#emil utter

[lured-into-wonderland]

Humming a waltz and in a mood to dance, Emil carelessly approached the woman. "Would you honour me with a dance, miss?" Reaching out her hand, Emil gave a bow suitable to her dress: an old fashioned coat and breeches with a yellow, sunflower-patterned cravat. // hi hi

No, she did not expect such a chivalry. Not here anyway. Truth to be told, she did find herself here to escape the stiff etiquette and rules she disliked; yet needed to obey. Most of the time anyway. But she was also not the one to reject chivalry (or yet not to appreciate it), when offered so nicely to her.

So Nunnally smiled to that person in a sunflower-patterned cravat (perhaps hard to believe given the colour palette Nunnally was wearing, but sunflowers were one of her favourite flowers), and returned a deep enough curtsy: --

“Of course, I’ll happily accept.” – Nunnally stretched her hand towards the stranger, “Especially that the waltz you were humming is one of my favourites.”

Nunnally liked waltz. Or dancing in general. Her dress, a bit old-fashioned as well, blue and decorated with lace, was so suited for what they were going to do. She let a small laughter: --

“Excuse my impoliteness, but why did you pick me? Was it because I look slightly out of the place... Just like you?” – it was a funny thought that had just hit her. That they both did not (fully) fit the place. She liked the thought, though. Nunnally had never minded being considered old-fashioned. She just was like that.

“My name is Nunnally. Nunnally Mathilde…”

“…if you care to know who you are dancing with…”

@post-mortem-lullabies

[out-of-characters]

Me, wondering what po.kemon type Emil would be because of a dash game post from yesterday evening: Water & dark?

Emil: Is water there because I'm a fishwoman?

Me: Yes?

Emil: But I wouldn't be type locked if I was human?

Me: ...

Me: You're damn right you wouldn't.

Me: So any two out of fairy, dark, fighting, fire, steel, and... well, water.

Emil: Fire&steel is 4x weak to water. Now that would be unexpected of a fishwoman xD

[ateliersss]

Oh, take me back to The Night we met

Pairing: Yautja x Fem!Reader Summary: 1936, eighty-eight years ago, you met him, the creature that changed your life in a way that goes beyond human imagination. Cross-posted on AO3: here Warnings: Attempted Rape, SA, Murder, English isn't my first language Word Count: 10.162 After the Blooming Family series

⇨ Surprise! I hope you are surprised because I was starting to doubt myself. I actually believed I wouldn't even finish it this year. Anyways, I wrote the finishing 6.800 words in the last seven hours and my brain is mush. I hope it didn't affect the pace or logic of the plot. If so, I will edit it in a few days. Comments are always appreciated.

⇨ Also, if you tell me I wrote an unrealistic reaction to seeing a Yautja's face for the first time, let me tell you, you and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't reacted the same.

1936, Earth

"Thank you, ma'am." The soldier in front of you returned your identity card, the national animal printed on it facing you.

You returned his bright smile with a tight one. You were already used to identifying yourself to patrolling soldiers after work. It was for "safety measures", according to the government.

While you were busy putting away your identity card, the boy looked nervously over his shoulder to his comrade who nodded back to him, encouraging him to finally man up and just tell you what he had rehearsed a dozen times already to eventually make a move on you and ask you out.

"A-And thank you for your service, ma'am!" He blurted out, louder than he intended to, with a soft blush covering his cheeks.

You closed your purse and looked up at him in confusion.

The boy, you now noticed, had to be at least five years younger, probably around the same age as your younger brother, Emil. And you recognized him now, too. He was patrolling around this area two to three times a week.

At your confused face, he gestured a little awkwardly to your uniform, the white dress and blue-grey blouse underneath it. "D-Doctors and nurses are in desperate need in times like these a-and saving lives is a remarkable job!"

"Oh." You looked down at yourself before you pulled your coat tighter around your body and smiled softly at him. "If that's all, I'll take my leave now. Have a good night, gentlemen."

He visibly deflated at your words and mumbled a quick "Have a nice evening, ma'am." but you barely got half of it when you turned around to continue your way back home. The second your back was facing them, your smile dropped.

You hated it, hated this, this so-called life you and everyone around you had to live. Horrible and disgusting things were happening, but no one dared to speak up. You were all trapped, too scared to act, too afraid to do something.

And the people could feel it, the tension that was stretched so tautly that was just waiting to snap. The whole world was holding its breath, deferring that one moment when the match would ignite and reduce everything and everyone to rubble and ash.

Meanwhile, your brother was beaming with pride as he was now considered old enough to join the army and could finally fight for his country. On the other hand, your father, the only other family you still had in this world, was far more reluctant when it came to the plans of the government and his son's naive blindness of patriotism.

No one was talking about the horrifying wrongs your home country was doing for years now, but everybody knew, everybody saw. And if someone even dared to utter a word about it, they disappeared.

That didn't stop your father from ranting about it behind the closed doors of your home. He did so, of course, in Emil's absence. He was family, yes, but nowadays blind obedience could manipulate even a brother and son to go against his own kin.

You loved your brother dearly. He was a good guy and he only held a very strong pride for his home, his people, and his culture. But sadly that was the only thing he acknowledged around others. He denied the "rumors" of a genocide going on and overlooked unintentionally the more sinister motives of others in the world of politics and the military. He was truly and utterly blind, but you couldn't condemn him for that. Not really.

The Great War ended when Emil was three years old and you remembered him crying when your father told him he couldn't participate in it anymore. Ignorant of the horrors that happened at the Front, he and a few boys from around the neighborhood would play war and were disappointed when they were told it was over. The worst part was the elder men sitting on benches near their battlefield, telling them their people were the superior power since they had been able to hold their own against three opposing countries in the end.

You sighed and started to fumble around in your purse for your keys as you reached your destination. After a quick look into the mailbox — the usual evening newspaper and another flyer that encouraged men between the ages of twenty and forty-five to sign up for the military — you made your way up to the first floor and poked around in the lock with the key, a little distracted by the newspaper as you were searching the headlines for anything concerning. There was another report about a skinned man found hanging upside down from a church tower. Unbelievable. At times like this and there was a maniac running around, killing people in the most grotesque way for fun.

"I'm home!" You called into the dimly lit hallway, knowing your father was sitting in his usual spot in the living room.

After dropping your purse next to the wardrobe, toeing out of the white pumps, shrugging off the coat, and hanging it on the coat rack, you walked through the corridor and past five doors. The ones leading to the bathroom and the kitchen were open as always, just like the door of Emil's bedroom. Although it hadn't been inhabited for a few months now, you would always leave it open after cleaning. It was false reassurance, but that way it seemed as if he was still home.

"How was your day?" Your father asked gruffly from his spot on the wing chair, the morning newspaper still in his hand before it got replaced by the evening issue you handed to him with a kiss to his temple.

"It was…"

Screams.

Blood.

Wails of a newborn.

A cold body.

"…long."

"Mhm." Your father hummed, his eyes scanning the front page before turning it. "Hah! Sightings of another black cloud of smoke and the authorities tell the public another farmhouse burned down. Do they think we are stupid? Unbelievable these people! Think they will get away with it, hiding it from the public eye, and no one would notice!"

You weren't entirely sure if he had even listened to you, but you didn't care. You weren't very eager to start a conversation with him anyway.

"I'm in my room. Call me if you need anything, okay?"

Though you didn't expect a response, you waited a few seconds — maybe today he would ask if his son had finally sent a letter — before you turned around to retreat to your room.

Since your father had lost his legs in a bomb attack at a munitions factory where he had worked during the Great War, he had changed. A lot. Before, he was quite a gentle and jovial man who worked hard and never shied away from showing how much he loved his family. Nowadays, he was resentful and bitter towards everything happening around him.

It was exhausting, not only listening to his complaints day in and day out but also being nothing more than a maid and caregiver to him. You were the sole breadwinner in this house. You worked yourself to the bone in a business that was equally about life and death but gave you more grief than joy. At least it made the medical care of your father a little easier. The surgery, the medicine, and the wheelchair would have cost you a fortune.

When you would get off work, more would await you at home. Taking care of the household was your responsibility for nine years now since your father wasn't capable of doing it anymore. After the first week of dusting and sweeping, washing the dirty laundry and ironing the clean ones, going grocery shopping and cooking, as well as taking care of your father like washing him, helping him get to the toilet, and such, you cried yourself to sleep with the thought of quitting and running away.

But you didn't.

You were miserable, yes, but you stayed. You stayed with the hope of a better life in the future. Maybe you will be married to a nice man in a few years like your girlfriends already were. You had experience with men, sure, but none of them you would consider fit to be your husband.

In your bedroom, you quickly got rid of your uniform until you were only in your undergarments, a baby-blue silk panty that flowed around your mid-thighs and an uplift brassiere of the same fabric and color, both with a lacy hemstitched design. You were about to throw the white and grey-blue dress into your other dirty clothes when you noticed red speckles on the left sleeve.

Yes, the day had been long, too long for your taste, and when your shift did end, you felt hollow once more. You could still see her in that bed, screaming and crying.

Watching her, you had wondered if you would ever end up like her.

You shifted in your place, second-guessing before you finally turned and looked at your reflection in the mirror that occupied one corner of your bedroom. You hesitantly lifted your hands and placed them on your belly.

No. Your job showed you women struggle and in pain every day. You would never do that to yourself. Being a mother was not worth the probability of taking your last breath during labor, giving your own life while granting another to your child.

Today was another reminder of that.

The girl in the delivery room, Johanna, was sweet and lively. You met her occasionally on a monthly check-up when you assisted the doctor who took her into his care. She would tell you about her and her husband trying for this baby for years and how excited she was.

You bit the inside of your cheek when tears once again started to well up in your eyes when you thought of how helpless you had felt when you stood in that room. Your colleague, an older and more experienced woman, was holding the crying newborn in her arms. The doctor was doing his all to save the unsavable while Johanna's body got colder as the dark red spot grew bigger on the white linen of the bed.

Today had shown you once again that you would never let something like that happen to you.

"You have to incise into her abdomen."

Not ever.

"No!"

Not in a million years.

"No, Mi'ytiar… you have to, you have to."

You would never put someone else's life before yours, not even the one of your never-going-to-happen baby.

"Save our baby. Forget me… ju-just save our son… please."

Sighing, you got ready for bed. You were far too tired this evening to get anything done. The laundry had to wait until tomorrow and your father probably already had eaten, so there was no need to get to the store. For now, you needed to stop thinking.

A whole week passed and you had followed your everyday routine like every other day. Occasionally, when you walked past the room where Johanna had delivered her baby and made her husband a widower, you paused and stared. Instead of the freshly made bed and the stark white linen, you saw her dying as she bled out. You saw the doctor, yourself by his side and the nurse holding the baby at the foot of the bed.

You jumped when you felt a hand on your shoulder and you turned to see said nurse smiling pitifully at you.

"You are still there, right?" She asked softly, her eyes scanning your face.

You swallowed and nodded. "It's like that every time I come here. I don't know why. She's not the first I watched dying during childbirth."

The elderly woman patted your cheek and guided you away from the delivery room by the crook of your arm, pulling you away from the sorrowful abyss before you could drown any deeper in it.

"You liked her, that's why." She started, "I had a Johanna, too. A long, long time ago. Although she was a lot younger, she was just as excited to be a mother. Poor thing died just like her baby."

You gasped and now it was you who looked with pity at her. "Why?"

"The baby was stuck." The older nurse sighed, "She pushed and pushed and tore. By the time the doctor started to cut her open, she died of internal bleeding." She had to clear her throat before she continued, "The baby died with her. A little boy. He got himself tangled up in the umbilical cord."

You turned your gaze from her face down to the ground and watched your feet walk an unknown route. Swallowing down your tears, you forced yourself to concentrate on not stumbling over your own feet.

You did like Johanna. You had empathized with her, even though children would never be part of your life. She had just wanted a baby, a part of her and the man she loved united in one body, and all that she got was death. She hadn't deserved it. At least the thought that she might be together with her baby in heaven now, thanks to her belief in God, soothed your heart a little.

"Go home, (Y/N)." The elderly nurse interrupted your train of thought.

Looking up, you saw her holding up your purse and coat. Apparently, she had led you to the lounge where the doctors and nurses spent their lunchtime.

"But I still have six hours to go." You tried to argue but bit down your lower lip when she shook her head.

"If someone should ask for you, I will tell them you didn't feel well and that I sent you home. There are certain benefits as the head nurse." She winked at you, pushed your belongings into your hands, and shooed you in the direction of the exit.

"I promise I will feel better tomorrow." You called over your shoulder and waved at her, giving her one last smile before you shrugged on your coat and left.

Thirty-two minutes later, you got off the bus and turned around the corner into your street, your purse dangling back and forth on your wrist. With your extra five hours, maybe you could finally start that book on your bedside table if your dad wouldn't find any reason to turn your attention to him.

Feeling slightly more cheerful, you walked a little faster, already searching for the key. Like always, you checked the mailbox — nothing again — before you hopped up the one flight of stairs to your apartment, the sound of your heels on the wood filling the otherwise silent staircase.

The noise seemed to attract the woman living across from you because you barely reached the top of the stairs when she ripped her door open and stared at you with wide eyes.

You paused and looked at her in concern. "Mrs. Walter? Is everything okay?" You asked and carefully inched closer to her.

For several moments, you didn't get an answer. Only when you opened your mouth to ask her again did she slowly lift her trembling arm and point past you at something you could not see.

Strange. The only thing back there was your apartment door, so…

The slamming of Mrs. Walter's door barely reached your ears when you turned around. All you could hear was eerie silence, not Mrs. Walter quickly putting her distance between her and the door, not the dog barking from above you that got awakened by the slamming door, not the traffic noises outside.

The door that you diligently locked every morning before you got to work and unlocked every evening when you returned home hung on its hinges. In quick strides, you reached it and ripped off the note that was nailed into the wood under the peephole. Your eyes scanned over the words as you pushed the door open and entered the apartment.

A search was carried out here due to a tip-off of a conspiracy against the country and its people. All residents are requested to report immediately...

Tears clouded your view and made it impossible to make out the rest of the words. But there was no need to. You already knew what you needed to know. Your father was dead, no questions asked, no evidence to prove that he was innocent or guilty, no interference by the judiciary. He had dug his own grave since he started to badmouth and criticize the current sins committed by the government.

You slowly navigated your way through your destroyed home, your hands supporting yourself against the wall, careful not to get caught in something with your pumps. You had to duck under the big shelf close to the entrance of the living room. It was tilted to the side so that the upper part was now leaning against the other side of the wall. Everything that had ever been placed onto it — pictures, plants, certificates, and other little knick-knacks — was now scattered on the floor.

It got even worse in the living room. Everything had been turned upside down. Your father's chair was thrown to the side just like the couch and the coffee table. The books from the huge bookshelf that covered the length of the smallest wall in here were pulled out and tossed on the floor, pages ripped out and strewn on the floor. Pictures were taken from the walls and the glass crunched as you stepped over them. Dirt was covering the floor as if someone had been digging in the soil of the potted plants. The carpet was overturned, partly thrown onto the couch, and revealed the wooden floor it usually covered.

Your living room had been thoroughly searched and you doubted the rest of your home looked any different.

In a daze, you carelessly let your purse drop to the floor and shuffled to your bedroom. Opening the door, you were greeted with a view you had expected — your bed was tilted to the side, clothes from your closet were now scattered on the floor, and your mirror was lying face down on the floor.

When you saw the pictures of you and your family carelessly thrown into the corner, you couldn't hold the sob in any longer. You sank to your knees, curled into a ball, and cried to your heart's content with your eyes squeezed shut.

You lost your mother at a young age, lost your father for the first time after his accident, lost your brother to the country, and now lost your father for the second and final time. Now, you were wholly and utterly alone. Not for long, though. If you didn't come forward and turn yourself into a possible fair trial in the next sixteen hours, you would be taken just like your father and die the same way he did.

Your breakdown had been apparently so nerve-wracking and tiring that when you opened your eyes, it was dark inside your room and outside your window. Groggily, you propped yourself up and looked around, disappointedly ascertaining that you hadn't been dreaming at all. Your eyes scanned your room, still a little out of it, until you spotted your clock on the wall, surprisingly intact. 9:24 PM. Now you had less than ten hours left.

How would you spend your last ten hours in freedom? You didn't know, but you for sure wouldn't do it in here. You needed to leave.

As quick as you could you switched your nurse uniform to a skirt and your favorite blouse, fixed your make-up and your hair to look less like a mess and more like the respectable woman you usually were, and left the apartment after putting on your shoes, coat and grabbed your purse. At first, you strolled around with no real destination in mind, but the darker it got the higher the risk of being stopped by a patrolling soldier.

You had enough money with you to occupy yourself with a few drinks, so why not enjoy yourself, let a little loose? You never really got the chance to try it out. Your job unironically prevented you from unnecessarily damaging your liver and you had the responsibility to take care of your family. Your girlfriends always invited you on girl's night, but sadly, you had to decline almost every time, be it your father or another night shift forced upon you. They had another planned on the weekend in a few days, the first one in a very long time you would have had time for. Not anymore. When they would sit around a table and share the newest gossip, you had already started to rot away in a mass grave.

You entered the first, non-shady-looking bar and plopped down on one of the bar stools on the right. When the bartender finally took notice of you, all he needed to do was to take in your gloomy figure pitifully slumped in your seat to grab a glass and fill it with a brown liquid. No words were spoken — you didn't feel like it and he noticed that — as you grabbed the glass, tossed the liquor back, and placed the now empty glass back down. The alcohol, whatever it was, burned like hell and you couldn't help but cough, tears forming in the corner of your eyes. The bartender, meanwhile, wordlessly filled your glass again and without any hesitation, you emptied that one too.

You spend almost four hours like that. Losing count after your sixth shot, your head started to feel funny, like the world around you was spinning too fast. You mused what your life would have been like if your mother hadn't died when you were just nine years old, if your father hadn't lost his legs when you were seventeen, if your brother had chosen a normal job at your current age. You could have grown up like any normal girl, could have joined your friends more often to hang out, could have started going on dates again after your last boyfriend dumped you for neglecting him.

And what about your future? What about the man you wanted to marry in a few years? Every day, you daydreamed of someone who would just sweep you away in his arms and take you far, far away from here. There had to be a place somewhere where you could live your life in peace without a brewing war and the constant fear of death. You waited for someone who would make your life easier than it currently was, who would take the weight from your shoulders and not add some more on them every single day. Someone who loved you passionately and would spoil you after nine years of labor where you worked yourself to the bone. Someone who would take charge and let you rest when you needed it. Someone who was the other half of your soul that hopelessly awaited to be rejoined with its counterpart.

When you reached out to your glass for the nth time, a hand softly clasped your wrist. Looking up, you saw the bartender giving you the same pitiful look you had received for God knows how often today, from your colleague at the hospital to some of the other patrons who entered and left the bar during the last few hours.

"I think you should get home." He said firmly and pulled his hand away.

No longer being hindered, you lifted the glass up to your lips and emptied it in one go. "I no longer have a home." You dully answered, your speech a little slurred.

"We close in a few minutes." He tried another route, anything to get you to stop drinking.

He may not be interested in what personal business you have to drink yourself under the table, but even he wouldn't let a young woman like you do that to herself.

"Fine." You mumbled, grabbed your purse, and searched for the money that was stored somewhere in there. You hummed when you finally found it and without looking at it, you dropped it down on the counter. "Here."

You held onto the sleek surface of the bar to lift yourself up and from your seat, supporting your whole weight with one hand while you needed several attempts to grab your coat. Not bothering to put it on, you turned to leave and even you were surprised that you could still walk in a (more or less) straight line.

"Hey, you paid too much!" The bartender called from behind you.

Not bothering to stop or turn around, you simply proclaimed, "Keep it. Where I go I won't need it." and pushed the entrance door open.

Outside, you tilted your head up, closed your eyes, and took a deep breath of the cool night air. It instantly freshened you up and cleared your mind a little. Looking left and right along the sidewalk, you decided to take the left and began strolling wherever it was taking you, once again with no actual destination in mind. You had no idea what time it was, but you guessed you had around five or six hours left. If you're lucky and didn't get held up by some patrols, you could visit the park one last time where your parents, Emil and you would hold a picnic every summer when you were younger. It would only take you ten minutes on foot. It wouldn't hurt to visit the place that held so many good childhood memories and bask in them in your final hours.

You were walking for a mere two minutes when you heard a whistle from your right. Halting your steps, you turned your head to the side and looked over to the source. There, on the other side of the street, were two men sitting on a bench and two standing around them. One was holding a beer bottle while the others were smoking their cigarettes.

"Hey, pretty lady." The one with the beer bottle called over to you and lifted it to toast to you.

You quickly snapped your head back forward and continued on your way, your strides bigger and faster to create as much distance between you and them as possible.

When you thought you were safe, you felt a hand clasping your wrist whose owner pulled you back and against his strong chest.

"Hey, hey, hey." The voice of the man with the beer bottle breathed against your ear, sending an uncomfortable shiver down your spine. "Don't be shy. We were just celebrating my friend's promotion." To your horror, he put his hands on your hips and turned you both to his three companions who had seemingly followed him, all of them wearing leering grins. "Why don't you join us, hm? We could need a little entertainment." He murmured against your neck, his breath reeking of alcohol.

Before he could place his lips anywhere close to your skin, you struggled out of his grip and stumbled a few steps away from him. "I-I'm sorry, but I need to go home. I'm already late."

The man who seemed to be the leader of the bunch stepped closer to you, smirking when you accidentally walked right into one of his friends. The guy immediately held you against him, keeping you in place.

"I think you could spare a couple of minutes." The leader said firmly and reached for your blouse.

Fear seemed to be a great way to quickly sober one up because the next thing you did was stomp down on the foot of the man that was holding you, your heel hitting his toe perfectly, causing him to let you go with a cry in pain and a curse. Next, you rammed your knee into the crotch of the man in front of you and when his body doubled over, you pushed him to the side and bolted down the sidewalk.

Not daring to look back, you sprinted as fast as you could, but the alcohol made it hard to keep balance, not to mention the nausea that bubbled up in your stomach. But you ignored it and tried to keep it down when you heard their calls from behind you, coming closer and closer.

This was not how you wanted to spend your last night, this was not how you imagined it. Tears clouded your view and you narrowly escaped the grabby hand of whatever guy that was closest to you when you ducked down and sharply took a left turn into an alley.

Unbeknownst to you, you were being watched.

The next thing you felt was hard concrete as you fell forward when a heavyweight collided with your back. You cried out in pain when you hit your head, then hysterically screamed in panic when you felt hands on your skirt and you started kicking around, not caring if you hit something or not. You heard a grunt when your heel finally made contact with the shoulder of one of them, but you barely had time to bask in your little victory when a punch to your face almost knocked you out cold. Your body went instantly slack, a long-winded groan leaving your mouth.

"Move your ass and hold her down." The voice of the leader sounded from somewhere above you. "And turn her around. I like to watch their face when they give up."

Hands turned you on your back as your screams and cries accompanied your attempts to fight their hands off.

"No… please no." You begged as your wrists were pinned above your head by a pair of rough hands. "No!" You screamed louder, in a high-pitched, panicking voice when your blouse was ripped open, your brassiere following suit, and your chest got groped by a calloused hand.

You squeezed your eyes shut when you felt an eager mouth around your nipple, harshly sucking on it while your breasts were still in a painfully hard grasp. You tried to gather your last strength, the drinks earlier and then the hit to your head from the fall tempted you to just fall unconscious, but you bucked your body up in hopes you could throw whoever was above you off of you.

Only you couldn't move. Someone was straddling your thighs, hindering you from moving.

You finally forced yourself to open your eyes and the blurry image of the leader pushing up your skirt presented itself in front of you.

"Stop, please! Help!" You started screaming again, causing the leader to sigh in annoyance.

"Could you please shut her up, for fuck's sake? I'm trying to enjoy myself here." He growled at the guy who was holding your hands down, his patience growing thinner with every passing moment he wasn't able to force himself inside you. "When I'm done with her, you get what's left of her."

"No, no, no..." You wailed when you heard the clinking of his belt and a zipper being opened, but you soon got silenced when a palm pressed down on your mouth.

Rather than keep watching him, you closed your eyes in defeat, now only feeling how he moved closer to your crotch, his fingers pushing your underwear aside, and positioned himself against your entrance.

A dull thud behind your attackers stilled them for a moment, but a raging roar got them to whip around. You kept your eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to see whatever feral animal was going to maul you and those men.

A scream, something wet splashing on you and something, someone, heavy landing on top of you got you to finally open your eyes again. You stared right into a gaping hole where the head of a person normally should be. Maybe it was the shock of almost ending up left on the ground in this alley, covered in bruises, blood and bodily fluids after they were done with you, that kept you from screaming.

In a daze, you pushed the corpse off of you and looked down at your body. It was covered in blood, parts of a splattered brain, and white fragments that had been the skull of the leader of the group. His head had burst into pieces. No animal could have done that and no human either. There was no weapon on earth with that much destructive power, so what…

With slow eyes, you looked up from your soiled legs. The guy now lying dead next to you had been obscuring the view of a large creature standing no more than three meters across from you.

Whatever it was, it seemed livid. Its body was heaving with wrathful breaths and its long fingers were twitching, clenching into fists before relaxing them again. Its massive form was hidden by darkness and you could barely make out its silhouette.

It felt like an eternity with you just staring at the creature and it (probably) staring right back. The other assaulters, two of whom had fallen to the ground in shock with the sudden attack on their leader, hadn't dared to move a muscle. Maybe they were in a trance just as you were, not for the same reason, of course.

"H-Hey!" The fourth guy squeaked, breaking the tension that seemed to suffocate the whole alley. "Wha-"

In a practiced, seemingly effortless movement, the creature whipped out its arm, and something silvery shot out of the darkness. It wrapped around the throat of the man, choking him and sending him to his knees. He was clawing his neck and tried to remove what seemed to be a whip made out of sleek silver and grey material. 

You watched him as he desperately tried to free himself and blood started to flow from where the whip was wrapped around his neck down to his shirt, turning the light blue fabric deep red. Your eyes then traveled along the bladed chain, you now noticed, to the other end of it, and found the large creature moving towards you.

If you would have been able to make a sound, you would have, but you were still too out of it that no noise escaped your bloody lips when you were finally able to distinguish your savior. 

It was indeed huge, a massive body that was dwarfing any human being you could think of. Its appearance was bizarre. Its feet and calves up to its knees were in unusual boots made out of metal instead of leather with an interesting design. You wondered if it was the skin of the creature or if it was wearing a net-like cloth that was visible on every body part that wasn't hidden beneath armor like the chest plate that bled over into a full sleeve of its arm. It was covering the left side of its chest but not enough to conceal a rather fit upper body. You found yourself staring a lot longer at the well-defined, almost sculpted abs of it. It was no doubt a male.

As you were eyeing the creature up, he yanked on the whip. You were only aware of a dull thud when the bladed chain cut off the head of the man who had been in its hold. 

You didn't register when more blood sprinkled on you as you were too busy trying to imagine a face underneath that strange mask. With his green, brownish, and beige reptilian skin, the long black tendrils sprouting from the head, the long claws, and the animalistic posture, he was, without a doubt, not human. 

An arm wrapping around your throat from behind, preventing you from breathing evenly, brought you back to reality. You immediately put up a fight, scratching it and pulling on the arm in hopes he would let go.

It was one of the attackers that had fallen to the ground when the creature had appeared. He must have scrambled over to you when his last companion was foolishly enough to run up to the murderous beast, trying to do something quite laughable, only to be impaled by a spear and was now hanging on the wall to the right like he was a portrait above a chimney, the spear rammed through the brick of the apartment building.

The idiot behind you thought the creature would let him go if he was holding you hostage as if he wasn't going to kill the both of you just like his buddies. So foolish, you internally sighed.

"S-S-Stop! I'm warning you!" He screamed at the towering figure which was closing in on you. "I will… I will kill her!"

The creature stopped a few steps away from you and reached behind his back. Quicker than your eyes could keep up, his hand shot forward and he threw something of the size of an orange at the man.

Yelling, the man loosened his grip, his instincts kicking in to fight against whatever was sticking to his forehead. In his struggle, he fell on his back and started rolling around on the floor when the little device made a strange wiring noise. His body went stock still when he was engulfed in a net, restraining him. Then the man screamed bloody murder when the wiring noise grew louder and the device pulled the net tighter around him.

You turned to him, only to see the strings cutting into his skin, drawing blood, until only pieces of his body were left of him, leaving him unidentifiable to whoever would find him and his friends.

Now, it was only you in that alley. You, the beast that saved you and the bloody massacre, turning the place into an image of horror.

You were going to get sick if you stared at what had been a living and breathing human once any longer. Rather than wanting to face the creature when it was going to kill you, you turned back around and then startled back. Said beast was crouching in front of you, the head cocked to the side.

He reached out a clawed hand and you closed your eyes, preparing yourself for whatever gruesome death he had planned for you. You thought back to everything you had achieved in your life, every person that was still dear to you, said goodbye to every place you loved to visit, to the movie you had wanted to watch in a week with a friend, to the unread book on your bedside table and every dream you had wanted fulfill — you had actually planned to do that in a few hours. At least he was going to give you a quick death and not whatever the authorities had done to your father.

Something poked your cheek.

Your eyes snapped open and you were met with a closer view of the strange mask covering the creature's face. His hand was outstretched and a finger was prodding your skin. A strange noise was coming from behind the mask, something you could only describe as a rumbling purr. 

You stayed still, afraid if you would only move a muscle, it would set the creature off and let him drag his clawed finger up to your temple where a trail of blood had started to run from the wound you got from the fall. You hissed in pain when the pad of his thumb stroked — probably unintentionally hard — over your lower lip, the rough skin touching where it was busted. He pulled its thumb away only to replace it with the back of his pointer and middle finger to caress your jaw and down to your throat. The touch caused you to swallow which he most likely could feel. Only when you felt the scaly sensation on your skin dip too deep, too far beneath the ripped remains of your blouse, you gripped his wrist.

The creature's head snapped up where it had followed his exploration. You flinched back at the sudden movement and quickly loosened your hold on his wrist, pulling it away like you had burnt yourself.

"I'm sorry." You whispered, your voice hoarse.

What if you had just signed your death? What if you touching him like that had triggered him? What if he thought you were a threat now? What if he thought of it as highly offensive? What if he was going to kill you now? What if-

A low thump caused you to flinch when he hit the left side of his chest with his right fist. With parted lips, you looked from his fist up to his masked face and then back again, confused, both at the gesture and the lack of aggression towards you. Almost as if he could understand the look on your face, he repeated the action with a little more determination after he inched closer to you. You were more focused on his sudden closeness, daring not to move back, but you hastily turned your gaze down to his fist. It was a little hard to concentrate on what he was trying to tell you after the vast change of demeanor — from murdering in cold blood to trying to… communicate with you?

"You?" You tried hesitantly.

It really was your best guess on what he could mean.

A soft growl reached your ears from underneath his mask, making you tense up but relaxed in relief the second his attention turned to his forearm. You watched in curiosity as his clawed pointer finger ghosted over the armor-like wristband that started flashing in a bright red and made strange beeping noises like when a caller on the other line hung up before you could. Your mouth opened without you even noticing. You had never seen something like it, probably no one ever had. How was it functioning without cables like your telephone and radio did?

"Are you telling me you are married?"

You jumped back a little when a male voice chimed from his wristband.

"To a cup of tea, I will never say no."

"I can't believe you put the jar in the oven!"

You looked at him in astonishment as more voices sounded from his forearm. Human voices.

He kept repeating the same three sentences, but they seemed to get shorter with every replay.

“-telling me you are… telling me… me.”

"-a cup of tea… tea."

“-you put the jar in the… you put the jar… the jar… jar.”

He seemed to be satisfied as he let out a deep, low-pitched chirp before he played the cut and put together word snippets to you, his head facing you now.

“Me-tea-jar.” He hit his chest once again before playing the word again. “Me-tea-jar.”

"Meetja?" You tried the word, tried how it felt on your tongue.

He let out a deep grumble before he played the same word again and leaned even closer to you.

“Me-tea-jar.”

"M-Meetiar. Mi'ytiar."

With his head slightly cocked to the side, he tilted it forward in a one-movement nod as if to say, "Now you got it." and his fist hit his chest one last time.

"You. Mi'ytiar. T-That's your name?" You asked and hoped you put the puzzle pieces together correctly.

Another nod before he pointed at you.

"Oh." You softly said, shifted your hips slightly, and nervously placed a hand on your own chest. “(Y/N). I'm (Y/N)."

“(Y/N).” Your voice sounded from his forearm when he touched his wristband. “(Y/N).”

You couldn't help the small smile and you nodded. "Yes. (Y/N)."

The creature — Mi'ytiar — lowly grumbled in appreciation and you breathed out the air you had been holding in your lungs with a laugh. You couldn't believe you talked, more or less, to something that undoubtedly didn't belong on earth while you were surrounded by death after being spared from something that would have scarred you for life just because you had been out drinking to have one last night in freedom until you would follow your father in an early grave. Your life really had taken a strange turn in just a few hours.

"What are you?" You asked him and tilted your head to the side.

"Hunter." He communicated with the help of his wristband.

"Where do you come from?"

"Sky."

"Sky." You repeated the child's voice and looked up.

So he came from the sky. You wondered if he meant the clouds or maybe the moon. It could be the stars for all you knew. Was he the only one living there, or were there more? Maybe one like him lived on each star the night sky had to offer.

As you were looking up in thought, Mi'ytiar took his time to admire you. You were, what you humans would use, adorable. He didn't hunt humans very often as they weren't much of a challenge, but sometimes he would visit earth out of curiosity. Your kind was interesting and his ancestors had been quite fond of them when they used them to breed their prey centuries ago. Humans have continuously developed from then to now, so it was fascinating to watch.

Like he watched you now. He admired your wide eyes, the curve of your nose, and your rosy cheeks that displayed the dried tear streaks of panic and fear. He admired the shape of your lips and the cut that had caused you pain when he touched it. He admired your shiny hair that had once been pulled up in a neat bun but was now hanging loosely and messily around your face, framing it like it was a piece of art. He admired your small, shaking hands that were desperately holding the ripped-open blouse together, protecting your modesty and the naked skin of your trembling shoulders when the fabric had slipped down to your biceps. You had been so incredibly warm and soft when he had touched what you were hiding now.

A quiet hiss got you to look back at him and you watched with uncertainty as his fingers first pulled on the one tube that was connected to his mask and then the other before he removed it anxiously slow. You mentally prepared yourself for the most horrific sight of your life, but when the top half of his face was laid bare, you sucked in a breath. It wasn't the foreign shape of his head, the texture of his skin, or the spiky triangle-shaped bumps that circled the sides and the back of his head like a crown, clearly dividing where the roots of his hair ended and his face started. It was his eyes, though an abnormal orange, that was salient and captivating you. They didn't look like what your wildest fantasies had to offer, but they somewhat seemed almost human — a black pupil surrounded by an orange iris. And not just any orange. It was the kind of orange that stretched across the sky at every sunrise and sunset. The only difference you spotted from your own eyes was that he had a black sclera instead of a white one.

You would have gotten lost in them if he hadn't removed the mask fully, so his lower face was showing too. You wouldn't exactly describe it as terrifying, but the sight of his mouth was, to say it simply, unnerving. It was hidden behind four tusks that represented his mandibles. You were fascinated when he suddenly made a clicking noise but were taken aback when he extended the fleshy texture to reveal two rows of teeth. It was like he had two jaws, one when the mandibles were retracted to his face and one when they were extended and showed his actual mouth. His upper jaw held three teeth with two larger fangs on each side, his lower jaw held the same amount only were they a little thinner, so his fangs wouldn't hinder his mouth from closing.

Even after the initial shock subsided, you wouldn't exactly use the word pretty, but there was something about him. Thrilling and particular, astounding and intriguing, but also alluring.

The longer you looked at him, at Mi'ytiar, the more accustomed you got to his appearance.

Another clicking sound reached your ears and you stopped mapping his features with your eyes, only now realizing how he looked down at you with his head tilted to the side. When you mumbled his name, almost as if it took all your courage, he straightened up and his eyes snapped to your hand that had loosened its grip on your blouse. He followed its movement, getting closer to his face, and when you turned your hand so your palm was facing him, his own hand reacted fast and grabbed your delicate wrist.

Bad idea, real bad idea, you thought. He wasn't exactly hurting you, but his grip wasn't exactly soft.

Instead of tugging against his hold in an attempt to free yourself that would obliviously fail, you let your arm go slack. Instead of panicking, you remained calm. Instead of screaming at him to let you go, you kept your mouth shut and waited for his next move. If you triggered him in any way, he would surely kill you.

Mi'ytiar, on the other hand, was amazed by you and in awe. He wouldn't be the first Yautja to be enthralled with a human in this kind of way, sure, but he hadn't expected to be one of them one day. You were extraordinary in the way you looked at him, didn't mind the proximity he had put you in, and apparently seemed to seek for it.

Contrary to what you believed, he pulled your hand closer to his face by the wrist, causing you to move from your side-sit on the floor to get on your knees. Your lips parted in surprise when he pulled his mandibles in and he himself brought your hand up to his cheek.

The sensation underneath your touch was unusual and new. His cheek wasn't like that of a human when you would press the fat until you could feel the jaw bone. It was springy, considering it was only a fleshy layer that covered his mouth. You moved your hand down to his outer jaw, which consisted of his mandible, and followed its length with your palm. You could feel the firm muscle and bone and gave it a gentle, experimental squeeze. Almost automatically, he made a soft purring noise like that one of a cat and you blushed at the possibility that he was enjoying the caress.

You, of course, had no idea that you were touching a highly sensitive part of his anatomy and would be alive to tell the tale afterward.

Just as you were curious about him, he was eager to explore you as well. Carefully, he reached out and through the ripped-open front of your blouse. Seconds later, his palm made contact with your stomach and he could feel how you tensed up. He looked up into your eyes, but when he found nothing that indicated that you despised his touch, his hand ran along to your waist and down to your hip, his thumb absentmindedly stroking your belly. It was strange how you could feel his thumb near your navel and, at the same time, his other fingers on your lower back, taking the width of your hip like it was nothing.

The both of you were too busy in your explorations that you had grown ignorant to your surroundings, so when a scream filled the previously quiet alley, you grabbed his extended arm, not to push it away but to hold onto it in panic, while Mi'ytiar whirled his head around to the two outlines standing near the street at the end of the alley. Your body was hidden by his massive one, so it looked like a monster was kneeling among his freshly killed victims, basking in the glory of his crime.

Mi'ytiar's mandibles flared and the guttural roar that left his lungs made you cling to him in fear. Not of him, but the consequences that you would have to face if those who had stumbled upon this scene without context would call for the patrolling soldiers. You heard more screams and hastily retreating footsteps as the couple ran as if their lives depended on it.

Large hands grabbed you by the waist and hoisted you up on his shoulder, causing you to squeal in surprise, and you had barely time to hold onto him before he started climbing up the metal scaffolding of the balconies of the apartment building, jumping up and landing on the roof. With an arm secure around your waist, he jumped and ran further and further away.

And you let him.

2024, Yautja Prime

"What you smiling for?"

And all of a sudden, those purred words were taking you from your past life to your current one. You hadn't even noticed you had stopped drawing random figures and forms on Mi'tyiar's naked chest. At some point, you had started daydreaming with that far-away look in your eyes and a smile slowly making its way on your lips as you were lying on him, between his legs.

"Just thought of the night we met." You drawled lazily and rubbed your cheek against his reptilian-like skin. "My hero in shining alien amour."

"My amour does not shine."

Now you had to laugh. Sometimes, you couldn't help yourself when he was so bluntly clueless. Humans and their analogies were oh-so confusing.

"It's a human saying, my love." You explained as you crossed your arms on his wide chest and rested your chin on them. "A male who saves a female from danger. A male who would sacrifice himself so the female can get away without harm."

Mi'ytiar reached towards your face and cupped your cheek, his thumb stroking your cheek before he dragged it over your lower lip. You were dreamingly looking up at him, basking in his loving touch. You were placing your hand on his and turned your head to the side so you could pepper his palm with light kisses.

He couldn't help his body's reaction, he just couldn't. He was starved of your touch.

You suddenly stopped your sweet kisses when you felt something big poking your stomach. You looked down, although you could only see how your breasts were pressed against him, before you looked back up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You are insatiable." You smirked and hoisted yourself up after placing one last kiss between his pecs.

You straddled his midriff but left enough space between you and him so you could reach underneath your body and grab his semi-hard cock. Even at this size, you had a little trouble fully embracing it and getting your fingertips to touch.

You hissed when you felt the familiar sting of his sharp mandibles and teeth digging into your skin. You tilted your head to the side and offered him more access. Mi'ytiar let out a feral growl when your blood finally hit his tongue. He relished in it, tasting so sweet, just like the rest of you.

Grasping your hips with both of his hands, his claws scratching your delicate skin, he pushed them down to his crotch.

He needed you again, needed to be so deep inside you, so he could see the bulge of his cock forming in your tummy. Just the thought of it made his hips snap up, barely missing your entrance and dragging his cock through your sopping wet folds that were covered with your combined releases from your last mating moments ago. It elicited a whiny moan and a wiggle of your hips.

"Stop teasing, tanhì. Put it in." You groaned and started rubbing yourself up and down his rock-hard cock, coating it with your mixed cum that was still leaking from your hole.

Mi'ytiar wrapped a large arm around you and started to get up, his other arm supporting himself to manhandle you on your back to be on top. The second your hazy mind registered what he was doing, you placed both of your hands on his chest and pushed him back down. You preened when his body immediately went slack, allowing you to do as you pleased with him.

He was staring up at you with flashing eyes. You didn't take the lead very often, preferring it to be dominated by your mate, but when you did, he was gladly giving you the power you wanted.

The first time you had tried to be on top, it had gone from steamy to ugly pretty quickly. You had been on your back when you tried to push him and switch your position, but since he had been unmovable like a rock, you had untangled yourself from him and told him to lie back. You were straddling his hips, humping his hardening cock for exactly thirty seconds before he flipped you over and on your back again. You had then mewled and tried to push him back once more, causing him to growl. For your attitude, he bit roughly into your throat, hoping it would keep you submissive. You let out a cry and hit his chest with both of your fists. This time, Mi'ytiar showed you his displeasure more vocally when he slammed his flat hands next to both sides of your head and roared right into your face. Safe to say, it scared the living daylights out of you and caused you to escape his caging arms. He, of course, followed you quickly and tried to amend his outburst with purrs and snuggles rather than words.

The next time you were on top, he vehemently focused on staying seated on the edge of your nest with you on his lap as you rode him with his helping hands on your hips. His eyes strayed from the spot where his cock was disappearing inside of you, to the bulge in your stomach that grew and shrunk with every movement, to your bouncing breasts, to your pleasure-contorted face.

After that, he couldn't get enough of you being on top.

The same was the case now as you slowly inserted his throbbing cock into your-

A wail broke the sensual atmosphere, causing the both of you to jerk your heads to the doorway connecting the room to the rest of your home. With your maternal instincts kicking in, you practically jumped up from your mate, his half-inside cock slipping from your tight heat, and ran to the room where the sound was coming from.

Mi'ytiar slumped back with a displeased grunt. He loved his pup dearly, truly he did, but he hadn't been able to mate with you for an eternity — five months, double the time the healer had advised you to keep from being intimate with each other after the pregnancy because a certain someone had been overly cautious with you — and his cock throbbed painfully at that sorrowful thought.

He got up from the nest and followed the direction you had run off to. Your five-month-old pup was sleeping alone in his room for only a short part of his life. Before that, his crib had been standing next to the nest in your room, quickly accessible and in reach should he need any sort of attention. Now, he was sleeping in his big brother's former nursery, which you had lovingly prepared when you had been pregnant with Akail, your first pup.

Mi'ytiar watched you standing in front of the crib in the middle of the room, your back to him, as you rocked the whiny pup in your arms. The wholesome thoughts of his beautiful mate taking such good care of his youngling quickly turned into an animalistic need to breed you once more when his eyes trailed over your curves that had gotten bigger after bearing his second son. They fixed on your legs where trails of semen were running down your skin from between your inner thighs.

He was faster by your side than you would expect from a being of his size. He pressed his bare body against your own, hands on your hips pulling you closer, his cock digging into your back. Mi'ytiar bent down to snuggle his face into the crook of your neck, purring lowly.

"He was just hungry." You whispered as you watched your pup falling back to sleep.

Bending over, you placed your little one back into his crib, careful not to disturb him. You had to bite your lip when you felt Mi'ytiar pull you back against his crotch to rub himself against your ass. All you needed to do was push your ass back into him for him to grab you, throw you over his shoulder and turn to leave your son's nursery.

Giggling, you looked back to the pup's crib and whispered, "Dream of the stars, my little Toyah." before you got carried back to your nest.

Masterlist: here

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[garfunclegaming]

People discussing Starfield's (and Bethesda in general) writing being complete soulless toilet water need to understand the source: Emil Pagliarulo has been writing the main story and plot of each release since Fallout 3. New Vegas being the exception, of course. He is behind "Go find your dad. It's the Lone Wanderer's destiny to die in a radiation chamber despite having radiation immune companions next to him. It's poetry." Or the classic, riveting experience of being a pre war parent for 10 agonizing, boring minutes before the game starts and said parent perspective experiences the main quest fly apart as it grinds closer to the trite conclusion. The wrecking of the Super Mutants into irradiated Orcs, making the Enclave goofy stormtroopers, having a story around dragonslaying and civil war be boring, the utter wasted potential of Synths, and whatever the fuck happens in Starfield that takes 100 hours to get going...

It's this asshole. And Todd. This fucking artless, uninteresting hack who has taken the weird and wonderful worlds of Elder Scrolls and Fallout and reduces them to corporate spew.

Kick Todd and Emil out, bury the Creation Engine in the dirt and hire Josh Sawyer and John Gonzalez to write your games. Bethesda leadership is fat and happy with increasingly watered down, wide as an ocean, deep as a mud puddle, tripe. Meanwhile Elden Ring, Witcher 3, and now Baldur's Gate are blowing them out of the water.

"You're gonna give this book to the player and what are they gonna do with it? They are gonna rip out the pages and make paper airplanes with them." Emil at a Game Development seminar

My brother in Christ. You made the book.

[starguardianniom]

Is it weird that I feel somewhat conflicted over Emile? Like on one hand, utter bastard.

On the other hand, according to Felix and Kagami in Representation even after Emilie left with Gabriel he still gave her access to the best medical treatments when she was trying to have a kid even if those failed, and also lend her and her husband their summer home in Paris for over 15 years (which is a fucking big ass mansion in a very well off neighborhood so expensive as fuck) despite being estranged and even after her death he still allowed his son in law and grandson to live in it and only comes to try and fetch Adrien after both his parents are deceased.

I mean if he was completely heartless he wouldn't have bothered with Emilie even less let her keep the house but he did bother and also gave her access to anything in the first place...

He would have just give the medical treatments to Amelie only, but he did allow Emilie to have it as well, even if when she got Adrien she cut all contact with her parents.

I am perplexed.

[sylvia-plaths-fig-pie]

Teach Me ♡ Sam Winchester

Pairing: Sam winchester x reader

Wc: didn't check but it's not too long

Tw: not proof read, no use of y/n, slightly suggestive if you squint ig, mentions of cannon typical violence but not really

Summary: Sam hears you playing piano (listen to the song i imaged bellow), you're so at peace (so beautiful) that he can't help but utter the words "teach me" and that's exactly what you do.

♡♡♡♡♡

For once you Sam and Dean were actually staying in a nice hotel. Yep a hotel not a motel. It was appart of the ruse to be fancy business people, and that included staying in a nice hotel.

While the case was tough and you all had many sleepless nights it turned out to be a simple salt and burn and the ghost was gone.

And that lead you to now, standing in the hotel lobby looking at the beautiful grand piano in front of you.

You used to play piano as a child, your one constant throught the hectic hunting lifestyle growing up was piano, but it had been years since you last actually played. But how you longed to play once more.

That's why you found your self sitting at the stool, your hands tracing the keys as you thought of what to play.

You settled on your favorite 'easy' tune, one that you knew you would never forget; a piano cover of this is love.

And so you played.

And played.

And played.

You were at peace for the first time in a long time. It felt right.

Maybe in another life, if you weren't a hunter, you could have been a professional pianists. If you had proper training, and the time, and a piano all to your self. Yet it wasn't ment to be.

Sometimes you just wanted to leave this life forever, chase your dreams, maybe be a music teacher, have a family or something? That's what normal people do, right?

But you couldn't, or rather you wouldn't, you couldn't leave the Winchesters. Or at least you couldn't leave one spefic Winchester. Of course you cared for Dean as though he was your own older brother, but Sam... you couldn't imagine a life without him. You would do anything for that boy, it terrified you, and yet you stuck by him through everything regardless of the pit in your stomach everytime he was in danger, or the ache in your heart when he looked at you.

Dean made fun of you constantly, always teasing about your sight 'crush' on his brother. He always said Sam felt the same, but you knew that wasn't the case. So you had to settle for looking out for him from afar, being too scared to say anything to make it awkward.

So you played.

And played.

And played.

"Teach me."

You look up from the piano in front of you, coming out of what felt like a trance.

"Teach me." Sam said again, sitting beside you on the tiny piano stool. It clearly wasn't ment for two people to sit on, yet there he was, all 6"4 of him, perched beside you.

You studied him for a second, unsure as to whether he really ment his words or not. It appeared that he actually was in earnest.

At first you wanted to say no. Not because you didn't want to teach him, the opposite really. You didn't know whether you would be able to keep your composure if you had to hold and move Sam's hand in order to teach him.

Just as you were about to come up with some excuse you made the mistake of looking him in the eyes. His eyes, that were already trained on yours, were embodying his 'puppy dog' eyes as you and Dean coined them. Eyes that melted your heart and made it impossible to say no.

"Fine." You rolled your eyes and sighed at Sam, looking away from him. 'Don't make a fool of yourself' you heard yourself saying in your head.

You were just teaching him how to play piano, Sam's a curious guy, there is nothing more to it, no lingering feelings or longing stares (well from him anyways). You were just being a good friend.

That's what you and Sam are. Friends.

"I'll teach you happy birthday since its almost Dean's..." you trailed of catching a glimps of Sam's wide smile from the corner of your eye. "So you need to put your thumb on C."

He didn't move.

You looked at him in the eyes now, raising an eyebrow. First he asks you to teach him, but now he isn't following the very first instructions? You were confused untill-

"I don't know why your looking at me, I don't know which one C is." Sam laughed.

Shit. You'd forgotten about that.

"Oh sorry," you mumbled awkwardly, "it's the one before the two black notes, can I?" You gestured to his hand, signalling to Sam that you wanted to place it in the correct place your self.

"Sure go right ahead," you pretended not to notice his smile growing even wider as you took his hand and rested it in the correct position on top of the piano. Surely his reaction was just in your head, right?

"Wait, I'll put my hand on yours and I'll tap what fingers you need to play the notes, does that make sense." Your explanation was convoluted but Sam just nodded giving you the green light.

You moved to rest your hand on top of his, leaning into him so that your right hand was atop of his right hand.

Blush crept up your neck, you prayed Sam didn't notice. Judging by how focused he was on your hand ontop of his hand, he seemed not to notice.

"Ready?" You questioned.

"Go easy with ne now," he joked, "it's my first time."

"Shut it winchester." You laughed. You loved it when Sam was sassy, he knew it too.

Gently you began to tap his fingers so he played the correct notes.

C C D C F E

C C D C F E

*click*

The sound of a camera stop you, spinning round to see what the source of the noise was.

Dean was stood beside the piano with a with eating grin on his face. "Cheese," he said sarcastically as he pocked his phone.

"Dean what are you-?" You began to ask but he cut you off.

"I'm going to show it to everyone on your guys' wedding day" he said nonchalantly, smirking.

"But we're not-"

"Sam and I aren't-"

"Why would you-?"

"That's so weird to say-"

You and Sam both began talking at the same time. Each of you growing extremely red. Your hands still on top of one another's.

"You both need to cut the bullshit!" He cried shaking his head. And with that Dean turned and left before calling down the hallway, "I'm going to the bar to get drunk, you better have confessed some feelings when I'm back cos I'm suck of hearing you mope about one another to me!"

You and Sam stared at eachother.

Silence.

You wanted to scream, or cry, or run away, just something. But you didn't know what to do. Even if you did, you were frozen. You just stared at Sam, eyes wide, shocked at Dean's outburst.

"Dean's right."

"what...?"

What!?!?

Did Sam know about your silly crush? Did Dean tell him? You were going to kill him.

Or did he mean.... no he couldn't, could he? Could Sam really reciprocate your feelings. You swalled down the thought, not wanting to get your hopes high for nothing.

That's when Sam began to speak once again.

"My whole life I've always wanted to find my person you know." Sams eyes were facing down at the piano key's unable to meet yours. "And I thought I found people in the past, but all of them... well you know what happened."

Of course you knew what happened. He'd told you in a moment of vulnerability in one of the first nights that to spent all night talking while researching a case. You knew eachother inside and out. You knew eachother darkest and deepest secrets. You knew eveything about eachother.

"And since then I've been so scared," he continued, "scared that if I got close to anyone that they would end up the same. Then you happened. We met you on a hunt and you've stuck with us ever since and I kept being drawn to you, and I hated myself for it. I wanted to keep you far away to protect you, but the more I wanted to protect you the more I wanted to..."

He trailed off and took in a large intake of breath, lifting his eyes with determination to meet yours.

"The more I wanted to be closer to you, the more I wanted to hold you to be there for you.. to kiss you." His eyes momentarily flicking down to your lips, your breath hitched.

"The more I relised I was in love with you, that I am in love with you." He flipped his hand so that he was now holding yours, lacing his fingers between yours. You didn't speak, you knew he had more to say and you were more that happy to listen. Your brain was going a hundred miles an hour, Sam's words were simultaneously grounding you and making your brain go into overdrive, but his hand holding yours assured you that this was real. This moment is real. It's real.

"So I talked to Dean about it, about you, alot and I've finally stopped fighting it. I know you can take care of yourself, and I know your not afraid of the risks of this job, the risks of being near me, as you've lived through so many horrors with me, you were by my side though everything and I don't think I can go on any longer without you knowing, I could never forgive myself for letting you get away..." He stopped speaking, he said what he wanted to. It was your turn to speak now. Yet you couldn't find the words, they all seemed lodged in your throat. You wanted to say it back but you couldn't, all you could do was look at Sam, your eyes wide.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't-" Sam began, trying to make you feel comfortable, he was worried you didn't feel the same. He wasn't aware that it was complete opposite reason as to why you couldn't speak. But you cut him off with a new found confidence.

"I swear to god Sam if you don't kiss me right now." You pleaded, avoiding his eyes.

A moment passed. Then you felt his hand leave yours. Panic surged through you. Oh god what had you done?

Then his hands were on your face and his lips found yours. You closed your eyes falling deeper and deeper into him, you were intoxicated, you couldn't get enough. His lips were rough and soft, neddy and patient all at the same time. It was so much, it would be too much, but it wasn't, it was perfect.

It felt like you and Sam were the only two people in the world. It felt right. All the horrors of life, all the monsters, demons, angels, eveything, none of it mattered in that moment. Nothing but the two of you existed in that moment.

And then all too soon he pulled away.

"I'm assuming you feel the same way?" He asked almost bashfully, redness creeping up his neck.

"Sam winchester, I love you and all your dorky-ness," you dramatically declared as Sam rolled his eyes, "and i-"

You were cut off by his lips finding yours once again. You were just where you wanted to be and for once the world seemed right, or at least it seemed okay with same by your side, or more accurately Sam's lips on yours.

"FINNALLY!"

You and Sam jumped away from one another, startled by a loud cry.

Dean was stood at the bottom of the corridor, his arms raised in the air in a sort of celebration.

"TOOK YOU BOTH LONG ENOUGH!"

You and Sam just looked and eachother and began to laugh.

"I guess he does have a point..." you commented between laughter.

"Yeah I guess that means we have to make up for lost time." He laughed, resting his hands in your hair.

"What do you mean?" You asked, playing along, ot was much more fun this way.

"Well I suppose I can think of a few things..." he trailed of suggestively, "what do you say?"

You smiled at him knowing exactly what he ment, and couldn't help but reply with what lead to this moment.

"Teach me."

[enlitment]

The Voltaire-Rousseau Beef aka V v. JJ part III.

for @stars-in-the-night , @headsinsand and other great (and amazingly patient) readers

part 1 ; part 2 ; part 3 ; part 4

7. THE ORPHANAGE (to be read in Eliza Hamilton's voice)

The one thing from his personal life that Rousseau is probably best remembered for is the fact that he gave up all five children he had with his long-term partner, Thérèse, to a Parisian orphanage. One after the other, in what could be called a rapid succession, a simple case of salut and adieu.

The reasons he gave for his behaviour differ from ‘I have fallen with a bad crowd in Paris and this is just what people around me did’ and ‘I basically had no other option anyway’ (not true, he could have married Thérèse and try to make it work. Sure, money was tight, and someone could make a few snarky remarks about the first baby looking surprisingly big for a six-month old or whatever, but these things happened quite regularly. Also, Diderot married his working-class mistress despite his father’s stern disapproval. Just saying) to – now this comes up somewhat later in the Confessions and is significantly darker – ‘I really hated Thérèse’s family and thought it would be better to let my kids be raised by the state than be around them’.

If this was him trying to break a cycle of generational trauma though – perhaps one of the side of his own family as well –  I’d argue there were far better ways of going about it. There’s also potentially one even darker, quasi-psychoanalytical reason for this now infamous choice, but it’s probably best to steer clear of Freud. Nothing good usually comes out of it.

Of course, doing something like this would make anyone seem like a douchebag, but a guy famous for writing a treatise on how to best raise children?* Guy who repeatedly argued that the single purpose of a woman’s life is to be a mother? Now that’s a hypocrisy so deliciously juicy that one simply cannot resist sharing it with the world!

*interestingly enough, he insists in the Confessions that he wanted to reveal this information in his On Education (aka Emile), and that in one of the book's passages, he alluded to this episode in such a way that he ‘basically confessed to it already’. I haven’t found that part yet, and I remain somewhat sceptical about whether this is truly the case.

8. SECOND INTERMEZZO: VOLTAIRE THE AVID HATE-READER

V on Julie, or the New Heloise: „silly, middle-class, dirty-minded and boring“

V on Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar: „I read his On Education. These are reasonings of a stupid nurse in four volumes, of which forty pages directed against Christianity. They are among the most daring that have ever been written, [but] by virtue of inconsistency worthy of this head without a brain and this Diogenes* with no heart, he uttered as much abuse against the philosophers, as against Jesus Christ.“ (letter to Damilaville, 1762)

*calling JJ ‘Diogenes’ was definitely a trend in the 1700s, and what seems like V’s go-to insult for him. Calling him a ‘lackey of Diogenes’ does potentially get a bit kink-shame-y though...

9. A MOUNTAIN AND AN AVALENCHE

The last post featured an earthquake in Portugal, now get ready for a distinctly Swiss natural disaster!

To be perfectly fair to Voltaire, although he was certainly not a person who was above spreading gossip, he did have a good reason to publish what he knew about Rousseau and let all hell break loose, since...

in Rousseau’s Letters Written from the Mountain published in 1763, JJ had exposed Voltaire as the author of the infamous Sermon of the Fifty, an anti-christian work that had the potential to get its author into serious trouble. Voltaire could not and would not let this slide – especially when he had the perfect weapon on his hands. Payback time!

Voltaire therefore went on to publish a short anonymous pamphlet titled Sentiments des Citoyens (aka How Citizens Feel – since JJ proudly called himself ‘citizen of Geneva’ in his works and he championed sentiments over reason – see, it’s all very clever!) in which he exposed details from Rousseau’s personal life. This of course included the most shocking, most hypocritical, and most memorable detail of all: Rousseau, Mr. Family First, Mr. Let’s-raise-precious-children-in-a-way-that-won’t-corrupt-their-natural-godness had dumped all of his offspring into a Parisian orphanage! Not so virtuous now, is it?

Interestingly, Rousseau never put two and two together and realised Voltaire was the real author of the fateful pamphlet. It would be interesting to see how he would react had he known.

That said, much like d’Alembert’s article on Geneva a couple of years earlier, the Sentiments des Citoyens led JJ to pick up a pen once again to do what he did best: to defend the poorest and most oppressed souls against the cruel and unjust world. Which usually just happened to be himself.

And thus, as Roger Pearson, an author of one of Voltaire's many biographies concludes:

“we have Voltaire to thank for (…) being the catalyst of Rousseau’s Confessions” which he calls “one of the world’s great autobiographies”

(no, not like that @chaotic-history. Though now I cannot unsee it every time I read the quote)

->

Tune in next time for the (mis)adventure in Britain which will feature:

another philosopher - David Hume - dragged into the mess

a fake letter from Frederick the Great (that was actually penned by the most messy gossip of a person in the 18th century)

a genuinely funny statue story with an appearance from d'Alembert

[drasilfaemir]

SUN'S OUT TONGUE'S OUT

My entry for the Unsounded Fanworks Contest and tribute to the bestest girl Pantoffel! If you like it please give it a vote!

Edit: Holy shit you guys! I won?! Thanks to all who voted and hope you enjoyed it!

In the meantime, here are some detail photos and a breakdown of the work that went into making it under the cut, featuring the bestest boi and model, my pupper Sharky. Scroll to the end for a special treat!

The saddle is real leatherwork at a tiny scale. Everything patterned, wet-shaped, dyed, finished, and assembled by yours truly. The saddle blanket is custom-made to match as well. The seat of the saddle is stitched to the base just at the front and back to allow the pieces to move in relation to each other for a more comfortable fit.

The pommel and backrest are both modeled and 3D printed by yours truly as well, with sports tape for the fabric on the pommel. Both are attached using rivet backings set through hollow points in the prints.

From the back more detail can be seen for the backrest. It is wet-shaped and stretched over the base, and then flathead pins were cut short and turned into the tiniest nails to nail it in place. No glue was used at all in it's construction.

The collar was constructed so that it fit around Sharky's head and then the tension in the straps under his legs pulled it tight. Those straps are attached to loops placed in the stitching with lobster clasps. Much of the construction is hidden in his majestic chest fluff, but a good chunk of it can be seen here.

And now on to his co-star, Captain Emil Toma!

This was a Finn action figure that I did heavy modifications to. Original details were mostly sanded off for a vaguely person-shaped base thar I then sculpted details back onto with epoxy-putty. Even his face recieved a bit of shaping to change the underlying bone structure to match Emil better. All of the original joints still move save for his left wrist, which needed to be sealed in place lest his hand fall off. The gun the figure was holding was replaced by his sword. I decided to stick to mostly early/mid-comic designs, picturing this as a toy a Crescean kid might play with before the events of the comic take place.

From the back we can see the leather pouch which was hand-stitched together and attached with a rivet back. It's fully functional and can store approximately 4 quarters in it. The scabbard was 3D printed with a peg for attachment purposes and the parts that 'hold' it to the sash are clothing tags.

The sash itself is fabric and held in place with fashion tape. Edges were melted to seal them and then folded under to allow me more control over how they wrinkle. The badge is hand-sculpted from the same epoxy-putty used to modify the body. It's about as tall as my thumbnail and I have never wished for a resin printer more ardently than when I was sculpting it with a straight pin.

Proportionally the two of them are nearly perfect together! But, regrettably, the figure was too heavy to sit in the saddle on his own. Especially on a dog that can out-run a dalmatian! Hence why they were photoshopped together for the final image.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of the utter insanity that has been my free time for the last few months. I actually started this before the contest was announced...and through some setbacks and bad timing of life events still didn't get done until the last minute. As promised, here is your special treat!

[eunikia]

"Courtship" at Tilsit

Now the enemies of Austerlitz and Friedland stood face to face in amicable converse. Napoleon coldly scrutinised his only serious rival on the Continent, a young man with feminine lineaments, compact, delicately moulded, rosy; hearing and eyesight rather weak. In an instant he felt assured that the tsar was a man whom he could win over. By the end of a fortnight, the sometime adversaries have not merely entered into an alliance, but have made friends. How has this come about?

“He is an amiable and pleasant fellow, a hero of romance,” says Napoleon of him at this time. Inasmuch as the Emperor is bored by novels, and has no use for heroes of romance in the practical world of his calculations, there is an undercurrent of criticism in these pretty phrases. But he adds: “A handsome young man, more intelligent than is usually supposed.” At a later date, Napoleon utters profound truths regarding Alexander: “The tsar is an attractive figure, well formed to exercise a victorious charm on those with whom he comes in contact. Had I been inclined to surrender to superficial impressions, I should have become devoted to him instantly. But there is something peculiar about him, which I can best express by saying that in all he is and does there seems to be something lacking. The strangest point about the matter is that it is impossible to foresee precisely what will be lacking in any given instance, for the defect is infinitely variable.” Thus, the man whose friendship is all-important to him seems to him utterly feminine. His final judgment takes the form of an overwhelming compliment: “Were Alexander a woman, I think I should fall passionately in love with him.” It is not surprising that such a man should in a trice be mastered by the seductions of the man of power; nor is it remarkable that subsequently the tsar should forsake the Emperor, for the surrender and the abandonment are both feminine.

Napoleon’s handling of Alexander is masterly. At first, the Emperor assumes the role of the cavalier, who cannot sufficiently extol the heroism of the Russians; then he conveys the implication that ere long he must surround himself with a bodyguard of his ministers, lest he should be carried away by the tsar’s charm.

Was ever woman in such humour wooed? Soon an offensive and defensive alliance is concluded.

Napoleon by Emil Ludwig p.271-73

[ceyx-of-the-shore]

When The Music Stops

PAIRING: Emile-A239 x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: You were the only one who Emile would listen to in times like these. You didn't know he valued you as much as you did him.

WARNINGS: Angst in the beginning, mentions of blood, mentions of injury/fighting, eventual fluff, growing feelings, Emile is heavily sarcastic and comes off as blunt, no set timeline - just a drabble, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform/into an A.I. program.*

You rush into the room, the door sliding quickly to the side beside you as a rush of chilled air slaps your face. The facilities on Reach were always cold—freezing, actually. Like a damn meat locker. The Medical branch more so than anywhere else, but this time you could deal with it. 

At the very least, it could steady out your heated annoyance.

“Emile!” You call, locking instantly onto the heavily armored man standing in his Mark V[B] at the center of the small room, hands clenched so hard you hear his gloves squeal as his knuckles crack inside of them. But the Spartan had already turned his helmeted face to you long before you opened that door, hearing your footsteps down the hall, the pattern of which he’d memorized months ago. That carved skeleton jeers in the overhead light, every little cut a funeral service for Covenant troops scored like paint across a canvas. 

To you, it was a far too familiar sight, and you liked it far more when it was out of your Ward.

“Jesus,” you comment, slapping the pad on the wall to make the door shut behind you as you walk through with a serious face, waving your hands in anger. “What the hell happened out there?! I have half of the staff running around trying to gather enough supplies to stabilize a damn skull fracture, Emile!” 

There’s blood on the ground of the examination room—your examination room. But it wasn’t Emile’s. It drips from his fingers and his MJOLNIR like a red river of dark deeds. The Spartan doesn’t even seem to mind it, and, you know, he doesn’t. If you had to guess, you would say he enjoyed it.

“Nothing,” that monotone voice slowly drips out, the SPARTAN-III nonchalantly shaking out his left wrist and fixing his stance, even though that casual rigidity remains. Animalistic calm. “Just cleaned up a few loose ends, Doc.”

“There are three ODSTs that went in for combat training today and are spending the night in here because of you,” you hiss, stalking up to the gigantic man and pointing a finger into his chest plate. He has to physically look down at you at this angle, and you think you’ll never get used to his unnatural height—both in and out of the MJOLNIR. “Carter warned you about another fight with non-Spartans, Emile—this can’t keep happening! I can’t keep trying to cover for you when you lose your temper!”

For once you’re shocked that the man in front of you lets you spew your words; it wasn’t often the hothead had nothing to say for himself, certainly about his own actions when his gung-ho attitude came out.

Your glare softens, tirade stalled for but a moment as the minutes lengthen after your scolding.

A silence falls, your own eyes blinking down at you from the reflection of the scarred visor, those etched marks that make up the image of death unwavering. Not a sliver of the Spartan’s visage is to be seen—it rarely is. Emile breathed slightly heavily, and his arms shook with leftover anger from not half-an-hour earlier when he’d sent his fist into those ODSTs. You can hear the scrape of his esophagus as clear as day, and if you strain your ears harder, you can image his fire-like pulse as well. 

Where a deep disappointment had bred, now only concern takes its place.

You blink, raising a hand from your side hesitantly; pausing. 

“Emile?” At the small touch on his elbow, the Spartan tenses, but you easily speak in a soft tone, dipping your voice. You can’t recall seeing Emile so…statue-still. “Hey,” you utter, brows creasing as the Spartan’s visor refuses to move an inch from staring you down. As if trying to calm himself by only your presence alone. “Hey, Big Guy. Okay, let’s…let’s take a breath, alright?”

You steady your own, but you know the rapid beat of your heart gives you away.

Emile grunts, turning his head from you to glare at the side wall; you know his jaw is clenched tight under his helmet. But he does as you ask, and you feel his chest bump your form as he inhales deeply.

It was a good thing you found him—of all the staff here, you seemed to be the only one he actually listened to. Even now, it brings a small feeling of pride with it, and you know it shouldn't.

It’s a quiet moment that once more settles, and you feel his tension seep out while you still hold onto his elbow, occasionally caressing your thumb up and down. You know the man best; you’re prideful because you’re the only medic on Reach equipped to handle his snark and aggression—the best at it. And the simple fact is that Emile only comes to you anyway.

“Good,” you nod softly. Taking a step back, you slowly tilt your head and frown at him. 

He scoffs before he speaks, but it lacks any venom. 

“Came on there pretty hard, Doc.” A nickname for you, only he’s allowed to use it. Emile grumbles and crosses his arms, feet spacing out. But his tone is…off. “Thought I’d be on my ass in a little bit.” “What happened?” You don’t beat around the bush, your eyes deathly serious. “You’re not acting right at all. You haven’t even bragged about how easy they were to bring down.”

“So I need to brag now, is that it?” 

Glaring, you set your jaw and level out with him. “Show me your hands, A-239.”

“Woah,” Emile drags out the word, chuckling as you grapple for his hand, moving his head to the side as if studying an ant and saying sarcastically. “Yes, Ma’am.” 

Peeling back the armor plating and the thick undersuit, you’re left with slightly inflamed knuckles. With the enhancements of the Spartan's physical forms, even so for the IIIs, these would heal fairly quickly—hours at most. But the sight still rang off alarm bells. 

How hard had he been punching those ODSTs to leave a mark on himself? Through armor and muscle? 

“Emile,” you urge, firm attention staying on the swelling.

You can feel his eyes on you—digging and heavy. But on this, you would not relent. In your time together, you’d grown fond of him and his horrible attitude. He was off putting, sure, and rough: a bit bad for civilian relations, of course; yet you’d had the privilege to know him as others usually didn’t. 

Emile was bluntly honest, and with you…he listened. That was a trust far earned and it had taken months to even get a break in him.

The giant released a low sigh and with a hand motion that equaled ‘fine,’ he shook his head and pushed out through a board tone. “...They were talking ‘bout you. Didn’t like their tones.” A finger touches the back of your skull, brushing across it briefly and disappearing as if never there. You fight back a gasp. “‘Specially when they thought it was smart to say it when I was right there.” 

You pause at that, still holding his warm hand as his fingers twitch in your grasp—tiny things compared to the calluses and bulk of muscle. It’s like your heart stops, a foreign heat making the room's chill completely halt. 

You stare at his knuckles and feel your eyes blink quickly. Inside of your chest, your heart completely skips beats.

“Took ‘em to the ring,” he says like he’s reading a report. “Threw ‘em down. They lost and I won, and I made them think twice when they’re talking about my favorite Medic like that.” His helmet shifts your way. “You think I’d let them get away with that, Doc?” 

“I…” you stutter, for once in your life, lost for words. Emile chuckles to himself, tilting his head mockingly. 

“Now isn’t that nice.” 

Your face burns even more as the man’s hand shifts out of your hold, tapping your chin up with a finger. His helmet leans into you. 

“Thought I’d stop by and have my girl check up on me before someone else managed to get in my way. You didn’t disappoint. Never do.” You’re speechless, heart rapidly pounding and throat bobbing with a swallow. You know he sees it because he chuckles again and his head moves up and down in a sweep of your body.

Emile hums, squeezing your flesh with his thumb and forefinger before letting his hand drop and pulling on his glove. 

“You hear anything going ‘round about you, you just let me know, yeah?” There’s a serious edge to that sentence. “Let me take care of it.” 

All you do is nod dumbly a blank moment later and feel your face go malleable. You don’t even know how to respond to that—you shouldn’t be encouraging physical fights just because you thought it was an…archaically sweet, if not inherently violent, sentiment.

But was Emile anything but? You knew what you were getting into.

“Good.” Emile moves his head back and stares for a moment longer, his chest rising and falling in a silent sigh of breath, before, soldier-like once more, he walks forward and exits the room with a whoosh of recycled air.

“Be seeing you, Doc.”

You hear the door slap shut and still gape at where he once stood in front of you, fire under your skin and a deep pull in your heart as you stutter under your breath. Clearing your throat minutes later, you blink, flatten out your clothes, and quickly exit into the hallway—hearing every connection of your feet to the floor.

There was something so very wrong about this that made you want to see how it might end. Even if it resulted in your blood-thirsty Spartan standing in your examination room once more, knuckles swollen and his body looming above yours like a silent, skeletal sentinel; some brutish dog ready to tear flesh at a moment's notice.

If only to feel his bare skin again, and the weight of his words on your chest.

"Shit," you breathe, grasping at the bridge of your nose as nurses rush past you. All of your thoughts are about Emile, and you have to internally wonder when that had started happening. "...This isn't good."

[lured-into-wonderland]

“Well…I’ll try a small piece…” – Nunnally didn’t want to offend Emil; but she wasn’t really used to eating sweets. Or used to sweet taste for that matter – “I have not really developed a sweet tooth… My diet…as a child…was pretty restricted.” – Nunnally really feel inclined to offer Emil some explanation. Yes, that was at first, and then when she grew older, it was expected that her silhouette would fit the imagination of that of the lady. And she complied again (not that it was difficult for her), and now probably she could change her eating habits (more freely), but she was so used to them that Nunnally saw no point in doing so.

Nunnally took a bite. It was sweet, perhaps too sweet, but she still liked it. She smiled: --

“It’s a very good cake. It’s my high end of sweetness, but I do like it.” – Nunnally was honest, but even if she hated the cake, she would have never said that. She’d eat smiling and probably giving a similar remark. That was what was expected from a lady too…

“Oh no! I was just curious what you could prepare…right now…and I assumed you were suggesting it would have been something quick…?”  

Too sweet?

Emil lifted the plate with her slice and tilted her head as if eyeing it. Sure, she had a sweet tooth but she didn't like overly sweet things either. If she wanted sweetness alone and no other flavours, she would have eaten plain sugar by spoonfuls.

Not that she hadn't, or wouldn't.

"It's on a low end of the sweetness I like, but it might be still too sweet for you." Nally probably wouldn't have asked in the first place if her preferred sweetness wasn't really low.

"As to what I can cook..." Emil ate a forkful of the cheesecake and hummed into the ceiling, thinking. She also made no motion to get a plate for Nally, nor to put the rest of the cheesecake back into the fridge, to see if Nally would get interested in it or not first.

She swallowed. "Pretty much anything. I'm not a professional cook by any means, so don't expect anything high-class, but I know how to cook a lot and can follow a recipe for most other things." Emil turned to direct her eyes at Nally. "Why? Do you have anything in mind?"

[muses-inn]

@post-mortem-lullabies / meme // Emil meets Isaac?

"When is the last time you showered or changed clothes?"

🔧— Right. So, the problem with answering that starts with Isaac having no idea how long he has been in that cryo pod he woke up from. (Or who even put him in there, but he suspects it was Carver).

He woke up alone and had spent a few long days afterwards with getting out of that underground facility, stumbling around and trying to figure out what had happened. He is glad to have found a small town with a rather run-down looking bar where he could sit down for a bit to think. Or, trying to think.

Admittedly, he's not really much wiser since and his tab continues to grow with every ordered drink. But at least he hasn't seen any marker signs so far, and that's great already. (Now he just had to worry about getting money and paying his tab.)

He hasn't really seen any familiar faces yet. That is probably not that surprising if he spent a great while hidden away and sleeping inside a damn cryo pod.

What Isaac does know, even if just vaguely, that he hadn't had time to refresh himself for a good while already BEFORE someone just stuffed him into that pod.

It's not looking good here on his end as far as his defense about washing or changing clothes go. It doesn't help that his priorities have been all over the place these days. Hygienics obviously weren't among them. And sleep, not so much either.

Isaac clears his throat and closes the messy statistics on the holo screen he had in front of him before he turns around from the rusty bar stool he sits on. Not even sure what to say in his defense, he's just uttering his very sheepish and awkward response. His voice gives it away that he's tired, exhausted... and a little drunk, maybe.

"Is it that bad already?"

[out-of-characters]

My RP Sideblogs

Looks like I'm trying to get back into RPing, and bringing my muses into their side blogs under this as a main blog hub.

Main Muse: @post-mortem-lullabies // Emil Utter // One Piece OC, with many AUs: Modern, Pokemon, Bleach, Sci-Fi/StarWars, DC/MCU/Superhero, Demon/Fantasy, More-Cause-I-Don't-Know-When-To-Stop

Additional Muses (note: any memes reblogged on Emil's blog apply to other muses too)

@nomadic-novelist // Orion Beetle // One Piece OC

@yelling-atgeir // Boreas // One Piece OC

@forget-do-no-harm // Trafalgar Law // One Piece Canon(ish) // familiar mutuals only)

@daisy-chain-secunit // Bellis ' Ducky' Link // Murderbot Diaries OC

@paladin-of-ivy // ABC // D&D 'Warforged' Paladin OC

more to come as I feel they are ready

Yes, I shall write RPs between my own characters and no one can stop me.

Also @paper-the-news-coo

Thread Tracker Link

Guidelines [on AO3]

[theangryman]

*Slaughterhouse Five* is absolutely the perfect metaphor for PTSD

time breaks apart, there are a smattering of points that you can cross into without warning

and the only balm it really offers is that maybe if time is fractured it is endless and one can imagine bright moments ever there, that we can someday spend all of our time in the collection of happy memories instead of being helplessly wrenched back into to the past

the small blessing, the exchange for the fact that various people in my life have done things that mean the wrong touch or smell or thought will make it so that it’ll be the third night of three hours of sleep, maybe i am gifted with the ability to pass through time. the way i feel my muscles tense and pupils constrict when i pass certain streets must have given me super powers

compare it to *Cat’s Cradle* - that instead teeters with the idea of saying fuck it, destroy it all. the true depression of my adult life is seeing a “granfalloon” everywhere - the fakeness of most social interactions, the meaninglessness of fandom culture. He describes “Hoosiers” - the utter ridiculousness in finding community with people who are from the same state as you.

“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.” But he showed how much everything was ugly and pointless and stupid. He showed how much being a human is painful and miserable and there doesn’t appear to be some big G-daddy to give us pie after it is all down

that seems comforting that he was able to sum it to that, a puzzle i can’t understand but seems to promise hope. Emil Cioran died of old age - how do you write *The Trouble of Being Born* and live a long life where you die of old age, seemingly happy?

the atheist problem of evil is a lot more thorny than the religious one, I have to admit

[lured-into-wonderland]

“So, what was the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen… Or rather done?” – Nunnally was really curious; Emil’s words sounded intriguing. As if she was hiding a secret. Perhaps a secret similar to Nunnally’s or perhaps the demon girl was just imagining it because she had a secret.

“Tiny sandwiches are more suitable for a fancy hotel or a drawing room if you ask me…” – well, of course they could be brought outside; Nunnally sighed; she remembered the elegant balls, when she was a young girl. Victorian fashion; Victorian lifestyle. She sometimes missed that. Humans changed far too fast for your liking. But time couldn’t have been reversed, could it then?

“So, would you call yourself a disaster girl?” – Nunnally asked coming back with her attention to Emil.

"No cars." Emil shook her head and hooked Nally's hand around her elbow, to lead her towards the nearest aquarium. She could employ multiple ways of travel 'faster than walking' but they could wait for some other time.

'Modern girls', huh? It made it sound as if Nally was a time-traveler from the past or something of the kind. Who knew? Maybe?

"And I didn't mean it as you have to impress me, Nally." She shrugged light-heartily. "Just that I've seen enough odd things that it's very hard to baffle me anymore. You could take me out for an afternoon picnic with tiny sandwiches and stitching under a tree and I would just roll with it." She leaned in, shaking her head. "I wouldn't be any good at it, but that hardly ever stops me. If anything, I would look forward to any disasters I would create."

[grandpasessions]

We pay for every belief we have adhered to, we atone for it one day, as if having subscribed to it were equivalent to a crime.  (You will never be blamed for an absence of belief but always for a belief, or, if you are punished for your absence of faith (in anything), this punishment will be incomparably milder than that which will be inflicted on you because of your faith.) I am tormented for a few yeses that I have uttered and I am applauded for all my nos.

Notebooks Emil Cioran