#male V x illusive man

[x3no9]

Like Cyberpunk themes? Just wrote a Cyberpunk 2077 and Mass Effect crossover fic a few months back...

[yanderestarangel]

౨ৎ ADLER RUSSELL X MALE READER || "RETURN"

♡ ┆TW : few spoilers, v!sex, ftm reader, fingering, overstimulation, orgasm denial, angst, make-up sex.

♡⁠┊It had been so long since you last heard of Adler that you thought the man had been a figment of your imagination, and that every touch, kiss, hug, and intimate moment had been a dream too good to be true—you were just a deluded man. But the ring on your finger, shining like a star, said otherwise.

♡⁠┊Since the mission with Bell and Adler's unhealthy obsession with finding Perseus, your husband had left you alone, with only a missing person’s report hanging over you. You tried to live your life normally, even though your mind and heart were trapped in an empty space of loneliness and isolation—after all, he hadn’t been declared dead, just missing. Everything only got worse when they unexpectedly declared your companion an enemy of the state and put a bounty on his whereabouts.

♡⁠┊The CIA looked for you, and as always, you didn’t know where Russell was... Even though you were his husband, he had simply disappeared like tears in the rain—if the former agent was alive, he was well-hidden from everyone and everything, even from you. Your hopes had dwindled, and you were already giving up on the possibility of him seeking you out again—until that night.

♡⁠┊The knocks on the window startled you from your restful state—the sound of the rain had drowned out any previous noise. You cleared your field of vision and saw the unmistakable shadow of Adler standing outside, a practically invisible smile on his lips and scarred face. He was still just as you remembered. A mixture of frustration, joy, anger, and everything else filled your chest as you immediately ran to open the door for him.

♡⁠┊Adler walked in silently, his heavy boots making noise on the floor as he dried the drops of water still clinging to his clothes—he still smelled like cigarettes, gunpowder, and strong, citrusy masculine cologne; it seemed like he had stopped in time.

♡⁠┊"I can explain everything..." Adler began with a soft sigh. But you didn’t let him finish; you pulled him into a kiss, filled with hunger and pain. As much as you were overwhelmed with mixed emotions, you had missed your husband's touch. You needed to feel Russell as much as possible and be sure that he wasn’t just an illusion in your mind.

♡⁠┊The kiss was messy with moans from both of you and desperate touches from both of you to feel each other again - his tongue danced with yours slowly while his agile fingers went against your clothes and took them off without any ceremony - leaving you naked for his gaze.

♡⁠┊You felt that old feeling of desire again when you knew that behind the visor of his glasses, his blue eyes burned with lust when he saw you surrendered to him again. With a firm hand, he grabbed your neck as he always did, his thick fingers digging into your skin while his free hand found its way to your pussy - playing with the moisture that was already accumulating there. "Holy shit-... Do you still want me so much? Did you miss your old husband here, my lad?" He moaned with a slight saccharism in his voice as he stuck two fingers inside your cunt, making you moan and feel him curl his digits inside you – obviously he still remembered how to satisfy you and wanted to put it all into practice again.

♡┊The taller blond saw you a mess with tears of joy, anger and pleasure – he felt guilty for simply leaving, but it was a decision made to protect you only. The two of you kissed as if the world of both of you depended on it. Your fingers touched every part of his still covered body, feeling every muscle and soft part of his flesh. He whispered sweet nothings on your lips again like he used to do before – each word accompanied by faster fingers in your wet hole, dirtying his fingers and his forearm.

♡┊It didn't take long for you to be wet enough to ride his cock again like you always did. You didn't need to talk to understand how much you needed this, you needed each other. Adler pulled his pants down to his knees and his thick, veiny shaft throbbed from its confinement. His large hands rested on the soft flesh of your waist as you lowered yourself unceremoniously onto his throbbing member – it was vulgar, raw and full of need, his eyes widened enough for you to see them shining behind his glasses as he watched your body bounce on his groin as if it was the only thing you knew.

♡┊His scarred lips found their way to your neck and a few hickeys were left there – at the same time you flexed your hips and thighs on the older man and felt every inch of your husband filling you to the point of having a bulge in your belly. You decided to speed up your movements and heard the older man moan hoarsely as he watched your pussy swallow him without complaint, you still fit perfectly into him, as it always did. "Fuck, pretty boy... You're going to kill me like this, holy shit." Adler let out a loud groan as you sat down on his cock harder, his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to focus on not cumming, the feeling of your pussy enveloping his cock was heavenly, the way you moved on top of him, the way you were always so wet for him, the way you looked when you were riding him, it was all too much for him to handle.

♡⁠┊"Fuck... You're so tight... So wet..." He panted, his hands gripping your hips tighter and pulling you down onto his cock with more force, his hips bucking up to meet your downward thrusts – he knew you weren't going to let him cum now, and he was happy to obey, after all he knew it was the lightest punishment he would receive after being away from you for so long.

♡⁠┊When he told you he was going to cum, you quickly pulled his cock out of your wetness, making him groan in frustration and curl his toes inside his boots, his eyes widening in surprise, his body tensing up in anticipation of his release only to have it snatched away from him. He could feel his cock throbbing, aching for release, but he held on, you were in control at that moment.

♡⁠┊He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, the blood rushing through his veins. And it all only got worse when you made him fuck you in every corner of the house in different positions – and every time he was going to cum, you made him hold on tighter and tighter, in that situation it was like he was your personal dildo and he felt even harder at the prospect of just making you cum. He had become a slave to your desires, and he would do anything to make you happy, even if it meant breaking the rules, even if it meant breaking himself.

♡⁠┊Adler really wanted to last longer but he couldn't, the way your pussy was wetting his cock and balls, the way you were grinding against his groin, the way your ass moved with each thrust. He couldn't obey your command and filled your womb with his hot cum. As you and he recovered, his hands found your face and kissed you on the forehead. "Let's talk now, okay? I really have a lot to talk about." Russell spoke softly, knowing you would like to know what happened... and he had a lot to say.

𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒅 ©𝒚𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒍 2024. 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒑𝒚, 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆

[diejager]

Hi! Could you please a non-con with John Price? I really love your blog!!

Orders, Private

Pairing: Dark!Captain John Price x fem!reader

Cw: NON-CON/DUB-CON, DARK, nsfw, p in v, creampie, choking, age gap, oral (male receiving), implied pregnancy, unprotected sex, cockwarming, implied discharge, abuse of authority, slight daddy kink, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 1.8k

You joined the army to feel secure, to be safe and to be able to protect yourself. Although it was a predominantly male occupation, you found yourself feeling more at home and comfortable with them and the few female soldiers at the base. You had a small convent of your own composed of the women who left their households to join the military for various reasons, both good and reasonable. You trained and grew, fresh out of the toxic environment of a strict religious family, climbing from a cadet to a Private First Class at 19. You were proud and so were your brothers and sisters, watching the scrawny kid grow leaner and stronger in the past year. 

You were safe and protected. You could defend yourself from others tempted to force themselves on you. You were strong. Perhaps you became too relaxed knowing you were surrounded by people you could trust, letting your guard down and your nativity unchecked. You felt safe, you hadn’t worried about your commanding officers. You didn’t see yourself being in danger around them, and yet, here you were, forced to your knees for a man you trusted, a man that had led you and inspired you all. 

That’s why it hurt even more.

“Orders, private,” was all he told you, dark eyes staring at your bobbing head between his legs. A cruel grin danced across his lips, a proud and shrewd smile that creased the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Sweat rolled down his forehead as he bit back a groan, throwing his head back and thrusting back into your mouth. 

You let out a pained whine, fingers clawing at his thighs, big and hard, hot under your smaller hands. His balls slapped your wet chin, his cock far down your throat had made swallowing difficult, saliva dripping from your wide and swollen mouth. He growled, rocking his hips erratically, chasing the tightness in his groynes, the promise of relief. He laughed when you gagged, your throat retching and closing. He laughed like it was a joke, a cruel joke that he suddenly came up with to deprive you of air. 

He used the momentum of both his thrusts and the bobbing of your head to force his shaft deeper, hitting the back of your throat as he throbbed in your mouth. Your nose bumped his musky, pubic hair, the scent was strong and heady, smelling of sex and sweat. Your chin rested against his heavy sack, balls tightening as he came down your throat, spurting ropes of tangy cum.

“Swallow, private. I’ll make you lick it clean if I see a single drop on the floor.”

His threats weren’t hollow, they were true and founded on the fear of harsher abuse. You tried swallowing every drop, throat gagging around his softening shaft in a failed attempt at listening to his order. His rough fingers brushed your hair back, playing the illusion of an encouraging master, rewarding you with soft petting - an illusion of a consensual blowjob. You weren’t fooled, you couldn’t be after this. 

Your hands left his thighs to cup at your closed mouth when he slid out, his heavy cock slapping your chin as it left. Your cheeks were swollen with cum, the salty substance weighing heavily on your tongue and conscience. You tilted your head back to ease the flow, still and subservient to his calm petting. Slowly, you swallowed everything, red eyes closed and teary, tears streaming down your cheeks as he cooed at you lovingly. If only you could disappear, leave your body and let it all happen to you while you weren’t here, while you dissociated-

“AH!”

White hot pain flashed through your mind, Price’s fingers grasped your hair and tugged your head back, forcing your mouth open for him. He hummed satisfyingly, eyes glued to your swollen lips and flat tongue. He roved over it, smiling proudly at your tear-stricken expression, your wet cheeks, dilated, doe eyes and your messy hair. The sight of your dishevelled look seemed to arouse him further, his once-soft cock hardening between his thick legs, standing proudly with a pink blush on the tip. 

He jerked you back, throwing you to the ground as he stood up, circling your gasping figure. You rested on your knees and elbows, back facing him and head down, chest puffing with erratic breaths. Wolves would lower their heads before a stronger pack emmener, showing their submissiveness or respect to the older and stronger wolf. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him anymore. It hurt too much. However much you wished you could rebel, you knew it was futile. 

You were a private and he, a captain of a Task Force. He outranked you by nearly two decades in experience and reputation. No one would believe you if you told them that Captain John Price had raped you. You would be called a traitor, a sham, a liar, someone who wanted to ruin the pristine image of the great Captain Price. 

You were alone, no one would help you.

“Get up.”

On shaky knees and unstable footing, you stood up, steps stuttering to reach him at his desk, but you were too slow for his liking. His hand reached to grab at your lapel, pulling you to him. He kicked behind your knees, knocking you off balance and onto his desk, upper half splayed over the hardwood. He bent you with the full intention of fucking you. It scared you because you wouldn’t be able to fight him off, he was both bigger and stronger. 

Your nails dug into the wood, looking ahead with fresh tears. He felt your body, big palms wrapping around your waist and down your chest, cupping your breast with a sigh from him. He gripped your hips, feeling the leather belt buckle and ripped it free. You cried out as he pulled your pants down, hands kneading the curves of your hips and the roundness of your ass, fingers gripping your fat with the intent of bruising you. 

“Please…” you begged. You didn’t know why you did it, but it was the only thing you could do at the moment. Beg until your voice turned hoarse and weak, a whisper of what it used to be at the peak of your glory.

He scoffed.

“You’re always so soft.” 

He felt you a while longer before his searing hands left you. You sighed but froze when something hard and hot bumped your ass, the wet mass rutting over you. Your breath stuttered and you resulted to hide your face between your crossed arms, giving up on your miserable fate. He pumped himself, sighing as he ran the tip over your fold, slipping between your slit and nudging your pulsing clit. A shuddering chill wracked your body, breath stuck at the back of your throat.

He blew out a chuckle. Your body reacted to his stimulation while your mind still reeled at the betrayal. Your body and mind were two different things, one reacted to things while the other commanded. Although you abhorred it, it was only natural that you were slick from everything. Your begging and crying did nothing to stop your body from reacting accordingly to Price’s touch or dampen the intensity of your slickness. 

“So warm… and wet-” he rocked into you once his mushroom head caught your entrance, bottoming out in one hard thrust. 

You jerked forward with a cry, clinging to his desk as he pulled out and pushed in roughly. He groaned as he slammed in, eyes rolling back when your warm walls squeezed around him, trying to accommodate his bigger girth. Price drove into you with feral grunts, hips rocking and hands bruising you. He liked painting your skin black and blue with his hold, and carving your flesh with the half moons of his blunt nails, red and irritated. It was a show of possessiveness, marking his little soldier to remind you and himself of who you belonged. It roused the predator inside of him, bringing it to the surface of his usually calm and commanding facade. But none came alone, one always brought another; he’d whisper dark promises to you, ravaging you with animalistic intent. They were dirty things, brutal promises that he had full intentions of keeping.

It made you fear him more than anything else. 

“No! Please no! Price stop- ”

You struggled against his assault, legs kicking under him and voice screaming for reprieve in the soundproof room. He slid his arm under you, grasping your throat as he pressed into you, the tip ramming into your cervix. You choked a hoarse cry, body pulled in an arch before him, head over his shoulder, forearm holding you against his chest and hips between him and the desk’s sharp edge. It dug into your flesh as his cock ploughed deeper inside of you, spearing you over his throbbing length, threatening to spill a second time. 

“I like the thought of you swollen, love,” he muttered through gritted teeth, his beard irritating the soft skin of your neck as his pace grew frantic, latching on to the tight string of pleasure. “Swollen with my child, hmm?”

He chuckled at your fearful whine, your head shaking and fingers clutching his hand, running red lines over it. 

“Yeah, I love it too. Watching the little nipper run around the house.”

His sweat dripped from him to you, the musky odour of sex, pine wood and cigars coating you in a mix that is instinctively his. A musk that belonged to John Price. His hand left your hip to toy with your sensitive nub, rolling it with his thumb while you moaned and squirmed, the walls of your sexe tightening around him like a vice. He cursed and jerked his hips faster, harder and rougher, lost in the delirium of pleasure and hunger. 

“Come, love. Come now.”

Orders, private, echoed in your mind, his word was law, his hand, the mighty hammer. He ingrained it in your mind and your body reacted as such. A well trained pet for its master to order around. Your breath caught in your throat and your hip bucked into his thrusts, head thrown back with a sharp keen. You closed around him, spamming walls pulling him deeper as the waves of pleasure crashed over you, quenching your dripping arousal. 

“Fuck-” he swore, grinding against you as your relief pulled at his. He came with a moan, tip spurting white, potent cum into your young womb. It flooded your cunt and leaked around him, staining his military-issued pants with dark patches. He stayed inside of you as he sat on a chair, plugging you with his soft cock to keep from wasting his seed. He wanted it to take so he could have you discharged and kept at home. He wanted you as his little wife, possessiveness rearing its ugly head.

 “You’ll make me a daddy this time, yeah?”

If not, he’d just fuck you again and again until it knocked you up.

[armandisdaddy]

Spoiled Rotten-Modern! Sugar Daddy-Ser Harwin Strong x Fem Reader

Pairing: Ser Harwin Strong x Fem!Reader

Content/Warning(s): !!18 PLUS!!, Brat-tamer, Angst, Swearing, Age-Gap, Smut, spitting, ass eating, oral Fem/male receiving, backshots, spanking, p in v penetration, hair pulling, and aftercare/fluff.

Summary: Harwin says he wants things to be casual, but he might not be able to resist you.

Harwin was a very busy man being head of security he was always making plans behind protecting his boss Viserys Targaryen and the rest of his family. He hardly had time for himself, no time to date or even make acquaintances. He was becoming lonely and longed for something more, but knew he’d never have the time for emotional relationship but he could at least have the illusion of one, right? He decide on a website “Seeking Arrangements” he was bit nervous the last “relationship” he was in was with Rhaenyra and she was married now so that affair ended just as soon as it started.

He scrolled through many pretty faces and was becoming a bit discouraged. Everyone seemed to be super submissive which he enjoyed, but he liked a challenge. Someone with a fire in them that he could tame and then he stumbled upon your profile. You were a platinum blonde bombshell. He clicked on your photo icon and scrolled through your pictures obsessively. Your profile description simply saying “I get what I want…😈.” He smiled at the quote and continued scrolling through your profile before quickly hitting the like button.

He was growing a bit nervous as the time went by. You hadn’t matched with him yet…You were coming home after a horrific date with a potential, but he was atrocious. He thought from your pictures that you were just some blonde bimbo and that made you nauseous. You swore off getting back on “Seeking Arrangements” but your curiosity was just too high. You started scrolling and the name Harwin Strong came up with this picture of this gorgeous man. You clicked on his profile looking to see if he was a catfish because honestly he was too handsome to be true. You noticed his occupation said Head of Security for Targ Tech Inc. and thought meeting him would be interesting.

You finally matched with him and he was so excited he felt like he was in high-school again. He knew he had to make the first move, but what was he supposed to say? He hadn’t done too much small talk or flirting for quite sometime and he didn’t want to come off as some awkward old man. He decided a simple hello would do the trick.

Strong_35

“Hello.”

Spoiled_Rotten_24

“Hey handsome.😘 You’re new here right?”

He paused for a moment smiling subconsciously.

Strong_35

“Yeah, I’m kind of looking for something casual, but I do want a connection.I don’t get too much of a personal life so I thought this might be the next best thing. What’s your name?”

You smiled at how honest he was.

Spoiled_Rotten_24

“Are you sure your not a catfish? I just figure the Head of Security for Targ Tech would have women falling at his feet ya know? 😂😉 and my name is Y/N.”

Strong_35

“I can see why you would think that, but my work keeps me too busy most of the time. That’s a beautiful name, babe.”

Spoiled_Rotten_24

“So if we had an arrangement how do I know you could give me enough attention. You should know I’m a little needy and crave attention.”

He chuckled while he smiled from ear to ear.

Strong_35

“I’m sure you will find a way to keep my attention..after all “You get what you want.” Right?

This was easier than he thought or maybe it was because of you.

Spoil_Rotten_24

“Don’t tempt me I could easily make you miss two weeks of work. I’d have everyone thinking you went missing lol.”

Strong_35

“I’d definitely like to find out. I’m free tomorrow night if you would like to meet me somewhere for dinner and we can see where things go?”

Spoil_Rotten_24

“Yeah definitely. Meet me at “A Bellagio” @8 pm. You better not be late. And make sure you dress nice.

Strong_35

“I won’t I promise and okay.”

You had did some quick shopping to find a new dress and heels to wear for your date tonight. You blonde locks were pinned up in a sort of Anna Nicole style and you picked a shimmery light pink dress that hugged you silhouette just right and silver heels. Your make up was light, but you looked like you were glowing. You took an Uber there figuring you might just be going with Mr. Strong tonight. You were pulling up and he was standing at the entrance waiting for you. You stepped out of the car and approached you holding his hand out so you could step onto the sidewalk safely. “Thank you.” You smiled softly looking into his eyes watching them cascade over your face and your body.

He looked absolutely gorgeous in his navy blue suit and gold accented tie. He was really real you thought. You had hit the jackpot. Young, handsome, and rich? You were probably going to have a whirlwind romance with this guy. Well at least that’s how you would like it to be. “Hello, Y/N. I’m happy to see you.” He pulled your hand to his lips. The warmth of them against your skin sent goosebumps down your spine. “I’m happy to see you too. I see you aren’t a catfish after all.” He chuckled at your u snarky remark and slid his arm around your waist leading you inside. He had already gotten a table for the two of you and two glasses and a bottle of moscato waited for the two of you to return. He pulled out your seat for you like a true gentleman and you obliged sitting down gracefully. He took his seat and poured the sparkling wine into both glasses.

“Moscato is my favorite.” You were gushing inside but you played it cool externally taking a small sip from the glass as the waiter approached your table. This was one of your favorite restaurants so you already knew what you wanted to order. It took Harwin a little while to choose but you didn’t mind. “So Y/N besides Seeking Arrangements do you do anything outside of this?”

“You don’t have to be so formal..I’m a sugar baby… But, yes I actually went to school for two years to become a Cybersecurity Specialist, but I started doing this to pay off college and then my passions moved over to have my own business. I own several boutiques around King’s Landing and they are doing well actually.” He was a bit shocked she really didn’t need to be a sugar baby so why was she. “So why are you still doing this? You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself.” You giggled taking a sip of your wine while you sized him up a bit. “Well, if we’re being honest I like being spoiled and I like seeing men do whatever it takes to make me happy.”

He took a sip of his drink and looked into those green eyes and cleared his throat feeling as though he was being sucked in. “So this is just for fun then?” You gave demur smile and nodded. “Essentially, yes. I hope you don’t mind it. What is that you’re looking for. I know you said something casual with a genuine connection, but I don’t understand. It sounds like you want to fall in love. A connection always leads to something more especially with the physical parts are involved.” You crossed your legs and your foot swiped past his leg.

“I do want love yes..but I don’t know I figured maybe I could find it with someone here. I know that sounds stupid.” You stopped him. “It doesn’t sound stupid. You’d be surprised how many sugar babies hope to be taken seriously. Sometimes I still wonder if I could find that person but so far it was only transactional.” It wasn’t took long before their food was being brought out you ate and talked. The two of you laughed mostly and connected a bit learning about each other childhoods.

You wanted to know about how he got into Targ Tech Inc. . When you both were finished you continued to talk for a while and before you knew it was late and you honestly didn’t want to leave him. He broke your train of thought when he started speaking again. “I have to work..tomorrow..I should get ready to go.” You pouted and sighed before a brilliant idea crossed your mind. “Harwin, do you think you could take me home, I took a Uber here.”

Being the gentleman he was he obliged, paid the ticket and they left the restaurant to go to his car. It was a Volvo with an all black exterior and leather interior. You weren’t too far away both of you seemed to live closer within the city and that seemed convenient enough for you. The car ride was silent so you decided to speak. “I enjoyed dinner tonight and I was hoping we could continue to see each other..” He looked over to her and smiled placing a hand on her thigh squeezing it slightly. “I was going to ask you once we stopped at your place.” He chuckled and she blushed feeling the warmth of his hand on her skin.

Pulling up to your place you sighed looking at him and then to your condos building while you contemplated your next move. “Do you want to come in?” He was a bit shocked by the offer, but he didn’t object to it. “Sure, you got any whiskey.” She smiled grabbing her keys from her purse. “Of course I do..” They made their way up to her condo and he was honestly like in a state of shock. “This place is way nicer than mine.” She smiled and guided him to her living room. “Maybe you just need a woman’s touch.” She slipped out of her shoes and grabbed him that glass of whiskey he asked for. “I’ll be right back I want to get comfortable. Feel free to turn on the tv if you’d like.” He did just that trying to use the whiskey to calm his nerves it had been so long since he had been with a woman he didn’t really know what to expect.

She returned wearing a large t shirt that stopped just below the cuff of her ass. Her hair was put up and her make up was gone and if he wasn’t already dazzled by how gorgeous she looked all night. Right now she was even more beautiful than before in her natural state. He was taken aback and took a sip from his glass. She straddled his lap and took off his suit jacket throwing it to the side. He hesistated but he eventually let his hands grab on to her waist. She smiled letting her hands rest on his chest. “Soooo, Harwin…I know you said your schedule keeps you busy but I want you to know I’m rather needy. Even if you get off late I’d still like to see you I require lots of attention or I’ll get bored.” He listened intently his fingers subconsciously trailed up and down her spine causing her to shiver slightly. He smiled at her reaction his dick jumping within his slacks. His growing length pressing hard against the fabric and against her pussy. He groaned as once she started to grinding against it causing friction. He eased both hands into her shorts realizing she wasn’t wearing any panties and instinctively pulled them down.

“Well, baby girl if you’re going to be mine, I promise to do my best at keeping you as happy as I can.” He muttered focusing mostly on the way her ass filled his hands while he pushed and pulled her cheeks apart. A hand slipped down slowly letting two fingers rub across her folds and press against her clit. He groaned feeling how wet she was already and smiled laying a harsh smack against her ass. “Who told you, you could get this wet already, Hm?” She yelped and bit her lip in excitement as his hand smacked her other ass cheek leaving a soft red tint behind. He smiled at the sight of it and looked into those beautiful doe eyes of her grabbing her ponytail pulling her head back and kissing her lips. She moaned into the kiss as his rubbed her clit in circles causing her hips to buck aggressively. Her tongue found it’s way into his mouth and savored the taste of it against his own. She pulled away and a string of saliva was seen and in the heat of the moment he grabbed her face forcefully opened her mouth and spit into it before pulling her into another heated kiss. She fumbled with his pants unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his pants letting the pulsating monster free.

She looked wide eyed and was anxious once she saw his size. It was long and thick and had veins throughout it with a slight curve. Her pussy jumped in anticipation and he chuckled at the look on her face. She was practically salivating so ready to taste him. He could tell and decided they’d please each other all at once. Without warning he grabbed her once more by the waist and flipped her upside down. With his arms wrapped around her waist and her delicious pussy in his face. With his forearms holding her thighs his rough hands gripped her asscheeks spreading them and her pussy apart. He licked his lips hungrily as slowly dragged his wet tongue from her clit to her tight rosebud before dipping his tongue into it. She gasped and relaxed into him feeling him devour her without even thinking. She grabbed onto his dick and shoved it into her mouth quickly bobbing her head. Her eyes rolling back at the salty taste of precum coating her tongue.

He sucked on her clit and began fucking both holes with his tongue enjoying both immensely. “Fuck…you taste so good, Princess.” She cooed with her mouth full as he pumped his dick in and out of her mouth causing such a sloppy mess on her couch and floor. The sounds of her mouth glucking and gushing and his moaning, licking and sucking filled the room. He couldn’t take it anymore and sat her down so he could stand. He removed her shirt and pants completely and removed whatever clothes she had on left. He admired her frame and slowly let his two fingers slip inside her. She sighed and he hooked his fingers letting them rub against her spot in a come hither motion. She trembled and the sounds of her juices sloshing around made him smirk to himself. “Are you ready?” He asked in a hushed tone and she nodded without hesitation.

He placed her on all fours on the couch her arms resting on the top. He looked at the way her back arches and the roundness of her ass and let one hand hold onto her hip while the other guided his dick towards the entrance of her cunt. He slowly pushed inside her and the feeling of her warm walls wrapping around him made a deep growl bellow within his chest. “Fuck…” She moaned softly at the way he filled and stretched her and she moved slightly to adjust a bit. He began to slowly push and pull in and out steadying his breathing. It had been so long since he felt this feeling and he want to make it last. She cooed in response letting him know he was making her feel good just as well. He rubbed her ass cheeks before pushing them together and picking up the pace without warning. He pounded into her relishing the sound of his pelvis smacking against her ass and watching his shake with each thrust. She screamed and moan in immense pleasure and her cum soaked his dick and balls as she creamed.

He lifted a leg up onto the couch for more leverage and grabbed on her hair pulling her back so that he chest was against her back while his free hand held onto her stomach to hold their bodies together as he looked down to watch her ass clap against him. “Shit…you feel so good, Princess. I need you just like this everyday…you hear me…” She couldn’t say much but he pulled her hair demanding an answer. “Yes…Daddy..” He leaned his back and laughed at that name. “That’s a good fucking girl…” He could feel himself about to release. “Can I cum inside you, Princess.” She whimpered put a yes and he continued to pump into letting her cum before he did. Just as her climax covered his dick his warm cum flowed inside her until it filled her up to the brim. They stood there just like that for a minute and he kissed her shoulder lightly. “Let’s take a shower and go to bed, okay love?” He spoke sweetly. And she didn’t object to it.

After their shower they laid in bed with her laying on his chest and his fingers playing in her wet hair. “I’m supposed to work tomorrow, but I’ll call off for a few days. I’ll take you shopping and we can go on a little vacation. How does that sound, Princess?” She rubbed his chest and hummed softly. “That sounds amazing, Daddy. I can’t wait.”

[matthewsepicwriting]

Yet ANOTHER cat returns x identity v Au I wrote when I was 13……part 1

There he sits, at the table surrounded by crazy talking cats. Sniffling and unwilling to even look up. His only familiar friend with him, Luca, currently drowned in giant pot of jelly. King cat looks over at the quietly weepingi boy at the table and frowns. "I'm not sure he's enjoying himself" he says in a scratchy voice. "How about some entertainment?" Suggests His assistant sitting beside him. The king cat agrees and calls out for all of the entertainers to come out. First is a few cats doing acrobatics as a show. they jump and twirl around in a fun and carefree way as they do stunts that other cats wouldn't dare to attempt. the other cats seem amused and impressed. King cat looks over only to see the sad, lucky boy not even looking up from the table, tears still gently falling from his eyes. He lets out an irritated growl "not entertaining enough!". Soon after, a new group comes out. This time A male cat and a female cat tied to a flat wooden platform. The male cat braces himself....then throws a few knives, missing the female cat, but the last one accidentally cuts the female cat's "kitty bikini" and it slowly falls to the ground. Embarrassed and flustered, she runs out of the room covering her chest. The lucky boy doesn't even notice, still grimacing at the situation he got him self in. The king doesn't look amused, not one bit. He lets out another angry growl. And with a scowl on his face, signals the guards to throw the male cat out of the window to plummet to the bottom of the tower. His screams get quieter and quieter as he falls, and then it stops when he hits the ground. "NEXT!!". Out comes a funny looking cat doing a comedy act. As he shapes himself to look as if he was an elephant with his tail as the trunk, paws on his hips to create the illusion of elephant ears. But the part that got the most attention is his bottom painted as the face. Not a chuckle came from a single cat, None of the cats look amused. Lucky still sits there, messing with the dead, raw fish "delicacy" laying on the plate in front of him. "How did i even get myself into this mess...?" He sits there, in the fancy dress he was wearing, soaking in his own thoughts of regret. As the foolish jester cat continues one cat starts laughing. The cat dressed as a duke tries his Darnest not to laugh, but just can't hold it in. Loud and uncontrollable laughter comes from him as the duchess cat beside him looks at him worried. King cat has had enough. angrily, he signals the guards to throw both the actor and the duke out. "THE NEXT ONE BETTER NOT STINK, GOT IT?!?" He screams. All in sync, the other entertainers back up. Fearing they'll have the same fate as the last guy. But then, a tall white skinned cat man with a single, silky, long braid steps out. His face hidden by a mask. "I will make the young man smile". "Hmmmm alright...." The king, a little unsure about this guy. The mysterious person walks up In front of the small male and holds out his hand. "My I have this dance?". Lucky can feel his cheeks heat up a little as he looks down and replies "n-no I'm a meowsy dancer- ugh! Now I'm even starting to talk like a cat!!" He says as he buries his face in his paws, how embarrassing. "Just trust me" the taller male says in a clear voice. The awkward boy shyly looks up, and hesitantly takes his hand. The masked man leads him to the middle of the ball room, and takes his hands. The musician cats look at each other, worried and too scared to mess up the music. None wants to start. An Accordion starts to play. An old blind cat starts to play the "katzen blut" on the accordion, and the other musicians just sit down and watch. All eyes were on the lovely pair As the music continues and the taller man holds the waist of lucky, and one of his paws. He starts leading him in a waltz. Lucky clumsily follows, trying to mimic the movements of the one in front of him. They start out slow, and waltz into circles. Lucky soon gets lost into the dance. Enjoying it with the mysterious man leading him.

[first-edition]

Sinner

Matt Murdock x reader

She/her/hers

Cw- smut!! P in v, strong language, edging, pet names, 21+, alcohol consumption. Fluff and angst oral male REC.

Sum- you decide to take Matt’s advice and go to a confession booth only to not realize that Matt is in the other side. After telling you he knows and feel the same all he wants is to truly show you.

This is kinda a long Drabble so bare with it!

You stand outside the church and sigh, clutching your bag in hand. Finally giving in you shake your head and walk up the steps through the large black oak wood doors.

Pews with dark red velvet seats some people sitting in them and praying and a homeless man sleeping. Candles stacked in the front as a commemoration to those lost in the recent city bombing.

Looking over you see the the large wooden, box like, confession stand. Matt told you about them earlier after noticing something had been bothering you for the last few weeks. You were using your powers less, getting distracted at work or training. You’d bump into things when walking aliasing not seen them resulting in a large bruise against your hip from ramming into the corner of the desk.

You open the door and sit down on the side. He told you to wait for the priest to step in. That it’s 110% confidential even if you committed murder. That it’s better than therapy.

Your mind runs wild with the words and thought of you friend when the other side of the stand opens you immediately begin to trauma barf about your life and what happened how you got your powers after a nuclear blast caused by the reality stone. And then you break to Matt.

Clueless that it’s not a priest on the other side but Matthew murdock himself. He came to confess stuff about you. How hard it is to keep how he feels inside.

“I don’t know how I can tell him! Like I can’t even really..” You say

“What d-do you feel towards him?” Matt says making his voice deeper and older sounding to his it dispite the muffled mess of the box.

“…I want him to fuck me! Oh god I’m sorry! Oh shit! OH!” You cover your mouth realizing you’re cursing in a church. “I’m sorry..I just I’m in love with him and I have been for the last few years. During the blip.. we spent a lot of time together foggy and Karen were gone and we only had each other realizing that we could’ve not had each other.”

You chuckle shaking your head

“It’s stupid I know he makes me feel happy like myself and then I see him as daredevil-OH!” You cover your mouth again. “Don’t worry my child I’m sworn to secrecy” the “priest” says to you. You nod.

“He’s so hot! His abs and scars. Sometimes he’ll ask me to let him see. I can bend reality and allow him an illusion to see. But I’ve faked it once I was but ass naked and he asked me to see if he could find his tie and i illusioned clothes.”

“When he touches me..I want him to do things to me that I’ve never wanted before…I’m in love with him and he dosnt even know.” You say your phone rings as it’s Karen.

“Thank you for your time father.” You say and get up walking out.

————

After dropping paper work off at the office for Karen and foggy you go home. Opening the apartment door of yours and Matt’s home you walk in at an astonishing 7:30 pm.

“Matty?!” You call out “yeah?! Yep I’m home” he says from the other room.

You sigh and take off your shoes and put your keys down. Walking into the living room to see him pouring a glass of wine for you.

“Oh?” You say he smiles his usual puppy like smile.

“Whats this for?.” You ask also seeing gifts and a balloon.

“I just um…I wanted to show you how much I appreciate you like everything you do at the office and for me.. uh.” He holds out the glass and you take it. Your heart sinks slightly as you know he doesn’t know what this means to you, what you want it to mean.

But he does. It mean exactly what you want.

“Those are all for you” he says as you drink the wine

“Mm.” You chug the glass. “Whao..” he retorts “sorry…thank you” you reply setting the glass down. He drinks his as well.

You open a gift seeing it’s a necklace beautifully simple shiny silver and diamonds. “Matt…” you say holding it out “do you like it I can’t really tell the style but I had had Karen help me out a bit”

He says you smile and nod “you’re nodding arnt you.” “Yeah! Yes sorry I love it.” You reply. He smiles again as you put it it on.

“I gotta tell you something” you both say at the same time.

“Oh no go ahead” you say “no you were first” he chuckles you giggle shaking your head.

“Well I um went to that confession booth thingy you were talking about..” “that’s what I wanted to talk to you about too.” He says “oh?!” You says confused.

“I went there too…” he says “oh good we both got things ou-“ “and I heard what you said…about me.” He says

You freeze your face flushes and you veins turn to ice you’re heart feels like it stopped and your soul has left your body. It’s dead silent in the room.

“Y/n?… hello?” He says

Your mouth hangs agape as you sit embarrassed, frozen, mortified. You want to live your hand to use your powers to take you out of the situation make Matt see that you’ve left… holy shit you told him about using your powers on him when you were naked!

“Y-ye.” A pathetic half assed yes is all you can muster.

“Too be fair I wasn’t following you I thought you were a priest until you started barfing up the Declaration of Independence. But…god for so fucking long if wanted to hear you say that!” He says “w-what…” you squeak out

“Everything you said everything you want me to do to you is everything I wanna do! I’ve been in love with you since I met you! Every bit of you is so perfect and perky and beautiful. I love you.” He confesses

It’s still quiet for a few seconds until you being to cry. Tears stream from your eyes. “Hey hey I’m sorry!” He says moving to you putting his hands on your cheeks wiping off your face “you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for that!” You choke out and laugh he laughs as well.

“Let me take care of you. Tonight and always for as long as you want me yeah? How does that sound.” He says you nod.

He kisses you his lips pressing against yours you kiss him back with the same passion he pulls you up to him straddling his lap. Your hands wander his hair and neck. Moving down to his chest you pull off his black tshirt exposing his perfect chiseled body. Dispite it being riddled with scars and permanent bruises it’s the hottest thing you ever seen.

His hand move up your shirt grabbing your breasts through your bra causing you to open your mouth in a quiet moan. Giving him the perfect opportunity to push his tounge into yours and bit your lip. Pulling your shirt off over your head he pulls away from your lips and kisses your neck and cleavage nipping at it surely making marks.

He stands, you still against him, your legs wrapped around his waist as he Carries you to the bedroom. Plopping down on the plush satin sheets the cool fabric cooling off your flushed skin. His hand move to you back easily unclasping your bra hooks and takin it off throwing it somewhere in the room. Before you can cover your chest he attaches his mouth to your right nipple hitting and sucking on it and massages the other breast.

“Ah..Ahh matt” you moan out as his tongue swirls around your budded nipples. He switches giving the other one just as much attention before kissing down your chest and stomach his hands following being carful to skip over your bruise as it could still hurt. He takes a hold of your pants pulling them off leaving you in your underwear.

The once matching set, if he didn’t yeet your bra into oblivion, that Karen got you for your birthday is covered in lace just so happening to be in Matt’s favorite color. His finger run across the fabric feeling the desgin. He chuckles kissing your lower stomach just barley missing your belly piercing.

“Lace?” He retorts “Karen.” You pant out. He chuckles and pulls them off exposing to him even though he can’t see. Or can he.

He pushes your legs apart and lays between them pecking yourself face in kisses.

“Let me see you princess.” He says using the nickname he uses when your sad, drunk or overall having fun.

“Matt..” you says “it’s okay…I’m not gonna hate anything. I can already feel you” he says his fingers brushing over your clit making you gasp and immediately wave your fingers a purple mist of sparkles fade into his eyes he blinks a few times then smiles at you his eyes meeting yours.

“Hi.” He says “h-hi” you squeak out. He shifts and pulls back his eyes scanning every inch of you he chuckles “yeah..I’m gonna have a lot of fun with you.” He says and gets up off the bed and goes to the drawer grabbing a pack of condoms and brings them back over.

His hands go down to his belt buckle only you sit up and crawl over to him “no.” You say he frowns “I do it” you say and undo his belt the visible bustle under his pants making you so wet. Pulling off his pants and boxer his duck springs up. After living with Matt for five years you’ve seen him naked once and that was from the back of him but you never thought a dick could look this good.

You take him in your hand and open your mouth running your tounge up his shaft and then taking him in your mouth. He shudders against you.

“Fuck..” he sigh. You begin the ritual of sucking him off licking and stroking. Wanting to milk him if every last drop of his cum. “Ah shit y/n y-your gonna make me cum..” he huffs moving your hair out of the way. You him against him in a reply.

“Ahh fu-fuck.” He groan and pulls you off stopping you. You pout at his actions.

“Lay back.” He says taking the condom in his mouth tearing it open. You listen and open your legs form him he chuckles shaking your head “fuck I wish you could use your powers like this all the time. Damn” he huff rolling on the condom and moving between your leg.

You pushes himself in slowly to let you get used to him. You but your lip muffling your moans as he begins to move.

“Ahh sh-shit.” You moan out as he thrusts into you.

Your breasts bouncing with every thrust. He places a hand over your stomach to feel the budge he’s made in you.

“Take it so good!”he says incoherent you moan back his hand moves from you stomach to your clit moving circles around it in perfect form.

“Ah m-matt please. Ngh” your words are drown buy the sounds of moans and grunts. “What do you want baby. You gotta ask Hm?” He says his other hand moving to your throat. You smile at the sudden pressure.

“Ah shit you like that huh? You like with i fuck you and choke you?” He says “mm yes.” You reply

“Good girl.”

“Ha ngh oh fuck! God.” You moan you grabs your thighs pulling your leg over his shoulder and pushing all the way into you and roughly fucks you causing you to scratch at his back and eyes roll back “ummm don’t say his name in vein baby!” He retorts fucking you faster.

Stuttering your words you try to say him name.

“What? I can hear you.” He says “c-cum fuck I-I’m gonna-“ your back arches and your release clenching Matt’s dick “shit shit!” Your curse he feels you.

Your face twisting and grabbing anything you can gives him so much pride in seeing you completely fall apart at his pleasure. His move his hand back to your clit once again playing and rubbing it heavily over stimulating you.

“M-Matty please..I can’t Ahh” you cum again easy as that. “Shit come on baby!” He edges you wanting more out of you. The intenseness of ever rn I got he’s doing to you. Fucking you raw out of your mid, keeping you entertained, in pleasure.

His thrusts staggers deeply in you and with a few last pumps he cums pushing into you as you clench around him cumming for the third time. Eyes rolling back mouth agape back arched clutching onto him nothing and none can make you feel this good.

You pant coming down from your highs and enjoying a short make out session before he pulls out of you and pulls off the condom throwing it in the trash next to the bed. You move to lay on your side but He moves you back to your back as you face him he pushes your legs open.

“Matty I-I don’t think I can..” you begin he kisses your inner thigh and sits back. Shaking his head

“Just admiring I can’t normally see so this is like a kid in a candy store with no money” he says making you giggle and blush as it dusts over your skin. The necklace his got you laying perfectly against your chest.

“Okay.” He says and nods “you sure?” You ask he sighs and nods “yeah.” He says reluctantly.

You open your arms to him he moves back to you as you share a kiss and stop using your powers.

He pulls you to the side as you lay your head on his chest. What seems like an instant your fast asleep completely content. He pulls the cold satin sheet over you both. The sound of your heart beat pulling him to sleep.

[yoontaethings]

normal kind of love — jjk

pairing: jungkook x reader

rating: explicit

COMING ON MARCH 1, 2021

you’re one half of hollywood’s on-screen it couple. the greatest chemistry known on-screen with the one and only, jeon jungkook, the bane of your existence.

p r e v i e w

There was no way.

There was no way in hell they were pairing you up with him. Again.

You were confirmed to be cast as the female lead in the movie before any other characters were casted. They should have chosen a different male lead for this romance film. Heck, even Kim Taehyung received an offer for the role, and you were certain he planned to take it. Unfortunately for you, even if Taehyung wanted the role, he couldn’t accept it because of scheduling conflict with another film he’s already working on.

Jeon Jungkook, an actor you starred alongside in “Dangerous Illusion”, was just confirmed as the male lead of your upcoming movie “Chosen for Pleasure”. The same man who seemed to make it his life goal to ruin you. After Jungkook was confirmed to play the male lead in your upcoming movie, fans on Twitter have been blowing up about it and made you two a trending topic worldwide. Elated fans mentioned you in their tweets expressing how happy they were to see you two again together. You wish you could say you felt the same.

The previous movie you worked on was a thriller/mystery. You played the part of Jungkook's wife in the film. The film was a blockbuster hit, as a result of the well-thought storyline, yet additionally because of its leads. Fans adored the chemistry between you and Jungkook, regardless of not having a lot of romantic scenes in the film. There were a lot of fans who wanted to see you two on-screen once more, this time, in a romance focused film. Looks like their wishes were coming true.

To add insult to injury, your impending film was going to be an adult romance. It required some steamy scenes that normally didn't trouble you because you were a true professional, yet absolutely irritates you now since you need to do them with Jeon Jungkook.

[midnightseonghwa]

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚 𝐒𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐬 | 𝐤.𝐲𝐬

𝐖𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐀𝐮 - 𝟒

✕𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Merman!Yeosang x Drowning!Reader  

✕𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Mermaid, Halloween Au, fluff 

✕𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4.5k+

✕𝐏𝐥𝐨𝐭: Arms crossed over your heart, you’re ready to fling yourself off the edge of a cliff but good thing Yeosang is there to save you.  Alternatively: “To hold a love that knows no elements.”  

✕𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Strong langauge, mentions of death, suicide and drowning. Yeosang is shirtless (he’s a merman...). He’s quite fascinated with you, slightly obsessive themes and stalkerish themes.

✕𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬: Unedited

✕𝐀/𝐍: Remember that this is fiction. Enjoy! Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist. Leave a comment under this post or message me! Here is the mernman Yeosang...oh boy...how exciting! I hope you like it! I watched his v live where he wore the pumpkin hat and oh my god! He looked so cute with his little ponytail. This took me wayyyyyy too long to write and I know many of you were excited and stuff but like I’m not very satisfied with how this turned out? I will revisit this once I’m done with all au-s. 

✕𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @pancakes-for-teddy​

✕𝐀𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜: Here 

The waves crashed into the rocks under you as you peeked down at the sea with dried tear stains on your cheeks.

"(Y/n)," a voice called out from the back and you closed your eyes, not wanting to hear your brother's voice for a second longer.

"G-go...go away, Seonghwa," you said, your voice tight and scratchy. Hiccups escaped your mouth, each one making the bruises on your chest hurt more.

The ocean wind whipped at your hair, making it stick to your wet cheeks and the snot running down your face.

"(Y/n), you're being stupid again. Step away from there, now," he said and walked closer with his hand stretched out.

"That's all I am for you anyway. Stupid," you spat but your voice got lost in the wind, your sobs overpowering and breaking each syllable.

"Come on, (Y/n)..." Seonghwa huffed in distress and reached out further for you.

"You don't have to do this. Please, just think it through."

His words fell on deaf ears, every thought leaving your head empty and spiralling.

"I've thought about it enough, Seonghwa. It's time for me to take action."

With that, you crossed your arms over your thumping heart and threw yourself off the cliff, every regret leaving your body.

You were finally free.

Silence surrounded your shivering form as you floated through the blue abyss. It felt as if someone had stuffed cotton in your ears. The water felt smooth and silky and left every part of your skin caressed with the hands of the ocean.

The salt stung your eyes as you managed to open them. The world above you looking blue through the lens with the refracted rays of white sunlight hitting your form. Trying to desperately blink away any sort of illusion, you felt a burning feeling rise in your chest.

The fire was so great, spreading through your entire body before you started struggling, pushing yourself up with your hands but no matter how close you thought you were to the surface, you never seemed to reach it.

That's when you realised...you were going to die.

You had wanted it, standing above sea level, ignoring your brother. But now, all you really wanted was...air.

Were you really free?

Your hands thrashed around the water, trying to grab onto anything that might provide you with aid but the quiet hum of the ocean waves above you reminded you that there was nothing.

You were alone, just as you had been your entire life.

The pain in your chest started subsiding to a dull throb and you felt your eyes grow heavy, the liquid weighing down on them. Forcing them to stay open, you thrashed around with the last of your might but to no avail, you started fading.

Eyes fluttering close, you felt your throat close up, the last bit of oxygen leaving your body. With an impending sense of doom, you closed your eyes, hoping that the ocean would spit you out instead of swallowing you whole.

You coughed. Once, twice and a third time until you shot awake, salty water flooding out of your system, each hack paining your lungs and causing your body to shake. Your hair was stuck to your face, every strand, dead and dry as reached up to wring the water out of it.

The ground under your limbs was hard and cold. Icicles shooting up your legs, rendering them numb and disabled.

"You...you're awake," you heard someone call and take a breath of relief. Whipping your head around, you squinted and examined your surrounding trying to figure out if you were already dead or not.

"Purgatory sure is shit," you muttered and took a deep breath of the salty air before stopping and looking around again.

"Is purgatory under the ocean?" You asked, completely bewildered, feeling even more lost when a certain figure attracted the attention of your eyes.

"Who...?" You trailed off and rubbed at your eyes, the reminiscent salt making your eyes sting, scratching it raw.

The figure was looking at you with narrowed eyes. His skin and hair as pale as snow, the upper portion of his body completely...naked. His porcelain skin was almost glinting in contrast to the onyx rocks as he sat with his arms crossed across his chest.

"Who are you?" The question tumbled from your lips before your brain had even registered your situation.

"Kang Yeosang," he said and you heard a bit of splashing in the water below.

Curiously, you let your eyes drift down and almost screamed at the sight of a tail instead of legs. Pushing yourself against the hard rock wall, you swallowed the gasp that was threatening to bubble up your throat and clapped a hand over your mouth. Eyes roaming, you studied his tail. The rich blue scales glistened as the little light reflected off it and his fins curved in, delicately, a translucent blue. The scales looked as if they were sequins made of the finest sapphires and were sewed in by the most skilled hands.

A bit extravagant for a Halloween costume.

"You have a tail," you stuttered out and crawled forward to the edge of the rock platform you had been placed on. The water beneath you was a dark murky blue, the depths of it unfathomable as the creatures lurked underneath.

"You're stating the obvious," the male snorted and pushed himself off the rock, swimming towards you with an offhanded curiosity that glittered in his eyes.

Approaching your figure close to the jagged edge of the rocks, he held his hand out and you found yourself slowly leaning towards him, eyes wide as you got lost in his, the dark brown surrounding you with a sense of normalcy.

His touch was soft, unlike his narrowed eyes and snarky look. Dainty fingers traced your jaw as they tapped along your cheeks and played with your hair strands.

You observed all his sharp but delicate features as they matched the energy of the sea, every wave like his unflickering eyes. Before you knew it, you were leaning closer to the water, closer to where he was before he jerked you back by the shoulder, the tip of your nose almost touching the water.

"For a species that's supposed to be smart, you sure are stupid," Yeosang said and checked you over once before swimming further into the water. Resuming your position against the rock wall again, you brought your knees up to your chest, wiggling your toes to get rid of the freezing numbness was that was taking over.

"You humans have such odd features," Yeosang commented as he swam around a bit before resting his arms and head on the rock platform. His platinum blond hair stuck to his forehead as some of the strands came down into his eyes.

"And what do you know about humans?" You asked and narrowed your eyes a bit, getting oddly defensive at his careless comment.

"Nothing actually. I've always heard about them from my brothers. You're the first one I'm seeing up close."

Gulping, you crossed your legs and leaned against the rocks, the pointed edges digging into your back, making every small move uncomfortable.

"When can I go home?" You asked to no one in particular but Yeosang just snorted and flicked some water at you.

"The one I caught drowning, now wants to go home?"

There was a certain sarcasm in his voice that just didn't sit right with you. He had stabbed you right where the festering wound was and you bit your lip, swallowing every bit of abuse and inhaled the salty ocean air instead.

"Can you at least tell me where I am?"

Yeosang looked around, the moon had now risen on top of you and was visible from a tiny hole in the rocky walls.

"An island a couple kilometres from where you jumped," he said as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

You looked around once more, seeing nothing but saltwater dripping from onyx coloured rocks and more pointed edges.

"How do I get out of here?" You said Yeosang gave a bit of a sad look.

"Why would you want to leave? Just live here! You didn't want to live anyways so you can think of this as your fresh start." Yeosang rushed before his face turned a bright red and he ducked his head into the water.

The words that flew out of his mouth were fast and didn't quite register in your head until you went through every letter he had uttered.

"Huh...?" Were the only words that left your mouth until you heard a huff from Yeosang who had now begun to swim away. It was strange to you that a half fish-man would have any sort of fascination with you even if it was purely just scientific.

But then again, you are the first human he's ever seen up close.

You watched with a confused face as Yeosang's blue tail flipped on the surface before disappearing into the blue abyss again.

Yeosang swam through the reef as he came face to face with his older brother, Hongjoong.

"Where have you been?" He asked, the red scales on his tail resembling a fiery colour.

"Somewhere," Yeosang replied and tried to move past his brother when a hand caught him.

"Wooyoung said he saw you lurking by the surface again, says that you've brought a human into the ocean."

Hongjoong's voice was cold and hostile. In entire merfolk history, never has a human ever been intertwined with their kind and for good reason. Humans were simply just too extreme for their own good. See something pretty, they'll hunt it until it's extinct. See something foreign and they'll alienate it.

"And what if I have?" Yeosang bit back with a snarl in his voice getting defensive about the human he had been observing for a while now.

"What's so special about this human," Hongjoong said and Yeosang found himself thinking back to the first day he saw you.

You had been sitting on one of the rock clusters near the beach, crying. Bleeding from the strange fingers that you had attached to your lower body as you furiously wiped at the blood with seawater, only for it to sting some more.

Absolutely fascinated by your odd state, Yeosang found himself lurking by the surface often, just to catch a glimpse of you.

He heard those other humans call you by your names, (Y/n) and what a pretty name he thought it was. Prettier than any of the pearls he would collect from the sea.

And oh, how his heart almost stopped when he saw you floating alone in the empty ocean. He had seen you enough to understand that you couldn't breathe in water. You didn't have the gills he did at the side of his neck. You needed that foul-smelling air to survive.

"I saved that human," he replied watched as Hongjoong's eyes widened before narrowing distastefully.

"Where are you keeping the human?" He asked in a clipped tone and Yeosang's shoulder dropped before he told his elder brother of the small island he was keeping you on.

"Return this human to the surface, Yeosang. And make sure we never hear of this again."

With that, Hongjoong swam away, his red tail flicking aggressively as he pushed himself through the water disappearing from Yeosang's view.

Yeosang watched as his elder brother swam away with sad eyes. He had only begun to exchange a few words with you and his brother was already telling him to return you to the surface. But he knew the truth. Yeosang knew how much you hated the surface, there was nothing for you there! At least under the sea, you'd have him and maybe even his brothers after they come around.

Sinking to the ocean floor, Yeosang let out a few tears fall out of his eyes and watched as they turned to sea glass, hitting the sandy floor before getting washed away with the slow current.

He's going to have to return you to the surface.

You coughed. Once, twice and a third time until you shot awake, salty water flooding out of your system, each hack paining your lungs and causing your body to shake. Your hair was stuck to your face, every strand, dead and dry as reached up to wring the water out of it.

The ground beneath you was soft and warm and you were reminded of the warm sun that would often soak your bones as you played with Seonghwa in the backyard of your childhood home. It was different that time, the chilling cold of loneliness never cracked at your bones and you were satisfied with your, completely wholesome.

"You...you're awake," you heard a voice say as you sat up, clutching the back of your head in pain. You were half expecting the half fish-man to greet you again but instead, you saw Seonghwa's piercing gaze looking down at you with furrowed eyebrows.

"(Y/n), don't you ever do that again," he said as he collected you in his arms and held you close.

You bit back the feeling of sadness that bubbled up in the back of your throat. You never wanted to see Seonghwa again, your elder brother who had made the recent past of your life a living hell but yet, he tried to talk you down and then was also the one to find you.

You had every reason to be grateful to an extent.

"Seonghwa, just..." you trailed off and pushed your brother off you slightly, dusting the sand that clung to every crevice of your body.

A lump of green caught your eye as you moved to lift yourself up from the sand. Clutching the small parcel like thing, you unwrapped what seemed to be seaweed to find small pieces of translucent sea glass that thrummed under the sweltering sun of the beach. Each one had a blue-ish colour and the familiar blue hue of the half fish-man's tail crept into your head. Shaking your head, you wrapped the seaweed again and tucked the small parcel into drenched clothes.  

"Let's go home, (Y/n)," Seonghwa said as he pulled you forcefully towards town.

Looking back over your shoulder one last time, you blinked as you saw a mop of platinum blond hair bop in the ocean. Just as you snatched your hand out of Seonghwa's to go closer, the ocean stilled again, leaving you with nothing but the curling waves.

"You're thinking about that human," San, one of Yeosang's brothers stated with a sigh as he settled next to Yeosang on the rock.

"No..." Yeosang trailed off and watched the fragments of sea glass drift away into the ocean current that glittered under the sunlight.

"Yes, you are," San pushed and Yeosang just sighed, ripping one of the seaweeds out of its roots and tearing it apart in frustration.

"I'm just so fascinated by (Y/n). There's something about that human that calls to me, San," he said and pouted at the fish that floated through the coral reef.

"Then go to them," San concluded with a determined tone and Yeosang just looked at his brother with narrowed eyes.

"Hongjoong would never allow that," he said and flicked the end of his tail,  losing all hope and sulking.

San sighed in frustration and grabbed Yeosang by the arm, dragging him through the ocean by his arm, inching closer to the surface.

Breaking through the water surface, San and Yeosang settled near a cluster of rocks, the wind whistling and mixing with the ocean sunlight.

Human littered the shore, some walking their dogs and others just sitting on the sand. Yeosang's eyes searched for yours but in a crowd filled with strange limbs, he never saw yours.

"(Y/n)'s not here" he sighed and dived back into the ocean, San following.

As Seonghwa dragged you through town, you found yourself cowering under the gaze of all the individuals you thought you had left behind. The stares and the whispers, isolating you from the world just as they had before.

Seonghwa didn't stop until he had reached your room and pushed you inside of it.

"You're going to stay here until I deem it safe for you to go out again. What do you think mother and father would've thought if they saw you now, huh?" He demanded and you hung your head in shame.

The sound of Seonghwa exiting the room and locking the door echoed through the drab grey walls as you sat on the single bed with white bedsheets wallowing away in your self-pity and loneliness as you had in the past.

Days passed and you found yourself teetering on the edge of insanity, with nothing but the grey walls staring back at you.

Trying your luck for the fourth time today, you banged your hand against the door as the sound of footsteps shuffled closer.

"Seonghwa...please...just please let me out. I'm going to crazy in here," you cried and banged on the door one last time before your brother's face appeared in front of you.

"(Y/n)," he sighed and pushed a plate of food into your hands before closing the door again.

Only this time, you jammed your foot in between, preventing your elder brother from closing the door.

"What-" he started but wasn't able to finish as you thrust the plate of food into his hand, shoving him aside and running towards the front door and throwing yourself to the wind.

Seonghwa watched with frustration in his eyes as you ran, barefoot through the town.

This time, he'd have to let you go, his little sister.

Yeosang yelped with peaking curiosity and a racing heart as he saw a human sitting on the same cluster of rocks he had first seen you on. Said human was bleeding from their toes, scrubbing at them with saltwater furiously.

The merman found himself thinking about you again as he inched closer, hoping it was you.

Ripples formed in the water under you, causing you to look up and squint into the distance. A familiar blue tail diving into the distance caught your attention as you hurried to your feet, diving into the ocean again, trying your best to follow the tail.

The gashes on your feet stung with the salt being rubbed in the wounds but you wanted to catch the blue tail. Your lungs burned, the lack of oxygen reaching your head, making you dizzy.

Before you knew it, a hand reached to grab your ankle, pulling you close and into their chest. You opened your eyes, eyeball stinging as you saw Yeosang in front of you, his platinum blond hair sticking up in the water.

You opened your mouth in shock, a rush of bubbles leaving your mouth as Yeosang drew you close and pressed his lips to yours.

There was a sense of urgency in the kiss, desperation that you had never felt as he moulded his lips against yours, air entering your system, flooding it to life.

You pushed yourself away from him, feet kicking as you tried to reach the surface, clawing at our throat to rid the closing feeling.

Yeosang rubbed at your arms in an indication to calm down.

"(Y/n), just calm down and take deep breaths," he said and but you shook your head and continued to struggle, pulling away from him with thrashing arms.

He was trying to kill you.

"Just please, let me go. I'll find a way to go back to the island you had held me on, I don't want to die like this," you said and breathed in only for Yeosang to chuckle and stroke your cheek.

He found you so impossibly endearing that his brother's words felt like some sort of blur in his mind.

"You can breathe fine," he said and let you go, only for you to freeze up and take another breath just to make sure you weren't dreaming.

Your throat opened up and found yourself taking deeper inhales just to put Yeosang's theory to test.

"Holy shit," you whispered as you stared at the blue-tailed boy in front of you.

"How did you...what did you?" Your lack of words made Yeosang smile as he swam towards you slowly, pulling you by the arm and leading you deeper into the water,

The water shimmered under the sunlight that reached the surface as the bottom morphed into an inky blue. Fish of different colours swam by you as they tickled your skin, giggles escaping you at the sensation.

Yeosang stayed quiet as he watched you marvel at everything his world could offer.

If only he was a human or you were a mermaid, maybe he would have an actual chance at winning your heart. This thought made Yeosang frown as his heart dropped to his stomach. His sensitive scales bristled against the water due to his sudden mood change and you felt the water around you get colder.

"Are you okay, fish-man?" You asked and drew your eyebrows in with concern.

Yeosang shook his head and scoffed lightly, trying his best to change his mood and divert your attention to another topic.

"My name isn't fish-man. It's Yeosang, I've already mentioned it to you before."

There was a tone of annoyance in his voice and you couldn't help but give him a playful smile which he happily returned.

Swimming further, Yeosang led you back to the small island where you had first woken up.

Hosting yourself up onto the rocks, you looked around at the drab atmosphere and inhaled, feeling good to have some oxygen in you.

"Isn't there any vegetation here?" You asked and Yeosang just tilted his head in confusion.

"This is the only part that's connected to the water. You can try and find a way out but I won't be able to help you," he said and brought the tip of his fins out of the tail, flicking some water at you.

"Oh, alright," you said, slightly disheartened at the reminder that Yeosang wasn't human like you.

Yeosang must have seen the drop of your expression as he quickly swam up to you and hoisted himself up so that he was at the same level as you.

"You'll never be alone, though," he said and pushed some of your wet hair out of your face.

"You're still a stranger to me," you whispered back and he smiled.

"You're not one to me and I'll try my best to not be one to you either. Although now that I've saved your life twice, I would say we're past the stranger phase."

You gave a dry laugh and squeezed some of the water out of your clothes causing the seaweed wrapped sea glass fragments to fall out.

You reached up to tuck it back into your clothes when Yeosang's hand grabbed it first.

"You...you found this?" He asked and you nodded, slightly scared he was going to accuse you fo stealing something precious.

"What is it?" You asked, voice pitchy as you tried to hide your growing panic.

"My tears," he said and you found all panic fade as sadness replaced it instead.

Silence lingered in the air as you stared at the translucent blue glass pieces.

"I'm sorry," you whispered and he just shook his head.

"It's alright, I left them with you for a reason. I just didn't think you would find them, let alone keep them," he finished and pushed himself back into the water.

"They're very tragically beautiful," you said and laid them out in front of you. They had faded in colour a little but they still no doubt resembled Yeosang's blue tail.

"My brothers just don't understand my fondness for you," he sighed and pushed himself below the water before raising his eyes to meet you again.

You pushed your legs forward, just enough to dip your toes into the water.

Yeosang swam around in circles before stopping in front of you.

"Hey, (Y/n)," he said and cocked his head like a little puppy asking for a treat.

You hummed in response, completely ignoring the fact that he knew your name even though you never told him.

"Who's that human that always makes you sad? He was there when I saw you jump from the cliff."

The question made you stiffen and stare at your toes as they dipped in and out of the water.

"His name's Seonghwa...he's my elder brother," you said and Yeosang just nodded, oddly watching your legs.

"I don't like him," he concluded like a small child and you laughed, tilting your head back and Yeosang swore it was the prettiest sound that had ever graced his ears.

"I don't either," you said and rested your chin on your folded elbows that were rested on top of your knees.

"I can sacrifice him to the sirens, if you want," Yeosang suggested and you laughed again.

"That's so romantic," you said and smiled at the way Yeosang's face lit up.

"Anything for you," he said and your heart soared at the declaration. This half fish-man wore his heart on his sleeve and it seemed as if it was for you.

"Thank you, that'd be nice."

Silence once again engulfed the atmosphere as you watched Yeosang play with the water. It was comforting to hear the water drip from the jagged edges of the rock.

"Hey, (Y/n)," he asked once again and you raised your head.

"Yeah?"

"What are those strange things attached to your lower body?" He asked with a certain childlike innocence that made you want to coo and stroke his hair.

"You mean..." you sniggered and pulled your legs closer.

"My legs?" Your lips curled up into a smile as you broke out into the heartiest laughter that ever racked your body.

"Oh, they're called legs. What about those small fingers?" He said and touched one of your toes, swimming back slightly when you wiggled them in his face.

"They're called toes," you said and watched in inhumane curiosity as Yeosang inspected them, only to bring his face close and sniff them.

"What are you- no! You're not supposed to put them in your mouth! Yeosang, stop!"

The waves crashed onto the shore as you peeked down at the sea with a smile on your face.

The sun was bright above your head as the cool wind blew through your hair, making you close your eyes and reminisce in the feeling.

"(Y/n)," you heard a voice call and you giggled at the smooth tone of the voice that was calling your name.

"Are you ready?" Yeosang called and you smiled, crossing your arms over your chest and jumping into the water below, squealing due to the pure delight.

Landing in the water with a gush of bubbles, Yeosang wrapped you in his arms, pulling you close for a kiss as he gifted you with the ability to breathe underwater.

"Let's go," he said and you nodded, letting yourself be pulled by Yeosang as you watched his blue scales twinkle in the ocean and his tail flicker seamlessly along with the current.

You were finally free.

[mementomori-demimonde]

Hidden Scars

I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X

Chapter 11.2

YOU CHOOSE TO GO OUT

Dumbstruck, you’re staring down at your foot. You swallow, breathe in the cool water coming from the corridor of the building, and even if you’re aware it’s just an illusion, it’s fresher, thrilling, carries a faint smell you can’t discern but love and crave immensely.

Before your body can even make peace with your mind, you’re out of the apartment for the first time in months.

There have been nights - and days too - when you’ve imagined this moment, played and played the scene again, in a loop, but right now, unlike all those times, you’re not running away. This time, you’re not getting out of a prison, you’re not fleeting a cruel woman who kidnapped you and tortured you.

This time, you’re chasing after her.

Cursing at the taken elevator going down, you rush down the stairs. On your tongue, ready to be unleashed, the plea for Miranda to forget, or forgive you, to pretend that those words had never left your mouth and, most of all, to come back.

You’re already panting when you get out of the building.

It’s not an over-crowded street, people barely notice you as you spin and narrow your eyes to spot the familiar black coat or her hair somewhere.

It’s your city, and yet you don’t recognize where you are, there are cars and noises that you remember but seem so loud now that they reach your ears after months - everything is bright and full of smells and sounds and strangers and there is Miranda’s voice in your head saying that the outside is dangerous and you’re not safe there-- Miranda, who now you can see as she walks down the street, dodging people and pushing others aside rather harshly.

Suddenly there’s only her in the crowd, and your feet start to move on their own volition toward her, something in the back of your brain convincing you that now that you’re actually outside, probably at the mercy of every peril she’s tried to prepare in all that time, you have to be by her side because it’s the only safe place there is.

You gasp silently, noticing the indifference of the people passing by you, carrying on with their lives, keeping on shouting into their phones, too busy to care about anything. Really, did no one look for you? You didn’t expect some mass research all over the country like they would have done with a missing kid, you didn’t expect your face to appear on the back of a cereal box on the milk bottle, but you can’t deny that the fact that no one is even throwing a glance at you - a person that has disappeared for weeks and more - and possibly recognizing someone in distress doesn’t hurt a bit. But that’s another story; you don’t even care that much.

You’re glad she’s not running - probably that would’ve drawn too much attention - but after rushing down the stairs you’re out of breath anyway and when you finally reach out to touch her shoulder, you yelp when she spins abruptly, hitting your arm with her hand, pushing you back.

You probably should’ve known better than to approach her like that, but you just didn’t think about that.

Her eyes seem even brighter in the natural light and, for a moment, you wonder if she’s more surprised or scared to see you there, with her, in the streets, vulnerable and exposed.

In a second, her expression shifts. You almost believed she was concerned about your safeness, but now she’s just angry, positively furious.

“What the fuck was that?” She barks, brow pinched, jaw clenched.

You immediately know what she’s talking about. If you could, you would push back time and undo everything. If you could, you would slap yourself and make it go away. You can’t, and you only wish you can make things right again: whatever it was, it was broken, unhealthy, unpredictable, but it was also right because it was something; whatever it was, you want it back, as absurd as it sounds.

“It slipped.” You murmur, blinking rapidly when you actually feel someone’s gaze dropping on the two of you. “I- it was a mistake.”

“You know the conditions.” Miranda snarls back, yer voice is sharp like a razor, her word even more stinging. “I fucking kidnapped you! I tortured you and exploited you and treated you horrendously- you can’t possibly love me!”

Your breath hitches at the thought of her shouting so openly, of people listening to what she’s saying and still they don’t care. Some look at you, glare, some others ever roll their eyes. Are you giving a show? What if you’re drawing some unwanted attention?

“Yes, but-” You swallow thickly, a hiccup erupting from your dry throat as you wince. “You did all of that- but you kissed me as well.”

“Christ!” She barks, carding a hand angrily through her hair.

Now you’re positive you’re giving a show. Those who are looking are even throwing judging glances, and you wonder if they’re going to call the police, at some point, and then it’ll be a real mess because Miranda didn’t even want to go to a hospital when she’d been shot, so having something to do with the police must really be out of the question - which is reasonable since she’s a bloody assassin or something like that. Why aren’t you going back to the building? Why is everyone fucking staring? Are they blind or are you invisible when they bump into you without a care in the world? And why is the sun so bright today and why is the air so stuffy even if you’re outside? What if the evil people Miranda has been trying to warn you about are lurking somewhere ready to snatch the both of you? After all, she said this isn’t safe.

Miranda’s face becomes blurry when you try to breathe and nothing happens. You feel like choking and thousands of white dots start to appear in front of your eyes. Your stomach constricts painfully and a faint sense of nausea overwhelms you. You try to speak, but only broken moans and pitiful whimpers come out of your mouth.

Before you can even register what’s happening to you and around you, you’re pulled into a nearby alley, the chaos of the streets suddenly distant, almost forgotten, while the brightness of the sunbeams gets replaced by a welcoming shadow of the narrow space between the two buildings.

You’re pressed to the brick wall behind you, Miranda pushing her own body against yours as if to keep you upright, hips against hips, one hand cupping your cheek firmly, the other grasping at your wrist and pressing your palm and fingers to the wall.

“Breathe, you’re alright.” She says calmly, and her familiar face slowly emerges from the cloudiness before your eyes. “Feel how the wall is rough under your fingertips.” She murmurs, rubbing on the back of your hand while you ground yourself to what your pads are touching. “Listen to my voice: you’re fine.”

Her blue eyes are the most welcome sight. You blink again, letting the tears fall freely on your cheeks, and she catches some of them with her thumb, wiping the moisture away. In Miranda’s eyes, you can see flashes of guilt, sorrow, anger, fright, dread - her face, on the other hand, is unreadable.

You swallow, wincing as you feel the waves of nausea ebbing away, and when you try to breathe again, it’s easier, this time.

“You care.” You murmur softly, not really trusting your voice. “You care too, I know you do.” Miranda sighs loudly, dropping her head forward, a cascade of brown hair falling like a curtain in front of her face, keeping her from your gaze. “You don’t have to do this- you don’t have to run.”

“It is not just about me.” She breathes out, talking slowly as if to make sure you’re listening, that you pay attention. “Caring makes you vulnerable- it makes me vulnerable, turning the both of us into easy targets.”

“That’s what you think!” You rebuke, your voice urgent. “We were doing fine until I-” Your breath hitches, you shake your head. “Really, I take it back. Let’s pretend it never happened. Let’s go back inside, please?”

You bite hard the inside of your cheek when she lifts her chin and her intense gaze sets into yours. She’s so deliciously close that you can see yourself inside her eyes, dangerous and full of sorrow and something similar to fear.

“You can’t take it back.” She chuckles, and her smile is bittersweet, and yet sincere. “You made us vulnerable.” Miranda repeats, and you feel the pangs of guilt grabbing your stomach.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“You made us vulnerable because you’re unpredictable and annoying and so stubborn and… despite everything you managed to see good in all this.” She breathes against your lips and you bask in her familiar scent, swallow when you feel her fingers ghosting over your hand, the other wandering sweetly on your neck. Miranda is biting her bottom lip nervously now. She shakes her head, her eyes incredibly misty. “I can keep pretending that you’re nothing for as long as I want, but-”

“Hello, Miranda.”

It takes you a while to register the foreign male voice coming from a corner in the alley. You claw at the wall behind you when you feel Miranda pulls away from you, and you can distinctively see her reaching inside the pocket of her coat, but she doesn’t pull out her knife: she’s looking at that man, gaze locked to the gun he’s wielding, arm outstretched in her direction.

“Hello Victor.” She snarls, a tight smirk tugging a corner of her mouth.

You don’t recognize the man, but Miranda clearly knows him, for whatever reason. It scares you. It confuses you immensely, a swirl of thoughts and possibilities flooding your brain, only enhancing your fear when you spot a couple of other men emerging from other corners, all holding guns.

You’d call Miranda, warn her about the other two just in case she hasn’t noticed already, but you’re practically paralyzed, unable to tear your eyes off of her, off of that man, off of their exchange.

“I was wondering where you were.” Victor - that’s how she called him - says, and there’s a mocking tone in his voice, to which Miranda remains impassible.

“You found me.” She simply replies.

The man pushes his glasses from the tip of his nose, sniffling hard. He grins, and there’s something diabolically wicked behind it, you can feel it.

“How’s the wound?” He inquires like it’s nothing. “Amazing technology, isn’t it? One little bullet that releases a hormone in your blood. You isolated your spot pretty well-” He’s tutting disapprovingly now, waving his gun slightly, but not enough to lose the target. “Big mistake coming outside. We were tracing the signals already of course, but five minutes ago we got a peak on our monitors and, well, here we are.”

In a flash, the memory of her coming back weak and bloody rushes to your mind, along with the dread of her pain, the fear of her getting sicker and sicker without any way to help her. Actually, it’s a fond memory because once the danger had passed, Miranda asked you things, you told her you wouldn’t have left her, and then… she kissed you for the first time.

“I guess I’ll have to thank that one for this?” Victor is looking directly at you, now. You feel your throat constricting, your heart thumping furiously.

You lock your eyes on the man, wince at his calm stare, and then the sight is blocked when Miranda steps in between, hands open by her sides, not exactly in a surrendering position, but showing that she has no second intentions.

“Leave her out of this, she’s no one.”

You frown, almost unable to recognize Miranda’s voice.

Victor chuckles.

“Ah, of course.” He mumbles ironically. You hear the click of a safe being unlocked. “So you don’t mind if one of us shoots 'no one' between her eyes.”

Swallowing nothing, you catch one of the other men pointing their gun directly at you. He’s a few feet away, too close to miss the shot, too distant to do anything to disarm him: you might have a chance to free yourself from someone grabbing you - Miranda has trained you for that - but you have no chance in dodging a bullet. There’s nothing you can do but stay still, listening to the accelerated beats of your heart thrumming in your ears.

There’s only silence, no one is talking. For a moment, you really think that this is the way you’re going to die: in an alley, bleeding on the dirty cement, like a common criminal that you aren’t. You start to count in your head, a sick game for you to know how many seconds have passed before you leave this world forever- but suddenly everything returns to move, the stillness thawing out when Victor drops his arm, waving his gun like it’s just an appendix of his hand.

“I’m tired of playing.” He sighs theatrically. “In the van, now, ladies first.”

You spot the black van parked in the alley when another man jumps down the driver's seat and slides the back door open for you.

You open your mouth to speak, but no sound comes from it. There are so many questions, so very little time.

Miranda spins on her heels, she looks at you dead in the eyes but doesn’t attempt to move, not even when one of the two men walks up to her with a confident stride.

“Do as they say.” She murmurs; or she pleads, you don’t really know.

You hear yourself scream something intelligible when the man hits her in the back of her head with the gun.

You try to reach out for her, when Miranda falls unconsciously to the ground, but the other man has you pinned in a second.

You’re lifted up before you can do anything else, your world turning dark and muffled when the hood is slipped onto your head.

[historic-old-guard-lover]

The emperor has to be god-king Andy. Also like since nicky and Joe obv have to have the lovers why not have andy and quyhn kissing as the empress.

Another related ask (potentially by the same person):

Also since the fool is a journey's beginning I'd almost want to pick Nile for it. As well there are four characters who commonly have swords (or an axe but close enough) and cards have four corners. So one sword each corner, nicky, joe, andy, and quyhn.

So. Someone has good ideas. Here’s the post that prompted these asks. This made me pull out my tarot deck and go through the cards. Below the cut is a break down of the entire tarot deck. There will be an explanation of the (standard) interpretation of the cards, good then less good, and then my associated headcannon (or more than one if I couldn’t decide). The source is my experience with tarot. I’m trying to minimize repeats, but historic and modern Old Guard members are counted separately. Enjoy.

The Major Arcana (aka the cards most people have heard about)

0. The Fool - the seeker. Naivety. Courage. Living in the moment. Journey’s beginning. All paths available. Folly. Apathy.

Nile. Anon convinced me. Though Booker has got the folly, apathy, and madness down, Nile is ultimately the beginning. She’s naïve but headstrong, and quite frankly a perfect match.

I. The Magician - the trickster. Power, skill, talent. Mastery, self-control, willpower. Subtlety. Divine connection and inspiration. Self-reliant.

Modern Nicky. Definitely Nicky. Just. He’s a formerly very religious man who just says these things. Also sniper.

II. The High Priestess - the moon goddess. Intuition, wisdom, foresight, divination, prophecy. Enlightenment, understanding, intelligence, education. Pride, emotional instability, unforgiving.

Historic Quynh. Her name means “night-blooming flower”, which is very moon goddess vibes to me. Also, I’d say over 500 years in a box turns understanding and enlightenment into emotional instability and unforgiveness.

III. The Empress - the queen. Feminine power, matriarch, mother. Fertility, pleasure, beauty. Success, evolution, movement. Marriage, wealth. Overattachment, domestic upheaval, delay.

Quynh. The counterpart to Andy’s emperor card.

Nile. Let’s be honest, she’s going to take over from Andy some day.

IV. The Emperor - the king. Masculine power, patriarch, father. Authority, leadership, proficiency. Wealth, stability, effectiveness. Perseverance, logic, endurance, experience. Lack of ability, weak character, immature, rebellious.

Modern Andy. She is the leader who’s short-comings effect her entire team. And who doesn’t love a little gender bending? (and her film look is already soft butch)

V. The Hierophant - the religious leader. Tradition, convention, ritual symbolism. Ceremony, religion, morality, philosophy. Mercy, goodness, forgiveness, humility, vulnerability, Impotence, Religious tyranny.

Historic Nicky. I mean, former priest (enough said).

Historic Andy. “I was once worshipped as a god” (enough said).

VI. The Lovers - the lovers. Love, attraction. Compatibility, harmony, choice.  Triumph over trials, vacillation. Entanglement, enmeshment. Infidelity, moral lapse, vice, separation, quarrels, inadequacy, failing tests.

Andromaquynh. *peeks out from behind barricade* I know that most people would just put Kaysanova as this card, but look at all the negatives it is associated with. Sounds a lot more like our immortal wives can really cover the gamut. They have the range....I am a sucker for Kaysanova, though. Even though the beginning of their relationship is rocky, I’d like to think it’s been fairly constant over the years. But let’s reverse the uhaul lesbians and fickle gay men tropes! Sorry, Book of Nile fans. That ship just isn’t established enough for this, I’d say. Maybe one day?

VII. The Chariot - the journey. Ordeal, obstacles, competition. High stakes, ambition, discipline. Conquest, victory, greatness. Right action prevails, overwhelming odds, sudden defeat.

Merrick and/or Dr. Kozak. I mean, this is literally their characters in a nutshell. Merrick is the journey/ordeal for the old guard. He is driven by his ambition, thinks he’s won over impossible odds, and then has a sudden defeat.

VIII. Justice - the balance. Equilibrium, equality, symmetry, harmony. Integrity, honor, fairness, neutrality, moderation. Vindication, self-righteousness, bigotry, prejudice, favoritism.

Nile. This is the woman with a sword card. She brings a balance to the team, she clearly moderates conflict, and I’d love to see BLM art of her in this style. Just sayin.

IX. The Hermit - the seeker-sage. Wisdom, inspiration, contemplation, discretion, understanding. Safety, protection, spiritual quest. Seeking truth and justice. Self-denial, timidity, fear.

Historic Joe. The idealized warrior poet? Definitely just a form of the hermit. Helps explain why a Magrebhi trader/artist fought at the Siege of Jerusalem: spiritual quest. I also like the idea of Joe having a secret reserved side.

X. The Wheel of Fortune - cycles of life. Destiney, evolution and progress, advancement. Manifestation, unexpected events. Success, sudden luck. Ups and downs.

Modern Quynh. There is nothing that better encapsulates her storyline than the wheel of fortune. One day you’re roaming the world with your immortal wife. The next, you’re drowning for over 500 years. The next you’re in Booker’s shitty Paris apartment.

XI. Strength - fortitude. Resilience, courage, resolve, confidence. Integrity, moral victory, endurance. Energy, action, vitality. Power, force, violence. Abuse of power, disgrace, impotence.

Lykon. Do I love this character beyong measure and reason? Maybe so. We have so little to go on about him, however, that the only things we do know bely his strengths. Also, he becomes ultimately the weakest when he dies and encapsulates both “extremes” of the card.

XII. The Hanged Man - the tested. Delay, sacrifice, abandonment, rejection. Betrayal. Reversals, restrained or bound, limbo, trials. Falseness.

Booker. If the fact that his first death was by hanging didn’t convince you? Read that description again. His character arc is literally working through being the hanged man.

XIII. Death - the loss or parting. Alteration, transformation, transition. Boredom, depression, stagnation, failure or disaster. Bereavement, recovery, immobility.

Lykon. He literally represents the fear of death to the remaining immortals. It is HE that they invoke when they discuss it. Also, I’m still mourning my favorite underdeveloped character.

XIV. Temperance - the moderation. Self-control, economy, patience, coordination. Consolidation, harmony, friendship, recuperation. Unfulfilled desires, discord, stubbornness, hostility, clashing of interests. Time, seasons, and climate.

A Safehouse. I don’t think any of the people really capture the tempered essence of this card, the constancy throughout all seasons of life. An actual physical building that rises and falls with (regular) humanity, though, seems to do the trick.

XV. The Devil - the arcane. Magic, strange occurrences, prophecy, fate. Catastrophe, downfall, negative attitude, Temptations, sins, obsessions. Enslavement, bondage, misplaced loyalty, violence, fatality.

Honestly? I’m so torn. I feel like a major commentary of the movie is that our demons are the way people react more so than the people themselves. Maybe the armored van?

XVI. The Tower - the House of God. Disruption, expulsion from an earthly paradise, divine wrath. Punishment (of pride), loss, destructive rivalry, plans ruined. Need to start again, bankruptcy.

The Iron Coffin. While this doesn’t capture the religious undertones quite right, the coffin is the Tower for Andromaquynh, It is (divine? or very human?) wrath brought on by pride since the two probably thought that they would be fine. It is loss and painful new beginnings.

XVII. The Star - the bright promise. Hope, faith, light of the spirit. Recovery, symbols of immortality. Gifts, good prospects, new dawn, frustrated expectations.

Nile. The new immortal, enough said.

Historic Andy/Lykon. In a way, the first immortal would also be a great choice of representation.

XVIII, The Moon - the hidden forces. Twilight, illusion, deception, trickery. Dishonesty, danger, uncertainty, terror. Developments, particularly somewhat concealed. Errors, powerful feelings.

Copley. I know, I know. “He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness” and all that jazz. But look at this card’s interpretation and notice it’s pretty negative. Copley’s entire role is to pull the strings behind the scenes. He makes headway on problems in secrets, he lies and deceives everyone in the film at some point.

XIX. The Sun - the work’s rewards. Daylight, co-creation, union “of male and female”. Peace, joy, pleasure, love, contentment. Accomplishment, achievement, success. 

Joe. Not only is he the sun, he also fits this card perfectly. He is creation and happiness. Enough said.

XX Judgement - the rebirth. Judgement, sentence. Rejuvenation, renewal, resurrection, call to the new from the old, rehabilitation. Creation, promotion.

Historic Booker. I feel like his backstory with his family helped highlight the theme of rebirth for the Old Guard. They must be willing to give up what they have left behind to move forward. Also, there’s the more literal play as well since Booker was a conscripted criminal.

XXI The World - the long journey. Perfection, completion, conclusion. Power through intelligence and wisdom. The universe and the material world.

A group photo, of course! Beyond that? Who knows.

Historic Andy? She’s seen so much of it. Like just her eyes portray the history of the world.

The Minor Arcana (aka the rest of the cards)

Since most people are only familiar with the major arcana,  I’ll just briefly explain it. The minor arcana are actually the majority of a tarot deck. There are four suits associated with the four elements. Each suit has ten number cards and four court/face cards (traditionally modelled either based on one person or different interpretations of similar costuming). Each number or face has its own meaning, each suit has its own meaning, and their combination mostly explains what the card should be interpreted as. Quite frankly, the minor arcana are vastly underrated in popular understandings of tarot.

Suit of Wands - fire. Spontaneity, action, passion, adrenaline, life force, stroke of genius.

Guns? It’d be a bit of a niche take, but I associate guns with fires.

Staffs? More traditional in shape.

Suit of Coins - earth. Solid growth, material interests, possessions, profit, business, labor, slow and considerate.

Historic currency. Enough said.

Suit of Cups - water. Heartfelt involvements, imagination, spirituality, love, friendship, family.

Fountains around the world. Enough said.

Suit of Swords - air. Worry, trouble, boundaries, objectivity, the power of truth.

Obviously, their weapons of choice. I would go into more detail about who best represents each number, but I don’t want to bore you.

Court of Kings - mature men. Leaders, authority, status-quo, taking responsibility.

Again, most tarot is very gendered. But members in tuxes?

Court of Queens - mature women. Reflective and active, concerned with security/foundations, supportive, focused.

Members in dresses/gowns/anything that glitters?

Court of Knights/Cavaliers - young men. Dynamic, adventurous, intensive, revolutionary.

Tactical gear. Or historical armor. But it’s easier to do tactical gear right than accidentally draw a 15th century helmet on a 14th century suit of armor.

Court of Knaves/Pages - younger women, teenagers, and children. Students, apprentices, trainees, messengers, new opportunities.

Casual clothes.

[x3no9]

N7 Month Day 12-Knife

Tricky choice as usual! I chose my AU Cyberbunk/ ME crossover fic "Outlaws" because a knife comes up a few times.

It is long-winded and features some ridiculous things. I didn't hold back to be honest. Cyborgs, vampires, time travel, and more.

MATURE READERS ONLY

[spirit-of-the-void]

Ebony and Ivory (V x Reader Fanfic) Chapter 38

Author’s notes: Just gonna say now, this chapter has a lot of blood, violence, and a written death scene. If you cannot handle those things, maybe refrain from reading this one.

Chapter 38

(Vergil POV)

When the woman in red lowered her hood, Vergil felt his heart stutter and pause for a brief, horrifying moment of clarity.

To see you both standing there and mirroring each other’s faces, you frozen with wide eyes and a face growing paler and paler...Vergil felt his own thoughts come to a screeching halt. There was no way, that is impossible--There is no way that the woman he fornicated with all those years ago, Nero’s god damn mother, was you. This had to be a trick, right? A cruel joke played by the Outsider, a means to unnerve and unsettle him so he would lose this final trial. There was no other explanation, there was no other way.

But...deep down, he knew that he was wrong, that the denial his brain was trying to put forth was only a means to protect him from the truth. Because it was growing with each passing breath, that familiarity, that recognition. Like fog lifting from a town long plunged in thick mist, static clearing from an old television set. He knew you--he always had, even when he was V his mind subconsciously recognized your face.

No. No.

V was shaking inside of Vergil’s head, filling with that same denial and shock--unable to comprehend what they both were witnessing. There was no denying this version of you from the past was not like the one he had just went through those trials with--there was an air about her that felt new, naive, young. Hesitant. Staring at the younger Vergil with gentle eyes and a pause in her steps. Fresh as a daisy, a bright force that had seemingly entered his life on determination and kindness alone and...and...why was it so hard to remember? Why had he forgotten in the first place? It didn’t make sense, his brain was scrambling to find understanding when there was none, to find footing on ground that was tilting and swaying underneath him. The Outsider had been right--the reality of this was far more jarring than even he could be prepared for, bringing forth so many emotions he felt ready to go screaming into the Void just at that moment.

And your reaction was far worse.

Vergil was frozen, unable to move and help when you started trembling like an earthquake, mouth opening in a silent scream and eyes rolling back in your head in a swirl of inky blackness. Your body bowed back like you had snapped, knees crumpling in your free fall as you finally broke eye contact with the oblivious version of you. So many things flashed across your expression before you broke--shock, confusion, fear, horror...so much horror. Vergil felt too numb, too shocked himself to even try to move and catch you, eyes tilting slowly to the side and breaths wheezing out of his lungs as he watched you collapse in slow motion. He half expected you to hit the ground in a crumpled heap, mind unable to comprehend what it had seen and reacting in kind, but...as with most things, he was wrong.

The Outsider appeared as soon as you fell, catching your limp body with steadfast arms and kneeling down with you cradled against his chest. Vergil stared at him with wide eyes, the image of Fortuna pausing like a film the black-eyed bastard was playing for you both. That look on the God’s face was...shocking, to say the least, more emotion than Vergil had seen from him. He stared at you with pain, deep regret as he put a hand over your eyes and made your tremors subside in an instant. You went completely limp, eyes closed and pallor like a corpse in his arms. There was no doubt there in those black eyes of his, no shock or disbelief--he knew this would happen, didn’t he? All along, the black-eyed bastard was afraid of this outcome, trying to warn you when the time had come but unable to deny your wills and wants. 

And like fools, neither of you had listened.

Vergil was shaking as well, breath rasping out like razors in his lungs as he looked between you and her with horrified eyes, still unable to understand just how this all had happened in the first place, how it was possible. How? And why? Why was all this happening, why had the Outsider allowed all of this in the first place if he was an all-seeing God? It made no sense, the pieces of a puzzle laid out with nothing holding them together. Jagged, aching to be  combined and willing to slice at a few fingers along the way--like trying to reassemble a broken mirror.

The dark-gazed man seemed to sense what Vergil was thinking, half tilting his eyes in the Sparda’s direction and a slow breath leaving those cold-looking lips. Vergil thought he saw a flicker of hatred in his eyes, but it was hard to tell when staring into something that looked like the abyss.

“...I had feared she would break again,” The Outsider finally whispered, settling back on his knees and stroking a gentle hand through your hair. Like you were a child, one who had just been plunged into a nightmare beyond your comprehension, “She has grown so strong in these passing years, I had hoped...that maybe my efforts had erased any chance of this ever happening like before. But alas...where she is concerned, I can never truly see the specifics.”

Again? Like before?

Vergil felt like his throat was sealed shut, no words able to come out to even begin scraping the surface of what he was feeling. The numb feeling was spreading, his hands like ice and eyes feeling like they were on fire. 

The Outsider didn’t seem to mind his silence. Merely staring at you, those black eyes dark and unreadable as he held your now-unconscious face and gently stroked your cheek, “I should have known better. I could see all and everything, but I had never had anything close to her before--she is too similar to what I am, a blindspot in my vision that I couldn’t predict.”

He slowly rose to his feet, holding you with ease and staring now at the other version of you, the younger one from the past. Wearing a red dress, looking so soft and unsure of yourself and frozen like a statue, waiting to be brought to life again. Vergil felt like his legs had turned to lead, hearing the God speak but still not understanding what he meant, what was implied. A blindspot? He was an omniscient being, but did his sight get muddled when it came to those in direct relation to him? A weakness, one that couldn’t be foreseen considering a creature like didn’t seem to take anyone close that often.

But...did that really matter anymore?

The Outsider raised you up in his arms, a portal opening above his head back to the cold howling of the Void. A break in the illusion. Vergil’s first instinct was to run, to grab you and bolt from all of this in an attempt to save you both from the absolute agony this trial was to bring, but...His legs wouldn’t move. It was too much, he was weighed down by the reality and there would be no running this time.

He was forced to watch in mute horror as black, crystalline hands came down from the portal, gently wrapping around your body and lifting you up and out of sight. They held you like glass, ready to shatter apart at the slightest rough movement. The portal closed once you were gone, leaving Vergil achingly alone and panicking inside, dread filling every ounce of his being and making bile threaten its way into his throat.

No--No! V whimpered in his head, tone raw and breaking in desperation and fear, Please don’t take her away--please…! 

His first focus was you, as always. Even he was on par with Vergil, not understanding how this situation had come to pass but was fearing it as much as humanly possible. For once...he didn’t want to know either, connecting the dots much faster than the silver haired male. He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t think it--He couldn’t say that you were Nero’s mother, not yet. There was still too much missing, too much uncertainty.

Because if he admitted it...he would have to admit that something terrible must have happened to you.

“Still in denial, I see,” The Outsider observed once you were gone, like he could hear the very thought process going through Vergil’s battered mind. The god half turned, leveling a hard gaze on him that was colder than anything he had seen, as cold as the Void itself, “You should know better than anyone how actions have consequences, you who are driven by your own cowardice.”

Cowardice? No...no that’s not it, I’m not a coward. I…

The Outsider turned back to the past you, walking a slow circle around her and staring with a much softer expression. Vergil was still left on his knees, rooted to the spot and watching as the god placed a hand on her shoulder...your shoulder. 

“This was her first mission,” He spoke in a low murmur, one that still managed to be loud enough to reach Vergil’s ears. With a snap of his fingers, the image of Fortuna started to warp, shifting around the half-demon and your form until it was a back alley, one crawling with demons that resembled ragdolls, “Y/N was fresh out of the Void, still...uncertain. Unstable. I had done my best to build her up from how she was upon waking, but...I had hoped finding her strength and having some time in the sun would be far better than the Void.”

Watching and listening was all Vergil could do, eyes glued to your form as it peeked around a corner, observing as his younger self attacking the abhorrent creatures with the precise cuts of a blade. They fell, one by one, weak and flimsy in comparison to other foes he had gone up against. As the images played out, the memory would return to Vergil in that same instance, making him feel sick to his stomach as he remembered exactly what was going through his own head at the time. Why is this woman still following me? She lacks the tact and skill to ghost someone even remotely well, how pathetic. He had ignored it for the most part, but sensing her there watching as he fought was oddly aggravating. No...sensing you there--his mind was trying to disconnect your younger self from you as a whole, but…

He jolted when several demons descended from the rooftops, meaning to ambush his past self with a flurry of blades and attacks. Easily handed, of course, but you still reacted. Vergil watched as you gasped, sending tendrils out like whips and impaling the demons before could even reach the younger Sparda. Protecting him on instinct, eyes wide and shocked at your own ability as the demons disintegrated into thin air. He had blinked, gaze snapping up then back to you now that your form had stepped out of the shadows, looking vulnerable and uncertain. So unlike the one he knew now, the one who had shot across the beach in confidence and laid waste to dozens of demons. 

He remembered being intrigued, not feeling an energy like yours before. Not a human, that was for certain, but not demon either. Vergil had always admired strength, and the mystery that came with you had made him give pause, feeling a pull to you that had never gotten under his skin before. This was his first interaction with the lady in red, the older Vergil remembered now. You had told him your own interest in the Order of the Sword, about that determination to discover their motives and stop what they were doing before it disrupted the state of things beyond repair. And he...he had his own reasons for being there, and had no intentions of allying himself with anyone for the sake of anything. But…

Something about you made him hesitate. 

“F...forgive me for being presumptuous, but...maybe working together would be in our best interest?” You sounded so hesitant, so shaky--like you were talking to a lion ready to pounce and devour you. Even then, your brain could pick up on what kind of person he was...trying to warn you of his lack of empathy.

He had merely sheathed his Yamato, turning away with a click of his tongue and not looking you in the face. How young and stupid the younger Sparda had been, how full of himself. All Vergil had focused on then was the need for action, results, and you had not been any different at the time. He wanted to learn more about your power, where it came from and if it was exploitable for his own uses. And that meant keeping you close, even if he was reluctant to do so.

“You’re useless to me with such a lack of skill,” He had replied simply, tone flat and unimpressed. The surly man started forward once more, not waiting for you to keep up as he continued on simply, “Show me something worth keeping around, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

Vergil felt sick to his stomach, V’s despair and disgust at his own actions merging in with his disjointed thoughts.

You didn’t even ask her name. Didn’t tell her yours. 

And yet, she still followed us.

She held that patience.

But those things had been learned in time too, slowly and precise. You were informed of his name that same day, and told him yours as well. Not that he usually called you Y/N by any stretch--always something between “woman” and “girl”. How could he have been so foolish, so blind to ignore the obvious connection between you both? It had felt so peculiar then, but...he didn’t question it.

The image froze again when you let out a slow breath, determination flashing in your gaze before you quickly jogged after the Sparda to catch up. The sight of you frozen there, face still alight with interest and that naive sense of curiosity despite his surly nature...it broke him a little more, making him unable to comprehend how his mind worked back then. Always too rude, always too focused. Eyes forward on power, never looking back to see the sun trailing after him with a smile on her face.

“I didn’t foresee you,” The Outsider’s low voice snapped him out of his thoughts, making Vergil turn to see him staring after you both in regret, “I was...surprised when she took an interest to you, when I felt how your energies interacted. Contrary to what people like you thought at the time, the universe does make its choices, and it decided she was yours, and you were hers.”

Soulmates--V whispered, not sounding shocked in the slightest. Like the God’s words confirmed what he knew all along. Once upon a time he would have scoffed at such a notion, called it foolish and absurd. But...he knew better now--We had been so drawn to each other, even back then. You knew that too, but didn’t want to face it.

Vergil wanted to deny it, but...he remembered his fascination with you, like a moth drawn to a flame. Or...like a man who never knew love or warmth for so long, finally shown a basic shred of human affection and craving it like air or water.

The Outsider walked around him on the ground, footfalls echoing ominously in the alleyway like they were actually there in Fortuna, “It was then that I realized my errors, my mistakes,” His tone took on a bitter edge, dripping with loathing as he stopped his pacing in front of Vergil again, “I couldn’t see her paths, her future. But I could see yours, all of the paths that branched out once you left Fortuna and were no longer shrouded by her blindspot--I saw you depart and erect the tower, saw you fight Mundus and lose pitifully, saw the Qliphoth tree. And I saw you come back to life, living without her at all.”

We...we left her.

We left? 

But...why?

The God suddenly turned again, the landscape shifting and weaving as he spoke, changing over and over again to match the story he told. All the while Vergil sat in the center of it, watching with a numb expression and eyes that were seemingly unable to blink. With each new image came the memory in kind, rebuilding the portrait of Fortuna in his life piece by piece. And with that...came more horror, dread, apprehension. Because he knew there was no happy ending to this tale, weaved by the Outsider’s pale lips and made into being again. Like icy shackles wrapping around his heart and soul, leaving him chained down in this personal hell as the reel of his mistakes played to the end.

“I tried to whisper to her, telling her to come home,” The Outsider continued, showing an image of you sitting in front of a shrine to listen as his own past self spoke, “But...as my child, I wanted her to have free will above all things. She made the choice to stay, not wanting to run from her first mission or you.”

She was so dedicated to us, so kind. Her heart ached as much as yours did, but she--

The image changed again, showing the moments he shared with you, one by one. Training in a cove hidden behind the cliffs of Fortuna, taking a moment to rest after days of walking around the city and searching for clues. Your head unconsciously resting on his shoulder. Your gentle hands every time they lingered on his shoulders, his arms, his chest. You had been warm, like the sun, a gentle treat he never deserved or cherished as he should have. How touch starved he had been, not realizing it until you came into his life and brought those little affections back. His pride had been so full, achingly desperate to keep his ideals on track, but...he was falling for you, little by little. Touch by touch, piece by piece. He had been so ignorant to it as well, trying to write it off as anything but the truth it was.

A mistake. He knew that.

“I knew you were going to hurt her, but could do nothing,” The Outsider continued on, tone low and angry as he watched you both interact, the adoration growing in your beautiful eyes along with your confidence in your abilities, “She would not listen to my warnings, blinded by her affections and hopes. You were helping her grow, to learn herself again and remembering how to live. She was so happy in those times, how could I hope to crush it?”

No...no, V was whispering, knowing full well what was to come, knowing this would end in your ruin, Please...please don’t do this…

They couldn’t look away. They could do nothing but sit and watch everything fall to pieces. Vergil wanted to grab his old self by the collar, to step in and snarl in his face to let go of the need for power, to change his mind. Take you away from Fortuna and accept the blessing as it was offered, save himself from the pain of humiliation and defeat. To save you. He didn’t want to see the end, didn’t want to see what happened to you and the damage done. It was like a gun to his chest, waiting to go off and rip apart all that was inside of him. All his cockiness, all his pride...left shattered on the floor, left forgotten in the face of all that he was seeing. He didn’t care anymore--he didn’t care and it was too late. The damage was done.

The Outsider could sense his growing turmoil, letting out a light scoff as the image changed again, “I was unable to predict both you and her, watching your future for any changes as she grew closer to you,” He leveled his gaze on the older version of Vergil, eyes dark and cold as he hissed, “No such luck. Even when you sealed her fate in place, taking the final piece of her that wasn’t yours to take.”

The image shifted to a room in Fortuna, one that he was growing to recognize all too well. Dark, lit dimly by the moonlight from a window over his bed. You had both stopped for the night at a small Inn on the coast, one ran by a woman who didn’t mind letting outsiders stay there provided they help keep the place protected from demons. It was easy enough to take care of, and it was the one night he had actually allowed himself to fall asleep. After weeks of walking, almost months of searching and fighting...weariness was an unfortunate side effect of his human half that wasn’t avoided forever. His eyes had closed, and after becoming so close to you...sharing a bed didn’t seem all that terrible at the time.

He saw himself jolt awake in his sleep, eyes wide and glassy from a nightmare and breaths heaving from his lungs. Weakness was so very hard to hide just waking up, especially from you. That night he had dreamt of his mother, of that day at the playground when demons attacked him. Beaten within an inch of his life, curled up in a ditch hours later clutching the Yamato to his chest. The demons left him for dead, but he was able to heal enough to drag himself out, limping home to find that...home wasn’t there at all. His mother was gone, Dante was gone, and he...he was alone. Damaged beyond relief, and knowing full well that his mother was dead.

He had awakened in a cold sweat, trembling and in a state of vulnerability he avoided sleep just to stay away from. It...it had only made sense that you had woken up too, that you had reached out to him with that warmth of yours. That...that…

Vergil saw himself kiss you for the first time, saw the way you sobbed in relief and gave everything to him, every ounce of affection you had in that body. In the storm of his own pain, you had been the sun, bringing the warmth and comfort he allowed himself to crave...just for that night. A lapse, he had told himself, biting down his own instinctive self-loathing and pride, Just for tonight. I need this. I...need her.

The image faded with the sight of him pulling you under the covers, no longer needed to be witnessed now that it was a memory fresh in his mind. And it hurt. It hurt. Remembering how it all been that night, the feeling of your hands, the soft sounds of you moaning in his ear, kissing him and staring at him with adoring eyes. His memories, not V’s. Those belonged the son of Sparda, from long ago and with such a force he felt it might snap him in two. His hands, his lips, his touch. No tattoos, no black hair--just Vergil Sparda, and you...one of his only moments of vulnerability and pain that resulted in his first night of passion he ever experienced. 

She was everything, V choked, voice raw and pained as he re-lived those memories too, She was everything and we were nothing.

“You grew afraid of how attached you were to her,” The Outsider’s voice whispered in his ear, low and bitter as he leaned down behind the forsaken man and changed the image again. Showing younger Vergil now walking alone in the early morning after making love to you, panic in his eyes and a scowl marring his lips. He had left you in the room to pace the empty, quiet streets. To clear his head, “In your searching, you found a book telling you about the Temen-Ni-Gru--the key to your father’s power. She made you hesitate, didn’t she? Made you want to stay behind and doubt your own ideals. And that frightened you beyond all belief, a coward through and through.”

No...no no no.

Vergil watched on with horror as his younger self slipped onto a ship out of Fortuna, one of the few at the time that would sail to the neighboring shore for supplies and goods. Cloak on, head down and a driven look in his eyes again. The sun was peeking over the horizon, and by the time you woke up...he would already be gone. You told him of your God and the Void, surely you’d be able to return or leave Fortuna as you saw fit, right?

He convinced himself of that, told himself as the boat set onto the waves that this was for the best. Affection was beyond him, it was better for you to find someone else. This feeling was a weakness to him, a distraction he couldn’t afford to have anymore. He swallowed the guilt, swallowed the emotion, and focused on his task as much as his foolish mind would allow.

But things never worked out that way, did they?

This was where his memories ran dry, this is where the harsh reality began. The Outsider snapped his fingers, showing you sitting up in bed, staring around the room with tired confusion and rubbing those beautiful eyes. The marks of his bites were still on your shoulders, body still relaxed from sleep and...and…

He heard commotion outside, loud and forceful like feet pounding up the stairs.

“Had you waited a day, had you talked to her,” The Outsider said low and furious, standing behind Vergil will his hand gripping his shoulder so tight it cracked bone, “You would have been able to protect her when they came, tipped off by a follower who lived next door and saw you both fighting demons. But you can’t protect anyone, can you?”

No no no, his thoughts were aligned with V, a pained chorus that rose in tempo as the image unfolded before him, This isn’t right, this shouldn’t be happening, it--

But it had happened. And he knew it was as true as the sun rising and setting every day.

He watched with wide eyes, hollow and pained as the door was broken in on your room, men of the Order pushing their way inside with weapons drawn. You were vulnerable, weak, unprepared and not knowing where he was. The training hadn’t been enough, your powers couldn’t manifest as well with how emotional you felt--he had become your rock, holding you steady and giving you the confidence to fight. Without him...you had succumbed, tendrils lashing out blindly at the hands grabbing you and immediately shut down by shackles placed on your wrists. Screams and cries left your lips, body thrashing as they dragged you down the stairs and wrapped you in a cloak. Vergil broke inside at the sound of his name on your lips, desperate and raw as you begged for help that wouldn’t come, waiting for him to save you. You cried out into the morning air as they dragged you into a carriage, door slamming shut and no one there to save you.

Because he was already gone, and he would never know.

NO! V’s voice was a scream in Vergil’s numb mind, loud and jarring as he saw the tears drip down your cheeks, NO! What have we done--WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!

The Outsider stood beside him and watched the carriage take you away, heading for the place where he knew the Order practiced the most of their activities. Vergil couldn’t even see his face, unable to tear his eyes away and feeling something warm drip down his cheeks, pattering onto his knees like falling rain. His throat felt like it was choking, no sound but wheezing gasps managing to wring themselves out. He had left you, he had left--abandoned you right when he was needed most, running away just as he did as a child. And like then, he had not been there when things fell to pieces, and someone suffered as a result.

He was a fool. 

He was a monster.

This was his punishment, and he deserved it.

“I could do nothing once they put the shackles on her,” The Outsider said tiredly, kneeling down and watching the tears patter silently from Vergil’s burning eyes, “Sparda’s power really doesn’t agree with mine--all their rituals and scheming created a wall between me and her, one that was snapped in place once they had her inside. I tried to summon forth a few of my followers to help her, but...it was far too late by then.”

The image changed once more, showing an image of you in what equated to a prison cell. There was a small bed, chains that kept you connected to a nearby wall, and...no windows in sight. Vergil could have ripped himself and the Order apart at your living conditions, at the state you were in. Pale and tired, burns on your wrists and ankles from the shackles and looking so very miserable. And worse...sitting there on the bed, curled protectively over your stomach, carrying within you his child in your womb. Nero. That one night of passion had gotten you pregnant, and he had been completely ignorant to it all. You looked like your mind was barely hanging together, that light he so adored in your eyes faded and the warmth gone away. Broken, defeated, and carrying a child to boot.

All because of his cowardice. His mistakes. The idea alone made him want to retch, made him want to rip the wall open and carry you to safety like you deserved. How many nights did you lie there, hoping and waiting for Vergil to save you, for him to get you out of that bad situation? Did you eventually give up hope, did you realize he had left you for his own foolish reasons? The guilt was stabbing him over and over in the gut, ripping apart his insides until he was burning and writhing from it. But...his body was still frozen, as if the Void itself was holding him in place. There would be no trying, not with the Outsider getting exactly what he wanted.

“How she felt there, sitting alone in a cell waiting for someone to save her,” The Outsider whispered in his ear, fingers digging into his skin until his collarbone cracked under the pressure, “But you never came, and never would. I tried where you failed, sending a few followers there to try and get her out. But...they were not successful, especially not with their powers affected by the rituals those people did.”

She sat there for months of pregnancy, being experimented on and tortured. While you erected a tower, and fought your brother--

What have we done--

What have we--

“The Order realized the pregnancy before she did, and were determined to bring the baby to term and see if they could analyze it for the source of Y/N’s power. They grew impatient, and decided to cut the child from her early--but she would never allow it.”

The image changed as the Outsider spoke, showing you lashing out in a last ditch burst of power, screaming with all the Void’s howling and shattering the shackles holding you back. Alarms blared as you ran through the halls of the Order, panting and shaking with black veins spreading out from your palms as you killed any who tried to touch you. The first window you happened across was your escape, aiming to launch out into the rain before any of the men could get their hands on you. All the while one arm cradled your stomach protectively, tears dripping down your cheeks and expression somewhere between fear and desperation. You were barely holding together, barely able to control yourself as you ran from the bullets fired at your back.

But you couldn’t avoid everything.

Two bullets hit your shoulders, a choked scream leaving your lips as you shattered the glass and fell toward the churning ocean below. The men of the Order shouted as they watched you plunge into the water like a rag doll, assuming you dead after where you had been hit by their shots and claiming none could survive the sea during a storm. But...they had been wrong, so wrong, doubting just how far a mother could go to save her child. The Outsider could interfere now you were free, channeling the ocean to bring you to shore but not bringing you back into the Void--why? Why didn’t he just return you there and then? Why deposit you coughing onto the beach miles away, shaking and crying as you held your stomach?

For that matter, where were his followers when you escaped, why had they not stuck around to aid you? There was no one in sight as you dragged yourself up on the sand, shaking so hard you could barely stand and coughing up rain water. You pulled yourself into a small, tucked away area underneath the cliff-side, shielded from the rain and bleeding from your chest down onto the tattered clothes you wore. The sight of you would never leave him, that he was sure of. Broken and battered, drenched in rain and looking like you had no fight left. 

The God answered Vergil’s question like he had asked it aloud, rain dripping down his hair and chin and regret in his black eyes, “My followers are not like her--they cannot travel between worlds from long periods of time. I could not bring her back because she did not want me too--she begged it of me, pleaded with me not to take her into the Void.”

He let out a slow breath, tilting his head to the side and staring at the water churning on the shore. Such a faraway look, one speaking of years and years of loneliness, “ It is no place for a baby to be born, so cold and empty and dark. She... didn’t want his first breath to be the Void’s air, didn’t want him to feel that chill,” He looked up at the storming sky, black eyes endless and cold as he added quietly, “But was this any better?”

Your wails and cries made the God turn again, staring back at you with sad eyes as you clutched at your stomach, writhing and thrashing on the sand. Vergil was drenched now too, the water washing away the tears from his eyes and leaving a chill in his limbs. But he couldn’t care less. Couldn’t feel anything but that aching agony in his chest. You had gone into labor on the beaches of Fortuna, alone and scared and injured already to boot. There was a fear in your eyes, absolute terror as you did your best alone, knowing nothing about how to bring a child in the world and working on instinct alone.

The storm raged on while you screamed, muffling the sound with the pattering rain and light fading fast with the ending day. You were hurt, and had exerted to add insult to injury--he remembered how you looked from V’s eyes, seeing the exhaustion on your face and the shaking of your hands. You had nothing left to give, but gave it anyway.

The image passed, showing Vergil when the sky was now dark and the rain had settled to a steady downpour. Hours must have passed with you alone on the beach, in that personal hell he had caused by leaving in a moment of cowardice. Your screams were replaced by the wailing of a baby, sharp and clear as it cut through the open air and alive despite all the odds stacked against you both. Nero’s first breath, his first cries...His son. Vergil had never heard it before, not until now. His own foolishness had robbed him of seeing the birth of his kin, the sound both a blessing and a curse to his ears.

The sight of you made his mind fracture more, screams of denial desperately trying to claw their way through his lips, but unable to.

There was blood, so much blood. More than he knew should be there. You were holding Nero in weak arms, having torn the majority of your shirt off to wrap him in it. But it was of no use, you were fading far faster than time would allow you to have with your son. You where pale as a sheet, eyes glassy and breaths coming short and fast as you held Nero to you, protecting him with the final ounce of strength you had.

No...no, not like this, please don’t let her die like this. His mind was pleading over and over, wishing he had stayed, wishing he had sensed something had happened and came to save you. But...even if word had arrived of your situation, would he have come? Would his past self have given up the tower, the power, for your sake? Hell...nine months had passed, he was probably being beaten, turned into Nelo Angelo at this point.

And worst of all...he deserved every second of that pain.

You slipping onto the ground slowly, cradling Nero against your fading warmth and laying on your side in a fetal position, holding him to your chest and wheezing. You couldn’t stand, couldn’t manage any more than that. Even moving to a new position looked like agony, your body shaking all over and trembling in your final moments of life.

Something had gone wrong, there had been no doctors to help you. The wounds from the order, coupled with the pregnancy taking a turn for the worst...

What have we done? What have we done? V was sobbing in his head, quiet now, just as broken as Vergil felt as he watched you lying there, alone and dying on the beach with no one to save you, What have we done? WHAT HAVE WE DONE…?!

We killed her.

We did this to her.

We never deserved her.

Your lips parted, but nothing came out, staring at Nero’s small body as he screamed with every ounce of energy he seemed to have. So small and precious, white hair drying with blood to his head and tucked to his mother’s chest. Tears fell from your already-spent eyes, hitching, breaking sobs choking from your lungs and bringing forth agony with them. You looked guilty, terrified, heart-broken...entirely shattered in both mind and body as you stared at this baby, who would soon be without any hope. You weren’t a fool, you knew there would be no healing from this, no miracles. And Vergil knew it too, knew the truth now in its entirety. His eyes were wide open, chest screaming in pain that would never compare to yours, tears dripping from his eyes and lungs clenching with the need to scream.

It would never compare. It would never compare to what you must have felt that day. 

He watched as you lifted a hand, cutting a line into your palm with a nail and whispering a shaking invocation so faint it couldn’t be heard above the rain. What the hell were you trying to do? He remembered that day after fighting the horseman, remembered you doing this same thing to gain some borrowed power to save him. The consequences, the agony...There was no energy left to give.

“She used the last of her life to plead to me,” The Outsider whispered, tone quiet and sorrowful as his image appeared before you, placing a hand on your head. Seeing the Outsider of the past looking just like the one standing next to him was odd, but of little consequence, “I’m not allowed to interfere on my own accord in these worlds outside of shrines and runes, it's why I send her in to do my bidding. She is neither a goddess nor human, so she can walk these worlds and blend in as she sees fit.”

The past Outsider disappeared from your eyes, leaving you with enough strength to drag yourself to your feet, legs shaking and blood dripping down to your calf. Why? Why were you so determined? Why not just return to the Void and heal, to take Nero there with you and raise him there? You could have returned alone for that matter, been healed by the Outsider and returned to take care of him as needed. But... Maybe because too much time would pass, maybe there was too much danger. Vergil didn’t understand, he couldn’t. There were so many stipulations to your powers and wants that he was falling behind.

“She never wanted Nero to feel that place,” The Outsider whispered in response, voice barely heard above the rain and fading howls of the Void, “And she was cracking at the time, soul on the verge of shatter and mind having nothing left to give.”

On the verge of shatter?

The Outsider flinched at the sight of you, one fist clenching so hard his black nails dug into his flesh as he hissed, “To be sent to the Void, one’s soul must be on the verge of shattering and have nowhere else to go. There the soul is left where it doesn’t have to be dealt with, breaking apart and forming the chorus that cries into the darkness. Y/N was a rare occurrence, she held on for quite some time until I found her.” 

Resilient, you had always been so strong. So determined.

Vergil’s heart was throbbing in his chest, watching as you summoned a cloak with the energy the God gave you, wrapping it around Nero to shield him entirely before dragging yourself step by step into the night. You stumbled and swayed, the energy not healing you in the slightest. Just...keeping you alive, giving you the strength to move. But...why?

“I built her back, gave her soul form again,” The Outsider continued, shifting the image so it showed you walking down an empty alleyway, not a soul in sight so late into the evening. Your eyes were glassy, staring but seeing nothing. And not a single person saw you, “ But...the events that happened in Fortuna put her back to that breaking point, she was so close to shattering there was nothing I could do. Her mind was not all there--she knew she could never be a good mother to Nero as she was, someone so surrounded by misfortune and pain, someone so prone to breaking apart.”

Of course you didn’t want to return--with your final breath you wanted to bring Nero where you knew he would be safe, and seal your own fate so you didn’t have to burden your son anymore. There would be no healing you with your own soul so damaged and broken, the power you were using to stay alive was unstable enough already. Vergil saw whale oil drip from your mouth, carefully avoided so it didn’t patter onto the baby you were barely keeping dry. One foot forward, then another. Leading up the back road to the Fortuna Orphanage, owned by Kyrie’s parents. An occasional tendril appeared from your form, out of control as it twitched and disintegrated with the rain. But you still didn’t stop, like a zombie shuffling along to the front door of the building. No lights were on inside, but it scarcely seemed to matter to you.

He watched you finally collapse once reaching the steps, making sure to keep Nero safely cradled to your chest as your knees gave out and hit the pavement. The trail of blood you left behind was being steadily washed away by rain, pattering onto the steps in rivets of fading red. Nero had started crying again, his wails seeming so loud in the dark of night, accompanied only by the steady pattering all around. As for you...a limit had been reached, the Outsider’s borrowed power running out entirely and leaving you in that weakened state. You set Nero on the dry, top step as carefully as you could before your body tilted to the side, landing hard on the ground in the rain and staring at him with far-away eyes.

You had done it, hadn’t you? Nero was in a safe place, one where he could live without being burdened by the knowledge of his parents. Of your tragedy, and his. To grow up never knowing what kind of cruel monster his father was, or how he failed the both of you.

We failed them. We failed them.

You let out a choked whimper of sound, body twitching as you reached out toward Nero’s tiny body next to yours. Your final seconds of life, those final breaths before the Void would finally claim you again. Back to the cold, the dark, the emptiness. All you had wanted was that time in the sun, didn’t you? To love and be loved, to catch up on the happiness life had already taken from you before. And he had scoffed in the face of it, had cut it down as surely as the Yamato could.

Everything we touch is ruined.

Everything we love gets hurt.

We are truly poison, aren’t we?

Vegril was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of your voice, barely heard and weak as it scraped its way past your broken lips. He watched as your hand lifted to touch Nero’s cheek, your face a mask of regret and agony as you stared at the baby boy one last time. Like he was the world, and you had failed him.

“Forgive...me....please...”

No...no no no.

This wasn’t your fault--

There is nothing you could have done.

What have we done? What have we done--

Vergil was forced to watch in horror as you died on the orphanage steps, barely able to whisper out a goodbye to your child before the final breath left your lungs.

It was then the scream finally managed to break free of Vergil’s aching chest, movement allowed back to his frozen limbs. He bowed over, clutching his head as he unleashed all the pent up agony from his body, the denial, the regret, the hatred for himself and his past actions. It echoed through the night air of Fortuna like he was there, the rain dripping from his silver hair in steady streams and over his parted lips. What have we done? What did we do? Everything was touch gets destroyed, every choice we make ends in someone’s pain and heartache. Even after all the trying, all the work, everything...he could save nothing and no one--All the people who mattered, the ones he loved...In the end, his choices lead to their ruin, every single one of them.

Y/N, Eva, Dante, Nero...

His actions had failed each and every one of you.

This was his punishment, and he deserved it.

Deserved it and more.

When Vergil finally lifted his head, breaths heaving from his battered lungs and face twisted in anguish, he saw your body start to disappear. You disintegrated into black crystal, similar to how the Outsider did before and vanishing without a trace. No body to bury, leaving behind only minute traces of blood that the rain was steadily washing away.

Nero was left crying and alone, the sound alerting someone in the home and a light turning on in the front room. Kyrie’s parents, Vergil could formulate that realization well enough despite how broken he felt. The door opened a second later, revealing a woman in a night robe as she turned on the porch light and gasped in shock at the sight of a baby on her doorstep. One wrapped in cloth, slightly stained with blood and no one around in sight. His child, his son--what a horrible way to start his life, born to a suffering mother and left as she died to bring him into the world.

Kyrie’s mother didn’t hesitate, quickly picking up the baby and holding him to her chest protectively. What kind of monster would leave a baby out in the rain? She wondered aloud, voice soft and disbelieving as she stroked Nero’s red cheek. She could never know, never understand the sacrifice it took to get Nero there in the first place. The blood was practically gone, no trace of you left behind other than the very son he had helped make. Your story died there with you, and Nero would never get to know what his mother had been through to bring him into the world.

Forgive me Nero.

Forgive us for how we failed you.

You father has always been a fool.

It was the last of his child that Vergil would be allowed to see, the woman turning and quickly shutting the door as she called desperately for her husband to come and help her with the new child. The son of Sparda knew the two would raise Nero right, would take care of him despite his devil arm and would build him into an individual of strength and kindness. He would meet his future wife here, would find happiness--just as his mother wanted for him, just as she had hoped.

Vergil sat in the rain for a few moments in silence, staring sightless at the closed door with tears lost to the rain water.

Only then did the black-eyed God seem satisfied, snapping his fingers and turning the illusion into a cloud of black crystal shards. All at once the sensations disappeared, the rain, the scent of Fortuna and the taste of salt water on the air. Vergil found himself on his hands and knees on that same fucking piece of debris, staring down at his own trembling hands and hyperventilating after all that he had seen and learned. He could barely breathe, barely think--the truth was like an ocean resting on his back, leaving him bowing under the weight and unable to get up. What had he done? What the fuck had he done? The son of Sparda might as well have killed you himself, leaving you to bleed out on the beaches of Fortuna alone and aching for someone to save you.

He was a monster, deplorable. And he was certain he knew it all along, but was too prideful to admit it.

All this madness, and what did he have to show for it? He was alive, he had done so many terrible things and had gained nothing. Lost everything. What would his mother think if she saw him now, kneeling before a black-eyed God and coughing from the burn of bile in his throat? If she knew of the crimes he would commit, the lives he would ruin. The only woman who would ever love him had died a terrible death, a tragic one, all because he couldn’t let go of his past. Why didn’t he just stay, what would have happened if he had? To save you, then get you out of Fortuna and somewhere safe. Nero would have been born safely with a mother who loved him instead of being left on a damp doorstep at night. It was Vergil’s fault, all of it--Nero had every right in the world to hate his guts, to want him dead.

And so did you.

V had not stopped in his mourning, his screams and cries simmering down to low sobs that echoed in Vergil’s skull. Twice. They had hurt you and ripped you apart twice--he had more to be guilty for than he could have ever imagined. V was not a sentient being when all those events transpired, but they might as well have been blood on his hands too in the eyes of the poet. Every lie he told you, every bit of affection he took knowing he would someday be gone...it hurt more than ever before, tearing them both apart inside. It was no wonder V had loved you with every part of his frail body--it was that part of Vergil that had ached so heavily for your affection, the part that you had touched the most with that light you carried inside. V was drawn to you because of the love Vergil had felt at that time, the one he had tried to bury and forget, but...it only made sense it would be buried right alongside his humanity.

V didn’t have those memories, but god his half of Vergil’s soul had known you.

We hurt her--we hurt her so terribly. We took everything she had to give and then hurt her more--

The Outsider remained silent as Vergil heaved, vomiting bile considering there was absolutely nothing left to cough up. There was a cold glower in his eyes at the sight of the half-demon’s suffering, one without pity or remorse. This was exactly what the God had hoped for after all, to see Vergil suffer for his crimes and make him feel something even remotely close to all the pain he had caused you. For a moment, Vergil was afraid--you were nowhere in sight among the inky blackness of the Void’s glow, the realization hitting him that the trials had not been that at all. So what would become of you now that the Outsider had his way? Would you suffer more for his cowardice? What would you think of him now that you knew the truth?

It was the black-eyed God who answered his question, approaching with slow steps and kneeling down in front of Vergil’s prone form. He grabbed a fistfull of Vergil’s hair, yanking his head up so those silvery-blue eyes were forced to stare at the God’s enigmatic face. What kind of image did Vergil paint now? Shaken, face twisted in pain and horror and saliva still dotting the corners of his mouth--pathetic, that was for certain. Vergil doubted he had ever been so weak in his life, so foolish, so absolutely deplorable. 

“I’m so glad to see you have finally learned your place,” The Outsider rejoiced, a small smirk tilting his lips as he beheld Vergil’s agony, “And for the record, the only one who will walk away remembering what you did is you, son of Sparda.”

What?

The Outsider clicked his tongue, releasing Vergil’s hair so he was forced to collapse back onto the ground with a wheeze. The God stood, looming ominously as he studied Vergil’s form like he was merely dirt under his shoe, “Y/N can never remember who she was then, or what was done--the heartbreak is too much, the trauma would snap her in half. It is the one thing she can never handle, the one truth she can never be allowed to know or else lose her soul’s stability again. As Nero’s friend, as someone who cares about him...do you truly believe Y/N could handle the guilt of knowing all his suffering was because of her mistakes?”

The God was right, of course he was. Just seeing the look in your eyes when the memories had tried to resurface, when you saw yourself standing there...Vergil never wanted you to hurt like that again. But that didn’t answer the question of what was to happen now, especially to you. Would the Outsider let you return home to the others, ignorant to all that had happened? Would he erase your memory of it and plunge Vergil into the Void for his crimes? He deserved it--writhing for an eternity in the darkness until he would shatter and join the chorus of howling would be a fate worthy of all his crimes.

But...he still ached.

He was still selfish. 

He wanted you even after all that was done, but would never deserve you again.

“Please…” Vergil rasped, voice hoarse and broken as he tried to pull himself upright. To take a gander at the God, imploring him to listen even a little to what the son of Sparda wanted. You deserved happiness, you deserved anything from this other than pain. And he was willing to sacrifice for it, “Remove V from me, let Y/N have him back and live happily...please. It’s all I have to give.”

V had given you all the love and affection you deserved, the part of him that could truly give himself to you without holding back. Vergil had lost his right to be yours the day he left you in Fortuna, ignorant to your fate. His human half had tried, had been everything you wanted and needed while still being your soulmate in technical aspects--Vergil should have known all along, the part of him that should have been your soulmate had always been the poet. It took splitting himself apart to realize it, but...he knew now. This was the only way to pay for his crimes, to suffer the way he deserved to.

You can’t--V whispered, sounding just as broken and miserable as he--I am just as guilty. I am you and you are me, one cannot exist without the other.

Not anymore.

“You are making demands now?” The Outsider seemed unimpressed by Vergil’s lamenting, turning on his heel and slowly walking in a slow circle around the miserable man. His footfalls were silent, the chill he carried with him like frostbite in the air as he replied, “All that I have done, every trial and mission I have put Y/N through has been to help her. For every pain she felt, that tolerance grew, slowly strengthening her soul over time so I would never run the risk of almost losing her again. She has suffered enough that all minor pains pale in comparison, it has made my child strong and resilient in the face of tragedy. Even in the tree, even after all the pain she felt at losing V...my efforts made their difference, she did not start to crack once, and built herself back without my help.”

So this was the God’s angle, wasn’t it? This was his goal all along. Vergil had wondered from all of V’s memories why the god seemed so aloof with you when his guidance was needed most, why he seemed determined to put you in scenarios that only caused you pain. He had twisted an idea in his head that all of the cruelty was needed to make you strong, so your soul could stand on its own even in the face of unbelievable pain. Even if it meant hating the man you considered a father, even if it meant you would grow bitter and cold. Vergil had no doubts that almost losing you that second time had scared the God, especially considering he saw you as his child. And he vowed to never let you come that close to shattering again.

That didn’t make it right. It didn’t excuse all the times he purposely put you through trauma just to build up your tolerance.

The Outsider let out a snort, sensing Vergil’s thoughts with disdain in those cold eyes, “Are you here to judge me for what I have done, the steps I have taken to save my child’s soul? No--” He grabbed Vergil by the collar, holding him up with ease and staring at his face with a twisted sense of glee, “You are here to suffer for what you did to her--you almost took something very precious from me, something this place had never allowed before. Do you have any idea how long it took to fix her mind, to subdue those memories so not even traces remained? All the other traumas...if they became too much I would dilute them, remove the images but leave the traces of emotion for her to process as she saw fit. But what you did...that I could never leave behind.”

Vergil couldn’t even argue, lips parted for wheezing gasps but nothing else. He couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t even begin to think of how hard it must have been for you to come back from what was done. To have a child you never got to know, to raise, and then have all the memory taken away so it didn’t break your fragile mind. There was so much love inside your soul to give, so much happiness you could have shared with Nero if Vegril hadn’t messed things up so badly. But...he robbed you of that for his own selfish gain, then forgot it all to add insult to injury. How he had ached, feeling the sting of defeat in hell while Mundus stripped him of his will and dignity. Nothing could be worse than this, he had convinced himself. All the while you were suffering something far worse, and he was ignorant to it all.

“I played a part in your memories too,” The Outsider hissed, turning and slowly walking toward the edge of the precipice with Vergil dangling from his grasp, “After all, I couldn’t have you remembering her when she came back to this world. I didn’t know what she would change upon coming here, but everything played out beautifully--V returned to Urizen as he was supposed to, the tree destroyed. And you started falling to pieces.”

He planned all of it. From the moment you arrived to the moment he took his first breath as Vergil again. All of this was meant to end in the half-demon’s torment.

Vergil closed his eyes, breath dragging itself out of his lungs as he whispered hoarsely, “And you would leave her unhappy in the process? Is this what she wants?”

If this was truly your desire, to see him suffer for all his crimes...he would take it without complaint. Vergil had never been the type to bow his head to anyone, but for you...he would take the pain of punishment.

“Contrary to your opinion, Y/N’s happiness is more important to me than anything,” The Outsider responded quietly, fingers gripping Vergil’s collar so tightly the cold was seeping through to his skin, “I will remove V from your form, and erase his memories of the tragedy you caused in Fortuna--making him a full, complete soul is easy enough. As for you...letting you suffer in the Void will be far too easy.”

...What? Vergil felt his breath catch, teeth grinding hard enough that his jaw ached. What else could there possibly do to make this worse for him other than that?

The God narrowed his black, endless eyes as he continued on, “Through the Void, all can be made reality. I will take V from you, and fill your soul back with that same humanity he once was--a clean slate with all the same memories, all the same emotions and feelings but now with V’s consciousness gone.”

“...Why?” Vergil’s voice came out barely as a whisper, filled with apprehension and confusion as he gripped the Outsider’s arms holding him up. This wasn’t right, none of this make sense--why would he leave him alive and whole after all of that, what the hell was the point? Wouldn’t it make sense to just take Urizen and throw him into the Void so he would slowly cease to exist? Instead the God seemed intent on leaving Vergil just as he was, but making it so that V could exist separately without the Sparda losing his humanity. 

What does this serve to him?

What does this black-eyed bastard gain?

The Outsider smiled, seeming to sense the confusion in Vergil’s thoughts and taking great amusement in it. All his years of plotting, of watching Vergil live out his mistakes and seeing him shrug them off without taking any responsibility for them...this had to be an absolute joy.

“Y/N will gain back the man she loves,” He replied simply, tilting his head to the side and leveling a cold glare on Vergil’s face, “And you will bear the burden of these truths for the rest of your life. You will live with the knowledge that she was meant to be yours, but never be allowed to have her again for as long as you live. How will it feel to see her love a man that is no longer you anymore, so see her kiss and hold him with all the love you never deserved while you know exactly what suffering you caused?”

Vergil felt his heart start hammering against his ribs, faster and faster as the reality started setting in again. His emotions for you ran so deep now, so heavy and drowning him in an unbelievable sensation of longing. To be forced to swallow all that he felt, to watch you love V with everything he had desired and craved and to no longer have that connection to you anymore...That was truly what he deserved, wasn’t it? To feel that level of misery for the rest of his life, to live knowing just how much he screwed up and never be allowed to have you again. You had been his soulmate, the only one who could love him and see past all the walls he put up without judgment. And he...he had lost you, lost his one true chance at happiness.

You can’t…! V whispered in his head, frantic and pained as he pushed pressure against Vergil’s skull, Do you truly think she would want this? To lose her soulmate and only gain the human half of him? Should she settle for that? Please--

This...this would be for the best, wouldn’t it? What was the point of getting all of him when V was exactly what you needed? Someone who could love you, cherish you, who could love you without restraint? Vergil as a whole would always be tied down by his own trauma, by his own cowardice and cruelty. As long as Urizen existed inside of him, he could never be what was good for you, what was needed. What you felt for him before, back in Fortuna...it didn’t matter anymore, not after he crushed it all under his unyielding heels. That love had never been deserved, but what you had with V had been good, pure, untainted by Urizen’s filthy essence and Vergil’s cruelty. You deserved to have that again, and he...he deserved to crumble. 

No, please--

“I see you are in agreement with me,” The Outsider sounded pleased, a slow smirk lifting the edges of his cold-looking lips, “When Y/N wakes up again, she will not remember the final trial. And by then, V will be returned and you will lie to her--you will say that you passed the trials and this was what you asked of me. You will tell her all your feelings for her left with V, and that everything is as it should be. There should be no confusion once I sever the remaining traces of connection her soul has to yours, and you will never tell her what you have seen here today.”

You can’t, you shouldn’t--

This is not how things should end--

Vergil closed his eyes again, head tilting back and a numbness settling over his frame once the Outsider’s chill started to seep in. Right to the bone, like being submerged in ice water. His temples throbbed while V struggled, not wanting this outcome, not wanting to lose his memory of what happened. But Vergil...he was resigned to his fate, ready to take the burden on himself no matter how terribly he would suffer for it. All of the mistakes, all of the foolish pride had brought him to this point, to be robbed of happiness was a just punishment. He had swallowed emotions before, he could do it again. Even if he grew numb and tired, even if it ached until day he died...there were still amends to be made, and no more running away.

“Vergil Sparda, this is your punishment for hurting my child.”

Stop.

Please, Vergil.

Please--

But he didn’t have to say anything.

There was a moment of silence with no change, no actions made by the black eyed god and filled only with the howling of the Void. What was going on? Something made the Outsider pause. Vergil didn’t know what had halted him, but the God hesitated, a gasp leaving his lips and energy halting in its grip on Vergil’s very soul. Had you awoken early? Had he changed his mind? Both were disproved when the Outsider let out a shuddering breath, an unfamiliar male voice cutting through the howling of the Void behind him with a stern gruffness that surprised them both.

“That is enough, Outsider.”

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[lamaisongaga]

              FASHION CREDITS: ‘FAME’ COMMERCIAL

Lady Gaga teamed up with world renowned photographer Steven Klein for the commercial of her first, and the first ever black fragrance ‘FAME’ back in 2012. The flacon with metallic claw-like cap was designed by Nick Knight, inspired by Gaga’s Grammys egg-shaped vessel. 

Styling by Brandon Maxwell and Sophia Phonsavahn. Hair by Frederic Aspiras. Makeup by Tara Savelo.

Firstly, Gaga poses head-to-toe in black latex. The liquid-like catsuit and opera-length gloves were custom created for the campaign by Latex-specialized designer Jac Langheim. 

Her light-catching black latex hat and velvet mask are custom Philip Treacy while her chunky sculpted platform boots are custom Atalanta Weller. 

The heels are made of leather and latex with a hand-painted finish. “Fame is an illusion. If you really want it, anyone can have it”.

Risqué is not enough. While Gaga wears nothing but a few drops of “Fame” and a custom black molded rubber mask by Jac Langheim, all the male models wear wearable sculptures by Dutch sculptor and designer Rein Vollenga which were produced by Haas Brothers. “Everything I make is one-off, and I also don’t really have a concept. I collect a lot of objects that I find in the streets, or in supermarkets, or in party stores, and I always scan everywhere when I’m walking outside. To me, the objects that I collect are quite ambiguous.” Rein says. 

The underwear of the models are by Male Power and the fingerless gloves by Skingraft.

Gaga’s shoes in this scene are the Pleaser Dagger-01 black patent pointed-toe pumps with silver metal heel.

While emerging out of a giant black mouth-shaped bath tub, Gaga wears a black liquid dress was custom made for her by slime artist Bart Hess. 

Her black crown was custom-made by Los Angeles-based sculptor and special effects costume designer & fabricator, Salvatore Salamone. 

The crown, an exclusive photo of you can see above, is an aluminum and foam frame covered in aqua resin then coated with black epoxy.

Here the dominatrix wears a custom made silicone rubber cropped V-neck top and maxi skirt with asymmetrical back zipper & slit combo by Rachael Barrett. 

Her platform lace-up ankle boots are by Pleaser. 

The models on the left wear underwear by Male Power and the aforementioned custom headpieces by Rein Vollenga x Haas Brothers. 

The models on the right don headpieces by Jacob Roanhaus and red Diana Do capes, everything custom-made for the “FAME” commercial.

Next, Gaga is seen wearing a black laser-cut sheer dress, custom made for the commercial by Jakarta-based couturier Tex Saverio.

Love this look! Gaga kisses her obedient men while rocking a black cut-out bodysuit from Mugler’s Spring/Summer 1991 collection. 

The model on the left rocks S&M rope as a top and the Black Drop mask, a custom creation by Joji Kojima.

This fit young man is wearing one of the Rein Vollenga x Haas Brothers mask that was paired with a pair of black pants by Perry Ellis and long leather gloves by Skingraft.

Gaga has personally asked the famous Dutch lingerie designer Marlies Dekkers to create an exclusive bra specifically for the commercial. 

She requested a black crystal-studded piece that embodies the power and creativity she stands for and that still carries the marlies|dekkers stamp she loves so much. 

Marlies has chosen Swarovski elements as a partner for this project and this is the result: one-of-a-kind “FAME” bra, a customized version of the well-known Space Odyssey bra. 

Her black fox tail trim cape is signed by Adrienne Landau.

Always had the urge to show you these! Gaga’s eccentric pair of sunglasses for this scene were fruit of the collaboration between MYKITA and Rad Hourani. The Rad shades boast an oversized, shield-like shape.

Her black leather platform wedge ankle boots are made by Giuseppe Zanotti.

The last look features a custom-made mesh neckpiece by Alexis Bittar. Plus “Tears of Belladonna, crushed heart of Tiger Orchid with a black veil of Incense, pulverized Apricot and the combinative essences of Saffron and Honey Drops.”

[idontwant2dodis-blog]

Cologne Ads

                                   Analyzing Media Representations:

The product that will be analysed in this paper through the lens of new media is cologne. The ads for cologne can be found everywhere and they all use similar themes with their images and sales pitches.

The typical cologne advertisements are very biased and only target a very specific audience. The usual forms of media in which this product is advertised is through television, commercials, and magazines. In both these forms of media the ideology the product portrays is very similar. The typical cologne ad portrays a white, attractive, heterosexual male who, in wearing the scent is found irresistible by all women. The men in these ads portray a wealthy privileged lifestyle that is made possible by wearing the scent. Furthermore, the majority of the television commercials take place in Europe or at a high class event, which also adds to the illusion of wealth. Evidently the ads do not advertise cologne but sex, because in using the cologne the men are able to receive the attraction of the woman they have their eye on. In doing all these things the product is made to appear much more valuable and effective than it really is. Unfortunately for the consumers, no amount of perfume is going to change their appearance, economic or social standing.

The ideology of these ads are that if a man uses this product everything that has been advertised will come true. It gives its users a false version of how women and men interact with each other. In addition, the ads portray women as being helpless to the man's seduction. The woman in the ads are shown to be objects, whose sole purpose is to be possessed by the man rather than human beings, who belong to themselves. Both the men and women in the ads are sexualy objectified in order to make the product more appealing.

There are very few ad campaigns that show an alternative to the mainstream ideals that are portrayed in the new media. Examples include the S&X Rankin perfume ad campaign and the old spice scent commercials. The commercials of S&X Rankin show a more inclusive and less biased content and do not direct their advertisement to only one specific group. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/beauty/fragrance/a13305847/rankin-s-x-fragrance-campaign-films/

The films portray couples and the advertisements continue to use sex in order to sell their product, but the people in their videos push the boundaries of the social norm. One of the commercials shows an elderly couple rather than the typical young man and woman that are often in the commercials. Two other videos show two same sex couples one with two men and two woman. This video further explores the roles of sexuality rather than the heterosexual couples that are often portrayed in advertisements. The campaign is very effective at being more inclusive because in addition to the advertisements being more inclusive the perfume is a unisex fragrance. This gives people the opportunity to explore their sexuality and not be confined to social norms. These ads will compel other companies to be less biased with their commercials and target audience. Using less biased content in their advertisements cause people to feel less self conscious about themselves and as a result people will feel more free to explore their sexual identity.

The second form of new media that is different to the norm are old spice fragrance ads. These television commercials are different than what is typically done because they use comedy in order to sell their products rather than sex, wealth, or money.

The old spice commercials make a mockery of what is typically portrayed in cologne advertisements. In doing this the commercials show how the usual way in which fragrance is advertised is flawed and raises unrealistic expectations about the product. The comedy used in the commercials help make the audience feel less pressured into using the product or making themselves like the people they see in the ads. This effectively allows people to feel less unhappy with themselves and realize the unrealistic things that occur in the ads. The old spice ads will assist companies and consumers to see that the original commercials were flawed, and strive to change their ad campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

[clubofinfo]

Expert: In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret. It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda. ― Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire There are no more leaps of faith, or get out of jail cards left anymore. The first casualty of war is truth. Lofty heights of defining the first amendment are just overlooks onto the crumbling mythology of a democracy, where the people – citizens — vote for laws directly. We have a republic, a faulty one, the source of which is the power derived from billionaires, financiers, arms merchants, K-Streeters and the attendant moles allowing the government to break every charter of human concern. So, in that regard, we in this corptocracy have the right to be fooled every minute, suckered to not know a goddamned thing about democracy in big quotes. The very concept of manufactured consent and a controlled opposition destroys much of the power of agency and so-called freedom of assembly, association and travel. The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. ― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves. ― Vladimir Lenin But, alas, we have blokes who see the world not as a black and white dichotomous illusion of the for v. against bifurcation, but a world of flowing back to what words should mean, a world that allows the filters to be smashed like high polished glass and instead deploying a magnifying glass to point toward the very source of the blasphemies and strong arm robberies that have been occurring in the Republic the very first moment the beaver hat was put on and the first treaty scripted by the powdered wigs of Washingtonian Fathers and broken, ripped to shreds, seeded with the dark force that is the white race. Here comes Tools for Transparency into the mix of triage to uphold the declaration of independence, and the few tenets of the constitution that are supremely directed to we-by-for-because of the people, AND not the corporation, monopoly, Military-Retail-Finance-Ag-Energy-Pharma-Prison-Medical-Toxins-IT-Surveillance-Legal Complex. This project is the brainchild of a former Marine who “came to life late in the world” of pure skepticism about the powers that be and his own questioning of the motivations and machinations of his government and political representatives. Sometimes it’s hard to don and doff the uniform of a trained/manipulated/choregraphed killer and make any sense of the orders belted out and campaigns designed with no benefit to the invaded peoples other than the demented good (bad) for that gluttonous octopus parasite called capitalism as it entangles its tentacles on each invaded country’s birthright, history, natural resources, land and people through the power of the high explosives bomb and the usury bond. “Heck, before starting this project, I didn’t even know we had 535 representatives in Congress,” states Brian Hanson. So goes the beginning of this start up, Tools for Transparency, an on-line clearing house for what Hanson hopes will be a light shed onto all the backroom dealings we as consumers of news just aren’t privy to. Or that’s at least what Brian Hanson is shooting for in this atmosphere of “fake” news, “really fake” news, “non” news, “no” news, “distracting” news “manufactured” news, “rabbit hole” news, “lies are truths” news, or newspeak. The Beaverton, Oregon, resident is the father of this platform which is still in its infancy, as the former Marine throws his all into the project. The 37-year-old Hanson is a Pacific Northwest product, having dropped out of traditional high school and landing up in an alternative high school where the instructors were outside the box. He recalls reading Shakespeare, doing two weeks of study on the Nez Perce peoples, and a class report on the Battle of Wounded Knee. With gusto, he told me that his class made a video of the trail of tears and presented it to the local Shriners. For this father of a special needs daughter, he easily lets roll off his tongue, “black sheep,” both an emblematic moniker and symbolic of his travails, having stuck with him throughout his life, from high school, to the Marines (“where I learned to get responsible”) to today: divorced, single dad, precarious income stream. On top of that, he’s living in his elderly parents’ garage/converted small studio apartment. After the Marines, where he specialized in communications, and field wiring, he worked on a community college degree, eventually ending up with a BA from Portland State University in psychology. The disciplines of cognitive behavior therapy and behavior analysis “got to me” first in college, initially through the inspiring teaching of a San Bernardino community college instructor who helped the young Hanson stick it out after Hanson smashed up bones in a motorcycle accident: a spill that caused him to miss half the classes. This faculty member went the extra mile, Hanson says, allowing him to do outside work and test make-ups. I was fresh out of the military and had no idea what I was doing. This professor missed dinners with his family, missed his kids’ recitals, to allow me to make up tests. . . . I’ve been a lifelong feminist because of this man, who instructed me on his own philosophy tied to feminism. I never had a male role model like that before. Hanson kicked around, came back to Beaverton, worked with developmental disabled youth and then foster youth, where I met him when we were both case managers for 16-to 21-year-old foster youth. We talk a lot about consumable information, as Hanson explains his gambit with his new information web company. It’s an age-old conundrum, what George Lakoff puts down as narrative framing. That was a big issue in the Bush Junior (W) election cycle, how born-with-a-silver-spoon George W had snookered Joe Six-Pack and NASCAR country with his Yale education, dicey National Air Guard record and Bush’s rich charmed life, getting a professional baseball team (Texas Rangers) as part of the family bargain. The illustration is dramatic to both Hanson and myself, as we talked about Mad Men, the Edward Bernays and Milton Friedman schools of propaganda, framing stories (lies) and setting out to paint good people as bad, heroic politicians like Salvador Allende of Chile as Commie Baby Killers. Even now, Bush, the instigator of chaos in the Middle East, with all the cooked up lies and distractions of his own stupidity (like Trump), and, bam, W is reclaimed (in the mainstream mush media) as something of a good president, and especially by the likes of the Democratic Party misleadership. Bush, millionaire, entitled, crude, racist, and, bam again, we have dirt poor kids from Appalachia or Akron joining up through the economic draft of standing down the armies of burger flippers to fight illegal wars, and then to come home creaking decrepit shells of their old young selves to fight for oil and geopolitical checkmate brinkmanship of the World Bank and Goldman Sachs order. Here we have an old Connecticut political family, from Prescott Bush, putting the grandson out on tens of thousands of acres of scrub brush near Waco, Texas, with 4×4 hefty pick-up trucks and chainsaws (George is deathly afraid of horses), and we’re all good to call him a man’s man, roughing it West Texas. Honest George or Rough-rider Teddy or Ahh Shucks Reagan, Yes We Can/Si Se Puede Obama, One Thousand Points of Light Bush Sr., Make America Great Again Trump — the news isn’t the news, and patriotism is the graveyard of scoundrels and their bromides. A huge turning point for Brian was this last election cycle, with Trump getting guffaws and trounced in the court of public opinion as a wimp, liar, cheat, misogamist, racist, buffoon, narcissist, from people all over the political spectrum, during the beginning of the election cycle. But then once Trump got in, family feuds and friendship breaks occurred: “How was it that this relationship I had with a male buddy, a true friend, going on 27 years, just gets dumped because I was questioning Trump as a viable candidate and questioning his integrity?” The age-old battle – turning blue in the face trying to explain to a friend, or anyone, that candidate x is this and that, based on the historical record. In Trump’s case, there is a long written, legal, quotable/citable record of this guy’s dirty dealings, bad business decisions, his lechery, racism, sexism, blatant unmitigated arrogance, criminality. For Hanson, it’s a no-brainer that anyone in their right mind might question Trump’s validity and viable character when he threw his toupee into the ring. A great friend just dropped Brian. Took him off social media, stopped socializing, screen to black, and this broken friendship was racing through Hanson’s mind because of the new normal: the targeted toxicity of social media feeds, and the social and psychological conditioning which this huge chasm between red state/blue state ideology has meted out to an already bifurcated flagging American consumerist society. Even having a respectable, clean and thorough debate about Trump is almost impossible, Hanson said while we talked over beers at the Yukon Bar in Sellwood. This huge cultural divide exists as far as individuals’ skills sets and critical thinking skills. The more technical the stuff like climate change or the deep state military industrial complex, people’s world views get challenged. They just don’t have the tools to dig deep into a bill passed (and endorsed) by their local representatives. Again, “consumable” as a tool to enlightenment or at least knowledge comes up in our conversation, and Hanson has done the following thought experiment literally hundreds of times – “I hear an opinion in the news – FOX, MSNBC, the Young Turks – and I can spend four hours digging up truths, and how that opinion got to us.” What he’s found is the consumable stuff the typical news consumer gets is absolutely counter to the reality of that news’ origins, facts and context. His Tools for Transparency cuts through the opinion, and as he proposes, makes the world news and the even more Byzantine and elaborate proposed legislation and lobbying groups behind “the news” approachable, again, consumable. He taps into his college days taking courses in industrial organizational psychology, seemingly benign when the American Psychological Association gets to mash the term into a three-fold brochure by defining it for prospective students as business as usual for corporations, and humanity is better because of this sort of manipulative psychology, but . . . In reality, it’s the science of behavior in the workplace, organizational development, attitudes, career development, decision theory, human performance, human factors, consumer behavior, small group theory and process, criterion theory and development and job and task analysis and individual assessment. It’s a set of tools to keep workers down spiritually and organizationally, disconnected, fearful, confused and ineffectual as thinkers and resisters, and inept at countering the abuse of power companies or bureaucracies wield over a misinformed workforce. The shape of corporations’ unethical behavior, their sociopathic and the draconian workplace conditions today are largely sculpted and defined by these behavior shapers to include the marketers and the Edward Bernays-inspired manipulators of facts and brain functioning. This begs the question for Hanson, just what are today’s hierarchy of needs for the average American? Physiological; Safety; Love/Belonging; Esteem; Self-Actualization. Of course, Maslow added human’s innate drive toward curiosity. Ironically, the lower scaffolds of the pyramid are deemed primitive – eating, sleeping, drinking, as are the safety needs and social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy. In one sense, we see it played out – one cannot philosophize on an empty stomach and for Aristotle, his observation is prescient – ‘all paid work absorbs and degrades the mind.’ Hanson and I talk about the existential threats of climate change, terrorists, war, and our own mortality. We are in that hyper-speed moment in history when technology changes at breakneck speed, and disruptive technologies’ create disruptive economies which in turn give us disruptive communities. We are avoiding the inevitability of collapse, peak oil, peak everything, so we construct comforting (read: dopamine-triggering and sedating) realities, tied to bourgeois values, consumeristic habits, customs, degraded culture, moral codes that are antithetical to our own agency, and, then, religious fervor. Hanson states: How do they get us to take actions against our beliefs? This conditioning now is based on not just ‘buy my product’ to attain unattainable standards. Today, we, as a society, are terrified if we can’t attain that level of status or standard, Hanson’s singular (one of several) bottom lines is that his Tools for Transparency has to find a way to be consumable, and a second one Hanson repeats posits the solutions to our problems have to be profitable: “How can he create a market for alternative information profitable?” Tools for Transparency uses the platform Patreon, founded five years ago as a platform that allows patrons to pay a set amount of money every time an artist creates a work of art. Hanson’s web site and service, then depends on loyalty, fee-paying patrons. The result thus far for Hanson is nascent, but growing. I asked him how his daily routine tied to this dream can be synthesized in a nutshell: My daily routine is actually starting to wrap up at this point, it has never been very consistent as a single start-up founder anyways. For the most part my site is not sophisticated enough to continue in perpetuity yet. Too many requirements for data and input that cannot be done on a static basis. So I am mostly working on a static prototype I can display, build an audience with. For the most part I have been diving headfirst into legislative bulk data sets. Making connections between publications, finding creative ways to link (intentionally I think) differently formatted data together. Working to construct cohesive and understandable information. When I get tired of staring at data sheets, I will work to develop relationships with business people, work on marketing techniques, reaching out to colleges and programs, learning about business development, corporate securities, federal regulations pertaining to my business, or some general outreach (mostly family right now, you’re the first real contact outside my main family I am working with). There really isn’t anything routine about what I am doing, because it is mostly just me and a single developer friend working on the site. We talked about other issues tied the militarization of society, and I posed some long-winded questions cut and pasted below: 1. What makes what you are doing relevant to the click bait/screen addicted generation? 2. You say you were terrified for the lives of the family members, the country. Blacks and Hispanics tell me that finally, the whites get what we have been experiencing for decades, since the beginning of the country. Speak to that reality. This has been and is a white supremacist country, and with that operating procedure/system, poor people, disenfranchised people, people of color especially, are on the chopping block for those white elitists and the militarized mentality of law enforcement and even our daily lives as a renter class. He and I talk much about Black Lives Matter, and why this new movement is relevant in 2018 as it would have been in 1950 USA or 1850 America. And I do not for a second believe it has ever not been exactly this way. Every regime has to have a solider class that it uses to enforce the social hierarchy. And the solider class is always expected to use violence to enforce ideology. The threats are always transient, ever shifting, but the response is doggedly the same. Authoritarianism flourishes in this environment, we sacrifice freedoms for security, and our world shrinks a little more. Brian believes there is an awakening today in this country, and that the examples of movements such as those in Portland where youth are out yelling against the police state, and then how we are seeing individual officers returning firing with violence against those youth: The viral video of an officer drawing his pistol on a group of school age children is terrifying. We talk a lot about the devaluing of language and intentional discourse which includes the abilities of a society to engage in lively and cogent debate. For me, I know the forces of propaganda are multi-headed, multi-variant, with so much of American life seeded with lies, half-truths, duplicitous and twisted concepts, as well as inaccurate and spin-doctored history, which has contaminated a large portion of our society, up and down the economic ladder, with mind control. Unfortunately, our language now is inextricably tied to emotions, as we see leftists (what’s that?) and so-called progressives screaming at the top of their lungs how Trump is the worst president ever. Black so-called activists, journalists, stating how the empire (sky) is falling because Trump talked with Putin. Imagine, imagine, all those millions upon millions of people killed because of all the other presidents’ and their thugs’ policies eviscerating societies, all those elections smeared, all those democracies mauled, all those citizens in the other part of the world hobbled by America’s policies, read “wars, occupations, embargoes, structural violence.” It is a daily reminder for us all that today, as was true yesterday, that we are ruled by masters of self-deception and our collective society having a feel good party every day while we plunder the world. Doublethink. Here: Orwell’s point: To tell deliberate lives while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Herein lies the problem – vaunting past presidents on pedestals while attacking this current deplorable, Donald Trump. The reality is the US has been run by an elite group of militarists, and by no means is Trump the worst of the worst, which is both illogical and unsupported by facts: Yet, we have to mark the words and wisdom of those of us who have been marking this empire’s crimes, both internal and external, for years. Here, Paul Edwards over at Counterpunch hits a bulls-eye on the heart of the matter: After decades of proven bald-faced crime, deceit and the dirtiest pool at home and abroad, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the Justice Department and the whole fetid nomenklatura of sociopathic rats, are portrayed as white knights of virtue dispensing verity as holy writ. And “progressives” buy it. These are the vermin that gave us Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Chile, the Contras, Iraq’s WMD, and along the way managed to miss the falls of the Shah and Communism. Truly an Orwellian clusterfuck, this. War Party Dems misleading naive liberal souls sickened by Trump into embracing the dirty, vicious lunacy Hillary peddled to her fans, the bankers, brokers, and CEOs of the War Machine. Trump is a fool who may yet blunder us into war; the Dems and the Deep State cabal would give us war by design. In an innocent way, Brian Hanson is hoping to dig into that “objective reality,” with his Tools for Transparency. He might be unconsciously adhering to Mark Twain’s admonition: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Maybe Tools for Transparency will get under the onion peels of deceit, a consumeristic and kleptocratic debt-ridden society to expose those culprits’ origins – where or where and how and why did something like the Flint, Michigan, poisoning of people’s water happen? Who signed off? How did it, the deceit (felonies), weave its way through a supposedly checked and triple-checked “democracy”? As we parted from a free jazz concert in Portland, he has some pointed words for me: “I will keep working on you Paul to get some hope about society, about the world. I’m going to keep on you.” http://clubof.info/

[idunneternal-blog]

                                                    x. RUNES

Freyr/Freyjr  Aett

Fehu (F: Domestic cattle, wealth.) Possessions won or earned, earned income, luck. Abundance, financial strength in the present or near future. Sign of hope and plenty, success and happiness. Social success. Energy, foresight, fertility, creation/destruction (becoming). Fehu Reversed or Merkstave: Loss of personal property, esteem, or something that you put in effort to keep. It indicates some sort of failure. Greed, burnout, atrophy, discord. Cowardice, stupidity, dullness, poverty, slavery, bondage.

Uruz: (U: Auroch, a wild ox.) Physical strength and speed, untamed potential. A time of great energy and health. Freedom, energy, action, courage, strength, tenacity, understanding, wisdom. Sudden or unexpected changes (usually for the better). Sexual desire, masculine potency. The shaping of power and pattern, formulation of the self. Uruz Reversed or Merkstave: Weakness, obsession, misdirected force, domination by others. Sickness, inconsistency, ignorance. Lust, brutality, rashness, callousness, violence.

Thurisaz: (TH: Thorn or a Giant.) Reactive force, directed force of destruction and defence, conflict. Instinctual will, vital eroticism, regenerative catalyst. A tendency toward change. Catharsis, purging, cleansing fire. Male sexuality, fertilisation. (Thorr, the Thunder god, was of Giant stock.) Thurisaz Reversed or Merkstave: Danger, defencelessness, compulsion, betrayal, dullness. Evil, malice, hatred, torment, spite, lies. A bad man or woman. Rape?

Ansuz: (A: The As, ancestral god, i.e. Odin.) A revealing message or insight, communication. Signals, inspiration, enthusiasm, speech, true vision, power of words and naming. Blessings, the taking of advice. Good health, harmony, truth, wisdom. Ansuz Reversed or Merkstave: Misunderstanding, delusion, manipulation by others, boredom. Vanity and grandiloquence. (Odin is a mighty, but duplicitous god. He always has his own agenda.)

Raidho: (R: Wagon or chariot.) Travel, both in physical terms and those of lifestyle direction. A journey, vacation, relocation, evolution, change of place or setting. Seeing a larger perspective. Seeing the right move for you to make and deciding upon it. Personal rhythm, world rhythm, dance of life. Raidho Reversed or Merkstave: Crisis, rigidity, stasis, injustice, irrationality. Disruption, dislocation, demotion, delusion, possibly a death.

Kenaz: (K: Beacon or torch.) Vision, revelation, knowledge, creativity, inspiration, technical ability. Vital fire of life, harnessed power, fire of transformation and regeneration. Power to create your own reality, the power of light. Open to new strength, energy, and power now. Passion, sexual love. Kenaz Reversed or Merkstave: Disease, breakup, instability, lack of creativity. Nakedness, exposure, loss of illusion and false hope.

Gebo: (G: Gift.) Gifts, both in the sense of sacrifice and of generosity, indicating balance. All matters in relation to exchanges, including contracts, personal relationships and partnerships. Gebo Merkstave (Gebo cannot be reversed, but may lie in opposition): Greed, loneliness, dependence, over-sacrifice. Obligation, toll, privation, bribery.

Wunjo: (W or V: Joy.) Joy, comfort, pleasure. Fellowship, harmony, prosperity. Ecstasy, glory, spiritual reward, but also the possibility of going "over the top". If restrained, the meaning is general success and recognition of worth. Wunjo Reversed or Merkstave: Stultification, sorrow, strife, alienation. Delirium, intoxication, possession by higher forces, impractical enthusiasm. Raging frenzy, berzerker.