#can’t resist a scary female villain sorry

[dyke-in-crisis]

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[marshmallow-phd]

Between the Pages

Genre: Vampire!AU

Pairing: Taemin x Reader

A/N: This one was fun. And writing for Taemin is making me what to do it again! 

**

The library was quiet – as it should be. Despite the dozen or so people scattered about in the evening hours, you were able to drift in and out of the aisles without any problems. Occasionally, you would stop and inspect a spine that caught your eye, making sure it was in its proper place before moving on to the next shelf. You had a small pile of books in your arms that were needing to find their homes again. Motivation to do much else was lost on you at the moment. As much as you loved your job, your mind was more preoccupied with what was waiting for you afterwards.

“Do you know where the Shakespeare books are?”

“Shoot!” you squealed way too loudly for a librarian. The familiar laugh made you whirl around. Taemin was leaning up against the shelf of books, arms crossed and a smirk on his lips. You, however, did not find it as amusing. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

The vampire shrugged. “Last I checked, this wasn’t sacred ground.”

Rolling your eyes, you turned back to your work. “Whatever ground you walk on is immediately de-sacred-fied.”

“I may not be as smart as you, but I’m sure that’s not a word.”

You looked back at him over your shoulder as you tried to hold back a laugh you knew would be breaking the volume rule. “You’d think a three-hundred-year-old vampire would be extremely intelligent.”

Taemin pushed off the shelf and stalked towards, his hands now behind his back. He came close to you, enough to make your own shoulder blades bump into the innocent books behind you. “Sorry,” he said without an ounce of sincerity. “I spent my time practicing other… things.”

You could already feel the heat exploding in your cheeks and your heart speeding up in your chest from the embarrassment. You hated when he did that. It was all on purpose, toeing the line of innuendoes. He said he did it because it reminded him of how human you were; the reactions your body had to his presence drew him in – not to quench his everlasting thirst, but to explore the meaning of being human himself again.

There were times he made you feel as cliché as the heroines in the supernatural section: the unassuming female lead, quiet, unadventurous, nose always in a book. You were a librarian, for Pete’s sake. And not even the cool Noah Wyle-type where you went around the world finding ancient artifacts and saving humanity from an evil villain (usually scared or tattooed) who wanted to use the artifact for his own nefarious purposes.

Instead, you were the protector of plastic-covered books and keeper of late fees. (Yes, there was much more to your job than that and you absolutely loved it, but that was beside the point.) Compared to the extended life Taemin had lived… you were a little boring.

“Come back,” his voice whispered in your ear, making you jump. He chuckled at your startled expression and you resisted the urge to punch his arm. It wouldn’t inflict any level of pain on him anyway. “You were doing it again,” he teased. “Spacing out.”

“Sorry,” you murmured. It tended to happen, your mind wandering down paths and blocking out reality at the most inconvenient times. Taemin, however, was used to it by now.

He shook his head at you. “Don’t be. You’re cute when you do that.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You say that about everything I do.”

“Because it’s true.” Locking you in with his gaze, he leaned in until the tips of your noses were just a hair’s breadth apart. His voice was low, almost to the point of in audible as he said, “Come with me.”

“No,” you said back with almost no fight. “I can’t just leave work.”

“You won’t be leaving building.”

Oh, no. You knew that look. That gleam in his eye compared with the smile that was just a little too innocent. His mind had already conjured up a scheme that you would be against before he could get one word out.

“Taemin, no-”

Too late.

He already had you scooped up in his arms and blurring by the bookshelves. The “employees only” door near the back of the library didn’t hinder him at all, making it through with a quick swipe of your badge that hung from your waist. He continued up the stairs even as they turned from polished marble to rickety wood under his feet, his steps so light they hardly made a sound. In the span of perhaps thirty seconds or so, he’d taken you from the first floor non-fiction section all the way up to the bell tower balcony outside.

The wind was stronger up here, less hindered by the other buildings of the city. Low in the sky, the sun continued to shine on the orange and blue canvas. Taemin set you back down on your feet, but you still clung to his side with as tight of a grip you could muster. As beautiful as the scene was, you had a horrible fear of heights. Taemin knew this about you, yet he still brought you all the way up here.

“It’s okay,” he giggled. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Why did he always find your scared moments so amusing? Was it a vampire thing?

“Why did you bring me up here?” you asked out loud.

“Because I wanted you to see the sunset.” With his cold hand he took ahold of yours while wrapping his other arm behind the small of your back. For a moment, you thought he was going to start waltzing with you though there was no music, but he didn’t move. He kept staring out at the small strip of sun still visible on the horizon.

This was the only time of day that he could be out, the only time where the sun’s rays wouldn’t disintegrate him into ash. Out of all the myths about vampires that weren’t true – the garlic, the mirrors, the coffins – you really wished that one was on the list. You wanted to see the world with him, see it through his eyes, but during the day, where you believed it was at its most beautiful. But he could never do that. Not without risking goodbye the forever kind of way.

“I’ve seen it before,” you sighed.

“But I want you to really look at it.”

Turning away from it completely, you looked Taemin in the eyes. They were bright red, telling you he’d recently fed. “Why?” you demanded. “What’s so important about it?”

“Because I want you to know how I see you.”

Your breath hitched in your throat. He was hardly ever serious, at least not with you, not in the time that you’d known him. Even on the night you’d met, despite how scary it had been for you, he was smiling and joking in an effort to put you more at ease.

Letting go of your hand, he reached out and caressed your cheek with his cool thumb.

“You’ve been crying in your sleep lately,” he confessed. “At first I thought you were having nightmares about him again.”

You shuddered at the memory of the vampire who’d decided to make you his next meal. That was back before you knew about the supernatural, back when it all was still fairytales put to paper. Taemin had saved you that night, but even if you felt secure and protected with him, he couldn’t frighten away the nightmares. Thinking back, though, you hadn’t dreamt about him in a long time. You shook your head, “I don’t understand.”

“You started talking in your sleep,” he explained, a sadness filling his eyes that broke your own heart. “Saying things like not being good enough or being unworthy. Once you asked me how I could stay with you.” Closing his eyes, he came forward and nudged your nose with his own. “You silly little creature. How could you not see yourself as I do?”

“But-”

Taemin stopped you with his ice cold lips, pressing them into yours to push back the argument that was brewing inside. He pinned you in between him and the brick wall of the tower. While he usual kisses with you were softer, gentler in fear of accidentally hurting you, this one was more aggressive, releasing all that he normally held back. He broke away from your lips to move down to your jaw and then your neck. Against your skin, you felt his fangs grow long and sharp. You accidentally let out a squeak, stopping him. When he pulled away, you bit your bottom lip guilty.

“Sorry,” you whispered.

“Don’t be,” he smiled as he cupped your jaw with his hands. “I got a little carried away, that’s all. But do you see it now? How worth it you are?”

No, not entirely. There was still that seed of doubt, but you were sure it would always be there. There was an imbalance between you and Taemin, the kind that could only be fixed in one way. And you were nowhere near ready for that step. There were too many human things you wanted to do, too many days in the sun that you weren’t able to give up yet. But, for now at least, you could push that all away. You nodded reassuringly at him.

“Good,” he beamed, happy to see you smiling up at him. “Because you’re mine. Forever.”

[wanderingnork]

Tell us some things about your favorite story villains (movies/tv/books/etc), what makes a compelling villain, that sort of thing?

First: here’s the academic and profound rant I did for @almost-annette. I think I only swore once because, well. Grindelwald.

Second: let’s get down to some goddamn villainy.

Let’s start with my queen, the demon who dragged my sorry ass screaming into bisexual hell and still owns my soul: Abaddon.

JUST STAB ME, LADY, I’M READY.

*cough*

Kinkshame all you fucking want. You know you want her too.

for real though: I find Abaddon to be one of SPN’s most compelling villains and this is why: she’s a female villain but she DOESN’T FUCKING ACT LIKE ONE. I don’t have to sit through primping and posing and so on and so forth. No schemes, no seductive smiles except the ones she aims at the bodies of the people she MURDERED. She knows what she wants (power) and she is going to GET IT. By any fucking means necessary. She HITS THINGS. She smashes through doors and walls and holy fire and comes back from having her head cut off and she comes back with smeared lipstick and wrecked hair and smiling and fuuuuuuuuck there goes my heart again. Abaddon has no finesse! AND I LOVE IT. I fucking LOVE watching this woman kick her way through obstacles and slam open doors and be an actual, credible THREAT in a way that THE FUCKING DARKNESS wasn’t!

Basically? Her appeal is that she isn’t a goddamn sex object. She’s a threat first, sexy second. And hot DAMN is she sexy, but about half that sex appeal comes from the fact that she could literally throw me through a wall and for some reason that gets me in a really particular way.

*cough*

Anyway. Let’s on to the next villain, an INANIMATE OBJECT!

Stormbringer.

This fucking sword.

This FUCKING sword.

Huh.

Didn’t expect there to be a gif for that.

But hey: LOOK AT IT.

Quit staring at me, fucker. My soul belongs to a demon queen with red hair and scary eyes, got it? NOT YOU. (Or it belongs to the guy hauling your bitch self around. I mean…)

This is the hellblade, the demon sword wielded by the throneless emperor, the melancholy warrior, the wandering albino, Elric of Melnibone. (My childhood hero. Gee, I wonder why I idolized a guy who required drugs to function and spent his entire life in Tragedy Mode!)

It eats souls.

Like, no, literally, fucker eats souls. If Elric stabs you? YOUR SOUL IS RIPPED FROM YOUR BODY AND CONSUMED BY THE BLADE. It’s how he gets around the, you know, drugs he requires to live. Stormbringer feeds the souls to HIM as energy. Like how fucking creepy and upsetting can you get. There’s an official fic out there (in “Tales of the White Wolf”) which takes this to a tragic yet heartwarming conclusion, but mostly? THIS IS EXACTLY AS FUCKING TERRIFYING AS YOU’D EXPECT.

Oh, and spoiler alert? In the final battle of Law and Chaos, where Elric fights as the representative of the Cosmic Balance, he of course fights with Stormbringer…it eats his wife and his best friend Moonglum to give him strength and, when the battle’s over and the world has been remade into something better and purer, it ANIMATES and CONSUMES ELRIC and TRANSFORMS INTO THE DEMON IT WAS ALL ALONG AND ASCENDS TO CORRUPT THE NEW WORLD!

Fucking sword.

I guess this thing is compelling because…like, that’s it’s nature. It’s addictive to use. It makes killing appealing because you are stronger and happier when you do and to someone who struggles with weakness and depression that sounds so good. It’s a temptation that’s hard to resist for anyone and, for Elric, IMPOSSIBLE to resist. He can’t live without Stormbringer. The one story where he’s away from it–”The Fortress of the Pearl”–he can only get away from it because he’s in a dream world, and the tragedy is that he can’t stay there, safe from Stormbringer. He needs it to live…and that’s his downfall. 

Keep this one far, far, FAR away from me, please.

Third (and final, I think), we’re going to talk about the other villain I unequivocally adore: Shan Yu.

I MEAN LOOK AT HIM.

HOW DO YOU NOT LOVE HIM.

Let’s review: this guy goes to war on continental hegemon China with an army that’s so big they have to DROP A MOTHERFUCKING MOUNTAIN ON IT in order to shut it down. He SURVIVES that avalanche, then hikes into the capital, kicks the crap out of everyone with like four other guys, and would have won except he underestimated Mulan just a lil bit. Not much. He didn’t think a fan was important; he was wrong about that.

And you know what makes him compelling? HE’S HUMAN. He’s REALLY human. The scene where he interrogates the Imperial scouts is BONE-CHILLING. He’s sympathetic, he’s well-spoken, he’s polite. He lets them go! And then he turns to his archer and, with perfect calm, asks, “How many men does it take to deliver a message?”

HE EXECUTES A MAN HE SPARED JUST TO PROVE A FUCKING POINT.

STONE-COLD.

He has a flair for the dramatic and obscenely good comedic timing (”Boo.”). What’s the key to a good villain? PRESENTATION! And if you aren’t horrified by that charge down the ridge in the fight in the mountains, then he’s doing his job wrong, and I don’t think he is. The show of force there is just…ugh. I am turned on by displays of magnificent power, okay? And in terms of that whole army thing, he has a clear plan that leaves NO ROOM for any deviation. He’s ruthless, he’s smart, he’s scary. “The little girl will be missing her doll.”…and then we see the doll in a burning village, full of–if you didn’t ever catch this, they’re in the snow when the soldiers first cross the ridge–bodies.

Shan Yu is horrifying because godDAMN, he’s REAL. He’s more brutal, in my opinion, than any other Disney villain: we see the body count he’s racking up as he marches on China. We see the threat he presents and are given EVERY FUCKING REASON to believe that he could win. He kicks the CRAP out of Shang, who up to this point has been presented as the single most competent solo combatant China’s fielding. He takes out literally everyone else in his path–except when Shan Yu steps up to the plate. No one can take this man in a straight fight, they have to resort to deception and EXPLOSIVES!

Like, okay, I understand this website’s obsession with Gaston as Ultimate “Real” Disney Villain, but for fuck’s sake, Shan Yu scares me SO MUCH MORE. He’s masculine-but-not-macho. He doesn’t need to prove a point; the amount of fucks he gives about gender (as others have pointed out) are exactly zero. And in that way, Gaston…even in this fucking fucked up political climate…is honestly a big fucking caricature. Shan Yu? is NOT. He’s multifaceted; as I pointed out, the man’s quite capable of mannerly soft-spoken conversation, well-timed humor, commanding an apocalyptic force in battle, and murdering innocent children.

That’s fucking scary.

THAT is a villain I find compelling.

*deep breath*

Okay. Who’s next? Ask me your questions and I’ll tell you no lies. :3