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arainbowofchaos · 1 year

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Mentally Physically Weak

pair: Jungkook x reader

genre : smut with some plot

word count: 3,5k

summary: Jungkook is waiting for you outside your workplace, a cigarette in his mouth, and you can hardly believe your luck. Above all, you're acutely aware of how weak you are for him, and you want to savor this moment as if it were the last.

[A/N]: Yesterday brought a whirlwind of events, and I couldn't resist the urge to pour out my heart for Jungkook.

You've never felt like this before, you're sure of it. That gnawing feeling in your stomach, that palpable excitement coursing through your body, that occasional wave of nausea flooding you because you're experiencing so many emotions at once. And you can't deny that it's invigorating, even if sometimes it feels like you're losing control. Something is exciting about giving yourself completely to him.

You watch Jungkook casually leaning against the wall of the store across from where you work. This is your moment, something you can enjoy before he notices your presence. He smokes, enveloped in a cloud of smoke that he exhales into the night air after putting the cigarette between his lips. The sight makes your stomach turn, as it seems surreal. It's late and darkness covers the sky. You're not sure if you're shivering because the cold of October is setting in or because of the anticipation that this man is waiting for you.

At last, Jungkook sees you, and as you gaze into each other's eyes across the distance, his expression changes, and softens, and a broad smile spreads across his face. His eyes shine with excitement, and you can feel his joy at finding you again. He throws away his cigarette and extinguishes it, as if he had only used it to relieve boredom, before joining you.

A colleague who leaves after you wishes you a good evening, and you wave to him. You see his gaze fix on Jungkook for a moment, and you realize he's confused. It's amazing how readily people judge your personal life. He sees this tall, imposing, black-clad figure with the look of a bad boy waiting for you in the night and thinks, "What is she doing with a guy like that?" He doesn't see that behind the tattoos and piercings are the kindest heart in the world and the most comforting arms you've ever found.

You wait impatiently for the light to turn green, and when it finally does, Jungkook is the first to run across the crosswalk to reach you. He moves gracefully, his dark curls dancing in the wind. As he approaches you, he leans down slightly to meet you at eye level, his hand resting on your cheek, and just like that, he leans forward to place his cool lips on yours. Your body warms just from the contact of his palm with your face, his fingers run tenderly over your skin. The trembling intensifies, and you feel like you could burst into tears at any moment. Why does it feel so incredible to be in his presence, to have him so close?

"Hey baby, you okay? Tough day, huh?" His voice sounds concerned - it cuts through the air like a rocket, and you don't have time to answer his questions before he wraps you in a strong hug. You might as well pass out; you trust him to take care of your lifeless body. The day has been so long, you're exhausted, and you just want him to take care of you. You shake your head as your face is buried in his t-shirt. "My baby is tired, I can feel it. What if I take you home?" This time you nod, relieved that he understands without you having to express yourself.

You and Jungkook didn't speak the same language. You didn't have the same culture or the same kind of profession. He's younger than you are. You met him when you came to Busan for your job. He loves music, photography, and drawing. He's an artist who enjoys life by creating what he loves, and you admire him for it. You're a product of the corporate world you’ve worked in for the last six years, and although you love your job, you're often exhausted by the endless days and relentless pace. When you met Jungkook, you immediately fell in love with this boy for whom life was an adventure while you knew only constraints.

Jungkook takes your hand firmly in his, and your heart beats a little faster at the difference in size; yours is so much smaller that it gets lost in his. He's so much more than you - smarter, funnier, more attractive; he's everything you could dream of in a human being. And you're shocked at the depth of your feelings. It often happens that you imagine a world where he has left you - and you don't know what you'd do, how you could find joy in life after a man made you feel so alive.

Your parents don't appreciate him, even without having met him yet. They've seen photos of him on your social media, and they're disgusted to see you wasting your time with a punk. You reassure them by explaining that Jungkook is a good person and that his appearance is due to his creative side, but they view your relationship with disapproval. From their perspective, they're mainly concerned that you've found an anchor besides your work, which implies that you have no intention of returning to your homeland. They are selfish; they want to see their daughter come back.

As you walk hand in hand with Jungkook through the dimly lit streets of the approaching autumn, his thumb gently caresses your wrist simply because he can't resist, and you continue to melt under his touch. You observe Jungkook as he gazes up at the sky, smiling. You dream of being able to live in his imagination; you're certain it's a beautiful place where the two of you could be happy together without any obstacles getting in the way.

"You're very uh… quiet tonight, do you want to talk?" Jungkook's accent is something that melts your heart - the way he searches for his words for you, the efforts he puts in to get better to understand you even more. It's his way of showing you that he's there for you, that you can confide in him at any moment. He can’t give you grand speeches about anything; he just wants you to be able to relax in his presence. You feel like you should talk if only to reassure him.

"Sorry... I'm a bit overwhelmed right now," you manage to articulate, then add, with a big smile and starry eyes, as you do every time you look at him, "Thank you for coming to pick me up; I can't imagine a better way to end my day." Your voice is almost shy. You could laugh at yourself for it; you've never been the shy type, but this man has a hold on you.

"Aww, it's nothing. I just wanted to see you," he responds, singing it out, "The day isn't over yet, want to eat something?" he asks with a strong sense of enthusiasm.

"I'm really craving Indian food, what do you think?" you suggest, and he eagerly agrees before scooping you into his arms and shouting, "Yayy, cheese naan!!!" Passersby look at you with surprise; some are taken aback by the sudden burst of excitement, while others offer kind smiles. And you, you continue to melt, slowly, in his arms, losing yourself in his embrace and his intoxicating scent that leaves your head spinning… You can't help but be constantly charmed by his unwavering enthusiasm. He's up for any plan as long as it means you're together, and especially if he can fill his belly at the same time...

Half an hour later, you find yourself seated on the terrace of your favorite Indian restaurant. It's not overly upscale, and you've always had a mild uncertainty about its hygiene standards. However, the food is undeniably delicious, and you've never experienced any health issues, so that's what truly matters. As the meal arrives, Jungkook eagerly devours his dish, and you barely eat yours. Ever since you met him, you've struggled with eating as if your body no longer requires sustenance beyond his presence.

Jungkook playfully dips his naan into your palak paneer, and you feign outrage while he chuckles at his joke. His eyes light up so much that you can hardly see them, his dimples etched into his handsome face, and his smile is on full display. Your heart races when you witness his happiness, you can't help it. You lean in slightly from your chair to surprise him with a kiss, causing him to stop laughing. He reciprocates with a more serious, urgent kiss that leaves you slightly off balance. He gently bites your lip, signaling his intentions, and you can't help but release a soft moan in response.

"Let's finish up and head home, huh?" His mischievous look speaks volumes about his eagerness to return. You blush because you know exactly what he means, and you signal the waiter to request a takeout box for the remainder of your dish. You're no longer hungry for food, only for his touch.

It turns out that when Jungkook talks about home, he could just as easily be referring to your apartment or his - as long as it's just the two of you, it's your home. Since the Indian restaurant is closer to your place, you naturally head there after your meal. Upon entering your building, Jungkook nestles against your back, his hands gently encircling your hips, and his face finds solace in the curve of your neck as he plants tender kisses. You shiver, feeling your heart race in your chest. Even though you've been dating for months, you're still not entirely accustomed to this sensation; every time feels like the first.

You swiftly ascend the stairs, and with fervor, you open the door to your apartment, a tangible passion building up for the man still standing close behind you, ready to engulf you with affection.

"I want a dessert," Jungkook whispers against your lips with a quivering voice as you both find yourselves out of sight in the privacy of your living room. It becomes clear just how much your presence affects him.

"Go ahead and treat yourself," you innocently reply, pretending not to catch on to his intentions.

"Ah, that's what I had in mind," he retorts with a mischievous grin. At his words you feel Jungkook's hands move down to your ass and grip it, you moan softly as you can feel your body going weak in his hands.

Every time, it's the same old story – you feel like a toy in his skilled hands. Your legs can barely carry you to your room, so he lifts you, and you cling to him like a koala. In a hushed tone, you whisper that you love him. You told him after just a week, so you no longer have any reason to be ashamed of anything. The moment you laid eyes on him, you knew you were done for. Jungkook has always responded positively to your declarations, and even now, he's quick to reassure you with an "I love you too." But deep down, you understand that he may never experience emotions as intense and all-consuming as yours. The truth is, he could ask you for anything, and you would do it without a second thought. You'll never admit it to anyone, but the way he looks at you keeps you alive. When you don't see him for a few days, you can feel how your enthusiasm for life is waning. The only way to lift your spirits is to think of him and his beautiful, goofy smile.

He gently places you on the bed and then lies on top of you, cradling your head in his hands. With intense sincerity, he whispers, "You're so beautiful," and you plead with eyes that are practically begging, "Jungkook, please kiss me." His face descends to yours, and his lips find yours effortlessly. He kisses you passionately as if it were the last time and your heart races. You desire him like you've never desired anyone before. Hearing his voice and feeling his touch never grows old. Between kisses, you continue to implore, tears glistening in your eyes in the dim light, "Please, don't ever leave me."

You might come across as foolish, but that doesn't matter. When you become emotional, all you need is reassurance. It's your yearning for something absolute in a foreign land with a man who's not from your world. You want a forever happy ending, even though you know it's not possible, despite the promises of fidelity. In your case, you want him to be as free as he desires. It holds no value if he stays with you out of pity or because you ask him to. You'd like him to be just as consumed by his desire to be with you. And tonight, it seems to be the case, and that's enough for you.

“I’ll never leave you, baby,” he promises solemnly. You don’t want to think about the value of his promise as he undoes the buttons of your blouse to let your chest meet the cool air of the room and goosebumps appear on your skin. "You are cold." he observes “I’m going to make you hot.” and he smiles innocently, you think, he shouldn't have the right to be so angelic when he has just undone your bra with one hand behind your back without you even realizing it. Jungkook gets rid of your clothes that hinder his path to your breasts. He envelops your nipple in his mouth and does not neglect the other by enveloping it in his hand. Everything is hot and your head falls back on the bed as moans escape your lips. You feel the excitement spreading between your legs and you know that tonight again, it won't take you long to meet the stars.

You feel his tongue move expertly and like every time you continue to beg him for more “Jungkook, please, I want to feel you.” your hands are lost in his soft, raven-black hair and he lifts his head, your breast still in his mouth as he smiles, the same mischievous smile from earlier “And my dessert?” he asks, laughing. He knows the effect he has on you since he stops playing with you for a moment to come back to your face and place a kiss on the tip of your nose. “I’ll have my dessert and then you can feel me, okay baby?”

You nod eagerly because you know what he means. He stands up and unzips your skirt to remove it completely, leaving you in just your panties, lying vulnerable under his gaze. "You are beautiful," he repeats to make sure you heard correctly. Jungkook kneels on the ground in front of you, and his arms grab behind your thighs to drag you to him. You let out a cry of surprise at the force of his gesture, and he laughs tenderly at your reaction. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he says as if it were normal while you can barely breathe at the idea that he was even thinking about you. “I see you’re wet,” he says and you know he's praising you “Can I taste you?” he asks for permission, and you respond by removing your underwear for him, leaving your complete nudity in view. Jungkook licks his lips, playing with his piercing in the process, looking into your eyes, then his gaze returning between your legs “Gosh, so pretty.” and he fucking smiles.

You close your eyes when his face disappears between your legs and you feel his tongue playing with your clit, getting straight to the point. You can’t stop the moans that escape your throat, and soon you can’t think at all. His hands caress your hips while his mouth devours your most intimate area and you can do nothing but feel all the good he does to you. You need him; feeling him so close to you is never enough. “Jungkook… more please.” you plead and he pauses, lifting his head to look you in the eyes, his lips and chin covered in your juices “I like it when you… uh… when you beg me? That's right?" and you can't believe this is the time he chose for an English lesson. You nod and rephrase “I’m begging you Jungkook, please give me more.”

He laughs softly, proud to see you so needy for him and to improve his vocabulary in bed. His hand replaces where his face was a few seconds before, and his finger comes to caress your clit, before moving lower between your folds, a moment later and you feel two fingers inside you. You gasp, your breath hitching as he pushes his fingers inside you in a back-and-forth motion that makes you salivate. You've lost all logic and ability to think as you take what he gives you with incoherent moanings.

“I want you,” he says suddenly, sensing that you are ready for him. You come out of your trance to open your eyes and see that he is looking at you with a much darker gaze than before. That's where he finally gives you the show you've been waiting for, getting up to take off his black t-shirt, and leaving his bulging muscles and sleeve of tattoos in view for you to admire. He also takes off his cargo pants, his massive erection not very well hidden under his underwear “Do you like the view?” he asks with a smirk and you blush, unable to respond to his comment. He gets rid of his boxer and your eyes roll behind your eyelids at the sight of his length standing proudly in front of you. You feel weak for him—mentally and physically. You're acutely aware of what lies ahead, and every fiber of your being quivers with eager anticipation. Jungkook enters you effortlessly, as you are always ready for him, no matter the moment.

Often, nothing seems to make sense, but in moments like this, when he makes love to you and you can see the most profound adoration in his eyes, you feel genuinely ecstatic to be alive. You can hear his adorable grunt every time you clench around him, adding sensation, and it sends shivers down your spine. He exudes an irresistible charm effortlessly. You only feel complete in his presence, and you thank the universe for putting this luminous being on your path. Jungkook kisses you again, going back and forth, and you can barely respond to his kiss because of how full you feel. You moan nonsense and he speaks things that you can barely make out. Your tongues duel and it's dirty and messy and perfect. You tremble from head to toe, lost in his embrace.

He pulls out of you and orders you to turn around, which you do immediately. You lie down on your stomach and feel him position himself behind you, his cock at your entrance before coming back inside you deeply, a new angle allowing you to feel him even better. You scream, tears streaming down your cheeks as your head rests on the cool mattress. Jungkook continues to increase his pace, letting you chase your orgasm, the sweet melody of skin on skin echoes through the room before he seductively asks you, “Please cum for me, baby.” Tears of pleasure continue to stream as he taps against your sensitive and delicious spot, and you finally end up seeing the stars while shouting his name. “Jungkook” you exhale, delirious, as he continues a few more thrusts before cumming inside you as well.

When you come back to reality, he's lying on top of you - careful not to put his full weight on you either - he's reciting praises to you in Korean and your heart aches at the thought of him being comfortable enough to let go in his native language. He places kisses on your shoulder before pulling out. You feel him moving behind before he comes back to gently clean up the mess he made. After that, he lies down next to you, drawing you close into his embrace once more. The two of you remain there, locked in a tender hug, for a few precious minutes. And then, he utters those words that resonate deep within your heart, "I will never leave you." A warm, contented smile graces your face as you bury it into his sweaty, bare chest, finding solace and security in his unwavering promise.

What remains etched in your memory is the fact that you have this one more night with him, and in this fleeting moment, that's all that truly matters. The ability to revel in these stolen moments of intimacy with him fills you with profound gratitude. Wrapped in his loving embrace, the world beyond fades into insignificance – the desperate glances of your colleagues, the reproachful words of your parents – all become distant echoes.

Regardless of what anyone else thinks or what the uncertain future may hold, you banish those concerns from your mind. In this singular instant, you crave nothing more than to bask in the comforting cocoon of his embrace, to savor the warmth of his presence for one more night.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook imagine #bts jungkook x reader #bts jungkook imagine #bts jeon jungkook x reader #bts jeon jungkook imagine #jungkook fanfic #my words #jungkook fic #jungkook smut #jungkook oneshot #jungkook fanfiction

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tozettastone · 2 months

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AKATSUKI RANKED BY PARENTING SKILLS

First, an honourable mention goes to Orochimaru, who would win this ranking effortlessly but who is no longer part of the Akatsuki.

10. Zetsu is more or less disqualified because he reproduces by creating exact clones of himself. You are his clone, and you are the parent and the parented, the sibling, the self; sometimes all of the above all at once. Don't worry about it.

9. Hidan finds his kid fascinating and funny as fuck. Irrational tantrums about being handed an object they desperately wanted 3 minutes ago? He's laughing. Cute questions about the nature of society that Hidan has never once contemplated the answers to? So funny! Breaking their arm for the sixth time? Absolutely hilarious. The problem with Hidan is that being charmed and amused, and indeed feeling genuine affection, will in no way prevent him from exploring the outer limits of your capacity for suffering, and this only gets worse the more responsible for you he is. He loves you a lot and you will not survive to adulthood.

8. Sasori is adequate at servicing a child's basic needs for care and keeping. He is not a demonstrative parent but he is surprisingly receptive to a child's displays of affection and rarely turns them away. They remind him of his own relationship with his parents — his first foray into his craft, in which he preserved their bodies and made them embrace him as he imagined parents ought to. He understands the emotional component to development with his current, synthetic detachment. He is not very patient, and he's prone to just intervening in your brain chemistry when you frustrate him, which is not a great way to live. The other problem with Sasori as a parent, of course, is that at every moment he feels a sliver of affection for you, he contemplates whether it would be worth it to preserve that "you" forever. Eventually, the clockwork in his head will tick over, and you'll become the most beloved puppet in his collection.

7. Kakuzu swings between strict and angry at some times, and flatly indifferent at others; he's strict and angry when his emotions are engaged, which he hates, and combats with icy apathy. Sometimes he will be angry and indifferent about exactly the same topics on different days. This is a man who will hit a kid for not magically knowing something that he, their only parent, should have been the one to teach them about. He is at his best when he can be a mostly-benign acquaintance in his child's life. The single saving grace with Kakuzu is that you can just leave and he will take months to come after you, if he ever does. Don't expect a birthday card.

6. Itachi is utterly unprepared to be the carer for a child but approaches it with the same steady and dubiously-deserved self confidence with which he approaches everything. He is sometimes affectionate, but he is also relentlessly critical and he will use genjutsu torments as a "harmless" parenting tool, because they are obviously less damaging than corporeal punishment. (It has not occurred to him that a zero-violence approach to child rearing might be, theoretically, possible.) His expectations will only rise over time as he comes to like you better, and his treatment of you will become correspondingly harsher. Expect to jump at shadows until you're 39 and sobbing into your therapist's rug. On this list, you could do worse, but I can't help but feel that regularly obliterating a child's trust in the basic tenets of reality is courting a really severe mental illness.

5. Tobi will have a nervous breakdown about his fitness for interpersonal attachments, which he won't acknowledge as a nervous breakdown. He will then respond with complete mental and emotional detachment from his child, strap them to him in a sling and carry them through Akatsuki missions. Their crying will cause a stealth-based plan to fail, multiple times. Tobi will performatively panic every time they cry, and he will play with them any time they like — all the better if it annoys everyone around him. The problems start when you get older and can speak, which is about when it becomes steadily less convenient for him to treat you as a prop in his bizarre fantasy theatre. The more articulate you become, the less interested Tobi is. Where did his cute baby go? :( Expect a relatively physically safe but unstable childhood, oscillating between overwhelming, intense, nonsensical and occasionally cruel parental attention and complete absence. You will learn not to rely on other people for anything, and to tense up whenever someone says they love you.

4. Deidara has absolutely no desire to be responsible for ANY human being, including, often, himself. He resents every second of time your existence steals away from himself and his own projects, and although he intellectually understands that a child can't help needing stuff, he really does regard it as stealing from him. You're a gross, hooked little knife in his side, tugging him away from thoughts of himself and his art. He can't wait until you're old enough to leave on your own for long periods of time, and as he's a shinobi, he thinks "old enough," is, like, maybe five. Expect a short, disrupted childhood full of terse lessons in how not to get blown up today, followed by trying very, very hard to avoid daddy's attention. On the other hand, this is a parent who does not want to give you any attention, which, on this list, can only be an advantage. I can't believe this is number 4.

3. Nagato tries his best but childhood is where the trauma lives, and so every childhood milestone hits him with a rush of agonising memories like a lightning strike. You will become a proxy for him in his haphazard efforts to reparent himself, and he will be equally upset if you're exactly like him OR if you're totally different to him. You will never fully understand his relationship with himself and he will never understand that he's meant to be cultivating a relationship with you. Still, you could do worse.

2. Konan is a composed parent. She manages her own fears and anxieties with icy repression, and that's also her approach to the loving attachments of parenthood. Her child will be clean, educated, fed and sheltered appropriately at all times, but there has never once been an emotional need Konan has indulged. You will develop a deeply anxious attachment style and become a serial monogamist who is furious that nobody can live up to your expectations and terrified that the problem is you. (It is.)

1. Kisame does not wait until six months to give his baby water and he has a worryingly permissive approach to child safety in general. He puts up with pretty much any behavioural problem with steady I've-seen-it-all equanimity — except when his child is lying to his face, which is basically his single, glowing berserk button as an authority figure. He cares about his kid and will generally view them as a person and not as some kind of psychosocial manifestation of his own mental illness at least 50% of the time, which is why he wins the top spot on this cursed list. Kisame will tell you stories about how you must have eaten all your siblings in the womb to be born at all, and that means you're already the strongest possible kid he could have had. This is intended to be encouraging. Roll with it, dude. You could have got Hidan.

#naruto #akatsuki #akatsuki ranked #how did this get to be over 1k words???#who is writing all these words?

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momotorin · 9 months

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my phone fell, love lmao i posted it by accident ^^ @tozakimo

strawberry kisses

farmer!momo x baker!reader | fluff, smut | men dni!

it's been an exhausting year, especially for you. you just graduated from your university, settled for a corporate job somewhere in the bustling and loud city of tokyo. it wasn't even related to your degree, for fucks sake, but you settled for it as it paid off really well.

but then, you got another offer later during the year. working for a small bakery at night just across your apartment. it was quiet, healing, with the smell of pastry and coffee pungent in the air— it was surely something you can't compare with anything.

your corporate job got too heavy, and it got to the point that it wasn't working well anymore. you kept your job at the bakery, now working full time.

unfortunately, before november came, the bakery shut down because of unprecedented reasons; which, the owner died of oldness, which you mourned as ms. sato was the kindest person to ever teach you about anything you know about baking now, she was like a second mother, one that you held really dear to your heart.

late november, your sister, mina, went to your apartment in tokyo.

all primed and cut into the right places, mina knocks on your door, three times, "y/n! open this goddamn door!" she shouted, and you revealed yourself, wrapped around a blanket, eyes puffed with tears. "oh," she hugs you immediately, taking your head to lay on her neck as you hugged her back. "tokyo must've been so unkind to you, huh?"

"i-it is," you sobbed as she held you in her arms. "i wanna go home, mina."

"well," she chuckles, rubbing your back in comfort and warmth. "i wouldn't be here if i didn't take you home."

it was such a pleasant feeling; taking the train home to kobe, the regret and awfulness of the big city of tokyo being transported away from you. mina was kind enough to lend you the window seat, which you really enjoyed.

mina taps you on the hand, "hey," she smiled. "it's sana's birthday in a few days..."

"oh! really?" you perked up at the mention of her girlfriend's name. "what do you plan to do?"

"nothing that big," she chuckles, her head hanging down and her hands fiddling with the rings on her fingers. "i bought a ring already, though."

"what!?" you exclaimed, hands on your mouth, trying to make yourself as shocked as you looked. "i mean, you've known each other for what... like 6 years already? i'm glad for you two."

mina sighs, "i know you are," she said. "but i just don't know how to ask her, you know? i'm not the biggest romantic out there. she is. but she's so busy with the farm and all; i know momo's there to help her but i just don't want to add to her worry if i ever ask h-"

"mina," you held your sister by the shoulders and made her look at you. "i'm not really close with sana but i know she loves you. trust me, she's been waiting for you to pop the question."

"well," she blushes. "could you help me?"

"of course," you chuckled at her. "we have like... 20 more days. so no pressure. let's just get home first, hm?"

"yeah," mina sighs as she lies back on her seat. "you know, i'd like you to meet her best friend, though." mina chuckled. "momo. such a lovely person. the girl literally leaves a couple of her fruits for us when she supplies the flour."

you smiled, imagining what she was like, how she was like, going into your family bakery back home. "she sounds delightful."

the next day, you got your being up to go and operate the family bakery, just a few streets away from your home. you went in with mina and briefed you about the different pastries that they still serve. you added a little bit of yours, but you let it out for a while, not confident enough to put it on the pastry shelves yet.

you sighed, taking a break from kneading, baking, mixing, and carrying the goods. it's around 6 'o clock am, just an hour before the bakery opens. mina was cleaning up the dining area thoroughly, as her jazz music blasted in the background.

the bell of the entrance rings, and you jolt up, "we're not yet ope-"

"oh," the woman chuckled, bags of flour on her toned shoulders, carried by muscled biceps. mina comes to lead the woman to the kitchen, where she puts down the flour on the supply area. "um," she says. "i-i need to get the fruits, hold on."

the woman rushes outside, and you stare at her as she goes to her truck.

"that's momo," mina chuckled at your obvious flush. it wasn't one of attraction, but one of embarrassment. you should've greeted her better. "she's cute isn't she?"

she looked delightful as she sounds.

"here," momo drops the fruits on the counter, bunched up in a plastic bag. "i- um, gotta go, mina."

"no, wait," you chuckled at her obvious shyness, her timidness making her cuter than she already was. "sit for a little while. i didn't greet you well so, wait-" you smiled at her as she sat on one of the seats in the dining area. you rushed to the baking area, where you stored the eclairs that you made, pulled out the little box, and stored it for her.

"here," you handed the box of eclairs to her. "just a little trade for the fruits you got us."

she smiles, "thank you," she bowed. "are you new here?"

"oh," you chuckled as you reached out your hand, urging her to shake hands with you. "i'm y/n. mina's sister."

she gently takes your hand, "momo," she says, looking into your eyes in an obvious flush as she spoke. "i- um, i'm mina's flour supplier."

"well, she told me already," you retracted your hand from her hold, but you admit, that was the greatest handshake of your life. she stands, putting the chair back on its old position. "see you around, i guess?"

"yeah, um," she looks down on her shoes as she takes the box of eclairs. "see you around, y/n."

momo leaves shortly after, leaves you in a haze, and mina nudges at you as she sees that little interaction when she is cleaning up the counter.

she laughs, "can't believe i saw two losers interacting with each other, oh my god," she chuckles. "i'm definitely going to ask sana to set you two up on a date because neither of you are going to do it."

"is she really that fucking buff?" you asked, albeit randomly.

"jesus," mina laughs further. "you stared at her arms the whole time?"

"damn," you palmed your face in the realization. "well it was out. if it had eyes, it'll be looking at me. but she's cute."

"can't believe that my sister thirsted in front of me," mina sighed. "anyways, she lives just right beside sana's. if you wanna know that sort of thing."

well, it's not useless, you thought. "i'm not some creep... i don't just want to show up at her door."

mina laughs as she arranges the trays of pastries ready to be lined up at the pastry shelves, "trust me, she wants you to."

the next day, you and mina, with her girlfriend, came and visited sana's farm, somewhere up the countryside. sana grew vines of grapes, with her wine distillery up the hill.

as you went up the hill, you saw various other fruits, and it reminded you of what momo supplies to the bakery everyday. you've made a jam out of the strawberries she gave, and it was as red as what you're seeing now.

"ah, momo!" sana calls out, waving to the truck that was driving by.

"hey!" momo stopped the truck, coming down from it. you looked in her direction; her hair tied up into a nice bun, her black tank top, her worn out cargo pants, and some boots. god. she looks like she's straight out of your dream. "the deliveries this day was so fucking many-" she mumbles and suddenly stops as you made your way to mina's side. "oh, hi," she greets, in a small tone. "y/n, right?"

"yeah," you smiled. "the strawberries there," you pointed. "are they yours?"

"oh," she scratched her nape, her cheeks at an obvious blush. "yeah- um, yeah it's mine."

"we'll head to the distillery for a while," sana chuckles as she held mina's hand. "take it from here, momo. she hasn't seen your side of the place."

"sana," she sighs. "alright. okay. i'll go take care of it."

you chuckled, "so, strawberries," you said. "how come they're so plump here? they're beautiful."

"well," she went to your side as you viewed the row of freshly grown strawberries. "it's all grown naturally. no pesticides or anything, i make sure that even the soil's clean."

"oh, wow," you commented. "i made a jam out of the strawberries you've been giving us," you said. "it's the yummiest ones. you want to have some?"

"oh, of course," she smiles. you can't help but melt. "the eclairs were so good though," she commented. "how come you aren't selling them yet?"

"i- um," you went silent for a second. "i'm not that confident yet with how it can turn out, you know. that's the last recipe that i learned from someone."

"well," she sighs. "i totally understand. i'll wait for those, though!"

you smiled at her. "so," you looked at her. "what do you do besides farming, momo?"

"i- um," she looks down on her shoes once more, trying to hide her obviously red face. "play drums at the local bar."

"no way!" you said, exclaiming in amusement. "wow," you commented on her. "you seem so chill. didn't expect that you're one."

"well," she chuckled. "it's a jazz bar. nothing too hardcore."

"what do you mean nothing too hardcore?" you chuckled once more, and as you two progress in talking, the more you get amazed at how incredibly delightful this woman was. "i love jazz. where do you play? i wanna go drop by."

"santorini's," she says. "it's sana's bar, actually."

"that friend of yours is one big businesswoman here, huh," you commented. "well, she's perfect with mina."

"couldn't agree more," she says. "when your sister came to her life, it was like she had forgiven anything. i mean, i came late to an invitation once and she just said 'it's okay,' like it's the most normal thing. i guess your sister really did put a bunch of ice on her head to calm her down."

you laughed loudly, astounded by the way she spoke, "ah, you're so..."

"what?" she asks.

"nothing," you chuckled. "so," you clasped your hands at your back. "will you drop by us tomorrow, too?"

"well," she blushed. "of course. i have to deliver mina's orders."

"okay," you smiled. "you don't have to be so uptight around me, you know?"

"i- um-" momo stuttered as you held her hand.

"see," you had a tight grip around her hand, letting her feel the coldness of it against her warm ones. "you're kinda- too cute for this."

it was a thursday, and you went to the bakery right after you took your workout, a new thing that you've been wanting to do.

well, you didn't have time to change, so you baked in your workout outfit, just switching the shirt into a spare, tight, tank top. the apron was clearly useless now, probably.

momo came into the kitchen while you were taking out the freshly baked buns, one that was baking underneath the bigger oven so you had to lean down.

"oh, careful." momo notes as she passes by you. she doesn't forget the sight. you bent down like that waiting for her to get over. god. it made momo go a little crazy while she went and dropped the flour at its usual spot in the bakery supply area. she let herself take that in for a while as she sat down, closing her eyes, feeling an uncomfortable state between her legs.

"momo?" you called out to her, and you went to the supply area, where you found her just.. there. "oh," you quickly went to get some water, as she stared a little too much on your backside on those purple leggings. "here," you said, cutting her out of her daze as you handed her some water. "tough day?"

"very," she said, gulping down the water with a couple of sips. you reached out to a certain drawer in the supply area, your perfectly shaped glutes on display for her. well, fuck. you handed over the strawberry jam to her. "oh, is this it?"

"yeah," you smiled. "try it out. just get a sourdough at the shelves. don't worry, i'll pay for it."

"nope, i have plenty of those at home," she chuckled as she stood up. "i- um," she stutters once more. "are you still going? i'm playing at saturday."

"oh," you smiled, wide enough to compete with the sun. "of course, momo. wouldn't miss that."

"great!" she smiles in happiness, clutching the strawberry jam next to her.

"i'll be cheering for you," you chuckled as you put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it. "good luck!"

she chuckled. "yeah, thanks."

saturday came by fast.

you hung out with momo last night at the market fair, along with mina and sana, who went around the carnival hand in hand.

you had your own delight with momo, who was chill at the carnival games, her winning at several ones, surprisingly as you two ate several snacks on the way. she won a big my melody plushie, which you will forever be thankful for.

you just like spending time with her. she has such immense warmth, though quite timid and shy sometimes, but she was beautiful in a way that you wanted to be consumed by her.

"god," you sigh against your bed, trying to settle into an outfit. "fuck."

"hey," mina says, her body leaning against the doorway. "having trouble?"

"yeah," you sighed as you sat up, and mina made her way to sit with you. "i've been struggling to find an outfit. i don't want something too fitting, too unrevealing, too tight, too everything- i just want something perfect for the night, mina."

mina laughs as she made way to your closet, and pulls out a specific dress. it was a black, suede, champagne dress with its straps thin just to hold the dress together.

"mina, you're a fucking genius," you sighed in comfort as you chuckled, taking the dress from mina's hands. "this is perfect, thank you."

mina laughs, "i know it is. date with momo?"

"hm, kinda like that. i'm seeing her play," you chuckled. "what about you? staying for the night?"

"i'll be at sana's," mina sighs. "she's not having the best time right now..."

"oh, like..." you stopped for a moment, understanding that her girlfriend was sick.

"she's been having a bad fever for the past few days." mina sighs.

"well," you sighed as well, but you remembered something. "i had some extra soup i made a few hours ago," you said. "maybe that could help her."

"you're a lifesaver," mina sighs in relief. "why'd you make it though?"

"just wanted something warm," you giggled. "anyways, i'll be leaving at 7."

"yeah, no worries," mina smiles. "good luck with your date!"

you arrived at the bar, a little past 7pm, perfectly in time in momo's set.

the previous band had only finished playing as you sat right in front, ordering a martini as the first drink of the night.

momo's band comes in as the dim light slowly gets stronger, you catch a sight of momo; in her signature tank top, arms out, with her pants, and a flannel tightly wrapping around the waistband of it. god. she looks so good.

the drums were, unusually, right on front and on the side, just a little beside you and she says 'hi,' with a little smile, her drumstick stuck to her fingers.

she was so cute, but then, she went on to test the tone of the drums, and it sounded great. but god, the way her muscles flexed as she took the drums to sound was so tempting that you just wanted to pull her out of the band and take her home.

but then, she catches a little glance at you again, as she sees you walk to the bathroom. she doesn't miss the subtle appearance of your cleavage, the way that the dress hugged your body so divine, and the way that your ass was so curved in it. it drove her fucking crazy.

you made your way back to your seat, as momo started the song with her band. you got another drink of the same kind.

they played really well, a couple of jazz hits, some requests, and some originals from their band were played.

momo looked at you from the crowd the whole time. you were so beautiful and irresistible in that fucking dress, that she wants to make you tell her to rip it off.

a few songs later, momo's band takes a bow, and the lights dim once more as a sign that their set was finished.

you wait for her silently at your table, now ordering your fourth drink of the night.

"hey," someone taps your shoulder from the back. "how was it?"

you saw momo in all of her glory, her flannel now covering her bare arms. she sits beside you, looking you in the eye.

"you're so great," you said. "you were so good at playing the drums!"

"well," she chuckled as she gestured to the waiter to get her the same drink. "someone important was watching, i didn't want to blow that up."

you chuckled at her, "hm, important, then? so, it's a date..."

"you could put it that way," she teased back. she leans closer to whisper to you, "you look beautiful tonight."

"thanks," you said as you put a hand on her thigh, getting her comfortable with your touches. "you're not so bad yourself. had your arms out and all on the stage."

momo laughs, "well, i didn't know you'd stare at that."

"i mean, i can help but to, you know," you confessed. "it's just so big-"

"something else is bigger- what?" she gets flustered by herself, saying the phrase. "no, oh my god, sorry, y/n... that was such a bad joke."

you just laughed and let yourself lean on her arm. "it's nothing, momo. it's okay," you placed a little kiss on her cheek. "you know, if you really wanna show it off," you slide your hands through her inner thighs, down to her crotch, feeling the material and her cock desperately straining against it. "do it, momo."

"fuck," she stands up, holding your hand, leaving the payment on the table as she makes a rush going out of the bar. "you're getting it."

"hm, let me." you chuckled as she went to open the car door for you, letting you sit down. she went and got into the other side of the car, and she drove away.

"such a little tease for me," she said, running her hand through your bare thigh. "wearing this tight fucking dress," she touches the hem of it as she drove off. "all for others to see."

you held onto your seatbelts as she creeped her fingers closer to your center. "momo-"

the teasing stopped once you arrived at her house, as she pulled you into a deep, breathless kiss. she lets you wrap your legs around her waist as she carries you inside, going to her room.

"fuck," she pulls away, closing her room's door, as she nipped on your neck, making sure that it's red enough for her. "you don't know how much i've been wanting you, baby."

you can't help but moan, and clutch your hand on her hair as she laid you down on her bed, nipping on the valley of your collarbones as she takes off your dress.

"so fucking pretty." she latches on your nipple, as she takes the other to knead with her hand.

"momo, ah- fuck," you rut your hips against her knee as she holds you by the waist. "i need you."

she pulls away from your breasts, as you kiss her, taking her flannel off, and pulling her tank top off. you held tightly to her bicep, as you gently tug on her pants, opening the button of it.

she kneels on top of you, her evident bulge just right on your face. it curved to the side of her calvin klein's, and she takes your hand to palm it.

"so warm, baby," she says, feeling the sensation of you touching it above her boxers. "take it off."

you took it off, and it springed right up, her cock red and hard, slapping up to her navel.

you took her length to your hand, pumping it up and down, as she thrusts. "so needy." you swiped your thumb on the sensitive head, making her squirm.

"wan' fuck your mouth," she whined, getting off of you for a second as she took the space beside you. "please?"

"so cute when you beg," you pumped her a couple of times, as you trailed your kisses from her chest to her stomach. she was whining, holding you by the hair as she makes you a makeshift ponytail. you licked the head of her cock, and she moans loudly. "so cute."

you finally let her fuck your mouth, the big length just sliding in and out of your throat, the tip reaching parts of your mouth you've never known before. momo knows that you were choking, but that doesn't stop her, as she pulled you down by the head to take on her 9 inch length.

"god," she stills, letting her cock pulse fully inside of your mouth. "you're so fucking good, baby."

she finally pulls out, flipping you over with her big strong arms as she kisses your neck once more. "tell me what you want, baby," she whispered. "i need you to let me fuck you like the little bitch you are."

"make me cum," you held onto her hand that was kneading your breast. "please, momo, i don't care how many times- just-"

she kisses you on the lips once more, making you shut up. "don't worry about it."

she trailed her kisses from your chest to the waistband of your panties, spreading your legs and putting it on her shoulders.

"needy little bitch, all for me," she tapped on your arousal that seeped through your panties a couple of times, which made you squirm, your thighs closing on her head. she spreads them once more, removing your panties, and now, the wetness of it glistens in front of her. she takes a long stripe from your hole to your clit, making you hold onto her hair. "and you're delicious. can't wait to eat you all night."

she latches her mouth on your clit, looking at you with utmost adoration and lust as you come apart on her tongue. she laps, circles, and plays around with it, making you moan and strut your hips to meet her tongue. she couldn't be more happier when you begged more.

"momo, fuck," you moaned out, her lips still closed and sucking your clit. "fingers, please."

she happily complies, her fingers teasing the outside of your folds, getting it wet enough to be inserted. she puts two of her fingers inside, licking at your clit, as she moves it in and out to hit your g-spot so deliciously.

"mmgh! holy shit, momo," you closed your eyes in the ecstasy of her pleasure. "more, fuck," you rutted your hips, her fingers going faster. "ah."

she pulls away, smirking as she pumps her fingers faster, now she latches on your nipple, stimulating the hard nub, as she makes you come apart on her fingers.

your juices were overflowing on her hand as she went and used her thumb to make circles on your clit. "momo!" you held onto her biceps as she kissed you on the neck. "fuck, fuck," you were becoming sensitive, with the way she was holding and fucking you with her fingers. "momo, i'm gonna-" you held onto her tightly, feeling the heat building up from your pussy.

"cum for me," she whispers, the thumb on your clit teasing you further. "cum, baby."

"fuck!" you screamed, squirting on her hand. you felt your arousal trickle on her hand, to her bed, but you felt something different. it was momo's cum, white, spurted, on your thigh. "did my baby cum untouched with that, huh?" you teased as you pumped her cock, and was surprised that it wasn't even half hard. it was still hard, ready to be inside of you.

"don't worry," you went on top of her, your hands directly touching her toned stomach, as you glide your wetness on her length. "can't wait to have your big cock inside of me," you moaned, lining up her wet cock to your hole. "mmgh," you slowly sit on it, the girth already stretching you out enough. "so fucking big, baby."

she held your arms, as you tried to sit down on her cock. slowly, you ride her, her length not fully in. she was getting impatient, so she rolled you two over, slamming her cock inside of you fully.

she lets you feel her cock inside of you, almost kissing your cervix with how big it is.

"so tight," she thrusts, holding you by the waist, fucking into you slowly to get you loosened up. "fuck, is it your first time?"

"no," you let yourself sway with her, already trembling with how big she was. "it's just that you're so big..."

"hmm, i know," she kisses you once more, a little gentle, as she tries to thrust in and out slowly. "just tell me if you're good already, hm? don't want to destroy my sweetheart like that."

you wrapped your arms around her and you smiled, "get rough with me," you whispered, your mouth forming into an 'o' as her thrusts fasten. "make me your bitch, come on- ah," you moaned, holding onto her biceps. "fuck, use that fucking cock."

"g'nna destroy your little cunt, baby," she moans, holding you by the waist, thrusting as your back arches to her touch. "i'm too big for you," she growls, putting her hand above the spot where she feels her cock bulge. "taking me so fucking well."

you continued to writhe below her, as she pumps her cock, in and out, your pleasure spot getting battered as you let out spurts of your arousal.

"you're so wet," she says, pulling out completely, and turning you over. she tucked a few pillows on your chest, letting you lean onto it as you're now positioned by her on fours. "i want you to stay like this. can you, baby?"

"hmm," you moaned, feeling your juices trickle down to the bedsheets. "fuck..."

"you're making a mess," she laughs, rubbing your folds languidly, as she inserted herself once more, shocking you. you were tighter, "you're gonna squirt on my cock, aren't you, messy girl?'

she went and rubbed your hardened clit, making you squirm and grip her sheets as you whined, screamed, and shouted her name.

she continues to thrust, fast, as she slaps your ass. "fucking slut, always having your ass out when you're at the bakery," she closes her eyes and remembered the times that your ass confined into your clothes too much as she squeezed on it, spreading it apart. "you've been wanting someone to fuck you like this, haven't you, hm?"

"yes, yes!" you screamed, holding onto her sheets as you slammed your hips back in time with hers. she pulls you to her by your hair, and she wrapped her arms around you as she thrusts, her fingers once again creating tight circles on your wet clit.

she huffs, kissing your neck once more, leaving a mark as she held you by the waist, thrusting uncontrollably when she felt your pussy walls pulse against her.

"momo," you moaned, weakly, as you leaned into her touch. "fuck, momo, fuck me more," you whined. "please-"

she pushed you gently again, making you go on fours, as she thrusts, faster than she was before, pumping her wet length in and out of you.

"am i fucking in you enough, huh," she asks in short breaths, her wet skin on your wet skin as you moaned onto her pillows. "so fucking tight, baby," she grunts, feeling your arousal grow by the minute. "cum for me."

you squirted as she continued to thrust, fucking your overused pussy as it pulsed.

"take it." she thrusts, slow, as she makes you feel her pulse. her warm liquid covers your inner walls, as she falls on top of you. "fuck," she pulls out, letting herself soften outside of you. she went and admired her work, your hole filled with her cum, dripping to your clit, but she was fast as she used her tongue to put it back in. she went back to you, making you come back to a laying position, and she makes you rest on her chest. "w's that good, baby?"

you nod against her warm chest, looking up at her. "so good," you smiled, kissing her cheek. "thank you, momo."

she chuckled, "that's nothing," she says. "how are you? did i get too rough? sorry if i d-"

"i told you, right?" you chuckled, holding her hand. "so no, you're not too much."

"well," she blushed still, as she Interlocked her fingers with yours. "what about a proper date?"

"maybe, that's too late to ask," you chuckled. "i mean, you already have me here, you know?"

she laughs, "just wanted to make sure." she kisses your forehead.

maybe, your year isn't that bad at all.

#twice imagines #twice smut #twice fluff #momo imagines #momo fluff #momo smut #twice momo

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aspiringwarriorlibrarian · 1 year

Text

You know with the latest episode focusing on how people think that Superman is too powerful to be trusted, that someone who can do what he can can't possibly just want to help people, it hits me how many of the antagonists think that because they're people who have a disproportionate amount of power, abuse it, and refuse to admit that.

The General spends his entire screen time surrounded by people he can either electrocute at will or who have to answer to him. He's threatened by Superman because Superman is someone he can't do that to. He was threatened by CADMUS because they had power but weren't obeying him. But he's always framing himself as the underdog, framing his actions as necessary, as "the hard call". He's arguably the most powerful character in the setting but he's always focusing on what he can't control and how to bring that under control, using force.

Ivo is a businessman with wealth and tech and the ability to wipe out his competitors without suffering legal consequences, but all he focuses on is what he doesn't have, and when the chips are down he resorts to, you guessed it, brute force to try and make them to do what he wants. First with burning his competitors, next with bulldozing homes using his crime connections, next with throwing Clark out when he doesn't play along, and finally with the Parasite suit to both force his investors to do what he wants and gain control over Superman.

Vicki is not a villainous example because she doesn't use violence to get her way, but she does have a degree of social and institutional power thanks to her position as a prestigious journalist. She's used that power to topple people who are considerably stronger than her, including crime families and corporations But she still isn't secure, she still wants more, and when Lois calls her for lying she says that she has to do these things to remain on top. All power, no responsibility for it.

They all have power, and yet all they think about is the power they don't have and how to get it. So of course they can't understand that he's just here to help. When you've spent your whole life scrabbling for power against other people who think the same, it's hard to believe that some people wouldn't care about that at all.

#my adventures with superman #superman

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horeformilfs · 4 months

Note

Sorry to bug ya but I was wondering if you’d mind a Alcina x ex umbrella experiment s/o

Like there super snuggly because “this touch doesn’t hurt what!!”

If you want to add some Demi fam in there I am not opposed because it’s cute

Only if you wanna

A Family's Embrace

Dimitrescu Family x Gender Neutral Reader

TW: Panic Attack, PTSD, Nightmares

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

The night was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of the wind against the ancient walls of Castle Dimitrescu. Y/N sat by the window, staring out at the endless stretch of darkness that cloaked the land. The room was warm, a stark contrast to the cold void outside, but inside, Y/N felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

Alcina had taken Y/N in under Mother Miranda's request. What was once a dark, twisted experiment of the Umbrella Corporation had somehow found refuge in the imposing, yet oddly comforting embrace of the castle and its inhabitants. Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and her daughters had taken to Y/N almost immediately, showering them with a kind of warmth Y/N had never known. Yet, despite this new-found sanctuary, there was a barrier Y/N couldn't seem to break down.

"Y/N," Alcina's voice, smooth and deep, echoed from the doorway. Y/N turned slightly, catching sight of the towering figure of Alcina, her presence filling the room with a mix of elegance and power.

"Yes, Lady Dimitrescu?" Y/N replied, their voice barely above a whisper.

Alcina's crimson lips curved into a gentle smile as she crossed the room, her steps almost silent. "How many times must I tell you, dear? Call me Alcina." She reached out, intending to place a comforting hand on Y/N's shoulder, but Y/N flinched away, pulling back instinctively.

A flicker of frustration crossed Alcina's face, but she quickly masked it. "Y/N, why do you shy away from me? Have I done something to make you uncomfortable?" Her voice was still gentle, but there was an edge to it now, a hint of impatience.

Y/N looked down, their hands trembling slightly. "It's not that, Alcina. I just... I don't want to." Their voice broke at the end, and they clenched their fists, trying to steady themselves.

Alcina's patience was wearing thin. "Not want to? You barely speak to me, you avoid my touch, and yet you never explain why. Do you not trust me? After everything I've done for you?" Her voice rose with each word, the calm exterior cracking to reveal the storm beneath.

Y/N's heart pounded in their chest, the pressure of Alcina's words weighing heavily on them. "It's not about trust," they whispered, tears beginning to blur their vision. "I just can't..."

Alcina's temper snapped. "Can't what, Y/N? Can't let anyone in? Can't accept that someone might actually care for you?" She loomed over Y/N, her shadow engulfing them. "I have given you everything, and yet you give me nothing in return!"

The words hit Y/N like a physical blow. They stood, shaking, their mind a chaotic swirl of fear and confusion. "I'm sorry," they choked out, before turning and fleeing the room, leaving Alcina standing there, her anger giving way to a painful realization.

Hours passed, and Alcina found herself pacing the halls of the castle, her mind replaying the confrontation over and over. She had always prided herself on her composure, but something about Y/N brought out a raw, unfiltered emotion she couldn't control.

Determined to make things right, she made her way to Y/N's room. She knocked softly, then opened the door, finding Y/N curled up on the bed, their face buried in their knees.

"Y/N," she said softly, the anger gone from her voice. "Please, talk to me."

Y/N looked into Alcina's eyes, seeing the sincerity and the pain reflected there. It was a moment of understanding, a fragile bridge being built between their two wounded souls. But the past held a tighter grip than Y/N had realized.

"I can't," Y/N whispered, the words heavy with regret. "I'm sorry, Alcina. I just can't let you in."

Alcina's hand froze, the warmth of her touch lingering in the air between them. A mixture of hurt and frustration flashed across her face. "Y/N, you don't have to do this alone. I want to help you, but you need to let me."

Y/N shook their head, tears streaming down their cheeks. "I'm broken, Alcina. And no matter how much you care, I can't change that. I don't know how to let anyone in without breaking even more."

The silence that followed was thick with unspoken words and shattered hopes. Alcina slowly pulled back, standing tall once more, her expression unreadable. "I understand," she said quietly, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her emotions. "I won't force you. But know this, Y/N: I am here for you, whenever you're ready."

Y/N nodded, unable to find the words to respond. They watched as Alcina left the room, her footsteps echoing down the hallway, leaving Y/N alone with their thoughts and fears.

The night seemed even darker now, the cold seeping back in as Y/N curled up on the bed once more. They knew Alcina's love was genuine, but the chains of the past were still too strong. And so, they lay there, wrapped in a cocoon of their own making, waiting for a dawn that felt so far away.

Weeks passed in a tense stalemate. Every attempt Alcina made to offer comfort was met with the same response—Y/N flinching away, retreating further into their shell. Alcina tried to be patient, but the constant rejection gnawed at her. She wanted to break through, to help, but Y/N's walls remained impenetrable.

One night, a storm raged outside the castle, the wind howling and rain lashing against the stone walls. Y/N lay in bed, tossing and turning as memories of the experiments flooded their mind. In their nightmares, they were back in the sterile, cold labs of Umbrella, the pain and fear suffocating them.

A loud crack of thunder shook the castle, jolting Y/N awake. Heart pounding, drenched in sweat, they couldn't catch their breath. Panic seized them, and they bolted out of bed, the need to escape overwhelming their thoughts. Barefoot and in their nightclothes, they ran through the corridors, the storm's fury mirrored in their frantic pace.

They found themselves in the courtyard, the rain drenching them instantly, but they didn't stop. Lightning illuminated the path as they made their way to Alcina's wing of the castle. The wind howled, the storm's ferocity making the journey treacherous, but Y/N didn't care. They needed Alcina.

Reaching her door, they pounded frantically, their fists a blur against the heavy wood. "Alcina! Please!" they cried, their voice barely audible over the storm's roar.

The door swung open, and Alcina stood there, her eyes wide with shock. "Y/N?" She pulled them inside, closing the door against the storm's rage. Y/N stood before her, drenched and trembling, their eyes wild with fear.

"What's wrong?" Alcina asked, her voice gentle but firm, trying to anchor Y/N in the present.

"I... I can't breathe," Y/N gasped, clutching at their chest. "The nightmares... I can't..." Their words trailed off into sobs, their body shaking uncontrollably.

Alcina's heart ached at the sight. She wanted nothing more than to hold Y/N, to offer the physical comfort she knew they needed. But she held back, respecting their boundaries. Instead, she knelt down to their level, her eyes meeting theirs.

"Y/N, look at me," she said softly. "You're safe here. Focus on my voice."

Y/N's eyes darted around the room, their breath coming in short, shallow gasps. Alcina spoke again, her voice steady and calm. "In and out, Y/N. Breathe with me. In... and out..."

Slowly, Y/N tried to match Alcina's rhythm. The world narrowed to the sound of her voice, a lifeline in the storm of their mind. "That's it. You're doing great," Alcina encouraged, her eyes never leaving theirs.

Minutes passed, each one feeling like an eternity, but gradually, Y/N's breathing steadied. Their sobs subsided, leaving them exhausted and still shivering from the rain and the aftermath of their panic attack.

Alcina rose gracefully, her movements slow and deliberate. "Let's get you out of these wet clothes," she suggested. "I have something dry you can wear."

Y/N nodded weakly, too drained to argue. Alcina retrieved a robe from her wardrobe and handed it to them. She turned her back, giving Y/N privacy to change. Once they were in dry clothes, Alcina led them to a chair by the fireplace, where the warmth began to seep back into their bones.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Alcina asked, sitting across from them, maintaining a respectful distance.

Y/N shook their head, their eyes downcast. "It was the same as always. The labs, the experiments... I couldn't escape."

Alcina's expression softened. "I'm sorry you have to go through this, Draga. I wish I could take away your pain."

"I know," Y/N whispered, their voice barely audible. "I'm sorry I keep pushing you away. It's not that I don't trust you. I just... I don't know how to accept help."

Alcina nodded, her eyes filled with understanding. "Healing takes time. And it's okay to take things at your own pace. Just know that I'm here for you, whenever you're ready."

Tears welled up in Y/N's eyes, and they looked at Alcina, seeing the unwavering support and care in her gaze. "Thank you," they said, their voice breaking. "I don't deserve your kindness."

Alcina shook her head gently. "Everyone deserves kindness, Draga Mae . Especially you."

For a moment, the room was silent, the storm outside a distant roar. Y/N took a deep breath, feeling a small measure of peace for the first time in what felt like forever. They still had a long way to go, but with Alcina by their side, maybe, just maybe, they could start to believe in the possibility of healing.

As the fire crackled and the storm raged on, Y/N felt a fragile hope begin to take root, nurtured by the warmth of Alcina's unwavering support. It wasn't a solution, but it was a step. And in that moment, it was enough.

As the night slowly passed, Alcina stayed awake with Y/N, the storm outside gradually subsiding. The fire crackled softly, casting flickering shadows on the walls. Alcina kept a watchful eye on Y/N, who sat wrapped in a blanket, still trembling slightly from the ordeal.

After around two hours, Y/N, drained and needing sleep, gently curled into Alcina's side. Alcina hesitated for a moment, then softly rested her hand on Y/N's back. Y/N flinched but didn't pull away, a small but significant step.

"Draga," Alcina murmured, her voice gentle, "would it be alright if I held you?"

Y/N hesitated, their mind a whirl of conflicting emotions. The fear and trauma were still there, but so was Alcina's unwavering patience and care. Finally, they nodded, their voice barely a whisper. "Yes."

With utmost care, Alcina took Y/N and pulled them into her lap, wrapping her arms around them securely. Her touch was firm but gentle, a protective embrace that sought to shield rather than confine. It took a while for Y/N to relax, their body stiff and tense. Alcina remained still, her warmth a steady presence against Y/N's fears.

Gradually, Y/N's breathing slowed, and the tension began to melt away. They snuggled closer into Alcina's embrace, finding comfort in the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. "It's actually not bad," Y/N mumbled, their voice muffled against Alcina's chest.

Alcina smiled softly, her heart swelling with a mix of relief and tenderness. "I'm glad," she whispered, her hand gently stroking Y/N's hair. "Rest now, sweetheart. You're safe."

As Y/N and Alcina settled into their embrace, the tranquility of the moment was interrupted by a soft knock at the door. Alcina glanced towards it, a hint of curiosity in her eyes, before rising to answer.

"Come in," she called out, her voice carrying a warmth that invited entry.

The door creaked open, revealing Daniela, Cassandra, and Bela standing in the doorway, their expressions a mix of concern and determination.

"We wanted to stay with you tonight, Mother," Daniela spoke up, her voice surprisingly gentle compared to her usual playful tone.

Y/N's heart sank at the sight of the three daughters, realizing they were intruding on what was meant to be a private moment. They began to untangle themselves from Alcina's embrace, intending to make a quick exit, but Bela's voice stopped them in their tracks.

"Where do you think you're going, little one?" Bela asked, her tone softer than usual, a hint of warmth in her gaze.

Y/N hesitated, unsure of how to respond. "I... I was just going to leave, so you could have time together," they murmured, their voice barely above a whisper.

Cassandra stepped forward, her expression earnest. "No, we want you to stay," she said firmly, her eyes meeting Y/N's with unwavering sincerity.

Y/N's heart swelled at the unexpected invitation, but they couldn't shake the feeling of being out of place. "It's really okay, I don't want to intrude," they protested, their gaze flickering between the three sisters.

Bela approached them, her movements graceful yet purposeful. "Nonsense, little one," she said gently, reaching out to take Y/N's hand. "You're not intruding. You're part of our family now."

Tears welled up in Y/N's eyes at the simple, yet profound words. They nodded, their voice catching in their throat. "Thank you," they whispered, overwhelmed by the acceptance they found in the Dimitrescu sisters.

With a soft smile, Bela led Y/N back towards the bed, where Daniela had already curled up in Alcina's lap. Cassandra and Bela made room for Y/N to join them, and soon they were surrounded by the comforting presence of the Dimitrescu family.

As they settled in, Y/N felt a sense of belonging wash over them, a feeling they hadn't experienced in a long time. Bela's arm draped around them, offering a sense of security they had longed for. When tears threatened to spill once more, Bela gently brushed them away, her touch tender and reassuring.

"It's okay, little one," Bela whispered, her voice a soothing melody in the quiet room. "You're safe here with us."

And in that moment, as the storm raged outside and the fire crackled softly, Y/N knew they had found a home, not just within the walls of Castle Dimitrescu, but within the hearts of its inhabitants. And as they nestled closer into the embrace of their newfound family, they allowed themselves to believe that maybe, just maybe, they could find healing and happiness in the warmth of their love.

#resident evil village #alcina dimitrescu #alcina dimitriscu x reader #alcina dimitrescu x gender neutral reader #alcina dimitrescu imagine #alcina x reader #lady dimitrescu x reader #lady dimitrescu x gender neutral reader #lady dimitrescu imagine #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu

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cipheramnesia · 7 months

Text

This is the process my brain goes through every time I see anything about Netflix Avatar The Last Airbender.

My first reaction is always: Why? The original, although not without flaws, doesn't leave a lot of room to improve. A good remake or adaptation usually involves an updated context or change in perspective that adds to the original work and gives it new meaning. It's a risky undertaking because it usually involves wanting to take on something established as iconic and make it your own. But Netflix is a corporation and seems very risk averse for the most part. Its only investment is in the name recognition of AtLA. It's hard to visualize Netflix deliberately taking a big risk on an expensive show.

My second reaction is: How? The original series is about 1400 minutes over 61 episodes, and it still had to rush the ending. We're looking at 8 episodes of roughly 45-60 minutes per episode for season 1, which would require Netflix to let it run more than 3 seasons, if the series has similar pacing. Historically however Netflix shows have glacial pacing, and rarely make three seasons. Not really sure how they plan to tell the story if the series is anything like the average Netflix series, meaning it either needs to undercut the story or let the series breathe for at least five seasons. But nothing Netflix has done makes me want to watch anything they make as an ongoing series? Why bother, they cancel everything I enjoy. So I wonder how. What's the hook to say "this will be able to provide something new and interesting compared to the original, and will be allowed to tell the complete story."

Which leads me to think, but you can't judge if something is good without seeing it. Except none of this is about whether it's good, I just find myself wondering what are the odds it's worth the effort? They're low, and it has nothing to do with whether or not it's even any good on its own merits.

Following this, I ask myself, what would a good version of this be. Imagine you are making a live action series with eight hour long episodes per season based on a children's cartoon with 20 thirty minute episodes per season. You are trying to encompass a story which was presented over three seasons as a cartoon, and you do not know if you will have more than those eight episodes. It's made for Netflix which, in terms of a company which will protect the hard earned fruits of your artistic labor, is the fox guarding the henhouse. What do you do?

If you are looking to make something good, that respects your audience investment and your own work, you make radical changes to the story. You change the pacing, the character arcs, the plot arcs. You make sure you deliver a complete story in those episodes with as much respect for the original work and as many new ideas as you can.

Except, at that point, what is even the point of a remake. The only way to work with it is either to trust Netflix allowing you to finish the story (which you'd need to be incredibly naive to do), or tell a story so different it may as well be wholly original. And that's where I always end up. Like, it'll probably be fine, but what's the point of it all? Another vanishing digital property to get canceled because of some undefinable failure to return on investment.

I think about it a lot because the two ends of the spectrum seem to be "dunk on every new piece of information" or "wait and see" but the only conclusion I can ever reach is "why even care?" That's been the lesson to take home from digital streaming in general when it comes to series, but Netflix in particular, and honestly for movie series too. If it can't be self contained, the companies who produce and release these kinds of series just cannot be trusted with it, and there are too many good original stories being put out to care anymore about big budget promises that one day they will definitely for sure deliver a finished story, this time for real.

I care enough to think about why I don't feel anything at all about Netflix Avatar. It'll be fine, whatever else. Just fine.

#netflix avatar

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thegoldencontracts · 5 months

Note

What do you think about Self aware!Housewardens and what are your Headcanons for them HSBSJJAJAJAHA idk I've been into ddlc recently.

FELLOW DDLC + TWST FAN SPOTTED I MUST RAMBLE

I'm going to make more specific fics with this later because who doesn't like self-aware AUs? Probably someone but that someone is not me

Ignorance is Bliss

The housewardens of Night Raven College come to a crippling realization about the truth of their world. They all handle it in different ways.

Riddle, who knows he's in a game, that everyone here is fake. What did he learn all these rules for? What was the point of his suffering? He's just a character to be watched by others for amusement's sake. Was the Queen of Hearts a mere character too? Did any of this have meaning? But then he sees you. You're real, and he's enraptured. What are the rules of your world, the real world where life isn't some story to be played? Though Riddle can't help but envy you, he really does wish to get to know you better.

Leona is hit by the revelation after his overblot. Everything he's gone through was all a part of some game. Just a way to keep players entertained. You're real. You'll never have to deal with the crippling realization that everything you say's a part of some script, that whole life's a game you'll never be able to leave. More than anything, Leona hates the fact that he knows your kindness towards him is all fake, but he still can't help but be captivated.

Azul is envious, just like Leona. He's gone through all of this just for entertainment? His overblot, his family, his world- none of it was real? And you're there, watching his suffering like it's some game for you to play, because that's really all it is. A game. He's a character in a game. But, seeing how real you are, even if your words are conveyed through the black sprite of a self-insert protagonist, how genuine your kindness is - it draws him in. He's meant to be a cold, rational individual, but perhaps he can be a bit softer with you. You won't mock him. You won't leave. And besides, if this really is some odd game, can't Azul get more of your gems with gap Moe?

Kalim is rather accepting of his circumstances. Sure, he's heartbroken to see the truth - that his whole life's a part of some gacha game meant to make some massive corporation called Disney more money, but can he really do anything about it? Besides, Kalim has always been someone who believes in making the best of the terrible hand he's been dealt. He's stayed kind in the face on constant poisoning attempts, and he's kept his heart in a world where there was no one he could trust. And in his attempts to make the best of his situation, he can't help but get closer to you. After all, you're a real person, and you don't gain anything from turning on him. You appreciate his kindness, and even if there's a fourth-wall separating the two of you, Kalim's grateful.

Vil is shaken by the revelation. This is all a game? You're just here to be entertained? But in spite of how worldview-shattering the realization that he's just a game character meant to Garner profit is, he can't help but he oddly comforted. Nothing's wrong with him. Neige 's performance was supposed to be worse than his, and the ordeal at VDC was just as unfair as he thought. Though Vil isn't exactly fine and dandy, he's not quite broken either. And, in the actual fanbase of this game he's in, people like him better than Neige? And you're one of those people? If it turns out you write fanfic or draw fanart of him, he'll be very appreciative.

Idia's shocked. His brother's death, his overblot, all the overblots, they were setups for him to be a character in some non-otome gacha game? It's weird. Idia's all too used to not being in control of his life, though. He just tries to cope in any way he can. He's definitely going to try and learn about his fandom, what type of ships and fanfic and fanart and the like are made about him. He's one of the most likely to try and ask you about the fandom. If you make fancontent for him, he's going to be especially interested. Be warned, though, he will nitpick your characterization of him so hard. At least your stats are better now, I guess?

Malleus is already an isolated individual, and now you're telling him what little connection to others he has is fake? In all honesty, he's definitely the most attached to you out of all the dorm heads. You're the only real friend he'll ever be able to have. The only real friend any of them will ever be able to have. He does find comfort in his massive fanbase, though. You're telling him all these people care for him, and because of the difference in the way time passes in game vs in reality, they won't die in a matter of what feels like seconds for him? As shaken as he is by everything, it really is a comfort.

#azul ashengrotto #twisted wonderland #riddle rosehearts x reader #riddle Rosehearts #leona kingsholar x reader #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto x reader #kalim al asim x reader #kalim al asim #vil schoenheit #vil schoenheit x reader #idia shroud x reader #idia shroud #malleus draconia x reader #malleus draconia

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ash-says · 4 months

Text

Tips on how to dodge personal questions in a Professional Setting:

I know. I know. I said I will be on a break and I still stand by that but it was difficult to throw away the sudden surge of motivation so here I am.

I received a request to make a post on this long back so here is your girl serving it. Honestly I am not much of an expert at it either but I have some ways that work sometimes so here goes nothing.

1) Do not give in to the pressure.

Literally that's the starting point. Whenever someone asks us a personal question we feel obligated at some level to answer because of xyz reasons. That's why we first need to escape the pressure of answering.

2) Straightforwardly and Politely state I am not comfortable answering that.

The bulletproof method. No explanation needed.

3) If you are in a situation where the person is being really nosy and can't take a no for an answer. Try saying to them,"I don't understand how it's relevant to our topic of discussion."

4) If you are not in a position to decline at all which happens when the person asking the question is of higher authority and has influence in this situation give vague answers that lead nowhere.

Example: So are you dating anyone?

It's tough to say in particular you know the dating scene nowadays it's difficult to put a name on anything.

Or what do you do on your weekends?

Nothing just the usuals. I am an office worker after all.

This creates a sense of familiarity with the crowd but at the same time does not reveal anything in precision.

5) Turn the topic on them. One of the smartest things you can do is make them the central focus. People love to talk about themselves so it works most of the time until you come across someone truly smart.

Example: hey how's the new office? Are you liking it here?

Ans: Well I am still getting used to the environment here. What about you? How long have you been working here?

6) Another thing you can do is dance around the topic but not on the topic. You remember how you used to write a 1 mark question for 5 marks exactly like that. Tell the prequel and sequel of the question but never answer the exact question.

7) This one is kinda rude I won't suggest doing it around randomly but if you have been in the corporate space for sometime you would know that there are some people who like to ask things only to belittle you or spread gossip or to be mean. The jealous ones that don't have a life of their own.

In case they ask something or say something rude or cross a boundary just start singing a song or change the topic completely. Don't acknowledge anything they say and continue with your random talks or humming. Trust me it's the easiest way to get rid of them.

Still some are persistent and will try to get an answer. Simply say it's not worth discussing. It's boring.

8) Apart from that there are subtle things you can do which can create a persona that conveys you are not open towards personal questions. You can do it by simply detaching yourself whenever someone starts talking about their personal lives. Don't be a participant or a listener. It gives a que you are not looking to bond personally and many other similar things.

9) If you are truly in a toxic work culture where your colleagues seem to constantly bug and bully you to share personal stuff (happened with me in my previous workplace) Firmly state,"I come here to work not to make personal relations."

10) Ignore.

I hope it helps even a little there's not much we can do without offending the other person but we can be gentle and polite in our tone and gesture that's the only way.

That's all for today's show on ash-says. Stay tuned for more illegal tricks and explosive opinions.

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verysium · 7 months

Note

I’ve been seeing some discourse around twitter about the blue lock boys and whether they’d be a loyal bf or not 😭 Curious to know who do you think would be more inclined to cheat or who just wouldn’t at all!!!

I saw someone say sae would 100% cheat like whattt I feel like he wouldn’t even bother looking at anyone else if he already has someone (Cuz I mean dating him would likely mean you actually mean something to him) but I digress

ok anon you had me pulling up a whole argumentative essay here cus WHO TF SAID SAE WOULD 100% CHEAT??? 😔 that mischaracterization is so painfully inaccurate. twitter really took the whole emotionally unavailable itoshi archetype and ran with it. let me just clear the air here because my man deserves some explanation.

sae itoshi would not cheat. as in capital N and capital O. he took nearly an entire decade off his life just to work on his own issues and finally form a functional and healthy relationship with another human being. and you're telling me he's just going to let all that wash down the drain for someone else? 😒 twitter logic really be showing its illogical side here. apparently a man can be loyal to a professional sports career for eighteen years, but he can't be loyal to his significant other.

i think this misunderstanding probably happened cus of shidou. people read the manga and saw that sae dropped rin for a bug-eyed freak and automatically assumed he was disloyal. 😑 let me just say two things here:

(1) sae and shidou's relationship is strictly professional. imagine being stuck in an god awful corporate office with coworkers who bore you with their weaponized incompetence and a boss who annoys the living shit out of you. and then one day, the company hires a new recruit who is probably the most unhinged and debauched creature known to man. you're probably left wondering how he even got hired in the first place. but then you find out...he's useful. he takes risks and gets a high return on what he invests. it's impulsive and stupid, really. but at least it's unconventional and outside-the-box. he has your interest piqued. that's basically sae and shidou in a nutshell.

(2) just because sae gave shidou his number after the u-20 game does NOT mean he would do the same to any other person who would try to encroach on your relationship. and let's be real here. sae would get one text from shidou and block his contact.

anyways, here is my analysis on the bllk boys in general. introducing the anti-cheating to pro-cheating spectrum:

(A) cannot cheat under any circumstance (as in they already hate the fact that they live on a planet with 8.1 billion other people who are not you):

itoshi brothers (atp they don't even have the physical or mental capacity to entertain a third party), ness, reo

(B) cannot cheat due to physical incapability (literally cannot pull anyone within a five-meter radius to cheat with):

ego, igarashi, raichi, bachira (not that he's in any way unattractive...it's just...i feel like he would purposefully act weird to drive off people who aren't you)

yukimiya, barou, kunigami, noa, loki, gagamaru, chigiri, niko, hiori, karasu (baby boy literally felt inferior cus his crush was the cutest in his class), kurona (head empty, just you)

(D) would not cheat (on you but everyone else is not included)

isagi (unintentionally a homewrecker to others but would never let anyone homewreck his relationship with you), leonardo (idk why but i just don't trust him entirely)

(E) could cheat (depends on what they get out of it):

kaiser, shidou (honestly what did you expect when you willingly dated a blonde man...)

(F) would cheat (either proven by canon or they accidentally fucked up somehow):

otoya, oliver, nagi

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ms-demeanor · 8 months

Note

Okay so, how exactly do Password Managers work?

Because I'm pretty sure that giving some random corporation all my passwords would just make it EASIER for my personal info to get leaked.

I mean it is genuinely complicated; I don't know if you saw my explanation about dominoes yesterday, but basically you're not giving the company your information. You are creating an account with a company and they are handing you a tool that is extremely securely encrypted to store your passwords in. The company never has access to your passwords, or to the key you use to unlock your account. What they have access to is the cryptographic hash of your key to prove that it is you trying to access the account, but they can't reverse engineer the key that you use.

It's the same sort of process that encrypted email services like ProtonMail use. It's zero-knowledge storage. All that the password manager company is storing (in the case of a good password manager like Bitwarden) is up to 1gb of encrypted data for free users. They don't have access to your information. They couldn't get into it if they wanted to. All that they know about you is whatever information you used to register for the service and broad information about creation of the account.

Part of the reason that I recommend Bitwarden is that it is both open source and pretty widely used and recommended.

Open source security products are often considered more secure than closed-source tools because they can be examined and tested at the source-code level by *anyone* to check for vulnerabilities and holes in the security. Functionally what this means is that you have very smart, very motivated, and very security-conscious people testing products like Bitwarden for flaws and reporting them immediately.

I'm not great at explaining cryptographic hashing so I'm in a position where basically all I can tell you is "Trust me it works, and if that's not enough you have to go do some reading about hashing because I can't explain it." This is the barrier that a LOT of people have to using a password manager, and it's frustrating because genuinely, it is not something that people who work in security worry about *at all.*

When we're working with security the concern about password managers is *never* that a zero-knowledge company is going to have a leak. The concern is that data might actually be stored in plaintext (something you don't have to worry about with bitwarden because if that was the case everyone on the forums would be screaming their heads off at all times, and they are not) or that a phishing campaign is going to trick a user into handing over their password to the password manager.

But yeah, when you start using a good password manager with zero-knowledge storage, you aren't handing your data to a company. What's happening is that the company is handing YOU a tiny safe. The tiny safe has a ten-thousand-digit combination lock that you set the code for, and the company has no way of figuring out that code. They're hoping that you will pay them for the safe. And if you forget your code, you're screwed - the company can't get you access because, again, they have no way of getting the code. They don't store it, they don't see it, they don't know it, they can't produce it if ordered to do so at trial, and they can't reset the code.

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laora-ryn · 3 months

Text

so I have a Magnus Protocol theory. it's not an airtight theory, but I think it holds enough water that I feel confident posting this today now that ep 21 is live

I think [ERROR] is Jonathan Sims, The Archivist. or what's become of him. or what's left of him

The short version:

Tape recorders spontaneously appear around [ERROR] and their victims

People are compelled to start reciting statements. We have an n of 3 total, but an n of 1 (of 3) where the statement and [ERROR] are directly linked

They were trapped in a water-logged space beneath the Archivist's office of the Magnus Institute, before Sam accidentally let them out

They seem to have a vested interest in protecting Gwen "Jon Sims' closest archetype in Protocol" Bouchard

The long version is under the cut because hooooo boy did it get long

I'll start with the obvious question. "[ERROR] is credited as voiced by Beth Eyre! we do hear their voice in Breaking Ground, and it doesn't sound like Jon!"

Answer 1: it would be extremely way too obvious if Jonny voiced this character, if they didn't want people to make the connection immediately

Answer 2: I doubt what [ERROR] sounds like right now is going to matter too much in the long run, if it isn't meant to, because it sounds like they're probably some kind of ghost/apparition, and their appearances are so heavily distorted audio-wise that I just. don't really trust them myself, tbh?

But it probably would be silly to forget that Beth Eyre did appear in TMA, exactly once. She voiced the lady who witnessed the attempted Flesh ritual and came to give a statement to Gertrude about it. As far as I can tell, that lady didn't meet Jon at all. I feel like it's probably premature to say this is a simple case of "reusing the VA because we like them," but I don't think it's completely out of the question

so to the matter of [ERROR] themselves, the only physical description we get of them is "manky old git," courtesy of Ink5oul. They seem like the type to think anyone over 30 is "old," so take that with a grain of salt lol

The in-scene descriptors we get of [ERROR] are as follows:

Episode 10:

The water is gently disturbed below. Then there is a thud on the hidden wooden trapdoor and the rattle of a padlock.

There is the distinct sound of a key being dragged across wood, then being blindly fumbled in a lock which finally clicks.

The trap door opens, the lock falling away and [ERROR] emerges and takes a shuddering breath..

Episode 21:

A Figure emerges, shrouded in a cloak of whispers.

The Figure continues to emerge, a nightmarish specter of an older world, slowly enveloping Ink5oul’s brash bravado.

Ink5oul reluctantly releases GWEN. She sprints away still gabbling as she flees.

The Figure does not move.

Beat. The Figure turns to Ink5oul.

The Figure breathes deeply, a strange and disconcerting sound, enveloped in pained whispers.

The Figure recedes.

Voice lines from episode 21:

"MINE"

"ALL OF THEM, MINE"

"THERE IS MORE"

"NO. NOT HERE. ELSEWHERE..."

So here's what I'm taking away from this list:

[ERROR] is at least in some way corporeal, in that they can interact with the physical world

They seem to do a lot of breathing. it is unpleasant to listen to

They appear to be followed around by whispers? I'm taking the transcripts' word on that one, because my hearing is crap and I can't hear the sound effect. But I'm including it because it might be relevant

They have either a powerful enough presence/aura, or did something visibly that we didn't hear, enough to make Ink5oul back down. Ink5oul, who three minutes ago cut off a man's arm because he thought about getting in their way. Ink5oul, who definitely was Not going to let Gwen go without a fight. Ink5oul, a powerful new avatar, backed down after barely a fight at all

"a nightmarish spectre of an older world" has terrifying connotations I am not yet ready to tackle!

So... to go through my points from earlier I guess aha:

THE TAPE RECORDERS

We've seen tape recorders pop up 3 times so far:

episode 10 in the Archivist's office

episode 15 when Alice encounters the drowning woman

episode 21 when Gwen is cornered by Ink5oul

Two of these, [ERROR] shows up directly. In episode 15, we have no [ERROR] that we can see, but we DO see someone who is very likely one of [ERROR'S] victims? after-effects? which leads into:

THE COMPELLED STATEMENTS

We've heard of 3 (4, ish) compelled statements so far:

episode 15, the drowning woman

episode 18, the woman who started speaking on the autopsy table

(arguably) episode 20, where Ink5oul gives a monologue that sounds Very Much Like a statement. However, the mechanism of how this happened is still unclear

episode 21, Gwen spontaneously starts giving a statement relatively coherently when she's been hysterical - immediately after Ink5oul's tattoo gun touched her skin, and literally three seconds before [ERROR] shows up and lays claim to her

Two of these are recorded on tape recorders, as above. One of them (Ink5oul's) is recorded on Gwen's phone.

Episode 18, according to the coroner's report, was transcribed longhand by the doctor while the victim was speaking. Presumably, they eventually loaded it into her chart, where it was picked up by Freddy. However, it feels significant to me that the initial recording of the statement was done in a non-digital way

THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE

Does this even need to be a section tbh? lol

I would like to point out some oddities from episode 10 that may or may not be relevant to [ERROR]:

Alice and RedCanary both specifically call out a weird floor carving in the atrium, that somehow survived the fire

The key to the trapdoor was at the bottom of a filing cabinet?

The LOCK on the trapdoor, which appears to have been keeping [ERROR] trapped, was on the UNDERSIDE of the trapdoor??

THE TIES TO GWEN

Please consider Gwen Bouchard for a moment.

Gwen is a young employee of the OIAR who's worked there for four-ish years. She's recently been promoted.

She's finding out very quickly that she's in over her head with this job, but doesn't feel able to ask her coworkers for help.

She's rash, and has a short temper, and has exacting standards, and doesn't think very highly of her coworkers. She's an ass, but she's not a bad person - when she realizes that something she did caused other people to suffer, she was genuinely horrified.

Her boss is deliberately obtuse and unhelpful. Her boss is deliberately sending her into dangerous situations without all the facts or even any information at all, making her go face to face with monsters with the power to seriously harm or even kill her.

All this, while she barely has any concept that the monsters she's been reading about are very real and very dangerous. She has, just moments ago, been visibly marked by a monster who's been stalking her with a stated intention to cause permanent, even fatal, injury

EDITED TO ADD: Gwen had a childhood encounter with something presumably supernatural. Something involving a door that shouldn't have been opened

It feels very, very in-character for Jon Sims, or what's left of him, or an Archivist that has any scrap of Jon Sims left in them, to see her and see her trajectory, and say "no, absolutely not." Jon Sims, who - last time we saw him - said "I'd rather kill our doomed world myself than make anyone in another hypothetical reality go through what I have."

"[She's] mine - all of them, mine." Gwen Bouchard, a young member of an office with a job she can't even begin to understand. Her coworkers: Alice Dyer, a friendly, sarcastic woman with a cheerful front and a younger brother she adores. Sam Khalid, a man far too curious for his own good, who will follow a lead into danger if it means he might get some goddamn answers. Colin Becher, a man who's starting to understand what they've been wrapped up in, and who is quickly letting it consume him. And Celia Ripley, a woman [ERROR] may or may remember or recognize from the last time they were anything approaching human

Jon, or what's left of him, or what he's become, seeing all the same parallels that the audience has been seeing since episode one, and deciding to do something about it. To be the protector he, and Tim, and Sasha, and Martin so desperately needed. Laying claim to the OIAR staff in order to prevent them from being harmed by other monsters. Helping in maybe the only way he can, as he is right now

And maybe I'm wildly off-base! Maybe I'll be proven wrong in episode 22, or episode 30, or episode 90! but the more I think about this meta the more I love it, and the more sense it makes to me

#the magnus protocol #the magnus protocol spoilers #tmagp spoilers #tmagp #episode 21 #mine #idk what the tags are. i havent been in the tumblr fandom i hope those catch everyone #who wants to block spoilers i mean #this was the post i lost yesterday ajd had to retype from the ground up but as i was retyping it #its making more and more sense to me #i love it and hate it equally because of what it means for jo #and what it means for everyone else

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emptyjunior · 9 months

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I'm rewatching Starstruck in the break, can I say I DESPERATELY would have loved to have seen this intergalactic chase across the stars from the Other Side😭

Like okay, campaign where you're a crew of kooky spacers on the run, classic, fun, oh the adventures we had.., can you Imagine what this story would have been like from the pursuers side? From Lucienne and UFTP?

You're Lucienne and you just got SCREWED on the corporate ladder and are already dealing with some rich trust fund kid DYING yet also leaving you in Charge of an insane company.

And during that you find out oh my god the world might be destroyed?? And there's a Princeps who has a super special computer that will decide the fate of the universe? So you stash them away to keep them safe and go back to covering up the murder you might be to blame for, because universe destroying computer is like priority TWO right now.

And then you find out?? Your ex lover friend has become a pirate???! And has STOLEN the princeps??! AND THE WORLD ENDING COMPUTER??! And quit??! And posted Nudes to the world??! And they look amazing?

So okay okay new priority is FIND THEM right NOW so you send all the resources in the world to go snatch them up which should be easy enough because you've seen them run, they're literally a weak and flailing office worker in a pencil skirt.

Welp! Next report comes in and they exploded a building with sex putty??? And decimated a fleet of the best fighters you can hire? And had time to go to a dogshow in between???

Fine, okay, it's fine because you KNOW they'll slip up again and they do! They show up,,., in a live stream? Partying with the ceo of space uber?? In a casino? That they just OPENED? WHILE THEY'RE ON THE RUN?!

So you go to that planet and go to contact the sheriff and his Head is on a Fucking Spike because your Friend absolutely wasted him? And kicked every police officer out of town so the whole town could go super super hard for space burning man?

And have escaped Again.

So now you're in some kind of room with like 20 screens and probably two blackberries in each hand, going full manhunt. Face recognition software, algorithms, zooming in on photos and yelling Enhance.

And you find them! And they👏 are👏 at👏 Disneyland👏! What! The! Fuck!

You send your best guys again! (And also??! These 'best guys' maybe have a space slug in their skull that's going to end the world! Can't even focus on that rn!). And then when they get back, happy and proud they show you the Princeps that they've captured and it's god damned thin air! Because it was a hologram and this dumb sonuva bitch is zonked out of his mind from a fish psychic. Great, of course. Of Course.

You're being hounded by your company, you still don't know where your 'dead fiance' is, you're running out of time. How are you ever going to find them- You check your phone they are doing a hunger games at Las Vegas. And a rival company has made them influencers. And they're famous.

Of course.

But you do pull it off in the end! You get them! You imprison them! And their one fatal flaw? They decided to reunite one of their crew members with their birth mother while being wanted criminals.

So that's the chase you got them (they escape again of course they escape, and the birth mother turns out to be a Hell of a business woman and maybe just did a masterful corporate maneuver on you.)

And it's so important to know that this entire time you've been chasing a Big Hot Dog.

#dimension 20 #a starstruck odyssey #lucienne rex #margaret encino #d20 #dnd #stody #d20 starstruck

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colorsisgoodactually · 7 months

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I gotta say one of the biggest casualties of AI art is one of my favorite things in this fandom, SnapCube's Sonic Destruciton.

For those unaware Sonic Destruction is an AI generated Sonic script that is maybe one of the most batshit insane things to ever exist. I love it. It's my comfort video. I've seen both episodes more times that I can count and will constantly quote along with them. My backup choice for the name of this blog was going to be a Destruction reference.

With the movement to AI art actually putting the livelihood of real artists in jeopardy it adds a horrible, ugly cloud over something that was once very easy to enjoy. And the worst part is that destruction actively proves WHY AI writing isn't the future.

Destruction is NONSENSE. Complete and utter NONSENSE. The only reasons it KIND OF makes sense is because Penny Parker works extremely hard to tie the script into some cohesive narrative. But the joy of Destruction is that there is a very specific KIND of nonsense that can ONLY come from AI. Things that NO HUMAN IN THIER RIGHT MIND would write.

Things like there being two Shadows for no reason, the endless repetition of "large", "Sonic I think you should sit there" Shadow points to the bathtub, Charlamaigne Bee, Shadow the Hedgehog for the PS2 being a documentary but also Shadow isn't Shadow it's Silver that's Shadow and ARE YOU CONFUSED YET?, Sonic is a human for no reason, Tails and Knuckles have gone feral for no reason, and whether or not this takes place on earth or if "Earth" is a simulation inside a PS2 game.

The point is that AI can't be trusted to write a cohesive narrative. It's not smart enough. So the fun comes from watching it make the wildest creative choices possible and watching Penny struggle in vain to make it make SOME kind of sense and watching the cast react.

It's a beautiful commentary on why AI can't replace writers and also brilliantly funny and like all great Sci-Fi cautionary tales, major corporations have looked at it and gone, "actually lemme get in on that action."

Not sure what point I was trying to make here, just that it sucks that the world is a little less bright now that people are actually trying to push AI beyond what it's capable of to the detriment of other humans.

The threat was never an AI turning evil, it was AI empowering already evil humans.

#AI #AI Art #Sonic #Sonic Destruction #Snapcube #Snapcube Fandubs

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severus-snaps · 3 months

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Legilimency & Occlumency & Emotion

i was reading something somewhere (possibly on my binge of metas last night, but who knows) that Snape was very talented at Occlumency, but just about average at Legilimency - but I respectfully disagree, and here's a whole (3k word) accidental ramble about it, which started as an observation and devolved into how I think Legilimency/Occlumency works in the context of Snape and Voldemort, and why I interpret it differently than it being (entirely) magical dissociation and actually quite an emotion-based skill once it's more complex TLDR: I've often seen Occlumency described/conceptualised as a "shield" or some kind of suppressed emotionless state, but I discovered upon writing this that I think it can be quite a bit more complex and emotional, actually - just like Snape <3

Snape's Talents

The idea that got me rambling today went something like "Draco, who only had a handful of lessons from Bellatrix, was able to keep Snape out of his mind using Occlumency - so Snape can't have been a very good Legilimens, or Occlumency was easy to do"

And I do agree that Snape was probably better at Occlumency than Legilimency by sheer quantity of practice alone - and also that, outside of using it on Harry (and Draco) when they were up to mischief, and Snape likely wishing he could use it to work out what Dumbledore was hiding from him, Snape had no desire to see, hear, interpret or otherwise get the gist of what anyone at Hogwarts was thinking - but especially not a bunch of pubescent students, nor colleagues who liked him on a surface level but obviously were not close enough to think Something Was Up when he killed Dumbledore (which, fair in some ways, unfair in others, but I digress)

[side note: Snape can't have just not used Occlumency for over a decade before Voldemort's return, so I like to think of him and Dumbledore practicing to keep his skills sharp - although I expect that would be another 'fun' way for Dumbledore to hold Snape in chains which would make for an interesting fic]

I suspect that if Snape had chosen to, he could've invaded Draco's mind in that scene, broken through whatever defenses Draco used - but that's not a very Snape thing to do to a student, and especially not one he knows well, was a family friend of, has closely seen grow up, and probably has a soft spot for. It's very reminiscent of his conversation with Narcissa, to me. Throughout that entire conversation with Draco, Snape was trying to comfort Draco, empathise with him, get Draco to trust him, confide in him, offer support to Draco whether he wanted it or not - not further alienate him to a point where Snape couldn't help. And besides, invading Draco's mind aggressively doesn't sit very well with his vow "to the best of your ability, protect him from harm".

And as for Harry's lessons, Harry was using spells - which Snape seemed surprised, interested, and almost impressed to learn that were effective against Legilimency, which isn't surprising in itself as it's not a widely used area of magic. And since Harry had no idea that Snape (and probably Dumbledore) were 'reading his mind' for years before he learnt about Legi/Occlumency, I don't expect many people would know if Snape used it, or put up a fight using those methods - other Death Eaters probably stuck to Occluding, because it would hardly garner any favour if they cast a stinging hex or Protego at Voldemort or in a DE meeting Which brings me back to my other point as well, which was that "Occlumency possibly wasn't difficult to do". On a rudimentary level that might be true (at least insofar as any advanced magic was difficult to do - Harry was actually quite talented, e.g. casting a corporeal patronus at 13/14 or whatever, and Draco could do it after a few lessons with Bellatrix). Harry learnt almost despite Snape, because he didn't take instruction from him well and because Snape is (intentionally) abrasive in lessons (which I could go on about, since Snape couldn't really be nice to Harry when Voldemort was possibly looking through harry's eyes at any given moment - and as other metas have pointed out was another layer to Snape's rage when Harry looked at his memories). But Snape could do it without a wand, without an incantation, so he was reasonably skilled - imagine casting a full body Patronus or other impressive spell with neither a wand nor an incantation

Also we don't know precisely how long Draco had lessons for, it might have been loads and he was actually pretty good, or it might have been 3 and he was awful. But unlike Snape, who is not the greatest Legilimens of all time (that's apparently Voldemort?), it was glaringly obvious to him that Draco was using Occlumency - Snape had him sussed in like 3 seconds, and chose not to go any further for the reasons I outlined above - which interestingly he did not do with Harry, when faced with finding out where Harry learnt Sectumsempra (but at that point both Snape and Draco's life had been on the line - if Draco dies, presumably so does Snape?)

Which brings me back to Snape... How I think Legilimency/Occlumency works (sometimes)

You have no subtlety The mind is a complex and many-layered thing It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly. The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so utter falsehoods in [Voldemort's] presence without detection.

There's a lot to take in there, and also pretty ballsy to say to Voldemort-by-proxy (Harry), which might reduce the validity of my idea that Snape didn't want to be nice to Harry during their lessons in case Voldemort was watching, since Snape's pretty happy to give Voldemort (and the reader, more likely) a complete insight into what he's himself doing... although I expect that Voldemort has considered this, and also doesn't recognise the limits of his own power - or the extent of Snape's.

I also wonder whether the 'certain conditions' are something simple, like eye contact being made or the spell being cast, or whether there's something to the mental state of the 'caster' at the time as well, like there is with Occlumency walls/shields and being calm and empty-headed, or whether the conditions is the Occluder themselves presenting (or not presenting) some alternative things to interpret. One of the wizarding world (I think) pages says Snape trained a 'slight natural ability', so that makes me wonder more, as well, but i digress.

But my second point is this: Snape's talents weren't Occluding by total shutdown, or Occlumency 'shields' which always now irk me in fanfiction (this I'm definitely drawing from another meta but I have no idea where, so... apologies). Snape wasn't throwing up a wall in front of entire memories or thoughts, for the most part. Although I expect that between the Pensieve and Draco's example use of Occlumency, that was sometimes a function (e.g. some of the things Dumbledore told Snape to pass along, he'd have to entirely block out, alter, or otherwise adapt those memories to make it look as though Snape had passed information along of his own volition against Dumbledore's orders, or hide the fact that he'd helped Dumbledore when he was supposed to be helping Voldemort, etc).

So inkeeping with my own questionable metaphor, where Draco threw up a wall - metaphorically crumbling, last-minute, cowboy builder Occlumency where the wall would hold but you could see it very clearly and obviously; where with a lesser Occlumens the wall was nice enough, but you could see where the paint job didn't quite match up and the plastering wasn't done very evenly; Snape had the whole house set up so that you didn't know the wall wasn't there from the start, and probably had a few artfully chosen scuffs to make it seem real, or it was some kind of trapdoor under the carpet. (okay the metaphor died, but I've been watching a lot of remodelling shows lately, you get the point if you've read this far)

In another metaphor I imagine detecting a lie to be like running your fingertips along a smooth surface and finding a lip or a bump - you could then, pick at it, poke at it, tear it open. You could sense that something was being hidden, or withheld. But there were no lips or snags in Snape's thoughts; potentially Voldemort could simply not detect them, not even when he searched him openly, repeatedly, full eye contact, at the table at Malfoy Manor. Snape welcomed Voldemort into his (it's just occurred to me, but "mind palace") and Voldemort repeatedly, for years, could not tell that anything was amiss, and presumably Voldemort did this with much more ferocity (and skill) than Snape looking at Harry for 2 seconds and immediately summoning Harry's mental image of the Prince's copy of Advanced Potions Making

But it can't be down to detection alone. There's also a level of interpretation to Legilimency. So here I'm focusing on a more interesting aspect to me, which is how emotion is used in Legilimency/Occlumency. Obviously, Snape isn't Occluding all the time, and as much as I adore Alan Rickman, book!Snape was naturally a total petty, stuttering mess (love him for it) who only wishes he had Alan Rickman's gravitas, and could on occasion emulate it.

I told you to empty yourself of emotion! … Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers!

I think this quote is interesting for many reasons I probably won't be able to connect properly and are in no particular order beyond how I thought of them

Snape is emotional here when he says it, he's angry, annoyed, upset, and it's an honest feeling, and he's obviously not devoid of emotion but can still Occlude Harry

Snape is an emotional person, much as he tries to pretend not to be, and can still Occlude Voldemort just fine even on the night he thinks he's marching to his death at the end of GoF

Much like how many other kinds of magic require lots of study and a strong emotion/will/conscious thought at the start, perhaps it become easier with experience to the point where this advice is not essential (e.g. kind of like driving, I no longer have to think about changing gears like I did as a Learner)

Snape is also talking about himself here, indicative of Snape's worldview where showing 'weak' emotions is the problem - soft emotions, vulnerability, "never tell".

"Provoke" is exactly what Voldemort does to Harry

This is Occlumency 101; Snape's teaching Harry the most basic of Occlumency - to compartmentalise, to block someone out, to throw up that shoddy but sturdy-enough wall for Voldemort to come up against, like Draco did to Snape. Harry's anger and emotion is a weakness in this basic Occlumency lesson, where Voldemort is trying to look through Harry and/or trick/provoke him; thus, the wall.

But this probably isn't the kind of Legilimency Voldemort would use on Snape (which is to see if he's lying, if his information is real, if his values are aligned, etc), and it probably isn't the kind of Occlumency Snape was doing in return, to lie or deflect suspicion or ingratiate himself. In fact, throwing up a wall is the opposite of what Snape does with Voldemort; Snape lets him in, lets him stare him down in front of an audience, all the while showing Voldemort what he wants to see. I think as well there's an element of a Legilimens 'grasping' for something, searching, "provoking", like how Snape 'grasped' for Harry's memories of Advanced Potions Making, how Voldemort appears to search Snape at Malfoy Manor - so if all Snape presents is a memory, empty, devoid of any complexity, Voldemort would question it.

In my interpretation, when Occluding, Snape displays a different type of emotional control; Complex Occlumency means you control your emotions, yes, but not block them off - Snape takes his emotions where they need to go, makes them do what they need to do, to support the interpretation he wants Voldemort to reach. He chooses to some extent what Voldemort sees if he lies outright or omits details (a well made wall, basic Occlumency), and chooses how to present it (complex Occlumency). And he does it with subtlety; he doesn't often outright lie, and there's a lot left to interpretation - in both Snape's speech (with Bellatrix) and his actions throughout the books, and presumably his Occlumency.

So I suggest that Snape, in a situation with Voldemort, must be able to "lift up" or "lean into" an alternative emotion for interpretation - the decoration around the wall, the interior design, if you will. For example, Snape couldn't tell Voldemort that he desired Lily, in a total absence of any feelings at all, without it coming across as false and thus easily detectable as a lie. And you know that when a young Snape, who's hardly made a name for himself (Snape's likely never killed, at least, and isn't especially memorable to anyone in Azkaban and is last named by Karkaroff, and other things I won't go into here) outside of overhearing half a prophecy begs for a Mudblood Order member who's the mother of Voldemort's downfall who's thrice defied him to be spared, you can bet that Voldemort will want to thoroughly find out why, so...

To me this suggests that there was a level of desire there that Snape could 'lean into', whether that desire be for Lily or someone else he found desirable to act as a kind of substitute - though given that Legilimency seems to work on mental images and memories at least in part, a memory where he desired Lily would've been useful. And I'm just using that as an example, because Voldemort would also presumably at some stage have interrogated what Snape thought of Dumbledore and Harry, and Snape would've had to lean into feelings of hatred and loathing - which he'd manage just fine for Harry, but Snape would have leant into his feelings after Dumbledore silenced him after nearly getting eaten by a werewolf and again freeing Sirius in PoA, but I digress

When Harry finally learns Occlumency (by his own admission) in the wake of Dobby's death, it's grief that helps him master it - which, for me personally, is not a detached, clear-headed feeling in any sense. It's visceral, emotional, and painful; all-consuming. It's love/grief/loss/strong loving emotion that forces Voldemort out, after he loses Sirius and again when he loses Dobby. But it's a contrast to the emotions Voldemort uses of Harry's to draw Harry out, via his fears for Sirius. But with grief, Harry's dived headfirst into feeling what Voldemort doesn't want to feel (unlike the anger), to keep Voldemort out of his mind. Whereas Snape would do the opposite, and dive right in to the feelings Voldemort would want to sense - to the exclusion of others. Would Voldemort even think to search for Snape's love for Lily, if he was first presented with something more visceral, with more negative connotations, like desire or jealousy, hurt or betrayal? These are the emotions Voldemort thrives on and can exploit, that he's familiar with, that he understands. In the context then of 'grasping' that's how I think Snape leads Voldemort down a path of believing him - by bringing honest 'negative' emotions to the fore that Voldemort understands.

this is really where I think skilled Occlumency differs from dissociation or wall-building. I think Snape would simultaneously have to dampen his 'lie' feelings and to raise the volume on the 'fitting' feelings for his chosen interpretation. My interpretation of this all stems from my experience of writing, of getting lost in music, in using those activities to "wallow" in certain feelings. Snape does not present Voldemort with his true feelings, but they are real feelings. So in that way, I feel Snape was like an artist or writer; he felt deeply, he felt conflictingly, and dived headfirst into those wells of emotion when he needed to - diving so deeply that it cuts off and hides the conflicting evidence. I feel that when I'm writing, when I'm listening to music, when I'm wallowing. And I feel a lot of sympathy for Snape, because it can feel like a real whiplash when you're midway through writing an intense scene or listening to some excellent music that really fills you up with something, it can take you to some dark places, and it's quite shocking somehow when abruptly interrupted - which would be what his life was constantly like after Voldemort's return, leaning into and shying away from/shutting down emotions and memories he didn't necessarily feel whenever he was called, and then having to return to work or meetings in that headspace, where everything feels out of touch and you're in internal turmoil. (Granted, I can snap out of it because the music or the writing is neither here nor there, really, but he'd be doing it with his own life experiences, with his own life on the line, and to repay a debt of guilt - there's a lot more emotional baggage there, and even more once Dumbledore died). And I think it would take its toll in other ways, too, which leads me to Lily...

Far from some people's cries that possessive or obsessive attraction or desire is some huge moral failing, I'd argue that you'll find a level of it in most teenagers and indeed the regular spectrum of human emotion - I know I've certainly experienced feelings of intense jealousy and whatever 'Snaters' (I'm not a massive fan of the term, but as a shorthand) accuse Snape of, whether I acted on it or not. So I'd suggest that Snape 'leant into' that for the sake of being on the receiving end of Voldemort's Legilimency. Whether Snape regularly, or actually, felt those emotions of his own free will or not is hard to say - since there's no actual evidence he did act possessive or jealous beyond the normal teenager level (and that's without addressing the fact that we didn't know how he would've ended the sentence "I won't let you -"). And I'd also go as far as to say that Snape probably, truly, had some awful thoughts (don't we all?) and so he was able to lean into some very dark and gloomy nooks and crannies of his mind, the parts we're told healthy people steer clear of acting on but also undoubtedly experience (jealousy, possession, rage, bitterness) in much the same way as a writer, artist, or musician might, to make his 'lies' and the stories he told more 'truthful' - which was why Voldemort trusted him so much.

TLDR: Snape's a man of many contraditions and very much emotional depth, and he manipulated his own emotions (likely to the detriment of his mental health) for years. But just as I, a fanfic writer, can vicariously experience the bitter resentment for a person who doesn't love me, can imagine a world where he can think those thoughts, embody them, and still not take them on as part of his identity.

anyway i don't have a conclusion, I just had thoughts

[Side note not strictly related to ANY of the above: I find it interesting as well that Voldemort's skill is apparently specifically in working out whether people are lying to him, suggesting that you could specialise even further into different aspects of behaviour. But people do lie to Voldemort (Narcissa, Snape, off the top of my head, but there's no indication of Voldemort using Legilimency on Narcissa in that moment where Harry lives - Voldemort was too elated, once again caught up in his own glory). [side side note: Harry's treatment after his 'death' does make me wonder, briefly, about Snape's own treatment when he returned at the end of GoF - public torture and humiliation, an opportunity for the other DEs to turn on one of their own to 'increase their own standing' in Voldemort's eyes, crucio to weaken Snape's defences, to check that his information and loyalty true? i get the impression that Snape shared his information with Voldemort privately, given that Bellatrix didn't seem to know much about Snape's return, but who's to say there wasn't some 'fun' beforehand, or at other points during his time as spy]

#snape meta #severus snape #pro snape #professor snape #snape fandom #snape #legilimency #occlumency #long post #my thoughts #snaps-meta

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