, touching the back of her head and her shaking shoulders. She just had time to register a little too much cool air on the backs of her thighs, then he was smoothing her skirts down protecting what remained of her dignity in an automatic gesture.”

“’Gentle, this bit,’ [Stevie] said. “Romantic, soft.”

“But in the ways that mattered, especially in the context of an intimate scene and the scripts that they all dreaded most, he’d been surprising. If she wanted to expand into the territory of actual truth, he’d been the most confusing, unsettling, and fun scene partner she’d had in four years.”

“They were still holding hands. They realized this simultaneously and let go immediately.”

“’She’s my baby,’ [Cassidy] explained as she turned the key in the ignition. ‘The first thing I ever treated myself to with my own money, and she’s been with me for the whole crazy ride.’ She patted the gear box fondly. ‘I could never part with Penelope.’”

When discussing the underdog love story on Leicester Square, Hattie commented, “If she were a viewer, she’d be shipping them hard.”

While Anthony and Hattie were looking at gravestones, one caught Hattie’s eye…

“The dates here coincided with the time period of Leicester Square… Below the words was a symbol of a V-shaped flying dove. At first glimpse, it strongly resembled two raised fingers.”

While reminiscing about growing up, Hattie recalled, “...her mother reading aloud to her from a battered old copy of The Magic Faraway Tree.”

“’Do you remember the day we first met,’ [Hattie] asked suddenly."

“In all honesty, no. His early days on various TV and film sets had all blurred into an archived jumble of long hours, interchangeable costars, despised hotel living. As difficult as it was to imagine now, he had no distinct memory of the very first time he had ever seen Hattie. Although, he might have a vague recollection of earrings shaped like miniature garden gnomes. He did, however, have a crystal-clear memory of the first time he’d actually seen Hattie with all that the emphasis on that word implied.”

“She’d obviously read the ‘no’ in his expression, and her smile widened.”

“’It was a Tuesday morning at Malvern Abbey.’”

“And now she felt excessively wrong sharing close whispering breaths with Patrick especially with Anthony sitting on a folding chair a few meters behind the camera awaiting his queue to slip in for the daydream portion of the scene, and currently watching their every move. His pose was typically lazy, one boot crossed over the other, his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair, but he hadn’t looked away from them once. Something in his demeanor had the usually easy-going Patrick antsy as hell, probably the twitching eyelid.”

“’A definite improvement,’ Stevie’s voice came from behind them, very dryly. ‘And if we’d actually started shooting yet, we could probably call it a day.’”

[thesummerstorms]

You know that conversation you can have with Emmrich where he asks what your plans are for your body when you die?

I think Arsinoë accidentally horrified him. Not by clinging to non-Nevarran ideals about cremation, but by telling him she never thought anyone would care that much one way or the other.

She would be dead, so she wouldn't care. And honestly, a majority of compradi die as Fledglings without graduating; she thinks their bodies were probably burned (since you have to do something with bodies) but they certainly don't have funerals, so it certainly wasn't worth worrying about then.

Emmrich interjects, trying to wrangle his own shock long enough to point out that she's not a Fledgling now, so surely...?

Well if she dies now, Arsinoë all but shrugs, it would depend on the circumstances, wouldn't it? She isn't someone important like a Talon or the scion of an established Crow family. She certainly isn't Caterina Dellamorte, who warrants something verging on a State Funeral.

If she died, there is still a non-zero chance it would be at another Crow's hands, in which case it's anyone's guess what happens after.

If she dies honorably fulfilling a contract, then Viago might feel obligated to do something if he isn't pissed off at her failure and she's isn't still in Exile. He's her mentor, so probably he would manage at least a small pyre. Maybe even a flower or two for the flames if he's letting himself feel sentimental. Teia would probably be there because Viago was.

But just as often, when a contract goes wrong, there's no time to go back for the body. The mark get ahold of it, or whoever's left on the contract has to focus on survival rather than the dignity of a corpse that can't feel any of it.

But really, none of that would matter to Arsinoë, would it? She'd be off wherever dead souls end up going, or maybe in oblivion, who knows. She doesn't have any family to be horrified by her corpse unless you count Viago, who is Fifth Talon, has bigger things to worry about, and will get over it.

But anyway, why do you ask, Emmrich?

Emmrich is too aghast to answer clearly at that point because every single point of Arsinoë's answer goes so deeply against everything that is ingrained in him as part of the Mourn Watch, from the belief that a corpse just doesn't matter to her sincere belief that no one would care enough about her for any particular mourning rights.

And the thing is Emmrich does care. It's his professional duty to care, but he's also become fond of his young friend and he cannot handle imagining that she could die on this mission or the next and potentially receive no rites at all.

Cue Emmrich starting to plan how he's going to have Rook interred in the Grand Necropolis when the time comes. It may involve some string pulling, especially if (hopefully) she dies not on this mission but in the distant future, and even more so if he precedes her and has to leave the job in one of his colleague's hands. But Maker help him, there will be a plan and her death will be respected.

When it comes to light, Neve is uncertain and a little weirded out, but also a little offended by all this. She's fallen in love with Rook, but even before that, the respect between them would have warranted a pyre and Arsinoë's name on the Wall of Light if there was no one else to arrange things. Is this why she's never asked about what happened after Varric-

Lucanis is horrified by the idea of Arsinoë as one of the spirit-possessed skeletons in the Necropolis or one of the jewel-eyed skulls in its many niches; he snaps at Emmrich about Nevarran obsession and respecting Rook as Antivan.

Emmrich refuses to budge. She expected the Crows to do nothing for her. She deserves better, deserves to be remembered, even if she isn't Nevarran.

Lucanis seems fully stunned by the idea that Rook believed this in the first place, given Viago's attachment. Given Lucanis's own growing feelings. Emmrich does soften a little bit when he sees that Lucanis truly didn't realize, but he also doesn't fully divert his plans.

Gathering a grave-dowry is normally left to a lover or family member if the deceased was themselves unable, and Emmrich is neither. But needs must, and though his friend now seems attached to Neve and Lucanis, hearts can be fickle. A plan is better. So he puts away small things here or there, eyes which of Rook's enchanted rings and amulets she seems to favor just in case.

It almost helps him live with the knowledge that Arsinoë believed she would die unmourned. Almost.

[kikyoupdates]

Otherworldly Attraction ⭑˚🔮⭑ 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑

yandere!jjk x f!reader

yandere, reverse harem, isekai, jujutsu kaisen x fem!reader, slowburn, slowburn yandere

You don't know how or why, but you've been isekai'd into the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. Although your first instinct is to stay away from the plot, you've been blessed with an abnormal amount of cursed energy, and for better or worse, you find yourself sucked into the storyline. You decide that you may as well use your newfound powers for the greater good, and if you're lucky, you might succeed in rewriting some of the characters' fates. But it turns out that your presence in this world is an even bigger deal than you first thought, and soon, everyone wants to make you theirs.

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You awaken to the sight of Itadori gazing down upon you.   

“[Name]!”   

He cries out in a panic, and there’s no denying the look of concern on his face. Truthfully, it takes you a little while to make sense of everything. The last thing you recall is your close encounter with Sukuna, with Gojo showing up not long afterwards, but past that, there’s not a single memory to draw from. It’s all blank.   

“You fainted,” Itadori explains. In that case, it makes sense why you’re so disoriented. Right. Gojo appeared, which means that he must have been just about to fight Sukuna for a few seconds and test Itadori’s ability to suppress him, but before that, he briefly turned his attention to you. And then you passed out without even managing a proper response.   

Man. You kind of suck at first impressions, huh?   

“I’m alive,” you mumble breathlessly. “I actually… survived all of that.”   

By all accounts, it’s a miracle. You’re not supposed to be involved in the plot. You’re not a character in the main storyline. Which of course means that any number of things could have gone horribly, irreversibly wrong. Especially since Sukuna nearly forced you to eat his finger yourself.   

At least now, finally, it’s all over. Itadori has become Sukuna’s vessel, just like he was meant to be. From this moment onwards, he will face no shortage of hardship, but at least you were able to keep the plot on track. At least you haven’t completely messed everything up. Which means that all of this insanity is about to come to an end. Once Itadori leaves for Jujutsu High, you’ll no longer have any part in this.   

Or at least, that’s what you’d like to think. You’ve been put through hell tonight, and you desperately want to believe that a peaceful life awaits you.   

But of course, you’re dead wrong—and soon, you will realize it’s far too late to escape.  

“Ah, you’re awake,” a familiar voice hums. You turn towards the person who just spoke, and there he is. The man, the myth, the legend himself. Gojo Satoru. You didn’t really get the chance to admire him earlier since your body just kind of decided to shut down, but now that you’re lucid again, you can’t help but stare at him incredulously.   

Gojo approaches you with a smile. “Hello, there. Yuji mentioned that you’re his friend. [Name], right? How are you feeling?”   

“I’m alright,” you reply in a daze, and you hope to god you’re not drooling, because it sure as hell feels like you are.  

My god, he’s hot.  

Fortunately, you keep from blurting that remark aloud, and Gojo just keeps smiling at you. Which is honestly a bit unsettling, because even though he’s one of the good guys, he’s definitely got a mischievous side to him, and it almost feels like he’s scheming something.   

“Here, stand up,” Gojo offers, and he grabs you by the hand to help pull you to your feet. You briefly fangirl, of course (Gojo Satoru is holding your hand!), but you can tell that he’s got a few things he wants to say, so you face him with a solemn expression.   

There’s a pause, and then his smile widens.   

“Your friend Yuji is going to be executed,” he states matter-of-factly.   

What a truly horrifying thing to say with such a careless, easygoing expression.   

You’re not surprised, though, because you’re already familiar with how the storyline will proceed. Still, for the purposes of not coming across like a total psycho, you turn towards Itadori with your mouth agape, feigning shock and absolute horror.   

“Wh-What?” you splutter. “I… I don’t understand. Why would you say something like that?”   

Even though you’re certainly not going to win any Oscars, you hope that your shitty acting is convincing enough. And by the looks of things, it is , because Itadori lets out a heavy sigh and slumps his head forward.   

“He tied me to a chair earlier and started saying all kinds of weird stuff. Apparently, he and his allies are trying to collect a whole bunch of those fingers. There’s twenty of them in total. That guy whose finger I ate… his name is Sukuna, or something. And he’s apparently super-duper strong. I’m not sure how I’m able to control him, but it looks like I’ve become his vessel. He’s so dangerous that they normally would have killed me by now, but instead, the higher-ups agreed to let me live until I find all the remaining fingers and eat those too. And once I’ve done that, then they’ll kill me. Along with Sukuna. To make sure he’s gone for good.”   

You’re not sure what the appropriate response is. This is all stuff you already know, but putting yourself in the shoes of someone who isn’t from another world, who doesn’t have knowledge of how everything will proceed… essentially, your friend’s just told you he’s guaranteed to die, at some point or another.   

That shit’s pretty fucked up.   

You clench your fists. “Itadori’s a good person. Why are you threatening to—”   

“Sorry, sorry,” Gojo waves off. “I wasn’t actually looking for any input. The situation’s pretty non-negotiable, to be honest. Yuji’s execution has only been postponed because I argued in his favor. You don’t seem like you’re aware of how dangerous Sukuna actually is , so believe me when I say that I’m amazed they accepted my proposition in the first place.”   

Trust me. I know exactly how dangerous he is.   

Once again, you keep your thoughts to yourself, and instead, you turn to gaze out the window. It’s early morning, by the looks of things. You’ve been out cold for quite some time. But at least you can go home now, right…?   

“I’m sure this is a lot to take in,” Gojo continues, “but it’s really the only option we have. To be honest, it’s a miracle that Yuji survived in the first place. He was able to eat Sukuna’s finger without any side effects. An ordinary human would have died immediately. But for some reason, Megumi tells me that you encouraged Yuji to eat the finger. And you seemed to have full faith that he’d survive. Do you mind explaining that?”   

…ah, shit.   

“I-I was scared,” you swallow uncomfortably, taking a step back. “Fushiguro mentioned before that only those with cursed energy can kill curses. And since Itadori didn’t have any cursed energy, I thought that… maybe he could gain some. By eating that finger. We were backed into a corner and I thought we were all going to die. Itadori’s already really strong to begin with, so I felt like he could save us.”   

“Hmm.”   

Thankfully, Gojo doesn’t press the issue any further. Perhaps it’s a reasonable enough explanation, especially since he believes that you’re a total noob in the world of jujutsu sorcerers and the like. Surely he doesn’t suspect that you know more than you’re willing to admit.   

Yeah… surely not.   

“Okay,” he grins. “I guess that explains it. Oh! But I had another question, actually. Megumi also told me that when Sukuna first awakened, for some reason, he said he recognized you. He said that he’d seen you before. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”   

You freeze up on the spot, and at that moment, it finally hits you.   

There’s no chance in hell they’re going to let you walk away from this.   

“I don’t know what he meant by that,” you insist. “It was my first time ever speaking to that scary guy.”   

Technically not a lie, because when you encountered him inside his Innate Domain, you didn’t actually say a single word. You were too busy crapping your pants from fright.  

You’re not sure exactly how much is safe to reveal, but you suppose a half-truth would be good enough. Because if you admit that Sukuna was trying to make you eat his finger and possibly turn you into his vessel…   

Well, evidently, the higher-ups aren’t shy about executing people they deem dangerous.   

“Itadori showed me the finger once before,” you admit. “Back when he first found it at school. It was all wrapped up in the seal back then, so I had no clue what it was, but he tossed it to me, and I held onto it for a few moments. Do you think that’s what Sukuna was referring to?”   

“Sukuna should have been contained within the seal, even as flimsy and worn-out as it was, so I don’t see how that would work.”  

Gojo leans over, bringing his face level with your own, and you gulp, unnerved by the lack of distance. He’s ridiculously attractive, of course, but he can also be pretty intimidating too. Without even trying.   

It doesn’t take long for a smile to return to his face, though.   

“Oh, well!” he shrugs. “I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get there! I’m gonna have my hands full figuring all of this out, huh?”   

“Haha… ha.”  

Seriously, fuck my life.   

“Leave [Name] alone,” Itadori frowns. “I get why you guys are after me because of the finger, but she’s not involved. She was just worried about Sasaki and Iguchi, like I was. I’m the one who became Sukuna’s vessel, so let me deal with it. She doesn’t need to worry about any of this stuff. She should be going home and getting some rest.”   

Gojo’s smile finally drops. “Not involved, you say? Well, from your perspective, it might seem that way, but let me be honest. A lot isn’t adding up here. Unlike you, [Name] was already able to see curses, and she possesses an overwhelming amount of cursed energy. As things stand, she’s far from being an ordinary person. Not to mention that Sukuna himself expressed interest in her. I understand that you’re worried about your friend and you want to keep her safe… but I can’t in good faith just walk away and pretend like I never ran into her. It’s my responsibility as a jujutsu sorcerer. Besides. If I leave her all on her own, something tells me she’ll be found by someone else sooner or later. And more likely than not, they won’t have good intentions.”   

You lower your gaze to the ground, because you already know where he’s going with this. In fact, you probably should have realized it from the moment that small curse ran away from you. From the moment you inexplicably met Sukuna inside his Innate Domain. From the moment he called out to you and beckoned you towards him.   

Or rather… from the moment you first awoke in this world.   

You shouldn’t be here. By all accounts, it doesn’t make any sense. But the fact remains that you are , and naturally, weird shit is bound to happen. Things are bound to change. The life you’ve been thrust into is going to be nothing like the one you lived before, and it’s about time you came to terms with that.   

“Yuji and [Name],” Gojo says, a grin spreading across his lips, “both of you… are coming to Jujutsu High with me.”

Not long after your discussion with Gojo, you visit Sasaki and Iguchi in the hospital, along with Itadori. The scene that follows is pretty much exactly like in the anime. Sasaki is almost entirely unharmed, whereas Iguchi is presumably going to be alright in the long-term, but he’s still unconscious for the time being.   

It’s a strange feeling, to be honest. Seeing the two of them and knowing it’ll be the very last time. You always assumed Itadori was the one who was destined to leave. You figured that he would only be your friend for a short while, and then, you would have no choice but to say your goodbyes. You told yourself that after he left, you would stick with Sasaki and Iguchi and keep them company in his place.   

But now, it looks like you have to leave, too.   

“Someone will be stopping by tomorrow to help Iguchi,” Itadori says. He pauses to offer a weak smile. “I’m sorry. This all happened because I picked up that cursed object in the first place. What you saw inside the school… they weren’t monsters. They were curses. Iguchi will be alright, though. I promise.”   

Sasaki stares at him, visibly confused, and then she turns towards you. “[Name]...? So you were at school last night, too? Both of you came to help us?”   

“I’m sorry,” you also apologize, instinctively bowing your head. Naturally, this all would have happened even without your involvement, but still. You feel compelled to apologize. Not just for what she’s been through, but the fact that you won’t be able to stay behind as her friend.   

“I’m sorry, but we can’t stick around much longer,” Itadori tells her. He smiles once more, looking even more pained than he did a few moments ago. “There’s somewhere we need to go. Sorry. We’ll see you later, okay?”   

Even without the words being stated outright, Sasaki must already know. She must realize that this isn’t just a regular hospital visit. It's a goodbye.   

“Alright,” she nods, and she’s considerate enough not to ask any questions. She just sits there, next to Iguchi’s beside, with a wistful expression. “Bye, guys. Wherever you’re going… good luck.”   

You and Itadori walk out of the building, both with heavy hearts. Itadori is probably the nicest, bravest, most compassionate person in the world, but even he can’t just shrug off the thought of being executed. You know that death scares him, but it’s less about the process of dying, and whether or not he’ll be able to have a ‘good’ death. Whether he’ll be able to say that he lived a life free of regrets. A life where he did everything in his power to save others.   

Just because he’s strong doesn’t mean he’s not scared, though. Just because he’s going to accept his fate without putting up a fight doesn’t mean it isn’t hitting him hard. He’s only a highschooler. A boy who’s lived a happy, carefree life until now. It’s impossible not to be nervous, not to feel apprehensive, not to yearn for something else.   

But no matter how frustrated Itadori feels, it doesn’t matter.   

He will never give up.   

You know what awaits him is nothing short of hell. That’s why you were so desperate to avoid this. It’s such a horrifying world to land yourself in. It certainly isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It isn’t going to be a blissful experience, where you’ll be able to interact with your favorite characters free of any worries. It’d be nice if that were the case, but it just isn’t .   

Unlike Itadori, you aren’t a protagonist. You aren’t naturally courageous, or ready to throw your life away if someone else is in danger. You wish you could say you are, but not everyone is meant to be a hero. And in the real world, the average person won’t think twice before prioritizing their own safety.  

But it looks like you’re going to have to change. Even if you aren’t like that to begin with, you’re going to have to become that kind of person. You’re going to have to face your fears and hold your ground, bite your tears back when you feel like running away. Like it or not, in this world, you are a unique, special existence, and that may very well be for a reason. Perhaps… perhaps you might be able to save the people that Itadori wasn’t able to. Perhaps you’ve been put in this world to ease his burden. To stand by his side and support him in his darkest hours.  

You’re terrified of what’s to come. No doubt about it. And you can’t really say that you were a particularly remarkable person in your previous life.   

But maybe this time, you can be.   

“I’m going to do it,” Itadori says as you walk side-by-side. He glances over at you and furrows his brows. “If curses and people like that Sukuna guy are really so dangerous, then I’ll do it. I’ll eat all those fingers and do whatever it takes. My grandpa wanted me to help people. So that when it’s my time to go, at least I’ll be surrounded by the people I care about. That was his dying wish.”  

He reaches out and gently squeezes your hand, a smile returning to his face. Whether the gesture was meant to reassure you or himself, you honestly don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re together, it’ll be alright. Even the scariest moments will be bearable.  

You won’t let his story end in tragedy, and hopefully, neither will yours.

“Mom, dad, I need to leave. I’m transferring to a new school, which means I’ll be moving to a different city. Today.”   

Normally, when parents hear something like this without any prior notice, their immediate instinct is to be concerned. This is the part where they’re supposed to start chiding you for saying something so ridiculous, which will be followed by a firm refusal.   

But that doesn’t happen.   

“We know,” your mother nods, with a strange, somewhat eerie look in her eyes. “You’re going to become a jujutsu sorcerer, aren’t you? So that you can protect all kinds of people.”   

“...”   

Okay, what in the ever-loving fuck ?  

“Um,” you respond, blinking repeatedly in disbelief. “How did you—?”   

“Don’t worry about us,” your father piles on. “This is very important, isn’t it? Go do what you need to do. We understand.”   

Alright, well, you knew from the start that they weren’t your real parents, because they clearly hadn’t been isekai’d like you, but to hear them casually going on about things they shouldn’t know—since you never told them a damn thing about curses or sorcerers—is unbelievably freaky. This interaction is further proof that you’re not really a part of this world, and they’re just meant to be some weird stand-ins. They’re not even actual people themselves. More like omniscient NPCs.  

“This is creepy as fuck,” you sigh, shaking your head in defeat.  

“Hurry up, darling,” your mother encourages with a smile. “Gojo is waiting outside to pick you up, along with Itadori and Fushiguro.”   

“Oh my god, stop it! You’re seriously freaking me out!”   

You can’t possibly get out of the house any faster, your luggage clunking behind you every time the wheels spin out or roll over a rock. True to your creepy NPC mom’s word, three people are waiting outside, one of whom is Itadori, and he excitedly waves to you.   

“[Name], hey!” he beams. “Good morning. Excited to make the trip to Tokyo?”   

“Definitely. I’m never coming back to this house ever again,” you shudder.  

“Huh, why? Did you have a fight with your parents or something?”   

You let out a heavy sigh, refusing to elaborate. Anyways, it doesn’t really matter. It looks like you were always destined to get involved, whether you intended to or not. People don’t just get isekai’d in their favorite anime to not play a role in the story. In all the fanfiction you’ve read, that’s pretty much an unwritten rule.  

“All ready to go?” Gojo smiles.   

You nod slowly. Truth to be told, you have many, many doubts. You’re scared that you’re not strong enough to make a difference, even if the story is pulling you in. You’re scared that you might end up meeting an early death, even with all this knowledge on your side. And you’re scared that if you really do disappear… Itadori will have yet another person to grieve.  

Itadori wants to have a proper death, and honestly? You want the same thing. You want to be able to look back at all you’ve accomplished and say that you genuinely, truly did everything you could.   

So, that’s what you’ll do.   

“I’m ready,” you nod, gripping the handle of your suitcase a bit tighter. “But before we go… I just have one request.”   

Gojo tilts his head to the side, confused, and he watches as you pull your phone out of your pocket, only to stare at him with a stern expression.   

“Take a selfie with me, please.”

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[colgatebluemintygel]

helloooooo <333 it’s been a while!! i haven’t really known how to come back to this account, or what to say. there’s a lot to say!! ummm where 2 start… i’m back! sort of! i’m so nearly finished up w postgrad, and i’ll soon be back to writing. i will finish on another ocean! but after that? i don’t really know lol. i have a million more ideas for wolfstar, but there is a huge ol something holding me back from even thinking about starting to write them. everyone will have their own feelings about jkr and the role that fic plays in promoting her brand, and a few layers below that, her beliefs. i don’t have the answers as for what’s right, but i can say with certainty that writing harry potter fanfiction has not sat right with me for a while now. i feel like i’m letting my trans friends down by being here. they would never, ever say this to me, or tell me that i should be ashamed, but it’s how i feel. and i do believe there’s a good reason for that. guilt can be a very good teacher; it’s very tempting to try and find ways to nullify it, to reason it away. but there’s a reason i feel guilty about my involvement in this fandom. because, to an extent, whether it is small or not-so-small, i am guilty. in a way, i am complicit. i’ve sat with my feelings on this matter for years now, and they have not changed; all the while, jkr has doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and quintupled down on her transphobia in ways that are truly, truly horrifying and that actively harm trans people every single fucking day. that is the reality, and i can’t separate the art from that. i know there are trans folk in this space who still find a lot of comfort in this world and these characters. we need to hold them extra tight in times like these, and to amplify their voices. when trans people tell you that it hurts them, harms them, to see people still casually buying merch or talking about the new hbo show, you need to listen. solidarity and allyship is not about platitudes. if trans people don’t feel safe in this fandom - which, i have on v good authority, many do not!!! - then we are failing them. we all need to do better.

beyond that, this fandom is totally fucking cooked. HAHA. umm? i’m genuinely baffled by the amount of creators i’ve seen chased out and harassed. this fandom is actively autocannibalising in a v unsexy way. and i honestly don’t think that’s going to change, which makes me v sad. in lots of ways i’ve been lucky: i haven’t been doxxed or deadnamed, or received death threats, but there have been months (even years) where i haven’t enjoyed being here one single bit. and that’s a buzzy environment to be in when you’re trying (and expected to) create for other people. not even medication can mollify my terror of posting another story for this fandom, which is fucked because they’ve helped me to confront my greatest lifelong fears LOL.

this post doesn’t really have a conclusion. there are a million reasons i should leave, and they’re all very good reasons. i still can’t fully bring myself to peace out tho, at least not until oao is finished. i promised yall (and myself) i’d finish it and i intend to do good by that promise!

again soon!!! tp <3

[luvo27]

because they got me thinking about it, here's a fics I probably won't write: the idea behind my silly (by which i mean horrifying hopefully) wayne family adventures fic!!

premise: told through a weird and funky novelization of chapters of wayne family adventures. there is something something magic plague something something. the batfam (at as dysfunctional as you can get stage) is getting brainwashed/forced to play happy families in a shared dream (the dream being wfa)

there are little glitches as people fall asleep and characters join the hallucination one by one and sometimes people are like whattt the hell am i doing here and then they get zapped into happy family time. and it works because there's a part of them that wants happy family.

at some point things break a little too hard (a character references a really bad argument that never got resolved outside the dream or some such) and there's a glitchy blow up argument between a couple of characters, and then it cuts off. the next chapter resumes and those characters are still there, but Different. Happier and Smiley-er Family. from there it goes from shared hallucination to bruce's individual hallucination as the other characters are yoinked out one by one as the dream keeps breaking. and then bruce is left with these kind of like. happy smiling mannequin people. and he's alone in the dream.

this is when outside magic intervention comes in as the jla or some such have been doing actual work in the real world and the batfam start waking up slowly in a superhero hospital ward and none of them can look at each other because they all remember their happy family moments and they all go their separate ways as fast as they can

eventually they get all the information about the magic disease thing and they all find out that their shared dream/hallucination only worked (for however long it did) because there was a part of them that wanted it. and they have to face the fact that they wanted it, and they have to face the fact that even though the dream/hallucination magic was created to keep them in the dream together, they still managed to be so dysfunctional that they broke it. and then they have to deal with the fact that everyone else knows that they wanted happy families.

from here, depending on the characters involved in whichever different relationship, there are multiple ways it can go. they can realize that the other person wants to repair their relationship, reach out and make amends, as awkward as it might be. They can be haunted by the knowledge of how the other person wants to repair the relationship, and how they managed to break it in the dream even with the dream pushing the happy family reality upon them, and decide for good that they're better off without each other and learn how to grieve what could have never been. they can continue to hover awkwardly around each other and ignore everything that happened and fall back into the status quo, except for how sometimes they'll accidentally reference something that only happened in the Happy Families dream.

this is a story about the difference between the dream you can never have because there is too much history and hurt, and the horrible difficult reality of people who might truly want to repair a relationship and do better, and don't know how to get there and the different ways that reality can turn out.

[puppetwoman17]

I would like to expand on the joker junior idea. Imagine Batman going to arkham to interrogate Joker for another case, leading to him getting beaten by bats while laughing about how he not only failed Jason but Tim as well. Laughing about how he tortured him, revealing his identity, how easy it was to break him. Batman then threatening to end him and joker replied with "Oh Batsy, if you truly were capable of doing it then Junoir wouldn't have needed to shoot me".

While that was happening everyone except was listening in the whole time and are seething about everything they heard until Tim put his ear piece back on that he took off before Batman started his interrogation because he knows it will get them nowhere so he tries to find a new lead (not because the very sound of Joker's laughter sends him back to when he was screaming as he was getting electrocuted and injected with joker venom that ridiculous he's fine) and told Bruce that he found another lead, getting him to stop pummeling Joker and leaving while he was left there laughing.

Sorry if this is all over the place it was something I came up with after reading your posts. Keep up the good work!

Thank you so much for this!

God that would honestly be mortifying for everyone involved(except the Joker obvi). All the kids are expecting him to taunt Bruce about Jason, and he does. He teases him on how he couldn’t get there in time and how his son still blamed him. Which, sure, Jason has his own gripes with his death, but the Joker is the person who he is LEAST okay with saying this.

But then things take a turn. The Joker starts talking about his SON, and since when did the Joker have a son? He calls him Junior. Teases the Bat that he was too late in saving him, and his boy would ALWAYS be a part of your little Red Ro—

Holy fucking shit.

Nightwing is screaming now. He demands that Batman tell them what the Joker meant. Why hadn’t he been told? What happened to Tim? Why did the Joker know him so well?

Jason is close to having a panic attack, because not only is the one person who scares him anymore on the loose, but he did the same to Tim. To his little brother. To someone who he’s grown close with over the years. Who definitely had a rocky relationship with him. Who talked with him despite that and worked with him despite that. To hear that that very same little brother had been attacked the same way he had, and worse, is more than enough to send the Red Hood on a rampage. The Joker isn’t escaping again, that’s for sure.

Cass is not one to make her presence known. She knows how to keep quiet. How to wait for the right time to strike, but she’s on the Joker in the next possible minute. Even Batman steps back and watches as she beats the person who hurt her brother into the ground. Batman doesn’t know whether to cheer her on, or tell her to stop.

Spoiler is the only one with Tim, and she can’t help but just stare. She doesn’t speak, she doesn’t yell or cry or accuse him of keeping such a heavy secret, she just looks at him. Not with pity, but with the sinking realization that no one knew. Not even her.

Damian wasn’t allowed to leave the cave. He’s sitting by the Batcomputer with Alfred behind him. While he and Drake didn’t have the closest relationship, it’s been some time since he truly thought of him as anything but his brother. He learned from him frequently, how to handle a specific gadget, how to deal with the Batman when his temper flared(slightly, he’s not an asshole anymore Dami(WHAT DO YOU MEAN ANYMORE??)). To hear about this horrifying experience and not be able to comfort Drake made him squirm in his seat.

He’s even more surprised when Pennyworth doesn’t give a single indication that he knows. Nightwing demands that Agent A tell them why he hid this from them. Everyone is shocked when he tells them he is just as clueless.

This is all background noise to Red Robin, because he just got a lead on where the Joker’s goons could be. He doesn’t pay attention to anyone’s words, instead telling Batman that he has a lead and to meet him at a location.

When all this is over and the Joker is back in custody, all Commissioner Gordon can do is pat Tim on the back and tell him to go the fuck home and sleep.

When all this is over, Babs locks up the Clocktower because she’s not dealing with this shit til she’s had her morning coffee.

[mimble-sparklepudding]

Vegetable Symbolism OC Questions!

A little list of OC questions based on the symbolism of Vegetables in the interpretation of dreams. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all cultural or symbolic meanings, but rather just a small selection for entertainment, rather than educational, purposes. It may, however, encourage you to make a salad.

Carrot: Growth, Fertility, and New Beginnings.

Does your OC believe that someone needs to hit rock bottom - or at least suffer the full consequences of their poor choices - before they can be helped to make positive changes? Or would they spare no effort in trying to help a friend or family member they percieved as trapped in a cycle of negative behaviour?

Does your OC wish to have children of their own? Would they ever consider adoption? Or is it important to them that they have a birth child to carry on their lineage? If they do not want children then how do they respond to being asked about it?

At what age did your OC stop growing? Did they go through puberty notably earlier or later than their peers? Would they have quite liked to have grown a little more?

Are there any festivals or cultural traditions related to fertility in which your OC participates? If they have chosen not to continue these traditions then what was the reason? How do they feel about any fertility rites or practices they have encountered in other cultures?

Has your OC ever been involved in farming or agriculture? Or have they tilled the earth in a more modest setting? What is their view of food production in society? Is it something they understand and value? Or do they make little connection between the food they eat and the labour required to produce it?

Tomato: Nourishment, Vitality, and Love.

Does your OC seek out calorie-dense or highly nutritious foods to enhance their physical performance and survivability? Or is the taste or presentation of food as important (or more important) than its health-giving properties?

Does your OC find it easy to believe that they are loved? Or are they suspicious of ulterior motives? Perhaps they fear that once someone truly gets to know them then they will be repulsed or horrified? Or maybe they find it hard to imagine how anyone could not love them...

Is your OC generally seen by others as being healthy and fit? Or are they often sick or beset by mysterious aches and pains? Do they rather enjoy the attention that comes with being unwell? Or is it important to them that they are seen as strong and healthy?

Does your OC take care of their appearance? Do they apply beauty treatments or take potions or supplements to enhance their looks? Do they do this to appear alluring to others? Or purely for their own satisfaction? Are they entirely honest with themselves about this?

Does your OC enjoy preparing and cooking food for others? Is feeding other people a way they show love and nurture others? Or is making food something they avoid? Perhaps they tend to ensure they get the lion's share of any food they make, and grudgingly leave only the gristle and scraps for others?

Cucumber: Healing, Rejuvenation, and Self-Care.

Does your OC have any gift for healing? Was this always something they felt drawn towards? Or something that they adopted later in life? If they have no abilities in healing or medicine then is this something they regret? Or do they see healing as the province of weaklings and those who lack the gumption for combat?

Does your OC give much thought to looking after their own health? Are they careless with their own well-being? Do those around them encourage them to take better care of themselves? Or are they actually in need of others to push them into taking a few more risks - be they physical or emotional?

What makes your OC feel rejuvenated after a particulary difficult or exhausting time? A hot bath? A cold drink? A bout of particularly vigorous lovemaking? Or just a nice long sleep?

Does your OC take enough rest generally? Or do they push themselves hard despite being in need of time to recuperate? Do others notice this? Does anyone pass comment?

Does your OC feel energised by spending time with others? Do they struggle when alone for extended periods? Or do they find themselves depleted by too much social interaction and often find themselves in need of some time by themselves?

Onion: Hidden Truths, Repressed Emotions, and Deep Secrets.

What has been the greatest revelation that your OC has experienced? To what degree did this new knowledge upend their previous understanding of the world and their place within it?

Has your OC any secrets which they keep from others? Are these kept only from those outside their inner circle? Or are there some secrets to which none but they are privy?

Does your OC have some feelings that they push down deep within themselves? Perhaps feelings of resentment? Or pangs of grief? Or burning sexual desires? Or do their emotions constantly come bubbling to the surface regardless of any efforts they might make to suppress them?

Is your OC talented at extracting secrets from others? Do they do so through charm and persuasion? Or through intimidation and force? Do what end do they seek this hidden knowledge? Purely for personal gain? To better understand the world? Or out of sheer nosiness?

What is something that your OC generally keeps from others - even those to whom they are close? Is this due to shame? Embarrassment? Fear of rejection? Or something nastier and darker by far?

Lettuce: Emotional Balance and Inner Peace.

Is your OC generally even-tempered? Or are they quick to anger or easily brought to tears? Do others feel they need to "walk on eggshells" around them for fear they might fly into a great rage or collapse into a blubbering heap? If so, then are they themselves aware of this?

Does your OC evince a great calm and focus during times of crisis or disaster? Can they keep their head amidst the clamour and chaos of an emergency situation? Or are they easily thrown into a panicked state?

Has your OC ever got into a fit of laughter from which they struggled to recover? What was it that they found so funny? Is it a memory on which they look back fondly?

Does your OC ever deliberately wind themselves up by focussing on bad memories or bitter resentments? Do they do so in order to harness their anger that they might overcome a challenge? Or perhaps to aid them in combat? Or would such things only serve as a distraction from their work?

Does your OC practice any meditation techniques or cultural rituals designed to centre them and bring them calm? If so then where did they learn these approaches? If they do not practice such things then would they benefit from doing so?

[merakiui]

persephone and hades myth, but it’s a death game.

something something styx kidnapping all eligible people (or perhaps handpicked via some special means??) to run them through various tests/simulations to see who is most compatible for the acting director idia. who shall be the persephone to his hades? :) he needs a spouse if he’s to continue the business, and maybe it’s not even the promise of (arranged) marriage that keeps you and everyone else here. it’s what’s truly attached to the shroud surname: wealth. an absurd amount of it.

maybe it’s like sword art online, in which if you die in the game you die in real life. that is, if you’re “killed” in the VR simulation you’re killed in real life, so the threat of death is very much real despite all of these video game situations you and everyone else are placed in.

you’re here for the money, not the acting director’s heart. maybe slimy azul ashengrotto finds himself here on account of his avarice. anything for the business he loves so dearly, right? and his associates jade and floyd accompany him. maybe there are other notable (or not-so-notable) figures here, too, each vying for the near fairytale-esque wealth that gives the shroud surname its shine.

of course, it quickly becomes awry and immensely horrifying when you realize this is a survival game. it wasn’t going to be that easy, and in the realm of science they always prioritize the variables that show the most promising results. but styx is not all that unethical, or so those metal guards tell you. maybe you’re given the choice to leave, dubious as it appears. red pill/blue pill scenario, but it’s the pomegranate trick. all you need to do is eat these seeds and you’ll be fine. you can’t make tough decisions on an empty stomach, yes? and perhaps doing so will benefit you somehow. of course if you’d rather leave you’re free to do so… essentially, one option seems shady and the other too good to be true. a reversal, perhaps. those shady pomegranate seeds versus the too-good-to-be-true freedom to leave without consequence (supposedly). really, there’s not much of a choice when money is involved. greed will win.

something something maybe you used to bully azul viciously, and now you find yourself in a game of survival with him. :) the hatred he once felt for you returning the minute he sees you. the rivalry… the desire to bring about your ruin, for meeting you after so long has unearthed quite the grudge.

inevitably, someone wins and that’s where the rest of the myth comes in. the agreement to free persephone so long as she spends x-number of months (for each pomegranate seed ingested) with hades. so you can have some modicum of freedom, so long as you remember you and your time belong partially to idia.

maybe this concept is nonsense,,,, but i just had to write it out. there’s a vision here somewhere (azul x reader rivalry basically),,,, i think…. orz

[tryandbehappy]

Thank you for pointing out that Nick is not squeaky clean. I don’t think what is happening this season is character assassination. I think the show just wanted to remind us that Nick is benefiting from the system and while a lot of the worst things he’s done is for survival he still done bad things. I think they needed to bring this back up and have June see that Nick isn’t squeaky clean so that the redemption has more gravity.

Yes, exactly. This really needed to be addressed head-on, because the fact remains even if we don’t know to what extent he was directly involved that people like Nick are often the foundation on which dangerous systems are built. Systems like Gilead thrive on people who are able to look away. And that’s not okay.

At the same time, the show is clearly not trying to portray him as a villain because if they wanted to, they would’ve shown us something terrible. But while we’ve seen every other major character make on-screen mistakes, Nick has never done anything overtly wrong on-screen. Any complicity is kept off-screen, and that’s a very deliberate choice. What makes him morally grey is the idea that he helped build the system in its early stages. But the show is extremely careful to preserve his reputation. They won’t even give him a true betrayal moment.

They’ve maintained that he is no longer that man (also we don’t really know if he did anything really bad and how he did it but still). His transformation started before June even entered the story. We saw how shaken he was by the death of the first Handmaid. We also know he joined Gilead before they announced their full plans for enslaving women. That was shown in a flashback, he was driving the car, clearly horrified. But by that time, he had already been recruited, and there was no easy way out.

In military regimes like this, desertion equals death. So yes, he was a victim of circumstance. He survived. He did what he could. But that doesn’t erase the fact that he was part of it, and that calls his morality into question. It needed to be addressed.

Still, they clearly don’t want to paint him as “bad.” They consistently show his humanity. They have never truly darkened his character. And that’s part of his journey it’s meant to show that even someone who stayed silent for too long can recognize that silence is not neutral. That being a cog in the machine is not innocent. And after what happened with the women who died, Nick finally understands that he has to break out of the system. He didn’t kill them, no, but he was a link in the chain. And that’s not okay.

That’s where his arc is leading: toward full rejection of the system, and finally, freedom.

[slavicdelight]

METANOIA

Pairing: Tom Riddle x f!reader

Summary: Metanoia - the journey of changing your mind, heart, self and way of life

Warnings: slightly ooc Tom, pureblood ideas, hits of murder

ღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღღ

Tom Riddle was a name recognized by everyone at Hogwarts. The infamous Slytherin Head Boy commanded respect from every student and even from professors, thanks to the aura surrounding him. However, what most people didn't know, or perhaps didn't care to notice, was that there was something sinister lurking behind his captivating gaze and mannerisms.

His friend group, constantly present by his side, consisted of members from the most well-known pureblood families. Tom considered himself superior to them because he possessed the blood of the noble Salazar Slytherin. By the age of 19, he had already committed horrifying acts, such as opening the Chamber of Secrets during his 5th year, resulting in the death of Myrtle Warren. He also murdered his remaining family around the same time. Furthermore, he created Horcruxes in order to reach immortality, which was one of his goals and the initial step towards becoming the greatest dark wizard in history.

Tom was a skilled manipulator. He had the ability to hide his true emotions, always putting on a mask of politeness. In addition, he was brilliant and could be described as an over-achiever. Tom thoroughly planned everything and never allowed setbacks to hinder him. There was only one person who saw right through him - Dumbledore, the person Tom despised the most in the entire school.

Tonight, Tom was strolling through the hallways of Hogwarts, carrying out his patrols as a Head Boy. Although it was generally a mundane duty, it had its advantages. One of them was being out after curfew without anyone questioning it. The corridors were dimly lit, so Tom had to cast a spell to produce light to see clearly."Lumos." he muttered, before continuing on his way. It appeared to be another uneventful night, where nothing of particular interest occurred.

As he was heading back to the Slytherin dorms, someone bumped into him, causing both teenagers to fall to the ground. "I'm so sorry," said a girl who appeared to be about the same age as him, possibly a year younger. He was about to reprimand her for running into him and give her detention for breaking curfew, but then he looked at her and was instantly captivated by the most beautiful pair of eyes he had even seen. They were warm and welcoming, but what truly enthralled him was their enchanting violet color, which sparkled under the light emerging from his wand.

"I should've watched where I was going," continued the witch. He cleared his throat and gave her a cold stare, trying to hide his intrigue. "Why aren't you in your dorm? It's past curfew," Tom questioned the girl. Another surprising thing was that he had no idea who she was. He only noticed the Ravenclaw emblem on her robes, indicating that she was a member of the eagle house. The Slytherin prided himself on knowing almost everyone at school, from students to professors, yet he didn't know her. How could someone with such captivating eyes escape his attention? "Oh, right. I got caught up in the library and forgot about the curfew," she explained. "I'll go straight to bed." With that, she tried to pass him and walk away.

She wanted to end the interaction as quickly as possible, knowing that Tom Riddle was trouble. Despite his perfect student persona, she sensed a hidden darkness beneath the surface and wanted to avoid getting involved. "Now, now. I can't possibly let the witch with such incredible eyes leave without knowing her name, can I?" he asked, causing her to freeze. "I fail to see how my name is of any interest to you, Riddle. I would prefer you not knowing it and allowing me to go.”

Tom didn't expect his charm not to work, but he hid his surprise. He wondered if the girl was brave or stupid, perhaps both. She didn't know that she piqued his interest, and that was something dangerous. "It hardly seems fair that you know me, but I don't know you, don't you think?" He took a step closer to her but didn't predict what she would do next. "No, I don't," she said, while taking a step back and bolting in another direction. The Head Boy simply stood there and let her get away. 'Let her run,' he thought. 'I shall find her anyway.' And with that, he continued on his way to the dorms.

The next morning, during breakfast, he scanned the Great Hall in search of her. Tom tried to be discreet, but his best friend, Abraxas Malfoy, noticed. Abraxas was his most reliable follower, someone Tom could trust. "What are you looking for, Riddle?" he asked. The boy with raven hair turned to glare at him and said, "It's none of your business, Malfoy." He was becoming increasingly frustrated that the witch from the previous night was nowhere to be found.

Finally, the girl made her entrance, walking into the hall accompanied by another girl. They both headed towards the Ravenclaw's table and took a seat. He couldn't help but gaze at her. It was as if she sensed his gaze, as she turned and looked directly into his eyes. Their staring contest continued until Headmaster Dippet began greeting students and wishing them a good day.

After finishing his meal, Tom made his way to the Potions classroom, his first subject of the day. He enjoyed this class, despite Professor Slughorn being a bit overwhelming. Tom was the professor's favorite student, excelling in this class just as he did in every other. He was an exceptionally talented wizard.

It turned out he shared the class with the violet-eyed witch. He wondered why he hadn't noticed her before. He took his usual seat and waited for the Ravenclaw student to enter, which didn't take long. She sat two rows ahead of him, accompanied by a boy he recognized as the Ravenclaw's seeker. Shortly after, Slughorn entered and the lesson began. Today, they had to brew an advanced potion called the Elixir to Induce Euphoria in pairs. As always, Tom was the first to finish his potion, with the help of his partner, Rosier. The potions professor, impressed with their work, allowed them to leave early. Tom decided to wait outside the classroom to talk to the girl who had sparked his interest and learn more about her.

As the girl walked out, he quickly grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the abandoned broom closet across the hall. She protested, but wasn't strong enough to break free from his grasp. Tom pushed her inside and blocked the entrance.

"Hello again," he said, noticing the anger on the girl's face. "What do you think you're doing? Let me go!" she yelled, attempting to escape from the classroom.

"No, I don't think I will," Tom replied. "What do you want, Riddle?" she questioned, gritting her teeth. Her captivating eyes locked with his, and he could swear they had the power to melt a man. But he was no ordinary man, and he wouldn't allow that to defeat him. "I already told you what I want," he started, before she interrupted, "and I already told you that you won't have that." The girl had some nerve, he had to give her that. "Listen, darling, either you tell me your name yourself or I'll find out on my own. But I would prefer to hear it from your beautiful lips.”

"And what?" she spat, her eyes narrowing with a mix of defiance and fear. "Will you force it out of me?" If looks could kill, he would already be six feet under. Tom's lips curled into a malicious smirk as he leaned in closer, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. "You'll soon discover that I can be very..." He paused, relishing in the anticipation he was building. "...persuasive." The words hung in the air, sending a shiver down her spine. As he observed her reaction, he couldn't help but notice the subtle trembling of her breath, a sign that his presence and words were affecting her.

“If I tell you my name, would you stop pestering me about it?” she asked not looking into his eyes. Tom grabbed her chin and forced her head up, just enough for him to see her eyes. The Slytherin just nodded and took a step back. “Fine. My name is Y/N” she finally answered and moved past him, heading straight for the door. As Y/N was walking away she heard him say “Such a beautiful name, for someone with such extraodrinary eyes.”

Y/N felt a chill run down her spine as she left the broom closet, the encounter with Tom Riddle leaving her unsettled. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had just opened a door to a world of complications. Her day continued with classes, but her mind kept wandering back to the mysterious encounter with the enigmatic Head Boy.

Days turned into weeks, and Tom's fascination with Y/N only deepened. He started to make subtle attempts to engage her in conversation during Potions class or whenever their paths crossed in the hallways. Y/N, however, remained guarded, careful not to reveal too much about herself. She sensed danger around Tom, but there was also a part of her that felt an inexplicable connection, an undeniable intrigue that kept her from avoiding him completely. She didn’t like it, preferring to stay away from the drama that would undeniably follow her once she got too involved with the boy.

As time passed, Tom's pursuit became more relentless. He would show up unexpectedly in places where Y/N was, asking about her interests, her family, and her background. Y/N, althrough in the beginning sheltered and slightly annoyed, soon found herself drawn into conversations that danced on the edge of forbidden topics, and Tom, turn, discovered that there was more to Y/N than met the eye.

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Tom found Y/N sitting by the Black Lake,reading a book . He approached her cautiously, and for the first time, his demeanor seemed less calculated, more genuine."You're a puzzle, Y/N," he said, his voice softer than usual. "I can't quite figure you out." Y/N turned to look at him, her violet eyes searching his face for any sign of deception. "Maybe some puzzles are meant to remain unsolved," she replied cryptically. Tom chuckled, a sound that sent shivers down her spine. "Maybe so, yet here we are. Both of us puzzling each other. But I do enjoy the challenge." he admitted. "And you, my dear, are the most intriguing challenge I've found at Hogwarts so far."

As the weeks turned into months, their interactions became more complex. Y/N found herself reluctantly drawn to Tom's charisma and intelligence, while Tom, discovered a more vulnerable side of himself. He couldn't quite understand why Y/N had such an effect on him, but he was determined to find out.

Their dynamic took a turn one evening in the Hogwarts library. Tom, managed to convince Y/N to join him in exploring the restricted section. As they looked through ancient tomes and hidden spells, Y/N couldn't ignore the growing tension between them. In the quiet space of the library, Tom leaned in, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "There's something about you, Y/N," he murmured, his breath sending shivers across her skin. "Something that both intrigues and unsettles me." Y/N looked at him curiously and asked “What is so unsettling about me?”. Tom only looked at her and leaning closer said “You’re making me feel things I’ve never felt before.”

As they continued their meetings, the lines between friend and enemy slowly became blurred. Tom’s past and his ambitions started to rub off on her, making her question everything. But she wasn’t weak and wanted to stay true to the right side. She wasn’t about to go down the same path as the Slytherin boy, and wanted to make him see that it was wrong. Little did she know that the choices made in the upcoming months would shape the destiny of the wizarding world.

As the weeks unfolded, Y/N found herself in a dangerous position. The more time she spent with Tom Riddle, the clearer it became that he was wavering on the edge of darkness. His thirst for power, his relentless pursuit of immortality, and the shadows of his past painted a grim picture. Yet, among all this darkness, Y/N saw moments of vulnerability, moments where the mask slipped, revealing a fractured soul. Y/N couldn't ignore the pull she felt toward Tom, a pull that went beyond fascination. Beneath his charming facade, she noticed loneliness that mirrored her own.

One evening, as snowflakes danced outside the castle windows, Y/N found Tom alone in the library. The fire cast a glow on his face, making him appear more handsome than ever. Y/N hesitated but she knew she had to ask the next question. "Tom," she began softly, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you." He looked up, his piercing gaze meeting hers. "Ask away, Y/N."

"Why are you so afraid of letting people in?" she inquired, her voice gentle but filled with genuine curiosity. Tom's eyes moved towards her, she could see suffering behind them. He took a deep breath before replying to her."People often betray and are fake in order to get what they want from you. After they get it, they leave and never come back.” Y/N took a step closer, closing the distance between them. "But it's also lonely, isn't it? To carry the weight of responsibilities on your shoulders without anyone to share it with."

Tom's mask wavered, revealing the boy beneath the facade. "Loneliness is a small price to pay for greatness," he stated, but a small amount of doubt could be seen in his eyes. "Maybe attaining greatness isn’t meant to be done alone." Y/N suggested. "Maybe it's in the connections we make, the people we let in"

In the days that followed, Y/N continued to challenge Tom's perspective. She introduced him to the joy of laughter, the warmth of genuine friendships, and the beauty of simple moments. As the walls around his heart slowly crumbled, Y/N became a beacon of light in his world, a reminder that there was more to life than power and darkness.

One evening, beneath the sky covered in stars, Y/N and Tom found themselves strolling through the Hogwarts grounds. Tom, usually composed, seemed uncertain, as if something was bothering him. "You don't have to be alone, Tom," Y/N whispered, her words carrying the weight of sincerity. "There's goodness in you, which you only have to choose." For the first time, Tom Riddle looked genuinely conflicted. The darkness within him warred with the flickers of light that Y/N had ignited. He was standing on the crossroads where the choices made would shape the future.

In the quiet of the night, Y/N extended her hand, a silent invitation to choose a different path. Tom hesitated, his gaze locking onto hers. And in that moment, the boy who had been consumed by shadows took a small step toward the light, changing the course of history forever. The journey towards redemption would be a long one, but with Y/N by his side, Tom Riddle was confident in succeeding. He realized that greatness could be found not in the pursuit of power but in the capacity to love and be loved.

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A/N: let me introduce you to my first ever Tom Riddle imagine. The obsession I have with this man is unhealthy. Anyway let me know if you enjoyed it. Thank you for all the support ♡

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook

𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓬 [Drabble]

He's technically well enough to live on his own and, most of all, live his own life. But he's chosen you as his home- and that means he has to learn more about you.

Tags/Warnings: Alien!Jungkook, Human!Reader, mentions of eating raw meat, suggestive, Jungkook's.. interesting way of flirting, mentions of period, small moment of insecurity, fluff

Length: Short

A/N: THERE IS NO TAGLIST. THERE IS NO TAGLIST FOR THIS. THERE REALLY ISN'T. DO NOT ASK.

-> Masterlist

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Jungkook has recovered completely at this point.

He's technically allowed to roam free and go live his life again- alone, that is- but he refuses. He's taken on a job at a local supermarket, helping in the warehouses with the heavy goods, and he tells you that it's actually quite fun to him to help the people around him.

He's also still living with you permanently until it's clear whether or not he's gonna stay on earth or go back to his home planet- because It's not all too clear yet, though you're not too worried about the future. If he wants to leave you behind, it'll be sad, sure-

but it's his decision. You've got no right to tie him to your side.

So for now, you'll just enjoy the time you're able to spend with him- from lazy mornings to the routine cuddling session he practically demands every night before bed, like a ritual he has to go through or he just won't sleep at all.

And an odd sight to you is, that you're still catching Jungkook snacking on very much raw meat at your fridge occasionally, just like right now- his sheepishly large eyes all round and caught off guard as he looks from side to side, before he looks at the small cut of red meat in his hand.

He wants to ask you if you'd like to share, but he's learned that humans actually don't eat raw meat at all. It can even make them sick- something that made him worry, so he's since started to look up tutorials on how to properly prepare it so it becomes safe for consumption for humans.

He wants to take care of you properly after all.

So he started learning how to cook proper human meals that have good nutritional value for their bodies. He also began researching how to help you through your monthly cycle, and how to otherwise court you.

Humans apparently really don't court each other- they kind of just send each other messages on their phones, and then they meet up for food or alcohol. They do that once or twice to see if they like each other, and then they start 'going out'- which funnily for some doesn't involve walking anywhere at all.

Where's the proving one's value? He's got to show you how capable he is in providing; whether it be comfort, safety or even physical valuables such as food. How would you know whether or not he'd be a good time investment? It's no wonder so many humans whine and complain about 'wasting time' on the wrong partners when they just choose them on nothing but a 'feel of the moment'.

Humans are truly weird.

Then again, humans are also very emotional beings. They choose a lot of things based on their feelings alone, and they cherish opinions and other people's emotions a lot, even if they don't know each other. They make many friendships quickly, form huge social circles, and some of them even have relationships with multiple partners. Everything a human does is connected to feelings, it seems like. Apparently, they need to check if they're emotionally compatible first before they even think about mating.

Oh god, mating.

Humans are horribly complicated he's come to learn- it takes some of them months and even years of emotionally connecting before they get together for the first time. And when they do, it's sounds so complicated.

Some like certain positions, others have so-called 'kinks', and then some have a favoritism for certain acts that actually have nothing to do with reproduction. Jungkook had been horrified when he read something about 'eating someone out'- until he learned that it had nothing to do with actual cannibalism.

Human beings love pleasure. For Jungkook, that had always been somewhat of a luxury- but here on earth, humans see it as a necessity even. It makes him eager to prove himself as a lover who can match the capabilities of a human one- maybe even exceed them.

"Would you consider me someone you'd mate with?" Jungkook asks as he watches you pout hot water into a cup filled with a little bag. Tea is what you're making.

He doesn't like it- he burned his tongue on it a few days back. Why would you drink something that hurts?

"I- uh, what?" You stammer, having to put the kettle down as you're clearly caught off guard.

"Mating. Sex, is what you call it here right?" Jungkook hums, leaning on the kitchen counter almost innocently. How can he look at you with his stupid round boba-ball eyes while asking you if you'd like to fuck him?!

"I uh- I mean, you're.. really attractive, and I guess we're a couple?" You stammer, a bit caught off guard, and he nods.

"I believe that we are in a partnership at the moment." He agrees, putting the meat away into the fridge, before he washes his hands and dries them off. "And humans regularly participate in intercourse in most partnerships, right?" He wonders, and you shrug, before you nod.

"I mean.. most of the time, yeah." You agree.

"See?" He smiles, looking at you. "We should as well. I heard from a friend that it can strengthen the bond of a relationship significantly." He tells you, and you're caught off guard, as you can't help but stare at his bare arms for a moment, dirty thoughts invading your head as you look at the way his hands move to rest on the kitchen counter behind him.

Great. You're really happy he's making friends, sure- but do his friends have to tell him that he needs to have sex with you to make you like him more?

"Do you not want that with me?" He wonders. "That's fine too. Some only enjoy doing that by themselves.." He shrugs, and you freeze.

"What-" You start, terrified of the truth. "What do you.. mean?" You ask.

"I know you're pleasuring yourself sometimes, mostly at night before you shower. It's hard not to notice it, really- your scent is all over the place." He laughs easily, as if he's just talking about the weather. "I wanted to ask you if you wanted my help sometimes. You seem a little frustrated on occasion." He offers.

So he noticed that. Awesome.

"Yeah I just-.." you cringe at yourself, before you just shut your mouth.

"If you're worried about me not being able to pleasure a human woman, I can assure you- I'm pretty knowledgeable." He prides himself up. "I've only ever received compliments."

"You've had sex with humans before?" You ask, and he nods.

"Yes. Multiple, actually- so I have good experience." He agrees, and now, you feel a bit intimidated. If he has this much experience, what if you bore him? What if you can't provide what he wants? And he clearly seems to sense your distress growing, because he immediately tries to backpaddle his statement. "Though none of those experience involved any actual emotional connection!" He tells you, trying to reassure you that he doesn't want to come off as if sex with you wouldn't be something special to him. "You could almost say that it was practice-" He attempts, but you just sigh, shaking your head.

"You don't have to justify yourself, Jungkook." You say, and he visibly deflates at the fact that you don't use his nickname in your sentence.

"Do my past actions make me undesirable to you now?" He asks a bit softer, and you groan in agony to yourself, shaking your head as you sit down at the small kitchen table.

"No- no that's not it, it's me that's the issue." You huff, laying your head sideways on the cool surface of the plastic tabletop. "I'm just not.. as experienced as you." You shrug, not moving as he sits down across from you. "I'll probably be super lame and disappointing." You mumble.

You can feel his hand reaching out to pet your head, fingers running over your head in a similar way that you tend to do to him. He's probably trying to comfort you, and in a way, it makes you upset at yourself for being upset at him. He did nothing wrong. Why are you being such a bitch?

"You know.." He chuckles softly, and you move your head a little to look at him. "..my friend said that humans can be really confusing and emotional when they're ovulating." He offers, and your eyes widen as your head snaps up. "He was right." He laughs at your shocked expression.

"But I'm not-" You start, because technically, you really aren't. Are you?

"It's really faint but pretty noticeable." He chuckles, and you just sigh, accepting things for now. At the very least, the awkwardness has left for once, so that's a good thing down the line. "Oh!" He suddenly perks up, looking at with excitement.

"I heard that sex helps with cramping though!"

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[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

Been thinking a lot lately about that saying that leftists have liked to parrot over the last few years (myself included):

"It's pointless arguing with the Right because I don't know how to explain that you should care about other people" but then when it comes to Jews experiencing a massive surge in antisemitic abuse and violence they're like "Oh, we didn't mean them. They don't count."

And then still expect to be taken seriously and not be called out for rank hypocrisy.

The only reason I can think of that they truly don't see their own failing is that for an alarming percentage of these people, any Jewish person's humanity comes with terms and conditions and they really don’t actually see them as people.

Which is abjectly fucking horrifying and nauseating and something I'm having real trouble coming to terms with.

As a queer, working class woman who grew up on a council estate in one of the most deprived and ethnically and religiously diverse regions of the UK (though unfortunately our Jewish population is vanishingly tiny; in my county of Tyne and Wear, less than 4000 individuals out of a total population of 1.1 million) I’ve always been socially conscious and passionate about social justice and proud to call myself a leftist. However, my faith in the integrity of a huge amount of people involved in leftist activism has been pretty much entirely destroyed in the last few months and I loathe that.

They talk a good game but now their words just ring as hollow, empty and entirely performative.

[serpentface]

What are Faiza’s thoughts/feelings on (presumably?) seeing human sacrifice performed, or in theory, irt her religious beliefs?

It's a little complicated, but less than might be assumed.

This IS something she's witnessed personally, and been involved in the process (not participating in the rites themselves, but in organizing them). But she has no sensitization to it- she's grown up seeing people executed, regular everyday animal sacrifices, and the yearly dry season human offering. It's something that is entirely separated from the concept of murder (which is regarded as abhorrent, as murder is in basically every culture (it's just that definitions of what types of killing is and is not murder varies)) and nothing disturbing or unusual in of itself.

It's a fairly small part of a much broader framework of religious practices that she ultimately does not believe in. Her reaction is more 'this doesn't actually have an intrinsic point, but it is what it is and has some practical benefits'. Her views on the Wardi faith are conflicted but overall positive. Even if she doesn't Believe in 90% of its core elements, she sees it as Beneficial- it's the Only thing that unifies the entire Imperial Wardi cultural sphere. This is important to her both on the level that Imperial Wardin is a tenuous union of city-states and tributaries and dozens of peoples and that its stability relies on its shared religion, and that it's a grand equalizer- its benefits cross class and ethnic lines within this rather broad cultural sphere.

So like, when it comes to humans being ritually killed, she doesn't think there's a still-extant God that enters their bodies or that their deaths materially enable the seasonal cycles to continue and bring the rains back. But she does think it has a Point, in the same capacity that she doesn't believe most of the core tenants of the faith have material reality, but the religion's role in society has material benefits. It has a point, and it's not murder, so she ultimately has little beef with the concept.

The instance where it crossed the line to 'this is fucked up' is in the context of the drought. With the drought intensifying, the usual one-off one-person annual dry season offering was extended to dozens of people (which Was officially condoned). In addition, as the years went on and civil unrest intensified, there were instances of civilian suicides and murders that were clearly attempted offerings (as well as suicides and murders that were at least loosely Framed as offerings but definitely weren't). In the fifth year, over a hundred Ephenni Galenii offered themselves up in an independent mass-offering (condoned by the priesthood but not by the Usoma). And yet the drought wore on.

THIS all was disturbing to her. This wasn't the faith functioning as intended, this was symptomatic of impending collapse. This was a waste of life that was TRULY for nothing. The officially condoned sacrifices were clear and desperate flailing by the Usoma and/or priesthoods to spiritually address the drought and famine (in addition to really, really poor attempts to practically address food and water insecurity and social unrest), and the civilian sacrificial murders and suicides were this unrest and mass despair crystalized into horrifically needless, pointless death and brutality. (These civilian killings were widely seen as horrifying by devout believers as well btw, just because human sacrifice exists in a culture doesn't mean people think religious killing and suicide is Okay And Normal In Every Situation)

The horror of All That was one of the motivating factors in her role in organizing the pilgrimage as a more controlled, intentional, and directed use of religious practice to reassure the public, that would also attempt to practically re-unify the divided priesthood/military/royal family. The seven-beast offering is a long established concept (rather than desperate flailing of 'add more people to the dry season offering' or 'get a hundred Galenii to drown themselves in a muddy riverbed'), the pilgrimage format is a public show of unity and requires significant internal diplomacy to function.

---

I'm also going to just like take this opportunity to clarify her worldview:

She ascribes to a culturally specific form of atheism that posits that God fully, permanently died in the act of creation, Its death kicked off the cycles of the world as we know it but Its spirit no longer has any capacity to interact with the world. The existence of a creator god is reckoned as self-evident, but its continuing presence in the world is disputed. Therefore, the vast majority of religious practice (which is entirely built around interactions with God's continuously cycling spirit) has no intrinsic effect.

This stems from a niche branch of materialist Burri and Wardi philosophy. It's a very uncommon belief (and has its own subvariants- some extreme materialists dismiss the existence of the soul itself (God died and there is no soul so It's Gone) and some that characterize God as merely absent (God died and Its spirit is absent from the world, in the same capacity that the souls of the dead are absent from the world once they successfully move on) (Faiza falls into the latter camp). The heavy prioritization of orthopraxy over orthodoxy means that a person holding these beliefs in of itself is not often going to be a major cultural issue so long as they perform expected practices, but standards of orthodoxy are higher in the priesthoods and like. Her entire role is as a priestess. It's not something she can be open about. It's also not something she can talk about with any of her personal relations (she was introduced to the concept after maintaining contact with her childhood tutor and regularly discussing philosophy with him, but the guy was elderly and died when she was in her mid 20s.)

This translates to her being more open to questioning other elements of her cultural framework, but the rest of her worldview is fairly normative, there's nothing else she rejects as thoroughly as the continuing existence of God. She believes in the soul, ghosts, evil spirits, luck, curses, and spiritual pollution (though should be noted that the Ways she believes in them are influenced by a materialist philosophical lens, and as such her interpretations are non-standard). She also thinks there's some truth in the folk magic practices that attempt to influence luck and curses (these traditions rarely actually involve God in their framework), and the ones she rejects are on a more typical class-aligned basis of being 'Foolish Commoner Superstition', not in a 'magic is not real' capacity.

So like it's a mixed bag where she thinks the religion itself has material points and value, and she takes pride in being an Odonii. But she's still locked in a life of performing endless rites that have no internal meaning to her and give no sense of comfort beyond self-assurance that they're for a greater good, giving hollow reassurances to her religiously paranoid brother and not being able to fully connect to her extremely devout true believer sister. It's isolating, and it wears on her.