#cruel irony on the part of the author

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 93: August 2004

Gerry is not, by nature, an early riser. He’s something of a night owl, actually, prone to staying up until the wee small hours with paintbrush and stereo and then collapsing for the better part of the morning. He’s the sort of man who would have worked the swing shift at the factory during the war or taken third watch on a sailing vessel, keener-sighted with nothing to light his way but a quarter moon and the occasional amber glow of a street lamp than with full sun in a cloudless sky, and should he tend towards one of the Fears would be well on his way to being the monster under the bed or the shadow in the alley.

But he can get up early when it’s important, so he steps out into the grey light of pre-dawn, locks the shop door behind himself, and sets off across London.

He doesn’t bother going to the house. It’s going to be chaos this morning, with Aunt Lily probably trying to delay things as much as possible and Martin actually considering staying and Melanie bullying him out the door while simultaneously forgetting half a dozen things, and Uncle Roger in the midst of it all being helpful in the most cheerfully unhelpful way imaginable. He can picture it all in his mind’s eye. No, best he stay away. He knows where they’ll be, so he stops long enough to pick up another pack of Woodbines and smokes one as he makes his way to the King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground stop.

Over the years, Gerry has traveled out of every station in London, most of them a dozen times, and St. Pancras has always been his favorite. There’s no real reason for it, especially since they don’t usually spend a lot of time waiting in the stations—his mother, and by extension Gerry and his siblings, have the timetables memorized and their timing down to almost an art, so they never have to wait more than eight minutes unless there’s a delay. He supposes it’s the memories. King’s Cross, just across the road, is good too, but he prefers St. Pancras if he has a choice. He usually doesn’t.

It’s raining, and it’s also early, which means limited traffic. Gerry leans against the wall just outside the Tube entrance, smokes his cigarette, and waits. There’s a café just over there he could probably wait in if he really wanted to, but he’s afraid of missing them if he does.

Suddenly he sees a familiar car pull up to the curb, exactly where he thought it would. Smiling, he flicks the remains of his cigarette into a puddle and moves towards it as the doors open and the occupants—or three of them, at any rate, he doesn’t know if the fourth is there—climb out.

“Carry your bags, miss?” he asks in his best Cockney accent.

“Gerry!” Melanie drops the suitcase she was starting to haul out back into the boot and hugs him tightly. Since he’s gone on a growth spurt since the last time he saw her, she misjudges slightly, but it’s no less welcome. “Are you just getting back in from—where was it this time?”

“Salzberg, by way of most of the former Austrian Empire. And no, I’ve been back since Tuesday.” Gerry hugs her back. “Been a bit busy, but I wasn’t going to miss this. Hey, Martin.”

“Hey.” Martin smiles brightly and comes over to hug him. He’s hit another growth spurt, too, and for the first time Gerry finds he has to look up at his little brother.

That never stops being a novelty, does it? A voice, tinged with melancholy, murmurs in the back of his mind, and Gerry agrees before it occurs to him that he doesn’t know where that thought, or for that matter the voice, came from.

“I can smell the cigarette smoke,” Martin whispers in his ear, bringing his attention back to the present. “Those things’ll kill you, you know.”

“I know, but you can’t blame me for needing stress relief today,” Gerry whispers back, giving Martin an extra squeeze before letting him go.

Uncle Roger gives him a fond smile and claps him on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Harold.”

“Gerard,” Gerry corrects him automatically. “It’s good to see you, too, Uncle Roger.”

For just a second, there’s a flicker of something in Uncle Roger’s eyes, but it’s there and gone in a flash. “All right, all right. We’ve left it enough time for you to grab something if you hurry. Have you got your tickets?”

“Right here, Dad.” Martin pats his jacket pocket.

“Mine’s here.” Melanie holds up her bag, the one Gerry bought her in Cairo five years ago. It makes him absurdly happy that she’s still using it.

There’s a few moments of confusion as Gerry and Uncle Roger get Melanie and Martin’s luggage out of the boot and Melanie and Martin reassure him several times that they have both money and tickets, and then there’s another round of hugs in the rain. Then Uncle Roger turns to Gerry.

“Where are you going to school?” he asks, sounding slightly confused. “Which train will you be taking?”

“I’m staying right here in London, Uncle Roger.” Gerry carefully doesn’t look at Melanie. “Mum needs me at the shop. But I’ll make sure they get off safe.”

“Oh. Good. Thank you.” That thing flits through Uncle Roger’s eyes again, and this time, it lingers long enough that Gerry is able to identify it—mingled fear and dismay. He knows he’s forgetting things, and it’s upsetting him. “I need to get home to my bride. Make sure you phone when you get safely to school, all right?”

“We will. Love you, Dad.” Melanie hugs her father tightly one more time. “Tell Mum we’ll call.”

“Of course.” Uncle Roger kisses her forehead, then turns to Martin and hugs him as well. “Let us know when your first performance is and we’ll come see you.”

“I will, Dad. Love you.” Martin smiles wanly as he hugs him.

They wave as Uncle Roger pulls away. Then Gerry hefts Melanie’s trunk, which is much heavier than the time she took it to Poland, and turns towards the café. “Come on, let’s get out of this rain and have a bite.”

It’s a forgettable little place, the kind that changes names and hands like a small child changes shirts, but it’s also a place that knows its customers. The food they serve is hot, quick, neat, and above all cheap. Gerry buys breakfast for all three of them and takes it over to the table in the corner.

“How much time do you have?” he asks.

Martin checks his watch. “My train leaves in an hour.”

“Hour fifteen for me,” Melanie says. “Could’ve left later, honestly, but I wasn’t going to ask Dad to come out here twice and…”

“No, I get it,” Gerry assures her. “That’s good, though, it’ll give us a bit of time.” He pauses, then adds, not bothering to hide his smirk, “You’re leaving out of St. Pancreas, right?”

Melanie punches him in the arm, not gently. “Shut up. I can’t believe you let me call it that. At least Martin thought I was talking about a different station.”

“I thought it was cute. So, St. Pancras?”

“Yeah.” Melanie sighs. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and Gordon will be my engine.”

“I don’t think you’re going quite that far,” Martin says. “And he pulled the Express, remember? So if you’re not stopping at the exchange, it won’t be him.”

Gerry laughs. “Speaking of…well, not exactly, but I’ve got something for you.”

Melanie blinks. “For me?”

“For both of you. Hold on.” Gerry reaches under his coat for his bag.

He left Austria ahead of his mother, much to her annoyance, because it’s important that he be here for this. Melanie and Martin are both going away to school for the first time, and Gerry wants to be there to send them off. Especially since, for the first time since they were eight years old, they won’t be attending the same school, or even in the same city. Martin is heading up to Edinburgh, where one of the best music programs in the UK outside of London offered him a place, while Melanie heads to Folkestone and the school her mother attended.

He knows they’re both excited. He’s known that since they started telling him about applying. But he also knows they’re a little nervous, and a little melancholy, and he’s hoping to alleviate that a bit.

There are two packages of roughly the same size and shape, but Gerry was smart enough to put different colored bows on them before he labeled them. He presents Melanie hers first, just because it’s on top. “Go on, open it. Something to help you out when you get there.”

Melanie removes the bow and sticks it on the band holding her hair in place, then rips through the paper and lays the gift bare. She stares at it for a moment, then looks up at Gerry, eyes wide and shining. “For me? Really?”

“So you don’t forget the way,” Gerry tells her.

She touches it lightly, then draws back hastily. “It’s not under glass!”

“It’s canvas. It doesn’t need glass. Go on, you can touch it, the paint’s long dry.”

Melanie carefully traces a line, her face creased in concentration. “What’s that dot for?”

Gerry leans over Melanie’s shoulder as Martin does the same on the other side. “The green one there is Martin’s school, more or less. The blue dot is yours. And the copper one on the close-up map of London is me, obviously, not that you’ll forget where I am. But, you know, if I was going to mark important places on it, I reckoned where we were living was important.”

Melanie laughs quietly as she scans the drawing. It’s not exactly a faithful or detailed map; Gerry didn’t put most of the real cities in the United Kingdom on it. It has all the places they’ve gone for Martin’s birthday or hunting books for his mum, the cities where Martin and Melanie will be, and—most crucially—all the fictional places in England that they’ve been able to work out the locations of: Pepperinge Eye, the Island of Sodor, the Gump…it’s not exactly a map of fairyland, more just an alternate England, or several alternate Englands. Places they wish they could really escape to and be free of the Fourteen.

“I love it.” Melanie lays it on the table and gives Gerry a hug. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it forever.”

Gerry hands Martin his. “And this one’s for you. It’s not the same thing, but I think you’ll need this more.”

Martin is much more methodical about opening his gift, carefully working the tape loose and removing the paper carefully. After a moment, he, too, has exposed a framed picture. He gasps and his eyes fill with tears, but he smiles when he looks up. “Gerry, this is so good. It makes you really want to reach out and take their hands.”

“That was the idea, yeah.”

Melanie looks over Martin’s shoulder. “Do you really think I look like that?” she asks, sounding awed.

Gerry smiles at her. “You do.”

It’s not exactly life-size, but it’ll do well enough, he figures. One of Martin’s deepest, darkest fears is of forgetting faces; he still can’t really remember his grandfather’s, and even if they’re only going to be apart for a few months—this time around, anyway—he’s terrified of forgetting Gerry and Melanie. No matter how much they promise him they know he’ll still love them even if he can’t recall their faces, it still worries him. Add that to the forgetfulness that’s afflicted him since he was Marked by the Spiral, and the only thing Gerry could think of to give him was a picture of them. And he hopes that if Martin knows that Gerry painted it for him, rather than just framing a photograph, he’ll have less trouble believing he’s loved.

Does he really doubt that? The voice in the back of his mind sounds shocked. Doubt you? How can he believe you don’t love him?

Gerry mentally shrugs and tells the voice, His self-esteem isn’t great. It’s not that he doesn’t think I love him, it’s that he doesn’t think he deserves it.

It doesn’t feel like talking to himself, but he can’t quite put his finger on who he is talking to.

“I wish I could do something like this for you,” Martin says softly. “So you don’t forget I love you, too.”

Gerry wonders, for a fleeting second, if Martin is reading his mind, but that’s not the hold the Ceaseless Watcher has on him right now and it would be a cruel thing to do to—well, to anyone, let alone a sixteen-year-old, and especially not to Martin. The last thing Martin needs is to be able to read his mother’s mind and know exactly what she thinks of him.

“Martin,” he says, “I’ve known that for eight years. I’m not likely to forget it any time soon. Cross my heart.”

“I love you, too,” Melanie tells him. She reaches for their hands and squeezes tightly. “Both of you. And, Martin, you write me and let me know when your winter concert is and I’ll try to come too. If nothing else, I’ll see you at the Christmas holidays, right?”

“Of course,” Martin promises. He reaches for Gerry’s hand to close the circle. “Will you come, too?”

“I’ll try,” Gerry assures him. “And like Melanie said, I’ll at least see you over the holidays. I’ll look in on Uncle Roger and Aunt Lily for you, too.”

Melanie frowns. “I wish you could get out of London, too. I know you never went to school like—well, not traditionally, anyway—but maybe you could get into university or something?”

Gerry hesitates, then drops his voice, even though he knows no one is there to overhear. “I’m not going to stay in London. Once you two get through your first term, once we’re sure you’re going to get out, I’m leaving. I’ll come back to visit you two, and then once you go to university, I’ll figure out somewhere to live close to you. Then once you graduate, we can get a house together somewhere Mum and Aunt Lily can’t get at us and start a new life.”

Martin looks hopeful. “Do you really think we can?”

“Of course,” Gerry says stoutly.

“I like that idea.” Melanie grins. “Okay, you’ve got a deal. Once we’re sure escape is possible, we run away together.”

Gerry squeezes their hands and lets go, glancing at the clock on the café’s wall quickly to check how much time they have left. “Oh, it’s possible, all right. It’s more than possible. The three of us together? There’s nothing we can’t do.” He grins. “Including escape our mums once and for all.”

[httpswritings]

if you were my little girl: the series part 6

alexia putellas x child!reader; this story contains mentions of traumatic experiences as drug addiction, child abuse and similar topics. don't read it if you find those topics triggering.

The heavy oak door swung shut behind you as Alexia, with surprising strength that belied her slender frame, scooped you up in her arms. You clung to her instinctively, the familiar scent of cookies and sunshine a comforting counterpoint to the rising panic in your chest. Her arms were a haven, a fortress against the storm brewing in the room you left behind. This was escape, not only from a physical threat, but from the emotional maelstrom that was your family.

Your father, face flushed and speech slurred, lurched towards you. The air hung heavy with the stench of cheap liquor and something far more unsettling – rage. He roared, the sound distorted by his inebriated state, "Where the hell do you think you're taking my child?"

His demand hung in the air, laced with an unspoken threat. You wanted to answer, to defy him, but fear, cold and paralyzing, gripped you. It was a cruel irony – the very people who should have protected you were the ones you needed protection from.

Suddenly, the voices in the room morphed into a unified chorus aimed at Alexia. Your mother, usually timid, joined your father's belligerent stance. "You have no right to take my child!" she hissed, her voice shaking with a mixture of anger and desperation.

"Leave the child here, or I'll call the police!" your aunt threatened, his drunken bravado masking a deep-seated insecurity.

Alexia surveyed the scene with a steely glint in her eyes. Fear flickered across her face for a fleeting moment, but it was quickly replaced by a fierce determination. "I'm taking her to a safe place," she declared, her voice ringing with quiet authority. "My house. If you call them, we can all talk to the police when they arrive, and they can see for themselves the state you're in." Her gaze swept to you, settling on your tear-streaked face. "She needs a calm and quiet place to sleep, at least for tonight."

But your voice, the one crying out for help, was lost in the cacophony of their accusations. You tried, a desperate plea escaping your lips. "Please, let Alexia take me! I'll call the police myself if you don't!" Your outburst hung in the air, unanswered. They weren't listening, they weren't willing to. And you were used to that.

The final blow came from your mother, her voice laced with a venom you'd never heard before. "You have nothing to do with her, Alexia," she spat. "And I'm sure you wouldn't want people to know you took a child away alone to your own house, would you?"

A wave of nausea washed over Alexia as she witnessed the depths of their depravity. Lies, manipulation – they were willing to stoop to any level to win.

Alexia faltered for a moment. The weight of the accusation hung heavy in the air. She knew the damage it could do, the seed of doubt it could sow in the minds of anyone who heard it. Yet, as she looked down at you, trembling and pleading with your eyes, she knew she couldn't leave you behind.

Your uncle, a burly man with a receding hairline, opened his mouth to interject, but Alexia cut him off with a steely glint in her eyes. Her voice, though calm, held a quiet authority that resonated through the tense silence.

"The truly shameful part," she began, her gaze sweeping over the room and settling on each of their faces, "is that none of you seem remotely remorseful. This child, is so utterly terrified – and she has been for a long time – that she feels safer coming home with me, a mere football role model, than with her own blood family."

A beat of silence followed, thick with unspoken accusations and simmering resentment. Alexia drew a deep breath, her voice dropping to a lower register.

"You can threaten to call the police, the media, whomever you wish. Let them come. I have nothing to hide. But this young girl," she gestured towards you, your trembling form a silent testament to her words, "is coming with me tonight. She needs a safe haven, a place to rest her head without fear. A place where nightmares don't follow her into sleep. A place where doesn´t smell like alcohol."

Alexia continued, her voice gaining a touch of defiance. "I won't stand by and watch this happen anymore. She deserves better, and I'm determined to see that she gets it. So, you can make your threats, vent your anger, but one thing is certain: she is leaving with me."

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Hallowed

Pairing: Michael Gavey (Saltburn) x f!reader Warnings: Toxic relationship dynamics, face sitting, smut. Word count: ~1.3k

Summary: Her Early Medieval Literature essay is due, and Michael has his own cruel way of ensuring she stays focused.

Author's note: Can be read as part two of this fic, but also works as a standalone. Day six of the Smuffmas prompts - "future and face sitting". No tag list. Follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications.

She lounges on Michael’s bed, clad in only knickers and one of his t-shirts, a copy of the Canterbury Tales grasped lightly between her fingers. Her eyes move over the words of Chaucer, but take none of them in, how could they? His long fingers draw lazy circles on her ankle, her legs stretched out up to the pillows where he reclines, the duvet wrapped around his bare midriff while he reads from a textbook called the Book of Proof.

Life feels simpler since Michael has entered it, despite the turbulent beginnings. She has given up her friends, under his advice, and there is now far less pressure to conform. Her only focuses are her studies and pleasing him, the latter of the two she takes great pleasure in.

It is always on his terms; when they see each other, what they do, how they do it, and despite his obvious initial inexperience he is a fast learner. His ability to make her fall apart, to make her relinquish all control is something he does expertly. The slight fear she feels towards him only adds to the excitement; he could destroy her if he wanted to, but if she plays nicely then he won’t, and she is more than happy to play nicely when the rewards for doing so are as satisfying as they are.

She sighs, his fingers upon her flesh making her core throb with want, even from the simple gesture of absentmindedly touching her leg. She lets her book slip from her fingers, raising up on her elbow to look at him.

“Michael…” she whines.

He looks at her impassively, adjusting his glasses. “The first of your three essays is due soon, isn’t it?”

“Mmm,” she responds with a roll of her eyes, flopping back down and stretching her arms above her head. “Early Medieval Literature.”

His hand moves from her ankle, fingertips ghosting over the exposed skin between the hem of his t-shirt and the waistband of her underwear. “And what have you written?”

She shivers beneath his touch, squirming slightly. “Am I really here to study?”

“I’ve no interest in sleeping with a failing literature student,” he pulls his hand away and she immediately misses his warmth. “So tell me.”

She groans in frustration. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably something about irony in the Merchant’s Tale.”

His textbook thuds closed and she hears the heavy sound of him dropping it onto the bedside table. When she chances to glance up at him she sees he is sitting straighter in the bed, his gaze hardened as he looks at her. “Probably?! You mean you haven’t started it? Have you even thought about your thesis statement, your in-depth analysis or how you’re going to conclude your ideas, if you’ve even had any?”

“Oh, come on,” she says softly, sitting up and reaching for him. “There’s still time. Can’t we just–”

“No,” he cuts her off. “I’ve been spoiling you, and it’s made you stupid.”

“I’m not stupid!” She protests. “If I remember correctly, it was you who called my degree a ‘glorified book club’.”

“You still need to try,” he tells her, frowning.

“You don’t try,” she argues with a shrug,” and marks in your first year don’t count towards the final degree.”

“I don’t have to try, but I still get firsts in everything. Marks this year may not count towards the final degree you get, but they count towards you keeping your scholarship. Think about your future instead of being a fucking brat for once in your life.”

His words are a sharp sting to her already fragile ego, and she lowers her gaze, fighting the sudden urge to cry.

“I’m not touching you again until your essay’s handed in and I’ve seen what your mark is.”

Her head snaps up, eyes wide with disbelief as she looks at him, searching his features for any indication that he’s being unserious. She finds none; he really means it.

“And you’re not to touch yourself. I’ll know.”

The next two weeks are torturous for her. On the occasions that Michael does invite her to his room, there is no more casual half dressed lounging on his bed. Instead, he has a study space set up for her at his desk, and won’t allow her to speak or leave until she has at least a thousand words written. 

They meet up in the library during free periods so that he can read through what she’s written, and her skin burns hot with humiliation each time he screws up a page and throws it into the waste paper bin, calling her arguments “lazy” and “uninspired”.

It lights a fire of determination beneath her, but bubbling under the surface is also a heightened state of arousal, driven by the lack of intimacy, and the fact that she finds that she likes it when he is so authoritative over her.

By the time she has finished, she has produced an essay that both her and Michael are satisfied with; it discusses the use of irony in Chaucer’s poem, the Merchant's Tale. She has used a number of excerpts and lines from the poem for analysis, revealing the instances of irony in each, and from this has determined that the irony Chaucer used in the Merchant's Tale is controlled.

Her eyes light up when Professor Ware hands it back, and she sees the 85% that’s circled at the top of it.

A first.

She feels giddy with excitement as she knocks on Michael’s door that evening, brandishing the now dog-eared pages at him as he opens the door.

“A first, I got a first!” She squeals, watching as he takes the essay from her, his eyes moving slowly over the top page.

“Hmmm,” he settles it down on the desk, removing his glasses and placing them on top. “Take off your jeans and underwear.”

“Wha–what?” She stammers, her grin fading.

“You want your reward, don’t you?” He asks, moving to lay back on the bed.

She swallows thickly, excitement fluttering in her lower belly, as she quickly complies, ridding herself of the clothing that covers her lower half.

“Come here,” he commands softly.

She joins him on the bed, a gasp leaving her as he manhandles her until her knees are positioned either side of his head.

“My clever girl,” he whispers. His words could be mistaken for softness, were they not directly juxtaposed by the rapid darkening of his blue eyes, and the way his thumbs drag across the indentations between her thighs and pelvis. “I knew you could do it, you just needed a little…push.”

He drags his tongue from her opening all the way to her pearl, and her jaw goes slack, the wet sensation making her clench as she falls forward, hands clawing at the wall in front of her.

His grip on her thighs tightens and he tugs her flush against his face, the sloppy sounds of him devouring her are lewd combined with the wanton cries of pleasure that tumble from her lips.

She feels her mind go blank as he inserts his tongue inside of her, keeping it rigid as she begins to grind herself in a circular motion, keeping his nose pressed against where she needs it most, desperately chasing the release she’s needed the last couple of weeks.

His hum of appreciation reverberates through her core, and as he withdraws from her, plush lips wrapping around her sensitive bundle of nerves she feels herself fall apart as the growing ache intensifies, completely at his mercy as he laps at her, while white hot waves of pleasure wash over her.

She raises up when it becomes too much, jerking at how oversensitive she feels and gazes down at him through heavy lidded eyes, breathless.

He looks like an utterly different person without his glasses, almost kind, though she knows better. His chin is shiny with her slick as he smirks up at her.

“You’ve worked so hard,” he says quietly, though the edge of malevolence to his voice is unmistakable. “But don’t worry, you can give that pretty little mind of yours a rest while I fuck you stupid again.”

She is powerless to resist as he tugs her back to his face once more, beginning the exquisite torture all over again.

[thedamselzelda]

Two Hearts Torn

Featuring: Fyodor Dostoevsky & Dazai Osamu

Summary: Broken, beaten, battered, and bruised. What keeps a heart from beating as one? For two, it's torn between losses and consequences of years past. However, in this twisted game, only calculated moves will stitch these hearts back together.

word count: 7.7k+, fem!reader, HOTD!reader, nsfw (oral sex m! receiving, unprotected sex, quick moment of domestic abuse [possessive Fyodor, very unhealthy relationship]), reader referred to with other names (no use of y/n), Russian words used (general meanings at the end), reader dissociates.

Author Chat: After an overwhelming poll, I have written another part of this story (tbh, I was a little too happy for it to win)! This part isn't as dark as I originally wrote it, as I couldn't bring myself to slander Fyodor too much. What can I say, the man is my #3 (behind my b-day buddy Chuya and my #1 Dazai ofc).

I also feel the need to mention before this part that this is an installment apart of the Beast AU. Yes, reader is married to Fyodor, however, the story is primarily a Dazai x reader story.

Hope you guys enjoy!

previous part ~ next part | LBH masterlist | BSD Masterverse

You stared at your reflection in the ornate vanity mirror, the face looking back at you feeling strangely unfamiliar. With delicate movements, you began to remove the bobby pins from your hair, allowing each strand to cascade onto your shoulders. Your eyes, a striking violet, searched your own gaze in the mirror, desperately grasping for clarity amidst the whirlwind of memories from the night. A weary sigh escaped your lips as you closed your eyes and rested your head in your hands, succumbing to the flood of memories about him. The lingering effect he had on you was both frustrating and thrilling, a contradiction that left you feeling dizzy.

There was no doubt in your mind about the reason for his visit - he came solely to see you. The realization sent a shiver down your spine. Yet, his unexpected question about what it would take for you to leave the House of the Dead, to abandon your husband, had caught you completely off guard, leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable.

You extended your arm forward, observing the glistening ring on your finger. The alexandrite stone caught the dim light of your boudoir, its colors shifting mesmerizingly from a deep emerald to a rich purple as you turned your hand. Regret washed over you like a cold wave, seeping into your bones as you contemplated your choice of gem. The stone, his birthstone, now felt like a silent betrayal, a constant reminder of the man you couldn't forget, couldn't refrain from loving despite everything. Disgust rose in your throat, bitter and biting, as you berated yourself for not choosing a simple, neutral diamond instead. The realization that your heart had once again acted without your conscious consent left you feeling raw and exposed.

Your mind drifted to the circumstances of your marriage to Fyodor. The decision felt rushed, almost impulsive in hindsight. It served no real purpose for either of you beyond Fyodor's antiquated notion of propriety. His timid words echoed in your memory, tinged with an air of pious restraint:

"I could not lay with you unless we were wed..."

You rolled your eyes at the thought, irritation prickling beneath your skin like tiny needles. Initially, aligning yourself with Fyodor had been a calculated move, a way to strike back at Dazai and the unfair hand of cards you had been dealt in life. But over time, it had evolved into something more complex, a relationship built on stolen moments - chaste kisses on hands and lips, always restrained by his devout adherence to religious principles. His unwavering commitment to God frustrated you; for what cruel deity would curse you with such an ability?

The irony of your situation wasn't lost on you. Never in your wildest dreams had you imagined yourself married, not even to Dazai. Life within the Mafia, and now in the House of the Dead, seemed incompatible with such conventional milestones. You had been content in your life with Dazai, before his gradual descent into whatever labyrinthine plans now consumed him.

Now, you found yourself in a precarious position. Isolated, you focused your efforts on seizing The Book from Dazai, the key to Fyodor's grand plan of overwriting this hellish reality. The weight of this mission hung heavy on your shoulders, a constant reminder of the complex web of loyalties, desires, and regrets that now defined your existence.

A soft click of your bedroom door stole you from your thoughts, your eyes shifting in the mirror to the figure entering your room. Fyodor's reflection appeared behind you, his rich purple eyes tired, as if he had paused his work to come and deal with you.

"Oh, moya lyubov', I wasn't expecting you." The lie slipped easily from your lips, even as you knew he would see through it. You had expected him, especially after how easily Nikolai had caught on to the change in your demeanor. Damn Nikolai...

"Moya zhena, I hear you've had quite the exciting day." His voice was smooth, yet laced with an undercurrent of something you couldn't quite place.

You made no indication of moving from your position as you looked up at Fyodor in the mirror. His weary smile was laced with fondness, yet you could detect icy undertones beneath the surface. He drifted over to you, his movements graceful despite his apparent exhaustion. His hands, cool and slender, came to rest upon your shoulders as he leaned down to place a kiss upon your undone hair.

His warm breath caressed your scalp, his lips parting as if on the verge of speech. Before he could utter a word, you smoothly began recounting your evening, carefully omitting any mention of Dazai's appearance.

"It was so tedious," you sighed, reaching for your makeup remover. "And now I'll have to get the carpet replaced." You dabbed at your face, the cool liquid erasing the traces of the night. Fyodor merely hummed in response, his intense gaze following your every movement.

"I suppose I'll have to search for a new group to take on the Port Mafia," you continued, your tone deliberately casual. "Maybe I should seek help from that Detective Agency. Perhaps they would work for the right price."

"No," Fyodor interjected sharply, his voice cutting through the air like a blade. You turned; shock evident on your features. He had never disagreed with your suggestions before, always supporting your efforts to obtain The Book.

His knuckles grazed your cheek, sending an involuntary chill down your spine. His lips curled into a malicious smile, violet eyes glittering dangerously in the dim light.

"Moy dorogoy, you've never been a terrible liar," he purred, his voice silky smooth yet laced with venom. "However, the secrets you keep have always been so apparent."

Your eyes narrowed as you searched the storm brewing before you. Suddenly, his hand wrapped around your throat, swift and firm, forcing you to your feet. The pressure increased, making each breath a struggle.

His face hovered mere millimeters from yours, his breath fanning over your lips. "You forget yourself, moya zhena. You belong to me. I know every move you make here, malen'kaya mysh'."

A desperate squeak escaped you as you gasped for air, your fingers clawing at his hand. "I know, please," you managed to choke out.

"He was here tonight," Fyodor hissed, his eyes blazing. "And I hear you two did more than just talk."

He released you abruptly, causing you to stumble back. You massaged your throat, gulping in fresh air. After regaining your composure, a smirk played on your lips. "All this because I danced with him?"

In a fluid motion, the back of his hand struck across your face, swinging back up to grasp the back of your head firmly. His voice dropped to a menacing whisper, "He is still in love with you. From how you feign the mere mention of him, I would suspect that you, moya lyubyashchaya zhena, also still love him."

A pain sparked upon your lips as you smirked, a breathy laugh escaping as you slipped into Russian, "Budto. It's as you suggested; I have initiated another plan by indulging him in a dance is all."

His eyes softened slightly, his grip on your scalp loosening. "Speak."

"He wants me to come back, to rejoin the Mafia," you explained, the words flowing effortlessly. "We can use that. Let me slip back into his good graces. He's bound to eventually have me up in his office. There, I can do what none of those assassins could, and take The Book for ourselves."

His anger was quickly replaced at your obedience, a soft smile reappearing. "Chudesnyy, moya lyubov'. I believe that is a great plan."

His eyes darted to your lips, urging you to quickly grasp the collar of his white buttoned shirt and pulled him into a kiss. His eyes fluttered closed as he kissed you lightly. You could feel him reveling in your compliance. His hand drifted from the nape of your neck, down to your waist, pulling you flush to him. His lips danced among yours, fervently melting.

Your fingers deftly toyed with the hem of his pants, coaxing a chuckle from your lover’s lips. He hummed as your body pressed against his, your hands slipping past the cloth to grasp his hardened cock. You smile at his breathy moan by your mere touch, leaning up to kiss the corner of his mouth.

"What you do to me, ty lisitsa." His eyes trailed you as you dipped down to your knees. His fingers combed into your hair, pulling every last strand from your face. Your eyes panned to his as you pulled his pants down slightly to free his hardened, leaky member. One hand rested upon his hip, the other supporting him as your tongue slips out, barely brushing against his tip, tasting the salty cream from his slit. He hissed, rocking himself forward slightly to you. You hum, releasing his gaze, closing your eyes as you opened your mouth to fully take him in.

"Ugn, so beautiful, moya lyubov'." His praises reach your ears; his lips uttering your name, like a thankful prayer to his God above.

His tip reaches the back of your throat, and your eyes squeeze together to feign from gagging. You draw back slightly, barely parting your lips to allow your tongue to trail behind. Your hand pumping in your lips wake, applying gentle pressure. 

He gathered your hair into one hand, using the freedom to brush a dripping tear from your cheek. "Takaya khoroshaya devochka."

Your lips close around his cock once more, dipping yourself to push your nose flush with his hips. You suppress a gag once more as your throat spasms against his length. 

"I must have you, moya lyubov'," his voice shaky, nearly causing you to laugh at his submissive behavior. You don’t release him just yet, however, gently sucking as you bob upon him. His knees slightly buckle at your defiance, earning a tug of your hair, pulling you from him.

He pulls you to stand by your hair, a slight burn forming from the aggressive pull. He releases you, grasping at the vanity seat to shove it out of the way. You were next on his brief redecorating of your room. Grasping you firmly by your hips, eagerly pulling at the skirt of your formfitting dress and forcing it up to your waist. His hands roughly grip onto you before pushing you into the vanity. 

You’re lifted by Fyodor to sit upon the cold surface, legs slotting open as he aggressively grasps your face to kiss you once more, as if it was his last dying breath. His member plays at your clothed cunt, slightly dripping from your arousal. His hand leaves your face, his fingers tugging at the cloth to pull it aside, aligning himself. He pulls at your waist once more, fixing the angle to allow himself to slide between your plush walls.

“Fuck!” You sharply exhale, your eyes slotting closed. Instinctively, you lurched forward to grasp onto him, and to rest your chin upon his shoulder. Your hands rested upon his nape and back, holding onto him as his hands gripped yours in a way that would leave bruises behind. His lips grazed your neck, leaving behind a trail of kisses and soft bites. 

Your eyes slowly opened as his thrusts grew sloppier, evident of his impending release within you. Across from you, you saw your reflection in the closet mirror, allowing you to observe the explicit moment before you. However, your mind saw and heard different; the black hair entangled within your hands was brown and curly, the muffled, breathy moans against your neck were replaced with lowly grunts and words of praise, and the suit of the man before you became stained black. 

You wanted to utter his name as you felt your release, like a call out to him to stay far away from the danger you would inflict upon him. Yet, you stifled the moan by biting your lip as you felt a warmth fill you to your core.

Fyodor sighed contently, releasing you from his harsh grip. He pulled his softening cock from your cunt, his seed dripping from you. He stepped to the side, observing his appearance within the mirror as he begins to fix himself before leaving you.    

“I will get started on that plan tomorrow, moy dorogoy.” You utter as you slide from the vanity.

“Ochen' khorosho,” were his parting words to you as he began to leave for the door. You slip your dress back down, not worrying about the state of it. You notice as you look up that he is awaiting your attention before amending his last words. “See you in my next life, moy angel smerti.”

You give out a plain breathy laugh, “Till true death do us part, moya lyubov'.”

The pulsing energy of weekend nights had faded, replaced by the more subdued atmosphere of a weekday evening at The Midnight's Caress. Yet, even on these quieter nights, the club maintained a steady flow of patrons - a mix of devoted regulars and wide-eyed tourists drawn to its allure. Tonight, however, held special significance. A special visitor had arrived, someone who held a place in your heart from the days before Dazai's induction into the Port Mafia.

You made your entrance with practiced grace, descending from the second-floor terrace. Your presence commanded attention, drawing admiring glances from across the dimly lit space. Ignoring the adoration, your gaze remained fixed on your destination - the sleek bar opposite the sunken dance floor and stage.

A solitary figure occupied one of the barstools. Even from a distance, you recognized the familiar shock of unkempt auburn hair and the well-worn light brown overcoat. As you approached, you watched him raise an ornate crystal tumbler filled with amber liquid to his lips.

"And here I thought," you began, your voice carrying a hint of amusement as rich chocolate eyes met yours, “that you avoided lurking around Mafia territory at all costs, mister detective”

A warm smile spread across the man's face as he spoke your name, his tone tinged with fondness. “Well, if it's to see an old friend, I'm willing to take my chances.”

You feigned offense, placing your hands on your hips in mock indignation. “Sakunosuke Oda, did you just call me old?”

His head fell into a gentle shake, accompanied by a soft laugh that seemed to momentarily erase the tension from his features. You joined in his laughter, sliding onto the barstool next to him. While maintaining a careful distance, you positioned yourself to face outward, keeping a vigilant eye on the space between you and the stage.

Glancing sideways, you studied Oda's familiar profile, your gaze lingering on the amber liquid swirling in his glass. A mischievous glint sparked in your eye as you asked, your voice a playful whisper, "Did you pay for that?"

Oda's eyes met yours briefly, a flicker of amusement passing through them before he looked back down at the tumbler. His voice was steady, tinged with a hint of pride. "Of course."

You sighed, rolling your eyes in exaggerated exasperation. Leaning across the polished mahogany surface of the bar, you beckoned the blonde bartender with a subtle, elegant gesture. "Reimburse him," you commanded, your tone leaving no room for argument, the words crisp and authoritative in the dimly lit space.

"No, you don't have to do that," Oda protested, a faint blush of embarrassment coloring his cheeks.

Your response was swift and sharp, cutting through the ambient noise of the club. "He does if he would like to keep his job." The words hung in the air, a stark reminder of the power dynamics at play in this world you both inhabited, albeit from different sides. You softened your tone slightly, adding, "My friends do not need to worry about such things here."

A teasing glint returned to Oda's eyes as he accepted his reimbursement. "Oh, you have friends now?" he quipped, his voice warm with familiarity."Oda!" You laughed, the sound genuine and unguarded. "I almost do want to make you pay now."

"That was the goal," he replied, leaning back with a satisfied smirk. He stuffed the money into his pants pocket before grasping his glass once more.

The bartender materialized behind you, placing an identical tumbler filled with amber liquid onto the bar. You gave the glass a cursory glance before turning your attention back to the club.

Oda's voice drew you back from your reverie, curiosity evident in his warm tone. "So, how is it, being a club owner?"

"Boring," you replied dryly, a hint of amusement in your eyes. "How is it, being a detective?"

"Anything but boring. I'm always doing something, it feels like," Oda responded, his voice carrying a mix of exhaustion and satisfaction.

You nodded, a thoughtful expression crossing your face. Memories of your shared past flickered through your mind, a reminder of the complex relationship that bound you both.

Oda's voice softened as he continued, "We just recently recruited this boy."A breathy chuckle escaped your lips. "So, you've taken in another orphan. I swear, are you raising an army over there?"

Oda's rich laughter echoed within the glass at his lips, the sound warm and comforting. "It does seem like that, doesn't it?" He paused, his expression growing more serious. "I worry about this boy. I picked him up on the riverbank, and he attempted to attack me."

You listened intently, grateful for the chance to lend an ear to your friend's concerns. The ambient noise of the club faded into the background as you focused on Oda's words.

"I don't know what it is about this boy," Oda continued, his brow furrowing slightly. "He's in search of his sister... harbors the unruliest plans for this man that he describes as 'the man in black.'"

Your eyes widened slightly, and you turned to meet Oda's intrigued gaze. "This boy," you began cautiously, "does he have black hair? Two little tufts of white on the ends?"

Oda gave a hesitant nod, his hand now outstretched to offer you your glass. You accepted it carefully, the cool crystal a stark contrast to the warmth of realization spreading through you.

"Be careful of that boy. I remember his name clearly. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke." Your voice lowered, heavy with the weight of memory. You looked down at your glass, tapping your fingers along its surface rhythmically. "I was there when the Port Mafia found him, shortly before I left for Italy. There were plans to recruit him. However, it was determined... that he was unfit to join us."

Your eyes rose to meet Oda's, his face a careful mask hiding his thoughts. "There is a beast inside of that boy, Oda. I pray that you teach and guide him, to learn to tame it."

You paused, bringing the crystal glass to your lips for a sip. As the whiskey touched your tongue, your eyes widened in surprise. You pulled the glass back, glancing towards the shelves behind the bar. Your gaze settled on a familiar bottle, its amber contents glowing softly in the low light. You eyed it with a mixture of suspicion and resigned amusement. That snake, you thought, recognizing Dazai's handiwork in the choice of spirits.

Shaking your head slightly, you made a mental note to address that matter later. Your voice grew heavy with warning as you continued, "Or that beast will one day consume him. I've seen it near happen to the boy they did take in."

Oda's brow furrowed in concern. "I can agree; I share those thoughts exactly. Do you, by chance, know what happened to his sister?"

You gave a curt shake of your head, the movement causing the dim lights to dance across your features. "I know that the Port Mafia took her, however, I don't know what became of her."

Oda finished off the rest of the whiskey in his glass, the ice clinking softly as he set it before the bartender for a refill. "I see," he murmured, his voice tinged with disappointment.

A moment of contemplative silence fell between you, the ambient noise of the club fading into the background. You could feel Oda's gaze studying your face as you surveyed the array of guests for the evening, your eyes scanning the crowd with practiced ease.

"So, what happened with that?" Oda's question broke the silence, his hand gesturing towards his own lip and the side of his face.

"Oh," you replied, feigning ignorance about your appearance. You had attempted to cover the cut on your lip and the small bruise that had formed across your cheekbone from the night before. "Just an unruly guest. Unfortunate, and obviously for him, he didn't make it."

Oda hummed, a note of skepticism in his tone. It was clear he didn't fully believe the story you had fabricated. You huffed as you finished the rest of your glass, the warm liquid burning a path down your throat. Turning to him, you shifted the conversation once more. "What about your book? When will I be able to read the first draft?"

A soft smile graced Oda's features as he looked back down into his glass, swirling the amber liquid absently. "I've been having horrible writer's block. I know what I want to say, it's just getting it to paper that's the problem."

"Well," you gave a breathy chuckle, rising from your seat with fluid grace. His eyes met yours, a shared understanding passing between you. You both knew these encounters were rare and precious, a stark contrast to your shared youth. "You know where I'll be, ready to receive and critique. But to love it all the same."

"For the long wait, how about I dedicate it to you?" Oda offered, a hint of warmth in his voice.

You gave a warm smile, placing your hands upon your chest in dramatic adoration. The gesture was playful, but the emotion behind it was genuine. "Awe, Oda. You do care!"

Oda's head dipped down once more, his shoulders shaking with muffled laughter. You took a deep breath, the familiar ache of longing settling in your chest. More than anything, you wished you could embrace him, to feel the comfort of his brotherly affection that had been so freely given in your childhood. You knew deep down that he wished the same; on several occasions, he had forgotten the limitations of your ability, only to be reminded by Flawless.

"I have business I have to attend to, but you may stay as long as you like," you said, your voice softening with regret at having to cut the reunion short. You tapped the polished bar top twice, a silent signal to your bartender. He understood immediately, preparing your glass as well as a secondary pour of the whiskey you had been drinking.

Grasping the two crystal tumblers, the amber liquid catching the low light, you gave a final look to your dear friend. Your eyes lingered on his face, committing every detail to memory. "See you around, Odasaku," you said, the nickname slipping out unexpectedly.

Oda's eyebrows raised slightly, a quizzical look crossing his features at the unfamiliar moniker. You found yourself equally surprised, giving him a small shrug in response. The corner of his mouth tugged upward into a warm smile, and he raised his glass in a silent toast as you began to walk away.

Your heels clicked softly on the polished floor as you made your way back toward the staircase leading to your office. The weight of the glasses in your hands was a tangible reminder of the responsibilities waiting for you, pulling you away from this brief moment of connection. As you ascended the stairs, you could feel Oda's gaze following you, a bittersweet mixture of fondness and longing that mirrored your own emotions.

Dazai's keen eyes followed your figure as you made your way back up to your office. His gaze then darted to Oda, who was nodding to the bartender, offering thanks and sliding money across the polished bar top. A wry smile found its way onto Dazai's face as he admired Oda's persistence in compensating the man. He felt a familiar twinge of jealousy watching you two interact from afar, reminded of the bond you and Oda shared which transcended any version of yourselves.

Turning away from the window, Dazai met your gaze as you entered the office. The soft click of the door closing behind you seemed to punctuate the sudden shift in atmosphere.

"Thank you, Dimitri," you called out, your eyes never leaving Dazai's. He could tell by the set of your jaw that he was in trouble, especially noting the two crystal tumblers in your hands. You raised an eyebrow questioningly, holding up the glasses. "We've only reconnected for one night, and you decided to take it upon yourself to amend my liquor choices?"

Dazai suppressed a small laugh, gratefully accepting the offered glass. The crystal was cool against his fingers. "I only had Chūya go up to the bar and request a drink. When the bartender replied that you don't supply this brand, I had it ordered and shipped to you immediately."

He watched you roll your eyes, unamused but continuing to listen before objecting. The light from the desk lamp cast dramatic shadows across your face, emphasizing the slight furrow of your brow.

"What can I say? Something just told me I'd be back here sooner than expected, so I made a few liberties—"

"Liberties?" You scoffed, though there was a hint of amusement in your tone. You glided past him, the subtle scent of your perfume lingering in the air. Settling back into your chair, you continued, "You quite literally had my bartender stock something without my knowledge, most likely due to knowing it was the Port Mafia Boss's favorite."

Dazai savored the rich, smoky flavor of the whiskey as he took a long sip, a contented sigh escaping his lips. He gracefully lowered himself into one of the chairs facing your desk, his keen eyes noting how they seemed slightly out of place in the otherwise meticulously arranged office. During your absence, he had seized the opportunity to explore the room, his observant gaze catching details that others might overlook.

A rug, he deduced, had once adorned the space before your desk. Now, a faint square of fresh wood flooring, spanning no more than six feet, stood in stark contrast to the worn, darker planks surrounding it. At the center of this cleaned area, Dazai's sharp eyes detected a slightly darker outline. His mind, ever quick to analyze, immediately recognized the telltale signs of a bloodstain that had been hastily, if not entirely successfully, concealed. The discovery sent a small thrill through him.

"You enjoy the drink, too, don't lie. I saw you down there drinking it with Odasaku," Dazai said, his voice carrying a hint of familiarity he hadn't intended.

You gave Dazai a puzzled look, your brow furrowing slightly as you processed his words. He realized his slip immediately, watching as a flicker of confusion passed across your features. The usually composed demeanor he wore like armor had cracked, revealing an experience he hadn't been granted in this life.

"My apologies," he quickly corrected himself, his voice regaining its usual smooth rhythm. The words flowed like silk, masking his momentary lapse. "I had only heard you call him that a few times before you left. You always spoke fondly of the man who defected."

He observed intently as you silently began to question yourself, your hand reaching back to scratch your head in recollection of more than four years ago. The gesture was subtle, but to Dazai's keen eye, it spoke volumes about your inner turmoil. However, much to his relief, you quickly moved past the topic without dwelling on it further.

You set your drink down upon the polished surface of your desk, the crystal making a soft 'clink' against the wood. Clearing your throat, a confident smirk coated your peach-stained lips, the color a striking contrast against your skin in the warm light of the office.

"Besides the topic of my apparently new inventory," you said, emphasizing the word with a hint of playful accusation, "did you want to continue your losing game?"

Dazai chuckled, the sound low and rich. He leaned forward, the leather of the chair creaking slightly under his shifting weight. "I think you've forgotten, but I was winning."

A light laugh escaped you, the sound filling the room with a momentary lightness. "I had your queen for the taking. Without it, what even is the game?"

Dazai hummed thoughtfully, his mind racing through possibilities far beyond the chessboard. In his mind's eye, he saw not just chess pieces, but the intricate dance of allegiances and betrayals that defined their world. Indeed, his queen was cornered - both in the game and in life - but Dazai was nothing if not a master strategist. Just as you had been hasty to claim victory, he knew exactly how to turn the tides. His plan wasn't just to save a piece on a board, but to reclaim the Queen before him that he had lost to Fyodor's trickery.

His lips curled into a subtle, knowing smile. This game was far from over, and Dazai intended to win back what was rightfully his, piece by carefully manipulated piece. The anticipation built within him, not just for his next move in chess, but for the grand strategy that would bring you back to his side, away from Fyodor's influence.

Dazai's eyes sparkled with mischief as he leaned back in his chair, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "Ah, but you've overlooked something crucial," he said, his voice smooth and confident. “It's my turn, remember? And with just one move, I'll not only save my queen but put you in a rather precarious position."

He set his glass down and leaned forward, his fingers tracing invisible patterns on the desk as if recreating the chessboard. "My knight to F6. It simultaneously blocks your attack on my queen and threatens your bishop. Now, you're faced with a dilemma – do you capture my knight and leave your bishop vulnerable, or do you retreat and lose your advantage?"

A sly smile played on his lips as he continued, "In chess, as in life, it's not just about the pieces you have, but how you use them. Sometimes, a seeming disadvantage can be turned into a powerful opportunity with the right strategy."

His eyes met yours, the intensity in them suggesting he might be talking about more than just the game. "So, shall we continue? I'm quite curious to see how you'll respond to this... unexpected development."

You leaned back in your chair, a mixture of amusement and respect flickering across your features. A soft chuckle escaped your lips as you shook your head slightly, your eyes meeting Dazai's intense gaze.

"Well played, Dazai," you conceded, your voice carrying a note of admiration. "I should have known better than to underestimate you. Your knight to F6 is indeed a clever move."

You paused, your fingers drumming thoughtfully on the armrest as you visualized the board in your mind. After a moment, a sly smile crept onto your face. "However, you're not the only one with tricks up their sleeve. I'll move my rook to E4. It puts pressure on your knight and maintains the threat to your queen. Plus, it opens up a potential attack on your king's flank."

Leaning forward, you picked up your glass, and place it against your plump bottom lip. "In chess, as in our line of work, it's all about adapting to the unexpected, isn't it? One must always be prepared to shift strategies at a moment's notice."

You took a sip of the whiskey, savoring its rich flavor before continuing, "So, Dazai, what’s your move?"

Dazai's eyes narrowed slightly, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips as he considered your move. "Interesting," he murmured, taking a thoughtful sip. “In that case, I'll move my bishop to D3, threatening your rook while maintaining defense of my queen.”

The game continued, each of you calling out moves, the imaginary board shifting in your minds with every declaration. The office fell into a rhythm of quiet contemplation broken by decisive statements, the clink of ice in glasses punctuating each turn.

"Knight to C6," you said, your voice steady.

"Pawn to A4," Dazai responded smoothly.

As the imaginary pieces dwindled, the tension in the room grew. Finally, after what felt like hours compressed into minutes, you both fell silent, a mutual realization dawning.

"Well," you said, a mix of frustration and admiration in your voice, "it seems we've reached an impasse."

Dazai nodded, his expression mirroring yours. "Indeed. By my count, we each have a king, a rook, and two pawns left. Neither of us can make a legal move without putting our king in check."

"Stalemate," you both said in unison, then shared a quiet laugh at the synchronicity. As your laughter died down, Dazai couldn’t help but admire you. While it seemed much had changed about you within the last four or so years, you were still sharp, quick on your feet, and though your encounter before last with one another within the confines of his penthouse was heated, it was as though it never happened.

Dazai raised his glass in a toast. "To a game well played. It's not often I encounter an opponent who can match me move for move. I’ve missed doing this with you."

You clinked your glass against his. "Likewise, Dazai. This was fun."

Dazai's intense gaze bore into your violet eyes, searching once again for a shred of the girl that once loved him. He knew you had to still harbor something, given your willingness to allow him into your office just one night after reconnecting, although you had resisted at first. A heavy sigh escaped your lips amid the charged silence, your eyes darting down to his lips. He mirrored the action, his tongue unconsciously brushing across his top lip.

In the days of your shared youth, the victor of these mental chess matches would be granted one request, no limits ever set. Trust and honesty were once pivotal, sacred even. But after touching The Book, everything changed.

Dazai watched intently as you shifted in your plush leather chair, leaning forward to examine the documents he had laid before you earlier. Your slender fingers opened the tan folder, eyes scanning its contents. Nervous anticipation built within him as he awaited your reaction.

A scoff broke the silence. It was somewhat expected.

"You want to buy The Midnight's Caress?" You looked up, an exaggerated eye roll accompanying your words.

"You're already paying us to leave you and your business be. I thought it would make more sense to annex your club since you already serve many mafiosos," Dazai explained, his voice smooth and persuasive.

Your eyes returned to the proposition. Dazai had been uncharacteristically considerate; you would remain owner, permitted to run the club as you saw fit, retaining eighty percent ownership.

"Ninety," you countered, your gaze drifting up from the paper. With practiced ease, you opened a drawer within your ornate desk, fingers grasping for a sleek box of cigarettes. The soft scrape of the box opening filled the quiet room as you extracted a single cigarette. The flick of your lighter cast a brief, warm glow across your features as you lit it. You inhaled deeply, the ember glowing bright orange in the dim office. Exhaling a plume of smoke, you placed the cigarette delicately between your index and middle fingers before uttering your next argument. "Giving you twenty percent would be grossly over what I already give you, which I've already been quite generous with."

Dazai raised an eyebrow, curiosity piqued. Given the club's popularity and the financial records he'd meticulously reviewed, he'd calculated that twenty percent ownership would be a small sacrifice. Yet, he'd anticipated some resistance from you.

You held the box out to him, one cigarette poking out invitingly. He leaned forward, long fingers grasping the rolled tobacco. Rising smoothly, he placed the cigarette between his lips. Leaning over your desk, he pressed his unlit cigarette to yours. His eyes, intense and searching, locked with yours as he contemplated his counter.

"Giving twenty percent would include more than just protection, Bella," Dazai remarked, his voice low and smooth as he relaxed back into the chair.

You laced your fingers together, resting your elbows on the polished desk. Your eyes fluttered, the lit cigarette dangling slightly between your lips. "How much are you assuming I'm already giving for this protection?"

“I calculated that it was around twenty percent now.”

A laugh escaped your occupied lips, followed by a click of your tongue. "Twenty? Oh, moye temnoye zhelaniye, I give you way less than that."

Dazai jerked his head back in surprise, questions flooding his mind. How much did you actually give of your earnings? The only logical explanation was the records he had did not contain unreported earnings. Additionally, when did you learn to speak Russian? He had no idea what the phrase meant, but curiosity burned within him.

He watched, transfixed, as you rose from your seat with fluid grace. The soft rustle of your clothing seemed amplified in the hushed office; his senses hyper-aware of your every movement. He tracked your progress as you rounded the desk, his heart rate quickening with each step you took towards him.

When you perched upon the edge of the desk directly in front of him, Dazai felt a rush of heat betray him, crawling up his cheeks in a flush he couldn't quite control. He found himself looking up at you through his eyelashes, acutely aware of the power dynamic shift. The dim light of the office played across your features, casting shadows that accentuated the curves and angles of your face. Dazai's breath caught in his throat as he drank in the sight of you, commanding and alluring in equal measure.

He watched, mesmerized, as you took another leisurely puff from your cigarette. The ember glowed bright for a moment, illuminating your face in a warm, fleeting light that seared itself into his memory. With practiced ease, you blew the smoke out above you, creating a swirling haze that danced in the air between you. The sharp scent of tobacco mingled with your personal fragrance, an intoxicating mixture that seemed to cloud his senses.

As Dazai gazed up at you, he found himself making a silent vow. He would let you have anything you wanted - any percentage, any terms. All that mattered was that you allowed him to remain in your presence, to bask in the captivating aura you exuded.

"I give ten percent of my yearly earnings to you now, Dazai. You're basically asking I near triple that in my eyes, as it's not only money; it's ownership." Your voice carried a hint of steel beneath its smoothness, a reminder of the strength that had always drawn Dazai to you.

Dazai stood to meet your gaze, his movement fluid and deliberate. Your eyes darted from his visible eye down to his lips again as he leaned in, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Seventeen then.” The words hung in the air between you, charged with unspoken tension.

"You're good at a lot of things, Osamu, negotiating is apparently not one of them." You leaned further in, your breath warm against his skin.

He took a moment, relishing the closeness that you'd allowed once again. However, his keen eye caught sight of a cut upon your bottom lip and faint evidence of a bruise upon your cheekbone, which you had evidently tried to cover, which wasn't there the night before. He saw your eyes widen slightly, likely realizing he'd noticed the wounds marring your features. Before he could question you, you spoke again.

"I own the entire property as of right now. I even live upstairs." You took the cigarette from your mouth, gesturing with your fingers toward the area outside the office. Osamu recalled the elevator he'd noticed across from your office doors. That explained its presence. "You might as well buy the whole building, since it seems you're trying to buy me back into the mafia."

Osamu passively heard you, however, he couldn’t bring himself to reply to you just yet. His mind wouldn’t move past the subtle signs of abuse on your face. The cut on your lip, the faint bruise on your cheekbone - they weren't there last night. His heart clenched painfully in his chest, a mixture of worry and rage threatening to overwhelm him.

He reached out instinctively, his hand hovering near your face but not quite touching. He remembered how you used to flinch in worry of touching others, but you remained still, even slightly leaning toward his touch.

Finally, his voice whispered your name out, softer than he intended, "This isn't about buying you back into anything. Do you really think I'd try to manipulate you into a life you chose to leave?"

He watched your eyes, those stormy violet orbs that had once looked at him with such trust and affection. Now they seemed guarded, wary. It pained him more than he cared to admit.

"I respect your decisions," he continued, "even if I don't always agree with them. But those marks on your face, cara mia… they weren't there last night."

Osamu felt his hand clench at his side, anger surging through him at the thought of Fyodor laying a hand on you. He fought to keep his voice steady. "This isn't about ownership or percentages. It's about keeping you safe from a man who clearly doesn't value you the way he should. The way you deserve."

He took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions raging within him. He needed you to understand, to see beyond the business proposition to the genuine concern that drove his actions. Fyodor, in this life and every other, was not a man to be trusted, let alone be married to.

"I won’t ask you again to come back to the mafia. All I'm asking, is for you to let me protect you. Because right now, your independence is coming at a cost that's far too high."

Osamu’s unbandaged eye searched yours, silently pleading. He saw a flicker of something - vulnerability, perhaps - behind your carefully constructed walls. It gave him hope.

"Let me help you," he said softly. "Please."

In that moment, looking into your eyes, Osamu realized just how much he still cared for you; it was overwhelming. The thought of you in pain, of Fyodor hurting you, was unbearable. He knew he'd do whatever it took to keep you safe, even if it meant putting himself, his plans, in danger. Because despite everything that had happened, you were still one of the most important people in his world.

Osamu watched as your eyes widened slightly at his words, a mix of emotions flickering across your face. For a moment, your carefully constructed facade seemed to waver, revealing a glimpse of the vulnerability he once knew so well.

His breath caught as you reached up, your fingers gently brushing against his hand that hovered near your face. The touch was electric, sending a shiver through him. Your voice was soft, barely above a whisper when you spoke.

"Osamu... it's not that simple."

He held his breath, hoping for more, but you seemed to steel yourself before continuing. "I appreciate your concern, truly. But my life, my choices... they're complicated. More than you know."

Osamu felt a pang in his chest as you slid off the desk, putting a small distance between you. The internal struggle playing out in your eyes was painfully clear to him.

"Ten percent, if you buy the entire building," you said suddenly, your voice regaining its businesslike tone. "That's my final offer. And I maintain full operational control."

The abrupt shift back to business threw him for a moment, but he quickly recovered. He recognized your deflection for what it was - a shield, a way to avoid the deeper conversation you both knew you needed to have.

"Agreed," he said softly, his eyes never leaving yours. "But this conversation isn't over. I won't stand by and watch you get hurt, no matter how complicated things are."

You nodded, a small, sad smile playing on your lips. "I know you won't. That's what makes you... you."

As you moved to return to your seat, Osamu caught the briefest flash of something in your eyes. Was it longing? Regret? Or perhaps something more calculating? He couldn't be sure, and it frustrated him. There was a time when he could read you like an open book, but now... now parts of you were a mystery to him.

Watching you settle back into your chair, Osamu began to feel a sharp pang of guilt. He knew he was being selfish, pursuing you when his time in this world was limited. The weight of his secrets - the truth about the Book and his inevitable fate - pressed heavily upon him. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to tell you, it would cost too much. Instead, he made a silent vow to protect you from Fyodor and his plans, and, if possible, win back your trust and affection, even if it was only for a brief moment in time. 

As he gazed at you across the desk, Osamu felt a familiar warmth in his chest, accompanied by a sharp ache. Despite everything, despite the years and the pain and the complications, you were still one of the most important people in his world. And he would do whatever it took to keep you safe, even if it meant putting himself, his plans, in danger.

"With that matter settled," you said, a smile reappearing on your face as you extinguished your cigarette. "Would you like to try another game of chess? I'd understand if you say no, as assuredly going to win this time."

A rich laugh escaped through Osamu’s lips. "I'd like to see you try," he responded, his eyes gleaming with challenge and amusement.

The game was on, and Osamu intended to win.

previous part ~ next part | LBH masterlist | BSD Masterverse

Author Chat: This part took a lot out of me. Again, I had intended it to be much darker, as I see so many write Fyodor as this sweet, quiet man who's tenderly loving his s/o, but I was like "but what if...?" So, that's partly where the inspiration came from, because let's be honest, that man is dark and twisted (you know the looks like a cinnamon roll, will actually kill you).

If you liked, feel free to like and reblog <3 ~DamzelZelda

Song Inspos: Rule #34- Fish in a Birdcage Watch- billie eilish

Russian Word "Dictionary" (Curtesy of [unreliable] Google translate):

moya lyubov': "my love"

moya zhena: "my wife"

moy dorogoy: "my dear"

malen'kaya mysh': "little mouse"

lyubyashchaya: "loving"

budto: "as if"

chudesnyy: "marvelous"

ty lisitsa: "you vixen"

Takaya khoroshaya devochka: "such a good girl"

Ochen' khorosho: "very well"

moy angel smerti: "my angel of death"

moye temnoye zhelaniye: "my dark desire"

[moodymisty]

How do you think various legions would react to a primarch's lover? Especially if they're mostly a regular mortal. We got a hint of it with your Guilliman piece, so I'm biased and wonder what other headcanons you have for how the Ultramarines reacting to Guilliman's lover. Any ideas you have for Angron, Perturabo, and Dorn would be great to read too! 💙❤️💛

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

[ Part 2, Part 3 ]

Author's Note: So, I might've gotten carried away. I decided to just do the ones you mentioned, but I have drafts for the other legions so if anyone is interested in seeing those as well, feel free to say. I hope this is what you were looking for, and that you enjoy :3

Relationships: Implied Perturabo/Gn!Reader, Angron/Gn!Reader, Roboute Guilliman/Fem!Reader (because of the term 'lady'), Rogal Dorn/Fem!Reader (because of the term 'lady')

Warnings: None really apart from the toxicity that's expected of romancing a Primarch, Typical 40kness

➧ Iron Warriors:

Absolutely not lmao. Haul ass if you see these guys look at you funny.

The legion of brutal industrialism isn't going to tolerate their Primarch thinking of anything beyond the scope of their ambitions for war. Part of you swears it's something that's just hard wired into them.

So while you might love Perturabo, his legion does not love you. Asking for respect would be a joke. Perturabo might be able to beat them into not saying anything, but they have to hold their tongues quite hard between their teeth.

Needless to say, your first introduction hadn't gone well. It's not a scene you want to remember.

It's all sort of a cruel irony; Given Perturabo has always had desires beyond being just a war machine, but his legion treats his foray into love with the same horrible attitude that Perturabo has come to viciously hate about them.

It all makes you feel like you're wedged between two massive walls. Perturabo is borderline obsessive over you, but his Legion treats you as if you're a plague upon their Primarch. Neither is willing to budge on the matter. The walls keep squeezing closer and closer together, and you're trapped right in the middle. You sometimes wonder who is going to snap first.

Most of them just actively ignore you, which you won't complain about. You give most of them- apart from a few of the more amicable Iron Warriors- quite a wide berth. The less time around them the better.

Just let Perty be happy, man.

➧ Imperial Fists:

The way Dorn's legion treats you- you would call it suffocatingly overprotective, but Dorn and his legion call it otherwise. This legion takes everything stupidly seriously. If you leave, you are expected to leave with a retinue of guards, and return by a set time. You will be dragged back if you don't. Your location is known at all times, and while it's reassuring at times to feel safe, at time it feels, stifling.

Though, you knew what you were getting into; So you suppose you can't really complain. You can appreciate that they seem to not think too poorly of you, considering your stature. Being a baseline human amongst Astartes and Primarchs isn't easy, but at least they act somewhat blasé about it. Though it might just be their general dispositions.

They speak to you with the level of formality Dorn orders of them, no more no less. Some of them are a bit confused why The Praetorian even indulges in something like romance, but they don't ask questions. As long as it doesn't interfere with Dorn's ability to do his duty. Any doubts are kept firmly to themselves unless they feel it needs to be brought to attention.

They still treat the Lady of the Imperial Fists with decorum, and some, dare say, even enjoy your company. Communicating with them is certainly interesting however given their stalwart nature. Getting one to crack their neutral expression at a joke is a popular pasttime of yours.

You don't mind it all... Too much. To be respected and protected by them, to even have some you would consider friends- or some odd blending of the term, given some of them have begun referring to you as mother- is something that makes you happy and so unbelievably lucky in this galaxy.

So while it's rigid, it at least makes sense. Dorn makes it up to you by building you your own library room. Don't ask why there isn't any windows.

➧ World Eaters:

Babe, your Primarch has a legion named the 'World Eaters', what do you think is gonna happen?

But to be serious, it probably isn't the worst Legion to be pulled into- but not by much. The World Eater Astartes are desperate to gain the eye and approval of their genesire, so if scorning you squanders that, then they will accept your existence and bite their tongues. Somewhat.

Khârn specifically doesn't enjoy that his Primarch is distracted by such pursuits.

However he's not going to say he isn't somewhat impressed that you are able to stand ground against Angron as he towers near double your height. You would be nothing but a bug beneath his boot if Angron lost control of the nails for even a moment, but Khârn won't scoff at your ability to hold your expression and not completely crumble whenever he turns your way. You seem to understand the Nucerian Primarch well. Not many within his legion can even claim that honor.

Beyond that however, he wants little more to do with Angron's temporary pursuit, same as his battle brothers. Overtime perhaps he might warm a tad, but don't expect it.

You don't spend much time around them at all. You make them angry for shifting the priorities of their Primarch to things as frivolous as love and lust, and they make you sad as you watch them slowly destroy themselves for little more than bloodlust.

A tragedy, Angron and his legion is. You try not to think about it all too much.

➧ Ultramarines:

The Ultramarines have a distinct attitude for you, as Guilliman choosing a beloved wasn't a decision that was taken lightly. It takes time, and while they respect you at first, overtime they'll grow to trust you and even grow fond of you. Titles like Lady of the Ultramarines and Lady Guilliman weight heavy on you, but at least your shock wears off over time. They are still hilariously formal even if they call you titles like 'Legion Mother', and encouragement for them to not act so stiff falls on deaf ears.

They do have their moments where they stop being such terrible sticks in the mud and joke around, and you've noticed they get weirdly prideful if they're the one to make you laugh.

You remember once when Guilliman had left you with one of his lieutenants, you were watching some men getting used to their new Terminator armor. The lieutenant had muttered in disappointment under his breath that one man looked like he had a metal support beam firmly lodged from ass to helm, and you'd snorted into a full laugh. When Guilliman returned, he asked what you'd said when he was gone; Remarking that the lieutenant looked as if he was about to lead a military parade with how puffed he seemed.

There's no time now where there isn't a set of transhuman eyes on you, and part of you wonders the things Guilliman has seen that makes him so willing to splurge such valuable resources.

That's not to say the Ultramarines don't have their doubts about their Primarch's relationship however, at least in a logistical sense. It's mostly thoughts kept to themselves, or spoken by a Captain or Commander to Guilliman in private.

It's not as if they're angry their Primarch is happy, but a normal un-augmented human, one that under the lens of a massive crusade- you are effectively nothing more than a defenseless tool to be used against their Primarch. This behavior and thought process gets dialed up and stays for longer if you're dealing with 41st Millennium Ultramarines, given their zealotry towards their gene-sire's supposed divinity.

The Ultramarines are by far one of the better Legions to 'marry' into so to speak. They are organized, respectful, and many even slowly come to treat you as a sort of respected figure. Many will defend you with everything they have without hesitation. They have their doubts, but you'll admit they are reasonable doubts for them to have.

[3-2-whump]

(Re)Living a Nightmare, part 2

<prev next>

You're still here? Okay, it's not gonna get any better for our poor boy. Do read and heed the tags/CW.

Basic Summary if You Decide to Skip

Also please skim this chapter and this chapter if you haven't already, because they will be referenced heavily in the story coming up

TW/CW: rape/noncon, bound and gagged and blindfolded whumpee, creepy/intimate whumper, knife play, neither safe nor sane nor consensual, blood (lots of blood), victim blaming, internalized victim blaming, whumpee and whumper unknowingly triggering each other, blunt force trauma to the head (face), panic

NOTE: The inner thoughts and opinions expressed within do not align with those of the author, who themself has never and would never condone such thoughts and opinions in real life. Reader Discretion is advised.

All Thomas asked of him was to change into clothes he wouldn’t mind replacing, which usually meant that whatever Khaled wore would be torn/burned/ stained so irreparably that it’d just be thrown away after. Already based on that request, Khaled could guess he was in for a rough night. He had no idea how much worse it could get until he was blindfolded, bound, gagged, and carried out the apartment and down to the cold garage, where the hard foot-well of the back seat waited for him. The car revved to life, and his restrained body lurched forward as Thomas pulled out of the garage and drove them to fuck knows where.

Eventually they came to a stop, Thomas exchanged some words with the night-shift guard at the old house, and then they kept going until they parked. Khaled slowly started to put the pieces together. They were back at the old house, which probably meant Thomas wanted to take him downstairs, which meant whatever he wanted to do to him would be too messy or too specialized to do back at the apartment. What is he planning? Khaled wondered. He’s asked me to wear my most expendable clothes, he’s tied me up like I used to be when I was recaptured, he’s thrown me into the back like when I was recaptured-

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the car door opening. He blindly tilted his head toward the chill of the night and the distant sound of frogs singing. A pair of calloused hands hauled him up from the foot-well of the back seat and slung him over a broad shoulder. “Thought you could escape me this time, did you?” his master’s voice purred in his ear.

A pit of dread competed with the chill of the early spring night in his bones as Khaled realized what all this preparation had meant. Master wants to roleplay my escape attempts. He began shivering, though not just because of the cold. A warm hand rested on his buttocks to steady him as he felt himself being carried inside, through the hallway, and to the front of a very familiar door. Reliving his failed escape attempts but with an added sexual element was one of Khaled’s recurring nightmares. What cruel irony was this, that he had begged so enthusiastically no more than half an hour ago for this man to make his nightmare come true?

The familiar creak of a door opening preceded the dusty, dried-blood smell coming from the stairs leading down into the cellar. Khaled pleaded through the rag stuffed in his mouth and the tape sealed over his lips as they descended the stairs step by concrete step. He tugged at the zip ties binding his wrists and ankles, but all that did was dig the hard plastic further into his flesh.

The cellar in the basement was the only room in Luciano Antonio Costa’s old house that didn’t get renovated when they converted the rest of it into an office space. Mainly because its purpose as a room for torture and interrogation never went obsolete. Khaled didn’t have to see it; he’d been down in the T&I cellar enough times to have the layout committed to memory. Dusty, red bricked walls arched into a curved ceiling where two overhead lamps hung by thick chains, illuminating the large expanse below. A fireplace and all its accompanying iron tools sat to the left, and a rack lined with various instruments of torture was positioned to the right. In the middle was one large table with scratch marks furrowed into its edges, and many other types of equipment were either shoved in a corner or hanging from the ceiling, suspended by heavy chains and hooks like morbid chandeliers. Partitioning a back portion of the room was a large iron gate leading to a small offshoot of the basement, much like a door to a prison cell. Not much lay beyond the iron gate besides a hard-worn bench and several opaque plastic storage tubs full of mysterious items.

Khaled squirmed as he was lowered onto his stomach on top of the familiar table. “What were you thinking,” scolded the nightmare looming above him. A faint swish of a pocket knife and cold steel next to his skin made Khaled pause his struggles as his master cut away the zip ties. “Escaping in this cold weather without so much as a scrap of clothing on you –did you even have a plan?” he taunted. “I don’t know what your plan was, or even if you had a plan, but was it really worth freezing yourself to death?”

Khaled enjoyed the freedom of his unbound limbs for only a moment until his wrists were snatched into a tight grip and gathered in front of him. A coarse and scratchy material –rope, most likely –began entangling around and in between his wrists as his master continued talking. “We have a tracking chip installed inside of you, remember? You can never escape me; I will always find you.” With a forceful tug, Khaled’s hands were pulled in front of him, then he couldn’t move his hands at all. The other end of the rope must have been tied off to the ring attachment at the edge of the table.

His ankles remained free, if only to make it easier to take his pants off.

There were some light shuffling noises before the wooden table groaned under a newfound weight. Khaled felt the body heat of another person leaning over him. The cologne Thomas wore quickly overpowered his senses as the man hovered close. Khaled could feel his master’s breath on his ear and something hard and stiff against his backside. “The last time you tried to run away, a friend of mine advised me to cut your tendons,” Thomas sultrily whispered.

Oh god no. By now, Khaled knew which escape attempt they were reenacting, and, coincidentally, it was the one he had nightmares about the most.

“I don’t want to permanently cripple you though,” Thomas sighed, “mostly because it would be even more of a hassle to care for you, but I will cripple you temporarily, at the very least...”

He could already hear the hiss of the iron.

His panicked cries took on a new pitch of desperation. Without warning, his master’s fingers pinched at the edge of the duct tape on Khaled’s mouth and pulled, making him scream in pain. The rag was quickly removed, only for his tormentor to shove his index and middle fingers past the boy’s teeth to depress his tongue. “Suck,” he growled, “because this is the only lube you’re going to get.”

“Please, no, not this one, please, please no, not this, not this,” Khaled begged around the fingers in his mouth.

The fingers quickly withdrew before Khaled’s head was yanked back by the hair and then smashed onto the table. Stars danced across his blindfold, and a faint trickle of something warm and wet escaped from his nose.

“Let’s try this again.” Thomas shoved his fingers back into the boy’s mouth, burying them to the knuckle and making the boy gag. “Suck.”

Khaled shakily worked his head up and down the length of the fingers as his tongue lapped at each digit. He started to cry. As soon as the fingers withdrew, his pleas picked up again in earnest. “Please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me-”

“Would you relax?! I’m not going to burn you!” Thomas shouted above him. “What about any of this looks like I’m gonna burn you?!” Khaled heard a frustrated huff above him as his master yanked down his pants and underwear, exposing his bare ass and legs to the cold. The shed clothing was discarded, landing with a soft whump somewhere behind them. The two digits that were in his mouth forcefully entered him below, all pretense of play forgotten as they began roughly working him open. “Besides which, weren’t you the one who wanted to do this? You asked for this, you wanted this! You said you would be good for me!”

And he was right, he did say he wanted this. He asked for this to happen. So, with a defeated sniffle, Khaled went quiet and limp.

“So, are you going to be good for me now?”

Khaled’s bruised forehead scraped against the table as he nodded.

“Thank fuck,” Thomas grumbled.

I asked for this, Khaled told himself. The darkness around his eyes became damp as the blindfold caught his tears. I asked for this, I wanted this. He repeated it like a mantra as the man on top of him replaced his fingers with his cock and steadily screwed him against the table. I asked for this, I wanted this. Something tore down there as an unmistakable thin, warm, and sticky fluid trickled past the cock pummeling his hole. I wanted this. I wanted this…

I didn’t want this.

I never wanted this. Any of this.

I don’t want this. Slowly, the new mantra gained strength, and he let the words slip between his lips with every shuddering breath. “I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this-”

“Tough shit,” his master grunted.

Khaled pulled against the rope restraining his hands as he struggled against the body pressing into his. “I don’t want this! I don’t want this! I don’t want this! I-” Again, Khaled’s face was smashed against the table. He heard a faint crunch as a new river of blood flowed out of his nose.

“You can scream all you want, nobody’s going to hear you,” Thomas growled, “but for fucks sakes, can you please scream something less annoying?!”

Khaled kept repeating it between every sniffle, like a sad broken record. “I don’t want this,” he sobbed. “I don’t want this… I don’t want this…”

His begging finally outwore Thomas’ need to finish. “Fuck,” his master huffed, unsticking his sweaty torso from Khaled’s clothed back as he pulled out of him. Khaled collected his heaving breaths. It would be too naïve of him to believe his bitchy whining finally got through, but he would appreciate this moment while he could.

He suppressed his sobs and tilted his head to follow the footsteps and shuffling sounds Thomas was making as he tried to guess what would happen to him next. Khaled heard the faint schwing of a different knife being unsheathed. It cut through the flimsy fabric of his t-shirt as his master finally completely undressed him, tearing away the scraps of cotton the knife didn’t excise from his body. “You said you would be good for me, but you have been anything but!” A twisted strip of cloth was wedged between his teeth and hastily tied off at the back of his head. His master’s hand pinned him down by the back of the neck, crushing him against the table with the weight behind it. “You said you missed me, but you’ve only fought against me this whole time!” Khaled screamed into the gag as the tip of the knife sank in between his shoulder blades. Its blade dragged tortuously and deliberately through his skin as his tormentor continued griping above him. “You’re a fucking liar, you know that?” The knife mercifully lifted from the trough it had carved, only to be plunged into a new area of Khaled’s back. “Do you know what I do to liars, boy? I make them pay!” The raw wounds on his back wept with blood as the knife kept slicing, spilling over his sides and pooling underneath his stomach and the table below. It was hard to cry with a gag in his mouth and a broken nose full of blood. He gasped for breaths between sobs, never quite getting a satisfying breath before the pain of the knife would make him scream again. His tears slipped past the saturated blindfold and tracked down his cheeks to join the pinkish smear of saliva, snot, and blood he could feel covering the lower half of his face. “This is for Callahan!” The knife drove down and sliced another line through his skin for each name the monster dropped. “This is for Trémeaux! And Robinson, and Martinez, and Kruger, and Kościelsky, and this-” The knife dug deeper this time. Khaled bit into the gag as his nerves screamed in agony, the steel scraping something hard as it dragged against his back. “-this is for my brother; he is never coming back! Tony is never coming back, and it’s all because of you!” the monster above him roared.

It was in that moment, between the terror and the pain, that Khaled realized with a fascinated horror that his master was reliving a nightmare, too. I need to snap him out of it if I’m getting out of this cellar alive, he realized. So, he set his own trauma and pain aside and began doing what got him into this mess in the first place. The twisted cloth had loosened just enough. He pushed it out of his mouth with his tongue and started begging as if his life depended on it, because this time, it really did.

“I didn’t kill him!” he cried.  “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him!” Khaled screamed well past the point his throat hurt. “Master, please, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill any of them! I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him, Master, I didn’t kill him…” If the knife had stopped cutting into him and the rope around his wrists had been untied, Khaled was too far gone in his panic induced catatonia to notice. “I didn’t kill him… I didn’t kill him…” he rasped through a throat torn raw from screaming.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood

[sokkastyles]

"It's about Ozai's psychological need for control and need to hurt his son to feel powerful."

hmmmm I mean Ozai was pretty straight forward when he said to Zuko "it was to teach you respect" it doesn't make the situation any less fucked up but he's not lying about his motivation. Also Zuko and Azula aren't the only ones who try and act as a mini version of their father. Ozai reacts to Zuko's pragmatism in the war council the same way Azulon reacted to Ozai's suggetion of becoming the heir to the throne after Lu Ten's death.

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but this is something I'm gonna need everyone to understand real quick.

Whatever Ozai might say, it is not about respect.

In fact, the show has Zuko call this out, when Ozai tells Zuko it was to teach him respect in "The Day of Black Sun," and Zuko says, "It was cruel, and it was wrong!"

I believe that Ozai believes it's about respect, but Ozai is an abuser and abusers are notoriously good at lying to themselves.

Abuse is always, always, always about power.

And actually, Azulon's treatment of Ozai is a big part of why I think Azulon was an abuser, too.

First we need to understand this one rule, that abuse is always about power, and that whatever excuse the abuser gives is always going to be wrong (even if the abuser is able to convince themselves that it's true).

But also, if we really break down the idea that Ozai was trying to teach Zuko respect, does that even hold up?

Did Zuko learn respect by being burned?

Think about Zuko at the beginning of the series. Is this a teenager that has learned how to be respectful? Would you use that adjective to describe Zuko, age sixteen, circa book one, episode one?

Zuko, as we are introduced to him, is angry, rude, hateful, and full of rage. And he became that way through abuse. Abuse did not teach him respect. It never does. It didn't teach Ozai, and it didn't teach Zuko. It's a vicious cycle and if Zuko hadn't learned better, far from learning respect, he would have actually learned how to become just like Ozai, an angry, hateful person doling out cruelty because he never got the "respect" he thought he deserved and not understanding that respect is actually earned through giving it.

Also, consider that Ozai has another child, who he thinks is so much better than Zuko, who he heaps praise upon and thinks very highly of. If you look at the way Ozai interacts with Azula vs how he interacts with Zuko, the idea that his treatment of Zuko was about "respect" becomes the obvious lie that it is, because we see Azula act incredibly rude and disrespectful to basically every person around her, including Ozai, and he continues to praise her for it. Azula isn't any more respectful than Zuko, Ozai just has this idea in his head of what his kids are like and treats them accordingly. That's kinda the thing with the golden child / scapegoat dynamic.

Zuko isn't even respectful to Ozai at the beginning of the series. He fears Ozai, but as Zhao remarks, what Ozai did didn't teach Zuko anything about speaking respectfully, because it had nothing to do with that.

Because you can't teach someone respect by disrespecting them, especially a child. What children learn from this is that the way to be powerful is to disrespect others. They learn to fear others, and they learn that fear will earn them a facsimile of respect, but, like Azula at the end of the series, they are left wondering why their lives still feel empty.

Do you know who actually taught Zuko respect?

Iroh did.

Iroh taught Zuko respect by treating him with respect, even when Zuko was disrespectful to him. Iroh taught Zuko that Zuko deserved respect, and that also meant he didn't deserve what his father did to him.

The irony of Ozai's statement about respect is like, the entire point. Ozai has no authority to talk about respect while he's raising a hand to a terrified child. Someone who knows anything about respect would not need to terrorize children to try to get it.

Abuse is always about power, and always about the abuser, and never about the victim.

[athingofvikings]

A Thing Of Vikings Chapter 99:

Chapter 99: Astride The World

…varied widely.  In particular, while the relationships of East Asian humans with the local dragons was superficially more accepting than those of European and Mediterranean humans, the simple fact remained that the two species were in competition for food and other resources. 

Generally speaking, the various cultures of the region—Nippon, Huáxià, Việt, Goryeo, Khmu, Java, and others—revered the dragons who lived in the plentiful volcanic peaks spread throughout their region of the world, often as divine or elemental in nature.  This reverence did not prevent conflict between the humans and dragons, however.  Either in spite of or because of their cultural status, dragon poaching was common throughout history, especially due to the medicinal values (perceived or actual) of a number of parts and extracts from various dragon breeds, and rates of poaching spiked notably in times of political instability. 

Likewise, the reverence shown by humans in some eras and locations could disarm a nest when the attitude reversed itself.  More than one East Asian nest was devastated, if not wiped out entirely, in periods of famine when desperate humans raided the nest, as the dragons were not used to the dangers that humans could pose to them—or, worse, being acclimated to the presence of humans in the form of monks and monasteries established near the nest in acts of veneration.  This particular cruel irony, that the monks who tended to and revered the dragons also led the human mobs to their targets, was not something that went unnoticed in various records, but it still happened repeatedly nonetheless.

Furthermore and most importantly, the human and dragon populations both needed the productivity of the land and sea to sustain their populations, and every population crash from the dragons gave the humans more room to expand into the vacated space—which they did, resulting in less room for the next generations of dragons.  And this would lead to further conflict. 

In Zhōngguó, for example, farm raiding by hungry dragons could be and was seen as a sign that the reigning dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven.  More than one Emperor reacted to this by attempting to bring the unruly servants of Heaven back into proper action, authorizing or even leading organized hunts.  Some of these were more humane, intended to simply scare off the dragons from raiding livestock.  Others were not.  Legal attitudes towards dragons varied over time as well, with some dynasties having more protectionist attitudes towards dragons and passing wide laws protecting them, and others choosing a more narrow outlook.  One major contributing factor of the events of the early Dragon Era was that the Song dynasty had passed a number of strict laws protecting various species in their lands, including dragons...

—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd. 

AO3 Chapter Link

~~~

My Original Fiction | Original Fiction Patreon

[never-forget-viva-la-pluto]

For the people in my asks

Yes the last of us 2 is still my favorite game and the article being shared is from a perspective of someone being hypercritical of the zionist message(rightfully) while completely ignoring that the game is actually NOT a zionist message.

My main arguments against this article:

-Dina being proud of her Jewish heritage happens long before the game even introduces the serephites and wfl, thus there is no narrative tie-in to Dina being Jewish and the conflict among the two factions. Free palestine is not an anti jew thing, its an anti-israel apartheid state thing. And by extension, acknowledging that anti Semitic genocides did happen and still do, is not anti palistine, like the article author implies the game is suggesting.

-"at the end of the day Ellie's journey of revenge seems especially cruel, even idiotic, because we are never given a good reason for why she keeps recommitting to it" Yeah, only if you don't know what ptsd is or that she recommits to revenge because she grew up in a world that simply COULD NOT churn out anyone well adjusted.

-this is an article from a jewish-pro palestine woman that argues that this is a bad take from a guy who clearly took his own interpretation as the only interpretation there was. She is the same author as this article that's been on many anti zionism posts going around this website. She asserts that the game itself is not actually pro isreal, but is "a catalyst for more difficult conversions."

-the main point of the article is that the game is bad and zionist bc it treats the conflict as essentially a cycle of hate in us people and that that is a mentality that is learned, not inate. Which is bullshit bc there are many stories that have those exact tropes that aren't zionist at all. And the last of us isn't either.

THAT BEING SAID: NEIL DRUNKMANN IS A ZIONIST BASTARD! Outright he has supported Isreal despite the irony that the game he made was the condemnation of exactly what he is now supporting. This guy in the video puts it best how drunkmann accidentally made a game that went against his own beliefs along with some other good things to say on the topic of celebrities sudden support of isreal:

The last of us 2 is still my favorite game and i stand by that. HOWEVER, I will likely NOT be watching the second season of the show bc the game was so phenomenally good, by accident, it seems. I have no doubts that the show will be more pro isreal as drunkmann doubles down on his pro genocide stance, and that is kind of the opposition of the game's point.

If you like the last of us 1 and 2, then support Palistine!(or if you hate the game, there is a fucking genocide happening and this all feels very small in comparison to the war crimes being committed. Do something more productive than hang out in my inboxes or tell me to off myself):

[j4nusz]

I was bored so I played a game with the GPT Chat : it is a student and literature teacher and we analyse my fanfics. Here's its answer (what grade did you guys give it?) :

Indicate all the literary motifs in the text I have provided

ChatGPT said :

The text you've provided is rich with various literary motifs that enhance its themes and characterization. Here are some key motifs present in the narrative:

1. Revenge and Retribution

Randall's Vengeance: Randall's focus on revenge against Mike and Sulley, and his desire to enact it "in the most degenerate way possible," highlights the motif of revenge. This theme is central to the narrative, driving Randall's actions and setting the tone for the conflict.

Brutal Justice: The extreme measures Randall takes, including strangling Mr. Waternoose and the brutal treatment of Johnny, emphasize the motif of retribution, where justice is pursued through cruel and excessive means.

2. Power and Control

Dominance and Subjugation: Randall’s takeover of Monsters, Inc. and his imposition of electronic collars on Mike and Sulley represent the motif of control. His actions illustrate a power dynamic where he exerts absolute authority and reduces others to a state of dependency and helplessness.

Manipulation: The use of calming gas to incapacitate Mike and Sulley is a manifestation of psychological control and manipulation, reinforcing the motif of power over others.

3. Dehumanization

Transformation and Subjugation: The idea of turning minds "into milkshakes" and the electronic collars symbolize the dehumanization of the characters. They are stripped of their identities and reduced to mere tools for Randall’s purposes.

Johnny’s Transformation: Randall’s cruel act of sawing off Johnny’s horns and filing his teeth represents a physical and symbolic stripping away of Johnny’s identity, further underscoring the motif of dehumanization.

4. Cruelty and Sadism

Randall's Sadism: Randall’s enjoyment in causing pain and his mocking demeanor highlight the motif of cruelty. His actions are driven by a perverse pleasure in the suffering of others, reflecting his sadistic nature.

Mocking Pain: Randall’s taunting comments and the way he describes his actions as "dental care" serve to further emphasize his cruel and sadistic tendencies.

5. Identity and Symbolism

Horn Symbolism: Johnny’s horns are a significant part of his identity, and their removal symbolizes a loss of self and personal dignity. This motif highlights how Randall’s actions target the very essence of Johnny’s character.

Electronic Collars: The collars symbolize a loss of freedom and individuality, serving as a constant reminder of the characters' subjugation and Randall’s dominance.

6. Fear and Intimidation

Calming Gas: The use of calming gas to incapacitate Mike and Sulley creates an atmosphere of fear and helplessness, emphasizing the motif of intimidation.

Johnny’s Terror: Johnny’s fear and pleas before Randall’s brutal treatment highlight the motif of intimidation and the psychological impact of Randall’s cruelty.

7. Deception and Irony

Feigned Sadness: The reporters’ feigned sadness over Mr. Waternoose’s death and the ironic tone in their questions reflect the motif of deception and the superficial nature of public responses.

Randall’s Justification: Randall’s portrayal of his actions as a form of “dental care” is an ironic twist that underscores his complete lack of empathy and the absurdity of his justifications.

These motifs work together to create a narrative rich in themes of power, control, and cruelty, while also highlighting the psychological and emotional impact on the characters involved.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Hi! So I read you analysis about The Book in BSD (I love it) and I wondered... Can you recall the part of the manga where it says or it is implied that Nikolai's speech about freedom and cages was written in The Book? I remember the scene from the manga, but not something about The Book, and I feel like I read other theories mentioning this before. I would like to reread it.

Ooh!

First off, thank you! I'm glad you liked the post I made on the Book!

And yes, I can elaborate on that bit! It's narrated by the page, not the full Book. Check out Chapter 58.5 to see where Nikolai is speaking, then where the person writing on the page is writing the same thing word for word. Actually, here it is.

Also, they did this in a really neat way in the anime's Season 4 Episode 6, to what I thought was great effect!

So yeah, when I first read it, I was so uncomfortable with the author of the page writing verbatim what Nikolai was saying out loud about freedom - what a cruel irony there. I felt a little bad for him, if I'm being honest. How disturbing.

After, I thought about it some more and realized it could just be dictation from a pre-planned speech, but again, to me that's still a little screwed up, freedom-wise.

Hope this helped!

[thesherrinfordfacility]

LWA: I'm procrastinating again from professional writing, so I'll take the opportunity of you being uncomfortable with "God Ships It" to do my rant. When I started attempting to read GO fanfic, I was startled by how...panicked?...it is about the source material. The panic is most obvious when it comes to dealing with any of Crowley's character flaws--this is a fandom that gets very sentimental about how cruel Crowley might be to his plants, but then does a Bentley-sized swerve when it comes to how cruel Crowley is to /Aziraphale/ when he /successfully/ manipulates him into trying to kill the Antichrist for him--but it also comes out in its treatment of religion.

The irony of post-S2 fanfic is that pre-S2 fanfic overwhelmingly endorses Aziraphale's attitude to Heaven (without realizing it). That is, it implicitly or explicitly assumes that Heaven has become warped in the absence of God, and that the presence of God Herself (or Himself, in the novel) would provide the "good" alternative. Heaven, that is, can be reformed if the real authority would just stand up. Moreover, there are multiple fics that really do assume that being an angel is better than being a demon because angelic grace means they are still in touch with the divine, and there are even fics that posit how great it would be if Crowley were reinstated to angelic status. "God ships it" rests on the assumption that the GO God is "good," that His/Her "shipping" is beneficent and rooted in care specifically for the protagonists (particularly if it proves to be part of the ineffable plan), and that His/Her imprimatur is desirable and necessary.

None of these assumptions are supported by the novel or series. (I keep wanting to write "Source for this claim?" in the margins.) Gaiman inadvertently sets the stage for "God ships it" by making God the narrator in S1, but "God reports it" is not the same as "God ships it." More to the point, both the novel and the series reject the terms of Pascal's Wager: if we cannot be assured of the existence of God or the nature of God's will, GO responds, then the correct course of action is to locate moral authority "on the ground," as it were, in human communities, and to proceed as if /God does not exist./ (Anathema burning the second book of prophecies is a case in point.) Moreover, in the series we are shown repeatedly that God's actions violate human (and angelic and demonic) moral norms, particularly in repeated sacrifices of children, and viewers are not invited to side with God! There is no evidence that the GO God is good, or loving, or even fundamentally decent in a way that can be articulated in terms of earthly morality. God's ways are incomprehensible, which is why, as I said before, attempts to do theology in GO-verse don't arrive at anything coherent. There is certainly no sign that God thinking you're a great person is going to do wonders for you (see: Job). And after seeing what God either causes to happen directly or allows to happen by withdrawing, there are no circumstances under which centering the protagonists' love lives makes God look any better. ("Isn't it amazing that all the horrors of the past several millennia had to happen just so Aziraphale and Crowley could be in love?") Finally, the "shipping" suggests that it is /desirable/ that the characters' love be divinely authorized or that they should be outright directed into a relationship by providential means, even though GO is all about the centrality of free will and the necessity of learning how to choose. So...no.

hey, look LWA; far be it for me to tell you how to spend your breaks in between work but i do have to question your decision that any part of that break is spent delivering Hot Tea to my inbox - but im never going to complain about it, rant away!!!✨ (also - hope the writing is going well, procrastination or no!!!)

it does make me uncomfortable for this one simple reason:

"god does not play dice with the universe. i play an ineffable game of my own devising."

so look - i know it's literally god speaking. she can do as she pleases, whatever. but to think that she tampers with her best and yet most ironic invention truly unnerves me - that she takes free will, and manipulates it to her design - and even more alarming is that that design is completely unknown and unknowable to anyone other than her. honestly, it's this kind of thought that makes me steer well clear of any religious leanings personally; people will make decisions and will mess them up and will succeed with them, but the thought that those occurrences were "god's will", or down to a higher power... well, it's not a good feeling, in my opinion. extrapolate that thought to any real life scenario as you will.

but in any case, to apply this to GO gives me the same sense of unease. i have still the thought that there is going to be a clear, definitive line between the great plan and the ineffable plan in the narrative. that seems to have been set up very firmly in s1, and arguably becomes way more understated yet elaborated on in s2 (job and resurrectionist minisodes) until the end when metatron mentions the second coming. id absolutely love for it to be a huge narrative point in s3 again; the ultimate long-con chekhovs gun metaphorically jamming, backfiring, and spraying shrapnel all over the place.

but which is worse? a great plan that at the very least almost everyone of influence in heaven, including aziraphale if you hypothesise based on his knowing of the plans for the humans/earth in the pre-fall scene, has seen or at least seen bits of, and now presumably will work to ensure will come to pass because they know better than to question something metaphorically written in stone? an awful concept at face value, fulfilling prophecy, but at least you'd know what you're getting - you're buying what's advertised. i got rather ensconced in looking up some biblical stuff the other night, thinking about something similar to this, and:

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6 - KJV)

that is terrifying, even if you take into account "the end is not yet", because that is ominous as all hell. but is it more terrifying that the ineffable plan, that is controlled and shaped and enacted by only one entity, cannot be questioned or challenged until it has already come to pass? that it is not of even questionable morality, but unknowable morality? god does not play dice, because that would be fairer - that would leave things up to chance... free will. instead she is playing by something only she knows, only she can control. so in that first quote, i interpret that she is either directly or indirectly telling the audience not to trust her and her actions. maybe god is self-aware, maybe not. she's ineffable.

so, even if the great plan is awful and inevitable, is it better to anticipate exactly what's coming? better the devil you know? either way, between the two, you're actually caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. that's the whole dilemma, the whole point, i know. but this is where i come to the "god ships it" trope: i originally thought that aziraphale and crowley being a part (and possibly inadvertently cocking up) the ineffable plan by way of their love story would be a great plot device - until i realised that, to be honest, that would a) feel like lazy writing with very little nuance to be had, and b) directly contradict my whole thought process on free will.

i do think they're involved in the ineffable plan, have a stake and place in it. i don't think, in some way, that there's any way they can't be. but it would have to be for god's benefit (ie whatever conclusion for the world she's currently got running on standby mode), and i don't think god, being what/who she is, would be able to understand love like that. she might foresee it, being omniscient and all, but what would she know about it? love is something to be felt, and that kind of love (unless GO is going to take a very weird turn) is not something she could ever experience. she sees it, sure, in her creations, but that's not knowing it.

so no, i don't think god has any place in the relationship between aziraphale and crowley. if anything, her mere existence is the ultimate barrier to it, through crowley's resentment, hurt, and anger, and in aziraphale's naivety, blind faith, and own brand of god complex. to give her seal of approval to any of it would be redundant anyway; it wouldn't change anything, it doesn't prove anything, and it immediately questions whether the characters choosing to have a relationship of any kind is of their own free will or was predetermined and inevitable. so, no, thank you.

i would like to think god is good - because if there is a higher power, you just have to hope that they don't have it out for you, right? - but logically she just... is. arguably, she is beyond morality, and arguably she is both good and bad. she makes bets with satan to test the faith in her most loyal faithful - which again, it might have been the great plan to make job suffer, but equally it might have been the ineffable plan for aziraphale and crowley to thwart it at great risk, sacrifice, and pain to their psyches... frankly, it's fucked either way you slice it.

(and it does make me wonder about why this appears to be the last that we actually see of god's 'physical' presence in heaven so far...)

furthermore, the issue in the resurrectionists; not even just aziraphale's alarming speech completely disregarding inequality as a means of arriving at a ridiculous point about morality, but - did god have a hand in having aziraphale and crowley come across elspeth and morag, leading to aziraphale starting to question what right and wrong is (rather unsuccessfully, he swings between redefining the two like a sodding metronome)? and equally have a hand in morag's death, that made aziraphale potentially retreat back to his usual standby of exalting in god's power and mercy? but leads to elspeth being able to live a better life? unknown, but this possibility does indicate that no, she isn't good, and she isn't bad, she's just playing a game that has an equal chance for the rest of us as being a good or bad move (insomuch that only she knows what game and rules she's playing - schrödingers chess move, really).

that's why aziraphale's decision at the end of s2 is so important to me. he spent the previous episode playing at being god, moving pieces around the board in a series of patterns as he pleased in order to reach the check, but having little regard for them in doing so - removing their free will and ability to think or feel or act independently, but equally whilst never at any intention of causing harm. does that make it okay? of course not - it's playing a game only he knows how to play.

so to then look at heaven as being something that he could change, should change - because he's being handed the opportunity - is meritable; he's not leaving it up to someone else, not following blind faith that "the almighty will fix it", he's choosing to be the change himself. and there's no confirmation at all that he's doing it to return it to what he considers to be god's original intention; as it stands, we have to assume that he's just going to fix/change/improve it for the wider benefit of everyone. but then again - is this fair? that at the top of heaven there will essentially only be aziraphale (not counting the metatron), and his vision, his decisions? perhaps that's why it was also so important to see that conference meeting in ep6 - it's not just the supreme archangel in charge; there is a precedent, however questionable the board of directors, of democracy in heaven.

lastly, just to touch on it: i think it would have been an interesting conundrum if crowley had accepted the restoration; whether it would have changed him, erased parts of him involuntarily, or if he would have remained as just crowley and used the opportunity to bring down the second coming and heaven's corruption from the inside. as it stands, we'll never know - but there never was any true characterisation reward to be had from making him an angel again, and it would have been a weird choice for him to make. the way it went down was exactly as their characters are and believe.

(putting this into a separate section because my mind just got a factory-reset by this point and my having a philosophy-realignment moment didn't really fit in any of the above very well):

it's really interesting to bring in pascal here, because i wouldn't have seen GO as rejecting it altogether on first glance (ie not contradicting you, just realigning my thought process). so... my initial thought is that GO eradicates at least half of the wager by confirmation that god exists, full stop (aaaand immediately going off on a long tangential thought of how different the story could be if we didn't have god as the narrator/no confirmation of god in the book other than in abstract, and therefore the pascal wager could theoretically apply - big yikes). removal of the dead-end outcomes leaves you with receiving either damnation, or eternal peace. but add in the element of ineffability, as you say, and the entire argument is rejected altogether... it makes sense to have GO reject such a binary argument, and the whole representation of agnes as being a stand-in personification (?) for god, in that respect, and anathema essentially rejecting her, carries so much more weight for me now... thats so cool to think about, thank you!!!✨

[idontevenuse-thissite]

Kosakira

There is not nearly enough fics to satisfy my craving. Two which I really enjoy, sit on 2 and 3 chapters each, unfinished and last updated years ago.

Something about taking a side character that has no screentime and coming up with the character of said person based on others opinions on him. (Making Kosaku dead inside(tm) could be seen as cruel irony but it fits surprisingly well from what we know of him.)

The ones where they’re working at the same average office job works very well for them. If you were to be a coworker you would probably think they were somewhat similar. But in reality they are two very different people.

Whilst kosaku is lonely, Kira choses to spend his time by himself. People leave kosaku alone without any effort on his part. Kira actively avoids attention.

Kosaku is just some sad guy in a failing marriage, dead end job and struggling financially. Kira is a fucking serial killer, with MAGICAL POWERS that EXPLODES PEOPLE, he spends his free time walking around with a dismembered hand. I'm pretty sure that if Kosaku were to be stabbed with the stand arrow he would just die.

Kira would definitely admire the fact that Kosaku manage to blend in so well. That almost no one in their office knows his name but instead refer to him as "the guy who's always working overtime" if at all.

The ship tag is currently the only one I have bookmarked on ao3. Out of the six fics I've downloaded from ao3 two of them are kosakira. (Yes the same two I mentioned at the start of this post) One of the authors of one of the fics wrote in the comments that they maybe were working on something similar and omg I am holding my breath and thumbs.

I just love shipping literal serial killer x some random guy.

[autistichalsin]

Hi Sammy, I'm writing this to you as well as your friend, and enyone else affected in this manner.

First of, I would say the irony is lost on this type of people, that they would act in the very way they claim to be against, harrassing strangers. What a waste of their precious time on earth.

Do stay safe and do whatever you feel is right for you. You know best.

With this, I wanted to encourage you to not let hateful users get to you.

Since they do not care for you nor know you, they're not worth your time, energy, and thought in any way, shape or form.

They do not care for the things they claim either, for if they did they would focus on their life to find happiness and meaning and stay safe themselves, or the lives of people who suffer that they could reach out to.

We are talking about fiction. Words on paper, by a person out of 8 billion. Fiction is not morally or ethically bound. A reasonable person would know this. But they forego reason for more base urges.

They exhibit sadistic and abusive behaviour deep down. Behind internet anonimity, very many people reveal their cruel sadistic inclinitations and revel in it, while painting themselves as virtuous and just, to escape condemnation of antisocial behaviour.

They happened upon you as their target du jour, attacking you to stoke their ego, to consolidate their inclusion in this ad hoc online group.  They constantly hunt for easy targets with a groupthink mentality, to validate what is actually cruel behaviour, confirm their skewed moral bias, as well as remove themselves from responsibility. A twisted safety net.

They are also in part being cruel for cruelty's sake, to feel some power in their lives where they mostly lack it.

They do not want nor care for reason, so arguing with them depletes you needlessly while it fuels them. They will shift their stance no matter what you say to defend yourself.

Most are aggressive trolls, some may be delusional. If the latter, they need to disengage online and seek a treatment means. If the former, they need a disciplinary intervention in the form of a modder blocking their posts and account, and in the form of us blocking them. Either wsy, you do not owe them your time to defend yourself against falsities. It is their bait to engage you with ill intent. Refuse them that absolutely.

My other advice is to leave twitter, at least temporarily, if you feel it's unsafe. It's innundated with this behaviour because there's no proper moderation there at present. And moderation is the only way bullies and trolls and stalkers and their behaviour can be addressed. Since they feel empty in their own lives, they seek validation in cruel ways, putting others down, and the internet facilitates this with its ease of access to many targets. They enjoy the ease with which they can harm, it's their quick fix.

These people are not worth your time, again. This is what they live for, regardless of what you say or write. Block and report at will. If it gets threatening report them to a higher authority, or mention that you need all the means to do so when reporting them to the platform.

Be sure in yourself and your worth. Think of how many enjoy what you have to say, if you're feeling down. Do what makes you happy, and never listen to people you would never seek advice from.

It is difficult, though, I know. You have friends if you need help.

Hey friend, thanks for your message. i'm trying to just move past what they said and did, but some other effects they're having are getting to me- convincing people I liked that I'm evil, harming my friends, etc. But I agree that their "care" about rape victims is performative at best- why else would they harm real victims in service of fictional ones? Because it's an act.

They absolutely are abusive and sadistic people who truly enjoy hurting people. It's vile to see it. I deactivated my Twitter last night because I really fully agree with your assessment- they picked that site because it lacks even the most basic self-protection tools like Tumblr does. Tumblr lets you delete hurtful messages- Twitter doesn't.

Thanks for your message, very much.

[divineprank]

C'mere ya liddle fucken twerp -- @gallanthowl

The chamber in which they encounter each other exudes an air of fading grandeur, the stones that make up the very walls are aged and weathered: polished over but not truly renewed. Flickering torches cast dancing flames, their very light paints intricate patterns of orange and shadow upon the surface of the wall. Eerie twilight filters through gothic windows, casting long, distorted shadows that seem to sway and dance to a haunting melody that only they can hear. The interplay of light and dark weaves a tapestry of contrasts, it's as if the very essence of the room is caught in the very same perpetual struggle between opposing forces of the two men who occupy the room. As if the walls sigh with the whispers of centuries, their secrets being held close within the cracks and crevices of every cleaned stone.

The air is thick with the breaths of history; filled with the weight of forgotten legends.

Ganondorf stands as a titan of imposing stature, a towering colossus of malevolence. His presence is noticeably oppressive, a force that seems to bend the very laws of reality to his will. It's his broad frame, wrapped in dark, regal garmor that commands the room they inhabit with a dominating authority. With every movement carries an air of deliberate power, as if the ancient man is simply but an extension of the addition to he exudes. Torchlight graces his features, the cruel angles of his face cast eerie, shifting shadows that accentuate the intensity in his piercing amber gaze.

The echo of his every step reverberates through the room, a rhythmic cadence that pulses like the heartbeat of a hateful god. With each footfall, his armor shifts and eases, almost as if the metal he wears itself is under his dark influence.

The Triforce burned into Ganondorf's left hand throbs with a rhythmic intensity; it's a pulsating echo that resonates through his very being. Its brilliant golden glow casts an ethereal radiance, illuminating the contrast between both light and shadow as they fight to gain control across the room. What shimmers on Ganondorf's hand is not just a mark, but a connection to a power beyond simple mortal comprehension... An ancient force that has courses through Ganondorf's veins, entwining his destiny with the same young man who stands just inches from the lost king.

In the deepest part of his tired soul, Ganondorf can sense the presence of another pieces, a fragment of the Triforce that lies dormant within the young man in green. It calls out to the Gerudo in a silent plea for reunion; a magnetic pull that tugs at the very essence of his being. The Triforce tempts Ganondorf in its own yearn for wholeness, for the disparate shards to once again be united. Yes, it is a desire that resonates with Ganondorf, intertwining the two's fates into an ancient dance of old power and unyielding ambition.

Ganondorf's large hand suddenly moves with a swiftness that belies its size, seizing Link's young face in a vice-like grip. The force of the larger man's grasp is like a vice, fingers holding onto his skull with a ruthless intensity. It's a brutal, unforgiving hold that conveys not only Ganondorf's raw strength, but his total abandonment of empathy. As his fingers close tightly around Link's face, the Gerudo studies the young man with an appraising gaze, eyes narrowed in a look of profound disappointment. It's a look that seems to strip away pretense and lay bear the truth of the situation: in that moment, there is little room for illusion or false bravado--Ganondorf sees Link for what he truly is and his assessment is far from favorable.

This? This is the Hero chosen by the Goddesses? This unimpressive farmhand, this ... this unassuming boy with the permanently innocent look upon his face? The irony is not lost on Ganondorf and the bitter taste of insult and indignation burns into the back of his mouth. This one's eyes are not as dangerously sharp as Ganondorf remembered them to be, his anticipation settling back when he had caught a glimpse of him in that window such a very long time ago.

He's found himself confronted by a mere child, a simple pawn in a game far larger than he comprehends.

The lines etched into Ganondorf's weathered face deepen, his features contorting into a mixture of disdain and frustration. The disappointment that courses through him is a tangible force and he struggles to maintain if it source comes from deep within him, or perhaps the sizzling in his left hand. He had expected more, yet instead the lost king is face-to-face with a figure that falls short of the so-called legendary hero he'd expected, the legend scrawled down in so many texts he'd studied for so long.

"Your eyes..." He begins by finally releasing Link's chin. "They used to gleam with a fiercer resolve; a much sharper hue... What happened to that fire, I wonder...?"

[selchwife]

ffxiv: the tragic irony of emet-selch's friendship with azem is that it clouds his view of wol and prevents him from truly knowing them as their own individual; even should he manage to separate them his opinion of wol is constantly evaluated against the memory of azem, just as emet-selch's memories of the past prevent him from truly seeing any value in the present. it is the contrast between this intimacy and the fact that azem's reincarnation is effectively a stranger to him in large part due to his own maladjusted nostalgia that creates pathos. whatever love, platonic or otherwise, he is able to extend to them purely as themselves is given too late.

certain emetwol authors: emet-selch knows more about wol than she (it is always she) does. he understands every aspect of her personality and preferences and body without her having to communicate it and without her even consenting to such intimate knowledge. emet-selch is always right. What do you mean cruel irony? "projection?" what are you talking about? azem and wol are functionally identical and they are both his barbies.