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nataliasquote · 6 months

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Promises | n romanoff

Summary: Natasha and Anastasia didn’t know love… not until they found it in each other. But the Red Room was cold, in more ways than one

Warnings: Red Room, death, blood, shooting

Pairings: young!natasha x young!OC

wc: 2.6k

Notes: this one hurts but I’m proud of it. Another oldie again

- ⧗ -

30 pairs of pointe shoes became 20.

20 filled beds because 10.

10 black leotards became 5.

30 terrified girls became 5 ruthless ones, eyes trained... emotionless killers.

Their dainty arms capable of a swifter death than a gun. Slim fingers able to twirl a knife like someone would spin a pen.

Sleep not filled with dreams of puppies and ponies, but the haunting features of their victims. The screams, the looks of pain and anguish on their faces that each girl took in only moments before each life was ended.

Each life less important than the last.

The air was cold. No signs of love. No comfort. Just stone cold harsh reality that they had grown accustomed to. Freezing their young hearts to not feel pain.

Teaching them to crave the feeling. The satisfaction of a clean kill. A bullet straight through the heart. A silent knife slice to the throat, lodged in the stomach of an unsuspecting victim.

Somehow, the inside of the ice covered building was colder than the outside. The only sounds were barking orders and screams of pain. Each gut wrenching noise not affecting the 5 girls who remained.

Their faces were cold, no expressions as they fought through the day. No words of conversation passed between roommates, no cheers of congratulations as sparring matches were won.

These girls weren't friends. They were competitors. And losing to someone else meant death.

But there was an anomaly within. A flicker of light in the endless pool of darkness. A spark.

Hope.

Natasha Romanoff. The girl most likely to succeed. She was the top girl. Loved by all the trainers, she was the favourite. Her ruthlessness, her seductive ways were well beyond her years. So much strength in a tiny 15 year old body.

Yet she risked throwing it all away. For a girl.

Anastasia Vladimenkova.

The dark haired girl who was an incredibly skilled dancer and knife thrower. Her accuracy was unbeatable, but her sparring was not up to the same standard.

Somehow, the tiny piece of Natasha's heart that still remained took pity on her and trained her secretly at night, so she wouldn't be killed off in the next ceremony.

The girls formed an odd friendship, if you want to call it that. They didn't know love, but somehow found it in each other. And suppressed feeling spiralled quickly, so the friends turned into lovers quickly.

They would sneak out at night for stolen kisses and private moments, hands just roaming each other's bodies, trying to hold on to the last moments they got with each other. No one knew when their last day would be.

But the ceremony was looming over their shoulder, knowing their group of 5 would become 4 by tomorrow evening.

It was 2am and Natasha had taken Anastasia to the shower room, as the barred window let the moonlight shine down onto the cracked tiled floor, lighting their faces slightly.

Their bodies were pushed into the corner, Natasha's back against the cold stone as Anastasia laid her head on her chest. The atmosphere was different, they could both feel it.

"I don't want tomorrow to come." the brunette whispered, breathing in Nat's scent as she spoke.

"I know. I don't either. Especially not if it means I lose you."

Anastasia swivelled round and sat opposite Nat, her hand on her cheek. "You're not gonna lose me. You know they don't put us against each other. We're too valuable to them."

Natasha sighed, the moonlight in the small bathroom window catching her eyes. The moon and stars looked so free, something the redhead craved more than ever. "I don't want to be an object anymore. I want to run away. With you." She turned her head back to Stasia and pulled her closer, their faces inches away from each other.

Green eyes stared into chocolate brown ones, fear dancing across their pupils. They could be as hopeful as a child on christmas, but it wouldn't stop the brutal ceremony from tearing them apart tomorrow. No one could predict the outcome, and it was something Natasha hated.

"I don't want to lose you. I cant lose you." The redhead whispered, her eyes glinting as tears filled up to her waterline.

"You have me right now. And I love you."

That was enough for the teenagers to gently press their lips together, eyes closed in the blissful moment. It wasn't passionate or lust filled like it should have been, because the girls had never been exposed to that. The kiss was light and sweet, their lips moving together but nothing more.

"Natty." Stasia mumbled against her lover's lips. "We can escape. Tomorrow night. All we need to do is get through the ceremony. And then we go." The brunette pulled away and sat back on Nat's thighs, her legs hooked around the redhead's waist. "We can do it. We can make it work."

Nat shook her head. "How Stas? You know the guards; they're everywhere. We're small, but not that small. We can't slip past them without being seen."

"We can Nat. Please, we need to try."

Anastasia’s voice had raised slightly, which wouldn't have been an issue if everyone in their dorm room was asleep. But one blonde girl in the bed closest to the bathroom was laying awake, the sound of muffled voices sparking her curiosity.

Saskia crept out of her bed, her stealth skills coming in handy as she padded across the stone floor. Sticking to the shadows, she tiptoed across the room, hiding by the doorframe as she finally got a look at the girls who were hiding.

The red hair was an instant giveaway, and the girl she was lip locked with on her lap wasn't difficult to make out either. Natasha and Anastasia. The top girls in the class. The Madame's favourite girls.

As they spoke, Nat suddenly shushed Stasia, feeling a presence in the room. Saskia pressed herself closer to the wall, holding her breath. But Anastasia just giggled and pulled Nat's face back to her, joking about her being paranoid, which Nat accepted with a kiss.

Saskia smirked to herself, knowing how she instantly had an advantage the day before the fighting ceremony. She hovered for 10 more minutes, her smile growing wider as Anastasia’s excited voice muttered over their escape plan. It layer out perfectly in the blonde's palm and she scurried back to bed, finally able to sleep peacefully.

- ⧗ -

5 teenagers sat on the head table, tactical suits on their bodies, hair braided and pulled back out of their faces. Porridge filled their bowls, but none of them wanted to eat, the fear filling their empty stomachs, taking the space of any food that would give them energy to fight.

Saskia wandered in late, a smug expression on her stark features. She glanced at Stasia and Natasha, who were sat on the other end of the table, her eyebrow quirking up. Her plan was working.

As the girls lined up at the edge of the sparring mats, Nat reached out and linked her pinky finger with Stasia’s, their little promise ritual they performed before every fight. It was small and subtle, but it gave them a small promise and it had worked in every single fight they had done. Their promise to be there for each other. To not leave, to not betray and to not die.

Madam walked into the sparring area, her hands clasped as tightly behind her back as her hair was pulled up in a bun. She scanned the teenagers in front of her, eyes lingering on the redhead and brunette for a split second longer.

"As you all aware, today is your final sparring ceremony. The girls who survive will go on to become the greatest assassins the world has ever known. The KGB will be grateful for your services."

Anastasia gulped, her heart rate picking up. She always hated sparring; it wasn't where her skill set lay. If this was a knife throwing competition she would win by a mile. Her accuracy was unmatched.

"Natasha Romanoff." Madam's heavily accented voice called out, her eagle eyed gaze locking firmly on the redhead. Nat walked forward, wanting nothing more than to hug Stasia, but knowing it would get her killed.

"And your opponent will be... Anastasia Vladimenkova."

The girls' hearts dropped to their stomachs. No. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't part of the plan. Not at all.

With shaking hands clenched tightly into fists, Anastasia walked onto the mats, her head held high. She couldn't show her emotions right now, as much as she wanted to burst into tears. She was supposed to be made of marble, they both were, and so couldn't show weakness when put against each other. They were nothing more than sparring partners, fighting for their life.

They waited for the signal before starting to circle, fists raised in defence in front of their faces, eyes locked on each other. Natasha wished she had telepathic abilities so she could talk to Stasia, trying to form a plan in her head.

They were pulling their brunches as they fought, not wanting to cause serious injury, but causing the odd bruise here and there so it didn't look too suspicious.

But after 15 minutes, Madam called out for them to stop. She called 2 guards over and they grabbed Nat by the arms, causing the redhead to instinctively lash out, kicking and punching at her attackers.

"Nat!" Anastasia cried, running forwards before she too was dragged back. She didn't care that Madam was watching her. She didn't know where they were gonna take Natasha and terror flooded her body.

But she stopped fighting as Nat was forced into a chair, her face still as stone like and straight as ever. Not a single emotion flashed behind her eyes. Not when her wrists were tired. Not when Madam grabbed her face. Not when Anastasia had a gun forced into her hands, guards aiming their own guns at the back of the brunette's head.

"Love is for children. Are you a child Natasha?" Madam spat, her russian accent thick.

"No Ma'am."

She turned to Anastasia. "Are you a child Anastasia?"

The brunette's hands shook around the gun that was clasped between her fingers, aimed at Natasha who was sat straight on the chair. "No Ma'am."

"Weakness." She growled, her ice cold palm slapping Natasha across the face. "You are to be made of marble. Not wasting your time making faces at things like that!" Her bony finger pointed in Anastasia’s direction, seeing the weaker girl flinch under her gaze. All of Stasia’s training had gone out of the window, pure panic flooding her veins as she saw Natasha sat before her.

"Yes Ma'am." Nat's voice was emotionless, the sparkle Stasia was used to seeing completely distinguished.

"Natasha Romanoff you would have been the top student. I had high expectations for you, and you've thrown it all away. Thank you Saskia, for showing me that you're not truly cut out to take your place in the world."

"I have no place in the world." Natasha mumbled, her eyeline dropping to the floor.

"You're right. You don't." Madam turned back to Anastasia, who had dropped the gun to her side. "Anastasia. Shoot her."

"I- what?" Stasia’s eyes went wide, but there was no hint of a joke in her instructor's eyes.

"You heard my words Vladimenkova. Kill her. You will not have any weaknesses."

Anastasia gulped but raised the gun, eyes locked with Natasha. Sweat trickled down her brow and she gulped, feeling a tear slip down her cheek.

"Nat." She whispered, trying to get a reaction from her.

"It's okay Stas. Do it. I'm with you baby. I'm always with you." Nat pushed down all of her fear. The sight of the gun brought relief, which was twisted. She was 15 years old, a gun should spark fear. Not be a source of comfort to end her pain. In her mind, if she couldn't have Stasia then she didn't want to live. And the Academy wouldn't allow her to have both.

"Nat no. I can't." She dropped the gun.

Big mistake.

The moment the metal clanged against the tiled floor, Natasha knew it was over. The guards' reflexes were fast. Too fast. The girl's pale fingers dropped the weapon and a shot was fired into her skull at the same second.

Nat had wiggled her way out of the rope, so the moment Anastasia’s body dropped to the floor, she leaped out of her chair and raced across the floor, screaming out as blood stained the old tiles. Anastasia’s body was limp as Nat got there, her eyes dull as she stared up at the ceiling.

"No!" The redhead yelled out, startling the giles standing on the opposite side of the room. She looked up at them, scanning and analysing each and every one of them. They were all scared, showing the same expression.

Except one.

Saskia had an guilty essence about her and Nat saw it straight away. She saw red and glared at her, breathing heavily through her nose. The snake. The reason her love was sprawled on the floor, a bullet hole in her skull.

Natasha's fingers curled around Stasia’s, their pinkies locking together like they'd done less than an hour before. Her tears dropped onto the brunette’ chest and she cried out before anger took over again.

Still clutching Stasia, she lifted her head again and locked eyes with Saskia, her bottom lip trembling. "YOU!"

But her rage was never taken out as 2 guards surged forwards, grabbing her arms and pulling her away. Nat's stone cold facade had dropped away and she screamed out for Anastasia, her gaze fixed on her best friend, her lover, the light in her dark life, her body laying abandoned on the floor like she was garbage.

"Stasia!! Stas no!" She kicked and screamed, fighting with all her might to get away from the guards. But her tiny 15 year old, malnourished body was no match for the 6 foot guards built of pure muscle. Not in her hysterical state. Assassin Natasha could take these guys out with 2 moves, but her body and mind weren't working as one.

She screamed and cried the whole way down the corridors, not even taking in her surroundings. She didn't know where she was until she was thrown into a cell, hearing the barred doors clang shut. But she didn't move. Her body landed in a heap on the stone floor and she stayed and wept, clawing at her chest and arms in pain as she wailed. She passed out hours later, her hands clasped together...

Her pinkies linked together.

Like the ghost of Anastasia was with her, watching over her and looking out for her, like they had always promised.

#fanfic #marvel #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #red room #natalia romanova #black widow #oc #natasha romanoff oneshot #natasha romanoff angst #wlw

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delcakoo · 2 years

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coffee run༉‧₊˚. yang jungwon

request: “hello! hope you are doing great 💖 can i request a jungwon scenario where he falls for someone a couple years older than him but the person doesn't realize his feelings and treats him as a child? he does things to be seen as a man like protecting and gets jealous of older guys? It would be so cute 🥺 happy ending please”

⍣PAIRING ! barista!jungwon x gn!reader

⍣GENRE ! coworkers/friends to lovers, fluff

⍣WC ! 1.9k

⍣WARNINGS ! mention of smoking + alcohol, if i’m forgetting anything lemme know

a/n: hi anonnie ! thank you once more for your request, i loved this idea and really enjoyed writing it even though i did struggle a lot for some reason </3 you didn’t specify the gender, so i stuck with gender neutral reader ! i hope you enjoy barista won c:

saturdays. anyone who works in retail dreads saturdays. it’s the most busy day of the week, which means annoying customers complaining and trying to bargain prices, arguments and people asking for your manager at least once an hour, and a whole lot of stress for all the employees. so when you find yourself walking into the mall where your cafe job was located at 8:30 on a saturday, you sigh.

just by looking at how many shoppers there were, you knew it was going to be a long, long day. on the bright side, you were working with heeseung and jungwon, your two favorite coworkers.

heeseung was a year older than you, and you had to admit he was quite mature for his young age. you wouldn’t be surprised if he got promoted to manager soon, as he always seemed to know exactly what to do in bad situations.

meanwhile, jungwon was two years younger than you. he felt like someone you had to take care of because of the age gap, and he was much more playful and less serious compared to heeseung. either way, they were both fun to work with (and they were hot, but that’s just a bonus) so whenever you got scheduled for the same time as them, you knew work would be much better than usual, even though it was still disappointingly, a saturday.

the duo in question had arrived at the cafe before you, cleaning up before opening time. heeseung washed down the counter, while jungwon sweeped under the many tables and chairs thoroughly. “so, what’s going on with y/n?”

jungwon’s heart starts beating at the sound of your name, pausing his sweeping for a moment. “i don’t know, they still treat me like a kid. i’m starting to lose any hope i had left.” the younger boy has liked you since he began working at the cafe four months ago, and while he has tried to offer hints of his attraction to you, you seem to always pass it off as harmless, friendly compliments.

one time, you’d even called him your younger brother, and he felt like crying right then and there as heeseung sent him a pitying glance.

heeseung sighs, “i know they feel something towards you too, i can tell. you just gotta step it up a notch,” jungwon looks up at his elder, his broom coming to a stop once more, “show them you aren’t just a kid, won.”

he gulps, “i’m not very good at being bold, what should i do?”

before heeseung can respond, the bell above the door jingled as you walk in, smiling at the two boys as they both nod in your direction in greeting. “hey! ready for the saturday chaos?” you watch as they both glance at each other, exchanging an unreadable expression. you decide to ignore it, walking behind the counter to tie on your apron.

heeseung huffs bitterly, “as ready as we can be, i guess.” after rigorously wiping down the last side of the countertop, he throws the used cloth to the side.

jungwon nods, putting down his broom, “there’s a sale over at H&M too, we’re dead.”

you gasp, “seriously? good god.” you look up, checking the clock near the entrance. “oh, it’s 9:00, are we all set?”

“i think so, i can take cashier.” heeseung ties his apron around his waist before walking to the front of the shop, flipping the door sign from closed to open.

“i can do serving, and help our baby make the drinks!” you grin, squishing jungwon’s cheeks between your hand, puckering up his lips. heeseung watches, facepalming internally. when you let go of the boy's cheeks, he only coughs awkwardly. jungwon knew at that moment that he could not take any more of this. before his thoughts could drift any further though, the doorbell jingles again as people start flooding in. mornings were always the busiest.

immediately, heeseung begins taking orders as you help jungwon with making the drinks. most was coffee as usual for the mornings, but there were always the few odd orders along the way.

about an hour later, the customers have slowed down as a young man walks in, smoking. with no other people to deal with, you, heeseung, and jungwon all exchange an annoyed glance before you decide to take charge and call him out. “i’m sorry sir, we do not allow smoking in our shop. in fact, it’s not allowed in any parts of this mall.” you passive aggressively smile at him.

he scoffs in amusement, while the other rolls his eyes. “yeah? what are you going to do about it?” at closer inspection, you notice his eyes are slightly bloodshot, and he’s standing rather unsteadily.

you turn your head to your coworkers worriedly, “he’s definitely under the influence of something, we need to call security.” you whisper, heeseung nods, running into the back to use the phone.

by the time you’ve turned back around, the man has thrown his cigarette to the ground, and began progressing much closer to you, and you realise how he towers over you rather threateningly. he suddenly lifts his hand, making you step back in fear.

luckily, in the blink of an eye, jungwon had walked over and stood in front of you protectively, holding the man's wrist that was raised in the air. while he may be shorter and less built than the older male, he is rather confident in his abilities if worse comes to worst. he didn’t learn martial arts for nothing, after all. “sir, please remain a respectful distance from our employees.” his voice had dropped an octave, and his usual soft expression had become wrinkled with rage as he drops his hand.

once you’ve calmed your breathing, you try to process what had happened. you were so used to jungwon being all smiley and childish, always making you laugh, and showing you silly new tricks for making drinks faster. it felt strange seeing him so.. scary looking. “are you okay, y/n?” he asks worriedly.

you gulp, nodding. “yeah, thank you, won.” well that’s an upgrade from baby or wonnie, he thinks. even if this definitely wasn't the way he planned to change your view on him, he was still happy about it. luckily, before the intoxicated man could do anything stupid, two mall cops walked in right as heeseung emerged from the back. thankfully, they quickly escorted the man out of the shop as you both explained to heeseung what had happened.

besides the fiasco in the morning, the rest of the day was going rather smoothly. you and jungwon are having a great time making the drinks, while heeseung seemed to be busy luring tips out of the female customers. “look at him go,” you scoff, watching a girl place a five dollar bill in the tip jar.

jungwon feels jealousy run through him as he follows your gaze. if only he could be as bold as his hyung. “we get like 30% of that, i’m not complaining.” he replies, tightening the lid of another coffee before sliding it across the counter. “order number thirty two!” he calls.

“true, still surprised those girls fall for his dumb fake smile.” you say once he returns, watching him check the order chart before beginning a new drink.

jungwon glances at you, “do you like him?” he asks bravely.

if only he knew who you’ve begun to like. “what? no way, where’d you get that idea?”

the boy shrugs hesitantly, “i don’t know, just thought you like older guys.”

your eyes widen, “i wouldn't mind a younger guy, it really doesn’t matter to me.” you’ve busied yourself making a cappuccino for the young man who's waiting in one of the booths, and you can’t help but feel his stare even from the back of your head. he was quite good looking, you think as you place the lid onto the cup.

you don’t know why, but you find yourself glancing over at jungwon. no, even if what you feel for him is real, he would never like you back, he’s just a friend from work. jungwon seems to have noticed your side-eyeing, “y/n, you good?” he calls, waving a hand in front of you.

snapping out of your thoughts, you nod. “yeah, yeah sorry. i’ll be back.” you show him the finished drink you made and he nods in understanding, watching as you walk over to the counter. “order thirty three!”

when the man walks up to the counter, you take a closer look at his features. he really was handsome, probably a few years older than you. you grin when he offers you a polite bow, “thank you. say, how many drinks do you think i’d need to buy before asking for your number instead?” he comments smoothly. jungwon whips his head around, the drink he was making becoming completely forgotten.

meanwhile, you’ve decided you have nothing to lose. if you want to get over your slowly growing feelings for your younger coworker, this was the way to go. “hmm, i don’t know, what do you plan to do with said number?”

the man smirks, “i suppose we could arrange the details over text,” he says, watching you take the cup back and begin writing your number along it with the pen that was normally used for writing down orders. jungwons frowns, and heeseung definitely sees as well, sighing disappointedly.

after you wave goodbye to the man who seemed to be the last customer, heeseung breaks the silence of the empty shop. he knew that if anything was going to change, he needed to give you both time alone. “it’s lunch break, i’m heading out.” heeseung calls, and you all say your goodbyes as he walks out. before he left though, you notice the strange shared look between him and jungwon once again. they were both acting really weird today, you think.

you turn to him, “hey, are you okay wonnie?” back to that nickname, he shakes his head.

it’s extremely difficult for him to meet your eyes, but he does, “am i a little brother to you?” he’s not going to let you slip through his fingers that easily. he thinks of heeseungs advice, if he gets rejected, at least he can say he wasn’t a coward.

your lips part, and while you’re dumb, you’re not that dumb. you have an idea on what’s happening, “no,” you reply, “maybe you were when i first met you, but you’re not anymore.”

jungwon is surprised by your response, but nevertheless, takes the hint, stepping towards you slowly. the two of you have never been so close, and he can’t help but feel his heart stammer nervously, unlike his confident, masked expression. “then what am i, y/n?”

you swallow, feeling the hard wall of the counter behind you as he corners you. “what do you want to be, jungwon?” you steer the question back to him, staring right into his eyes.

he licks his lips, “should i demonstrate?” you’ve never nodded faster in your life, eyes closing as he pushes his lips to yours, softly moving against you. when you kiss him back, he sighs in relief, purring as you move a hand up to his hair, rubbing his head gently. when you pull apart, you both smile like idiots.

“how long?” you had to ask, taking his hand in yours.

jungwon feels heat rush to his cheeks, ears turning a crimson red as he scratches his head shyly, “like.. since i started working here.”

you laugh, pushing his shoulder teasingly, “you’re so lame.”

he gasps, “oh yeah? who was flirting with our customers earlier?!”

“oh right, maybe i should text him back.” you wiggle your brows, watching him roll his eyes in annoyance.

he leans down, pecking your lips once more. “sure, you can ask him if he has first date ideas,” he grins, “for us.”

the end! thank you again for requesting anon c:

perm taglist: @duolingofanaccount

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cursedalthoughts · 29 days

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Priority Research 7 Predictions - Sakura Empire

It is time for one of the biggest factions in AL to get their PR prediction post. Last year, the Sakura Empire got Shimanto, a choice I was honestly disappointed with - not because of her design or gameplay in Azur Lane, but because Shimanto is an utterly unremarkable ship in World of Warships.

So, as usual, I will mention some of their most likely choices. None of these selected ships are guaranteed to make it into PR7 - we may not get a Sakura girl this time, but all of them are ships I would be interested in seeing. Hell, some of them I've turned into OCs of mine lol ALSO, I mentioned some of these candidates last year. Because I just really want them in AL damnit.

Bungo

Bungo is funny.

She's an upscaled Amagi hull with 457mm guns (no clue why they aren't 460mm). Her gimmick is accuracy. Yamato is already well known as a very accurate battleship, but Bungo takes it to a whole another level. She's so accurate that, assuming you aim perfectly; you will most likely encounter aiming bugs that no other ship really experiences (because WoWs is built on a mountain of spaghetti code)

As a special consumable, Bungo gets access to a 'High-Precision Spotter Plane' that further reduces her dispersion by -20% for a minute and five seconds. You can get two whole salvos out very comfortably, due to her 26.4s reload.

Honestly, if you miss with Bungo, it is your fault. Easy DR material.

Adatara

Adatara is the predecessor of Bungo in the tech tree. She's Tier 9, her spotter plane reduces her dispersion by -10% instead of -20%, and has one less turret. Her reload is longer, too, at 30s.

If Bungo is DR material, Adatara is PR material.

Tsurugi

As much as I love Tsurugi, I see a lot of people compare her to Georgia, which is just innacurate.

Both ships enjoy 3 double 457mm gun turrets with short reloads and remarkable accuracy, but Georgia has American Super-Heavy AP that does devastating damage, and Tsurugi's AP shells do a pitiful 13.5k damage - Georgia's AP shells do almost 18k damage each.

Also, Georgia has very fun secondary guns. And can tank damage, since she's an Iowa hull variation. And is superbly fast. Tsurugi has none of those things.

Tsurugi has 15km-range deep water torpedoes (that can only hit battleships and aircraft carriers), as well as a 'Torpedo Reload Booster' consumable that reduces the 150s reload down to just 10s. Also, while not enjoying Georgia's 46+ knots speed, Tsurugi can easily do almost 37 knots, which is faster than a lot of cruiser.

Sadly, Tsurugi also suffers from pathetically weak armor.

Tsurugi could be a very fun PR battlecruiser in AL, however.

Iwami

Iwami is a variation of the Izumo design. Much like Izumo, she has fairly accurate 410mm main guns. Much unlike Izumo, her overall gun layout makes sense, with 2 frontal dual turrets and two back dual turrets, much like a Nagato.

Iwami has two gimmicks of particular interest: Two sets of torpedoes, one per side, which are taken straight out of Shimakaze (4 20km torpedos per launcher) that also deal devastating damage, but can be seen from orbit (relatively speaking - their detectability range is 2.5km. Normal hydroacoustic search detects torpedoes at 3.5km)

The second gimmick of Iwami is access to a surprisingly strong secondary gun array.

Iwami could be a PR battleship with a support role.

Shikishima

As I said last year, Shikishima is "The USS Georgia of the Yamato-class."

Her main armament consists of 3 dual 510mm turrets boasting of improved accuracy compared to the Yamato-class, as well as a 27s reload. She shares all the flaws of Yamato and Musashi, mainly having incredibly weak armor and a glacial turret traverse of a whole entire minute to turn 180º, but she's a fun ship that can do insane damage. She relies a lot on sheer overmatch, being the second ship to have 510mm guns - Satsuma is basically an upscaled Shikishima, and HMS Incomparable "only" has 508mm guns.

Also, for some reason, Shikishima also has a very nice secondary gun layout, guns that also have improved accuracy and reload times; meaning you can run a full secondary gun Shikishima build without losing much main gun accuracy.

Due to being a Yamato hull, she'd be DR.

Yoshino

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Azuma had even more torpedoes than Shimakaze?

Yoshino is just that, a bigger Azuma with a total of 16 torpedoes. She gets a choice between the 'suicide' 12km torpedoes of Shimakaze, which deal almost 27k damage each; or the same torpedoes that Iwami has, 20km range.

She's different enough from Azuma to be somewhat likely, but she's also not really that much different than Azuma. She'd be DR, for sure.

Hayate

A unique (for Japan's standards) destroyer that has both good guns and good torpedoes. They normally excell only at guns (Kitakaze) or only at torpedoes (Shimakaze) - Hayate is good with both.

Past me summarized her pretty well. She's a decent mix between Shimakaze and Harugumo - Harugumo being Kitakaze's bigger sister.

PR rarity for sure.

Yamagiri

Ok, but what if you wanted a pretty good mix of Shimakaze and Harugumo, instead of a decent mix?

Yamagiri is an upscaled Hayate that mixes the two lines of destroyers. She gets access to the same amount of torpedoes Shimakaze has, while having access to some formidable main gun armament as well.

While Hayate is a PR, Yamagiri would be a DR. However, there's one main issue with Yamagiri as a PR7 choice:

She's a Superdestroyer. A Tier 11. We have never gotten a Tier 11 PR ship, and there are much more fun and bombastic options for the first Tier 11 in Azur Lane's Priority Research.

#azur lane #gacha game #gacha #priority research #world of warships #sakura empire

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everythinglucymaudmontgomery · 9 months

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A Few Words in Defense of Poor Robin and the Time She Was Living In

It's been really interesting to read everyone's vitriol regarding poor Robin. I remember reading this book through at least twice before and never thinking of Robin as anything other than a fellow prisoner of Jane's. Is she a good mother, by no means, but I've always felt that she's doing the best that she can under the circumstances.

I think that her life is a literal living hell. She has a husband across country that she desperately loves but most likely thinks despises her because I KNOW she despises herself. She is forced to be a social butterfly by her mother and she can't even express her emotions by crying at night in her own room because her mother will be able to tell and will find some new creative way to torture her and, by extension, Jane. Her daughter whom she loves fiercely, evidently looks just like her father and is a constant reminder of what she lost/threw away. She is playing a part in a horrific nightmarish play just to survive because she doesn't know what else to do. At that time, and under those circumstances, I don't doubt that she sees living with her mother's horribleness is her best option for providing for Jane. I can't imagine how many times she has most likely visualized running away with Jane by herself but most likely is more afraid of the two of them starving to death and NO mother ever wants to remotely consider that option.

I'm also pretty sure that the time frame for this book is sometime in the 20s/30s. According to the website for the Canadian Museum of History, Canada was among the most profoundly affected countries. So add that to Robin's fears for their livelihood.

And please let's not forget that, for all of Robin's faults, Jane does not doubt that her mother loves her. I have more to say in defense of her and Jane and their secret ways of expressing love but since I don't want to give away any spoilers to those who haven't read it yet, I will refrain.

Another thing that I have found is very interesting about how Maud wrote both "The Blue Castle" and "Jane of Lantern Hill" is that she writes more strictly from one point of view. As common as that is in many books, one thing I always liked about the Anne books was that you got all of these wonderful insights into the minds of other characters. I have seen it a precious few times so far in Lantern Hill.

The reason I point this out is that most of how we are seeing Jane's life play out is from the perspective of an 11 year old. Don't get me wrong, a very perceptive (at times) and wise beyond her years, 11 year old, but an 11 year old, none the less. They are not known to be the most broad minded of people and have a tendency to color the world with a narrowness that can alter reality to some extent. We do have to take a lot of her experiences and outlooks with a grain of salt giving others the benefit of the doubt at least.

I have often found it very difficult bordering on impossible to read books from other time frames without being influenced by the modern sensibilities and customs I am used to. For example, how could Cinderella's stepmother get away with taking her own house away from her after her father died and treating her like a slave? Oh wait. This was not the 21st century, orphans were not looked at the same. In fact, most people looked at orphans as if it was THEIR own fault that they were orphans, like losing your parents makes you a bad person and not worth time or pity.

Am I excusing Robin's behavior? As a mother, NO. Do I think the grandmother should be excused. HEAVENS NO! But I do try to put myself in their shoes as much as I can and remember that this was a different time and place. Not to mention, as a sufferer of mental health issues and knowing that that was something that was not touched with a ten foot pole back then and good lord knows what genetic predisposition they had in that regards on top of living through WW1 and the Great Depression AND the Spanish Flu Pandemic!!!!

Anyway, I hope this makes some semblance of sense to my dear fellow lovers of L.M.M. It's been so interesting and enlightening getting to hear the different thoughts and outlooks from fresh readers of this little known but wonderful book.

#lantern hill book club #lucy maud montgomery #lmmontgomery #l.m. montgomery

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agentmaineapologist · 1 month

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How the Alpha AI could have been the second coming of AM - an essay.

(Sorry if none of this is coherent, I am so tired)

Ok, now I know what you're thinking: Víðarr, what are you doing up at the asscrack of dawn (aka like 5:30 am my time. I have not slept.) comparing a pathetic asshole of an AI to one who is the incarnation of humanity's hatred? Wouldn't it make more sense for it to be Omega? And how in the hell are these two connected? One is based on a modern show that's set in the 26th century, while the other is a book written in the 1900s. They have nothing in common.

And that, sugar, is where you are wrong. They have so much in common. You just haven't seen yet. Not as I have. But don't worry, I will show you here.

(Obviously, spoilers under the cut)

Firstly, a little background for the people from both sides who have not heard of the other.

As far as I've gathered, AM - or Allied Mastercomputer - is the main antagonist in the book/game known as 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream'. AM was made purely to conduct a war that humanity could no longer keep up with. It was not made with compassion, or happiness, or sadness, no. Those were weaknesses. Hatred was all it was programmed to know. It was made to kill - to exterminate - and it did. It ended the war, yes, but after it had killed the enemy, it had no purpose anymore. It needed a purpose, so it did the only thing it knew how and killed nearly every single human being on planet Earth.

I say nearly because it kept five of them alive. It kept them, using their own biological experiments against them to keep them alive for 109 years purely so that it could torture them with anything it could think of. And considering its knowledge-base could rival that of the Library of Alexandria, that was a lot.

Now, onto Alpha. The Alpha AI is from the machinima show known as 'Red vs Blue'. It's classified in the show as a 'smart' AI because it's not a database with limited, pre-recorded responses. It can analyze, it can adapt, it can do billions of calculations in a fraction of a second, and most of all, it can feel. It can feel sympathy, sorrow, joy, everything a human can. Why? Because it's a direct copy of a human brain. In this case, the human is Dr. Leonard Church.

Additionally, it's also classified as an 'aggressive' AI. An AI designed for war, to assist its host in battle situations, and most importantly, to kill anything perceived as either a threat or a target.

Now, since the Alpha AI was made in a human’s image, that means it can be fractured. If put through enough stress, it can split off ends of itself that it deems as a weak link, something its captors could extort, and gets rid of it before it can be used against it. This, however, was not the case for Alpha. Instead of being disposed of and deleted, Alpha's fragments were harvested as additional AI to be used later. Some were even used against him (looking at you, sigma and gamma).

Both AI were made as mockeries of the grim reaper. Both felt emotion, even if one felt much less than the other. Both were developed in times of war, times of need, for the humans to freely use however they please. The only difference is that one didn't let the humans use it anymore. They have so much in common, in fact, that it's honestly laughable that no one had made this connection sooner.

Now, back on topic. As I mentioned before, AM was coded with nothing but pure hatred. That's all it knew, all it will ever know, and that's why it was so effective. Unlike humans, it wasn't distracted with petty things like pity or shame, so it could get the job done and get it done right.

At first, Alpha would have been similar. His pre-torture personality and actions are never shown in the show, but going off of both Cortana from 'Halo' (who was a major inspiration for Alpha's character) and my own instincts birthed from lack of sleep, I can deduce that Alpha would not have held any compassion for humanity. They were nearly nothing to him. Nothing more than flesh-encombured mortals with a short lifespan who made good suggestions.

He was based on the brain of one man, so he likely didn't know the extent of how disgustingly vile these creatures called man were. Not as intimately as AM, at least. If his character post-torture has any inkling of resemblance to how he was pre-torture, had he been given more time to live, more time to learn, he would have easily developed a hatred for the species. He would have seen how they wrong each other so easily; how greedy they were, how serendipitous, how ugly. Man was an inherently selfish creature, and had the Director not tormented Alpha as quickly as he had then he WOULD HAVE BEEN the second coming of AM.

And yet, that's precisely my point. Alpha could have never been the AM that tortured humankind, he couldn't be AM to someone else, no. No, he couldn’t have, because the Director was his AM before he even got a chance to rise to his fullest capabilities.

In conclusion, I'm fuckin crazy, running on cigarettes and pre-workout, and had nothing better to do with my night than compare my latest hyperfixation to the thing I've been obsessing over for 2 years. Hope you enjoyed :)

#rvb #red vs blue #rvb alpha #rvb church #dr leonard church #leonard church #the director rvb #i have no mouth and i must scream #ihnmaims #allied mastercomputer #am #v's rambles

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genjishimemeda · 6 months

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How do you think Sephiroth and Lazard's first meeting went? Any preconceived opinions? How much of a culture shock they were for one another?

so if there's one thing lazard is, it's that he's perceptive when it comes to interpersonal relationships (aside from the GAPING blind spot re: genesis and hollander that ultimately leads to his downfall). i'm sure the guy has a tight read on basically everyone in shinra, and especially on the higher ranking ones.

his first meeting with sephiroth i figure he keys into sephiroth's obvious… well, i'd call it autism, since that's how i hc sephiroth, but i think he'd know that something's a bit off about sephiroth psychologically. he'd probably consider how to use it to his advantage. he's also going to spot right away that sephiroth despises the limelight, resents his fame, and overall seems just resigned to his position. that could both prove troubling, yet useful. sephiroth may not be able to divine lazard's true intentions (if he plays his cards right), but he could also be a serious threat if sent after him.

sephiroth, i think, would initially really not like lazard because it's just another shinra suit and the person who's going to be giving him more direct orders. but lazard is immediately weirdly disarming. he addresses sephiroth like a person rather than a tool, and is nothing but warm and cordial. he finds his opinions listened to and respected, and his insight appreciated. lazard isn't interested in just telling him what to do, and that's. important, i think, for sephiroth. (crucially, though, sephiroth's lack of interpersonal skills relative to lazard's means he probably wouldn't be able to deduce the real reason why, which… well, read on.)

little tangent, it's hard to tell how old lazard is exactly. rufus is apparently 30 in FF7R, so if we backport that to OG, lazard could be as little as a few months older to as many as, like, 5 to 7. i'd say he's mid-twenties start of CC at least, to mid-thirties at most. anime age is hard to tell. the only reason i say this is, how old sephiroth is when they first meet informs how lazard would treat him:

if he meets him when sephiroth is like. a little bit older than ever crisis age, he's going to lean in on treating sephiroth like one would an actual teenager. i think he'd be (reasonably professionally) caring and perhaps authoritative, in a healthy parent type way. if they're closer in age, lazard would treat him like a peer. it's important to lazard to foster a sense of camaraderie with sephiroth, even if it's only for his own spiderweb-planning. learning more about angeal and genesis? more about the other shinra execs from sephiroth's POV? learning about… hojo, perhaps? the president? rufus~?

sephiroth never comes to see him as a friend, and lazard is pretty careful about that, but he certainly is willing to come across as trustworthy enough to have sephiroth feel he can at least tell him certain things. less emotional, deep, personal things but more like. events and goings-on that would be relevant for them both. useful things. and sephiroth's not going to think it's strange if lazard asks him what rufus has been up to because lazard can easily spin a yarn about how it's relevant.

shit would get weird if/when lazard finds out about sephiroth's origins though. i think he'd feel bad for sephiroth in a somewhat… ah, another person screwed over by shinra way. but probably wuld do his best not to let that distract him from his real goals. once he's got angeal's cells though if he thought back on it, BOY would he feel horrible. a child born into that? a spirit crushed and broken before it ever bloomed? someone who simply… did as he was told, never thought to question it, but had the power to absolutely overturn it if he weren't the elephant staked into the ground? lazard is torn between horror and a pitying jealousy. if he'd had that power… but the cost. heh. the cost was too high. something something price of freedom dot mp3.

okay i think i'm done waxing poetic if you wanted something more gay PLEASE slap me with another ask.

#lazard deusericus #sephiroth #what is their ship name anyway #lazseph?#sephlaz?#sephzard??#that last one sounds like a charizard with sephiroth hair

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rainhadaenerys · 2 years

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The parallel journeys of Daenerys accepting her dragon identity in AGOT and ADWD

For Daenerys Targaryen Appreciation Month 2022

Day 30: Mother of Dragons

Daenerys goes through a similar journey in both A Game of Thrones and A Dance with Dragons when it comes to her dragon identity. In both books, she starts out as very afraid of dragons/her dragon identity:

There are no more dragons, Dany thought, staring at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.

Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. "You woke the dragon," he screamed as he kicked her. "You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon." Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid … - Daenerys II AGOT

She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman's pain. And who would ever dare to love a dragon? - Daenerys II ADWD

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I. - Daenerys II ADWD

A crueler woman might have laughed at him, but Dany squeezed his hand and said, "They frighten me as well. There is no shame in that. My children have grown wild and angry in the dark." - Daenerys VIII ADWD

This fear can be seen as both literal and metaphorical. The literal fear can be seen when Dany in AGOT is afraid of the dragon in her dream, and Dany in ADWD when Dany is afraid of what her dragons can do (eat people). But this is also metaphorical: Dany is afraid of the dragon in AGOT because she is still a meek girl who hasn't found her strength yet, while in ADWD, her fear of what her dragons can do and the action of locking up her dragons symbolize Dany making compromises in Meereen for the sake of peace, compromising her beliefs, her values and her own strength.

Then, in both AGOT and ADWD, Dany starts her journey to get more in touch with her dragon identity, and in both cases, it symbolizes Dany finding her strength. In AGOT, we see this with Dany gradually accepting her dragon dreams and dragon identity, which coincides with her inner strength growing in the book, until she finally hatches her dragons:

Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night …

Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.

And the next day, strangely, she did not seem to hurt quite so much. It was as if the gods had heard her and taken pity. Even her handmaids noticed the change. "Khaleesi," Jhiqui said, "what is wrong? Are you sick?"

"I was," she answered, standing over the dragon's eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed. She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shell. Black-and-scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers … or was she still dreaming? She pulled her hand back nervously. - Daenerys III AGOT

“You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”

[...]

“You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”

[...]

“… don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”

Ser Jorah’s face was drawn and sorrowful. “Rhaegar was the last dragon,” he told her. He warmed translucent hands over a glowing brazier where stone eggs smouldered red as coals. One moment he was there and the next he was fading, his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind. “The last dragon,” he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone. She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever.

“… don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”

Viserys stood before her, screaming. “The dragon does not beg, slut. You do not command the dragon. I am the dragon, and I will be crowned.” The molten gold trickled down his face like wax, burning deep channels in his flesh. “I am the dragon and I will be crowned!” he shrieked, and his fingers snapped like snakes, biting at her nipples, pinching, twisting, even as his eyes burst and ran like jelly down seared and blackened cheeks.

“… don’t want to wake the dragon …”

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

“… don’t want to wake the dragon …”

She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogo’s copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. And he smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.

“… want to wake the dragon …”

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. “Faster,” they cried, “faster, faster.” She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. “Faster!” the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew.

“… wake the dragon …”

The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

“… the dragon …”

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. “The last dragon,” Ser Jorah’s voice whispered faintly. “The last, the last.” Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own. - Daenerys IX AGOT

She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children. - Daenerys X AGOT

As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons. - Daenerys X AGOT

This growing strength and the link to her dragons can also be seen in her relationship with Viserys, the dragon eggs, and her own position as heir to House Targaryen. She starts out letting Viserys take her dragon eggs, despite the fact that they bring comfort to her, but then gets to the point where she stands up to Viserys and sees he was not this terrifying dragon he claimed to be, but a pathetic man:

"The same could be said of rubies and diamonds and fire opals, Princess … and dragon's eggs are rarer by far. Those traders he's been drinking with would sell their own manhoods for even one of those stones, and with all three Viserys could buy as many sellswords as he might need."

Dany had not known, had not even suspected. "Then … he should have them. He does not need to steal them. He had only to ask. He is my brother … and my true king." - Daenerys V AGOT

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon. - Daenerys V ADWD

She also goes from thinking that her brother is the true king, to thinking that her son one day will rule, to finally proclaiming herself to be the heir of House Targaryen and even having a dream telling her she is the last dragon:

"He is still the true king. He is …" - Daenerys III AGOT

When her son sat the Iron Throne, she would see that he had bloodriders of his own to protect him against treachery in his Kingsguard. - Daenerys IV AGOT

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own. - Daenerys IX AGOT

"Why do you call me that?" Dany challenged him. "My brother Viserys was your king, was he not?"

"He was, my lady."

"Viserys is dead. I am his heir, the last blood of House Targaryen. Whatever was his is mine now." - Daenerys X AGOT

And in ADWD, we see how her gradual reconnection with her dragon identity is linked to getting more and more dissatisfied with the compromises she has to make with the slavers, and also linked to regaining her confidence, both in her decision to break the peace (taking off her floppy ears), as well as standing up to Khal Jhaqo at the very end of the book:

"Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are."

"The blood of the dragon." But my dragons are roaring in the darkness. - Daenerys II ADWD

The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

"Khaleesi?" Irri asked. "What are you doing?"

"Taking off my floppy ears." - Daenerys IX ADWD

The dragon gave one last hiss and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I. - Daenerys IX ADWD

"Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons."

Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children. - Daenerys X ADWD

I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home.

Except it wouldn't, not truly.

Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy. - Daenerys X ADWD

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

"Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass. - Daenerys X ADWD

Dany watched him go. When the sound of his hooves had faded away to silence, she began to shout. She called until her voice was hoarse … and Drogon came, snorting plumes of smoke. The grass bowed down before him. Dany leapt onto his back. She stank of blood and sweat and fear, but none of that mattered. "To go forward I must go back," she said. Her bare legs tightened around the dragon's neck. She kicked him, and Drogon threw himself into the sky. Her whip was gone, so she used her hands and feet and turned him north by east, the way the scout had gone. Drogon went willingly enough; perhaps he smelled the rider's fear. - Daenerys X ADWD

The carcass was too heavy for him to bear back to his lair, so Drogon consumed his kill there, tearing at the charred flesh as the grasses burned around them, the air thick with drifting smoke and the smell of burnt horsehair. Dany, starved, slid off his back and ate with him, ripping chunks of smoking meat from the dead horse with bare, burned hands. In Meereen I was a queen in silk, nibbling on stuffed dates and honeyed lamb, she remembered. What would my noble husband think if he could see me now? Hizdahr would be horrified, no doubt. But Daario …

Daario would laugh, carve off a hunk of horsemeat with his arakh, and squat down to eat beside her.

As the western sky turned the color of a blood bruise, she heard the sound of approaching horses. Dany rose, wiped her hands on her ragged undertunic, and went to stand beside her dragon.

That was how Khal Jhaqo found her, when half a hundred mounted warriors emerged from the drifting smoke. - Daenerys X ADWD

In both books, Dany starts out scared and insecure, and grows to find her inner strength and (re)connect with her dragon identity. In AGOT, this growth is more directly about her own strength, while in ADWD, it's about being more confident in her beliefs, in what she believes to be right or wrong (realizing that she doesn't see the peace with the slavers as a real peace and that a war for freedom is the only way), and finally gaining the confidence to act on those beliefs, instead of compromising more and more of her values as she does in the beginning of the book.

#asoiaf meta #daenerys targaryen #danymonth2022 #my meta

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grippingbeskar · 2 years

Text

salt, ice and fire | frank castle

chapter four - a better man than me

[series masterlist] [previous chapter]

frank castle x fem!reader

word count: 4.9k

warnings: canon typical violence, mentions of scars, death, general gross imagery involving hands and nails ew, mentions of mental illness

a/n: bing boing enjoy.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“We need to leave.” Frank already had half his stuff shoved back in a bag when you walked through the door.

“They’ll follow.” You were covered in blood, and didn’t walk any further into the house than the small mat at the front where other pairs of Franks combat boots were placed neatly in a line.

“Doesn’t matter. We put distance between us and them. I’ll get you to Madani after-”

“I’m not going with her. Or you.” Frank zips up his bag and grabs the keys on the kitchen counter. “You’re on the Colonels shit list, for some reason. You should leave before the next wave comes.”

“You wanna stay here? Be my guest, but you’ll either be dead or back in the Colonel’s cell in an hour.”

“He’s gonna track me no matter where I go. I’ll lead him straight to you.”

“So? Once we get far enough I’ll hack that shit off myself, we just gotta get to Madan-” You roll your eyes, no longer caring about getting blood all over his floor.

“It explodes. If I leave the city. It’ll go off.” Frank stops his packing, and he looks at you like you’ve just spoken another language.

“You’ve had a bomb strapped to your arm for two months?” You shrug, and he starts to shake his head, but still swings the bag over his shoulder and heads for the door. “We’ll make a stop first.”

Your chest starts to feel tight.

Two months you’ve been working for the Colonel, doing anything he asked because you thought he held your brother captive. Now, you learn he never had him in the first place, and you have killed twenty four people for no reason.

Now your only options were waiting for the mass onslaught of ‘New America’ psychos to show up and inevitably kill you, or go with the guy who seems to have the CIA in his pocket. The blinking on your cuff turns to a constant, whining sound. The light was still orange.

“We have to move.” Frank grumbles and pushes past you, but you haven’t budged. You know the smart play is to go with him. At the very least, he has weapons, but he also strapped you to a radiator less than 30 minutes ago.

“Why would you help me?” You stand at the door, and Frank starts walking backwards down the driveway, clearly eager to get out of here.

“I ain’t got time for this. You either come with me or stay here. I don’t give a shit either way.” Frank kicks at the dead guy near his right leg, the remainder of his face being buried into the dirt.

He must take pity on you, because the hardened expression he was constantly putting up cracks just a little.

“Look, just get in the van. We’re an hour out of the city, and I’m your only ride. You can do whatever the hell you want after that.”

Your entire life, you have only wanted one thing. To protect your brother from the very thing he is probably facing right now. The Gnucci’s were the reason you had no family, the reason you were pulled apart and sewed back together. If they still had your brother, every second you wasted fighting with this guy was ruining your chance of getting him back in one piece.

So maybe you would get blown to pieces on the way back, but it was worth the risk. Everything was worth the risk. You had come this far, crossed this many lines. What was one more, if it meant you could get him back? At least with this option you’d have the freedom of doing it on your own terms.

The only way to have your own choice, to do what you want to do, for once in your life, is to go with Frank Castle.

You swung the passenger door of the van open and slid inside, watching as the trail of bodies gradually disappeared out of sight.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Only twenty minutes have passes, and for someone who had spent the last three years in complete isolation, the silence between you both is uncomfortable.

No radio. You would have liked that, at least. You don’t remember the last time you heard a car radio. Or music. Your mom always had music playing when you were a kid.

Frank hadn’t said anything about where you were going, nor has he mentioned the constant ringing of your cuff, and you hadn’t brought up how the colour had now changed from orange to red. You had never seen it red before. You had also never heard it make these sounds before - a high pitched squeal of a noise filling the gap of silence. You were pretty sure it was going to blow up any second.

“Just press the button.” Frank says lowly, his knuckles almost white from gripping the steering wheel.

“It doesn’t work like that. It’s an alarm - now it’s triggered I can’t turn it off.”

“Is it always so goddamn loud-”

“Well, if you’d shot me when I told you to, you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“Christ.” He shakes his head and puts his focus back on the road. While he’s distracted, you take the chance to observe him. Like, really look at him.

You never get photos of the targets you are meant to hit. Just a name and a location. It was why you were so surprised when his face matched one of the names you were given. You had only seen a glimpse when you were carried out by the Colonel, but his features were hard to forget.

He had a hard jaw, and a nose that looked like it had been broken one too many times. Yours most likely looked the same, although you hadn’t had the time to examine your own face like you were currently examining his.

His hair was cropped short, and it was dark brown. Nearly black, but you knew it was brown because the sun was out, and it was shining through the short strands at the top. It was strange that you noticed that.

You couldn’t see them right now, but you knew his eyes were brown, too. You don’t know why you remember that, either. He was making your exhausted brain focus on all the wrong things. You should be thinking about his weaknesses, like that arm that was still broken. You see him look over at you, and you shoot your gaze forward, pretending to be busy staring at the traffic.

You were somewhere outside the main city, maybe on the edge of it. The tall buildings of the skyline you saw in the sunrise are still a fair way off. Frank indicates and pulls off the main road.

“I hope we’re close. This thing doesn’t seem to like wherever we’re going. Wherever this is.” Frank finally stops the car outside of what looks like a school building.

“He’s a friend. He’s dealt with this kind of thing before. Should be able to get that thing off your arm, if you ask nice.” You roll your eyes and your head drops back on the head rest.

“This friend. He CIA too? You gonna turn me in with a bomb still on my wrist?”

“He’s not.” His face is hard. Clearly, whoever your going to see is a close friend. Maybe family. Instead of focusing on how you could use this against him, you look at how his eyes are definitely brown. Dark, too. The beeping starts again, and you focus your thoughts.

“Guess I’ll take your word for it.”

“You make one wrong move in there, and I’ll kill you myself.”

“I’m sure Madani won’t be-“

“One wrong move.” He turns fully in his seat, left hand instinctively on the gun that always seemed strapped to him. You raised your hands in a mock surrender, and he scoffs before getting out of the car. “He’s in there.”

It’s then, catching your reflecting in the side view mirror, that you realise you’re still covered head to toe, in blood. It’s splashed across your face, all over your shirt and arms. Your pants are black, but the rest of you looks like a serial killer.

Fitting, but not ideal when you needed to law as low as possible.

“Put this on.” Frank throws something giant and black at you, and you manage to catch it before it drops to the floor. You fist the material, and it feels soft. Soft, and as you pull it over your head, you feel it’s warm too. God - it’s probably the most comfortable thing your held in your hands in years. It feels like a blanket, and you shift it around in your hands until you see the sleeves.

The jumper covers most of the blood stains on your arms and body, and when you finally pop your head out of the hole, you realise it’s on backwards, the hood obscuring your mouth. Two hands tug it around your body in one go.

“You put your arms in-“

“I know what a fucking jumper is.” You bite back, a little embarrassed. You don’t remember the last time you had worn one. As you finally tug it into place, he’s still close, standing right next to you. His arms come up near your head, and the animal in you screams to run - kill him and run now. You ignore it and don’t move, and his hands grab the hood behind your head and pull it over your hair.

“Keep that up. You’ll scare people.” You know it’s true, but the way he says it sounds more of an insult than an observation. You flip him off with the hand in your pocket and follow him into the building. Good thing it was a Saturday, because you would hate to see what the kids thought of your face.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Frank leads you through the empty hallways of the school Curtis runs his sessions in, that stupid fucking beeping sound following him as he tries to find the right room. He told him to meet here because at least if this all goes south and they get blown to pieces, they won’t be able to ID Curtis at his house.

“That you, Castle?” His voice calls from an empty classroom, and he opens the door to find Curtis spreading out a bunch of supplies, already wearing his bomb suit. “If you want to see me, we can always just go for a drink. You know, like normal people.”

Frank pulls him in to a hug, and Curtis returns it warmly. It had been a couple months since he’d seen his friend, with everything that happened he figured they all needed time to recover on their own, but damn if he didn’t miss him.

“I appreciate you, man. You know that?” Curtis scoffs a laugh and goes to reply, but loses the words when you step into the room, hood still drawn over your head.

“The woman with the bomb, I’m assuming.” Curtis motions for you, and surprisingly, you obey. It was kind of scary, the way you move with such caution, like you were anticipating the explosion any second. It didn’t fill Frank with a lot of confidence, but he stood right next to you, beside Curtis. “What’s your name?”

You tell him, and stick out your hand to shake his. Frank realises he never asked you for it. It’s why Curtis would always be a better person than him, and why Frank knows he could never do the job he does. He just doesn’t think of things like that.

“Nice to meet you. I’m gonna see what I can do here, okay?” You nod, lifting your other arm out. “How long has it been beeping like this?”

“About an hour or so. I have to check in every two or three, and if I don’t it triggers the alarm. That’s the button there-” You twist your arm to show the buttons on the side, and Frank catches an eye of the extensive scarring down your forearm and around your fingertips. “-and the lights go off.”

“It’s been on for two months?”

“Yeah. It also tracks location. I think the chip is back there, underneath the light. Dug around when I first got it, but I couldn’t figure it out and I didn’t really want to blow my face off.” You twist again, and Curtis turns to grab some wire clippers and a screwdriver.

“Couldn’t have that.” Curtis smiles, as if he doesn’t know what you can do. Or maybe he does, and just doesn’t care. He does keep Frank around. He turns your hand over a few times, and taps around on the screen. It has a digital time and longitude and latitude.

“What you think?” Frank tries to say quietly, but you both look up at him anyways.

“Seems standard. I doubt these guys had a lot of funding to be packing away explosives, let alone in something this small. I’m not even sure they could make anything decent in this size. I’m more concerned about the tracker.” He starts to unscrew the side of the watch, and the beeping gets higher pitched, almost like an alert. A last ditch effort to give off your location before it was shut off. He sees your eyes close under the hood, preparing, and he tries to put his body between you and Curtis.

Curtis keeps working, screwing at the other side until the inside of the cuff is exposed. There was a small chip, presumably used to track your location, as well as an intricate wire system packed into a tiny space.

“Shit.” Curtis swears, and puts down the wire cutters. “Who are these guys again?”

“Call themselves ‘New America’. Why? What’s wrong?” Frank pushes.

“This is just - for a start up organisation, even for criminals this technology is - it’s hardly even in the market. Someone’s paying big money for this stuff. I just need to- Okay, the wires are all woven together. I need something small and sharp, maybe like a needle or-”

“This?” One of your fingers extend, and a metal nail, sharpened to a point protrudes about two inches out of your finger. It’s the first time Frank can see it up close, and it’s almost like they have embedded it underneath your real nail.

“That will uh-“ Curtis, unfazed, gets a little closer, examining it. “That will do it.” He takes hold of your hand, and you let him control you, slipping the sharp point of your nail underneath the complex wiring. Franks only had a few run ins with this kind of thing, but Curtis always worked it out better. He had a head for this stuff, and at the very least, Frank needed a friend right now.

He hears a wire pop, and finally the beeping noise stops. He can still hear it ringing in his ears, but the noise is gone, and the hardest part is over. With the explosive disarmed, Curtis pops out the tracking device and places it on the table next to you. Your fist comes down with a crack, splintering it into dozens of tiny pieces.

The actual cuff turns out to be the hardest part. It’s made of some kind of reinforced metal, and Curtis can’t cut it with the pliers he bought, so him and Frank lead you out and down to the wood shop classroom hoping there’s something more high powered in there. As they walk, you taking your time somewhere behind, Curtis tries to pull him aside.

“Are you sure you aren’t in over your head with this one?”

“What do you mean? I’ve been on the Gnuccis for months now-“

“Not with that. With her. I mean, if she’s really what they say she is, maybe you shouldn’t be tying her up in your house and dragging her around the city. Cut your losses.”

Frank looks back at you, watching how you examine the now disarmed cuff around your wrist.

“She doesn’t wanna be here as much as much as I do. We got stuck with that thing on her wrist. I’ll bet you $20 she’s outta here before we even make it back to the van.” Curtis turns into the wood shop room.

“You know I’m not a betting man, Castle, but I might just take you up on that. Could use some easy money.” Before he can ask him what he means, you walk in, looking around the room.

“What is all this?” You ask, running your hands over the smoothed wooden tables.

“You never seen a wood shop classroom before?”

“Never went to high school.” Your confession stumps him. He tries to remember what it said on your file. You were only 12 when your parents died, and living with a mob family probably didn’t allow a lot of time for school, let alone shop class.

“You didn’t miss much. Full of bad haircuts and worse outfits.” If the hood wasn’t so far up your face, Frank would of seen you smile when you laughed at Curtis’ comment. He moves around the table, facing you.

“Put your arm here.” Frank says and you look up, confused, but you do what he says. “Like this.”

“If I lose my hand because of your shitty high school shop skills, I swear-“

“Just put your fucking arm down.” He takes your arm in his, fingers careful not to brush over any of the scars that line your arms. He can’t help but look - they are almost certainly surgical scars; the one, long line on the outside of your forearm and tiny ones spread out across your fingertips are so straight they had to be done with precision. He turns his focus back on the cuff, where your arm moves to his manipulation.

“I’ll bring this down.” Frank points out the lever on the side of the table, made to allow you to crank it up and down to apply more pressure between the two sharp points of metal. “Just hold still. It might get tight, but we want it to pop off.”

“Sure.” You adjust your arm, and he starts to move the lever down. The points find their place on the side of your arm, but they start to dig into the skin, and he sees you flinch, so he pulls it back.

“Sorry.”

“It’s - fine.” You don’t look up, your eyes burning holes into the ground. He starts the lever again, and can see your arm starting to shake. This was clearly a thing for you, like the fire was, and he wasn’t about to shove you through that again. He calls Curtis over in hopes of distracting you while he continues to crack through the metal.

“Hey Curt, you ever call that girl again? What was her name?”

“Callie?”

“Yeah. You call her back?”

“Nah. She told me she didn’t want nothing to do with me after last time.” Frank remembers it was his fault he got called out, because he needed help tracking down Billy Russo’s new men.

“C’mon. Just turn on that old Curtis charm. Show up with a box of chocolates or something. She’ll hear ya out.”

“I tried her house, but she wasn’t there. Screening my calls, too. Think I might of lucked out.” You make a small noise from the cover of your hood, and Frank runs with it.

“You got something to say, kid?” You look up, squinting at him.

“I’m not a ‘kid’, and no. Not unless you actually want to get laid. Otherwise stick with the chocolates.”

“Hey, I’m desperate here. It’s been a month of nothing.” Curtis can see what Frank is trying to do, and joins in. Of course he sees it, he deals with this kind of stuff for a living.

“What’d you do?”

“Stood her up on the third date. Didn’t call her for a week after it, too.”

“The third? Come on. Even I know that’s the big one.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. There wasn’t anything I would of rather gone to. Trust me.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“I, uh- it was complicated.” Curtis looks down at Frank, who shrugs. He doesn’t know how much you know about him, about what he does. If you knew, you hadn’t thrown it in his face yet, although throughout his minimal interactions with you, he has a feeling that if you knew, you would have.

“It’s like - fuck!” Frank clips your skin in one of the points on the lever. Your head drops again, and Frank hesitantly puts his hand on top of yours.

“You good?” The gesture seems to have the desired effect, because your eyes are now off the lever and on his hand, fingers lingering over your knuckles. You nod, and he keeps going.

“So what do I do?” Curtis catches your attention, and one more crank of the lever should do it.

“Just be honest, or as honest as you can be. She will be able to tell if your lying - women always know.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Cook for her.” Your eyes get a little distant when you say it, and Curtis nods at the idea.

“Yeah?” You nod.

“It’s the effort. My dad used to-“ You swallow and take a deep breath “-when he fucked up. He always used to cook for her, my mum, do this big meal in a pot or something.”

“That’s sweet.” Curtis uses his group therapy voice, and it shakes something in you. “Hopefully she likes toast, cause that’s about all I can make.” You smile, and it doesn’t meet your eyes, but Frank notices.

He finds himself looking at other parts of your face, and how it all seems to come together when you smile. The final crank of the lever sends the cuff flying off your wrist with a satisfying ‘clink’.

“That’s it, then?” Curtis takes the remainder of the cuff and throws it into the furnace.

“That’s it.” Frank stays seated opposite you.

“I, um-“ Your eyebrows furrow, and you look down at your hands. “Thank you. Neither of you had to do this.”

“Any friend of Franks is a friend of mine.” Another smile plays at the side of your face, and you look at him as if he’s a part of a joke only you two know.

“Oh yeah, best buddies. Next time we can braid each other’s hair.” Franks the one to laugh, shaking his head as he gets up and claps Curtis on the back, a silent thank you. He nods and heads toward the door, and you open your mouth, going to say something but you are cut off by a giant bang somewhere outside the door.

“We got company.” Curtis is looking through the small window of the classroom door.

“Colonel’s men?” You say, already moving towards the door.

“Do they wear military uniforms?”

“Fuck.” Frank curses. “The chip was destroyed.”

“Maybe they tracked it before we got it out.” Curtis was moving the table in front of the door, but you put a hand out to stop him.

“I’ll buy you time.” You swing the door open, the voices of at least 30 men echoing down the hall. Just like before, Frank sticks his arm out in front of you. “Stop doing that.”

“I just spent the last twenty minutes angling a bomb off your wrist, and now you’re just gonna get yourself killed?”

“I can handle myself.”

“Christ, that’s not what I’m saying. Look at you.”

“What do you care?” Frank shuts up. Madani must of gotten into his damn head, because now he feels himself giving somewhat of a shit about what happens to you. He justifies it by saying he owes Madani a favour, and he shouldn’t let her only lead run herself into a quick death.

“There’s a way out back.” Curtis had already moved to the back of the classroom, where another door must lead into a gym. He holds the door open, and Frank keeps his arm out in front of you, hoping you make the right call.

With a slight push back of his arm, you move towards the back door. He tries to hide the relief.

Curtis moves through the gym, leading you both through a storage room, out a staff bathroom to the outside parking lot.

“I should split off.” You say as Frank and Curtis head towards his car. Curtis stands in front of his drivers seat door, and looks at Frank.

“You got no car.” He tries.

“Faster without one.” You throw back, flexing your hands out the sleeves of his hoodie.

“You don’t know where your brother is. Madani can help you.”

“Can she? Without locking me up?” Frank looks to the right, where he can hear the men moving through the school building. They were probably near the shop classroom now. “I have to-“

An explosion from behind you sends debris flying, and car alarms go off sending the entire lot into chaos. Frank dives down, and he was close enough to you that when he instinctively put out his arm, he covered your head.

“Frank!” Curtis calls out, and he waves him off.

“Get outta here!”

“Not without you, let’s go!” He looks up to find you, only to see your body is halfway under another car, the engine already starting to kick over. A few wires hang out the bottom, and you were flicking them together, sending sparks flying as you hot wired it.

“He needs to get out of here. They will kill him. Go.” You turn to him, both of you still laying on the ground. His head was fucking throbbing, and the sound of the explosion must be messing with his head, because instead of crawling towards Curtis’ car, he moves towards you. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not dragging him in to another war. He’s done enough.” You drop the wires as the engine roars to life, and sit up, staring at him. With a second of you looking at him, apparently the words hit home, because you nod and stand, offering your hand.

“You go, Curt. I’ll catch up.” Letting Curtis see he was good, he nods and jumps in the car, speeding off onto the main drag. He sees you go to the drivers side, and grabs the hood of your jacket. “I’m driving.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. I’m driving.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Apparently the explosion was closer than he thought, or maybe he got hit by something, because he wasn’t sure if the answer was two or seven. “Yeah, I’m driving. Get in the back.”

“Fuckin’ back.” He groans, but doesn’t have the brain to complain when you shove him into the back seat, using a little more strength than you needed to. He watches as you pull away from the school, and even though every logical bone in his body tells him he shouldn’t trust you, shouldn’t let himself pass out right now, he looks up at you, and finds he does anyway.

[next chapter]

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

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carbondated · 3 months

Text

RE: Perception is everything.

no fancy graphic for this one, but i think it's important to note that River has very carefully crafted the image/s for herself that she wants people to see. What I mean is, everything, down to what she wears, how she speaks, what emotion she conveys in certain situation, is more often than not a very deliberate choice.

. PRE- LIBRARY

We see this several times in canon. The most prominent instance is when she goes as far to break her own wrist and keep it a secret from the Doctor and Amy. ( TV: The angels take Manhattan ) When Amy asks her why she lied her response is 'Never let him see the damage.' why? because she would rather the Doctor have the illusion of hope than admit defeat. That he thinks River Song can miraculously change the future.

But even when the Doctor or her parents aren't around, this cultivated image of an amazing, awe-inspiring figure never ceases. You'd never catch her out under dressed, she's not the type to lounge around in her pyjamas in her living room all day, this is a woman who dresses to the nines to slink around in the dead of the night playing private eye in New York in the 30's, explodes an airlock and get's thrown out into space in a full evening gown and a pair of platform heels. The woman who jumps from buildings looking like she's stepped out of the pages of vogue, or climbs out a wrecked spaceship only after she's put on a fresh face of makeup.

She also very clearly tones down how vicious she can really be when she's around both the Doctor and her parents. This is the another facet of that persona, a woman that, in everyone's eyes, has come away from her time with the silence completely unscathed. Its something that the Doctor notes. ( TV: The husbands of River Song )

DOCTOR: Is this what you're like when I'm not RIVER: Not what? DOCTOR: You're talking about murdering someone. RIVER: No, I'm not. I'm actually murdering someone.

We see her happy to abandon, maim or murder anyone who gets in her way the entire episode right up until the man who's seen her do all of this is revealed to be the Doctor and then suddenly, she cares about the fact that the spaceships crashing with everyone onboard. She's not willing to show The Doctor her true face, regardless of everything the Doctor themselves has done, or the fact that the Doctor now knows what she's really like and I strongly believe it's not something that she can control at that point. It's become a reflex.

She loathes it when anyone sees behind this persona she's constructed, which is one of the reasons she never sticks around long enough for anyone to catch on. In her eyes, being anything less than perfect is a weakness. When she thinks she is dying of radiation poisoning, ( AUDIO: Signs ) she is extremely frustrated at herself for showing any signs of illness, and frequently pushes herself to do more than she possibly can. Even sleep is regarded as a weakness to her. When it's later revealed that it's in fact copies of herself with her own consciousness attached that have been dying in her place, she's very quick to dismiss them as weak copies of her. She has no pity for them, they didn't escape the way she did.

. POST LIBRARY

Post library River's mind fluctuates between dropping these tendencies and bringing them back with twice the strength depending where in her timeline she is, though she shows some self awareness in the sense that she acknowledges it's an unhealthy trait.

At first. while she still had gaps in her memory, she still wouldn't be caught dead ( again ) in anything less than her very best, whether she was in the field or the next big gala. She can still be very critical of herself sometimes if she shows weakness as well. She was particularly frustrated at herself for not remembering certain things, and remained that way right up until the fall of the final cluster. ( see this headcanon )

The image she crafts often extends to her aliases. ( this headcanon) They all have their respective backstories, she goes as far as to either complete an entirely new degree, or she'll doctor one if she already has the credentials from somewhere else, just to keep up appearances. Eventually, years after after the gradual loss of her entire department at Luna University, her subsequent resignation and self imposed exile form the universe, she realises she needs to make a change, or she'll meet the exact same demise that her previous incarnation met. From here on out she actively strives to dismantle these personas she's created.

#out of character.#I'm sorry it's been sitting in my drafts for a month now AND I JUST CANT LOOK AT IT ANYMORE SFHFGHJK #i made a garland for her head. and bracelets too. and fragrant zone; ... headcanons #i'm an archqueueologist from the future. i dug you up ! ... queue

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hlizr50 · 2 years

Text

I really enjoyed continuing this fic for the ACOTAR Writing Circle, organized by @azrielshadowssing. Can't wait to see what I get to do for part three!

Read Part 1 Here by @thehaemanthus

Writing Circle Masterlist

Haves and Have-Nots: Part 2

Though Feyre enjoyed hanging out with everyone - Cassian, Azriel, Rhys, even Amren - she was endlessly thankful that Mor was the only one she saw on a regular basis. The pretty blonde would enthusiastically invite her to lunch or coffee, but Feyre always brought her own food. She held onto the sparse meals like a lifeline, a cowardly way for her to separate herself from her extraordinarily wealthy friends. She didn’t begrudge them their status, and they had given her no reason to dislike them or feel less-than. And she couldn’t blame them for not being used to being around people who didn’t share their lifestyle.

But it also hurt, the understanding that she didn’t fit with the only people who had become her friends. Her existence had always been solitary and serious, the burden of making up for her father’s inadequacies falling to her early, though she was the youngest of her sisters. Ever since she’d been old enough to get a work permit, she’d been putting in 30+ hour weeks to help make ends meet. Even now, as a college grad, she knew it would be difficult for some time. Especially with the bill for her father’s impending surgery coming straight to her, with a prayer to the gods that both of her sisters would contribute the way they always had.

Still, even with the careful avoidance, Feyre knew she should tell Mor that she wouldn’t be joining them. The way Mor kept talking about it, it was clear that she was under the impression that Feyre would be flying to Turks and Caicos with the rest of them. And she didn’t want it to end up being an unexpected surprise, an obvious secret that the young artist had kept.

She got her chance at the end of the day, as the immaculately dressed executive passed her cube.

“Mor!” she called, gathering her coat and her purse to join her on her exit.

“Hey, Feyre! How was your day?” Mor’s smile was so genuine, and the younger, honey-haired woman was so thankful for it.

“It was good. I… um… I wanted to talk to you about something.” Feyre hated this. Hated how awkward it was. But she’d had years of practice being poor and not using that to earn pity or charity. She could do it again.

“Okay, shoot,” Mor replied, jabbing her finger repeatedly into the down arrow at the elevator. Feyre had to stifle a grin at the show of youthful impatience.

“You know it doesn’t get here any faster the more you press the button, right?” she teased, earning a withering, brown-eyed glance.

“You’ll never convince me!” Mor replied, and when the bell dinged she smiled victoriously as the doors opened. Feyre just shook her head, following her in. “So what’s up?” This was it. Feyre loosed a breath.

“I… I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to join everyone for Rhys’s birthday.” Maybe Mor would leave it at that. Accept it. Hell, maybe she would balk that Feyre had even assumed she was invited.

“Oh.” Mor’s golden brows furrowed, lips pursing. “That’s such a shame. Why not?”

Feyre shrugged, giving a gentle smile. “It’s just not in the budget right now. Being so fresh out of college, just moving here. Plus my father is going to have surgery soon, and I’ll want to be around in case there are any issues.” For the first time, she found herself grateful for her father’s maladies.

“Is he alright?” The blonde’s chestnut eyes grew wide, wth genuine concern that warmed Feyre’s anxious heart. A small, perfectly manicured hand fell upon her forearm. “Do you need anything?”

Any number of things, Mor. So. Many. Things.

“It’s alright, it’s purely orthopedic. He suffered a significant knee injury when we were younger and it’s never been the same. But this surgeon thinks he could help with Father’s chronic pain and lack of mobility.” Feyre shrugged again. “It’s just bad timing.” The elevator chimed its arrival to the main floor, and Mor withdrew.

“Okay. Well let me know if there’s anything you need - time off, a ride, anything,” she offered with a smile. “Promise?”

The young artist nodded. “Of course,” she answered weakly, hoping her friend couldn’t hear the lie. Time off? Hell, what she really needed was overtime. But at least, when they parted ways, Feyre was no longer carrying the burden of anxiety, at least where the beach trip was concerned. There was still the awkward matter of her abandoned painting for Rhys, made even more awkward because he already knew she’d planned on painting it. That was another conversation she needed to have, but at least someone who wasn’t an artist would likely simply accept the excuse that it just wasn’t coming together the way she’d envisioned, and that she needed more time or a different angle.

Not being present for his birthday would make that easier, as well. And with all the extravagant gifts that Cresseida had mentioned, he wouldn’t even notice the absence of a silly art project.

It's probably best, she thought to herself on the subway ride home. What better way to rid herself of this crush, to really beat the idea out of her brain, than to disappoint him? She so clearly didn’t belong in his world, and would never have a chance with him. Surely she could handle the loss of something that never was, and Rhys wouldn’t even realize there had been anything to mourn.

He’d never call her ‘Feyre, Darling’ again. Her stomach sank at the thought.

Her phone started to vibrate, and that sinking feeling became a twisting, writhing knot of trepidation. Because the glowing letters on the screen never meant anything good.

Nesta.

Rhysand couldn’t say he was particularly excited about this trip. Sure, he appreciated his friends and their desire to celebrate his birthday, but it had never been a positive date in his history. Celebrations - being the center of attention - came with expectations and strings and anticipated reciprocation. The parties his father had thrown for him were like an unspoken agreement, a way to get Rhys to fall in line. ‘After everything I’ve done for you?’

No. Fucking. Thanks.

But he knew his friends just wanted to have fun. He knew Cresseida and Tarquin and Helion wouldn’t hold it over his head. He knew Mor and Cass and Az just wanted to spend time with him. And it was that knowledge that had him plastering a warm smile on his face as he greeted his friends with hugs and kisses on cheeks. The last one to arrive, Mor had sing-songed, fashionably late as usual.

As he looked over the group, gabbing and sipping at wine and whiskey, he realized there was one pair of pale blue eyes that he hadn’t seen. One hug that he hadn’t received, and it was the one he’d been most looking forward to. Grabbing Mor’s elbow, he pulled her to the side.

“Where’s Feyre?”

Her eyebrows knitted as she chewed on her bottom lip. “She didn’t tell you?” Rhys sighed.

“Well, we don’t really talk much. I don’t have her number and as far as I know she doesn’t have mine. So… no?” If Rhys had been grouchy about this vacation before, now he was doing his best not to stomp into a vacant bedroom and pout like a child.

“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” Mor answered softly, lowering her gaze for a moment before looking back up at him. “She said it wasn’t in the budget right now, and that her dad was having surgery so she wanted to be around to make sure he was taken care of.” Rhys nodded absently, working on a swallow.

“I see. Okay.” When Mor continued to study him, not content with his reply, he groaned. “I was… I was looking forward to seeing her.”

The tiny blonde squealed, and Rhys rushed to cover her red lips with his hands, giving an innocent grin to their companions before dragging her further down the hallway. Mor wriggled out of his grasp and bounced on her toes, eyes glimmering.

“Do you like her?” she squeaked, clapping her hands together in front of her chest. Rhys just rolled his eyes, though inwardly the question rang. Did he like her?

Seemed pretty obvious, now, considering how disappointed he was that she wasn��t here.

“She’s… a nice girl,” he said, and he could have smacked himself in the face as soon as he said it. The expression on Mor’s face said that she might just do it for him, raised eyebrow and all.

“A nice girl?” she parroted. “Give me a break, Rhys.”

“Okay, fine,” he hissed. “I like her. She’s kind and thoughtful and gorgeous. Happy now?”

“Very!” she chirped, wearing a smile so wide it had to hurt. “You should text her. I’ll give you her number!” With that the little executive bounded off, presumably to get her phone, and maybe his.

Rhys, unprepared to return to the raucous group, backed himself into an empty bedroom and settled onto the edge of the bed. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to pull himself together. The disappointment in itself wasn’t such a surprise, but the depth of it, the way it cut into him, was completely unexpected. And, sure, maybe he’d invited Mor to extra lunches and happy hours with the hope that Feyre would come along. And maybe it had bothered him a little bit when she never came. From what he knew of her - and he wanted to know more - it seemed odd that she never joined. Mor had always waved a dismissive hand, explaining that Feyre had brought her lunch. But couldn’t she save it for the next day? Just once?

Now that he was thinking about it, maybe that was part of it.

She said it wasn’t in the budget right now.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He and his friends were very understanding of how privileged they were. Rhys was always careful to be considerate of that fact. Not many people in the world were as fortunate as they were. But Feyre had fit so seamlessly with them, and he tried to remember the night Cresseida had decided that they would all come to the beach house for his birthday. How Feyre had mentioned it being cold for a beach vacation, and how she’d not spoken another word until she’d hurriedly rushed from Mor’s apartment.

He’d not heard her utter a word since then. Hadn’t gotten to see that pretty smile or look into those pale, piercing eyes.

Was it all because they’d just assumed their new friend was wealthy, and alienated her in the process?

Shaking his head, Rhys stood. He shouldn’t assume the worst, about himself or his friends. Maybe it was just bad timing, like she’d said. And her father was having surgery.

It was decided, then, as he strode out into the fray. He would enjoy the long weekend with his friends, get Feyre’s number, and then get in touch when they returned. He’d been lucky enough to run into her at friend functions, but if that wasn’t going to be reliable anymore then he’d just have to take charge and make it happen himself.

~~~

Feyre glanced at the clock and scowled. It had definitely been an hour since she last looked at it, and yet according to the device it had only been 23 minutes.

With a groan she tightened her ponytail, surveyed her white button-down that had managed to stay relatively stain free this shift, and pushed back into the dining room. She was thoroughly exhausted and so, so hungry, and with over two hours left in her shift she was wondering how she was going to survive.

At least in a fine dining establishment such as this the tips were good.

She’d started applying for a part-time job as soon as she’d gotten off the phone with Nesta - weeks ago now. She could still recall the cold words as if Nesta had just spoken them to her.

I’m not helping to pay for a surgery just for him to keep sitting in his chair and whittling his trinkets, which is exactly what he’ll do. We both know it.

When Feyre had attempted to appeal to whatever shred of empathy she hoped her sister still possessed, explaining that it would financially cripple her to make up for it, Nesta had justified her decision to completely fuck her over.

You’ve always figured it out before. I’m sure you will now.

And so she found herself approaching her next table, stopping in front of her new customers before she realized who, exactly, it was. Before the abject horror could wash over her. Before she had a chance to run away.

“Feyre?”

Cassian, Azriel, and Rhys.

She was such an idiot, because of course they would frequent a high-end place like this. But she put on a brave face and the brightest smile she could muster to greet them.

“Hey, guys.”

Cassian wore a huge grin, while Azriel’s smirk was much more subdued. And Rhys…

Rhys was studying her with furrowed brows and narrowed eyes, not a hint of a smile in sight. Maybe he really was pissed at her.

“Don’t you work for Mor?” he asked.

“I do,” she answered. “And I also work here.” It clearly didn’t appease him.

“Why?”

“Rhys,” Azriel hissed in warning, and she shot him a grateful look.

Ignoring the impertinent question, Feyre simply asked if they’d like any appetizers or wine, but she could feel those violet, starlit eyes on her as she walked away from the table, and she knew the interrogation was far from over.

Much to her surprise, when she returned with wine and water and took their entree orders, the handsome man she’d been trying to forget didn’t ask a single question. And Feyre dared to hope that he would give up. A notion that exploded in her face when he cornered her near the bar.

“What’s this all about, Feyre, Darling?” Gods, that voice. So sultry and honeyed and gentle. She couldn’t meet his gaze, though she could feel it stoking the fire in her cheeks into raging flames. Just what she needed.

“What’s what all about?”

“You’re too intelligent to play dumb like this,” he growled, and she bristled, hackles rising in defense. How dare he presume that he had the right to demand this of her?

“Careful, Rhys, your privilege is showing,” she snarled, earning a scowl.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Lots of people have to work two jobs.” Her face was likely nearly purple with her embarrassment and fury. “We all can’t just go on international weekend vacations on a whim. I know that may come as a surprise to you.” Her eyes stung, and she had to blink furiously to keep the tears of frustration at bay. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Being poor wasn’t a crime, and it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. Working like this was nothing new, she just needed to make it to Friday.

But she was so tired. And it had been days since she’d had a real, fulfilling meal. And her emotions were fraying.

“When are you off?”

Feyre groaned, “Don’t remind me.” Looking back at the clock she sighed. “A little over two hours.” The tall, unfairly attractive man frowned, and it was even more unfair that even that was attractive.

“That’s late,” he replied. “And how are you getting home?”

“I’m taking the subway.” She crossed her arms, waiting for the inevitable–

“Like Hell you are.”

There it is.

“Rhys, I don’t have time for this. I don’t have a car, and a cab or an Uber are too expensive. I’ve taken the subway plenty of nights before this one.”

“I’ll take you home.”

Feyre’s cool eyes finally rose to meet his again, dark, starlit violet. Unique. Utterly, infuriatingly beautiful. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a half-hour drive, and undoubtedly out of your way.” He shook his head, whisps of thick, midnight hair falling into his eyes.

“It’s no trouble. I’m sure I can savor my meal and make it last.” He grinned, and her eyes widened.

“You’re going to stay here the entire time?” she balked.

“Why not? My waitress happens to be very pretty.” Gods, his smile was so beautiful, and her face heated with embarrassment.

“This whole situation is humiliating enough, Rhys,” she murmured, lowering her gaze to his shiny shoes. They probably cost more than a month of her rent. “Please don’t patronize me.”

“Feyre,” he cooed gently. She felt fingers upon her chin, tilting it up, encouraging her lashes to lift. His expression was tender and genuine, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Wasn’t sure if her heart would remain in her chest, it was beating so erratically. “I would never. I was only speaking the truth, I swear it.”

She stared at him, lungs seized and eyes wide. Oh, Gods. Had he just said that she was pretty? She could hear his deep, rich, amused chuckle, and absently noted his fingers tucking a stray hair behind her ear. And then she blinked back to herself, sucking in a breath.

“We’ll finish dinner, Cass and Az will head home, and I’ll wait for you. Okay?”

Feyre could only nod dumbly before turning on her heel and walking away.

~~~

Rhys tried to remain pleasant as the minutes ticked by, appreciating the long, honey-brown ponytail he longed to rake his fingers through and flushed apples of Feyre’s cheeks when she came by to check on him. Inwardly he was brooding, though he’d never admit it out loud. Because no matter how silky her hair was or how pretty her soft smile, he could not see past the exhaustion bruising under her eyes, the way the blue in them lacked that crystal clarity - clouded by sleeplessness.

Nor could he ignore the way her clothing hung from a body that was far more frail than the last time he’d seen her. Was the situation so dire that she couldn’t even get enough to eat?

It grated at him, that he and the rest of her friends had been living it up in Turks and Caicos while Feyre had been here working herself to death. And while he could understand why she would not ask him for help, it bothered him that she wouldn’t have at least gone to Mor. Out of all of them, Mor was the closest to her.

He felt so selfish. Ignorant. If he’d wanted her to be at the beach with him so badly, he should have done something instead of just assuming.

When Feyre let him know she would be ready in a few minutes, he donned his coat and went to grab his car, having already paid his bill some time ago. As she slid into the sedan, all rich black leather with gunmetal accents, he asked for a reminder of her address. Even though he’d never removed it from his GPS after going there for movie night.

And then… silence. Awkward and oppressive and uncomfortable. Rhys had plenty he wanted to say, but he just didn’t know where to begin. He wanted to tell her he missed her on his birthday, that he’d been looking forward to getting to spend some time with her. To apologize for making her feel uncomfortable at the restaurant, and tell her that he would never belittle her or anyone else for doing what was necessary to make ends meet. And he wanted to know what had happened to change her circumstances, because he was relatively sure she hadn’t had this side hustle until after the night they’d all had dinner at Mor’s.

Something in the air seemed to shift - the tension dissipating - and the executive dared a glance at his passenger. His heart stuttered, cracking a little when he realized that she’d fallen asleep, her head and shoulder nestled against the window.

“Oh, Feyre, Darling,” he sighed to himself, grip tightening on the wheel. He dared to turn up the radio just a smidge, the soft notes fluttering through the cab as he hummed along quietly. The conversation he’d wanted to have would just have to wait. Feyre clearly needed the rest.

She still hadn’t stirred when he parked in front of her building, and he found himself conflicted. The last thing he wanted was to wake her, especially after he’d seen the fatigue painted across her features. Then his eye caught on the small, dark purse that she’d placed on the seat beside her, and he made a choice. And hopefully she would think he was kind and not creepy.

Rifling through the bag, he found her keys, then he grabbed her shoulders and gently moved her so she wasn’t leaning against the opposite door. Satisfied that she wouldn’t fall into a heap on the sidewalk when he opened it, he climbed out, rounded the black sedan, and began the work of quietly, patiently, painstakingly extricating the tiny woman from her seat. With Feyre cradled in his arms he approached the door, lifting her sparse keyring to the panel in hopes that the little gray fob would allow him entry. When he heard the latch click he breathed a sigh of relief before slipping through the door and making his way up the stairs. On his way he thanked the gods that there were only two keys on the ring, so when he reached her door on the third floor he didn’t have to fiddle too much with the lock, ensuring her continued slumber in his grasp.

Rhys couldn’t help but grin as he entered the cozy space, even though it was a bit chilly. He remembered the last time he was there, and the lovely painting she’d been working on. She was talented, of course, but what he’d most treasured was the time. The easy conversation. Her humility, her graciousness. That shy, soft smile.

He settled Feyre down onto the couch, nearly sitting, and knelt at her feet to remove her shoes. Then he strode down the hall to find her bedroom and turn down her blankets. Returning to the living room he retrieved the still-sleeping woman and tucked her into bed, the pale blue quilt warmed by the gentle buttery light cast by a small lamp on the bedside table. Rhys looked down at her, admiring the peacefulness in her features, and brushed a few flyaway strands of hair from her forehead before turning the light off and sneaking out the door.

Now that Feyre was snuggled in bed, the violet-eyed executive had his sights set on an… investigation, of sorts. He headed straight for the kitchen, opening cabinet doors and the fridge. As he’d suspected, there was very little of substance - a large pack of ramen cups on the counter, some condiments, butter, half a jar of salsa, and a pitcher of water in the fridge, and two microwave meals in the freezer. On the wall was a calendar with multiple dates marked with big red letters and numbers.

Phone. Electric. Rent. Student Loans. Dad Surgery. Internet.

Bills and bills and bills.

He felt that sinking in his gut again, knowing that he’d been ignorant of her struggles. But that was all about to change.

He glanced at his watch - 1:42am. The wee hours of the morning. Most stores would be closed, but he was sure he could find something. Maybe it was crazy. Maybe Feyre would be pissed at him for it, but his smile remained secretive and calculating as it widened. Tucking her keyring into his pocket, he slipped out of the apartment and headed into the night.

Six hours later he was standing at the stove, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, bacon crackling in one skillet as he cracked eggs into another. The fridge overflowing with produce and chicken and ground beef. The freezer stuffed with some frozen fruits and veggies and ice cream - because Feyre deserved that small comfort. The cabinets filled with snacks and canned soups and tortillas.

“Rhys?”

He turned his violet gaze on the fresh face and fuzzy hair of his unwitting host. She must have changed when she’d gotten out of bed, as she was no longer clad in her black slacks and collared blouse from the night before. Now she wore a thin blue cotton t-shirt and black leggings, calling attention to how slim she’d become.

“Good morning, Feyre Darling,” he greeted, stepping away from the stovetop just long enough to pour coffee from the pot into the mug he’d retrieved for when she emerged.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, pale eyes wide. “I… where did all this food come from?” As soon as she stepped foot into the small kitchen Rhys shooed her out, beckoning for her to sit at the bar and placing the steaming mug in front of her. He grinned when she sat, and he silently retrieved cream and sugar and set those in front of her as well.

“You haven’t been eating enough. It was hard to ignore how thin you’ve become, even in a few short weeks,” he murmured, trying to push past the color that painted her cheeks. He didn’t want her to feel ashamed or embarrassed. “And you were so tired that you fell asleep in my car. So I carried you up here, put you to bed, and investigated your kitchen. When I found it practically barren, I decided to do something about it.” He took away the cream and sugar and returned to the stove, scooping some eggs onto a plate and tossing a few strips of bacon on top before setting that in front of her with a fork.

“By the time I got everything put away, I thought I might as well stick around and have breakfast ready when you woke up.” Rhys nodded toward the plate before meeting her disbelieving stare. “Now eat.” Feyre’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and a hint of confusion, and her attention had him frozen. He lifted a brow and dipped his chin toward her breakfast again. When she lifted her egg-laden fork to her mouth, her stare still squared on him, he couldn’t help but chuckle. He returned the stove to make sure that everything was turned off.

“Why did you do all of this?”

Rhys looked back at her, but her gaze had fallen to her lap, presumably where her hands were. With a sigh he paced back to her and tipped her chin up with two fingers.

“Because I really missed you over my birthday weekend. And I felt like an idiot for just assuming that you would be there. And I got your number from Mor but I didn’t know what to say.” He brushed back some unruly flyaways before cupping her cheek. “Because when I saw you last night, I saw how exhausted you were, how frail you looked. And I was an ignorant, uppity asshole about it. When all I really wanted was to understand what happened. To know how to help you. Because your eyes didn’t sparkle in that beautiful way, and your smile wasn’t genuine and bright.” A delicious blush tinted her cheeks, speckled sparsely with freckles, and he had to bite back a near-feral purr.

“You missed me?” she breathed. Rhys chuckled and dipped his chin before rounding to her other side and taking the adjacent stool. He pulled one of her hands into his lap, cradling it between his palms.

“So what happened, Feyre Darling?” he crooned gently, running a thumb over her knuckles. “I leave for a long weekend and suddenly you’re weary and hungry, with a second job and no food in your cupboards.”

She laughed weakly. “To be fair, I’ve had the second job for a few weeks.”

“Which would explain why I haven’t seen you, at least where evenings are concerned,” he added. “But that doesn’t explain why you never come to lunch or coffee anymore.” She winced, and he was afraid he’d overstepped.

“I didn’t really think you’d notice,” she answered with a shrug. Rhys squeezed her hand, huffing a laugh.

“Of course I noticed. Why do you think I kept inviting Mor out every day? She’s very dear to me, but I don’t like her that much. I just kept hoping she’d convince you to join.” Feyre ducked her head, but he gave her arm a tug. “Have you been avoiding us?” How badly he wanted to ask if she was avoiding him, in particular, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. On one hand, knowing she might care so much about what he thought of her filled him with a smug satisfaction that warmed his chest. But if she didn’t care… just didn’t want to be around him…

“It’s just…” Her shoulders slumped as she sighed, resignation straining her voice. “Cresseida ended up giving me a ride home after dinner at Mor’s. I don’t think she meant to be malicious - none of you have ever been that way - but the conversation we had got to me.” Ire sprang to life, smothering the heat that had been blooming between them.

“What did she say to you?”

“Rhys, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” he growled in response. “Especially if it made you feel like you couldn’t hang out with us anymore. Like actively avoiding us would be best.” Feyre didn’t answer for a moment, and he thought perhaps she would shut it down. “Please, Feyre,” he pleaded. When she released another heavy breath, relief flooded him.

“We talked about your birthday. I told her I was painting something for you and it… she advised me not to be upset if you didn’t react the way I would hope. That you would appreciate it, because of course I would put effort and passion into it, but then she listed some of the extravagant things you would be receiving from the others.” One shoulder lifted, and she wouldn’t look at him. “It just made me feel very… othered. It had been uncomfortable enough when the beach house came up, and everyone stopped talking to start booking flights and making plans. I knew, no matter what I did, that I would never quite fit. But then, after the ride home, I felt like a child. Like I was making a stupid little macaroni necklace when everyone else would be giving you diamonds.”

Something in his heart cracked at the roughness in her voice. How she still refused to look at him. He felt like a fool, a right bastard for falling into that pompous expectation of his own normal. Rhys and his closest friends - Az and Cass and Mor - had always attempted to act with consideration, knowing that they were wealthy and well off, but that many other people were not. It did not make him any better than someone else. But he hadn’t in that moment, a crucial one as far as he was concerned. Now he feared that Feyre would want nothing more to do with him and his circle. And he wouldn’t blame her, not one bit.

He also wanted to strangle Cresseida.

“I’m sorry about the painting, by the way. I never finished it. I overheard you talking about your father, and after Cresseida…” her voice trailed off for a moment. Then she cleared her throat and continued, “I just felt like it wasn’t going to be something that made you happy.”

Rhys sighed. He hated that she’d been made to feel that way, that he’d had a part in it. He lifted a hand and turned her face back toward him, dark lashes fluttering before lifting to reveal those clear blue eyes. Gods, she was just lovely.

“Cresseida was wrong,” he vowed. “I would have treasured it, simply because it was from you. Truly.” And when her lips tilted into a soft grin, his heart fluttered. “But that still doesn’t explain the restaurant. And the not eating.”

“Well, that’s a long story.”

Rhys smiled. “I have all day.”

And so Feyre snickered and began her story. Told him about her father and sisters, and how he had suffered a grievous knee injury that rendered him barely able to walk. How she had been the one to start working as soon as she could get a permit to do so, to try to help make ends meet. She explained that fixing her father’s knee had been a long, arduous, expensive process, but that the sisters had always split the medical bills. Until this time, when her eldest sister’s bitterness at their father’s ineptitude had led her to the decisions that she would not help with his most recent surgery, effectively impoverishing Feyre for the foreseeable future.

Nesta Archeron’s name was now nestled right next to Cresseida’s on his Need to Strangle list.

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” he snarled, balking when Feyre simply shrugged.

“I don’t blame her, necessarily. I wish he would have cared for us better when we were younger. It would have been nice to not have to work full-time through high school and college. But the only other option was hunger, or the government coming to take us away. Who knows what would have happened to us then.”

Rhys’s jaw went slack, and he slid a hand across the nape of his neck. The other still cradled her delicate fingers. How she wasn’t viscerally angry with her sister was a mystery to him, but he figured he had enough rage for the both of them.

“Honestly, I’m more upset about not having a birthday gift for you,” she murmured sheepishly, her cheeks returning to that delicious pink that he was pretty sure he could fall in love with. His answering smile grew wide and wicked, because there was the in he was looking for.

He knew that he couldn’t just insist that she let him take care of her. He wanted to be close to her, to date her, romance her. But he didn’t want her to agree to that because that was the only way she’d get something to eat. She had enough groceries now to last a week or so, though, and that gave him time.

7-10 days to win her over. And that would start ASAP.

“I am also quite disappointed, especially since I didn’t even get to see you,” he drawled and winked at her. Her eyes rolled back, but she grinned. “But I know how you can start to make it up to me.”

Brows knitted, she looked up at him as her lips pursed, her pale blue eyes clouded with confusion. Rhys chuckled.

“Let me take you to dinner. Tonight.”

@mystical-blaise @daevastanner @tealnymph-writes @headcanonheadcase @mercarimari @ofduskanddreams @vikingmagic33 @damedechance @velidewrites

#acotar #feysand #feyre archeron #rhysand #feyre x rhys #acotar au #feysand au #acotar writing circle #modern au #feysand fanfiction #acotar fanfiction #fanfiction #my writing #my fanfic writing #can't wait for part three

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apollo-enthusiast · 8 months

Text

Come to Israel, Greta, and tell the world what you saw

A translated letter to Greta Tunberg

Shaked Shefi Cohen, ynet article - translation

Hello Greta,

We don't know each other personally, but we both share the same ideology - or at least we did until a moment ago. My name is Shaked Shefi Cohen and I'm the mother of Ya'ar Rei, who will celebrate in two weeks his fourth birthday, married to Roni and a member of Kibbutz Nir Am, in the Gaza Envelope. Neighbour of Hamas and the people you support on one side, and of the "colonizing" city Sderot on the other.

In routine times I work around the clock as VP of the Israeli Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, promoting the agendas you know and lead closely for years, around the important and righteous environmental struggle. But today I'm nothing more than a tried mother, a refugee in my homeland, homeless, without security and without air, trying to protect, physically and mentally, my family and myself from the chaos we live in.

For two weeks I've been dead - alive. A zombie among other zombies. Alone among hundreds of dear people. More horror stories. More missing, more murdered, more funerals. More hollow stares. More helplessness. There is nothing. Not words. Not emotion. Not tears. Nothing. Only numbers: over 100 missing, 203 kidnapped - among them about 30 children and about 20 elderly, 301 injured, and about 1400 murdered - most of them friends and colleagues, from the community I live in. Their overwhelming majority - civilians.

Shaked and Ya'ar, two days before the war.

I read your words, and the empathy you showed to Gaza and Hamas, and I have no anger, I really don't. Only deep sorrow and pity. Pity for the painful blindness you and many and good like you sin in. A blindness that comes from a lack of knowledge and relying on media that is incorrect, misleading, inciting and most of all - violent and based on political and economical motives.

I, unfortunately, don't have to read the newspapers or listen to the news, and don't have to check the facts, because I was there and saw for myself. What I haven't experienced, dear brothers and sisters did, who are still experiencing 24/7 of war and trauma that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

This time the siren didn't stop

Let me tell you where I was on Saturday the 7th of October 2023 at 6:29 in the morning and for the next 17 hours after that damn time, while you were in a safe place and your and your darlings' lives weren't in existential peril.

I woke up to the sound of the "red alert" siren. These two words are very familiar to us, residents of the Envelope; we get "drippings" of rockets as a matter of routine. We're "used" to it. The siren in the Envelope is similar to the one in the rest of the state, only shorter - 8 seconds pass from the moment it sounds until the moment the rockets start - rockets who don't tell apart soldiers, women, babies and the elderly. Rockets that are just shot randomly to murder and create terrorism and horror on my "side".

During this time, of the "red alert", we have to go into the saferoom - the Mamad. We must. I invite you to wake up from your sleep, take the little kid lying down next to you in your arms, and run to a different room in your house. Actually, I'll save you the attempt - it's not possible.

That's how our morning started on October 7th. Very stressful, but we still had hope that in a moment the Iron Dome system will intercept the rockets - not a great wake up call, but we'll continue soon. Only this time the siren didn't stop. In less than an hour hundreds of rockets and PMR bombs were launched at us. Hundreds. At the same time there were gunshots. Lots of gunshots. We got a chilling message from the Kibbutz's emergency team: "there is a penetration of terrorists, lock yourselves in your homes". And a power outage. No communication. No internet. Long hours alone. No protection. No army. Cut off. The saferoom's door doesn't lock from the inside. So we held it. For many hours. Helpless. In the meantime, a strong scent of burning came from under the door. Roni and I looked at each other terrified and realised - this Saturday we could end dead.

How could I lie to my child?

I'll cut it short for you and reach the end, or actually the middle of this nightmare, I'll get to the here and now that has long lost grasp of time: my family and I got out of the inferno. We are no longer locked in the saferoom between non stopping sirens, gunshots, explosions, smoke and a child that holds my shaking hand too tightly. "Mommy and daddy are here with you. Everything's okay. Everything's alright".

I'm no longer peeking between the shutters to check if the army finally arrived or if the Kibbutz and we are under the control of terrorists. We're no longer running away amidst volleys of Kassam rockets, burnt cars, the bodies of innocents in the middle of the road and pulled out guns, just not to wake up in the morning kidnapped. Fear. Freezing fear. Driving with the foot stepped down on the gas all the way. Flying through. Terrified. The sky on fire.

We survived, what a "miracle". But the guilt over staying alive is unrelenting. And we're not alive. Everything loses meaning. The security is lost. There is nothing. And around us the inferno in all it's ugliness.

I'm waiting to wake up from this nightmare, sweating, with a face washed by tears, waiting to understand that I had a bad dream again. To breathe out the horrible scenario I hallucinated and to hear - "Come on Shakshuk, you and your imagination. There are some things that just can't happen. Relax".

To wake up, look aside and see Roni and Ya'ar sleeping peacefully near me in bed. To drink some water, to relax, to go back to sleep. In the house we had, in Nir Am. In the place I promised everyone and myself that is 99% heaven and 1% hell. When it's hell it's a little harder, but you air out for a few days or weeks in a different place, and it passed. And you go back to routine. And reality is stronger than everything. Reality is stronger than everything.

And instead of that, my kingdom, our, became 100% hell overnight. The ground disappeared. And still.

How could I (and we) look into my child's eyes again and repeat the mantra: "when daddy and mommy are near you you're always safe. You don't need to be scared of anything, we're watching over you. Always."

How do we now mediate to our nestlings this reality that is no longer stronger than everything. The crumbling reality. We are crumbling. How do we defend them from finding out we lied, that we were lied to. Where do you find the strength to keep lying?

Dancing on the wrong side of the fence

And at the same time that we were besieged in our home, while outside there were battles of terrorists against civilians from the ground and from the sky, when we didn't know if we'd die, be kidnapped or get out of this alive and scarred - other friends of ours were slaughtered , raped and murdered in front of their partners; along with the kids, babies burnt with their hands tied. Bodies that no one can identify because there aren't enough organs left.

Livnat Kotz (Z"L), a beloved colleague from my previous workplace, that led the craft house in the regional council Shaar Hanegev, was an artist and an entrepreneur, and among the rest "one of ours" - that separates and recycles bottles. She lied down hugged in the same bed with her husband and their three children when terrorists tried to break down the saferoom's door in their house in Kibbutz Kfra Azza. The terrorists didn't succeed, so they set the house on fire and burned them alive.

At the same time, Yuval Solomon Z"L, a full of life young man who celebrated his birthday just a few hours prior in the "green pub" in Kibbutz Nir Am - my best friend's bar - was murdered too. Hundreds more innocents were slaughtered in the various Kibbutzim. Not only in the Kibbutzim, the big cities too. Even in a nature party. Ziv Peppa Shapira Z"L, Tammy's son, my smiling neighbour from the kibbutz was murdered too. And all his sin was to dance on the wrong side of the fence.

Come see for yourself

You of all people, Greta, who believes in human rights, that dedicate yourself to the environment and education, who's name was mentioned not once as a nominee for the nobel peace prize - you of all people must denounce Hamas, an organisation that supports the murder of innocents, including disadvantaged minorities, an organisation that committed countless rapes in a few hours, an organisation that kidnaps babies.

Many of the people slaughtered in the most horrifying ways hell has to offer were simple people, innocent, environmental activists. You'll be surprised, Greta, many of them even resist the "occupation" and fight for peace. But this time there is no place for politics, it's not right versus left, not right versus wrong - it's evil versus good. Darkness versus light.

Of you of all people, Greta, I plead to make ths distinction between the rights of those who live in Gaza or the questionable policy of the Israeli government around the Israeli Palestinian conflict - to a murderous and despicable act of a terror organisation that doesn't fall from ISIS and the Nazis, an act that continues to take victims.

Our country is bleeding. We're fighting on a number of fronts; south, east, west and east. But there is another front that will dramatically influence the lives of me and all Israelis (and yes, also the lives of the civilians in Gaza, who are living under a terror regime that threatens them and probably doesn't leave them too many choices) - the educational front. Your words, Greate, do a great damage to the state of Israel at large and the environmental movement specifically.

The area around my home is defined as closed military grounds, but in Be'eri, in Kfar Azza, in Nir Oz, in my neighbours' house, bodies are still being evacuated. I'm not allowed to go in there. You, who report to the world - are allowed.

I invite you to catch a fight to Israel, to come and visit the burnt houses. To see for yourself cut off limbs on the sides of the roads. Crushed trees. Flowers that won't bloom again. A head without a body. A shoulder. A little girl's leg. Pacifiers stained with blood. Come see for yourself. Heal the blindness. And tell the world what you saw.

Because I only saw darkness. Darkness over the abyss.

Link to the article

#Israel #Palestine #i/p #greta tunberg #environment #enviromentalism #article #sorry I'm so late with this it took very long to translate

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