#but it is sometimes even better to observe the very specific points that have remained constant

[madara-fate]

Hey maddy! I hope you’re doing great! I’m writing to you to share my thoughts about Hinata, Neji, their dynamic and what type of message they represent in the story.

I always see Hinata fans question about the way Hinata is portrayed in the story and even I wonder about Kishi’s decision of portrayal sometimes but I decided to reread the Chunin Exams, specifically her fight with Neji to get some answers myself and instead of fighting the author and forcing my way of thinking on how things should’ve turned out or happened, I decided to comprehend why Kishimoto decided that scenario and how Hinata and Neji represents the two sides of the Hyūga Clan. However, this is simply how I started looking at things and I could have missed a few points or details and I’m happy to hear your thoughts and corrections on the matter.

Also, this probably won’t be a detailed explanation because this is simply a late night rambling of mine. Lol.

When I hear fans talk about why Hinata was no longer expanded after her fight with Neji, I reached to the conclusion that because her role in the story was over. Her character and Neji is surrounded by their individual roles in the Hyūga Clan. An Heir whose ability is considered mediocre and was replaced but still is able to enjoy the privileges of being part of the main family and a slave who is born with outstanding talent but feels encased due to his social standing.

Neji is born a genius and as Hinata said, Neji is caught between the destinies of both branches. From what we got from Lee, he said that the main branch started making rules and decisions that would better benefit them and preserve the family line and purity of their blood, from what I know is that all of the Hyūga Clan techniques are taught either to the main branch and main family (to the head and its heirs) and everyone in the lower branch are members who most likely doesn’t even know how to activate their Byakugan, more or less utilize them. The only reason why Neji knows is because he observed the main branch members practicing and his father knows because he used to be a main branch member. So the lower branch members are not taught how to fight or defend themselves, not only that but they also have the Caged Bird Seal on them to be able to control them if they every do revolt against the main branch. Basically, the lower branch from the very beginning, since birth, were already destined to be nothing but slaves or failures. To be below the main branch, a chaste system basically. They were forbidden to learn any of their clan’s techniques and freedom got strip away along with the opportunities of ever becoming strong. Yet, Neji defied that destiny. He was from the lower branch and yet he is considered to be the “greatest genius in Hyūga Clan history,” as Hiruzen said.

So this is where Neji is stuck between the destiny between the two. Since the system is designed to make the main branch flourish and the lower branch remain below. Neji is someone who broke the order of that system. He, afterall is stronger that the heiress herself, the one who would lead the clan and allow it to prosper, so this leads to Neji questioning the doctrine he grew up with as a child. He is supposed to be lower than Hinata yet why is he beating her? He is supposed to be useless, a failure, yet he is a genius. The main branch destined to succeed and lower branch to fail, yet he is a lower branch who is born with great talent who bested the main branch or succeeded, so where does he actually belong? In the main branch or in the lower branch?

I think this is what made Neji felt caught between the two branches. Furthermore, because he is a lower branch despite his great talent, he is not accommodated and he doesn’t receive the same opportunities as those in the main branch. I think this is why Neji talks so much about destiny or fate and how once a failure, always a failure. If you’re born like that, weak and frail, that’s it. I think Neji is talking more about himself than Hinata, that no matter how much he tries, to be better, to be powerful, he’s still a lower branch member destined to fail. He will never be acknowledged and he will never be able to reach his full potential.

Then we have Hinata, as Neji said, Hinata was burden from birth because of being born from the main branch. There are certain expectations set upon her due to being heiress and to simply clear a certain thing up— as much as people like to disagree, Hinata was most likely weak. I don’t think it has anything to do with being weak physically or power-wise but the necessary attitude that’s needed to lead the clan. The Elder Hyūga said that having a heart like stone or steel is the burden that the main branch has to carry. Hinata doesn’t have that yet Hanabi does. When both Hinata and Hanabi fought, Hinata was reluctant to hurt Hanabi if she wasn’t she would’ve won, Hanabi was pretty serious with their fight and was actually trying to defeat Hinata knowing the fact they’re sisters, she regretted it right after but they seem to not have taken the outcome of the fight personally since they seem to be in good terms with each other, but I don’t think it’s simply a steel heart that makes Hanabi a suitable heir in their eyes, but the resolve to carry the consequences of those actions. I think that’s the burden that the Elder Hyūga was referring to. Being leader of a certain clan, community, or even a country, you’re bound to make decisions that would be difficult to make, some would be against your values and principles, making a certain thing a priority means you have to sacrifice the other, there’s no path where everyone gets to be happy and live joyfully while eating three meals a day.

Example is when Hinata got kidnapped on her birthday in which Hiashi saved her but ended up killing the Cloud Village’s Head Ninja (or was it Ambassador?) and so they wanted his head, while Hiashi was willing to pay the price and present himself, the Elder Hyūga refused and said that he is very important and needed in the clan since he’s the Head, so they ended up sacrificing his twin brother, Hizashi. That broke Hiashi obviously, he didn’t even want to let Hizashi sacrifice himself, and even I think that Hizashi’s speech about him “choosing” his fate is simply him trying to lessen the guilt his brother would feel when he dies for his sake.

When Hinata is presented with such situations as well, how well and how will she be able to handle it? The never-leaving-anyone-behind is too optimistic and ideal and reality is not like that. Not to mention, if she had two kids one is gonna bound up being in the lower branch like what happened to Hiashi and Hizashi but it seems that only takes effect when the Heir officially become the Head of the Clan.

(Also, the circumstances I’m presenting is when the Hyūga Clan didn’t have a massive change in its ways, I think those outcomes were unexpected and when Hiashi made the decision of making Hanabi his new Heir; he certainly didn’t thought that one day the Hyūga Clan would change.)

I think that is what made Hiashi think that Hanabi is better than Hinata and it has nothing to do with strength, I think we take much emphasis that the clan head must be the strongest and strength is the measure if one is fit to rule when obviously there’s more to it than just that, even in being Hokage I’ve realized that it’s not just strength that makes the people think you’re suited (although that’s certainly part of it) but possessing great patriotism to either your country or village is the key as well. That’s why in Naruto betrayal of a comrade, loved one, or the village is the worst thing you could ever do. People didn’t cheer for Naruto because he saved them during Pain Arc (sure, that was part of it) but Naruto, who is seen to be the nine-tailed fox who destroyed their village, fought with his life to protect the place they called home. Loyalty and devotion.

(Such views ties up to Japanese Culture really well. Japanese people are very patriotic and take great pride in there culture.)

The reason why Hinata felt burdened and why she didn’t pursue being the Head after her title got strip away from her is simply the fact she didn’t want to be Head. She probably wanted it first but along the way realized that it’s not something she wants to do, in the first place, Hinata was expected to be Head by the very second she was born, her destiny was plastered already by birth, but did people even stopped and ask if wanting to lead the clan is what Hinata wanted? Hinata forcing herself to do something she doesn’t wanna do is what lead her to suffer that’s why she has nothing but bad memories during her training days, she is not motivated in any way, she lacks interest, and it doesn’t make her happy or feel fulfilled. Hinata’s weakness doesn’t come from the fact she’s just naturally born weak or average but because she wasn’t driven to grow or had any motivation or reason to. When she decided to get strong to be able to fight by Naruto’s side she was able to significantly grow, even pushing herself to the limits during the war and that’s because she was determined to. Naruto is the inspiration of Hinata’s growth and her motivation to become strong, but most of all she did it for herself because she acknowledged that she was lacking and wanted to better herself.

I don’t think there’s anything shallow to wanting to be strong for another person, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with valuing those who strive to be better and stronger, those who always supported you than the people who made you feel like you’re expendable.

(Moreover, if Hinata wanted to lead the clan and since the line to the “throne” was determined through a fight then it should be settled back through a fight. Hinata should’ve asked a rematch with Hanabi yet she didn’t even though she had plenty of time to ask after the war. Reading her monologues, Hinata doesn’t give a single damn about her clan at all and she possess no desire to lead it— in her fight with Neji, she wasn’t thinking about how she should keep going in order to not disgrace the Hyūga name but she was worried of looking uncool in front of Naruto.)

All in all, I think I loved how the conflict between the two branches of the Hyūga Clan ended. Hiashi trained Neji and abolish the ideology and ways of the Hyūga that prevented the cadet branch to have equal opportunities and rights as those in the main branch. Neji was able to grow and reach new heights without feeling like he’s being held back by which branch he got born into. And Hinata was able to pursue a path she actually wanted (even if it’s a path most fans didn’t want her to trek upon) I think it’s still empowering. This is why I said that Kishi oftentimes write women embodying Pro-choice. Hinata chose the life she wanted, she isn’t manipulated or forced in any way.

I think the message that:

* Being poor and possessing low social status shouldn’t hinder you for ever succeeding and that your family situation whether you’re a family of very “problematic” people or none of you ever got to go to college isn’t what determines your future. There are times where the apple falls far from the tree.

* It’s okay to be a writer, a dancer, a musician in a family of doctors and lawyers, you don’t have to be an architect or an engineer because everyone in your family does or everyone is expected you to be. You’re allowed to have dreams of your own and have the right to pursue them.

More extra thoughts, the conclusion made what Neji said about Hinata to be wrong.

Hinata is definitely not all sweetness and light, sure, she is kind, but she can be edgy or rough at times if she wants to; she also has no problems in inflicting harm to others. A good girl would’ve followed what her father wanted of her, a person who isn’t a troublemaker would’ve stayed put and follow authority, yet she kept bettering herself, kept practicing even after her father told her she’s nothing compared to her younger sister. Neji tells her she’s easily led when she didn’t even followed what was expected of her.

Also, after re-reading their fight again, Maddy. I’ve found out that most likely not every Hyūga can hit or shut off tenketsus, apparently it’s a high level technique and that most Hyūga members simply inflict damage on the internal organs and chakra pathways (Keirakukie) disrupting the flow of chakra and not everyone can close off chakra nodes because they’re super small and basically undetectable so they’re super difficult to target or hit through the gentle fist, that’s what made people consider Neji a genius as well.

I always thought that hitting the Tenketsu was something relatively easy for the Hyūga Clan because of their eyes but apparently, despite how good their eyes are it still very difficult to perceive the Tenketsu because of how small it is and it’s difficult to accurately hit it as well. I also thought hitting the chakra pathways and the nodes were the same thing and has similar damage. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Lol.

This was a lot to take in, but yeah I don't really disagree with what you said, and it's interesting food for thought.

[godsopenwound]

Jen Degregorio, from The Last Poem I Loved: “Satan Says” By Sharon Olds

The poem opens with the speaker informing the reader of her odd predicament: “I am locked in a little cedar box / with a picture of shepherds pasted onto / the central panel between carvings.” The box sounds eerily like a coffin. But further description of “curved legs” and the “gold, heart-shaped lock” reveals an object closer to a girl’s jewelry chest. What’s interesting about opening the poem this way is that the box image functions as both metaphor and literal space in which the rest of the poem unfolds, and through which it can be interpreted. The specificity of detail keeps me rooted in a tangible, if surreal, setting that I can picture clearly in my mind; that’s what hooks me as a reader. After the poem is done, however, it’s the intelligence of the metaphor that keeps me interested. I interpret the box as the set of childhood experiences that have trapped the speaker in her particular mode of thought and behavior. But the metaphor is also bigger than that; it’s universal. All people are, to some extent, psychologically “boxed in” by their own personal circumstances. What is adulthood if not a fight to free oneself from the burdens of the past in hopes of a better future?

Despite our best efforts, however, sometimes the demons of our childhood come to haunt us. And this is precisely what happens to Olds’s speaker, in the form of Satan. “I’ll get you out,” Satan slickly offers. In return for freedom, however, the speaker must utter a series of profanities. First, she’s asked to denounce her father as “a shit” and her mother as “a pimp.” Desperate, the speaker complies, repeating Satan’s words. “Something / opens and breaks when I say that. My spine uncurls in the cedar box / like the pink back of the ballerina pin / with a ruby eye, resting beside me on / satin in the cedar box.” With the image of the pin and satin pillow, Olds keeps the reader anchored to that jewelry box even as her speaker begins to explore some very spacey Freudian territory. Soon Satan ups the ante, ordering the speaker to “Say shit, say death, say fuck the father.” The words effectively shock, not merely because they are vulgar but because of their particular metrical arrangement: Three spondees in row upend the easy four-beat lines that have guided the poem to this point. Again, the speaker repeats after Satan. But doing so continues to “open” a host of unsavory feelings: “The pain of the locked past buzzes / in the child’s box on her bureau.” A kind of displacement occurs in these lines, in which the speaker seems to have an out-of-body experience; she is simultaneously inside the box and able to observe it from the outside, noting how it rests on “the child’s”—no longer her own—bureau. This move in the poem speaks to the difficulty of confronting painful memories, or “the locked past,” in general. Many people cope with traumatic events by disassociation; others by casting blame. Olds’s Satan tries to coax the speaker from her disassociative cocoon, or box, by urging her to blame her “shit” father and “pimp” mother.

This is the problem of the victim, and the problem of the writer who wants to address trauma. Anyone familiar with Olds’s body of work knows that child abuse is one of her perennial themes; in particular, Olds explores what it means for a girl to be physically abused by her father. Whatever trespass has occurred in “Satan Says,” it is never specified; even the speaker’s gender remains in question throughout the poem. But the mention of a “locked past,” and words such as “torture,” “cock,” and “cunt” that appear later, all imply a childhood violation of some kind. And why else would Satan require the speaker to impugn her parents, in particular, if they were not the ones to perpetrate whatever awful event haunts the speaker? When viewed through the lens of Olds’s other poems, which take a more visceral approach to the subject of abuse, “Satan Says” reads like a self-argument about wading into these dangerous poetic waters: “I am trying to write my / way out of the closed box,” Olds’s speaker tells us. “Satan Says,” then, becomes a kind of ars poetica, and a model for any poet looking to deal with the theme of abuse or violence in her own work.

As the speaker repeats Satan’s increasingly nasty words, the box begins to open. Yet the speaker quickly realizes that this opening leads to another, different kind of prison. Like the wolf in the tale of Little Bo Peep, Satan is waiting hungrily for the speaker: “The exit is through Satan’s mouth.” Satan asks her repeatedly to “Come in.” As the “huge hinge / begins to close,” the speaker recognizes her mistake and takes back what she’s said about her parents. “Oh, no, I loved / them, too,” she tells Satan, who is none too pleased. The Prince of Darkness then “seals / the heart-shaped lock with the wax of his tongue. / It’s your coffin now, Satan says.” The speaker is abandoned. The poem ends with her freezing, trying to warm “her hands at the dancer’s / ruby eye— / the fire, the suddenly discovered knowledge of love.”

It’s that last line that gets me every time, and really “makes” the poem for me. It feels like a true catharsis, that a discovery has been made by the poet through her process of writing. But what is this discovery? For me, it’s a caution—for writers especially—against simplistic notions of good and evil. It isn’t a vision of some benevolent god that allows Olds’s speaker to escape Satan’s maw, but a recognition of “love” and its ability to coexist with feelings of betrayal and hatred. The speaker’s father may be “a shit,” as Satan says, but that doesn’t mean that the speaker can’t—or shouldn’t—love him. In a world that likes easy definitions, and takes pleasure in anointing heroes and stigmatizing villains, this is no easy revelation. Therein lies the brilliance of “Satan Says”: Olds’s Satan is not villainous because he urges the speaker to denounce her parents—just as the serpent tempted Eve to disobey God, or the Judeo-Christian “Father”—but because he is too obtuse to comprehend the uselessness of such denunciations to a curious intellect.

The real achievement of “Satan Says” is the truly original way the poem illuminates an intelligent mind’s struggle with what John Keats described as “Negative Capability,” or the ability to exist “in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” Indeed, “Satan Says” does not resolve, but ends with the speaker frozen in the face of a paradox: the “knowledge of love” that can arise, somehow, from pain and suffering. Yet, even as it freezes her, that paradox remains the only “fire” capable of warming the speaker— a paradox within a paradox. Why? Perhaps, like the ruby-eyed pin inside Olds’s metaphorical box, because it is Beautiful.

[ironbloodcd]

Zhongli & Childe wanna know aalll about their babies

If they had a kid meme - Accepting

@karmicbound

     //Buckle up because this is gonna be a list. Gonna go ahead and put this under a cut for length, dsufolsdflsd--

Zhongli and Willow

Name: Qing Yuan McKerral

Gender: Male

General Appearance: It’s easy to tell that Qing Yuan has Adepti blood in his veins just by looking at him. A pair of dark antlers sprout from his head and seem to grow a little larger with as he grows up, while his ears have a slight point to them. His eyes a deep violet colour and his hair is long, normally braided back, and dark blue. He’s a slight boy throughout his childhood and eventually grows to be quite tall.

Personality: Qing Yuan is eager and excitable and has the tendency to rush into things without necessarily thinking them through. He’s a very friendly boy though who tends to draw people in fairly easily and thus tends to make a lot of friends wherever he goes. He has a strong sense of justice as well, and tends to insert himself into situations when he believes that someone is being treated unfairly or taken advantage of.

Special Talents: Despite being quite rambunctious, Qing Yuan seems able to approach most animals without fear of them running away or becoming hostile. This isn’t always the case, but the vast majority of animals seem to be calm in his presence. Additionally, he seems to have the unique ability to tell whether or not someone is lying without fail, though the details of the lie aren’t clear to him.

Who they like better: Qing Yuan looks up to Zhongli and often marvels at the stories of his days as the god Morax. While he obviously can’t reveal this information to others, Qing Yuan takes great pride in knowing that Zhongli helped to shape Liyue into the nation that it is today and strives to eventually do great things himself - not that he’s figured out what these things are yet, mind you.

Who they take after more: Neither, really. While Willow is shy and often quiet and Zhongli tends to be quite mellow, Qing Yuan is excitable and boisterous. He’s not terribly good at sitting still and keeping an eye on him when he was small was definitely an interesting challenge for both Zhongli and Willow both.

Personal Headcanon: Due to his Adepti blood, Qing Yuan was granted a Vision when he was still quite small and bears a Hydro Vision specifically. Though he’s aware that he was adopted, Qing Yuan isn’t certain as to whether he’s a full-blooded Adeptus, or if he bears a mortal heritage as well. He becomes an adventurer, eventually, joining the Guild once he’s old enough to do so.

Face Claim Photo Reference:

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Name: Li Hua McKerral

Gender: Female

General Appearance: Li Hua often wears her long, dark hair in either a set of pigtails or buns. She bears the same golden eyes as her Adeptus father, and while she has been taught to maintain a human appearance, she bears many of Zhongli’s Adepti traits in her natural form. These include the golden horns and long, dark tail with a golden tuft at the end. Her teeth are also quite sharp, and tend to remain so even in her human disguise.

Personality: Quiet and reserved, Li Hua prefers the company of books and scrolls to that of people and has a healthy appetite for reading. She was known to devour books that were far past her reading level when she was small and is constantly on the lookout for new literature to add to the hoard that she’s accumulated in her room over the years. Despite coming off as shy, however, Li Hua is quite honest when it comes to her opinions on certain matters, and doesn’t seem to have entirely inherited Zhongli’s tactfulness, sometimes coming off as blunt or rude to some.

Special Talents: Like the other two triplets, Li Hua has inherited Zhongli’s ability to identify different types of stones just by observing them. She also seems to have gotten his impressive memory, and seems to retain every little bit of information that she learns, no matter how trivial. She has a talent for storytelling as well, though she often grows shy when asked to present some of her work.

Who they like better: Li Hua gets along with both Willow and Zhongli equally, as she finds their presences to be quite calming when others might be too overstimulating for her. As a child, she often expressed her excitement to them whenever she found a new book to be interesting, and while she’s more restrained in this when she’s older, it’s still quite easy for them to get her talking when there are books involved.

Who they take after more: She tends to take after Zhongli a little more, tending to be calm and levelheaded in most situations, while also having something of a habit of going into great detail when explaining topics that she’s knowledgeable of.

Personal Headcanon: Like her father, Li Hua is a Geo user, though her abilities come from the use of a Vision rather than the abilities that Zhongli has as a former Archon. She is the ‘oldest’ of the triplets. Guided by her passion for readon, Li Hua becomes a librarian and seeks to preserve as many literary works as possible - even the ones that she doesn’t think very highly of.

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Name: Li Mei McKerral

Gender: Female

General Appearance: The only redhead out of the triplets, Li Mei is also the only one of their children who seems to prefer keeping her hair short, claiming that it’s ‘easier to deal with’. As with Li Hua and Ju-Long, her eyes are the same amber hue as Zhongli’s, and her natural form bears the same golden horns and swooping tail that Morax did. Though all three of the triplets seem to have inherited Willow’s freckles, Li Mei by far has the most of them, and they speckle most of her body.

Personality: Easily described as a ball of energy, Li Mei never seems to stop moving. Out of the four children that Zhongli and Willow raise together, she’s the ‘troublemaker’ of the bunch who constantly seems to find herself into mischief. She’s quite protective of both Li Hua and Ju-Long and is certainly the boldest of the triplets and is often unafraid to speak her mind. She seems to be a natural born leader and has an easy time convincing others to follow her, even in her more ridiculous shenanigans.

Special Talents: Li Mei has the ability to identify different types of stone, which is shared amongst all three triplets. Unique to her, however, is the ability to locate ore veins beneath the surface of the earth by sensing their presence. Because of her energetic nature, she’s become quite physically inclined and is likely the physically strongest out of the 

Who they like better: Li Mei doesn’t really have a preference when it comes to her two fathers and gets along with the both of them equally. If either of them have gotten grey hairs from one of their children though, it’s likely her.

Who they take after more: Neither, really - who she actually takes after most is Willow’s mother, Mary McKerral, who was quite the little firecracker herself when she was younger. 

Personal Headcanon: Li Mei idolizes Qing Yuan and was practically his shadow when she was younger. The two of them are quite close and she’s always eager to hear about her older brother’s adventures. Like Li Hua, Li Mei possesses a Geo Vision.

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Name: Ju-Long McKerral

Gender: Male

General Appearance: Ju-Long is the spitting image of Zhongli, from his dark hair to his golden eyes - save for the fact that he’s inherited Willow’s freckles, just as his two sisters have. He wears his hair in a similar style to his Adeptus father as well, keeping it long and tying it back into a low ponytail - this, however, is quite unintentional. As with the other two triplets, Ju-Long’s natural form sports the golden horns and long, dark tail, complete with golden tuft at the end, that Zhongli bore when taking the form of Morax.

Personality: Ju-Long is definitely the shyest of his siblings, which causes the rest of them to be somewhat protective over him. He’s quite creative, but tends to be rather reluctant about sharing his ideas with anyone outside of family members and close friends. A ‘less is more’ type of person, Ju-Long definitely prefers having a few close friends over a large number of acquaintances, and tends to stick close to people he’s bonded with rather than seeking out new relationships.

Special Talents: Just like his sisters, Ju-Long can identify types of stones and gems by sight alone. He’s also taken after his mortal father in that he has a talent when it comes to art, though he tends to prefer sculpting over painting and drawing. He’s also quite knowledgeable when it comes to plants and has a talent when it comes to horticulture.

Who they like better: Ju-Long is a little closer to Willow, simply because of their shared interests, though he gets along just fine with Zhongli as well. He was often found clinging to Willow’s leg as a child, and often disliked being separated from his mortal father.

Who they take after more: While Ju-Long has definitely inherited Zhongli’s looks, he certainly takes after Willow more when it comes to interests and personality. His creativity is on par with Willow’s, as is his overall shyness.

Personal Headcanon: Ju-Long is the only one of the triplets to have not received a Geo Vision - instead, he was granted a Dendro Vision like Willow. His sculptures become quite well known in Liyue and while he doesn’t enjoy being in the limelight, his works are definitely admired by many when he grows up.

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Childe & Petrae

Name: Nikolai

Gender: Male

General Appearance: Sporting a mop of short, ginger hair that seems to be constantly messy and a pale complexion, Nikolai heavily resembles a young Ajax. The shade of blue in his eyes is much brighter, however, and was clearly inherited from Petrae. He’s also quite freckled, and fact which becomes more apparent when he spends a lot of time out in the sun.

Personality: Rambunctious and prone to getting into trouble, Nikolai has definitely proven to be quite the handful for both of his fathers. He tends to be quite impatient and will has the habit of not quite thinking things through before he executes something, which can often land him in unfavorable situations. He’s quite optimistic though and usually prefers to look on the brighter side of things, even when a matter seems quite bleak.

Special Talents: Like Ajax, Nikolai is quite taken with fishing and can do just about everything that any good fisherman should know to - from finding bait and setting it on a hook to boring a hole in the ice, to which places are best depending on the time of day, it’s often that Nikolai is able to catch something even on days when others come back empty-handed. He’s also quite sharp-witted and can make even the most stony individuals laugh.

Who they like better: Nikolai definitely idolizes Ajax and always wants to hear about his travels and adventures. He constantly seeks Ajax’s attention when he’s home and will eat up just about any that’s given to him. When Ajax is away, Nikolai is always eager to receive letters from him and always listens intently when Petrae reads them out loud to him and his siblings.

Who they take after more: Nikolai is definitely Ajax’s son through and through, with his mannerisms being quite similar to that of his Snezhnayan father. Petrae often comments that even when Ajax is away on a mission, it’s as if a smaller version of him is still running around their home.

Personal Headcanon: Nikolai was about five years old when his brother, Maleek, was adopted. The two of them grew to be the best of friends and Nikolai is quite protective of him. In that same regard, however Maleek often gets dragged into Nikolai’s shenanigans.

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Name: Maleek

Gender: Male

General Appearance: Maleek bears little to no physical similarities to his family, which tends to make him stick out as the adopted sibling. He has a dark complexion and deep, emerald green eyes. His hair a pale, teal colour, which extends down to his midback. Petrae often braids it back for him so that it doesn’t get in his way. His most recognizable features are the pair of foxlike ears that he has, along with a bushy tail to match. His canines are also quite sharp and his nails tend to grow into claws if they’re not kept trimmed. Maleek also has a number of scars on his hands and the soles of his feet, as well as some other assorted ones that can be found on other parts of his body.

Personality: Maleek tends to be very timid, which likely comes from having lived as an orphan prior to being taken in by Ajax and Petrae. He’s become very attached to his adoptive family, though he still suffers from separation anxiety and abandonment issues due to his experiences. He’s a quiet boy who tends to be the exact opposite of Nikolai - and yet still becomes quite close to him all the same. He’s very affectionate, despite his shyness, and often seeks out comfort from his fathers and other siblings for no reason besides simply wanting to cuddle.

Special Talents: Maleek has a heightened sense of smell, which makes him quite helpful when it comes to tracking things. He’s often able to find items that his siblings have lost, or locate the other children themselves, making him a master of hide and seek games. He also seems to be able to communicate with vulpines in specific and many will approach him without fear.

Who they like better: Because Ajax is the one who found him and brought him back to Snezhnaya with him, Maleek tends to be quite attached to him. He was actually quite beside himself the first time that Ajax had to go away on another mission and it took quite some time for him to adjust to the Harbinger’s comings and goings.

Who they take after more: Though he doesn’t necessarily take after either of him adoptive fathers, his disposition tends to be more similar to that of Petrae, who is the much quieter one between himself and Ajax.

Personal Headcanon: Since Maleek and Nikolai are thought to be about the same age and because Maleek has no idea as to when his actual date of birth is, the family celebrates Maleek and Nikolai’s birthdays together every year. It’s a tradition that continues even into their adulthood and is one of the reasons that the boys remain so close.

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Name: Anastasia

Gender: Female

General Appearance: Anastasia is a very fair-skinned child with sandy hair that’s reminiscent of Petrae’s. It’s quite long, nearly reaching down to her bum at full length, and often kept in an assortment of pigtails and ponytails, depending on her preferences for that particular day. Due to having vision issues, she’s worn glasses from the time that she was young. Her eyes are deep blue in colour, much like Ajax’s.

Personality: Intelligent and curious, Annie likes to explore the world around her and strives to learn as many new things as possible. She takes a particular interest in alchemy, which she picked up from both Petrae and her uncle. She has a liking for books as well, though she prefers more hands-on learning in the form of experimentations, which can often result in messes. She tends to get frustrated when things don’t go as she wanted them to, but that also seems to only make her all the more determined to seek out the results that she wanted. 

Special Talents: As stated above, Annie has an interest in alchemy and her intelligence has made her quite the little prodigy in this regard. She’s exceptionally diligent in taking notes with regards to any of her findings and will quite proudly present them to her fathers and her uncle Albedo. Interestingly enough, she also has quite the talent for baking.

Who they like better: Anastasia gets along better with Petrae simply due to the fact that he is able to converse with her a little better with regards to her interests. Petrae’s own knowledge is often helpful when Annie is working on a new experiment, especially those that she conducts in her younger years.

Who they take after more: Again, Petrae would be the parent who she takes after more, though the family member who she truly takes after the most would be her uncle, Albedo.

Personal Headcanon: Unsurprisingly, Annie becomes quite the accomplished alchemist as she grows older and eventually seeks to work more closely with Albedo so that he can act as her mentor and teacher. She attains a Geo vision in her teenage years.

Face Claim Photo Reference:

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Name: Katya

Gender: Female

General Appearance: Katya seems to have inherited many of Ajax’s features, from his ginger hair to his deep blue eyes though, like Nikolai, she’s quite prone to freckling. Her hair is kept long and down to her midback, though she dislikes having her hair done, and will often put up a fuss if she’s forced to sit still while it’s styled. More often than not, it’s simply brushed and left to hang loose.

Personality: Kat’s siblings would describe her a the ‘typical girl’ with a love for all things cute, from animals to pretty dresses. Unsurprisingly, she’s a tad spoiled due to being the youngest of Ajax and Petrae’s children, though she knows better than to push her luck too far when it comes to getting what she wants. Still, she definitely has at least one of her daddies wrapped around her little finger with her sweet disposition and adorable looks. She’s a very meticulous child who likes things to be wherever she considers their ‘proper place’ to be and will get upset if her siblings, or even parents, move her belongings on her.

Special Talents: Katya takes up the hobbies of knitting and sewing and learns from Ajax’s mother. Though clumsy when she’s little, she becomes quite good at both as she grows older and eventually begins to make and design her own clothing. She’ll make things for other family members on occasion as well, usually as gifts. Also, don’t tell anyone, but the only person better than her at fishing is Nikolai.

Who they like better: Katya tends to gravitate more towards Ajax due to the fact that he spoils her more than Petrae does. She often tries to monopolize his attention, if she can, particularly when she’s still small and able to clamber up into his lap.

Who they take after more: Kat definitely takes after Ajax more with an outgoing personality and the ability to draw people to her with ease. She can also be a vicious little thing when upset, though she doesn’t get anywhere near as volatile as her dearest daddy.

Personal Headcanon: As a child, Katya had the habit of bringing home just about any stray animal that she came across. While this was an endearing quality most of the time, she sometimes brought home creatures that really had no business being in the family home. One such example of this was a particularly grumpy sable who made quite the mess of the dining room before it was caught a released back outside.

Face Claim Photo Reference:

[seawitchkaraoke]

Interesting thing I've observed is a lot of left leaning shows/youtube groups/etc are fully in favour of diversity, but aren't themselves very diverse. Both on tv and on the internet you'll still have at most 1/3 women a lot of the time and mostly white guys and all that

And the reason for this is so so often the same: they started out with all or mostly white guys and now those original people are still there (and of course they're the reason the show got big in the first place so you can't just get rid of them all, plus they're perfectly nice, funny, good people so why would you) so even if all the people you add or who come on as guests aren't straight white guys, you're gonna have to add a lot of people for it to be as diverse as you might want it to be (and of course maybe you want to add another straight white guy sometimes! And your fans wouldn't respond well to not letting them on just bc they're a straight white guy! But in pure terms of numbers this does of course set you back)

And when it's TV programming you can at least blame the ppl who originally cast the show but on youtube and such it's usually that they started as just a group of friends having fun - and if that group happened to be all white guys well, that's pretty common, in our society we to tend to mostly make friends with people who are like us, bc those are the people we're surrounded by.

It's difficult bc you often can't even really blame anyone specific for this but the fact remains that it sucks that these groups of left leaning perfectly good people aren't more diverse. Especially since this also means that anyone who is added who isn't a white cis straight guy is gonna have a harder time - bc if you have no black people in your cast, you will have racist fans, no matter how vocal you are about supporting black ppl. (And not just openly loud racists, those are easier in a lot of ways. But especially a lot of people with unaddressed biases who may not even realise that the new person being black is part of the reason why they don't like them)

If there was always a black person on the show, a lot of people with those biases will either slowly learn better or not watch the show at all.

Like. Idk when I look at the kind of comments Aabria Iyengar gets under Critical roll videos vs dimension 20 videos I think it's an example of exactly that. Sure there might be other factors too, but the dimension 20 has from the start been more diverse (and made an effort to increase that even more through side quests and such) so there are simply less fans in that fanbase who aren't open to new people and specifically less people who have a problem with a black queer female DM taking the place of their beloved Brennan.

And it has nothing to do with the creators themselves. Matt and Brennan have both been nothing but supportive of Aabria. But it's just that exact thing that if your cast isn't diverse, you're gonna have more bad eggs among your fans.

Idk what my point here even is. I don't have a solution to this other than, if you're starting smth try and have it be a diverse cast from the start. But I just... I see a lot of comments along the lines of "I can't believe this group has racist fans when they're all such good people" and I always just think it's so obvious why.

[nickgerlich]

Turning 20

A significant milestone birthday happened this last weekend, and hardly caused a stir among news outlets. A few picked up on it, but the day passed without much pomp or circumstance. It was just another day as usual, even on the platform marking this day.

I can only be talking about Facebook, the social media giant hatched 20 years ago this last Sunday. Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends launched it from a Harvard dorm room, their motives pretty typical of young guys: To meet women.

When it launched, it was known as The Facebook, a nod to the printed booklet incoming Harvard classes receive when arriving on that hallowed campus. It’s like a miniature yearbook, with head shots and pertinent details about each student. Actually meeting and mingling with that large class—which these days is about 1700 students—is up to the students themselves.

So why not create an online network where all this mingling and connecting can be done more easily? Sheer genius.

Soon it spread to other Ivy League schools, and then, like a contagion, across most universities and colleges. It wasn’t until September 2006 that they dropped the requirement of having a valid .edu email address, meaning the rest of the world could join.

And that they did, in droves. In short order, Facebook had a billion monthly users in 2012, and kept growing. It did not take long for it to dwarf MySpace, a once-popular social media site that launched in 2003, as well as Friendster, which debuted in 2002.

Facebook went on to purchase Instagram, WhatsApp, and Occulus, created Messenger, and renamed its parent company Meta, a tip of the hat to the Metaverse in which they saw themselves. In July 2023 they launched Threads, one among several new sites created across the web to compete with the rapidly decaying Twitter. I mean X.

Perhaps most importantly, Facebook found itself in the advertising business, and had more than $150 billion in revenue from it last year. Only Google is bigger in the digital advertising business.

In spite of the fact that younger people are less likely to use Facebook these days, their global footprint across all of their platforms now exceeds three billion persons. Many of those same younger people are on Instagram, for example, so Meta can still reach them with advertising.

Competition always forces us to dig deep and find ways to either innovate or duplicate, and Facebook and Instagram have done just that in recent years, thanks to competitive threats from SnapChat and TikTok. They have done a good job keeping eyeballs within their own eco-system. By comparison, TikTok ad revenue was about $13 billion last year, and is projected to grow to $22 billion by next year. That’s significant, but still tiny in comparison to Meta.

But the most important things to consider as we observe this birthday is just how much Facebook has changed our lives. What started out as a way for college kids to connect turned into a way for all of us to remain connected, and then ultimately into a debate forum littered with highly targeted advertising. Sometimes, that advertising is political in nature. Worse yet, misinformation is as prevalent as potholes on a midwest street in winter.

It is little wonder that some people have been turned off by it, either closing their accounts entirely, or limiting how they use the site. As for me, I still use it to engage with very specific groups, follow certain individuals, and remain connected with people from the various chapters of my life. The latter is priceless, because I am in better contact these days with fellow high school grads than I ever was, and it has been 47 years since we walked across that stage.

COVID was the turning point for me, because that’s when Facebook took a decided turn for the worse. Conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers used Facebook as a CB radio, broadcasting their opinions that lacked supporting evidence. This quickly devolved into the anti-woke movement, co-opting a word that never once meant “everything I disagree with.”

So while I still post an occasional stand-alone item, mostly what I do is just mirror my daily Instagram post over to FB. Otherwise, I just scroll by quickly, looking for important family moments, mourning deaths of loved ones and pets, admiring great photos. But that’s it. I guess you could say I’m just grazing around the edges.

And yet Facebook is hanging on, its numbers supported by global growth (and free internet) in regions only recently reached. To be honest, I actually like my Threads experience better, where I have found a photography community I never would have expected to find. Remember, Threads was designed to be a new Twitter, but it is evolving in its own way.

For better or for worse, Facebook is still rocking it. You know when something has become larger than life: It becomes a verb. Just like Google, more than two billion people “Facebook” something on a regular basis. Ads are as thick as skeeters on a hot Georgia night, often appearing every fifth or sixth item in both my FB and Insta feeds. That’s big money.

I’m pretty sure that Mark Zuckerberg never envisioned this, nor the power and wealth he was about to have. And I did not even get into the issue of data, which I am saving for a future missive. Twenty years is a long time on the internet, and Facebook is not only a survivor, but a force far bigger than you or I can begin to contemplate.

Here’s to many more years, I suppose. Just don’t let that power to go to your head any more than it already has.

Dr “Add Friend” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[docexe-mx]

He compartido 2517 publicaciones este 2022

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He etiquetado 2517 publicaciones en 2022

#nintendo: 1013 publicaciones

#spoilers: 478 publicaciones

#the legend of zelda: 434 publicaciones

#naruto: 417 publicaciones

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La etiqueta más larga tiene 133 caracteres

#i just think it’s important to acknowledge that certain ships don’t have any real logic to them outside of “they hit me in the feels”

Mis publicaciones más populares este 2022:

5

It’s likely an observation that has been made before, but it occurs to me that while it is really easy to make fun of Yu-gi-oh! for treating a “children’s card game” (as the Abridged series cheekily put it) as such “serious business” where the lives and souls of the players (and sometimes of the entire world) hang in the balance, the original series actually does a decent job justifying it in-universe.

The really ironic thing for me, however, it’s that it justifies it by turning the in-universe card game into, effectively, the thing that fundamentalist Christian groups were accusing Dungeons & Dragons of being during the Satanic panic of the 80’s: A game that was actually a proxy for occult rituals.

In the world of Yu-gi-oh!, Duel Monsters (the in-universe name of the card game) is eventually revealed to be based on ancient honest-to-goodness magic rituals that genuine Egyptian sorcerers practiced to summon and control honest-to-goodness monsters and demons. While visiting the Valley of the Kings, the creator of Duel Monsters learned of these occult rituals and found one of the magical relics used by the sorcerers, which inspired him to create a card game based on those rituals. 

While the monsters in the modern era are summoned with holographic technology, the re-emergence of the ancient relics means the magic is still very much real. So, we often witnes the players (including children and teenagers) being possessed by evil ancient spirits, having their souls stolen and/or sent to hell, and other stuff like that. 

It’s all kind of hardcore when you stop to think about it.

6 notas. Fecha de publicación: 3 de septiembre de 2022

4

Say what you will about Mega Man X Dive and how the developers pander to the gacha mobile market (with everything that such implies): Occasionally they do have some very clever ideas for alternate skins and original characters.

6 notas. Fecha de publicación: 9 de junio de 2022

3

Some thoughts regarding Boruto manga chapter 67:

In the end, Shikamaru ended becoming the liability in the fight against Code (and given the ominous implications in the final page, “liability” in more senses than one). On the one hand, I suppose it’s better it was him rather than Hinata. On the other hand, given he is one of my favorite characters, I’m not fan at all of how he was handled in this battle.

We have also seen the seeds of how Kawaki might become a villain in the future. Specifically, his unfettered determination to do “what is necessary” without doubting or even flinching. Granted, it remains to be seen what exactly will prompt him to turn against the Village and/or the Ninja System. Mind you, given that his relationship with Naruto borders on monomania by this point, I’m still 100% sure that Kawaki won’t actually kill him in the future.

And talking about killing your adopted family member… Shikamaru, how long have you known Naruto? This is the same guy who literally gave an arm for the sake of the traitor who tried to kill him thrice and who once defended the murderer of his parents from another villain’s trash talk by calling him “the coolest guy ever”. While Naruto is clearly shaken by what happened with Boruto, of course he is still going to stand by Kawaki’s side. (Granted, the next time Naruto talks to Kawaki eye to eye might prove… interesting)

Of course, we all already knew Boruto was obviously not going to die there. Although Momoshiki’s intervention felt very… “Deus ex Machiney” (so to speak), I guess it doesn’t exactly contradict anything that had been established so far about the Karma (if anything, it just reinforces the similarity between Karma and the Strength of a Hundred Seal used for the Mitotic Regeneration jutsu).

Now, while apparently Momoshiki can no longer reincarnate through Boruto, his soul is still tethered to the world of the living thanks to Boruto’s Karma. It remains to be seen if he is still capable of temporarily taking control over Boruto’s body like he has done before… not to mention, whether or not he might still be able to implant the Karma on another host.

7 notas. Fecha de publicación: 20 de febrero de 2022

2

It’s kind of fascinating that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Splatoon 3 essentially switched release dates (remember that Splatoon was originally slated for Summer while Xenoblade was announced for September).

I can’t help it but wonder what happened there exactly, although I doubt they are ever going to tell us.

14 notas. Fecha de publicación: 24 de abril de 2022

Mi publicación más popular de 2022

But talking seriously, the way I see it, if you blame Hylia for the “eternal cycle of reincarnation that has condemned Link, Zelda and the kingdom of Hyrule to struggle and face tragedy until the end of time” …while completely ignoring that the actual root of the problem is the curse of hatred that Demise (aka, the ACTUAL freaking villain of the story) placed on their bloodlines, I will assume that at best you have poor analytical comprehension and at worst you have a really warped sense of ethics and morality.

47 notas. Fecha de publicación: 14 de abril de 2022

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[eclectic-pragmatist]

The Problem Of Problems

To me, the most meaningful, insightful phrase in the history of literature is: "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Many are familiar with it, but if you are not, it's enough to know that the book (A Tale Of Two Cities) by Charles Dickens is about a specific time (1789) in French history. Its first paragraph includes the above opening phrase and can reasonably be said to apply to human history in general. Societies have always combined the best and the worst.

Here we are in the early years of the third decade of the twenty-first century, and humans continue to struggle trying to solve problems from the very large to the very small. Despite all of the problems that have been made better or even eliminated over the centuries, and particularly in the last two hundred years, many remain unresolved and sometimes have become far worse. The complexity of humans is quite capable of exacerbating the problem of problems by simply disagreeing on anything and everything.

Many decades ago my father noted to me that life was primarily about dealing with problems. These varied in size and difficulty, but they all need to be dealt with one way or another. This seem a reasonable observation per se, but while my father was creative in his own ways, he also had numerous quirks and idiosyncrasies that affected his approach to reality in ways that undermined a rational approach to life's "problems."

I came to realize at a rather young age that problems are indeed common, but I also observed that a rational, thoughtful approach was far more reliable when dealing with them. My father's eventual focus on religion as a refuge in a complicated world had no discernible value I could detect in terms of dealing with problems. Strong beliefs in general can make problem solving vastly more difficult by creating increasingly narrow viewpoints that are antithetical to how issues actually are mitigated, particularly when a variety of individuals have an interest in the outcomes.

So called "principles" might seem an ideal baseline to start from, but these "values" are so variable that rational consensus is often quite unobtainable. A percentage of us can maintain focus on the facts, data and functional choices that will result in intelligent outcomes, but many wallow in marginal to extreme beliefs and opinions that are little more than tribalism masquerading as wisdom. Tribalism is the biased conclusions that replace reality with self-serving "explanations."

What is even more disappointing (as a pragmatist) is that too many of those with legislative/judicial power and authority use these for their own points of view even though they know the general public's opinions take a more moderate, modern approach. Thus, current existing laws that were approved by legislative process and/or judicial decision can be reversed on the basis of "interpretation" of a constitutional document created more than two centuries earlier.

Constitutions are often written in very different realities in which the authors cannot begin to conceive of how much different things will be long after they are gone. This is why so many countries have rewritten their constitutions to reflect societies that are now very different. The US constitution is long overdue for revision. Unfortunately, much of US society lacks the wisdom at many levels to recognize why a rewritten constitution matters. The worst aspect of this is the fabricated concept of constitutional originalism — worshiped by the very conservative. It says that one always seeks the intentions of those who wrote the constitution, ignoring the obvious reality that what was reality and knowledge in the eighteenth century says nothing about the very different twenty-first century.

Every society has issues and problems. The inability to become more open to societal change for a better quality of life for everyone, and instead seeking to reverse progress, represents choices that are antithetical to reality and pragmatic wisdom. This truly is a problem of problems, one that will have significant negative consequences for the greater good in the present and future.

[rye36chavez]

A lot of us would desire to discover that one particular hobby that we look ahead to each day at home. Unfortunately most people by no means know how to start. If you have been needing that ideal interest to help move time, don't stress as the write-up listed below is here now to help. Read on to see how simple it is to find a interest to experience.

Don't restrict your hobbies as to what you've looked into previously. Sometimes you should force yourself in new recommendations, and pastimes are perfect for undertaking just that. The truth is, try some thing out that you will have in no way deemed well before. You could be surprised at how pleasant a whole new hobby may be. Concentrate on your exciting new hobby to help reduce tension. When you can actually give your complete attention to something you actually take pleasure in, it will be easier for you to just forget about those things in your daily life which are triggering you tension. Select a pastime that exploits your skills and capabilities while nevertheless offering difficult. If you are just starting a fresh hobby, don't spend an excessive amount of profit it without delay. You desire to make certain that the activity is something you can expect to get pleasure from for a long period prior to you wind up investing a lot of cash on points you might never use once more. An exciting interest to pick up is taking photos. Lots of people are picking up photography currently because revealing photos on social media web sites has grown to be this sort of large issue. You may make your images be noticeable more by learning more about taking photos and rendering it a hobby of your own property. Designate a place of your residence being your interest corner. Hobbies are fantastic, but if you're not careful, they may creep into every part of your home. You'll discover a number of piles in arbitrary areas of issues. Alternatively, produce a particular place that's secure that you can operate in in order that all that items has a position which it remains. Try your hands at artwork, drawing or sketching. One of several cheapest hobbies and interests so that you can think about using up is drawing. It fees only up to a pencil and papers costs and may keep you active for several hours as well as days and nights. You might find that you are currently a much better designer than you understood. Dessert designing can be quite a really enjoyable interest that enables you to develop a work of art at home. Specific interest merchants really supply inexpensive dessert beautifying classes to aid get you started. This really is a excellent pastime that mixes your imaginative talents by using a scrumptious delicacy and yes it doesn't expense a ton of money. There are lots of benefits to going for a activity. A pastime lets you learn something new after which put in your information with time. A hobby offers a chance to fulfill new close friends with similar passions and skills. A hobby can also help keep you energetic and more in good physical shape. Legend gazing could be very the great hobby. Celebrity gazing permits you to see our world inside a new light. It allows you feel differently about living. Merely a telescope as well as a darkish, starry evening can transform your point of view. Ensure you can afford your hobby. People love to go sailing, but the expense of a motorboat is prohibitive. This retains accurate for many collections also, and pastimes like scuba diving. You will find hobbies that happen to be high-priced. Know what you can afford to pay for your interest. If you are looking to get a new activity then take into account your interests after which consider hobbies related to that pursuits. Should your fascination is design, then sewing could be right for you. In case your curiosity is bird observing, then consider figuring out how to craft pet bird home to get different kinds of wildlife. To make a fantastic interest area within your car port without having taking up excessive room, consider purchasing a collapsible workbench to setup when you are ready to focus on your upcoming venture. When you're carried out, or if you need to recreation area the two vehicles inside the garage as a result of climate, you can easily stow almost everything aside quickly. Before you take up a brand new hobby, give careful consideration concerning how much place it should take up. Do you need to arrange some new storage space before you get started? Interests like knitting and scrapbooking use lots of resources so you want a organised means of keeping these so they are kept together. The advantages of hobbies and interests to large sectors in the populace are indisputable. Interests supply a calm wall socket for individuals all over the world and can even help folks maintain their psychological health. With any luck , the info found previously mentioned has become you considering how your life could possibly be better by picking up a whole new hobby or two.

[sukunarii]

Pairing: Yandere! Sukuna x Reader

Warnings: (Sukuna’s Era!) Yandere | Unhealthy relationship | Murder | Blood| This fic is much darker than my usual style! Please beware when you read it. 

Synopsis: In the early morning, you would play your koto in your garden. It was a show for one audience: a stranger that refused to step out of the shadows. A stranger that perhaps grew too fond of you.

Wordcount: 3.0K

A/N: A koto is a Japanese instrument kind of like a harp. Also this fic might be very historical inaccurate. This fic is inspired by a poem by William Blake titled “Song:  When early morn walks forth in sober grey.” 

The sky was gray on the day you first spoke to him. It was early morning, you were in your garden, under the gazebo as usual where you go to practice playing your koto. You enjoyed it, for it was one of the only times where you could feel absorbed in your own world, in your own solitude and tranquility. However, you have noticed that lately, you were not so much alone.

"Behind the willow tree, I know you're there," you called out. You could see the shadow shift, but the person behind did not step out into your view.

"I see you have noticed me," a masculine voice replied. It carried a hint of playfulness.

"Of course I have, you've disturbed my peace for a few mornings now," you replied.

"Am I not welcomed?", he asks.

"What brings you here?", you asked back immediately.

His answer did not come as quick as yours, as if he chose his words carefully  "I was captivated by the music you played," he complimented you.

You were flattered, you had to pause and recollect your thoughts for a moment. If he is just here to listen....well there's no harm, right?

You let out an airy laugh, "As my only audience, I supposed you are welcomed to stay." 

You resumed to playing your koto. From behind the willow tree, Sukuna stole a few glances at you. Along with the beautiful music you created, you looked so effortless and absorbed in your own world while playing. A world that Sukuna could step a foot into by observing you from afar but felt too delicate for him to disturb. You were like an angel while he was a curse— a monster. He shouldn’t have any business with a girl like you. 

Yet you called him, 'My only audience'...he liked the sound of that.

You were playing for him only, and he was glad that he did not even have to capture you for this. After all, a caged bird does not sing the same.

However, the serenity of dawn was disturbed by the loud and abrupt chime of the bell.

With a jolt, you stopped playing.

"Ah, that was the wake up call for the village, I got to go now," you said and got up.

From his shadow, you see him stand up too. You hesitated but decided to ask anyways, "Will you tell me your name?"

He laughs lightheartedly, "A musician does not need to know the name of their audience."

The buds on the dull brown branches were blooming into beautiful flowers that decorated the garden. Summer was approaching. It became routine, he would come to your little concert every morning. It was romantic even. You did not know who he was, but sometimes you would carry little conversations with him. You knew that he was not from the village, he said he travelled up from the valley every morning to visit you.

Knowing that he was not from the village also gave you a sense of security as you could tell him anything and everything without worrying that he would spread rumours. Afterall, you were the daughter of the richest man in the village, from suitors to enemies to your family's reputation, there was so much that you had to keep to yourself. You've learned to express these thoughts into the music you played, but being able to say them out loud in words was relieving.

He was your audience and you were his musician.

Nonetheless, most of the time, very few words were exchanged. It was just you, him, your music in the air and the garden in the surroundings.

You were wearing a purple kimono the day you asked him if you could see him. He gave you the same response as the day you asked him for his name, "A musician does not need to know the appearance of their audience."

You sighed, disappointed, "How about if I ask you as a friend?"

From the flickers of his shadow, you could tell he hesitated. Your heart started racing, in hopes that you will finally see your mysterious friend. But, you were left disappointed, "Not today, my darling. You're still not ready yet."

You looked at his shadow quizzically, what did he mean by not ready? Did he have self-esteem issues? Or a scar? Or was he really ugly...? Not that you would have minded of course, you pouted, "That's not fair. You get to see me all the time."

He chuckles, "I think this is for the better."

The urge to show himself to you or even take you for himself was very strong. However, he had to hold himself back, he didn't want you to be afraid of him. For one, you just called him a 'friend'. And he knew that if he did show himself however, this friendship would be over. You were an angel. He was a curse. Sometimes fate was cruel that way.

The green leaves that fell from the trees were fluttering in the summer breeze. Lately Sukuna has been observing you more and more throughout the day. Instead of rampaging the nearby villages, he would spend more time observing you from the outskirts of your village.

The more he observed, the more he noticed the amount of unsolicited male attention you get when you stroll in the village. Had he not been a curse, he wished he could be strolling by your side and indicating to all of those nuisances that you were his.

The village was not very large, thus, Sukuna has come to recognize most of the faces. However, one time there was a strange man with black hair that appeared in the village. Not that Sukuna cared much as long as he didn't try to flirt with his little darling — except the man did this very thing: he stopped you.

Sukuna could not hear what the man said to you, but he could certainly feel the rage rising in him. The urge to kill this man was very strong. In fact, in the heat of the moment he feels like he could kill everyone in this village to prove his point. Seeing another man try to talk to you so intimately enraged him. He has held himself back multiple times from rampaging your village and taking you home with him. Taking you as his. But for your sake, he has managed to suppress these dark thoughts. But not this time.

He approached you, or specifically the stranger menacingly...with killing intent. But once he was in hearing distance, he heard you tell the man firmly,

"I'm not interested."

The man paused. But insisted again, "Why not? I can treat you right."

"I'm interested in someone else," you told him.

Sukuna paused. Were you talking about him?

"What? No way, who might this be and how come I've never heard of this before! You're just making up lies to turn down my love," he argues back condescendingly.

You shot him a dirty look and you tried to leave but he grabs your arm, “Hold it there girl, I’m not done talking yet.”

That’s it. You slapped him. Not a weak slap, a hard one. The man's face flipped towards the other side.

"That is none of your business. Now if you would excuse me," you said angrily and turned around and left.

Sukuna smiled, 'That's my girl.'

He didn't even have to do anything.

You ran your hand through the calming blue water of the pond in your garden. You have strained your hand from playing on the koto for too much, they were sore and calloused. You tried inviting your friend to come feel the water too but he refused, insisting on remaining well hidden from your view.

"He is from this powerful family, the Zenin clan I believe. And he seems really interested in me."

Sukuna didn't answer.

"But I'll keep rejecting him, I don't like him and don't care for his advances," you rambled on, then sighed, "However I can't say the same for my parents. They are interesting in getting a hold of the powers of the Zenin clans."

"Why don't you leave the village with me?" he finally answered you.

You didn't think he was serious, but you entertained his idea, "They're not just your normal powerful families. They are very powerful as in even if we leave the village, there's nowhere left to run."

"Then I'll just kill them. Everyone of them."

You laughed bittersweetly, what could he possibly do against them when he was too shy to even show himself to you? The Zenin clan was one of the most powerful sorcerers of the eras!

"Haha, yeah that would be nice. But with all of the curses rampaging the nearby villages, we really need the Zenin clan's protection. It really sucks but they're powerful jujutsu sorcerers, it's a miracle that our village is not destroyed yet unlike the our neighbouring villages,” but swiftly, your fake optimism fades. You couldn’t play your koto today, but this stranger was your friend and talking to him gives a sense of comfort. He was listening to you and he was trustworthy.

You say softly, “If only something happened to their third son so that he would stop trying to woo me all of the time...." then, you laughed sheepishly, "Of course I'm just joking haha, I mean it's awful to wish death on someone..."

But Sukuna only heard the first part.

With summer abruptly coming to an end and winter approaching, sunrise came later every day. The sky was still black the morning you broke down crying to him. It was moonless.

"I-I know I said I wished he was d-dead, but I didn't mean it f-for real," you said between your sobs, "I just didn't w-want to marry h-him, but he got killed by a curse and I f-feel like I cursed him."

"Wasn't that what you wanted?", the intonations of his voice came out as cold as the autumn air. However, you were too absorbed in your sadness to pick up these nuances.

"No! I would never truly want anyone to die! That’s awful!”

“Now you won’t have to worry about unsolicited attention anymore,” he answered briskly

You hugged your knees closer to your chest and buried your face into them, “It didn’t make a difference...the Zenin offered their s-second son instead..., so it wasn't cancelled regardless..."

"What wasn't cancelled?", Sukuna asked.

"The wedding...”

Sukuna's jaw tightened. He was upset. Furious. You’ve mentioned that the Zenin family was interested in you but you’ve never mentioned that there was anything official. He didn't like that you didn't mention this to him at all. 

"Leave with me."

This time it wasn't a question. It was an order. Yet, you refused it again.

"I can't. I can't leave my family behind like that...if I run away, the Zenin clan would bare a grudge against them, who knows what they’ll do..."

For the first time, Sukuna finally stepped out of the shadows.

But you didn't notice, nor did you see him, the obscurity of the lightless sky hid him from your vision.

"Pathetic, why would you care about family that are selling you off to strangers? This is why you humans are so weak. Being emotional for things that do not matter," he says, words dripping with menace.

Your eyes widened, alerted by the swift change of mood. Tension high in the air. He did not sound like the friend that you knew. It’s as if he was a real stranger.

"That's not true! It's wrong to be selfish, they're my family. I have to listen to them and it's for the best of the village," you tried to reason but you were worried that he could hear the slight fear in your trembling voice.

"Oh yes because the Zenin clan will protect your village from curses. You think too highly of them. When I killed that nuisance, he was crawling and crying, begging for his life. He may be a little stronger than your average jujutsu sorcerer but he was still a weak human." Sukuna was tired of keeping up his calming and human-like demeanour. He topped off his statement with a sadistic laugh.

However, you didn't answer him. Not immediately at least, you were soaking in the words he just said. You gasped.

"Y-You mean you killed him?!"

You took a step back in shock and fear. You were told that he was killed by a curse...if this stranger you've befriended was a curse and one strong enough to kill someone from the Zenin family....you were in deep trouble.

Sukuna continued laughing, "Ah, yes I killed him. I sliced his body into pieces but I preserved the head so he could be recognized. It was a masterpiece, you should of seen the expression of anguish on his decapitated head!"

All of his efforts of wanting to preserve this friendship, fearing to taint your innocence, and scared of not being delicate around you, all thrown away in the heat of the moment. It didn't matter anymore, not when annoying jujutsu sorcerers were going to get in the way and take you away from him.

You screamed, "Get away from me, you monster!"

Your fight or flight instincts kicked in, this man in front of you— no this curse in front of you— was not a friend. You have befriended something much more sinister, he was a killer. A powerful killer and from the enthusiasm in his voice, he was a sadistic one too. You turned to run back to your house.

To your surprise, he didn't follow you. He watched you and even if you can't see him, you can tell that he was smiling.

You didn't dare to leave the house the days before the wedding. You were also too scared to tell anyone about your foolish encounter with a curse. Instead, you urged your parents to push the wedding earlier. The earlier the better, much to their delight.

Luckily, you did not hear about him and it seems that things have returned to normal. But your instincts say otherwise. If you play with fire, you ought to get burned. And you seemed to have attracted the attention of something very ominous.

You were wearing white on the day of the wedding. A veil covering your face. As per tradition, you were patiently waiting for your groom in another room, waiting for him to lift the veil off your face and take you to the main ceremony room to present you to the invited guests and families. Then allow the head of the households to pronounce you as husband and wife.

Maybe it was your nervousness, it seemed that every minute went by slower. Almost as if the ceremony has been delayed. But with your eyes covered by the veil, all you could do was wait.

Then finally, you heard someone approaching you. You feel a hand gently lift the veil off your face. To your surprise, the person who brought you out of the darkness was not the second son of the Zenin family. There he was, the powerful curse that rampaged villages: Sukuna. You might be the only person who has seen all four of his arms and eyes up close and lived to tell the tale. Not that you would have anyone to tell this to.

He was covered in blood. You were not sure who's but from the silence and the lack of wounds on him, you can formulate a pretty good guess. You drew in a sharp breath and jerked away from his touch, hoping to crawl away even.

"Help!", you shouted out hoping that anyone would hear — anyone at all....wasn't half of the Zenin household here? What were they doing?

"Shh, I was late because I had to take care of some trash, but don't worry, I'm here now," Sukuna says to you. You recognized his voice right away.

You were so terrified that you didn't even notice tears started coming out of your eyes. You struggled to get away from him, you clawed at him, tried to push him away, but it didn't work. He didn't even flinch.

"(Name), stop that before you anger me," he warned you.

You didn't listen.

"You're a monster," you spat at him and you tried to slap him but he stops your hand midair, the blood on his hands imprinting onto your white kimono.

"I'm not like those pathetic Zenin, you'll have to try harder if you want to hit me," Sukuna says with a taunting voice.

Despair washes over you. He was right, if even the Zenin couldn’t win against him, then what could you do? There was no way you could win this nor escape him.

When he carried you bridal style out towards the main room of the ceremony, you’ve stopped struggling. The room was plastered with blood. You recognize some of the body limbs on the ground, the remains of the guests, of your family, of the Zenin family. They were barely remains, mostly just little pieces. You had the urge of throwing up. No one was coming to save you.

It was just you and Sukuna.

Sukuna laughs, he can hear the whiplash of the puddles of blood as he steps over them. He was proud of his work, "Just like usual, only you and me. I'm your only audience."

The blood that covered him stains onto your previously white kimono.

Sukuna always compared you to an angel. And he was a curse—a monster. You two were not meant to be, fate was cruel like that. But Sukuna can be even crueler.

You are his bride.

And it was a red wedding.

[shotorozu]

TITLE : hospital stay

PAIRING : bakugou katsuki x reader

SYNOPSIS : you’re in the hospital on your boyfriend’s birthday, and bakugou seems to have no issue with spending it in there.

WARNING(S) : MHA MANGA SPOILERS ‼️ (recent arc)

legend : [Y/N = your name] they/them pronouns used, a quirk similar to the avatar but that’s about it.

note(s) : so, it’s bakugou’s birthday. and i had this idea since march 20 😦 so i’ve been waiting for his birthday to come for literally a month but i didn’t want to post this way too early. alsooo i don’t know if this arc happened near spring but lets pretend it did for the sake of the story

When you woke up, the fluorescent lights were the first to hit your face

Following by the incoming beeping of a monitor, and the sudden throbbing of your head, the dryness of your throat evident.

Blinking slowly (or trying to, your other eye being a bit delayed.) you try recalling what just happened. You’re in a hospital, that’s one thing you know, but the specifics are still unknown to you.

Right. You remember now, you were fighting along side your classmates, and you managed to get blasted away when you thought that shielding Bakugou Katsuki would work. Yeah, you were sure that you were going to get an earful from him, if he—

You jolt when you notice said blond standing right next to your bed, vermillion eyes staring deep into your own, and somewhat— you could feel the weight and intensity in the stare

“S-since when did you get here?” You’re startled, and your voice is hoarse. Bakugou doesn’t formulate a response, and chooses to avoid the question as a whole.

“Finally you’re up.” He rolls his eyes. He looks much better than you remembered, despite having a few bandages on his forehead— he looked well. “It’s been 5 fucking days.”

“Five days?” You question out loud, your sense of time all disorganized. You clench your hand, just to see if your quirk was still working. Seeing air, fire, water, and just.. something, would relieve your worries— but a look from the blond shot you down quickly. You decided that it was wise if you didn’t try.

The blond seems to be done with the conversation, since he immediately walks out of the room. Actually, why was he here? You’d expect him to be laying down in bed, but despite being hit with that beam, he was walking around like everything was fine.

He comes back with a few other nurses, and they’re relieved to see that you’re awake— and even though they’ve bombarded you with questions with how you felt, you couldn’t brush off the feeling of a pair of ruby eyes on you.

Just, glaring. It’s nothing abnormal.

When the nurses finally leave you alone, giving you details of a few injuries— like your injured— well, burned eyelid that honestly stung (it came from the fire aspect of your quirk) you would’ve expected to be alone in your hospital room for the rest of your time there but Bakugou stayed.

“You’re going to tell me why you jumped in front of me?”

You were expecting to be questioned by him, after all— what you did didn’t exactly shield him, since he was also pierced. You didn’t expect the interrogation to be happening this soon

“Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to fucking know.” And he suddenly changes his mind, just like that.

You would’ve said impulse as an answer, but you doubt that he would’ve taken that seriously. And besides, you were kind of glad he changed midway that he didn’t want your answer. Your voice feels parched, despite chugging down a glass of water earlier.

“Did you check up on Deku?” You cringe when you hear cracks in your voice, and the dryness is unbearable to your throat, but he nods. “Idiot’s knocked out cold.”

He doesn’t mention the fact that you were one of the last few people that were still rendered unconscious.

“Your throat sounds like the sahara desert. Do me a favor and drink up.”

You blink owlishly at the glass of water that was set on the mini table, and when you drink up— it actually does something to relieve (temporarily) the dryness.

It was a consequence of your quirk after all, using your quirk too much would cause your body to feel sore, and everywhere to feel dry, and he knew that.

Bakugou was acting uncharacteristically, and you just don’t know why. Maybe it’s not so uncharacteristic of him, since he’s been less of an asshole as of recently, but you know that he would probably deviate from the question if you asked, so the both of you sat in silence.

—

It’s the next day, the same as yesterday— except it looked like dawn when you woke up. Bakugou also appeared at the side of your bed once again, almost as if he was there for quite some time.

“Nice to see you too,” You think to yourself, and you’re glad you didn’t actually say that out loud. You try to stand up straight, but Bakugou’s quick to push your back against the pillows.

“Don’t sit up, that’s idiotic.”

“Right, sorry. How did you get here? Isn’t it too early?” The parched throat came back. Though the ‘magical’ baku-water helped, it’s effects were only temporarily, sadly.

“You call 7am early?” Right, because for him— 7am isn’t that early, you even remember seeing him up at 6 sometimes.

“Actually, wait.” You blink, trying to recall what day it was, and what month it was. You recalled it being spring but.. was it March? or was it April already?

“What.. day is it today?”

It was almost like he was hesitant to say, “..April 20.”

“What the— April 20?” You’re appalled, because the last time you remembered, it wasn’t anywhere near April 20, but maybe it’s your 5 day unconsciousness to be blamed. “Isn’t it your birthday?”

“Shut up,” He mumbles, and he shifts around the room in search of something, but it’s too dim to be able to tell.

“Medicine. The nurses said you should take it now.”

You don’t reply.

“It’s for your Sahara desert throat. The other things are for your fucked up eye and injuries.”

That seems to be enough to convince you to take the medicine, and despite wanting to run away screaming from the bitterness, you take the medicine— not wanting to be met with any consequences

“Why are you spending your birthday here?”

“Do idiots like you ask that many questions?” He shoots back, and you’re unfazed by the fact that he just called you an idiot. You wouldn’t blame him.

“No but.. you seem fine.”

“A few days ago I was not, but now I am because I took medicine.” He walks over to untwist a few medicine caps, it appears to be for your eye.

“So, Does my eye look fine?” You bat your eyelashes just to mess with him, and he flicks your forehead with an ointment cap “No.”

“Sorry, sorry,” You laugh, choosing to completely ignore the sudden sharp pain when you laugh.

He bends down to reach eyelevel, “Can you see?”

“Sorta.” Your eye has this thin blur filter to it, that can’t be good— can it? Going blind in one eye, and having to wear an eye patch.

It was almost on cue, because Bakugou says “You’ll be rocking the pirate look if you don’t take your medicine,” Instead of handing the medicine for you to apply, he quickly applies a decent amount around your eyes— not giving you a warning whatsoever.

You wince slightly, but you’re glad it’s over. But why is he playing nurse with you? And why was he brushing off the fact that it’s literally his birthday.

—

Through out the entire day, Bakugou continued to act as if he had some responsibility over you. From helping you put on your medicine, to just monitoring you with eyes of a hawk. The fact that he chose to ignore all your protests was just a part of him.

His behavior was also very.. interesting. It would swing from being his usual self, to being this eerily quiet and calm Bakugou. You would’ve guessed that you were having a fever dream, if it weren’t for the fact that he wore his usual scowl on his face.

What remained consistent, despite it all— was that he stayed. He ate lunch in your room. He only left when the doctors and nurses asked him too, but that was only temporary. He stayed with you the entire day, even when the clock stroke 5pm.

But it’s quite literally his birthday? Why would he spend it in a hospital room with some extra? Or idiot? Let alone, why would he take care of said idiot/extra on his birthday? You don’t know because he refuses to tell you on why he spent it here.

“Did you at least get some cake or something?” You ask for the umpteenth time, Bakugou’s paced back and forth for some medicine bottles and bottles of water, and you could tell that he was scowling, despite the fact that he was facing the other direction, “Why the hell would I want cake? You’ve been asking weird shit all day.”

“Because it’s your birthday? Seriously— have you been brainwashed into thinking that it’s not your birthday?”

“What— fuck no. I haven’t been brainwashed.” He turns over to you, “I know today is my birthday.”

“Okay, so you know. Why aren’t you celebrating then? Did people forget? Or am I finally going insane?”

Bakugou chooses to stay silent. He stands up, and walks over to you— everytime he moves closer, you could feel your heart pound, luckily not at a dangerous rate.

“Birthday, birthday, birthday” He grumbles, quiet, but loud enough for you to hear. “That’s all you’ve been talking about. As if like you weren’t the one in the hospital bed as we speak.”

“Okay, is it wrong to remember your birthday?”

“Shut up, I didn’t say that.” He gets closer once again, almost to the point that your faces weren’t that far away.

“You’ve just been so concerned about my damn birthday, that you haven’t even taken a good look at yourself,” He gestures at you, by looking you up and down

You finally take observation of all of the gauzes, the IV tubes, and bandages, his words forcing you to look at what was reality.

“I don’t know why you did what you did, jumping in front of me like some kind of heroic bastard, it’s dumb. For all I know, I should be screaming at you, and wishing you the worst for that.” He clenches his fist when he recalls, the scene replaying in his head

“But what I am saying is that, you can give me a gift if you’re so fucking concerned about my birthday. It’s the least you can do.” His statement is solid enough for you to take him seriously. You wouldn’t have if he was scowling, but it’s quite.. different. An expression you’ve seen all day, but seeing it up close is a different story.

“And that would be..?” You gulp, anticipation bubbles

And just like that, he presses his lips against yours, the warmth of his lips sending shocks of warmth all around your body— the impact was abrupt, but the kiss as a whole was surprisingly gentle

Yet, it was also similar to his quirk, it sparked up spurs of need and sent goosebumps all over your body.

You place a hand on his shoulder, the tubes around your arms making it too difficult to wrap your arms around him as you deepened the kiss, Bakugou’s touch is cautious when he lays his hand on a spot that was the least affected, aware of your injuries. Pushing the small of your back with his hand quite gently, he kisses you like it’ll be the very last— even though you both know it won’t be.

When you both pull back, you’re taken aback— unable to think of coherent words, and a proper response.

But this damn bastard, he smirks at you knowing that he just sent shocks and explosions of intense feelings all around your body, your lips still tingling from the kiss.

“Wait, that’s unfair!”

“What?”

“I had no idea you even liked me!”

“For the fucking longest time I did, why the hell would I even be in some extras room, if I didn’t care about them?!” He tries not to yell too loudly but, the tone of his voice gets raised

You blink, “And you preferred playing nurse with your crush this entire time, instead of spending it properly like well.. everyone else?”

“Who the hell said— Fucking hell, do I have to kiss you again for you to understand?”

“Enlighten me,” Your mouth quirks up into a smile, which ultimately causes his cheeks to be set ablaze.

“Playing fucking nurse with you isn’t horrible. It’s one way to spend my birthday, even when you give me shit about it” His brows press together, trying to drown out his flustered expressions with a scowl, “There’ll be more birthdays to come, so why would I be ‘wasting’ it here? There, that’s it. You happy now?”

Silence.

“..More than happy. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your thing for playing nur—”

“Don’t you fucking finish that thought,” He says stern. “I’m going to get the nurses to check on you, and then— I’ll go home and come back again, tomorrow.”

He storms off, and when the blond is sure that he’s not in your line of vision anymore— he slumps against the wall

“Fucking hell, they’re driving me crazy.” He mumbles, recalling what he had pulled off earlier.

»»————-　♡　————-««

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission

[doorbloggr]

Tuseday 7/9/21 - The Dinosaur Scavenger Debate

Model of Sue the T.rex eating a baby Edmontosaurus, from the Field Museum, Blue Rhino Studios

Full disclosure before I start this article, I am not a palaeontologist, neither have I kept up with all of the relevant literature to know everything on the topic. But I've seen this debate flair up a few times on paleo twitter in the past, so I'm gonna give you a very shallow overview of the discussion.

Therapod dinosaurs were a very unique type of carnivorous animal. All the active hunting terrestrial carnivores we have today have an upper size limit of maybe a tiger or a bear, and most of those travel on all fours. Large meat eating dinosaurs had different bone structures, metabolisms, and importantly, different prey.

A few times in the past, and again recently, there have been those sceptical of the actual hunting ability of large therapod dinosaurs. Sure they were big enough to kill their prey, but were they fast enough? Had enough stamina? Tyrannosaurus rex had jaws powerful enough to break clean through flesh and bone, but you know what else does? Hyenas, jackals, vultures; scavengers. I am not personally aligned with this hunter-sceptical side of palaeontology, but it is an argument that exists.

Hyenas scavenging, Credit: The Next Crossing

Long ago there was an ill-informed take that some dinosaurs were too big to walk. Now the current take is that some dinosaurs were too big to hunt. So, with a bit of research, today I'm going to explore both sides of this debate.

Obligate Scavengers

The first part of the argument is usually about how powerful the jaws of Tyrannosaurus are. Its bite could crush bones, and coprolites (fossil poo) from the species has shown remains of bone fragments, confirming that this dinosaur was indeed eating bones. The teeth of dinosaurs more commonly thought of as pursuit predators such as raptors have narrower, blade like teeth, while T.rex had large, thick, banana sized/shaped teeth. So was this dinosaur specialised for mostly rotted carcasses?

Tyrannosaurus eating a Triceratops, Atrox1 (deviantart)

Tyrannosaurus has also been recently found to have extraordinary senses. It's eyesight is second to none in the dinosaur kingdom and may even rival the visual acuity of today's falcons. And it's sense of smell was amazing too, able to smell blood way beyond even it's visual range. Senses like these are useful for scavengers today who need to travel long distances to find their food. Vultures and condors may travel thousands of kilometres to find a carcass, and like T.rex, their large size means that they can scare off most smaller scavengers from a larger corpse.

Allosaurus fragilis attack a Diplodocus, Fred Weirum

This last point is more about Allosaurus, who has recently been accused of a scavenging lifestyle too. Although Allosaurus was more lightly built than Tyrannosaurus, and had large powerful claws, it has long been studied to most often preyed on Sauropod dinosaurs, which were many, many times larger than Allosaurus. Allosaurus was thought to be unlikely to be able to take down a Sauropod on its own, and its skull is not as robust as most large therapods its size. Sauropod dinosaurs were truly gigantic, and have been studied to move in herds, so perhaps it was just that Allosaurus followed these herds, and when one died, that's enough meat to sustain even a family of Allosaurus for weeks!

Active Hunters

While it's easy to find fossil evidence of bones being damaged while the animal is dead, evidence of the animal being hunted is not as easy. BUT it can be found. Many prey species dinosaurs have evidence of bone scar tissue, meaning that the animal was injured, but got better. In some specimens, there are specific markings evident of teeth marks on partially healed bones, or even teeth lodged in the bones. Tyrannosaurus rex teeth markings have been found in multiple specimens, showing that Tyrannosaurus was actively attacking live animals, and sometimes, the prey got away.

Tyrannosaurus, Mark Garlick

The unusually well adapted senses also point to a predator positive position. Tyrannosaurus' binocular vision is evidence of an animal that needed depth perception, and the only extant animals with true binocular vision are predators. Bone studies have, for a long time, concluded that Tyrannosaurus rex could only walk relatively slowly. But this is a misconception, Tyrannosaurs preferred to walk slowly, and may have travelled most of the time at a more relaxed pace, but it could likely experience short bursts of higher speed. The herbivorous prey items it hunted were not extraordinarily fast either, and a quick dash as an ambush was probably all it took to grab a surprised hadrosaur or ceratopsian.

Komodo Dragon hunting a feral goat, Caters News Agency

The hardy teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex may have been well suited for crushing bones, but their overall shape point to damages that could also better injure their prey. Unlike the pointed daggers of most therapods, Tyrannosaurus teeth were deeply serated like a Komodo Dragon's. And Komodo Dragons do not need to kill their prey in one bite either. Their serated teeth are home to bacteria, and once they bite into their prey, the wound festers and bleeds out profusely, until their injury worsens enough that the predator catches up and finishes them off. Palaeontologists have theorised T.rex may have done the same.

Opportunistic Scavengers

The issue with this debate is there seems to be this misconception that it's either one or the other. But what if we consider modern examples of meat eating animals? Sure Hyenas, a well established scavenger can crush bones with its jaws, but you know what else can? Lions, and Tigers, and Bears! Oh my! Crushing bones can help you kill living animals too actually.

And sure Tyrannosaurus rex has shown evidence of scavenging on the carcasses of long dead animals, and Allosaurus has been discussed reaping the benefits of a massive Sauropod carcass, but what predator wouldn't pass up on an already dead animal corpse? Big cats, bears, and wolves have been observed countless times reaping the benefits of animals killed by humans, or massive sea mammals or fish that wash up dead on the beach.

A brown bear and a wolf scavenging on a fin whale carcass, Credit: Brad Josephs

The probable truth of the dinosaur scavenger debate is that most large therapods were capable of taking down some prey items, but would not pass up a large dead dinosaur if the opportunity presented itself. Because much like the corpse of a whale at the bottom of the ocean, a dead dinosaur could sustain a small ecosystem of its own for a while.

Thanks for Reading

This was a very long blogpost, so if you read all the way through it, I much appreciate you taking the time. The topic of predatory dinosaur behaviours is ever evolving as new tests and evidence are presented. The consensus on Tyrannosaurus is currently leaning more toward predator than scavenger, but this study on Allosaurus is still fresh, and despite much of the paleo community opposing this take, evidence against it hasn't been well compiled yet.

If you have any further information you want to present on this topic, I am more than happy to hear it in the Notes, or via inbox. If you know other Palaeontology based topics that you think would be interesting to cover, my inbox and asks are always open.

You can find more articles like this linked in my pinned post.

Credits/Further Reading:

Was Tyrannosaurus rex a Ferocious Predator or a Wimp? (Wilkin & Hone); Frontiers for Young Minds

Allosaurus was not a Carnivorous Predator but a Scavenger during Late Jurassic, Study Finds (Jefferson); The Science Times

Time to slay the T.rex Scavenger Debate (Brian Switek); National Geographic

Tyrannosaurus rex was not a Fast Runner, more a Slow Walker, Simulation shows (David Bressen) Forbes

T.rex: A Hunter AND a Scavenger; The Prehistoric Saga

The Truth About T Rex - Predator or Scavenger; Dangerville - Youtube

[incarnateirony]

Hi! I’m still not really over the last episode (and that happy montage in the end i-) and I’m feel confused about what’s part of the episode was fake. I mean the end totally is. But all Chuck scene was superweird too. And sometimes i think that it should be Cas instead of Lucifer and Jack felt him. I mean... confused! How do you feel about that?

Okay so here’s the thing -- this is a multifaceted episode--

BuckLeming, while often herded efficiently by Dabb, can muddy up the textual waters, leave gaps, and things unexplained.

However, that doesn’t account for Showalter’s choices in direction. Dutch shots out the ASS which are typically used to evoke that something is "wrong." Lots of panoramas, tracking shots, zooms and blurs in ways that simply are-not-standard for SPN. Extreme aerial shots.

One might even think “maybe it’s Chuck looking in on them!” but then you realize the same overhead view zoomed out on *Chuck* even and panned out to the horizon again.

One of the early mega-zooms literally zoomed out to The World, even. I’m just gonna gesture people to my tag on that and let them think on that, much less the empty world orbiting on the news or whatever the hell else.

There were *several* Cas-baits, yes. Yes, that was intentional from our actual authors. 

But when it comes down to “fake episode”, here’s where we were at.

15.17-19 run immediately concurrently. At the end of 17, Chuck says this was his ending.

Now, the Winchesters largely derailed that ending, so Chuck was writing new material.

But Chuck is also seeking death. 

He wrote a suicide note in 11. He wrote the story that would end in him and Amara being eradicated. And whatever influence he was exerting forcefully with Michael and Lucifer to bop the story around was all in the interest of seeing his book. One might think “to keep the Winchesters from killing him”, but he was desperate to see what his ending WAS, to know it and experience it and scream after them.

The dour taking of “no one cares” right after “I care(d)” about humanity is its own highlight going on.  But wait, there’s MORE.

When Dabb dropped his pre-episode thing, we started talking before the episode.

So I mean, I think what we were *mostly* witnessing is the pen being ripped away.

But this is that emptiness that lingers even with Chuck generally resolved. They’re still kinda on the pages. The book is presented as shut, and the next steps are not taken. Development stops, if not drops.

This entire thing is so meta my damn head hurts.

Summarily: Is it just like, some weird AU that’s gonna go away? Not so much. Is it an incomplete portion of the story told from a skew? Absolutely. And is there still someone watching over them? T’would seem so. The whole World, even. Beyond Chuck. 

Now the point at which we start blocking off issues of “eugenie writes like she’s 3″ is where we ask about things like “god power” or whatever else being thrown in the mix along with eugenie’s ki ball special effects that are literally always unique to her episodes, even if other people have to add the SFX.

So while it was a good bit of masterful work to do it via buckleming for this style of bump, it still inevitably has its flaws because... buckleming. But... Showalter was there. And one thing to note is almost every single scene entrance had some sort of major pan or zoom effect. That’s not typical for him.

The entire thing is designed to evoke, directorially: 

One style: crooked shots, unlevel, unbalanced, uneasy feeling.

Second style: Over-under; some force is watching them on high, while others have a sort of brechtian absurdity, which seats it like a play on an elevated stage.

We are the audience, looking up at figures half the episode; but a second audience is looking in from “on high” and out over the world. As if perhaps even from the heavens. 

Third style: CSI Miami, basically? Parts of this episode were sectioned off to be like a procedural crime drama in its cinematography and flashbacks. Which is ironic, because Dean loathes procedural dramas, but at the same time some of this fandom demands a procedural monster show instead of a family drama show. 

Sam and Dean barely have any lines in the episode *until* we hit Crime Drama Time. Then suddenly, they reveal all of their case work. Despite Dean’s hatred of crime dramas, this is honestly when I feel like the brothers kicked in their own pen. 

Let’s play a game-- the winchesters are aware they can write their own story. So they start telling the story they think people want to hear, or maybe just fill in the gaps from when Chuck gets dropped on his ass. Maybe Dean’s the one writing about how many times god punched them in the face whereas Sam is breaking down the crime scene investigation front. Another, where it feels like we’re loosely circling the war table as others lightly wander too.

But everything before that is the first and second style, and even after that, the overview-angle remains. The uneasiness is gone but there is an emptiness otherwise. But we are no longer spectators from beneath the stage, but staring into them.

I still very much expect everyone to “die” one more time and several specifics to choose to walk back into life at the end of it.

Is it a *complete* false narrative? No. We’re not just gonna turn around and be like “oh that whole ep didn’t happen.” But the writer lost his pen and got jacked at one point, while we also observed the stage from a series of angles as different audiences.

Riddle me this: Why show the World? “Because it’s empty and just them!” okay but there’s a lot of ways to show that which actually gets that point a whole lot better across than “here, here’s a planet that still looks lit up”--yes I know electricity is still running until stuff runs out but essentially speaking, the end of the episode shows us the kind of dramatic shots that could be used for that.

CASey just poofed in the World in the TV, seems legit.

Let’s see these overhead angles again, knowing it isn’t just Chuck.

This sort of overview is known for causing a “dollhouse effect” that derealizes the episode and makes them seem, well, like toys. Which is interesting. Because Chuck isn’t the only one watching them on high.

Cool, this is fine.

Either way, the entire episode is DESIGNED to cause some major uncanny valley. There’s a lot of parts that simply *haven’t been told or filled in.*  It’s almost like evasive maneuvering, half the content just never made it to print, and what did wasn’t in its best draft. There may be battling authors, or a transition of authorship. But the thing is: this is not the complete story.

There is an entire missing section about Sam and Dean even finding out that Jack is a power siphon which they hadn’t witnessed yet much less arranged an entire plan.

Even Chuck’s episodes are generally told from the general POVs of the Winchesters, but this was absolutely not. 

Matthew 28: 18: And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Put a pin in that one.

Unless CHUCK IS WRITING HIS OWN FAKE DRAMATIC END, the overhead view, however, IS NOT CHUCK PERSPECTIVE.

-- Regardless, the metaness of “fish in a toilet bowl BRL plot” stacked into this makes it very difficult to accurately decipher the lines, especially with only one watch so far--just skimming back through right now to grab a few things I remember.

Some parts are plot salad buckleming.

Some parts are us as forced spectators of a stage play.

some parts are shifting authorship

Some parts are the heavens looking out over the earth it loves.

------

It almost feels as if, within enclosed spaces, unsteadiness and stageplay, we have Chuck’s POV.

But by the end it ceases to have any relevance, as he is no longer the author, and instead, we have the Presence of Being overseeing them, letting the Winchesters argue for their own proverbial pen in their own storytellings between here and there.

ALTERNATE PROPOSAL:

 it is all one point of view. All of it. Pretend you’re someone’s eyes on a situation, you just happen to be in the sky half the time, and the uncanny valley is pulling forward the concept of being a presence that simply isn’t *there.*  For example we're looking extremely closely at passed out dean but the camera turns and raises to level with Sam before Dean gets up. Our viewership lens is rising to meet Sam.

The camera stays in motion to fill a role or slot of a viewer. At first it’s haunting and ominous, but at other times, it’s simply part of the room, when it isn’t hovering from on high. Rather than speaking of empty space, we are viewing The World through that empty space, as if it were a Being.

Just a few more eye catching shots.

But whoever or whatever frames the end, even without Chuck--like the story is still turning on the pages, roughly. 

The montage at the end feels like the Swan Song one, more or less, but there’s no narrator, no chuck.

The writer, the writer we know at least, is Absent.

Men are writing their own Stories.

But they aren’t alone.

I know how you see yourself. Angry and dark like your father. You think that’s what you are. But you are the most loving man in the whole world. That is who you are.

Someone does care. Even if right now, Sam and Dean don’t feel like anyone does.

...Because of you. I cared. For you, for Sam, for Jack, for the Whole World.

I cared.

“That’s not who I am.”

I am.

I speak therefore I am.

[mosswillow]

Focus - Dark!Bucky Barnes x ADHD!Reader

Warnings! Dark! 18+ content, vaginal fingering, noncon/dubcon, smut, kidnapping, oral (female receiving)

Summary: You never should have taken the job cleaning for Stark industries. The Avengers might be heroes on the outside but something sinister lies just beneath the surface.

A/N: this is part of the Synonyms series. You can read any of them as stand alones but I encourage reading them in order if you want to read all of them. This one specifically ties them all together (but you can still read it alone and it should make sense)

This is one of those where it doesn’t feel done but I’m done writing it. I think I just hyped it up in my head too much so after actually writing it I’m like, eh it’s not as good as I thought it would be.

Word count: 3.4k

If you could just focus, everything in your life would be better.

Your inattention follows you around like a shadow. It stands behind you, silently ruining your life while you try in vain to just focus. Just don’t forget. Just stop losing things. Just pay attention. Teachers in school would tell you to stop daydreaming, that if you just listened you could do so much better. Growing up, Your parents treated you like you would never amount to anything. They would push your siblings to do well in school but when it came to you they were silent, unwilling to spend energy on a kid who couldn’t even make it through a family dinner without getting distracted. Everyone around you would laugh at your “quirky” personality. You know that for other people you’re funny, always getting yourself into trouble and making silly mistakes. You don’t think it’s funny though and you never did.  As a kid you would frequently cry yourself to sleep. You found ways to hide your stupidity so that just maybe others might overlook your shadow. You’ve tried so hard to act normal, to make check lists and routines but it never works and you always find yourself once again brought to tears after your inevitable failure.

This is why you took the job at Stark Tower all those years ago. You knew you wouldn’t excel at school  and so you took the first job you could find, cleaning for Stark Industries. It’s something you’re actually good at and the only routine in your life you’ve been able to consistently follow. It makes you move around constantly and there’s always some different puzzle to solve. You love the feeling of finally getting out a tough stain from the carpet or finding the perfect tool to finally get to a hard to reach spot.

Now, after years of hard work and an extensive background check you’ve been promoted to cleaning the Avengers floor. You have a generous salary now, health insurance, your own place with no roommates. Some people may judge what you do but you don’t care anymore. It’s honest work and you love it.

---

You walk into stark tower, showing security your badge before heading to the elevator and riding it up to the Avengers floor. You’ve had this job for a few weeks now but you still feel nervous every day. If you’re honest you’re scared of them, the Avengers, They feel unhinged. It’s nothing they do or say. It’s the general vibe you get when you’re around them, like they’re filled to the brim with unbridled anger that hides underneath a cracking exterior. Any moment they might break completely and whatever trauma they’ve all been through will spill out and consume anyone who dares stand close to them.

You start your day in one of the many bathrooms, scrubbing every surface before taking your cleaning supplies and working your way through the floor. Every day is much of the same, you spend all day cleaning the massive Avengers living area, trying your best to stay out of their lives.

You turn a corner and see Captain America with someone, a new recruit you’ve seen around but haven't met. He has her against the wall, pushing his finger into her pussy. You stand stunned for a second.

“If I don’t take action now I might lose you and I can’t lose you.” Captain America says.

You turn and jump back behind the corner, sliding your back down the wall. You can make out some of their conversation and it sounds dramatic. She’s crying and begging him to walk away. You close your eyes and tell yourself to stay out of it. It’s not your place and if you tried to step in you could lose your job.  

You hear footsteps walking towards you. Captain America stops and flashes a smile while you stand up.

“We appreciate privacy here, you understand the consequences if you tell anyone about anything about our personal lives?”

You do know, they had you sign an agreement that said they’d take everything away from you if you talked about their personal lives in any way to anyone. If you value your livelihood you won’t speak a word about it to anyone.

“I’m sorry sir, I saw you there and didn’t want to interrupt. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but, Is… is she ok?”

He crosses his arms and looks you up and down.

“Everything is consensual if that’s what you’re asking, we enjoy a little roleplay sometimes.”

you‘re not totally convinced, something inside you tells you that he’s lying to you. He looks at you so intently and you know, despite his hero status, that he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of you permanently if he had to. you nod your head and give a smile.

“I’m sorry if I insinuated anything sir.”

He checks his watch before quickly walking away. You exhale and pick up your cleaning supplies. As you walk past her room you stop for a second, deciding if you should knock. You back away, not wanting to interfere more than you already have.

“You’re new here.” a voice says as you reach the living room.

“Yes, I just started a few weeks ago.” you reply.

“I’m Bucky.” he walks over to you, looking you up and down.

“I have a lot of work to finish.” you back up a few steps and hold your cleaning tote in front of you. Bucky stuffs his hands in his pockets and smiles.

“I won’t keep you.”

---

Six months later

---

You walk into Tony’s suite and lean down to plug in your vacuum. A pop of red catches your eye and you pull a thong out from under the nightstand. You turn it over in your hands, deciding what to do with it. A hand comes behind you and takes it from you. You look up to see Tony Stark in front of you, stuffing the thong in his pocket.

“Mr. stark.” you gasp.

“From a one night stand.”

“Of course sir, do you want me to wash and return it to your... friend?”

“No.” Tony says quickly. “That will be all in here today.”

“I haven't vacuumed yet, do you want me to come back later?”

“No, just leave.”

You unplug the vacuum and roll it out the door, turning just briefly to close it behind you. As the door closes you see Tony pull the underwear out of his pocket and bring it to his nose.

You try your best over the next week to keep your mind focused on work. Everything starts to get back to normal.

One evening you hear a thud and someone yell out in pain. You run over to see Tony in the hallway standing threateningly over a woman.

“Is everything ok? You ask.

“We’re fine, you can leave for the night.” Tony says, waving you away. You make eye contact with the woman, looking back and forth between her and Tony. She nods and gives you a small, unconvincing smile. You turn around and walk away, wanting nothing more than to get home and take a long shower. Maybe you can forget about what you just saw.

On your way out you run straight into a wall of muscle.

“Hey, what’s the rush sweetheart.” Bucky catches you, holding onto your shoulders.

“I, uh, I’m sorry sir. Nothing, I’m just anxious to get home I guess.”

“Call me Bucky.”

“Bucky.” you say, moving away from him and towards the door.

“Hey, are you ok?” He takes a step towards you, cocking his head and furrowing his brow.

“Yes sir… Bucky.”

“Hey, you can tell me.”

“No, I can’t.” you look into his eyes, silently communicating the reason for your silence.

Bucky runs his hand through his hair and looks down.

“Your socks match.” he looks up and smiles.

“I’m sorry?” you look at your feet.

“You usually wear mismatched ones, it’s cute.”

You know he meant it to be a fun observation, maybe even a weird complement, but it feels pointed. You always lose your socks, it’s just one of the many small things that you should be able to do better but just can’t. You can’t even keep your life together enough to consistently find matching socks. You give a fake smile, used to laughing at yourself when these things are pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.” you laugh.

Bucky takes an almost imperceptible step towards you and you in turn take a very obvious one backwards.

“I’ll see you tomorrow sir.” you say.

“Bucky.”

“Bucky.” you give a tight smile before walking away.

---

Two weeks later

---

Natasha hands you a book.

“Can you wrap this please?”

“Yes ma'am, whose name should I put?”

“Say to my little bookworm, Love Nat.”

You wrap the present lovingly, putting extra care into it. You’ve seen them together, Nat and her girlfriend. Tony and Steve’s wives mostly keep to themselves but Natashas girlfriend is always nice to you, acknowledging you and thanking you when she sees you working. She owns a bookstore that you’ve visited a few times and always remembers you when you walk in.

“I think you forgot a piece of tape.” Bucky whispers in your ear making you jump. He’s started doing this, becoming more comfortable around you, touching you in small ways and getting just a little closer than what’s appropriate. You grab another piece of tape and secure a bit of paper.

“Thank you.” you say as you tie a bow around the gift and write the note. You pause with your pencil trying to remember what Natasha told you to write. You should have written it down when she told you it. You curse under your breath, wishing you had paid better attention when you were given instructions. You remember it was something easy but not exactly what she wanted.

“I have to get this back to Ms. Romanoff.” you push past Bucky.

“Did I do something to make you upset?”

You stop and look at him.

“No sir”

“Bucky”

“I just prefer to remain professional while at work,” you look down.

“What about outside of work?”

“I would rather keep that life separate. I’m sorry, I just really like this job and don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize it.”

Bucky clenches his jaw and you half expect him to grab you and push you against the wall like you’ve seen the captain and Tony do to their girlfriends and then wives. You flinch when he takes a step towards you. He reaches out, brushing the back of his hand over your cheek.

“I’m not like the others,” he whispers.

You’re not sure what to say, you just nod and watch as he steps back and walks away.

---

One month later

---

You’re doing dishes, scrubbing hard against burnt on food that was never soaked or even rinsed. One of them had a date the night before, making a complicated meal.

“How long until you get your girl?” Thor says to Sam as they walk into the kitchen.

“Tony’s working on it, probably a few weeks before I can take her home.”

They each grab oranges and head into the next room. their voices get quieter for a few minutes then louder again as they walk back to throw away their orange peels.

“I’m envious, I often fantasize about finding mine, If only I knew where she was.” Thor says.

“You have no idea where she could be?”

“I must confess, friend, I don’t even know what planet she’s on. She’s a slippery little lady.”

You stop washing dishes for a second, mind trying to dissect what you’re overhearing.

“You ok?” Bucky sets a plate next to the sink.

“Yes sir.” you reply, taking the plate and washing it.

You turn off the sink and turn around, seeing multiple dishes you forgot about. You pick them up and bring them to the sink, restarting the cleaning process.

“I think you should take a vacation.”

You look at him and raise your eyebrows.

“You’re a hard worker, and fast too.”

You nod in agreement.

“You’re… unusual to watch though.”

You set the last clean dish in the drying rack and turn your back to Bucky, taking a step away. You put your hand in your pocket to pull out your phone which holds your to do list but it’s not there. You look to your right and left and then turn back toward Bucky. He holds your phone out to you and you grab it and open your list.

“This is the third time today you’ve misplaced your phone.”

“I appreciate your concern, you’re very observant.” you bite your tongue before you say something aggressively inappropriate to your boss.

“Hey, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. You’re very smart and capable, I just noticed it’s been worse lately and think you should take a break.”

You take a deep breath.

“I’m taking next week off.” you say, grabbing a broom and walking out of the kitchen.

“Good.” Bucky yells after you.

---

Three months later.

---

Your phone rings, waking you up from a deep sleep.

“Hello,” you say sleepily.

“Hey, can you come in ASAP?” Tony says from the other end.

You jump out of bed.

“Of course, I’ll be there soon.”

You quickly get dressed and run out of the apartment. You gasp and drop your bag as soon as the elevator door opens. There’s a huge mess covering the entire living room and kitchen. There’s broken glass and furniture everywhere as well as a hole in the wall. It looks as though there was a fight and you wonder what happened. You get to work right away.

Thankfully a few of the Avengers wives come and help you clean up. Natashas wife evidently is back from a long honeymoon and you’re happy to see her. You smile at her and she frowns back at you.

“Are you ok?”

She looks away. “Just tired.”

You watch her give a tiny flinch as Natasha calls her name from the next room. Something is very wrong.

“You got this cleaned up fast.” Bucky says, taking a dustpan away from you and dumping the contents into the trash.

“I had help.” you say, looking over to where Natasha and her wife stand across the room.

You look back at Bucky and give a sweet smile.

“I was wondering if I could leave a little early on friday. There’s a birthday party for my grandmother.”

“I think you’ve earned leaving a little early after today, you’re welcome to get ready for your party here too. You can use the guest room.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Bucky.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes.

“Thank you Bucky.”

---

You put on your dress and a full face of makeup, admiring yourself in the mirror before heading out. Bucky stands outside of the guest room door, obviously waiting for you.

“You clean up nice.”

“Thank you.”

Bucky clicks his tongue as he stares at you.

“Did I ever tell you that you remind me of someone I used to know?”

You back away.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I miss her.”

You try your best to take even breaths. The way he looks at you makes you deeply uncomfortable. You feel naked despite your dress being on the conservative side. You make the mistake of looking straight at his crotch, seeing a very visible bulge. You gulp and shift uncomfortably on your feet.

“Have a good time at your party.” Bucky says.

“I will.” you say politely before basically running to the elevator. You get in and realize you forgot your phone. You walk back to the guest room where Bucky waits, holding your phone out for you. You grab it and turn around but bucky catches your arm.

“Focus, do you have everything you need.”

You shift your eyes away and realize you forgot your wallet and keys too.

Bucky grabs your things out of his pocket and hands them to you.  

“Thank you.” you breathe.

Bucky hums and lets you go.

“Be safe,” he yells as you walk back to the elevator, this time taking it down and leaving the tower.

---

Three months later

---

You’re going to quit today. As good as the money is it’s not worth the fear and stress of working there. Not only have you become more and more concerned about the wives of the Avengers but you just can’t take Bucky anymore. You’re scared of him. The way he looks at you makes you feel as though he could decide at any minute to lock you in a room and tear your clothes off. You feel constant stress at work and have developed a tremor. No amount of money is worth this work environment. The lease at your apartment is about to end and you’ll move back with your parents until you find a new job.

You enter the avengers floor and hear yelling.

“Fuck!”

“I thought we were kidnapping women?”

“You weren’t supposed to just snatch one. Now there’s a whole mess to clean up.”

“Thor just took his.”

“He has a point.”

“Thor had that whole betrothal thing.”

“Touche.”

You make eye contact with a scared woman who is sitting on the couch with her hands tied in front of her. She mouths run and you do, running out of the tower and home. You start frantically packing a bag, throwing your phone away since you’re sure they can track it.

“There’s nowhere to hide baby.”

You scream as Bucky pulls you away from your suitcase and throws you on your bed.

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” he touches your face, smoothing his finger over your lip.

“We’re married now, Tony already set it up. I’m going to take you on a honeymoon on an island until I can trust you.”

It clicks in your head, the honeymoons. They always come back so quiet and introverted.

“What did they do to those poor girls?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Tears start forming in your eyes.

“I won’t tell anyone, just let me go.”

“This is the only way.”

Bucky’s hand travels down your body, grabbing your waistband and pulling your pants off. He puts his hand in between your legs and you squirm away, clenching your legs tight.

“Please baby, I don't want to hurt you but I will if i have to. Now open up”

You shake your head, tears now spilling down your cheeks. He slaps you hard and you clutch your throbbing face, crying out and pushing your body against the headboard. You slowly and shakilly open your legs for him, closing your eyes as he dips a metal finger in your pussy.

“I’m not like the others.”

He thrusts his finger in and out.

“They took those women out of greed. They feel like they deserve love after everything they’ve given up... we’ve given up.”

He reaches his other hand up, still fucking you gently with a metal finger, and grabs your chin, shaking your head gently until you look at him.

“I just want you to be safe and happy.”

Bucky pulls his finger out. He grabs his cock, stroking it as he looks at your naked lower half. You try to close your legs but he grabs them, pulling them open. He kisses your mound gently and you arch your back involuntarily, pushing your pussy into his face. He grabs your legs and holds you against his mouth, suddenly sucking and licking until you’re coming undone. The pleasure washes over you and you relax for a second before your mind is brought back to reality. Your legs shake as He pulls back and smiles at you, climbing over you and pushing his impressive dick in. He kisses you as he thrusts into you, grabbing your shoulders and squeezing them as he comes.

“I’m going to be good for you, this will be good.” he whispers, holding you as you cry in his arms.

---

You’re forgetful. You don’t focus, don’t pay attention. It was right in front of your face and you still missed it. You always miss it. You’ve always been someone who gets themselves into trouble, always making silly mistakes and having to pay for them.

Your shadow did it again, silently destroyed everything around you while you ignorantly looked the wrong way. If you could just pay attention.

If you could just focus.

But you can’t.

[lordoftherazzles]

Maybe a fic prompt (if you wanna do it)? I was looking at one of your gifs (they're stunning btw) and I was thinking of something like Bilbo admiring the view and saying "This is stunning" and Thorin agreeing but while gazing at the hobbit? This is kinda cliché but I feel it would be very cute. Also your writing is superior, I love it ( ꈍᴗꈍ)ﾉ✿

Ahhh!!! I love this prompt so much @nerdymeatball13 , and I'm sorry it took me a hot second to finish, lots of things piled on me at once but here we are!!

prompt "This is stunning"

word count 1789

relationship(s) thorin oakenshield/bilbo baggins

character(s) thorin oakenshield, bilbo baggins

warnings none

additional notes they're so schmoopy and I love them

-----

The worst was over. The Battle of the Five Armies had been something to both mourn and celebrate. Many lives had been lost, but the good that came from that outweighed the bad. A close scare came with the Line of Durin, but by some miracle or nothing short of divine intervention by Mahal himself, Thorin, Fili, and Kili all managed to pull through. It was a blessing that no one took for granted, especially the victims themselves.

Thankfully, that was several weeks ago. It was still tough for Thorin to be on his feet, but with enough stubborn resistance, he had managed to ward off most of those constantly fussing over his bandaging and stitches. Oin never let him out of bed for more than an hour at a time, but it was more freedom than Thorin had felt ever since he’d been carted back into the mountain with nearly half of his insides trying to spill outside. 

This was one of those particular hours that he was allowed to be up and wandering around. He’d set aside all paperwork and kingly duties for the sake of a simple walk in hopes that it might clear his mind. Between recovery and trying to do as much as possible to help in Erebor’s reconstruction both literally and as a power, Thorin felt bogged down. There was little time for much else, and his mind had been growing more and more muddled as the weeks went on. A mind that was constantly in worry of what the spring months might bring as they were growing nearer and nearer.

Bilbo had opted to stay considering the winter months had settled in, which was a smart move versus trying to brave any snowstorm, but it was still up in the air if the hobbit had truly planned to head back west towards his cozy little smial, or if...by chance maybe he wanted to make Erebor his new home. It wasn’t something Thorin brought up. Yes, they had made amends, even more than that, with sweet somethings having been uttered occasionally back and forth, but it wasn’t the picture perfect romance that Thorin had been dreaming about lately.

Love was nice and all, and even better when it wasn’t one-sided, but to remain unknowing as to where it might lead? That was a nightmare in itself. It was a lot for Thorin to think about, and while he didn’t want to pressure Bilbo and flat out ask if he intended to stay or go, it was starting to eat away at the dwarf little by little. It’s what this walk was to help him with. To clear his head and hopefully return to his sickbed with a mind for papers and numbers.

What had led him towards one of the worst places in all of Erebor during this calm walk of his? The ramparts were a miserable place, but it gave you a good view of the stretch of land between Erebor and Dale, and not even Thorin could ignore what a sight it was. Snow covered and untouched, it was hard to imagine the brown and red blood stains that laid beneath it from a war not too long ago.

What he hadn’t expected was for someone else to already be out here and staring just as he wanted to. A head of dark golden curls that Thorin had been trying to clear from his own headspace. 

“Bilbo,” The dwarf greeted casually, gaining a small glance from the hobbit as they stood side by side with at least a small gap between them.

“Good morning, Thorin. How are you feeling?” Bilbo was polite as ever as if nothing had changed, and while they were on good terms, didn’t this place...bother the hobbit? At all? 

“I’m feeling alright,” No one wanted to listen to Thorin complain about how sore he might be or if he had a bad sleep last night, so he left it at that. Besides, the less whining he did, the sooner Oin would get off his back. 

“That’s good. Every day is a little bit better, it seems.” 

“Indeed,” It was an awkward conversation all over again. Thorin folded his arms behind his back and just let his eyes drift towards the snow covered land before them. A bit of that snow had collected on the ledges of Erebor’s structure, he could only imagine how lovely it might look from a different angle. “You looked to be deep in thought, is something on your mind?”

Bilbo finally pulled all of his attention away from the scenery and offered Thorin a small wave of his hand. “Oh, just thinking about the Shire. We get snow there too and it’s nice, but...there’s just something about this that’s different.” 

Thorin’s heart could have sunk right into the ground right then and there. Bilbo was longing for home, wasn’t he? Those rolling green hills, even in the middle of winter, had to be far better than an ice cold mountain that was barely able to be called a kingdom. Finally deciding to toe the line of truths regarding Bilbo’s intentions, Thorin kept his eyes forward. “I’m sure you’ll be ready for the snow to clear sooner rather than later. It makes for bad travel weather…” 

“Hm, it does, but I’m not exactly eager to go anywhere so quickly. You’re just getting back on your feet. Oin can’t handle barking at you to sit still all on his own now, can he?” Bilbo teased, seeming to be in higher spirits than Thorin ever would be on these ramparts, and with the idea of Bilbo’s departure looming in his head.

A small breath of amusement did escape Thorin though, finally removing his hands from behind his back and placing it on the stone before him. “I think I can manage to sit still, but your constant reminders have helped these past few weeks.” His fingers twitched, tapping against the stone in anxiousness that wasn’t overly normal. Considering everything that Thorin had been through though, he supposed he was allowed a little bit of shaky behavior and anxiousness.

“Something’s troubling you,” Bilbo observed. It wasn’t a question, but a fact that was being pointed out far too easily. “What is it?” Placing both hands around one of Thorin’s arms, Bilbo honestly couldn’t get enough of these small gestures of physical contact, even if he was a tad anxious himself when it came to initiating them. 

Regardless of the comforting touch around his elbow, Thorin wasn’t sure it did anything to soothe his poor frayed nerves. Those nerves were exposed as soon as Bilbo was able to peg that something was bothering him and the words just started tumbling out. “How can you stand to be here?” Specifically, right in this very spot. “After what happened, how can you stand here and…”

Throw him from the ramparts!

How could Bilbo be here? How could he have forgiven Thorin for the wrongs he had done and a life that had been threatened? How could Bilbo not be whining and clawing at the first opportunity to head back to the safety of the Shire? These were the things that had been bothering Thorin, and being in this exact spot did not help.

“Thorin, you need to stop letting one small incident eat away at you. I’ve forgiven you for all of that, you weren’t yourself…”

“That’s no excuse. I laid a hand on you. You might be able to forgive me by some miracle, but I can’t forgive myself for that day...and now, knowing that you’ll be leaving-”

“Leaving? Who said anything about leaving?” Bilbo huffed, still clutching at Thorin’s elbow with both hands and giving his head a firm shake of annoyance as if he were dealing with a child. “You truly are a dolt sometimes. Handsome, brave and foolhardy to boot, but downright stupid when it counts.” 

Thorin wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed at the backhanded compliments flying his way.

“You’re going to have to learn to forgive yourself because honestly, I’m not going to come up here and have you mope every single time all because you got a little angry and said some things and...that was it. That’s all you did,” When Bilbo put it that way, it sounded far less severe than Thorin thought it was. “And as for leaving? That was...something I wanted to ask you. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but I do want to stay. Sure, I’ll miss my garden and some other aspects of the Shire but...home isn’t a place, Thorin.” Bilbo slid his hands away from Thorin’s elbow, his fingers lacing with a hand of the dwarf’s and giving it a small squeeze. “You’re my home, and that’s where I want to be if you’ll allow it.”

Thorin stood dumbly, looking towards their linked hands before letting his fingers flex tightly to grip back at Bilbo’s. “Of course…” Having Bilbo stay was all he ever wanted.

“Good, and don’t you worry, we’ll make some better memories here, I’m sure.” Leaning against Thorin’s side with hands still tightly wound together, Bilbo just exhaled a deep sigh as if a great weight had been lifted off of his chest. The same could be said for Thorin. 

A ray of light seemed to break through the thick of the gray clouds overhead, illuminating a bit of that freshly fallen snow that laid across the stretch of land as far as the eye could see. It sparkled like a sea of diamonds, and Bilbo couldn’t help the small gasp of wonder that crossed his face. He had seen snow in the sunlight before, but seeing it from way up here? To see so far and wide covered in little glistening crystals? “This is stunning,” He breathed, not paying Thorin much mind who had just been staring at Bilbo since that small gasp escaped his lips.

“Very stunning, indeed.” That look of wonder that Bilbo wore was bright and appealing. More desirable than a treasure hall of gold or a vein of mithril. 

Bilbo’s gaze flickered once quickly to start, if only because he wanted to follow Thorin’s gaze to see what the dwarf was looking at as well to deem as stunning, but after a quick double take, Bilbo was blushing fiercely. “You truly are a sappy old thing, you know that?”

“I do.” Pressing a kiss to those dark golden curls, Thorin truly had to believe in what Bilbo had said before. They would make better memories atop these ramparts, and already that seemed to be a reality in the making, but most importantly, he was here to stay.

[cheelduh]

hi!! can i request childe fluff with a reader who has a very strong fear of heights? like, they want to confront it and fail, and are down about it? sorry if i missed anything!

The Fall

Pairing: Childe x gn!reader

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: A shitton of typos prolly. Pls ignore any mistakes 

Synopsis: You've been afraid of heights for as long as you can remember, avoiding dangerous mountainsides completely. However, you can't quite stifle the yearning for wind gliding, wishing to experience the enjoyment of it yourself.

Note: Thank you so much for the request. Sorry I took so long, I hope you enjoy it! :)

It starts as a mellow gnawing, the fear, sometime around your early teen-hood when your adventurous cousin lugs you around mountaintops, away from the safety of your village that you're accustomed to. Then it matures, slowly but surely condemning every crevice in your body to the same paralyzingly fate.

"Isn't it beautiful?" She says in awe, clamping hand around your wrist, ensnaring you towards the edge. Her eyes are widened in amazement, brimming with wonder.

Your anxiety blinds your from said beauty. All you can see is the fall, the danger, how all it takes is one uncoordinated step or a joking push from someone to fall to your impeding doom. You don't see the beauty at all, because it's corrupted by dread.

The longer you look down, the deeper the fear manifests, deep within the pit of your stomach, becoming a never-ending inferno that threatens to consume you whole.

You scramble away from the mountainside, your cousin, staggering back until your back hits the grass beneath you, and you're trembling, shaking, unable to breath.

After that day, you never venture too close to the edge of cliffs, preferring to stay grounded, safe, away from the risk. And it works out for you, for a while.

You follow designated pathways up mountains to gather flowers and ore you need, forgoing the climbing part completely in dangerous areas. If there's no way to get somewhere without climbing too high, you just move on to another area, avoiding it completely. It works. Your system may not be the best, but it isn't supposed to be. It gets the job done, and that's all you really care about.

Although every time you catch someone wind gliding from afar, or couples enjoying the view from higher altitudes, you can't help but feel a twinge of envy, a deep rooted dejection.

Your boyfriend, Childe, doesn't really let you sulk in the misery that stems from your fear of heights, finding much more fun date ideas that involve your feet safely on the ground.

His creativity never once ceases to amaze you, every single outing with him being far more enthralling than the last.

He doesn't ask. He doesn't really need to. Being the eleventh harbinger, he has a knack for observing things that people won't admit. He's patient, caring, and loving, has all the best qualities in a person (except for his penchant for violence, which you easily bypass). To be frank, he's the best boyfriend you could ever ask for.

One day, in the midst of your cuddling session, you confess that you'd like to get over your deathly fear of heights.

Childe reassures you, peppering your cheeks with his loud kisses. "You don't have to if you don't want to. I'm perfectly fine with enjoying everything Liyue Harbor has to offer."

"But I want to." You pout, nuzzling your head deeper into the side his neck. "I want to appreciate more viewpoints and scenery. I want to be able to wind glide, like super super high."

He chuckles at that, finally agreeing and setting a date, but lets you know that if you wish to back out he has a number of other activities planned.

The morning comes in minutes it seems like, your jumpy nerves not allowing you a wink of sleep. You don't mourn much for the lost hours, because it gives you more than enough time to observe the adorable way your boyfriend snores.

It's not like you have a choice either, because Childe refuses to let you go—that too subconsciously. He's trapped you in a fixed position, front to front, legs tangled for the entirety of the night.

When Childe wakes up, he isn't an idiot to know you've been up all night, but doesn't seem to push it. He has a penchant for sniffing out haywire-nerves, oftentimes pointing them out in himself or his soldiers before an upcoming battle.

After you two finish with your morning routine, he takes you out. Specifically, you're headed towards Luhua pool, and it takes half the day to get there from your home back at the harbour. Once you finally reach the location, you realize why he chose it. Luhua pool is an easy place to glide, closer to shallow waters, and all the while breathtaking to behold.

"Come on," Childe outstretches a gloved hand, gently easing you in close proximity to the border of the ruin you two have climbed. "I got you."

Getting up here wasn't so bad, not when Childe was behind you, telling you to focus on each step and to take your time.

Side stepping the scattered paint brushes and random sketches that someone was in the middle of prior to this day, you clasp his hand tightly, and he weaves his fingers within your own. With a guiding tug, your face meets his chest.

"Turn around," He brushes your hair away gently. "Come on, you don't want to miss this."

Apprehensively, you peek an eye out from the safety of your boyfriend's hold, moving around so you're semi-facing the breathtaking view in front of you. When your eyes are blessed with the delicate hues of the scenery beyond you, your jaw begins to hang. Seeing everything from a distance, from high up, even if you aren't as high up as you'd one day like to be, makes everything look all the more breathtaking.

Childe's right, you don't want to miss this. You don't want to miss this ever again.

But then you look down, the intrusive rhythms of your brain forcing you to peer at the drop, the fall, inches away from where your feet are standing.

The fall. It's always the fall. You aren't even too far up, but the agitation that overtakes your entire body, numbing you completely, branching off in your heart, makes it seem as though you're hundreds of feet away from the ground.

You turn to him, to tell him about your seconds thoughts. The I'm not ready weighs down on your tongue, but the stars in his eyes as he basks in the warm casts of the setting sun terminate the words before they are even born.

So when he finally snaps out of his momentary daze, shrugging off the remaining inertia to grin at you, you doubtlessly agree to what he says next.

"Ready to try the wind glider?"

—

You failed with the wind glider. Panicked last second like a complete moron, caught your leg on the edge of a rock and then fell to your death.

Thankfully your impeccably-adept-at-flying fatui boyfriend launched himself into a free fall not even a millisecond later. With expertise like no other, he dodged your flailing hands and seized your body close to his, swiftly opening up his gliders with an experienced motion.

Even when Childe's feet landed on the ground, arms around you, safe, secure, you couldn't stop screaming, clinging onto him like you'd die if you let go. Took him a solid five minutes to calm you down, wiping at your tears and soothing you with loving words of consolation.

"Hey, are you still thinking about today?" Childe's voice draws you out of your momentary trance. "You haven't even touched your crystal shrimp yet."

"Oh," You blink, pushing them around with the chopsticks. Poking, but not eating. "Thanks."

The harbinger sighs, neatly placing his chopsticks down—not like he was using them right anyways. His hand snakes across the table, finding yours with the sole intention to relieve your unpleasant brooding.

"I'm sorry," You squeeze his hand, unable to meet his eyes yet. "It's so stupid. I'm so stupid. I shouldn't have wasted our day—"

"Stop it." For the first time, he's provoked in your presence, words holding more weight in them than they usually do on his end. "You're not stupid. It's perfectly valid to want to get over your fears, in fact, I think it's admirable. I just—I don't understand why you can't see that, why you can't see how much progress you've made today. Just because you had one slip up doesn't mean anything, it doesn't erase the fact that you faced another challenge and came out of it stronger."

"What if I..." You murmur, timid when you look up to meet his piercing gaze. "What if I don't want to anymore?"

Childe smiles at that, thumb circling around your knuckle, familiar in motion. "Then that's that. Perfectly fine. We don't talk about it ever again unless you bring it up. But if you decide you want to continue, then I'll be there to catch you. Always."

"Thank you." Your beam is small, but doesn't go unnoticed by the other.

"Of course," He lets go, scooting his chair so that it's right next to yours. "And as for compensation, you can feed me. Better feed me dessert too, us fatui are clear-cut with our dealings. To the T."

You roll your eyes, soaking a jade parcel in the broth before picking it up with your chopsticks. "Fatui scum, so hellbent on collecting debts."

[the-obelisk]

By The Fire -- Fae Collection

Loki x Reader

Summary: Fireside conversations between you and the trickster.

“There you are. Where have you been?” You noticed Loki in the library/work station Tony had built for you after noticing the mess you lived. 

With all of your books being crammed in the corners of you room; And the the added mounds of paper Tony would see spread all over the common room, he was sick and tired of seeing it. 

Or worse, for him to have to deal with you asking FRIDAY a hundred times where you left your book or papers. And once Loki moved into the compound, you had even more access to a plethora of new books that he slowly moved into your library space. 

For the both of you, it was the place you often ran to for silence from the chaos that seemed to lurk the corridors of the compound.

“Loki?” You asked quietly noting that he sat on the floor, his book casually off to the side. Something about him felt off, therefore, you took a seat next to him on the floor and faced him slightly. 

“What happened?” 

He took a minute to respond. Sighing, he looked at you and just offered a weak acknowledgment. “I miss my home. As strange as it might seem, I miss being able to hide away.” You listened at his soft voice. His eyes turned back to the fire, “I miss my mother.”

You nodded. You knew very well that Loki was homesick. With his mother dead, there was no reason to return home. Asgard was no longer home to him. Instead, it was better he remained on Earth rather than his childhood realm. 

You wrapped your hand around his and leaned towards him, finding your other hand at the back of his neck. Your fingers ran softly through his hair, you projected emotions of comfort towards him. 

He smiled at the comforting presence you offered him. 

Loki looked at you, rubbing his thumb against the back of your hand. “Do you ever feel out of place, Y/N?” 

You looked at him, seeing the softness in his eyes made you want to wrap your arms around him and tell him to not feel so alone. “I do. When I am here— some of the times.” You spoke in a tone matching his own. 

He looked at you quizzically. It was a response, he didn’t anticipate. You seemed to flow so easily with everyone in the compound. Always talking and laughing with whomever you were in contact with. 

What he didn’t know was that you often wondered what you offered to the table for such an elite force of individuals. 

“How come?” He asked. Loki didn’t have the intention to open up, but it did comfort him knowing he wasn’t the only one that felt alone here. 

Or rather, the only one to tell him that they too felt out of place. 

You exhaled and shrugged. “I’m not like everyone else here— They all are experts at what they do. I’m still learning how to even use my powers, so I don’t excel like you or Wanda or even Vision. I can’t fight like Natasha or Cap.” You just pouted your lips and look at the fire.

“I try to make it my home, but this isn’t my home,” you sighed quietly, “It’s just an opportunity to help others while having the ability to learn more about myself, I guess.”

So with that, you trained in combat with Natasha, ran or sparred with Steve and Bucky, engaged in sparring lessons with your abilities with Wanda and sometimes, Vision. Then other times you found yourself in the lab trying to digest the scientific terms that spewed from Bruce’s lips and Tony’s demonstrations of his latest tech. Each one had a specific skill set, and when working with the others, created an dynamic force with the best of the best in their respective fields.

You wondered if you had anything to offer. You took to the artistic sides of life. Before being picked up by SHIELD for accidentally reading one of their agents thoughts— not to mention, an undercover one— you had worked as teacher, mentor, researcher. You wanted to understand the triumphs and pitfalls of humankind. Why they operated in their specific ways, how culture and religion shaped their motivations. You had questions, and when answered, you had even more questions develop.

And in many ways, you did the same with your team members. You were here to get it right, not be an expert. You wanted to know it all and even then, it became tiresome.

Loki peered into your thoughts, noting that you had once told Thor, during his visits back to earth, that it was hard to see what role you could play. You weren’t a fighter like the combat experts on the team, you weren’t a science geek-- you were simply you. Otherworldly, Y/N Y/L/N.

So what did you have to offer to the table?

Loki tuned out of your thoughts and smiled at you, “What did life look like before you got here?” 

Smiling at him, you turned back to face him. Now with your body shifted towards him, and fingers still twirling the ends of his hair. 

“I was a researcher, well— I guess I still am. I traveled to a bunch of places like Cambodia, Peru, Afghanistan, India, Madagascar. I wanted to learn their culture, and I offered help when I could. I usually worked in small villages to avoid the connection of my lack of aging. So, I worked with the locals there. They taught me their history— their way of life— and I would heal sometimes, help them with harvests, teach their children. It was peaceful, to say the least.”

Loki smiled at how your eyes lit up when recounting your brief account. He listened as you continued in tone filled with deep contemplation, “I often ask myself, why are there so many quarrels, and clusters of hate? Why were we created as we were and what is our meaning? I suppose because I never was able to learn about my own origin until Thor was able to give me further insight, that I finally received answers, but they didn’t answer my larger questions.”

“Why do you think you are here?” The raven-haired man asked entertaining her thought with deep interest at your words.

You quirked your eyebrow and laughed a little. “Perhaps to learn the lessons around me.”

“And what lessons would those be?” 

“To understand peoples’ actions. To listen and to help. But most importantly,” You said in a soft tone while looking at him, “to uplift those who are learning lessons of their own.”

He knew that your last point was directed towards him. He nodded, “And what lessons are you assisting me with, little one?” 

“Right now, redemption. Yours is to learn to forgive yourself and others. To simply, do better rather than apologizing and wishing to forget the past. You are facing it, something I admire you for. And one day,” You leaned a bit closer and gazed back into his blue orbs, “you will learn to love. Yourself, others, and hopefully, the world around us.” 

Loki nodded and could feel the devotion roll off your frame. “I think you are too kind for this world.” He said quietly. It felt more like an observation for himself, but still you acknowledged it.

Running your fingers through his hair, you nodded and hummed in response. “Always be kinder than you have to be. There is more to others than you think, trickster.” You lightly tease with a soft smile and empathetic eyes.

The raven-haired man looked at you dearly and raised his hand to you cheek. Loki leaned to lay a kiss on your cheek. “I am grateful for you, my little dove.” 

Instantly, you felt your nerves bundle in the pit of your stomach. To you, his touch seemed to ignite something within.

You ran your fingers through his hair one last time before resting your hand on his cheek. Pressing your forehead against his, you closed your eyes projecting another emotion— one of endearment that seemed to swirl within you towards him. 

“I am grateful for you as well, Loki.” Kissing his nose softly, you looked in his eyes unable to read the emotions but they felt warm and gentle. 

If Loki could have it his way, you could remain that close forever; However, he smiled at you and sat in the silence of it all with you. And sadly, soon he pulled back causing you to miss the cool touch of his forehead against yours. 

“Sit with me while I read?” 

You nodded in response as his hand left yours and slowly wrapped around your frame, pulling you closer to him. You positioned your back against his frame while he used the chair behind him as a back rest. 

“What have you been reading?” 

“A collection of poems from Vanaheim.” He spoke in a low tone as he held the book that hovered above your legs. His long legs laid outstretched around yours as you nodded at him to begin. 

He exhaled calmly, flipping through the pages and started, “This one seems like a good place to begin...”

You sat there reading along the words that flowed from Loki’s lips in an entrancing manner. You fell in love with the way he narrated the long, winded poem with ease and comfortability. 

If you hadn’t known any better, you were sure he had read this book thousands of times. 

But you didn’t seem to care if he had or hadn’t. You were consumed with his emotions of safety and happiness he felt in that moment. For you, that was enough. 

And for a little while, before the world would begin again, you enjoyed the quieted world that stemmed from his verbal inflection of the poems he read. Ones that created a mini-world between the two of you in the quiet library.